Re-upping and expanding our 2020 sufi-flamenco grail on LP and tape format, adding 4 newly unearthed tracks to those previously thought to be Aziz Balouch's only recordings.



Aziz Balouch moved to the Iberian Peninsula from modern-day Pakistan in 1932 in search of work and music. After a childhood spent studying Islamic mysticism and devotional songs in the Sufi shrines of his native Sindh he soon fell in love with the 'deep song' of flamenco and was taken in as an apprentice to the great heterodox cantaor Pepe Marchena after a chance encounter. He dedicated the rest of his life to flamenco and developed an elaborate theory of the South Asian and Sufi origins of the art which he propagated through live performances and publications in London, Spain and Pakistan.



Decades before the arrival of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology or the invention of 'fusion' Aziz Balouch painstakingly immersed himself into a completely different musical tradition seeking connections and drawing inspiration to create a unique performance style which has tragically remained hidden and ignored. These 8 tracks are taken from Aziz Balouch's only surviving recordings, two 7" EPs released in Spain in 1962. On each track Balouch draws on his polyglottism to seamlessly merge Sufi poetry in Persian, Sindhi, Hindi and Arabic with various forms of Andalusian song in Spanish. Accompanied by a single guitar his voice pushes through into the profound depths of human experience to excavate the shared past of flamenco which had been submerged beneath the surface.



Many thanks to Stefan Williamson Fa.

Teitanblood – “From the Visceral Abyss”





Teitanblood returns to claim underground metal’s most lawless frontier. “From the Visceral Abyss” is an all-engulfing tide of unfettered, raging chaos – where black and death metal collapse into a maelstrom of destruction. Its force is neither random nor aimless but guided by an instinct sharpened over decades.



This is Teitanblood at their most unhinged, yet wholly assured in execution. Dissonance and precision collide in monstrous, writhing riffs, underpinned by percussive violence that shifts between merciless blasting and dirge-like weight. Layer upon layer of bile-drenched vocals coil through the cacophony, forging a suffocating atmosphere of grotesque grandeur.



As ever, the album is steeped in the restless spirit of the late Finnish artist Timo Ketola, who stood as both interpreter and architect of Teitanblood’s visual world. Ketola’s oracular visions provided the scripture from which these lyrics emerged – his legacy not merely preserved but carried forth beyond the grave. The tradition of transmuting sound into imagery continues, with Dávid Glomba filling the booklet’s pages with a dense tapestry of illustrations, sigils, and hand-scribed invocations.



The cycle is eternal. The dead shall die again, their bodies will be feasted upon by worms, and the voice of the black earth will proclaim to those who sleep in the dust with the tumultuous clamour of empty graves, overshadowing the clouds.

My second album, released in 2005 on The Leaf Label, in which I totally abandoned sampling other people’s records: I recorded my old trusted classical guitar and my newly-acquired instrument collection (cello, zither, music boxes, ukulele, chimes…) in the living-room of my now slightly bigger flat in Paris, except the glass harmonicon on “The Heart Harmonicon” which was recorded by its owner, John Cavanagh, in Glasgow. I am originally a guitar player and the move from samples back to real music instruments was pivotal, as it seemed to open up infinite possibilities. This was also the first album of mine for which Italian artist Iker Spozio created the artwork – a collaboration that goes on to this day.