An incredible week for new releases for ears of all sorts! Killer African reissues, new Radiohead, Mogwai, Swans, and on and on. If there isn’t something for you this week, maybe you need your ears cleaned.. We’ve also been continuing to plow through the piles of used I’ve got stashed in the back, so lots of killer vintage slabs to browse as well.
Tomorrow (June 17th) we are hosting the Radiohead: Live from a Moon Shaped Pool event. In conjunction with the release of their new album, Radiohead is providing 8 hours of audio content for participating stores all day tomorrow. Starting at 11am tomorrow with 2 hours of live material from their most recent shows. We’ll be open a bit early to ensure that if you are coming down for 11 you can get in here before the show starts. There is also a bit of free swag to take, as well as the new album to buy, and a chance to win some very cool prizes… more details can be found… amoonshapedpool.com/livefrom
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…..pick of the week…..
Various: Wake Up You! Volume 2 (Now Again) LP/CD
The sequel to one of our favorite RSD2016 releases! We’ve got a lot more of this one to go around too but that doesn’t mean you should sleep on this, these are gonna fly out of here… “The Western world was in the throes of peace, love and flower power as Nigeria descended into Civil War in 1967. The rock scene that developed during the following three years of bloodshed and destruction would come to heal the country, propagate the world-wide ideal of the Modern Nigerian, and propel Fela to stardom after conflict ended in 1970. Wake Up You!tells the story of this time, pays homage to these now-forgotten musicians and their struggle, and brings to light the funk and psychedelic fury they created as they wrested free of the ravages of the late 1960s and created thrilling, original Nigerian rock music throughout the 1970s. Presented in two volumes, each in a 100 page book full of never-seen photos along with detailed liner notes by Nigerian musicologist and researcher Uchenna Ikonne (Who Is William Onyeabor?), with all tracks fully licensed from the bands themselves.”
File Under: Africa, Funk, Fuzz, Psych
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…..new arrivals…..
‘A’ Trio & Alan Bishop: Burj Al Iman (Unrock) LP
Entirely recorded at Tunefork Studios on the outskirts of Beirut, Burj al Imam’s five tracks include three largely improvised numbers, a loose reworking of Sun City Girls track “The Imam,” and a cover of traditional Americana song “Gently Johnny” (a highlight of Alan Bishop’s liveAlvarius B. shows). True to their habits, the Lebanese trio of trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj, guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui, and bassist Raed Yassin create acoustic improvised drones that range from insistent, chiming resonances with emergency alarm bells to low, thrumming hums. Avoiding conventional technique,”A” Trio generates rattling, metallic vibrations and a mechanistic backdrop out of which the instruments’ true voices arise. With Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls, The Invisible Hands, The Dwarfs of East Agouza) and his guitar and enigmatic voice in the mix, alternating between gentle crooning and the sounds of a howling dervish, this recording reaches an exceptional depth with strange sounds boiling down to a dark, heavy spiritual syrup. Psychedelic, industrial free jazz.
File Under: Experimental, Folk, Psych, Rock
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Acid Mother’s Temple: Anthem of the Space (Nod & Smile) LP
“First time on vinyl for this 2005 release by Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno! 600 copies pressed on violet wax! Contains the 42 minute title track split over two sides. Hypnotic electric sitar drones give way to a full fledged acid rock assault!” Mastered by James Plotkin.
File Under: Japanese, Psych
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Band of Horses: Why Are You Ok (Interscope) LP
In tomorrow… Why Are You OK is the fifth full-length studio effort from Band of Horses and follow-up to 2012’s Mirage Rock. The album was produced by Jason Lytle, executive produced by Rick Rubin and mixed by Dave Fridmann. The 12-track release comes preceded by lead single “Casual Party.” In the past, Band of Horses founder and leader Ben Bridwell would literally run away from home to write: holing up in a secluded cabin or other such remote location, emerging months later with new songs for his band to flesh out and fully animate. This time – whether by happenstance or conscious need for a drastic change – Ben stayed home to write. In the estrogen-charged atmosphere of a home shared with his wife and four daughters he allowed his everyday experiences to inform his process. Between dropping off and picking up the girls, changing diapers, and playing dress up, Bridwell spent every precious free minute – often the wee hours of the morning into daybreak – in his garage writing. While Bridwell and his bandmates – Tyler Ramsey, Ryan Monroe, Creighton Barrett and Bill Reynolds – convened in South Carolina alongside producer Lytle (Grandaddy), Bridwell struggled to bring the new material into focus. One day, at a particularly crucial part of the recording process Ben’s phone rang. It was Rubin – who’d randomly heard a Band of Horses song on the radio during a drive, and had been moved to pull over and call. Without going into details, Bridwell can’t stress the value of this phone call enough. It was exactly the final push that his songs needed on their journey from conception to being sent out into the world. The result is Why Are You OK, a record informed by experience and at the same time retaining the vulnerability that birthed their greatest songs. Creating capsule worlds populated by the strange but true cast of characters from Bridwell’s hometown of Charleston, SC, Why Are You OK‘s songs combine universal sentiments with his patented knack for storytelling – all wrapped in the lush melodic textures that have long been the bedrock of Band of Horses’ signature sound.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Biosphere: Pataschnik (Biosphere) LP
Patashnik was originally released by R&S Records/Apollo in 1994. It was number 1 in NME’s Independent Chart in March 1994 and reached number 50 in the UK official album chart. The track “Novelty Waves” was used in Michel Gondry’s Levi’s 501 Jeans “Drugstore” spot, and holds, according to the Guinness World Records 2004, the record for “Most awards won by a TV commercial”. Double CD version comes with the bonus 12-track album Patashnik 2. “One reason why Jenssen’s work stands out from the flood of early ’90s ambient/techno releases is his strong sense of the quirkily creepy – not in an Aphex Twin mode, but in his own particular way. The contrasting samples of a child quaveringly saying, ‘We had a dream last night,’ followed by a rougher sample saying, ‘We had the same dream,’ gives opening number ‘Phantasm’ an unsettling feeling. Intensified by the, on the one hand, pretty, on the other, disturbing music, buried synth strings and a soft pulse accentuated by clattering noises deep in the mix, it kicks off the striking Patashnik very well. Though not as openly dark as acts like Lull, for instance, Biosphere still has an edge which isn’t just melancholic, it’s downright ominous at point. There’s the slow crawl of ‘Startoucher’, for instance, with its buried vocal snippets and deep bass drone, or the blend of the space signal atmospheres of ‘Mir’ into the low, brooding intro to ‘The Shield.’ Not everything is so shadowy, though; Patashnik is primarily a relax-and-chill listening experience, but not without its gentle high points. ‘Novelty Waves’, which became a crossover single in some quarters, has a good dancefloor sharpness to it even as Jenssen slyly sneaks in odd drones and samples through the mix. The opening snippet talking about an extraterrestrial disc jockey on ‘Seti Project’ is good for a smile, as well as acting as a sharp lead-in to a fast rhythm track. Mostly, though, things continue on a deliciously unnerving pace throughout, gentle enough to go down easy but still just off enough to ensure you can’t call this new age folderol for the rave generation.” – Ned Raggett – AllMusic
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Downtempo
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Sir Richard Bishop: Salvador Kali (Exiled) LP
“Exiled Records is very excited to present the first ever vinyl edition of Sir Richard Bishop’s Salvador Kali. Originally released on cd by John Fahey’s Revenant in 1998. This was released following a run of peak Sun City Girls activity (330,003 Crossdressers, Dante’s Disneyland Inferno) and came as something of a shock; a stunningly beautiful instrumental album that was entirely accessible! Composed and recorded free of the burden of expectation, his debut album marked Bishop as a force operating on his own plane. A fairly significant departure from the freewheeling nature of the Sun City Girls, Salvador Kali is a concise album in which he explores the hallmarks of his style: North African influences, Spanish flamenco, Indian raga and a fiery take on Django Reinhardt’s Rose Room. The epic 14 minute solo piano fantasia, Al-Darazi is saved for all of side C. There is an incredible cinematic feel to the album as it’s vibe runs from pieces that could be in a Satyajit Ray film to a lost Antonioni sequence set on the Mediterranean in the 1970’s. Ironic that it was released by John Fahey, as it is was one of the few solo guitar albums to be free of the long shadow cast by Fahey. My favorite Sir Richard Bishop album on vinyl, at last! Edition of 500 copies.” Highly Recommended!
