Forced Exposure New Releases for the Week of 11/6/2023

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: RANDB 126LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

This thirteen-track LP brings together rare recordings from the original Fleetwood Mac's peak period of productivity. Three tracks are a collaboration with Duster Bennett, Alexis Korner, and Christine Perfect, recorded for the BBC. Elsewhere the triple guitar line-up is in blazing form on live recordings of "Oh Well," "Rattlesnake Shake," and "The Green Manalishi." There are showcases for Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer plus a thoughtful live "Albatross." Comes with full credits and sleeve notes.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: REP 052EP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

This EP comprises four of the best performances from an exhilarating open-air gig performed in front of 400,000 enthusiastic Parisians. It combines classic tracks ("I Can't Explain," "Summertime Blues") with two new songs ? "Baba O'Riley" and "Relay," the latter unreleased at this point. The recording was made by RTL and transmitted on AM radio, so sound quality is reasonable but not exceptional.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: ASM 006LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

This is the third and final instalment of Jeremiah M. Carter's album triptych, Vessels. Following Rejoice (ASM 001LP, 2020) and Speak You Also (ASM 004LP, 2022), all three albums were conceived within a six-month period during ferociously exalting creative sessions. The emotional turmoil of the early pandemic is as present on Vessels as it is in the other two albums, yet the final instalment showcases as more distinctive sense of focus, where the earlier albums saw Jeremiah expel a state of uncertainty and trepidation into an intense, almost spiritual form of musical cleansing. Vessels still bears those same hallmarks, yet comes across with an air of refinement and finality. Spanning six pieces, each work feels like an integral part of the albums overarching narrative, fervently nestled amid divinity and humility. By its final piece, which also clocks in as the longest in the entire triptych, we are treated to one of Jeremiah's finest moments, and for a few seconds, it all comes together for one last swansong, forming a sonic distillation of elation and grief, desire and passion.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: ASM 007LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

In November 2020, KMRU self-released Drawing Water. The release contained three supple works of porous resonance and intimate motion, giving way to a very heartfelt body of work that peers directly into the fabric of the everyday; gestures, movement, conversation, rendered graciously into waveform. Now, Vaagner is proud to present a special edition vinyl of Drawing Water via its A Sunken Mall imprint, with the original material spanning the first side of the record in remastered from. For the second half of the record, the label has taped none other than Abul Mogard, who prepared a new piece by reworking various layers from KMRU's original compositions. This new 17-minute-long piece, tilted "Drawing Water On Matching Teal Surfaces" is defined by a continuously cascading and deeply resounding solemnness, which, towards the work's concluding moments, gradually disperses through a subtle downpour of warm pads, delicately rippling through the fabric of the work, before gently dissolving into thin air.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: N 088LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Alien Transistor announces a reissue of Such December, the fourth album by Japanese indie folk-pop artist, Gratin Carnival. Listeners might already know Gratin Carnival from their appearance on the Alien Parade Japan compilation of indie pop groups working with brass and woodwind. Gratin Carnival's "Just Watching" was one of the many highlights of that compilation, and its gentle bossa-folk glide reappears on Such December. Originally released in 2020, Such December captures beautifully the happy-sad charm of Gratin Carnival. The project of Koreyuki Mitsunaga, Gratin Carnival started in 2011; Mitsunaga had been home recording for some time and decided on the name as an umbrella for his music-making. Mitsunaga's main instruments are guitar, which he uses to great effect throughout, his gorgeous acoustic playing reminiscent of players like Ueno Takashi of Tenniscoats or Jo?o Gilberto, and alto saxophone and clarinet. Those three instruments make up the core of Gratin Carnival's sound, along with Mitsunaga's charmingly doleful singing. Recording at his parents' home, with a four-track cassette recorder and a MacBook, Mitsunaga created Such December during 2020, though the songs on it stretch back to 2016. As with plenty of musicians from the Japanese underground, Mitsunaga is involved in other music, too -- he's been working with The Otoasobi Project, which performs music in collaboration with individuals with learning disabilities, and their families; and he's also involved in improvised music. With Such December, though, you get to hear Mitsunaga's music at its most personal and individual, ten songs of still, gorgeously poised indie folk-pop, where the swooning clang of six strings meets the breathy bliss of woodwind and brass.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: AVM 075LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Teichmann & S?hne's Flows is not so much the result of a collaborative process as it is a process in itself. Over the course of nine pieces, Gebr?der Teichmann -- Andi and Hannes -- and their father Uli repeatedly find common ground between the very different musical styles, sound aesthetics, and subcultural codes they have internalized throughout their lives. The source material out of which the album evolved was culled from several recordings of rehearsal sessions in preparation for the trio's concerts that took place between the years 2012 and 2022. The three added only a few overdubs to those recordings but edited them rigorously to both preserve and transform the spirit of their unlikely collaboration. The combination of Uli's background as a versatile jazz artist and multi-instrumentalist with his sons' penchant for dub techniques, modular synthesis, and live sampling as well as their interest in electronic dance music take on ever-different shapes. Flows, released on the occasion of Uli's 80th birthday, is as joyful, lively and free-spirited as its makers. The cover artwork is a piece created by Lu, Andi and Hannes' mother, who died in 2016 and to whom the album is dedicated.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: AVM 076LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Cloud Management is a project concerned with processes and progress. Featuring Love-Songs members Thomas Korf and Sebastian Kokus and the prolific Ulf Schu?tte, the Hamburg-based trio has tirelessly expanded upon its sound and extended its musical style. After 2022's S/T documented the results of their first jam sessions as a newly-founded group, V.A. started even more modestly and became an even bigger undertaking. Originally conceived as a small one-off release, it grew into a full record which sees the group embracing dub music, collaborating with Peaking Lights' Aaron Coyes and inviting other artists (No UFO's, Seekers International, Coco Em) who reworked select tracks in true dub style. V.A. is marked by inconsistency, openness, and heterogeneity in the best sense of those words: ever-changing, constantly surprising and consistently in motion. In calling it V.A., they paid tribute to their somewhat loose, but conceptually consistent concept of giving various artists full creative license over their own work. Neither a true album in the strict sense of the world nor just a compilation, V.A. is actually the essential Cloud Management record: ever-changing, constantly surprising, consistently in motion.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: AMI 052LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock. "Amish Records is pleased to finally announce an expanded and remastered edition of P.G. Six's 2001 debut album, Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites, to be released as a gatefold double LP and digitally on Feb 24, 2023. Fully remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, artist Meredyth Sparks reimagines the beautiful Chris Krol cover art in an evocative gatefold design. An eight-song bonus LP entitled Live Cuts and Radio Favorites will be included. Documenting performances from the calendar year just before and after the release of Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites, the bonus album gathers radio and live shows. P.G. Six plays both songs off the debut and the music of others: Pearls Before Swine's 'I Saw the World' (1968) becomes minimalist, approaching modern classical in his repetitive and percussive piano work; X's 'Drunk in My Past' (1983) feels refracted beyond the horizons of Los Angeles punk; Gubler even looks back to his more recent past with 'Cover Art,' from the debut album of Tower Recordings; looking forward, the bonus LP also includes versions of songs that would later appear on the album The Well of Memory (2004), which Amish will release in an forthcoming expanded edition."

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: ARBITRARY 018LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Chromacolor is one of those records that immediately feels like home even though it is hard to locate stylistically. Written and recorded by Hanno Leichtmann in Berlin and Madeira between 2020 and 2022, it draws on rhythmic minimalism as a guiding principle and might call to mind organic, instrument-based ambient music, but also incorporates jazzy moments as well as Annie Garlid's multi-layered vocals that permeate through these nine pieces. The foundation for Leichtmann's Chromacolor project was laid when the prolific Berlin-based producer, musician, and drummer borrowed a vibraphone and a Fender Rhodes from two friends. Combining their unique sonic affordances with those of a Guitaret, an electric lamellophone, he further expanded his sound palette by inviting other musicians -- Anthea Caddy, Sabine Vogel, Tobias Delius, Els Vandeweyer, Sabine Ercklentz, Mike Majkowski, Andrei Ladeishchikov, Oona Farchy, Gon?alo Caboz, as well as Rafael and Hugo Andrade -- to play small but vital parts in the production of the album. The opener "Kisses and Wine" masterfully sets the tone for an album that is as inviting as it is challenging. Working with relaxed repetitive rhythms, Garlid's anthemic vocals and a sprinkle of saxophone and flute tones courtesy of Delius and Vogel, respectively, as well as tender piano notes played by Leichtmann, it evokes a lot with only few means: a certain melancholy, but also an elevated atmosphere that feels both exuberant and restrained. Leichtmann's elegant study of the power of repetition, minute rhythmic shifts and subtle use of melodic and harmonic elements creates ambiguities and polyvalences like these throughout the entire record, up until its understated finale, aptly titled "A Beautiful Day" -- a drone-jazz piece, if you will, both longing and joyful. As an album, Chromacolor is hard to pigeonhole, but rich and rewarding. All it takes is immersing yourself in it. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin Artwork: Hanno Leichtmann and Mads Emil Nielsen. Includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: AD 001EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Originally released in 2010 on Aurora Borealis. This is the new 12" version on Archaic Devices. Archaic Devices is a new label founded by Bobby Krlic, aka The Haxan Cloak. It will serve as the home for his future releases as The Haxan Cloak alongside reissues of his past work under the moniker. Krlic admits that starting a record label wasn't something that had occurred to him until he finished building his own home studio in LA and he regained the master tapes to his records from various underground labels. All of his archival releases have been remastered, with aspects of their design and presentation tightened up by Krlic to present his music exactly as he initially intended. Working with revered visual artist Christopher Leckie, Krlic has built a stark, unique identity for his newly minted label Archaic Devices that extends to a new line of merchandise, as well as new visual directions for the label's first and forthcoming releases.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: AD 002LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Originally released in 2011 on Aurora Borealis. This is the new double LP version on Archaic Devices. Archaic Devices is a new label founded by Bobby Krlic, aka The Haxan Cloak. It will serve as the home for his future releases as The Haxan Cloak alongside reissues of his past work under the moniker. Krlic admits that starting a record label wasn't something that had occurred to him until he finished building his own home studio in LA and he regained the master tapes to his records from various underground labels. All of his archival releases have been remastered, with aspects of their design and presentation tightened up by Krlic to present his music exactly as he initially intended. Working with revered visual artist Christopher Leckie, Krlic has built a stark, unique identity for his newly minted label Archaic Devices that extends to a new line of merchandise, as well as new visual directions for the label's first and forthcoming releases.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: AD 003LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Originally released in 2013 on Tri Angle Records. This is the new double LP version on Archaic Devices. Archaic Devices is a new label founded by Bobby Krlic, aka The Haxan Cloak. It will serve as the home for his future releases as The Haxan Cloak alongside reissues of his past work under the moniker. Krlic admits that starting a record label wasn't something that had occurred to him until he finished building his own home studio in LA and he regained the master tapes to his records from various underground labels. All of his archival releases have been remastered, with aspects of their design and presentation tightened up by Krlic to present his music exactly as he initially intended. Working with revered visual artist Christopher Leckie, Krlic has built a stark, unique identity for his newly minted label Archaic Devices that extends to a new line of merchandise, as well as new visual directions for the label's first and forthcoming releases.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: BAADM 015LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Eponymous first album by Continuity, the new project of Swedish artist Martin Herterich, whose sonic explorations of memory and imagination have come to full bloom in this atmospheric and elusive narrative of seven intense cityscapes. Martin Herterich previously released music (as Sand Circles, etc) on labels like Posh Isolation, Not Not Fun Records, iDEAL and Irrlicht."Have you ever felt like all you want is to go back? Continuity is a sonic narrative, a story arc set in a fictional East Asian metropolis. It is not a city you have been to. When you have fallen in love with a place, you long to go back; but it's a memory; fiction if you like. You want to catch the fleeting moment of leaves rustling in the wind, the sun reflecting from the glass panels of the roof above. These memory cycles create emotional patterns. But unlike reality, these spaces are limited. They carry elements of reality in them, narrative components that evoke feelings and signify meaning. Traveling there becomes impossible. Through streetview surfing and 4K walking videos on Youtube, these spaces that are very much real become fictionalized, much like the virtual spaces of video games. Movement is narration. Fiction is something that is, but at the same time isn't, real. In order to understand an imaginary place, one needs to travel there." --Martin Herterich, 2023

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: BAADM 016LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The music heard on this album was originally the result of a commission to score the second half of the film Nico/Nico Crying made by Andy Warhol in 1966. The commission was made by Art Cinema OFFoff in collaboration with B.A.A.D.M for a screening of the film together with a live presentation of the score in September 2021 at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. The recording presented here was made in the last week of that year and mixed soon after in January 2022. These recordings are essentially live-recordings performed by the composers together in the same room and recorded in a manner reminiscent of the record making process as it was in the late 1960s. The instrumentation used to make the sounds on this album consists of modular synthesis, zither, voice, contaminated field recordings and metal percussion. Mats Erlandsson is a composer and musician part of the vibrantly re-emerging field of drone music in Stockholm, Sweden, and is associated with practices characterized by the extensive use of sustained sound. Erlandsson presents his work both as a solo artist and in collaborations, most notably together with Yair Elazar Glotman and Maria W Horn. Recent releases include Gyttjans Topografi on XKatedral, Minnesm?rke on Hallow Ground and the collaboration Emanate made with Yair Elazar Glotman on the label 13070. In addition to his own artistic practice Erlandsson holds a position as studio technician and was temporarily, from October 2022 to September 2023, the acting studio director at Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. The compositions of Maria W Horn implement synthetic sound, electroacoustic and acoustic instruments and audiovisual components, often devising generative and algorithmic processes to control timbre, tuning and texture. She employs a varied instrumentation ranging from analog synthesizers to choir, string instruments, pipe organ and various chamber music formats. Acoustic instruments are often paired with digital synthesis techniques, in order to extend the instruments timbral capacities. Often based on minimalist structures, her music explores the inherent spectral properties of sound and their ability to transcend time and space, reality and dream.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: BT 107LP

FILE UNDER: CLASSICAL

Black Truffle announces its first release from celebrated London-based Canadian composer Cassandra Miller. Though her body of mature work stretches back almost twenty years, many listeners were introduced to Miller through the success of her astonishing 2015 Duet for Cello and Orchestra, which sets an imperturbable two-note cello part against a series of increasingly dense orchestrations of an Italian folk melody. Traveller Song/Thanksong, the first release of her music on vinyl, presents a pair of compositions for voice and ensemble that exemplify Miller's gently absurd, strikingly beautiful, and utterly unique work. Like many of Miller's compositions, these pieces originate in existing music. "Traveller Song" (2016/2018) begins from a 1950s song of an anonymous Sicilian cart driver recorded by Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella, which Miller recorded herself singing along to, going on to then record herself singing to her own layered voices. Heard sometimes alone, sometimes layered, her pre-recorded voice is accompanied by a chamber sextet drawn from London's Plus-Minus Ensemble. "Thanksong" begins from recordings of Miller singing along to the third movement of Beethoven's late quartet in A minor (Op. 132), the "holy song of thanks" the composer wrote to express his gratitude for (temporarily) recovering from illness. Recording herself singing along repeatedly to each of the individual parts of the quartet, Miller created an aural score where each member of the string quartet listens to their own part on headphones, playing by ear. Performed on this recording by Montreal's Quatuor Bozzini, with whom Miller has a decades-long relationship, they are joined by the British soprano Juliet Fraser, who sings material from the Beethoven quartet "as slowly and quietly as possible." Presented in a stylish sleeve adorned with photography by Lasse Marhaug and liner notes by Cassandra Miller, this is a key release from a major contemporary composer whose work challenges and dazzles in equal measure.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: BT 108LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Black Truffle announces Tender Membranes, the label's first release from Swedish-Finnish sound artist and electro-acoustic composer Marja Ahti. Active for a decade in the Finnish underground music scene, in recent years Ahti has developed a distinctive approach to patiently unfolding electro-acoustic constructions, documented on a string of solo releases and collaborative projects with Judith Hamann and her husband Niko-Matti Ahti. Working with concrete and instrumental sounds, field recordings, and electronics, Ahti favours neither disjunctive collage nor monolithic consistency; rather, her work is composed of organically unfolding sequences of details and textures. Tender Membranes consists of four lengthy pieces, partly inspired by the image of the senses and mind as membranes allowing for the passage between inner and outer spaces, sensation and its causes, creating a world. Ahti's unhurried pacing encourages this sense of listening as an opening or surrender to sound, which can often create the impression that the listener is moving through a space zooming in on details. Like those of the masters of the French musique concr?te tradition, Ahti's sounds are not often recognizable, though they might suggest proximity or distance, open environments or closed spaces, the urban or rural, day or night. What Ahti calls her "poetic way of experiencing and organizing the familiar and the unfamiliar" is sustained throughout Tender Membranes, but each piece has its own character. Arriving in a sleeve reproducing contemporary Finnish photographer Sini Pelkki's fragmented visions of the everyday, Tender Membranes is a balm to reawaken tired ears.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: BT 109LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Works for the Ever Present Orchestra Vol. II continues Black Truffle's documentation of the late work of legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier, who sadly passed away in 2021 at the age of 90. Like the first volume of the series, the two works recorded here were written for The Ever Present Orchestra, an ensemble founded in Z?rich in 2016 to perform Lucier's work exclusively. At the core of the music Lucier wrote for the ensemble is the electric guitar, an instrument he began to explore in 2013. Played with e-bows, in these works electric lap steel guitars take on roles akin to the slow sweep pure wave oscillators heard in many of Lucier's works since the early 1980s. This strikingly elegant pair of compositions would serve as an ideal introduction to Lucier's late music for a listener as yet unfamiliar with its graceful exploration of beating patterns and other acoustic phenomenon. The two pieces have quite different characters, exemplifying Lucier's ability to harvest a remarkable range of musical results from closely related compositional procedures and concerns. Showcasing Lucier's ability to uncover near-infinite complexity within seemingly simple materials, Works for the Ever Present Orchestra Vol. II is a fitting tribute to one of the major figures of the experimental music tradition and a testament to the continuing power of his work.

