Pilgrims Of The Mind - What's Your Shrine?

Heels & Souls Recordings

£26.98

Format: 2 x LP, Gatefold Sleeve
Catalogue No.: HSREC005
Barcode: 5060202596348
Release Date: Feb 2023
Genre: House, Electronica, Downtempo

A1 - Smell Zee Flower
A2 - Nothing Can Pull Us Apart
B1 - My Baby Likes Rum
B2 - L'Amour? Encore?!
C1 - La Belle Du Jardin
C2 - Loosejaw (Co-produced by Andrew Ross-Collins)
C3 - Following The Sofuto Kuriimo
D1 – Sandcastle
D2 - Something's Pulling Me Under

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 Stéphane 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. Stéphane 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, Stéphane 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 Stéphane himself, plus never-before-seen photography - the complete package this music always deserved.

Press:

Test Pressing Review + Interview

In Sheeps Clothing Article + Interview

Mixmag Article

Ransom Note Article

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.

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

Chaos In The CBD - Will give this a spin at the weekend!

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

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

Psychemagik / Danny Mclewen - Another stellar release from one of my fave labels.

Lefto - Wicked release.

Benedek – Great stuff!

D.K – Sounds sick!

Zakia – Deep, expansive, beautiful sounds.

Brian Not Brian – Super good

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

Lorem Ipsum - Very nice album, My Baby Likes Rum is very cool

Kerem Gokmen/ Wyep Pittsburgh
Well this one is a bit of 90s heaven, still sounding so good a quarter of a century later. I 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.