Between surf music and ballad, this record rediscovers the effervescent Khmer musical scene of the 1960s. In 1959, in the midst of artistic turmoil, Mol Kamach and his brothers created a band: the Baksey Cham Krong. Kagnol got his guitar inspiration from the Ventures and the Shadows while Kamach admired the vocal techniques of crooners such as Paul Anka, singing in either French or Khmer. In 1975, Khmer Rouge stopped musical development. This reissue brings back the Cambodian musical scene of the 1960s.

LP version. In 1997, an unassuming 59-year-old man named Victor Tavares -- better known since the late 1950s as Bitori -- walked into a studio for the very first time to record a work that many Cabo Verdeans consider to be the best funaná album ever made. Analog Africa's Legend Of Funaná marks the first time that these recordings, originally issued as Bitori Nha Bibinha & Chando Graciosa in 1998, have been available outside of Cape Verde, bringing Bitori's beloved accordion-based sound to the world. In 1954, Bitori embarked on a journey across the seas to the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe with the hopes of returning with an accordion. Following two years of hard labor, Bitori had saved enough money to acquire what was to become his most valued possession. The two-month journey back to Cape Verde provided time enough for him to master the instrument. Self-taught, Bitori developed his own style, an infectious blaze that quickly caught the attention of the older generation. Before long Bitori was asked to perform at local festivities around Praia, the capital of Cape Verde. But not everybody welcomed the rural accordion-based sound of the funaná. Perceived as a symbol of the struggle for Cabo Verdean independence and frowned upon as music of uneducated peasants, the funaná was prohibited by Portuguese colonial rulers. Performing it in public or in urban centers had serious consequences -- often jail time and torture. As a result, the funaná began to slowly disappear. In 1975, Cape Verde achieved independence from Portuguese colonial rule, and the ban on the funaná was lifted. Many artists embraced the funaná, translating and adapting its musical form in new ways. It was not until the mid-1990s, however, that the funaná in its traditional form was actually recorded. A young singer from the Cabo Verdean town of Tarrafal, Chando Graciosa, heard Bitori and immediately felt drawn to his playing style -- a raw, passionate sound accompanied by honest lyrics that reflected the harsh reality of the Cabo Verdean working class. He approached Bitori suggesting they join forces and travel overseas to take the funaná beyond its rural roots. After introducing a receptive European audience to the vibrant energy of the funaná, Bitori eventually returned to his beloved Cape Verde, while Graciosa settled in Rotterdam. Graciosa vowed, however, to bring Bitori to Holland to eventually record an album. In 1997, the time was ripe to immortalize the sound Bitori had shaped over four decades. Drummer Grace Evora and bassist Danilo Tavares helped record "Bitori Nha Bibinha," which catapulted Graciosa to stardom, establishing him Cape Verde's foremost interpreter of the funaná. Bitori's songs quickly became standards -- classics known and loved throughout the country.

The story of Gemini aka Spencer Kincy, one of Chicago's most mysterious and revered characters, has become something of a myth in recent years. Blazing a trail throughout the '90s, prolifically releasing over 200 tracks from 1994 to 1999, Kincy had shades of innovation and soul few of his peers could match. Then, suddenly, at the peak of his career, he disappeared. Gemini's most complete and varied album is 1997's Imagine-a-Nation, originally released on the Cajual sublabel Relief Records. You know the music -- every track is on YouTube, and expensive original pressings are available on Discogs -- but here it is in its fully remastered glory! Rumors and gossip of Kincy's whereabouts and situation have been rife in the music press, and rarely on the money. Kincy is alive and well at the time of this release, and wants his music to be heard. This album has been licensed directly from him, and the money made from its exploitation will go directly to him.

Doxy Cinematic present the score for L'Avventura (1960), composed by Michelangelo Antonioni's longtime collaborator, Giovanni Fusco. Starring Monica Vitti, presents a great thematic variety with a memorable main theme, swing tunes, dramatic love themes and some funky tracks. Extra tracks and alternate versions included. Edition of 500.

