News & Events

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: RANDB 115LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Here are fourteen classic tracks from the Ray Charles repertoire selected from shows he performed around the world from 1961 to 1970: Paris, Antibes, Prato (Italy), São Paulo, Stockholm, with a couple of TV appearances for good measure (plus one from Newport). "If it's really something good that was not on the record, that's okay, because when I perform, I can make the performance of the song better than the record was." So said the man himself and as you can hear on this record, nothing can quite match the excitement of the Ray Charles Show from the sixties. Sound quality is excellent throughout.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: RANDB 124LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Doyenne of '60s cool, Sandie Shaw is celebrated in this 20-track compilation of her appearances on BBC radio and TV. Hits such as "Girl Don't Come" and "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me" are interspersed with thoughtful cover versions, including "Coconut Grove" and "Love Letters", plus her rare take on "Yesterday Man". Features full credits and sleeve notes. Sound quality is excellent, apart from the first and second tracks on side two which are slightly less than excellent.

 

PRICE: $25.50

CAT #: AUK 026LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Pressed on 180 gram black vinyl and housed in a gatefold sleeve. Remastered for a vinyl release. This 15-track compilation spans the years 1995-2004, featuring key tracks from all their albums as well as live recordings and many unreleased tracks. The Brian Jonestown Massacre is a psychedelic rock band originally from San Francisco, California, led by guitarist/singer Anton Newcombe. Since 1995 The Brian Jonestown Massacre has released numerous albums, first for Bomp! Records, the label which gave them their start, and later for TVT and Tee Pee. BJM has been essential in the development of the modern U.S. garage scene, and many L.A. and SF musicians got their start playing with Newcombe, including Peter Hayes of The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Originally Newcombe was heavily influenced by The Rolling Stones' psychedelic phase -- the name comes from Stones guitarist Brian Jones combined with a reference to cult leader Jim Jones, but his work in the 2000s has expanded into aesthetic dimensions approximating the UK shoegazing genre of the 1990s, and incorporates influences from world music, especially Middle Eastern and Brazilian music.

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: AUK 045LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. black vinyl; superb deluxe packaging. The Brian Jonestown Massacre burst into 2019 with the release of their 18th full-length album, just seven months after their last one, Something Else (AUK 043CD/LP). The self-titled, nine-track album is released on Anton Newcombe's A Recordings, and it was recorded and produced at Anton's Cobra Studio in Berlin. The album was originally going to be released in September of 2018, but due to a hugely successful global tour -- taking in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe -- the release was delayed. Recorded in early 2018, the album features Sara Neidorf on drums, Heike Marie Radeker (LeVent) on bass, Hakon Adalsteinsson (BJM, Third Sound, Gunman, Holy Ghost) on guitar, and Anton Newcombe on multiple instruments. Also making a guest vocal appearance on "Tombes Oubliées" is Rike Bienert who has sung on previous BJM albums. The band performed songs from the album throughout the European leg of the 2018 tour. Anton Newcombe has been a very busy man over the past few years, having released four critically-acclaimed Brian Jonestown Massacre albums and an EP, one soundtrack album, and two albums with Tess Parks. All releases were fully recorded and produced at Anton's studio. The Brian Jonestown Massacre track "Bon Bon" was used in the 2015 Palm D'Or winner Dheepan. Anton penned the soundtrack for Moon Dogs, a film directed by multi-BAFTA nominated Philip John (Svengali, Downton Abbey, Being Human).

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: ABERRANT 004LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Limited 2023 restock. Disco divas, funky queens, and glam ladies in '70s and early '80s Taiwan! Due to its extremely complex history, Taiwan in the '70s saw the creation of some incredibly special music in which the sounds being created at the moment from the west collided with the special sensitivity of Taiwanese musicians, creating a delicious mixture you'll need to hear to believe. Taiwan Disco shines a light on the music created by Taiwanese women during those years ('70s and early '80s) to present a mind-blowing collection of songs with sounds ranging from wild funk to apace glam, exotic disco or fuzzed-out soul. Here's the ticket to some crazy Taiwan nights, get those dancing shoes ready, it's time to shake it! Features Wu Xiu Zhu (???), Hua Yi Bao (???), Cui Tai Jing (???), Zou Juan Juan (???), Chen Lan Li (???), Wang Xiang Ling (???), Tian Lu Lu (???), Liu Guan Lin (???), Wu Xiu Zhu (???), Luo Yan Li (???), Yu San Shan (???), and Zhang Bei Xin (???).

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: ABERRANT 007LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Limited 2023 restock. An amazing showcase of disco, electro, funk, and more from the USSR 1979-1990. A mind-blowing introduction to the obscure world of soviet dance music. 12 tracks of pure soviet disco fever. Alright, put on your dancing shoes and get ready for a weird trip to the dancefloor, to a time when the Soviet Union -- still alive and under the flag of the hammer and sickle -- managed to produce some wonderfully odd and hypnotic disco hits, mutant funk smashers and electro hip breakers. Coming from all over the huge landscape that the USSR was, the artists on this killer compilation showcase a variety of visions on the subject of shaking the ass that will surprise even the most cynical connoisseur of the genre. Features Mirdza Zivere, ????????, Anzhelina Petrosova / ???????? ?????????, Pervouralsk / ????????????, Güljan Hümmedowa / ???????? ?????????, Roza Rymbaeva / ???? ????????, ???????? ??????????? & ???????, Janina Mis?iukait?, Verasy, Formula Dreyka / ??????? ??????, Eolika, and Raduga / ??????.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: ALT 074LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

The collaboration between Klara Lewis and Nik Colk Void somehow seemed inevitable. Both artists having seen their releases published by Editions Mego, individually carving out idiosyncratic voices in the worlds of extreme, abstract electronic music. With Full-On, Lewis and Void explore and assimilate the very edge of their individual practice where a unique collaborative interface allows two voices to combine and morph into a third voice. Lewis and Void play ping pong with the conversation of sounds, generating ideas and bouncing them off each other, simultaneously encouraging the other to go further with their ideas opening up an opportunity to engage with previously unexplored terrain. Guitars, synths, Eurorack modular systems, voice, sampling, and outboard processing are folded in a playful unification with a propensity to tease, explore and extract new ideas and shapes, sometimes brutal, sometimes playful. Trust was also a compositional tool allowing instinct to freely move on any aspect of the sound and space. This sound/feeling/instinct/association let this wild and wonderful material grow organically into something new. The result of this exploratory interplay are 17 intense miniatures reveling in the process of unadulterated experimentation and whimsical interplay, not just between the humans, but the machines themselves. United in an endless series of sonic U-turns, this daring duo intertwine pop and noise whilst also bringing together visions of tender techno and forthright ambient. The various zones which manifest from all these reveals vocals shifting in mysterious ways, dust drenched beats churning limpidly and devilish string loops navigating a disorientating domain. The experience of listening to Full-On is to be confronted with a range of ideas resulting in a platter of emotions. A place where beauty and the beast collide with the impulsive and outright weird. What a wonderful world. LP version comes on clear vinyl.

 

PRICE: $23.50

CAT #: ANS 6000LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Anthony Naples's fifth full-length LP, orbs, is a moody portal of shoegazed and slo-mo songs suspended in thin air. The album doesn't reassemble the AN sound from the ground up, so much as enhance and expand its scope in all directions. Samples and instruments meld together into new languorous and liquid forms that with or without the beat of drums, shift with the gentle movements of time.

 

PRICE: $60.00

CAT #: ATOM 1035LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"A new vinyl edition of Steven Wilson's mix of the classic album, Warrior On The Edge Of Time by Hawkwind. Recorded in 1975, the album is a ground-breaking classic of Hawkwind's long career. Featuring a line-up of Dave Brock, Nik Turner, Lemmy, Simon House, Simon King and Alan Powell, the album is arguably one of the finest rock albums of the mid-1970s. This Atomhenge edition marks the first time Steven Wilson's stunning stereo mix has appeared on vinyl. This new vinyl edition of Warrior On The Edge Of Time has been cut at Abbey Road and faithfully reproduces the fold out shield sleeve artwork and picture inner bag of original 1975 LP release."

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: AU 1023CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

"In 1986 Arthur Russell was diagnosed with HIV, that same year he released his career-defining masterpiece World of Echo, the first and only solo album issued during his lifetime. Arthur had found his voice and a fresh direction with a set of new, transformative material, unlike anything he or anyone else had previously released. His illness ensured that the artistic growth and sense of exploration encapsulated in World of Echo would be tragically curtailed. Within six short years Arthur was gone. Arthur's final years were filled with a renewed commitment to creativity and unceasing live and recording work. He regularly performed the World of Echo material and incorporated several of its compositions in collaborations with choreographers active in New York's innovative dance community. Arthur worked closely with Diane Madden, Allison Salzinger, Stephanie Woodard and John Bernd, usually playing his cello and effects boxes off stage as the choreographers' pieces were performed. In 1993 Arthur posthumously received a prestigious Bessie Composer Award for his work in the dance world. Picture of Bunny Rabbit features nine previously unreleased performances from this era compiled from completed masters culled from two unique test pressings, including one, dated 9/15/85 by Arthur, provided by his mother and sister. A further four tracks were discovered in his tape archive. The track listing includes an exceptional and dramatic solo recording of 'In The Light of a Miracle' and the enigmatic title instrumental 'Picture of Bunny Rabbit', written especially for a friends pet rabbit. The bulk of the material was recorded with engineer Eric Liljestrand at Battery Sound Studios, New York, which was located directly opposite the World Trade Center and at Arthur's apartment studio in the East Village."

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: AU 1023LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

LP version. "In 1986 Arthur Russell was diagnosed with HIV, that same year he released his career-defining masterpiece World of Echo, the first and only solo album issued during his lifetime. Arthur had found his voice and a fresh direction with a set of new, transformative material, unlike anything he or anyone else had previously released. His illness ensured that the artistic growth and sense of exploration encapsulated in World of Echo would be tragically curtailed. Within six short years Arthur was gone. Arthur's final years were filled with a renewed commitment to creativity and unceasing live and recording work. He regularly performed the World of Echo material and incorporated several of its compositions in collaborations with choreographers active in New York's innovative dance community. Arthur worked closely with Diane Madden, Allison Salzinger, Stephanie Woodard and John Bernd, usually playing his cello and effects boxes off stage as the choreographers' pieces were performed. In 1993 Arthur posthumously received a prestigious Bessie Composer Award for his work in the dance world. Picture of Bunny Rabbit features nine previously unreleased performances from this era compiled from completed masters culled from two unique test pressings, including one, dated 9/15/85 by Arthur, provided by his mother and sister. A further four tracks were discovered in his tape archive. The track listing includes an exceptional and dramatic solo recording of 'In The Light of a Miracle' and the enigmatic title instrumental 'Picture of Bunny Rabbit', written especially for a friends pet rabbit. The bulk of the material was recorded with engineer Eric Liljestrand at Battery Sound Studios, New York, which was located directly opposite the World Trade Center and at Arthur's apartment studio in the East Village."

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: AWAYLMTD 002CEP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

12" version. Red vinyl. Berlin party series and label AWAY Music continues its limited vinyl series called Reissued, dedicated to re-releasing iconic cuts from the vast collaborative catalog of Move D & Pete Namlook. The second installment, Reissued 2, which follows the series' inaugural EP from 2019 (AWAYLMTD 001EP), features again some exceptional pieces that were previously only available on CD. Move D and Pete Namlook are electronic visionaries whose 26-album relationship explored and intertwined psychedelic synthscapes, deep house and techno, future jazz, and downtempo on Namlook's cult imprint Fax Records. Their innovative and influential works keep inspiring electronic music producers today, showcasing their willingness to collaborate and push the boundaries of electronic music. "Silk Route Part 1", which comes from their 2008 album Travelling The Silk Route, occupies the A-side with a 12-minute journey full of jazz-infused ambient soundscapes meeting oriental melodies with sophisticated percussion patterns. A truly immersive listening experience. On the flip, "Sleeplearnin'" was described as psycho-active electronica when it first came out on the Sons of Kraut album 17 years ago. Translated, it's the minimal house that carries their warm trademark sound, enriched by pulsating echoes, space noises, and relapsing vocoder shreds. It conveys the pair's unique energy that embraces the improvisational moment to create a hypnotic flow that's nothing but timeless. Reissued 2 is a true testament to the innovative spirit and pioneering work of Move D and Pete Namlook. With these tracks now available on vinyl for the first time, AWAY's limited series is a must-have for old and new fans alike.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: AWAYLMTD 002EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Berlin party series and label AWAY Music continues its limited vinyl series called Reissued, dedicated to re-releasing iconic cuts from the vast collaborative catalog of Move D & Pete Namlook. The second installment, Reissued 2, which follows the series' inaugural EP from 2019 (AWAYLMTD 001EP), features again some exceptional pieces that were previously only available on CD. Move D and Pete Namlook are electronic visionaries whose 26-album relationship explored and intertwined psychedelic synthscapes, deep house and techno, future jazz, and downtempo on Namlook's cult imprint Fax Records. Their innovative and influential works keep inspiring electronic music producers today, showcasing their willingness to collaborate and push the boundaries of electronic music. "Silk Route Part 1", which comes from their 2008 album Travelling The Silk Route, occupies the A-side with a 12-minute journey full of jazz-infused ambient soundscapes meeting oriental melodies with sophisticated percussion patterns. A truly immersive listening experience. On the flip, "Sleeplearnin'" was described as psycho-active electronica when it first came out on the Sons of Kraut album 17 years ago. Translated, it's the minimal house that carries their warm trademark sound, enriched by pulsating echoes, space noises, and relapsing vocoder shreds. It conveys the pair's unique energy that embraces the improvisational moment to create a hypnotic flow that's nothing but timeless. Reissued 2 is a true testament to the innovative spirit and pioneering work of Move D and Pete Namlook. With these tracks now available on vinyl for the first time, AWAY's limited series is a must-have for old and new fans alike.

 

PRICE: $17.00

CAT #: BSUN 007EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"Nicolò's music was born in the foggy winter of the Adriatic coast, and raised in the dusty grooves of Milford Graves LPs. It travelled to London and Berlin, where it collected sweat from crowds dancing in dark basements, leaving it with an organic hue and rhythmic patterns both broken and free. This is bass-driven music from outer space. RRRing The Alarm!"

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: CFS 010CD

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

CFSoundtracks and Beat Record Company release for the first time on CD the two OSTs by Lallo Gori for the spy comedy films Come Svaligiammo La Banca d'Italia and Il Lungo, Il Corto, Il Gatto starring Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. Come Svaligiammo La Banca d'Italia directed in 1966 by Lucio Fulci, story by Alfonso Brescia, screenplay by Roberto Gianviti, Lucio Fulci, Amedeo Sollazzo, photography by Fausto Rossi, editing by Nella Nannuzzi, produced by Anteos Film, distributed by Rank Film. Il Lungo, Il Corto, Il Gatto directed in 1967 by Lucio Fulci, screenplay by Roberto Gianviti, Lucio Fulci, Amedeo Sollazzo, photography by Fausto Rossi, editing by Nella Nannuzzi, produced by Anteos Film - Fono Roma. These two soundtracks feature the shake and the beat, but also swing, jazz, and blues passages with the fabulous choir performances of the Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni and the 4+4 di Nora Orlandi. From the mono master tapes of the original sessions. Brilliant and very agreeable sonorities, perfect background for Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. Album produced by Claudio Fuiano and Daniele De Gemini for CFSoundtracks and Beat Record Company. Remastering by Enrico De Gemini. Graphic layout by Claudio Fuiano and Daniele De Gemini. Liner notes by Giacomo Di Nicolò.

