Forced Exposure New Releases for the Week of 7/31/2023

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: ACRSLP 1613LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Known as 'the first lady of the jazz keyboard', Mary Lou Williams achieved extraordinary recognition and success as pianist, composer and arranger in an era where women often found it hard to break through. The perpetually contemporary Williams was always ahead of the field and in a different class. This collection covers a large period of her career, stopping before she chose to devote herself to religion around the 1950s.Had she not largely withdrawn from focusing on the commercial aspect of her art at a crucial stage in her career, she may have achieved a greater level of recognition not only during the rest of her life but in subsequent decades Pressed on 140g black vinyl, this 14-track LP features much-loved numbers such as 'Night Life', 'Overhand (New Froggy Bottom)', 'Walkin' And Swingin'', 'Roll 'Em' and 'In The Land Of Oo-Bla-Dee'. The pioneering Mary Lou Williams is an artist whose versatility and ability matched that of her peers and whose contribution to music remains vital. It's an evocative showcase for her distinctive style."

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: ACRSLP 1622LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Pioneering Southwest Virginian collective, The Carter Family, were one of the very first groups to be captured on disc and are now recognized as 'The First Family of Country Music'. With rich vocal harmonies and innovative musicianship, Sara Carter, husband A.P. and sister-in-law Maybelle, would shape future generations with their earthy mix of traditional folk, bluegrass, and southern gospel. This collection, pressed on 140g black vinyl, presents some of their finest work and celebrates their undeniable importance. Their influential sound would shape the future of Americana and all aspects of music which sit under that umbrella including bluegrass, folk, gospel, rock and, of course, country. This 14-track LP includes famous songs such as 'Can The Circle Be Unbroken', 'I'm Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes', 'Wabash Cannonball' and their biggest seller 'Wildwood Flower'. A fascinating portrait which celebrates The Carter Family's vital contribution to US culture."

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: AG 131LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

22 years, several EPs and splits, three full-lengths and countless tours around the globe, Hellshock are still standing relevant and still playing some of the heaviest riffs in the worldwide punk scene. Where most bands of the crust genre seem to lose the fire and filth or simply break up before their prime, this band seems to get more powerful with each release and this long-awaited LP is no exception. This recording features the addition of Robbie Chronic from Ripper on guitar who adds some real sick fucking solos on top of the established rolling crust riffage that the original core group had perfected years ago. Neck-aching tempos, sheer brutality, growled anguished vocals, and epic song writing without straying from pure unadulterated crust. For the seasoned Hellshock fan, you know you will already love this album and it will only exceed expectations. For the newcomer, if they were to ask "what is this crust/stenchcore thing about?", you could point them to Amebix, Deviated Instinct, Axegrinder, and Hellshock. The name deserves to be right beside the creators and masters. In another 20+ years this record will be regarded as one of the best crust records of the 2020s, just as Only the Dead Know the End Of War as a defining record of the early 2000s. Gatefold vinyl.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: AF 002LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Laura Poitras's Oscar-nominated film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is an epic, emotional and interconnected story about internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin. Told through intimate interviews, photography, and footage, central to the story is her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis. The film cuts to the bone with its incandescent celebration of life and condemnation of those who threaten it. Art and activism are one and the same. Helping to interweave Goldin's past and present, multi-disciplinary duo Soundwalk Collective soundtrack her personal and political struggles to sublime effect. The contemporary sonic arts platform of founder and artist Stephan Crasneanscki and producer Simone Merli, the pair work with a rotating constellation of artists and musicians, developing site-and-context-specific sound projects through which to examine conceptual, literary, or artistic themes. And for all the beauty and the bloodshed on show here, the duo strikes the balance just right; their compositions in collaboration with Zacharias Falkenberg and Johannes Malfatti producing a trance that oscillates between grace and madness. Within the score, Crasneanscki draws connections with the life and work of German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, who was removed from society through confinement in institutions. In his last poems, written as fragments while he was plagued by mental illness, Hölderlin renders nature, in all its fragility and ephemerality. Similar themes merge in Laura's portrait of Goldin and serve as an inspiration for the composition of the choral songs and cantus within the soundtrack. Through the repetition of words and the layering of voices, the lyric scansion operates like a language possessed, echoing various styles from sacred music to modern minimalist techniques. The music is characterized by quivering strings and swells, de-tuning and lingering, shifting around the surreal, and creating a spectrum of musical experience. Exerts of Nan's narration are featured in two of the tracks, her powerful narration offering a more direct approach to the storytelling. In All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Poitras shows protest is really Goldin's great artwork: Her entire life had been leading to this moment of passionate expression, an inspired situationist gesture which fused the personal and the political. Art can change the world, which Poitras and Goldin tell us with powerful results. While there are multiple threads in this remarkable portrait which could have carried entire films, the soundtrack provides a sonic identity that helps keep track of proceedings. Utterly unique in their approach, Soundwalk Collective have delivered a gripping and thoughtful score, helping turn Goldin's personal pain into culture-rattling impact. 180 gram black vinyl.

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: ARBITRARY 016LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Desert Dictionary navigates sonic territories oscillating between language and landscape, between notation and noise. Voices responding and contributing to a complementary narrative, connecting personal memories, political considerations, and psychological effects of a landscape seemingly empty and quiet. Adjacent, beneath and intertwined a modular synthesizer score based on field notes -- a synthesized soundscape appearing as imaginary field recordings, at the same time resembling and unalike the place in question. The twelve contributions presented on the LP were recorded in South Africa over a period of three months in 2020 and 2021. These recordings occurred in various locations in Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Richmond/Northern Cape, Cape Town, Grassy Park, Krugersdorp and Johannesburg. The Desert Dictionary appears in four iterations -- a situation as part of Modern Art Projects South Africa's collection, a radio play (commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur), a book edition (published by MAPSA), and the present LP. The LP version is based on the radio play and features the voices of Richard John Forbes, Maja Marx, Phala Ookeditse Phala, Victoria Wigzell, Tubatsi Mpochmoloi, Liza Grobler, Nkosinathi Gumede, Karlien van Rooyen, Mongezi Ncombo, Ivan Messelaar, Gerhard Marx, and Lindiwe Matshikiza. The synthesized field recordings -- translations of fieldnotes taken in the desert -- were recorded in Johannesburg and Berlin. Written and produced by Boris Baltschun, 2021-2022. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Photo and map by Boris Baltschun. Graphic design by Joe Gilmore. Includes printed inner sleeve; includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $29.00

CAT #: ATL 8139LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1967. Soul queen Aretha Franklin's 1967 breakthrough studio album. "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You is the tenth studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin released on March 10, 1967, by Atlantic Records. It was Franklin's first release under her contract with the label, following her departure from Columbia Records after nine unsuccessful jazz standard albums, and marked a commercial breakthrough for her, becoming her first top 10 album in the United States, reaching number 2 on the Billboard 200." Features "Respect." Original mono recording; 180 gram vinyl.

 

PRICE: $30.50

CAT #: AWAY 003LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Berlin Party AWAY will celebrate a decade of events with label compilation AWAY 10 Years and three weekend parties. AWAY 10 Years features ten tracks from a family-and-friends line-up of influential powerhouses like Moodymann, Move D, Axel Boman, Lady Starlight, Mark Broom, Inland, and well-known talents Discrete Circuit, Eluize, AWAY Soundsystem, and Attila & Blivv. Founded by DJ and producer Discrete Circuit in 2012, AWAY was born in Berlin out of a purist desire to establish a party for timeless house and techno music. In the early days, AWAY moved from multiple in- and outdoor venues to showcases across Europe to ultimately finding a stable home base at the About Blank club in 2015. Quickly they earned a reputation as a must-attend event series without losing its underground credibility. The AWAY crew did not shy away from booking many veterans and legends of the genre, some of whom are now on the compilation AWAY 10 Years.

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: BTR 077EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Sababa 5, Tel Aviv's funkiest export, upgrade their signature Middle Eastern psychedelic funk with the addition of Hoodna Orchestra's dynamic brass section, another essential 45 from Batov Records' Middle Eastern Groove series. Sababa 5 have created a modern sound, fusing funk, disco, and psychedelic rock with a wide range of Middle Eastern influences, culminating in last year's acclaimed self-titled debut album, named after their new studio address on the border of Jaffa and Tel Aviv, "Eilat 22" and "Elifelet 23" spring from the same sessions that delivered Funk #1/Funk #2 45 (BTR 076EP). Sababa 5's tight-as-ever instrumental grooves are enriched by the bright bass sounds of The Hoodna Orchestra brass section, comprising Bar Ashkenazi on trumpet, Eylon Tushiner on tenor, and Elad Gelert on baritone saxophone. Hoodna are renowned for their energetic take on Afrobeat, and have been touring and recording recently with Ethio jazz legend Mulatu Astatke, and here they supply a touch of JB's meets Africa '70 energy. On "Eilat 22" the Sababa 5 rhythm section of Raz Man on drums and Amir Sadot on bass is in full funk force, supporting a vibrant hook from the Hoodna brass section, leaving room for solos from guitarist Ilan Smilan and synth mage Eitan Drabkin, full of Middle Eastern flavor. On the flip "Eiffelet 23" grooves along like a Dap Kings funk nugget, except in this case there's room for Eitan to improvise across the jam with a microtonal organ sound reminiscent of legendary Egyptian musician Magdi elHusseini.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: BFR 027LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. "On Silent Future, Chicago atmospheric psych-doom outfit REZN teams up with Mexico City cosmic conceptualists Vinnum Sabbathi for a true union of heavy exploration. Allowing themselves a fluid, open canvas to experiment, members of both bands contribute equally to create an album of lush, hypnotic and frequently megalithic ambience, yielding an utterly cohesive trip into the riff-drenched astral reaches. The fluidity with which REZN and Vinnum Sabbathi collaborate is unlikely, yet inarguable. Strong nuclear forces conjoin sections as alternatingly ethereal as celestial light and dense as a black hole collapse. Ultimately, the endeavor is never limited to being one thing for long, any more than it is limited to being the work of a single band. More than a listening experience, Silent Future's vitality extends beyond the aural. This is the work of two groups pushing themselves further than they've gone before, each answering the other's question of how far they can ultimately go. As heavy as Silent Future gets, as distant as it may range, one cannot regard this righteously thick, molten-tempo journey into the unknown as anything but breathtaking."

 

PRICE: $19.50

CAT #: BORNBAD 002LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress. Increasingly detached from the original punk formula, the modern and arty youth of the early '80s set itself to jettison an art form that had lost much of the nihilistic and exhilarating energy of its halcyon days, stuck, as it was, in an endless and noisy regression. Disheartened but eager to experiment and create, a new wave of French musicians followed the beacon of Jacno's seminal '79 hit "Rectangle," a visionary, digital coup de grâce, courtesy of a former punk which dealt the Rickenbacker and Fender-era a fatal blow. The cold and robot-like bips of analogic keyboards took over. Casio, Korg MS-10 and Arp Omni were the new paraphernalia of the new generation -- the ideal conveyers of its retro-futurist elegance and self-professed cold arrogance. They were pinnacles and symbols which were just as potent as the electric guitar in the '50s or the laptop in the '90s. This compilation recalls the glory of a selected few, the cream of the crop of the shooting stars and cult bands that followed in the footsteps of Kas Product, Mathematiques Modernes or Charles De Goal. Featuring Ruth's infinitely charming "Polaroid/Roman/Photo," plus A Trois Dan Les WC, Act, Les Visiteurs Du Soir, Vox Dei, TGV, CKC, Marie Möör, Deux, Vitor Hublot, Visible and Casino Music.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: BORNBAD 047LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2031 repress; LP version. Comes with a four-page insert. Clothilde, queen of the "Swingin' Mademoiselles." Why Clothilde? Why not that more star-worthy, internationally-acclaimed Françoise Hardy, or the more akin to the sub-genre, France Gall? Because she's the most characteristic, archtypical French mademoiselle, that's why! Christine Pilzer, even Jacqueline Taïeb before her, both may have been rediscovered first in this style unique to French '60s pop, and Stella also may have been the most out and out "anti-ye-ye" with her slightly anti-establishment and derisive lyrics countering the pop system and establishment, but Cleo's all about text, not that much as a whole production. As such, Clothilde takes the crown. Not only has Clothilde the most natural (albeit unknowingly) disposition as a chanteuse, singing such subversive lyrics with as much second degree detachment as possible but also, the music itself is highly original: inventive arrangements including French horn, musical saw, church bells, barrel organ, marimba, brass fiddle, woodwinds, and busy fuzz guitar amidst all that slapstick comedy-like audio bric-à-brac. Almost avant-garde in concept, it was imagined and produced by Clothilde's impresario, manager and indeed creator, legendary Disques Vogue A.D. Germinal Tenas. This could've only come out of France.

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: BORNBAD 105LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress; double LP version. Includes insert. Born Bad Records present the second volume Chebran, a series focusing on French boogie. The French in the '80s were not faint-hearted: as some threw themselves heart and soul into music or business, others wouldn't mind going bottomless to get themselves noticed. While Bernard Tapie soon realized his own fortune was rather to be found in business, many music-loving dreamers already imagined themselves in the sun, in an enchanting world made of funky rhythms and synthesizers. While the French National Front was growing in the shadow of François Mitterrand, these guys mixed New York-style funk with electronic, Eastern, or African sounds. With their genre-crossing arrangements and often chanted lyrics, they brought honor to the "SOS Racisme" generation, unconsciously outlining the nascent French contemporary urban culture. The French, while admiring Grace Jones' "savage beauty" in Jean-Paul Goude's advertisements, were enjoying their freshly-gained fifth week of paid vacation, tanning on the beaches of Maghreb. Following The Clash's example, punks and rockers converted to reggae, and the new independent radios opened up their programming to "world music". At the other end of the pyramid, the successive waves of immigration enriched France in a much better way. With the rise of "Youth and Culture Centers", the practice of musical instruments became affordable for those of humble background, allowing for new bands to appear. Caught between the spirit of Gallic bawdiness and their own community hopes, the musicians from this singular scene probably didn't succeed in life the way Bernard Tapie meant it. But their explorations left no room for doubt: by facilitating the rise of a new hybrid culture about to give birth, among others, to French hip-hop, those little-known artists indeed were off on an adventure, quite simply. Since the '60s, numerous venues destined for the North-African community had appeared all over France. In those bars and nightclubs, Eastern 45s were broadcast as well as local productions combining Raï, Frenchy funk, or proto-hip-hop. Thanks to the cassette tape medium, new songs kept circulating between Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, Marseilles, and many other urban areas -- mainly among the working class. The artists appearing on these compilations progressively shaped a new style, blending sounds from their original cultures and from their adopted country. Features Phil Barney, JM Black, Ettika, Sammy Massamba, Shams Dinn, Alfio Scandurra, Philippe Chany, Nordine Staiffi, Brigitte Et Michot, Alec Mansion, Marie Jose Fa, Hamidou, Ganawa, Creole Star, Manu, Ethnie, and Joel Ferrati.

 

PRICE: $37.00

CAT #: BSR 861LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"This classic double album with extensive sleeve notes is a collection of top-notch vocal, DJ and dub tracks adding to the growing body of music from a time often dismissed by commentators and critics, and includes vocalists and DJs Anthony Johnson, Bobby Melody, Junior Moore, Nemo, Triston Palmer, Early B, General Trees, Lee Van Cliff, Lone Ranger, and Ranking Trevor, with backing from The Roots Radics and The Midnight Rock Crew Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare."

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: SGCCD 020CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"The Jazz Doctors or the Billy Bang Quartet toured Europe in the early 80s. Featuring spiritual jazz pioneer saxophonist Frank Lowe and Vietnam vet turned free jazz violinist Billy Bang, the group recorded in 1983 and 1984 in London. With legendary rhythm section Rafael Garrett and Dennis Charles, they recorded an album for Cadillac that fast became a sought-after classic. The '84 session, with the different but equally astonishing rhythm of Wilber Morris and Thurman Barker, never appeared. Studio problems led to half the album being rendered unusable. Here for the very first time is the music that remained, including a unique and astonishing suite composed by Billy Bang. Newly remastered from the original tapes at Gearbox studio and including a previously unreleased session, and all on CD for the first time, with new sleeve notes and images by acclaimed author/photographer Val Wilmer."

 

PRICE: $15.00

CAT #: SGCCD 022CD

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Rare 1970s British jazz from Joy: Chris Francis, James Dvorak, Frank Roberts, Ernest Mothle, Keith Bailey, featuring two extended tracks, new texts and photos. Remastered from the original tapes by Keith Bailey and Lawrence Czoka. With insert featuring new pics by acclaimed photographer Jak Kilby, it's the first ever reissue of this cult British jazz LP. The mid-70s should be seen as a vibrant and fecund period for British jazz, including Spear, Molongo, The Brotherhood of Breath, Keith Tippett and Elton Dean's groups and others such as The Quintet (Joy's direct precursor),Keith Bailey's Orbit, Chris Francis' Naima, Maggie Nichols' Voice, Dave Defries' Lemonspiel, Gary Windo's I Dogu featuring Frank Roberts, Quincicasm, Landscape, Harry Becket's Joy Unlimited, Isotope - all working with the punk ethic and generating a special scene. Joy were part of this: there was undoubtedly a buzz around this hip young multi-cultural band featuring London musicians from South Africa, The Caribbean, The US and UK. The LP that came out in 1976 only increased the buzz: one of the best bands playing in the contemporary post-bop style but with their own material."

