Summer must be over because there’s a ton of stuff in this week! And the new releases aren’t going to let up anytime soon either. Lots of big titles are coming out before the end of the year. We’ve also been chippin’ away at all the unpriced used stuff we’ve been sitting on…. All in all, lots to dig though these days.
…..picks of the week…..
Jerusalem in my Heart: If He Dies, If If If If If If (Constellation) LP
Radwan Ghazi Moumneh returns with a second full-length album from his acclaimed Jerusalem In My Heart (JIMH) project, conceived and recorded in his dual homes Montréal and Beirut. Known for his production and engineering work with artists as diverse as Matana Roberts (all three chapters of her Coin Coin recordings to date), Aids Wolf, Ought, Eric Chenaux (with whom he also released a collaborative album for the Grapefruit Records Club) and Suuns (with whom he also released a collaborative album on Secretly Canadian in spring 2015), Moumneh has been firing on all cylinders over the past few years. He has brought JIMH to mesmerized live audiences in Canada, Europe and the Middle East since the release of his first album in 2013, following many years during which the project was a strictly Montréal-based live/theatrical happening. While JIMH continues to expand to include a larger cast of players for select engagements and commissions, the group is currently an immersive and performative audio-visual duo at its core, with Moumneh responsible for all sound/composition and filmmaker Charles-André Coderre creating 16mm visuals and live projections/installations. Moumneh expands his compositional palette on If He Dies, If If If If If If, exploring new deconstructions and juxtapositions of both traditional and popular Arab musical currents, with an album that oscillates between powerfully emotive vocal tunes and instrumental works that primarily make use of Radwan’s expressive acoustic playing on buzuk and zurna as a point of departure. One of Moumneh’s finest melismatic a cappella vocal performances opens the album, followed by the uncharacteristically literal-titled “A Granular Buzuk”, where said instrument is processed, re-sampled and otherwise disrupted through Radwan’s real-time custom signal patches. “7ebr El 3oyoun” follows with languidly plaintive vocals set against a gradually accelerating riff underpinned by hand percussion, and Side One closes with a scabrous white noise intervention wherein the entire audio mix is fed through a contact mic placed in Radwan’s mouth. Moumneh continues to channel his love for Arabic pop and Casio/cassette culture on the silky lo-fi disco of “Lau Ridyou Bil Hijaz?” which opens Side Two, then pays homage to the until-recently exiled Kurdish poet and singer Sivan Perwer on the traditional-minded, unadorned folk tune “Ta3mani; Ta3meitu”. The album closes with a tour-de-force drone piece built from Bansuri flute (performed by guest player Dave Gossage) and a delicate acoustic number set against the sound of waves recorded on a beach in Lebanon. (Song titles employ the transliterative characters used in Arabic phone texting.) If He Dies, If If If If If If is an adventurous, scrupulous, impassioned and highly original work of modern contemporary Arabic music and a gratifying sign that Jerusalem In My Heart is situating itself in recorded works with the same thoughtful and dynamic intensity previously accessible only in live performances. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
File Under: Ambient, Electronic, Experimental, CanCon
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Natural Snow Buildings: Terror’s Horns (Ba Da Bing) LP
In Tomorrow! After a string of Natural Snow Buildings reissues, each more elaborate then the last, Ba Da Bing! presents their first ever release of new material from the band. For a group known for its use of horror imagery and lyricism, perhaps the most shocking thing of all is that this album clocks in at just under 45 minutes. If there ever was a release that served as the proper entry point for Natural Snow Buildings, Terror s Horns is it. It would be a stretch to call this Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte’s pop record, for Terror’s Horns continues the duo’s tradition of combining many layers into sometimes blissful, sometimes contemplative, often menacing conditions. Stringed instruments trill, percussion gongs, feedback hisses and vocals maintain near monotone as if in a cultish trance. The songs still unveil themselves slowly, and the album’s progression lends the impression of descending down through the depths, past hidden cavities and chambers never to be unseen once experienced. Terror s Horns features new artwork by Gularte that pays tribute to the backwoods horror of massacres involving chainsaws. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
File Under: Ambient, Drone, Psych, Folk
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Michael Yonkers: Grimwood (Nero’s Neptune) LP
In Tomorrow! I’ve been after this LP for quite some time, this is a much welcome reissue! Michael Yonkers’s Grimwood finally receives its long-overdue vinyl re-release (with download code included). Yonkers’s first four LPs were released simultaneously in 1973, but it is Grimwood, his first, that regular commands the biggest bucks on the collector-scum market. Recorded in 1969, less than a couple years after the material eventually released as Microminiature Love, Grimwood sounds like it emanates from another universe entirely. Straightforward on the one hand, yet fascinatingly and psychedelically abstruse on the other, Grimwood remains an essential “outsider” document that sits comfortably (and irreplaceably) alongside Spence, Grudzien, Tweddle, and a few select others. “It would seem that Yonkers followed a trail that psychologically parallels the sun life highway, and his private flight took place in a presumably small hut, nestled on a lemonade lake, and from his chimney wafted rainbow smoke, in the fantastical haven of the mystical, mythical grimwood town for which the rec is named, as he attempted to allow light / space into areas of his psyche that hadn’t seen enough of either in some time.” –Karl Ikola, liner notes to 2007 CD reissue HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
File Under: Folk, Acid Folk
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…..new arrivals……
Acid Mother’s Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO: Benzaiten (Important) LP
Edition of 1000. Another smoker from Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., in typically fine form. Benzaiten is an In C-style homage to the classic Osamu Kitajima record Benzaiten (1973). Acid Mothers Temple covers the title-track and reprise using Kitajima’s original composition as a departure point to explore the outer realms of AMT territory. Further instrumental explorations reveal textures of the original composition while launching out further into the cosmic domain. Numerous Acid Mothers originals are scattered in between. Benzaiten!
File Under: Japanese, Psych
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Aqua Nebula Oscillator: s/t (Rewolfed Gloom) LP
A song title like “Ready to Fly” actually provides all the information necessary to categorize this album as the kind of psychedelic space rock that will bring you back to the ancient days of the 1970s when Hawkwind ruled and LSD was the hot shit to get up from the ground and trip through open space. “Ready to Fly” is certainly a typical up-tempo space rock song with a straight and hypnotic beat, oscillating synthesizer lines, swishing distorted guitars, and monotone chants buried under layers upon layers of echo effects. What was great in 1972 can still capture your spirit in 2015. But there is more behind this album, originally released in 2008, than meets the ear. It begins with a four-minute-long drone titled “Kâ,” made of sitar sounds coupled with swirling synths and strange voice samples. Next comes “Ready to Fly,” the prototypical space rocker, followed by “Take a Long Walk,” which could not be more different. Here we have folky psychedelic music that flows gently with a haunting, melancholic melody and some fine guitar leads lost in reverie. Early P.F., during their days as the hottest band in the 1967 London underground club scene, come to mind. The album continues with heavily grooving yet utterly washy and simmering power rock with vocals that mill into your mind, before returning to gently floating psychedelic folk with guitar sounds that feel like whale chants, swirling synthesizer noises in the back, and dark and melancholic vocal harmonies. If you like your spaced-out, heavy psychedelic music colorful, these French trippies deliver the goods in a way that will please every acid rock fundamentalist focused on the ’60s and ’70s, as well as all the desert rock aficionados who were born too late for the freak-outs back in the day. This is the key to unlock the gate to a world of color, joy, and passion where love can be felt as a physical force. The 1960s garage psych of bands like The Third Bardo, the acid outbursts of embryonic P.F., and Hawkwind’s straight-ahead space rock drive combined could hardly match with the music of their heirs.
