Hot damn, I’m swimming in killer grooves over here this week. A huge batch of awesome soundtrack and library stuff from our pals at Light in the Attic, the long awaited Sven Libaek reissues of Nature Walkabout and The Set. Stop in, say hi, and grab some new wax!
Oh ya, due to some anti-spam laws I should tell you, if you want to keep receiving this email, don’t do anything. If you don’t want to keep getting it, unsubscribe at the bottom.
…..picks of the week…..
Sven Libaek: Nature Walkabout (Votary) LP
Scored for Vince and Carol Serventy’s 1966 Australian Television series Nature Walkabout, Sven Libaek’s pioneering soundtrack has long been considered the landmark recording of the unique genre, eco-jazz (Impressionistic modern jazz composed for television documentaries, library music, educational and travelogue films). Creating a singular vision of his adopted homeland, Libaek composed conceptual themes and moods depicting the magnificence, the mystery, and sometimes brutality of the Australian rural environment. Similar to his legendary score for Ron and Valerie Taylor’s TV series Inner Space, Nature Walkabout also stands as an important recording of modern jazz used in film. Featuring many of the top Australian jazz musicians (Don Burrows, John Sangster, Errol Buddle, etc) his deeply evocative style of jazz waltz, hypnotic flute/vibraphone rhythms, and gorgeous Bossa Nova conceptually represent the grandiosity of the Australian landscape as well as the whimsical sound of animal behavior. Similar in approach to other notable nature scores, such as Edward William’s Life on Earth, and the specifically Australian strand of visionary “nature jazz”.
File Under: Jazz, Library, OST
Listen Here
Sven Libaek: The Set (Votary) LP
The Set, now regarded as a lost piece of Australian genre cinema, is considered the precursor to the OZ Sex-Wave films of the following decade (Fantasm, Libido, Naked Bunyip, Felicity etc.) Scored by the highly respected and unique jazz original Sven Libaek, the music has also been unjustly overlooked from any recent focus on Australian cinema. After scoring several television scores and documentaries in the 1960s (Nature Walkabout, To Ride A White Horse, Man and A Mural) The Set was Libaek’s first commission to score a feature film soundtrack. Incorporating elements of baroque and sunshine pop as well as moody mod jazz, the film is an incredible time-piece of Swinging Sydney. Featuring Libaek regulars and top rank Australian jazz players, (Don Burrows, John Sangster, Errol Buddle, etc) the music to the The Set was once a long forgotten piece of Australian B-cinema which has now been fully restored and presented again in all its original glory. Including rare photos, original newspaper cuttings and extensive liner notes from Australian cult cinema expert and Mu Meson archive curator Jaimie Leonarder.
File Under: Jazz, OST, Library, Lounge
Listen Here
…..new arrivals…..
Peter Matthew Bauer: Liberation! (Mexican Summer) LP
Liberation! is the title of Peter Matthew Bauer’s debut solo album, a poignant and anthemic blend of soulful balladry, folk-tinged meditations, and full-bore rock & roll, crafted with an oblique nod towards the explosion of art, rock, and attitude that emerged from NYC in the ‘70s. Formerly a member of beloved NYC group The Walkmen, Bauer uses Liberation! as an opportunity to welcome the rest of the world into his personal history of a childhood spent living in ashrams, and a life shaped by the constant presence of religion and mythology amidst uncertainty. It’s a bold, bracing collection of songs for the mind, body and spirit with the power to grab you and shake you out of your environment. Leveraging traces of Eastern arrangements in a solidly Western rock experience, Liberation! is the soundtrack of one man’s journey inside himself, in preparation for the rest of the world to follow. “A scruffy, reverb-spaced take on heartland American rock, it brings to mind fellow East Coast highway dreamers the War on Drugs.” – Spin // “A bold introduction to who Bauer is on his own! the brisk and straight-forward instrumentation immediately drops a sense of escape and newfound confidence over the song’s surface.” – XPN
