Another massive week here! Loads of really cool stuff in, and something for everyone. And if you don’t like the new stuff, we’ve put out a ton of new used arrivals this week too. And since the rain is gonna keep you indoors all weekend, you might as well grab some new wax for your ears.
…..pick of the week…..
The Peace: Black Power (Now Again) LP
“Essential garage Zamrock/soul/funk: the first official reissue of the celebrated band’s one and only album. “The musical style that became known as Zamrock came to embody the economic despair that followed the 1973-1974 oil crisis, which flung Zambia into recession and exacerbated a wide range of social tensions. Much of Zamrock also captured the controversy of wider politics in Africa and the world. Perhaps the finest example of this is Black Power by The Peace.” – The Guardian. The Boyfriends, from Kitwe’s Chamboli Mine Township, supplied the founding members for Zamrock’s most famous band, WITCH, and kick started one of Zamrock’s best bands, Peace. Their sole Zamrock entry, Black Power, recorded at Malachite Film Studio circa 1973/4 and issued circa 1975, sounds like nothing else in the Zamrock canon: a lost message drifiting from the flower power era, imbued with a fiery Zambian voice.”
File Under: Zamrock, Africa, Funk, Fuzz
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…..new arrivals…..
AMM: AMMMusic (Black Truffle) LP
2016 limited repress… First vinyl reissue of the landmark 1967 debut album by AMM, AMMMusic. Remastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Exact replica sleeve by Stephen O’Malley. “Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its recording in 1966, this reissue makes one of the cornerstones of the experimental music tradition available again in its original form, replete with Keith Rowe’s beautiful pop art cover and the terse aphorisms by the group that served as its original liner notes. A testament to the interaction between the experimental avant-garde and the countercultural underground, the album was originally released on Elektra, recorded by Jac Holzman (the label’s founder, responsible for signing The Doors, Love, and The Stooges) and produced by DNA, a group that included Pink Floyd’s first manager, Peter Jenner (the title of Pink Floyd’s ‘Flaming’ is a tribute to AMM’s ‘Later During a Flaming Riviera Sunset’). Formed in 1965 by three players from the emerging British jazz avant-garde — Keith Rowe and Lou Gare had played with the great progressive big band leader Mike Westbrook and Eddie Prévost played in a post-bop group with Gare — AMM quickly evolved from a free jazz group into something decidedly more difficult to categorise. By the time these recordings were made, two more members had joined the group: another Westbrook associate, Lawrence Sheaff, and the radical composer Cornelius Cardew. Then at work on his masterpiece of graphic notation Treatise, Cardew brought with him extensive experience of the post-serialist and Cageian currents in contemporary composition. Using a combination of conventional instruments and unconventional methods of sound production (most famously Keith Rowe’s prepared tabletop guitar, but also prepared piano and transistor radio), the group performed improvised pieces often running for over two hours and ranging from extended periods of silence to terrifying cacophonies. On AMMMusic, long tones sit next to abrasive thuds, the howl of uncontrolled feedback accompanies Cardew’s purposeful piano chords, radios beam in snatches of orchestral music. AMM’s clearest break with jazz-based improvisation concerned the idea of individuality. Initially through an engagement with eastern philosophy and mysticism and later though a politicized communitarianism, AMM sought to develop a collective sonic identity in which individual contributions could barely be discerned. In the performances captured on AMMMusic the use of numerous auxiliary instruments and devices, including radios played by three members of the group, contribute to the sensation that the music is composed as a single monolithic object with multiple facets, rather than as an interaction between five distinct voices.” –Francis Plagne
File Under: Experimental, Classical, Avant Garde
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Blood Stereo/Hair & Treasure: Split (Discrepant) LP
First split LP in a brand new series of collaborations, pairing artists working on the fringes – or not at all. This first split pairs Brighton’s Blood Stereo’s tape gonk with Hair & Treasure’s farm life loops. Blood Stereo are Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance, a British institution, the sound complete immersion for people who don’t immerse easily. Idiot twins Burchill and Slim may behave as though they own Sussex, but Constance and Nyoukis are immune to their surroundings, making livid eyes at confused glitter vixens up and down this squalid Isle. Hair & Treasure are Alex Jones and Gonçalo F Cardoso, a prankster randy dust duo from nowhere dwelling on tape loops and webbed finger piano ballads. The material was culled from a mound of who cares electro-acoustic improv sessions as an offering to the associated deities of the zwieback buttermilk trade.
File Under: Experimental, Tape Loops
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The Body/Full of Hell: One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache (EPE) LP
Through their own respective recordings, both The Body and Full of Hell are internationally-revered as forward-thinking entities of harsh music, delivering their audio torment through incredibly intense and often unorthodox methods. The Body’s 2010-released All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood sophomore LP stands among the band’s high points and remains on of the most groundbreaking and frightening albums in recent times. Their subsequent releases, including several LPs and more have continued to expand upon this seminal release. Similarly, Full of Hell rapidly became a favorite amongst hardcore, grind, death and noise metal fans upon their formation with an incredibly energetic and destructive live attack. Their 2013-released Rudiments Of Mutilation sophomore LP solidified them as one of the most damaging new acts going, and since its detonation, the band’s intensity and hunger for experimentation continues to magnify. Both acts are proven collaborators, relishing the results of collective efforts to create life-numbing constellations of distortion and depravity. The two members of The Body have joined forces with arcane producer The Haxan Cloak (Bobby Krlic) for the I Shall Die Here long player, Louisiana’s darkest sludge troupe Thou for You, Whom I Have Always Hated, as well as Nothing Passes with Braveyoung and a myriad of splits with artists as divers and detesting as Australia’s Whitehorse, Japan’s Vampillia, Rhode Island’s Sandworm, and New Jersey’s Krieg taking their virulent, insidious influence to unsuspecting destinations both stateside and abroad. Full of Hell made a huge impression on the ears of fans and those previously unfamiliar with the band with 2014’s two-part alliance with internationally feared noisemonger Merzbow, which resulted in the Full of Hell & Merzbow LP and the subsequent Sister Fawn EP. Their discography is littered with noise sodden demos and splits that wrench Full of Hell in to fresh dimensions of heaviness and extremity, and their constant live actions never cease to stun. And now we have One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache, a brand new collaborative release from The Body and Full of Hell.
File Under: Metal, Doom, Sludge
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The Braen’s Machine: Underground (Schema) LP
Back in stock!!! During the ‘70s, work days at Umiliani’s Sound Workshop Studios were hectic; thousands of sessions were held in order to keep up with a very busy Italian movie industry: Hundreds of soundtracks alongside with music library were recorded and released on vinyl in very limited quantities for TV and film production use only. Those LPs are now proper collectors’ items, extremely hard to find. Filled with hypnotic bass lines, heavy drums and screaming fuzz guitars Underground, the first LP of the fictitious group known as Braen’s Machine, is one of the rarest and the most expensive of them all, always reaching sky high prices throughout the second hand vinyl market. A fast-beat jam with hammond scales and a twin lead guitar theme (Flying) opens the A Side soon followed by Imphormal, a classicfunk-beat-meetsfender- rhodes-and-psychedelic-guitar number. The music then switch to thriller territories with Murder which is based on prepared piano swells and a deeply hypnotic walking bass, reminiscent of the best Morricone’s soundtracks for Dario Argento’s movies. Two highly percussive songs complete the A Side: Gap is an improvised song with guitar and keyboards dwelling over an infectious drum rhythm while a marching snare and a vibraslap effect are the special features on Militar Police.
