Hardback. 816 pages. "No band has reshaped the possibilities of popular music like The Velvet Underground. Formed in New York in 1965, the Velvets emerged from the nexus of art, fashion, politics, music and counterculture. Although widespread popularity and acclaim evaded them during their four-album lifespan, their enduring, cross-generational appeal meant the Velvets could count iconic contemporaries like Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix as fans, alongside future legends such as Roxy Music, the Pretenders and Sonic Youth. Do What You Fear Most chronicles how an unlikely group of upstarts came to define the musical zeitgeist. In a sprawling and engrossing narrative, Richie Unterberger follows the group from their disparate origins to their ascendancy as Andy Warhol's Factory house band in New York City. It explores the creative alchemy between the core trio of Lou Reed, John Cale, and Nico, the shocking exits and ever-changing lineups, as well as the wider New York cultural scene of the period. Rigorously researched and packed with previously undocumented insights, this book features many first-hand interviews with the group's associates, as well as material newly unearthed from the Lou Reed Archive and the Andy Warhol Archive, alongside never-before-seen images and ephemera."

"There's an irony inherent in the term 'postpunk.' Many of the groups that define the genre (think Pere Ubu or Cabaret Voltaire) existed for several years before punk. But these outfits had little hope of finding an audience until punk stirred up an appetite for the extreme, while also spawning a new breed of independent labels that could support challenging music. This Heat are a prime example. Formed in early 1976 by drummer Charles Hayward, guitarist Charles Bullen and 'non-musician' Gareth Williams, the group were initially unaware of what was brewing elsewhere in London, yet they were driven by similar impulses: to make noise expressive of the era's turbulence. Instead of punk's crude reduction of rock 'n' roll, This Heat took their bearings from expansive inspirations: free jazz, Captain Beefheart, musique concrète, and reggae's disorienting dub techniques. Vital to their evolution was Cold Storage, a disused meat fridge in Brixton where the band rehearsed. Produced by This Heat with David Cunningham and Anthony Moore, their 1979 debut was collaged out of cassette tapes and recordings made during ultra-cheap graveyard shifts at The Workhouse. The jump-cuts in sound quality were deliberately designed to make the album more unsettled and jarring. The first two principles of This Heat's mission statement -- 'All possible processes. All channels open.' -- could have been co-signed by many pre-punk experimentalists. It's the third part -- '24 hour alert.' -- that makes This Heat archetypally post-punk, crystallizing the 'totally-wired' mood of paranoid vigilance they shared with peers like Scritti Politti and The Pop Group. Soft power -- the mind-control of television and advertising -- was an obsession; several tracks take their titles from the gogglebox ('Testcard,' 'Horizontal Hold'). But hard power -- in particular, geopolitical dominance -- is also addressed in tracks like 'The Fall of Saigon.' Perhaps the most startling piece here is '24 Track Loop.' Breakbeat-like drums are processed using the Eventide Harmonizer, a machine famously used on Bowie's Low. The song's creaky textures and pitch-shifted beats anticipate '90s jungle, but the entire album is a controlled explosion of ideas. Nearly fifty years on, This Heat's debut is something the world has still not completely caught up with." --Simon Reynolds

2026 repress; reissue, originally released on CD in 2005. Eric Dolphy's final studio album is hailed as one of the finest examples of mid-60s post-bop. Dolphy, having recorded the album in February 1964, was in Europe less than six weeks later and his all-too-brief life ended less than two months after that. It marked his last flurry of original compositions and is considered his apex. It is fascinating to consider whether he would have moved past or away from the album in 1965, had he lived. Though Dolphy should not be considered an avant-garde musician by the term's most common definitions, most interpretations of Out To Lunch have been done by players working squarely in that area. So it is with this album, the most ambitious in its recreation of the five-tune disc (with one original added to the final "Straight Up And Down", extending the piece to almost thirty minutes). All five compositions from the original quintet LP are revisited in the same order, the record sleeve even duplicates the old album jacket, although a photo taken by Daidō Moriyama inside Tokyo's Shinjuku railway station replaces the enigmatic "Will Be Back" sign. Otomo Yoshihide first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde, and contemporary classical. Recognizable themes ("Hat and Beard," "Out to Lunch," "Straight Up and Down") appear, and individual players -- including Alfred Harth on bass clarinet -- don't carry forward echoes from the past in the spirit of a sincere and heartfelt homage. However, a good deal of the time all bets are off; in addition to the usual brass, reeds, bass, and drums (and of course a bit of vibraphone, here played by Takara Kumiko) are such sonic paraphernalia as sine waves, contact mike, no-input mixing board, and, of course, "computer." Otomo himself plays electric guitar. From composition to composition and even during episodes within compositions, the band takes radically different approaches. There are blasts of free jazz energy not too far removed from the Peter Brötzmann Tentet, an impression reinforced by the presence of spluttering wild man Mats Gustafsson on baritone sax. Not surprisingly and often in contrast with the Dolphy original, the music is dense and filled to overflowing with sounds -- sometimes due to fundamental reworkings in structure rather than just the larger size of the ensemble. Dolphy is transported into the 21st century and allowed to romp through modern developments in music.