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: DDJ 059CD

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Beat Records release for the very first time on CD the complete edition of the brilliant soundtrack by Riz Ortolani for the comedy Nessuno è perfetto directed in 1981 by Pasquale Festa Campanile and starring Renato Pozzetto and Ornella Muti. For a story in which a man falls in love with a beautiful girl (later it turns out that the woman is an ex-military transsexual), the author alternates a romantic love theme with female vocalism to another cheerful motif with a funky sound that takes up with variations throughout the OST. This CD derives from the stereo master tapes of the original session. Another record that adds to the ever-growing discography of one of the greatest film music composers. Mastering by Claudio Fuiano. Graphic layout by Daniele De Gemini. Liner notes by Fabio Babini.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: BH 069LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"A new album by one half of the mighty Pilotwings crew. Guillaume Lespinasse convenes a sublimely alluring, ambient seance, invoking the spirits of Jon Hassell and Terry Riley, and befitting the soundtrack of a dreamt Jacques Rivette movie. Imagine an impossible, questing collaboration between Les Disques Du Crepuscule and deep ECM. Imagine the long-awaited return of Berceuse Heroique and pinch yourself."

 

PRICE: $19.00

CAT #: MVD 12596BK

FILE UNDER: Misc

"From trailer park punks to Pulitzer Prize winners, this is the untold story of a sleepy Navy town that became the unlikely gathering point for some of the most innovative, unclassifiable American artists of their time. The late '60s arrival of Harry Partch -- hobo composer, iconoclast and inventor of instruments such as the Harmonic Canon and Quadrangularis Reversum -- jump started a revolution that was as much social as it was musical, drawing on the occult, self-realization and radical political movements of '70s Southern California. Artists as diverse as Partch, Pauline Oliveros, Kenneth Gaburo, Roger Reynolds, Diamanda Galás, Warren Burt, David Dunn, Robert Turman and Master Wilburn Burchette may have pursued different paths -- Sonic Meditations, compositional linguistics, microtonal scales, invented instruments, cutting edge electronics, underwater synthesizers, Tibetan throat singing, environmental sound, pure noise -- but they also sought to dismantle the systems of American life and replace them with a radically inclusive and socially responsive aesthetic that looked to the future even when it sometimes referenced a distant, idyllically imagined past. In their pursuit of 'Irrelevant Music' -- Kenneth Gaburo's term for an untainted music free of constraint and compromise -- these disparate artists constitute a shadow history of American experimental music far removed from the European and East Coast models of the time." 264 pages, paperback, packed with photos.

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: BONER 016LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress, black vinyl. "Ozma was recorded soon after Melvins made the move from Washington to San Francisco, and was their first release to include the diminutive yet mighty Lorax (Lori Temple Black) on bass. In fact, the first sound one hears at the album's opening is Lori standing on her tiptoes to switch on her amp, thereby warning the listener of the onslaught to come. Distorted, down-tuned doom riffs start, stop, lurch sideways with no warning, and seem to end before they start. Buzz Osborne adds extraneous guitar static and vocal squeals. Drummer Dale Crover plays as if he's inside a barrel going over Niagara Falls; the long, slow fall allows the space between beats to grow and grow until he crashes into the water with the vessel blasting apart in an explosion of drum rolls. The classic Melvins heavy grind is set up and broken up by assorted odd sidetracks: 'Revulsion / We Reach' flows forward slower and slower until it eventually melts into a gooey feedback drone. 'Raise a Paw' is a superball paddled against one's head by a grinning village idiot. 'Love Thing' enlists in the Kiss Army before getting dishonorably discharged."

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: BONER 035LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress, black vinyl. "Lice-All, from 1992, previously known as self-titled, and also previously known as something else we're all not gonna talk about, thank you very much. This was the Melvins last release before signing their Atlantic deal, and features the introduction of new bass player Joe Preston (previously of Earth, currently of Thrones). It's one long, slow, loud blob of drones, moans and fuzztones. The opening endless power chord shimmer influenced Sleep, Sunn O))), and countless other sludge metal drone freaks for years to come."

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: BB 310LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Limited 2023 restock; LP version. "Sowas Von Egal, is the result of a collaboration between Bureau B and the Hamburg party series Damaged Goods. Record companies and DJs are aligned through a love and passion for seeking out rare music which simply needs to be heard. For the three of us as DJs, we created Damaged Goods as a party where we could play music beyond the electro clichés. Our focus would be seldom-heard post-punk and synth-wave from, or in the style of, the 1980s. We'd slip in these unknown or long-forgotten treasures between more familiar hits from the genre to inspire and excite our guests. Eighties culture is very much a reference point today in music, art and fashion, so why not play the originals, especially as there is still so much to be discovered from that period? Many of the old records we'd play in the club had only been pressed in small quantities, often sold exclusively at the respective bands' gigs. More than 30 years later, it is almost impossible to get hold of these tracks, unless you pay over the odds on certain websites or track them down as inferior MP3s on this or that blog. This is why it was so important to us that our collaboration with Bureau B would be dedicated to selecting tracks for Sowas Von Egalwhich are not readily available on vinyl and have not been rereleased (or the reissues themselves are genuine rarities). The groundwork for this project was interesting in itself: sorting through and listening to songs, making lists, setting priorities, then getting in touch with labels and trying to find the musicians of yesteryear. This wasn't always so easy: some had disappeared from view, others had died. When we did find who we were looking for, the reaction was generally positive, although some were surprised that anybody was interested in their music today. We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to Tom Morgenstern, who worked wonders with a jumble of disparate source material to achieve sonic consistency. Fans of our parties will recognize more than a few of the tracks on Sowas von egal; we are proud to have put together this collection." --Volker Kindt and Marco Flöß, June 2018. Features: Träneninvasion, Der Moderne Man, Silberstreif, El Deux, Nullzeit, Hoffnung and Psyche, Schwellköper, New Dimension, Berlin Express, Pension Stammheim, Alu, Matthias Schuster, Gorilla Aktiv, 08/15.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: SAUNA 074CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Hopes & Theory is a collection of songs inspired by wild plants and intentional gardens. At its core this music is rooted in synthesis, autonomy, and purely tuned harmony. At its heart there is chaos, color, and evolution. Hopes & Theory was recorded on the island of North Haven, Maine and reflects the anarchy of serenity in a seemingly peaceful place. William Trevaskis is a composer and sound artist living and working in the Fox Islands of Maine who uses xenharmony to explore themes of chaos and nature. William's r&d marries modular synthesis with microtonality and live performance. Currently, he works using a combination of generative and live-performance systems to create a sonic landscape that calms and transfixes.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: SAUNA 075CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Atsuko Hatano is a contemporary classical viola player who works with electronics to add textures and layers to her sound. Located in Tokyo, Japan, she is a commanding instrumentalist and composer who constructs innovative compositions with strings and layered electronics. Working in isolation due to the Covid pandemic, Atsuko Hatano played violin, viola, synthesizer, and electronics to create these powerful, unique compositions. Insulated Paradise is an investigation into the social nature of humanity, an inward gaze during a time of isolation and a reaction to isolation itself. Ultimately, the solitude was a positive experience for Atsuko Hatano and Insulated Paradise was born. Cover art by Saskia Griepink is titled "Dew". Dew in the early morning. The symbolic transition from night to day. Refreshing life. Pure waterdrops reflecting light and colors. Silence before the noisy day begins.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: CCS 127LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Deepening the comic tones using cosmic relief, and lively vibes, La Science des Imbéciles (Ludicrous System), Brigitte Barbu's sophomore sonic adventure, manifest a blurry creation intersecting orbital audio paths and damaged smoking instruments. Could have easily been called Birdless Science but it wouldn't be funny? Reverberating estranged arrangements, bizarre sounds, electronic fantasies, "hallucinationalism", and crypto poppy stratums all party together in Barbu's second explicit sensual album. Recorded and digested during a gastro-reclusive residency in an Un-Orthodox Union Spacy Workstation, under the benign diffraction of "Californian psychedelia" and medieval Cyrillic capharnaüm. Due to historic geographical confusions and incorrect spellings, any specific detail will stay confidential. Using a powerful branded calculator, digital converters, boutique preamps, and various synthetic substitutions, this extra album is blooming for spring cleaning. The guitar was accidentally ravaged, propelling supervision into a strange but dope alt verse, still somewhere between an impromptu voyage through scattered chronology and a poetic analytical research. A cheerful memento escaping from pressure and weight like one of those fancy diets. "I wanted to compose an intangible pop LP," says Brigitte, "with guitar as an alibi, blending arrogant synthesizers and humble plug-ins." With a genuine thoughtful dimension, this record freaks as out audiences with its neat mischievous mood. Jazzing the mushing rooms while testing the acid tweaks, initially, the artist had ambiguously vague rules for composing: but slowly, offending beardless academics became the motto. Ingrédients: orgasmic pads, sublime beaches, distorted nostalgia, frustrated markets, perfect crowds, shady brews, body fluids, magnificent news, fried stars, hairy spouses, loud flirts, cosmic crumbs, healed sons, dumb technology, rare games, underground motherships, Turkish tarot, fat bits and heavy cream, fresh herbs, exotic invectives, a stuttering abacus, lamb's bread, silent farts, croissants chauds, extended outsiders, incongruous "patisseries", condescending muffs, violent eardrums, hijacked bytes, macho bakers, epic fails, Viennese bass, very large ears, hilarious gliding, what else ??

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: CSR 310CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Reissue, originally released as a cassette in 1981. The first reissue of seminal early 1980s electronic recordings from the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.), aka Heaven 17/ex-The Human League's Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, with Adi Newton (Clock DVA/The Future), and John Wilson (Heaven 17), originally a cassette-only release (1981). Following two groundbreaking albums (Reproduction and Travelogue), the original line-up of Sheffield-based The Human League split in half in late 1980. The two primary musicians in the group, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, formed a new production company -- the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.) -- and signed a deal with Virgin Records to write and produce up to six albums a year. The artists they were to produce would include Heaven 17, their own new band formed with vocalist Glenn Gregory. B.E.F. would also release their own material, commencing with the music on this collection, which was issued in various permutations in 1981-82. Its initial release in March 1981 was a limited edition numbered eight song cassette entitled Music for Stowaways, with "Stowaways" being a reference to the original name for the then-new Sony portable cassette player -- later renamed the Walkman -- of which B.E.F. were great fans. Music for Stowaways was intended to be listened to on such a device. The cassette was followed by a seven song LP, Music for Listening to, which had a slightly different track listing, while other B.E.F. music was utilized for B-sides of early singles by Heaven 17. This music was among the first recorded by Martyn and Ian directly after their departure from The Human League. Some tracks had evolved from other recordings they were working on at the time, such as "Groove Thang" -- an instrumental version of the debut single by Heaven 17 -- and "The Old At Rest", which derived from a version of "Wichita Lineman" by Jimmy Webb, their very first recording with Glenn that would subsequently appear on B.E.F.'s Music of Quality and Distinction, Volume One covers album in 1982. The innovative sounds heard on Music for Stowaways were an inspiration to many aspiring electronic artists. In 2015, Uncut magazine included it in a list of the "50 Greatest Lost Albums of All Time".

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: CSR 310LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. Reissue, originally released as a cassette in 1981. The first reissue of seminal early 1980s electronic recordings from the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.), aka Heaven 17/ex-The Human League's Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, with Adi Newton (Clock DVA/The Future), and John Wilson (Heaven 17), originally a cassette-only release (1981). Following two groundbreaking albums (Reproduction and Travelogue), the original line-up of Sheffield-based The Human League split in half in late 1980. The two primary musicians in the group, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, formed a new production company -- the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.) -- and signed a deal with Virgin Records to write and produce up to six albums a year. The artists they were to produce would include Heaven 17, their own new band formed with vocalist Glenn Gregory. B.E.F. would also release their own material, commencing with the music on this collection, which was issued in various permutations in 1981-82. Its initial release in March 1981 was a limited edition numbered eight song cassette entitled Music for Stowaways, with "Stowaways" being a reference to the original name for the then-new Sony portable cassette player -- later renamed the Walkman -- of which B.E.F. were great fans. Music for Stowaways was intended to be listened to on such a device. The cassette was followed by a seven song LP, Music for Listening to, which had a slightly different track listing, while other B.E.F. music was utilized for B-sides of early singles by Heaven 17. This music was among the first recorded by Martyn and Ian directly after their departure from The Human League. Some tracks had evolved from other recordings they were working on at the time, such as "Groove Thang" -- an instrumental version of the debut single by Heaven 17 -- and "The Old At Rest", which derived from a version of "Wichita Lineman" by Jimmy Webb, their very first recording with Glenn that would subsequently appear on B.E.F.'s Music of Quality and Distinction, Volume One covers album in 1982. The innovative sounds heard on Music for Stowaways were an inspiration to many aspiring electronic artists. In 2015, Uncut magazine included it in a list of the "50 Greatest Lost Albums of All Time".

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: CSR 317CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The ultimate deep listening experience from two masters of dark ambient. A slow descent into the blackened watery abyss, where light cannot reach. The first release from Sleep Research Facility since 2012's Stealth (CSR 159CD) is inspired by the deep-sea ocean floor. The Canadian-based composer explores notions of awareness and perception in the sub/unconscious listener. Focusing primarily on sound bereft of rhythm-based energies, SRF provides an environment wherein the music adds texture to the silence. Using form without structure and concentrating on space as opposed to narrative, SRF entertains the idea that music can reside in the very fabric of sound itself. The brand-new material here was created specifically for this split release. Taking inspiration from the beautiful, but often harsh landscapes and environments of his home on Anglesey, North Wales, Llyn Y Cwn has built on the nautical theme of Du Y Moroedd (CSR 302CD, 2022). These tracks are based on field recordings relating to the ocean, and could be seen as a companion piece to the album. "Dale Dawn" features a recording of the dawn chorus made from the floating pontoon at Dale, Pembrokeshire. "Pebble" includes the sound of waves crashing on a Dorset cobble beach, thousands of rocks colliding in chorus. "Doppler Current Profiler" is based on the sound of an ADCP, an acoustic sonar instrument used to measure water currents -- a 600Khz ping slowed to a heartbeat. "Sargo / Posidonia" features a separate front cover design with individual art on each side, making this a true split release.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: CSR 317LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. The ultimate deep listening experience from two masters of dark ambient. A slow descent into the blackened watery abyss, where light cannot reach. The first release from Sleep Research Facility since 2012's Stealth (CSR 159CD) is inspired by the deep-sea ocean floor. The Canadian-based composer explores notions of awareness and perception in the sub/unconscious listener. Focusing primarily on sound bereft of rhythm-based energies, SRF provides an environment wherein the music adds texture to the silence. Using form without structure and concentrating on space as opposed to narrative, SRF entertains the idea that music can reside in the very fabric of sound itself. The brand-new material here was created specifically for this split release. Taking inspiration from the beautiful, but often harsh landscapes and environments of his home on Anglesey, North Wales, Llyn Y Cwn has built on the nautical theme of Du Y Moroedd (CSR 302CD, 2022). These tracks are based on field recordings relating to the ocean, and could be seen as a companion piece to the album. "Dale Dawn" features a recording of the dawn chorus made from the floating pontoon at Dale, Pembrokeshire. "Pebble" includes the sound of waves crashing on a Dorset cobble beach, thousands of rocks colliding in chorus. "Doppler Current Profiler" is based on the sound of an ADCP, an acoustic sonar instrument used to measure water currents -- a 600Khz ping slowed to a heartbeat. "Sargo / Posidonia" features a separate front cover design with individual art on each side, making this a true split release.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: CSR 321CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Cold Spring present That Space Somewhere, the first new album in 14 years from Lull -- the pioneering, isolationist dark ambient project of Mick Harris (Scorn, Fret, ex-Napalm Death). Lull was conceived by Mick Harris in 1990, in an attempt to create music that would stretch, if not forsake entirely, the structures of conventional music by developing and exploring sound without beats. Mick Harris on Lull: "I finally heard the way of recording, making profound sounds. Lull is purely something I can get lost in, as far as trying to create these imaginary spaces. And that's what I always tried to do -- to create. I'm a lover of sounds. I love collecting sounds. Playing with those sounds using various software until I created something new from that sound. Which for me end being what I call 'a droner' or 'a drift', I'd use those to create a piece of music, or a sound-scape. That's what I'm doing with Lull. Just trying to create soundscapes. And to this day, still, absolutely love doing that. Lull is quite natural for me. It's an extension of me. Drifting. Just going to darkness. Into a space. Lull is drifting and droning, discovering more and more what can be done with sound. These soundscapes hugely appeal to me."