File Under: Library, Italian, Psych
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The Braen’s Machine: Quarta Pagina (Schema) LP
Despite a long series of reissues and rediscoveries that are throwing the ultimate light on one of the most fascinating and enigmatic periods of Italian music history – that of sonifications – the project that goes by the name Braen’s Machine continues to evade categorization, and positive information. If you are among the many who got their hands on the beautiful Underground, republished by Schema a few months ago, you will already know of the involvement of, among others, Piero Umiliani, Alessandro Alessandroni – the name Braen seems to be his alias – and Oronzo (Rino) De Filippi, real name of the other credited author, the mysterious Gisleri. For this new chapter from Braen’s Machine, the beautiful and hard to come by Quarta Pagina (Poliziesco), published apparently in 300 copies, there are few available pieces of information, pointing to an involvement of Giuliano Sorgini, hidden under the name of Raskovich, and author of five out of the eleven tracks on the release. The lack of reliable information and the enigmatic flavor surrounding the project Braen’s Machine, as opposed to the ease with which the music allows us instant identification, are among the secrets that make their records unique. Unlike Underground, Quarta pagina portrays with great skill some possible – who knows if they ever have been realized – crime scenes, with hard-boiled and dark atmospheres, alternating with the psych funk rides that have always characterized many of the projects related to the Italian cinematic genre. All this without excluding, however, avant-garde attitudes and atonal passages that makes Quarta pagina (Poliziesco) comparable to the best pages of the Gruppo d’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.
File Under: Library, Italian
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Joanna Brouk: Hearing Music (Numero) LP
She was a composer who wrote scores with geometric shapes, a poet who became a pioneer of early electronic music. Joanna Brouk’s little-known body of work exists at the nexus between ambient, new age, drone, and classical minimalism – stark in its simplicity, lush in its expanse. Studying under Robert Ashley and Terry Riley at the fabled Mills College Center For Contemporary Music before graduating into the margins of the ’70s bay area new music scene, Ms. Brouk blazed her own trail well outside of the musical establishment to create uncompromising electronic and acoustic work of sleek beauty and primal power. Describing herself as less a composer than a channel, she took her cues from the frequencies of the natural world and the talents of collaborators like Maggi Payne and Bill Maraldo. Numero Group’s Hearing Music collects for the first time the deepest cuts from her beguiling and rare cassette releases and her archive of previously unreleased recordings. “I realized that, in many instances, it didn’t matter what you said, it mattered how you said it: the tone of the voice, the rhythm, the sound…Because sound has an incredible effect on other people, it can make them dance, put them into trances, it can control emotions by a certain pitch, a certain depth.” – Joanna Brouk
File Under: New Age, Ambient
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DJ Rashad: Afterlife (Teklife) LP
Double LP version. Includes a bonus track by Microglobe x Machinedrum. Teklife presents Afterlife, the first release on the Teklife label. The album is a celebration of the life and music of the late, great DJ Rashad (1979-2014) and features 14 previously unreleased tracks, each a collaboration between DJ Rashad and friends from the Teklife crew and beyond. Afterlife is testament to an incredible breadth of influences and love of music with soul, hip-hop, house, techno, and many more all brought together at 160 BPM. Rashad’s presence is felt throughout in the boundless energy and creativity that run through the album, while each collaborator brings a personal touch to the compositions. With such a prolific body of work as both a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians, it would be impossible to present a definitive collection of DJ Rashad’s music, and many, many classics will remain unreleased forever. Includes collaborations with DJ Spinn, Taso, Gant-Man, DJ Manny, DJ Phil, DJ Earl, DJ Taye, Tripletrain, Boylan, DJ Tre, Traxman, and DJ Paypal.
File Under: Electronic, Juke, Ghettotech
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Tashi Dorji & Shane Parish: Expecting (Mie) LP
“Much has been made of the nesting compulsion that overtakes expecting parents. It’s fair to suggest that this album owes its name to the fact that Asheville NC residents Tashi Dorji and Shane Parish were both looking forward to parenthood when they made it, and not much of a stretch to say that it expresses something that they both had to say before the babies arrived. That message is one of two guys bonding over shared understandings. They’ve been known each other for over a decade, during which time they’ve played both as a duo and as parts of larger ensembles. Both play guitar, and while their discographies map quite disparate interests, they share a devotion to the guitar as a vehicle for improvisation. The eight improvisations that make up Expecting grow out of a dynamic of sharing — one fellow shows up with a tuning and maybe a string preparation, the other works out a response, and out of that comes not only a piece of music but a renewal and confirmation of a relationship in which two humans share what they love. Expecting parents tend to be anxious ones. Titles like ‘Dust Of Dust,’ ‘Storm Sinks Boat,’ and ‘Break Up’ give the impression that Dorji and Parish weren’t free from trepidation when they made Expecting, and the record’s discordant moments back it up. Nowadays writers are quick to lay the term experimental music on anything dissonant. But while one could say that this music actually earns that much-abused term because it comes out of a process of proposal and problem solving, an emotionally truer term would be experiential music. It came out of Parish and Dorji’s real time communion, and it is informed by their shared history. For them, making the music was an experience; playing the record imparts a different experience, one of receiving rather than making, but it still expresses a dynamic of exchange.” –Bill Meyer, Berwyn, Illinois, USA, January 31, 2016
File Under: Folk, Guitar
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The Fall: The Classical (Secret) LP
“180 gram vinyl LP of selected highlights of a Fall gig recorded live at King Georges Hall Blackburn on 22nd September 2002.”
File Under: Punk, Live
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Goat: I Sing in Silence (Sub Pop) 7″
New music from Goat is always a time for celebration, and Sup Pop is excited to announce the band’s return with a 7″ of brand new material. Last year Goat released the single “It’s Time for Fun” which saw the band experimenting with drum machines, which brought a different pulse to their tribal psych. This desire to explore new sounds continues with their new single “I Sing in Silence.” But instead of plugging in new instruments the band have unplugged and created an addictive groove with mostly un-amped, acoustic instruments. Elastic guitar lines, woodblock percussion, and flutes which drive the song are enveloped by one of the strongest vocal deliveries by the bands enigmatic singers, resulting in a powerful and catchy psych-pop number. The B-side, an instrumental called “The Snake of Addis Ababa,” is a looping, North-African mantra played on a teasing, fuzzed guitar, underpinned by a djembi groove. The repetitive riff is disrupted by piano that freely solos over the groove, and a pounding drum lifts the song to a seriously head-nodding conclusion. This single is further proof that, in a world of similar sounding and similar looking psych bands, Goat are standing completely out on their own and we are all the better for it.
File Under: Psych, Tribal
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Gold Panda: Good Luck & Do Your Best (City Slang) LP
Hailing from Chelmsford Essex in the UK, Gold Panda’s journey from his meteoric rise on his first album to now is entirely circular. In the six years since the release of his genre-defining debut album Lucky Shiner, the electronic artist most comfortable with the moniker Derwin Panda spent the subsequent years splitting the majority of his time between London, Berlin and countless excursions to Japan. As he created his new, third album Good Luck And Do Your Best he ultimately found himself back where he began, in the East of England. Whereas his second album Half Of Where You Live was occasionally taut, perhaps harder and more piecing, the 11 songs that comprise Good Luck And Do Your Best have a distinctly warmer palate, one that echoes Lucky Shiner a little more. Now with a clearer range of sounds, Gold Panda has found a more cohesive vision, one where “the tracks aren’t popping out against each other. It’s a complete record.”
File Under: Electronic, Downtempo
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Gonzo: Dies Irae (Discrepant) LP
Gonzo is musician, DJ and Discrepant head honcho,Gonçalo F Cardoso. Since starting the label back in 2010, Gonzo has released a series of limited collage tapes on the label, Dies Irae being the very first one back in 2012. He now decides to give it the vinyl treatment with specially commissioned artwork from Belgium artist, Elzo Durt. It unapologetically stitches together field recordings, sound generators, random loops and “unfinished” compositions to accompany weird spoken word moments. It kick started the self-penned Gonzo collage style. “Gonzo has created one of the best tapes I’ve ever heard, bar none, with Dies Irae. Never to these ears, at least on a cassette, has a collage-style collection of samples and other assorted sounds/noises/atmospheric devices come together so convincingly, as if each element was created strictly to serve the purposes of the end product.” – Tiny Mix Tapes
File Under: Experimental, Collage
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The Group: The Feed-Back (Schema) LP
Available again! HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION! Just as the first “krautrock” lp’s were coming out in Germany, in Italy we had a surprisingly similar counterpart: this album. It consists of three long instrumental tracks, somewhere in between psych-rock, avantgarde jazz and funky jams. The sound is definitely experimental and ostentatiously “underground”. None of the instruments involved tries to be reassuring: the guitar is scratchy, the trumpet sounds choked, piano and keyboards are always dissonant and a background of “proto-industrial” noises is present all along the record. The music, anyway, is thrilling. The drum patterns, in particular, are extraordinary: regular, tight, groovy, and incredibly close to the “motorik” beat of Can and Neu!. “The Group” was not a band of young beatniks. As a matter of fact, it’s just a pseudonym for Gruppo d’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, a project of renown soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone along with other important experimental musicians. The rock-focused attitude of the record is quite surprising for such a team of classically-trained men already in their forties!