French label Latency presents Estradas (Versions) -- a dynamic reimagining of the acclaimed collaboration between drummer-composer Valentina Magaletti and Afro-Portuguese producer Nídia. Following Estradas' recognition as one of 2024's Best Albums by Pitchfork, The Wire, Resident Advisor, Artforum, Bandcamp, and more, Estradas (Versions) invites a diverse lineup of producers and DJs to deconstruct and reimagine the raw percussive language initially crafted by Magaletti and Nídia. Where the original Estradas channeled their distinct rhythmic sensibilities into a bold sonic statement, this collection pushes those ideas further -- opening the material to radical transformation across tempo, genre, and mood. One of the leading baile funk innovators from Belo Horizonte, DJ Anderson do Paraíso opens the release by transforming "Andiamo" into a slow-burning, hallucinatory drift. Mexico-based Rosa Pistola and Freebot follow with "Rapido," infusing it with syncopated, raw heat drawn from the pulse of underground Latin dancefloors. Lebanese-Australian producer DJ Plead pares "Sicilia" down to its core, distilling its essence into stripped-back, polyrhythmic tension. On "Mata," Brazilian DJ and producer BADSISTA delivers a fierce, bass-heavy version driven by slicing synths and unrelenting club pressure. Multidisciplinary artist FAUZIA sharpens the rhythmic intricacy of "Nasty" with her signature blend of speed and emotion. London-born DJ, producer, and label founder Sherelle -- known for her high-octane 160bpm mix of footwork and jungle -- injects "Estradas" with blistering breakbeat energy, reframing its urgency through a razor-sharp UK lens. Chinese musician and sound artist Yu Su offers a fluid, atmospheric reinterpretation of the same track, softening its edges while preserving its momentum. Scottish composer and producer Fergus Jones pulls "No Promises" into hypnotic new rhythmic terrain. Dominican producer and multidisciplinary artist Kelman Duran stretches "Ta A Bater Ya" into a shadowy, reverberant space, while Lebanese composer and multi-instrumentalist Charif Megarbane and its Cosmic Analog Ensemble reimagines it with layered, cinematic textures echoing vintage library music and psych-jazz soundtracks. These artists treat Estradas as raw material - reframing its structures and reactivating its rhythmic possibilities through entirely new prisms. What emerges is not a conventional remix album, but a vibrant constellation of versions: a response to Estradas' percussive provocations, and an extension of its spirit of exploration -- all while keeping its pulse alive.

2026 repress. Since hard-snagging ears and feet in 2023 with 12"s for FELT and his own label, Guy Brewer's Carrier has become the go-to project for those who had almost given up on chasing this sort of ultra-subtle but vitally distinctive new permutations in dance music. For the past two years his unpredictable variations within a style have kept listeners all tip-toed and seat-edge with organizations of a finely chiseled percussive palette and smoldering ambient noise that distills the salient aspects and spirits of D&B, dub techno, and electro-acoustic music with utterly unique traction. In effect, he's enacted a clear leap of imagination and proprioception from previous work issued as part of Commix and solo as Shifted that only continues to reveal absorbing new fissures and hallucinatory psychoacoustics on this first album detail. Previewed at Berlin Atonal '25, Rhythm Immortal now sees Brewer tilt the project into slower, resoundingly atmospheric realms, better to luxuriate in the instinctive guile and integer-stepping style 'n pattern of his incredible sound. At the album's poles, a vocal cameo by cult gynoid Voice Actor follows from Gavsborg's on a preceding 7" single to ideally model his sound's mutability and compatibility with trip hop forms, and Memotone helps seal the deal with a hovering glow lent to "Offshore," whilst Carrier jostles the reins throughout with masterful control of his thing, crisply purposed to the album canvas. In that context it's perfectly adaptable to bodies supine or in motion.

"'METALLIC K.O.' is the remarkable album of Iggy & The Stooges confrontational 'last ever gig' (until their reunion almost 30 years later). Effectively the fourth Stooges album with then brand new and unheard songs, it was released in 1976 three years after Raw Power while Iggy was in limbo. Soon after the gig Iggy checked into a mental hospital. The sound of kamikaze Iggy provocatively abusing his audience and then dodging eggs and bottles thrown by a biker gang enhanced Iggy's reputation in the embryonic punk scene as the Punk Godfather. Nothing like it had been heard before. It became a must-have album in the emerging punk scene and put Iggy & the Stooges back in the spotlight. This 50th Anniversary edition on limited transparent blue vinyl has the original LP track list. In the 2007 CD re-mastering, an original tape-speed error was discovered and corrected -- so now for the first time on vinyl the album can be heard at the correct pitch. The album contains Iggy Pop's story of the events surrounding the gigs as well as contemporaneous reports from Nick Kent, Giovanni Dadomo and Lester Bangs. An essential album in Iggy's history."

"Heartbreakers L.A.M.F.: The Found '77 Masters is the definitive edition of one of punk rock's most infamous and beloved albums -- finally heard as it was meant to sound. Recorded in London in 1977 by the ex-New York Dolls pairing of Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, L.A.M.F. became legendary not only for its snarling energy and classic songs but also for its supposedly 'muddy' mix -- an audio flaw that dogged every release for decades. The mystery began when Track Records collapsed and the original master tape vanished, forcing later reissues to rely on remixes and outtakes. That changed in 2020, when a forgotten 'Copy Master 12.7.77' was discovered in the archive of Track Records director and co-producer Danny Secunda. The tape revealed a crystal-clear mix of L.A.M.F. -- just as the band and producers originally intended. Though none of the original Heartbreakers lived to hear it, this rediscovered version restores the full punch, swagger, and grit of the 1977 sessions. Pressed on limited transparent vinyl and housed in a printed inner sleeve featuring photos by Roberta Bayley and liner notes by Simon Wright."

Ricardo Villalobos runs wild on Mohammad Reza Mortazavi's Persian tombak hand drum actions, expanding a four-minute kernel of inspiration into 24 minutes of mesmerizing polyrhythmic traction. From an original "Swamp" piece that practically recalls Ricardo's style of slinky minimal techno sorcery to begin with, the Chilean-German maverick derives a more driving tract of rough-hewn rhythmic grit bound to hypnotize floors for the duration. Accentuating the undulating bass and dialing up the volume whilst retaining the frictional grind of the original, Villalobos gets right inside the groove with typically obsessive tekkerz, plucking out additional string motifs and tempering the flow with signature, taut but sinuous, loosey goosey flex that cross-pollinates cultures and gets right under the skin of the thing. Ricardo Villalobos (b. 1970, Chile) is a pioneering figure in minimal techno, celebrated for his hypnotic and groovy approach to rhythm. Raised in Germany after his family fled Pinochet's regime, Villalobos was drawn early to percussion -- he began playing congas and bongos at eleven, developing a tactile relationship to rhythm that would later inform his distinctive production style. Immersed in both Latin American folk traditions and the emerging house and techno scenes of late-'80s Europe, he began DJing and producing in the early 1990s, quickly achieving cult status within global club culture. Mohammad Reza Mortazavi (b. 1979, Iran) is a virtuoso percussionist known for his groundbreaking work with the tombak and daf, traditional Persian drums that he has radically redefined through new playing techniques. Mortazavi began playing the tombak at the age of six. By nine, he had already outpaced his teacher and won Iran's national tombak competition -- a distinction he would earn six more times. By his early twenties, he was widely regarded as one of the foremost players of the instruments. Since then, his music has continued to evolve, embracing new forms beyond tradition.