File Under: Psych, Space Rock
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Ataraxia: The Unexplained (Fifth Dimension) LP
Electronic impressions of the occult, reissued for the first time. The late, great Mort Garson (1924-2008) was a hotshot of electronic music’s pioneering days, known for his groundbreaking occult works such as The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds (1967) and Lucifer: Black Mass (1971). A different side of his creativity emerged in his 1976 Plantasia project, an inspired album of Moog compositions to be played for growing plants. The previous year he released this hypnotizing album, which takes the listener on a weird trip to an even weirder sound-world. Metallic drum loops add a proto-industrial feel to the swirling waves of colorful synthesizer melodies, which draw from jazz and exotica music of the ’50s and ’60s as well as mysterious detective movie soundtracks and pulsating psychedelic rock. There are moments of freeform electronic oscillations with layers of synthetic whistling and buzzing shifted over each other, and passages with hot-blooded grooves let the listener drift away on a gently flowing river of sound. Recommended for all lovers of the more experimental 1970s electronic music, The Unexplained definitely competes with such fine German artists as Cluster, Tangerine Dream, and Klaus Schulze. The album will also appeal to freaks who love progressive soundtracks for Italian horror movies of the same time by Goblin and other masters. A fascinating album that prefigures the pulsating synthesized rhythms that would later appear in many dance productions. Another pioneering work from a true artist who loved the challenge of crossing borders and exploring new territories of sound.
File Under: Early Electronic, Mort Garson
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William Basinski & Richard Chartier: Divertissment (Important) LP
Divertissement is the third collaborative full-length from minimalist composer William Basinski and sound artist Richard Chartier. The duo utilizes electronics, piano, tape loops, and short-wave radio to evoke a dense atmosphere suggesting hundreds of years of history rising up from the depths of a reverberating cathedral. Subtle, buried, and intense murmurs of melody morph through this deeply consuming and slowly evolving composition in two parts. William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who employs obsolete technology and analog tape loops to create haunting, melancholy soundscapes that explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic four-disc masterwork The Disintegration Loops was chosen by Pitchfork Media as one of the top 50 albums of 2004; upon its reissue in 2012, Pitchfork awarded it a score of 10 and the title of best reissue of the year. Installations and films made in collaboration with artist and filmmaker James Elaine have been presented in festivals and museums internationally, and his concerts are presented to sold-out crowds around the world. Basinski was chosen by Antony Hegarty to create music for Robert Wilson’s 2011 opera The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. Maxim Moston’s orchestral transcriptions of The Disintegration Loops have been performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the Swiss festival La Bâtie. Richard Chartier (b. 1971), sound and installation artist, is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist electronic sound art that has been termed both “microsound” and neo-modernist. Chartier’s minimalist digital work explores the interrelationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception, and the act of listening itself. Chartier’s work has been presented internationally, including at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and he has performed his work live across Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America at digital art and electronic music festivals and exhibits. In 2000 he formed the record label LINE and has since curated its continuing documentation of compositional and installation work by international sound artists and composers exploring the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism. In 2010, Chartier was awarded a Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellowship to explore the National Museum of American History’s collection of 19th-century acoustic apparatus for scientific demonstration.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Bass Communion/Freiband: s/t (Important) LP
This is the third collaborative release by Steven Wilson (Bass Communion) and Frans de Waard (Freiband), following two well-received 3″ CD releases on de Waard’s My Own Little Label. Early in 2014, de Waard extended an invitation to Wilson to take part in his Brombron project, in which one artist works in residence with another musician for one week, on music to be performed in concert at the end of that week. That other musician turned out to be Thomas Köner, the date December 2014, the location Extrapool, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In the middle of this residency there happened to be a day off when Köner needed to be out of town. Rather than waste the day, Wilson and de Waard decided on an impromptu concert performance, and spent the day preparing the music. The concert took place that evening in the relaxed environment of Extrapool for a small audience of invited friends. This record contains a slightly reworked recording of the performance on 12″ vinyl with a total playing time of 26 minutes. No additional overdubs were made, but parts of the music on the second side were subsequently layered and recycled in the studio. On the A-side, “Courage” is in the tradition of ambient musique concrète, and continues the style and approach of the previous Bass Communion/ Freiband releases. On side B, “Cowardice” shatters expectations with a slab of psychedelic noise assault, complete with exploding rhythm machines and gnarled electric guitar. Presented in a beautiful sleeve designed by Carl Glover. Edition of 500.
File Under: Ambient, Electronic, Porcupine Tree
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Alessandro Cortini: Forse 1 (Important) LP
Super limited 2015 repress! “Deluxe double LP. Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels) composed the Forse series using a Buchla Music Easel. Forse, meaning ‘maybe’ In Italian, is a series of three double LP releases Cortini recorded for Important to release in 2013. ‘All pieces were written and performed live on a Buchla Music Easel, in the span of one month. I found that the limited array of modules that the instrument offers sparked my creativity. Most pieces consist of a repeating chord progression, where the real change happens at a spectral/dynamic level, as opposed to the harmonic/chordal one. I believe that the former are just as effective as the latter, in the sense that the sonic presentation (distortion , filtering, wave shaping, etc.) are just as expressive as a chord change or chord type, and often reinforce said chord progressions. Of all the years with Nine Inch Nails the period spent writing and recording the instrumental record Ghosts I-IV is probably the one which changed my approach to music making the most. After that record I started getting more into instrumental composition, although I tried to approach it in a different way. While we had a vast array of tools and instruments at our disposal then, I decided to approach my pieces limiting myself to one instrument only, as I found myself being more decisive when faced with a limited creative environment.'” HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, NIN
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Chromatics: Drumless (Italians Do It Better) LP
In Tomorrow! An atmospheric drum-free version of Chromatics’ beloved Kill For Love album.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Dangerdoom: The Mouse & The Mask (Lex) LP
10th anniversary reissue of the hugely successful collaborative album between super producer Danger Mouse and underground rap legend MF Doom. The album features notable guest spots from Talib Kweli, Ghostface Killah and pre Gnarls Barkley, CeeLo Green. The album also features skits and contributions from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim characters Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sea Lab 2010, Space Ghost and more. The album was a critical and commercial success and the iconic UK version of the vinyl designed by longterm Lex collaborator EHQuestionmark has been long sought after. The outer sleeve is made from thick translucent textured plastic with Doom’s mask printed on the cover, and mouse ears on each side of the mask forming a pattern that looks like a Rorschach test (a technique reused in another Danger Mouse project six months later). The inner sleeves, visible through the outer at first glance pattern based on an Ishihara test, but inside the circles in the pattern are tiny icons depicting a different disasters – climate change, acid rain, holy war, nuclear leaks. The reissue is presented in the exact same spec as the original double vinyl including the custom made frosted plastic outersleeve, spot flouro and metallic pantone printed inner sleeves. The album originally debuted at #2 on the Billboard independent albums charts. Subsequent releases from Danger Mouse include Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz and Broken Bells, as well as production work for Beck, A$AP Rocky and the Black Keys. Doom is, of course, the legendary producer/MC behind the Special Herbs series, Madvillainy (with Madlib) and collaborations with Jneiro Jarel and Bishop Nehru.