File Under: Italian, Library, Psych, Morricone
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David Grubbs: Prismrose (Blue Chopsticks) LP
Prismrose is a nearly wordless collection of six pieces for electric guitar, all given real time to breathe, grow unpredictably, mutate. It’s an album – an of-a-piece, start-to-finish listen – that documents what an electric guitar sounds like in David Grubbs’s hands now that we’ve stumbled into the year 2016. Prismrose comes to us – comes at us – from a stellar run of expansive, hands-thinking hands-puzzling guitar music that began with the stylistic pivot of Grubbs’s solo records An Optimist Notes the Dusk and The Plain Where the Palace Stood and the two recent albums from the trio Belfi / Grubbs / Pilia. Prismrose begins with “How to Hear What’s Less than Meets the Ear,” an 11-minute duo written for Tony Conrad’s 75th birthday bash with Grubbs on chiming, tolling Telecaster and wunderkind percussionist and composer Eli Keszler on backwards-somersaulting drums. Keszler makes his presence known on three of the album’s tracks. The years reel with an errand into the 14th century for “Cheery Eh,” an arrangement of Guillaume de Machaut, and a brief stop in the 19th century with a setting of Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” – there are your words, unimpeachable ones – by Rick Moody, originally recorded by the Wingdale Community Singers. Side two is unambiguously set in the present moment, and this suite of three instrumentals sails off the edge of the world with the breezy, eminently whistleable anthem “The Bonsai Waterfall.” And dig that instantly iconic cover courtesy of artist Kai Althoff (Workshop, Fanal).
File Under: Indie Rock
Charbel Haber: Of Palm Trees And Decomposition (Discrepant) LP
Co-founder and member of longstanding Lebanese post-rock group, Scrambled Eggs, Charbel Haber’s work encompasses a wide range of disciplines and styles such as film, video art and theatre, both as a solo artist and as a member of Scrambled Eggs, Malayeen and Johnny Kafta Anti Vegetarian Orchestra. As a solo artist, Haber has collaborated with various visual artists and composed music for a variety of film and theatre performances, both in and outside his native Lebanon. With Of Palm Trees And Decomposition, Haber presents his first solo album since his month long residency at renowned EMS in Stocklom, Sweden. The result is a unique blend of Haber’s trademark guitar melodies filtered through an infinite array of modules and synths to present another perfect example of non-western experimental music.
File Under: Experimental, Lebanese
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Suzuki Junzo: Shark-Infested Custard (Nod & Smile) LP
“Tokyo guitarist/songwriter/singer Suzuki Junzo’s new album! Known from his work with Miminokoto, 20 Guilders, Overhang Party and more, Junzo’s Shark-Infested Custard mixes psychedelia, blues, drone, noise and rock into an intoxicating singular blend. Limited edition of 250 copies in a screen printed cover.”
File Under: Psych, Japrock
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Elon Katz: The Human Pet (Diagonal) LP
Elon Katz (White Car, Streetwalker) aligns perfectly with Diagonal in a prickling debut vocal release, The Human Pet; containing an intensely personal, puckered perspective on electronic dance music and experimental pop. Structured around a schizoid yet coherent juncture of EBM, IDM, curdled rock music and art school techno-pop, The Human Pet is riddled with idiosyncratic notions on “cryptic topics like rebirth, nullification in stream speed adaptivity, dependence and wealth inequality” to portray a unique intellect and sonic vocabulary operating at the crux of his expressive powers. The project began circa 2012, around the time of Katz’s relocation from L.A. to art school in Chicago, and cocks a canny snook, both through candid lyrics and obsessive edits, back towards the megatropolis where he was born and spent much of his youth. It can therefore be considered an attempt to better understand himself in relief of big city manias by channeling and parsing his own stubborn outsider personality from the madness. It feels like a concise dissection of Chicago’s industrial history and Californian digital psychedelia; probing at their twisted, fluoro-guts with the inquisitive nature of a mad scientist or psycho-analyst between the yelping, warped and hyper-piquant yacht boogie of “The Rhino Powder of New Sensitivity” and a heavily affected dislocation of harmonized pop hooks and whirring body mechanics in “Clean Crash”. It all occupies a strange perch between introspective and exuberant, veering from mid-’90s Aphex Twin-like pop reflection in “You Are Alone”, to signature Diagonal tackle in the gas-chugging EBM-pop force of “The Human Pet”, whereas unarmed twists into fractal phantasies, all of which maintain a thread of logic that belies the record’s period of refinement and distillation. There can be little doubt that this is one of the most complex, rigorous and distinctive in Diagonal’s catalogue. Closer attention is required. File amid records by Luc Van Acker, Aphex Twin, Savant, Powell. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Edition of 500.
File Under: Electronic, Minimal, Techno, Industrial
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Joan La Barbara: Voice is the Original Instrument (Arc Light Editions) LP
Voice Is The Original Instrument was the first record released by Joan La Barbara in 1976 on Wizard Records. This is the first time the original LP, with artwork, has been made available again. It has since become iconic as one of the initial examples of extended vocal techniques in experimental music. The human voice is the only instrument on the recordings. The works on Voice is the Original Instrument were some of Joan’s earliest compositions, researching the possibilities of the voice, in two rigorous études, “Circular Song” and “Voice Piece: One-Note Internal Resonance Investigation”, and the more free-form “Vocal Extensions”, which uses live electronic processing. “My reason for producing the LP was to get my music out to the world beyond NYC and the major cities in which I was playing concerts,” she says. “At that time, Carla Bley and Michael Mantler had started JCOA/New Music Distribution Service which handled small independent labels, so there were quite a few artists in the NYC area who were producing their own albums and distributing them through that service.” Just out of college and living in a Soho loft in New York, Joan began playing shows in New York with jazz and rock musicians, and with those in the new music scene. “I did commercials, which, strangely enough, led me to Steve Reich,” she says. “A composer I was working with, Michael Sahl hired me to do some radio commercials and suggested me to Reich who was looking for singers who could imitate instruments, which was something I had been working on for some time and was part of my exploration of the voice. I worked with Reich on the development of “Drumming”, imitating the marimba.”
File Under: Experimental, Modern Classical
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Jessy Lanza: Oh No (Hyperdub) LP
Jessy Lanza’s second album Oh No is addressed to her own constant nervousness. The pressure of music making, which used to calm her nerves, has led to a whole new world of contingencies that stoke the anxiety mill. The exclamation Oh No, for Jessy, marks yet another incident of randomness interrupting her tranquillity. All of which seems at odds with the confidence and spontaneity of this second album as well as recent collaborations with the likes of Caribou, DJ Spinn and Morgan Geist and his Galleria project. Made in her hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, with production partner Jeremy Greenspan from Junior Boys, the plaintive, reverb drizzled mood of the first album has all but given away to a more direct, self-assured and joyful album. As with many artists whose hometown lie off the usual network of cultural hotspots, Oh No is driven positively by the idea of making music that isn’t inspired by where she lives. Instead, the album resonates more with the philosophy of experimental pop of Japanese ’80s electro outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra and Jessy’s breathless, pitched vocals are reminiscent of YMO collaborator Miharu Koshi. Playfully laced with cascading arpeggios, crispy drum machines and breezy songs, Oh No has an infectious energy that has been brewing in her live shows since her first album. As Jessy says “I want to make people feel good and I want to make myself feel good.” The album oscillates between the languid, coiled, arpeggiated slow jams of “New Ogi,” “Going Somewhere,” “Begins,” “Could Be U,” “I Talk BB” and the low slung 808 groove of “Vivica,” where Jessy’s vocal gymnastics run wild over minimal drums and synths, and the catchy upbeat boogie of “VV Violence,” “Never Enough,” “Oh No” and the high point “It Means I Love You” which has a sparse addictive bounce with a pitched up vocal refrain and a nod to Shangaan electro. The trials of dealing with nervousness are also encrypted into the artwork, such as the plants that recur in the sleeve and videos. As Jessy remarked, “I became obsessed with surrounding myself with tropical plants. I’ve been convinced that the air quality in our house is slowly killing us. It might sound crazy but the plants have made a huge difference.” Anxiety and botanical remedies or not, Oh No is a bold second album from Jessy and a marked step forward for her sound.