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: DADA 005LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

The first in a series of archival releases from Cranes, the band's John Peel Sessions are collected for the first time. Formed in mid-1980s Portsmouth by the brother and sister duo of Jim Shaw (drummer, keyboardist, guitarist, programmer) and Alison Shaw (vocalist, guitarist, bassist), Cranes first appeared in 1986 with Fuse, a self-released and now highly sought-after cassette of demos. Their debut album Self-Non-Self followed in 1989, catching the attention of legendary DJ John Peel, who invited them to record two sessions for his show in 1989 and 1990, the second seeing Mark Francombe (guitarist, keyboardist, bassist) and Matt Cope (guitarist) join ranks to form the line-up who would go on to record multiple albums for Dedicated including the much-loved album, Forever, which enjoys its 30th anniversary in 2023. Cranes are releasing John Peel Sessions (1989-1990) on their own Dadaphonic label. The first in a series of archival releases, this compilation features original artwork by fe?ted 4AD & v23 sleeve designer Chris Bigg (Pixies, Cocteau Twins, The Breeders). Black vinyl; edition of 500.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: DAK 015LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Art by Spencer Herbst. Silkscreen By SIWA prints. LP limited to 100 copies.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: DAK 016LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

"In some distant future? No, you say. Now, there's a logic in being skeptical about seers, but there have been some murmurings that perhaps you're devoid as well. Easy stuff is fun, it's the obvious stuff that should make your hair stand on end. Fun stuff is fun, they say. So, drop it and have a little conjuring session. If there's desert access, take advantage of it, you'll be glad you did. For the less fortunate of us, find a field, a rooftop, a city street corner. Let's say that you're worried that you've been dubbed a thing, marked. Who isn't? Who hasn't? Now look up at the sky; please don't be concerned with the time of day or night. At some point, they'll be born into it. In how distant a future? A requiem for a failed space program vibrates the air. Electronic fireworks sizzle in the distance. Somewhere, a beacon has been received. Will they shed it, their mark? Remember, there's comfort in not suffering. And the profanity of genre, it's like a curse! Worse still, each remaining one a lonely scaffold supporting the crumbling edifice, their backs to the proverbial wall and thus facing the wrong way. Will there be more? Think of the awful words they'll designate to them, spat out. The edifice presupposes something on the other side of it. Something to come; this is what's to come music. Can you hear the signals embedded within? How about the patterns? Are you counting, are you good with numbers? Here being the moment when a nay-sayer could interject some paradox about the difference between remembering and repetition. Or a haiku about the void. But if you look over there you can see those wavering shadows. There is light around that corner, fire born maybe. See how it glows, then see the projected flickering darkness? This is music for a deprogramming. In some distant future? you ask. Well, not yet." Recorded winter 2021/22. Silkscreen by SIWA Prints. Limited to 100 copies.

 

PRICE: $34.00

CAT #: DAK 017LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Within this interference pattern, to the contrary, any similitude dissolves and hence the dependence of space on a reference frame is no longer maintained. Orientation is now relative and arbitrary, for the dismantling of the fixed-point strips fifteen years of, let's call it, empirical reality of its novel status. Fear not, this is small-scale stuff! Should your future, whether protracted, brief, or fluctuant in relation to your daily needs, include any examination of the appearance and disappearance of things, this document of a divergent path will, most likely, have no impact on your experience. If one were to speak candidly, innocently, there's a possibility that a statement such as the following might be uttered -- "There is no longer a linear chronicle, there are only shards of a perceived history, a formless sludge made up of endless neutral particles. Malleable, yes, but with increasing frequency recombined under a set of standards dictated by the obligations of a collective unlived memory, never mind by a commercial venture, although it remains implied." Fear not, servitude is still conditional! In this instance, at least. And, you'll still need some form of cash -- cold, hard or subjective -- and you'd do well to consider what methodology of relinquishment you plan for these slabs of plastic after your inevitable departure. Consider the serenity of your executor! Recorded, mixed and edited by Jason Meagher in 2007. Rejected by the powers that be shortly thereafter. Limited to 100 copies.

 

PRICE: $9.00

CAT #: DKR 185EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 repress. "Deeply rare roots from the mid '70s. Originally released on Federal's Wildflower imprint, 'Golden Daffodils' by Fulk (Livingston) Reid came out with a Glen Brown credit on it due to some producer/insider business runnings decades ago. Actually produced by Stereo Fletcher, and like much of his mid '70s material, played on dubplate by select sounds at the time. The original 45 confusingly came with a dub to the not-released (until now!) deejay cut on the b-side, and mistakenly credited to Brigadier Jerry at that. The deejay is actually Mojo Blue aka Jah Mojo. Here we give you the original vocal as released on 45 on the A-side, and the previously unreleased dub to the vocal on the b-side!"

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 049LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1962. Charles Mingus brought together an amazing lineup spanning the totality of the nation's jazz scene with such luminaries as Eric Dolphy, Buddy Collette, Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Grady Tate, and more. Brought together to perform new Mingus compositions for the first time in public, the recording was initially considered weak due to limited rehearsal time but the years have been kind to this recording and it's a fantastic set of Mingus compositions, including the powerful "Freedom" which rivals the works on Mingus Ah-Um (1959) for its strength of purpose and message, in a similar vein to Max Roach's legendary We Insist! album (1960). Mingus is one of the most important figures in 20th century music and this live recording documents his compositional and arranging process as well as sheer swinging joy. Clear vinyl.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 050LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1963. Texan rhythm and blues icon Barbara Lynn made an incredible impact in 1962 with the chart-topping debut single, "You'll Lose A Good Thing," which has since been covered by Aretha Franklin, Freddy Fender, and countless others. A southpaw guitarist who wrote her own material, debut LP You'll Lose A Good Thing captured our heroine at her best, the soulful smoky voice a striking contrast to the blues base of her backing musicians (including Dr John on keyboards). Containing the follow-up hits "Second Fiddle Girl" and "Letter To Mommy And Daddy" as well as the cherished title track, it's a winner from start to finish. Clear vinyl.

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: STEP 004LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Deluxe gatefold vinyl edition. "With a book of lyrics and artwork, updated by Vashti herself. Additional poster included, unique to the North American edition. This vinyl reissue of Vashti Bunyan's lone 1970 solo release features contributions from British folk royalty including members of Fairport Convention and preeminent producer Joe Boyd." "Vashti Bunyan's lone 1970 solo release features contributions from British folk royalty including members of Fairport Convention and preeminent producer Joe Boyd. Vashti was recently heard singing alongside Devendra Banhart on the title track of Rejoicing In The Hands. The songs were written over two summers and one winter of travelling. After a chance meeting that winter with Derroll Adams (noted Woody Guthrie era folksinger and banjo player) who told her not to 'hide her light under a bushel,' Vashti took the songs of her journey to Joe Boyd. A year later he recorded Just Another Diamond Day, inviting Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band, and Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol (who also played on Nick Drake's records) from Fairport Convention to accompany Vashti on some tracks. The album was released late in 1970 to little attention. The music was abandoned by the singer in favor of further horse journeys and complete obscurity. However, over the years all the recordings have succeeded in finding their own way to the notice of music collectors. The master tape of the album lay in a London warehouse for thirty years before being unwisely taken across the city in an underground train and getting wet in a raging thunderstorm, but has survived almost intact. The four additional on this edition are from well traveled old vinyl, acetate demos, and home recorded tape." -- Paul Lambden.

 

PRICE: $21.00

CAT #: DKR 213LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 repress. "Ivan 'Lloydie Slim' Smith is one of the unsung movers and shakers of 1970s reggae. Slim worked for a time as both in-studio producer & record promoter for Bunny Lee and Channel 1, the two biggest and most significant producers of the 1970s. At the same time, he quietly built his own catalog and released a relatively small but very high quality-barrage of his own productions. These were released across many different labels, both his own and some belonging to his friends and collaborators. Slim moved to New York at the end of the '70s, and continued producing into the 1990s. We have issued some of his work before, but now we present the first ever compilation of Slim's work, featuring his most classic tunes, all taken from master tapes for proper sound, and in a lovely two-sided hand silkscreened jacket. Watch this site, because there's much more to come, released & unreleased, from the Record Smith himself!"

 

PRICE: $21.00

CAT #: DBCD 120CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"Over the years since, Battle Of Armagideon (Millionaire Liquidator) has become widely acknowledged as Perry's most significant and daring undertakings since the closure of his famed Black Ark studio in Kingston. And now, some 36 years after its original release, this seminal album is finally given the deluxe treatment, with its original track-listing bolstered by seven bonus tracks from the Trojan sessions -- a dozen of which make their CD debut. The result is a must-have collector's item for all serious Lee 'Scratch' Perry; providing a fitting tribute to one of the most innovative, creative and gifted music makers to have made their mark on modern popular music."

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: DC 848CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Cory Hanson's third solo LP follows upon 2020's luminescent Pale Horse Rider, upping the heat to molten levels, six strings at a time. In search of further adventures, Cory draws with vampiric glee from the madness coursing through the world outside; a spiraling shitshow that's reawakened a compulsion in him -- an old ambition, even! -- to crush brutality and elegance together into a fresh set of rocks to hail down upon us. Western Cum is a high-stepping, hard-dancing, first love/heartbreak, tonight's-the-night, future nostalgia kind of good time -- the sound of guitars through the speakers of luxury cars. Like the dream you had once, alone, asleep in an amplifier, blasting Guns N' Roses through every last orifice in your body. And it's coming through! It's another side of midnight somewhere; high o'clock too, and the dark, cactaceaen fantasias of the previous incarnation have hardened and dried in Cory's pre-apocalyptic garden of choice, a sun-blinded plain of sedimentary rock. Down the highway, beyond the horizon, through the looking glass, etc. -- he's fixed for rough times ahead, a gunslinger/anti-hero of legend/infamy, back in town with axe blazing and a rhythm trio dubbed 'Slowhand' walking up the crazy horse he rode in on. You ready to boogie? Western Cum's map to the treasure is less about pastiche, though; more toward executing the songs by executioner's axe, rolling their decapitated rhythm heads and soaring melodies, the panoply of Cory's melodic impulses with guitars, guitars, guitars. Harmony leads are just the tip of the iceberg, but be quick -- the guitars like to melt everything in their path! The eight songs of Western Cum are driven by the stalwart bass of brother Casey Hanson and the drums of Evan Backer with a few passing acoustics from Cory and the intermittent spirit-moans of Tyler Nuffer's steel guitar. The quartet sound -- two guitars, bass and drums -- acts as beat-making principle/phrasing device, as well as template for Cory's layers of six-string and vocal textures. From the rooftop of their musical safe house -- the band in their makeshift hut and Cory ensconced in an outhouse -- they let loose with a blast both face-melting and mind-blowing: a social service that gives constipation a good name. With Western Cum, this debauched and shameless world is redeemed in the same breath as it is repudiated. A massing of voices and guitars form an almost post-gospel harmony, bright and burgeoning, engorging the thermostat, prising the pressure from your chest before the final wink-out. Maybe it's a mirage . . . but those things are just another part of reality, ain't they?"

 

PRICE: $12.00

CAT #: DC 848CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Cassette version. "Cory Hanson's third solo LP follows upon 2020's luminescent Pale Horse Rider, upping the heat to molten levels, six strings at a time. In search of further adventures, Cory draws with vampiric glee from the madness coursing through the world outside; a spiraling shitshow that's reawakened a compulsion in him -- an old ambition, even! -- to crush brutality and elegance together into a fresh set of rocks to hail down upon us. Western Cum is a high-stepping, hard-dancing, first love/heartbreak, tonight's-the-night, future nostalgia kind of good time -- the sound of guitars through the speakers of luxury cars. Like the dream you had once, alone, asleep in an amplifier, blasting Guns N' Roses through every last orifice in your body. And it's coming through! It's another side of midnight somewhere; high o'clock too, and the dark, cactaceaen fantasias of the previous incarnation have hardened and dried in Cory's pre-apocalyptic garden of choice, a sun-blinded plain of sedimentary rock. Down the highway, beyond the horizon, through the looking glass, etc. -- he's fixed for rough times ahead, a gunslinger/anti-hero of legend/infamy, back in town with axe blazing and a rhythm trio dubbed 'Slowhand' walking up the crazy horse he rode in on. You ready to boogie? Western Cum's map to the treasure is less about pastiche, though; more toward executing the songs by executioner's axe, rolling their decapitated rhythm heads and soaring melodies, the panoply of Cory's melodic impulses with guitars, guitars, guitars. Harmony leads are just the tip of the iceberg, but be quick -- the guitars like to melt everything in their path! The eight songs of Western Cum are driven by the stalwart bass of brother Casey Hanson and the drums of Evan Backer with a few passing acoustics from Cory and the intermittent spirit-moans of Tyler Nuffer's steel guitar. The quartet sound -- two guitars, bass and drums -- acts as beat-making principle/phrasing device, as well as template for Cory's layers of six-string and vocal textures. From the rooftop of their musical safe house -- the band in their makeshift hut and Cory ensconced in an outhouse -- they let loose with a blast both face-melting and mind-blowing: a social service that gives constipation a good name. With Western Cum, this debauched and shameless world is redeemed in the same breath as it is repudiated. A massing of voices and guitars form an almost post-gospel harmony, bright and burgeoning, engorging the thermostat, prising the pressure from your chest before the final wink-out. Maybe it's a mirage . . . but those things are just another part of reality, ain't they?"