 

PRICE: $43.50

CAT #: BT 110LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Black Truffle presents a previously unheard performance by rudra veena master Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, recorded in the North Indian city of Vrindavan at the Druhpad Samaroh festival in 1982. The great exponents of the tradition from whom Z.M. Dagar descended were all singers, and dhrupad is essentially vocal music. However, as Z.M. Dagar explained, the veena family of instruments plays an important role in the education and practice of dhrupad singers, especially as an aid to mastering the fine microtonal nuances of pitch essential to the genre. In the great Dagar family tradition, his approach to the various ragas that make up the dhrupad repertoire was stately, slow, and considered, with a great emphasis on the alap, the heavily improvised exposition section. True to form, in this recording of Dagar performing the night raga Yaman Kalyan, the alap section stretches out to more than forty minutes of slow-motion bliss, a frozen tanpura drone hovering above Dagar's gracefully bent notes and elegantly twisting phrases. In the alap's first half, Dagar's figures are so intently focused on the lower reaches of the rudra veena's range that they register more as shudders and moans than melodic patterns. As the performance continues, he slowly climbs in pitch, though continuing with the same intent focus on the articulation of single notes and subtle microtonal variations. This leads to the jod section of the performance, which, though still accompanied only by the tanpura, gradually takes on a more rhythmic character. Developing almost imperceptibly over the course of nearly thirty minutes, the jod moves from the stillness of the opening alap to a rapid pulse that announces the closing section of the piece, where Dagar is joined by Shrikant Mishra on the pakhawaj (a double headed hand drum). Where many performers use the final section of the raga as an exercise in unrestrained virtuosity, Dagar and Mishra subtly weave a web of finely shifting accents and hypnotic melodic variations, bringing the recording to a fitting conclusion while remaining within the meditative space occupied by the performance as a whole. Adorned with beautiful archival photographs of Dagar taken by Swedish percussion legend Bengt Berger and accompanied by detailed notes from Bradford Bailey, Vrindavan 1982 is a stunning document of music unmatched in its patient focus and mysterious emotional depth.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: BJR 089LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

LP version. Ndox Electrique results from the collaboration between Fran?ois R. Cambuzat, Gianna Greco (also known for their work with Ifriqiyya Electrique), and the n'do?p community in Senegal. The project originated from the duo's quest to trace the origins of North African rituals, which led them to the Lebu community in Cap-Vert, an isolated region at Africa's westernmost point. The album seamlessly blends the duo's electronically-infused avant-rock with the intense, ritualistic vocal chants and rhythmic percussion of the n'do?p community. It serves as a captivating bridge between these two musical worlds, capturing the essence of this cross-cultural collaboration. The text also highlights the challenges of merging Western rock and experimental influences with the sensibilities of their Senegalese collaborators, ultimately resulting in a unique and powerful musical experience. Ndox Electrique transcends cultural boundaries, immersing listeners in the enchanting sounds and mystical narratives of Western Africa.

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: BUDA 860388CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"Bats?kh Dorj was born in 1990 in Tsengel, the last village in western Mongolia. This remarkable musician is a master of the various overtone styles typical of the Tuvas. Rare and complete artist, because, luthier, he brings a major contribution to the tradition. He sings to us about his nomadic culture through mountains and travels, notably imitating the rhythms of horses and the flow of water."

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: CYFUSOUL

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Introducing Eulo Cramps, Call Super's fourth album that sits at the epicenter of a multifaceted project titled Tell Me I Didn't Choose This that draws on poetry, auto-biographical writing, painting and music. Melting improv, free jazz and the distinctive sound Call Super has perfected over the years with the helping hand of the invention of their "eharp," Eulo Cramps is a channel where the producer-artist exorcised trauma and epiphanies around their own coming-of-age story. The paintings series (which will be exhibited at a later date) tied to Tell Me I Didn't Choose This express these ideas more deeply, the canvas acting as a physical space for self-interrogation. One to usually remain in solitude whilst producing, on this new album Seaton breaks this rule and invites the distinctive voices of Julia Holter and Eden Samara to add their ethereal elemental resonance on tracks "Sapling" and "Illumina" -- the latter already noted as a Pitchfork favorite. Using their voices as a portal into Seaton's own personal sphere, they found respite in the falsetto of Holter and Samara. Whilst on "Goldwood" Elke Wardlaw lends her dulcet tones with a passage of spoken word that ebbs over Seaton's trickling melodies. The saxophone, played by Seaton's father, finds itself at home once again on this record too. A riveting and personal exploration, this album is Seaton's most powerful and distinctive to date.

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: CVSD 102CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

On this maiden recording, Chicago-based bassist Jason Roebke leads a new quartet, featuring his original compositions and a stellar lineup. The music, which was brilliantly recorded at Steve Albini's legendary Electrical Audio and expertly mixed and mastered by Alex Inglizian at Experimental Sound Studio, is performed by veteran reed player Edward Wilkerson Jr., whose own bands Eight Bold Souls and Shadow Vignettes were among the great ensembles of eighties/nineties Chicago, extending the AACM tradition and spotlighting Wilkerson's sensitive improvising. Here, wielding tenor saxophone and alto clarinet, Wilkerson is a commanding -- but also supremely collaborative -- voice, joining the younger pianist Mabel Kwan and drummer Marcus Evans. Roebke's scores are rich and flexible, but they concentrate on exploring multifarious ways of stopping, something that's been a feature of the bassist's own improvisation for decades. Investigating the interrelationships between flow and cessation, the quartet is at once organic and halting, Roebke and Evans playing together with great assurance, but occasional interruptions of metronomes or Roebke's lo-fi cassette recordings pushing against the fluidity and expressiveness in revelatory ways. Roebke's own bass playing has been a feature of scads of ensembles, both working and ad hoc, including Jason Stein Trio, Jeb Bishop Trio, James Falzone's KLANG, Jorrit Dijkstra's Flatlands Collective, Pillow Circles, The Whammies, Keefe Jackson, and Mike Reed's People, Places, and Things. The CD package for Four Spheres comes adorned with a beautiful painting by Rebecca Shore.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: DAMGOOD 602CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Reissue of classic album originally released by Sub Pop records in 1990! Now with new artwork and extra two tracks ('Girl From '62' was originally released as the A-side of a single on Regal Select Records, while 'Troubled Times' was the B-side of a single on Dog Meat Records).'What's the story behind the album title? 'Heavens to Murgatroyd, even!' is a term of surprise by Snagglepuss, a bright pink lion, who starred in his very own Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The term was famously employed by The Downliners Sect on the intro to their top tune 'Leader of The Sect.' This album originally came out on Sub Pop Records in 1990. The label was known for US grunge at the time, how come they ended up working with a Medway garage and racket group? We prefer the term 'Maximum Drums and Racket.' It all came about because a young Steve Turner, of Mudhoney fame, when a young lad visiting England with his father, happened across Thee Mighty Caesars playing at The Cricketers Public House at the Oval. Fast forward five years and he is telling the Seattle grunge mob all about how great we are. We were then invited to play with Mudhoney on their first Sub Pop jaunt in the UK. Bruce Pavitt, the Sub Pop visionary, saw our mass appeal and asked if we'd knock out an LP for Sub Pop. He also asked me to sign a contract. I replied -- 'What's a contract, can you eat it?' By this good chance we still owned the LP.' ? Q&A with Billy Childish (September, 2023)"

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: JACK 036CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Green color vinyl version. Incredible '82 live show from Clutch Cargo's Detroit, featuring Terry Graham of The Gun Club on drums. The Cramps are on top of their game with psychotic interplanetary performance of infamous garage punk-a-billy underground hits as "New Kind Of Kick," "Goo Goo Muck," "Potentate Of Love," and more.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: JACK 037CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Red color vinyl version. Part of the Italian leg of The Sisters of Mercy's Armageddon Tour in 1985. On May 2nd 1985 the band was again in great form for a three-piece as they adjusted to life after Marx, and the performances were all amazing. A great live for Sisters of Mercy fans.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 043LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Saxophonist Ornette Coleman was more than just a major force in the free jazz movement. In fact, the term was coined by the album of the same name released by his quartet in 1961, his guiding ethos the erasure of fixed structures via improvisation. Released in 1960, Change Of The Century is one of the ground-breaking albums Coleman cut for Atlantic with bassist Charlie Haden, drummer Billy Higgins, and trumpeter Don Cherry, which made a significant impact on the future direction of jazz. Relying on intuition, their musical chemistry and overriding openness, Coleman & Co. here conjure some of the greatest work of his career.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 044LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

The tragic tale of Billie Holiday involves a fractured childhood, a seemingly endless series of abusive men, and addictions to heroin and alcohol, all played out in the public eye after targeting by the FBI. Nevertheless, her huskily expressive voice is timeless and the way she brought blues phrasing into jazz was hugely influential. The 1956 release Lady Sings The Blues took its name from her shocking autobiography and the disc finds her on fine form throughout, the landmarks including the immortal "Strange Fruit," the defiant "God Bless The Child," the mournful "No Good Man" and the great title track. Classic Lady Day all the way!

 

PRICE: $17.00

CAT #: DIS 012LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress on silver vinyl. Recut from the Silver Sonyare masters in November 2008 at Chicago Mastering Service. Recorded: April & August 1981. First released on 12": June 1984.

 

PRICE: $17.00

CAT #: DIS 193LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. "Hammered Hulls' debut LP, Careening, may very well be the last record to be recorded and mixed at the famed Washington, D.C. area recording studio, Inner Ear. Engineered by studio owner Don Zientara and produced by Ian MacKaye, Careening was started right before the pandemic lockdown and completed in summer/fall of 2021. A new band of long-time players, Hammered Hulls' music hews close to some of their early influences. Alec MacKaye is the voice, Mark Cisneros is the guitarist, Mary Timony takes a nimble and rarely-heard turn as bassist, and Chris Wilson commands the drums. Each of them bring their individual imprint to the total sound. This concussion of strength upon strength, unified by vulnerable songs, only barely contained, is the signature sound of Hammered Hulls."

 

PRICE: $30.00

CAT #: DC 880LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

"Cylene II is the new materialization of the collaboration between Fran?ois J. Bonnet & Stephen O'Malley, initiated in 2018 and continued without interruption since then, taking form in a myriad of contexts ranging from common practice to recording sessions, concerts and tours. Cylene II bears witness to these different contexts, offering a multifaceted sound signature developed on different occasions The epic opening track 'Four Rays (Anti Divide)' welcomes, for the first time, other musicians?--?in this case a wind quintet?--?expanding the duo's sonic palette without betraying the fundamental component of their music, namely the driving of sonic energy. Elsewhere, Bonnet and O'Malley propel the energy between themselves, extending the singular climate that has characterized their musical development over the past five years. Among their minimal presentation of tones and resonances, as glacial harmonic intersections slowly elevate with massive physicality to an orchestral degree, new refinements become evident: the music's relationship to silence, and a brightening of the fine metallic edge glowing at its core. For the listener, Cylene II is a sound that reaches from the deep and scales up to the far firmament in its careful motion, drawing emotions viscerally from the chest, giving rise to the suggestibility of the soul. A s?ance of sorts for all who witness it, whether playing or listening."

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: DRONE 025EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Heart-wrenching ambient to cerebral techno: Inverno is Carlo Maria's debut on Drone."Winter in the northern hemisphere is often seen as the season of death, a state of life so often negatively connoted. I see winter as an incubator of change, where life takes the time to free its potential again. This record is a memory of past winters and a reminder that new ones will come. It celebrates the state of stillness as a necessary element of movement. It is an invitation to acceptance. The music itself might not necessarily express these ideas, but it acts as a trigger of memories and feelings of the times when these recordings were conceived. I like to see music recordings as pages of a diary. This music was recorded in a time and space span of various years and locations. 'Exhumed' was recorded at the end of October 2016 in Berlin; the other three tracks were recorded in Milan and performed live in various locations across Italy between in winter/spring 2021/2022." --Carlo Maria

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: DRUNKEN 167EP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Since forming in early 2021, The Prize have established themselves as one of Melbourne's premier rock and roll outfits, funnelling vocal soaked hooks and harmonies through a three guitar onslaught and a pulsating rhythm section. Their unique blend of power pop and rock and roll has earned new fans and followers from all sides of the globe. The Prize's debut EP Wrong Side of Town sold out on the first day of its release and received high praise from the likes of punk legend, Henry Rollins. The band quickly found itself securing plum support slots for bands like the Sunnyboys, Pavement, and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. This culminated in a national tour supporting The Chats in late 2022 that has helped to establish them as a premium live act with the tunes to back it up. First Sight, the much anticipated second release from The Prize will be out just in time for the EU/UK tour via Anti Fade Records and Drunken Sailor.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: DUST 118CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"My Brutal Life delves into the profound aspects of our artistic endeavors encompassing brutalism, the environment, and humanity. Throughout our ongoing creative journey, we consistently gravitate towards these themes, documenting and exploring the human experience within these environments. Our unwavering fixation on symmetry, synchronization, and repetition are the driving force in our artistic expression. Moreover, we strive to peel away superficial layers to expose the underlying emotional strata of the human aspect, unearthing the often-overlooked beauty within the ordinary. Although frequently disregarded, the human aspect resonates with echoes from the past, enlightening and guiding our artistic process. Even the failures encountered serve as poignant reminders of the delicate structures we construct. My Brutal Life constitutes a pivotal component within an enduring exhibition, meticulously crafted to delve into the aesthetic and human facets of brutalism." --The Black Dog

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: DUST 118LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. "My Brutal Life delves into the profound aspects of our artistic endeavors encompassing brutalism, the environment, and humanity. Throughout our ongoing creative journey, we consistently gravitate towards these themes, documenting and exploring the human experience within these environments. Our unwavering fixation on symmetry, synchronization, and repetition are the driving force in our artistic expression. Moreover, we strive to peel away superficial layers to expose the underlying emotional strata of the human aspect, unearthing the often-overlooked beauty within the ordinary. Although frequently disregarded, the human aspect resonates with echoes from the past, enlightening and guiding our artistic process. Even the failures encountered serve as poignant reminders of the delicate structures we construct. My Brutal Life constitutes a pivotal component within an enduring exhibition, meticulously crafted to delve into the aesthetic and human facets of brutalism." --The Black Dog

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: EFFICIENT 032LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

LP version. Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo's Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022. Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge -- between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose "Rainwater" (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora. Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes' "No One Around to Hear It" (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist and featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves and echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omert?; the beautiful, plaintively dubby "Is It You?" by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL's "Poptones" by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, and here, recording for ?l as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats." Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin and disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, Searchlight Moonbeam showcases Rollo and Tierney's still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melodies, disques du cr?puscule, ensorcelled storytelling. Also featuring Bhairavi Raman, Nanthesh Sivarajah, O.G. Jigg, Scala, Soft Location, Gyeongsu, CROCHE, Un, and Harry Plunket-Greene.

