…..news letter #899 – heaps…..

YOW! I told y’all last week that this week was gonna be ugly, and here you have it… insanity! So many killer slabs in this week I hope you’ve been saving your peanuts…. I got a lot of pricing to do and you’ve got some reading ahead of you, pop in this long weekend and grab some hot wax.

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…..picks of the week…..

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Caterina Barbieri: Ecstatic Computation (Editions Mego) LP
Caterina Barbieri is an Italian composer who explores themes related to machine intelligence and object-oriented perception in sound through a focus on minimalism. Following 2017’s acclaimed double-LP Patterns Of Consciousness, Ecstatic Computation is the new full-length LP by Caterina Barbieri. The album revolves around the creative use of complex sequencing techniques and pattern-based operations to explore the artefacts of human perception and memory processes by ultimately inducing a sense of ecstasy and contemplation. Computation is turned from being a formal, automatic writing technique into a creative, psychedelic practice to generate temporal hallucinations. A state of trance and wonder where the perception of time is distorted and challenged. Equally nervous and ecstatic, the fast permutation of patterns can create a state where time stands still whilst simultaneously being in motion. Is this propulsive music moving forward or backward? As long as the perception of the present is constantly enhanced and refreshed in an endless sense of loss, re-discovery and the search for self-orientation this question lies mute aside the thrilling and perplexing moment of the matter at hand. Vocals on “Arrows Of Time” performed by Annie Gårlid and Evelyn Saylor; recorded by Stefano Tucci at Failsafe Studio. Artwork by Ruben Spini. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

File Under: Ambient, Electronic
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Meitei: Komachi (Metron) LP
Meitei considers himself an old soul, often preoccupied with the customs and rituals of the past. Recently Meitei lost his beloved 99-year-old grandmother, a woman who he considered to be one of the last remaining people to have experience and understanding of traditional Japanese ambience. His music and art is driven by a desire to cast light on an era and aesthetic that he believes is drifting out of the collective Japanese consciousness with each passing generation, what he calls “the lost Japanese mood”. He chose to dedicate Komachi to his late Grandmother. “I want to revive the soul of Japan that still sleeps in the darkness” – Meitei / 冥丁 Haunting and delicate, distant and timeless, Komachi is awash with white noise, complex field recordings and the hypnotic sounds of flowing water. Though confidently contemporary, like a bucolic J-Dilla, Komachi’s lineage can be traced back to the floating worlds of Ukiyo-e and Gagaku via the prism of 80s Japanese ambient pioneers, and 90s pastoral sample-based artists such as Susumu Yokota and Nobukazu Takemura. Composed as individual sonic dioramas, each of the twelve tracks have been crafted to not only evoke feelings of nostalgia but to also explore the dichotomy of ancient and new in modern Japanese society. This pervasive narrative runs throughout, calling to mind the work of authors Yasunari Kawabata and Natsume Soseki, as well as the films of Yasujirō Ozu and Hayao Miyazaki, artists similarly fascinated by the reflective tranquillity that permeated traditional Japanese domestic life.

File Under: Ambient, Electronic
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Various: Tokyo Flashback (Black Editions) 4LP
Black Editions present a monumental collection of 22 exclusive tracks by 22 of the most important artists to emerge from the Japanese underground over the last 40 years. Directed by Ghost’s Masaki Batoh and produced in tribute to the late Hideo Ikeezumi, founder of P.S.F. Records, the Modern Music record store and G-Modern Magazine. Few label founders loom as large in the history of underground music as P.S.F Record’s Hideo Ikeezumi. Over three decades and more than 200 titles, Ikeezumi’s intensely critical ear guided and assembled a body of music that transcended genre; he exclusively championed artists that were uncompromising in their visions, unconcerned with trends or commercial success. This four-LP compilation, selected by Ghost’s Masaki Batoh, is a primer of Ikeezumi’s curation: a kaleidoscopic collection of previously unreleased gems from the Japanese underground. Running the full stylistic gamut from the hushed tones of Kim Doo Soo and Go Hirano to the psychedelic rock splendor of Overhang Party and High Rise this set connects the dots between generations and movements, all linked by the common thread of Ikeezumi’s panoramic musical vision. The most original voices in the avant garde, psychedelia, folk, free jazz, and rock all found a home with P.S.F. Records. Directed by Masaki Batoh. Edited by Yoshiaki Kondo (GOK Sound). Mastered by Kazuo Ogino; Vinyl Mastering by John Golden. Designed by Takuya Kitamura. Also features Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Kazuo Imai, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, .es, Keiji Haino, á qui avec Gabriel, Shizuka, Masayoshi Urabe, Ché-SHIZU, Fushitsusha, White Heaven, Keiko Higuchi, Reizen, Makoto Kawashima, Niseaporia, Ghost, Hasegawa-Shizuo, and Hideaki Kondo. Includes essays by Masaki Batoh and Alan Cummings along with artist profiles, all in English and Japanese. Deluxe triple gatefold, heavy tip-on edition with metallic inks and spot finishes. Includes printed inner sleeves. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Digital download included.

File Under: Japanese, Psych
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Various: Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976-1986 (Light in the Attic) LP
Pacific Breeze documents Japan’s blast into the stratosphere. By the 1960s, the nation had achieved a postwar miracle, soaring to become the world’s second largest economy. Thriving tech exports sent The Rising Sun over the moon. Its pocket cassette players, bleeping video games, and gleaming cars boomed worldwide, wooing pleasure points and pumping Japanese pockets full of yen. Japan’s financial buoyancy also permeated its popular culture, birthing an audio analog called City Pop. This new sound arose in the mid ’70s and ruled through the ’80s, channeling the country’s contemporary psyche. It was sophisticated music mirroring Japan’s punch-drunk prosperity. City Pop epitomized the era, providing a soundtrack for emerging urbanites. An optimistic spirit buzzed through the music in neon-bathed, gauzy tableaus coated with groove-heavy strokes. Pacific Breeze is an expertly compiled collection of choice cuts that range from silky smooth grooves to innovative techno pop bangers and everything in between. Long-revered by crate diggers and adventurous music heads, this music has never been released outside of Japan until now. Including key artists like Taeko Ohnuki and Minako Yoshida, as well as cult favorites Hitomi Tohyama and Hiroshi Sato, the long-awaited release also features newly commissioned cover painting by Tokyo-based artist Hiroshi Nagai, whose iconic images of resort living have graced the covers of many classic City Pop albums of the 1980s. Many of the key City Pop players evolved from the Japanese New Music scene of the early ’70s, as heard on Light In The Attic’s acclaimed Even a Tree Can Shed Tears: Japanese Folk & Rock 1969-1973, the first release of the ongoing Japan Archival Series. In fact, you could say City Pop set sail with a champagne smash from Happy End, the freakishly talented subversives who included amongst their ranks Haruomi Hosono and Shigeru Suzuki, both featured on this compilation. As Michael K. Bourdaghs noted in his book, Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon, this music was, “Deconstructing the line between imitation and authenticity.” Some of the best City Pop teeters in this zone—easy listening with mutant exotica, tilted techno-pop, and steamy boogie bubbling beneath the gloss.

File Under: Japan, Pop, Boogie
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…..new arrivals…..

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Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society: Mandatory Reality (Eremite) LP
LPs pressed on premium audiophile-quality vinyl at RTI from Kevin Gray Lacquers; Presented in a textured gatefold Stoughton “laserdisc” jacket with a cover painting by Lisa Alvarado. Jackets, retro-audiophile sleeves and record labels hand-screen printed by Alan Sherry at Siwa Studios, Northern New Mexico. Mandatory Reality, the new album by Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society, is here. Setting aside (for the moment) the electric instrumentation of Simultonality and Magnetoception, Joshua Abrams conceived Mandatory Reality for an eight-piece acoustic manifestation of NIS, consisting of himself on guimbri, Lisa Alvarado on harmonium and gongs, Mikel Avery on tam-tam and gongs, Ben Boye on autoharp and piano, Hamid Drake on tabla and tar, Ben Lamar Gay on cornet, Nick Mazzarella on alto saxophone, and Jason Stein on bass clarinet. A double album, Mandatory Reality is comprised largely of two performances, both Joshua Abrams compositions, 24- and 40-minutes in length. While new to the band’s records, long duration pieces are familiar to those who’ve heard Joshua Abram and NIS in concert in recent years, where elaboration on a single composition for an hour or more is not unusual. Gradual tempos dominate Mandatory Reality. Recorded two months before the 2017 solar eclipse, Mandatory Reality is the sound of Joshua Abrams and NIS taking its time. Merging methodical compositions with sonically voluptuous orchestration, Abrams heightens the immersive and hypnotic qualities Abram and NIS music is known for, taking the band and the listener deep into a collective meditative space. A grand realization of long-form psychedelic music, Mandatory Reality is a dispatch from a sound world that is increasingly unique to itself. All performances on Mandatory Reality are full takes recorded live to tape by the full ensemble, magnificently captured by Greg Norman at electrical audio, Chicago — the first true “audiophile” recording of Joshua Abrams and NIS. Mastered by Helge Sten at Audio Virus, Oslo.

