Oi! This is a lot later than I had hoped today, but my day went sideways. Anyway, some really rad stuff in this week, so I won’t keep you…
…..pick of the week…..
Pye Corner Audio: Stasis (Ghost Box) LP
At least one leap year cycle since his last album with the GB’s, Sleep Games, right now this one feels like a stygian trudge into bleakest futures, operating at such a stoned pace that it moves slower than actual time, and by submitting to its temporal warp we’re allowed to regress back into a pre-digital epoch of paranoid cold, or even civil war atmospheres and paranoia. It could almost be the soundtrack to a Ben Wheatley flick (low budget, not the over-glossy high rise) about British time travellers, forgoing Dr. Who queso for a more hard-boiled, furtive vibe about anachronistic assassins sent back to kill Nigel Farage at birth, only to uncover that he’s part of an exceedingly dangerous non-human race with ties to Johnson, Cameron and all the other pebble-people, so they round them all up and lock them in a hostel in Middlesbrough with a broken kettle and packet of poisoned monster munch between the lot. Of course, that fantasy is all set to a soundtrack of wistful electronic mists and pulsating arpeggios that could be right out of some late ‘70s / early ‘80s synth library, and ultimately shows that whilst technology has advanced in the meantime, that ostensibly archaic music still reflects an underlying eldritch darkness contemporary and relevant to both eras, then and now.
File Under: Electronic, Synth, Nostalgia
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…..new arrivals…..
Shinichi Atobe: World (Demdike Stare) LP
Demdike Stare prise another absolute gem from Japan’s Shinichi Atobe; presenting six tracks of original, previously unreleased material recorded sometime in the last 20 years in Saitama, Japan, perfectly complementing the sublime ambient house zen of his Butterfly Effect album. The reclusive artist has seen a lot of justified, and somewhat overdue, praise surrounding the reissue of his sole early release, the Ship Scope 12″ by Demdike Stare, originally issued by Berlin’s Chain Reaction label in 2001, whilst the dispatch of his distinguished and subtly diverse Butterfly Effect album arguably came as a surprise for many heads who had him pegged out solely as a dub house producer. His new World will expand those preconceptions again, coursing a beautifully louche and debonair vibe from the most minimal loops and motifs – the kind that one could play all day and would hardly ever tire of hearing them. The supple, floating DX7 bass contours and vaporous jazz chords of “Intro” start up like some Chicago or NYC deep house classic lost in its own reverie, and could go on for as long as it wants, before the rainy day piano house melancholy of “World 1” promptly inverts that supple aesthetic with a fizzing, hazy sort of depth perception and “World 2” switches again to a sort of trim dub momentum in stepping, swinging equilibrium, riding the groove like no other. Turnover and the lingering, slowed-down stroke of “World 3” sounds like it got waylaid from a session with Wolfgang Voigt, whilst “World 4” jettisons the bass altogether to whiz and skip away in the highest registers with an intoxicatingly heady, mesmerizing appeal which also makes the uniquely brittle but spacious breakbeat trip of “World 5” so narcotically seductive. This is highly idiosyncratic, exceptional material, with the highest recommendations to anyone with a taste for house and ambient’s refined, soulful and experimental echelons. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. RIYL: DJ Sprinkles, Larry Heard, Kassem Mosse, SND.
File Under: Minimal, Techno
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Mario Bertoncini: Arpe Eolie (Die Schachtel) LP
Arpe Eolie is the first ever vinyl release of the works by Italian maestro Mario Bertoncini, relentless experimental composer, philosopher, artist and builder of sounds. The LP presents a selection of his compositions for Aeolian constructions: in the early ’70s he started to produce sound aggregates, true “sound sculptures” based on the Aeolian sound principle. Amongst his more spectacular installations were “Vele”, a massive Aeolian harp (more than seven meters high); “Venti” (winds), for 20 Aeolian sound generators and 40 performers; and “Chanson Pour Instrument À Vent”, an assemblage for Aeolian harps, Aeolian gongs, and one performer. By their very nature these sound objects (“sound sculptures” that liberate the concept of sound form from time development) convey a sense of natural sounds beyond the grasp of composition and musician. Bertoncini’s self-built harps and gongs are excited by blows of compressed air, or by the composer’s own breath, resulting in a musical blueprint that takes minimalist drone to a massive scale: the music unleashes itself. There’s no sense of a composer’s hand present. If at superficial levels they may sound like electronic music (long drones and swooshes of otherworldly sounds), at a close listening they reveal the intensity of a pure sound of air, far removed from both any artificial or measurable principle as well as from any casual or chance method of composition. Deluxe silver cover with silver foil design. Custom inner sleeve and four-page booklet in English and Italian. Edition of 400.
File Under: Experimental, Electronic, Italian
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Jefre Cantu-Ledesma: Songs of Forgiveness (Pre-Echo) LP
Originally released in the summer of 2014 as a cassette by Baro Recordings, Jefre Cantu – Ledesma’s Songs Of Forgiveness is now available for the first time on vinyl. Edition of 500 copies via the New York imprint Pre-Echo. Composed by Cantu – Ledesma during his first winter after relocating to Brooklyn, NY, this suite of six discrete tracks are formed by colliding micro orbits of guitar, drum machine and synth, all purposefully phasing in-and-out of sync, and painted with chords of ecstatic melancholia and tape hiss that typifies much of Cantu – Ledesma’s work. Pre-Echo Press was started in 2016 by New York based visual artist Matt Connors as a platform for disseminating a diverse and idiosyncratic array of recorded and printed matter.
File Under: Ambient, Drone
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Jefre Cantu-Ledesma: Songs of Remembrance (Pre-Echo) LP
Originally released in the summer of 2014 as a cassette by Psychic Troubles, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s Songs Of Remembrance is now available for the first time on vinyl. Edition of 500 copies via the New York imprint Pre-Echo. Compiled from recordings spanning two years and various locations, the 21 tracks on Songs Of Remembrance act as snapshots of various times and places, cover a wide range of sonic ground and call to mind any number of imagined spaces via drum machine, guitar, synth and tape explorations. Pre-Echo Press was started in 2016 by New York based visual artist Matt Connors as a platform for disseminating a diverse and idiosyncratic array of recorded and printed matter.
