Apparently any minute the skies will open and start throwing baseball sized hail, but for now, it’s just hot as hell out, and this week, there’s a lot of head hitting the bins as well! As always, some KILLER reissues, but also some big new releases, namely DAMN… how long have you been waiting for that one? Don’t sleep, who knows when we’ll see more…
…..picks of the week…..
Roberto Musci: The Loa of Music (Soave) LP
In tomorrow… Soave present the first vinyl reissue of Roberto Musci’s The Loa Of Music, originally released in 1984. The Loa Of Music is the debut recording project of Milanese composer and musician Roberto Musci, inspired by voodoo religion, Vever (the magical voodoo paintings), and Loas, the dark and magic spirits. The deep charm of non-western music led Musci to travel for many years across Africa, India, and Asia, studying rhythms, scales, performance, and interpretation of the most varied traditional and indigenous music. He made many field recordings and collected ethnic instruments that would then be combined with synthesizers and electronics in The Loa Of Music. Recorded in 1983, the project originally had 80 minutes of music, but only half was released on the original LP. For the first time, Soave have pressed the complete recording sessions from the original tapes of this phenomenally ambitious masterpiece that entirely refuses the well-trod path — distilling a remarkable range of sonic reference and reality. A work of field recording, musique concrète, electronics, synthesis, and instrumentation, pulling from countless musics from across the globe, the result is nothing short of brilliant and stunningly beautiful. A near perfect work — an egoless gesture, which rather than attempting to find consensus, offers every voice equity and cohabitation — harnessing the history music, with all of its cultural diversity, as a vision for a more ideal future. Geographies and their sounds intertwine, while Musci’s interventions and instrumentation thread a path. Ambiences ripple, sounds and voices converse in a vision of unity that may only exist within sonic realms. Unquestionably seminal, and one of the most important works to emerge from Italy in the last 50 years. Never before issued on vinyl since its original release, this will surely not to be around for long.
File Under: Ambient, Field Recording, Ethnographic
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Kenji Kawai: Ghost in the Shell OST (WRWTFWW) LP+7″
In tomorrow… Limited edition LP version. Regular LP in soon. Includes 7″ and extensive 24-page liner notes; Japanese obi; Sleeve with silver gilt printing. We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records present the first ever official vinyl pressing of the soundtrack for Mamoru Oshii’s critically acclaimed and all around legendary science fiction anime film Ghost In The Shell (1995), adapted from Masamune Shirow’s groundbreaking manga series of the same name. The haunting score is composed by Kenji Kawai, one of Japan’s most celebrated soundtrack composers alongside Joe Hisaishi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose work includes Hideo Nakata’s Ring (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), Death Note (2006), Hong Kong films Seven Swords by Tsui Hark (2005) and Ip Man by Wilson Yip (2008), and countless others. Kawai’s compositions see ancient harmonies and percussions uncannily mesh with synthesized sounds of the modern world to convey a sumptuous balance between folklore tradition and futuristic outlook. For its iconic main theme “Making Of Cyborg”, Kawai had a choir chant a wedding song in ancient Japanese following Bulgarian folk harmonies, setting the standard for a timeless and unparalleled soundtrack that admirably echoes the film’s musings on the nature of humanity in a technologically advanced world. Ghost In The Shell is widely considered one of the best anime films of all time and its influence has been felt in the work of numerous movie directors, including James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), the Wachowskis’s The Matrix (1999), and Steven Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001). For fans of anime, manga, movie soundtracks, science fiction, ambient, folklore, Japan, Akira (1988), artificial intelligence, Midori Takada. Cut from the original master reels at Emil Berliner Studios (formerly the in-house recording department of renowned classical record label Deutsche Grammophon), the album comes in two versions: a standard LP and a limited collector’s edition which comes housed in a sleeve with silver gilt printing and includes the LP, a bonus 7″, Japanese obi, and extensive 24-page liner notes.
File Under: OST, Anime, Japanese
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…..new arrivals…..
Shinichi Atobe: From the Heart, It’s a Start, A Work of Art (Demdike Stare) LP
In tomorrow… From The Heart, It’s A Start, A Work Of Art has its origins in early 2000, before Chain Reaction released the legendary Ship-Scope 12″. Three of the tracks here are taken from an acetate cut at Dubplates & Mastering at that time, but which wouldn’t see the light of day until now, including another batch of tracks taken from original masters. Only five copies of that acetate were ever made, so this is the first time any of these tracks are available for public consumption, and they rank among the finest and most distinctive in either the Chain Reaction or Shinichi Atobe’s vaults. The material is effectively some of the Japanese producer’s earliest work, showcasing the sort of tender, feminine pressure that would bubble up on the Ship-Scope EP and later be revealed in his new productions, Butterfly Effect and World yet, for many reasons, they would lay sunk in his archive for the next 17 years. The tracks taken from that acetate are labeled “First Plate 1-3” and really are quite remarkable, having taken on so much character and added weight over the years that the incidental crackle of surface noise imbues proceedings with an added dimension that’s hard to fathom. It basically sounds like a lost transmission making its way from Paul-Lincke-Ufer at the turn of the millennium to a new, completely changed world all these years later. The patina of crackle lends a mist-on-bare skin feeling akin to summer garden parties at Berghain in the stepping “First Plate 1”, and gives a foggier sort of depth perception to the hydraulic, Maurizian heft of “First Plate 2”, but it’s the submerged euphoria of “First Plate 3” that hits the hardest; a heady, bittersweet reminder of days gone by. The other four tracks are crisply transferred from master tapes, relinquishing a sublime, impossible to categorize house variant that recalls everything from DJ Sprinkles to Ron Trent, yet with that weird, timeless production tick that by now has become something of a signature for this most distinctive and hard to categorize producer. Buoyant dub house and techno with lush, gaseous synths and keys. Remastered by Matt Colton from original tapes and worn actetates — grit included; Limited copies.
File Under: Electronic, Techno, Chain Reaction
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Angelo Baroncini & Bruno Battisti D’Amario: Music For Movement (Sonor Music) LP
In tomorrow… Sonor Music Editions present a reissue Angelo Baroncini and Bruno Battisti D’amario’s Music For Movement, originally released in 1969. Another terrific jam and a very obscure Italian library record, originally released on Roman Record Company label, the label responsible for Droga (1972), Traffico (1972), and the Viaggio Attraverso I Problemi Dell’Uomo series. The music is signed by the great guitar players and composers Angelo Baroncini and Bruno Battisti D’Amario, D’Amario being the unmissable guitar man of maestro Ennio Morricone. Crazy early fuzz beats with fast western swings, experimental rock distractions, rhythmic movements, with totally insane acid guitar and sitar riffs and a huge underground psychedelic mood. A truly inspired and deep session recorded for some impossible TV synchronization purpose. Holy grail alert. Original sleazy stereo recording restored sound. Edition of 500.
File Under: Library, Psych
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Braen & Raskovich: Drammatico (Sonor Music) LP
In tomorrow… Sonor Music Editions present a reissue Drammatico, originally released in the early ’70s. An absolute Italian library holy grail and maybe the most desired item of the genre, originally released on Panda Records. This totally insane library album conceived by maestro Alessandro Alessandroni and Giuliano Sorgini, under their pseudonyms Braen and Raskovich respectively, is surely their highest point of collaboration. This is a concept album where the music is just out-of-this-world and way ahead of its time, nothing is quite comparable. War-themed and dramatic music, ranging from the most evil electronics to dark fuzz distortions and huge hip hop beats, all driven by a mental, psychedelic madness. A record coming from hell — an unbelievable session remastered from the original master tapes. Enjoy the trip! Remastered from the original Panda Records master tape; Exclusive liner notes by Marsellus Wallace; Revised by Alfonso Carrillo (RendezVous, LA); Edition of 500.