File Under: Jazz
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Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO: s/t (Black Editions) LP
Black Editions presents the deluxe, first-ever vinyl edition of Acid Mothers Temple’s classic self-titled first album. Over the last 25 years no group has been more prolific or dedicated to pushing psychedelic rock to its limits than Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple. Their maximalist technicolor vision was first revealed on this, their now legendary self-titled 1997 debut released by P.S.F. Records. Led by Makoto Kawabata, the album contains some of the group’s most cosmic, hypnotic and over-the-top material; it kick-started and set the tone for a journey that has included countless releases and performances around the world — a freaked-out trip that continues to this day. Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. is one of the essential albums of the world’s psychedelic underground. Deluxe Edition housed in ten-color heavy tip-on gatefold jackets, featuring soft touch and spot gloss finishes and full color interior pockets. Includes full-color, spot glossed inner sleeves and a 24″x24″, full-color poster. Remastered and pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Digital download included.

File Under: Japan, Psych
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Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO: Hallelujah Mystic Garden Part 2 (Important) LP
Hallelujah Mystic Garden Part Two contains a new deep-pocket groove disco version of fan favorite “Pink Lady Lemonade”. Side two is a slick kosmiche-electro-disco number that unfurls over a period of 20 minutes and is periodically punctuated by Makoto Kawabata’s unruly soloing. Recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, June 2016-March 2017; produced and mixed by Kawabata Makoto. Personnel: Cotton Casino – voice, astral mama; Kawabata Makoto – guitar, fretless bass, bouzouki, organ, rhythm machine, electronics, tapes, speed guru; Higashi Hiroshi – synthesizer, noodle king, Mitsuko☆Tabata – guitar, guitar-synthesizer, voice, kisses and hugs; Satoshima Nani -drums, another dimension; S/T “Wolf” – bass, tapes, space and time.

File Under: Japan, Psych
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Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO: Invisible Eyes & Phantom Cathedral (Bam Balam) LP
One of the greatest Japanese psychedelic bands, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Invisible Eyes And Phantom Cathedral is in another league from the others. There’s a distinct Gong/Can feel about it, with everything that you’d hope from AMT. Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. as of 2019: Kawabata Makoto – guitar, synthesizer, speed guru; Higashi Hiroshi – synthesizer, noodle god; Jyonson Tsu – vocal, guitar, bouzouki; Satoshima Nani – drums, another dimension; Wolf – bass, space & time.

File Under: Japan, Psych

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Alberich: Quantized Angel (Hospital) LP
Few contemporary industrial acts are spoken of in such highly reverential terms as Alberich, the solo project of underground super-producer Kris Lapke. While Lapke himself may best be known for his production and mastering work, both for such diverse sounding acts like Prurient, Nothing, and the Haxan Cloak to his audio restoration work for COUM Transmissions and Shizuka, Alberich has achieved a cult on par with many of the legends he works with; Lapke’s diverse contributions as a producer are recognizable for the perfect balance of maximalist and minimalist electronics that Alberich has relentlessly authored. Since Alberich’s 2010 masterful and highly collectable two-and-a-half hour NATO-Uniformen album, he has become a powerful force of modern industrial music. With only a series of limited tape and split releases, fans have been waiting with bated breath for a true follow-up album. Quantized Angel is Alberich’s first full-length album in almost a decade. In the intervening years between albums, Alberich has grown more nuanced, creating atmosphere and tension on par with Silent Servant’s classic Negative Fascination LP (2012) in regards to production and attention to detail. The results create a newly polished but no less intense vision of modern industrial music. Over the course of the album’s eight tracks, Alberich demonstrates a vision of ruthless existential electronics, a sound both commanding yet questioning in introspective spirit. Features exclusive track contributed to Berghain 09 2×12″ mixed by Vatican Shadow on Ostgut Ton.

File Under: Electronic, Industrial
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Alessandro Alessandroni: Prisma Sonoro (Roundtable) LP
Available again! Hands down one of the best Alessandroni library records. Sublime lounge/bossa/jazz orchestrations…. Undoubtedly one of the central figures of 1960s/70s Italian film music, Alessandro Alessandroni defined the very essence of the genre with his vocal group, I Cantori Moderni. Renowned for his pioneering reverb guitar sound, sitar exploration and a phenomenal whistling technique, (Perhaps best known for his contribution in shaping the famous ‘Spaghetti Western’ sound) Alessandroni’s vast and innovative contribution to Italian soundtracks is unparalleled. Recording countless sessions for many Italian film composers of the period including Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani and Francesco De Masi (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, All the Colours Of The Dark, Sweden: Heaven and Hell and Alla Scoperta Dell’India respectively), his importance as a sideman often overshadowed his own work as a solo artist. Complementing his session work, Alessandroni was an amazingly inventive composer in his own right; his unique compositions were issued on many Italian, French, and German Library labels throughout the 1970s. One of the most desired sessions (and reported to be his own favourite recording) is Prisma Sonoro, a mythical library LP issued as a micro press for the highly collectable Sermi label. This music is exquisitely crafted Italian mood music; propulsive Bossa, enchanting Harpsichord melodies, scowling Giallo-style guitars, mournful string arrangements and the sublimely plaintive voice of Edda Dell’Orso. Long regarded as the backbone of Italian film music, here is Maestro Alessandroni in all his own lush psychedelic glory.

File Under: Italian, Library, Lounge, Jazz
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Alpha & Omega: Dubplate V1 (Mania Dub) LP
Alpha & Omega’s Dubplate Selection Volume 1 first appeared on A&O Records in 1997. This is vintage killer addictive electronic reggae and dub selection by UK pioneers Alpha & Omega, a heavyweight vintage UK dub sound-system classic!

File Under: Dub, Reggae, Electronic
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Alpha & Omega: Dubplate V2 (Mania Dub) LP
Alpha & Omega’s Dubplate Selection Volume 2 first appeared on A&O Records in 1997. This is vintage killer addictive electronic reggae and dub selection by UK pioneers Alpha & Omega, a heavyweight vintage UK dub sound-system classic!

File Under: Dub, Reggae, Electronic
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Amon Tobin: Fear in a Handful of Dust (Nomark) LP
Fear In A Handful Of Dust” is Amon Tobin’s first album in eight years – the first since his triumphant “ISAM”. Tobin’s role in electronic music innovation cannot be understated. In a career spanning over 20 years, the Brazilian-born UK-raised producer has released of some of the most important, era-defining records of his time, setting a pace of sonic exploration and musical adventurism that has helped to shape much of what has come since.

File Under: Electronic
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Bang/Honore/Aarset/Rohrer: Dark Star Safari (Arjunamusic) LP
Dark Star Safari, a newly formed group featuring Samuel Rohrer, Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, and Eivind Aarset presents Dark Star Safari, an evocative song-driven album. These songs conjure shadows of memory, clouds of dreaming and silhouettes of foreboding through the album’s layered, many-textured fabrics and Bang’s silken delivery of Honoré’s lyrics. Dark Star Safari is the work of four kindred spirits, an open modus operandi, and a remarkably interconnected creative nerve system. Key to their collaboration is an organic freedom that enables the music “to fill itself in”, to be self-actualizing via the musicians as medium. The music of the ten songs resulted from a two-stage process: an initial phase of free-flowing open improvisation, and a subsequent exploratory phase where hidden potentials were discovered and nurtured. The groundwork of the album originates in a session initiated by Rohrer, who invited Bang and Aarset to the Candy Bomber studio in Berlin. The session was run under the imaginative craftsmanship of sound engineer Ingo Krauss, who worked in the famous Conny Plank studio, its recording and mixing employing sophisticated use of vintage analog equipment alongside cutting-edge digital processes. This meeting opened the door for something larger to emerge; the group did not settle for just the initial open improvisation. They were driven to dig deeper, to examine and manipulate the material, in order to discover what it had to offer. During this second phase Bang, while meditating upon the possibilities and reach of the improvised material, felt a strong urge to give additional shape and color to it by singing. Thus, he organically stepped into the role of vocalist, a role he had not pursued since the early days of his musical career. He sent the results to Honoré, who immediately was inspired by its potential, penning lyrics and providing the project with its name. Honoré composed two additional songs, “Mordechai” and “Fault Line”, and thus rounded the project out towards a fully realized opus. The group continued this back and forth process, with Rohrer and Aarset bringing in fine-tuning and enrichment to the song structures and textures. Born out of the spirit of open improvisation and the improvisational practice of the immediate live-remix, Dark Star Safari transcends both of these creative processes in a pursuit of fresh approaches to songwriting. Their music is now ready to meet the hearts, minds and bodies of live audiences, to evolve through that interaction. Art by Ian Anderson, The Designers Republic.

File Under: Jazz
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TER055LP_PRODBob Bell: Necropolis (Telephone Explosion) LP
“Canadian private press mega-rarity/obscurity from the artistically schizophrenic Bob Bell. Recorded in 1978, Bell splits the difference between his love of basement psych splatter/pummel and squalling free jazz ramble, the former occupying side A with a stunning four-part suite of wasted guitar scuzz and churning Krautrock-like drama with an akin to German Oak, Roland Kirk, Albert Ayler, DNA, Melt Banana (minus the vocals) and Guru Guru. The latter represents Bell as a saxophonist on side B, and the music itself translates into a 15-minute free-jazz exploration. Necropolis is a highly sought-after 35 min doom-laden trip for the connoisseurs of noise.”

