Browse by Label: SLOW TO SPEAK

Artist:	HOUSE, SON
Title:	Grinnin' In Your Face/John The Revelator
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	7"
Price:	$7.00
Catalog #:	BLP 1026EP

"A beautiful example of the precursor to the mass-recording era, this limited 7" pressing of blues legend Son House provides a rare glimpse into real American folk music. Before every facet of our musical world was commodified and marketable, working people's lives were predominately narrated by song, the central nerve center of consciousness, history & culture. Haunted by slavery, segregation and racial hatred, black communities of the South nurtured the blues into existence from a deep psychic pain that demanded an especially rigorous cultural processing, using song as a positive affirmation of existence and power. These prototypical recordings of Son House's weathered, sorrowful blues standards, sung without instrumentation, are two of the most stunning examples of the urgent imperative of early blues music. Tinged with a tangible sadness and the knowledge of a veritable sage, these songs testify to the cathartic power of a music created for far more than the decadent superficialities of modern industrial societies, providing a historical document of the foundations of so much American music to follow and suggesting that the infinite possibilities provided by technology have not expanded on the basic purpose of music and artistic expression."

Artist:	CALLIER, TERRY
Title:	Dancing Girl (Live)/Love Theme From Spartacus
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CA 1222EP

"No artist ridicules the absurdities of genre-fetish in American music quite like the great Terry Callier. A demolisher of classification and master of introspective musical self-expression, Callier has lead a relatively under-the-radar existence despite being one the most talented singer/songwriters of the late 20th Century, bridging the gap between American folk, blues, jazz & soul without really pledging loyalty to any of these classifications, content to let his music and its meticulously crafted lyrical narrative speak for itself -- and in so doing effortlessly validating the common root of all these great musical traditions: less a teleological bond than the common personal wellsprings of creative impulse that unite these varied forms of self-expression in their most shining form. To Callier music was never a matter of labor, social capital or an obvious transition to more money & prestige; primarily a vehicle of poetic release, it was this attitude that bore Callier's need to play in virtually every style of his era: in this case, the medium was not equivalent to the message, but rather how this medium was performed and cared for, how sincerely it was engaged for the sake of pure uncensored self-articulation that mattered most. While his 1960s & 1970s recordings are revered with cultish enthusiasm by his many followers today, his music received little popular acclaim at the time and passed through the cracks of obscurity until later interest resurrected them. But then Callier always preferred to use music as medium & message over music as social signifier, content to express himself through his raw, natural talent in poetry, voice & composition. The uncorrupted and thoroughly inspired energy poured into his material eventually paid off as more and more took notice, but by this time Callier had already abandoned 'professional' music in search of more steady means to support his family, never leaving behind his chosen aesthetic, though forced through material necessity to focus elsewhere. Of course, his art never went wholly neglected, as Callier has continued to release full-lengths periodically up to the present. In many ways his craft has sharpened with age, as his imprint continues to be felt: the astounding Roy Davis Jr. remix of 'Love Theme From Spartacus' has solidified its place in the deep house cannon as one of the best examples of dance music with exceptional lyrical whit (proving that, far from incompatible, these two are in fact deeply complimentary) Indeed, the version featured on this 12" release is Callier's best rendition of his 'Dancing Girl,' performed not more than 10 years ago. Still, he remains a half-figure in the history of 20th century music, a shadow of a ghost whose presence is always felt but whose full revealing is still yet to come. Perhaps this eternal (through choice or chance) circumventing of stardom & mass reverence left his emotional senses more acute to the despair of existence than others with equal talent; surely his music, often heart-wrenching and remarkably saddened, is one the most breathtaking & absolutely gorgeous examples of musical ingenuousness and dynamic diversity, rendering mute the supposedly great differences in the wide musical palate exploited for the sake of self-expression: the true renaissance man of 20th century American song."

Artist:	KUTI, FELA
Title:	Beasts Of No Nation/Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CEL 822EP

"Fela Anikulapo (Ransome) Kuti's life and career were more than anything an attempt to fuse the worlds of music and politics irrevocably. Kuti spearheaded the new fusion of West African originated 'Afrobeat'---a genre of which he was and is the indisputable leader---with a determined militancy inspired by pan African radicalism and to a lesser extent U.S. black nationalism, and, in the process, made him as many enemies as followers; but always carried by the unfettered musical intuitiveness & improvisation that lent his politically abrasive forthrightness an undeniable mass appeal, transcending well beyond his own specific conditions and appealing on a universal musical scale really unmatched by many musical moguls...a true 'empire' that has transcended Kuti's own death and lives on (perhaps unfortunately) in the form of his kin & idolizers alike. His music, that joyous instrument of social change, was his catalyst & albeit integral vessel for radical agitation. It's not that the countless albums stand on their musical merit alone, the truly free method to the relentless and melodically entrancing reiteration of his own Afrobeat---a music that in itself needs no heady articulation to be enjoyed, and it's basically universal popularity testifies to this. But the very volatility of his music at once elevates the songs into something more than relegated culture. On the contrary, you can still sense the urgency in these records, essential battle tools against colonialism and political apathy, igniters of the great fire of agitation while remaining essential and undeniable landmarks of exceptional musical invention. This exclusive 12" pressing of some of Fela's finest work, the undeniably masterful 'Beasts of No Nation' and 'Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am,' presents a formidable example of Fela's finest work, the best possible examples of his own personal unity of theory & practice that has created over 30 full-length albums & an unshakable legacy that lives on with justifiable necessity."

Artist:	SHAI/CULTURED PEARLS
Title:	Core 1993 - The Place Where You Belong/Mother Earth
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 093AD-EP

"Two of the dopest vocal party rockers from the no-holds-barred enthusiasm of 1990s euphoria make their mark here for the latest contribution to the CORE reissue series. Hailing from the major label R&B act Shai, 'This Is The Place Where You Belong' is an ingeniously simple, forward-pulling club piece de resistance, a deep chord-saturated, spacious exercise in vocal dub efficacy that helped pave the way for future generations of R&B-house remixes to make their way onto club music's radar. On the flip, the GOD Todd Terry makes his second appearance in the CORE series, remixing 'Cultured Pearls' in a breathtaking, melancholy modern electronic arrangement that affirms and reaffirms in one triumphant gesture the rightful place of songs in the dance music cannon, especially amidst the track-saturated era of house music. Refreshing and utterly effective, CORE's newest chapter reminds us that house can be more than just a concentration of disco's repetitive core, acting as a medium for fresh and visionary new explorations of soul music's complex musical character."

Artist:	NAGUAL (RON TRENT)
Title:	Core 1993 - I Feel The Rhythm
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 093B-EP

"The majesty of Ron Trent's formative arsenal may best be represented by his space-soul masterpiece 'I Feel The Rhythm.' Closer in relation to the soulful circuitry of the early techno classic 'Altered States' than the aspiringly Afro-centric jams later unfurled under the USG banner, 'I Feel The Rhythm' conveys the same lush melodic warmth without suppressing the ghost in the machine of electronic futurism. Tough repetitive percussion and bubbling bass synthetics faithfully carry forward that signature floating synth riff eternally imprinted in the memory of so many house and techno heads alike. The next chapter of 'slow to speak's CORE series, the seminal Trent track is presented here in its sharpest form, the legendary Nagual version, featuring the housey vocal cut-and-pastes of clever 1990s production to oil up the rusted cogs of Trent's machine-funk, forming an undying club landmark that still slays with the same steamroller force it wielded way back in 1993. Pressed on a full 12" side to yield maximal aural annihilation, 'I Feel The Rhythm' once again stalks unexpecting party people worldwide, as yet uninitiated into the eternal brotherhood of Prescription worship." One-sided release.

Artist:	DAMIER & STACY PULLEN, CHEZ
Title:	Core 1993 - Forever Monna
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 093C-EP

"One of the most evasive titles of the Prescription/Balance catalog, Chez Damier & Stacey Pullen's 'Forever Monna' evinces the futurism of the most forward leaning deep house music, purging itself of any relics of disco sentimentality in the sacred quest of that prophecy of infinite, intangible beauty hidden within the patchwork of electronic production. Originally released in apparently minuscule numbers on Serious Grooves in 1993, this remarkable instrumental track was re-released two years later on Ballance, a fine example of these two Detroit pioneers' tireless effort to claim a piece of that brave new world from the unyielding clutches of techno. Slinky synth loops, eerie chord frames and a brilliantly simple low-end punctuation coalesce in the uncertain, unidentifiable prospect of soul music stripped of any links to the past or present, an inexplicably funky rendition of a deep house slow mounting contagion, infecting fatally the recollections of Parliament/Funkadelic bass-licks and warm organ progressions with a bleak, somehow comforting landscape of fresh alien-esque soul. Previously unattainable without an eighty-dollar plus price-tag, 'Forever Monna' joins the growing army of CORE reissues seeking to popularize an often horded and unattainable circle of essential dance music classics, pieces of stunning vision and incomparable genius that should be accessible to more than just a few pockets capable of shelving out the capital for what is rightfully the universal property of electronic musical sublimity." On white vinyl; one-sided release.

Artist:	BLACK RASCALS
Title:	Blaze Theme Track
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 093E-EP

"Black Rascals' 'Blaze Theme Track' receives a reissuing from Slow to Speak's Core series. One of the best moments from one of the best deep house production teams ever to grace this good earth, the impossible-to-find 'Blaze Theme Track' is the quintessential instrumental masterpiece from New Jersey's Kevin Hedge and Josh Milan. Moody, brooding chord stabs lay way for a breathtaking bass solo that drives the record forward from the first few measures on to its continuous and relentless ascension. Totally musical and raw in the same breath, 'Blaze Theme Track' was released in 1993, right at the peak of the duo's underground monopoly, and probably their most cutting edge instrumental to date. If ever there was a track to do battle with the avant-garde experimentations of Detroit, Berlin or Chicago, it is this record. Pressed on high quality LOUD vinyl, 'Blaze Theme Track' is now prepared for reintegration into the electronic music scene seventeen years since its debut, sounding just as forward-looking now as it did two decades past."