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: SGCLP 020LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. "The Jazz Doctors or the Billy Bang Quartet toured Europe in the early 80s. Featuring spiritual jazz pioneer saxophonist Frank Lowe and Vietnam vet turned free jazz violinist Billy Bang, the group recorded in 1983 and 1984 in London. With legendary rhythm section Rafael Garrett and Dennis Charles, they recorded an album for Cadillac that fast became a sought-after classic. The '84 session, with the different but equally astonishing rhythm of Wilber Morris and Thurman Barker, never appeared. Studio problems led to half the album being rendered unusable. Here for the very first time is the music that remained, including a unique and astonishing suite composed by Billy Bang. Newly remastered from the original tapes at Gearbox studio and including a previously unreleased session, and all on CD for the first time, with new sleeve notes and images by acclaimed author/photographer Val Wilmer."

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: SGCLP 022LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Rare 1970s British jazz from Joy: Chris Francis, James Dvorak, Frank Roberts, Ernest Mothle, Keith Bailey, featuring two extended tracks, new texts and photos. Remastered from the original tapes by Keith Bailey and Lawrence Czoka. With insert featuring new pics by acclaimed photographer Jak Kilby, it's the first ever reissue of this cult British jazz LP. The mid-70s should be seen as a vibrant and fecund period for British jazz, including Spear, Molongo, The Brotherhood of Breath, Keith Tippett and Elton Dean's groups, The Quintet (Joy's direct precursor), Keith Bailey's Orbit, Chris Francis' Naima, Maggie Nichols' Voice, Dave Defries' Lemonspiel, Gary Windo's I Dogu (featuring Frank Roberts), Quincicasm, Landscape, Harry Becket's Joy Unlimited, Isotope -- all working with the punk ethic and generating a special scene. Joy were part of this: there was undoubtedly a buzz around this hip young multi-cultural band featuring London musicians from South Africa, The Caribbean, The US and UK. The LP that came out in 1976 only increased the buzz: one of the best of the bands playing in the contemporary post-bop style but with their own material."

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: SAUNA 076CS

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Sucesiones is a compilation of studies written for 53 equal divisions of the octave (53 EDO). This tuning temperament was selected after analyzing the work of Mexican researcher and visionary Augusto Novaro, one of the microtonal and just intonation pioneer theorists. Novaro claims that 53 EDO is one of rich musical qualities, which has good approximations to the harmonic series. The use of simple textures such as sine waves was a conscious decision, this in order to maintain the focus on the relationship between the frequencies and the possibilities this tuning allows, that fluctuate from aggressive beat frequencies to pure intervals. These four compositions serve as an introduction and familiarization to the tuning. Recorded, mixed and mastered by José Orozco Mora in his studio (Mexico City), who has worked with different aspects of sound creation, such as composition, sound design, recording and production. His work mainly explores the fundamental aspects of the sonic spectrum, implementing alternate tunings and temperaments, exploring their harmonic content through the combination of frequencies, using both acoustic and electronic sources. These explorations had led Orozco to utilize different artistic mediums such as quadraphonic compositions, sound installations, and others. Orozco has released his work in labels such as Debacle Records (USA), Constellation Tatsu (USA), Hole Records (MEX). He has performed and presented his work in Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, México, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, etc.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: CELL 005LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Vinyl reissue of Black to Comm's 2009 album originally on Type Recordings. Marc Richter aka Black To Comm released his debut record 20 years ago. In 2023 he is still busy releasing music under various disguises and is currently signed to the Thrill Jockey label. To celebrate this anniversary his own Cellule 75 label is re-releasing some classic out-of-print vinyl albums that originally came out on the defunct Type and De Stijl labels. In 2009, the Type Recordings label run by John Twells had just released seminal records by Grouper, Jóhann Jóhannsson, and Yellow Swans when they signed Richter and put out his breakthrough Alphabet 1968 album. The LP was greeted with universal praise in the underground publications as well as established magazines such as The New Yorker and Pitchfork. The music itself played with the notion of nostalgia without being nostalgic itself. It's the sound of half-remembered dreams, a surreal distorted vision of the past, an aural polaroid of long forgotten musics, a ghostly voice from a non-existent era. Includes printed inner full-color printed inner sleeve.From the original Type one-sheet: "The mission statement for Alphabet 1968 was to write an album of 'songs' for want of a better word. Short tracks which represented genre points, the milestones which stuck in Richter's mind when he thought back to his favorite records. What we arrive at is a breathtaking ten-track album which, over the course of 45 minutes, explores world music, techno, noise, avant-garde, ambient music and even exotica. Each track is linked with a loose thread of radio static or environmental sound, dragging you through the album, as if tuning in to a stray broadcast or a particularly adventurous mix. Richter has pieced the album together from hours of recordings made at his studio with homemade gamelan, small instruments and loops gathered from a collection of ancient vinyl and 78 records. The scope of the album is admirable, but ignoring this, it is simply a shockingly arresting collection of experimental oddities, with references ranging from Moondog to Basic Channel by way of Bernard Herrmann. It's not hard to fall in love with Alphabet 1968, far harder would be to place exactly where the record should fit into your collection."

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: CELL 007LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Marc Richter aka Black To Comm released his debut record 20 years ago. In 2023, he is still busy releasing music under various disguises and is currently signed to the Thrill Jockey label. To celebrate this anniversary his own Cellule 75 label is re-releasing some classic out-of-print vinyl albums that originally came out on the defunct Type and De Stijl labels. After releasing the critically acclaimed Alphabet 1968 on the seminal Type label (Grouper, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Yellow Swans), Richter chose De Stijl for this 2012 album. Earth is a 2009 silent film by Ho Tzu Nyen, one of Singapore's foremost visual artists. After hearing Black To Comm's Alphabet 1968, Ho Tzu Nyen invited Richter to accompany the film at Berlin's Asian Film Festival, Unsound in Krakow and several other art biennials and music festivals around the world. Includes full color lyric sheet and poster.From the original De Stijl one-sheet: "Richter's already formidable expressive power stretches over all of Earth. Reflecting the countless cyclical forces that make up, oh, more or less everything we know and are, the music on Earth is bracing, lovely, bustling and still, and at times bittersweet, a commingling of sensations and emotions that can't be neatly separated from one another. (Earth is complex, as you know.) Guests on Earth include David Aird, aka Vindicatrix, contributing startling vocal work; Renate Nikolaus on an array of instruments and noise devices; Rutger Zuydervelt (singing bowls); and Christopher Kline (singing saw). Earth is Black to Comm's seventh album and his debut for De Stijl, following the acclaimed Alphabet 1968 (on Type) and last year's vinyl-only collaboration with Mike Kelley of Destroy All Monsters (on the En/Of label)."

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: CELL 011LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

This new album compiles several songs made in the years following Black To Comm's classic Alphabet 1968 album. Originally released on the seminal Type label in 2009, Alphabet 1968 combined the sound of vintage shellac and vinyl loops with broken electronics and field recordings, the press release mentioning disparate influences "ranging from Moondog to Basic Channel by way of Bernard Herrmann". Now titled Coh Bâle (inspired by a strange dream) these recordings were supposed to become a follow-up to said album but for reasons unknown it never materialized and the album seemed forever lost. At the time Marc Richter started to dive deeper into several strains of (so-called) world music aka the folk music of Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe as well as liturgical and medieval music, the kraut-electronica of Harmonia and several certain Mediterranean experimentalists from the 1980s who started to merge their mostly electronic and field recording based compositions with traditional musics from all over the world by way of new sampling technology. Many of the songs for the album were recorded while travelling and at various residencies around Europe: a detuned piano in a Thessaloniki basement (Richter played at a children's birthday party there), vintage synthesizers in the GRM studios in Paris, decaying acoustic instruments found in an old Black Forest mansion, childrens' voices at a workshop in Karlsruhe's ZKM Institute; then mixed on headphones in the ICE trains running between these places and his hometown Hamburg. Coh Bâle is taking inspirations from old Nonesuch Explorer and Ocora LPs, Crammed Records, '80s Mediterranean ambient (Nuno Canavarro, Roberto Musci) combined with the DIY spirit of Deux Filles and Flaming Tunes and the playfulness of Asa Chang & Junray. The songs are both mysterious and transparent, intricate and frugal, vibrant and patient. One of the album's unexpected climaxes is a gorgeous (artificial) berimbau version of the Welsh traditional "Iechyd o Gylch". No two songs feature the same instrumentation and many acoustic sources (pianos, flutes, wood percussion, viola, tablas, autoharp) were disassembled and later coalesced into new configurations or used as virtual instruments; later combined with samples, field recordings, electronics and (on a few tracks) autotuned vocals reminding of recent works by the likes of Claire Rousay or More Eaze. This is the second release from his archives after the Diode, Triode LP which presented musique concrète/acousmatic recordings made at INA/GRM and ZKM. Edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $21.50

CAT #: CS 9217C-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Color vinyl reissue of the first album of Delta blues legend Son House on the Columbia label, originally released in 1965. Canned Heat founding member Al Wilson appears. Includes the 9+ minute closing track "Levee Camp Moan."

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: CTATSU 003LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

"Loris S. Sarid is a Rome born musician and sound designer living in Glasgow (Scotland). Music for Tomato Plants was born while taking care of a little tomato plant, grown on the windowsill of his flat during the winter 2020. The album is a homage to the unapparent courage of simplicity, and the beauty and lightness of the most ordinary things." "In the same spirit of Mort Garson, Green-House and others who synthesize the natural and musical worlds, this ambient serenade for tomato plants is a welcome saunter through a humble garden" --Charlie Moonbeam.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: LP 12127LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"The Moroccan musician Driss El Maloumi created another original album with Aswat. In trio instrumentation characterized by the melodic vocals, the harmonic sounds of the oud and the rhythmic percussions, Aswat is an inner musical journey and a metaphorical victory over the vicissitudes of everyday life. In the '90s, Driss El Maloumi successfully completed a classical Arabic and Western music education and was awarded various prestigious prizes in 1992, 1993 and 1994. Besides composing his own albums, Driss El Maloumi has composed music for numerous performances and films such as Isabel 'I' (musical direction: Jordi Saval), L'Amour Sorcier (director: Antoine Bourseiller) and La Source des Femmes (director: Radu Miahileanu). Furthermore, since 2008, the musician has been playing alongside kora player Ballake Sissoko and valiha player Rajery in the music group 3MA. The award-winning trio of African stringed instruments composes their own contemporary albums and revolutionized African music with their instrumentation of stringed instruments without percussion. As part of the music project The Routes of Slavery, Spanish musician and conductor Jordi Savall invited the trio to contribute their compositions to the history of the slave trade in Africa. By cooperating with artists of different musical styles such as classical music or jazz, the 'magician of the oud,' as Driss El Maloumi is praised for the purity and delicacy of his playing, succeeds in adding an extraordinary touch to the traditional music of his homeland. This original style runs through his new album as well. Aswat is a homage to his homeland and the search for adventures outside its traditions, once again demonstrating Driss El Maloumi's ability to mix different genres and his unique style."

 

PRICE: $37.00

CAT #: NRT 008DX-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"The legendary 1979 album remastered from the original tapes. Formed in the early 1970s, The Residents have now been charting a unique path through the musical landscape for 50 years. In celebration of that remarkable and unlikely anniversary, Cryptic Corporation presents an expanded vinyl edition of the classic 1979 album Eskimo. Perhaps their best-known album -- certainly the one which introduced the classic eyeball head image -- Eskimo saw The Residents explore the myths, legends and music of the native tribes of the northern American coastline and tundra. Released following several years of the group travelling into the Arctic to make field recordings, record with (and learn from) the natives and soak up as much of that atmosphere as they could cram into their suitcases, the album and its mythology (not least the long delay preceding its release) cemented The Residents' reputation as the weird anonymous band with eyeballs on their heads it was OK to like (long before everybody was doing it). Presented here with an accompanying RDX mix produced by the group using the album's original multitrack tapes, this double LP edition both celebrates the original LP and, through an extensive new essay by the group's mysterious archivist, sheds new light on its production. A must for fans and collectors, and perhaps a first-time opportunity for anybody who's been waiting over 40 years to finally give it a listen. Eskimo is the latest in The Residents' extensive ongoing pREServed series. Includes 12" X 12" booklet, as well as the previously unreleased 'Ice RDX Suite' (taken from the Eskimo multi- track tapes), plus contemporary demos and rehearsal recordings."

 

PRICE: $37.00

CAT #: NRT 009LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Featuring a breathless collage of toe-tappers, memorable melodies, instrumental experiments and guest performers (Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, and XTC's Andy Partridge among them), the record has since acquired legendary status among both fans and confused onlookers alike. Alongside the original album, this double LP edition presents the 'COMS 1-3 RDX Suite' -- a brand new interpretation of (almost) the entire album, produced by the group using the original multi-track tapes -- and a brand new sleevenote essay shedding new light on the album's production. Commercial Album is the latest in The Residents' extensive ongoing pREServed series -- expect more throughout 2023 and 2024. Possibly even 2025 too, the way things are going."

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: CURTOM 96557LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1970. "The first solo album by the former leader of the Impressions, Curtis represented a musical apotheosis for Curtis Mayfield -- indeed, it was practically the Sgt. Pepper's album of '70s soul, helping with its content and its success to open the whole genre to much bigger, richer musical canvases than artists had previously worked with. All of Mayfield's years of experience of life, music, and people were pulled together into a rich, powerful, topical musical statement that reflected not only the most up-to-date soul sounds of its period, finely produced by Mayfield himself, and the immediacy of the times and their political and social concerns, but also embraced the most elegant R&B sounds of the past. As a producer, Mayfield embraced the most progressive soul sounds of the era, stretching them out compellingly on numbers like 'Move on Up,' but he also drew on orchestral sounds (especially harps), to achieve some striking musical timbres (check out 'Wild and Free'), and wove all of these influences, plus the topical nature of the songs, into a neat, amazingly lean whole. There was only one hit single off of this record, '(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Down Below We're All Going to Go,' which made number three, but the album as a whole was a single entity and really had to be heard that way." --Bruce Eder, AllMusic

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: DTW 074LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

UNOS, a Belgian artist with roots in the Philippines, has long been a part of the Darker Than Wax family, repping the label in Europe and beyond for a number of years through her parties and DJ sets. As she begins to put her unique productions out into the world, we are pleased to give her first release a home on the label. Borrowing its title from the exuberant Filipino dining tradition, UNOS' debut EP Boodle Fight highlights her sincere love for communities forged through club culture. The release was conceptualized during her first Asia tour through Singapore, Bangkok, and Manila in 2019, where the artist became acutely aware of the crucial role that community plays in sustaining a culture. Shortly after these foundational travels, the pandemic threatened the lifeblood of this culture, prompting her to draw on her feelings from the tour to maintain hope. With the release of the EP, UNOS revels in the return of togetherness to club culture after the pandemic -- just like a musical boodle fight. Boodle Fight ties together this celebration of community with a number of other influences and experiences in the artist's life. The first single "Angermanagement" is a ballroom-inspired roller, focusing on contemporary voguing culture's ability to translate anger into queer empowerment. "Powerslide" is a piano-driven house cut that attempts to capture the energy of a legendary Darker Than Wax block party in Singapore in 2019, while the frenetic pace of "Headlock" evokes imagery of a crowded club scene that the artist sorely missed in 2020. True to the spirit of a boodle fight, the bright chords and bouncy rhythms on "Flavourtown" imagine the best aspects of an inclusive space where diversity is celebrated like a buffet. Closing out the record, "Loveletter to Summer" reflects on the tropical warmth of her roots in the Philippines. Boodle Fight manages to pack in quite a few themes and inspirations, while still maintaining a polished consistency from front to back, and announces UNOS as a producer to watch.

 

PRICE: $68.00

CAT #: DFPREDIT 001LP

FILE UNDER: HIPHOP

"MC/Lyricist Raw Poetic (aka Jason Moore) announces Space Beyond The Solar System, his new album and its lead single, 'A Mile In My Head,' featuring legendary saxophonist Archie Shepp. Although Space Beyond The Solar System could be considered a concept album by its outcome, its inception started from a string of experiments between Moore and frequent collaborator/producer Damu the Fudgemunk. These initial sessions had no specific direction but became the catalyst for what would become a prolific wave of Raw Poetic projects; five of which have been released since 2020. It was these initial sessions and the demos they produced that convinced Shepp -- who is also Raw Poetic's uncle -- to record what would eventually become 2020's Ocean Bridges, a collaborative album from Raw, Damu, and Shepp, praised by The FADER as a 'modern masterpiece at the intersection of rap and jazz.' The trio's collaboration continues on Space Beyond The Solar System, which boasts three tracks featuring the jazz legend, including 'A Mile In My Head,' a sprawling and thought-provoking album stand-out. At two hours, absorbing Space Beyond in its entirety may be overwhelming for most, especially in the present day, but Raw and Damu are very aware of this. With a total of over 40-plus years of experience between the vocalist and producer, the two of them went down memory lane taking every influence and experience in their personal histories to extract ingredients for a groundbreaking statement. Space Beyond The Solar System is their most comprehensive environment to date. The creation of Space Beyond sparked a conversation between Raw and Damu about their creative chemistry, with Raw likening their direction to a 'space beyond the solar system.' His comment was a eureka moment for the two artists, giving their wandering efforts a sense of definition that was needed. 'I think we've been exploring music beyond our limits for a few years,' says Raw Poetic. 'It's hard to tell where we'll land, but we are constantly pushing our way out of the norm. Hence the title, Space Beyond The Solar System. It's just to say, this is new territory for us. Where the sky was once the limit, now it's just the start.'"