File Under: Psych, Freakout
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large_550_tmp_2F1546902448734-59cbrh18hpe-74f0d5af41419325cc43c1d0c74e30d2_2FbrackeenCharles Brackeen: Rhythm X (Pure Pleasure) LP
On this record, the little-known Charles Brackeen brings his saxophone to a party with most of Ornette Coleman’s band. As might be expected, while Brackeen certainly holds his own, it’s Ornette’s boys who bring the thunder, playing around Brackeen’s muscular alto as if they were a gang jumping on a new member. Haden’s bass playing provides the frantic pulse, here and there ceding the stage to Blackwell’s flexible drumming and dropping out to provide rolling sheets of sound by bowing his instrument. Brackeen and Cherry wrestle across this solid bedrock, with results that are often surprising and never short of beautiful.

File Under: Jazz, Strata East
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JBH077LP_PRODJohn Cameron: Kes OST (Trunk) LP
Out of print since 2001, a classic Trunk release gets a rare repress, the original soundtrack of Kes. This is pastoral British jazz film music at its very best. Includes sleeve notes by Jarvis Cocker. Kes by Ken Loach is one of the greatest British films of all time. It also has one of the finest soundtracks of the period. Put together by the incredibly talented John Cameron (the arranger for Donovan and great film score composer in his own right) this score sums up beautifully the freedom, innocence, and tragedy put across in the film. With a crack British jazz line-up, including flute legend Harold McNair, Ronnie Ross (bass clarinet), Tony Carr (drums), Danny Moss (clarinet), and David Snell (harp), this score not only appeals to the soundtrack collectors but also followers of the classic British jazz sound. Source material was the original John Cameron master, which had been slightly damaged at the front end, so there is a slight change in volume at the beginning of the LP. Nobody moaned back in 2001. Things might be different now. The score is only 19 minutes long and therefore fits perfectly onto a one-sided LP. Full color sleeve; Produced by Jonny Trunk.

File Under: OST, Jazz
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Com Truise: Persuasion System (Ghostly) LP
For nearly a decade the story of Com Truise has relied on science fiction and abstract fact. Seth Haley’s singular style of melodic beat music subsists as hazy machinist nostalgia, a mainframe downloaded cosmology. Yet with each release, alongside sonic refinement, comes an increasingly visible vapor trail to Haley’s own ontology. His long-awaited 2017 LP Iteration brought to completion a conceptual space saga while also reflecting seismic life changes for the producer and designer. With mini-LP Persuasion System, Haley leaves the past narrative behind, settling into a new period marked by change – on this planet, in the present – putting forth his most grounded and visceral work to date. The project began as an experiment. Haley switched digital audio workstations, rebuilt his palette of sounds, and tasked himself with simply trying it out. The exercise freed him of expectations and permitted a process that echoed the tones of more immediate external environments. A gravity had seeped in; resulting material shifts between bleakness and sublime suspense, awe at the expanse of existing, in looking back and letting go. “It’s a sort of sad smile and a wave goodbye but at the same time hello, a ‘welcome to your life’ moment,” Haley says. Take the storm pattern sequence from “Gaussian” to “Ultrafiche of You”: a queasy, contemplative vignette rests on a single soft-synth cloud before the latter’s percussion ripples across the sky. With trademark stutters and swells, the composition conjures the sensation of searching in the afterglow. “It’s a love song, and I don’t write many of those.” That duality – melancholy + optimism, then + now – permeates this widescreen collection. “Existence Schematic” takes flight at night, “looking down at the landscape,” explains Haley, “seeing the lights in a schematic sort of way, wondering who or what is looking back up at me wondering the same things I am, the impact of a single existence, the end, the beginning, where it’s gone and going.” These are observations from this existential Persuasion System, and Haley hopes the music yields more, for others, that listeners may search for their own tension and release.

File Under: Electronic
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FFL050LP_PRODDominique Cravic/Les Primitifs du Futur: Resume Des Episodes Precedents (Souffle Continu) LP+BK
Nicknamed the Primdufs, the group have a passion for the obsolete French “valse musette”. But their take has nothing in common with the smutty chords of popular balls and singalongs in little town halls. This is “bal musette” with balls, it’s genuine, virile, and authentic. Though these noble savages like rummaging around in 1920s Paris, they don’t shy away from including rhythms from all over the planet, rhumba from Zaireto, gypsy jazz, Hindu waltzes or Argentine tango, blues, “paso doble” or “chanson réaliste”. It all began in 1986, when Dominique Cravic, “ukukeke” champion and a renowned guitarist who learned from jazzmen like Lee Konitz or Larry Coryell and also played with Georges Moustaki and Henri Salvador, met a certain Robert Crumb. Yes, the legendary comic book author from the great days of the US psychedelic underground in the ’70s, the creator of Fritz the Cat (1972) and Mr Natural in person, the same man who also created the cover for Cheap Thrills (1968) by Janis Joplin. Crumb plays banjo and mandolin, collects 78s of blues, jazz and musette. The two cronies then composed their own made-to-measure orchestra, alongside many famous names including accordionist Daniel Colin, clarinetist Bertrand Auger, saxophonist Daniel Huck, bassist Jean-Philippe Viret or singer Claire Elzière (sorry, it’s impossible to name them all). This great group has recorded four albums since 1986 (all with sleeves drawn by Crumb), some including guest stars such as Pierre Barouh, Jean-Jacques Milteau, Allain Leprest, Sanseverino or Olivia Ruiz. For thirty years, the Primitifs du Futur have carried the torch of musette to the four corners of the earth, from fiestas to festivals, and today release a double vinyl, entitled Résumé Des Épisodes Précédents which brings together the best of their adventures. It is a refreshing and heartening cocktail of “world tribal musette”, as they call it, which, in these electro digital times, has a rejuvenating effect, a magic swing potion. Double-LP with 20-page booklet with all Crumb previous artworks for the band’s albums plus unseen photos. Edition of 1500; No repress.

File Under: Jazz, Ragtime, Swing

2c84d19ceb7e200f17093c73a2de5f0b_480x480Deliluh: Oath of Intent (Telephone Explosion) LP
Deliluh is an emerging experimental art-rock group that has solidified a reputation in Toronto as a torchbearer for the DIY music community. Their sound fuses elements of punk, drone & experimental music into a organic, yet fiercely resonating sonic identity. Telephone Explosion will be releasing their sophomore LP, Oath of Intent in North America on May 3 (Tin Angel will be releasing the album worldwide.) Deliluh’s live propensity to ignore the traditional circuit of bars and clubs in favour of unconventional venues has built a reputation at home, and one they intend to maintain. Foregoing the clean polish of professional studios for living spaces of contextual importance, Deliluh’s dedication to thoughtful writing and analog documentation has been a constant process that’s kept loyal fans highly anticipating their culminate fruit. Fortunately, they won’t have to wait much longer.

File Under: Art Rock, Post Punk
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LDD12621_Mac Demarco: Here Comes the Cowboy (Royal Mountain) LP
The follow-up to 2017’s Billboard 200 Top 30 success This Old Dog, Here Comes The Cowboy is Mac DeMarco’s fourth full-length and debut release on his own Mac’s Record Label, introduced by the waltzing lead single, “Nobody.” As described by DeMarco, “This one is my cowboy record. Cowboy is a term of endearment to me, I use it often when referring to people in my life. Where I grew up there are many people that sincerely wear cowboy hats and do cowboy activities. These aren’t the people I’m referring to.” Here Comes The Cowboy was written, tracked and mixed at DeMarco’s Jizz Jazz Studios in Los Angeles, CA during the first two weeks of January 2019. Nearly every instrument on the album was played by DeMarco, aside from keyboards on select tracks by touring member and close friend Alec Meen. Traveling sound engineer, Joe Santarpia, helped shape the record, sharing engineering and mixing duties with DeMarco. The rusty old grinning pin on the front and back covers was purchased from a man in the mountains somewhere in the Nantahala National Forest between Chattanooga, TN and Asheville, NC.

File Under: Indie Rock
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Elkhorn: Elk Jam (Feeding Tube) LP
“Two mind-bending slabs of acoustic and electric guitars, wandering into corners of acid-logic only accessible to bravest explorers. Elkhorn is a duo—Jesse Sheppard & Drew Gardner—from NYC. Their earlier records (Elkhorn on Beyond Is Beyond, The Black River on Debacle) would have blown us away, even if we didn’t know Jesse from his work as a film-maker (he directed the Glenn Jones/Jack Rose doc, The Things That We Used to Do) and organizer (he put together the 1,000 Incarnations of the Rose festival). Elkhorn’s music, which we had suspected might be in a fairly traditional American Primitive vein, was anything but. And these two LPs (released individually, but recorded more or less simultaneously) explore a whole warren of new style caverns. Sun Cycle was recorded at Jason Meagher’s Black Dirt Studio and is closer to their pure duo sound (although guitarist Willie Lane and percussionist Ryan Jewell are along for the ride). There are elements of the American Primitive thread present, but these touch mostly on the outer reaches of the form, like Gene Estibou & Jean-Claude Pickens’ Intensifications, or the crazy distentions of MV and PG Six. Layers of pluck and soar and light percussion mix at the upper edge of the cosmic barrier, and Sun Cycle is, to our ears, Elkhorn’s most adventurous and fully realized album yet. On Elk Jam, Willie Lane and Ryan Jewell function more as members of a psychedelic folk-rock quartet, and the troupe takes things even deeper in a Bay Area-styled trip zone. Recalling the classic ruminations of Mountain Bus, the full four man Elkhorn is exactly what the doctor prescribed for a generation of sack-butts who imagine John Mayer’s pudgy phallus-riffs have shit to do with transcendental psych exploration. Elkhorn are the true sonic dealio. Instrumental music doesn’t get much better than this. As Capt. Beefheartonce said, ‘If you got ears/You gotta listen!’ We couldn’t agree more.”—Byron Coley, 2019. Edition of 300; Black/clear vinyl pressing.

