To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Deep Listening, Important Records offer a definitive double-LP combining the classic, complete original 1989 release with selected tracks from the Deep Listening Band's 1991 album, The Ready Made Boomerang. Recorded in a cistern, this double-LP reverberates with brilliant sonic clarity and masterfully improvised performances combining live electronics, vocals, trombone. and accordion. Deep Listening is a classic in the fields of improvisation, minimalism, ambient/drone, and modern classical. Listen with attentiveness, listen while lying down, listen with headphones -- as recording engineer Al Swanson entices the listener to become a virtual performer in selecting the many different ways to perceive these phenomenal tracks. Whatever you do, listen deeply. Packaged in a gatefold sleeve with original and updated recollections from the performers, the engineer, and a mesostic from John Cage, to whom these recordings are inextricably linked.

A Typical Night in the Pit is a collection of new music by Los Angeles' Nick Malkin. It is an album that finds the artist absorbed in the density and chaos of the urban complex. It is unquestionably an "LA album", but not the LA of hi-fi listening bars and twinkling, Instagram-ready new age. Rather, Malkin navigates something more akin to the LA found in the films of Robert Altman or Alan Rudolph -- overheated, tense, hazy, frayed -- with blue-lit, nocturnal compositions that at times recall Mark Isham's noirish scores for those subversive (anti-)Hollywood pictures. Enlisting a revolving cast of LA experimentalists, Malkin has assembled a record that is as chameleonic as it is cohesive, offering up vignettes ranging from the skewed MIDI-jazz of "Sixth Street Conversation" to the skulking menace of "Estacionamiento Privado", before giving way to the wide-eyed, cloudy closer "View From Two Perspectives". C'mon, let's go in here and get outta this heat. Artwork by Alex McCullough and Niall Wynne Lewis. Malkin released as Afterhours on Not Not Fun and is part of the LA Vampires. A Typical Night in the Pit follows Malkin's tape on Geographic North (2018). Mastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering. First edition of 300 copies; artwork with gloss laminate finish.

Repressed. A four-hour work, recorded at Jim O'Rourke's studio, Steamroom, between 2017 and 2018. Detailed and delicate electronic layers, processed instruments, and ambiguous field recordings come together in a slow-moving, fascinating kaleidoscope with multiple reflections and wrong turns, always in a constant state of flux. The finely crafted art of subterfuge. The four-CD set To Magnetize Money and Catch a Roving Eye is a hypnotic, multi-faceted, labyrinthine piece which flows as slowly as a river while speeding back through memory. Composer, performer, and multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke was born in Chicago in 1969. He is a veritable chameleon working at the frontiers of very diverse musical genres.

The mighty HTRK follow-up their recent Venus in Leo album with Over The Rainbow, their debut soundtrack for Jeremy Piexoto's 2019 Scientology documentary. A rare and unexpected all-instrumental showreel by the shoegaze pop duo, their suite of original music is testament to a haunting soul that's long lurked under the hood of their singular, hugely evocative sound. Effectively a sort of dream come true for HTRK's legion disciples, the soundtrack strips away their signature vocals and drum machines in a commission to fit the mood of Piexoto's feature -- a film that seeks to better understand Scientology through a range of perspectives, from psychologists to former members. HTRK use their considerable knack for conjuring haunting, heavy-lidded feels and ohrwurm hooks to map the mood, deploying a trademark, incisive sense of detachment that colors the film's intersection of real beliefs and ideas of Scientology as a sect. In the absence of Jonnine Standish's vocals and Nigel Yang's 808 boom, HTRK's musick is pared to its essence of synths, guitars and electronics and painted in hazy, illusive strokes from a palette of smudged pastels mutual to both South California and the band's native Australia. The result is a 13 part mosaic tiling hazy blue cues with aqueous ambient pads and baroque themes, playing out like the atmospheric strokes to LA noir in a way that silhouettes the film's probing narrative and rhetoric and also reflects its fascination with American culture and the supernatural in a similar way to Eno's ambient classics or Lynch flicks and their scores. Ultimately Over The Rainbow is an instant play-it-again entry to HTRK's catalog, one that supplies a sort of crystal ball window onto their practice and most subtly illuminates the duo's masterful control of tonal sensitivity and floating, chamber-like composition. RIYL: classic ambient music from the likes of Pinkcourtesyphone, Gigi Masin, AFX, Eno. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplate & Mastering, Berlin. Sleeve printed on matt laminate card stock; Edition of 500.

Mythic Sunship played three shows at the 2019 edition of Roadburn. Changing Shapes documents the most ferocious and courageous of the three. It follows 2018's Another Shape Of Psychedelic Music (EPR 048CD/LP). Changing Shapes is a continuation of those ideas, not just a live performance of previous material (only two tracks from Another Shape are featured on this set). Søren Skov joins the band again here as the five-piece burns through a handful of lengthy pieces in front of an ecstatic audience. It's an immersive listen, from the curious opening notes of "Awakening", to the relentless roar of "Ophidian Rising".