File Under: Guitar Soli, Folk, Sun City Girls
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Glenn Branca: Symphony No. 1 (Tonal Plexus) (Roir) LP
“Recorded across two nights in 1981 at New York’s legendary Performing Garage and originally released in 1983 on cassette, Symphony No. 1 has been remastered for vinyl and reissued for the first time as a heavyweight 180 gram 2LP set in a deluxe gatefold jacket. The limited edition pressing features additional liner notes written by Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) alongside the original notes by Jon Pareles (The New York Times) and now includes photos by Paula Court (New York Noise). The ensemble of performers on this recording are: Glenn Branca, Craig Bromberg, Dave Buk, Ann DeMarinis, Barbara Ess, Robert Harrison, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, David Rosenbloom, Richard Edson, Ned Sublette, Wharton Tiers, Gail Vachon, Fritz Van Orden, Stephen Wischerth and Margot Zvaleko.”
File Under: Experimental, Modern Classical
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Peter Brotzmann/Heather Leigh: Ears Are Filled With Wonder (Trost) LP
“Ears Are Filled With Wonder, the debut release from the duo of pedal steel player Heather Leigh and reedist Peter Brötzmann, blows the old adage about improvised music somehow not being best appreciated via the recordings to beautiful pieces. This is a music that demands re-visiting, that seems to alter, slightly, every time it is played, with new details emerging, new relationships of tone and style, new romance, even. Recorded during a mammoth stint in Kraków, Poland, where Brötzmann and Leigh played as part of big bands, trios, quartets, and duos, this duo performance represents the diamond heart of the sessions, an improvised set that bears little relation to what either of the players has achieved outside of its prodigious gravity. We mentioned romance and really Ears Are Filled With Wonder, a play on a line from the poet Kenneth Patchen, showcases the full reach of Brötzmann’s rebel lyricism, his lover man style, now smoky, seductive, late night, now roaring and vibrating with energy. Leigh plays it extremely subtly, sometimes fixing on the most suggestive detail and from there spinning luscious webs of repeat-time bliss that make for some of the most psychedelic and otherworldly settings of strings and horn. Elsewhere the two of them tear the roof off with tactile fuzz and horn ascensions. It’s a music of organic depth, of endlessly evocative unfolding, as themes bloom and sigh and disappear and arise and it feels curiously out of time, even as both players push their instruments into futuristic configurations. As such it doesn’t sit neatly in either players’ extensive catalogs. . . . Ears Are Filled With Wonder is a coming together of two of the most original voices on their respective instruments and the title reflects the joyful uncovering of a whole new way of listening and relating. Indeed, it might well be the first ever freely improvised electric pedal steel and saxophone duet ever put to tape. Either way it is one of the most startlingly beautiful combinations of players and temperaments to orbit the European jazz scene in years. And this is only the beginning. So hold tight.” –Moshe Idel, Ronda, Spain, February 2016
File Under: Improvised, Free Jazz
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Rhys Chatham: Pythagorean Dream (Foom) LP
Includes printed inner sleeves and download code. Rhys Chatham returns with his first solo album since 2013, the enchanting Pythagorean Dream. Having studied under Terry Riley and La Monte Young (with whom he later went on to work), Chatham fused the overtone-drenched minimalism of John Cale and Tony Conrad with the relentless, elemental fury of the Ramones. It was an inspired amalgamation — the textural intricacies of the avant-garde colliding with the visceral punch of electric guitar-slinging punk rock — and with it Chatham created a new type of urban music. Raucous and ecstatic, this sound energized the New York Downtown scene throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, prefigured the no wave movement, and cast a huge influence over the subsequent work of Chatham’s many protégés, including Glenn Branca and future members of Sonic Youth. Primarily focused on the electric guitar (but also featuring flute and a bit of trumpet) this recording is named after the Pythagorean guitar tuning it employs. The recording is a truly solo endeavor, composed, performed, produced, engineered, and mastered solely by Chatham. Chatham began to develop solos that he would play himself, choosing to incorporate the multi-second delay effect pioneered by Terry Riley with two Revox tape machines. Feeling that it tied in with his overall minimalist aesthetic and that the effect (which gives the impression that choirs and choirs of instruments are playing) was fitting as a succession to his 100-guitar idea, Chatham created and layered feedback loops of varying durations using Riley’s method in order to create rich, overlapping layers that in practice transcend the limitations of their start and end points, blooming into free-flowing melodies in their own right. “Part One” of Pythagorean Dream opens with a brief trumpet intro, followed by a guitar piece that implements a finger-picking technique (Chatham has long been a fan of this style; John Fahey was one of his teenage musical heroes), before moving to an EBow section and concluding with the fast tremolo flat-picking technique used in the context of his 100-guitar pieces. “Part Two” is principally about Chatham’s return to the flute, the instrument that sparked his love of contemporary music before he experienced an early Ramones show at CBGB and began focusing on the electric guitar. Pythagorean Dream features Chatham on C, alto, and bass flutes. The recording is brought to a close with a final guitar piece.