File Under: Folk, Blues, Roots
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5c8006ffc675b_mainElkhorn: Sun Cycle (Feeding Tube) LP
“Two mind-bending slabs of acoustic and electric guitars, wandering into corners of acid-logic only accessible to bravest explorers. Elkhorn is a duo—Jesse Sheppard & Drew Gardner—from NYC. Their earlier records (Elkhorn on Beyond Is Beyond, The Black River on Debacle) would have blown us away, even if we didn’t know Jesse from his work as a film-maker (he directed the Glenn Jones/Jack Rose doc, The Things That We Used to Do) and organizer (he put together the 1,000 Incarnations of the Rose festival). Elkhorn’s music, which we had suspected might be in a fairly traditional American Primitive vein, was anything but. And these two LPs (released individually, but recorded more or less simultaneously) explore a whole warren of new style caverns. Sun Cycle was recorded at Jason Meagher’s Black Dirt Studio and is closer to their pure duo sound (although guitarist Willie Lane and percussionist Ryan Jewell are along for the ride). There are elements of the American Primitive thread present, but these touch mostly on the outer reaches of the form, like Gene Estibou & Jean-Claude Pickens’ Intensifications, or the crazy distentions of MV and PG Six. Layers of pluck and soar and light percussion mix at the upper edge of the cosmic barrier, and Sun Cycle is, to our ears, Elkhorn’s most adventurous and fully realized album yet. On Elk Jam, Willie Lane and Ryan Jewell function more as members of a psychedelic folk-rock quartet, and the troupe takes things even deeper in a Bay Area-styled trip zone. Recalling the classic ruminations of Mountain Bus, the full four man Elkhorn is exactly what the doctor prescribed for a generation of sack-butts who imagine John Mayer’s pudgy phallus-riffs have shit to do with transcendental psych exploration. Elkhorn are the true sonic dealio. Instrumental music doesn’t get much better than this. As Capt. Beefheartonce said, ‘If you got ears/You gotta listen!’ We couldn’t agree more.”—Byron Coley, 2019. Edition of 300; Black/clear vinyl pressing.

File Under: Folk, Blues, Roots
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noq037Endless Boogie: Vol 1 & 2 (No Quarter) LP
It was never intended to get this far. Endless Boogie had been a band for six years when they were invited by Slint to play the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in the UK. Up to that point, they had been perfectly content existing only at their weekly Lower East Side rehearsals (and the occasional New York City show). They figured if they were leaving the country to play a show, they should have something to sell, so they pulled some recordings from their rehearsal tape archive, ran two small pressings, hand stamped some sleeves, and the Endless Boogie story officially began. The records (often referred to as “black” and “white”) have long fetched high prices on the secondary market. They’re back in print here and packaged together as a double CD / double LP set. Vinyl comes in an debossed gatefold jacket. CDs come packaged in a gatefold wallet.

File Under: Psych
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large_550_tmp_2F1554157985696-46ihoxyv7wg-b0ed2a176294ef2d6680103ba1961269_2FROMA111LP_Niente_3000pxGruppo D’improvvisazione Nuova Consananza: Niente (Roundtable) LP
Founded in Rome in 1964, ‘Il Gruppo D’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza’ was a collective of noted and noteworthy composers who challenged the very structure and performance of music itself. Today the most celebrated of its members is the renowned film composer Ennio Morricone but each contributor has an intriguing history in Italian music. Drawing on Jazz, Serialism, Musique Concrete and other extended techniques, the group performed on many of Morricone’s experimental soundtracks of the 1970s including, A Quiet Place In The Country and Gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura). The collective improvised live (according to strict exercises) and in the studio (recording for RCA, Deutsche Grammaphon, General Music and others). In 1970 ‘Il Gruppo’ (as ‘The Group’) recorded The Feed-back (for RCA Italy), an insane amalgam of avant-improvisation and motorik Krautrock-influenced beats that understandably has become one of the most collectable ‘Library Music’ related LPs ever issued. In 1971 ‘Il Gruppo’ returned to the studio to record a sequel. This is that record. For reasons unknown Niente was never originally issued but one listen will convince that not only is it the sequel to one of the most sought after LPs of all time, but it is also by far its superior. Brain melting jams collide with unhinged intensity in a hothouse of Italian avant-improv. You have been warned.

File Under: Jazz, Funk, Library
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SL104LP_PRODFrank Harris & Maria Marquez: Echoes (Strangelove) LP
Echoes is the ethno-wave love child of collaborators Frank Harris and Maria Marquez. A collection of sublime songs dating back to ’85, avant-pop flourishes are married here to the heart strings of a synthetic Amazon — think Music From Memory’s Outro Tempo meets a tropical Sade. With much contemporary interest in South American electronic music, Echoes is a window into two musicians prescient dreamings of tradition, melody, and technology. Reveling in the embrace of Maria’s Venezuelan roots amd folklore visions, combined with Frank’s custom Synclavier synth station, songs such as “Canto Del Pílon” and “Tonada de Ordeño” resonate with a charged future/primitive electricity; Maria’s song-to-a-siren vocals mainline with Frank’s lush sonic alchemy. Mastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy. A portion of Echoes profits will go to Venezuelan charity. 180 gram vinyl with printed deluxe sleeve; Full size graphic insert; Includes two-sided, full-size insert.

File Under: Pop, Synthwave
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Rip Hayman: Dreams Of India & China (Recital) LP
“Dreams of India & China is the first retrospective LP of artist and sailor, Rip Hayman. Recorded from 1975-1986, the two side-long works were collaged from a dozen hours of tape recordings (which had lain dormant for over 30 years). It ebbs as the tides; pulsing from one location to the next in a faint stupor, Dreams turns to be an autobiographical sound map. Audio capsules of Hayman’s installation performances, private experiments, and every ethnographic voyage in between are charted. Outdoor recordings canopy over indoor recordings, thatching surreality. Tonal quilts lap over “Dreamwaves” on the first side: an all-night sleep concert hosted by Rip as the sandman. Whispers of recounted dreams, birds and trees, organ waves. The second side traverses more saturated memories: bicycle spokes ripping against half-speed piano, bleeding cymbal dances over saxophone gusts, the tumbling of Rip’s body affixed with bells and metal. Hayman was a collaborator in New Wilderness Foundation, Ear Magazine, and The Land (a parcel in upstate New York to where John Cage, John Lennon, David Tudor, and more would escape the city in the 1970s). He is the owner of the oldest bar in NYC, The Ear Inn. Focusing on nautical inventions and intentions these days, Rip has veered away from composition; hopefully that will change. For now, let us enjoy the sea-faring sound journeys of his past. Dreams of India & China charters a beautiful confusion — come aboard and push off into his waters.” –Sean McCann, February 2019

File Under: Ambient, Field Recordings
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V25AH506LP_PRODHaruomi Hosono/ Takahiko Ishikawa/ Masataka Matsutoya: Aegean Sea (Victory) LP
Victory present a reissue of Haruomi Hosono, Takahiko Ishikawa, and Masataka Matsutoya’s The Aegean Sea originally released in 1979. The album is somewhat of a companion piece to the previous year’s Pacific. A beautiful piece of Japanese smooth fusion-jazz with elements of traditional Greek music and Balearic grooves, it’s one of Hosono’s cleanest and most focused works to date. Long sought-after by collectors, this record is nearly impossible to find in original pressings outside of Japan and this is a welcome reissue of one of the greatest titles in Hosono’s seemingly infinite catalog. Essential Japanese jazz fusion.

File Under: Jazz, Tropical
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Interpol: A Fine Mess (Matador) LP
Recorded during time spent in upstate New York with Dave Fridmann, the five songs that make up Interpol’s new EP A Fine Mess gradually emerged as a body of work with a narrative and flow unto itself. The previously released title track, “Fine Mess,” then received further production from Kaines & Tom A.D. and mixing from Claudius Mittendorfer, who had first worked with Interpol as engineer on Our Love To Admire. The resulting set is a living, breathing postcard from the band to their fans as they tour the world throughout 2019, and a linear continuation of the visceral and contagious energy set loose with Marauder. Echoing its title, the artwork for A Fine Mess is illustrated by a series of lost images, recovered from an abandoned police station in Detroit, MI. In a crumbling evidence room – amongst the rubble – an undeveloped roll of film, dated “1-20-96,” featured latent images of a breaking-and-entering scene, the rooms in chaos. From the beguiling refrain of the title track, to the soulful topsy-turvy of “No Big Deal,” cathartic chorus of long sought-after live favorite “Real Life,” anthemic swell of “The Weekend,” and angular shades of ‘Thrones,” A Fine Mess is a bracing and distinct addition to Interpol’s oeuvre.