File Under: Electronic, Soul, RnB
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Tippa Lee: Dub Them With Reality (Stones Throw) LP
Tippa Lee was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. He started performing on his fathers Sound System as a child, standing up on a beer bottle box to reach the mic. He made his first recordings at King Tubby’s studio at the age of 12. Eventually he teamed up with Rappa Robert and as a duo had a number of hits including “No Trouble We,” an anthemic statement against police harassment, which was a No. 1 Jamaican hit in 1988 and is still played often on Jamaican radio. In more recent years he has been based in the US, performing live and releasing his own underground CDs. Tippa’s new album Cultural Ambassador will be released on Stones Throw in May 2016. Available now is the dub version of the album, Dub Them with Reality, mixed by producer Tom Chasteen (Dub Club, Natural Numbers), who has reconfigured the tracks live on the mixing board with echo, reverb and various arcane electronics.
File Under: Dub, Reggae
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Tippa Lee: Cultural Ambassador (Stones Throw) LP
Tippa Lee was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. He started performing on his fathers Sound System as a child, standing up on a beer bottle box to reach the mic. He made his first recordings at King Tubby’s studio at the age of 12. Eventually he teamed up with Rappa Robert and as a duo had a number of hits including “No Trouble We,” an anthemic statement against police harassment, which was a No. 1 Jamaican hit in 1988 and is still played often on Jamaican radio. In more recent years he has been based in the US, performing live and releasing his own underground CDs. Cultural Ambassador was produced by Tom Chasteen, DJ and promoter at LA’s long-running Dub Club. Tom and Tippa have been working side by side for years. This record is the result of many hours performing and recording together and much mutual respect. The musical tracks were recorded by a hand picked studio band including reggae legends Tony Chin on guitar and Fully Fullwood on bass, who between them probably played on a quarter of all the records that came out of Jamaica in the ’70s.
File Under: Reggae
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Okkyung Lee/Bill Orcutt: Live at Café Oto (Otoroku) LP
The full recording of the first meeting between Bill Orcutt (USA) and Okkyung Lee (South Korea). Individually these players have focused on an idiosyncratic approach to their chosen instruments and technique. Okkyung is one of the most singular voices to compromise the cello’s classical origin, while Orcutt has spent many years developing a unique abstraction of traditional guitar blues. Live at Cafe OTO is an uncompromising combination of these individual elements and an ecstatic improvised assault of mind and sense. Okkyung Lee: cello. Bill Orcutt: guitar.180-gram LP in matte sleeve with artwork by Bill Orcutt. Limited edition of 500.
File Under: Improvised, Guitar, Cello
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Klara Lewis: Too (Editions Mego) LP
Following her acclaimed 2014 debut, Ett, and the subsequent Msuic EP on Peder Mannerfelt’s eponymous label (2014), Klara Lewis presents her second full-length, Too. Lewis’s skill at sculpting the hermetic shines on Too as she twists her idiosyncratic vision into nine tracks of blurred rhythms and haunted backdrops. Too is a powerful statement in which the individual works tread a vast landscape as dour and aggressive elements rub shoulders with warmer, more optimistic works. Neither looking behind nor forward, these works spiral in a time of their own devising, presenting themselves as a most audacious theater for the ear. With a strong momentum developed from an organic outset the works move into a logic of their own, forming themselves as abstract landscapes, jittered rhythms, and even pop-like structures. Too is a deeply engaging display of sound and skewered sensibility that hovers on the cusp of reason and eludes the concrete. The results are Lewis’s boldest statement to date. Written, produced, and mixed by Klara Lewis. Additional sound contributions on “Twist” and “Want” by Simon Fisher Turner. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, February 2016. Drawing by Klara Lewis. Layout by Andreas Karperyd.
File Under: Electronic, Dark Ambient, Experimental
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Morley Loon: Northland, My Land (Future Days) LP
“Officially licensed reissue. Includes ‘N’Doheeno’ as featured on Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966-1985 . Expanded gatefold edition featuring Cree language lyrics and translation and unseen photos. Remastered from the original analogue master tapes Northland, My Land is the full-length vinyl debut from Cree singer-songwriter, actor, and force of nature, Morley Loon (1948?1986). Born in Mistissini, Quebec, Loon became active in music at an early age. Drawing from his Cree culture, language, and environment, Loon developed an organic style that inspired many Indigenous musicians. News of his talent even reached producers at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in the late 1970s. Two 7″ EPs of original Cree language compositions were laid down first and later compiled into the Northland, My Land album, which was released to the public in 1981. Accompanied by percussion and flute, Loon taps into a spiritual place with this material, achieving a transcendent quality rarely heard in music. ‘N’Doheeno,’ which translates to ‘The Hunter’ reflects the hunting and gathering traditions of Loon’s people and region. If you close your eyes and absorb the music’s pulse (even without knowledge of Cree), it’s easy to visualize the subject of this mesmerizing song. In this quote from the original Northland, My Land liner notes, we learn more: The call of the loon–haunting, evocative, across northern lakes and rivers, has been chosen as a signature effect by Morley Loon in his first recorded appearance. Morley and his people are close to the land and to the wildlife as part of the dominant theme of nature itself. The people have great respect for the wild creatures which they hunt, but on which they also depend. This closeness to the natural world is reflected in sentiments expressed in Cree about the traditional pursuits of the Indian. Though a strict traditionalist who wore his hair and clothes in accordant fashion, Loon was also a seasoned road warrior, performing across Canada, the United States, and Europe. He approached things with a special joy, celebrating and promoting his Cree culture to all. Loon was active as a musician until his untimely cancer-related death in 1986. We are honored to help share Morley’s music with the world.”
File Under: Folk, Native North America
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OST: The Lost Empire (Death Waltz) LP
Death Waltz Recording Company are proud to present one of the coolest electronic scores of the 80s on vinyl for the first time ever, with Alan Howarth’s music for the 1983 Jim Wynorski classic THE LOST EMPIRE. A thrilling adventure that spans multiple countries that pits a trio of ass-kicking ladies against a mysterious villain and his plan to create an army of female terrorists from his remote island, the film stars cult actress Raven De La Croix (Russ Meyer’s UP!) and the late, great Angus Scrimm (PHANTASM). Howarth’s score is what you’d expect from his revered work with John Carpenter on movies like BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA and PRINCE OF DARKNESS: full of expansive colours and incessantly memorable synth hooks, with the main theme juxtaposing ghostly effects against a thumping beat that leads into an amazing high keyboard melody that features throughout the score. Howarth mixes different elements; the effortlessly cool tune for LAPD hero Angel Wolfe, the mysterious and dangerous theme for awesome Native American Whitestar, and the Eastern flavours representing the evil of Dr Sin Do and his island of terror. There’s no “in association with” here – THE LOST EMPIRE is pure Alan Howarth, and it’s badass to the 9th degree.
File Under: OST, Death Waltz
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OST: Monster Squad (Mondo) 7″
We are pleased to be part of Mondo/Death Waltz’s new Indie Retail Program which will give us access exclusive releases and colorway’s of new Mondo and Death Waltz titles. This is the first of them…. ‘Rock until you drop , dance until your heart stops’ Mondo is delighted to bring you for the first time ever on vinyl two completely iconic songs from The Monster Squad , Fred Dekkers much loved 80’s monster mash up featuring dracula , Frankenstein , the mummy , the Creature battling a bunch kids from their treehouse , written by Shane Black featuring dialogue that is whip smart and a story that is so much fun it’s hard to find anyone thats doesn’t outright love The Monster Squad. This 7’ is a precursor of the forthcoming full length soundtrack album to be released this Halloween (also marking the first time the soundtrack has had a vinyl release) Side 1 is Michael Sembello’s complete ear worm of a theme tune , which is so 80’s we are not held responsible for any uncontrolled dancing during school detention that takes place during listening , the flip is the all time classic Monster Squad Rap with rhymes so fierce it had Run DMC running for the back door .
