White Heaven's debut album Out is one of the greatest psychedelic rock albums ever recorded. First released in 1991 by Tokyo's P.S.F. Records and pressed in an edition of 500 copies the original LP has become a holy grail in underground circles, with only a scant few copies ever making it outside of Japan. Built on the chemistry between You Ishihara's lysergic lyricism and the blistering leads of one of Japan's undisputed guitar gods Michio Kurihara, Out is an absolute classic. It is one of the few albums to successfully join a deep love of classic rock n' roll with the rapturous energy of punk and openness of the avant-garde. Each song creates its own world, raising dynamic structures that defy categorization. Meticulously re-mastered by the artists this new edition is the album in its clearest, most powerful form. Cut at the legendary Bernie Grundman studios and pressed at RTI it is now available on vinyl for the first time in almost 30 years. Black Editions presents Out in its definitive edition. Deluxe LP edition, Heavy tip-on jacket and tri-panel insert printed on black paper with metallic gold ink. Vinyl mastering by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman, high quality pressing at RTI.

"What happens if you want to make a sound like Eric Clapton on 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps,' or Ritchie Blackmore on Made in Japan -- two early influences Kurihara mentions in particular -- but you've never been in a recording studio before? What happens if you want to sing like Marc Bolan or Robert Plant -- or even Lou Reed and Tom Verlaine -- but you've never been on a stage before? Listen to what happened on Out: a wide knowledge and love of classic rock sounds fused to a freedom of expression based not only on punk, but on avant-garde experimentalism. It isn't that these young players had chops like that at the time. But neither did they need them to hit heightened moments of what I can only describe as rock rapture." --Damon Krukowski

Jennifer Lucy Allan's Arc Light Editions releases Here, the debut album by little known electronic and tape music composer Ruth Anderson (1928-2019) who died just before she was able to see her first solo release out in the world. Here reinserts Ruth Anderson as a trailblazer in the history of electronic music in the USA. Here gathers microtonal electronics, drone, and meditative long-form works and a mischievous plunderphonic collage into an album that is playful, meditative, and bold in its minimalist approach to sound. In an article written by her partner, the composer Annea Lockwood, Ruth describes her music "evolved from an understanding of sound as energy which affects one's state of being. [These are] pieces intended to further wholeness of self and unity with others." "Pregnant Dream" is a collaboration with poet May Swenson. "Points" is constructed from pure sine waves, a veil of microtonal sound intended as a healing piece that generates quiet energy. "So What" hovers in electroacoustic space, and crescendos in oscillations and phasing. The playful proto-plunderphonics of "SUM (State of the Union Message)" is constructed from sounds sampled from TV commercials, made one January while Anderson was waiting for a studio to become free, offers tongue-in-cheek resistance to politics and communication as pertinent today as then. Her intention with "SUM" became "to say as little, and by omission, as much as the President (Nixon) would in his address." The restful and meditative "I Come Out Of Your Sleep", constructed from the speech vowels in Louise Bogan's poem "Little Lobelia", is a deeply calming and mindful piece. Anderson intended the shape of the vowels to become breathy melodic arcs and tones, which becomes the core of a stylized meditation. Sleeve notes by Louise Gray. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.

Anderson was born in Montana in 1928, and originally trained as a flautist and composer studying with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. She was the first woman to be admitted to Princeton University Graduate School in the early 1960s. She also worked as an orchestrator for NBC-TV and the Lincoln Center Theater production of Annie Get Your Gun with Ethel Merman (1966). After joining the faculty of Hunter College, CUNY, in 1966, she created the Hunter College Electronic Music Studio, one of the first electronic music studios in the USA to be founded and directed by a woman. She was engaged in studies of psychoacoustics, Zen Buddhism, and was a committed teacher. She retired from Hunter College in 1989. Ruth Anderson died on November 29th, 2019, aged 91, just after approving test pressings for Here.

Following Slow Fade for Hard Sync (2009) and Location Momentum (2010), Living Space is Eleh's third physical release for Touch. Seven years in the making, this new release consolidates the artist's parallel narrative between a series of vinyl and CD releases for Important Records -- where the emphasis is on a minimalist aesthetic -- to a visual counterpoint that hints at the cinematic and painterly qualities of the music. Sound, as a healing force, is an idea as old as the medium itself. Inspired by the legacy and above all the spirit of John Coltrane, Living Space features five new compositions that seek to express the beauty of slow change, not only through the microtonal shifts in sound that Eleh navigates but moving with the atmospheric and shape-shifting conditions that the music creates as it interacts with the listening space, whether bedroom or concert hall, each one of them unique. If the ambition of Living Space is to reflect both personal and collective growth cycles, the experience of its audition has the effect of stopping time. Melodic and harmonic progressions are implied and not stated obviously, to enable listeners to apply their own emotions and feelings to the music. Using modular and analog synthesizers, piano, organ, bass, and symphonic chimes, Living Space stresses the promise of the albm's final track -- "Lighter Touch" -- forsaking the forceful hand for an approach that mirrors the slower and softer exposures of plant life and leaf formations, slow moving waters, not flash floods nor forest fires. In counterpoint to the music, the 64-minute album is presented in a gatefold sleeve with Jon Wozencroft's water photography extending the meditational pull of these new compositions. For those for whom Eleh needs no introduction, see if you agree. Anyone who has yet to experience the artist's sonic alchemy, Living Space is the perfect starting point.

One of Piero Piccioni's best contributions for the seveth art. Recorded for the homonymous documentary (1974) by Folco Quilici and Carlo Alberto Pinelli, looking for some people who reject civilization to withdraw in nature and peace, Il Dio Sotto La Pelle was released for the first time in 2000, quickly becoming one of the most sought-after records by many collectors and fans. Musica Per Immagini and Sonor Music Editions release a renewed edition of Il Dio Sotto La Pelle, where jazz, exotic and lounge music and psychedelia are mixed in an admirable way: introduced by the dreamy voice of Catherine Howe for "It's Possible", Piero Piccioni's organ gives you fragments of a dazzling splendor such as "Night To Come" or "Give Love A Chance", while "Inventions" and "Katmandu" handed down to the posterity the guitarist vein of the opera, demonstration of the period of great creativity crossed by the Italian composers, capable of filtering their traditional and classical action with some rock elements. Il Dio Sotto La Pelle is available again as double-LP album with tracks remastered by Claudio Fuiano from first generation master tapes and sequenced by Lorenzo Fabrizi. Also including twelve unreleased gems, new graphics inspired by the original posters. Designed by Luca Barcellona and Marco Ferretti's liner notes.