File Under: Hip Hop
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Max Eastley /Derek Bailey /Coum/ Feminist Improvising Group: Another Evening at Logos 1974/79/81 (Sub Rosa) LP
Previously-unreleased recordings from live sessions at the Logos Foundation, Ghent, Belgium, recorded in 1974, 1979, and 1981. This double LP, the first release in a vinyl-only series, includes the following recordings: a 1979 performance by Max Eastley and Logos Ensemble (Max Eastley, Godfried-Willem Raes, Moniek Darge, and Rob Keymeulen playing xylophone bars, Aeolian flutes, springboard, sanzas); a 1974 performance by Feminist Improvising Group (Georgie Born: cello, bass guitar; Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, oboe, sax, flute; Maggie Nichols: voice, piano; Sally Potter: voice, sax; Irène Schweizer: piano, drums); a 1974 performance by COUM (Genesis P-Orridge, Paul Woodrow, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Joseph L/R Rose) and Logos Ensemble (Godfried-Willem Raes, Moniek Darge, Luc Houtkamp, and others); and a 1981 performance of guitar improvisations by Derek Bailey. Logos Foundation, founded in 1968 by Godfried-Willem Raes and based in Ghent, Flanders, Belgium, is a unique professional organization for the promotion of new music and audio-related arts by means of new music production, concerts, performances, composition, technological research, and other activities related to contemporary music.
File Under: Free Improv, Jazz
Emptyset: s/t (Subtext) LP
The 2009 debut self-titled album by Bristol-based project Emptyset (James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas), reissued here, formed the initial departure for the duo’s ongoing exploration of time, structure, and analog technology. The album highlights the project’s development and the foundation of its studio-based production process, forming the first part of a triptych spanning Demiurge and Recur. Emptyset creates the first point within this narrative, initiating a dialogue between full-frequency audio, noise, and the emergent properties of sound, and the starting point for their contained sonic approach.
File Under: Electronic
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Jackson C. Frank: The Complete Recordings 1-3 (Ba Da Bing) LP
In Tomorrow! While Jackson C. Frank’s eponymous 1965 album and other material has enjoyed numerous official and unofficial reissues, Jackson C Frank: The Complete Recordings is the first to compile his entire recording career. Released in conjunction with Jim Abbott’s book, Jackson C. Frank: The Clear Hard Light of Genius, The Complete Recordings contains a total of 67 tracks, 24 of which have never appeared before. Every song has been mastered or remastered, a number of them straight from the original, brittle reel-to-reels on which they were originally laid down. Plagued by tragedy with the most haunting music to show for it, Frank’s life can be heard through his music, which has been covered by the likes of Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkel, Fairport Convention, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, John Mayer, South Korean jazz singer Nah Youn Sun, French singer Graeme Allwright, and sampled by Nas for “Undying Love.” While never fully recognized as one of the great musicians of the ’60s, Frank clearly had his fans. The artist’s story is a cautionary tale for the dangerous pitfalls of a life lived. At the age of eleven, he was the victim of the infamous Cleveland Hill School Fire in a New York suburb, leaving him burned and disabled, and killing fifteen of his classmates. He spent an agonizing eight months in the hospital, during which time he picked up a guitar for the first time. Scarred both physically and psychologically, and left a shell of his former self, Frank would never fully recover from the wounds. His never-released second album was to include the song “Marlene,” which honors his childhood girlfriend lost in the fire. After an aborted attempt at college, where he formed a folk trio, Frank, along with a Martin guitar and his then-girlfriend Kathy Henry, caught The Queen Elizabeth in February 1965, on which he apocryphally wrote his first, and now his most famous, song “Blues Run the Game.” He soon found himself making the rounds of the London folk clubs and rubbed shoulders with Jansch, Renbourn, Roy Harper, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Paxton, Mike Seeger and Sandy Denny (who became Jackson’s girlfriend and later wrote the somber song “Next Time Around” about him). Frank’s music caught the interest of another young American songwriter in London named Paul Simon, who offered to record and produce his album Jackson C. Frank in 1965. Simon brought Al Stewart along to play guitar, while Denny, Judith Piepe and Art Garfunkel kept them company (and supposedly even ran out for teas for the performer). After recording his album, however, Frank’s health took a turn for the worse and the following years were unkind. He met future wife Elaine Sedgwick, cousin of Edie Sedgwick, at a London party, and when his money began to run out he left London for Woodstock, where they married. The relationship was marked by a miscarriage and the death of their first-born son to cystic fibrosis, and Frank’s subsequent mental unraveling. He was later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and battled excessive weight gain from a thyroid problem developed after the fire. Additionally, he went through bouts of intermittent homelessness between stays at various upstate shelters. One day, while Jackson waited in a park to be moved to a new facility, he was shot and blinded in his left eye by neighborhood children with a BB gun. The light from this period of his life came from Jim Abbott, who looked after Frank until his death in 1999. Frank’s recordings span four decades of a hard-lived life, and every experience, every trial, is reflected in his voice. If ever a person’s individual journey could be traced through his music, it’s Frank’s, and The Complete Recordings is nothing less than a representative map of the artist’s high points and deepest, most shadowed valleys. While the 1965 debut album has seen intermittent reissues, an expanded double-CD edition appeared in 2003 from Sanctuary, with 33 songs that had never appeared before. Jackson C Frank: The Complete Recordings contains a total of 67 tracks, including all the Sanctuary material, plus 24 more songs.
File Under: Folk
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Jean Guerin: Tacet (Souffle Continu) LP
Highly surreal and wonderfully futuristic, Tacet, one of the best kept secrets of the Futura catalog, is the 1971 soundtrack work of Jean Guérin for Claude Faraldo’s anarchic 1971 film Bof… Anatomie d’un livreur. This avant-garde psychedelic jazz masterpiece is a blend of abstract vocals, unusual electronics, twisted sound envelopes, and nervous brass instruments. This first-ever officially-licensed vinyl reissue is the fourth in Souffle Continu’s series reissues of Futura reissues, fully licensed by Futura founder Gérard Terronès. Presented in a 350-gram reverse-printed gatefold sleeve with obi strip. Limited to 500 copies.
File Under: Experimental, Jazz, Avant-Garde
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Lum Guffin: s/t (Mississippi) LP
In Tomorrow! Lum Guffin has been called “The Walking Victrola” a human depository of many musical styles and songs. This LP features great performances recorded in the early 1970’s of Lum playing guitar and singing. His style is distinctive and beautiful. A true great of the blues genre who has been seldom heard. We are proud to present this beautiful limited edition of his material with a silk screened cover (4 different color variations have been made you will get a random selection when ordering). A co-release with the king of blues reissues label, Sutro Park.
