Forced Exposure New Releases for the Week of 5/13/2024

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: BALLROOM 001LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Ballroom Blitz presents Just Another Saturday Night: 12 Rare Rude & Obscure Boppers From The '70s Bovver & Glam Rock Scene. Featuring William Shakespeare, Jon Symon, Angel, TMG, Paper Lace, Streak, Giggles, Don Fardon, Toggle, Iron Cross, Walkers, and Gang.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: BEWITH 003LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress. Ned Doheny's Hard Candy, originally released in 1976, is widely considered the finest blue-eyed soul album of all time. It has long been a source of great frustration then, that this perfectly-formed Southern California masterpiece has been unavailable on vinyl for almost 40 years. Be With Records continues apace by marking its third release with the first officially licensed reissue of Doheny's nautical classic. Perhaps most famously, this impeccably smooth set features the timeless "Get It Up For Love", a wonderful example of mid-70s mid-tempo white-(hot)-funk. Produced by the legendary Steve Cropper, it featured a veritable who's-who of the Laurel Canyon soft-yacht sound (JD Souther, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, the entire horn section for Tower of Power) yet bombed mysteriously. It's been a cult record since. Features the original artwork for both jacket and full color inner sleeve; 180 gram vinyl.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: BEC 5543433

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress; LP version. First vinyl edition; 180 gram vinyl; printed inner-sleeve; Includes CD. Because Music present a reissue of JJ Cale's Closer To You, originally released in 1994. The album was published under the independent French label Delabel and distributed by Virgin Records. Personnel: JJ Cale - vocals, guitar, synthesizer; James Cruce - drums; Tim Drummond - bass; Jim Karstein - drums, percussion; Christine Lakeland - guitar, vocals (background); Bill Payne - keyboards; Don Preston - guitar."On the two albums that preceded Closer To You, Travel-Log (1989) and Number 10 (1992), JJ Cale adopted a more basic musical approach. This album continues the trend. Cale plays a few songs alone (though the overdubbed parts sound remarkably spare), including the title track. Closer To You finds him electronically treating his vocals, a technique that surprisingly makes him sound as down-to-earth as ever." --All Music

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: BEC 5543437

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress; double LP version. First vinyl edition; 180 gram vinyl; printed inner sleeves; includes CD. Because Music present a reissue of JJ Cale's Live, originally released in 1996. This live album features 14 classics, including "After Midnight", "Cocaine", and "Old Man". All tracks were recorded across several different shows: Carnegie Hall (New York, 1996), The Philharmonic (Munich, 1994), Flynn Theater (Burlington, 1993), The Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, 1994), The Hammersmith Apollo (London, 1994), The Sommerville Theater (Sommerville, 1993), and Park West (Chicago, 1990)."Cale's live performance style does nothing to quell his reputation for laid-back but pristine guitar playing and reserved Mississippi John Hurt-style delivery. A man who truly appreciates the value of restraint, Cale leaves plenty of room for his immaculate guitar lines, even to the point of irony on an ambling version of the previously insistent 'Mama Don't.' This collection, which was gleaned from an assortment of live shows dating from 1990-1996, finds Cale allowing his songs to unfold organically." --All Music

 

PRICE: $48.00

CAT #: BT 116LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Limited restock. Black Truffle announces a major archival release from legendary American composer and live electronics innovator Richard Teitelbaum, centered around his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt's cult 1978 animation Asparagus. Best known to some listeners for introducing Europe to the Moog synthesizer as a founding member of Musica Elettronica Viva in Rome, Teitelbaum's extensive and radically experimental body of work includes collaborative recordings with master improvisers like Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille, and George Lewis, intercultural experiments combining electronics with non-Western instruments such as the shakuhachi, works for computer controlled piano, and large-scale multi-media operas. Recorded at York University, Toronto in 1975-1976, "Asparagus (European Version)" sprawls across both sides of the first LP. Discovered by composer Matt Sargent in Teitelbaum's tape archive, this is a previously unheard major work for Moog modular and Polymoog synthesizers, unique in Teitelbaum's oeuvre for its lushness and gently melodic quality. Teitelbaum incorporated much of this material into his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt's Asparagus, which receives its first official release here. Asparagus, famously paired with David Lynch's Eraserhead for a two-year run of midnight screenings at New York's Waverly Theatre, uses hand-drawn and stop animation to unfurl an oneiric succession of images, beginning with a sequence in which the female protagonist defecates two stalks of asparagus, which multiply and float out of the toilet bowl to form the letters of the title. Teitelbaum's soundtrack interweaves delicate drifting tones from the "European Version" with contributions from Steve Lacy and Steve Potts on saxophones, George Lewis on trombone and Takehisa Kosugi on violin. The final side of the set presents a new realization of Teitelbaum's text score "Threshold Music," performed at a memorial concert at Roulette, New York in 2022 by Leila Bourreuil (cello), Alvin Curran (sampler and objects), Daniel Fishkin (daxophone), Miguel Frasconi (glass objects), and Matt Sargent (lap steel). Here the players use a field recording taken at Teitelbaum's home in Bearsville, New York, their long tones and shimmering, glassy textures delicately emerging from the white noise of the location recording. Released with the full approval of both Richard Teitelbaum and Suzan Pitt's estates, Asparagus is illustrated with striking images from Pitt's film and accompanied by detailed liner notes by Francis Plagne. These previously unheard pieces shed new light on the work of a key composer in the American experimental tradition, offering up some of Teitelbaum's most beautiful and engaging music.

 

PRICE: $21.50

CAT #: BORNBAD 174LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Cyril Cyril's music seems familiar because it's not deaf to its neighbors, in the broadest sense: Geneva, their lair, Europe, their playground as a duo, and the world, their grocery store. There's plenty in those two heads, but just the two of them on stage. Cyril Yeterian fiddles with a polyglot banjo and catches his tangy voice on the fly with pedals. Cyril Bondi hauls around a huge drum kit (voted wackiest of the decade), covered in sonic shells and the occasional pad. For their third Born Bad album, they have invited two lads from Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, Ine?s Mouzoune (multi-instrumentalist from Amami), and Violeta Garcia (whose cello features on Le Futur c?a marche pas). Genosidra, aka Carlos Quebrada, who crafts club delicacies in Bogota?, mixed heavy, full gravy, a challenge given the quantity of material, recorded as a family affair at Insub Studio. This album features heavy guitar/drums text-driven ballads, polyrhythmic noisy drum splatter with crafty vocal knitting, deconstructed and harmonically ambitious compositions, and Latino frogs croaks. Since their previous efforts Certaine Ruines (BORNBAD 109CD) and Yallah Mickey Mouse (BORNBAD 138CD), it turns out that the future isn't working out so badly for the two Cyrils, who each have a label to run. Bongo Joe for Yeterian, Insub for Bondi -- who also beats the drum for La Te?ne in his rare spare time. And that's not counting with their supergroup Yalla Miku (with Hyperculte, Anouar Baouna, Ali Boushaki, and Samuel Ades). Quietly sitting on crates of records, they patiently build their sound. Never tired of sick networks and never-ending struggles, Cyril Cyril live is a rousing mess, shouting out the common spleen while still managing to have a good laugh.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: BUBBLES 009LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Erlend ?ye and La Comitiva's La Comitiva. In a small town like Siracusa, Italy, socializing is mostly done in peoples' homes and consists of: buy ingredients for a meal, make the meal and talk, eat the meal and talk, get the instruments and sit around the table and play and sing for hours. Erlend plays a ukulele, Marco plays nylon string guitar, Luigi plays cavaquinho, a Brazilian samba instrument, and Stefano plays "bass" on the same steel string guitars that Erlend uses with Kings of Convenience. The band became professionalized during a 2018 tour through Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. During that tour, many of the band's original songs came to be, such as "Altiplano," the arrangement of which took place in a dusty border crossing station between Chile and Per?. After many involuntary breaks (Covid, Kings of Convenience album release, Marco Castello album release), the full-length LP La Comitiva finally sees the light of day. In 2016, Erlend became aware of the free-spirited classical ensemble Stargaze during the collaborative festival "People" in Berlin, and he started to involve some of the members in studio recording sessions and live concerts with La Comitiva. Mostly featured: Kobi Arditi (trombone), Maaike van der Linde (flute), Romain Bly (trumpet, French horn and percussions). Format: 180G heavyweight black vinyl with printed inner sleeve and hype sticker.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: CC 024CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