Caterina Barbieri and Bendik Giske's At Source resounds music as wellspring, that which is essential and unknowable, and yet utterly primary. It finds two acclaimed composer-musicians building a world together in self-contained collaboration between analogue synthesis and an extended approach to the saxophone that conjures its own universe of sound. It is at once intimate and cosmic, drawing on the challenges and possibilities of their artistic exchange, tearing down technique to access all the expansive possibilities of their sonic meeting point. At Source is a document of the world of sound to be conjured when two artists strive for something together, discovering the expansions and limitations of performance by bodies and machines. It is not an exercise in assimilation, but in productive exchange and creative confrontation. It does not draw on outside energies or influences, but grapples with what there is to find in their respective playing. Barbieri and Giske first met and were enthralled by one another's performances at Kunsthaus Glarus in 2019, a meeting that spurred conversations on the power of transitions as a compositional force. Giske later contributed a rework of Fantas for Fantas Variations (Editions Mego, 2021), an ambitious undertaking to rescore Barbieri's work for his saxophone and voice, a challenge Giske had started undertaking two years prior as an ongoing practice of transcription. Giske, who was on the brink of releasing his sophomore album, Cracks, then joined Barbieri's light-years tour, which functioned as an inaugural incarnation of her newborn label and platform. Through the tour, they continued to develop material live, and this release, laid down in the studio, is true to that ever-evolving process of creation, where live feedback stays essential to the vitality of this collaborative effort. The tracks are each named with two evocative words that contain the two poles of their sound. Theirs is both abstract and cosmic, in the synth as machine undermined by Barbieri's naturalistic playing, and in Giske's continuous exploration of the symbiosis between his instrument, voice, and body. These binaries, of body and machine, posed various challenges, notably in how the stepped patterns Barbieri uses were near-impossible to translate for Giske's body to perform, and other times where mathematical resolutions were needed to sync their playing.

A fascinating record of Hawkwind's activities in 1970 with all tracks recorded for BBC radio. Side one is the band's first Top Gear session transmitted in September and side two is the Sunday Concert recorded just after their legendary appearance at the Isle Of Wight festival. Comes with full recording details and extensive sleeve notes.

Reverie is the first full-length collaboration between Ori Kaplan and Lihu Melamed -- a cinematic, soul-soaked LP that drifts between modal jazz, cinematic scores and psychedelic rock, released on Batov Records. Saxophonist and producer Ori Kaplan is best known as a founding member of Balkan Beat Box, for his work with Gogol Bordello and more recently, Shotnez, while Melamed brings a deep studio craft honed over years as an engineer, producer and multi-instrumentalist. Together, they create a record that feels both ancient and immediate: music that evokes old biblical films, sun-bleached Western soundtracks and '70s jazz explorations, while remaining playful, spontaneous and deeply human. There's a strong cinematic undercurrent throughout Reverie. Think Charles Heston wandering through an Old Testament epic; Ennio Morricone soundtracking a desert horizon; Nino Rota scoring Fellini's Rome; or Pasolini filming in Ethiopia. Minor-key strings, modal structures and unhurried grooves sit alongside echoes of Mingus and Yusef Lateef, with Ori's baritone sax and flutes guiding the listener through shifting scenes and moods. Melamed's influence pulls in another direction: the spirit of '70s rock and psychedelia -- The Doors, Woodstock, King Crimson -- with organs, guitars and a sense of scale that balances Kaplan's love of folk traditions, heavy percussion, Klezmer modes and Middle Eastern textures. The result is a careful blend of composition and instinct, where structure is often nudged aside in favor of feel. Throughout Reverie, flutes play a central role -- sometimes delicate, sometimes ritualistic -- acting as a thread that binds the album's many references into a single journey. It's a record that rewards immersion: music that unfolds like a film, or a half-remembered dream. Reverie is not about nostalgia, but about continuity -- the passing of musical language from one generation to another, reshaped by experience, curiosity and trust. A debut LP that sounds lived-in, expansive and quietly confident. Featuring Tamir Muskat and Itamar Ziegler.

LP version. "This is an extremely rare recording when the band was a five-piece with two guitar players. Live at Spotsylvania captures Pentagram performing an all-night backyard concert in Spotsylvania, Virginia, at bassist Martin Sweeney's mother's house, in front of roughly 500 fans camping out for the weekend. Recorded around 1978 during the band's short High Voltage era, the show began at 1 a.m. on a foggy night and featured rare songs with a raw, powerful performance. The audio blends a low-level board mix with ambient mic recording for surprisingly strong sound quality. A memorable moment came when a firecracker went off perfectly on the beat during the heavy second half of '20 Buck Spin,' echoing through the trees."

Blu-Ray format. Region code 0. "Children Of The Wicker Man is a deeply personal and emotionally revealing documentary that examines the complicated legacy of filmmaker Robin Hardy, best known for directing the 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man. Directed by his sons, art historian Dominic Hardy and filmmaker Justin Hardy, the film offers an intimate exploration of their father's life and the lasting impact of his work -- both on cinema and on those closest to him. Through decades-old letters, a return to the film's original locations, and candid interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, the documentary uncovers the turbulent history behind the making of a horror masterpiece and the personal cost of its creation. Beyond the film's celebrated status, Children Of The Wicker Man confronts the darker realities of Robin Hardy's life, including his battles with the studio British Lion, his fractured relationship with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, and the financial and personal controversies that reverberated through his family. The result is a raw and unflinching portrait that blends film history with deeply personal storytelling, as the Hardy brothers reflect on their own experiences growing up in the shadow of a legendary yet deeply flawed figure. This worldwide disc premiere includes additional features such as an audio interview with co-directors Justin Hardy, Dominic Hardy, and Chris Nunn, a Q&A session with the filmmakers and producer Alison Palmer, a making-of featurette, and the theatrical trailer. Critically acclaimed for its honesty and emotional depth, the film has been described as 'an incredibly brave and touching documentary' (MovieJawn) and 'a deeply emotional tour-de-force' (Filmhounds), offering a unique perspective on the intersection of art, legacy, and personal truth."