"If Mythic Sunship aren't the shape of psychedelic music to come, it's in no small part because there are so few out there who could hope to match what they do." --The Obelisk

50th Anniversary edition of Townes Van Zandt includes: 180 gram remastered vinyl, tip-on Jacket, lyrics included. "Townes Van Zandt's third recording is an early guitar-and-voice singer-songwriter classic laden with memorable originals. Start with 'For the Sake of the Song,' an oft-recorded classic here enlivened by tasteful percussion. Move on to a couple of Van Zandt's gritty, death's door laments -- 'Waiting Around to Die' (where the ex-con protagonist finds a friend in codeine) and a miner's sad tale, 'Lungs.' 'Colorado Girl' is another in a career-long series of paeans to Colorado, where Van Zandt went to college. 'I'll Be Here in the Morning' is a tender love song, while the Dylanesque 'Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel' is almost playful. Like most Van Zandt albums, this one has the obligatory buried-but-beautiful small masterpiece, in this case the undeniably gorgeous '(Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria.' The closer is another oft-covered piece of scrimshawed tunesmithery, 'None but the Rain.' This 1969 effort is the first of several essential Van Zandt albums." --Robert Baird

"A very whacked new outing from Baltimore keyboard genius Liz Durette. Her earlier albums had a certain avant jazz approach, tempered perhaps by certain new music proclivities. And while I do not doubt she still has the chops for such things, Delight is a horse of an entirely different color. What's here was all done on keyboards, but at times it sounds like insane calliope music for wicked children with a taste for that old waltz beat. The whole first side could be the soundtrack for a surreal film about dead Viennese courtiers high-stepping their way around the Bardo as though it were a hedge maze. The more I listen to the record, the more circular its matrix appears, and the less certain I am of the direction in which gravity is pulling me. No surprise then, to learn that part of Delight's inspiration was drawn from A Genuine Tong Funeral, Gary Burton's amazing '68 LP, comprised of a full set of Carla Bley's wildest early compositions. On the flip, Durette is in a similar fettle, but seems keener on exploring the faux percussive aspects of her 'axe.' This involves the simulation of little people tap dancing on a xylophone, as well as very many other transgressive-if-meditative sonic activities. And they are all done with such flair and attention to detail you really have to wonder what sort of visions Liz has accessed. They seem to exist somewhere between romance and math. The universe of sounds she creates on Delight is wildly complex, but also it appears to operate by a set of congruous rules throughout. Like I said earlier, GENIUS!" --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 250.

Fado rewired and recast. Raül Refree - one of Europe's most innovative producers (Rosalía, Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo) -- meets Lina, a Portuguese singer renowned for her haunting interpretations of Amalia's classic repertoire. Analog synths and hushed sonics. Making history by breaking the rules. Shedding the skin. A fresh beginning. That's what singer Lina and producer/multi-instrumentalist Raül Refree have given Portuguese fado on Lina_Raül Refree. They've sloughed off the old trappings and exacting traditions of the country's national music and given it into a perfect fit for the 21st century. Gone are the chiming guitars that were the music's instrumental trademark, and in their place comes piano and analog synths. Lina has a deep background in the music; her family has sung it for two generations and she took it up when she was 15, studied opera and turned to the stage, where she portrayed fado's great queen, Amália Rodrigues, before being invited to become a regular at Lisbon's iconic Clube de Fado. Raül Refree has been widely-praised for his solo work, like the album La Otra Mitad (GB 065CD/LP, 2018), as well as his ground-breaking productions; he'd collaborated with the flamenco incendiary Rosalía on her Los Angeles album (2017), the disc that first made her name. Lina chose the songs, fado classics associated with Amália Rodrigues. It was material she knew and loved deeply. Not being a part of the tradition, Refree was unfamiliar with the originals. That helped him and allowed him to come to the music without the weight of history. Beginning in May 2018, over the course of three sessions, they let the sound take shape. In the world they created, the music embraces and captures the listener via the time-honored songs, the minimalist textures and Lina's performances -- so full of bittersweet hope. Yet there are also some delicious, unexpected moments that add to the majesty, like Lina, multi-tracked, rising out of the mix like a choir on "Barco Negro," or the fragile, quivering of piano notes that take wing on "Gaivota." Throughout, Refree's arrangements are quietly subtle, the analog synths and ambience very sparingly used to keep the voice very much at the heart of everything. It's a perfect balance; the instruments are a frame for Lina as she explores every nuance of sorrow and fleeting joy, feeling every word she sings at the core of her being.

2020 repress on blue vinyl. The Caretaker dispatches the final scene of a 20 year-long act that has uncannily lurked in the shadows of so many of our listening lives. Clad for the last time in Ivan Seal's specially commissioned artwork, this final stage sees The Caretaker mirroring the ultimate descent into dementia and oblivion, again using a patented prism of sound to connote a final, irreversible transition into the haunted ballroom of the mind that he first stepped into in 1999. The project really took on new dimensions in 2005 with the 72-track, six-CD boxset Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia, which was accompanied by an insightful unpackaging of its ideas by cultural critic Mark Fisher, aka K-Punk; a stalwart of the project who identified it (alongside music from Burial and Broadcast) among the most vital, emergent works of hauntological art -- a form of music often preoccupied with ideas about memory and nostalgia (but one distinct from pastiche), and the way that they possibly overwhelm, occlude, or even define our sense of being. By using fusty samples from an obsolete analog format, and by doing so in the second decade of the second millennium, The Caretaker perfectly and perversely bent ideas of anticipation/expectation with his arrangements, playing with notions of convention and repetition. The project crystallized as a real gesamtkunstwerk for these times, and one arguably defined by a stubborn and intractably chronic drive against the grain of modern popular culture, or even a refusal of it. And so to the project's final goodbye. With the outside world muted, and only the timbral residue remaining like smoke, everything moves as slow as a Lynchian dream sequence, until a conclusion so ineffably sublime occurs that can't be mentioned for fear of it waking up. With his departure, you'll just take respite in the fact that The Caretaker was always there, inverting the world and supplying space and time and theory for thought, prompting you to dwell on the realest and darkest matters via the prism of the surreal and the unreal in a way that, in the long-run, can prove to be more effective at grasping the immediate state of cultural amnesia and the world's increasingly tight feedback loops, and arguably bring us to the realization that it's all a hyper-complex mess beyond anyone's conception, but we must at least attempt to try and understand, no matter how futile it seems. Mastered and cut by Lupo.