With his new instrumental album Ventas Rumba, the French composer (and singer) returns to his signature instrument, the piano, blending it with warm synth tones. This album represents a "return to his roots," allowing Ez?chiel Pailh?s to reinvent himself in a seamless way while still exploring ballads and ritornellos, halfway between light-heartedness and melancholy. Ez?chiel Pailh?s has been meaning to write a solo piano album for as long as he can remember. Hardly surprising, of course, for this academically-trained pianist, brought up on classical music and then studied jazz. Yet, since his 2001 debut with the electro-pop duo N?ze, and his subsequent four albums, the artist had constantly postponed this project that was so close to his heart. Then in 2022, just as he was getting ready to start producing an album of new songs, this long-standing aim finally materialized. The melodies he wrote seemed to stand on their own naturally, spurring him on to compose this series of fourteen tracks, recorded in sessions split between France and Latvia. A new piano: the Una Corda Ez?chiel wanted this project dedicated to the piano to begin a new narrative, to explore new instrumental terrain and new tones, something far removed from the familiar piano he has been playing all his life. He opted for the Una Corda piano, designed by David Klavins, a groundbreaking instrument builder renowned for his distinctive pianos with vertical shapes and frames. The Una Corda, created in 2014, is an upright piano with a single string per note (unlike three strings on traditional pianos). Enticed by the "crystalline and unique" tones of this instrument, which is hard to find in France, Ez?chiel travelled to Kuldiga, Latvia (where David Klavins set up his workshops and studios), to record the first part of the album. Although the title of the album may initially conjure up images of a distant, sensual dance, the reality is quite different. Ventas Rumba indeed refers to the waterfall and rapids (in Latvian: rumba) of the river Ventas, which runs near this small village in the western part of the country. Ez?chiel chose to blur the lines, as the sound and musicality of the title likely evoke both his short stay in the Baltic country, and also a form of distant exotic imagery perfectly in tune with his own mischievous wit.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: CCS 132LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. With his new instrumental album Ventas Rumba, the French composer (and singer) returns to his signature instrument, the piano, blending it with warm synth tones. This album represents a "return to his roots," allowing Ez?chiel Pailh?s to reinvent himself in a seamless way while still exploring ballads and ritornellos, halfway between light-heartedness and melancholy. Ez?chiel Pailh?s has been meaning to write a solo piano album for as long as he can remember. Hardly surprising, of course, for this academically-trained pianist, brought up on classical music and then studied jazz. Yet, since his 2001 debut with the electro-pop duo N?ze, and his subsequent four albums, the artist had constantly postponed this project that was so close to his heart. Then in 2022, just as he was getting ready to start producing an album of new songs, this long-standing aim finally materialized. The melodies he wrote seemed to stand on their own naturally, spurring him on to compose this series of fourteen tracks, recorded in sessions split between France and Latvia. A new piano: the Una Corda Ez?chiel wanted this project dedicated to the piano to begin a new narrative, to explore new instrumental terrain and new tones, something far removed from the familiar piano he has been playing all his life. He opted for the Una Corda piano, designed by David Klavins, a groundbreaking instrument builder renowned for his distinctive pianos with vertical shapes and frames. The Una Corda, created in 2014, is an upright piano with a single string per note (unlike three strings on traditional pianos). Enticed by the "crystalline and unique" tones of this instrument, which is hard to find in France, Ez?chiel travelled to Kuldiga, Latvia (where David Klavins set up his workshops and studios), to record the first part of the album. Although the title of the album may initially conjure up images of a distant, sensual dance, the reality is quite different. Ventas Rumba indeed refers to the waterfall and rapids (in Latvian: rumba) of the river Ventas, which runs near this small village in the western part of the country. Ez?chiel chose to blur the lines, as the sound and musicality of the title likely evoke both his short stay in the Baltic country, and also a form of distant exotic imagery perfectly in tune with his own mischievous wit.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: CPT 625LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

After Future Sounds Of Kraut Vol. 1 (CPT 621LP), Compost presents Vol. 2: 17 modern krauty electronic tracks (nine of them exclusive) inspired by Kraftwerk, Can, Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia, Klaus Schulze, and many others. Curated and compiled by Compost artist Fred und Luna. The collage on the cover -- like on Vol.1 -- was exclusively made by the fantastic artist Norika Nienstedt from Kraut metropolis D?sseldorf. Future sounds of Kraut, what's it all about? Maybe Vol. 2 will bring it to light for you. It's not easy at all or even impossible to define the musical genre "Kraut." Nevertheless, Compost Records and Fred und Luna strike out on the path to find the diverse elements of German electronic music of the 1970s and 1980s and their effects on the new German and international music scene. After the immense success of Vol. 1, a follow-up volume was soon started, tying in stylistically with its predecessor and furthermore -- as this is one basic principle of the series -- expanding the musical spectrum by adding new krauty elements step by step. So now, besides stylistic followings to Vol. 1, you will hear some more club oriented and experimental tracks. Feel free to listen and get krautified! Featuring Sankt Otten, Ghost Power, formAnt B, Thomas Fehlmann, Roman Fl?gel, Sordid Sound System, I:Cube, Lucas Croon, Minami Deutsch, Gilgamesh Mata Hari Duo, Kosmischer L?ufer, Young Solo, Schlammpeitziger, and Halwa.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: CPT 627EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

A wonderful song with a heartwarming hook. Jimi Tenor and Tomasz Guiddo at their best. With three delightful feel-good remixes by the shining light, Erobique, Freestyle Man, and Ale Castro. Erobique, who recently had chart hits in middle Europe and was a member of International Pony with DJ Koze back in the days. He also wrote fantastic musical scores for the Tatortreiniger TV series (with Bjarne M?del) and celebrated sold-out live shows all over Germany and Austria. Freestyle Man, perhaps better known as Sasse from Moodmusic, is recognized for delivering many excellent deep house gems. Ale Castro from Argentina also contributes to the top-notch remixes with a DJ-friendly house version. Last but not least, the legendary Austrian crooner Louie Austen works his magic with his voice on "Smile."