One of Prurient's most captivating raids on the borderlands of power noise and symphonic doom rears its furious head once again for this gatefold reissue on Hospital Productions, ten years on from its original release on double tape and then as a single vinyl pressing for the legendary Load Records in 2007. Pleasure Ground stands as a key part of Prurient's golden quadrant alongside The History Of Aids (2002), Black Vase (2005) and Cocaine Death (HOS 232CD/HOS 410LP, 2008), its immolating rage renders Ian Dominick Fernow at an early crest of his energies, consolidating the hi-pitch intensity and bile of his idols, Whitehouse, with the majestic, meditative inspirations of black metal and a more personalized bloodlust for unheimlich synth tones and pulsating electronic undercurrents. Its four long tracks are riven with the paradoxes that make Prurient's music so compelling and practically a genre unto itself, meting out a sound in "Earthworks / Buried In Secret" that's simultaneously nerve-gnawing yet bleakly tender, or weighing up caustic harshness with a melodic vulnerability in "Apple Tree Victim" that appeals far beyond the bombed-out no-man's land of pure noise to intersect with the entrails of EBM in the raging but poised thunder of "Military Road" - one of his finest moments, bar none - and cold-wave pop and fetishistic synth themes in "Outdoorsman / Indestructible". If you're willing to bite down, you will find a depth of bittersweet flavor submerged beneath the tidal waves of white noise filled with nuance and vulnerability, slowly dragging you into the abyss. Ultimately though, there's no mistaking that in the end Pleasure Ground is just unflinchingly fucking heavy. Housed in a deluxe, reverse-board gatefold sleeve. Mastered and cut by Barry Grint at Alechemy.

The seminal 1994 double album Execution Ground, by the original Painkiller with the line-up of Bill Laswell, John Zorn and Mick Harris on vinyl for the first time. When Painkiller started in 1991, their first two albums Guts Of A Virgin (1991) and Buried Secrets (1992) (both released on extreme metal label Earache) were heavy attacks blending grindcore and free jazz that brought together the musical backgrounds of the three protagonists: drummer Mick Harris had just left grindcore legend Napalm Death, John Zorn explored new extremities with his Naked City project while Bill Laswell had as a member of roaring free jazz quartet Last Exit (with Peter Brötzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Ronald Shannon Jackson) proven that he was not only a visionary producer but also an accomplished bassist. But it is their 1994 double album Execution Ground remains the opus magnum of the brilliant trio: Zorn's unmistakable shrieking saxophone, Harris's pounding drums and Laswell's growling sub-bass lines were given heavy mixing desk treatment, resulting in extended tracks that are no less intense than their early works but display the full range of the musicians's skills. Avant-jazz, grindcore, dub and ambient melt into eerie tracks of haunting atmospheres - even more so in the "ambient" versions of the second disc. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin. Available here as a double 180 gram vinyl. Includes a download code and insert. Edition of 500.

Lustmord, often credited as the originator of dark ambient, presents Dark Matter. Dark Matter was derived from an audio library of cosmological activity collected between 1993 and 2003; the audio was gathered from various sources including NASA (Cape Canaveral, Ames, The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Arecibo), The Very Large Array, The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and various educational institutions and private contributors throughout the USA. Lustmord writes: "The universe we inhabit is a vast expanse far larger than we are able to comprehend. As we attempt to understand its underlying structure and as we gain new insight into the nature of matter, new questions arise and further gaps in our understanding are revealed. Behind the world that we experience lies a veil of darkness and much is hidden between, beyond and unseen. We are limited by our inability to truly grasp the infinite breadth of the Universe, the time scales involved in its measure and our insignificant position within. Some things will always be unknowable, and existence does not begin or end with man's conception. Everything that has ever been observed by man, even with our most sophisticated instruments amounts, to less than five percent of the universe. Approximately sixty-eight percent of the universe is unseen dark energy and approximately twenty-seven percent is unseen dark matter. We have yet to discover what dark matter is, and only know the things it is not. Although it has not been directly observed, its existence and properties are inferred from its effects on visible matter, its influence on the universe's large-scale structure, and its effects in the cosmic microwave background. The universe began of darkness, not of light. While space is a virtual vacuum, it does not mean there is no sound in space. It exists in space as naturally occurring electromagnetic vibrations, many well within the range of human hearing while others exist at different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum and these can be adjusted with software to bring them within our audio range. The recordings of these interactions in space come from several different environments including radio, ultra violet, microwave and X-ray data and within these spectra a wide range of sources including interstellar plasma and molecules, radio galaxies, pulsars masers and quasars, charged particle interactions and emissions, radiation, exotic astrophysical objects, cosmic jets and flares from magnetars." Recorded in Los Angeles between October and December of 2015. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft.

