Forced Exposure New Releases for the Week of 11/28/2022

Newer music is due from Anthony Moore, Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal, and Ibrahim Alfa Jnr, while older music is due from The Sun Ra Arkestra, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Tod Dockstader.

 

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NEW RELEASES FOR THE WEEK OF 11/28/2022
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A COLOURFUL STORM (AUSTRALIA)
ACOLOUR 041LP
 
PRICE: $30.50
CAT #: ACOLOUR 041LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
TIME IS AWAY Ballads 2LP
Over the better half of a decade, Time is Away, the London-based duo of Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney, have made tender and heartfelt transmissions through countless mixes, sound works, and radio. Exploring deeply human themes of memory, persistence, and resistance using an assemblage of source material, the duo's unique mode of storytelling culminates in Ballads, a new suite of songs and, significantly, their first officially licensed compilation. From the opening notes of Horvitz Morris Previte Trio's jazz romanticism to Gilles Chabenat and Frédéric Paris's lively reimagined standard, the haunting vocal seance of Tanto Pressanto and the mesmerizing swirls of The Unthanks, Yuko Kono, and Rachel Bonch-Bruevich, the spirit of Ballads roams through generations of affectionate songwriting and conjures images both candid and surreal. The voice of poet and longtime collaborator Christina Petrie appears briefly and contemplates the "sighs and replies... the space between verses" of the ballad, its beauty, its place in our lives. What is the ballad but a reflection of our soul? "Perhaps I'll wander in search of it", she bittersweetly concedes. At the suite's cusp is an alternate version of David Lang's "Just (After Song of Songs)", a thirteen-minute meditation on devotion which featured in Paolo Sorrentino's Youth (2015). The track's universal themes of faith and desire radiate throughout and elucidate Time is Away's peerlessly precise yet gossamer touch. Also features Christmas Decorations, Antonietta Borgoli, Merula, Stella Vander, and Hydroplane.
AKUPHONE (FRANCE)
AKU 7001EP
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: AKU 7001EP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
KAMACH & BAKSEY CHAM KRONG, MOL Ne Penser Qu'A Toi 7"
Limited restock. For the first time, two single records of Baksey Cham Krong - the first Cambodian guitar band - are officially being reissued in an identical version. Between surf music and ballad, these two records released in 1963 (Je Te Quitterai (AKU 7002EP)) and 1964 (Ne Penser Qu'A Toi) are an invitation to rediscover the effervescent Khmer musical scene of the 1960s. The early 1960s are often described as the "golden age" of Cambodia, with a flourishing economy and a strong cultural development. As the country had just won its independence, the King Norodom Sihanouk - who had been a singer himself - encouraged dynamism and creativity in all aspects of cultural life. In 1959, in the midst of this artistic turmoil, Mol Kamach and his brothers created a band: the Baksey Cham Krong (also spelled Bakseis Cham Krung) named after a temple of the Angkor site. The teenagers were influenced by the latest hits they had listened on the radio. For the music, Kagnol got his inspiration from the rock 'n' roll of The Ventures and The Shadows while Kamach took over the vocal techniques of crooners such as Paul Anka. The lyrics were either in French (as for the song "Ne Penser Qu'à Toi") or in Khmer. The song "Pleine Lune" became a hit and revealed Kagnol's musical genius at playing guitar and Kamach's delicate voice. From their beginnings on the capital's high school stages to their first broadcasts on national radio, the success of the Baksey Cham Krong was very quick. At the end of the decade the band already split, the brothers getting back to activities that conformed more with their parents expectations. A few years later, in April 1975, the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh put an end to this musical development and started the darkest era of Cambodia's contemporary history. A quarter of the population was killed in the Khmer Rouge genocide and the majority of artists and intellectuals were exterminated in a sordid will to wipe out any form of culture in the country. Films and music were banned, movie tapes and vinyls were destroyed. Mol Kamach and Mol Kagnol luckily managed to flee the country: one now lives in France, the other in the USA. Both still continue to make music nowadays. Bearing witness to the past history, the reissue of these two single records of Baksey Cham Krong brings back to us the Cambodian musical scene of the 1960s.
AKU 7002EP
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: AKU 7002EP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
KAMACH & BAKSEY CHAM KRONG, MOL Je Te Quitterai 7"
Limited restock. For the first time, two single records of Baksey Cham Krong - the first Cambodian guitar band - are officially being reissued in an identical version. Between surf music and ballad, these two records released in 1963 (Je Te Quitterai) and 1964 (Ne Penser Qu'A Toi (AKU 7001EP)) are an invitation to rediscover the effervescent Khmer musical scene of the 1960s. The early 1960s are often described as the "golden age" of Cambodia, with a flourishing economy and a strong cultural development. As the country had just won its independence, the King Norodom Sihanouk - who had been a singer himself - encouraged dynamism and creativity in all aspects of cultural life. In 1959, in the midst of this artistic turmoil, Mol Kamach and his brothers created a band: the Baksey Cham Krong (also spelled Bakseis Cham Krung) named after a temple of the Angkor site. The teenagers were influenced by the latest hits they had listened on the radio. For the music, Kagnol got his inspiration from the rock 'n' roll of The Ventures and The Shadows while Kamach took over the vocal techniques of crooners such as Paul Anka. The lyrics were either in French (as for the song "Ne Penser Qu'à Toi") or in Khmer. The song "Pleine Lune" became a hit and revealed Kagnol's musical genius at playing guitar and Kamach's delicate voice. From their beginnings on the capital's high school stages to their first broadcasts on national radio, the success of the Baksey Cham Krong was very quick. At the end of the decade the band already split, the brothers getting back to activities that conformed more with their parents expectations. A few years later, in April 1975, the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh put an end to this musical development and started the darkest era of Cambodia's contemporary history. A quarter of the population was killed in the Khmer Rouge genocide and the majority of artists and intellectuals were exterminated in a sordid will to wipe out any form of culture in the country. Films and music were banned, movie tapes and vinyls were destroyed. Mol Kamach and Mol Kagnol luckily managed to flee the country: one now lives in France, the other in the USA. Both still continue to make music nowadays. Bearing witness to the past history, the reissue of these two single records of Baksey Cham Krong brings back to us the Cambodian musical scene of the 1960s.
ALTER (UK)
ALT 036LP
 
PRICE: $32.00
CAT #: ALT 036LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
LOW LIFE Dogging LP
2022 repress. Dogging crawled into the world desperately and painfully. Originally slated for release on Brisbane's singular Negative Guest List Records in 2012, the label's owner sadly passed away before it got there. It eventually emerged two years later as a split between two labels from the band's home turf of Sydney, Disinfect Records and R.I.P. Society. It's fitting that the latter had reissued Venom P. Stinger's Dugald McKenzie-era material the year prior -- arguably the only other Australian band that compares to the tough, shit-kicking intensity found on Dogging. Comprised of Mitch Tolman, Cristian O'Sullivan, and Greg Alfaro at this point (the current 2017 line-up includes Dizzy from Oily Boys), the reckless ferocity and defeatist's humor is pointedly nihilistic. It's not kitsch nihilism either, it's the kind that enlivens. Indexing happiness, fear, lust, grief, and sorrow, the wry indulgences outlined in Tolman's coded and scheming lyrics amount to white-knuckle sincerity. It's disarming, but it's blunted by a weighty smirk. If all this weren't delivered through a sardonic curled lip, the violence at the edge of it all would perhaps come off a little less real. There's a bitterly angry confrontation with the contemporary Australian psyche once you enter Low Life's estate. Thugged-out and at pace, there's a genuine rush to Dogging. The mindless logic of "harder and faster" could never get you to where they were at this point. Even at the marginally calmer moments, the guitars glance you like a headache revealing just how bad it is. There's no respite, but on the whole, it's a very functional arrangement between the three of them. Each song is belted out with a short, sharp fit, with some synthesizers occasionally glistening out at the edges. The restraint is all the more fierce as it amplifies everything that's fucked about them. Low Life pull you through it all on all their terms, and that impact feels as untimely and excessive now as it did then.
ASH INTERNATIONAL (UK)
ASH 13-9CD
 
PRICE: $14.50
CAT #: ASH 13-9CD
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
GOLDMANN, STEFAN Call and Response CD
Stefan Goldmann's Call and Response has been crafted entirely from artificial reverb and nothing else: historic and contemporary units, responding only to brief electronic impulses (clicks). All sounds stem exclusively from the intrinsic properties of machines designed to replicate spatial acoustics. These range from early mechanical means such as springs and plates to increasingly complex algorithms aimed at convincingly approximating the rich acoustic responses of real world environments. The devices' idiosyncrasies enable the creation of spaces that fall short of naturalistic expectations. Yet new possibilities of exploring physically impossible alternative realities emerge. Recorded music has a rich history of much beloved and highly unreal spatial designs -- from the slap-back sounds of rock n' roll and the echoes of dub to gated snare reverbs and the nonlinear reflection bursts of 1980s drum machine fame. Despite the expected obsolescence of most historic efforts in the age of convolution reverb technology, many odd spatialization techniques persist and are now the subject of contemporary emulation. In Call and Response, the capacity of artificial reverb to go far beyond what the reflections of physical surfaces can elicit is often amplified to gargantuan proportions, only to be folded back into what appears to be the most minuscule of entrapments. Hissing tunnels and threatening wells vibrate left and right. A succession of "frozen" reverbs solidifies what otherwise would be fleeting reflections. Rapid shifts create artifacts that tear the fabric of space, only to reveal the underlying mechanics of its simulation. Occasional feedback, a reverb's output looped back into a unit's input, produces eerie harmonic textures inherent in algorithmic response curves (analogous to resonance frequencies determined by a room's geometric shape). The continuously dynamic handling of parameters such as size, density and shape allows for the exploration of impossible architecture along impossible trajectories. An aural choreography, plotted along permanently receding walls, liquid ceilings and crumbling floors. This is Goldmann's first album for Ash International. He runs the Macro label with Finn Johannsen.
BEACON SOUND
BNSD 069LP
 
PRICE: $23.00
CAT #: BNSD 069LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SABRA AND FADI TABBAL, JULIA Snakeskin LP
Snakeskin is an album of visionary electronic dream pop, shapeshifting above ambient and industrial undercurrents. It is moody, unsettling, luminous -- the culmination of a decade of collaboration and friendship between Lebanese producer/musician/engineer Fadi Tabbal and singer-songwriter Julia Sabra from Beirut-based indie trio Postcards. The duo began working on Snakeskin in the aftermath of the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, which killed at least 218 people, injured 7,000, and left over 300,000 people homeless. Indeed, Julia's home was destroyed by the explosion and her partner and bandmate Pascal badly injured. The first song that they wrote together afterwards was "Roots", which closes out the album and was composed for the Ruptured-curated series The Drone Sessions in the fall of 2020. Snakeskin utilizes tape loops, synthesizers, vocals, and drum machines, combining Julia's pop-inspired melodies and choral roots (an echo from her religious upbringing) with Fadi's affinity for minimalism and musique concrète. The album seamlessly incorporates the melancholy electro-pop of "All The Birds", the quiet menace of "In Our Garden" (long-lost treasures, ancient lies/another buried paradise), and the beat-driven "Signs". The title track sums up their frame of mind, beginning as a lullaby and evolving into a glittering tapestry of distortion and feedback. As the artists write, Snakeskin is a product of "the disappearance of life as we know it, and with it the decay of nature and living creatures. There is no rebirth, no renewal. It's about what it means to feel at home in such a place." Some tracks were also inspired by events happening in the surrounding region, such as the invasion of Armenia by Azerbaijan and the Palestinian uprising of May 2021 (Sheikh Jarrah) -- both events shedding light on relationships to home and land across the wider region. That such compelling art can emerge from unceasing tragedy may be the ultimate testament to human resilience and the pursuit of freedom and justice. "The moon speaks in tongues we can't discern/ A plastic dove hangs from a cypress branch/ Haven't you heard?/ Nothing grows here anymore/ The air is burnt/ Nothing grows..." RIYL: Gazelle Twin, Lali Puna, This Mortal Coil, Slow Walkers, Atlas Sound, Bowery Electric, Broadcast. Edition of 300.
BECAUSE MUSIC (FRANCE)
BEC 5611412
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: BEC 5611412
FILE UNDER: ROCK
VANGARDE, DANIEL The Vaults of Zagora Records Mastermind (1971-1984) CD
Born in 1947, Daniel Vangarde is a French songwriter and producer. In 1967, he met Jean Kluger who became his publisher. In the 1970s, their tandem stood out in those fields, for a plethora of popular French artists such as Petula Clark, Claude François, Joe Dassin, Dalida, Régine, Sheila, and Ringo. 1975 saw the birth of Vangarde's label, Zagora, and his first and only solo LP. Later on, Vangarde and Kluger were responsible for a number of hit songs by The Gibson Brothers, Ottawan, and La Compagnie Créole. With or without Kluger, Vangarde also wrote and produced songs that remained underground, under several monikers (Starbow, Who's Who, Soul Iberica Band, Yamasuki, Rocky & Vandella...) and for various artists. Because Music opens these incredible cosmic disco funk vaults. Features Starbow, The Electronic System, Daniel Vangarde, Who's Who, Soul Iberica Band, La Boca, The Lovelets, Yamasuki, The Great Disco Bouzouki Band, Vicky Edimo, Gibson Brothers, Black Blood, La Compagnie Créole, Ottawan, and Rocky & Vandella.
BIKINI KILL RECORDS
BIKINI 002EP
 
PRICE: $17.00
CAT #: BIKINI 002EP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
BIKINI KILL Bikini Kill EP 12"
2022 repress. "This is the 20th anniversary reissue of Bikini Kill's debut 12" EP. The vinyl reissue includes a new fanzine in the form of a 34" x 21" poster featuring interviews with Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens) and Molly Neuman (Bratmobile), liner notes by Layla Gibbon (Skinned Teen, MRR), excerpts from the band's zines (Bikini Kill #1 and #2, Jigsaw #4), and photos from the band members' personal archives. Bikini Kill was a feminist punk band that was based in Olympia, WA and Washington, DC, forming in 1990 and breaking up in 1997. Kathleen Hanna sang, Tobi Vail played drums, Billy Karren (a.k.a. Billy Boredom) played guitar, and Kathi Wilcox played bass. Bikini Kill is credited with instigating the Riot Grrrl movement in the early '90s via their political lyrics, zines, and confrontational live performances. The self-titled EP, originally released in the fall of 1992, comprises four songs recorded by Ian MacKaye at Inner Ear Studios; one song from the band's 1991 demo cassette, recorded by Pat Maley (Yo-Yo Studios) and one song recorded during Bikini Kill's live performance on April 4th, 1992, at Washington, D.C.'s Sanctuary Theater."
BIKINI 006LP
 
PRICE: $17.00
CAT #: BIKINI 006LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
BIKINI KILL Pussy Whipped LP
2022 restock; LP version. "Originally released in 1993, Pussy Whipped is Bikini Kill's debut full-length. Out of print for seven years. Bikini Kill was a feminist punk band based in Olympia, WA and Washington, D.C., forming in 1990 and breaking up in 1997. Kathleen Hanna sang, Tobi Vail played drums, Billy Karren (a.k.a. Billy Boredom) played guitar and Kathi Wilcox played bass. Bikini Kill is credited with instigating the Riot Grrrl movement in the early '90s via their political lyrics, zines, and confrontational live performances."
BILLBROOK RECORDS (GERMANY)
BILLBROOK 002LP
 