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: DC 848LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. "Cory Hanson's third solo LP follows upon 2020's luminescent Pale Horse Rider, upping the heat to molten levels, six strings at a time. In search of further adventures, Cory draws with vampiric glee from the madsvness coursing through the world outside; a spiraling shitshow that's reawakened a compulsion in him -- an old ambition, even! -- to crush brutality and elegance together into a fresh set of rocks to hail down upon us. Western Cum is a high-stepping, hard-dancing, first love/heartbreak, tonight's-the-night, future nostalgia kind of good time -- the sound of guitars through the speakers of luxury cars. Like the dream you had once, alone, asleep in an amplifier, blasting Guns N' Roses through every last orifice in your body. And it's coming through! It's another side of midnight somewhere; high o'clock too, and the dark, cactaceaen fantasias of the previous incarnation have hardened and dried in Cory's pre-apocalyptic garden of choice, a sun-blinded plain of sedimentary rock. Down the highway, beyond the horizon, through the looking glass, etc. -- he's fixed for rough times ahead, a gunslinger/anti-hero of legend/infamy, back in town with axe blazing and a rhythm trio dubbed 'Slowhand' walking up the crazy horse he rode in on. You ready to boogie? Western Cum's map to the treasure is less about pastiche, though; more toward executing the songs by executioner's axe, rolling their decapitated rhythm heads and soaring melodies, the panoply of Cory's melodic impulses with guitars, guitars, guitars. Harmony leads are just the tip of the iceberg, but be quick -- the guitars like to melt everything in their path! The eight songs of Western Cum are driven by the stalwart bass of brother Casey Hanson and the drums of Evan Backer with a few passing acoustics from Cory and the intermittent spirit-moans of Tyler Nuffer's steel guitar. The quartet sound -- two guitars, bass and drums -- acts as beat-making principle/phrasing device, as well as template for Cory's layers of six-string and vocal textures. From the rooftop of their musical safe house -- the band in their makeshift hut and Cory ensconced in an outhouse -- they let loose with a blast both face-melting and mind-blowing: a social service that gives constipation a good name. With Western Cum, this debauched and shameless world is redeemed in the same breath as it is repudiated. A massing of voices and guitars form an almost post-gospel harmony, bright and burgeoning, engorging the thermostat, prising the pressure from your chest before the final wink-out. Maybe it's a mirage . . . but those things are just another part of reality, ain't they?"

 

PRICE: $36.50

CAT #: EGR 626014LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Jimmy LaValle's The Album Leaf has spun from solo outlet to full band and back in its nearly 25 years. His acclaimed catalog spans releases for labels such as Sub Pop, City Slang, Relapse, and others. He also composes music for film and television, scoring over 20 projects since 2009. The cinematic sensibilities of The Album Leaf were present from the beginning. His 1999 debut introduced the start of a signature sound: melodic and meditative electro-organic soundscapes constructed with guitar, percussion, Rhodes, and field recordings. His seventh full-length LP, and first since 2016, arrives in 2023 via Vancouver's Nettwerk Records. Future Falling finds LaValle working with an array of musicians, shaping slightly darker, more spacious, and synth-driven songs with contributions from Bat For Lashes, Kimbra, and many others. The music registers a shade darker and more synth-driven than most moments in his acclaimed catalog, a bridge between shadowy, cerebral terrain and dreamy precision pop, where softly percussive frameworks meet shimmering sound design and emotive instrumentation. LaValle sees the construction of Future Falling as less conventional than past work. Contributions were done remotely with a "throw everything at it" mindset, making LaValle the arranger of layers from all over: drums, synths, horns, violins, voice, and more. The album opens on "Prologue," an evocative, slow-building instrumental that rides a pattern into a symphonic sea of static. Keys and horns glide atop the rhythmic pulse of "Dust Collects," setting the contemplative scene for "Afterglow," the record's most pop-minded performance. Here Kimbra, the Grammy-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter, renders a striking recollection of past love as percussive elements shimmer and swirl. A plaintive piano line moves throughout "Cycles 19.9" encircled by light ambient washes, both a valley between two peaks and a powerful composition in its own right. "Future Falling" follows; with origins tracing back to 2015, the track embodies the full sonic journey LaValle has taken. All the hallmarks of The Album Leaf -- melodic builds, vivid sprawl, tonal shape-shifting -- assemble to a blissful finish. For the next stretch, "Cycles" begins with an uneasy Rhodes loop that builds and erupts into a wall of texture paving its way into "Give In," where LaValle models a movement that begins subtle and measured before curving up with skyward, percussive bursts ("Stride") and settling back down to the album's back-half centerpiece, "Near" featuring the acclaimed English artist Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes. "Do you feel me near?" she sings into a mist of widescreen synths and soothing, distant drum beats as if searching through the dark. Neon violet vinyl; gatefold jacket.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: HE 67002LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1967. "She is beautiful. And in a world where so much can easily be possessed on a whim or for a promise, she is unpossessable. She has a clear, pure ring, a trueness, like an arrow that has hit an inner mark and can't be wedged loose. Her voice and her manner, that stretch farther into the past than perhaps she realizes, may set the new style: an existential pop style that is as earthy as Mary Travers (Peter, Paul & Mary) yet more elegant, more isolated. Her name is Nico. I don't know where she was born, how old she is or anything about her life as a model in Paris, an actress in Rome, a beat in lbiza or a member of the Velvet Underground. I could easily find out. But l'd rather not. All that was yesterday." --Pat Patterson

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: FTR 710LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Hazy Road is the debut album from Bong Wish, the solo project of Palestinian-American artist Mariam Saleh. Former bassist for beloved garage rock band Fat Creeps, Saleh got her start in the Boston music scene of the early 2010s. While living above a music venue, where she was also employed, she was exposed to a myriad of jazz, psych, and experimental music. In turn, Bong Wish incorporates both the high-energy and distortion of garage alongside kaleidoscopic soundscapes, and folds them into its folk rock sensibility. Hazy Road is a coming-of-age album, documenting Saleh's self-exploration, as fueled by her interest in psychedelia, spirituality and the desire to know oneself. 'Love is in season, love is in me,' she declares in the song 'Witches.' Saleh's vocals and phrasing maintain a smooth and cool quality throughout the album, lending the songs a deep wisdom and a sweet breeze of confidence. A fan of both Love's surreal folk rock and Ween's eccentric expression, Saleh enjoys infusing her tunes with a touch of tripped-out freakiness. The title track 'Hazy Road' seems to borrow its vocal line from the sound of a record being played backwards in order to reveal its true message, as alluded to from the sample at the start of the song. 'I Can Feel' could have been sung by the Byrds or Vashti Bunyan, albeit at half speed, while 'Moon For You' could have easily appeared on the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. On 'Breeding Evil,' Saleh confronts the senselessness of Israel's apartheid against the Palestinian people and broods over how it has personally affected her family. 'Your fire soldiers have left a mark on all that I have known,' she summons. But she pledges strength in the face of all the cruelty: 'You can't kill lovers, we will only rise and love once more.' Bong Wish has been Saleh's journey through home recording and beguiling live shows. Over the years it has been a solo project, a glam rock band, a trio with flute and piano, a spoken word act, and more. The process has paid off. Hazy Road has a natural, immensely listenable quality to it that only comes when an artist gives themself the time to discover a sound that is uniquely theirs. The album is both a homage to the rock and folk music that Saleh loves and a collage of memories, dreams and moods. A reverie on a misty beach. Nostalgia for a love gone away. Hope for the future. Hazy Road accompanies Saleh through the dark as she strives toward light and love." --Sally Horowitz, edited by Alaina Stamatis.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: GRZ 030LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Avishag Cohen Rodrigues is an artist and musician based in New York. She broke out to the Tel-Aviv underground scene at age 18 with the guitar drum duo, Laila. Since then, she has been playing electric guitar with Ryskinder, Sloppy Jane, Cumgirl8. She has a forthcoming solo project where she plays too many of the instruments. She is currently an MFA candidate at Columbia University in the Sound Art Department. In 2019 she released her first EP One Winter One Hunter with Baby Satan Records (Berlin). She has opened for major acts such as Dirty Beaches, Better Oblivion Community Center, Mac DeMarco, Psychic Ills, Deerhoof, Cloud Nothings, Night Beats, Wire, The Shivers.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: JC 9053LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 restock. "This is the best homage/tribute album made to the best band ever, The Germs! 45 minutes of Germs geniusness on Bill Bartell/Pat Fear's label -- Gasatanka ... he got appearances from such bands as -- take note -- Nirvana, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Hole, Jane's Addiction, Danzig, Stooges, Big Star, Dinosaur Jr, Minutemen, Screamers, The Eyes, Circle Jerks, Off, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Meat Puppets... it is great to hear the songs re-created on such intensity. On top you have the late Germs incarnation, four songs with the original members (plus Shane West) that have never ever been released on vinyl before. The whole thing is packaged in a deluxe sleeve with incredible unseen color polaroid pictures of the Germs 1979. Again, do yourself a favor and Listen to The Germs! Dedicated to Darby, Lorna and Bill." Tracklisting: A1. The Germs - "Forming", A2. The Screamers "Sex Boy", A3. Melvins "Lexicon Devil", A4. Hole "Circle One", A5. D-Generation "No God", A6. Mike Watt & J. Mascis "What We Do Is Secret", A7. Ruined Eye "Land Of Treason", A8. The Posies "Richie Dagger's Crime", B1. White Flag "Maninal", B2. The Germs "Manimal", B3. The Germs "We Must Blled", B4. Flea "Media Blitz", B5. Matthew Sweet "Dragon Lady", B6. Meat Puppets "Not Allright", B7. The Germs "My Tunnel", B8. Puzzled Panthers "Now I Hear The Laughter".

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: GB 141CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

A genre-defying Afrofuturist manifesto from Uganda. Producer, dancer, and choreographer Faizal Mostrixx's singular vision of East African electronic music is a lush sonic tapestry of polyrhythms, modern dancefloor styles, amapiano, Nile Basin ceremonial chants and Pan-African field recordings. A stalwart of the explosive Kampala electronic music scene, Mostrixx has collaborated with the Nyege Nyege collective appearing at both the African and European editions of their festival. Mutations is Faizal's second full-length album, following close on the heels of his acclaimed EP Transitions (2022). Mostrixx is first and foremost a dancer, but one who has found time to absorb a full range of global electronic music styles along the way, after a solid grounding in older sounds. Musically, his expression builds first on a Ugandan heritage, particularly its varied rhythmic patterns and the specific style of music played at the kadodi, an ancient circumcision ceremony. These antique local rhythm patterns are balanced with influences from further afield: downtempo, deep, and Afro House elements melded with sub-heavy dub, footwork and amapiano, East and South African polyrhythms, modern urban styles, and age-old chants from the Nile Basin. Horizons are further expanded with field recordings from Uganda, Congo, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, some by Mostrixx and others, from the 1950s, taken from the International Library of African Music. They are intricately interwoven into the sonic fabric of the record. This cultural Pan-Africanism should not obscure the fact that Faizal Mostrixx is very much an artist who traces a trajectory of his own, one that transcends the bedroom-producer ethos and dancefloor-ready functionalism of much contemporary cutting-edge electronic music. Mutations is above all a piece of work that feeds on the creative friction between different musical forms spanning various African regions and histories, but with the artist's own character and interests very much out front. The record features Lesothian artist Morena Leraba in imperious form on "Loosely", chants by the influential Ugandan singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Giovanni Kiyingi, and a restless exploration of rhythm and tempo throughout, whether on dancefloor bangers like "Tunes of the Jungle" and "Back to Tanzania" or the more downbeat "Afro Aliens". "Onions and Love", the opening track, is built around a beautiful acapella by Kebenesh, a lady who chops onions at the restaurant of the Alliance Ethio-Française in Addis Ababa, whom Mostrixx recorded in an impromptu studio. What he manages to do to superb effect throughout, in a series of mostly four-minute tracks, is push outwards to create a sense of epic yet still intimate space -- further proof of the fruitful feedback loop of choreography and music that makes this record so enjoyable.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: GB 141LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

LP version. A genre-defying Afrofuturist manifesto from Uganda. Producer, dancer, and choreographer Faizal Mostrixx's singular vision of East African electronic music is a lush sonic tapestry of polyrhythms, modern dancefloor styles, amapiano, Nile Basin ceremonial chants and Pan-African field recordings. A stalwart of the explosive Kampala electronic music scene, Mostrixx has collaborated with the Nyege Nyege collective appearing at both the African and European editions of their festival. Mutations is Faizal's second full-length album, following close on the heels of his acclaimed EP Transitions (2022). Mostrixx is first and foremost a dancer, but one who has found time to absorb a full range of global electronic music styles along the way, after a solid grounding in older sounds. Musically, his expression builds first on a Ugandan heritage, particularly its varied rhythmic patterns and the specific style of music played at the kadodi, an ancient circumcision ceremony. These antique local rhythm patterns are balanced with influences from further afield: downtempo, deep, and Afro House elements melded with sub-heavy dub, footwork and amapiano, East and South African polyrhythms, modern urban styles, and age-old chants from the Nile Basin. Horizons are further expanded with field recordings from Uganda, Congo, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, some by Mostrixx and others, from the 1950s, taken from the International Library of African Music. They are intricately interwoven into the sonic fabric of the record. This cultural Pan-Africanism should not obscure the fact that Faizal Mostrixx is very much an artist who traces a trajectory of his own, one that transcends the bedroom-producer ethos and dancefloor-ready functionalism of much contemporary cutting-edge electronic music. Mutations is above all a piece of work that feeds on the creative friction between different musical forms spanning various African regions and histories, but with the artist's own character and interests very much out front. The record features Lesothian artist Morena Leraba in imperious form on "Loosely", chants by the influential Ugandan singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Giovanni Kiyingi, and a restless exploration of rhythm and tempo throughout, whether on dancefloor bangers like "Tunes of the Jungle" and "Back to Tanzania" or the more downbeat "Afro Aliens". "Onions and Love", the opening track, is built around a beautiful acapella by Kebenesh, a lady who chops onions at the restaurant of the Alliance Ethio-Française in Addis Ababa, whom Mostrixx recorded in an impromptu studio. What he manages to do to superb effect throughout, in a series of mostly four-minute tracks, is push outwards to create a sense of epic yet still intimate space -- further proof of the fruitful feedback loop of choreography and music that makes this record so enjoyable.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: HMR 022CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Seljuk Rustum is a Kochi (Cochin) based arts practitioner originally from Kannur, Kerala. He is a painter, musician, curator, producer, recording engineer, and the founder and current Creative Director of performance space, Forplay Society. As a musician he plays alto saxophone, guitar, percussion, and synthesizer with several bands and an expanding collective of like-minded artists. Being a self-taught musician, his sound work is an extension of his visual work and his music is a mixture of joyful noise and simple naive melodies. Seljuk has performed and recorded with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, Senyawa, Hada Benedito Mateo, Eiko Ishibashi, Mitsuaki Matsumoto, Pisitakun, Yuen Chee Wai, Dharma, DJ Sniff, Maximilian Glass, Duncan Bruce, Hilary Jeffery, and Hayden Chisholm. He has also worked with many theater practitioners and performance artists in India making music for theater as well as curating shows and workshops with actors and performers from around India. The recordings on Cardboard Castles were made at Seljuk's studio in Kochi between 2016 and 2021 and were mostly instant compositions and single take recordings created in collaboration with a number of fellow travelers who've passed through the studio. At the inception of the album's creation, Seljuk sought to reflect on what freedom means and what the musical limitations of this are, and how his involvement as a free improviser might project fixed ideas onto a listener. He wanted to use an improvisational approach that focused on presenting ideas with a beauty inherent in their sound, coalescing these into song form. Cardboard Castles is the resulting album and application of these concept. These deeply personal and highly idiosyncratic works defy easy description. Ranging from strange and wonky electronic improvisations, gentle acoustic instrumentals such as the lush opener with the input of the Cochin String Orchestra, through experiments in traditional Indian song, this album will keep you guessing. This is Seljuk's first to receive a physical release. Gatefold card digisleeve; edition of 250.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: HMRLP 021LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas have long been key players in the experimental and underground music scene in São Paolo, Brazil. Grande Massa D'Agua (Great Body of Water) is their second album as a duo and it sees them continue to explore themes related to water as they dive into uncharted musical depths. In discussing the duo's relationship with water, Mauricio said: "...on the first record it kinda came a little by coincidence (or not), Carla had the name Linha D'água in mind and when we were listening to the opening track one day while I was filling up a bottle with water we thought the sounds combined well. So that kinda became a little bit of a remarkable sound of the record. Funny enough in the beginning of the pandemic we decided to take a turn and move to a small beach close to São Paulo, and that's right in the middle of the rain forest, so by then water definitely took a major role in our lives. We were living right in between the ocean and a waterfall, it'd rain for days on a roll sometimes and it was an open house where we had the sound of rain 360 degrees around us... I kinda think our music has a little of those different dynamics of water in its different states. also, it might seem strange but São Paulo is a city in the water too, and it has a very chaotic relationship with it." The music itself is difficult to pin down, always kinetic and driven by Takara's fluid, nimble percussion; there's a freeness to the sound as a whole, but also an atmosphere of tight discipline as the pair harness and channel the elemental force from which they've drawn the inspiration for their works. At times the lines between Takara's skittish percussion and Boregas's idiosyncratic synth work and sound manipulation blur into flowing rivers or torrents of sound -- here, both water and sound have the ability to awaken different memories and emotional or physical states. Carla Boregas's other projects include Rakta and Fronte Violeta as well as being a prolific solo artist and founder of AUTA, a venue dedicated to experimental music in São Paulo, and the record label Dama Da Noite. Mauricio Takara also plays with the bands Hurtmold, São Paulo Underground (with trumpeter Rob Mazurek from Chicago), and MNTH, as well as sitting in on live sessions with an array of improv/experimental/jazz figures. Recorded and mixed at Estúdio El Rocha by Fernando Sanches in 2022. Mastered by Julian Tardo at Church Road Studios, Hove. Cover painting by Rob Mazurek.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: HONEY 080LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released on Pacific Jazz in 1963. Jazz Waltz brings together the talent of pianist Les McCann and the legendary Jazz Crusaders featuring the great late Joe Sample (piano, organ), the horn frontline of Wayne Henderson (trombone) and Wilton Felder (tenor saxophone), and the super tight rhythm section of Bobby Haynes (bass) and Stix Hooper (drums). One of those great soul-jazz records where every track is pure gold!