File Under: Blues
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P.E. Hewitt Jazz Ensemble: Winter Winds (Now Again) LP
“The three lost albums by the Bay Area vibraphonist/composer/arranger P.E. Hewitt will now be available as stand alone releases for the first time since Richard Nixon was in the White House. Masterpieces in deep/modal/spiritual jazz from a teenaged wunderkind, recorded and released from 1968-1970, P.E. Hewitt was but 16 years old when he recorded and released — in a pressing of 50 copies — his debut album Jawbones. By the time he sold through the 100 copies of this third, Winter Winds, he was approaching the ripe-age of 20. The three albums he and his young compatriots wrote, recorded, pressed, and — if you can call it that — distributed are three of the rarest damn-good ’70s jazz albums you could ever hope to come across. That’s a subtle, but important distinction. There are many rare jazz albums in every imaginable subgenre — funk, free, fusion, but Hewitt’s three albums were so damn-good that neither micro presses nor forty years of silence could suppress their reemergence. We at Now-Again decided against compiling a best of anthology out of respect for Hewitt’s monstrous achievements and because, well, these albums are so damn good. Thus, we offer you this series of reissues designed to be as close to the original pressings as possible down to their hand-painted covers. First in the series, Hewitt’s legendary 1970 release Winter Winds, a mix of modal, Latin-tinged, and ethereal vocal jazz.”
File Under: Jazz, Modal Jazz, Spiritual
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Haruomi Hosonno: Cochin Moon (North Korea) LP
“Originally released in 1978 in Japan, this album is a soundtrack to a fictional Bollywood film. It features a tapestry of weird floating electronic grooves parsed within menacing rants of jungle birds and night sounds. Fans of Ash Ra Tempel guitarist Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4, Cluster, Achim Reichel & Machines, or even Aphex Twin will be in heaven with this electronic psychedelic trip of sounds and colors. Way ahead of its time, this is a magical treat from beginning to end. Cover artwork is by no other than Tadanori Yokoo (often referred to as the Japanese Andy Warhol). Limited to 500 copies on vinyl.” HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
File Under: Electronic, Psych, OST
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John Hulburt: Opus III (Tompkins Square) LP
In Tomorrow! Guitarist and singer-songwriter Ryley Walker discovered the 1972 private press LP in a Chicago record store, loved what he heard, and teamed with Tompkins Square to produce the reissue. John Hulburt (1947-2012) was a member of legendary mid-60’s Chicago garage rock band The Knaves, whose records were recently reissued by Sundazed. Opus III showcases his exceptional talent on the acoustic guitar, proving somewhat of an anomaly in a city not known for its solo guitar recordings during this era. Walker writes in his liner notes, “Solo acoustic guitar music was adopted by several in the Berkeley school and the ever expansive roots fanatics in the South, but here in the middle of the country with harsh winters and the landlocked prison of corn fields, it was almost destiny that the amplifier assault of electric blues and controlled chaos of dance music came from the South Side.” Opus III has another notable Chicago connection : It’s one of the earliest studio credits for Styx and Ohio Players engineer / producer Barry Mraz. Styx’s debut album would also be released in 1972. Includes liner notes and vintage photographs.
File Under: Folk, SSW
Dick Hyman/Mary Mayo: Moon Gas (Captain High) LP
The jazz genre spawned a couple of quite colorful subspecies that were part of important pop cultural movements to let the ordinary man escape from the daily grind. Two of the most prolific pop jazz spheres were exotica, which accompanied the tiki culture that was omnipresent throughout the ’50s and early ’60s, and space age music, a rather pop-oriented, accessible style with hints of swing and vocal jazz spiced up with quite mind-altering sound effects. Moon Gas, a 1963 collaboration between pianist and organist Dick Hyman and singer Mary Mayo, hits the center of the space age genre directly, with its dreamy tunes; haunting, melancholic vocal melodies; and groovy, swinging compositions that invite the listener to an easy dance. Strange little sounds whistle and sparkle around the rather uncomplicated, easy-listening, jazz-pop compositions. The songs alone would certainly be on par with the best contemporary hit tunes of their age, but what really makes them outstanding is this combination with the sound-world of a space laboratory or starship. 1963 was definitely a year in which the USA found itself in competition with the Soviet Union for dominance in space, so this type of music fit well with the dreams of the average man to explore distant galaxies. About six or seven years later, when psychedelic rock had reached a peak and the music was ready to leave the earth behind, these early sounds were developed into space rock by such groups as Hawkwind. In 1963 we are still far away from this, and what Dick Hyman, Mary Mayo, and their unnamed band members create is a rather smooth and calm affair that still pushes one’s mind towards certain borders of reality. All these funny noises transport the listener into a world of huge computers with flashing lights on board interstellar space ships traveling from one galaxy to the next. At its core, it’s cool vocal jazz music, surrounded by arrangements of bleeping, rattling, and swooshing. The sweet, enchanting melodies evoke a futuristic dream; the musicians are tight and professional; and Mary Mayo sings in a distinctive and harmonic style that soothes the senses. Take a relaxed trip to the stars with this classic album.
File Under: Electronic, Jazz, Space-Age
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Konstrukt/Akira Sakata: Kaishi: Live at Kargart (Holidays) LP
Another chapter in the ongoing series of live recordings of the Turkish quartet Konstrukt, this time teaming up with saxophonist Akira Sakata, a key figure of the Japanese free jazz movement since the 1970s. Recorded at kargART in Istanbul on January 17th, 2015, this 70-minute long jam is one of the band’s most psychedelic to date, with Sakata’s growling shōmyō-like chant finding the perfect setting — like a snake charmer — in a jungle of constantly reinvented sound. Edition of 200.
File Under: Jazz, Free Jazz
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Liquid Liquid: s/t (Superior Viaduct) LP
In Tomorrow! “Liquid Liquid emerged from New York City’s vibrant Downtown scene in 1981. Formed by drummer Scott Hartley, bassist Richard McGuire, vocalist Sal Principato, and marimba player Dennis Young, the group cut their teeth in underground clubs and street art circles before solidifying their trailblazing style — a fusion of irresistible basslines, junkyard percussion, and urgent, free-flowing lyrics. Their three EPs, all originally released on legendary 99 Records, would heavily influence dance-oriented indie rock of the early aughts (LCD Soundsystem, DFA Records, et al.). Their eponymous debut establishes Liquid Liquid’s uncompromising vision, from its startling black-and-white sleeve design to the minimalist grooves found within. While Principato’s striking pitch-shifted shouts on ‘Bell Head’ lead hypnotic circular rhythms, ‘Rubbermiro’ brings in dub-inflected melodica and Richard Edson (Sonic Youth, Konk) on trumpet, closing appropriately in a locked-groove.”