Tummy Tapes present the long-awaited second installment of The Velvet Underground's The Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes. Recorded through a microphone jammed in the back of Lou Reed's amp right around the release of their third album, The Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes are formidable in their unadulterated rock and roll fire and fury. They are a revelation for anyone who hasn't paid close attention to Reed's dynamic guitar playing which in this set is a monolithic roar, a pulverizing electronic "kaiju" (strange beast) grinding the whole universe into pebble and sand. Paste-on covers. All tracks recorded at The Boston Tea Party on March 15, 1969.

"Superb late-seventies soul from Hawaii. Sleekly bumptious, with brilliant musicianship and classy arrangements, dosed with jazz and funk (by way of Kool And The Gang), easily traversing ballads and booty-shakers... just the kind of thing Wayne Henderson was doing across the Pacific at the time with At Home productions, for Side Effect, The McCrarys and co. Great stuff."

Double LP version. White and purple splatter. Clinging To A Dream is the Silver Apples first album since 1998. It features 11 new songs recorded at the ChickenCoop studios in Fairhope, Alabama, USA. Produced by Graham Sutton in London, UK. The new songs on Clinging To A Dream carry on the tradition begun in 1967 by Silver Apples of merging pure, raw electronic sounds with melodic poetic content; this album represents 40 years of polishing and refining this experiment.

Dubiterian is a Brazilian dub music producer and melodica specialist who graduated in audio engineering in Munich, Germany. He has performed all over the world since 2004 sharing the stage with the likes of The Skatalites, The Roots Radics, Ras Michael, Fully Fullwood, Mad Professor, Sister Nancy, Ranking Joe, Gentleman, Mungos Hi-Fi, Jahtari and Soom T. He has collaborated in the studio with heavyweight producers and artists such as The Scientist, Adrian Sherwood and Dub Syndicate, amongst others. This tribute to Augustus Pablo, the great Jamaican roots reggae and dub record producer active from the 1970s onwards, is mixed by the legendary dub master Scientist. Tribute To Augustus Pablo was originally release digitally in 2014. This is its first time on vinyl. Remastered by Hopeton Overton Brown (Scientist). Contains a bonus CD of the album.

Mr. Oizo (aka Quentin Dupieux), the French producer and pioneer of modern electro alongside Daft Punk, Air and Cassius simply can't and won't stop working. Having released five studio albums, four original soundtracks, a multitude of EPs and directed six movies over the past 20 years, the "Godfather" is back with All Wet. And this time, he is not alone as the track list features an impressive selection of quality guests: Peaches, Boys Noize, Skrillex and Charli XCX among others. All Wet will be a new occasion to further explore the mind of one of the most fantastically uncommon artist today. Also features: Tetanos, Phra, Siriusmo and Mocky. Comes in gatefold sleeve with yellow vinyl. Includes CD.

The fifth installment of Cosmin TRG's Fizic comes in the shape of two lethal remixes from Lucy and Minor Science. Lucy takes the mystical energies "Serpenti" and blends them into a digital ritual of tectonic plate-shifting drums, sizzling textures and hypnotic patterns, a highly seductive and authoritative transmission. "Oblic" sees its exuberant shimmer and ricochet rhythms reinterpreted with scientific precision by Minor Science. The result is a hyper-modern, high-octane excursion with deep fluid bass drums, expert percussion and soaring synths. Lucy's remix mastered by Giovanni Conti. Minor Science's remix mastered by Matt Colton. Original cover artwork by Cosmin Nicolae.

