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Recent Best Sellers
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LP
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LML 1002LP
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Lovely Music present a reissue of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing, originally released as an LP by Lovely Music in 1979. Over the course of Robert Ashley's career his preoccupation with language and the voice took many forms. He became known in his librettos as a wonderful, funny, moving writer. But with Automatic Writing he examines language at a very "primitive" level -- the human impulse make sounds to express his inner state, whether it be regret, embarrassment, fear, or happiness -- even though there is no one else to listen. Talking to oneself.
Personnel: Voices - Robert Ashley and Mimi Johnson; Electronics and Polymoog - Robert Ashley; Words: Robert Ashley; Translation: Monsa Norberg; Silhouette: William Farley. The switching circuit was designed and built by Paul DeMarinis. Recorded, produced, and mixed by Robert Ashley at the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College (Oakland), the American Cultural Center (Paris), and Mastertone Recording Studios (New York). This reissue was remastered and cut, from the original reel-to-reel tape, by Scott Hull, Masterdisk (New York). Manufactured at Record Technology Inc/RTI (California). 180 gram vinyl; Stoughton Old Style sleeve. Includes an insert with a transcription of the words, and the Automatic Writing notes Ashley wrote for Lovely's 1996 CD (that included "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" and "She Was A Visitor").
"On Automatic Writing, Robert Ashley composes under the influence of his 'involuntary speech.' (In his liner notes, Ashley revealed that he suffered from 'a mild form of Tourette's.') The piece starts quietly, with scraps of Ashley's mild, tremulous voice arranged next to more fluid French translations and barely-there touches of Moog. After Ashley's phrases lengthen enough to encompass sense-making phrases, a bass-register groove briefly appears, vanishes, then returns. Few pieces so quiet have proven as captivating; many that intend to be equally startling can't capture Ashley's range of surprises." --Seth Colter Walls, from Pitchfork's "Fifty Best Ambient Albums of All Time"
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2LP
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AU 1017LP
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Double LP version. "Over the past decade, the visionary musician Arthur Russell has entered something close to the mainstream. Sampled and referenced by contemporary musicians, his papers now open to visitors at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center in New York, and his name synonymous with a certain strain of tenderness, Russell is as widely known as he's ever been. Thanks to Russell's partner Tom Lee and to Steve Knutson of Audika Records, who have forged several records from Russell's vast archive of unreleased material, the world now hears many versions of Arthur Russell. There's the Iowa boy, the disco mystic, the singer-songwriter and composer, and the fierce perfectionist deep in a world of echo. While all of these elements of Russell are individually true, none alone define him. Now, after ten years of work inside the Russell library, Lee and Knutson bring us Iowa Dream, yet another bright star in Russell's dazzling constellation. Blazing with trademark feeling, these nineteen songs are a staggering collection of Russell's utterly distinct songwriting. And although Russell could be inscrutably single-minded, he was never totally solitary. Collaborating here is a stacked roster of downtown New York musicians, including Ernie Brooks, Rhys Chatham, Henry Flynt, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon, Steven Hall, Jackson Mac Low, Larry Saltzman, and David Van Tieghem. Musician Peter Broderick makes a contemporary addition to this list: more than forty years after Russell recorded several nearly finished songs, Broderick worked diligently with Audika to complete them, and performed audio restoration and additional mixing. Several tracks on Iowa Dream Russell originally recorded as demos, in two early examples of his repeated brushes with potential popular success -- first in 1974, with Paul Nelson of Mercury Records, and then in 1975, with the legendary John Hammond of Columbia Records. For different reasons, neither session amounted to a record deal. Russell kept working nearly up until his death in 1992 from complications of HIV-AIDS. At once kaleidoscopic and intimate, Iowa Dream bears some of Russell's most personal work, including several recently discovered folk songs he wrote during his time in Northern California in the early 1970s. For Russell, Iowa was never very far away. 'I see, I see it all,' sings Russell on the title track: red houses, fields, the town mayor (his father) streaming by as he dream-bicycles through his hometown. Russell's childhood home and family echo, too, through 'Just Regular People,' 'I Wish I Had a Brother,' 'Wonder Boy,' 'The Dogs Outside are Barking,' 'Sharper Eyes,' and 'I Felt.' Meanwhile, songs like 'I Kissed the Girl From Outer Space,' 'I Still Love You,' 'List of Boys,' and 'Barefoot in New York' fizz with pop and dance grooves, gesturing at Russell's devotion to New York's avant-garde and disco scenes. Finally, the long-awaited 'You Did it Yourself,' until now heard only in a brief heart-stopping black-and-white clip in Matt Wolf's documentary Wild Combination, awards us a new take with a driving funk rhythm and Russell's extraordinary voice soaring at the height of its powers. On Iowa Dream, you can hear a country kid meeting the rest of the world -- and with this record, the world continues to meet a totally singular artist."
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2x12"
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LOVE 114LP
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Black vinyl repress. Andy Stott's first release since 2016 and first EP since 2011, It Should Be Us is a double EP of slow and raw productions for the club, recorded in 2019 and following a series of EPs that started with Passed Me By (LOVE 069LP) and We Stay Together (LOVE 072LP) early this decade. Recorded fast and loose over the summer, these eight tracks harness a pure and bare-boned energy, melodies subsumed by drum machines and synths; slow, rugged hedonism. It's all about rhythmic heat and disorientation, pure dance and DJ specials rendered at an unsteady pace, from percolated house and percussive rituals to moody tripped-out burners. There'll be a new Andy Stott album in 2020, but in the meantime... this one's for dancing. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
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3LP
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KOM 370-3LP
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Pop -- the album that has become widely recognized as the defining moment in which Wolfgang Voigt brought his listeners into a clearing of his deep, psychedelic forest. A landmark release in the GAS odyssey that drew international attention, Pop was originally released in 2000 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint, Mille Plateux. Pop was heralded by Pitchfork at the time of release as being "an exercise in sonic texture... pure sonic velvet, the layered drone radiating a palpable warmth." Pop was reissued by Kompakt in 2016 as a part of GAS Box (now out of print) and by itself here. First time on 180 gram, triple-LP vinyl; includes original artwork.
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2LP
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JMAN 117LP
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Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve with comprehensive liner notes and pics. Subtitled: Esoteric, Modal and Deep Jazz from Prestige Records, 1961-73. The tenth edition of Jazzman Records Spiritual Jazz series takes a closer look at the music Prestige was recording at the start of the 1960s. This was the period when the modal jazz sound pioneered by Miles and Coltrane was starting to percolate through the jazz underground. In its heyday, Prestige was the only jazz label that could hold a candle to Blue Note. Prestige was always quick off the mark to record new artists, and in the years after Kind of Blue (1959) the label was quick to release some of the most innovative early explorers of the new style. Founded as New Jazz in 1949 by 20-year old jazz fan and entrepreneur Bob Weinstock, Prestige was the only other imprint besides Blue Note to capture the iconic jazz sounds of the 1950s, and like its rival it grew to be an icon itself. If Blue Note documented the sound of hard bop in its most carefully crafted and beautifully presented form, the low-key, jam-session approach that Weinstock preferred meant that the music captured by Prestige has a tough, unfiltered energy that was a lot closer to way it was being played live, night after night, by New York's most prominent jazz musicians. Featuring Afro-Eastern visions from Yusef Lateef and Ahmed Abdul-Malik, deep modal excursions from Mal Waldron and Walt Dickerson, and essential spiritual jazz grooves from Gary Bartz and Idris Muhammed, Spiritual Jazz 10 documents the sound of modal jazz in full flight, unabashed and authentic from the pioneers! Also features Roy Haynes, Latin Jazz Quintet, and Moondog.
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Book
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SPELL 001BK
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During the height of the turned-on 1960s and '70s Occult explosion, even the under-the-counter men's magazines got in on the act and began a surreal exploration of the haunting netherworld of Witchcraft and Satanism. This monumental art book reveals a world of diabolical smut that was so compelling and obscure that many people today would actually question whether or not the magazines were real or just an elaborate and detailed modern photo editing invention. A few salacious titles and images on the internet sparked imaginations, and strongly inspired bands in the doom/black/heavy metal genre, eventually these alluring images found their way to record covers and T-shirts, but mostly remaining shadowy, mysterious, and elusive. Magazines so impossible to hunt down that their very existence seemed an urban myth. Well, they are real and they are spectacular! These magazines are in fact, out there in the world. They are collecting dust in attics, basements, and garages. Hidden away from sight. Unsavory treasures deemed too filthy and then forgotten by their lustful owners. This massive 384 pages deluxe hardcover book is a glimpse into a vast and shocking world that still remains virtually unknown and unexplored. These artifacts come from a bygone era promoting sexual revolution and freedom with overt and unholy occult themes. If you have any issues with hardcore witchcraft and Satanism, body hair or nudity, don't pick this book up and quickly get it out of your sight, and forget everything we've mentioned. Just remember life's too short to take everything so seriously. Flesh is beautiful It's time to descend into the infernal witches' cauldron and deep down into the hellish pit for a real Black Mass. Includes a thorough review and collector's guide of each rare publication as well as illuminating essays on the subject. Hardcover; 384 pages; limited edition of 1000.
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2LP
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WRWTFWW 031-1LP
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Volume One. WRWTFWW Records announce a reissue of both volumes of Yoshio Ojima's superb environmental music project Une Collection Des Chaînons I And II: Music For Spiral, originally released in 1988. The twenty-track opus is sourced from original masters and includes liner notes in English and Japanese. This marks the inaugural release from the Esplanade Series by WRWTFWW Records, which focuses on the works of Ojima and friends. Une Collection... gathers selected music pieces conceptualized and produced for sound-designing the Wacoal Art Center in Aoyama (Tokyo) also known as Spiral, a hub for a wide range of sophisticated cultural proposals spanning visual arts, theatre, music, design, fashion, and lifestyle. Spiral is a monumental work of architecture by Fumihiko Maki, designed according to the principles of Metabolism, a movement advocating evolving designs and constructions, adapting to human needs naturally. The first volume flows from the eerie and levitating "Entrance" to the quirky "Esplanade (Live)", the gentle and reassuring "Flius", and the measured and ravishing escalation of "Mensis." On the second volume, the nanoscopic neoclassical lullaby "Les Trois Grâces" brings attention to the importance of small details, "Pulse at Soothe" starts with the minimalism of a Satoshi Ashikawa piece and slowly drifts into mystical landscapes and cavernous echoes, "Entomology" and its melancholic artificial forest evokes a Twin Peaks mirage, and "Atrium" literally feels like a floating visit of a gigantic open space structure. Sitting alongside Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass (WRWTFWW 018LP/019CD/019LP, 2017), Ashikawa's Still Way (WRWTFWW 030CD/LP, 2019), Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green (1986), or Yutaka Hirose's NOVA (WRWTFWW 028CD/LTD, 2019), as a pivotal work of Japanese environmental/ambient/minimalist music, Une Collection des Chaînons (which translates as a collection of links) is a delicately laid out sonic landscape connecting space and emotions, architecture and humanity, adjusting and transforming through the ears of the listeners. A note from Ojima: "Please listen to this album at around the same volume as daily life sounds such as air conditioners and refrigerators."