File Under: Folk, Prog
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LDJ40403_Norah Jones: Begin Again (Blue Note) LP
Norah Jones’ new collection Begin Again presents seven stylistically diverse songs that the 9x Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter recorded over the past year with various collaborators including Jeff Tweedy and Thomas Bartlett. Following the 2016 release of her acclaimed album Day Breaks – and the extensive promotional campaign and world tour that accompanied it – Jones quietly returned to the studio with the sole intent of following her muse down creative pathways without any expectations or boundaries. Reveling in the joy and spontaneity of music-making with a true spirit of openness, Jones got together with various friends for brief, largely-improvised sessions to collaborate and experiment. “I felt inspired to record and try different things,” Jones says, adding that the idea was to make it “quick and fun and easy and low-pressure. It’s a great way to collaborate with other people. Just a day or 3 in the studio and that’s it. I try to go in with a few clips of voice memo ideas to have a jumping off point. With each session the little ideas were definitely with those particular musicians in mind, but the hope is to always create in the moment and with each session there were songs that came out of nothing. I was very open and had no real expectations as far as direction, but each session has exceeded my expectations. It’s been so fun and I feel very inspired right now and love all the different directions this is going.” The singles, which Jones began releasing in the summer of 2018, run the gamut from riveting electronic experiments to starkly acoustic folk ballads to organ-and-horn drenched soul songs. With the addition of three more previously unreleased songs, Begin Again presents seven snapshots of creativity from one of the music world’s most versatile and consistently intriguing artists. The new song “Just a Little Bit,” was produced by Jones and features her on vocals, piano, and organ along with Brian Blade on drums, Christopher Thomas on bass, Dave Guy on trumpet, and Leon Michels on tenor saxophone.

File Under: Jazz
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large_550_tmp_2F1549576916112-y5appcpv53n-162226ff394ffa2ab99ff118b4e88720_2FR-1286589-1206538207.jpegClifford Jordan Quartet: Glass Bead Games (Pure Pleasure) LP
Fifth part of the Strata-East Dolphy Series, Glass Bead Games is arguably the crown jewel of the Strata East movement, an amorphous genre that treads an unusual path between post-bop, 70’s avant-garde and spiritual jazz, with a groove. Glass Bead Games is full of revelations at many levels. First, the decade of the 1970s did produce genuinely creative, “human” new music flowing from the jazz mainstream; second, Bill Lee was more than Spike’s dad: he was a superlative bassist, a team player of the first order, a powerful catalyst who, if anything, deserves to be better known than his son; third, Billy Higgins was, as so many musicians insist, a once-in-a-lifetime drummer—the bellows inspiriting the collective flame. Most importantly, Clifford Jordan was an artist of the first order, his playing so effortless and unforced, unselfconscious and focused, mature and wise that, at a time when altissimo fury was all the rage, it’s small wonder his authentic voice frequently went unheard. His musical rhetoric is so personally expressive, its substance so compelling, the listener couldn’t care less about the extraordinary technique required to convey its captivating message. Compared to some of his more acclaimed peers he’s a less aggressive yet paradoxically more directive and shaping influence. The climaxes, rather than spelled out, are merely suggested, registering with deep and lasting impact on the listener. It all comes down to learning the language, those precious little beads. Not every player, including Jordan or the listener, can use it like Shakespeare, but all can learn to read Shakespeare and understand its principles of arbitrariness and serendipity, of invariance and transformation. Jordan, no less than Shakespeare, requires a like-minded cast of players—in this case four musicians of such redoubtable proficiency that each remains committed to keeping the beads in play. He’s not a man content with a mere musical “dialogue” with his fellow musicians nor is he about to take the initiative in pulling his troops up to his level. Instead he begins to tell a musical story that’s so compelling his three comrades are inspired equally to contribute to a collaborative narrative. This is brilliant music-making by a Coltrane- influenced successor who feels no obligation to mime the predecessor. It may be the most significant saxophone performance on record since Coltrane and, providing the listener stays with it for any length of time, the most deeply satisfying. Jordan’s game—so effortless, unforced, and “level”—erases distinctions between composed and improvised, soloist and ensemble, narrator and narrative, the dancer and the dance. It seems incapable of wearing out its welcome.

File Under: Jazz, Strata East
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BE006LP_PRODMakoto Kawashima: Homo Sacer (Black Editions) LP
Makoto Kawashima was born in Saitama, a prefecture of the Greater Tokyo Area, in 1981. He picked up the alto sax in 2008, and started playing solo in 2010. He is the founder of the Homosacer (Sacredhuman) label. Homo Sacer was originally released in 2015. It was Kawashima’s second solo release and his first full-length album. It was also the final release by P.S.F. Records. The album was recorded live during a heavy rainstorm at the gallery and café Yamanekoken in Iruma, Saitama. Facing up towards the ceiling, his sound arcing up to meet the raindrops beyond the roof. Kawashima played with a reed he had been given by the mother of the late Japanese saxophone giant Kaoru Abe. Housed in a heavy tip-on jacket featuring metallic printing and gloss film-laminate finish. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Digital download included. “Homo sacer — sacred human. Kawashima’s sax is ripe with the spirit of Japanese free jazz, dwelling as it does between the violent and the beautiful. Kaoru Abe, Masayoshi Urabe, Takayuki Hashimoto, Harutaka Mochizuki… all of these altoists live in an area of personal expression rare in the world, one that feels like the body itself is being whittled away at. It feels like we have a new genius to add to that list.” –Hideako Kondo, from the Japanese liner notes

File Under: Free Jazz
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Dadisi Komolahe: Hassan’s Walk (Pure Pleasure) LP
Don’t let the date fool you, released back in 1983 this modal to slightly free jazz outfit from California takes you on a journey back to the late 60s and very early 70s, into the spiritual realms of greats like John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, John McLaughlin and Miles Davis among others. A soul jazz treasure from the LA scene of the early 80s – a fantastic record that I rank with the best Strata East sides of the time! The group’s led by alto saxophonist Dadisi Komolafe, and features vibes by Ricky Kelly, piano by Eric Tillman, bass by Roberto Miranda, and drums by Sunship Theus – all working together in a style that’s infused with soulful, post-Coltrane exploratory energy, never going too far outside, and always staying true to the rhythmic pulse at its core. Kelly’s vibes are really great – sparkling underneath solos by Komolafe that remind me a lot of Gary Bartz’s earliest work.

File Under: Jazz
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SOMA032LP_PRODKukangendai: Palm (Ideologic Organ) LP
“Kukangendai is a kickass rock trio from Kyoto (Tokyo transplants). When I first hear this band live I was instantly transfixed by their minimalist yet illusory primitive, polyrhythmic, and structural, memory evoking rock narratives. Their energy is completely and transparently palpable yet handled with restraint of the pleasure of a disciplined form dealing with time and articulation. They are a power trio of bass, drums, and guitar but the music they play is as much the limbic system of a forest than it is a geode. They started in 2006. They left Tokyo to Kyoto and started the cult venue Soto (‘Outside’) ‘to listen to music they hadn’t heard yet’ a few years later. They collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto last year. They reminded me of James Brown on a heavy binge of Bastro, there’s a deep current of both archaic musical tastes and the human desire for articulating that archaism in there, but you shake your ass and get the shouting in… in a punk basement… 13th century version of Breadwinner, the bare soul version. I’m honored and proud to work with this tribe, and to count them amongst friends.” –Stephen O’Malley, February 2019, Paris

File Under: Rock, Math Rock, Minimialism
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Bill Laswell: City Of Light (Sub Rosa) LP
First time ever on vinyl, re-released in our Sub Rosa Blackcore series. City of Light is the sixth solo album by American composer Bill Laswell, released on July 29, 1997. While it may appear an anachronism in his catalog, fans of Bill Laswell will find City of Light an extension of ideas he has explored throughout his career. His strong interest in Eastern music and religion resulted in this 1997 collaboration with Janet Rienstra. Part sacred, spoken word, part meditative soundscape, City of Light takes as its inspiration the holy region of Banaras, India. Said to belong to Shiva, Banaras also contains the Ganges river: a place sought by Hindus for their cremation. Surrounding the texts is some of the most compelling music this genre has produced, featuring Trilok Gurtu on tablas, Coil (Peter Christopherson and John Balance) on electronics, Tetsu Inoue on sound collages, and Lori Carson on vocals. City of Light was recorded in Banaras, India, and mixed in Greenpoint, New York. It is about Banaras, a city older than history, tradition, and legends. It is Shiva’s land, founded at the dawn of creation, and it is India’s oldest and most fabled city. The Hindus call it Kashi, the luminous, the City of Light. Features a historical introduction by Hakim Bay. “Indian” green vinyl; Edition of 500.

File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Craig Leon: Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol 2 (Rvng INTL) LP
Craig Leon revisits the extraterrestrial origins of civilization on Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon. Picking up where the pioneering electronic albums Nommos and Visiting (Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1) left off, The Canon traces the imparted knowledge of alien visitors as it spread from Africa across the ancient world. Co-produced and featuring vocals by Cassell Webb, the pair engage a sonic pallet familiar from Vol. 1, updated with ecstatic contemporary sound and synthesis, creating a propulsive, exploratory album of cosmic lore and speculative anthropology.

