Browse by Label: NORMAL (GERMANY)

Artist:	VAN ZANDT, TOWNES
Title:	Abnormal
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	NOR 216CD

1996 release. "The country and folk-blues singer and guitarist Townes Van Zandt was a native Texan and great grandson of one of the original settlers who founded Fort Worth in the mid-19th century. The son of a prominent oil family, Townes turned his back on financial security to pursue the beatnik life in Houston. First thumbing his way through cover versions, his acoustic sets later graced the Jester Lounge and other venues where his 'bawdy barroom ballads' were first performed. Although little known outside of a cult country rock following, many of his songs are better publicized by covers afford them by Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Don Gibson and Willie Nelson. This gave songs such as 'Pancho & Lefty' and 'If I Needed You' the chance to rise to the top of the country charts. Much of Van Zandt`s material was not released in Europe until the late 70s, though his recording career actually began with For The Sake Of the Song, released in the US in 1968. His media awareness belies the debt of many artists, including the Cowboy Junkies and Go Betweens, profess to owing him. Steve Earle went further: 'Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I`ll stand on Bob Dylan`s table in my cowboy boots and say that.' In the 1980s Van Zandt continued to live a reclusive life in a cabin in Colorado recording occasionally purely for chance to 'get the songs down for posterity'. Since the late 80s more and more people got interested in his music. Although he has supported himself for years playing solo dates with his guitar, bookings were stronger than ever. Townes toured regularly with more and more success through Europe. And he still had a lot of plans. He compiled two records for release in 1997 (Highway Kind & Documentary) and started recording an album together with Sonic Youth. But death put an end to all these plans. Townes van Zandt died on New Years Day 1997, the anniversary of the death of Hank Williams. Abnormal was recorded on several locations during Townes Van Zandt's 1995 European Tour. Beside 'Flyin` Shoes', 'Waitin` Round To Die', 'Kathleen' and a collection of either equally memorable songs, Abnormal also includes new studio versions of 'Coo-Coo' and 'Dollar Bill Blues' and the never before released 'Shrimp Song'."

Artist:	CACAVAS, CHRIS
Title:	Bumbling Home From The Stars
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	NOR 230CD

"Chris Cacavas originates from the soul of great American music. His incredible scope of songwriting has everyone agreeing that he is one of the best. He has been around in the music business since the early 80s, playing with such folks as Green on Red, Giant Sand, Steve Wynn, etc. On four albums from his nameless solo debut from 1989 to the 1995 New Improved Pain, Chris Cacavas and his long-time companions The Junkyard Love created a stunning mixture of classical songs, acoustic ballads, post-paisley-blues and straight guitar-rock with dark and weird distortions. Especially the latter often provoked comparisons to Neil Young and Crazy Horse. On his new creation, Chris again breaks away from the tight rockism of his early recordings, presenting captivating melodies, moving emotional lyrics and timeless examples of classic songwriting at it´s best The unique quality of Bumbling Home From The Star lies in its perfect mix of old and new, quiet and loud, acoustic and electric elements."

Artist:	VAN ZANDT, TOWNES
Title:	Absolutely Nothing
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	NOR 235CD

New 2002 release, issued for the first time worldwide on Normal. "During his lifetime only a few critics, colleagues and loyal fans knew that Townes Van Zandt was one of the finest American songwriters of all time. Five years after his death on New Years Day 1997 the 'Van Gogh of lyrics' (Billboard magazine) finally arrived in the awareness of a wide public. His complete musical work is available. All the ups und downs of his career from the 1968 debut For A Sake Of the Song to the last concerts in the mid-90's are documented. However, there are still last words of the Texas troubadour to discover like Absolutely Nothing, a compilation of unreleased studio- and live-recordings. For a long time Townes van Zandt performed the Pogues' gem 'Dirty Old Town' only on stage. In September 1996 Townes and his fellows Royann and Jim Calvin recorded, the folk classic at Flashpoint Studio in Austin, Texas. 'Recorded only on one track, the minimalist poem with mandolin und violin is nearly as touching as the unforgettable 'Kathleen'. The poet of the hopeless at the end of his life: disoriented and helpless he sings these covers as if they were his own songs.' All other five studio recordings on Absolutely Nothing are as beautiful and sad as 'Dirty Old Town', which is now for the first time available on CD. These songs reveal an introvert artist, suffering, exhausted and tired but not broken. He just could not stop writing and playing. The other 12 songs on Absolutely Nothing were recorded live in 1994 at club: 'McGrory's', location: 'Culdaff Inishowen, county Donegal, Ireland'. The concert shows Townes van Zandt at his personal best. He played his classics 'Flying Shoes', 'Marie', 'Kathleen' und the less known songs 'No Place To Fall' and 'Snowing On Raton' in an unbelievably relaxed way. At the end of the album we are witness of a good-humoured Townes van Zandt telling the 'Penguin Joke' and 'The Three Shots Of Gin Joke."

