Oi! Busy day here, buying used records, making other people unpack boxes, receiving records, making news letters, and so on and so forth. So anyway… some killer stuff in this week, break out your pocket books….
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…..picks of the week…..
Manuel Gottsching: E2-E4 (MG.ART) LP
In celebration of the 2016 35th anniversary of the December 12, 1981, recording of Manuel Göttsching’s legendary E2-E4, one of electronic music’s most influential recordings, Göttsching’s MG.ART label presents an official reissue, carefully overseen by the master himself. Includes six-page booklet with notes and pictures. “As the story is sometimes told, Göttsching stopped in the studio for a couple of hours in 1981 and invented techno. E2-E4 is the most compelling argument that techno came from Germany– more so than any single Kraftwerk album, anyway. The sleeve credits the former Ash Ra Tempel leader with ‘guitar and electronics’, but few could stretch that meager toolkit like Göttsching. Over a heavenly two-chord synth vamp and simple sequenced drum and bass, Göttsching played his guitar like a percussion instrument, creating music that defines the word ‘hypnotic’ over the sixty minutes … A key piece in the electronic music puzzle that’s been name-checked, reworked and expanded upon countless times.” –Mark Richardson, Pitchfork
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Kosmische
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Not Waving: Redacted (Ecstatic) LP
With the first vinyl edition of Not Waving’s absorbingly raw sophomore solo LP Redacted, Alessio Natalizia reminds fans of his nascent psychedelic side in light of his lucid, “schizo” deviations on the Animals album for Diagonal. While there’s a mutual sense of technoid momentum to both albums, Redacted is a far gauzier, free-form and sensual beast; one richly steeped in proto/post-club atmospheres and allowing his imagination to run away with itself. Conceptually, Redacted pursues the “classified” themes of his remote viewing-inspired Umwelt LP into even murkier departments, drawing subtle parallels between the cold war atmospheres that birthed original post punk, industrial and proto-techno, and the current pallor of socio-political unrest. Omitting the original tape’s expansive closer for the sake of a single LP cut, this vinyl version plays out like an alternative soundtrack to scenes in the overgrown, radioactive zones of Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), using an anachronistic palette of analog machinery to emphasize a sense of fluid, shimmering motion and out-of-place-and-timelessness that genuinely goes straight to the head with trippy effect. Swampy, slow techno horror themes vacillate with decayed pastoral panoramas and windows of synthetic optimism, both lush and disquietingly needling, using dissonance and sweeps of hazy noise to ultimately spell out a foreboding but dreamlike sort of electronic subterfuge and suspense that resonates with the nostalgic Stranger Things score as much as Leyland Kirby’s Intrigue & Stuff series. Redacted was originally issued in edition of 100 gold tapes in 2013. Newly remastered for vinyl by Matt Colton at Alchemy. RIYL: Pye Corner Audio, John Carpenter, Edward Artemiev. Edition of 500.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Techno
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Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani: Sunergy (RVNG Int.) LP
Sunergy brings together synthesists Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.’s intergenerational collaboration series. For this edition, a panorama of the Pacific Coast provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of a life-giving form vast and volatile with change. Fortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in the small coastal community of Bolinas, California. The two had become close friends, bonding over their experience as woman musicians and, more unusually, their shared passion for the Buchla synthesizer. The music of Sunergy embraces this kinship, with Ciani and Smith respectively performing on the Buchla 200 E and the Buchla Music Easel, two modern configurations of the innovative instrument developed in the ‘60s by Don Buchla. Sunergy was recorded in the Bolinas home where Ciani has lived for the last twenty-four years. Her living room overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a cliffside perch, creating an idyllic, inspired setting for music making. Setting up their synths side-by-side, Ciani and Smith took turns keeping time and freely improvising for the album sessions. As a complete piece, Sunergy is shaped by slow, pulsing forms and sinuous, melodic sequences that conjure both an oceanic world and the unlimited sound made possible by modular processing. For her part, Ciani has long been a Buchla voyager. Suzanne proselytized the live performance potential of Don’s synthesizer in the ‘60s and ‘70s, a document of which was uncovered in the improvised live recordings of Buchla Concerts 1975, recently released by Finders Keepers. After pioneering commercial sound design for Madison Avenue (including the ubiquitous Coca-Cola “Pop ‘n Pour” sound effect), Ciani was able to finance her debut album Seven Waves, a suite of original compositions orchestrated electronically and connected by Buchla-designed ocean sounds, and start her uniformly spirited label, Seventh Wave. Since its 1982 release, Seven Waves has become an important chapter of the ambient canon within which contemporary artists like Smith have developed their own synth syntax. Smith was born just a few years after the appearance of Seven Waves, growing up in Orcas Island, Washington. A place of profound natural beauty, the islands would inform Tides, her first instrumental collection from 2014. Smith composed Tides as an accompaniment for Yoga classes, ultimately freeing her from conventional songwriting into the exploratory, synth-based compositions demonstrated in ecstatic variety on 2016’s Ears. Despite the serene setting where Sunergy was realized, the album does not romanticize a complete oneness with nature. Smith and Ciani use their collaborative ground to reflect on the unstable forces at play across the Bolinas horizon. Sunergy takes stock of Bolinas in the 21st century, a once-thriving artist’s refuge now vulnerable to real estate pressure extending from affluent San Francisco, and more irreparably, the specter of climate change erasing its many waterfront habitats. A diametric dynamic is present in Sunergy; a somber meditation amidst the intense cultural and solar forces transforming the landscape, and a hopeful assertion of the surviving creative culture of Bolinas. Far from rehashing the gentle grace of the artists’ seminal works, Sunergy instead seeks to awaken and bear witness, employing the Buchla waveforms to mirror the infinite rhythms of the ocean and our essential relationship to it.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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…..new arrivals…..