File Under: Indie Rock, The Walkmen
Listen Here
Boris: Noise (Sargent House) CD
Boris has always demolished expectations of what a band can do musically and aesthetically. In keeping with that tradition, they again flip the script for the band’s first official release in three years by serving up their most all-encompassing effort to date. Noise is an amplification of Boris’ endless pursuit of musical extremes while moving aggressive, intense rock into new territories. In writing Noise, Boris was intent upon condensing all that the band had explored over the years, in order to create something more bold, streamlined and powerful. And, upon completion, the band considers Noise its most defining effort, stating, “If we had to suggest just one album for those unfamiliar with Boris’ music, we will pick this for sure.” That’s a bold statement from a band having released over 20 albums covering a vast array of sounds. Yet somehow throughout the album’s 8 song, 58 minute duration, the band masterfully intermingles sludge-rock, blistering crust punk, shimmering shoegaze, epic thunderous doom, psychedelic melodies and just about everything else they’ve ever done. Over the course of Boris’ three previous Sargent House albums (Heavy Rocks, Attention Please and New Album) the band sought to expand its musical vision ever further. And, the results helped redefine the band’s already iconoclastic sound. However, in early 2013 they decided to return to their classic trio lineup moving forward: drummer/vocalist Atsuo, guitarist/vocalist Wata and bassist/guitarist/vocalist Takeshi. Having been able to explore many new ideas as a quartet in recent years, the band was concerned about logistics, until their very successful residency shows and tour in the U.S. convinced them that Boris could return to the simpler, solid trio without sacrificing artistic growth. Now, having rebuilt the classic trio’s ‘equilateral triangle’ they’re heavier, louder, more confident and incisive than ever before.
File Under: Metal, Japan
Listen Here
Cleaners From Venus: Volume 3 (Captured Tracks) 4LP Box
The legendary lo-fi band Cleaners from Venus were formed in the small town of Wivenhoe, southeast England at the turn of 1980’s by Martin Newell. The man, the myth, but to rock singer and part-time kitchen porter with a love of sunny 1960’s pop music, punk rock and musical comedy. He never cared much for any kind of musical rule book and broke new ground with music that garnered a cult following and a highly-influential sound that continues to inspire. These 4 albums are the final chapter in the unveiling of the entire discography from the band, spanning the end of Martin Newell’s long, storied run as the Cleaners from Venus (1985-1992). Included are Living with Victoria Grey, Number Thirteen and My Back Wages, which Newell considers a new release as it is finally being issued as he originally intended it. The fourth album is collection of rarities and unreleased material from the time that My Back Wages was recorded, called Extra Wages. This beautiful Cleaners From Venus Vol. 3 four LP box set also comes complete with a 16 page book of Newell’s poetry, liners written by Newell himself and unreleased photos.
