Finally, lots of stock of the War on Drugs this week. And a big restock on The National and Queens of the Stone Age in time for the weekend… Still no more LCD, but there’s a ton of great other new things to satisfy your thirsty ear buds. Lots of great used as always as well. Dig.
…..picks of the week…..
Midori Takada & Masahiko Satoh: Lunar Cruise (WRWTFWW) LP+CD
Marks the title’s first ever vinyl release; Cut at Emil Berliner Studios; Housed in a 350 gsm sleeve; Includes CD with all ten tracks. We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records present a reissue of Midori Takada and Masahiko Satoh’s Lunar Cruise, originally released in 1990. Following the successful reissue of Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, WRWTFWW Records present another release from the legendary Japanese percussionist: 1990’s Lunar Cruise, her superb collaboration with jazz pianist, synth master, composer, and arranger Masahiko Satoh. Arguably the best kept secret in Midori Takada’s fascinating discography, Lunar Cruise is an under-the-radar masterpiece that captures Takada (on marimba and minimal percussion set-up) and Satoh (on Korg M1 and Yamaha DX7II synths, Ensoniq EPS sampler, and acoustic piano) vibrantly fusing traditional African and Asian percussion with jazz, ambient, and minimalism. The album also features the great Haruomi Hosono (Yellow Magic Orchestra, Happy End) and Kazutoki Umezu (saxophone, clarinet).
File Under: Electronic, Experimental, Percussion
Listen Here
Basil Kirchin: Basil Kirchin is My Friend (Trunk) LP
An awe-inspiring sampler of the late, great musical polymath’s music. From pop punk pop to field recordings, jazz, horror film music, ambient sounds, experimental ideas and all points in between. Many tracks have not been released before. Basil Kirchin was a unique talent. A man brought up as a drummer in the post-war big band era, he soon shunned the sounds of London ballrooms for world travel, marijuana, and spiritual enlightenment. On his return to London in the mid-1960s, he started work on experimental “sound picture music”, a direction that led him into horror film music, library music, and eventually, to field recordings. He then developed the idea of slowing down the sounds of bird, insects, animals, autistic children — anything he recorded in fact — to reveal the hidden particles of sound that made them up. Mixing this with free jazz improvisation in 1969, he developed a new, peculiar sound that is now known as “ambient”. Here, in this unique Trunk Record’s sampler, the label offers a fascinating musical glimpse into his world, bringing together work from three decades, plus parts of a long conversation between Jonny Trunk and Basil Kirchin, recorded a few months before Kirchin died. There is unreleased film music, field recordings including autistic children from Schurmatt, music for advertising, the opening of Quantum (JBH 003CD), brilliant mixes of jazz and birds (“Charcoal Sketches”), the newly discovered digital post punk classic “Silicon Chip”, plus brilliant and moving homages to his life with Esther, his wife. Together it makes extraordinary listening. All cues mastered and sequenced by Jon Brooks, AKA The Advisory Circle.
File Under: Jazz, Library, Experimental
Listen Here
…..new arrivals…..
Chris Bell: I am the Cosmos (Omnivore) LP
Chris Bell was an immensely gifted songwriter, performer and producer. As a founding member of Big Star and as a solo artist he struggled to have his songs heard. Sadly, the Memphis-born artist did not live long enough to see the enormous impact his music – both with Big Star and as a solo artist – would have on future generations. The beginnings of I Am The Cosmos can be traced back to 1972, when Bell left Big Star, the seminal power-pop outfit he helped found. After helping Big Star write and record a few songs for Radio City, the band’s follow-up, Bell left for France in 1974. While there, he recorded several demos at Hérouville Studios for a planned solo album. Following the sessions, Bell and his brother David took the tracks to a London studio owned by the Beatles’ producer George Martin, where they mixed the songs with Geoff Emerick, who engineered several of the Beatles’ albums. The songs were shelved and Bell returned home to Memphis, where he recorded more songs with a revolving cast of Memphis musicians. In 1978, Car Records released a single featuring Bell’s “I Am The Cosmos” b/w “You And Your Sister.” Encouraged by the positive reaction to the single, Bell was planning a return to music when he was killed in a car accident in 1978, two days after Christmas. His music remained unreleased until 1992, when several of his demos were released posthumously as I Am The Cosmos. The 12 tracks highlight Bell’s ethereal vocals, his uncanny sense of song structure and insightful, melancholy lyrics, all of which illuminate his often-overlooked contribution to Big Star. I Am The Cosmos is a haunting pop masterpiece ripe for discovery.
File Under: Rock, Power Pop, Big Star
Listen Here
Jac Berrocal: La Nuit Est Au Courant (Souffle Continu) LP
Souffle Continu Records present the first vinyl edition of Jac Berrocal’s La Nuit Est Au Courant, originally released on In Situ in 1991. Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” on the radio, Renaissance motets, his grandfather in a Zouave military band, Syrian deserts… Columns of tanks in the streets, the soundtrack to Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956), Juan Manuel Fangio’s car, the fall of the Berlin wall: from the first and fantastic Musiq Musik (1973), this is where Jac Berrocal’s trumpet comes from — an indescribable cataclysm to which he constantly returns for inspiration. When he published, at the beginning of the 1990s, La Nuit Est Au Courant, Jac Berrocal had already recorded his famous “Rock’n’Roll Station” and collaborated three times with Nurse With Wound, he figures on their 1979 list as an important avant-garde influence. In Situ, the French label which published this album, produced several other historically important albums in the same year by people like Steve Lacy, François Tusques, Un Drame Musical Instantané, and Daunik Lazro in a duo with Joe McPhee: such were the times. Backed by two bassists (including the jazz critic Francis Marmande) and a drummer, Jacques Thollot (who recorded Jeter La Girafe À La Mer (1971), one of the highlights of the French underground), Jac Berrocal does here what he does best: defy labels and slalom between genres; constructing a strange kaleidoscope of enchanting mish-mash. “What is vulgar… “, he states, “… is to refuse what pleases you”. Jac Berrocal refuses nothing and tries everything he can imagine. With the trumpet multiplied here and there by reverb, the nocturnal perambulations for insomniacs of La Nuit Au Courant make it an ambient album with Prague, Sartrouville, Ivry-sur-Seine or East Berlin amongst the backdrops… An album of what Fernando Arrabal called “panic music”, an elegant term for “no wave”… Listening to it over and again, it sounds like Don Cherry jamming with David Bowie and Brian Eno in Berlin. There is one thing you should know: Jac Berrocal is an intrepid man. He stands exposed — and “sullies his soul”, on the edge of the precipice. The nights are all-knowing. Licensed from In Situ. Obi strip; Reverse printing; Includes four-page booklet; Edition of 700.
