News & Events

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: SILK 150LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"From the forests of Cascadia to the rippling tropics of the Gulf Coast, Hunter P. Thompson's music as Akasha System both reflects and refracts the environment of its origin -- equal parts mirror, mixing desk, and meditation chamber. His latest, Phytopia, skews even loftier, a private portal into a primordial world of mist and mystery, framed by crystalline rivers, rainbow canopies, and hanging gardens. He describes its wavelength as 'a waking vision,' teeming with 'life, chaos, and magic.' Crafted across the past three years in his recently departed Portland, Oregon basement haven, Green House, the album's nine tracks unfold with a shimmering, cellular symmetry -- prehistoric and preordained, lush ecosystems in hidden harmony. A composite of synths, software, and spatial finesse, this is Akasha System at its most attuned and eternal, a forever expanding universe of percolating rhythm and fragrant air."

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: ACIDTEST 019EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Detroit's Marcellus Pittman returns to Acid Test following his Unknown Species track featured on the 10 Years of Acid Test compilation, he's back with his debut EP for the label. Juddering mechanical beats, layered percussion and gurgling 303 basslines are on the menu, from one of Detroit's finest. Housed in a full-color sleeve, with a photo by Marcellus himself.

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: AK 061LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Disco Club is a groundbreaking 1978 EP of experimental electronic disco created by Bernard Fèvre and his collaborator under their tongue-in-cheek aliases Joachim Sherylee and Junior Claristidge. The Aphex Twin-backed Rephlex label notably reworked a handful of Disco Club tracks in 2004, however this is the first ever reissue of the EP in its complete, originally intended sequence. So synonymous is Fèvre's career with this release, he continues to perform internationally as Black Devil Disco Club today. An impossibly rare piece, this edition has been treated to a remaster from the original tapes by Fèvre himself.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: AD 009EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. This is the one! The legendary Gemini 12" that has been pushing Discogs prices up to £250 for years. One of the enigmatic producer's more obscure releases, Gemini's Get Down EP showcases some bumpy electronics on the title track, then rolls out some of his signature bassline and moody stabs on "A Tight Grip". The B-side sees the great man flip a disco sample with some spiky percussion on "Turn Da Music", and back to some classic Gemini beeps and noises on "Ca". This is one reissue you don't want to miss. Profits from this release will go directly to Spencer Kincy.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: AMAC 725CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

The trio Amiira of Klaus Gesing, Björn Meyer, and Samuel Rohrer has returned after a layoff of six years since their debut LP. It would be unwise to expect for them to pick up exactly where they left off, given all the turbulent change that the world has encountered since this time, and indeed the new album Curious Objects reflects a clear expansion of the players' abilities. The fundamentals that guided the debut album -- spatiality, refined coolness, the non-verbal "narrative" quality -- are still very much present. Personnel: Klaus Gesing - bass clarinet, soprano sax, effects; Björn Meyer - electric bass, effects; Samuel Rohrer - drums, electronics, mod synths.

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: AMAC 725LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

LP version. The trio Amiira of Klaus Gesing, Björn Meyer, and Samuel Rohrer has returned after a layoff of six years since their debut LP. It would be unwise to expect for them to pick up exactly where they left off, given all the turbulent change that the world has encountered since this time, and indeed the new album Curious Objects reflects a clear expansion of the players' abilities. The fundamentals that guided the debut album -- spatiality, refined coolness, the non-verbal "narrative" quality -- are still very much present. Personnel: Klaus Gesing - bass clarinet, soprano sax, effects; Björn Meyer - electric bass, effects; Samuel Rohrer - drums, electronics, mod synths.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: AUS 017LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Mark Hawkins readies Venn Diagram album for Aus Music. Mark Hawkins's early releases on labels such as Djax Up Beats and Ugly Funk lit flares in the world of underground techno, with a sense of humor and tougher-than-thou sonic palette enforced via his jacking live sets. Across the following decades, Mark has delivered razor sharp cuts that encompass pretty much anything that has an electronic heart -- leaving his own unique trail for others to follow via his work for labels as diverse as Dixon Avenue Basement Jams, Sonic Mind, Mistress Recordings, Houndstooth, and Aus. With his latest album, it feels like Mark has pushed ahead with a change of direction he started with 2021's The New Normal. Venn Diagram carries on this journey into uncharted lands; molten, distorted drum assaults weave around glistening melodies, kitchen sink soul glides below fractured sound pools. Opener "Verblex Oscillos" immediately demands your attention grabbing, with a so-happy-it's-sad melody spiraling around a cascade of tough-as-fuck dance floor destroying beats, along with the urgent combination of strings, acid, and Chicago-tough electro beats on "Isolated". Other cuts on the album share a similar approach, the restless energy of "Maladayfun Friction" derives from a fusion of skittering drums and deranged synths and the dreamy super saw pads and plaintive vocal of "Still Have Time" espouses a kind of wasted elegance, roaming the city nightlife in a Gucci dress and Doc Martin boots. "Nlasckhdsjk" and "Frederikalstublieft" propel forward with such a sleek and effervescent aesthetic, recalling fast drives along picturesque European highways or heady take-offs to unknown urban territories. The aesthetic becomes more elegant on the album's centerpoint tracks "Rebula Conundrum" and "Nlasckhdsjk", where optimistic bleeps, bass and 707 drums underpin jazzy chords and soaring leads. Other tracks show the arc of Mark's direction of travel, with soulful vocals that share a well of deep-rooted optimism that was so evident on his breakthrough 2016 Social Housing album. "L.O.V.E." breaks into post-Sophie territory with a catchy modulated vocal joyfully two-stepping across to the nightclub bar and "How Do I Know" providing a heart-rending torch song for 6am kicking-out-time refugees to help them find their way back home.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: AR 055EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Avantroots is one of the leading dub related labels in recent years taking the genre to its furthest and freshest perspectives while still respecting the history and the figures inside it. One of those historical figures is the legendary Linval Thompson whose credits and list of those he influenced are pages long. To have Linval be the lead on this project truly makes this a unique and special release. "World Crisis" is Linval's message and it is as definitive as ever. There is a lot of thought put into each step and portion of this project. The overall traditional dub concept is to feature different voices over the same instrumental where this, flips the script and each version has a different electronic music producer add their talents to create their own signature account. The result is an extraordinary and well composed EP. Deepchord, Deepnaut, Pulshar, and Braulio Lam were specifically chosen to head up this treasured task of taking "World Crisis" into their realms.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: BNSD 075LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

5 x 4 is a new solo collection from award-winning Finnish composer, producer, and musician Laura Naukkarinen, recorded at Elektronmusikstudion EMS in Stockholm using the historic Buchla 200 modular synthesizer, an AKG BX20 spring reverb, and, on two songs, her voice. The album shows yet another side of her singular musical universe, by turns aquatic and meditative, always pulsing with energy. Lau Nau's ninth solo album, 5 x 4 is being released by her longtime co-conspirators Fonal (Finland) and Beacon Sound (US). Composed and recorded at EMS over a period of five years, the title is a reference to the Buchla's sequencer, which has five steps and four tracks, thus creating the characteristic five-beat tempo behind the compositions. The eight tracks that comprise 5 x 4 fluctuate between different moods: the contemplative hum of "Isopoda"; the coral-like tones and lush vocal melodies of lead single "Sessilia"; and the carbonated radiance of "Hyperiidea" and "Amphipoda". RIYL: Laurie Spiegel's Expanding Universe, Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green.Artist statement: "I've been composing for five years at Elektronmusikstudion's Buchla. When I started the project, I wanted to compose about the change in the living conditions of plankton in the Baltic Sea and the variation in their biomass, but soon the logic and sound of the instrument took me with it. I started composing music for marine life, forgetting all the strict boundaries of the subject. The world of crustaceans and zooplankton opens up in the music: darkness and the light filtered by the eutrophicated sea alternate under the surface, the salinity of the sea varies and the turbidity of the water makes the observations soft and without contours."

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: BEC 5156049

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

2023 restock. Zbigniew Preisner is a self-educated Polish film score composer who first won renown for his collaborations with influential Polish director and screenwriter Krzysztof Kieslowski. As part of its reissue series focusing on Preisner's work with Kieslowski, Because Music presents a reissue of Preisner's score for Kieslowski's Three Colors: White (1994), the second film in Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy (BEC 5156047), following Blue (BEC 5156048) and preceding Red (BEC 5156050). White stars Zbigniew Zamachowski and Julie Delpy, and has been interpreted as an anti-comedy, in parallel with Blue (1993) as an anti-tragedy and Red (1994) an anti-romance. Preisner's soundtrack is performed by the Sinfonia Varsovia and the Silesian Philharmonic choir. Zbigniew Preisner has also worked with Jean Becker (on Élisa (1995), winner of the 1996 César Award for Best Music), Thomas Vinterberg (It's All About Love (2003)), and Claude Miller (Un secret (2007)). LP includes CD.

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: BEC 5543437

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock; double LP version. First vinyl edition; 180 gram vinyl; printed inner sleeves; includes CD. Because Music present a reissue of JJ Cale's Live, originally released in 1996. This live album features 14 classics, including "After Midnight", "Cocaine", and "Old Man". All tracks were recorded across several different shows: Carnegie Hall (New York, 1996), The Philharmonic (Munich, 1994), Flynn Theater (Burlington, 1993), The Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, 1994), The Hammersmith Apollo (London, 1994), The Sommerville Theater (Sommerville, 1993), and Park West (Chicago, 1990)."Cale's live performance style does nothing to quell his reputation for laid-back but pristine guitar playing and reserved Mississippi John Hurt-style delivery. A man who truly appreciates the value of restraint, Cale leaves plenty of room for his immaculate guitar lines, even to the point of irony on an ambling version of the previously insistent 'Mama Don't.' This collection, which was gleaned from an assortment of live shows dating from 1990-1996, finds Cale allowing his songs to unfold organically." --All Music

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: BE 017LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock. Reissue, originally released in 1986. A dreamlike dispatch from mid-80s Japan, the first and only Hallelujahs album is an entrancing and gentle work of psychedelic pop brilliance. In a series of informal studio sessions between 1985 and 1986, Shinji Shibayama (Nagisa Ni Te) gathered a group of friends, emerging luminaries from the burgeoning Kansai underground rock scene including Naoki Zushi (Hijokaidan, Spiral Stairs / ????), Ken Ichi "Idiot" Takayama (Idiot O'Clock), and Chie Mukai (Ché-SHIZU) to form what would become known as Hallelujahs. The result was a music of deep feeling and wonderment created through simple song craft and imbued with a sort of guileless magic. Their sole album presented a set of unvarnished songs, filled with vulnerable, intimate moments, caught on reel to reel, most often in single takes never to be repeated. The album was self-released in 1986 in a micro-edition of 300 copies. It was the first record by Shibayama's now revered ORG Records which would go on to introduce the world to the likes of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Reiko Kudo as well as his own group, Nagisa Ni Te. With affinities to the sounds of the Rough Trade and Flying Nun labels, the Paisley Underground and Galaxie 500, the Hallelujahs' Eat Meat, Swear an Oath is an utterly unique masterpiece that remains a touchstone for generations of like spirited artists in Japan and around the world. Black Editions is proud to present this all-time classic in a deluxe vinyl edition, remastered from the original tapes and presented in a heavy tip-on jacket with textured paper, mounted high quality print, foil stamped finishes and spot colors. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: BJR 076LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Following in the footsteps of L'Espròva, a record released in 2018 and Mantras, a body of long instrumental pieces, Ernest Bergez joins Jacques Puech, Elisa Trebouville, and Loup Uberto to explore the possibilities of a collective energy. L'Herbe De Détourne achieved to catch the vivid energy of the band playing live and combined it with all the sonic explorations the musicians had in mind for a long time, in a completely free state of mind. Themes and songs are wound up in complex rhythmic gears and follow one another in a continuous momentum. Freely digested, the traditional repertoire from the Massif Central mutates and hybridizes with invented forms, inspired by traditional Greek, Persian, and North African music... The result is music that is as much for the ears, the feet, as for the guts and perhaps the heart. It can be a ball, a concert, or a spontaneous ceremony. The Occitan language takes a central place, both as musical material and as a poetic and emotional springboard. Inspired by traditional canvases, a poetic form emerges and makes its way through the old words, passed from mouth to mouth. CD version includes one additional track.

 

PRICE: $19.50

CAT #: BORNBAD 069LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2021 restock; LP version. Includes six-page booklet. One, two, three... hold your breath for 40 minutes for a peregrination through a special kind of pop music "made in France" between 1967 and 1970, a mix of ribaldry, flashes of brilliance, and adventurous twists on familiar sounds. We will plunge into French-style pop, unapologetic and defiant; blue-white-and-red pop that does not take itself seriously, not out of line with its "yé-yé" contemporaries, who were themselves uninspired by the boring, commercial teenage music that dominated in France at that time. It is pop music fueled by creativity -- though not always well-focused -- with peculiar arrangements, inspired compositions, and precarious production... but oh so tasty! WIZZZ 3 spotlights French artists who dared to try, to experiment... Includes tracks by Dansez avec Moa, Bernard Chabert, Joanna, Pierre Paul Jacques, Evariste, Jean-Bernard de Libreville, Crischa, Long Chris, Nato, Papy, Fatty Nautty, Balthazar, Jane et Julie, Bruno Leys, and Marcel Artero.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: BORNBAD 092LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 restock; LP version. Includes an eight-page insert and a download code. The random-access memory of an hourglass. On the one hand, there's Cheveu, the French three-member band, whose soundtrack has never ceased to question music codes by exceeding various genres and pushing back their limits. On the other hand, you have Group Doueh, a Sahrawi band from the Sahara desert (Dakhla). Their music spans across many styles and hammers tradition with unprecedented finds. In between both their remote musical universes dwells a sound clash. It embodies the meeting between two arts of living music day by day, two ways of transmitting, of enchanting the world or refusing to do so, of exploring the repertoire as well as tradition and creation, two visions of the collective - the list of reasons why these guys should have probably never met or could have failed to get along is quite extensive. This piece was recorded in two weeks in Dakhla in January 2016. The mere project seemed like a surreal challenge, something that was almost impossible to achieve and for which time was going to hold major importance. It brought about a telluric big bang, an atomic creation, a story of primitive energies setting the record straight in the whole world. That is, two radically different understandings of time.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: BORNBAD 143LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock; LP version. Includes printed undercover and download code. In the ever-expanding universe of '70s and '80s French library music, Sauveur Mallia holds a special place; his career, multifaceted work and the uniqueness of his talent have made him an exemplary figure in the unsung world of library musicians. In those years a few of them, often for economic reasons, would set off on a space conquest, taking along just a few synthesizers. Their ambition well surpassed the modesty of their means; it was in turn the condition to their experimentations with sound which were to create a new sonic space: that of a nation tumbling into modernity. From French soil to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, there were just a few steps to take. It's with the label Tele Music, boarding the spaceship Arpadys, along with the Voyage crew, that Sauveur Mallia took the big leap.You had also formed Arpadys with the members of Voyage?: Arpadys was me with the same team. I composed, arranged and recorded Arpadys with the same producer as for Voyage, Roger Tokarz. In that period I was listening to German bands a lot, like Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. I was very much into space music and I started working at home with my synths. The approach was completely different than to what I was used to as a professional bass player.Which synthesizers were you using?: Old mono stuff, not even polyphonics. Three Korgs and some Moogs. I didn't use drum machines yet, but played with the drummer of Voyage. I recorded drum and guitar parts in the studio then went to England for the mixing. But most of the album was recorded at mine.When did you start making library music?: I always worked with Roger Tokarz, who produced Voyage and Arpadys. With my friends who were members of Voyage we also made library records for his label Tele Music with different themes we proposed based on sports, the news, etc. I worked in my studio. Originally Arpadys was a library record Roger wanted to commercially release, Industrial Rock. Not much came out of it at the time, yet its become really sought-after in recent years.Was library music a way to experiment freely?: Yes, I did what I wanted, without any restriction. Then people used it or they didn't. On each record, there were long versions of each track and we made 60, 30 and 15 second edits -- it gave medias the choice. The constraints came with custom sound-design for the radio, with jingles and France Info's credits I made at home solo with my machines for 17 years, then for RTL, Europe1, and for quite a few TV shows.

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: BELP 02220301LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Live From Vienna 1967 is an extremely rare, red-hot performance by Dave and his famous rhythm section -- Joe Morello, on drums, and Gene Wright on bass. alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond, missed the plane to Vienna and the remaining trio took the stage with a mission; show the packed hall that the three of them could play up a storm despite being one man down. Each musician in the trio was at the top of their game and each player was forced to stretch out their solos which landed them in new creative territories. The communication of musical concepts between Dave and Joe is extraordinary as they improvise boldly and respond to each other's fresh ideas. Gene Wright solos far more than usual on this album and his playing is a fitting tribute to the longest living member of the Quartet. (Gene died on December 30th, 2020.) Dave Brubeck plays masterfully revealing a rhythmic complexity to his approach on the piano that is remarkable and reminds the listener of his extremely inventive approach to jazz improvisations. Harmonically, he also explores polytonality in the most unexpected places; for example, on the ballad 'La Paloma Azul.' On 'Swanee River' Dave is playfully polyrhythmic. Dave's light touch on 'One Moment Worth Years' is charming and gives a nod to the great more traditional pianists who went before him. On this great-sounding recording, you can hear the full breadth of Dave's playing which pushes jazz forward while honoring his past influences. Opening with 'St. Louis Blues,' the set includes the rhythmically challenging, high-spirited 'Someday My Prince Will Come,' and ends with 'Take the A Train' as an encore. This is a thrilling set! The sound is wonderful and listening to this album will make you feel as if you were sitting in the audience that historic night." 180 gram vinyl.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: BSR 842CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"Extremely rare dub album from 1980 now available on CD. This album was issued in 1980 in a limited edition of 300 copies on a blank label in a plain sleeve with no credits. It has never been repressed since then and has become a seriously in-demand collectors' item with copies changing hands for between £100 and £200... Now available on LP and CD with bonus tracks Dub mixed at: TMC (Tooting Music Centre) Recording Studio, 118 Mitcham Road, Tooting, London by Chris Lane We probably did it in all in about two hours and ten minutes, despite not having a lot of time, or perhaps precisely because of not having a lot of time, the resulting album, God Sent Dub proved to be a masterclass in dub mixing aimed directly at the roots market... it went back to the roots of dub and echoed the stark style of some of the very first dub albums from the mid-seventies."