File Under: Indie Rock
Listen Here
Earthless Meets Heavy Blanket: In A Dutch Haze (Outer Battery) LP
A colossal collaborative concert, previously privy only to those who were fortunate enough to have helped fill a Netherlandic concert hall multiple moons ago, will be unleashed in awesome audio form as Earthless Meets Heavy Blanket In A Dutch Haze. The out-of-this-world recording will see a July 2014 release via Outer Battery Records / Roadburn Records. Back-story: an impromptu heavy psych jam between J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr, Sweet Apple, Witch and one of both Rolling Stone and SPIN‘s “Greatest Guitarists of All Time”) and California space rock masters Earthless at the 2009 SXSW Festival left an onlooking crowd stunned and breathless. When word of the performance spread, the world-renowned musicians were asked to play the main stage of Holland’s annual international rock festival, Roadburn, to attempt to recreate the magic that revved-up an Austin audience at what was thought to be a one-time event. Fast forward to the 2012 installment of the fantastic fest; when Earthless’ guitarist Isaiah Mitchell had to back out at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstance, six-string shredder Graham Clise from J Mascis’ loud, psychedelic project Heavy Blanket (and who also plays with Mascis in Witch and in the bitchin’ Bay Area band Lecherous Gaze) stepped in on second guitar. Backed by the best rhythm section in today’s adventurous rock world – Mario Rubalcaba and Mike Eginton from Earthless – the quartet stormed the stage for what would become an incredible one-time happening, leading to almost a full hour of some of the most mind-bending heavy psych imaginable. The epic jam session gave birth to shredding psychedelia and hard rock blues underpinned by the muscular rhythmic sensibilities of kraut-rock and the unbridled energy of 70′s guitar rock. The formidable foundation laid by drummer Rubalcaba became a jumping off point for Mascis, Clise and Eighton to explore their inner cosmoi for consciousness-expanding riffs and music-induced psychedelic experiences. Now, the rest of the planet can ready their receivers and hoist headphones on high as the full live set from that magical evening in Tilburg is set to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world! Far-out, gatefold-spanning artwork by San Francisco tattoo artist and designer Tim Lehi (High on Fire, Black Anvil, Xasthur) perfectly animates this incredible audio adventure, while matchless mastering by Carl Saff (Boris, Guided By Voices), pushes this priceless performance over-the-top. Flame retardant clothing is highly recommended!
File Under: Psych, Metal, Stoner, Guitar Freakout
Listen Here
Donnie & Joe Emerson: Still Dreamin’ On (Light in the Attic) LP
By now, most of you reading this will be familiar with Donnie & Joe Emerson, the rock ‘n roll farmers, story. But Dreamin’ Wild does not tell the full story. In a relatively short span of time – just two and half years – the boys put close to 70 songs down on tape, all recorded at that magical home studio on the farm. A dozen of them are included here on Still Dreamin’ Wild: The Lost Recordings 1979-81 and ready to be enjoyed for the first time ever. With a familiar blend of FM rock, power pop, and new wave, these 12 tracks cover the entirety of that fruitful period, stretching from the second song Donnie ever recorded to tracks documenting his temporary move to L.A. in 1981. Donnie’s life story is in these songs. Where Dreamin’ Wild captures the teenage experience, Still Dreamin’ Wild tells a broader story, one in which teenage dreams turn to painful yearning. So where the Beach Boys indebted “Ooh Baby Yeah” is inspired by a teenage girlfriend, “Big Money” shows the emergence of a naive political awareness. Later, 1981’s “One True Love” captures the sound of what Donnie described as “the city as imagined from the farm,” and the epic closing track, “Don’t Disguise The Way You Feel” found Donnie after high school, feeling stifled and frustrated in the isolation of the countryside and mourning the loss of his friend and occasional backing vocalist Dwayne. It is, quite simply, heartbreaking. Still Dreamin’ Wild proves that the Emersons’ inspiration wasn’t a fluke, and that Donnie’s songwriting is as consistent as it is rare. All this time later, we finally have the pleasure of hearing the brothers’ music. And the good news? They’ve still got the jumpsuits.
File Under: Soft Rock, Power Pop
Listen Here
Fucked Up: Glass Boys Slow Version (Arts & Crafts) 2LP
Fucked Up Glass Boys (Slow Version) deluxe 2LP limited edition vinyl w/ alternate audio and artwork. Drummer Jonah Falco does something innovative on Glass Boys, adding two separate drum tracks, one of them in half-time, creating a psychedelic, disorienting feel. A limited vinyl edition of the album available through GalleryAC and indie retailers will include a bonus version that only features Falco’s half-time drums. Fucked Up’s Glass Boys is a blazing, titanic, triumphant punk rock album, the product of a band reckoning with the success of its last two sweeping, defining, monolithic records. On 2008’s The Chemistry Of Common Life, they tested hardcore’s capacity for stylistic innovation, winning the Polaris Music Prize in the process. With 2011’s David Comes To Life, Fucked Up offered up a full blown rock opera, coming with one larger-than-life hook after another. Glass Boys isn’t a back-to-basics move. For all its ambition and complexity, Glass Boys is a tight, concise, and direct album, of real sentiment rather than artifice. Fucked Up have made another mind-expanding, life-affirming piece of work, this time shooting straight from the heart.