3/4hadbeeneliminated: Speak to Me (Black Truffle) LP
Black Truffle present Speak To Me, the sixth full-length release from 3/4HadBeenEliminated, the Italian trio of Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti and Valerio Tricoli. Based on source material recorded in Bologna and Berlin over the course of several years, the album is made up of two side-long pieces meticulously constructed in post-production by Tricoli in his singularly dense and unpredictable style. Although their live performances have always been entirely improvised, in their recorded work the group focuses on using improvised recordings as source material for compositions built up through layering, editing and analog manipulation, extending the practices of Teo Macero, Faust and This Heat. Melancholic instrumental ruminations sit alongside cracked electronics, concrete sounds and Tricoli’s whispered vocals, drawn together into dense assemblages animated by gradual transformations and sudden jump cuts. Beginning from the abstractions of their self-titled debut release in 2004, the group embarked on a trajectory that saw them move toward near-song structures, Tricoli’s voice becoming a dominant element amid an increasingly dense and layered production style. On Speak To Me, however, the listener feels confronted by the ghost of music, sonic memories echoing across a psychedelic expanse. Evacuated of any clear structure, the music becomes a reverb-saturated morass, from which crystalline details momentarily emerge: shimmering echoed guitar, bowed double bass, tactile hand percussion, skittering electronics. Suffused with a darkly pensive atmosphere, Speak To Me is an elegant summation of the distinctive blend of electroacoustic techniques, instrumental improvisation and contemporary psychedelia pioneered by 3/4HadBeenEliminated over the last decade. LP design by Stephen O’Malley with striking artwork by Stefano Pilia. Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
File Under: Experimental, Ambient, Electronic
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Arashi – Sakata/Berthling/Nilssen-Love: Semikujira (Trost) LP
Arashi presents Semikujira. Arashi is: Akira Sakata – alto saxophone, clarinet, voice; Johan Berthling – double bass; Paal Nilssen-Love – drums & percussion. The Wire about Arashi, the trio’s first release: “there are moments on this album when the energy is so furiously intense it feels like it’s going to spin out of control and take someone’s eye out. Sakata delivers wry alto phrases, as though from the corner of his mouth, before digressing into urgent flights of fancy, and finally launching into screaming, red-faced declamation – fueled by Nilsen-Love’s boiling pulse-time drums and the low bounce of Berthling’s double bass.” Cover image – “Black Submarine” by Sagaki Keita. Photos by Micke Keysendal. Recorded at Atlantis Grammofon, Stockholm by Janne Hansson, on May 20th, 2015. Mixed at Oodion, Göteborg by Mikael Werliin in December of 2015.
File Under: Free Jazz
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Dorothy Ashby: Fantastic Jazz Harp of (Spellbound) LP
Spellbound Music present a reissue of Dorothy Ashby’s sixth album, The Fantastic Jazz Harp Of Dorothy Ashby, originally released in 1965. Ashby was a Detroit born jazz harpist who passed away in her early 50s in 1986. She left a rich legacy of music with The Fantastic Jazz Harp Of Dorothy Ashby being one of her milestones. The music is purely bright and swinging with a joyful mood. Dorothy Ashby is always there upfront while the brass section mostly fills the background with color. Typical for the ancient jazz, there are no vocals on this record but this only adds to the depth and intriguing atmosphere of the music. Ashby starts where Coltrane left the field of real song-oriented albums for his experimental efforts and she really pulls it off. The Fantastic Jazz Harp Of Dorothy Ashby is haunting but with a rather relaxed approach to this style. For the time it was released, this album was an utterly progressive effort and the pop sensibility of many tracks make it a great joy to spin. Jazz fans will dig it and open minded people who love the music of the ’60s will also develop a fondness for this beauty.
File Under: Jazz
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Blitzen Trapper: Live at Third Man (Third Man) LP
Under the stewardship of Sub Pop and Vagrant records, Oregon’s Blitzen Trapper is 8 studio albums deep into the a successful career as a modern folk-rock band, led by Eric Earley, dubbed by Paste as the ”Tom Petty of the Northwest.” Earley’s songs read like stories you could’ve sworn you’ve heard before, and his band’s straightforward and every-so-slightly anthemic landscapes make for nearly universal likability ? a real feat in these days of niche tastes and fragmented genres. Blitzen Trapper brought their (quite welcome!) Pacific Northwestern sensibilities, along with swampy and distinctly Floridian opener Lauris Vidal to whet our collective whistle, to the Blue Room Stage on March 16, 2016. The live record that resulted, was cut direct-to-acetate on Third Man’s 1955 Scully lathe.
File Under: Indie Rock
Thomas Brinkmann: A 1000 Keys (Editions Mego) LP
“How many can get a personal sound out of a fucking piano?!” – Lee Konitz. Thomas Brinkmann takes his seductive reductionism to the next level with A 1000 Keys, a harsh meditation on the expressive qualities of digital sound production. In translating the timbre of a grand piano into binary codes, thus rebuilding its corpus with “0 and 1s”, Brinkmann subverts the sensual qualities of this proto-romantic instrument in a sardonic way. Replacing the musician with a mathematically precise series of frenetic repetition and intriguingly dissonant difference, the result sounds at times like a violent ride through the brains of Schönberg or Webern, drained in amphetamines, at others like Feldman’s ephemeral sketches or Russolo’s futurist outburst. Brinkmann’s conceptual framework is resonating in the track titles. Using shortcuts of international airports, he refers to non-places that establish their own space-and-time continuum, while lacking individual identity and history. These functional scenarios are sterile passages for anonymous, objectified masses, at the same time there’s hardly a better place to grasp the very subjective character of time. A 1000 Keys is a fatal homage to minimalism and a consequent denial of virtuosity and the idea of creative genius. Paraphrasing the romantic idea of human perfection, Brinkmann found a way to create sonic algorithms of tenderness and brutality, establishing dramatic expressiveness in his constructivist analytics. The result is of radical beauty. Dedicated to Conlon Nancarrow.
File Under: Electronic, Minimal
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Clutch: Full Fathom Five (Weathermaker) LP
Compiled from four locations on the band’s 2007/2008 sold out headlining world tour (Boulder, Sayerville, Pittsburgh and Melbourne) these groove-laden live performances prove what the diehard fan base already knows; that Clutch have risen to the top of America’s live music pyramid. There’s plenty of classic Clutch riffage here including “Escape from the Prison Planet,” “Texan Book of the Dead,” “Elephant Riders,” and “Animal Farm.” Full Fathom Five – Clutch’s first ever release on their own label Weathermaker Music now available for the first time on double vinyl with gatefold packaging. Comes complete with several previously unreleased bonus tracks.
