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PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: ZORN 096LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Pauline Marx, formerly of the fantastic duo La Fureur de Vouivre, seems like a being from another time and place; namely, an escaped marauder lurking in the forests of a Bruegel painting and integrating the surreal flora and fauna of a Boschian creation into the scenery and lore of deep Brittany. Her invented mythology is loaded with murky rituals and contorted mantras, backed by the surprising sounds and textures of terrains so earthly and so unreal. Where do you think you come from? Where do you think you're going? Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate: you, with the noodle to the four winds, who pass the threshold of this disc, you better leave all hope there, and glide in the poisonous footstep of the devil your guide. Where do you think you come from? The mountain is no longer just the mountain; after your passage, it will no longer even be a mountain. Like the whole landscape, it will have been eaten, sauced by invisible leeches. Your nostalgia for the ground and your thirst to find the source will have only discovered a forest of vain words and foul water. Where do you think you're going? At the crossroads, the world is consumed in the previous future. Only the devil will know how to make you overcome the disgust of traditions, and only the love for the devil will give you enough vim to reach your goal: a village, perhaps, but which belongs to no one, a haven to your excessiveness. The dark tradition to which this game of ternary trampling belongs, like the rhythm of a heart in tune with the inverted world, has no country and no assigned time. Rather a topology of Eve awakened after a thousand-year sleep, an idiosyncratic and possessed reading of our common humus, made up of stories composted in the limbo of the past, of songs captured in extremis vitae and rebus in the privatized antechambers of death. What does she tell us about? Of our automobile and in love roamings, of the porosity of the membranes that separate beings and things, of the constant inversion of signs. The seventeen stages of this short journey, where intertwine the throbbing of objects, blown horns and rubbed horsehair, form the map of a country never to be found, ours, where only the voice of an old child and the disgusting devil's poisonous charm can guide us. Music, artwork, and text by Pauline Marx. Mastered and mixed by Manuel Duval. Recorded in a yurt in 2021. Edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: ZORN 097LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The union of Antwerp synthesist David Edren and Tokyo minimalist Hiroki Takahashi is a fit so natural as to feel preordained. Both traffic in subtle shades of contemplative electronics, marked by patience, space, and poetic restraint. And both have rich histories of curation and collaboration -- Edren in the duo Spirit & Form alongside Bent Von Bent, and Takahashi as proprietor of the Kanky? record shop, as well as one fourth of cosmic ambient quartet UNKNOWN ME. Mutual fans of one another's work, they began sharing stems in the latter half of 2020, which slowly blossomed into a collection of multi-hued compositions inspired by notions of connectivity and impermanence, translated for east and west: Flow | ??. Opener "Dusk Decorum | ?? ??" maps the mood of what's to come, elegantly pirouetting and percolating through an expanding vista of looming stars and half-light horizons. Takahashi describes Edren's arrangements as evoking "a strange feel, something we haven't heard much of before." The sensation is one of "in-betweenness," a restless current whispering beneath the beauty, like seasons seen in time-lapse footage: flickering but infinite, transience turned permanent. Takahashi's signature sculpture garden tones plot spiral patterns over which Edren cascades dazzling pointillist synthesizer coloration. The pieces veer between delicate and dilated, micro and macro, their aperture forever softly in flux. From the oscillating orchestral lullaby of "Stalactime | ?????" to the sweeping, sparkling dream sequence closer, "Shift Register | ???????," the album achieves the elusive goal of being more than the sum of its parts. This is music of rare air, elevated and amorphous, shimmering just out of reach. Though Edren and Takahashi have yet to cohabitate the same room in person (a fact that should be rectified soon by an astute festival booker), their palettes and poise are perfectly paired, twin fragilities woven into seven radiant and regenerative vibrational states. The cover design of a beatific, beaded leaf rippling on the surface of a hidden pond aptly captures the record's muted majesty. Takahashi's quiet pride is justified: "We are very happy with this time-consuming and carefully crafted work."

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: FOX 032LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Limited 2023 restock. Alternative Fox presents Berwardhallen, Stockholm October 3rd 1989, a live set from the Keith Jarrett Trio. Gifted piano giant Keith Jarrett is one of the world's great jazz musicians. From 1983, Jarrett's trio has featured drummer Jack DeJohnette and former Albert Ayler collaborator Gary Peacock on bass and they show their chops on this excellent performance given at Stockholm's Berwardhallen on 3 October 1989. Highlights include a version of the oft-covered "Ballad Of The Sad Young Men," Porgy & Bess standout "My Man's Gone Now" and Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight."

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: AVM 072LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

The debut of Hamburg trio Cloud Management stages the meeting of three proven exceptional figures: Thomas Korf and Sebastian Kokus have been responsible for some stunning leftfield neo-kraut releases with their band Love-Songs in recent years; Ulf Schütte has been one of the most productive, and innovative protagonists of experimental electronic music in Germany for many years (see Datashock, Phantom Horse, or his collaboration with G. Steenkiste/Hellvete on Umor Rex, for example). Following Love-Songs' highly acclaimed collaboration with Schütte, Spannende Musik, released in 2021 (BB 383CD/LP), the formation of Cloud Management as a group in its own right marks a new beginning, which is celebrated with the long player on Altin Village & Mine. The album is characterized by a dense texture of repetitions in which (modular) synthesizers and bass go head-to-head. It is on this foundation that the formal grammar of the album develops over its nearly 45-minute running time, organized along precise interventions into the hypnotic pulse: What is recognizable as echoes of 1960s/70s minimalism or Cluster functions on Cloud Management not in the sense that the sequences or the sequencers are left to themselves, but as highly concentrated, microscopic work on repetition. This virtuosic arrangements, groove-based and even danceable density of the seven pieces never sounds strained or as an end in itself, but floating, cloud-like. The polyrhythmic workouts are at all times in the service of a refreshing expanse that opens up from the sonic saturation and is far removed from the formulaic box-checking often associated with the attribute "kosmisch". Cloud Management, thus, marks not an exercise in the traditions of a musical past, but a distinctive position within contemporary electronic music. All songs are written, recorded and produced by Ulf Schu?tte, Thomas Korf, and Sebastian Kokus. Mastered by Fritz Bru?ckner at Haunted Haus. Sleeve design by TEOTH. Includes printed inner sleeve.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: AVM 074LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Leipzig-based musician, engineer, and producer Friedrich Brückner has, despite his youthfulness, been a decisive figure in the Leipzig music scene for literal decades, being involved, in one way or another, in many, if not most notable releases coming out of the city. Having received a classical musical education, Brückner most recently figured as part of the German-American band White Wine, playing the bassoon and bass, but has also, as either musician, producer or sound designer, toured internationally with the likes of Yoko Ono, Get Well Soon, Modeselektor, or Dear Reader. For a few years now, Brückner has been working on his solo debut, which now comes in the form of his remarkable Polyism, on Altin Village & Mine. On it, Brückner puts his considerable musical chops to use, in the service of a rollercoaster of an album that truly eschews categorization, being, as its title suggests, a work of being multiform. While the sound takes wide ranging cues from jazz, new age, dub, electronics to post punk, Brückner's compositions never feel accidental in the slightest. Instead, they share a distinctive sense of dramaturgy, a pronounced attention to sonic texture, and a sense of purpose both within the individual pieces as well as in the context of the album as a whole. The result is an LP that is astonishingly coherent, considering the multitude of means it employs. On Polyism, Brückner also enlists a veritable all-star cast of guest performances, ranging from his parents Isabell and Bernd Brückner, both professional musicians, on saxophone, clarinet, and flute, Martin Wenk (Calexico) on trumpet, to Hendrik Otremba (Messer) and Brückner's four-year-old daughter Rosa both on vocals, to name but a few. Each lend their own notes to Polyism, a work of what it means to live, that is, to be many.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: ARBITRARY 014CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Arbitrary presents the third in the Black Box series of releases by Mads Emil Nielsen. The release, which showcases a more sample- and grid-based side of the Danish musician/composer's work, is part of a sequence of publications with music and audio originally made for theater, radio soundtracks and more. Black Box 3 is based on sound pieces produced for Sprækker (Cracks), a dance performance and installation in Denmark, 2021. The starting points for these pieces are improvisations recorded with contemporary dancers, in which Nielsen guides the listener through a corpus of synthesizer recordings, everyday sounds and radio archives. These original recordings were reworked for this LP and edited into the six tracks in early 2022. Written and produced, recorded and mixed by Mads Emil Nielsen, Copenhagen, 2021/2022. Acoustic sounds on Installation -- 2 by Victor Dybbroe. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Graphic design by Mads Emil Nielsen.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: ARBITRARY 014LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

LP version. Clear blue vinyl; includes download code. Arbitrary presents the third in the Black Box series of releases by Mads Emil Nielsen. The release, which showcases a more sample- and grid-based side of the Danish musician/composer's work, is part of a sequence of publications with music and audio originally made for theater, radio soundtracks and more. Black Box 3 is based on sound pieces produced for Sprækker (Cracks), a dance performance and installation in Denmark, 2021. The starting points for these pieces are improvisations recorded with contemporary dancers, in which Nielsen guides the listener through a corpus of synthesizer recordings, everyday sounds and radio archives. These original recordings were reworked for this LP and edited into the six tracks in early 2022. Written and produced, recorded and mixed by Mads Emil Nielsen, Copenhagen, 2021/2022. Acoustic sounds on Installation -- 2 by Victor Dybbroe. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Graphic design by Mads Emil Nielsen.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: AUS 1462EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. Jet-setting Irish duo Bicep return to Will Saul's Aus label with two steady analog techno grooves ready for deployment in either their own wildly celebrated sets or those of any DJ looking for modern dance tracks that are still faithful to the classics. Using gritty, vintage-sounding rhythm sections as solid foundations, each track gradually builds up its own lush, melodic embellishments overtop -- "Circles" stays true to its name with a cyclical main melody, shadowy bass and fuzzy house pads, whereas "NRG106" sets spacey, dramatic chords and breathy vocals against the insistent, chittering machine percussion.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: AUS 1580EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. Aus Music follows releases from Breach (AUS 1578EP), Huxley (AUS 1469EP), and Bwana (AUS 1577EP) with an offering from Irish duo and long-term label affiliates Bicep. The Just EP follows self-released collaborations with Ebony and Midland, and is an impassioned bundle of broken beats, shimmering synth lines, and rapturous piano chords. The title-track suffuses a broken kick and snare combo with a poignant sequence and heart-rending synth strings. "Celeste" lays a soft, filtered croon over a swelling piano motif before "Back 2 U (Tranz Dub)" drives a tough, gravelly kick under gentle flecks of acid and rich, sweeping pads.

 

PRICE: $38.50

CAT #: BEWITH 095LP

FILE UNDER: HIPHOP

2023 repress; Be With Records present a reissue of DJ Quik's Safe And Sound, originally released in 1995. Complete with "Tanqueray", the hidden track from the original CD release. DJ Quik is a giant of West Coast hip-hop. With 1995's Safe + Sound, he scaled new levels of musical magnificence with his signature new age P-Funk/laconic G-Funk. A quintessential, sun-scorched LA album, this is pretty much essential. A preternaturally gifted producer/rapper, DJ Quik has produced scores of LA gangsta rap classics. He's released platinum and gold records of his own, as well as helped craft them for the likes of Tupac, Snoop Dogg, and Dr Dre. Quik has always been quirkier and more interesting than his gangsta rap peers, both musically and lyrically. An old-school funk producer at heart, he's also incredibly nice on the mic. His raps often deal in boasts, jokes and good times but also cover his beefs, his trials and his trauma. Partying and pain, all mixed up. DJing and producing hype beat tapes from age 14, Quik's tracks blended the languid funk and rubbery synths of Zapp and George Clinton with a gangsta aesthetic, creating a more danceable foil to Compton's more typical nihilistic hedonism. Ultimately, his records sound custom engineered to drift out over sun-soaked barbecues. By the time of his third album DJ Quik was a household name on the West Coast -- California's premier rapper/producer not named Andre Young. Released on Profile in 1995, Safe + Sound was certified gold. Less reliant on samples and more focused on live instruments, it elevated him from producer to fully-fledged composer. This sound -- the quick, winding basslines, tinny high hats, smooth instrumental solos, soulful pipes, and Roger Troutman's talkbox -- defined him. This is an album of full-blown masterpieces. Rich soundscapes and masterfully arranged orchestrations with dense layers of sounds, intricate rhythms, and well-balanced songwriting. Mastered for vinyl by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry.

 

