OOF! What a week, snow, cold, and PILES of new stuff! AND the last of three RSD Drops is this Saturday! Same as the last ones, everything will be available to order at 11 am. See below for ALL the details.
As always, big thanks to everyone who’s been hitting up our webstore and placing orders! It’s getting competitive around 5pm when we post up fresh used stock. If you haven’t hit up the WEBSTORE, MAYBE YOU SHOULD! If you can’t figure out the site, or don’t like to use computers, you can always call the store and we can do an order over the phone. We’ll be at the shop 11-5 Tuesday – Friday & Saturday 11-4. Stay safe!
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…..RSD PICKS…..
Miles Davis: Double Image (Legacy) LP
Half a century on from its release, shockwaves from Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew continue to reverberate throughout the universe. Leading more than a dozen all-stars in the studio (including Wayne Shorter on soprano sax, John McLaughlin on electric guitar and a triple-threat electric piano section featuring Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and Larry Young), Miles defied all conventional styles, joining the loose ends of jazz, rock and funk into a groundbreaking new sound that would eventually become known quite plainly as fusion. This double album, featuring ten embryonic recordings which paved the way for the final album, is issued for the first time as a standalone release on opaque red vinyl for Record Store Day 2020.
File Under: Jazz, RSD
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Various: Wick Records Battle of the Bands (Wick) LP
Exclusive to RSD 2020, Wick Records is pleased to bring you a collection of wigged-out winners sure to rock you deep into the inter-dimensional fray… Dig on track after track of superior sounds: The fuzz-fueled freak-outs of The Mystery Lights, and Mark Sultan; the swirling, mind-altering melodies of Michael Rault; the troglodytic tune-smithery of The Ar-Kaics; the anglophilic grooves of Benny Trokan, and The Fame-Beats; the Link Wray inspired madness of the Buzz Brothers; the soul-tinged savagery of The Jay Vons; as well a track from psychedelic newcomers, Steady Sun, and a reissued jem from Ohio Teen-Beat legends, Johnny’s Uncalled Four. Featuring two unreleased tracks, and several making their long-player debut. This is one helluva compilation, folks. Don’t sleep on it – Wick is watching!
File Under: Garage, Punk, RSD
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…..picks of the week…..
Don Cherry: Om Shanti Om (Black Sweat) LP
An amazing document of the life experiment that was the Organic Music Society. This super quality audio, recorded by RAI (the Italian public broadcasting company) in 1976 for television, documents a quartet concert focused on vocals compositions and improvisations. Here, Don Cherry and his family-community’s musical belief emerges in its simplicity, with the desire to merge the knowledge and stimuli gained during numerous travels across the World in a single sound experience. Don’s pocket-trumpet is melted with the beats of the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, the Italian guitar of Gian Piero Pramaggiore, and the tanpura drone of Moki. A pure hippie aesthetic, like in an intimate ceremony, filters a magical encounter between Eastern and Western civilizations, offering different suggestions of sound mysticism: natural acoustics in which individual instruments and voices are part of a wider pan-tribal consciousness. A desert Western landscape marries Asian and Latin atmospheres. Indigenous contributions with berimbau explorations find fossil sounds of rattles and clap-hands invocations. Influences of Indian mantra singing are combined with eternal African voices or with folkish-Latin guitar rhythms, while flute and drums evoke distant dances. In the Organic Music everything becomes an act of devotion and love, an ecstatic dwell in the dimension of a sacred free-rejoice.
File Under: Jazz
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Drew McDowall: Agalma (Dais) LP
Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall’s latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date – and potentially the apex of his recent discography. Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalma exudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It’s a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall’s refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of “joy, terror, and the elegiac” as a centering inspiration – or, phrased more bluntly, “that ‘what the fuck is going on’ feeling.” As a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it’s telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer MSYLMA, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album’s 42 minutes, contouring McDowall’s nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence. McDowall’s original working title for the record is revealing: Ritual Music. He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to a numinous equilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds. These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It’s a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shrouded beauty summoned in catacombs and crumbling cathedrals. Despite its depths, Agalma is also an album of immediacy and emotion. Celestial laments of and for times of unrest and suffering. McDowall characterizes his initial intention for this music as an to attempt to convey experiences he felt incapable of putting into words: “To try and approach sublimity, or at least acknowledge it in some way.” Agalma more than acknowledges the ineffable – it embodies it. The album features original photography and design by artist Caroline Schub.
File Under: Ambient, Experimental
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Cindy Lee: Model Express (W. 25th) LP
Cindy Lee, the performance and songwriting vehicle of Canadian artist Patrick Flegel (who fronted influential indie group Women earlier), previously stunned listeners with Act Of Tenderness, a heart-wrenching statement informed by the noirish core of celebrity, and has continued to enchant with every album, including the startling What’s Tonight To Eternity released earlier this year. Model Express originally appeared as a self-released edition of 100 gold cassettes. The arch, filmic drama of Cindy Lee’s songwriting—realized with keyboards, guitars, aching voice and collaged, lo-fi production—traverses a wide range of emotional and sonic terrain. The red velvet psych-pop of “What Can I Do” gives way to the fluid “Diamond Ring” like radio bursts from space. Model Express finds Flegel at both their most experimental and immediately melodic, and this first-time vinyl release recognizes the collected tracks as a pillar in the Cindy Lee catalogue. Cindy Lee (who uses the gender neutral pronoun they) is a drag persona drawing on suburban closet queens and mid-century divas. In keeping with Flegel’s interest in the faultlines of identity, gender expression, performance and media, Model Express delivers an intense and diverse set of unforgettable songs.
