If last week’s Earth reissue wasn’t enough to get you down here, then maybe the reissues of White 1 & White 2 will be! They should be. And if that isn’t enough, the Brian Eno box is finally available! And we got more Ryo Fukui! And I’ve been digging through the back and found some nice OG jazz gems, and some other neat stuff I bought a while back too! Come cool off and have a dig.
…..picks of the week…..
Sunn o))): White 1 (Southern Lord) LP
WHITE1 entirely remastered at 88K / 24bit from the original full length/unedited mixes by Matt “The Alchemist” Colton at Alchemy, London. OBI text : WHITE1 was originally released in 2003 by Southern Lord as a CD and very limited 3 sided LP edition of 540 copies (in a white sleeve with a sticker, packaged in an embroidered pillowcase and containing a sleeping pill.) SUNN O))) co-founders Stephen O’Malley & Greg Anderson originally conceived the WHITE albums to be “acoustic” but the sessions at Fontanelle’s Magnetic Park studios in Portland Oregon quickly took a far different route toward the psychedelic and the electronic/synthetic, with trance and drone experiments. The WHITE1 album was a bold step forward into the experimental and highly collaborative area which SUNN O))) has metamorphosed via and travelled since. Together with the generosity and talent of the unique and great guest artists Julian Cope, Joe Preston, Rex Ritter, Ulver and Runhild Gammelsæter the concept of SUNN O))) was brought forth from the shadows of the earth unto the broader cosmic spheres. For these reissues SUNN O))) returned to the original full length unedited premasters/final mixes and brought them to Matt “The Alchemist” Colton at Alchemy Mastering in London for a complete high resolution 88K/24bit mastering and, crucially, cut the lacquers using Alchemy’s half-speed method on their Neumann SX 74 cutterhead. The outstanding results allow the original full length mixes to be pressed at high fidelity on the vinyl format. The new WHITE1 masters reveal a broader frequency response, the bottom end is deeper and more intense, low mids are lusher, high frequencies are smoother and the stereo image is vastly improved, seeming more 3 dimensional spacially and more dynamic. The sound is clearer, sharper, more direct. Southern Lord Recordings is pleased to present the historical SUNN O))) WHITE albums in their fundamental and proper forms.
File Under: Drone, Metal
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Sunn o))): White 2 (Southern Lord) LP
WHITE2 entirely remastered at 88K / 24bit from the original full length/unedited mixes by Matt “The Alchemist” Colton at Alchemy, London. OBI text : WHITE2 was originally released in 2004 by Southern Lord as a CD and limited double LP edition of 1000 copies (in a tip on gatefold sleeve in various vinyl colors). SUNN O))) co-founders Stephen O’Malley & Greg Anderson originally conceived the WHITE albums to be “acoustic” but the sessions at Fontanelle’s Magnetic Park studios in Portland Oregon quickly took a far different route toward the psychedelic and the electronic/synthetic, with trance and drone experiments. The WHITE2 album was notably the first collaboration with the Hungarian legend & singer Attila Csihar, which has since begat a long and fruitful creative story of the O))) ethos. With the WHITE albums SUNN O))) took a bold step the experimental and highly collaborative path the concept of the group has traveled since. Together with Attila, WHITE2 featured the extraordinary talents of special guests Joe Preston, Rex Ritter & Dawn Smithson. Along with WHITE1, the album brought the concept of SUNN O))) forth from the shadows of the earth unto the broader cosmos spheres, arriving at a truly transcendent note with the pairing of the “DECAY” tracks featuring Attila. And, the sky cracked open. For these reissues SUNN O))) returned to the original full length unedited premasters/final mixes and brought them to Matt “The Alchemist” Colton at Alchemy Mastering in London for a complete high resolution 88K/24bit mastering and, crucially, cut the lacquers using Alchemy’s half-speed method on their Neumann SX 74 cutterhead. The outstanding results allow the original full length mixes to be pressed at high fidelity on the vinyl format. The new WHITE2 masters reveal a broader frequency response, the bottom end is deeper and more intense, low mids are lusher, high frequencies are smoother and the stereo image is vastly improved, seeming more 3 dimensional spacially and more dynamic. The sound is clearer, sharper, more direct. Southern Lord Recordings is pleased to present the historical SUNN O))) WHITE albums in their fundamental and proper forms.