File Under: OST, Mondo
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OST: The Warriors (Waxwork) LP
Waxwork Records is excited to announce their long awaited release of THE WARRIORS. This deluxe double LP is three years in the making and features the re-mastered 1979 original soundtrack, in addition to, the vinyl debut of the complete film score by Barry DeVorzon. Directed by Walter Hill and based off of the 1965 novel by Sol Yurick of the same name, THE WARRIORS is the absolute definition of an influential cult-classic film. THE WARRIORS has permeated the landscape of pop culture, music, film, fashion, comics, and video games. Waxwork tirelessly worked directly from the original master tapes of both the original 1979 soundtrack and film score to bring audiences a brand new transfer of every musical cue heard in the movie, for the very first time on vinyl. In keeping with Waxwork’s deluxe packaging theme, the label has gone to great lengths to en-sure THE WARRIORS double LP release is the most high quality soundtrack release to date. New artwork by Marvel Comics artist Dave Rapoza graces the packaging.
File Under: OST
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Paper Eyes: Source Cognitive Drive (Ecstatic) LP
Documenting the prescient, early work of Gavin Russom upon moving from Providence to New York City in the late ’90s, Source Cognitive Drive – Transmissions 1996-1998 is a compilation that reflects the visceral and overwhelming experience of an artist getting familiar with the data overload of a megatropolis and all its 24 hour thrills and poly-cultural topography. As Russom explains: “Arriving in New York City I found myself surrounded by an incredibly intense field of stuff to take in; late night radio mixes which featured distinctly New York sounds like freestyle and hip hop, clubs where house, techno and jungle played to drugged-out and/or completely sober sweaty crowds and beard scratchers alike, no wave, new wave, disco, afro-Carribean, art rock and experimental music records I would pick up at thrift shops or used record stores, abstract turntablism, video toasting, Japanese noise imports, house parties and basement dance caves, drag clubs, DIY theater productions, underground warehouse art and music events that would last days and feature vivid sound and visual excursions as well as breakfasts and conversation areas, squatter punk noise and drumming freak-outs, high-brow “new music” events and installations, video booths, burning buildings, car accidents, abandoned buildings, late nights, early mornings, Coney Island?” In effect, these tracks are a series of snapshots or graffiti-like doodles and sketches of the feelings and textures absorbed during late night dérives from his loft on 31st St. and around the Williamsburg locale, all channeled through a rugged set-up including: Sony TC-155 and TC-102 reel-to-reel tape machines a Silvertone guitar, ATUS AM100 mixer, Boss Harmonizer, a tiny Radio Shack mic, a Radio Shack Realistic Electronic Reverb, Casio MT-40, Univox Compac 2 and Casio SA-41. Imagery of policemen and truck drivers picking up prostitutes, along with the whistling signals of crack buyers and sellers on the corner, for example, become transcribed into screeching scrabble and blow-out paroxysms of noise, interspersed with passages of bittersweet, rudimentary melody and swaggering, drugged-up rhythms, recalling a prickly and often uncomfortable experience as sticky, fucked-up and phantasmagoric as finding yourself in a new city can be. Compiled by Not Waving. Mastered by Matt Colton. Includes download code.
File Under: Electronic, Experimental
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Annette Peacock: I’m The One (Future Days) LP
Available again! “I’m the one, you don’t have to look any further. I’m the one. I’m here, right here for you,” oozes jazz, rock, and electronic music pioneer Annette Peacock on the leadoff title track of her solo debut LP. The album’s wide range of vocal emotions and diverse sonic palette (featuring Robert Moog’s early modular synthesizers, which the singer actually transmitted her voice through to wild effect) places it firmly at the forefront of the pop avant-garde. Originally released by RCA Victor in 1972 to widespread critical acclaim, I’m The One found itself amongst good company. Both Lou Reed and David Bowie had recently signed to the label—Bowie in particular was enamored with Annette—and artists ranging from ex-husband and jazz great Paul Bley, along with notable Brazilian percussionists Airto Moreira and Dom Um Romao, guested on the album itself. Writing and arranging I’m The One’s nine passionate tracks—bar a unique cover of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender”— the disc grooves easily from free jazz freak-outs and rough and rugged blues-funk to gently pulsing synthesized bliss. The second release on our Future Days Recordings imprint, I’m The One is returning to better record shops on CD and LP formats, re-mastered from the original tapes with an insert containing beautiful unseen photos from the vaults of Sony Music and extensive liner notes from NYC-based writer and musician, Mikey ‘IQ’ Jones. An extension of Annette’s late 1960s work with her Bley-Peacock Synthesizer Show combo, I’m The One is filled with strength and power, as well as a tender, sensual, and seductive side, born of a life surrounded with music and culture. Composing by age four, Peacock’s mother was a professional violinist. By the early 1960s, Annette had also collaborated with first husband, jazz bassist Gary Peacock and toured with legendary saxophone player Albert Ayler. Studying under Zen macrobiotics educator Michio Kushi and a confidant to Timothy Leary at the Millbrook psychedelic center, Peacock later worked, post-I’m The One, with rock stalwarts like guitarists Mick Ronson and Chris Spedding, Yes/King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford, as well as surrealist artist Salvador Dali. Light years ahead of her early 1970s contemporaries in terms of individuality and uncompromising vision, the album makes today’s major label computer generated fabrications an embarrassment to listeners worldwide. Still to this day, Annette remains a passionate advocate, an enigma caught between the peace and love vibrations of a hippy counterculture and the more worldly intelligence of the modern age. Her records continue to influence and inspire, and with I’m The One finally back on the shelves, countless new jacks on the scene can scope its liner notes and bear witness to its brilliance.
File Under: Experimental, Rock, Jazz
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Pentagram Home Video: Who’s Out There? (Death Waltz Originals) LP
Operating within the same realm as Pye Corner Audio, Pentagram Home Video’s debut LP for Death Waltz Originals offers up a dystopian analog synth attack swathed in layers of distortion and heavy pounding drums, it works as an imaginary soundtrack in your headphones but also as a powerful beast on more adventurous dance floors all the time being super melodic too.
File Under: Electronic, Dark, Ambient
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Phish: Hoist (Jemp) LP
Phish is known for its musical improvisation, extended jam sessions, exploration of music among diverse genres, and its ardently loyal fans. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983, the band’s four founding members – Trey Anastasio (guitars, lead vocals), Mike Gordon (bass, vocals), Jon Fishman (drums, vocals), and Page McConnell (keyboards, vocals) – performed together for over 20 years before disbanding in August 2004 and subsequently reuniting in March 2009. Originally issued in 1994, Hoist is the band’s fifth official studio effort. Produced by Paul Fox (XTC, 10,000 Maniacs, The Wallflowers) and recorded at American Recording Co. in Woodland Hills, CA, the Elektra Records release was the band’s first album recorded entirely outside of the Northeast and the first to receive a strong marketing push from the label. It resulted in a Top 40 debut on the Billboard 200 albums chart and subsequent Gold certification. One of Phish’s more stripped down and concise studio records, Hoist yielded three signature singles with “Down with Disease,” “Sample in a Jar” and “Julius” and includes famous guest appearances by Alison Krauss and Béla Fleck.
File Under: Rock, Jam Bands
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Masahiko Sato & Wolfgang Dauner: Pianology (Victory) LP
Masahiko Satoh’s fourth album is a duet with German pianist and composer Wolfgang Dauner. Dauner is one of the very early European avant-garde jazz pianists, and he recorded the first free jazz album in Germany back in 1964. Dauner played with Eberhard Weber and Jean-Luc Ponty, and in the late ’60s, he experimented with choral music. Being a passionate innovator and experimenter, in 1970 he discovered electronic devices and started using them in his music. He experimented with ring-modulated Hohner clavinets and pianos and recorded several albums for ECM. During his Japanese tour in spring 1971, he met one of the most advanced Japanese pianists of that time, Masahiko Satoh. The five compositions on this album were recorded in Tokyo in March 1971, but were not released until that autumn. It’s interesting that a few months later, Masahiko Satoh will record and release his best-known, and in some sense, legendary album, Amalgamation (ASH 3040CD) — an eclectic mix of musical genres and sounds that was probably influenced by his earlier collaboration with Dauner. Pianology, released soon after Amalgamation, wasn’t as strong in comparison, and stayed in its shade for decades. Pianology is a collection of freeform classical and jazz piano duo improvs, spiced with ring modulator sounds. Includes printed inner sleeve.