Une Collection Des Chaînons I And II: Music For Spiral is presented as two separate double LPs, RIYL: Midori Takada, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Yutaka Hirose. 2LP versions in 350gsm gatefold with selected UV high-gloss varnish, liner notes, sticker.
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2LP
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HMRLP 005LP
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Hive Mind Records present the first vinyl issue of Sonny Sharrock's seminal final album, Ask The Ages, originally released on CD in 1991. Sonny's classic final album swings between deep, lyrical melodicism and passages of pure fire music and features jazz legends Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone and Elvin Jones, member of the John Coltrane Quartet, on drums. The album was produced by Bill Laswell and originally released in 1991 on his Axiom label. The crystal-clear production sounds amazing on 45rpm and this release is a must for fans of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra. 45rpm, double 12" edition.
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LP+CD
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R 070LP
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The second album by the American Gamelan composer and instrument builder, Daniel Schmidt, following In My Arms, Many Flowers (R 017CD), his majestic debut on Recital. Abies Firma lies next chronologically, collecting works from 1976 to 1991, considered the second phase of his compositional form. "We were like children playing with new toys," Daniel recalls of the early days of American Gamelan music. "Though, as we moved into the 1980s, I moved away from Javanese traditional formalism completely, no longer using a constant stream of notes." Daniel became a father twice over in the early '80s, transforming his compositional voice, finding himself open to new affects. Notably, the Sierra fir species, 'abies firma' -- "These trees gave me a sense of rising and rising, all their branches reaching toward sun and sky. Looking at them across open spaces, I felt myself part of their upward striving. The tall mountain trees became rising themes and arpeggios, sometimes even sweeping across the six octaves of the gamelan." This album holds a variety of recordings including an especially immersive tape-delay piece for the rebab, a bowed Javanese instrument. A sort of Eastern Frippertronics weaving the stereo field. Another standout is a semi-improvised flute and gamelan work, ebbing in slowly like a night's wind. "Accumulation" and "Abies Magnifica", the spirited opening pieces, exemplify the precision and dexterity of Daniel's group, The Berkeley Gamelan, who at this time were constantly performing around North America. Two pieces on the album were co-composed by Schmidt and the late Lou Harrison, who helped conceive of the American style of gamelan and enjoyed a similarly long and varied musical career. "Unempins to Sociseknum" is based on arranging Harrison's social security number against Schmidt's unemployment insurance number. A window into the cooperative spirit and experimentation of the late 70s. LP comes with a CD including the additional piece "One White Crow," a three-part tapestry of melodic fragments which epitomizes the second phase of Schmidt's composing; a divergence from both Javanese and European music. Daniel states, "William James once said that one white crow would suffice to overturn science's assertion that all crows are black. I felt myself to be 'one white crow' amidst the prominent, established musical styles." Includes 20-page pamphlet holding program notes, scores, and a new essay on American Gamelan by Jay Arms.
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2LP
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WRWTFWW 031-2LP
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Volume Two. WRWTFWW Records announce a reissue of both volumes of Yoshio Ojima's superb environmental music project Une Collection Des Chaînons I And II: Music For Spiral, originally released in 1988. The twenty-track opus is sourced from original masters and includes liner notes in English and Japanese. This marks the inaugural release from the Esplanade Series by WRWTFWW Records, which focuses on the works of Ojima and friends. Une Collection... gathers selected music pieces conceptualized and produced for sound-designing the Wacoal Art Center in Aoyama (Tokyo) also known as Spiral, a hub for a wide range of sophisticated cultural proposals spanning visual arts, theatre, music, design, fashion, and lifestyle. Spiral is a monumental work of architecture by Fumihiko Maki, designed according to the principles of Metabolism, a movement advocating evolving designs and constructions, adapting to human needs naturally. The first volume flows from the eerie and levitating "Entrance" to the quirky "Esplanade (Live)", the gentle and reassuring "Flius", and the measured and ravishing escalation of "Mensis." On the second volume, the nanoscopic neoclassical lullaby "Les Trois Grâces" brings attention to the importance of small details, "Pulse at Soothe" starts with the minimalism of a Satoshi Ashikawa piece and slowly drifts into mystical landscapes and cavernous echoes, "Entomology" and its melancholic artificial forest evokes a Twin Peaks mirage, and "Atrium" literally feels like a floating visit of a gigantic open space structure. Sitting alongside Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass (WRWTFWW 018LP/019CD/019LP, 2017), Ashikawa's Still Way (WRWTFWW 030CD/LP, 2019), Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green (1986), or Yutaka Hirose's NOVA (WRWTFWW 028CD/LTD, 2019), as a pivotal work of Japanese environmental/ambient/minimalist music, Une Collection des Chaînons (which translates as a collection of links) is a delicately laid out sonic landscape connecting space and emotions, architecture and humanity, adjusting and transforming through the ears of the listeners. A note from Ojima: "Please listen to this album at around the same volume as daily life sounds such as air conditioners and refrigerators."
Une Collection Des Chaînons I And II: Music For Spiral is presented as two separate double LPs, RIYL: Midori Takada, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Yutaka Hirose. 2LP versions in 350gsm gatefold with selected UV high-gloss varnish, liner notes, sticker.
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LP
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WWSLP 024LP
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LP version. Wewantsounds present a reissue of Ryuichi Sakamoto's first solo album Thousand Knives Of, originally released in 1978 on the sought-after Better Days label. Save for a small-scale release in 1982, this is the first time the album is being released on vinyl outside of Japan. 1978 was a key year for Japanese music. Haruomi Hosono, one of the country's most innovative musicians had just formed Yellow Magic Orchestra pursuing the sonic experimentation he had started with his solo album Paraiso. The album, recorded between December '77 and January '78, featured both Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi. Hosono quickly invited both musicians to form YMO but before the group could release their first album, Sakamoto entered the Nippon Columbia studios in April 1978 with a plan. Sakamoto had become an in-demand session musician after studying composition at the Tokyo University of Art and had played on many key albums of the time, such as Taeko Ohnuki's Sunshower (1977) and Tatsuro Yamashita Spacy (1977). This led to an invitation by Hosono to feature on Paraiso. A penchant for avant-garde and improvisation had gotten Sakamoto interested in electronic music early on, and with Thousand Knives he decided to get Hideki Matsutake on board as he had mastered the art of synth programming following a stint with Electronic Music pioneer Isao Tomita. Thousand Knives took several months to record as Sakamoto would be busy during the day with his session work and would only record at night. Named after Belgian-born poet Henri Michaux's description of a mescaline experience, the album is a reflection on how synthesizer technology might come to change the face of music. The first side conceived as a long suite opens with the title track and a recitation of the Mao Zedong poem "Jinggang Mountain" filtered through a vocoder, before morphing into a mid-tempo synthpop instrumental. It is followed by "Island Of Woods", a ten-minute track buzzing with insect-like synth sounds. Side one ends with "Grasshoppers", a beautiful acoustic piano melody underlined by a subtle synthesizer soundscape. Side two opens with "Das Neue Japanische Elektronische Volkslied", acknowledging the influence of the German sound spearheaded by Kraftwerk. The track features a mid-tempo metronomic beat skillfully intertwined with a Japanese folk sounding melody. The album ends with two catchy up-tempo synthpop tunes in the form of "Plastic Bamboo" and "The End Of Asia", which both became staples of YMO's and Sakamoto's live shows. YMO's sound included various influences from its three members but there is no denying Thousand Knives paved the way for the group's Computer Music sound. Remastered from the original tapes by renowned producer and engineer Seigen Ono.
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2LP
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KOM 413LP
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If Kompakt had to name one thing fans have been consistently asking for, it's a vinyl version of The Field's legendary first album From Here We Go Sublime: originally rolled out in 2007, this much-acclaimed full-length debut of what was to become one of the most celebrated projects in the label's fold saw a regular CD edition and an accompanying 12" sampler -- but never a full vinyl release. Following Kompakt's long sold out 2014 limited edition reissue for Record Store Day, the label welcome From Here We Go Sublime back as a double-LP in gatefold vinyl.
Axel Willner, aka The Field, joined the Kompakt family in 2005, bringing forward a new fusion of ambient and techno that fed on his adoration for Wolfgang Voigt's classic '90s projects Gas and M:I:5 as well as the shoegazer rock of Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. Called a "techno pop landmark" by Pitchfork, From Here We Go Sublime almost immediately became a cult favorite, starting a trend that continues to this day -- as can be seen with The Field's 2013 full-length offering, Cupid's Head, that has been lauded by critics and crowds alike. The most striking feat of From Here We Go Sublime must be its sonic cohesiveness, debuting a fully-formed artistic vision that -- seven years and three albums later -- hasn't lost any of its luster. As a fixture in The Field's discography, it remains as important as ever, with Axel Willner installing a blueprint that inspired many but sounds like no one else... except himself. Giving you a feeling of warmth and familiarity on first listen that you can't quite grasp, it's like this sound has always existed, when in fact it was the unique creation from one highly gifted producer. And it all starts here.
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4CD BOX
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SNS 016CD
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A four-hour work, recorded at Jim O'Rourke's studio, Steamroom, between 2017 and 2018. Detailed and delicate electronic layers, processed instruments, and ambiguous field recordings come together in a slow-moving, fascinating kaleidoscope with multiple reflections and wrong turns, always in a constant state of flux. The finely crafted art of subterfuge. The four-CD set To Magnetize Money and Catch a Roving Eye is a hypnotic, multi-faceted, labyrinthine piece which flows as slowly as a river while speeding back through memory. Composer, performer, and multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke was born in Chicago in 1969. He is a veritable chameleon working at the frontiers of very diverse musical genres.