PRICE: $28.00
CAT #: BILLBROOK 002LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
ABORIGINAL VOICES Instant Music LP
"For a quarter of an hour, Zürich was the navel of the world . . . Contrary to legend, even back then, it was often those with a musical background who were the most successful. One such example, Henrich 'Wüste' Zwahlen, who had learned the violin, attended a jazz school and went into prog-rock before joining the Nasal Boys, one of the first punk bands in Zürich. The scene included the female band Kleenex, whose minimalism was praised by the London music press, while the world's most important rock theorist, Greil Marcus, wrote an ode highlighting Zürich's role as the birthplace of Dadaism. A fertile ground for the militant youth movement that exploded in 1980 and stirred up the city of banks, Protestantism, and boredom with raw wit and expressive violence . . . In Zürich's underground, the duo Aboriginal Voices caused a stir at that time. A couple, good-looking, styled, looking cool into the cold neon light, with a danceable beat and sequenced electro sounds, to which Micheline gave a very unique touch when she sang in French and English. Micheline had a classical piano education, had left home early, worked as a lighting technician in a strip joint and at Booster, the hottest boutique in town. Voilà: a musician who was as stylish as she was tough. She was already playing with Wüste in the band Doobie Doos, a band where everyone played an instrument they didn't master. In 1980 the Aboriginal Voices were formed, initially with vocalist Magda Vogel (of later UnknownmiX fame), who was trained as a classical singer. Frustrated by organizational friction and constant hassles with band lineups, Wüste and Misch decided to do everything as a twosome: self-mixed, self-styled, self-produced. With the top-of-the-line Linn drum machine clocking the beat, Wüste's guitar and Micheline on the Yamaha synthesizer created a unique sound of danceable electronic music . . . They had an interface built for the legendary Roland MC-4B, who sequenced the modular Roland System 100M but where one output controlled a light show synchronized with the sound. A pioneering act that fit well into the DIY spirit of punk, with its self-distributed tapes and fuck-you attitude towards the cretins of the music industry. Consequently, only two cassettes and an EP were released. There was something futuristic about the sound, the vestiary style and the electronics, while the attitude remained rebellious. Of course something so deep in the Zeitgeist wasn't meant to last. Wüste moved to New York, Micheline stayed in Zurich, both still active in the music scene to this day..." --Thomas Haemmerli
BUREAU B (GERMANY)
BB 058LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BB 058LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
CLUSTER Cluster 71 LP
2022 repress. 140-gram LP. Cluster's self-titled debut was originally released by Philips in 1971; this edition is the first reissue to restore the track running order of the original Philips release. Includes liner notes by electronic avant-garde pioneer Asmus Tietchens. In 1998, The Wire listed Cluster's self-titled debut as one of "100 Records That Set The World On Fire (When No One Was Listening)." Very few albums from Germany can lay claim to this honor. Cluster is a monster; it contains a mere three untitled tracks and was quite an ordeal for untrained ears when it was released. Yet the album pointed the way forward like no other electronic opus. Cluster's previous incarnation was a trio called Kluster. A change in direction and musical differences moved Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius to split from the group's third member, Conrad Schnitzler, in 1970. The following year, in addition to playing live, they recorded their first album in publisher Ralf Arnie's Star Musik Studio in Hamburg. Here they first met Conny Plank, who would himself become a legend. They remained close friends until Plank's death in 1987. Early Cluster music was new. New in the sense that it did not continue any tradition, instead laying the foundations for a future tradition. The duo's utter renunciation of conventional harmony and rhythm, embrace of near total aural abstraction, and confident use of noise, rigorous live electronic improvisation, and a positive mindset were all factors in Cluster's innovative trailblazing of 1971. For want of a better category, Cluster was classified rather inappropriately and incorrectly as "cosmic." Few recognized Cluster for what it was -- a synthesis of pop music, stripped of embarrassing glamor, and so-called serious music without intellectual constraints. Moebius and Roedelius took the liberty of raiding both disciplines to perfect their musical concept. A common enough practice today, but akin to a palace revolution in 1971. So it is that three pieces of electronic music meander and pulsate through Cluster, with no beginning and no end. Cluster's music is free and open in all directions. There are sounds, noises, and structures to be heard on this album that would become ingrained in the electronic pop music of the 1980s and 1990s. Cluster had taken the first step into the future.
BB 417CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: BB 417CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
REV, MARTIN To Live CD
Reissue, originally released 2003. "Like a blizzard in a snow globe American indie label File 13 Records released what was already Martin Rev's sixth solo album in the autumn of 2003. The previous year, Rev and his musical partner Alan Vega had struck out in a new direction on their American Supreme album and Rev's solo works continued in a similar vein. If Strangeworld (BB 337CD/LP) from the year 2000 actually felt more like a timeless abstract of Martin Rev's entire spectrum of musical influences, To Live, three years later, introduces more contemporary elements, including guitar samples for the first time. "The sound of To Live was actually one I had already been using live on stage for a couple of years. The inspiration didn't come from the 2000's but probably from something much earlier although I couldn't specifically pinpoint from where. It's also related to the rhythm tech I was using," Rev recalls. The record met with mixed reactions on release. Some critics were wrongfooted by sequence-driven segments and the industrial rock characteristics of the late 1990s -- not what they expected from a Rev album. In the same way that Suicide's revolutionary new sound was loved and hated in equal measure back in the 1970s, Rev was still polarizing opinion with his music some 30 years later. But even if synthesizer drones and minimalist keyboard figures were less prominent on To Live it is fair to say that all of the tracks shared the inimitable language of form which made Martin Rev's sound so distinctive. Layers of rhythmic loops fade into Rev's sporadic, recitative spoken words which are as tender as they are threatening, building into a snow globe blizzard where chromed glitter and golden confetti dance wildly, haphazardly. This is particularly striking on 'Gutter Rock', an overmodulated, hypnotically charming slice of lounge exotica. And this very sound of antithesis, between hard drum machines, guitar salvoes and Rev's intangible voice, in which every mood and sense of insecurity which foreshadowed the new millennium, especially in a city like Rev's New York, was shattered two years earlier on September 11. To Live is not easy to digest, a work of contradictions which marks a transition in Martin Rev's overall output as a child of its time, worthy of special attention in his legacy." --Daniel Jahn, February 2022
BB 417LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: BB 417LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
REV, MARTIN To Live LP
LP version. Reissue, originally released 2003. "Like a blizzard in a snow globe American indie label File 13 Records released what was already Martin Rev's sixth solo album in the autumn of 2003. The previous year, Rev and his musical partner Alan Vega had struck out in a new direction on their American Supreme album and Rev's solo works continued in a similar vein. If Strangeworld (BB 337CD/LP) from the year 2000 actually felt more like a timeless abstract of Martin Rev's entire spectrum of musical influences, To Live, three years later, introduces more contemporary elements, including guitar samples for the first time. "The sound of To Live was actually one I had already been using live on stage for a couple of years. The inspiration didn't come from the 2000's but probably from something much earlier although I couldn't specifically pinpoint from where. It's also related to the rhythm tech I was using," Rev recalls. The record met with mixed reactions on release. Some critics were wrongfooted by sequence-driven segments and the industrial rock characteristics of the late 1990s -- not what they expected from a Rev album. In the same way that Suicide's revolutionary new sound was loved and hated in equal measure back in the 1970s, Rev was still polarizing opinion with his music some 30 years later. But even if synthesizer drones and minimalist keyboard figures were less prominent on To Live it is fair to say that all of the tracks shared the inimitable language of form which made Martin Rev's sound so distinctive. Layers of rhythmic loops fade into Rev's sporadic, recitative spoken words which are as tender as they are threatening, building into a snow globe blizzard where chromed glitter and golden confetti dance wildly, haphazardly. This is particularly striking on 'Gutter Rock', an overmodulated, hypnotically charming slice of lounge exotica. And this very sound of antithesis, between hard drum machines, guitar salvoes and Rev's intangible voice, in which every mood and sense of insecurity which foreshadowed the new millennium, especially in a city like Rev's New York, was shattered two years earlier on September 11. To Live is not easy to digest, a work of contradictions which marks a transition in Martin Rev's overall output as a child of its time, worthy of special attention in his legacy." --Daniel Jahn, February 2022
BB 418CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: BB 418CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
REV, MARTIN Les Nymphes CD
Reissue, originally released in 2008. Hazy dream chronicles. "A Martin Rev album is always liable to spring a surprise. Think of the rough guitars which unexpectedly appeared on his 2003 release To Live (BB 417CD/LP) instead of synthesizers. Les Nymphes, which followed in 2008, saw Rev return to dream-laden melodic miniatures, but came from a resolutely more radical place than its predecessors. A minimalist thread runs through Martin Rev's oeuvre, and yet there is an opulence, something approaching exuberance, to the pieces on Les Nymphes. The first few seconds of the opening track 'Sophie Eagle' herald a towering sonic wave, a cascade of echoes and rhythm loops, with fragments of melody and Rev's sporadic utterances rising like whitecaps above splashing phase shifts. References to contemporary club music, in evidence on To Live, resurface here, along with the disconcerting guitar samples which dominated the previous album. The other tracks on Les Nymphes share a subcooled, dreamlike, slow rave sensibility amidst a post-industrial atmosphere which is reminiscent of Coil in the scope of its three-dimensional soundscape. Rev elaborates: "The similarities of Les Nymphes to house and dance were evident for sure, although I didn't start off searching for them in particular. It was probably the first work I brought to completion from start to finish on computer, and a lot of the tracks were digitally derived from interactive programs rather than outboard gear. The atmosphere and sound were inspired by a lot of reading I had been doing in Greek mythology and also investigating the same stories in different languages. Probably my spending a lot of time living in Montreal for several years was a strong influence in that it's a French speaking environment and all the book stores had a great array of classical literature in French and other languages." The inspiration of cultural mythologies is what makes Les Nymphes so irresistible, its hazy realities assembled in a dream chronology. What would an ethereal house or techno album sound under Rev's guidance? Once again, this work demonstrates the rigor of Martin Rev's approach, his willingness to embrace risk and his uncompromising rejection of a single aesthetic framework. Les Nymphes is, without question, the work of an artist who is constantly in search mode." --Daniel Jahn, February 2022
BB 418LP
 
PRICE: $33.00
CAT #: BB 418LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
REV, MARTIN Les Nymphes 2LP
LP version. Reissue, originally released in 2008. Hazy dream chronicles. "A Martin Rev album is always liable to spring a surprise. Think of the rough guitars which unexpectedly appeared on his 2003 release To Live (BB 417CD/LP) instead of synthesizers. Les Nymphes, which followed in 2008, saw Rev return to dream-laden melodic miniatures, but came from a resolutely more radical place than its predecessors. A minimalist thread runs through Martin Rev's oeuvre, and yet there is an opulence, something approaching exuberance, to the pieces on Les Nymphes. The first few seconds of the opening track 'Sophie Eagle' herald a towering sonic wave, a cascade of echoes and rhythm loops, with fragments of melody and Rev's sporadic utterances rising like whitecaps above splashing phase shifts. References to contemporary club music, in evidence on To Live, resurface here, along with the disconcerting guitar samples which dominated the previous album. The other tracks on Les Nymphes share a subcooled, dreamlike, slow rave sensibility amidst a post-industrial atmosphere which is reminiscent of Coil in the scope of its three-dimensional soundscape. Rev elaborates: "The similarities of Les Nymphes to house and dance were evident for sure, although I didn't start off searching for them in particular. It was probably the first work I brought to completion from start to finish on computer, and a lot of the tracks were digitally derived from interactive programs rather than outboard gear. The atmosphere and sound were inspired by a lot of reading I had been doing in Greek mythology and also investigating the same stories in different languages. Probably my spending a lot of time living in Montreal for several years was a strong influence in that it's a French speaking environment and all the book stores had a great array of classical literature in French and other languages." The inspiration of cultural mythologies is what makes Les Nymphes so irresistible, its hazy realities assembled in a dream chronology. What would an ethereal house or techno album sound under Rev's guidance? Once again, this work demonstrates the rigor of Martin Rev's approach, his willingness to embrace risk and his uncompromising rejection of a single aesthetic framework. Les Nymphes is, without question, the work of an artist who is constantly in search mode." --Daniel Jahn, February 2022
CAMISOLE RECORDS (FRANCE)
CAM 025LP
 
PRICE: $36.50
CAT #: CAM 025LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
SHIRAISHI, TAKAYUKI Photon 2LP
Reissue, originally released on CD only in 1997. A fascinating Japanese ambient techno excursion. Takayuki Shiraishi is no stranger to Camisole Records. With projects like BGM, MLD, or Tristan Disco, he is considered as one of the most prominent figures of underground Japanese music. Following those '80s industrial projects he continued his path and recorded numerous electronic tracks without forgetting his experimental roots. After an EP on the highly revered label Apollo with his alias Planetoid, he released on a very limited run his first album Photon only on CD in 1997. Mixing techno and ambient, those works were recorded between 1987 and 1996 to create a trancey ride of dreamy tunes. A journey through spectral dances and afterglows, dreamy incantations and Solar rituals devoted to euphoria. Experimental techno who never forget to keep your mind and body aware. Remastered by Krikor Kouchian.
CELLULE 75 (GERMANY)
CELL 009CD
 
PRICE: $16.00
CAT #: CELL 009CD
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
VINDICATRIX One or Several Tigers CD/BK
This album presents music created by Vindicatrix for Ho Tzu Nyen's One or Several Tigers, a theatricalized installation using ancient and contemporary cinematic techniques including shadow puppetry, CGI, motion capture (taken from a suspended Vindicatrix's body and facial movements), and animatronics, exploring the histories, cosmologies and ecologies of Southeast Asia through the figure of the Malayan tiger. The work begins as a duet between two central figures in Road Surveying Interrupted in Singapore (c. 1865), a wood engraving by Heinrich Leutemann, depicting an encounter between a British survey mission headed by George Dromgoole Coleman and a Malayan tiger in a forest in Singapore in 1835. In the Pre-Colonial Malayan world, the tiger was a medium for ancestral spirits. It was sometimes feared as a harbinger of disease, death and destruction, and sometimes regarded as a guardian. Shamans, vagrants, and sometimes descendants of royal blood were believed to have the gift (or the curse) of turning into tigers. This symbiotic relationship between humans and tigers was broken in the 19th Century with British colonialism, a period of ecological upheaval in which Malayan tigers were massacred. But the tiger is a master of metamorphosis, and its physical death only called forth its resurrection in new forms, with which it continued haunting the British colonialists during the Pacific War and its aftermath. One or Several Tigers condenses this complex weave of history, ecology, anthropology, and mythology into an operatic duet sung by a pair of digitally created figures. On one side, there is Coleman, Irish servant of the British empire, official surveyor and Superintendent of Public Works and Convicts in Singapore -- an agent of reason, order, imperialism and capitalism. On the other side, there is the Malayan tiger -- an embodiment of chaos and nature unbound, and a conduit of ancestral and magical forces. In their fateful encounter in the forested heart of Singapore in 1835, the tiger spared the humans. Vindicatrix plays the parts of both colonial surveyor and (were)tiger, singing and speaking from various points of transformation and dialogue between animal, surveyor and narrator, within a sound world that evokes images from the "seasonless tropical Hell" of the jungle, to the Javanese courts of Mataram -- clattering polyrhythms, contorted 19th century Orientalisms, nightmarish caterwauls, and fragmentary vocal treatments. The lines between human and animal, reason and magic, and history and folklore begin to blur. Includes book; 24-page art book (130x190mm).
CLOCKTOWER (CANADA)
CTLP 1045LP
 