File Under: Ambient, Drone
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Alex Chilton: Dusted in Memphis (Bangkok) LP
First time re-issue of the legendary Alex Chilton album Dusted In Memphis, originally released in 1980. For many, this is Alex’s finest. Includes a second bonus album full of unreleased material; covers, alternate versions, fantastic demos, and infamous complete KUT radio session. All culled from the period between 1975 and 1980, a troubled – but prolific and brilliant – time for Chilton. This is deconstructed rock n roll, perfect pop songs perversely pureed, punkabilly before the term was coined, chaotic, trashy, beautiful. Allegedly, the only copy of these recordings that anyone associated with was lost in the house fire that claimed Alex Chilton’s mother’s life. If this is true, and the masters have been lost, it is truly a great, great shame as these are possibly the best post-Big Star recordings of Alex’s long solo career. This quite legendary bootleg bridges the gap between Sister Lovers (1978) and Like Flies On Sherbert (1979). It contains the Elektra demos with some songs that might be regarded amongst Big Star’s finest if they would have found a proper release. This is a great shame as it is an excellent document of where Alex was at during this stage of his career (he wooed the critics during his time in NY, but not the major labels). File between: Skip Spence’s Oar (1969), Panther Burns’s Behind The Magnolia Curtain (1981), Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night (1975) and early Cramps.
File Under: Rock, Punk
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Cosmonauts: A-Ok! (Burger) LP
Cosmonauts are a California-based band known for their simple, physically powerful songs and punishing stage volume. The group’s super killer fourth album A-OK! is being released in August 2016 on Burger Records. Get Bent proclaims, “It’s audible, vociferous, pulverizing and bursting at the seams with trippy-ish fuzzy layers of cacophonic synchronization and disharmonic reverberation in a specifically `60s beatnik drug-den, is-that-purple-zebra-in-sunglasses-ally there sort of way.”
File Under: Garage, Punk
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Cult of Dom Keller: Goodbye to the Light (Fuzz Club) LP
12″ coloured vinyl. TCODK – a four-piece from the UK Midlands – make experimental goth- tinged psych – fans of Swans and The Icarus Line will find plenty to entertain them here. The thing that first impresses on hearing TCODK is the sheer scale of their intentions.. Take ‘Deepest Pit Of Emptiness’ for example – its prog leanings combined with a decided-ly English vocal delivery are as distinctive and profound as anything released this year. TCODK have pushed themselves sonically on this album, it’s by far their most experi-mental release to date. It’s also an album rooted in darkness.
File Under: Psych
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Dalthom: Frame Slip (Feeding Tube) LP
“Thrilling second album by the duo made up of Greg (Gary War) Dalton and Rob (Sunburned Hand of the Man) Thomas. The first album was recorded and pressed a while ago but has yet to be actually released. Perhaps because these guys are operating under Nigel Senada’s Theory of Obscurity (see The Residents’ Not Available). Or perhaps not. Only time will tell. Regardless, this sophomore effort is nothing but a goddamn corker. Knowing something about the work ethic of this pair, I had suspected this LP would be filled to the bong-lip with loosely unstructured jams and zingers. And while those elements are indeed part of the parcel, they are mere details in a large, richly varied and luminous whole. Dalton brings his multi-various musical New Zealand ex-pat weirdnesses to the party, and Thomas draws deeply on his intense Massachusetts record collector powers to create tunes and bridges and sighs that make sonic images skip across the surface of your brain like the smoothest stone on the planet. The two conjure up all the sounds on their lonesome, apart from some drum bits by New Zealand form-manster, Kraus, and some background vocals by fellow kiwi Clementine of Purple Pilgrims fame. You can hear twinges of all kinds of heavy cult tunage smeared into the corners — a bit of Hoelderlin here, a smudge of Relatively Clean Rivers there — but what it most recalls are the highest echelon exploit-o drug-powered records like LSD Underground 12 or The Happening by Fire & Ice Ltd. As a piece of music it’s as thoroughly toasted as either of those, managing to be higher key and low-key at same time. Pretty fuggin’ brilliant. Let’s hope the other album gets cut loose soon!” — Byron Coley, 2016. Edition of 300.
File Under: Electronic, Folk, Psych
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Morgan Delt: Phase Zero (Sub Pop) LP
The invocation of classic west coast psychedelia that permeates Morgan Delt’s Sub Pop debut LP feels like a continuous sunrise, never concealing its influences yet perfectly putting its songs through a gauzy lens that blurs and obscures. After releasing a 6-song cassette in 2013 followed by a full length for the Trouble In Mind label, the California native now fine-tunes his sound world outwardly rather than honing in on a specific trajectory, allowing all of his influences to coexist together in a unique yet undoubtedly Californian vision. The resulting 10-song collection, performed entirely by Delt, recorded in his Topanga Canyon studio, and mastered by JJ Golden, is a home-fi construction with a more subtle, brain-tickling character than its predecessor, and somewhat reflects a realist take on the flower power fantasy of 1967. Doused in echo and haze, slow chords lap in like Pacific waves, flanked by gentle whispers of multi-tracked, cooing vox, phased guitars and fuzz that calmly surrounds the listener’s head less than it jabs at the cortex. It takes a creative mind to make psychedelic rock music – tablas, drones, hallucinatory vocal effects, and all – without slipping into cliché, but Delt can transport what would normally be a dark-n- druggy blanket into a much more optimistic and friendly listening experience. Despite his voice being channelled through hallucinatory effects, it’s warm and inviting, projecting a sense of hope (particularly in “Some Sunsick Day,” which evokes the hopeful “We’ll Meet Again” as the world explodes at the end of Dr. Strangelove, later covered by the Byrds). It’s more or less just an invite to watch the sun rise too.
