Oof! Loads killer new arrivals this week! The sun is shining. The snow is melting. All in all, a pretty great week! Thanks to everyone who’s been letting us know what they would like to find on the shelves come Record Store Day, keep your requests coming as we will continue to add things to our orders as long as we can. In the meantime….come down for a dig.
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…..picks of the week…..
Not Waving: Futuro (Music for the Waldorf Project) (Ecstatic) LP
Futuro is Not Waving’s sublime synth/ambient soundtrack to one of the world’s most intense art/theatre experiences: Sean Rogg’s radical immersive artwork The Waldorf Project — fusing choreography, spatial design, music, and performance into a cohesive experience. Drawn from more than 20 hours of material made for the project between 2013-2018, Futuro finds Alessio Natalizia exploring a style of tonal and spatial minimalism that works as a fine palette cleanser from much of what you’ve heard from him in the past. While not a new solo album, per se, the long form, Eno-like results of Futuro demonstrate the full wingspan of Not Waving’s obsessive knowledge and emotive feel for electronic composition, making it in some senses one of the more substantial and unusual releases in his catalog to date. Natalizia’s site-specific work ranges from highly emotive synth meditations thru to bittersweet kosmische intuitions, and milky, Eno-esque beauties. But if any part sums up the widescreen scope of Not Waving’s music in Futuro, it’s the final side’s 17 minutes of awning, gently curdled synth pads — originally used in a performance to 4000 people in Thailand laid in pitch black, with bodies formed in triangles while dancers caressed their faces. It ends the album with such memorable effect as to make it something of a modern day environmental/ambient classic — and perhaps our favorite Not Waving release in an already enviably deep catalog. Limited edition vinyl; full color insert featuring photographs by Lee Arucci. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. RIYL: Laurie Spiegel, Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Shuttle 358.
File Under: Ambient, Electronic
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Akira Rabelais: CXVI (Boomkat) LP
Many years in the works, CXVI is Akira Rabelais’s supernatural album of collaborations, featuring the singular composer in rapt dialogue with a wish list of peers including Harold Budd, Ben Frost, Karen Vogt (Heligoland), Geir Jenssen (Biosphere), Kassel Jaeger (François Bonnet), and Stephan Mathieu. Unfurling a quietly breathtaking, dreamlike sequence of events, CXVI blooms in the wake of Boomkat Editions’ first-time vinyl pressings of Akira’s seminal classics, 2001’s Eisoptrophobia and 2004’s Spellewauerynsherde, introduced his rarified work to myriad, keen new ears, while also reminding longer terms fans of his nonpareil genius and alchemical style of composition. Set to be received as Akira’s magnum opus, CXVI finds the Hollywood-based composer challenging his usual working methods, pushing himself to refresh binds with long-term collaborators, and also coaxing the recorded debuts of his friend Mélanie Skribiane and filmmaker/photographer Bogdan D. Smith. The result of their time-lapsed endeavors is a record of divine subtlety and poignant patience, rendered with a mirage-like appeal. Opener “Which Alters When It Alteration Finds”, beautifully segues from a prickly bouquet of keys and lovebite-distortion penned with Ben Frost to a reverberant, spine-freezing piano coda from Harold Budd, before “Which Alters When It Alteration Finds” smoke-ily gives way to the sylvan shadow play of the album’s masterful centerpiece, “Star To Every Wandring Worth’s Unknown”, where Mélanie Skribiane reads from Max Ernst’s La Femme 100 Têtes against an exquisite veil of strings and keys realized by Akira with the GRM’s Kassel Jaeger. The third part of the album only becomes more sparse and isolationist, as Karen Vogt’s plainsong gives way to the tremulous, icy timbres of Akira’s processed guitar strokes, originally written for Cedrick Corliolis’s Tokyo Platform soundtrack, before the final side of “If Error And Upon Me Proved” finds Akira pushing Geir Jenssen’s synths into the red, emphasizing a romantic soreness that turns into crushing noise, before Bogdan Smith’s whispered vocal melts into an ancient, arcane air inscribed to 78rpm vinyl by Stephan Mathieu and then sweetened, re-incorporated by Akira as the album’s stunning closing passage. Riddled with bedeviling detail and utterly timeless in its scope, CXVI is a disorientating opus you’ll want to undergo over and again. Photography by Bogdan D. Smith Mastered by Stephan Mathieu; Cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Gatefold sleeve.
File Under: Ambient, Electronic
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…..new arrivals…..
Bill Bissett & Th Mandan Massacre: Awake in th’ Red Desert
(Feeding Tube) LP
“For the first release in Feeding Tube’s Unknown Province series — a run of records dedicated to exploring little known nooks of the Canadian underground, curated by Alex Moskos — we are delighted to bring you the first vinyl reissue of the 1968 zoner masterpiece by poet bill bissett and his fellow Vancouver freaks. We have always been shocked this LP was not included on the NWW list, but Canadian releases often seem to exist in their own universe, so we suppose that’s the ‘explanation.’ Because, in a list of any free-form freakouts, Awake in th’ Red Desert would surely have a high place. bissett was a sound/concrete poet of high repute when this was recorded, and he was also something akin to the king of the Vancouver underground scene. The original album was issued by Jim Brown’s See/Hear label, which Brown founded as an adjunct to his Talon Books imprint. Backed by a band of interesting musicians (a few of whom went on to straighter afterlives), bissett created an insane mass of sound, comparable to what Mayo Thompson’s Red Crayola was doing in Texas around the same time, laced with heavy Fugs overtones. Pure freaked sonics, created while stoned, for an audience that was similarly blasted, and was willing to decode what was going on using the very best acid logic available. Hard for me to describe how much I love this album. And I will attest that this version sounds better than any other available version ever has or could. It is jacked. Nice detailed liner notes by Alex Moskos set the scene as well as anyone ever will, and if you don’t feel your teeth wiggling while this plays, I suggest you may never feel that particular feeling. In your life. bill bissett is still going today, and we heartily suggest that anyone who digs this album runs out and tries to nail down one or another of his wonderful books before the sun sets.” –Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 500.
File Under: Avant Garde, Sound Poetry
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Bonobo: Fabric Presents Bonobo (Fabric) LP
Ushering in an exciting new era for the label, nightclub, and mix series, Bonobo opens the Fabric Presents series. His highly textural aesthetic translates into an ethos that looks to introduce a more open musical palette for the label. His mix features “Roach” from his rare pop-up alias Barakas and employs multi-instrumental arrangements in this 74 minutes of house, techno, electronica, and breakbeat. Features ten exclusive or unreleased tracks, including two from Bonobo and one from his Barakas alias. Bonobo’s first official mix release since LateNightTales in 2013 and follows on from the world-wide success of Migration in 2017. Also features Poté, Alex Kassian, Âme, Durante, Dark Sky & Afriquoi, Olsen, O’Flynn, TSHA, Will Saul, Titeknots, Dan Kye, R. Lyle, Rhone, Laurent Garnier, Throwing Snow, Nepa Allstar, DJ Seinfeld, Earth Trax & Newborn JR, Annjet, and John Beltran.
