alto saxophonist immanuel wilkins is back on blue note with his sophomore album.

the debut album from immanuel wilkins on double vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve.

worldwide collaborative project against racism.

fresh on francis harris kingdoms imprint comes rasmus junckers ‘ophold - six tracks of sublime atmospheres and textures. the danish musician, sound composer and dj fits perfectly with the labels aesthetic, joining the dots between ambient, leftfield electronica and modern classical. juncker has a background in studying jazz drumming and has been playing improvised music within the jazz domain for many years. he also started to dj at the age of 14 and was introduced to the world of electronic music production at the same time. when rasmus started to think about his debut album he spent several months trying to find his own way to combine his favourite musical influences, improvisation, electronics and classical music. almost a year later, juncker says, i went to a sensory deprivation floating tank in copenhagen while researching for another performance and while i was lying there, floating in the water, deprived from most of my senses, i got the idea to do something drastic in my musical process. philosophers like immanuel kant describe this deprived state as a mental cesura, which became some sort of guideline for the album.

house music with love turn once again to swedish duo swim for a record soaked in a particularly soothing bath of balearic goodness. original track -be there- is certainly laced with an air of scandinavian cool, not least thanks to erika rosen s dreamy vocals, but there s a solid boogie undercarriage carrying the music along. halllo halo step up with a remix that makes a playful, intricate broken beat refrain out of the backing track while maintaining the vocals. ghost immanuel meanwhile whips up a spacious dub that stays close to the original, albeit in instrumental form.

lyrical wit is in abundance, magnified by russell maels soaring falsetto gymnastics. failure with the opposite sex is a recurring topic, from the adolescent fumblings of amateur hour to the resignation of falling in love with myself again. its easy to see why the teenage morrissey was a dedicated fan. the track that really grabbed the publics attention was this town aint big enough for both of us, a classic stomper with a gravity defying melody. 1974s kimono my house is the sound of sparks firing on all four cylinders, providing one of the most curious and comical albums of the 70s. freddie mercury wasnt the only operatic rocker on the block in the mid 70s. the genre was pretty much taken to its logical conclusion by ron and russell mael, the decidedly odd couple who formed the nucleus of sparks. dropping references to immanuel kant and yehudi menuhin, these boys werent your average dumb rock band. kimono my house was their third album, recorded after the brothers had relocated from la to london (where tolerance of tongue in cheek pomp pop was obviously much higher).