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: CPT 629EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Precursor EP to Mr. Raoul K's newest album. The Afro-house pioneer has returned to his home country C?te d'Ivoire. Raoul K: "Since I know how good and easy it is to live in my home country of C?te d'Ivoire, I drew a line in Germany and set off." So, he's back in full effect with spiritual Afro-tinged gems, catching the vibe and easier living there, and discovered new voices from Kenia, South Africa and India. Sinkere got mixing skills from Rancido, while Compost head honcho Michael Reinboth delivered a tempered stripped-down remix of "Loni k?." Also featuring Sidney Simila, Lady Parul, and Abou C.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: CPT 630EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The visionary electronic music producer team Arnau Obiols and KAYYAK, known for blending cultural influences into captivating soundscapes, present two new tracks seamlessly fusing afro-inspired rhythms with groovy organic beats. Splendid remix works by the masterminds Prins Thomas, Medlar & Dele Sosimi, and Rahaan are the icing on the cake. Arnau Obiols and KAYYAK return to Compost Records with their third release for the esteemed German label. Following their debut EP, Chang'an, and the single "Tunacheza," which was also featured in the compilation Future Sounds of Jazz Vol. 15, the duo presents their latest offerings: "Faith" and "San Diago." Recorded between Zurich and Barcelona, these tracks embody a fusion of disco, funk, and jazz infused with a strong West African influence drawn from genres such as highlife, afrobeat, and juju. Their passion for psychedelia and krautrock is evident in the recordings, characterized by raw tape echoes, primitive drum machines, heavily processed analog synthesizers and dream-like atmospheres. While the original tracks maintain an organic vibe, the remixes offer club-ready versions tailored for the dance floor. Featuring outstanding remixes by the Norwegian space disco pioneer Prins Thomas, the Chicago legend Rahaan, and the British house producer Medlar, along with Nigerian musician Dele Sosimi, renowned for his work as a keyboard player for Fela Kuti in the late '70s and early '80s.

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: CVSD 109CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Joe McPhee is one of the great multi-instrumentalists of contemporary improvised music. His instrumental battery has included saxophones, clarinets, valve trombone, pocket trumpet, sound-on-sound tape recorder, and space organ, but another arrow in his quiver is text. McPhee has been writing poems since the 1970s. He occasionally introduces one into performance, as an introduction or afterword to music, and in recent years he's been known to do full-on readings, text only, featuring his inimitable sense of dramatic timing intoned in his rich voice. The poems range from the observational to the political to the surreal. They're composed in rhyme or according to an internal rhythm, sometimes utterly prosaic, sometimes fantastic and flamboyant. A few of them capture the immediacy of improvised music more acutely than any critical writing on the subject, his half-century immersion in the craft of free music having given him a bottomless cup to draw on and his sensitivity to the nuances of language providing a host of palpable metaphors and metonyms, similes and strophes. The poems are marvels on the page, but they really take flight in McPhee's mouth. In 2021, during a flurry of pandemic-inspired poetic activity, he traveled to Chicago expressly to record a program of his poems. For the studio date, he invited saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark to play duets as interludes between groupings of the poems. Then Vandermark, engineer Alex Inglizian, and the CvsD team sat breathless in the Experimental Sound Studio control room as McPhee proceeded to perform his poetry nonstop and without repetition for nearly two hours. The result is Musings of a Bahamian Son, the first full-length release dedicated to McPhee's writing, with 27 poems interspersed with nine musical interludes and a postlude.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: JACK 047CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Synthpop ignites in Utrecht! May 27, 1984 captures Talk Talk live. Early hits ("Such a Shame") simmer alongside experimental explorations, hinting at their genre-bending future. A captivating glimpse into a band on the cusp of evolution. Color vinyl version.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: DMOOK 001CS

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Fran?oise Hardy became an international sensation during the early 1960s through her albums on Disques Vogue, the French jazz label that then began showcasing chanson. She signed to the label at seventeen after answering a newspaper advertisement recruiting unknown singers while she was a freshman at the Sorbonne. The B-side of her debut single, "Tous Les Gar?ons Et Les Filles," brought her to the forefront of the "Y?-y?" movement, mixing chanson with Anglophone rock and pop, and paving the way for this debut LP, which was lauded by the likes of Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger. This first offering is still arguably her best -- grab it now to understand why!

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: DMOOK 003CS

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

A modal masterpiece from 1959, Kind of Blue is a true classic that never gets old, no matter how many times you listen to it. Bill Evans' understated piano is the perfect foil for Miles' melodies, contrasted by the soaring alto sax of Cannonball Adderley; Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers keep the rhythm section steady but unobtrusive, allowing Miles and Cannonball to shine. "So What" and "Freddie Freeloader" are seductive, deceptive gems, imparting all the frustration, begrudging and joy as only a great jazz record can; "Blue In Green" and "All Blue" have melancholy hues and "Flamenco Sketches" is a precursor to "Sketches Of Spain." Every household should have at least one copy of Kind Of Blue, one of the greatest records ever made.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: DMOOK 009CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Elvis Presley's self-titled debut album forever changed popular culture on release in 1956, its earthquake aftershocks still felt some 65 years later. Gritty adaptations of Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes," Ray Charles' "I Got A Woman" and Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" helped make it the first rock and roll album to top the Billboard charts, where it remained unchallenged for a full ten weeks. The iconic cover image with its distinctive lettering, showing Presley brandishing his acoustic guitar, helped embed the instrument in rock mythology too, indelibly changing how we conceive of the genre and its axemen. Elvis Presley proved that he was already the undisputed "King of Rock 'n' Roll," just as he still is today.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: DOK 320LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress. Etta James's debut album, originally released in 1961 on the Chess subsidiary Argo Records. The album's title-track and "All I Could Do Was Cry" (co-written by future Motown founder Berry Gordy) both went to number two on the R&B charts, while the album itself has gone down in history as one of the great classic albums of early R&B. Bonus tracks "My Heart Cries," "Spoonful," "It's a Crying Shame," and "If I Can't Have You" are taken from two 1960 singles featuring doo-wop idol Harvey Fuqua of The Moonglows (best known for their 1954 hit "Sincerely"). Pressed on 180-gram vinyl; includes CD.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: DC 489LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 restock, released in 2015. "In recent years it's become clear that the Bristol-based Flying Saucer Attack were prescient to a considerable degree. The amplified pastoralism of the group and its various offshoots might have seemed out of step with the times during its initial emergence at the height of Britpop, but the rural has since emerged as a rich source of inspiration for numerous artists in the fields of experimental rock and electronic music. Artists such as Alexander Tucker, Richard Youngs and Boards Of Canada have taken similar pathways through the fields. Since FSA's last official album (Mirror, 2000) all that has been heard of the group's guitarist and mainstay Dave Pearce is his collaboration with US artist Jessica Bailiff as Clear Horizon, whose self-titled album was released by Kranky in 2003. Instrumentals 2015, comprised of 15 fresh Pearce solo performances recorded in characteristically lo-fi manner on tape and CD-R, is an album that will appeal both to FSA diehards and those wholly unfamiliar with the outfit's recorded output. The 15 tracks present an impressionistic narrative which transports the listener through the excoriating dronescapes and rueful introspection of the album's early pieces to the more redemptive cadences of its closing half. Given its sense of momentum, maintained through Pearce's thoughtful sequencing, this is an album that should be experienced in its entirety, the better to appreciate its deliberate emotional arc. The songs gathered on Instrumentals 2015 inform and enrich each other, themes manifesting in one form to reappear, modified, elsewhere, as though impacted and altered by experience. FSA's music has always been very much alive and organic, and this is most definitely true here and now. This is music that ebbs and flows with the impermanence of mood itself, graspable on first listen yet revealing of additional overtones on each successive visit. Even at its most distressed and distorted, Pearce's playing is intuitive and expressive, communicative even, translating inner and outer landscapes simultaneously until the two are indivisible, woven into a single language. In this respect he should be considered a pioneer of the kind of elemental atmospherics recently purveyed by the likes of Richard Skelton and Kemper Norton. Yet these pieces are distinctive and characteristic of their author, exhibiting the same windblown drift and dreamlike melancholy that billowed through FSA's work from 1992?2000, filtered through a new maturity gained during Pearce's twelve-year absence."