File Under: Drone, Metal
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Brian Eno: Music for Installations (Astralwerks) BOX
In tomorrow… Musician, producer, visual artist, thinker and activist Brian Eno first came to international prominence in the early ’70s as a founding member of Roxy Music, and immediately followed with a series of critically-praised and influential solo albums. His visionary production includes albums with David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, Laurie Anderson and Coldplay, whilst his long list of collaborations includes recordings with John Cale, David Byrne, Grace Jones and James Blake. Music For Installations is a 9LP box set collection of new, rare and previously unreleased music, all of which was recorded by Brian Eno for use in his installations covering the period from 1986 until the present (and beyond). Over this time, he has emerged as the leading exponent of “generative” music worldwide and is recognized as one of the foremost audio-visual installation artists of his time. Eno’s visual experiments with light and video have proved to be the fertile ground from which so much of his other work has grown and they cover an even longer span of time than his recordings, paralleling his musical output in recent decades. These highly-acclaimed works have been exhibited all over the globe – from the Venice Biennale and the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg to Beijing’s Ritan Park and the sails of the Sydney Opera House. Designed by Brian Eno and long-time collaborator Nick Robertson, this beautifully bound package comes with a 64-page booklet featuring rare and unseen exhibition photographs and a new essay written by Eno. “If you think of music as a moving, changing form, and painting as a still form, what I’m trying to do is make very still music and paintings that move,” explains Eno. “I’m trying to find in both of those forms, the space in between the traditional concept of music and the traditional concept of painting.”‘
File Under: Ambient
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…..new arrivals…..
Amps: Pacer (4AD) LP
The one and only full length from Kim Deal’s post-Pixes and Breeders group, released in 1995. Though The Amps were originally intended to be a solo project for Deal, they quickly developed into a full fledged band, recording tunes that were slated to be part of the 3rd, never recorded, Breeders’ album. Sloppy, raucous, and life-affirming rock and roll that owes more than a little to their fellow Dayton-ites Guided By Voices, Pacer is as good or better as any of the Breeders’ releases.
File Under: Indie Rock, Breeders
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Mulatu Astatke: Afro Latin Soul Vol 1 (Strut) LP
Strut continue their essential work with the godfather Of Ethio jazz, Mulatu Astatke, with the first official reissues of his early classics Afro Latin Soul Volumes 1 and 2 from 1966, recorded as The Ethiopian Quintet. Arriving after Astatke’s life-changing years studying at Berklee College in Boston, MA the albums were the first experiments in his pioneering sound, fusing Ethiopian cultural music with Afro Latin and jazz forms. Comprising Ethiopian, Latin and Afro-American musicians – the band included trumpeter and pianist Rudy Houston who later played with Yambu and Felix Torres who played with La Sonora Poncena. Astatke would start to perfect his Ethio jazz sound on his 1972 album, Mulatu Of Ethiopia but the two volumes of Afro Latin Soul stand as important recordings documenting his early career. “On the first recording, I played an adaptation of an ancient Ethiopian warrior song, ‘I Faram Gami I Faram’ – the lyrics were translated so that the singer could sing it in Spanish,” explains Astatke. “Some compositions were important steps for me: ‘Mascaram Setaba’ (‘Summer Is Coming’) ‘Shagu’ and ‘Almaz’. With the second album, a personal favourite is ‘Girl From Addis Ababa’ which worked very nicely as a fusion of Ethiopian modes and R&B rhythms.”