Repressed. LP version. Carla dal Forno announces her second full-length album, Look Up Sharp, on her own Kallista records. Dal Forno beckons a bold new era in her peerless output pushing her dub-damaged DIY dispatches to the limits of flawless dream-pop. In a transformative move towards crystal clear vocals and sharpened production, Look Up Sharp is an evolutionary leap from the thick fog and pastoral stillness of her Blackest Ever Black missives, You Know What It's Like (BLACKEST 015CD/LP, 2016) and The Garden EP (BLACKEST 068EP, 2017). Three years since her plain-speaking debut album, the Melbourne-via-Berlin artist finds herself absorbed in London's sprawling mess. The small-town dreams and inertia that preoccupied dal Forno's first album have dissolved into the chaotic city, its shifting identities, far-flung surroundings and blank faces. Look Up Sharp is the story of this life in flux, longing for intimacy, falling short and embracing the unfamiliar. In her own territory between plaintive pop, folk and post-punk dal Forno conjures the ghosts of AC Marias, Virginia Astley, and Broadcast through her brushwork of art-damaged fx and spectral atmospheres. The first half of the record is filled with dubbed-out humid bass lines, which tether stoned hazes of psychedelic synth work, as on "Took A Long Time" and "No Trace". These are contrasted with songs like "I'm Conscious" and "So Much Better" that channel the lilting power of YMG and are clear sequels-in-waiting to dead-eyed classics like "Fast Moving Cars". The second half begins with the feverish bass and meandering melody of "Don't Follow Me", which takes The Cure's "A Forest" as its conceptual springboard. It's the clearest lyrical example since "The Garden" of dal Forno's unmatched ability to unpick the masculine void of post-punk and new wave nostalgia to reflect contemporary nuance. Look Up Sharp reaches its satisfying conclusion with "Push On" -- dal Forno's most explicit foray into an undiscovered trip hop universe between Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn. Adding further depth to Look Up Sharp are the instrumentals, which flow seamlessly between the vocal-led pieces. "Hype Sleep" and "Heart of Hearts" drink from the same stream as The Flying Lizard's dubbed-out madness and the vivid purple sunsets of Eno's Another Green World (1975). While "Creep Out of Bed" and "Leaving For Japan" funnel the fourth-world psychedelia of Cyclobe's industrial-folk into the vortex of Nico's The Marble Index (1968). A deeply personal but infinitely relatable album its many surfaces are complex but authentic, enduring but imperfect, hard-edged but delicate.

One of the most quietly influential underground artists of recent times, Yamaneko returns with Spirals Heaven Wide, his fourth full-length album. Since breaking through in 2014 with his cult debut album Pixel Wave Embrace, Yamaneko has been one of the key artists re-contextualizing ambient music for a new generation, crafting fragile compositions that draw as much from the angular shapes of grime, techno and keygen music as they do the soothing soundscapes of new age cassettes, ambient records, and video game soundtracks. Written during Yamaneko's last winter in London before relocating to Tokyo, Spirals Heaven Wide is his longest and largest-sounding release to date, combining some of his most evocative long-form pieces with the kind of haunting miniatures that made his early music so distinctive. The majority of the tracks were written after Yamaneko's first run of audio-visual shows at the end of 2018, and so are rooted in the same kind of live workflow and production methods that he explored with those sets. As with 2019's Afterglow EP, Spirals Heaven Wide is underpinned by an underlying influence of euphoric dance music, with distant trance and hardcore signifiers -- both key influences on Yamaneko from an early age -- visible through the album's thick blankets of wind and fog. These influences come fully to the forefront on "This Spring Of Love" and "Fall Control", two of the most outright spine-tingling tracks Yamaneko has released to date. Elsewhere, the album explores his love of emo music's bittersweet melancholy, a fascination with constellations, and the cosmos and an increasing love of writing extended, long-form compositions: a side of Yamaneko first explored on 2017's Spa Commissions collection and continued on his contribution to respected ambient series Longform Editions.

Saltern presents its fifth release, Performances & Recordings 1998-2018, the first comprehensive collection of recordings surveying the career of renowned, American cellist Charles Curtis. Selected by Curtis and Tashi Wada from recordings spanning the past two decades, the collection offers a broad, inclusive view of Curtis's activities across the diverse worlds of music he inhabits, containing rare, unreleased recordings, and never-before-released music by Terry Jennings, Richard Maxfield, Éliane Radigue, Alison Knowles, and Curtis. The wide-ranging scope of this release speaks not to a musical restlessness, but to a genuine spirit of inquiry, as these areas of activity for Curtis have existed concurrently in dialogue, not simply in succession, for decades. Over two hours of music by composers and artists with whom Curtis is closely associated including Éliane Radigue, Guillaume de Machaut, Tobias Hume, Silvestro di Ganassi, Terry Jennings, Morton Feldman, Anton Webern, Olivier Messiaen, Alison Knowles, Richard Maxfield, and Curtis himself. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu with liner notes by La Monte Young, Spencer Gerhardt, and Tashi Wada. Custom packaging and screen printing by Alan Sherry; Edition of 500.

LP version. Includes download card for WAV files included with the LP. "Trombonist, bandleader, songwriter, arranger and producer James Reese never issued an album with his Progressions band, only a series of 45s -- some under his own name, some under that of his collaborators -- out of Spartanburg, South Carolina on his Najma label, from the late 1960s until the mid-1970s. He was as ambitious as he was talented, and his ouevre ranges from brutal, deep soul to sophisticated instrumental ballads to jazz-inflected funk. Now-Again's Egon first discovered Reese's music on a 24 lock-in in Concord, North Carolina's legendary record and antique clock repository, Ye Olde Clock Shoppe, in 1999. After he tracked down Reese, he officially reissued two of Reese's songs on his seminal Stones Throw anthology The Funky 16 Corners. He later issued more of Reese's music on the Now-Again anthology Loving On The Flipside. Sourced from rare 45s and multi-track master tapes, Wait For Me: The Complete Works 1967-1972 presents both issued and recently-rediscovered songs in the full-length format, in a cohesive set that shows the brilliance still arising from the American soul and funk sub-strata. Long time Now-Again associate Kenny Dope presents a remix of the song 'Throwing Stones', and Now-Again mastering engineer Jason Bitner presents alternate mixes of various cuts."