PRICE: $15.00
CAT #: CTLP 1045LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
PERRY & KING TUBBY, LEE Cloak & Dagger LP
2022 repress; LP version. "Once again Clocktower bring you the massive and powerful tracks, such as 'Cloak & Dagger' DJ style led by King Tubby and Lee Perry. And they've also included the slow style of 'Cloak & Dagger' which you will never stop listening for generations to come, young and old. Then the following tracks of 'Blackboard Jungle' with two incomparable versions that will open up your ears to the greatest musicians on bass and drums, etc. We from Clocktower say listen, enjoy, party, and dance to all the fine production. We have compiled this for all who loves reggae music production beyond compare. Music of life." --Alfred Newman Not a reissue, a new compilation of early Lee Scratch Perry material, not previously issued in this form. With tracks recorded from the early '70s with material from Clocktower 7" only releases, etc.
COLLISION: CAUSE OF CHAPTER 3 (GERMANY)
CCT 30192LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: CCT 30192LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
DUBBLESTANDART/LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY/ARI UP Return From Planet Dub LP
2022 repress on LP. Features eight song highlights from the original double CD version of the album (CCT 3019CD). On the planet dub, Dubblestandart have already left their own crater with ten albums by now. Founded in the late eighties under the impression of Lee Perry's unique Black Ark productions and Adrian Sherwood's radical mixing maneuvers on On-U-Sound, the proven and sought-after backing band (Ari Up, Lee "Scratch" Perry Dillinger, Lilian Allen, Top Cat) around Paul Zasky has given Jamaican production techniques their own European face: bass-based, new wave-informed, on the cutting edge of mixing and adept in the tightrope walk between digital wumms and analog warmth, wordlessly mediating between patois and schmäh. With their eleventh album, they crown their career with a series of sensational collaborations (including Lee "Scratch" Perry, Ari Up and director David Lynch) and one that is unparalleled in terms of density, richness, depth and weight this season. Recorded in Kingston, the Bronx and in the home studio in Vienna. 180 gram vinyl.
COSMIC MYTH RECORDS
CMR 006CD
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: CMR 006CD
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
SUN RA & HIS BLUE UNIVERSE ARKESTRA Universe in Blue CD
"A collection of torrid live club performances at the legendary NYC venue Slugs. Originally released in 1972, these recordings provide an intriguing glimpse of the Arkestra's repertoire and virtuosity towards the end of their first decade in New York. Universe in Blue is a rarity. After-hours music, showcasing Sun Ra's twisted take on the Blues, these recordings brought him to the greater attention of New York jazz writers and helped cement his reputation for audacious showmanship. Ra and his band performed at the famed East Village Slug's almost every Monday night for several years through the late sixties, and took the stage sporadically for several years thereafter. This collection of undated performances from 1970-71 was issued in small-run pressings with two different LP covers on Sun Ra's Saturn label around 1972, but has largely escaped further notice."
CMR 006LP
 
PRICE: $23.00
CAT #: CMR 006LP
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
SUN RA & HIS BLUE UNIVERSE ARKESTRA Universe in Blue LP
LP version. Tip-on jacket. "A collection of torrid live club performances at the legendary NYC venue Slugs. Originally released in 1972, these recordings provide an intriguing glimpse of the Arkestra's repertoire and virtuosity towards the end of their first decade in New York. Universe in Blue is a rarity. After-hours music, showcasing Sun Ra's twisted take on the Blues, these recordings brought him to the greater attention of New York jazz writers and helped cement his reputation for audacious showmanship. Ra and his band performed at the famed East Village Slug's almost every Monday night for several years through the late sixties, and took the stage sporadically for several years thereafter. This collection of undated performances from 1970-71 was issued in small-run pressings with two different LP covers on Sun Ra's Saturn label around 1972, but has largely escaped further notice."
COULDN'T CARE MORE (GERMANY)
NTUNSURE 001EP
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: NTUNSURE 001EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
WE SMILE Remixes 12"
We Smile were part of the Hamburger Schule back in the early nineties: expressive vocals, associative lyrics in German and English, brittle guitars, and, overall, a quite broad interpretation of the general idea of pop. Now, 30 years later, Hamburg label Couldn't Care More releases these spectacular remixes of songs from We Smile's album Für Die Anderen: Glasgow's JD Twitch (Optimo) turns "Sack Voll Drogen" into one twisted colossus of a track, made from electro, breaks, and rave; Tokyo's Tentenko fires up the Casio for her two versions of "31 24 42"; and Hamburg's Mense Reents (Egoexpress, Die Vögel, Die Goldenen Zitronen) builds the most extraordinary elegant pop song from the sparse "Can't Resist (Popmusiker Sind Auch Künstler-Version)". Also included is the formidable (and remastered) original of "Kind Und Kegel".
DRAG CITY
DC 424LP
 
PRICE: $23.00
CAT #: DC 424LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
NIBLETT, SCOUT The Calcination Of Scout Niblett LP
2022 repress; LP version. "Drag City rolls up on the Scout Niblett scene just in time for the grand calcination. What luck, to arrive in time for such good timing! Her new record is her most tightly coiled long-player yet, a heavy handful of songs that are reaching for the ripe and the light. People come to Emma Louise 'Scout' Niblett for the joy of a scalding hot bath of sound amidst stark, bluesy emoting -- and she won't let 'em down this time. But something has shifted. Having made herself a record or two's worth of celebration ballads and moody freakouts, she seems to be hearing that call from within to feel for other things. Yelling at the kids around the way only ever gets you so far. And so, it's time to holler inward. The Calcination of Scout Niblett finds our girl in phase transition, exchanging elements for the betterment of her organism. Stripping down. Surrendering. Taking the bull by the wheel and driving to another place. Take the picture on the cover. It's the first album photo where Scout's acknowledging the camera, a new relationship giving sign of a greater awareness of herself and a desire to confront -- a new confrontation, a more sober and realistic conversation. Throughout The Calcination of Scout Niblett we see Scout in deep focus. The lens has dollied in and stuck there. The sweat conjured in performance permeates the screen; darkness is all around her, overwhelming the picture. She's in an empty space and her voice snaps against the walls, behind weird shadows we can't make out. And cutting through, we might believe that we're hearing an inner monologue or two. The songs string together, almost as one, her guitar growls and bites, and the black velvet of space hovers. Just when the tension in the room and the filament of guitar can't glow any brighter, suddenly a band erupts, accompaniment to her vision -- and then back down to Scout and guitar. All the better for the boys to not get too burned. Well, burned just enough. Well-done, even! The Calcination of Scout Niblett is an intense devotional, a determined spirit journey and a collection of great slow-dance songs."
DC 532LP
 
PRICE: $23.00
CAT #: DC 532LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
NIBLETT, SCOUT It's Up To Emma LP
LP version. "Over the course of 46 minutes and nine songs, It's Up To Emma simmers, storms and cascades through an alinear tale of domestic emotional crises, all of which are immaculately rendered in Scout's distinctive songwriting style. The dark news that the record brings is good news for Scout's fans, who look to her to get under the skin and, as if in a trance, live through these songs in an attempt to get everyone a bit of clarity. In Scout's eyes, the slowly uncoiling spirit world dances with the more chaotic animal called man. Friction between partners generates gradual tension, a sudden fracture that explodes from a backdrop of darkly bruised ego blues. Meanwhile, stars slip icily in and out of constellation mode. It wouldn't work if Scout weren't such a powerful singer or if her insistent guitar lines didn't echo so, or her records weren't so carefully produced to stand the stark details of the performance out against a lush, deeply black backdrop."
EDITIONS MEGO (AUSTRIA)
EMEGO 291LP
 
PRICE: $24.00
CAT #: EMEGO 291LP
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
GIBBS, MELVIN Anamibia Sessions 1: The Wave LP
Melvin Gibbs is the renowned bass player and producer from Brooklyn whose vast resume includes playing with Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, The Rollins Band, Dead Prez, Caetano Veloso, and Femi Kuti, amongst others. Behind the scenes, those who know Gibbs knew that amongst all this he was also tinkering away at another form of music, one which skirts around the border between music and sound design. The Wave is the first release that reveals this side of Gibbs's creative output to those outside his inner circle. The driving force for this output is Gibbs's multi-decade friendship with acclaimed American video artist and cinematographer, Arthur Jafa. Over the course of time Gibbs and Jafa have had many conversations about music and the connection between film and music. Jafa's desire to make film that worked the way Black (as in Black/African-American/Afro-diasporic peoples) music worked inspired Gibbs to study the filmmakers Serge Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov and incorporate their philosophies and tactics when recording his own music. The two discussed sound design which directly informed Gibbs's choice of music making tools and led to him acquiring Symbolic Systems Kyma software and hardware, incorporating this as a composition tool and sound design and component in his work. These conversations bore concrete fruit through Gibbs' work for TNEG, the film studio Jafa ran with filmmakers Malik Sayeed and Elissa Blount Moorhead. Gibbs created the soundtrack for their very first project, the short film Deshotten 1.0 (2009) as well as their Martin Luther King-inspired meditation on Black life Dreams Are Colder Than Death (2013). The bass-forward music, or "sonics" as Gibbs calls it, emerged from an alternative mode of contemplation, a mode that he sees as closer to the mindset of a rootworker, an African-American herbal doctor who cures psychic ailments using means derived from African spiritual practice. In 2020, Jafa asked Gibbs to work on the soundtrack for a work in progress called The Wave. When they got together to work on the soundtrack, Jafa played Gibbs a selection of sounds that included random moments of (probably unwanted) feedback on '70s Miles Davis records, Pop Smoke's Brooklyn drill, the music of Bernard Gunter and Darmstadt-style compositions made with test equipment. Those sounds, filtered through years of conversation with Jafa about Black creativity and the possible evolution of Black music, formed the sonic vocabulary of The Wave. Over time the sonics evolved and The Wave became the piece Jafa calls "AGHDRA". Gibbs mentions although the work with Jafa has always skirted these lines of evolution, this side of his vocabulary has been generally neglected, until now, due to his current jazz musician/jazz festival-centric focus and radar. The result of this parallel exploration is a deep excursion into a nuanced sound world. Includes printed inner sleeve and download code; edition of 500.
EL PALMAS MUSIC (SPAIN)
ELPALMAS 021LP
 
PRICE: $35.50
CAT #: ELPALMAS 021LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
PEREZ Y EL GRUPO CASABE, RAY Ray Perez y El Grupo Casabe LP/7"
Grupo Casabe can lay claim to being Ray Pérez's last great group. Fresh from the successes of Los Dementes and Los Kenya, Pérez was at the forefront of salsa in the mid-70s, and still experimenting with música bailable and all the danceable horn-blazing styles that were beginning to be known collectively as salsa. The finest tracks of this short-lived combo, active from 1974 until 1975, are now being celebrated by El Palmas Music on a new compilation simply titled Ray Pérez y El Grupo Casabe. Pérez was bandleader for an astonishing number of groups, which was partly due to his in-demand status, with each move to a new label meaning he needed a new band name. Such was the case with Ray Pérez y El Grupo Casabe, formed when CBS came calling. Their line-up built on his previous groups, with both a drum kit and percussion for additional power, with Pérez himself belting out those trusty piano montuños, however there was one significant change, with Pérez using saxophones for the first time, alongside his usual brass section of trumpets and trombones. With him for the ride were vocalists including Rodrigo Perdomo (brother of "El Negrito Calavén", from Pérez's earlier group, Los Calvos) and Rafael Morillo. The compilation begins with "María Antonia", the first 7" Grupo Casabe released in 1974. 1974 and 1975 were important years in the trajectory of salsa. It was this period when salsa became a collective name for urban orchestras playing Latin music styles like son, guaganco, mambo, cha-cha-cha and rumba. Though undoubtedly salsa -- Ray was a "rey de salseros" after all -- there is so much nuance in the music. "Campesino Nuestro" is a slow-building rural son, taking the Cuban countryside to the dancefloor; "Santa" and "Oye Nena" are twisting guaguancos, the former possessing one of Perdomo's finest vocal performances, and the latter the finest showcase for the band, with percussion, brass, and piano on fire. "La Reina", a danzón, show that the band can do the slow numbers too, and then there's "Sábado En La Tarde", Perez's take on surf with a melody seemingly taken from the finest Steve McQueen crime caper. There are few that come close to Ray Pérez for musical inventiveness and a sheer ability to keep dancefloors moving. Includes 7".
ELPALMAS 022LP
 