File Under: Punk, Rock
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Equiknoxx: Bird Sound Power (Demdike Stare) LP
Equiknoxx is one of the hottest, most innovative dancehall squads from Jamaica. Bird Sound Power is their debut collective show of strength, packing twelve avant, crooked riddims by core members Gavsborg and Time Cow, plus Bobby Blackbird and Kofi Knoxx, with vocals by Kemikal, Shanique Marie and J.O.E. (R.I.P). The set was parsed and pieced together by Jon K & Demdike Stare, and now thanks to link ups via Swing Ting’s Balraj Samrai, it is issued on Demdike’s DDS imprint, replete with Jon K’s sleeve design. Easily identified by the squawking bird idents peppering their cuts, Equiknoxx productions have been big in the dance since Gavin Blair, aka Gavsborg, produced Busy Signal’s billboard hit “Step Out” in 2005, followed by key instrumentals for Beenie Man, Aidonia, Masicka and T.O.K. – with many released on 7″ through their Equiknoxx Musiq label, and some of which, such as Aidonia’s “Negative”, are included in this set. Bird Sound Power arguably marks up the most striking riddim album from Jamaica in 2016, weighted with the potential to open up perceptions of current dancehall thanks to the mad character and broad reference points of its producers, encompassing King Jammy’s foundational digi-dub and Dave Kelly’s Mad House sound as much as rugged New York hip-hop and the wigged-out, feminine pressure of Virginia Beach’s Timbaland or The Neptunes. The oldest tune inside dates to 2009, but the rest are relatively recent dancehall mutations, including a number of exclusives produced in the last 12 months. Each one represents Equiknoxx’s unique aspects, such as Jordan Chung’s, aka Time Cow, brilliantly bizarre, layered arrangements of film samples, sawn-off hooks and digi-tight beats, whilst also a result of as their distinguished family vibe, Bird Sound Power exists in a paradox, contemporary but classic, and with as much potential to turn new heads onto current Jamaican sounds as Mowax’s Now Thing set back in 2001. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. All on vinyl for the first time ever.
File Under: Electronic, Reggae
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Huseyin Ertunc Trio: Musiki (Holidays) LP
Holiday Records present a reissue of Hüseyin Ertunç Trio’s Mûsikî, originally released in 1974 on Intex Records. This cosmic free jazz improvisation by this legendary trio guided by Hüseyin Ertunç – on drums – with his then-regular partners Michael Cosmic and Phil Musra – on saxophones and additional percussion – reveals the primitive and physical approach of the trio, with Ertunç’s massive cymbals drumming building a carpet of trance-driving vibe where the reeds can freely dance without any structure. “A new world of improvisational freedom opened up for me when I first heard drummer Huseyin Ertunç’s 1974 LP Mûsikî, with reedmen/multi-instrumentalists/brothers Phil Musra and Michael Cosmic. Ertunç returned to his native Turkey about twenty years ago (and performs with the Konstrukt collective), but Musra – this tune’s composer – now resides in Los Angeles and, as regular readers of this blog know, is still active in music. Although I initially assumed that Mûsikî and Musra’s companion LP The Creator Spaces (1974) were recorded at the same session, in truth Mûsikî was recorded months earlier. The Creator Spaces is a bit more spacious than Ertunç’s date, though both are quite intense documents of self-produced and spiritually-directed improvisation. Knotty and weird, there’s a folksy unhinged-ness that really spoke to me in a way quite different from Albert Ayler, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and other music I was spending time with when I dropped the needle on the trio’s debut album. Ertunç’s percussion work really shocked me and it’s still absolutely fascinating, and Cosmic’s organ playing behind/around Musra’s tenor is just something else.” — Clifford Allen. Edition of 400.
File Under: Free Jazz
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Huseyin Ertunc/Dogan Dogusel/Cem Tan/Umut Caglar: Gumusluk Sessions (Holidays) 4LP
“Recorded over two days yet retaining a continuous, immediate vibe, Gumusluk Sessions: At Lon’s feature a stirring quartet with Hüseyin Ertunç on piano, Doğan Doğusel at double bass, the young drummer Cem Tan, and Umut Çağlar – a stalwart of the Konstrukt group – on reeds and percussion. In the caliber of multi-album statements like Cecil Taylor’s Nuits de la Fondation Maeght (1969) and string instrumentalist and composer Alan Silva’s Seasons (1970), Gümüslük Sessions: At Lon ‘s stretches out texturally and conceptually, although there’s a loose, homegrown informality unique to these musicians’ orbit (partly attributable to the dry, open recording quality). The initial marathon pace relaxes into nattering trails and the full ensemble falls away to reveal spare duos and trios over the course of eight sides. Ertunç’s piano ebbs as zurna, flutes and bamboo reeds, auxiliary percussion and voices draw out the music’s connection to folk forms, as well as the interleaved East-West textures of Yusef Lateef and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. As ‘out’ as the music gets, there’s always a center in Ertunç’s keyboard approach; moreover, his linkages with the pliable, allover percussive buzz and thrumming pizzicato create a constant burble of jabbing movement. This is a clunky, Monkish swing or a playful push-pull, rather than the ‘tinka-tinka-ting’ of bebop. Concentrated, unflagging and incredibly spiritual, Ertunç, Cağlar, Doğusel and Tan have convened to structure an incredibly personal artistic document that speaks to the universal possibilities of freedom.” — Clifford Allen. Turkish liner notes by Volkan Terzioğlu. Colored cardboard box set with printed inner sleeves. Edition of 200.
File Under: Free Jazz
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Fire! Orchestra: Ritual (Rune Grammofon) LP
Fire! Orchestra follow their acclaimed 2014 album Enter with Ritual, slimming the ensemble down from 28 of northern Europe’s finest jazz and improvisational musicians to a mere 21. Since the release of Enter, this energetic and dynamic mass ensemble has gone from intimate jazz settings to the main hall at the Molde International Jazz Festival and a major stage at the prestigious Roskilde Festival. As brilliant as Enter is, with Ritual they have outdone themselves and produced a beast of beauty and power, extremely well executed, beautifully recorded, and produced from only two days in the studio. Free improvisations, spontaneous horns, keyboard frenzy, abstract electronics, and guitar mayhem, not to mention those glorious twin voices from heaven and hell. It’s about mysteries and rituals in music and in life. Fire! originated as the trio of Swedish improv masters Mats Gustafsson (sax), Johan Berthling (bass), and Andreas Werliin (drums). None of them are what one would call jazz purists; they all play in many different groups and contexts, including The Thing (Gustafsson), experimental folk-electronica outfit Tape (Berthling), and skewed blues-pop unit Wildbirds & Peacedrums (Werliin). Those important singers, Sofia Jernberg and Mariam Wallentin, have been on board since the beginning, and the same goes for horn players Niklas Barnö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mats Äleklint, Per Åke Holmlander, and Anna Högberg. Basically a Swedish ensemble, the orchestra also counts Norwegian, Danish, and French players among its ranks. Members of Fire! Orchestra share a wide background, combining jazz, improvised music, contemporary music, rock, garage, psych, and more. As they proclaim on their website, “please make up your own genre and mind — listen freely — don’t buy our labeling attempts…labeling sucks.”