File Under: Punk, CanCon
Listen Here
Don Harper: Cold Worlds (Dual Planet) LP
A previously unreleased Doctor Who score mastered from the original tapes. Includes additional electronic tracks from Don Harper’s catalogue and music featured in George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. A collection of Horror-Electronics, supernatural soundscapes and sinister library muzak from Australian composer Don Harper. Centering on a previously unreleased score for the 1968 Doctor Who series The Invasion (a dark otherworldly sci-fi jazz suite) Cold Worlds is also a focus on the electronic music of this largely unsung composer. Like many Australian film composers (Ron Grainer, Dudley Simpson, Don Banks) Don Harper based himself in the UK during the 1960s and subsequently found employment at the BBC and other British film and library companies. Probably best known for his BBC scores for World of Sport, Sexton Blake and The inside Man. Harper also immersed himself in the world of electronics. Acknowledged as a virtuoso jazz violinist, he notably produced a 1974 electronic/altered jazz session for Lansdowne Studios titled Homo Electronicus (featuring Norma Winstone and other progressive UK jazz musicians). In addition to cutting a number of library sessions for Joseph Weinburger’s Impress label, in which several tracks were later famously sampled by MF Doom, he also co-wrote the music (alongside Delia Derbyshire and David Vorhaus) for the essential Radiophonic KPM recording Electrosonic. Also featured on this compilation are his nightmarish cues used in George Romero’s cult zombie classic Dawn of the Dead.
File Under: OST, Library, BBC, Dr. Who, KPM
Listen Here
Kelompok Kampungan: s/t (Strawberry Rain) 10″
The remaining songs from the Mencari Tuhan album, previously unreleased on vinyl until today, and can be heard as the bonus songs on the CD release. The brainchild of Bram Makahekum (who had no musical experience or training at all), Kelompok Kumpangan had multiple members trying to recreate the sounds of nature, even using original handmade instruments invented by the band themselves. The end result was nothing short of brilliant, one of our personal favorites from the region and music that can’t really be compared to much else. Breathtaking!
File Under: Psych, Prog, Folk, Indonesia
Listen Here
Konrad: Evil (Ethereal Sequence) LP+7″
“It is very hard to know where to begin trying to explain Konrad,” writes Jeff Hassett of the quietly influential online home for vinyl devotees Waxidermy. Picture a synchronicity-fixated young dreamer trying to talk his way into Studio 54 to speak with the DJ. The album under his arm is an odd-looking collection of bedroom electropop simply titled Evil. Every now and then the club lets him in, but the album goes unheard, and Konrad disappears into the night. A mystery for 25 years, Evil gradually garners cult status leading to Hassett’s review. And then Konrad unexpectedly reveals himself as Barry Konarik living in Idaho in the comment section. Here’s his number, give him a call. Konverts jam the line for the rest of the day, but questions remain. What’s with the cloak? How did such lofty ideas emerge from the crime-infested Queens of the early 80s? And why does Konarik, who was adopted, have two birth certificates? One thing is certain; there has never been and never will be another Evil. Outsider, visionary, lunatic; the standard tags are inadequate – and nothing could prepare you for how addictively fun this record is. Direct from the original master tapes, this long overdue new edition features high quality Stoughton tip-on covers and, for the first 1,000 copies only, a bonus 45 with three more killer tracks including “Ethereal Sequence,” a cosmic theme song for the recently-reactivated label of the same name. The return of Konrad is an event not to be missed.
