Hunkered down and unable to record together, in 2020 the Mekons created a glorious digital chain letter of an album. Exquisite is a sprawling manifesto of connection and defiance that deftly slides through fiddle tunes, digi-dub, fireside ballads and urgent rock n' roll. And that's just side A. The original recording plan was to have been a whole-band-in-a-room session in Valencia, Spain. When the pandemic rendered that impossible the process took a sharp swerve. This legendary group from Leeds, have written contemporary music history for the last 40 years as radical innovators of both first generation punk and insurgent roots music, and Exquisite is another powerful vector of that legacy.

"In Paris, in 1925, Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert, André Breton and Marcel Duchamp invented a game they called 'cadavre exquis,' derived from a phrase that came up when they first played: 'le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau' ('the exquisite corpse will drink the new wine'). Basically each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed. During the plague years of the early 21st Century, the Mekons adopted this method as a means of collectively assembling lyrics and tunes and recording their new albums. Scattered in various locations from the West Coast of California to the East End of London, they sang and played into their mobile phones and emailed, uploaded and messaged their wailings, beatings, scratchings and strummings around the globe through the billions of interconnected nodes of our networked panopticon. Mike Hagler assembles the results in Chicago and sends them to be mixed by The Baron at Chateau Trumfio. While the world goes hyper-speed to NetNever avidly acting out the crazy jags of meltdown capitalism electrified dancing corpses and waves of virus plunge into burning oil seas of ancient systemic racism ravaging and squawking out of this nightmare sleep of reason, come chlorinated chickens home to roost in nests of hypocrisy, impunity and conspiracy. We put on our goggles and look to the Madderworse, scanning our eyes towards the acid horizon of annihilation, take virtual joy if you can. And, well, you just might be tired from having to take to the streets: what better time to settle down with a fancy cocktail of medical drugs and dig the Mekons' new surrealist sounds..." --Colin Stewart, Bridlington

Munster present a reissue of Mick Farren's Vampires Stole My Lunch Money, originally released in 1978. After three albums of raw, rabble-rousing psychedelic street punk with the Deviants, and an esoteric solo album (1970's Mona - The Carnivorous Circus), Mick Farren put his musical activities on hold at the dawn of the 1970s, and focused instead on his writing. By 1976 Farren was making his mark as a staff writer at the New Musical Express, where he was instrumental in chronicling, and to some extent nurturing, the nascent punk rock movement as it jerked awkwardly to life in the streets and pubs of London. Farren felt a natural affinity with the new youth fashion line of pimple-faced punk aspirants, full of piss, vinegar and amphetamines, ranting about anarchy and boredom over a simplistic rock n' roll backbeat. Inevitably, it wasn't long before Mick was off the sidelines and back in the musical fray. Farren got a call from Logo Records who had just acquired the Transatlantic catalog and were re-releasing the Deviants' third album. Mick suggested they also release a new solo album, and to his surprise, after some initial hesitation, they agreed. Andy Colquhoun, the Warsaw Pakt's lead guitarist, soon became his primary musical foil -- in fact, some of the songs on this album were originally intended for the Warsaw Pakt. Also, Farren put a band together, including guest musicians: Wilko Johnson of Dr Feelgood, Chrissie Hynde who was still in the process of forming the Pretenders, Sonja Kristina, the lead singer of Curved Air, and Will Stallibrass who'd played with Graham Parker, Lightnin' Slim and Chilli Willi & the Red Hot Peppers, to name a few. Due to the limited budget, they ended up spending most of their time working on a half-dozen of their favorite tracks, while the rest were "banged down as little more than jamming, art-school R&B, with only a thin coat of metalflake." Unavailable on vinyl for quite some time, Munster Records present the reissue of Vampires Stole My Lunch Money, regarded as one of Mick Farren's finest albums. In Trouser Press, Ira A. Robbins called it "Farren's solo masterwork... a harrowingly honest collection of songs about drinking, dissolution, depression and desperation." Includes liner notes by Mike Stax (Ugly Things Magazine).

Restocked; double LP version. Tip-on gatefold jacket. Sublime Frequencies finally unleashes its essential compilation from 1970s Egypt, produced and compiled by Hisham Mayet. Modal instrumental tracks from Baligh Hamdi -- one of the most important Arabic composers of the 20th Century (writing for legends Umm Kalthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Sabah, Warda, and many others). Features his legendary group the Diamond Orchestra with Omar Khorshid on guitar, Magdi al-Husseini on organ, Samir Sourour on saxophone, and Faruq Salama on accordion. All of these musicians were discovered and recruited by Hamdi to interpret his vision of a modernized, hybrid Arabic music. Under Hamdi's direction, this orchestra charted a new melodic direction and created a new musical language. This compilation is culled from a specific era of Hamdi's long career, a decade where he fully realized an international music which incorporated beat driven Eastern-tinged jazz, theremin draped orchestral noir, tracks that feature searing guitar solos from none other than Omar Khorshid, and a selection of buzzing, sitar driven, Indo-Arabic tracks establishing a meeting of mid-east and eastern psychedelic exotica, and a vision that created some of the hippest music coming out of the Middle East from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Includes extensive liner notes by Hisham Mayet with rare photographs.

"Now-Again Records' follow up to one of its most well-loved compilations, Forge Your Own Chains, with another batch of rare, largely uncompiled -- and sometimes barely heard -- heavy psych-rock and funk. Pounding drums, scathing fuzz guitar and morose, contemplative lyrics will bring you up on a downer. Tickets For Doomsday, as the title hints, is and rumination on what might befall the human race -- made especially salient by the past year's trials and tribulations -- as performed by prison funk ensembles, Indonesian hippies, Krautrock legends, Icelandic prog-rock bands and even Bay Area rap catalyst E-40's uncle, the man to ¬first distribute Master P's No Limit Records, and the creator of this album's title track, St. Charles 'Chucky' Thurman. A unique and compelling listen, and surely a worthy companion for these times." Features Golden Wing, Misty, Icecross, Paternoster, Chucky Thurmon, Upheaval, Water Color, Stephen David Heitkotter, Christopher, Kourosh, and J.B Green and Band.