File Under: Electronic
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Chicago Odense Ensemble: s/t (El Paraiso) LP
Chicago Odense Ensemble is a unique collaboration that came together in the winter of 2008 while Danish musicians Jonas Munk and Jakob Skøtt stayed in Chicago. Via mutual friends, and a support gig for Isotope 217 in Millenium Park, a studio session was arranged for the two to improvise and lay down ideas with some of Chicago’s finest improvisers, including members of Tortoise and Chicago Underground Collective. Improvisation aren’t unusual for the two Danes, however, as they were already more than accustomed to working from spontaneity and freeform structures in long-running psych/kraut/prog unit Causa Sui, and has since then participated in a number of installments of the Impetus series on their own El Paraiso Records label. During the Chicago studio session hours of loose ideas, grooves and atmospherics were recorded, ranging from loud, intense musical outbursts led by cornetist Rob Mazurek, to delicate, colorful ambiences. Later, the finest moments were edited, re-arranged, and mixed by Jonas Munk in his studio in Odense, doing a great deal of cutting and pasting, and adding a psychedelic and dubby vibe to the soundscape, using delays and effects as instruments during the mixing process. The result is something quite unique: a sonic brew that exists somewhere in between the aesthetics of impro jazz, hypnotic rock, and electronica. The closest reference for this kind of music is probably early 1970s proto-fusion jazz that strived for a similar synthesis of jazz improvisation, psychedelic rock, Eastern and African sounds as well as the use of the studio as a musical tool. Conceptually this album therefore seems more related to Miles Davis’s ventures into electric music in the late 1960s that culminated in the early 1970s with albums such as Live-Evil (1971). And album centerpiece “Delivery” gives a possible answer to the mystery of what the fabled collaboration between Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix might have sounded like, had it ever happened. Even though Chicago Odense Ensemble is undeniably modern sounding in some ways, it also reaches back to an era in music where the fusion of jazz and rock were still regarded with optimism, and where musical spontaneity and freedom seemed a vehicle for cosmic beauty rather than esoteric formalism. Personnel: Rob Mazurek – cornet; Jeff Parker – guitar; Dan Bitney – drums and percussion; Matt Lux – bass; Brian Keigher – percussion; Jonas Munk – guitar, electronics; Jakob Skøtt – drums, percussion.
File Under: Jazz, Psych
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Paul DeMarinis: Songs Without Throats (Black Truffle) LP
Black Truffle announces the release of Songs Without Throats, a collection of recordings from Paul DeMarinis. A key figure in the history of electronic music since the 1970s and collaborator with the likes of Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and David Tudor, DeMarinis is a pioneer in the development of gallery sound installation and digital music technologies. All tracks have been selected in collaboration with the artist, focusing on DeMarinis’s exploration of synthesized voice and the digital analysis and manipulation of speech sounds, recorded during the late ’70s up until 1995. Drawing together tracks dispersed on compilations along with a number of pieces previously unheard in any form, Songs Without Throats offers a mind-blowing, revelatory look into DeMarinis’s alternately accessible and uncompromising production. Opening with a mesmerizing piece from 1978 pairing the voice and tamboura of Anne Klingensmith with letters spat out by a Speak n’ Spell to the accompaniment of the randomized melodic patterns of DeMarinis’s homebuilt electronic instrument “The Pygmy Gamelan”, the record then dispenses with the live human voice in favor of its recorded and synthetic doubles. One can follow DeMarinis’s restless probing of the possibilities of technology, from the hacked Speak n’ Spell (which gives us the austere “Et Tu, Klaatu” (1979), another duet with Klingensmith, on bowed psaltery, in which the toy’s synthetic voice is stretched into an alien song) through to the use of digital samples manipulated with home computer technology in the early 1990s (including a remarkable collage piece that weaves a rare recording of Stalin’s voice and bird-like electronic twittering derived from its formant – glides into a rich tapestry of samples reflective of the dictator’s musical life). In between is a rich sampling of DeMarinis’s signature work with speech melodies — usually unnoticed melodic inflections that lie within speech patterns — which he analyses and translates into synthesized musical accompaniment. These pieces draw on a wide variety of sources, which range from the hilarious to the menacing, combining elements as seemingly unlikely as Beethoven’s piano sonatas and the sounds of ’80s synth-pop. The results are an extraordinary combination of the alien and the familiar. As DeMarinis himself characterizes his work with vocal synthesis, this is “a kind of signal that simultaneously carried and obscured meaning and ideation, even as it created a sound world totally alien in esthetic”. Deluxe gatefold sleeve with archival images and liners by DeMarinis; design by Stephen O’Malley. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin.
File Under: Experimental, Sound Poetry
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Eartheater: IRISIRI (Pan) LP
Eartheater (aka Queens based artist Alexandra Drewchin) distills foley-filled digital production, a three-octave vocal range, and classical composition into works suspended between obsessively detailed sonic tapestries and almost recklessly romantic and gestural electronica. IRISIRI, Eartheater’s third full-length record, lays out a shifting network of abstract song craft, laced with sudden structural upheavals, and collisions of mutated tropes from numerous sonic vocabularies. Modular synth staccato plucks hammer out in arrhythmic spirals over a carefully muzzled grid of pumping kicks — unleashed in unpredictable disruptions. Technoid stabs mingle with crushed black metal. An icy OS reads poetry against a bed of granular synth swells. Drewchin’s sirening whistle-tone vocals drape over relentless harp arpeggios. Eartheater confounds expectations of structure and resolution before deciding to thread in a sugary melody that snaps us back into some conception, however hazy, of pop songwriting. Guest spots on IRISIRI charge Drewchin’s ideas with concordant energies, from the stark imagist poetry of Odwalla1221 on “Inhale Baby”, to the sheer lacerating force of Moor Mother’s unflinching verse on “MMXXX”. Drewchin’s lyrics, strewn with flourishes of wordplay and symbolism, explore themes of her autodidactic experience — playing with the tutelage of the “pupil” within the “iris” mirrored in the palindrome IRISIRI. One motif appears as a song name, “C.L.I.T.”, which Drewchin breaks down into “Curiosity Liberates Infinite Truth”. The acronym stands as a microcosm of the Eartheater project in its holistic combination of idiosyncratic spirituality and cheekiness, presented with an earnest confidence that some could consider confrontational. In spite of this lexicon’s maximal effect, it comes from a very personal place as she states, “curiosity has had to be the currency of my education”. On “OS In Vitro”, she reminds us that “these tits are just a side-effect,” and “You can’t compute her,” as if to acknowledge the clouding effect of sexuality and technology in the face of a higher self-significance. In the record’s accompanying video piece, “Claustra”, she slides between “the owning of my loneliness” and “the end of the loaning of my onliness”, encapsulating images of self-purifying isolation and the rejection of artistic exploitation with the flip of two syllables. The transmuting landscape of IRISIRI is riddled with evocative poetry and evidence of Drewchin’s development as an artist since her debut in 2015. Features photography by Elise Gallant. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.