File Under: Synth Pop, Weirdness, Pop
Listen Here
Laraaji: Celestial Music 1978-2011 (All Saints) LP
Laraaji is a musician, mystic and laughter meditation practitioner based in New York City. He began playing music on the streets in the 1970s, improvising trance-inducing jams on a modified autoharp processed through various electronic effects. Brian Eno saw him playing one night in Washington Square Park and invited him to record an album for his seminal Ambient series (Ambient 3: Day Of Radiance, released 1980). Laraaji went onto release a prolific series of albums for a wide variety of labels, many of which he recorded himself at home and sold as cassettes during his street performances. In recent years he has been collaborating with a new generation of underground musicians, such as the 2011 album he recorded for the acclaimed FRKWYS series with Blues Control (That Healing Feeling). As well as the reissues of his music on All Saints, in the past year he has been included on the Light In The Attic compilation I Am The Center: Private Issue New Age Music In America 1950 – 1990, and been a live guest of Deerhunter and Jonathan Wilson. This legendary electronic mystic’s career-spanning collection of hypnotic ragas, cosmic synth bliss and far-out sonic explorations features rarities from private press cassette releases and collaborations with Brian Eno, Bill Laswell and Blues Control. Deluxe 3LP edition with fully illustrated liner notes, available on vinyl for the first time.
File Under: Ambient, Electronic, New Age, Dub
Listen Here
Mar-Vista: Visions of Sodal Ye (Strawberry Rain) LP
An album that has remained off the radar until now, Mar Vista’s lo-fi progressive home recording Visions was pressed in a quantity of 200 copies with blank sleeves and sold locally in France. Influenced by La Monte Young, Ashra Temple, Popul Vuh, Terry Riley, Tangerine Dream and others, the album plays as two side-long songs, with side 1 being a suite of 6 songs intertwined with the use of a four track. One hell of a trip, this stands as one of the more interesting private press albums we’ve heard from France, and another release originally pressed at the Le Kiosque D’Orphee pressing plant (look out for the upcoming Julien Grycan reissue also). CD comes with 2 long and killer bonus songs; “Crash ’73” which was influenced by early Soft Machine, and “Sykthetik Way,” a recording from ’78 influenced by artists like Klaus Schulze.
File Under: Electronic, Kosmiche, Ambient
Listen Here
Ennio Morricone: L’uccello Dalle Piume Di Cristallo (AMS) LP
Dario Argento’s “opera prima” L’uccello Dalle Piume Di Cristallo premiered in 1970 and marked a historical and revolutionary debut, being a truly original and innovative thriller. The stylistic choices of Argento mark a clear step forward from the thrillers of that era and even the soundtrack was something utterly special. Argento assigned the score to Ennio Morricone. For this movie the maestro adopted a particular style that draws heavily on contemporary music and on the studies of his Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. With L’uccello Dalle Piume Di Cristallo Morricone develops this approach and defines a formula, alternating traditional songs, built around an easy and immediate melody used as a leitmotiv, with avant-garde and abstract tracks that amplify the state of uneasiness and fear of the viewers of tension and violence sequences. Cinevox released this soundtrack on LP with 10 tracks in the spring of 1971. The record was originally issued in mono, with different tracks from the Stereo US version. This is the first vinyl reissue featuring the original score in Stereo, featuring brand new artwork made by Adventprod studios! First 500 copies are in red vinyl with a special 30x30cm insert reproducing the best international flyers and lobby cards of the movie.
File Under: OST, Maestro
Listen Here
Eric Siday: The Ultra Sonic Perception (Dual Planet) LP
Considered to be one of the pioneers of Psychoacoustics, Eric Siday is also acknowledged as a key name in the growth of 20th century electronic music. An important figure in the development of the Moog Synthesizer, Siday’s compositions were a testing ground for Bob Moog ideas, in turn shaping the technical advancement of the instrument. An early experimenter of Musique Concrete and extended technique, he inaugurated these concepts into the world of television scoring and advertising. Pulling together a clutch of eerie atomic-age miniatures drawn from a series of rare 78rpm library discs, this compilation explores Siday’s scientific study of sound, a concept he branded “The Ultra Sonic Perception”. Partially used as the soundtrack to the Doctor Who TV series, this document is an amazing insight into the early electronic music used in television as well as a showcase of the pioneering techniques used by this forward thinking composer.