Artist:	DJ DUKE
Title:	Core 1993 - Love Don't Come Easy/Closer
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 093HI-EP

"One of the indisputable leaders of the '90s club music vanguard, DJ Duke offered a dark, debauched, and utterly visionary interpretation of NYC house music that remains unchallenged in its scope and vision to this day. The self-made dance music icon and multiple label founder graduated from his first love of hip-hop during his transformation from b-boy to full-on house head in the late 1980s, establishing his own brand of future club music that heralded a qualitative shift away from live instrumentation to the broader reaches of a purely electronic breed of garage -- a stark, totally new landscape of deeply textured house purity that never really sounded like any other producer out there. Having already inaugurated the CORE series with two tracks from the seminal Old Skool Deep Sampler, the master returns for a second tour: two of his productions under the moniker Freedom (with vocalist Lee Smith Jr.), shining jewels of the 'often imitated, never duplicated' aesthetic situated between the twilight of Manhattan mecca-clubs, Giuliani-era repression and the refusal of minority and gay culture to disappear. The never to be repeated outcome: music like 'Love Don't Come Easy,' one of the most profound, haunting and totally prophetic vocal house records of unrepentant desire ever released. On the flip, Duke's proteges The Klubb Kidz remix 'Closer' into a devastating workout of the namesake's vocal sample, demonstrating their take on the Power Music staple sound with unparalleled efficacy and energy. Seeing the light for the first time in over 15 years, these Duke masterpieces are a testament to the undying resistance of devoted club children in the strange landscape of post-AIDS crisis NY, seeking to carve out a whole new soundtrack to their continued exploits into the '90s and beyond."

Artist:	MOOD II SWING
Title:	Core 1994 - Sunlight In My Eyes
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 094C-EP

"Mood II Swing steps up to the plate for the latest Core reissue with one of their finest works, handpicked from an accomplished list of mighty NY house masterpieces spanning the 1990s. Lem Springsteen and John Ciafone's longtime collaboration under their legendary moniker cannot be mentioned without helplessly uttering the word 'Gods' and proceeding to shower them with endless praises worthy of only the upper echelons of the deep house canon. The two New York City natives quickly established themselves as expertly-trained and well-exercised special forces operatives on the frontline of heady, sample-infused tracks, coming out strong in 1992 with an unequivocally fierce take on the swing-beat, a craft practiced correctly by only a few chosen guardians of the original underground technique. Fast-forward a decade and the production moguls had written their name in stone with virtually every style of respectable dance music, from sublime rave-inspired deep instrumentals to cunty sound-factory floor-fillers, from garage-rooted vocal masterpieces to edgy techno-rooted subterranean experiments -- Mood II Swing did it all with the a flexible eclecticism at ease with any mutation of the dimly lit club aesthetic. 'Sunlight In My Eyes,' released on King Street Sounds, is one of Springsteen and Ciafone's unquestionable feats, an astral, pad-laden waking dream structured around a spine-tingling vocal sample that is progressively rearranged, teased-out and freaked relentlessly, as each exalted chord is shone down from the heavens at precisely the right instant. A prime example of the weightless, unfettered and incomprehensibly beautiful musical imagination of the rave generation, the 1994 masterpiece nonetheless features the swinging drum program and demolition drive of a NY house classic -- a track right at home amid the boundless vision of Springsteen and Ciafone's genius. Finally reissued after 16 years of obscurity, 'Sunlight In My Eyes' encapsulates Mood II Swing's many forms in a singular exposition of deep house eternity worthy of representing the duo's prolific catalog." One-sided release.

Artist:	TRENT, RON
Title:	Core 1994 - Seduction
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 094D-EP

"Another masterpiece from the celestial kingdom of Prescription is resurrected, this time the latest feature of slow to speak's CORE reissue series. Ron Trent's aptly titled 'Seduction' is an ideal specimen of instrumental house---a hypnotizing, brooding mutation of sparse club-oriented utility that defines quality dance music minus the intricacy of song-based classicism. With but a few base elements and a touch of magic typical of Mr. Trent at his finest, 'Seduction' proves that repetition does not necessarily equal redundancy---to the contrary, here the simplicity of repetition works to the track's full advantage, leaving everything in its path in a total trance not easily shaken-off. Pulling forward with black-keyed pads, freaked synth lines, subaquatic bass, vertigo-inducing drum programs and one of the baddest vocal samples this side of the big bang, 'Seduction' beckons with a continual utterance of its namesake, lending it a hermetic eeriness that conjures up images of Ron in the lab, recklessly dissecting the lifeless bodies of so many classics and reanimating their remains into a modern-day Frankenstein born of the shadowed corridors of uptempo soul music's subconscious desire. Bewitching, awe-inspiring and totally brilliant, 'Seduction' (reissued) reaffirms the truth of underground dance music, reminding us that deep house doesn't have to mimic the multifarious compositions of a Philly-Soul production to bestow upon us the lasting experience of musical genius at its best." One-sided release.

Artist:	TERRY, TODD
Title:	Core 1994 - Another Worry
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 094EP

"Todd Terry is one of the indisputable gods of dance music. The original 'Master at Work,' Terry rose to fame in the late eighties as one of the few producers at the time determined to prove the inseparable link between hip-hop and house, both burgeoning babies of disco and soul music's fallout. His signature cut-up, stab-driven, sample-infused aesthetic mutilated and perverted classic disco to new heights of hard driving NY house music and in the process created the first contribution to rave music proper from the west side of the Altantic. With this latest installment of Slow To Speak's growing Core reissue series, we're reminded of the full range of Terry's ingenious sound, treated to a high quality pressing of his vocal classics 'Another Worry' and 'Get Up' -- definitional party rockers that circumvented the elegant niceties of deep house masters like Blaze, Larry Heard or Ron Trent's jazzy, chord-driven soul, and went straight to the heart of dance music's rawest elements. In contrast to these anthems, 'Searchin'' epitomizes Terry's prowess with the track proper, a mesmerizing and fantastical ode to the late hours of NY's underground, a staple of the Sound Factory and virtually every other self-respecting club at the time. Yet another redeeming glimpse into the vast universe of classic house music, Core's latest salute to the '90s gives a legend his proper due, and continues to refocus our gaze on the fabled reign of Chicago and Detroit to a fuller spectrum of US dance music's contributions."

Artist:	CHEZ N TRENT
Title:	Core 1994 - Morning Factory
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 094I-EP

"'Put your hand in my flame... I won't burn you I promise.' With these words commences one of the finest house records ever created. 'Morning Factory' by Chez Damier & Ron Trent represents the pinnacle of underground dance music during the early 1990's, a record so deceptively simple, so eccentrically brilliant, and so clearly groundbreaking that it remains one of the first and always obligatory lessons of a proper deep house pedagogy. The unyielding, signature analog groove repeated throughout the carefully unfurled, patient build still sounds so universal, categorical and undeniable: a total axiom of dance music infallibility that dispels any skepticism of the possibilities of a perfect electronic music. Washes of circuit-based storm winds revolve around the lustful persuasion nearly muted beneath the patchwork of DIY gear and basement production richness, beckoning us forward into the total, absolute, beautiful abyss of its totality, a near perfect track and one of the pillars of the emerging Prescription sound. Reissued here on high-quality, single-sided vinyl as the latest in the CORE series, 'Morning Factory' is and will forever be a standard by which to measure."

Artist:	C.V.O. (GLENN UNDERGROUND)
Title:	Core 1995- Mighty Real Groove
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 095C-EP

"Hot off the heals of the Core series reissue of 'I Feel The Rhythm,' slow to speak offers its edition of Prescription family represses: Glenn Underground's 'Mighty Real Groove.' Released under his early moniker, C.V.O, 'Mighty Real Groove' beats into even the most stubborn ears the truth of Trent & co.'s collective of hand-picked mid-west talent. The 1995 masterpiece is a devastating, pulverizing party-rocker that utilizes the used and abused Sylvester sample so typical of club-era hedonism and re-cultivates its simple universality in a new mold that avoids the cliches of disco's expired optimism. Add the smart chord progression and one of the most un-subtle, chest-reverberating, entrails-twisting, Thor-hammering bass lines ever to grace a deep house record and you have 'Mighty Real Groove': a rampant party jam that still wields the musical elegance and warmth of the Prescription catalog. Hammered to death by Theo Parrish & so many more, this time-tested C.V.O classic has signed up for a second tour of duty, spreading the true underground gospel to those unbelievers who still dwell in the mansion of shadow and despair." One-sided release.

Artist:	BLAZE
Title:	Core 1995 - Moonwalk
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 095D-EP

"When 'Moonwalk' was released in 1995, it was immediately recognized as a new high for the already well-accomplished Newark, NJ outfit Blaze. Previously, Josh Milan and Kevin Hedge had laid to waste virtually all competition with a slew of dope releases under their various guises in a little over 2 years --this after they had been dropped from Motown and left to fend for themselves in the highly inspired NY/NJ underground club scene. Burrowing further, the duo kept a low-profile throughout 1994, returning the following year to grace the world with their Funky People incarnation on the seminal Blaze Tracks EP, hailed for 'Moonwalk''s relentless, soaring beauty. Borrowing from the most psych-inclined soul-jazz pioneers of Blaze's confessed elementary foundation, the instrumental is one of the groups unquestionable demonstrations of genius and a bellowing affirmation of Josh Milan's otherworldly synth-work, which slithers and slopes its way through the tough, on-point, moody-keyed production typical of their mid-90's sound. The track is so cocky it abruptly ends with virtually no notice following 7 minutes of continuous ascension and accumulated tension, all left to dissipate instantly in a haze of astonishment and amazement. A classic club landmark, 'Moonwalk' is reissued here as the latest installment of slow to speak's CORE series, a fine testament to the expansive, totally-mesmerizing sound of authentic deep house music at its point of inception in the sweaty, blacked-out club-spaces of the NY metro-area and beyond."

Artist:	DJ DUKE
Title:	Core 1995 - Heard/Trent
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 1995EP

"DJ Duke, unsung hero of deep house ingenuity, receives a deserved and absolutely essential reissue from NYC's slow to speak imprint. One of the lost masters of the abundant deep house community of the early 1990s, Duke epitomized the queen-infused, deeply fierce insular dialogue of New York's most outcaste underground. Part of his ode to deep house staples of yesteryear lost, 'Heard' & 'Trent' live up to their namesake, instrumental electronic masterpieces that disregard the concerns of conventional standardization while retaining the indisputable efficacy of NY's exploratory antiestablishment. Emotive, depthtful and totally accessible, Core - 1995 is the first re-visitation of forward-looking genius that will continue to epitomize slow to speak's retroactive genius, speaking more to the potential inventiveness of dance music than its former vivacity. Highly recommended."