PRICE: $31.50
CAT #: ELPALMAS 022LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
CONJUNTO INGENIERIA Conjunto Ingenieria LP
Compiled by El Dragón Criollo and El Palmas Music. As the 1950s drew to a close a group of students at Caracas's Universidad Central de Venezuela caught the tropical music bug and decided to form an orchestra. With the majority of the students coming from the engineering faculty, they were duly christened Conjunto Ingeniería (The Engineering Group) and from the offset, they were ahead of the game. Tropical music, or música bailable (danceable music), was slowly making its way to Venezuela, but Conjunto Ingeniería had a secret weapon as one of their fellow students was studying in New York and every July he'd return with the latest Latin big band sounds: Tito Puente, Machito, they heard it first. Nine young male musicians playing the hippest sounds around, they were the obvious band to play high-society quinceañeras (15th birthday celebrations to mark a "girl's journey into womanhood"), as well as playing countless times at the university, on TV, at weddings, and at carnival, where on one occasion they accompanied Celia Cruz. "We were the first group to play at the launch party for 'salsa', a term that was established by the [Venezuelan] announcer Phidias Danilo Escalona in Barquisimeto we were considered the best orchestra", says Marquez. On record, their eclecticism and musical chops belied their age. In 1961, they released their self-titled debut album, which tackled mambo, guaracha, cha-cha-cha, and charanga, which included their cover of The Diamond's "Little Darlin'", arguably the first rock n' roll song recorded in Venezuela. They followed it up with Aqui Esta El Conjunto Ingenieria, their second album in 1962, in which they showed once more that rock could easily sit next to Latin. Their last album, Boogaloo Con Ingenieria, arrived in 1967, and made clear the influence of New York in their sound. Conjunto Ingeniería came to an end at the beginning of the '70s. Though their recording output was nowhere near as prolific as their contemporaries Billo's Caracas Boys or Los Melódicos, if you were turning on the TV, going to carnival or, especially, attending a quinceañera, in Caracas in the 1960s, then you would no doubt of come across Conjunto Ingeniería and their rock n' roll-embellished New York-meets-Venezuela big band sound. On this compilation, simply titled Conjunto Ingeniería, El Palmas Music have cherrypicked a glorious selection of tracks from across the group's career, capturing all the creativity and youthful excitement that made them one of the first titans of Venezuela's tropical music history.
ENJOY JAZZ RECORDS (GERMANY)
EJR 000CD
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: EJR 000CD
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
GURZHY, YURIY Richard Wagner & Die Klezmerband: Auf Der Suche Nach Dem Neuen Judischen Sound In Deutschland CD
Yuriy Gurzhy, former DJ of the legendary "Russendisko" and co-founder of the multilingual Berlin band RotFront, presented his first book: a fascinating interview volume compiled in a kind of sampling aesthetic on the subject of "Richard Wagner & and the Klezmer Band. In Search of the New Jewish Sound in Germany (Ariella Verlag)." The idea for it arose in a conversation between Gurzhy and Rainer Kern, the director of the Enjoy Jazz Festival. The book quickly attracted keen interest far beyond the feuilletons. And now the soundtrack is available. Yuriy Gurzhy, as a DJ a specialist in the field of compiling, has knowledgeably selected all the pieces himself. A good eclectic mix, ranging from folk to hip-hop. The 18-track CD is also the first release from Enjoy Jazz Records, the new "festival label for jazz and more." At first glance, it may seem irritating that Gurzhy mentions the avowed anti-Semite Richard Wagner and klezmer, i.e. Jewish folk music, in the same sentence. In the "Jüdische Allgemeine" Gurzhy answered the question why he included the German composer in the title of his book. Against this background, by the way, Gurzhy himself provides one of the highlights of the album. For in the RotFront song "Girl from Bayreuth" he bilingually tells the absurdly convoluted story of how a man falls unrequitedly in love with a blond German violinist during a Wagner concert in Tel Aviv and from then on incessantly maltreats his neighbor through the thin walls with a mixture of crying fits and Wagner music. In addition, there is a wonderfully ironic side-splitting by Geoff Berner, performed in a children's song ductus ("Half-German Girlfriend"), a Balkanese brass version of the folk song "Hava Nagila" by Shazalakazoo/Edi Partizani or the organ-soaked rock of Forshpil ("Meydl in di yorn"), of course with guitar solo. Also features Vivian Kanner, Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird, You Shouldn't Know From It, Jewrhythmics, Paul Brody's Sadawi, Solomon & Socalled, Fayvish, Jewdyssee, Jewish Monkeys, KlezCore, The Disorientalists, Andrea Pancur, Yahoodi, and Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars.
FEEDING TUBE RECORDS
FTR 392CS
 
PRICE: $15.00
CAT #: FTR 392CS
FILE UNDER: ROCK
CVS Ad Hoc Cassette
"Ad Hoc is this Spanish trio's first release with which they've disguised themselves as a popular American drug store chain. There was an earlier cassette issued under the Cunningham/Volt/Serra banner, which is probably a more elucidating name, but brevity being the soul of wit (and all that), it's surely more modern a choice to go with the acronym they occasionally employ. Acronyms, after all, suggest a kind of sleekness. And the music created by CVS is as sleek as a goddamn otter. The line-up is unusual. Our great friend, Mark Cunningham (of Mars, Blood Quartet, etc.), plays trumpet. Trumpet is also the chosen 'axe' of fellow Barcelonan underground musician, Pablo Volt. The third member, Andreu Serra (who also works and records widely under various soubriquets), focuses here on guitar and sax. I'm having a tough time naming another unit with this line-up, and indeed, CVS doesn't sound quite like any other band I can easily conjure. Both trumpeters work in a hybridized cool/avant tradition. Their lines certainly go 'out' at times, but there's none of the smear/fracture of Don Cherry, who is the main model for so many trumpeters. If you need to point fingers, Mark and Pablo's styles might be said to share a resonance with the later work of Bill Dixon, although both of them favor warmer tones. Andreu's approach to both sax and guitar is equally off-center, with outwardly-focused splange of strange but genteel nature. But this is not a 'jazz' album by any means. Cunningham (and his collusionists) have employed jazzoid moves as component parts of an avant/jazz/rock hybrid since the days of Don King (and maybe before.) The avant electronic passages and rockoid forward motion are huge parts of this music's character. Ad Hoc is just another step on a path with a long, storied history and a luminous, infinite future." --Byron Coley, 2022
FTR 394CS
 
PRICE: $11.50
CAT #: FTR 394CS
FILE UNDER: ROCK
KARLSSON, NIKO Its Own Phantom Cassette
"Five years after the magnificent Valosta Valoon LP (FTR 331LP, 2017), Finnish multi-instrumentalist, Niko Karlsson is back with a new swab of sound that is even more organic than its predecessor. This time out the focus is more on acoustic strings and percussion, with a minimum of machine-driven sounds, even when things get cinematically tense (especially on the B-side). But the bulk of Niko's new tape (which he had first suggested be released sans any artist info) is a mesmeric assemblage of small gestures that feel something like a meditation exercise taking place in the great outdoors. Acoustic strings swirl around your head like a flock of soft ravens, then expand spectral fingers to search your spine for arcane gifts. Gongs ignite barely visible fires in the distance. And you start to quiver until the earth shakes. That said, there are certainly a few more ominous passages where the sound gathers up more like storm clouds than sunshine, but the shade these portions cast are ultimately transitory. The music on Its Own Phantom has a charmed ruralist glow that is sure to delight wanderers of many stripes. So pick a fork. Any fork. The kingdom of heaven is within you." --Byron Coley, 2022
GLADYS PALMERA RECORDS (SPAIN)
DGP 001R-LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: DGP 001R-LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
GUANTANAMO BOYS, THE Latin Guateque Remixes 10"
Reissue of one of the lesser-known titles of the legendary catalog of the New York label SMC (Spanish Music Center). Highly sought-after among Latin music collectors, ideal for DJs specializing in Latin soul, boogaloo, salsa, Latin music, psychedelic sounds, and exotic music. It includes on the A side the theme "Let's Dance The Bugalú" (actually Boogaloo), featured in the New York dances of the late '60s, which demonstrates its validity; and "Aprende Mi Tumbao", a boogaloo-rock that begins as a guajira, Cuban rhythm perfect for intensity changes in discos and clubs. And on the side B two remixes of "Aprende Mi Tumbao" in charge of the best DJs today. The first is made by Andy Grey (resident DJ of Gladys Palmera) and Desi Calatayud (producer and sound designer); and the second, by Tiraya (selector, producer, percussionist).
GUERSSEN RECORDS (SPAIN)
GUESS 069CD
 
PRICE: $16.50
CAT #: GUESS 069CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
TOP DRAWER Solid Oak CD
Reissue, originally released in 1972. One of the rarest private pressings from the US from this band from Mansfield, Ohio. Psychedelic hard rock with a charming, homemade feel. Including the monster psych opus "Song Of A Sinner" plus more cool tracks with great guitar/organ interplay. Sourced from the original master tapes. Includes insert with liner notes by band member Steve Geary and photos.
GUESS 182LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: GUESS 182LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
MANCO, BARIS Sakla Samani Gelir Zamani (Picture Disc) PIC. DISC
Picture disc reissue, originally released in 1976. In 1976, Baris released his third album which was actually also a compilation of songs previously released in 45s, as happened with his debut. For this LP release, and basically because of contractual reasons, Guerssen Records present this compilation with a few changes: two of the original songs are not there, and the label added four new ones. So, what you get here is a scorchin' collection of funky psychedelics Turkish way in a cool picture disc that will knock you out. Big Baris beats them all, the king of Anadolu pop!
GUESS 184LP
 
PRICE: $28.00
CAT #: GUESS 184LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
OPTIC NERVE Forever and a Day LP
Reissue. Recorded in 1988 but not released until 1993, Forever and a Day was the first full-length album by our favorite NYC jingle-jangle mop-tops, full of mid-60s sounding garage-y folk-rock. Out of print for many years, here's a long overdue vinyl reissue with band-sanctioned new artwork and remastered sound. Includes insert with detailed liner notes and photos; includes download card. "A folk-rock masterpiece. Sounding like Bob Dylan fronting the Blue Things, the band reprised the mood and feel of the genre they mined with amazing accuracy." --Beverly Paterson (Something Else!)
GUESS 185LP
 
PRICE: $28.00
CAT #: GUESS 185LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
OPTIC NERVE Lotta Nerve LP
Reissue, originally released in 1994. Formed in New York in 1985, The Optic Nerve were children of Nuggets who dreamed about the Velvet Underground but looked like the Byrds. Their take on '65-66 jangly garage-folk-rock was unrivaled. Lotta Nerve collects their fabulous early 45s plus studio tracks for what should have been their aborted first album. Out of print for many years, here's a new vinyl edition with new artwork and remastered sound. RIYL: Byrds, Love, Gene Clark, Leaves, Dylan, Emitt Rhodes. Includes insert with detailed liner notes and photos; also includes download card.
GUESS 203LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: GUESS 203LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
TOP DRAWER Solid Oak LP
LP version. Hard cardboard sleeve with OBI and insert; includes download card. Reissue, originally released in 1972. One of the rarest private pressings from the US from this band from Mansfield, Ohio. Psychedelic hard rock with a charming, homemade feel. Including the monster psych opus "Song Of A Sinner" plus more cool tracks with great guitar/organ interplay. Sourced from the original master tapes. Includes insert with liner notes by band member Steve Geary and photos.
GUESS 204LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: GUESS 204LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
RJ & THE RIOTS RJ & The Riots LP
Reissue, originally released in 1964. Cool rock n' roll, surf, beat and garage-rock from Philippines in the '60s. Led by teen guitar wizard Ramón "RJ" Jacinto, RJ & the Riots was one of the first rock n' roll/beat bands from the Philippines and certainly the first to release original rock n' roll songs with lyrics in their own country. This is the first ever reissue of their second album, now impossible to find (four stars rating in Hans Pokora's 1001 Record Collector Dreams book). Including original songs like the monster instrumental "fuzzed", the garage sounding "Advertising Man", "Girl Nice", the surf rock of "Trip To Manila", and more plus a few rad covers (Beach Boys, Buddy Holly). The album was recorded at the home studio built by whizz kid Ramón Jacinto, who also operated his own record label (RJ Productions), magazine (Teenstone), and radio station (from his parent's backyard). RJ & the Riots started as a high school band of classmates composed of Ramón "RJ" Jacinto (lead guitar), Alan Austria (bass guitar), Jimmy Colayco (rhythm guitar), and Bernie Evangelista (drums) with ages ranging from 15-17 years old. They were one of the first bands with electric instruments in the Philippines and this album marked the transition from instrumental rock to vocals. Today, RJ is a well-known businessman (founder of a TV and radio network), Pinoy rock n' roll icon and continues his musical journey performing rock n' roll hits of the '50s-80s at his own Bistro "RJ" music lounge, where the top of Philippine society, movers and shakers, go to dance and sing to RJ's rock n' roll classics. RIYL: Ventures, Beach Boys, Buddy Holly, Stones, Jan & Dean, Beatles. Remastered sound; color insert with liner notes and rare photos; includes download card with the album plus one bonus track from a rare 45 ("Rave On Teenstone").
GUESS 211LP
 
PRICE: $35.00
CAT #: GUESS 211LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
NECRONOMICON Tips zum Selbstmord LP
50th anniversary official reissue of this holy grail kraut album from 1972. Real underground heavy-prog/psychedelic hard-rock with raw, in-your-face production, German lyrics, insane acid-fuzz guitar, garage organ and dark, proto-doom atmosphere -- the real deal! Named after the famous Lovecraft book, Necronomicon formed in the German town of Aachen in 1970, first influenced by bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Hendrix... In 1972 they entered a small studio in the Dutch border and recorded in just five days a concept album named Tips zum Selbstmord. The title roughly translates as "Tips on how to commit suicide" but the message the band wanted to give had nothing to do with taking your own life but instead with how mankind was facing self-destruction, destroying its own planet by pollution, wars, exploitation and overpopulation. 500 copies of the album were privately pressed by the band, housed in a lavish, cross shaped multi fold-out cover. It was a graphical translation of what they wanted to express musically. Original copies are impossible to find, making it one of the most desirable and sought-after kraut/German albums ever. Here's a long overdue new vinyl reissue. RIYL: Black Sabbath, Amon Düül, Gila, Paternoster, Hawkwind, Gäa, German Oak, Pink Floyd, Hendrix. Faithful reproduction of the original multi-fold-out cross shaped cover; sourced from the original master tapes; insert with detailed liner notes and photos. "... one of the best and most unique German records of the early seventies." --Cosmic Dreams At Play "... Necronomicon has created a dark and powerful vision that blends psychedelic and progressive music with a proto-punk garage band sensibility" --Rolf Semprebon (AllMusic)
HABIBI FUNK (GERMANY)
HAB 008LP
 
PRICE: $31.00
CAT #: HAB 008LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
KEILA, KAMAL Muslims And Christians 2LP
2022 restock. Double LP version. "Songs about the unity of Sudan, peace between Muslims and Christians and the fate of war orphans, backed by grooves equally taking influence from Arabic sounds, American funk as well as neighboring Ethiopia. Kamal Keila was among the first artist we met in Sudan during our two trips to Khartoum and Omdurman last year. He is one of the key figures of the Sudanese jazz scene that was a vital part of the musical culture in Sudan from the mid-1960s until the Islamist revolution in the late 1980s. When we meet Kamal he luckily presented us with two mold covered studio reels. Each tape included five tracks. One with English lyrics and another with Arabic ones. Musically you can hear the influence of neighboring Ethiopia much more than on other Sudanese recordings of the time, as well as references to Fela and American funk and soul. His lyrics, at least when he sings in English which gave him more freedom from censorship, are very political. A brave statement in the political climate of Sudan of the last decades, preaching for the unity of Sudan, peace between Muslims and Christians and singing the blues about the fate of war orphans called 'Shmasha'. A note inside one of the boxes specified the track titles, durations and the fact that the sessions were recorded on the 12th of August 1992. Both sessions stand as a hearable testament how Kamal Keila stuck to a sound aesthetic from decades ago, while incorporating current events into his lyrics. Kamal Keila's album is the first in a series of releases covering the Sudanese jazz scene on Habibi Funk."
HAB 009LP
 
PRICE: $26.00
CAT #: HAB 009LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
SCORPIONS & SAIF ABU BAKR, THE Jazz, Jazz, Jazz LP
2022 repress; LP version; includes download. "Incredibly unique modernized adaptations of traditional rhythms of the diverse regions of Sudan, recorded in Kuwait 1980. The 'holy grail' album from Sudan. 'I heard about Seif Abu Bakr and The Scorpions maybe 3-4 years ago. Their album Jazz, Jazz Jazz ended up on my radar because of an eBay auction with the bids eventually rising daily up to a staggering 1000$. The music is a unique combination of incredible horn arrangements powerfully performed, a vigorous drummer contributing a funky backbone and Seif's vocals uniting those elements. The results range from instrumental tracks awaking memories of 1970s crime thriller soundtracks to more Sudanese-rooted tracks, a lot of them modernized versions traditional rhythms of the diverse regions of Sudan and even an excursion into Colgolese Soukouss. The jazz scene started to perish after president Nimeiry's turn away from his socialist policies, that he was widely associated with in the first decade of his rule, towards the implementation of Sharia law in 1983. During the first decade of his rule he had actively supported various artists of the Jazz scene, taking some of them on trips throughout Africa. The 1989 coup of Bashir and his generals then caused the final blow to a once thriving scene. Both of these political events within 6 years lead to significant drawbacks for the Sudanese jazz scene resulting into hardly no gig opportunities left and parties and concerts being critically observed. A number of musicians faced prosecution, most of the time for their political views; some left Sudan for good. Music never completely vanished from public life and even the regime kept selected artists close, but for a majority of those bands affiliated to the jazz scene life and making ends became a lot harder. The Scorpions dissolved as a group around the same time. The re-release was produced with a clean copy of the vinyl version as a source. The original reel tape of the album stayed with Saif Abu Bakr along with another reel with other recordings that were never released. Unfortunately it was lost when Saif Abu Bakr had to flee to Kuwait temporarily during the second gulf war when Iraq raided Kuwait. Both the CD and vinyl version come with extensive booklets with photos, interviews, liner notes." Jannis Stuerz / Habibi Funk Records, 2018).
HAB 015LP
 
