Shackleton works up a hypnotic group energy alongside avant-goddess Heather Leigh, percussionist Takumi Motokawa, and mallet player Raphael Meinhart in their debut as Tunes Of Negation for Shapednoise's label; Cosmo Rhythmatic. Reach The Endless Sea is a heady blast of lysergic, chromatic color, and syncopated rhythms that partly imagines an alternative musical timeline where the Hawkwind and Ash Ra Tempel fans, proto-Humanoid types, and new age travelers who made up the UK's rave vanguard prevailed against the law to enact a freely psychedelic dance music. The album follows in the vein of Shackleton's previous trio of vocal-focused trips for Honest Jon's and his Woe To The Septic Heart! label to find the mystic pied piper's spirit bolstered and tempered by a collaborative, multi-directional flow of energies. Gushing in five durational parts running between 10-15 minutes each -- or long enough to draw listeners into their dilated temporality -- the music comes in waves of pointed, timeless intensity, and illusory suggestion, subtly shifting pattern with an acid-dosed logic. Following her triumphant Throne LP in 2018 (EMEGO 257CD/LP), Heather Leigh provides sacral vocals to the canto couplet of "The World Is A Stage" and "Reach The Endless Sea", providing an elevated constant between its moiré of possessed vibes and lilting rhythms, before the trio of instrumentalists take the reins on a mazy trajectory between the harmonic lather of "Tundra Erotic", through the sanguine meditation of "Nowhere Ending Sky", and an epic, 15-minute invocation of ancient Indian raga traditions and mountaintop kosmiche in "Ruckschlag Rising Then Resonant", before they all come down together in the Amazonian delta flow and oozing sprawl of "The Time Has Come". While no single description will sum up the potency and conviction of Tunes Of Negation, their mission can be summed in a line from a poem by 13th C. mystic Jalalu'I-Din Rumi which inspired the album's title, stating that Reach The Endless Sea strives to "aid transmutation and enter into the light." Artwork by Zeke Clough. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Gatefold sleeve.

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)

LP version. Australian born, Sweden-based John Chantler returns to Room40 with his fifth solo edition. Tomorrow Is Too Late was commissioned by INA GRM for their Présences Électronique festival in 2018 and sees Chantler expand the horizons of his acoustic palette. Moving from subtle microtonal movements to passages of intense harmonic saturation, Tomorrow Is Too Late is his most dynamic work to date, a powerhouse of reductive intensity that bears witness to Chantler's uncompromising sonic articulations. John Chantler's recorded works for electronics are a dichotomy. Each of his editions, whilst entirely refined and composed, maintains a distinct sense of experimentation. Chantler's willingness to forgo the familiar in favor of the unknown or the unexpected has become a recurrent methodology which has resulted in a body of work that is simultaneously united and sprawling; Tomorrow Is Too Late typifies this dichotomy. Across each of the long-form pieces, he brings together unexpectedly vibrant sonic materials that converge and occupy attention with a dynamic intensity that exceeds all of his previous offerings. Rather than considering dynamics purely in terms of amplitude, Chantler uses frequency as means for creating elegant moments where stability is removed and we, as listeners, are left to find our own way amidst the towering, complex patterns he devises. The record also maintains a surrealist sensibility; audio hallucinations manifest, buried within the acoustic substrata. Voices, submerged within electronics hint at some imagined place. They bubble away at the very threshold of audibility. Similarly, stacked oscillating tones create hazy acoustic visions that suggest concrète landscapes, a nod to the storied history of the INA GRM studio. Tomorrow Is Too Late resolves a great many of John Chantler's interrogations into sound. It also opens a new chapter for his work, an aesthetic deepening that is sure to sustain him for many years to come. Chantler works with synthesizers and electronics to create unpredictable, highly dynamic music where passages of spare, alien beauty bridge distorted washes of masses harmonics. Originally from Australia, he spent a decade in London before moving to Sweden where he directs a small festival His work has been commissioned by Borealis Festival for Experimental Music in Bergen, Norway; Organ for the Senses, San Diego, USA; ElbPhilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany and Tectonics, Glasgow, UK. Chantler has also been artist-in-residence at the ZKM center for media arts in Karlsruhe, Germany and NOTAM in Oslo, Norway.

Spending the greater part of the last decade assembling this masterpiece while tracking down most of the musicians in the process, Stuart Ellis of Radiodiffusion International has compiled a mind-blowing set of Pakistani instrumentals spanning the period between 1966 and 1976. It's all here: rock and roll beat, surf, folk traditional mixed with pop, film tunes, electric guitars, sitar and organ solos, brilliant percussion and arrangements crafted by the grooviest bands of the period: The Panthers, The Mods, The Bugs, The Blue Birds, The Abstracts, The Aay Jays, The Fore Thoughts, Nisar Bazmi, and Sohail Rana. Situated between Afghanistan, India and Iran, the collision of cultural influences in Pakistan gave birth to music that was, and still is, unlike anything heard anywhere else on the planet. By the late 1960s, previous restrictions on musical expression began to soften and bands that were playing American and British pop covers became popular in Karachi's burgeoning night club scene and at private dance parties. Long hair came into fashion among young men and hashish became the popular drug of choice on college campuses across Pakistan. Soon, hippies from both North America and Europe began flocking to Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Very few of the bands that formed during this time actually got to record. Like their neighbors in India, the Pakistani record industry was more focused on releasing "filmi" music, which had just started to incorporate the electric guitar and electric sitar. Pakistan's musical revolution ended in June 1977 after a coup d'état and the establishment of a pure Islamic state governed by Sharia law. This marked the end of the "Swinging '70s" in Pakistan as night clubs and alcohol were banned throughout the country. Television and cinema, as well as popular music, were now subjected to government censorship. After the clamp-down, many Pakistani musicians left the country and moved to America, Canada and England. The audio quality here is top notch, sourced straight from the original EMI Pakistan masters. This CD comes in a digipak with superb photos of the musicians and extended liner notes by compiler Stuart Ellis.