File Under: Library, Electronic, Dr. Who
Listen Here
Slint: Spiderland (Touch & Go) LP+DVD
Slint’s 1991 album, Spiderland, remastered from the original analog master tapes by Bob Weston and available as both “180 gram LP+DVD+bonus download+12 Page Photo Book+download” and ‘CD+DVD+bonus download+20 Page Photo Booklet’ set. Both CD and LP include a download coupon for 14 outtakes & demos personal selected by Slint, mastered by Bob Weston Includes Breadcrumb Trail, a brand new, neverbefore-seen, 90 minute DVD documentary about Slint and the making of Spiderland, directed by Lance Bang. Booklet includes foreword by Will Oldham. All packaging printed in the USA. I first heard Slint before they were called that, but the difference between them and their contemporaries was already in concrete. From the outset they made music to suit themselves, not an audience, and their dogged pursuit of the sound of their imagination is still utterly unique. Tendrils of continuity between the doom of heavy metal, the drama of modernist classical music, and the rude musk of punk may not be apparent at first glance, but they glow like a web when illuminated by the fire of Slint’s muse. Nobody thinks about their music, or music itself, like Slint. Love this fucking band. Steve Albini, 2014. This great album has made well-known best-of lists such as; “TOP 100 ALBUMS OF THE 1990s” – SPIN / “100 BEST ALBUMS – NME” / “100 GREATEST ALBUMS 1985-2005” – PITCHFORK.COM
File Under: Indie Rock
Listen Here
Sufjan Stevens: Enjoy Your Rabbit (Asthmatic Kitty) LP
Originally released in 2001 before Michigan and Illinois, Sufjan Steven’s Enjoy Your Rabbit, is an album of programmatic songs for the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and foretells his 2010 electronic Age of Adz. Though overlooked by many, there are fans who regard Enjoy Your Rabbit as Sufjan’s greatest work. Departing from the singer-songwriter format of his debut Asthmatic Kitty Records album, A Sun Came, Enjoy Your Rabbit is a collection of fourteen colorful instrumental compositions combining Sufjan’s noted gift for melody with electronic sounds to create an unusually playful and human – not to mention humane – electronic experience. Great for dancing, driving, writing, cooking, painting, running, walking, and of course, eating Chinese food, Enjoy Your Rabbit features nearly eighty minutes of music that will truly soothe the savage breast, whatever that means.
File Under: Indie Rock
Listen Here
Various: BBC Radiophonic Fourth Dimension (Music on Vinyl) LP
Music heard on radio and Television (including Test Card Transmissions). One aspect of the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is the composition and realisation of signature tunes and incidental music for BBC Radio and Television programmes. Programme producers come to the Workshop with varying requests – it must be ‘bright’, ‘catchy’, ‘sinister’, ‘modest’, ‘supernatural’, ‘funny’, and so on but, most important, it must be unique in terms of sound qualities. The composer then sets to work to create the tune using natural sounds, which have been manipulated in some way and cut together on tape, or electronic sources, such as the voltage controlled synthesiser. Several such signature tunes are included on this record, composed by Paddy Kingsland, who joined the creative staff of the Workshop in 1970. Before this, he worked as a tape editor, then studio manager, chiefly for Radio One. He is a firm believer that instrumental sound combined with electronic and treated sound is essential for this type of work. The tracks on this record include compositions for Radio 1, 3, 4, Local Radio and Television programmes. The synthesisers used on this disc are both British, and both made by E.M.S. of London. They are the VCS3, an amazingly versatile miniature synthesiser, and its big brother, the Synthi ‘100’, known within the Radiophonic Workshop as ‘The Delaware’, after the address of the Workshop. This machine incorporates a digital memory that can be programmed via a conventional keyboard, and can store 256 events on 3 layers in any one ‘run’. In combination with the multi-track tape recorder, it provides all the facilities of an electronic music studio, its range being limited only by the imagination of the person using it. The specially created stereo is not an attempt at realism, but is used as a sound object in its own right. – Discogs
File Under: Early Electronic, BBC
Listen Here
Various: Light in the Attic Tapes (Light in the Attic) CS
* RODRIGUEZ – COLD FACT
* RODRIGUEZ – COMING FROM REALITY
* BLACK ANGELS – PASSOVER
* JIM SULLIVAN – U.F.O.