PRICE: $38.50

CAT #: BEWITH 098LP

FILE UNDER: HIPHOP

2023 repress; Be With Records present a reissue of DJ Quik's Rhythm-Al-Ism, originally released in 1998. DJ Quik is a giant of West Coast hip-hop. With his fourth album Rhythm-Al-Ism he created his masterpiece, a perfect hip-hop album. A preternaturally gifted producer/rapper, DJ Quik has produced scores of LA gangsta rap classics. He's released platinum and gold records of his own, as well as helped craft them for the likes of Tupac, Snoop Dogg, and Dr Dre. Quik has always been quirkier and more interesting than his gangsta rap peers, both musically and lyrically. An old-school funk producer at heart, he's also incredibly nice on the mic. His raps often deal in boasts, jokes and good times but also cover his beefs, his trials and his trauma. Partying and pain, all mixed up. DJing and producing hype beat tapes from age 14, Quik's tracks blended the languid funk and rubbery synths of Zapp and George Clinton with a gangsta aesthetic, creating a more danceable foil to Compton's more typical nihilistic hedonism. Ultimately, his records sound custom engineered to drift out over sun-soaked barbecues. Released in 1998 on Profile, Rhythm-Al-Ism was the closest Quik ever got to making a commercial splash. "You'z A Ganxta" and "Hand in Hand" made radio waves across the country and the less radio-friendly tracks like "Medley For A 'V'" were bumping out of car stereos. Combining his soulful, jazzy P-Funk/G-Funk beats with his effortlessly smooth flow, Rhythm-Al-Ism was the quintessential West Coast Party. Squelchy synths, bouncy bass, monstrously knocking drums and freaky keys - this is peaking acidic party-rap, straight out the gate. Dripping with wit and good humor. A real swing to the vibe. Mastered for vinyl by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry. Original picture sleeve and insert.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: BEWITH 107LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Steve Moore's Lovelock is back with Washington Park, a gorgeous suite of instrumental lounge music that can only be described as synth exotica. A real departure for Steve, this is a more mellow, soothing sound and can be regarded as Lovelock's response to these dystopian times. New York-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/film composer Steve Moore is probably best known for his synthesizer and bass guitar work as Zombi, together with Anthony Paterra. Yet his Lovelock alias has been quietly blowing minds and warming hearts for a decade plus now. His latest effort, Washington Park, was not initially meant to be a Lovelock album. But after posting little snippets of his work, Steve had an epiphany that this could be the new Lovelock. Washington Park creeped out in a very low-key, early lockdown fashion and there wasn't much of a reaction. Gentle opener "It Means Love" grooves along in the laconic style, conjuring carousel innocence and complimented by dreamy, spiritual sax and syrupy synth strings over a digi-soul beats. Title-track "Washington Park" glides smoothly in much the same vein, almost like a slightly more acidic, squelchier version of the preceding track with more insistent organ. Swoon. Closing out Side A, steady ambient gem "We'll See" is all gorgeous, soft pads with plaintive guitar and organ giving way to soaring digital strings over that metronomic drum machine soul. The eerily brilliant "Seduction" is a track which starts like a minimalist slice of Tommy Guerrero-esque guitar and drum machine soul but soon takes on a more menacing bent as Steve leans into his long-held predilection for horror by creating a slow-mo haunted house jam. The tempo (and temperature) rises with "Center Square", a Latin rhythm section and a sensual sax rubbing up against hot and heavy organ and string action. To round things off, the ominous creeping groove of "Rhythm 77" feels like exotica-in-excelsis. Steve used all his old Roland beat boxes (CR-78, Rhythm 77 and Rhythm 330, Rhythm Arranger) plus a Chamberlin Rhythmate for all the percussion. Basslines were usually performed with his Moog Source or Minitaur and for pads and brass he used his Sequential Prophet 600 and Roland Juno 60. Strings came via a variety of old stringers -- Korg Polysix, Elka Rhapsody, Crumar Orchestrator, and Solina String Ensemble -- and he also used his Fender Strat and Yamaha Custom saxophone. Mastering for vinyl overseen by Simon Francis. Cut by Cicely Blaston of Alchemy Mastering at AIR Studios. Pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: BEWITH 116LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1983. Fly Me To The Sun is a breathtaking German library gem from the hallowed Coloursound label. It features two Polish composers, Andrzej Marko and André Mikola. Outré synth-funk. Almost blindingly luminous with positive vibes and radiant optimism, Fly Me To The Sun is a collection of funky, sun-dappled compositions for synthesizer and live instruments like drums, bass, and guitar. A dope blend of beatbox driven future jazz and electro pop. The wonderfully sleaze-adjacent opener "Dhamma" includes some grandiose piano chords amid floating ambient sounds a la Steve Hillage with slick drums entering the fray at a languid pace. "Circulation" sounds like Bowie ran into Chaz Jankel during an extended stay in Los Angeles, the Thin White Duke emerging out of a studio at 6am, bleary-eyed and clutching this filthy, bleepy instrumental of sonic smut. "Magic Scenery" is as delicate and astounding as the title suggests, a deep ambient movement conjuring halcyon images of rolling fields with abundant fauna and flora. Cool, slo-mo breaks adorn the strutting melancholy of "Longing for Tomorrow" and "Nocturnal Flowers" to close out Side A. Skip the title track, which opens up Side B, and head straight to "Birth of a Butterfly" for a slice of creeping digi-dub-soul niceness. This should've been front-and-center of that Personal Space compilation a decade ago. Raising both the tempo and the temperature, "Riding on a Sunbeam" continues in the mesmerizing cosmic funk style before "Osmosis", one of the clear stand-outs, presents a fine vintage synth solo over a mellow funky rubberband beat. The closing track, "Solar Heating", warms things up with slapped bass and bold drum machine beats and the synth lends sci-fi vibes to the dark dub-funk-reggae rhythm. As David Hollander, in Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music, states, Coloursound was "founded in 1979 by composer, music lawyer, and vibraphonist Gunter Greffenius. A Munich-based library with a reputation for releasing innovative and ambitious music, it catered largely to the market for experimental sounds, its first release was 1980's Biomechanoid, an abstract synthesizer excursion by Joel Vandroogenbroeck, of the pioneering kosmische band Brainticket. The record -- complete with imposing, anonymous title and unearthly H.R. Giger cover art -- set the tone for the label's progressive leanings. The label's catalogue stands as a tribute to the unfettered creative license that libraries were able to provide to forward-thinking musicians who, frustrated by the whims and constraints of the commercial scene, found complete freedom in the world of production music." Sourced from original analog tapes. Remastered for vinyl by Simon Francis.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: BEWITH 117LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1986. Heads have been after Otakar Olsaník and Jan Martis's Advanced Process for a long time. That's because "coincidentally-cosmic disco" packed with spaced-out, smacky-synth dynamite tends to become sought-after. Originally slipping out on the mighty Coloursound, the label described the sound as "contemporary synthesizer underscores played by computers; depicting future technologies in today's process." If they'd just added "acid-drenched", they'd have been closer to nailing it. The A-Side is beatless and perfect. "Atomic Plant 1" is a pulsing synth epic and could've easily soundtracked a stylish '80s thriller, a narcotically enhanced meeting between John Carpenter and Steve "Lovelock" Moore. "Atomic Plant 2" adds extra squelch and proper early computer synth squiggles. The third part "Fusion Point" showcases a dramatic and insistent industrial mood via a gripping sequencer pattern mixed with effects and accents. The trio of "Nuclear Radiation" tracks veer majestically from a hypnotic sequencer pattern with a heavy dramatic tune to hectic patterns without much of a tune, managing nevertheless to maintain a hold on the listener. The drums enter proceedings on Side B and they're absolutely outstanding. Coming on like a slicker, heavier Johnny Jewel production, "Regulators 1" marries the smoothest head-nod beat you can wish for, with a murky mechanical rhythm and phasing effects. After the stunning beatless version ("Regulators 2") the slo-mo "Data Load" sounds like its wading through the heaviest k-hole. "Modem" is a brief and breezy funky bass and synth squiggle wonder, of the beatless variety. "Robot Masters" sounds like something those Daft Parisians would've sampled on Discovery. An up-tempo, optimistic track with propulsive rhythms with dramatic synths. The breathless "Digiheart" double bill rounds things out, one with a dynamic driving rhythm and more slick-as-hell beats and the other without drums. Sourced from original analog tapes. Remastered for vinyl by Simon Francis.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: BEWITH 118LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1986. Emotionally, crafted by Brainislave Zivkovic and Andre Tschaskowski for Coloursound, is arguably the most beautiful library album ever produced. A start-to-finish masterpiece of powerfully melodic music for reflection and introspection. Branislave Zivkovic handles the majority of Side A. Opener "Morning Light" evokes exactly that feeling, with a gorgeous and plaintive acoustic guitar solo combining with alto flute to stunning effect. Its immediate counterpoint, "Sundown", in no less arresting but brings with it an after-dark drama of almost Lynchian proportions, again drawing upon guitar and flute but with a slightly more melancholic, even sinister edge, also calling to mind Ry Cooder's score for Paris, Texas. It truly captivates when the strings arrive. The reflective cello solo with swelling strings at the heart of "Pastoral Walk 1" ensure this track is aptly titled, with parts two and three adding more agitation -- via keys and percussive elements -- to great effect. "In The Garden 1" presents an elegiac cello solo whilst its second part elevates the romance. The four-part "Soft Thoughts" suite invites further introspection via reflective alto flute and guitar. Fans of The Durutti Column will need to seek this. Andre Tschaskowski enters proceedings with three tracks at the end of the Side A. All of them aces in the pack. "Grief", whilst sorrowful, uplifts in its second half through beautiful keys. Equally hopeful are the two-part "Personal Mood" sketches, both dreamy exercises in optimistic ambience. Tschaskowski controls the entirety of Side B. "Woodland Mood", with its pastoral flute and cor anglais and "Reminiscence", with its classical, emotional strings, both beguile. The piano and strings-heavy "Sentimental View" suite is one of the most beautiful, atmospheric things you will ever hear, particularly its second part. "Moonset 1" with it's wonderful Joe Pass-esque guitar is tense yet easy, the beauty elevated further with the introduction of strings and horns. The more restrained "Moonset 2" is pared back to its divine, sweeping essence and should surely have been sampled by now. To close out an album of almost impossible refinement, the brief 2-part "Emotional Tension" salvo brings both increased stress before resolving itself and the LP with a piano motif and atmosphere of serenity. Blessed relief. Sourced from the original analog tapes. Remastered for vinyl by Simon Francis.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: CELL 008CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

MM?XX is a virtual orchestra Marc Richter initiated during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Isolated at his Hamburg studio he started to reach out to former collaborators and old friends, picking up on previous conversations as well as asking people to post short previously unused sound recordings for a collaborative piece of music. He then assembled, transformed, and mixed these generous offerings (by 33 artists) into perpetually evolving compositions to be published and performed in different constellations, formats, versions, and mixes over the course of 2021. Not only did he get these lovely sonic gifts from his many collaborators -- he received messages about childbirth and death, marriage and divorce, building houses, buying houses, happiness, and depression, everyday life. The resulting pieces were premiered at the lockdown editions of Rewire and Papiripar Festival in 2021 and are now compiled into this double-CD set. The music is as unpredictable as the guest list yet it all gels in unexpected ways. Some of the pieces are surprisingly beautiful while others are deliberately comic and ridiculous. Richter often piles up five or more unrelated samples on top of each other with unforeseeable results; Andrew Pekler's psychedelic ambient loops combined with a discreet noise guitar and subtle field recordings by Luke Fowler and others, Paul Regimbeau's doom metal guitar colliding with Roger Tellier-Craig's musique concrète recordings and Brian Pyle's artificial church organ, sounding like a long lost Melvins/Luc Ferrari combo, Lucio Capece's reed noises screeching on top of Felix Kubin's voice/MS-20 mobile phone recordings. Almost every track features at least one surprise element that would never happen on a non-collaborative album: the Guido Möbius slide guitar, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh's wonderful buzuk playing, Jan van Hasselt's singing robots, Eric Chenaux's recurring voice memo loops. Collaborators were free to send any kind of sonic material. Among the sound files Richter received were pure field recordings (cats, children, toilets), dictaphone sketches (people singing/whistling/whispering their song ideas), found sounds, accidental sounds, sample loops, tape loops, voice recordings, improvisations on buzuk, clarinet, guitar, piano, no-input mixer, Buchla Music Easel, MS-20, and modular synthesizers in varying fidelity and tunings. Richter is an idiosyncratic and autodidactic expert in sampling and audio collage for almost 20 years now so it's no surprise that nothing here sounds forced or hyperbolic and even the strangest combinations always make sense. And fortunately, he knows when to withdraw from the setting and when to simplify the proceedings. Mastering by Rashad Becker. Artwork by Bora Ba?kan.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: CELL 010CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Nighturns (deliberate spelling) finally introduces a new album by Bilal Dídac P. Lagarriga aka Un Caddie Renversé dans l'Herbe (lives in Barcelona, born in São Paulo, Brazil, 1976) after several years of silence. "Dídac was the first artist on my old Dekorder label back in 2003 so our relationship goes a long way back. He released one album (Like A Packed Cupboard But Quite...) and two 3" CD's on the label to wide critical acclaim. This new album on the Cellule 75 label continues and refines his explorations of African minimalist music played on mbira, kalimba, balaphon, vibraphone, melodica, and flute, combined with field recordings of African soundscapes and ritual chants, several collaborations, and electronic interventions. Always interested in reductionism (both in melody and rhythm) the music on Nighturns is finally condensed to its essential nucleus and spirituality, tranquil and deeply moving, seemingly at peace with itself, still always evocative. While previous releases have been compared to the likes of Pascal Comelade, Asa Chang, and Junray, early Penguin Café Orchestra and Steve Beresford on Nighturns the African influences are becoming more prominent and the whole album is even more singular, more personal and liberating, more intimate and inimitable." Nighturns (a transfolk journey)...: "I adore walking at night across West African sandy and barely illuminated streets. Nighturns is the title of these walks, Nighturns is the name of this album . . . The following tracks are also memory tracks: a lost and found piano tape recorded in 1995 (my first experiment with music); my wife, then in her late twenties, reciting Indonesian poet Haji Hasan Mustapa on kuring ('oneself, creature'), kurung ('cage, body') and kurang ('less, insufficiency'); several walks at night across Mbacke's Palene neighborhood, headquarter of Baye Fall Senegalese mystical brotherhood; the lecture of Joseph Campbell's explanation of Shiva myth and the drum as originator of universe; pupils of a Koranic school reciting devotional poetry before going to sleep; an Arabic radio broadcast recorded at night in my teenager room; the discovery of Filipino composer Jose Maceda in one of my so-often nonphysical trips (dis-travels); vinyl crackles of my grandpa's Afro-Brazilian records collection accompanying my child dance; the resisting sound of a broken and old friend mbira twenty years after its first vibration... Memory tracks also draw possible/future ways as dis-memory, where dis-time -- the unfitting time -- and imagination nourish the notion of 'dis' linked to trans. This album tries to encapsulate these memory tracks, but it is a dis-topy: music always seeps." Six-panel cardboard sleeve. Artwork and mastering by Marc Richter.

 

PRICE: $17.00

CAT #: DIS 070LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Fugazi's third album, originally released in 1993. Remastered with full color inner sleeve. "Part of this album's beauty is the track list. It begins with the upbeat number 'Facet Squared' which is almost pop-punkish in its delivery. Essentially the tracking of the album begins it with the lightest material and by the end you're cast into Guy's own torments with the quiet brooding 'Last Chance For A Slow Dance.' The middle of the album is almost completely dedicated to the noise experimental side of Fugazi, especially the centerpiece and half-instrumental '23 Beats Off,' a soundscape of harsh noise that supposedly reflects the deterioration of a relationship... With Guy's brilliant performance, lyrically and vocally, walls of sound encapsulate his pleas of 'Why don't you come to my house? Why don't you drag me right out?'. It is truly one of the most beautiful yet aggressive songs in Fugazi's vast library." -- Sputnik Music

 

PRICE: $17.00

CAT #: DIS 172LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress, clear vinyl. Remastered vinyl version, featuring a free album download and printed innersleeve. "The fall of 1981 found the Washington, DC punk scene in one of the first of many fallow periods when a number of active bands broke up at the same time. SOA, Minor Threat, Red C and The Untouchables had all split up, and this resulted in a number of the musicians reorganizing. Mike and Ivor from SOA formed a new band with Alec of The Untouchables singing and another Wilson High School kid, Chris Bald, on bass. They called themselves 'The Faith' and played their first show at H.B. Woodlawn High School in November '81. At the end of 1982, Eddie (also a former member of The Untouchables) joined Faith as a second guitarist and six months later they recorded the Subject to Change 12" EP. Though clocking in at less than 14 minutes, this record was hugely important to the people here in D.C. and to others around the country and the world that were interested in the music here. On Subject to Change Faith introduced a layered melodic approach that would blossom fully in later Faith-related bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace. Unfortunately, by the time anybody heard Subject to Change, the band was no more. The interpersonal strife proved too much and Faith played their last show in August 1983. The record was released posthumously four months later. While Minor Threat is often held up as the preeminent DC band of the early years, for many of the people living here it was with the Faith that they felt the strongest connection to, and it was a sad day when they played their last show. For this reissued edition of Subject to Change we have expanded the release from its original EP format into a full-length with the addition of 11 tracks from the band's first demo recorded in 1981 at Inner Ear Studios. Most of these songs were later re-recorded and included on the band's 1982 split LP with Void (DIS 008LP)."

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: DC 169LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. "Sensual to the extreme, from its opening tango to the very last waltz. It's classic entertainment, dipping its little beak into every kind of pop you can imagine. Like mostly the kind that hasn't really been heard yet, you know? Of course, Dongs, as we call it around the Mensa's room, wouldn't be a a classic without the best of the 70s, 80s, and 90s on display, so of course, they are. Not that we can tell. As the man says, if you can remember the 70s, 80s, and 90s, you weren't really there. And we definitely weren't."