File Under: Electronic
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Efdemin: New Atlantis (Ostgut Ton) LP
So begins New Atlantis, the fourth full-length album by longtime Berghain resident Efdemin, aka Phillip Sollmann. The words, sung by ’60s California art icon William T. Wiley and embedded in glowing drone swells, set an otherworldly tone for Sollmann’s first solo release on Ostgut Ton. Over eight tracks, New Atlantis oscillates between fast, kaleidoscopic techno, multi-layered drones, and acoustic instrumentation, fusing for the first time Sollmann’s deep dancefloor productions as Efdemin with his sound art and experimental music projects. The latter include 2017’s Harry Partch-inspired Monophonie performance and 2018’s Panama / Suez EP with Oren Ambarchi and Konrad Sprenger. Long drawn to utopian musical traditions, Sollmann took inspiration for New Atlantis from Francis Bacon’s unfinished 17th century novel of the same name, which describes a fictional island devoted to social progress through the synthesis of art, science, technology, and fashion. In the story, Bacon imagines futuristic “sound houses”, which contain musical instruments capable of recreating the entirety of the sounds of the universe; a 400-year-old prophesy of today’s digital sonic reality. Through Sollmann’s lens, Bacon’s vision ebbs and flows over 50 minutes in varying speeds and colors, emerging as a tapestry of different utopian musical traditions — through billowing synth lines, early Detroit techno, resonant wooden percussion, trance, droning organs, dulcimer, electric guitars, hurdy-gurdy, just intonation, poetry, hymns, and murmuring voices. Sometimes they merge into epic, rhythmic journeys like the 14-minute long title track; other times they appear as a briefly open sound portal (“Temple”), or in the forlorn human voice on “Oh, Lovely Appearance Of Death”, calling to be freed from jail of the human body and pass into the afterlife. Like previous Efdemin albums on Dial, New Atlantis veers off the techno path to explore other musical territory. Here however, Sollmann occasionally abandons the club entirely, returning only to push its boundaries with other instruments, mythologies and psychedelic story telling. Mastering by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
File Under: Electronic
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Karl Fousek: In The Forest (Second Editions) LP
Second Editions presents In The Forest by Karl Fousek. Serving as a score for David Hartt’s film of the same name about the Habitat Puerto Rico project by Moshe Safdie, In The Forest finds Fousek at his most focused and controlled. These five pieces/chapters move with precision and intent. With subtlety and curiosity. Shrouded in ambiguity. And while Fousek works much more restrained here than on previous releases, by paying attention to every detail, he creates an intriguing work of sonic storytelling. Includes printed inner sleeve and download code; Edition of 300.
File Under: Electronic
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Philip Glass: Music in Twelves Parts (Live in Paris, 1975)
(Transversales Disques) 2LP
Lost Philip Glass recordings from 1975, from Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF). The newly discovered and unreleased concert from 1975 recorded by the Philip Glass Sextet at La Maison de la Radio, Paris. The sextet was composed of Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, Dickie Landry, Michael Riesman, Joan La Barbara, and Richard Peck. Music in Twelve Parts is a set of twelve pieces written between 1971 and 1974. This performance in France includes “Part 1”, “2”, “3”, “11”, and “12” on a double LP. Also included on side D is a rare Philip Glass interview from 1974 in his New York City loft during the rehearsals of this piece, produced for the French radio by Daniel Caux, musicologist and co-founder of Shandar Records. Released in partnership with the National Audiovisual Institute — INA. “A new sound and a new chord suddenly break in, with an effect as if one wall of a room has suddenly disappeared, to reveal a completely new view.” –Andrew Porter, New Yorker, 1978 Gatefold sleeve.
File Under: Avant Garde
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Robert Hood: Internal Empire (Tresor) LP
Twenty-five years after its initial release, Tresor Records present a remastered reissue of Robert Hood’s Internal Empire album, originally released in 1994. A master work, then and now, the ongoing importance of this album is indisputable, essential both to techno and to Tresor. It is a history intertwined. This work elevates its maker as master, and remain a cherished moment in the Tresor story, sharing an irrefutable singular magic, sounding as present and indispensable as when first created. To understand this work fully is to stand back and celebrate its impact. Originally released in 1994, Internal Empire marked a point of transition for Robert Hood moving on from his previous collaborations within Underground Resistance. Robert Hood advanced uncovering the power of true minimalism. Deep soul through a simplicity that showed how much could be done with so little. The devastating rhythms of this album forge the unmatched spirit of this sound, influencing generations to come. Remastered and re-cut.
File Under: Electronic, Techno
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Eli Keszler: Stadium (Shelter Press) LP
New York-based artist Eli Keszler is at the apex of his career. This year alone he’s had a solo exhibition in the UK, performed with Laurel Halo, collaborated with author László Krasznahorkai, taught experimental composition and performance in the Pyrenees, and toured with Oneohtrix Point Never. Stadium is his new album for Shelter Press. As his ninth solo record, Stadium reflects his move from Brooklyn to Manhattan, where he produced the album. The constant motion and ever-changing landscapes of the island helped him modify and shape his sound into a new kind of film noir. There is a startling amount of expression at play on each track, where intersections of melody, restraint and rhythm are used to challenge the idea of memory, impression and space. Keszler is often mistaken for an electronic musician, but in fact his sounds are raw and natural, produced by hand. His performance with drumset and acoustic percussion are central to his work. He produces almost impossible textures through self-realized methodologies: cascading melodies, a shadow of voices, and a unique pointillist materiality. Although playing with the intensity of digitally-created music, his communications are done live with no processing; this is what gives Stadium its depth and warmth. On Stadium, Keszler uses lived experience to realize the most wide-ranging sound he’s created to date, drawing out textures from overlapping geographies and transforming these recordings into starting points for composition. He then builds on these environments to create subliminal spaces for his music, which is pushed to new levels with string and brass arrangements. Is this the “stadium” referred to in the title: a larger network of sound and bodies moving continually, oscillating and turning in on itself? Keszler has explored these ideas before with notable projects such as his Manhattan Bridge installation Archway (2015) Stadium takes these long-running ideas to new depths. Keszler states: “The recordings on Stadium are inverted. They are landscapes scaled for the singular, like a mass collecting in one arena, this music compresses city spaces, genre and instrumentalism into an amorphous form. On the record, there are ruptures of information and happenstance. Like a game, it could go any number of ways.”