Artist:	EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN
Title:	W�ste/Blume/Salamandrina
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	DG 009EP

"Arisen from the ashes of 1970s West Berlin, Einst�rzende Neubauten set out to demolish the mediation between their music and the material reality that encompassed them -- an attack on the false consciousness of rock, that self-rewarding exercise in egoism that could do nothing but tell the same tail a thousand times over, hopelessly ineffective in an age of expanding and increasing scopes of power. That their primary use of instrumentation was the very means of industrial decay around them -- utilizing the metallic and concrete wastelands of overdevelopment as the offensive tools of pure sound -- is evidence to their resolve to express the reality of commodity society and the corollary residues of alienation and dissatisfaction through the very apparatus of their music. Obviously, their methodology of absolute dissonance resulted in their being accused of creating 'anti-music,' a slander that the leading proponents of experimental industrial noise surely reveled in with great satisfaction. Indeed, Einst�rzende Neubauten's positions on sound and performance, 'the band' and 'the album' were radical departures from the established norms of group music, their creations more pieces of aural theory and philosophy than attempts at formative structures or recognizable refrains. Their lead vocalist Blixa Bargeld spent most of his time alternating between tormented wailing and muddled theoretical exposition, pushing their project in head-on confrontation with the very language and discourse of pop culture and political beautification. This was a time of great uncertainty, when divisions between the so-called Communist bloc and the 'free' West were coming to a new head; like many in their generation, Einst�rzende Neubauten were put off by the protocol of this false dialogue. Excluded from real political participation and discouraged to reflect in any meaningful way on basic social relations, they decided to make their aesthetics their politics and vice versa, refuting the stream of unanswerable lies and inversing the alienation of capital by using its very physical means to express a total refusal to it. Master dissectors of the intricacies of urban alienation and the despair of the failure of the revolutionary movement, Einst�rzende Neubauten resolved the dilemma of a youth incapable of any real concrete means of social change, responding not with political terrorism but rather the piercing aural and philosophical terrorism of their 'music' -- reinventing the very purpose of the rock group and revolutionizing the conceptual fortifications of performance culture, an all out attack on the stagnant leftovers of the first wave of punk rock music and a revolutionary new view on industrial decay." "W�ste" and "Blume" taken from the album Tabula Rasa. "Salamandrina" taken from the album Interim.

Artist:	KOHN
Title:	Dimension 111 - �hn�ch
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	DIMENSION 111EP

"�hn�ch," written by K�hn, originally released by Kraak in 1999. One-sided release in the Alice B. Toklas series. "The guardian angel of sonic excavation returns for this latest installment of scarcely numbered perennial tributes to the vanguard of dark ambient music. Creeping digitalized walls of sound pile on in this mounting of patient, protracted aural warfare, waged on the battlegrounds of a most unsettling prophecy of isolation and loss. Approaching out of a sunless nordic expanse, '�hn�ch' begins at a distance -- and then, suddenly, it is everywhere, its metallic tones overrun and seething over a singular distorted note of gothic dissonance, painting a scene of a steady apocalyptic decay: slow, painfully gorgeous disintegration. An unquestionable masterpiece, this haunting archaeology of the fringes of introspective left-field is a definitely disturbed take on the soundscape that manages to satisfy the most extreme scruples of aesthetic beautify and formal perfection."

Artist:	TOKLAS, ALICE B.
Title:	Dimension 128 - Vuh
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	DIMENSION 128EP

"Divining with the whisper of impetuous fantasy and earthly pleasure, our ears are once more turned over to the persisting demands of pure sound. An unraveling, winding journey through the castings shadows of perturbing gothic walls and disorienting multi-textural synthetics, 'Vuh' is a hymn to the religious devotion of stripped down, concentrated and ecstatic esotericism at the outer reaches of the ambient canon. Horrifying and divine in the same breath, this masterpiece recalls the titanic feats of gods long since departed from this world, resurrected and rechanneled through the horizontal perception of mortal souls blessed with the touch of the netherworld. Entrancing, dazing and totally mesmerizing, 'Vuh' reminds us that the eternal can be birthed from the temporal effort of human will, a timeless specimen of infinite musical sublimity and celestial transcendence. Chosen by Paul Nickerson for the 1979 Foundation for the Black Arts. 100 Pressed. This release is in direct conflict with the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799." One-sided release with spooky insert.

Artist:	MARLEY & THE WAILERS, BOB
Title:	Rebel Music
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	DMD 580EP

A1. "Rebel Music" (Laswell remix from Dreams of Freedom: Ambient Translations of Bob Marley in Dub B1. "Them Belly Full" B2. "Natural Mystic". Compiled by Francis Englehardt & Paul Nickerson for Slow To Speak. Silkscreened lettering on jacket. "The music of Bob Marley & The Wailers has suffered some of the worst fans in musical history, truly! I can think of no better example of good music that has been wholly distorted, contextually decimated & stripped of any original ingenuity & intelligence than Marley's catalog. True, practically every soul on this good earth has dabbled in the irresistibly visceral & intellectually vigorous songs of the quintessential champion of Rastafarian & Jamaican cultural dissemination, and his countless hits seem to settle evermore eternally into our basic notion of American & trans-global popular culture & sensibility. But it's the frequent overlooking of his political salve & theoretical virtuosity in favor of his alleged 'go-easy' message of nauseating positivity & blind optimism that has turned off countless potential listeners & critics alike, the droves of willfully apolitical, mentally-sloven, merrily bourgeois idiots roaming college campuses for miles touting a 'don't worry, be happy' attitude to the ever-present soundtrack of Marley's most obvious & less-than-inspiring hits the perfect deterrent for the fair & balanced consumption & appreciation of the Jamaican music legend's extensive & diverse catalog -- his stunning lyrical compositions, his free & open divulsion of personal uncertainty & existential doubt in the face of massive economic & social repression trodden underneath an army of dimwits who willfully recuperate anything radical, daring or even vaguely stimulating in his music in the service of a continued international conspiracy for the dumbing down of all that is good and fair and right and just. Well, perhaps this goes too far, and more importantly, maybe it's just irrelevant, as long as one follows the simple & obvious guidelines of sincere musical appreciation: forget the context but one's own, block out all previous unsavory associations with a music & listen free of all fetters of associative negativity; in other words, listen, then think, rather than the opposite. It may seem an overly simple & ineffectual technique, but it's proper use will assuredly sweep away all the sickeningly blas� & justifiably distracting imbecilic fog distorting an otherwise accomplished & multi-talented songwriter, singer & musician whose music hits with such obvious appeal & universal accessibility it can only be deemed truly compelling."

Artist:	D*NOTE/STEVE REICH
Title:	D*Votion/Come Out
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	DOR 111EP

D*Note's "D*Votion" taken from the album Babel. Steve Reich's "Come Out" taken from the album Early Works. "The newest reissue from Slow To Speak's Francis Englehardt & Paul Nickerson features a simply timeless, remarkably ahead of its time production from British production collective D*Note. 'D*Votion' really stood alone at its time as an early staple of what would later become the sound strived for by the maturing productions of the late 1990s: not exactly a house record, too versatile to be pigeonholed 'nu-jazz,' simply too good not to withstand petty relegation into a soon-to-be-forgotten category of irrelevant electronic music. 'D*Votion' breaths new air into ailing earlobes, its warm, melodic chord progression, its wisely withheld breakbeat that peaks only at the triumphant end of the track, it's entire movement, a whole, cohesive, masterfully arranged and executed piece that builds with the steady crafted production, a nod to the minimal repetition and lush chord structures of early ambient stalwarts whose use of reiterated waves of basic melodies and wall-high synths established early on the means by which a song can entrance its audience into a sublimely euphoric daze. But more important than the techniques of production and arrangement, some pieces of music contain the precise chords, the very notes, the disposition perhaps, that seem so effective at cutting straight through the shell of socialized resistance to visceral experience that it's appeal can justly be deemed 'universal': objectively, undeniably beautiful. On the flip of this 12" is an example of early, stripped down minimalism from avant-garde composer Steve Reich with 'Come Out,' a repetitive, simple piece of early sampling that builds incrementally in its unsettling, almost haunting air of desolate, filtered echoes of human reflection. Don't miss this limited 12"."

Artist:	QUIN, D.
Title:	At The End Of The World
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	DS 090EP

One-sided release. "From his desolate arctic abode, a man once at home in the cities of our modern world has thrown his previous life away in search for the obscure splendor and natural desolation of his newly adopted homeland. Dan Quin has spent the last 10 years of his life mapping & mastering the animal & natural world of his promised land, the bottom of the earth, the South Pole, Antarctica, 'The End of the World' -- and apparently producing some of the newest in dark analog driven techno & house. Once a respected reporter for a prominent U.S. nature magazine, Quin went A.W.O.L. while on assignment documenting the mating habits of seals, only to reemerge as the founder of the 1st whale riding championship in history & the world's only 'national liberation' campaign for an unclaimed natural territory. An anti-social Steve Irwin with the heart of a lion and the cold skin of his beloved sea friends, his reputation among the few locals as a true hero & devoted follower of his adored native soil has earned him the title of 'duke of whales,' and his presence, if not fest physically on the land due to his reclusive demeanor, is certainly felt spiritually as the saintly father of the region. Rumor has it that Quin was not seen for 6 months away from his arctic estate, apparently so entranced by the sea cries of his beloved seals that he was nearly lost in his own solitude, going on to record the beautiful cries that haunted him for so many nights. Determined to create what he called 'an artistic testament to the great Antarctic expanse,' Quin employed the recordings on his 1st 12" release, the haunting and epic At The End of the World. We can only hope he continues to labor away in his igloo of inspiration, hearing further calls of primitive encouragement and continuing his crusade to bring the beautiful silence of the arctic to our warm & ready earlobes."

Artist:	ENO, BRIAN
Title:	Ba-Benz�l�/Subterraneans
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	EGS 1026EP

Slow To Speak is a gray-area vinyl recontextualization label -- reissuing onto 12" vinyl its favorite tracks -- beyond any obvious genre or stylistic confines. All releases are compiled by Francis Englehardt and Paul Nickerson for Slow to Speak. There are have been close to 30 releases in the past, from Loggins & Messina to Haki R. Madhubuti. Packaging is often elegantly screenprinted. Although some earlier STS releases featured unique "edits", most are just album tracks pressed to vinyl to give new context and availability to classic works from the past -- listen now, ask questions later. This Eno 12" features "Ba-Benz�l�" from Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Music & "Subterraneans" from the David Bowie's Low album. "Brian Eno is one of the true pioneers of electronic music; from the very beginning of its inception, as one of the most in-demand studio producers of his era, he served as one of its most eager disseminators, accomplishing some of the first syntheses of rock, experimental and electronic music -- and delivering it to popular audiences previously unimagined before his time. In the strangely familiar alien tones & effects of the then excessively intricate and virtually inaccessible synthesizers of the early 1970s, Eno perceived in electronic production the key to popular music's transcendence, its elevation to the level of true intellectual & artistic expression -- an expanse of seemingly endless potential that allowed not only the seasoned & qualified composer to express himself through the new electronic sound, but also provided entrenched genres the opportunity to discard with their embedded orthodoxies & breathe a whole new air of life into their creative process & product. His work with avant-garde trumpet player John Hassell is a deeply inspiring example of this early pioneering. Hassell was himself obsessed with atypical scales & unfamiliar instrumentation, only in his case, he was convinced that in the most remote regions of Earth's untouched & undeveloped sonic landscape lay the most potent tools for music's superseding to the domain of sublime experiential transcendence. With Eno's prowess at the opposite end of the technological scale, the two produced some of the most wildly divergent co-existences of sound, mixing the unsettling tones miraculously produced from Hassell's trumpet -- which were for the most part, inspired by traditional forms of obscure world music -- with the strange warmth of Eno's comforting synth chords & melodic disposition to create music that is at one moment deeply warm, comforting and pleasing to the ears -- only to morph into something suspiciously unfamiliar, uncharted and singularly abrasive -- beautiful still, but unsettling nonetheless... the perfect balance. But it was Eno's work with legendary rock/pop/post-punk superstar David Bowie that demonstrated the breathtaking potential of Eno's electronic aesthetic, its integration into the most resistant of musically-opposite fields, and its true transcendent potential. 'Subterraneans' is the quintessential tragedy in song, a piece that needs no definite lyrical tale to relate its truly melancholic expression, its very notes, its distorted, shivering wails of possibly human melodic groans, its sub-bass synth pads, the only necessity for full expression: undeniably Eno's masterwork. It weeps, not through the deceiving over-intellectualization of poetry, but rather through the pure expression of tonal & melodic sound. This is the essence of Eno's contribution to modern music. Compiled by Francis Englehardt & Paul Nickerson for Slow To Speak." Silkscreened lettering on jacket with glitter.