"Arrington de Dionyso first made his name with the crazed Olympia-based art rock unit, Old Time Relijun. And I guess they still technically exist, but he has lately been more involved with Indonesian musical investigations, and lots of overtly free jazz horn aktion. Shouting Over Deep Water Blues was recorded by Henrik Lofgren in July 2012, in a small boat floating off the coast of Sweden. It features five improvisations on the Bromiophone with occasional liquid accompaniment provided by nature. Asked to describe the Bromiophone, Arrington writes, 'After many years of intense focus on the resonances and multi-phonic potentials of the bass clarinet, I decided to experiment with an extended range PVC pipe instrument called the Bromiophone (after Bromios, the thunder-roaring aspect of Dionysos in Greek mythology). As a modular instrument using a bass clarinet neck and mouthpiece, the various tubes can be lengthened and shortened according to improvisatory whim and wonder. The palms of the hands cover two open air holes which can be modulated both with movement of the hands and variations in lung pressure and mouthpiece embouchure to control the production of pitch, volume, and most importantly variations in tone color.' We've heard lots of players from Chris Corsano to Borbetomagus to Hen Bennink and onward use strange tubes to blow through, but Arrington manages to play a wonderfully full recital here, combining the reed's intonations with vocals recalling some of Arthur Doyle's Voice-o-phone experiments, and small randomized percussion events. Some of the tone inventions initially have a feel one often associates with members of the Netherland's Instant Composers Pool, but Arrington has a stick-to-it-iveness that ultimately make the music seems as American as it is freaked. If this is the Now Sound, I'll take it." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 300.

"Once upon a time, when the music business was more music than business (but only just), there was a band that created a quintessential dose of New York sixties psychedelia: one perfect album, loaded with fuzz guitar riffs of the greatest ferocity, heavy swirling organ, pulsating drums, and intense vocals. That band was Odyssey. It is true that their album, Setting Forth, did not take them from support slots in their native Long Island to the major label heights of other local bands like Vanilla Fudge. That could be because there were only a few copies made, and they came in a plain white jacket. Yet it is that same Odyssey Setting Forth album that is one of the greatest guitar-heavy psychedelic records in the world, and as a result is one of the most sought after and rare (expensive) LPs of the era. The last original vinyl copy to hit the open market was back in 2005, it's that rare. Now Setting Forth is available on vinyl again for the for the first time in a decade, ready for true psych fans to devour. This is truly one of the cornerstones of underground psychedelic music, recorded in 1969 and released as we have said in a minuscule private edition. It is an album that jumps right out of the speakers at you, from it's opening blasts of 'In-a-gadda-da-vida' fuzz guitar riffs, right to the very end. Color insert has a suitably kaleidoscopic band history by Odyssey leader Vinny Kusy, as well as rare photos from his own archive. One of the most important psychedelic rarities ever pressed on wax -- back on wax. One of the absolute best American psychedelic LPs of the 1960's, and one of the rarest! Includes a color insert with rare photos, and kaleidoscopic band history by Odyssey leader Vinny Kusy."

2019 repress. Milan Knízák's 1979 masterpiece reissued on vinyl for the first time; presented in a gatefold with the original design. Milan Knízák (born April 19, 1940) is a Czech performance artist, sculptor, musician, installation artist, dissident, graphic artist, art theorist, and pedagogue of art. Before everyone else -- Christian Marclay, Philip Jeck, eRikm, Martin Tétreault, Yoshihide Otomo -- there was Milan Knízák. In 1964, Knízák, a member of Fluxus from behind the Iron Curtain, sat down on a sidewalk near the Charles Bridge in Prague, laid down a paper carpet right into the street, and starts tearing pages out of books and burning them. Around the same time, he began to create music from defective, worn, damaged, or broken LPs. These Broken Music compositions, his classic collages of noises created during performances and happenings, are widely regarded as important sound art documents. Knízák recalls, "In 1963-64 I used to play records both too slowly and too fast and thus changed the quality of the music, thereby creating new compositions. In 1965 I started to destroy records: scratch them, punch holes in them, break them. By playing them over and over again (which destroyed the needle and often the record player too) an entirely new music was created -- unexpected, nerve-racking, aggressive and even humorous. Compositions lasting one second or almost infinitely long (as when the needle got stuck in a deep groove and played the same phrase over and over). I developed this system further. I began sticking tape on top of records, painting over them, burning them, cutting them up and gluing different parts of records back together, etc. to achieve the widest possible variety of sounds."

2019 repress. "Remastered double LP with 12 page booklet including liner notes by Tim Lawrence, Ernie Brooks and Arthur Russell. All material previously released on the Audika CD compilation First Thought Best Thought (2006). Before disco, and before the transcendent echoes, Arthur wanted to be a composer. His journey began in 1972, leaving home in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Heading west to Northern California, Arthur studied Indian classical composition at the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music followed by western orchestral music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, before ending two years later in New York at the Manhattan School of Music. Traversing the popular and the serious, Arthur composed Instrumentals in 1974, inspired by the photography of his Buddhist teacher, Yuko Nonomura, as Arthur described, 'I was awakened, or re-awakened to the bright-sound and magical qualities of the bubblegum and easy-listening currents in American popular music.' Initially intended to be performed in one 48 hour cycle, Instrumentals was in fact only performed in excerpts a handful of times as a work in progress. The legendary performances captured live in New York at The Kitchen (1975 and 1978) and Franklin St. Arts Center (1977) feature the cream of that eras downtown new music scene including Ernie Brooks, Rhys Chatham, Julius Eastman, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon, Garrett List, Andy Paley, Bill Ruyle, Dave Van Tieghem, and Peter Zummo. Pitchfork lauded Instrumentals Vol. 1 as a masterpiece and one of Arthur's 'greatest achievements'. Americana touching on Copeland, Ives, and maybe even Brian Wilson. Instrumentals Vol. 2 is a moving, deeply pastoral work performed by the CETA Orchestra and conducted by Julius Eastman. Also included are two of Arthur's most elusive compositions, 'Reach One', and 'Sketch For Face Of Helen'. Recorded live in 1975 at Phill Niblock's Experimental Intermedia Foundation, 'Reach One' is a minimal, hypnotic ambient soundscape written and performed for two Fender Rhodes pianos. 'Sketch For Face Of Helen' was inspired by Arthur's work with friend and composer Arnold Dreyblatt, recorded with an electronic tone generator, keyboard and ambient recordings of a rumbling tugboat from the Hudson River. For this remastered vinyl edition, a key part of Arthur's musical life has been restored. The sparkling, multidimensional results take the listener closer to Arthur's coast-to-coast journey: his iconoclastic determination to combine pop and art music; and his desire to make music that would resonate in the present and, ultimately, across time."