Given Bryn Jones's rather slack approach to track titles (both being consistent with and sometimes even just supplying them), it's a bit of a relief to realize that two tracks with the same name are indeed related. In the case of "Arab Jerusalem", which makes up nearly half of the newly-released Lalique Gadaffi Handgrenade, that kinship is immediately apparent even though both tracks are clearly their own experiences. Released as the first track on the Minaret-Spearker picture disc 7" in 1996, "Arab Jeruzalem" (spelling also sometimes being fairly slack) is nearly six minutes of effectively shifting dark ambience, wordless female vocals drifting over the hand percussion, chimes, and static of the track, with eventual conversational loops discussing... something underneath. The end of that version is especially striking for the way the woman's wordless singing starts being sampled in such a way that it overlays the whole track (and, slightly, itself). The almost 24-minute "Arab Jerusalem" here might be called the Deer Hunter version of the same story, building with great patience and many more abstract detours towards what now seems like simultaneously an excerpt and, now, a climax. As with many of Jones' more ambient tracks, the great length just lets it cast its spell more thoroughly and entrancingly. The other three tracks, meanwhile, suggest some of Jones' other work but never evoke them as directly as "Arab Jerusalem". "Jordan River" is nearly as long (a second shy of 20 minutes) but strips out the vocal elements in its predecessor, focusing instead on a more active percussive workout (analog and digital both). The title track of Lalique Gadaffi Handgrenade might bring to mind the title of "Lalique Gadaffi Jar" from Libya Tour Guide, last reissued by Staalplaat in 2015 (ARCHIVE 031CD), but if they're sonically related Jones must have practically melted the other track to get this one. And the closing "Desert Gulag" (like the title track, a much more manageable length than the first two epic tracks here) bears a slight resemblance to "Negev Gulag" from 1996's Fatah Guerrilla, here what was a piercing, repetitive drone is softened and looped over more of Jones' percussion. The result is a well-rounded release that shows off many aspects of Jones' sound as Muslimgauze, while existing (like many of these DAT tapes do) in conversation with much of his previously released work. All tracks written, performed, mixed by Muslimgauze. Recorded, engineered, mixed by John Delf. Unreleased material. Edition of 700.

Following the short-lived Truth Club with Trefor Goronwy (who later went on to work with This Heat and The Camberwell Now), Fote was formed in 1981 with the trio of Robert Haigh, Deborah Harding, and Trevor Reidy. Releasing two 12" EPs along with one track featured on a split 7" with Truth Club, Fote's entire studio recordings consisted of just eight tracks. With angular constructs of post-punk, free-form improvisations, and wicked time signatures, these tracks shredded boundaries one can still hear to this day. These early foundations are also heard in much of Haigh's later Sema compositions as well as Reidy's motorik percussion with Nurse with Wound, Danielle Dax, and The Monochrome Set. Curiously, Harding's vocal tensions and outright unhinged polarities in Fote sound like much of the exorcisms and brilliant psychodramas on many of Chrystal Belle Scrodd's (Diana Rogerson) later solo albums. An absolutely essential document from the early '80s independent British post-punk scene. Cut at 45 rpm for maximum fidelity, including all eight tracks, and featuring the original sleeve artwork by Deborah Harding.

Consisting of two side-long pieces, Perception & Association was composed over a period from 2012-2018. Opening side A is "Time and Again", a startling work for tape and electronics which pulses over waves of interlocking spatial relationships. These elements are at once distant, even static, yet Christoph Heemann gradually propels the listener along chapters of an unexpected and further revealing sonic narrative. While the deliberate frames and events offer a specific path, even the most active listener will gain new insights with repeated spins. Side B, "The Trains", suggests not merely a travelogue, but a series of meticulously constructed episodes that reference the record's opposite side as well as the album title as a whole. In the spirit of early electroacoustic works by Jacques Lejeune, Eliane Radigue, and Jaap Vink, these new pieces continue to emphasize Heemann's ongoing filmic obsessions and firmly engage the listener with his latest cinéma pour l'oreille (cinema for the ear). Widescreen. Front cover artwork by Ruth-Marie Adam; back cover painting by Fritz Martin.

2020 repress. 31st volume in the BYG Actuel series; gatefold sleeve, 180 gram vinyl. "An album recorded at Studio Saravah in Paris on August 22, 1969 by Don Cherry (pocket trumpet, piano, Indian flute, bamboo flute, voice, bells, percussions) with Ed Blackwell (drums, percussions, bell)." "His duets with Ed Blackwell, a drummer whose playing Cherry was very conversant with through a shared history in the Coleman group, were the first recordings released in the Actuel series." --Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.

"Our long running TASHA program continues with more mid '80s heaviness out of 29 Maxfield Ave. Two deadly cuts on the same rhythm, both originally released on separate 12's back in the day, in the UK and Canada respectively. Now paired together for maximum pressure. Paula Clarke's tune echoes one of our long held beliefs -- 'I don't have to go to no university, to know what's going on, on jah jah land today...' Both sides on the same rhythm. A-side discomix. B-side with dub."