Double LP version. The Nuggets (1972) of krautrock, Cologne Curiosities collects for the first time on vinyl, all the otherwise unpublished/un-reissued material that originally appeared on the three Unknown Deutschland - The Krautrock Archive CDs released on Virgin in 1996. These CD only releases were originally compiled by Trevor Manwaring (Paratactile, Impetus, Virgin, Harmonia Mundi) from tapes supplied to him by Toby Robinson. Toby, aka The Mad Twiddler, aka Genius P. Orridge, is well-known to krautrock collectors as one of a number of engineers working at Stockhausen's WDR and Dierks Studio in Cologne in the mid-1970s, where he assisted on recordings by many famous kraut bands such as Can, Birth Control, Mythos and Dzyan. The recordings included here were made between 1972 and 1976 using studios in and around Cologne, produced by Toby Robinson for his own amusement. Bands would come in for practice sessions, to record demos, and during slack periods, impromptu jams would happen. Most of these sessions were recorded by Toby, and they feature Toby himself plus a revolving cast of friends and musicians (some of them apparently big kraut names under pseudonym). Including lost-in-time bands/studio projects like Astral Army, Fuerrote, Spirulina and Baal among others, the music here ranges from killer proto-new wave kraut psych to wild space rock, proto-ambient electronic, dark psychedelia and raw kosmische sounds with lots of analog synths/Moog. It was during that time in Cologne, that Toby, along with Fluxus artist Robin Page, gave birth to the mysterious and controversial Pyramid label, for which these tracks were originally made for. 24-bit domain remaster from the original master tapes. Insert with detailed liner notes by Alan Freeman (Ultima Thule, The Crack In The Cosmic Egg (2007)). Also features: Chronos, Neil Andersen and Ten To Zen. RIYL: Pink Floyd, Gila, Cluster, Hawkwind, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül II, Popol Vuh, Cosmic Jokers.

Considered the first electro-acoustic/electronic album made in Brazil, Mental Experience presents the first vinyl reissue of Jorge Antunes's Música Eletrônica, originally released in 1975. During the early '60s, Antunes built his own components for making electronic music: theremin, sawtooth oscillator, a spring-reverb device, a frequency filter. The works on Música Eletrônica were recorded at Antunes's home studio and at the Electronic Music Laboratory of the Institute Torcuato Di Tella, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. On "Valsa Sideral" (1962), Antunes uses artificial echo and reverberation by feedback between the recording heads, creating the first Brazilian work consisting only of electronic tones. "Auto-Retrato Sobre Paisaje Porteño" (1969/1970) is an amazing piece of early turntablism on which Antunes "samples" an old tango vinyl record, using it as a loop and for sound effects/manipulation, and mixes it with electronic sound effects and cut voice manipulation/sound poetry. The version included here features the audio collage which Antunes created to criticize the military regimes from Brazil and Argentine. This version wasn't used on the original LP to avoid any problems with censorship. "Cinta Cita" (1969) was the first piece recorded by Antunes at a professional studio. Pure electronic sounds and pulsating rhythms use filtered noise and synthetic sounds created by additive synthesis. "Contrapunctus Contra Contrapunctus" (1962) was created using tape splicing, micro-assemblies and tape manipulation. "Historia de un Pueblo por Nacer ou Carta Abierta a Vassili Vassilikos y a todos los Pesimistas" (1970) with its sinusoidal sounds and low frequencies, was inspired by the plot of the novel and film Z (1969) by Vassili Vassilikos. In the original audio of this work, Antunes used a quotation from the International Communist anthem. To avoid censorship problems, he cut that passage for inclusion on the original LP. The uncensored, original version is presented here. In 1970, Antunes did research at the Institute of Sonology at the University of Utrecht with a specialization in Computer Music (working with the Electrologia X-8 computer). During the '70s he worked under the guidance of Pierre Schaeffer and Iannis Xenakis amongst others. Antunes is presently the Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio of the University of Brasilia and President of the Brazilian Society for Electroacoustic Music. Included in this LP is an insert with liner notes and photos. Master tape sound. Mandatory for anyone into Pierre Henry, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Schaeffer, Louis & Bebe Baron, Ihlan Mimaroglu, Morton Subotnick, Stockhausen.

