Barbara Gryfe
What The World Needs Now

Editions Mego: ...The ascent of Shit and Shine sits as one of the great audio headfucks in recent years. From it's genesis out of the South London noise rock revivalist scene to a zone where rabbit costumed maniacs bled a unique form of multi-drum and electronic hysteria to the current incarnation of destroyed lysergic dance music. Shit and Shine is the epitome of second guess subversion. One with a foot in every pie it continues on a fantastic twisted path. 'Everybody's a fuckin expert' lays forth another slab of inverted tranquility where general disruption is kept in check by the subversive charm unique to the outfit. Gunfire rhythms lay waste to androgynous sonics on the opener 'Ass', deep sea disorientation allows pools of plasticine audio to rise on Rastplatz whilst Picnic Table rinses electro out of thick gelatinous cybernetics. 'Everybody's a fuckin expert' takes a smörgåsbord of sounds and styles and contorts them into a bright new hope in twisted theatre, disorientating dance and hefty hedonism.Both the faint and strong hearted allowed permanent entry to this club.

deejay.de: ...Concentric Circles presents ''For the Moment'', which features tracks from some of Di Stefano's early cassette releases, as well as a number of unheard explorations of Indian polyrhythms from the early 90s. Di Stefano’s prescient and unique work will appeal to fans of Cybe, Joel Graham, UnknownmiX, Zru Vogue, and provides a fascinating view of the 80s US electronic underground.American-born, Japan-based composer John Di Stefano self-released a number of cassettes as part of the 80s DIY underground on his own imprint Oktron Produktions, including Klang's Drift, a collaboration with Joel Graham.Living in San Francisco, Di Stefano had access to multiple University electronic music studios, where he had an impressive array of synthesizers at his fingertips, including both Buchla and Serge modular systems. Combining his knowledge of modular synthesis with a background in percussion, his early releases were a uniquely human approach to electroacoustic music, with flourishes of post punk in the mix. Di Stefano developed an interest in world music, studying Indian music theory and tabla, and after an extended trip to Indonesia in the mid 80s, he was particularly drawn to Javanese gamelan music. Future recordings would forever be indebted to the sounds he heard during those travels.

EM Records: ...December 1982, Tokyo. Kiyoaki Iwamoto has a guitar, a simple rhythm box, a friend with a bass guitar, and some stripped-down songs, brazen in their post-punk simplicity, irritation and controlled aggression, yet full of sadness and resignation. Five songs, including a rearranged version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” are recorded and released on a now extremely rare 7” record. This release, available on 10” vinyl, CD, or digital download, features those five songs, along with a previously unreleased 1980 live performance by his duo Birei, as well as a 2020 reworking of “Love…”, by the Japanese duo Chisako and Junta. Iwamoto was an enigma, active in the post-punk scene in Japan in the late 70s and early 80s, a member of Birei and founding member of Guys & Dolls with Tori Kudo (Maher Shalal Hash Baz); in the mid-80s he cut contact with his friends, disavowing his name and later performing under a different moniker.

boomkat: ...‘Bad Twang’ follows on from 2017’s ‘In Fine Style’ LP with a more conceptual lean, employing his self-taught surf guitar tekkers with a DIY conflation of compatible styles whose sum outweighs their components. His conception of cowboy exotica or rancher dub practically imagines the soundtrack to a Tarantino or Jodorowsky flick set in some parched, purgatorial landscape where various genres criss-cross the desert in heat hazy licks and languorous grooves, shimmering like elusive fata morganas.