"Jeff Carney's sophomore effort for audioFile (1989) could not have been criticized were it to have remained in similar territory as the electronic wall of sound he had created on Imperfect Space Journeys. Instead, he created a more sparse, evolving tapestry of analog timbres. Using an exclusively vintage analog arsenal and recording live without overdubbing, Carney pushed forward with new ideas and uniquely developing sweeps of filter madness. The side-long 'Questions (Unanswered)' is immensely innovative: the sounds are at once organic and of the earth, yet futuristic in their skyward drones and hypnotic hooks. Additional layers are gradually added, like a bubbling alien swarm tone that comes in successive falling surges, followed by cosmic whooshing and howling rushes of wind. The effect is simultaneously meditative and intense. And live. As Carney said, 'I was quite proud because I managed to essentially perform the entire composition without error. Just about every sound came in at the right level. Every part was performed without mistake. And nothing was adjusted or corrected. This was what happened on the spot.' Carney explores different territory on the two B-side tracks: 'ARP 2600 Improvisation' is like a master class of cosmic effects. It feels like the soundtrack to a 1950s sci-fi movie, recalling Forbidden Planet's most electrifying moments, but also at times sounding like sci-fi flick meets battle-in-space video game. 'Pensive Mood' roars out of the starting gate with a high octane electronic arpeggiated pattern, creating a somewhat white-knuckled brand of 'pensive' contemplation. This is the most minimal piece of the set, with the incessant, almost imperceptibly evolving arrangement having a somewhat edge-of-your-seat hypnotic effect. The album was completely uninfluenced by the digital trends that were dominating the era, and stands as a landmark example of the uncompromising ethos adopted by many artists of the 1980s underground. Featuring an all new essay and interview with Jeff Carney by Jerry Kranitz (author of the Cassette Culture book and publisher for nearly two decades of Aural Innovations), this is the definitive reissue of Live Electronic Music."

Innercity Griots, the second album from Freestyle Fellowship, is perhaps the essential West Coast left-field rap album of the early '90s. Released in 1993 on 4th & Broadway, it's a towering, progressive hip-hop masterpiece that expanded rap's boundaries through lyrical elevation and production innovation. Their talent was ahead of everybody else by light years. This is pure b-boy jazz. Be With reissue includes "Pure Thought" from the CD version of the album. Freestyle Fellowship were some of the earliest technically dazzling rappers to come out of California. Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E., Aceyalone and Self Jupiter -- along with DJ Kiilu -- forged their famed lyrical dexterity in the ultra-competitive crucible of the Good Life Cafe. Founded in Leimert Park, South Central LA in December 1989, this earthy health-food store and cafe was where the city's finest microphone fiends would gather to showcase their freestyle skills at the Thursday night open-mic. Innercity Griots has been described as the Rosetta Stone for rap styles. The group's dense, vibrant wordplay and enviable interplay quickly earned the attention and respect of the city's hip-hop underground. Frenetically trading acrobatic rhymes with agility and grace, the Fellowship used their voices as instruments like true virtuosos, spraying improvised raps like a Coltrane sax solo. With the bulk of the album's production handled by The Earthquake Brothers, and Bambawar, Daddy-O, and Edman taking over for some of the tracks, Innercity Griots dances between organic and programmed music, largely forgoing sampling and instead built around live jazz jams. The likes of Freddie Hubbard's "Red Clay" and Miles Davis's "Black Comedy" were used more as templates for house band The Underground Railroad Band to spiral out from. As Pitchfork noted in their recent 9.0 review of this classic album, "Freestyle Fellowship embodied the style and spirit of jazz on a molecular level. They shared the effortless cool and tough countenance of the great bebop players from the '50s without verging into jazz-rap parody." The unusual approach to the music was matched by the Fellowship's lyrics. Eschewing the tired rap tropes of the time, this multifaceted album instead explores their ruminations on greed and homelessness, weed, sex, survival, insecurity and tribalism. Remastered by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman.

2022 repress. LP version with a 12-page full-color booklet with extensive notes and unseen photos. "With only six singles released between 1965 and 1966, and from an apparently remote place such as Lima, Peru, Los Saicos created a raw, wild and visceral sound, the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of the garage rock that was coming out of the U.S. Northwest at the same time. Theirs is the same DNA shared by The Sonics, The Cramps and Black Lips. This release compiles all their recordings and tells their amazing story. This snarling maelstrom of nihilism was cut in Lima when the rest of the world was wetting itself over The Beatles, direct links to both The Stooges and The Cramps here and several more equally-enthralling combos. The latter spawned several generations of individuals who would dig deep to previously (mostly) unheard seams of music and other forms of culture that have since become part of the mainstream fabric. Another strong case of the same kind of happenstance to my mind is that which preceded the much-vaunted 'punk' explosion of the '70s." --Lindsay Hutton

2022 repress. Pressed on 180 gram black vinyl and housed in a gatefold sleeve. Remastered for a vinyl release. This 15-track compilation spans the years 1995-2004, featuring key tracks from all their albums as well as live recordings and many unreleased tracks. The Brian Jonestown Massacre is a psychedelic rock band originally from San Francisco, California, led by guitarist/singer Anton Newcombe. Since 1995 The Brian Jonestown Massacre has released numerous albums, first for Bomp! Records, the label which gave them their start, and later for TVT and Tee Pee. BJM has been essential in the development of the modern U.S. garage scene, and many L.A. and SF musicians got their start playing with Newcombe, including Peter Hayes of The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Originally Newcombe was heavily influenced by The Rolling Stones' psychedelic phase -- the name comes from Stones guitarist Brian Jones combined with a reference to cult leader Jim Jones, but his work in the 2000s has expanded into aesthetic dimensions approximating the UK shoegazing genre of the 1990s, and incorporates influences from world music, especially Middle Eastern and Brazilian music.

2022 restock. Zbigniew Preisner is a self-educated Polish film score composer who first won renown for his collaborations with influential Polish director and screenwriter Krzysztof Kieslowski. As part of its reissue series focusing on Preisner's work with Kieslowski, Because Music presents a reissue of Preisner's score for Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red (1994), the third film in Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy (BEC 5156047), following Blue (BEC 5156048) and White (BEC 5156049). The trilogy is themed on the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity; Red is about fraternity, which it examines by showing characters whose lives gradually become closely interconnected. Red stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Irène Jacob, and received universal acclaim upon its release; Preisner's score, performed by the Sinfonia Varsovia and the Silesian Philharmonic choir, won the 1995 César Award for Best Music. The score opens with a performance by Zbigniew Zamachowski. Zbigniew Preisner has also worked with Jean Becker (on Élisa (1995), winner of the 1996 César Award for Best Music), Thomas Vinterberg (It's All About Love (2003)), and Claude Miller (Un secret (2007)). LP includes CD.

