Forced Exposure New Releases for the Week of 11/7/2022

New music is due from Christina Vantzou, Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band, and Hagop Tchaparian, while older music is due from Dummy, Michael Yonkers, and Vashti Bunyan.

 

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NEW RELEASES FOR THE WEEK OF 11/07/2022
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012 (GERMANY)
012 005EP
 
PRICE: $21.50
CAT #: 012 005EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
VA Systema Naturae II 12"
Second EP of the Systema Naturae series on 012 with four fresh new deep techno cuts from newcomer producers. Systema Naturae is the first compilation of 012. It is inspired by and takes the name of one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus, dating back to 1735, which broadly describes the hierarchical classification of the natural world. The series consists of three parts, each containing four tracks, where several artists are invited to recreate, with sounds, a deep reconnection with nature. Features Saphileaum, Zemög, Birds ov Paradise, and Luca Sanna. Original artworks by Ciredz.
AFFIN LTD (UK)
AFFIN 005LTD-LP
 
PRICE: $21.50
CAT #: AFFIN 005LTD-LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SPIETH, JOACHIM Terrain LP
With Terrain, Joachim Spieth presents the fourth long-player on his Affin imprint. The follow-up album to Ousia (2021), Terrain reflects on the human relationship with nature. The album title is a reference to a musical language that layers Spieth's music production practices and intimacy with nature. Terrain was forged in deep solitude. "It's an interplay of euphoric flashes and introspection," says Spieth. The eight compositions take the listener into a captivating cascade of sonic textures resembling internal states fluctuations and emotional release. The tension between the organic warmth and static curves broad tones into liquified roars and empty spaces. Unlike Spieth's previous albums, Terrain holds more intimate gestures and emotional sensibility. Soothing frequencies here are intended to create a state of awareness in the listener. It is a work of conceptual and emotional beauty, evoking a form of spatial imagery that is as grounding as it is elevating.
AGUIRRE RECORDS (BELGIUM)
ZORN 044LP
 
PRICE: $23.00
CAT #: ZORN 044LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
FRANCE Occitanie LP
2022 repress. Aguirre Records present the first vinyl edition of France's Occitanie, originally released in 2009. Savage pulsating drone-rock from France, the trio of Jeremie Sauvage on electric bass, Mathieu Tilly on drums, and Yann Gourdon on amplified hurdy-gurdy. They play one note/one rhythm, producing energetic performances reminiscent of the early collaborations between Faust and Tony Conrad. Creatively recycled influences result in intense shows with pounding overtones and repetitive pulsing rhythms. Loud, straight, and trance-inducing. On Occitanie, in the mass of sound, the rhythmic repetition and the elongated drones. The hurdy-gurdy forces you deeper, highlighting points of microtonal flux, cracking open the single note, the nodding rhythm, to imply the presence of every note, every sound, inside it. The insensible evolution lurks in a corner of noise and finally imposes itself slowly on careful listening. The band members of France perform in various other projects: Tanz Mein Herz, Toad and Jérico, all are member of the collective La Novià, an organization based in Haute-Loire which brings together professional musicians and acts as a place for reflection and experimentation around traditional and or experimental music. In 2009, France was invited to play in Pau, a city far south-west of France, next to Spain, by the people running Pagans Musica, a like-minded traditional-oriented group of people, also bent on educational issues concerning the local music and dialect: Occitan and on fusing traditional musics and rock related sounds and instruments. They had set up a show for France and their band Artus and originally wanted to have Acid Mothers Temple join the bill. The Japanese band had done versions of songs coming from their village, but weren't touring near France so instead they invited Duo Ancelin-Rouzier as the third act, a band both Artus and France were also very fond of. Pagans had everything set-up for the concert to be recorded and as France had plenty of time for sound-check, they went on to record the Pau album (2011) in the afternoon, taking a thirty seconds pause in the middle of the session so as to mark both sides of the vinyl. Occitanie is a recording of the live set later that night, with no cut and a longer, more savage performance. Artwork by Standard In-Fi Visuals. Recorded live by Tòmas Baudoin and Yannick Prévost; Mastering by Kris Delacourt. High-glossy sleeve; Edition of 500.
ZORN 093CD
 
PRICE: $21.50
CAT #: ZORN 093CD
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
PARKER, JEFF Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy 2CD
"Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet, is at last here. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA's Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depthful & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. Room-tone, electric fields, environment, ceiling echo, live recording, Mondays, Los Angeles. Jeff Parker's first double album & first live album, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy belongs in the lineage of such canonical live double albums recorded on the West Coast as Lee Morgan's Live at the Lighthouse, Miles Davis' In Person Friday & Saturday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco & Black Beauty, & John Coltrane's Live in Seattle. While the IVtet sometimes plays standards &, including on this recording, original compositions, it is as previously stated largely a free improv group -- just not in the genre meaning of the term. The music is more free composition than free improvisation, more blending than discordant. It's tensile, yet spacious & relaxed. Clearly all four musicians have spent significant time in the planetary system known as jazz, but relationships to other musics, across many scenes & eras -- dub & Dilla, primary source psychedelia, ambient & drone -- suffuse the proceedings. Listening to playbacks Parker remarked, humorously & not, 'we sound like the Byrds' (to certain ears, the Clarence White-era Byrds, who really stretched it). A fundamental of all great ensembles, whether basketball teams or bands, is the ability of each member to move fluidly & fluently in & out of lead & supportive roles. Building on the communicative pathways they've established in Parker's -- The New Breed -- project, Parker & Johnson maintain a constant dialogue of lead & support. Their sampled & looped phrases move continuously thru the music, layered & alive, adding depth & texture & pattern, evoking birds in formation, sea creatures drifting below the photic zone. Or, the two musicians simulate those processes by entwining their terse, clear-lined playing in real-time. The stop/start flow of Bellerose, too, simulates the sampler, recalling drum parts in Parker's beat-driven projects. Mostly Bellerose's animated phraseologies deliver the inimitable instantaneous feel of live creative drumming. The range of tonal colors he conjures from his extremely vintage battery of drums & shakers -- as distinctive a sonic signature as we have in contemporary acoustic drumming -- bring almost folkloric qualities to the aesthetic currency of the IVtet's language. A wonderful revelation in this band is the playing of Anna Butterss. The strength, judiciousness & humility with which she navigates the bass position both ground & lift upward the egalitarian group sound. As the IVtet's grooves flow & clip, loop & repeat, the ensemble elements reconfigure, a terrarium of musical cultivation growing under controlled variables, a tight experiment of harmony & intuition, deep focus & freedom. For all its varied sonic personality, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy scans immediately & unmistakably as music coming from Jeff Parker's unique sound world. Generous in spirit, trenchant & disciplined in execution, Parker's music has an earned respect for itself & for its place in history that transmutes through the musical event into the listener. Many moods & shapes of heart & mind will find utility & hope in a music that combines the autonomy & the community we collectively long to see take hold in our world, in substance & in staying power. On the personal tip, this was always my favorite gig to hit, a lifeline of the eremite records Santa Barbara years. Mondays southbound on the 101, driving away from tasks & screens & illness, an hour later ordering a double tequila neat at the bar with the band three feet away, knowing i was in good hands, knowing it would be back around on another Monday. To encounter life at scales beyond the human body is the collective dance of music & the beholding of its beauty, together." --Michael Ehlers & Zac Brenner
ARBITRARY SIGNS
ARB 004LP
 
PRICE: $17.00
CAT #: ARB 004LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
MV & EE Liberty Rose LP
Warehouse find, last copies... "New LP by contemporary psychic blues visionaries MV & EE. The duo spent 40 days and 40 nights under the twisted trees and endless sky of the Mojave desert via a Vermont homestead, freedom and unity. That's where these songs were unformed in dreams, floating off to mingle with the collective unconscious of coyotes and rattlesnakes, before they were re-birthed as smoke signals channeled through shaky hands, an old tele, germanium transistors and a bucket brigade. We at Arbitrary Signs feel that this is the purest distillation of the MV & EE 'S P E C T R A S O U N D' to date. Embedded within the grooves of this record are 6 streams to dip into as respite from the punishing rays of the hot summer sun."
ASTRAL INDUSTRIES (UK)
AI 032LP
 
PRICE: $31.50
CAT #: AI 032LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SON OF CHI & ARTHUR FLINK The Fifth World Recordings LP
AI-32 signals the arrival of The Fifth World Recordings, by Son of Chi (Hanyo van Oosterom) and long-term collaborator Arthur Flink. A tribute to the late Jon Hassell, who passed away in 2021, the album connects a deep running thread that goes back to the source of Chi project. Carrying on from where Hassell left off, the album takes inspiration and references from his Fourth World music concept and the ancient Hopi tradition of Native America. Illuminating the subliminal space of the arising Fifth World, Son of Chi pays respects to an inimitable force in contemporary music. Hassell's Dream Theory in Malaya forms a touchstone to Hanyo van Oosterom's musical journey, which soundtracked long, deep and reflective periods living in the cave of the Kallikatsou (Patmos, Greece) back in the early '80s. This period resulted in Hanyo's track as Chi -- "Hopi" -- in 1984. Hanyo met Hassell shortly after in 1987 at his "The Surgeon in the Nightsky" concert in Rotterdam -- it wasn't until twenty years later that Hanyo invited him for two magic nights of "Instant Composing Sessions" with the Numoonlab Orchestra (with a host of other artists) at the LantarenVenster, the very same stage where Hassell had performed in 1987 and also where Chi did their first live performance. Dreamful, mysterious, prophetic, the Fifth World Recordings features the quiet yet elaborate sound of Chi awash with rich instrumentation, field recordings, and old stories by the firelight. Sketches were created with drones, loops, and soundscapes, with which Arthur Flink (also a member of the Numoonlab Orchestra) jammed on trumpet. Channeling Hassell's idiosyncratic style, floating melodies, and lyrical improvisations are parsed into the mix, where Hanyo has processed and manipulated the recordings, also referencing Hassell's exotic scales and unique harmonics. Additionally, the wah Bamboo flute at the closing piece is an homage to the works of Chi co-founder Jacobus Derwort (1952-2019). For this piece Hanyo used his first bamboo flute he made at the cave of the Kallikatsou in 1984. Arthur Flink answers in counterpoint with the wah trumpet, almost like the intuitive communication of the nightbirds...
BACKWOODZ STUDIOZ
BWZ 776LP
 
PRICE: $45.00
CAT #: BWZ 776LP
FILE UNDER: HIPHOP
BILLY WOODS & PRESERVATION Aethiopes LP
"Aethiopes is billy woods' first album since 2019's double feature of Hiding Places and Terror Management. The project is fully produced by Preservation (Dr Yen Lo, Yasiin Bey), who delivered a suite of tracks on Terror Management, including the riveting single 'Blood Thinner.' The two collaborated again on Preservation's 2020 LP Eastern Medicine, Western Illness, which features a memorable billy woods appearance on the song 'Lemon Rinds,' as well as the B-side 'Snow Globe.' Aethiopes is Preservation's first collaborative LP since he and Ka dropped Days with Dr Yen Lo in 2015. One of the most respected producers in the game, Preservation moves at his own pace and is very selective about what projects he takes on. It took more than a year for Aethiopes to come to fruition and the result is a boiling pot of word and sound, teetering on the edge of the stove. Ten years after History Will Absolve Me, woods wades back into the deep water with a project as ambitious and uncompromising as anything he has ever done."
BALMAT (UK)
BALMAT 004LP
 
PRICE: $22.50
CAT #: BALMAT 004LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
NUEEN Diagrams of Thought LP
For Balmat's fourth release, the label turns their attention close to home: to the Mallorca-born, Barcelona-based artist Nueen, aka Nacho Pezzati. Nueen has been developing his highly personal style of blissfully Balearic ambient over the past few years, with releases on labels like Quiet Time Tapes and Good Morning Tapes. On Diagrams of Thought, he explores new depths in his sound. His atmospheres remain bucolic, but there's a disturbance at work, a hint of uncertainty swirling beneath seemingly placid pads. While Diagrams of Thought retains the ambient (or at least ambient-adjacent) focus of all Balmat's releases so far, the album also marks new frontiers for the label; the album's first half is graceful and largely beatless, but the mood grows murkier with the foggy drones of "Dome" and the intimations of liquid drum 'n' bass on "Maxima"; "Veta," meanwhile, might just represent the most forceful rhythm to appear on a Balmat release yet. Despite the album's considerable range of moods, tones, and textures, it's all tied together by a singular preoccupation, says Nueen: "Lately, I've become conscious of my fascination for the notion of the break, on a conceptual and musical level. What's temporary and what's permanent. Thinking and making out of what isn't there, yet is. Some people would call it silence, but it could also be a skip of the needle, an ellipsis. Something very basic -- or Basic Channelesque. A set of sounds and silences, structuring just a hint of rhythm. Sounds that become silences, and silences that become sounds. The other day, I was saying to someone that for me, the sound of electric current running through the power lines above the train tracks is the most ambient sound there is. That infinity in which you never quite grasp all the harmonics and reverberations. It's a form of time detained or expanded. Recently, I've been rereading Morton Feldman -- you can tell, right -- Vertical time, the silence that sounds. A sort of sacredness. My mind is blown every time I walk into a church, for whatever that's worth."
BEAT RECORDS (ITALY)
DDJ 022DLX-CD
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: DDJ 022DLX-CD
FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK
LIBERATORI, FABIO Acqua E Sapone CD
Beat Records announce a new tribute to the music for the great cinema of Carlo Verdone with the release of the original motion picture soundtrack of Acqua E Sapone, composed by maestro Fabio Liberatori, the artist who features the greatest number of collaborations with the Roman director. Shot in 1983 it's the story of Rolando Ferrazza (Verdone) who, stolen the identity of Father Spinelli, finds a job as private teacher for Sandy Wash (Natasha Hovey), a young teenage model with whom he will soon fall in love. The story will come to a bittersweet conclusion, in the typical style of its director, for sure more bitter than sweet, with the unavoidable separation of the two lovers and the return to normal life, now permanently marked by the experience. A movie that, like many others shot by Verdone, was a landmark of an era, portrayed through the humanity of its protagonists, their forbidden dreams, great delusions and tragic daily life, everything narrated through a biting poetic style and delicate irony in a guise that made Verdone's cinema a unique genre. The wonderful music by Fabio Liberatori, previously partially available through a compilation dedicated to his soundtracks, now finally released for the first time in a complete edition dedicated to this score with a great electronic frame, a sound that the musician skillfully masters chiseling a series of moods throughout the story. Wonderful original artwork by Renato Casaro. This release has been possible through the collaboration with Cecchi Gori which gave access to maestro Fabio Liberatori score, remastered under his supervision by Gianrico La Rosa, and with Sony Music Italy which authorized the addition of songs, "Acqua e Sapone" and "C'é", which could not be missing from a tribute to this movie. Editing by Claudio Fuiano, graphic layout by Daniele De Gemini. CD version includes 16-page booklet.
BOOMKAT EDITIONS (UK)
BKEDIT 022LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BKEDIT 022LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SAKINI & LUCY VAN, LAILA Figures LP
Laila Sakini and Lucy Van's highly sought after 2017 EP Figures resurfaces on a newly expanded and remastered edition, deploying taut poetry and precise production for an alchemical suite of slowly encroaching trip hop x dub-pop pulses -- highly recommended if you're into CS + Kreme, Laurie Anderson, Leslie Winer, YL Hooi, Bullion, Jonnine, Kallista Kult. Long before releasing her slow-burn classic Vivienne and 2021's compelling Princess Diana of Wales album (ACOLOUR 038LP), Laila Sakini was at work with acclaimed poet Lucy Van for an impromptu session for a local noise and spoken word night in Naarm, Australia. Those initial ideas marinated and eventually resulted in Figures -- an EP that offsets Sakini's minimal production against Van's text, spoken in a carefully enunciated dialect lifted and wrapped around Sakini's nocturnes. It's the sort of thing that is reminiscent of Tin Man & Rashad Becker's Wasteland sessions, fused with the spirit of the contemporary Naarm/Melbourne scene. For all those references, Sakini and Van's songs are displaced from the contemporary wellspring too. The dusky blue waltz of opener "Those Who See" comes off like a lighter Leslie Winer or melodic, early AFX, as Van dryly intones "...all my enemies in an orgy, of IQ to body ratio," while "Deep End" sees them nudge into more claustrophobic introspection, before shoring up a dank sort of trip hop sleaze with the title song, slithering with a similar energy to early '90s Autechre as the narration echoes into a blur. The three previously unreleased songs flesh out the release into the full album it always should have been, cut of equally rare, hand-spun fabric. With its post-Sleng Teng B-line and noctilucent chords, "What You Need" feels like an Eski rhythmic bump accompanied by sub-aquatic synth bass, and the opalescent, gumtree-shaking shimmer "Rough Desires" secretes its intimations with an absorbingly hypnagogic slow-burn that pools into the perfect curtain closer; "Trees Make Me High". For those that care for cultural artefacts and biographical turning points, this record is worth the wait. The good stuff always rises to the surface. Remastered by Rashad Becker. Clear vinyl; edition of 500.
BULBOUS MONOCLE
BM 001LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BM 001LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282 Admonishing the Bishops LP
"Bulbous Monocle, a new label focused on the legacy of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and the scene from which it reveled in between the years 1986-1996, is honored to launch the label with arguably the most lauded and concise testament from the band. 1993's mini-masterpiece Admonishing the Bishops. Originally released on the Matador Records label, this title and most of the 'Fellers' discography has been out of print for over 25 years. Now, newly remastered by Mark Gergis (Sublime Frequencies et.al) this perfect EP is sounding better than ever!" "Formed in San Francisco in 1986, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 had the bad luck to display a range of cultural and musical reference points shared by relatively few members of that era's archconservative 'underground culture.' On any given day, you might hear that their records were too manicured or too chaotic, too cerebral or too absurd, too personal or too impersonal, too experimental or too pop. Above all, they were derided as 'self-indulgent' by critics who expected artists to tiptoe deferentially around their audience's blind spots. To be fair, their early recordings had about as much relation to their in-the-flesh grandeur as a dripping faucet does to Iguazu Falls. Against steep technical odds, Greg Freeman of Lowdown Studio made their LPs work beautifully as aural monuments. But listeners who hadn't seen the Fellers' live could be forgiven for finding these albums a bit forbidding. Which brings us to Admonishing the Bishops -- a wholly unexpected breakthrough release comprising four down-home, crowd-pleasin' tracks engineered by Volcano Suns/Shellac bassist Bob Weston during the Fellers' epochal tour with Sun City Girls in fall 1992. 'The studio was in Steve Albini's basement, and we stayed there at his house for a couple days while we recorded and mixed,' vocalist/guitarist/bassist/banjoist/trombonist/etceterist Mark Davies explains. The relaxed, low-stakes atmosphere -- along with the band's tour-hardened performances and what Mark calls 'the joy of getting our minds blown every night' by Sun City Girls -- yielded tracks that were polished and approachable without sacrificing any of the band's complexity or ferocity. Back in San Francisco, they decided to release these tracks as a 10-inch EP rather than saving them for a full album. Mark notes that bassist Anne Eickelberg spearheaded the project: 'She wanted to put out something concise after the somewhat bloated double-LP.' Upon its release in 1993, Admonishing the Bishops' concision, clarity and accessibility went over like a duralumin-and-fabric zeppelin. With its 20/20 focus on the band's songcraft, it's an ideal introduction for curious neophytes and a natural choice for the first installment of Bulbous Monocle's highly anticipated TFUL282 reissue series. Long-time listeners, meanwhile, will appreciate this reissue's meticulous remastering by Mark Gergis of Sublime Frequencies. Or else." --Brandan Kearney, Portland, OR 2022
BM 002LP
 