Artist:	SYLVESTER
Title:	Over & Over/I Need Somebody To Love Tonight
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	F 797EP

"Last night I attended the Manuel Gottsching performance at Club Love NYC. A few minutes into G�ttsching's set, in the silence following the enthusiastic applause for his classic 'Shuttlecock' track, a lone individual in the crowd shouted enthusiastically, 'Fuck her in the ass!' As I chuckled to myself, I was surprised to see the young man in question vocally denounced by his surrounding patrons for what they believed was an insulting, inappropriate and immature act. Clearly these attendees felt that the young man's perverse proclamation was an attack on the integrity of the event, an insult to G�ttsching's legacy and his appearance that evening. I was surprised and taken aback as well, not with the young man but with the appalling show of conservativism on the part of these patrons, denouncing this young man for what was once the very energy and enthusiasm that fueled the legendary parties and club communities of NYC's underground in years past. I can understand that some people came to the event expecting a conforming, pleasantly civil and relatively tame concert by the legendary Krautrock pioneer (which is disturbing in itself); what I was most worried by was the fact that the majority of those who rose in anger against this youngster were themselves veterans of the party circuits of NYC's legendary past. It seems they've forgotten the fun-loving, unrestrained, youthful energy that made the parties like the Paradise Garage, The Loft, Club Zanzibar & Body & SOUL so free, where the normal formalities and social constraints of everyday routine were washed away and impulsive, pleasure-seeking mania took over. I mean, seriously, think about it: if the flaming transsexuals that used to rule the party scene of the '70s, '80s and '90s were at the event in question, they would've been driven out the second they walked by the very people who are constantly pushing empty slogans like 'It's all about love' and 'Everyone's welcome!' down our throats. In reality, many of these so-called 'party people' are too old (more so in attitude than age), too straight-laced, too concerned with their image and air of 'maturity' and 'sophistication' to even remember what was so free about the 'Loft' all the way up to the not-so-long-gone Body & SOUL parties: these events were free-zones, unsoiled spaces of fraternity and pleasure where individuals were finally able to interact with each other without worrying about what they said, how they looked, who they knew and how cultured or respected they seemed. It never ceases to amaze me how often many of these completely out-of-touch elders of the dance music community talk about being 'free,' about 'love and happiness,' when they can't even find the inner-child within them to let go of their idiotic pretenses and actually have a good time. In reality, their major concern is to ensure that House Music is perceived by the rest of the world as a legitimate and dignified 'culture,' one that can be respected by the rich, the noble, the fashion world, the safeguards of accepted norms and standards for decency and discipline in society: to ensure that they keep their distance from street people, drag-queens and drug-addicts, so that they can finally be respected as discerning, unthreatening, dignified adults who have a place in this increasingly boring and very much UNspontaneous society. Something tells me that Sylvester did not draw his inspiration for the completely unrestrained, wildly energetic vocal belting of 'Over & Over' from a gathering of 40 & 50 somethings who were more concerned with how they dressed and who they knew than having a good time. Equally less likely it seems that Sylvester would've made the brilliant, sex-obsessed 'I Need Somebody To Love Tonight' after attending a party of married couples trying to relive their wilder days in the tamest way imaginable. And yet these brilliant songs are championed by the very same heads that would look at a drunken, lustful gathering of young adults now with patronizing disapproval. Dance music must push forward and stay free if it is to survive. Now is the time to change by recovering the old ways. BE FREE, always. Limited-edition Sylvester classics as brought to you by Slow To Speak..."

Artist:	MADHUBUTI, HAKI R.
Title:	Rise Vision Comin'
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	FEED 11042008EP

"A breathtaking self-conscious free-jazz masterwork, 'Rise Vision Comin'' summarizes pre-facto 30 plus years of musical and theoretical/political expression from renowned activist/scholar/free-jazz pioneer Haki R. Madhubuti. Situated squarely in the uncomfortable strata between rigid return-to-Africa nationalism & integrationist reformism, Madhubuti chose to spread his complex & dynamic philosophical systems through the disarming & indelibly impressive poetic musicality of the new burgeoning spiritual jazz aesthetic, and his music, despite being absolutely impossible to acquire, remains timeless & unforgettable over 30 years after it's creation---the dawning of his musical and literary career. The disarming quality of Haki R. Madhubuti & Nation's music lends it's social proclamations a disarming, harmonic beauty without watering-down it's intended message---a bizarre fusion that, at once comfortable, never quite resolves itself in the dichotomy of it's choosing. Here 'Rise Vision Comin',' Madhubuti's magnum opus, finally receives the respect it deserves with this single-sided 12" pressing with Japanese Obi from NYC's Slow To Speak---a perhaps overdue but nevertheless imperative recognition of this perfectly crafted private jazz landmark."

Artist:	YOUNG, NEIL
Title:	Southern Man
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	FEEDBACK 004EP

"The Feed.back series has never been focused on making the rare and obscure once again commercially available for record collectors and DJs to own. As demonstrated by the previous two selections, U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday and Loggins & Messina's Pathway To Glory, the Feed.back series is intended to really showcase some of the dopest as well as most urgently relevant classics of our recent times. More than just a music showcase, Feed.back highlights records that actually concern serious conditions of the modern era up to this day, both spiritual and political/material, records that speak to the everyday conditions that we live through in our day-to-day existence on this earth. Music has the potential to become something beyond personal healer, a social tool both for political organization and propaganda, but also for the necessary expression of mass frustration and collective purpose. Feed.back strives for the rejuvenation of this intent in the creation and playing of music. The 3rd edition of this series, Neil Young's Southern Man, articulates a marked disgust with the reactionary and inherently racist tendency of regional nationalism. Everyone is familiar with the alleged animosity between Young and Alabama's Lynyrd Skynyrd over the blatantly condemnatory articulation of the South's almost fascistic obsession with local heritage -- sic. blood & soil, the completely fallacious belief in a national story, a legacy of firm local traditionalism that fuels so much of the racism in the south. Past, present, and future is accounted for, and the legacy of slavery is carried on through demented 'local pride' that goes largely unquestioned, disguised as it is. Young put out a song that sought to openly and aggressively single out the violent legacy of Southern racism and its influence still operating strong within Southern social thought, refusing to let it fade away from the popular memory, just as the most influential and high-ranking of apologists were beginning to formulate and put into action the notion of equality finally achieved in the 'new America.'"

Artist:	SMITH, PATTI
Title:	Wave/Ghost Dance/Because The Night/Ginsberg Eulogy
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	FG 1456EP

"Poet, punk-rock evangelist and unwavering proponent of authentic rock n' roll, Patti Smith is one of the most brilliant minds of modern music. Making her start in the burgeoning anti-art communities of 1970s New York City, Smith was one of the few figures that maintained the continuum of the 1960s avant-garde, invigorating it with the disillusioned and enraged outlook of post-Nixon-era youth, and in the process reinventing major label rock forever. Basking in the helpless fury of the first legitimately apolitical generation in the United States, Smith & her loyal circle of collaborators pushed their confrontational sonic warfare with fearless confidence and an unparalleled lyrical expressiveness, inspired by the total freedom of punk-rock and resolute in infusing its aesthetic populism and accessibility with a firm intellectual vivacity that did battle with the increasingly grim social landscape of neo-consumerism. Countering rampant alienation with the rejuvenating act of basic musical articulation, Smith affirmed cathartic release through song, word & collective performance, elevating her work from standard punk-rock radicalism to authentic social philosophy, an essential chronicling of the dark shadows of isolation-turned-communal transcendence and self-actualization that always lay at the heart of punk's essentially democratic culture."

Artist:	GABRIEL, PETER
Title:	Games Without Frontiers
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	GEF 1222EP

"A master at maneuvering between the vastly rewarding world of pop & the creative demands of experimental music, Peter Gabriel stands as one of the chief inheritors of uncompromising popular music of the 1960s, not so much in his aesthetic inheritances as much as his fortitude to uphold & maintain artistic integrity in the face of mass popularity and major label demand. As the founding member of the ever-popular Genesis, by 1980 Gabriel had already accumulated the experience and technique that would later inform his superior solo work with a sort of uncanny ability to translate the esoteric oddities of experimental, ambient and synth music with a formidable aptitude at pop writing and production that allowed him to live his notorious double life: part modern pop icon, part ambient & international music curator, founding the Real World label & creating one of the most influential soundscape full-length's of the 20th century in The Last Temptation of Christ. Even some his most well know work exudes the same imaginative, haunted & dream-like melancholy of his most abstruse music, alternating from cheerful lyrical insightfulness & unsettling melodic darkness, comprising one of the most powerful and intelligent musical legacies of the 1980s and beyond. 'Games Without Frontiers' has taken the step beyond super-hit into the cult reverence it now enjoys today, a classic example of eternal pop-rock brilliance: the supreme parody of the dangerous absurdities of European nationalism and a direct response to the dawning of a massive conservative backlash in his homeland of the United Kingdom. Ironically 'Games Without Frontiers' was most successful in the two leading nations of imperial might at the time, the United States and the U.K., a shining example of the powers wielded by an artist balancing the paradoxical status of massively famous and critically unbendable. Indeed, it is this uncompromising creative militancy, one that Gabriel has steadfastly honored and harbored with adamant resolve, that has elevated him from the typical ineffectuality of most top-40 artists to the reputable champion of the creative edge that operates as the vanguard of good pop music, without which the genre and the concept itself withers away in irrelevance and artificiality."