File Under: Free Jazz, Improvisation
Listen Here
Beyonce: Lemonade (Columbia) LP
Beyonce’s powerful Grammy-winning 2016 album Lemonade served as her sixth studio effort overall, a bold conceptual project loaded with subtext and based on every woman’s journey of self knowledge and healing. This is the first pressing of the 180g, yellow colored, four-sided LP version of the album, allowing for a higher sound quality. Encompassing a variety of genres including R&B, rock, soul, gospel, hip-hop, pop, and blues plus equally as diverse guest artists like James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and Jack White, Lemonade debuted at No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 and was one of the biggest selling and acclaimed albums of the year. As artistically ambitious as is it is emotionally raw Lemonade simultaneously set a new standard for the Queen Bee and pop music in general. “Lemonade draws from the prolific literary, musical, cinematic, and aesthetic sensibilities of black cultural producers to create a rich tapestry of poetic innovation. The audacity of its reach and fierceness of its vision challenges our cultural imagination, while crafting a stunning and sublime masterpiece about the lives of women of color and the bonds of friendship seldom seen or heard in American popular culture.” – Peabody Award Winner
File Under: Pop, R&B, Hip Hop
Listen Here
Paul Bley: Improvisie (Bamboo) LP
Bamboo present the first ever reissue of Paul Bley’s Improvisie, originally released in 1971. Recorded Live March 26th, 1971 at Club B14 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Improvisie is a part of the 1971 trilogy of Paul Bley and Annette Peacock’s combined experimental recorded work. Together with recent reissues of 1971’s The Bley Synthesizer Show and 1972’s Dual Unity, Improvisie is taken from a compelling period for two iconic figures of the free jazz movement, and their pioneering use of the first-ever Moog synthesizers. Includes expansive liners with interviews and rare archival photos; Professionally remastered original sound recoring.
File Under: Free Jazz
Listen Here
Foo Fighters: Concrete & Gold (RCA) LP
“I wanted it to be the biggest sounding Foo Fighters record ever. To make a gigantic rock record but with Greg Kurstin’s sense of melody and arrangement.” So speaks Dave Grohl of the mission statement made manifest in Foo Fighters’ ninth epic, the aptly-titled Concrete and Gold. Just as Foo Fighters’ anthem of the summer “Run” “opens as a dreamy, slow burner then quickly turns heavy as thunder” (Billboard) with its “huge triumphant chorus” (Stereogum), Concrete and Gold marries some of the most insanely heavy Foo Fighters riffs ever with lush harmonic complexities courtesy of a first time team-up with producer Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia, Pink). “So I think maybe Greg is the guy that we ask to be our producer because he’s never made a heavy rock record before and we’ve never worked with a pop producer,” adds Grohl. Darrel Thorp (Beck, Radiohead) was soon enlisted to mix and engineer. This collective conceived a blueprint of the new record as, “Motorhead’s version of Sgt. Pepper…or something like that,” secretly booking into Hollywood’s esteemed EastWest studios to consummate this marriage of extremes…or as Grohl puts it: “Our noise and Greg’s big brain and all of his sophisticated arrangements and composition.” Months, sounds, stories and so many guitars later, the 11-Grammy-winning, 25+ million-record-selling, last great American stadium rock band completed its most ambitious album to date.
File Under: Rock
Listen Here
Iona Fortune: Tao of I (Optimo) LP
Optimo Music present Iona Fortune’s Tao Of I. Iona Fortune is a composer and producer from Glasgow and presents the Tao Of I album as her debut release. Inspired by Eastern Philosophy and slated to be the first in an eight album series exploring all the symbols of the I Ching, her music is influenced by oriental sounds and features a palette of instruments that includes the guzheng, gamelan, and Synthi AKS. The overall effect is a singular and beguiling sound that loosely fits in with the Fourth World concept imagined by Jon Hassell, and indeed Iona Fortune has also contributed a track to Optimo Music’s Fourth World compilation Miracle Steps.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
Listen Here
German Oak: Down in the Bunker (Now Again) LP
“The 6th entry in the Now-Again Reserve Edition series is the definitive reissue of a lauded and misunderstood Krautrock album as well as the first band-sanctioned reissue in the series. The most mysterious Krautrock album, German Oak’s Down In The Bunker has been fetishized and demonized, lauded and misunderstood for nearly four decades. In this definitive Reserve Edition of the album, the German Oak trio — together again after 30 years apart — have approved the remastering of their 70s music; finally tell the story behind the creation of their dark, brooding album — and the occult-obsessed record collector behind the original album’s release and its myth — and they share previously unreleased music and photos.”
File Under: Krautrock, Psych, Freakout
Listen Here
Kassel Jaeger: Aster (Editions Mego) LP
The frontier for French electroacoustic mystical music has traversed much ground since Pierre Schaeffer shuffled on the past and laid out a map without borders or designated ground. Seventy years in this land of the fried, there are a plethora of Ideas and ongoing potential coming from all corners of the globe. Inheriting the wisdom of past masters whilst forging a signature style of his own, Kassel Jaeger sits as one of the premier explorers of these unknown worlds today. Comprised recently recorded tracks, Kassel Jaeger presents a work of revisits and re-workings, one which acts as a hinge in both closing this particular chapter, whilst opening up the windows to a new sound world. In Aster, rich deep music is replete with dark ambient sonorities swirling amongst intense buzzing tones. Often chilling and ominous, this is a fearless music with abstracted corners and dynamic leverage. Unafraid to embed itself in the ongoing whirlpool of sonic progress. Jaeger’s output remains a thrilling body of exploration and ongoing transformation. Photos by Ende Wieder; Design by Stephen O’Malley.
File Under: Electronic, Drone, Ambient
Listen Here
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe: Levitation Praxis Pt 4 (Demdike Stare) LP
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe’s incredible experiments with Harry Bertoia’s sound sculptures are here documented on this beautiful new edition for Demdike Stare’s DDS imprint, coinciding with his appearance on Semtember 2017’s issue of The Wire magazine. Lowe is something of a polymath; having started out as part of math rock outfit 90 Day Men and doom metal trio Om, he progressed to forge his own solo work (often under the Lichens moniker), as well as a whole slew of collaborations, including work with Johann Johannsson on scoring both Arrival (2016) and Sicario (2015), an acclaimed album with Ariel Kalma for RVNG Intl’s FRKWYS series, plus active involvement in site-specific video art and sound installations. His most recent work under his own name has seen him release diverse music for Type, Latency, More Than Human, and, of course, DDS who have, with this album, presented what might just be the most beautiful Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe artefact thus far. In 2016, Lowe was commissioned by New York’s museum of Arts and Design to contribute to a Harry Bertoia exhibition, which he undertook alongside video director Johann Rashid. He was asked to create sound recordings with Sonambient sculptures; metal rods and gongs that produce highly distinct, resonant sounds when struck, brushed, or touched. Beginning in 1968, Bertoia set up an eighteenth-century stone barn on his property in Barto, Pennsylvania, to house these sculptures and from which he would go on to record works for his highly collectable Sonambient label, as recently documented on Important Records’ breathtaking box set and reissue series. Lowe was given full access to the barn, beautifully filmed footage of which can be found on YouTube. Lowe’s work with these sculptures is quite unlike anything you might have heard from those original Bertoia recordings. Instead of serendipitous improvisation, Lowe weaves his way through the sculptures on a path that was mapped out in advance, imbuing them with a more “composed” and arranged feel. As well as that familiar and distinct sound palette, he subtly manipulates and feeds in vocal layers that take proceedings into ever more ethereal and haunting dimensions. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.