2022 restock. 180 gram vinyl exact repro reissue of Shuggie's timeless 1970 debut. "Produced and arranged by his father, R&B legend Johnny Otis, the set features nine original cuts co-written by the pair, and in some cases others, and one written by Johnny with Dan Aldrich. The album is evenly divided between vocal tunes and instrumentals. The cast for these sessions included Johnny, Wilton Felder, Stix Hooper, bassist Al McKibbon, Preston Love, Jackie Kelso, Plas Johnson and a string section. 'Oxford Gray,' the album's opener, is an instrumental written by Johnny, Shuggie, Felder, and Hooper. Unlike anything that ever came before it, it's a baroque blues tune that features Shuggie playing both electric and acoustic bottleneck slide, a harpsichord, strings and a groovy little backbeat that walks the edge of blues and funk. It feels like a suite because of its many composed sections, but Shuggie's guitar is pure improvisational poetry. This is followed by the beautiful, psychedelic pop of 'Jennie Lee.' Shuggie's vocals weren't quite there, and were still somewhat tentative, but his gorgeous, Albert King-inflected guitar solo is right in the pocket, and stands in wonderful contrast to his acoustic string in the verses. The horns are restrained and regal, and the textural palette of the cut is lush and spacious. There is plenty of rootsy playing here too, such as on 'Bootie Cooler,' a Stax-styled blues groove, and the name-dropping shimmy and shake of 'Shuggie's Boogie,' the wig-tightening funk of 'Hurricane,' and the reverentially gritty 'Gospel Groove.' It closes with a modern soul rocker called 'Baby I Needed You,' with a killer hook in the refrain even if Shuggie's vocal doesn't quite pull it all off. Here Comes Shuggie Otis stands the test of time over 30 years later, and stands as a hallmark of songwriting, improvisation, and production acumen." -- All Music Guide

2022 restock of Bureau B's 2009 reissue. LP version. Originally released in 1978 on Sky Records, After The Heat was the second collaborative release by Brian Eno with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster). Produced once again by Conny Plank, After The Heat is a suite of micro-managed organic and electronic instrumentation that features recited and sung vocals by Eno on 3 tracks. As Asmus Tietchens writes in the liner notes: "Cluster & Eno can, with the benefit of hindsight and without overstating its case, be seen as the first ambient album to have been produced in Germany. The second LP, After The Heat, is, however, a completely different story. Whilst Cluster & Eno bears the hallmark of a Cluster composition guided by Eno's ambient concept, After The Heat is more of an Eno album bearing stylistic characteristics of Cluster music." Sweet, slow-moving and airy, with a modern classical/prog appeal.

Restocked. "The sixth LP by NYC trio, Rhyton, is as heavy as an Egyptian space-funeral. The vibe of this masterful album is fully embodied by its gorgeous Robert Beatty cover art, which looks like a Mati Klarwein reinterpretation of Tony Scott's '68 Verve LP, Music for Yoga Meditation. Rhyton was formed in 2011 by Dave Shuford and fellow travelers, with a notion to balance the songwriterly stance of D. Charles Speer with something more improvisation based. As Shuford says, 'Originally we took certain international rock icons, mainly European and Japanese touchstones, to be points of departure. In general, and as the drummer changed, some of the influences stateside came more to the fore. Improvisation, though still prevalent, began to take a secondary role in the creative method. The studio has continually increased its position as a focused tool for the group, dating back to the Kykeon album and expanding again on this latest batch. Studio -- structure -- rupture -- living asunder.' Pharaonic Crosstalk was recorded at Gary's Electric studio in Greenpoint in bits and pieces, when it wasn't being used otherwise. The process was begun about four years ago, and really only got finished when the Plague shut things down. The sound this time has evolved as Shuford suggests. Drummer Rob Smith shows some of the lessons he must have learned while studying with Bernard Purdie, lending even the zoniest sections a groove-oid bottom that won't stop. And this does not infer boogie tendencies, so much as a solid new approach to fundamentals. Shuford's multivalent string aktion, combined with Jimmy SeiTang's wonderful bass/keyboard dualism and Smith's provocative percolation make this an album of crazy hybridized stoned space-funk-psych-fusion while still manifesting experimental highlights. It is a heady goddamn brew. And never more so than when Al Carlson (who engineered the session) is guesting on sax or the great Tennessee roots pianist, Hans Chew, shows up on clavinet (who knew)! Pharaonic Crosstalk is one of the sweetest bubbles of expressed space-time we've heard in a good long while. Super hard to pin down (like so many truly great records), its contours are a glorious mind-fuck for listeners of all ages." --Byron Coley, 2021 Edition of 400.

2022 repress! ."Pleased as punch are we to be reissuing Michael Hurley's long-lost 1984 album, Blue Navigator. Admittedly, Secret Seven and Mississippi collaborated on a dandy 8-track version a decade ago, but the record has mostly been available as an obscure import CD -- if at all -- for many a year. The reason for this is that the Rooster Records HQ burned down in 1987, taking master tapes, extra covers and whatever else there was with it. This was a general bummer, but especially so for us Hurley fans, since his final LP with Rounder was Snockgrass in 1980, and he didn't hook up with Fundamental to do Watertower until 1987. The disappearance of Blue Navigator from this earth left a sizable hole. Which we'd now like to think has been plugged. Recorded with a cast of Northern Vermont hepcats including guitarist Jon Weber (of Dan Hicks' original Hot Licks), head Rooster William Wright on guitar and mandolin, Nancy Beavan on vocals, Gordon Stone on pedal steel and various other goners, all playing some sweet rural swing displaying exactly how Hurley became the toast of the snowmobile club circuit during his days in the North Country. A mix of old favorites -- 'Werewolf,' 'Open Up (Eternal Lips)' -- new favorites -- 'Code of the Mountains,' 'Ghost Woman Blues' -- and even a re-write -- 'Blue Navigator' -- it's a great, very casual sounding session, revealing more layers the more you listen. The instrumentation varies a lot between tunes, but the music always flows with Snocky grace and assurance. For this reissue, Michael has written a set of illustrated liner notes that scoot around just the way his conversation does on a long car ride. Which makes me miss the open road as much as anything else today. Just close your eyes, sink back into the music on Blue Navigator and pretend you're drifting through the hills and valleys of the Green Mountain State on your way to a cold growler of beer. You'll soon feel like a million bucks. Promise!" --Byron Coley, 2020