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: EPR 073LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Double LP set capturing some of Causa Sui's heaviest, most psychedelic tunes recorded live at Loppen -- a legendary Copenhagen venue, located in the famous (and infamous) Freetown Christiania commune. This is the sound of Causa Sui at their home turf, stretching out and exploring eight epic fan-favorites from their entire catalogue in front of a small crowd of 400 people in a packed sold-out venue. The show was recorded the first week that Covid restrictions were lifted on venues in Denmark, which called for an especially buzzing night, even for a band that has exclusively played no more than a handful of shows each year since their 2005 debut. Each Causa Sui show is unique. Here is a different perspective of the band's music -- it's looser, more free-flowing, and some tracks are warped into something far from their original versions, bouncing off the wooden beams on the low ceiling of Loppen with renewed energy. At one point you can hear the band calling to take a breather and let some air inside the sauna-like temperature of the show, which just weeks before seemed impossible. Loppen 2021 offers a complete set from start to finish, so since chances that you'll catch the band live in person are slim, this is the next best thing. Mixed and mastered by Jonas Munk. Edition of 1000 copies on colored ecomix vinyl. Includes download card.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: FAITBACK 032LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Faitiche welcomes Andrew Black aka blackbody_radiation. His debut album Ultra-Materials gathers six ghostly drones, created with the help of sound masking. Andrew Black, who hails from one of the UK's post-industrial North West Milltowns has a sensitive feeling for space and its acoustics. Having trained as a designer and operated within the realms of architecture and public space, it was only natural to extend his interest to manipulating field recordings. The six pieces collected on Ultra-Materials provide an insight into Black's highly sensitive minimalism: they stand for a subtly meandering mediation on room acoustics and place, which are manipulated with the help of sound masking, among other things -- that is, the addition and superimposition of artificially generated frequencies to mask unwanted sounds. Sometimes the pieces are reminiscent of warm engine noise, sometimes one thinks of carefully captured natural phenomena. Their strength lies in their elusiveness: free of concrete attributions or musical location, they can unfold their hypnotic pull without revealing anything about their origins. Harmonics at times shimmer, at times warble and at times coexist. It is an attempt to get in touch with our listening abilities.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: FAITICHE 033LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

SG is none other than Andrew Pekler returning to Faitiche with an album of sentimental guitar escapism. For Lovers Only/Rain Suite features ten tracks made using only an electric guitar and a handful of effects pedals (plus some additional recordings of rain) and finds Pekler once again attempting to reconcile his tendencies towards kitsch, experimentation and minimalism. Faitiche asked notorious Chicago romantic Sam Prekop for his take on the album -- his reply: "It's a wonder where the rivers go and far, how fast or slow. Just seconds to remember, who can forget, when you are lost. I think to recount every step, in both hands, eyes open, the clouds unfold, one two three. Every other step, just as well. Where the moss is soft, you know strong. How many hours, days? I could have been careful, did I forget? Never mind. Waking up, in these arms, where the rivers go, slow. One two three, one two three."

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: FARO 138X-CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Recorded in Paris, in 1976, Visions of Dawn is the stunning "lost" Brazilian acid-folk masterpiece. First uncovered and released in 2009, the record transfixed Brazilian music lovers and fans of otherworldly psych-folk alike. Led by the sharp lyrics and gorgeous, voice of a young Joyce Moreno, the trio is completed by the late great Brazilian percussion legend Nana Vasconcelos, and master arranger, producer and bassist Mauricio Maestro. These beautiful recordings offer a unique opportunity to sit in on the original sessions of tracks that would later become Brazilian cult-classics, like swinging samba-jazz opener "Banana" and "Clareana", a lullaby named after Joyce's daughters Clara and Ana. The trippiest moments come from "Jardim Dos Deuces" (one of Frank Ocean's favorite tracks of all time) and the orgasmic album closer "Chegeda."

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: FARO 238CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Far Out Recordings presents laid back Brazilian groove maestro Joao Donato's synth-heavy collaboration with his son Donatinho. Sintetizamor sees the father-son duo jovially hurtle through space and time across ten tracks of sparkling pop, Brazilian boogie and club friendly disco-funk. Joao Donato has been a hugely influential figure in the development of Brazilian music since the mid-1950s. He's played and recorded with virtually every one of his fellow Brazilian masters. Many of his own albums (of which he's recorded over three-dozen) are regarded with such adulation that "cult-favorites" doesn't quite cut it. Aged 82 at the time, Donato's collaboration with his prodigious, synth obsessed son Donatinho -- whose keyboard talents have been called on by the likes of the late Gal Costa, Djavan, and Donatinho's contemporaries such as Diogo Strausz -- was originally released back in 2017, as a limited Brazil-only release.

 

PRICE: $25.50

CAT #: FTR 739LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Vinylization of the splendid 2021 cassette, issued by Garden Portal. The music was recorded partially out west in San Francisco and Point Reyes (hence the title), as well as in Jeffrey Alexander's current locale of Philadelphia. An instrumental addition to Alexander's canon, the music was mostly generated on guitar, but other sonic elements include -- bass, pebbles, fake mellotron, waves, moog, shells, fife, magnetic tape, and talking book phonograph. The results are a sweet, rural stroll through the kind of mind gardens the various off-shoots of the Youngbloods explored back in the Raccoon Records era, when they were based in Point Reyes as well. Reyes's other main counter-culture avatar was Philip K. Dick, who lived there for a few years in the late '50s and early '60s. But Jeffrey's music displays none of the red-hot paranoia that flashed through PKD's work of that time. If anything, the mood is paranoia's antidote -- a rolling, casual float through cheeb-scented air with lots going on around the edges, but none of it in the least bit threatening. Given the loud sluice of Alexander's recent work with the Heavy Lidders, Reyes feels laid back and reflective, but there's nothing wrong with that. Indeed, there's everything right with it. In times like this, when the cultural shit storm shows no sign of abating, we can all use a record that allows us to lay back and center ourselves. Reyes is just that kind of record, and man is it ever perfectly timed for just such a moment as this." --Byron Coley, 2023

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: GPM 733EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Two accomplished house mainstays come together on Get Physical Music as James Curd joins forces with the legendary Osunlade for superb new single Chocolate Puddin' while FNX Omar and Kai Alc? step up with their own remixes. Curd came up as a DJ in Chicago and has gone on to become a mainstay of the scene. He is also credited with inventing GSwing, a house sound infused with swing. He has run various labels over the years while releasing on some of the world's finest imprints and serving up his magical sets everywhere from fabric in London to The Avalon in Los Angeles and The Arches in Glasgow. American Osunlade meanwhile has deep spiritual roots in Yoruba traditions that are also reflected in the name of his record label. He makes music with a rare spirituality as proven once again here. The superb Chocolate Puddin' is silky smooth deep and Afro-tinged house with gorgeous percussive melodies and soft shakers. It's full of soul and warmth with meaningful leads that bring plenty of uplifting emotions next to a bluesy vocal. Atlanta's house mainstay and a long-time underground favorite Kai Alc? then remixes. His version is more pacey but no less deep -- the jazzy chords are seductively draped over the cuddly deep drums and the vocal has a more soulful edge. Osunlade also offers his own Yoruba soul mix which is a hi-tech sound with futuristic synth chords and uplifting house drums. Last to remix is Moroccan mainstay and label regular FNX Omar. He flips the track into something that is richly layered with percussion and nimble bass, organic hand claps and hypnotic drum lines that all sink you in deep. This package is as delicious as its name suggests.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: GODUNK 101LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Formed by Monster Magnet's John McBain and Soundgarden's Matt Cameron & Ben Shepherd in 1993 during some downtime from their day jobs and side project Hater (who released a self-titled album in 1993), Wellwater Conspiracy set about immersing themselves in the dayglo world of sixties psychedelia, channeling the vibrations of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd and the 13th Floor Elevators to produce the garage lo-fi-lysergic assault on the senses that is their debut album Declaration of Conformity. Originally issued on Mudhoney's Steve Turners Super Electro label in 1997, the album was met with critical acclaim upon its release, and Rolling Stone magazine said, "Declaration's tinny, fuzzed-out sonics decidedly evoke the Summer of Love." God Unknown Records welcomes the album back into print and on all digital platforms, and it will see the release of a remastered vinyl pressing with extra tracks and new artwork taking influence from Blue Note Records' fabled artwork. From start to finish, Declaration Of Conformity is a loving homage to the true beginnings of psychedelic rock, long before the music got harder and heavier. Songs like "Green Undertow" and "Sleeveless" hark back to the time when The Beatles were spinning the world on its axis with "Tomorrow Never Knows," Syd Barrett was the piper at the gates of dawn and Roky Erickson was introducing the world to his Texan psychedelic sounds. Wellwater Conspiracy's music exists at that moment when pop music started to fracture and go far further out. It was still pop music, but the edges were starting to blur and the sounds were starting to fracture. This is where Declaration of Conformity sits; at the dawn of one of the biggest cultural shifts in musical history. The Bandcamp link also features two bonus download-only tracks, a cover of "Akka Ragga" by Shocking Blue and "Late Night" by Syd Barrett. Both tracks feature Josh Homme on guitar and bass.

 

PRICE: $21.50

CAT #: GF 2838CD

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Django is a French-Italian miniseries produced by Sky and Canal+, an English-language reinterpretation with an international cast of the 1966 Italian film of the same name directed by Sergio Corbucci and starring Franco Nero. The series designed for an international audience boasts a leading cast including Noomi Rapace, Matthias Schoenaerts, Nicholas Pinnock, Lisa Vicari, and Tom Austen. The Django series was created by Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, adored by international critics and successfully aired in Italy, France, the UK and Australia. The double CD edition will contain the full tracklist with the OST created by Mokadelic for the TV series, while on vinyl there will be a selection of tracks approved by the band and the production of Django.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: GF 2838LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Double LP version. Django is a French-Italian miniseries produced by Sky and Canal+, an English-language reinterpretation with an international cast of the 1966 Italian film of the same name directed by Sergio Corbucci and starring Franco Nero. The series designed for an international audience boasts a leading cast including Noomi Rapace, Matthias Schoenaerts, Nicholas Pinnock, Lisa Vicari, and Tom Austen. The Django series was created by Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, adored by international critics and successfully aired in Italy, France, the UK and Australia. The double CD edition will contain the full tracklist with the OST created by Mokadelic for the TV series, while on vinyl there will be a selection of tracks approved by the band and the production of Django.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: VPRL 4246LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

[cancelled release\ ] "Presented with a carefully selected set of digital multi-track master recordings from the archives of the iconic Jamaican reggae producer Bunny Striker Lee, next generation UK producer and dub engineer Prince Fatty (Mike Pelanconi) fed the audio into the analog realm for mixing through a carefully built audio analog system similar to that used by Osbourne Ruddock (King Tubby) producing ten new dub mixes for the modern age. The source material for the project includes Linval Thompson's 'Jah Jah The Conqueror,' Jackie Edwards 'The Invasion,' Cornel Campbell's 'Press Along,' Horace Andy's 'Don't Try To Use Me,' Ronnie Davis' 'Sun Is Shining,' Barry Brown's 'Give Thanks & Praise,' Rod Taylor's 'Garden Of Eden,' Neville Brown's 'Prophesy,' Leroy Smart's 'No Love,' and Don Carlos' 'Ababajonol.'"

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: GUESS 211LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. 50th anniversary official reissue of this holy grail kraut album from 1972. Real underground heavy-prog/psychedelic hard-rock with raw, in-your-face production, German lyrics, insane acid-fuzz guitar, garage organ and dark, proto-doom atmosphere -- the real deal! Named after the famous Lovecraft book, Necronomicon formed in the German town of Aachen in 1970, first influenced by bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Hendrix... In 1972 they entered a small studio in the Dutch border and recorded in just five days a concept album named Tips zum Selbstmord. The title roughly translates as "Tips on how to commit suicide" but the message the band wanted to give had nothing to do with taking your own life but instead with how mankind was facing self-destruction, destroying its own planet by pollution, wars, exploitation and overpopulation. 500 copies of the album were privately pressed by the band, housed in a lavish, cross shaped multi fold-out cover. It was a graphical translation of what they wanted to express musically. Original copies are impossible to find, making it one of the most desirable and sought-after kraut/German albums ever. Here's a long overdue new vinyl reissue. RIYL: Black Sabbath, Amon D??l, Gila, Paternoster, Hawkwind, G?a, German Oak, Pink Floyd, Hendrix. Faithful reproduction of the original multi-fold-out cross shaped cover; sourced from the original master tapes; insert with detailed liner notes and photos. "... one of the best and most unique German records of the early seventies." --Cosmic Dreams At Play "... Necronomicon has created a dark and powerful vision that blends psychedelic and progressive music with a proto-punk garage band sensibility" --Rolf Semprebon (AllMusic)

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: HG 2305LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Martina Berther and Philipp Schlotter are prolific in their respective ways, having been active in pop and jazz music, respectively, as well as playing in bands and exploring the outer fringes of sound art or composing music for film. Their first joint album Matt was recorded over the course of four days in a church in the Swiss village after which the album was named. Berther and Schlotter worked with the building's organ as well as synthesizers and electric bass to follow an experimental approach that oscillated between composition and free improvisation. The five pieces, recorded directly to tape by Flo G?tte without any additional overdubs, are characterized by an intimacy and rawness that calls to mind the introspective atmosphere of Lawrence English's latest album for the Swiss label. Matt is the result of two versatile composers and musicians executing minimalist ideas by giving them plenty of space to unfold. The album opens with "Unruhe," a composition that is based on the twelve-tone technique. Using a stopwatch to ensure the adherence to the pre-determined temporal intervals between the individual notes, Berther and Schlotter used the church organ and synthesizers for an ominous piece that traverses different moods and levels of intensity throughout its 14-minute run time. "LFO1" and "LFO2" are different variations of the same concept: based on a synthesizer preset and structured by an organ drone, two tone generators slowly fall silent, resulting in elegiac pieces that call to mind the work of ?liane Radigue. "Frachter" and "Gallia" put more emphasis on percussive elements. Again working with organ as well as Berther's prepared electric bass, this improvisation comprises interlocking textures that sound almost menacing on "Frachter," while they create a very different atmosphere on "Gallia." These notable discrepancies in sound and mood are even more astonishing if you consider that the two pieces are based on the exact same recording, played at different speeds. As two variations on the same idea with very different results, these two pieces perfectly represent how the duo effectively creates emotionally affective sound worlds with very few means. Berther and Schlotter's conceptual minimalism yields rewarding, multi-faceted aesthetic results. Matt is an intimate album, marked by a sense of vividness and spontaneity, but also the product of compositional conciseness.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: SUBURBIA 044LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Learned on a whim and played, in its entirety, as an encore on the band's 1999 tour, Boris The Sprinkler's take on the Circle Jerks classic Group Sex album manages to shave almost two minutes off the fifteen-minute running time of the original. Originally released in 2000 as a CD-only on singer Rev. N?rb's own Bulge Records, this is the first vinyl appearance of this spirited tribute to the World's Most Efficient Album. Revel in the brief cyclone of whimsical discontent that is the special "We Lost All The Original Photos Over the Course of the Interceding Two Dozen Years So We Had To Make New Cover Art" edition!