File Under: Library, Psych
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Cosmic Jokers: Galactic Supermarket (Victory) LP
In tomorrow… Victory present a reissue of The Cosmic Jokers’ Galactic Supermarket, originally released on Komische Musik in 1974. Julian Cope’s review of the album on Head Heritage: “Starting with a heavy piano-drums groove like John Cale and Terry Riley’s ‘The Protégé’ from their classic LP Church Of Anthrax, The Cosmic Jokers return to their trip with an un-cosmic dub beginning, melodicas and guitars spinning off all over the place. Gille Letmann says a couple of words before the breakdown into Clangerland, a place where goofy synthesizers call to each other over exquisite mellotrons and tinkling spacey grand piano. Again, it’s just two huge tracks — this time the ever shifting ‘Kinder Des Als’ and the title track ‘Galactic Supermarket’. The female voices take a while to assimilate after the austerity of the first Cosmic Jokers LP, and the opening track wanders around for a while before ascending to its righteous groove. The women scream ‘Schnell Schnell!’ and the helicopter drums of Harald Grosskopf propel us once more into a hectic frantic major-chord trance out. It’s the sheer unbalance that makes this record such a delight. At times, Klaus Schulze’s synthesizer is so loud that it swamps everything in its path. The title track ‘Galactic Supermarket’ begins like one of Van Der Graaf Generator’s greatest and most drawn out riffs. A slow 6/4 bass licks over ominous Pawn Hearts style shifting chords. Again, the piece is slow to begin, as though they are searching for harmony but each musician is confused and solitary. Manuel Göttsching freaks out in a fury of wah-guitar madness, forcing the others awake, but this really is a down-in-the-mouth scene and the whole Trip descends further and further until… an inevitable slow burning groove gets itself together and the scene whips itself up into a Shake Appeal Flip Out. The LP takes a little longer to get into than The Cosmic Jokers, but give it time and it’s in your head forever. Those piercingly loud Klaus Schulze synthesizers which sound so bizarre the first time… You’ll be waking up with them in your head, whistling them in the street, people will think you’ve lost your fucking mind. Right On.”
File Under: Krautrock, Kosmiche, Psych
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Dead Mauriacs: Beaute Des Mirages (Discrepant) LP
In tomorrow… Mysterious French outfit The Dead Mauriacs return to Discrepant in full exotic wind force after their sell-out cassette, Cocktails Pour La Fin Des Temps (2016). Beauté Des Mirages picks up on the same themes of frantic, abstract exotica and concrete cocktails the French act is known for. Running for two, long 18-minute sides full of fake(?) vintage atmospheres and armchair jungle hallucinations, Beauté Des Mirages is an abstract journey into a beautiful (and sometimes scary) world of mirages. All perfectly illustrated by yet another mesmerizing artwork collage by US artist Evan Crankshaw.
File Under: Exotica, Collage
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Bruce Ditmas: Visioni Sconvolgenti (Dead-Cert) 10″
In tomorrow… With roots in the early developments of modular synthesis and free jazz and revered amongst the most discerning collectors of international jazz, electronic music, and American avant-garde, the experimental drummer known as Bruce Ditmas occupies a firm branch on contemporary experimental music’s family tree. As the one time romantic partner (and artistic collaborator) of sound poet Joan La Barbara (later to be Miss Morton Subotnik) and the stand-out session drummer for both Robert Mason’s mutant synth Stardrive project and Gil Evan’s legendary Jimi Hendrix tribute band, Ditmas is best savored as the first recorded solo artist to utilize Robert Moog’s lesser-known Moog Drum controller — an instrument which over the course of two 1977 independent LPs (Aeray Dust and Yellow) would become synonymous with his blooming reputation. Raised in Miami, nurtured in New York City, and willingly exploited internationally, Bruce’s public life as a child prodigy-cum-world jazz crusader (drawing similarities with the likes of France’s Jacques Thollot) has seen him spread his select discography over many imprints, including Joan La Barbara’s own Wizard Label, Enja, and ECM — socializing with sound designers like Suzanne Ciani and collaborating on projects penned by Annette Peacock, Paul Bley, and his long running collaborator Enrico Rava. Spending the last thirty years travelling between America and Italy as a full-time jazz musician whilst working with inter-communal music initiatives, film directors, and theater groups, Bruce has retained the same maverick passion and macabre creative influences channeling brutalism, futurism, science fiction, and psychological horror through his percussive mantra and avant-garde approach to instrument manipulation and recontextualization. The selected titles on Visioni Sconvolgenti are extracted from various recordings made over the last three decades, comprising field recording techniques and percussive manipulation resulting in gritty tonal soundscapes and angular sonic sculptures, while drawing theoretical comparisons with European proto-industrial units like Germany’s Faust, Swiss electronic jazz pioneer Bruno Spoerri, Czech sonic illustrator Milan Grygar, and sprawling generation of Parisian musique concrète informed anti-melodic luminaries. Reflecting a lifelong career in active melodic drum exploration and vivid existential sound design, Visioni Sconvolgenti provides an alternative, darker, meditative, glimpse into the work of a proactive composer at his non-conformist best in the uninhibited confides of his own home analog studio. Artwork by Andy Votel. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering; Edition of 500.
File Under: Electronic, Experimental
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Charles Duvelle & Hisham Mayet: Photographs of Charles Duvelle: Disques Ocora & Collection Prophet (Sublime Frequencies) 2CD+Book
In tomorrow… Disques Ocora, a French label dedicated to capturing and publishing the sounds of folkloric culture from around the world, is held in the highest possible regard in the realms of professional and amateur ethnomusicology. Instigated in 1958 by Pierre Schaeffer, the founder of musique concrète, Disques Ocora’s sterling reputation is largely built on composer and musicologist Charles Duvelle’s pioneering field recordings, as well as his now-iconic photographs and graphic design. Charles Duvelle’s work is indisputably one of the most important contributions to the human understanding of the rich biodiversity of our planet’s music and language. In 1977, his field recordings from Benin were selected by Carl Sagan for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records, which were carried into outer space by the Voyager spacecraft to stand as an example of humanity’s highest musical expressions for the universe’s unknown listeners. Sublime Frequencies’ most ambitious project to date, this 296-page fine-art photography book comprises an exhaustive collection of Charles Duvelle’s field photography from 1959 to 1978 (188 black-and-white and 58 color photographs), demonstrating that this master musicologist had an equally unerring eye for photography; Includes a photo index listing the details of each photograph. It also contains an exhaustive interview with Charles Duvelle by Hisham Mayet, detailing the history of the label and offering Duvelle’s unique insights into the discipline of field recording (French and English facing text). The package includes two full-length CDs of archival recordings (some of which have never been published) selected, compiled, and fully annotated by Duvelle himself. Most of the tracks on CD one (Africa) are complete versions of truncated tracks from OOP Ocora LPs. CD two, which includes performances by Sohan Lal, Kheo Oudon, and Madurai Ramaswami Gautam, is focused on material from Asia (music from India and Laos), with two long tracks that have never been released (a third track is a complete unedited version). The material focuses on the five regions surveyed during his time with Ocora: West Africa, Central Africa, Indian Ocean, Pacific Islands, and SouthEast Asia. It includes “Disques Ocora / Charles Duvelle Discography, 1959-1974”, a complete overview illustrated with 94 full-color album thumbnails, “The Prophet Collection, 1999-2004” a discography of Duvelle’s post-Ocora label illustrated with 41 full-color album thumbnails, “Eastern Music in Black Africa”, a 17-page report prepared by Charles Duvelle at the request of UNESCO (February 1970), and a review of the Ocora catalogues (1964-1973). In a tribute to Disques Ocora’s exquisite design sensibility, the book is printed on 170 gsm Lumisilk matte art paper and bound in grey buckram with gold foil stamping on the cover and spine. The front cover includes a tipped-on glossy photograph by Charles Duvelle. Hardcover book; 10″x10″; 296 pages; 4.5 lbs. Produced and edited by Hisham Mayet.