File Under: Free Jazz
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Cara & Mike Gangloff with the Great American Drone Orchestra: Knock on Life’s Door (Mie) LP
MIE presents Knock on Life’s Door from Cara & Mike Gangloff With The Great American Drone Orchestra. “There’s a particular twinkle in the great expanse of American songwriting. This has seen countless nostalgic exploitations over the years – collections of popular songs strung together under the banner of the so-called ‘Great American Songbook’ that have reiterated the form of many of these songs without contemplating their depths. In terms of thoughtful, emotive synthesis, few have understood it in the way that Cara and Mike Gangloff understand it on this new album. They have taken older American songs, popular songs that we’ve come to understand as standards, and stretched them out into the rolling hills and vast expanses that gave birth to the nation’s earliest music. American history is a history of tension. A group of aristocrats saw fit to bestow a limited degree of freedom upon the underclasses. They called this democracy, co-opting a concept that terrified them in the hopes that the implications of its meaning might placate the unwashed masses. Within that sliver of freedom, incredible heights were reached. Blues. Jazz. Mountain music. And on and on. The songs on this record are recognizable. They’re classics. And yet here they play out in ways the songwriters could never have predicted. Cara and Mike Gangloff have married the colloquial with the eternal. With certain songs, like ‘Sentimental Journey’, they lift the material out of its saccharine setting and into the troubling and sublime nation from which it springs. ‘All of Me’ is rendered utterly psychotic, teasing apart the song’s desperate, masochistic, violent implications. The songs become essays about themselves, investigations into their own histories of terror and escape. ‘Mood Indigo’ becomes a haunting dirge. ‘Cry Me a River’ is a rhythmically jarring lightning rod of unease. The inventiveness of interpretation is spirit-raising. The cultural history of the country is one of cosmic entertainment in the face of excruciating injustice. Transcendence has always been necessary. For better or worse, the United States of America is a nation defined by expanse.” — Matt Krefting, 2016. The Great American Drone Orchestra is: Sharon Stacy, Charlie Andersen, Matt Peyton, Sonya Austin, Joe Dejarnette, Sally Anne Morgan, Isak Howell, Scott Prouty, Anne Hartman, Tatsuya Nakatani, Nathan Bowles, Michelle Dove, Reilly Stacy Blackwell, Abriel Stacy Blackwell and Willa Shea-Gangloff.
File Under: Drone, Experimental
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D.R. Hooker: The Truth (Veals & Geeks) LP
Genuine reissue of D.R. Hooker’s The Truth (1972) from the original audio sources; new analog transfer with improved mastering. “It’s a miracle any copies of this privately pressed album survived — but be thankful it did, for here is an individual vision. Some people worry about when we’ll run out of oil. A rather smaller proportion of us worry about when we’ll run out of discoverable, deep-end thrills like this. There is just no way in the world items like Donald Hooker’s 40-year-old privately pressed LP should even exist as a thing — it more than likely only ran to about 99 copies in its original format, so how the hell did even one of those survive to create these new digital and analogue versions decades later? Connecticut-based Hooker — a tall, slim hippy with a history of substance abuse — was much given to wearing the sort of austere robe he sports on the sleeve, a fairly outré move even then. In early 1972 he hired a gang of local scene musicians to flesh out his wonderful songs and after a few brief rehearsals the band began recording. As soon as they were done they split — some never even heard the finished album, and what a treat they missed. Hooker’s arrangements are truly beautiful; a simple, swinging pop song like Weather Girl exists somewhere between the Doors and Curtis Mayfield, whereas The Bible (‘If they’re knocking the Bible, be sure they are bent/ Just see and you’ll understand the book is heaven sent’) has the propulsive drive of a pained George Harrison ballad crushed up against some of Neil Young’s freeform, string-banging joy. Then there’s The Sea, with its rolling religious allegories and the remarkable Free which marries a growling hard rock throb to a vampirically groovy synth line. Hooker’s masterpiece is Forge Your Own Chains, which is part conga-led, lounge-funk soul and part, questing psychedelic dream. To think this entirely individual worldview would have once languished, unloved, in a series of under-the-racks cutout bins. And how much more magic like this is there out there?” –Rob Fitzpatrick, “The 101 strangest records on Spotify: DR Hooker — The Truth,” The Guardian, April 24, 2013
File Under: Psych, Private Press
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Konstrukt/Peter Brotzmann/Huseyin Ertunc/Dogan Dogusel/Barlas Tan Ozemek: Eklisia Unday (Holidays) LP
Eklisia Sunday was recorded live in front of a small audience on May 15th, 2011 at Eklisia – an old chapel built in the 17th century in Gümüşlük, a small village near Bodrum. This improvisation features the Konstrukt collective – which is Korhan Futacı (tenor & soprano saxophones), Umut Çağlar (electric guitar), Özün Usta (double bass, djembe, gong, bells), Korhan Argüden (drums) – incredibly enriched by the presence of Peter Brötzmann (on tenor), Hüseyin Ertunç (acoustic piano, küstüfon, gong), Doğan Doğusel (double bass, küstüfon) and Barlas Tan Özemek (electric guitar). The result of the combination is simply marvelous, because Brötzmann’s unique phrases perfectly match with the sound of what confirms to be a well-coordinated collective. “The Turkish free jazz outfit Konstrukt might be considered the most evolved improvisational band working in jazz today. Founded, not in the hotbeds of jazz, London, New York, Chicago, Wuppertal or Krakow, their isolation is the key to their success. Well, isolation and observation.” — Mark Corroto, All About Jazz. Edition of 350.
File Under: Free Jazz
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Joan La Barbara: Tapesongs (Arc Light) LP
Tapesongs (1977) is the second of two crucial Joan La Barbara reissues on Arc Light Editions, following Voice Is The Original Instrument (1976). Joan La Barbara is a composer, performer, sound artist and actor, renowned for her unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques, which have influenced generations of composers and singers. This reissue is presented in full collaboration with La Barbara. Tapesongs makes use of early electronics, and multi-tracked tape techniques to manipulate La Barbara’s signature extended vocal techniques. It includes two essential pieces: John Cage’s Solo For Voice 45 and a burning take-down of Cathy Berberian in “Cathing”. In 1977, La Barbara was living in NYC, playing concerts internationally and performing regularly with John Cage, who she described as a mentor. “I began working with John Cage in 1976 and we had done several performances of his ‘Solo for Voice 45’ from Song Books in concert,” says Joan. “Cage determined the 13-minute version for this version, overlaying all 18-pages of the score so that one hears the entire work in layers. Hearing it again after all these years is wonderful and brings back many memories.” “Cathing” uses a recording of a radio interview Cathy Berberian did during the intermission of one of La Barbara’s concerts at the Holland Festival: “She basically trashed those of us doing extended vocal techniques,” she says. “She used the interview for her own self-promotion rather than taking on the mantle of the ‘mother’ of vocal explorations. Rather tragic, I thought. So I created a work exploring extended vocal techniques and manipulating her spoken voice.” “Thunder” is for six tympani and voice, using electronic devices (the same as used in “Vocal Extensions” from Voice Is The Original Instrument), and explores patterns through instruments and real-time composition with two jazz improvising musicians. The original artwork is an incredible shot of Joan buried to her neck in reel -to-reel tape. Remastered from original tapes by Rashad Becker. Kraftliner outer sleeve & art paper inner sleeve.