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2LP
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MTE 070-71LP
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Limited repress on clear vinyl. Double LP version. LPs pressed on premium audiophile-quality vinyl at RTI from Kevin Gray Lacquers; Presented in a textured gatefold Stoughton "laserdisc" jacket with a cover painting by Lisa Alvarado. Jackets, retro-audiophile sleeves and record labels hand-screen printed by Alan Sherry at Siwa Studios, Northern New Mexico. Mandatory Reality, the new album by Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society, is here. Setting aside (for the moment) the electric instrumentation of Simultonality (GB 048CD/MTE 068LP, 2017) and Magnetoception (MTE 063-64LP, 2015), Joshua Abrams conceived Mandatory Reality for an eight-piece acoustic manifestation of NIS, consisting of himself on guimbri, Lisa Alvarado on harmonium and gongs, Mikel Avery on tam-tam and gongs, Ben Boye on autoharp and piano, Hamid Drake on tabla and tar, Ben Lamar Gay on cornet, Nick Mazzarella on alto saxophone, and Jason Stein on bass clarinet. A double album, Mandatory Reality is comprised largely of two performances, both Joshua Abrams compositions, 24- and 40-minutes in length. While new to the band's records, long duration pieces are familiar to those who've heard Joshua Abram and NIS in concert in recent years, where elaboration on a single composition for an hour or more is not unusual. Gradual tempos dominate Mandatory Reality. Recorded two months before the 2017 solar eclipse, Mandatory Reality is the sound of Joshua Abrams and NIS taking its time. Merging methodical compositions with sonically voluptuous orchestration, Abrams heightens the immersive and hypnotic qualities Abram and NIS music is known for, taking the band and the listener deep into a collective meditative space. A grand realization of long-form psychedelic music, Mandatory Reality is a dispatch from a sound world that is increasingly unique to itself. All performances on Mandatory Reality are full takes recorded live to tape by the full ensemble, magnificently captured by Greg Norman at electrical audio, Chicago -- the first true "audiophile" recording of Joshua Abrams and NIS. Mastered by Helge Sten at Audio Virus, Oslo.
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2LP
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JMAN 020LP
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Remastered limited 2019 repress; originally released in 2008. Jazzman Records presents the sound of the unsung musicians who -- in the midst of the Vietnam War and the fallout of the Civil Rights struggle -- created some of the most beautiful spiritual and meditative music of the era. Sometimes funky, sometimes mellow, but always trying to say something about the world in which we live. Existing completely under the critical radar and largely ignored or unknown by music fans and critics alike, most of the musicians featured in this album won't be familiar to even the most seasoned aficionado. Their records, frequently turned down by distributors and record stores, saw little attention when first released -- and have seen even less since. But in this era of musical apathy, where so many music junkies look to the past for their musical fix, Jazzman Records have re-discovered hidden, obscure and esoteric jazz musicians who looked to the four corners of the earth -- and beyond -- for inspiration. Here Jazzman Records evaluates spiritual jazz -- music that is a snapshot of the era after Coltrane, a time which saw the evolution of an underground jazz that spoke about the reform of the soul, the reform of the spirit, and the reform of society: a music which was local and international at once, which was a personal journey and a political statement, and which was religious and secular in one non-contradictory breath. The music on this album reflects the social and historical forces at work during the closedown of the '60s dream; music made by close-knit collectives and individual visionaries, by prisoners and eccentrics, by mystics and political radicals. It includes music by acknowledged masters, and moments of brilliance by unsung figures known to us from just one or two recordings. It is the jazz music of America in the age of civil rights, brutal repression, political assassination and war; a music that would guarantee the survival of the spiritual dimension in a society that was angry and traumatized, but nevertheless had seen hope of better days to come. Soul jazz; Black jazz; Spiritual jazz. Features James Tatum Trio Plus, Lloyd Miller, Morris Wilson Beau Bailey Quintet, Mor Thiam, Ndikho Xaba & The Natives, The Positive Force with Ade Olatunji, Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band, The Frank Derrick Total Experience, Hastings Street Jazz Experience, Ronnie Boykins, Leon Gardner, and Ohio Penitentiary 511 Jazz Ensemble.
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LP
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OSR 078LP
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Out-Sider present a reissue of Stone Harbour's Emerges, originally released in 1974. The absolute king of lo-fi basement psychedelia, originally released as a private pressing in 1974 by this duo from Ohio. From dreamy melancholic tracks to insane fuzzed-out heavy psych ones. Remastered sound; Insert with photos and liner notes by band member Ric Ballas; Includes download.
"... It's 1974, you're young and have a head full of Hawkwind and Roky and the Elevators, old brutalist blues in the Hound Dog Taylor/Fred McDowell backwoods whisky-fucked mode, freak folk and LSD; you're stuck in Hicksville, USA -- that's Youngstown, Ohio to you lot; the music scene sucks; glam's dead or dying slowly; punk a good year or so from even starting to get itself born. Town's too damn small to even muster up a band in. It's just and your buddy and that's it, man. So you grows your hair and wear satin, wander wide-eyed and tripping across small town railway tracks and hang loose at the weekend in your basement. You gather a bunch if cheapo instruments on the never-never and you start cutting low-fi bedroom demos... Stone Harbour were Ric Ballas (electric, acoustic and slide guitars; organ; piano; synthesizers; bass guitar, percussion, voice) and Dave McCarty (lead vocals, drums, and percussion), and out of nowhere and nothing, at entirely the wrong time, they cut an LP that will blow your head clean off. This is a trip into the true dark heart of psychedelia . . . Dave McCarty's vocals emerge from some subterranean cave and the keyboards flicker, flicker, flash across the periphery of the song; 'Rock & Roll Puzzle' is dark, twisted fried garage punk blues brutality in the same mold as 'White Faces' or 'Cold Night For Alligators', pre-empting The Gories and Pussy Galore by a good ten years!! . . . Songs fade in and out; finger-picking blurs into screaming squelching synths; guitars melt in the mid-summer heat. 'Grains Of Sand' frazzles like The Stooges through a fucked-up amp and filtered through a transistor radio with the valves burning out. 'Thanitos' is the freak-out ending of 'Julia's Dream' lost in suburban downtown US of A with the taillights cutting on the freeway... whilst 'Summer Magic Is Gone' is the most haunted, haunting song I've heard in many a long strange moon . . . Best record I've heard all year." --Hugh Dellar (Shindig!)
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LP+CD
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ASH 3054LP
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2019 repress, now including a CD version. First album from the legendary Japanese rockers fronted by Yuya Uchida. Although an album consisting mainly of cover versions, 1970's Anywhere still exhibited many of the musical traits that were to come to the fore on the band's next release, the classic Satori, an album of original material delivered with panache by the increasingly confident Uchida. An album made memorable by its risqué cover as well as its ground-breaking approach to Western rock music. Features the original LP artwork and includes the original Japanese insert. 180 gram vinyl.
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LP
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FOX 015LP
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Alternative Fox present a reissue of Roky Erickson's Clear Night For Love, originally released in 1985. Dallas-born Roger Kynard Erickson, better known as Roky Erickson, is a legend of psychedelic music and culture. Playing piano at five years old and guitar at ten, he dropped out of high school in Austin shortly before graduating, since the school dress code demanded short hair. In 1965, his group, The Spades, made an impact with "We Sell Soul" and the following year, The 13th Floor Elevators burst onto the scene with debut album The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (1966), but the band's non-conformist attitude and open endorsement of drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, put them in repeated conflict with the authorities. Then, in 1968, during a performance at the San Antonio edition of the World's Fair, known as HemisFare, Erickson began speaking incomprehensible nonsense on stage, leading to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and confinement in a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he was forcibly given electroshock therapy. The following year, after being busted with a single joint, Erickson pleaded not guilty by means of insanity, leading to a three-year stay in Rusk State Hospital, with further electroshock and Thorazine treatments. Following his release Erickson formed a group initially called Bleib Alien, which evidenced a more hard-rock orientation, later renamed The Aliens, though Erickson was also working with Austin's The Explosives in the same era. Alien's material produced by Stu Cook of Creedence Clearwater Rival was issued by CBS and an independent, 415 Records. Then, in the early 1980s, Erickson became fixated with junk mail and unsolicited letters, writing to lawyers and celebrity figures on a regular basis; in 1985, solo mini-LP Clear Night For Love was produced at Music Tracks in Austin by bassist/guitarist Speedy Sparks, with former Joe "King" Carrasco and Delbert McClinton drummer, Ernie Durawa, plus Supernatural Family Band alumnus John Reed on guitar. Released by France's New Rose label in small numbers, the release found Erickson back in semi-psychedelic/country rock mode on opening track "You Don't Love Me Yet", the plaintive "Starry Eyes", and the anthem-like title track, while "The Haunt" is more in swamp/horror rock vein and "Don't Slander Me" has heavy blues leanings.
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LP
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HOS 639LP
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Hospital Productions present a reissue of Masonna's first full-length CD from 1990, Shinsen Na Clitoris, originally on Vanilla Records. The supreme voice of Japanese noise here on vinyl for the first time with audio preparation by Kris Lapke. What would become an inimitable explosion of energy and vision from Japan heralded in the glory days of '90s alternative rock, death metal, and psychedelic synth music, Masonna surpassed all extremes with a full frequency violence that was as fast as it was psychedelic. Not once has any artist emerged with more intensity and focus in the history of noise. It was said onstage that Masonna has reduced the pure elements of classic rock, the guitar stack, the feedback, and the lead singer to an explosive few seconds of visceral feedback, metallic noise from the physical shaking and pressure of his fist around the shaker, processed through the self-described "harshtronics" and indeed ending in "exclamation!" If you have wondered where to start in the vast and increasingly difficult to find discography of this legend look no further. Presented in immaculate sleeve recreated original art with poster and insert.