File Under: Contemporary Classica
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John Coltrane: Atlantic Years in Mono (Rhino) 6LP Box
While John Coltrane first gained attention for his revolutionary ‘sheets of sound’ technique, it was the deep spirituality of his music that really made his recordings as a bandleader such classics. The albums he recorded for Atlantic Records in 1959 and 1960 really represent the heart of his legacy. For the first time since their original release, this box set gathers his mono recordings from the Atlantic vaults to be released as a limited edition 180g 6LP set with bonus 7″ vinyl single. Fully remastered in glorious mono, original studio albums include: Giant Steps (1960), Bags & Trane (1961) with Milt Jackson, Ole Coltrane (1962), Coltrane Plays The Blues (1962), and The Avant Garde (1966) and with Don Cherry. The sixth LP features outtakes, and a replica of the original 7″ single of “My Favorite Things Part I & II,” a hit for Coltrane in 1961, is also included. The set is rounded out by a 12″ x 12″, 32-page, perfect-bound booklet, with period photos by Lee Friedlander and liner notes notes by Grammy-winning jazz writer Ashley Kahn. The entire set comes packaged in an elegant cloth-bound box.
File Under: Jazz, Mono, Boxsets
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Loren Connors: Lullaby (Recital) LP
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Following the breathtaking Airs, another gem from Loren MazzaCane Connors’ well of super limited self-released CDrs reaches vinyl on Sean McCann’s Recital imprint. Lullabies renders Connors at his most sublime, wistfully sanguine, swaddled in tape distortion and gentle reverbs with a barely there presence. Each piece hardly makes it beyond the 2 minute mark, acting as brief chapters in a night time tale of love and loss and the exquisite emotions that occur in the decaying space between.
File Under: Guitar Soli, Ambient
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Cornelius: Fantasma (Lefse) LP
Japanese pop-noise savant Cornelius, a self-taught guitarist inspired early on by Kiss and Black Sabbath. A product of the same Shibuya-kei bubblegum scene that also gave rise to Pizzicato Five, Cornelius became a national teen idol in the wake of the release of 1994’s full-length The First Question. Released in 1997, Fantasma was his creative and commercial breakthrough, a kaleidoscopic, genre-hopping joy ride through contemporary musical history that became Cornelius’ first American release when it was reissued by Matador a year later. Long out of print, Lefse Records reissues Fantasma in alimited editiion, remastered, deluxe 2LP gatefold vinyl, complete with bonus tracks.
File Under: Electronic, Synth Pop, Indie Rock
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Guru Guru: UFO (Play Loud!) LP
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Turquoise LP version. Limited edition of 500. First authorized reissue of UFO, the 1970 debut LP by German krautrock band Guru Guru. Guru Guru was formed in 1968 as The Guru Guru Groove by Mani Neumeier (drums), Uli Trepte (bass), and Eddy Naegeli (guitar) (later replaced by American Jim Kennedy (guitar)). By the time of Guru Guru’s debut in 1970, Ax Genrich had replaced Kennedy to solidify the classic Guru Guru line up. Guru Guru were related to the free jazz scene both through their work with Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer and through Neumeier, who had already won several jazz prizes before forming Guru Guru. The band was also influenced by psychedelic rock artists including Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Rolling Stones, and early Pink Floyd. Among the band’s friends were Amon Düül, Can, and Xhol Caravan, with whom Guru Guru often jammed.
File Under: Kraut Rock, Freakout
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Keiji Haino/Jim O’Rourke/Oren Ambarchi: I Wonder If You Noticed “I’m Sorry” Is Such a Lovely Sound It Keeps Things From Getting Worse (Black Truffle) LP
The remarkable series of releases from the trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi continues with I wonder if you noticed “I’m sorry” Is such a lovely sound It keeps things from getting worse, which presents the entirety of an 80-minute set performed at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe in March 2014. While the trio’s 2012 performance was divided into two releases, the single extended performance presented here ranges widely over terrain both new and familiar, from acoustic strings and collective chants to thunderous power trio moves. Throughout all of its transformations, the music here is some of the riskiest and most abstract the trio have yet committed to record. Beginning with chiming percussion reminiscent of Haino’s 1995 classic Tenshi No Gijinka, the first side is dominated by Haino’s impassioned vocals and performance on the bulgari, a traditional Turkish string instrument. The end of the second side presents a special treat: Haino’s first recorded outing on the contrabass harmonica, from which he coaxes bizarre, wheezing textures against a backdrop of spacious bass and percussion. O’Rourke and Ambarchi rarely adopt here the classic rock roles essayed on earlier releases. O’Rourke’s bass, which takes center-stage surprisingly often, is sometimes so heavily processed by his array of pedals that it becomes a shifting electronic mass; at other times his roving chromaticism suggests a sort of fuzzed-out free jazz. Ambarchi spends much of the set exploring areas of tumbling free pulse; and even when he locks into a constantly repeated figure on the set’s third side, he gestures as much toward Ronald Shannon Jackson’s stuttering marching band funk as toward any classic rock moves. When the trio finally moves in the final quarter of the performance into an extended passage of rock riffing, the payoff is immense, as they craft a thudding one-chord epic reminiscent of some of the early Fushitsusha classics before Haino returns to the bulgari, bringing the set back to where it began. Continuing to explore new instrumental and dynamic possibilities while remaining grounded in the trio’s previous work, this set also brings with it a unique pleasure for the non-Japonophone listener: for the first time Haino sings many of his metaphysically brooding lyrics in English. Gatefold sleeve with gorgeous photographs by Jim O’Rourke, designed by Stephen O’Malley. Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
File Under: Free Improv, Rock, Psych
Hashish: A Product of Hashish (Subliminal Sounds) LP/CD
The long-awaited debut album from Hashish. Top-class psychedelia, taking the genre to a new level with a sophisticated approach to Afro-funk grooves accompanied by dreamy, playful melodies that range through a spectrum of Scandinavian occult psychedelia, minimal synth, surreal electronic soul disco, and rare groove. Some have described Hashish as a project that picks up what Goat started. Welcome to tomorrow. The sounds transport the listener into a forgotten world where the future looks different from what it became. On his soft, subtle island capped with clouds of cool fire, Pan weaves his teachings with the wind and the sun, raining sacred melodies on the hearts and minds of humanity and bestowing desperate loves and yearnings with songs of sainthood and madness. Transient temples of the flesh, laughing at death, clothe our lives in fire. On rippling altars of skin we sensual magicians worship bright burning desire. Upon release the album sky rocketed straight into #1 on the official Swedish vinyl chart. CD housed in dayglo digipak.
