Another fairly light week for new arrivals, but loads of nice used stuff going out. Come down for a dig.
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…..pick of the week…..
Robert Haigh: Black Sarabande (Unseen Worlds) LP
Black Sarabande expands upon pianist-composer Robert Haigh’s beguiling debut for Unseen Worlds with a collection of intimate and evocative piano-led compositions. The album opens with the title track – a spacious, plaintive piano motif develops through a series of discordant variations before resolving. On “Stranger On The Lake,” sweeping textures and found sounds lay the foundation for a two chord piano phrase evoking a sense of elegy. “Wire Horses” is an atmospheric audio painting of open spaces and distant lights. “Air Madeleine” uses variations in tempo and dynamics to craft the most seductively melodic track on the album. “Arc Of Crows” improvises on a single major seventh chord, splintering droplets of notes as ghostly wisps of melodic sound slowly glide into view. “Ghosts Of Blacker Dyke” is a melancholic evocation of Haigh’s roots in England’s industrial north – intermingling dissonant sounds of industry within a set of languid piano variations. “Progressive Music” is constructed around a series of lightly dissonant arpeggiated piano chords which modulate through major and minor key changes before resolving at a wistful and enigmatic refrain. In “The Secret Life of Air,” a nocturnal, low piano line slowly weaves its way through the close-miked ambience of the room, nearly halting as each note is allowed to form and reverberate into a blur with the next. The ambitious “Painted Serpent” calmly begins with drone-like pads and builds with the introduction of counterpoint piano lines and an orchestral collage of sound underpinned by a deliberate bass motif. “Broken Symmetry” and “Lady Lazarus” highlight Haigh’s gift for blurring the line between dissonance and harmony – opaque piano portraits of moonlight and shadows glancingly evoke the impressionistic palettes of Harold Budd, Debussy and Satie.
File Under: Ambient, Piano
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…..new arrivals…..
Dhaima: Love Lives Forever (Numero) LP
A heady mix of digi killers, digital roots, dub, electro, and unlikely vocoder magic, “Love Lives Forever” is the first ever compilation of Miami reggae-not-reggae diva Dhaima. The record gathers a collection of the original Natty Queen’s seminal ’80s and ’90s recordings, including her big 1982 chune “Reggae On Sunset,” the Ninakupenda-issued “Don’t Feel No Way,” the previously unreleased “Loving You Is My Thing,” and “Surrender” – the last song recorded before her untimely death in 2000.
File Under: Electro, Reggae
Bill Fay: Countless Branches (Dead Oceans) LP
Fifty years after his debut album was released on Deram Records, Bill Fay returns with his third album for Dead Oceans, Countless Branches. The album was produced by Joshua Henry, who oversaw Fay’s extraordinary previous recordings for the label: Life Is People and Who is The Sender? Sounding more sparse and succinct than his previous records, Countless Branches collects compositions drawn from the trove of material Fay has amassed over 40 years, but with newly written words and melodies on his recurring themes: nature, the family of man, the cycle of life and the ineffable vastness of it all. A prime Fay song is often a deceptively simple thing, which carries more emotional weight than its concision and brevity might imply. There are ten of these musical haikus on Countless Branches, as pointed and as poignant as anything he’s ever recorded, as if songs waiting for their time have finally found their rightful place within our current zeitgeist. The cast list has slimmed down from previous sessions. Guitarist Matt Deighton remains as Fay’s trusted MD and the musicians have mostly all played on Fay’s albums in the past. But both Henry and Fay thought that, this time, there should be more of Bill on his own at the piano, or with minimal accompaniment. Unique to his work is the voice and worldview of a venerable musician and writer who went unheard for nearly 30 years. His newest material retains the awestruck, inquisitive feel of those early songs. They often evoke landscapes, ancient and sacred places, as their author traverses the outdoors to marvel at it all. He doesn’t wish to proselytize or impart any particular belief system in his work, but his songs have a powerful spiritual component. He sings of family trees and the mysteries of the natural world. He considers childhood, human grace, good and evil, the passage of time, and powerful forces we don’t yet understand.
File Under: Folk
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Nine Inch Nails: With Teeth (Universal) LP
At long last, the definitive version of Nine Inch Nails’ 2005 studio album With Teeth, meticulously prepared by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and NIN art director John Crawford! The expanded release includes a new remaster of the album on 180g vinyl 2LP with “lots of details attended to that you may never notice but we care about,” notes the trio. More than five years after The Fragile, Trent Reznor and the band returned with their second chart-topper, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and featuring the hit single, “The Hand That Feeds.” Now sober and focused, Reznor and company pursued a harder rock sound than their usual industrial roots. “‘The Hand That Feeds’ almost sounds live and deceptively less electronic than anything NIN has released in recent years,” wrote Billboard . “Add in an 80s-sounding keyboard solo and Reznor’s wonderfully intense delivery and the result is poised to become the biggest single of NIN’s career.” Billboard was right, the track gave NIN one of their highest charting singles and earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2006.