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2LP
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ZEHRA 001LP
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Zehra present The Trance Of Seven Colors by master Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania and free jazz legend Pharoah Sanders, available on vinyl for the very first time. Originally released in 1994 on Bill Laswell's Axiom imprint, and produced by Bill Laswell, The Trance Of Seven Colors is the meeting of two true musical masters. Maleem Mahmoud Ghania (1951-2015), son of the master of Gnawa music Maleem Boubker Ghania and the famous clairvoyant and "moqaddema", A'isha Qabral, and a master of the traditional Gnawa style in his own right. Mahmoud learned this craft as a youth along with his brothers, walking from village to village, performing ceremonies with his father Boubker and was one of the few masters (Maleem) who continued to practice the Gnawa tradition strictly for healing (the central ritual of the Gnawa is the trance music ceremony -- with the purpose of healing or purification of the participants). With 30 cassette releases of music from the Gnawa repertoire with his own ensemble and performances at every major festival in Morocco, including performing for the King in various contexts, Mahmoud Ghania was also one of Morocco's most prominent professional musicians. In 1994, Bill Laswell and Pharoah Sanders went to Morocco equipped with just some mobile recording devices to record Ghania and a large ensemble of musicians (a good portion being family members) in a very intimate set-up at a private house. Sanders, the legendary free jazz musician, contributed the distinctive tenor saxophone sounds that gained him highest praise as a truly spiritual soul right from the days of playing with John Coltrane and his wife Alice and on seminal solo albums, like Karma (1969). The aptly titled The Trance Of Seven Colors ranks among the best Gnawa recordings ever released, making it onto The Vinyl Factory's list of "10 incredible percussive albums from around the world". 25 years after its original CD release, it is finally available on vinyl. Remastered for vinyl and vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. 180 gram vinyl; comes in gatefold sleeve; includes download code. "One of the most important albums of Gnawa trance music released in the '90s." --The Attic "first-hand access to Gnawa healing ceremonial music" --All Music
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2LP
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HJR 212LP
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Ever played that game where you imagine you can invite a few people from any period in human history to a dinner party guaranteed to produce rich, stimulating, and provocative conversation? Derek Bailey did it for real, musically, in his Company Weeks. In July 1982, his guests at London's I.C.A. were contemporary classical pianist Ursula Oppens, folk/jazz singer-turned-improviser Julie Tippetts and her partner pianist Keith Tippett, violinist/electronics wizard Philipp Wachsmann, guitarist Fred Frith, trombonist George Lewis, harpist Anne LeBaron, and, from Japan, free jazz bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa and sound artist Akio Suzuki. In addition to the stellar group improvisation Epiphany (HJR 211LP), they also recorded enough material for two more full-length albums, of which this is the first. That line above about conversation presupposes that music is some sort of language -- a thorny proposition indeed on which whole books have been written. Suffice it to say that if it is a language -- music certainly communicates, that's for sure -- it's not an Indo-European model: the only way music can express the notion of past tense is by repeating something, so that listeners can identify it as something they've heard before. Improvised music, however, is forever "in the moment", as improvisers like to put it, i.e. the present tense -- and the present tense has never been more wonderfully communicative than it is in these six epiphanic improvisations. Yoshizawa and Oppens (both on the keyboard and inside her piano) bounce ideas off each other like ping-pong balls ("First"); Tippetts, Wachsmann, and Bailey do extraterrestrial cubist flamenco ("Second"); Lewis and Frith rumble at everyone magnificently ("Third"); Tippett and Oppens kaleidoscope the entire history of the piano into just over 15 minutes ("Fourth" and "Fifth") with added seasoning from LeBaron and Wachsmann, and on the closing "Sixth", Akio Suzuki, despite describing himself elsewhere as "pursuing listening as a practice", makes one hell of a racket with his self-made instruments: a flute, a spring gong and his analapos (two single-lidded cylinders attached by a long steel coil, which he can manipulate and strike, as well as vocalize into the tube). Yoshizawa and Bailey give him a real run for his money though, and it all builds to an ecstatic swirling, grinding climax, with Suzuki whooping and hollering wildly. Is it language? You decide. Is it rich, stimulating and provocative? You bet. What a dinner party! Bon appetit!
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10"
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HH 3093LP
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Alice Coltrane, live at Carnegie Hall, New York on February 21st, 1971. On Sunday, February 21st, 1971, a benefit was held in New York's Carnegie Hall for Swami Satchidanda's Integral Yoga Institute, featuring Laura Nyro, the New Rascals, and Alice Coltrane's All-Stars. The latter band was a remarkable coming-together of talent, with Lady Trane joined by legends such as Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and Jimmy Garrison on stupendous form (with a little assistance from members of the Yoga Institute). The astounding performance of John Coltrane's "Africa" on this set, finds them improvising thrillingly. Includes the entire WQXR-FM broadcast, digitally remastered and accompanied by background notes and images. Also features: Kumar Kramer (harmonium), Jimmy Garrison (bass), Cecil McBee (bass), Clifford Jarvis (drums), and Ed Blackwell (drums). 10" record with insert.
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12"
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WRWTFWW 043EP
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WRWTFWW Records is beyond thrilled to announce the first ever vinyl maxi-single release for Raum, Grauzone's best-kept secret and underground mega-gem from 1980. The four-track affair includes the full title track sourced from the original reels. The 12-inch vinyl is cut at 45rpm and comes with a never-seen cover art by band member Stephan Eicher and a handmade Xerox hype sticker. Initially released almost 40 years ago on the beloved compilation Swiss Wave The Album (Off Course Records, 1980) alongside the band's massive hit "Eisbär", "Raum" is the biggest Grauzone track people have yet to discover. An über-infectious New York style bassline played by Christian "GT" Trüssel and frantic drumming by Marco Repetto's blend with Martin Eicher's hauntingly hopeless lyrics and Claudine Chirac's saxophone escapades to personify post-punk heaven and all its wonderful anomalies. It's disco with an edge, pop filled with fear, it's The Cure infused with proto techno and Swiss art chic. Or maybe, it's simply one hell of a song that will make you dance and shout. Further on the A-side, Naum Gabo's rework takes Grauzone to modern dancefloors with a thumping track and bounce-inducing groove on which Liquid Liquid's very own Dennis Young adds magic in the form of marimba, Roto Toms, and EBowed guitar. The energy is electric, the sound is huge, a club banger with extra heart, ready for sound systems of all kinds. The B-side features Ata Macias's fabled extended version of "Raum" (first released in 2010 via Live at Robert Johnson) that Stephan Eicher described as "the perfect Grauzone edit" (and it is!), plus a straight to the point radio edit of Naum Gabo's rework. This release follows WRWTFWW's reissue of Grauzone's Eisbär maxi-single (WRWTFWW 041EP) as part of the 40 years anniversary of the band.
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LP
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GET 51279LP
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RSD Black Friday 2019 release. "Miles Davis was on the verge of forming one of his most acclaimed ensembles in 1964. It was this year that he travelled to perform in Japan for the first time, bringing with him 3/4ths of the musicians that would form his famed 'second great quartet'; Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on double bass, and Tony Williams on drums. In addition the jazz legend brought along saxophonist Sam Rivers to replace the recently exited George Coleman, who was primarily a free jazz musician, but had a long and extensive background in bebop. Davis and Rivers never developed any major chemistry between each other during the trip, and frequently found their distinct styles (Davis' cool and subdued traditional bop style contrasting with Rivers' wild but controlled avant-garde wandering) frequently clashing (or perhaps duelling) in their performances. But for all Davis and Rivers might not have meshed together, the crowd at Tokyo's Kohseinenkin Hall enjoyed it immensely. Davis himself reserved a special kind of respect and admiration for his Japanese audience as well, temporarily dropping his habit of exiting the stage during his fellow musicians' solos. Rivers would ultimately be dismissed from the group at the end of their trip, leading to the arrival of Wayne Shorter, and the inception of the 'second great quartet.' The partnership of Miles Davis and Sam Rivers may have been short-lived, but it did produce the live album Miles In Tokyo nearly five years later. The record is a rare jewel in Miles Davis' discography, featuring high-energy live versions of songs by Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, and Richard Carpenter, as well as a restlessly fast-paced take on the Davis staple 'So What'. This collection has previously only been available in Japan, but is now presented on vinyl for the first time in America by Get On Down, just in time for Black Friday Record Store Day. Miles In Tokyo is a must-have for completionists of free jazz, bop, and avant-garde alike."
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3LP
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HJR 213LP
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More buried treasure from the 1982 Company Week at London's I.C.A., seven more epiphanies (previously unreleased!) to add to the six on Epiphanies I-VI (HJR 212LP) and the 48-minute ensemble Epiphany (HJR 211LP). Fred Frith's diverse activities as composer and educator in recent years shouldn't let us forget he's a stellar improviser -- 1974's Guitar Solos is still a seminal album of free improv -- and he has three opportunities here to showcase his considerable talents. "Eleventh" is an extended techniques tour de force, with George Lewis working slowly but surely through a variety of trombone mouthpieces while Frith's guitar, strummed, bowed or prepared, could be a Theremin, a koto, a mouse trapped inside a grandfather clock, or a lion cub inside a shoebox. Bookending the album, on "Seventh" he swaps Webernian shards with Lewis and harpist Anne LeBaron and on "Thirteenth", with pianist Keith Tippett, condenses a whole lifetime of musical exploration into a mere twelve minutes. Elsewhere, on "Eighth", violinist Philipp Wachsmann reveals his understated mastery of both his violin and the electronics he's devised to extend its range, and pianist Ursula Oppens proves she's as adept as conjuring forth magic from inside her instrument as she is caressing it out from the keyboard. Those that moan that improvised music is more about finding extraordinary new sounds and less concerned with exploring nuances of pitch, both horizontally (melody, yes) and vertically (harmony), should listen up. "Ninth" is a spikier affair, with Lewis giving a whole new meaning to the word embouchure, quacking, spitting and wheezing like a flock of geese let loose in a fairground, while Derek Bailey and Motoharu Yoshisawa patiently explore the outer limits of acoustic guitar and double bass. Bailey and Lewis team up again on "Twelfth" to take on Oppens -- and everybody wins. Voice is more to the fore on "Tenth", with Julie Tippetts's coloratura and flute and Akio Suzuki's analapos and spring gong flying high while LeBaron, Wachsmann, and Yoshizawa weave intricate webs of pizzicati, spiccati, and glissandi beneath. The word that comes to mind here most often is virtuosity, not just in terms of simple ability on one's chosen instrument(s) but also in knowing just how and just when to display it -- not surprisingly it was Fred Frith who coined the term "virtuoso listening". That's what these folks do, and ever so well: be a virtuoso listener yourself and check it out.