File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Egisto Macchi: Citta Notte (Roundtable) LP
Citta Notte’s heady melange of cosmopolitan folk tropes, abstract sonic gestures, distressed and scattering percussion, beatific melodies and ominous VCS3 drones exists in a sublime universe all of its own. Atmospheric, smokey, urbane and sophisticated “Citta Notte” is a seamless and stunningly timeless jewel in the expanding cosmology of rediscovering Library/Production music. Haunting, profound and hypnotic, one of the rarest Library LPs is no doubt also one of the most beautiful and rewarding.

File Under: Library, Italian
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Efrim Manuel Menuck & Kevin Doria: are SING SINCK, SING (Constellation) LP
Efrim Manuel Menuck (founding member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion) and Kevin Doria (Growing, Total Life) are now officially a duo. Menuck recruited Doria to help him translate his acclaimed 2018 album Pissing Stars from the studio to the stage, and the pair have been touring under the Efrim Manuel Menuck moniker for the past year (often with Doria’s latest solo project KGD opening the proceedings). They’ve also been co-writing piles of new material, diving deeper into whirling maximalist electronics, still shot through with Menuck’s incantatory singing awash in plaintive distortion and hope. Efrim Manuel Menuck & Kevin Doria are SING SINCK, SING presents the first volume of songs forged from this febrile and fertile merger: an antifa poetics of sound that unspools across five crushing, keening tracks driven by thick sweeping drones and ostinatos, battered by inscrutably searching, ricocheting vocals. Anguish, yearning, and desperate conviction combine in these saturated survivalist electro-hymns, for as long as the power stays on to overload the amplifiers.

File Under: Electronic, Drone, Ambient
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The National: I Am Easy to Find (4AD) LP/DLX LP
In September 2017, director Mike Mills emailed Matt Berninger to introduce himself and in very short order, the most ambitious project of the National’s nearly 20-year career was born and plans for a hard-earned vacation died. The Los Angeles-based filmmaker was coming off his third feature, 20th Century Women, and was interested in working with the band on…something. A video maybe. Berninger, already a fan of Mills’ films, not only agreed to collaborate, he essentially handed over the keys to the band’s creative process. The result is I Am Easy to Find, a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and I Am Easy to Find, a 68-minute album by the National. The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack to the former. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other” – they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically sidestaged in favor of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers. As the album’s opening track, “You Had Your Soul With You,” unfurls, it’s so far, so National: a digitally manipulated guitar line, skittering drums, Berninger’s familiar baritone, mounting tension. Then around the 2:15 mark, the true nature of I Am Easy To Find announces itself: the racket subsides, strings swell, and the voice of long-time David Bowie bandmate Gail Ann Dorsey booms out – not as background vocals, not as a hook, but to take over the song. Elsewhere it’s Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan, or Sharon Van Etten, or Mina Tindle or Kate Stables of This Is the Kit, or varying combinations of them. The Brooklyn Youth Choir, whom Bryce Dessner had worked with before. There are choral arrangements and strings on nearly every track, largely put together by Bryce in Paris – not a negation of the band’s dramatic tendencies, but a redistribution of them. “Yes, there are a lot of women singing on this, but it wasn’t because, ‘Oh, let’s have more women’s voices,’ says Berninger. “It was more, ‘Let’s have more of a fabric of people’s identities.’ It would have been better to have had other male singers, but my ego wouldn’t let that happen.”

File Under: Indie Rock
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Benoit Pioulard/Sean Curtis Patrick: Avocationals (Beacon Sound) LP
Beacon Sound presents a first-time collaboration between Thomas Meluch (aka Benoit Pioulard) and Sean Curtis Patrick, entitled Avocationals. Over the course of nine songs the two use synthesizers, reel-to-reel tape machines, field recordings, guitar, and processed voice to conjure the ghosts of 20th century Great Lakes shipwrecks. From the muffled thumping of “Stonefax”, which might bring to mind the cracking and bowing of a ship on its way to the lake bottom, to the pulsating vocal drone that guides “Sunek”, evoking peril and loss, each of these songs brings to mind the final moments of doomed seafarers and their cargo-laden ships, the disintegration of hubris, the fraying of memory. By the time “Cabot” rolls around, like a lonely fog horn crossing the waves on a stormy night, the effect is of watching a decaying film loop that is somehow not only representative of a distant past but also of what perhaps lies ahead. Wintery, yet humming throughout with a narcotic warmth, Avocationals will pull you underwater and submerge you in the murky depths of a lost world. As the artists themselves write, “An avocational is an amateur diver who assists in rescue, investigation and salvage relating to watercraft disasters. Dozens of freighters and small sank during the mid-20th century golden age of shipping on the Great Lakes; this album is about nine of them.” Sean Curtis Patrick is a visual artist, photographer, adventurer, and musician. He has created art, design, and music videos for artists like Alessandro Cortini, Benoit Pioulard, Bana Haffar, Richard Devine, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Rafael Anton lrisarri, and many others. ln 2018, Sean directed and sound tracked a documentary about the devastation of the island of Puerto Rico after the hurricanes of 2017. He is an alumnus of the Banff Centre Musicians in Residence program and debuted new solo material on a Japanese tour in late 2018. Sean has released albums on Day Dot, Beacon Sound, and Muzan Editions. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Benoit Pioulard weaves natural sounds and textures of decay into his vague-pop songs, colored with the lushness and unpredictability of field recordings. His numerous albums for Kranky, Beacon Sound, and Morr Music document an evolving relationship with guitar, voice, and frayed layers of fidelity, alternately melodic, muted, and diffuse. He resides in Seattle, Washington. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll. Includes download card and insert; Edition of 300.

File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Pissgrave: Posthumous Humiliation (Profound Lore) LP
Philadelphia’s Pissgrave, one of the rawest, most depraved, immoral, and violent bands in present-day death metal, follow up their 2015 Suicidal Euphoria debut with their sophomore album Posthumous Humiliation, an album even more dark, surreal, violent, and perverted than its infamous predecessor. Once again produced by Arthur Rizk, this latest will cement the band’s reign in America’s underground death metal scene, not only as one of the most sadistic acts but also one of the most singular ones – with the band’s live show attesting to such a claim. Pissgrave’s slab of nauseating terror is unlike anything going on in the scene, pushing the sonic thresholds of the genre to new vomit-inducing levels. Posthumous Humiliation is ultimately a disturbing and intense listen, a sonic skull-fucking devoid of amusement and pleasure and a celebration of pure torment and misery.

File Under: Metal
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Genesis Breyer P-Orridge & Carl Abrahamsson: Loyalty Does Not End With Death (Ideal) LP
The first vinyl release between Carl Abrahamsson and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Loyalty Does Not End With Death is the final part of a spoken word trilogy initiated in 1990 with the Psychick TV & White Stains side At Stockholm, and proceeded by their Wordship album (2004) as Thee Majesty & Cotton Ferox electing to use their own names for this final part of a 30 year wide series, the duo intend Loyalty Does Not End With Death to be received without the connotations of their other projects. It’s the sound of two cosmically-traveled minds crossing paths after a long time to chew over the bare essentials — love and magick — via vibrant poetry and beautifully charged forms of ambient music. In nine parts they conjure a warmly meditative music, where Abrahamsson’s characteristic, playful tones, cut-up electronics, and gentle rhythms comfortably lay the bed for Genesis, who inhabits and enlivens the pristine scenes like an observant dark interpreter, translating the incomprehensible and revealing the divine through their psychedelic prism. The spellbinding results were recorded in New York and Stockholm 2017/18 and could feasibly have occurred at any point between 1990 and now. They are blessed with a pacing, intuition and timelessness that pays testament to an enduring creative friendship, taking the form of writing, interviews, photographs and films (Change Itself (2016)) for nearly 35 years.

File Under: Electronic, Spoken Word
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Psychedelic Speed Freaks: s/t (Black Editions) LP
Psychedelic Speed Freaks is a new power trio led by Munehiro Narita, founding member of Japan’s legendary High Rise and easily one of the wildest, most original guitarists in rock history. Blazing in total hyper-saturated glory, Psychedelic Speed Freaks centers on the raw, unrelenting attack of Narita’s “motorcycle fuzztone guitar” and a rhythm section driven by a pair of untamed LA acid punks. Recorded deep in-the-red and punched into overdrive, Psychedelic Speed Freaks is a full-throttle adrenaline shot into the 21st Century. Deluxe Edition housed in heavy tip-on jacket featuring silver foil printing and embossed paper. Includes metallic printed insert. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Digital download included.

File Under: Japanese, Psych, Freakout
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Jean C. Roche: Birds Of Venezuela (Sub Rosa) LP
Sub Rosa present a reissue of Jean C. Roché’s Birds Of Venezuela, originally released in 1973. The bird on the cover is a potoo; this metal-looking bird is one of the sonorous curiosities of this mad nature, the sound that he produces essentially is a death song that David Toop heard on his 1978 expedition, but was unable to record, amazement playing its role. Jean C. Roché on his recordings: “The bird songs which I had recorded in the West Indies in 1969 made me inclined to find out more about those of the nearby South American continent, and convinced me, moreover, that musically speaking, they possessed an unquestionable originality in comparison with those of Africa and Europe. I therefore decided to carry out a series of ornithological trips on this continent, starting in the north with Venezuela. With this in mind, I disembarked at Caracas on 27th May, 1972. The unusual musical volume of this tropical country made its impact known to me on my arrival in town, where the unbearably shrill chirping of the cicadas overwhelmed me each time I passed under a tree. At night fall, around even the meanest of ditches filled by the daily rain, myriads of toads and frogs struck up a concert, which, through its sheer intensity, muffled all other surrounding noises. When I penetrated the forest, I could hear bird species literally by the dozen and individuals by the hundred, all calling and singing together at dawn and at dusk.”