Beacon Sound presents Lower River, the debut solo album by Michael A. Muller. Conceptually, the album explores the place where time, space, and self are occluded -- a field of pure energy and creation similar to "the flow" or Zen state where ideas stream without impediment. Inspired by Muller's own remote travels throughout the US and Europe and the personal exploration of a meditative practice, it's a sonic exploration of what it means to deeply listen versus to merely hear, to immerse oneself in navigating the subconscious plane of pure energy and deep, immersive creativity. In 2006, multi-instrumentalist Muller co-founded the Austin-based ensemble Balmorhea; over 13 years he has co-led the group through six full-length records, numerous EPs, global tours, and original scores and worldwide track placements. Lower River began as a sound experiment in 2018 spanning from the isolated Oregon coast to rural Southern Italy and remote fishing villages in the South of France. With a tape recorder in hand, Muller chronicled his journeys through sound, contemplating along the way what it means to deeply listen amid a modern narrative underwritten by distraction. Merging his field recordings with original compositions recorded in his home studio in Austin, Lower River is a sonic venture into other worlds and into the depths of one's own mind; a study in engaging with sounds that don't easily slot into pre-existing notions of what an album "ought" to be. The final composition includes works by avant bass clarinetist Jonathan Siela (Golden Retriever), vocals by Heather Woods Broderick (known for work with Sharon Van Etten and Efterklang), and abstract double bass and cello by Balmorhea's Sam Pankey and Elan Green, respectively. The album cover art was made by renowned Dutch photographer Awoiska Van Der Molen. Includes download code and Riso print.

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.

2019 repress forthcoming October.. All girl band from Memphis who happened to be Alex Chilton's protégés; primal, loose rock n' roll à la Chilton/Jim Dickinson/Tav Falco in a wild and primitive no wave/DIY punk style. Whether you like Charlie Feathers or Kleenex, The Cramps or Lydia Lunch, you will adore The Klitz, the unadulterated sound of the Memphis underground. One side studio, one side live, both sides frantic, chaotic, and electrifying!

LP version. Antony Ryan and Robin Saville return with their ninth studio album as ISAN, Lamenting Machine. Three years in the making, Lamenting Machine is the deepest and most satisfying chapter yet in the ongoing musical conversation between these brilliant musicians. Subtle yet mesmerizing melodies evoking long forgotten memories, calmly throbbing bass figurines pulsing gently along -- all paying tribute to free-floating rhythms and their eternal noises. ISAN has always been an intimate and personal take on electronic music. Produced both in Denmark and the UK in their respective studios, each of the eight tracks symbolize a sea of blossoms carefully crafted and tended to, bringing color and hope to today's fragile and volatile world. And while there is definitely a lot worth lamenting about, ISAN's machine of the same name is an explorational celebration of their own musical past, once more bringing to the surface the project's essence of aural delight. Listening to ISAN requires time, but it is time well invested. While sounding exquisitely lighthearted from the outside, a closer inspection reveals a richly orchestrated and multi-layered musical riddle, mimicking a hedge maze of gargantuan scale and complexity, with each tone and each rhythmic pattern to be dissected, analyzed and understood individually in order to find the way out. ISAN's music has always had this quality, yet reflecting on their own past more consciously, the music on the new album redefines this approach in a more precise and gratifying way than ever before. While wholeheartedly shimmering and drenched in beauty, in order to fully appreciate the whole scale of ISAN, it is key to bravely engage with the underlying vagueness and fuzziness lingering in the tracks. Letting each piece of gear be true to itself, accepting its flaws as part of its unique personality, and turning these frailties into a starting point of inter-circuitry communication, ISAN has been at the forefront of humanizing technology and eliminating the dystopian men machine debate, clearing the table for a better future. This approach actually requires time in the studio as well: circuits need time to warm up, get to know each other, understand the energy flowing through the cables connecting them, figuring out what to do and what they really want. This process is not so much about giving up control, but rather to moderate a constant exchange of ideas.

"Ennio Morricone composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and television productions, making him one of the most influential and best-selling film composers since the late '50s. The Legend of 1900 (Italian: La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano, The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean) is a 1998 Italian drama film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and starring Tim Roth, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Melanie Thierry. The film is inspired by Novecento, a monologue by Alessandro Baricco. The Legend Of 1900 was nominated for a variety of awards worldwide, winning several for its soundtrack. Throughout his career Morricone received an unprecedented amount of awards, including Grammys, Golden Globes and BAFTAs. Ennio Morricone has influenced many artists including Danger Mouse, Dire Straits, Muse, Metallica, Radiohead, Hans Zimmer and many more. Edition of 1000 numbered copies on transparent blue 180 gram vinyl, includes insert."

Synth Expressionism/Rhythmic Cubism LP from Chicago's Jamal Moss, aka Hieroglyphic Being, is a collection of idioms that have no past and no future, his jarring use of polyrhythmic polyphony imbues a sense of timelessness. The prolific catalog of Moss's covers many musical dialects from his hometown and beyond. Never standing in one artistic sphere for too long, this adventure for On The Corner Records sees Hieroglyphic Being exploring a multitude of expressions of the American avant-garde. "Rhythmic Cubism: In this 'Dissertation Of Disorientation' [Neal Andrew Emil Gustafson] temporal considerations are put aside as polyrhythmic propulsion is the current flowing through the work. As prelude the fastidious 'Rhythmic Cubism', Moss enacts a flurry of white noise and musical coda as it phases in-and-out of synchronicity. The disjointed dance of an alternative Black Music, 'The Spiritual or Electromagnetic Worlds' takes the meter down a fraction to exonerate a granular groove of visceral refracted complexity. Sonorus static sits alongside spastic shards of synthesis to reveal a melancholic medley before its conclusion. 'Apocrypha' collages distinct rhythmic source materials in an entrancing abstraction of 'Hypersonic Hemiola'. An assertion of Art Blakey proportions. Perpetually pushed forward through the building of distorted percussion, Moss precludes into syncopated synapsis before and end of reductive symmetry. Evolving into a stuttered off-kilter groove, "The Redemption Project" flows as a dissipating organ medley dissolves into a deluge of layered sonic textures, creating an indiscernible metric center before fading to a distant vanishing point. Departing with a common-time 'Timbuk2' takes off like a classic Chicago acid track, then makes a left turn towards the center as it drives the rhythmic motion into a dystopian dreamland, as the sax line surges forcing the track to break free from its charted course. The Fragmented fantasy of the Synth Expressionism/Rhythmic Cubism LP is a conclusive work that has no end, a conundrum of conceptual calculated improvisation. Drifting through time, this fragmented abstraction of Afro-cubism leaves room for posterity, as each listen summons a new perspective on the suite. Something ever so common in the work of Jamal Moss. Charting new sonic directions, the very nature of its precedent makes it a truly Hieroglyphic affair." --Neal Andrew Emil Gustafson