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LP
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DOME 004LP
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With the demise of the group Wire in 1980, founder members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis joined forces to create Dome. With the assistance of engineer Eric Radcliffe and his Blackwing Studio Dome took the ethic of "using the studio as a compositional tool" and recorded and released three Dome albums on their own label in the space of 12 months: Dome (July, 1980), Dome 2 (October, 1980), and Dome 3 (October 1981). A final fourth album, Will You Speak This Word: Dome 4 was released on the Norwegian Uniton label in May 1983. These albums represent some of the most beautifully stark and above all timeless exercises in studio experimentation from early 1980s alternative music scene. Personnel: G. Lewis and B.C. Gilbert - instruments, voices, production; Vincent Clarke - voice, Fairlight computer synthesizer, track 1; Deborah Danahay - voice, track 1; David Drinkwater - violin, track 1; Terrence Leach - saxophones tracks 1, 3, 4, and 6; Eric Radcliffe - engineer. Previously issued in the out-of-print Dome 1-4+5 box set in 2011. Floating-point re-master by Russell Haswell, August 2011. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering by Rashad Becker, August 2011. New artwork by Dave Coppenhall. Includes download card.
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2LP
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FKR 101LP
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Repressed! After years of mythology, misinterpretation, and procrastination Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton finally chooses Finders Keepers as the ideal collaborators to release "the right tracks" from his über-legendary psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List, commencing with a French specific Volume One of this authentically titled Strain Crack Break series. Featuring some Finders Keepers' regulars amongst galactic Gallic rarities, this double-vinyl dossier demystifies some of the essential French free jazz and Parisian prog inclusions from the alphabetical "dedication" inventory as printed the anti-bands 1979 industrial milestone debut. When Steven Stapleton, Heman Pathak, and John Fothergill's anti-band Nurse With Wound decided to include an alphabetical dedication to all their favorite bands on the back of their inaugural LP the notion of creating a future record dealers' trophy list couldn't have been further from their minds. By adding a list of untraveled European mythical musicians and noise makers to their own debut release of unchartered industrial art rock they were merely providing a suggestive support system of existing potential like-minded bands. Many of the rare, obscure and unpronounceable genre-free records on The Nurse With Wound List have slowly found their own feet and stumbled in to the homes of open-minded outer-national vinyl junkies, mostly without consultation of the enigmatic NWW map. Via vinyl vacations, on cheap flights and interrail tickets, buying bargain bin LPs on a shoestring while oblivious to the pending pension worthy price tags after their 40-year vintage, Stapleton and Fothergill, even if you've never heard of them, were at the bottom of the pit before "digging" became pay dirt. The List has been mythologized, misunderstood, and misconstrued. It's also been overlooked, overestimated, and under-appreciated in equal measures. Bolstered by the sub-title "Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden," all bands on the inventory (many chosen on the strength of just one track alone) were chosen for their genre-defying qualities. Forty years after Nurse With Wound's first record, Finders Keepers, in close collaboration with Steve Stapleton remind fans of this kind of "lost" music, that there once existed a feint path which was worn away decades before major label pop property developers built over this psychedelic underground. A collaborative attempt to officially, authentically, and legally compile the best tracks from the list, succeeding where many overzealous nerds have deferred. The first volume of the series focuses exclusively on individual tracks of French origin, the country that unsurprisingly hosted the highest content of bands on the list. Comprising of musique concrète, free jazz, Rock In Opposition, Zeuhl School space rock, macabre ballet music, lo-fi sci-fi, and classic horror literature inspired prog.
Features Jacques Thollot, Philippe Besombes, Igor Wakhévitch, Mahjun, Lard Free, Etron Fou Leloublan, Jean Cohen-Solal, Z. N. R., Red Noise, Pierre Henry, Horrific Child, Dashiell Hedayat, and Jean Guérin.
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LP
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FOX 021LP
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Alternative Fox present a reissue of Steve Lacy, Alvin Curran, and Frederic Rzewki's Threads, originally released in 1977. Playing in Dixieland jazz bands during his teens and then passing through some Kansas City jazz acts, New York-born alto saxophonist Steve Lacy became associated with the avant-garde jazz movement from the mid-1950s, playing on free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor's influential debut LP and early work by the Canadian pianist Gil Evans, before serving a long tenure with the idiosyncratic improv pianist Theolonius Monk, whose work he would continue to reference throughout his career. Visiting Europe from the md-1960s, starting with a trip to Copenhagen with pianist Kenny Drew (who made the Danish city his home thereafter), Lacy later travelled to Italy to form a quartet with Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava (who had earlier played in Argentinian sax player, Gato Barbieri's group), plus South African exiles and former Blue Notes members Johnny Dyani on double bass and Louis Moholo on drums. Lacy subsequently moved to Paris, which became his permanent base from 1970, leading a sextet there whilst also exploring the limits of the alto saxophone as a solo instrument. The disparate and often discordant album Threads was recorded in Rome at Mama Dog studio in 1977 for filmmaker-turned-record producer Aldo Sinesio's Horo Records label; comprised of six of Lacy's own compositions, the album saw Lacy supported by Alvin Curran on piano and Frederic Rzewski on flugelhorn, synthesizer, and percussion, the pair both longstanding members of the experimental group, Musica Elettronica Viva.
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LP
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TROST 190LP
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LP version. A long desire of extraordinaire saxophone player Peter Brötzmann was a studio recording of some of his favorite jazz tunes and his own music -- a grand bridge over the music important for his life and his musical career in the past and present. Trost invited him to Martin Siewert's studio in Vienna to do so in summer 2018. The result is intense, beautiful and touching. Features compositions by Harry Barris/Gordon Clifford, Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein II, Herbie Nichols, Dizzy Gillespie, George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin, and Sonny Rollins. Personnel: Peter Brötzmann - tenor saxophone. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Martin Siewert. Liner notes and artwork by Peter Brötzmann.
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LP
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KALLISTA 001LP
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LP version. Carla dal Forno announces her second full-length album, Look Up Sharp, on her own Kallista records. Dal Forno beckons a bold new era in her peerless output pushing her dub-damaged DIY dispatches to the limits of flawless dream-pop. In a transformative move towards crystal clear vocals and sharpened production, Look Up Sharp is an evolutionary leap from the thick fog and pastoral stillness of her Blackest Ever Black missives, You Know What It's Like (BLACKEST 015CD/LP, 2016) and The Garden EP (BLACKEST 068EP, 2017). Three years since her plain-speaking debut album, the Melbourne-via-Berlin artist finds herself absorbed in London's sprawling mess. The small-town dreams and inertia that preoccupied dal Forno's first album have dissolved into the chaotic city, its shifting identities, far-flung surroundings and blank faces. Look Up Sharp is the story of this life in flux, longing for intimacy, falling short and embracing the unfamiliar. In her own territory between plaintive pop, folk and post-punk dal Forno conjures the ghosts of AC Marias, Virginia Astley, and Broadcast through her brushwork of art-damaged fx and spectral atmospheres. The first half of the record is filled with dubbed-out humid bass lines, which tether stoned hazes of psychedelic synth work, as on "Took A Long Time" and "No Trace". These are contrasted with songs like "I'm Conscious" and "So Much Better" that channel the lilting power of YMG and are clear sequels-in-waiting to dead-eyed classics like "Fast Moving Cars". The second half begins with the feverish bass and meandering melody of "Don't Follow Me", which takes The Cure's "A Forest" as its conceptual springboard. It's the clearest lyrical example since "The Garden" of dal Forno's unmatched ability to unpick the masculine void of post-punk and new wave nostalgia to reflect contemporary nuance. Look Up Sharp reaches its satisfying conclusion with "Push On" -- dal Forno's most explicit foray into an undiscovered trip hop universe between Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn. Adding further depth to Look Up Sharp are the instrumentals, which flow seamlessly between the vocal-led pieces. "Hype Sleep" and "Heart of Hearts" drink from the same stream as The Flying Lizard's dubbed-out madness and the vivid purple sunsets of Eno's Another Green World (1975). While "Creep Out of Bed" and "Leaving For Japan" funnel the fourth-world psychedelia of Cyclobe's industrial-folk into the vortex of Nico's The Marble Index (1968). A deeply personal but infinitely relatable album its many surfaces are complex but authentic, enduring but imperfect, hard-edged but delicate.
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CD
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CSR 276CD
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Cold Spring Records announce the long-awaited reissue of Stolen & Contaminated Songs, Coil's 1992 album. Stolen & Contaminated Songs was recorded and produced by Coil in 1992. It is comprised of over 60 minutes of outtakes and unreleased songs, evolved during the recording sessions for their prior album, Love's Secret Domain (1991). A wealth of superb material showcasing the diversity of Coil: dark, violent, vivid, and fractured, yet cohesive and beautiful. Combined with the latest studio technology and Coil's ever-evolving production skills, S&C Songs walks a fine line between tradition and innovation, continually creating semi-abstract soundscapes with a cinematic quality. CD version comesin in six-panel digipak.
