Yom
You Will Never Die!

Tomberlin is Sarah Beth Tomberlin, a pastor’s kid born in Florida, raised in rural Illinois. She wrote the majority of her debut, At Weddings (2018), while living at home. For a while after leaving home and church, she lived in Louisville, Kentucky. She worked a day job and kept writing songs. She posted some of these songs to Bandcamp, which led to her signing a record deal with Saddle Creek. It all happened fast: Less than a year after her first live show, she performed on Jimmy Kimmel and she ended up moving to L.A. which is where she wrote Projections (2020), her EP followup to At Weddings.During the pandemic, Sarah Beth was all over the place, physically and mentally. Louisville. Los Angeles. Back home in Illinois for a bit. Brooklyn, where she’s now settled, she says. Brooklyn is also where her new album i don’t know who needs to hear this… was recorded, at Figure 8 studios over the course of two weeks, with producer and engineer Phil Weinrobe (who played a variety of instruments on the collection), and later mastered by Josh Bonati, also in Brooklyn.“The theme of the record,” she explains, “is to examine, hold space, make an altar for the feelings.” Hold space: Tomberlin’s songs do it literally, making it heard space. Her full-length debut, At Weddings, was widely praised for the sparsity and delicacy of its instrumentation, especially in contrast with the emotional heft of her lyrics.Here, the space feels larger and holier, built to echo. Pedal steel. Old acoustic guitars, freshly plucked. A drifting synthesizer. Chill, brushy percussion. Ambient, expansive clarinet and saxophone. Aleatory piano trills, a lot of piddling with the occasional splash. The looseness and wideness of the arrangements conveys a tender regard for their parts, as though each arpeggio, loop, scratch is a found shell or feather in the hand. Then there is the instrument of her voice, which has the endearing quality of being perfectly tuned but reluctantly played. “I’m not a singer,” she sings on “idkwntht.” “I’m just someone who’s guilty.”

Japanese multi-instrumentalist Masahiro Takahashi's latest album is a meditation on seasons and distance, recorded in isolation at his temporary home studio in Toronto. Following “the coldest winter I have ever experienced,” he began crafting hushed, lush vignettes of color wheel electronics with an array of software synthesizers, granular samplers, plug-in FX, MIDI controllers, and a shruti box.The songs sway, shimmer, and unspool in sparkling arcs, between reverie and lullaby, inspired variously by blooming apple trees, gagaku music, the “nostalgia of immigrants,” and longing for home. Flowering Tree, Distant Moon moves from soothing to surreal, a swirl of quiet melody and imagined landscapes, as transportive for its listeners as its maker: “I dreamt of places outside my room and traced the music from my memories.”

With the two-part EP Mediterranean Dreams, Perugia producer and composer Feel Fly revisits his musical roots and pays tribute to the sounds and ‘sun-kissed nostalgia’ that informed his style.Mediterranean Dreams Part 1 collected four tracks, and added that Feel Fly touch of emotive chord progressions and layered production onto cosmic disco grooves to powerful dancefloor effect. Now with Mediterranean Dream Part 2, Feel Fly switches the tempo both up and down, to fully demonstrate his affinity for club moments of all shapes and sizes.Nebula flies out the gate with full intent, recalling classic Detroit techno while pushing the vibe even more wide-screen - it’s driving, melodic dance music that delivers on the fine details as much as it does on the life-affirming, big picture sentiment.Optical Bells opens in meditative style, not unlike a new dawn in a Tibetan monastery, before each element of the track slowly reveals itself and assumes its place. It’s an arrangement technique that Feel Fly employs masterfully, and gives the impression of a camera lens moving into focus, or a storyteller setting the scene. The revolving chord changes pull you in and while whisking you away, you’re compelled to engage with the moment - like being asked to dance by a mysterious stranger.The B side kicks off with Luce Eterna Ai Sognatori, still keeping the tempo high while cherry-picking disco house drum patterns and piano synths with a slight Italo flavor to create an irresistible slice of dancefloor dessert. This is a soundtrack for Sognatori, in whose dreams anything is possible.The EP finishes up with a superb cut of echoey balearic dub in the form of Templum Dub. Putting the drums through its mixing desk paces, Feel Fly reanimates the drum kit with delays, phasers and flangers, and wraps it up in hazy drifting pads that could accompany any moment of contemplation - from that morning espresso to a midnight phone call.Mediterranean Dreams Part 2 acts as the perfect compliment to its prequel Part 1, and shows a producer at the height of his powers, reimagining his musical roots and composing a love letter to the sounds and stories of his youth.

1970's African music has had a vast impact on global sounds over the decades. Well known for its boogie, funk and disco sounds, it was also as we are increasingly learning a bastion of rock and psychedelia magic. Here that is all collected together masterfully on Afro Psych (Journeys Into Psychedelic Africa 1972 - 1977) with nine essential tunes that will have dancefloors and brain cells erupting in unison. Much of it is made by young musicians influenced and inspired by the likes of Hendrix, the Doors and Santana and Lagos was an epicentre for much of it.

After levelling up with our last outing, the SPZL team return with 4 heavyweights on remix duty of tracks from Sifar by Das Spezial.Low Jack, Bruce, Lakker, and Etch all tame and rework the original EP to produce four moments of magic in their own unique style.Hold tight for the heaters, this one is coming in strong!!! [info sheet from distr.]