PRICE: $29.00
CAT #: BM 002LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282 Strangers from the Universe LP
"Bulbous Monocle presents a first-time vinyl reissue of The TFUL 282 masterpiece LP originally released in 1994 on Matador Records. Even in a catalog that bristles with pinnacles, Strangers from the Universe remains pinnaclier than most. Somehow harnessing influences from Bali to Cinecittà to Memphis to the wobbly Sunday morning organ at Oakland's Rose of Sharon Missionary Baptist Church without feeling contrived or showoffy, Strangers is possibly and/or indisputably the most successful shotgun marriage of the Fellers' disparate pop sensibilities with their outlandish song structures, their acre-feet of tape snippets with their hydra-headed arrangements, and their individual compositional and instrumental skills with their congenitally peculiar joint sensorium. Eager as always to experiment with unconventional (i.e., daft and cumbersome) approaches to writing and recording, the Fellers fine-tuned their working methods for Strangers, assigning individual members as 'sheriffs' to oversee the arrangement of promising morsels into coherent compositions. Even more daringly, they decided to let Greg Freeman, their long-suffering engineer, control his own mixing board. 'The result was a much more cohesive sound than we'd ever gotten with our usual approach,' says TFUL282 multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Mark Davies. The Fellers' 1994 tour saw the band in full flight bringing the Strangers material to their growing fanbase. Sharing bills with Matador labelmates Pavement and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion for more high-profile gigs, TFUL 282 tore through the US playing from coast to coast and sharing stages with kindred spirits the Sun City Girls, Fly Ashtray, and a host of regional bands who stood in awe at the overwhelming spectacle and furious sonic and visual onslaught that this band could generate on a nightly basis. 'I've always thought of Strangers and the fall tour for it as a pinnacle of sorts,' Mark says. It's easy enough to cite some highlights as evidence: 'Hundreds of Years,' a blossom-garlanded Tower of Song erected at the intersection of Abbey Road and Jalan Kajeng; the galvanic sputter of 'Socket' and 'February' (the latter titled after a handy mnemonic for 'Fingered Eastern Banjo'); Brian Hageman's oddly moving 'The Operation,' which Mark calls 'one of the most sonically dense/confused things we ever did.' Bulbous Monocle's long-overdue reissue puts every single one of this millipedal LP's best feet forward with meticulous remastering by the golden-eyed and gimlet-eared Mark Gergis, making it an essential acquisition for the diffident toe-dipper as well as the seasoned bathyscaphist."
BUREAU B (GERMANY)
BB 394CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: BB 394CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
TO ROCOCO ROT John Peel BBC Sessions 97-99 CD
Without a doubt, To Rococo Rot are an exception within the German music landscape. From 1995 until they broke up in 2014, the group around Robert Lippok, Ronald Lippok, and Stefan Schneider researched a unique sound between electronic music, ambient, post-melancholy, and the further development of a new, free music like krautrock. The trio was invited three times by John Peel to record radio sessions in the BBC studios. Bureau B make the recordings from these three sessions from the years 1997 and 1999 available on record for the first time, which, in addition to the live versions of selected album tracks, also contains exclusive, unreleased songs."... Kreidler originated in the west, Ornament & Verbrechen in the east. Robert Lippok describes the moment when things did a 180: 'When we first started releasing records it was almost a shock to hear our own music on the radio.' You walk through an invisible wall. You cause a membrane to pulsate. And finally in 1995, To Rococo Rot was the band whose music, in a kind of aesthetic feedback loop, also made a certain John Peel at the BBC and Daniel Miller at Mute Records sit up and take notice: 'It was something new, something that sounded like it could only be done in Germany; and, as I discovered later, could only be done by guys who were born in the east of Germany in the days before the wall came down.' And so, the three To Rococo Rot sessions united here with their to some extent exclusive Peel tracks ('Glück', 'Esther', 'Glass'), some recorded under intense time pressure, are testimonies to the intimate connection of three German musicians with the whole world, with pop, with the happiness that one possesses and that one shares. Pop without its means of production is inconceivable. And even in times when digital is king, we should consider ourselves lucky that this analog reality of sound, like radio waves, continues to pulsate through us." --Karl Bruckmaier
BB 408CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: BB 408CD
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SCHNITZLER & BAAL & MORTIMER, CONRAD Con-Struct CD
Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=minimal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler albums at the outset of the 2010s, label honcho Jens Stru?ver was granted access to this audio library. Stru?ver came up with the idea of con-structing new compositions, not remixes, from the archived material. On completion of the first Con-Struct album, he decided to develop the concept into a series, with different electronic musicians invited into Schnitzler's unique world of sound. Since 2014, Baal & Mortimer is the project of Alexandra Gru?bler, sonically exploring questions of resistance, autonomy, matter and speculation. The debut album Deixis was released on Bureau B in 2020 (BB 344CD/LP).Gru?bler on the release: "Conrad Schnitzler's music came to me first in Du?sseldorf at Salon des Amateurs, roughly 2007 or 2008, most definitely in the early morning hours, in the shape of his track Das Tier. I remember his name coming up quite a bit, deeply rooted in a specific experimental/Kraut discourse and I liked listening to his records, but working with his archive added an entirely different, physical intensity. Instead of reworking the material on its own, I chose to find traces of melodies, harmonies, notes within it, using them as seeds to add and derive new compositions. Schnitzler's archive became the foundation and departure point from which a process of accumulation and chiseling away started. Through playing things on wrong speed, stretching, or warping, fractal structures appeared, one unfolding out of the previous one, almost like chaos magick set in motion. I tried to internalize his work mode of not having any rules before the first note is played, no key, no meter, just following through with the evolving linearity of the sound. I tried to not focus too much on the fact that Schnitzler is from a different generation or that I'm not from a Krautrock or Post-Krautrock generation. Then again, my age and background pose different urgencies, questions and conditions, so I took the liberty to meet his material on a level that reflects the specific present surrounding me. Through living in Berlin, Schnitzler's (and Roedelius') short lived Zodiak Free Arts Lab was interesting as a concept and in that collaborative spirit I invited a few people to contribute their instruments and languages to the record. It was exciting to break open existing material, peeling something out of the past and thus transgressing it and opening portals."
BB 408LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BB 408LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SCHNITZLER & BAAL & MORTIMER, CONRAD Con-Struct LP
LP version. Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=minimal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler albums at the outset of the 2010s, label honcho Jens Stru?ver was granted access to this audio library. Stru?ver came up with the idea of con-structing new compositions, not remixes, from the archived material. On completion of the first Con-Struct album, he decided to develop the concept into a series, with different electronic musicians invited into Schnitzler's unique world of sound. Since 2014, Baal & Mortimer is the project of Alexandra Gru?bler, sonically exploring questions of resistance, autonomy, matter and speculation. The debut album Deixis was released on Bureau B in 2020 (BB 344CD/LP).Gru?bler on the release: "Conrad Schnitzler's music came to me first in Du?sseldorf at Salon des Amateurs, roughly 2007 or 2008, most definitely in the early morning hours, in the shape of his track Das Tier. I remember his name coming up quite a bit, deeply rooted in a specific experimental/Kraut discourse and I liked listening to his records, but working with his archive added an entirely different, physical intensity. Instead of reworking the material on its own, I chose to find traces of melodies, harmonies, notes within it, using them as seeds to add and derive new compositions. Schnitzler's archive became the foundation and departure point from which a process of accumulation and chiseling away started. Through playing things on wrong speed, stretching, or warping, fractal structures appeared, one unfolding out of the previous one, almost like chaos magick set in motion. I tried to internalize his work mode of not having any rules before the first note is played, no key, no meter, just following through with the evolving linearity of the sound. I tried to not focus too much on the fact that Schnitzler is from a different generation or that I'm not from a Krautrock or Post-Krautrock generation. Then again, my age and background pose different urgencies, questions and conditions, so I took the liberty to meet his material on a level that reflects the specific present surrounding me. Through living in Berlin, Schnitzler's (and Roedelius') short lived Zodiak Free Arts Lab was interesting as a concept and in that collaborative spirit I invited a few people to contribute their instruments and languages to the record. It was exciting to break open existing material, peeling something out of the past and thus transgressing it and opening portals."
BB 412CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: BB 412CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VA Eins und Zwei und Drei und Vier Vol 2: Deutsche Experimentelle Pop-Musik 1978-87 CD
"For their second foray into the fringes of German pop, Bureau B delve deeper than before, raiding cassette culture, 7" obscurities, and overlooked album cuts to further frame this free-thinking strain of sonic expression. Starting the count from punk's year zero, this set sees a newly liberated generation get weird and wild with anything they could lay their hands on, delivering demented, detuned and disorienting tracks brimming with DIY spirit. Where their kosmische predecessors preferred immersive, expansive compositions, these artists opted for immediacy, quickly capturing one idea before moving on to the next. Exploiting advances in home recording to say outside of industry confines, these art-school extroverts and commune drop outs often came together in unplanned collaborations and one-off projects, capturing their whole creative lifespan on one side of a C45 . . . The sparse drum machine of ALU's 'Aludome' opens proceedings, laying the foundation for wavy guitar chords and simple melodies on this tender 1980 composition, which only came to light in 2005. From there we sink into the watery electronics, free jazz bass and abstract guitars of Detlef Diederichsen charmingly abrupt 'Pissnelke 2000', before Maria Zerfall moves us into the shadows with the dark and punkish dirge 'Der Mond', a haunting track with double tracked and distorted spoken vocals. Butzmann/Kapielski's avant-dance masterpiece 'Do The VoPo' diverts us to the dancefloor, where the oddball synth sounds and skewed sampler vox of Rüdiger Lorenz's 'Francis & Friends' traps us in a strange slow motion groove. The tempo raises via E.M.P.'s dubbish sabotage of '80s smooth jazz, turns inside out on Vono's charming interlude 'Der Zauberer', then finds its feet again via Reichmann's '78 composition 'Wunderbar' taken from the Sky LP of the same name. This frazzled fusion of cosmic country and Asiatic melody shares a widescreen worldview with Deux Baleines Blanches' 'Draht 9', on which post punk electronics and chiming guitars combine with bittersweet beauty. The time-travelling Rolf Trostel takes us to the midpoint with pulsating chords which predate Basic Channel by a decade, while Phantom Band's 'Dream Machine' stitches together two decades of the psychedelic continuum in a riot of tumbling toms, panning sequences and brain melting waveforms. 'Glucose' sees Moebius & Beerbohm unleash their strange music at a delinquent tempo, before Jimmy, Jenny + Jonny offer a second subversion of smooth jazz with their skronking Mediterranean fantasy 'Salome'. Thomas Dinger's frosty music box romance 'Alleewalzer' and The Wirtschaftswunder's stomping ska-like 'Television' follow in quick succession, leading us into Cluster's narcotic fairground 'Oh Odessa', a queasy assemblage of detuned FM bells and percussive piston bursts. From there, the dubbed-out post punk of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, experimental dance of 'Notorische Reflexe' and unhinged disco of Günter Schickert capture different ends of the alternative dancefloor, before the pastoral outsider pop of Lapre's 'Septer' signs off in a swell of yearning melody." --Patrick Ryder
BB 412LP
 