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2LP
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REGRM 009LP
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2019 repress. De Natura Sonorum (1975): Premiered at the Salle Wagram in Paris on June 3rd 1975. A suite of 12 movements, divided into two series of six. "The first series comprises six related movements, usually organized in pairs, electronic sounds with instrumental and more rarely, concrete sounds: Incidences/resonances bring into play controlled resonances akin to sounds of concrete origin in a process that helps to expand the variable electronic sound sources. Here, 'incidents' are opposed to one-off 'accidents' in the second movement: 'Accidents/Harmoniques' ('Accidents/Harmonics'). In the second movement, very short events of instrumental origin change the harmonic tone of the continuum they interrupt or overlap. Moreover, the high notes are underplayed, which stimulates the attention given to other phenomena generally hidden by the melodic form applied to the instrumental play. 'Géologie sonore' ('Sound Geology') is similar to a flight over an area where different 'sound' layers come to the surface one after the other. When seen from high above, instrumental and electronic sounds seem to fuse. 'Dynamique de la resonance' ('Dynamics of Resonance') is a microphonic exploration of a single sound resonating through different forms of percussion. 'L'Etude élastique' ('Elastic Study') places together various sounds produced by 'touching' elastic or instrumental skins (balloons, doumbeks) or vibrating strings and a number of instrumental gestures close to this 'touch,' using electronic processes to generate white noise. 'Conjugaison du timbre' ('Conjugated Tone'), the last movement in the series, uses the same substance to apply rhythmic forms onto a perpetually varying tone continuum. The second series of movements draws its inspiration from concrete and electronic sources rather than instrumental ones. 'Incidences/battements' ('Incidences/ Beatings') is a reminder of the first movement in the first series, which then quickly moves into 'Natures éphémères' ('Ephemeral Natures'): an ephemeral play on instrumental and electronic sounds, singled out by their internal trajectory rather than by the material itself. 'Matières induites' ('Induced Matters'): just as molecular effervescence triggers changes of state, it seems that the different states of these sound materials can be generated by each other or through induction processes. In 'Ondes croisées' ('Crossed Waves'), the pizz vibrations interfere with somehow 'visible' water drops on the surface of a similar material. 'Pleins et déliés' ('Downstrokes and Upstrokes') can be listened to as the energies absorbed in the motion of bouncing bodies, while hollow 'bubbles' and points bring together some people's gravity and others' downwards movements. The work finishes with 'Points contre champs' ('Reverse Angle Points'). Here, the notion of perspective of the different sound threads weaving a kind of network, or field, traps the occasional iterative elements in the foreground and progressively absorbs them, giving more space for the angle -- and the chanted sound -- to grow." --Bernard Parmigiani; De Natura Sonorum whose title echoes Lucretius' De rerum natura, similarly explores the multiplicity of sound possibilities. This profuse work, with countless discoveries and dazzling intuitions, has influenced several generations of composers and remains a truly seminal piece in the experimental music soundscape. De Natura Sonorum, one of Parmegiani's masterpieces, has left an indelible mark on the classical period of electroacoustic music. At last, it is being reissued on vinyl and for the first time this includes the whole of its 12 movements." --Christian Zanési & François Bonnet. Housed in a gatefold sleeve.
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ROKURE 004LP
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Repressed. Otoroku present the first vinyl reissue of Louis Moholo Octet's Spirits Rejoice!, originally released in 1978 on Ogun Recordings. One of the most legendary free jazz records ever produced, Spirits Rejoice! is a high achievement in the movement of the era as it soars beyond oppression with a raucous and spiritually uplifting surge of movement and melody. Featuring Harry Miller, Johnny Dyani, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti, and Kenny Wheeler, this is former Blue Note artist Louis Moholo's first album under his own name and is a classic example of the cross-pollination between South African and British players. Mongezi Feza's 'You Ain't Gonna Know Me 'Cos You Think You Know Me" alone is enough to make your life a better place. Made with permission and in association with Ogun Recordings. Features an exact reproduction of the original artwork and liner notes, along with new liner notes from Matthew Wright. Remastered by Giuseppe IIelasi. High gloss sleeve; edition of 1000.
From Matthew Wright's new liner notes: "The South African melodies, now so familiar, were wholeheartedly taken on board by the individual musicians, their unity of purpose mirroring the belief in the strength of the collective. Stunning solos, often close to the edge, feature throughout -- Evan Parker and Keith Tippett on 'Shine Wherever You Are'; the contrasting trombone styles of Nick Evans and Radu Malfatti on 'You Ain't Gonna Know Me...'; the octet sounding like a full big band; and behind them, the relentlessly rhythmic urgency of the piano, bass and drums. Add to this Kenny Wheeler's moving and all-encompassing trumpet on the elegiac 'Amaxesha Osizi' and the joyous flamboyancy of 'Wedding Hymn' with Parker's relatively straight-ahead tenor and Tippett's dextrous piano solo over a bed of riffing horns, (fast) walking bass lines and a supreme sense of swing. Louis' early hero, Big Sid Catlett, would have loved it!"
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12"
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SS 078EP
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Theo Parrish's "This Is For You" with Maurissa Rose. Includes instrumental version.
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CD
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JMAN 117CD
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Subtitled: Esoteric, Modal and Deep Jazz from Prestige Records, 1961-73. The tenth edition of Jazzman Records Spiritual Jazz series takes a closer look at the music Prestige was recording at the start of the 1960s. This was the period when the modal jazz sound pioneered by Miles and Coltrane was starting to percolate through the jazz underground. In its heyday, Prestige was the only jazz label that could hold a candle to Blue Note. Prestige was always quick off the mark to record new artists, and in the years after Kind of Blue (1959) the label was quick to release some of the most innovative early explorers of the new style. Founded as New Jazz in 1949 by 20-year old jazz fan and entrepreneur Bob Weinstock, Prestige was the only other imprint besides Blue Note to capture the iconic jazz sounds of the 1950s, and like its rival it grew to be an icon itself. If Blue Note documented the sound of hard bop in its most carefully crafted and beautifully presented form, the low-key, jam-session approach that Weinstock preferred meant that the music captured by Prestige has a tough, unfiltered energy that was a lot closer to way it was being played live, night after night, by New York's most prominent jazz musicians. Featuring Afro-Eastern visions from Yusef Lateef and Ahmed Abdul-Malik, deep modal excursions from Mal Waldron and Walt Dickerson, and essential spiritual jazz grooves from Gary Bartz and Idris Muhammed, Spiritual Jazz 10 documents the sound of modal jazz in full flight, unabashed and authentic from the pioneers! Also features Roy Haynes, Latin Jazz Quintet, and Moondog.
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LP
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JBH 084LP
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Mechanical Keyboard Sounds: Recordings of Bespoke and Customized Mechanical Keyboards is made and recorded by the master of this modern art, Nathan from Taeha Types. Yes, this is actual typing sounds on amazing future/retro/cutting edge keyboards, every track and keyboard different. Listen and weep, or sleep, or something to this incredible and unique listening experience -- the first mechanical keyboard album ever. For the last few years a small scene has been growing: the mechanical keyboard scene. It makes total sense as most people use keyboards every day, so why not have an amazing keyboard to use instead of total crap? Just look down: it's shit, isn't it? Some people worked out that things could be improved -- a lot. They started to make incredible, kinky keyboards, using both old and new tech: the possibilities and options in construction are endless. There are key cap options, spring options, and even backplate options (steel, aluminum, copper), and of course, case options too. All these options make a big or little difference. Once made these keyboards are carefully lubricated spring by spring to give them that little extra smoothness and "ping". The results are beautiful, fetishistic, and futuristic in an odd retro style, and they sound amazing when they are typed on. This is classic ASMR/whisper porn; the gentle click and rattle of carefully lubed springy keyboards make the hairs on the back of the neck rise. Either that or wooed into a peaceful, sublime state. This is a classic and groundbreaking new Trunk album for modern stressful times, from a selection of (enhanced) keyboards from the '80s, '90s, and now. They were recorded by the master maker of the modern mechanical keyboard, Nathan from Taeha Types. He has a large following on Instagram, YouTube (videos of his hands typing on his keyboards hit 10K in just a couple of days after upload), and he now has over half a million views on his Twitch channel where he constructs keyboards live. Notes by Jonny Trunk and Stu London (AKA Futurecrime) from the London mechanical keyboard scene. He knows what the fuck he is talking about. One might not understand it, but one can catch up really quickly. Mastered by Jon Brooks. Presented in full-color sleeve, with special foil pantone.
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2LP
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HJR 214LP
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For the 1983 edition of Company Week held at London's I.C.A. in May of that year, guitarist Derek Bailey once more invited a typically eclectic collection of guests. Cellist Ernst Reijseger is a mainstay of Dutch new jazz (ICP Orchestra, Clusone Trio...), American wind virtuoso J.D.Parran a veteran of the Black Artists' Group and Anthony Davis and Anthony Braxton ensembles, while saxophonists Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann, as titans of European free improvisation, need no introduction. French bassist/vocalist Joëlle Léandre is equally at home playing free or performing works by Cage and Scelsi, while Vinko Globokar is an acclaimed composer as well as a trombonist of monstrous virtuosity. He and British electronics pioneer Hugh Davies served time with Karlheinz Stockhausen, and before a brief stint with Robert Fripp's King Crimson, percussionist Jamie Muir was, with Davies, on the very first (Music Improvisation) Company outing in 1970. Bailey once described playing solo as a "second-rate activity"; while at the other end of the spectrum, large improvising ensembles can, if they're not careful, descend into the musical equivalent of a rugby scrum: dangerous, but thrilling -- listen to what happens when Brötzmann comes barreling into the final track here. Sometimes one instrument takes center stage, as Parker's circular-breathing soprano does at the beginning of "Trio Five", but knowing when to lie low, as he does in the brief austere "Trio Three", is just as crucial to the success of the whole. Muir makes sure he doesn't get in the way of Globokar and Parran's leisurely exchanges on "Trio Four", but the trombonist is all over the place on "Trio One" -- transcribe what Globokar does here and it might be the most difficult trombone music ever written -- with Léandre racing up and down her bass and Davies all spikes, squeaks and squiggles, after which "Trio Two" is a lighter affair, Parran's flute and Léandre's vocals twittering together while Derek's acoustic twangs merrily along. With a touch of dry Bailey humor, two of the seven tracks aren't trios at all: "Trio Minus One" is his duo with Reijseger, running the gamut from crazed polyrhythmic strumming (imagine Reinhardt and Grappelli playing Schoenberg and Nancarrow simultaneously) to what must be the fastest cello pizzicati ever recorded. And on the closing ecstatic nonet, Brötzmann and trumpeter John Corbett prove that too many cooks don't necessarily spoil the broth but sure as hell spice it up.
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V 25AH426
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Restocked. Victory present a reissue of Pacific, originally released in 1978. Reuniting the best session musicians Japan had to offer to make an album that would evoke the atmospheres of the South Pacific islands, the kind of places Japanese people spend their vacations. Pacific is a treat to the ears; its theme of the southern Pacific ocean and its warm cerulean waters relax its listeners with a fusion of city pop, soft jazz, and that good old 1970s funk while remaining surprisingly fully instrumental throughout all contributions from artists Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki, and Tatsuro Yamashita. A true cult LP and an inspiration for a lot of so called "vaporware" music. LP includes insert.