File Under: Ambient, Experimental, Sound Sculptures
Listen Here
Tarquin Manek/Martina Quake: Locks on Our Doors Not Our Hearts (Blackest Ever Black) LP
Locks On Our Doors Not On Our Hearts utilizes EMS VCS3, Oberheim OB-Xa, and ARP 2600, in combination with cheap, contemporary consumer electronics. It is, in all intents and purposes, a short, cautionary story about love. It is also a folk-tale, a science fiction, a suicide note. Unusually for a long-form spoken word piece, it is immediate in its impact, and lasting in its effect. The narrator is damaged and unreliable: Martina Quake’s voice, digitally processed into a flat, AI affectless-ness, conveys this all too well. Is this the vernacular poetry of the Uncanny Valley, or is it just that loss makes robots — numb and listless not-quite-humans — of us all? Locks revels in the space between the spontaneous and the programmed (what is a poem if not a program?). It’s part Tales Of The Unexpected, part Susan Howe, part Ruth Rendell, part HAL (or Holly). Tarquin Manek’s music is widescreen but understated… A becalmed landscape populated by distant drones, just-out-of-focus field recordings, and phased, minimalistic, Rhodes-style keys — a sort of somber, lunar jazz. Just as Quake’s words are cumulative in their tragedy, the music grows more agitated and turbulent, at certain points harking back to the smoked-out psycho-acoustics of Manek’s 2015 Blackest Ever Black LP, Tarquin Magnet, and his work in F ingers, with Samuel Karmel and Carla dal Forno.
File Under: Experimental, Electronic
Listen Here
Mogwai: Every Country’s Sun (Temporary Residence) LP
Indie coloured vinyl in stock, DLX box coming soon. Every Country’s Sun takes two decades of Mogwai’s signature, contrasting sounds – towering intensity, pastoral introspection, synth-rock minimalism, DNA-detonating volume – and distills it, beautifully, into 56 concise minutes of gracious elegance, hymnal trance-rock, and transcendental euphoria. Produced by psych-rock luminary Dave Fridmann, it’s a structural soundscape built from stark foundations up; from a gentle, twinkling, synth-rock spectre to a solid, blown-out, skyward-thrusting obelisk. There’s percussive, dream-state electronics (“Coolverine”), church organs as chariots of existential fire (“Brain Sweeties”), tremulous, foreboding bleeping – possibly from a dying android (“aka 47”). Their most transportive album yet, it also hosts their most fully realized art-pop sing-along of their storied history, “Party In The Dark,” a head-spinning disco-dream double-helix echoing New Order and The Flaming Lips, featuring Stuart Braithwaite’s seldom-heard melodic vocals declaring he’s “directionless and innocent, searching for another piece of mind.” This is music as a keep-out chrysalis, protective audio armor through exalting organs and portentous, dissonant guitar fuzz warping at the edges, bending the world inside-out into a reality in which you’d much rather live. The last three songs ascend into explosive exorcism, closing with the colossal title cut “Every Country’s Sun,” its searching intensity whooshing towards infinity in a dazzling cosmic crescendo.
File Under: Post Rock
Listen Here
Mount Kimbie: Love What Survivies (Warp) LP
In tomorrow… Love What Survives is the long awaited third studio album from Mount Kimbie. It’s the most confident statement of intent from the boundary-pushing duo yet, and an embodiment of their career-long musical progression. The album is the product of three years of intense creative development, continually honed by the duo writing and rewriting their ideas to form something wholly idiosyncratic and personal. It brings together the voices of their close friends and collaborators – who together represent a bright corner of young artistic talent – James Blake, Micachu and King Krule, within the immersive, unique atmosphere of a Mount Kimbie album.
File Under: Electronic, Hip Hop, Left Field
Listen Here
Myrkur: Mareridt (Relapse) LP
Mareridt (translation: Nightmare) is the highly anticipated sophomore full-length from renowned Danish composer and multi-instrumentalist Myrkur. Recorded between Copenhagen and Seattle with producer Randall Dunn (Marissa Nadler, Earth, Sunn O))), Boris, Wolves In The Throne Room), Mareridt is a rich juxtaposition of the dark and the light; the moon and the mother earth; the witch and the saint. Myrkur explores deeper into the mysterious and the feminine with 11 tracks that further progress her visionary blend of metal with gorgeous, stirring melodies, dark folk passages, choral arrangements and superb, horrific beauty. Further taking Myrkur to new artistic heights are lyrics in multiple languages, an unforgettable collaboration with Chelsea Wolfe and an array of special instrumentation including violin, mandola, folk drums, nyckelharpa (an ancient Swedish key harp), and Kulning (an ancient Scandinavian herding call). Mareridt is a profound manifestation of nightmares that demonstrates Myrkur as one of the truly exceptional artists of our time.
File Under: Metal
Listen Here
Rob Noyes/Alexander: Split (C/Site) 7″
Fresh off 2016’s The Feudal Spirit LP on Poon Village, Rob Noyes brings a breakneck-paced, attention-demanding number to his side. Noyes’s style and finger work fills space with a density and heaviness that may harken back to his hardcore/punk roots. Alexander has been quietly amassing a catalog of cassettes over the years, many of which are reminiscent of Alan Bishop (as Alvarius B) in their homespun, improvisational style. On this split, Alexander eases into a coy and sentimental tune that unwinds across five-and-a-half minutes, his keen grasp of intricacy and minimalism cementing him as a top player.
File Under: Guitar Soli
Oneohtrix Point Never: Good Time OST (Warp) LP
In tomorrow… Oneohtrix Point Never took home the prestigious Soundtrack Award at 2017’s Cannes Film Festival for his visceral original score for Good Time. Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie and starring Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the hypnotic crime thriller follows Pattinson’s Connie in a twisted odyssey through the New York underworld in a desperate attempt to get his brother out of jail. Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) and Josh Safdie became close friends through a shared love of cult genre movies and music, and their level of collaboration here has a rare depth of symbiosis of picture and score. Mundane events become dramatic, montages become mini operas and Iggy Pop features on the poignant closer “The Pure And The Damned.” 2LP-set with poster insert.