File Under: Electronic, Rock
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Professionals: s/t (Madlib Medicine Show) LP
Housed in a die-cut, embossed jacket exclusive to the first pressing. The Professionals – Beats by Madlib. Raps by Oh No. Real. Rap. Shit. Featuring Adub, Elzhi, Chino XL. Madlib is a highly regarded and influential hip-hop producer and occasional rapper, who has left his distinct and stylized sound on classic tracks and critically beloved albums by the likes of MF DOOM (Madvillain), J Dilla (JayLib), Talib Kweli (Liberation), Georgia Anne Muldrow (Seeds), and more. Madlib’s collaborations with rapper Freddie Gibbs (Piñata & 2019’s Bandana) are some of the most acclaimed hip-hop records of the past decade, and his various DJ mix compilations (Madlib Medicine Show, Beat Konducta) have earned high praise from a variety of journalistic sources. Oh No is a rapper and producer who has left his mark across a wide swath of releases. His 2006 concept album Exodus Into Unheard Rhythms (which exclusively sampled the works of musical theatre composer Galt MacDermot) was highly acclaimed upon its release, as well as his various crate-digging DJ mix projects (Dr. No’s Oxperiment, Dr. No’s Ethiopium). He has produced tracks for the likes of Danny Brown, Action Bronson, Aloe Blacc, Talib Kweli, and Prodigy, while contributing guest verses to tracks by Czarface, Apathy, Murs, Little Brother, and more.”
File Under: Hip Hop, Madlib
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Throbbing Gristle: Part Two: The Endless Not & TG Now (Mute) LP
Throbbing Gristle’s Part Two: The Endless Not was originally released in 2007, and was the band’s first full length studio record in 25 years. Pitchfork wrote, “The Endless Not features some of the subtlest songwriting of TG’s career, playing that knot of tension for all its worth and all the more disturbing for how pensive and restrained it feels.” PopMatters said that the album “sounds like a core of musicians who have rediscovered whatever spark it was that led them to create the entity that they are now so often defined by.” The album has not been available on vinyl since its initial release. TG Now was released in 2004 through the band’s own record label Industrial Records and was originally sold at the RE:TG live show at the Astoria in London. Mute presents Part Two: The Endless Not and TG Now together here in one colored vinyl 3LP box set!
File Under: Industrial, Electronic
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Throbbing Gristle: A Souvenir of Camber Sands (Mute) LP
This colored vinyl 2LP release documents Throbbing Gristle’s infamous live show recorded at their 2004 performance as part of Jake and Dinos Chapman’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival. The performance was dedicated to their dear friend and co-conspirator, John Balance, who passed away in November 2004. The CD-R set was on sale minutes after Throbbing Gristle finished playing. The few remaining copies of this limited edition set were briefly available through Mute Records, but quickly sold out. This is the first time A Souvenir of Camber Sands has been available on vinyl.
File Under: Industrial, Electronic
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Wire: Hive Mind (Pink Flag) LP
Wire exhibit little inclination to look back – rather they remain resolutely focused on producing music which is smart, vital and defiantly modern. Mind Hive is the group’s first newly recorded material since 2017’s Silver/Lead. That album garnered rave reviews and career best sales. Yet, if Silver/Lead set the bar pretty high, Mind Hive seems to have no problem vaulting over it. Mind Hive arrives at a time when Wire are being cited as an influence by yet another generation of bands. A career spanning feature documentary called People in a Film is due for release late 2020. Quite how a group that has been operating for such a long period is still able to produce such exciting and essential work is difficult to understand. And yet here we are…
File Under: Punk
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…..Restocks….
Amanaz: Africa (Now Again) LP
Antena: Camino Del Sol (Numero) LP
Beach Boys: Pet Sounds (Capitol) LP
Boscoe: s/t (Numero) LP
Daft Punk: Discovery (EMI) LP
Ned Doheny: Separate Oceans (Numero) LP
Father’s Children: Who’s Gonna Save the World (Numero) LP
Kelly Finnigan: Tales People Tell (Colemine) LP
Grant Green: Street of Dreams (Blue Note) LP
Ikebe Shakedown: Hard Steppin’ (Colemine) LP
Charles Mingus: Black Saint & The Sinner Lady (Impulse) LP
Django Reinhardt: Anthology (Not Now) LP
Rupa: Disco Jazz (Numero) LP
Smiths: s/t (Rhino) LP
Spontaneous Overthrow: All About Money (Numero) LP
Tinariwen: Amadjar (Anti) LP
Tinariwen: Tassil (Anti) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Capital City Soul (Numero) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Deep City Label (Numero) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Prix Label (Numero) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Young Disciples (Numero) LP
Various: Ultra High Frequencies: The Chicago Party (Numero) LP
Various: You’re Not From Around Here (Numero) LP
Scott Walker: Scott 3 (Mercury) LP