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4LP
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HOS 618LP
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Hospital Productions present a reissue of Incapacitants' Stupid Is Stupid, originally released in 1993. In 1993, founding fathers of Japan noise T. Mikawa and F. Kosokai revealed Stupid Is Stupid, one of the most classic titles to emerge from the criminally underrated and revered Incapacitants. A seminal document already over a decade into the duo's unrelenting path of pure chaos after their formation in 1981, Stupid Is Stupid was released as a double cassette on the equally influential Sounds For Consciousness Rape label from France. Divided into studio materials and live materials oddly from two performances at the same venue on two different years. Beyond the massive frequency exploration and freedom of the sounds this set revealed dramatic documentation of the projects history, performances, and influence as shown in the form of color live photos pasted into the metal wire and mesh encased booklet where one can feel the physical energy just from the ravaged and ecstatic face and contorted bodies of the two doing the business. Japanese artist and illustrator Takuya Sakaguchi created The Incapacitants Data File comic book detailing the otherworldly origins behind the devotion and pure frequency dedication only Incapacitants create. Sakaguchi also wrote The Incapacitants Story which reveals insights from the Japanese perspective into how much influence the project achieved as early as 1993. The audio here is painstakingly restored for vinyl by Kris Lapke. Presented in a wide spine slipcase cover with obi strip; includes large format two-sided color poster that no Incapacitants worshipper's home can continue without, alongside full-size comic book and insert card.
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LP
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FTR 453LP
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"Amazingly, here is the glorious (long-delayed) follow-up to Fred Lane's 1988 Shimmy Disc LP, Car Radio Jerome. In the wake of that surreal masterpiece, Shimmy announced an LP called Icepick to the Moon, but it took 31 years to wrestle this slab of bacon to the mat. And you'll be glad we did. Icepick takes up where Jerome left off. As inhabited by visual artist, Tim Reed, 'Fred Lane' (I'll drop the quote marks after this) is a lounge crooner with smoothly classic vocal chops and a taste for lyrics shaped by Alfred Jarry's proto-Dada writings. Fred Lane is a creature of the 'Pataphysical South, inhabiting the same pocket universe as Bruce Hampton and Eugene Chadbourne. And we guarantee his music is as deeply fried as anything you've ever heard. Or eaten. The roots of Lane have been explored in Skizz Cyzyk's great documentary, Icepick to the Moon (to which this is not a soundtrack LP), and are traceable back as far as high school in the late '60s, where Lane and the late guitarist Davey Williams had a weird-o cover band. A couple years later, they both ended up in the Tuscaloosa Alabama student/hippie ghetto (near the University), where some older artists -- Craig Nutt (aka "Ron 'Pate") and a few odd others -- had formed an art collective, Raudelunas, to do all the whacked out stuff interesting people like to do . . . This was the beginning of a long Alabama Surrealist tradition that includes LaDonna Smith, Anne LeBaron, Wally Shoup, and many others. Anyway, at some point, Reed brought his Fred Lane persona to the party -- an accretion of totally insane lyrics and performance tropes, set to what almost sounds like swinging cocktail music until you start noticing the bizarre detailing and avant-garde highlighting. Coming at the same early '70s moment that lounge retro was functionally hip (Manhattan Transfer, Asleep at the Wheel, Capt. Matchbox, etc.) the results were a complete mindfuck . . . The music, penned by Reed with Roger Hagerty (aka Dick Foote), played by a band with Williams (aka Cyd Cherise) on guitar, is unbelievably fine. Sadly, this was Williams' last recording session, but the instrumental inventions are a wonderful extension of Jerome (which was notably more sophisticated, sonically, than earlier recordings)..." --Bryon Coley, 2019
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LP
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WWSLP 029LP
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LP version. Wewantsounds present a reissue of Donna McGhee's Make It Last Forever, originally released in 1978. Donna McGhee has been one of the key female singers of the New York disco scene, gracing several cult albums with her superb singing. The Brooklyn native began her career singing gospel in her grandmother's choir from an early age. Her first break in the industry came when she was spotted by bass player Johnny Flippin, who invited her to join his band. The group was none other than The Fatback Band led by drummer Bill Curtis. This was 1975 and the album was Raising Hell. McGhee's vocals can be heard throughout the album, including the dancefloor classic "(Are You Ready) Do The Bus Stop". She stayed with the group for another few years recording Night Fever in 1976 and touring across country. Following an encounter with producer Greg Carmichael, Donna McGhee jumped ship and started working with the prolific producer and his partner Patrick Adams. A string of collaborations followed with singles and albums: Donna can indeed be heard singing with Bumblebee Unlimited, Universal Robot Band, and on Phreek's classic self-titled album from 1978, singing on the track "May My Love Be With You". In 1978, After Greg Carmichael set up his own label, Red Greg Records, he and Adams decided to get McGhee in the recording studio and produce her first solo album. With the pair playing most of the instruments, they got five tracks out of the session. The result, Make It Last Forever is an all-time Adams/Carmichael classic: funky disco arrangements with a touch of synths over a pulsating groove magnified by McGhee's superb sexy singing. All five tracks have become classics in their own right. "I'm A Love Bug" was a remake of Bumblebee Unlimited's cult favourite from 1976, "Love Bug" (also released on Carmichael's Red Greg label) while "Make It Last Forever" was later re-recorded by Inner Life (featuring Jocelyn Brown). "Do As I Do" and "Mr. Blindman" keep the groove going and finally, we have "It Ain't No Big Thing". The remake of a 1976 single by Personal Touch, produced by Adams for his PAP label and arranged by Leroy Burgess, it is one of the highlights of the album and is a superb catchy composition which has now become a true underground disco standard. An essential disco album. Newly remastered audio.
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2LP
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DDS 041LP
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Dropped Out Sunshine is NYC mutant Madteo's incredible new album of trigger-happy club graffiti on Demdike Stare's DDS, weighing in a keenly anticipated follow-up to 2012's cult-classic Noi No LP for Sähkö. Splitting at the seams with deviant funk and irrepressible attitude, Madteo's first LP in sevem years forms a fractal, mixtape-like mosaic of asymmetric techno informed by skewed traces of rap, house, R&B, and dancehall. Its 12 tracks are delivered in an enviably nonchalant, freehand style that's become the Italian-American artist's ear-snagging signature since 2012's Noi No and Mad Dip Revue albums, and also a dozen 12"s and mixtapes over the interim; all of which exerted heavy inspiration for everyone from Andy Stott and Joy O to Demdike Stare over the past decade, making this new LP a perfectly unusual fit for the anything-goes DDS aesthetic shared by label alumni including Mica Levi, Equiknoxx, Iueke, and Shinichi Atobe. Without beating around the bush, Dropped Out Sunshine is a straight-up masterpiece of cut-up sampledelia bound to make the club dance differently. Crammed with sawn-off edits that never lose the thread, its wild and effortlessly inventive turns of phrase are anathema to linear club music convention, generating fizzing alchemy from mutually exclusive bedfellows such as dancehall and techno, or R&B and noise that could really only be executed by a producer of Madteo's caliber. Yet for all its singular nature, the album is also patently symptomatic of the times, sub-consciously parsing a gripping intimacy, personality and urgent yet elusive psychedelia from ubiquitous media overload. Kicking off with another *****-sampling zinger "1 4 U" (following his infamous use of "Marvin's Room" on Noi No), and ending up mired in the melancholy gauze of "The Lies That Bind", at each step the album effortlessly resists a struggle to square the nature of artistic expression. Fragments of gospel blues noise intersect gauntlets of filtered house fuckery, while restless Autechrian electro rubs up against uncoiled trap and needle-worrying levels of textured bass turbulence, leading to an outrageous turn of stuttering ragga-tekno in "Resident Alien (Broke-'n-Steppers Reluctant Club Mix)" and a final side of collapsed, post-club styles that will leave listeners wondering wtf just happened, and ready to do it all again. RIYL: Andy Stott, Joy O, Mica Levi, Demdike Stare, Moodymann. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
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2LP
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DDS 031LP
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Still Strange reaches back into the prized loft tapes of Jeff Sharp, aka Orior, following the revelatory discovery of his overlooked early '80s gems on 2016's Strange Beauty collection, as coaxed out by DDS dons Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty. Huddling another sublime, dusty set of analogue tapes freshly baked and remarkably well-restored by Andy Popplewell, Still Strange contains four gorgeous flashbacks to the era 1979-1983 surrounding and even pre-dating Strange Beauty, and then shifts focus to recordings that Orior made around the early '90s. As with its predecessor, Orior is not alone on the material in Still Strange. From those feted early tapes, you'll find Phil Hollis returning to lend jagged guitar on the drum machine sizzle of "Feels Like Summer", while the mysterious synth player New Cross John makes vital contribution to "Invium". Along with the aching synth sigh of "To Return", which pre-dated all of these recordings, and the nine minutes of haunting bedsit strums in "Larbico Alt Mix" which came from the first batch, the early material is all arguably worth the price of admission alone for seekers of lost synth treasures -- really this stuff is just so good. However, the album's other six tracks expand knowledge of Orior's work into the '90s and also contain some extraordinary material. Salvaged from further loft tapes found in various states of degradation, and subsequently mixed down between London's Goldsmiths College and Miles Whittaker's Whalley Range attic (and elsewhere), they are decidedly more blunt and gloaming, especially in the Deathprod-like "Under Shadow" and the near static witching hour ambience of "Endless", while shorter vignettes such as "Unknown Future", "Gothic", and "Another" point to pre-echoes of Board of Canada's crepuscular scapes and even Bladerunner-esque sci-fi noir soundscapes. RIYL: Deathprod, John Bender, Boards of Canada, Vangelis. Restored from original 1/4" analog tapes; Mixed by Miles Whittaker and Ian Gilbert; Mastered at Dubplates & Mastering.