PRICE: $35.00
CAT #: BB 412LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VA Eins und Zwei und Drei und Vier Vol 2: Deutsche Experimentelle Pop-Musik 1978-87 2LP
Double LP version. "For their second foray into the fringes of German pop, Bureau B delve deeper than before, raiding cassette culture, 7" obscurities, and overlooked album cuts to further frame this free-thinking strain of sonic expression. Starting the count from punk's year zero, this set sees a newly liberated generation get weird and wild with anything they could lay their hands on, delivering demented, detuned and disorienting tracks brimming with DIY spirit. Where their kosmische predecessors preferred immersive, expansive compositions, these artists opted for immediacy, quickly capturing one idea before moving on to the next. Exploiting advances in home recording to say outside of industry confines, these art-school extroverts and commune drop outs often came together in unplanned collaborations and one-off projects, capturing their whole creative lifespan on one side of a C45 . . . The sparse drum machine of ALU's 'Aludome' opens proceedings, laying the foundation for wavy guitar chords and simple melodies on this tender 1980 composition, which only came to light in 2005. From there we sink into the watery electronics, free jazz bass and abstract guitars of Detlef Diederichsen charmingly abrupt 'Pissnelke 2000', before Maria Zerfall moves us into the shadows with the dark and punkish dirge 'Der Mond', a haunting track with double tracked and distorted spoken vocals. Butzmann/Kapielski's avant-dance masterpiece 'Do The VoPo' diverts us to the dancefloor, where the oddball synth sounds and skewed sampler vox of Rüdiger Lorenz's 'Francis & Friends' traps us in a strange slow motion groove. The tempo raises via E.M.P.'s dubbish sabotage of '80s smooth jazz, turns inside out on Vono's charming interlude 'Der Zauberer', then finds its feet again via Reichmann's '78 composition 'Wunderbar' taken from the Sky LP of the same name. This frazzled fusion of cosmic country and Asiatic melody shares a widescreen worldview with Deux Baleines Blanches' 'Draht 9', on which post punk electronics and chiming guitars combine with bittersweet beauty. The time-travelling Rolf Trostel takes us to the midpoint with pulsating chords which predate Basic Channel by a decade, while Phantom Band's 'Dream Machine' stitches together two decades of the psychedelic continuum in a riot of tumbling toms, panning sequences and brain melting waveforms. 'Glucose' sees Moebius & Beerbohm unleash their strange music at a delinquent tempo, before Jimmy, Jenny + Jonny offer a second subversion of smooth jazz with their skronking Mediterranean fantasy 'Salome'. Thomas Dinger's frosty music box romance 'Alleewalzer' and The Wirtschaftswunder's stomping ska-like 'Television' follow in quick succession, leading us into Cluster's narcotic fairground 'Oh Odessa', a queasy assemblage of detuned FM bells and percussive piston bursts. From there, the dubbed-out post punk of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, experimental dance of 'Notorische Reflexe' and unhinged disco of Günter Schickert capture different ends of the alternative dancefloor, before the pastoral outsider pop of Lapre's 'Septer' signs off in a swell of yearning melody." --Patrick Ryder
BB 415CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: BB 415CD
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
SPRUNG AUS DEN WOLKEN Sprung aus den Wolken CD
The Berlin project Sprung Aus Den Wolken was part of the "Geniale Dilletanten" movement in the early 1980s, along with Einstürzende Neubauten and Mechanik Destrüktiw Komandöh. The band first released an EP on ZickZack in 1981, followed by further releases on the band's own record label Faux Pas in 1982 and 1983, then on the French outlet Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier until 1991. The track "Pas Attendre" was part of the soundtrack of Wim Wender's movie Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) (1987) and thus became an underground hit. Founder of the band Kiddy Citny is also a painter. His paintings of the Berlin Wall have been exhibited around the world and are now in private collections in the US, France, and Japan. Bureau B finally make the long out-of-print, self-titled album from 1982 available again. Carefully remastered, with reconstructed original artwork, numerous photos and liner notes by Alexander Hacke."How do you feel, Kiddy?""I feel free!""A leap from the clouds is the ultimate expression of joie de vivre. Implicit trust in one's own powers, confidence in a positive outcome, surrendering to fate without delay or hesitation, ripping up any restrictive barriers, eyes front, unwaveringly so. That's what it's all about. The ever-changing line-up of Kiddy Citny's group thrived on the liberating anarchic energy of noise and poetry, the spirit of reinvention. We hung out in the West Berlin district of Schöneberg, in bars and clubs like Café Mitropa, Dschungel, and das Risiko, before heading down to the cellar of the Cassetten Combinat in Naumannstraße. Here we let our inspirations run free in wild all-night sessions. Something to remember, something we value and can be proud of: the music. The cassette was our medium, the four-track recorder which had just appeared on the market was a cornerstone of the studio. Our fresh recordings were duplicated in the shop upstairs and slipped into covers we made in the copy shop. Hey presto, a new piece of work, direct from the creator to the people's playback devices, without further ado. Sprung Aus Den Wolken and hip-hop are children of the same generation, not so remarkably similar and yet somehow related. Cousins rather than siblings. They share a symbiosis of music and art, rhythm and color, loudness and light, all combining to underpin the integrity and authenticity of the end product. They were the happiest years of my teenage life in West Berlin, oh how we laughed!" --Alexander Hacke
BB 415LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BB 415LP
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
SPRUNG AUS DEN WOLKEN Sprung aus den Wolken LP
LP version. The Berlin project Sprung Aus Den Wolken was part of the "Geniale Dilletanten" movement in the early 1980s, along with Einstürzende Neubauten and Mechanik Destrüktiw Komandöh. The band first released an EP on ZickZack in 1981, followed by further releases on the band's own record label Faux Pas in 1982 and 1983, then on the French outlet Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier until 1991. The track "Pas Attendre" was part of the soundtrack of Wim Wender's movie Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) (1987) and thus became an underground hit. Founder of the band Kiddy Citny is also a painter. His paintings of the Berlin Wall have been exhibited around the world and are now in private collections in the US, France, and Japan. Bureau B finally make the long out-of-print, self-titled album from 1982 available again. Carefully remastered, with reconstructed original artwork, numerous photos and liner notes by Alexander Hacke."How do you feel, Kiddy?""I feel free!""A leap from the clouds is the ultimate expression of joie de vivre. Implicit trust in one's own powers, confidence in a positive outcome, surrendering to fate without delay or hesitation, ripping up any restrictive barriers, eyes front, unwaveringly so. That's what it's all about. The ever-changing line-up of Kiddy Citny's group thrived on the liberating anarchic energy of noise and poetry, the spirit of reinvention. We hung out in the West Berlin district of Schöneberg, in bars and clubs like Café Mitropa, Dschungel, and das Risiko, before heading down to the cellar of the Cassetten Combinat in Naumannstraße. Here we let our inspirations run free in wild all-night sessions. Something to remember, something we value and can be proud of: the music. The cassette was our medium, the four-track recorder which had just appeared on the market was a cornerstone of the studio. Our fresh recordings were duplicated in the shop upstairs and slipped into covers we made in the copy shop. Hey presto, a new piece of work, direct from the creator to the people's playback devices, without further ado. Sprung Aus Den Wolken and hip-hop are children of the same generation, not so remarkably similar and yet somehow related. Cousins rather than siblings. They share a symbiosis of music and art, rhythm and color, loudness and light, all combining to underpin the integrity and authenticity of the end product. They were the happiest years of my teenage life in West Berlin, oh how we laughed!" --Alexander Hacke
BB 419LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BB 419LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
AREU AREU Areu Areu LP
LP version. Reissue, limited 30th anniversary edition. Originally released in 1992. Under the name Areu Areu, the two Camouflage musicians, Heiko Maile and Marcus Meyn, released a five-track EP in 1992, which is now being re-released in an extended version in a limited edition and for the first time on vinyl. In 1991, a friend and companion of Heiko Maile and Marcus Meyn, the photographer Reiner Pfisterer, celebrated his 24th birthday. Instead of records or books, the two Camouflage founders planned to present the birthday child with a performance by a band formed especially for the occasion and launched Areu Areu. After Camouflage had just released their rather acoustic sounding album Meanwhile, Maile and Meyn were more in the mood for purely electronic music, so this side project was just what they needed to play around with the electronic gear they had accumulated in their studio in the center of the small town of Bietigheim in southern Germany. The result was cover versions of songs that had always strongly influenced Maile and Meyn: you hear "Day Tripper" (Beatles), "Cold" (The Cure), Fad Gadget's "Ricky's Hand" and a two-song medley of "I'm Your Money" (Heaven 17) and the Depeche Mode classic "Tora! Tora! Tora!". In addition, several versions of their legendary German-language song "Mr. X" were worked out. A few weeks after the party, Maile and Meyn told their A&R manager about the project, and in 1992 a small number of tracks were released in a small edition on CD. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of this release, the complete work of Areu Areu now appears on an album for the first time. Areu Areu created the perfect soundtrack for a party in the hot summer of '91. Areu Areu are danceable, unpolished and wild.
BB 421CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: BB 421CD
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
GOINEAU, KRISHNA I Need A Slow CD
Krishna Goineau was born in Sri Lanka in 1963. He spent his youth in the 1970s in Barcelona, where he met Javier Hernando in 1978 to found the post-punk group Xeerox. In 1981 Goinau moved to Düsseldorf, where he met Christo Haas and Beate Bartel. He became the singer of the joint project Liaisons Dangereuses and lent his unmistakable voice to the band's big hit ("Los Niños Del Parque"). At the end of the 1980s Krishna Goineau lived in Brussels and became the singer and keyboardist of the groups Metropakt and Veldorome, together with Jodie Guber. Meanwhile, Goineau lives very secluded in the south of France and concentrates mainly on his painting. In 2007-2008, he worked at home with analog synthesizers on a series of songs that to this day have never been released. Electronic cut-ups and haunting compositions that sound as contemporary as they are detached from any zeitgeist. Bureau B make a selection of these lost recordings available with this collection I Need A Slow.Krishna Goineau (February 2022): "... My first influence was punk; in attitude and in music with Xeerox/Javier Hernando & Co at Barcelona where we lived at the time. It was in 1978 just after Franco's regime. Later on in Düsseldorf I met Chrislo Haas (former DAF-member) and Beate Bartel (founding member of Einstürzende Neubauten and of Mania D.) who recorded several tapes under the moniker CHBB, which later turned to be Liaisons Dangereuses. The crystallization of us as a trio was strange and remarkable and comet fast. I remember clearly the amazing approach to sound in Conny Plank's studio. Since that point my interest switched from image to sound, infinite intelligence without frontiers. After working for a long time with a Tascam 4-track-tape-recorder I later, in Brussels around 1987, discovered Atari, Steinberg, and synth software while working with Jordi Guber (Lineas Aereas, Velodrome) which was a new big experience. All these years were simply music and painting. When I lived in France, I studied at the Narbonne Conservatory in the jazz section and learned the guitar; it's system, spirit, knowledge, fluency and the pleasure in playing a real acoustic instrument. I was also working and recording with Victor Sol (Lars Müller) in Barcelona on a project we had together from 1998 . . . All recordings on this album were made in the south of France (au bord de la mer) during the years 2007-2008. Home works with analog synths and a home computer system. Songwriting and recordings all by myself..."
BB 421LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BB 421LP
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
GOINEAU, KRISHNA I Need A Slow LP
LP version. Krishna Goineau was born in Sri Lanka in 1963. He spent his youth in the 1970s in Barcelona, where he met Javier Hernando in 1978 to found the post-punk group Xeerox. In 1981 Goinau moved to Düsseldorf, where he met Christo Haas and Beate Bartel. He became the singer of the joint project Liaisons Dangereuses and lent his unmistakable voice to the band's big hit ("Los Niños Del Parque"). At the end of the 1980s Krishna Goineau lived in Brussels and became the singer and keyboardist of the groups Metropakt and Veldorome, together with Jodie Guber. Meanwhile, Goineau lives very secluded in the south of France and concentrates mainly on his painting. In 2007-2008, he worked at home with analog synthesizers on a series of songs that to this day have never been released. Electronic cut-ups and haunting compositions that sound as contemporary as they are detached from any zeitgeist. Bureau B make a selection of these lost recordings available with this collection I Need A Slow.Krishna Goineau (February 2022): "... My first influence was punk; in attitude and in music with Xeerox/Javier Hernando & Co at Barcelona where we lived at the time. It was in 1978 just after Franco's regime. Later on in Düsseldorf I met Chrislo Haas (former DAF-member) and Beate Bartel (founding member of Einstürzende Neubauten and of Mania D.) who recorded several tapes under the moniker CHBB, which later turned to be Liaisons Dangereuses. The crystallization of us as a trio was strange and remarkable and comet fast. I remember clearly the amazing approach to sound in Conny Plank's studio. Since that point my interest switched from image to sound, infinite intelligence without frontiers. After working for a long time with a Tascam 4-track-tape-recorder I later, in Brussels around 1987, discovered Atari, Steinberg, and synth software while working with Jordi Guber (Lineas Aereas, Velodrome) which was a new big experience. All these years were simply music and painting. When I lived in France, I studied at the Narbonne Conservatory in the jazz section and learned the guitar; it's system, spirit, knowledge, fluency and the pleasure in playing a real acoustic instrument. I was also working and recording with Victor Sol (Lars Müller) in Barcelona on a project we had together from 1998 . . . All recordings on this album were made in the south of France (au bord de la mer) during the years 2007-2008. Home works with analog synths and a home computer system. Songwriting and recordings all by myself..."
COLUMBIA
COL 30131HLP
 
PRICE: $21.50
CAT #: COL 30131HLP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
CALE & TERRY RILEY, JOHN Church Of Anthrax LP
2022 restock. Terry Riley (piano, organ, soprano saxophone) & John Cale (bass, harpsichord, piano, guitar, viola, organ) collaborated on this one-off album, released in 1970. At this time, rock music was a serious movement, removed from the joke it once was, quite unaware of the joke it would eventually become, and things like this sometimes happened. Cale, classically trained on the viola, must have been pretty pleased to get a shot to record with the '60s king of minimalist pulse, Terry Riley. The album features 4 collaborative tracks between the two; while maybe not earth-shattering, they are quite fine for horizontal home listening pleasure at just about any hour of the day. Instrumental jams, mixing the styles of the two players pretty evenly (if you're vaguely awake, you can imagine this easily). The fifth track is a psychedelic pop masterpiece by Cale, "The Soul of Patrick Lee." Exactly why this track is included here has never been adequately explained, but it is about as beautiful as music in song form can get. 180 gram exact repro reissue.
CREEPY (POLAND)
CREEPY 066LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: CREEPY 066LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
ERICKSON, ROKY The Modern Humans' Show LP
Limited 2022 restock. This is one of the greatest radio shows ever made onto a record as it combines a radio interview with Roky Erickson in full gloom while he is presenting the demos of tracks that may ended up on the great The Evil One LP Earlier versions of "Mine Mine Mind", "Two Headed Dog", and "Click Your Fingers Applauding The Play". Previously released on vinyl by France's Sponge Records in 1976. The bonuses (interviews, demos, rarities) are dandy, but the album is treasure enough. Its retro-metal chops have more kaboom than the irony-diluted pap of current poseurs, and its bent lyrics mop the floor with wannabe-kooks like Jad Fair. Some savvy touches -- such as Roky's progressive pre-PC designation that the swamp monsters are "alligator-persons" -- hint that Roky was more lucid than he let on.
DARKER THAN WAX (SINGAPORE)
DTW 071LP
 
PRICE: $20.50
CAT #: DTW 071LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
STEADY WEATHER Steady Weather LP
"A+ record -- My first reaction was 'since when is Tamil making dance music, what can't he bloody do', I'm so here for it. 'Robert Street' and 'Burning So Hot' are simply future classics IMO." --CC:DISCO!Born in the heartland of Melbourne suburb Fitzroy, Steady Weather (comprised of scene stalwarts Ben Grayson and Tamil Rogeon) bring to light organic dance music from Melbourne's rich neo-soul and jazz community. With a lineage that leads directly to the founding of groups like Australian funk royalty The Bamboos and orchestral beat music pioneers The Raah Project, Rogeon and Grayson not only bring that heritage to their music, they bring a philosophy of raw emotion and soulfulness to their productions. Tamil also plays strings for Harvey Sutherland's Bermuda, with the group's musical DNA echoing in Steady Weather's productions. The self-titled record features the gloriously meditative, raw soul vocals of Allysha Joy and Rita Satch. Allysha Joy's potent lyricism, unique musicianship and killer vocals have garnered legions of attentive fans the world over. She's an integral member of the Melbourne soul jazz scene, known as part of the acclaimed 30/70 collective and for her own equally revered solo work. A modern-day siren, Rita Satch is fast becoming an unforgettable presence in Australia's neo-soul movement. Steady Weather will be right at home on the most soulful of dancefloors. The record traverses through diverse musical territory and melds together a number of sounds, from the jazzy stomper "Burning So Hot" (to which CC:DISCO! provides her magic editing touch), to the boogie and disco-tinged funk of "CP3" and "Love Came Along", into the deeper shades of house music found on "Robert St". Though incorporating diverse influences, all the cuts are tied together with a consistently organic, hand-made, and earnest production style. Also features Kylie Auldist.
DEAD BISON (UK)
DB 19001CS
 
PRICE: $17.50
CAT #: DB 19001CS
FILE UNDER: ROCK
WRECKED LIGHTSHIP Drowned Aquarium Cassette
In a blur of smudged, psychedelic jams with a distinctly aquatic tone, Wrecked Lightship shores up on Dead Bison. This new collaborative project from Laurie Osborne and Adam Winchester speaks to their considerable experience in the fields of leftfield electronic music with a dubwise, bassweight bias -- Anderson is better known as Appleblim and Winchester can be found recording in Dot Product and under his own name. Wrecked Lightship intentionally alludes to sci-fi as much as maritime imagery -- vast alien atmospheres being explored in breached vessels. Ramshackle rhythmic impulses from off-center delay trails are a recurring theme, calling to mind blown-out hyperdrives and creaking masts, but there remains a submerged groove carrying these loose shanties no matter how far off course they veer. Sonically, Winchester's interest in electro-magnetic noise generation interweaves with Anderson's woozy, melodic psychedelia, while years of musical engineering experience combines with a readiness to embrace imperfection in pursuit of honest, immediate expression and interaction. The improvised element which fed into the making of this album is intrinsic to its cracked beauty, resulting in a Ballardian soundworld full of question marks and corridors leading to unexpected places.
DICRISTINA
STEP 011LP
 
PRICE: $25.00
CAT #: STEP 011LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
BUNYAN, VASHTI Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind 2LP
Double LP version. 2022 repress; deluxe Stoughton gatefold packaging. Singles and demos, 1964 to 1967. "Following the amazing success story of Vashti Bunyan's recent re-emergence as an artist after an exile of over 30 years, comes the release of Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind, a comprehensive compilation of early recordings dating from the period prior to Vashti's classic Just Another Diamond Day album which was originally released1970. Titled after Vashti's (Jagger/Richards-penned) debut single which opens the compilation, this double-album represents an attempt to both open out and draw a line under the past, and also to try to set the record straight about the disparity between how Vashti viewed (and still views) herself against the way she has been popularly perceived. Widely construed as a folk singer -- a tag she fundamentally disagrees with - these recordings instead reveal Vashti as a pop singer, however 'fragile' and unique."
EREMITE
MTE 076-77LP
 
PRICE: $44.00
CAT #: MTE 076-77LP
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
PARKER, JEFF Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy 2LP
"Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet, is at last here. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA's Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depthful & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. Room-tone, electric fields, environment, ceiling echo, live recording, Mondays, Los Angeles. Jeff Parker's first double album & first live album, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy belongs in the lineage of such canonical live double albums recorded on the West Coast as Lee Morgan's Live at the Lighthouse, Miles Davis' In Person Friday & Saturday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco & Black Beauty, & John Coltrane's Live in Seattle. While the IVtet sometimes plays standards &, including on this recording, original compositions, it is as previously stated largely a free improv group -- just not in the genre meaning of the term. The music is more free composition than free improvisation, more blending than discordant. It's tensile, yet spacious & relaxed. Clearly all four musicians have spent significant time in the planetary system known as jazz, but relationships to other musics, across many scenes & eras -- dub & Dilla, primary source psychedelia, ambient & drone -- suffuse the proceedings. Listening to playbacks Parker remarked, humorously & not, 'we sound like the Byrds' (to certain ears, the Clarence White-era Byrds, who really stretched it). A fundamental of all great ensembles, whether basketball teams or bands, is the ability of each member to move fluidly & fluently in & out of lead & supportive roles. Building on the communicative pathways they've established in Parker's -- The New Breed -- project, Parker & Johnson maintain a constant dialogue of lead & support. Their sampled & looped phrases move continuously thru the music, layered & alive, adding depth & texture & pattern, evoking birds in formation, sea creatures drifting below the photic zone. Or, the two musicians simulate those processes by entwining their terse, clear-lined playing in real-time. The stop/start flow of Bellerose, too, simulates the sampler, recalling drum parts in Parker's beat-driven projects. Mostly Bellerose's animated phraseologies deliver the inimitable instantaneous feel of live creative drumming. The range of tonal colors he conjures from his extremely vintage battery of drums & shakers -- as distinctive a sonic signature as we have in contemporary acoustic drumming -- bring almost folkloric qualities to the aesthetic currency of the IVtet's language. A wonderful revelation in this band is the playing of Anna Butterss. The strength, judiciousness & humility with which she navigates the bass position both ground & lift upward the egalitarian group sound. As the IVtet's grooves flow & clip, loop & repeat, the ensemble elements reconfigure, a terrarium of musical cultivation growing under controlled variables, a tight experiment of harmony & intuition, deep focus & freedom. For all its varied sonic personality, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy scans immediately & unmistakably as music coming from Jeff Parker's unique sound world. Generous in spirit, trenchant & disciplined in execution, Parker's music has an earned respect for itself & for its place in history that transmutes through the musical event into the listener. Many moods & shapes of heart & mind will find utility & hope in a music that combines the autonomy & the community we collectively long to see take hold in our world, in substance & in staying power. On the personal tip, this was always my favorite gig to hit, a lifeline of the eremite records Santa Barbara years. Mondays southbound on the 101, driving away from tasks & screens & illness, an hour later ordering a double tequila neat at the bar with the band three feet away, knowing i was in good hands, knowing it would be back around on another Monday. To encounter life at scales beyond the human body is the collective dance of music & the beholding of its beauty, together." --Michael Ehlers & Zac Brenner Pressed on premium audiophile-quality 120 gram vinyl at RTI from Kevin Gray/Cohearent Audio lacquers. Mastered by Joe Lizzi, Triple Point Records, Queens, NY. First eremite edition of 1799 copies.
FOURTH DIMENSION (UK)
FD 130LP
 
PRICE: $24.00
CAT #: FD 130LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
KLEISTWAHR Do Not LP
Limited edition reissue of this album originally released in 1986 on cassette on Broken Flag. Comprising two untitled side-long pieces, Do Not catches Gary Mundy of Ramleh in peak "noise" mode with his solo endeavor, taking much from his place as one of the innovators of the so-called power electronics genre yet pushing this confrontational avant-garde sensibility somewhere entirely new. It is a sound that Kleistwahr has continued to explore and add new dimensions to since, but never completely untangles itself from this particular root. Raw and seemingly unrestrained, these pieces present a robust, white-hot sonic meltdown up there with the very best from this ultimately fertile period for music from the basement. This LP is packaged similarly to the vinyl reissues of the first two full-length Kleistwahr albums released by Harbinger Sound in 2011, Arsonicide and Myth. It is also being released the same time as the one-sided Mobility (FD 129LP) reissue originally released on cassette in 1983.
GET ON DOWN
GET 810CS
 
PRICE: $31.00
CAT #: GET 810CS
FILE UNDER: HIPHOP
WU-TANG CLAN Wu-Tang Forever 2xCassette
"For the 25 Year Anniversary of Wu-Tang Clan's multi-platinum sophomore full-length, Get On Down reissues the long out of print cassette edition of Wu-Tang Forever. This double cassette reissue is housed in a collectable replica of the original slipcase."
GOD UNKNOWN RECORDS (UK)
GODUNK 089LP
 