File Under: Psych, Funk, Rare Groove
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K. Leimer: Recordings 1977-1980(Vinyl on Demand) 2LP
Limited edition of 500. K. Leimer has been an active musician since the 1970s and has released avant-garde and experimental music under his own name on his Palace of Lights label, which he started in 1980 to release his own work and that of other artists and projects such as Marc Barreca, Michael William Gilbert, Anode, and the group Savant, of which he is the founding and leading member. His first two tape recordings, included on this double LP, were released on Robert Carlberg’s Anode Productions in 1978 and ’79 (Translucent/Memory and Natural History/The Mind and Its Likeness). Both tapes were also distributed via Archie Patterson’s Eurock. This set also includes material from the 1983 cassette Installation View. “It’s best to consider these recordings as a homage to much admired and deeply loved music of the time; to consider these recordings as the artifacts of lessons being learned during simultaneous attempts at conceiving, writing, voicing, engineering, recording, and mixing something that might at least seem to be music. It’s also best to consider that the one card that repeatedly found its way out of the Oblique Strategies deck and into my hands prevented me from erasing almost all of it: Honor thy mistake as a hidden intention.” –K. Leimer
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, New Age
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Let’s Eat Grandma: I Gemini (Transgressive) LP
I, Gemini is the debut album from Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth, A.K.A. Let’s Eat Grandma. Recorded in the former nuclear bunker turned analog paradise, Old School Studios in Norwich, under the watchful eye of Will Twynham (Hand Of Glory Records), I, Gemini will be released on 17th June 2016 via Transgressive. Today, LEG share their new single, ‘Eat Shiitake Mushrooms’. An organ, synth and glockenspiel bass-music-pop-banger complete with rap breakdown, ‘Eat Shiitake Mushrooms’ concerns itself with people’s ability to surpass expectations and surprise everyone. As thick as thieves, as sharp as knives, as like-minded as twins, wildly imaginative multi-instrumentalists and talented putative pop stars Rosa, 16, and Jenny, 17, met aged four in their local infant school in Norwich and have been inseparable ever since. Let’s Eat Grandma was formed in 2013 when Rosa was given a second hand acoustic guitar for her birthday and Jenny adopted a battered old ukulele. Influenced by playing jazz and classical music both in and out of school and their own desire to explode the pop formula, they started writing a series of uniquely structured compositions. On a month by month basis their repertoire of instruments expanded and expanded to include the saxophone, the piano, mandolin, drums, synthesizers, harmonica, recorders and whistles, even if their audience initially was only each other. The name Let’s Eat Grandma was chosen in a rush the night before their first ever gig, from an old grammatical joke which highlights the usefulness of a well placed comma. The name is ideal for a band that can sound quite sweet and poppy on first listen but who also have deeper, darker undercurrents.
File Under: Electronic, Pop, Leftfield
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Rudiger Lorenz: The Syntapes Years 1981-1983 (Vinyl on Demand) 5LP Box
Rüdiger Lorenz was a German electronic synthesist and inventor of several modular synthesizer systems, who, over three decades, produced unique, exceptional electronic soundscapes in the manner of Conrad Schnitzler, Edgar Froese, Dieter Moebius, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. He is one of a very few outstanding artists who seem to never have received the recognition and fame they deserved for their artistic output. This five-LP box set focuses on his earliest self-released cassettes from the early ’80s: Queen of Saba (1981), Silver Steps (1981), Wonderflower (1982), and Earthrise (1983), none of which have been reissued before now. Queen of Saba was also licensed and released on Werner Pieper’s Transmitter Cassetten, which also distributed many of Conrad Schnitzler’s tape releases. Earthrise, a compilation of his early works and several newer compositions, was released on the British label YHR Tapes (York House Recordings), run by David Elliott. Rüdiger Lorenz became interested in electronic music and Moog synthesizers in the late ’60s. By 1972 he had built his own first Wersi Organ, followed by various amplifiers and effects boxes. In 1977 he had constructed his first synthesizers from an Elektor Formant kit. At the time of his death in 2000, he owned 38 synthesizers including three large self-built modular systems. In the late ’70s and early ’80s he became a member of the IEMA (International Electronic Music Association), which was established by James Finch of The Nightcrawlers, and also began running his own Lorenz Park Studio. He then became an essential part and pioneering member of the international DIY cassette culture community in the early ’80s and contributed to several INKEY$ compilation tapes and the On-Slaught series on the Idiosyncratics label. With their well-established international contacts, he and another German synthesist, Peter Schäfer, started the tape label Syntape and released more than 30 cassettes between 1981 and 1985. In 1983, he began releasing musical on vinyl via his Syncord label; many of these limited records have since become in-demand collectors’ items.
File Under: Electronic, Kraut Rock, Kosmiche
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Charles Manson: 12 Canciones Compuestas Y Cantadas Por Charles Manson (Movieplay) LP
Repro of the ultra-rare Spanish version of Charles Manson’s earliest recordings (it has also been released with the title Lie, the Love and Terror Cult). Registered in 1967 and originally published in 1970 (1971 in Spain), it was released in order to help and fund his defense, only to meet total rejection from the underground scene of the era. At the time only 300 copies were sold from the initial pressing of 2000. This record is the epitome of all damned, cult, unsettling LPs, accompanied by various members of the infamous family, Manson’s music ranges from folk to psychedelia to plain creepy weirdness 12 Canciones Compuestas Y Cantadas Por Charles Manson stands on its own as an spine-chilling ride through the mind of one of histories most vilified criminals; the undertaker of the hippie era. Songs from this album have been covered by the likes of G.G. Allin, The Lemonheads, Guns n Rosesand the Beach Boys, to name a few. Presented here in a luxurious gatefold is a careful reproduction of the original Spanish release, published only one year after the original US pressing, during the Franco dictatorship, making it an even weirder release. Only 300 copies in gatefold cover.
File Under: Folk, Psych, Weirdo, Psychos
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Mogwai: Atomic (Temporary Residence) LP
Mogwai’s new album Atomic, is composed of reworked versions of the music recorded for the soundtrack to director Mark Cousin’s acclaimed documentary Atomic: Living In Dread and Promise. Constructed entirely of archive film, Atomic is an impressionistic kaleidoscope of the horrors of our nuclear times – protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima – but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. Mogwai’s soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but its dreamlike qualities too. It is the latest in the band’s series of impressive soundtracks and scores, following acclaimed albums Les Revenants (The Returned) and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. Cousins says of Atomic, the film: “I’m a child of the nuclear age, and in my teens I had nightmares about the bomb. But physics was my favourite subject in school, and I nearly studied it at university. Learning about the atomic world excited me. It was like abstract Star Wars.” Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite adds: “The Atomic soundtrack is one of the most intense and fulfilling projects we’ve taken on as a band. Ever since we went to Hiroshima to play and visited the peace park this has been a subject very close to us. The end results, both the film score and the record are pieces I’m extremely proud of.”