File Under: Rock, Dance, Funk
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Liquid Liquid: Successive Reflexes (Superior Viaduct) LP
In Tomorrow! “Liquid Liquid emerged from New York City’s vibrant Downtown scene in 1981. Formed by drummer Scott Hartley, bassist Richard McGuire, vocalist Sal Principato, and marimba player Dennis Young, the group cut their teeth in underground clubs and street art circles before solidifying their trailblazing style — a fusion of irresistible basslines, junkyard percussion, and urgent, free-flowing lyrics. Their three EPs, all originally released on legendary 99 Records, would heavily influence dance-oriented indie rock of the early aughts (LCD Soundsystem, DFA Records, et al.). Following their debut in 1981, Liquid Liquid wasted no time with their second release the same year. Successive Reflexes picks up where the previous EP leaves off with ‘Lock Groove,’ a slow-paced deconstruction of Fela Kuti and Can that shows how quickly the band was able to capture their stripped-down approach in the studio. ‘Push’ drives forward with unapologetic funk, yet still sounds utterly unique. Like their 99 labelmates ESG, Liquid Liquid created music on their own terms and artfully avoided the trappings of any single genre.”
File Under: Rock, Dance, Funk
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Liquid Liquid: Optimo (Superior Viaduct) LP
In Tomorrow! “Liquid Liquid emerged from New York City’s vibrant Downtown scene in 1981. Formed by drummer Scott Hartley, bassist Richard McGuire, vocalist Sal Principato, and marimba player Dennis Young, the group cut their teeth in underground clubs and street art circles before solidifying their trailblazing style — a fusion of irresistible basslines, junkyard percussion, and urgent, free-flowing lyrics. Their three EPs, all originally released on legendary 99 Records, would heavily influence dance-oriented indie rock of the early aughts (LCD Soundsystem, DFA Records, et al.). Liquid Liquid continued toward dance-floor perfection with their third EP. 1983’s Optimo features the band’s best-known songs and remains a high water mark for post-punk aficionados. The title track positively erupts when the bass enters, forcing even the stiffest person in the room to move. While it would be an understatement to say that ‘Cavern’ may sound familiar (due to its gross sampling in Grandmaster Melle Mel’s ‘White Lines’), Liquid Liquid were indeed the originators of this iconic New York riff.”
File Under: Dance, Rock, Funk
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Liquid Idiot/Idiot Orchestra: s/t (Superior Viaduct) LP
In Tomorrow! “Prior to forming Liquid Liquid in 1981, the band members were in two other groups: Liquid Idiot and Idiot Orchestra. While these ensembles sounded more experimental than groove-oriented, the beginnings of Liquid Liquid’s spatial/conceptual framework can be heard here. Liquid Idiot started at Rutgers University in the late ’70s and soon relocated to NYC where they performed at various lofts and clubs including Tier 3, Mudd Club, and CBGB. The band even encouraged audience members to bring their own instruments to their early shows. Idiot Orchestra was an offshoot that included a dozen or more players (clarinet, sax, trumpet, violin, cello, synth, bass, marimba, and drums) resembling a no wave version of Raymond Scott’s big band. As musician and artist Richard McGuire recalls, ‘We weren’t trying to sound like anyone. We weren’t imitating anyone. We were just playing. I keep using “outsider art” as a reference to what we were doing. None of it was made for a market; it wasn’t made with any intention other than the enjoyment of making it.’ This split archival LP collects two rare 7-inches from 1978 and 1980, both of which were originally pressed in hyper-limited editions and self-released by the bands. The package also features a fanzine of ephemera, rare photos and new interview with McGuire.”
File Under: Art Rock, No Wave
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Luxury Apartments: s/t (Dead Cert) LP
Germany-born and Derbyshire-raised musician, painter, and mathematician David Tyack began working under his Luxury Apartments moniker in the summer of 2002, exploring potential film and animation synchronization with nods to his growing penchants for neoclassical, free jazz, and minimal music. He had recently finished a self-penned conceptual LP with original Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney, and been writing and recording for then-yet-to-be-mixed LPs by Jane Weaver’s Misty Dixon and his own band D.O.T.; his Luxury Apartments work, a series of experimental recordings made at his compact home studio on Clyde Road in Didsbury, Manchester, counterbalanced his ambitions to record a fully-realized singer-songwriter album. Completed just months before Tyack’s untimely accidental death on the island of Corsica, Luxury Apartments reveals him at his uninhibited best, displaying some of his most adventurous, dedicated, and unapologetic solo excursions into sound-design, improvised composition, and electroacoustic territories — the result is a unique blend of dark ambient, mechanical folk, PINA stylings, and coldwave DIY rhythms. Drawing comparisons to the varied works of Sorgini, Eno, Liska, Stabat Stable, Martin Zero, Luc Mariani, Walter Branchi, and the lost electronic work of Don Cherry, these previously unheard tapes are presented here in unedited form, compiled exactly how Tyack intended the record to be pressed should any independent record label have the foresight to take the plunge into his creative pool. Released with blessing and encouragement from the Tyack family, this is the first unreleased music to come from Tyack’s extensive archive, which was shared with close friends and creative collaborators regularly during his creative years in Manchester between 1997 and 2002. Artwork and liner notes by Andy Votel. Limited edition of 500 copies. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
File Under: Electronic, Experimental, Ambient
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Norma Lyon: The Music of Norma Lyon (Little Axe) LP
In Tomorrow! A collection of 16 pieces privately released by Norma Lyon in the late 1960s. All are original compositions for piano and organ. Dark, moody and dramatic, each of these ‘sketches’ was inspired by a place Ms. Lyon has lived. The tone of the record is set by its fantastic titles, including “Flight of the Spirit Geese,” “Phantom Cathedral of the Sea” and “Dirge of the Sea Gods.” The first side, “Dune Sketches,” is based on a period when she lived amidst the dunes in southwest Oregon. The second side, “Sea Sketches,’ is drawn from the time she spent living with her twin sister overlooking the ocean in Coos Bay. Limited edition of 500 copies.
File Under: Private Press
Clara Mondshine: Luna Africana (Fifth Dimension) LP
Clara Mondshine was a musical project of the late radio director, journalist, and composer Walter Bachauer, who worked for RIAS Berlin in the ’70s and ’80s. Mr. Bachauer was also involved as musician in projects with electronic artist Peter Michael Hamel and krautrock act Between in the ’70s. With Clara Mondshine he was able to score three albums before his untimely passing in 1989; Luna Africana, originally released in 1981, is the first of these, and it fits exactly into that era, when the sluggish grinding of early cosmic music had vanished and a new peppy drive could be felt in the spacious soundscapes of electronic music. Still rather lo-fi, with primitive machine grooves and swirling waves of analog synthesizers to which some hypnotic drones were tastefully added, this music has learned a lot from the grand masters of the ’70s, especially the motorik style of krautish electronics. Its simple melodic patterns and heavily rhythmic approach, layering pulses and drones upon repetitive structures, induce a trance state in the listener. This music is quite imaginative and picturesque, evoking a trip through a dark galaxy where only starlight guides your vessel. Quite a typical example for later krautish electronics and certainly a must-have for fans of the Eno/Harmonia collaborations, Cluster’s Zuckerzeit, and other similar motorik electronic albums. It also has a Kraftwerk feel, but without the vocals. Now this long-hidden secret gem is reissued for the first time and unveiled for your stellar listening pleasure. But beware; some of you might get lost in the depths of outer space.