PRICE: $38.00
CAT #: HAB 015LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
VA Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection From The Arab World (Part 2) 2LP
2022 repress; double LP version. "This compilation of songs is not meant as a historic reflection of popular music of the 'Arab world.' It is a very personal selection of songs we grew to like at Habibi Funk. It is music that historically never existed as a unified musical genre. We think it's important to make this distinction and to have the listener understand that the majority of the music on this compilation does not come from the highly famous names of the musical spectrum of North Africa and the Middle East. Instead, the final body compiled for this record consists of some -- at least for us -- niche-y pearls and often overlooked artists; resulting in a diverse range of styles from Egyptian organ funk, disco sounds from Morocco, an example of the lively reggae scene of Libya, political songs from Lebanon, soundtrack music from Algeria, a musical union between Kenya and Oman, and much more. The photo we chose for this cover somehow could be seen as an allegory of the sounds we feature on the label. It depicts Algerian composer Ahmed Malek at an ice cream bar during his stay in Japan for the World Expo in Osaka, 1970. He later said that his visit to Japan and especially the manga culture left a distinctive mark on the way he created his own compositions. With this in mind, it feels as a suiting visual representation for the music on this compilation. Accordingly, the compilation you are holding in your hands offers a much wider range of music than just funk influenced sounds. Sure, it brings back Fadoul, who we have already dedicated a full-length album to. He was the mystical Moroccan singer who -- influenced by the sounds of James Brown -- created his own musical vision full of energy but also still very intimate. Another artist we have featured before is Ahmed Malek, the grand Algerian soundtrack composer, whose music is largely connected by a distinct feeling of melancholic beauty or Hamid Al Shaeri, the Egyptian hit producer whose track 'Ayonha' was probably the most widely appreciated track off our first compilation. But we have also learned that this format of a compilation can serve as a medium to introduce artists to our audience, who we are planning to dedicate full length releases to in the near future, such as Ibrahim Hesnawi. Hesnawi is the father of reggae music in Libya -- a genre still widely popular in Libya -- and whose presence in the country is commonly connected to the rhythmic similarities of reggae with some form of Libyan folkloric music. Nahib Alhoush is another Libyan artist, whose musical output we will spotlight in the near future. In the 1970s, he was the co-founder of Free Music, one of the first Libyan bands introducing western influences into their music. After the band stopped performing together he started an at least equally successful solo career under his own name. When I got into Arabic music around five or six years ago, I knew pretty much nothing about it. Realistically, I still know very, very little about it and I'm by no means an expert. I just had the opportunity to visit the region frequently, trying to learn about music I might like. Most of the bands, I happen to enjoy, were fairly obscure and therefore a lot of the music on this compilation seems to be largely forgotten. After sharing many of the old records and tapes online through mixes, I have realized that there is a huge disparity between the interest in the music on the one hand and its availability on the other. All tracks on this compilation are fully licensed, most directly from the artist or in the case of artists, who are deceased licensed from the artist's family. There are two exceptions: Hamid Al Shaeri's track was licensed from SLAM! as the label is still active under the name Sonar. Zohra's 'Badala Zamana' from the great Belgian label MTMU, who has reissued this track under license from the producer on 7" format before."
HEIDETON RECORDS (GERMANY)
HR 022LP
 
PRICE: $35.50
CAT #: HR 022LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
VA Green 3LP
Lower Saxony's best kept secret, Heideton Records, returns with their most ambitious and comprehensive release to date, a double pack titled Green. Green taps into the rich history of European house and techno, from Panorama Bar to Bar25 royalty, while also championing a new era of producers and cult label favorites. The album is an exploration of the textures and timbres that make up the golden hours between day and night and night and day. You move from the sunset kaleidoscopic deep house of Bobby Cazanova to the drifting introspection of Joe Metzenmacher alongside Borka & the Gang to the peak-time punch of Mathias Kaden. You shift seamlessly from the psychedelic techno naughtiness of André Galluzzi and Daniel Stefanik and all the way back to sunrise with Cassy who turns out a best-in-class disco house. This is an album of impossibly deep dance music crafted with a particular emotional flair. Green is an expertly curated collection of the finest in contemporary club tracks -- from deep house to bouncy UK garage to tripped-out techno. More than the sum of its parts, the record is also remarkably cohesive thanks to the care and precision each producer brings, displaying an intimate knowledge of what works on both the dancefloor and in your headphones on the walk home. Across 12 tracks, Green celebrates deepness both sonically and politically. Also features Florian Hollerith, Joe Metzenmacher, Tobi Neumann, Dorian Paic, Sid, Murmur Tooth, Lars Moston, and Behind Those Ears. Gatefold sleeve.
HOLD YOUR GROUND (GERMANY)
HYG 023LP
 
PRICE: $34.00
CAT #: HYG 023LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
RAMPUE Tragweite 2LP
Berlin-based producer Rampue has not released an album in 14 (in words: fourteen) years. Between 2008 and 2020 he toured the world and worked mainly on his live sets in the meantime. So now only a worldwide pandemic had the power to prevent the traveling musician from continuing this hustle and bustle and eventually share a new record with the public. The new Rampue album Tragweite came into existence in February 2021, which portrays the artist's desire for experimentation. Inspired by a modular synthesizer (Buchla), Rampue has seemingly put himself into a kind of trance, in which he lets the machines work and combines randomly created sounds with airy structures such as low drums or simple grooves. Rampue accomplished to break free by using random sounds as a new impulse and a way out of a creative crisis, which stemmed both from the enforced home isolation and from the self-perceived paralysis. Listening to Tragweite one gets the impression that the dialectical relationship between chaos and order, further supported by its production, is the defining theme of the album. After an initially perceived chaos, a delicate order, which is determined by structuring drum patterns and basslines, takes over throughout the course of the album. Later, it frays and loses itself again in sounds and tones created mechanically. However, it never seems arbitrary, but willful and skillfully staged. For instance, "Fur?" begins with apparent arrhythmia. The combination of bass and subtle percussion, however, gives this arrhythmia a shape, guiding the track which gradually becomes more and more driving without losing its original playfulness. Although one might be inclined to think of genres such as downtempo or ambient at the beginning in the further course of the album results in such a diverse sound and rhythmic landscape that one willingly questions one's own perception of music while listening and finally throws every type of categorization overboard joyfully. The musical spectrum ranges from straight arrangements that live entirely without a drum foundation ("Für Dich") to almost meditative sound collages ("Regengesicht") to the four-to-the-floor banger "Kembang". "Direct Faden" on the other hand, surprises with its simple guitar-based foundation on which the omnipresent synth snippets and pads are allowed to let off steam towards the end of the record. The track that most closely combines the progressive production style with a danceable club atmosphere is probably "Phobia". Rampue breaks with his old, musical habits as Tragweite creates the impression of improvisation and jam character without getting lost.
IMPORTANT RECORDS
IMPREC 494LP
 
PRICE: $43.50
CAT #: IMPREC 494LP
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
DOCKSTADER, TOD Aerial II 2LP
Tod Dockstader's Aerial series, an electronic/drone masterpiece, is cherished among fans of the artist's work and this second volume is available in an audiophile quality double LP. Tod Dockstader's Aerial series is sourced from his life-long passion for shortwave radio. Dockstader collected over 90 hours of recordings, made at night, and comprised of cross signals and fragments plucked from the atmosphere. Opening with airwave drones, Dockstader gradually allows elements to slowly come and go, summoning an ominous atmosphere of ethereal cloud clouds. Malignant placidity continues, giving the feeling of eavesdropping upon late-night audio activity not unlike discovering number stations while sweeping the dials. These sounds pull you in as their density and rhythms come and go. Backward voices, deep echoing choruses of conversations flowing under the surface, ocean sounds, pulsing electro-rhythms, all seem to be created via the collaging of many hours of source recordings. A masterwork of collage and juxtaposition by an overlooked pioneer of American electronic music. Artwork by John Brien (Imprec) is inspired by the propagation of shortwave radio signals throughout the earth's atmosphere. Edition of 500.Tod Dockstader on the Aerial project (September 14, 2003): "... When I was very young, people got most of their entertainment from radio. They called it 'playing the radio,' as if it were a musical instrument. That's what I've tried to do in this piece. About this time, a few people encouraged me to look into using a computer for this work. I'd never used one, but I saw it would allow me to keep my mixes digital -- no more transfer losses. So, at the end of 2001, I got a computer and an editing program for it, and spent what seemed a long time learning it. I began selecting mixes and loading them into the computer in late March, 2002. Out of the 580, I selected 90 'best' mixes -- eventually reduced to 59, the ones on the CDs. Finally, in assembling the CDs, I followed David Myers' suggestion to allow each piece to flow into the next - making a continuous journey to the end.""This return of Dockstader is something to cherish, not just because his output has been so limited and scarce but because what we do have is so intriguing, persuasive and cliche-free; the music of an inspired explorer who trails in nobody's slipstream." --The Wire
K7/BECAUSE MUSIC (FRANCE)
K7 415EP
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: K7 415EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
OTIK Crystal Clear/Rainbow Rhythm 12"
45RPM. Hailing from Bristol and based in London, Ashley Thomas routinely passes the storied music heritage of both cities through his own singular, prismatic filter. As Otik, he produces brilliant and complex hues, forming compositions from weightless neon-tinged trails, richly layered melodic webs and inky, subaqueous bass lines. The prolific artist recently created his own imprint, Solar Body, to accommodate the expanse and volume of his unfettered productions; now with his !K7 Record debut, Otik deepens his sonic explorations for the label he credits as a crucial discovery portal. "Crystal Clear" is inspired by a personal epiphany, and it shines through with sparkling clarity. With the unmistakable signifiers of dancehall in its bassline and drum programming, Thomas turns these references outwards and upwards, finding a new expression with glistening drops of cosmic color, gauzy pads, and soft crescendos of cymbals. Despite coming in hard and fast with a bruising 130BPM bass rhythm "Rainbow Rhythm" evokes a positively disorienting kaleidoscope for Thomas, courtesy of its sugary, euphoric synth sounds. It is a balance of hard and soft, leading heavily with drums throughout, contrasted with the track's delicate and sweetly warped melody.
KIOSK I.D. (GERMANY)
KIOSKID 013LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: KIOSKID 013LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
DORAD, DAVID Murmel EP 2x12"
If you've been in the club scene for many years like David Dorad, you will one day face the big, essential, serious questions that each of us will ask ourselves sooner or later: Are marmots pack animals? Can marmots sign language? Do marmots plan their lives according to European or Chinese zodiac signs? Do marmots need a special passport, after all they don't have a thumb to turn the pages? What happens when a marmot eats Coke and Mentos at the same time? And with all those questions whistling, hissing and muttering in his head, David grabbed piano, baton and BioBassline to crochet his new EP. This is called "Marble" and offers six different approaches to solve these big questions. As a source of ideas, he has competent partners at his side in Roman Flügel, Mira, Christopher Schwarzwälder, Canson, and Sascha Cawa.
LILITH (RUSSIAN FEDERATION)
LR 138LP
 
PRICE: $28.50
CAT #: LR 138LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
FAUST Faust LP
2022 restock. Legendary German post-rock band formed in 1971 by undisputed noise pioneer Uwe Nettelbeck, Faust garnered an immediate following due to its artistically extreme experimentations with music cut ups and other mixed sources hinging on cacophony and distortion. Don't miss their 1971 cult classic debut, now reissued with its original clear printed sleeve on 180 gram clear vinyl.
MAD ABOUT RECORDS (PORTUGAL)
MAR 061LP
 
PRICE: $31.50
CAT #: MAR 061LP
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
MCCLERKIN, CORKY Searchin' For The Soul LP
Reissue, originally released in 1983. One of the rarest boogie jazz records ever. The private press album includes the rare groove classic "Searchin' For The Soul". Corky McClerkin's early career follows It follows in the wake of the infectiously funky, blues-based keyboard music exemplified by hard-bop paragons Horace Silver and Bobby Timmons in the '50s and '60s. Not surprisingly, McClerkin listened to those pianists while growing up on Chicago's south-side; he also heard plenty of Ahmad Jamal (who then lived and worked in Chicago), and Jamal's trademark airiness occasionally works its way into the mix as well. Since the 1960s, Corky has performed professionally throughout the Chicago area, guided by his mentor, jazz tenor great Von Freeman, he developed his talents throughout the 1970s while also discovering his passion for writing. As a featured columnist for the Chicago Courier, he was inspired to write Undercurrents (1978), a collection of short stories about the black experience. In 1981, Corky strengthened his talents by taking on the position of musical director and arranger for the Chicago production of Sasha, Sing Dinah! and wrote "a play, Life Cycles," performed at the Chicago Cultural Center. In 1983 he built on his experiences by releasing his first album, Searchin' For The Soul on WinCor Records in 1983. Hard-cardboard sleeve; obi; 180 gram vinyl.
MAMA TOLD YA (FRANCE)
MTY TERRE
 
PRICE: $69.50
CAT #: MTY TERRE
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
VA Contre Tous, Toutes Et Tous, La Terre Demeure 4LP
Anetha releases her second seismic compilation on her label Mama Told Ya entitled Contre Tout, Toutes Et Tous, La Terre Demeure, just one year after MTY-EAU L'eau Repousse Les Feux Agressifs (2021). Through earth element, the compilation comes up with the collaboration of 19 artists -- 19 tracks, divided into four vinyl records: Anetha has brought together a generation of young electronic music artists from around the world to get their hands dirty and produce some solid gems. Features Öspiel, Tahl, Anetha, Drazzit, Paul Copping, 74185#, Gutkein, Mac Declos, Elise Massoni, Voiski, Nebuchadnezzar, Valerie Ace, Nui.R, Luca Eck, Boo, Peachlyfe, Onleash, Ida Engehardt, and Schacke.
MESH-KEY
MKY 024CD
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: MKY 024CD
FILE UNDER: ROCK
AUNT SALLY Aunt Sally CD
"A true desert island disc, criminally out of print for nearly 40 years. This seminal, eponymous post-punk album by Japanese group Aunt Sally, fronted by experimental singer Phew (Mute Records), was first released by the iconic Vanity Records label in 1979. Over the past forty-plus years, Phew has forged a singular path through a wide range of styles -- from free improvisation to pop -- and has collaborated with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, members of Can, DAF, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Raincoats, and more. But Aunt Sally is where she got her start and, despite the members' young ages (still in college at the time), Phew and the band delivered a mature, timeless take on minimalistic punk. Remastered from the original analog tapes."
MKY 024LP
 