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: HOS 035LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Live set from Aretha Franklin never before heard on a commercial release. And it is with pride that History of Soul can say that the recordings, made in a TV studio in Cologne during her first European tour in 1968, are smack in the middle of soul's Golden Age. The musical quality -- the great artist at her peak -- is so high that this issue can only enhance her reputation. This is prime Aretha Franklin -- and soul music doesn't get much better than this.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: RANDB 098CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Live set from Aretha Franklin never before heard on a commercial release. And it is with pride that History of Soul can say that the recordings, made in a TV studio in Cologne during her first European tour in 1968, are smack in the middle of soul's Golden Age. The musical quality -- the great artist at her peak -- is so high that this issue can only enhance her reputation. This is prime Aretha Franklin -- and soul music doesn't get much better than this.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: HOP 017LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Essential repress of this great LP of experimental Belgian folk music. Original pressing sold out within weeks and was listed at number 10 in the Quietus' best albums of the year so far. A remarkable body of experimental compositions that taps the deep well of raw, emotive expression rumbling below numerous traditions of European folk music. As a member of Ghent's experimental music scene, over the past two decades Annelies Monser? has slowly refined a singular approach to musicality, moving from the sparse, instrumental piano works from that defined her early career, toward increasingly complex arrangements of instrumentation that offer a central place to her own voice, issued by noteworthy imprints such as Morc Tapes, Stroom, and three:four. Monser?'s solo efforts establish a strikingly beautiful and remarkably unique territory that elegantly balances between rigorous experimentalism, minimalism, drone, and folk. Recorded between 2016 and 2022, Mares' is a deep body of sonority that draws upon the fundamental human need to express and commune through sound, projecting this ancient need into forward-thinking forms without sacrificing its roots. Profoundly beautiful, elegant, and poetic, these eight tracks offer immersion into a singular creative voice.

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: HOS 891CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Vatican Shadow's Church Of All Hallows' Eve. Full-length soundtrack of terror on Manhattan's bloody streets. Now available on compact disc. The tracks are intended as soundtrack for private or group gatherings during the Halloween season and autumnal nights. File under: environmental, soundtrack, holiday, thematic, spooky, true crime, horror, sound effects, fall, nostalgia, autumnal, Halloween, field recording, the sounds of October 31st.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: HOS 002LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Debut album from Fantastic Twins on blue color vinyl. Fantastic Twins, the ongoing project of Julienne Dessagne, is a sonic exploration of dual characters born from one distinct perspective. A producer, songwriter and acclaimed live performer, Dessagne has spent the last decade sculpting a unique world, releasing on influential labels such as Optimo Music, supporting Bicep on tour and earning the stewardship of electronic music icons including the late, great Andrew Weatherall, and 2023 sees the release of Fantastic Twins long-anticipated album, Two Is Not a Number. Prioritising a natural predisposition to experimentation alongside decades spent on the most open-minded dancefloors, Fantastic Twins' focus on a hybrid approach, featuring synthesizers, samplers, sequencers and modular effects has enraptured audiences at some of the world's finest nightclubs. Here, Dessagne's own vocals act as an organic anchor amid a truly live set that acts as a continuation of the cultures of Kosmische, pure techno and contemporary psychedelia. Following a decade of releases on labels such as Optimo Music, Hippie Dance and Kompakt, 2023 also saw the launch of House of Slessor, an imprint and label founded by Dessagne with the specific intent of releasing her own material. The label is the home of Two Is Not a Number. Limited edition of 300 copies.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: HDYARE 009CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Welcome back, friends, to the Yacht Soul cruise that never ends! This theme, explored at length in the previous installment of this series, is a fertile one that just keeps on giving, and give it certainly does on the tracks we have dug up for your perusal, enlightenment, edification and enjoyment on Yacht Soul 2. For those just joining us, the concept here concerns R&B and soul artists mining the songbooks of their white contemporaries for cover versions that serve the dual purposes of potentially garnering some crossover radio airplay as well as introducing great songs to segments of the listening public who might otherwise miss them. Some of these versions might have come about because they were personal favorites of the artist in question, others might have been strongly suggested by their labels or by the publishing company, but all of them provide an entirely new perspective on what were already fantastic songs to begin with. So there you have it -- a further dig into this nebulous concept that reveals more unexpected connections and crossed paths. Understanding the hows and whys of the way these particular covers and collaborations came to be is as fascinating as just enjoying the music itself, and there really is a lot of great music to dig into this time around! We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did putting it together. Featuring Mel & Tim, Impact, Billy Paul, Esther Phillips, John Edwards, Roy Ayers, Arnold Mcculler, Richie Havens, Brenda Russell, Patti Labelle, The Main Ingredient, The Isley Brothers, Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan, and Keni Burke.

 

PRICE: $39.50

CAT #: HDYARE 009LTDLP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Double LP version. Welcome back, friends, to the Yacht Soul cruise that never ends! This theme, explored at length in the previous installment of this series, is a fertile one that just keeps on giving, and give it certainly does on the tracks we have dug up for your perusal, enlightenment, edification and enjoyment on Yacht Soul 2. For those just joining us, the concept here concerns R&B and soul artists mining the songbooks of their white contemporaries for cover versions that serve the dual purposes of potentially garnering some crossover radio airplay as well as introducing great songs to segments of the listening public who might otherwise miss them. Some of these versions might have come about because they were personal favorites of the artist in question, others might have been strongly suggested by their labels or by the publishing company, but all of them provide an entirely new perspective on what were already fantastic songs to begin with. So there you have it -- a further dig into this nebulous concept that reveals more unexpected connections and crossed paths. Understanding the hows and whys of the way these particular covers and collaborations came to be is as fascinating as just enjoying the music itself, and there really is a lot of great music to dig into this time around! We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did putting it together. Featuring Mel & Tim, Impact, Billy Paul, Esther Phillips, John Edwards, Roy Ayers, Arnold Mcculler, Richie Havens, Brenda Russell, Patti Labelle, The Main Ingredient, The Isley Brothers, Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan, and Keni Burke.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: IMARA 005LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Michael Mayer's IMARA imprint announces a reissue of German electronica maestro Schlammpeitziger's second album, Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut. Originally released in 1996 by K?ln's A-Musik label, it was the first Schlammpeitziger release to signal to a much wider audience that there was something very special going on in the music of Jo Zimmermann, the mastermind behind Schlammpeitziger. And while he's subsequently gone on to release a further eight albums for labels like Sonig, Pingipung, and Bureau B, Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut is where it really all started for this most singular musician, illustrator and performance artist. Like all Schlammpeitziger's music, Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut is overflowing with melody. Using the simplest of set-ups -- much of his early music was made with Casio keyboards -- Zimmermann magics entire worlds of joy and melancholy. The nine songs here are both rich tributes to the joys of the everyday, and surreal fantasias. Zimmermann's unique signature is everywhere on Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut -- simply put, no one else makes music quite as lovely and incandescent as this. The album's initial release coincided with an explosion of interest in the music coming out of K?ln. This was a unique moment -- one where pop, techno, house, ambience, avant-gardism, musique concrete, heavy DSP, and all kinds of other creative phenomena got muddied up in the "general jelly" of K?ln's fast-moving, spirited musical communities. Zimmermann was closely aligned with the music coming out of the A-Musik and Sonig labels -- a tightly-knit collection of artists centered around the A-Musik record store, making all kinds of weird and wonderful music, from the electronica of Mouse On Mars to the compositions of Marcus Schmickler, from the electro-acoustics of C-Schulz and Hajsch to the digitalia of FX Randomiz. Zimmermann himself would collaborate with the latter on an album under the name Holosud; friends such as Mouse On Mars and Kompakt's Reinhard Voigt turned up on Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut's remix EP. Here, then, is one of the loveliest albums of its era, a pop-electronics album of serious play, one as moistly melancholy as it is melodically riveting. Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut is rare beauty indeed.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: IMP 110LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Originally released in 1997. Remastered and for the first time on vinyl, this incredible 12" EP where country legend Steve Earle teams up with the Supersuckers. The Supersuckers tackle an Earle song ("Angel Is the Devil") and Earle covers one of their tunes ("Creepy Jackalope Eye"), then after a joint cover (the Rolling Stones' "Before They Make Me Run," the definitive Keith Richards anthem), the originals are offered up.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: IMP 111LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Remastered in 2023. For the first time on vinyl since its release in 1997, a classic of the classics where the Supersuckers lead the way and go cowpunk releasing an Americana classic. Featuring guest appearances from none other than Willie Nelson and Kelley Deal. Bouncing back from the setback of Sacrilecious, the Supersuckers recorded their most ambitious album with Must've Been High. Using their garagey, post-hardcore punk as a launching pad, they delve deeply into country, even recording with Willie Nelson on one cut.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: IMP 140LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Garage cult legend Leighton Koizumi brings out his best on this essential LP. Reissued on vinyl for the first time since 2006 in partnership with Go Down Records and Improved Sequence. Easy Listening For The Underachiever, recorded in LA in 2006 and released in 2008, is by far the most popular Morlocks LP. With cross-over hits "Dirty Red," "Till The Wheels Fall Off" (featured on various TV, movie, video games) plus fan favorites like "My Friend the Bird" and "Teenage Head."

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: IMP 141LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Improved Sequence is proud to reissue The Morlocks' 2010 record paying homage to the roots of the Chicago Sound, namely the legendary Chess Records. That very music inspired the whole garage scene and The Morlocks are among its most famous and important exponents. Here is a playlist of iconic tracks that the band relives as part of their DNA!

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: ITR 276LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 release. "Back in print on white vinyl. Following up their debut full-length on Ty Segall's God? label, Wand presents their second album, Golem, on In The Red. Recording with Chris Woodhouse at his Hanger studio in Sacramento, Wand summons the dark and heavy power of the riff. Back in September 2013, Wand was quietly dismembered and ritually eaten in the hills near Dodger Stadium. Wand was reborn as 'Wand' -- an obese organ falsely organized as four overjoyous nerds. Four flesh balloons betting on a few aging amplifiers. Rumor has it they listen to Here Come the Warm Jets on loop all day and plot mail fraud. What's more, they allegedly stole Dale Crover's car and sacrificed it to the weather near the Los Angeles County Line. A few things, at least, are certain: Wand hears ghosts. Wand prefers serpents. The Sun is the mother of every fiction. All phenomena will be consumed in alphabetical order, but desire will recirculate ad infinitum. If all else fails, Wand will just devour more hands. Wand is coming your way soon."

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: ITR 381CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"The renaissance of Divine Horsemen -- which began in 2021 with In The Red's release of Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix, the legendary Los Angeles punk band's first release in 33 years -- continues with a thrilling and unexpected new album, Bitter End Of A Sweet Night. The new sixteen-track collection again features the band's co-founding members, singers-songwriters Chris Desjardins (better known as Chris D.) and Julie Christensen, and the core members of the ferocious Hot Rise band -- guitarist / co-writer Peter Andrus (a member of the group's late '80s lineup), bassist Bobby Permanent and X's nonpareil drummer DJ Bonebrake. The sound is filled out by Green On Red and Dream Syndicate keyboardist Chris Cacavas (who appeared on the 1984 Chris D./Divine Horsemen album Time Stands Still) and classically trained violinist Elizabeth Wilson. Desjardins produced the album. Divine Horsemen's dramatic In The Red bow and a 2020 archival set of club performances from 1985 and 1987, issued by Feeding Tube Records, reacquainted listeners with their stormy power and eclectic roots-punk musicianship, which diversified the searing approach taken by Desjardins' previous band, foundational L.A. punk unit the Flesh Eaters. (Christiansen had previously regrouped with her former husband and musical partner Desjardins on I Used to Be Pretty, the 2018 album that reunited the 1980 'all-star' Flesh Eaters lineup.) Reaction to the group's rebirth was rapturous. Jaime Pina of Punk Globe called Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix 'brilliant,' adding, 'The music is lush with both acoustic and electric guitars and the songs pull influences from all over, including country, rock, traditional ethnic folk music and blues.' Michael Toland wrote in The Big Takeover, 'Reclaiming its classic sound of sweat- and grime-stained Americana, Divine Horsemen is reborn like the mythical creature in the title.' John Apice of Americana Highways raved, 'Like the Rolling Stones, [Divine Horsemen] continue to thrill. They have grit, muscle and potency?. Divine indeed.'"

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: ITR 381LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Double LP version. "The renaissance of Divine Horsemen -- which began in 2021 with In The Red's release of Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix, the legendary Los Angeles punk band's first release in 33 years -- continues with a thrilling and unexpected new album, Bitter End Of A Sweet Night. The new sixteen-track collection again features the band's co-founding members, singers-songwriters Chris Desjardins (better known as Chris D.) and Julie Christensen, and the core members of the ferocious Hot Rise band -- guitarist / co-writer Peter Andrus (a member of the group's late '80s lineup), bassist Bobby Permanent and X's nonpareil drummer DJ Bonebrake. The sound is filled out by Green On Red and Dream Syndicate keyboardist Chris Cacavas (who appeared on the 1984 Chris D./Divine Horsemen album Time Stands Still) and classically trained violinist Elizabeth Wilson. Desjardins produced the album. Divine Horsemen's dramatic In The Red bow and a 2020 archival set of club performances from 1985 and 1987, issued by Feeding Tube Records, reacquainted listeners with their stormy power and eclectic roots-punk musicianship, which diversified the searing approach taken by Desjardins' previous band, foundational L.A. punk unit the Flesh Eaters. (Christiansen had previously regrouped with her former husband and musical partner Desjardins on I Used to Be Pretty, the 2018 album that reunited the 1980 'all-star' Flesh Eaters lineup.) Reaction to the group's rebirth was rapturous. Jaime Pina of Punk Globe called Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix 'brilliant,' adding, 'The music is lush with both acoustic and electric guitars and the songs pull influences from all over, including country, rock, traditional ethnic folk music and blues.' Michael Toland wrote in The Big Takeover, 'Reclaiming its classic sound of sweat- and grime-stained Americana, Divine Horsemen is reborn like the mythical creature in the title.' John Apice of Americana Highways raved, 'Like the Rolling Stones, [Divine Horsemen] continue to thrill. They have grit, muscle and potency?. Divine indeed.'"

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: JR 7025EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Cornell calls all the dreads to the dance in Greenwich Farm... all will be there. Backed up with its "Version" B-side.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: JR 7026EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Leroy Smart's "Mr Rich Man"... truth and rights. "Mr Rich Man, you're living too rich..." Alongside its dubbed B-side "Version."

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: JR 7027EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Johnny Clarke tells it like it is -- the story of Marcus Garvey. "Dem never loved Poor Marcus..." Backed up on the B-side in fine dub style.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: K7 431EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Toronto-based producer and DJ Ciel is renowned for a style of dancefloor material that's as heady as it is visceral. The Xi'an-born artist's ascendant profile has seen her cutting-edge and club-ready EPs released on UK labels Peach Discs and Coastal Haze, as well as Stateside imprints Spectral Sound and Mister Saturday Night. As a member of the renowned collective Discwoman and the creator of femme-forward party Work in Progress, Ciel's thoughtful narratives are clear, running in parallel to the perception-altering sounds that are consistently woven deeply into her wide-ranging sets, beloved mixes and inventive collaborations. Now the Parallel Minds label cofounder is crystallizing her imaginative and omnivorous sound with her !K7 Records debut, Orlando. Written during her emergence from an uncharacteristic bout of writers' block, the three original tracks of Orlando chart a return to the musical self, spurred along by a cinephile's embrace of film, a love of classic literature, and a curiosity for the oddest corners of popular culture. "Scenes From A Marriage" might share a name with the episodic series, but is rather a nuanced critique of the modern rite of union, moving through structured chapters, and mirroring the un-static nature of longtime love. Inspired by Virginia Woolf's radical novel, and its superphysical protagonist, "Orlando" considers the cult literary figure who lived from the renaissance to the modern age, and embodies both sides of the sex binary. The thrown sounds and aural illusions of "El Califa" create the effect of a beckoning, beguiling psychedelic experience. To complete the EP, Ali Berger, Ciel's recent collaborator on the Jacktone Records' release Damn Skippy! repurposes the mind-bending flourishes of "El Califa" into a noodly and spacious deep house production, replete with pillowy, gauzy pads.