PRICE: $28.00
CAT #: GODUNK 089LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
MONSTER MAGNET Test Patterns: Vol. 1 LP
Born from the Red Bank of New Jersey, the early days of Monster Magnet were a cosmos away from the major-label, alternative rock boom that would suck the band into the shiny MTV world of the early to mid '90s. Originally formed by Dave Wyndorf, John McBain, and Tim Cronin, Monster Magnet lysergic oozed into the world in 1989 with two demo tapes -- Forget About Life, I'm High On Dope and I'm Stoned, What Ya Gonna Do About It? -- making it perfectly clear from the start where they were coming from. This was a band reveling in bad trips and the death of the hippy dream with a Manson Family stare, playing squelchy lo-fi psychedelic music with a rabid punk rock sneer, like The Stooges terrorizing Hawkwind at the most unpleasant free festival imaginable. There were tales of entire audiences at their gigs being spiked with LSD. It didn't matter if this was true or not, it all added to the mystique. This was indeed a satanic drug thing, you wouldn't understand. Those two demos formed the base of what would become their pivotal Spine Of God album from 1991 and the 25... Tab EP, which featured the mesmerizing 32-minute opus itself, "Tab". Long considered to be the true essence of Magnet's early psychedelic voyages, "Tab" is finally returning to Earth's stratosphere with the release of Test Patterns: Vol. 1. Test Patterns: Vol. 1 features a 2021 remix of "Tab" by John McBain, alongside the original demo, recorded in 1988 and then released on the aforementioned Forget About Life, I'm High On Dope in 1989. "When Magnet started, John and I worked in record stores in Red Bank and Dave worked in the comic bookstore and we made a lot of tapes for each other," recalls Tim Cronin. "A lot of 'check this shit out' kind of stuff -- Hawkwind, early UFO, Amon Düül, Can, Skullflower, Morgen, Loop, Crystalized Movements, early Alice Cooper, Walking Seeds, Butthole Surfers, Spacemen 3. When we recorded the first demo and got to 'TAB', we just beat the shit out of it until it became heavy, noisy, weird, mean and either too long or not long enough, depending on your mood. Everything we wanted in a song (at least everything I wanted in a song), punishingly psychedelic. Jersey Shore krautrock." 180 gram vinyl; acid blotter insert.
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS (ITALY)
HPS 223ULTRA-LP
 
PRICE: $42.00
CAT #: HPS 223ULTRA-LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
ALUNAH Strange Machine (Transparent Splatter Blue-Orange Vinyl) LP
LP version. Transparent splatter blue-orange vinyl. Strange Machine, not just the title of the new Alunah album, but a summary of surviving the last two years. Written and rehearsed during the pandemic whilst overcoming numerous personal struggles, Strange Machine shows Alunah in their most diverse yet focused light. Returning to Foel Studio in October 2021 for the follow-up to their Heavy Psych Sounds debut with producer Chris Fielding, the nine tracks span the epic majesty of "The Earth Spins" featuring guest guitars from Shane Wesley (Crowbar), to the groove of "Dead Woman Walking". From the West Coast psychedelia of "Psychedelic Expressway" to the swagger of the title track, this is the sound of Alunah cutting loose and free. Welcome to the Strange Machine. Artwork by Mariano Peccinetti.
HOSPITAL PRODUCTIONS
HOS 728CD
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: HOS 728CD
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
LUNAR WOMB The Sleeping Green CD
Composed and recorded by Henri Sorvali, also known as Trollhorn (from Moonsorrow, Finntroll, etc.) back in summer 1998 to winter 1999, The Sleeping Green recording has never seen the light on a physical format until today. Includes a bonus track recorded back in 1997 entitled "Eben Ocean". "Eben Ocean" is a long, trance inducing, ethereal composition from the best medieval electronic project.
HYPOCRITCAL BEATDOWN (UK)
HB3
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: HB3
FILE UNDER: HIPHOP
VIOLATORS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Violators of the English Language LP
Emanating from a "prehistoric" existence, near the end of the last millennium, schoolies Andy Votel and his slightly older college mates, were once best recognized in Mancunian clubs and bars as teenage vinyl nerds and bum-fluffed battle-rappers under the collective name Violators Of The English Language. As steadfast supporters of the '80s/90s Brit-core rap scene coming out of London, the multicultural Violators... Mancunian accents were perhaps a bridge-too-far to secure dream-job contracts for humble labels like Kold Sweat and Music Of Life. An unlikely constructive meeting with Gang Starr's DJ Premier (while Andy helped out at a radio station) and playing warm up DJ sets for countless US rap hero's might have temporarily added inspirational fuel to the fire, but after an active period combining graffiti, rapping, scratching, obsessive record digging and beat making into their daily operations, adulthood eventually began to rear its unwelcome head. A decade later Andy Votel (with his reluctant moniker) and his digging skills would begin to provide direct sample material for the likes of Madlib, Mos Def, Jay-Z, Nas, Dr. Dre, Ghostface Killa, and Action Bronson amongst others, and the Violators' black book of break-beats and catalog numbers soon began to feed a same-but-different rap beast. For a project that has taken thirty years it would be totally inadequate to call the formation of Hypocritical Beatdown Records a lockdown-project. There's a deep history and psychology in these records by Violators Of The English Language and their spin-off groups Magnets (Rap Group) and ProVerbs, that combines stage-fright, loss, pride, creative-schizophrenia, racial inequality, surrealism, personal politics, brotherhood, artistic-constipation, better judgment, love, anti-love, soul searching and much more. Each member of all of Violators Of The English Language crew were committed to this cause as soon as the doors opened. Completed, recorded, exorcised, committed to vinyl, rotated and liberated. As well as Andy Votel taking care of both production and part of the microphone duties, some might recognize fellow MC and solo recording artist Figure Of Speech as a prominent voice here. The trio of Magnets (Rap Group) sees Andy also joined by local B-Girl legend Jeni Chan aka Penny Chew, and rapper and DJ Benjamin Hatton. Widely respected visual artist Rick Myers (now living in Massachusetts) also contributed scratches for many of these recordings via file sharing and custom dub-plates to keep the Violators... authentic line-up intact, as well as galvanizing the crew's semi-reluctant art-school roots. Extra production credits for the label also go to Sean Canty from Demdike Stare and the late great Dan Dwayre aka Black Lodge (Mo Wax) who sadly passed away during the completion of these recordings. The members of Violators Of The English Language who you've not yet heard of will quickly make themselves known as the needle drops on this long-mooted debut vinyl release.
IMPROVED SEQUENCE (ITALY)
IMP 077LP
 
PRICE: $28.00
CAT #: IMP 077LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
CRUNT Crunt LP
Crunt began in 1993 as a kind of indie rock supergroup and had their 1994 debut album touted by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. Crunt's members included guitarist/vocalist Stuart Gray (aka Stu Spasm) and bassist/vocalist Kat Bjelland. Gray was well-known in Australia by the start of Crunt for his past involvement in the bands Salamander Jim and the horn/guitar punk rock of Lubricated Goat, which included drummer Martin Bland who went on to play in the Monkeywrench. As for Bjelland, she was the frontwoman/guitarist for the Minnesota-based Babes in Toyland. Crunt was rounded out by drummer Russell Simins, who was the full-time sticksman for New York City's Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Each of Crunt's members were temporarily residing in Seattle when Gray conjured up the idea of starting a new group. After writing almost a dozen songs, the trio entered Seattle's Ranch studio in February of 1993 with Simins and Gray acting as the producers, and their friend John Dunleavy -- known for his work with the Supersuckers -- filling the role of engineer. A year passed before the group's self-titled album was released on February 15, 1994, on Austin, TX label Trance Syndicate, owned by Butthole Surfers' drummer King Coffey. The record was the imprint's first release from a non-Texas group. The debut of the full-length album coincided with the Swine/Sexy single on Australia's Insipid label, which was known for releasing singles by other bands such as the Cows, Urge Overkill, and the Jesus Lizard. Prior to the releases, there had been talk that the band was not going to just be a side project, but a full-time band in the same tradition as Babes in Toyland and the Blues Explosion. The trio had even planned a full-scale tour. By January of 1995, however, Crunt came to an end.
IMPULSE!
IMP 9155HLP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: IMP 9155HLP
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
AYLER, ALBERT In Greenwich Village LP
2022 restock. Originally released 1967; exact reissue, 180 Gram, Gatefold sleeve. Part of the Back To Black series. Including digital download code. "During 1967-69 avant-garde innovator Albert Ayler recorded a series of albums for Impulse that started on a high level and gradually declined in quality. This LP, Ayler's first Impulse set, was probably his best for that label. There are two selections apiece from a pair of live appearances with Ayler having a rare outing on alto on the emotional 'For John Coltrane' and the more violent 'Change Has Come' while backed by cellist Joel Friedman, both Alan Silva and Bill Folwell on basses and drummer Beaver Harris. The other set (with trumpeter Donald Ayler, violinist Michel Sampson, Folwell and Henry Grimes on basses and Harris) has a strong contrast between the simple childlike melodies and the intense solos. However this LP (which was augmented later on by the two-LP set The Village Concerts) will be difficult to find." --Scott Yanow, All Music
INCUNABULUM (NETHERLANDS)
INC 029CD
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: INC 029CD
FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK
VAN WISSEM, JOZEF Nosferatu: The Call Of The Deathbird CD
Jozef Van Wissem: "In 2019 I was commissioned by Cinémathèque Française in Paris to compose the soundtrack to the restored original version of the Nosferatu film (1922). When I was writing the score, I found a Dutch double 7" record with sounds of extinct birds on the streets of Rotterdam. I manipulated these found bird sounds by using electronics and added them to the score." Personnel: Jozef Van Wissem - lute, electronics, beats, electric guitar, found bird sounds."Beginning with a lute solo, his soundtrack incorporates electric guitar and distorted recordings of extinct birds, graduating from subtlety to gothic horror. 'My soundtrack goes from silence to noise over the course of 90 minutes,' he said, culminating in 'dense, slow death metal.'" --The New York Times
INC 030LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: INC 030LP
FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK
VAN WISSEM, JOZEF Nosferatu: The Call Of The Deathbird LP
LP version. Jozef Van Wissem: "In 2019 I was commissioned by Cinémathèque Française in Paris to compose the soundtrack to the restored original version of the Nosferatu film (1922). When I was writing the score, I found a Dutch double 7" record with sounds of extinct birds on the streets of Rotterdam. I manipulated these found bird sounds by using electronics and added them to the score." Personnel: Jozef Van Wissem - lute, electronics, beats, electric guitar, found bird sounds."Beginning with a lute solo, his soundtrack incorporates electric guitar and distorted recordings of extinct birds, graduating from subtlety to gothic horror. 'My soundtrack goes from silence to noise over the course of 90 minutes,' he said, culminating in 'dense, slow death metal.'" --The New York Times
KALLISTA RECORDS (UK)
KALLISTA 002CD
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: KALLISTA 002CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
DAL FORNO, CARLA Come Around CD
Carla dal Forno resurfaces with the news of plans to release her third album, Come Around, via her own Kallista Records imprint. Now, based in the township of Castlemaine, Central Victoria, the Australian artist returns self-assured and firmly settled within the dense eucalypt bushlands. Dal Forno grapples with ideas of home, disorder and insomnia in the swift pop structures of her DIY/post-punk forebearers such as Young Marble Giants, Virginia Astley, and Broadcast. Three years since the launch of her label, Kallista Records, dal Forno finds stability in Castlemaine (pop. 6,750), her third home city in as many albums. After nearly a decade of moving, recording and touring out of Berlin and London, Come Around embodies a newfound solitude born of/in elemental pop hooks and enlightened songwriting. The title track, "Come Around," offers the best example of this confident, fresh candor. It's an elegant invite into dal Forno's sharp new focus beckoning old friends, relationships and audiences into her resettled home. This meandering pop hit strikes between the melodic simplicity of Anna Domino and YMG and the arrangement hooks of The Cannanes and Movietone, capturing dal Forno at her most welcoming with arms wide open. Other tracks like "Mind You're On" recalls the bass driven heft of dal Forno's previous work but where past albums projected the pastoral idyll from the urban jungles of Berlin and London, the lyricism and production on Come Around embody her current lived experience in the Australian regions where space, strong bonds and solitude are in high supply. Returning to rekindle relationships with people and places and joining in trysts amidst the foreboding badlands cuts through the whole record, as on "The Garden of Earthly Delights," a cover of The United States of America's 1968 track. There is joy if you look for it but, as dal Forno warns on "Caution": "I sell caution word of you." Mistrust and doubt are not completely vanquished. Having embarked on such a radical physical and creative journey since the last record, dal Forno lays bare the passing of time and the oscillating waves of energy and ennui that go with it. This is plain to see on "Stay Awake" and instrumentals like "Deep Sleep" and "Autumn," which gives rise to anxiety and insomnia in her new sunburnt home. Yet "Slumber" offers a glimmer of respite sitting within the chaotic circus of production that channels Kendra Smith, General Strike, and The Flying Lizards. This track, a duet with English artist, Thomas Bush, searches for solace in the arms of another. Nothing is left unsaid on Come Around. Having finally found limitless time and space, dal Forno does well not to waste any bit of it.
KINGSTON SOUNDS (UK)
KSCD 089CD
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: KSCD 089CD
FILE UNDER: WORLD
ZUKIE, TAPPER Bunker Buster CD
Tapper Zukie after taking a little time out of the musical arena has come back with an album full of great material and has called in an A list of fellow Jamaican artists to add flavor to this great set. As Tapper named the album himself Bunker Buster, it shows Mr Zukie busting back out of the studio and back in the arena in fine style. The opening track finds his long-standing working partner Horace Andy adding his distinctive vocal style to "Aquarius". "Nuh Fraid A Dem" features the great Luciano, "The Blessings" the mighty Michael Rose, and Little Roy adds some magical rhymes to "Wicked". The soulful voice of Beres Hammond sweetens the effects of "Stress". The killer title track "Buster Bunker" is backed up by the Musical Intimidators and Tapper has reworked his "Good Luck My Friend" track to "Lucky Friend" which features the timeless backing vocals by the legendary Jamaican vocal group The Tamlins. Digging even deeper into his back catalog he has also pulled up some classic rhythms and more existing vocals to rework over. For example, "The Light In Me" features the greatly missed Ronnie Davis. Junior Rass adds his mighty roar to "Humble Lion" and Junior Reid leads the charge on "Warrior". Half Pint adds a musical layer to "Flesh and Blood". All in all, a great selection of musical ideas that also features the cream of Jamaica's musicians, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Flabba Holt, Chinna Smith to name but a few. Tapper's son Noel Barnes (AKA Brand New) alongside Pam Hall adds some gloss. Such is his standing in the reggae community that a call out to Jamaica's finest set of singers and their eager reply to add their talents has made this an album not to be missed and can sit proudly alongside and find a place in his already prodigious catalog. CD version includes four bonus tracks.
KRANKY
KRANK 235CD
 
PRICE: $16.00
CAT #: KRANK 235CD
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
VANTZOU, CHRISTINA No5 CD
"While on the island of Syros in the Aegean Sea for a film festival performance, Christina Vantzou experienced what she characterized as 'a moment of focus' -- a specific vision for the sprawl of raw recordings she'd been amassing for her fifth album. Upon relocating to the Cycladic island of Ano Koufonisi, she situated herself outside at a patio table with a laptop and headphones, taking brief breaks to swim, and began the 'reductive process' of shaving and shaping the source material into uneasy but lyrical movements, alternately austere and adorned with strange inflections: glottal groaning, cavernous water, glittering eddies of modular synth, languorous silences. Mixing the pieces herself without outsourcing to an engineer compounded the intimacy and autobiographical dimension of the music; she refers to Nº5 as 'almost like a first album.' Drawing on sessions staged in February 2020, Vantzou's editing instincts emphasize process and isolation, spotlighting resonance and restraint, liquidity and long tails. Fleeting configurations of piano, wind, strings, synthetics, and field recordings, these are spaces as much as compositions, surreal grottos of shifting light, suffused with a sense of invisible divinity. Although seventeen musicians appear on the record, the proceedings feel minimalist and malleable, sculpted from interstitial moments and oblique synchronicities. The definition of a composer as 'one who joins things' is here both plumbed and proven; Vantzou describes Nº5 as 'a letting go,' a place of 'soft borders,' unfixed and undefinable."
LA VIDA ES UN MUS (UK)
MUS 259LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: MUS 259LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
IRREAL Era Electronica LP
Following up their 2020 EP Barcelona, Irreal delivers eight troglodyte anthems of radikal hardcore punk. Borrowing heavily from the Hear Nothing era Discharge and echoing equally Suomi classics Destruktions/Mellakka and AOQ demo era Cro-Mags, Irreal creates a maelstrom of hypnotic feedback. Era Electrónica Catalan and Spanish anarchist lyrics bind the bands primitive sonic assault, delivering a modern hardcore punk record without an ounce of modern attitude. Punk as it is meant to be; nasty, aggressive, political and uncompromising. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Markus at No Master's Voice in Copenhagen. Cover art by Arturo PS.
LES DISQUES BONGO JOE (SWITZERLAND)
BJR 060LP
 
PRICE: $32.00
CAT #: BJR 060LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
LIMA, PEDRO Recordar E Viver: Antologia Vol. 1 2LP
Double LP version. Pedro Lima was certainly the most iconic singer from Sao Tomé Island. Born in 1944, his career began at teenage, with his faithful band Os Leonenses, who were mostly members of his family and shared most of his musical life; and lasted until his death on January 31st, 2019. Until the very end, he kept performing big events all around the country, and was among the very few singers and bands from Sao Tomé & Principe that recorded in Luanda Angola for N'Gola and Merengue labels in the '70s, and in Lisbon for the essential IEFE imprint in the '80s. Respected father of 27 children from four different wives, people named him "A voz do povo de Sao Tomé", the people's voice of the island, as he always made very clear his political views on internal affairs and backed since day one the revolutionary party that took power after the independence obtained from Portugal on July 12th, 1975. A powerful and free soul, expressing through his beautifully soft and deep voice range, the concerns of the poor, in this often-troubled country. His funerals were the biggest ever organized on the island, and were paid for by ex-president Pinto da Costa, gathering thousands to accompany him to his last home. His music is wonderfully rich and delicate, though quite minimalistic in arrangements, revealing the subtle melodies of the islands' harmonic and backing vocals traditions, laid on either incredibly energetic Puxa rhythms, or the sweetness of sensual Rumbas. Continuing their work on Sao Tomé and Principe with curator DJ Tom B., Les Disque Bongo Joe announce the release of Recordar É Viver: Antologia Vol. 1, the first volume of a retrospective of Pedro Lima's work. You'll find here some rare and unreleased tracks from the '80s when he was at the top of his game. For fans of: África Negra, Ebo Taylor, William Onyeabor.
BJR 077CD
 