File Under: Experimental
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Lebron Brothers: Psychedelic Goes Latin (Get on Down) LP
“Recorded and released in 1967 at the height of the Psychedelic movement on the Cotique imprint, The Lebron Brothers deliver an incredible release more than worthy of revisiting. Producer and Cotique label chief George Goldner recalls ‘All the tricks of way out sounds are put into these numbers. You will hear the weirdest sounds ever cut in Latin dance music. No one has ever dared to produce this sound in Latin music in the past, but I felt the time had come to do it as all past records had the same sounds. Of course, arrangements had a lot to do with my decision to go on this electronic trip.'”
File Under: Latin
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Stephen Malkmus: Groove Denied (Matador) LP
Following hot on the heels of 2018’s Sparkle Hard comes Groove Denied, the rejected album Stephen Malkmus has been telling everyone about. Groove Denied was written in Berlin and Oregon between Malkmus’ soundtrack to the Netflix series Flaked and Sparkle Hard. It finds Stephen in a playful, exploratory mode – recorded by himself in Oregon; Malkmus plays bass, organ, drum machines, a Roland 2080 and a Memorymoog alongside other instruments interspersed with loops and vocal effects. His first album as a solo artist since 2001, Groove Denied is a fine companion to Sparkle Hard, echoing the experimentation (Auto-Tune, genre-dabbling) found there.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Matmos: Plastic Anniversary (Thrill Jockey) LP
Pushing off from the restricted palette of their last album, the critically acclaimed Ultimate Care II, which was composed entirely from the sound of a washing machine, Baltimore-based electronic duo Matmos’s new album Plastic Anniversary is also derived from a single sound source: plastic. At once hyper-familiar in its omnipresence and deeply inhuman in its measured-in-centuries longevity and endurance, plastic supplies, surrounds and scares. Seemingly negligible, plastic is always ready to hand but also always somewhat suspect, casting toxic shadows onto the everyday. True to form, the band have assembled a promiscuous array of examples of this sturdy-yet-ersatz family of materials: Bakelite dominos, Styrofoam coolers, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap, silicone gel breast implants and synthetic human fat. Though it has the tight editing chops, pop forms and bizarre sound palette of their early albums such as Quasi-Objects and A Chance to Cut Is A Chance to Cure, Plastic Anniversary has a distinctive sound because of the foregrounding of plastic horns and plastic drums played by human beings. The bounce and snap of the duo’s programmed rhythms are here supplemented by a sweatier and more unruly human element provided by a surprising cast of guest musicians. Members of the horn and drumline sections of the Whitefish Highschool Bulldogs from Whitefish, Montana were recruited by Matmos and persuaded to take part in recording sessions at Snowghost Studios where they played objects sourced from a nearby recycling center, including massive plastic garbage bins. This was later combined with additional plastic percussion performances by Greg Saunier, a drummer known for his hyper-expressive, mercurial playing as a founding member of the band Deerhoof. If side one is playful and poppy, side two is sharper and darker in its implications, and features more live drumming than any other Matmos album.
File Under: Electronic
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Modeselektor: Who Else (Monkeytown) LP
Who Else is the new album by Modeselektor. It has been in the works for two years and was made within a month. It’s a record offering essential Modeselektor, a record formed by experience, self-confidence, and the usual madness. It raises a question and answers it straight away. Who Else is yet another counteraction to boredom and formulaic approaches. Hear Modeselektor casually kicking against the pricks. Somebody’s gotta do it. Who else? Technical knowledge and craftsmanship have improved their creative process, but in the studio they are driven by the same old things. It’s the quest for the beat they haven’t made yet, the eternal hunt for the perfect mix. No bass drum sounds like the other on this record, no snare repeats itself in a different track. Each hi-hat is tailor-made, no synth sound recycled on another occasion. This isn’t one of those predictable techno records, and that’s what makes it such an effort: the endless search for new sounds while always bearing in mind that less is more. Who Else represents the sound of Berlin in all its ambivalence. Lead single “Wealth” is a hip-hop track featuring London grime artist Flohio. “WMF Love Song” pays tribute to the long-gone formative Berlin club, but who could call these relentless UK vibes nostalgic? Estonian rapper Tommy Cash parties on the crunchy and playful “Who”, Otto von Schirach lends his screams to the dark industrial techno of “I Am Your God”. And there’s many other tracks that show Modeselektor rambling, raving, experimenting, or just enjoying themselves. Is all of this considered hot and valuable by dance industry standards? Doesn’t matter, they don’t play by these rules too much. Who Else is a record freed from outside pressure, only driven by a personal ambition to once more put out a great album.
File Under: Electronic
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Muslimgauze: Azzazin (Staalplaat) LP
Azzazin is a double standout Muslimgauze album, first LP originally issued in 1996, as a CD (Muslimgauze Subscription 003); the second disc originally as a 10″ of remixes (Muslimgauze Subscription 007). This 2LP adds two unreleased tracks. Tightly focused on a singular palette of monotone drones and swarming electronic buzzes, which arguably sound like a parallel to early Editions Mego. They’re probably the most minimalist Muslimgauze tracks you’ve heard, and even still he manages to express a fine range of abstracted emotions, from aggressive buzz to tender ambient pieces and spectral concrete prisms. Starting with an extremely minimal opening number — it’s no surprise Finnish experimental duo Pan Sonic were Muslimgauze fans, based on this track — Azzazzin has a much more electronic feeling than most of Bryn Jones’s other albums, eschewing the traditional elements used elsewhere for a rough, quietly aggressive, and disturbing feel. The fourth track, with its unpredictable keyboard snarls over a low, quiet pulse, and the sixth and seventh songs, with distorted, high-pitched noise tones mixed with a soft series of bass notes and a slight spoken-word interjection from time to time, are some of the strong points from this intriguing release. Surprisingly this album contains no trace of percussions whatsoever and instead presents a dry and claustrophobic minimal electronics that sounds more like a Warp band or a project by some S.E.T.I.-inspired laptop artist than a Middle Eastern-inspired band. Outer space sci-fi sounds meet with found sounds and human-made noises, isolationist experimental knob tweaking and mostly hi frequency material loops playing at random. Beats are used in an extremely limited way throughout Azzazzin, with rhythm, always a key component of Jones’ work, more suggested at points by the nature of the keyboard lines than anything else. draws a picture of the artist that is different than the one we got to know. Closing with an equally minimal track, Azzazzin won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but adventuresome listeners will find themselves rewarded. All tracks written, played by Muslimgauze. Edition of 700.