File Under: World, Books
Ersen: Dunden Bugune (Pharaway) LP
In tomorrow… Pharaway Sounds present a reissue of Ersen’s debut album Dünden Bugüne, originally released in 1977. Ersen is one of Anatolian rock’s most sheerly talented vocalists. Ersen spent time in Moğollar, 3 Hür-El, and Cem Karaca’s Kardaşlar before cementing his reputation as the front man of Dadaşlar. His voice can range from one that has a soft edge (where he swallows his notes a bit, like a muezzin would), to growling belt-outs that could have fronted any ’80s metal act. Ersen and his ever-changing backup band wore Slade haircuts and loud jackets with rainbow pants or silver platform shoes, and they grew their moustaches just as long as the Beatle-bangs of their western counterparts. Synth-wizz, funk breaks, and fuzzed-out prog riffage back one of Anatolian rock’s best vocalists — Turkish psych-rock with some amazing funk drums and fuzzed-out guitars. Comes in gatefold sleeve with original artwork; Includes insert with liner notes by Angela Sawyer (Weirdo Records); Remastered sound.
File Under: Turkish, Psych
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Ersen: Ersen 2: Omur Biter Yollar Bitmez (Pharaway Sounds) LP
In tomorrow… Pharaway Sounds present a reissue of Ersen’s second album Ersen 2 – Ömür Biter Yollar Bitmez, originally released in 1978. Go back to Anatolia once more and hear the unhinged guitar and electric baglama behind Turkish psychedelia’s charismatic singer Ersen. He was discovered by Cem Karaca, was connected to Moğollar and 3 Hür-El, and even switched backing bands with Cem before finally hitting the charts with his own group Dadaşlar. There are loads of B sides and burly moves on these ’70s singles which make up his second LP. Wicked funk drums, fuzzy guitars, organs, and the powerful voice of Ersen. Includes “Zalim”, the killer psych-funk track made famous by Gaslamp Killer’s edit. Ersen’s very last name, Dinleten, means “listen”, and that’s exactly what you should do. Original artwork; Includes insert with liner notes by Angela Sawyer (Weirdo Records).
File Under: Turkish, Psych
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Steve Gunn/Kurt Vile: Gunn Vile (3Lobed) LP
Kurt Vile and Steve Gunn collaborated on record in 2015 for their contributions to Three Lobed Recording’s Parallelogram series. That previously ornate and limited title is now released in a non limited format standing along and outside of that prior collection. The two artists, originally connected by mutual friends and geographic proximity, have long pushed the other’s continued artistic development. Despite sharing many live stages over the years, this collaborative album represents the first time that the two have worked together in the studio. Vile’s side sees him recast tracks by John Prine (“Way Back When”) and Randy Newman (“Pretty Boy,” featuring some truly electric guitar flourishes from Gunn) as if they were KV originals. The theme of reinvention continues with Vile tearing through a solo banjo rendition of his “Red Apples” (originally from his God Is Saying This To You… LP), retitled here as “Red Apples For Tom Scharpling.” Gunn takes on a late period Nico track, “60/40,” and pulls a lysergic rocker out of the track’s goth-ish roots. The bulk of Gunn’s contribution is the epically winding “Spring Garden,” a track in the vein of some of his other longform guitar excursions. Featuring signature contributions from Vile and Mary Lattimore, this hypnotizing cut is unmistakably a new classic in Gunn’s catalog.
File Under: Indie Rock, Folk
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Happy Meals: Full Ashram Devotional Ceremony Volume IV – VI (So Low) LP
In tomorrow… Optimo Music presents a new offshoot label, So Low, named after the night of the same name in Glasgow, run by Becky Marshall, Iona McHale, JD Twitch, and Katie Shambles. The label’s inaugural release is from Glasgow’s much-loved Happy Meals, a duo comprised of Suzanne Rodden and Lewis Cook. Full Ashram Devotional Ceremony Volumes IV-VI is the duo’s second album release, following 2014’s acclaimed Apero on Glasgow’s Night School label. Full Ashram is the name of Happy Meals’ recording studio. The Devotional Ceremony is Happy Meals connecting with their cosmic inner selves. They realize their Full Ashram Devotional Ceremony as banishing demons, devils, and ill will. Devote your soul to the positive forces before the misguided, suffering spirits pull you down and wipe you out. While the album is comprised of individual tracks segueing into each other, for full salvation, it is recommended to be listened to as one continuous piece.
File Under: Ambient, New Age
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Jean Hoyoux: Planetes (Cortizona) LP
Deluxe reissue on vinyl of this much sought after release by Jean Hoyoux including 8 (!) inserts. This 1982 Belgian ‘Kosmisch’ stunner was originally issued by ‘CRETS’ or Centre de Recherche et d’Etudes. The seven extended pieces form a course of ‘sound therapy’ similar in tone to Angel Rada’s ‘hand played’ explorations in rubato-rooted forms. The largely tonal pieces – recorded using string and choir synthesizers, vocoders, drum machines, etc. along with a heavy battery of phasing and time-based effects-lands somewhere between a ‘library music’-styled mood excursion and a genuinely transformative mind melter that ranks as one of the more obscure entrants into the…obscure electronic music canon. (Keith Fullerton Whitman)
File Under: Ambient, Electronic, New Age, Kosmisch
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Ragnar Johnson: Ethiopian Urban & Tribal Music (Sub Rosa) LP
In tomorrow… Sub Rosa present a reissue of volume one (Mindanoo Mistiru) and two (Gold From Wax) of Ethiopian Urban And Tribal Music, both originally released as two distinct LPs on Lyrichord in 1972. Mindanoo Mistiru and Gold From Wax were recorded by Ragnar Johnson. Ethiopia contains many diverse peoples and many styles of music. It was still an empire in July and August of 1971 when these recordings were made. Over 70 languages and 200 dialects are spoken in Ethiopia. In much of the music, lyrics are more important than instrumentation, and the transmission is oral. The urban musicians, the bagana, and Mary Armeede, were recorded in Addis Ababa. Ethiopian urban musicians come from many parts of the country and are familiar with, and adapt to, styles of regions other than their own. The Afar divination chants and flutes were recorded in the Danakil desert. The Anuak toum and Nuer harp, lament and dance were recorded near the Sudan border. The Konso dance and the Gidole Fila flute dance were recorded near the Kenya border. Mindanoo Mistiru means “What is the Unknown?”. Gold From Wax refers to the two layers of meaning in Amharic poetry. File under: Le Coeur du Monde.