File Under: Rock, Blues Rock
Alvan Curran: Natural History (Black Truffle) LP
Black Truffle present the first-ever vinyl issue of Alvin Curran’s Natural History, originally released on cassette by Edition Giannozzo Berlin in 1983. A founding member of the radical electronic improvising group Musica Elettronica Viva, since the early 1970s Curran has developed an idiosyncratic body of solo work that occupies a unique position in the post-Cageian experimental tradition. Singularly undogmatic, Curran’s work takes the Cageian experience as the starting point for a radical openness to all forms of music and sound. Refusing to abstract music from its human functions, his work draws on existing musical genres, cutting-edge electronics and environmental recordings to craft compositions that mimic the hazy texture of everyday life, moving from the abstract to the referential, from the observational to the emotive, from the structured to the random. As he reflects in the liner notes written especially for this edition: “This infinite stream of sound became my life and my music all at once”. Curran’s other classic solo works of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden (1975) and Canti Illuminati (1982) are elaborate collages that combine keyboard and voice improvisation and composition with field-recorded environments. Natural History consists entirely of field recordings from Curran’s archive, arranged as a series of “still lifes”, sometimes layered, but without any additional processing. Sounds recorded over the course of nearly twenty years, at Curran’s home in Rome or while traveling: constructions sites, insects, children’s toys, a piano being tuned, foghorns, familiar to admirers of Curran masterful Maritime Rites (2004), lovemaking, a singing neighbor. It is, as Curran says, an attempt to “put the sound of the entire world on a cassette tape”. Heard against the backdrop of the increasing prevalence of field recordings in contemporary music over the last few years, Natural History is like a refreshing breeze, suffused with the joy of discovery. Gatefold sleeve with liner notes and photos by Alvin Curran and design by Stephen O’Malley. Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates.
File Under: Electronic, Experimental
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Miles Davis: Big Fun (Music on Vinyl) LP
Originally released in 1974, Big Fun presents music from three different phases of Miles Davis’s early-seventies “electric” period. Sides one and four (“Great Expectations” and “Lonely Fire”) were recorded three months after the Bitches Brew sessions and incorporate sitar, tambura, tabla, and other Indian instruments. “Ife” was recorded after the 1972 On the Corner sessions, and the framework is similar to tracks from that record. Recorded in March 1970, “Go Ahead John” is an outtake from Davis’s Jack Johnson sessions.
File Under: Jazz
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Dies Irae: First (Ohrwaschl) LP
Ohrwaschl Records present a reissue of Dies Irae’s First, originally released in 1971. German proto heavy metal and proto doom metal has always been more of an underground genre due to the fact that most bands only reached a regional level in every aspect. Dies Irae are certainly something of an exception to the rule when it comes to the quality. First is heavy and dark with open song structures that leave much room for experimentation. Despite the fact that the simmering fuzz guitar cuts through like a chainsaw, there are still many parts in each song showcasing a fondness for playful jazz-inspired passages where all musicians prove their skills and conjures a gloomy atmosphere. The musicians have a light-footed swing but in other cases, Dies Irae go utterly crazy in a psychedelic freak-out fashion. Trippy moments are abundant on First and come in between the hard-hitting, heavily-grinding doom outbursts. Nobody was even eager to call it doom yet but all the ingredients were there – Think of a jam session with Black Sabbath and Amon Düül II. This album is highly original and deserving of a place among the greatest krautrock albums of all times. The acid is audible and doing its work in a very skillful way. For fans of proto metal from the early ’70s, who dig music with a progressive edge and have a fondness for trippy psychedelic rock.
File Under: Prog, Psych
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El Perro Del Marr: Kokoro (Ging Ging) LP
Sweden’s El Perro Del Mar (née Sarah Assbring) returns with her sixth album KoKoro. Written and produced by El Perro Del Mar and Jacob Haage, the 10 original songs of KoKoro are her most ambitious and musically adventurous to date, yet no less emotionally direct, covering themes that speak to both big and small matters of the heart. With the state of the planet – musically, politically, environmentally – on her mind since the birth of her son, Assbring sees KoKoro as not only an album but also as an aesthetic and political movement of sorts. With soundscapes that echo of Thailand, Sumatra, India, Ethiopia, and China, the orchestration of KoKoro is unlike any of El Perro Del Mar’s previous releases, a direction only hinted briefly on the Pale Fire LP highlight “I Was A Boy.” It features the Chinese string instrument Guzheng, the Japanese Shakuhachi flute, various other Asian flutes, Arabic strings, Dulcimer, and rhythms influenced by Ethiopian music. The album was recorded with multi-instrumentalist Andreas Söderström, jazz bassist Johan Berthling, drummer Mattias Bergqvist, who has collaborated with First Aid Kit, and wind multi-instrumentalist Per “Ruskträsk” Johansson, who has collaborated with Robyn, José González, among many others. First single “Breadandbutter” is about finding a means to communicate and find solidarity among people, while other songs on KoKoro implore for self-reflection and self-improvement across friendships, relationships, and life at large in an effort to reach enlightenment. And capitalism’s arguably toxic effect on the human spirit is addressed wholeheartedly on the pleading “Ding Sum.”
File Under: Indie Pop
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Ahmed Fakroun: s/t (PMG) LP
PMG present an anthology of Ahmed Fakroun’s work. “Insanely popular across the Maghreb, name-checked in international spy novels and beloved of music adventurers like David Byrne, Libyan superstar Ahmed Fakroun is the most astounding raï-disco-electronica pioneer ever to be heard. His 1983 album, Mots D’Amour is regarded as a global fusion classic. This self-titled anthology of songs from the late ’70s is an altogether mellower affair. The grooves are slower and sweeter and Fakroun’s multi-instrumentalist chops on the saz, mandol and darbouka drum really come to the fore. The album includes tracks from two of Ahmed’s rarest and most sought-after 7 inches. ‘Nysan’ has an almost west coast vibe: think Ned Doheny via Benghazi. Balearic-minded collectors will love the haunting flute runs in ‘Awedny’, produced by Tommy Vance, and ‘Njoom Al Leyel’. There’s even a touch of lilting reggae on ‘Falah’ and ‘Yu Hussad.’ Ahmend Fakroun is the perfect late night, come-down album, especially after a hot and sweaty evening in a raï club, somewhere in North Africa.” — Peter Moore.