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: BSR 999R-LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"1978's Slum in Dub album re-issued on 180 gram red vinyl in its original cover. Coupled with the succinct Revolutionaries band and Isaacs quality songwriting, the deconstructed cuts, weave and flow like any good quality dub album should. with some of the track names giving more than a hint of the original song title such as Public Eyes, which was one of the major hits off The Cool Ruler as John Public. The dense Slum originated as Party In The Slum, while the brighter Reform Institution began life as Uncle Joe. Word Of The Farmer becomes Croft and Tam Tam began life as One More Time. One of Gregory Isaacs's early hits, 'Black A Kill Black' is translated into 'Leaving' while Leggo Beast using an updated old Studio One rhythm, 'Swing Easy', probably refers to Trevor 'Leggo' Douglas who ran the Cash & Carry label with Isaacs. The track 'N*gger' also uses an old Studio One rhythm track updated and this time it's The Heptones breezy 'Party Time' which gets the Jammy treatment as too Embarrassment which again revitalizes a Studio One gem; 'Frozen Soul' by The Soul Vendors band."

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: COMP 185LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress; reissue of South African producer Felix Laband's 2005 album Dark Days Exit, released in advance of Laband's album Deaf Safari (COMP 470CD/LP). "Deaf Safari is an audio collage of subjects that interest me and speak of the world I live in. It is an album composed of sampled recordings from the media landscape that has been the soundtrack to my life over the last ten years. My musical influences on this album lie mostly with local Kwaito house. Deaf Safari is an experiment within certain boundaries of the 4/4 genre, to create my own South African 'house' album." Felix Laband is Pietermaritzburg-born, Durban-bred, and Cape Town-based. He thankfully took up computer music instead of surfing, and was in various guitar-based bands (including Fingerhead and Incurable) before having a solo piece included on the Koert Kotze en die Vrouekolonie CD in 1999. Laband's fiendish and phat foray into introspective electronics was highly promising and the highlight of a critically acclaimed project. He also had two notable inclusions on the excellent Sounds of the Durban Underground collection, and has released two albums on African Dope Records. He is celebrated like a star in South Africa. Dark Days Exit is deep; it comes from the deepest heart and reflects a fantastical sound-journey through strange land. As Laband told UK magazine Dazed & Confused, "South Africa is a land of weird contrasts which definitely comes through in my music. I'm not afraid to throw things around. A lot of European stuff is quite formulistic, people stick to a certain sound and a specific way of doing things. I try to throw that out of the window." Dark Days Exit, with its subtly puzzled-out electronica and sublime moody electro sounds, blends the artificial intelligence and sensitivity of electronica, indie pop, folk, post rock, and old school ambient with some warm jazz elements, while occasionally recalling French movie soundtracks. On the one hand, it approaches the works of Stereolab, The Notwist, Console, Plaid, and such; on the other hand, it truly recalls the old school Compost community as well. Many people compare the album to A Forest Mighty Black, Taran, or the classic Kruder & Dorfmeister releases (the duo loved the album from the very first note and gave it rave reviews). Indeed, it's got a little bit of everything, but self-contained enough to be one of the most outstanding albums of 2005.

 

PRICE: $38.00

CAT #: NRT 005LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Compiling the legendary Duck Stab! EP with another side of similarly themed ditties, The Residents' produced one of their best-loved works during the punk rock explosion of 1978 -- the album has remained a cornerstone of their remarkable body of work ever since; and has recently been featured heavily on the band's 'Dog Stab!' tour. This expanded edition includes the 'Shitty Rock 'N Roll' RDX suite (a reworked and remixed suite produced by The Residents using the album's original multitrack tapes) alongside related bonus tracks, all packaged within the album's long out of print original sleeve artwork. Produced with The Cryptic Corporation, remastered by Scott Colburn and complete with insightful new sleevenotes, this set builds upon The Residents' ongoing pREServed reissue project, which will continue into 2023 and beyond."

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: DAMGOOD 577LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Third studio album by Graham Day & The Gaolers! Their first in 14 years! It's been a good time recently to be a fan of Graham Day. Last year saw the release of A Little More Time With, a 10" mini-LP by The Senior Service, as well as his recent debut solo album, The Master Of None, (released on Acid Jazz). There's also been a string of hometown reformation gigs with the Prisoners, and a US tour with the Woggles, And now this! We're extremely proud to be releasing Reflections in the Glass, a brand new album by Graham Day & The Gaolers. We asked Graham a few questions the new Gaolers album, his writing, playing style, and those recent Prisoners gigs..." "This is the third Graham Day & The Gaolers album. It's been 14 years since the last one, why the long gap? Blimey, is it that long? We never 'finished' the band, but with Dan living in the USA it's always been difficult to get together, and we've had to rely on touring to make it worthwhile flying him over. I think we were all feeling a bit tired of touring, my 'day' job got increasingly intense, and we sort of put it on hold for a while. We were set to record the album in March 2020, but then Covid hit so we lost a couple of years. How did you first hook up with Dan Electro from the Woggles? I met Dan in 2000, his band the Woggles were supporting the SolarFlares on two nights of a German tour. The first night they blew me away, and we went on first the following night, no way I was going to follow that again! We stayed in touch, became great friends. Dan was over in London 2006-ish, I'd just finished playing bass in the Buff Medways, and Dan suggested we start a band together with Buzz the Woggles bass player. I had an album's worth of material and they flew over and we recorded the first Gaolers' album in 2007."

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: DAMGOOD 590CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"CD Box set containing three albums by The Buff Medways -- (Steady The Buffs, 1914, Medway Wheelers) -- Three brilliant albums by the Buff Medways, neatly contained in one box, complete with booklet! The albums are Steady The Buffs, 1914, and Medway Wheelers. Buffs leader Billy Childish kindly answered a few questions about the band... The Buff Medways were formed quickly after Thee Headcoats split. What was it like working with a new rhythm section? We were in the studio recording the last Headcoats pieces then swapped rhythm section halfway through and the Buffs recorded their first 45. So, a very quick change over, five minutes. What bands would you say were the biggest influence on the Buffs' sound? The rhythm section really, wolf and Johnny (Barker) liked the Who, so I tried to write to suite them. (They had played in The Daggermen and I produced their first 45 along with Big Russ, so I'd been a fan of The Daggermen, who were fans of the Milkshakes. Johnny and Wolf are good few years younger than me.) Graham Day was previously in the Prisoners; can you remember the first time you met him? I met Graham through Bruce -- he brought him and Allan round to a Milkshakes rehearsal. They had been fans of the Pop Rivets when they were kids. Graham joined the Buffs on bass when Johnny left. Graham also played drums for Thee Mighty Caesars when Bruce left that group. Who had the idea of wearing military uniforms? Did you have a favorite one? That was also based on The Daggermen, via Jimi Hendrix (thou I did wear an old artillery jacket in Thee Headcoats at times). I quite like our summer kit (loosely Australian great war period). Though technically that was The Musicians of the British Empire. We changed the name when Graham couldn't make it to Australia and Julie had to learn the bass overnight."

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: DAMGOOD 600LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Compilation album released to coincide with the band's first US tour -- on orange vinyl exclusively for the US! Described as 'The Ronettes meet The Ramones at a wild party at Gold Star Studios echo chamber', The Courettes have released four fantastic albums on the legendary label Damaged Goods Records, each one praised by magazines such as MOJO and Shindig!, most notably the Back In Mono album in 2021, a true milestone in their career. This new compilation, Boom! Dynamite, released exclusively for the US market, guides you through their albums from the very beginning, from the early raw power garage rock onto their present Spector/Levine Wall of Sound Gold Star sound, made using complex recording techniques at StarrSound Studios in Denmark with top producer Søren Christensen and mixing genius Seiki Sato from Japan. From Here Are The Courettes, their debut album from 2015, you´ll find 'I've Been Walking', 'Push it Too Hard' (a duet with Kim Kix of Powersolo), both raw and rocking, along with a 2021 re-recording of 'The Boy I Love', which heads deep down the '60s Girl Group alley. On We Are The Courettes, their second album, the duo began using overdubs in the studio. You can hear Flavia singing harmonies and playing piano and organ on the swinging tracks 'Time is Ticking' and 'Strawberry Boy'. The album also contained the garage nerve of 'Hoodoo Hop' and 'Voodoo Doll', featuring legendary Brazilian Horror icon Coffin Joe on spells. The brilliant Back in Mono album found The Courettes on top songwriting form and was made using the Wall of Sound technique of their own StarrSound Studios. Back In Mono is represented on the compilation by 'Hop The Twig', 'Want You! Like a Cigarette', 'Night Time (The Boy of Mine)', 'R.I.N.G.O' and 'Misfits & Freaks'. 'Only Happy When You're Gone' is a hidden gem from Back in Mono (B-Sides & Outtakes), and the fantastic single 'Christmas (I Can Hardly Wait)' is for the first time included on an album by The Courettes."

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: DEC 004LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Le Disque De l'Art Gué highlights in a ten-track compilation the avant-garde and dreamlike work of Fizzè, in between medieval ballad, acoustic industrial and psychedelic world music. It includes original tracks from the Kulu Hatha Mamnua (1986) and Manoeuvres d'Automne (1987) albums, plus unreleased materials and remixes by Fizzè. Compilation, concept, and production by Fizzé, Orsett, and Fischer. Analog mastering by Tim Stollenwerk. Drawings, obi strip and insert layout by Anne-Marie Gratton. The record cover represents the acrylic painting "Till" by Alex Rabus.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: DNR 009LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Raz started working on the album Tyrants in 2017 and mixed the finished version in 2021. The writing process began with listening to sketches and sound-files he had collected throughout the past years, which he had not yet given up on. The album is thus a natural continuation of his previous works and showcases Raz's unique sound design coherently. His increased focus into composition and arrangement is highlighted even further in this release. In the oblivious environment surrounding his hideaway lake cabin he produced an album that is rich and diverse in its sonic palette, ranging from harshly distorted synth-peaks, cinematic soundscapes, all the way to avant-garde contemporary classical, and jazz music. It is an album that invites the listener to explore and discover not just the intimate self: it is also a very personal, intuitive observation and reflection on the world that we are living in today. Certain instruments are very prominent. An old piano that was left in Raz's apartment by a friend that he found joy in playing. One can hear a certain curiosity in the performance of this newly found, dust layered treasure ("Bardot"). Sonically, the album is an attempt to blend acoustic sound recordings with synthesized sounds, and to blend musical genres into one. It is an acoustic expression of the transformative times we are living in, a realm of mankind being mastered by technology. The gap of this transformational process is a glitchy moment of time. It is portrayed on the front cover image of the album, by glitch artist Azamat Akhmadbaev. For fans of: Acid Pauli, Apparat, David August, Nicolas Jaar, Darkside, Dictaphone.

 

PRICE: $32.00

CAT #: DM 014LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Released in 1974 with a 'quadraphonic' sound. Brilliant songs by a cohesive band that knew how to materialize a memorable and original fusion project at an international level. If Latin funk exists, it's thanks to pioneering bands like Black Sugar, a Peruvian group created in the early seventies that recorded two fundamental albums for the Afro-American and Latin genre. A pair of albums that are now re-released by the Valencian label Discos Monterey with the usual sound and visual quality to which we are accustomed. The roots of this band come from the Far-Fen (syllables for Farfisa and Fender), formed in the late sixties by guitarist Víctor 'Coco' Salazar and Miguel 'Chino' Figueroa on keyboards. One night they were spontaneously joined by the sensational voice of Carlos 'Pacho' Mejía. In the seventies, in the Peruvian capital there was a shortage of 'white' sugar and the darker cane sugar was consumed. Hence the group's name. Peru was in the midst of a dictatorship and the military were against music that did not come from Peruvian folklore. Rock and roll with foreign roots languished due to the imposition of the established power, and Black Sugar emerged, whose main skill was to mix, with enormous passion and fascinating ability, Latin sounds and the funk that came from the United States. The result is two memorable albums, with a large part of their own songs and most of them composed by Pacho. The first, with an eponymous title, was released in 1971 by Sono Radio, whose musical director Jaime Delgado Aparicio was in charge of the fiery arrangements with generous brass and energetic percussion. Released with the credits in English, they managed to break into the Top Ten of the Miami charts with the song 'Too Late'. They even received an offer to record their next album in the United States, but decided to stay in their country. That second album was released in 1974 with a 'quadraphonic' sound, taking advantage of the label's magnificent studios. From the mid-seventies onwards the desertions began and it would not be until 2010 that the project would be recovered with some historical and younger musicians. To listen to Black Sugar is to go back to the Peruvian night of the seventies with fiery music, full of sensuality and rhythm. Brilliant songs by a cohesive band that knew how to materialize a memorable fusion project, very original and at an international level. Two unique albums reissued by Monterey that will delight all lovers of Afro-Latin sounds and good music in general." --Alex Magic Pop

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: CREP 096LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Introducing Marc Codsi's new Arabic-infused synth-oriented album, Songs from the Aftermath. Lebanese musician and composer Marc Codsi has released numerous albums with various projects such as Scrambled Eggs, Lumi, Zalfa and many others whilst maintaining a very active career as a solo artist and film composer. Songs from the Aftermath is his fifth album and presented as a natural continuation to his 2019 opus work, A New World (Annihaya Records). Codsi continues his personal exploration of Arabic music codes, mainly investigating quarter tones scales in a fully electronic environment in order to create new harmonies and textures that still convey a feeling of familiarity whilst keeping a certain aura of strangeness and mystery. The album was recorded between during 2021 and 2022 and the music eventually comes as a very personal quest for transcendence. A sort of speculative answer to the world's ongoing absurdity and what seems to be an incessant array of conflicts, disasters and tragedies. From these dark alleys may we still arise to proclaim a sense of beauty, poetry and elevation. All tracks recorded and mixed by Marc Codsi, Paris 2021-2022. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert, Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Artwork by Studio Safar Manufactured in Germany.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: CREP 097LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Sophomore album from Tenerife based trio, Lagoss (Gonçalo F. Cardoso, Mladen Kurajica, and Daniel García). Moving away from their megamix vignette based first volume (CREP 078LP, 2020), the trio now experiments with a more song-based approach whilst still keeping their trademark jam infused Tropicália and electronic freak-outs with an offering to their 1970s sci-fi masters -- enter the lift to the stars. First proposed by Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and taken to mystical literary heights by Arthur C. Clark in his 1979 book Fountains of Paradise, the concept of a space lift takes a spiritual turn here, with Lagoss chronicling its construction, right here and there on a near future version of their Island of Tenerife, in the Canary Archipelago. The album moves freely through ideas and moods akin to the world imagined by Arthur C. Clarke. It conveys a new story by sonically imagining future civilizations in a faux ethnographical exercise whilst exploring current ideas of technology, religion and alternative history by creating its own particular insular sound world. The album counts with the participation of dear friends such as a synth solo by Spencer Clark (Monopoly Child Star Searchers, et al.) and a punchy, full-blown remix by Muqata'a. Altogether creating a unique collection of eerie musical moments made of sub-tropical moods and cyber exotica jams from a band that keeps growing and evolving into their very own personal sound. Enter Tenerife in the late 21st century, meet the Aquachachos and Guayechi, and ascend. All music by Lagoss. Artwork by Evan Crankshaw. Mastered by Rashad Becker. One-off vinyl edition of 500 with printed inner sleeve.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: ET 933-04LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Erhard Grosskopf (b. 1934) is a Berlin-based composer of contemporary music who has been active since 1963. His works include chamber and orchestral as well as electronic music, and have been performed in the West German pavilion at Expo '70, by various radio orchestras, renowned string quartets, and avant-garde groups such as Gentle Fire or Agitation Free. A thread that runs through all of Grosskopf's works is the idea of composing not on a timescale but in a space. Grosskopf views himself as an architect who places sounds at various positions in a room, such that the resulting music is not perceived as moving past the listener's ears in time, but rather the listener moves within it as if within a space. To achieve this, he utilizes sound processes that are looped and layered according to specific temporal structures, resulting in what he calls process music, an approach that he originally developed at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht for his electronic music and later expanded to instrumental works. However, Grosskopf doesn't just call his music abstract, he nevertheless strives for its spirit. In his own words: "As a composer I am like an architect who builds a house for music, hoping that music will move into it -- not like substance into form but like the spirit into the soul." Many recordings of his works originally remained unreleased and only recently, several CDs have appeared. This is his first LP, containing KlangWerk 11 for orchestra (2011), a work that epitomizes his method of building a sonic space, a sonic sculpture through sound processes. A different recording of the piece was published by Neos on a CD in 2018 (NEOS 11801CD). This is the first release of the world premiere of KlangWerk 11, played by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in 2013. Full-color sleeve with artwork by Julia Antonia and liner notes by Stefan Fricke.

