Various
Mystic Minds Vol 1

EM Records: ...Here's a tasty treat for all fans of DIY pop music: a multinational confection, the perfect blend of sweet and smart. Based around the core members Matt Jones, originally from Western Massachusetts, and Busan native Jee Eun Lim, who met in Korea in 2011, The Jee Jee Band fuses simple pop structures, airy instrumentation and breathy vocals with clever lyrics, in both Korean and English, often of a satirical or political nature. Currently based in Northern California, the band quietly celebrates Korean culture while also evidencing a cosmopolitan classic pop sensibility, blending K-Pop and other Asian pop elements with a classic and yet contemporary US/UK pop feel. The songs on "Glass Fish", all very fresh-sounding, feature performers from South Korea, America, and, on one song, the Khmer-language vocals of Cambodian filmmaker Vanntey Morn. Jones' Western Massachusetts pop roots allowed him to enlist the skills of former members of Sunburned, Sebadoh and others to help record this charming and refreshing release, sure to appeal to fans of the K Label, DIY sounds, and pure pop.

POLITY: ...Fresh off the heels of minting the YCO imprint with Aya, BFTT debuts on Polity Records with the Intrusive / Obtrusive EP, which sees BFTT continue to develop his precise, hyper-futuristic take on UK sound-system music. Using technology and humanity’s evolving (and not always benevolent) co-dependence with it as a conceptual jumping-off point, he infuses a noisier but still tightly controlled sound palette with the fixed-point rhythmic precision and mutative structures that made his previous work stand out.
BFTT joined Manchester’s Mutualism collective in 2017, an experimental label and events series, as well as running Leftovers in Leeds and most recently founding YCO alongside Aya in July of this year. The release follows acclaimed records for Whities and Gobstopper, as well as a pair of s t u n n i n g remixes of Loraine James’ +44 - Thinking - Of - You.

Efficient Space: ...Le Raccourci is a welcome introduction to the world of modern classical identity Sebastian Gandera. The impressionist landscapes of a sensitive soul self-reflecting, these miniature compositions alternate across a rudimentary set up of piano, field recorder, sampler and four track. Melancholic utterings hastily captured some 100km east of Paris.Classically trained by the same teacher as his parents, Gandera first began recording in the confines of his university dorm room, inspired by a C60 from friend and future collaborator Bernard Odot (A Gethsémani). Humbly existing without sparing a thought to music industry or career, Gandera’s personal effects surfaced via the European and US cassette networks from 1988 to 1994. Impressively accomplished for the DIY scene they orbited, these tapes were issued in scant quantities, rendering his pieces as private secrets shared and duplicated in small concentric circles. Aside from a sole, avowedly traumatic performance, the material was never shared in a live context.Selected by Sky Girl co-conspirer Julien Dechery, Le Raccourci culls 15 tracks from Gandera’s extensive cassette discography, discarded DAT recordings, and split CD with Lyon toy music project Klimperei. These sentiently charged compositions only hint at his larger catalogue, but act as a compelling cross section of the artist’s oeuvre. The identity is further detailed by archival images, Glen Goetze penned liner notes and original artwork from Perks and Mini’s Misha Hollenbach.While Gandera’s nostalgic melodies incidentally parallel with the piano key manoeuvres of Pascal Comelade, Robert Haigh and Dominique Lawalrée, Le Raccourci could only stem from the escapist desires of one Eric Morin.