PRICE: $14.50
CAT #: BJR 077CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
CITRON CITRON Chagrin Bleu CD
Brother and sister, Citron Citron is the new revelation of the Geneva underground scene. Chagrin Bleu explores the melancholy of the night and the joy of a flight under the sun. Songs with transcendent refrains, and synthetic laments with romantic melodies, carried by groove box-like rhythms. An album on the borders of chamber pop, medieval chants, and ambient. The lyrics are at times poetic, angry or dreamy. The first sketches of the album were drawn during the first confinement when time was slowing down. The songs were then recorded in a DIY way by the band in their studio in Geneva during the year 2021. The first sessions were recorded on tape with a Tascam 688, then expanded and edited on computer. Some additional recordings were made with the help of sound engineer Yavor Lilov (L'Éclair) and some guests: Fhunyue Gao on theremin, Sébastien Bui (L'Éclair) for some synth parts. The album was then worked on and mixed with Jacco Gardner in his Antwerp studio. His analog world allowed the sound of the album to grow and deepen. With his echoes and tape machines, the mix could be approached in an organic and evolutionary way.
BJR 079LP
 
PRICE: $22.50
CAT #: BJR 079LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
YILDIRIM & GRUP SIMSEK, DERYA Dost 2 LP
LP version. Derya Y?ld?r?m and Grup ?im?ek are back with their third album Dost 2, the second of a two-part series following 2021's highly acclaimed Dost 1 (BJR 065LP). The eight-track release sees Turkish singer, ba?lama player and multi-instrumentalist Derya Y?ld?r?m and her international band of brothers and sisters continue their psychedelic journey, meandering through Anatolian folk music and poetry with their electrifying grooves, while also delving into their own lives and personal experiences. While rooted in Anatolian tradition, Grup ?im?ek (which translates into "Ocean Lightning and the Thunderbolts", a play on Derya's surname "Y?ld?r?m", which means lightning in Turkish) draws on a boundless cosmos of sounds and builds on the contribution of each band member. Despite being multilingual, Y?ld?r?m exclusively sings in Turkish. Graham Mushnik (organ, synthesizers, and clavinet player) and Antonin Voyant (guitar, bass, and flute) are both members of London/France-based collective Catapulte Records and played in l'Orchestre du Montplaisant, a quartet known for its cinematic, retro atmospheres -- a clear influence on Grup ?imsek's sprawling, vintage-tinged compositions. The band marries 1960s and '70s Anatolian influences with a contemporary approach to composition and rhythm, thanks in large part to the contribution of drummer, percussionist, composer, and marimba player Greta Eacott. With a background in experimental and contemporary music, Eacott "thinks about essential things like sound and time within music and space, and contributed this whole mindset to Grup ?imsekm," says Y?ld?r?m. ?im?ek's original compositions dominate Dost 2's tracklist, with the lyrics on four of the tracks penned by Derya Y?ld?r?m in collaboration with Berlin-based writer Duygu A?al. Guitar and organ curl around each other on opener "Gümü?", which unfolds and swells as Y?ld?r?m's powerful voice takes off before giving way to an evocative guitar solo. "Merakl? Gönül" deals with memory and loss, feelings that permeate Y?ld?r?m's vocals as they float on a mellow bed of delicate percussions, phased guitars, and winding synth lines; "Mola" is an understated but incredibly powerful ba?lama composition, where moments of silence are able to stir up emotions as intensely as the music itself; seconds later the tension is broken by the funky bassline on the irresistibly catchy "Bal". The sorrowful atmosphere on "Odam Kireç Tutmuyor" mirrors the heartbreak of the song's two protagonists. Based on a traditional love song, the track ends with a cry of "Oy Leminê", a Kurdish expression that conveys a feeling of pain, hope, and unfulfilled hopes, artfully captured by a wistful flute line. The third cover on the album is the soul stirring "Ay?e Halam Ar?yor" sung by Derya's aunt Ay?e Y?ld?r?m. For fans of: Altin Gün, Satellites, Sababa 5, Mogollar, Baba Zula.
LEWIS RECORDINGS (UK)
LEWIS 1119EP
 
PRICE: $11.00
CAT #: LEWIS 1119EP
FILE UNDER: HIPHOP
DJ YODA Feel Like Home/Don't Mean A Thing 7"
"The opening single of 'Prom Nite' is a sermon perfect for log cabin lock-ins and losing yourself across the Balearics: 'Feel Like Home' is spirited, euphoric and thoroughly satisfying, not to mention an advertising executive's dream. London's House Gospel Choir, endorsed by Annie Mac and The Blessed Madonna, provide the salvation that everyone is looking for right now, their heavenly harmonies aligned to Yoda's gentle grooves and keys leading you to the light, encouraging the linkage of arms and for its soulful soothing properties to wash over you."
LEWIS 1120EP
 
PRICE: $11.00
CAT #: LEWIS 1120EP
FILE UNDER: HIPHOP
DJ YODA My Energy/Lesson 1956 7"
"In a world of beauty school dropouts and jukebox tearjerkers, Eva Lazarus (DJ Vadim, The Nextmen, and a guest on Yoda's Home Cooking album) invites you to come and feel 'My Energy'. A superlatively soulful slow jam wrapped in stars and stripes, it's a timeless, lilting breakup song, with Yoda shiftily putting in work on the decks out back. Authentic doo wop straight from a 50s picture show, Lazarus takes center stage as she leaves a string of devastated would-be suitors in her wake. The new sound of DJ Yoda revisits a golden era of rhythm and blues -- going all in on 'Prom Nite', his new album of retro Americana and superstar guests continues to expand his musical expertise, with his signature scratches and cut-ups craftily coming into view over Heartbreak Ridge."
LIVITY SOUND RECORDINGS (UK)
LIVITY 057EP
 
PRICE: $20.50
CAT #: LIVITY 057EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
DJ PLEAD Quick EP 12"
Two years since his Going For It EP, Livity Sound Recordings welcome back Sydney's DJ Plead for a second round of versatile, psychedelic club variations. Since debuting around 2018 Plead has forged a distinctive sound which focuses on inventive use of percussion and elegant melodic hooks that draw lines between global dance music cultures without adhering to any fixed formula. From the carnival futurism of lead track "Come Quick" to the infectious reggaeton lilt and understated trance synths of "El Es", Plead presents a sound as playful as it is serious, predominantly exploring the 100 bpm tempo range. Shaped out by acutely angled rhythms, shifting time signatures and bold licks, Quick EP further establishes him as a vital, individual talent with the kind of flexible club tracks that bend between scenes and inject vibrant energy into the dance.
MADE IN GERMANY (GERMANY)
MIG 90783LP
 
PRICE: $33.00
CAT #: MIG 90783LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
WATERS, MUDDY Live At Rockpalast 2LP
"Muddy Waters had a good sense for talent and accordingly almost always an excellent band behind him, but his backing band from 1974 to 1980, which can be heard on these recordings, was one of his very best: The pianist Pinetop Perkins joined the band already in 1970 after the death of Otis Spann, with the drummer Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith Muddy even worked together since 1964. The bassist Calvin Jones joined in 1971, and in 1973 the two guitarists Luther 'Guitar Jr.' Johnson and Bob Margolin came into the band. The band was rounded out in 1974 by the excellent harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, who later became, among other things, the first blues harp choice for Eric Clapton. Permanent touring made this line-up a top-rehearsed band, which optimally supported the charismatic leader when they entered the stage of Dortmund's Westfalenhalle for the Rockpalast recording on December 10, 1978. Muddy Waters himself was still at the height of his career at this time, his powerful vocals and great stage charisma captivating the audience. Muddy's guitar playing came into its own especially during his typical slow blues slide guitar solos on the Fender Telecaster electric guitar played in normal tuning - and rarely did Muddy have such a hot sound as on these WDR television recordings. The evening's song selection consisted of some of his greatest hits, which probably belonged to the mandatory repertoire every evening ('Hoochie Coochie Man', 'Walkin' Thru The Park', a terrific version of the macho anthem 'Mannish Boy' and of course the immortal 'Got My Mojo Workin''), but also more rarely played tunes like 'Soon Forgotten' by St. Louis Jimmy Oden or 'Country Boy', both atmospheric slow blues with slide."
MODERN LOVE (UK)
LOVE 069LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: LOVE 069LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
STOTT, ANDY Passed Me By (2022 Edition) 2x12"
2022 edition. New cover art. Andy Stott's radical 2011 bonecrusher returns on its first new pressing for almost a decade, still screwing the dance and heads like nothing else with its lo-sprung suspended takes on boogie dub and claggiest rhythmic thumpers. The sludgy, slow-motion slug of Passed Me By marked a pivotal point when Stott swam against the grain of prevailing currents of the post-dubstep era's turn toward garage-techno and UKF-inspired percussive house. Working loosely adjacent to a then emergent witch-house sound, Andy screwed templates associated to Salem and Holy Other into a more muscular, thrumming style of drug chug more in key with early Actress, arriving at his own distinctive sound that sent us reeling. Between the intoxicating, syrupy gnarrr of "New Ground" with its Proustian vocal motifs, and the head-wobbling Pennine weather system compressions of its titular curtain closer, it's a stone cold classic; eliciting heads-down, wall-banging reactions in the side-chained thrum of "North To South" and a lip-biting MDMA-buzz come up with the thriller funk of "Intermittent", while sore thumb "Dark Details" gives shivering flashbacks to warehouse brukouts and "Execution" curbs the high with a K-holing drag. Delivering a narcotic, keeling dose of nostalgia that slings us back to late hours in the office and blunted afters with the goodest kru, Passed Me By was one of those records that made you reassess pretty much everything else around at the time, practically forcing you to play other stuff on the wrong speed if we wanted to DJ with it, or more simply letting it run and slowly shift temporal perceptions and paradigms in the process. Mastered and cut by LUPO. Clear vinyl; edition of 700.
LOVE 072LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: LOVE 072LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
STOTT, ANDY We Stay Together (2022 Edition) 2x12"
2022 edition. New cover art. Andy Stott's ultra-classic bout of screwed, knackered house is a shapeshifting, hardy perennial whose crushing traction and atmospheric grip has only deepened in the decade (+1) since it was first issued, as part of a now notorious one-two in 2011 beside Passed Me By (LOVE 069LP). Out of print for almost a decade, it's now finally available again in a new edition that's still sounding unlike pretty much anything else we've heard in the intervening years. We Stay Together was a proper watershed moment for Andy Stott in the nascent phase of an inspirational stylistic arc. While he'd spent the previous six years constructing everything from warehouse-shuddering deep house and dub techno to bare-boned dubstep, the arrival of a new decade paid witness to Stott turning inward, collapsing what he'd learnt from late night sessions with the Modern Love crew into a radical new sound that was arguably without precedent in its field. The simple move of screwing the tempo to circa 100BPM would, in turn, open out his sound, prising room between the rhythms which he colored with a palette of particularly bruised, processed outside-the-box textures gleaned from an array of guitar pedals and endlessly churned samples. There were, of course, parallels in DJ Screw's codeine-infused treatments of classic rap and soul, and their influence on the contemporaneous "witch house" style, but few, if any, were doing it within a techno and club music context that hewed so close to the darker, gristlier underbelly and animus of Manchester's warehouse heritage. This style of viscous, cranky chug proved fertile ground that would be explored in-depth over the next decade -- you can hear traces of it on everything from Overmono's sludge to Low's acclaimed Double Negative -- and it's the source of it all. But, still, nothing twats quite as smart or heavy as We Stay Together. From an opening that uncannily echoes the rinsed-out empty warehouse scenes in the closing stages of "Fioriucci Made Me Hardcore", the serotonin-depleted "Submission" triggers a side-chained momentum that helplessly drags users thru the gnarly mire of "Posers" to the zombied lurch of "Bad Wires" and its title tune's ket-legged strut. He pushes the aesthetics to asphyxiating degrees on "Cherry Eye", but not without a glimmer of hope in its underwater choral motifs that always buoys his best bits from utter doom, before "Cracked" stresses the metallic tang of his textures with a bloodlust and vital, systolic throb whose effect has only been galvanized with age. Clear vinyl; edition of 700.
LOVE 124LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: LOVE 124LP
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
SAKINI, LAILA Paloma LP
Paloma, meaning the symbol of peace, a white dove, is the fourth LP by Laila Sakini, and her debut for Modern Love. Invoking hope, in hopeless times, is perhaps the central aim of this album -- which has links and references to similarly spirited exercises: the aspirations of Veronica/Veronique to fatefully discover herself through song in Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique, a high school band readying their first performance, a theater production cutting stars and props to decorate their small but important production. Endeavors, fraught with risk of failure and which are quintessentially naive, are attempted with whatever material is within reach. In Paloma, piano and recorder form the core instruments, with a reluctant vocal, a borrowed violin, some glockenspiel, a timbale. Sakini sings of reflections, shadows, optical illusions, tricks of light, tricks of the mind, secret meanings, magic and mysteries. Charged and coded, forlorn and impressionistic, it's a mystifying album of unapologetically elementary instrumentation, arranged with cinematic ambitions.Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, and performer Laila Sakini is London based, but Melbourne born. Her works include Like A Gun (EP), Vivienne (LP), Strada (EP), Into The Traffic, Under The Moonlight (LP), Princess Diana of Wales (ACOLOUR 038LP) and her 2017 collaboration with poet Lucy Van, Figures (BKEDIT 022LP). Laila has been featured in The Wire Magazine, graced the cover of Switzerland's cult Zweikommasiben music magazine, been featured on BBC1, in Frances' Les Inrockuptibles, LA's AQNB, Belgium's Gonzo magazine, Italy's Blow Up and in several specials on NTS Radio, LYL, Dublab and Red Light.
MY VIA NERO'S NEPTUNE
MY 003LP
 
PRICE: $32.50
CAT #: MY 003LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
YONKERS, MICHAEL Michael Lee Yonkers LP
Limited restock, last copies... An original sealed pressing of Michael Yonkers's Michael Lee Yonkers from 1974. Self-recorded in 1971 and '72, Michael Lee Yonkers has often been referred to as Michael's "country" album. It is many folks' favorite of his early works, and is likely the weirdest. The roughhewn quality of these recordings has caused listeners to make comparisons with other "real people" outsiders like Grudzien and the Holy Modal Rounders, but there are more obvious, well-known comparisons (Townes Van Zandt) that are at least as appropriate. There are clear references to various classic country stylings in these songs, even as Michael's unique distillation of their influence lends a delightfully skewed mischievousness to the proceedings. Released in 1974 and rescued from deep inside Yonks's storage space/weirdo museum.
NERO'S NEPTUNE
NN 006LP
 
PRICE: $18.50
CAT #: NN 006LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
KOERNER, SPIDER JOHN March 1963 LP
2022 restock. A major archival discovery, taped March 24, 1963 for a Milwaukee, Wisconsin radio program, on the eve of the very same day that the seminal Blues, Rags & Hollers LP by Koerner, Ray & Glover was created. Spider John Koerner is the man who first introduced a young Bob Dylan to the 12-string guitar, a bona fide legend who is acknowledged as an influence by artists as diverse as John Lennon, Beck, The Doors & Dylan himself. Nearly 50 years ago, Paul Nelson, writing in the Little Sandy Review and Sing Out respectively, said that "Koerner's art is like Chaplin's, as great and lasting as it is entertaining," while calling him "the most innovatively brilliant acoustic blues musician of his generation." In the year 2010 -- seldom performing and now in his 70s -- the reclusive Koerner is "one of the world's greatest living practitioners of traditional American folk music." It is with enormous pride that Nero's Neptune presents this long-lost piece of American musical history. Tip-on sleeves, pressed on 180 gram vinyl.
RIDINGEASY RECORDS
EZRDR 139LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: EZRDR 139LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VA Brown Acid - The Fifteenth Trip LP
LP version. "Lo and behold, Brown Acid - The Fifteenth Trip is here, and it's another mind-melting dose of brilliant long-lost, rare, and unreleased hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal tracks from the 60s -70s. Riding Easy's crate-digging mining expeditions, and growing network of the original artists keeps on giving with more and more incredible discoveries every time they go back for more. Like they've done throughout this series, all of these tracks were painstakingly licensed legitimately and the artists were paid. Make oneself comfortable and prepare for yet another deep, deep dive into the treasure trove of dank, subterranean, wild-eyed and hairy rock n' roll of yesteryear. Some key examples include: As usual, this Trip opens strong, as 'Take The Time' swaggers along with switchblade stabs of guitar twang and frantic drumming that sounds like Nick Cave's '80s post-punk barbarians The Birthday Party on this 1969 single from the mysterious Boston area band The Looking Glass. Negative Space toil in the dark web of The Seeds, and dwell in the mystic haze of working-class suburbs in Camden, NJ circa 1970. Their angry, nasty guitar sounds and frustration-bogged frontman Rob Russen ensure that the aggro fueled 'Forbidden Fruit' -- in which he confesses his love for his sister-in-law -- will hit one right in the face. Truth & Janey might be familiar from their 45-only 'Midnight Horseman' single heard way back on the Sixth Trip, and/or their incredible 1976 album No Rest For The Wicked. Their super-driven soul leaning cover of 'Under My Thumb' is almost like The Who had penned the track, with relentless drums, jackhammer rhythm guitar and near-falsetto vocals."
EZRDR 146CD
 