File Under: Post Rock, OST
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Mumford & Sons: Johannesburg (Glassnote) 10″
In tomorrow… Mumford & Sons present a new set of recordings entitled Johannesburg, made with Baaba Maal, Beatenberg and The Very Best. The songs were recorded in Studio 2 and the Auditorium of the The South African Broadcasting Corporation, Johannesburg in February 2016 over two all-day and all–night sessions and produced by Mumford & Sons and The Very Best’s Swedish electronic music maestro, Johan Hugo. The lead track, “There Will Be Time,” went straight to number 1 in South Africa (the band’s first number 1 single) upon release in late January.
File Under: Indie Rock, Live
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Nails: You Will Never Be One Of Us (Nuclear Blast) LP
Southern California-based four-man hatecrew Nails return with their third full-length album You Will Never Be One Of Us, which was helmed Kurt Ballou (Converge, High On Fire). Head misanthrope Todd Jones comments: “In fear of sounding redundant of how 97% of these pre-album release descriptions always come off, I won’t try to describe how our new album You Will Never Be One Of Us sounds. What I will tell you is that the same care and the same attention went into this album as our previous albums Unsilent Death and Abandon All Life, and our new album sounds as inspired as either of those two full length recordings.” He adds, “Our new record has some new twists and turns that are built off the foundation we laid with our previous albums, as well as a lot of familiarity that you’ve come to expect from Nails. You Will Never Be One Of Us is for us, for our fans, and for anybody else who feels disgusted and fed-up with social-climbing impostors, trying to leech off of anything they’ve ever dedicated themselves to. I can say with 110% certainty: We will not let you down.” Formed in December 2007, Nails is comprised of Jones, Taylor Young, John Gianelli, and A.R. Saba. Their music can only be described as being beyond conventional aural brutality. Their unique blend of grindcore, death metal, and punk invokes the most unabashed violent emotions from the recesses of its listeners’ reptilian brains. Their raw sincerity, take-no-prisoners live show and D.I.Y. work ethic has earned the band a vast loyal following, and made them the most talked about band in the underground. The legendary Max Cavalera recently accurately declared their current album Abandon All Life as “one of the best albums of the last 20 years,” and Nails to be “probably the heaviest band right now.” Prepare to be conquered!
File Under: Metal
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Nino Nardini/Eddie Warner/Roger Roger: Space Oddities (Born Bad) LP
Includes printed inner sleeve and download code. During the ’60s and ’70s, three distinguished old gentlemen who had built their careers playing “made in France” exotic jazz — Roger Roger (1911-1995),Nino Nardini (1912-1994), and Eddie Warner (1917-1982) — met every evening in the Ganaro recording studio, playing like kids with their new toys: souped-up keyboards that looked more like prototypes of spaceships to explore the Milky Way. Flying high on whimsical and joyful inspiration, the improbable trio used their strange instruments to sketch out the beginnings of something that, at that time, resembled the future of music; this set collects their productions from 1972-1982. With their library productions, Roger and Nardini made a clean break with rigid French traditions, via compositions featuring unexpected instruments like the harpsichord, marimba, and Ondioline, and, later the first analog synthesizers, oscillators, and other electronic keyboards. Nardini got deeply into musique concrète in the early ’60s, as put forward by Pierre Schaeffer (who had just founded the Groupe de Recherches Musicales or GRM), popularized by Pierre Henry, and twisted by the whimsical Jean-Jacques Perrey. Roger and Nardini’s Ganaro studio in Jouy-en-Josas, southwest of Paris, became the scene of magical nightly sessions of experimentation, in the company of their friend Eddie Warner. The acquisition of a Moog synthesizer brought these pioneers of electronic music to a new level. Roger Roger manufactured his own punch cards to invent new sounds. Then, in 1969, under the pseudonym of Cecil Leuter, he published the albums Pop Electronique and TVMusic 101 (with Nardini), two truly avant-garde “100% electronic” discs that anticipate the hegemony of machines in pop music, from space disco in the late ’70s to the electro funk of the early ’80s. The duo composed more than 40 albums (including the incredible Informatic 2000 (1982)) for specialized labels including Chappell Music, Southern Library of Recorded Music, Neuilly, L’Illustration Musicale (Eddie and Hannelore Warner’s label, which published, notably, The Strange World of Bernard Fèvre in 1977), Mondiophone, Hachette, Musax, and Crea Sound Ltd. A veritable Atlantis of electronic music, rediscovered at the turn of the 21st century by electronic artists like Barry 7 of Add N to (X) with his Connectors series and Luke Vibert with his Nuggets compilations. Jess and Alexis Le Tan contributed a bit as well, digging up a few gems from “Ganaro’s Nights,” tracks composed with joy and humility by a merry trio of 60-somethings for whom making music was always a source of amusement and wonder.
File Under: Electronic, Disco, Library
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Neurosis: A Sun that Never Sets (Relapse) LP
It is said that great art has the power to take us outside of ourselves and bring us closer to ourselves simultaneously. Few bands have accomplished this rare feat on a more profound and consistent basis than Neurosis. For over three decades, their music has touched the hearts and minds of men and women seeking contact with something beyond the physical world, something intangible, something that expresses the inner tumult of the human condition in a way that transcends time and space. Something that not only provokes questions but maybe even hints at answers. Since 1985 this matchless force has surpassed the boundaries of any genre, never ceasing to mutate and progress their songwriting and sonic delivery, and never failing to mesmerize audiences both in the studio and onstage. Like listening to glorious shades of light, Neurosis’ seventh album A Sun That Never Sets was originally unleashed in 2001 and blends unprecedented beauty and radiance with their classic use of dynamics and power. Neurosis is the ultimate juxtaposition of life’s plain realities – a strong will in a world that inspires weakness.
File Under: Metal
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Neurosis: Eye of Every Storm (Relapse) LP
It is said that great art has the power to take us outside of ourselves and bring us closer to ourselves simultaneously. Few bands have accomplished this rare feat on a more profound and consistent basis than Neurosis. For over three decades, their music has touched the hearts and minds of men and women seeking contact with something beyond the physical world, something intangible, something that expresses the inner tumult of the human condition in a way that transcends time and space. Something that not only provokes questions but maybe even hints at answers. Since 1985 this matchless force has surpassed the boundaries of any genre, never ceasing to mutate and progress their songwriting and sonic delivery, and never failing to mesmerize audiences both in the studio and onstage. 2004’s The Eye Of Every Storm represents a peak point for Neurosis, as they stood on the cusp of their 20th anniversary as a band. Whatever any of us thought Neurosis was supposed to sound like, The Eye of Every Storm changed everything. It’s almost pop music in construction, but still sounds like a gale wind force…as vital and inspiring today as ever before!