2022 repress. Celebrating 10th anniversary of Connan Mockasin's both debut album Forever Dolphin Love and career, Phantasy Sound release new editions of longtime out-of-stock Forever Dolphin Love and second album Caramel. Exclusive splatter 2021 edition. Connan Mockasin has the kind of deliciously off-kilter and gloriously idiosyncratic worldview that rapidly proves addictive. Welcome, folks, to the delightful, slanted and enchanted world of Connan Mockasin. Like David Lynch's willfully surrealist take on American suburbia, or Richard Prince's paintings investigating modern cultural tropes, the New Zealand-born, current London resident Mockasin makes beautiful music which subverts as it compels, challenges as it mesmerizes, startles as it seduces, even drawing fans as diverse as Johnny Marr and Radiohead to Ed Banger chief and ex-Daft Punk manager Pedro Winter into its wide-eyed, childlike exploration into the final frontiers of pop music. It is all too rare, in this current climate of manufactured pop acts, grey, over-produced "alternative" guitar music and press-fueled mania for the next-big-thing, to hear something truly striking and original, but a strong case can most certainly be made for Connan to be a true pop auteur, taking his rightful place in a proud lineage which includes past mavericks such as Joe Meek and Brian Wilson, right through to cult figures like Ariel Pink, Sufjan Stevens and John Maus. Written from start to finish one hot summer, while camped outside his parent's church-like house in a tent, Forever Dolphin Love is an LP which brims with the beauty and solitude of summer evenings, a miasma of psychedelic tangents, jazz interludes and echoing guitars which hum with a distant, haunting resonance. For apart from being one of the most singular musicians we currently have, he is also a brilliant and unusual painter, a gift which will be glimpsed for the first time with this album, which features a collection of wonderfully surreal paintings of dolphins, all bold and beautiful interpretations of the mammal, but evolved into human forms, smiling in gaggles, sometimes wearing clothes, sometimes swathed in pools of lush colors. Connan's talents also include recording, producing and mixing the entire record. It was this brilliantly ingenious approach to invention, and his masterfully unique charm that caught the attention of Erol Alkan, who signed Connan to his label Phantasy and released his first output Please Turn Me Into The Snat.

Alga Marghen presents the uncompromising El Artilugio, a previously unreleased sonic assault presented in 1968 under the auspices of Walter Marchetti's Zaj in Madrid. Manuel Calvo was a forerunner and a protagonist of geometric abstract painting in Spain between the '50s and the '60s. His personal poetic research was close to that of other artists developing the principles of an analytical art in opposition to the main currents of informal art and lyrical abstraction. Experiences that projected Calvo in a more international dimension, especially through the short but significant collaboration with Galerie Denise René in Paris, a leading European art gallery in that period and catalyst for artists producing geometric abstraction, kinetic art and optical art. The end of the collaboration with Denis René, as well as a short stay in Brazil at the beginning of the military dictatorship, led Calvo on one hand to a critical vision of the established art system and its dynamics, and on the other hand to the radicalization of his libertarian ideas and the upturning of his artistic strategies. Back in Spain, in 1966 and 1967 he decided to become independent from the art system by opening a studio in Calle Alcantara in Madrid and transform it into a taller-exposición, or a laboratory where he could held a permanent exhibition of his works. A space open to public with no temporal limits aiming to reverse the functional paradigm of a standard exhibition space. Calvo was attracted by the idea of using light and movement as materials for his work, a principle originated from kinetic art which he discovered while in Paris some years earlier, and at the same time he wanted to criticize the mechanistic, repetitive and predictable process of cause and effect as the only factor activating people's perception in front of these kinetic artworks. With these premises Calvo created for this space El Artilugio, a participatory permanent installation where the effects of light variations were randomly activated through simple buttons by a no-longer passive audience. This way the installation not only became an open structure with unlimited possibilities of random variations, but through the use of a reel-to-reel recording machine and a pre-recorded magnetic tape it also introduced a sound element, activated during the process, something that represented an absolutely new element within that cultural specific context. The idea came after finding an old electric engine at the Rastro, the ancient flea market in Madrid. A young Catalan anarchist who worked as electrician and who was passing by the taller-exposición in Calle Alcantara managed to repair it and make it work. Once the engine had been started through a process similar to the one used for the lights, Calvo recorded its parasitic noises which he would then reproduce through the reel-to-reel machine during the participatory installation. To this first sonic component of the tape he associated, by contrast, a second part with the recording of an Austrian soprano singer reading out phonems, alliterations of single words, tongue twisters and texts in different languages, repeated in an obsessive way in a style similar to sound poetry. The tape ends with a coda of parasitic noises from the engine, still manipulated with push-buttons, fading out in a glissando. Gatefold sleeve; includes LP-size, eight-page booklet with exclusive photos from the installation as well as a text by Gabriele Bonomo; edition of 250.

Limited restock. Black Friday RSD 2015 release. "First ever reissue of this classic Channel 1 material. Housed in a two color silk screened jacket with an 18" x 24" poster of the iconic cover art. Revolutionaries Sounds Vol. 2 is the stellar 1979 follow up to the groundbreaking 1976 self-titled first volume. The Revolutionaries were the house band of Channel 1 studios, and their style defined the sound of reggae in the second half of the 1970's. The band was a who's who of the top players of the decade, featuring the core unit of Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Ranchie McLean and Rad Bryan. Augmented by a revolving cast of the top hornsmen, keyboard/organ players and percussionists, The Revolutionaries not only backed the in-house production output of their 'home base' studio of Channel 1, but countless other productions done by producers renting the studio. The 1976 first volume released in Jamaica was an instrumental affair, with the iconic Che Guevara image by Ras Daniel Heartman on the cover complimenting the militant sounds contained on the album. For this 1979 follow-up originally released in the UK, Che again adorns the album, with the tracks being a mixture of classic instrumentals recorded at various points in the few preceding years, and then previously unreleased dubs to some of the studio's hardest original rhythms, such as Alton Ellis' 'Tell Me' and the Enforcer's 'Ride on Marcus.' Previous to this album, some of these tracks had been coveted dubplates on the sound system scene of the day. Reissued for the first time ever, this is a fantastic touchstone for fans of '70s roots reggae, and with a terrific selection of tunes that should satisfy the hardcore roots fans, serious dub heads and across-the-board reggae fans just the same."