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: DC 295LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress, first reissued in 2008. LP version with bonus 7". "1973: Connecticut native Gary Higgins and his friends record Red Hash and release it on Gary's own Nufusmoon Records. Following the release, legal issues halt all promotion and sales, rendering the small pressing of Red Hash a hotly-rumored and much sought-after 'lost' album of rock and roll lore. 2005: Drag City is honored to present the first-ever authorized reissue of Gary Higgins' acid-folk gem Red Hash -- mastered from the original master tapes with two previously unheard bonus tracks. The reviews are glowing: the haunting sound of Gary's meticulously arranged folk-pop is a sound that everyone can relate to, and Red Hash makes many year-end lists around the world as Top Reissue. And so, after thirty-five years, Red Hash vinyl is back in stock, with a limited-edition LP that includes a 7" single featuring the first-ever vinyl pressing of the CD bonus songs 'Don't Ya Know' and 'Last Great Sperm Whale.' This is your chance to grab at a letter-perfect reproduction of a folk-rock classic from the early 1970s."

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: DC 297LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress; LP version. "The seasons come and go, as do the years. Nothing is guaranteed. Save one item: as long as David Berman rampages on the outer crust of this planet with at least one fellow traveler, the Silver Jews will always exist. Still, after the world-weary ennui of Bright Flight and an unprecedented four years had passed without a new Jews to review, even the most faithful had begun to wonder what the future held. Was the music community still covered by the No-Band-Break-Up Guarantee that came included in the sleeve of 1993's Dimemap of the Reef EP? Had we lost sight of 'the only band that doesn't buy ads,' 'the only band that is never on tribute albums,' 'the only band that doesn't play live,' and remember this one: 'the only band that matters?' Tanglewood Numbers answers all of your questions and then asks them some more. The future's full of rock, hard knocks and some of the best fucking songs you've ever heard."

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: EMEGO 302LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Editions Mego presents The Psychologist, the sophomore album by the Istanbul born and raised, Berlin based electronic music composer and sound artist Hüma Utku. As the title suggests, The Psychologist, is a series of sonic essays based around themes of psychological phenomena and can be read as a musical enquiry into the human condition. With Utku's background as a graduate of Psychology and her current practice as a conceptual music composer we see the two main threads in her professional career intertwine on this unique and ambitious release. Including recordings of Buchla 200 from Utku's Elektronmusikstudion residency in October 2020, The Psychologist is a genre aversive work that embodies elements of synthesizer music, electroacoustic, experimental techno, industrial, modern composition, and spoken word. Piano, string compositions, and vocals hold weight throughout a number of pieces providing a dramatic acoustic edge to the psychological explorations contained within. The foreboding mood of much of this release is the product of investigation that lends the unsettling theme of anticipatory grief to the mood of the tracks "Light of All Lights" and "Continuing Bonds". "Islands of Consciousness" refers to Jungian metaphor for consciousness whilst the unnerving Rüya twists around dream analysis in Gestalt psychology. "Fuel For The Flames" proceeds as a buzzing and swirling representation of alchemy and psychological symbolism. "Dissolution of I" is haunted by a strange sensation of dissociation whilst defense mechanisms support the sublime Sublimation. The bright shapes of "Chironian Wound" represent archetypes and analytical psychology whilst the fried soundscapes and rhythms of "Ataxia" encapture neurological states. The results unravel with both the clockwork rhythms of the human body and the unpredictable nature of the psyche, the pieces follow arrhythmic patterns in a harmonious way. It tells the raw and intimate story of the human experience with a new work whereby the predictable operates in parallel with the unexpected and like human experience itself, is dark and complex. The Psychologist follows Utku's debut on Karlrecords in 2019. Double LP; glossy print; includes download code; edition of 500.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: EMEGO 308LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

On her third album, Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer Aimée Portioli, aka Grand River, asks what guiding forces might be driving, enticing, and affecting us. All Above is rooted in her deeply personal philosophy as an artist, blurring the boundaries between electronic music and acoustic music and sculpting familiar ambient forms into personal themes painted with rich emotional colors. Written painstakingly over the last two years, the album is the most ambitious and divergent set of music Portioli has assembled so far, with a wide variety of instrumentation (including voices, strings, organs, guitars, and synthesizers) focused around the piano. When the music blooms into abstraction and processed electronics, it's almost imperceptible: reverb mutates into ghostly vapor trails, and distortion forms the keys into another instrument entirely. All Above follows 2020's acclaimed Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (EMEGO 290LP) and 2018's Pineapple released on Donato Dozzy and Neel's Spazio Disponibile imprint. Portioli operates in a unique space within the electronic music scene, straddling the art world and the wider electronic music scene. In addition to providing A/V accompaniment, Marco Ciceri also maintains the visual identity of Portioli's label One Instrument, a concept imprint that asks artists to create music only using a single device. All this experience is poured into All Above, a richly visual album that's far more than just an imaginary film score. While on "Human", her piano punctuates a rhythmic synthesized bassline and smudged choirs that can't help but trace out the silver screen. The composer is keen to clarify that she doesn't think of her music (or sound in general) in visual terms. Portioli studied as a linguist and used her art to develop an emotional language that's not bound by expected cultural constraints. When she adds a different instrument or process, it's not to reference a visual cue but to mark a journey through different states of being. The tracks are like meditative poems rather than cinematic vignettes: "The World At Number XX" is seemingly centered around a chugging synthesized arpeggio, but the cosmic, Klaus Schulze-esque pads, strangled guitar and evocative organ tones hint at the open-hearted, literate psychedelia of the 1970s; "In The Present As The Future" meanwhile is breathy and windswept, juxtaposing urgent rhythmic phrases with light, flute-like gusts of harmony. Dedicated to Editions Mego founder Peter Rehberg, who died suddenly in 2021, All Above demands engagement and refuses to evaporate into the background. The album asks listeners not just to absorb the album as a whole but notice the cracks in the structure and discern the tension they cause. Edition of 500; includes download code.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: EXREC 001LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Art Make Love sees the return of 30/70, the mothership of the internationally acclaimed collective. Their sound expanding far beyond its previous markers of nu-soul and jazz, it is inspired heavily by broken beat complexity and their unique coming together of truly collaborative and eccentric songwriting. Real sense of light and dark in this -- exploring the very edges of emotion and life, truth and fear, the depth of spirit and emotion. Art Make Love is breaking down the walls between the music and the listener, it is bringing art back to the center and inviting you in. It is looking directly into the darkness while celebrating life, expressing joy at the edges of all experience. Includes download code.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: ENV 010R-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Autumn of 2022 marked 20 years since the initial release of Metro Area's first and only album, Metro Area. Environ had already remastered and re-released this essential LP for its 15th anniversary. So, this time around, the label is doing something a bit different. To celebrate two decades of Metro Area, Environ has partnered with renowned mastering engineer Matt Colton (Metropolis Studios) to remaster and recut the first four Metro Area 12"s: Metro Area, Metro Area 2, Metro Area 3, and Metro Area 4. Unlike the album reissue, these records include the original, extended 12" versions of all songs, including some which have never been re-released. Metro Area 2 is the duo's first 12" EP, originally released in 2000.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: ENV 011R-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Autumn of 2022 marked 20 years since the initial release of Metro Area's first and only album, Metro Area. Environ had already remastered and re-released this essential LP for its 15th anniversary. So, this time around, the label is doing something a bit different. To celebrate two decades of Metro Area, Environ has partnered with renowned mastering engineer Matt Colton (Metropolis Studios) to remaster and recut the first four Metro Area 12"s: Metro Area, Metro Area 2, Metro Area 3, and Metro Area 4. Unlike the album reissue, these records include the original, extended 12" versions of all songs, including some which have never been re-released. Metro Area 3 is the duo's first 12" EP, originally released in 2000.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: FAITICHE 029LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"Faitiche presents Groupshow's Greatest Hits: The ten tracks on this first vinyl album by Groupshow (Hanno Leichtmann, Andrew Pekler, Jan Jelinek), recorded between 2005 and 2018, document concert recordings and studio improvisations by the trio. In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Groupshow found their first opportunity in the routines of live performance and they used this opportunity to break with these routines. The trio consisting of Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Pekler came together in the context of Kosmischer Pitch, playing live versions of the music from Jelinek's 2005 studio album of that name. During this project, the musical interaction between the three participants quickly emancipated itself from the original program, departing from fixed roles and finding a distinct form in constant change. Groupshow sessions -- rehearsal, concert or recording -- are always improvised. The interplay of the various sound sources, converging from the directions of 'electronics', 'percussion', and 'guitar', does not follow the krautrock wave logic of crescendo and morendo. Jelinek, Leichtmann, and Pekler have established a method of transparent density in which links and breaks are not concealed but remain audible. The music works through attraction and repulsion, with a loosely organized structure that always leaves enough room for the next intervention. The principle here, repeated even in the smallest units, is that of duration. Groupshow think of their music in terms of an installation: no starting point, no dramaturgy, and ideally no end. Concerts take place not raised up on a podium, but in the middle of the room on a level with the audience, who only enter the space with the musicians and instruments once their interaction is already underway. In 2008, Groupshow used this approach to create a live soundtrack for Andy Warhol's film Empire, over the full length of eight hours and five minutes. Recordings in general and the 'Greatest Hits' format in particular are another key aspect of this ongoing work on a collectively modulated continuum. The ten tracks on this first vinyl album by Groupshow, recorded between 2005 and 2018, document the ephemeral capturing of opportunities that were not missed. Extracts and essences of an endless movement of searching. The sprawling form of the whole, suspended in succinct, separate units. To paraphrase Lao Tzu and Roland Barthes, one might say: 'Once their work is done, they are no longer attached to it. And because they're not attached to it, it will remain.'" --Arno Raffeiner, 2022 Includes download code.

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: FTR 647LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"The fourth release by this Durham NC-based duo is also their second on Feeding Tube. We did their excellent When Sorrows Encompass Me 'Round cassette in 2021 (FTR 378CS), and are delighted to be able to do this new one on 45 RPM vinyl. The players, as always are Courtney Werner on cello and fiddle, with Evan Morgan playing guitars, banjo, pump organ, and shruti box. Tarantism came together in the depths of the Plague in the spring and summer of 2020 while the pair was living on a mountainside near Hayesville NC. As with their other recordings, the musical textures they play with have traditional Appalachian resonances, but their compositional approach often cuts against any orthodox grain. Courtney writes about the strange juxtaposition of the death throes going on in the world then, as contrasted with the bursting blooms of nature surrounding them in their rural retreat. And you can hear that on the album, as harsher globs of sound merge into softer edged drones that twist into Magic Tuber's more trad folk instrumentals. As with many good things, it's a journey. A totally wonderful record whether you suffer from Tarantism or not." --Byron Coley, 2022

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: GET 51472LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

New lower pricing. "This record is self-produced by Miles himself! Without longtime production collaborator Teo Macero, Miles chases new directions with this 1984 recording. Miles allowed keyboardist Robert Irving and guitar legend John Scofield to write most of the material on the LP. The record is dripping with some of the new sounds of synths which makes this a very unique entry in the Miles catalog. Decoy features John Scofield on guitar, Robert Irving on synths and programming, Darryl Jones on bass, Al Foster on drums, Mino Cinelu on percussion, Bill Evans on sax, and guest appearances from Branford Marsalis. Pressed on crystal clear vinyl housed in a gatefold jacket with Japanese stylized insert and deluxe obi strip. Remastered from the original analog tapes."

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: GB 131CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Yanna Momina's Afar Ways was recorded live in a stilt-hut on the horn of Africa when Grammy-winning producer and author, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project, Ustad Saami) visited Djibouti in the spring of 2018. The album is beautifully focused around Momina's resonant vocals and the sparest of musical backings (acoustic guitar, handclaps, calabash). It is the tenth release in Glitterbeat's acclaimed "Hidden Musics" series. Music is not something the rural Afar people "do for show," Momina asserted. Since most have no television, it is done for their own amusement every night. As Yanna Momina and Brennan recorded, the tide came in and they ended-up surrounded by water. Throughout the album, the thatch hut audibly creaks and rocks in the waves. Born in 1948, Yanna was discovered while accompanied on a two-string shingle played with nails and a matchbox for maracas. She made a name in the region not just for her thrilling vibrato, but for being the rare Afar woman who writes her own songs. Brennan states, "Yanna has one of the most unique voices I've ever heard. She flirts with the edge of chaos without losing control of her idiosyncratic phrasing." "We set-up to record in a stilt-hut," he adds as he describes the atmosphere of the recording session. "Moving at the speed of another culture, what first sounded like a call to prayer, was only conversation. And then we began. Momina was accompanied by a rotating cast of friends who passed around guitars and a calabash. They freely offered up handclaps and background vocals -- in service of the artist they addressed honorifically as 'aunt.'" As an experiment, Brennan asked Momina to try speaking over some music. On the spot she brainstormed a septuagenarian rap for the ages, riding an imaginary bass-line for over ten minutes that could be felt, though not heard. Then, after a manic burst of tunes, Momina asked her band to set down their instruments and undertook an a cappella rendition of "My Family Won't Let Me Marry the Man I Love (I Am Forced to Wed My Uncle)," a song that even the friends gathered had never heard before. It was followed by a wordlessness that made undeniably clear that the afternoon's recording had concluded. Personnel: Yanna Momina - lead vocals, percussion; JP - rhythm guitar, vocals, percussion; Hussan Jean - calabash, percussion, background vocals; Andre Fanazara - lead guitar, background vocals, percussion, lead vocals on "Heya (Welcome)". Photos by Marilena Delli.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: HPS 248CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

New reissue of the Stonewall Noise Orchestra legendary album Constants In An Ever Changing Universe. It was quite chaotic putting this album together. It was recorded in five different locations. Rehearsal rooms, a living room, a super professional studio, high and low really. It was quite a challenge for Robert Ekholm to do the mixing. Some personal challenges at the time resulted in John Hermansen doing the vocals. In the middle of this chaos was the music, the constant in an ever-changing universe. Recorded by Robert Ekholm at Chaos Recordings.

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: HPS 248LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. New reissue of the Stonewall Noise Orchestra legendary album Constants In An Ever Changing Universe. It was quite chaotic putting this album together. It was recorded in five different locations. Rehearsal rooms, a living room, a super professional studio, high and low really. It was quite a challenge for Robert Ekholm to do the mixing. Some personal challenges at the time resulted in John Hermansen doing the vocals. In the middle of this chaos was the music, the constant in an ever-changing universe. Recorded by Robert Ekholm at Chaos Recordings.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: HPS 248LTD-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Blue vinyl. New reissue of the Stonewall Noise Orchestra legendary album Constants In An Ever Changing Universe. It was quite chaotic putting this album together. It was recorded in five different locations. Rehearsal rooms, a living room, a super professional studio, high and low really. It was quite a challenge for Robert Ekholm to do the mixing. Some personal challenges at the time resulted in John Hermansen doing the vocals. In the middle of this chaos was the music, the constant in an ever-changing universe. Recorded by Robert Ekholm at Chaos Recordings.