Alternative Fox presents a reissue of Jan Dukes De Grey's Sorcerers, originally issued in 1969. Sorcerers is the group's debut, recorded when Jan Dukes de Grey were still the duo of multi-instrumentalists Derek Noy, the band's songwriter and lead vocalist, and Michael Bairstow. The 18 songs of the album, recorded in October 1969, show within a pure folk style the subtle use of multiple instruments like guitars, woodwinds, brass, keyboards, and percussion. Every song conjures up its own time and place, from the quiet pastoral delights of "28th June, Village Song" to the urban pulse of "City After 3:00 AM," the homage to the vast expanses of an idealized "Texas," and the Eastern promise of "Turkish Time." Moods shift dramatically from the anger-drenched "M.S.S." to the medieval musings of "Dragons" and the wonder of a "Butterfly." One of the most brilliant acoustic experiments of folk-psych-prog rock ever.

LP version. Minimum Resistance is Jonas Munk's most abstract and minimalist album to date, ten ambient pieces based on guitars -- often processed into soft, slow billows of sound. There's a rare aesthetic clarity in these pieces, allowing each sonic component to breathe and resonate. Here Munk works with a restrained sonic palette and it's an album which demands patience from the listener. Yet, in its bold simplicity, it carries enough emotional weight to be deeply rewarding. It's an immersive album, an invitation for the listener to sink deep into a series of mesmerizing, but peculiarly undefined, moods. Minimum Resistance celebrates slowness, reclusiveness and simplicity. There's hardly anything ground-breaking about this kind of music, but rarely does it flow as naturally and effortless as on this set. It's clear this is the work of someone who has been refining his craft over the course of two decades. Besides producing his own music, Jonas Munk also works as a recording and mastering engineer, and has slowly but surely established his own sonic signature. It's the kind of work where subtle gradual changes and minuscule textural details has a tremendous impact on the listener.

Be With Records present a reissue of Victor Cavini's Japan, originally released in 1983. The first Be With foray into the archives of revered German library institution Selected Sound is one of Be With's favorites on the label. Rare and sought-after for many years now, this is one of those cult library LPs that never turn up. With Daibutsu the giant Buddha of Kamakura's presence gracing the hefty front cover, this is a record bursting with dope samples for adventurous producers: it's koto-funk madness! Victor Cavini was the library music pseudonym of prolific German composer and musician Gerhard Trede. He was known for exploring instruments and styles from around the world (he played over 50 different instruments himself) and Japan is his collection of 14 musical sketches painted with traditional Japanese wind and string instruments. These are the sounds of traditional Japanese folk music re-interpreted through Western ears, with the occasional contemporary twist. Contemporary for 1983, of course. These "Pictures Of Japan" are hypnotic, sometimes frantic, but always beautiful. The first twelve tracks offer airy explorations of koto and flute, with other strings and percussion being added and then given their own space. Indeed "Pictures Of Japan XII" is just drums. And then "Pictures Of Japan XIII" seems to come out of nowhere. But the subtle sleaze of its full band sound still doesn't quite prepare you for the towering climax of "Pictures Of Japan XIV". This is Japan's undoubted standout piece, completely and wonderfully at odds with the rest of the album. It's the reason this has become such a must-have record. It keeps the traditional Japanese instruments but combines them with shuffling funk breaks, electric bass high in the mix and a Godzilla-sized psychedelic fuzz guitar sound that might actually be a traditional reed flute pushed to its limits. Recalling both Rino de Filippi's 1973 album Oriente Oggi (CNLP 042LP) and Giancarlo Barigozzi's Oriente also from 1973, the track's a real head-nod groove for b-boys and b-girls alike that sounds straight out of a late-70s Yakuza film. Indeed, if you were told The RZA or Onra had cooked this up in the lab this century, you'd be convinced. It's crazy that this dates from 1983. Audio remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. Richard Robinson has handled the careful restoration of the original Selected Sound sleeve.

2020 repressing. Caterina Barbieri is an Italian composer who explores themes related to machine intelligence and object-oriented perception in sound through a focus on minimalism. Following 2017's acclaimed double-LP Patterns Of Consciousness (IMPREC 449LP), Ecstatic Computation is the new full-length LP by Caterina Barbieri. The album revolves around the creative use of complex sequencing techniques and pattern-based operations to explore the artefacts of human perception and memory processes by ultimately inducing a sense of ecstasy and contemplation. Computation is turned from being a formal, automatic writing technique into a creative, psychedelic practice to generate temporal hallucinations. A state of trance and wonder where the perception of time is distorted and challenged. Equally nervous and ecstatic, the fast permutation of patterns can create a state where time stands still whilst simultaneously being in motion. Is this propulsive music moving forward or backward? As long as the perception of the present is constantly enhanced and refreshed in an endless sense of loss, re-discovery and the search for self-orientation this question lies mute aside the thrilling and perplexing moment of the matter at hand. Vocals on "Arrows Of Time" performed by Annie Gårlid and Evelyn Saylor; recorded by Stefano Tucci at Failsafe Studio. Artwork by Ruben Spini. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

Ferrum is a large-scale exploration of inharmonic timbres, oscillating between brutal grinding textures and intricate percussive singularities, created by digitally transforming recordings of various metallic objects. Susanne Kirchmayr's new album takes a close personal look at the spectral richness of iron and other metals, in various shapes and sizes, recorded, processed, and arranged to a carefully curated selection of musical miniatures. Some of the results are an obvious nod to her Electric Indigo DJ alias, music that could be played on the dancefloor of an alien cargo ship, both highly familiar and foreign at the same time. Others offer almost steady-state like meditative qualities, vibrations from deep within, on a sub atomic level, full of light and motion on the tiniest possible scale. The limitation in material opens up a seemingly unlimited world of colors and rhythms, oscillating, resonating, and highly immersive. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Artwork by Tina Frank.