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LP
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ELP 047LP
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Transdisciplinary NYC artist Gavilán Rayna Russom beautifully comes into her own with a distinguished solo debut album statement including the voice of Cosey Fanni Tutti and brass arrangements by downtown legend Peter Zummo. After decades exploring her sonic personality through here deep immersion in NYC's club and avant-garde scenes, Rayna uses The Envoy as a vessel to firm up and convey her personal conclusions on intersections of gender and electronic music. Enriched with complex human experience and key influence from sci-fi writer Ursula K. Le Guin's novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) -- a book with descriptions of an alien race with multiple sexual characteristics -- the album is intended to realign misconceptions of Russom's prescient early work such as 2005's The Days of Mars LP for DFA, which arguably foreshadowed a rise of beat-less and more ambiguous urges commonplace in contemporary dance music. With The Envoy, Russom returns to a 2019 music scene that's better prepared with the politics of an emerging new world. Entwining Russom's perspectives on gender, the occult, and spirituality, and how they relate to the body and music's healing properties, The Envoy expresses the artist's concerns in nine interrelated parts. Practically devoid of percussion, but full of body-moving polyrhythmic pattern, the pieces spill out of the lines of any typically imposed "grid". Within this loose context, porous to the chaos of noise, Russom smudges a blend of analog and digital synths to connote an elusive sense of self. Employing the fluid potential of electronic music at its most fundamental in a way that loops right back to the gliding suspense of her prized early work, literally incorporating elements of solo recordings made in the late '90s in the wake of Russom's psych/noise band, Soma. Unanchored by kicks, yet pulsing in its own ways, the album flows with an underlying elegance from Cosey Fanni Tutti's spellbinding recital of Russom's text in "Kemmer", set to an organic, orgiastic writhe of arps and stressed noise, and on thru the free-floating organ scape of "Envoy", to acknowledge more industrial impulses with "Strength Out of the Dark" and a towering highlight of the album in "Discipline of Presence", where Russom's throbbing mass is hauntingly illuminated by plangent brass arrangement from Peter Zummo (key Arthur Russell collaborator). The ten-minute "Winter" then wraps it all up under a titular reference to Ursula K Le Guin's novel, placing Russom as a filament of solo piano-playing light within the cold expanse of NYC. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 300.
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CD
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AU 1017CD
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"Over the past decade, the visionary musician Arthur Russell has entered something close to the mainstream. Sampled and referenced by contemporary musicians, his papers now open to visitors at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center in New York, and his name synonymous with a certain strain of tenderness, Russell is as widely known as he's ever been. Thanks to Russell's partner Tom Lee and to Steve Knutson of Audika Records, who have forged several records from Russell's vast archive of unreleased material, the world now hears many versions of Arthur Russell. There's the Iowa boy, the disco mystic, the singer-songwriter and composer, and the fierce perfectionist deep in a world of echo. While all of these elements of Russell are individually true, none alone define him. Now, after ten years of work inside the Russell library, Lee and Knutson bring us Iowa Dream, yet another bright star in Russell's dazzling constellation. Blazing with trademark feeling, these nineteen songs are a staggering collection of Russell's utterly distinct songwriting. And although Russell could be inscrutably single-minded, he was never totally solitary. Collaborating here is a stacked roster of downtown New York musicians, including Ernie Brooks, Rhys Chatham, Henry Flynt, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon, Steven Hall, Jackson Mac Low, Larry Saltzman, and David Van Tieghem. Musician Peter Broderick makes a contemporary addition to this list: more than forty years after Russell recorded several nearly finished songs, Broderick worked diligently with Audika to complete them, and performed audio restoration and additional mixing. Several tracks on Iowa Dream Russell originally recorded as demos, in two early examples of his repeated brushes with potential popular success -- first in 1974, with Paul Nelson of Mercury Records, and then in 1975, with the legendary John Hammond of Columbia Records. For different reasons, neither session amounted to a record deal. Russell kept working nearly up until his death in 1992 from complications of HIV-AIDS. At once kaleidoscopic and intimate, Iowa Dream bears some of Russell's most personal work, including several recently discovered folk songs he wrote during his time in Northern California in the early 1970s. For Russell, Iowa was never very far away. 'I see, I see it all,' sings Russell on the title track: red houses, fields, the town mayor (his father) streaming by as he dream-bicycles through his hometown. Russell's childhood home and family echo, too, through 'Just Regular People,' 'I Wish I Had a Brother,' 'Wonder Boy,' 'The Dogs Outside are Barking,' 'Sharper Eyes,' and 'I Felt.' Meanwhile, songs like 'I Kissed the Girl From Outer Space,' 'I Still Love You,' 'List of Boys,' and 'Barefoot in New York' fizz with pop and dance grooves, gesturing at Russell's devotion to New York's avant-garde and disco scenes. Finally, the long-awaited 'You Did it Yourself,' until now heard only in a brief heart-stopping black-and-white clip in Matt Wolf's documentary Wild Combination, awards us a new take with a driving funk rhythm and Russell's extraordinary voice soaring at the height of its powers. On Iowa Dream, you can hear a country kid meeting the rest of the world -- and with this record, the world continues to meet a totally singular artist."
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LP
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ARTYARD CIA100
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Art Yard present a reissue of Sun Ra's The Antique Blacks, originally released in 1974. The vitality you hear on The Antique Blacks is a testament to the unique energy of the community around The Foxhole Cafe in Philadelphia, as Ra honed his unique brand of Afro-futurism through the late '60s and '70s. Cosmic theater, spiritual chants, and experimental electronics make this record an essential document that was ahead of its time. Recorded as a radio broadcast in Philadelphia, according to Dale Williams, The Antique Blacks has a well-defined but oddball structure. Sun Ra was a master architect, very concerned to use the unfolding of an album, a broadcast, or a live performance to create a satisfying structure. "Song No. 1" is a lively, tonal introduction, featuring John Gilmore on tenor saxophone, Sun Ra on roksichord, Dale Williams, then aged 15, on guitar, and Akh Tal Ebah on trumpet. Sun Ra's poetry is featured on "There Is Change In The Air", a track which has on occasion been used for the album title: in its original incarnation as a Saturn LP, there was no dedicated sleeve artwork, and this record appeared under many names. Ra's poetry is allusive, elusive, and paradoxical, and this was its first major appearance on a record. During instrumental passages, Williams's guitar is heard, along with the saxophones of Marshall Allen and Danny Davis. The Antique Blacks is a similar setting for a Sun Ra poem, which encompasses "spiritual men", and Lucifer as a dark angel. The Arkestra is heard in conducted improvisational ensembles, in between the sections of the poem. "This Song Is Dedicated To Nature's God" has Arkestral vocals, with John Gilmore's voice in the foreground. Sun Ra's poetic declamations provide the structure for "The Ridiculous I" and "The Cosmos Me", which also has a fine unaccompanied tenor solo by John Gilmore, keyboard improvisations by Sun Ra, and closes with bass clarinet from Eloe Omoe. Sun Ra's keyboards are heard with minimal Arkestra support on "Would I For All That Were" -- a fine synthesizer improvisation, with electric piano left hand accompaniment. Tension is resolved by "Space Is The Place", which rounds the album out in an upbeat mood, with Akh Tal Ebah, James Jackson, and Sun Ra prominent among the vocalists. The closing section includes the chant Sun Ra And His Band From Outer Space, often used at the close of live performances.
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BLACKEST 077LP
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New vinyl-only compilation from Blackest Ever Black, consisting of all-new recordings unavailable elsewhere, plus a pair of tracks -- Carla dal Forno's much-loved cover of The Kiwi Animal's "Blue Morning", and Scythe's zero gravity blues "Flower, Drop" -- appearing on this format for the first time. Jonas Tiljander (Brainbombs, Bremen) dons his solo Brainman guise for the corrosive synth-scaping of "Kilonova"; Ian Martin, whose SEER radio broadcasts were a significant early influence on the label, manifests the pure astral melancholia of "Missing Realism"; Hypnotic Sleep and associated band The Fulmars offer two iterations of bittersweet Low-German DIY pop, and Unchained a gorgeous, evergreen-dazed guitar instrumental in "Gray d'Aboukir". "Dawn Swoop", a suspenseful miniature from Jam Money (Spillage Fete), might just be one the most perfect two minutes in the label's catalog. There are contributions too from two superheroes in the BEB universe: Bobby Wratten (The Field Mice), with the gorgeous, tremulous "The Munich Post" from his current project Lightning In A Twilight Hour, and Bridget Hayden, who offer the heart-stopping, elegiac drowned-folk of "Solace".
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LP
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FOX 024LP
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Alternative Fox presents a reissue of Sam Cooke's My Kind Of Blues, originally released in 1961. Sam Cooke was such an important pioneer of soul music that he was commonly known as the king of the genre. His distinctive emotive voice is one of the most easily recognizable of all in popular music and his work paved the way for countless other giants, including Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and Al Green, among many others. A native of Clarksdale in northwest Mississippi that was raised in Chicago, he was the fifth of eight children born to a Pentecostal minister. Beginning his career with his siblings as The Singing Children, he led gospel group The Highway QCs in his teens and then joined The Soul Stirrers, reaching greater glory upon going solo in the mid-1950s, when he scored the first of many number-one hits for the short-lived Keen label, and then reached a wider audience upon switching to RCA in 1960. My Kind Of Blues was recorded for the label in 1961 (just as Cooke was launching his own SAR Records imprint), being a collection of show tunes and jazz standards, delivered in a soulful blues style by Cooke atop lush orchestration, arranged and conducted by trumpeter and bandleader, Sammy Lowe. Highlights include a soave version of Duke Ellingston's "I'm Just A Lucky So And So". a cool cut of "Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out", a stirring take of George Gershwin's "But Not For Me", and a lovely rendition of Irving Berlin's "The Song Is Ended."
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TROST 190CD
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A long desire of extraordinaire saxophone player Peter Brötzmann was a studio recording of some of his favorite jazz tunes and his own music -- a grand bridge over the music important for his life and his musical career in the past and present. Trost invited him to Martin Siewert's studio in Vienna to do so in summer 2018. The result is intense, beautiful and touching. Features compositions by Harry Barris/Gordon Clifford, Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein II, Herbie Nichols, Dizzy Gillespie, George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin, and Sonny Rollins. Personnel: Peter Brötzmann - tenor saxophone. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Martin Siewert. Liner notes and artwork by Peter Brötzmann.
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LP
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CTI 001LP
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2019 repress on purple vinyl. Originally released to much acclaim in 1981 by Rough Trade, Heartbeat was the first in a long line of groundbreaking albums by Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti. This early example of Chris & Cosey features cut-up sampled voices, Cosey's disto-guitar, industrial sequences, melodious synths, and cinematic sweeps. Includes a 12" B/W double-sided insert of archive photos, clippings, and texts.
"There are moments of great beauty like 'Moorby' and, equally, many moments of sheer depravity all performed with Kraftwerk's cultured class and the hypnotic charm and deadly grace of a synthesised cobra." --Steve Sutherland (Melody Maker, 1982)
"All the world loves a love story... but Heartbeat still has an edge of evil among the extensions of the pair's established scenarios." --Sandy Robertson (Sounds, 1981)
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