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. The motor hasn't had time to cool down and the belt drive is feeling the fatigue. But Charles Maurice is the kind of DJ who just can't let a turntable rest. After steaming up the slipmat with three sexy compilations of French Boogie (FVR 101CD/LP, 122CD/LP, 140CD/LP), Charles Maurice is back with Volume 4. In the late '70s and early '80s, while France was still firmly tuned into variety-show pop, a few enlightened ears and souls picked up the hypnotic beat of funk from across the Atlantic. These first warrior monks spread the good word in discotheques, jumped on newly available frequencies to fill the airwaves and -- in some cases -- took up instruments themselves to unabashedly build on the U.S. model. In a short decade stretching from the late '70s to the late '80s -- just a blip on the scale of music history -- they turned out material in abundance. Lush productions with colorful covers, groovy typeface, and creative photo shoots, but first and foremost, they made music weaned on, spoon-fed and imbued with funk. Music defined by a groove with a robotic beat (Djeneba) that clearly hears hip-hop banging on the door, where layers of synthesizers, handclaps (Eric Chotteau), horns, and African percussion line up and follow the all-powerful lead of the swelling slap bass (Cyrill). This is music that tells everyday stories, both humorous and lovelorn (Serge Delisle), often packed with pheromones just waiting to be released on the dance floor or sofa (Chris O'Hara). Shaped by synthetic textures, these productions are also spiced with Caribbean and Creole arrangements that reflect the West Indies' critical contribution to French Boogie (Wai Kop, Acayouman). With his immaculate tailoring, slicked-back hair and clipped moustache, Maurice has once again transformed himself into a hi-fi stylus to explore the groove traced by this specifically French musical style. From 45 to 33 rpm, he has traveled the black spiral to bring a new selection that proudly features a number of rarely-heard pieces and even an unreleased track by Marco Attali. True to form, Monsieur Charles carefully crafted this fourth volume from his personal collection of impeccably restored and mastered vinyl recordings. Charles Maurice: where French elegance meets uncompromising musical taste. Also features: Dwight Druick, David Simon, Shen Et Les Shendys, and Aries.

Over 25 years of digging, and more than two years of curation, Nick V's debut compilation, House Of Riviera: 8 Tracks From the Golden Era of Italian House pays homage to forgotten gems of the classic Italian house scene. In the early 1990s, Italy hosted one of the most flourishing scenes in the burgeoning world of house music. Whilst the majority of Europe was only just beginning to digest the arrival of this new musical genre born in the US, Italian clubs, DJs and labels were hot on the heels of their counterparts in the already-established scenes of New York and London. The clubs of the Adriatic coast -- also known as the Italian Riviera -- were full every weekend. The soundtrack was provided by the major US and UK acts from the day but also local resident DJs that had been honing their trade since the early '80s. By the early '90s, Italian house music was regularly exported around the world with labels such as UMM, Zippy, D-Vision, MBG, Flying, Palmares, DFC, and Irma releasing tracks inspired by the original New York house and garage sound, but with a very different, unique, and emotional take. Distinct from both Italo-disco and Italo-house, this was the specific aesthetic that was to become the house sound of the Riviera, the soundtrack of the golden era of Italian house music. Nick V's compilation on Mona Musique brings together eight iconic tracks from this specific period, covering the whole spectrum of the Riviera sound. The compilation veers from powerful vocal tracks by Korda and Be Noir to the dubbier cuts by Syncopate and Underground Ghosts, without forgetting of course the characteristic Riviera deepness with tracks from Subway Ground Master, Centric House, Groove Sense, and Optik. Artists featured include legendary DJs and producers from the day such as Ricky Montanari, Alex Neri, Enrico Mantini, MBG, and Ivan Iacobucci. This is a DJ-friendly 45 RPM vinyl-only release, with all tracks remastered with the sound staying true to the dynamics of early '90s production. Double gatefold sleeve with liner notes by Nick V and by flyers and photos from the original Riviera days.

This beautiful piece of vinyl is a perfect guide to the untold story of the blues in Oakland. While the history of the blues is more associated with Mississippi, Chicago, Texas, and Louisiana than the West Coast, it's a matter of facts that Oakland has always been a thriving center for African American culture and this album represents a great exploration of its deep relationship with the blues. The whole first side consists of eight tracks of pure West Coast jump blues by the legendary pianist and singer Jimmy McCracklin while the second side is shared between one-man band wizard Juke Boy Bonner and the electric blues of Johnny Fuller and Jimmy Wilson & The Blues Basters. All sessions come from the 1950s archives of Bob Geddins's Irma Records, the legendary record label that became the house for the East Bay Blues sound.

2020 repress; LP version. Rids the World of the Curse of the Vampires (1981) not only ably displays Scientist's varied approach, but also clocks in as one of his best outings. Scientist keeps things lively with plenty of reverb and echo-treated percussion, ghostly piano parts, video game sound effects, and other wobbly interjections from the mixing board. The record's expert evocation of the Halloween spirit also includes some fiendishly-voiced intros, the cover art's cartoon potpourri of horror film characters, and the dubious claim made in the liner notes that Scientist mixed it all at midnight on Friday the 13th. Along with Keith Hudson's Pick a Dub (1974) and Lee Perry's Blackboard Jungle Dub (1973), this is one of the essential dub albums.

For many disco and house music producers and listeners, Leroy Burgess might be one of the most important figures and inspiration, however being clearly quite unknown to the mass. Born and raised in Harlem, his musical knowledge was picked up informally through his mother (a classically trained soprano) and the infrequent family reunion with his mom's cousin, legendary Philly soul arranger/producer, Thom Bell. It resulted in a 50 years musical career, which started in the late '60s within the Black Ivory band, under the shoulder of famous producer Patrick Adams. The list of project and artists he's contributed to whether as a singer, musician, arranger, writer or producer is then incredible: Inner Life, Dazzle, Logg, Aleem, High Frequency, Change, Universal Robot Band, Rick James, Ben E. King, Eddie Kendricks, Narada Michael Walden, are just a few of them. His influence to the disco and boogie musical movement is quite unequaled, and in the '90s he became also part of the garage and house movement, collaborating with acts such as Blaze, Glenn Underground, and Cassius. Since 2016, after a special gig at the Nuits Sonores festival in Lyon (France), where he was invited by MCDE, Leroy Burgess started touring Europe, backed by a band composed of musicians from the French city. In 2018 at the New Morning in Paris, Pascal Rioux from Favorite Recordings, could confirm this feeling, while he also realized knowing most of these musicians, who collaborated to project from the label such as Mr Day or The Dynamics. There was not much more needed to launch the idea of some Leroy Burgess's new recordings with the band, reviving the '80s analog production golden-age. Today Favorite Recordings is thrilled to present Work It Out/Til I Found You, new two-track single by Leroy Burgess and Saving Coco, produced and composed by The Bernard Brothers and Bruno "Patchworks" Hovart. The Bernard Brothers is a Paris/London based production duo comprised of Elliott and Nevil Bernard. Elliott (aka Seiji Ono) and Nevil (aka Koji Ono) are also involved in running London reissue label, Melodies International. Bruno "Patchworks" Hovart, is a famous French producer, who's proven over the past 15 years, his place amongst the finest producers of groove music in all genres through various projects such as Voilaaa, Mr President, or Uptown Funk Empire to name just a few.