 

PRICE: $37.50

CAT #: HPS 248ULTRA-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. White/orange/red vinyl. New reissue of the Stonewall Noise Orchestra legendary album Constants In An Ever Changing Universe. It was quite chaotic putting this album together. It was recorded in five different locations. Rehearsal rooms, a living room, a super professional studio, high and low really. It was quite a challenge for Robert Ekholm to do the mixing. Some personal challenges at the time resulted in John Hermansen doing the vocals. In the middle of this chaos was the music, the constant in an ever-changing universe. Recorded by Robert Ekholm at Chaos Recordings.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: HPS 249LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. "During the recording of Totally, we were having a blast and the music just kept rollin' out so we decided to also put together a tasty EP. Guests Mario Lalli on 'Stöner Theme' and Greg Hetson of Circle Jerks and Bad Religion on our version of the Motörhead/Pink Fairies classic 'City Kids' makes this EP extra sweet."

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: HPS 249LTD-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Purple vinyl. "During the recording of Totally, we were having a blast and the music just kept rollin' out so we decided to also put together a tasty EP. Guests Mario Lalli on 'Stöner Theme' and Greg Hetson of Circle Jerks and Bad Religion on our version of the Motörhead/Pink Fairies classic 'City Kids' makes this EP extra sweet."

 

PRICE: $38.50

CAT #: HPS 249ULTRA-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Half blue/half hot pink vinyl. "During the recording of Totally, we were having a blast and the music just kept rollin' out so we decided to also put together a tasty EP. Guests Mario Lalli on 'Stöner Theme' and Greg Hetson of Circle Jerks and Bad Religion on our version of the Motörhead/Pink Fairies classic 'City Kids' makes this EP extra sweet."

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: HPS 250LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Revelations Of The Sacred Skull was recorded and mixed by Jordan Barillaro at Tone Bender Studio in Montreal QC, in 2021-2022. It's an urban spaghetti western journey soaked in occult heavy metal, punk, witchcraft, and debauchery. For fans of Motörhead, Venom, Tank, Pentagram, The Stooges .

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: HPS 250LTD-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Magenta vinyl. Revelations Of The Sacred Skull was recorded and mixed by Jordan Barillaro at Tone Bender Studio in Montreal QC, in 2021-2022. It's an urban spaghetti western journey soaked in occult heavy metal, punk, witchcraft, and debauchery. For fans of Motörhead, Venom, Tank, Pentagram, The Stooges .

 

PRICE: $37.50

CAT #: HPS 250ULTRA-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Green/white/orange vinyl. Revelations Of The Sacred Skull was recorded and mixed by Jordan Barillaro at Tone Bender Studio in Montreal QC, in 2021-2022. It's an urban spaghetti western journey soaked in occult heavy metal, punk, witchcraft, and debauchery. For fans of Motörhead, Venom, Tank, Pentagram, The Stooges .

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: HVNLP 003LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Mioclono started at the end of 2016 when Oriol Riverola (John Talabot) and Arnau Obiols (Velmondo) did their first recording session at Angel Sound Studios in Barcelona, assisted by engineer Miquel Mestres. This became a tradition and they kept doing these recording sessions every end of the year. The present album is the result of the first recording session in 2016 and during the following months, the duo met up several times and overdubbed those early recordings. Later, it was mixed and mastered later on by Gordon Pohl in Du?sseldorf, Germany. The project is named because both Arnau and Oriol had been diagnosed with epilepsy, a neurological disorder that affects the electrical activity in the brain. Given this coincidence, their moniker takes the name in Spanish of myoclonus.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: HONEY 065LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

The fruitful relationship between Brazilian music and American jazz took shape between the mid-50s and the '60s. This turned out to be one of the most prolific meetings in the history of popular music. Two music cultures that are still resonating today as a timeless combination of elements. Now if you feel like getting through the unique flavor of such musical marriage this compilation is the right place to start. This is a great selection of Brazilian flavored jazz tunes performed by top Brazilian artists of the likes of Sergio Mendes, Bola Sete, Baden Powell, and Tamba Trio, including classic standards such as Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm", Cole Porter's "Love For Sales", and Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream". Also features Dick Farney, Brazilian Jazz Quartet, Rubens Bassini E Os 11 Magnificos, Moacir Santos, Ed Lincoln, Milton Banana & The Oscar Castro Neves Quintet, João Donato, and Os Cobras.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: HONEY 066LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Reissue. Canadian composer Bruce Haack one of the true pioneers in the field of electronic and children's music. Originally released in 1962, Dance, Sing & Listen was Haack's debut album. Following instructions from children dance teacher Esther Nelson the album comes as a hyper-eclectic work based on a great variety of sound material. A hybrid soup of medieval, country, classical, and pop styles including tons of electronic effects, guitars, banjos, and other acoustic string instruments and bongos! This is open-minded music for children at its best.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: HONEY 067LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Reissue, originally released in 1960. Recorded in Rio de Janeiro in 1959 and originally released on Phillips in 1960, this was Baden Powel's debut album. Baden Powel has been one of the most celebrated figures in Brazilian music. A technically proficient guitarist and highly sophisticated composer who managed to integrate classical techniques with both popular and jazz harmonies. Backed here by Monteiro De Souza's orchestra, Powell displays fascinating renditions of tunes from the American songbook such as "Stella By Starlight", "My Funny Valentine", and "All The Things You Are," plus a variety of samba and choro numbers.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: HONEY 068LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1963. Milton Banana was one of the busiest drummers during the golden age of bossa nova. He was the man who provided the subtle and elegant groove for some historical recordings like João Gilberto's "Chega de Saudade" and the highly celebrated Getz/Gilberto album (1964), further he worked extensively with Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Donato, Sergio Mendes, Luiz Bonfà, Bola Sete, and many others. Originally released in 1963, O Ritmo E O Som Da Bossa Nova (The Rhythm and the Sound of Bossa Nova) stands as his perfect showcase featuring classy versions of Brazilian hits, among them: Gilberto's "Desafinado", Jobim's "Samba de una Nota", and Lalo Schifrin's "O Amor e a Rosa".

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: HOS 613LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. FE exclusive purple vinyl. Silent Servant returns with Shadows of Death and Desire. Now-legendary producer, DJ, and art director Juan Mendez arguably reset techno at least twice. Once with his surreal and Europe-by-way-of-LA '80s apocalypse culture aesthetics for Sandwell District, and again as Silent Servant capturing the youth-driven mutation of crossover electronics and dark parties churning in the American underground, which followed directly in the wake of his game-changing modern classic, Negative Fascination (2012). Mendez has evolved to more aggressive and stripped-down acid punk electro dance attacks Shadows of Death and Desire. Mendez took his time to deliver a more raw --yet refined-- brutalism on this, his second album. The otherworldly guitar feedback of opener "Illusion" is cut short with a relentless bass sequence erasing any preconceptions of softening with time. Stereo-panned dusty snares drag along concrete and break apart with without a past or future. The introductory hypnotic sprawl is hastily dissected and left behind for the systematic tension of single "Harm In Hand." Cold drum machine rolls that could have been removed with a laser from early Ministry are offset with a vocal delivery not felt in techno since Suicide. The narrative is constantly disrupted by caustic guitar stabs, its naked urgency like slamming on the brakes while inertia thrusts you forward in space but decidedly not in time. In his own words, "The record is a product of a significant life change that wasn't a benefit," which is eerily felt from the start but is surprisingly washed away with album closer, "Optimistic Decay" (which has become a mission statement from Mendez's visual ideology). "Optimistic Decay" sees Mendez reuniting with vocalist Camella Lobo (Tropic Of Cancer). Lobo's voice rises from spectral vocal delays beyond dub. A subtle nod to Silent Servant's initial Maurizio-leaning EPs but with the grandiosity and opioid slow-motion haze of My Bloody Valentine. Also a student of cinematic deconstruction, the album looks inward from the exterior of LA's untold stories in the netherworlds on the edge of the city, a rapid crash course in confidence games and subsequent letdowns. Shadows of Death and Desire sets the standard in electronic post-punk. Mixed and mastered by Josh Eustis. Designed by Silent Editions.

 

PRICE: $11.00

CAT #: HF 018EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Warehouse find, 2007 release; last copies. "Boxcutter makes the kind of weighty productions that share the broad appeal of Burial or Vex'd, while keeping one foot firmly planted in the more melodic, electro-centered margins of the genre. Packed with gritty bass, glitched-up beats and all manner of multi-layered furies, he first roused the dubstep community's appetite in 2005 with 12"s on Hotflush and Planet Mu. A true heavyweight of the scene, the incredibly inventive and original Boxcutter sound continues to defy expectations. For the latest Hotflush 12", Boxcutter delivers yet again two fantastic tracks from his array of sounds. On the A-side is 'Philly,' a jazzier number with a syncopated assault of crisp drums, as featured on Hotflush's compilation CD Space and Time. It is backed with 'Endothermic,' a tune drifting more on the laid-back side, with dazzling warm synths and a deep bass line."

 

PRICE: $18.50

CAT #: IMPREC 498CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

11 Dec 80 is a two-CD set containing Eliane Radigue's live performance of Chry-Ptus (1971), her first work for modular synthesizer, and the world premiere of parts one and three of Triptych (1978). Triptych part 2 is also performed. Upon hearing these performances for the first time in many years, Radigue declared them to be the best versions she'd ever heard. Radigue's sublime renderings of these major pieces are full of illusory stasis, slow change, and dense, slow-motion drone that has characterized her pioneering electronic work. These pieces move like a river with currents shifting beneath the surface. While you can't quite distinguish the individual components you get a clear feeling of motion and change.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: IGR 015EP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Tuhka, like its titular cinder or ash, symbolizes new beginnings, fertile ground and creativity after a long lapse. In the same vein, the tracks on this edition were created after a long fallow period. Tuhka was created out of archival snippets and new vocal loops created on the sunny top floor of Merlijnstraat in early 2022. Late lockdown there was spent writing on the balcony and walking or playing in nearby parks. This creative but relaxed time is embodied in the feeling on Tuhka, a release wrapping itself around the core of two long-form tracks: "Kärpässieni" is a soft, pensive number, with an archival cheap synth track and a chopped-up mystery field recording mingling with a simple subdued vocal loop. There is a titular reference to amanita mushrooms, a fungi encompassing the mystery and the melancholy bitterness present in the track. The feeling is akin to a frosty morning spent on a walk to the Mercatorplein library and feeling your toes start numbing. "Varisevalehti" means "shuddering leaf" and it consists of an airy, optimistic voice loop that progresses and winds around the length of the track. Alongside it, at times you can hear tape-manipulated samples from a "learn Italian" record. The feeling is more of a wander around Westerpark when the blossoms have started come loose and fly around in the air, forming soft pink deposits in the corners of streets. Single-sided, screen-printed B-side; includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: KK 044X-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 reissue. Bill Wells with Tori Kudo's free-spirited Japanese collective Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Originally released in May 2006 through the German label Karaoke Kalk, Osaka Bridge was an album that captured the joyful amateurism of Tori Kudo's free-spirited Japanese collective Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Bill Wells's rich, wistful, and easy sense of melody. Approaching brass band and jazz music with a knack for making playing imperfectly feel perfectly right, Osaka Bridge became nothing short of groundbreaking when it was released to critical acclaim, becoming an instant classic among musicians and fans alike. Coinciding with the release of the second LP of Wells's on-going collaboration with Danielle Price on tuba, The Sensory Illusions, Karaoke Kalk makes this highly sought-after record available again on vinyl for the first time in 16 years. The pairing of the prolific Scottish pianist and composer and the fluctuating collective active since the mid-1980s was an easy, natural one -- a union particularly apt and complementary. But this is not to say that the 15 recordings which made up Osaka Bridge were in any way seamless. The horns played by these self-taught musicians strain and struggle with Wells' luscious arrangements; each note is given all the stiff emphasis that you'd expect of a high school brass band at its first rehearsal. Songs fall in and out of rhythm, and a track like "Poxy" misses its intended swing feel by a country mile. Of course, this is all part of the magic. Maher Shalal Hash Baz take Wells's melodies and strip them back to their emotional core, disallowing all artifice and revealing a stark, serene beauty. Particularly affecting are "On The Beach Boys Bus" and "Time Takes Me So Back", the two tracks sung by Kudo's wife Reiko. Inspiration for both pieces came to Wells in dreams. The former was sung by a group of tanned Californians on the way to a Beach Boys convention, the latter by his grandmother shortly before she passed away. Reiko's voice gives each song a haunting fragility that enhances their phantasmagoric character. For the most part, the instrumentals are concise -- a melody stated once and then dispensed with -- but their brevity only heightens the impact. Even (or especially) 16 years later, Osaka Bridge continues to be an almost accidentally timeless document that captured fleeting moments and personal revelations at their most spontaneous and unaffected. Edition of 500.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: KR 099LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Electronic music legend and head of Editions Mego, Peter Rehberg, teams up with zeitkratzer mastermind Reinhold Friedl. Three side-long pieces melting electronic/contemporary avant-garde. When Peter "Pita" Rehberg and Reinhold Friedl first met each other, they did not like each other "at all," as Friedl emphasizes with a hearty laugh. The two would however eventually bond over the years thanks to a mutual respect for each other's music. In the summer of 2021, they entered the studio together for the first time. Their joint album for Berlin's Karlrecords is a faithful document "no editing, no overdubs" of their improvisations during two recording sessions shortly before Rehberg's sudden and untimely passing on July 22nd of that year. The three pieces see Rehberg working with electronics and Friedl with his inside piano, proving that they had indeed managed to find a common ground -- up to a point where it at times becomes hard to tell who plays what on this record. Friedl ran into Rehberg in Zbigniew Karkowski's tiny Tokyo apartment in 1999 while organizing the first edition of the Off-ICMC that was set to take place in the following year. "I came uninvited and slept a night at Zbigeniew's before Peter arrived and I had to move out," remembers Friedl, who ended up inviting the Mego founder to perform at the Off-ICMC even though he found it hard to relate to his music. "We had very different backgrounds: he came from industrial and I had roots in classical music and improv, a high-brow prick!" After having met several times at different concerts without ever really speaking to each other in the following years, a concert in Vienna in the late 2010s marked a turning point in their relationship (or lack thereof). Playing their sets back-to-back and loving every second of what the other was doing, the two finally clicked on musical level. The two would go on to become good friends, meeting regularly to discuss music and everything else while both were living in Vienna just a few minutes away from each other. Eventually they entered the studio twice for sessions that were completely improvised with no prior preparation. "Caciara," "Chiasso," and "Clamore" -- named retrospectively after three Italian words for "noise" -- capture the spontaneity of two artists who had always been outliers in their respective fields finding a common ground in sprawling dynamics and sonic intensity as well as enabling each other to expand their individual sound palettes. These recordings -- carefully mixed by Dirk Dresselhaus, but otherwise virtually untouched -- perfectly encapsulate the energy unleashed by two free spirits coming together over a shared love for pushing the envelope of improvised noise music. 180 gram vinyl; includes download postcard.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: KEPLARREV 012LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Vladislav Delay's 2007 album Whistleblower on vinyl for the first time. Reworked/remastered and featuring new artwork. Following up on reissues of the 2000 compilation Multila (KEPLARREV 001LP) and 2001's Anima (KEPLARREV 009LP), Sasu Ripatti has thoroughly revisited the classic Whistleblower for its first ever vinyl issue on the German Keplar label. Ripatti created entirely new mixes of previously unheard-of alternative versions of the tracks that first appeared on CD through his own Huume imprint in early 2007. He thus shines a new, different light on a record that was as much an expression of reaching a turning point in his life as it also showcased a new, more direct and perhaps more abrasive side of his Vladislav Delay project. Whistleblower was marked by the insertion of more noise and disruptive elements into Ripatti's slowly moving take on intricate electronic music that heavily leaned on dub techniques. Fittingly for an album written at the threshold between one life and the other, Whisteblower seems at once melancholic and forward-looking in both tone and style. Whisteblower was the follow-up record to 2005's The Four Quarters and produced in the German capital. Changes in his personal life had a profound impact on him when making the record. The fifth track, "Lumi," was dedicated to his daughter who was born shortly after the album was finished. Having already previously embraced a sober lifestyle -- hinted at with the last piece's title, "Recovery Idea", Ripatti started questioning his life choices more thoroughly. This is also expressed in "He Lived Deeply", a track inspired by Miles Davis's love for Duke Ellington whose title can be read as an implicit question that Ripatti nowadays paraphrases thusly. The seven tracks also marked a musical turning point in Ripatti's work as a producer, not only because it was the last one for which he primarily used analogue and vintage equipment. They are also more straightforward on a music level, more demanding and at times more concerned with subtle rhythms than with the thick textures that were so integral to his earlier work. Whisteblower represented the first step in a process of focusing less on sonic abstraction and more on direct (self-)expression. While Ripatti admits that he found working on the album difficult back then, he also points out that he was surprised to hear how "gentle and peaceful" it sounded when he started revisiting the original files he used as a basis for these newly mixed versions. Remastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering. Includes poly-lined inners; includes download code.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: LANR 012EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Yet another chapter in the ongoing Alexander Robotnick saga. Electronic wizard Maurizio Dami licensed his second single in 1983 on Materiali Sonori "club series," Fuzz Dance. After the surprising and astonishing success of the debut -- Problèmes D'Amour -- Robotnick became a sort of cult figure even in the United States and soon was labeled as a forerunner of the electro movement. Fully remastered and licensed. Clear vinyl.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: LAC 015LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