Artist:	SANDERS, PHAROAH
Title:	Elevation
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMP 222EP

"A shining example of technical virtuosity & conceptual vision, Pharoah Sanders came to prominence like so many jazz greats before him: having honed his professional craft playing in local rhythm & blues acts in Oakland, CA, Sanders traveled East in 1961 to become part of the rising avant-garde jazz circle of New York City, and, per the protocol of the honorable and sacred lineage of jazz musicians, bloomed into his own under the creative support of an elder's weathered wing -- in this case, playing tenor saxophone with John Coltrane through the early- to mid-1960s, participating and to a great extent influencing the increasingly free-formed jazz experimentations that Coltrane's outfit would become deeply immersed in throughout this era. Despite amassing unparalleled respect & reverence from his peers and devoted followers in the free-jazz community, Sanders quickly rejected the allegedly boundless domain of anti-structure that he had helped to construct, embarking -- whether through conscious intention or accidental genius -- to develop a new aesthetic that recognized within the infinite & completely un-chartable expanses of some free-jazz experimentation & expressionism lay an acute dogmatism, and 'ideology of anti-ideology' that Sanders would quickly supersede through his explorations of melody and musicality in esoteric notational expression. Pharoah Sanders arose as one of the quintessential figureheads of a musical genre that, ironically, refuted the very concepts of individual egotistical worth and corporeal concern, focused on the transitive and transcendent properties of melody & impeccably-crafted harmony, their philosophical, spiritual and political potentials through its theory & practice: 'spiritual jazz.' The major contribution that Sanders and his contemporaries in this newly-budding genre of the early 1970s discovered was the higher form of expressionism, not through absolute refutation and denunciation of structure, but through the careful analysis and engagement with the basic necessities of musical simplicity to create something completely boundless within the parameters of traditional structure: an autonomous zone of instrumental catharsis that allowed equally the unrestrained bursting of brass screams and the meditative soothing of repetitive bass refrains & lush melodic chords -- a perfectly boundless synthesis of free expression & wise musical grounding. This latest reissue compiled by Slow To Speak's Francis Englehardt & Paul Nickerson highlights with equal reverence and profound awe the transitive properties of Sander's masterful arrangement and musical prophecy, featuring two original works of the tenor great, 'Elevation' & 'Astral Traveling,' along with his absolutely breathtaking early groundwork with Alice Coltrane with the classic 'Journey In Satchidananda.'"

Artist:	COLTRANE, JOHN
Title:	Ol�/Tunji/The Sun
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMP 506EP

"Reverence around the personality of John Coltrane exceeds religious zealotry -- to sing his praise is almost superfluous in this age of jazz immortalization, the pinnacle years of its experimental zeal & development heralded in many ways as the highest point in Western musical/historical development, the ultimate triumph of the American aural avant-garde and the insurmountable achievement of black music as a whole. A quick gauge of his creative trajectory reveals that the geometric creative growth of Coltrane and his musical base -- comprised of dozens of musicians & composers handpicked by Coltrane to encircle him creatively -- was far from settling down when cut down by the man's untimely death in 1967 at the early age of 40. One of the indisputable leaders of the jazz vanguard, Coltrane, ever the talent scout & tastemaker as much the leading tenor saxophonist of his time, had assembled the proper personnel & conceptual vision that would carry the avant-garde into the 1970s with his growing ethereality, abstraction and ever-playful experimental mastery: an already well-established feet at the dawn of the 1960s. While much stress has been laid on his most abrasive 'free-jazz' leanings, Coltrane had, by no means, abandoned the dynamic relationship with melody that the standard-forebears had drilled into him from his early years, and he was one of the first to see the possibility of combining dissonant investigation with the warm directness and immediacy of intricate melodic composition. Along with Davis' Bitch's Brew, albums spanning from Ol� Coltrane to Cosmic Music rolled out the red carpet that both prot�g�'s -- Sanders, Cherry & his second wife Alice -- & strange newcomers alike would triumphantly parade across for the next 10 years, defining what would be later coined 'spiritual jazz' and solidifying his mythos as one of the select few of 1950-1960s jazz greats. And while historical might is always noted with special admiration in the critical review of our 20th century music, it is the immediate emotional and expressive vivacity of his music that shines through, eternally and especially today, that makes songs like 'Ol�,' 'Tunji' (debuted in 1997) & 'The Sun' literally timeless, building blocks not just to their own self-causal legacies but to one of the few justifiable suppositions of musical prodigy that, as time has demonstrated, remains quietly and incontrovertibly vindicated."

Artist:	MASEKELA, HUGH
Title:	Stimela - Coal Train (Live)/Don't Go Lose It Baby
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	JD 1222EP

"Astonishing & gorgeous music from South Africa's best known jazz pioneer, the legendary Hugh Masekela, reissued on high quality 12" vinyl pressing from NYC's slow to speak. Regarded as a master of the trumpet and cherished as a cross-sectional musical pioneer throughout greater Africa, his music has traveled to the eager appetites of Europe's jazz audiences and all the way across oceans to America's diasporic musical cultivations, leaving an indelible impression of eternal genius & indisputable talent across the map. 'Stimela-Coal Train' is one of his most popular compositions, a reinterpretation of a popular migrant worker's song of lament and fury, but it is this flooring live performance that really sets Masekela in the realm of eternal creative force. Beginning with a series of stunning solos spanning the full jazz palate, the record opens into an ascending vocal crescendo, exploding in the last 2 minutes with an act of tremendous cathartic communion. On the b-side, Hugh's legendary dance classic 'Don't Go Lose It Baby' receives a justly LOUD and full pressing worthy of Richard Long's greatest systems. A timeless classic in the underground dance communities of the United States, most notably the Paradise Garage, 'Don't Go Lose It Baby' is a massively funky & undeniable example of the post-disco, proto-house era of classic innovation, reflecting Masekela's interest in early electronic synthesizers & production and a reaffirmation of his propensity for experimentation, cross-pollination & boundary expansion. Two breathtaking pieces of universal music from a devotee of musical consciousness throughout South Africa and well beyond, Masekela has earned his place among the exceptional few, an innovator & an institution upon himself that has pushed the limits of jazz, disco, & African musics with determined integrity & endless creativity."

Artist:	BUSH, KATE
Title:	Sunset/Egypt/π
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	KEN 084EP

"Master-articulator of dynamic and solitary convolution, the science of the soul; capable of slaying foes with the delicate power of her voice, the clever dexterity of her linguistic versatility -- and yet as fierce and unsparing in character and spirit as any warrior queen, choosing the feminine fa�ade of shy frailty from which to ambush her audience with cunning wisdom & armor-piercing analytical genius: Kate Bush, gifted singer/songwriter extraordinaire, teen prodigy, intrepid stoic, maser interpreter of the coded secrets of the soul. At the age of 16 she was awarded with a full record-deal from EMI, given creative freedom, and allowed to wander the artistic path of her choosing. Her debut, The Kick Inside, was a massive success, leading to world tour (her first and last) and worldwide acclaim. Rather than be swallowed whole by her own celebrity spectacle, Bush chose the quiet reclusion of her creative havens, recording 7 more albums out of sight while very much in mind. Her unparalleled, inimitably idiosyncratic enunciations of the complex subtleties of love, the simple beauty of the human struggle & the natural world, balanced with the social and political consciousness of the most learned intellectual, all delivered with the disarming beauty of her prodigious songwriting & skilled musicianship: the perfectly rounded artist, one of the best of our time, or any for that matter, Kate Bush must and will be recognized as one of the best. It is for this reason precisely that Slow To Speak has set out to bring fresh attention to her long-established brilliance, featuring three of her most outstanding works, 'Sunset,' 'Egypt' and 'π,' for the latest in their series of limited-edition high quality classic reissues. Uncompromising, ingenious, dashingly intelligent and, most importantly, capable of articulating the seemingly inexplicable mechanics of social relation, internal tumult, external wonder, Bush has always remained unashamed of her talents, prepared to exploit and negate her image as 'singer/songwriter' as she's seen fit, at once embracing and then rejecting her own status as celebrity in remaining stubbornly committed to her striking, sublime, immaculate art." Silkscreened lettering on jacket.

Artist:	ROLLING STONES, THE
Title:	Too Much Blood
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	LC 2017EP

"It was the early 1980's, and like many aging rock icons, the Rolling Stones were spending their time in the vast domain of excess that was NYC nightlife, ignoring the declared 'death of disco' with the rest of the metropolitan world. Leaving their past splendor in the dust and embracing their new aesthetic surroundings with the cocky wit they always wielded, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards took a leap in 1983 with Undercover, which received lukeworm reviews as the rock world couldn't quite discern what exactly the old men were going for. 'A little too much cocaine I see.' Club children, of course, instantly connected and identified with the brilliant 'Too Much Blood,' a post-disco bloodbath of Sly & Robbie echo chambers, hi-life guitar riffs and ingenious lyrical meanderings summarizing splendidly the growing hostility of crime-ridden inner city existence. The true genius of this session wasn't fully unveiled until recently, when a doubly-long extended studio version was leaked by some committed enthusiasts. This definitive version opens a window into the still burning genius of old men traversing the endless bounds of spaced-out, intelligent and inspired underground club music, applying their time-tested musicality to a totally new canvas. Decades past its heyday, 'Too Much Blood' still stands the test of time as their finest song never (properly) released, a perversion of rock's parameters born of culture's reformation and redistribution along the new paths blazed by electronic and dance. A favorite at the Paradise Garage, this special 12" pressing from slow to speak is a well-deserved look back testifying to the determination always to look forward."

Artist:	JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Title:	White Rabbit/Wooden Ships
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	LSD 025EP

"White Rabbit" taken from the album Surrealistic Pillow; "Lather" taken from the album Crown Of Creation; "Wooden Ships" taken from the album Volunteers. "As the self-promoted vanguard of the generation of 20th century hedonism, Jefferson Airplane established themselves as a sort of unconscious mouthpiece of the drug culture of the 1960s, an unflinching critic in the unique journey traveled by countless youth of their time, eager to consume, and then consume more, hungry for physical methods of circumventing the normal social routine in favor of the excesses of the new era. More interested in the unseen morphing of perception & consciousness brought about by the casual consumption of both drug & pleasure, sex & communal cohabitation, the band made it their mission to observe, chronicle and then perform the ensuing internal turmoil, often something darker and more profound than some exercise in irresponsible self-gratifying release. Their haunting, original ballads of the dazed & confused captured the moment of panic, confusion, disoriented euphoria, all mixed together in an indescribable experience of altered perception: that very moment at the crossroads of the taboo and the perverted when societal parameters set up originally for the protection of the species have finally become irrelevant with humanity's superseding of survival in it's frequently self-destructive quest for knowledge of self, mind, ego. With these selections from Slow To Speak, songs that whisper of dark secrets of human consciousness forgotten & rediscovered anew under the influence of post-industrial vertigo, the warning is spelt crystal clear for all to read: that when consuming the mind-altering, the proper techniques and the appropriate intentions in executing this self-exploratory ritual are imperative. For when the individual, confronted with the massive accumulation of dead technologies and the hallow toys of dreaded leisure, chooses punitive self-flagellation via the consumption of psychedelics in hopes of ridding themselves of the very fields of consciousness that operate unchallenged in modern class society, they risk unleashing the monsters of suppressed desire & unconscious despair, an act of utter self-destruction that spelled the end of many a teenager's love affair with the mind-altering drugs of yesteryear. Jefferson Airplane's melody warned & encouraged simultaneously, demonstrating the confusion of the band itself, as they too had already embarked on their own long and storied path to the enlightened throne of self-understanding and universal perception." Silkscreened lettering on jacket.