PRICE: $30.00
CAT #: MKY 024LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
AUNT SALLY Aunt Sally LP
LP version. Stoughton tip on jacket. "A true desert island disc, criminally out of print for nearly 40 years. This seminal, eponymous post-punk album by Japanese group Aunt Sally, fronted by experimental singer Phew (Mute Records), was first released by the iconic Vanity Records label in 1979. Over the past forty-plus years, Phew has forged a singular path through a wide range of styles -- from free improvisation to pop -- and has collaborated with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, members of Can, DAF, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Raincoats, and more. But Aunt Sally is where she got her start and, despite the members' young ages (still in college at the time), Phew and the band delivered a mature, timeless take on minimalistic punk. Remastered from the original analog tapes."
MKY 027LP
 
PRICE: $32.00
CAT #: MKY 027LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
JACKS, THE Vacant World LP
"Arriving on the Japanese music scene during the Beatles-inspired cover band boom of the late '60s, Jacks instantly distinguished themselves from their fluff-peddling, copycat peers with stripped-down, original compositions, nihilistic lyrics and raw performances. Their tenure was short -- '67 to '69 -- but Jacks managed to cut a handful of singles and two albums in that time, the first of which, Vacant World, is now widely considered in Japan to be one of the greatest rock albums the country has ever produced. The combination of Yoshio Hayakawa's arresting baritone and austere guitar work, drummer Takasuke Kida and upright bassist Hitoshi Tanino's jazzy, loose interplay, and lead guitarist Haruo Mizuhashi's searing fuzz leads was alchemical, and Vacant World captured the band at the peak of their powers. Some have described Jacks as the Velvet Underground of Japan -- a singular, revolutionary group that had little commercial success in their day but whose influence and legend grows exponentially with each passing year. The comparison is apt. Unlike VU, however, Jacks remain largely unknown outside Japan, and Mesh-Key hopes this first-ever officially licensed international release does something to fix this injustice. Available in the US for the first time. Vinyl only release, with film-laminated tip-on jackets, and 6-page, full-color booklet."
MILLE PLATEAUX (GERMANY)
MP 046LP
 
PRICE: $35.00
CAT #: MP 046LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
ALFA JNR, IBRAHIM Messier87 2LP
Ibrahim Alfa Jnr released techno music since the age of 17. He started to play piano when was six years old and has a master degree in sonic arts. He is known worldwide as a live act and DJ. His first album on Mille Plateaux is a fine example of "hypercussion", which implies a new rhythmic A-logic when beats split or shoot each other off, or when they overlap and mutate into high-pitched hums and rattlesnake breaks; accelerating, before music again blurs into the grains of noise or calm science fiction landscapes and at the same time builds gigantic sound walls. And such music, as far as its conceptualization is concerned, does not have to submit itself to technology at all, but must understand itself as a form that can be recombined with technology.
NERO'S NEPTUNE
NN 012LP
 
PRICE: $18.50
CAT #: NN 012LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
FINE/PAUL METZGER, MILO Concerning The Other Condition/Spontaneous Composition.. LP
...Generator. 2022 restock, last copies. Nero's Neptune presents a split LP of solo works from free-jazz improv master/multi-instrumentalist Milo Fine and guitar experimentalist Paul Metzger. "'Moosbruger' was recorded on the occasion of my first public collaboration with Paul Metzger. Before the concert, and for a number of reasons, my thought was that, when my name was drawn for a solo, I'd be playing drum set. But, as befits the spirit of improvisation (the moment), I grabbed the B flat clarinet, and then, echoing the first time I played piano in public (1971), moved off stage to the prepared piano remains, where the two instruments conjoined. 'Ulrich' is a self-contained section of a set-long (drum) solo I played at the Art of This Gallery's Tuesday Night Improvised Music Series. 'Moosbruger' was recorded on March 21, 2009. 'Ulrich' was recorded on January 20, 2009." --Milo Fine "I created the Spontaneous Composition Generator to produce a random series of musical actions. It is a device consisting of 37 altered music box movements mounted in a wooden painter's box. The alterations include dampening, detuning, replacing, removing, doubling, and reversing the tines. Most of the original melody pins on the cylinders were removed. Rubber bands of various lengths and thicknesses were attached to the winding stems to facilitate a continuously variable tension. One dozen hand-wired piezo pickups are attached to output a stereo signal. The piece on this recording was created November 9, 2009 with a time of 18:43. It was specifically made as a complement to Milo's contributions to this Nero's Neptune LP. --Paul Metzger Strictly limited edition of 421 vinyl copies only. Screen-printed onto wax paper sleeves, with an insert. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl.
NOTON (GERMANY)
NOTON 051LP
 
PRICE: $40.00
CAT #: NOTON 051LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
ALVA NOTO + RYUICHI SAKAMOTO Vrioon (Remaster) 2LP
Limited repress; double LP version. Pioneers in their own musical approaches, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, began their exploration of sound in the evocatively titled V.I.R.U.S series in 2002. After more than a decade from the release of the collection's final installment with summvs in 2011, NOTON reissues all the five albums between June and October 2022. With its impressionistic atmosphere, in this collaborative project two generations met and shared the idea of electronic music as an inspiration source for new musical structures. Over a series of five albums, Vrioon (2002), Insen (2005), Revep (2006), utp_ (2008), and summvs (2011), the duo has explored blending electronic and acoustic sounds into a meditative whole that is at once expressive, breathing and precision-engineered. Remastered in collaboration with Calyx Mastering, the recordings are made available under the title Remaster, accompanied by exclusive, unreleased compositions and housed in a beautifully designed sleeve with original cover art by Carsten Nicolai. In November 2022, a dedicated, limited edition cardboard slipcase will be available as a separate item from the V.I.R.U.S.
NOTON 052LP
 
PRICE: $40.00
CAT #: NOTON 052LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
ALVA NOTO + RYUICHI SAKAMOTO Insen (Remaster) 2LP
Repressed; double LP version. Originally released in 2005, Insen is the second collaboration album between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto and the second installment of V.I.R.U.S.'s five album series. Remastered in 2021 in collaboration with Calyx Studio, the album's recordings are accompanied by an unreleased composition titled "Barco." Initially composed for Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto's 2005 Insen tour, the audio material used in this piece is based on the subtle sounds of Barco projectors, whose tonalities served as a ground for the artists' live improvisation. In Insen, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto explore the potential for interaction and tension between electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Across eight compositions, the echoes of the cascading piano combine, collide, and dissolve with the tapestry of digital breakages in sheer vibrancy. This relationship lies at the album's core. It subtly continues Vrioon's calm melancholia, becoming a vessel for all the emotions and memories nourished by the listener. As you hear the opening, lonesome notes of "Aurora," you realize that the pair have once again conceded an ambition to embed elaborate disciplines into an archetypal sound of soul-searching beauty. Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai. Mastering by Bo at Calyx.
OUT-SIDER (SPAIN)
OSR 091LP
 
PRICE: $28.00
CAT #: OSR 091LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
ILL WIND Flashes LP
Reissue, originally released in 1968. US psychedelic/acid rock classic. Flashes, the sole album by Boston based band Ill Wind, was produced by Tom Wilson (Simon & Garfunkel, Mothers Of Invention, Velvet Underground...) and originally released on ABC Records. Terrific west coast-styled sound with male/female vocals, strong guitar interplay, and inventive songwriting, featuring titles like "Dark World", "People Of The Night", "Hung Up Chick", and wait till you hear their cover of "High Flying Bird". RIYL: Jefferson Airplane, Growing Concern, Moby Grape, Yankee Dollar, Big Brother, Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Hard cardboard sleeve; OBI; includes insert with liner notes and photos; includes digital download card. "... an excellent gateway drug when building a psychedelic LP collection" --Patrick Lundborg (Acid Archives). "... some of the finest psychedelia conceivable." --MOJO.
OSR 092LP
 
PRICE: $28.00
CAT #: OSR 092LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
STACK Above All LP
Reissue, originally released in 1969. Definitive reissue of this wild and heavy psychedelic hard-rock album from California, released in tiny quantities at the time. Ultra-loud guitars (think Blue Cheer or late '60s Who), melodic vocals and thundering rhythm section. Includes bonus track taken from a previously unreleased acetate. Hard cardboard sleeve; OBI; insert with extensive line notes by genre expert Clark Faville and lots of rare pictures/memorabilia. "Early LA hardrock blowout with a British sound and Who and Led Zep influences. Best tracks go into ferocious guitar excursions that are among the best anywhere. Mandatory to any hard-rock fan" --Patrick Lundborg (Acid Archives). "Above All is one of the few pure and willfully heavy hard rock albums that rank as both incredibly rare and ultimately essential to a collection of American Rock" --Clark Faville
OVUM
OVM 320EP
 
PRICE: $17.50
CAT #: OVM 320EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
LOMBARDO, FRANCESCA Magic Moment 12"
Longtime underground star Francesca Lombardo steps up to Ovum with a trio of superb new signature sounds. Italian Lombardo has been crisscrossing the globe and headlining all its most tasteful clubs and festivals for many years. Her powerful, heartfelt grooves have come on the most influential labels of the day and her critically acclaimed debut album Life of Leaf showed that she can do all sounds and styles from downtempo to pop with equal skills. Her mix of innovation and compelling grooves continues on this latest EP. The vocals on the opener "Magic Moment" are a poem Francesca's friend Victoria (Viktoriia) sent to her. She kept them for four years before finding the special inspiration that encouraged her to use them in these writing sessions. They lend the tune an intimate feel and draw you in deep to the elegant house drums and warming synths. It's an uplifting and classy tune with a standout Moog bassline that will lock in the floor. After the dub version is "Sea," a much more twisted and peak time techno tune. The synths are spangled over jacked-up drums, with edgy textures and late-night menace all making it a surefire winner This is another tasteful take on techno from Francesca Lombardo.
PALOMA (GERMANY)
PALOMA 007EP
 
PRICE: $14.50
CAT #: PALOMA 007EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
TOM Lose Yourself EP 12"
Paloma presents its seventh release: Tom's Lose Yourself EP featuring Rose. Throughout club music history, the combination of vocals and groove remains a vital element. Countless anthems have prompted singing on the floor, and have raised arms in the air. There might have been times where vocals mattered less, but right now they are probably more needed than ever. Tom and Rose are well aware of all that, and they were willing to place themselves and their music in a tradition of dancefloor euphoria, universal messages and also a bit of bittersweetness. Tom is a DJ, producer and mix engineer, and also a booker and resident at Paloma. Rose is an Irish singer and producer. Together they created these tunes, a testament to better times gone and ahead. "How Wrong" is the sound of heartbreak, albeit locked in a UKG-tinged sureshot that swings back and forth with ease between jubilant piano bliss and monolithic bass weight, and it kicks like a mule. "Lose Yourself" is both an ageless acid slam and a joyful paean dedicated to all nights that should never end. There is a pumping dub too, equally designed to be the soundtrack to blowing a nocturnal kiss to everyday sorrows. Also included: complementary remixes by Eluize and Massimiliano Pagliara that come up with a different take, but a similar vision.
PAMPA (GERMANY)
PAMPA 039EP
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: PAMPA 039EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
IMPERIEUX Fantasmagorii EP 12"
The illusive Impérieux ventures into the fantastical world of DJ Koze's Pampa with three tracks of masterful, genre-bending electronica. It's little wonder that the Turkish/Bulgarian native finds himself coming into the orbit of the Hamburg-based label head. DJ Koze has been a long-time supporter of Impérieux's music, his intrepid DJ sets often finding their most dramatic peaks or existential lows with one of the producer's audacious dancefloor soundscapes. Now Berlin-based, Impérieux's music draws deeply on the sounds of his heritage, taking inspirations from Bulgarian folklore, twisted and chopped Turkish dialect as well the gritty underground of his new surroundings. With Fantasmagorii EP, Impérieux explores his sonic boundaries with techniques inspired by the label-head himself. As a producer he is becoming known for his ability to build fantasy worlds through aural experimentation, creating productions soaked with fragility and emotion. His music brings a full-body listening experience of its own, laden with intensity and mystery, and full of opposites. He has the ability to pluck their listeners out of reality, to bend the rules of time and space and defy genres in a way that is reminiscent of Koze's various bodies of work, and it's no surprise that this selection of tracks feels right at home in the Pampa fantasy. "I am permanently seeking for Music that blows my mind. It's like digging for gold. Impérieux delivers a psychedelic bullion" --DJ Koze.
PAN EUROPEAN RECORDING (FRANCE)
PAN 075LP
 
PRICE: $38.50
CAT #: PAN 075LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
KOUDLAM Precipice Fantasy Part 1 2LP
Double LP version. Koudlam returns to civilization with Precipice Fantasy, an abnormal album once again. The album is made up of two very different parts which will be released separately, with a first part which shells 12 songs like so many flamboyant mutations and a second contemplative instrumental part halfway between uneasy yoga music and trance from the lowlands of Kathmandu. Inspired by the hallucinated stories of mountain pioneers and conquistadores, the artist delivers here the soundtrack of peaks and precipices. Or rather that of the path between the two, winding, vertiginous, always on the edge of the blade.
PERLON (GERMANY)
PERL 130LP
 
PRICE: $44.50
CAT #: PERL 130LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
MELCHIOR PRODUCTIONS LTD Vulnerabilities 3x12"
Soul departure time. Drowning in a dreamlike state where drifting with the current is free movement. Driven by echoes of serious intentions and playfulness. The order of music takes you further. In time, on the floor, under the skin, melting measures and dimensions. On a way back to where the future of your comfort has dawned. Through zones of whispers and expanding beauty. On a memory lane while passing all your favorite things and sentiments. On a straight, gently quantized line through tunnels of love and liberation. To a vanishing point where the soul is exposed to a scattered radiation of joy, content, revival, liveliness, melancholia. Feels like an arrival, no detour or deviation. Soul: its vulnerability becomes a superpower.
PHARAWAY SOUNDS (SPAIN)
PHS 070LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: PHS 070LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
KARACA, CEM Apaslar, Kardaslar, Mogollar (Picture Disc) PIC. DISC
Picture disc reissue, originally released in 1974. Sophisticated and passionate, with flamboyant taste in sunglasses, Cem Karaca once led Istanbul's music fans through a period of violent political turmoil. Karaca reworked traditional folk lyrics with molten electric bass lines that played up both a poet's broiling righteousness and also his listeners' common ground with their elders in Turkey's history. This is the second album from Karaca, released in 1974, reissued for the first time in picture disc with remastered sound. It leads the listener through Karaca's own musical history, skipping across various collaborations and bands up to his then-current project Dervisan. Can throbbing Anatolian guitars take on the assassins of the Grey Wolves? Imagine a hairy pied piper with R Kelly's flair for drama, wailing into a microphone over an electric baglama, and you're ready to enter the bohemian world of Papa Cem.
PHS 075LP
 