File Under: Field Recording, Ethnographic
Leyland Kirby: Memories Live Longer Than Dreams (HAFTW) LP
In tomorrow… 2017 repress; Originally released in 2009. The third of the three 2LP editions in James Leyland Kirby’s When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die series. The synthetic luster of Memories Live Longer Than Dreams already appeared cracked and damaged the first time around, and in 2017 its phosphorescent glow remains a beacon of shelter for contemplation and secluded mind-drift, offering a surreal, nostalgic night-light to the gloomy and confused world it diagnosed and predicted nearly ten years ago. Written during James Leyland Kirby’s forlorn purgatorial years spent in Berlin during the period which shaped the modern world as we know it — a time when global financial institutions collapsed, YouTube’s all-encompassing archive was beginning to spill over, and Facebook and Twitter were starting to enmesh the entire planet — this final instalment finds Kirby channeling osmotically absorbed visions of the future, as spelt out by Vangelis, Lynch and Badalamenti, Eno, and Kirby’s own The Caretaker alter ego, into a waking dream sequence of quietly anguished sound poems for the contemporary echo chamber, relinquishing a traversal of the hive mind’s private fears and shared nightmares rendered in ghostly scrolls of synth noise and sweepingly emotive cinematic gestures. It effectively diagnoses a sort of cultural malaise that was perhaps embryonic in 2009, as the golden age of dance/pop form and optimism which resulted in radical acts such as V/Vm and the Ccru was now left shimmering in the rearview, with the momentous energy of its accumulated, independent scenes being diffused into institutions or calcifying into hyper commercialism, leaving little or no room for ambiguity, irony or subversively socialist thought within its increasingly binary wake; a wake which has now bifurcated into extreme left and right-leaning politics with a gulf of misunderstanding in between. Keening and reeling away his own thoughts on the matter in that inter-zone of negative space, Kirby draws on ever tightening coils of cultural feedback loops and the infidelity of memory to parse, process, and secrete a slow, plasmic ooze of melancholic musical form that perhaps best represents the feelings of our age; of our shared future occluded by an inglorious or illusive past that promised much, yet never paid up.
File Under: Ambient
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Kendrick Lamar: Damn (Aftermath) LP
In tomorrow… In five whirlwind years, Kendrick Lamar has gone from being hip-hop’s hottest rising star to one of the most important voices of his generation. And as his latest album, DAMN., proves, he shows no signs of stopping. His third No. 1 in a row, the hotly anticipated release sees Lamar make another about-turn after the fearlessly creative excursions of 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly. If DAMN. is a more stripped-back, direct album, it’s also another utterly compelling one. With his laidback flow and thought-provoking lyrics, it finds Kendrick at the very top of his game, making the personal political – and vice versa – and ensuring that he leads the charge, at a time when the world very much needs a voice like his.
File Under: Hip Hop
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Melvins: A Walk with Love & Death (Ipecac) LP
Legendary rock outfit the Melvins return with a double album, A Walk With Love and Death. The dual release, finds the trio of Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and Steve McDonald showcasing two distinct sides of the band’s music: Death, a proper Melvins’ release, and Love, the score to the Jesse Nieminen directed, self-produced short also titled A Walk With Love and Death. “This was a huge undertaking,” explained band ringleader Buzz Osborne. “All three things: the album, the soundtrack and the film are benchmarks for us.” Drummer Dale Crover adds, “A Walk With Love and Death is one giant, dark, moody, psychotic head trip! Not for the faint of heart. You’ll sleep with the lights on after listening.” The albums, which include guests Joey Santiago (The Pixies), Teri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes, Crystal Fairy) and Anna Waronker (That Dog), were self-produced by the band with engineer Toshi Kosai.
File Under: Metal
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Bill Orcutt: s/t (Palilalia) LP
In tomorrow… For those not following Bill Orcutt’s drift into increasingly ear-friendly orbits in his recent live sets, Bill Orcutt — his first solo electric studio album — shocks with its space and sensitivity. On this eponymous record, Orcutt mines the expansiveness and sustain possible on the electric guitar, letting notes spin out and decay at the edge of feedback. His pachinko-parlor pacing, marked by unraveling clockspring accelerandos crashing into unexpectedly suspended tones, is still in evidence. But here, his developing melodicism maps a near-contemplative mental realm, orbiting St. Joan-era Loren Connors more than the cascading treble clatter of his duo LPs with Chris Corsano and others. From the first notes of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”, there’s a lucidity and slow-burning lyricism that make Orcutt’s plunges into barbed-wire fingerpicking all the more striking. While no one’s about to mistake Orcutt for Jim Hall, you could probably play this for your jazzbo friends (should you be unlucky enough to have them) without raising any eyebrows. Orcutt’s track selection mirrors his obsession with American popular song in its most banal manifestations, as radically reimagined via acoustic guitar on a variety of releases, including 2013’s exhaustive Twenty Five Songs 7″ box set, and the Editions Mego album A History of Every One. Many of the songs from those two releases are here — but stretched into new arrangements that explore the upper regions of the guitar neck (hitherto unexplorable on his shakily-intonated acoustic Kay), and lighting up new corners of each arrangement with a sensitivity born from years of reinterpretation. The result is a languid, freeform drift through Orcutt’s internal cosmos into galaxies unknown to their original interpreters — and occasionally, Orcutt himself. Most striking is “White Christmas”, its careening low-register melodies crashing into complex chords that transcend Orcutt’s primitive four-string fretboard. Orcutt’s original compositions are equally striking. One of them — “The World Without Me” — is unique to this album, and notable for its trebly flurry of Clapton-esque 12th-fret drizzle. “O Platitudes!” by contrast, spins ever-faster in the cadence of a hand-cranked music box, before grinding to a near halt, its higher-key electricity standing in for the moaning vocalizations on Orcutt’s acoustic rendition as heard on his 2014 VDSQ LP. With its deep-space beauty, harmonic complexity, and dark dissonance, Bill Orcutt is a stunning landmark in Orcutt’s form-destroying trajectory.
File Under: Guitar, Blues, Lo-Fi
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OST: Decline of Western Civilization (Fanclub) LP
In tomorrow… Music taken from the soundtrack of the 1981 documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization by Penelope Spheeris about the LA punk scene at the end of the ’70s and in the very early ’80s. Features: Black Flag, Germs, Catholic Discipline, X, Circle Jerks, Alice Bag Band, and Fear. Replica edition; Edition of 500.
File Under: Punk
Pacific Express: Black Fire (Matsuli) LP
In tomorrow… “Militant jazz, fusion, funk and soul from mid-seventies Manenberg, outside Cape Town, with a set of roots in club dance traditions like ballroom (‘langarm’), Khoisan hop-step and the whirling ‘tickey draai’ (‘spin on a sixpence’) of the mine camps; others in jazz-rock and the New Thing, from Santana and Chicago to Shepp and Coltrane.”