The vinyl version of this release compiles the tracks from Super Furry Animals' two earliest EPs originally released by Ankst. Holding the world record for the longest ever EP title the first EP --Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogochynygofod (In Space), was released in 1995, followed in the same year by Moog Droog, with both EPs making up the eight-song track listing of the vinyl version of Precreation Percolation. Later that year, with a record deal on the table and future classics such as God! Show Me Magic and Hangin' With Howard Marks already making up the SFA's set list, the band's path following "two years of chaos" (including a legendary 1993 debut 'gig' at Bangor University's Banana Lounge, lasting all of five minutes due to technical and chemical misadventure) was set. In the album's liner notes, singer, Gruff Rhys writes: "It would have been the best gig ever, had we not daisy chained so many synthesizers together, that it resulted in a terminal systems failure." By summer they'd joined Oasis, Primal Scream, and The Jesus and Mary Chain in the Creation Records family, leading to a huge London signing party that saw members of the band famously thrown out of. The term of intriguing genre experimentation, spanning long-form electro, blissed out instrumentals and expansive prog-influenced rock, heard across much of Precreation Percolation was subsequently refined and channeled into their thrilling, 1996 debut album, Fuzzy Logic and their untamed live performances. While consciously and frequently referring to the unheard, untold and unforeseen as a naturally nostalgia-resistant band, Super Furry Animals look ahead to reconvening with fans to celebrate their shared history.

The last gig played by The Who before the Quadrophenia tour was this seven-track "greatest hits" set, broadcast on Dutch television in March 1973. Featuring material from Tommy and Who's Next, the encore was a lengthy but engrossing version of "Magic Bus." Comes with full recording details and extensive sleeve notes.

Laurence Pike's Possible Utopias for Jazz Quintet represents a search for freedom, potentiality -- liberatory strategies that transcend the ego and the solitary, atomized figure. But in this case, the album title is also a red herring, because there is no jazz quintet here -- just Pike, his drums, and his machines, not so much an ersatz ensemble as a purely notional one, a thought experiment equipped with drumsticks, circuitry, and the desire to go beyond hardwired limits. And the results incorporate the vocabulary of jazz, along with that of ambient, electronica, and post-rock. The Sydney-based musician has a long history of coloring outside the lines, not just in his solo recordings -- including four albums for the Leaf label between 2018 and 2024 -- but also in the trio Pivot (later PVT); Szun Waves (alongside saxophonist Jack Wyllie and Border Community's Luke Abbott); Triosk, which recorded an album with Jan Jelinek in 2003 (FAITBACK 005LP); and even post-punk titans Liars, whom he joined in late 2018. Of his first album for Balmat, Pike says, "My loose concept was: What does music sound like when the expectations of late capitalism are removed from it? How might a jazz musician from an idealized culture of the future, or even another world, utilize musical language when the conventions of style and marketing are no longer a factor in music making?" That inquiry, he says, connects to his "guiding principle: that the purpose of music is to access something bigger than the individual, and reveal a sense of possibility and freedom in the world to the listener. To create an understanding that the future can be something other than what we imagined or expect, even unconsciously." Heady ideas, but plug into his stream-of-metaconsciousness flow and you may start to intuit what motivates him. There is a deeply lyrical expression in these pieces, but also a sense of exploded perspective, of ideas approached from more angles than any one mind could dream up. Of a collectivized consciousness, of mycelial networks branching across tone and rhythm and timbre, of ideas articulated in distributed fashion, nodal points dancing across drum heads. Pike's imaginary quintet is hardly without precedent; it's a continuation of concepts floated across Jan Jelinek's Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records (FAITBACK 001LP), Burnt Friedman's many guises, and much of the recombinant improv of the International Anthem roster, not to mention the far corners of ECM's catalog in the late 1970s and 1980s.

To mark its 20th birthday, Lisbon-born label Enchufada is releasing A Lisbon Club Story -- 20 hand-picked tracks bridging bass, trap, grime and rave with baile funk, kuduro, batida, Afro-house and more dance-oriented styles. A mix of 12 archive selections and eight fresh cuts, the LP unites some of the boldest champions of Afro-diasporic and global bass music today, from household names in Portugal such as Buraka Som Sistema -- back with their first track in 12 years, DJ Marfox and Shaka Lion to new-gen dynamos like Vanyfox and international stars like Dengue Dengue Dengue and Mina. Twenty years ago, Enchufada was launched as a vehicle for the debut EP from Lisbon's then-emerging Buraka Som Sistema. Only 500 CD copies of From Buraka To The World were pressed at the time, each sleeve handmade using recycled paper sourced from various factories around Lisbon -- giving them a unique DIY look pieced together from adverts for baby oil and paint. The CDs flew off the shelves in a week, marking the start of a journey that would take in era-defining records like the M.I.A- assisted Sound of Kuduro and African Scream, and much more. Also features Bison & Squareffekt , Tusabe, Joss Dee, Shaka Lion, Vanyfox, Traz Agua, BLOQO, Branko, Pedro da Linha, Petty, Roulet, Djeff, DJ N.K., Dotorado Pro, Branko, Alex Rita & Bison, Nané, Pedro da Linha, and Deekapz. Gatefold sleeve.