File Under: Electronic, OST
Listen Here
Jean-Francois Pauvros & Gaby Bizien: No Man’s Land (Souffle Continu) LP
Souffle Continu Records present a reissue of Jean-Francois Pauvros and Gaby Bizien’s No Man’s Land, originally released on Un-Deux-Trois in 1976. Whether it is with the label Palm, or for Un-Deux-Trois, Jef Gilson has produced some of the best albums of French free jazz and improvisation. But that’s not all: he also offered perfect recording conditions enabling some of the fresh young talent to emerge, including Daunik Lazro, André Jaume, and Jean-François Pauvros, all three of whom released their first recordings on one of those labels. Recorded by Jean-François Pauvros (guitar, but not only…) alongside Gaby Bizien (drums, percussion, aquatic trombone, marimba, bird calls), and, of course, produced by the audacious Jef Gilson, the appropriately named No Man’s Land had virtually no equivalent in France (nor worldwide) when it came out in 1976. Radical, free, primitive, timeless: in the image of the musicians, it is not for nothing that it appears in the famous Nurse With Wound list of major influences concocted in 1979. No label can be placed on this vertiginous sensory adventure: an explosive flow of shrapnel and tearing intensity, full of mystery and life. To be clear, No Man’s Land is the key recording of French improvisation. So much so that it is difficult to imagine it coming out of nowhere, the two musicians must surely have been listening to the latest forays of the British Music Improvisation Company and decided to reply in their own way. But not at all! If you believe what the protagonists have to say, these experiments were carried out in secret isolation, and with a total lack of awareness of everything that was going on in the avant-garde of improvised music. Indeed, it was only after the album was published that Jean-François Pauvros and Gaby Bizien learned that there was a movement going on with similar ideas. That tells us something about the level of invention of this album, which comfortably bears comparison to other similar duos such as Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley, Fred Frith and Chris Cutler, John Russell and Roger Turner, or Gary Smith and John Stevens… The Frenchmen were well served by their unbridled variety and poly-instrumentalism. Licensed from Jean-François Pauvros. Obi strip; Reverse printing; Edition of 500.
File Under: Free Jazz, Experimental
Listen Here
Jean-Francois Pauvros & Gaby Bizien: Pays Noir (Souffle Continu) LP
Previously unreleased, the three tracks on Pays Noir come from recording sessions held at the same time as those for the cult album No Man’s Land (FFL 026LP), produced by Jef Gilson in 1976, and published on vinyl by Souffle Continu Records in 2017. Singled out at the time of its release by Actuel, Rock & Folk, and Melody Maker, the tabula rasa of No Man’s Land is the result of free-flowing experiments born of chance, if the two musicians are to be believed. Indeed, their approach to free improvisation was uninfluenced by those in the know of what was going on in such circles, which makes it even more incredible. To emphasize the point, the saxophonist Evan Parker (already a leader in the field) remarked on the album at the time, surprised by the innovation of the two Frenchmen. Brimming with the same fervor as No Man’s Land, mainly on guitar and drums (but once again, not only…), Jean-François Pauvros and Gaby Bizien invent an amazing unbridled chaos of instinctive combinations, which are the fruit of their immense complicity, born of days on end playing together, trying to transform the rebelliousness of rock into free-form sparks unlike anything heard before, and which are often poetic — ah, that final song! Carried along by the frenzied clatter of Gaby Bizien, Jean-François Pauvros emerges without doubt as one the great French improvising guitarists, alongside Gérard Marais (Dharma Quintet, Stu Martin Trio), Joseph Dejean (Cohelmec Ensemble, The Full Moon Ensemble), Raymond Boni (who, like Pauvros and Bizien, is present on the Nurse With Wound list), Dominique Répécaud, Noël Akchoté, and Jean-Marc Montera. Furthermore, the duo has a crazy intensity heard only on recordings by duos such as Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano, Arto Lindsay and Paal Nilssen-Love, Thurston Moore and John Moloney, and Mesa Of The Lost Women. A kind of French no wave ahead of its time. Licensed from Jean-François Pauvros. Obi strip; Reverse printing; Edition of 500.
File Under: Free Jazz, Experimental
Akira Rabelais: Spellewauerynsherde (Boomkat) LP
Boomkat Editions offers the first-ever vinyl edition of Spellwauerynsherde, a masterpiece from LA-based artist Akira Rabelais, originally released on CD by David Sylvian’s Samadhisound label in 2004. It comprises a suite of seven medieval choral pieces which have been sublimated and recomposed via Rabelais’s self-built Argeïphontes Lyre software. The results arguably stand as one of the 21st century’s greatest musical enigmas and could be said to presage contemporary obsessions with processed vocals in a deeply uncanny manner, enduring to resonate with up-to-the-moment music as much as the record’s distant roots in the seminal works of 12th century German mystic and composer Hildegard von Bingen, and the writings of John Milton, among others. Spellwauerynsherde has always been crying out for a vinyl issue and Rabelais has done the piece proud with this sensitive new version, allowing its seven parts to gently flow in sequence over both sides, with the added shroud of vinyl infidelity lending a beautifully subtle patina of detachment which perhaps only serves to heighten the paradoxical — both temporal, spatial and timbral — nature of the record’s ethereal vestibules and elusive, illusory sonic specters. In remodeling these ancient works of art, Rabelais performs a sort of hypermodern animism on ostensibly dead musical material — dead as in hardly anyone knows or plays them in the modern age — imbuing them with a contemporary relevance through the process of his bespoke software (which is freely available to download) which serves to faithfully render, open-up new dimensions and plasmic aspects from work which is now nearly a millennia old — so old you can’t even call it classical music. Spellwauerynsherde has set a benchmark for experiments with ancient composition and computer music — each immersion in this vinyl is akin to floating through the mists of time and will sends shivers down your spine just even thinking or writing about it, never mind listening. Spellwauerynsherde is one of the most magickal, perplexing, and strangely life-giving records that you’ll ever hear. Photography by Jacqueline Roberts; Design by Michael Worthington. Lacquer cut at Dubplates & Mastering.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Classical
Listen Here
Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement: Green Amulet Crafts Supernatural Qualities (Hospital) LP