 

PRICE: $40.00

CAT #: ET 933-05LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Norbert Eisbrenner (1935-2022) was a German improvising painter and musician. During the 1960s, he became involved with the West Berlin underground music scene and has played in the free-form group Human Being that evolved around the Zodiak Free Arts Lab, as well as in the trio MND (Moderne Nordeuropäische Dorfmusik), with Sven-Åke Johansson and Werner Götz, and in Schlangenfeuer, MND's later incarnation that was covered previously on Edition Telemark (ET 903-07LP, 2020). After having started out as a saxophone player, Eisbrenner quickly became interested in the electric guitar and, because he couldn't play it the regular way, put it on his knees instead and so became one of the very first improvisers to employ a free-form table-top guitar technique that can be heard on the MND recordings. In the 1970s, he moved to the countryside and has lived in the village of Glentorf in Lower Saxony from 1983 onwards. There, his artistic focus shifted towards painting, but he continued making music intermittently, often employing a special technique of playing the electric guitar with his hands and simultaneously a synthesizer with his feet. Eisbrenner's later recordings have remained unreleased, a selection from the 2000s is presented for the first time on this double-LP. Included are four solo recordings, two tracks with local musician Zoot Horner, and a side each of duos with his former trio partners Götz and Johansson. Full-color sleeve and inner sleeves with reproductions from his series of paintings "Ton in Ton".

 

PRICE: $40.00

CAT #: ET 933-06LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Dietmar Bonnen (b. 1958) is a German composer, pianist and singer whose music moves between the cornerstones of art rock, chamber music, blues, and new music. He has extensively collaborated with a large numbers of musicians in his hometown Cologne as well as internationally. Fries (German for frieze) was previously released on CD on Bonnen's own label Obst Music and is presented here on vinyl for the first time. Bonnen states that the piece's structure is "visually inspired by the wall frieze in its various forms from antiquity to art nouveau, musically by the chants of the Middle Ages moving around a central tone". It is performed by 11 musicians who play permanently during its 80-minute duration and so create a meditative atmosphere similar to drone or installation music. Twice during the course of the piece, each musician may break out of the soundscape by improvising around the repercussion note. Fries was composed in 2009 and recorded in 2010. The musicians are: Alexei Aigui (violin), Andreas Schilling (double bass), Bassem Hawar (djoze), Dietmar Bonnen (Rhodes), Erdal Aslan (ba?lama), Gagga Deistler (electric guitar), Hans Martin Müller (flute), Lucia Mense (flute), Marei Seuthe (violoncello), Norbert Rodenkirchen (flute), and Phil Reptil (electric guitar).

 

PRICE: $29.00

CAT #: ET 933-07LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

After Spontaneous Music in 2018 (ET 864-01LP), Edition Telemark presents Space Music by Japanese Fluxus artist Takako Saito (b. 1929) who has been living in Düsseldorf, Germany, since 1979. Similarly to the previous LP, the recordings featured here deal with everyday things and actions which Saito transforms through unique and deliberately crafted artistic interventions. For Space Music, pieces were selected whose acoustic outcomes involve the characteristics of the spaces in which they were recorded. Side A features two performances from 2020 in the church Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne: In "Klangkleid", Saito and co-performers Bei Li Zhou and Thomas Rhiemeier move and dance in Saito's sound dresses -- jumpsuits onto which she sewed empty plastic and metal packagings to produce sounds while moving. For "Kugelmusik" ("ball music"), she chose balls made from various materials and asked audience members to roll them across the floor towards each other. Side B contains a selection of 1980s recordings that had been left out on Spontaneous Music and are arranged here as a sound walk: After "Chewing" ("Kauen") at her kitchen table, Saito steps outside onto the construction site "Böhlerweg" near her home to record her voice in a former factory building. Finally, she walks on the street ("Auf der Straße") towards the Oberkassel district of Düsseldorf to buy her daily needs. Includes one insert with liner notes and three postcards; the sleeve and the postcards feature a series of drawings by Takako Saito from 1985; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: ET 933-08LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

In 2019, at the age of 85, reductionist composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler began an improvising duo, himself on piano, with cellist Tilman Kanitz. What at first glance seems an uncommon move turns out to be a logical continuation of his minimalist compositional style that has been covered extensively on Edition Telemark and other labels. Kanitz, who was trained in classical western music but gathered musical experiences around the world and especially in India, considers his music-making and performance practice a meditative process centering on abstraction. This obviously is a perfect fit for Stiebler, whose music aims to create inner spaces in accordance with his credo that "music is too important to burden it with emotions". Thus, it comes as no surprise that their improvisations, which began as private musical conversations in Kanitz' studio, do not exhibit the talkativeness shown by many other improvisers but center around pitch, harmony and the relationships between single notes. This makes them unique even in today's manifold world of improvisational practices and history. This LP is a selection of recordings made between 2020 and 2022 in Tilman Kanitz's studio in Berlin-Pankow and pairs four improvisations with two short pieces by Stiebler. It is intended as a companion to the CD The Pankow-Park Sessions Vol. 1 on Another Timbre which features a different selection without overlap. Artwork by Aurélie Nemours. Liner notes by Matthias R. Entreß.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: ELPALMAS 024LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

El Palmas Music reissue a rare 1970s Venezuela salsa record that spotlights the work of enigmatic Caracas guitar maestro, Andrés Moros. Given his singular vision on the 1976 salsa masterpiece, Andres y Sus Estrellas, the absence of information on Venezuelan musician Andres Moros, also known as "Morito", feels almost criminal. What we do know is that Morito first began his musical journey as a live performer in the bars and nightclubs of Caracas in the 1960s-70s, at the full height of the Venezuelan salsa boom, and was a core figure on the scene. Alongside a small band, Morito would frequently perform in the bustling live music circuits of Caracas and La Guiara, where he first met the notable singer, Nano Grant. Andres y Sus Estrellas was the result of a long-held dream of Morito's to partner with Grant to record an album. This album, Morito's debut project, is now getting reissued by El Palmas Music. With big band compositions spiced with the flavor of Caribbean rhythm, the album is a seminal example of Venezuelan music at the height of its salsa movement. Grant's effortlessly smooth flowing vocals chronicle tales of love, passion and party, masterfully guided under Morito's cohesive musical direction. Here, the arrangement flows with succinct percussion, dramatic pauses, and satisfying brass bursts all timed to perfection and employed with astonishing versatility from track to track. "Canuto" is a soft, sensual calling to end the tears, "no quiero que llores más", soulfully implores Grant. "No Quiero Bailar Pegao" is an upbeat merengue-infused track that humorously chronicles tales of sweaty, intimate dancefloors. On the bolero-ballad "Condición", a female vocalist known today only as Yara passionately navigates heartbreak and reconciliation, the anguish of her vocal underscored by sweeping brass. Meanwhile, "La Mazucamba" is a skittish ode to the act of dancing, a gleeful celebration to what the record as a whole evokes: dancing with feeling; come joy or sorrow; the rhythm moves you. Andres y Sus Estrellas is a cult classic that encapsulates the very best of Venezuelan's golden salsa-era; a must-have for any collector looking to add an overlooked gem of the genre to their music library.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: EPR 070LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. On their second album, Edena Gardens manifests itself as a permanent fixture in the El Paraiso catalog. Edena Gardens could have flickered and disappeared in true El Paraiso fashion with a single session album, but the trio emerges with both a new studio album as well as a live album (Live Momentum, EPR 071LP). It's part of the band's DNA: it contains multitudes. There's always a variation or open path, shifting with ease from heady cosmic stoner folk-vibes, to the scorched earth of 12-minute centerpiece, "Veil". "Halcyon Days" opens up a panoramic interlude of beautiful analog warmth, while closer "Crescent Helix" opens in full free-jazz mode, only to travel into an endless crescendo of alt rock proportions rarely found on this side of the '90s. Somehow, Edena Gardens combines the sum of its multifaceted parts in a unified way, perhaps due to Causa Sui drummer Jakob Skøtt's transparent edits and layered treatments. Or perhaps the trio's level of experience and joy of playing simply connects whatever direction they pursue -- Nicklas Sørensen of Papir's glistering guitar lines, backed up by Martin Rude's rumbling baritone guitar strums or solid basslines. It's an album that showcases not only the spontaneous paths taken, but also the vast well of ideas or sounds only implied or briefly touched upon, creating an aggregation of sounds just out of reach. Welcome back to Edena Gardens.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: ELA 002LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Recorded over a four-week period in early 2022, Freedom Lapse is the debut solo release of Australian multi-instrumentalist and composer, Adam Halliwell. A versatile improviser and lover of performance, Halliwell has been an active contributor to numerous musical communities in recent years. The release of Freedom Lapse marks an exciting stage in Halliwell's journey as an artist with the culmination of several important musical facets that are now becoming foundational to his practice. As Halliwell mentions, Freedom Lapse owes its genesis to an epiphanic moment experienced whilst traversing a mountainous passage in Mexico, a place where "the past present and future stretch out in one place". Entranced by this environment, its colors, the villages, and local life, Halliwell listened to music that inspires him (he cites Jon Hassell here). The result: "complete aural, visual, and spiritual completeness", a moment of discovery, he explains. Shortly after, the material that now comprises Freedom Lapse was recorded, distilling this powerful sensorial experience into a body of music that he has now invited the world to share with him. Throughout these recordings, restrained improvised phrases and melodic ideas feature, often appearing as long refrains that soar above idiosyncratic beds of fractured percussion and junkyard bass-work. This use of contrast, which is central to the work, allows Freedom Lapse to tap the lucidity-chaos juxtapositional-style that lies at the heart of all good music in the "fourth-world" idiom. Halliwell's sensitivity to dynamics, form and narrative is potent on these recordings, which allow his winding, free-improvisations the space to unfold and extend patiently. All instruments on Freedom Lapse were written and recorded by Haliwell, with additional trumpet on "Cygon Dance" supplied by regular collaborator, Reuben Lewis. Freedom Lapse was mixed and produced by Halliwell and Jim Rindfleish.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: ESPDISK 3030LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 restock. ESP-Disk present a reissue of Albert Ayler's Prophecy, originally released in 1975. Recorded in concert at the Cellar Cafe, NYC, June 14, 1964. Three weeks before this trio recorded ESP-Disk's first jazz album, the epochal Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD/LP), it was captured "live" by Canadian poet Paul Haines, who also recorded the New York Eye and Ear Control soundtrack (ESPDISK 1016CD/LP). This is one of the most influential groups in jazz history, a coming together of like-minded innovators who would be considered crucial influences by succeeding generations, so there is no question of the immense value of this material. Yoked, in the CD era, to the one-sided 1965 LP Bells (ESPDISK 4076CD), made with a different band in a very different style a year later, it is perhaps best appreciated on its own. Personnel: Albert Ayler - tenor saxophone; Gary Peacock - bass; Sunny Murray - drums; Paul Haines - engineer. Presented here on opaque yellow vinyl.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: FAI 032LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Twinkling like a glitterball in an abandoned dancehall, Peek-a-Boo is the ravishing solo debut from James Howard. Recent credits: electric guitar on Rozi Plain's Prize (and key part of live band), co-production and various instruments on Dana Gavanski's When it Comes, electric guitar on Alabaster dePlume's Gold, and To Cy and Lee vol. 1, and other work with Naima Bock, Clémentine March, and Charles Howl. Lilting lunar lullabies, seductive atmospheres, pretty harmonies, and starlit reverie mask an unflinching look at people doing what only people can do, being what only people can be.

 

PRICE: $25.50

CAT #: FTR 547LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"This is the first LP (following a cassette) released under Drew Gardner's name and it's a doozy. Drew is a guitarist, probably best known as a founding member of Elkhorn (although his musical partnerships with Jesse Shepard go back way further than that), and his recent work with Jeffrey Alexander's Heavy Lidders has also been noteworthy as hell. The band here is a trio with Andy Cush (Garcia Peoples) on bass, and the extremely well documented Ryan Jewell on drums. Drew's guitar playing is jazzy without being jazzoid, and rural without being hick. The four instrumentals the trio lay down are of a piece, and share a brilliant (if understated) flash. The closest comparison I can think of is to the pair of Raccoon label LPs cut by Joe Bauer and Noggins. Both Moonset and Crab Tunes were great shuffling sets of low-key trio improvisation hovering somewhere between the electric jazz of the period (1971) and the country-oriented British West Country progressive bands of the same era. The same can be said of Flowers in Space. The pieces here are all assembled without a lot of flash, but they're steeped in a deep and very stoned-sort of meditative state you might also compare to some of the Dead's more pared-down, low-key distensions of late '69. There's a smoky, frictionless ease to the sound. One that reveals a little bit more of its true nature every time you spin it. Recorded by Jason Meagher at Black Dirt in 2019, released as part of the Drowned Land series, this one's a smoker in a whole lot of ways. So sit down, lean back, and draw deep. You'll be damn happy you did." --Byron Coley, 2023

 

PRICE: $27.50

CAT #: FTR 724LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Iconoclastic Afghan-American street music project Naujawanan Baidar makes its long-anticipated return with Khedmat Be Khalq, its third album and first new release in three years. Originally planned as a "studio debut" in the classic sense, a veritable avalanche of setbacks tangled and delayed the recording process over a span of several years as compounded tragedies -- both international and personal -- disrupted the project's intended transition from simply being a ramshackle demo/home-recording outlet for founder N.R. Safi (The Myrrors, et al) into a properly working band. At the end of the day the process of assembling what would eventually become Khedmat Be Khalq became a lot like that of the previous two releases: gnarled and sun-baked tracks cut up and collated into a blown-out collage of sound. If there is any obvious difference this time around it is perhaps to be found in the increased focus of the material. Whereas the group's previous two projects ran the gamut from sparse acoustic improvisations to tape-loop-inspired noise, Khedmat Be Khalq presents a more unified hybrid of Afghan folks styles and electric energy, further exploring Safi's "maximalist minimalism" approach. Tape-saturated and over-amplified Afghan rubab, armonia, and ghichak meet pounding multi-layered rhythms that at times hint at 1970s-1980s industrial music or the heady throb of German krautrock groups like Faust or Amon Düül. Perhaps nowhere is this unique combination more striking than in Naujawanan Baidar's swirling re-arrangement of the Afghan folk classic "Raftim Az Ayn Baagh" that closes the album. The rubab melody that serves as the song's core is warped into something that in all honesty wouldn't sound particularly out of place spun between early Savage Republic and Crash Worship. Lyrically the album moves away from the more abstract and impressionistic style of Safi's earlier material towards a concrete attempt to address the struggle of the Afghan masses from the complicated perspective of the international diaspora. The songs here work to draw out and examine the contradictions and challenges faced by a people once again locked in the talons of a sociopathic religious fundamentalism, connecting the country's position to the current global fight against imperialism, militarism, and resurgent fascism, and attempting to recover obscured historical fragments and lessons surrounding the proud radical history of Afghanistan's diverse population over countless decades of intensive struggle. It is here that Naujawanan Baidar's "street music" aesthetic blossoms into a sort of avant garde agitprop -- a militant soundtrack angling at a revolution.

 

PRICE: $36.00

CAT #: FIGURE 005LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Indigo is Icelandic artist's Exos fourth studio album, arriving almost two full decades after his last LP. In the meantime, the seasoned producer has never stopped to refine his production style, mastering an aesthetic that feels at once minimalist and yet richly detailed. Spanning the organic and the electronic, drawing from early dub techno blueprints and comprising the beauty of his austere homeland. From this, Exos expands an absorbing atmosphere, sustaining the primal power of nature within compositions that hold an exalted presence yet never go overboard, instead, they gently push along even in their most intense moments thus vastly transcending the pure club context. The album's thirteen tracks are a sonic bliss to indulge in, each element is crafted so meticulously and balanced with care against its counterparts. Whether the luminous, spaciously glowing opening tracks "Reincarnation" or "I' skjo'li nætur" the then-ensuing hypnotic techno-trips of "Sælu-reitur" and "Quod Arcanum Leticia" and finally the deeply satisfying, dubbed-out backbone of the album's main body -- a series of Exos's signature-style dub-techno cuts that he has been perfecting now for over 20 years. Seeing it all mesh together in this concentrated form, it's the picture of an exceptionally experienced producer pushing himself beyond any limits to achieve his greatest feat yet. When the fog clears and the last tracks slowly roll out, the record leaves as smoothly as it had entered, allowing for reflection and contemplation of one of techno's most exhaustive LP efforts yet to date.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: GUESS 206LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Acid-folk fans rejoice! God's Eye is the second album by San Francisco based psych-folk musician Walker Phillips. It was recorded in the best '60s-70s tradition using only analog tape and vintage instruments. According to Walker, "it contains some of the best songs I've written." The first side is a suite of pleasant, delicate songs of pure psychedelic-folk bliss that recall Arthur Lee Harper or Donovan at times, while side two is a full-blown psychedelic/jazz/experimental single track inspired by Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, meticulously tape-spliced from about one hour of improvisation. It wanders somewhere between Stockhausen, Pink Floyd, and The Grateful Dead. RIYL: Donovan, Incredible String Band, Kaleidoscope, Arthur Lee Harper, Marc Bolan, Pink Floyd...