Hot on the heels of their spectacular self-titled debut album, The Handover is back with their second long form composition, New Old Medicine. Aly Eissa (oud), Ayman Asfour (violin), and Jonas Cambien (vintage organ/synth) have been cutting their teeth on the international touring circuit for the past two years, landing from town to town in their seductive spaceship to blow people's minds and then dematerialize into the void. An outline for a new piece began to emerge along the route and late last year during a stop in Berlin, this metamorphosis of the trio's sound was recorded in pristine form by Rabih Beaini at Morphine Studios. Attempting to define the music is not as important as allowing it to define itself -- from person to person, village to village. All we can do is suggest what may resonate to lure you into the arena; psychedelic, folkloric, Egyptian, etc., as these excerpts from the liner notes suggest: "Though one long piece, New Old Medicine moves through several unofficial chapters. It originates in the psychic depths with a pensive melody. Gradually solidifying, the organ's first solo ushers the piece into a swaying, reverent dance. This dance nears its end with a vigorously percussive section on oud, handing it off to the violin for a climactic solo. A momentary pause, then the rhythm thickens, and the musicians ride untethered through the midnight. This frenzy is followed by a calm repose on placid water. But this calm is merely a deep inhale before the final charged ascent into cosmic rapture." Don't sleep on this one! Limited edition vinyl pressing with two-page insert including liner notes by Tucker Wiedenkeller.

In the early 1970s, Roy Ayers formed his own band: Roy Ayers Ubiquity. Its lineup included artists well known to funk and soul fans such as Bernard Purdie, James Mason, and Edwin Birdsong. This 1973 album presents Roy Ayers in the midst of a creative evolution toward a sound increasingly influenced by soul and funk, moving beyond the early phase of his musical career, which was more rooted in orthodox jazz. On Red Black & Green, he teams up with highly accomplished collaborators such as keyboardist Harry Whitaker, arranger and producer William S. Fischer, and Strata-East musicians Charles Tolliver and Sonny Fortune. Here, however, the latter two do not venture into the spiritual jazz sounds so characteristic of their own recordings; instead, together they embrace a sophisticated funk groove where Ayers showcases his extraordinary vibraphone talent. The album includes outstanding versions of "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Day Dreaming," as well as original compositions such as "Cocoa Butter," "Rhythms of Your Mind," and the superb title track, "Red Black & Green." After years out of print, Vampisoul are pleased to present this much-needed vinyl reissue of an essential album in Roy Ayers' career. Pressed on 180g vinyl.

Originally self-released in 2023, Stella Kola, the debut album from Beverly Ketch (Jow Jow, Weeping Bong Band) and Robert Thomas (Sunburned Hand of the Man, Dalthom), now returns in a renewed edition -- bringing wider attention to a record that already felt like a quietly essential artifact from the moment it first appeared. Given the pair's respective roots -- and the presence of collaborators drawn from across the Northeast experimental underground -- one might expect "a brutal blast of acid swirl." Instead, what emerges is something far more unexpected. The album is "steeped, not in noise and dissonance, but in the fragrant, captivating folk of Linda Perhacs, Judee Sill, Karen Dalton, and Bridget St John." From the opening moments the record reveals its core sensibility: "a ballad that digs deep into the psychedelic-folk tradition until it takes root in a freshly sporous permaculture." What follows is a set of songs that feel both carefully assembled and organically grown -- delicate structures held together by a wide circle of contributing musicians, including Wednesday Knudsen (flute), P.G. Six (harp, guitars, keys), Gary War (synth), Jen Gellineau (viola, violin), Willie Lane, L. Gray, and others. Rather than functioning as studio additions, these collaborators form a genuine collective presence. Like many of the '60s folk records it echoes, Stella Kola carries "the feeling of community and camaraderie" at its core, shaping a warmth that runs through the entire release. The album's emotional palette leans toward a quiet, persistent melancholy. Its sound edges into the terrain of Fairport Convention and Pentangle, with references to "Beggar's, Kings, Dark Damsels, and Tarot," yet never settles into revivalism. Instead, Ketch and Thomas extend the tradition outward, refracting it through their own distinctly American, underground language. Even among a prolific and unpredictable network of underground musicians, Stella Kola stands apart. With its return in reissue form, the album reasserts itself not just as a hidden gem, but as an essential document of contemporary folk experimentation -- an intimate, collective work that continues to unfold with time.

A highly influential and sought-after benchmark dub LP, originally released on the Jah Works label in 1995. Produced by the late Rej Forte AKA Jah Rej, who was one of the most creative minds from the UK reggae and dub scene from the last 40 years. The album features recognizable tracks from the Jah Works cannon, but dubbed into oblivion with special effects galore. All tracks played by humans, with the exception of a drum machine. Dub Crusaders feature members of Revolutionary Dub Warriors (On-U Sound, Ariwa), and Radical Dance Faction. Recorded at Channel One under the supervision of Martin Campbell, whose vocals feature twice on this set.

A note from Lawrence English: "Beatriz Ferreyra is a sonic world builder. For six decades she has been responsible for the creation of works that inhabit a place between the living world and the subliminal zones of the unconscious. Her compositions forge new realities, constructed piece by piece, from fragments of places and things we know, reedited and refocused to create something few of us might even imagine possible. Ferreyra's life in sound has transcended from the analog to the digital and back again. She is equally at home with tape manipulation as she is with digital transformations and it is this sense of material agnosticism which has lent her work such a personal quality. She pursues sound in the absolute, and allows it to guide her curiosity. A Distracted God collects three works from Ferreyra, each one a microcosm of listenership that speaks to her wholly consuming practice in sound. The edition takes in both tape and computer-based works, which reveal the very particular ways within which Ferreyra has explored and shaped sound. She remains one of the true pioneers of her generation, a fearless and relentless maker for whom the totality of sound's affect is forever front of mind." Cut at 45 RPM.