Grischa Lichtenberger's music stands for broken rhythms, for high-density manipulations that emphasize the digital and fractal nature of its working process. A mindset that grew closer to contemporary jazz in recent years. Since free jazz, this genre also sought to overcome musical standards and looked for possibilities of an individual artistic expression. Within this context, the collaboration between Lichtenberger and jazz saxophonist Philipp Gropper as well as the resulting album are documents of this development. It also offers both musicians the opportunity to expand their familiar environment by breaking with expectations. The foundation for Re: phgrp were pieces from the album Consequences by Philipp Gropper's band PHILM which Lichtenberger reinterpreted without giving up their original character. He rather looked for figures, subjects, and reference points in the compositions to reflect and condense them. As Consequences was recorded with all the instruments in one room at the same time (like a classical jazz recording from the 1950s), the extraction of individual instruments was a challenge which Lichtenberger took up with shifts, distortions, and rearrangements of the original temporality of the material. Except for a few synthesizer sounds and an additional piano recording, he remained largely true to the source material, even though the tracks develop their own unique voice throughout the album. Re: phgrp (reworking consequences by philipp gropper's philm) will be released in cooperation with Whyplayjazz in a limited edition of 500 CDs. The cover was screen printed and shows a compositional notation by Grischa Lichtenberger. The album marks the beginning of an encounter between Lichtenberger and Gropper that promises to continue in joint improvisational concert situations and further recordings in the future.

2019 repress. "This is a wide panorama of Nam June Paik work as musician -- 'Hommage à John Cage' (1958-1959), 'Étude for Pianoforte' (1959-1960) and 'Simple' (1961) are good exemple of neodada music and de-structuration in the late 50's, this is basically irreverent audio-collages. 'Prepared Piano for Merce Cunningham' (1977) captures an improvised performance by Paik on a de-tuned piano. While 'Prepared for Merce Cunningham' was later mixed and edited for use by Cunningham, this raw, straight-to-tape version is favored by Paik. 'Duett: Paik/Takis' (1979) this is the only piece already released (by 20 years ago on a limited vinyl edition). Paik improvises on piano and voice, while Takis performs on his metal sculptures. Nam June Paik, was born in Seoul, Korea in 1932. After a move to Japan, where he studied the work of composer Arnold Schönberg, Paik came to Germany in 1956 to continue his studies in the history of music. His interests soon turned away from the university setting, to less traditional forms of music leading him to the Westdeutsche Rundfunk's Studio for Electronic Music, where Karlheinz Stockhausen was working. To date, there have been only a handful of limited edition LP and cassette releases of Paik's music, primarily documenting collaborative performances with colleagues and friends such as Joseph Beuys and Charlotte Moorman. This is the first CD release of Paik's music and the first ever release of the early tape collage pieces that were to inform the video and performance works that he has continued to produce over the last forty years."

Tropical boogie meets mellow house on Space Ghost's new album Aquarium Nightclub: An homage to the natural world set against the richly-diverse backdrop of Oakland. After Space Ghost's first album Endless Light (2018) took to international airwaves and echoed out of cities from London to Los Angeles, his forthcoming release Aquarium Nightclub brings back his signature lo-fi aesthetics with a fresh hit of inspiration from the natural world. Melding irresistible vintage synths with a meditative groove, Aquarium Nightclub is a journey of sorts. Taking listeners on a tropical tour through '80s house drums, lush synth landscapes, and deep bass melodies, the thirteen-track LP is as adventurous as it is restrained. Growing up in a small town a few hours from California's East Bay area, Space Ghost (Sudi Wachspress) moved to Oakland ten years ago to study at the California College of the Arts. In a city known for its vibrant cultural fabric and its experimental music scene, Space Ghost represents a new generation of young artists. His DJ collective Late Feelings, launched in 2013, has allowed him to find his own groove amongst monthly all-vinyl dance parties, where he plucks influences from various corners of the world. More complex than last year's release, Aquarium Nightclub shows off Space Ghost's artistic hunger and unique sonic signature. Kicking off with "Sea Snake Island", a track that is best described as late '80s house melancholia, is a beautiful dance of shimmering keys, drum machines, and sounds of the jungle. The single "Sim City" featuring Morgan is a classic Chicago house beast; dark but uplifting with heavy bass undertones, fuzzy drum pulse, and plenty of mysterious synth melodies. Other tracks like "Ocean Odyssey", "Night Dive", and "Aquarium Nightclub" plunge into an ambient world of slow 80s funk, though always rooted in the Bay Area sound. A product of record-collecting and dance party hosting, Aquarium Nightclub is a glittering postcard from Atlantis. Profound yet undeniably groovy, its mesmerizing tropical undertones promise a safe journey back to the endless days of summer. The album artwork is designed by Space Ghost himself.

2019's highly anticipated Live at Cocoon Ibiza mix is helmed by techno legend Luke Slater under his Planetary Assault Systems guise. As Planetary Assault Systems, UK titan Luke Slater has constantly laid down a blueprint for the future of techno. As a live performer he is a visionary who fuses mind melting minimalism, catchy cyborg funk and cinematic soundscapes that really take you on a trip. He did that once again back in July as part of Cocoon's 20th anniversary season and now the results are laid down on CD for the label to relive the magic. Over the course of eighty spellbinding minutes, Slater truly captivates with evocative sci-fi imagery and high-class melodic minimalism, smoothly shifting from moments of high-pressure drum-funk intensity to uplifting and spiritual passages of cosmic sound and back again. Along the way, he digs deep into his back catalog to serve up plenty of golden oldies as well as more contemporary cuts, and the whole thing melts together into a timeless set that explores the outer edges of techno with huge amounts of both style and substance.