Killer compilation of archetypal late seventies style American and Australian punk rock, which brings together many of the best tracks to be found on the various volumes of the Killed By Death series. Featuring Queers, Child Molester, Nervous Eaters, Rocks, Psycho Surgeons, News, Violators, Hollywood Squares, Lewd, Mad, Unnatural Axe, Freestone, Nasal Boys, and Leftovers.

Repress of 2021 second edition. "Black Unity Trio - Al Fatihah quite possibly was the first independently released free jazz record ever. Originating in Oberlin, Ohio as the Black Unity Quartet, and ultimately becoming the Trio (Abdul Wadud, Yusuf Mumin, and Hasan Al Hut), the group recorded Al Fatihah in December 24, 1968 at Agency Recording Studio (which was located upstairs in the building housing the legendary Agora Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio). The album ultimately was released in May 1969 in an edition of 500 copies. The album has been legendary among collectors, producers, and DJs in the past several decades, and has been sampled numerous times on other releases. Much mystery surrounded the origins of the album, as well as the status of the musicians, until 2020 when The Wire published an interview with Hasan. Many underground jazz purists know about the intense, though relatively short-lived hotbed of avant-garde jazz in Cleveland, Ohio during the mid-to-late 1960s. Clubs such as Leo's Casino, Jazz Temple, The Doan Club, Le Cave and a few private clubs saw many young avant-garde jazz acts during this time period. I first learned of Black Unity Trio when seeking out tapes of Albert Ayler playing at Le Cave. From that point forward, I had a mission to seek out the members and see if they would be interested in making a vinyl reissue of Al Fatihah. Most of my efforts ran into dead ends, and it did not take very long to learn that the members, perhaps, were content with letting the record fall into the annals of crate digging history. Then in 2019, I received a phone call from someone referring to himself as 'Ron'; who wanted to bring some tapes by the pressing plant. Whenever I get a call on the subject of tapes, my first question is 'how old are the tapes?'. The caller replied 'late 1960's''. Of course, this perked my interest even more, so I asked what sort of material was on the tapes, to which he replied 'Oh, spiritual jazz''. 'Really?'; I replied, even more interested than ever - particularly since the caller id showed a 216 area code phone number. Then he proceeded to say 'it's called the Black Unity Trio''. I about dropped the phone; 'Are you serious, I have been trying to get a hold of you guys for a year!' I replied. Ron (Abdul) was surprised by that statement. But, it led to months of additional conversations with both he and Yusuf about how to get the record back into the world, and eventually I was introduced to Hasan as well. After many phone conferences, we were able to come to an agreement to reissue this seminal free jazz record via Gotta Groove Records' OHWax series. Yusuf personally brought the original 1968 master tapes to Cleveland in early 2020, and we have been working on the audio restoration and package details ever since. We have spared no expense in making this reissue. Our friend Grammy-Award recipient Paul Blakemore's restoration and remastering work cleaned random ticks from the original source, as well as greatly improved the balance to bring out some of the instrument subtleties which were barely, if at all audible, in the original pressing. We also used Gotta Groove's proprietary GrooveCoated stamper plating technology -- This involves an additional electroforming step in the creation of the metal stampers used to press the grooves into the records. GrooveCoated stampers have a lubricious surface which helps high frequencies in particular to be held more intact during the course of manufacturing, verses traditional stampers. This is a record I am truly proud and excited to be working on, and I look forward to a new generation of vinyl listeners to have access to it." --Matt Earley, Executive Producer. The musicians of Black Unity Trio are paid at least 70% of the profits from this release by Gotta Groove Records, Inc.

Originally from Chicago, Haymarket Square released in 1968 one of the rarest vinyl artifacts from the US underground psychedelic scene: the Magic Lantern album. Originally conceived as the soundtrack to a psychedelic lightshow art installation, the album offers crude, dark, psychedelic rock featuring trippy fuzzed-out/wah guitars, male-female vocals and long tracks. Newly remastered sound, insert with liner notes, repro of the ultra-rare Baron & Bailey Lightshow poster. New repress in hard cardboard sleeve; OBI; resealable outer sleeve.

"Magic Lantern is as fine a display of American psychedelia as late-60s albums by It's a Beautiful Day and Jefferson Airplane. This will appeal to fans of the fuzzed-out guitar antics of Cream and Blue Cheer." --Dean McFarlane (AllMusic)

Reissue, originally released in 1977. In the history of free improvised music, there has been arguably no greater advocate for the idiom's power and potential than the English guitarist Derek Bailey. Fiercely principled, between his emergence during the 1960s and his death in 2005, he cut a wide path, positioning this music at the height of creativity, transpiring in real time, and a means through which people from diverse backgrounds could come together, express, and commune. For Bailey, "playing is about playing with other people... Improvisation is a process that gets relationships sorted out." Among many great examples of this within Bailey's sprawling discography, a stand out is his 1977 duo LP Drops -- originally issued as the third album on Ictus -- recorded with the Italian percussionist/drummer Andrea Centazzo. Capturing the guitarist during one of his most prolific and creatively visionary periods -- overflowing with explosive clarity, dialogic energy, and imagination -- he clearly found a perfect foil in Centazzo, who recalls of the sessions: "The kaleidoscopic quality of Drops was created by this restraint of performing limits, i.e. the choice of instrumental timbres, dynamics and metronome speeds to suit each piece. We explored some aspects of our improvisational art, gleaned the best elements from our baggage of music memories and exposed them clearly and confidently." Comprising nine individual improvisations, Drops encounters each of its players at their best, finding a strange middle ground between the intuitive logics of their instruments; Bailey's tones taking on decidedly percussive approaches, while Centazzo's fractured polyrhythms and beats often veer toward the presence of a notable tonality. Remarkably expressive and diverse in the approach of each piece, Drops presents creative interplay at its most striking and challenging, rethinking the terms of musicality and collaboration every step of the way. Flurries of rattle back and forth, sculpting barbed and pointillistic landscapes of texture, stripped of reference and precedent, and abstract as real time organized sound comes. Edition of 250.