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: HONEY 081LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1962. A quite obscure release from a Los Angeles based alto saxophonist named Vi (Elvira) Redd, a blues infected player, singer and educator who since the early '50s has performed with many jazz greats like Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, Roland Kirk, Count Basie, and others. Originally released in 1962, Bird Call was Redd's debut album, a hard swinging studio session featuring a top-class band that included pianist Russ Freeman, Leroy Vinnegar, or Bob Whitlock on bass, guitarist Herb Ellis, trumpeter Carmell Jones, vibraphonist Roy Ayers, and her then-husband, Richie Goldberg, on drums. Another invaluable document from the historical yet unknown LA's black community jazz scene.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: HONEY 082LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1963. This is a majestic piece of work. Considered as one of Duke Ellington's best studio recordings of the sixties this is also an essential mosaic piece within Duke's open wide Afro-centric vision. Performed by a top version of his famous big band, Afro Bossa sounds as a sophisticated, sensual blend of orchestral jazz arrangements and black bossa flavored grooves. Among the players, many of Duke's historical sidemen such as trumpeter Ray Nance, sax giants Paul Gonsalves and Johnny Hodges, drummer extraordinaire Sam Woodyard, and last but not least, Ellington's faithful sideman Billy Strayhorn.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: HONEY 084LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released by RCA Victor in 1962. Our Man In Jazz marks Sonny Rollins's first step towards a more open and explorative form of jazz. Performed by a piano-less line-up featuring two hipper creative Ornette Coleman alumni: Don Cherry on trumpet and Billy Higgins on drums plus the super solid double bass of Bob Cranshaw, this release stands as a brilliant document of the early sixties new wave in jazz.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: IMPREC 504CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Alchemy is a limited-edition cassette appendix to the album Letters Never Sent which is being released simultaneously (IMPREC 509CD). Alchemy is even more mysterious than Letters Never Sent with Alina Kalancea extending her work into exotic electronic realms. Like Letters Never Sent, this is music that invites you in and responds to your current emotional state. This is music that not only changes you but also changes itself with each subsequent listen. Open your ears and your heart and mind will follow.

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: IMPREC 509CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Alina Kalancea is a sonic alchemist who can warp and weave electronic signals into complex tapestries of synthesized analog timbre. These transportive environments were recorded using the artist's personal collection of historic Buchla electronic music instruments including Allen Strange's expanded Music Easel. Letters Never Sent, Alina Kalancea's second full-length for Important Records follows 2021's double-album titled Impedance (IMPREC 491CD/LP), is being released at the same time as a new cassette titled Alchemy (IMPREC 504CS). Kalancea's music has the ability to evoke both emotion and image; feeling and landscape; passion and place. She described recording Letters Never Sent as being like collecting images that are born in your mind. Shades of sound, tone, color, and feeling shape the experience of listening to Kalancea's work. Kalancea's work is made of malleable sonic material that never looks or sounds the same way twice. Part of the magic of the music, and her work is similar to ELEH in this way, is that her work leaves room for the conscious and unconscious emotions of the listener. How you react is partially a result of how you feel at the time. Alchemy, Alina Kalancea's subsequent cassette being released simultaneously, is a limited-edition appendix to the album Letters Never Sent. Highly recommended to fans of Alessandro Cortini, Caterina Barbieri, Shasta Cults. "A slow building beauty of electronic soundscapes." --The Vinyl District

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: IMPREC 522CS

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Weather Music features music controlled by the weather and performed on instruments built by Quintron and NYZ. Side A features the Weather Warlock, designed by New Orleans artist and instrument builder Quintron. "Weather Warlock is an environmentally responsive analog synthesizer which uses moisture, temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and UV radiation to massage a major chordal drone. The resulting music was designed for self-hypnosis and healing. I wanted something with movement and changes, but completely devoid of human organization -- like a fire, or a lake reflecting moonlight. Constantly vibrating with change but also very still." Side B features David Burraston's rain wire, a long string instrument stretched across a valley in Australia where it's mic'd like a guitar with a single string being played by the rain. Like Quintron's Weather Warlock, this piece is devoid of human organization but has a natural form we can easily recognize rhythmically as the steady randomness of rainfall mixed with the deep-space reverberations of this long wire instrument. "Rainwire encompasses the investigation of rainfall using suspended cables (long wire instruments) and its application as a medium for artistic, cultural and scientific exchange. The concept developed from using contact mic recordings of rainfall 'playing' the long wire instruments for music compositions suggesting environmental signification has great potential to measure rainfall accurately." --David Burraston

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: JMAN 134CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, privately pressed in 1977. "Following my recent phone call with Prof. Benson, I left him to continue his 92nd birthday celebrations with his family. We'd talked about his life, his music, his achievements. Throughout our conversation it struck me what a kind, humble and pleasant man he was. I felt that I was in the presence of greatness -- not the egotistical greatness that emanates so often from high achievers, but that of someone who had simply won at life. 'I was a music teacher. I wasn't trying to make a record to compete, I was trying to make a record so the students would have something to remember the experience that we had... I was doing it for the kids.' It was 1973 that Prof. James Benson had self-funded his private press LP for the benefit of the teenage musicians he tutored at Cal Poly, California. The album was a momentous achievement for him and his young protegees, something they were all proud of, and rightly so. Taking inspiration from their recent trip to Africa and blended with the radical jazz associated with the young minds of early '70s black America, the Gow-Dow Experience is a unique foray into the enthusiastic mindset of up-and-coming jazz musicians, as encouraged by their mentor Prof. Benson . . . Comes with four additional tracks taken from the recording session. Until now these tracks have never been heard since the day they were recorded -- believe me, they're worth the wait!" Insert with liner notes and photos provided courtesy of Prof Benson. CD version includes booklet; includes four bonus tracks.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: KR 101CD

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

11th album by the one-of-a-kind collective: psychedelia and free form jazz (not jazz) trigger a sophisticated excursion into weird textures with drastic turns. Dislocated dense music full of secret connections."... On Schemen, familiar fragments float gently around their core -- a Fender Rhodes tone, a bass figure, a guitar motif, a masterful drum shuffle, a moment of icy stasis borrowed from the harmonium playing of Christa "Nico" Päffgen. Triggering brief associations, they slowly rush off in other directions through free jazz-informed editing work, whereupon such zones can also arise in which perception has a few tricks ready and earlier experience suddenly breaks into the now in a completely different way. Half suspected, half seen. Half-music like Can from Cologne -- also masters of improvised editing -- sometimes produced a few decades ago in their in-between moments. The first minutes of 'Future Days' for example, which fade in gently, sketch a barely graspable figure emerging from all directions of the room. Kammerflimmer Kollektief also engages in similarly open moments of development. Loosely, it eludes the first formative impressions, keeping itself ready for moments that do not follow any logic of appointment. This looseness in handling makes Kammerflimmer Kollektief so fluidly audible, even when dissonant peaks and free playing arise. What Karlheinz Stockhausen is to Can's understanding of composition, the recordings of The Cocoon are to Kammerflimmer Kollektief. The Cocoon, a meeting of garage psychedelics from the Hannover area with free jazzers from the Galaxie Dream Band, whose album While The Recording Engineer Sleeps, recorded in 1985 in unguarded moments, operates in a very similar way with decentralized perceptual ambivalences and only appeared more or less secretly four years later on Wilhelm Reich Schallspeicher. Other traces of Schemen lead to the debut album of Quicksilver Messenger Service. The guitars of Gary Duncan and John Cipollina, which refer to themselves in an unforced manner, are instructions to let go. They don't want to be traced in every note as a solo, but they give their music a sense that the essential takes place off center, in the mutual and intuitive gift of loving attentions..." --Werner Ahrensfeld

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: KR 101LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

LP version. 11th album by the one-of-a-kind collective: psychedelia and free form jazz (not jazz) trigger a sophisticated excursion into weird textures with drastic turns. Dislocated dense music full of secret connections."... On Schemen, familiar fragments float gently around their core -- a Fender Rhodes tone, a bass figure, a guitar motif, a masterful drum shuffle, a moment of icy stasis borrowed from the harmonium playing of Christa "Nico" Päffgen. Triggering brief associations, they slowly rush off in other directions through free jazz-informed editing work, whereupon such zones can also arise in which perception has a few tricks ready and earlier experience suddenly breaks into the now in a completely different way. Half suspected, half seen. Half-music like Can from Cologne -- also masters of improvised editing -- sometimes produced a few decades ago in their in-between moments. The first minutes of 'Future Days' for example, which fade in gently, sketch a barely graspable figure emerging from all directions of the room. Kammerflimmer Kollektief also engages in similarly open moments of development. Loosely, it eludes the first formative impressions, keeping itself ready for moments that do not follow any logic of appointment. This looseness in handling makes Kammerflimmer Kollektief so fluidly audible, even when dissonant peaks and free playing arise. What Karlheinz Stockhausen is to Can's understanding of composition, the recordings of The Cocoon are to Kammerflimmer Kollektief. The Cocoon, a meeting of garage psychedelics from the Hannover area with free jazzers from the Galaxie Dream Band, whose album While The Recording Engineer Sleeps, recorded in 1985 in unguarded moments, operates in a very similar way with decentralized perceptual ambivalences and only appeared more or less secretly four years later on Wilhelm Reich Schallspeicher. Other traces of Schemen lead to the debut album of Quicksilver Messenger Service. The guitars of Gary Duncan and John Cipollina, which refer to themselves in an unforced manner, are instructions to let go. They don't want to be traced in every note as a solo, but they give their music a sense that the essential takes place off center, in the mutual and intuitive gift of loving attentions..." --Werner Ahrensfeld

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: KR 104CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Ereignishorizont is Schneider TM's new and with a duration of over 80 minutes truly epic album: experimental guitar, technological innovations and excursions into musical territories beyond the usual. Schneider TM is a multidimensional music project of Dirk Dresselhaus which oscillates extensively between adventurous electronic pop-music and experimental, sometimes improvised freeform music, while occasionally bringing these and other opposing elements together. Ereignishorizont sounds and feels like a soundtrack for a yet-to-be-made sci-fi movie and exposes the essence of Dresselhaus's artistic approaches, crafted here with a more pared-down set-up, an awareness of advanced musical techniques, the physicality of sound, and an improvisational spirit that is based on the experience that things are strongest when they happen first. The main tools on Ereignishorizont are two customized electroacoustic guitars: The "FireSchneiderTM" has sound chambers featuring removable bakelite lids and piezo mics, that can be used as percussion tools, vocal mics, or filled with interesting sounding materials like screws, etc. The next step in the long-term collaboration between Schneider TM and Deimel Guitarworks is the "Spark": In addition to conventional magnetic and piezo pickups the guitar also has playable reverb springs, one of which is attached to the tremolo construction and can be tensioned. The different sound sources can be combined via a global selector switch and sent to an integrated electronic LesLee, which oscillates back and forth between the signals and is connected to CV In & Out sockets for integrating e.g. modular synthesizers via control voltage. The "Spark" can not only be played acoustically, electrically and electronically, but as an electro-acoustic sound object it also offers possibilities for playing techniques that are not typical for guitars. The sci-fi feel of Ereignishorizont is complemented by the artwork by Sebastian Mayer who, just a few weeks before Dresselhaus contacted him, got the opportunity to work as a betatester with some of the first available AI based image generators (for which Mayer himself prefers the name "neural network image generator" because there's no "intelligence" -- yet -- in these networks).

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: KR 104LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Double LP version. Includes download. Ereignishorizont is Schneider TM's new and with a duration of over 80 minutes truly epic album: experimental guitar, technological innovations and excursions into musical territories beyond the usual. Schneider TM is a multidimensional music project of Dirk Dresselhaus which oscillates extensively between adventurous electronic pop-music and experimental, sometimes improvised freeform music, while occasionally bringing these and other opposing elements together. Ereignishorizont sounds and feels like a soundtrack for a yet-to-be-made sci-fi movie and exposes the essence of Dresselhaus's artistic approaches, crafted here with a more pared-down set-up, an awareness of advanced musical techniques, the physicality of sound, and an improvisational spirit that is based on the experience that things are strongest when they happen first. The main tools on Ereignishorizont are two customized electroacoustic guitars: The "FireSchneiderTM" has sound chambers featuring removable bakelite lids and piezo mics, that can be used as percussion tools, vocal mics, or filled with interesting sounding materials like screws, etc. The next step in the long-term collaboration between Schneider TM and Deimel Guitarworks is the "Spark": In addition to conventional magnetic and piezo pickups the guitar also has playable reverb springs, one of which is attached to the tremolo construction and can be tensioned. The different sound sources can be combined via a global selector switch and sent to an integrated electronic LesLee, which oscillates back and forth between the signals and is connected to CV In & Out sockets for integrating e.g. modular synthesizers via control voltage. The "Spark" can not only be played acoustically, electrically and electronically, but as an electro-acoustic sound object it also offers possibilities for playing techniques that are not typical for guitars. The sci-fi feel of Ereignishorizont is complemented by the artwork by Sebastian Mayer who, just a few weeks before Dresselhaus contacted him, got the opportunity to work as a betatester with some of the first available AI based image generators (for which Mayer himself prefers the name "neural network image generator" because there's no "intelligence" -- yet -- in these networks).