Artist:	FERN KNIGHT
Title:	Seven Years of Severed Limbs
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	NOR 246CD

"Welcome to the haunting sounds of Fern Knight. The Folk-Noir act from Providence, Rhode Island, draws you into an autumnal world of wolves, ghosts and lost loves. Fern Knights introspective debut-album Seven Years Of Severed Limbs presents a musical landscape dotted with angular acoustic guitar pickings, papery thin, plaintively crooning vocals with lush backdrops consisting of bowed strings, plucked upright bass, piano, accordion and brushed drums. This evocative, moody atmospheric pop falls in line with great artists such as Nick Drake, Cat Power, Barbara Manning, Low, Red House Painters, Julie Cruise and even Sigur Ros. Fern Knight are Margie Wienk (vocals, guitar, cello, upright bass, piano, fender Rhodes, drums, mallets, percussion) and Michael Corcoran (guitar, violin, lap steel, vocals). Margie teaches cello and bass lessons at a community music school in Providence and performs regularly with the ocean state chamber orchestra. She is also a member of the experimental darkpop- band The Eyesores. Mike who recorded and mixed the album works at spot interactive in providence designing web sites. Seven Years Of Severed Limbs is the first album of Fern Knight but it is not the first release of Margie and Michael. As Difference Engine they released two highly acclaimed slowcore-albums in the 90's, Breadmaker (1995) and Calidad (1997). For recent Fern Knight shows, Margie has been backed up by her fellow musicians in the Eyesores: Alec K. Redfearn (accordion); Matt Mclaren (drums); Jeff Knoch (farfisa); Matt Everett (Viola) and Sara Stalnaker (cello)."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Schultze Gets The Blues: Original Soundtrack
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	NOR 255CD

This is the original soundtrack to Schultze Gets The Blues, a 2003 German film written and directed by Michael Schorr. Schultze Gets The Blues tells the story of Schultze, who has spent his whole life in a small town in Saxon-Anhalt near the river Saale. Schultze's life is divided between work and the pub, folk music, fishing, his friends Jurgen and Manfred and not much else. As entropy sets in and maintaining the daily routine deteriorates into a farce, Schultze discovers a life on the other side of the hill, initiated through a snippet of zydeco music he hears on the radio. He travels to Texas for a music festival and it's through his musical discoveries that his life is forever changed and the intersection of American blues and traditional European music are made apparent. This soundtrack maps Schultze's adventures through the music of the Bobby Jones Czech Band (a popular Oktoberfest polka band), Zydeco Force (Louisiana bayou music, in which French and Afro-American rhythms and melodies combine to produce music that no one, not even Schultze, can sit still to), as well as brass band music, yodelling, swoony beer garden stompers, Creole ballads and much more. Schultze discovers that music allows him to find meaning and kinship between cultures -- a brass band in Germany may be an appropriate accompaniment to a funeral, but in New Orleans nightlife it is hot party music. Other artists include: Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, Chorgemeinschaft "Sang & Klang" Angerdorf, Thomas Wittenbecher, The Creole Connection, Carrière Brothers, Cleoma B. Falcon, Brachstedter Musikanten, Kerry Christensen Master Yodeler, Elton "Bee" Cormier and Jackie Caillier & The Cajun Cousins.

Artist:	VAN ZANDT, TOWNES
Title:	Live at the Jester Lounge - Houston, Texas 1966
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	NOR 260CD

"This album, which may be the earliest extant recording of Townes Van Zandt at a commercial performing venue, immediately brings to mind the fabled Sun Sessions of Elvis Presley. Both recordings document young performers at the hopeful threshold of their professional music careers (Elvis age 19, Townes age 22). Their performances are fresh and unjaded, guided by instinct rather than experience or training. . . voices bursting with exhilaration at the simple thrill of letting loose and singing music they love. There is no self-consciousness, no overt stylization, no world-weariness here, and certainly no hint of the darkness and tragedy that would later consume the lives of both men. The Sun Sessions and Live at the Jester Lounge offer a fascinating portrait of two young singers on the brink of musical self-discovery, and it is a pleasure to share in the brilliance and wonder of those moments captured for posterity more by accident than design. The material on this CD is a prime example of the repertoire-influenced-by-context principle, in this case tunes that appealed to the good time-seeking, beer-drinking audiences Townes encountered at his club gigs during this period. There are topical humor pieces about sex, booze and pop culture ('Talkin' Birth Control Pill Blues', 'Talkin' Thunderbird Blues', 'Talkin' Karate Blues') and a wide range of light and dark bluesy numbers (jazzman Richard Jones' classic 'Trouble in Mind', Lightnin' Hopkins' 'Hello Central' and Townes' own 'Badly Mistreated Blues', 'Louisiana Girl Blues', 'Mustang Blues', 'Black Crow Blues'). Three country standards (Jimmie Rodgers' 'T for Texas', the Carter Family's 'Cannon Ball Blues', Hank Williams' 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry') round out the collection. Live at the Jester Lounge - Houston, Texas, 1966 shows a rarely-seen, unabashedly joyous side of a songwriter known mostly for his intense seriousness and uncompromising explorations of psychic angst. The essence of the mature artist Townes Van Zandt would become is here in all its natural, soon-to-blossom glory."

