Featured label: Youth

Stuart hears from DJ Andrew Lyster, founder of the experimental Manchester-based label. Established in 2017, the micro-imprint prides itself on being unclassifiable and unbound by genre. Instead boasts an eclectic soundscape spanning twisted industrial electronics, spoken word, neo-folk and shoegaze amongst other compelling underground sounds. Youth’s roster includes friends of the Freak Zone Sockethead and FUMU as well as Sharp Veins, Georgia, Dijit and Ssiege.

The featured album is progressive rock band Magma’s eclectic and energetic 1970 debut album Kobaïa. Delivered in a strange invented language, the concept record tells the story of a group of people fleeing a doomed Earth to settle on the fictional planet ‘Kobaïa’. Inspired by a diverse blend of influences including Bach, John Coltrane and Stravinsky to name but a few, Kobaïa combines a lively brass section, flute and piano into a jazzy cacophony.

Elsewhere on the show, melancholic improvised piano, contemporary soul layered with field recordings and tracks from Freak Zone favourites Throbbing Gristle and Pharaoh Sanders.