* BIG BOYS – LULLABIES HELP THE BRAIN GROW
* BIG BOYS – NO MATTER HOW LONG…
* BETTY DAVIS – BETTY DAVIS
* PIL – FIRST ISSUE
Everyone knows Burger Records loves cassettes. Heck, they made their name in that game! Each tape is hand-numbered and housed in gorgeous old school hand-made tip-on boxes, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the ’70s. Extremely limited – GET YERS ASAP!!!
File Under: LITA, Tapes
Various: Sound of Siam Vol. 2 (Soundways) LP/CD
Soundway’s second foray into South East Asia is focused on North-East Thailand, the epicentre of Molam and Luk Thung Isan music. Hypnotic phin & khaen riffs, pulsing, electrified country rhythms and heartfelt vocals punctuate another journey into the lesser known reaches of 1970s Thai music. The first volume of The Sound of Siam, released in 2011, was the first introduction for many to the artistry and innovations of modern Thai music. One of the most popular compilations on Soundway Records the music even made it onto the big screen with ‘Mae Jom Ka Lon’ by Dao Bandon featured on the soundtrack of ‘The Hangover Part II’. In an interview with LA Times Mick Jagger spoke of discovering the collection that “some nutter put together” after hearing the riff from Jumpin’ Jack Flash on one of the tracks from the compilation. In this second volume of The Sound of Siam the focus is firmly on the music the sounds of north-east Thailand, or Isan and attempts to show how a genre evolved and developed from essentially an acoustic tradition with specific geographic roots, to one that started to incorporate other instruments and influences that reached out to the Isan diaspora around the country. The term molam is actually two separate words pushed together: Mo meaning ‘expert’ or ‘doctor’ and lam meaning ‘to sing’. Hence the literal translation means ‘singing expert’. Many molam records have extended intros that allow a vocalist to establish the theme of the song, as well as flex their improvisational muscles. Luk thung (literally ‘song of the countryside’) is a much broader, rural style that had a bigger impact nationally. Artists like Saksiam Petchompu began fusing this style with molam, a move which propelled him to national fame. You can hear the influence of western funk, as well as Thai arrangements, on the luk thung Isan (as the hybrid became known) smash Jeb Jin Jeb Jai included here.
The Sound of Siam 2 – Molam & Luk Thung Isan from North-East Thailand 1970 – 1982 features 19 tracks, many appearing outside of Thailand for the first time. Both CD and double LP & is accompanied with detailed liner notes written by compilers Chris Menist and Maft Sai.
File Under: Luk-Thung, Molam, Thai
Listen Here
Various: Wheedle’s Groove Vol. 2 (Light in the Attic) LP/CD
In 2004, the first volume of Wheedle’s Groove shone a light on the formerly unheralded soul scene in 1960s and ’70s Seattle. The ongoing series continues to present a vast chapter of the city’s musical heritage that has little to do with long-haired rock dudes with guitars. To the contrary, platform shoes and pimp hats were the order of the day. But Seattle’s soul scene did not end in 1975. This new volume documents the period from 1972 to 1987, when funk was superseded by disco and modern soul. Heading into the ’80s, artists in the Emerald City caught wind of the hip-hop and electro scenes that were growing in bigger cities across America, and gave the music their own distinct spin. As the years unfurl in the tracks of Wheedle’s Groove Volume II, so does the recent history of American music, the songs tracing technological changes and social change, and music’s move from the club to disco as live bands moved aside for DJs. Witness Septimus, on the cusp of both, blending a live drummer with a Roland drum machine and cutting “Here I Go Again” on a disco-friendly 12″ single. Compiled and sequenced by Seattle’s DJ Supreme La Rock, this 18-track compilation will also introduce you to the long-forgotten blue-eyed soul boy Don Brown and frustrated talents Push, overlooked for record deals on account of singer “Big Joe” Erickson’s larger-than-life heft. There’s Frederick Robinson III and his gospel-funk protest tune “Love One Another”, Tony Benton of Teleclere being Seattle’s answer to Prince and Seattle Mariners baseball star Lenny Randle recording a tribute to their infamous stadium.