A dark, thundering Kinshasa meets Paris soundworld. Ecstatic vocals, broken beats, subterranean bass and full-throttle energy. This four-piece group of sonic groundbreakers have delivered a scintillating debut album. Bantou Mentale was born in Chateau Rouge and born out of Matongé. Drummer and song-writer Cubain Kabeya -- originally from the DRC, now resident in Paris -- has been in or around every big thrill to come out of Kinshasa over the past decade: Staff Benda Bilili, Konono No.1, Jupiter & Okwess, Mbongwana Star. Guitarist Chicco Katembo was part of the Staff Benda Bilili story in the early days, before moving to Paris to live with his French mother. Singer Apocalypse is an ace face on the Parisian Congo scene, an alumnus of the orchestra of Koffi Olomide, emperor of contemporary Congolese soukous. Liam Farrell, aka Doctor L, born Irish, raised Parisian, is a musician, composer, and producer with an impressive score sheet that includes Assassin, FFF, Psycho on Da Bus, Tony Allen, Mbongwana Star, Babani Koné, Nneka, Les Amazones d'Afrique. The Bantou Mentale sound is neither traditional, nor slave to the all-encompassing tropes of Congolese rumba, nor slick and arty and self-consciously stylish. They're bringing something modern, raw, open to the world. Liam and Cubain have been distilling experimental mashes of electro African beats on-and-off for years, under names like Black Cowboys or Negro-P. The sound is a gleeful borderless up-cycling of all the urban styles that Paris, London, New York, Kinshasa have been doling out to the world these past two decades, combined into something new and purposeful. There are songs like "Zanzibar" and "Sango" that lament the clandestino stuck in the desert, penniless, screwed. And songs like "Chateau Rouge" that celebrate the wild uncertainty, the liberation, the fellowship of the migrant. "Boko Haram" bemoans the intellectual subservience and social servitude of many Africans, with music that's underpinned by the pulse of the forest and propelled by roughneck riffs and phasing guitars. "Papa Jo" pays homage to an old departed friend from Kinshasa who threw the best parties in his ramshackle house. The delicious grime of "Suabala" hides a story of love, with levels of passion and guitars frolicking in the red. "Boloko" is slower, more ethereal, with its subversion of the sound of those angelic choirs of "saved" little African kids that were the pride of the missionaries. "Syria" tells you that there's no future in petrol wars, with music that's strangled, painful, urgent, tragic, with plenty of glorious distortion.

"Often obscured by the ascent of Flying Nun's legendary roster is New Zealand's late 1970s / early 1980s punk scene. Based in Auckland, a cadre of acts influenced by The Ramones and Stooges briefly thrived. The Dum Dum Boys -- the first NZ punk band to record and release a full-length in their native country -- were hooked on the Ann Arbor sounds of Iggy Pop. The Dum Dum Boys' Let There Be Noise (1981) is chock-full of James Williamson and Deniz Tek riffage; it also contains elements of Iggy Pop's nihilism. Take the lyrics to 'Something To Say' -- it's refrain repeatedly asking 'What am I living for?'-- and juxtapose them to the band's namesake track from Pop's The Idiot (1977): 'What happened to Zeke? He's dead on jones, man.' 'Stalking The Streets' taps into the meaninglessness of James Taylor and Dennis Wilson's Two-Lane Blacktop journey through the American Southwest. The Dum Dum Boys understood the proto-punk sounds of 1970s Ann Arbor and Cleveland. More importantly, they also got the vibe. Life stinks -- sometimes in the places (Auckland) you'd least expect it. As the title suggests, Let There Be Noise is anything but a record incessantly focused on introspective doom and gloom. 'Don't Be A Bitch' rivals Radio Birdman's 'I-94' for lyrical thick-headedness -- like sticking a hot 454 in a Ford Falcon gasser, the song's simultaneously awesome and dumb. That's a difficult balance to strike. Let There Be Noise (1981) was self-released and copies quickly became damn near unobtanium, even in New Zealand. (I should know: I lived there.) In The Red has performed a major service by reissuing this obscure and outstanding record. Independent New Zealand releases from the early 1980s didn't get their due; distribution out of the country was essentially non-existent. It's nice to see that finally getting corrected." --Ryan Leach, Terminal Boredom

Restocked. Out-Sider present a reissue of Shadrack Chameleon's self-titled album, originally released in 1973. Reissue with newly remastered sound of this teen basement psych-rock private pressing from the Midwest. Great distorted guitars, organ, melancholic vocals, raw homemade vibe, inventive songs, and some cool Neil Young/Crazy Horse influences. File next to Rayne. Includes an insert with liner notes.

The legendary Adnan Othman has long been a driving force in the Malaysian rock scene. As early as the 1960s his groundbreaking songs in the style known as Pop Yeh Yeh (rock and roll sung in Malay) attracted fans from across Southeast Asia. Recently, he has gained many new fans around the globe due to a renewed interest in rock music from this region. Adnan first rose to fame during the groovy Pop Yeh Yeh era (1964-1970) in Malaysia and Singapore and he continued to evolve as a musician and composer throughout his exciting career. He made his first recordings in Singapore in the early 1960s, when he was invited to record with a highly popular backing band, The Rhythm Boys. He produced innovative material well into the 1970s, but always stayed true to his Rock-and-Roll roots, even when many other artists were turning towards more predictable disco influences. Every track on this album, which draws from all eight of his solo EPs, reveals a different side of his personality. His forceful, gritty, and emotional lyrics and vocals are backed by such memorable Pop Yeh Yeh bands as The Rhythm Boys, The Wanderers, The Flamingoes, and The Falcons. This impressive collection includes rare photos from the artist's own collection and a detailed biography, co-written by Adnan himself. This is a rare and personal insight into the life of one of Singapore and Malaysia's most beloved Pop Yeh Yeh legends -- revealing the man behind the spotlight -- one of the most humble, generous, down-to-earth people you could ever meet. It is clear that Adnan Othman cares deeply about preserving the legacy of his fellow Pop Yeh Yeh musicians: he devoted much time and energy helping to develop the previous Malaysian rock-focused release, Pop Yeh Yeh: Psychedelic Rock from Singapore and Malaysia 1964-1970 (2013). Again, for this album, he patiently answered our many questions about his life as a musician and artist, and we are most grateful to him for giving this release so much of his unique perspective. In fact, the title of this collection, Bershukor, named for one of the hits included in this album, means "gratitude" in Bahasa Melayu. The 26 unforgettable tracks on this CD are soulful, electrifying, and beautiful. To the many fans of '60s Asian Rock and Roll around the world who have been waiting for an album dedicated solely to the music of Adnan Othman, here it is! Digipak CD with full-size color 32-page booklet of text and photographs.

Munich's PYUR (Sophie Schnell) makes her Subtext debut with Oratorio For The Underworld, a nimble odyssey through vivid, otherworldly dreams. Growing up immersed in her family's work as shamans, Schnell draws on the techniques and stories of her upbringing, through which ephemeral forms, stories, and colors seep into her sound -- a synthesis of hyperreal sound design, dramaturgy, and classical composition. PYUR's fascination with the space between life and death is expressed through the weaving together of the organic and sublime in a dramatic exercise in expansive sonic worldbuilding. The album is a form of storytelling in which Schnell reimagines and takes on the role of psychopomp, ushering the listener into a borderless realm. She relays rich legends while warm, airy timbres (courtesy of cellist Teresa Alvarez and violinist Juan Zalba Fuentes) serve as guides throughout. Working largely in isolation over a period of two years, Oratorio For The Underworld is a document of "inward archaeology", and marks an intimate yet grandiose journey through the psyche, exploring the ecstatic emotional boundaries between life and death, and body and spirit.