Artist:	YORKE, THOM
Title:	The Eraser
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	MARCELLA 022EP

"Thom Yorke is the pen, voice and soul of the rock group Radiohead -- he has released a solo album The Eraser and that is where this story begins. Abandoning his guitar get-along gang for the cold warmth of his computer and under-hyping an album that should be plastering the walls and buses of your local city, the anxiety-ridden and morose Yorke cuts to the core of the dark state of humanity, unapologetically commenting on the zombies that were once humans. On this extremely limited 12", the album title track 'The Eraser' gets remixed by Slow To Speak. On the flip is various acapellas of Thom speaking on the current state of society and commerce and the Radiohead song 'Climbing Up The Walls,' which in some strange, dysfunctional way is married lyrically to 'The Eraser.' Comes in a hand-made silk-screened jacket."

Artist:	SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES
Title:	Spellbound
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	MM 9435EP

"Pushing on with their continuing series of high-quality classic reissues, Slow to Speak presents their latest 12" featuring the exceptional post-punk of one Siouxsie & The Banshees. Clear contemporaries of fellow reissued monoliths of British rock, The Police & The Cure, Siouxsie & the Banshees, though having formed in 1975 by core members Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin, the group didn't really come into their own until the late-1970s crisis of rock music, when punk's initial fury began to dissipate under the cooling gaze of mainstream fixation, arguably neutralizing such counter-cultural monoliths as Iggy Pop & David Bowie. Sioux & Severin, excessively grand in their aspirations & determined not to succumb to the same fate, found themselves drawn to the emerging post-punk philosophies of anti-pop image formulation and projection, combining an essentially anti-celebrity presentation with starkly realist social commentaries intertwined confidently into their peculiarly unique and sinisterly haunting dark-rock aesthetic, one of the major contributors along with The Cure in the creation of the still-debatable goth-rock genre. Irrelevant of their cultural allegiances, Siouxsie and the Banshees were able to accomplish complete artistic autonomy while retaining their patently anti-authoritarian stance through the medium of their aural poetics, taking up verbal arms against legacies of British imperialism, medicine & power, post-industrial technological melancholia & religious-politico-psychosis of rabid Zionism; all this was performed under the advantageously offsetting facade of self-imposed outcasting, presenting themselves in dooming attire & make-up, exactly as they saw their world: a desolate land drifting towards an existential void of endless consequence, inhabited increasingly by a zombie-like rabble -- uncertain of what they live for, and more importantly, what is worth living for."

Artist:	CHERRY, DON
Title:	Malkauns/Brown Rice
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	MM.139

Two tracks from "Brown Rice plus 2 tracks from The Holy Mountain soundtrack; compiled by Francis Englehardt & Paul Nickerson for Slow to Speak. "It's been said that Sun Ra is the cosmic champion of jazz, the man of genius from outer space sent to Earth to reinterpret the message of our celestial ancestors through his music. Well, if Sun Ra is from another galaxy, Don Cherry is from another dimension entirely, a man so hauntingly original and seemingly unrooted that he defies origin, heritage, homeland. Most noted for providing the soundtrack for both of Jodorowsky's masterpieces, Holy Mountain and El Topo, Cherry did for jazz what Ash Ra Tempel and Kraftwerk did for rock, taking a genre and superseding well beyond its previously demarcated boundaries, demolishing all set rules in seeing in this style the potential for something far more original and expressive than any of his predecessors could've imagined possible and unconcerned with the potential fallout from reactionaries far less gifted than he. Cherry's style is dirty, gritty, unembarrassed and uncompromisingly experimental. Bound only by his insatiable desire for the uncharted and unheard, Cherry stood for a perverted re-appropriation of jazz, determined to bring the sound from out of the secluded club or caf� and out into the streets, through the illegal brothels and sleezy strip-clubs of yesteryear, past the LSD fueled psychedelic romps of the 1960s, on to the meditative reflection of the New Age and finally upwards into the timeless, limitless space of unknown Universes. It is in this realm that his music has remained, lingering there for eternity as Cherry's eternal gift to mankind. Sadly, only a few have actually heard his genius, and thus the obvious necessity of highlighting some of his more remarkable work. Explore this 12", and then explore more, as the universe of Don Cherry holds far more than the untrained mind could possibly fathom." Silkscreened lettering on jacket.

Artist:	YOUNG, NEIL
Title:	Will To Love/Cortez The Killer (Live)
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	MNM 122276EP

"Neil Young is one of the greatest singer/songwriters of our era, a man of bare-knuckled will and innate, self-reliant artistic talent that has ascended from unsophisticated origins to epitomize the uncompromising major label artist that retains total creative autonomy -- a league that he and few others belong to. Originally a member of the legendary Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young folk-rock supergroup of the 1960s, Young broke away after their initial successes to concentrate on his own unmitigated self-actualization, a devastatingly sincere emotional illumination through song that circumvents celebrity and ego to deliver the core spirit of Young's vast, poetic and always piercingly relevant universe of expression: timeless, soulful, objectively flawless music. Young's work wields an inarticulable emotional poignancy, leaving the definite sensation that each song not only eternalizes the temporal emotional states of the artist himself, but speaks for all things -- sentient and inanimate -- all emotions -- joyful or despairing -- all the tragedies, triumphs and uncertainties of the human condition, united in a universal expression of the master's collective embodiment. Part of what has enabled Young's talent to flourish is his determination to maintain an impassible distance between his music and the poisonous superficialities and distractions of fame and profit. Keeping small company and focusing tirelessly on his music, Young is the greatest example of true, unfettered and unsoiled artistic integrity, a fact that has been proven constantly over the last four decades of his career: he is one of the seldom artists that cannot be separated from his work, his music a direct outpouring of his worldview. With heart-wrenching, totally unique vocals and raw, expressive, guitar-driven genius, Neil Young has lead the way for all introspective, forward-thinking individuals that know that something's not quite right in this strange world -- but assured that, at the end of the day, everything will be alright, if we can only take up our sorrows in the realm of dream, desire and song; this is Young's eternal contribution to universal spirit." "Will To Love" taken from the album American Stars 'N Bars; "Cortez The Killer" taken from the album Live In San Francisco; also included (but not listed on the cover) is "Dead Man Theme [Infinite]."

Artist:	EARLAND, CHARLES
Title:	Leaving This Planet/Left This Planet (Gone)
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	P 660000EP

"A heavily-played classic at David Mancuso's loft parties, Charles Earland's 'Leaving This Planet' encapsulates the visionary appropriation of the early NYC disco scene: an up-tempo funky jazz masterpiece that spoke to the precise moment of divine convergence that was NYC's underground dance community, and in so doing, secured its place in the annals of musical and cultural immortality far beyond its originally intended role. 'Leaving This Planet' explicates both lyrically & musically, verbally and viscerally the basic platform of early club culture: a veritable antithetic to organized political action, and yet deeply political in its own (possibly unconscious) right. A longing not just for immediate and total escape from the physical and spiritual plight of modern American urban poverty, but, in fact, an actually cohesive, organized and structured fraternity that applied a philosophy formulated from direct experience under the hardships of alienated material existence to the latter's objective stranglehold on passion, expression and cultural mobility, establishing a politics of the everyday that was practiced with tenacity and resolved, determined to abolish banal drudgery in favor of a new utopian vision: theoretical architecture constructed on top of the cold, estranging urban landscape of American inner-city plight. The early pioneers of NYC's underground have demonstrated for us continually through their example & legacy that to truly escape the hardships of this world requires an uncompromising exploitation of its most base material simplicities, their direct reconstruction and re-appropriation, not for the continued service of the superstructures of economic and social division, but for the purposes of human need, human passion, human necessity: in service of life."

Artist:	KRAFTWERK
Title:	Tone Float/Megaherz
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	PC 1222EP

"After a short hiatus Slow To Speak returns with a spectacularly eclectic high-quality 12" reissue featuring a chronicle of the esteemed lineage known as Kraftwerk. The group is most recognized for their pioneering of the electronic dance sound emanating from the seemingly boundless parameter's of European synthetic aural experimentation, exploiting the insistent use of controlled & concentrated repetition & harsh melodic rigidness to produce an indisputably new form of funk -- at once owing it's lineage to American black music, and yet strangely alien & singularly unique. But long before their commercial success, founding members & core composers Ralf H�tter & Florian Schneider were humbly at work far from the public eye, busying themselves with the humble task of reinventing modern music as we know it. Of course, they were certainly not alone, as the new wave of post-hippie German experimentalists had, by the end of the 1960s, formed their own underground of anti-composition, disregarding conventionally rigid arrangement in favor of free improvisation & determinately uncharted, expansive liberated sound. As The Organization, H�tter & Schneider produced the mind-bending 20 minute instrumental 'Tone Float,' a controlled chaos of organic instrumentation & sparsely employed melody that stood miles away from the bastard child of post-industrial technological alienation that their later, colder & far-more singular music took on. The aggressiveness of this masterpiece hints at a musical vision far too universal to be tied down by the constraints of cyclical repetition or electronic composition -- a philosophy of the uncharted, unrecognized & completely unencumbered, where the music was both a means & an end to the visceral multitude & psychic multiplicity, leaving the tired realm of the present with all it's endless routines & notions of lineage in the dust. Indeed, 'Megaherz,' taken from their first self-titled full-length as Kraftwerk, takes this refusal to be bound by the historical, material stringencies of cultural or artistic progression further, employing the harsh, factory-like sounds of wage-labor & immediately demolishing it with the heavy weight of delicate, dream-like walls of synthetic melody, once again denying both the physical & social weights of existential dread & subsuming them with the literally boundless possibilities of free sound. 'The Hall of Mirrors,' taken from Trans-Europe Express, reflects the group's later sound, where their preference of free-composition was slowly replaced by the careful & ironic exercise of social reflection -- and yet, their project remained the same, as always: lifting aesthetic expression beyond the ties of the present, pushing it into unexplored realms of experimentation & sound with the conscious insistence on creating something truly autonomous from the boredom of everyday existence." Silkscreened lettering on jacket.

