Sam McClellan
Music Of The Five Elements

Efficient Space: ...Lady of Mine is the 1989 debut LP by self-made Italian-American Joe Tossini. An astoundingly honest, passionate record of cosmopolitan lounge music, he willed this charming suburban oddity into existence without any formal musical training.Sicilian by birth, Tossini drifted around the world between Italy, Germany and Canada, before finally settling in New Jersey. After the passing of his mother and the breakdown of a second marriage, an anxious and depressed Tossini took to songwriting as a form of therapy, crafting disarmingly candid lyrics from his extraordinary life and loves. Whatever industry savvy or musical virtuosity he lacked was made up for by unflinching resourcefulness and infectious charisma. Befriending bandleader Peppino Lattanzi at local club The Rickshaw Inn, he was encouraged to animate his singular songs with an ambitious cast of 9 players and 5 backing vocalists, sincerely credited as his Friends.The Atlantic City basement sessions are a low budget, high romance testament to Tossini’s character and the power of positive thinking. From the defiant, Casiotone samba of If I Should Fall In Love, to Wild Dream’s dizzying escapism and the native tongue croons of Sulla Luna and Sincerita, Lady Of Mine hums with the inimitable magic of a true original. Piercing the heart with an effectively sparse combination of humming keys, CompuRhythm drums, horn flourishes and backing divas, ample room was left for Tossini to frankly deliver his much-needed life lessons.

Sjunne Ferger on Bandcamp: ...Occupying its own hinterland within Scandinavia's early 80s electronic/ progressive movements, ‘Mindgames’ navigates a lifetime of musical and personal exploration by Sjunne Ferger.Child jazz drummer prodigy, arts venue operator, music teacher and Aikido practitioner, a bewildering array of personal & creative influences are distilled into the Örebro native’s only long player. Written around a new wave context, his own jazz fusion roots and at times with an unintentionally balearic outcome, Sjunne goes some way to conjuring up a singular sounding album of the time.Narratives of love and loss, calls to self-empowerment and mindfulness, the new age zeal throughout follows Sjunne’s own awakening. Its music caught in meditative reflection one mo-ment before propelling into ecstatic revelation the next, with Sjunne’s collective ‘Exit’ providing electric backing throughout. Propelled by the Drummer’s beat, its hard not to be caught up with Sjunne’s personal vision of a ‘Polymood Music’Painstakingly transferred and fully remastered from the original tapes, with new liner notes and photography in the vinyl edition. Mindgames follows Strangelove’s previous issue of Sjunne’s early singles and soundtrack work on “Childrens Mind” (SL106)

hellosQuare: ...hellosQuare welcomes Kasha into our family with 'What A Colourful Mouth' - their second release and first on vinyl. Recorded and mixed with our good friend Casey Rice (Dirty Three, Pikelet, Ben Lee), this single see the young Canberra quartet rework the traditional notion of rock music, approaching tension and repetition with dissonance and metric imbalance - think Motor City, think DC, think electricity!