Records of the Week (March 6, 2026)

‍What we're spinning at VF HQ.

The launch of the new OJAS Music label, long time VF collaborator Caterina Barbieri, contemporary pain with Maria BC and the return of Kwes.

Contributions from VF's Kelly Doherty and Alex Flowers.

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Caterina Barbieri

At Source

(light-years)

An unexpected but perfect pairing, Bendik Giske’s circular-breathing saxophone meets Caterina Barbieri’s atmospheric electronic environments. The idea alone was exciting when the album was announced, and it more than delivers. For anyone familiar with either artist’s work, the result should come as little surprise.

The music thrives on duality, as many collaborations do, yet neither player dominates. Each track rises and falls in tandem: Giske’s saxophone flutters before erupting into siren-like bursts that strain against their own vibrations, while Barbieri’s oscillating harmonics and synthesised circuitry feel both transcendent and futuristic. Her rolling arpeggios unfold effortlessly, echoed in the percussive thud of Giske’s fingers against the keys – a constant call and response between digital and physical forms.

The result is a compelling and tranquil meeting of sequenced electronics and music shaped by the body and the breath. Released on Barbieri’s label light-years and clocking in at just 30 minutes across four tracks, it already feels like one of the year’s standout records. Alex Flowers

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Kwes

Kinds

(Warp Records)

Much has unfolded since the enigmatic producer first introduced his debut album. In the years since, he has collaborated with artists such as Sampha, Tirzah and Nubya Garcia, produced for countless others, and most recently composed the original score for Rye Lane. Kinds, however, marks a clear departure from the pop-leaning maximalism and dense arrangements of his earlier work. In contrast, this album unfolds as a reckoning with his own perception of sound.

Kwes’ experience of synaesthesia is directly referenced in the track titles, shaped by the interpretation of notes and tonal palettes he hears within each piece. The pairing of colours suggests these compositions exist between states rather than within fixed emotional registers. Across the record, glimmering tones, long-form drones and slowly drifting signals recur, creating a sense of suspended movement.

This is music to inhabit slowly, in a single sitting, allowing its atmosphere to accumulate rather than resolve. Kwes’ distinctive relationship to sound has often been discussed in relation to his earlier work, but here, amid time-stretched acoustic instruments and spacious arrangements, it doesn’t feel prescriptive. Instead, it reads as an act of listening in itself – as though the album is the result of sitting with sound long enough to begin hearing it from within. Alex Flowers

Maria BC

Marathon

(Sacred Bones Records)

Maria BC's third album Marathon sits gently at the intersection of ambient and folk — the confessional lyricism, acoustic guitars and gentle melodies of the latter occupy the record's runtime, while the minimalist textures and imperceptible movement of the former hold it all together. A wintry excursion that rarely peeks its head over the covers of its bed of resignation and melancholia, Marathon is a beautiful record once given enough attention. To the otherwise occupied listener, Maria BC's barely raised vocals and egalitarian instrumental placement could slip into the background — yet its qualities as a record straining to be heard amidst exhaustion speak directly to its themes of isolation and depletion.

Immediately setting the scene of contemporary liminality with the words "That emblem 'M', glowing in the rain", Marathon is packed with lonely imagery like "Peacemaking"'s greyhound bus or the pre-work "hair of the dog" ("Rare"). The fruitlessness of labour is a recurring theme: Maria BC speaks to the cognitive dissonance of "working as the world burns" ("As The Earth Turns") and working just to feed a debt ("Day & Night"). There's little joy or hope to be found in these songs, but there's a catharsis to hearing it all aired so beautifully.

In 2024, Maria BC contributed to the soundtrack of Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw The TV Glow, and Marathon feels like something of a thematic counterpart — both depicting the crushing weight of trying to survive, let alone thrive, in a world largely indifferent to your presence. Neither has all the answers to its central pains, but both are a testament to art's power to reflect your struggles back to you and share the load. Sometimes that's just enough. Kelly Doherty

Michael A. Muller & Otta A. Totland

Unna

(OJAS Music / The Vinyl Factory)

The inaugural release on OJAS Music, the new label from recording artist Michael A. Muller and hi-fi designer Devon Turnbull, is an 18-minute meditation on patience, space and the increasingly challenging act of sitting still. Unna, a collaboration with Norwegian composer Otto A. Totland of Deaf Center, pairs piano with double bass, glockenspiel, Mellotron and Rhodes across five pieces that unfold with gently through granular attention to detail. To no one's surprise given Turnbull's name is attached, it sounds flawless.

Throughout Unna, harmonic movement is minimal, decays stretch out generously, and silence does as much work as sound. It's gentle but never passive, the pair's compositional precision and excellent production allows these pieces the space to breathe and play out.

Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies on 180g vinyl at 45rpm, with a made-to-order reel-to-reel option transferred directly from the master: Unna's formats of choice tell you everything about where this new label's priorities lie. Kelly Doherty