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 036LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1962. The house band at Memphis's legendary Stax Records, Booker T. & the M.G.'s played on some of the most legendary and unforgettable soul recordings in history. Originally released in 1962, the title-track of their debut LP Green Onions is arguably the most recognizable piece of instrumental pop and soul ever to be released; an absolute stone classic of a jam, with Booker T.'s organ at the fore. In addition to being a classic group, Booker T. & the M.G.'s were one of the first soul and rock groups to have both white and black members, and understandably their music is often associated with the Civil Rights Movement that was going on all around them in the American south of the 1960s. Essential American originals from Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Clear vinyl; numbered.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 037LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1962. "Formed in 1961 when Dennis Wilson, the only Beach Boy to regularly visit the beach, asked his brother Brian to write a song about the sport of surfing. The Beach Boys reached number 75 in national charts with their first single (the resultant song 'Surfin'') and were immediately signed to a major label. Though many debut albums in the early '60s were mainly built around a few smash-hits, the Beach Boys' 1962 full-length debut on Capitol (featuring such hits as 'Surfin' Safari,' '409' and their version of the Eddie Cochran classic 'Summertime Blues') remains one of the greatest first steps in American pop culture, and a mandatory chapter in the history of rock and roll." Clear vinyl; numbered.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 038LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1962. Recorded in New York in 1957 (though not released until 1962), Tijuana Moods was, according to Charles Mingus himself, "the best album I ever made." The music is a vigorous stew of Mexican rhythms and sophisticated post-Ellington arrangements, further invigorated by the soloing of trumpeter Clarence Shaw, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, and, particularly, saxophonist Shafi Hadi. Mingus's vision of Tijuana was clearly sensual, the music evoking strippers, frenetic street scenes, and heart-broken lovers. Making use of suite like thematic material and various forms of counterpoint, the group sounds much larger than it is, and points toward Mingus's later experiments with form. the bristling sound and spirit of the music, however, are its primary attractions -- a remarkable place where Mexican fantasy and hard bop meet. Clear vinyl; numbered.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: DMOO 051LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Legendary Sun Records producer Sam Phillips knew talent when he saw it, and when he started up his new Phillips label in the early 1960s, one of the first acts he signed was Frank Frost and his electric Delta blues trio. Now known as one of the greatest harp players of his generation, Frost learned his trade playing with none other than Sonny Boy Williamson and his influence can be heard whenever he blows. Originally released in 1962, Hey, Boss Man! is one of the last great electric blues albums. Clear vinyl.

 

PRICE: $21.00

CAT #: DOL 882HG-LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1962. 180 gram vinyl. "Herbie Hancock's debut as a leader, Takin' Off, revealed a composer and pianist able to balance sophistication and accessibility, somewhat in the vein of Blue Note's prototype hard bopper Horace Silver. Yet while Hancock could be just as funky and blues-rooted as Silver, their overall styles diverged in several ways: Hancock was lighter and more cerebral, a bit more adventurous in his harmonies, and more apt to break his solos out of a groove (instead of using them to create one). So even if, in retrospect, Takin' Off is among Hancock's most conventional albums, it shows a young stylist already strikingly mature for his age, and one who can interpret established forms with spirit and imagination. Case in point: the simple, catchy 'Watermelon Man,' which became a Hancock signature tune and a jazz standard in the wake of a hit cover by Latin jazz star Mongo Santamaria. Hancock's original version is classic Blue Note hard bop: spare, funky piano riffing and tight, focused solo statements. The other compositions are memorable and well-constructed too (if not quite hit material); all have their moments, but particular highlights include the ruminative ballad 'Alone and I,' the minor-key 'The Maze' (which features a little bit of free improvisation in the rhythm section), and the bluesy 'Empty Pockets.' The backing group includes then up-and-coming trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon, bassist Butch Warren, and drummer Billy Higgins. All in all, Takin' Off is an exceptional first effort, laying the groundwork for Hancock to begin pushing the boundaries of hard bop on his next several records." --Steve Huey, AllMusic

 

PRICE: $21.00

CAT #: DOL 890HG-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1959. 180 gram vinyl. "There is a remarkable amount of variety on this disc, Nina Simone's second recording. Her repertoire ranges from a swinging 'Stompin' at the Savoy' and an emotional 'It Might as Well Be Spring' to an English folk ballad ('Tomorrow'), spirituals, an R&B song ('You've Been Gone Too Long') and the theme song from the movie Middle of the Night. Somehow Simone brings credibility to each of these very different songs. She does not play much piano (just cameos on two songs) and is backed by a subtle orchestra arranged by Bob Mersey that is effective accompanying her vocals. This session finds Nina Simone's voice in top form and with a few exceptions is generally jazz-oriented." --Scott Yanow, AllMusic

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: DC 873LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Emil Amos was originally commissioned by the legendary KPM music library to make this music for use in television and film. But after the executive overseeing their experimental wing exited the company, Emil brought Zone Black to Drag City and re-mixed it into a proper full-length album. While the record was originally inspired by old school '70s television music, like the grim, descending riffs that took us to commercial as the running back strained in anguish for the ball in slo-mo, it became a genuine attempt to reach towards a new kind of library music. Emil (Grails, OM and podcaster supreme) carves out a much more personal interpretation of what we think of as 'music for television' with Zone Black. Taking classic, dark pieces that he grew up with as inspiration, like the 'Lonely Man Theme' from the original Hulk TV series, he fantasized an alternate environment where composers were allowed to explore more extreme states of mind, while on much witchier drugs . . . fully separating library music from its outmoded commercial constraints. Imagine Brian Eno recording Another Green World equipped with Madlib's gear and a much darker sense of humor . . . or Kafka creating The Castle with a Juno keyboard and sampler instead. In the spirit of classic synth-based soundtracks like Firestarter or Midnight Express, the instruments narrate the experience. Urban landscapes in noirish chiaroscuro, fatal encounters unfurling beneath the persistent glow of riot lights, last-ditch meetings in pre-dawn discotheques . . . all evoked with synths, harpsichords and mellotrons drifting over drum machines and the arachnoid radiation of FX disappearing up into the darkness. Every track illuminates a different corridor of Emil's brain, but A.E. Paterra and Steve Moore of ZOMBI periodically step in to contribute sax solos and drum beats to amp the coloration up. Zone Black is a fully inhabitable world, its episodic narrative divided into an improbable balance between morbid, ambient anthems and insouciant hip-hop instrumentals. Emil hadn't heard it done quite this way before, so he took it upon himself to make the sound real. And if you don't hear it in the next, big horror feature (or in a new Zone Black game done up for Xbox, yeah!), it'll make great mood music for tripping in the bathtub while dreaming of a new horizon of music to take drugs to. Listening to Emil Amos' Zone Black evokes a variety of distorted, paranoid visions -- cue it up!"

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: FKR 115LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Part fantastical historic sonic biopic, part anthropologic journey into the deep roots of Belgium's monstrous cosmic rock sound, this wholly individualistic concept album combines the lead members of the mighty COS (Daniel Schell and Pascale Son) with studio genius Alain Pierre (Ô Sidarta (FKR 107LP), Des Morts (FKR 114LP)) and celebrated Dutch progressive rock singer Dick Annegarn, for what many consider to be both the overlooked hiding place of Belgium's deepest psychedelic moment and European prog's lost map to the "Franco-Flemish Boom". Emerging from the wider musical family that counted Marc Moulin, Placebo, and Marc Hollander amongst its creative kin, Daniel Schell's most profound conceptual project ambitiously combines the tale of the heroic historical figure of Count Egmont (1522-1568), while simultaneously tracing the evolution of the ud, or oud, ("the grandfather of the guitar") in this multifarious hallucinogenic epic. Featuring key members of other collectable groups such as drummer Felix Simtaine from Solis Lacus and bass player Jean-Louis Baudoin from the mythical Classroom (COS predecessor), this best-kept secret vinyl release also harbors the voices of Dirk Bogaert (of Belgian hard rockers Waterloo) as well as Catalan singer Ilona Chale (Marc Hollander/Aksak Maboul) before her later tenure as the COS front woman. Initially released in 1978 via Zeuhl school distributors, Free Bird, alongside French pressings of Don Cherry, Jacques Thollot, and CAN, it is plain to understand the niche nature of this maligned "lost COS" LP as it finally blooms from between the cracked branches of European jazz-rock-synth-psych-prog-pop history... and beyond! Edition of 750; black vinyl.

 

PRICE: $29.00

CAT #: FORLP 007LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"A further exercise in musical curation, Child Of Nature is our latest sonic confluence of self-released tracks from the loners, hippies and outsiders of the 70s and early 80s. A collection of privately pressed music, able to breathe and be created free from the constraints of heavy handed commercialism, yielding a pure vision of artistic expression. Child Of Nature features ten songs of brooding soft rock and psychedelic folk steeped in melancholia. Some ache for better times or past lovers, while others seek spiritual fulfilment or social progress. A compilation to evoke the raw and unobstructed, to summon the occult, to fundamentally conjure a vivid portrait of our untamed natural environment. Recorded on the north coast of California, Luellen Reese's ethereal 'Silvery Waterfalls' drifts and swirls with electric guitar as her unearthly vocals transcend across a seven-minute opus, fit for the golden age of labels like 4AD or Dedicated. 'The flowers are dancing just for you?', Reggie Russell croons over glistening Key Of Creek's title track 'Child Of Nature', evoking a utopian world of natural harmony free from the present day realities of industrial decay. Tap into your inner primal being, to embrace wholeheartedly, with frivolity and without reserve, your own child of nature."

 

PRICE: $19.00

CAT #: FPE 051LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"The sun shines somewhere all the time. Humanity bathes in nourishing light, children play, people dance, work, grow, bathe, learn. As long as the rays of the sun, longer even, the sounds of music emanate from our bodies. Tools amplify our breath, resonate from hits, twang and toll. People come together, travel long distance, just to make music together. Magic Carpet came together for this purpose years ago, some twenty summers and falls. At the core, six guys from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds, who set out to perform various traditions, bring old sounds into now, music enabling rapid travel. Maybe as an educational project? Perhaps, but also a weekly gig at an Ethiopian restaurant in Chicago. Over time they came to know each other musically, lock in, and their sounds flowed joyously through house parties, block parties, street festivals. One long weekend about seven years ago, Magic Carpet all had some time together in Chicago's Bel Air Sound Studio, and recorded the grooviest, loveliest, soulfullest, chillest set of tunes in the world. The rhythm section of Parrish Hicks (bass), Makaya McCraven (kit), and Ryan Mayer (percussion) unfolds hypnotic tales while Fred Jackson's soprano sax dances, Temuel Bey's guitar trances and Teddy Aklilu's keys fill the zone. The tunes wear different masks, from straight-up funk ('Aum U Wah') through smooth jazz-inflected bliss ('Flow'), to the West African grunge of 'Touareg Fever' and 'Rumba Gnawa.' Broken Compass is Magic Carpet's first widely-distributed recording, and it documents the band at the peak of their first stage, before Parrish Hicks's transition in 2017. Since then, the group has continued to evolve, more recently adding vocalist and dancer Tracy King to their lineup. Those in Chicago who know, know, and now you know too. Magic Carpet's light shines."

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: GRZ 034EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Balaila is the first footprint of the interesting Jerusalem duo on the land of Israel, with the intention of creating electronic music that shows a constant search for new inspirations, texts dim as dreams, riding guitars and a production full of emotion.

 

PRICE: $54.00

CAT #: GET 51454LP

FILE UNDER: HIPHOP

"In August of 2007, the Port Arthur duo of Bun B and Pimp C known as UGK released their epic fifth studio album, Underground Kingz. Sadly, this was the last release recorded by Pimp C before his untimely death in December of the same year. Production was overseen by legendary Rap-A-Lot producer N.O. Joe and Pimp C himself with contributions from Three 6 Mafia, Jazze Pha, Lil Jon, Scarface, Swizz Beatz, and Marly Marl among others. The second single 'Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)' was nominated for a Grammy and won video of the year at BET's 2008 Music Awards. Features on this expansive offering include Outkast, Too $hort, Rick Ross, Dizzee Rascal, Talib Kweli, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, T.I. and more!"

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: HSRSS 021EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"First reissue on 7" of the super rare killer single by The Pioneers. The Pioneers were formed in 1962 by two brothers Derrick and Sidney Crooks and their friend Winston Hewitt, later replaced by former Heptone Glen Adams. The Pioneers' early singles were not successful, and the group broke up in 1967. Sydney started working at Joe Gibbs shop and then in the studio where he met a talented new young singer: Jackie Robinson. The new Pioneers were reborn as a duo. They recorded several successful singles such as 'Longshot' 'Jackpot', and 'Catch the Beat' with Gibbs before joining producer Leslie Kong where they recorded 'Samfie Man' which topped the Jamaican charts. They then recruited George Agard and became a trio again. They scored in the charts again with 'Long Shot (Kick De Bucket)' a sequel to 'Long Shot', the tragic story of a race horse that never won and died racing! 'Kick De Bucket' became an instant hit both in Jamaican and in the U.K. particularly among skinheads in 1969. More hits followed and the band moved to the U.K. in 1970. Over time, their sound changed and became more sophisticated and pop and they eventually recorded soul albums with Eddy Grant as a producer in 1976, which were not successful, and the band split. They have been performing sporadically since then. This is the first re-release on 7" of this super rare killer single by The Pioneers released in 1968 on Amalgamated Records in Jamaica and on Doctor Bird in the U.K. Both tracks have never been reissued until now. Super rare and super good. Only 500 copies pressed in this edition

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: HSRSS 022EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"Limited edition 7" featuring two super rare Boss killers by Tommy MC Cook. These two tracks were initially released on separate singles, 'The Rooster' was released on Duke (a Trojan sub label) in 1970 whilst 'The Saint' was released on Trojan the same year. This is the first time these two MCCook's Boss tracks are released together and it is also the first re-release on 7" vinyl single of these two rare and in-demand skinhead hits. Cuban born McCook moved to Jamaica when he was a little boy and became a pupil at the Kingston's Alpha School where he took up tenor saxophone at the tender age of 11. The Alpha School was run by Catholic nuns and renowned for its outstanding musical education. After a stint in the US where he discovered the sounds of Coltrane, he went on to form the Skatalites in 1964 with Rolando Alphonso, Johnny Moore, Lester Sterling, Don Drummond, Lloyd Knibb, Lloyd Brevett, Jerry Haynes, and Jackie Mittoo. McCook, Drummond, Moore and Sterling were all students from the Alpha School. The Skatalites played their last show in August 1965 after Don Drummond's imprisonment for the murder of his girlfriend. The break-up resulted in the formation of two studio bands, Rolando Alphonso & The Studio One Orchestra and Tommy McCook & The Supersonics. The Supersonics were the house band for Arthur 'Duke' Reids' label Treasure Isle. Its members came from The Skatalites with the addition of top new musicians. They were one of Jamaica's most talented and productive bands and covered successfully many genres from ska and rocksteady to reggae and dub. Only 500 copies pressed in this edition -- one release only."

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: HBR 017LP

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

"Una Magnum Special Per Tony Saitta (aka. Blazing Magnum: Strange Shadows In An Empty Room) is a cop movie directed in 1976 by Alberto De Martino and starring Stuart Whitman, Martin Landau, Tisa Farrow, and Gayle Hunnicutt. It was co-produced by Italy and Canada. An Ottawa police captain searches for the person who poisoned his sister, who was attending the university in Montreal. Later on, he desperately starts to use his own brutal methods to find the killer, but the truth turns out to be something different than what he had expected. Armando Trovajoli has composed and conducted a score that elegantly occupies a place of all respect in the Cops/Giallo movies' scoring. The score alternates between action-driven funky music to nostalgic/ romantic music in a reflection of the two dimensions of the protagonist: his cop job full of tasks and his private life full of sadness, but he becomes the superhero of the story by taking vengeance against those who hurt him by killing his beloved sister, and ultimately discovering the unexpected truth. For this vinyl album the original record master in stereo sound was used, restored and remastered to the highest quality. More or less the music in the movie is featured on this album, prepared for release by the composer himself for a very fine listening experience. Enjoy a half-hour with Armando Trovajoli and his cool sound!"

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: HBR 018LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Besides being a leading session musician in Milan's jazz scene between the '60s and '90s, Italian pianist Oscar Rocchi created a number of exquisite library albums in the pop-jazz genre. These include among others Erbe Selvatiche, Pop-Paraphrenia and Woman's Colours (the latter cowritten with his friend Giancarlo Barigozzi) as well as Alchemy in Jazz, which is now available in digital format for the first time ever. Originally released on Ring, an imprint of Edizioni Minstrel, the album was recorded by a quintet featuring Rocchi on piano plus long-time collaborators Hugo Heredia (sax and flute), Sergio Fanni (trumpet), Gianni Cazzola (drums) and Furio Di Castri (double bass), and has since become a cult record in countries from the US to Japan, where it was released for the first time on CD in 2013. With a palette ranging from frenzied post-bop echoes ('Gold-Fast,' Nigredo') to sentimental nocturnal ballads ('Solution,' 'Rubedo') to cheerful modern-jazz vibes ('Mercury,' 'Silver-Bop,' 'Sulphur'), here Rocchi paints an elegantly syncopated musical fresco that, like the magical, alchemical process referred to in the title, transmutes the harsher aspects of jazz syntax into a graceful and more euphonic style that is approachable for jazz neophytes and yet enjoyable for seasoned jazz lovers."

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: HBR 020LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Originally released in 1976 as part of the Background Music series on Piero Umiliani's own Liuto Records, Temi Descrittivi Per Piccolo Complesso is a real gem in the maestro's vast and intricate catalogue. Flutes and horns alternate with pianofender to create some magical, sweet and intimate atmospheres, crafting an abstract and mysterious soundscape that could reminisce of medieval times as much as some distant galaxies. We are happy to bring back Temi Descrittivi Per Piccolo Complesso in our series of reissues from his catalog, officially licensed by Piero Umiliani's family and available as a limited edition pressing of 500 copies."