Editions Mego release the new album by Australian producer Jasmine Guffond. Developed over a two-year period, Microphone Permission is an unsettling musical journey utilizing contemporary tools of communication to display Guffond's ongoing research into online surveillance and sound as a method of investigation. Source material on Microphone Permission are from various projects Guffond has been working on; a commission to sonify the data of the city of Melbourne, a dance performance about the future sounds of an extinct forest, an installation that sonifies Twitter meta data in real time, a job as a composer for a theater work about music and feminism by five young female identifying performers in Western Sydney and a site specific installation at the Linachtalsperre dam that employed the harmonic frequencies of electric currents. The results are a stark, brooding, disorientating journey into a paranoid musical field that sits somewhere between ambient club music and a dystopian soundtrack. Elements of techno, classical music, and sound art form a dark intriguing masterwork that questions the nature of invasive, algorithmic, and computational listening practices. For example, Microphone Permission refers to the consent we routinely give when installing various apps onto our smart devices. Inspired by a 2018 scandal in which fans of Spain's most popular soccer team were effectively turned into unwitting spies by granting the La Liga application microphone permission. No matter which make or model, all smart devices are built with a microphone that is by default, forever listening. Listening in these situations often takes on an algorithmic form that enables tech developers to bypass public response to what is intuitively considered invasive practice, that is, traditional modes of eavesdropping such as using the microphone to listen and record audio. Composed, recorded, and produced by Jasmine Guffond. Image by Ilan Katin; layout by Nik Void.

"Wow! Great new LP by the full trio version of Maine's Big Blood. Colleen, Caleb, and Quinnisa are all present and accounted for at every turn on this one! Unlike their last LP, The Daughter's Union (FTR 459LP, 2019) (which seemed like some sort of experiment involving glam-rock-readymades), Do You Wanna? is awash with crazily re-imagined girl group dynamics. Some of these tight-sparkly-dress recreations have a savage teenage authority, but others wiggle more like dreams stolen from the nodes of Julee Cruise, Angelo Badalamenti, or David Lynch. Sometimes there are style-ghosts standing in all the expected places, but none of them are behaving the way we'd expect. But I do not wish to paint the sound here as monochromatic. There are many of Big Blood's classic elements employed with trademark pluck -- witchy patches recalling early Spires That in the Sunset Rise, small balloons filled with glitter & gas-pulses, bubbling pools of pure psychedelic confusion. But the strange sophistication of children wearing Diana Ross masks is something new. And it's such a mesmerizing vision, I find myself paying extra attention to it. But then again, that's just the surface. The lyrics here are of a piece with Big Blood's patented approach of creating surrealist poetry in a rural and arrestingly original American style. Quinissa's newly rampant influence seems to be grounding some of the lyrical imagery in more quotidian scenes ('Insecure Kids,' etc.), but with the parental examples she's afforded on a daily basis, this may just be a phase. But whatever else it is, Do You Wanna? is another amazing spin from Big Blood. And there's even a poster you can pin on your memory board. Talk about your win/win situations!" --Byron Coley, 2020

2020 repress. 180-gram LP version with embossed chessboard artwork print and printed inner sleeve. In celebration of the 2016 35th anniversary of the December 12, 1981, recording of Manuel Göttsching's legendary E2-E4, one of electronic music's most influential recordings, Göttsching's MG.ART label presents an official reissue, carefully overseen by the master himself. Includes liner notes by Manuel Göttsching, archival photos, and an excerpt of David Elliott's review in Sounds from June 16, 1984.

"As the story is sometimes told, Göttsching stopped in the studio for a couple of hours in 1981 and invented techno. E2-E4 is the most compelling argument that techno came from Germany-- more so than any single Kraftwerk album, anyway. The sleeve credits the former Ash Ra Tempel leader with 'guitar and electronics', but few could stretch that meager toolkit like Göttsching. Over a heavenly two-chord synth vamp and simple sequenced drum and bass, Göttsching's played his guitar like a percussion instrument, creating music that defines the word 'hypnotic' over the sixty minutes . . . A key piece in the electronic music puzzle that's been name-checked, reworked and expanded upon countless times." --Mark Richardson, Pitchfork

Dave Aju returns to Mule Musiq with straight dance floor tracks after the excellent album TXLAX (MUSIQ 247LP, 2019) on Mule Musiq. "Go!" on Side A is dark, jazzy, new wave/deep house, it's already favorite of Axel Boman. "Glendale Blvd Boogie" is a trippy tribal house tune and "Ciao Sun" is experimental breakbeats.

On 1972, veteran producer and live musician Tobias Freund offers up four tracks of layered and meticulously-crafted techno using his extensive archives of tape recordings collected since childhood. Referencing a mix of profound political events in German history and esoteric meditation guides, the Berghain resident's warm, detailed sound edges beyond the floor toward brain-tingling home listening and wanderlust autobahn escapism. The EP begins with the titles track's buzzing synths panning rhythmically across the stereo field like a hypnotist's pocket watch, while a somber, sampled string melody pushes further into cosmic territory before concluding with a bi-lingual eulogy. "Schism" soars with a never-ending snare roll and sparse kicks -- an entire track floating on a break that never lands. On "The Wisdom Of No Escape", Freund combines soft, polyrhythmic bleeps with esoteric vocal samples on an inward path of hallucinogenic internal discovery. EP closer "Electric Storm" makes a turn for the ultra-stoned, with hats and writhing vocals disintegrating and reforming over a soft, round steady pulse. Overall, 1972 features a sound that Tobias. has honed for over 30 years, having initially made a name for himself mixing various pop hits in the '80s and '90s while simultaneously producing experimental electronics under various pseudonyms including Metazone, Phobia, Pink Elln, and Zoon. On his own Non Standard Productions imprint he has regularly collaborated with the likes of Max Loderbauer and Ricardo Villalobos and most recently with visual artist Valentina Berthelon as Recent Arts. His releases and lengthy live techno sets with AtomTM continue to set the bar high for improvised electronics.