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: DC 688LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress. Originally released in 2017. "Drag City presents the second volume of Bill MacKay and Ryley Walker's inspired collaboration. Following their much-admired 2015 debut, Land of Plenty (Whistler Records), SpiderBeetleBee more than makes up for lost time with rich, resonant performances that elevate the sound of the guitar duo as they work with an ever-widening panorama of styles. Their first album was developed over a month-long live residency at Chicago bar The Whistler, and reflected MacKay and Walker's shared joy in a new relationship with a kindred spirit, in playing that might wordlessly finish a phrase or suggest a direction, as they spoke through their guitars. SpiderBeetleBee continues fluidly down the path of their initial psych-folk-blues-raga tandem, brewing further explorations in mixed-and-matched idioms, turning composed melodies inside-out via improvisation, and finding in the blend a shared Walker/MacKay pasture, serendipitously found somewhere between Appalachia and the Highlands. SpiderBeetleBee radiates forth with equal parts austerity and whimsy, opening with an almost-baroque dance before giving way to a Celtic theme, both featuring MacKay and Walker's acoustics in rambling conversation, picking through intricate passages as though they were exchanges, thoughts and afterthoughts. The second of these, 'Pretty Weeds Revisited' is enhanced by sonorous statements from Dutch cellist Katinka Kleijn (a veteran of the CSO), showing a deep, instinctive feel for the Walker/MacKay sound. The album then takes an unexpected turn at midpoint, slowly melting down and drifting soulfully through the expansive space of 'Naturita.' Side two picks up the tempo on 'I Heard Them Singing,' with the aid of MacKay's requinto (a kind of five-string Mexican guitar), Walker's rolling chords and the percolating tabla of Ryan Jewell, suggesting a hitherto unknown short-cut from Brazil to India. Drafts of slide guitar and bittersweet blues evocation illumine further fruitful travels before 'Dragonfly,' also featuring Ms. Kleijn's haunting cello, closes the cycle with a flourish. Adorned with Bill MacKay's colorful and wilfully primitive cover-art, SpiderBeetleBee wanders through styles, landmasses and hemispheres, capturing the further adventures of MacKay and Walker with spellbinding snapshots that only bloom larger the longer you take them in."

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: DC 734LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress. Originally released in 2019. "Fountain Fire is Bill MacKay's second solo album on Drag City. The Chicago-based guitarist's continued sonic journeys in conversation with himself follow a travel-worn map written in his own hand. Bill has followed the trail from familiar confines to unknown places, catalyzing a style equally enamored with the traditional and the avant-garde to make his most expansive and forceful music to date. You can hear it in the opening track; as the lava and lakes of 'Pre-California' simmer to boiling, Bill assembles a bridge of guitars, layering beams of rumbling acoustic, distorted electric, and arcing slide parts. By leaping boldly from fixed points, he makes synergetic discoveries in mid-air. This is the MacKay writing style in its most evolved state thus far, following serpentine paths within the patterns, lunging in and out of tonality with instinctive flair and a stoic sense of inevitability, forging a sonic mosaic that breathes and grows organically as it fills the space of a song. Yet there is far more here than straitlaced sonic captures of picker's prowess and captivating harmonic motivation. Bill's pieces are informed by meditation and memory, impressionistic as cinematic miniatures, inspired as much by filmic and literary passions as by sure-playing hands, and always rooted with deep soul and steady intention. As the pieces move in and out of focus in enticingly hallucinogenic fashion, Bill throws another element into play: a pair of stark and emotionally-charged vocal numbers that cause the hair to raise on the listener's neck, etched as they are with a haunting and eerie beauty. Alongside the ever-shifting flows of instrumental color running through Fountain Fire, these moments shine blindingly, like mirages in the desert. The fire in the album title is a continuity in Bill's life -- part of his genealogy, his living history, his astrology, the scorching effect of the overdriven slide in the penultimate 'Arcadia.'"

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: DPC 089EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Tal Fussman is an outstanding young artist worth keeping an eye on. His productions are at the forefront of innovation, breathing new life into the electronic dance scene. His releases on renowned labels like Innervisions and his own Survival Tactics label among others affirm that his sound is a pioneering fresh blueprint for the techno/house world. In his Focus EP for Drumpoet, Tal showcases his versatility across a diverse spectrum. The track "It's Alright" serves as a futuristic house anthem, while the title track "Focus" champions the break-beat influenced side of the spectrum. The EP reaches its peak with the tribal and dance- floor-driven tracks "Don't Want To" and "Into the Chamber," ultimately delving into the emotive and experimental soundscapes of "Goal" and "Will Fade."

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: FREUDE 004LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 repress. 2LP version,originally released 2009. This is the debut full-length album from Germany's Marek Hemmann. Hemmann has long been one-half of the duo Hemmann & Kaden, who for years have been the pillars of the new house & techno scene, both as producers and as a live act. Hemmann has also been responsible for innumerable remixes, from Dirt Novitzky to Chopstick & Johnjon to Dusty Kid. In Between is pure technoid material in an eclectic house-world, which offers a new discovery at every turn. From classic deep-droning dub epos over frizzy house with shots of bossa nova and demanding horn-action, up to highly complex sample tone-art, this is a long, rewarding trip through techno-land. With a round of wholly comprehensive melancholy and hypnotic bass lines, the tracks bathe you in a type of beauty that will come over you like a sunrise.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: HART 002EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 repress. Hart & Tief return with Pampa's dark bastard and the Proverbial black sheep. For the second statement from the label, they have the twin voices of DJ Koze and Robag Wruhme. Both are masters at remaining simultaneously identifiable yet surprising, and the freedom afforded by this fledgling label sees them push their respective milieus. "Driven" sees Koze return to previously mined percussive tropes and plumb a new minimalist clarity of emotion through maximal means. Robag Wruhme provides "X-mop 198", a slice of linear horror-techno that deftly re-contextualizes its simplistic components into a jagged and constantly surprising listen.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: SUBK 001CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Originally released on the Toxic Shock label in 1989, this is the debut album from Indianapolis pop punk legend Sloppy Seconds. Makes you want to jump around, dance, party and roll through town with the windows down and the volume up. Not for the faint of heart! Limited to 200 only cassette version on Hey Suburbia.