File Under: Metal
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Paternoster: s/t (Now Again) LP
“Paternoster, that UFO of a rock album released unceremoniously on a custom-pressed CBS Austria long player in 1972, is the stuff of legend. It’s been known to the rock collecting elite since the 1980s, when it was first rediscovered, and it quickly became one of those rock records, the records you hear about only if you know someone who knows someone with a copy, much like Damon’s Song of a Gypsy. Paternosteris a terrifying album, a collection of songs that traverses the sublime, and thus necessitates a bowel-loosening acceptance of beauty too complicated to merely admire, bowing under the weight of a tremendous atmosphere, accentuated by Gothic organs and scorching fuzz guitar, punctuated by wailing vocals detailing visceral, Bosch-like images, and carried by enveloping bass and syncopated, mixed-well-too-loud-and-thankfully-so drums. This is the first reissue of the album done with the band’s involvement, and was assembled with oversight by bandleader Franz Wippel and Thomas Wisser, the son of Franz’ musical partner and Paternoster bassist Haimo Wisser. Custom made, ‘mini-LP’, tip-on CD packaged with perfect-bound booklet packaged in O card. The 66-page booklet tells the story of this mysterious band, for the first time, with many unpublished photos. English and German text.”
File Under: Psych, Prog
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Pye Corner Audio/Dalhous: Run for the Shadows (Lapsus) LP
Run For The Shadows EP released by Lapsus Records. The kinematics and bubbling sonic frequencies of “Stream Four” and the emotional techno low pulse of “The Simplest Equation” will be well appreciated by fans Pye Corner Audio. Two extraordinary pieces of analog electronic music whose slow-motion dynamics adhere to the already mythical Black Mill Tapes. As for Dalhous, the beautiful and incredibly melancholic melodies of “The Essential Wander” are surrounded by an extraordinary rhythm section full of surprising twists. The brief but intense “Another Witnessed By Resolution” closes one of the best chapters in the history of Dalhous.
File Under: Electronic
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Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool (XL) LP
XL Recordings presents A Moon Shaped Pool, the highly anticipated ninth studio album from the radical and revered British act Radiohead and follow-up to 2011’s The King of Limbs. The melodically rich and meditatively mid-tempo eleven-track set was five years in the making and has already been hailed as one of the band’s most accessible efforts in years. The album comes preceded by the evocative videos for the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed “Daydreaming” and Chris Hopewell-directed “Burn the Witch” while further shimmering tracks like “Identikit,” “Ful Stop,” “Present Tense,” “Desert Island Disk” and “True Love Waits” have been previously performed live, the latter even dating all the way back to 1995 and an appearance on the 2001 EP I Might Be Wrong.
File Under: Rock
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reformARTwest: For Sepp (Nero’s Neptune) LP
Over the course of five decades, the legendary Austrian free jazz collective Reform Art Unit (and their offshoot groups) have collaborated with countless musicians, including Don Cherry, Carla Bley, Evan Parker, and Jim Pepper. Documented collaborations with free jazz notables include Impressions (Kovarik’s Musikothek, 1978) with Anthony Braxton and Clifford Thornton; Subway Performances (Granit, 1994) and Illumination (In Respect, 1995) with Sunny Murray; and With Milo Fine (Granit, 1999). Milo Fine’s lengthy resume includes numerous records as leader of his own group (the Milo Fine Free Jazz Ensemble) as well as collaborations with Joe McPhee (MFG in Minnesota; Hat Hut, 1978, & Old Eyes; Hat Hut, 1979) and duo encounters with Derek Bailey(Scale Points on the Fever Curve; Emanem, 2003) and Anthony Braxton (Shadow Company; Emanem, 2004). In May of 2015, Fine fulfilled a personal ambition by hosting the first North American appearances of Reform Art Unit founding members Fritz Novotny and Sepp Mitterbauer. Three nights of extraordinary and intimate concerts ensued at Minneapolis’ Studio Toile d’Angles. This limited edition LP was culled by Nero’s Neptune from over three hours of material, and consists of three pieces featuring two sextets and one nonet. Joining the core members of reformARTwest (Novotny: soprano sax/flutes/percussion; Mitterbauer: trumpet/percussion; Fine: drum set/piano/clarinets) are Elaine Evans, Daniel Furuta, Benjamin J Mansavage Klein, Davu Seru, Charles Gillett and Paul Metzger. For Sepp is dedicated to the living memory of Sepp Mitterbauer, who died on December 9th of 2015. Mastered by Carl Saff. Housed in a beautiful, tip-on jacket with full color artwork. Edition of 300.
File Under: Free Jazz
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Akira Sakata: The Tale of the Heike (Trost) LP
Akira Sakata, a legendary Japanese jazz musician active since the early ’70s (Yosuke Yamashita Trio,Akira Sakata Trio) and a marine biologist, has toured and recorded with The Thing, Jim O’Rourke, Bill Laswell, Merzbow, Chikamorachi, et al. The Tale of the Heike is an intense solo performance originally released on CD in 2011, and now available on vinyl for the first time. This edition is expanded to include four pieces from the 2013 DVD release of a live ensemble performance of the piece. Akira Sakata: reading, voices, alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, percussion, bells. On tracks 8-11: Tatsuhisa Yamamoto: drums, percussion; Jim O’Rourke: guitar, vocals; Chizuru Ishii: percussion, taiko, vocals;Yumiko Tanaka: shamisen, reading. Tracks 1-7 recorded at GOK Sound, Kichijoji, Tokyo, in August 2011 by Yoshiaki Kondo. Tracks 8-11 recorded by Jim O’Rourke live at Pit-Inn, Tokyo, on June 24, 2012. Mastered for vinyl in 2015 by Martin Siewert.