File Under: Jazz, Funk, Soul
Maggi Payne: Crystal (Aguirre) LP
In tomorrow… Aguirre Records present a reissue of Maggi Payne’s challenging electronic album Crystal, originally released in 1986. Maggi Payne is an American composer, flutist, video artist, and co-director of the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College where she teaches recording engineering, composition, and electronic music. Her work involves electroacoustic, instrumental, and vocal works along with works involving visuals, including dancers outfitted with electroluminescent wire and videos she creates using images ranging from nature to the abstract. She has composed music for dance, theatre, and video. Crystal was first released in 1986 on the Lovely Music label. Home to experimental musicians such as Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Pauline Oliveros, and Alvin Lucier. On Crystal, flute, spoken voice, sonifications, and synthesizers are processed to create dense and massive structures. Maggi Payne’s musical imagination is vivid: she is interested in the surreal, the inward, the micro, and the accumulation of physical and psychological tension. Periods of silence gently evolve into flowing drones of complex resonances. Oozing drones evolve into dense and powerful peaks of short duration. The compositions and sounds on Crystal have incredible depth, a profound logic and, though not “pretty”, an irresistible beauty. 180 gram vinyl; Remastered and cut at 45rpm by Rashad Becker; Gatefold sleeve with liner notes by the artist; Artwork by Atelier Brenda. Maggi Payne on Crystal: “I create immersive environments, inviting listeners/participants to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile, visible, tangible. A narrative of the imagination exists, allowing each person experiencing the work to thread their own paths through their mind’s imagination and their body’s physical engagement. Each sound slowly unfolds, revealing intricacies and complexity. Each grows and evolves like crystals forming under the microscope. . . . I visualize the sound as originating from, for instance, a point source below where one is standing, then it swirls outward and upward in an ever-expanding spiral until it disappears high over the listener’s head, morphing as it travels. Spatialization is not imposed when mixing, but is instead created in the original recording by increasing the amplitude of the sound on one track then decreasing its amplitude as the identical frequency is matched on the next track while it is increasing its amplitude, dovetailing the tracks across the space. Using extensive multi-tracking, the spatialization is retained, architecting and sculpting the aural space so that multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist.”
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Industrial
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Peaking Lights: The Fifth State of Consciousness (Two Flowers) LP
In tomorrow… Peaking Lights’ fifth album, titled The Fifth State Of Consciousness, was produced in their Dreamfuzz studio over two years. It’s both a departure from the new and a return to the old with a whole new twist on the psychedelic dub-pop they’ve become known for. Sonically the album shifts through many states from beginning to end, resonating deep, like a drive through foreign landscapes where you’re glued to the window, as everything slowly changes around you. The flow and pacing of songs has a sense of wonderment, and each time you play it, there’s a whole new batch of lovely sounds and eccentricities within each of the players. While bringing together their love of psychedelic music, house, electronic, and reggae, each song manages to live its own life and yet still there is some magical thread that binds them together. Produced by Aaron Coyes, the whole creative process was filled with nerdy gadgetry, playful experimentation, and deep alchemical soul searching for a musical medicine. Aaron describes Dreamfuzz as “a small junkyard with many happy mistakes.” Using tape machines, writing melodies backwards then playing them in reverse, layering sound upon sound to create “pads”, literally breaking electronics to get sounds, and a strict motto of “anything goes, pure creativity.” Most sounds were run through Peaking Lights’ 1976 16/8 Soundcraft Series Two mixing console (the same type of board used by Lee “Scratch” Perry at Black Ark, and at the infamous Cargo Studios where many of the early Factory Records bands were recorded) to add some “mojo”. It’s an album that is sure to be a creeper, even if you don’t fall in love on the first date.
File Under: Electronic, Pop, Dub
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Performing Ferret Band: s/t (Beat Generation) LP
In tomorrow… Alehop! and Beat Generation present a reissue of Performing Ferret Band’s self-titled album, originally released in 1981. Hailing from Maidstone (Kent), Performing Ferret Band got together in 1978 and with their amateur take on music, they wrote a small but great chapter of the emergence born out of punk, when the proliferation of small labels and self-releases invaded the record shops and created a scene which developed one of the golden and most creative periods of music, despite the participants’ technical limitations. Later based in Manchester and inspired by comedians such as Monty Python and musicians like Captain Beefheart, The Velvet Underground, or The Fall, the Ferrets developed a personal style very close to Television Personalities, Swell Maps, or The Desperate Bicycles, all bands of questionable virtuosity. That didn’t stop the Ferrets from releasing two cassettes, a 7″, and an LP during their short life until 1982. Their only LP, originally released in 1981 on the band’s own Pig Production label as a 300-copies pressing, is reissued here in a limited edition. It’s a compendium of absurdity, genius, humor, and that naive spirit which makes humanity more believable. Includes an insert with the band’s story, photos, and memorabilia; Edition of 500.
File Under: Post Punk, Indie Rock
Praed: Fabrication of Silver Dreams (Discrepant) LP
In tomorrow… Founded by Lebanese visual artist and musician Raed Yassin and Swiss musician Paed Conca in 2006, Praed is a band whose music can be described as a mixture of Arabic popular music, free jazz, and electronics. Over the years, the duo has collaborated with renowned musicians from across the globe. Praed explore the terrain of shaabi (Arabic popular music) and its interconnectedness with other hypnotic music genres. Through their research and thanks to numerous concerts in various Egyptian cities, Conca and Yassin discovered a strong cultural connection between shaabi sounds and the mouled music played in religious trance ceremonies. The hypnotizing psychedelic effect embedded in this genre incited Praed to explore other popular music from around the world that also employs forms of sonic delirium — free jazz, space jazz, and psychedelic rock, among others — and incorporate these in their own musical concoctions. This is the duo’s fourth album. File under: dabke, shaabi, Arabic, free jazz. RIYL: Rizan Said, Omar Souleyman.
File Under: Dabke, Arabic
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Shabazz Palaces: Quazarz Vs. The Jealous Machines (Sub Pop) LP
In tomorrow… Shabazz Palaces present Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines, the group’s fourth album and extra-spatial twin to Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star. The album, featuring highlights “30 Clip Extension,” “Julian’s Dream (odeto a bad)” and “Effeminence” includes guest appearances from Fly Guy Dai of Chimurenga Renaissance, Amir Yaghamai, John Carroll Kirby, Thaddillac, Morgan Henderson, The Shogun Shot, Laz, and Purple Tape Nate. Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines is a second, fully-realized album of new material that expands the Quazarz universe, and tells the tales of Quazarz, that sent sentient from some elsewhere. A wave warrior wielding his sonic sword. Posted to the turnt-up states of Amurderca here on the Gangster Star to chronicle, explore and enjoy as a musical emissary. He discovers a world where humankind’s relationship with their tech-devices has become weirdly sensual, seducing a sedentary seamlessness with humans, while capturing and incarcerating the results of their imagination. Quazarz vs The Jealous Machines finds our protagonist with his dazzling cohorts rising a collective Nah to the device and the guilds that proliferate them. Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines was produced by the Palaceer Lazaro and Sunny Levine, recorded in Seattle at Protect and Exalt Labs: A Black Space and in Marina Del Rey at Dror Lord Studios, and mixed by Levine and Kamal Humphrey at Kamal’s House Studio.
File Under: Hip Hop, Digable Planets
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Shabazz Palaces: Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star (Sub Pop) LP
In tomorrow… Born on a Gangster Star came into the world in a big damn hurry, like nightfall on an island. You can see it happening, but then again it’s so gradual that the next thing you know – it’s dark. Imbued with the energy and ideas from all the creative embers floating in the atmosphere like fireflies, Shabazz Palaces recorded this entire album over the course of two weeks with Blood in Seattle. New gear and new equipment disintegrated comfort zones into dust and a new path appeared in the rubble. Herein the Palaceer continues the tale of Quazar, a sentient being from somewhere else, an observer sent here to Amurderca to chronicle and explore as a musical emissary. What he finds in our world is a cutthroat place, a landscape where someone like him could never quite feel comfortable amidst all the brutality and alternative facts and death masquerading as connectivity. Inspired by days on end spent in the waves – water and light, both – of Southern California, the work came to the Palaceer in a flash, like being picked up by something and carried. Always dribbling with his head up, he can see what’s going on around him and react to it, rather than starting in a certain direction and hoping to achieve something upon arrival. Born on a Gangster Star flirts with a pop sensibility, but through the prism of Shabazz Palaces’s fire and fury. For the Palaceer, that sense is all about how the groove is moving, and the supernatural telepathy that occurs amongst his cohort. Appearing here, in body or in spirit, are Julian Casablancas, Thundercat, Darrius Willrich, Gamble and Huff, Loud Eyes Lou, Thaddillac, Ahmir, Jon Kirby, Sunny Levine, and Blood. The story belongs to Quazarz, but the air and darkness belong to us.