File Under: Field Recordings
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Klaus Schulze: Next of Kin (Roundtable) LP
Praised by Quentin Tarantino as one of the greatest films from Australian New Wave cinema, Next Of Kin (1982) was a highly stylised psychological thriller in the bloody tradition of European art-Horror. Scored by none other than ex-Tangerine Dream/Ash Ra Tempel drummer and German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze, the music featured in the film was a unique hybrid of pulsing Giallo-moods and hypnotic Berlin-School electronica. Due to the limited availability of the film over the years, rumours have long circulated amongst horror film fans as well as ‘Krautrock’ enthusiasts alike that a lost Klaus Schulze soundtrack existed. Commissioned to write the score, it is true that Schulze composed an original full-length soundtrack for Next Of Kin, although for editorial reasons the complete score was rejected at the last moment by the filmmakers in favour of using pre-existing tracks from Schulze’s studio albums. The final soundtrack consisted of partial elements of this rejected score together with various pieces of early 80s Schulze recordings edited and re-contextualized. Finally rediscovered, the music has been assembled and presented here exactly as featured in the film, documenting a previously lost entry of German Kosmische Musik soundtracking a forgotten piece of Australian Gothic.

File Under: OST, Electronic
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Adele Sebastien: Desert Fairy Princess (Pure Pleasure) LP
Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 (!) in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation brings a very natural and therefore rather retrospective sound considering the year the album was recorded. Adele and her band pull it off right from the start as if it had been 1966 and it was time for a revolution to shake the dust from the old time jazz. In a perfect way she mixes classic American vocal jazz elements with playful and more free passages, Latin music and tribal African sounds in the lengthy and quite rhythm oriented “Man From Tanganyika” and makes the title track start with a mystical “Allahu akbar“ chant while it turns more and more into a dark and gloomy song with something like a psychedelic edge reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders on his early works. Wild rhythms from drums, percussions with tons of bells and chimes weave a thick groove carpet and conjure a magical atmosphere. Those jazz aficionados who love the mid 60s John Coltrane, his sidekick Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane will go crazy for this album.

File Under: Jazz
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Sonny Sharrock: Ask The Ages (Hive Mind) LP
Hive Mind Records present the first vinyl issue of Sonny Sharrock’s seminal final album, Ask The Ages, originally released on CD in 1991. Sonny’s classic final album swings between deep, lyrical melodicism and passages of pure fire music and features jazz legends Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone and Elvin Jones, member of the John Coltrane Quartet, on drums. The album was produced by Bill Laswell and originally released in 1991 on his Axiom label. The crystal-clear production sounds amazing on 45rpm and this release is a must for fans of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra. 45rpm, double 12″ edition.

File Under: Jazz
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Alex Somers & Sigur Ros: Black Mirror: Hang the DJ (Invada) LP
Late last year Sigur Rós producer and frequent collaborator Alex Somers hooked up with the band once again to deliver original music for ‘Hang The DJ’, one of the flagship episodes of the most recent Black Mirror series. Now his acclaimed score for the Netflix programme, as well as two new songs made in collaboration with Sigur Rós for the programme, is being released on vinyl album and CD by Invada Records. Somers composed the Black Mirror episode on the back of recent scores for the silent movie archive epic, Dawson City: Frozen Time, and Viggo Mortensen vehicle, Captain Fantastic, both of which have drawn wide praise. He also collaborated with Sigur Rós mainman, and boyfriend, Jónsi on the music for the US TV atomic bomb drama Manhattan.

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Esperanza Spalding: 12 Little Spells (Concord) LP
Since October 7th, 2018, 4x Grammy Award-winner Esperanza Spalding has been unveiling her innovative new project 12 Little Spells by releasing a new spell – in the form of a new song with video – every day on her Facebook, Instagram, and website. In total, the songs and corresponding videos have already been viewed well over 1 million times. The concept came to Esperanza while exploring different ways to create, experience, and process music; particularly the healing powers of art and how music and the body interact. Each song is inspired by a different body part. Composed by Spalding, 12 Little Spells find the trailblazing artist on vocals flanked by Matthew Stevens (guitar), Justin Tyson (drums), Aaron Burnett (saxophone), Burniss Travis (bass), Corey King (background vocals), and Rob Schwimmer (continuum). Spalding also worked with visual artist Carmen Daneshmandi, opera/theater director Elkhanah Pulitzer, wardrobe specialist Diego Montoya, choreographer Chanel DaSilva and video artist Ethan Samuel Young to create elements of the album and live show. 12 Little Spells arrives just one year after Exposure, in which Spalding composed and recorded a new album entirely from scratch in just 77 hours, while live streaming every minute of the process to the world.

File Under: OST
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Charles Tolliver: All Stars (Pure Pleasure) LP
This was Charles Tolliver’s first album as a leader. The setting is unique only because his second Freedom-Black Lion album “The Ringer” and all of his subsequent albums on Strata-East featured his quartet Music Inc. with pianist Stanley Cowell. Here he is surrounded in quartet and quintet formats with a truly stellar cast of the leading players on the New York jazz scene. Charles plays the role of leader, composer and trumpeter. But it is surely that last role that deserves the most attention. The trumpet is a brass instrument that leans toward a hard sound and staccato phrasing. Yet Tolliver is the quintessence of fluidity. While it may be undeniable that he has learned from his musical heritage and past trumpet masters, a trumpeter of such flow, tone, control, lyricism and creativity is, by definition, a major musician. Charles Tolliver first came to the professional jazz scene in the mid-sixties, when he first met Jackie McLean. Under McLean’s leadership, he played on a number of Blue Note record sessions, some of which have yet to be released. He contributed original tunes to many of those sessions. Within a couple of years, Tolliver was a well known figure in New York circles, playing and/or recording with Booker Ervin, Archie Shepp, Andrew Hill, Roy Ayers, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Willie Bobo, Gerald Wilson, McCoy Tyner, Hank Mobley, and many others. His compositions were getting recorded by many artists. He gained his greatest recognition during a two year stint with the Max Roach quintet that also included Gary Bartz and Stanley Cowell. There is also a previously unreleased bonus track of the song, “Repetition”, recorded by Charles for this LP which will be included on this new release of the album. This song was originally made famous by Charlie Parker’s LP With Strings. This album is certainly an important and lasting document in light of the musicians involved and in light of its unique context for Charles Tolliver. But basically, it is just a great album to listen to.

File Under: Jazz, Strata East
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Slava Tsukerman: Liquid Sky OST (Death Waltz) LP
LIQUID SKY is the cult film to end all cult movies! Set in 1982 Microscopic aliens arrive on earth to feed on the endorphins of herion addicts in the hip club scene of Downtown New York City. The aliens land on the roof of an apartment block and soon realize they get a better lunch when feeding off orgasms! The music is as wild as the premise of the film. Composed by director Slava Tsukerman himself using an array of early analog synthesisers and samplers, he mixes original compositions with electronic versions of symphonic classics to striking effect. The score is dizzying, hallucinatory and off kilter. Completely wild and free from the trappings of both traditional film and score Tsukerman lets loose with a score that is at times terrifying, at others soothing but always interesting and like nothing you have ever heard before. The score peaks with “Me & My Rhythm Box” featuring a performance by Paula E. Sheppard that has become a staple DJ’s the world over. Far ahead of its time, both the film and the score have had lasting influence on todays culture. Everyone from Larry Tee, Fischerspooner, Lady Gaga & SIA have borrowed something from it.

File Under: OST
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Wand: Laughing Matter (Drag City) LP
Almost two years on from 2017’s Plum, Californian scrap polymorphs Wand launch their fifth and newest long-playing record, Laughing Matter. By now, Wand is the shifting but unmistakable collaboration between Sofia Arreguin (keys, vocals), Cory Hanson (guitar, vocals), Robert Cody (guitar), Lee Landey (bass) and Evan Burrows (drums). Laughing Matter is marked by the confidence and exuberance of a band that has lived, feuded, thrived and grown together through years of dedicated jamming, touring and recording, across Western and Eastern states, continents and mind-sets. In this world that insists we must increasingly rely upon ourselves, Wand listen to each other, and this is the sound. Swerving between out-of-focus parable, travel diary, pep talk, polemic, love song, and lullabye, Laughing Matter is a tough and tender album, its eyes on a lot of prizes. Where Plum held the tension of its five band members getting on their feet, the songs on Laughing Matter are concentrated and relaxed, even as they search for the right accusations to hurl at cynics and megalomaniacs.