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: KR 105LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Modular synthesizers/electronics + a drum kit enhanced with triggers and sensors: on its self-titled debut album, the duo hÄK/Danzeisen creates a sonic energy that oscillates between high-precision rhythm patterns, analog sounds and frenzy climaxes. One must imagine hÄK/Danzeisen as a man-machine apparatus. A collection of cables, resonating bodies and restless limbs that together question all routines. Who overthrow conventional role of instruments and explore the possibilities of a new sound language. Bernd Norbert Würtz alias hÄK operates modular synthesizers, self-soldered circuits and control knobs. Philipp Danzeisen plays a drum kit enhanced with triggers and sensors. These two poles are connected to an interdependent whole in which a constant musical dialogue takes place. The dependencies within this system have been meticulously defined by hÄK/Danzeisen: Drum rolls and sound modulations are interconnected in such a way that there is no contradiction between the strict technological structure and the creative outburst that is possible at any time. What drives hÄK/Danzeisen is the basic idea that the contrast between acoustic drums and synthetically produced sounds must be overcome in order to create a new experience. Würtz, Danzeisen, and their combined instrumentation simultaneously rub up against the same edges, finding a single, piercing voice. Ideal manifestations of this approach are the duo's live performances: raw energy that oscillates as precisely as it surprises between drones, abstraction and noise attacks, driven by an impudent take on jazz. Constantly oscillating between the registers of "composed" and "improvised", each performance by hÄK/Danzeisen ultimately becomes one of a kind. 180 gram vinyl; includes download postcard.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: MACROM 072CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Insight Piano: Within just a few years Tom Schneider moved the scope of the sampler as an instrument into entirely unexpected zones of expression. On keyboards with pioneering cut-up pop band KUF, he developed a key-triggered vocal style that features no singers on stage. With trio Loom & Thread, he devised a new wave of digital improv where the sampler amplified the piano and engaged the acoustic musicians in some sort of multidimensional musical chess. Isotopes is Schneider's first solo album and witnesses him being an astonishingly sensitive and imaginative pianist. The album's material was developed and recorded in an intimate session at Bauer Studios of Ludwigsburg -- a site laden with the history of some of the most significant recordings of contemporary jazz. Yet, things don't stop at bringing just another piano solo effort. Schneider's approaches to the instrument, which range from tender hesitance to eruptive, clustered attacks, merely set the starting point. These utterances are sampled and mirrored back, ultimately rendering a unified performance which combines the depth of intricately executed composition with the urgent immediacy of free improvisation. Over the past decade there has been a resurgence of apparently opposed trends: repetitive, minimalistic sensitivity, and dashing, complex virtuosity. The linear thinking that defines these approaches as polar opposites turns out to be entirely useless when facing Isotopes. Both, the uninhibited speed of granular clouds of tones and the dense texture of multiple layered phrases fired off all at once, require a complete reconceptualization of the meaning of complexity in music. Yet, Schneider offers less of a tongue in cheek critique of the pretense usually inherent in virtuosic display -- instead, the playing field is being thoroughly leveled: Now, and really for the first time, a singular tone potentially carries exactly as much weight as the peaks of physiological sophistication. This is not at all what the axe-wielding avant-gardes of the past were after. What you are witnessing here is a thorough de-ideologization of the instrument: Neither traditions need to be shattered nor innovation kept at the gates. In a world of zero-sum thinking ("if you get to eat I must go hungry"), here we find an integrative approach that shows that we can indeed lift up without simultaneously pulling down.

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: MANA 019LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"De Leon returns to Mana, following their 2018 LP, offering a suite of new material that adds further waypoints to the map of their cryptic soundworld, deepening and expanding the direction of travel they began within the Aught collective. The dual legacies of Javanese gamelan and minimalist composition remain clear touchstones on this second, untitled album, which employs architectures of repetition and microtonality and evokes the musical heritage of the Bay Area whilst folding in the arid landscapes of Tucson, Arizona, where its compositions were conceived in part. Featuring a broad vocabulary of source material, notably Daniel Schmidt's gamelan at Mills College and the spherical gongs on the album's cover, combined with a homespun collection of prepared instruments and faint vapors of synthesis, De Leon crafts a distinct signature sound that evades alignment with conventions of academic composition and contemporary electronica but nods to both as it carves out its unique direction of travel. This album inscribes itself into a tradition of works that enable listeners to perceive deeper valences of time and psychedelic aesthetics of scale. Percussion and metallophones fluctuate within the virtual space of the recording and the sounds avoid stasis, rather undulating restlessly or flickering in and out of perception in a manner consistent with the mercurial sensibilities of their early De Leon recordings."

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: MR 329LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. LP version with a 12-page full-color booklet with extensive notes and unseen photos. "With only six singles released between 1965 and 1966, and from an apparently remote place such as Lima, Peru, Los Saicos created a raw, wild and visceral sound, the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of the garage rock that was coming out of the U.S. Northwest at the same time. Theirs is the same DNA shared by The Sonics, The Cramps and Black Lips. This release compiles all their recordings and tells their amazing story. This snarling maelstrom of nihilism was cut in Lima when the rest of the world was wetting itself over The Beatles, direct links to both The Stooges and The Cramps here and several more equally-enthralling combos. The latter spawned several generations of individuals who would dig deep to previously (mostly) unheard seams of music and other forms of culture that have since become part of the mainstream fabric. Another strong case of the same kind of happenstance to my mind is that which preceded the much-vaunted 'punk' explosion of the '70s." --Lindsay Hutton

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: MOV 3419LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Collins and Collins were the American brother and sister duo (Bill & Tonee) who released the self-titled album in 1980, which was their first and final release. The soul/two-step classic 'Top Of The Stairs' was written by the Songwriters Hall Of Fame duo Nicolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson. The single was released as a promo and commercial 7" single and became a massive hit in the UK soul scene. The album also contains other great soul, disco and boogie tracks by the duo, such as the cover of Harold Melvin's 'You Know How To Make Me Feel So Good', 'Please Don't Break My Heart' and 'Do You Wanna Dance'. The 8 track-set was produced by American disco producer John Davis. For the first time, this sought-after album is being reissued on vinyl."

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: ASF 320LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Sali Sidibé (1959-2019) was a Malian singer and songwriter. Born in a village in the Wassoulou region of southern Mali, Sali Sidibe sang in Bambara. With her gutsy, neo-traditional vocals set to a unique blend of didai, sigui, and sogonikun dance rhythms, Sali Sidibe is one of Mali's greatest vocalists. Recording her first singles in the '60s, she helped to lay the foundation for the Wassoulou music of the '80s. Wassoulou is a genre of West African popular music named for the Wassoulou cultural area. Wassoulou music is performed mostly by women. Some recurring themes in the lyrics are childbearing, fertility, and polygamy. Instrumentation includes soku (a traditional fiddle sometimes replaced with modern imported instruments), djembe drum, kamalen n'goni (a six-stringed harp), karinyan (metal tube percussion) and bolon (a four-stringed harp). The vocals are often passionate and emphatic, and delivered in a call-and-response pattern. This is a reissue of a rare cassette from the '80s.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: OMM 660082CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1969. The band Amon Düül formed in 1967, with music being only one part of their artistic work. In 1969, the albums Paradieswärts Düül (OMM 560082CD/560086LP) and Psychedelic Underground were produced. Reviewers describe them as a "document from the birth of German rock." It was the first krautrock album ever. Even before CAN and XHOL Caravan. Before that, three musicians parted ways with the band and formed Amon Düül II. Amon Düül disbanded in 1971. The album was transferred in high resolution from the analog master tapes at Dierks Studios and carefully remastered. CD version comes in digisleeve.

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: OP 048LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. Nicolas Jaar shows he is paying attention to the masses by issuing a widely called for vinyl press of his A.A.L. (Against All Logic) album 2012-2017. Originally issued as a digital-only release back in February of 2018, it's slowly grown to become one of the most cherished releases in the entire Other People discography. Much like Kerrier District did to disco, A.A.L. (Against All Logic) borrows heavily from the samples and sounds ingrained deep within Jaar's listening habits and evidently a record collection packed to the brim with classic soul, house, and most importantly, funk hooks. Keenly twisting these sounds and filtering them through a studio set up that's leaning heavily on the beefed-up kick drums and reverb units to make a well-executed homage to these sounds, pieced together with the inherent idea of making the listener unable to resist the urge to move, be it in a bedroom, basement, or just sat in work staring at a computer screen. A.A.L. (Against All Logic) is both a well-executed homage to all of the above references, yet also just a really strong and enjoyable record from Nicolas Jaar. Its undeniable popularity digitally is sure to see the vinyl evaporate in no time at all.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: OSR 086LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Out-Sider present a reissue of After All's self-titled album, originally released in 1969. Hailing from Florida, After All was formed by well-experienced musicians with an R&B, jazz and blues background who hooked up with poetry writer Linda Hargrove to record an ambitious album influenced by acid-rock and psychedelic, early progressive sounds. Originally released in 1969 on the Athena label, the album is now considered an obscure classic. Top level psych/prog dominated by Hammond organ, guitar plus explosive drumming. Reissue in original artwork with remastered sound, insert with liner notes. Hard cardboard sleeve; OBI; resealable outer sleeve."Overlooked but pretty good moody late 1960s organ & guitar psych-rock with a Doors influence. The album is dominated by an unusual creeping menace a la Freeborne..." --Patrick Lundborg (Acid Archives)

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: RADK 7026CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1981. Adventurous southern California punk trio Agent Orange was the first band to mix surf rock with punk. The group was formed in 1979 in Placentia, a small town close to Fullerton and Anaheim, by frontman Mike Palm on guitar and lead vocals, Steve Soto on bass, and Scott Miller on drums. That early line-up recorded the classic version of "Bloodstains" in 1979 as a demo produced by Daniel R. van Patten (of the group Berlin). A year later it was included on the seminal Rodney On The Roq compilation album released by Posh Boy Records. Meanwhile James Levesque had replaced Steve Soto (Adolescents) and the new line-up released their own self-produced and self-released 7" ep in 1980. A year later, the group signed with Robbie Fields's Posh Boy Records for their debut LP Living In Darkness, co-produced by Fields and former Simpletones guitarist Jay Lansford. The album was recorded at Brian Elliott's store front studio in North Hollywood (a few years before Elliott struck gold writing Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach").

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: RADK 7027CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1980. Dead Kennedys' incendiary debut still screams some of the most brilliant cynical songs the genre has ever seen. It's not wholly consistent, but its manic, rapid-fire approach retains momentum throughout. It's an absolute riot: the sound of true rebellion.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: RADK 7028CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Girls At Our Best! were one of the greatest and most influential bands to emerge in the early 1980s as part of a new wave of independent acts. DJ John Peel championed them, playing their singles repeatedly and inviting them to record a session for his program. Wry vocalist Judy Evans and brutal yet melodic guitarist James Alan who'd met at art college in Leeds fronted Girls At Our Best!, the proto-Indie band that formed from the ashes of Alan's 1977 punk band SOS! Pleasure, the sole album, reached number two in the indie charts. It was an album so different from the rest of the post-punk indie pack that you can still play it now and completely baffle new listeners. As John Peel said about Roxy Music, "it just doesn't seem to relate to anything else."

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: RRS 121LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Adventurous southern California punk trio Agent Orange was the first band to mix surf rock with punk. The group was formed in1979 in Placentia, a small town close to Fullerton and Anaheim, by front man Mike Palm on guitar and lead vocals, Steve Soto on bass, and Scott Miller on drums. That early line-up recorded the classic version of "Bloodstains" in 1979 as a demo produced by Daniel R. van Patten (of the group Berlin). A year later it was included on the seminal Rodney On The Roq compilation album released by Posh Boy Records. Meanwhile, James Levesque had replaced Steve Soto (Adolescents) and the new line-up released their own self-produced and self-released 7" EP in 1980. A year later, the group signed with Robbie Fields' Posh Boy Records for their debut LP, Living In Darkness, co-produced by Fields and former Simpletones guitarist, Jay Lansford. The album was recorded at Brian Elliot's store front studio in North Hollywood (a few years before Elliot struck gold writing Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach"). A milestone in California punk rock history. Includes five bonus tracks. Black vinyl.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: RLL 079LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Limited 2023 restock. The Berlin concert was Fela's last known concert before the Africa 70 band broke up, a live document you don't want to miss.

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: REGRM 026LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

2023 restock. "I wonder if my fascination for clouds (without being an obsession) may have risen at the end of the '80s as, whilst composing 'Micro-climat', I would regularly wander between the Vercors mountains and the high plateaus of the Monts du Forez discovering, through my eyes, body, breath, active observation and walk, that natural forms when constantly changing and yet swollen with a unity of matter (in this instance, water) open one up to a deep, fundamental breath and a clear field for the mind. The sky and its forces: our ally. A model for a natural music which, although fixed, as in musique concrète (a rule of the genre), moreover on a recording tape, will remain charged with such a poetic quality that (isn't it its role or rather its reality?) it will ensure a perpetual renewal for our senses, so as to reach another idea of the world, far more open and richer than what we could have imagined." --Lionel Marchetti, 2011."Lionel Marchetti is a major figure of the 'third generation' of concrète musicians, a term he values. Listening to these works, imbued with poetry and traversed by micro-narratives, one can indeed retrieve the original concrète spirit, the one that draws from the sonic world, with ears wide open, so as to extract a fertile, rich and multiple substance then shaped and conveyed towards a formal and musical abstraction. Lionel Marchetti has mastered this process, but his real distinctive feature is a truly unique talent for setting climates (as one sets traps) and keeping us on constant alert. The two pieces in this record perfectly illustrate the entrancing dimension of Lionel Marchetti's music, whose charm leads us, through each successive listening, to become voluntary captives so as to better liberate ourselves." --François Bonnet, Paris, 2020."La grande vallée": Musical composition, design and sound production carried out at the INA grm Studios (Paris) in 1993/95; Original audio recordings in the Drôme and the Mont Ventoux areas "Micro-climat" is the first movement of the Sirrus cycle (Micro-climat, Passerelle, Sirrus) composed in 1989/90; Musical composition, sound design and production, audio recordings in 1989/90 at the CFMI studios in Lyon (Lumière University, Lyon 2). Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi; Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin, November 2020; Translations: Valérie Vivancos; Layout: Stephen O'Malley.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: REGRM 027LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

2023 restock. "Senderos de luz y sombras" (Paths of Light and Shadows) -- Commissioned by the French State for INA grm -- 2016-2020. In memoriam Bernard Baschet, Bernard Parmegiani, and Carlos Pellegrino. A 16-channel piece inspired by astrophysics, the mystery of the pre-Big Bang era and some of the uncanny motions of the unconscious mind, where strangeness meets the ordinary. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin, July 2021. Translations: Valérie Vivancos. Layout: Stephen O'Malley."The themes that permeate Senderos de luz y sombras simultaneously engage the overwhelming, unyielding immensity of the beginnings of the universe and the forces at work in the unconscious mind. What connects these themes are the dark energies operating outside our knowledge, far beyond the conceptual scope of our limited thinking. How to convey all this and build music from these concealed forces? What Beatriz Ferreyra achieves, thanks to her trademark virtuosity, is precisely to summon energies, to bring in the raw forces that govern the laws of acoustics, so as to trigger sonic storms as one would call the rain, to transform all sound matters into the core of a ritual. Indeed, Beatriz Ferreyra addresses the mind-body reconciliation, for in providing this unique sound and musical experience, with a rare sensitive intensity, the great composer simultaneously invites us to engage in a personal experience." --François Bonnet, Paris, 2021

 

PRICE: $37.50

CAT #: SME 080LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1970. Giovanni Tommaso is the greatest Italian jazz bassist and founder and member of the most important ever Italian jazz rock ensembles, the Perigeo band. He composed Indefinitive Atmosphere at the end of 1969, released a few months after in 1970 on Sermi label, and recorded it at RCA studios in Rome. Indefinitive Atmosphere represents a special album for him and for us as well, since it was his first album released as a sole composer/artist. The maestro dug in personal archive for Sonor Music Editions and finally found a copy of the original master tape containing part of the recordings. Besides the misspelled title "Indefinitive" instead of "Indefinite", adding to the legend here, this album was incredibly ahead of his time. The young maestro Tommaso played electric bass and contrabass in a studio ensemble with a strings section. Plenty of stunning jazz-funk, jazz-rock and free jazz tracks. The session is also known for including the legendary American jazz soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy on the track called "Steve", where he plays a sax solo. Full session restored from the original tapes found, and digitally remastered the sound for a greater sound experience.