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: GUESS 208LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1969. One of the key albums when talking about psychedelic hard-rock and early proto-metal. Featuring the great John Du Cann (The Attack, Atomic Rooster, Hard Stuff) on guitar plus Mick Hawksworth (Fuzzy Duck, Alvin Lee) on heavy bass plus the powerful drumming of Ian McLane (Neat Change, Ray Owen's Moon). Andromeda was formed during the final days of Du Cann's previous band The Attack, when he decided to go in a full heavier and proggier musical direction. Recruiting his friend/roommate Mick Hawksworth on bass plus drummer Jack McCulloch (of One In A Million, soon to be replaced by Ian McLane), the power-trio was born. After initial interest from John Peel (Dandelion) and Kit Lambert (Track Records), Du Cann decided to go with a major label, RCA, who offered him the chance to self-produce their first album. Recorded at Advision Studios, the impressive Andromeda debut was released in 1969, housed in a sleeve designed by John with photos by Gered Mankowitz. But despite receiving excellent reviews and the band playing lots of gigs (some of them billed above bands like Black Sabbath), RCA didn't know what to do with such a heavy rock band. Tired of the lack of promotion and support, John accepted an offer to join Atomic Rooster... but that's another story. Remastered sound; original artwork in hard cardboard laminated sleeve; insert with liner notes and photos/memorabilia. "... One of the strongest early heavy prog bands..." --Aaron Milenski (Galactic Ramble)

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: GUESS 208ORG-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Orange vinyl. Reissue, originally released in 1969. One of the key albums when talking about psychedelic hard-rock and early proto-metal. Featuring the great John Du Cann (The Attack, Atomic Rooster, Hard Stuff) on guitar plus Mick Hawksworth (Fuzzy Duck, Alvin Lee) on heavy bass plus the powerful drumming of Ian McLane (Neat Change, Ray Owen's Moon). Andromeda was formed during the final days of Du Cann's previous band The Attack, when he decided to go in a full heavier and proggier musical direction. Recruiting his friend/roommate Mick Hawksworth on bass plus drummer Jack McCulloch (of One In A Million, soon to be replaced by Ian McLane), the power-trio was born. After initial interest from John Peel (Dandelion) and Kit Lambert (Track Records), Du Cann decided to go with a major label, RCA, who offered him the chance to self-produce their first album. Recorded at Advision Studios, the impressive Andromeda debut was released in 1969, housed in a sleeve designed by John with photos by Gered Mankowitz. But despite receiving excellent reviews and the band playing lots of gigs (some of them billed above bands like Black Sabbath), RCA didn't know what to do with such a heavy rock band. Tired of the lack of promotion and support, John accepted an offer to join Atomic Rooster... but that's another story. Remastered sound; original artwork in hard cardboard laminated sleeve; insert with liner notes and photos/memorabilia. "... One of the strongest early heavy prog bands..." --Aaron Milenski (Galactic Ramble)

 

PRICE: $42.00

CAT #: GUESS 209LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

The legendary Andromeda album from 1969, a hard-psych classic, as it was originally conceived and intended to be heard by John Du Cann prior to editing: a double (not single) LP featuring his never released at the time original (punchier and clearer) mix and a different tracklist, including songs and extended takes that were not finally included on the original album due to time restrictions. Previously available as a CD-only release titled Originals, here's the first ever vinyl edition. Restored from John Du Cann's 1969 acetates. Gatefold sleeve with new, vintage styled artwork plus liner notes and photos.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: HG 2202LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Mattias Petersson debuts on the Swiss label Hallow Ground with Triangular Progressions, a suite in nine parts written entirely in the SuperCollider environment using additive synthesis. By exploring the harmonic progressions found hiding within the triangle, Triangular Progressions at once emits a sense of introspective calm that fosters deep listening and evokes a whole spectrum of emotions, mediating between the abstract and the visceral. The Stockholm-based Petersson, also known under the moniker Codespira1 and for his long-term collaboration with violinist George Kentros as There Are No More Four Seasons, has been active as a composer of computer music as well as an artist in the realms of live coding and modular synthesis for over two decades. Originally trained as a classical pianist, he also holds a diploma in electro-acoustic composition from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, where he currently works as an associate professor. Besides his activities as a musician and teacher, Petersson is pursuing a PhD in composition at the Luleå University of Technology. Researching modular systems comprising both human and non-human modules, he is part of the GEMM))) Gesture Embodiment and Machines in Music cluster. Triangular Progressions can be considered a perfect synthesis of Petersson's academic interests and aesthetic ideas, combining a mathematical approach with artistic rigor. The magic number triangle highlights the beauty of symmetrical properties. By exploring its idiosyncrasies, the composer manages to translate them into engaging sounds. The lush melodies and harmonies of the music at times call to mind the intimate organ and drone works by label mates Kali Malone and Maria W Horn while also maintaining a unique signature sound. The addition of pure sinusoidal waves enables a deep listening exploration of the counterpoint between melodic and harmonic rhythms, chord structures and spectral harmonies that Petersson extrapolates from those magic numbers.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: HEIST 070EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Label bosses Dam Swindle dive into the label back catalog and compile two special edition releases of classics to celebrate ten years of Heist Recordings. Founded in 2013, Heist Recordings has quickly become a go-to house label, giving rise to a vibrant scene of groove aficionados and all things deep house. Now in the label's tenth year, Dam Swindle take a moment to reflect on the great tracks that have come out over the years with two limited edition compilations of classics. On this first compilation, the duo starts with the track that helped the label burst onto the scene: Their instant classic "The Break Up". With its vintage vocals, Rhodes chops and instantly recognizable bell loop, it's easy to understand why so many people are still in love with this track. It's only fitting that this anniversary release for Heist goes back to where it all started. The second track on the compilation is from the legendary Detroit outfit Scan 7: Their 2020 track "The Best Is Yet Come" from Heist's 50th release. The appearance of Scan 7 on the label turned quite some heads at the time, but in fact, it made total sense. The mutual love for house, key grooves and that classic Detroit vibe brought Scan 7 and Dam Swindle together and the result was an amazing release full of Midwest electronic funk. On the flip, is Dutch duo Fouk with their first hit on the label "Kill Frenzy", which kickstarted the rise of their signature sound back in 2014. The release ends with two extremely catchy and strong house releases by Demuir and Adryiano. Demuir's vocal cut "Werq. Feel. Gruv. Vogue." is one of the highlights in Demuir's catalog and a showcase of the producer's knack for sampling and writing a house groove. Adryiano's piano house track "Me And You And Her" is a perfect ending to this first compilation, showing that great house music can be as simple as repeating something over and over and over, until that groove is all you hear. Crystal clear vinyl; special cut out sleeve; printed inner sleeve.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: HGBS 20202LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"With the label MPS, post-war musical history was written in Germany: noble music productions with many international greats come from the Black Forest and are timelessly legendary. There are still unreleased treasures in the MPS band archive, some of which are now being released in the vinyl edition of the HGBS Blue label. These include the LP Mother Africa with the Dizzy Gillespie Reunion Band, which provided a furious climax to the Berlin Jazz Days in 1968. Part of this concert has not been released before and is now just coming out on LP - but not as a musical remnant, but as a splendid addition to old MPS tracks. Dizzy Gillespie, the jazz legend, founded his first big band in 1946, and the 'Reunion' band features some musicians from those early days, including James Moody and Sahib Shihab. The LP features 'Manteca,' the danceable Cuban Bob classic, as well as 'Ray's Idea' with razor-sharp horn sections. A stirring album with lavish embossed cover art and first-rate pressing. A vinyl treasure, in the tradition of the legendary MPS-Music. A must for friends of good vinyl releases!"

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: IFEEL 081EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Hot on the heels of 2022's Mermaids reissue retrospective, Hull's deep listening house forerunners return: this time revisiting a pair of originals as well as previously unreleased versions. It's testament to the depth of feeling that Steve Cobby and David McSherry can conjure, that these tracks sound as potent and impactful as they did when they first came out -- and not just for the dance. Throughout their 30+ years, the Yorkshire duo have produced ten albums amid many more collaborations, and transformed the remix into an artform, putting their fingerprints on everyone from Busta Rhymes to The Orb to Radiohead. This EP collection finds them at the full scope of their powers: from disembodied mood music, to tripped-out dubby beats and raw house sessions for the club. The title track "Subtle Body" sounds like it drifted in through the window in the middle of a snowy night. Its layered chimes, looped delay feedback and floaty chords (played on a Wurlitzer Electronic Piano that Steve bought from Bill Nelson), mark it out as an enduring piece of ambient music, and a favorite for film-makers, able to soundtrack both haunted memories and afterparty comedowns with finesse. It precedes an unreleased instrumental version of "Nightfall" from Fila Brazillia's 2002 album Jump Leads, and as an instrumental, the chunky electro bass and mix of ephemeral tones and bird-like chirrups are brought clearly into focus. The attention to detail is what makes Fila Brazillia's sound palette so rich, and Nightfall a certified smokers' anthem. On the B side, the tempo and temperature rises, and you're treated to "The Light Of Jesus", a favorite from Fila Brazillia's 1994 debut LP, Old Codes: New Chaos. Atop a bumping house groove, the song weaves together smooth organ pads and electrified guitar licks with syrupy bass and gospel-tinged exaltations from Charles Bukowski. The EP rounds out with "Room '96", a live house jam from Hull's Room nightclub, and a veritable time capsule back to the halcyon '90s rave days, when the lights were still on, everyone was home, and anything seemed possible. The songs here on Subtle Body might be a window into a time long past, but they remain in the present: and as long as bodies seek pleasure, and dancers want to keep going til sunrise, Fila Brazillia will endure, and soundtrack those moments for you to get lost in.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: KRXN 027LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Introducing the first volume on the Aquapelagos series, a collection of split LPs where selected artists offer their own take into water surrounded cultures and communities. After the initial release of the anthology compilation Aquapelago in 2022 (CREP 090LP) this first volume opens up the series with a sound journey inspired by the majestic and sometimes furious Atlantic Ocean. The music was recorded throughout special artists residencies held during the Keroxen Festival in 2020 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife where throughout a week each band recorded their own free vision of an aquapelagic Atlantic culture. Philip Hayward, the Australian researcher who coined the term "Aquapelago" also joins the proceedings with extensive sleeve notes. Side one is provided by Lagoss -- a band comprised of Tenerife based veteran producers, Gonçalo F. Cardoso, Mladen Kurajica, and Daniel García while side two is provided by Banha da Cobra, comprising Lisbon-based musicians Mestre André and Carlos Godinho. Both ensembles have addressed aquatic themes in their prior work, Lagoss having represented phantom islands on a series of vivid cameo tracks released as Imaginary Island Music Vol. 1 (CREP 078LP, 2020) and Banha da Cobra having staged a performance within the Mãe D'Água reservoir in Lisbon in 2018, drawing on recordings of place and objects within it to conjure the liquid history of the city. Recorded at Espacio Cultural El Tanque, Santa Cruz de Tenerife by Jorge Lozano R. Part of the Aquapelago Residency Series for Keroxen 2021. Produced and Curated by Gonçalo F. Cardoso. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplate & Mastering, Berlin. Artwork by Evan Crankshaw.

 

PRICE: $21.50

CAT #: KLD 004EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

GRAPH embarks on a search for sound beyond trends in electronic music. The focus is on sound and rhythm structures that are constructed and deconstructed with the help of digital musical instruments and effects. The focus is on the attempt to create a living, organic "sound space". On their seventh release, GRAPH work with vocals for the first time in their 17-year history, and the result is amazing. The track "Mad World (astonished)" is a dystopian cover version of the Tears For Fears classic, wrapped in GRAPH's typical electronic sound, atmospherically dense and darkly produced. With "Instabil", GRAPH present another completely newly produced track with vocals. The whole thing is rounded off with a fresh remix of "Instabil" by Cologne producer Bob Humid. The release is stunning, amazing, always unconventional and very Düsseldorf!

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: KRY 026LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Once known solely for electronic music, Berlin has quietly gone through huge changes over the past years. While the queues in front of the techno clubs become shorter and shorter, the city is slowly converting into a melting pot for all sorts of musicians and artists with amazing instrumentalists, producers and bands from all over the world moving to the German capital to create a new scene. As a result, Berlin has come out with some of the craziest, non-conformist types of music. Toy Tonic's sister label Kryptox has started to establish itself as a key platform for this new scene. One of the protagonists of this scene is Joel Holmes, the former band leader of Carl Craig's synthesizer ensemble and keyboarder of (Grammy-nominated) cult band Roy Hargrove. Joel Holmes's new album Into The Abyss is a perfect capturing of the current moment in Berlin. The album features other main players of its new scene such as Ziggy Zeitgeist from Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange, as well as tapping into international talent such as acclaimed flutist Tenderlonious from London. Few people bridge the gap between jazz and electronic music as successfully as Holmes. Over the past years, he's been working with some of jazz's most relevant artists incl. Roy Hargrove, Curtis Fuller, Javon Jackson, Nnenna Freelon, Curtis Lundy, and Jimmy Cobb. Once tapped into electronic music too he made records with legends such as Carl Craig. Working with techno artists made him curious about the new dance scene resulting in his moved to Berlin where he quickly starting making music with the likes of Cody Currie and Kapote. Joel describes the album in his own words as follows: "The next album Into the Abyss, is the first time I recorded music through the lens of different landscapes and on two different continents reflecting the times of today's music that is mirroring what is happening in our communities and worlds today. From dark colors to light, music is so diverse and I tried to reflect this in my album. This is also the first time I have had this many special guests on an album. So, I'm excited about this." Features Tenderlonious, Roberto Manzin, DNA, Cory Baker, Theljon Allen, Desney Bailey, Vernon D. Hill, and Eldar Tsalikov. Remix by Emma-Jean Thackray.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: LAD 066EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

High-flying global house and techno torch-bearer Jimi Jules returns with a new Free Bird EP on Life and Death Records. The four tracks on Free Bird were written during the same sessions as Jimi's album + on Innervisions in 2022, and collected together they're a summary of what Jimi's all about -- hands-in-the-air anthems, chaotic house bangers, deep burners, and contemplative moments all rolled into one release. Jimi Jules has been turning dancefloors inside out for over 20 years, from festival stages to intimate redlight basements. He's brought his free-wheeling creative spirit and masters in music to bear on collaborations with Dixon, Âme, Joy Tyson, and Tugg The Drummer for labels like Defected, Innervisions, Zukunft, Watergate, and many more. Jimi's Free Bird EP switches seamlessly from anthemic mood and all-out party to self-reflection and brooding rave noir across 25 transformative minutes. The title track is an acid-tinged floor filler, imploring dancers and the public at large to question the status quo, and "break the rules, in everything you do". Then Jimi follows his own advice and hands over the controls to his Swiss Latino accomplice Lil Dirty, who embraces the chaos with delay effects, scratches and saw waves, for a house grinder that's full of fun and filters. The euphoria of the A-side is balanced out on the flip with two deeper cuts. "Speed Meditation" delivers a zoned-out atmosphere over a bouncy percussive groove, while poking fun at the West's adoption of spiritual practices to deal with the stress of modern living. "Touched By Silence" rounds off the EP, as Jimi channels his inner dancing Thom Yorke for an urban hymnal complete with a haunted falsetto, on top of a driving beat inspired by the ghost town that was Zurich during the pandemic. Free Bird is an EP only Jimi Jules could make, operating at the height of his powers after over two decades of making people dance all over the world, where he rips up his own rule book and gets creative on four tracks packed with personality and character.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: LAD 067EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The Cobblestone Jazz trio team up with kindred spirit The Mole for a double single of cascading grooves and stretched-out club burners. It's been over 20 years since the first Cobblestone Jazz EP, and Danuel Tate, Mathew Jonson, and Tyger Dhula continue to unravel expectations, creating outside-the-box rhythms and shifting, explorative musical structures for the dancers. It's an approach that has seen them play countless shows at festivals and clubs around the world, while reinventing their style on the fly, and whipping up a timeless blend of classic and modern sounds. For this single they're joined by friend, bandmate and hypnotic discotheque collagist The Mole. "Hip Waders" comes from one of the group's long studio sessions, and this gem of a jam was laid to tape after a couple days of playing. Usually, the group likes to set the studio up first (tuning the room, picking their instruments and setting up the patch bay), before exploring and recording musical ideas over the rest of the week. Although bouncing along at 120bpm, "Hip Waders" still strides into deep waters, courtesy of jazzy, tremolo chords that ripple across its skittish electronic groove, which constantly unfolds across a full 13 minutes. In contrast, the B-side isn't so meditative, but rather more classically arranged, and sprinkled with some live passes over the top. "Does Yo Mama Know" ups the tempo and rolls along on a broken, garage rhythm, before a sweet descending organ progression pulls the pulse into tighter focus. The title is in fact a nod to the Hollywood club that West Coast house pioneer Marques Wyatt did in the mid '90s -- all about the music and sound, no lights except for those of the 1200s, and a killer vibe. In this way, the 12" is split along true Cobblestone fault lines -- a contrast of long-winding and concise, macro and micro, vintage yet (re)inventive. Cobblestone Jazz and The Mole find the pocket as they always do: those coordinates somewhere between the dance music of the past and the present, while adding a twist to create new, forward-looking versions.

 

PRICE: $35.50

CAT #: MAR 078LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1983. A lost '80s groover from Bay Area soulster Fats Gaines is stepping out here with vocalist Zorina London. Fats Gaines was a jazz musician and orchestra leader born in Kansas, who had a significant presence in the San Francisco Bay music scene from the early 1950s to the first half of the 1980s. He experimented with various musical genres throughout his career, including rhythm and blues, soul, funk, and disco, but he always maintained the guiding presence of jazz in his music. His debut on record occurred in 1952, and although he had a prolific career as a live musician, his discography output was relatively limited and scattered. He recorded only half a dozen singles until 1983, which can be attributed to various reasons, including the volatile nature of the music industry and the difficulty in finding record labels willing to record jazz and other less popular musical genres. Despite his lack of commercial recognition, Fats Gaines is remembered by many as a talented saxophonist and orchestra leader who significantly contributed to the San Francisco Bay music scene. His music and legacy continue to be appreciated by jazz fans worldwide. Louisiana born and creed: Zorina spent her formative years in San Francisco Hunter Point district. She aspired to be an all-around entertainer; though her parents couldn't afford dance lessons, she hung around dance schools until the opportunity arose to show her dancing ability. Soon thereafter, she began dancing with various troupes and graduated as a leading dancer-choreographer for KEMO channel 20's variety program. She also began modelling professionally and won the Top Bay Area Model Award and the Knights of Honor Beauty Pageant in 1972. Also, during this time, she began working at San Francisco's Playboy Club, hoping for more opportunities and exposure. Besides her dancing ability, she exhibited her singing and acting abilities as well, with notables Carol Channing, comedian Prof. Irwin Corey and songstress Randy Crawford. Currently, Zorina continues her career as a singer, actress, and human rights activist in Taiwan. Under exclusive license by Carolyn London.