LP version. 2022 repress. 2020 release. "There is an endless abundance of variations that the clarinet can use in changing the color of a single note. As a privileged listener -- and -- experiencer, Ben Bertrand through his favorite instrument shared the musical blueprints with me, which resulted in this album. His music has become a vivid part of my almost daily thoughts -- allowing what I hear to clash and sing with the patterns and rhythms already established in my mind. A voluntary trip, an absorbing experience in our Brussels vibrant cultural life. With his instrument and countless machines, Ben creates a web of sounds that are hard to pin down but easy to absorb as a whole. Ben Bertrand happened to me. His music, full of beauty, is good to listen to and pleasant to follow. A sense and perception of continued growth too illuminated and overwhelming to resist. While I sense when a new composition is coming, Ben was able in our daily conversations, to progressively untangle a musical mystery and layout the puzzle of a new creation. Listening to his music is like sitting at the sea, watching a slow motion of our crazy life sailing by. You, as a listener, with this record stepped in an early stage of his career, with hardly any involvement of other people, composition wise. Besides composing alone, there have been countless hours when Ben Bertrand worked and interacted with Christophe Albertijn for the recordings. There is also the essence of our regular exchanges and the visions we knit. These are in my opinion just the starting points of plural interactions and musical endeavors to be. It is a matter of his artistic trust and let go, while Ben creates his own language, package and macrocosm. The excellence of Ben Bertrand's music lays in its involving and easily accessible nature, regardless of your personal or musical past experience. Ben Bertrand is all before you for you to dig, and nobody is asking you to file him away under any category." --Tommy Denys Personnel: Ben Bertrand - compositions, bass clarinet, electronics; Claire Vailler - voice on "The Manmaipo".

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: LIFE 001LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1971. Can you pick up a better iconic band than Japan's Flower Travellin' Band? Have a look at Julian Cope's Japrocksampler cover with the band bare naked wildly ridin' on their wheels. Is any description more appropriate? A sense of freedom has always enhanced their music, a heavy rock manifesto clearly informed by British stalwarts. Their second album Satori was released on Atlantic Japan in 1971 and still is a masterpiece on its own. The band was made up of Joe Yamanaka (vocals) -- possibly an Eastern version of Rob Tyner of MC5 -- Hideki Ishima (guitars), Jun Kobayashi (bass), and George Wada (drums). By the end of 1970, they had relocated to Toronto, Canada and lived there until March of 1972. In April 1973, the band split up, but they reunited in January 2008 with all original members joined by Nobuhiko.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: LMS 5521858

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return with new album Optical Delusion, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018's Monsters Exist. Recorded in Orbital's Brighton studio, Optical Delusion includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes. Earlier in 2022, Orbital celebrated their storied history with 30 Something (LMS 5521698/5521743) which, unlike other "Best Of" collections, contains reworks, remakes, remixes, and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including "Chime", "Belfast", "Halcyon", "Satan", and "The Box".

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: LMS 5521859

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Double LP version. Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return with new album Optical Delusion, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018's Monsters Exist. Recorded in Orbital's Brighton studio, Optical Delusion includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes. Earlier in 2022, Orbital celebrated their storied history with 30 Something (LMS 5521698/5521743) which, unlike other "Best Of" collections, contains reworks, remakes, remixes, and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including "Chime", "Belfast", "Halcyon", "Satan", and "The Box".

 

PRICE: $37.50

CAT #: LMS 5521861

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Double LP version. White vinyl. Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return with new album Optical Delusion, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018's Monsters Exist. Recorded in Orbital's Brighton studio, Optical Delusion includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes. Earlier in 2022, Orbital celebrated their storied history with 30 Something (LMS 5521698/5521743) which, unlike other "Best Of" collections, contains reworks, remakes, remixes, and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including "Chime", "Belfast", "Halcyon", "Satan", and "The Box".

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: MGART 901LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress; 180-gram LP version. Originally released in 1975. Remastered by Manuel Göttsching. Recorded July-August 1974, Inventions for Electric Guitar is Manuel Göttsching's first solo album. Written and performed entirely by Göttsching on electric guitar, with a four-track TEAC A3340, Revox A77 for echoes, wah-wah pedal, volume pedal, Schaller Rotosound, and Hawaiian steel bar.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: MIA 054LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Erik K Skodvin's feature-length score to Thomas Roth's thriller Schächten feels like the epitome of all his musical projects, conjuring a dark cinematic trip through 1960s post-WWII Vienna in a film that touches on topics such as law, justice, and revenge. Releasing a soundtrack as a stand-alone album can be challenging; and Schächten is by no means a typical listening experience. The record contains 24 more or less short pieces evolving through dramatic movements, underlaying menace and deep emotive scenes. One thing that stands out is the linear atmosphere throughout the story which creates a wholeness that keeps your attention to the very end. Set in wintery Austrian landscapes in dimly saturated colors, the film's dramatic events with dark political undertones feels like a perfect situation for Skodvin's atmospheric collages -- perhaps sounding closer than ever to his early works as Svarte Greiner or Deaf Center. Cello, violin, piano, analog synth, and plenty of hardly recognizable instrumentation come together in a record that feels very organic in its subdued tones. The score also features percussion by Andrea Belfi as well as a Chopin piano interpretation by Kelly Wyse to the bizarrely schizophrenic piece "Judenfreund". With the contemporary world sliding into darkness again, listening to the soundtrack feels like coming to terms with one's own anxieties -- something that in the end comes through as a cleansing experience. As quoted in the film "Everyone is their own devil. And we make this world our hell." Short synopsis: "Vienna 1960s -- the young Jewish business man Victor has to witness how the prosecution of a Nazi crime against his family fails. The political and legal system is still virtually run by former Nazis with large parts of society being entangled in the past. When Victor also loses his grief ridden father and his girlfriend's family opposes their relationship and his identity, Victor begins to lose faith in formal justice and takes matters in his own hands." Includes printed inner sleeve; includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $39.50

CAT #: MORR 180SUN-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Transparent yellow, three-sided vinyl, heavy wide-spine outer sleeve, printed inners. On Vertigo Days, the first album in seven years for The Notwist, one of Germany's most iconic independent groups are alive to the possibilities of the moment. Their music has long been open-minded and exploratory, but from its engrossing structure, through its combination of melancholy pop, clangorous electronics, hypnotic krautrock, and driftwork ballads, to its international musical guests, Vertigo Days is both a new step for The Notwist. It's been seven years since The Notwist's last album, Close To The Glass (2014), and in that time the various members of the group have been busy with side projects (Spirit Fest, Hochzeitskapelle, Alien Ensemble, Joasihno), guest appearances, a record label (Alien Transistor), movie scoring, helping organize the Minna Miteru compilation of Japanese indie pop (MORR 168CD/LP), and running a festival (Alien Disko). Those divergent paths feed back into Vertigo Days in surprising ways, from its structure, built from group improvisations, with songs flowing and melting into one another in a collective haze, to its spirit, which feels refreshed and alive. There's something cinematic about Vertigo Days too, reflective of the group's time working on soundtracks. The album's lead single, "Ship", sees the group joined by Saya of Japanese pop duo Tenniscoats, her disarmingly hymnal voice sighing over a propulsive, krautrocking beat. American multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay sings on "Oh Sweet Fire", also contributing "a love lyric for these times". American jazz clarinetist and composer Angel Bat Dawid adds clarinet to the spaced-out dream-pop of "Into The Ice Age", while Argentinian electronica songwriter Juana Molina gifts some gorgeous singing and electronics to "Al Sur". Saya also reappears as a member of Japanese brass band Zayaendo, who guest on the album. Throughout, The Notwist also capture the openness of their live performances, too, where they mix and link their songs in unexpected ways. Vertigo Days sits together as one long, flowing suite, the album conceptualized as a whole entity. This is also captured by the album's lyrics, which Markus states, "feel more like one long poem." The dimensions of that poem are multi-faceted, something intensified by the geopolitical weirdness of its times. But it also works at a level of poetic abstraction, such that each song gestures in multiple directions -- the deeply private pans out to the global. Vertigo Days is an album that is brimming with life, with enthusiasm and love for music and for community, all wide-eyed and dreaming.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: MORR 194LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Includes printed inner sleeve; includes download code. Live recordings from the band's studio, the Alien Research Center, during lockdown times in 2021. The Notwist, centered around the core trio of Cico Beck and the Acher brothers Markus and Micha, usually takes its studio recordings as a mere starting point for their live performances, considering them to be possibilities that need to be explored further. This is especially true for Vertigo Days - Live from Alien Research Center, a live record made under unusual circumstances. The band members rearranged songs from their ambitious 2021 album Vertigo Days (MORR 180CD/LP/SUN-LP) in their studio in Weilheim to record and film a special performance. The songs took on a new life, becoming more psychedelic and intense when rearranged into a spontaneous, krautrock-esque collage. Vertigo Days was meant to transcend the conventional notion of a band as well as the creative and geographic boundaries inscribed into that concept. And even though life had other plans, this is precisely what the album did when it was released to both commercial success and critical acclaim in early 2021. Contributions by Tenniscoats singer Saya, Angel Bat Dawid, Ben LaMar Gay, Juana Molina, among others, as well as new member Theresa Loibl on bass clarinet, harmonium, and keyboard, expanded the band's sonic palette, stylistic range, and even lyrical focus through the addition of different instruments, artistic approaches, and languages. All of that was missing when the band retreated to their studio -- dubbed Alien Research Center in response to, and in spite of, a nearby church called Christian Outreach Center -- to further explore the possibilities of the source material. Vertigo Days - Live from Alien Research Center is at once a snapshot of a certain moment in the band's history and the quintessential Notwist live record: a unique performance that both explores the untapped potential of the Vertigo Days studio recordings while also serving as an inspiration for upcoming live shows. As with the studio album, the artwork for Vertigo Days - Live from Alien Research Center features photographs by Japanese artist Lieko Shiga, taken in the '00s.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: MOV 063LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock. "Music On Vinyl presents The Wicker Man on 180 gram audiophile black vinyl. For this 2010 release, ALL the songs from the cult classic 1973 soundtrack are included. For many years this was a holy grail among soundtrack aficionados. This release has been prepared from recently discovered master tapes with a clarity and presence that gives the late Paul Giovanni's haunting music the showcase it has so long deserved. The Wicker Man is one of the most sought after soundtracks ever! Now presented in a strictly limited edition on coloured vinyl and packaged in a lavish gatefold sleeve with extensive notes and stills from the movie. A luxurious package that pays homage to what is without doubt one of the most innovative and provocative British cult horror films ever produced. This is definitely the stuff that myths are made of! Containing exclusive material from the later, longer version of the film, including the song 'Gently Johnny,' which was not available on early LP issues. Paul Giovanni, together with Magnet, has created a mysterious and sinister world that has a life of its own nearly 30 years after the film's release -- flutes, lyres, harmonicas, and guitars, mixed in with original and traditional material makes each song totally different, summing up the atmosphere of the movie brilliantly! The Wicker Man is a stunning soundtrack which all you movie buffs and traditional British folk music fans are advised to snap up for your collection!"

 

PRICE: $37.00

CAT #: MOV 3119LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Black vinyl. "American trumpeter Chet Baker was a major innovator in cool jazz, leading him to be nicknamed 'the prince of cool'. He earned much attention and praise through the fifties, particularly for albums featuring his vocals. This included his 1954 album Chet Baker Sings and its follow-up Chet Baker Sings Again in 1985. The latter he released on the Dutch jazz label Timeless Records. He recorded the album with bassist Ricardo Del Fra, drummer John Engels and pianist Michel Graillier. Chet Baker Sings Again is available on black vinyl."

 

PRICE: $46.00

CAT #: MOV 3289COL-LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"The double-LP Great Moments With documents the music of Pharoah Sanders from 1983 to 1990, showcasing both the raw energy and tender nature of his music. It contains 12 of his recordings, including 'Africa', 'Naima', 'You've Got To Have Freedom' and also the previously unreleased version of 'Central Park West'. Featured guest musicians are John Hicks, Idris Muhammad, Curtis Lundy, Benny Golson, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter and more jazz masters. For this compilation, Bret Primack has written new liner notes and Timeless Records founders Ria and Wim Wigt here share additional great moments from Sanders's sublime work. Great Moments With is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on translucent blue color vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve."