Artist:	HAZEL, EDDIE
Title:	Maggot Brain/California Dreamin'/From The Bottom Of My Soul
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	PRO 056EP

"Undeniably one of the most brilliant songs ever created, 'Maggot Brain' has rightfully achieved a place of eternal reverence in the history of modern music. Recorded in 1971 as Funkadelic was really coming into it's own, the track features the inestimable talents of then 21 year-old guitarist Eddie 'Smeero' Hazel. The original guitarist for the Parliaments and Funkadelic, Hazel recorded the breathtakingly mournful guitar solo featured in 'Maggot Brain' during a time when the aesthetic of P-Funk was really being mapped out and formulated proper. 'Maggot Brain' conjures up the same sensation each time its heard, regardless of what listener: the feeling that this song encapsulates all of the wallowing misery and deepest sorrow the universe over, as Hazel's guitar pours out his unparalleled expression of universal despair with such natural propensity it would appear the young man literally carried the entire world's sadness on his shoulders alone. Hazel was one of the few musicians that lived his instrument, capable not only of expressing himself through its medium, but the whole of universal spirit, a portal to the soul that only he seemed capable of unlocking through his invigorating delivery and range. In a way, Hazel's cover of 'California Dreamin' is the essence of his sound, as without effort Hazel morphs the restrained depression of this former pop hit into all-out, exposed despair, unafraid to confront his listener with the hardships of the human condition without concealment or dumbing aversion. The gorgeous, heart wrenching 'From The Bottom Of My Soul' leaves no doubt to the pain Hazel must have endured daily for reasons unknown to us. What we know with complete certainty is that his music speaks to us, manages to reflect back to us our own hardships in an act of grace, and continues to take our sorrow, perhaps unexpressed or concealed previously, and bare the burden of its oppression, to free us for that small moment of blissful relief as we drift into Hazel's uncontested domain of expressivity." Deleted, last coies.

Artist:	NIRVANA
Title:	Smells Like Teen Spirit
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	PRO 157EP

"Next in the continually varied, juxtaposed & repositioned series of high quality 12" reissues compiled by Slow To Speak's Paul Nickerson & Francis Englehardt comes a quintessential release of the prolific and incendiary Nirvana. Both at the time of their popular blooming and their continuing nostalgic re-popularization up to this day, the appeal of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic & Dave Grohl generated a universal fascination and reverence -- across every age bracket, generational gap & genre-specific subjective inclination -- that rocketed the band to a mass-cultural adoration & emblematic importance beyond any of their wildest imaginings could have ever anticipated or foreseen. And certainly, their legacy has grown over the years with pressing & urgent vivacity, seemingly unscathed by the passing trends of popularity's fickle inclination, still drawing enough fascination & obsession with the cult of Cobain's troubled personality to have produced 2 films specifically dedicated to the dissection of his notorious neuroses & troubled self-destructiveness. Yet, far beyond the obsessive gaze on Cobain's wild personality & non-comforming defiance, the real strength of Nirvana's story, of their aggressive, militant punk-rock inspired anti-authoritarianism, their selfless hedonism and Cobain & company's poetic & disarmingly witty analysis of modern day boredom & indifference lies in the formation's miraculous victory over the major labels, over MTV trivialization, Spin & Rolling Stone's oversimplification & misrepresentation: over every popular misconception and attempted undermining that would have painted the group as just another infantile act of teenage revolt. The underlying integrity of Nirvana's aesthetic & theoretical expression simply cannot be laughed at and then forgotten along with the continuing barrage of mediocre and unsubstantial bands of their era or ours, and despite the years since, the band's impact in such a short time has stayed with us to this day, their defiant anti-musicianship and sternly do-it-yourself aesthetic & propagation while riding the financial rainbow of mass stardom reminds us that there is the possibility for a musician or band or producer or whomever it may be to 'cross over,' to win the popular mandate of culture and still retain their artistic integrity. And while it must be said that the romance around Cobain's eventual suicide has created a general nassau among any of those who truly appreciated Cobain & Nirvana's contribution -- from their dismantling of the rigid constraints of major-label acceptability to pushing the limits of the popularly acceptable in music to the limits of absurdity, perversity and subversiveness -- the lasting integrity of Nirvana's project overpowers any attempts at recuperation... at least we must hope." Silkscreened lettering on jacket in silver metallic ink.

Artist:	SCOTT-HERON, GIL
Title:	Angel Dust (Live)
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SES 1979EP

"Gil Scott-Heron: the voice of inner city malaise; the champion of transparent honesty in musical expression; the man who lived the dark, wretched existence of addiction and 'Inner City Blues' he so eloquently described in his music. Refusing to divorce his music from the objective realities surrounding him, he tackled the most wretchedly unspeakable aspects of human suffering without a moment of flickering doubt or hesitation, dissecting and decimating systematically the pseudo-academic justification for Black America's continued wallowing in the depths of poverty, crime and disenfranchisement. Scott-Heron lived the darkness: always on the verge of death, one foot in the coffin, one firmly planted on the cracked concrete of inner city America, he managed to stand firm against the tide unaware and unconscious thought typical of the mindless rabble in favor of a markedly witty and free-spirited, joyous assault on the dominant social relations of 1970s America, all the while battling a stupendous heroin addiction. Indeed, Scott-Heron knew that of which he chronicled in his songs, ascribing words to previously inexplicable miseries plaguing the downtrodden masses of the world. This newest 12" from Slow To Speak's Francis Englehardt and Paul Nickerson features three of his dopest and most powerful songs, including two live takes -- 'Angel Dust' and 'The Bottle' -- in addition to the breathtaking 'We Almost Lost Detroit.' Highly limited, highly recommended."

Artist:	PINK FLOYD
Title:	Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SHDW 1222EP

"After something of a hiatus, Slow To Speak returns with a new round of highly-limited, hand silk-screened 12" showcases, the project's resumption heralded by the ever-brilliant cosmic abstractions of space-rock demigods Pink Floyd. Emerging from the belly of the United Kingdom's psychedelic scene, the baby of seedy London nightclub gigging, drug induced psychic-alteration and an uncanny attraction to the musical decoding of extraterrestrial majesty lost and rediscovered, Pink Floyd redefined rock music during the cultural revolutions of the late 1960s. Their visionary and unique equations worked out the precise art of expansionist and heady free rock sound, arriving on the scene at the precise historical moment for their strange visions to be received with open arms -- at the peak of the first wave of psychedelia. The band itself forged a large part of this new culture out of their own strange fantasies, complete with far-reaching thematic punctuations that define the aura and mystique of a true psych-rock pioneer. As the 1970s proceeded, their sound quickly strayed from the path of uncompromising cosmic invention towards the arguably more egotistical meanderings of progressive rock, but much of their early work remains quintessential staples of the kraut-minded cannon. 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene' and 'Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun' are obligatory lessons of a proper space-rock education, shining examples of the UK pioneers' limitless early ambition that still fuels the heroic myth of these baffling immortals of transcendental medium-ship and timeless cosmic foresight. A blueprint for four decades of psychedelic experimentations to follow, these early specimens of Pink Floyd's finest hour weather the passing of transient culture's constantly rotating billboard, remaining monuments of rock history and units of measurement for future psychedelia's brave new explorations into universes and dimensions waiting to be unearthed by the innovators of the light."

Artist:	EXOS
Title:	We
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	STS 003EP

Yes, this is the same Icelandic dub-techo artist who previously released a bunch of late 90s classics on Force Inc. and Thule. One-sided record (sort of, there is a side 2 -- it has something to do with how marihuana might be a drug), 180 gram RTI pressing, absolutely gigantic sounds. "'Reflection shows us that our image of happiness is thoroughly colored by the time to which the course of our own existence has assigned us. The kind of happiness that could arouse envy in us exists only in the air we have breathed, among people we could have talked to, women who could have given themselves to us. In other words, our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the image of redemption. The same applies to our view of the past, which is the concern of history. The past carries with it a temporal index by which it is referred to redemption. There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply.' --Walter Benjamin. Self-determination, greatness, eternity. Make your reality and it becomes you. Put your heart and soul into what you love and others will recognize your sincerity, seek you out and reward your brilliance: from this comes greatness and glory, infinite and undeniable -- a fraternity of the eternal. And yet with each successive epoch, the present greatness of our moment, our time, disintegrates and disperse -- becomes the mere stepping stone, the quintessential prerequisite to a future heralded anew as 'the great epoch of our time.' We fight an impossible war for historical cultural supremacy, and we do so blindly and selfishly, determined to achieve that greatness that we know has not yet settled down with one generation immovable throughout time. Secretly we pity these past fetes of culture, assured that ours is the time, the moment of greatness, importance and ultimate historical worth. So our art morphs from what was once practiced at first as a matter of self-fulfillment, personal necessity and fraternal interchange & enjoyment to one of vein self-service & epic self-deceit. When we continue to ignore the fact that art is no longer a social endeavor---that it no longer participates in and affects the real social changes occurring around us, it's vitality inextricably tied to our historical standing -- and allow it to remain autonomous from the very real material conditions that, in no small measure, make up the entirety of our current existence, we willingly clear the path to our own irrelevance, soon to be remembered, at very best, as a shimmering piece of antiquity typical of the old world, one that once held a vital and vivacious beauty in its moment, but nay, no longer, sentenced to the dungeon of the specialists of the past. But, it is too late... for we will soon become they. Slow To Speak returns with their latest label release, pressed on limited 180 gram vinyl w/ Japanese obi."

Artist:	BAUHAUS
Title:	Bela Lugosi's Dead (Slow To Speak RMX)
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	TEENY 103109EP

"A perfect heralding of the special morbidity that is Halloween, 'Bela Lugosi's Dead'---the obscure 12"-only masterpiece from indisputable goth/rock kings Bauhaus -- finds itself under the scruple of the scalpel wielded with curious biological fascination of self-endowed surgeons Slow To Speak. While his body remains mostly intact, a few 'arrangements' have been made to Mr. 'Lugosi's' corpse: the pettiness of a few vocal mishaps are swept away and the entire bone structure extended to uncanny length to produce a concentrated specimen of dark, funky percussive rock mastery. Not shying away from the allegedly childish implications of this special time, Slow To Speak embrace them ten-fold, blowing into their trumpets of dark calling the clear echo of gruesome display and musical fascination of aural celebration, the edit's stripped down, haunted wailings a cursed display of grotesque celebration that beckons forth the children of the night to put down their keyboards, espresso-machines and whatever other modern tools of wage-labor to march in unison to the dark calling of the equinox. Obviously this mutated savagery has made 'Lugosi's' corpse primed and ready for the party or individual autopsy, and for this purpose his remains should be exploited to the maximum effect. We can only hope that his spirit lives on through this especially limited, hand-silk-screened-sleeve release to haunt future generations unprepared for the fury of Bauhaus' exceptionally noteworthy work." One-sided release, with Sicksheep (Kenny B. Harris) etching on the B-side.