A note from Gabriella: "Parasymbiosis -- the ability of two separate organisms to exist closely together. I have long pondered the concept of connectedness in relation to life's existence. The Dalai Lama teaches that destruction of one's neighbor equates to destruction of oneself. In contrast, modern Western culture has placed the individual at the epicenter of existence -- to the detriment of non-humans and humans alike. Ecological Memory influences present or future responses of a community; it is this shared memory that enables organisms, objects and the environment to connect to each other, and to the other. What happens when a community or ecological system loses this memory, this connection? The systems begin to break down; intergenerational memory evolves in rapid short steps, culture and connection becomes unrecognizable. Time speeds up. Yet with the naked eye, the universe reflects slow time. Its very distance provides a sense of stasis. Understanding the night sky could very well be the vastness of time we have forgotten through our ecological memory, our loss of the visible difference between the likes of night and day; non-referenceable and dictated by intangible rhythms that exist beyond the cyclic elements of nature. Through Parasymbiosis I imagined sounds of the inherent connection between the earth and the universe. Contemporary society has rendered invisible the heritage of the night sky and what it teaches us. The wonder and awe it inspires, in its pure, unadulterated form untouched by light pollution and modern satellite activity, has always informed non-human and human life cycles and human culture. In modern times, only 40% of human beings can still see the Milky Way. We have forgotten that the dark sky and the earth reflect each other -- they are, as a metaphor, parasymbiotic. The Electric Cristal (EC) features strongly in Parasymbiosis. It is a microtonal, electro-acoustic instrument that has captured my imagination through its deep and fragile resonance created by touching glass rods encased in aluminum. Ceated by Dylan Crismani (AUS) in 2019, the EC conjures vast soundscapes. Electronics exploit the volatile vibrations and random frequencies that the instrument generates."

Following Murder Ballads [Drift] (2021, SR 506LP) and Murder Ballads [Passages], (2022, SR 510LP) here is the last chapter of the trilogy: Murder Ballads [Incest Songs]. First time on LP vinyl. Textured sleeve with marbled vinyl. Incest Songs is the final chapter of the Murder Ballads trilogy, and its most fully realized expression. Where Drift and Passages explored the post-isolationist frame through voice and single instrument, this third volume dispenses with that approach entirely, opening instead onto a more labyrinthine sonic architecture -- one built from overlapping, saturating, blurring voices, all of them Martyn Bates'. The decision feels both inevitable and quietly inspired. Bates' vocalizations unfold as layered calls and responses, muted and distant echoes, sung whispers and counter-melodies, ultimately resolving into a mesmeric conversation of musical inferences and correspondences. There is a mellifluous, dream-like quality to the whole -- infused with that characteristic stillness that slow, hypnotic unfolding of gossamer subtlety -- yet never quite losing a certain drugged, disquieting beauty beneath its surface. Incest Songs pushes the post-isolationist form further out than either of its predecessors, innovating and extemporizing with a dazzling assurance. And yet, remarkably, this remains a territory still almost entirely unexplored by other artists -- the sole province, it seems, of M.J. Harris and Martyn Bates. As Bates himself reflects: "I feel, in personal terms -- listening to it, I think it's easy to detect that the whole thing has been a truly exhilarating experience for the both of us, realizing and developing this strange, sublime creature of ours -- and now I guess it's up to others to take up the challenge, to build on what we've done -- and I think that there are still SO MANY fantastic possibilities." Re-emerging thirty years after its initial inception -- somewhat surprisingly, Murder Ballads [Incest Songs] still remains/exists in an area overlooked by other artists, an area that truly still remains the sole province of M.J. Harris/Martyn Bates.

Limited edition of 250. Textured sleeve. Marbled yellow flame color. Jean Dubuffet used to define his music as something disordered and dirty. But here, it is a Dubuffet returning from a long journey in Africa, with haunting rhythms that reach trance-like states, corrupted by ErikM's UK Drill.

"With one exception, this disc is a recording of a concert given at the Ateliers Claus in Brussels in March 2024. It was preceded by three short hours of improvisation the day before and the day before that, during which ErikM and I made a series of careful observations of each other's playing. It must be said that neither of us had skimped on transporting a few cases, the contents of which would have allowed us to play several concerts in a row without ever repeating ourselves. Erik had brought his turntables to Brussels, as well as sophisticated electronic machines, accompanied by a virtually infinite sound bank. For my part, I had both a mechanical orchestra and a range of acoustic instruments at my disposal. In two sessions, we eliminated the superfluous and the ineffective. On the evening of the concert, it was through close observation-of each sound, each direction taken by one or the other, each intention, each break-that we composed this record in the moment: vigilant and scrutinizing, like the pairs of eyes on the cover of this album." --Pierre Bastien

Many Many Women by Petr Kotík is a large-scale composition for voices and instruments from 1975-78 on the text of Gertrude Stein's novella of the same name. It was published in Paris in 1910 as part of the book G.M.P. -- Gertrude, Matisse, Picasso. Voices and instruments performed by members of S.E.M. Ensemble and Ostravská banda. In 1972, the book was published again by Dick Higgins in his publishing venture Something Else Press. Kotík used the complete text, which determined the length of the piece. Inspired by his close collaboration with the composer and singer Julius Eastman, Kotík began composing for voice in 1971. Gertrude Stein was the first author Kotík used in a series of compositions on her texts. Many Many Women is the culmination of this series. A performance of the entire composition lasts almost six hours and features three pairs of singers and three pairs of instrumentalists performing in parallel perfect intervals: fifths, fourths, and octaves. It can also be performed in a shorter version with a smaller instrumentation. Starting in the mid-1970s, Many Many Women was performed incrementally, as Kotík continued to compose the piece. The completed composition was premiered in its entirety in 1979, in a series of three consecutive six-hour performances: at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, and in New York City, at Paula Cooper Gallery and at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The current recording of Many Many Women features two sopranos; countertenor; tenor; bass-baritone; bass; two flutes; two trumpets; and two trombones. The poetic nature of the text evokes imagery that can lead to staging. In June 2022, the festival New Opera Days Ostrava (NODO) presented the complete (one movement, six-hour in duration) performance of Many Many Women. Subsequently, the piece was recorded and edited down to a length of a double CD -- 142 minutes of music. The liner notes were written by the Viennese composer Bernhard Lang, who has been associated with Kotík for almost twenty years.