 

PRICE: $40.00

CAT #: MPI 013LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Reissue, originally released in 1980. Timeless atmospheres, hypnotic sonorities, minimal arrangements. And a composer gifted with a never-ending passion for music, experimenter in his genetic code, innovator by vocation, at ease with various instruments in order to forge avant-garde themes. Piero Umiliani was already forward in building completely new sounds in the late seventies. Tra Scienza e Fantascienza finds his alter ego Moggi experimenting with alternative grooves, electronic music, jazz tunes, and soundtrack motifs. One of the most interesting music libraries in the Italian composer's discography, reissued with a new remastering by Musica Per Immagini, is in full harmony with its title.Notes and images of a dystopian future according to Piero Umiliani: "Science fiction has opened up our eyes to a variety of scenarios, possible or impossible, sometimes with a happy ending, sometimes apocalyptic, at times familiarly near, more often disarmingly far away, and always capable of inspiring our imagination. For the histrionic artist it took, perhaps, less of a cosmic leap to create this masterpiece. Centered on the cover, a strange creature with only one eye, its hands on a beaker containing a mysterious red liquid. To its right, a symbolic circle is imprinted on a sandy surface, and three bizarre constructions, similar to the volumetric flasks found in a laboratory, of differing heights and shapes. There is a strange blue planet in the distance."

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: NA 5210LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 repress. "The Tribe co-founder's debut, remixed from the original mutli-track master tapes under the direction of its creator and lacquered by Bernie Grundman. Now-Again presents the defi¬nitive Tribe Records reissues. Deep, spiritual jazz of the highest order. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America's 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, 'Music is the healing force of the universe.' Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff 'Chairman' Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe's mid-1970s heyday."

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: NA 5211LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 repress. "The Tribe co-founder's debut, lacquered directly from his master tapes in an all-analog transfer by Bernie Grundman. The definitive reissue of this spiritual jazz album which set the stage for his Vibes from the Tribe. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America's 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, 'Music is the healing force of the universe.' Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff 'Chairman' Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe's mid-1970s heyday."

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: NA 5212LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 repress. "The influential Detroit pianist's sole 1970s album. Remastered and lacquered by Bernie Grundman. Now-Again presents the defi¬nitive Tribe Records reissues. Deep, spiritual jazz of the highest order. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America's 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, 'Music is the healing force of the universe.' Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff 'Chairman' Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe's mid-1970s heyday."

 

PRICE: $19.00

CAT #: OS 046CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Sought-after Belgian minimal synth finally reissued and compiled. Against a backdrop of cold war and economic crises, the DIY attitude of the earlier punk movement had spawned near countless new genres where artists and bands broke the three-chord guitar mold and experimented with new content matter, singular song structures and -- in many cases -- new instruments. Synthesizers became affordable and were no longer the sole privilege of rock millionaires. All around the globe, musical creativity boomed as never before, and Belgium was no exception. Ludo Camberlin and Karel "Bam" Saelemaekers already had a certain track record in Leuven's burgeoning music microcosm. But what they shared would become the cornerstone of A Blaze Colour (Against The Dark Trees Beyond): a fascination for new forms and instruments, a penchant for sonic adventure and a profound love for gripping songs. After appearing on the first No Big Business LP (1981) with the instrumental "Fisk", A Blaze Colour's first proper release, as was so often the case in those days, was a self-produced cassette. The music -- which would later be dubbed "minimal" -- was characterized by the use of basic rhythm machines (Boss Dr. 55, mainly) and analog synthesizers (Korg Delta and MS20, Roland SH-2 and Jupiter IV, and Casio VL-1). Camberlin's vocals, meanwhile, displayed an aloofness totally in sync with the zeitgeist. Equally important, though: all five tracks on this cassette were bona fide songs with a clear sense of structure, aided by a sonic mastery that demonstrated a high level of experience. A few months later, the band released a seven-inch single on its own ABLACO label. "Dark Trees Beyond", a quirky pop song, was coupled with "Addict Of Time", a dark and brooding spoken word piece. The Minny Pops' Wally van Middendorp, who had founded the Plurex label in 1978, invited A Blaze Colour to his studio in the Netherlands, to record an EP. It would prove to be a massive step forward: recording in a semi-professional studio offered great possibilities, the recently acquired TR-808 drum machine allowed for a broader rhythm palette, and the three new tracks (next to the re-recording of "Through With Life") showed a band on the top of their game. Meanwhile, Camberlin had already carved out a bit of a reputation for himself as a producer, while Saelemaekers was a respected graphic designer. It remains uncertain if this played a big part in the end of A Blaze Colour. Short, sweet, visionary, pioneering, and highly influential. First ever compilation of one of the most colorful electronic acts of its time. CD version includes three additional tracks.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: PERMVAC 255LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

It's album time for Sam Goku aka Robin Wang: Things We See When We Look Closer is the second album from the Chinese-German artist, releasing nearly two years after his debut album East Dimensional Riddims (ATMV 087LP, 2021), that combined traditional Asian instruments and field recordings with his own modern take on dance music that focuses on fluid rhythms, beautiful melodies and ambient haze. Based in Munich, things came together naturally with Permanent Vacation as a label for the DJ and producer. Not only sharing the same home turf, but also a certain eclectic approach on music. After two EPs on the label, that found their way into DJ sets from the likes of Ben Ufo & Four Tet, DJ Voices, Call Super, and many more, Robin is drawing ever wider circles with his new album. On eleven tracks he is refining his unique approach in his productions, probably described best as a deeply nature-rooted and aethereal sound from twinkling ambience over bright, bouncy kickdrums to shuffling breaks. Robin is hunting for the bigger picture by taking a closer look. Finding new life in the different microcosms and gaining new perspectives on things by switching the angle and developing a meditative and psychedelic swirl.

 

PRICE: $29.00

CAT #: BEC 5676820

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Celebrating 10th anniversary of Connan Mockasin's both debut album Forever Dolphin Love and career, Phantasy Sound release new editions of longtime out-of-stock Forever Dolphin Love and second album Caramel. Exclusive splatter 2021 edition. The second solo album by New Zealand psychedelic pop musician Connan Mockasin was originally released in 2013. "Taking his talents for strangeness and mood-making in a very different direction, Connan Mockasin's second solo album is a far cry from the whimsical psych pop he made with the Mockasins, and pretty far removed from his acclaimed 2010 album, Forever Dolphin Love. Yet Caramel does take musical and thematic inspiration from that album's poignantly woozy title track, which Erol Alkan reworked into an indie club hit. . . . the album overflows with sweetly sensual, acid rock meets-R&B songs and guitars so languid they seem to stretch and drip." --AllMusic

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: PFR 081EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. The second single from The Last Resort. For the A-side, Trentemøller himself created a brilliant remix of the "Moan" vocal version, which has been released on the bonus CD of the limited edition album only. Trentemøller managed to keep the mystic melancholic vibe of the track featuring the vocals of Danish talent Ane Trolle, but adds punchy drums, screaming synths and some more guitars to guarantee serious dancefloor action. Radioslave, aka Matt Edwards, aka Rekid, aka Quiet Village, contributed a great remix on the flipside. Slowly building over reduced drum patterns, their mix culminates in a manic wall of sound.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: QUI 005LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. After their celestial Arcturian Corridor opened proceedings on Quindi, London-based brothers Clive and Mark Ives are back with a new record. When Woo first began recording at home in the early '70s, Clive and Mark were the embodiment of furtive genius. Since re-emerging in 2013, they've released scores of albums, collaborated with Seahawks, and have now struck up a productive relationship with Quindi. On Paradise In Pimlico, you're hearing a very different sound to the one gently creaked out on early classics like Into The Heart Of Love (1990). This is fulsome, contemporary production rich in detail and artful sound design, but crucially, Clive and Mark's gorgeously melodic approach remains open and inquisitive, even with the sheen and shimmer of modern studio techniques. Woo sound more confident than ever in their composition, too. The crystalline, fragile tones of "Cadenza D'Innocenza" glide through key changes that spell out an engrossing narrative, while the cascading melodies on "Moment To Moment" pirouette across the space between notes with masterful poise. "Paradise In Pimlico" is an illustrious suite of orchestral composition played out with the lightest touch, framed by the slightest of synthesized fauna and topped off with tender sax and flute. Album closer "In Case Love Fails" takes on a subtly cinematic urgency with its undercurrents of walking bass and the strike of the string section (synthetic or otherwise). There's space for markedly new approaches, too. The rhythm section on "The Motorik Mirror" clunks and pops with a tactile, high-definition quality which teeters between electronic sculpture and clockwork, organic machination. The deft, lightly-brushed drums coursing through "Even More Notes" see Clive and Mark step into a different mood, celebrating the beat as another fluid, tonally-rich texture in the mix and adding a smoky, jazzy hue to the Woo repertoire. It's far from a drum-focused exercise though. At every turn, you're confronted with aching beauty and timbral surprises. If there's one constant throughout Paradise In Pimlico, it's the omnipresent chimes. These twinkling drops of light scattered throughout are something of a hallmark of Woo, ensuring the lilting, lullaby-like magic of their music persists whichever direction they head in. Includes download code.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: RAJATON 002A-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

First 10" in a series of five EPs by Sasu Ripatti aka Dancefloor Classics. Music for imaginary dancefloors, released on Ripatti's own label, Rajaton. 45rpm; includes download code; edition of 500."Look up, into the light" she said, while the camera shutter clicked. "Like this? Does it look holy?" His neck felt stiff. Her reply: "Yes, just like that. What do you mean holy? Like religious?" "No, more like trying to look very far, somewhere beyond what we can see." "Okay, stand still, I'm going to come close to you now. The light hits your face great." He noticed her fingernails. They were not polished. Natural. Even somewhat rugged, as if something wore out the fingers slightly. What had these hands held besides the camera? What made the edges of her fingernails drift off? He thought it's weird to look straight into the camera. The photographer had closed her left eye, the one not looking into the lens. Then it opened, she looked up, perusing the surroundings, then she closed her eye again, then looked up, closed, looking up, very quickly. It all seemed very professional. Maybe she calculated the light, making sure it's close to perfect. "What will these photos look like?" -- the thought popped into his head briefly. It was liberating to think it wouldn't matter. "What's that song playing?" he asked. "Wait a sec, Ol' Dirty Bastard?" she replied. "Oh yeah, right. But the sample?" "Hey, could you look up again, like that. No, lower." New directions: "Look out from the window, turn left." "My left or yours?" "Yours, I always try to think from the direction of my model." How professional! This is a good shoot, so natural. Should I worry about how the photos look like? No, I don't want to. His thoughts bounced around. What would the story be like? It's a big newspaper, everyone will read it... She broke his train of thought off midway through: "Now turn right, but look left, and slightly up, but don't turn your face right." "Umm, like this? Sounds like a set of pilates instructions." [she laughed] "You do pilates?" "Yeah, it's hard sometimes. Have you tried?" "No", she said. "I'm not good for sports that are done in groups." "Yeah, but in pilates you can just be inside your mind, drowning in your private thoughts." "What are you thinking in pilates?" she asked, taking more photos. "Well, mostly just which way is right. And which left."

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: RAJATON 003A-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

First 10" in a series of five EPs by Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay. 45rpm; includes download code; edition of 500. Vladislav Delay presents Hide Behind The Silence EP 1-5, a series of five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Intuitive and raw music, momentary and reflective, released on Ripatti's own label, Rajaton. "Stillness is a myth. Consider concepts such as "still water", or "still air" for that matter . . . Everything can be explained on a molecular level, but since we're not scientists -- and even if you happen to be -- it's the natural world of perception that moves me. Still air is very similar. A hot summer's day with zero wind feels completely still. It's the closest I have felt to complete stillness. Or for a more urban adaptation, imagine the same vibe inside a normal apartment. In those moments, revelations and mind- blowing experiences can be had with experiments in stillness . . . What if we would need absolute stillness? Or is it just enough that we can perceive something as such? Extremes attract, so for both water and air, extraordinary movement is equally fascinating. That is also a luxury item of sorts. For us to enjoy a very 'loud' body of water or air, we need to be safe, in enough control of the situation. So, when you are, it's worthwhile to pay attention and take it all in. A rapid flowing free with extreme strength and just barely in control. Look at that water go! No still water on this one, only 'sparkling'. A windy day when birds seem surprised how hard it is to fly, but in the end, they make it. Trees bend but don't break. The wind shows you its movement but doesn't hurt you. It feels friendly, like a big clumsy dog that doesn't quite understand its size. It's beautiful to be a guest of the elements, but not at the mercy of them. A new kind of dialogue forms."