PRICE: $15.00
CAT #: EZRDR 146CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
EARLY MOODS Early Moods CD
"The self-titled full-length debut of Los Angeles quintet Early Moods is a marriage of classic underground doom like Candlemass, Witchfinder General, Pentagram, Trouble and Saint Vitus, paired with traditional 'big box' heavy metal melodies and song structure. These two contrasting aesthetics may seem incongruous, but the skilled musicianship of Early Moods -- some of whom have played music together since their early teens -- manages to find the perfect balance between grit and gloss. 'From the beginning, the purpose for this band was to incorporate our love of traditional doom metal with a heavy metal approach,' guitarist Eddie Andrade says. 'We wanted to show that heavy doom can be complemented with melodies and harmonies. Black Sabbath meets NWOBHM is what we aim for, really.' The band was founded in 2015 by Andrade and vocalist/keyboardist Alberto Alcaraz after a few years of playing in thrash and death metal projects before the two realized that the classic doom that they'd grown up with was what they really wanted to explore. Going through a few lineup changes while delving deeper into the diverging influences that were calling, Early Moods arrived at the sound and lineup that grew their fanbase locally. The band soon captured the attention of German label Dying Victim Productions, who released their debut EP, Spellbound in 2020. Early Moods is Oscar Hernandez on lead guitar, Chris Flores on drums, Elix Felciano on bass, Alcaraz on vocals/synth and Andrade on guitar. Early Moods was recorded at 7th Street Studios in downtown L.A. by Carlos Cruz (Warbringer, Chris Poland, Power Trip) from October to December of 2021. It was mixed by Allen Falcon of Birdcage Studios and mastered by Brad Boatright of Audio Siege who has worked with bands like Sleep, Obituary, and High On Fire."
RUMPELMUSIG (SWITZERLAND)
RUMP 008CD
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: RUMP 008CD
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
KALABRESE Let Love Rumpel (Part 2) CD
Kalabrese, the pleasant Rumpelzampano from Zürich, is back with 11 songs that get under your skin and straight into your hips. The follow-up to Part 1 (RUMP 007CD/LP, 2021) is less pop-structures, more trippy and floating, reminiscent of his debut album Rumpelzirkus (STATT 002CD, 2007) at times and leveling perfectly between head nodding moments, Balearic sounds and massive Kalafunk. The story of the album naturally continues and bears the hallmark of Sacha Winkler who's not getting tired exploring and experimenting with his music. "Kevin und Sandra" is a strong, technoid, rocking yet poetic introduction to the album. Hypnotic driving synths howling over a stoner rock alike drum beat and a fluid rollin' synth-bass. "Springbrunne" is a great "rap without rap" hymn featuring the elegant and relaxed voice of Kayyak. Over a heavy beat he's toastin' about reinventing himself through the splatter of a fountain before Deacon Blues, better known as Seth Troxler, suddenly joins in. The title song of the new album, "Let Love Rumpel" is an ode to the joy of raving together but and the perfect soundtrack for sunrise. "Eight Bars" is massive Rumpelfunk, showing that it doesn't need more than a simple bassline and groove to lean back in the spirit of funk. "Get Up And Try" is the nimble answer towards the exhausting polemic about measures within the pandemic and know-all caprices. A children's choir over a mid-tempo housebeat, a beautiful cello by band buddy Dominik Löhrer and the swingin' trumpet, performed by Rumpeljazzer Benjamin Danech. "Explore Yourself" is a collaboration with the vocal contributions of talented newcomer Palma Ada. "Die Kette feat Zoé Miku" is a powerful and hypnotic mid-tempo Balearic house jam with the contemplative vocals of Zoé Miku. "Healthy Again" features Palma Ada backed up by a wonderful brass section. "Middle Of The Night" is a stripped-back, lyrical segment. Carefully sculpted sounds, smooth and low bass tones and a captivating simple rhythm. "Halftime Blues" is quite the opposite; heavy and slow, a dub without echoes with a slightly dystopic texture to it. With "Don't Loose The Center" featuring Kayyak, Kalabrese is celebrating the Rumpelfunk again -- this time pimped up with a lot of piano and boogie while Kayyak is lifting his voice. Rumpelorchester's bass player Marci Dobozi delivers the magnificent piano.
SEELAND
SEELAND 538CD
 
PRICE: $18.00
CAT #: SEELAND 538CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
TISM Collected Versus: The Complete TISM Singles 2CD
"In its twenty-year career, Australian band TISM became possibly the most notorious band in their country's history, mixing the satire of Frank Zappa, the art-project long-game of the Residents, the songwriting chops and wit of Sparks, and the culture-jamming panache of Negativland. Now, forty years after forming and eighteen years after their last gig, an unsuspecting America can finally enjoy the pop-dance-satire band from Oz they never knew they were missing, as experimental music label Seeland Records proudly presents the TISM singles collection Collected Versus in a 2CD set that brings their greatest 'hits' to U.S. audiences for the first time. TISM albums such as Great Truckin' Songs Of The Renaissance, Hot Dogma, Machiavelli And The Four Seasons, and De Rigueurmortis became chart hits while the band wowed live audiences with a series of absurd performance art happenings that inspired equal parts head-banging and stage-diving, danger and glee, laughs and total confusion. Born of the early-1980s music scene of suburban Melbourne, the band was a hit onstage and on the pop charts, with the seven men of TISM remaining anonymous for decades. Performing in balaclavas and rocking stage names like Humphrey B. Flaubert, Jock Cheese, Eugene de la Hot Croix-Bun, and Ron Hitler-Barassi, their provocative live shows became the stuff of legend, as they blasted their fans with infectiously catchy guitar-laden electro-pop leavened with bottomless cynicism and dark laughs. Career highlights included appearing on a children's TV show to promote their song 'Saturday Night Palsy' and gradually increasing the size of the band to twenty eight members over three minutes; playing an entire gig in front of platforms on which they staged a full wedding reception, complete with best man's speech, bridal party, and a separate wedding band; holding a press interview on a football field with the journalists fifty meters away at the end of a taut piece of string; releasing their debut single 'Defecate on My Face' as a 7-inch record in a 12-inch sleeve with all four sides glued shut; playing a benefit gig in which two separate TISMs performed at opposite ends of the same hall; and bringing twenty guitarists on stage to play a single chord. Collected Versus includes a career-spanning survey of all of the band's singles on disc one, plus eighty minutes of fan favorites on disc two."
SOFT ABUSE
SAB 105CD
 
PRICE: $15.00
CAT #: SAB 105CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
PUMICE Phylis CD
"Pumice returns with an exquisite experimental bathroom sink pop record in hand, dubbed Phylis. This time out the long-running Aotearoa band, currently a duo consisting of Stefan Neville and Jade Farley, fracture sore-thumbed folk songs into crumpled bricks with riffs written on the toilet. Wonky South Pacific skiffle careens into heady organ dirges followed by galloping blurts of afterlife feedback. As ever, texture and accidents rub up against melodies, rhythms are not strict and words are grubby. But with Phylis, the restless band tenders its most exuberant, straightforward and enjoyable pop record yet. Recorded at Neville's T?maki Makaurau/Auckland studio in 2021, Neville and Farley have returned to the simple and joyful instincts of the earliest Pumice recordings. Nylon strings, drums with the feet, the empty and the absurd. Impossible to think of something analogous to the cosmic comforts on offer here, Phylis once more presents songs that could only come from the world of Pumice."
SONIC CATHEDRAL (UK)
SCR 215LP
 
PRICE: $30.50
CAT #: SCR 215LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
DUMMY Dumb EPs LP
LA five-piece Dummy follow 2021's acclaimed debut album Mandatory Enjoyment (released by Trouble In Mind) and their single for Sub Pop with Dumb EPs, a compilation of their first two EPs from 2020, remastered especially for vinyl by Simon Scott from Slowdive. EP1 was recorded from late 2019 and released in May 2020, both digitally and on a tape by Maryland punk label Pop Wig. Translucent green vinyl. "Dummy has all the makings of a modern cult band" --Pitchfork. "Like a scrappy, punch-drunk Stereolab or a blissed out, mantra-hypnotized Wire" --Aquarium Drunkard
SPEAKEASY STUDIOS
SPEAKEASY 004LP
 
PRICE: $25.00
CAT #: SPEAKEASY 004LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
DAWN RIDING You're Still Here LP
"In San Francisco's Mission District, there's a Victorian house with a garden full of towering tobacco flowers and rose vines so thick they're pulling down the fence. Every Sunday, for a great span of 2021, songwriter Sarah Rose Janko would join producer and engineer Alicia Vanden Heuvel (Aislers Set, Magic Trick) there, to play guitar, sing harmonies, and hum lines for other instruments, before retreating to Vanden Heuvel's basement recording studio (Speakeasy Studios SF), to roll tape on her Otari half-inch 8-track. This is how, week by week, Dawn Riding's new record You're Still Here, was chipped out of the ethereal and into an expansive album of meticulously crafted and deeply captivating songs. It's an album steeped in intimacy and warmth, each song built with a level of restraint that leaves room for Jankos's quietly fierce vocals and her powerful songwriting to sit front and center. Nothing is rushed and each song is presented almost as a vignette: some with so much stillness one can feel the relationships, some that build from the heart's interior solitude into swells of emotional catharsis. Above all, the album drives and breathes with storytelling. You're Still Here marks Dawn Riding's third full-length album, dropping this November as a co-release between The Long Road Society and Speakeasy Studios SF, two women-owned Bay Area record labels, a fitting arrangement considering that the album's creation was deeply collaborative. The credits reveal a wealth of Bay Area musicians lending their talents, with multi-instrumentalist Vanden Heuvel acting as producer and musical arranger. In addition to long-time Dawn Riding drummer Jasmyn Wong's familiar shuffle on 'All The Time,' Keenah Silver Fassett brings a rockier edge to two of the heavier numbers on the record. Hall McCann, Dawn Riding's long-time lead guitar player and backup vocalist pushes her harmonies to the apparitional on 'Scales Fall From My Eyes' while her guitar lines on 'The Difference' are dirty and raw, invoking CSNY's 'Ohio.' Vanden Heuvel steps away from the mixing desk to play bass, organ, and even drums (on 'Nine Lives'). Jacob Aranda (Tarnation) plays pedal steel and violin on a number of songs, including a haunting steel track on 'Scales Fall From My Eyes.' Anna Hillburg adds trumpet, and Jessie Leigh Smith, who often performs live with Dawn Riding, plays soulful harmonica, lending a comforting down-home vibe to the journey."
SUBEXOTIC (UK)
SUBEX 068LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: SUBEX 068LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
CONFLUX COLDWELL The Phantomatic Coast LP
The East Coast of England is a land living on borrowed time. Time borrowed from the North Sea, reclaimed a thousand years ago. But now it seems that sea has come to claim it all back. Michael C Coldwell spent three years traveling up and down this rapidly disappearing shoreline, collecting ghost stories, photographing the roads to nowhere, the monumental sound mirrors and pillboxes teetering on the edges of cliffs, making field recordings of the waves and fog signals, and writing mournful electronic music from static caravans. This hauntological project finally culminated in a short essay film entitled Views from Sunk Island -- and this new Conflux Coldwell album. More than just a film score, The Phantomatic Coast stretches beyond the original aims of the documentary, to evoke something deeper about our troubled relationship with the sea -- the many towns and ships lost beneath the waves, and ancient forgotten lands lying out beyond the windfarms like some Yorkshire Atlantis. Memory and mythology became obvious themes in the work, as did the ruins and remains of the world wars, now slipping beneath shifting sands forever. Deluxe gatefold sleeve. Sea-mist color vinyl.
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES
SF 121LP
 
PRICE: $25.50
CAT #: SF 121LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
BABA COMMANDANT AND THE MANDINGO BAND Sonbonbela LP
Sublime Frequencies release the third LP from Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band. Sonbonbela was recorded in the beginning of 2022 in the Republic of Burkina Faso. The group continue to hone their trademark fusion of Mandingue and Afro-beat styles. The Mandingo Band are a hit machine, sculpting seven new tracks of near Beefheart/Magic Band dynamics, Fela inspired groovers dusted out in the Sahel zone, rather than the humidity and sweat of Lagos, creating one of the most original and propulsive musical statements to come from the contemporary West African cultural juggernaut. As with previous releases, the band features the legendary guitar pyrotechnics of Issouf Diabate, truly one of the greatest West African (or Earth for that matter) guitarists of the last forty years. The band is completed by a near bottomless barrel of artistry from the Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso musical talent pool. On bass guitar, Wendeyida Ouedraogo, on drums Abbas Kabore, and on percussion and balafon, Nickie Dembele. Leading the charge again is the captain himself, Mamadou Sanou on the Doso Ngoni featuring one of the most distinctive voices of the modern era. The opposite of the banal trends of auto-tune that have pervaded most of West African popular music, Baba's voice still impresses with its gravel and grit, showcasing a range that is ancient and defiant in equal measure. This LP is a non-stop hit parade of Afro-beat bangers destined to light dancefloors and living rooms ablaze! This album is dedicated to the memory of Massimbo Taragna, the bass player extraordinaire who was an integral part of the Mandingo Band's trance stun musical power. He passed away in early 2022. RIP.
SWAMI
SWA 157LP
 
PRICE: $25.00
CAT #: SWA 157LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
MEAT WAVE Malign Hex LP
"Swami Records is excited to glom onto Chicago punks Meat Wave for the release of their fourth album Malign Hex. Ryan Wizniak (drums), Joe Gac (bass) and Chris Sutter (vocals, guitar) strip back the 'Windy City Sound' and expose a more jagged and turbulent frame. The ten-track album, which features singles 'What Would You Like Me To Do' as well as 'Ridiculous Car' and 'Honest Living,' was recorded by Gac in 2019 and serves as the band's most cohesive, dynamic and ambitious work to date. 'Our sound in the beginning was consistently very driving,' says Gac. 'Now, that characteristic is merely a tool we can reach for. I don't think it completely defines what we're doing.' Meat Wave spent the last half of 2019 chipping away at Malign Hex. 'We recorded it the same way we always have -- live in a room together,' says drummer Ryan Wizniak. 'But we allowed ourselves to embellish more and take more chances with extra instrumentation.' While Malign Hex does incorporate synths, organs, and walls of guitar, it provides only nuance and atmosphere and does not displace Meat Wave from their meat locker. The album's lyrics center around themes of lineage and explores a litany of subjects and circumstances: addiction, greed, unreliable memory, obedience. All through a surrealist, collage-like lens. 'Everyone wears a backpack full of hexes,' Chris Sutter explains. 'It's heavy and familial. And it's yours.'"
TAPETE RECORDS (GERMANY)
TR 508CD
 
PRICE: $20.00
CAT #: TR 508CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VA Intact and Smiling: The Weird & Wonderful World of Tapete Records Vol. 1 2CD
20 years of Tapete Records -- The label's first release, if memory serves, was in 2002. The world has changed a lot in the last 20 years but one detail has remained the same: Tapete Records is still putting out great music. That's a bit reassuring, isn't it? So, the label thought in their Tapete Building at Stahltwiete 10 in Hamburg-Altona: Let's look back and start a series of good, old-fashioned, fantastic label compilations in the style of Shadow Factory, Tamla Motown Is Hot! Hot! Hot! or Wanna Buy A Bridge?... something like that. And so here is Intact and Smiling: The Weird & Wonderful World of Tapete Records Vol. 1. It wasn't that easy to choose 28 out of about 5000 released songs, but what's easy? Therefore, a series. Intact and Smiling Vol. 1 concentrates on the poppy side of Tapete Records, the basic tone is upbeat and uplifting. Can't hurt these days. The title comes from the John Howard & The Night Mail song which says: "Intact and smiling, an independent soul, nobody's slave." What could be more fitting? The label would like to thank all the great artists who have released music with them over the last two decades, especially the bands and artists who have so kindly and unbureaucratically made available their great songs for this compilation. Features We Are Muffy, Martin Carr, Jaguwar, Stereo Total, Simon Love, The Jazz Butcher, The Proper Ornaments, The Monochrome Set, Botschaft, Comet Gain, Pete Astor, The Clientele, Louis Philippe & The Night Mail, Bill Pitchard, Benjamin Dean Wilson, Robert Foster, Elva, Lloyd Cole, Die Höchste Eisenbahn, Gary Olson, The Catenary Wires, Friedrich Sunlight, Sophisticated Boom Boom, LAKE, Davey Woodward and the Winter Orphans, Der Englische Garten, Carambolage, John Howard & The Night Mail.
TR 508LP
 