File Under: Jazz, Classical, Experimental
Red Square: Rare and Lost 70s Recordings (Mental Experience) LP
Ultra-rare recordings by ’70s UK avant-rockers Red Square, the missing link between original free-noise practitioners like AMM, Nihilist Spasm Band, and Peter Brotzmann and post-no wavers à la The Blue Humans, Borbetomagus, Fushitsusha, and The Dead C. Named after the early Soviet Constructivists, Red Square is a pioneering free-improvising, avant-rock band. They bridged the worlds of psychedelic rock, noise, and avant-jazz, and many of the techniques and approaches to music that they helped to pioneer have become common practice today. Predating Sonic Youth by seven years, Last Exit by a decade, and Mats Gustafsson’s The Thing by 25, their railing aural assaults were once considered too extreme for commercial release. Formed in Southend-On-Sea in 1974 by guitar player Ian Staples (fresh from gigging at the Middle Earth club with Ginger Johnson’s African Drummers and sharing stages with Pink Floyd and Marc Bolan among others), bass clarinet/sax player Jon Seagroatt, and free-jazz drummer Roger Telford, their unusual sound was an amalgam of jazz, improv, and avant-rock, fueled by the loud electric guitar of Ian Staples, whose style has been described as a “revolutionary blend of Hendrix and Beefheart, with the sonic palettes of Derek Bailey and Stockhausen.” Staples’s atonal guitar riffs referenced metal without ever becoming metal. Red Square shared stages with Henry Cow, Lol Coxhill, David Toop, and National Health, and they were also involved with Music For Socialism. But their extreme sound and attitude were too much for both audience and record companies. The band imploded in 1978 with only two ultra-rare private cassette releases as their only legacy. In 2008, they reformed again and they’re still playing and recording as of 2016. Rare and Lost 70s Recordings includes a complete never-before-heard heavy studio session from 1978 plus a thunderous live set opening for fellow “rock in opposition” mavens Henry Cow, recorded in perfect sound quality in 1976. Remastered by original member Jon Seagroatt (who is playing/touring with ’70s pagan-folk gods Comus and Current 93 at the time of this release). Includes insert with liner notes and photos. Released in collaboration with Steve Krakow of Chicago’s Galactic Zoo magazine and Galactic Archive imprint.
File Under: Avant Garde, Jazz, Improv
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Terry Reid: The Other Side of the River (Future Days) LP
Double LP version housed in a Stoughton gatefold ‘tip-on’ jacket. “Remastered from the original analog tapes. Track notes by Terry Reid. 6 never before heard Reid compositions, plus 5 very different alternate takes — all previously unreleased British musician Terry Reid is a relatively unsung legend. With his incredible voice (that earned him the nickname ‘Superlungs’), spot-on songwriting, and underrated guitar skills, Reid invented new sounds and others followed suit. His 1973 LP, River, is an under-theradar but deeply loved album. Our special new release, The Other Side Of The River, features all previously unreleased material from the River sessions, including six never-before-heard Reid compositions and five very different alternate takes of tracks from River. Over the decades, as River went in and out of print, there were rumors of a mythological double album’s worth of unreleased material. The rumors turned out to be true, as the entire album was recorded twice: once with British producer Eddy Offord and again with the legendary Tom Dowd. The sessions captured Reid’s free-associative mix of folk, blues, rock, jazz, bossa-nova, soul, and samba, recalling at times Tim Buckley and Van Morrison, while featuring some remarkable guests including Gilberto Gil on percussion, Ike & Tina Turner’s Ikettes on vocals, and David Lindley, of psych band Kaleidoscope, on violin. The Other Side Of The River includes songs that even Terry had forgotten — rockers in the style of the River track ‘Dean,’ Latin grooves with percussionist Willie Bobo, and beautifully sparse vocal material not unlike David Crosby’s If Only I Could Remember My Name and John Martyn’s Solid Air. Reid’s vocal prowess earned him offers to front both Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but he turned down both opportunities to carve out a distinctive solo career. Instead, he rocked on the sidelines, ultimately touring with Cream and Fleetwood Mac, writing songs for CSNY, and opening for The Rolling Stones on their 1969 tour. More recently, Terry’s songs have been covered by a number of younger artists including the Raconteurs, and his voice can be heard on DJ Shadow’s track ‘Listen’. This spring he will be touring the East Coast and U.K. Though his ‘superlungs’ would have no doubt served Zepp well, perhaps his solo status allowed him to be more experimental and nuanced than he would’ve been able to be as a mainstream frontman, and for that we are grateful. The Other Side Of The River stands alone as a fresh and utterly groundbreaking Terry Reid gem.”
File Under: Rock
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Suso Saiz: Odisea (Music From Memory) LP
Odisea is a retrospective showcase of solo work from Spanish electronic music pioneer Suso Sáiz. Having been at the forefront of Spain’s experimental music scene since the late 1970s, multi-instrumentalist Suso Sáiz formed the pivotal group Orquesta de las Nubes and studio project Música Esporádica, releasing a string of albums on Madrid’s now cult label Grabaciones Accidentales, which was also home to groups such as Finis Africae, Mecánica Popular, and Ishinohana. A prolific producer, he has recorded with Spain’s most singular popular musicians as well as with a number of luminary electronic and world music artists such as Steve Roach, Jorge Reyes, and Salif Keita. Odisea draws material from Suso’s early solo works, including music from the rare cassette-only Confidencias as well as pieces from his more recent compositions, soundtrack works and previously unreleased tracks. An artist dedicated to experimentation, Suso’s sparse compositions manifest a solitary and stripped back approach to making music. Fascinated by the possibilities of new technology he experimented with guitar loops, synthesizers, and drum computers creating a unique form of musical hypnotism absorbed by avant-garde/minimalist and non-Western musical influences. The most representative figure of Spain’s now cult experimental scene, Suso Sáiz remains an exploratory musician in a musical universe that knows no boundaries.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Sun Ra & His Astro Infinity Arkestra: Intergalactic Thing (Roaratorio) LP
“One might think, with a discography as extensive as the one Sun Ra boasts, that the scope of his work has been fully apprehended by this point, but The Intergalactic Thing demonstrates its seemingly bottomless depths. This is not a complete surprise: anyone who saw Ra and the Arkestra perform will remember the sight of the band quickly shuffling through an imposingly thick stack of sheet music, when Sunny would call the next tune on the program with an encrypted hint on his keyboard. Band members tell stories of spending long hours practicing a newly-written composition, only to never play it again. Here, we have a taste of that which has been hidden: drawn from rehearsals at the Sun Ra house in Philadelphia from 1969, The Intergalactic Thing introduces a dozen never-before-heard pieces from Ra’s songbook — tunes that may have never even made it to the bandstand, let alone the recording studio — along with a handful of reworkings of such Ra classics as ‘Spontaneous Simplicity’ and ‘The Exotic Forest.’ Without a doubt, this is one of the most important augmentations to the Sun Ra catalog in many a moon. This double LP set comes in a beautiful gatefold jacket, with extensive liner notes by Ra discographer Robert L. Campbell and a download coupon for the full album.”