File Under: Experimental, Avant Garde
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Cass McCombs: Mangy Love (Anti) LP
Over the past decade, Cass McCombs has established himself as one of our premier songwriters – diverse, cryptic, vital and refreshingly rebellious. It’s a career that’s twisted and turned, from style to subject, both between records and within them. Eighth studio full-length album, Mangy Love, is McCombs at his most blunt: tackling sociopolitical issues through his uniquely cracked lens of lyrical wit and singular insight. Throughout, he uses himself as a mirror to misguided and confounding realities, confronting them head on. The severity of his lyrics is contrasted by the music, which ventures into groovy realms of Philly soul, Norcal psychedelia and New York paranoia, articulating the spontaneity and joy of his live show better than ever before. Hip-hop and Beat poetry influences have never been more evident, with several songs employing a speech-style and clever fast-paced wordplay. There are guest appearances by many fellow musicians of his tribe ranging from Angel Olsen (on “Opposite House”) to Blake Mills, under the production of veteran Rob Schnapf and Dan Horne. Mostly written during a bitter New York City winter and while traveling in Ireland, Mangy Love is McCombs reaching new sonic heights, creatively evolving lyrically, and resulting in his most provocative, yet immediate record yet.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Chris McGregor & The Castle Lager Big Band: Jazz/The African (Jazzman) LP
One of the most important African records of all time released worldwide for the first time. Chris McGregor’s Jazz/The African Sound (originally released in 1963) is a lost global jazz classic, and a true holy grail for collectors of afro-jazz. A cornerstone of South Africa’s illustrious jazz history, it has been out of print since before the end of apartheid. This painstakingly restored reissue is the long-delayed first chance to hear Chris McGregor’s debut recording as leader. In addition to fully restored audio, the package features previously unpublished photographs by Basil Breakey and new sleeve notes by author Francis Gooding. Ten years before the Brotherhood of Breath blew the cobwebs out of British jazz, Chris McGregor had already recorded as a leader with a big band composed of South Africa’s leading jazz lights. Put together in 1963, The Castle Lager Big Band was a multi-racial group, a risky endeavor in apartheid South Africa. Modernist in outlook and dedicated to showcasing South African composers, the 17-piece band featured a galaxy of South African jazz stars, including Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, and Kippie Moeketsi. Though the band lasted only a few weeks and played a just a handful of shows, they made it into the studio to record, and the result was Jazz/The African Sound, a unique masterpiece of afro-Ellingtonia that the band hoped would put South African jazz on the international map. But history intervened, and their jazz message to the world never arrived — until now. Non-numbered repress.
File Under: African Jazz
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Niagara: s/t (PMG) LP
Reissue of Niagara’s self-titled debut, originally released in 1970. Niagara was more a project than an actual band, formed by German jazz drum legend Klaus Weiss. He formerly worked with another jazz legend from his mother country, Klaus Doldinger, and gained fame in the German jazz circuit of the ’60s and ’70s. His 1971 works with Niagara was the offspring of the vision to create an orchestra made entirely of drummers and percussionists. Despite the fact that there is definitely no regular melody instrument to be heard on this album, the two lengthy compositions are arranged in such an enthralling way, they still have a rather catchy and memorable feel. Among the cult drummers featured on this album are Udo Lindenberg (yes, the icon of German rock and pop started as a drummer) and session hero Keith Forsey. So what both compositions offer is an ever pulsating rhythm inferno, a maelstrom of different grooves and sounds. This album is not full of pop tunes. Niagara enchants and hypnotizes with a massive wall of percussion sounds, dragging the listener deeper and deeper into a state of trance, which is utterly addictive. Niagara goes deeper than most psychedelic rock with dreamy melodies and heavy organ work. Incomparable to anything else, this is an ultimate rhythm experience.
File Under: Jazz, Afrobeat, Afro-Cuban
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Prince: Lotusflow3r (Because) LP
Originally released in 2009. For more than thirty years, Prince indefatigably attacked the bulwarks which separate funk, rock, pop and hip-hop. This is a deluxe gatefold release composed of two slabs of vinyl (Lotusflow3r and MPLSound also included on CDs) as well as a poster. “On LotusFlow3r Prince has a specific mission: showcasing his long-underrated guitar playing. Whether it’s the spare funk of ‘Wall of Berlin,’ the metal grind of ‘Dreamer’ or the hazy cover of ‘Crimson and Clover,’ the music kicks into high gear when Prince starts soloing, delivering one epic face melter after another in a style halfway between David Gilmour’s and Eddie Hazel’s.” Gavin Edwards (Rolling Stone, 2009)
File Under: Funk, Pop
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Maja S.K. Ratkje: Crepuscular Hour (Rune Grammofon) LP
Double LP version. Includes CD and DVD; DVD is PAL format, region-free, with 5.1 and stereo audio. Crepuscular Hour is an epic, hypnotic one-hour piece for three choirs, three pairs of noise musicians, and church organ, to be performed in a cathedral or similar location with musicians surrounding the audience. The room fills with sound in an intense, but almost meditative hour, as the voices blend with the distortion, the noise sometimes takes over, and the organ eventually takes the music to a new level. The visual design of this concert is a play on the crepuscular rays — rays of sunlight that appear to radiate through clouds from the point in the sky where the sun is located — with the light filtered by the obstacles and musicians in the room. All texts are from the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of Gnostic texts discovered in Upper Egypt in 1945. These texts have provided a major re-evaluation of early Christian history. This recording of a performance of the piece includes a DVD of the whole concert, beautifully directed by Kathy Hinde (DVD is PAL format, region-free, with 5.1 and stereo audio). Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (born 1973) is quite a remarkable musician, singer, improviser, and composer. Her music has been performed worldwide by the Klangforum Wien, the Oslo Sinfonietta, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Fretwork, TM+, the Cikada String Quartet, the Mivos Quartet, the Quatuor Bozzini, the Quatuor Renoir, Crash Ensemble, The Peärls Before Swïne Experience, Torben Snekkestad, Marianne Beate Kielland, SPUNK, Frode Haltli, POING, and many more. Ratkje has been composer in residence at festivals like Other Minds in San Francisco; Trondheim Chamber Music Festival; Nordland Music Festival in Bodø, Norway; Avanti! Summer Festival in Finland; Båstad Chamber Music Festival; and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Ratkje is active as a singer/voice user and electronics performer and engineer, as a soloist and in groups such as SPUNK and BRAK RUG. Other collaborators include Jaap Blonk, Joëlle Léandre, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Stephen O’Malley, Lasse Marhaug, POING, and many more. Ratkje has performed her own music for films, dance, theater, installations, and numerous other projects. Visual art and text are often parts of her work, in installations or staged works. She has made large gallery works with SPUNK and made music for a radio play by Elfriede Jelinek, and in 2003, she played a part in her own opera, also based on texts from the Nag Hammadi library.