File Under: Early Electronic
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Nino Nardini/Roger Roger: Jungle Obsession (Fifth Dimension) LP
Though it may look like a sexy piece of exotica from the heyday of tiki culture — the ’50s and early ’60s — Jungle Obsession was originally released in 1971 by the French Neuilly label. Nino Nardini was a master of library music for movies, TV series, and other media back then, and this album is his interpretation of what legends like Martin Denny and Frank Hunter had created a decade before — the ultimate listening experience for people who needed to escape from the struggle of everyday life through dreamy music that combined easy, relaxed jazz with jungle sounds and colorful melodies to create an atmosphere of exotic places. Nardini refreshes those — already ancient by 1971 — musical values with more contemporary elements of hot-blooded funk, particularly its wild percussion patterns, sweet wah-wah guitars, and an ever-present, rocking rhythm section. Blues and psychedelic rock flow gently into the mix to expand the effect on the listener’s imagination. Lush, with great arrangements of grandiose string patterns that evoke an atmosphere of great mysticism and a peaceful world of swirling colors. The earthy rock aspect of the music then comes to the fore, bringing the listener back to smoky urban clubs, where the air is heavy and sweat drips from the ceiling. All in all this is a beautiful soundtrack for fans of both worlds — the urban funk of the early ’70s and the dreamy exotica music of the ’50s and ’60s. Both styles come close to each other and at some points blend together. Jungle Obsession is a fine example of well-executed 1970s library music, conjuring up a movie in the listener’s head with its variety of moods. Sheer excitement if you can catch the flow.
File Under: Exotica, Library, Funk
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Stephen O’Malley: Eternelle Idole (Shelter Press) LP
This double LP documents Stephen O’Malley’s Eternelle Idole, his score for Paris-based choreographer Gisèle Vienne’s artistic ice-skating piece of the same name. Comprising 47 minutes of music spread over three sides and enhanced by an elegant and chilling photoset by Estelle Hanania, the album features familiar O’Malley collaborators Steve Moore, Daniel O’Sullivan, Peter Rehberg, Jesse Sykes, Bill Herzog, and Randall Dunn. Recorded between Brest, France; Seattle; and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the score sees O’Malley taking several creative detours, utilizing modular synthesizers and programming as key elements for much of the composition. Eerie keyboard- and piano-phrases draw a white, monochrome stage for a young girl’s stark and emotive elegy. Clavichord and guitars weave through the darkness, supported by Sykes’s prophetic voice. Mirroring the score, Hanania’s 16 photographs of the choreographic piece display the grace, sustain, geometry, telemetry, distance, and perfection of ice-skating, as well as possible falls and gloomy shadows. Metal against ice; tights and knots; spirals and scratches; shouts and winds — field recordings mold a crispy atmosphere while instruments draw lakes, ice skating rings, cosmic belts, and a terrestrial cloud passage and eventual landing platform for a flying saucer. 180-gram white double LP with 16-page, 30 x 30-cm, saddle-stitched, full-color booklet in 350-gram sleeve with gloss varnish. Edition of 500.
File Under: Electronic, Experimental
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Savant: Artificial Dance (ReRVNG) LP
The story of electronic music pioneer K. Leimer continues with a focus on his auteurist studio project Savant. Compiling the standalone album, 1983’s The Neo Realist (At Risk), with Savant’s debut 12” and a grip of compilation and unreleased tracks, Artificial Dance documents Leimer’s complete collaborative venture into the unpredictable realities of music, exploring the gulf between what is expected by its creators and what is eventually – and eternally – committed to tape. Savant was designed by Leimer to tap into entropic truths, asserting an uncaged counterpart to the loop-based minimalism he produced in isolation (recently surveyed on RVNG Intl.’s A Period of Review (1975-1983)). Aligning himself with the Cage-ean principles of chance operations and musical contingency, Savant was a band sans jam. Allegorically, a blindfolded collaboration whose happenstance source music Leimer would sample, loop and sculpt at will. Leimer was creatively autonomous to the point of being a persona absentia in Seattle’s 80s rock scene. Unconcerned by social status, Leimer enlisted musicians from experimental and post-punk groups in the area to come record as Savant at his home studio, Tactical. Among them were ambient composer Marc Barreca, John Foster (founder of Op Magazine – the experimental music publication), Jim and David Keller of the New Flamingos, and their bandmate Alex Petit. Others, like Roy Finch and Dennis Rea, came from a similar orbit. Even with these musicians at his beck and call, Leimer implemented a disarming musical strategy. Savant would have no fixed line up and often musicians would be asked to play instruments far outside their forté. Leimer would however give loose rhythmic direction for the musicians to develop spontaneously against click-tracks. When the performance locked in with Leimer listening at the controls, he’d capture it to tape. These moments became the soul of Savant and the combustive elements that would variegate its timbres. Savant tonally operates in a space between This Heat’s dark primitivism and the found sound collage of Brian Eno & David Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. These analogies are simply stylistic, as the narrative behind The Neo-Realist’s production makes clear Leimer was concocting via more alchemic means, avoiding genre aspirations by looking for accidental moments of musical intrigue and discovery. Leimer explains this process in the collection’s liner notes: “I was looking for flaws, for faults to act as the stand-out features of the music.” Far from a provisional stab at avant-garde sensibilities, Savant represents Leimer’s repudiation of ambient music’s passive side. Artificial Dance embodies a perfectionist’s family portrait of outré musicians conforming to Leimer’s nonconformist musical ethos. Fitting for its name, Leimer created conditions for asocial brilliance with Savant, materializing an outward offering from an inward studio and a collaboration of audacious invention. Double LP packaging features unique reverse flap exterior, full color Eurosleeve, 16 page booklet and download card.
File Under: Electronic, Minimal
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Susanna & Jenny Hval: Meshes of Voice (Susannasonata) LP
“Mythical animals were a big inspiration,” says composer and songwriter Jenny Hval about Meshes of Voice, her collaboration with Susanna. “We looked at Medusa, Athena, and Harpy (a combination of woman and bird) — as examples of depictions of woman — the ugly, the goddess-like, the gruesome,” agrees Susanna. This collaboration — featuring the two strongest Nordic voices around today — started back in 2008 as an exchange of letters, then developed into two live performances, one at the Henie Onstad Art Centre in March 2009, which turned out to be this album, the other at Oslo Jazz Festival. Mixed and mastered by Helge Sten (Deathprod, Supersilent), Meshes of Voice presents a stunning vocal universe of confessions, whispers, and seductions. Tracks like “I Have Walked This Body” seem to rise monstrously and threateningly out of some mythological fog of distorted improvised noise. A key inspiration was film maker Maya Deren’s surrealist, cyclical Meshes of the Afternoon, a milestone of visionary film from 1943. Deren’s famous image of a cloaked figure with a reflective face recurs on “A Mirror in My Mouth,” creating a complex world of musical fictions akin to those of Julia Holter and Joanna Newsom. Meshes of Voice is released on SusannaSonata, which Susanna launched in 2001 as a self-operated outlet for her to curate her own back-catalog and develop new music. Upon its release as a CD in 2014, Meshes of Voice received much acclaim from the music critics and the audience, and won the Norwegian Grammy in Open Category. This double LP edition is limited to 500 copies, with the same gorgeous cover art made from art by Arne Bendik Sjur and designed by Johanna Blom. Jenny Hval: voice, effects, noise, samples, guitar, autoharp, piano; Susanna: voice, grand piano, effects, noise, samples, electric harmonium; Anita Kaasbøll: voice, effects, noise, drums; Jo Berger Myhre: double bass, zither, effects, noise. Recorded at Henie Onstad Arts Centre, Høvikodden, Norway, on March 8, 2009, by David Solheim. Mixed and mastered at Audio Virus Lab.