 

PRICE: $21.50

CAT #: MES 008EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

A "half world" of botanical sounds and surreal impressions assembled as four tracks for Munjebel's first release on Mesma. Oscillating between ambient, fourth world, and environmental music, Demi-Monde is a peaceful yet captivating promenade into organic and percussive synth scapes -- melancholic, escapist and contemplative. Munjebel is the joint project of Royer (Lobster Theremin, Closer) and Aurèle (Demi-Monde, Rinse FM, Cracki Records).

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: MA 007LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Merzbow (Masami Akita), the seminal Japanese noise project since 1979, remains one of the most influential and prolific figures in modern electronic composition. Originally a limited CD-only release on Waystyx in 2005, Scene is now available on vinyl for the first time with remastering by Masami Akita and an exclusive bonus track from the original recording session. Scene is revered by fans as one of Merzbow's best surrealist works from the mid-2000s "laptop era". The intro track, "Part 1", immediately grabs listeners with hysteric carnival music. The ascending parts then warp into hallucinatory passages with rhythmic drum patterns, metalworks, echoing bird calls, and eerie wind chimes tinkling atonally in the gossamer moon. Ultimately, Scene is a vital part of Merzbow's ever-evolving experimentations with analog and digital manipulations. Artwork by Masami Akita; design by Takashi Makabe. Remastered by Masami Akita on 2022. Vinyl mastering and lacquer completed by Kassian Troyer. Sleeve printed on heavy reverse cardboard; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: MMLP 003LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock. Monster Melodies presents a collaboration with Moving Gelatine Plates with Moving Gelatine Plates. 45 years after the start of Moving Gelatine Plates, Monster Mélodies and the legendary band release an album of unreleased tracks recorded between 1970 and 1978. Comes as a translucent pink jelly colored vinyl. Comes in a sleeve which opens up, containing a flyer with a family tree illustration of the different components of the band, a post card of a vintage promotional poster rand a plus a record which is an identical reproduction of the one originally made in 1970.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: MMLP 007LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

2023 restock. Monster Melodies present the original soundtrack of Amore (1973), a film by Henry Chapier, composed and performed by Vangelis Papathanassiou. An unreleased recording dating from July 1973. Vangelis Papathanassiou was the composer of the group Aphrodite's Child, he composed the band's music and the songs of Demis Roussos. Later Vangelis became famous for the soundtrack of the film Chariots of Fire (1981). In 1974, Henry Chapier after several atypical movie, An American Summer (1968), Sex-Power (1970) and Hi, Jerusalem (1972), directed the fiction film Amore. Here is an extract from the Divan d'Henry Chapier interview with Papathanassiou directed by Jean Claude Longin 2011: "This is happening in a city constantly threatened with death. At the time, I thought, there were a lot of documentaries and that I would do it differently. I imagined Venice in the guise of a heroine, a very beautiful woman, Sonia Petrovna, a girl of the Venetian aristocracy ailing, representing a page of history that has passed. But the fact remains that in the frame, in the subject, there was a little journalistic approach. Also because one of the actors, Daniel Quenaud, was presumed to be a reporter, sent to consider the merits of an architectural plan which would save Venice. So in the agreement, there is a slight journalist contamination. Otherwise there was also a love story... I think it's more of a fiction film than a documentary nonetheless." Chapier had this to say about going about the score: "The first time, it was at the Olympia, at the band's concert. I found the music to be trippy and wonderful, I, who above all, loved the Pink Floyd. I thought the Pink Floyd, I could never get them for my films. So I stormed in backstage at the Olympia, I said to Vangelis, 'Listen you are made to be an independent composer.' Things clicked between us instantly and so I asked if he wanted the script. He told me, 'no, we will see, me, I improvise from images.' This is a technique that is practiced today, but back then, it was unheard of. We did not have people like him, who recorded the sound on sixteen tracks, playing all the instruments themselves and who already had in mind how they would edit the soundtrack." Colored vinyl. Includes unpublished photos, the film poster and a postcard.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: MORTAL 005LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Recorded live at the Manchester Apollo 06-10-1983 this incredible artifact documents (with amazing sound) the live behemoth Motorhead were during Brian Robertson's (ex-Thin Lizzy) short stint on guitar, right on the trail of releasing their sixth studio album: Another Perfect Day. In front of a captive audience Lemmy, Phil Taylor and Robertson proceed to unload a murderous row of hits enough to give any hot-blooded rock n' roll fan a heart attack."

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: NNF 395LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"Over a decade since its inception, Wave Temples continues to refine and refract the project's visionary mythopoetic exotica. Panama Shift presents a 20-track kaleidoscopic star map inspired by 'the euphoric cults, both then and now, that come and go in the vast ritual of night.' Bleached keys, devotional synth, and driftwood percussion align in minimalist vignettes shaded by tape hiss and field recordings of streams, waves, wind, and birds. Dedicated to the late Japanese-born American anthropologist Yosihiko H. Sinoto (whose portrait graces the cover), famed for his excavations throughout the Pacific and French Polynesia, the album embodies a similarly voyaging spirit: 'chasing ancient mysteries... and rekindling with the esoteric journey of the human spirit.' This is music of forgotten shores, sea air, and saltwater shrines, echoing in shells scattered across the altars of Atlantis."

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: NOTON 058CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Kinder Der Sonne is the title of the new album by Alva Noto featuring music composed for the score of the theater piece Komplitzen by Simon Stone. The album title comes from Maxim Gorky's plays Children of the Sun, written in the context of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Simon Stone wrote the new play for the Burgtheater Ensemble, on the basis of this drama. Across fourteen compositions, Alva Noto's Kinder Der Sonne takes the listeners into a sonic journey of emotional tensions and release, reflecting the social upheavals of our days.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: NOTON 058LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Double LP version. Kinder Der Sonne is the title of the new album by Alva Noto featuring music composed for the score of the theater piece Komplitzen by Simon Stone. The album title comes from Maxim Gorky's plays Children of the Sun, written in the context of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Simon Stone wrote the new play for the Burgtheater Ensemble, on the basis of this drama. Across fourteen compositions, Alva Noto's Kinder Der Sonne takes the listeners into a sonic journey of emotional tensions and release, reflecting the social upheavals of our days.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: POTOMAK 826141

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress; LP version. This is the third album by Einstürzende Neubauten, also known as Halber Mensch, originally released in 1985. The album opens with the startlingly oppressive, almost fully a cappella title track, with contrapuntal, atonal, en masse chanting. The album progresses to include quite a repertoire of electronically-generated sounds, finding the band developing their mishmash of industrial experimentation matched by terrifying clangs, stomps, and of course, the theatrical, poetic vocal delivery of Blixa Bargeld. An incredibly aggressive album, with insistent, pounding rhythms and razors on metal, and Bargeld's voice dominating your dreams for a month after listening.

 

PRICE: $41.00

CAT #: PRESH 018LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Opaque red vinyl. "I dropped JK Flesh 'In Your Pit' on my new label PRESSURE three years ago, and then follow that up with the G36 vs JK Flesh sound clash Disintegration Dubs last year. Justin has consistently handed me pure audio gold, and actually gifted me some of my favorite releases from him full stop, in an incredible career of riches which he has tirelessly produced since Napalm Death til today. So again, I'm now totally psyched to drop Sewer Bait on my label PRESSURE. The sixth album from JK Flesh, this album is a slo-mo, slo-fi, sewer tech journey into utter gutter level filth. Overdriven, corroded, corrupted and absolutely blasted, it contains so many essential elements of clubland low life, but yet manages to remain beautifully original whilst pushing all levels deep into the red until it hurts in the best possible way. Anyone hooked on Andy Stott's dirtiest works, Porter Ricks deepest explorations or Techno Animal's speaker punishing grooves will find addictive nourishment within these relentlessly distorted heavyweight grooves... Not so much hard as completely f-ckin brutal, the master stroke from Justin Broadrick however, is takin his raw materials and feeding them militantly into the dub chamber. This is like a wholesale destruction of techno, 4/4 for people too wasted and strung out to give a f-ck about dancefloors, yet compelling enough and magnetic enough to completely insist upon fully body hypnotism in an undersized room with an oversized rig. The album's title track sounds like Drum & Bass don Digital or the peak of the Metalheadz label dragged down into hell for the ultimate bad rave trip, whilst 'Crawler' could be Killing Joke, jammin with Regis and his aggro allies from Birmingham techno's underappreciated discography, deep in a warehouse warzone. You don't have to dig techno to dig this dirt, you just have to enjoy having your head taken off and your body physically punished. If Jeff Mills output had been chopped, screwed and then painfully, slowly crushed, it may resemble the monolithic, psychedelic, crawl of Sewer Bait." --Kevin Martin

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: PP 074LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Public Possession presents Aiden Ayers's debut album, Venus Copper Rose. A few words by the artist himself: "Venus Copper Rose came to me in a dream. The three words are all the same thing, symbols of beauty and material formations of love. Together they are a VCR (videocassette recorder) -- a memory machine, a portal into fantasy and myth + a transcriber of dreams. The songs on the album represent the past five years of my life. The oldest of them were written and first recorded in 2017 and the youngest barely made it to the mastering session on time. I am always writing and recording, travelling to and fro, on little islands off the coast of BC, down to the California desert, or in makeshift basement studios throughout Vancouver. Every song has grown up and been captured in a different way -- the album is a wild garden of misfits, flowers and weeds. I hope that people feel nourished by this album -- I believe that is the ultimate role of music, like another kind of food, light, or love. I hope these songs and this album can help people see the beauty and poetry that flows through their own lives."

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: PUDEL 042LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

After three individual pieces on the Hamburg label Pudel Produkte, the long-playing work of the man from the Pension Stammheim is finally released. It quickly becomes clear that this is a real capacity record: six (on vinyl) from the cosmos of a man who means business. You can already tell by the fact that the record is only called ROTTE and not something else. Rotte makes ROTTE and nothing named, nothing labelled, nothing carefree commodes and prisoners certainly not. It is relatively easy to approach ROTTE. Just listen and do nothing else. No, nothing. Nothing at all. Don't give away flowers, smoke cows, talk yourself or listen to the net. Don't try to get out of the Bermuda Triangle in the process! Concentrate as if you were reading a book by Suhrkamp. Be actionless in the here and jazz. Beat the six kinds of wood out of the coffin and leave only the steel screws! Take Rotte and ROTTE seriously. Man and work. With him, though, black is absolutely a color. My ketamine is my petrol. First takes only. Drilling without Club of Gore. Undisputed truth. No lounge. The lyrics on Rotte are not a party. It might seem a bit too colorless, a bit too intense, a bit too hard and dark. Too much psychobabble. But the songs bring it and you. They are designed in such a way that nothing else works during them. Nobody would think of peeling an egg at Russian roulette. That's how you have to see it. The songs were musically supervised by Jörn Elling Wuttke and Oliver Bradford (Thee Church Ov Acid House), by Die Nerven producer Ralv Milberg, by Douglas Creed (BPitch Control, Freude am Tanzen), Boris Nielsen (Käptn Peng) and Peter Armster. There is a congenial mutual autocorrection between lyrics and music. Individually, this cannot be heard and it is not offered. By the way, you don't hear anything else at the Federal Criminal Police Office at the moment. So please.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: RS 040D-LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress; LP version. Yellow marbled vinyl. MMYYKK's Science EP arrives at a time when the world needs it. The eponymous title track is about recognizing the power and connection that we all have to the cosmos -- and it feels like no coincidence that this body of work arrives in 2021. The EP balances universal themes with playfulness; asks hard questions relating to accountability and materiality whilst remaining musically cohesive and funky throughout. An exceedingly difficult artist to pigeonhole, MMYYKK (pronounced Mike) works concurrently within the realms of soul, jazz, hip hop, R&B and ambient; his sound equally indebted to his fellow west-coast natives Thundercat and Flying Lotus as it is to synth experimentalists Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder. Whilst MMYYKK operates as the multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, and engineer across all six tracks, you can still hear the richness of improvisation musical collaboration involved in the making of this record, with numerous cameos from artists in MMYYKK's adopted hometown of Minneapolis as well as a feature from London's very own Demae. The city of Minneapolis, whilst not addressed directly in the lyrics, provided a backdrop like no other whilst this album was coming together. Being at the epicenter of such a tragedy had a profound effect on the formation of the EP... "The city was literally burning..." MMYYKK recalls as he goes on to explain that tackling themes such as police reform, reparations and accountability in his work is his way of taking a stand in the fight for justice. Despite the grief prevalent in the city, the EP exudes a complex "dopeness", executed so effortlessly it belies the skill involved in the process -- it's precisely this nonchalant cool that defines what Science means to the artist. While you can dissect the inspirations and trace the lineage of this body of work -- the result is singular. It's clear that Mychal Fisher, aka MMYYKK, is operating on his own terms, in a lane of his own -- and making it look easy. For fans of: The Internet, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, Moonchild, Robert Glasper, MNDSGN, Anderson .Paak.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: RS 049LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Klein Zage veers away from dance music and into a world of innovative alt pop with an emotional portrayal of fondness, detachment, and monotony. Sage Redman (aka Klein Zage) has moved around from Seattle, to South East London, and now finds herself in upstate New York. She has always kept close a desire to reinvent herself as an artist against this backdrop of ever-changing scenery. Klein Zage established herself with previous releases on her own label, Orphan, which she runs with long term collaborator Joey G ii (real name Joe Gillick). Her previous work fuses electronic sounds with spoken social commentaries about themes of the city, femininity, and the hospitality industry. Sage's new album, Feed The Dog, is her debut release on Rhythm Section INTL. These songs have a feel of disassociated longing. A sort of serene, catatonic beauty that leaves an inwardly emotional imprint. After the music finds time to sit with the listener, Klein's poetic vision becomes even more sublime. Written in a combination of Seattle, a remote Washington fjord called Hood Canal, and London, her music covers a lot of ground. The album is full of songs that merge lines of ethereal dream pop over to left field synth-heavy incantations bursting with electronic energy and haunting ambience. Feed The Dog may sound like a transformation of the former Klein Zage sound. But this is the music she's always been making. Her career-long ambitions have come to fruition with these songs, and now seems like a perfect time for people to hear them. In her own words, Sage says the album "is about the mundane, the routines that tether you to reality, caring for a living breathing being that needs you. Defending the ones you love." These themes, apart from being a literal ode to her dog Steves, provide a metaphor for a defining moment in Klein's career as a musician and lyricist. Feed The Dog is another evolution of Klein Zage's sound as she reinterprets her own creativity once again. This constantly shifting motion is something that has always been with her through each musical endeavor. And will carry on to the next, wherever her artistic direction takes you. For fans of: Eyedress, King Krule, Portishead, FKA Twigs, Cocteau Twins, Otta, WOOM, Tirzah, Salami Rose, Joe Lewis, Homeshake, Ojerime, Ibeyi.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: RS 056LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Sometimes writing press releases is really hard. There's a certain artwork to summing up the essence of a composition to someone who hasn't yet heard the music. Thankfully, this is not the case with the latest EP from Manchester's Hidden Spheres. Tom is in his purple period -- and after nearly a decade of releasing delicately constructed songs that sit in the hinterland between dancefloor and home listening, he's finally cracked the code for creating absolute bangers, with all the class and lightness of touch present from his previous work. Hidden Spheres is in turbo mode -- and you've most likely heard these tunes without knowing it -- "Tanzen" has been a staple in Bradley Zero's set and always caused complete dancefloor destruction. Add in the Italo-flavored Paula Tape remix and you have one of the most exciting dancefloor propositions of 2023. For fans of: Paula Tape, Laurence Guy, Shinichiro Yokota, Palms Trax, Seb Wildblood, FYI Chris.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: ROG 127CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Craig Taborn, universal pianist, Joëlle Léandre experienced improviser, Mat Maneri, untiring explorer of microtonality for the first time together."

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: RM 4135CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Robin Fox's work with frequency is a thing of wonder. Between his renowned pieces for laser and his extensive dance commissions, he has been responsible for creating a series of powerful electronic music works that exist equally between digital and analog realms. On Threnody To Now, Fox uses sound to meditate on affect and its manifestations in modern living. Deeply intuitive and iterative pieces, both these compositions dwell in harmony, folding and unfolding across a mesh of slow-release envelopes and low frequency oscillation. They both set up a self-contained spectrum, contoured in a sonic language that is personal and ultimately summarizes what comes in the wake one of the most curious moments of our age.A note from Robin Fox: "Everybody, it seems, lives their own personal apocalypse. It's inevitable. Built into the arc of our mortal time on earth is the inescapable feeling that we live right on the edge of the end of the world as we know it. It is all part and parcel of each unit of human consciousness assuming it is the center of everything. Try as I might to avoid catastrophic thinking there is a creeping sense of dread and unease making its way into my mind right now and it made its way into these pieces too. Both tracks on this release are linear takes recorded on my studio Eurorack modular system. They are different patches on different days -- but they feel related. Both sessions started with a desire to explore the harmonic series with patience and make something vast. What emerged where two epic pieces that seemed to tap into a sadness and disconnection that was gripping the city and my mind at that time. Listen to these tracks at a time when the light is changing. The liminal times of dawn and dusk or that moment when the sun emerges from behind a bank of dark clouds. While a threnody is a lament there is hope in the rising harmonic phrases too. A sense that we may yet emerge from this period better than we were. We must be better than we were. Always."