2020 repress. LP version. "After two LPs and over half a decade spent toiling in the margins of the American Songbook, Bill Orcutt returns to original composition and the blues with his latest LP, Odds Against Tomorrow. Taking its title from Robert Wise's 1959 film noir, Odds Against Tomorrow retrofits familiar folk/blues forms to the unique sound of Orcutt's guitar and the result crackles with a freshness and authority that nostalgic retreads cannot deliver. Odds Against Tomorrow is more than an expansion of the territory charted by Bill Orcutt, his eponymous 2017 studio electric debut, although it's certainly that. With its nods to existing musics, half-step fluctuations, and near-songwriter-ly manipulations of tension/release, Odds Against Tomorrow is a rock record -- almost. Clearly and simply recorded through a clattering Fender Twin in Orcutt's living room and lovingly mixed by Bay Area neighbor and pedal-steel savant Chuck Johnson, no one would mistake it for any era's radio fodder, yet the precision of its technique and the swaying Child-ballad logic of its gentler improvisations comfortably seats it between John Mayall and Richard Thompson in your Ikea Kallax. Three songs ('Odds Against Tomorrow,' 'The Writhing Jar,' 'Already Old') are multi-tracked, an innovation that, for guitar buffs familiar with Orcutt's stripped-down vernacular, jumps out of the grooves like a Les Paul sound-on-sound excursion in 1948, or a Jandek blues rave-up in 1987. Specifically evoking John Lee Hooker's double-track experiments on 1952's 'Walking the Boogie,' the steady chord vamps of 'Odds Against Tomorrow' and 'Already Old' form a harmonic turf on which Orcutt solos with lyrical abandon . . . For the more 'contemporary-minded,' 'The Writhing Jar''s crashing overdubs recall the brassy six-string voicings of This Heat or Illitch. With the exception of the unreconstructed Elmore James-isms of 'Stray Dog' and the 'Layla'-finale-like haze of 'All Your Buried Corpses Begin To Speak,' the remaining non-overdubbed tracks dovetail snugly with Orcutt's previous solo output, reeling gently in a Mazzacane-oid mode or vibing up the standards ('Moon River'). On their own, these tracks would still be an important contribution to Orcutt's canon. As part of Odds Against Tomorrow's greater whole, they provide a through line, connecting the idiosyncrasies of Orcutt's past explorations with the scrambled tropes of his present work. Odds Against Tomorrow challenges contemporary solo guitar practice in a way that simultaneously nullifies hazy dreams of folk purity and establishes a new high-water mark for blues-rock reconstruction." --Tom Carter

Teibou is the second reissue of Japanese singer-songwriter Nina Atsuko on Studio Mule. "Teibou" on side A is a favorite song by Nina Atsuko. The album Fluorescent Lamp (1987) which "Teibou" was included on is very hard to find. "Teibou" is not only rare; it's one of the most beautiful city pop songs. "Wonderland Yuuyami City" is also a beautiful city pop song.

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. Acclaimed London-based sonic explorer Seb Rochford unleashes a startling new band and debut album. The frontier where doom rhythms rub against haunted saxophone atmospherics. A four-time Mercury Prize nominee (Polar Bear, Sons of Kemet, Basquiat Strings) Pulled By Magnets is Seb's most sublime and provocative musical statement to date. From the off, it sounds unlike anything the Scots-born, London-based, desert-loving drummer of Anglo-Indian and English/Irish heritage has done before. Gone are the quizzical, music-hall-at-the-end-of-the-world stylings of Polar Bear, to be replaced by a soundtrack of the mind that is, by turns, sublime, stately and provocative. Rose Golden Doorways was recorded in The Old Church in Stoke Newington, London and features, in addition to Rochford, Polar Bear comrade Pete Wareham on saxophone and Neil Charles (Zed-U, Empirical) on bass guitar. Even with the help of the church, you'll wonder how the three of them managed to make the sound they do, especially when you learn that the album is a series of live takes, with no added studio woo. In his own words, Seb wanted "an overwhelming, big sound", one partly informed by his interest in the musical beyond of his grindcore/death/heavy roots. But there's another tradition at work here, the fruit of recent travels and musical study in India, the country of his mother's birth. He wanted to bring to this band the experiments with pacing and time found in the classical Indian raag -- something that, happily, Neil seemed to understand instinctively. Along with that was some intensive reading of ancient Indian and Bedouin texts, and it's a sense of the ancient that permeates the record more than anything else -- most clearly, to these ears, in "Breath That Sparks" as it resolves into the frankly terrifying "Those Among Us". There's huge scale involved here -- a sense of space, of geology, of tectonic plates shifting, like a piece of sonic Land Art wrought by Pete's titanic sax and eased (or hammered) into place by Seb's drums. For all that, this is a deeply personal, perhaps even intimate record, sound-tracking as it does Seb's own post-everything musical re-set, while the process of creation, which involves him singing the music to himself before writing it down on the piano, is a remarkably tender one for a record of this size.

Wewantsounds present the first official release outside of Japan for The Mystery Kindaichi Band's The Adventures of Kindaichi Kosuke, originally released in 1977. The "imaginary" soundtrack to the cult detective book series by writer Seishi Yokomizo is on many DJ want-lists. Arranged by soundtrack master Kentaro Haneda and featuring a mysterious group of the best '70s Japanese Funk musicians, the album is pure undiluted disco funk. Writer Seishi Yokomizo is an institution in Japan. He could be compared to Agatha Christie with his series of novels based on the adventures of detective Kosuke Kindaichi. The fictional character was born in 1946 with Yokomizo's first novel in the series and solved mysteries until the late '70s under Yokomizo's pen before the death of the writer in 1981. Yokomizo's novels have been a prime source for film and TV scenarios, so when, in 1977, Japanese label King Records decided to record a concept album based on the Kindaichi novels, it made complete sense. The writer was slightly surprised though. The concept album was arranged by pianist Kentaro Haneda, a key TV and film composer who has worked on many anime films and is also famous outside of Japan for composing the music for the video game Wizardry. For the album, he assembled a supergroup of some of the best Tokyo funk and city pop musicians. The long list includes jazz pianist Hideo Ichikawa who played on the 1971 Joe Henderson In Japan album, drummer Jun Moriya, who is on Joe Hisaichi's cult Wonder City Orchestra album (1982), percussionist Tadaomi Anai who played with disco singer Eri Ohno, trumpeter Koji Hadori who's featured on Haruomi Hosono's Pacific album (1978). Also present on the album are saxophonist Takeru Muraoka who plays on many Tatsuro Yamashita cult albums including For You (1982) and Spacy (1977), Kimiko Yamauchi (koto) who's on Akiko Yano's landmark 1976 album Japanese Girl (WWSCD 017CD/WWSLP 017LP), and last but not least, French hornist Koji Yamaguchi who plays on Yazuaki Shimizu's Kakashi (1982). Together they lay the funk on ten instrumentals filled with pure disco and funk breakbeats, making the album one of the highly-coveted Japanese LPs on international cratedigger scene. Remastered from the original tapes. Faithfully reproduced original artwork; Artwork by renowned illustrator Ichibun Sugimoto. New introduction by Anton Spice.