File Under: Disco, Funk, Rai
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Full Blast: Risc (Trost) LP
With all the projects Peter Brötzmann is currently working on, Full Blast — with the precise and dynamic Swiss rhythm section of Marino Pliakas and Michael Wertmüller — is the most consistent and the longest-running. Their fifth album finds the band in a studio again, with time and the desire to try something new. Seven compositions in the distinctive, strong Full Blast nature get an exciting electronic treatment by Michael Wertmüller (with electronics by Gerd Rische, recorded months before his death in October 2015) during and after the recording. For mixing the band decided to work with Gareth Jones (well-known for his work with Einstürzende Neubauten and Depeche Mode), whom they have used with Pliakas’s band Steamboat Switzerland before. Full Blast have created an album that in its nonconformity and richness in variety stands on his own in contemporary jazz. Peter Brötzmann: reeds; Marino Pliakas: e-bass; Michael Wertmüller: drums. Recorded live on March 11 and 12, 2015 at Garnison 7, Vienna. Mixed by Gareth Jones, London, November 2015. Mastered by Martin Siewert, December 2015. Produced by Konstantin Drobil and Michael Wertmüller. Cover art by Peter Brötzmann. Designed by Brötzmann and Klaus Untiet.
File Under: Jazz
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The Funkees: Now I’m A Man (PMG) LP
PMG present a reissue of The Funkees’s Now I’m A Man, originally released in 1976. Has there ever been a band as aptly named as The Funkees? Formed after the Biafran War to raise spirits in the east, they quickly conquered the dance floors of Lagos and in 1973 headed to London, playing at Ronnie Scott’s and tearing up the local scene. Now I’m A Man captures the band at the height of their London-era pomp. Africans were making soca, West Indians were playing Afro-funk and discolypso blasted from boom-boxes across West London. The Funkees soaked it all up and delivered it back – funkier, tighter and louder. Bookended by two Santana-esque jams, “I’m A Man” and “303”, The Funkees second album delivers slow burning Afro-beat (“Mimbo”), urgent jungle bongo chants (“Salam”) and straight-ahead floor-fillers (“Dance With Me”). Little wonder that legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, recorded two sessions with them. The Funkees soon disbanded after this album; Jake Sollo joined Osibisa, Sonny Akpabio and Harry Mosco pursued successful solo careers. Now I’m A Man shows The Funkees as they burned brightly as Nigeria’s most talented, inventive and funky band.
File Under: Afrobeat, Funk
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Osamu Kitajima: Benzaiten (PSI) LP
Psychedelic Sounds International present a reissue of Osamu Kitajima’s Benzaiten, originally released in 1976. Benzaiten is world music and ethno sounds with an obvious Japanese origin, meeting progressive rock and psych rock. The result is a captivating piece of melodic and deeply atmospheric music that paints pictures of life in ancient Japan. If Pink Floyd were Japanese, their music might have sounded like this album. The frequency of the arrangements on Benzaiten is reminiscent of what English prog bands created in the early to mid ’70s, just with a different ethnical approach. Benzaiten is even a more progressive effort than anything most British bands have ever managed to fabricate and is still utterly natural and vivid concerning the flow of the music. All participating musicians here are professionals and their performances are tight and still passionate. The sound is warm and vivid and the song structures are wide open and welcoming. Electronic elements in the percussion section add some oddity to the whole musical picture. The cool aspect of Benzaiten is the rocking guitar which keeps the whole album together. Must be the Japanese equivalent to German acts like Amon Düül II, Embryo and Guru Guru.
File Under: Psych, Japan
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Lorelle Meets the Obsolete: Balance (Sonic Cathedral) LP
Mexican duo return with their fourth album, ‘Balance’, recorded by the band at their home studio, before being mixed by Cooper Crain (Cave, Bitchin Bajas) at MINBAL in Chicago and mastered in Melbourne by Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring). The title track and opener blows away the layers of dusty psych from 2014’s ‘Chambers’, the duo’s previous album, to reveal a sparse and spare sound, embellished with new wave keyboards that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of the early Magazine albums; ‘The Sound Of All Things’ is a mini-epic, opening with a two-and-a-half-minute soundscape, before roaring into life; ‘La Distinción’ is a driving drone-rocker, not dissimilar to ‘What’s Holding You?’ but with the addition of a surprisingly soulful chorus. Lorelle Meets The Obsolete count Robert Smith, Mani and Sonic Boom among their fans, but the most enthusiastic is Henry Rollins. Here’s what he said about ‘Balance’: “It lives up to its name by achieving a balance between fuzz and clarity, nuance and throttle. The mix, which is incredible, utilises the brilliance of the com-ponent parts of each song, with a subtlety and dexterity that is not nearly as frequent in the albums that came before. It feels more like there was such an accumulation of captured dreams and their interpretation, that eventually it filled an album.”
File Under: Psych, Shoegaze
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Mars: Mars Archives 2 (Feeding Tube) LP
“The second amazing volume (of three), compiled by Mark Cunningham after culling every known live tape of Mars, documents the band in its first fully-matured form. Recorded at CBGB and Max’s in the early months of 1978, this captures the sound of Mars around the time their first single, ‘3E/11000 Volts,’ was released by the French Rebel label (a precursor of ZE). They’re still playing their early songs, and working out the material that would be on No New York (LR 102CD/LP). Two of the tracks (‘Cairo’ and ‘RTMT’) were never released in any form back in the day, and the whole album surges along like one of the weirdest rock rides anybody has ever imagined. There are still small tendrils of the more formal approach Mars took in their earliest days, but the function of the material is on its way to becoming utterly alien. Even though I saw the band around this time, the incredible strangeness of their approach is astonishing. Words fail me. No one else has ever created anything quite like the wall of sound they managed. On the second side, as an added bonus, the audience source tape is full of hooting and hollering by people like Lydia Lunch, Bradley Field, Kristian Hoffman, and various other reprobates with whom they were sharing rehearsal space at the time. Package looks great, too. Grainy, just the way it should be. Has an insert with brief notes by Mark, a couple of pics and handwritten lyrics that read better than I’d ever imagined them to be. Essential stuff.” — Byron Coley, 2016. Edition of 500.
File Under: Post-Punk, No Wave
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Miss Nelson & Bruce Haack: Dance Sing and Listen (Aurora Rising) LP
Aurora Rising present a reissue of Miss Nelson & Bruce Haack’s Dance Sing And Listen, originally released in 1963. This album is somewhat of a curiosity for it was actually conceived as an educational, open-minded children’s music. The sound is a mash up of story-telling for kids and simple, happy sing-along music mixed with loads of electronic effects making it an utterly spacey affair. This reissue makes sure this cult album can be enjoyed by people crazy for early ’60s electronic music. Let go of all spiritual chains and float away with the tape looped rhythms and all the hissing and buzzing and chirping upon which Esther Nelson, actually a children’s dance teacher, and Bruce Haack, a composer and pioneer of electronic music, recite poems, give dance instructions or play melodies on primitive synthesizers. Dance Sing And Listen is meant to fire the imagination of children and due to its musical quality and weird mood, it may do the same with adults. From this pioneering piece came the sound bands like Kraftwerk and Neu! would head for about ten years later. Enjoyable children’s music that’s far out enough to make souls travel.