File Under: Electronic, Classical
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Arke Sinth: s/t (Die Schachtel) LP
Studio and live recordings, May/June 1973. Arke Sinth documents the brief and intense life of a group formed at the beginning of the 1970s within the fertile and stimulating cultural environment of the town of Padua (Italy), where electroacoustic and computer music pioneer Teresa Rampazzi had started, a few years earlier, the Nuove Proposte Sonore (New Sound Proposals) Group. Arke Sinth was a group of four young musicians and artists, who decided to perform their own music, an experimental venture into collective composition and unusual timbre associations, with possibly no references whatsoever to previously existing music genres. The rigorous music of Arke Sinth gave a sonic body to meticulously planned graphic scores and at times was associated with visuals created by one of the members of the group, Michele Sambin (one of the first Italian experimental video-artists). Arke Sinth also tried to closely link collective composition and performance, making also use of improvisational elements but refusing the premises of the American live electronics experiences, for which composition was simply the “trigger” of an almost immutably informal and/or automatic process (David Tudor, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier), or alternatively it was “dissolved” into free improvisation (MEV). Together with Michele Sambin on cello and saxophones, were his brother Marco, an accomplished saxophone player, Giovanni De Poli on EMS Synthi A and Alvise Vidolin on electronic organ and mixing. De Poli and Vidolin at that time were both pupils of Teresa Rampazzi, and shortly after the experience of Arke Sinth were involved in the foundation of the Computer Music Center of the University of Padua. Deluxe silver cover with silver foil design. Custom inner sleeve and four-page booklet in English and Italian. Edition of 400.
File Under: Electronic, Avant Garde
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Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador) LP
In 2009 Sonic Youth returned to an indie label after years of being on Geffen, with their sixteenth proper studio album, the aptly titled The Eternal. Self described as a “celebration of newfound freedom,” The Eternal is a supercharged rocker, recalling aspects of the Evol-Sister-Daydream Nation holy trinity but with cleaner, louder production and more straightforward momentum. With Pavement’s Mark Ibold joining on bass, and producer John Agnello back at the controls, The Eternal takes the melodic songwriting of 2006’s Rather Ripped and slams down the accelerator pedal. The band’s self-written bio references as influences: hardcore punk matinees; both the MC5 AND Sonic’s Rendezvous Band; Neu!, Kevin Ayers, and the Wipers. The Eternal served as the most alive, excited album the band had made in a long time. “Sure, other bands skew further towards the avant-garde. Yet no rock group better views guitars, amplifiers, and drums as a core heap of wires, strings, skins, and plugs that, once reassembled and re-imagined, produces exhilarating music that violates rules and inverts perspectives within accessible melodic frameworks. Sparked by a forward-driving momentum, The Eternal engages by way of alternate tunings, tonal shadings, sulfuric harmonics, and radical chords.” – Bob Gendron, TONE Audio, Issue 22
File Under: Indie Rock
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Subrosa: For This We Fought The Battle of Ages (Profound Lore) LP
Salt Lake City’s Subrosa are one of America’s most singular and important doom / chamber-metal bands. Their 2013 breakthrough album More Constant Than The Gods garnered the five-piece (including two electric violinists) acclaim from Pitchfork, NPR, Decibel Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Entertainment Weekly, to name just a few. In the wake of that album, they toured with bands such as Boris, Deafheaven, and Cult Of Luna, also playing prominent festivals like Roadburn, Hellfest, Southwest Terror Fest, along with many others. With this latest album, Subrosa has crafted their most triumphant and biggest release to date. For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages is their masterpiece and establishes them as one of the most important American heavy metal bands today.
File Under: Metal
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Piero Umiliani: Tensione (Black Sweat) LP
The incomparable Piero Umiliani (under his mysterious Moggi moniker) weighs in with another AWOL library gem of 1979. The Italian maestro goes resolutely left field and off track with an intra-personal exploration of the disturbed inner psyche within the human condition. Distressed electro beacons are unleashed as de-tuned predatory Carpenter-esque synth patterns come to the fore (check “Clavinet Suspence: for primal audio blastings to a lost unnamed ’80s slasher movie). With the electric eighties buzzing on the horizon, Umiliani was quick to capitalize on this cultural shift, utilizing his Moog synthesizers to tap in to changing musical zeitgeists via cost cutting experimentations for TV, adverts and documentaries. Followers of the esoteric and strange can finally dig in here with this lavishly created reissue featuring original artwork, master tape laquer cutting and Umiliani’s autograph notes on the project.
File Under: Library, Italian
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Piero Umiliani (M. Zalla): Mondo Inquieto (Black Sweat) LP
Maestro Piero Umiliani returns in the alter ego guise of M. Zalla for the 1974 compositional library piece Mondo Inquieto (Restless World) via his far reaching, experimentalist imprint Sound Work Shop. Ambient tensions are represented via a dramatic cross fertilization of orchestral strings, layered synths and primeval percussion with the Maestro on moody, reflective compositional duties. Stand out cut “Strategia” (“Strategy”) harnesses the dopest Wu Tang beats alongside swathes of high end electro blankets and is a sample classic aching to be reworked into further outer cosmos soundscapes. Black Sweat has again transferred the elements of this little known Umiliani microcosm into a respectful reissue via an integration of the stark, haunting sleeve design, laquer cutting from the original master tapes and Umiliani’s autograph notes on the project.