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: HOLY 5QXF3

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. Clear with purple vinyl. "Comprised of two songs that build on their use of cyclical rhythm, riff and vocal intonation, Om 's 2006 album Conference of the Birds blends metal, chant, drone, dub and psychedelia. The group's lyrics expound upon the structure of the universe, potentiality and freedom from the physical body. Engineered by Billy Anderson and produced by the band, Conference of the Birds is a fully realized work from a forward-thinking band at their peak."

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: 97980987998700

FILE UNDER: Misc

"Hooke + Line Press is excited to announce its first title, Titans of Modern Music: Paintings 2021-2022 by Dan Melchior. TOMM is a selection of 36 portraits from his series of paintings of seminal music figures spanning multiple genres." "As an unrepentant renaissance man, Dan Melchior has long trucked in blood unfit for pudding. He is a master of endurance over abidance whether it be as a singer of songs, a writer of poems or taster of pies, there are no half measures. Add to that list a painter of peoples, and Titans of Modern Music is a testament to his keen eye & deft stroke. And as a recording artist known for a voluminous body of work, portraiture is the perfect medium for his restive creativity. The subjects are infinite. Please note these are no mere, Sharpie's-in-the-park renderings. Gently run your hand across the rawness of the paper and you can feel the exertion of acrylic and oils. The style is playful yet sincere. The attention to detail, uncanny. Gazing through this select volume, I am reminded of the work of Horace Pippin & Philip Guston at once. Dan says he would like to paint like Lucian Freud. That's funny. So would I." --Tom Lax, Philadelphia, PA, 2023 40 pp; 15.25x22.75cm; color printing.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: HS 045LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"Immy Owusu's debut LP Lo-Life! draws on the work of West African giants such as Ebo Taylor and William Onyeabor as well as psychedelic troubadours like Rodriguez. Immy's sound, which he describes as 'lo-fi highlife' is a synthesis of his Ghanaian roots and his own experiences growing up in coastal Australia. Immanuel Kwabena Dreessens-Owusu grew up in two worlds: the sea bleached lifestyle of Torquay and the Surf Coast with its rock-n-roll soundtrack, and the musical heritage of his Ghanaian/Dutch family. Immy's father Kojo Noah Owusu is one of Australia's best regarded West African musicians and his grandfather Koo Nimo is a legend of Ghanaian Highlife and Palm Wine music active since the 1960s. From them Immy learned Asanti music and its instruments, added a fuzz pedal and began to experiment. LO-LIFE! was live-tracked with an all-star band, featuring members of Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo and The Senegambian Jazz Band. Immy's voice, singing in both English and Twi, is commanding throughout the record while the band weaves its magic around him. Immy's delicate fingerpicked electric guitar dances around, anchored by Lachlan Stuckey's hypnotic riffs on the second guitar, Henry Jenkins' pulsing bass and Julius Sackey's deft drums. Jethro Curtin's quirky monosynth leads take center stage when Immy isn't leading and Kojo blesses the sessions with Kpanlogo drum rhythms, Akan drum appellations and a rambunctious talking drum overdubs that interject and comment throughout. The final touch is provided by the powerful backing vocals of Kuukua Acquah, Pia Nesvara, Izzy Adjei and Julius Sackey."

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: IMP 070LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. "If you've not witnessed CUT storming on stage in the last 25 years I'm not sure you've witnessed rock n' roll in its purest form, an onslaught of concrete punk, garage belters and the necessary dose of sleaze and bravado when the song calls for it. Two guitars, one drum kit, that's been their formula forever, low-end/high-end, angular, in-yer-face on paper but subtle in execution, confrontational at first but with a heart that looms large, soulful yet fierce. Dead City Nights is no exception and maybe marks their highest achievement, chock-full of signature bangers and the usual dose of irony. Carlo, Ferruccio, and Tony are back it, move out of their way! The opening verse of 'Mr. Spaceman', taken from the Byrds' Fifth Dimension, describes very well the predominant mood among us during the last two/three years, the time period in which the Dead City Nights songs were born. Now 16 years ago (OMG!), in a song called 'Nightride' we sang 'the city is our playground at night' -- and instead while writing these 13 songs we saw our cities shut down, becoming ghost towns just to quote the Specials . . . Dead City Nights is our seventh album: unlike Second Skin -- its predecessor, which saw the participation of many friends and guests -- it is a record made by the three of us only with some intervention by our producer Bruno Germano to enrich some of the arrangements. Even though we loved and still love Second Skin and the sessions that led to its creation, for this album we wanted to go back to the way of working that has always characterized us: the three of us alone, in the rehearsal room, arguing about every single riff and drum groove until we reach a result that satisfied us all. After all, the events we were talking about above would not allow us to work differently, even if we wanted to. The big difference compared to almost everything else in our discography is that -- inevitably -- we haven't been able to break in the songs live, as we usually do before entering the studio . . . Dead City Nights is also our first album with Antonio 'Tony Booza' on drums (The Titbits, The Boozers, The Narcotics): once again, welcome home Tony!" Ferruccio Quercetti, December 2022

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: IF 1048LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Deena Abdelwahed's first album is shifting the epicenter of contemporary electronic music south. Khonnar, pronounced "Ronnar" (an essential detail so as to avoid facile misinterpretation by French-speakers) it is a term that makes the most of Tunisia's cultural and linguistic spectrum. It evokes the dark, shameful and disturbing side of things, the one we usually seek to hide, but which Deena instead sticks our noses in with her debut. It is a testament to Deena's coming into her own as a world citizen, and as an artist. A self-construction made of frustrations and constraints, borne of retrograde mindsets, which are not the prerogative of either the East or the West, and which she tirelessly strives to expose and break. Throughout the 45 minutes of Khonnar, Deena breaks down the codes of bass, techno and experimental music, and writes the manifesto for a generation that does not seek to please or to conform, taking back control of its identity -- with all the attendant losses and chaos. A new creative world order is taking shape, a new tilting point between north and south, the response of a connected and liberated youth who takes the control of the new decolonization.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: IFEEL 084EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Ruffy's back with a new four track EP Casita Más Alta and it's a love letter to Ibiza -- as he takes us on an alternative tour of his favorite parts of the pine-covered island. The title track opens slowly, spaced out with motifs and pads washing in like an incoming tide, before charging headlong to the beach with a thumping kick and distorted keyboard solo. In contrast, we get a more sundown feel with "Cala Vedella," soaking up the forest breeze and sounding like The Art of Noise but fed through a modulator and left to float in the iciest pitcher of 7Up. Meanwhile, the rolling congas and percussive synths of "Las Cicadas" take us deep into tribal territory, Lost Woods style. The EP closes out with "Niu Blau," built on beautifully optimistic choir pads and steel pan sounds, and the evening could just go on forever, especially if you've taken any of those power ups. It might be an homage to Ibiza and the Balearics, but seen through the Ruf Dug prism, there's always something new to discover.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: PROJR 10-14

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"Natty?Inna?Babylon Dub": A rare dub cut to "Natty Dread Ah No Mickey Mouse" which was itself a cut to "Natty Dread Won't Get A Witness", over the classic Bangarang Rhythm. "Dub?Feeling": Last but not least again recorded back in 1969, you have a lost cut to Slim Smith's "This Feeling". Featuring a more attacking intro than it's more commonly known version two, "It's A?Dubbing?Lie". This is an alternative unreleased cut to Ernest Wilson's "It's No Lie" recorded way back in 1969... still sounds good.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: KK 129CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

A kind of hush pervades throughout Standards Vol. VI, the latest release by The National Jazz Trio of Scotland, the ironically named project helmed by Falkirk's musical polymath, Bill Wells, that is neither a trio, nor a jazz band. If this collection of ten covers probably comes closest to the latter in its late-night renditions of actual standards, the presence of long-term NJToS member and collaborator Aby Vulliamy as the record's lone vocalist adds to its solitary air. Vulliamy played viola on Everything's Getting Older, Wells's 2011 collaboration with Arab Strap vocalist Aidan Moffat. Wells went on to play melodica on Vulliamy's solo record, Spin Cycle (KK 108CD/LP, 2018). With the intent of producing the saddest heartbreak record ever made, Wells sourced a back catalog of miniature epics, reinterpreting each tale of everyday yearning to make a canon of melancholy loungecore designed for nights in alone, if not always lonely. Beyond the concept of isolation behind Standards Vol. VI, practical concerns added to the affair, with Wells recording backing tracks at home in Glasgow, while Vulliamy added her voice from her home in Yorkshire. Shades of Margo Guryan and Claudine Longet abound in Vulliamy's delivery over Wells's woozy, low-slung guitar and piano, with samples culled from a session with Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake. Little electronic percussive clicks and hisses lend things an even more otherworldly air on a record bookended by opener, Donovan's proto hippy classic, "Catch The Wind", and Dixieland miniature, "Careless Love". The eight points in between take in a first half led by The Beatles' normally jaunty "We Can Work It Out", flipping the loveable perky optimism for something more soul searching. This is followed by "I Wish You Love", Albert Beach's English language version of French songwriter Charles Trenet's evergreen, "Que reste-t-il de nos amours". The Bee Gees lost classic, "To Love Somebody", is next, with more impossible to answer questions coming in "Why Can't I?" The latter is a Rodgers and Hart composition that first appeared in the duo's 1930 Broadway musical, Spring is Here. The second half of Standards Vol. VI leads with the much-covered evocation from the 1964 hit musical, Fiddler on the Roof. This is followed by Billy Rose and Dave Dreyer's showbiz staple, "Me and My Shadow". While made famous by showbiz double acts ranging from Frank and Sammy to Robbie and Jonathan, here it flies decidedly solo. Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark" comes next, a song inspired by Mercer's yearning for Judy Garland. The most downbeat take on Bacharach and David's "The Look of Love" comes next, ushering in the short farewell of "Careless Love".

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: KK 129LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Edition of 300. A kind of hush pervades throughout Standards Vol. VI, the latest release by The National Jazz Trio of Scotland, the ironically named project helmed by Falkirk's musical polymath, Bill Wells, that is neither a trio, nor a jazz band. If this collection of ten covers probably comes closest to the latter in its late-night renditions of actual standards, the presence of long-term NJToS member and collaborator Aby Vulliamy as the record's lone vocalist adds to its solitary air. Vulliamy played viola on Everything's Getting Older, Wells's 2011 collaboration with Arab Strap vocalist Aidan Moffat. Wells went on to play melodica on Vulliamy's solo record, Spin Cycle (KK 108CD/LP, 2018). With the intent of producing the saddest heartbreak record ever made, Wells sourced a back catalog of miniature epics, reinterpreting each tale of everyday yearning to make a canon of melancholy loungecore designed for nights in alone, if not always lonely. Beyond the concept of isolation behind Standards Vol. VI, practical concerns added to the affair, with Wells recording backing tracks at home in Glasgow, while Vulliamy added her voice from her home in Yorkshire. Shades of Margo Guryan and Claudine Longet abound in Vulliamy's delivery over Wells's woozy, low-slung guitar and piano, with samples culled from a session with Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake. Little electronic percussive clicks and hisses lend things an even more otherworldly air on a record bookended by opener, Donovan's proto hippy classic, "Catch The Wind", and Dixieland miniature, "Careless Love". The eight points in between take in a first half led by The Beatles' normally jaunty "We Can Work It Out", flipping the loveable perky optimism for something more soul searching. This is followed by "I Wish You Love", Albert Beach's English language version of French songwriter Charles Trenet's evergreen, "Que reste-t-il de nos amours". The Bee Gees lost classic, "To Love Somebody", is next, with more impossible to answer questions coming in "Why Can't I?" The latter is a Rodgers and Hart composition that first appeared in the duo's 1930 Broadway musical, Spring is Here. The second half of Standards Vol. VI leads with the much-covered evocation from the 1964 hit musical, Fiddler on the Roof. This is followed by Billy Rose and Dave Dreyer's showbiz staple, "Me and My Shadow". While made famous by showbiz double acts ranging from Frank and Sammy to Robbie and Jonathan, here it flies decidedly solo. Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark" comes next, a song inspired by Mercer's yearning for Judy Garland. The most downbeat take on Bacharach and David's "The Look of Love" comes next, ushering in the short farewell of "Careless Love".

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: KRANK 059LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. "The first vinyl release in the U.S. for this, the fifth SotL album, originally released by Sub Rosa in 1999 and then reissued by Kranky in the fall of 2002. A pivotal album in their career, this marked the first time the duo completely stepped away from the more abstract sound pieces of earlier albums and engaged with the more symphonic and compositional approach that has become the forte of their more recent recordings."

 

PRICE: $31.00

CAT #: LR 183LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Initially quietly published then deleted via the 2020 pandemic-obscured Fresh Bread website -- this all-genre Sam Gendel anthology showcases unreleased tracks collected from Gendel's personal archive of home recordings and public performances spanning the years 2012-2020. Comprising predominantly solo works, contributing players on select tracks include Carlos Niño, Jamire Williams, Daniel Aged, Gabe Noel, and Philippe Melanson. This double LP edition was specifically curated by Sam Gendel to highlight Fresh Bread moments across two LPs, and includes 18 of the 52 tracks from the digital release, at a total runtime of 1 hour 24 minutes."

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: LDM 005LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Third album from Swiss DJ and producer NVST, Filled With Oil is a deep minded project made of breakbeat, dub-influenced industrial, acid, and intelligent techno. Filled With Oil is the third album of Swiss DJ and producer NVST. In between sets at the most prestigious clubbing festivals and the trendiest clubs of the moment around the world, she found time to record this impressive six-piece album that goes from abstract to breaks, passing by industrial dub and unconventional techno. Produced as a manifesto for a different dancefloor, the music passes by many different moods made of deep textured sounds, glitchy samples, hectic drum machines and etheric political vocals. Just like on her DJ sets, it's always more than just partying. But don't be fooled, this project it's not only for open-minded dancefloors, it's a killer album for some sweaty basements. NVST's growing reputation is built on sharp, powerful, and deeply committed sets. Taking her audience by surprise, she doesn't hesitate to put the public in uncomfortable situations to lead them into a trance, and this is exactly what you get here.

 

PRICE: $11.00

CAT #: LEWIS 1145EP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Championed by the likes of Steve Lamacq, Gilles Peterson and Lauren Laverne, Brooklyn's The Still Brothers launch their debut self-titled EP with a double A-side 7" featuring the breathy vocals of Shoshy (Shauna Kelly). 'It's Not Over' was created by the Still Brothers and Shoshy in New York and London and finished over a zoom call. The track began as an instrumental which evolved into a full song after Shoshy wrote and recorded her vocals. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of a delusional partner after a relationship has come to its end. The world around seems to be changing and moving forward yet she cannot seem to stop replaying scenes from the romance in her mind. 'Crazy' was created in the Summer of 2022 by the Still Brothers and Shoshy, recorded in New York and London. The song captures what it is like to care deeply for someone but knowing that it cannot go on. Vocals were performed by both Shoshy and Rob Davey."

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: LY 003C-LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. Red vinyl. Caterina Barbieri is set to release Myuthafoo, the sister album of 2019's acclaimed Ecstatic Computation. Written at the same time, both albums are based on creative sequencing processes that playfully unravel Barbieri's deep-rooted interest in time, space, memory, and emotion. And since she was set to re-release Ecstatic Computation on her light-years imprint (LY 002CD/LP/C-LP), it made sense to accompany that album with this intimately entangled set of unreleased recordings. Barbieri had been touring excessively at the time, and her process began to shift in response to that nomadic, interactive energy. Using the Orthogonal ER-101 modular sequencer, Barbieri manually programmed patterns into the device and fed them into her arsenal of noise generators, trialling different combinations at each show. If an idea worked well in the live environment, she would put it aside, letting longer pieces breathe and transform as they sprung to life and developed organically. It's a process she relates to her interest in cosmogony, the study of the universe's origins; her music is rooted in the limitations of a small number of options that branch out into a much larger structure, eventually reaching towards an open-ended cosmos of possibility. From "Math of You", it's clear that the sounds are grounded in a similar sonic philosophy, blipping synth sequences nudge alongside each other harmonically, disrupting trance's addicting euphoria with filigree polyrhythmic pulses. Like "Fantas" before it, the track is focused around emotionally affecting repeating phrases, but a closer examination reveals hidden intricacies as these phrases flicker like illusions, dissolving and dissipating as they snake and weave. The album's title track is most generous and tender, blunting Barbieri's usually razor-sharp sequences into rubbery Möbius strips that twist romantically, bending back on each other. It gazes at the stars from an atemporal vantage point, relying on synapse-popping psychedelic logic and established physics. Meanwhile, "Sufyosowirl" is rigorous and rhythmic, as melodically charged as pop music and soaring as Jean-Michel Jarre's lavish stadium electronics. The closing track "Swirls of You" encases Barbieri's celestial sequences in gaseous vapors, allowing the music to ascend slowly and purposefully until it flickers and fades to nothing. Barbieri's music sounds like it has a life of its own, endlessly expanding and transmuting until it can develop its own rules and gestures. Myuthafoo teases an ecosystem where technology and biology are intertwined, and the past, present, and future are part of the same essential narrative.