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: RM 4143CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

On Elegyia, Robert Gerard Pietrusko reflects on notions of accumulation and decay, calling specifically on his memories of the demise of the Soviet Union. The sudden collapse of the USSR shocked the world and in that moment came an intense and wholesale reveal, that spoke to the impermanence of all political and social structures, no matter how fixed they might appear. Using this as a compositional metaphor, Pietrusko creates an edition of muted sonics, rich saturation and submerged low energies. Mirroring the uncertainties, aspirations and desires of that time, Elegyia reveals a unique acoustic reading of disintegration and the promise of renewal. A beautifully drifting memory-scape richly colored in dense clouds of harmony.From Robert Gerard Pietrusko: "While working on this album, I've often thought about the meaning of the word, elegy. As a poem or a piece of music, it is written for the passing of a person or a way of life. The creation and performance of an elegy, however, is not an experience of this original sorrow but is instead its repetition -- following a similar pattern, though never the same. Similarly, Elegiya is based on five piano motifs that are repeated with constant variation and extrapolation across the album's nine tracks. In structure, harmony, and timbre each piece attempts to capture the contradictory condition of a macro-level stasis versus a tumultuous interior, rigorous movement but no progression, and a threat of its own undoing.Robert Gerard Pietrusko is a designer and composer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work is part of the permanent collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris and has been exhibited in more than 15 countries at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, Akademie der Künste, Palais de Tokyo, and the Venice Architecture Biennale. Recently, Pietrusko was awarded the 2021 Rome Prize for landscape architecture. He is currently an associate professor at Harvard University, and a visiting faculty member at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture, and Design in Moscow. His last album, Six Microphones, was released on LINE/Counter Audition in 2019.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: RM 4160CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

From Lawrence English: "It may sound implausible now, but in the early 2000s Australia felt a long way away from the rest of the world. Brisbane, where I still live today, felt even further removed. This remoteness had its challenges, but also its charms. In 2001, Zane Trow then director of the Brisbane Powerhouse invited me to perform at an Open Day for the center with my trio I/O3 and DJ Olive. I didn't realize it at the time, but this engagement would spark a number of connections that tie directly into this edition. Following that live performance (released as Powerhouse Sessions in 2002), I was invited to curate a performance series, Fabrique, focused on new and emergent musics for Brisbane Powerhouse. At the same time, DJ Olive mentioned that he had started a new imprint, Phonomena, with Toshio Kajiwara and one of the first releases they were planning was from Aki Onda, whom Olive described as using a set of Walkmans that make a whole universe. I was intrigued. The following year, Aki Onda not only produced Cassette Memories Volume I 'Ancient And Modern' for Phonomena, but a few months later released a second volume Bon Voyage! with the always inspiring Improvised Music From Japan label. Both of these editions marked out overlapping territories relating to tape music, field recordings and most of all perceptions of memory (how it is lost and then found again, how it can constructed and deconstructed -- sometimes simultaneously). In early 2004, I wrote to Aki and invited him to Australia for a series of performances including two in Brisbane; one at Fabrique and another as part of NineHoursNorth, a dedicated program of Japanese music I was curating at the Judith Wright Centre Of Contemporary Art. Each of Aki's performances typified the expansive nature of his practice. Although the medium and tools may have been identical (cassettes, Walkmans, delay pedals and Fender twin amps), the focus of each performance was markedly different. For NinehoursNorth, Aki deployed the approach he presented on Bon Voyage!, long-form field recordings were re-amped and in the process of their unfolding a perception of time being bent in and out of shape emerged. There was a sense of the strange familiar, as bird songs, cityscapes, voices, instruments and various environments were melted together and reconfigured through the intense volume produced by the amplifiers. For Fabrique, the recording collected on this edition, Aki undertook a more performative method that reflected the sense of pacing and movement collected on Ancient And Modern..."

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: RM 4165CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

With Petra, Alberto Boccardi charts out a sound world that morphs with a geological energy. Swelling electronics spill forth, their sounds splintering to resound within cavernous structures, caves perhaps or something even grander. A city perhaps, but one which is unruly, its architecture creating unexpected reflections and distortions. Distended voices try to cut through these spaces but they are lost, all that remains is their sibilance. Boccardi's works create sound maps of this imagined place, they carve out the secret passages and pathways through which we are led.From Alberto Boccardi: "Petra is a work that stems from the time I lived in Cairo between 2015 to 2020. I spent almost five years there, surrounded by the frenetic mood of the tireless Egyptian capitol. It's a never-ending cascade of sound and flashing lights, were where I found myself split between the habituation of my daily work and this throbbing sense of life all around me. Petra also comes from the period since I moved back to Milano, my hometown. In some respects, the album is almost me closing one chapter of my life, while opening a new one. All the materials were recorded at Standards, the studio I built five years ago, a place I know well and an environment where everything was available and, by contrast with Cairo, so familiar and under control. It seems a perfect counterpoint, a way to consider these sound memories at distance almost. While starting the set-up I was really keen to work by subtraction and also consider the idea of silence, which had not been a part of my life during my time in Cairo. I was trying to find the breadth between each sonic element and the space they would require. I was first much more focused on the sound itself, than the place it needed to be in relation with the other sounds. While recording I decided to invite a long-time collaborator Cinzia De Lorenzi, a very creative dancer and choreographer, to come into the studio and work with me. She has an incredible talent for voice and this was brought to bare on several of the pieces. We had a very quick understanding of the creative dynamic and I was positive that her voice would be able to fit in the sound interstices that were appearing. I thought the presence of the voice would help me to play with how, as the listener, I would experience a sense of distance across each track. It helped provide an approach to create and fill the empty spaces existing around all the other sounds..."

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: RM 4183CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

For over three decades, Daniel Menche has roamed a terrain as sonically verdant as the mountains and countryside that surround him in the Pacific Northwest. His music is singular in one aspect -- intensity -- but it is divergent in every other form. Drifting from profoundly focused field recording, through to provocative electroacoustics, Menche's work is one that typifies a willingness to consider sound not merely as a horizontal linear form, but as a vertical zone, within which the timbral capacities of sound can be tested, reformed and rendered down into a true experience of acoustic affect. On Forlorn, Menche's work aches and grinds across itself. A glacial rasp that reaches deep inside and lights up a part of us we might not often recognize in ourselves. This is a work of profound distortion, in time, in harmony and in space.From Daniel Menche: "The word 'Forlorn' is defined as: 'abandoned, lost, ruined, doomed for destruction'. In some way, that sums up a lot about the mood of 2020-2021. We all felt abandoned and lost to a certain degree, in all of our own, various ways. I certainly did, and I thought one aspect that was the most abandoned was my sense of time. It's as though 'time' had abandoned me. or was it the other way around? Maybe I was abandoning time! My own solution to this recent forlorn feeling is to go on long hikes in forests around this area in which I live. Ideally, I want to get lost in my thoughts, and occasionally physically lost. Getting lost seems to be the main goal and intention of my musical work over the past 30 years. I have an ambition to see how I can get the listener to feel as lost as possible within my sounds and noise. Have you ever been lost in a forest all alone at night without any lighting? I have, and what a great feeling! I try to translate these experiences in the form of my music. A big gigantic dark forest of drones and noise to get lost in."

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: RBWPC-CS

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The next issue in the on-going Mastermix series features a centerpiece of Frankfurt's club history: Wild Pitch Club. A predecessor to the esteemed Robert Johnson and a stepping stone for Panorama Bar's very own nd_baumecker. Founded by Playhouse masterminds Ata and the late Heiko M/S/O it was a Thursday club night that heavily featured house music as a prescription to the ongoing techno fever. Enamored with the USAmerican roots of it and all things deep, it not only presented the right records, but also their creators and protagonists. With a string of guest DJs from Robert Hood and Claude Young to Kerri Chandler and Theo Parrish as well as talent from the UK and Europe, it was one of the culture's hubs at the time. Here you have its testimony. Selected and mixed by Ata and nd_baumecker, it's an authentic snapshot of the club's vibe and spirit, spread over two separate 2x12" volumes (RBWPC-LP1 and RBWPC-LP2) or a collectable tape (download included), it's the full dosage. Like Roach Motel confessed: "Wild Pitch, I love you." Features Deep 6, Ralph Falcon, Papermusic Issue One, Global Goone, KGB, Angel Moraes, Tom Moulton, Omegaman, Da Rebels, Lectroluv, Joi Cardwell, The Afrodizzact, Dewayne "Powermix" Jensen, Louie Balo, Benji Candelario, Kings Of Tomorrow, Sean Grant, Iz & Diz, Presence, Glenn Vernon, Jovonn, Krystine, Low Key, Free Energy, Wam Kidz, and Tronic Pulse.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: RBL 087LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"The co-founder and ex-percussionist of Ensturzende Neubauten returns with his long-awaited new album. In this release his experimentation and metal percussions combine with the art rock of 'Poetry Machine', displaying a more romantic and melancholic facet of F.M.'s sonic energy. Dissonant guitars mix with pianos, trumpets, and tightly wrapped rhythms while F.M.'s voice melds with that of the captivating Rica Blunk to propose an album featuring shades of post rock and soft jazz. Influences include Tortoise, Nick Cave, and PJ Harvey. Limited vinyl with gatefold insert."

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: SLT 008CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Saltern presents a thrilling new live recording of Naldjorlak for solo cello, composer Éliane Radigue's first piece for an acoustic instrument, paired with a remastered version of the long out-of-print, original 2006 recording. Composed in 2005 in close collaboration with cellist Charles Curtis, Naldjorlak marked a striking shift in the music of Radigue, who has since composed exclusively for instrumentalists with her celebrated Occam series. This double-CD album brings together two complete performances by Curtis, recorded nearly 15 years apart (Paris in 2006 and Los Angeles in 2020), drawing attention to the evolution of the piece and to its inherent mutability. The sound and spirit of Naldjorlak are centered around the re-tuning of the entire cello to the wolf tone, a uniquely unstable frequency, creating a haunting, almost feedback-like resonance within the instrument itself. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu with custom packaging and screen printing by Alan Sherry. Includes extensive liner notes by Gascia Ouzounian, Radigue, and Curtis, and a reproduction of Radigue's never-before published original drawing of Naldjorlak.From Gascia Ouzounian's liner notes: "Even as it expands conceptions of what sound is, and thus what music can be, to understand Naldjorlak only as music would be to limit its scope. It is music, but it is also physics and philosophy. Naldjorlak is a detailed investigation of the physical properties of resonating bodies and dynamic systems; it is a meditation on the condition of instability; it is a metaphysics of chaos and uncertainty."

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: SMALL 060EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Second coup by Bari-based Rhythm Of Paradise on Smallville. Michele Lamacchia is a Master of strictly timeless Italo-Vibes and he has learnt from the best. All the glory of no-nonsense Italo-house is dripping, warm and fuzzy, deep and rich house cuts for your listening and dancing pleasure. Like a butterfly! Cover by Stefan Marx.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: SOMM 083LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

First ever vinyl release. Monster rarity here! An incredible find for anyone into late '60s/early '70s underground hard-psych and blues-rock. A full unreleased album by British hard-blues band Sam Apple Pie, recorded in 1970 possibly as a follow up album to their Decca debut. Taken from the only surviving copy of a recently found acetate (without song titles or credits), all leads to believe this was recorded by the line-up of Sam Sampson, Bob Renny, Andy Johnson, Mick Smith, and Mick Stuart. A great mix of heavy blues, hard-rock, and psych, with some tracks sounding not unlike Elias Hulk or Fleetwood Mac. Restored and remastered sound; hard cardboard sleeve with liner notes; includes digital download. RIYL: Fleetwood Mac, Edgar Broughton Band, Free, Elias Hulk, Savoy Brown...

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: SRP 002EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Clipping me softly! Manuel Tur returns to his own new label Spaced Repetitions for a second round of atmospherically dense DJ tools. Three different cuts for any time of night or day -- did someone say Swiss Army Knife? Suspenseful title track "Soft Clip" takes you on a dark and dreamy boat ride through the midnight jungle, before the energetic "Hip Control" with its distant sounds of a nearby ritual inevitably makes your bodies shake as you approach the riverbank. Finally, back on solid ground, the heavy groove of "Suave Gear Changer" points the way inland. But will these beguiling scent and hypnotic sounds of the surroundings ever let you arrive? Find out in the next instalment of Spaced Repetitions.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: SR 533LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Hailing from the Agouza district of Cairo, Egypt, this brilliant trio consists of Alan Bishop (acoustic bass, vocals, alto sax), Maurice Louca (keyboards, drum machine), and Sam Shalabi (electric guitar). Born in 2012 when the three were living in the same apartment building in Cairo's Agouza district, the trio's instrumental improvisation-based explorations are propelled by Louca's North African percussion loops and shimmering keys, Shalabi's West African tinged free jazz guitar and grounded by Bishop's driving Krautrock-style acoustic bass. High Tide in the Lowlands was recorded in Brussels at Les Ateliers Claus on September 5, 2017 and is quite an intense experience. Most performances and recording sessions are improvised and this set is no different and even though the group opened the show with "Baka of the Future" from their first album Bes, it is almost unrecognizable and everything the trio plays is continually morphing into the next unknown idea. As the sound, energy, and instantaneous composition flows, the trance is growing and growing, ranging from raw shapeshifting "no (un)wave", free jazz, traditional Arabic, and modern experimental explorations to a concrete mystic trip from a universe expanding and contracting constantly. This is earth interrogating the sky, the sky rejoining the earth, an unknown and unwritten cosmogony.Maurice Louca is an Egyptian musician and composer born in Cairo where he lives and works. As well as being the co-founder of the bands Bikya, Alif, and Lekhfa, Louca lends his sound to numerous other projects, composing for theatre, film, dance and contemporary art. Previous releases on Sub Rosa: Elephantine (SR 474LP), Saet El-Hazz (SR 519LP). Alan Bishop is a founding member of Phoenix/Seattle avant-garde trio Sun City Girls, who, for 27 years, explored the outer reaches of improvisation and composition (from free jazz/post rock psychedelic, and sound collage to outernational Arabic and Asian inspired folk music). As founder of the Sublime Frequencies record label, Bishop has released over 100 records, introducing previously ignored musical genres from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Sam Shalabi is a prolific Egyptian-Canadian composer and improviser living between Montreal, Quebec and Cairo, Egypt. As the founder of Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect, and many other projects, he began with punk rock in the late '70s and his work has evolved into a fusion of experimental music that incorporates modern/traditional Arabic, shaabi, noise, and classical music with spoken word, free improvisation and jazz.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: SR 536LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

LP version. From his early days with Henry Cow, Fred Frith was seen as a brilliant instrumentalist and improviser, but what has been overlooked is what a first-rate composer he is. This recording offers both aspects. His most complex orchestral composition and two selected improvisations with the Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. Fred Frith, as an infusion of energy and inspiration."Something about this Landscape was commissioned by Ars Musica in 2018. I composed the piece during a residency at Lou Harrison's straw-bale house in the desert at Joshua Tree, California. It's an inspiring place for a number of reasons -- the silence, the light, the life, the history. The extraordinary diversity of birds during the migration season. Both other pieces are improvisations. The first one is the one we did during the concert (in public), the other one, very different, is the one we did during the dress rehearsal (on the day of the concert)." --Fred FrithMusiques Nouvelles is one of the two most successful and diversified contemporary music ensemble in this country with Ictus. With, under the influence of Jean-Paul Dessy, a deeply spiritual and mutual listening aspect. This meeting with the legendary Fred Frith will remain as an important step.Personnel: Fred Frith - guitar, composition + Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles: Berten D'Hollander - flute; Charles Michiels - clarinet; Adrien Lambinet - trombone; Hughes Kolp - guitar; Pierre Quiriny - percussion; Claire Bourdet et Laurent Houque - violins; Karel Coninx - viola; Jean-Paul Zanutel - cello; Jean-Paul Dessy - conductor.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: SR 539LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve; includes 24-page large booklet. All in all, there are more than 50 pieces, new and old, live and studio, finished pieces and scores to be performed, acoustic and classical, solos and pieces for ensemble, using classical and special instruments. This Fluxus edition features (in alphabetical order): Eric Andersen, Ay-O, George Brecht, John Cage, Giancarlo Cardini, Giuseppe Chiari, Henning Christiansen, Philip Corner, Öyvind Fahlström, Ken Friedman, Sten Hanson, Geoffrey Hendricks, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Joe Jones, Bengt af Klintberg, Milan Knízák, Alison Knowles, Larry Miller, George Maciunas, Sara Miyamoto, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Opening Performance Orchestra, Benjamin Patterson, Josef Anton Riedl, Terry Riley, Takako Saito, Tomas Schmit, Dieter Schnebel, Mieko Shiomi, Yasunao Tone, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, and La Monte Young. The musicians and performers Anna Clementi, Agnese Toniutti, Deborah Walker, Werner Durand, Luciano Chessa, Miroslav Beinhauer, Petr Bakla, Nicolas Horvath, Petr Ferenc, and Premysl Ondra have played, performed and declaimed the Fluxus pieces, Arditti Quartet and S.E.M. Ensemble provided one piece from their archives. Milan Knízák, Petr Rezek, Petr Kotík, Olaf Hanel, Eric Andersen, Per Brunskog, Peter van der Meijden, Pavlína Morganová, Natasha Lushetich, Joseph Nechvatal, Natilee Harren, Martin Patrick, Diedrich Diederichsen, Christopher M. Reeves, and Hubertus von Amelunxen have written Fluxus-themed texts. Archivio Conz in Berlin provided access to their extensive Fluxus archives and Edizioni Conz provided coproduction. Ursula and René Block made possible the realization of John Cage's historical composition "Rozart Mix" from the Edition Block archive. The photographic material comes from Marie Knízáková and Milan Knízák's private archive, the German photographer Wolfgang Träger, Archivio Conz's Fluxus archive and Opening Performance Orchestra's digital archive. The cover themes are paintings by Milan Knízák, while the graphic design is the work of Jaroslav Buzek.