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: SDBANU 028CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Stellar Legions is four experienced space cadets from the Antwerp interstellar legion, led by Captain Andrew Claes (STUFF., BRZZVLL, Internal Sun). With a sound rooted in jazz, improv, hip-hop, dub, and electronic music, brace yourself for an intergalactic trip through colorful musical worlds and allow yourself to be carried away to indefinable, otherworldly but always hospitable beacons. Alongside Claes, the delegates on duty are all heroes from the Allied star: Bram Weijters (Raymond Van Het Groenewoud, Crazy Men), Klaas De Somer (Tourist Lemc, Selah Sue), and Fre Madou (ex-DAAU, Namid). With them, come stories and artifacts from the multidimensional cosmos to our beloved mother planet Earth and they passionately present their first omnibus Stellar Legions via the groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label. The album consists of eight tracks recorded in the studio and live, resulting in one big cosmic experience that exhilarates down to every last arrangement. From Claes's twisted sax on the semi-electronic ecstatic dream world that is an "An Arp in Tunisia" to the jazzy snatches of "Wessel" where De Somer's hurried drum patterns and Weijters's frenzied keyboard solos catch light, Stellar Legions unites the adventure and improvisation of jazz with contemporary sounds. At the core of the Stellar Legions sound is a rhythm section Sly & Robbie would have approved of: loose and sticky, grinding and unwinding: De Somer's drums fizz with expectation while the relentless bass strokes from Madou provide the beating pulse. It's fresh, it's raw and it keeps us listening, grooving and wanting more. Elsewhere, "Odyssey" is a cataclysmic mix of feverish sounds and melodies that take you to an extra-terrestrial place, while the live recording of "Alcyone", basks in a spatial mix of futuristic grooves and ethereal soundscapes before album closer "Covix", results in a spacious and wonderfully atmospheric affair. Electronics wizard Andrew Claes has recorded music in a wide range of styles ranging from free jazz outfit Chaos of the Haunted Spire (duo with Teun Verbruggen) to techno icon Marco Bailey and new wave hero, Marcel Vanthilt. In addition, he has collaborated with Zach Danziger, Zap Mama, Brussels Jazz Orchestra, Hermes Ensemble, Mauro Pawlowski, Josse De Pauw, and many others and released music with the electro-jazz collective AAN/EOP and his solo project, Internal Sun. Claes is also a teacher of "Live Electronics" at the Conservatory of Antwerp and a doctorate in the arts, where he is currently investigating the possibilities of an electro-acoustic saxophone. He also regularly gives workshops on the Belgian synthesizer microcontroller platform, Axoloti.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: SDBANU 030CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Hailing from Brussels, Bandler Ching is a creation of musical ideas from composer and saxophonist Ambroos De Schepper (Kosmo Sound, Azmari, Mos Ensemble). Flawlessly blending contemporary jazz, electronics, trap, hip-hop, and global beats, the sound is based around the freedom of expression and improvisation and performed with astounding conviction. With the help of Alan Van Rompuy (Azertyklavierwerke), Federico Pecoraro (ECHT!), and Olivier Penu (Kel Assouf), the four idiosyncratic artists come together to express their musical identity to dazzling effect. After a period of exploration, the quartet release their debut album Coaxial via the groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label. A hypnotic trip through each band members' musical fantasies, the band have their roots in jazz. "We start from jazz and we give it our own attitude with improvisation and a lot of freedom and eventually mix it with influences such as electronics, beats, hip-hop etc.," says De Schepper. From the free-spirited beauty of "You Call It" and pulsating, loose beats of "Awpril" to the luminous "Dag na Naamdag" inspired by warm winter memories and wild summer dreams, De Schepper gives the sax a new place in its musical sphere. The album title refers to the band members' various musical influences that coalesce around one artistic center. That center is Coaxial -- a distinct sound with a clear identity, yet versatile and difficult to categorize. Elsewhere, the bass-heavy "RoodGroen" features Vieze Meisje (singer Maya Mertens) while the sonoric mayhem of "Smooch" mutates without border -- mischievous, dynamic and unpredictable at the same time. "Rave Fever" is rich cataclysm of sound and rhythm while the intriguing "You Have Got Me" and album closer "Kitsune" showcase the magnetic soundings of Bandler Ching.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: SCR 205CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell releases a new compilation album called Strange Loops & Outer Psych. The release marks the end of the campaign for Andy's second solo album Flicker (SCR 200CD/LP), which came out to great acclaim in February 2022, and rounds up 16 tracks from his recent run of three EPs -- I Am A Strange Loop (SCR 207LP), The Grounding Process (SCR 204LP) and Untitled Film Stills (SCR 206LP) -- that were made up of remixes, acoustic versions, and covers of songs that inspired the album. The new CD release includes four tracks that weren't included on the original limited-edition vinyl releases. It also includes his fuzzed-up cover of Yoko Ono's song "Listen, The Snow Is Falling" -- which was recently given the official seal of approval when Yoko herself tweeted the video -- and the majestic Maps remix of "It Gets Easier", as heard on Lauren Laverne's show on BBC Radio 6 Music. There are further remixes by David Holmes, Richard Norris, bdrmm, A Place To Bury Strangers, and Claude Cooper, as well as covers of songs by The Kinks, Arthur Russell, and Pentangle and five fragile acoustic takes on album tracks. "Almost a year to the day since I released my second album Flicker, here is a technicolor companion piece that pulls together the tracks from the EPs to color in the edges of the record," says Andy. "Influences, stripped down acoustic reworks and remixes by my friends, comrades and heroes all hopefully help the listener see where my head was when I made Flicker, but also it stands up as a decent listen in its own right." The CD was mastered in New York by Heba Kadry and is sequenced like a mixtape, which makes for a proper listening experience. "Hatful Of Hollow is my favorite Smiths album, just saying," explains Andy.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: SP 012STD-LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Volker Bertelmann and Hildur Guðnadóttir hardly need an introduction -- their distinct styles have graced the speakers of pretty much anyone enamored with experimental music in the last decade, and between them the two have chalked up an enviable canon of successes. Bertelmann, under the Hauschka moniker has explored the extremities of prepared piano improvisation, and Guðnadóttir has taken cinematic, explorative cello music into a new era of depth and passion, so to hear them both together is a rare and unexpected treat. Rare is putting it lightly even -- Pan Tone is a recording of a single concert which the duo performed on the 26th of February 2010 as part of Arctic Circle -- Bubbly Blue and Green festival at Kings Place in London, and documents an event that would truly never be repeated. Sure, they could attempt to re-create the event, but the spontaneity and glorious serendipity in this particular recording is a pleasure to behold. Bertelmann and Guðnadóttir decided to create a set of compositions which based on the idea of the ocean, and took a book of Pantones to extract exact references to the specific colors of the sea. These watery tones form the backbone of the performance and inform the direction of the collaboration, guiding us through rich blues, glassy greens and frothy whites. In listening to the music, it seems incredibly appropriate that the artists should choose blue as the middle ground in their work; the ineffable lightness that Bertelmann brings to the table is a stark contrast to Guðnadóttir's sinking darkness, and as the two styles collide you witness a plethora of tones, shades and hues. It sounds as if the two artists have been playing together for decades, and their sound is so perfectly matched you might wonder why it's taken them this long to collaborate. All that's left for you to do is to soak in the tidal beauty of this very exclusive body of music, to listen to it sing, bubble and crash through its duration before settling in total silence. When the record reaches its conclusion there is an unsettling calm, a sense that you have witnessed something very special indeed, and that is a feeling to prize amongst all else. 2022 repress; white vinyl; full tone cover artwork; printed inner sleeve; includes download code; edition of 500.

 

PRICE: $40.00

CAT #: SP 033LTD-LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

To Move is a new project by the trio of Anna Rose Carter (Moon Ate the Dark), Ed Hamilton (Dead Light), and Alex Kozobolis. Four-handed piano meets analog manipulations to absolute wondrous effect from the London based friends. You're carried into a time and place not afraid to embrace a sense of optimism -- even if it comes wrapped in a certain distorted shape. Transporting, blissful tones emanate free of concerns from the unifying keys; at least until the melodies are pulled and dragged from purity to become something wholly else -- their own lived life; fitted with obstructions and unpredictability. The intertwining pianos linger like lovers in unison, full of drift, rhythm and life; all while analog electronics and tape manipulations degrade and move them from their original form and closer towards earth itself. The album came to light while Anna and Ed were temporarily residing in the English countryside between 2016 and 2019. Musical weekend visits from Alex turned into the fruitful collaboration presented here. To Move is a compelling musical storyboard with a name that captures the essence of their music better than any written essay could do. This is music to resonate to, music to dance to, music to engulf your being. As for fans of the Sonic Pieces sound -- if there is one -- this record hits as close to home as it could do. Handmade textiled artwork; printed inner sleeve; includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: SONOR 023CS

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Sonor Music Editions presents a collection of rare and obscure recordings by the composer and trumpeter genius Cicci Santucci on cassette, all transferred and remastered by Lorenzo Fabrizi from 1980s lost reels, vinyl, and tapes. All the tracks have been privately produced and recorded at Cicci Santucci's own studio between 1982 and 1987 for the TV synchronization, spots, and background usage. Enjoy the maestro's crazy cosmic synths, Italo-disco, and electronics galore, for a spacey trip into the most obscure and weird production music ever. Edition of 200.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: SONOR 024CS

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Sonor Music Editions presents the full soundtrack of Spell (Dolce Mattatoio) from 1977, also known as L'uomo, La Donna, La Bestia, on cassette format. Maestro Claudio Tallino signed the music for the censored erotic thriller movie directed by the visionary genius Alberto Cavallone. A shocking, freaky, and occult storyline set in the province of Rome, scene of shady affairs and private dramas that protagonists try to hide behind a fake respectability. Stunning and booming Italian OST, filled with scary voices, groovy rhythms and themed horror/thriller vibes, now presented for the very first time in its full version. Edition of 200.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: SNS 021CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Full title: One Day I Was So Sad That The Corners Of My Mouth Met & Everybody Thought I Was Whistling. Bladder Flask's debut (in fact only) LP, originally issued by Orgel Fesper Music in 1981, is one of the most eclectic albums of the post-industrial era. It is both challenging and perplexing... So, put down your puny instruments of normality and breathe in the frenzied fungal spores of Bladder Flask. The fact that Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound is a big fan of this album is testament to its greatness: "I love Bladder Flask's One Day I Was So Sad That The Corners Of My Mouth Met & Everybody Thought I Was Whistling and what a great title, perhaps my favorite ever. I must have listened to the album so much in the '80s. I listened to it again recently and it was like welcoming an old friend." Personnel: Richard Rupenus, Philip Rupenus + Sean Breadin, John Mylotte, Nigel Jacklin. Recorded at Wrongrong Studio and Spectro Arts Workshop 1980-1981. Audio restoration and mastering: Colin Potter @ IC Studio.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: SNS 022CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Reissue, originally released in 1984. P16.D4 was a German electronic noise music collective, active primarily from 1980 to 1988. P16.D4 embraced tape cut-ups, musique concrète, endless recycling, and transformation of previously published material, and many long-distance collaborations with like-minded artists such as DDAA, Vortex Campaign, Nurse With Wound, and Merzbow. Their active participation in the international industrial tape scene yielded collaborative output such as their release Distruct, where bands such as Nurse with Wound, Nocturnal Emissions, Die Tödliche Doris, and The Haters provided the source material. The longest-term collaboration was with the installation and conceptual artist Achim Wollscheid, who used P16.D4 sounds as the basis for LPs he recorded under the name SBOTHI. Ralf Wehowsky, the only constant member of the group, later released solo material under the alias RLW. Members of P16.D4 were also involved with Selektion, a collective of people involved with sound as well as the visual arts. Selektion published LPs, CDs, books, visual art and design. The collective worked in a strongly improvised, spontaneous and anti-professional way, using acoustic and electronic instruments, using existing sound fragments, duplicating and alienating them, using repetition, distortion, changes in speed and playing direction. For this they used not only sounds of other artists but also their own material from earlier productions. Late works of the collective are associated with musique concrete."This music is staggeringly original and innovative, and while it's possible to locate it in a chain of circumstance that links it to 'industrial' music, P16.D4 indulged in none of the empty cliches associated with the genre, worked incredibly hard, and seem to have been aiming at a form of sound art that was much more profound, varied, subversive, and potentially dangerous. Kühe In 1/2 Trauer's accompanying credits indicate their radical approach to making music: lots of improvisation, lots of live electronics, extensive use of tape-loops, some conventional instrumentation, and much that isn't -- like the milk churn on 'Paris, Morgue' or the use of baking tray and washing machine elsewhere. Even when guitars, drums or keyboards are used, they're played very weirdly. It's not even made clear who was doing what; the main credit is 'Concept,' which I assume means that one of the three devised the framework in which the noise would operate itself, and while RLW gets the lion's share of these credits, a lot of the cuts are evenly divided among the team and I have no doubt that the group operated in a very democratic or libertarian manner. None of this prepares you for the insane and troubling sounds that reach your ears, composed with scant regard for conventional logic and following an exciting, absurdist path, especially in the matter of tape edits and juxtapositions of recordings." --Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: SNS 023CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Reissue, originally released in 1984. P16.D4 was a German electronic noise music collective, active primarily from 1980 to 1988. P16.D4 embraced tape cut-ups, musique concrète, endless recycling, and transformation of previously published material, and many long-distance collaborations with like-minded artists such as DDAA, Vortex Campaign, Nurse With Wound, and Merzbow. Their active participation in the international industrial tape scene yielded collaborative output such as their release Distruct, where bands such as Nurse with Wound, Nocturnal Emissions, Die Tödliche Doris, and The Haters provided the source material. The longest-term collaboration was with the installation and conceptual artist Achim Wollscheid, who used P16.D4 sounds as the basis for LPs he recorded under the name SBOTHI. Ralf Wehowsky, the only constant member of the group, later released solo material under the alias RLW. Members of P16.D4 were also involved with Selektion, a collective of people involved with sound as well as the visual arts. Selektion published LPs, CDs, books, visual art and design. The collective worked in a strongly improvised, spontaneous and anti-professional way, using acoustic and electronic instruments, using existing sound fragments, duplicating and alienating them, using repetition, distortion, changes in speed and playing direction. For this they used not only sounds of other artists but also their own material from earlier productions. Late works of the collective are associated with musique concrete."On this, their second LP, P16.D4 solicited tapes from several artists from Europe, England, the U.S., Canada, and Japan, and mixed that with their own material. Though in the current digital age collaborations from artists thousands of miles apart is quite normal, this was a quite radical approach back in 1982, when work on this LP began -- an interesting concept that actually works quite well, since these artists, which include Bladder Flask, DDAA, the Haters, Merzbow, Nocturnal Emissions, Nurse With Wound, and several others -- work in a similar free-ranging experimentalism as P16.D4, and their particular elements, usually just vocals or one instrument or noise implement, blend well without diluting P16.D4's own peculiar brand of avant-garde post-industrialism, but merely give it another facet. One of the best tracks, 'Aufmarsch, Heimlich,' consists of a choir submitted anonymously from Eastern Europe phasing in and out of static while a skronky alto sax bleats away. Most of the pieces exist somewhere just beyond the borders of free jazz, industrial, and even classical avant-garde, full of jarring noises and strange transitions and with a heavy overlay of electronics. What started out as an experiment yielded one of P16.D4's best albums." --Rolf Semprebon/AllMusic

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: FFL 076CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

First ever reissue. Paris, 1965. Pianist François Tusques laid the foundation stone of French-style free jazz with his first, soberly titled, album Free Jazz. Also in the team were several future key names of the French scene, (Michel Portal, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin, Charles Saudrais, and François Jeanneau) all of whom honed their skills at the beginning of the decade in Jef Gilson's groups, although he was none too fond of the turbulent new face of jazz at the time. Ten years later, Jef Gilson had obviously changed his tune, as the label Palm that he had created in 1973 was now the launch pad for what would become the cream of French and international avant-garde jazz. This would notably be the case for François Jeanneau and Une Bien Curieuse Planète. His first album as leader (after briefly erring into pop with Triangle) was recorded in 1975, a few months after Watch Devil Go (FFL 071CD/LP) by his old friend Jacques Thollot, and with more or less the same casting: Jeanneau on sax of course, Jenny-Clark on bass and percussions, Lubat replacing Thollot on drums, and Michel Grailler (plucked out of Magma) was called in as a reinforcement for his completely "out of space" synthesizer sounds. Thus began a strange trip to a very strange planet, at the border of experimental jazz and swinging avant-garde. From 1960 to nowadays, from Georges Arvanitas to Laetitia Shériff, from Manu Dibango to "Mama" Béa Tékielski, everyone has wanted to play with François Jeanneau at some point. There is a good reason for this. The saxophonist is a formidable improviser, but also a solid composer, as he demonstrates on this record with, for example, the monumental "Droit d'Asile", the spooky "Theme For An Unknown Island" or the Coltranesque "Mr J.C. For Ever". Over half a century later, the planet seems far more familiar to us. And François Jeanneau is always on the front line for a guided tour. Carefully remastered and restored by Gilles Laujol. Graphic design by Stefan Thanneur. Licensed from Palm / Geneviève Quievreux.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: SP 029LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. 45 rpm; includes download code. In hindsight, the pairing of Chris Madak and Donato Dozzy was inevitable from the moment when the two connected on Mount Naeba, Japan at the storied Labyrinth party last fall. Both artists have worked to craft singular visions unlike anything else happening in electronic music today, yet despite each producer's unmistakable individuality, there is a deeper reservoir of shared sensibility between them which makes Donato Dozzy Plays Bee Mask feel like a logical and necessary event. 2012 saw the release of Madak's monumental When We Were Eating Unripe Pears (SP 023LP) album along with the astounding Vaporware 12" for Room 40, the title-track of which opened Bee Mask's Labyrinth performance to memorable effect. Dozzy had an equally massive year thanks the release of the acclaimed Voices from the Lake (PRG 001CD/003LP) album with Neel, which set the bar for intricate, subtle, and forward-thinking contemporary techno at a new high. Both artists have pushed the respective boundaries of their work to arrive at the point of this crucial and welcome overlap: a double album of material from the Vaporware sessions, re-imagined as only Dozzy could do it. Initially commissioned for a single remix, Dozzy found so much possibility in the source material that he turned in over an hour of material, making a standalone release the only reasonable course of action. The results are absolutely divine, a suite of seven pieces of time-stopping bliss in which the structure and melodies of Vaporware glitter through the prism of Dozzy's singular production style. The meeting of these powerful minds provides evidence of an unparalleled organic chemistry. When listening to these works we hear the worlds of Bee Mask and Donato Dozzy bleed into one another, creating a new sonic entity with a life of its own -- one which with any luck will not end at this release. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, May 2013.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: MASO 90037LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Spittle Records present a reissue of The Durutti Column's Red Shoes, originally released in 1992 on Materiali Sonori. First ever reissue on vinyl. Red Shoes includes eight new recordings (dated early 1992), five unreleased tracks, a new version of "When The World" and more sophisticated rendition of "For Madeleine" and "For Zinni". Vini develops his musical journey using fascinating licks for guitar, steeped in new age, minimalism, soft electric folk, and ambient music (and it's important to note that Vini's style has been long informed by kosmische heroes such as Manuel Göttsching or Günter Schickert and even John Martyn). The album offers even the reissue of the mini album Greetings Three, a very important goal for the band and the label Materiali Sonori. In fact, the four tracks included on this record -- released in 1985 -- have been explicitly dedicated to Italy, Tuscany and to new Italian friends. Along with Vini Reilly you will find the talent of Bruce Mitchell (drums) and John Metcalfe (violin) on display. Licensed from Materiali Sonori.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: SQM 020CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