File Under: Hip Hop, Digable Planets
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Riccardo Sinigaglia: Riflessi (Soave) LP
In tomorrow… Soave present the first vinyl reissue of Riccardo Sinigaglia’s Riflessi, originally released in 1986. Riccardo Sinigaglia, along with Gabin Dabiré and Walter Maioli, was a part of Futuro Antico — one of the most important collaborations to emerge from the 1970s and ’80s Italian avant-garde. The project, whose name literally translates to “ancient future”, joined traditional sounds and instrumental from around world, with electronic music — the sonic past, present, and future as one. Recorded shortly after the collective’s most prolific period and released in 1986, while more singular and more idiosyncratic, Sinigaglia’s Riflessi caries these very concerns at its core. Built from field recordings, collaged samples, synthesis, and unique instrumentations, and shifting from hypnotic rhythm to radical and displacing structures, Riflessi establishes a remarkable link between ancient and non-western musics and efforts emerging from studios like Groupe de Recherches Musicales. A work of staggering rhythm, texture, and beauty, Riflessi builds a world with almost no parallel — imbuing electronic music with touch, tactility, and humanity, while sacrificing none of its challenges and intellectual heights. Rattling sonorous wonder, emerging for the first time on any format since its original pressing, before us is a historic moment — a lost piece of the puzzle of the wondrous Italian avant-garde.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Modern Classical
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Split Decision Band: s/t (Now Again) LP
In tomorrow… Now-Again Reserve Edition gatefold jacket; Hand-numbered edition of 1000; 160 gram vinyl from Quality Record Production; OBI strip and resealable “Japanese-style” plastic sleeve; Download card for WAV files of the album; Contains booklet with the story of this mysterious band, told for the first time, and many unpublished photos. “They have been known to deep soul, funk and disco collectors for decades for their sought after 7″ ‘Watching Out/Dazed,’ long thought to be the band’s only recordings. Egon tracked down Split Decision Band’s vocalist and songwriter Gordon Starr Flipping in the hopes of more and got it — with Split Decision Band, Now-Again presents a never-before-released album of devastatingly good disco and boogie from the unlikely city of Des Moines, Iowa. Flipping’s collaborations with Prince’s stable made him a Midwestern legend, but his band’s music is more than an urban tall tale — this album finally proves to the world their merits.”
File Under: Funk, Soul, Disco
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Konrad Sprenger: Stack Music (Pan) LP
In tomorrow… Having felt restrained by the limits of traditional instruments and the techniques tied to them, composer, music producer, and artist Konrad Sprenger (b. Joerg Hiller), spent years developing various algorithms and custom instruments to realize his work. His recent focus has been on rhythmic patterns based on the Euclidean algorithm, using a computer-controlled multi-channel electric guitar. The unique system can create complex rhythmical patterns whilst tuning the strings during performance — sounding at once like an electronic instrument, a drum computer, a guitar, a harpsichord, even at times as a full orchestra. Hiller has long collaborated and performed with minimalist Arnold Dreyblatt, and musician/instrument builder Ellen Fullman amongst others, and first built primitive acoustic mechanical instruments, gradually developing a more complex, digitally-controlled system. “My guitar gives me the possibility to discover almost every aspect of the sound produced by the excitation of the string — as if scientifically under a magnifying glass,” he says. “I can control such parameters as the speed and time, length of the attack, the intensity, the pitch (allowing the use of different tuning systems), and the location of each string in space by the use of six speakers.” Early on, Hiller realized that the harmonically complex sound of strings are impossible to reproduce digitally, and therefore became interested in the development of mechanical instruments, visiting European collections of pianolas and orchestrions in Belgium and Holland. Within his live performances and on this new recording, his music is influenced by the insistent rhythms from minimalism, krautrock, and techno, and their shared focus on transcendence through a propulsive, full-spectrum sound. Informed by early American folk music and its descendants (John Fahey et al.), his new album Stack Music presents a selection of recordings over the years from residencies and live performances, such as “Opening”, an early live performance of the digital guitar system recorded in New York and composed at Phill Niblock’s Intermedia Foundation Loft, whilst “Rondo” consists of recordings of the guitar played by a motor with shoelace exciters, horns, and piano harp. In “Largo”, he utilizes the software Melodyne to generate midi notes from an original guitar system recording. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering; Artwork by Bill Kouligas.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Abstract
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Squadra Omega: Materia Oscura (Grandangolo) LP
In tomorrow… Squadra Omega represents the vast spectrum of the Italian underground. Psychedelic, avant-garde, jazz-rock, improvisation, kraut-rock, rock in opposition, and ethno-tribalism blend seamlessly into the work of a collective that moves and expands, depending on the urgency of the moment, focused around a core that rotates around the two members OmegaMatt and OmegaG8. In the band’s wide discography, you’ll find compositional freedom, improvised jam-sessions, and an amplitude of references, all of which move between different spaces and times. Materia Oscura (“dark matter”) offers a glimpse at the same time the soil of the “rock” matter as well as the alien, seen from multiple points of view, neighbors, and materials, distant and mysterious. Three tracks that stretch their eyes at the Orient or Africa, as well as into the depths of the cosmos, landing on the side of the art-rock of the ’70s and towards some psychedelic, visionary, cinematic drives that explode into a real ecstatic trip. Inputs from Coltrane, Canterburian jazz-rock, Grateful Dead, and synthy-space views are melted into free-form landings until they discover their own personal form of prog. Different universes collide and coexist in the band in a constant mutation, maintaining faith in one single ideal: “music for the third eye”. The album comes in a thick carton cover with a central hole.