File Under: Africa, Ethiopian Jazz
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Mulatu Astatke: Afro Latin Soul Vol 2 (Strut) LP
Strut continue their essential work with the godfather Of Ethio jazz, Mulatu Astatke, with the first official reissues of his early classics Afro Latin Soul Volumes 1 and 2 from 1966, recorded as The Ethiopian Quintet. Arriving after Astatke’s life-changing years studying at Berklee College in Boston, MA the albums were the first experiments in his pioneering sound, fusing Ethiopian cultural music with Afro Latin and jazz forms. Comprising Ethiopian, Latin and Afro-American musicians – the band included trumpeter and pianist Rudy Houston who later played with Yambu and Felix Torres who played with La Sonora Poncena. Astatke would start to perfect his Ethio jazz sound on his 1972 album, Mulatu Of Ethiopia but the two volumes of Afro Latin Soul stand as important recordings documenting his early career. “On the first recording, I played an adaptation of an ancient Ethiopian warrior song, ‘I Faram Gami I Faram’ – the lyrics were translated so that the singer could sing it in Spanish,” explains Astatke. “Some compositions were important steps for me: ‘Mascaram Setaba’ (‘Summer Is Coming’) ‘Shagu’ and ‘Almaz’. With the second album, a personal favourite is ‘Girl From Addis Ababa’ which worked very nicely as a fusion of Ethiopian modes and R&B rhythms.”
File Under: Africa, Ethiopian Jazz
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Alessandro Cortini: Avanti (Pias) LP
Finally!! In tomorrow… Prior to making his third solo LP, Avanti, Alessandro Cortini rediscovered an archive of home videos made by his grandfather, who passed away a few years previously. Among the cache were several Super 8 films of family gatherings as well as hours of dinner-time conversations recorded on cassette for posterity. It was as if Cortini had unearthed a perfect fossil of his childhood. The films, however, were missing one crucial element – the sound. So Cortini decided he would restore the missing audio in his own way, by composing a musical accompaniment to the footage. Avanti is rich in anomalies and irregularities – much like our memories – which Cortini let creep into his compositions by recording live on a single synthesizer, the EMS Synthi AKS, without overdubs. The album’s tracks evoke the feeling of nostalgia through the warmth of their instrumentation and samples from Cortini’s grandfather’s archive, which bookend each track. Take opener “Iniziare” which, with its undercurrent of bass and swelling string-like motifs, is like a sepia-tinged photograph brought to life – at once elegiac and uplifting. Or the wistful “Nonfare” that, with its fuzzy, organ-like tones veiled by noise, sounds like a faded memory. While on “Vincere,” the lush layering of effervescent melodies with choral harmonies paints a picture of a carefree, sunlit scene from childhood, now painfully out of our reach. The recordings that are sampled throughout the album offer us a deeply personal glimpse into Cortini’s childhood but they also have the effect of stirring our own recollections. “I wanted the recordings to facilitate this connection at an emotional level with the listener in the same way I feel connected to it personally,” he says. With Avanti, Cortini has created a soundtrack not just for his own past but also for ours.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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The Fall: 458489 A Sides (Beggars) LP
The 17-songs collected here come from The Fall’s Brix Smith era, aka “the golden era of Fall releases.” This is a perfect introduction to the band, and as legendary critic Robert Christgau said, it’s “The only Fall record any normal person need own.” Originally released in 1990, this album has never been released on vinyl in the US, and isn’t easy to find elsewhere. The band’s legendary and notorious frontman Mark E. Smith passed away in January 2018 at the age of 60. The band’s output since they formed at the height of the punk rock movement in Manchester in 1976 was prolific to say the least. It’s hard to be exact, but in their four decades, The Fall released 31 studio albums, 5 part-studio/part live albums, 32 live albums, 40 compilations, and Smith also released two spoken word albums. Another high number is that of former members of The Fall. There were over 60 different band members over the years. Their high volume of quality work over the last 40+ years had an enormous influence which was extolled greatly after Smith’s death.
File Under: Punk
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Masayoshi Fujita: Stories (Erased Tapes) LP
Ahead of the release of his new album Book Of Life, Erased Tapes reissues 2013’s Stories, the first in a trilogy of vibraphone solo albums by Berlin-based composer Masayoshi Fujita. This quietly exquisite LP is like a book of illustrations, evoking scenes of natural beauty and poetic poignancy that combines climactic crescendos laced with electronic detail and luxurious melody. Stories is the beginning of Masayoshi’s mission in bringing the vibraphone – a relatively new invention in the history of instruments often kept in the background in orchestras and jazz outfits – into the spotlight. Having trained as a drummer, Masayoshi began experimenting with the vibraphone, preparing its bars with kitchen foil or beads, playing it with the cello bow or using the other end of the mallets to create a more ambient texture of sound. Focusing on the vibraphone in this way sets Masayoshi apart, dedicating his artistic life to celebrating this fascinating and often under appreciated instrument and making his take on ambient and modern compositional styles a unique one.