File Under: ELectronic, Pop, Ballad
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Susanna & The Magical Orchestra: Melody Mountain (Susannasonata) LP
Melody Mountain was recorded in 2005 at several locations in Norway; in no ordinary recording studios, but in living rooms, in huts, at the Academy of Music, and at Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum. Songs by AC/DC, Leonard Cohen, Sandy Denny, Kiss, Joy Division, and Depeche Mode were all transformed into Susanna and the Magical Orchestra’s sparse and stark universe. The music critics went overboard with praise when Melody Mountain was released on CD in 2006, particularly for Susanna’s version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” which has received much attention and was a part of The Observer’s list of “The Greatest Covers Ever.” The duo Susanna and the Magical Orchestra split up in 2011, after recording three albums together and touring widely in Europe, Asia, and the USA. Both Susanna and Morten Qvenild have remained active since, each with his or her own projects and bands. Susanna records as Susanna, in her regular trio, but also in collaborations with such artists as Ensemble neoN and Jenny Hval. Both these collaborations have been awarded a Norwegian Grammy in Open Category. Melody Mountain was produced by Deathprod, with arrangements by Susanna and the Magical Orchestra. Susanna: vocals; Morten Qvenild: piano, cembalo, autoharp, vibraphone, church organ, and keyboards; Stian Carstensen: pedal steel on “It’s Raining Today.” Recorded by Helge Sten at Dagaliveien14, Østre Nes, Tomba Emanuelle, Lindemansalen, and Audio Virus Lab, Norway, in 2005. This vinyl edition features a new cover design by Magnus Voll Mathiassen. The album was mixed by Helge Sten in Oslo, Norway, mastered by Bob Katz in Florida, cut by Bernie Grundman in Los Angeles, and pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl; limited to 500 copies.
File Under: Electronic, Pop, Ballads
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Billy Synth & The Turn Ups: Off The Deep End (Mind Cure) LP
In Tomorrow! Mind Cure Records is proud to announce the release of two LPs from Pennsylvania Punk legend Billy Synth. Besides being a pre-internet authority on rare Garage Punk records and the mastermind behind the essential Psychedelic Unknowns comps Billy’s personal pedigree is of the highest caliber releasing records and tracks on Sordide Sentimental, Bomp/Voxx and Bona Fide�though the bulk of his recordings have up to this point been self released. This LP is a reissue of the first Billy Synth and The Turn Ups album originally issued in a run of 300 copies in 1980 on Billy’s own Cracked Records label originals of this LP regularly change hands for over $100 so here�s your chance to get it on the cheap. Includes liner notes by Dave Martin and a download.
File Under: Garage, Punk
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Billy Synth: We Have Got To Make It On Our Own: Collected Tracks ’78-83 (Mind Cure) LP
In Tomorrow! Mind Cure Records is proud to announce the release of two LPs from Pennsylvania Punk legend Billy Synth. This LP collects tracks from various releases across Billy’s discography both solo and with his bands The Janitors and The Turn Ups. This overview has a little bit for everyone: solo synth paranoia, unhinged Punk Rock and covers from the cannon of Garage Punk Unknowns. Culled from a string of records released between 1978 and 1983, heavily influenced by Billy’s encyclopedic knowledge obscure ’60s garage Psychedelia and his Punk contemporaries these songs are so damaged and demented that in today’s no-stone-left-unturned world of record collecting they almost sound too crazy to be real. Includes liner notes by Joh Olson and a download.
File Under: Punk, Garage
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Bernard Vitet: La Guepe (Souffle Continu) LP
Bernard Vitet was a key figure in the French free jazz and improv scene of the early ’70s. This mythical avant-jazz LP, originally released in 1972, is the result of a truly magical session he put together in December ’71 with Beb Guérin, Jean Guérin, Françoise Achard, Dominique Dalmasso, Jouck Minor, Francois Tusques, and Jean-Paul Rondepierre. Not just free jazz from the ’70s, the music has some 20th-century elements that recall some of the most memorable albums on the Italian label Cramps Records. This first-ever officially-licensed vinyl reissue is the fifth in Souffle Continu’s series reissues of Futura reissues, fully licensed by Futura founder Gérard Terronès. Presented in a 350-gram reverse-printed sleeve with obi strip. Limited to 500 copies.
File Under: Free Jazz, Improv, Avant-Garde
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Muddy Waters Blues Band: Live at Ebbets Field (Klondike) LP
Muddy Waters had only recently completed his Australasia tour, which had begun in late April and finished in Perth on May 11, 1973. He arrived just two days later in Vancouver before performing five dates at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in Los Angeles. He then made his way into a small downtown Denver nightclub called Ebbet’s Field for five shows. This recording is a milestone in vintage blues: a rare and exclusive performance from Mississippi giants Muddy Waters and B. B. King. Sharing the stage for one night only, this joint appearance from May 30, 1973, is finally available. Long considered to be a classic performance, but lost to time, this inspiring performance is presented in its entirety as originally broadcast on FM radio, with digitally remastered sound and background liners.
File Under: Blues
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Various: Cold Waves of Color (Lion) LP
In Tomorrow! Collection of rare UK cold wave tracks taken from Color Tapes label cassettes released in micro editions between 1981-1985. Color Tapes was the brainchild of future Sun Dial leader Gary Ramon: “Living in East London, it was a very grey and bleak time. Huge imposing tower blocks, gasworks and concrete just about everywhere. You couldn’t walk through some areas without the risk of being shot at by an air rifle, or worse. Luckily, salvation was in the music. The musical landscape was changing. I saw a very early gig by an unknown all-synth band called Depeche Mode at a dingy pub under a flyover called The Bridge House in Canning Town, London. Following this I saw Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five and started buying records by the likes of Afrika Bambaataa. At the other end of the musical spectrum, we were picking up records by Stockhausen, John Cage, Pierre Henry and Moondog, and combing junk shops for anything else that looked interesting!” The UK cassette scene and DIY ethos were thriving. Color Tapes was born. Home multi-track recorders were luxury items. They had to make do with sound on sound recorders, bouncing between reel-to-reel and cassette machines if they wanted stereo. What you’re about to hear for the first time since those days is a snapshot of Color Tapes: released material and other unissued tracks too. This compilation is the first of a series of Color Tapes/Lion Productions releases of material from the Color Tapes archives.