File Under: Electronic, Psych, Krautrock
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Sun Kil Moon: Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys of Blood (Caldo Verte) 4LP
Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys of Blood is the new release by Mark Kozelek’s Sun Kil Moon. The epic 4LP-set was recorded with former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley in San Francisco, CA and Hoboken, NJ and for the most part captures events from January to August of 2016 and how the mercurial singer/songwriter processed it all while traveling. A disenfranchised Kozelek laments the Nice, France terror attack and Orlando nightclub shooting on “Bastille Day” and “Bergen to Trondheim” respectively and condemns Trump’s election and tech culture on “Lone Star.” “Most of the songs were cut out of improv sessions where Steve played drums and I played instruments that don’t come naturally to me – like synthesizer and bass guitar and even a baritone uke. With Nathan, my engineer, we are able to find the interesting parts and build off of them. That’s the same way we did Universal Themes – everything cut from improv. The vocals were added as we edited along.” – Mark Kozelek “The [album’s] 16 long, long songs are all darting and painstakingly detailed lectures about personal experiences, good friends past and present, the socio-political state of things, major news events – including the Orlando and Paris shootings, the Bastille Day truck attack, the Brussels bombing, the deaths of David Bowie, Prince and Muhammad Ali, the El Chapo story, the Syrian chlorine gas attacks – and basically anything else that crossed his mind on a given day. He somehow manages to weave together stray observances and unpoetic references, wry comedy sketches and meditations on topics of great significance.” – Adam Feibel, Exclaim
File Under: Indie Rock
Voigt/465: Slights Still Unspoken (Mental Experience) LP
In tomorrow… Mental Experience present an expanded reissue of Voigt/465’s 1979 album Slights Spoken, titled Slights Still Unspoken (1978-1979). Formed in Sydney in 1976, Voigt/465 was a truly unique band from the exciting days of the Australian post-punk scene. Heavily influenced by such luminaries as the Velvets, Stooges, Syd Barrett, Pere Ubu, Can, Faust, Henry Cow, Slapp Happy, and Eno’s Roxy Music, they created an abrasive sound in which krautrock, DIY, avant-garage, post-punk, psych, art-rock, and free improv-noise combined to form a sound unlike any other. In 1978, they released one of the first DIY 45s from Australia, State/A Secret West, which showed their “pop-psych” side and was played by John Peel in the UK. The following year, their bass player Lindsay O’Meara decided to leave the band and join Crime & The City Solution in Melbourne. Before parting ways, Voigt/465 decided to record one last album as a testament. Slights Spoken saw the light in 1979 and it’s without doubt one of the most fascinating albums from the post-punk/DIY era. The entire album is featured here, including the two tracks from their first 45. Includes download coupon which features three live tracks from ’78-79, including killer covers of Faust, Can, and Roxy Music. RIYL: Can, Faust, Pere Ubu, Roxy Music, Family Fodder, The Homosexuals, Slapp Happy, This Heat, Pop Group, Primitive Calculators. Remastered sound; Insert with rare photos and liner notes by band member Phil Turnbull.
File Under: Post Punk, , DIY, Australia
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Whitehorse: Panther in a Dollhouse (Six Shooter) LP
In tomorrow… On this new album, Whitehorse takes a place of wholesome, conventional life and sets loose a wild animal to stalk, shred and smash its way through ideals of adult life and social conditioning. Whitehorse turns a microscope on domestic life to reveal a writhing, tangled biota of dreams and desire, despair and degradation. With Panther In The Dollhouse, the duo’s songwriting makes a clean break from autobiography to fully embrace cinematic fiction in sleek, stylized collages of neo-noir drama and high-gloss showmanship. From the grindhouse ballad of “Die Alone” to the peroxide burn of “Trophy Wife,” the new songs are full of flawed characters, foiled plans and anti-fairytales. To make this record, Whitehorse expanded their studio team with the addition of Likeminds, a pair of hip-hop/R&B producers and musicians. The beat-makers joined the returning crew of Gus Van Go and Werner F, who produced the band’s previous album, Leave No Bridge Unburned. The results bring vintage drum machines, samplers and analog synths into the duo’s space twang sound.
File Under: Indie Folk
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Xordox: Neospection (Editions Mego) LP
In tomorrow… Editions Mego present the first release of a brand new project from JG Thirlwell. Recorded at Self Immolation studios in Brooklyn. This is Xordox. Xordox orbits a universe inhabited by darkness, wit, mystery adventure, and experimentation. The cinematic quality that exudes from Thirlwell’s bent being presents itself in Neospection; Unlike Thirlwell’s other works, this is predominantly a synthesizer record, including recording sessions from his residency at the legendary EMS studios in Stockholm, employing Buchla and Serge synthesizers. Sarah Lipstate (aka Noveller) plays her super-processed soundscape guitar on three of the tracks on the album, and additional mixing took place at Lazer Sound studios with Al Carlson (who works extensively with Oneohtrix Point Never). Xordox. Diamond circulating swells; Sequenced stealth sci-fi; Malleable membrane matters; Wild fabric electronic; Heart eaten beat; Fruits of fear and exhilaration. Neospection is neon noir. Neospection is ere 4 yor. Xordox arrives as unexpected and remote as any alien encounter but security lies in the cosmic drama and dark shadows that seep throughout Thirlwell’s soul. In this, 2017 the listener once again enters the mind and world of one man who refuses to play along with anyone’s game but the idiosyncratic one of his own devising. Tech and engineering at EMS by Jonas Broberg and Daniel Araya; Mastered by Scott Hull at Masterdisk; Artwork by JG Thirlwell; Space Shuttle cockpit photo by Ben Cooper; Space photos courtesy of NASA.
File Under: Electronic, Experimental
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Various: The Crazy Rhythms of Mata Hari (Stag-o-Lee) LP
In tomorrow… Rolling rockabilly, hot and cool hillbilly-country, wild western swing, sleazy-listening, surf-strip-popcorn-trash, sinuous soul and slinky r n’ b deep in the Mississippi delta lie the roots of blues and soul. In Memphis, Tennessee – a mysterious place for all music lovers – the cradle of rock n´ roll is rocking to the rhythm of the “muddy old river”. Right there in the south of “eerie America”, in New Orleans and further upstream in Memphis you can find the legendary places where musical history was made, and where the genesis of rock n’ roll and rockabilly (a combination of country and hillbilly) took place. The journey continues further north to Nashville, to Texas or to Chicago… The legendary pulp-country deejay-team and the Mata Hari-Bar (Nuremberg) melt into the Memphis Music Club: an exciting cooperation of two entities, passionate about and in love with these sounds. They aim to honor this kind of music and to inspire their guests. Welcome! Come on in! This angel heart jukebox is filled with tunes that carry the rhythm and spirit of the South! Features: Jimmy Spellman, Tommy Collins, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Hayden Thompson, Charlie Feathers, Ronnie Hayward, Hank Thomson, Johnny Horton, Bill Haley & His Saddlemen, The Swanks, Al Casey, Mad Man Jones, Jimmy Oliver Orchestra, Joe Johnson, Little Esther, Dave Bartholomew, The Delta Rhythm Boys, Buddy & Ella Johnson, Louis Jordan, Johnny Williams, Mike Robinson, Willie Jones, Bobby King, Bunker Hill, Big Mama Thornton, Billy Hamlin, Gus Jenkins Orchestra, Ernie Washington, Les Brown Jr., Jim Tyler, and Red Sovine.
File Under: R’N’B, Exotica
Various: Strictly Britxotica! Palais Pop & Locarno Latin (Trunk) LP
In tomorrow… Another superb adventure in the Britxotica! series, looking into rare and amazing exotic British recordings. For this exciting installment, Trunk waltzes to the British ballrooms for charismatic cha cha chas, magical mambos, and a whole set of floor-filling fun! Britxotica! (pronounced “Britzotica”) neatly describes an odd and yet undocumented pre-Beatles British musical scene where famed UK composers, as well as unknown singers and bandleaders, threw convention on holiday and went wild. Put together by Jonny Trunk with DJ/tastemaker and smashing nightclub legend Martin Green, these groundbreaking compilations shine new light on lost and forgotten corners of British culture and sound. For Strictly Britxotica! Palais Pop And Locarno Latin, part four of Trunk’s planned Britxotica! series, they head to the now defunct British ballrooms for a set of dynamic and often extraordinary dance numbers — charming cha cha chas (including “Cha Cha Pop Pop”), lively Latin, and some fabulously freaky foot tappers, including a classic version of “Cerveza”. Composers and artists include ballroom band legends such as Edmundo Ros, Ted Heath, and Stanley Black, but Trunk have also found work by lost geniuses such as John Graven and John Warren who are very much worthy of reappraisal. In short, this is another crazy and charismatic compilation of British music so obscure and rare that only Trunk Records could find and package it so superbly, and with such effortless and comedic style. Also features: Boyer And Ravel, Joe Loss, Johnston Brothers, Tony Scott, Tony Crombie, John Warren Orchestra, Martinas And His Music, Phil Tate, Dave Lee, John Graven Quintet, Don Carlos, Chaquito, Jack Parnell, Eddie Calvert, and Victor Silvester. All cues mastered and sequenced by Jon Brooks, AKA The Advisory Circle.