 

PRICE: $14.50

CAT #: LY 003CD

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Caterina Barbieri is set to release Myuthafoo, the sister album of 2019's acclaimed Ecstatic Computation. Written at the same time, both albums are based on creative sequencing processes that playfully unravel Barbieri's deep-rooted interest in time, space, memory, and emotion. And since she was set to re-release Ecstatic Computation on her light-years imprint (LY 002CD/LP/C-LP), it made sense to accompany that album with this intimately entangled set of unreleased recordings. Barbieri had been touring excessively at the time, and her process began to shift in response to that nomadic, interactive energy. Using the Orthogonal ER-101 modular sequencer, Barbieri manually programmed patterns into the device and fed them into her arsenal of noise generators, trialling different combinations at each show. If an idea worked well in the live environment, she would put it aside, letting longer pieces breathe and transform as they sprung to life and developed organically. It's a process she relates to her interest in cosmogony, the study of the universe's origins; her music is rooted in the limitations of a small number of options that branch out into a much larger structure, eventually reaching towards an open-ended cosmos of possibility. From "Math of You", it's clear that the sounds are grounded in a similar sonic philosophy, blipping synth sequences nudge alongside each other harmonically, disrupting trance's addicting euphoria with filigree polyrhythmic pulses. Like "Fantas" before it, the track is focused around emotionally affecting repeating phrases, but a closer examination reveals hidden intricacies as these phrases flicker like illusions, dissolving and dissipating as they snake and weave. The album's title track is most generous and tender, blunting Barbieri's usually razor-sharp sequences into rubbery Möbius strips that twist romantically, bending back on each other. It gazes at the stars from an atemporal vantage point, relying on synapse-popping psychedelic logic and established physics. Meanwhile, "Sufyosowirl" is rigorous and rhythmic, as melodically charged as pop music and soaring as Jean-Michel Jarre's lavish stadium electronics. The closing track "Swirls of You" encases Barbieri's celestial sequences in gaseous vapors, allowing the music to ascend slowly and purposefully until it flickers and fades to nothing. Barbieri's music sounds like it has a life of its own, endlessly expanding and transmuting until it can develop its own rules and gestures. Myuthafoo teases an ecosystem where technology and biology are intertwined, and the past, present, and future are part of the same essential narrative.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: LY 003LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

LP version. Black vinyl. Caterina Barbieri is set to release Myuthafoo, the sister album of 2019's acclaimed Ecstatic Computation. Written at the same time, both albums are based on creative sequencing processes that playfully unravel Barbieri's deep-rooted interest in time, space, memory, and emotion. And since she was set to re-release Ecstatic Computation on her light-years imprint (LY 002CD/LP/C-LP), it made sense to accompany that album with this intimately entangled set of unreleased recordings. Barbieri had been touring excessively at the time, and her process began to shift in response to that nomadic, interactive energy. Using the Orthogonal ER-101 modular sequencer, Barbieri manually programmed patterns into the device and fed them into her arsenal of noise generators, trialling different combinations at each show. If an idea worked well in the live environment, she would put it aside, letting longer pieces breathe and transform as they sprung to life and developed organically. It's a process she relates to her interest in cosmogony, the study of the universe's origins; her music is rooted in the limitations of a small number of options that branch out into a much larger structure, eventually reaching towards an open-ended cosmos of possibility. From "Math of You", it's clear that the sounds are grounded in a similar sonic philosophy, blipping synth sequences nudge alongside each other harmonically, disrupting trance's addicting euphoria with filigree polyrhythmic pulses. Like "Fantas" before it, the track is focused around emotionally affecting repeating phrases, but a closer examination reveals hidden intricacies as these phrases flicker like illusions, dissolving and dissipating as they snake and weave. The album's title track is most generous and tender, blunting Barbieri's usually razor-sharp sequences into rubbery Möbius strips that twist romantically, bending back on each other. It gazes at the stars from an atemporal vantage point, relying on synapse-popping psychedelic logic and established physics. Meanwhile, "Sufyosowirl" is rigorous and rhythmic, as melodically charged as pop music and soaring as Jean-Michel Jarre's lavish stadium electronics. The closing track "Swirls of You" encases Barbieri's celestial sequences in gaseous vapors, allowing the music to ascend slowly and purposefully until it flickers and fades to nothing. Barbieri's music sounds like it has a life of its own, endlessly expanding and transmuting until it can develop its own rules and gestures. Myuthafoo teases an ecosystem where technology and biology are intertwined, and the past, present, and future are part of the same essential narrative.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: LR 359LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 release. This collection of live tracks gives those of us who weren't there during those halcyon days of psychedelia, a taste of just what lofty heights (and hellish depths) the Elevators were capable of reaching. The performances are taken from three sources: "Roller Coaster", "You're Gonna Miss Me" and "Tried to Hide" from a rockin' appearance on a local Dallas / Ft. Worth television show in the spring of 1966, "Don't Fall Down", "Kingdom Of Heaven", "She Lives In A Time of Her Own" and "I've Got Levitation" from a notoriously shambolic gig in Houston in 1967, and the remaining eight tracks from a series of stellar performances at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom in autumn of 1966.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: HGBS 20216LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"With the label MPS, post-war musical history was written in Germany: noble music productions with many international greats come from the Black Forest and are timelessly legendary. Some treasures from the archive of the label are released by HGBSBlue on high-quality vinyl. The Hampton All Stars played at the first concert of the festival 'VS swingt.' MPS boss Brunner-Schwer was there at the mixing desk. Some of these recordings were released in 1978 as the MPS LP Alive and Jumping (MPS 15469). Lionel Hampton and his All Stars were really into it and brought the audience in the Black Forest, known as rather reserved, to a frenzy, especially after the break. The old master worked his magic on the vibraphone, of course, but also played drums and piano and sang with an irrepressible sense of rhythm as one who had unmistakably internalized swing. The top trumpeter Cat Anderson was another internationally known musician in the eight-piece all-star band with which 'Hamp' toured Europe at the time. And there was someone else who was one of HGBS's personal favorites: pianist and organist Milt Buckner. Buckner's block chords had not only influenced Oscar Peterson and George Shearing, but also inspired the passionate piano freak Brunner-Schwer. The live recording with Hampton's All Stars in Villingen was the last record of Buckner, who died a few weeks later in the USA of acute heart failure. The musicians can be heard in exuberant joy of playing, with 'Hamp' standing out sovereignly on vibraphone and drums, as well as Buckner with soulful organ playing. Everything sounds unspent fresh and cheerful and shows Hampton and his fellow players in top form. This rousing swing, which should appeal not only to jazz fans, is available exclusively on LP." Gatefold sleeve.

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: MIG 2952CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Great 3CD collection of all three studio albums of the band plus live album, with extensive photos, bonus tracks and liner notes and compl. Remastered. SFF (Eduard Schicke, Gerd Führs and Heinz Fröhling), had an orchestral sound that was overwhelming and fascinating. With Dieter Dierks (Scorpions, Wallenstein, Nektar etc.) the band found an excellent producer for their first album Symphonic Pictures, which was released in 1976 and sold about 12,000 copies. The trio's popularity grew mainly due to their unforgettable live concerts -- 'It was a bit like magic and an overwhelming intensity that took the audience and the band together into another world.' In this context, the SFF gigs in Scheeßel (Germany, 1977) and, of course, the Brain Festival (1978), from which two songs appear on this collection, should be mentioned. In 1977 and 1978 SFF recorded two more records with Dieter Dierks:"Sunburst and Ticket To Everywhere. After the recording of the last album, musical and ideological differences arose and the trio disbanded. Gerd lived in Bremen until his tragic death in November 1992. He worked in Japan, the USA, England and Germany for Yamaha, who considered Gerd one of the best programmers/keyboard consultants in the world. This CD release is dedicated to his memory."

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: MIG 2972CD

FILE UNDER: ROCK

"Critics in the early 1970s called Gil Scott-Heron the most important Black voice since Martin Luther King Jr. and described him as a black Bob Dylan. 'His poetry is with much muscle, with stiletto humor, with street talk, much of it justifiably angry and accurate,' the New York Times wrote in 1975, marveling at the angry man from the Bronx. No wonder that decades later Scott-Heron was celebrated as the 'Godfather of Rap.' Born in Chicago, the musician, poet and pugnacious activist for human rights himself lived for years in the Bronx. Returning to his black roots, he died May 27, 2011, in New York's urban district Harlem. His legacy includes a fantastic concert Gil Scott-Heron gave with his band at the Schauburg Theater in Bremen (Germany) on April 18, 1983. The technicians of Radio Bremen were on site and recorded this ecstatic show, which will be released worldwide at the end of July as a 2CD and of course as download and streaming as well. Gil's son Rumal Rackley on the release of this concert: 'This album from a 1983 concert captures the spirit that permeated every performance throughout Gil Scott-Heron's travels in the US and abroad. From Europe to Asia to Australia to Africa, his work resonates at the heart and soul level.'"

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: MILS 002LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Jake Ferguson with Malcolm Catto (Heliocentrics) take on cosmic funk and psychedelic jazz. This is the next up in a series of music library releases from Madlib Invazion Music Library, with future volumes produced by DJ Muggs, J-Zone, and Karriem Riggins, among others. The series continues with Jake Ferguson's Emotions Run Dry featuring Malcolm Cattio. The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon to give their creative friends a chance to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted. This music was created for easy, one-stop clearance in film and television synchronization usage and for sampling. You can also enjoy these albums in the way that many do with the best of the best vintage library catalogs -- listen, ponder, repeat."

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: MRC 003EP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"We're glad to be back with the third instalment of our new series of DJ and artist curated 12" mini compilations: Melodies Record Club. Following Ben UFO and Four Tet's selections last year, Hunee helms volume three which includes three tracks this time including music from Digital Justice, Dorothy Ashby and Frantz Tuernal. In his own words: 'These three distinct pieces of music tap into different layers of my memory. One being part of the imagination, the other two rooted in the memories of a special morning in the woods of Houghton (and other times and places).'"

 

PRICE: $35.00

CAT #: LOVE 125LP

FILE UNDER: CLASSICAL

Mary Jane Leach is a composer focused on the physicality of sound, its acoustic properties and how they interact with space. She has played an instrumental role in NYC's pioneering Downtown scene alongside Arthur Russell, Ellen Fullman, Peter Zummo, Philip Corner, and Arnold Dreyblatt, as well as devoting years to the preservation and reappraisal of Julius Eastman's work since his death in 1990, compiling Unjust Malaise (2005) and editing the book Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music (2015). Woodwind Multiples features four pieces for multiples of the same instrument: four bass flutes, nine oboes, nine clarinets, and seven bassoons. Each piece works closely with the unique sound of each instrument, combining pitches that create other, sometimes unexpected, tones, primarily combination and interference tones, as well as rhythmic patterns. What you hear is what happens naturally -- there is no processing or manipulation. 8B4 (1985/2022), played by Manuel Zurria, is for four bass flutes. It is a revision of 8x4, which was written in 1985 for the DownTown Ensemble and was only performed once, due to its unusual instrumentation: alto flute, English horn (originally bass oboe), clarinet, and voice. Xantippe's Rebuke (1993) was written for Libby Van Cleve, for eight taped oboes and one live, solo oboe. The eight taped parts are equal and dependent, while the solo part is meant to be a solo with the tape as accompaniment. The piece works with the unique sound of the oboe, starting with unison pitches that create the richest sound, building the piece from there. Pitches and rhythmic patterns that occur naturally are notated and then played later, which in turn create other pitches and rhythmic patterns. Charybdis (2020), played by Sam Dunscombe, is for solo clarinet and eight taped clarinets. It combines a somewhat obscured reference to Weep You No More, a John Dowland piece, which combines with the sound phenomena created from the melody and supporting chords of the Dowland. Feu de Joie (1992) was written for bassoonist Shannon Peet and is an homage to the bassoon and its wonderful sound. It is for seven parts -- six taped and one "live." The taped bassoons combine to create a bed of sound that exploits the unique qualities of the bassoon, creating combination and interference tones, starting off with unison pitches, creating a rich sound that builds from there. Most of the subsequent pitches and phrases occur naturally, and are then notated later on in the piece, which in turn creates other notes and phrases. Engineered by Manuel Zurria, Bryce Goggin, and Sam Dunscombe, mastered by Rashad Becker.

 

PRICE: $31.50

CAT #: MORR 199LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Robin Saville -- one half of the influential duo ISAN -- returns to Morr Music with Lore, his fourth solo album to date. After 2020's Build A Diorama (MORR 172CD/LP), the British musician takes his love for field recordings, whirring pads, hovering bells, and subtle electronics further, adding extra depth to both his sonic palette and his storytelling, focusing on biological diversity and its implications for human life. For many years now, "look and listen" has been Robin Saville's motto on his regular environmental explorations. The avid ambler does not just enjoy being out and about in nature; it is an important inspiration for his creative work as well. Sounds, smells, colors, and even soil properties add to the experience. Equipped with a microphone and a recording device, Saville documents his strolls, using these recordings as a base for his compositions. "The field recordings on the album were made very locally this time, for obvious reasons," he says. Welcome to the sonic landscape of the UK's East Anglia. "Judith Avenue," the opening track, is a great example of how Saville evolved his perspective on the sounds of nature: "It is a residential street, fading into a scrubby, wild landscape. There, I made a recording of nightingales at dusk. Such romantic birds! The males fly here from Africa a couple of weeks ahead of the females. They find a good territory, and at dusk, when all the other birds are going quiet, they start to sing to tempt the females down from their migratory flight paths. This has happened for thousands of years. However, the patch of ground where I made the recordings is earmarked for development and I don't suppose it'll happen there again. The recordings therefore become part of the history of that place, the lore." Recording the sounds of nature and enriching them with electronic sorcery, Saville is not only a documenting preservationist; he also translates these recordings into meaningful musical miniatures. Building on the soundscapes that marked his previous LP Build A Diorama, Lore is dominated by both open-hearted melancholy and more upbeat rhythms. But even when the music sounds quirky and loose, there is always deeper meaning. The album is characterized by an ever-present melancholy about the threatening loss of living spaces, and a celebration of their beauty. This simultaneity turns the tracks into existential meditations about our human habitat. Includes printed inner sleeves; includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: G6 970S1-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1975. "Fans of the Undisputed Truth's first two albums were shocked when they purchased Cosmic Truth. On their previous album, Down To Earth, they had combined older tracks featuring original members Billie Rae Calvin and Brenda Joyce Evans' pretty two-part harmonies with harder-edged tracks by new members. The group consisted of Calvin Stevens, Tyrone Douglas, and Virginia McDonald. Stevens and Douglas had been members of the Magictones, a third-tier Detroit R&B group. The threesome joins Joe Harris for some spacy, rock-influenced, funky sounds. 'UFO's' skips along with an infectious beat, a futuristic sound, and incredulous vocals from Joe Harris. Neil Young's 'Down By the River' gets a soul injection, as if it needed one. Their version of '(I Know) I'm Losing You' is sung by one of the newer male members, and producer Norman Whitfield allows him to cut loose -- unusual for Whitfield, who usually demanded that his singers stick close to the melody. 'Earthquake Shake' and 'Got to Get My Hands on Some Lovin'' are pure heavy metal. '1990' has a strutting beat and is more subtle than the Temptations' version, with Dennis Edwards' in-your-face vocals. If you like howling and chattering guitars, this one is for you." --Andrew Hamilton, AllMusic

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: ND 015LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Sun Ra Arkestra saxophonist Knoel Scott reaches for the sky to release debut studio album Celestial with long-time collaborator Marshall Allen. Best known for his long-standing role in Sun Ra Arkestra, saxophonist, composer, vocalist and performer Knoel Scott is a jazz legend in his own right. A celebration of his tight knit relationship with Arkestra leader Marshall Allen, Celestial marks Scott's first major studio release after more than 40 years at the vanguard of modern jazz. Building on a career that has seen Scott record and perform alongside jazz greats such as Sun Ra, Charles Earland, Lou Donaldson, and Leon Thomas, the five-track album is steeped in the composition and performance styles of the African American jazz tradition, from blues and be-bop to the cosmic avant-garde. Recorded in mono direct to tape and cut on a Scully lathe at the all-analog Artone Studios in the Netherlands, Celestial brings together an inter-generational ensemble including bright sparks of the UK jazz scene, Charlie Stacey and Mikele Montolli, alongside Arkestra alumnus Chris Henderson. For Scott and Allen, it represents the culmination of decades of collaboration. The album begins in explosive style with the hard grooving "Les Funambules", a prime example of Scott's ability to walk a tightrope between hard bop form and raw improvisation. The session then orbits around Scott's composition "Celestial", an interstellar 12-minute space walk that was originally written for the Sun Ra Arkestra with strings but was never recorded. Featuring Marshall Allen on the otherworldly EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument), Celestial also hears Scott in full voice, reciting lyrics written by Arkestra vocalist and lyricist Arnold "Art" Jenkins. "The song is a testimony and a memorial to Art and his artistry, as much as it is an example of my own," Scott explains. Following the collaborative spirit of the album, Scott's composition "Makanda" pays tribute to educator and mentor Dr. Ken "Makanda" McIntyre, an associate of Eric Dolphy and a formative influence in Scott's musical life. A homage to the way McIntyre incorporated various idioms of African American music into his compositions, "Makanda" blends funk, Afro-Cuban, and swing styles into a powerful and coherent whole. Alongside Knoel's original recordings, the session features two improvised tracks led by Marshall Allen, which speak to the deep musical friendship between the two. Scott describes "Conversation with the Cosmos" and "Blu Blues" as "a testimony to Marshall's incredible improvisational contribution, and his ability to read and conjure all kinds of music and bring the best out of musicians."

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: NA 5212C-LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

"Voices Of Rhythm & Creative Profile is now available in a limited-edition green vinyl pressing. The influential Detroit pianist's sole 1970s album. Remastered and lacquered by Bernie Grundman, Now-Again presents the definitive Tribe Records reissues. Deep, spiritual jazz of the highest order. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America's 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, 'Music is the healing force of the universe.' Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff 'Chairman' Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe's mid-1970s heyday."