File Under: Children’s Music, Experimental, Electronic
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Preoccupations: s/t (Flemish Eye) LP
When the four members of Preoccupations wrote and recorded their new record, they were in a state of near total instability. Years-long relationships ended; they left homes behind. Frontman Matt Flegel, guitarist Danny Christiansen, multi-instrumentalist Scott Munro and drummer Mike Wallace all moved to different cities and they resolved to change their band name, but hadn’t settled on a new one. And so where their previous album Viet Cong was built in some ways on the abstract cycles of creation and destruction, Preoccupations explores how that sometimes-suffocating, sometimes-revelatory trap affects our lives. Opener “Anxiety” articulates that tension: clattering sounds drift into focus, “Monotony” moves at a narcoleptic pace by Preoccupations’ standards, “Degraded” surprises, with something like a traditional structure and an almost pop-leaning melody to its chorus, and the 11-minute-long “Memory” is the album’s keystone, with an intimate narrative and a truly timeless post-punk center. All this adds up to Preoccupations: a singular, bracing collection that proves what’s punishing can also be soothing, everything can change without disrupting your compass. Your best year can be your worst year at the same time. Whatever sends you flying can also help you land.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Scientists: A Place Called Bad (Numero) LP
With a sound that was swampy, primal and modern-urban all at once – as much in the tradition of rock n’ roll and punk rock as it was a rejection of those things, the Scientists’ formula was as universal as it was specific to their own experience. The themes of getting wasted, driving around in hotted-up cars, being trapped in crap jobs, and paranoia were their subject matter. Machine throb bass and drums with jagged car-wreck guitars were their modus operandi. Fitting into no place or time they spurned all but the most rudimentary and elemental of rock structures to create a sound all their own. 2LP version boils the box down to 22 essentials, plus unpublished photographs, discography, and fold out Perth Punk family tree. “The Scientists proved to me that rock ‘n’ roll could be played by gentlemen in fine silk shirts half unbuttoned and still be dirty, cool and real.” – Thurston Moore “They wrote fantastic singles and looked like they just crawled out of the ooze. What more could you ask for?” – Warren Ellis “The Scientists turned my head around and made a man out of me! They grew hair on my palms and made my socks stink!” – Jon Spencer
File Under: Post Punk
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Sam Shalabi/Alan Bishop: Mother of All Sinners (Unrock) LP
Unrock’s Saraswati Series is mostly string orientated, zigzagging between the lines where underground and high-art performance overlap. Out jumps the first part of their actively anti-Western sub-series: Mother Of All Sinners, a part of the “Puppet on a String” twin albums. Osama Shalabi, a born Egyptian (best known for his work with Shalabi Effect & Land Of Kush), is an expert playing the oud. He’s a traveler between the Eastern and Western worlds and long-time contributor to the Montreal scene. Sam – who spent the last few years home in Cairo – breathes his own sense of space and time through the epic “Tamara”, an 18 minute long melodic, delightful improvisation. The other story, “Faith Of Our Fathers”, starts in Agouza, Cairo, where Sam Shalabi and Alan Bishop spent some time jamming. They’d run free, lose form, find intensity, and wound up creating a contemporary version of oriental psychedelic free form. A mind-blowing, wild, never mellow Cairo night, now documented here. It’s getting intense: A north-African sand storm. Mother Of All Sinners will be released as a one-time limited run pressing on 140 gram vinyl. It has an extra heavy deluxe cover and a solid printed inlay.
File Under: Experimental, Folk, Improv
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet: Dim the Lights, Chill the Ham
Sport Fishin’
Savvy Show Stoppers
(Yep Roc) LP
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet is the seminal Canadian instrumental combo formed in Toronto, in 1984. They released three albums before disbanding in 1996, reconstituting once again in 2013. Yep Roc Records is proud to be re-releasing all three original studio albums digitally and on CD, vinyl in deluxe gatefold sleeves, with expanded artwork, liner notes by Bon Von Wheelie, Bry Webb and Scott McCaughey and contextual essays by band associates. Savvy Show Stoppers: Savvy Show Stoppers, the band’s debut full-length, contains “Having an Average Weekend,” which was used as the theme song to the sketch comedy TV show, The Kids in the Hall. Dim the Lights, Chill the Ham: Dim the Lights, Chill the Ham is their second album. Sport Fishin: The Lure of the Bait, The Luck of the Hook: Sport Fishin: The Lure of the Bait, The Luck of the Hook, Is the third full-length release from Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet.
File Under: Experimental, Folk, Improv
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Shango Dance Band: s/t (Comb & Razor) LP+7″
“In the early years of Fela Kuti’s career, well before he would define the genre of Afro-beat, and leave an indelible mark on the musical landscape, he was a struggling trumpet player, seeking to redefine the sound of his current group, the art-jazz ensemble Fela Ransome-Kuti Quintet. As he moved his group towards the then-popular genre of highlife in 1963, he lost his bassist in the move towards commercial success, but gained the company of Ojo Okeji, who had a sterling reputation both as a bassist and percussionist in groups like Lagos Cool Cats, Rex Williams’ Nigerian Artistes, and Western Toppers Highlife Band, a favorite of Kuti’s. Okeji impressed Kuti with his deft jazziness on the bass, so he was in on the spot, and the Fela Ransome-Kuti Quintet became Koola Lobitos. It was Okeji that introduced Kuti to the famed percussionist Tony Allen, (Who would subsequently join Kuti into his greatest years as an artist) as well as conguero Abayomi ‘Easy’ Adio. During his time in Koola Lobitos, Okeji not only contributed deeply melodic, and adeptly rhythmic baselines, but brought his own influence from emerging US soul artists like James Brown & The Famous Flames and Wilson Pickett, heavily pushing Koola Lobitos towards a more soulful direction. This push was often resisted by Kuti, who frequently clashed with Okeji. 1968 proved to be a turning point for the group, as the Nigerian Civil War broke out, and many starving musicians turned to the military for work. Okeji and Adio would leave for the army, while Kuti and Allen kept Koola Lobitos going, where it evolved through different names and iterations and grew into the worldwide Afro-beat force that made Kuti an icon during the ’70s and ’80s. But as Kuti and Allen rose to global recognition, Okeji and Adio would form a new band within the ranks of the 6th Infantry Brigade of the Nigerian Army. Their emblazoned blue jackets earned them the nickname ‘The Blues’, but Okeji preferred the name ‘Shango’ after the Yoruba thunder god. Shango took the fundamentals of Kuti’s famous Afro-beat and brought new layers of guitar and horn arrangements, while often invoking supernatural aesthetics, and maintaining a love for the US soul artists that influenced Okeji so much. Because Shango was an army band however, their records were not readily available to anyone outside of the military so their music, including their eponymous 1974 LP, remained relatively unknown even amongst the people of Nigeria. Decades later Comb & Razor is thrilled to present this long-lost Nigerian gem for the first time to a world-wide audience.”