Alternative Fox presents Berwardhallen, Stockholm October 3rd 1989, a live set from the Keith Jarrett Trio. Gifted piano giant Keith Jarrett is one of the world's great jazz musicians. From 1983, Jarrett's trio has featured drummer Jack DeJohnette and former Albert Ayler collaborator Gary Peacock on bass and they show their chops on this excellent performance given at Stockholm's Berwardhallen on 3 October 1989. Highlights include a version of the oft-covered "Ballad Of The Sad Young Men," Porgy & Bess standout "My Man's Gone Now" and Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight."

Portland and Beirut rub shoulders again as Beacon Sound and Ruptured reveal their second co-release, the new album by Lebanese ensemble Kinematik entitled Murur al-Kiram. Kinematik hails from the mountain village of Reyfoun. Formed in the summer of 2014, they recorded their debut album Ala' in the spring of 2017 and released it on Ruptured (RPTD 017CD/LP). The band is known for the elaborate visual setup of its live shows and has collaborated with a variety of different artists over the years in an effort to carefully craft each of its performances. Kinematik has toured extensively in Lebanon and Europe, re-scored Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1930's classic film Vampyr for the the 23rd European Film Festival in Beirut, and contributed soundtrack pieces for Lebanese filmmakers Ghassan Salhab's Une Rose Ouverte (2019) and Sarah Kaskas' Underdown. Murur al-Kiram uses electronics, intricate double-drumming, guitar, and bass to construct ambient soundscapes and hypnotic, propulsive rhythms -- conjuring the ghosts of a diminishing future as well as an unresolved past. Subtle in both angst and joy, the album celebrates small victories in the face of great defeats, echoing the band's conflicted mindset towards life in their country and community. The record was recorded over a period of two months, and features Teddy Tawil joining the band as second drummer. Whereas Ala' saw Kinematik's four core musicians confining themselves to one instrument and/or role within the overall sonic construct of the band, these new compositions see each musician playing and equally at ease with several instruments, adding intensity, cohesiveness, and a sense of fluidity to the proceedings. The intent was to make a record that would sound like a single traveling shot, beginning with the musicians' childhood in their hometown, through their adult lives weighted down by the corruption and theft endemic to the Lebanese political system, until they are buried back in their place of birth. The salutary presence of Sary (newborn son of synth player Rudy Ghafari) that became the "raison d'être" of the record. Murur al-Kiram is the story of an important chapter in the band's history, one marked by uncertainty and hesitation, yet solid and vibrant in spite of the latter. With the recent mass protests against dire, still unresolved social conditions, a vision of a democratic and post-sectarian Lebanon has come into view. Recorded by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios in Beirut. Includes download code; Edition of 300.

Restocked; vinyl version. Zwei Osterei is the second half of a recording session which took place on a single day in November 1970. Klopfzeichen is the first part. Yet the uncompromising Zwei Osterei surpasses the earlier Klopfzeichen album by some distance in terms of its harsh noisiness and near brutal sonic attacks. Everything that was left of the revolutionary verve of the late 1960s seems to have been distilled into this music with a burning glass: aesthetic destruction to liberate the mind and ears for utopian designs; the definitive coalescence of art and pop into something completely new; unbridled musical freedom, coupled with a love of noise. Zwei Osterei is all of this. How unsettling Kluster's music must have been for the professional avant-garde of the period (music journalists, critics etc.). Kluster turned pretty much everything associated with so-called progressive pop music on its head. No song structure, no rhythm, little more than muffled pulsation. No heroic poses, no transfigured gestures on stage. This attitude, or rather anti-attitude is particularly in evidence on track two of Zwei Osterei. Still no electronic instruments, just guitar, drums and non-musical sonic sources as Kluster unleash a sound spectacle which anticipates the industrial artists who emerged some years later. Conny Plank played a pivotal role as sound engineer with the relatively limited studio equipment available to him. His meticulous reading of the band's intentions led to the creation of pure, electroacoustic music -- loud, violent, real-time improvisation. Shrill feedback, tape echo loops and layers of sonic cascades dominate this section of the album. This was no longer psychedelic, nor "progressive." It was more like sonic warfare, waged against all musical categories and conventions. Many a listener posed the rather helpless question "What is that supposed to be??... art? Music? A happening?" According to statements made by the band, none of the above. It was simply Kluster. A lofty claim which Zwei Osterei fulfills one hundred percent. Translated, the statement is nothing more nor less than a challenge to ignore the accumulated theory of art and music, with all the risks and side effects this entails. Back in 1970, Kluster could not have known that they were setting in motion a process which would endure until the present day. But they no doubt hoped as much.