 

PRICE: $29.00

CAT #: SV 198LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Restocked; LP version. "La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day. Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as The Black Record due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with Young's original liner notes in magnificent calligraphy. Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition "Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery" (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes state that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any constant slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity." "La Monte Young is the daddy of us all." --Brian Eno

 

PRICE: $16.50

CAT #: TR 532CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

He has been described as the "JD Salinger of Pop" (by Rock And Folk) and Q Magazine welcomed his come-back album A Trip To The Coast (TR 280CD/LP, 2014) as "a welcome return for a long lost treasure", Francoise Hardy provided backing vocals for his '80s Hit "Tommy & Co", his albums were produced by people like Ian Broudie and Etienne Daho and recently he was invited as a special guest by Pete Doherty to open his Liverpool show. In a nutshell, since the early '80s, Bill Pritchard has shown that he is at the top of his game. Now comes Bill Pritchard Sings Poems by Patrick Woodcock -- a new and exciting venture, a collaboration with the acclaimed Canadian poet Patrick Woodcock. Woodcock, who has written nine books of poetry and whose work has been translated into 14 languages. Bill Pritchard has been a fan for three decades and during the long, dark lockdown days he decided to reach out to Pritchard and ask if he would write a song based on one of his poems. The beginning of a great (e-mail-) friendship between the award-winning poet living far above the Arctic Circle and the singer/songwriter from the Midlands from which the present album resulted. Sings Poems By Patrick Woodcock is a work of beauty and a testament to their love and respect for each other's craft. All of the songs were created from poems found in the tenth book Farhang Book I by Patrick Woodcock (to be released later in 2023). The album has everything you expect from a Bill Pritchard album, it has everything you expect from a great pop album: songs of timeless elegance armed with Woodcock´s amazing poems, multi-layered songs that seem so effortless at the same time. The album contains 11 sparkling guitar pop gems that prove that Pritchard is one of the greats of the genre alongside artists like Lloyd Cole or Roddy Frame. Bill Pritchard Sings Poems By Patrick Woodcock is a joy, an experiment and an artistic triumph, it is as expected a lyrical and musical masterpiece.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: TR 532LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. He has been described as the "JD Salinger of Pop" (by Rock And Folk) and Q Magazine welcomed his come-back album A Trip To The Coast (TR 280CD/LP, 2014) as "a welcome return for a long lost treasure", Francoise Hardy provided backing vocals for his '80s Hit "Tommy & Co", his albums were produced by people like Ian Broudie and Etienne Daho and recently he was invited as a special guest by Pete Doherty to open his Liverpool show. In a nutshell, since the early '80s, Bill Pritchard has shown that he is at the top of his game. Now comes Bill Pritchard Sings Poems by Patrick Woodcock -- a new and exciting venture, a collaboration with the acclaimed Canadian poet Patrick Woodcock. Woodcock, who has written nine books of poetry and whose work has been translated into 14 languages. Bill Pritchard has been a fan for three decades and during the long, dark lockdown days he decided to reach out to Pritchard and ask if he would write a song based on one of his poems. The beginning of a great (e-mail-) friendship between the award-winning poet living far above the Arctic Circle and the singer/songwriter from the Midlands from which the present album resulted. Sings Poems By Patrick Woodcock is a work of beauty and a testament to their love and respect for each other's craft. All of the songs were created from poems found in the tenth book Farhang Book I by Patrick Woodcock (to be released later in 2023). The album has everything you expect from a Bill Pritchard album, it has everything you expect from a great pop album: songs of timeless elegance armed with Woodcock´s amazing poems, multi-layered songs that seem so effortless at the same time. The album contains 11 sparkling guitar pop gems that prove that Pritchard is one of the greats of the genre alongside artists like Lloyd Cole or Roddy Frame. Bill Pritchard Sings Poems By Patrick Woodcock is a joy, an experiment and an artistic triumph, it is as expected a lyrical and musical masterpiece.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: TARTALB 020LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Taking his cue from seminal mix albums of days gone by, Glenn Astro is back with a compilation of original productions from a cast of fictional artists on Nothing Is Real. Across 13 tracks, the Tartelet mainstay celebrates the thrill of discovery which came as standard listening to new entries in series like X-Mix and DJ Kicks, moving between head-nodding downtempo, ambient techno, broken beat and all manner of chill-out room delights. You might be left wishing artists such as DJ 1999, Mental Trance, and Eye Soul8r had actual discographies to go and explore, but as Astro himself is keen to point out, "nothing is real." Astro has never been shy to embrace classic tropes and tones in his past albums for Tartelet, Apollo, and Ninja Tune, but he's drawing on a different set of influences for this album and embracing the flexibility afforded by using imagined aliases for varied production styles. "I had the idea to do a mixtape, preferably with unknown dance tracks that also reflect that whole '90s/early '00s vibe," Astro explains. "Instead of digging for some records that haven't been sourced yet or trying to find those 'forgotten' treasures, I made the tracks myself. That way I had full control over BPMs, feel and the whole arrangement of tracks. I thought of a few alter egos and started producing the tracks in the order that I intended to play them in a mix. In the end a whole compilation of tracks emerged." While the concept might suggest you're going to hear a lot of overfamiliar sounds, don't be fooled. Astro is inspired and inquisitive, channeling the experimental spirit of the '90s and early '00s when electronic music was still continually being redefined in all kinds of micro-scenes. In many cases, Astro's productions slip into the cracks between genres rather than specifically mimicking a style. Even if the reference points are detectable, the end result is a curious blend as indebted to ambiguity as the overall concept of the compilation. Like the spine-tingling sensation of hitting play and awaiting the waves of unknown sonics on one of those seminal mixes, you never know exactly what you're going to get as you take the trip through Nothing Is Real. For fans of The Orb, The Future Sound of London, Aphex Twin. Features: Mental Trance, Crystalline Reality, Eye Soul8r, DJ 1999, Brain Liquor, and The Foundation.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: TAC 015LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

This Is is THE album by Ghia. It catches the band at its peak and features ten songs, including not only their impeccable hit, "What's Your Voodoo?" but a full arsenal of yet unheard, timeless, and soulful music without equal. The songs on the album, which were recorded between 1988 and 1991, could be considered forerunners of the downtempo genre, with one foot in the late 1980s street soul direction but sparkling with touches of synth pop and contemporary jazz-funk. The album starts with "Keep Your House In Disorder," which has yet again become another classic song from the band's catalog since it was featured as the B-side of the "What's Your Voodoo?" reissue. The song is about a relationship in which the woman has trouble adapting to her boyfriend's turn in life. This Is continues with the downtempo numbers "Crystal Silence" and "Close to You." Both are deep, one-of-a-kind, and previously unissued street soul ballads. On these two tracks, you can still hear the band's roots in jazz-funk. "Close To You" was one of the band's first compositions. Earlier recordings of the song exist with different singers and different vocals, but it wasn't perfected until Lisa laid down the final version and a choir was added. Next up is "Eskimo," an equally brilliant and soulful downtempo composition, but with more focus on synth sounds than the previous tracks. Once more, it showcases the creative lyricism of the songwriters, Boberg and Simon, imagining a train ride during a rainy and cold night. Eskimo leads to the aforementioned classic, "What's Your Voodoo?" Originally released in 1991 on the small Mikado label, it was reissued in 2019. This is proto trip-hop, recorded before British bands like Massive Attack, Tricky, and Portishead laid the foundation of trip-hop. "Angel On Your Shoulder" and "L O M E" are two more completely unissued and great tracks from the band's shelved works. Being a bit more up-tempo than the rest of the album, they fall between contemporary soul/R&B and synthesized pop music. "You Won't Sleep on My Pillow" was the original A-side of their single release in 1991. The album concludes with a really strong ballad entitled "I Haven't Got The Power." Here you hear only pianist and keyboardist Lutz Boberg with Lisa Ohm, without further instrumentation. This Is may easily be considered one of the best German late '80s/early '90s soul pop and downtempo albums ever recorded.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: TOYT 143EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Dan Shake, Kaidi Tatham, Jamie 3:26, on Toy Tonics! Yes. Toy Tonics lead artist Cody Currie released his debut album on the Berlin label last year and now here come the remixes! Pure dancefloor joy is guaranteed with this release. The names speak for themselves. And they really made effective DJ weapons out of Cody's very organic sounding, warm, soul-driven jazzy house songs. Cody by now doesn't need a big introduction anymore. He is one of the "hot" names from London's new house scene (even if he lives in Berlin) and being the only one who has made a collabo with Eliza Rose created a certain buzz not just in UK (they recorded the tracks "Danger", "Moves", "Night Sky" released on Cody's debut album Lucas). This EP will make his album music more accessible for dancefloors. Also features remix by Sam Ruffillo & Kapote.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: TOYT 148EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Bárbara Boeing joined Toy Tonics. The Brazilian DJ selector and heavy addicted worldwide vinyl digger. Bárbara teamed up with Sam Ruffillo, the Italian producer, keyboarder, DJ. Sam helped her to shape three tracks. Dancefloor fillers that Bárbara basically did the way she needs them for her DJ sets. And the results are bangers. Inspired by people like DJ Raffa, Mr. Monday, Yello, MBG International Records -- she and Sam created three instrumentals that reflect three different shades of Bárbara's taste, "Baile Do Silêncio": Inspired by the '90s funk from Brazil and its high energy inside the dancefloors, "Baile Do Silêncio" was made to make people dance. "Brasiliana": Dreamy Italo house chords over some Latin percussion creates the intimist atmosphere of this deep and mysterious track. "Brigada": Hard to be categorized into one genre, this track serves a pinch of Balearic elements over a dancefloor-oriented House with some Kwaito and also Italo Disco references. Features Phil Mill. One remix by Esa Williams.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54092LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Enigmatic psychedelic proto-prog act Five Day Rain was formed in Sussex in the late 1960s by guitarist Rick Sharpe and bassist Clive Shepherd of Iron Prophet, and keyboardist Graham Maitland, who had been in Les Fleur Des Lys with Bryn Haworth, whose brother Kim joined on drums. This mythic self-titled debut has pop harmonies from all three members of America in places, the prog spiced with shades of blues, but somehow only 15 acetates were cut before a dispute quashed the project. This lost gem is as unique as it is rare, prefacing Procol Harum, Elton John, and Styx in equal measure; grab it and be blown away by the musical complexity. Licensed from Cherry Red.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54093LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Mythical Sussex psychedelic proto-prog band Five Day Rain cut an album that never was in 1970, since a dispute nixed its official release. This must-have collection of rarities includes outtakes such as the fuzz box-filled "Dartboard" and the raunchy "Floating," as well as a tasteful cover of Bobby Hebb's "Sunny," plus full version of "Rough Cut Marmalade." "Spare The Children," released as a 45 by side project Studd Pump is included here too. Required listening for all who wish to understand the Five Day Rain story in full. Licensed from Cherry Red.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54098LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1969. Experimental prog act East Of Eden's daring debut album Mercator Projected was released by Deram in 1969. Former Graham Bond Organisation bassist Steve York and drummer Dave Dufort supply the tough rhythmic backbone on which frontman Geoff Nicholson weaves his edgy guitar, with Dave Arbus's electric violin supplanting what would normally be played on rhythm guitar, Adrian Martins's sax and flute completing the picture with central European melodies. Hard rocking, melodically meandering, and including a one-off take of "Eight Miles High," this is prog with a bold difference. A killer set from start to finish. Licensed from Cherry Red.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54100LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Recorded in November 1969 at the US Embassy, Live In Ankara saw the adventurous jazz trumpeter Don Cherry performing with saxophonist Irfan Sümer, bassist Selçuk Sun, and drummer Okay Temiz, with arrangements by trumpeter Maffy Falay, who had introduced Cherry to Temiz in Stockholm. Mostly comprised of Cherry originals and adaptations of Turkish folk songs, there are one-off takes of compositions by Ornette Coleman and Pharoah Sanders as well, the sparse musical ensemble giving Cherry ample room for soloing as they drift between the sounds of tradition and experimentation. A must for all Don Cherry fans.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54101LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1971. After backing future Mike Oldfield producer Tom Newman and playing in psychedelic outfit July, percussionist/flutist Jon Field and guitarist Tony Duhig joined forces with bassist Glyn Havard to form experimental prog act Jade Warrior, their non-standard 1971 self-titled debut a work of excellence unjustly overlooked. Veering between acoustic introspection, searing acid rock, and world music interludes, with melody and percussion from Africa and India and nary a drumkit in sight, this pure musical gemstone of uncommon beauty is ripe for rediscovery, and this edition comes with a rare alternate of "Telephone Girl" to boot. Gatefold sleeve. Licensed from Cherry Red.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54102LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 2003. Jazz guitar legend George Benson began his career unfeasibly young, recording for RCA aged nine. After a spell with organist Jack McDuff, he went solo in the early 1960s, cutting volumes of jazz and soul before belatedly scoring hits as a lead vocalist. Irreplaceable dates from 2003, when Benson had embraced the slick grooves of urban contemporary, working with Robert Bell's son Hakim, Joshua P Thompson, and fellow Babyface collaborator, Joe. This reissue comes complete with three songs that appeared on certain later editions, namely "Softly, In A Morning Sunrise," "Take You Out," and "Arizona Sunrise." Gatefold sleeve.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54103LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue. Irish blues guitar wizard Gary Moore launched his career in Skid Row with Phil Lynott, who would later draft Moore into Thin Lizzy. Heavily influenced by Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green, as well as Clapton, Moore went solo in the late 1970s and after diversions into heavy metal and AOR, returned to the blues in the 1990s. This gatefold edition of Blues For Greeny reissues the loving tribute to Green that adapts some of his greatest compositions, the all-star backing band including former Kinks bassist Andy Pyle, keyboardist Tommy Eyre (who had played with Moore in Greg Lake's band), and respected blues drummer Graham Walker. Licensed from Good Time Inc.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54112LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1968. Among the most famous husband-and-wife soul duos of all time, Ike & Tina Turner scored an incredible array of hits in the 1960s and '70s, before Tina finally exited the partnership. The debut LP on the Pompeii label, So Fine dates from 1968, a couple of years after a support slot on a Rolling Stones tour boosted their profiles; in addition to a remake of early hit "A Fool In Love," there's an awesome take of Johnny Otis's "So Fine" and a competent rendition of "Shake A Tail Feather." Tina is fully in her element, the Ikettes keep up the harmonic pressure, and producer Ike handles the rest. Recommended listening for all soul fans! Licensed from Good Time Inc.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54113LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1964. Billy Preston's mastery of the organ was such that he was commissioned for collaboration by The Beatles, The Stones, and countless others, his classic Hammond work a defining element of "Get Back." Released in 1964 when Preston was still 19, The Most Exciting Organ Ever mixes swinging originals such as "Low Down," "Soul Meetin," "The Octopus", and "Billy's Bag" with expressively soulful covers of standards such as "If I Had A Hammer" and "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," ably showcasing Preston's awesome dexterity and unmatched ability on his chosen instrument. With every track a winner, the title rings true! Licensed from Good Time Inc.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: TRESOR 196CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

In early 2023, Tresor Records will reissue the sole output from Shifted Phases entitled The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Great Rupert J. Rosinthrope. Initially released in 2002, soon after James Stinson passed away, this LP plays a mysterious and compelling role in the Drexciya journey. While other records of Drexciya and related projects have received numerous reprints and editions, The Cosmic Memoirs... has remained out of print since its release. This rarity leaves it more open to interpretation with its place in the Drexciyan storm series, as it became increasingly hard to find and underexplored. This reissue does not merely close the loop on Tresor's reissue series of the Drexciya catalog but brings Shifted Phases to fresh ears more than other records. Accompanied by newly commissioned artwork from Matthew Angelo Harrison, the reissue also features the tracks "Crossing Of The Sun-Ra Nebula" and "Alien Vessel Distress Call", which were previously only on the original CD release. Track titles "Solar Wind", "White Dwarf", and "Lonely Journey of the Comet Bopp" reveal a focus on cosmic realms, suggesting a link with the Drexciya LP Grava 4 that moves from the underwater to the galactic. As it launches with mechanical blows on a precise orbit, each repetition entrenches the gravitational pull in the galaxy of Shifted Phases. In many places, it sounds like the readout of frequencies harvested from outer space, pockmarked with packet loss from the millions of kilometers distance travelled. The music is hard to contain, intuitively restless in motion through its unfolding universe and achingly resonant. It shapeshifts across affectedly melodic sequences such as in "Lonely Journey...", to the sparse, hard-hitting timbres found in "Alien Vessel Distress Call" and the mangled reverse vocals in "The Freak Show", somewhat reminiscent of another Drexciya side-project, Glass Domain. The mythology of Drexciya is evident in how keenly James Stinson and Gerald Donald created their imaginary worlds. In "Crossing Of The Sun-Ra Nebula", there is an indisputable reference to another Afro-futurist who delved deep into a galaxy of their own making.