File Under: Ambient, Classical
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Ryo Fukui: Mellow Dream (We Release Jazz) LP
Back in stock! We Release Jazz (WRWTFWW Records’ new sister-label) present the official reissue of criminally overlooked Japanese jazz gem Mellow Dreamby Hokkaido pianist wunderkind Ryo Fukui, originally released in 1977. Released in conjunction with the its legendary predecessor 1976’s Scenery (WRJ 001CD/LTD-LP). Firmly standing on the foundation he laid down with Scenery, Ryo Fukui continues his exploration of modal, bop, and cool jazz sounds with meticulous grace and absolute mastery. As its title suggests, Mellow Dream ventures into slightly mellower, more soulful, and sometimes more contemplative territories (the Bill Evans-reminiscent “Mellow Dream” and “My Foolish Heart”) while still packing the commanding punch Fukui’s work is loved for, as heard on the amazingly bombastic “Baron Potato Blues” or the gigantic McCoy Tyner/John Coltrane-influenced “Horizon” which sees each member of the trio — Satoshi Denpo is on bass and Yoshinori Fukui is on drums — demonstrating their virtuosity for nine exhilarating minutes. With his sophomore album, Ryo Fukui swings from melancholy to vibrant joy with ease, and reminds you that jazz is best served with a pinch of blues, and displays an immensely rare combination of pure talent, unique personal approach and focused discipline. The man undeniably deserves a spot in the pantheon of all-time great jazz pianists. After releasing the outstanding Scenery and Mellow Dream back-to-back, Ryo Fukui worked on developing his live skills, often performing at Sapporo’s Slowboat Jazz Club (which he co-founded with his wife Yasuko Fukui), and even releasing two live albums. He sadly passed away in March 2016, leaving behind a legacy of works that all jazz lovers should explore. Sourced from the original masters.
File Under: Jazz
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Steve Hauschildt: Dissolvi (Ghostly) LP
In search of the sublime, contemporary electronic musician Steve Hauschildt has designed grids and panoramas of sound across multiple releases through the rise and dissolution of his former band, Emeralds, an American touchstone of 2000s home-recorded psychedelic noise music. Consistent with his solo work is Hauschildt’s ability to coil his craft in precise, varied, and distinctly physical forms. Gently spinning arpeggios converse with post-industrial decay. Sonic fibers sway like pendulums from static melancholy to motorik bliss. Dissolvi, the artist’s first full-length with Ghostly International, engages sublimation from an ontological perspective: by dissociating the self. Hauschildt steps out from the singular path, for the first time in a traditional studio, to compose and arrange contributions from friends. As a result, his most collaborative work to date extends a vast, vibrating framework in which to consider the state of being. The album’s title – a reference to cupio dissolvi, the Latin phrase meaning “I wish to be dissolved” – needn’t be taken one-dimen sionally or as purely solipsistic. It does, however, serve an apt reference. Physiological phenomena are of interest to Hauschildt. These back-of-mind ruminations find their way out. Songs are cerebral in orientation, but beyond explanation, the music is truly visceral. Involuntary eye movement inspires the serene, sanguine-nearing-suspicious “Saccade.” Hauschildt feathers soft percussion beneath the echoed refrains of Los Angeles musician Julianna Barwick, together shaping a svelte suggestion of the anxieties brought about by modern-day surveillance; if everyone is being watched constantly, there is no individual, no self, only a broadly monitored and clumsily cataloged populous. The work of Chicago poet Carl Sandburg comes to mind: “I am the people – the mob – the crowd – the mass.” The individual dissolves into the taxonomic crowd. Minimalist techno impulses provide a stylistic through-line for Dissolvi. Understated synth phrases and drum grooves take hold in selective moments, like synchronistic structures onto which nebulous mists, like the rapturous voice of Gabrielle Herbst aka GABI on “Syncope,” cling to and cloud, producing a dazzling rift in consciousness. The 7-minute centerpiece “Alienself” reiterates this creative logic, burbling like an amorphous body of water on a low-gravity planet, on the verge of dissolving, but never fully dematerializing. The album was constructed in Chicago and partially in New York. “Much of it was recorded in a windowless studio which removed elemental or seasonal references to time in the music,” says Hauschildt. “The focus this time was on mixing the album and incorporating a broader set of instrumentation. I describe my compositional approach as being quasi-generative.” Embracing new methods and philosophical curiosities, and in turn, expanding the range of his repertoire, Hauschildt proposes a fascinating and profoundly rich experience in listening, being, and deliquescing.