2026 restock. Originally released on CD by Staubgold side-label Quecksilber in 2007, Space Solo 1 is Rafael Toral's second release in his ongoing Space Program, a venturesomely bold series of recordings. Internationally-acclaimed for his experimental drone and ambient guitar work, the Space Program is completely divergent from his past output. Equipped with handmade instruments, Toral's project is a performance-based discipline, which he calls "post-free jazz electronic music." Following the Space Program's inaugural release, Space, Space Solo 1 presents a raw exploration of a select few instruments Toral designed for the series. In contrast to Space, which consists of thoughtfully layered recordings from various live and studio performances, Space Solo 1 presents unaccompanied instruments traveling through unfamiliar territories where sounds exist in their singularity. The result grabs at the listener to stay alert, tiptoeing around silent moments, increasingly mounting tension and inspiring awe. As each instrument hints at a particular language belonging only to itself, Toral's masterful playing is revealed as an instinctual process. Space Solo 1 is 44 minutes of otherworldly splashing, ripping, beeping, hissing, etc. An indefinite number of sounds carefully coaxed from unique instruments, drawing a blurry line between ancestral and futuristic. Now available on LP through Taiga, this deluxe audiophile version was mastered direct to metal, pressed on 200 gram transparent red virgin vinyl and is presented in a limited edition of 500 copies. The jacket was cleanly designed by Helder Luís at No Type, featuring the Rui Toscano drawing from the CD version printed on reversed stock with a pantone red flood in the pocket.

LP version. Clear pink color vinyl. "The work of BIG|BRAVE is ever-expanding. The trio's singular masterful sculpting of sonics into songcraft tucks layers of vulnerability into frenetic storms. in grief or in hope is an innovative vision of electro-acoustic sound and emotive storytelling, an endless bounty of overwhelming distortions and devastating beauty. The album marks a shift for BIG|BRAVE towards denser guitar-oriented compositions. With longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Aicher) joining guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball in the studio for the first time, the pieces are keenly layered with a rich tapestry of harmonics and tonal intricacies. The trio's instinctual progressions made more vivid through live recording, harnessing the gargantuan and storied sound of their performances. Wattie writes: 'All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person.' The tenth album for the ensemble, in grief or in hope pays homage to their past while looking into their future. Standout 'the ineptitude for mutual discernment' expands on lyrical themes first explored on 2015's Au De La where 'verdure' echoes melodies from the title track of 2014's Feral Verdure. These references to their past serve as potent reflections on BIG|BRAVE's evolution as artists. A sonic whirlpool of string instruments surround Wattie's commanding vocals as she shifts from spectral undulations on pieces like 'what may be the kindest way to leave' to the direct, spare declarations of the title track. The ambiguity of mountainous chords on 'an uttering of antipathy' are coupled with autotuned phrases emphasizing the protagonists' isolation inside the fray. Together the trio shift to deliver emotional momentum that vividly describes the complex and deep feelings of struggle, pain, and transcendence. in grief or in hope transmits that sense of humanity with every gesture."

"On June 16, 2025, I saw this UK Subs multi-track demo tape for sale on eBay, of all places. I got it and sent a photo of the front cover of the tape box, which informs the back cover of this 12" to Pete Davies to see what he might remember. He said it looked legit. I took the tape to Infrasonic Sound, a great studio in Nashville, Tennessee and asked engineer Pete Lyman if he could transfer the tape. Days later, he sent Ian MacKaye and I a rough mix of the session. I was stoked to hear that three of the four tracks were unreleased. I contacted Ian and suggested we take the tracks to Don Zientara's Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, Virginia (where we made our first records decades ago) to mix them. On September 30 there we were with Don. Due to the tracks being so well recorded, and the band playing so incredibly, our first mix began to take shape very quickly. Part way into the session, Eddie Janney (Untouchables, Faith, Rites Of Spring, One Last Wish, Happy Go Licky, Skewbald) arrived to sit in and we had another Subs fan in attendance. Together, we finished mixing the last two tracks. We brought the mixes to Pete Lyman for mastering. I wrote Charlie and asked his permission to unleash the tracks and he said go ahead. So, here we are with three unreleased UK Subs tunes and a new mix of 'Same Thing.' Studio kicks, indeed! These songs are finally where they should be -- with you." --Henry

Kronstad 23 return with Dødehavet, the Norwegian quartet's third album and first release on Batov Records. Continuing their instinctive, analogue-led approach, the record sits between cinematic jazz and psychedelic rock, threaded with Scandinavian folk and wider global influences. Recorded live to tape with minimal preparation and no modern studio intervention, Dødehavet captures a band working on feel, interaction and momentum rather than polish or precision. Despite living at opposite ends of Norway, old friends Øyvind Arnodd Vie Berg (keys), Alexander Tøsdal Tveit (guitar, sitar), Eirik Rømcke (bass) and Hans Christian Dalgaard (drums, percussion) conceived the album almost casually, sketching the idea of a reunion over a drink before committing quickly to writing and recording. Sessions took place at Berg's home studio in Bergen, with the quartet working fast, relying on intuition and shared musical language rather than extensive rehearsal or postproduction. On Dødehavet, Kronstad 23 lean more decisively towards groove and collective propulsion, expanding their palette without sacrificing the immediacy that defines their sound. While still largely recorded in single takes, the album is given added heat by contributions from saxophonists Håvar Skaugen and Inge Weatherhead Breistein. Recorded with all four core musicians playing together in the same room, Dødehavet avoids sterile production in favor of a raw, direct sound. Most pieces were captured in one or two takes using a 50-year-old mixing console and tape recorder, deliberately resisting contemporary studio techniques to preserve a timeless, lived-in character. Influences surface organically rather than through rigid composition. Kronstad 23 operate with a deliberately low-pressure dynamic. The quartet meets only a handful of times each year and rarely rehearses in a conventional sense, instead trusting shared instincts and keeping structures loose. The project's name nods to Afrobeat-era band naming conventions, with "23" marking the year the project came into focus and Kronstad referencing the Bergen neighborhood where the group's first sessions took place. While Afrobeat is only one strand in their sound, the name reflects openness rather than fixed identity. At its core, Dødehavet is about process rather than statement -- music shaped by listening, restraint and collective momentum. Jazz, soul, folk, Afrobeat, rock and raga merge into a single, unforced language, captured in real time and left largely untouched. FFO: Gábor Szabó, Amancio D'Silva, Mulatu Astatke, Soft Machine, Surprise Chef, Menahan Street Band, Ikebe Shakedown, El Michels Affair, The Sorcerers, Sababa 5, Ill Considered, Tommy Guerrero, Glass Beams.