This is the second in a reissue series of Dominick Fernow’s early work as Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, casting spells from the Green Amulet Crafts Supernatural Qualities (2011) tape onto vinyl for the first time and steadily closing the gap in your Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement collection. Something like the soundtrack to one of Ballard’s prophetic visions of sunken cities, this second RSE incursion was initially released in an edition of 63 tapes in 2011 and found Fernow dwelling in a dread-fueled, paranoid headspace. Aesthetically, it forms an oblique inversion of Prurient’s saturated noise assaults or a sort of chopped-and-screwed adjunct to Vatican Shadow, perhaps best located closest to his Force Publique Congo output, but with fathoms more negative space and those full sunken sub bass charges. “A Slave Boy That Died An Awful Death For Not Keepng His Owner’s Horses. He Helps People Who Are Looking For Lost Things.” fills the A side, pinpointing a location that could easily be an overgrown traffic island as some Nigerian mangroves in oil country, overrun by local scallies or machete wielding pirates, both scared witless, who could well be the B side’s “An Old Hag That Wears Shoes And Stomps Over People’s Stomachs At Night Making Them Breathless.”, as is common to local legends of Manchester’s southern edgelands and the Niger Delta. Thanks to Paul Corley’s sensitive remaster and Dubplates & Mastering’s lacquer cut, the sub bass has been perfectly translated to the vinyl for total immersion, sounding stronger, wider than the tape or digital versions ever did, and in the process rendering RSE’s magick at its most tangible. Ask many Fernow/Prurient/Vatican Shadow fiends and they’ll likely cosign — this is some of the dankest, most precious work in Fernow’s sprawling catalog. RIYL: Coil, Demdike Stare, Prurient, Brian Eno / Jon Hassell’s Fourth World (1980). Edition of 500.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Industrial
Lee Ranaldo: Electric Trim (Mute) LP
Electric Trim was recorded in New York City and Barcelona in collaboration with producer Raül “Refree” Fernandez and extends the work of Lee Ranaldo’s solo canon, the most recent being his 2013 album, Last Night On Earth. Through his collaboration with Fernandez, Ranaldo moves into some rich new sonic territories and production techniques, experimenting with electronic beats and samples alongside live players. In addition to Fernandez, he worked with several special guests on Electric Trim, including Sharon Van Etten who sings on six of the tracks and duets on “Last Looks” and Kid Millions (aka Man Forever) as well as longtime friend and collaborator Nels Cline (Wilco). In addition, the album features Ranaldo’s band The Dust (fellow Sonic Youth member Steve Shelley, guitarist Alann Licht, and bassist Tim Luntzel). Ranaldo collaborated with award-winning New York author Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) for lyrics on six of the songs. The American artist Richard Prince, who previously painted the sleeve for Sonic Youth’s 2004 album Sonic Nurse, created the artwork. The nine-track album marks a return to the Mute family for Ranaldo, who says: “I’m so excited about this record, it represents new developments and directions for me and I can’t wait to hit the road and play this music live. I’m also so pleased to partner with Mute for this release – it’s like a homecoming of sorts as Sonic Youth’s early records were released on Blast First Mute. To me, Mute has always been a true artist’s label, concentrating first and foremost on the music.”
File Under: Indie Rock, Sonic Youth
Listen Here
Raskovich: Science & Technology (Dead Cert) LP
Impossible-to-find Italian library music oddity from semi-mythical producer and Fabio Frizzi collaborator Giuliano Sorgini, aka Raskovich. Best regarded for his groundbreaking electro-acoustic and concrète sound design input to The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue (1974) and Zoo Folle (1974), Raskovich is also linked to a wealth of impossible-to-find cult LPs with Alessandro Alessandroni’s Braen (SME 038LP), Giulia Alessandrini’s Kema, and their mysterious supergroup The Pawnshop, all amounting to a catalogue which assures his place in the pantheon of library music greats. Going deep into their under-the-counter channels, Dead-Cert have again outdone themselves with this outing, salvaging Science & Technology from total obscurity to reveal an innovator working at the full extent of his avant imagination in a sort of cybernetic symbiosis with his studio-as-instrument. Keening between sounds as much suited to a blood-lusting horror as a psychedelic, drug-fueled thriller or some esoteric sci-fi, he penetrates and opens up vividly magnetizing realms of abstraction that just beg to be explored by listeners who think they’ve heard it all before. Erring closer to the kind of minimalist negative space and fractured dynamic favored by Belgium’s IPEM, or even pre-echoing the atonality of Maurizio Bianchi, for example, as opposed the fluffier lounge tendencies found on many recent reissues from his field, Science & Technology lives up to its title with impressionistic depictions of industry and plugged-in life evocatively animated under titles such as “Fissione Nucleare” and “Biochemica”, or accurately modelling processes in the mutant, polymetric patterning of “Germinazione”. An album like this is a reminder of the prescient collective and individual genius of the Italian library music scene, especially at a time when the quality levels, in terms of musical intrigue and uniqueness, not just presentation, is being called into question by a swell of inferior, or just plain unnecessary library music relics. As Dead-Cert co-curator Andy Votel explains: “this release is quite unlike the many projects that have recently flooded the reissue market and stands up as one of the truly unobtainable and wholly original records to come from this important era of European studio music by a composer whose reputation is slowly approaching monarchical status.”
File Under: Library, Electronic
Listen Here
Rodinia: Ex Anima (Now Again) LP
“Electronic Krautrock in line with Cluster, Harmonia, Neu!, Popul Vuh from Jay Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers/Karl Hector & The Malcouns). Now-Again Records has enjoyed a long and creative partnership with Munich-based multi-instrumentalist JJ Whitefield, creative force behind the Poets of Rhythm, Whitefield Brothers and Karl Hector & The Malcouns. Rodinia, his latest project, is quite different than anything that’s come from his oeuvre to date, but follows in the line of the Poets of Rhythm’s great Discern/Define, as it reaches back to Krautrock’s experimental heyday but pushes its boundaries with a post-hip-hop approach. Rodinia’s first album, Drumside/Dreamside, featured two, side-long suites, with synthesizers taking the fore on an overarching ambient approach (featuring over-dubbed reeds, drums and guitar, and self-made Moroccan field recordings introducing the project on its Drumside.) For Ex Anima, Rodinia has incorporated more of the mid-70s approach of Krautrock forebears Neu!, Cluster and Harmonia, with shorter, self-contained songs. The result is winsome and exploratory, respectfully distanced from the past’s trappings while celebrating a musical spirit still very much alive and influential. With original artwork by Jason Jagel (DOOM’s MM..Food, Operation: Doomsday).”