File Under: Electronic, Industrial
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Normal Brain: Lady Maid (WRWTFWW) LP
WRWTFWW Records present the reissue of impossible-to-find cult album Lady Maid by Japanese outfit Normal Brain. Originally released in 1981 as a limited vinyl pressing of 300 copies on Agi Yuzuru’s fabled experimental label Vanity Records (R.N.A. Organism, Dada, Sympathy Nervous, Tolerance), Lady Maid is a testament to the creativity of the early ’80s Japanese electronic and experimental scene, encapsulating a prolific era when audio gear became affordable for musicians to explore sounds in the comfort of their home, free from studio time pressure and major label rules. Entirely imagined and brought to life by an inspired Yukio Fujimoto, the six-track opus was conceived with a Korg MS-20, Korg SQ-10, Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-55, and a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell. It’s elegantly minimalist, honest and witty, very playful, cleverly pop, and downright fascinating. The A side captures the fun side of avant-garde electronica, lo-fi wave, proto-glitch, and IDM, a joyful ride beautifully interrupted by the cinematic mood switch of the B side — a 20-minute ambient piece flirting with sci-fi, melancholy, and hints of metallic darkness. Unclassifiable and marvelous! Includes liner notes by acclaimed sound artist and mastermind behind the project, Yukio Fujimoto.
File Under: Electronic, Minimal, Ambient
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Daphne Oram: Oramics (Young Americans) 4LP
2019 repress edition. Originally released in 2010. Deluxe clear four-LP edition, 155 minutes/eight sides of vinyl mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering and housed in a heavyweight, 300gm gatefold sleeve featuring rare archival photographs. This hugely influential, definitive collection from electronic music pioneer and founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Daphne Oram, has been out of print on vinyl since 2013 and is now thankfully available again via Modern Love side-label, Young Americans. Throughout her life, Oram was a wildly original musician, inventor and theorist who refused to bow to convention. While Delia Derbyshire had more or less become a household name, it was only when Clive Graham compiled Oramics for a CD release in 2007 that Daphne’s legacy started to extend beyond the fringes. In the intervening years (aided by the work of the Daphne Oram Trust and Oram’s archive at Goldsmith’s in London) there have been countless articles, features, a play, an exhibition at the science museum and even a creative arts building and several record labels and arts awards named in Daphne’s honor — going some way to restore her place as a recognized pioneer of electronic music. To recap, Oram was the founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a department she more or less single-handedly created in 1958 camping out at the BBC studios for nights on end splicing tapes and working with various modified machines to carefully arrange her abstract soundscapes. Eventually the BBC bent under her pressure and, in studio 13, created the soon-to-be-legendary Radiophonic Workshop — with Oram its first director. Among her countless other achievements, Oram is also cited as the first woman to design and build an electronic musical instrument, one that worked around the “drawn-sound” technique whereby strips of 35mm film would be manipulated before being fed into her home-made “Oramics” machine which would convert and “read” the film into sound. She was also a prolific writer and lecturer on electronic music and studio techniques, developing concepts of spatial sound years before terms like “spatial sound” were even used. Despite her considerable and historic list of achievements, Oram’s life and work remained largely unknown by the wider public for many years until Clive Graham compiled this set. Spanning 44 tracks, it demonstrates Oram’s work as some of the most varied and groundbreaking electronic music ever made. As opposed to so much of the Radiophonic-era material that has surfaced over the last few decades, Oram’s work is often characterized by a much more layered and introspective quality, offsetting playful interludes and commercial recordings with beautiful, immersive pieces like the breathtaking “Pulse Persephone” and “Bird of Parallax” — highly atmospheric and experimental variants of musique concrète and tape music that still take our breath away 45 years later. It’s impossible to over-emphasize the importance and influence of the material compiled on Oramics, a set that should be considered compulsory listening for anyone with even just a passing interest in electronic music.
File Under: Early Electronic
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Tom Phillips: Words & Music (Recital) LP
Recital label head Sean McCann on Tom Phillips’s Words And Music (January 2019): “Words And Music is a rare and sought-after album by artist Tom Phillips (b. 1937). Fueled by painting, opera, and concrete poetry, this LP was originally published by the king, Hansjörg Mayer, in 1975 (this LP has never been repressed). Most are familiar with Tom Phillips’ ‘After Raphael’ painting used on the cover of Brian Eno’s Another Green World LP (1975), along with the television series he made with director Peter Greenaway, A TV Dante (1990). However, Tom’s crowning achievement is his art-book A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel (1970). A reworked version of the obscure book, A Human Document, by W.H. Mallock, each page laboriously painted and collaged over. Spools of text are re-discovered from the original book, stitching together a new story surrounding the protagonist, Toge. Six editions have been published from between 1970 and 2017, each with different texts and paintings imagined. Phillips’ work has the air of forlorn fantasy to it — a designed romance. The first side of Words And Music contains four chamber works grown from impressionistic and graphic scores. A lovely flavor of British experimental composition à la Cornelius Cardew (with whom Phillips collaborated in the Scratch Orchestra). Tom’s music incorporates touchstones of visual art: in his Irma opera, a band of voice colors wash over slides of chamber melodies; in ‘Ornamentik,’ (commissioned by Stuart Dempster) acoustic and electronic instruments are played as extended shapes along a piece of paper. The piano piece ‘Lesbia Waltz’ augments sheet music, cut-up measure by measure, placed and replaced. The second side of the LP holds readings from his famed book, A Humument. Recited by Tom, whose chestnut voice perfectly carries the stanzas of bizarre, romantic poetry. Dancing between meanings with gentle blood and ink soaking on each word.” 7″x9″ 12-page color pamphlet with scores and program notes; Includes CD; Edition of 215.
File Under: Avant Garde
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Richard Pinhas: L’Ethique (Bureau B) LP
Bureau B present a reissue of Richard Pinhas’s L’Ethique, originally released in 1982. Following the vaguely poppy shapes of 1980’s album East West (BB 292CD/LP), his fifth album L’Ethique saw the ex-Heldon guitarist and synth wizard return to bigger and bolder band-like methods. After the release he disappeared from the limelight for nearly a decade and returned in the 1990s. Interviewed by the Electronics & Music Maker magazine in 1982, Pinhas spoke in buoyant terms about the future of his recording career. Having just unveiled his fifth solo album, L’Ethique, he was already scheming towards its follow-up. It would see him shift from analog-based methods to digital systems. He expected the album to arrive in 1984. Little did anybody know that the mooted record would not actually materialize. The year after that interview took place, Pinhas was plunged into a long period of depression. “I stopped everything and didn’t think I would ever come back to music,” he remembers. “I decided music was no longer for me. I’d said what I had to wanted to say, and it was done. It was out of my head and out of my life.” Thus, he sold all his synthesizers and tried to survive on their profits along with royalties from his back catalog. L’Ethique now looked as though it was Pinhas’s final artistic statement. It saw Pinhas return to bigger and bolder band-like methods. His collaborators included bassist Bernard Paganotti and Clément Bailly, both of whom performed in Magma. Moog player Patrick Gauthier made a reappearance too. The line-up brought a phat and forceful feel to the crunching jazz-rock fusion of “Belfast” and “Dedicated To K.C.”, a vibrant space-rock stomper that lurks on some distant planet between the extraterrestrial habitats of King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and Hawkwind. Part 1 of “The Western Wall” has a particularly fast tempo. Interspersing these rockers sit some mellower moments. The title of the gorgeous synth rumination “Melodic Simple Transition” seems far too modest. Despite its dark and brooding synth chords, the second instalment of “The Western Wall” has a strangely calming effect on the senses. Pinhas disappeared from the limelight for nearly a decade under the weight of his depression, but he eventually returned in the 1990s. “The real miracle is that I reconnected with the musicmaking process,” says Pinhas on overcoming his reclusive years. “It is easy to fall, but very difficult to come back.”