Alessandro Cortini's acclaimed Forse series is available for the first time on CD including an exclusive disc of Forse performed live. Composed using only an original Buchla Music Easel, an incredibly rare electronic music instrument designed by Don Buchla, the Forse series features long, romantic compositions full of voluminous, bombastic tones and dripping with thick timbre. 2021 digital master by Stephan Mathieu. Packaged in matte-coated digipacks, housed in a heavy-duty tip-on style outer box.

LP version. "The 12th full-length by Pacific Northwest artist Liz Harris aka Grouper is a collection of songs spanning fifteen years. She characterizes Shade as an album about respite, and the coast, poetically and literally. How one frames themselves in a landscape, how in turn it frames themselves; memories and experiences carried forward mapping a connection to place -- 'an ode to blue / what lives in shade.' Songs touch on loss, flaws, hiding places, love. Deep connections to the Bay Area, and the North Coast, with its unique moods of solitude, beauty, and isolation -- a place described and transformed by the chaos and power of rivermouth, wild maritime storms, columns of mist that rise up unexpectedly on the road at night. Portions were recorded on Mount Tamalpais during a self-made residency years back, other pieces made longer ago in Portland, while the rest were tracked during more recent sessions in Astoria. Throughout, Harris threads a hidden radiant language of voice, disquiet, and guitar, framed by open space and the sense of being far away -- 'Echoing a lighthouse, burying the faults of being human / Into things that we project upon the sky at night.'"

2021 restock. Pharaway Sounds presents a compilation dedicated to Erkin Koray, the father of Anatolian rock/Turkish psych. Halimem includes rare single and cassette-only tracks (mostly from 1970-72, plus three killer ones from 1987). Expect a fabulous mix of Turkish melodies/grooves with hard-rock and psych. Artwork by Sara Gossett.

"Special colors for this two-disc set! The evil one orange & bloody hammer red colored vinyl. Upon completion of the Stu Cook produced Roky Erickson & The Aliens LP in summer of 1979, Roky decided to return home to Austin from San Francisco. He needed a band and The Explosives came highly recommended to Roky's manager, Craig Luckin. Introductions were made and rehearsals began. Roky & The Explosives immediately hit it off, musically and personally. They played together in Texas and California from 1979-1981 logging in around 50 shows. 13th Floor Elevators drummer John Ike Walton remarked to Explosives drummer Freddie Steady Krc 'You guys played more shows with Roky than the Elevators did!' The guys got in the van and barnstormed all over the Lone Star State. Bootleg recordings began to emerge that were sub-quality live performance recordings that everyone was making money off except Roky and The Explosives. Craig and Freddie agreed Freddie would review all the recordings they could find from 1979-81. Almost all were in Craig's possession. Upon final review, Freddie would select the best performance of each song they were playing live from that time period. Some, like 'Heroin' and 'I've Just Seen a Face' were called on the spot by Roky at a show, performed once and never played again. After the music was selected, Craig and Freddie went through their personal collection of photos, poster images and added a complete show itinerary from 1979-81. Halloween is a loving collection of performances documenting a time of Roky's reemergence into the rock music world. It was something most thought they would never see after his final days with 13th Floor Elevators, following drug busts and his plunge into mental illness eventually ending in his stay at Rusk State Mental Hospital. This record is a testimony of Roky's personal strength and will to return to performing and songwriting. Long live his music!"

Continuing the series of reissues from the Tresor catalog, Tresor Records announces an updated version of the classic Regis and Female long-player, Againstnature. Originally released in the year 2000, the album represents a pivotal moment in the emergence of the "Birmingham Sound"; a stripped-back sub-genre of techno, pioneered around this time in the English hub by artists such as Regis, Female, and Surgeon. Influenced more by industrial, music concrete, and EBM than from the melodic sounds of its Detroit predecessor, Regis later described the music as being made with a fractured pop sensibility which created a sound that may be faceless but by design loses none of the soul of its American counterpart. Nowhere is this sonic changing of the guard more apparent than in opening track, "Washing My Hands", which sets the stage with a vignette of field recordings: arc welders, water boilers and other sounds reminiscent of industrial workshops reframe your senses, placing your mind into a familiar yet unsettling dreamlike space. From this sound- scape emerges a high-pitched, vitreous noise heralding the jarring introduction of "Let Them Bleed", the first of several trance-inducing tracks on the album such as "Join Us In Paradise", and "Guiltless", which layer percussive and sampled loops creating what Peter Sutton (aka Female) described as exotic hypnotics. This remastered edition of Againstnature also features the additional track, "Theme From Streetwalker", previously only available on Volume 6 of the Tresor Compilation series. Collected together the album is a key work in the progression of this sub-genre to the dominant form of techno heard in clubs in Berlin and around the world today.