Since the release of her debut record, Epoch Sinus, on Hotflush in 2016, PYUR has been active performing internationally at festivals such as Berlin's Atonal and Tasmania's Dark Mofo. She is currently at work on a collaboration with the French choreographer Benjamin Bertrand developing a piece called "La Fin Des Fôrets", which will be performed in summer 2020.

Peru enjoyed a thriving and exciting music scene since the mid-1960s. Bands such as Los Saicos, Los Shain's, and Los York's, to name just a few, released a number of brilliant records that drove young fans crazy and set an example for many to follow. The end of the decade brought about an evolution in sound and new music genres, as Peruvian bands kept an eye on the groundbreaking British and US artists exploring baroque pop, psychedelic rock and early prog. One of them was Traffic Sound, founded in Lima in 1967. Over a very short period of time the band managed to successfully develop their career transcending their starting point, in which they'd simply record covers of artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, or The Young Rascals, moving on to the more mature sound of their first LP with self-written songs, Virgin (1969), a masterpiece of Latin rock, and this second self-titled LP, released in 1970. Traffic Sound incorporates here complex arrangements and long song structures with which they approach prog music. However, the immediacy of songs like "Yesterday's Game", with a fierce and contagious guitar riff, or "Chicama Way", a terrific anthem, clear any possible doubt about the sound principles of the band: groovy rock. While tracks such as "Those Days Have Gone" or "America" show the friendliest yet psychedelic side of the group, "Tibet's Suzettes", the opening song of the album, simultaneously introduces all the ingredients of the Traffic Sound recipe: hypnotic rhythms, untamed guitars, and very skilled playing. Although some influences cannot be ignored, this second Traffic Sound album is huge and deserves to be considered one of the greatest recordings of its time, even internationally, as essential as the most hailed works of Cream, Caravan, or Led Zeppelin that served as a bridge for rock music between the '60s and '70s. Presented in facsimile tri-fold sleeve and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.

New Cold Dream is a thoughtful yet heartfelt amalgamation of dark electro, synth pop, and industrial dance music. "Lie Awake", an irresistibly classic dark-electro song underpinned by an infectious dance beat, embodies this balance perfectly. Past influences abound -- from John Maus to Bauhaus, from Suicide to Depeche Mode -- but this record lives distinctly in the present. For all its themes of fear and uncertainty brought on by the times we live in, New Cold Dream isn't a pessimistic record -- Matt Weiner seeks to embrace the unforgiving nature of these realities. Balancing optimism with cynicism, oscillating between hot and cold. This duality can be heard throughout the record -- from the foreboding refrain of "Slow Decline" to the sublime choral tones of "Misuse". Ominous, industrial beats offset dreamy synth melodies, while Weiner's fervid vocals reconcile tensions throughout: hot vs. cold, fear vs. courage, light vs. dark. Twins finds the similarities in what appear to be opposites, and invites you to do the same. "I want people to feel moved; both moved to get up and move and also moved in a deeper sense of connecting with ideas that may not have made sense before," Weiner says of his project. It's music for contemplating while dancing, for letting go while you hold on tight. As we grow tired of a world that deals in extremes, we wake up to a new cold dream." Comes on pink and white color vinyl.

Japanese experimental group Les Rallizes Denudes are the ultimate rock 'n' roll enigma. Sometimes referred to as Hadaka no Rallizes or even as Hadaka no Rarizu, each appellation a variant of the name "Fucked Up and Naked", which equates to being high on hard drugs, they are seen as noise-rock pioneers, yet sifting fact from fiction isn't easy with their oddball tale. Emerging from the radical hippie communes of Kyoto during the late 1960s, the band was formed in November 1967 by university student Takashi Mizutani, taking the overamplified, distorted guitar of the Velvet Underground as a starting point. Early demo recordings apparently suffered from poor sound quality, leading the perfectionist Mizutani to retreat from the studio environment, meaning that most of the group's output has appeared as live bootlegs, with the occasional studio demo surfacing as well. Performances were initially staged as part of avant-garde theatre, though the band's propensity for super-loud noise soon put paid to such collaboration; the ever-changing membership saw Mizutani the only permanent force, despite his embroilment in the 1970 Red Army hijacking of a civilian Japan Airlines flight, enacted partly through bass player, Moriaki Wakabayashi, who defected to North Korea in its aftermath. Though perhaps not quite as notorious, fellow improvisational group, Taj Mahal Travellers, has a backstory of random international travels that is almost as intriguing as that of Les Rallizes; formed in 1969 by six experimental musicians and an electronic engineer, they embarked on a series of improvisational gigs across Japan, notably including an all-day marathon held at a Kanagawa beach, and made their way to Europe in 1971, where they crossed paths with Don Cherry and other like-minded practitioners. They later drove from Holland to the Pakistan border, acquiring santoors in Iran on the way to help broaden their already unpredictable repertoire. The OZ Days Live release is culled from the OZ Last Days festival held in the autumn of 1973, to benefit Tokyo's OZ Rock Café, which had been closed following repeated drug busts. Here the Taj Mahal Travellers are suitably cosmic, their echoing jams featuring looped vocal chants, disjointed string instruments and sparse, off-kilter percussion; in contrast, the contributions from Les Rallizes are more standard examples of instrumental psychedelic rock, which veers more towards the acid rock end of the spectrum as the performance progresses.

Sight, sound, and space are deeply rooted in the work of Jeff Mills. But what do these three quintessential elements mean? Is it possible to describe to someone what it is like to see for the first time, or to listen to music in a new way, or to travel throughout the galaxy without having to break through the earth's atmosphere? The man from the moon has deep-seated thoughts about these concepts and explains them through this massive compilation, Sight, Sound And Space. The project has Mills diving into his extensive catalog and selecting tracks which epitomize his feelings on each. Sight is a beautiful faculty bestowed upon the human race. Mills wants his music to draw the correlation between sight and sound. In this opening part, you see him select tracks which often soundtrack classical sci-fi films, in which what we experience is the embodiment of all three: sight, sound, and space. As in with opening track "Perfecture", composed for Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), where the track is to accentuate the perfection of the futuristic buildings John Coltrane used to deconstruct music when he listened to it, listening to each aspect individually to absorb and appreciate it completely. Repetition, or the lack of it, is often at the heart of listening to music: it helps us understand its structure. An understanding of sound aids in reaching into the realm of music which encapsulates things or experiences, and electronic music is the perfect tool for exploring these possibilities. Tracks like "Microbe" exude this point, with layered beats each with their own meaning and direction which make a tantalizing cut. Space is one of the pinnacles of Mills' interests. The similarities between it and techno are remarkable, the more that is discovered about each, the more possibilities they reveal. "One Man Spaceship" was constructed to give the listener the experience of navigating through the cosmos. Perpetuated here is electronic music as a guide. Space may frighten you as this gigantic continuum that is detached from you, but you must remember you are a part of it. Sight, Sound And Space is another installment in his The Director's Cut series. DVD package size, hard-cover book style package; Includes three CDs and a 50-page booklet.