PRICE: $35.00
CAT #: TR 508LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VA Intact and Smiling: The Weird & Wonderful World of Tapete Records Vol. 1 2LP
Double LP version. 20 years of Tapete Records -- The label's first release, if memory serves, was in 2002. The world has changed a lot in the last 20 years but one detail has remained the same: Tapete Records is still putting out great music. That's a bit reassuring, isn't it? So, the label thought in their Tapete Building at Stahltwiete 10 in Hamburg-Altona: Let's look back and start a series of good, old-fashioned, fantastic label compilations in the style of Shadow Factory, Tamla Motown Is Hot! Hot! Hot! or Wanna Buy A Bridge?... something like that. And so here is Intact and Smiling: The Weird & Wonderful World of Tapete Records Vol. 1. It wasn't that easy to choose 28 out of about 5000 released songs, but what's easy? Therefore, a series. Intact and Smiling Vol. 1 concentrates on the poppy side of Tapete Records, the basic tone is upbeat and uplifting. Can't hurt these days. The title comes from the John Howard & The Night Mail song which says: "Intact and smiling, an independent soul, nobody's slave." What could be more fitting? The label would like to thank all the great artists who have released music with them over the last two decades, especially the bands and artists who have so kindly and unbureaucratically made available their great songs for this compilation. Features We Are Muffy, Martin Carr, Jaguwar, Stereo Total, Simon Love, The Jazz Butcher, The Proper Ornaments, The Monochrome Set, Botschaft, Comet Gain, Pete Astor, The Clientele, Louis Philippe & The Night Mail, Bill Pitchard, Benjamin Dean Wilson, Robert Foster, Elva, Lloyd Cole, Die Höchste Eisenbahn, Gary Olson, The Catenary Wires, Friedrich Sunlight, Sophisticated Boom Boom, LAKE, Davey Woodward and the Winter Orphans, Der Englische Garten, Carambolage, John Howard & The Night Mail.
TR 511CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: TR 511CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
ASTOR, PETE Time On Earth CD
Pete Astor on Time on Earth: "In my 50s I realized that the past slowly becomes a bigger country than the future. As always, the future is where I'm headed, but now the past and all that comes with it is stacked up behind me . . . I've made 11 albums of new material since 1987. I realize that anything I've ever thought that mattered, that told the real story, is in those records. It's been five years since my last album of new songs. Perhaps more than before, there's been plenty of time over the last few years to think and reflect. Like every set of work, Time on Earth is an attempt to make sense of life by making work about it. As erstwhile editor of the NME and Q, journalist Danny Kelly wrote recently while interviewing The Loft: 'a lifetime of listening to them has led me to believe that Pete Astor's songs would have always found a way to reach an audience. If he'd been a Californian baby boomer, he's have ended up in the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, laying down late-night grooves with the Wrecking Crew for a largely-neglected, slightly gloomy, pop album that'd now be worth a fortune. If he'd been born into post-War Britain, earnest girls in sweaters would've fallen in love with him, and his songs, in Embassy-fogged folk clubs.' Of course, I love this quote. And I believe that Time on Earth is most of these things. But then I would say that, wouldn't I? Time on Earth has songs which were written in direct response to loss and bereavement ('Undertaker', 'Fine and Dandy'); songs striving for different kinds of belief ('New Religion', 'Time on Earth', 'Miracle on the High Street'); stories from either end of the cycles of life ('Sixth Form Rock Boys', 'English Weather'). And a few still searching for fulfilment of the heart ('Stay Lonely', 'Grey Garden', 'Soft Switch'). I was lucky enough to be able to make the music with the help of multi-instrumentalist Ian Button (Wreckless Eric, Death in Vegas, Papernut Cambridge) on the drums, bass maestro Andy Lewis (Spearmint, Paul Weller, and DJ at London's legendary Blow Up Club and Soho Radio), longtime guitarist Neil Scott (Everything But the Girl, Denim) and last but by no means least, Sean Read (Dexys, Edwyn Collins, Rockingbirds) who recorded and produced the album at his Famous Times Studios. As you would expect, I'm convinced it's the best record I've made." Pete Astor is a musician, writer and educator. He led Creation Records' groups The Loft and The Weather Prophets. He has gone on to a lengthy solo career since then.
TR 511LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: TR 511LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
ASTOR, PETE Time On Earth LP
LP version. Pete Astor on Time on Earth: "In my 50s I realized that the past slowly becomes a bigger country than the future. As always, the future is where I'm headed, but now the past and all that comes with it is stacked up behind me . . . I've made 11 albums of new material since 1987. I realize that anything I've ever thought that mattered, that told the real story, is in those records. It's been five years since my last album of new songs. Perhaps more than before, there's been plenty of time over the last few years to think and reflect. Like every set of work, Time on Earth is an attempt to make sense of life by making work about it. As erstwhile editor of the NME and Q, journalist Danny Kelly wrote recently while interviewing The Loft: 'a lifetime of listening to them has led me to believe that Pete Astor's songs would have always found a way to reach an audience. If he'd been a Californian baby boomer, he's have ended up in the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, laying down late-night grooves with the Wrecking Crew for a largely-neglected, slightly gloomy, pop album that'd now be worth a fortune. If he'd been born into post-War Britain, earnest girls in sweaters would've fallen in love with him, and his songs, in Embassy-fogged folk clubs.' Of course, I love this quote. And I believe that Time on Earth is most of these things. But then I would say that, wouldn't I? Time on Earth has songs which were written in direct response to loss and bereavement ('Undertaker', 'Fine and Dandy'); songs striving for different kinds of belief ('New Religion', 'Time on Earth', 'Miracle on the High Street'); stories from either end of the cycles of life ('Sixth Form Rock Boys', 'English Weather'). And a few still searching for fulfilment of the heart ('Stay Lonely', 'Grey Garden', 'Soft Switch'). I was lucky enough to be able to make the music with the help of multi-instrumentalist Ian Button (Wreckless Eric, Death in Vegas, Papernut Cambridge) on the drums, bass maestro Andy Lewis (Spearmint, Paul Weller, and DJ at London's legendary Blow Up Club and Soho Radio), longtime guitarist Neil Scott (Everything But the Girl, Denim) and last but by no means least, Sean Read (Dexys, Edwyn Collins, Rockingbirds) who recorded and produced the album at his Famous Times Studios. As you would expect, I'm convinced it's the best record I've made." Pete Astor is a musician, writer and educator. He led Creation Records' groups The Loft and The Weather Prophets. He has gone on to a lengthy solo career since then.
TR 516CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: TR 516CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
PHILIPPE, LOUIS Sean O'Hagan Presents: The Sunshine World Of Louis Philippe CD
Louis Philippe is living the big dream: He's a famous football journalist and a pop star. He writes, arranges, sings, and plays the most elegant pop songs on our side of the Atlantic, he released on the legendary label él Records and his influence on the great Japanese Shibuya sound cannot be underestimated. Tapete Records present a long overdue compilation of some of the greatest Louis Philippe songs from the years 1994-2007. Many of these songs are from albums that have been out of print for a long time, and some of them are being released on vinyl for the first time. The album was expertly compiled by Louis Philippe's friend and sometime musical partner Sean O'Hagan (The High Llamas), who also wrote the liner notes. In them O'Hagan writes and recommends: "Lose yourself in this record and let me warn you. You´ll be humming the tunes and reliving the chorus's and key changes for an age, and if you´re a songwriter you will probably be lifting the melodies without realizing is. That´s the sign of a timeless classic." They say that when Smokey Robinson sings, you hear violins. And when the great Louis Philippe sings, the sun rises, even on 21 December at midnight."I first encountered Louis Philippe as a collaborator with The King Of Luxembourg on Cherry Red, the label that was redefining the notion of 'the alternative', resolutely showcasing European eccentricity and melody in the sea of early '80s DIY pop. I was confused and excited all at the same time and recruited to follow the career of this strange fellow. I remember catching a glimpse of him in the buzzing corridors of Cherry Red one afternoon as someone whispered 'That's him, that's Louis Philippe.' . . . As songwriters, we all assimilate our influences and Louis Philippe was learning from the special school of Bones Howe, John Phillips, Maurice Ravel, Paul Williams, Brian Wilson, Michel Legrand, Judee Sill, and Boris Vian, The Tamba Trio... the pattern here was that of an artist who was building a practice based on the pursuit of the exotic soul of harmony and arrangement. This music also extended a European perspective on a pop culture content to accept the Anglo/US axis of influence as a given. But Louis was in love with London and wrote love letters to his new home in song. Alas, some things can never last. Louis Philippe's relationship with Tokyo was also remarkable and important in establishing the Shibuya Sound, a triangular relationship between London, Tokyo, and Paris which also swept up Philippe's collaborators like Bertrand Burgalet and Simon Fisher Turner. And so to be a bit more specific . . . This record is the retrospective of a songwriter, arranger and singer who understands the gift of the chord change, the endless intrigue of arrangement and always knows where and when the sun rises and falls." --Sean O'Hagan
TR 516LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: TR 516LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
PHILIPPE, LOUIS Sean O'Hagan Presents: The Sunshine World Of Louis Philippe LP
LP version. Louis Philippe is living the big dream: He's a famous football journalist and a pop star. He writes, arranges, sings, and plays the most elegant pop songs on our side of the Atlantic, he released on the legendary label él Records and his influence on the great Japanese Shibuya sound cannot be underestimated. Tapete Records present a long overdue compilation of some of the greatest Louis Philippe songs from the years 1994-2007. Many of these songs are from albums that have been out of print for a long time, and some of them are being released on vinyl for the first time. The album was expertly compiled by Louis Philippe's friend and sometime musical partner Sean O'Hagan (The High Llamas), who also wrote the liner notes. In them O'Hagan writes and recommends: "Lose yourself in this record and let me warn you. You´ll be humming the tunes and reliving the chorus's and key changes for an age, and if you´re a songwriter you will probably be lifting the melodies without realizing is. That´s the sign of a timeless classic." They say that when Smokey Robinson sings, you hear violins. And when the great Louis Philippe sings, the sun rises, even on 21 December at midnight."I first encountered Louis Philippe as a collaborator with The King Of Luxembourg on Cherry Red, the label that was redefining the notion of 'the alternative', resolutely showcasing European eccentricity and melody in the sea of early '80s DIY pop. I was confused and excited all at the same time and recruited to follow the career of this strange fellow. I remember catching a glimpse of him in the buzzing corridors of Cherry Red one afternoon as someone whispered 'That's him, that's Louis Philippe.' . . . As songwriters, we all assimilate our influences and Louis Philippe was learning from the special school of Bones Howe, John Phillips, Maurice Ravel, Paul Williams, Brian Wilson, Michel Legrand, Judee Sill, and Boris Vian, The Tamba Trio... the pattern here was that of an artist who was building a practice based on the pursuit of the exotic soul of harmony and arrangement. This music also extended a European perspective on a pop culture content to accept the Anglo/US axis of influence as a given. But Louis was in love with London and wrote love letters to his new home in song. Alas, some things can never last. Louis Philippe's relationship with Tokyo was also remarkable and important in establishing the Shibuya Sound, a triangular relationship between London, Tokyo, and Paris which also swept up Philippe's collaborators like Bertrand Burgalet and Simon Fisher Turner. And so to be a bit more specific . . . This record is the retrospective of a songwriter, arranger and singer who understands the gift of the chord change, the endless intrigue of arrangement and always knows where and when the sun rises and falls." --Sean O'Hagan
TR 523CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: TR 523CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
UNHAPPYBIRTHDAY Stella Loops CD
Unhappybirthday from Hamburg have been releasing dreamy avant-pop records and touring Europe consistently for over ten years now. The group was founded in the port city of Wismar in northern Germany in 2012 by singer and keyboardist Daniel Jahn and guitarist Tobias Rutkowski and producer Jonas Meyer joins the band for this, their fifth album. Stella Loops circles around the vast cosmos offering refuge from the feeling of confinement that has enveloped us all over the last few years and to help achieve this Unhappybirthday have mixed their trademark elements of electronica, house, and ambient music and for this release invited a guest list that includes Andreas Dorau, Martha Rose, and Jimi Tenor to contribute."Hamburg's masters of emotional pop Unhappybirthday return via Tapete this fall with their fifth LP, Stella Loops, a fantastic voyage through outer and inner space in a craft comprised of mid-90s electronica, pastoral house and sun-blushed downbeat. On their previous LP, the moonlit Mondchateau (TR 469CD/LP, 2020), Unhappybirthday explored the suave sophisti-pop of the late '80s, serving their trademark beauty and sadness with a poolside spritz. For Stella Loops, the Hamburg outfit swap the Mediterranean for the Sea of Tranquility, slipping their terrestrial moorings in the name of auditory escapism. Written in part as a response to the enforced inertia of the pandemic and ever-present anxiety of life in the now, Stella Loops finds the group staring skywards, seeking solace in the possibilities of the infinite. Using the sci-fi literature of the GDR as a lyrical launchpad, Unhappybirthday stumble, tumble, float and fall through the galaxy, finding freedom in each mantra like vocal. With space as their place, the group take inspiration from the dreamy electronica of their teenage daze, filtering their yearning melodies and intricate arrangements through core memories of Ultramarine, Gus Gus, and The Beloved. Processed beats and blinking sequences underpin nonchalant basslines and graceful guitar licks while nebulous pads provide a woozy weightlessness befitting their cosmic concerns. Recorded once again in Hamburg and Berlin, Stella Loops sees Daniel Jahn and Tobias Rutkowski working closer than ever with regular collaborator Jonas Meyer, who joined the group in addition to his usual production duties. Hamburg's Andreas Dorau and Zwanie Jonson return to lend their vocal talents alongside Berlin based Martha Rose, while Finnish legend and Bureau B sibling Jimi Tenor graces album closer 'Jimmy' with an enchanting flute solo..." --Patrick Ryder
TR 523LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: TR 523LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
UNHAPPYBIRTHDAY Stella Loops LP
LP version. Unhappybirthday from Hamburg have been releasing dreamy avant-pop records and touring Europe consistently for over ten years now. The group was founded in the port city of Wismar in northern Germany in 2012 by singer and keyboardist Daniel Jahn and guitarist Tobias Rutkowski and producer Jonas Meyer joins the band for this, their fifth album. Stella Loops circles around the vast cosmos offering refuge from the feeling of confinement that has enveloped us all over the last few years and to help achieve this Unhappybirthday have mixed their trademark elements of electronica, house, and ambient music and for this release invited a guest list that includes Andreas Dorau, Martha Rose, and Jimi Tenor to contribute."Hamburg's masters of emotional pop Unhappybirthday return via Tapete this fall with their fifth LP, Stella Loops, a fantastic voyage through outer and inner space in a craft comprised of mid-90s electronica, pastoral house and sun-blushed downbeat. On their previous LP, the moonlit Mondchateau (TR 469CD/LP, 2020), Unhappybirthday explored the suave sophisti-pop of the late '80s, serving their trademark beauty and sadness with a poolside spritz. For Stella Loops, the Hamburg outfit swap the Mediterranean for the Sea of Tranquility, slipping their terrestrial moorings in the name of auditory escapism. Written in part as a response to the enforced inertia of the pandemic and ever-present anxiety of life in the now, Stella Loops finds the group staring skywards, seeking solace in the possibilities of the infinite. Using the sci-fi literature of the GDR as a lyrical launchpad, Unhappybirthday stumble, tumble, float and fall through the galaxy, finding freedom in each mantra like vocal. With space as their place, the group take inspiration from the dreamy electronica of their teenage daze, filtering their yearning melodies and intricate arrangements through core memories of Ultramarine, Gus Gus, and The Beloved. Processed beats and blinking sequences underpin nonchalant basslines and graceful guitar licks while nebulous pads provide a woozy weightlessness befitting their cosmic concerns. Recorded once again in Hamburg and Berlin, Stella Loops sees Daniel Jahn and Tobias Rutkowski working closer than ever with regular collaborator Jonas Meyer, who joined the group in addition to his usual production duties. Hamburg's Andreas Dorau and Zwanie Jonson return to lend their vocal talents alongside Berlin based Martha Rose, while Finnish legend and Bureau B sibling Jimi Tenor graces album closer 'Jimmy' with an enchanting flute solo..." --Patrick Ryder
TR 526CD
 
PRICE: $20.00
CAT #: TR 526CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VA Revenge of the She-Punks: Compilation Inspired by the Book by Vivien Goldman 2CD
Since the historiography of punk is a male-dominated one, a Revenge of the She-Punks was long overdue. This feminist reckoning was written by none other than post-punk pioneer Vivien Goldman, who has an insider's perspective due to her work as a musician and one of Britain's first female music writers. Along four themes -- Identity, Money, Love and Protest -- the "punk professor" traces empowering moments that punk holds especially for women. This compilation is inspired by the book, originally released by University of Texas Press in 2019. Compiled and with liner notes by Vivien Goldman."We're not talking a mean-spirited gotcha! revenge here. As both my book that inspired it and this recording prove, us She-Punks' revenge is about our complex survival in an all too often hostile environment. The book offers a template to finding a way through the patriarchal labyrinth of the music industry by telling the backstories of thirty-eight songs by women from not only the Anglophone countries, but Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and Eastern and Continental Europe. Together, they demonstrate how girls around the world, with no or few role models, found ways to thwart blockages and become self-expressive musicians, breaking traditions and expectations, setting new standards with every chord . . . We open with Identity featuring Fea, Big Joanie, The Raincoats, Blondie, and Poly Styrene with X-Ray Spex. Then comes Money with Patti Smith, Shonen Knife, Malaria! and the Slits; followed by Love/Unlove: Crass, Cherry Vanilla, Grace Jones, Rhoda Dakar with the Special AKA, Alice Bag (The Bags), Tribe 8 and the Au Pairs, the Mo-Dettes, Neneh Cherry from the UK/Sweden/US and this writer/musician. The closing chapter, Protest, features Sleater-Kinney, Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters, Skinny Girl Diet, Vi Subversa and the Poison Girls, the Czech Republic's Zuby Nehty, Colombia's Fertil Miseria, and Jamaica's Tanya Stephens. Many people have questioned how I arrived at those four themes (answer: thinking,) and so far, no-one has disagreed. However, in sequencing this compilation, the important thing was to sonically flow through the breadth of our creativity, led by the rhythms and sound, rather than the lyrics; they, I already knew, formed a compelling whole, an implacable critique. My perspective on punk is based on spirit rather than adherence to the venerated concept of the genre as only a frenetic full-frontal sonic attack (though that is also represented here). Having been involved with the movement at the start in mid-1970s London, as Features Editor of the punk rock weekly, Sounds, I understood it to be a front line, inclusionary genre, with DIY at its core, which is why it was the first genre to give anything approaching an equal platform to women musicians. Especially for the less conventional, all too often the path for women artists is still steeper than that of male peers. Despite the massive success of today's female superstars, there remains a quota perception in an industry that still largely lives in boystown (though always factor in that it's not the men, it's the mentality,) who are less receptive to forceful females; like the sort of bookers who say, 'Well, we've done our bit, we've booked our female artist' -- as if booking women were some grim post-MeToo duty. But as heard in these tracks, in all its forms, whether sounding strident or soft, punk is a music of resistance; women's punk specially so..." Also features Bush Tetras and The Selecter.
TR 526LP
 