PRICE: $29.50
CAT #: PHS 075LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
ZANGENEH, PARI The Series of Music for Young Adults: Iranian Folk Songs LP
Travel back in time to the modern pre-revolution Teheran and dig this wonderful, ear-catching album from 1976 by Iranian female singer Pari Zangeneh. Traditional Persian folk songs with a lovely, sweet psychedelic flavor with the use of beautiful strings, flutes, charming and tasty drumming, some organ and orchestration, percussions... imagine a Persian version of Mellow Candle or Vashti Bunyan and you're there. Born in 1939 in Kermanshah (Iran), Pari Zangeneh is a Soprano singer that lost her sight after a car accident in 1972. Her work over the years on restoring traditional Persian music and regional folk songs is invaluable. In 1976, she recorded this very unique album commissioned by K?noon (Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults), a social organization that produced many kinds of materials (books, films, records) for children in Iran. The arrangements were done by Varoujan (famous for his work with Googoosh, Dariush, etc.) Sourced from the original masters; hard cardboard sleeve + OBI; includes download card.
POSH BOY (ITALY)
8055515233797
 
PRICE: $24.00
CAT #: 8055515233797
FILE UNDER: ROCK
SOME NICHOLSON Drop Down Mama LP
Some Nicholson is an ensemble created by renowned Canadian artist David Nicholson. Their debut album is a collection of blues infused material presented in the form of a classic '70s LP. David Nicholson was born in Montreal in 1970. His career began at Artists Space in NYC in 2002 and he now lives and works in Berlin, where he is represented by Galerie Michael Haas. In 2018 Nicholson decided to state a musical position based on his lifelong love of the blues by producing a vinyl album, reminiscent of the LP records of the 1970s. Recording took place in his painting studio, summoning the minimalist spirit of field recordings, rendered with modern technology. This approach set the parameters for the project which later expanded to include a recording made on location at the Freiberg Cathedral, home of a baroque masterpiece, Gottfried Silbermann's organ. To help him realize his vision, Nicholson gathered an ensemble of 12 musicians and singers, including renowned jazz organist Brian Charette, trumpet player Christoph Titz, and guitar maestro/sound-über nerd Thomas Büchel. The results speak for themselves. Sit back and immerse yourself in a musical adventure and note that the album's creators advise that this LP record is best enjoyed with a bottle of 2018 Chinon. Gatefold.
PUBLIC POSSESSION (GERMANY)
PP 080EP
 
PRICE: $16.00
CAT #: PP 080EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
EDEN BURNS Big Beat Manifesto (Remixed) 12"
Eden Burns the prophet is back and he brought along some friends to mix up his messages. Remember a good message is one that is flexible! Includes DJ Boring, Nice Girl, and Red Axes. Join the tribe. Help spreading the message of the Big Beat! Beat moves feet. Feet do dance. Dance brings joy. Joy is life. Life is special.
ROOM40 (AUSTRALIA)
RM 4162LP
 
PRICE: $24.50
CAT #: RM 4162LP
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
ABRAHAMS, CHRIS Follower LP
For more than three decades now Sydney pianist and composer Chris Abrahams has developed a singularly iconic body of work. Known widely for his work with trio The Necks, Abrahams solo works have carved out an entirely otherworldly realm in sound. His explorations of organ, electronics, and piano capture a restless curiosity and timbral interrogation that only deepens with each of his releases. With Follower, his compositional language further expands. Melodies cascade with a cinematic pacing, spilling out over the top of harmonic electronics and unsteady percussive elements. He creates a sense of opening and space, a field within which we become lost and utterly consumed by the evolving states he casts into focus. On the opening track, "Costume", bass piano meanders through a wilderness of de-tuned bells and organ swells; a strange sort of festival. Low frequency sighs evenly punctuate, like a pump or a heartbeat. It's a procession that takes it time as it wanders the terrain, brought to a close with transcendent distortion. On the second piece, "New Kind of Border", muscular modal piano surfs among waves of percussion and analog synthesizers. A buffeting travel. Follower is Abrahams's sixth album for Room40 and it showcases his continuing interest in the ambiguous spaces between music and noise; tonality and atonality; rhythm and texture. All four tracks have piano as a key factor: in one instance, high-pitched and atonal; in another, emotive yet distant as if projected on to a screen. Follower presents the listener with a sound world of colorful juxtapositions, rich orchestration and organically open forms.
RM 4185CD
 
PRICE: $18.00
CAT #: RM 4185CD
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
ROSE, BRAD E. Annular Silhouettes CD
With Annular Silhouettes, Brad E. Rose traces an undulating pathway through ideas of place, memory, and intergenerational exchange. The edition is a mediation on how perspective is shaped, and reshaped, in time. More so it explores how change is simultaneously incremental and accumulative. This is reflected in the compositional strategies he deploys. Elements arrive and pass with an almost subconscious logic. Their pace is measured, but entirely fluid, creating a sense of breathing or perhaps even daydreaming. This is a work of constant evolution, but couched within a singular perspective of subjective experience.From Brad E. Rose: "There are many times when I'm working on a music project that, in the moment, I'm not sure what I'm really doing. I don't believe there's some otherworldly power guiding my hands or thought processes unless our own subconscious could be classified as such a thing. It's mostly about trying to be present at that moment and letting the ideas and sounds unfold in a way that isn't forced. Oftentimes, after the fact, it will become clearer to me that certain feelings or thoughts were trying to find their way out, but my brain, as is often the case, wasn't sure how to process them and let them go. Sound has often acted as that medium for me over the last three decades; a way to channel difficult thoughts into a language I can understand. One evening as I watched the snowfall in mid-January, after thinking about what Annular Silhouettes was, it finally hit me. Recorded during the depths of 2020, during a time spent within the vicinity of where I live, it's a bit of a love letter to the place I grew up. I live in the house that my grandparents lived in for over 20 years, that my grandfather gutted and rebuilt with his own hands. It's the last place he ever called home and his spirit remains firmly etched into its walls. I live less than ten minutes from my childhood home, where both my parents still live. I moved away and eventually came back. I am lucky to gain a different understanding of this place than I had growing up. Place is a strange thing in the way it can influence and shape us, for better or worse. Nearly 20 years ago, when I moved back here with my partner, she would tell me how she couldn't get over how big the sky felt in Oklahoma. I still think about that often. For a place that is stuck moving backward in so many ways, the possibilities above us can be endless beyond the forces dragging us back into the soil..."
RM 4194CD
 
PRICE: $17.50
CAT #: RM 4194CD
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
ENDEAN, AVIVA Moths & Stars CD
Australian composer and clarinetist Aviva Endean has developed an impressive capacity for creating work that merges intense control (of breath, of instrument, of composition) and a willingness to allow the music to lead. On Moths & Stars, her second solo work, she charts out a sound world that is equal parts timbre and tone, placing sounds relationship to space as a paramount focus for her pieces.From Aviva Endean: "Coming from a background as a performer and clarinet player, the opportunity to record my own music opened up a whole new context to think about music. Sounds are freed from being confined to one place, one time, or even one perspective. I wanted the recording to have a right-up-in-your-ear kind of intimacy -- so close, that you could hear the beating of a moth's wing, but I also wanted the listener to experience the expansiveness of the recorded space, like the vast night sky. The microphones became extensions of my instruments, getting right up close to capture the microscopic, creating tones of feedback which captivated me, or zooming out to capture multiple acoustic spaces. My recording and composing process became more intuitive and explorative, another form of play. I could start creating and see where the piece would take me, and notice how new relationships were formed as I folded multiple time/spaces in and over each other. Sometimes I would begin by gleaning sounds from my archives, and listening to how they could be reimagined and transformed alongside the discoveries my microphones and instruments were finding. In 'Nightwork' I wanted to find a way to revisit some microtonal humming that I had recorded for a sound design project, and then discovered the Leslie speaker as a way to spin my bass clarinet sound around the microphones, creating bass tones emerging as waves out of the densely layered pitches. Sometimes a new instrumental fascination, such as the e-bows and magnets on 'Mirror Signals' or the binaural microphone feedback on 'Moths & Stars' would call for me to find further layers of clarinets and field recordings to be woven into their story."
SCI + TEC DIGITAL AUDIO
TEC8S5
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: TEC8S5
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
DUBFIRE CHLLNGR 12"
CHLLNGR is the last single before Dubfire's debut album EVOLV drops. An 11-track visionary into the mind of Dubfire to be released on his long-standing label SCI+TEC. EVOLV's concept? The journey of the "hybrid" being and its evolution since its first appearance in 2015, as part of his two-year world tour following the release of his retrospective release A Decade Of Dubfire. With a career spanning over three decades, Dubfire has achieved global success as an artist with relentless drive, talent, and intuition. Pioneering commercial notoriety came initially as one half of the Grammy award (2001) winning duo Deep Dish, before embarking on a truly groundbreaking solo career in 2007. A career filled with timeless tracks include his early works "Ribcage", "Emissions", "Roadkill" and the highly acclaimed "Exit" with Kiss Kitten. Collaborative work highlights include Luke Slater, Moscoman, Oliver Huntemann, Chris Liebing, Tiga and co-producing two tracks on the legendary Underworld's Barking album. Sonically, the journey so far has been like a dystopian landscape, but "Decent" brings a kaleidoscope of color and sound before dropping into the "CHALLNGR" duo. "CHALLNGR 1.1" is perhaps the most contemporary track on the album. Dubfire picks up the rhythm for a full-on dancefloor focused track. It's no-nonsense techno at its best, with heaps of pure energy. Two versions appear on the album.
SOWING RECORDS (ITALY)
SOW 013LP
 
PRICE: $23.50
CAT #: SOW 013LP
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
ASHBY, DOROTHY Soft Winds: The Swinging Harp of Dorothy Ashby with Terry Pollard, Jimmy Cobb, Herman Wright LP
2022 repress. Sowing Records present a reissue of Dorothy Ashby's Soft Winds: The Swinging Harp of Dorothy Ashby, originally released in 1961. Features female vibes player Terry Pollard. Comes with a version of The Skatalites' "Guns Of Navarone" which is a pretty surreal listening experience. Clear vinyl; edition of 300.From the original liner notes: "Dorothy Ashby may not be the first jazz harpist (Caspar Reardon) or the first female jazz harpist (Adele Girard), but her good feeling for time and ability to construct melodic, guitar-like lines, mark her as the most accomplished modern jazz harpist (...) Accompanying her was another Detroit girl, Terry Pollard. Terry's main instrument is the piano and she is one of the best in the country, bar none. She is also a pretty fair country vibraharpist and in this set, Miss Pollard plays vibes exclusively. With them is still another Detroiter, Herman Wright, who like Miss Pollard has worked with Terry Gibbs and Yusef Lateef, and who also served as Miss Ashby's regular bassist. (...) Completing the quartet is Jimmy Cobb, drummer for the Miles Davis group. During the proceedings, Cobb travels between brushes and sticks without upsetting the equilibrium of this essentially quiet set. There is wide range of material presented here, from blues like Benny Goodman's title number, 'Soft Winds', and Miss Ashby's 'With Strings Attached', to movie themes such as 'Laura', 'Wild Is the Wind', and 'Guns Of Navarone'. Then there are works by such superior writers of standards as Kurt Weill ('My Ship'); Gershwin ('The Man I Love' and 'Love Is Here To Stay')."
SQUAMA (GERMANY)
SQM 018CD
 
PRICE: $13.50
CAT #: SQM 018CD
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
OHTA & MATTHIAS LINDERMAYR, MASAKO MMMMH CD
Pianist Masako Ohta and trumpet player Matthias Lindermayr's music flows in gentle waves, moving with ease between every theme they imagine. Their music is largely improvised, embracing chance and following sound down winding paths. Their debut collaborative album, MMMMH, highlights this loose process through its relaxed pace, surprising turns, and drifting style. The album presents small vignettes that each encapsulate their free-flowing motion and tranquil melodies, drawing from simple ideas to create a fully bloomed, radiant sound.
SQMRE 001LP
 
PRICE: $28.50
CAT #: SQMRE 001LP
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
QUIEROZ, JOANA Tempo Sem Tempo LP
Tempo Sem Tempo is the fifth studio album by São Paulo based clarinet player, singer, and composer Joana Queiroz, now available on vinyl for the first time outside of Brazil. It is indeed a timeless record. A cocooning blend of looped reeds and low-key electronics holding melodies and lyrics. When Joana sings, it's with noble restraint and grace, as can be heard on four songs including Gilberto Gil's "Seu Olhar" and "Dois Litorais" by her friend and Quartabê band mate Mariá Portugal. Standing out on Tempo Sem Tempo is a wistful beauty that makes it easy to immerse oneself in the intimate vastness of this album.
STEPPAS RECORDS (UK)
ASLP 002LP
 
PRICE: $34.00
CAT #: ASLP 002LP
FILE UNDER: WORLD
DUB DYNASTY Thundering Mantis LP
2022 repress; LP version. Thundering Mantis is the much-anticipated second album from Dub Dynasty, aka Alpha & Omega meets Alpha Steppa. Dub Dynasty's 2013 debut Unrelenting Force (ASCD 001CD, 2013) received widespread critical acclaim with support from media platforms such as Q Magazine, Mixmag, Wire, BBC, and Rinse FM, to name a few. Dub Dynasty once again deliver an international line-up featuring vocalists and instrumentalists from around the globe; UK, USA, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, Italy, Ireland, Spain, and Suriname. With diverse contributions ranging from the soulful vocals of Wellette Seyon, Cian Finn, and Prince David, to the militant chants of N'goni and Ras Tinny, traversing the enchanting flute melodies of Don Fe to the spoken-word teachings of internationally-recognized spiritual guru Mooji. This album is a musical journey to be experienced both at home and at soundsystem sessions across the globe. Beautifully mastered and pressed for maximum bass pressure. Features artwork contributions from South Africa's dance movement, the University Of Steppas.
ASLP 005LP
 
PRICE: $34.00
CAT #: ASLP 005LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
DUB DYNASTY Holy Cow 2LP
Double LP version. Dub veterans Alpha & Omega and their son and nephew Alpha Steppa present their eagerly awaited third album as Dub Dynasty. This third installment of dynastic dub follows their critically acclaimed albums Unrelenting Force (ASCD 001CD/ASLP 001LP, 2013) and Thundering Manta (2014). Diverse, dynamic, and forward-thinking dub reggae music with a deep roots foundation. Championed by a range of soundsystems from the bass music spectrum from roots veterans Channel One Soundsystem to UK steppers pioneers Iration Steppas and dubstep originator V.I.V.E.K. Includes contributions from Cologne, Iyano Iyanti, Sis Jane Warriah, Kiangana, and Violinbwoy.
SUPERIOR VIADUCT
SV 077LP
 