File Under: Library, Italian
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Piero Umiliani: Genti e Paesi del Mondo (Black Sweat) LP
The mid ’70s presented mature, fertile grounding for maestro Piero Uimiliani’s Sound Workshop Studio, exploring side ways explorations in to gravitational soundscapes and beyond. Released in 1975 via his prolific Omicron imprint, Genti e Paesi Del Mondo (Peoples and Countries of the World) is a return to the ethnic flavors so beloved of Umiliani’s zeitgeist. Umiliani turns anti-clockwise, launching a left field mental audio pad to uncharted territories. On Genti e Paesi Del Mondo sparse, eerie electronic confections spar in unison alongside moody transgressional vibes. Umiliani’s mysterious pathways unlock a trinket box echoing the Germanic stylings of Wolperath’s Plank Studio and Herzog-era Popol Vuh. This loving reissue recreates the original artwork, master tape laquer cutting and Umiliani’s autograph notes on the project.
File Under: Library, Italian
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Vakula: Cyclicality Between Procyon And Gomeisa (Dekmantel) LP
The Ukraine based producer, Vakula, presents his triple-LP album, Cyclicality Between Procyon And Gomeisa, on Dekmantel. “This album is about cycles, repetition and interaction”, says Vakula. Cyclicality Between Procyon And Gomeisa is a dashing experimental record that evokes the endless and captivating potential of electronic music, creating a mesmerizing journey through various music genres, exhibiting a singular sonic experience, whilst he works through a process of improvisation and refinement. Once again, the mastermind proves to be capable of creating complex, yet diverse musical pieces beyond genres and trends. The result: an audio adaptation of his fascinating mind; “There are two parallel processes that come together in my work: me writing music and working on the sound I want to achieve and the energy from outside that flows and transforms into thoughts, correlations, and actions.” The track titles relate to the source of Vakula’s inspiration and connect the dots between his obsession for the vastness of the universe and electronic music; ”To wonder about the universe and to dig into mythology and scientific research discovering at least some of its secrets is what keeps me endlessly motivated as a producer.”
File Under: Electronic, Dub, Techno, House
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Scott Walker: Childhood of a Leader OST (4AD) LP
Scott Walker’s orchestral soundtrack to The Childhood Of A Leader is being released by 4AD in August 2016. A key and compelling component to Brady Corbet’s directorial debut, it is Walker’s first O.S.T. work since his remarkable score for Pola X in 1999. Partly inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story of the same name, The Childhood Of A Leader is a tense psychological drama tracing the formative years of a young boy and set against the backdrop of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that led to the establishment of the Treaty of Versailles. Walker continues to work with long-term collaborators Peter Walsh (co-producer) and Mark Warman (musical director), with the latter conducting an orchestra comprised of 46 string players and 16 brass for the studio recording. Both Walsh and Warman were involved in the live film score performance of The Childhood Of A Leader, alongside a 74-strong orchestra, an event which closed the Rotterdam Film Festival in February 2016.
File Under: OST
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Wipers: Rarities (Bang) LP
Finally an official vinyl release of what was only previously released as a bootleg CD-R in the early ’90s, based on the original recordings and with new mastering. Two LPs full of Wipers rarities, including their almost impossible-to-find debut single from 1978, “Better Off Dead,” as well as other rarities from B-sides, compilation tracks, and acoustic and electric performances from 1978 to 1990. A totally necessary release for all fans of this legendary American band that put down the roots of ’80s and ’90s noise and underground rock! Deluxe gatefold sleeve with full details.
File Under: Punk
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World’s Experience Orchestra: The Beginning of a New Birth & As Time Flows On (Now Again) 2LP
Double LP version. Tip-on gatefold jacket. 160-gram vinyl. Includes booklet with previously unpublished photos and download code for WAVs. “Both World’s Experience Orchestras albums were recorded in and around Boston, Massachusetts in the mid to late 1970s and committed to vinyl in minuscule press runs by a visionary, bassist/composer/arranger John Jamyll Jones. Jones is a magical type, who communicates with his instrument, his ensembles, and jazz’s ancient lineage in a manner so profound that his late-’70s album are out of time with jazz’s trajectory, but timeless when presented today. By the late ’90s the music of World’s Experience Orchestra was circulating throughout the collections of esoteric jazz fans, the likes of Gerald ‘Jazzman’ Short and Gilles Peterson, who played ‘The Prayer’ for those, the Coltrane-enthralled searching for something new, something different. Something spiritual and honest. Peterson first offered to reissue ‘The Prayer’, as part of an anthology he was putting together with Los Angeles reissue label Ubiquity Records and that, to date, is the only official issue of any of Jones’ music. This set is the definitive catalog of Jones’ ensembles’ released work. ‘I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t know when,’ says Jones of the road to seeing his music re-issued. ‘It’s 35 years or more now, and I’ve been waiting for this, and I’m quite sure I’m not the only one.'”
File Under: Jazz
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Zomby: Where Were U In 92? (Cvlt) LP
2016 repress on black vinyl. Previously released on yellow vinyl for RSD 2012. When first released as a CD on Actress’s Werk Discs imprint in 2008, Where Were U In 92? was instantly hailed as the rave album that was never made in the early ’90s, a tumbling anthemic barrage of lost mixtape masterpieces from an artist who was starting to take the electronic dance scene by storm. However, Where Were U In 92? is not just some facsimile-style homage to the past; it takes a firm grip of the energy and sheer rushing dynamics of early hardcore breakbeat, and places those sounds and styles smack in the center of right now.
File Under: Electronic, Breakbeat
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Various: Fever (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
Stag-O-Lee present a new series called Journey to the Centre of the Song, celebrating one song at a time, and it’s many guises and interpretations. This volume focuses on the song “Fever”, features ten versions of the song and is compiled by Chris Sick. Liner notes from Chris Sick: “I’m not sure what the first version of ‘Fever’ I ever heard (hopefully Elvis, probably Bon Jovi) but it has become engrained into my psyche. This song is covered scores of times a year and has become album filler for tired artists trying to find that last track before the hand in date. This belies the history of one of the most sultry songs ever written. A burning, intoxicating and poisonous feeling of yearning, lust and passion that is ageless and endless. Sexy just doesn’t cover it. It smolders and breathes hot sweat on the back of your neck. For a crash course in ‘Fever’, check out the original Little Willie John and Peggy Lee, Elvis and the Cramps. Then listen to this… This collection tries to show the many diverse guises I have discovered lurking in the darkness. These are the versions overlooked, and often uncompiled till now. I hope this song infects you like it has me – But what a lovely way to burn…” Features: Bobby Freeman, Frankie Avalon, The Knockouts, Pete Bennett and the Embers, Little Caesar and the Romans, Ray Peterson, Sid Cooper, Sam Butera and the Witnesses, Earl Grant and Medicine Men.