PRICE: $35.00
CAT #: TR 526LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VA Revenge of the She-Punks: Compilation Inspired by the Book by Vivien Goldman 2LP
Double LP version. Since the historiography of punk is a male-dominated one, a Revenge of the She-Punks was long overdue. This feminist reckoning was written by none other than post-punk pioneer Vivien Goldman, who has an insider's perspective due to her work as a musician and one of Britain's first female music writers. Along four themes -- Identity, Money, Love and Protest -- the "punk professor" traces empowering moments that punk holds especially for women. This compilation is inspired by the book, originally released by University of Texas Press in 2019. Compiled and with liner notes by Vivien Goldman."We're not talking a mean-spirited gotcha! revenge here. As both my book that inspired it and this recording prove, us She-Punks' revenge is about our complex survival in an all too often hostile environment. The book offers a template to finding a way through the patriarchal labyrinth of the music industry by telling the backstories of thirty-eight songs by women from not only the Anglophone countries, but Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and Eastern and Continental Europe. Together, they demonstrate how girls around the world, with no or few role models, found ways to thwart blockages and become self-expressive musicians, breaking traditions and expectations, setting new standards with every chord . . . We open with Identity featuring Fea, Big Joanie, The Raincoats, Blondie, and Poly Styrene with X-Ray Spex. Then comes Money with Patti Smith, Shonen Knife, Malaria! and the Slits; followed by Love/Unlove: Crass, Cherry Vanilla, Grace Jones, Rhoda Dakar with the Special AKA, Alice Bag (The Bags), Tribe 8 and the Au Pairs, the Mo-Dettes, Neneh Cherry from the UK/Sweden/US and this writer/musician. The closing chapter, Protest, features Sleater-Kinney, Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters, Skinny Girl Diet, Vi Subversa and the Poison Girls, the Czech Republic's Zuby Nehty, Colombia's Fertil Miseria, and Jamaica's Tanya Stephens. Many people have questioned how I arrived at those four themes (answer: thinking,) and so far, no-one has disagreed. However, in sequencing this compilation, the important thing was to sonically flow through the breadth of our creativity, led by the rhythms and sound, rather than the lyrics; they, I already knew, formed a compelling whole, an implacable critique. My perspective on punk is based on spirit rather than adherence to the venerated concept of the genre as only a frenetic full-frontal sonic attack (though that is also represented here). Having been involved with the movement at the start in mid-1970s London, as Features Editor of the punk rock weekly, Sounds, I understood it to be a front line, inclusionary genre, with DIY at its core, which is why it was the first genre to give anything approaching an equal platform to women musicians. Especially for the less conventional, all too often the path for women artists is still steeper than that of male peers. Despite the massive success of today's female superstars, there remains a quota perception in an industry that still largely lives in boystown (though always factor in that it's not the men, it's the mentality,) who are less receptive to forceful females; like the sort of bookers who say, 'Well, we've done our bit, we've booked our female artist' -- as if booking women were some grim post-MeToo duty. But as heard in these tracks, in all its forms, whether sounding strident or soft, punk is a music of resistance; women's punk specially so..." Also features Bush Tetras and The Selecter.
TEXT (UK)
TEXT 054LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: TEXT 054LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
TCHAPARIAN, HAGOP Bolts LP
Kieran Hebden's Text Records announce Bolts, the debut album from British-Armenian producer Hagop Tchaparian. Hagop's debut album Bolts features ten tracks of hyper-personal rhythm music that mixes techno with field recordings of his travels through Armenian and Mediterranean culture. The ten tracks on Bolts, combine the audio evidence of a life's experience, with the notion that lo-fi techno can be the right canvas for conveying that experience. Hagop's been gathering these sounds and vignettes for almost 15 years, having begun accumulating them before the smart-phone in his pocket included a "record" function. The result is the sound of a man chasing his heritage around the world, while sprinkling clues of his everyday life amidst the manipulated folk instruments of his ancestry. There are aspects of tactile remembrances in between these rhythms, at times the result feels explosive. From its title down to the incessant bleating of the zurna, "Right to Riot" is like a punk techno that cries for the disaffected. Whereas "Timelapse", which features a loop of the music that accompanies the fire-jumping wedding ritual sews together what seem like connected images in a photo album that may be physically decomposing, but whose power remains. Hagop's past is the precursor to him creating something meaningful with these recordings. In his teens Tchaparian, played guitar in Symposium, a '90s post-grunge punk band. After Symposium, Hagop contributed to a 2000 comp called Hokis, which collected music by Armenian artists and Hagop was drawn into London's club scene. Hagop would make the occasional remix that friends like Kieran would play in their DJ sets, but working on original new music wasn't foremost on his mind. He kept gathering these little snippets of rudimentarily recorded sound. There was an emotional resonance in continuing to fit these samples together into a storyline that made sense to him. On their own, the rhythm tracks could successfully power an underground dance-floor, but the elements surrounding the beats were the undercurrents that helped push the music beyond party rituals. When he played some early bits and pieces for Hebden, the veteran musician encouraged him to continue, and turn it into a full body of work. Hagops's globalized narrative complicates this party's soundtrack beyond the margins of ethno-cultural chill-out comps. Bolts is a very particular and this is Hagop's excavation of his Armenian heritage through a lifetime's worth of remote recordings. Ryan Smith (Caribou, Taraval) assisted with production and mixing. London compatriot Dennis White added a few production touches. Hagop also worked with Michel "Shelle" Dierickx, a legendary old-school producer. Artwork by Atiba Jefferson.
THE FLENSER
FLENSER 140CS
 
PRICE: $15.00
CAT #: FLENSER 140CS
FILE UNDER: ROCK
DROWSE Wane Into It Cassette
Cassette version. "In 2019, Drowse's Kyle Bates set out to produce a self-recorded new album. Marked by moving across state lines, long-distance relationships, and deaths in the family, the following years proved to be metamorphic. Now, three years later, he's emerged with Wane Into It, continuing a distinctly Pacific Northwestern tradition of self-recording indie experimentalists (Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound's Leaves Turn Inside You). One of the most impactful moments came during the looming passing of a family member. With death expected, the choice was made to conduct a bizarre 'living-wake' gathering -- with the soon-to-be-deceased in attendance. Shortly after, Bates found himself disturbed, preoccupied with the abstraction of memory. The experience led him to reassess the tool one uses to curate our selective memories: the internet. The internet, which creeped into even more aspects of life during the pandemic, serves as our self-made digital link to the past. Its uncaring presence layered over humbling thoughts of death and his own childhood memories of the Oregon Coast as he worked on Wane Into It; life's hyperreal texture sank into the recordings as he felt his body age and wane. Big sounds were captured in bedrooms, hallways, practice spaces, forests, and on highways throughout West Coast -- vibraphones chime over black metal guitars, a mellotron drones under degraded samples, violins splinter against granular field recordings. In the process of documenting these aural moments Bates completed an MFA at Mills College, coloring the album with shades of avant-electronic and minimalist composition (Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Maryanne Amacher, Sarah Davachi etc?). To realize this scope Drowse collaborated with Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. Bates's songwriting and production have never been more lucid; sounds flicker as he sings with fragile intensity. The record, Drowse's third for The Flenser, impressionistically distills loss, distance, mystery, prescription drugs, the preservation of memory via recording, and ambient anxiety through its titular act: to Wane Into It, to disappear awaiting the next moon phase, water returning to sea before reemerging as a wave."
FLENSER 140LP
 
PRICE: $22.00
CAT #: FLENSER 140LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
DROWSE Wane Into It LP
"In 2019, Drowse's Kyle Bates set out to produce a self-recorded new album. Marked by moving across state lines, long-distance relationships, and deaths in the family, the following years proved to be metamorphic. Now, three years later, he's emerged with Wane Into It, continuing a distinctly Pacific Northwestern tradition of self-recording indie experimentalists (Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound's Leaves Turn Inside You). One of the most impactful moments came during the looming passing of a family member. With death expected, the choice was made to conduct a bizarre 'living-wake' gathering -- with the soon-to-be-deceased in attendance. Shortly after, Bates found himself disturbed, preoccupied with the abstraction of memory. The experience led him to reassess the tool one uses to curate our selective memories: the internet. The internet, which creeped into even more aspects of life during the pandemic, serves as our self-made digital link to the past. Its uncaring presence layered over humbling thoughts of death and his own childhood memories of the Oregon Coast as he worked on Wane Into It; life's hyperreal texture sank into the recordings as he felt his body age and wane. Big sounds were captured in bedrooms, hallways, practice spaces, forests, and on highways throughout West Coast -- vibraphones chime over black metal guitars, a mellotron drones under degraded samples, violins splinter against granular field recordings. In the process of documenting these aural moments Bates completed an MFA at Mills College, coloring the album with shades of avant-electronic and minimalist composition (Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Maryanne Amacher, Sarah Davachi etc?). To realize this scope Drowse collaborated with Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. Bates's songwriting and production have never been more lucid; sounds flicker as he sings with fragile intensity. The record, Drowse's third for The Flenser, impressionistically distills loss, distance, mystery, prescription drugs, the preservation of memory via recording, and ambient anxiety through its titular act: to Wane Into It, to disappear awaiting the next moon phase, water returning to sea before reemerging as a wave."
TINY GLOBAL PRODUCTIONS (HUNGARY)
PICI 038CD
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: PICI 038CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
WESTLAKE, DAVID My Beautiful England CD
The release of NME's C86 cassette heralded a new generation of artists who'd emerged since the preceding C81 assembled a set of acts who'd coaxed new dialects out of punk, rhythms, reggae and the avant-garde. What of another of the best from C86 -- the Servants, David Westlake's band Ambivalent about the invitation to be on C86, Westlake gave the NME a wrong-footing B-side, before keeping a distance from the noise around the compilation. Subsequent releases from Westlake and The Servants and Westlake attracted fine reviews but settled quietly into relative obscurity, despite musical involvement from various Housemartins, Go-Betweens, and Triffids, a quest by Stuart from Belle & Sebastian to find Westlake and form a band; not to mention Luke Haines's own five-year presence in the Servants before forming The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof, and Black Box Recorder. Westlake went first into the law, then spent years in literary academia. Now the surprise arrival of My Beautiful England. The album is a masterpiece of concept, composition and performance, a conceptual work of truths and reflections of difficult but deft and unflinching expression. "It is not only fashionable now to denigrate England and its past; it is heresy to recognize good in it. The place that made me is disappearing. Its values and traditions. Among them: good manners, humility and clemency, resilience and perseverance, good humor. History is being refashioned -- in spirit and material fact -- by ideologues unshakably certain they are in the right, and people are being distanced from their pasts. Some find themselves forced into passive acceptance of new distortions of the past, out of imitativeness or cowardice. I resist. This album is a memorial. Intentionally, a museum piece. It is a personal tribute to the England I knew."
TRESOR (GERMANY)
TRESOR 343EP
 
PRICE: $17.50
CAT #: TRESOR 343EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
OSCEAN Multirays 12"
Oscean comes out firing from the outset on their new 12" entitled Multirays. The Argentinian duo of Andre?s Zacco and Sebastia?n Galante are following up on the first release of their collaboration, Ideoma (TRESOR 329EP), also released on Tresor Records. With Multirays, this burgeoning collaboration reveals a promising evolution, moving into more rhythmically diverse environments and playful structures. The opening track, "Multidimensional", strikes with confronting beats and a searching, woolly bass sound. Constantly growing, it moves confidently with its skittering percussion work, ebbing and flowing through filter movements and expansive synths. "Invisible Rays" draws in breathing techno pulses, as Zacco and Galante cast drenches of feedback across the spectrum. A deceptively mellow melody, recalling "Spiral" from their debut EP, teases at a deeper melodic progression, but the focus stays locked on the animated rhythms, tempting towards divergent grooves but expertly keeping feet on the floor. In "Drivion", Oscean investigates electro territories, simultaneously bubbling and driving. Echoed arpeggiations and upfront beats funnel impulses between neurons. Broad synth gestures offer gateways into abstraction before, without barely a hint, the rhythms beat once more. On the closing track, "Horizonsz", the duo drives forth through skipping rhythms and soul-searching bass murmurs. Synth pads beckon with Fresnel lens reflections and rising warmth, motioning towards a stunning moment of euphoria, where futurist mirages coexist with distant memories. 180 gram vinyl, full printed sleeve.
VIOLETTE RECORDS (UK)
VIO 071EP
 
PRICE: $27.00
CAT #: VIO 071EP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
MEANING OF TALES Where There's Life, There's A Dream 10"
Somewhere between Simon & Garfunkel and the Kings of Convenience, Meaning of Tales bring benevolent and empathetic music in their own style. Music that will evoke memories of youth for some, without any nostalgia but with infinite tenderness, and will teleport others to nature at sunset. Music that proves Aristotle right: so much will it soften our morals and delight our hearts.
WEWANTSOUNDS (UK)
WWSLP 043LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: WWSLP 043LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SAKAMOTO, RYUICHI Esperanto LP
2022 repress; LP version. Wewantsounds continues their Ryuichi Sakamoto reissue series with the release of the 1985 album Esperanto, composed for a performance by New York avant-garde choreographer Molissa Fenley. Produced and performed by Sakamoto with contribution by Arto Lindsay and Japanese percussionist Yas-Kaz, Esperanto is a fascinating instrumental work mixing electronica, ambient and synth pop. Released in Japan in 1985 on Midi Inc.s' School label, the album has never been released outside of Japan until now. Esperanto originally came out in 1985 and was Ryuichi Sakamoto's sixth solo album. Coming after his stint with the influential Yellow Magic Orchestra, and also the worldwide success of Sakamoto's 1984 soundtrack for the film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (in which he starred alongside David Bowie), Esperanto was a return to Sakamoto's leftfield roots. Composed as the soundtrack to a performance by New York choreographer Molissa Fenley (a show commissioned by Japanese producer Shozo Tsurumoto), the album was masterminded by Sakamoto with the help of the cutting-edge electronic technology of the time (the only external contributions are by Arto Lindsay on guitar and Japanese composer Yas-Kaz on percussion). Indeed, the album is a fascinating soundscape experimenting with the new sampler technology -- which, according to Ryuichi Sakamoto from a conversation with journalist Andy Beta mentioned in the liner notes, needed a computer that was huge at the time. Esperanto is composed of eight tracks displaying a varied mix of influences. "A Wongga Dance Song" is pulsating with rhythms while "A Rain Song" adopts a minimalist mode with its distinctive repetitive pattern. "Dolphins" and "A Carved Stone" are captivating ambient pieces showcasing Sakamoto's talent for setting beautiful abstract melodic ornaments over atmospheric tones. One of the highlights of the album is "Adelic Penguins", a fascinating proto techno piece with a funky twist stretching over six minutes which echoes the electro funk of 1981's album Hidari Ude No Yume (WWSCD 033CD/WWSLP 033LP/WWSLP 034LP). "Ulu Watu", a collage-like piece featuring bird motives and a tropical soundscape closes the album with an experimental note. It's interesting to note that, a year later, the tracks from Esperanto would be turned into an experimental video project by New York visual artists Kit Fitzgerald and Nam June Paik collaborator Paul Garrin. A unique album in Ryuichi Sakamoto's rich discography, Esperanto is a groundbreaking work worth rediscovering in its full glory. Original artwork; includes two-page insert with a new introduction by journalist Andy Beta. Audio remastered in Tokyo by Seigen Ono.
WWSLP 047LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: WWSLP 047LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
YANO, AKIKO Ai Ga Nakucha Ne LP
2022 repress; LP version. Gatefold sleeve; includes 24-page booklet. Wewantsounds reissue Akiko Yano's cult classic Ai Ga Nakucha Ne, recorded in 1982 and co-produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Ai Ga Nakucha Ne ("there must be love" in Japanese) is Akiko Yano's sixth studio album and follows Tadaima in 1981. It continues exploring the electro-pop sound of its predecessor, hot on the heels of her touring with Yellow Magic Orchestra between 1979 and 1980. For this album, Akiko decided to try something new; she enrolled English musicians Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and David Sylvian from Japan and booked the Air Studios in London under the supervision of engineer Steve Nye. Over a couple of weeks, the musicians created a fascinating soundscape full of catchy pop tunes, sung in both Japanese and English. Reminiscing about the studio sessions, Steve Jansen notes "Our music's different but we maybe had a similar process of working. It was a great environment because the studio was a great place to work. It was very insular. There were four studios and there were always groups working in there 24/7." The eleven tracks featured on Ai Ga Nakucha Ne, mostly composed by Akiko -- are a great collection of catchy tunes featuring her distinctive vocals and accompanied by the Japan musicians. As Akiko explains about the creative process, "I didn't think to imitate or to make another Tin Drum. But I had Steve Jansen and Mick Karn, these excellent musicians. They were eager to understand the songs, then they put in everything they had. I knew the material was different from what they usually played in Japan. But it was a great experience working with them." There are many highlights on the album, from the pop edge of "Aisuru Hito Yo" to the avant groove of "Another Wedding Song", each song is memorable and the album ends with the superb "Good Night" sung by Akiko and David Sylvian. The original 1982 LP release included a 24-page booklet featuring many photos by Pennie Smith and Japanese photographer Bishin Jumonji. The booklet is reproduced in its entirety here and the album on top of contributions by Mac DeMarco, a longtime fan of the album. Also includes a dual interview with Akiko Yano and Steve Jansen by journalist Paul Bowler. Audio remastered from the original tapes by Mitsuo Koike.
WRONG SPEED RECORDS (UK)
WSR 038LP
 
PRICE: $22.50
CAT #: WSR 038LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
ENABLERS Some Gift LP
"Enablers (no the) first made music together in San Francisco in 2002. Their individual histories join the dots through the major musical events in America of the '80s and '90s: the fertile Texas underground, Homestead Records, New York noise, Bay Area metal, the post-Nevermind goldrush and everything that got left in its wake. As with all the best bands, they formed by accident. Author and poet Pete Simonelli convinced guitarists (and fellow bar-dwellers) Joe Goldring (Swans) and Kevin Thomson (Nice Strong Arm) to provide musical backing for a few poems. The addition of drummer Yuma Joe Byrnes (of 4AD's Tarnation) sparked Enablers into life, away from the cerebral idea of a "book project" and into the infinite possibilities of a living, breathing band. We agreed that (Enablers) were not going to sound like much of what had already come before in the vein of "spoken word" recordings: a voice in front of a droning, basically static piece of music. We wanted solid musical compositions with dynamic and tense arrangements." --PeteThey've been doing that very thing, collectively, from day one. Simonelli punctuates the thrilling out-rock of the musicians as if directing the chaos with each jabbed finger or kick of a boot, rhythms explode on a single syllable or are seemingly sucked back into their shell by a breath in the text. Goldring and Thomson constantly reinvent the wheel, using the limitations of guitar to their advantage, always surprising listeners with new possibilities. It is primal, powerful, and absolutely hardcore. In the tradition of the punk and underground era they grew up in, Enablers have always treated each new recording as a bookmark in time used to generate resources to tour. Some Gift is their seventh LP and the first on Wrong Speed Records. It represents a summation of the history of the band. It recalls the incendiary power of the early records whilst being delivered with a loose, human feel that can only have been cultivated through the time and experiences they share together. These seemingly gradual changes in sound from album to album reveal themselves as revelations once fully experienced and understood as a whole. It sounds like this music comes effortlessly to the players, yet it leaves the listener punch drunk, exhausted and elated.
YELLOW ELECTRIC
GR 021X-LP
 
PRICE: $35.00
CAT #: GR 021X-LP
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
RAUM Daughter 2LP
2022 repress.. "Double-LP gatefold version of new album by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Liz Harris on black vinyl; side D blank/mirror finish; handmade insert. Daughter is a record that took great patience to make. It captures a strange time spent in the desert, later added to, edited and finally made sense of after we lost the friend we'd been there with. There are fragments of beginnings and a deep sense of loss. A requiem, a lullaby, goodbye. Most of the material was generated in Marfa at a residency we did with Paul Clipson in 2016. We both felt confident that someday the shape of our hours of recordings would reveal itself but at the time it felt impossible to revisit. A lot happened that week. The desert was an anxious landscape, and each of us were in our own fevered headspaces. We met several times to work on finishing these recordings over the years, but a big piece of the record only made sense after sitting with the loss of Paul. The recordings took on a special resonance. They are a document of the last time the three of us were in the same physical place. His film projector sound is embedded there. The sound of our long walks in the desert scrub. Sounds of birds screaming in the mornings. Heat, calm, companionship, and grief; all moving very slowly -- across years, across a remembered landscape."





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