File Under: Electronic, Krautrock, Prog
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Don Rendell – Ian Carr Quintet: Shades of Blue (Jazzman) LP
Due to overwhelming demand for Jazzman Records’ five-LP boxset, here are the first ever official individual reissues of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet. The five albums; 1965’s Shades Of Blues, 1966’s Dusk Fire, 1968’s Phase III, 1969’s Change Is, and 1969’s Live, have reached almost mythical status in the collector’s world. Regarded as holy grail artifacts for even the seasoned aficionado, the collective second-hand market value comes to an astonishing £6000. Jazzman Records located and acquired the original analog master tapes from the Universal vaults and created masters at Abbey Road Studios to produce audiophile quality 180 gram pressings replete with replica artwork — shape, design, and even paper stock. No stone has been left unturned to deliver this absolute labor of love to the highest possible standard. Inside is a link to a printable online pdf which contains never before seen photographs, interviews with the remaining living band members and liner notes from BBC Radio 3 presenter, and award-winning jazz writer Alyn Shipton. The band played together for seven years and during this fruitful time they made a plethora of deeply melodic, post-bop British jazz compositions that later on took influences from Indo and more spiritually guided jazz. Produced by the influential Denis Preston and recorded at his Lansdowne Studios in London, the band was primarily made up of saxophonist Don Rendell, trumpeter/composer Ian Carr, and pianist/composer Michael Garrick. This is UK jazz at its absolute finest and is a treasure not to be missed. Original replica flipback color sleeves; 180 gram vinyl, mastered from the original master tapes at Abbey Road Studios, London; poly-lined and printed individual inner sleeves; contains link to online PDF with printable liner notes.
File Under: Jazz
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Don Rendell – Ian Carr Quintet: Dusk Fire (Jazzman) LP
Due to overwhelming demand for Jazzman Records’ five-LP boxset, here are the first ever official individual reissues of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet. The five albums; 1965’s Shades Of Blues, 1966’s Dusk Fire, 1968’s Phase III, 1969’s Change Is, and 1969’s Live, have reached almost mythical status in the collector’s world. Regarded as holy grail artifacts for even the seasoned aficionado, the collective second-hand market value comes to an astonishing £6000. Jazzman Records located and acquired the original analog master tapes from the Universal vaults and created masters at Abbey Road Studios to produce audiophile quality 180 gram pressings replete with replica artwork — shape, design, and even paper stock. No stone has been left unturned to deliver this absolute labor of love to the highest possible standard. Inside is a link to a printable online pdf which contains never before seen photographs, interviews with the remaining living band members and liner notes from BBC Radio 3 presenter, and award-winning jazz writer Alyn Shipton. The band played together for seven years and during this fruitful time they made a plethora of deeply melodic, post-bop British jazz compositions that later on took influences from Indo and more spiritually guided jazz. Produced by the influential Denis Preston and recorded at his Lansdowne Studios in London, the band was primarily made up of saxophonist Don Rendell, trumpeter/composer Ian Carr, and pianist/composer Michael Garrick. This is UK jazz at its absolute finest and is a treasure not to be missed. Original replica flipback color sleeves; 180 gram vinyl, mastered from the original master tapes at Abbey Road Studios, London; poly-lined and printed individual inner sleeves; contains link to online PDF with printable liner notes.
File Under: Jazz
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Don Rendell – Ian Carr Quintet: Phase III (Jazzman) LP
Due to overwhelming demand for Jazzman Records’ five-LP boxset, here are the first ever official individual reissues of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet. The five albums; 1965’s Shades Of Blues, 1966’s Dusk Fire, 1968’s Phase III, 1969’s Change Is, and 1969’s Live, have reached almost mythical status in the collector’s world. Regarded as holy grail artifacts for even the seasoned aficionado, the collective second-hand market value comes to an astonishing £6000. Jazzman Records located and acquired the original analog master tapes from the Universal vaults and created masters at Abbey Road Studios to produce audiophile quality 180 gram pressings replete with replica artwork — shape, design, and even paper stock. No stone has been left unturned to deliver this absolute labor of love to the highest possible standard. Inside is a link to a printable online pdf which contains never before seen photographs, interviews with the remaining living band members and liner notes from BBC Radio 3 presenter, and award-winning jazz writer Alyn Shipton. The band played together for seven years and during this fruitful time they made a plethora of deeply melodic, post-bop British jazz compositions that later on took influences from Indo and more spiritually guided jazz. Produced by the influential Denis Preston and recorded at his Lansdowne Studios in London, the band was primarily made up of saxophonist Don Rendell, trumpeter/composer Ian Carr, and pianist/composer Michael Garrick. This is UK jazz at its absolute finest and is a treasure not to be missed. Original replica flipback color sleeves; 180 gram vinyl, mastered from the original master tapes at Abbey Road Studios, London; poly-lined and printed individual inner sleeves; contains link to online PDF with printable liner notes.
File Under: Jazz
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Don Rendell – Ian Carr Quintet: Live (Jazzman) LP
Due to overwhelming demand for Jazzman Records’ five-LP boxset, here are the first ever official individual reissues of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet. The five albums; 1965’s Shades Of Blues, 1966’s Dusk Fire, 1968’s Phase III, 1969’s Change Is, and 1969’s Live, have reached almost mythical status in the collector’s world. Regarded as holy grail artifacts for even the seasoned aficionado, the collective second-hand market value comes to an astonishing £6000. Jazzman Records located and acquired the original analog master tapes from the Universal vaults and created masters at Abbey Road Studios to produce audiophile quality 180 gram pressings replete with replica artwork — shape, design, and even paper stock. No stone has been left unturned to deliver this absolute labor of love to the highest possible standard. Inside is a link to a printable online pdf which contains never before seen photographs, interviews with the remaining living band members and liner notes from BBC Radio 3 presenter, and award-winning jazz writer Alyn Shipton. The band played together for seven years and during this fruitful time they made a plethora of deeply melodic, post-bop British jazz compositions that later on took influences from Indo and more spiritually guided jazz. Produced by the influential Denis Preston and recorded at his Lansdowne Studios in London, the band was primarily made up of saxophonist Don Rendell, trumpeter/composer Ian Carr, and pianist/composer Michael Garrick. This is UK jazz at its absolute finest and is a treasure not to be missed. Original replica flipback color sleeves; 180 gram vinyl, mastered from the original master tapes at Abbey Road Studios, London; poly-lined and printed individual inner sleeves; contains link to online PDF with printable liner notes.