File Under: Exotica
Various: Boomstix!: More Blues & Rhythm, Popcorn, Exotica & Tittyshakers (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
Stag-O-Lee present Boomstix!: More Blues & Rhythm, Popcorn, Exotica & Tittyshakers Volume 10, the tenth volume in their successful Exotic Blues & Rhythm series. Amazing and danceable tunes from the late ’50s and early ’60s – a handful of Popcorn dancefloor smashes, a few grinding tittyshakers and awesome rhythm & blues – most of them with an exotic twist. Twelve songs on a nice 10″ vinyl. Features: David Hill, The 5 Royales, The Gay Poppers, Guy Mitchell, Louisiana Red, Nellie Rutherford, Curley & The Jades, Bobby Sharp, Ernie Washington, Ruben Fort, Danny Owens and Bach Yen.
File Under: Exotica, Blues & Rhythm
Various: Nigeria Freedom Sounds! (Soul Jazz) LP
Soul Jazz Records’ new Nigeria Freedom Sounds! features a stunning selection of material spotlighting the vibrant musical scene in Nigeria at the start of the 1960s. With a wealth of musical and cultural history and newly independent from Britain, Nigerian music during this era was complex, diverse and forward-thinking, with musicians as excited in exploring their country’s own musical lineage with styles such as Juju and Apala as they were in adapting and absorbing outside influences such as Ghanaian Highlife, Caribbean Calypsos and Mambo and more. This album features many of the defining artists of this time who helped shape the Nigerian musical scene. Artists include I.K. Dairo and his Blue Spots, Haruna Ishola and his Group, E.C. Arinze, Sammy Akpabot and His All Stars, Godwin Omobuwa and his Soundmakers, Ganiyu Kale and His Guinea Mambo Orchestra and many more. Few nations on earth are as diverse as Nigeria, and the wide assortment of Nigerian music styles collected on this album reflect the country’s rich variety of cultures. Western-influenced dance music, played on European instruments such as guitar, brass, and woodwind sits alongside traditional musical styles, made with indigenous instruments such as the talking drum, marimba, or obo. And there is also religious musical styles first brought to Nigeria by European Christians and Islamic traders from North Africa. And of course, there are points where these musical styles overlap, merging into one another to create unique new sounds. This album is released as CD + booklet + slipcase, heavyweight gatefold double vinyl edition + download code, and digital release. The CD includes a large outsize 48-page book containing extensive sleevenotes by compiler Danny Fitzgerald, original photography, artist biographies, as well as selection of Nigerian adverts celebrating its independence and original artwork from some of the rare original Nigerian 45s on which this music was first (and only ever) released. The heavyweight gatefold 2xLP comes with full sleevenotes and download code.
File Under: Jazz, African, Calypso, Highlife
Various: Shadrach: Blues & Rhythm, Popcorn, Exotica & Tittyshakers Volume 9 (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
Stag-O-Lee present Shadrach: Blues & Rhythm, Popcorn, Exotica & Tittyshakers Volume 9, the ninth volume in their successful Exotic Blues & Rhythm series. Amazing and danceable tunes from the late ’50s and early ’60s – a handful of Popcorn dancefloor smashes, a few grinding tittyshakers and awesome rhythm & blues – most of them with an exotic twist. Twelve songs on a nice 10″ vinyl. Features: Jay Abbott, Chance Halladay, Johnny West, The Ken Jones Orchestra, Merle Kilgore, Oberia Martinez, The Rhythm Kings, Dorsey Burnette, Billy Duke, The Cords, The Wanderers and Little Walter.
File Under: Exotica, Blues & Rhythm
Various: Tremblin’: Steamy & Atmospheric Female R’n’B Vocals (Pancho) LP
Pancho Records presents Tremblin’ – Steamy & Atmospheric Female R’n’B Vocals. Sixteen never-before-reissued tracks of the sexiest and coolest atmospheric female R’n’B. Compiled and designed by Jordi Duró. Features tracks from: Byrdie Green, Yvonne Baker, Carol Hall, Barbara McNair, Lula Reed, Wini Brown, Dolores Gibson, Berna Dean, Paula Grimes, Donna Dee, Ruth Brown, Bettye Smith, Oberia Martin, Johni Naylor and Dora Hall.
File Under: RnB
…..Restocks…..
Arcade Fire: Funeral (Merge) LP
Arcade Fire: Suburbs (Merge) LP
Dorothy Ashby: Afro-Harping (Cadet) LP
Dorothy Ashby: The Rubaiyat of (Cadet) LP
Big Black: Songs About Fucking (Touch & Go) LP
Blood Orange: Freetown Sound (Domino) LP
Brother Ah: Sound Aware (Manufactured) LP
Brother Ah: Move Ever (Manufactured) LP
Brother Ah: Key to Nowhere (Manufactured) LP
Busta Rhymes: The Coming (Get on Down) LP
Anthony Child: Electronic Recordings from the Maui Jungle Vol 1 (Editions Mego) LP
Drive Like Jehu: Yank Crime (Hedhunter) LP
El-G: Mauve Zone (Nashazphone) LP
Genius/GZA: Liquid Swords (Get on Down) LP
Gorillaz: s/t (EMI) LP
Hole: Live Through This (Geffen) LP
Konstrukt/Akira Sakata: Live (Holidays) LP
Konstrukt: Live at Tarcento (Holidays) LP
Lumineers: Cleopatra (Dine Alone) LP
Majical Cloudz: Are You Alone? (Arts & Crafts) LP
Metallica: And Justice For All (Blackened) LP
National: Boxer (Beggars) LP
Pavement: Wowee Zowee (Matador) LP
Pavement: Terror Twilight (Matador) LP
Pixies: Surfer Rosa (4AD) LP
Porcupine Tree: Up The Downstair (Kscope) LP
Portishead: Dummy (Go Beat!) LP
Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam) LP
Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool (XL) LP
Queens of the Stone Age: Like Clockwork (Matador) LP
Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze (Music on Vinyl) LP
Velvet Underground: s/t (MGM) LP
Kamasi Washington: The Epic (Brainfeeder) 3LP
Various: Brand New Wayo (Razor & Comb) LP