File Under: Electronic
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Moldy Peaches: s/t (Rough Trade) LP+7″
The Moldy Peaches were established in the mid- 90s by Adam Green and Kimya Dawson, after meeting in upstate New York. The duo helped spawn the “anti-folk” music genre movement, bringing a more quirky, lo-fi punk element into the indie music scene. After releasing their own music for a few years, they collected their best material for a proper album, and in 2001 shared The Moldy Peaches via Rough Trade Records. Known for their sense of humor, whimsy and self-deprecation, the album featured gems like “Downloading Porn With Dave” and “Who’s Got The Crack.” In 2007, “Anyone Else But You” (another song from the aforementioned LP), was used in the Academy Award winning movie Juno, and reignited the album’s cult popularity. This first pressing of the highly coveted title in 15 years comes on colored LP and includes a bonus 7″ single of “County Fair” and “Rainbows.”
File Under: Indie Rock
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Gillian Welch: Soul Journey (Acony) LP
Gillian Welch’s rich and remarkable career spans over 20 years, and is a pillar of the modern acoustic music world. This is the long-awaited first pressing of the roots singer/songwriter’s moving 2003 album, Soul Journey, a collaborative effort with producer/multi-instrumentalist David Rawlings which Mojo called “pretty much perfect” in their 5-star review. It marked the pair’s first experimentation with a fuller, electric sound and is home to some of the most beloved songs in Welch’s catalog including the timeless classics “Look at Miss Ohio” and “Wayside/Back in Time.” Mastered for vinyl direct from the analog tapes by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on their own custom-built VMS 80 lathe with Ortofon amplifiers and plated and pressed at Quality Record Pressings. The vinyl LP comes packaged in a gatefold old-style tip-on jacket with a printed insert and lyrics which are included with the album for the first time. “We have been working and waiting 20 years to bring you our music on phonograph record. It took a while, because we wanted to do it the right way, the absolute best way humanly possible, and I believe that’s what we’ve done. No sonic stone was left unturned, no nuance let fall by the wayside. There is honestly nothing else I can imagine hoping to hear out of the original tapes. It is all there in the groove. As people whose lives were changed by the sound of music coming off turntables, we humbly invite you to include us in your record collection.” – Gillian Welch
File Under: Folk
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Various: Black Man’s Pride 2 (Soul Jazz) LP
This is the second installment of deep roots Rastafarian reggae at Studio One and features classic music from some of the most important figures in reggae music – Alton Ellis, The Heptones, Jackie Mittoo, The Gladiators – alongside a host of rarities and little-known recordings, such as a truly rare Mystic Revelation of Rastafari seven-inch single, Willi William’s first ever recording “Calling” and Horace Andy’s righteous (and equally rare) masterpiece “Illiteracy.” Black Man’s Pride 2 extends the legacy of Studio One’s ground-breaking path in roots reggae which began at the end of the ’60s and continued throughout the ’70s. The album tells the story of how the rise of Studio One Records and the Rastafari movement were interconnected, through the adoption of the Rastafari faith by key reggae artists – everyone from the Skatalites and Wailers in the ’60s, major singers such as Alton Ellis and Horace Andy at the end of the decade, through to major roots artists such as The Gladiators in the ’70s – and how Clement Dodd consistently recorded this heavyweight roots music throughout Studio One’s history. The extensive sleeve-notes to this album also discuss the links between Rastafari and Studio One in time and place, noting how both the religion and Dodd’s musical empire had their roots in the intense period of pre-independence Jamaica in Kingston, expanded in the ’60s following the visit of Haile Selassie in 1966, and how roots music then came to dominate reggae music in the early ’70s. Also discussed is how the outsider stance of both reggae music and the Rastafari movement relate back many hundreds of years to the original rebel stance of the Maroons, escaped slaves who set up self-sufficient enclaves in the hills of the Jamaican countryside.