Artist:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Title:	Elektion Propaganda
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	2LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	TRS 001LP

"A 2xLP, 13 track assault, sonic resistance by Eddie Gale, Eddie Kendricks, Pharoah Sanders and more. This LP was compiled by 'slow to speak' the night before Bush was re-elekted -- the eve of returned darkness. Extremely LIMITED! As the fallout dust of betrayal settles, the disillusionment holding grip over our world has only multiplied more aggressively, maliciously, hopelessly -- particularly in this morbid haven of empire that we call the good old U.S. of A. Without learning curve or memory, downtrodden masses of confused, aimless, futureless whores of persuasion stand and stare at the terrifying beast of their own creation -- dumb, mute & blind as ever before -- only now robbed of that warm glow of 'hope' that once promised to resurrect their dignity with the magical wave of the wand & the miraculous words 'yes we can.' Of course, the real veterans of this comedic farce have known the secret all too long, keeping it close from the very moment they wake to their tired hour of sleep, only too unsurprised at the social purgatory lingering over our heads as we past the first decade of our blessed new millennia. Their simple recognition of the most obvious yet seldom accounted for realities is the last vestige of sanity that ties our tattered & tired existences together into some semblance of meaning. It is these few who look on calmly as the mass hysteria of pseudo social-democratic (in)action takes hold of any formerly free-minded individuals left in this world, and it is these warriors of sight & truth that heard the hallow cries of reform and answered in no uncertain times, 'We are not fooled.' 'In a world that really is topsy-turvy, truth is a moment of falsehood.' Now that the steady decay of commodity society passed off as 'change' is beginning to show itself for what it always was, the articulations of these stoics of resistance are all the more necessary and vital. Indeed, the very act of recognition and verbalization is the most radical gesture in itself---perhaps the last of our time. Along the wall of distortion, lies & generalized falsehood runs the parallel narrative of reality, a story seeped in agony, heartbreak & loss---the difference is that this story is true, the former a fairytale, a pipe dream rooted in appearance and nothing more. Tragically, truth fades fast while the lies of the old world linger like the smell of death, making the imperative to chronicle the few instances in our political, social & artistic history when total refusal showed itself openly & defiantly all the more imperative. Proud to cast themselves out of the circle of favor to utter but a few words against the beast that wants only to cover these words with the comforting warmth of its own justification, these scarce warriors resolve to walk the shining path of righteousness and say what we all secretly know but can't bare admit. This is our collective retribution, our last act of defiance to an absolute and all-encompassing tyranny that threatens to end our very existences if our present course is maintained. Even if we fail to quell this storm, in our dying hour we must at least remember that there were once many, then fewer, but always some that articulated and resolved to overthrow what plagued them incessantly, without concern for status, acceptance or personal benefit. These are the only heroes our time will ever know." Revolutionary gatefold jacket in heavy PVC sleeves, with printed inner sleeves and Japanese obi.

Artist:	INNER CITY
Title:	Pennies From Heaven
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	TRS 016EP

"The latest song to join the Slow To Speak remix repertoire hails from the glory years of quality dance records, a track which for the most part has faded away into the dark corners of house music's subconscious. 'Pennies From Heaven' is one of those records that epitomizes 'party jam' whilst doubling as an intelligent, honest piece of cathartic escapism in its most sincere and innocent form, and for that, this record had to be honored and brought back into this world with care -- protected with vigilance against the hordes of mediocre, lazy and pointless vocal house records of the modern era. The latter of these do not speak to us, they fail to stay with us and shape our essence... and so they must be rejected. Fear not, though, for here it is, 'Pennies From Heaven,' reborn and in its most fit shape ever, having re-strengthened 10 fold its former powers of party rockage and ready to once again shine its light in these new days of darkness." One-sided release.

Artist:	DOOBIE BROTHERS, THE
Title:	Long Train Runnin' (Dennis Perez Remix)
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	W 218EP

Comes in a Warner Brothers Records promo sleeve. Tracklist: A1. Long Train Runnin' (Dennis Perez Classic Remix); B1. Long Train Runnin' (Dee's Churchapella); B2. Long Train Runnin' (Dee's F Train Beats). "Dennis Perez remixes, as played heavily by Joe Claussell. The all time classic rock/disco vocal 'Long Train Runnin'' gets the new & most respectful remix treatment from Brooklyn's own Dennis Perez. Taking the original masters of The Doobie Brothers' cathartic masterpiece and remixing it with the classic NYC wit of original disco ingenuity, Perez transforms & elevates the original magic, reformulating & refreshing it's most powerful base elements to create something entirely new -- and yet still definitively classic in it's own contemporary right. With brand new arrangement, direction & instrumentation -- most notably the stunning organ solo that really punctuates the piece right in the midst of classic's triumphant crescendo -- add a new force & vitality to this already timeless production. With a high quality pressing & replica artwork to boot this 12" reinvigorates our historical gaze on the classic disco genre, reminding us that the notorious 'edit' is not the only means by which we can appreciate & re-contextualize the past."

Artist:	COLLIER, KEN
Title:	A Tribute To Ken Collier
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	WHITE 21796EP

"What Larry Levan is to NY and Ron Hardy is to Chicago, Ken Collier is to the prodigious city of Detroit. Before Mojo electrified the airwaves with his eclectic funk and 'The Wizard' Jeff Mills vied for radio supremacy, Ken Collier was busy laying down the visionary groundwork that would eventually birth techno, defining the sound of generations to come and enriching an economically stagnant city with the invaluable cultural capital of dance music. Playing in predominantly gay and black clubs scattered across the Detroit metro area, Collier pushed the boundaries of genre definition and segregation as all the great programmers of our age have, infusing the landscape of American uptempo soul with the cold analog repetition of Europe's growing synth musics, the recognizable formula that occurred at that specific moment in American culture that lead down the inevitable road to house, techno and garage. But Collier was more than a historical agent that helped to create the predestined formula for electronic dance music to grow; he was, without a doubt, a brilliant and absolutely visionary disco DJ who epitomized the grassroots music community of 1970s & 1980s Detroit, a man of impeccable aural genius that introduced, championed and eternalized many of the indisputable classics that typify this very special city of the middle North. Focusing on the life source of all dance music, the club, and maintaining this as his immovable base of operations, Collier was the first DJ in Detroit to play the first techno records proper, combining these otherworldly discoveries with the solid foundations of soulful dance that he had been laboring to concretize for years previous at such legendary clubs as Todd's and Heaven, where he held residencies. Indeed, Collier was always ahead of the curb in this way, a knack that earned him city-wide supremacy among those heads really 'in-the-know.' To him, this new style was a definite break with the past -- but still rooted firmly in the same common roots as archetypal disco, having the creative intuitiveness to integrate this music seamlessly with the classics he had already eternalized through his tireless years of work. Unfettered by the constrictions of radio play and loyal to the deeply discerning gay underground that ruled the U.S.'s underground at that time, Collier was the most inventive and forward-looking DJ in Detroit, period. His death in 1996 was an absolute tragedy and an undeniable loss for the dance music community at large, occurring just as his due recognition was coming about. But fame was never his aim, as with any sincere artist devoted entirely to his work; the creative spirit of his breathtaking DJ sets and ingenious though underappreciated production and remixing work speaks for itself. Despite all obstacles, the re-writing of histories and the lost memories of a generation dissipated in time, his legacy has lived on to this day, passed down through faint whispers and guarded secrets of the true underground, a quiet but ceaseless wind that has finally come around once more with this deserved 12" compilation tribute to some of the legend's greatest work." Tracklist: A1. Tell Me That I'm Dreaming; B1. Ride The Rhythm; B2. Happy Days

Artist:	WHITE STRIPES, THE
Title:	7 Nation Army/Carolina Drama
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XLT 580EP

"One of the last great rock bands of our generation, The White Stripes have proven---finally, decisively, impressively---that the masses can still sign on to an act of exceptional musical integrity without needing to dumb themselves down to the level of common idiocy. Indeed, much of the group's massive success comes as a surprise to those versed in the legacy of quality rock music, uncertain how to explain their rise to fame under the banner of raw, garage-infused, punk-aligned D.I.Y. ingenuity. Conceptually sound, sonically ferocious & totally committed to their craft, Jack & Meg White have recorded, preformed & toured tirelessly since their founding in 1997, proselytizers of minimal, raw lo-fi rock & blues music without the tiresome retro gimmicks or superfluously ironic self-positioning of some of their lesser peers. Taking the independent garage rock aesthetic out of its archaic cryonics and infusing it with a savvy, post-modern wittiness & boyish excitement for the craft & art of playing music, The White Stripes have formulated their very own take on these well-established subgenres, determined to weight their catchy & irresistibly gritty guitar/drum one-two punch with a creative knack for the art of the lyric. Heartfelt, funky rock-gospel at it's very best, The White Stripes have subsumed so many seemingly disparate crafts of American guitar music and assembled a creature of monstrously creative, beautifully sincere proportions, a miracle of Western traditions delivered with the undeniable talent of band-leader Jack White. A unifying force of independent musical consensus, The White Stripes might just be the last pop group to claim inarguable talent, a bridge between the increasingly dispersed underground rock subcultures of late & the highly visible, increasingly scarce integral rock megagroup."

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page

Artist:	STEELY DAN
Title:	Peg/Caves Of Altamira/Do It Again
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	ABCD 9541EP

Artist:	COLOURBLIND/NY'S FINEST
Title:	Core 1993 - Nothing Better/Do You Feel Me
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	CORE 093FG-EP

Artist:	LED ZEPPELIN
Title:	Stairway To Heaven
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	FPE 627EP

Artist:	RUFUS AND CHAKA KHAN
Title:	Any Love/Better Days
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	MR 803EP

Artist:	JACKSON, MICHAEL
Title:	I Am Love/The Lady In My Life
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	RA 3025EP

Artist:	RUSSELL, ARTHUR
Title:	Is It All Over My Face
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SLX 1222EP

Artist:	WAR/ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS
Title:	Gypsy Man (Live)/House Of The Rising Sun
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SP 1222EP

Artist:	DEVO
Title:	Mongoloids/S.I.B./Satisfaction
Label:	SLOW TO SPEAK
Format:	12"
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	TT 069EP