File Under: Afrobeat
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Sahib Shihab: Sahib’s Jazz Party (Skokiaan) LP
Skokiaan present a reissue of Sahib Shihab’s Sahib’s Jazz Party, originally released in 1964. In a time before jazz music went free and avant garde, there were a couple of inspired souls who put an emphasis on extended jams and improvised, yet melodic parts based on a rather repetitive rhythm background. The result in turning away from the rather artistic and complicated bebop was the modal jazz that came up in the second half of the 1950s, lasting as the leading style until the mid to late ’60s. Sahib Shihab can be seen as one of the protagonists of modal jazz despite being more of an underground star in the scene and being more popular in Europe than in the USA, from where he originates. He often worked as a member of an ensemble but had a couple of albums out as a bandleader. Sahib’s Jazz Party is his third album as a bandleader. Recorded live in its entirety Sahib’s Jazz Party features a few highly entertaining announcements by the master himself leaving the impression that Sahib was a bit far out that day. The performance is beautiful and passionate. He plays flute and saxophone backed up by a Danish jazz orchestra even with an electric guitar, in clean mode of course. Especially in the third part of the “Conversation” piece the dialogues between saxophone and trumpet are amazing while in “Charade” Shihab uses his flute to conjure a mind-relaxing atmosphere. The rhythms are all quite hot and whipping. The drummers must be some kind of madmen. Yes, there are two drummers indicated for the “Conversation” long track and the ever pulsating and vibrating rhythm patterns will prove that right. Bass and guitar rather back up everything and fill the gaps with simple notes which add just enough to leave the whole picture feeling full and round. Sahib’s Jazz Party holds the same level as the most appreciated works of Miles Davis and John Coltrane during their modal jazz stint. All-in-all, the whole band is steaming and so full of passion, any listener will be electrified without fail.
File Under: Jazz
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Sleep: Sleep’s Holy Mountain (Earache) LP
“Setting heavy metal’s evolutionary clock back to the stone-age days of Saint Vitus with their debut Volume One was seemingly not enough for San Jose’s Sleep, who decided to time travel all the way back to the pre-historic days of earliest Black Sabbath with their second album, 1993’s Sleep’s Holy Mountain. Indeed, while Kyuss’ Blues for the Red Sun and Monster Magnet’s Spine of God are more frequently cited as the most influential and important albums in launching the American stoner/doom metal scene, not even these landmark releases compare to Holy Mountain for sheer devotion to unadulterated doom and copious weed consumption. In fact, as monolithic opener “Dragonaut” descends into a bass solo at its conclusion, one would be forgiven for expecting the band to segue straight into “N.I.B.” — such is their similarity to classic Sabbath. Instead, they grind into “The Druid,” which despite a quick nod to the Sabs’ “Electric Funeral,” actually begins to establish Sleep’s personality, as riff upon massive riff in the form of songs like “Evil Gypsy/Solomon’s Theme” and the groove-heavy “Aquarian” flow from the speakers like molten lava. In an age of machine-gun double-bass drums, Sleep’s most startling quality had to be their seemingly endless patience. As they slowly embark upon the mammoth power chords of the title track and “From Beyond,” they also prolong the buildup of tension before delivering a final release of cathartic proportions. Besides greatly inspiring next generation doomsters like Electric Wizard, such unwavering dedication to weed would also set the stage for their controversial and unfortunate swan song Jerusalem — featuring a single, mind-bending 52-minute track.” – AllMusic.
File Under: Metal
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Tomorrow the Rain Will Fall Upwards: Wreck His Days (Blackest Ever Black) LP
Wreck His Days is dubbed-out cosmic pastorals and politically exasperated techno-exotica from Blackest Ever Black’s most secretive and shape-shifting project, Tomorrow The Rain Will Fall Upwards. Guest contributors include Conrad and Jonnine Standish of HTRK, Genevieve McGuckin (These Immortal Souls), and Lucas Santanna. The ghosts of Les Baxter, Rowland S. Howard and Nina Simone are also in attendance. But whoever is pulling the strings remains hidden. Structurally Wreck His Days recalls the grand collective statements of This Mortal Coil or Massive Attack, but musically its dreamlike overtures have more in common with Deux Filles, Global Communication, Arthur Russell or Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It roams far and wide: from near-Balearic piano loops of the title track, to the Audrey Horne-worthy death-jazz of “Ghost From The Coast” and the hulking, bass-heavy soundsystem weapon “Reverberasia”. The swelling, uplifting astral psychedelia of “…And I Tried So Hard”, while “I Beat As I Sleep As I Dream” reprises the bleak existential synth drift of T.T.R.W.F.U.’s extraordinary 2014 10″, How Great A Fame Has Departed. A deep-seated socialist impulse drives the whole thing.
File Under: Industrial, Ambient
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Touche Amore: Stage Four (Epitaph) LP
Touche Amore, is a Los Angeles based punk band whose earnest and artful approach to song writing, along with relentless touring, fueled their rise to prominence in the hardcore community. In 2013 Touche Amore crossed into new territory with their beloved release, Is Survived By. The band had reached a high point in notoriety when frontman Jeremy Bolm received news that his mother had been diagnosed with Stage Four cancer. With the band’s support, Bolm wanted to go on hiatus to care for his ailing mother. However, as his biggest supporter, she encouraged him to continue on living his dream. So he returned to the road with bandmates- guitarists Nick Steinhardt and Clayton Stevens, bassist Tyler Kirby, and drummer Elliot Babin. In October of 2014 while Touche Amore was headlining Fest in Gainesville, FL, the final stop on their tour, Bolm received a call that his mother passed. He went home the next day. Now from a band both living its dream and marred by loss comes their new album Stage Four. Triumphant in sound and cathartic in delivery, Stage Four is a powerfully creative leap for Touche Amore. The first single is the catchy “Palm Dreams,” and it’s instantly clear from Bolm’s vocals that Touche Amore is breaking new ground: the career screamer is actually singing, in a quite capable sing-speak harmony. The final track, the lush, jangly “Skyscraper,” featuring haunting guest vocals from Julien Baker, ends the album with an atmospheric departure, both sonically and in spirit.