File Under: Jazz
Piero Umiliani: Angeli Bianchi… …Angeli Neri (Schema) LP
Angeli bianchi… angeli neri is one of the best results of the collaboration between Piero Umiliani and director Luigi Scattini. Filmed in Brazil, Angeli bianchi…; angeli neri (also known as Witchcraft 70) is one of Scattini’s most popular mondo films. However in an exagerated way, as was common at the time, the aim of the movie was to document the world of black magic, devil worshipping and pagan rituals. Through the years it has reached the status of cult movie along with Mondo cane (A Dog’s World) and Africa addio. Without any doubt, some of its success is to be attributed to one of the most beautiful soundtracks composed by Umiliani. The soundtrack was recorded in part in Brazil, with local musicians and instruments, and in part in Rome, with the collaboration of the talents of Edda Dell’Orso, Nora Orlandi and Alessandro Alessandroni and his Cantori Moderni. The music reflects samba and bossa nova influences and emphasizes the composer’s ability in orchestrating the whole in a new and personal style. A special mention must go to the incredibile psychedelic Streghe a convegno, which seems to have stemmed from a Tropicalist masterpiece of the time, to La foresta incantata in which Orlandi gives a superb vocal interpretation, to the percussive Macumba (where it is Dell’Orso’s turn) and last to Toccata e samba which is a happy and daring mix between Bach and samba. As Scattini himself states in an interview: I firmly believe that this is one of the most beautiful soundtracks composed by Piero. It is a mix of bossa, samba and ambient music, not aimed at underlying or accompanying the scenes, at times crude and violent, but at arising in the spectator the very same emotions I had experienced while directing. It will be the same for you also…
File Under: Library, Italian
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Piero Umiliani: Psichedelica (Schema) LP
Before talking about Psichedelica, one of the many and rare library albums signed by Piero Umiliani, we must step back in time, until June 1968, when Umiliani was working on the score of Svezia Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden Heaven and Hell), one of the many collaborations between director Luigi Scattini and the Maestro. In fact, a large part of the music recorded for that movie, one of Umiliani’s most popular works, would be later selected for this library release. Originally issued by the label Omicron, which pressed 200 copies, not even destined to be sold. Despite the title, a misleading Psichedelica, and a suitable colored cover, this LP walks – of course, one might say – along the lines of Scattini’s film soundtrack, among beat outbursts, orchestral tracks and some references to the rock sound of the time, as can be heard in the second of the two versions of Hippies. Those who know will remember that Psichedelica contains the first version of Umiliani’s most famous composition: Mah-Nà Mah-Nà, a track that will be a mixed blessing of his artistic life. Considered a filler and discarded from the soundtrack of Svezia Inferno e Paradiso, it was originally called Viva la sauna svedese (featuring Alessandro Alessandroni and his wife Julia on vocals, as well as in Birra, Vermouth e Gin); it was then retitled and re-released in the US a few months later, achieving unprecedented success and even ending up in the charts; later known as ‘The Muppet Show’s song’, it became almost immediately a world famous cult track, an authentic hallmark of Piero Umiliani’s popular genius.
File Under: Library, Italian, Funk
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Piero Umiliani: La Ragazza Fuoristrada (Schema) LP
This is the second movie with Zeudi Araya, filmed in a hurry to take advantage of the success of the previous La ragazza dalla pelle di luna. La ragazza fuoristrada, set between Egypt and Ferrara, deals in an unusual way with the theme of racial integration, still a taboo at the time especially in remote Italian provinces. Despite the fact that the title evokes the legendary Dune Buggy (the main character, Luc Merenda, is a journalist who goes to Egypt to test it), this is not an action movie but on the contrary it favours intimist atmospheres. Once again Piero Umiliani’s music adds melancholy to the evocative scenes (Il tuo volto, Volto di donna, Nostalgia, present in different versions), without neglecting important sound variations like in Senza tregua, years ahead of the James Taylor Quartet and acid jazz, or La rinuncia, a wonderful rock theme with the Hammond organ. Araya’s voice, in addition to her mysterious and sophisticated beauty, is also worth mentioning. She sings two songs in the movie, Oltre l’acqua del fiume in Italian and Maryam in Amharic, which for some reason have not been included in the vinyl soundtrack.
File Under: Library, Italian
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Piero Umiliani & I Suoi Oscillatori: Il Mondo Dei Romani (WRWTFWW) LP
First vinyl reissue. Limited edition of 500 orange LPs (vinyl only; no digital release). Remastered from the original reels. The sought-after experimental gem Il Mondo Dei Romani, by soundtrack and avant-garde maestro Piero Umiliani, is now available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 1972. Originally recorded for a TV documentary about ancient Rome and released on Umiliani’s Omicron label, Il Mondo Dei Romani finds Umiliani experimenting with electronic instruments (Suoi Oscillatori or “his oscillators”) to offer a fascinating rendition of what synthesizer-based avant-garde ancient Roman music would sound like. It’s a weird and extremely hypnotizing retro-futuristic experience of faux cithara, lyre, organ, and trumpet sounds driven by proto-techno sequences and minimalist rhythms. This brilliant electronic oddity is the perfect companion to We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records’ previous Umiliani reissue, Tra scienza e fantascienza (WRWTFWW 003LP, 2015). Born in 1926, Piero Umiliani began his career as a jazz pianist (occasionally recording with Chet Baker) and started working on film soundtracks in the late ’50s. Known as the man who brought jazz to Italian cinema, he left his mark on a long series of notorious giallo and mondo movies, soft sex films, and Eurospy thrillers, garnering praise for mastering sleazy funk, experimental electronica, and jazzy themes, and making a name for himself among his peers, including Ennio Morricone or Riz Ortolani. It was with the 1968 Italian mondo film Sweden: Heaven and Hell that Umiliani landed his biggest hit, “Mah Nà Mah Nà” (originally “Viva la Sauna Svedese” (“Hooray for the Swedish Sauna”)), which would later be used on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, The Benny Hill Show, and many more.
File Under: Italian, Library, Synth
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Yoshi Wada: Off The Wall (Saltern) LP
First vinyl reissue of composer and Fluxus artist Yoshi Wada’s second album, Off The Wall, originally released in 1985 by famed free jazz label FMP. Recorded in Berlin on May 11 and 12, 1984, by a quartet featuring Yoshi Wada and Wayne Hankin on bagpipes, Marilyn Bogerd on adapted organ (hand-built by Wada), and Andreas Schmidt Neri on percussion. Edition of 750. Mastered by Rashad Becker and housed in old-style gatefold jackets printed by Stoughton. “Off The Wall belongs somewhere between the exuberant harmolodic ritual of Ornette Coleman’s Dancing In Your Head, a damp, medieval dirge and the inner ear soundings of composer Maryanne Amacher” –David Keenan, The Wire. “It may be more accurate to think of Wada as a sculptor than as a composer, because his music seems to be a physical reality, like wood or stone, and also because of the way he treats this material. Most composers work with ideas. Their basic interest is in melodies, harmonies, thematic relationships, tone rows, tonal centers, emotional qualities, and other rather abstract things, all of which can then be conveyed in sound, but none of which really are sound. Wada, on the other hand, works directly with the sound itself. His music would sound silly arranged for church organ for example. And if he prefers to preserve some improvisatory freedom rather than to notate specific musical ideas, this is at least partly because he is not so interested in the kinds of musical ideas that can be written down on paper. He wants to maintain direct contact with the physical reality of the sound.” –Tom Johnson
File Under: Drone, Fluxus, Experimental
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Whitehouse: The Sound of Being Alive (Susan Lawly) LP
Look up, look all around you, dump the fucking rubbish, and rise up. Listen to the sound of being alive. Whitehouse. Brand new masters by Noel Summerville of the twelve most intense anthems you will ever know.
File Under: Experimental, Noise
Olivia Wyatt & Bitchin’ Bajas: Sailing A Sinking Sea (Drag City) LP
In 2015, filmmaker Olivia Wyatt invited Bitchin Bajas to add incidental music to the climatic sounds of her feature-length experimental documentary on the nomadic Moken people, Sailing A Sinking Sea. This new album release packages the soundtrack LP with a DVD of the film, thus opening several windows to the eternal questions posed on both formats and providing two distinct pieces of art coming from the same source. Sailing A Sinking Sea is a feature-length experimental documentary exploring the culture of the Moken people of Burma and Thailand. The Moken are a seafaring community and one of the smallest ethnic minority groups in Asia, traditionally spending eight months out of the year in thatch-roofed wooden boats. Weaving a visual and aural tapestry of Moken mythologies and present-day practices, Sailng A Sinking Sea premiered at SXSW in the 2015 Visions Category, and it went on to receive its international premiere at Hot Docs. Since then, it has gone on to be shown a a number of festivals including Margaret Mead, BFI London, and the Singapore International Film Fest, where it won the Audience Choice award. Bitchin Bajas were tapped to add to the already-existing raft of water sounds and other field recordings captured in the film. The soundtrack mixes film sounds and soundtrack pieces that gave the album an aquatic flow, with waves of water, Moken voices and songs and cascades of autoharp, synth, bells and flute lapping up against each other, producing a sense of time passing in its ultimate way – twined with the epic tail of history and the million forgotten days stretching behind. Hypnotic interpolation of the energies of Olivia Wyatt’s incredible images? Two excellent audio visual components for the price of one? Sign us up! Sailing A Sinking Sea drops in May 2016, get ready!