 

PRICE: $43.00

CAT #: TRESOR 196LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Triple LP version. 180 gram vinyl; silver pantone artwork; includes download card. In early 2023, Tresor Records will reissue the sole output from Shifted Phases entitled The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Great Rupert J. Rosinthrope. Initially released in 2002, soon after James Stinson passed away, this LP plays a mysterious and compelling role in the Drexciya journey. While other records of Drexciya and related projects have received numerous reprints and editions, The Cosmic Memoirs... has remained out of print since its release. This rarity leaves it more open to interpretation with its place in the Drexciyan storm series, as it became increasingly hard to find and underexplored. This reissue does not merely close the loop on Tresor's reissue series of the Drexciya catalog but brings Shifted Phases to fresh ears more than other records. Accompanied by newly commissioned artwork from Matthew Angelo Harrison, the reissue also features the tracks "Crossing Of The Sun-Ra Nebula" and "Alien Vessel Distress Call", which were previously only on the original CD release. Track titles "Solar Wind", "White Dwarf", and "Lonely Journey of the Comet Bopp" reveal a focus on cosmic realms, suggesting a link with the Drexciya LP Grava 4 that moves from the underwater to the galactic. As it launches with mechanical blows on a precise orbit, each repetition entrenches the gravitational pull in the galaxy of Shifted Phases. In many places, it sounds like the readout of frequencies harvested from outer space, pockmarked with packet loss from the millions of kilometers distance travelled. The music is hard to contain, intuitively restless in motion through its unfolding universe and achingly resonant. It shapeshifts across affectedly melodic sequences such as in "Lonely Journey...", to the sparse, hard-hitting timbres found in "Alien Vessel Distress Call" and the mangled reverse vocals in "The Freak Show", somewhat reminiscent of another Drexciya side-project, Glass Domain. The mythology of Drexciya is evident in how keenly James Stinson and Gerald Donald created their imaginary worlds. In "Crossing Of The Sun-Ra Nebula", there is an indisputable reference to another Afro-futurist who delved deep into a galaxy of their own making.

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: TRESOR 351LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Tresor Records release Crash Recoil, a new album by Surgeon. It marks Anthony Child's first techno LP in five years, following a period in which he felt uncertainty in his role as a techno producer and found it tough to locate inspiration. This new album encounters him drawing on spontaneous techniques to arrive at unchartered topographies. Crash Recoil originates from Surgeon's recent live sets, where he experimented with constraints in performing and embracing the twists, turns and paradoxes that arrive from this. Each fresh iteration on consistent MIDI sequences and hardware reconfigured tracks into different constellations, creating an inspiring vortex of unpredicted events where ideas could flourish. This new approach allowed him to capture the spontaneous energy of his live shows in a way he had never done before. "This is not a live album, since it has not been recorded in one go during a live performance. In the same way that bands tour songs before going into the studio to record an album, I was able to explore these songs and hone their effectiveness during my live performances before creating a studio version." The result is eight tracks that emphasize a new techno sound for Surgeon, drawing in references from across the musical spectrum. "I can hear Coil, King Tubby, Detroit techno and The Cure all wrapped up with 30 years of DJing," Surgeon says of the album. Melancholic hum-like ambiences smudge around unadorned, near-droning basslines, crunching rhythm, and percolating arpeggiations. The tracks carry unique and potent locomotion, with a low-slung grind through toughened terrains, breathing with a free spirit, untethered by a studio-based perspective. You can hear manifestations of the same raw material across the album, like a textural motif, carving new variants and creating a cohesive work full of recollection. 180 gram vinyl; full printed sleeve; includes download card.

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: UTR 154LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; edition of 500. What's Terry been up to? Five years on from their last album, I'm Terry (UTR 111CD/LP/Y-LP, 2018), the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, Call Me Terry. Terry is made up of pairs Amy Hill and Al Montfort, and Xanthe Waite and Zephyr Pavey who started playing together for the fun of it in 2016. Seven years, four albums and three EPs later, Terry is ready to pick up the phone again. Over the past few years Terry have kept themselves busy -- but not only with Terry things. On top of numerous releases with alternating side projects (Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau, Rocky, etc.) members of Terry have moved interstate, undertaken studies, had children and started new fields of work. Terry began sharing the demos for Call Me Terry online with each other in 2020 before getting together in 2021 at their trusty rehearsal space to record the beds. Overdubs were completed at Terry's homes over the following year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinizing Australia's corrupt, colonial history. Musically, Call Me Terry still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums, all amidst their clever, dancey pop songs. Since day dot it's been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: UTR 154S-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Red. 180 gram vinyl; edition of 500. What's Terry been up to? Five years on from their last album, I'm Terry (UTR 111CD/LP/Y-LP, 2018), the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, Call Me Terry. Terry is made up of pairs Amy Hill and Al Montfort, and Xanthe Waite and Zephyr Pavey who started playing together for the fun of it in 2016. Seven years, four albums and three EPs later, Terry is ready to pick up the phone again. Over the past few years Terry have kept themselves busy -- but not only with Terry things. On top of numerous releases with alternating side projects (Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau, Rocky, etc.) members of Terry have moved interstate, undertaken studies, had children and started new fields of work. Terry began sharing the demos for Call Me Terry online with each other in 2020 before getting together in 2021 at their trusty rehearsal space to record the beds. Overdubs were completed at Terry's homes over the following year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinizing Australia's corrupt, colonial history. Musically, Call Me Terry still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums, all amidst their clever, dancey pop songs. Since day dot it's been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: VAMPI 253LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 restock, new lower pricing. Vampisoul present a first-time vinyl reissue of Os Sambeatles' self-titled album, originally released in 1966. Rare 1966 Brazilian LP with a jazz/bossa nova take on songs by the Beatles performed by the very talented Manfredo Fest and his trio. It was originally released right after their classic 1965 RGE album and has a very similar jazz-based sound. Manfredo Fest was part of the gathering of Brazilian musicians of the late-50s who were developing the bossa nova movement, and he made a number of trio recordings in that vein from 1961 to 1966. After emigrating to Minneapolis in 1967, Fest moved to Los Angeles where he served as keyboardist and arranger for Bossa Rio and toured with Sergio Mendes. This recording is all instrumental, strongly jazz-based, with piano as the main solo instrument, soaring over the top of some tight, crackling rhythms. The songs are all played with imaginative scents that really take them from their roots as pop songs and open them up as groovers filled with keyboard improvisations. A nice slice of how the bossa nova sound was evolving in its homeland as well as the international impact the Beatles were having on countries outside of the US, England, Japan, and Germany.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: VAMPI 254LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 restock, new lower pricing. Vampisoul present the first-time vinyl reissue of Sambrasa Trio's Em Som Maior, originally released in 1965. Samba jazz gem recorded by Airto Moreira on drums, Humberto Clayber on double bass, and Hermeto Pascoal on piano in the early days of their careers. As the original notes states, the recording session of the album was such a stunning experience for those involved in the studio work: "After going through 'Aleluia' and 'Samba Novo', as a prelude to a sound cataclysm that was transmitted in the tense atmosphere of the studio, they gave us a composition by José Neto Costa (Hermeto's brother), which left everyone amazed. The arrangement created for 'Duas Contas', soft, whispery, subtle, broke the local tension as if on impact. But behold, when they no longer seemed to see the possibility of new surprises, they then performed 'Nem O Mar Sabia' and 'Arrastão', the first revealing totally unknown concepts regarding the trinomial piano-bass-drums. Clayber plays a harmonica and Hermeto unfolds into a flute! On the following tracks, the bassist and pianist would return on the same instruments. The final point of that unsurpassed recital was also a great surprise: 'A Jardineira', a carnival march from 1938! It was the 'end'! Let everyone who hears this LP know what a new phase of modern Brazilian popular music is being established in this country! This is the flag, which we will leave planted in the rich and incomparable soil of our art! Its heralds... the boys from Sambrasa!" The album also includes the killer "João Sem Braço" featuring Hermeto's howling flute and Airto's overwhelming percussion work. This is the only album ever released by this Brazilian all-star group and has remained unavailable for decades.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: VAMPI 255LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 restock, new lower pricing. Vampisoul present a reissue of Alceu Valença's Molhado De Suor, originally released in 1974. In the early '70s Tropicalia was going strong, a challenge to both the music establishment and the state. Música Popular Brasileira (or MPB) was firmly established. Up in the northeastern corner of Brazil, centered in Recife, was another exciting strain of Brazilian culture called Udigrudi. Molhado De Suor is the first solo effort by Alceu Valença, mixing traditional northeastern Brazilian music and rhythms with folk rock and psychedelia. Aided by Lula Cortes and Geraldo Azevedo, Valença's rich vocals combine with driving guitar work, moody arrangements and unusual trips, successfully integrating the sounds of his native region, Pernambuco. Sought-after Brazilian classic Molhado De Suor was originally released in 1974 on Som Livre. Valença followed its release with many albums, each one establishing him as not only superstar. Reissued again after being unavailable for years.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: VL 900426LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Originally released in 1971. "What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With What's Going On, Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past -- as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty. These feelings had been bubbling up between 1967 and 1970, during which he felt increasingly caged by Motown's behind-the-times hit machine and restrained from expressing himself seriously through his music. Finally, late in 1970, Gaye decided to record a song that the Four Tops' Obie Benson had brought him, 'What's Going On.' When Berry Gordy decided not to issue the single, deeming it uncommercial, Gaye refused to record any more material until he relented. Confirmed by its tremendous commercial success in January 1971, he recorded the rest of the album over ten days in March, and Motown released it in late May. Besides cementing Marvin Gaye as one of the most important artists in pop music, What's Going On was far and away the best full-length to issue from the singles-dominated Motown factory, and arguably the best soul album of all time." --John Bush, AllMusic. Green vinyl; gatefold sleeve.

 

PRICE: $19.00

CAT #: WATB 100EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

We Are The Brave hit their 100th release courtesy of label founder, DJ/producer Alan Fitzpatrick, with Aura/Distance, two heavy originals and a pair of remixes from Luke Slater's legendary Planetary Assault Systems alias and Truncate label alumni, Klint. Founded in 2016, Fitzpatrick's We Are The Brave has released music from the likes of Sasha, Reb?ke, and Skream, as well as remixes from Anfisa Letyago, Reinier Zonneveld, and Dense & Pika, regularly providing mind-bending techno cuts sculpted for dancefloors and warehouses worldwide. Leading the release, "Aura" brings strong drums paired with futuristic bleeps, creating a tense and gripping journey. "Distance" brings a dose of high energy with hypnotic and electronic synths, set to get your feet stomping. Giving Fitzpatrick's tune an even more futuristic feel, the iconic British DJ/producer Planetary Assault Systems adds eerie chimes and shimmering synth flutters on his remix of "Aura". Joining him is Klint, who brings high-speed drum arrangements for his interpretation of "Distance", topping off a huge release for We Are The Brave.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: WS 012LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Bob Martin began what would become his final studio album in a beach front condominium in Seabrook, New Hampshire in May 2008. The recordings sat dormant for the next 13 years. This album began when James Endeacott of 1965 Records sent Jerry David DeCicca to Charlottesville, Virginia to meet Martin, hoping to reissue Martin's 1972 debut on RCA Records, Midwest Farm Disaster. DeCicca, who had co-produced the final recordings of folk-funk, Heartworn Highways' songwriter, Larry Jon Wilson, for 1965 Records (and later reissued by Drag City Records) had played the LP for Endeacott several months earlier. Midwest Farm Disaster is that rare album that feels joyful and yet full of sorrow; Martin's Lowell, Massachusetts voice yearning with a backbeat from Nashville session musicians, Norman Putnam and Kenny Buttrey, the later fresh from his "Heart of Gold" session. The reissue never happened, as Martin was already in the process of rescuing his forgotten masterpiece for his own self-release. But Bob and Jerry's breakfast led to Martin's daughter, Tami, hiring DeCicca and engineer, Jake Housh, who also worked on the Wilson album, to capture her father in a similar manner. After Midwest Farm Disaster, a second album for RCA was under contract, but when a record executive there wanted Martin to put his girlfriend's poetry to music, Bob bailed on the deal. Martin continued to tour around with a pickup band until advice from his father resonated, and he left the road to raise a family. Bob worked as an educator, teaching math and computers, and even founded a school in West Virginia that taught traditional art forms in Appalachia like fiddle playing and weaving. Bob returned to the studio in 1982 to record Last Chance Rider for June Appal, a label that focused on music from Appalachia. In the late-90s, Bob returned with two self-released CDs, The River Turns The Wheel and Next to Nothin', that continued capturing stories of people and places. He wrote novels, cared for his family, and taught, and played only the occasional gig. But it's this album, Seabrook, that finds Bob at his most wise and wistful; the histories of Lowell and his own life hanging longest in his voice. New songs about the West Virginia coal mines and living in an extended stay motel sit beside new and more urgent interpretations of late period classics, like "My Father Painted Houses," and, for the first time, one of his oldest songs he didn't record for Midwest Farm Disaster called "Give Me Light", along with "Stay Awhile Sunshine," which he had been singing to his family for decades and features Gary Mallaber on vibraphone. After DeCicca and Housh returned from the beach with Bob, they all agreed to flesh out the songs with other instrumentation to present as a draft for what the new record could be with a little more money and time.

 

PRICE: $43.50

CAT #: WRWTFWW 018LTD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress; 180 gram, black vinyl; original Stoughton Tip On sleeve; 45rpm. Considered a Holy Grail of Japanese music by many, Through The Looking Glass is Midori Takada's first solo endeavor, a captivating four-song suite capturing her deep quests into traditional African and Asian percussive language and exploring contemplative ambient sounds with an admirably precise use of marimba. The result is alternatively ethereal and vibrant, always precise and mesmerizing, and makes for an atmospheric masterpiece and an unparalleled sonic and spiritual experience. The fully licensed reissue is available as a limited 45rpm double-LP, both cut directly from the original studio reels (AAA), at Emil Berliner (formerly the in-house recording department of renowned classical record label Deutsche Grammophon). Includes extensive liner notes.Midori Takada is a composer, multi percussionist, and theater artist renowned in Japanese vanguard circles. Midori released two solo albums: Through The Looking Glass and Tree Of Life (WRWTFWW 057CD/LP) and wrote music for Tadashi Suzuki's theater plays. Her hypnotic, minimalist music is based in the concept of coherence between sound and the human body. She performs solo on marimba and other percussion instruments. She debuted on the scene of Berlin Philharmonic, performing with the RIAS Symphonie-Orchester Berlin just after graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1974. She continued her career with solo concerts in Japan and abroad. In the 1980s Midori began to explore the traditional music of Asia and Africa. Her fascination resulted in joint projects with Kakraba Lobi from Ghana, Lamine Konte from Senegal, Farafina Band from Burkina Faso, and Korean musicians: zither player Chi Seong-Ja, flute player Won-Il, and saxophone player Kang Tae-Hwan. She also led Mkwaju Ensemble's innovative percussion project and still performs with free-jazz band Ton-Klami with Kang Tae-Hwan and jazz pianist Masahiko Satoh. In the past 20 years, Midori Takada spent more time in theaters than in concert halls -- composing and performing live music for theater. She regularly works with Tadashi Suzuki and his Suzuki Company of Toga on their adaptations of Electra and King Lear. Takada's compositions have a remarkable way of affecting the imagination. Her minimalist, contemplative music is filled with the concept of infinity and reminds us of a moon voyage, falling stars, a journey into the ocean, or a walk in the garden. The trans melodies, initially simple, begin to loop and splinter, their rhythm breaking and thickening, slowly drawing the listener into another reality. Every live performance Midori Takada gives is unique and prepared especially for that occasion.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: WRWTFWW 019CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Reprinted on CD. Palto Flats and We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records present the highly-anticipated reissue of Japanese percussionist Midori Takada's sought after and timeless ambient/minimal album Through The Looking Glass, originally released in 1983 by RCA Japan. Considered a holy grail of Japanese music by many, Through The Looking Glass is Midori Takada's first solo endeavor, a captivating four-song suite capturing her deep quests into traditional African and Asian percussive language and exploring contemplative ambient sounds with an admirably precise use of marimba. The result is alternatively ethereal and vibrant, always precise and mesmerizing, and makes for an atmospheric masterpiece and an unparalleled sonic and spiritual experience. Midori Takada is a composer, multi-percussionist, and theater artist renowned in Japanese vanguard circles. Midori has released two solo albums: Through The Looking Glass and Tree Of Life (1999) and wrote music for Tadashi Suzuki's theater plays. Her hypnotic, minimalist music is based in the concept of coherence between sound and the human body. She performs solo on marimba and other percussion instruments. She debuted on the scene of Berlin Philharmonic, performing with the RIAS Symphonie-Orchester Berlin just after graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1974. She continued her career with solo concerts in Japan and abroad. In the 1980s, Midori began to explore the traditional music of Asia and Africa. Her fascination resulted in joint projects with Kakraba Lobi from Ghana, Lamine Konte from Senegal, Farafina Band from Burkina Faso, and Korean musicians: zither player Chi Seong-Ja, flute player Won-Il, and saxophone player Kang Tae-Hwan. She also led Mkwaju Ensemble's innovative percussion project and still performs with free-jazz band Ton-Klami with Kang Tae-Hwan and jazz pianist Masahiko Satoh. Takada's compositions have a remarkable way of affecting the imagination. Her minimalist, contemplative music is filled with the concept of infinity and reminds us of a moon voyage, falling stars, a journey into the ocean, or a walk in the garden. The trans melodies, initially simple, begin to loop and splinter, their rhythm breaking and thickening, slowly drawing the listener into another reality. This fully licensed reissue comes with extensive liner notes. CD version is the first ever available CD version; Comes with an eight-page booklet and fold-out poster.

 

PRICE: $17.00

CAT #: YAZ 1060HLP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock. 180 gram repro of the 1978 album from North Carolina's Blind Boy Fuller. Blues circa 1935-1939, including "Homesick and Lonesome Blues," "Truckin' My Blues Away," "I Crave My Pig Meat," "Walking My Troubles Away" and "Sweet Honey Hole."

 

PRICE: $21.50

CAT #: YORE 045EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Classic Detroit techno like they don't make it anymore. One for all 313 fanatics.