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Kosmische
Listen Here
Suso Saiz: Rainworks (Music from Memory) LP
Following 2016’s compilation of archival recordings by Suso Saiz titled Odisea, Music From Memory mark their 20th release with an album of new works by the Spanish electronic music pioneer. Recorded in Madrid between January and February 2016, this is Suso Saiz’s first release of new music in nearly ten years. Titled Rainworks, this double LP release was originally part of a commission from a Canary Islands water company. The first ideas for the compositions developed from a documentary that Suso had seen suggesting the possibility of water molecules having their own memory. As Suso himself explains, he became fascinated with the possibility of an eternal being, changing its cyclical condition from solid to gaseous state, travelling through and between the Earth and the Sky, as a witness and keeper of the true history of Earth and Mankind. Suso, his son Emil Saiz, and pianist Raph Killhertz set out to explore this metaphysical process of cyclical movement through music in Rainworks. Developing from the original commissioned tracks into a much more elaborate project, the album’s process became something of a mystical journey, drawing on aspects of minimalism and modernism. The music is also embedded in textured natural soundscapes and spoken word passages which were recorded and processed by Suso himself. Despite having the immediacy of an improvised piece, Rainworks was in entirely composed by Suso. Whilst on one hand it appears very much as an electronic album there are in fact many acoustic elements to the recording. A resonant piano (a grand piano re-amplified using its resonant box and harp to generate effects) as well as guitars (with simple effects) are played in Suso’s inimitable hypnotic way, slowly drawing the listener into a transportive state or lucid dream.
File Under: Ambient, Electronic
Listen Here
Sky Music: A Tribute to Terje Rypdal 1 (Rune Grammofon) LP
Guitarist and composer Terje Rypdal (1947) is probably as close as one gets to a living legend in Norwegian music. He has received a number of awards, including three Norwegian Grammies (Spellemannpris), the last being the honorary award in 2005. Sky Music is a heartfelt celebration of an inspirational artist and truly unique guitarist who hasn’t fully received the due credit and recognition he deserves for over 50 years of music making. Initiated by the experimental US guitarist and lifelong Rypdal fan Henry Kaiser, Rune Grammofon put together an all-star band including keyboardist and long-time Rypdal side-kick Ståle Storløkken (Elephant9, Supersilent), bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Scorch Trio, The Thing), drummer Gard Nilssen (Bushman’s Revenge), guitarists Even H. Hermansen (Bushman´s Revenge) and Hedvig Mollestad, Finnish guitarist Raoul Björkenheim (Scorch Trio), and Swedish guitarist Reine Fiske (Dungen). Kaiser also played and produced while Hans Magnus Ryan (Motorpsycho) added bits and pieces and Jim O’Rourke beamed in his exquisite contributions to “Sunrise” from Tokyo. Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, and David Torn delivered their solo interpretations, Cline with the aid of cellist Erik Friedlander.
File Under: Jazz, Rock
Listen Here
Sky Music: A Tribute to Terje Rypdal 2 (Rune Grammofon) LP
A vinyl-only release of two epic outtakes that didn’t make the main album, Sky Music: A Tribute To Terje Rypdal, due to lack of space. Guitarist and composer Terje Rypdal (1947) is probably as close as one gets to a living legend in Norwegian music. Sky Music is a heartfelt celebration of an inspirational artist and truly unique guitarist who hasn’t fully received the due credit and recognition he deserves for over 50 years of music making. Initiated by the experimental US guitarist and lifelong Rypdal fan Henry Kaiser, Rune Grammofon put together an all-star band including keyboardist and long-time Rypdal side-kick Ståle Storløkken (Elephant9, Supersilent), bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Scorch Trio, The Thing), drummer Gard Nilssen (Bushman’s Revenge), guitarists Even H. Hermansen (Bushman´s Revenge) and Hedvig Mollestad, Finnish guitarist Raoul Björkenheim (Scorch Trio), and Swedish guitarist Reine Fiske (Dungen). Kaiser also played and produced. The Sky Music project also includes additional contributions from Hans Magnus Ryan (Motorpsycho), Jim O’Rourke, Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, David Torn, and Erik Friedlander. Includes CD.
File Under: Jazz, Rock
Spaceface: Sun Kids (Friends) LP
Dreamrock outfit Spaceface is led by Jake Ingalls who also plays guitar and synthesizer in The Flaming Lips. Something to behold, Spaceface’s music offers a refreshing approach on psychedelic rock, with transparent ’70s references but also strikingly modern elements. Their new record, Sun Kids is hazy, psychedelic pop music, elegantly composed. They will also be touring nationally in support of the album, bringing their concert grade experience to the club level employing a DIY light rig and other theatrical elements along the way.
File Under: Psych Rock, Flaming Lips
Listen Here
Bruno Spoerri: Voice of Taurus (WRWTFWW) LP
We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records present a reissue of the highly sought-after electronic/ sci-fi disco/ proto- techno/ ambient masterpiece Voice Of Taurus by Swiss music pioneer and synth super wizard Bruno Spoerri, available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 1978. Surrounded with a formidable family of legendary synthesizers, primitive modulators, and audio gear — transformed and customized à la Spoerri –, armed with an extraordinary talent for improvisation, and deeply inspired by the likes of Wendy Carlos, Pierre Schaeffer, and the then freshly released Close Encounter of the Third Kind (1977), Bruno Spoerri envisioned Voice Of Taurus as “electronic pop conceived using an experimental and jazz approach”. The result is an out-of-this-world sonic adventure where early techno sounds blend with synth-based sci-fi soundtrack vibes, krautrock explorations, and retro-futuristic disco madness. It’s unique, catchy, cosmic, and meditative — it’s a must have for all record collectors of the galaxy… welcome to Planet Spoerri. Still very active recording, touring, and collaborating (with Julian Sartorius, Franz Treichler of Young Gods, Marco Repetto of Grauzone, Roger Girod, to name a few), Bruno Spoerri is a multiple award-winning Swiss music icon, whose career started in the 1950s. His works spans jazz, electronic music, film, and TV work, and everything in between. Improvisational maestro and synthesizer mega-connoisseur, Mr. Spoerri has influenced an entire generation of producers and musicians — even Jay-Z sampled him. Housed in a 350 gram jacket; Includes new liner notes.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Sci Fi, Disco, Techno
Listen Here
Bruno Spoerri & Reto Weber: Sound of the UFOs (WRWTFWW) LP
We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records present a reissue of the extraterrestrial cult classic The Sound Of The UFOs, a collaborative effort between Swiss jazz and electronic music icon Bruno Spoerri and innovative drummer extraordinaire Reto Weber, available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 1978. Recorded live in Zurich in March 1978, The Sound Of The UFOs finds Bruno and Reto improvising with a vast array of classic and customized synths and percussions from all corners of the globe (and the galaxy). It’s cosmic free jazz in audio gear heaven with a heavy dose of ambient, krautrock, primitive proto-techno vibes, and experimental space disco with a musique concrète mentality — anything’s possible when a jazzman and a percussionist obsessed with finding new sounds collide and explore uncharted sonic territories. This groundbreaking gem is the ideal companion piece to Bruno Spoerri’s highly coveted Voice Of Taurus LP. Still very active recording, touring, and collaborating (with Julian Sartorius, Franz Treichler of Young Gods, Marco Repetto of Grauzone, Roger Girod, to name a few), Bruno Spoerri is a multiple award-winning Swiss music icon, whose career started in the 1950s. His works spans jazz, electronic music, film, and TV work, and everything in between. Improvisational maestro and synthesizer mega-connoisseur, Mr. Spoerri has influenced an entire generation of producers and musicians — even Jay-Z sampled him. Housed in a 350 gram jacket; Includes new liner notes.