File Under: Reggae
Various: Nigeria Fuji Machine: Synchro Sound System & Power (Soul Jazz) LP
Synchro Sound System & Power features the music of Nigeria Fuji Machine, which includes some of Nigeria’s finest ‘Fuji’ master drummers and singers, and is newly recorded by Soul Jazz Records in Lagos. Fuji is the heavily percussive and improvisational style of Nigerian popular music, at once modern and yet deeply rooted in the traditional Islamic Yoruba culture of Nigeria. Here on this album Nigeria Fuji Machine’s striking and powerful lead vocalist Taofik Yemi Fagbenro soars above a wild and energetic backdrop of polyrhythms played on traditional talking drums, trap drums, electronic and street percussion to create a powerful wall of intense sound. Fuji is hi-energy street music, heavily percussive which evolved out of the Islamic celebration of Ramadan, which became a major event in mid-20th century Lagos. Groups of young men walked through Muslim neighborhoods at night singing improvised ‘wéré’ music to the accompaniment of pots, pans, drums, bells and anything else available, waking believers for the early morning prayer. By the early ’70s this music had crossed-over into popular Nigerian culture where it came to be known as Fuji, first made popular by the artist Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, as the music began to be performed commonly at parties and social events. In the ’70s and ’80s three Nigerian artists – King Sunny Adé, Chief Ebonezer Obey and Fela Kuti – all secured international major record deals bringing popularity to the Nigerian musical styles of Juju (Adé and Obey) and Afro-Beat (Fela Kuti’s unique mixture of highlife, funk and jazz) abroad, but in the process ignoring much of Nigeria’s rich musical landscape. Fuji is, alongside Highlife, Juju, Afro-Beat, Sakara, Afro-Reggae, Waka, Igbo rap, Apala and numerous others – one of these central styles of Nigerian music. The singer Barrister described the music as follows: “Fuji music is a combination of music consisting of Sakara, Apala, Juju, Aro, Afro, Gudugudu, and possibly Highlife.” Juju performer King Sunny Adé described the difference between the two styles of Fuji and Juju somewhat competitively thus: “Fuji music is more or less like my music without guitars. It’s like I’m singing in a major key and they are singing in a minor. The music itself is the music of Juju music.” Today Fuji remains a powerful popular music with deep and powerful Islamic roots which continues to modernize and attract new generations of young Nigerians and Nigeria Fuji Machine’s Syncho Sound System & Power is a powerful and intense musical experience.
File Under: African, Folk
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…..Restocks…..
Leon Bridges: Coming Home (Columbia) LP
Buena Vista Social Club: s/t (World Circuit) LP
Buena Vista Social Club: Live at Carnegie Hall (World Circuit) LP
Buffalo Springfield: What’s That Sound (Rhino) BOX
Cocteau Twins: Heaven or Las Vegas (4AD) LP
Miles Davis: Big Fun (Music on Vinyl) LP
Jeremy Dutcher: Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakon (Jeremy Dutcher) LP
Future Islands: Singles (4AD) LP
Future Islands: Far Field (4AD) LP
Lykke Li: So Sad So Sexy (LL) LP
National: Boxer (Beggars) LP
National: Sleep Well Beast (4AD) LP
Pavement: Crooked Rain Crooked Rain (Matador) LP
Pavement: Brighten the Corners (Matador) LP
Arthur Russell: World of Arthur Russell (Soul Jazz) LP
Vampire Weekend: s/t (XL) LP
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (Matador) LP
Frank Zappa: Hot Rats (Zappa) LP