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: IDI 017EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Swiss duo Psycho Weazel are back on Iptamenos Discos, this time with their very own EP Mains D'argile, which has a range of sounds from new wave, indie dance, Italo disco and house and features Curses, Local Suicide, as well as remixes from Marvin & Guy and Rafael Cerato. A retro-futuristic electronic spectacle, Psycho Weazel's music blends indie dance, cold wave and EBM. From their studio on the shore of Lake Neuch?tel, they have created an impressive catalogue of elegant and joyful dance music. Such infectious tracks can be heard lighting up dancefloors across the globe. Sonically and emotionally thrilling, this A-class collaboration double-A-side EP is another exciting addition to Iptamenos Discos' catalogue.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: JPR 112LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Jackpot Records presents this re-reissue of what many call arguably the greatest album of the punk rock era: The Flesh Eaters' 1981 punk-noir masterpiece, A Minute To Pray A Second To Die. Once referred to as an all-star roots/voodoo combo, The Flesh Eaters could only have crawled out of the myst of the late L.A. '70s punk scene. Fronted by punk poet/composer Chris D. (Desjardins), the band was a satellite for exquisite collaborators that allowed him to bring the full force of his dark, messed-up lyrical nightmares. Members of X, Wall Of Voodoo, Los Lobos, The Blasters, and The Plugz all hopped into his unmarked car to take a drive with Chris D. Its grabbed-by-the-throat vocals are powerfully buoyed by the tight melodicism emanating from the players on this record (John Doe and DJ Bonebrake from X, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Dave Alvin and Bill Bateman of The Blasters). Hell, there's even the perfectly executed John Doe original, 'Cyrano de Berger's Back,' which was re-recorded by X in 1987. The creators of this record made a pulp novel for your ears with an equal chance to scar your heart. Do not miss out -- this is punk noir at its greatest. Limited edition ruby red vinyl. Includes original inner sleeve design."

 

PRICE: $69.00

CAT #: KOM 371LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 limited repress; Triple LP version. Includes CD. Comes with a 24-page booklet in a hardcover book. In the body of work of Cologne artist Wolfgang Voigt - who, like few others, has informed, shaped and influenced the world of electronic music with countless different projects since the early 1990s - Gas stands out in particular, a saturnine sound cosmos based on heavily condensed classic sequences. Even after nearly 20 years, the sound of Gas doesn't seem to have lost any of its luster, as shown by the commanding success of Kompakt's fall 2016 re-release of the essential back catalogue as a box set (KOM 370LP). The overwhelming feedback from a loyal international fan community and worldwide media outlets attests once again to the sheer timelessness of Gas. Which is why it will feel like hardly a day has passed since the release of the last official album Pop nearly two decades ago in 2000, when Wolfgang Voigt resumes this specific creative path with the upcoming new full-length Narkopop. Even in the here and now, the unmistakable vibe of Gas immediately hits home, taking the listener on an otherworldly journey with the very first sounds, drawing them into an impervious sonic thicket, down to the depths of rapture and reverie. From wafts of dense symphonic mist emerges a floating and whirling feeling of weightlessness, before the listener steps into an eerily beautiful forest of fantasy, pulled in by the allure of a narcotic bass drum. While earlier Gas tracks were often based on the hypnotic effects of looping techniques, the ten new pieces on Narkopop unfold their magic in a more entwined manner, sometimes with the sonic might of an entire philharmonic orchestra, at times subtle and fragile. A main characteristic of Voigt's oeuvre, the coalescence of seemingly contradictory stylistic aspects such as harmonious and atonal, concrete and abstract, light and heavy, near and far is also a decisive feature of Narkopop. In accordance with the transgressive spirit of his collective work, Voigt carries the aesthetic conceptions of his music over to the realm of the visual. Based on his abstract forest pictures, the Gas artwork addresses Voigt's artistic affinity to romanticism and the forest as a place of yearning. For the first time, a closer look at the cover of Narkopop reveals signs of architectural fragments which hint at another, maybe parallel world behind Voigt's forest. Truth is the prettiest illusion.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: LSR 026LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 restock; double LP version. Dopplereffekt strikes back with another album masterpiece. Who controls the mind controls the body. After three years of experimentation in isolation, Dopplereffekt have emerged with Neurotelepathy, an oracular narrative of cerebral entanglement and advancement. The sleek mathematical models of 2017's Cellular Automata have evolved into these synaptic interpretations, transferences, and modifications, rejecting binary expectations to meditate on the possibilities and pitfalls of what's to come. With their second LP and fifth release in total on Leisure System, the duo of Rudolf Klorzeiger and To-Nhan have themselves achieved a near-telepathic capacity for collaborative thought and mechanical construction. They continue to use live appearances to present experimental trials of theoretical models, and that effort is heard in the sizzle and swing of the percussive highlights here, programmed with a serious depth and wriggle that reflect both an extension of and return to form. Considerations of the machine-human interface, neurological realities and physical probabilities dominate. But these tracks are economical and precise, glittering with emotional depth and cinematic effects. The album's core, a three-act movement of symphonic uncertainty and revelation, marks one of the pair's most evocative compositions in a career full of them. Territory is monitored, traced and scanned, resulting in unexpected modulations. Underlying systems are questioned, competing mindsets animated and mutated: brain-to-brain, brain-to-machine and beyond. Neurotelepathy processes these transformative mental, psychological and transgenerational states both traumatic and triumphant. "Epigenetic Modulation" features Christina Vantzou.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: LR 102LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 restock. One of the brightest and most famous projects of the entire punk/new wave scene, No New York was released in 1978 on Island's sub-label Antilles. Featuring some of the most incredible rule breaking bands of the underground N.Y.C. art and music scene, the project - produced by Brian Eno - is a genuine snapshot of the massively creative N.Y.C. scene. Artists: Contortions, Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, Mars, D.N.A..

 

PRICE: $19.00

CAT #: LMS 1725116

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Following on from the UK Top 20 success of 2022's 30 Something (LMS 5521698), and the Top 10 for 2023's Optical Delusion (LMS 5521858), London Records launch an extensive 2024 campaign for Orbital, revisiting 1991's seminal debut Orbital (The Green Album). The Green Album heralded a brave new world for the UK musical landscape (DJ Mag would later decry that the album "rewrote the rule book for rave"). Brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll eschewed formulas and clich?s, choosing to explore wider textures, rhythms and stranger mind spaces within dance music. Their resulting album would enjoy both chart success and an enduring legacy, influencing and inspiring artists from Bj?rk to Bicep, with the Hartnoll brothers going on to collaborate with artists as diverse as Madonna, Ennio Morricone, Kraftwerk, Sleaford Mods, and Professor Brian Cox. 33 years since its original release, the album is revisited.