File Under: Rock
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Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Metaphors (Sub Rosa) LP
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is recognized as one of the most original voices in contemporary cinema today. His seven feature films, short films, and installations have won him widespread international recognition and numerous awards, including the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2010 with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. The compilation album Metaphors contains 14 sound works carefully selected from his past cinema and other visual works since 2003, which includes Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Syndromes and a Century (2006), Fever Room (2016), and more. Weerasethakul has regularly worked with the same sound designers since 2003 and has always given importance to the personality of on-location sounds that give his films a sense of continuity. In post-production, he’s fascinated by the manipulation of these “live” sounds in order to express “reality”. This reality doesn’t necessary represent the actual sound of the places, it’s more of a representation of the world in layered memories. Similar to the way he treats images, Apichatpong sometimes calls attention to the physicality and the fragility of the audio (and its apparatus) and to the process of audio manipulation itself. In his cinema, Apichatpong prefers natural sound sources over music. Nevertheless, he often boldly incorporates popular songs that were persistent during the shooting. He doesn’t shy away from using tunes that relate to his own personal memories. In this sense, Apichatpong values the spirit of authenticity much more than rigid manipulation of audio and weaves a complex and dreamlike soundscape in his cinematic repertoire. Born in Bangkok, Apichatpong grew up in Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand. He began making films and video shorts in 1994 and completed his first feature in 2000. He has also mounted exhibitions and installations in many countries since 1998 and is now recognized as a major international visual artist. His art prizes include the Sharjah Biennial Prize (2013) and the prestigious Prince Claus Award (2016). Lyrical and often fascinatingly mysterious, his film works are non-linear, dealing with memory and in subtle ways invoking personal politics and social issues. Metaphors is compiled by sound designers Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr and Koichi Shimizu.

File Under: OST, Electronic, Ambient, World
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Various: Discophilia Belgica: Next-door-disco & Local Spacemusic from Belgium 1975-1987 Part 1 (SDBAN) LP
Patrick, Raymond, Marianne, Roland, Kevin and Bert. These are among the most common and ordinary names in Belgium. Yet, these are also the names of some of the artists that appear of Discophilia Beligica, a 30-track compilation from groove-heavy record label SDBAN. Compiled by crate diggers Loud E and The Wild, Discophilia Beligica is a collection of next-door-disco and local space music from Belgium 1975-1987. The tracks on this delightfully obscure collection are from ordinary folk; most have day jobs. Yet as musicians, they go as far out as possible in to the disco universe. Not too serious or overambitious, definitely not overproduced. This is stripped-down space music, next-door disco. The choice of music is not a reflection of an actual ‘scene’. In fact, most of the bands here have probably never performed live. The tracks on this compilation are the result of a decade of crate digging in flea markets, charity shops, and vinyl trades and picking out what might appeal to a contemporary dancefloor or to deranged and perhaps adventurous earbuds. That said, there’s not many countries that can provide the wonderful diversity and weirdness of these sounds. Belgians have a great passion for music and there is an abundance of recording studios, impresarios, local radio stations and pressing plants. Bars and clubs sit side by side, providing a soundtrack for our ordinary lives and it’s here where Patrick, Raymond, Roland or Marianne draw inspiration that led them into the studio and pick up a mic, a bass or synthesizer, making music to groove to, feel sexy to and be free.Features R. Roland, Carl Watson, Charles Vernon, Love Dream, Fancy, Marianne, Flame, Steve, Carl Candy and the Candy-Chicks, La Bush, System Love, Cora Corona, The Diskery and The Rogers. Part 1 of 2; gatefold jacket, 180 gram vinyl.

File Under: Disco, Funk
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Various: Discophilia Belgica: Next-door-disco & Local Spacemusic from Belgium 1975-1987 Part 2 (SDBAN) LP
Patrick, Raymond, Marianne, Roland, Kevin and Bert. These are among the most common and ordinary names in Belgium. Yet, these are also the names of some of the artists that appear of Discophilia Beligica, a 30-track compilation from groove-heavy record label SDBAN. Compiled by crate diggers Loud E and The Wild, Discophilia Beligica is a collection of next-door-disco and local space music from Belgium 1975-1987. The tracks on this delightfully obscure collection are from ordinary folk; most have day jobs. Yet as musicians, they go as far out as possible in to the disco universe. Not too serious or overambitious, definitely not overproduced. This is stripped-down space music, next-door disco. The choice of music is not a reflection of an actual ‘scene’. In fact, most of the bands here have probably never performed live. The tracks on this compilation are the result of a decade of crate digging in flea markets, charity shops, and vinyl trades and picking out what might appeal to a contemporary dancefloor or to deranged and perhaps adventurous earbuds. That said, there’s not many countries that can provide the wonderful diversity and weirdness of these sounds. Belgians have a great passion for music and there is an abundance of recording studios, impresarios, local radio stations and pressing plants. Bars and clubs sit side by side, providing a soundtrack for our ordinary lives and it’s here where Patrick, Raymond, Roland or Marianne draw inspiration that led them into the studio and pick up a mic, a bass or synthesizer, making music to groove to, feel sexy to and be free. Features C.C. Band, Quartz, Kevin Morane, L2, Venus, Bubble, Rendez-Vous, Raymond Joniaux, Dan Davis, Manuel Ferrero, Afro-Disiak, Autumn, Rayon Laser, Patrik, Roland Delys, and DJ Bert & Eagle. Part 2 of 2; gatefold jacket, 180 gram vinyl.

File Under: Disco, Funk

MEGMG003LP_PRODVarious: Soothing Songs For Babies (Mental Groove) LP
Mental Groove Records and Musée D’ethnographie De Genève present Soothing Songs For Babies (Berceuses Du Monde), curated by Madeleine Leclair, head of the MEG’s department of Ethnomusicology, and Olivier Ducret of WRWTFWW Records and We Release Jazz. An inspiring collection of carefully chosen lullabies from all over the world, that will please both young parents and their children, as well as (world) music enthusiats looking for a peaceful and captivating listening. Lullabies exist in almost every culture in the world. While they relate to the world of childhood, they also evoke the privileged relationship established through music between an adult and an infant. The lullabies presented here were recorded at different times and come from eighteen countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and America. They share certain musical characteristics that can be identified from one piece to another: simple melodies, a sequence of short patterns repeated several times in succession, an overall melodic contour following a descending line. All the lullabies presented here come from records published with a copy kept in the Archives Internationales De Musique Populaire (AIMP) of the MEG. For fans of labels like Ocora, Smithsonian Folkways Records, Buda Music, Nonesuch, and traditional forms of music, ambient, (ethno)musicology, and children.

File Under: World, Ambient, Children

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Various: Gunsmoke Vol. 3 (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
Stag-O-Lee present the third volume in a new limited edition series, Gunsmoke. This is a collection of oddball country weepers, moody rockabilly, and popcorn noir from the 1950s and early ’60s. So turn out the lights, sit back and relax to the soundtrack from a jukebox in a ghost town. For best results: listen to after dark. Packaged in a nice 10″ sleeve with hole; Edition of 666. Features Ben E. King, Johnny Wells, Hank Penny, Jody Reynolds, Marie Robertson, Fatima, Frankie Laine, Johnny Fallin, Big Buddy K, Dorsey Burnette, Eddy Arnold, and Mitchell Torok.

File Under: Rockabilliy, Exotica

…..Restocks…. 

4th Coming: Strange Things (Now Again) LP
Black Angels: Passover (Light in the Attic) LP
Boards of Canada: Hi Scores (Skam) 12″
Coil: Ape Of Naples (Important) LP
CCR: Green River (Fantasy) LP
Cortini, Alessandro: Forse V1 (Important) LP
Karen Dalton: In My Own Time (Light in the Attic) LP
Betty Davis: s/t (Light in the Attic) LP
Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different (Light in the Attic) LP
Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Universal) LP
Lana Del Rey: Ultraviolence (Universal) LP
Fabio Fabor/Armando Sciascia: Infini (Roundtable) LP
Fennesz & O’Rourke: It’s (Editions Mego) LP
Flying Burrito Brothers: Burrito Deluxe (Music on Vinyl) LP
Gottsching, Manuel: E2-E4 (35th) (MIG) LP
Insides: Euphoria (Beacon Sound) LP
JAB: Erg Herbe (Shelter Press) LP
Kikagaku Moyo: s/t (Gurugurubrain) LP
Kilchhofer/Anklin: Moto Perpetuo (Marionette) LP
Lumineers: Cleopatra (Dine Alone) LP
Madlib/Gibbs: Pinata (MMS) LP
Kali Malone: Organ Dirges (Ascetic House) LP
Mark lll: Marvin Whoremonger (Now Again) LP
Abul Mogard: Above All Dream (Ecstatic) LP
Abul Mogard: Works (Ecstatic) LP
Roberto Musci: Loa Of Music (Soave) LP
Jonny Nash: Make A Wilderness (Music From Memory) LP
Angel Olsen: My Woman (Jagjaguwar) LP
Jessica Pratt: Quiet Signs (Mexican Summer) LP
Strand of Oaks: Eraserland (Dead Oceans) LP
Tame Impala: Innerspeaker (Modular) LP
T. Rex: The Slider (Demon) LP
Visible Cloaks, Yoshio Ojima & Satsuki Shibano: FRKWYS 15: Serenitatem (RVNG Intl) LP
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch) LP
Various: Exotic Blues V3 10″
Various: Function Underground LP
Various: Int. Vicious Society V3 LP
Various: Int. Vicious Society V4 LP
Various: Poco Loco V4 LP
Various: Satan’s Jukebox V2 10″
Various: Wake Up You! Vol. 2 LP
Various: Wake Up You! Vol. 1 LP
Various: Buzzsaw Joint Cut 2 LP
Various: Buzzsaw Joint Cut 4 LP
Various: Buzzsaw Joint Cut 5 LP
Various: Buzzsaw Joint Cut 5 LP

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