File Under: Electronic, Cold Wave
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Various: Early Pakistani Dance Music (Ovular) LP
“A wonderful LP of exotic sounds from Pakistan in the ’60s and ’70s. The tracks really deliver on the excellent sleeve packaging and cover design by Bwtchd Grfx. ‘We wanted the world to know what fantastic music these guys played in Pakistan in those days,’ says compiler Florian Pittner, who focused on instrumentals which were released on two-track 45rpm EPs and listed as either ‘Dance Music’ or ‘Title Music.'” Artists: M. Ashraf, Azam Shaik, A. Hamid, Ghulam Ali, Tassaduq Hussain, Mohammed Ilyas, Lal Mohd Iqbal, Kamal Ahmed, and M. A. Shad.
File Under: World, Dance
Various: Folksongs of Another America (Dust-to-Digital) 5CD/DVD/Book
Folksongs of Another America is a compilation of field recordings made in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin between 1937 and 1946. Armed with bulky microphones, blank disks, spare needles, and cumbersome disc-cutting machines, several folklorists had the foresight to document and preserve a significant but overlooked part of the nation’s musical heritage, made by immigrant, Native American, rural, and working-class performers. Almost all of these restored dance tunes, ballads, lyric songs, hymns, laments, versified taunts, political anthems, street cries, and recitations are issued here for the very first time. This five-CD set is filled with African-American, Austrian, Belgian, Cornish, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French-Canadian, German, Ho-Chunk, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Irish, Italian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Oneida, Polish, Scots-Gaelic, Serbian, Swedish, Swiss, and Welsh performers, recorded by Sidney Robertson, Alan Lomax, and Helene Stratman-Thomas. The bonus DVD includes the documentary film The Most Fertile Source: Alan Lomax Goes North, with never-before-seen footage shot in Michigan in 1938. It combines digitally restored silent color film footage, related field recordings, voice-over readings from Lomax’s correspondence and field notes, and onscreen text to create an audiovisual narrative featuring the performers and scenes that captivated Alan Lomax during his 1938 Upper Midwestern foray. The accompanying 456-page hardcover book includes extensive liner notes, lyric transcriptions, and translations by James P. Leary, co-founder of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This project is a co-production between Dust-to-Digital and the University of Wisconsin Press in collaboration with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Association of Cultural Equity/Alan Lomax Archive.
File Under: Folk, Blues, Books
Various: I’m In A Strange Town (Mississippi) LP
In Tomorrow! Compilation of top notch Gospel and blues recorded between 1927 and 1967. A mix of very well known artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Gary Davis and Robert Wilkins and more obscure folks like John Lee and Charles White. A record filled with some of Mississippi Records favorite recordings—ripping guitar work outs, soulful ballads, loping drunken jug bands and more. All songs are on the theme of travel, death and transcendence. Got an existential crisis? This may be the record for you.
File Under: Blues
Various: Kompakt Total 15 (Kompakt) LP
Pressed on 180-gram vinyl. Eight tracks from the 24-track double CD: Wassermann’s “Eisen Mein Herz,” Jürgen Paape’s “Manipuri,” Michael Mayer’s “Humm,” Superpitcher’s “Freiherr,” Weval’s “Gimme Some (Hunter/Game Mix),” Patrice Bäumel’s “Fenomeno,” Voigt & Voigt’s “Akira (Reeperbahn Mix)” and The Black Frame’s “Sacrosanct.”
File Under: Exotica, World
Various: The Sigh of Silver Strings From Suvannabhumi (Little Axe) LP
In Tomorrow! During the 1800s, various Western stringed instruments came to Burma by means of traders, explorers, and colonizers. These instruments: the acoustic slide guitar, mandolin, banjo, violin, and zither, were quickly and ingeniously adapted to the intricacies of Burmese music. The music draws from Burma’s rich vocal tradition, and the centuries-old royal repertoire of the Burmese harp and xylophone. Recorded and produced by Rick Heizman. Limited edition of 500 copies.
File Under: World, Burma, Folk
Various: Troubled Waters (Mississippi) LP
In Tomorrow! Compilation of blues and gospel recordings made by George Mitchell between 1962 and 1976! The deep hill country stomps and blues of RL Burnside, Rosa Lee Hill and Jesse Mae Hemphill, The hard driving electric guitar and drum music of James Davis, the haunting gospel ballads of Robert Johnson (not the one your thinking of) and James Shorter, the flowing beautiful blues of Joe Callicott, Furry Lewis and Jesse Lee Vortis, the drum and fife music of Napoleon Strickland and much more. This is the third in the Mississippi series of releases of field recordings by George Mitchell. (the first and second are the Been Here All My Day’s and Sticks Over My Shoulder LP’s.) Some of our favorite songs of all time and not to be missed. Old school “tip on” covers.
File Under: Blues, Gospel
…..Restocks…..
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works II (1972) LP
Bachs: Out of the Bachs (Out-Sider) LP
Brand New: Deja Entendu (Triple Crown) LP
Eric’s Trip: Love Tara (Sub Pop) LP
Follakzoid: III (Sacred Bones) LP
Bridgette Fontaine: Est… Folle (Superior Viaduct) LP
Bridgette Fontaine: Comme A La Radio (Superior Viaduct) LP
Glass Candy: Feeling Without Touching (Italians Do It Better) LP
Glass Candy: Ghetto Boys (Italians Do It Better) LP
Glass Candy: Warm in the Winter (Italians Do It Better) LP
Grouper: Ruins (Kranky) LP
Grouper: The Man Who Died in His Boat (Kranky) LP
Le Tigre: s/t (Wiiiji) LP
Moondog: Viking of Sixth Avenue (Honest Jon’s) LP
Nirvana: In Utero (Geffen) 2LP
Not Waving: Voices (Not Waving) LP
Om: Pilgrimage (Southern Lord) LP
Pantha Du Prince: Black Noise (Rough Trade) LP
Pantha Du Prince: Elements of Light (Rough Trade) LP
Reatards: Grown Up Fucked Up (Goner) LP
Red House Painters: Ocean Beach/Shock Me (4AD) LP
Sigur Ros: Valtari (XL) LP
Sonic Youth: A Thousand Leaves (Goofin) LP
Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation (Goofin) 4LP
Sonic Youth: Destroyed Room (Goofin) LP
Sonic Youth: Dirty (Goofin) LP
Omar Souleyman: Haflat Gharb (Sublime Frequencies) LP
Spiritualized: Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Plain) LP
Stereolab: Cobra & Night Phases Group (1972) LP
Andy Stott: Luxury Problems (Modern Love) LP
Sunn o))): Black One (Southern Lord) LP
Sunn o))): 00 Void (Southern Lord) LP
Sun Ra: Space is the Place (Sutro Park) LP
Sun Ra: Strange Celestial (Saturn) LP
T Rex: Slider (Fat Possum) LP
Ween: Chocolate & Cheese (Plain) LP
White Birch: Come Up For Air (Rune Grammofon) LP
Wipers: Is This Real? (Jackpot) LP
Wipers: Over the Edge (Jackpot) LP
Various: Diablos Del Ritmo Vol 2 (Analog Africa) LP
Various: International Vicious Society Vol 2 (University of Vice) LP
Various: International Vicious Society Vol 6 (University of Vice) LP