 

PRICE: $37.50

CAT #: SME 081LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1973. Sonor Music Editions announces a previously unknown Italian library killer session from the golden era -- Rhythm And Sound by the mysterious Mandrassi & Zollinger, backed by I Beati studio band. Mandrassi, alias for Anna Maria Assunta Andreassi, is one of the very first female composers of library music in Italy while Zollinger is linked to Sergio Pagano, brother of the famed Italian author, composer and singer Mario Pagano. Originally released in 1973 for the private studio label Ludo Record, this album remained in the obscurity for almost 50 years. It's so rare that only very few hardcore record collectors know it, it was thought to not have existed at all. Countless breaks galore, filled with outstanding funk grooves, and chasing beats. The jam sounds like a missing link between The Fine Machine's Habitat and Arawak's legendary Accadde a... recordings, with its up-tempo rhythms allover and the coolest funky instrumentation played by a mysterious studio group.

 

PRICE: $13.00

CAT #: SS 089LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Alton Miller's "Love Don't Pass Me By", with vocal and instrumental track.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: SS 090EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Theo Parrish and Maurissa Rose release "Free Myself" on 7" via Sound Signature.

 

PRICE: $29.00

CAT #: SS 093-94LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

New 2023 double-album. Theo Parrish releases Cornbread & Cowrie Shells for Bertha on Sound Signature.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: STAUB 169CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

On occasion of its 25th anniversary, Staubgold presents Velvet Serenade. Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and French maverick Pascal Comelade relive The Velvet Underground -- a non-nostalgic reinvention of a musical legacy that takes an influential past into the future. For the world premiere of his latest book Linger On: The Velvet Underground -- published by Eva and Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace Library -- Catalan music journalist Ignacio Julià wanted to relive the New York band's original dynamics, that creative friction between an American noise-guitar player and poet, Lou Reed, and a radical, lyrical European pianist and songwriter, John Cale. Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and French maverick Pascal Comelade accepted the challenge and the concert took place in Banyoles, Catalonia, on April 28, 2022, as a non-nostalgic reinvention of a musical legacy that takes an influential past into the future. Comelade and Ranaldo met for the first time the same day the piece was created from scratch, at Banyoles' Auditori del Ateneu, and after a few try-outs, magic happened right away. Local drummer Ramon Prats joined in easily and the three constructed what Ignacio Julià had asked for, not a tribute concert made of more or less faithful covers, but a new thing. Pascal came with a clear idea of the songs and laid them down with his minimalist, personal style at the grand piano and small keyboard, Lee painted -- with guitars, acoustic and electric, used as cellos sometimes, and weird percussion -- the wide palette of emotions these classic songs carry. After months of imagining it, here it was, a fully realized Velvet Serenade. Spontaneous, vibrant and true to the band's spirit."See, I believe in giving back. I might be the only writer that has interviewed all The Velvet Underground's members through the years, from 1978 to 2022, and all those conversations, articles and experiences are now collected in Linger On: The Velvet Underground, a book that I hope will be shared by next generations. This Banyoles, Girona, concert was another way of giving back what the band and its members had given me since the mid-seventies, not just great art in the form of rock'n'roll at its most deep and challenging, but an outlook on life and everything else, an invitation to seek the beauty in truth and try to understand human behavior." --Ignacio Julià (Banyoles, December 2022)

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: STAUB 169LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. On occasion of its 25th anniversary, Staubgold presents Velvet Serenade. Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and French maverick Pascal Comelade relive The Velvet Underground -- a non-nostalgic reinvention of a musical legacy that takes an influential past into the future. For the world premiere of his latest book Linger On: The Velvet Underground -- published by Eva and Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace Library -- Catalan music journalist Ignacio Julià wanted to relive the New York band's original dynamics, that creative friction between an American noise-guitar player and poet, Lou Reed, and a radical, lyrical European pianist and songwriter, John Cale. Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and French maverick Pascal Comelade accepted the challenge and the concert took place in Banyoles, Catalonia, on April 28, 2022, as a non-nostalgic reinvention of a musical legacy that takes an influential past into the future. Comelade and Ranaldo met for the first time the same day the piece was created from scratch, at Banyoles' Auditori del Ateneu, and after a few try-outs, magic happened right away. Local drummer Ramon Prats joined in easily and the three constructed what Ignacio Julià had asked for, not a tribute concert made of more or less faithful covers, but a new thing. Pascal came with a clear idea of the songs and laid them down with his minimalist, personal style at the grand piano and small keyboard, Lee painted -- with guitars, acoustic and electric, used as cellos sometimes, and weird percussion -- the wide palette of emotions these classic songs carry. After months of imagining it, here it was, a fully realized Velvet Serenade. Spontaneous, vibrant and true to the band's spirit."See, I believe in giving back. I might be the only writer that has interviewed all The Velvet Underground's members through the years, from 1978 to 2022, and all those conversations, articles and experiences are now collected in Linger On: The Velvet Underground, a book that I hope will be shared by next generations. This Banyoles, Girona, concert was another way of giving back what the band and its members had given me since the mid-seventies, not just great art in the form of rock'n'roll at its most deep and challenging, but an outlook on life and everything else, an invitation to seek the beauty in truth and try to understand human behavior." --Ignacio Julià (Banyoles, December 2022)

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: AO 018LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 repress. UK dub pioneers Alpha & Omega represent the foundation of soundsystem culture and bass music migration from Jamaica, via the UK, to the world. Formed in the 1980s and with over 30 studio albums to their name. Finally, for the first time in three decades Steppas Records has launched the A&O full LP reissue series. The latest in the series is Overstanding a timeless and much sought-after album originally released in 1992 currently only available at sky high prices, if at all. Lovingly re-mastered and presented in the original sleeve featuring the iconic A&O artwork. Overstanding is another genre-defining album and a true piece of musical history. Features Nishka and The Exile.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: SVVRCH 071LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Limited 2023 repress. Following his 1971 conviction for the murder of seven people, including the actress and model Sharon Tate, the notorious cult leader, Beach Boys associate and failed singer-songwriter Charles Manson was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Recorded with just an acoustic guitar in his jail cell, Live at San Quentin dates from 1983 and is probably the most poppy of Manson's improvised far-out folk songs ever committed to tape, with flushing toilets and background conversations adding to the gritty low-fi realism. If you like the Lie album, you need this one too -- Manson fans will not be disappointed!

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: TPTDD 008CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Live at the NEC Arena, Birmingham, England on September 20, 1985 from the The Head Tour (European Leg). The Cure performed nine concerts on The Head Tour, between Queens Hall on September 21, 1985 and Cornwall Coliseum on September 8, 1985, this is the second night they performed live.

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: TPTDD 009CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

An amazing-sounding tape from the Kissing Tour in 1987, including thirteen songs from the then-new "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me".

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: TARTALB 011LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. Tropical boogie meets mellow house on Space Ghost's new album Aquarium Nightclub: An homage to the natural world set against the richly-diverse backdrop of Oakland. After Space Ghost's first album Endless Light (2018) took to international airwaves and echoed out of cities from London to Los Angeles, his forthcoming release Aquarium Nightclub brings back his signature lo-fi aesthetics with a fresh hit of inspiration from the natural world. Melding irresistible vintage synths with a meditative groove, Aquarium Nightclub is a journey of sorts. Taking listeners on a tropical tour through '80s house drums, lush synth landscapes, and deep bass melodies, the thirteen-track LP is as adventurous as it is restrained. Growing up in a small town a few hours from California's East Bay area, Space Ghost (Sudi Wachspress) moved to Oakland ten years ago to study at the California College of the Arts. In a city known for its vibrant cultural fabric and its experimental music scene, Space Ghost represents a new generation of young artists. His DJ collective Late Feelings, launched in 2013, has allowed him to find his own groove amongst monthly all-vinyl dance parties, where he plucks influences from various corners of the world. More complex than last year's release, Aquarium Nightclub shows off Space Ghost's artistic hunger and unique sonic signature. Kicking off with "Sea Snake Island", a track that is best described as late '80s house melancholia, is a beautiful dance of shimmering keys, drum machines, and sounds of the jungle. The single "Sim City" featuring Morgan is a classic Chicago house beast; dark but uplifting with heavy bass undertones, fuzzy drum pulse, and plenty of mysterious synth melodies. Other tracks like "Ocean Odyssey", "Night Dive", and "Aquarium Nightclub" plunge into an ambient world of slow 80s funk, though always rooted in the Bay Area sound. A product of record-collecting and dance party hosting, Aquarium Nightclub is a glittering postcard from Atlantis. Profound yet undeniably groovy, its mesmerizing tropical undertones promise a safe journey back to the endless days of summer. The album artwork is designed by Space Ghost himself.

 

PRICE: $45.00

CAT #: TRILOGY 102LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"Snoopy is hard to follow up. The same brilliant musicality is lavished on Orange -- a combination of unmistakably original, skittering drum programming, startlingly fresh instrumental interjections, creepily invocatory voices, and dubwise treatments -- giddily imbued with the dark arts of ritual and seance. But Orange is more gripping, focused and urgent, more intense and ambitious. Next level. Its first quarter presents a trio of forays in suspense. Bassline squares up like an epic psych-funk grinder, with a moody guitar line traversed by ticking drum patterns and faint electric crackle. In no time the guitar is staggering and stammering under the duress of echo and distortion, and over-run with percussive electronics and the first of the voices massing in the music's head. The mood has quickly become more trepidatious. We're deeper underground; it's gloomier, wetter. Shred propulsively ratchets up the tension and menace. Glazily, tentative xylophone is played against slashing, nervy cello. The voices are more strangulated and sick now. Flutes and chimes evoke the same kind of beautiful, contaminated efflorescence which is pictured on the LP's front cover. 'Voice Of The Spider' makes easier progress across this cavernous, shadowy, dripping terrain, with funky pads and Nasty, eighties, No Wave electric bass; woozy chimes, non-plussed keys, singing-in-tongues. 'Pink Mist' marks an arrival, or unbottling, with annunciatory church-organ and choral voices from the off, and a newly relaxed, head-nodding kosmische rhythm. 'Mandarin' is a short, beat-less and voice-free interlude for piano and bass. It's reflective and nostalgic, ambivalent and inconclusive, with a lovely snatch of melody. A bridge half-way. 'Would You Like A Vampire' is a triumphant, mesmerizing go at new folk, with strummed acoustic guitar, descant song, and jazzily restless drum programming (including a tasty bass-bin trembler). Amazingly, Conrad Standish is joined at the mic by none other than Bridget St John. Together they sing 'Earth is Paradise' so repeatedly and tremulously -- and the song is cut off so abruptly at the end -- it seems as if the verb is teetering on the past tense, and hymn fading into valediction and catastrophe. Similarly, 'Storm Rips Banana Tree' begins idyllically enough, with a CS-&-Kreme-style raga... before something like an immense, obliterative drill starts up. Harpsichord and organ -- by James Rushford -- and flutes, and clapping, distant chanting and insectile percussion steadily leaven the dread, till finally all that is left is lapping water. It's an epic, deeply immersive, compelling, thought-provoking, twenty-minute finale... the coup de grâce."

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: TRILOGY 103LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Six tracks from DJ Prime Cuts.

 

PRICE: $10.00

CAT #: WIRE 473

FILE UNDER: Misc

"On the cover: Eugene S Robinson. Inside: Michael Allen Z Prime + plants on disc, O YAMA O + Cafe Oto on disc, Garrett Saracho, Lauren Bousfield, Magnus Granberg, Me Lost Me, Lary 7; Invisible Jukebox: Nappy Nina; Global Ear: Lviv; The Inner Sleeve: Ale Hop on Popol Vuh; Epiphanies: Kyle Gann on Morton Feldman; Unlimited Editions: Trost Records; Unofficial Channels: Metal Music Theory. And in the reviews sections: Amy Cutler, Shapednoise, AR Kane, thug rock, Phill Niblock, Ahmed Abdullah, Large Unit, Sonica, FM Einheit, Shezad Dawood, and so much more."

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54100LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Restocked. 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 54105LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1971. Getting their start in the mid-1960s as a covers band, the Surrey-based group that began as The Late and who would be forced to take the name Unicorn mid-way through the recording of this excellent debut LP soon understood that originals made better sense, pointed in that direction by the success of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Given greater depth by Gerry Rafferty's producer, Hugh Murphy, Uphill All The Way makes for superb listening, the musical craftsmanship yielding intricate textures beneath Ken Baker's dreamy lyrics, the intelligent folk rock complete with country and western underpinnings. A must for UK folk rock fans. Licensed by BMG.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54110LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1971. The core membership of free jazz act The Trio ensured its output was captivating, comprised as it was of double-bassist Barre Phillips, who had played with Archie Shepp, Chris McGregor, and Gong; saxophonist John Surman, who had played with John McLaughlin, Lester Bowie, and Alexis Korner; and drummer Stu Martin, who had played with Count Basie, Donald Byrd, and Herbie Hancock. On the gripping sophomore set Conflagration, guest players include Chick Corea and trumpeter Harry Beckett, ensuring their take on abstract jazz contains melody as well as jarring exchanges. Another great Trio free jazz set. Licensed from BMG.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54115LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1968. Husband-and-wife soul duo Ike & Tina Turner produced an astounding string of hits during the 1960s and '70s, before Tina went solo. Unjustly overlooked at its time of release, the duo's first blues album finds Tina's passionately powerful voice holding plenty of grit and Ike's guitar a restrained accompaniment throughout; the take of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Crazy 'Bout You Baby" has gripping electric piano and buzzing blues harp and Ike's "Grumbling" is a killer guitar groove. A good mix of covers and originals, it shows how well the duo could work in the blues idiom. Another great LP for all Ike & Tina fans! Licensed from Good Times.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54116LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue. In the same year of 1969 that marks their presence at Woodstock, the American rock/blues band Canned Heat released this astonishing live album recorded at the legendary Kaleidoscope, the psychedelic Los Angeles ballroom well known for its revolving stage. The original title Live at Topanga Corral was given apparently for right reasons, only some years after the location of the recordings was revealed. Featuring "Bullfrog Blues," "Dust My Broom," "I'd Rather Be The Devil," "When Things Go Wrong," "Wish You Would," "Sweet Sixteen," the album reflects the deep blues and rock roots of the group. Licensed from Good Time Inc.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54117LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1977. Modern and grounded in 1960s hard-bop sensibility, the American pianist and composer Albert Dailey (1939-1984) had perfect control over his instrument. Since an early age he played with cutting-edge musicians, the likes of Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, and Lee Konitz, to name just a few. But despite that, he was an underrated artist during his lifetime receiving deserved recognition only after his death. Renaissance - 2 November 1977 is his second album, played by a bold group that includes the voice of Cheryl Alexander, Carter Jefferson on sax, Cecil McBee on bass, and features both Cheryl Alexander and Adam Nussbaum on drums. Completely remastered. Licensed from Good Time Inc.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: TDP 54118LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1964. Known as "the Architect of Rock n' Roll," the flamboyant rhythm and blues extrovert, Little Richard, made an incredible impact with unorthodox piano playing and rasping, shouted vocals, yielding a series of pivotal hits in the mid-1950s, but he abandoned secular music for gospel following a tour of Australia in 1957. Lured back into rock by promoter Don Arden, his UK tour featuring The Beatles as support, Little Richard Is Back was his comeback set for Vee Jay, his voice now deeper and seasoned; the range of covers are tackled with plenty of pep, and original "Groovy Little Suzy" was co-written by Harry Nilsson. All hail the king! Licensed from Good Time Inc.