 

PRICE: $44.50

CAT #: LMS 1725119

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Double LP version. Green and red color vinyl. Following on from the UK Top 20 success of 2022's 30 Something (LMS 5521698), and the Top 10 for 2023's Optical Delusion (LMS 5521858), London Records launch an extensive 2024 campaign for Orbital, revisiting 1991's seminal debut Orbital (The Green Album). The Green Album heralded a brave new world for the UK musical landscape (DJ Mag would later decry that the album "rewrote the rule book for rave"). Brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll eschewed formulas and clich?s, choosing to explore wider textures, rhythms and stranger mind spaces within dance music. Their resulting album would enjoy both chart success and an enduring legacy, influencing and inspiring artists from Bj?rk to Bicep, with the Hartnoll brothers going on to collaborate with artists as diverse as Madonna, Ennio Morricone, Kraftwerk, Sleaford Mods, and Professor Brian Cox. 33 years since its original release, the album is revisited.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: MEGAUK 024CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 reprint. Deluxe reissue of Michael Head's classic 1997 album The Magical World of The Strands. "Head, who is no stranger to either classy, baroque pop or neo-psychedelia, has composed an album of gorgeously illustrated songs that are lushly orchestrated by a standard rock quartet augmented by a flutist (Leslie Roberts) and a string quartet. The result is an album that, while little known, is a classic, a masterpiece of modern chamber pop... this disc walks the line between the deep, darkly expressionistic chamber work of the Tindersticks to the airy, classically augmented breeze-laden pop of Nick Drake ? la Five Leaves Left -- long before the millennium obsession with Drake's work began anew because of a Volkswagen commercial" --AllMusic. "This is an elegantly unified work, tough yet guileless, and rustic in tone when the idea of lads with beards and banjos was unheard of. The balance of masterful songcraft with an in-the-moment looseness is probably the defining mood, the group uncrowded and unhurried as they feel their way around 11 folk-influenced, strings-augmented, subtly layered tracks" --Mojo (5/5 stars). In 1993, Head teamed up with his brother John, his longtime drummer Iain Templeton, and two new recruits, Michelle Brown on bass and Les Roberts on flute, and began two years of recording sessions. The sessions came to a halt when Head was offered a major label deal, not for his current work, but for him to record as his previous band Shack again. Weaving rough mixes and sketches -- by engineer Steve Powell, made in Liverpool -- with completed mixes by producer Mark Coyle (Oasis), Stephane Bismuth, the French promoter who initiated the Strands sessions, finally released The Magical World of The Strands on Megaphone in 1997. This reissue includes two bonus tracks, the B-sides to the 1998 NME and Melody Maker Single of the Week "Somethin' Like You." "Green Velvet Jacket" is an acoustic solo piece by Head, and "Queen Matilda (Demo)" was recorded in early 1993 and produced by the band's friend and live engineer Ian Eastwood on a four-track Tascam cassette recorder. Also includes 20-page booklet containing new liner notes by Head himself and photographs testifying to the album sleeve's work-in-progress.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: MONKEY 132EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Sha Ru's very existence is an act of joyful defiance. The NYC-via-Berlin duo of Masha and Ru draw from punk and dance music's deep roots in protest and liberation, filtered through the expansiveness and fluidity of queer identity. A slew of incendiary EPs and rapturous live performances have established the band as an outspoken force in electronic music, exploring darker shades and bass-heavy, future-seeking sonics that invoke post-punk and industrial pioneers as much as anything in the club canon. The duo's debut EP for Monkeytown They Are Textural provides a surprising new expansion of their sound and conceptual framework. Where previous releases drew on particular moments in time to give voice to the oppressed, They Are Textural filters the political through the lens of the personal, charting the duo's own journey with queerness and identity. It compiles Sha Ru's most daring, honest and vulnerable work to date -- invoking a panoply of overwhelming emotions from platonic and romantic love to heartbreak and psychic distress, rendered in deft rhythmic architectures and rumbling bass balanced with deep, sensuous melodies and softer textures.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: NSD 170LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2024 restock. "J Dilla's Motor City LP."

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: NOQ 075LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Originally released in 2021. "Michael Hurley's first new studio record in 12 years features eleven songs recorded in Astoria, Oregon during the brief time of year when the foxgloves bloom. Hurley had been workshopping the set at home for the past few years. Friends and collaborators came into town and contributed from afar. The songs are lifted by violin, organ, upright bass, banjo, percussion -- but at the center, of course, is the enigmatic Snock, whose songs have grown only more unique and recognizable 57 years after his debut album. It could only be Snock. Heartbreaking, heartfelt, easy and carefree. The glorious opener 'Are You Here For The Festival' -- punctuated by a pair of violins -- came to him while working in the garden. 'Little Blue River' floats by on a cloud. The haunting 'Jacob's Ladder' sounds beamed in from another era. Or dimension. Foxgloves is as comforting and wonderful as any Hurley record that has come before it."

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: NA 5241LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 restock. "The first time since 1971 that this album has been pressed from the original master tapes, recently discovered in Italy. Lacquered directly from tape in an all-analog transfer by Bernie Grundman. This is the single LP version that we issued after the Now-Again Reserve Edition sold out. Mark Fry was 19 -- recently graduated from high school and in Italy studying painting -- when he walked barefooted into RCA's Italian subsidiary, played some songs he'd written on his guitar and was signed to record the album that would become legend. The first recordings he made proved stuff, so he was paired with members of the Scottish band Middle of the Road, who were in Rome while under contract to RCA Italiana. Convening in a basement home studio with two 4-track reel-to-reel recorders, Mark's visions coalesced in a dreamy, airy manner -- 'Nick Drake meets Dr. Strangely Strange with a touch of Lewis Carroll' The Word Magazine would later write. Pressed in small amounts for Vincenzo Micocci's RCA sub-label It, Alice remained an out of reach masterpiece for many but its creator, who returned to England in 1971 and subsequently traveled the world, playing music, sometimes recording and painting. By the time of its rediscovery, its master tapes were assumed lost. Their rediscovery allows this pristine transfer to reveal nuances not heard on anything but original It pressings."

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: OUTS 001LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Limited 2024 repress. Warsaw was the planned debut album by the English post-punk band Joy Division, while they were briefly associated with RCA Records. Recorded in May 1978, it comprised eleven tracks now known collectively as the RCA Sessions. However, the band were disappointed with the label's post-production work and the deal fell through, the album being scrapped. Four of the songs recorded during the RCA sessions had previously been recorded at the end of 1977, and it was these older recordings that the band would release the following month as their debut An Ideal for Living EP.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: PAMPA 023EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 repress. Robag Wruhme returns to Pampa following the whirlwind of acclaim for his 2011 album Thora Vukk (PAMPA 002CD/S-LP). The wait was worth it; Cybekks EP finds Wruhme in stunning form yet again. "Cybekks" leads off with a weighty tread, thundering downward with heavy, robotic drums as cloud-like chords of suspenseful pads appear and disappear on the horizon. "Anton" returns to melancholic brilliance, with a lilting piano loop and subtle digital trickery that blurs the edges of each note. "Volta Cobby" reinvigorates the classic collision of tech, house, and stripped-back body music. "Anton II" draws on electronica with a pastoral feel.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: RADK 7034CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Modern Lovers' self-titled debut album, released in 1976, is a timeless exploration of proto-punk and alternative rock. Led by Jonathan Richman, the album captures a minimalist and lo-fi charm, with tracks like "Roadrunner" becoming anthems of the emerging punk scene. Richman's witty lyrics and stripped-down sound make Modern Lovers a seminal work, influencing generations of indie and punk musicians. The album stands as a testament to the band's pioneering role in shaping the landscape of alternative music.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: RADK 7036CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Music for Pleasure by The Damned, released in 1977, showcases a unique evolution in the band's sound. The album, often overshadowed by its predecessor, offers a blend of punk and experimental elements. Tracks like "Problem Child" and "Don't Cry Wolf" reveal a dynamic range, highlighting The Damned's willingness to push musical boundaries. Music for Pleasure remains a gem for those exploring the band's diverse discography.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: RRS 190CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Color vinyl version. Tongue-in-cheek punk act Toy Dolls came together in the northeast formerly industrial town of Sunderland, England in 1979 with working-class humor at the forefront of everything and frontman Olga breaking up the Oi singalongs with searing guitar assaults. Issued on the independent Volume label as usual, third album Idle Gossip continued in the same mold as their first two LPs with "Geordie's Gone To Jail," "Keith's A Thief," "Silly Billy," and the title track all cracking numbers built on Olga and company's irresistible charm; "I'll Get Even With Steven" even gives a po-faced punk nod to Elvis. Another great Toy Dolls LP! Includes unpublished exclusive photo by Vive le Rock photographer Per-Ake Warn in a folded 40x60cm poster.