File Under: Free Jazz
Strokes: Future Present Past (Cult) 10″
The Strokes diverse Future Present Past EP marks the New York band’s first release in over three years and features the three new original songs, “Drag Queen,” “Oblivius” and “Threat of Joy” plus a remix of “Oblivius” by Fab Moretti. The EP was recorded in Austin, Texas and New York City with producer Gus Oberg and serves as The Strokes first release on frontman Julian Casablancas’ Cult Records.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Swans: The Glowing Man (Young God) 3LP
3LP edition includes poster & digital download. “In 2009 when I made the decision to restart Swans, I had no idea where it would lead. I knew that if I took the road of mining the past or revisiting the catalog, that it would be fruitless and stultifying. Instead I chose the five people with whom to work that I believed would most ably provide a sense of surprise, and even uncertainty, while simultaneously embodying the strength and confidence to ride the river of intention that flows from the heart of the sound wherever it would lead us – and what’s the intention? LOVE! And so finally this LOVE has now led us, with the release of the new and final recording from this configuration of Swans, The Glowing Man, through four albums (three of which contain more complexity, nuance and scope than I would have ever dreamed possible), countless and seemingly endless tours and rehearsals, and a generally exhausting regimen that has left us stunned but still invigorated and thrilled to see this thing through to its conclusion. I hereby thank my brothers and collaborators for their commitment to whatever truth lies at the center of the sound”. – Michael Gira 2016
File Under: Indie Rock
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Tegan & Sarah: Love You To Death (Warner) LP
Propelled by the conviction of reinvention, Tegan and Sara’s eighth studio album, Love You To Death, is the latest sonic chapter in a celebrated seventeen-year career. Produced by Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia, Beck, Ellie Goulding), Love You To Death delivers ten new Tegan and Sara tracks more vibrant and visionary than ever. Tegan and Sara explored a transcendent pop sheen for the first time on 2013’s Heartthrob, which deftly balanced critical acclaim with mainstream ambitions. They follow it up here with an equally explosive production, but one that casts darker shadows and lingers longer in the psyche. Taking a page from dramatic non-fiction, Love You To Death finds Tegan and Sara mining their own lives to investigate complex relationship dynamics. At one moment the subject is their own inescapable relationship as twin sisters (“100x,” “White Knuckles”), while at another it’s a romantic relationship that drives the protagonist to mournful regret (“That Girl”). Secret relationships (“Boyfriend”) give way to social judgment about passion and transience (“Faint of Heart”). Marriage is eloquently questioned as a barometer for commitment (“BWU”), while commitment itself is questioned with a deliberately self-conscious anti-love-song (“U-turn”). With each album their writing grows in precision and vulnerability, and differing lyrical voices continue to sharpen their respective identities – Tegan’s unapologetically clear word choice in evaluating romance (“Stop Desire”) is balanced by Sara’s poetic reflections on anxiety (“Hang on to the Night”). If the highest intention of the artist is to self-actualize, Tegan and Sara have given their devoted audience the gift of a front-row seat to their lifelong process of evolution with Love You To Death.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Todd Terje & The Olsens: The Big Cover-Up (Olsen) LP
Appearing on record together for the first time, Norway’s premier disco troop Todd Terje & The Olsens have cooked up a double-pack dancefloor attack for your listening pleasure. Digging through their extensive collections of well-loved wax, Terje & the gang have specially selected a quartet of disco classics ripe for a remake. Forget re-edits though, this isThe Big Cover-Up and the Olsen crew have hit the studio with all guns blazing on this wild version excursion. Our journey starts in Tokyo with a 303-driven take on Yellow Magic Orchestra’s version of Martin Denny’s “Firecracker.” The perfect combination of cocktail exotica and disco kitsch, this party pyrotechnic is reloaded with buoyant acid and beefed up bass, accelerating through Eastern guitar licks and operatic vocals before filling the night sky with an explosion of color. Falling somewhere between the Swingle-inspired New Mjondalen Disco Swingers and Yello’s “Oh Yeah,” the remake of the enduring “Disco Circus” puts the vocals at the forefront, locking us into a tribal trance state with its hypnotic rhythms. Next Terje & The Olsen’s give “Do You Wanna Bump”” a bright and brassy make over perfect for cocktails and caviar on a Mediterranean yacht. While in the Med, take a trip to Greece with a sleek and slick spy flick remake of Vangelis’ stunning “La Fete Sauvage.” Disc two is all about the dark room as Todd flips through his remix Rolodex and recruits some demolition experts keen on club destruction. The C-side finds Mexican maverick Daniel Maloso takes the lead with a synthed up club dub of “Do You Wanna Bump”” before Idjut Boy Dan Tyler brings the cosmic power on his spaced out version of “Firecracker.” Full Pupp impresario and gourmet Goulash chef Prins Thomas pays tribute to “Whole Lotta Love” with a full throttle remix of “La Fete Sauvage” while fellow Norwegian Oyvind Morken fires up the 808 on a percussive house mix of “Disco Circus.”
File Under: Electronic, Disco, Downtempo
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Tragically Hip: Man Machine Poem (Caroline) LP
In tomorrow… The Tragically Hip, among Canada’s most acclaimed and beloved bands, return in 2016 with the new album Man Machine Poem. The band’s fourteenth studio album takes its name from a track on their Gold-selling 2012 release, Now For Plan A, and was recorded at The Hip’s home studio The Bathouse, produced by Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene, Andy Kim, Arts & Crafts label co-founder) and Dave Hamelin (The Stills). “We’re moving forward while embracing a memory,” says Drew. “That was what I said to the band going into this recording.” He explains that muscle memory is why we love songs, it’s the most important thing a band has. “This album is about three things,” he continues. “Memory, transformation, and truth. I think it’s a fantastic record.” For 30 years, The Tragically Hip has been at the heart of the Canadian musical zeitgeist for evoking a strong emotional connection between their music and their fans that remains unrivaled in this country. A five-piece group of friends including Robby Baker (guitar), Gordon Downie (vocals, guitar), Johnny Fay (drums), Paul Langlois (guitar) and Gord Sinclair (bass), who grew up in Kingston, Ontario, The Hip has achieved the enviable status of a band that enjoys both mass popularity with over 8 million albums sold worldwide, as well as peer recognition through 11 Juno Awards from more than a dozen recordings. The Tragically Hip are in the best possible place a band can be: they’re brothers, they play so easily together, comfortable in their skins enough to try any idea, confident enough to know what’s right. No team of ace Swedish consultant-writers needed; The Hip know it’s their duty as artists to feel something and the listener is going to get an uncommon honesty in Man Machine Poem.
File Under: Rock
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White Zombie: It Came From N.Y.C. (Numero) 5LP Box
New (3CD or 5LP) boxset featuring the early recordings from White Zombie !! (co-founded by Rob Zombie and Sean Yseult) Years before Beavis and Butt-head headbanged “Thunder Kiss ’65” and “More Human than Human” into the eternal rock video canon, there was primordial White Zombie—a quintessential, diabolically loud byproduct of Manhattan’s underground rock scene, born of artschool rendezvous and squalid apartment circumstance. It Came from N.Y.C. is the most exhaustive attempt so far to document the band’s wondrously ugly birth. Get reintroduced to White Zombie as New York noise-rock, a grotesque creation that clawed and threatened its way to crossover metal glory. On June 3rd 2016, Numero resurrects White Zombie’s eternally out-of-print early EPs and LPs as It Came From N.Y.C. Spread across five LPs or three compact discs, all 39 tracks have been remastered by guitarist J. Yuenger and packaged alongside the original lurid artwork. The accompanying 108-page book painstakingly documents White Zombie’s punishing progression through scores of unpublished photos, period discography, a T-shirtography, and tales from the terrifying early years that stitch together the sordid story of a band whose true power eclipsed its mainstream heyday. White Zombie lives. Don’t be afraid.