File Under: Punk
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Vatican Shadow: Media in the Service of Terror (Hospital) LP
Dominick Fernow laces up his Vatican Shadow boots for the project’s first set of drills since 2014 and one of its finest ever transmissions, trampling in the wake of his fierce new Prurient record, Unknown Rains (2016), for Hospital Productions. Reflecting on a world much unchanged, even intensified since his last dispatch, Media In The Service Of Terror works classic Vatican Shadow signatures, measured with increased momentum and propulsive energy, divided into seven parts and imbued with that dramatic melodic arrangements that works beyond the club. Stepping farther away from the floor, he’s in scowling, contemplative form with “Ziad Jarrah Studied Mathematics” and at his best when working between spheres, as with the industrial reggaeton roil of “Take Vows” in both its versions, and particularly the pensile atmosphere of “Interrogation Mosaic”. One of the best Vatican Shadow drops, bar none. Originally released as a limited cassette in June of 2016, this is Media In The Service Of Terror’s first vinyl edition. Features new artwork. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering.
File Under: Electronic, Techno, Industrial
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Muddy Waters: Folk Singer (Spellbound) LP
Spellbound Music present a reissue of Muddy Waters’s Folk Singer, originally released in 1964. Muddy Waters, real name McKinley Morganfield, is cited as the father of modern Chicago blues, having an influence on folk, jazz, blues, rock’n’roll and even heavy rock, he was a composer of quite a few popular standards. Folk Singer is his forth long player from 1964 and his first and only all acoustic affair. Backed by some big names from the blues community such as Willie Dixon on standing bass and a young Buddy Guy on second acoustic guitar, Waters created an album that was reduced to the bare bones. Every note played on these wooden guitars is so meaningful and vibrant. Even an acoustic version of a song like “Good Morning Little School Girl” rocks the hell out of the speakers. It is a remake of a Sonny Boy Williamson composition and develops from the strongly pronounced guitar play between Mr. Waters and Buddy Guy. His voice comes very much upfront but since he is the commander and preacher man, the storyteller and wizard, this comes as another advantage of this record. There is much room in the sound, so much space in between the instruments where passion and magic flow. The listener can hear how much of an obsession Waters and Guy have for their instruments, while Dixon pulls out the most laid-back bass lines possible, as not to disturb the master and his apprentice in firing smoking hot lead work from their fretboards. Folk Singer is indeed an album that has much more to say than most over amplified rock efforts which came later. Just listen and be enchanted.
File Under: Folk, Blues
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Various: Afterschool Special (Numero) LP
The formula was simple: marry bubblegum and soul to the absolute sincerity of an enthusiastic child, cross your fingers and pray for airplay. But while the youthful sums of that formula may have grown up and walked away from their illusions of stardom, their permanent records remain. By 1973, Michael, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Jackie were as hip as kids could get – household names, with lunchboxes, coloring books, a Saturday morning cartoon, and an Alpha-Bits cereal commercial pushing the J5 brand onto any kid with television reception. Their impressive run of four consecutive #1 singles playing on both pop and R&B stations cemented their appeal to both whites and blacks, prompting MGM to launch the Osmonds as the safer (read: white) alternative. And parents? Well Michael had that wrapped up with his impossible-not-to-love mini-James Brown thing. Even their song selection straddled both sides, with “Zip A Dee Do Dah” and “ABC” for kids, and contemporary standards “Standing In The Shadows Of Love” and “My Cherie Amour” for the older crowd. This extreme marketing and merchandising juggernaut created the kid soul explosion. A decade removed from Numero’s acclaimed Home Schooled compilation comes a fresh batch of talent show titans. With enterprising parents, neighbors, and teachers turning play dates into recording dates, groups like Magical Connection, Little Man and the Inquires, and Five Ounces of Soul emulated the Jacksons, who’d made grade-school stardom appear easy as ABC. Afterschool Special: The 123s Of Kid Soul contains 19 tiny tunes ranging from bilingual D.A.R.E. anthem, to James Brown bio, to young love and life beyond the playground.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Various: Beyond Addis 2 (Trikont) LP
Double-LP version. Includes download code. Trikont presents the second volume of the compilation series Beyond Addis, celebrating the music of Ethiopia as played by contemporary bands from all around the globe. Compiled by JJ Whitefield aka Jan Weissenfeldt, the mastermind behind the bands Poets Of Rhythm, Karl Hector & The Malcouns and the Whitefield Brothers. Features: Karl Hector & The Malcouns, The Daktaris, The Sorcerers, Debre Damo Dining Orchestra, Jungle By Night, Onom Agemo & The Disco Jumpers, Tezeta Band, Akalé Wubé/Manu Dibango, Transgressors, Les Frères Smith, Whitefield Brothers, Cosmic Analog Ensemble and Anbessa Orchestra.