Artist:	GLENNIE, EVELYN
Title:	Touch the Sound - A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	NOR 267CD

This is the soundtrack to Touch the Sound, the highly-acclaimed documentary that takes us on a remarkable journey with Evelyn Glennie, one of the world's foremost musicians and a Grammy-winning classical percussionist whose solo work is unrivaled. She is also deaf. Through her, sound is palpable and rhythm is the basis of everything. Without vibration, there is nothing. From silence to music, from hearing to seeing and to feeling, sound is felt through every sense in her body. Cinematographer and director Thomas Riedelsheimer (director of the award-winning box office success Rivers and Tides) demonstrates his knack for mapping a world of senses, of colorful images and evocative sounds from Japan, England, California and New York. The film and soundtrack deliberately avoids what makes up Evelyn's musical everyday life: her concerts and performances with the world's biggest orchestras. Gently, we hear Evelyn Glennie as she brings a large tam tam to life with the lightest of touch as well as the instruments and the library of sounds that Evelyn carries within herself -- the clattering of rollers on the suitcases in an airport; the whirring of air conditioners in a sweltering New York City; resounding fog horns in Northern California, and the cacophony of voices in a Japanese market place. The soundscapes, rhythms and symphonic memories of Evelyn's trips around the world mix together with her musical encounters: a jam session with Cuban jazz drummer Horazio Hernandez on the roof of a skyscraper in New York, a recording session with American avant-garde master Fred Frith, a booming thunderstorm with the Japanese Taiko group Ondekoza, a duet with tap dancer Roxanne Butterfly on a sidewalk in Harlem. For Evelyn, sound is everything. At eight years old her sense of hearing deteriorated as the result of a neuropathy. She developed instead an ability to feel sound by learning how to use her body as a resonating chamber. Today Evelyn lives and communicates without a hearing aid. She not only lip reads, but "listens," and hears, with every one of her senses. Evelyn performs on the following percussion instruments on this CD: simtak, tam tam, empty cans, snaredrum, railings, Gamelan gongs, Shishidoshi (bamboo clapper), wind whistle, thunder sheet, chopsticks, marimba, oceandrum and waterphone.

Artist:	VA
Title:	HEAVYbreathing Vol. 1, The Sounds of Sex: Bite It!
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	NOR 293CD

Subtitled: Greasy Listening, Exotica, Obscure Beats, Curious Sextronica. Ladies & gentlemen, we present to you Volume 1 of a 4-volume series of passionate groaning, noisy hyperventilation and orgiastic screaming -- this is the musical credo behind HEAVYbreathing - The Sounds Of Sex. Compilations of erotic songs with sexy album covers are nothing new -- but HEAVYbreathing is something else! There's never been a sampler like this wide-ranging cross-genre collection of songs old and new that really center on the sounds of sexual arousal and ecstasy as a musical element. The story of heavy breathing in pop music didn't begin in 1969 with "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus," Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg's song that caused one of the biggest ever music scandals. This coitus musicalus met with a wave of official outrage and radio play bans worldwide, and as such was a worldwide mega-hit. Looking back, there have been lots of other songs that dared to combine brazen eroticism and pop. There might not be a collective name for hot and steamy songs from every genre, but there are some collectors. Like IntimDJ Cpt. Schneider from Munich, who over the last seven years, and with plenty of support from helpers at home and abroad, has built up a wide-ranging collection of ecstatic songs which now runs to more than sixty hours of music. Between the many hits and flops and hidden treasures he's unearthed, there are tracks that are absolutely incredible, weird and obscurely bizarre. Whether it's blues, techno, house, disco, soul, easy listening, downbeat, new wave, rhythm & blues, reggae, electronica, italo-house, exotica, rockabilly, funk, hip-hop, jazz, or prog-rock, the list goes on and on -- because lust has no musical blinkers and will engage with any genre. For copyright reasons this compilation has had to omit the occasional heavy-breathing classic. But, covering a huge period (from 1951 to 2006), this gold-digging expedition in the world of pop has more than made up for the absence of a Gainsbourg & Birkin, Donna Summer, Lil' Louis or Prince by sifting out many an exclusive nugget of horny-phonics. Artists on volume 1 include: Line Renaud, Jean Seberg, Haruomi Hosono, Chaino and his African Percussion Safari, Tender, Joy Bamgbola, Rare Earth, Fab, SiRenée, Rita, Suzie Seacell, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, The Groovers, John & Jackie, White Noise, Orchester Albert van Dam, Erotica, Lotte & Leherb and Sensuously SINthesized.