Mais Alors !!?... c'est à l'envers is the first release by new French label Ici Bientôt (Here Soon ...), launched by Paris flea market record shop Geminicricket. On the menu are suspended time, unsung heroes, hidden records, and next-door marvels. In 1983, NEF released their first and only album, Mais Alors !!?... c'est à l'envers. At that point, the band already had a long history, interwoven with that of various alternative movements from the late sixties to the early eighties. That's what makes this record so special and able to conciliate styles like electronic prog, film scores, and new wave -- while also speaking to DJs (Daniele Baldelli has often quoted it as one of his favorite records). The band's destiny was tied to their native region, the south of France, an idyllic environment that attracted a number of musicians during the 1970s, allowing the group to attend many concerts or share the bill with several groups that went on to be well known: Can, Ash Ra Tempel, Magma, Catherine Ribeiro, Zao, Chêne Noir, and Art Zoyd. Founded in 1975 by Richard Lorenzi, NEF started as a kind of free rock band with multiple influences, going from prog to Musique Concrete, in which any method of making sound was good. The group were two musicians and a photographer, the latter a full member of the band who projected slides over the music and influenced their dreamlike universe. In 1978, Vincent Tronc came on board with his keyboards and synths. While the group had been influenced by electroacoustic techniques until then, Vincent broadened NEF's horizons, bringing in a host of new influences: Ash Ra Tempel, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze -- the beginnings of electronic music. When this album was recorded in 1983, new directions were being taken; these changed NEF's usual sound. First was the addition of accordion, and a new drum machine, the Roland CJ-5000. Of NEF's first pressing, many were unusable since the records came out totally warped. Then, at the end of the eighties, the small stock of remaining records was lost in the flood of Nîmes. 2000 records were pressed, but very few survived. All the more reason to reissue Mais Alors !!?... c'est à l'envers, an unsung record, free and multifaceted, a quirky and daring musical UFO, transcending eras and genres, between synthetic Krautrock and film score, reminiscent of NEU! (with a red nose), François de Roubaix and Pascal Comelade. Includes four-page insert.

Jennifer Gentle are one of the most idiosyncratic Italian bands ever. Led by singer, guitarist, and sometimes only member Marco Fasolo, they started their career in the early Noughties as slightly stoned-out-of-their-minds teens equally able to manage short psych pop explosions and 20-minute brain-melting freakouts. They quickly recorded a couple of self-released albums that raised some interest abroad and became the first Italian band to sign to American label Sub Pop, releasing two critically acclaimed albums in quick succession: 2005's Valende (an exercise in hyperactive, sparkling pop mixed with pastoral acoustic vignettes) then followed in 2007 by the much darker and convoluted The Midnight Room (described in a Mojo review as "Syd Barrett lost in a 20's Berlin cabaret"). After 2008, Marco Fasolo preferred to concentrate on production and soundtrack work. He came back in 2013 with the Universal Daughters' album Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?, a beautifully heart-breaking charity project involving collaborations with the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Alan Vega, Gavin Friday, Chris Robinson, Ed Harcourt, and many more. In 2018, together with Liam Watson (White Stripes, Thee Headcoats, etc.), Fasolo produced (at Toe Rag Studio in London) the first album by Turkish musician Umut Adan, later released to glowing reviews by UK label Riverboat Records. Also in 2018, Fasolo arranged and produced the first album by I Hate My Village, an Italian supergroup whose psychedelic take on Afro-funk has become a hugely successful live attraction: he later joined the band as a permanent member. Now it's 2019 and Marco Fasolo and Jennifer Gentle are officially back with their new, self-titled album. Immaculately produced by Fasolo himself, it's a sprawling, full-bodied release touching all of Fasolo's musical obsessions: it effortlessly bounces from a breezy soul glam, goofy funk, intricate baroque ballads, Joe Meek-like instrumentals, and the trademark JG zippy psychedelia, without ever losing its focus on mood and detailed song construction. By far their most complete and accessible album, Jennifer Gentle is above all an immersive listening experience and new evidence of Fasolo's unique songwriting, arranging, and producing abilities: a sometimes pensive, sometimes joyful musical parade to be absorbed as a whole.

Double LP version. 180 gram vinyl; glossy, 350gsm gatefold sleeve. Cold Spring Records announce the long-awaited reissue of Stolen & Contaminated Songs, Coil's 1992 album. Stolen & Contaminated Songs was recorded and produced by Coil in 1992. It is comprised of over 60 minutes of outtakes and unreleased songs, evolved during the recording sessions for their prior album, Love's Secret Domain (1991). A wealth of superb material showcasing the diversity of Coil: dark, violent, vivid, and fractured, yet cohesive and beautiful. Combined with the latest studio technology and Coil's ever-evolving production skills, S&C Songs walks a fine line between tradition and innovation, continually creating semi-abstract soundscapes with a cinematic quality.