File Under: Electronic, Sci Fi, Techno
Listen Here
Ugly Things #45
“On the cover: Q65, The Outsiders and the Dutch Beat Revolution, the stories of two legendary, rebellious bands from the Netherlands in the 1960s. Part 2 of The Uniques — blue-eyed garage and soul from America’s South. Plus The Left Banke, Texas ’60s icons Neal Ford & The Fanatics, occult rocker Geof Crozier, German freakbeat from The Toxic, and demented San Fernando Valley punk rockers Puke, Spit & Guts. There are revealing interviews with Richard Strange of The Doctors Of Madness, and original Rolling Stones and Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky, and, in his own words, Victor ‘Moulty’ Moulton tells the poignant story of how he lost his hand yet fought on to become the drummer of successful Cape Cod band The Barbarians. We also take a peek at the personal acetate archive of John Entwistle and reveal the story of a New Jersey girl garage group that met and inspired The Stooges. Plus our acclaimed reissue and book review sections, fully-loaded and bursting with insights and information.”
File Under: Reading
Bro. Valentino: Stay Up Zimbabwe (Analog Africa) LP
Bro. Valentino, Anthony Emrold Phillip, began his illustrious career in 1961 at The Big Bamboo, a minor calypso tent in Port of Spain, Trinidad, before breaking into the professional scene in 1966 at the Lord Kitchener’s Caravan calypso tent. After the Black Power revolution of 1970, he transformed into a calypsonian with a conscience and a consciousness who sang on behalf of the poor and downtrodden and was dubbed “The People’s Calypsonian”. His commitment to lyrics of education, elevation, and African consciousness has been his identifying badge and signature. At the end of the heady decade of the tumultuous 1970s, with the echoes of the Black Power revolution of Trinidad still strongly reverberating, Valentino penned his two most commercially successful calypso songs, 1979’s “Stay Up Zimbabwe” and 1980’s “Ah Wo (Brand New Revolution)” both reflections of the revolutionary spirit which had engulfed the Caribbean in the 1970s. 1979 marked the historic date of the Maurice Bishop-led Grenadian Revolution and as if to herald this auspicious event Valentino would make it all the way to the coveted national calypso monarch finals with this anti-apartheid anthem. The infectious military style rhythm and the lyrical clarion call to arms invaded the carnival/calypso season of 1979 filling the lips and boots of everyone, singing and marching to his chorus. But there was another rhythmic element, the Shango/Orisha blend, which on many an occasion at Valentino’s pubic performances, would make audiences, as Trinidadians say locally, “catch the power”. One year later Valentino again stunned the world with a song which reveled in the new-found fame of the Caribbean, no doubt spurned on by the very Grenadian revolution of one year earlier. “Awo” championed the new mood of the Islands. He called on the people to rally around this cause and spread the fire to the next generation. Both songs, calypso-flavored with the newly introduced soca melody of the mid 1970s, are now given a new lease of life on this record. Voted among the top 50 calypsonians of the 20th century, four of his songs have also been selected in the Top 200 calypsos of that period — “Life Is A Stage” (1972), “Barking Dogs” (1974), “Dis Place Nice” (1975), and “Stay Up Zimbabwe” (1979) — while his 2004 history treatise “Where Calypso Went” was selected as Calypso of the Year. Silk-screen printed cover; 140 gram turquoise vinyl.
File Under: Reggae, Funk, Soul
Listen Here
Vatican Shadow: Luxor Necropolitics (Hospital Productions) 2×10″
Dominick Fernow’s Vatican Shadow returns with a new double-pack for his own Hospital Productions imprint following on from the recent Rubbish Of The Floodwaters 12″ for Ostgut Ton. Luxor Necropolitics was once again produced by Joshua Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv, and it includes a super rare remix from Female of Sandwell District fame. Clocking in at almost 40 minutes, this is the most substantial Vatican Shadow release since 2016’s Media In The Service Of Terror LP and further develops Fernow’s creative collaboration with Eustis, who provides a much more lean and dynamic sheen to those highly atmospheric foundations. The opening, title track provides evocative exposition; this is Vatican Shadow at its most cinematic and unreal; before “Intel War” jolts with increased propulsion and bass pressure and a killer soundsystem focus deployed with precision and depth. “Crown Prince Hamza” is much more squashed and feral, before a new “Red Headband” version of “More Of The Same” takes the original into even more anthemic terrain; this is surely the most memorable, enduring, and club-focused Vatican Shadow track of all. As if to further etch it on your mind, the vinyl edition offers a final exclusive track, a reworking of “More Of The Same” from Female, who takes the original and duffs it up, completely discarding that synth hook and instead intensifying the menace, heading down a Sandwell-shaped cave that will reminds you why you’ve loved pretty much every Female production. Cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy. Edition of 700.
File Under: Electronic, Industrial
Listen Here
War on Drugs: A Deeper Understanding (Atlantic) LP
Finally we’re well stocked on this one… for now. A Deeper Understanding is The War On Drugs’ highly anticipated follow-up to 2014’s universally acclaimed Lost In The Dream and Atlantic Records debut. For much of the three and a half year period since the release of Lost In The Dream, frontman Adam Granduciel led the charge for his Philadelphia-based sextet as he holed up in studios in New York and Los Angeles to write, record, edit, and tinker – but, above all, to busy himself in work. Teaming up with engineer Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, Weezer), Granduciel challenged the notion of what it means to create a fully realized piece of music in today’s modern landscape. Calling on his bandmates – bassist Dave Hartley, keyboardist Robbie Bennett, drummer Charlie Hall and multi-instrumentalists Anthony LaMarca and Jon Natchez – continuously throughout the process, the result is a “band record” in the noblest sense, featuring collaboration, coordination, and confidence at every turn. Through those years of relocation, the revisiting and reexamining of endless hours of recordings, unbridled exploration and exuberance, Granduciel’s gritty love of his craft succeeded in pushing the band to great heights. Pitchfork proclaimed that, “Granduciel’s influence has become omnipresent in the indie world” and NPR has hailed A Deeper Understanding’s crystalline lead singles “Thinking Of A Place” (“epic, mood-shifting guitar jam”) and “Holding On” (“a pulsing jam that sounds deeply inspired by ’80s-era Bruce Springsteen”).