British DJ and producer Inland (Ed Davenport) has compiled and mixed Stream-State, his biggest project to date, bringing together over 20 artists in a DJ-ready compilation of colorful, diverse modern techno on his label Counterchange. Complete with a 90-minute continuous mix by Inland himself, the project celebrates over 15 years behind the decks and cements Davenport's reputation not only as a tireless force in the studio, but as a trusted selector and curator of contemporary club music. Spanning deep IDM-rooted studies, lush chord-driven euphoria, powerful modernist workouts and tough house-groove jackers, Davenport weaves an addictive mix full of character and his precision mixing style. From veterans and heroes like DJ Skull, Efdemin, Joel Mull, Boddika, Peter Van Hoesen, and Mark Broom (alongside Discrete Circuit), to a new echelon of up-and-coming talent like Rhyw, Sophia Saze, Jamaica Suk, Johanna Knutsson, Aiken, DJ Sodeyama, Perm, and Felix Fleer, there's an underlying thread of shimmering production values and close attention to detail in every track. Inland also selected debuts from Berlin based artists Fred Mann and Arbitrage, and welcomes back BNJMN, P. Lopez, and Distant Echoes to the label. Stream-State is Inland's celebration of the DJ mix/compilation format. Enamored with UK dance music culture in the mid-90s, the burning, illicit energy of early rave mixtapes left a huge impression. Mystical bootlegs recorded at mass gatherings in fields or late-night Radio One transmissions captured on cassette -- their eternal spirit was absorbed and cherished. Now more than two decades later, Davenport has channeled that fascination into this weighty collector's item and a captivating continuous mix. All 22 tracks included are new and original productions made by some of Inland's favorite artists and colleagues. A network and a community -- complied and presented by an artist who continues to demonstrate his longevity and unique voice in the scene. 4x12" LP set; two printed inserts featuring artwork by Brooklyn based painter Erik Minter; download card including four bonus tracks and continuous DJ mix by Inland.

"This album follows CTMF's Last Punk Standing LP and is something of a left turn. What prompted the decision to make a blues album? I've been making blues recordings since the early 1980s. We've made a few Chatham Singers LPs over the years and I've been meaning to record another and just got round to it. I'm still making regular CTMF recordings at the same sessions it's just the fun of working with different sounds. I was listening to Slim Harpo ('Got Love If You Want It') in a cafe, Jim form Ranscombe Studios was having a coffee and I said 'this is a great song, we should try to get that echo chamber going.' Next day he said he'd been messing with it and I said 'right, let's record!' How does this differ from the previous two Chatham Singers albums? Less country, no poetry, more developed sound, otherwise the same. It features fantastic blues harp playing by guest player Jim Riley, tell us a bit about him. Jim plays with us on the other LPs as well, I just wanted to highlight that a bit on this LP. I've known Jim since '77 when he was in the local R&B group, Wipeout, and I was in the local punk outfit The Pop Rivets. we played together a few times and became pals back then. Jim now runs the local studio where we record with my drum kit from Thee Mighty Caesars. You've really captured that authentic gritty urban blues sound. Gearheads will want to know what guitars and amps you used? My same old Selmer Truevoice guitar 15 amp I've used since the Milkshakes, a 15 Selmer bass combo (15 quid from Rochester flea market. A '59 Jazzmaster guitar and an old Hagstrom bass that Thee Headcoats got on the cheap in Seattle What do you think those other Kent-born musicians, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger would make of the album and how does it compare to their work? We got the sound of that Chess Studios echo chamber, so I guess they'd be pretty envious. I love the Rolling Stones when they were R&B fans, not so much after the rock set in."

Forest Drive West delivers the Parallel Space EP via Copenhagen's Echocord, backed with a remix from Conforce. London's Forest Drive West has gained widespread recognition as a purveyor of raw and emotive techno over the past few years, releasing material on the likes of Livity Sound, Hidden Hawaii, Neighbourhood, and Whities. Here though see him returning to Echocord following his recent remix of Babe Roots on the imprint earlier this year. "Creation Dub" leads, fusing echoing dub chords and off-kilter drums with cavernous atmospherics and pulsating low-end tones before "Drift" edges into darker territories with murky synth textures, glitched-out percussion, and tension building drones creating a hypnotic and subtly nuanced six-and-a-half minutes. Title-track "Parallel Space" then opens the B-side, bring the rhythmic aspects into the spotlight this time as bumpy broken drums, a rounded sub line and oscillating percussion ebb and flow amongst hazy pads, fluttering echoes and expansive reverbs. Conforce's take on "Parallel Space" rounds out the package next and the Delsin regular delivers a typically classy interpretation with choppy bass stabs dynamically driving the composition as snippets of the original's ethereal textures and spiraling percussion are weaved within.

"Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a newly re-mastered and expanded 50th anniversary edition of the first solo album by the legendary Peter Green. Peter's work with Fleetwood Mac needs no introduction. His acclaimed guitar playing and writing graced several albums and a succession of hit singles before he departed the group in 1970."

Declassified militarist ambience from Vatican Shadow, finding Dominik Fernow (Prurient) donning his desert fatigues for a mesmerizing follow-up to his technoid outings with Ostgut Ton and Ancient Methods. It's also the last in a series of first-time vinyl editions of previously tape-only releases. "Opium Crop" makes a return to what could be termed a vintage Vatican Shadow sound, steeped in nods to Muslimgauze and modern geopolitics and fringed with an aura of clammy, atmospheric terror. The title piece pushes off across the front with a sort of stately, waltzing rhythm and druggy synth pads recalling John Foxx and DJ Screw as much as Bryn Jones. "Hellfire Hidden Tribes" sinks into the B-side with lagging Dabke rhythm embedded in oily black backdrops, occasionally lit up with vaporous synth stabs mirroring the arc and flash of distant artillery, and leading to an exquisite ambient devotional, "Loyal To The Deceased". Unmissable. Completely new artwork by Dominick Fernow. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering Berlin. Limited edition pressing.