Honest Jon's Records present a reissue of Company's Epiphany, originally released in 1982.

Epiphany \ i-ˈpi-fə-nē \ (1) a manifestation of the essential nature of something (usually sudden) (2) an intuitive grasp of reality through something (usually simple and striking) (3) an illuminating discovery or disclosure.

All three definitions apply perfectly to this span of music recorded at London's ICA in July 1982. It's a miracle of group interaction, wonderfully paced, moving steadily between moments of mounting intensity and tension. The passage about halfway through -- when Derek Bailey's harmonics ring out above a sheen of inside piano tremolos and shimmering electronics, topped off by Julie Tippetts's soaring vocalese -- is simply sublime. After which it's fun to try and tell the two pianists apart. Are those runs Ursula Oppens, with her formidable technique honed from years performing some of the twentieth century's most difficult notated new music, or are those Keith Tippett's crunchy jazz zigzags? Are those intriguing twangs from one of Akio Suzuki's invented instruments or could they be Fred Frith's or Phil Wachsmann's electronics? Bah, who cares? There's plenty of room for the more delicate instruments too, like Anne LeBaron's harp picking its way gingerly through a pin-cushion of pings and scratches from Bailey and bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa. Of course, some performers are instantly recognizable: Tippetts, as lyrical and flighty on flute as when she sings, Phil Wachsmann, sinuous and sensitive on violin, and trombonist George Lewis, who, as John Zorn once put it, "swings his motherfucking ass off." So many magical moments abound, from the opening dawn chorus of Tippetts' voice and Frith's guitar swooping through a rainforest of exquisite piano cascades, to the Zen calm of the closing moments. Epiphany, indeed. Housed in a gatefold sleeve.

"'360 degrees of freedom is overwhelming in music, and you need not truly begin to find freedom until you put yourself under extremely narrow constraints.' It was with this quote that Don Slepian laid the groundwork for over 40 years of musical output. Slepian's work draws equally from the harmonic terrain he explored while performing with a Javanese gamelan ensemble, as well as his time spent building and modifying electronic audio equipment for studios and fellow musicians. Gravitating towards improvisation and experimentation, Slepian built a breathtaking sound-world that stretched the briefest of moments into an eternity of detail and depth. In 1980, Slepian self-released a series of cassette albums that built upon and perfected this practice, offering New Music for Digital Orchestra. New Dawn is one of those albums -- an enthralling example of New Age euphoria, and early-electronic experimentation. New Music For Digital Orchestra? An ironic subtitle for an album without any traces of digital technology found within. The instruments, tools, and recording techniques are entirely analog. A Korg PS3100, Mellotron voices, Mellotron flutes, analog tape echo and analog recorder were used to create both of the pieces found on New Dawn with both tracks being recorded live with no overdubs."

Sonor Music Editions reissue of a previously unreleased soundtrack for the obscure drama movie Seduzione Coniugale from 1974, directed by Daniele Franco. Originally published by CAM label with just two tracks recorded on a scarce 45, Sonor Music Editions was able to restore the music from the original CAM archive tapes to offer a proper vinyl edition that this beautiful score absolutely deserves. Maestro and orchestra director Giancarlo Gazzani -- the great musician and arranger behind several Italian grails like Feelings (1986) and more killer Library recordings from Costanza Records -- composed an enchanting and unmissable OST with loads of refined Morricone-esque orchestral arrangements, insane groovy beats, and Nuova Consonanza-inspired avant-garde music. The whole soundtrack is great with a huge strings orchestra that swings between sweet and flirtatious bossa nova themes and mental sounding experimentation with a driving drums kit.

Triple LP version. Gatefold sleeve. Soundway releases first Caribbean compilation in over ten years, Body Beat: Soca-Dub And Electronic Calypso 1979-98. 17 obscure soca B-side versions, dubs, instrumentals, and edits as well as vocal tracks influenced by disco, boogie, house-music, soul, and the more conscious lyrics of roots reggae. Owing as much to New York, Toronto, and London as to the Caribbean cities of Port of Spain, Bridgetown, and Kingstown this compilation traces the genre from its explosion in the late 1970s right up to the period just before contemporary soca became established around the end of the 1990s. Compiled by Soundway label founder Miles Cleret and DJ/collector Jeremy Spellacey, Body Beat, as with many compilations on the label, explores the fringes of this often maligned (by outsiders) genre. Boiled down to the bare bones of the matter though: soca is party music. Soca was originally a re-invention of Calypso music; a genre that in the 1970s was fast becoming usurped around the Caribbean by Jamaican reggae and American soul, funk and later disco. The originator of soca (or sokah as he called it), the calypsonian Lord Shorty, began experimenting and modernizing on the formulation of calypso in the early 1970s. His first album featured a strong emphasis on East African rhythms and a punchier recording style that emphasized the beat, and introduced arrangements that often owed as much to American funk and soul as to calypso. So here you go -- seventeen slabs of soca crossover, rapso, electronic calypso, and Caribbean "soca-soul" for your enjoyment -- and bound to fit well into modern, open-minded DJ sets alongside the resurgence of burger-highlife, digi-reggae, soukous, and zouk. Features Cito Jarvis, Roger Bain, *D* Ivan, Bill Campbell, Brother Resistance, Adonijah, Peter Britto, Juno D, Colin Jackman, Levi John, Spiking, Mohjah, Andre Tanker, Touch, D'Rebel Band, The Millers, and Chocolate Affaire. RIYL: Rebles' Sweetest Taboo (Soca) 12" (SNDW 12036EP), George & Glen Miller's Easing 12" (SNDW 12037EP), Wilson LeGendre.