LP version. Two years after an acclaimed first album (FVR 134LP, 2017), Al Sunny and Favorite Recordings present Planets, carrying on their collaboration and bringing it to another level. Al Sunny is a young and talented singer/musician/composer emerging from the French soul music scene. During his conservatory studies, he refined his knowledge and confirmed his desire to write and compose. He quickly matured the music that he truly loves, inspired by artists such as Tim Maia, America, Al Green, and Al Jarreau. Giving birth to the majority of his compositions through his guitar, he always seeks to bring his songs' melody to the forefront. During his studies he kept experiencing live performing on different scenes and confirmed his choice for a musical career, while also meeting many brilliant musicians, including Florian Pellissier, who later introduced him to Pascal Rioux and Favorite Recordings. It resulted in 2017's Time To Decide release, a dazzling first album establishing Al Sunny's music and writing style, looking towards the '70s and '80s west coast movement, infused with blue-eyed-soul, pop, and folk flavors. Built on the same influences, Planets is made of eight new compositions, and is clearly a continuation of its cadet, asserting Al Sunny's talent and singing skills. Fully recorded live in analog in Paris, this new album also stands out by an impressive level of production, faithful to some classics of the genre. Mixing catchy melodies, soulful vocals, warm and heavy bass, strong beat and beautiful guitars, and keyboards harmonies, Planets just perfectly meets the AOR and modern-soul golden era standards.

LP version. Housed in a die-cut, embossed jacket exclusive to the first pressing. The Professionals - Beats by Madlib. Raps by Oh No. Real. Rap. Shit. Featuring Adub, Elzhi, Chino XL. Madlib is a highly regarded and influential hip-hop producer and occasional rapper, who has left his distinct and stylized sound on classic tracks and critically beloved albums by the likes of MF DOOM (Madvillain), J Dilla (JayLib), Talib Kweli (Liberation), Georgia Anne Muldrow (Seeds), and more. Madlib's collaborations with rapper Freddie Gibbs (Piñata & 2019's Bandana) are some of the most acclaimed hip-hop records of the past decade, and his various DJ mix compilations (Madlib Medicine Show, Beat Konducta) have earned high praise from a variety of journalistic sources. Oh No is a rapper and producer who has left his mark across a wide swath of releases. His 2006 concept album Exodus Into Unheard Rhythms (which exclusively sampled the works of musical theatre composer Galt MacDermot) was highly acclaimed upon its release, as well as his various crate-digging DJ mix projects (Dr. No's Oxperiment, Dr. No's Ethiopium). He has produced tracks for the likes of Danny Brown, Action Bronson, Aloe Blacc, Talib Kweli, and Prodigy, while contributing guest verses to tracks by Czarface, Apathy, Murs, Little Brother, and more."

The Donaueschingen Festival has been documented regularly by NEOS for many years. In the 2018 edition, Hermann Meier's Stück für großes Orchester und Klavier vierhändig (Piece for Large Orchestra and Piano Four Hands) is to be emphasized. More than 50 years after its completion, the work was premiered in Donaueschingen. Of course Malin Bång, winner of the 2018 Orchestra Prize, is included in the selection with her work splinters of ebullient rebellion. Also features: Ivan Fedele's Air on Air (2018); Marco Stroppa's Come Play With Me (2016-2018); Agata Zubel's Chamber Piano Concerto (2018); Mirela Ivičević's CASE WHITE (2018); and Francesco Filidei's BALLATA N. 7 (2018).

Dick Verdult, aka Dick el Demasiado, is the Philip K. Dick of multi-disciplinary art, the Moby Dick of "cumbia lunática", and the Charles Dickens of literature and experimental cinema. He first fell in love with cumbia when he heard his nursemaid singing the classic "La pollera colorá". From this moment on, he adopted the genre and reinvented it, in a perpetual degeneration called Cumbia Lunática, twisting up the elements of traditional cumbia, the "cumbia of the mucamas", to create an anarcho-tropical vertebral rhythm, one which supports every moving part. Celulitis Illuminati is the powerful debut of the anarcho-tropical gentleman knight of the abstract, Dick el Demasiado, eight dangerous tracks recorded for the first time on vinyl, songs that, upon listening, will liposuck all that grotesque accumulation of adipose tissue out of buttocks and brain. They interweave an amalgam of South American folklore and the cables of electronic music, the plugged-in Ranqueles indians, as in "Asi Que Los Que Sí" ("So That Those Who Yes") on Side A, surrealist and lugubrious beats, poetry made song and "the dead man's drool is good for painting watercolors", as he sings in "Búho Sin Un Ratón" ("Owl With No Mouse"). Euphony that will abduct you away to a viscous street party with "Son Cosas De Hoy" ("They're Things For Today") and to an eclectic and excessive dimension with "pero bien bweno" ("but very proper"). Side B is pure dynamite: "Mecha flan" ("Pudding Fuse"), "Sábado cultural" ("Cultural Saturday"), and "En la jeta" ("In the face") represent the perfect blend of Lucho Argain (La Sonora Dinamita) and Muslimgauze (Bryn Jones). On top of this, the album includes an as-yet unheard gem, "Llama Mi Abogado" ("Call My Lawyer"), produced by Dick himself and Manuel Schaller, the telepathic mage of the Theremin. When the Dutchman stepped off the boat and onto the block, as well as offering us the TV set, the sculpture of a deranged English woman who devours islands like they were sandwiches, the synthesizer, the sound effect, the African drum, the maracas, the indigenous whistle, he obtained for us the song and the stanza, he provided Staalplaat with the language and the poetry, the truthful, the epic of the ugly. Cellulite for mortals, cumbia lunática for the enlightened ones! Numbered edition of 500.