 

PRICE: $40.00

CAT #: KK 130LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

This River Only Brings Poison was released in 2002 as the sixth full-length album of Chris Hooson's Dakota Suite project. This first-ever vinyl edition of the record includes four bonus pieces and makes it possible for fans to re-evaluate one of the most crucial Dakota Suite albums in the project's vast discography while also providing new listeners with an entry point into its intricate musical cosmos. With contributions by artists as diverse as steel guitarist Bruce Kaphan and drummer Tim Mooney from American Music Club, Derald Daugherty, and Laura and Chris Donohue as well as long-time collaborators such as David Buxton, Colin Dunkley, and Ed Collins, This River Only Brings Poison turned out as a sonically rich and stylistically versatile as it is emotionally multi-layered.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: KEPLARREV 001X

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Multila was the third album by Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti under the moniker Vladislav Delay. It compiles the Huone and Ranta 12" EPs Ripatti released on Basic Channel's Chain Reaction label in 1999 and 2000. The album features six hauntingly murky dub ambient tracks and the impressive 22-minute techno odyssey "Huone." More than 20 years after its original release as a full-length CD album (Chain Reaction), these iconic recordings of modern electronic music are now available again as a double vinyl edition, featuring a revised artwork by Marc Hohmann that matches the new design of the Whisteblower and Entain reissues.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: KEPLARREV 016LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The Keplar label presents the next instalment in a series of reissues from the catalogue of Sasu Ripatti's seminal Vladislav Delay project. Originally released on Mille Plateaux, the vinyl edition of Entain from 2000 omitted two shorter tracks and included all others in an abridged form. With this reissue, the full album as it was pressed on CD is finally made available on vinyl. Besides a new remaster by Kassian Troyer, it was also given new cover artwork by Marc Hohmann that picks up on that of the Whistleblower reissue, released in early 2023 by Keplar. This serial visual approach highlights the conceptual continuity between those masterful explorations of the interplay between dub techniques, noise, and repetition. Ripatti himself had reworked material from 1999's Ele album for the release of Entain, which means that it can be considered the debut album proper of his Vladislav Delay project. It saw the Finnish artist aim more vigorously for abstraction than in his earlier releases as Vladislav Delay for labels such as Chain Reaction, which were collected on the iconic Multila compilation in 2000. To mark this special occasion, Multila will be repressed by Keplar with a new artwork that matches the new design of Whisteblower and Entain. Multila and Entain correspond with each other conceptually as much as they seem to differ on a musical level. From the very first moments of the 22-minute-long opener "Kohde," it becomes clear that Entain takes things further away from the dancefloor, aiming less for physical impact than for intellectual stimulation. A sort of electronic minimal music, it was primarily interested in letting discrete elements freely come into play with one another. Much like Multila, however, Entain highlighted the subtle differences embedded in what only feels like repetitive music. Entain took the dub techno formula further than any other record before it -- onwards into the realms of pure abstraction.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: KOM 472EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

It's been a few years since Captain Mustache took a ride with Kompakt -- 2021, to be exact, when he released the Everything single, and subsequently made an appearance on that year's entry in the Total series. But this visionary French producer has been busy, indeed fiercely productive, ever since, appearing on Helena Hauff's Return To Disorder and John Digweed's Bedrock, collaborating with Dave Clarke, Popof, The Advent, Paris The Black Fu, Keith Tucker from AUX88, and two beautifully eloquent albums, Tourbillon Nocturne and Indigo Memories. But with The Super Album, Captain Mustache returns to Kompakt with his most sublime collection yet. On The Super Album, the Captain soundtracks an imagined "whole day for party people." It's a day in the life, but all in service to the pleasures of nightlife; the dancefloor is The Super Album's beacon, your body the pliable material molded into evocative new shapes by this dense, hypnotic, brilliantly pop album. Featuring guest appearance from Speakwave (aka dynArec), Arnaud Rebotini of Black Strobe, Amanda Lear, Play Paul, and Foremost Poets.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: KOM 473LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP+7" version. Kompakt unveils the third volume of J?rg Burger's Velvet Desert Music compilation series, dedicated to music that hits the sweet spot between the cinematic, the (pop) ambient, and the psychedelic. With Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3, Burger and his friends wander afar, taking trips away from, or adjacent to, the dancefloor that's acted so long as the crucible for the Kompakt aesthetic. Because it's such a broad church, Velvet Desert Music admits all kinds of new experiences as well, with Burger looking for music that "leads out of the desert into the velvet universe." The roster has changed, with new contributors Flug 8 and Seb Martel, both with his trio Las Ondas Marteles and with Chocolate Genius and Zsela as La Finca, joining regulars The Novotones, Mount Obsidian, The Golden Bug, Paulor, and Sascha Funke. Burger himself reappears, too, alongside Fritz Ackermann (of The Novotones), Max W?rden, and Thore Pfeiffer, in The Velvet Circle. A Mount Obsidian remix of "Sacrosanct" by Burger's The Black Frame -project is a swirling treat for the ears. Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3 is a triumph of a compilation that takes the psychedelic visions of its predecessors and looks for the desert within, a dusty kiss, a road-movie hallucination flickering on the listener's eyelids, a cinematic projection from deep inside the mind.

 

PRICE: $36.50

CAT #: KOM 477LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Double LP version. I Talk To Water, the fifth album for Kompakt by Danish producer K?lsch, is the artist's most personal statement yet. While all the trademarks that make his music so popular and powerful are still present -- lush, melodic techno; swooping, trance-like figures; sensuous, shivery texturology -- I Talk To Water is also a deep and intimate rapprochement with family and history, a beautiful, finely detailed document of loss and memory, and a tracing of the long, unbroken thread of grief that runs through our lives once we've lost those we loved. The emotional core of I Talk To Water, then, is a cache of recordings by K?lsch's father, Patrick Reilly, who passed away in 2003 from brain cancer. With time rendered elastic by the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, its sudden, alienating shifts in everyday living, K?lsch found himself reflecting on his father's passing and ongoing spiritual presence, thinking about how best to memorialize such a significant figure in his own life. Those recordings opened a gateway, of sorts, for K?lsch to move through -- a way to bring past and present together and entwine them in a sensitive, poetic manner. Recordings of Reilly appear on three songs across I Talk To Water. Also featuring Perry Farrell.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: KOMP 178CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Kompakt unveils the third volume of J?rg Burger's Velvet Desert Music compilation series, dedicated to music that hits the sweet spot between the cinematic, the (pop) ambient, and the psychedelic. With Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3, Burger and his friends wander afar, taking trips away from, or adjacent to, the dancefloor that's acted so long as the crucible for the Kompakt aesthetic. Because it's such a broad church, Velvet Desert Music admits all kinds of new experiences as well, with Burger looking for music that "leads out of the desert into the velvet universe." The roster has changed, with new contributors Flug 8 and Seb Martel, both with his trio Las Ondas Marteles and with Chocolate Genius and Zsela as La Finca, joining regulars The Novotones, Mount Obsidian, The Golden Bug, Paulor, and Sascha Funke. Burger himself reappears, too, alongside Fritz Ackermann (of The Novotones), Max W?rden, and Thore Pfeiffer, in The Velvet Circle. A Mount Obsidian remix of "Sacrosanct" by Burger's The Black Frame -project is a swirling treat for the ears. Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3 is a triumph of a compilation that takes the psychedelic visions of its predecessors and looks for the desert within, a dusty kiss, a road-movie hallucination flickering on the listener's eyelids, a cinematic projection from deep inside the mind.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: KOMP 179CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

I Talk To Water, the fifth album for Kompakt by Danish producer K?lsch, is the artist's most personal statement yet. While all the trademarks that make his music so popular and powerful are still present -- lush, melodic techno; swooping, trance-like figures; sensuous, shivery texturology -- I Talk To Water is also a deep and intimate rapprochement with family and history, a beautiful, finely detailed document of loss and memory, and a tracing of the long, unbroken thread of grief that runs through our lives once we've lost those we loved. The emotional core of I Talk To Water, then, is a cache of recordings by K?lsch's father, Patrick Reilly, who passed away in 2003 from brain cancer. With time rendered elastic by the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, its sudden, alienating shifts in everyday living, K?lsch found himself reflecting on his father's passing and ongoing spiritual presence, thinking about how best to memorialize such a significant figure in his own life. Those recordings opened a gateway, of sorts, for K?lsch to move through -- a way to bring past and present together and entwine them in a sensitive, poetic manner. Recordings of Reilly appear on three songs across I Talk To Water. Also featuring Perry Farrell.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: MUS 279LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Tube Alloys have made a type of record that is in short supply these days. A record that is untethered to prevailing musical trends, punk or otherwise, in either their native Los Angeles or further afield. It's in keeping with a tradition, sure, one pioneered by bands like Wire, Swell Maps, and This Heat, who sought to combine the vitality of punk music with an omnivorous ear for the avant-garde. But Tube Alloys honor this tradition with their disinterest in nostalgia and their ability to cast an irreverent eye towards our present and -- crucially -- our future, rather than endlessly rehashing our past. In short, Tube Alloys are adventurous where many of their contemporaries are content to play it safe. In doing so they tick a lot of boxes for those with open minds and open ears, while simultaneously making sense of the innate contradictions found in any great work of art. Their songs are muscular without being boneheaded, clever without being nerdy. A dry Australian humor is barked with an American sense of self-assuredness. Songs end before you've had a chance to digest their brilliance, or they explode right when you think they've already peaked. And just when you think you're comfortably along for the ride, the songs disappear altogether, and the record's centerpiece abruptly takes shape as an oblique spoken riff on "Time." And time it is, for something a little different.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: LULLP 007LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

AFAR is a Berlin based music duo consisting of Elena on vocals and guitar, and Joseph on synthesizers and live hardware. Their forthcoming album stems from the misty heights of the Pyrenees, hidden and sheltered within thick, old walls. The whole album was written and recorded in four winter weeks. An intense and demanding period, yet liberating and empowering. The Refuge is the collection of stories, the process of it is a story on its own. All tracks are touching, drifting, driving. Soft and raw voices meet between rough synthesizer lines. The result ranges from powerful breakouts to fragile moments. Honest and vulnerable, bold and brave; a true journey, a real refuge.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: LR 336LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Lilith present a reissue of Os Mutantes' self-titled debut, originally released in 1968. With the release of their debut LP in 1968, Os Mutantes cracked the already red hot Tropicalia scene wide open. Fusing traditional Brazilian music, psychedelia, rock, and a good dose of pure experimentation, they quickly became giants both in Brazil and in the outer fringes of pop music, where they have managed to reign supreme for the past four decades. Not an easy task in such a crowded arena. Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Jorge Ben, Tom Z?, and Os Mutantes? What do these people put in their drinking water? The band went on to release several more albums, but this one was their magnum opus. Obi "bookmark" Japanese style; 180 gram vinyl; Includes CD.

 

PRICE: $42.00

CAT #: LOKDLP 001LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Toying with the familiar but not afraid to break with expectations, AVEM presents a versatile range of works that make up his debut album. Dream State was largely written and produced in times of the pandemic, specifically during lockdown periods -- a context that grants the album an air of melancholic isolation. Offering seven songs on a double LP, it marks the collective imprint LOKD's vinyl premiere. Merging sounds of electronica, house and techno, Dream State finds its place neatly outside of common categories. In the past years, the Swiss DJ, producer and live act has made a name for himself with a steadily growing catalogue: not only through a handful of EPs, but also by releasing countless singles, remix- es and live recordings. Instrumentation ranges from studio percussion recordings, synthesizer and drum machine classics, all the way to ethereal piano and vocal performances; all performed and recorded by the artist himself. Familiar structures of house and techno are introduced, only to be broken again by gleaming twists and turns. A focus on percussion is apparent throughout the album, be it in the dynamic texture of drum recordings or in the evolving break-beat rhythms of a guiding bass drum. Dream State tells an ephemeral tale of the uncertain, treading through an unique territory of opposites -- from rapid progression to outright hypnosis, from weightless yearning all the way to euphoric catharsis.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: MAGAZINE 021CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Friday Dunard pulls the sawtooth from trance. Now he whistles elegiac prayers to mystical rivers on it. He lets it bubble out of battered cans of Monster Energy. He sings a protestant canon with it. And in the end, it's trance again. Dunard shares the river with Karlsruhe, the harbor with the Cologne label Magazine. There, not far from a SPA, the Gerade EP docked a few years ago. In the summer of 2023, it's "Cast off!" for Rhenus Aeternus -- the first Dunard album on Magazine.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: MIA 058LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

The Pitch is a quartet made up of Boris Baltschun, Koen Nutters, Michael Thieke, and Morten Joh. Founded in Berlin in 2009, they play a hypnotic form of structured improvisation full of acoustic exploration and electronic intervention. On Neutral Star, The Pitch are joined by Australian guitarist/composer extraordinaire Julia Reidy for a record of star gazing electro-acoustic jazz. Reidy's playing and compositional technique between Takoma-style fingerpicking and Glenn Branca-esque microtonality, perfectly complements the loose improvisational framework The Pitch is providing. Accompanied by constant eruptions of vibraphone, clarinet, electronics and double bass punctuation -- while permanently questioned by Reidy's drippingly pearly steel guitar work. The fact that Neutral Star was recorded in one take (by Rabih Beaini in his Morphine Raum studio/venue) in front of a live audience and without overdubs is hard to believe, even for the trained ear. The recording appears to be too multilayered for a single snapshot, with its compositional structures constantly shifting and moving against themselves, counterintuitively and anti-cyclically. Clear LP. Edition of 240 copies. Includes download code.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: MIND 722P-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

FM broadcast live, Volkhaus, Zurich, April 21st, 1986. The godfathers of psychobilly/garage punk.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: MIND 728P-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

The Ramones, live at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney, Australia on July 8th, 1980. Their first visit to Australia in mid-1980, during their tour in support of the Phil Spector-produced End Of The Century album (1979).

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: MINIMOOD 024EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Zakmina presents a commanding dark disco release for Minimood with two spellbinding originals filled with unique and captivating sounds. The EP is complemented by compelling remixes from Curses and Rude 66. "Makam" comprises of an alluring array of instruments that create a mesmerizing atmosphere with an oriental mood to it. Curses retains this atmosphere in his remix, albeit with a deeper and darker tone. Unfolding a massive EBM vibe, "Mental Syndicate" forms a dancefloor destroyer that is driven by a vigorous kick and snare. The reimagining from Rude 66 features intergalactic vocals, raw electro sounds, as well as a truly addictive hookline.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: MOM 043CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Set for release via Modern Obscure Music, Ra?l Refree and Pedro Vian unveil their highly anticipated collaborative debut album Font de la Vera Pau. Two creative minds from the Barcelona avant-garde music scene, the pair combine on a boundary-pushing release that oozes with artistic vision and creative genius. The album, simmered slowly and in complete complicity, showcases a strong musical connection interwoven in each of its nine compositions. A grand piano, a synthesizer, and a positive organ engage in a dialogue that breathes life into a hypnotic universe with psychedelic and minimalist nuances. Effortlessly merging a diverse array of influences, Font de la Vera Pau invites us on a transcendental and reflective journey. The pair allow space for the spirituality of cosmic jazz figures like Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, the enveloping ambient soundscapes of Japan's Haruomi Hosono and Hiroshi Yoshimura, and the meditative minimalism of Steve Reich or Terry Riley.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: MOM 043LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

LP version. Set for release via Modern Obscure Music, Ra?l Refree and Pedro Vian unveil their highly anticipated collaborative debut album Font de la Vera Pau. Two creative minds from the Barcelona avant-garde music scene, the pair combine on a boundary-pushing release that oozes with artistic vision and creative genius. The album, simmered slowly and in complete complicity, showcases a strong musical connection interwoven in each of its nine compositions. A grand piano, a synthesizer, and a positive organ engage in a dialogue that breathes life into a hypnotic universe with psychedelic and minimalist nuances. Effortlessly merging a diverse array of influences, Font de la Vera Pau invites us on a transcendental and reflective journey. The pair allow space for the spirituality of cosmic jazz figures like Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, the enveloping ambient soundscapes of Japan's Haruomi Hosono and Hiroshi Yoshimura, and the meditative minimalism of Steve Reich or Terry Riley.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: MORR 200CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

For their fourth album, Bear In Town, indie avant-pop supergroup Spirit Fest made a virtue of distance, with group members split across Europe, and recording sessions taking place after a brief 2021 tour of Europe. The six songs on this album illuminate different aspects of the transnational quintet's character -- lovely, heart-rending pop songs; melancholy chants; the joys of simple repetition -- with the group's guitar pop tended by gentle flourishes of piano and electronics. Some of those flourishes were spirited onto Bear In Town across the waves, with Mat Fowler (Bons, Jam Money) contributing from Britain, while the body of the music was recorded in a small apartment studio in Munich by the other members of Spirit Fest: Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats), Markus Acher (The Notwist) and Cico Beck (Joasinho, Aloa Input). Bear In Town is concise and powerful, the infectious joy of the spirit communicated, beautifully, by melodies that balance the heartfelt with the melancholy. It's all the more impressive given this material was put down live in the studio, with a few vocal overdubs. The depth of feeling at the core of Spirit Fest's music is evident from the opening notes of Bear In Town. "Kou-Kou Land," the first song on the album, recalls several earlier Tenniscoats songs in the way the musicians weave gentle complexity around a simple, repeated chant. "Lost & Found" revolves around a delightful descending chord change that breaks up the swaying, folksy verses, gorgeous electronic whirrs and purring winds floating through the song. The following "In Our House" possesses such sweet sadness, it's one of Spirit Fest's most moving songs yet. "Like A Plane" repurposes a song that Markus Acher originally wrote and recorded for his solo EP of the same title, released on a 2022 10" on Morr Music. The original was a gentle, introverted lament, but the version on Bear In Town has a widescreen tenderness, its melancholy framed by raindrop piano. The album concludes with two moments of playful splendor, the bossa-inflected "Hill Blo," and the driving title track, both led by Saya, who is in stunning voice on this album; on "Bear In Town," her awestruck wonder perfectly captures the sense of possibility in the song's capacious chords. Like the rest of the album, it's full of kindness, rich with psych-pop splendor -- a balm for troubled times.