File Under: OST, Aquatic
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Various: Boombox – Early Hip Hop, Electro & Disco Rap (Soul Jazz) LP
Soul Jazz Records’ new Boombox features some of the many innovative underground first-wave of rap records made in New York in the period 1979-82, all released on small, independent, often family-concern record companies, at a time when hip-hop music still remained under the radar. This first exuberant wave of innocent, upbeat, ‘party on the block’ rap records were the first to try and create the sounds heard in community centres, block parties and street jams that initially took place in the Bronx in the mid-1970s. But where Flash, Kool Herc and Bambaataa were back-spinning, mixing and scratching together now classic breakbeat records like The Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache” or Babe Ruth’s “The Mexican,” these first rap records were all made using live bands, often replaying then current disco tunes, whilst MCs rapped over the top, creating a unique sound that later became known derisively as ‘old school.’ And while hip-hop started in the Bronx, rap on vinyl began in Harlem where long-time established rhythm and blues producer-owned record companies such as Joe Robinson’s Enjoy Records, Paul Winley’s Winley Records, Delmar Donnel’s Delmar International and Jack ‘Fatman’ Taylor’s Rojac and Tayster were the first off the mark to realize the commercial potential of rap music – releasing early ground-breaking records that all quickly followed in the wake of the first rap record, The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rappers Delight,” a million-selling worldwide hit. This collection celebrates these first old-school rap records, bringing together rare, classic and obscure tracks released in the early days of rap. Triple heavyweight vinyl includes full artwork, text and notes as well as free download code.
File Under: Hip Hop
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Various: Cosmic Machine The Sequel (Because) LP+CD
Deluxe edition on colored vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve. Includes CD. This sequel to the acclaimed Cosmic Machine compilation released in 2013 is another fantastic journey through time and space. At the time musicians were trying to capture the sounds of meteorites entering the terrestrial atmosphere thanks to machines developed by NASA engineers, a new generation of analog synthesizers enabled electronic music composers to take over the charts. It seemed the machines were definitely made to serve a radical avant-garde, and many years later, we’re glad to be able to listen with this perspective, and most of all — to dance to it. While moving your feet to Cosmic Machine The Sequel, you might identify Francis Lay, recognized as one of the best music composers in France, as well as Rosebud, who had the audacity to remix the main theme from the movie More, created by Pink Floyd. You’ll also find “Les Soucoupes Volantes Vertes” from Heldon, the band led by electronic music visionary Richard Pinhas. Pascal Comelade, a friend of his, and worthy heir of the American minimalism also appears on this record, with a cold electronic sound called “Mouvement Décomposé d’Un Coup de Marteau.” Arpadys, for their part, make an appearance with a more tribal and spatial track that will make you turn the volume up. Christophe’s “Harp Odyssey,” a track influenced by his collaborations with electronic master Jean-Michel Jarre. The father of electroacoustic music, Pierre Schaeffer used to head the Group of Musical Researches, a real musical laboratory in which both artists have worked together, trying to experiment with new sounds. Finally, the legendary “Pop Corn” instrumental from Anarchic System will bring some nice memories to the surface. Each and every one of the artists present on this compilation has dreamt of getting his one-way ticket to the moon. Some of them have managed to tread upon the land of our satellite, but one thing is for sure: all have participated in the spatial conquest on board of the Cosmic Machine. You have the right to get on it. Also includes tracks by Stereo, Queen Samantha, Nicolas Peyrac, Roger Roger, Video Liszt, Pierre Porte, Grand Prix, The Peppers, Joel Fajerman & Jan Yrssen, Moon Birds, Araxis, Georges Rodi, and Michel Magne.
File Under: Electronic, Disco, Pop, Soul
Various: Every Day in the Week Vol. 1 (Hidden Charms) LP
A heart-felt compilation with Country Blues, Jug Bands, Hokum groups, Barrelhouse piano Blues, raw gut-bucket Jazz and Medicine Show Songsters. An eclectic and diverse mix of African-American musical styles as recorded on rare 78 rpm discs between 1927 and 1933.
File Under: Blues, Jazz, Folk
Various: Every Day in the Week Vol. 2 (Hidden Charms) LP
Every Day In The Week Vol. 2 is like the first volume, a showcase of the eclectic and diverse African-American music styles recorded in the pre-World War Two era. The series does not focus on a single style, artist or region, it’s more like one was entering a party in 1935 where everybody was putting their favorite records on the gramophone, be it dance numbers or slow tracks. From Blues to Hot Jazz and from Gospel to String Bands with Songsters, Jug Bands and Barrelhouse Pianists.
File Under: Blues, Jazz, Folk
Various: Studio One Dub Fire Special (Soul Jazz) LP
Soul Jazz Records’ new Studio One Dub Fire Special brings together 18 heavyweight dub cuts all recorded at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s. Featuring a stellar selection of dub cuts to classic and foundation songs recorded at Studio One with music from the legendary in-house bands – The Sound Dimension, New Establishment, Soul Defenders and Brentford All-Stars – featuring the likes of reggae’s finest musicians – Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Cedric Brooks, Freddie McGregor and more. These fresh dub sounds employed the mighty mixing desk skills of The Dub Specialist, aka Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd and studio engineer supremo Sylvan Morris to full effect. Studio One Dub Fire Special features Soul Jazz’s latest chapter of raw, stripped-down bass and drum sounds direct from Studio One.
File Under: Reggae, Dub
…..Restocks…..
Arcade Fire: Suburbs (Merge) LP
Big Black: Atomizer (Touch & Go) LP
The Black Angels: Passover (Light in the Attic) LP
Digable Planets: Blowout Comb (Modern Classics) LP
Fat Boys: s/t (Traffic) LP
Fraser & Debolt: This Song.. (Feeding Tube) LP
Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin: s/t (Light in the Attic) LP
Goblin: Profondo Rosso (AMS) LP
Goblin: Roller (AMS) LP
Goblin: Susperia (AMS) LP
Goblin: Zombi (AMS) LP
Gorillaz: s/t (EMI) LP
Jesus Lizard: Goat (Touch & Go) LP
Jesus Lizard: Liar (Touch & Go) LP
Lee Hazlewood: Lee Hazlewoodism (Light in the Attic) LP
Lee Hazlewood: Something Special (Light in the Attic) LP
Iasos: Celestial Soul Portrait (Numero) LP
J Dilla: The Diary (Pay Jay) LP
Jungle Brothers: Straight Out of the Jungle (Traffic) LP
Kinks: Something Else (Sanctuary) LP
KMD: Mr Hood (Traffic) LP
Joanna Newsom: YS (Drag City) LP
Jim O’Rourke: Bad Timing (Drag City) LP
Parquet Courts: Human Performance (Rough Trade) LP
Bernard Purdie: Lialeh OST (Light in the Attic) LP
Alex Puddu: Golden Age of Danish Porn (Schema) LP
Radiohead: King of Limbs (XL) LP
Catherine Ribeiro & Alpes: Ame Debout (Phillips) LP
Catherine Ribeiro & Alpes: Paix (Phillips) LP
Ty Segall & White Fence: Hair (Drag City) LP
Jim Sullivan: UFO (Light in the Attic) LP
Yuck: Stranger Things (Mame) LP
Various: Cult Cargo: Salsa Boricua de Chicago (Numero) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Nickel & Penny Labels (Numero) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Forte Label (Numero) LP
Various: Library Of Sound – Erotic Vibes & Bossa Beats (Semi Automatic) LP
Various: Local Customs: Downriver Revival (Numero) LP
Various: Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands (Numero) LP
Various: Music of Morocco (Dust to Digigal) 4CD Box
Various: Root Hog or Die (Mississippi) 6LP Box