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: RRS 190LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Tongue-in-cheek punk act Toy Dolls came together in the northeast formerly industrial town of Sunderland, England in 1979 with working-class humor at the forefront of everything and frontman Olga breaking up the Oi singalongs with searing guitar assaults. Issued on the independent Volume label as usual, third album Idle Gossip continued in the same mold as their first two LPs with "Geordie's Gone To Jail," "Keith's A Thief," "Silly Billy," and the title track all cracking numbers built on Olga and company's irresistible charm; "I'll Get Even With Steven" even gives a po-faced punk nod to Elvis. Another great Toy Dolls LP! Includes unpublished exclusive photo by Vive le Rock photographer Per-Ake Warn in a folded 40x60cm poster.

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: RER VHC1

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 restock. ReR Vinyl present a reissue of Henry Cow's Leg End, originally released in 1979. This was the first time together on record for Fred Frith, Tim Hodgkinson, Chris Cutler, John Greaves, and Geoff Leigh. An extension and fusion of the key influences of Soft Machine and Frank Zappa, the album is packed full of extraordinary tunes, complex but never pompous arrangements, and great improvisations. It defines a whole new world of European music. Indispensable really.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: RUMP 009EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

KAYYAK and Kalabrese -- the Zurich Friends -- together on a split 12-inch. "Let Love Find Itself" is the title of this unfolding relationship-drama that KAYYAK tells you about in a thorough tone. While the prominent vocal unleashes the story, the song takes us on a hypnotic journey. Bass and chords tight together while edgy dub sounds play catch and release. Crooner disco sound at its best on this A-side. KAYYAK on lead vocals for the first time on Rumpelmusig. With "You Blow My Mind", Kalabrese catches up with an old remix that he contributed for Tosca. A new interpretation with a fresh drive as he makes way for an elegant and deep dancefloor song.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: SOMM 080LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress. Reissue, originally released in 1970. Heavy-rock/bluesy sound with West Coast overtones and some devastating fuzz-wah guitar. Originally named Strawberry Dust, Ancient Grease was a hard psychedelic band from Wales, connected to Eyes Of Blue and Racing Cars. They were supported by John Weathers (Eyes of Blue) who also acted as producer and songwriter for their sole album, recorded in London. When eventually released in 1970, Women and Children First was credited to Ancient Grease instead of Strawberry Dust (one of those "great" ideas by major labels). The album was first issued in the US and later in the UK, both on the Mercury label but with different sleeves (being the UK one the most desirable and collectable). RIYL: Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Cactus, Captain Beefheart, Red Dirt... Remastered sound; original UK artwork; color insert with liner notes and photos. "An interesting proto-grunge album that wouldn't have been out of place in early '90s Seattle" --Giles Hamilton (Galactic Ramble). "The first thing that hits you in the very first seconds of the opener 'Freedom Train' is a booming, stomping fuzz guitar riff. Washed in wah-wah pedals, thinned in chorus or crunched with saturated tones, the guitar of Graham Williams is the main protagonist of the record." --Andrea Gelardini (It's Psychedelic Baby).

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: SRP 001LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

On Intertextural, Manuel Tur delves into more cinematic ambient and trip-hop realms, reminiscent of short interludes from 1990s classic electronica albums. 12 tracks of shifting beat structures, meandering loops and interlocking dubs, oscillating between sample-based and digital textures, form an atmospherically dense tapestry already familiar from Tur's productions for the dance floor. Originally recorded in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic and self-released as a digital-only album, Intertextural is now available for the first time in a physical format, specially remastered and cut to 180g vinyl.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: SVT 246EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 repress. Remix Tales sees the Berlin-based artist, DJ and label owner Oliver Koletzki look back onto an impressive career and a plethora of styles and moods, best exemplified by this diverse set he's been crafting for prolific friends and outstanding musicians for close to a decade. For Remix Tales, Oliver has now complied his personal favorites, with some previously unreleased, high-impact material forming the icing on the cake. Remix Tales exemplifies Oliver's chameleon-like approach in the studio, as dynamics shift from organic dreaminess to high-octane club-fare, all held together by the trademark musicality that shines through every single Koletzki production.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: STUDIOMUL 013LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2024 repress. Johnny's Disk record is an independent jazz label, run by the owner of jazz cafe Kaiunbashi No Johnny located in Rikuzentakata City in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The legendary label released a string of albums of high-quality, but down-to-earth music, spanning from modern jazz, avant-garde jazz to left-field pop. Albums such as Farewell My Johnny / Left Alone (1980) and Aya's Samba (1978) have reached cult status among fans as some of the best works to come out of the Japanese jazz scene. The Japanese jazz classic, Aya's Samba, was a debut effort by bassist Eiji Nakayama, who played as part of Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine and toured with Don Friedman. This album is an important release in the Johnny's Disk catalog, not only because it is the first ever release, but also because the owner hearing the band play was the reason why the label came to be. Aya's Samba is a mellow jazz samba in minor key that's considered a Japanese jazz classic. Slow ballad "Yellow Living" is drenched in melancholy with emotive keys and sax notes.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: TPTDD 015CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

December 12th, 1979: Amsterdam's Melkweg throbs with early Cure magic captured on this live recording. Robert Smith's brooding vocals pierce the air, weaving through post-punk anthems like "Fire in Cairo" and "A Forest." Raw energy and nascent darkness ignite a legendary band's journey. Dive into the origins of The Cure's haunting beauty.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: TPTDD 016CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