 

PRICE: $36.50

CAT #: TRESOR 312LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. Tresor Records welcomes Rod Modell to its catalog with the release of his new album Captagon. Rod Modell needs no introduction, his various projects render him a master of techno. In repetition and barely noticeable change, Modell re-sculptures perceptions. His sound-design echoes cinematic ethereality, where ferric artifacts slam against percussion, rusty delays filter observation -- the resulting web is a complex, radiating ambience that etches a natural ebb-and-flow. Transformative sounds alight from the outset, "Triangulation" recalls flickering harmonies and grains, a tectonic swipe. Fast-paced dub techno emerges in "Reiki", the disorienting clangs suggesting a step away from his recent ambient excursions. "Ito" crunches the pulse further with insistent noise, into soaring epiphanies of darkened transmissions. Modell singularly uproots standard sonic hierarchies of techno production, crisp static as forceful as his beats, a provocation of rhythm and noise. Unceasing in its fast tempo, "Jade" is trademark Tresor business -- the seismic sub-sonics underpin a momentous drive, with reverberated vocal inflections disfiguring warped, dancing materials. "Scrawler" is upfront and direct, a slamming groove and swaying chords di using ethereality. Enter vast chambers of smeared minimalism. Where Modell's recent releases had indicated a priority for ambient sounds, this new album extends Modell's essential vision within techno. Closing track "Air-Port" shows Modell at his most crucial best -- an ethereal colossus of sub-bass weight and morphing geometry.

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: DPROM 164LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

It could be argued that Brained and Cooloorta are the definitive Nurse With Wound EPs. Both classic and timeless fan favorites appear for the first time together on one single album. Both EPs marked a distinctive change in the NWW sound. Brained from 1984 showcases NWW at their mid-80s finest. The relentless churning and uncompromising music of "Brained by Falling Masonry" is complimented by the eccentric mania of JG Thirlwell's vocals. "A Short Dip in Glory Hole" takes you into the murky depths of a David Lynch influenced nightmare, a lysergic unhinged movie for the ears, which greatly influenced the Peter Strickland film Berberian Sound Studio. "Cooloorta Moon" from 1989 takes you in a whimsical direction and further highlights the boundless originality of NWW. The evolution of NWW utilizing more traditional instrumentation and bordering on the verge of song structures started coming to the fore on this EP. In addition to all the original songs from the Cooloorta and Brained EPs, the 2010 track, "Sarah's Beloved Aunt" perfectly closes this collection. Lovingly remastered by Andrew Liles. Again, this arrives in a beautiful die-cut sleeve with Babs Santini artwork.

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: WWSLP 020LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress; LP version. Includes original four-page insert full of session photos and credits. Wewantsounds present a reissue of Jaye P. Morgan's 1976 ultra-rare private press, featuring the cream of the LA jazz and funk scene -- and one of David Foster's first productions -- is reissued on vinyl and CD. This lost classic recorded in LA at the legendary Sound City Studios is also the first full-blown production by David Foster two years before he co-produced Earth Wind & Fire's album I Am (1979) and went on to become one of the hottest producers on the scene. Featuring an extraordinary lineup of the best LA musicians including Harvey Mason, Ed Greene, Jay Graydon, Ray Parker Jr. Tower of Power, Ernie Watts, and many more, it's probably one of the most expensive private press ever produced and a delight of sophisticated Los Angeles funk featuring Jaye's superb soulful vocals. "This album is one of the first David ever produced and I know he was going all the way to the top" stated Jaye P. Morgan in an interview when asked about David Foster before adding: "I tried to make a soulful album and I loved David's work. We used the best musicians in the world." And they certainly did making this album one of the most expensive private presses in the world! This album was a bold move for the singer who had made her mark in the '50s and '60s as a singer and actress. Hiring Foster was a masterstroke as he hadn't yet produced any noticeable hit, but together they gathered the most impressive crew of musicians you could think of including two of Foster's closest associates, guitarist Jay Graydon and singer/arranger Bill Champlin (of Sons of Champlin's fame) and created the perfect white soul album with a breezy California feel. Featuring masterful renditions of such iconic songs as Stevie Wonder's songs as "Seems So Long" and Earth, Wind & Fire's "Can't Hide Love" (Foster, Champlin, and Graydon would soon pen "After The Love Has Gone" which would become a mega hit for Earth Wind & Fire two years later), together with a handpicked selection of originals, the sound alternates between up-tempo funk and soulful mid-tempo ballads, all served by Morgan's superb vocals. The missing link between Steely Dan and Earth, Wind & Fire, Jaye P. Morgan is pure, undiluted funk music and an essential LA classic.

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: WWSLP 022LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 restock. Wewantsounds continues to pursue its exploration of great Lebanese music with the reissue of Wahdon, released in 1978 by legendary Middle Eastern diva Fairuz and recorded during the Abu Ali sessions (WWSLP 021LP). The album includes the Lebanese dancefloor cult classic, "Al Bostah". 1978 was a turning point for the Lebanese diva. The '70s had seen her rise as an international star, playing sold out concerts in the US and in Europe, and appearing on national TV in France. She had had a long-lasting artistic collaboration with her husband Assi Rahbani and his brother Elias (aka The Rahbani Brothers) who, together, had penned most of the singer's classics. In 1978, Assi who had suffered a brain hemorrhage in 1972 got weaker and the collaboration finally ended (together with their personal relationship). Their 22-year-old son Ziad took over Fairuz's musical reins and set to work on their first album together, Wahdon ("Alone"), serving as her mother's producer, composer and musical director. Wahdon typifies this key moment in Fairuz's career when she switched from traditional to more modern arrangements. The first side of the album encapsulates the more traditional side of the singer with such mesmerizing songs as "Habaitak Ta Neseet Al Naoum" (I Loved You So Much I Forgot To Sleep) or "Ana Indi Haneen" (I'm Nostalgic), filled with gorgeous Arabic strings and percussion. The second side though is a whole different affair. Recorded in Athens at the EMI Greece studio at the same time as the Abu Ali sessions, the two long tracks brings a hipper, contemporary funk and disco feel that has made the album such a collector's item with DJs and diggers around the world. Clocking at almost nine minutes "Al Bostah" (The Bus) tells the story a woman in love remembering a bus journey with her lover under a scorching heat, enhanced by an hypnotic up-tempo funkified disco beat, while "Wahdon" brings a slower and jazzier underlay to Fairuz's superb singing. These tracks shocked some of the diva's fans at the time but they've since passed the test of time and have become highly sought after. Whadon has since become both a classic Fairuz album and a cult Ziad Rahbani production that Wewantsounds is delighted to bring to a wider audience for the first time.

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: WWSLP 036LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 restock. Following the reissue last year of Fairuz's classic 1979 album Wahdon (WWSLP 022LP), Wewantsounds pursue their exploration of great Lebanese music with the first vinyl reissue of Fairuz's highly sought-after LP Maarifti Feek, originally released in 1987. Recorded in Beirut around 1983-84, the album features the diva's superb voice combined with Ziad Rahbani's jazz and funk orchestration, making it one of the most in-demand albums on the Arabic funk scene. One of the greatest singers of the Middle East, Fairuz started her career in Lebanon in the '50s and quickly established herself as the most renowned Diva in the Arabic world, playing the most prestigious venues in the world. At the end of the '70s, Fairuz was at a turning point both professionally and personally. Her husband Assi Rahbani, who, with his brother Elias, had penned her biggest successes, has suffered a stroke a few years earlier. This setback ultimately led to both the demise of their marriage and the end of their professional partnership. Enter Ziad Rahbani, Fairuz and Assi's son, a young musician, playwright, and producer who had cut his teeth writing a handful of Fairuz's song -- including her 1973 hit "Sa'alouni El Nas" -- at just seventeen. Ziad Rahbani swiftly took over from his father and uncle as the singer's musical director and composer and this fruitful association, which started in 1979 with the album Wahdon, broke many new grounds for Fairuz with funkier rhythms and edgier lyrics. It was recorded at the same time as Rahbani's own 12" Abu Ali (WWSLP 027LP) which became a sought-after disco classic in its own right. The association between the two continued with a second album, Maarifti Feek ("Our Encounter"), recorded between 1983 and '84 in Beirut but only released in 1987. The album was another groundbreaking mix of influences ranging from the traditional arrangements of "Oudak Rannan" and "Ma Kdirt Nseet" to the Brazilian flavor of "Version 1" via the synth funk of "Ouverture 83" and its follow-up "Reprise 83". Also featured on the album is a beautiful remake of Joaquin Rodrigo's "Concerto de Aranjuez" in the form of a tribute to the Lebanese capital, "Li Beirut." This blend of Oriental grooves with jazz and funk orchestrations by Ziad Rahbani is a unique document of Fairuz's career development in the '80s and explains why Maarifti Feek is such a sought-after album. Remastered from the original tapes.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: WWSLP 060LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 restock. Wewantsounds release Sharayet El Disco a selection of Egyptian '80s disco and boogie tracks curated by Egyptian DJ Disco Arabesquo from his vast collection of cassettes. Most tracks have never been released on any other format and are making their vinyl debut with this set. A journey through the funky sound of '80s Egypt, Sharayet El Disco (which can be translated by "Disco Cassettes") features Simone, Ammar El Sherei, and more obscure names from Cairo's cassette culture. Sharayet El Disco is part of an important mission for Moataz Rageb aka Disco Arabesquo. The Amsterdam-based Egyptian DJ has been collecting cassettes from Arab-speaking countries and its diaspora for many years and has amassed a vast collection of Egyptian music concentrating on the '80s, the sound he grew up listening to. His goal has been to search for these rare sounds and make them known to a new vinyl-hungry audience. During this decade, the rich Egyptian music industry, which had seen such stars as Oum Kalthoum, Abdel Halim Hafez, and Warda take the Arab world by storm in the '60s and '70s, was going through a new phase and the cassette format was the cause. This radical change enabled many young musicians and producers to spread their music directly to consumers duplicating cassettes themselves. A new vibrant music scene erupted in Cairo blending their sound with trends coming from the US and Europe including, of course, disco, soul, and funk. The cream from this scene was soon picked up by the most daring labels, including Mohsen Gaber's Alam El Phan, Sout El Hob, and Americana. Sharayet El Disco gives you a glimpse of these great tracks which -- for most of them -- were only ever released on cassette. The set is a unique insight into the diversity of the Egyptian disco sound, from the pulsating disco of "Hezeny" by Hany Shenouda's Al Massrieen band to the boogie of Simone's "Merci", via Firkit El Asdekaa's tongue-in-cheek "Eklib el Sheriet" ("turn the cassette to the other side"), produced by legendary Egyptian musician Ammar El Sherei. The music is both inventive and funky and played with both Western and Arab instruments proving that quality of Egyptian music. Audio remastered for vinyl by David Hachour/Colorsound Studio in Paris. LP artwork by young Egyptian graphic designer Heba Tarek. Includes two-page insert featuring artwork of the original cassettes plus insightful liner notes by Moataz Rageb. Also features Afaf Rady, Dr. Ezat Abou Ouf & el four M, FIrkIt el Ensan, Eman el Bahr Darwish, Firkit Americana Show, and Lebleba.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: ZEHRA 009CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Calamita = Karkhana members Tony Elieh, Sharif Sehnaoui, and Lebanese drummer Malek Rizkallah join forces with the Egyptian singer Aya Metwalli -- the result is the improbable meeting between free jazz/improv, punk rock, and Oum Kalthoum. Sharif Sehnaoui and Tony Elieh, two of the most active musicians on the Lebanese experimental scene. Sehnaoui comes from a jazz and improv music background, Elieh is primarily a rock musician and founding member of the Lebanese postpunk band The Scrambled Eggs whose work in the last decade has covered many directions from pop-rock to plain experimental. They are joined by Lebanese drummer Malek Rizkallah (Who Killed Bruce Lee, ex-The Scrambled Eggs). As trio they develop instrumental pieces that draw their inspiration from artists as diverse as Tony Conrad, Last Exit, or Oum Kalthoum. Aya Metwalli is an Egyptian singer/songwriter, composer and sound artist currently based in Beirut. Grown up in Cairo, her father would play non-stop Oum Kalthoum songs on road trips to the beach and Aya's mother; known to have the most beautiful voice in the family, she always sang at home and at family gatherings, so long before Aya was able to form her own music taste, immense amounts of Arabic classic songs and melodies already settled in her subconsciousness. After her first EP Beitak in 2016, Metwalli (named "a musical enigma" by The Guardian) started to integrate more experimental and eerie sonic excursions into her avant-pop, so the collaboration with Calamita feels like a natural or logic step. The roots for Al Saher ("stay awake") were laid when Sehnaoui and Metwalli first worked together in "Night", a dance piece by Ali Chahrour which included a wide collection of Arabic songs and ancient poems, later Sehnaoui invited her to work with Calamita. The four met in a recording studio in Beirut, using songs by "The Voice of Egypt" Oum Kalthoum as starting point. Together they aim to fully revisit the song format and explore the possibilities of classical Tarab songs, extracted from their origins and reframed within the music of the twenty-first century. The result is a mix of various styles and influences that often seek to stretch the contrasts to towering extremes.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: ZEHRA 009LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

LP version. 180 gram vinyl. Calamita = Karkhana members Tony Elieh, Sharif Sehnaoui, and Lebanese drummer Malek Rizkallah join forces with the Egyptian singer Aya Metwalli -- the result is the improbable meeting between free jazz/improv, punk rock, and Oum Kalthoum. Sharif Sehnaoui and Tony Elieh, two of the most active musicians on the Lebanese experimental scene. Sehnaoui comes from a jazz and improv music background, Elieh is primarily a rock musician and founding member of the Lebanese postpunk band The Scrambled Eggs whose work in the last decade has covered many directions from pop-rock to plain experimental. They are joined by Lebanese drummer Malek Rizkallah (Who Killed Bruce Lee, ex-The Scrambled Eggs). As trio they develop instrumental pieces that draw their inspiration from artists as diverse as Tony Conrad, Last Exit, or Oum Kalthoum. Aya Metwalli is an Egyptian singer/songwriter, composer and sound artist currently based in Beirut. Grown up in Cairo, her father would play non-stop Oum Kalthoum songs on road trips to the beach and Aya's mother; known to have the most beautiful voice in the family, she always sang at home and at family gatherings, so long before Aya was able to form her own music taste, immense amounts of Arabic classic songs and melodies already settled in her subconsciousness. After her first EP Beitak in 2016, Metwalli (named "a musical enigma" by The Guardian) started to integrate more experimental and eerie sonic excursions into her avant-pop, so the collaboration with Calamita feels like a natural or logic step. The roots for Al Saher ("stay awake") were laid when Sehnaoui and Metwalli first worked together in "Night", a dance piece by Ali Chahrour which included a wide collection of Arabic songs and ancient poems, later Sehnaoui invited her to work with Calamita. The four met in a recording studio in Beirut, using songs by "The Voice of Egypt" Oum Kalthoum as starting point. Together they aim to fully revisit the song format and explore the possibilities of classical Tarab songs, extracted from their origins and reframed within the music of the twenty-first century. The result is a mix of various styles and influences that often seek to stretch the contrasts to towering extremes.