Originally released in 1995. Merzbow stands as the most important artist in noise music. Inspired by dadaism and surrealism, Japanese artist Masami Akitatook the name for his project from German artist Kurt Schwitters's pre-war architectural assemblage The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau. Working in his home, he quickly gained notoriety as a purveyor of a musical genre composed solely of pure, unadulterated noise. Green Wheels is Merzbow in its most straightforward, most genuine, most uncontrolled and refined form. Originally released by the legendary US label Self Abuse Records in 1995 on CD and 5-inch vinyl record, both housed in a foil-lined cardboard box with the abstract and impressive art work created by the artist himself, which has become another of the fetishist objects of Merzbow and now incredibly hard to find. Like all of his work since the early nineties, Green Wheels is an uncompromising cascade of brutal noise. In this album you find nothing of the minimalism of his early '80s, completely overwhelmed by synthesizers and handmade objects that become his unconventional weapons to create bursts of noise. The three tracks of the CD which are neatly reissued on the first three sides of the vinyl, radiate the listener from the rackets of a rain of nails on metal plates, the synthetic crashing of bombing, industrial percussion and the metal (green) wheels that roll and scrape. The last side of the record contains the two very short 5-inch tracks that hurt you with thousands of jabs in just a matter of minutes. Then closes with two unreleased tracks from the same fantastic mid-1990s period which can undoubtedly be considered two wonderful discoveries for their intensity and beauty; musical pieces that blend perfectly and complete the reissue on this double vinyl. When you get to the end of the fourth side, you will feel purified, once the granite landslide subsides. It is like mental liposuction, eradicating all anguishes and hesitations. Everything was perfectly recorded and mixed in March-May 1995 at ZSF Produkt Studio, Masami Akita's home studio from the late '80s to late '90s; the outcome it's warm and bright as the bare steel of Shinjuko skyscrapers under the (rising) sun of hot Japanese summers. Of all the incredible artists to have emerged from Japan's thriving noise scene, it is hard to call to mind a figure as iconic, visionary, or influential as the composer and performer Masami Akita. Edition of 299.

First time reissue. This album comprises hits from the repertoire of the most famous Cuban and Boriquen orchestras in the late '50s, performed by young Peruvian percussionist Ñiko Estrada and his sonora. However, due to contractual restrictions, the album was released under the fictitious Sonora MAG name. Fascinated by the music of the Cuban orchestras broadcast on the radio and the colorful and flamboyant outfits they sported when played Lima, Ñiko Estrada named his first band Los chicos de Cuba (The Cuban Boys). In 1958 he put together his own group, sonora, signing to the local label Smith and recording a number of hits. At the same time, he also agreed to anonymously record more music for MAG, the Peruvian company owned by Manuel Guerrero. An imaginary Sonora MAG was born, El Negro Bembón con la Sonora MAG includes, with the only exception of the instrumental track "Té Para Dos", mostly vocal songs -- guarachas and boleros -- by the likes of Manolo Castro, Rafael "Chivirico" Dávila, and Vicky Zamora, being her take on "Pepito" the biggest hit of the album. This album is currently almost impossible to find in its original edition, so Vampisoul present the first ever reissue of El Negro Bembón con la Sonora MAG in its original artwork. 180 gram vinyl.

2022 repress. Vinilisssimo present the first vinyl reissue of Tim Maia's 1977 self-titled album. Tim Maia was born in 1942 in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro and started his musical career at an early age, along with close friends such as Roberto Carlos or Jorge Ben. Carlos would eventually help him to get a deal for his first single at CBS. During the '70s, Maia started to incorporate soul and funk elements into his style. After a two-year period involvement in the Cultura Racional in Brazil, Maia's funky style was still at its best when he released this album in 1977. It was his first and only recording for Som Livre, the legendary label that became extremely popular due to the many soap operas soundtracks in its extensive catalog. This self-titled LP deserves to be shortlisted among Maia's top records. It features killer tunes like the anthemic "É Necessário", undoubtedly one of the best songs in his career, and also boogie gems such as "Verão Carioca" or "Venha Dormir Em Casa" that show obvious influences by some of the biggest American soul artists of the time. It also contains intimate vocal delights as in the lovely smooth tune "Música Para Betinha" or even straight funky instrumentals like "Flores Belas". The string arrangements, wah-wah guitars, horns, deep vocals make this recording a milestone in the so-called "Black Movement" in Rio, where artists like Toni Tornado, Banda Black Rio and Maia himself were bringing in the funky sounds of America and mixing them with local rhythms like samba. Presented in facsimile artwork and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.

2022 restock; originally released in 2006. Under the direction of Anak Agung Gede Mandera; Recorded in New York & London, 1952. The gamelan and dancers of Peliatan were the first to give an extensive foreign tour, demonstrating their revolutionary kebyar style. These performances are the first modern recordings made of a gamelan. Extensive liner notes by Edward Herbst, along with rare photos, document one of Bali's most significant ensembles. Remastered from the master tapes.

Hung Far Low is the fifth and final studio album by New York noise rock band The Honeymoon Killers, originally released in 1991. Remastered to achieve the extreme sound desired for this band. The Honeymoon Killers recorded this album picking up 2/3 of the nascent Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and it meant a sonic evolution to the band in the way to get the original Honeymoon Killers sound adding slicks of Pussy Galore and The Blues Explosion. Artwork revised and completed by Pauline Teel (Big City Stompers). Personnel: Jerry Teel - guitar, harmonica, vocals (The Chrome Cranks, Knoxville Girls, Big City Stompers, etc.); Jon Spencer - guitar (Blues Explosion, Pussy Galore, Five Dollar Priest, etc.); Russell Simins - drums (Blues Explosion, etc.); Lisa Wells - bass.

LP version. Al Doum and the Faryds continue their journey toward a new direction. Now, they live in a futuristic garden of delights, inhabited by strange bright bubbles, golden wheels, water secrets and mysterious plants. From their home of love and nature, they set out to travel the universe to forge a new being together. Their typical blend of spiritual-jazz, psychedelia and Afro-Latin rock remains on the same wave, accentuating the collective rite of liberation and expansion of the spirit. There's certainly a greater lightness and airiness, especially in the most immediate and direct arrangements to convey the message of brotherhood; because the absolute weapon lies in female voices and choirs. These chants are incisive gospel and soul sermons and their narration magically permeates throughout the album. Everything is always supported by the balance between robust and biting guitar riffs, raga-rock incursions, tribal rhythm sections and impregnable and captivating sax drifts; and echoes of the soft lysergic sound of the '60s cannot be missing. This is music of multiple forces, a sacred harmony to overcome barriers, which sees no enemies and breaks down egos. It's the playfulness and the power in making music together, the true magic recipe of these Freaky People: we are what the universe wants!