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: MORR 200LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. For their fourth album, Bear In Town, indie avant-pop supergroup Spirit Fest made a virtue of distance, with group members split across Europe, and recording sessions taking place after a brief 2021 tour of Europe. The six songs on this album illuminate different aspects of the transnational quintet's character -- lovely, heart-rending pop songs; melancholy chants; the joys of simple repetition -- with the group's guitar pop tended by gentle flourishes of piano and electronics. Some of those flourishes were spirited onto Bear In Town across the waves, with Mat Fowler (Bons, Jam Money) contributing from Britain, while the body of the music was recorded in a small apartment studio in Munich by the other members of Spirit Fest: Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats), Markus Acher (The Notwist) and Cico Beck (Joasinho, Aloa Input). Bear In Town is concise and powerful, the infectious joy of the spirit communicated, beautifully, by melodies that balance the heartfelt with the melancholy. It's all the more impressive given this material was put down live in the studio, with a few vocal overdubs. The depth of feeling at the core of Spirit Fest's music is evident from the opening notes of Bear In Town. "Kou-Kou Land," the first song on the album, recalls several earlier Tenniscoats songs in the way the musicians weave gentle complexity around a simple, repeated chant. "Lost & Found" revolves around a delightful descending chord change that breaks up the swaying, folksy verses, gorgeous electronic whirrs and purring winds floating through the song. The following "In Our House" possesses such sweet sadness, it's one of Spirit Fest's most moving songs yet. "Like A Plane" repurposes a song that Markus Acher originally wrote and recorded for his solo EP of the same title, released on a 2022 10" on Morr Music. The original was a gentle, introverted lament, but the version on Bear In Town has a widescreen tenderness, its melancholy framed by raindrop piano. The album concludes with two moments of playful splendor, the bossa-inflected "Hill Blo," and the driving title track, both led by Saya, who is in stunning voice on this album; on "Bear In Town," her awestruck wonder perfectly captures the sense of possibility in the song's capacious chords. Like the rest of the album, it's full of kindness, rich with psych-pop splendor -- a balm for troubled times.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: MUSIQ 255LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Mule Musiq present the first vinyl release of Kuniyuki's Walking In The Naked City, originally released in 2009 on CD. It's a first-class mixture of jazz, African, soul, and modern electronic music. It could be considered a masterpiece of its scene.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: MUSIQ 259LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

A vacation through an imaginary pleasure-dome by means of ambient house, airy dub and at-times schizophrenic breakbeat. Fantastic Man teams up with Tokyo's Mule Musiq to deliver his debut LP. Comprising of nine tracks, Utopioid advances further into the realm of sci-fi influenced club and esoteric electronica -- a vacation through an imaginary pleasure-dome by means of ambient house, airy dub and at-times schizophrenic breakbeat. Written in 2019 and 2020 across Berlin, the Carioca Spheres of Rio, and his hometown of Melbourne, Utopioid expands and adapts Fantastic Man's much loved musical tropes for long format. It's a well-balanced and deeply crafted album and features a cameo by fellow Melbourne rising-star Memphis on "Mazes," resurrects the spirit of the nineties Rompler on "Forbidden Fiction," and glides you through peak-acid euphoria with "D'Oxygen" and "Diaspora." Utopioid follows a series of recent 12"s, which include DJ Mentality on his own Superconscious Records and Solar Surfing on Stuttgart's Kitjen along with his 2016 LP titled Altitude Attitudes under the alias Mind Lotion on Parisian label Antinote.

 

PRICE: $38.00

CAT #: MOV 2953LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"To this day, jazz pianists are influenced by Bill Evans by his use of impressionist harmony, interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and his trademark rhythmically independent, 'singing' melodic lines. Evans gained his first spotlight when joining Miles Davis' sextet during the time Kind of Blue was recorded. After leaving the sextet, Evans began his career as bandleader, which he finished in his last trio with Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. This trio recorded Brilliant in 1980, just before Evans' passing. Brilliant is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on translucent green colored vinyl."

 

PRICE: $47.00

CAT #: MOV 2954BLUE-LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Archie Shepp's Black Ballads was released in 1992. This double LP features eleven great jazz ballads including classics such as 'Embraceable You' and 'Georgia On My Mind' by the tenor saxophonist. Shepp is supported by pianist Horace Parlan, bassist Wayne Dockery and drummer Steve McRaven. Black Ballads is available as a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on translucent blue colored vinyl."

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: R 134LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Double LP version. Skalpel is a nu-jazz classic. On their debut and sophomore albums Skalpel and Konfusion (Ninja Tune) they were able to resurrect the dusty spirit of the '60s and '70s jazz and reimagine it for the 21st century audiophiles. They created emotionally charged music, sophisticated in its structure. After ten years Skalpel returned in 2014 with Transit, an album that segued from sample-based music into compositions created on virtual instruments. Their last studio album Origins (R 132LP, 2022) was an inspiring contemporary vision adapting various currents of electronica and dance music of the millennium era. The latest release earned them a Polish Grammy -- Fryderyk Award. The journey continues as Marcin Cichy and Igor Pud?o present Skalpel Big Band. Patryk Pilasiewicz, composer and musician from Pozna?, who is the originator of the idea, dissected and revised Skalpel's music for a seventeen-person big band. The idea was to weave new, acoustic interpretation of Skalpel's compositions with their original electronic sound.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: ODA 002LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The organic minimalism of composer and producer Kirk Barley is collected on his new studio album Marionette, released via Odda Recordings. Whether drawing from field recordings, found sound, instrumental improvisations or synthetic processes, Barley's compositions evoke unfolding sound worlds, as simple ideas or motifs are layered and developed into complex set-pieces that reveal themselves over time. Marionette showcases the breadth and variety of the Yorkshire-born artist's sound, weaving together familiar and uncanny moods of rural England and its Victorian architecture, as suggested by the gated garden print of the album's cover. Unfurling between physical textures -- the patina of vinyl crackle or gentle rain -- and the hyper-real spaces that his music inhabits, Barley describes the compositions as "landscape or static scene paintings," with many of the album's tracks taking nature's rhythms as their compositional cue. Drawing from jazz, minimalism and techno, Barley focuses on the detailed qualities of sound, experimenting with time signatures, temporals and tuning systems. His esoteric alter-ego Bambooman (2013-2018) found a home on Matthew Herbert's Accidental imprint, releasing the album Whispers in 2017. In contrast, under the pseudonym Church Andrews (most notably in collaboration with drummer Matt Davies), he produces synthetic, often beat-focused music, using digital synthesis and algorithmic composition techniques, with the live drum performances triggering and modulating Barley's synths. The duo has recently performed at festivals such as Rewire and Waking Life, filmed sessions for Fact Magazine and Slate & Ash, and recently had their music played out by Aphex Twin. Under his own name, Barley released his debut album Landscapes (TTTT 010LP) in 2019 on 33-33 Records and received support from the likes of NTS Radio and BBC 6 Music. Barley has performed at events across the UK and Europe alongside the likes of Andy Stott, Beatrice Dillon, Jan Jelinek, MF DOOM, and Madlib. He has also completed commissioned work for the British Art Show, Camden Arts Centre, MSCTY and the Open Music Archive.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: RU 001LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The inaugural release on KMRU's own fledgling OFNOT imprint, Dissolution Grip is an ambitious project that emerged from his studies at Berlin's prestigious UDK. Guided by Jasmine Guffond at Berlin's Universit?t der K?nste (better known as UDK), KMRU looked at waveforms -- the visual representation of sound itself -- and embarked on a process where he would write scores from the shapes, gradually turning the scores into raw synth sounds. Each sound is birthed from one of KMRU's field recordings, but none of those recordings are audible in their original form. The album's opening side "Till Hurricane Bisect" is a 15-minute epic that evolves at its own glacial pace, carefully transforming blustering wind sounds into gasping drones, glassy oscillations and choked distortion. Cosmic and meditative, it's a testament to KMRU's skill as a sound engineer and patience as a composer, combining the gentle world building of his acclaimed Editions Mego album Peel (EMEGO 289CD/LP, 2020) with the rumbling energy of Limen, last year's collaboration with Aho Ssan. On the title track, KMRU takes the opportunity to flex his orchestral muscle, conducting a cast of warbling synth tones into a durational symphony. Starting as quietly as a whisper, Dissolution Grip expands at its own pace until it's a dense wall of harmony, powerful but never completely overwhelming. It is music embedded with a rich sense of place that informs us of KMRU's past and present, and signals where his musical philosophy might take us in the future.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: PL 138LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Play Loud! will release the entire recordings of the Manchester post-punk band Gods Gift (1979-1985), some for the first time ever. In heavy rotation at the BBC in the early 80s. Mark E. Smith was a fan too. Gods Gift guitar player Steve Murphy compiled 11 songs for what will be their first LP ever. Includes DVD (NTSC, region-free) with a live show in Rotterdam and extensive liner notes plus a postcard."Gods Gift were around when lots of Manchester groups were gaining fame and fortune. Manchester spawned a bleak soundtrack for the music loving youth of the time. The Gothic catacombs were the breeding place of much anger and consternation. Some groups wanted to be amusing, some wanted to be arty, some wanted to be doom-laden, but most wanted to be famous. Gods Gift wanted to shout their rage and hatred at a world that wasn't listening to anything as irrelevant as people...The songs on this new album were a long time in the making. They are angry songs and anti- everything. The entire back catalog of Gods Gift songs and a video will be available as digital downloads very soon through the German outlet play loud! They are priceless jewels from a group that cared and mattered. Buy them, listen to them as loud as you can and go out and demand to be heard!" --Steve Murphy, June 2023

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: PL 142LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

White vinyl. Play Loud! Productions present the first reissue of Roky Erickson's All That May Do My Rhyme, originally released in 1994. Roky Erickson is a legend. Former member of the 13th Floor Elevators, he was considered the white James Brown. Drug problems and diagnosed schizophrenia made him an outsider. By the '90s, he was struggling to survive on a $200 monthly social security check. In 1990, artists like R.E.M., ZZ Top, and the Jesus and Mary Chain recorded his songs for a tribute album. Erickson performed publicly for the first time in many years at the Austin Music Awards. In 1994, he returned to the studio with guitarists Charlie Sexton and the Butthole Surfers' Paul Leary to record All That May Do My Rhyme. This record was released on CD, cassette, and vinyl in 1994 on Paul Leary's Trance Syndicate Records. Notes from the original press release: "Trance Syndicate is pleased to present the first studio recording in almost a decade by one of the most gifted, most influential, most inspired singer/songwriters from the Republic of Texas since Buddy Holly. Roky Erickson is back! performing new songs and a few classics in one of the best studios in Texas, backed by some of Texas' finest musicians." This is no cheap live tape, crummy reissue, nor a slimy bootleg. This is the real thing.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: MALONE 003CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Mal-One's new album starts with running through the radio dial, looking for some suitable music to listen to. These snippets are actually samples of songs from his previous album It's All Punk Rock, this time declaring the news Punk Rock Is Back! Maybe some young guns might in some small way be inspired and find in Mal-One's current efforts that "anything is possible" and the true meaning of punk was in fact "Do It Yourself." The vinyl version of this release includes a poster that is part of Mal-Ones continuing Street Art project that involves putting up posters around London. Included in the album packaging also is a signed and blind stamped limited print of one of Mal-One's works What Is It About Punk That's So Different So Appealing. A punk collage that just carries one word in among its multiple punk images and that word is PUNK.

 

PRICE: $21.50

CAT #: MALONE 003LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Mal-One's new album starts with running through the radio dial, looking for some suitable music to listen to. These snippets are actually samples of songs from his previous album It's All Punk Rock, this time declaring the news Punk Rock Is Back! Maybe some young guns might in some small way be inspired and find in Mal-One's current efforts that "anything is possible" and the true meaning of punk was in fact "Do It Yourself." The vinyl version of this release includes a poster that is part of Mal-Ones continuing Street Art project that involves putting up posters around London. Included in the album packaging also is a signed and blind stamped limited print of one of Mal-One's works What Is It About Punk That's So Different So Appealing. A punk collage that just carries one word in among its multiple punk images and that word is PUNK.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: RRS 140CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Hailing from Sunderland in England's industrial northeast, the Toy Dolls infused their take on punk with ample doses of working-class humor, the three-chord format a launching pad for witty originals and clever cover tunes. 1983 debut Dig That Groove Baby captures the group at their finest, their twisted rendition of kiddies tune "Nellie The Elephant" topping the indie charts; the title track is an infectious singalong, while "Spiders In The Dressing Room" and "Glenda And The Test Tube Baby" are more irreverent tongue in cheek, all delivered in the peculiar androgynous accent of frontman Michael "Olga" Algar. Essential!

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: RRS 191CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Blue color vinyl version. When Fat Bob's Feet was released by Receiver Records in 1991, it found Sunderland's cheeky punk act Toy Dolls welcoming bassist John Casey into the fold, the latest in a long line joining founding frontman Olga and drummer Martin Yule, who'd been present since Bare Faced Cheek; the favorites here include "The Sphinx Stinks," "Bitten By A Bed Bug," and the immortal "Kids In Tyne & Wear," a northeast England punk recasting of Kim Wilde's "Kids In America," plus there's a guest appearance by Ashbrooke, Olga's dog, and, unusually for the band, no sign of any symphonic interludes. A much-loved Toy Dolls classic!

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: RRS 197LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Non-standard Californian punkband United Experiments of America was formed in San Francisco in 1978, centering on frontwoman Denise Semiroux, alias De De Troit, and guitarist Michael Kowalsky, who tragically died of a heroin overdose that same year. Debut album Illusions of Grandeur, released by Posh Boy in 1980, captured the tense atmospheres and in-between nature of the group's sound, part hardcore and part dirge-rock. With original pressings trading at sky-high prices, this reissue comes with rarities "Social Circle" and the angst-ridden theme song "U.X.A.," from the esteemed Tooth And Nail compilation. Intense!

