Malik Faquir circles back to Moodfamily for another round. His “Nonchalantly” EP offers five more delicately crafted grooves, pushing and pulling away at your eardrums. No instant satisfaction, just pure - stripped back - power.
His unnerving yet efficient rhythms and whacked out synthesizer leads tear through speakers like a hot knife through butter. What comes is bumpy, relentless and unapologetic. It’s quite a spectacle to be on Malik Faquir’s rollercoaster. We raise the glass to this cheeky master in wonky strangeness and bending deep grooves.

Dimensions Recordings are very proud to present ‘Decision Time’, the first major solo album from the legendary Charles Webster in two decades.
Operating in house music since the mid ‘80s, Charles Webster is revered as something like the producer’s producer, spoken about in the same breath as Larry Heard or Ron Trent amongst the DJ cognoscenti.
Growing up in the Peak District and falling in love with electronic music through a parent’s Kraftwerk record, Charles’ apprenticeship was with Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, back when they’d record at Square Dance studio in Nottingham, where Charles worked as a recording engineer. His production work started right at the roots of electronic music in the British Isles, writing tracks for electro/breakdance outfit The Rock City Crew and 1987 UK house cut T-CUT-F. Since then he’s released music under 30 different pseudonyms with over 500 remixes.
‘Decision Time’ is Charles’ first major solo record since 2001’s ‘Born On The 24th July’, and features an array of artists from a number of different eras, guises and genres Charles has been involved with over his prolific career.
After moving to San Francisco in the late nineties, he created an album under the alias Presence entitled ‘All Systems Gone’. The “pillowy” sound design of this classic is cited as a key influence on the music of Burial. For ‘Decision Time’, Burial has paid a further tribute here, contributing a rare co-production, ‘The Second Spell’. This track featuring the words of Prince muse Ingrid Chavez. who also wrote the spoken word poetry in Madonna’s ‘Justify My Love’.
Charles was at the forefront of the halcyon years of deep house, working with vocal talents like Robert Owens, Tracey Thorn, Terra Deva (aka Furry Freaks), who features here on ‘Wait And See’, and Shara Nelson, perhaps best known for her vocals on Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’ album, featuring here on ‘This Is Real’.
Charles’ influence also spreads to the South African house scene with his Presence single ‘Better Day’ becoming a huge radio hit there in 1997. Charles later moved to South Africa and immersed himself in the local scene, collaborating with some of the country's most exciting talent, including Sio, Thandi Draai and Sipho – all of whom appear on this project.
With an album of this quality and the 20-year cycles of electronic culture, it feels like this is the perfect moment to celebrate the brilliance of Charles Webster’s legacy. From the downtempo soul of ‘This Is Real’, to the impressionistic words and ethereal two-step on ‘The Spell’, a new generation of ears are about to discover the influential underground sound of Charles Webster.
“As if Everything But The Girl, Larry Heard and Womack & Womack decided to merge musical ideas in the studio…” Billboard, USA.
‘Decision Time’ is released on vinyl, CD & digital November 20th 2020.

let your body immerse itself in the feeling of nostalgia, seeking comfort

It seems like an age since Icelandic producer Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson's last album as Yagya, 2020's "Old Dreams and Memories." The first album to be released on his own label Small Plastic Animals it was followed by the four-track "Always Maybe Tomorrow" EP in 2021.
"Faded Photographs" is his ninth studio album, the most involved and time-consuming project to date and collaborative on a scale not seen since 2012's "The Inescapable Decay of My Heart." It also marks an exceptionally confident return to the art of song-writing, but where that earlier album was a more upbeat dub techno-pop affair, "Faded Photographs" is nostalgic, wistful, reflective and steeped in poetic romanticism.
Guðmundsson's love of the art of the album is also more pronounced here than ever before, almost every single track tied together by the particularly unifying use of triplet rhythms in combination with 4/4 beats, beguiling hushed vocals and enveloping, molten dub bass tones. Combined with a typical dedication to sound design and production, "Faded Photographs" is rendered an utterly seamless experience, demanding to be heard as a whole.
Frequent collaborator and breathy tone saxophonist Óskar Guðjónsson returns, crooning just as emotionally on "What Have You Done" as do vocal duet Benoit Pioulard (who also co-writes here) and Bandreas, then later melancholically on the contemplative "The Way You Say My Name" and the closing "My Own Worth." Pablo Hopenhayn also returns to provide yearning strings on the achingly melancholic instrumental opener "The Downpour" and later on the tense duet "The Serpent."
Guðmundsson's own whispered vocals also make a welcome return, often in duet with the mysterious, angelic Bandreas or the silky, intimate Saint Sinner. Helped along by subtle but familiar references to his previous work, like the soft summer rains of "Rigning" or lyrical callbacks in "A Wicked Joke" recalling "Bright Moonlit Sky," all these elements and collaborators become so much a part of the warp and weft of the overall sonic palette they feel omnipresent.
Written and produced when we had become more distant and disconnected from one another than ever before, "Faded Photographs" brings together and showcases an ensemble of artists in a spirit of collaboration that flies in the face of adversity, a true product of its time.

Yagya's Rigning album from 2009 is the Icelandic producer's most acclaimed dub, techno and minimal masterpiece. Due to popular demand, Delsin are now re-issuing it across three slabs of vinyl. Previously only available as a double pack with eight tracks, the new re-mastered version features all 10 of the tracks from the original CD.
Guðmundsson has been making music for years both solo and as part of the Thule Musik collective. He is an album specialist who has worked as Yagya since 2002 and has put out six albums since then. They come on labels like Force Inc and Sending Orbs - where Rigning was first released - and manage to be both absorbing and detailed yet suitable for relaxing background listening. His last two albums, Sleepygirls (2014) and Stars & Dust (2016) appeared on Delsin Records.
Rigning is essentially one long track split into movements. It depicts a city sleeping as gentle rain falls and dubbed out grooves zone you out. Yagya's style is always patient and slow burning, his grooves are long and drawn out and his pads reach up into the heavens. This whole album in coated in a warm fuzz and is a real comfort on dark, long, cold nights.
As insular and melancholic as it is, there is also plenty of beauty in the melodies and delicate keys. From dark and gloomy to more optimistic and meditative, there is a sophistication throughout this always cinematic album that continues to make it stand out nearly a decade after it was first released.

BADDIES ONLY | 2020 | 1 首歌曲, 2 分钟 53 秒