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: ODA 001LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Artist and multi-instrumentalist Flaer looks to the landscape to explore pastoral melancholy on debut release, Preludes. Ensconced in his family home in rural Leicestershire in the early months of 2020, painter and musician Realf Heygate (b. 1994) picked up his childhood cello for the first time in several years and began to play. Setting himself parameters to only record onto 4-track tape with acoustic instruments -- cello, piano and acoustic guitar -- he assembled a suite of instrumental compositions that form the basis of Preludes, his debut album as Flaer and the inaugural release on Odda Recordings. Channeling the tension and unease between the pastoral idyll of the English countryside and the darkness which lurks beneath the surface, the mini-album draws inspiration from the analogue aesthetic of 1970s folk horror films, weaving field recordings of birdsong, church bells and the natural environment into chimerical melodies that reflect on Heygate's childhood experiences of rural England. "It was really important not to isolate the sound from its environment," he explains, describing the compositional and recording process as "site-specific". Developed over a series of intuitive musical enquiries, the mini-album's uncanny quality emerges from combining raw demo takes with overdubs of almost orchestral grandeur. Heygate points to the final track as indicative of the work as a whole: "'Follow' really is the mantra for the release and embodies the practical approach I was taking to music making..." As a painter, Heygate's practice takes artifacts through sequences of reproduction that embrace the fluctuating materiality of the copy. Since obtaining a degree in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2017, he has exhibited solo at Peter von Kant and Springseason galleries in London. Describing his artistic practice as one of self-erasure, music instead provides Heygate with a more personal and autobiographical outlet. Where the two worlds combine is on Preludes' striking artwork, which features paintings of 13th century stone carvings from the font of the church in the town where he grew up. Speaking to a time where people were connected to the land in a more profound way, each symbol is assigned to a track on the album, which Heygate likens to giving them a title. Odda Recordings is a new offshoot from The Leaf Label founded by Thea HD. Edition of 500; signed and numbered handmade prints; 45rpm.

 

PRICE: $25.00

CAT #: OM 070LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. "The first time I heard Wheatie's music was at a basement show in Philadelphia, and I was entranced. I've felt similarly when watching videos of the French singer Barbara as she concentrates on a corner of the room, her eyes big warm coins, singing 'La solitude' about a loneliness that 'rolls around the hips' and demands that the door is opened . . . Both make music that is as gorgeous as it's eerie and says a good deal about the workings of their own minds -- and by that, I don't mean that they reveal their psychology -- but they take us deep into their peculiarities as musicians. After Wheatie's set, I asked where I could get a record, and assumed there must be one -- surely, I'm late here -- because I wasn't alone. Everyone at that show was visibly mesmerized. It's been a few years since then, but I haven't forgotten it, couldn't, and have waited for Wheatie's debut, Old Glow, which captures and renews the hypnotic mystery of her set that night. For Old Glow, Wheatie has collaborated with Stephen Santillan, who plays keyboard and guitar, while she's on the keyboard and dulcimer, and of course, her distinct vocals. Wheatie and Santillan's album includes 'Blue,' which feels like a lyrical invocation that I can imagine under a canticle's heightened rubric, requiring the congregation to stand as it's being sung . . . Old Glow contains a private, condensed language that can only be built by solitude and a willingness to forego readymade forms. The problem with language is that, in order to speak, write lyrics, write about them, you must translate the peculiarity of the self into material script. When the heart is inarticulate. When literary language is often too precise. We're too trained up in it. There is a version of this kind of music that goes the route of slick pop, or becomes lazy because it's beautiful, but Wheatie's music is distinguished by an elemental weirdness, a plaintive and wonky carnival way off in the distance -- this is what it sounds like to submit the self to itself. On the track 'Low,' she ululates, 'It's OK to be low. It's OK to be low.' And because Wheatie has an uncanny ability to make something strange out of the familiar, it feels like a singular utterance. I have not heard it before. As if an old well could talk. There are also several moments of spontaneity in Old Glow. 'Canyon' brings more rock, and the harmonium gets country in 'Rose.' These turns make the album feel complex, like an epic about connection, loss, the inevitability of our being alone. Nico's nightmarish Desertshore also moves along a similar queasy spiral -- its emotional locus is precise, even though the music is impenetrable. Death and despair in Desertshore, like solitude in Old Glow, is palpable. They can't help but continuously return to it..." --Chelsea Hogue Ohlman, IL, 2022

 

PRICE: $29.00

CAT #: OST 011LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2022 release. "In the small inland town of São Domingos on Cape Verde's Santiago Island, The Ano Nobo Quartet delivers a fresh take on koladera, a guitar-driven, subtly rhythmic sound of a lighter spirit. Their sound tells a global story with Cape Verde at its center, a creole melting pot in the middle of the Atlantic attracting the best from four continents: hypnotic, haunting koladera guitars inflected with twangs of salsa Cubano, Spanish flamenco, Brazilian samba canção, Jamaican reggae, Argentine tango, Mozambican marrabenta, and finished with a dash of black American blues. It's all here. Absent percussion, the quartet's sound still drips with rhythm. Rich, raw acoustic music you can dance to. This album was recorded in early 2021 in three locations on Santiago Island: at homes, by the ocean, and on the volcanic hills of Cape Verde. Each location used a mobile recording studio equipped with different mics placed near and far to capture both the Spanish and Chinese-made guitars and the natural environment that shapes the saudade, a melancholic longing, of koladera. Each space has its own atmosphere heard in the interludes. A double LP pressed at 45 RPM for an even silkier listening experience."

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: OST 012LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2022 release. "A soundtrack of Sudan's revolution and the first ever international release of the Beja sound, performed by Noori and his Dorpa Band, an unheard outfit from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan and the heart of Beja culture. Electric soul, blues, jazz, rock, surf, even hints of country, speak fluently to styles and chords that could be Tuareg, Ethiopian, Peruvian or Thai -- all grounded by hypnotic Sudanese grooves, Naji's impeccable, haunting tenor sax, and of course, Noori's tambo-guitar, a self-made unique hybrid of an electric guitar and an electric tambour, a four-string instrument found across East Africa. A truly ancient community, Beja trace their ancestry back millennia. Some say they are among the living descendants of Ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush. Beja melodies -- nostalgic, hopeful and sweet, ambiguous and honest -- are thousands of years old. The Beja community has been on the forefront of political change in Sudan for decades because successive Sudanese governments have turned a blind eye to their calls for recognition and access to the gold wealth of their own soil. Noori believes an unleashing of Beja music would form the most potent act of resistance in their quest for equity and justice."

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: OST 013LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2022 release. "Seven years in the making, the official retrospective of one of Somalia's most famous and beloved private bands, Iftin. Digitized from cassettes recorded between 1982 and 1987 at the legendary Al-Uruba hotel's secret studio and the jams for the masses performed in the basement of Somalia's national theater. Banaadiri rhythms from Somalia's south, Mogadishu's finest vocalists, Dhaanto reggae-like guitar licks, and smoldering brass blend seamlessly with the sounds of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to form one of rawest, most cosmopolitan eras of music anywhere. Iftin's Mogadishu is where the world's sounds begin and end."

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: OST 014LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"The first ever release of electronic Jaglara, an obscure dance music being innovated in an area near the Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea border called Fashaga. Among the most raucous, hypnotic, addictive, and celestial dance styles being made anywhere in Africa, this heavy, mysterious sound is being led by one man: Jantra, which translates as 'craziness,' a moniker bestowed to celebrate both his personality and sound. Jantra is a rather unknown quantity even in Sudan, outside of the circles which have granted him cult status to perform at their humble gatherings or at street parties far from the gaze of the cities. Jaglara, which roughly translates as improvisation, has no songs. Jantra simply freestyles a combination of his melodies incessantly for hours on end, acting as a live producer and DJ for emphatic crowds, where the energy of his 155 -- 168 BPM music is known to inspire the odd gunslinger to raise and fire his pistol in the middle of the dance floor. His music is hopeful in a hopeless world, uplifting in spirit, ancient and new, childish and mature, familiar yet refreshingly obscure, fueled by the hypnotic Sera rhythm. His Yamaha keyboard is specially tweaked to achieve what you're hearing -- the perfect, sweet key tone, literally universal in its appeal. A hybrid reissue-contemporary album, Ostinato combined extracted individual melodic patterns, rhythms, and MIDI data from Jantra's Yamaha keyboard with his older cassette and digital recordings to recreate his lengthy sessions into individual dance tracks for a worldwide audience to reach the enviable frenzy of Sudanese crowds. This promising new dance music emerging from the deepest reaches of Sudan has never made its way outside of Jantra's parties, let alone outside of the country. This record is confirmation that the many electronic styles being exported from Africa have a worthy sibling and rival -- Jantra's signature electronic Jaglara from the Fashaga underground. It is a privilege of the highest order to be exposed to this unheralded, incredibly well-kept rural Sudanese secret. "

 

PRICE: $16.00

CAT #: OH 037CD

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Five years after the release of Luyando, Zimbabwe's most celebrated music export returns with their long-awaited follow-up album, Tusona: Tracings in the Sand. The six musicians from Victoria Falls are refining their unique sound: infectious Afro grooves deeply connected to Zimbabwe's cultural DNA. Tusana is their most danceable album to date, a DIY production recorded during the pandemic in Zimbabwe. It features horns by Ghanaian highlife outfit Santrofi. Every Sunday, there is a gathering in the sweltering heat on grounds of an old local beer hall in the Chinotimba township in Mosi-o-Tunya (Victoria Falls). Entertainment is provided by various traditional groups including the Luvale Makisi masquerade. It is a day full of singing, drumming, dancing and storytelling. Mokoomba's lead vocalist Mathias Muzaza can often be found here singing with a voice both soaring and vulnerable. In the course of the afternoon the other band members -- guitarist Trustworth Samende, bass player Abundance Mutori, keyboard player Phathisani Moyo, percussionist Miti Mugande, and drummer Ndaba Coster Moyo -- often join in with singing. The collective from Zimbabwe put in all the experiences made over the previous years and have forged their music into a unique Zimbabwean sound. On the album Mokoomba are singing about love, loss, courage in a changing society. The first single "Nzara Hapana" is a song about a man who wants to ensure the future of his wife and family and is trying to protect them against the greed of his relatives. The danceable up-tempo song "Nyansola" praises the goddess of harvest and asks her for rain. "Makisi" is sung in Luvale and it celebrates the beauty of the initiation ceremony for which the whole community comes together. "Manina" is a song about losing a loved one. Mokoomba sing in many different local languages. Their songs are in Tonga, Luvale, Shona, Nyanja and even Lingala used in "Makolo" when they team up with Congolese singer Desolo B. Tusona refers to an ancient system of signs and symbols, drawn in the sand and used for instruction during initiation ceremonies by the Luvale in Southern Africa. Another important part of the Mukanda initiation ceremony is the incredible Makisi masquerade. The Makisi are masked characters, representing the spirit of deceased ancestors. During the yearly initiation ceremony, the Makisi return to the living world to teach the young children to become responsible adults among the Lubale people of Southern Africa. It is the connection with the cultures around them that gives Mokoomba's music its spiritual power.

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: OH 037LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

LP version. Includes download code (includes CD bonus tracks). Five years after the release of Luyando, Zimbabwe's most celebrated music export returns with their long-awaited follow-up album, Tusona: Tracings in the Sand. The six musicians from Victoria Falls are refining their unique sound: infectious Afro grooves deeply connected to Zimbabwe's cultural DNA. Tusana is their most danceable album to date, a DIY production recorded during the pandemic in Zimbabwe. It features horns by Ghanaian highlife outfit Santrofi. Every Sunday, there is a gathering in the sweltering heat on grounds of an old local beer hall in the Chinotimba township in Mosi-o-Tunya (Victoria Falls). Entertainment is provided by various traditional groups including the Luvale Makisi masquerade. It is a day full of singing, drumming, dancing and storytelling. Mokoomba's lead vocalist Mathias Muzaza can often be found here singing with a voice both soaring and vulnerable. In the course of the afternoon the other band members -- guitarist Trustworth Samende, bass player Abundance Mutori, keyboard player Phathisani Moyo, percussionist Miti Mugande, and drummer Ndaba Coster Moyo -- often join in with singing. The collective from Zimbabwe put in all the experiences made over the previous years and have forged their music into a unique Zimbabwean sound. On the album Mokoomba are singing about love, loss, courage in a changing society. The first single "Nzara Hapana" is a song about a man who wants to ensure the future of his wife and family and is trying to protect them against the greed of his relatives. The danceable up-tempo song "Nyansola" praises the goddess of harvest and asks her for rain. "Makisi" is sung in Luvale and it celebrates the beauty of the initiation ceremony for which the whole community comes together. "Manina" is a song about losing a loved one. Mokoomba sing in many different local languages. Their songs are in Tonga, Luvale, Shona, Nyanja and even Lingala used in "Makolo" when they team up with Congolese singer Desolo B. Tusona refers to an ancient system of signs and symbols, drawn in the sand and used for instruction during initiation ceremonies by the Luvale in Southern Africa. Another important part of the Mukanda initiation ceremony is the incredible Makisi masquerade. The Makisi are masked characters, representing the spirit of deceased ancestors. During the yearly initiation ceremony, the Makisi return to the living world to teach the young children to become responsible adults among the Lubale people of Southern Africa. It is the connection with the cultures around them that gives Mokoomba's music its spiritual power.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: PTL 022LP

FILE UNDER: HIPHOP

"Parallel Thought and the Tame One estate, led by Darlene Brown Harris, are excited to announce the re-issue of Tame One's iconic album Da' Ol Jersey Bastard to commemorate its 15th anniversary. This is a special release as for the first time, the album will be available on vinyl. The audio has been meticulously remixed and remastered. To complement the new audio, the project showcases new artwork, inspired by Tame One's original concept, as a homage to the iconic cover of Ol' Dirty Bastard's legendary album, Return to the 36 Chambers. The re-issue gives fans a chance to rediscover and appreciate the album, keeping Tame One's legacy alive."

 

PRICE: $15.50

CAT #: PRTL 7082EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

A slab of horns-led sound system niceness from the mighty Vibronics with their trademark digital steppers sound with a bassline that could tear down the walls of Babylon. "Silver & Gold" and the dub-wise counterpart both appear on vinyl for the first time, despite being rinsed on dubplate for the last 15 years.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: PFRLP7

FILE UNDER: SOUNDTRACK

Reissue, originally released in 1972. 180 gram vinyl. "Obscured by Clouds is the soundtrack to the Barbet Schroeder film La Vallée, and it plays that way. Of course, it's possible to make the argument that Pink Floyd's music of the early '70s usually played as mood music, similar to film music, but it had structure and a progression. Here, the instrumentals float pleasantly, filled with interesting textures, yet they never seem to have much of a purpose. Often, they seem quite tied to their time, either in their spaciness or in the pastoral folkiness, two qualities that are better brought out on the full-fledged songs interspersed throughout the record. Typified by 'Burning Bridges' and 'Wot's...uh the Deal,' these songs explore some of the same musical ground as those on Atom Heart Mother and Meddle, yet they are more concise and have a stronger structure. But the real noteworthy numbers are the surprisingly heavy blues-rocker 'The Gold It's in The...,' which, as good as it is, is trumped by the stately, ominous 'Childhood's End' and the jaunty pop tune 'Free Four,' two songs whose obsessions with life, death, and the past clearly point toward Dark Side of the Moon. ('Childhood's End' also suggests Dark Side in its tone and arrangement.)..." --Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic

 

PRICE: $24.00

CAT #: RRS 006CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue. Originally released on the small Children Of The Revolution label back in 1984, Short Sharp Shock is Chaos UK's own undiscussed masterpiece, and their first 12" recorded with the classic Mower/Chuck/Gabba/Chaos line-up. Up there along with Discharge's Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing (1982) and Disorder's Under the Scalpel Blade (1984), straight out of the holy trinity of British '80s punk: angry, pissed and out of tune like it always should have sounded. White vinyl.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: RRS 211CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Red vinyl. Formed in the northern industrial city of Sheffield, Mau Maus were reputedly one of the first British hardcore bands, first comprised of frontman Chris Taylor, guitarist 'Lev' Levick, bassist Kevin 'Bunny' Warren, drummer Paul 'Podge' Baker, with Alf then taking over the bass, once Bunny shifted to backing vocals. Following singles on local punk label Pax that hit the Indie charts and concert album Live At The Marples, the group launched their own Rebellion label with "Tear Down The Walls," paving the way for the excellent debut Fear No Evil, produced with zest by The Mission's Simon Hinkler. Another top-rated LP!

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: RRS 211LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Formed in the northern industrial city of Sheffield, Mau Maus were reputedly one of the first British hardcore bands, first comprised of frontman Chris Taylor, guitarist 'Lev' Levick, bassist Kevin 'Bunny' Warren, drummer Paul 'Podge' Baker, with Alf then taking over the bass, once Bunny shifted to backing vocals. Following singles on local punk label Pax that hit the Indie charts and concert album Live At The Marples, the group launched their own Rebellion label with "Tear Down The Walls," paving the way for the excellent debut Fear No Evil, produced with zest by The Mission's Simon Hinkler. Another top-rated LP!

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: RRS 212CV-LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

LP version. Color vinyl. Reissue, originally released in 1978. Lesser-known punk band Cyanide formed in the northern cathedral city of York in 1976, the four lads based at the Old Priory Youth Club. After cutting a couple of demos soon after their formation, in time the band's reputation was such that they were playing the Roxy in London and during their rapid ascent, the quartet managed to score a contract with major label Pye for their self-titled debut album, recorded in December 1976 and produced by Ron O'Shea, who ironically got his start with orchestral easy listening. A fun set of tongue-in-cheek first-wave punk originals, the album also includes a spirited cover version of The Who's 'I'm A Boy.'