3x12" version. Includes digital download. Luke Slater returns to Ostgut Ton with a Planetary Assault Systems album titled Arc Angel. Staying true to the project's initial mission statement, Slater comments on the new yet familiar musical direction: "For me, music has to go forward. I'd feel I was cheating by sticking to tried-and-tested formulas." With Arc Angel, Planetary Assault Systems departs to new musical frontiers by focusing on melody, but staying rooted in the purist values of techno. While the album title may sound like a reference to spiritual matters, it hints to rather secular affairs. Arc Angel is a postmodernist, non-comfortist techno album first and foremost. In the tradition of Slater's previous albums with Ostgut Ton - The Messenger (OSTGUT 010LP/020CD, 2011) and Temporary Suspension (OSTGUT 004LP/009CD, 2009) - its musical motifs radiate around polymorphic and extraterrestrial sounds, using contemporary instrumental language, but with an emphasis on compatible musical phrases. "With this album it was very much a case of limitation and focus around the idea of alternative melody," Slater says, "I love music that takes you somewhere new. All music for this album had to pass that test. At the same time I wanted to re-root the foundations of what I see as techno into that and focus on melody, rather than a track just being a beat." While there are nods to the past, Arc Angel aims for the future. There's shimmering sounds reminiscent of light beams being fired ("Tri Fn Trp"), pulsing signals in deep space ("Angel Of The East", "Sonar Falls", "Groucho") and rather harsh aesthetics ("The Last Scene"). Its melodic range includes hypnotic arrangements ("Merry Go Round", "Blue Monk"), distorted bells ("Revolution One"), rainbow noise and spatial effects - for the most part meshing with heavy kick drums ("Message From The Drone Sector", "The Rider"), sometimes using reduced beat patterns ("Max"), at times turning to repetitious loops, analog synth pads and alienated vocal bits ("Interlude 1 to 6"). Despite its musical richness, all gear had to fit onto a small table. "I love software, hardware, technology; but because we have almost endless choice of sound creating devices, it drove me to using very limited and focused equipment. Actually taking influences from the way an original blues guy... He has the guitar, the box and voice - I have the 909 and 808." Includes digital download of the single tracks and the continuous album mix.

Newcastle Trio Blown Out continue on their voyage through deep fuckin' space with New Cruiser. Power-driven, psychedelic rock, New Cruiser is made of two huge tracks of blistering leads, mind-melting brain changes and max fuzz. Influenced tonally by "Peace In Mississippi"/"Crash Landing" third generation cassette culture and tight Grand Funk oblivion rhythm mind chemistry. Blown Out features members of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Khünnt, Bong and HaiKai No Ku. "New Cruiser" dives straight in with some deep, rolling bass, crashing drums and the trademark guitar from Mike Vest. The track rolls and pitches along its way, based, as ever, on repetition (the bass of John-Michael Hedley becomes positively hypnotic) while the guitar weaves heavy, reverb-drenched patterns in the sky. Blown Out have become masters of creating music that is heavy enough to affect the gravitational pull of nearby planets whilst still having the ability to mesmerize. If "Phase II" may sound a tad familiar to some, that's because it is a reworked, longer version of the same on Celestial Sphere (2016). It continues pretty much where "New Cruiser" left off: blistering, fuzzy wah-wah, jackhammer drums and undulating bass all coming together to create an Heironymous Bosch like vision of hell. Vest's guitar positively wails at times like some poor tormented denizen of the underworld. Like "New Cruiser". it is the repetition that holds the power. Given all of the free-wheeling, freak-out guitar, it has a structure and a form to which the rhythm section sticks rigidly. This is the less-than-secret ingredient in the Blown Out recipe - tightness of form that allows a freedom of expression - sounds oxymoronic but without the drums/bass creating a framework, the guitar of Vest would sound chaotic and functionless, but instead it sounds free but purposeful. In all, New Cruiser is another unqualified success, guaranteed to scramble the brains and scare the neighbors. This is what "psychedelic" music is all about. Not flowers and sugar cubes and paeans to long lost pastoral idylls, but music that can transport you. RIYL: Psychedelic rock, spaced-out jams, Acid Mothers Temple, Bong, The Cosmic Dead, Les Rallizes Denudes, Earthless. Includes a download code. Edition of 400.