File Under: Funk, Soul
Listen Here
…..restocks…..
Alabama Shakes: Boys & Girls (ATO) LP
Arcade Fire: Reflektor (Sonovox) LP
At The Drive-In: Vaya (Fearless) 10″
The Band: Last Waltz (Rhino) LP
Franco Battiato: Foetus (Vinyl Magic) LP
Big Boys: Lullabies Help The Brain Grow (Modern Classics) LP
Black Sabbath: s/t (Rhino) LP
Black Sabbath: Master of Reality (Rhino) LP
Broken Bells: After the Disco (Columbia) LP
Brothers & Sisters: Dylan’s Gospel (Light in the Attic) LP/CD
Cinematic Orchestra: Motion (Ninja Tune) LP
City & Colour: Sometimes (Dine Alone) LP
Comet Control: s/t (Teepee) LP
D’angelo: Voodoo (Modern Classics) LP
Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (Music on Vinyl) LP
Earthless: Sonic Prayer (Gravity) LP
Earthless: Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky (Teepee) LP
Earthless: From The Ages (Teepee) LP
Donnie & Joe Emerson: Dreamin’ Wild (Light in the Attic) LP
Future Islands: Singles (4AD) LP
Goblin: Susperia (AMS) LP
Grateful Dead: American Beauty (Rhino) LP
Grant Green: Idle Moments (Blue Note) LP
Lee Hazlewood: LHI Years (Light in the Attic) LP
Jessie Lanza: Pull My Hair Back (Hyperdub) LP
Madlib: Shades of Blue (Blue Note) LP
Menahan Street Band: The Crossing (Daptone) LP
Charles Mingus: East Coasting (Waxtime) LP
Mr. Bungle: California (Plain) LP
Oasis: Definitely Maybe (Big Brother) LP
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon (EMI) LP
Pink Floyd: The Wall (EMI) LP
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (EMI) LP
Poets of Rhythm: Anthology (Daptone) LP
Portishead: Dummy (Polydor) LP
Portishead: PNYC (Polydor) LP
Portishead: s/t (London) LP
Portishead: Third (Mercury) LP
Queens of the Stone Age: Like Clockwork (Matador) LP
Ramones: s/t (Rhino) LP
Rodion GA: The Lost Tapes (Strut) LP
Rodion GA: Misuinea Spatiala (Strut) LP
Ty Segall Band: Slaughterhouse (In The Red) 2×10″
Dylan Shearer: Garagearray (Castleface) LP
St. Vincent: Marry Me (Beggars) LP
St. Vincent: Strange Mercy (Beggars) LP
Jim Sullivan: UFO (Light in the Attic) LP/CD
Swans: The Seer (Young God) LP
Timber Timbre: Creep on Creepin’ on (Arts & Craft) LP
Timber Timbre: s/t (Arts & Crafts) LP
Tune Yards: Nikki Nack (4AD) LP
Vampire Weekend: s/t (XL) LP
Vampire Weekend: Contra (XL) LP
Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires in the City (XL) LP
White Stripes: Elephants (Thirdman) LP
Witch: Paralyzed (Teepee) LP
Various: Punk 45 Vol 1 (Soul Jazz) LP
Various: Punk 45 Vol 2 (Soul Jazz) LP
Various: Wheedle’s Groove (Light in the Attic) LP