File Under: Jazz, Funk, African
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Various: Katanga! 1 & 2 (Captain Trip) LP
Katanga! Ahbe Casabe: Exotic Blues & Rhythm Vol. 1 & 2 combines the first two volumes from the Exotic Blues & Rhythm compilation series named Katanga! (2013) and Ahbe Casabe! (2013) with two additional bonus tracks (CD only). This album is a colorful garden of delights consisting of R’n’B and rock’n’roll based songs from the 1940s to the early 1960s that all have this slightly exotic, dark and mystical feeling from the melody structures and instrumentation. Eddie Cole & Three Peppers with their hypnotizing groover “Police” for example present a Caribbean mento with a mambo and rhythm’n’blues feel. This piece finds its roots in the late 1940s and demonstrates how far even the predecessors of rock music already got in their development. It is only one out of 26 rare gems. The collection starts with the recognizable, gloomy bluesy tune named “Green Onions” played the Claus Ogermann Orchestra. The Ahbe Casabe portion is where the strange and quirky charm of exotica music captures souls even more. The title track for example is a song from the late ’50s written by proto hippie Ehden Ahbez and combines a Latin groove with a vocal melody speaking of dark backstreets in oriental cities. The backing vocal effects here are more than strange somewhere between a deep gnarling and chipmunk-style squeaking while the lead vocals on the other hand are soulful and striking as expected. Kip Tyler’s “Shadow Street” leaves the listener somewhere in between the jungle and a haunted oriental café in a town near the desert plains of Egypt. Next to master Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm with his exotic surf instrumental “Katanga” from the first part, good old rock’n’roll pioneer Bill Haley And His Comets should be the most famous contributor to this musical treasure chest. A nice little oddity bonus track is “The Riddle Of The Papawhos” by Danny Staton, based on old spirituals and gospels with a 1950s pop music base. The other bonus track by Elena Madera named “Pu-Chun-Ga”, is another outstanding mad Latin tune with wild female vocals. Also features: Artie Barsamin & Orchestra, Prince Conley, Joe Valino, Chance Halladay, The Chiefs, Jimmy Rushing, Sonny Til And The Orioles, Emmet Davis, Classie Ballou, Jack La Forge, Marti Barris, Steve Arlen, Bruce Cloud, Dickie Thompson, Rene Hall And His Band, Machito And His Orchestra, Mamie Perry, Lord Kitchener and Jamie Coe.
File Under: Exotica, Blues
Various: Taking It To Heart (Treeline) LP
Calgary’s newest record label, Treeline Recordings, is pleased to announce the release of its first album, Taking it to Heart, Volume 1, featuring new or unreleased music from some of Canada’s best known artists and also emerging acts from across the country. 100% of net proceeds from the sale of the album, both on vinyl and digitally, will be donated to the Heart & Stroke Foundation. Reading like an amazing playlist put together by your best friend, Taking it to Heart, Volume One includes Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew’s aptly named instrumental, “Alberta”, while Perfect Pussy’s Meredith Graves shows up on an alternate version of Operators’ “Shape Of Things To Come”, Calgary weirdo Chad VanGaalen offers up “Delicious Plants”, while the hazy live version of The Besnard Lakes’ “46 Satires” closes out the thirteen song benefit compilation. Other artists on the compilation include Halifax slacker-rockers Nap Eyes, Cuff The Duke’s Wayne Petti, Winnipeg’s reunited Duotang with its first release in over a decade, along with contributions from Woodpigeon, We Are Wolves, Melted Mirror, SAVK, Pre Nup and a rare track from Noah’s Arkweld (aka Noah Mintz, formerly of hHead). Noah Mintz also mastered the album at Lacquer Channel Mastering (Toronto, Ontario). Taking It To Heart, Volume One will be sold exclusively on Bandcamp. The album will be released on 180-gram 12” coloured vinyl (blood red with black marbling), in a limited edition of 500 copies. Each 12″ will be hand-numbered and will include a code for download. The album can also be purchased digitally. Understanding the devastating impact heart disease or strokes can have on families, the label was launched as a way to raise money for the Heart & Stroke Foundation and shine a spotlight on some amazing music being created across the country.
File Under: Indie Rock
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…..Restocks…..
African Head Charge: My Life in a Hole in the Ground (On-U Sound) LP
Amanaz: Africa (Now Again) LP
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino) LP
Anonymous: Inside the Shadow (Macchu Picchu) LP
Beach Boys: Pet Sounds (Capitol) LP
Beach House: Depression Cherry (Sub Pop) LP
Black Mountain: In The Future (Jagjaguwar) LP
Black Mountain: s/t (Jagjaguwar) LP
Blood Orange: Cupid Deluxe (Domino) LP
Boards of Canada: Music Has The Right to Children (Warp) LP
Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming (Daptone) LP
Charles Bradley: Victim of Love (Daptone) LP
Can: Ege Bamyasi (Mute) LP
Can: Soundtracks (Mute) LP
Case/Lang/Veirs: s/t (Anti) LP
Anthony Child: Electronic Recordings from Maui Vol 1 (Editions Mego) LP
Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (Manifesto) LP
Lana Del Rey: Honeymoon (Interescope) LP
Feist: Reminder (Arts & Crafts) LP
Fever Ray: s/t (Mute) LP
Four Tet: Rounds (Domino) LP
Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (Westbound) LP
Grimes: Art Angels (Crystal Math) LP
Grimes: Geidi Primes (Arbutus) LP
Grimes: Visions (Arbutus) LP
Grizzly Bear: Yellow House (Warp) LP
P.J. Harvey: Let England Shake (Island) LP
P.J. Harvey: To Bring You My Love (Island) LP
Daniel Johnston: Yip Jump Music (Eye) LP
July Talk: Touch (Sleepless) LP
Kacy & Clayton: Strange Country (Big White Cloud) LP
Knife: Shaking the Habitual (Mute) LP
Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City (Aftermath) LP
LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver (DFA) LP
Led Zeppelin: House of the Holy (Warner) LP
Mayhem: Deathcrush (Back on Black) LP
Mos Def/Talib Kweli: Black Star (Rawkus) LP
Nine Inch Nails: Downward Spiral (Interscope) LP
Not Waving: Voices (Not Waving) LP
Angel Olsen: My Woman (Jagjaguwar) LP
William Onyeabor: Who Is… (Luaka Bop) LP
Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance (Fire) LP
Public Enemy: It Takes a Nation of Millions (Def Jam) LP
Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicans (Nonesuch) LP
Sinoia Caves: Beyond The Black Rainbow (Jagjaguwar) LP
Tame Impala: Currents (Modular) LP
Tragically Hip: Fully Completely (MCA) LP
Twenty One Pilots: Blurryface (Ace Fu) LP
Piero Umiliani: Genti E Paesi (Black Sweat) LP
Chad Van Gaalen: Infiniheart (Sub Pop) LP
War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream (Jagjaguwar) LP
Kamasi Washington: The Epic (Brainfeeder) LP
Kanye West: 808s And Heartbreak (Def Jam) LP
Kanye West: College Dropout (Def Jam) LP
Kanye West: Late Registraion (Def Jam) LP
Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (Zappa) LP
Zomby: Where Were U In 92? (Cult) LP
Various: Library of Sound: Action Beat & Psycho Grooves (Semi Automatic) LP