"Flan'm Cho / Banbou La / Kowidow Man'm Boe / Bazouka. Rootsy, body-rocking Gwo Ka rhythms with dashes of drum machines and electronics, from 1988-93. Dancefloor mayhem. During this period, the 808, 909 and co. were permeating music-making world-wide. From pulsating Chicago house and rough Detroit techno, to the dancehalls of Kingston and the shebeens of Kinshasa, every place and every scene reacted to the new technology in a different way. The French Caribbean was no exception. Long the bedrock of Zouk, it was fertile ground for the new equipment and fresh sounds. Kaloukera Percussions celebrates the music of celebrated Guadeloupean singer and percussionist Erick Cosaque. Staunch activist in the name of the music, language and culture of Guadeloupe, his musical career spans five decades."

A collection of 27 East African golden oldies from the '70s and '80s compiled by the British DJ and journalist John Armstrong. One well-known word and a phrase in KiSwahili - "safari" and "hakuna matata" - are both useful and euphonious, but they aren't enough for a sophisticated music-lover. "Zilipendwa" denotes an object of admiration, but in a musical context it applies to what might be called "golden oldies". "Serebuka" is a lovely word that translates as "blissful expressive dance". "Musiki wa dansi" (the KiSwahili-English exchange goes both ways) is the general term for "zilipendwa" that inspires "serebuka", and it's what this double-album is all about. KiSwahili is spoken throughout East Africa (a first language for many people, a lingua franca for most) and is sung in various musical styles, but other languages give voice to other styles in this culturally diverse region, and musiki wa dansi encompasses some of them, too. One of the most prominent is benga, which originated in the 1970s among musicians of the Luo ethnic group in western Kenya, drawing on traditional rhythms and melodies but wielding electric guitars and basses. From further west came rumba and soukous, brought by Congolese émigrés to Kenya and Tanzania, where they formed bands that often included musicians from all three countries, sang in Lingala, KiSwahili and local languages, and have been enormously popular and influential since the '60s. The Arabic and Indian complexions of taraab from Zanzibar, Lamu and other islands off the East African coast colored pop music in the mainland cities of Mombassa, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as well, particularly with the chakacha beat. Armstrong gives lively recollections of a bygone time in a wonderful place grace the album booklet. Two and one half hours of 21 Kenyan, Tanzanian and Congolese bands. Features: L'Orch. Dar International, Afro 70, Kauma Boys Band, Super Mambo Jazz Band "69", Maquis du Zaire, Victoria Jazz Band, Orchestre Conga Internationale, The Golden Kings Band, Sunburst Band, Urafiki Jazz Band, L'Orchestre Grand Piza, Hafusa Abasi & Slim Ali and the Kikulacho Yahoos Band, L'Orch. Moja One, Sega Sega Band, L'Orchestre Super Mambo, Earthquake Jazz Band, Vijana Jazz Band, Orchestre Special Liwanza, Juwata Jazz Band and Orchestre Super Jambo.

FIS presents From Patterns To Details, his second full length release. Natural patterns of organic life make the most efficient use of space and surface area and in permaculture design one observes natural patterns in a landscape and plans details accordingly. Taking a self-occurring pattern like the veins of a leaf, contour lines, or the spirals of water and letting that guide interactions with the surface of the earth. The ethos is to work with natural flow and processes rather than to impose. Mirroring this idea, From Patterns To Details draws from the sense of a deeper underlying order. It sees continuity between environment and individual, continuity between external bodies and the internal emotional landscapes that music can communicate beyond the affordances of language. The album embraces technology as something that is not in conflict with the organic processes of nature. Technology is treated as life in a different state. Human beings are gardens in a different state; all temporary forms of the same thing. From Patterns To Details imagines states of alignment with all and harmonious design, a complete integration between personal and external systems whether organic or technological. FIS composes physical, spirited, exploratory electronic music inspired in part by his work as a permaculture designer. Initially developing his craft on the sound systems of his birth country New Zealand, he went on to a string of critically acclaimed releases on Tri Angle Records and Loopy.