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: RAJATON 002D-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Sasu Ripatti presents the fourth volume in his Dancefloor Classics series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Music for imaginary dancefloors, released on Ripatti's own label Rajaton.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: RAJATON 003D-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Vladislav Delay presents the fourth EP in his Hide Behind The Silence series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Intuitive and raw music, momentary and reflective, released on Ripatti's own label Rajaton.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: R-M 209CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

ASA (Arturo Lanz, Saverio Evangelista, AtomTM) are the last three futurists on earth. Radial is the result of a vivid creative merge between Esplendor Geome?trico and AtomTM. A transparent diamond formed by a heavy implosion. Its underlying massive mechanics are covered by a crystal surface made to cut reality in half. Just one letter short of "radical", this album is no less than exactly that -- an orgy of powerful, blunt repetition and hyperbolic simplicity, a profound evocation of nothingness and its surroundings. The 13 tracks (which comprise the digital full-length version) of Radial are the exact expansion of sonic ideas those three artists have explored during the last couple of decades. Unexpectedly so, this makes this production an outstandingly atemporal one -- some would even classify it as meta-contemporary. A selection of ten tracks of the digital full-length album on CD.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: R-M 210CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Immerse yourself in an ethereal sonic voyage with Dasha Rush's latest electronic music masterpiece, Contemplating. This ambient album takes listeners on a transcendental journey through ethereal landscapes and immersive textures. The album's title perfectly encapsulates its essence. From the very first note, Contemplating captivates with its intricate layers of atmospheric harmonies, meticulously weaving together a tapestry of minimalistic sonic elements. As the ethereal soundscape unfolds, listeners are invited to embrace the moment of stillness in a realm where emotions and thoughts intertwine, creating a sonic experience that is both introspective and otherworldly.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: R-M 210LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. Immerse yourself in an ethereal sonic voyage with Dasha Rush's latest electronic music masterpiece, Contemplating. This ambient album takes listeners on a transcendental journey through ethereal landscapes and immersive textures. The album's title perfectly encapsulates its essence. From the very first note, Contemplating captivates with its intricate layers of atmospheric harmonies, meticulously weaving together a tapestry of minimalistic sonic elements. As the ethereal soundscape unfolds, listeners are invited to embrace the moment of stillness in a realm where emotions and thoughts intertwine, creating a sonic experience that is both introspective and otherworldly.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: RANDB 092CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Issued here for the first time, this previously unreleased recording is taken from a tape reel found among the personal effects of Bix Curtis, resulting in a record -- quite literally -- of a Tubby Hayes band that existed for one night only. Recorded live at Soho's legendary Flamingo club, this session captures Hayes and his men in devastating form, playing repertoire the very height of hip. Includes 16-page booklet written by Simon Spillett.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: RANDB 093CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Most of our people have never had it so good." When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan uttered his famous era-defining phrase in the summer of 1957 he wasn't thinking of the UK's modern jazz community. Yet his words were an equally apt summary of their fortunes that year. After the bitter defeats of 1956, when America delivered reminder upon reminder of its musical superiority, London's modernists were finally fighting back. They had a new enclave, the Flamingo Club, with membership in its thousands, and a new cause celebre in the Jazz Couriers, a quintet of genuine kick-ass quality. Add to that, exciting new bands led by Don Rendell, Tony Kinsey, and Johnny Dankworth and it was clear that the first generation of the capital's "mods" were on the way up. Sleeve notes by Simon Spillett. Featuring Ronnie Scott Sextet, Dave Lee Trio, Johnny Keating All Stars, Tubby Hayes/Victor Feldman Sextet, Kenny Baker's Half Dozen, Derek Smith, Don Rendell Jazz Six, Vic Ash Plus Four, Dizzy Reece Quintet, Tony Kinsey Quintet, Jimmy Deuchar Sextet, The Jazz Couriers, Dick Heckstall-Smith Quintet, Johnny Dankworth, Kenny Graham's Afro Cubists, Melody Maker's All-Stars, Wes Montgomery, Milt Jackson, Carl Perkins Trio, Miles Davis, Horace Silver Quintet, Art Blakey Percussion Ensemble, Mose Allison, Ray Charles & Milt Jackson, Jimmy Smith Trio, Lorez Alexandria, Charles Mingus, Art Pepper, Barney Kessel, Thad Jones, Jimmy Giuffre 3, and the John Coltrane Sextet.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: RS 060LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Perth-born, Naarm-based duo Special Feelings, aka Naomi Robinson and Poli-Pearl, are stepping up on Bradley Zero's Rhythm Section label with their first LP. Across its nine tracks, Special Feelings combines the electrically improvisational feel of live performances, with snappy broken beat-esque percussions and house-inspired looping synth hooks. Tapping into the infectious collaborative spirit of Naarm's jazz community, Special Feelings are joined by a crew of the city's rising artists. Early iterations of Special Feelings' music drew on psychedelic sun-dappled rock, with Naomi playing guitar and singing alongside Poli-Pearl on the drums. Over the years, this has shapeshifted into Naomi on bass and rhythms, with Poli-Pearl helming synths and keys -- rooted in the sounds of Perth's and London's jazz of the moment, intertwined with Brainfeeder-nodding electronica. Today, Special Feelings' influences span from the deep grooves of Moodymann to the freewheeling horns of Emma Jean Thackray to the stepping drums of Kaidi Thatham, and beyond. Both Naomi and Poli-Pearl are self-taught multiinstrumentalists and producers; Naomi got her start playing in high school dream pop bands, before moving to Naarm to immerse herself in its musical communities, and study classical guitar at the University of Melbourne.

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: EZRDR 159CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"'This is definitely the most honest and mature record Deathchant has ever made.' That's Deathchant vocalist and guitarist T.J. Lemieux talking about the band's third and latest album, Thrones. Think of it as not just the follow-up to 2021's Waste, but the other side of the coin. Thrones just might be their heaviest record thus far. The band's seamless swirl of classic rock guitar harmonies, syrupy sludge, blues boogie and psych bombast has reached a thrilling new apex as Lemieux spins high-powered tales of reckoning from beyond the wall of sanity. Thematically, Lemieux and his bandmates -- bassist George Camacho, guitarist Doug Stuckey, and drummer Joe Herzog -- peel back the veneer of self-delusion to expose the fork in the road. Thrones was recorded live in a cabin in the remote mountain community of Frazier Park, CA, with trusty engineer Steve Schroeder (a.k.a. Schroeds). Overdubs were done at the cabin, Schroeder's Studio 3, and Lemieux's place. The album was produced by Lemieux and Schroeder."

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: RCD 2233CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

The combination of Espen Eriksen Trio and UK saxophone giant Andy Sheppard is truly a match made in jazz heaven, and in the words of Andy: "I knew from the first time I heard the trio play that I would fit right in. I loved the melodic sense and vibe and was thrilled when I was invited to guest with the trio in London in 2016." The common conclusion drawn in reviews of their first album Perfectly Unhappy was simply "more, please," and now Rune Grammofon is delighted to introduce As Good As It Gets, the quite brilliant follow-up. The two album titles aptly indicate a subtle change in mood, and it?s fair to say that the new album finds the trio slightly more-lively and sunny in parts, still highly melodic and lyrical, often with a typically Nordic melancholic signature (check the Grieg nod in album closer "Drifting Clouds"). Eriksen is a master of catchy tunes and when Sheppard adds his inimitable playing to the trio?s minimalistic approach, magic is created. Espen Eriksen Trio was formed in 2007 and released their debut album in 2010. As Good As It Gets is their seventh album, all on Rune Grammofon. Andreas Bye is one of Norway?s most requested drummers in jazz and pop and has played with Bugge Wesseltoft, John Scofield, Joshua Redman, Dhafer Yousef, Nils Petter Molv?r, and many others. With a career spanning over four decades, working together with the likes of George Russell, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, and numerous others, Andy Sheppard is truly one of Europe's leading saxophonists. As a leader he has recorded for labels like Antilles, Verve, Blue Note and lately four albums for ECM.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: RLP 3227LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

First time on vinyl features extra tracks than the CD. After five successful studio albums in 12 years, here is their first live album, by popular demand. A popular concert attraction in Norway through Europe, Russia and South East Asia, the trio have constantly been asked when they will release a concert recording. Five of the seven tracks were recorded live in concert at Oslo?s Nasjonal Jazzscene in 2018 and 2020, one at a special one-off intimate concert at Propeller Music Division in Oslo in 2020 and one in Poznan, Poland, in 2021.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: RLP 3233LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

LP version. The combination of Espen Eriksen Trio and UK saxophone giant Andy Sheppard is truly a match made in jazz heaven, and in the words of Andy: "I knew from the first time I heard the trio play that I would fit right in. I loved the melodic sense and vibe and was thrilled when I was invited to guest with the trio in London in 2016." The common conclusion drawn in reviews of their first album Perfectly Unhappy was simply "more, please," and now Rune Grammofon is delighted to introduce As Good As It Gets, the quite brilliant follow-up. The two album titles aptly indicate a subtle change in mood, and it?s fair to say that the new album finds the trio slightly more-lively and sunny in parts, still highly melodic and lyrical, often with a typically Nordic melancholic signature (check the Grieg nod in album closer "Drifting Clouds"). Eriksen is a master of catchy tunes and when Sheppard adds his inimitable playing to the trio?s minimalistic approach, magic is created. Espen Eriksen Trio was formed in 2007 and released their debut album in 2010. As Good As It Gets is their seventh album, all on Rune Grammofon. Andreas Bye is one of Norway?s most requested drummers in jazz and pop and has played with Bugge Wesseltoft, John Scofield, Joshua Redman, Dhafer Yousef, Nils Petter Molv?r, and many others. With a career spanning over four decades, working together with the likes of George Russell, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, and numerous others, Andy Sheppard is truly one of Europe's leading saxophonists. As a leader he has recorded for labels like Antilles, Verve, Blue Note and lately four albums for ECM.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: SHA 44003LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"The incomparable Yellowman is one of reggae's most popular artist, a dee jay/rapper with an uncanny knack for memorable lines and catchy melodies. His ability to entertain reigns supreme even when he's presenting a social commentary. During his early '80s breakthrough, when his prolific record sales made him the hottest new reggae artist on the scene, he frequently used his background as an albino who has experienced deprivation and prejudice as subject matter for his lyrics; he even boasted about it! In fact, the title of 'one in a million' is a direct reference to his albino condition. This LP is one of the high points of Yellowman's career , among the best of his break-through LPs . It includes such Yellowman hits as 'Operation Eradication,' (a serious commentary on the feared eradication square in Jamaica), 'Even Tide Fire,' and his signature rap 'Them A Mad Over Me,' making it a must for all yellow fans."

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: SCR 250CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Following the news that all three Lush albums are going to be reissued, Emma Anderson, the band's co-founder, has announced her debut solo album, Pearlies, which will be released by Sonic Cathedral. One of the most underrated British songwriters to emerge from the era that encompassed shoegaze and Britpop, she has teamed up with producer James Chapman (aka Maps) for this collection that combines effervescent electronic pop with psych and folk textures with lyrics covering themes such as confronting your fears, embracing independence and moving on in life. It arrives fully formed with a burnished beauty (aided by the mastering skills of Heba Kadry) that belies its somewhat protracted creation, which began with Emma feeling disillusioned after Lush's 2016 reunion came to an abrupt end. Left with songs and bits of music originally intended for the band, she began working with cellist and string arranger Audrey Riley and Robin Guthrie, formerly of the Cocteau Twins, both of whom encouraged her to sing her own songs. Covid put a temporary halt on proceedings, but the decision had been made. When Sonic Cathedral introduced her to James Chapman at the start of 2022, Pearlies quickly took shape and blossomed into a masterpiece, the perfect mix of Emma's incredible, idiosyncratic songwriting and James' electronic production nous. Plus, a little extra guitar magic on four tracks courtesy of Richard Oakes from Suede. The finished album has somehow written its own narrative. By her own admission, Emma tends to write words and "see what comes out", but Pearlies seems to tell the story of her decision to go it alone, with opener "I Was Miles Away" posing the question: "See if I make it on my own." The rest of the album provides the answer as it takes in everything from the unexpectedly funky first single "Bend The Round," to folky finger-picking and film theme references, via psych leaning electronic pop reminiscent of Goldfrapp or Melody's Echo Chamber. It concludes with "Clusters," a stunning, Stereolab-style groove which begins with the line "and now the party's over, the music's at the end". Thankfully, that is not the case. This incredible album is just the start of Emma's long-awaited solo journey.

 

PRICE: $39.50

CAT #: SP 034LTD-CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Nothing left but silence is Erik K. Skodvin's third solo album for Sonic Pieces and his most quiet to date. Subtitled as "Musical improvisations and quiet collages from the subconscious," Skodvin reduces his instruments to guitar, reverb and amp -- and creates a skeleton of eight hypnotic ragas that meanders in an eternal loop between ephemeral and singular. Only on the horizon it's possible to sense that Skodvin has also touched the neoclassical terrain in earlier productions -- on Nothing left but silence, however, he acts as a twilight player who is not afraid of the coldness of endless space and who knows how to subjugate the shadowiness of the visible world. Carried by the noise of the amp and the occasional click of the effects pedals, a monolithic, reduced blues emerges, whose mediumistic quality nevertheless reveals that Skodvin's music always comes from the body -- and as such is always searching for space. A space that -- in this case -- blends the vastness of the Norwegian steppe with the brittleness of American wasteland (as if Deathprod and Loren Connors were one and the same person), creating a persistent state between deceleration and absence of presence -- that leads Skodvin ever closer to the inner essence of sound. Initially recorded at Saal 3, Funkhaus, Berlin by Nils Frahm in 2015, the album has itself been subjected to silence as a forgotten relic, re-found and now released in a time where it might connect more with the contemporary state of mind. Welcome to the entrance to the periphery. CD version comes in edition of 150 copies, handmade textile artwork.

 

PRICE: $45.50

CAT #: SP 034LTD-LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. LP version comes in edition of 300 copies, handmade textile artwork, printed inner sleeve; includes download code. Nothing left but silence is Erik K. Skodvin's third solo album for Sonic Pieces and his most quiet to date. Subtitled as "Musical improvisations and quiet collages from the subconscious," Skodvin reduces his instruments to guitar, reverb and amp -- and creates a skeleton of eight hypnotic ragas that meanders in an eternal loop between ephemeral and singular. Only on the horizon it's possible to sense that Skodvin has also touched the neoclassical terrain in earlier productions -- on Nothing left but silence, however, he acts as a twilight player who is not afraid of the coldness of endless space and who knows how to subjugate the shadowiness of the visible world. Carried by the noise of the amp and the occasional click of the effects pedals, a monolithic, reduced blues emerges, whose mediumistic quality nevertheless reveals that Skodvin's music always comes from the body -- and as such is always searching for space. A space that -- in this case -- blends the vastness of the Norwegian steppe with the brittleness of American wasteland (as if Deathprod and Loren Connors were one and the same person), creating a persistent state between deceleration and absence of presence -- that leads Skodvin ever closer to the inner essence of sound. Initially recorded at Saal 3, Funkhaus, Berlin by Nils Frahm in 2015, the album has itself been subjected to silence as a forgotten relic, re-found and now released in a time where it might connect more with the contemporary state of mind. Welcome to the entrance to the periphery. CD version comes in edition of 150 copies, handmade textile artwork.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: SONIG 093LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

In spring 1994, Mouse on Mars contributed an exclusive piece to S?hk? Recordings' ambient radio project, a one-week public radio program that was aired citywide in Helsinki, Finland. Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner recorded sounds in and around their studio in D?sseldorf Bilk to construct one continuous composition that spanned the course of one neighborhood walk. Midi-controlled synths, samplers, analogue effects, tape delays, effect pedals, guitars and a jew's harp were juxtaposed with recordings captured during the walk. An additional microphone that pointed out of the studio window was occasionally dubbed into the mix. The resulting collage was broadcast just a few months before the group's debut album Vulvaland came out and never aired again. 30 years into the band's existence Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner revise the duo's history by producing three LPs that would place the band's discography under a slightly different light. Bilk marks the beginning of that investigation: a free-flowing assemblage of everything that vibrates and can be caught on tape. A 30-year-old recording with subtle new edits and additions. Recorded at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields by Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: ORBIT 030LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Prepare to delve into the transcendental realm of experimental soundscapes with the re-release of Experimental Audio Research's The K?ner Experiment. Featuring Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3), Thomas K?ner, Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) and others. Iconic album pressed on 180g heavyweight white vinyl. The artwork stays true to the original. Thomas K?ner's visionary work invites you to embark on an introspective journey where boundaries dissolve, and music becomes a profound experience. Each track is a portal to a world where sound is sculpted into something ethereal and thought-provoking. The echoes and glacial reveries of The Koner Experiment have been meticulously revitalized, with each track remastered for vinyl by the legendary John Rivers at Woodbine Street Studios. This release stands the test of time within the world of experimental music. Whether you're a seasoned enthusiast or a curious newcomer, this release is a captivating entry point into a universe of sound that defies convention.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: SSR 106LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

The debut LP from New York and Montreal's Stigmatism (featuring current and past members of Omegas, Lethal, S.H.I.T, Justice, and Mati) is finally upon us. Stigmatism plays a style of music that pays tribute to the Rat Cage Records era of New York City punk and hardcore without sounding like an old and stale tribute band. With their debut Ignorance In Power, Stigmatism gives fans of the genre exactly what they want, 13 intense blasts filled with hooks, heavy breakdowns, and lyrics that call attention to the consistent unending rise of antisemitism, fascism, and police corruption currently plaguing New York City. 350 copies on black vinyl with a fold out A2 poster with amazing artwork from Tavi Gibson.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: SVVRCH 083LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

After a debut single in 1977, forward-thinking Edinburgh punk band The Rezillos signed to Sire, leading the band to record their acclaimed debut Can't Stand the Rezillos in New York, where co-produced Bob Clearmountain drew out the best of their abilities. The anthemic "Top of the Pops" reached the UK top-20 and spirited punk covers of The Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over," Gerry & The Pacemakers' "I Like It," and Fleetwood Mac's "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight" added to the appeal. The band would soon split and reform as The Revillos, but nothing beats the power of this unmatched debut LP. Four bonus tracks included, great stuff!