File Under: Jazz
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Robyn: Honey (Interscope) LP
Five-time Grammy winning Swedish pop icon Robyn – which Billboard calls “The Fairy Godmother of Pop” – returns with her first new solo album since 2010’s Body Talk. Honey features contributions from Metronomy’s Joseph Mount, longtime collaborator Klas Ålund, Kindess’ Adam Bainbridge, Mr. Tophat, and Zhala. Robyn describes the new collection as “this sweet place, like a very soft ecstasy. I danced a lot when I was making it. I found a sensuality and a softness that I don’t think I was able to use in the same way before. Everything just became softer.” Combing the driving beat of dance music with her innate pop sensibility the title track embodies all of the elements that have made Robyn a pop phenomenon and it’s the perfect introduction to the album.
File Under: Pop
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Thighpaulsandra: Practical Electronics (Editions Mego) LP
As audacious as the sleeve it comes housed in, the UK’s most eccentric audio malefactor returns with his eighth studio album, Practical Electronics with Thighpaulsandra. Unique in the Thighpaulsandra oeuvre, this one eschews the usual group-based recordings, consisting of electronics and vocals only. Hovering between haunted narratives and extended instrumental sequences, Practical Electronics is an eccentric excursion into playful pop and fearless electronic experimentation. Simultaneously intimidating and accessible, the energy of this untamed mind unleashes an artifact where high art unfolds as an oblique electronic cabaret. Having cut his teeth amongst such legendary outfits such as Coil and Spiritualized, Thighpaulsandra has constantly catapulted himself further and further into a musical landscape utterly of his own devising. Practical Electronics is the latest exemplary installment of a voice that is uncompromising as it is outlandish. Cover design by Liam Thonas; Photography by Siôn Oegon. Recorded and mixed by Thighpaulsandra at Aeriel Studios, Brechfa between 2017 and 2018. Mastered by Matt Colton at Alchemy Mastering, London.
File Under: Electronic
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Yoshimi Ueno: Taiko No Uminari (Studio Mule) LP
Studio Mule presents Yoshimi Ueno’s Taiko No Uminari, originally issued in 1980 on Johnny’s Disk Record. Johnny’s Disk Record is an independent jazz label run by the owner of jazz cafe Kaiunbashi No Johnny, located in Rikuzentakata City in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The legendary label released a string of albums of high quality but down-to-earth music, spanning from modern and avant-garde jazz to left-field pop. Albums such as Teru Sakamoto’s Farewell My Johnny / Left Alone and Eiji Nakayama’s Aya’s Samba have reached cult status among fans as some of the best works to come out of the Japanese jazz scene. Taiko No Uminari is the only solo record drummer Yoshimi Ueno released before passing. The album features “Sea Sound”, a hard bop number with soulful melodies and impressive saxophone playing by Yasuaki Shimizu, the folky and melancholic “Tsuchi Ningyo”, composed by labelmate Nakayama, the romantic ballad “My Spirit” by pianist Keisaku Takahashi, poly-rhythmic jam “Skip” written by Ueno himself, “K.Blues”, a bluesy tune with a bit of a New Orleans jazz vibe, and “Uzushio,” a duet between Nakayama’s bass and Ueno’s drums. Edition of 500.
File Under: Jazz
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Neil Young: Dead Man (Vapor) LP
Director Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Broken Flowers) describes his meditative 1996 post-punk Western, Dead Man (starring Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, John Hurt, Iggy Pop and Robert Mitchum) as, “a black-and-white-psychedelic-micro-epic which uses the genre of the “western” as a point of departure.” Accompanying the cult film is a haunting and poetic instrumental score composed by Neil Young and performed entirely solo, mostly on electric guitar. The only vocal contribution is by Depp, whose reading of segments of William Blake’s poetry is integral to Young’s largely improvised pieces here. Says Jarmusch of Neil’s efforts: “What he brought to the film lifts it to another level, intertwining the soul of the story with Neil’s musically emotional reaction to it – the guy reached down into some deep place inside him to create such strong music for our film.” “Recorded over multiple sessions in a San Francisco warehouse, Young’s score for Dead Man was recorded entirely to picture. Equipped with an arsenal of instruments, he stood surrounded by screens of varying sizes as they played an early cut of the film from start to finish. The live-wire music that bellowed from his Gibson Les Paul “Old Black” was, for the most part, an extraordinary act of improvisation.” – The Criterion Collection
File Under: Folk, Rock
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Various: Antologia de Musica Atipica Portuguesa Vol 2 (Discrepant) LP
In 1959, Michel Giacometti moved to Portugal and dedicated the following thirty years of his life recording traditional music all over the country. In the present decade, Portuguese music has been thriving and finally travelling abroad, long gone are the days those hidden gems were kept in secret in this distant corner of Europe. The discovery of current Portuguese music sparked an interest to Portuguese music, past and present. With both of those ideas in mind, Giacometti and the interest in Portuguese music, Antologia De Música Atípica Portuguesa creates an anthology of current sounds to the future. You can see it as history being made or a broad catalog of sounds that live and breathe the experimental and electronic that is happening in Portugal. The first step happened in 2017 with the releasing of the first volume on this anthology, O Trabalho (“The Labour”) (CREP 035LP), and Discrepant now move onto Vol. 2, Regiões (“Regions”), with each track connecting with a different province from Portugal. Some names return to this volume, like Live Low with the beautifully haunting “Montemor” or Gonzo (Discrepant’s own Gonçalo F. Cardoso), affirming his path in building detailed and processed field recordings music. More than a list of names, or songs, this second volume of Antologia De Música Atípica Portuguesa recreates a passage throughout different landscapes of Portugal, constantly leaving a trail of past, present, and future. The trail doesn’t limit itself to the music, but to the traditions contained in the sounds and the stories spelled by the words. The beautifully slowed haunting-waltz “Por Riba”, by Síria (Diana Combo), sets everything in motion and builds the way to Random Gods’ upbeat march “Gazulo à Estronca da Santosa”. “Malta Inquieta” (Ondness) embraces the most modern/contemporary side of this volume, proving that Regiões goes beyond the idea of catalog or even its own concept of “anthology” and provides music that’s hard to categorize or even judge by modern standards. “Malta Inquieta” is an experimental jazz-electronic modern gem. It’s followed by the guitar of Rui Carvalho, aka Filho da Mãe, with “Manta”. “Montemor”, opener on side B, sets the tone for a different trip, building up on more abstract and freeform music by Banha da Cobra (“Asylo”), Fantama (“Lamento das Beiras”), and the track by Gonzo. Regiões finishes with the right tone, fields recordings worked by Luís Antero, that tie the connection between Giacometti and the now.