PRICE: $25.00
CAT #: SV 077LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
AVENGERS, THE The Avengers LP
2022 repress. "In the late '70s, The Avengers established themselves as one of the US's preeminent punk bands. Fusing incisive guitar hooks, explosive rhythms and adolescent venom, the group forged some of the most in-your-face songs of the era. Their live shows were legendary, playing up and down the West Coast and even blowing Sex Pistols off the stage at the latter's final performance. As Byron Coley writes in the liner notes, 'Of the best bands of San Francisco's first wave in 1977, The Avengers were by far the coolest and youngest sounding. They roared without irony, as though this were indeed Year Zero (and, for a moment, it was), with history being overwritten by the new. The honesty of their belief was carried by their sound. And it was convincing!' Originally released in 1983, four years after the band's dissolution, The Avengers' self-titled LP is often referred to as 'The Pink Album' for its magenta-hued cover design. Frontwoman Penelope Houston's iconic voice and razor-sharp lyrics resonate on anthems 'We Are The One' and 'The American In Me,' while penetrating ballads like 'Corpus Christi' reveal a truly out-of-body euphony. The Pink Album remains The Avengers' definitive statement -- collecting their classic Dangerhouse EP, sessions recorded with the Pistols' Steve Jones and a half-dozen revelatory demos. While much has been written about The Avengers in the past three decades, rock critic Greil Marcus puts it succinctly, 'The word I always come back to is mystical, and that remains almost theirs alone.'"
SV 096LP
 
PRICE: $25.00
CAT #: SV 096LP
FILE UNDER: CLASSICAL
REICH/PHILIP GLASS, STEVE Four Organs/Phase Patterns LP
2022 repress. "Steve Reich remains one of the most important figures in 20th century music. Though he studied at the prestigious arts institutions Julliard and Mills College, by the mid- 1960s Reich set about dismantling the very orthodoxy that he had been trained in. Forming a new musical language based on repetitive processes, Reich became established as part of the so-called 'Big Four' of New York minimalists (along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Philip Glass). Reich's influence can easily be seen today in both the classical world and contemporary pop music. 'Four Organs' is the ultimate minimalist composition. Performed by Reich, Glass, Art Murphy and Steve Chambers, four identical Farfisa organs strike a single chord and gradually lengthen each note to produce polyrhythms between the players. Anchored by Jon Gibson's stoicallysteady pulse on maracas, the piece deconstructs its opening burst to a sustained mass of sound -- stretching the tones to create (in Reich's words) 'slow-motion music.' Inspired by Reich's early training on drums, 'Phase Patterns' treats the keyboards like tuned percussion instruments: a basic rhythm pattern is played in unison and almost imperceptibly increases tempo to move out-of-sync. Each progressive cycle emphasizes unique figures that are not generated by an individual alone, but rather emerge from the communal expression of the group. Originally released on Shandar in 1971, Four Organs / Phase Patterns is one of most highly regarded avant-garde recordings in the past 45 years. This first-time vinyl reissue features cover photography by artist Michael Snow and is recommended for fans of Neu!, Glenn Branca and Tim Hecker."
SV 147LP
 
PRICE: $25.00
CAT #: SV 147LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
FALL, THE Rough Trade Singles LP
2022 repress. "The Rough Trade Singles collects The Fall's four singles recorded for this influential label in 1980 and 1983 -- How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' / City Hobgoblins, Totally Wired / Putta Block, The Man Whose Head Expanded / Ludd Gang and Kicker Conspiracy -- none of which appeared on any of the band's studio LPs. With 7-inches being the era's vehicle for buzzing communiqués, The Fall would use the format for short-form, standalone works rather than as mere promotional devices for forthcoming albums. 'Totally Wired' is often cited (and rightfully so) as The Fall's most infectious tune -- an amphetamine-fueled anthem with stuttering nods to forebears, yet too incisive to have been made by anyone else. 'How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'' is another mad hoedown, one reimagined for the post-punk age. While the playful rhythm machine on 'The Man Whose Head Expanded' almost suggests danceability, Mark E. Smith's idiosyncratic shriek on 'Kicker Conspiracy' pierces through the twin drumming of Paul Hanley and Karl Burns and the group's unpredictable/unmistakable racket. Together these songs remain some of the absolute best material The Fall would ever release. Superior Viaduct's edition is the first time that The Rough Trade Singles has been available on vinyl domestically. Liner notes by Brian Turner."
SV 154LP
 
PRICE: $35.00
CAT #: SV 154LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
SPACEMEN 3 Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To 2LP
2022 repress. Housed in a gatefold sleeve with download code; includes the "legendary Northampton demos from 1986". "Amidst the swirl that is Spacemen 3's discography, Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To occupies a pivotal position -- one right at the nexus between their garage beginnings and their expansionist future. While much of this material is expanded upon via Sound Of Confusion and The Perfect Prescription, many devotees consider these urgent, minimally treated recordings as the prime document of Spacemen 3 at this stage. Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To casts Spacemen 3 alongside the mid-80s cadre of UK front-line rockers, contributing a distinct variation of high pop shining through layered noisy guitars. Ultimately, this collection serves to exalt the strength of Spacemen 3's songwriting over the atmospherics and production assemblage that would permeate their later efforts. Be it the rave-up rendering of 'The Sound Of Confusion' or the churning take on 'Losing Touch With My Mind', these full band recordings capture the excited and inspirational spark of psychedelia rather than deep-dive ruminations on sonics and space."
SYSTEMATIC (GERMANY)
SYST 134EP
 
PRICE: $18.00
CAT #: SYST 134EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
REBEL YOUTH What Is Soul? (30th Anniversary Remixes) 12"
This almost lost treasure from 1993 was heavily supported by Sven Väth during his Omen times and was released by the label Ongaku which was run by Ata and Heiko M/S/O. It was produced by the Frankfurt based techno mentors Kay Praag and Jörn Elling Wuttke and celebrates its 30-year anniversary. "What Is Soul?" is one of those classics which has not been played to death and comes along with brand new interpretations by no one else than Joris Voorn (Rejected) and Joseph Ashworth (Life & Death, Pets). First reissue of this true classic after 30 years.
TARTELET (DENMARK)
TARTALB 010C-LP
 
PRICE: $24.00
CAT #: TARTALB 010C-LP
FILE UNDER: ROCK
JITWAM. HONEYCOMB (Gold Vinyl) LP
Tartelet release jitwam.'s 2019 success album on gold vinyl. HONEYCOMB hits the sweet spot between jitwam.'s work in dance music and efforts as a bandleader, connecting people in studio and on stage. The record encapsulates his diverse upbringing in India and Australia, before living in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and finally the US, where he currently resides. On jitwam.'s journey, he's worn several musical faces that all highlight soulful sounds within the world of psychedelic indie rock, the hip-hop realm, and underground house music. These sounds and musical identities are apparent in his 12-track album of broken microphone blues, heartfelt vocals, and smooth assorted instrumentation. It follows jitwam.'s well-received EPs on his own imprint, The Jazz Diaries, which secured him a spot on Moodymann's DJ Kicks compilation. HONEYCOMB was recorded at the Steam Room Sessions studio in London, where Natureboy Flako lent his special touch to jitwam.'s tracks across some intimate collaborative sessions. What's left are sonic "diary entries" that put a magnifying glass on life's mundane moments, turning them into inspired tales of life, love, sadness, and periods of ecstatic release. Album opener "busstop" finds him welcoming you into his world with warm guitar riffs, smooth basslines, and lyrics about the comforting chaos of urban life in India. Features are aplenty on the LP too: London artist Marie Bashiru adds croons to the buttery "diamonds" and "temptations"; trumpet is worked in by Henry Wu-collaborator Nick Walton; and frequent Brooklyn-based collaborator Aquiles Navarro features on the lullaby jam "hearts don't lie." Hazy '90s hip-hop drums and warm synths bring the listener into "i'm a rock." Going even deeper, jazz-funk enters the room on "trustt," a tune that's all groovy basslines and cosmic soundscapes. "opendoors" brings up the energy for one of the LP's most full on, hands-up trips; it's a mix of buzzing horns and uplifting vocals about the possibilities to be found in any moment if you just let go -- and let loose. HONEYCOMB frees jitwam from any parameters of a dancefloor 12-inch. It blasts open the doors for an artist who fuses musical identities and stitches together ideas into some of the warmest music you'll hear all year. Welcome to HONEYCOMB: A psychedelic journey through the inner beyond.
TELESKOP (GERMANY)
TELE 015LP
 
PRICE: $22.50
CAT #: TELE 015LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
OH NO NOH Kanzi LP
Finding beauty, where one wouldn't suspect it in the first place. Discovering music, where there used to be only sound a moment before. Forming an orchestra out of everyday surroundings, the main thing out of the incidental, the fulfilling momentary situation out of the profane togetherness. All of this is part of the goal, meaning and sense of Oh No Noh, the project of Leipzig based guitarist, robot programmer, magnetic tape crumpler, and composer Markus Rom. All of this floats and shines through Kanzi, the second Oh No Noh album.
TIME IN THE SPECIAL PRACTICE OF RELATIVITY (GERMANY)
RELTIME 003LP
 
PRICE: $30.50
CAT #: RELTIME 003LP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
FRIEBE, RICO Jenni II LP+CD
Rico Friebe returns with a second part to Jenni, his initial full-length album from early 2022. The furthermore ongoing personal story of empathy, tragedy, and hope continues with a cycle of orchestral compositions, leading Friebe's work into unforeseen directions. A soundtrack of the soul with the uniquely natural and timeless touch of orchestra music... Includes CD.
TOUCH (UK)
TO 033-21CD
 
PRICE: $14.50
CAT #: TO 033-21CD
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
MOORE, ANTHONY C-Sound + Saz CD
Antony Moore: "Touch.40 live at Iklectik. I received an invitation to perform at the 40th anniversary gathering, June 2022. Previous works for the label, 'Arithmetic in the Dark' and 'Isoladrone2020' illuminated the landing strip for a new work. It should be continuous -- a further play on moving and remaining. I wanted to balance the digital output of a CSound orchestra with an analog instrument and chose the Turkish saz, a sound I've loved and lived with for the last six decades. I prepared the ground for the live performance with a graphical interface for CSound and an EBow for the saz (along with some short pre-recordings of picking and strumming). Then, a few days before the concert, I got Covid. On the suggestion of Jon and Mike I recorded a live performance-for-one, (myself at home) which was played back at Iklectik. Unedited, unchanged, here it is."Three pairs of thin, wire strings on the Turkish saz are struck, and the resulting sound is harmonized, filtered and then sustained in an infinite but gradually shifting chord of harmonics. In addition, an EBow is used to excite the strings in real time. This sound is natural, untreated, and adds layers to the sustained chord. Subsequently, two Csound programs running in parallel are "fed" the natural sound of the saz and the output is heavily affected with filters, resonators, vocoders etc. These sonic gestures are allowed to take over as the original chord fades to leave the more transparent sounds of the Csound outputs. The organum returns with much warmer low end. The saz transformations thin out to leave a keening call. And finally, the last minutes are filled with a deep chord which fades to silence.Anthony Moore (b. August 1948) is a composer/musician, now based in the UK, formerly professor in Cologne for sound art and music working on the social and technical history of sound. He operates across many genres; ambient drone, musique concrète, electroacoustic, songwriting, and immersive, multi-channel sound installations. He continues to compose, perform and release work on various labels such as Touch, Drag City (Chicago), P-Vine (Tokyo) and others. Anthony Moore conducted a lengthy interview with Julian Cowley for The Wire, which appeared in October 2022 edition.
TOY TONICS (GERMANY)
TOYT 139EP
 
PRICE: $14.50
CAT #: TOYT 139EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
KAPOTE & KOSMO KINT Remix EP 12"
Here comes a fat Toy Tonics remix package. Coeo made two club versions of this track originally by Toy Tonics head honcho Kapote -- featuring New York born, Berlin based Soul singer Kosmo Kint. Coeo's "Garage" version is a heavy booty shaker, quite different from their last release. This is very UK. You can hear that Coeo has been DJing a lot in the UK lately. Of course, the other one remix is killer too... You get what you know from a Coeo work. The Kapote remix package also includes a version by Detroit original hero Dez Andres. A sneaky dancefloor slammer that will get a lot of attention.
TROST (AUSTRIA)
TROST 118LP
 
PRICE: $60.50
CAT #: TROST 118LP
FILE UNDER: JAZZ
SUN RA ARKESTRA Live in Nickelsdorf 1984 4LP BOX
2022 restock, last copies... 4LP box set version. The great Sun Ra Arkestra, live at Jazzgalerie Nickelsdorf, Austria on March 11th, 1984. This is a recording of the entire -- nearly three hour -- performance. Personnel for this show was Sun Ra (piano, synth, vocals); John Gilmore (tenor saxophone, clarinet, evi, vocals); Marshall Allen (alto saxophone, flute, kora, percussion); Danny Ray Thompson (baritone saxophone, flute, percussion); Eloe Omoe (Leroy Taylor) (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, percussion); James Jackson (basoon, flute, drums, vocals); Ronnie Brown (trumpet); Rollo Radford (standup bass); Don Mumford (drums); Matthew Brown (congas, dance); Myriam Broche (dance); Greg Pratt (dance). Vinyl box limited to 1,000 copies.
UKW49B (GERMANY)
UKW49B 001B-EP
 
PRICE: $17.50
CAT #: UKW49B 001B-EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
VA Sound Of The Concrete Lady Part 2 12"
The UKW club in north-east Germany and its street location number calling 49b. A unique building and home for music enthusiasts where no fame exists. The new inhouse label is now starting its output with music from friends and regulars of the club. The label philosophy is simple: Music from the heart that moves. This first release comes as a compilation split into two parts packed with chords, raw analog drums, dubby elements dreamy pads, and bleepy elements. Features Andre Kronert, Alex.Do, Thomas Hessler, and Stefan Rein.
VESSEL RECORDS (AUSTRALIA)
VSSL 005EP
 
PRICE: $18.00
CAT #: VSSL 005EP
FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC
NORACHI/MIRIS Vessel 05: Miris & Norachi 12"
Vessel 05: The founders edition. A special artist split featuring Vessel label heads Norachi and Miris. A and B. Deep and deeper. Sunshine, rain, joy and pain.
WRWTFWW RECORDS (SWITZERLAND)
WRWTFWW 057CD
 
PRICE: $15.50
CAT #: WRWTFWW 057CD
FILE UNDER: EXPERIMENTAL
TAKADA, MIDORI Tree of Life CD
WRWTFWW Records present the worldwide reissue of Midori Takada's solo album from 1999, Tree of Life. Originally recorded in September 1998 at legendary Ginza (Tokyo) studio Onkio Haus (founded in 1974 and where Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and many more were recorded) and released on CD only for the Japan market in 1999, Tree of Life is Midori Takada's best kept secret, a lost gem of minimalism and percussive ambient. The album is separated in two parts, the first one finds Takada exploring her trademark environmental soundscapes with precise mastery of marimba, drums, and bells, notably on the magnificent fan-favorite "Love Song Of Urfa". The second half is a collaboration with Chinese virtuoso Erhu player Jiang Jian Hua, allowing Midori Takada to unveil new layers of her artistic mind with a slightly more theatrical approach and a beautiful crystallization of complex simplicity. The entire album was given a fresh new audiophile mix by Midori Takada herself and was mastered at Emil Berliner Studios. This Tree of Life reissue follows two newly recorded Midori Takada albums, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter (WRWTFWW 060CD/LP) and You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana (WRWTFWW 061CD/LP), both available on WRWTFWW Records, along with her 1983 masterpiece, Through The Looking Glass (WRWTFWW 018LP). Design by Kohei Sugiura.
new releases are also viewable at https://www.forcedexposure.com/new/newindx.html



Forced Exposure, 60 Lowell St, Arlington, MA, 02476, United States, www.forcedexposure.com