Warehouse find, last copies of this 2010 classic double-vinyl debut. In 2008, a triple cassette oddity appeared out of nowhere adorned in washed-out nature collages and zero information. Turns out that John Elliot of Emeralds was behind the madness, and after further dissection of the sounds enclosed, it all began to make sense. Those three tapes (one yellow, one blue, one red) were the first taste of something that felt like a lost private-press object from the early European electronic experimentations of the '60s and '70s. Each vignette is its own story, its own exploration. Synthesizers and other electronics are stripped to their bare bones, never drifting beyond a mere five minutes. It's the brevity that is the guiding hand, though. Every tone and every note is carefully considered and utilized as you're sucked into a world of washed-out colors and sullen landscapes. One thing that immediately stands out with these pieces is just how restrained Elliot is with them. It adds considerable tension, even if it's understated, giving the album a surprising amount of emotional depth. Each piece is its own miniature mountain, traversed and left behind all in a matter of minutes. As you interact with the subtlety changing harmonics and tonal shifts, you begin to float away into synthetic dreams. If all bedroom albums were this great, I'd never leave the house. A true gem. It doesn't get much better than this. Completely remastered for vinyl by James Plotkin and cut in Berlin by D+M. The deluxe vinyl edition is presented in full-color gatefold jackets with all new art from John Elliot in conjunction with the inimitable Witchbeam.

2021 repress; LP version. Beyond their highly sought-after 1978 album Festa Para Um Novo Rei -- home to the mystical jazz-funk classic "Vidigal" and released on Philips' iconic Musica Popular Brasileira Contemporanea series (MPBC) -- little is known about Marcos Resende & Index, even to aficionados of obscure Brazilian music. Far Out Recordings present their previously unreleased self-titled debut album from 1976, contributing a crucial missing work from the glory days of progressive Brazilian instrumental music. Born in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Brazil in 1947, Marcos Resende was a prodigious musical child. In spite of his immense musical potential, he travelled to Lisbon in the '60s to study medicine. Yet continuing to explore his musical passion on the side, he formed a trio which went on to open for Dexter Gordon at the Cascais Jazz Festival in 1971. From here he formed the electronic oriented prog-jazz group Status, who opened shows for the likes of Elton John, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, but in spite of their relative live success they have no known recordings. Now established as a highly regarded keyboardist, composer, and innovative electronic musician, Resende returned home to Brazil following Portugal's Revolução dos Cravos in 1974. Inspired by US jazz and British progressive rock he'd experienced while residing in Europe, Resende went all out acquiring a keyboard arsenal to be reckoned with, which included the Prophet 5, Yamaha CP-708, and Mini Moog. Determined to integrate his newfound inspirations with Brazilian rhythms and jazz traditions, he formed a new quartet with Rubão Sabino (bass), Claudio Caribé (drums) and the late great Oberdan Magalhães, of Banda Black Rio and Cry Babies fame. Marcos Resende & Index recorded their self-titled debut at Sonoviso Studios with the legendary sound engineer Toninho Barbosa, known as the "Brazilian Rudy Van Gelder". Marcos Resende & Index has both the timeless ethereal qualities as well as the progressive and futuristic ideals of Light As A Feather. Marcos kept the tapes from the Sonoviso sessions safe and presented them to Far Out's Joe Davis at his home in Lisbon in 2018, but only after 25 years of Joe pleading to hear them. Marcos has worked closely with Far Out towards restoring these recordings over the last two years, but tragically passed away after a battle with stomach cancer on November 12th, 2020 at the age of 73.

2021 restock. "The Chicago-based string genius Joshua Abrams first talked to us about the idea of this album a while back. It took a couple of years to get together, but in a way, it's cool that it's being released in 2018 -- the 50th anniversary of the recording of the first free bass solo LP, Barre Phillips' Journal Violone. Issued by Opus One in the U.S., Music Man in the UK (as Unaccompanied Barre), and Futura in France (as Basse Barre), Phillips' groundbreaking album was a gorgeous and gritty exploration of textures that are usually bound deep inside the creative flow of unit improvisation. Hearing these sonorities explored, at length, without extraneous gabble was revelatory, but not easy to replicate. I could only think of a dozen other LPs of the stuff that have been done in the intervening years (CDs don't count)*. But Abrams is undaunted by such shit. Anyone who has seen him play or listened to him on record knows he has an aggressively wide palette and a fearless drive to explore new regions of sound. The tones on Excavations 1 have a much gnarlier feel than many of the tones Joshua explores inside group dynamics. Almost more like some of the bassists associated with avant garde composition (Bertram Turetzky, Fernando Grillo, etc.), Abrams' work here is about pushing against accepted precepts of melody and rhythm, freeing the bass from its accepted role, and allowing it to scream for real." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 500.

* 1974, Alan Silva - Inner Song (Center of the World); 1974, Harry Miller - Children at Play (Ogun); 1975, Kent Carter - Beauvais Cathedral (Emanem); 1976, Henri Texier - Amir (Eurodisc); 1976 - Fernando Grillo - Fluvine (Cramps); 1977, Henry Texier - Varech (Eurodisc); 1978, Dave Holland - Emerald Tears (ECM); 1978, Brother Malachi Favors - Magoustos Natural & Spiritual (AECO); 1980, Roberto Miguel Miranda - The Creator's Musician (Nimbus West); 1985, Joëlle Léandre - ‎Sincerely (Plainisphare); 1986, Miroslav Vitous - Emergence (ECM); 1988, Klaus Koch - Basse Partout (Creative Works).

Reissue, originally released in 1979. Recorded live at WKCR Radio in New York City in 1978 and issued by Ictus the following year, Environment for Sextet encounters John Zorn at the earliest stages of his career, resting within a sextet of a new generation of stunning improvisers emerging at the tail end of the '70s who would go on to define a vast swath of the '80s sound -- Polly Bradfield on violin, Andrea Centazzo on percussion, Eugene Chadbourne on guitar, Tom Corra on cello, and Toshinori Kondo on trumpet -- it roughly builds on the series of collaborations that had featured on Centazzo's 1978 Ictus LP U.S.A. Concerts. Launching from a total wall of sound -- full throttle fire on the boundaries of outright noise -- Environment for Sextet takes the listening on an endlessly surprising journey through its players' inner world, shifting between airy open passages that feature endless combinations of one or more players, to furious moments of sonorous lashings where the group falls in together in brilliant dialogical periods of conversant texture and tonal intervention. An engrossing and relentless listen from the first moment to the last -- featuring two works built from two of Andrea Centazzo's earliest graphic scores -- Environment for Sextet is an absolutely stunning body of improvised work by what were then among the most important rising stars on the free music scene. Edition of 250.