"In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?" --W. Blake

Stephen O'Malley on the release (Paris, January 2020):"My first encounter with Karen Jebane (aka Golem Mecanique) was in the context of Echoés above the village of Le Saix in Haut-Ales, in 2016. This tremendous location runs along a deep river canyon with a long cliff on one side and a small mountainside slope on the other. Importantly, and uniquely, some mad acoustician geniuses have built massive concrete amplified horns into the hillside to project sound against the cliff, activating the landscape's natural resonance and delay patterns. The Echoés organizers exploit this system once per year, in a type of private weekend. People arrive for a few evenings of music and enjoy the summer and loosen their minds a bit. I was to be performing later in the night (under the stars, one of my most memorable and moving experiences with music ever), but Karen began her performance directly at sunset, the color saturating the sky and shadows growing deep purple and reds. Instantly and for the next hour I felt like I had descending into the Neolithic/Mythological age. And into the pre-renaissance mindset of time where linearity was absent, cyclic experience unnecessary... just when it was/is. Karen's deep and evocative chanting voice reflected and called forth in multitude amongst the landscape. Bone-chilling, or, perhaps, penetrating down through the bone. A thick and immaterial drone wove itself into the air. Voices began emerging from the cliff's face, the stones itself were singing, seemingly liberated from their geological time space. I understood more about why archetypal memory forms of seers, divinatory, witches and sorceresses exist in our cultural long storylines, our shared sociopsychological neurological rationalization constructs. Those necessary systems of attempting to interpret and communicate the world. It was an incredible moment within the blur between the night and the day. Although Karen's main instrument are her voice, and her mind, she also performs on organ, and also together with the Mediterranean folk music impressionada Marion Cousin on this deeply moving album. Karen also utilizes a very special French instrument known as the BAB, a kind of mechanized vielle (hurdy-gurdy)... one of the more incredible inventions of the La Nòvia group's legendary instrument builder Léo Maurel. Basically, the instrument sounds like an arcane goth/spirit interpreting Phill Niblock's string pieces, in monochrome on the very edge of the invention of color grain. Marvelous." Recorded and mixed by Borja Flames on 2019 New Year's Eve. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin July 2019.

GusGus are back on vinyl releasing two classic remixes off their latest release Lies Are More Flexible. On one side is up-and-coming Egyptian prodigy Raxon's rendition of "Lifetime" while on the other side is the already-classic Johannes Brecht remix of "Featherlight". Both tracks will surely please both DJs and fans; currently being supported on a dance floor near you.

Tlamess (Sortilège) is Oiseaux-Tempête's first original soundtrack composed for the second feature film by critically-acclaimed Tunisian director Ala Eddine Slim (Festival de Cannes' 51st Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, BFI London, ADF Argentina, Geneva GIFF, Rome Medfilm Festival, Marrakech International Film Festival). Combining hypnotic feedbacks and synthesizer orchestral work, drifting ambient with shamanic beats, the Tlamess (Sortilège) original soundtrack was entirely improvised while watching the movie's rushes. On those sessions that took place between Mikrokosm recording studios in Lyon and Magnum Diva home studio in Paris, you find Oiseaux-Tempête's quartet core team: Frédéric D. Oberland, Stéphane Pigneul, Mondkopf, and Jean-Michel Pirès (Bruit Noir). Fully instrumental, including extended versions, and unreleased tracks, this immersive film score is also their most electronic album to date. "S, a young Tunisian soldier, has been told that his mother has died, and is given a week's leave. Instead of returning to his military base, he starts to drift and locking himself away in his parents' house. This passive form of desertion culminates in a manhunt through the outskirts of the city. In the second part of this hypnotic diptych, a young woman, F, is also fleeing an oppressive situation. Married to a rich man and pining away in a luxury solitude she decides to flee the golden cage and disappears into the nearby woods. Eventually the two characters will meet inside the strange forest." In his second feature, director Ala Eddine Slim presents an intriguing juxtaposition of raw realism with a hypnotic allegory of contemporary Tunisia, held together by an intense, powerful, and grating soundtrack. Regularly pairing with cinema and photography since their debut, Oiseaux-Tempête also accompanied the work of video/filmmakers As Human Pattern (KHAMSIN, best documentary at Torino Film Festival), Hinde Boujemaa (Noura's Dream, Golden Tanit & Best Actress prizes at JCC Carthage), Léa Fehner (Les Ogres, best film at Cabourg Film Festival), Stéphane Charpentier (The Divided Line, Athens French Institute), Karel Doing (Palindrome Series, International Film Festival Rotterdam), Clément Cogitore (Braguino exhibition at Le BAL), and the Temps Zero live screenings (in Berlin, Paris, Toulouse with photographers Michael Ackerman, Gaël Bonnefon, Adam Cohen, Damien Daufresne, Alisa Resnik, Gilles Roudière, Yusuf Sevincli...)

Founded way back in '91, Z Records has since amassed a lauded and plentiful collection of singles, albums, and compilations. Run by Dave Lee, aka Joey Negro, the label has enjoyed success through his unique ability to foster the principles of underground dance music whilst also remaining mindful of commercial appeal. Through various compilations, Lee has consistently delved deep into the heart of a specific genre or era and selecting a lesser-known series of tracks that give a real insight into the spirit and energy that made that point in time special. This time he's been joined by Neil Pierce as co-compiler for this second collection of their favorite moments across a definitive decade for house and garage: the '90s. Vol. 2 includes material from UFO (United Future Organization), and Slam Mode, as well as remixes from Kings Of Tomorrow, Kerri Chandler, Marshall Jefferson, and Smack Productions -- the compilation is packed with sultry vocal lines and the sort of slick, irresistible grooves that defined the era. Sticking with the ethos of his series, Dave and Neil have dug out a lot of music that may have until now "slipped under the radar" meaning a lot of the material on this compilation is being digitized for the very first time. In searching deeper and wider than the average compilation, the package provides a thorough insight into why this was such a fertile period for production and gives a nod to the sort of drum patterns, sampling techniques, and vocal lines that have inspired the likes of Bicep, Brawther, and Huxley, amongst many more. Dedicated to Paul "Trouble" Anderson.

Double-CD version also features: Satoshi Tomiie, Diane Charlemagne, N-Joi, LNR, Sound Source, Fini Dolo, Restless Soul, Abacus, Glenn Turner, Bonnie Byrd, Biddu Orchestra, Screamin' Rachel, Martha Wash, Tee, Elé Ferrer, Alexander Hope, Tommy Musto, Alexis P Suter, Mama's Children, Lee Truesdale, Colonel Abrams, Cassio Ware, Mentalinstrum, Kathy Summers, House of Jazz, Donald O, Joi Cardwell, Philip Damien, Mental Instrum, and Joey Negro.