On his debut album, Childish Mind, guitarist Jonathan Bockelmann presents a series of light, serene acoustic guitar vignettes. The Munich-born musician has studied classical guitar for about two decades, perfecting his technique and gaining mastery of the instrument. Childish Mind sees him explore a new compositional path by crafting delicately interwoven melodies for the acoustic guitar. From the gentle webs and patterns Jonathan creates, there's a sense of meditativeness throughout the album -- his music radiates out, filling moments with a sense of ease and calmness.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: SOD 131LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Since the late aughts, Helsinki-based multi-instrumentalist, linguist, and skateboarder Olli Aarni has released a steady stream of diverse and remarkably consistent recordings via labels such as Mappa, Longform Editions, Cotton Goods, Laaps, and Superpang. Koko Maailma constitutes a major new work in his discography, finding a fertile middle ground between what might be understood as his two primary compositional modes: organic/chaotic/aleatoric music and rule-based, longform works of minimalism. The source material for these compositions was recorded exclusively using the Serge system at EMS Stockholm, but the timbres that Aarni arrives at do not recall archetypal Serge music as most know it. Meticulous editing and processing of the material with an array of digital tools has resulted in music that preserves the erratic and cybernetic character of the Serge system but sounds totally unique unto itself. The first piece, "Ylhäällä," has the sonic character of fireflies at dusk or ants in the dirt -- mercurial, hypnotic, flittering, and scattering tones presented in the spirit of the best environmental music. "Alhaalla" functions almost like a zoomed-out impression of what precedes it, with just intonation tuning applied to sine wave generators to create grid-like, harmonically rich, and surprisingly emotive drone music. Micro and macro -- two pieces of music, two perspectives of a world. Includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: SIR 016LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

2023 repress. 2019 release. Praised by Quentin Tarantino as one of the greatest films from Australian new wave cinema, Next Of Kin (1982) was a highly stylized psychological thriller in the bloody tradition of European art-horror. Scored by none other than ex-Tangerine Dream/Ash Ra Tempel drummer and German electronic music pioneer, Klaus Schulze, the music featured in the film was a unique hybrid of pulsing Giallo-moods and hypnotic Berlin-School electronica. Due to the limited availability of the film over the years, rumors have long circulated amongst horror film fans as well as 'Krautrock' enthusiasts alike that a lost Klaus Schulze soundtrack existed. Commissioned to write the score, it is true that Schulze composed an original full-length soundtrack for Next Of Kin, although for editorial reasons the complete score was rejected at the last moment by the filmmakers in favor of using pre-existing tracks from Schulze's studio albums. The final soundtrack consisted of partial elements of this rejected score together with various pieces of early '80s Schulze recordings edited and re-contextualized. Finally rediscovered, the music has been assembled and presented here exactly as featured in the film, documenting a previously lost entry of German kosmische musik soundtracking a forgotten piece of Australian Gothic. Remastered from the original master tapes.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: SIR 021LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 repress. 2021 release. Following in the footsteps of the landmark 1966 double-quartet recording by Joe Harriott and John Mayer, Indian born musician Amancio D'Silva produced some of the most adventurous and sophisticated recordings within the canon of "Indo-jazz", a term used to define a pioneering east meets west synthesis that reflected the shifting musical and cultural landscape of post-war Britain. An experiment which reached a pinnacle in 1972 with D'Silva's seminal recording Dream Sequence by Cosmic Eye, an adventurous fusion of modal jazz and Indian classical music viewed through the psychedelic lens of swinging London. Exotic third-stream jazz conceived by a visionary composer whose virtuosic technique and deeply emotive guitar playing defined his two earlier and now legendary 1969 UK jazz albums Integration and Hum Dono with Joe Harriott, both recorded for the much-celebrated Lansdowne label. Also recorded in 1972, although not released at the time, was Konkan Dance, an unofficial sequel to Dream Sequence that further explored the unchartered possibilities of an Indian music-jazz fusion. Featuring many of the same personnel, this session also included support from Don Rendell and Alan Branscombe, two giants of the UK jazz scene who add serious credentials to D'Silva's singular and intimate compositions. For reasons unknown the album was cancelled by Lansdowne at the time and never saw the light of day until being resurrected again in the 2000s. The Roundtable showcase this important artist and present a new addition of this incredible and almost forgotten piece of the Amancio D'Silva story. Includes liner notes and rare photos. Custom 1960s-style flip-back sleeve; 180 gram vinyl.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: SIR 023LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 repress. 2022 release. It is widely accepted that the recorded musical output of Indian-born British guitarist Amancio D'Silva came to a premature closure with the landmark 1972 albums, Cosmic Eye and the unreleased masterpiece Konkan Dance. The Roundtable are here to prove otherwise, announcing the discovery of an extraordinary lost recording. Forty years after it was recorded, the label present Sapana, the forgotten piece of a remarkable musical legacy, the final recording from one the most singular artists to emerge from the British Jazz scene of the 1960s/'70s. Recorded in 1983 and released here for the first time, Sapana is thematically akin to Cosmic Eye, a further musical exploration into the subconscious (Dream Sequences) imagined with traditional Hindustani and western improvisation. A spellbinding fusion of Indian raga and new-age jazz. Celebrated as a pioneer of the "Indo-jazz" movement of the 1960s, D'Silva's adventurous synthesis of modal jazz and Indian classical music defined the seminal 1969 Lansdowne jazz recordings Hum Dono and Integration. Here you find D'Silva fifteen years later, removed from the jazz scene, and musically in place of deep introspection and meditative tranquility. The recording features sitarist Clem Alford, a collaborator from the Konkan Dance sessions, plus renowned tabla player, Jahlib Millar, and saxophonist/flautist Lyn Dobson, a musician who had previously worked with Soft Machine, Third Ear Band, and Henry Lowther. Together the quartet produce deeply evocative music which transcends the realms of both jazz and Indian music. Includes liner notes by renowned jazz writer Francis Gooding. Custom flip-back sleeve; 180 gram vinyl.

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: TMR 395LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2017 release. "The Blue Room at Third Man shook with the sludge-drone majesty of Olympia, Washington's Earth. Anchored by wife-husband duo Adrienne Davies and Dylan Carlson, this band has an integral spot in American music by bringing a low-frequency uproar and six-string extremism to the forefront of the experimental, punk metal underground. More concisely, they are widely considered the pioneers of drone metal. The band built their reputation on widely respected albums, starting with Sub Pop and moving to current home Southern Lord. Using the device of repetition, the band disarms and transforms first impressions with a performance so plodding and insistent that each song is stretched to its limits. The set spanned their catalog with four first-class compositions, employing powerful guitar drones and Davies' precise, slow-motion percussion swirling throughout."

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: TOYT 136EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Blessed Madonna, Pete Tong, Gerd Janson, Ash Lauryn... the list of great DJs playing and loving Sam Ruffillo's very special Italian disco music is long. With only three EPs on Toy Tonics, he might be the most talked about producer on the Berlin label (with Cody Currie and Coeo). One of his Italian disco songs form his last EP Italianissimo ("Chiamami Subito") made it into the high rotation playlist of the biggest Italian pop radio and is still growing in the international club underground. Now Sam comes with a new EP. And this EP shows his other side. Until now Sam has been known for his Italian organic disco songs (no samples, all instruments played live). But for his new Brooklyn Tapes EP the Italo-Sicilian DJ, producer and super styler Sam Ruffillo worked with a few American rappers and soul singers to create what a New York critic called "post digital soul house music." In fact these four songs are house and electronic funk -- but it's also rap music and R&B and disco. Played in a very modern way, musically colorful and complex and extremely groovy. Its dance music made by musicians -- not by DJs. And that makes a big difference. The melodic and harmonic elements are catchy and clever, the chord progressions are beautiful and the syncopated bass lines make you think about great bass play by maestros like Bootsy Collins or Marcus Miller (musicians know them!) It's a rap house and disco soul EP and it features a well-known Canadian rapper (who decided to stay anonymous) as well as Edson Sean, soul singer and composer from New York. For Toy Tonics this is one more step in the evolution of high-quality dancefloor music for the future. Combining house with soul, jazz with four-to-the-floor beats, disco with indie, the Toy Tonics crew is working hard on new forms of quality dance music. And finding the most interesting new artists. With Sam Ruffillo, and the other American artists on Toy Tonics (NY singer Kosmo Kint, American jazz keyboardist Joel Holmes...) the label is bringing together what's internationally new in the dance world -- with no borders and no limits... Remixes for this EP by some of Sam's fans: Ash Lauryn from Detroit, Eli Escobar from New York, and Art Of Tones from France.

 

PRICE: $19.50

CAT #: TDP 54020LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Limited 2023 restock. Trading Places present a reissue of Jan Dukes de Grey's Mice And Rats In The Loft, originally released in 1971. Led by the inscrutably gnomic Derek Noy, Yorkshire-based outfit Jan Dukes de Grey briefly emerged in the late '60s to deliver two of the rarest, most sought-after albums in the British acid folk lexicon, their 1969 debut Sorcerers and the extraordinary Mice And Rats In The Loft, here represented in all its beauty. One of the most mysterious and iconoclastic albums of the whole hippie era. Licensed from BMG.

 

PRICE: $19.50

CAT #: TDP 54027LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Limited 2023 restock. Trading Places present a reissue of Bridget St. John's Songs For The Gentle Man, originally released in 1971. The English singer and guitarist Bridget St. John was introduced to the bourgeoning London folk scene by guitarist John Martyn, her rich and unusually deep voice being highly distinctive. BBC Radio disc jockey John Peel became one of her greatest champions, and when Peel formed the Dandelion label in 1969 with former Elektra record plugger Clive Selwood, the original intention was to issue St John's music. Following debut album from 1969, Ask Me No Questions (TDP 54013LP), which featured Martyn on a few tracks, the 1971 follow-up Songs For The Gentle Man was produced by Ron Geesin, who supplied a more orchestrated arrangement with woodwinds; the album also features a cover of Donovan's "The Pebble And The Man". Licensed from Cherry Red. 180 gram vinyl.

 

PRICE: $19.50

CAT #: TDP 54050LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Trading Places present a reissue of Mighty Baby's self-titled album, originally released in 1969. The obscure British prog band Mighty Baby evolved from an earlier group called The Action, a London Mod act that signed to Parlophone after building a strong live reputation, with guitarist Alan King, bassist Mike Evans and drummer Roger Powell, later expanded to include former Savoy Brown guitarist Martin Stone and keyboardist/sax player, Ian Whiteman. Moving heavily into experimental psychedelia in 1969, they cut this incredible debut album for the Head label, which is rightly hailed as one of the greatest psychedelic records of all time. With jazz, blues and improvisational references abounding, tracks like "Egyptian Tomb" and "House Without Windows", the latter with its dramatic stereo drum panning, demonstrate why this disc is such a lost classic. 180 gram vinyl; gatefold sleeve. Licensed by Cherry Red.

 

PRICE: $19.50

CAT #: TDP 54056LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock. Trading Places present a reissue of Agincourt's Fly Away, originally released in 1970. During the mid-1960s, deep in the Sussex countryside of southern England, aspiring musicians Peter Howell and John Ferdinando played in a few school bands before recording together in Howell's father's garage. Through Ferdinando's connections with a theater group, the duo created a musical companion for their production of Alice Through The Looking Glass, which the duo pressed privately; then, Fly Away, credited to Agincourt, was produced in a spare bedroom, an advertisement bringing Lee Menelaus, whose lilting voice provided a stirring female counterpart to theirs. Much of this psychedelic folk oddity has a quaint innocence fitting of the era and along with English folk-rock there are shades of pop, a touch of West Coast and even jazz in places. Pressed in minute quantity on another private press, original copies have been known to sell for £1500 or more; the duo continued recording, notably on work credited to Ithaca, before Howell became a full-time member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, where he notably worked on the Doctor Who theme. Licensed from Cherry Red.

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: WWSLP 030LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

2023 restock. Sidney Lumet's masterpiece Serpico released in 1973 is one of the most iconic movies of the '70s. Featuring a career-defining performance by Al Pacino in the title role, it's a superb neo noir encapsulating the post-Watergate mood of the early '70s. The film's soundtrack by Mikis Theodorakis is equally stunning. Composed by Greek musician and arranged by cult jazz pianist Bob James, it is a superb blend of funky instrumental and traditional melodies reminiscent of The Godfather OST. The soundtrack didn't have an easy start. To begin with, Sidney Lumet didn't want any music for the film, which, he thought, was self-sufficient. However, under the pressure of producer Dino de Laurentiis, he finally bowed and agreed to hire a composer. Lumet thought about Mikis Theodorakis who had famously penned the classic score for Zorba The Greek. The composer was just out of jail in Greece for political activism and was busy preparing a North American tour but he duly accepted the task. However, he said he could only compose the music and not perform it. Lumet agreed and turned to Quincy Jones for advice, the musician having scored Lumet's film The Deadly Affair in 1966. Jones recommended a young pianist and arranger named Bob James he had worked with, who could help put Theodorakis's composition into recorded music. James was hired on the spot to arrange the score and oversee the recording sessions adding a few cues in the process. The result is a stunning masterwork taking Theodorakis's great themes and reworking them in a skillful mix of traditional arrangements and cool jazz-funk tracks like "Honest Cop" and the stunningly funky "On The Streets". James doesn't remember much of the session players he says in the interview he gave for Wewantsounds' release, but they would have included the usual jazz funk suspects who were playing on his CTI sessions. Newly remastered from the original tapes by Colorsound Studio in Paris. Features a stunning gatefold designed by American illustrator Eric Adrian Lee including authoritative notes by British film and music critic Jason Wood with an insightful Bob James interview reminiscing about the production of this superb soundtrack.