File Under: Metal, Psychobilly, Boxsets
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Wolves in the Throne Room: Diadem of Twelve Stars (Artemisia) LP
Reissue of out-of-print 2006 debut album ! Written almost exclusively in a windowless, black room over the long, dark nights of winter 2005, Diadem of 12 Stars was the first official Wolves In The Throne Room release. Re-imagining black metal as an ode to rain storms, wood smoke and the wild energies of the Pacific Northwest, Wolves In The Throne Room craft a unique melancholic atmosphere. It’s raw analog sound, paying homage to the band’s varied influences—the harsh black metal of Norwegians Ulver and Emperor, and their American counterparts Weakling and Ludicra; the monolithic heaviness of Neurosis and Swans; the sorrowful funeral doom of My Dying Bride; the mournful goth of Dead Can Dance—yet it distills these inspirations to create a sound entirely their own. Described by guitarist Nathan Weaver as “the most raw and punk” of their five full-length releases, Diadem of 12 Stars was recorded live to tape in Oakland by Tim Green. The band was joined in the studio by Jamie Myers (Hammers of Misfortune / Sabbath Assembly) and Dino Sommese (Asunder / Dystopia). Originally released on a small DIY label and unavailable physically for many years, the album has been carefully re-mastered by Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering Service. The band re-developed every photograph from the original negatives, creating richer, high quality prints in order to present the artwork as originally envisioned. Wolves In The Throne Room have released five studio albums, two EPs, and multiple live albums, including Two Hunters (2007), Black Cascade (2008) Celestial Lineage (2011), and Celestite (2014 — an instrumental, experimental companion to Celestial Lineage). Wolves In The Throne Room are currently working on new material (their heaviest and darkest in some time) and will tour the Eastern United States in September 2016.
File Under: Black Metal
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Various: Space Echo (Analog Africa) LP/CD
Includes a 12-page booklet. Analog Africa presents a compilation of dancefloor grooves from Cabo Verde, revealing the mystery behind the island’s cosmic synth sound. Located 350 miles off the coast of Western Africa, Cabo Verde (or Cape Verde) is an island country that was first incorporated as an overseas department of Portugal in 1951 before later attaining independence in 1975. This collection captures a vital musical period during the late ’70s and early ’80s when the introduction of synthesizers facilitated the modernization of local rhythms such as Mornas, Coladeras and the highly-danceable music style called Funaná, which had been banned by the Portuguese colonial rulers until 1975 due to its sensuality. In the spring of 1968 a cargo ship containing instruments made by many of the leading companies in the field of electronic music — including Rhodes, Moog, Farfisa, Hammond and Korg — set out for Rio De Janeiro, where the Exposição Mundial Do Son Eletrônico Exhibition was going to be held. The expo was the first of its kind, where companies were eager to present their newest synthesizers and other gadgets to a growing and promising South American market, spearheaded by Brazil and Colombia. However, the ship with the goods mysteriously disappeared from the radar on the same day it set sail. One can only imagine the surprise of the villagers of Cachaço, on the Sao Nicolau island of Cabo Verde, when a few months later they woke up and found a ship stranded in their fields 8 km from any coastline. Mystery permeated the event. Cosmic particles were said to have been discovered on the boat, where the bow of the ship showed traces of extreme heat similar to traces found on meteors. A team of welders arrived to open the containers. Hundreds of boxes contained keyboards and other instruments they had never seen before: and all useless in an area devoid of electricity. The goods were temporarily stored in the local church and the women of the village had insisted a solution be found before Sunday mass. It is said that charismatic anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral had ordered the instruments to be distributed equally in places that had access to electricity, which placed them mainly in schools. This distribution was the best thing that could have happened — keyboards found fertile grounds in the hands of curious children, who picked up the ready-to-use instruments. The children who came into contact with the instruments found on the ship were said to have inherited prodigious capabilities in understanding music and learning the instruments. One of them was the musical genius Paulino Vieira, who by the end of the ’70s would become the country´s most important music arranger. Eight out of the fifteen songs presented in this compilation were recorded with the backing of the band Voz de Cabo Verde, led by Paulino Vieira, the mastermind behind the creation and promulgation of what is known today as “The Cosmic Sound of Cabo Verde.” Tracks by Abel Lima, Antonio Dos Santos, Elisio Vieira, Americo Brito, Os Apolos, João Cirilo, Tchiss Lopes, Quirino Do Canto, Pedrinho, Fany Havest, Bana, José Casimiro, Dionisio Maio and António Sanches.
File Under: Afro-Cuban, Latin, Funk Soul
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…..Restocks…..
Mulatu Astatke & His Orchestra: Mulatu of Ethiopia (Worthy) LP
Black Flag: Damaged (SST) LP
Broadcast: Tender Buttons (Warp) LP
John Carpenter: Dark Star (WRWTFWW) LP
Chvrches: Bones of… (Glassnote) LP
Clipse: Hell Hath No Fury (Get On Down) LP
Daft Punk: Tron Legacy (Disney) LP
Death & Vanilla: s/t (Fire) LP
Death & Vanilla: s/t ep (Fire) LP
Electric Citizen: Higher Time (Riding Easy) LP
Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (Westbound) LP
Son House: Father of Folk Blues (Columbia) LP
Michael Jackson: Bad (Epic) LP
Michael Jackson: Off The Wall (Epic) LP
Michael Jackson: Thriller (Epic) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Nonagon Infinity (ATO) LP
Erkin Koray: Arap Saci (Pharaway Sound) LP
Mark Lanegan: Blues Funeral (4AD) LP
M83: Before The Dawn Heals Us All (Mute) LP
M83: Dead Cities… (Mute) LP
M83: Junk (Mute) LP
Mayhem: Deathcrush (Back on Black) LP
Moderat: III (Mute) LP
Mos Def/Talib Kweli: Black Star (Universal) LP
National: Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers (Brassland) LP
Neu!: 75 (Gronland) LP
Ngozi Family: Day of Judgement (Now Again) LP
Prince: Purple Rain (Warner) LP
Radiohead: In Rainbows (XL) LP
Radiohead: The Bends (XL) LP
Joe Strummer: Rock Art (Anti) LP
Sun City Girls: Torch of the Mystics (Abduction) LP
Velvet Underground: And Nico (Verve) LP
Jack White: Lazaretto (Third Man) LP
Various: Wake Up You! Vol 1 (Now Again) CD