Heels & Souls Recordings’ fifth reissue sees them reach across the Atlantic to Vancouver, pressing up Pilgrims Of The Mind’s ‘What’s Your Shrine?’ for the first time ever on vinyl, 25 years since its CD-only release on Map Music. A departure from the label’s previous releases, the LP is a beautiful smorgasbord of styles – progressive house, downtempo, ambient, tech house and trance all nestle together, a wiggling journey of sonic delight from the mind of Stephane Novak.
Turn the dial back to ‘97 and Vancouver’s underground had a distinctive buzz to its rumblings, an amalgamation of scenes and styles gave rise to a cohort of producers that were unconstrained by genre, offering up a heady mix of sounds to expand the mind. ‘Welcome To Lotus Land’ the key 1996 compilation on Robert Shea’s seminal Map Music, championed much of this output including two cuts from POTM. Stephane then released his first and only full-length album, ‘What’s Your Shrine?’ on the same label the following year.
Picking out choice moments from an album as considered and complete as this is tough. Those horizontally inclined will be drawn to the ambient dwellings of ‘Sandcastle’ & ‘Following the Sofuto Kuriimo’, tracks like ‘Nothing Can Pull Us Apart’ and ‘L’Amour? Encore?!’ are perfectly suited to warming up limbs on the dancefloor, ‘My Baby Likes Rum’ and ‘Loosejaw’ prime for one in full swing. Yet to pick individual tracks misses the stunning sum of its parts that this 70+ minute cruise is, surely one of the finest albums from the American West Coast during its halcyon days of the ‘90s.
Digging deep in his vaults, Stephane managed to uncover the original unmastered DATs that have been given a fresh mastering by Justin Drake at the Bakehouse Studios. This beautiful, double-disc gatefold comes complete with liner notes from Ciel, words from Stephane himself, plus never-before-seen photography – the complete package this music always deserved.
Press:
Test Pressing Review + Interview
In Sheep’s Clothing Article + Interview
Peach plays ‘Loosejaw in her Mixmag Cover Mix
Radio:
Moxie | NTS Radio Play | My Baby Likes Rum
Lefto | Kiosk Radio Play [La Belle Du Jardin]
Zakia | NTS Radio Play [La Belle Du Jardin]
Flo | NTS Radio Play [Something Is Pulling Me Under]
DJ Feedback:
Hunee – It was the most interesting collection of music I had listened to in a while.
Ari Goldman (Beautiful Swimmers) – Massive release!
Axel Boman – Shit, this is pure joy! I love it! What a treasure.
Chaos In The CBD – Will give this a spin at the weekend!
Shanti Celeste – Love it!!
Moxie – This track is so special! [My Baby Likes Rum] Heels & Souls always coming through with the goods!
Lakuti – wow
Peach – Omg siiick! Love this one
Dazion – Oooof amazing
Cecilio (Slowlife) – Had it on my wantlist for ages, really great it gets properly issued. Already downloaded a couple that could be played easily, but looking forward to having the whole release.
Huerta – Some interesting ones in there.
Psychemagik / Danny Mclewen – Another stellar release from one of my fave labels.
Lefto – Wicked release.
Christian AB – I was familiar with this cd but I never managed to get my hands on it…look forward to the record coming out, nice re-issue
Benedek – Great stuff!
D.K – Sounds sick!
Zakia – Deep, expansive, beautiful sounds.
Brian Not Brian – Super good
Ransom Note/ Aly King – LOVE THIS!
Max Essa/ Bonobo Japan
What a gem this is! Great stuff. I particularly like ‘Following The Sofuto Kuriimo’ and ‘Nothing Can Pull Us Apart’.
Marco Weibel/ Darker Than Wax
Love to play this out tonight 🙂 Heel and souls always got the goods!!! Really digging this release, timeless sound. Deep tech done right!
Andy Bainbridge/ Not An Animal
This is fucking great
Maybe Tonight – Very very nice LP, with this exploration of all these different genres deep house ambient downtempo trip hop trance…
Talking Drums – L’Amour Encore?! is an early fave. Killer track
Harri James Harrigan/ The Sub Club Glasgow
Really diggin this album.
Max P/ Tangram
Oh God, what a surprise. Happy it’ll be out on vinyl finally !
Afterlife/ Steve Miller
This is so beautiful. Just became my album of the year. I almost feel cheated I missed it first time round but now feel blessed. Cant’ wait to drop a track in my December show, only problem, which one? They are all super brilliant
Lorem Ipsum – Very nice album, My Baby Likes Rum is very cool
Alicia Carrera – Such a nice vibe
Dan Cook/ Potaato Head Bali
A very diverse LP! all killer – from downtempo to the more spacedisco tracks. It’s great to see it getting a vinyl release – a must have for any balearic collector
Kerem Gokmen/ Wyep Pittsburgh
Well this one is a bit of 90s heaven, still sounding so good a quarter of a century laterI love the variety of bangers and slow burners, and I don’t need to tell you how much I’m in to super long cuts, which there seems to be an abundance of here My favorites are Nothing Can Pull Us Apart, My Baby Likes Rum, La Belle Du Jardin, and Something Pulling Me Under