Artist:	VA
Title:	HEAVYbreathing Vol. 2, The Sounds of Sex: Thrill Me!
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	NOR 294CD

Subtitled: Funky Pleasures, Soulful Body Languages, Bouncy Buttshakes. Presenting Volume 2 in a 4-volume series of erotic sounds, mined from the eclectic archives of Normal Records. Artists on Vol. 2 include: Pete "Guitar" Lewis (feat. Little Esther Phillips), Ike & Tina Turner, Chakachas, Swamp Dogg, Grace Jones, Hexstatic Rewind, Kool Keith, N*E*R*D, De La Soul (feat. Shell Council), Lil' Kim, James Rivers, Intimate Strangers, The Sisters Love, Big Joe & Fay, Charlie Ace & Fay, Lorna, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Moodman and DJ Qbert.

Artist:	VA
Title:	HEAVYbreathing Vol. 3, The Sounds of Sex: Stop It!
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	NOR 295CD

Subtitled: Sampled Lust, Electronic Orgasms, Digital Porn. Ladies & gentlemen, we present to you Volume 3 of the breathless 4-volume series of passionate groaning, noisy hyperventilation and orgiastic screaming. Compilations of erotic songs with sexy album covers are nothing new -- but HEAVYbreathing is something else! There's never been a sampler like this wide-ranging cross-genre collection of songs old and new that really center on the sounds of sexual arousal and ecstasy as a musical element. The story of heavy breathing in pop music didn't begin in 1969 with "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus," Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg's song that caused one of the biggest ever music scandals. This coitus musicalus met with a wave of official outrage and radio play bans worldwide, and as such was a worldwide mega-hit. Looking back, there have been lots of other songs that dared to combine brazen eroticism and pop. There might not be a collective name for hot and steamy songs from every genre, but there are some collectors. Like IntimDJ Cpt. Schneider from Munich, who over the last seven years, and with plenty of support from helpers at home and abroad, has built up a wide-ranging collection of ecstatic songs which now runs to more than sixty hours of music. Between the many hits and flops and hidden treasures he's unearthed, there are tracks that are absolutely incredible, weird and obscurely bizarre. Whether it's blues, techno, house, disco, soul, easy listening, downbeat, new wave, rhythm & blues, reggae, electronica, italo-house, exotica, rockabilly, funk, hip-hop, jazz, or prog-rock, the list goes on and on -- because lust has no musical blinkers and will engage with any genre. For copyright reasons this compilation has had to omit the occasional heavy-breathing classic. But, covering a huge period (from 1951 to 2006), this gold-digging expedition in the world of pop has more than made up for the absence of a Gainsbourg & Birkin, Donna Summer, Lil' Louis or Prince by sifting out many an exclusive nugget of horny-phonics. Artists on volume 3 include: James White & the Blacks, Chris & Cosey, Schaeben & Voss, Le Peuple de L'herbe, Luigee Trademarq, Kevin Blechdom (feat. Mocky), Sven Väth (feat. Miss Kittin), Khan, Dreamsequence (feat. Blake Baxter), Love T.K.O., Hyper Crad, Los Chicharrons, Stereo MCs, Twink, Sex Acts And Orgies and Tagaq.

Artist:	VA
Title:	HEAVYbreathing Vol. 4, The Sounds of Sex: Touch Me!
Label:	NORMAL (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	NOR 296CD

Subtitled: Disco Extravaganza, Kinky House Tunes, Ecstatic Techno. Presenting Volume 4 in a 4-volume series of erotic sounds, mined from the eclectic archives of Normal Records. Artists on Vol. 4 include: Raze, Montana Sextet (feat. C' Loni Brooks), Mark Grant, Bam Bam, Il Diskokaines (marflo W & Princess Superstar), Anneli Drecker, Röyksopp, Whirlpool Productions, Bel Amour, Travelling Virgins, Armand van Helden (feat. Mita), Thick Dick, Basement Jaxx and Gretchen.

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