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: TAIGA 021LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Warehouse find, last copies... May 30th, 2012 marked the 80th birthday of American visionary musician Pauline Oliveros. Needle Drop Jungle is a continuation of the celebration. Together with bandmates Stuart Dempster and David Gamper, Oliveros and company churned up a vigorous storm at their January 2011 residency in Seattle, captured on this double vinyl release. With the help of staff at DXArts, the Deep Listening Band recorded impromptu downpours unhindered by technical issues, a peak in their collective creative output. Suddenly and unexpectedly, David Gamper died on September 27th, 2011. Needle Drop Jungle thus includes the brightest moments from what have sadly become the last recordings of this exceptional trio. Along with the simultaneously released Pauline Oliveros Primordial/Lift 2LP, this title completes a tetralogy of Oliveros releases on Taiga that started with the Deep Listening Band Then & Now and Timeless Pulse Trio 2LPs. Needle Drop Jungle was mastered by James Plotkin, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl in an edition of 500. It comes packaged in a double-wide raw brown cardstock jacket with essays by the band and a flooded pocket. The jacket is encased in a custom slipcase, with gorgeous photographs by Michael S. Carlson from deep within the expansive Taiga forest's southern edge.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: LSD 69020LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Rare 1975 live and studio recordings by the Japanese psychedelic noise legends Les Rallizes D?nud?s.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: TO 033-22CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Written and performed by Youmna Saba. Recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut. Produced by Youmna Saba and Fadi Tabbal. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu. Wishah ("Veil" in Arabic) is a composition in five stages, written by Youmna Saba between 2021 and 2022, for voice, oud and electronics. Following her previous solo works Njoum (2014) and Arb'een (40) (2017), this album marks a significant turning point in Saba's journey. Created after leaving Beirut and settling in Paris, Wishah reveals a profound shift in her musical expression, informed by rigorous research in the sonic properties of sung Arabic phonemes and their role in shaping synthesized electronic sounds. The album employs a digital extension for the oud, a concept developed by Saba in her research project Ta?ma'. This device enhances the oud's sonic range, seamlessly integrating synthesized electronics. It also amplifies subtle, often overlooked sounds generated during playing, such as resonances and fingerboard friction. The composition is organized into five distinct stages, each contributing to a process of gradual revelation. As the tracks unfold, they strip away layers of constructed emotions and perceptions that have been intricately woven over time, to expose a space that no longer exists. Wishah is a farewell to home. The oud digital extension used on this record was developed by Nicolas Canot, and produced by C?sar? -- Centre National de Cr?ation Musicale. Youmna Saba is a Lebanese musician, composer and musicologist. Her current research focuses on instrument and space resonances in different sonic and musical contexts. With four albums to this date, she has collaborated with musicians of different musical expressions such as Kamilya Jubran, Floy Krouchi, Mike Cooper and the Neue Vocalsolisten Ensemble, and has taken part in numerous artist residencies.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: TO 121CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Claire M. Singer presents the first release in a triptych of albums. Saor (pronounced Sieur: meaning "free" in Scottish Gaelic) perfectly encapsulates Claire's experimental approach to the pipe organ, exploring rich harmonic textures and complex overtones which create ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns, conjuring visions of the Scottish dramatic landscapes which inspire her. Much of the album was written or recorded in Claire's home county, at Forgue Kirk in Aberdeenshire. A church she hadn't discovered before, in a remote spot, up a slight hill near a small cluster of houses. A friend recommended the organ to her and she later found out from her mother that many of her ancestors were buried there. Across the album, tracks flutter, pulse and build into and imposing mass. Some suggest texture and weather, using electronic processing and distortion. Others rely on the organ itself for heady atmospheres, while Saor's title track goes even further; recorded at Orgelpark, Amsterdam, an international concert hall for organists, it uses five instruments in layers that span four centuries. Claire also plays cello, mellotron and harmonium on the album, and there are contributions from strings (Patsy Reid), trumpet (Brian Shook), clarinets (Yann Ghiro), and French horn (Andy Saunders). Saor is an adventure bringing the same sense of elation as the journeys Claire made on foot to the summit. Saor is generously supported by Arts Council England, PRS Foundation's Composers' Fund in partnership with Jerwood Arts, the Friends of Forgue Kirk, the Richard Thomas Foundation and Orgelpark, Amsterdam.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: UR 048LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Eight years after its original release in 2015, and sold out upon release, Umor Rex finally presents a vinyl repress of Sirens, by Kara-Lis Coverdale and LXV. This new edition is limited to 500 copies and comes with revised artwork. Inspired by the link between seduction and violence, Sirens comprises a series of timbrally vast anamorphic pieces that poise the voice as a newly imagined tool of multiplicity. Processes of sample manipulation, signal processing, routing, and source design inform instrumental writing and performance in feedback until intertwined, flickering between states of conflict and consonance. Apparitions of the schizophrenic voice are at one moment fractured and cold and at the next full of warmth and vivaciousness, embodying velvet rituals of romanticism in the digital age. Ultimately, Sirens is music for ambitious dreamers: surreal sound portraits sound like the warmth of the world laid over an ice-cold virtual altar. LXV's vocal truncations and fleshy sound palettes depict the archivation of the breath and aural fantasies of the flesh which Coverdale sets amongst a vast and unconfined landscape of deeper and unknown force. Harmonically active and dynamic orchestrations underpin post-sacred tonalities while brooding pipe organs, sphinx flutes, and hailstorms of metallic percussion characterize uniquely disjointed discussions between disparate compositional ontologies. At times violent and at others serenely peaceful and seductive, these pieces, at their most powerful moments illuminate a felt space between cybernetic energy and the body. Composed and recorded by Kara-Lis Coverdale and David Sutton. Mastered by John Tejada. Cover photograph by Cody Cobb. Layout by Daniel Castrej?n.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: UR 148LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

On this album, his third work published on Umor Rex, the French producer Alexandre Bazin takes what he started in Four Steps (Umor Rex 2022) to the maximum point. However, on Innervision, there is no longer that discreet flirtation towards the dance floor. Instead, the ten cuts that make up the album are influenced by musical research and the UK and Berlin electronic scene. Bazin's new proposal revolves around sound textures, saturations, feedback, autosampling, and cut and tuned sounds, allowing new melodic elements to emerge in the process, akin to a live act. While maintaining his minimalist exploration and obsession with melody and structure, Innervision undoubtedly marks a turning point in Bazin's discography. It is epic, compelling, euphoric, utterly enjoyable, and at times violently beautiful. The album was composed and mixed by Alexandre Bazin at Ch?teau Rouge, Paris, and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll, New York. Fran?ois Desmoulins played the acoustic drums on "Four Steps (Remix)". The artwork for the album was created by Daniel Castrej?n in Mexico City.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: VL 900793LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 repress. Hereby the eclectic British jazz-rock band Nucleus -- led by trumpet player and Miles Davis biographer, Ian Carr -- at the absolute peak of its powers in a series of European live performances. They capture the group in arguably its finest incarnation right at the start of its long career, exhibiting a staggeringly high level of musical discipline matched by an equally impressive ability to improvise and solo. Nucleus began its long jazz-rock journey in 1969, they attracted a following after a successful performance at the Montreux International Festival in 1970, which led to the offer of a recording contract with Vertigo, and the release of several acclaimed albums. Ultimately, Elastic Rock (1970) had elements more in common with Brit avant-garde rockers like the Soft Machine and the Pink Floyd than it did with jazz, even if rock remained the less dominant force in the band's overall approach.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: WJLP 050CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Berlin-based Swedish bassist and producer Petter Eldh returns with a new Koma Saxo album Post Koma, out on We Jazz Records. The title Post Koma aptly describes the vibe of this one: The Koma Saxo sound continues its evolution, morphing into a holistic vision of jazz now and soon, where live instrumentation and repurposed sampling lose their boundaries. Post Koma is a culmination of Eldh's sonic study, resulting in a music vision that never second-guesses throwing tasty hooks and everlasting melodies out the window after a mere bite of them. But fear not: there are even more new ideas just around the corner. Eldh's compositions and ideas merge together in a way that just flows. There are quality musicians in the mix, including Koma Saxo live band members Sofia Jernberg, Jonas Kullhammar, Otis Sandsj?, Mikko Innanen, Maciej Obara, and Christian Lillinger, but that's like saying that a cake includes flour and sugar. This music is not about playing, it's essentially about how the music is and how it takes its shape, so you quickly lose track of who did what, and that's all in the benefit of encountering this music as an entity that is constantly challenging itself while moving forward. The musicians are valued contributors, and an integral part of what's here, but this is far from traditional jazz playing where a band sits in a room playing takes after takes of compositions on sheet. That being said, this is jazz to the fullest. That is, music that understands its past but always moves forward, and is never afraid of taking risks. Petter Eldh uses jazz as a starting point, not the end goal. This gives his music edge and mobility beyond what can be contained on one album. In a way, an album, then, becomes a snapshot of a creative process in constant flux and evolution. It feels like an ending, and also like a new beginning. RIYL: Art Ensemble Of Chicago, J Dilla, Don Cherry, Madlib.

 

PRICE: $42.00

CAT #: WE 003LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Black vinyl. Suzanne Ciani's Improvisation On Four Sequences somehow represents the complete history of electronic music, as the enthusiastic audience at Week-End Fest 2021 were lucky enough to experience. From the awakening of American avant-garde music at the end of the 1960s, right through to the development of the electronic sound of the club scene in L.A. and New York. But above all it is the dialogue between artist and machine, which simply ends when the concert is over, that comes across. Laconicism, precision, sound sensitivity and the weight of a tradition that Ciani was instrumental in founding all come together. It is spectacular precisely because it is so unexciting.

 

PRICE: $16.50

CAT #: ZEDD 059CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Legendary producer Dave Lee returns as AC Soul Symphony with Metamorphosis -- his most ambitious production project in his 35-year career. With an inimitable CV and discography that includes over a thousand production credits to his name, hundreds of singles under renowned pseudonyms including Joey Negro, and three UK top 40 hits as Jakatta, Dave Lee is one of the UK's most revered producers of disco and house music, defining each genre with a signature sound. Always looking to push the boundaries of what it means to make music, his latest project sees Dave return to one of his lesser-known pseudonyms -- AC Soul Symphony -- to deliver an epic disco record that takes the sound back to its roots in every way possible. Comprising 15 beautifully arranged disco tracks that effortlessly span almost two hours, Metamorphosis is an album by definition, but at its core, much more than that -- it is a labor of love, meticulously composed, arranged and crafted through a very tangible and human creative process which is unmatched by many modern producers. Inspired by happy memories from the golden era of TV and the soundtracks of his favorite childhood shows, Metamorphosis was borne of a desire to put the strings center stage and recreate the same analogue sounds that brought instrumental albums by Love Unlimited, MFSB, and Salsoul Orchestra to life. Taking disco back to a physical place, Metamorphosis was an organic writing process that saw Dave lay down his ideas digitally, before reshaping the MIDI strings into a proper arrangement and recording them live with a 20-piece orchestra at RAK Studios. By his own admission, it is an album of pure indulgence, but by relying on digital production methods, it can be easy to lose sight of the soul that makes music such a unifying entity. Backing up the immaculate strings with catchy vocals and enough groove to level a discotheque, it's this soulful energy that Dave has captured and expertly delivered with Metamorphosis.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: ZEDD 059LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. Part 1. Legendary producer Dave Lee returns as AC Soul Symphony with Metamorphosis -- his most ambitious production project in his 35-year career. With an inimitable CV and discography that includes over a thousand production credits to his name, hundreds of singles under renowned pseudonyms including Joey Negro, and three UK top 40 hits as Jakatta, Dave Lee is one of the UK's most revered producers of disco and house music, defining each genre with a signature sound. Always looking to push the boundaries of what it means to make music, his latest project sees Dave return to one of his lesser-known pseudonyms -- AC Soul Symphony -- to deliver an epic disco record that takes the sound back to its roots in every way possible. Comprising 15 beautifully arranged disco tracks that effortlessly span almost two hours, Metamorphosis is an album by definition, but at its core, much more than that -- it is a labor of love, meticulously composed, arranged and crafted through a very tangible and human creative process which is unmatched by many modern producers. Inspired by happy memories from the golden era of TV and the soundtracks of his favorite childhood shows, Metamorphosis was borne of a desire to put the strings center stage and recreate the same analogue sounds that brought instrumental albums by Love Unlimited, MFSB, and Salsoul Orchestra to life. Taking disco back to a physical place, Metamorphosis was an organic writing process that saw Dave lay down his ideas digitally, before reshaping the MIDI strings into a proper arrangement and recording them live with a 20-piece orchestra at RAK Studios. By his own admission, it is an album of pure indulgence, but by relying on digital production methods, it can be easy to lose sight of the soul that makes music such a unifying entity. Backing up the immaculate strings with catchy vocals and enough groove to level a discotheque, it's this soulful energy that Dave has captured and expertly delivered with Metamorphosis.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: ZEDD 059X-LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. Part 2. Legendary producer Dave Lee returns as AC Soul Symphony with Metamorphosis -- his most ambitious production project in his 35-year career. With an inimitable CV and discography that includes over a thousand production credits to his name, hundreds of singles under renowned pseudonyms including Joey Negro, and three UK top 40 hits as Jakatta, Dave Lee is one of the UK's most revered producers of disco and house music, defining each genre with a signature sound. Always looking to push the boundaries of what it means to make music, his latest project sees Dave return to one of his lesser-known pseudonyms -- AC Soul Symphony -- to deliver an epic disco record that takes the sound back to its roots in every way possible. Comprising 15 beautifully arranged disco tracks that effortlessly span almost two hours, Metamorphosis is an album by definition, but at its core, much more than that -- it is a labor of love, meticulously composed, arranged and crafted through a very tangible and human creative process which is unmatched by many modern producers. Inspired by happy memories from the golden era of TV and the soundtracks of his favorite childhood shows, Metamorphosis was borne of a desire to put the strings center stage and recreate the same analogue sounds that brought instrumental albums by Love Unlimited, MFSB, and Salsoul Orchestra to life. Taking disco back to a physical place, Metamorphosis was an organic writing process that saw Dave lay down his ideas digitally, before reshaping the MIDI strings into a proper arrangement and recording them live with a 20-piece orchestra at RAK Studios. By his own admission, it is an album of pure indulgence, but by relying on digital production methods, it can be easy to lose sight of the soul that makes music such a unifying entity. Backing up the immaculate strings with catchy vocals and enough groove to level a discotheque, it's this soulful energy that Dave has captured and expertly delivered with Metamorphosis.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: ZKR 1101CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

An astonishing meeting of two instrumentalists: Kasper T. Toeplitz (electric bass) and Reinhold Friedl (piano), but even more undoubtedly a musical union between two composers: the music is clearly built on a double thought of the architecture of time, of the creation, disappearance and mutation of textures much more than on classical virtuosity, an adequacy to the organological principles of the instruments. Piano and electric bass. Both musicians have left the familiar paths of their instruments to make them the tools of their compositional principles. This opens up new possibilities -- which here extend to the finest level of sound textures. As Laurent Nerzic turned it in the renowned French music journal Revue&corrig?e #136: "This piano/electric bass duo offers us two hours of menacing music. I invite you to listen carefully to the roundness of Kasper's bass, particularly at the end of the first piece, which suddenly takes a less abstract and unexpected turn, while Reinhold's piano regularly strikes up a sustained funeral march. Two hours of organic music that never ceases to grow and diminish in perpetual motion. In any case, this disc is overflowing with finesse, richness and subtlety."