Hemispheres being what they are, we're in the depths of so-called summer down here in the antipodes. That means a lot of music festivals and parties, and not as much writing about the music. Nevertheless, there's been a bit of writing, such as my recent Mixmag piece on '80s machine beats in New Zealand and a profile of the Afro-Appalachian folk singer Mon Rovîa for The Bluegrass Situation. Today, over coffee, I found time to bang together some notes on a few releases. Next week, I'm off to Bali to check out Harvey's club. It's a funny old life.

Breixo Martínez & Pau Roca's Escola Records label unveils four new remixes of Uptown Funk Empire’s 2009 cover of "You've got to have freedom" by the late Pharoah Sanders. The EP opens with two special 937 vocal and dub versions helmed by the producer duo of Greg Gauthier and Lucas Moinet. Over on the flip, Greg Gauthier turns in his own vocal and dub mixes. Front to back, this is one of those remix collections that will make you feel like you're walking on sunshine. There's something here for the sunrise set, the sunset set, the day party, and peak time in the club. The vinyl is sold out on Bandcamp, but there's copies going over on Discogs.

LA-based Chinese-American artists Kelly Guan, Alex Ho, and Phil Cho team up as SY3 (pronounced ‘sigh’), an outrageously chill and atmospheric new project inspired by Hong Kong New Wave cinema, Cantonese pop songs, R&B, and melody-driven dance music. At this point, Alex and Phil are basically Music From Memory regulars. Singer Kelly Guan, aka Jia Pet is a newer voice in the MFM multiverse, but across "梦游 Sleepwalker", she very much understands the assignment. Since 2022, she has been independently releasing ‘bubbly’ pop music since 2022, and recently toured with the post-genre indie artist Sasami. Vinyl and digital versions go live on March 25, 2026.

During his lifetime, Al Mati was the pseudonym of eccentric Portuguese-born, Dutch-based artist Alberto Mesquita. His name translates to ‘Alberto Friend’, with ‘Al’ short for Alberto and ‘Mati’ meaning ‘friend’ in Surinamese. The guy has a fascinating backstory, which you can read more about here. In 1981, he released the album "Some Shit" through his own Mati Productions label. Forty-five years later, it's been given a second life by the excellent Melbourne-based archival label, Left Ear Records. For lovers of oddball electronic pop from the golden years of the synthesizer and drum machine era, the whole record is absolute gold. In some ways, I see Mati as a lounge singer who loved new technology and did his best. Special stuff.

Melbourne's Efficient Space label keeps doing the good work with a vinyl reissue of How So? (2022) by Yuta Matsumura (The Lewers, Keanu Nelson), Amelia Besseny (Troth, Impatiens) and Cooper Bowman (Troth, CD3) aka Th Blisks. Here's a note from ES: "An Elixa-blueprint of sideways ambient rituals, fog-thick melodica dub and paranoid trip hop by way of Sydney’s pioneering industrial collagists, the LP recirculates beyond its original 150-copy confines for those who missed its first apparition." If you love the lower tempos, you're going to absolutely adore this record.