New York's Spa Club ignites in June 2001! This live recording captures punk icon Dee Dee Ramone spitting fire in his last NYC show. Raw vocals belt out classics like "Beat on the Brat" and "I Wanna Be Sedated," infused with the spirit of the Ramones. Dive into a sweaty night of pure punk energy -- a must-listen for any Ramones fan.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: TRESOR 296EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2024 repress. Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald -- the two vital proponents of Detroit-Berlin axis -- return to the mothership following their 2016 full-length effort Transport (TRESOR 285CD/LP). Angles is the result of a new conversation between the founding father of electronic music and his German counterpart. The serene source of captivating musical ideas that is Borderland (TRESOR 262CD, 2013) keeps on flowing and vibrating with subtle energy. Both parts of "Concave" are the ungraspable manifestation of the wild quietness in which the duo finds itself. Predicting at once, possible outcomes for the craft of electronic sound, while respecting their origins.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: TRESOR 362EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Repressed; R.I.P. Juan Mendez aka Silent Servant is a figure in techno history that needs little introduction. As a member of the Sandwell District collective and the label's art director he collaborated on works that were responsible for a global focal shift in the genre as their label adapted and challenged the paradigm of minimal techno, taking influence from other sources such as dub, post-punk, and even classical minimalism. But Mendez's relationship with music goes back much further than these seminal releases. With In Memoriam, Silent Servant's latest release on Tresor Records, Mendez writes a deeply personal memoir of a 30-plus year career spent exploring and absorbing the shadowy side of music; a carefully crafted elegy to people, places, and times past and the lasting effect they have on the present. Across the four tracks, Mendez pays tribute to the earliest Detroit techno and electro, the Belgian EBM movement and the wave music that followed, the monumental dub techno sound from Berlin, and the harder, abrasive sound of the UK at the turn of the last millennium; exploring and referencing the genres that informed his later work. Each track name gives a hint to the timeframe he is revisiting and re-contextualizing as the EP repurposes the styles that exerted an influence on him. This EP represents a pure distillation of Mendez's memories whilst also cementing his place in the current and future sound of 21st century techno.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: WRJ 009LTD-LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2024 repress; LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Half speed mastered; Heavy sleev and obi. We Release Jazz announce the official reissue of Ryo Fukui's New York sessions with Lisle Atkinson and Leroy Williams, the aptly titled album Ryo Fukui in New York, sourced from the original masters. Recorded in February 1999 at Avatar Recording Studios in New York and inspired by Ryo Fukui's idol and mentor Barry Harris, the fourth album from the famed Sapporo pianist captures memorable sessions with seasoned American jazz musicians (and frequent Barry Harris collaborators) Lisle Arthur Atkinson on bass and Leroy Williams on drums. Ryo Fukui in New York is pure bop heaven, glowing with poetic takes on classics by Charlie Parker, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Bud Powell, plus a supreme remake of Fukui's very own Mellow Dream (WRJ 002CD/LP). It's expressive, soulful, and vibrating with a bouncing swing feel all the way through; every note falls exactly where it should, undeniable brilliance. Much like the other albums by the genius from Hokkaido, it's got that "special something", hard to grasp, hard to describe, but 100% felt. Skills and heart, the Ryo Fukui way. Following his New York adventures, Ryo Fukui headed back to Sapporo, and more precisely to his jazz club Slowboat, where his newly acquired experience inspired numerous jam sessions and a full dedication to perfecting his craft. He sadly passed away in 2016, leaving behind a legacy of works that is sure to captivate jazz lovers for generations to come, and Slowboat, where the magic still hap-pens to this day. Reissued in conjunction with 2016's A Letter from Slowboat (WRJ 008CD/LTD-LP), also available via We Release Jazz.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: WWSLP 055LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2024 repress; double LP version. Following the recent success of the Tokyo Dreaming (WWSCD 040CD/WWSLP 040LP), Wewantsounds comes with another compelling set, this time compiled by city pop expert DJ Notoya who has dug the rich Nippon Columbia catalog to bring a breezy selection of funky gems. Nippon has amassed an incredible back catalog over the decades. Particularly strong in the '70s and '80s, the label was one of the main purveyors of great music at a time when Japan was entering its greatest economic boom and labels had budgets at hand to create the highest quality music. As Notoya explains in the liner notes "Back in the day, the record companies had big budgets and could afford to have many great musicians playing on one record, plus strings and horn sections, top drummers and keyboardists. It all made for a very rich sound, which is generally very different to today's music." Keen to emulate the music created in the US by their American counterparts, Japanese musicians came with their own blend of funk, boogie and soul that has come to be known as city pop. The selection on Tokyo Glow is full of such gems and starts with "Kimugare" a relaxed, mid-tempo track by Kumi Nakamura, famous actress who only recorded one album in 1980 for Columbia. The set continues and flows effortlessly with the sunshine grooves of Miyuki Maki, Hatsumi Shibata and cult keyboard player Hiroshi Sato before the pace starts going faster and funkier with New Generation Company, Kengo Kurozumi -- with his superb boogie, "Juggler" -- and one of the queens of the genre, Hitomi "Penny" Tohyama with "Tuxedo Connection". Tokyo-based DJ Notoya is from a new breed of Japanese DJs there focusing on nippon music and is an expert on funk, modern soul, and boogie from the Island. With Tokyo Glow, Notoya says he "focused more on the slightly more underground tracks from the era, rather than the bigger, well-known releases. For me that was a more fun and satisfying approach." Another fine example on the set is the mid-tempo groove of "I Wander All Alone Part III" by New Generation Company, an aggregate group of some of the best Japanese session musicians led by arranger Katz Hoshi and including Hiroyuki Namba, Kazuo Shiina, and Yutaka Uehara. Tokyo Glow showcases the diversity and specificity of Japanese city pop during the late '70s and '80s. Also features Haruyoshi Yamashina, Sumiko Yamagata, Makoto Iwabuchi, Arakawa Band, Kiyohiko Ozaki, Ken Nishizaki, Jadoes, Midori Hara, Mizuki Koyama, Haruo Chikada & Vibra-Tones, and Mitsuko Horie.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: WRWTFWW 017LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

2024 repress. We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records present the ?rst ever official vinyl pressing of the soundtrack for Mamoru Oshii's critically acclaimed and all around legendary science ?ction anime ?lm Ghost In The Shell (1995), adapted from Masamune Shirow's groundbreaking manga series of the same name. The haunting score is composed by Kenji Kawai, one of Japan's most celebrated soundtrack composers alongside Joe Hisaishi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose work includes Hideo Nakata's Ring (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), Death Note (2006), Hong Kong ?lms Seven Swords by Tsui Hark (2005) and Ip Man by Wilson Yip (2008), and countless others. Kawai's compositions see ancient harmonies and percussions uncannily mesh with synthesized sounds of the modern world to convey a sumptuous balance between folklore tradition and futuristic outlook. For its iconic main theme "Making Of Cyborg", Kawai had a choir chant a wedding song in ancient Japanese following Bulgarian folk harmonies, setting the standard for a timeless and unparalleled soundtrack that admirably echoes the ?lm's musings on the nature of humanity in a technologically advanced world. Ghost In The Shell is widely considered one of the best anime ?lms of all time and its in?uence has been felt in the work of numerous movie directors, including James Cameron's Avatar (2009), the Wachowskis's The Matrix (1999), and Steven Spielberg's AI: Arti?cial Intelligence (2001). For fans of anime, manga, movie soundtracks, science ?ction, ambient, folklore, Japan, Akira (1988), arti?cial intelligence, Midori Takada. Cut from the original master reels at Emil Berliner Studios (formerly the in-house recording department of renowned classical record label Deutsche Grammophon).