"Julián y su Combo was founded in 1962 by left-handed guitarist Julián Angulo Ponce, who was originally from Guapi, Cauca, Colombia and made his name in Cali and Buenaventura, signing initially with Bogotá's Sello Vergara in 1966. During a 20-year period Julián y su Combo released eight records (with several band name variations). Angulo was part of the first generation of artists from the Colombian Pacific who migrated to Bogotá in the 1970s, and his combo enjoyed popularity in his adopted city as well as in Medellín and Mexico. The band also travelled to Venezuela and the US. Angulo described his sound as 'Afroantillano', combining Cuban, New York Latin, and Puerto Rican elements with Colombia's own tropical traditions. The combo's arrangements were distinguished by the bandleader's funky, jazzy electric guitar work (Angulo played without changing the order of the strings), a hot rhythm section and the potent brass line-up of two saxophones and a trumpet (much like Cortijo y su Combo). Noche De Fiesta (1975) was the first of two albums Angulo cut for the Medellín-based INS label (Industria Nacional del Sonido Ltda), and the record was distinguished by having the great Peruvian bandleader and composer Alfredo Linares guesting on piano. Linares also shared the arranging duties with the combo's trumpet player Carlos Rivas. At that time Alfredo Linares was musical director at INS and this album bears his influence in the funky 'mambo rock' sections (breaks and handclaps galore!) and hot Cuban and Latin jazz piano styles that also graced his own records. The lead vocals were equally split by Julian's long-time singer José Arboleda and the band's drummer 'Guapachá' (guest artist Clelia Ramírez joined the band on coro). Noche De Fiesta is sought after by collectors and DJs the world over not only for its hard salsa and instrumental 'descarga' (jam) tracks but also because of the funky dancefloor cuts 'Enyere Kumbara' (covered by Quantic), 'INS-Rock' and 'Estoy Soda' as well as the excellent original version of 'Las Caleñas Son Como Las Flores' (made famous later the same year by The Latin Brothers)." --Pablo Iglesias, aka DJ Bongohead Part of a new Vampisoul reissue series of classic LPs from Colombia's INS label. Presented in facsimile artwork and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.

Alter present the debut vinyl release from Melbourne's Trevor, aka graphic artist and Total Control drummer James Vinciguerra. Becoming A Bed gathers seven tracks that run the gamut between battered drum-machine beats, minimal-wave, scratchy noise, and spoken word. "Romp With Monty" is the album's least demented moment and delightfully evocative of its title with simple melodies and rigid drum machine patterns. A sharp contrast to the flailing gabber and breaks combination on "Cabbage Land", resembling something akin to Jamal Moss or Beau Wanzer experiencing a severe breakdown of both mind and hardware. These hybrids of erratic, free percussion and wild synth blurts (see also "Midi 2") lend the album a charming edge, favoring a playful kind of experimentation which extends to the album's calmer moments too. "Bedtime Story" provides one such bit of respite and the only appearance of Vinciguerra's voice, processed here in a cold, curious monolog that ruminates on lethargy and illness, atop looping dark ambient textures. It's position in the album providing a centerpiece of cavernous and confounding simplicity. Elsewhere, tongue-in-cheek end skits sound as if they were heckled at the end of a gig and then decidedly left on the tape. The reckless rave of closing cut "Speed Ave" reflects this in-the-moment sensibility, the machines being close to escaping their captain. It may provide the most didactic dancing effort on the record, but neatly aligns with a loose and uninhibited mindset that skirts around the same warped techno vision as label affiliates Cru Servers or Acolytes. This is music for the most fun of dancefloors.

For the first time since its inception in 1983, Steve Hiett's elusive Down On The Road By The Beach is finally made available outside of Japan. Most recognized in the fashion sphere as an English photographer and graphic designer, Hiett's transportive audio portraits amplify his serpentine guitar to the infinite blue, recorded across Paris, Tokyo and New York. A career devotee of Brian Wilson's groundbreaking harmonies, Hiett shot The Beach Boys for Rolling Stone -- as well as The Doors, Miles Davis, and Jimi Hendrix -- while establishing himself as a fashion photographer. Decamping to Paris in 1972, he began what would become 20-year collaborations with Vogue Paris and Marie Claire. In 1982, representatives from Tokyo's Galerie Watari visited him to propose a solo exhibition. Asking if he could insert a 7" of original music into the back of the exhibition catalogue, Hiett laid down "Blue Beach - Welcome To Your Beach" in a Parisian radio station, playing all of the instruments himself, and two more cuts in New York with Yoko Ono, The Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan hired-gun, Elliot Randall. Once dispatched, there were requests for him to fly to Tokyo to record; it wasn't until he arrived that he discovered CBS/Sony had facilitated an entire album. Heitt hastily gripped some petty cash, bought a guitar, and retreated to his hotel room to start writing. Entering the studio the following day, he was further surprised by a waiting room of session players known as Moonriders -- one of Japan's most acclaimed rock bands of the 1980s. Intimidated by their indecipherable sheet music, Hiett suggested Randall join them and with money being no object for major labels at the time, his wingman was on the next plane out of New York. Near-ambient arrangements that float in a space between The Durutti Column, Steve Cropper, and Ashra, Down On The Road By The Beach also crowns Hiett the master of recontextualization with his zero-gravity blues visions of "Roll Over Beethoven", Santo & Johnny's "Sleep Walk" and the 1967 Eddie Floyd soul hit, "Never Found A Girl". Produced in coordination between Be With Records, Efficient Space and the artist, this definitive reissue is restored from original masters; extensive liner notes penned by Mikey IQ Jones. CD version marks the release's first time on CD; digipack; includes six-page insert with photos and liner notes.

The first LP from France's Humming Dogs. Born from the radical Oiseau Mouche (Bird-Fly Company) -- a troupe of actors and comedians who focus on the theatre of gesture -- Humming Dogs make joyful, avant rock music, which pooh-poohs the po-faced in favor of a party. Humming Dogs are made up of eight members -- David Bausseron, Mathieu Breuvard, Florence Decourcelle, Thierry Dupont, Chantal Esso, Léa Le Bars, Florian Spiry, and Valérie Waroquier -- who each write and create songs, swap instruments, and sing collectively. Guitars, bass, drum kit, and keyboards mix with toy percussion, amplified pinecones, pot lids, iPads and a zither. "Ha Ha Ha" opens the record with the group dispersed and growling at one another, only to break out in infectious laughter, a free word riot and a thick bass melody. The traditional French song, "Karnaval", gets totally sent by keyboards and a heavy guitar scrawl egged on by the bands hooting and hollering. "Ça Me Gratte" haunts, grates, until it splits with a rising synthesizer, squeaking toys, vocal drones and spitting, near exhausted vocals from Chantel Esso. "Les Borigènes" contains the self-taught, simple charm of the Shaggs' Philosophy of the World (1969), performed in the spirit of village revelry and recorded and edited beautifully in the tradition of the GRM. Democratized experimentation, low ego rock n' roll, Les Borigènes is a truly joyous, remarkable and wild record. Artwork from London's Submit to Love Studios and Taylor Silk. Humming Dogs have performed at Sonic Protest, Cafe OTO, and Counterflows. 140 gram vinyl; edition of 500.