File Under: Folk, International
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Various: Gumba Fire (Soundway) LP
Soundway present Gumba Fire, a new compilation of rare 1980s South African “bubblegum” and boogie. In 1980s Black South Africa, a local form of pop music evolved as the disco boom died down and slowly mutated. It was often ubiquitously described as bubblegum — usually stripped-down and lo-fi with a predominance of synths, keyboards, and drum-machines and overlaid with the kind of deeply soulful trademark vocals and harmonies that South African music is famous for. Compilers Miles Cleret (Soundway) and DJ Okapi (Afrosynth Records) present a selection of 18 rare, handpicked 1980s cuts that highlight the period that nestles in between the ’70s (where American-influenced jazz, funk, and soul bumped shoulders with local mbaqanga) and the ’90s when kwaito and eventually house-music ruled the dancefloors of urban South Africa. Alongside French-Caribbean zouk this kind of music has slowly been making its way into the DJ sets of many of the most open-minded selectors around the world. This compilation is in many ways a sister release to the hugely popular compilation of Nigerian boogie and disco that Soundway released in late 2016: Doing It In Lagos: Boogie, Pop & Disco In 1980s Nigeria. The album takes its name from the band Ashiko’s track that also features on the compilation. The term is derived from gumba gumba, the term given to the booming speakers of the old spacegram radios that broadcast music into South Africa’s townships and villages. “Gumba Fire” later evolved into a phrase that refers to a hot party. Put this record on and feel the heat! Features The Survivals, Stimela, Hot Soul Singers, Zoom, Ashiko, Monwa & Sun, Ntombi Ndaba, The Black Five, Starlight, Zasha, Sabela, Condry Ziqubu, General Peter Maringa, and Ozila.
File Under: Soul, Boogie, Nigeria
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Various: Spiritual Jazz 9: Blue Notes Part One (Jazzman) LP
The Blue Note Record label needs little introduction. Musically, graphically and sonically iconic, the label created and defined the golden age of modern jazz on record. Founded in 1939 by German émigré Alfred Lion, the label’s roster of artists is a litany of giants — Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock, and many more. With peerless musicians in the grooves, the legendary Rudy Van Gelder behind the boards, and graphic design genius Reid Miles creating emblematic artwork for every release, Blue Note — “the Cadillac of the jazz lines” — was outstanding in every way. Volume 9 of Jazzman’s ground-breaking Spiritual Jazz series takes a close look at the deeper side of Blue Note — from the experimental avant-garde explored by younger musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, and Pete La Roca, to the exciting new developments in modal sounds put forward by stalwarts Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, and Duke Pearson. The music we have selected shows how musicians working with the label responded to a period of dramatic social and sonic change, charting the route toward the esoteric and spiritualized sounds that would dominate the deepest jazz of the 1970s. As ever, Blue Note had lit the path, and this new Spiritual Jazz collection shows that the progressive and underground jazz sound of the 1960s was not only the preserve of obscure artists and private pressings. Blue spirits and heavy sounds on Blue Note — the finest in jazz since 1939, brought to you by Jazzman. Part One features: Bobby Hutcherson, Pete Laroca, Wayne Shorter, Elvin Jones, Andrew Hill, Eddie Gale, Duke Pearson, Bobby Hutcherson, Duke Pearson, and Freddie Hubbard.
File Under: Jazz
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Various: Spiritual Jazz 9: Blue Notes Part Two (Jazzman) LP
The Blue Note Record label needs little introduction. Musically, graphically and sonically iconic, the label created and defined the golden age of modern jazz on record. Founded in 1939 by German émigré Alfred Lion, the label’s roster of artists is a litany of giants — Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock, and many more. With peerless musicians in the grooves, the legendary Rudy Van Gelder behind the boards, and graphic design genius Reid Miles creating emblematic artwork for every release, Blue Note — “the Cadillac of the jazz lines” — was outstanding in every way. Volume 9 of Jazzman’s ground-breaking Spiritual Jazz series takes a close look at the deeper side of Blue Note — from the experimental avant-garde explored by younger musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, and Pete La Roca, to the exciting new developments in modal sounds put forward by stalwarts Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, and Duke Pearson. The music we have selected shows how musicians working with the label responded to a period of dramatic social and sonic change, charting the route toward the esoteric and spiritualized sounds that would dominate the deepest jazz of the 1970s. As ever, Blue Note had lit the path, and this new Spiritual Jazz collection shows that the progressive and underground jazz sound of the 1960s was not only the preserve of obscure artists and private pressings. Blue spirits and heavy sounds on Blue Note — the finest in jazz since 1939, brought to you by Jazzman. Part Two features: Joe Henderson, Jackie McLean, Duke Pearson, Wayne Shorter, Hank Mobley, Pete La Roca, Freddie Hubbard, Booker Ervin, and Solomon Ilori.
File Under: Jazz
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…..Restocks….
13th Floor Elevators: Psychedelic Sounds of (Charly) LP
Agitation Free: Malesch (Made in Germany) LP
David Axelrod: Song of Experience (Now Again) LP
Derek Bailey/Baptista: Cyro (Honest Jons) LP
Derek Bailey/Coe: Time (Honest Jons) LP
Beatles: Let It Be (Apple) LP
Beatles: Rubber Soul (Apple) LP
Cluster: Sowiesoso (Bureau B) LP
Crack Cloud: s/t (Deranged) LP
Miles Davis: Original Quintet (Down At Dawn) LP
Miles Davis & Jimmy Forrest: Live (Down at Dawn) LP
Del Tha Funky Homosapian: No Need For Alarm (Traffic) LP
Dr. Dre: 2001 (Universal) LP
Brian Eno: Ambient 1: Music for Airports (Astralwerks) LP
Grant Green: Grantstand (Down at Dawn) LP
Hot Water Music: The New What Next (Epitaph) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Sketches of East Brunswick (ATO) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Polygondawanaland (ATO) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Gumboot Shoes (ATO) LP
Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (Aftermath) LP
Charlie Patton: I’m Going Home (Down at Dawn) LP
Ike Quebec: Blue & Sentimental (Down at Dawn) LP
Sonny Rollins: Rollins Plays for Bird (Down at Dawn) LP
Wayne Shorter: Etcetera (Blue Note) LP
Horace Silver: Stylings of Silver (Down At Dawn) LP
Horace Silver: Doin’ The Thing (Down At Dawn) LP
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Peepshow (Universal) LP
Various: Unusual Sounds (Anthology) LP