Red and green opaque vinyl version. "De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest may have been more commercially successful, but the afrocentric, jazz political rap movement and unfadeable Native Tounge Massive started with the Jungle Brothers. Their debut full length Straight Out the Jungle opened up many doors that are walked through by today's artists like Mos Def, Common and even Kanye West. Their taste for jazzy horn samples helped kick-start the entire jazz-rap movement, and their James Brown fixation was one of the first. Plus, the group's groundbreaking collaboration with legendary house producer Todd Terry, 'I'll House You,' paved the way for numerous hip-house hybrids that shot up the dance and pop charts over the next few years and appeared to be a staple on every East Coast Rap Album from '88 until '92. The opening track 'Straight Out the Jungle' samples the classic Bill Withers drum break as the JB's tell you where they are coming from. 'Black Is Black' (featuring a young Q-Tip) and 'Sounds Of The Safari' introduces the pro-black edge, while the sexually subtle classics 'Jimbrowski' and 'I'm Gonna Do You' are funny, clever and timely. Hard, smart, fun, clever and brilliant, Mike G., Africa Baby Bam and Sammy G may not have realized it but they crafted a classic rap album that stands the test of time. Available here on high grade, loud pressed, double vinyl for the first time ever!"

2020 repress. Originally released in 1971. "What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With What's Going On, Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past -- as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty. These feelings had been bubbling up between 1967 and 1970, during which he felt increasingly caged by Motown's behind-the-times hit machine and restrained from expressing himself seriously through his music. Finally, late in 1970, Gaye decided to record a song that the Four Tops' Obie Benson had brought him, 'What's Going On.' When Berry Gordy decided not to issue the single, deeming it uncommercial, Gaye refused to record any more material until he relented. Confirmed by its tremendous commercial success in January 1971, he recorded the rest of the album over ten days in March, and Motown released it in late May. Besides cementing Marvin Gaye as one of the most important artists in pop music, What's Going On was far and away the best full-length to issue from the singles-dominated Motown factory, and arguably the best soul album of all time." --John Bush, AllMusic

Double LP version. 16-page, 11x11 book and insert. The psychedelic masterpiece nobody heard -- First ever official, authorized release of psychedelic mega-rarity. After suffering an LSD-induced mental breakdown, Los Angeles-based songwriter Craig Smith renamed himself Maitreya Kali and custom-pressed Apache / Inca, a double-LP documenting his musical, personal, and spiritual journey. His message to the world, encoded on the album jackets in rambling, quasi-mystical Messianic verse, was urgent, desperate, delusional, and disturbing. Recorded between 1967 and 1971, the music tells a different story. Achingly beautiful, haunting acoustic folk songs; luminescent psychedelic folk-rock; eerie, off-kilter acid rock; fragments; field recordings -- all meticulously woven into a magical, mesmerizing whole. Apache / Inca is an extraordinary work. Not the dark, self-indulgent ramblings of a cracked Messiah, but a thoughtfully-crafted collection of work by a singer and songwriter of remarkable depth and talent whose world was falling apart. Soon afterwards Maitreya -- and Craig -- disappeared into the shadows. He died homeless in a North Hollywood Park in 2012. Decades after its creation, Apache / Inca was discovered by collectors and hailed as a psychedelic masterpiece. It is now one of the most revered and sought-after artifacts of the era. Includes seven tracks by the Penny Arkade, produced by Michael Nesmith. Top quality vinyl pressing at RTI; Heavy duty gatefold jacket by Stoughton Printing with all original artwork; Repro of unique Inca inner sleeve with Maitreya artwork; Limited edition of 500.

"After five long years of waiting, rural psych masters, Sore Eros, return with an extended statement of purpose. Although their partial spatial dislocation from Western Mass has seemly rendered them a studio-oriented outfit, the lovely tangles of sound they create are as optimally fried as ever. The album was helmed by engineer/producer Adam Granduciel (War on Drugs) who was the only one capable of coaxing the whole band into the studio. Aided by players like Daniel Oxenberg (ex-Supreme Dicks) and Kurt Vile (ex-Nest of Saws), the music on Sore Eros was recorded between Philly and L.A., and seems to owe some its creative modeling to those cities as well. Indeed, the side-long ending track, 'Mirror,' feels like it's equally indebted to left-coast canyon-hugging surf-pop and cheese steak-powered garage-volk readymades. The rest of the album is just as sizzling. The tunes move between large-scale rock moves with Deadly intent and strangely-drifting pop aktion that gets close to Bobb Trimble's version of otherness. The overall heft is more woodsy than beachy, but maybe I'm just saying that 'cause I'm listening to the thing in the middle of a forest. Pressed at 45 RPM for extra high fidelity, packed up with a poster insert you can throw darts at (just like an earlier generation threw darts at the insert from the first Silver Apples LP), the theoretical swan song of Sore Eros is all a head could hope for. And then some." --Byron Coley, 2019

"Made when she was just 18 years old, Barbara Rubin's art-porn masterpiece Christmas On Earth (1963-65) shocked NYC's experimental film scene and inspired NYC's thriving underground. For the next four years her filmmaking and irrepressible energy helped shatter artistic and sexist boundaries. A mythical 'Zelig' of the sixties, she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan to the Kabbalah. But beyond shaping the spirit of the sixties, Barbara was seeking the deeper meaning of life. After retiring to a farm with Allen Ginsberg, she shocked everyone by converting to Hasidic Judaism, marrying and moving to France to live an anonymous life. Tragically, she died in 1980 after giving birth to her fifth child. For years, Jonas Mekas treasured all of Barbara's letters and films and cherished her memory. Working with Mekas' footage, the film takes us inside the world and mind of Barbara Rubin; a woman who truly believed that film could change the world. Critics have christened her The American Rimbaud, for the poetry of her work, the trajectory of her life, and her legacy. This bold, enthusiastic documentary details the unsung yet important role played by Barbara Rubin in the 1960s artistic counterculture and provides an evocative portrait of a vibrant and mysterious artist."