2026 restock; Third release by the Maciunas Ensemble on Edition Telemark after 1976 (ET 314-07LP, 2015) and the self-titled 50th anniversary LP from 2018 (ET 785-08LP). The group had been founded in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in 1968 with the aim of realizing the score Music for Everyman by Fluxus initiator George Maciunas, which they interpreted as allowing total freedom in the sounds being produced. The group met regularly, usually once a week during their heyday, and improvised on instruments that were at hand. Every session was recorded to be played back and discussed before the next session. This method meant that small changes and subtle new ideas could be integrated from one session to the next, eventually leading into completely new directions over a longer course. Paul Panhuysen linked this approach to the oral traditions of folk music. One of their most productive periods were the early 1980s where, after settling on a stable line-up of Paul Panhuysen, Jan van Riet, Leon van Noorden and Mario van Horrik, the group developed their own brand of minimalist rhythmic music, inspired in equal parts by rock, post-punk, drone and minimal music of the time. A selection of named pieces had crystallized from the improvised sessions that were worked on and refined, many of them having long durations and featuring wordless vocals by Paul Panhuysen that added another unique rhythmic layer to the music. Phill Niblock, while visiting the ensemble's home base Het Apollohuis in Eindhoven, called some of these pieces "rhythmic drones", drones produced by repetitive rhythmic strokes, simultaneously on various instruments. Some recordings from this period can be heard on the LP Music for Everyman 861 (1986, Apollo Records) and the self-titled LP. Virtually unknown until now have been five more pieces that were released by the band in 1983 and 1984 on two cassettes named YoplaBoum and Permanent Wave. They are re-released here for the first time, with a double LP featuring the whole YoplaBoum cassette -- the 43-minute title piece split across the first two sides, the two others on sides C and D -- and a CD including the two tracks from Permanent Wave. Single sleeve with two printed inner sleeves featuring liner notes by Leon van Noorden and Mario van Horrik, and a selection of photos and artwork from the period; includes CD in cardboard sleeve; edition of 300.

This 7" single is the first release in a fictitious series of avant-garde music packaged in those cheap generic covers of hit singles from the 1950s and 1960s. The series opens with Nikolaus Gerszewski's 7-minute orchestral piece Beethoven Square, pragmatically split into parts I and II across the two sides of the record. The cover advertises the history of Edition Telemark, but is also an homage to the elegant product design of the period.

This double LP with 16-page booklet is the extensive documentation of the exhibition Godspeed in 4/4 Time at the church St. Matthäus in Berlin, where artist William Engelen installed an instrument consisting of 366 metal tubes that was on display from May to September 2025. The tubes were mounted next to each other surrounding the nave of the church. Each tube was unique and differed from the others in length, diameter, thickness and/or material (copper, brass, stainless steel, aluminum), and gave a different sound. The design of the instrument may be read as a graphic score that represented one calendar year. One possible way to play the score was to walk through the room and strike each tube. Visitors were allowed play the instrument themselves and realize the score in different ways. On a number of days, musicians were invited for concerts on the tubes combined with their own instruments. Among others, these concerts featured: percussionists Evi Filippou, Robyn Schulkowsky, and Marius Wankel playing the metal tubes; Zinc & Copper (Robin Hayward, Hilary Jeffery and Elena Kakaliagou) playing brass instruments together with Robyn Schulkowsky on the tubes; SPILL with Magda Mayas on piano, harpsichord and chest organ, and Tony Buck on the metal tubes. The double LP includes recordings of all these groups on sides A to C, followed by a solo improvisation on a single tube by William Engelen on side D. The performances were recorded and mixed by Adam Asnan and mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. The LPs are housed in a gatefold sleeve and accompanied by a full-color 16-page booklet documenting the installation and concerts in beautiful photos, texts, and more.

"Another mind-blasting slab from the band that emerged from the exquisitely raw chaos of Up-Tight. Guitarist Aoki Tomoyuki, who founded and led Up-Tight from 1992 to 2024, is one of the prime exponents of Japanese string-based underground insanity. His approach combines the psychedelic flow of White Heaven's You Ishihara with the scuzz-dynamism of High Rise's Munehiro Narita and the experimental distentions of Fushisusha-era Keiji Haino. Up-Tight's records were all sold blurts of N Generation Japanese freak logic, and that tradition has been continued by the Tomuki Trio. Their first two albums, Mars (on Riot Season) and its follow-up Shitsuren, were both boiling cauldrons of axe-smoke, with tunes that wandered through dizzying array of styles and moods, all of them underlaid with a splendid sense of utter disorientation. And that continues on album title. Even when the trio slows down into riffs that 'plod' in the tradition of the Stooges' 'We Will Fall,' they manage to infuse the air with shreds of sonic karma that refuse easy categorization. The way they balance the overload of their sound is definitely in the tradition of Japanese underground guitar noise of the past 35 years, but the Tomoyuki Trio seems bent on destroying the boundaries that have usually separated their precursors into distinct categories. They demand all access to all styles at all times. And the success of their attack on extant generic norms is abundantly clear throughout this album. It's an insane spin, and one I've been playing more or less non-stop for the past week without tiring of its inventions or becoming inured to the complexities of its sonic architecture. Album title is jam-packed with beautiful surprises for anyone who has the ears to hear it. Let us hope that cohort includes yourself." --Byron Coley, 2026

Electro-Anâhata (1986-1994). Fully electro-acoustic version of "Anâhata" realized on Jean-Claude Eloy's personal computer from the original electro-acoustic recordings of this work. Electro-acoustic works of a contemplative nature. Electro-acoustic parts alone of Âhata-Anâhata (struck sound -- unstruck sound) including a new unreleased part. Electronic music studios where the original "Anâhata" was produced (1984-86): Studio of the Sweelinck Conservatory of Music, Amsterdam (1984 and 1986), the entire production (pre-recorded material processing, new material generation, premixing) and all final mixing processes; Tokyo-Gakuso studio, Tokyo (1983): for the Shô and Ô-Shô (traditional mouth organs from Japan) sampling with Mayumi Miyata. Conny's Studio, Neuenkirchen, near Cologne (1984) with Asian Sound and Michael W. Ranta: metal percussion instrument sampling, including Bonshôs (Buddhist temple bells from Japan) sampling.