Gruff Rhys presents the soundtrack for the film Set Fire To The Stars (2014). Although recorded around the same time as Gruff's last LP (2014's hugely acclaimed American Interior), Set Fire To The Stars paints a very different picture to that of the Welsh explorer John Evans. Equal parts cocktail jazz, hazy Americana and atomic age bop, it's a love letter to New York in all its hopeful, post war glory - a gorgeous diversion of a record to add to Gruff's increasingly brilliant solo catalogue. Gruff on Set Fire To The Stars: "This is an album of music written for a film directed by Andy Goddard concerning the poet Dylan Thomas's first week in the USA in 1950 and his uneven friendship with fellow poet - and agent of sorts - John Malcolm Brinnin. As the film is shot in black and white and set in the jazz age, I decided not to use any instruments unavailable in that era. I also kept the recordings as live takes. Beyond that - I didn't try and ape the style of that era in particular apart from the song 'Atom Bomb' which on screen, plays on a jukebox in a cafe and needed to be true to the year sonically and lyrically in some way. Playing the guitar, I formed a short lived 'Agro-Jazz' quartet (you got a problem with that?) called Video Loss with Chris Walmsley on drums, Jim Barr on double bass and Osian Gwynedd on piano. I wrote a bunch of songs and instrumentals. Some other bits were improvised to picture by Osian Gwynedd and myself. 'Chop Shop' features Video Loss on max Moon-Ra improvisational setting. Gruff ab Arwel arranged all the strings and Gavin Fitzjohn played and scored the brass. It was recorded and mixed at Toybox, Bristol by the incredible Ali Chant - apart from the strings which were recorded at Metropolis, London."

The cobbled music and strange pieces from the unpublished majority of The Quirky Lost Tapes 1993-1995 are as bizarre as the genesis of El'Blaszczyk Rock Band Himself. Recorded on tape, at times featuring his ten year old little sister, the irresistible charm of El'Blaszczyk's pieces reveal a delicious bawdiness that is reminiscent of the universe of Jean Yanne, Les Charlots or Boby Lapointe. This is vaguely rhythmic garage music. El'Blaszczyk explores such topics as illness, the French resistance during WWII and medicine in general - all adding to the uniqueness of it all. More than a joke, these pieces are subtle and accomplished, but something suggests that these recordings are also their first plays. In parallel to his schooling at the Beaux Arts, El'Blaszczyk was a student of Christian Eloy, the eminent composer of concrete music and head of the electroacoustic creation of class at the National Conservatory of Bordeaux. No doubt a magneto-phage animal, being a student of Eloy's and his time at the academy reinforced his electro-artisanal approach to music. This period of study and intense creativity allowed him to explore a new path to infinite perspectives, but the academic expectations were ultimately codified - productions for the "less displaced" were received with great caution. The academy allowed him access to a usually difficult to mobilize instrumentation by an amateur: Grand piano, Hammond organ, orchestral percussion, drums, synths and VCS3 Moog 55. The sound database has also served as much to his compositions of concrete and electronic music as it did to his pop productions. Individual schedules provision of the studio is often very late - nightlife in working time was perfectly suited to the more diverse sides. Most of the time, El'Blaszczyk proceeded himself to his own sound recordings. A good disciple of his elder's electro acousticians, he tracked his sounds, its unwavering Nagra shoulder.