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: RRS 212LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Reissue, originally released in 1978. Lesser-known punk band Cyanide formed in the northern cathedral city of York in 1976, the four lads based at the Old Priory Youth Club. After cutting a couple of demos soon after their formation, in time the band's reputation was such that they were playing the Roxy in London and during their rapid ascent, the quartet managed to score a contract with major label Pye for their self-titled debut album, recorded in December 1976 and produced by Ron O'Shea, who ironically got his start with orchestral easy listening. A fun set of tongue-in-cheek first-wave punk originals, the album also includes a spirited cover version of The Who's 'I'm A Boy.'

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: RAJATON 002C-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Third 10" in a series of five EPs by Sasu Ripatti aka Dancefloor Classics. Edition of 500; 45rpm; includes download code. Sasu Ripatti presents the third volume in his Dancefloor Classics series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Music for imaginary dancefloors, released on Ripatti's own label, Rajaton. All tracks composed and produced by Sasu Ripatti. Artwork and photography by Marc Hohmann. Mastering by Stephan Mathieu for Schwebung Mastering. Vinyl cut by SST Brueggemann.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: RAJATON 003C-EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Third 10" in a series of five EPs by Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay. 10"; edition of 500; 45rpm; includes download code. Vladislav Delay presents the third EP in his Hide Behind The Silence series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Intuitive and raw music, momentary and reflective, released on Ripatti's own label, Rajaton. All tracks composed and produced by Sasu Ripatti. Artwork by Marc Hohmann, photography by Shinnosuke Yoshimori. Mastering by Stephan Mathieu for Schwebung Mastering. Vinyl cut by SST Brueggemann.

 

PRICE: $20.00

CAT #: RLV 004EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

"The second instalment in the 45 RELOVED series sees acclaimed world-electronic duo Dengue Dengue Dengue diving into the most intriguing side of Giuliano Sorgini, an undisputed heavyweight of Italian library music with cult soundtracks under his belt, such as The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue and Zoo Folle. The original 'Oasi Nella Giungla' (which translates as Oasis in the Jungle) comes from the highly sought after Africa Oscura (Dark Africa), a sublime collection of tracks originally intended for use in television, all of which were recorded by Sorgini in the mid-70s by overdubbing synths, drums (both acoustic and electronic), a wide variety of percussion instruments, and field recordings. Back in 2019 Four Flies paid tribute to Africa Oscura with two EPs of remixes by Italian producers from the cosmic/Balearic electronic scene. Four years later, Dengue Dengue Dengue's mind-blowing rework of 'Oasi Nella Giungla' offers a great opportunity not only to go back to the fantastic sound of that album, but to fully appreciate the tribal element in Sorgini's music. In the hands of the Peruvian duo, the sonic geography of 'Oasi Nella Giungla magically shifts from the depths of Africa to those of the Amazon rainforest, and the tribal percussions of the Savannah turn into an equatorial cumbia full of mystery and mystical echoes. The result is a mesmerizing fusion of tropical rhythms, dub, house and psychedelia, with an ancestral vibe that is perhaps even more pronounced than in the original track."

 

PRICE: $22.50

CAT #: RS 054LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Who is Toby Cato? On first inspection he's a painter, rapper, singer, composer, filmmaker, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, born in Brighton and based in Southeast London. Dive a little deeper into his universe (no exaggeration) and it's almost jarring how well developed, highly considered and how expertly these seemingly separate strings to Cato's bow are executed. What makes it all the more impressive is that he's a self-taught 23-year-old. He's won prizes for his animations, was a finalist in the Nicholas Daley x Fred Perry Music Grant (where Bradley Zero -- as a judge alongside Gilles Peterson and Nubya Garcia, first came across him) and his paintings are sold and exhibited worldwide. The son of a renowned Jamaican-British writer, historian and social commentator -- Cato clearly grew up in a creatively liberated household -- going some way to explain the ease with which he wrestles heavy subject matter across multiple mediums. Would it be hyperbole to call him a renaissance man? Cato might brush off this label, free falling through life: one moment at a time. "I'm only one man. Time and again, I'm falling, but holding onto my pen for the moment." And with this, humble assertion -- you witness an artist, not falling -- but flowing, in fact -- overflowing across six tracks on this -- his debut mixtape. For fans of: Cosmo Pyke, King Krule, Bakar, Yellowdays, Toro Y Moi, Blood Orange. Artwork hand drawn on by Cato. Edition of 300; numbered sleeve.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: SKR 008LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

2023 repress; second edition of these recordings from 1995. Originally issued on LP in 2017. Svitlana Nianio has been active in the Ukrainian and Polish underground music scenes since the early '90s both as a solo artist and a prominent member of the now disbanded avant-rock outfit Cukor Bila Smert (Sugar White Death). Her music draws on aspects of modern composition and traditional Slavic music, with songs and experiments from that early period culminating in the 1999 album Kytytsi (Koka Records, Poland). Prior to that in 1995, Nianio recorded Lisova Kolekciya (Forest Collection) live in a simple home studio setting with Olexander Yurchenko and Konstantin Nazarenko. Less indebted to folk tradition than Kytytsi, Lisova Kolekciya was performed using Casio keyboards, electronics, and voice, positioning itself more in-line with Terry Riley's Shri Camel in its otherworldly reinterpretation of the ancient through modern means. Retaining aspects of traditional music in its use of spare instrumentation and haunting vocal melodies, this largely unknown album pushes at the edges of what folk music might be, resulting in music previously described as being "deeply rooted in primeval myths, creating a world of magic realism, in which the temporal dimension and the other world constantly move and permeate." Issued here officially for the first time after an extremely limited private cassette edition handed out to friends in 1996 -- where the recording was twinned with the album Znayesh Yak? Rozkazhi (Know How? Tell Me) -- Lisova Kolekciya comes packaged in a full color offset printed sleeve featuring artwork by Svitlana Nianio. Recorded in Kiev, Ukraine, 1995. Personnel: Svitlana Nianio - Casio MT-200, voice, texts; Olexander Yurchenko - Casio CTK-200; Konstantin Nazarenko - recording engineer, sound effects. Digital master by Sean McCann, 2017. Design by Andrew Chalk and Tom James Scott. Includes download code; edition of 300.

 

PRICE: $28.50

CAT #: SKR 011LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

"Recorded in correspondence throughout a calamitous and uncertain 2020, Eye of the Sea is a collaborative record made by Tom James Scott of the United Kingdom and Svitlana Nianio of Ukraine. Active since the late 1980s, Nianio has released a treasure trove of diverse and beguiling music under her own name, as a member of the legendary Ukrainian experimental unit Cukor Bila Smer?, and in collaboration with the late musician and instrument maker Oleksandr Yurchenko. For his part, Scott has steadily published solo recordings since the mid aughts on labels such as Bo'Weavil, Students of Decay, and Where to Now?, and worked often in collaboration with kindred spirits like Andrew Chalk and Timo Van Lujik. Eye of the Sea began as a series of intimate, muted piano sketches put to tape by Scott, which Nianio embellished and re-contextualized with voice and instrumentation before returning them to Scott for further overdubbing, editing, and mixing. Listening to these recordings, I'm struck most by their patience, frailty, and beauty. Soft piano lines unspool alongside Nianio's weightless voice on tracks such as 'Slowly Turns the Spring,' which achieves a richly devotional air, and 'Lotus,' a piece that all but halts the passage of time as it slowly blooms into expression. But despite their elusive, gauzy palette, there is a startling directness to these recordings that feels unique in the oeuvres of both musicians. Much like Nianio's wonderful 'Lisova Kolekciya,' (reissued by Scott on Skire in 2017) there is the sense that this music, particularly the vocal arrangements, is firmly rooted in some hermetic, primordial tradition. Ultimately, Eye of the Sea is a work of romantic, phantasmagoric beauty shot through with morning light; one which draws deeply on 20th century classical, chamber and liturgical musics, and ambient minimalism to arrive at a distinctive voice of its own." --Alex Cobb (Students of Decay/Soda Gong) Edition of 300; includes download code.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: STSLJN 407LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Recorded back in 1999, Half a Dove in New York, Half a Dove in Buenos Aires is the recorded debut of a NetCast improv between deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros and Argentinian free music trio Reynols -- a fascinating early example of the internet's capacity to foster remote creativity in-the-moment that deploys the slowest electronics, accordion, voice, trombone and computer sounds on a next level ritual drone incantation recorded in another era, but made for our time. As the story goes, Oliveros first met Reynols in the mid-90s at a Deep Listening workshop she held in their home city, Buenos Aires, where they impressed her with an improvised brass serenade. Years later, in 1999, they met again via NetCast -- a series of very early online live improvisations -- to explore the Internet's potential for collaborations between artists thousands of miles apart. Finally mixed down in 2021 and mastered by Helge Sten (aka Deathprod) after marinating in the archive for 22 years, the album resonates with the late, great Oliveros's legendary work in exploring alternate tunings, spatial dynamics and methods of intuitive performance -- a remarkable slab of omnidirectional drone bearing traces of Miguel Tomasin's vox and Oliveros' just-intoned accordion embedded in its cosmic roil. Broadcasting from fabled record shop The Thing in NYC, with Oliveros (accordion) joined by Jennifer McCoy (ICR), Kevin McCoy (computer processing), and Monique Buzzarté (trombone), and Reynols revolving Miguel Tomasin (electronics, subliminal voice, Alclorse drums), Rob Conlazo (electronics, leather gloves & e-gtr), and Anla Courtis (electronics, rubber foot & e-gtr) and dialing-in from Florida 943 in Buenos Aires, the results are an incredibly absorbing and consistently surprising testament to vanguard, experimental spirits prizing the internet's nascent, unprecedented ability to connect minds and art across continents, language barriers, and modalities. The album's first side, titled "Micro Macro Wind Dance", puts Oliveros's accordion under a microscope, enhancing it with lower case rumble and noise from Reynolds' arsenal. Shifting glacially over 22-minutes, Oliveros plays subtly and slowly at first, letting the accordion breathe in-and-out like a sleeping mythical beast, before she transitions to fluttering bird-like phrases by the end of the side. "Astral Netcast Pigeon" expands the dissonant drones to widescreen, submerging Oliveros's trills and drones beneath layers of dirt and grit. Time-altering music that's basically the perfect mid-point between Oliveros' deep listening practices and Reynols' wildly inspirational free-noise-drone freakouts. Liner notes by Pauline Oliveros. Design by Lasse Marhaug. Produced by Reynols, mastered by Helge Sten. Edition of 500.

 

PRICE: $29.50

CAT #: STSLJN 414LP

FILE UNDER: CLASSICAL

Flautist Johanna Orellana teams up with Carmen Villain for a collection of horizontal, pastoral field recordings and close mic-ed flute sounds that zero in on the instrument's unstable resonance and levitational magic. There's no cringe virtuoso business or fourth world firewalking here - just sonic purity, sublime minimalism and the precise capture of time, place and poetry. You might have come across Johanna Orellana before if you've listened to Carmen Villain's music (or seen her perform live), and Villain appears here in a producer's role, using her engineering expertise to impart a level of restraint and sonic fidelity that's quite startling. There are only really two central elements to the album: environmental recordings and flute. There's no psychedelic delay, no cavernous reverb; no audible treatments at all -- Orellana and Villain instead force you to consider the flute and its musical lineage. 'El Jardín I' introduces the instrument as a physical conduit; Orellana allows her breath to distort the sound -- the padded pat-pat of the keys forms a kind of rhythm, closely recorded so it's amplified and jarring, linking to primal wind instruments like conch shells, bamboo flutes and wooden whistles. Recalling the way in which "Debit" interfaced with the ancient world using AIassisted tech on last year's The Long Count, Orellana uses a comparatively modern contemporary transverse flute, an instrument with roots that stretch back through the baroque era, into Medieval Europe, back to the Byzantine era and into Asia. The component that connects the instruments and eras is breath, and its amplification and modification through differently shaped pipes and vessels. Orellana lets the environment sing: insects, rushing water and zephyr-like winds form a stage that presents her mortal energy, suggesting a harmony between our use of breath and its environmental ubiquitousness. Her technique is steeped in folk history and decouples itself from expectation by rooting itself in nature. It allows her to bridge the gap between equal temperament and less ordered (less commercially-focused) microtonality without overstating the concept. Other sounds waft in from the sidelines; what might be an Indian bansuri, stray notes, a gust of air. There's a link to the foundational new age recordings that Joanna Brouk made with Maggi Payne back in 1980, but Orelanna also absorbs the outdoor folk magic of Fonal or Stroom, and the improvisational grist of Bendik Giske or legendary US horn duo Nmperign. Edition of 300 copies, pressed on white vinyl.

 

PRICE: $23.00

CAT #: SOW 003LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

2023 repress. Sowing Records present a reissue of Lee Morgan's City Lights, originally released on Blue Note in 1957. City Lights is the result of a fine session recorded at the legendary Rudi Van Gelder studio by an all-star sextet featuring the 19 years old trumpet genius Lee Morgan plus an impressive coalition of jazz stylists such as Curtis Fuller on trombone, George Coleman on tenor sax, Ray Bryant on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Taylor on drums. All great players caught here in top form while dealing with an excellent repertoire including compositions of jazz greats such as Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce among others. Limited clear vinyl edition.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: STAUB 141LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress; LP version. There's a myth about music critics according to which they are frustrated wannabe performers. Evidence to the contrary: Vivien Goldman. The London-born, New York-based Goldman is one of the foremost chroniclers of the perfect storm of reggae, punk, hip hop, and Afrobeat, but between 1979 and 1982, she was also a working musician, creating songs that, years later, would be sampled by The Roots and Madlib. These rare girl grooves are now collected for the first time on Resolutionary, covering Goldman's first three musical formations; first as a member of experimental British new wavers The Flying Lizards, next as a solo artist with her single "Launderette" featuring post-punk luminaries, and then as half of the Parisian duo Chantage with Afro-Parisian chanteuse Eve Blouin. Goldman's eclectic musical crew included PiL's John Lydon, Keith Levene, and Bruce Smith; avant-gardists Steve Beresford and David Toop; The Raincoats' Vicky Aspinall; the mighty Robert Wyatt; Zaire's Jerry Malekani; Manu Dibango's guitarist; Viv Albertine, then of Goldman's good friends The Slits; and dubmaster Adrian Sherwood, who produced the majority of these tracks. Goldman sang in a lilting, clear-toned soprano honed during childhood. She began her singing career in the late '70s, doing backup with Neneh Cherry and Ari Up (The Slits) on Sherwood records by reggae artists including Prince Far I. Goldman was grooving to the innovations of dub. The contrast between Goldman's high, lilting tones and the deep rumble of the bass is a hallmark of all her work, giving a haunting frisson of sex and alienation to songs like The Flying Lizards' "The Window." Reggae had been her London soundtrack, but after moving to Paris in the early '80s, she absorbed music from Africa, an interplay audible in exultant Chantage tracks like "It's Only Money," a mix of steelpan, African soukous guitar, and sobbing Romani violin riding ferocious funk. As the 1990s began, Goldman moved to Manhattan and became New York University's "Punk Professor," teaching original courses on punk, Bob Marley, David Bowie, and Fela Kuti. But she never stopped singing and writing songs. Chicks on Speed released a later cut, "7 Days," on their 2006 Girl Monster compilation (COSR 033CD). Her house 12" records with artists including Berlin's Moritz von Oswald are compiled on LPs. Goldman has also co-written tracks with Massive Attack, Coldcut, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Luscious Jackson. Early in 2016, she performed dub readings onstage with Boston's Berklee Marley Ensemble. Her multimedia beat goes on.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: STAUBANA 003LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

2023 repress on vinyl. Jah Lloyd meets David Cunningham on The Secret Dub Life Of The Flying Lizards from The Flying Lizards. These legendary recordings from 1978 are now available on vinyl for the first time."The source tapes for this LP were recorded in Jamaica by Jah Lloyd (Patrick Francis) as part of a series he made for Virgin Records' Front Line label. The original tapes were not released and were offered to me by Front Line's Jumbo Vanrennen with the suggestion that I should 'remix' the music. I accepted the project, expecting lots of time in one of Virgin's studios to play with the music and the equipment, only to be presented with a mono master tape. So I began to invent (or perhaps re-invent) techniques of editing, looping, filtering and subtraction to deal with unremixable mono material (these were the days before samplers). The subsequent work took a long time: as I thought it might be something of an indulgence, I worked on it at weekends and evenings rather than let it interfere with other projects. The techniques used here expanded my vocabulary of musical electronic (as opposed to electronic music) treatments and appear in a very different form on records made at that time, notably Fourth Wall, my collaboration with Patti Palladin, and my production work on Michael Nyman's records. The original players remain unidentified. Jah Lloyd used various combinations of musicians but did not include who played on which tracks." --David Cunningham, May 1995

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: STAUBANA 010LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

2023 repress. General Strike's legendary album from 1984, for the first time available on vinyl and as a download. Fully remastered by David Cunningham. These recordings were originally released on cassette by Touch in 1984 with the exception of "Parts Of My Body," released on a single by Canal Records in 1979. Performed by: Steve Beresford (bass, piano, Farfisa organ, Prophet 5, trumpet, flugelhorn, euphonium, percussion, glockenspiel, voice, toy piano, melodica, noises, rhythm tracks, drumkit), David Toop (guitar, prepared guitar, bass, percussion, flute, alto flute, glockenspiel, voice, tapes, noises, rhythm tracks), David Cunningham (tape treatments) with guests: Lol Coxhill, Dawn Roberts and Maartje Ten Hoorn. "The atmosphere which General Strike conjures together suits an old-fashioned, Cold War-ish scenario of technology. Their 'Interplanetary Music' is the space-pop of George Pal and The Day The Earth Stood Still, of computers built like Blackpool Tower in order to struggle through simple trigonometry, of The Jetsons and I.G.Y. They go no further than Expo '67, the world's last gasp of optimism. And although there are dark and disquieting moods set in this mosaic which their listeners have pieced together, it is made with a humor which is true to the spirit of adventure which those references apply. The sanitation merchants who make up most of the world's record-makers today would forbid our ears from hearing these strangely electric keyboards, earthworked textures, bizarre chatterings of percussion, and voices that seem like puzzled robots. Cataloguing the sound in that way makes it all seem a bit of a joke, but it isn't: laughter is encouraged, but it's serious music, made with a great deal more serious spirit than the great and disheartening mountain of music which today implores you to hear and not listen." --Richard Cook

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: SOD 133LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The second album in a planned trilogy for Students of Decay, Theodore Cale Schafer's Trust follows 2019's Patience, building upon its motifs and compositional strategies to arrive at a potent document of artistic and personal growth. Recorded between 2020 and 2022, a period in which Schafer relocated to New York City, these arrangements feel like they bear the mark of a change in scale, not abandoning the private, diaristic sensibility of his earlier work so much as imbuing it with a charged atmosphere of vivid, slow-blooming intensity. These songs find the artist tightrope-walking between drama and austerity, narrative and abstraction. Such is the case on both "Luck," in which a captivating wash of baroque strings slowly recedes into a bed of inky, flickering ambience, and "Best Friend," wherein snatches of conversation are halted by entrancing piano motifs and hovering drones. This is an album that develops aspects of Schafer's previous output -- the patiently meted out, barely-there piano melodies, the unexpected resonance of off-the-cuff location recordings -- working them like raw materials into robust, lyrical compositions. At times almost drifting into the romantic realm of the orchestral, Trust is the most generous and expansive offering we've heard from Schafer in his young career. Includes download code; edition of 300.Theodore Cale Schafer (b. 1994) is a musician based in New York City. Informed by his occupation as an audio engineer, his work combines digitally sourced audio and manipulated self-recordings to create music that is equally influenced by Playstation OSTs, modern classical composition, confessional narrative, and spoken word. Recently, he has collaborated with Natalia Panzer, Angelo Harmsworth, claire rousay, Sydney Spann, and picnic, participated in the Neo-Pastiche: Changes in American Music Festival at the Black Mountain College Museum, and curated the "Casualism" mix series with Retreat Radio in Malmö, Sweden.