"Reissue double pack of two of Michael Chapman's releases. Includes 1999's Twisted Road and 2005's Plaindealer."

Sooner or later it was bound to happen. They are those unforeseen occurrences that suddenly and unexpectedly appear inside your auricle that make the history of Italian music. "History" with an incorruptibly lowercase "h"; because it's the fact that it's lowercase that changes our cultural existence. That unanticipated oversight that comes bursting through, that unwanted error that rises up with absolute certainty. The minimum common divisor that becomes huge in the mainstream imagination. The philosophical garbage heap for the underclass perpetually suffering from symptoms of withdrawal from everywhere and anyway. Maurizio Marsico, the magnificent mistake of Italian music. An absolute master at running decades of contemporary music through the spin cycle in the pressure cooker of post-modern madness. Inadvertently. Since the end of the seventies, he has been silently leading the way for Italian cultural processes, giddily mastering them and tossing them to people who are hungry but have no digestive apparatus, aimlessly displaced in the outskirts of nothingness. From Milan to New York. Then there's Stefano Di Trapani, the absolute presence of the "other cultures" that have traversed the first twenty years of the 2000s. Without Di Trapani (often masquerading under the pseudonym Demented Burrocacao), Rome would have failed to dictate forms and methods within the architecture of international sound. He is an absolute manipulator of compliant thought and a declared destroyer of the planetary rules of sound. He is also a member of the cultural underclass in the wretched realm of absolute certainties. Together they created Greatest Nots, an encyclopaedic crib sheet of what was, is and will be missing from Italian music. A Hahnemann-esque project where forty years of splinters of Italian music have been diluted and dynamized. A homeopathic process carried out by two alchemists who are totally unaware of the processes that led to the creation of the homunculus, settling for just his hearing apparatus and his hypothalamus. Like modern butchers, they offer us the rotten meat of Italian music, blood, and fat to feed the proletariat crushed by contemporary simultaneity. Everything is so that everything returns, in distorted yet fascinating and obsessive forms. Things that make the "newness" we're drowning in look like the sludge extracted from the sewers of a modern psychiatric facility. Nothing will be as it was before because what there was before never existed. Cover illustration by Enrico Infidel D'Elia and Simone Tso. Gatefold sleeve; edition of 300.

Hot Casa present a reissue of K. Fimpong & Super Complex Sounds' Ahyewa Special, originally released in 1975. Essential highlife and Afro funk from Ghana! The legendary K. Fimpong's fantastic rare second album recorded in 1975 at Ghana Films Studios. K. Frimpong was born on July 22nd, 1939 at Ofoase in the Ashanti-Akim district and entered music right after elementary school by joining Star de Republic. Later he was in Oko's band after which he went to K. Gyasy's band where he worked for more than six years. As a prolific songwriter and singer, here's the reissue of his second album, a modern fusion of highlife and the traditional beat called "Ahyewa". The excellent background is given by the Super Complex Sounds band which makes the Ahyewa beat abundantly, danceable, and colorful. Originally produced on the Ofo Bros label led by the Ofori brothers in Kumasi, these two side-long recordings were divided into six themes per side on the original release, each delivering a deep, 16-minute long hi-life trance. A must have vinyl of percussive Afro funk and modern highlife for all the music connoisseurs. Fully licensed by the Alhadji Kwame Frimpong Family.Remastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery Pressed on Replika format.

"Eugene Chadbourne is one of the great guitar players of the modern era. At the time he began recording in Canada in 1975, his music was a unique syncretic formulation. While its most obvious component was free improvisation in a style then most widely associated with English and European players, his music also contained elements of jazz, country, folk, blues, psychedelic and international sounds, referencing these threads in ways that were so diverse and intensely personalized it would take scholars decades to decode them. Volume 4-1/3 is the fourth of four Feeding Tube LPs in this series, devoted to documenting some of the music Dr. Chadbourne created in the years he lived in Canada, avoiding the shadow of Richard Nixon. As always, exact details of the recordings are vague, but trivial. Here are four tracks of improvisational guitar madness at its most glorious. Describing their textures is a fool's errand, but that is the job I was born to do. 'Bow' is new to me, but the sonics suggest the title may be a practical description of how some of the effects are achieved. 'The Bird', which has been issued on cassette previously, is a wonderful example of Eugene's most swinging jazzbo playing. 'Be' is another piece that's new to me, with long sequences of bent-string attack accruing epic grandeur as they unspool. And 'Mao Tse Tung Did Not Have to Deal with People Who Were Watching Seven Hours of Television Every Day', which was a bonus track on the CDR version of Solo Guitar Volume Two, is a sidelong ode to revolutionary techniques of all kinds, employing a bunch of them as it evolves, with results that are pure bananas. If you play all four volumes of this set in order, you will begin to imagine a whole new universe of guitar technique. We hope they fill in some gaps for you. We have been blown away by each and every one. And would like to thank Doctor Chadbourne for sharing his archives with us." --Byron Coley, 2020 Edition of 400.

"Essential spiritual jazz originally issued on the lauded Strata-East label. Magical, mystical, Afrocentric, progressive -- words that could be used to describe any number of musical compositions by Sun Ra or his cosmic brothers and sisters, from John to Alice Coltrane, early '70s projects on record labels like Detroit's Tribe or Houston's Lightin' or the interests of one Washington, DC native named Jimmy Gray that centered under one, perfect moniker: Black Fire. Gray spent nearly three decades pushing boundaries as a Black American promoter, distributor and, finally, record label owner. Together with Oneness of Juju's leader James 'Plunky Nkabinde' Branch, Gray oversaw sixteen releases on Black Fire Records between 1975 and 1996. These are the definitive reissues of five of the label's key titles; all were lacquered -- most directly from master tape - by legendary Los Angeles mastering engineer Bernie Grundman, With this set, Oneness Of Juju and Black Fire's story burns forth into its fifth decade, its message not tempered, its sound pure. It's cycle, once again, complete. Each release is packaged in a thick, tip-on sleeve and includes a deluxe booklet with extensive notes on the album, the Black Fire collective, and the musical and cultural revolution they created. Limited edition, one time pressing."