File Under: Indie Rock
Listen Here
Zwartjes: Tapes 1 (Trunk) LP
Tapes 1 represents the first ever sound recordings to be released from the archive of cult Dutch film director Frans Zwartjes. The sound is unlike anything you may have heard — dream-like, disjointed, disturbing, peculiar, sexy, unexpected, and totally unique. Frans Zwartjes is famous for his art-house films. A Dutch underground auteur, his prolific output dates from 1968. A unique talent, Zwartjes produced, directed, and edited his own films (his last work was in 1991), but more importantly he created and improvised the soundtracks too. Zwartjes is still alive today and his large body of work is only now being recognized by a wider, more international crowd, with screenings at the NFT and other important art-house cinemas across the world. The recordings on Tapes 1 were mixed directly from the Zwartjes soundtrack tape archive. They were assembled directly and in real time by Zwartjes archivist Stanley Schtinter and were originally issued in 2014 on cassette, in an edition of 50. Don’t bother trying to find one of them. The music, sound, and speech have been put together as two long, seamless sequences; they are dreamlike, unsettling, peculiar, plugged-in, prescient, and unlike any other soundtrack. All cues mastered and sequenced by Jon Brooks, AKA The Advisory Circle. Includes download; Edition of 500.
File Under: OST, Jazz, Sound Collage, Experimental
Listen Here
Various: Sicksville Volume 1 (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
First of two 10″s called Sicksville. Watch out for two volumes of its sister compilation Coolsville. Compiled by Stay Sick, a gruesome twosome of deejays from the nightclubs of Brighton, UK. Established in 2008, they continue to spin the best dancing music from surf to soul, oddball R&B to filthy rock n’ roll, garage to punk, 7″s at a time. Their vinyl addiction has meant they have amassed a large collection of sleazy and greasy rock n’ roll from the fifties and sixties, including Tarantino surf, proto-soul stompers, swingin’ rhythm and blues, and twistin’ tittyshakers. Get ready for the DJ to drop some slop. Greasy battered platters of wax, with honkin’ saxes and Hammond organs blasting outta the speakers like there’s no tomorrow. Hit the go-go cage for some tittyshakers to whip, whop, wobble, and grind to. If you like Sicksville, then come and visit its twin town, Coolsville. This sister series is a bit more laid back and strictly for bongo beating beatniks. So cool it’s frozen. It’s solid gone. Sleazy finger-clickers, smoldering sax-laden instrumentals and oddball rock n’ roll play out of every groove. Dig the crazy vibrations, the swingin’ beat. So flip ya wig, snap the whip and make the trip… to Coolsville Features: Phil Campos, Sandy Nelson, The Nite Hawks, The Sentinals, The Idols, The Nightmare, Jimmy Shaw, Robert Parker, Douglas “Jocko” Henderson, Bill Smith Combo, Jessie Hill, and The Metropolitans.
File Under: Exotica, R&B, RnR
Various: Songs from Satan’s Jukebox Volume 1 (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
Who the hell is the devil? As we all know, God (that old slowcoach) is commonly known and allowed to have but one name (or none). As his everlasting archenemy, however, of my names there are plenty: Allow me to introduce myself: Satan from Arabia! Devil, El Diablo, fiend, deuce, Old Nick, the one that bedevils everything — these are only a few of my names in Western cultures! Lucifer — the one who brings the light — or, as seen through the eyes of my grumbling competition, the one who was exiled from the light! Beelzebub, Azrael… Satan on the release: “I am the outlaw, the one nobody likes to talk about but the one that everybody likes to hail, the one that is always to the fore when you need me: You can find me wherever guilty pleasure celebrates its goatish feasts. You can find me at the tables of a gambling den, at the counters of hellish bars, promoting artistic careers at crossroads when the clock strikes midnight. I’m riding the highway to hell in a chromium-black limousine and steam along diabolic train tracks in black locos. I travel as the eerie wanderer or the eldritch hitchhiker. You can meet me in many shapes on the world’s and life’s big stages as the salient seducer in classy, noble twine and pointed leather shoes. I am especially dangerous in shape of a bombshell woman! Thus, it’s no wonder that artists have been erecting memorials in my honor since the beginning of time. I have been idolized in arts, literature, and especially in music. I hereby present you a small selection of satanic songs and maleficent melodies from my infernal jukebox. Let me seduce you!” Features: The Louvin’ Brothers, Sonny Burns, Joe Carson, Gene ‘Bo’ Davis, Jessie Floyd, Anita Carter, Johnny & Dorsey Burnette with The Rock`n´Roll Trio, Marty Robbins, Billy Barton, Johnny Horton, and Harry Choates.
File Under: Country, Rockabilly, Gospel
…..Restocks…..
Alt-J: An Awesome Wave (Warner) LP
Maki Asakawa: s/t (Honest Jon’s) LP
Bjork: Debut (One Little Indian) LP
Bjork: Vespertine (One Little Indian) LP
Bjork: Homogenic (One Little Indian) LP
Boards of Canada: Geogaddi (Warp) LP
Can: Tago Mago (Mute) LP
Nick Cave: Push The Sky Away (Bad Seed) LP
Circle: Terminal (Southern Lord) LP
Daft Punk: Random Access Memories (Columbia) LP
Dinosaur L: 24 > 24 Music (Traffic) LP
Bob Dylan: Nashville Skyline (Columbia) LP
Bob Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home (Columbia) LP
Bob Dylan: Freewheelin’ (Columbia) LP
Brian Eno: Another Green World (Astralwerks) LP
Brian Eno: Here Come The Warm Jets (Astralwerks) LP
Harold Grosskopf: Synthesist (Bureau B) LP
Herbie Hancock: Headhunter (Music on Vinyl) LP
Heath Brothers: Marchin’ On (Everland) LP
Kacy & Clayton: Sirens Song (New West) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Nonagon Infinity (ATO) LP
Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid (Aftermath) LP
Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp A Butterfly (Aftermath) LP
Love Theme: s/t (Alter) LP
Metallica: Master of Puppets (Blackened) LP
Metallica: Death Magnetic (Blackened) LP
The National: Sleep Well Beats (4AD) LP
Oiseaux-Tempete: Al-‘An! (Sub Rosa) LP
OST: Baby Driver (Lakeshore) LP
Pink Floyd: Division Bell (Pink Floyd) LP
Queens of the Stone Age: Villains (Matador) LP
Otis Redding: Otis Blue (Rhino) LP
Relatively Clean Rivers: s/t (Phoenix) LP
Sonic Youth: Sonic Nurse (Geffen) LP
Neil Young: Hitchhiker (Reprise) LP