File Under: Latin, Exotica
Various: Early Traditional Instruments in Asia (Shiok) LP
In tomorrow… From the metal chimes of the gamelan, to the Burmese harp, passing through the Chinese Hu Ch’in, a traditional and ancient chordophone-bowed lute, Early Traditional Instruments In Asia is a sheer historical document that represents some of the most ancient instruments known to mankind. 45rpm audiophile vinyl; Limited edition of 300.
File Under: Gamelan, World, Ethnographic
Various: Inner Peace: Rare Spiritual Funk & Jazz (Wewant Sound) LP
In tomorrow… Wewantsounds are back with a superb selection of spiritual jazz and funk grooves from legendary producer Bob Shad’s Mainstream Records catalogue. Bob Shad was one of the greatest music producers of the 20th century, having worked with all the music giants, from Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to Sarah Vaughan, Lightnin’ Hopkins, The Platters, and Janis Joplin to name just a few. “Bobby Shad was a legend in our family” says his grandson Judd Apatow who, together with his sister Mia, looks after Shad’s back catalogue, Mainstream Records. Like his peers, jazz producers Creed Taylor and Bob Thiele, Shad went independent in the ’60s, and by the early ’70s, he was producing a string of superb albums mixing spiritual jazz with funk and soul. These albums are now being rediscovered by new generation of soul and jazz lovers hooked on the music of Kamasi Washington and Shabaka Hutchings. Recorded between 1971 and ’73, the Fender-Rhodes-drenched tracks on Inner Peace showcase Shad’s unique deep jazz sound. They feature such revered musicians as Harold Land, Roy Haynes, and Frank Foster, together with a younger generation of talented musicians led by Buddy Terry, Dave Hubbard, and LaMont Johnson. Here they are accompanied by the cream of ’70s jazz session musicians including Bernard Purdie, Buster Williams, Eddie Henderson, James Mtume, Stanley Clarke, and Cecil Bridgewater. The Mainstream catalogue has been sampled by a long list of revered DJs and hip hop producers over the years. Roy Haynes’s “Senyah” was sampled by De La Soul on “Pony Ride” and Shelly Manne’s short outro “Infinity” forms the unmissable backbone of Jeru The Damaja’s all-time hip hop classic, “Come Clean”. A fitting tribute to the supreme sound of producer Bob Shad. Wewantsounds will start a reissue program of original Mainstream albums with bonus material and rare photos from the vaults. Also features: Charles Williams, Hadley Caliman, Pete Yellin, and Sonny Red.
File Under: Jazz, Funk, Spiritual
Various: The Spirit of Indonesia (Shiok) LP
In tomorrow… The Spirit Of Indonesia is a newly curated collection of traditional tunes from various regions and ethnic groups of the South East Asian archipelago. These historic live recordings are as “first-take” as it gets, conveying the true soul and spirit of this wonderful region, through discrete pieces coming from very different heritages. 45rpm audiophile vinyl; Limited edition of 300.
File Under: Ethnographic
Various: Too Slow to Disco 3 (How Do You Are) LP
In tomorrow… How Do You Are? Recordings present Too Slow to Disco 3, another incredible collection of songs that gleam with the high definition gloss of big-studio, bigger-budget production. TSTD 3 is another excursion into those late 1970s west coast delusions of grandeur, but in the company of songs that are also brimming over with soul, wit, and passion. Killer tunes, penned and played by virtuosic instrumentalists, backroom gals and guys who were often also Grammy-winners in their own right. All the elements that have made Too Slow to Disco volumes one and two, and The Ladies of edition, so beloved are back for another round of near-danceable lushness. This smooth wave continues to ripple round today’s music world too: Think of Thundercat’s single with Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald (2017), or even The XX’s sample of the Alessi Brothers’ “Do You Feel It” (featured on TSTD 1) on “Say Something Loving” (2016). DJ Supermarkt has somehow prized open another box of obscure gems, selected and sequenced to bring out the mood of the era. Lyrically the focus remains on slightly difficult love affairs backed by grooves gentle enough to mix cocktails to. There’s an accidental pop hit crossover from none-more-fusion jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour along with a dab of Christian funk from Archie Cavanaugh and his troupe. There’s even a bizarrely funky and commercial sounding Grateful Dead laying down the chart-bothering beat of “Shakedown Street”. Elsewhere Steely Dan’s go-to sax man, Cornelius Bumpus makes an appearance with some angular funk (with his quartet), while Larry Carlton turns up the guitar-drenched white soul on “Where Did You Come From?”. And the compilation goes beyond LA this time. The first non-English sung TSTD track comes in the shape of legendary Canadian songwriter Dwight Druick’s slice of Montreal disco-funk. Then there’s the groovesome Stars ‘N’ Bars from Sweden, and two acts from the UK, Vapour Trails and Billy Mernit. Also features: Bob Welch, Pratt & McClain, David Gates, Weldon Irvine, The Markley Band, Vapour Trails, The Fifth Avenue Band, Mark Capanni, Archie James Cavanaugh, Rob Mehl, and Jeremy Spencer Band.
File Under: Disco
…..Restocks…..
All Them Witches: Sleeping Through The War (New West) LP
Beck: Morning Phase (Universal) LP
Charles Bradley: Victim of Love (Daptone) LP
Chemical Brothers: Dig Your Own Hole (Astralwerks) LP
Cigarettes After Sex: s/t (Partisan) LP
John Coltrane: Ascension (Impulse) LP
CCR: Cosmos Factory (Fantasy) LP
Daft Punk: Discovery (EMI) LP
Daft Punk: Homework (EMI) LP
Mac Demarco: Salad Days (Captured Tracks) LP
Mac Demarco: This Old Dog (Royal Mountain) LP
Endless Boogie: Vibe Killer (No Quarter) LP
Forest Swords: Compassion (Ninja Tune) LP
Nils Frahm: Felt (Erased Tapes) LP
Nils Frahm: Solo (Erased Tapes) LP
Hawkwind: Warrior on the Edge of Time (Sony) LP
How to Destroy Angels: s/t (Columbia) LP
Jan Jelinek: Loop Finding Jazz (Faitiche) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Nonagon Infinity (ATO) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Paper Mache Dream Balloon (ATO) LP
Oasis: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory (Big Brother) LP
Oasis: Definitely Maybe (Big Brother) LP
Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna… (Polyvinyl) LP
Os Mutantes: Everything is Possible (Luaka Bop) LP
Pink Floyd: Animals (Pink Floyd) LP
Gusto Pio: Motore Immobile (Soave) LP
Iggy Pop: The Idiot (Universal) LP
Iggy Pop: Lust for Life (Universal) LP
Run The Jewels: 2 (Mass Appeal) LP
The Sadies: Northern Passage (YepRock) LP
Six Organs of Admittance/William Tyler: Parallelogram (3 Lobed) LP
Sleep: The Clarity (Southern Lord) LP
Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty) LP
Thundercat: Drunk (Brainfeeder) 4×10″
X-TG: Desert Shore/Final Report (Industrial) LP
Various: African Scream Contest (Analog Africa) LP
Various: Legends of Benin (Analog Africa) LP
Various: Studio One Kings (Soul Jazz) LP