 

PRICE: $28.00

CAT #: SOD 134LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Since the early 2010s, Josh Mason has slowly amassed an enchanting discography, publishing recordings on labels such as Florabelle, Dauw, Longform Editions, and his retired Sunshine Ltd. imprint. Whether focusing on electric guitar or modular synthesizer, Mason approaches his music with intentionality, tenderness, and a keen ear for detail, resulting in an exceptional and enduring oeuvre. His workmanlike approach to craft and monomaniacal interest in circuit design culminated in 2021's Utility Music, a daunting book/CD project that documents and unpacks a yearlong exploration of a Doepfer A-100 Eurorack system. The irony of such a project is that it might lead listeners to believe that academic technique and synthesis technology are the animating principles of his practice, but the reality is that this is only part of the story. Listening to Mason's music one gets the sense that, like a good novelist, he truly cares about his characters, which take the forms of the textures and timbres of archaic wavetable oscillators, idiosyncratic filters, pulverized samples, and exotic noise sources. An Anxious Host feels like a pivotal release in Mason's catalog. It's his first vinyl outing since 2019's astounding Coquina Dose, and it may be the most succinct and potent album he's made. The track titles function like stage directions in a play, intimating a hazy, filmic narrative populated by schemers, dreamers, and lost souls. As ever with Mason's work, place is paramount, and this record is thoroughly shot through with the humidity, warmth, and "end of the line"-ness of the state of Florida. Seasick swells and sunken melodies; swampy, sputtering loops; sonic flotsam pooling together and flowing out, beckoning the listener to come have a soak. Edition of 300; includes download code.

 

PRICE: $19.00

CAT #: BARN 088EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Do you like house music? Studio Barnhus HQ are big fans, with the particular house music of Ladymonix having been a key element of house music get-togethers over the last years. Studio Barnhus HQ are thrilled to announce the Baltimore-native, Detroit based DJ and producer's new EP on, which marks her first solo venture outside of her own Frizner Electric imprint. The four tracks on the Welcome 2 My House EP are perfect examples of Ladymonix's core sound: essential dance tracks, firmly grounded in sacred house music tradition, executed with heaps of personality, finesse and charm.

 

PRICE: $13.50

CAT #: SHLP 002CS

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Label head J. Wiltshire returns to Super Hexagon Records with eight tracks of ambient techno-inspired music paying homage to some of the collective's early influences. sun link is laced with tensile rhythms, tinged with sun-washed melodies and plots a winding path through warm, Ultra Panavision soundscapes, and icy dub techno sonics. sun link marks his return to the label for his third solo endeavor into the long play format. Transparent yellow cassette; double-sided J card. Mastered by Andy Miles. Design by Joe Gilmore.Jacob Wiltshire has been releasing music and spearheading the Super Hexagon Records label and event series since 2015 -- starting with the collective's early showcases in Leeds and through to recent releases from Christoph de Babalon and Isabassi.

 

PRICE: $22.00

CAT #: SVVRCH 026LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

Repressed. Survival Research present a reissue of The Incredible Shrinking Dickies, originally released in 1979. Hyperactive Ramones-influenced cartoon punk rock from Los Angeles. One debut LP that made the history in the genre. Frantically fast and short versions of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid", the Monkees' "She", and Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction", along with a few unforgettable hits like "You Make Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)" and "Give It Back". A must for all California punk completists.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: SVVRCH 072LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

Ska icon Prince Buster changed the face of Jamaican popular music by helping give birth to the form in the late 1950s by blending Caribbean cadences with a rhythm-and-blues backbeat, its rhythmic emphasis shifted to the afterbeat rather than the fore. National Ska: Pain In My Belly is a killer various artists compilation that Buster produced in 1964 for Blue Beat Records in Britain, its blistering contents featuring Toots and the Maytals, Eric 'Monty' Morris, and the Prince himself, as well as the pivotal musicians Don Drummond and Tommy McCook, who would shortly form the Skatalites. Essential listening for all true ska devotees!

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: SVVRCH 073LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Reissue, originally released in 1958. Ceaseless seeker Yusef Lateef continually sought to push the boundaries of jazz, striving to make connections across continents and to capture the essence of devotional expression long before the term "world music" was coined. Recorded at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1958, Lateef At Cranbrook is a stunning set of instrumentals reaching into the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, the unusual line-up including Frank Morelli on baritone sax, William Austin on rabab, and Terry Polland on piano, with Lateef commanding the proceedings on tenor sax. An exceptional and emotive musical journey.

 

PRICE: $18.00

CAT #: BRANE 002EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The Brane is resurrected with four killer klub tracks from Velvet Velour and Youandewan.

 

PRICE: $245.00

CAT #: TMR 648LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Limited stock, gold vinyl version. "Beginning in the 1950s, renowned sculptor Harry Bertoia (1915-1978) created the term 'Sonambient' to describe the sound and environment created by his beautiful metal sculptures. He curated a massive selection of his sculptures and gongs, resulting in a harmonious orchestra of his metal works, and recorded these sound experiments late into the night. Bertoia dedicated the last twenty years of his life to his sound work and in 1970 he released the first Sonambient LP. In 1978, in the final months of his life, he selected tapes from his archive and produced 10 more records. He wouldn't live long enough to see them through production, but they became legendary releases (and quite valuable) in the art/audio world. The complete Sonambient LP collection features all 11 of Bertoia's original records newly restored from their master tapes and housed in replica jackets. A deluxe box, printed with metallic inks and tip-on style print assembly, holds the 11 discs as well as an 80-page book containing a lengthy historic essay, Smithsonian interview with Harry Bertoia, exclusive Sonambient era material from the Bertoia archive, modern and archival photos of the Bertoia barn as well as reflections on Bertoia from various contributors."

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: TONE 078LP

FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL

Jana Winderen's practice focuses on sound and knowledge production as she seeks to raise awareness of the environmental issues we face as a society. Audemars Piguet Contemporary collaborated with Winderen on two new sound installations compositions. The first, "Du Petit Risoud aux Profondeurs du Lac de Joux", was developed during two field trips to Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, where Audemars Piguet has been based since 1875. On these trips, Winderen captured sounds in the waters of the Lac de Joux and in the Risoud forest. When Audemars Piguet Contemporary invited the artist to present a second composition for exhibition in Miami Beach, Winderen proposed a site-specific sound environment. For "The Art of Listening: Under Water", Winderen used sounds recorded in the Atlantic Ocean in the Miami area, as well as sounds from the Barents Sea around the North Pole and the Tropical Oceans to expose the constant underwater presence of human-created sound today. In both pieces, the artist offers a unique opportunity to listen closely to the underwater inhabitants of a specific region and to reflect on how human activity interacts and interferes with aquatic and also terrestrial life in a seemingly beautiful and visually calm environment. Jana Winderen often draws the fish, amphibians and plankton she meets. This release also consists of a drawing of two fish that probably would never meet; the pike from the freshwater Lac de Joux in the Jura Mountains and the snapper from the saltwater environment by Miami.

 

PRICE: $17.50

CAT #: TRESOR 356EP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Tresor presents the debut split 12" from Chloe Lula and Ireen Amnes. Meeting in the darker, harder-edged side of the Berlin techno scene in 2019, the pair have regularly collaborated and performed together, but Synergy marks the first time they've shared a record sleeve. Amnes describes Synergy as "the world we built while thinking about our journey as friends and the connection we share as people and artists," and while the record highlights their relationship and shared influences, it also showcases how each has grown into their respective lane. Amnes's tracks lean into significantly more distorted territory, characterized by a dense fog of grainy pads punctured by sharp, expertly-programmed percussion. On "Our Bodies," these fragments are sculpted into driving hardware gear, replete with distant vocals and acidic squelches, where "Fragments of Desire" makes space for a more somber attitude, descending into murky, psychedelic electro. In counterpoint to Amnes's deep atmospherics, Lula's contributions are driven by intricate sound design and a focus on dancefloor impact. Taking cues from Regis and the Birmingham techno sound, she reins in the distortion of 2021's Errant Bodies for aufnahme + wiedergabe in favor of rolling techno and breakbeat-inspired rhythms that nod to her EBM influences. Making use of the extra space, she builds tension through heaving, textured basslines and crescendos of noise, and on EP closer "Event Horizon," she carves through the beat with her own metallic vocals. Synergy includes a digital bonus track from each artist.

 

PRICE: $33.00

CAT #: JBH 099LP

FILE UNDER: JAZZ

Released in 1969, this is probably the best modern British jazz LP of all time. A beguiling mix of East meets West rhythms, ideas and joy, repressed with an authentic flip back sleeve. A sax player hailing from the Jamaican Alpha School. A sublime guitarist from Mumbai. A tight quintet with special guests that include Norma Winstone on improvised wordless vocals. One session, 1969, at the very peak of British jazz invention and sound. This album is brilliant and addictive in so many ways. It really does not get batter. Miss this at your peril.

 

PRICE: $9.95

CAT #: UT 063

FILE UNDER: Misc

"It's Ugly Things' special 40th anniversary. Rock 'n' roll titan PJ Proby is on the cover and inside he shares outrageous, hell-raising stories about his 1950s and '60s adventures in Hollywood and the UK. Alongside a fascinating retrospective on 40 years of Ugly Things, we have great stories on Bay Area '60s garage punks William Penn & His Pals, Newfoundland's first punk rock band Da Slyme, Dutch beat group the Fun Of It, Midwest garage rockers Johnny's Uncalled Four, part two of our story on Aussie punks the Lipstick Killers, Chris Spedding, Cyril Jordan on the Animals, and much more. Not to forget our juicy review sections, covering all the latest vinyl and CD reissues, and rock 'n' roll-related books."

 

PRICE: $12.50

CAT #: UR 144CS

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

The British producer Alex Smalley (aka Olan Mill) has been active for more than a decade building his signature through nature as the central theme across emotional journeys through beautiful ambient melodies. Moments at the Re-engage -- his first publication in Umor Rex -- was created for a performance in Thüringen, Germany. On the night, while the audience was floating in mineralized neon water, the sound was being diffused across submerged speakers. Multiple synthesizer layers were mixed with processed guitar. Later, additional acoustic sounds, field recordings, voice, and violin were added and processed. While the recordings were made in the German winter, the mixing took place on the Island of Koh Phangan in Thailand. Nature, plant medicine ceremonies, meditation, and jungle hikes somehow guided the sound-arranging process. Moments at the Re-engage reach an experience when time and reality dissolve into a single point of complete sedation. Produced and mixed by Alex Smalley. Personnel: Maria Smalley - voice; Jane Wild - violin. Mastered by Porya Hatami. Artwork by Daniel Castrejón. Edition of 100.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: VAMPI 267LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 repress; first time reissue of Wganda Kenya's Africa 5.000, originally released in 1975. Africa 5.000 (1975) has a legendary reputation as one of Colombia's best hard-to-find Afro-funk records and is a highly prized collector's piece today. The epic "La Torta" (The Cake) kicks things off with a lively Colombian interpretation of Haitian compas. The tune is still remembered as a big picó (amplified sound system) hit at the verbenas (outdoor dance parties). "Fiebre De Lepra" (Leprosy Fever) was also released as a 45 single and is certainly one of Wganda Kenya's wilder tracks. Funky wah-wah guitar, makossa style bass, manic organ, and feverishly insane vocals (from Wilson "Saoko" Manyoma and Joe Arroyo) indicate that Fruko and his pals were having a ball goofing around in the studio. If for no other reason, Africa 5.000 is sought-after for being the album containing Fruko and Javier García's outrageously funky and off-kilter "Tifit Hayed", which has become a tropical dancefloor favorite in recent years. Again the "kitchen sink" approach is employed, including massive Latin bass lines, tasty Farfisa organ stabs, a bluesy, jazzy piano solo, and plenty of humorous vocal sound effects (including animal noises and lip burbling). However, it's the stomping break beats and cowbell counterpoint that has kept dance floors busy. Side B leaps out of the speakers with the heavy, strutting "El Caterete", which was the flipside to the "Fiebre De Lepra" single and is based on the 1970 song "Cateretê" by Brazilian singer/songwriter Marku Ribas. Like its sibling Fuentes studio band Afrosound, Wganda Kenya was ahead of its time, anticipating current contemporary Afro-Latin-funk trends in a prescient way that has inspired a legion of fans across the globe, and this reissue of Africa 5.000 will only serve to further cement the band's growing reputation amongst today's diggers of tropical psychedelia. Includes a non-album bonus cut, plus informative notes.

 

PRICE: $27.00

CAT #: VP 1000LP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 repress. "Roast Fish & Cornbread was Lee Perry's 20th album, counting his sets, compilations, and full-length dub discs. Amazingly, though, it was the first album Perry exclusively dedicated to his own vocal numbers."

 

PRICE: $12.00

CAT #: VPRD 6335EP

FILE UNDER: WORLD

2023 repress. 2000 reissue. Originally released in 1982. Includes "Stalag Version". 45rpm.

 

PRICE: $20.50

CAT #: TONY 008LP

FILE UNDER: ROCK

A collection of demos including 1975 demos featuring Richard Hell, and recorded by Brian Eno. Killer stuff from before Marquee Moon (many of the songs on this tape ended up featured on that album) while Richard Hell was still in the band.

 

PRICE: $26.00

CAT #: WEILO 001LP

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC

Absurd Matter is a labyrinthine sonic conundrum that spirals around the two poles of extreme noise and hip-hop. It's Berlin-based Italian producer Shapednoise's first album in four years and confidently advances his narrative into the next chapter, building on the groundwork of his prior abstractions to emerge with a coherent genre-warped fusion of urgent rap, crushing bass weight and idiosyncratic sound design. After spending years scrupulously deconstructing club music, Nino Pedone has rebuilt it brick by brick in his image. The album arrives after a period of severe anxiety for the producer when he unexpectedly lost his hearing. Absurd Matter tells a critical narrative that's cut with visceral pain and panic, from the unsettling intro that features David Lynch's longtime collaborator Dean Hurley, through the cautious cacophony of the unstable "Swash" all the way to the album's isolated but dizzying conclusion. The album is the first release on Pedone's brand new imprint Weight Looming, a multidisciplinary label platform that's set to explore the depths of bass music, textured noise and abrasive transcendence. It follows a slew of acclaimed releases for Numbers, Opal Tapes, Type, and his own Cosmo Rhythmatic label, and forward-thinking collaborations with Kenyan beat alchemist Slikback and Hyperdub-signed Angolan producer, Nazar. Pedone's most ambitious project to date, Absurd Matter taps into kinetic energy from a hand-picked selection of collaborators, including New York rap duo Armand Hammer, French DJ/producer Brodinski, Bruiser Brigade's ZelooperZ, and vanguard Philly poet, musician, and activist Moor Mother. On "Family", billy woods and Elucid weave a dismal, apocalyptic landscape with their razor-sharp anecdotes. The duo's macabre imagery is given artificial life by Pedone's industrial scrapes and rattles that curl around their worlds like thick smoke. It's still rap, just about, but lodges itself in the back room of a factory, machines running themselves to an early death. Pairing with techno-rap trailblazer Brodinski, Pedone edges further towards the sound system, spatializing rhythms in four dimensions around Detroit rapper ZelooperZ's playful expressions. This is the Italian producer's sci-fi tinged liquefaction of radio echoes, a way to fire familiarity into the void and sublime the human voice into weightless mist. When Moor Mother arrives shouting "me me me" on the aptly-titled "Poetry", it sounds as if all of Pedone's loose threads are being tightened into a knot. His misshapen neo-grime beats sound like a broken jet engine, but smartly cede power to Moor Mother's resonant rhymes.