2016 repress; originally reissued in 2006. Bearing all the aesthetic watermarks of a private-press country LP, Selda Bağcan's 1976 debut long-player is a stunning work of space-age Anatolian electronic, progressive protest-psych-folk-funk-rock; a delectable hybrid concoction, presented with the utmost authenticity and conviction, which has never been replicated or equaled in the decades since its recording. When Selda first released her long-awaited LP (the first of two confusingly eponymous titles released the same year), she was enduring/enjoying her halcyon time as one of Turkey's most politically outspoken popular folk singers. In the previous decade she had made a household name for herself as a traditional Anadolu protest singer with a spectacular emotive vocal capacity (for idle argument's sake, begging comparison to a Turkish Joan Baez). A figurehead and poetic driving force for a radical generation of politically motivated, creative revolutionaries, she sang raw, stripped-down folk songs with a yearning for political change and a heart-wrenching earnestness. On her debut LP, in a match made in psychedelic heaven, Selda's radical prose fuses with equally radical musical gestures from some of the most lauded musical mavericks, including Anadolu beat combo Moğollar (also known to a growing French audience as Les Mogol), popular backing band Dadaşlar under the guidance of Anatolian rock stalwart Arif Sağ, and master electronic producer and pioneer Zafer Dilek. The bands were assembled at multiple sessions at Yeni Studios and the über-legendary Studio Elektronik, where the record was finally completed and mastered. Released in 1976 to equal parts critical acclaim and skepticism, the album smashed boundaries both lyrically and musically. It begs comparison to the second LP by post-folk sibling trio 3 Hür-El (GUESS 056LP), who used a balance of electronically treated saz and proto-polyphonic synthesizers to similar effect (exemplified here on tracks such as "Gitme" and "Yaz Gazeteci Yaz"). However, the fact that Selda was one of the few female voices to adopt the use of such cutting-edge techniques puts the LP in a league of its very own. Anatolian progressive rock has since gained popularity among DJs, producers, and record collectors as an unrivalled source for unique sounds rarely found in other genres of international music, and the artists involved in the recording of this LP, all of whom continued to record radical and experimental music, are considered the cream of the crop among Eastern psych aficionados. Includes two bonus tracks from the album sessions.

Luke Slater returns to Ostgut Ton with a Planetary Assault Systems album titled Arc Angel. Staying true to the project's initial mission statement, Slater comments on the new yet familiar musical direction: "For me, music has to go forward. I'd feel I was cheating by sticking to tried-and-tested formulas." With Arc Angel, Planetary Assault Systems departs to new musical frontiers by focusing on melody, but staying rooted in the purist values of techno. While the album title may sound like a reference to spiritual matters, it hints to rather secular affairs. Arc Angel is a postmodernist, non-comfortist techno album first and foremost. In the tradition of Slater's previous albums with Ostgut Ton - The Messenger (OSTGUT 010LP/020CD, 2011) and Temporary Suspension (OSTGUT 004LP/009CD, 2009) - its musical motifs radiate around polymorphic and extraterrestrial sounds, using contemporary instrumental language, but with an emphasis on compatible musical phrases. "With this album it was very much a case of limitation and focus around the idea of alternative melody," Slater says, "I love music that takes you somewhere new. All music for this album had to pass that test. At the same time I wanted to re-root the foundations of what I see as techno into that and focus on melody, rather than a track just being a beat." While there are nods to the past, Arc Angel aims for the future. There's shimmering sounds reminiscent of light beams being fired ("Tri Fn Trp"), pulsing signals in deep space ("Angel Of The East", "Sonar Falls", "Groucho") and rather harsh aesthetics ("The Last Scene"). Its melodic range includes hypnotic arrangements ("Merry Go Round", "Blue Monk"), distorted bells ("Revolution One"), rainbow noise and spatial effects - for the most part meshing with heavy kick drums ("Message From The Drone Sector", "The Rider"), sometimes using reduced beat patterns ("Max"), at times turning to repetitious loops, analog synth pads and alienated vocal bits ("Interlude 1 to 6"). Despite its musical richness, all gear had to fit onto a small table. "I love software, hardware, technology; but because we have almost endless choice of sound creating devices, it drove me to using very limited and focused equipment. Actually taking influences from the way an original blues guy... He has the guitar, the box and voice - I have the 909 and 808." Includes digital download of the single tracks and the continuous album mix.

"The mystery behind Frank Ocean's recently-released visual album, Endless, continues to unfurl with another piece of the puzzle revealed. In an Instagram post, Tillmans revealed that his track, 'Device Control,' was the closing song on Ocean's Endless" --Vice, August 22, 2016. This EP is the only physical release of photographer and musician Wolfgang Tillmans's "Device Control," following its digital release as part of Frank Ocean's Endless and the wave of coverage that ensued ("The photographer is on the hottest record of the year." --Artnet). The Device Control EP also includes three remixes of "Make It Up As You Go Along" from Tillmans's 2016 2016 / 1986 EP (FRAGILE 001EP) -- two by Daniel Wang & J.E.E.P. and one by Salem, ahead of the witch house trio's first album since 2010.