File Under: Lo-Fi, Indie Rock, Experimental
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…..new arrivals…..
15 Kinder & Brotzmann, Van Hove, Bennink: Free Jazz und Kinder
(Tochnit Aleph) LP
12″ vinyl reissue of the rare and infamous double-7″, originally published by FMP in 1973. Recordings from a workshop at Akademie der Künste, Berlin, April 1972, featuring 15 children (aged 8-11) and Peter Brötzmann, Fred van Hove, Han Bennink.
File Under: Jazz
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Actress: Karma & Desire DLX (Ninja Tune) LP
Karma & Desire — a follow up to critically acclaimed records AZD, Ghettoville, Hazyville, and more — includes collaborations with Sampha, Zsela, Aura T-09 (co-runs Evar Records with John Frusciante), Vanessa Benelli Mosell and Rebekah Christel. The album will be accompanied by ‘a broken romance espionage ethereal short film‘ by creative director and performance artist Lee Nachum aka Bootee that explores a number of dichotic themes. These themes are to be revealed across the campaign (and beyond) through both digital and physical creative marketing ‘moments’, which kicked off with a surprise 49min audio file from Actress entitled “88”. “88” was revealed by Actress in July and made available to stream and download for free through Bandcamp before retreating into the ether as quickly as it came. The release marked the first new music from the producer (outside of his Young Paint alias) since 2018’s team-up with the London Contemporary Orchestra,
File Under: Electronic
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Addict Ameba: Panamor (Black Sweat) LP
More than simply being a band, Addict Ameba is a wide Italian collective that makes brotherhood the weapon to live music together crossing all cultural boundaries. The driving force lies in the heterogeneous background of its members and the relative familiarity with different folkloric areas. The original and ambitious arrangements make the result a delicious soup. In this first work, their personal Afro-Latin-beat reveals a sincere meeting between African and Central American traditions… for this reason they are against the drift of continents. The collective is connected to Al Doum and the Faryds, sharing some of their members, the same music label and the Guscio Studio where the album has been cooked thanks to the wisdom of the great master pirate. You can travel halfway between the Atlantic continents, where a gritty guitar deploys a solid knowledge of the stronger Latin-rock — you know the “Santana of Piola” is on board! — but it absorbs funky and Tuareg riffs too, as well as brilliant psych deviations. Heavy horns abound with solutions and influences, blowing arias of Ethio-jazz or Cuban-Salsa crossings, such as Calypso and Caribbean progressions. However, it’s the rhythmic sailor’s section that supports all the dynamics of the sound with impeccable qualities of polyrhythm, sending seas of bodies into ecstasy; maybe they learn this rowing on a boat? Panamor represents “a profound union between living beings and objects in an increasingly divided World.” Such pirates of love!
File Under: Psych, World, Funk
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Siavash Amini: A Mimesis of Nothingness (Hallow Ground) LP
Siavash Amini returns to Hallow Ground with A Mimesis of Nothingness, his fourth album for the Swiss label. Following up on Harmistice together with fellow Iranian artists 9T Antiope, the six tracks were conceived in close collaboration with another artist and see the prolific composer intensify his interdisciplinary approach. The six tracks enter a dialogue with the photographs of Nooshin Shafiee, an acclaimed artist whose work capturing their hometown Tehran becomes the starting point for one of Amini’s most visceral and haunting records. A Mimesis of Nothingness translates the ephemeral situations and melancholic moods of Shafiee’s pictures into suspenseful soundscapes that masterfully navigate between the concrete and the abstract. A Mimesis of Nothingness is a disquieting record precisely because it is a quiet one. Working with field recordings, Amini sculpts dynamic portraits that create an atmosphere of tangible suspense that is never fully released. Even when string-like sounds enter the picture as they do on the third track “Moonless Garden” or when the abstract and glacial noise on “Observance (Shadow)” demand the listener’s attention, the six pieces take hold of the subconscious rather than trying to be direct and confrontational. It is sound conceived not as a description, but a circumscription of spatial relations and the eeriness embedded in them. Includes eight-page booklet.
File Under: Ambient
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Louis Armstrong & Oscar Peterson: Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson (Acoustic Sounds Series) (Verve) LP
Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson is a brilliant undertaking in which Verve’s legendary “house pianist” encountered one of jazz’s most revered giants. And this all-analog Verve reissue – mastered from the original analog tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound, pressed at QRP, and housed in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket – makes the 1959 set come alive like never before. A significant part of Peterson’s genius relates to his ability to be an exceptional pianist and leader while also being a perfect accompanist when the circumstance demands. In a situation like this, he is both. Armstrong remains not only one of the most innovative, singular, fascinating, and beloved artists of the 20th century, but also one of the most generous in the way he embraced and stimulated his collaborators. Backed by the Oscar Peterson Trio – bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis, and augmented by frequent fourth member Louis Bellson on drums – these peerless heavyweights created an album that is utterly compelling, radiantly jubilant, and consummate in artistry. The musicians provided the setting for the jewel that is Pops, with Peterson perfectly embellishing every phrase Armstrong sings or plays. The focus here is primarily upon Armstrong’s totally personal and thoroughly captivating vocal style, with his occasional trumpet solos limited in all but one case to a single chorus. Essentially culled from the Great American Song Book – Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Harold Arlen among the songwriters – the pieces range from poignant ballads and blues to effusive easy-grooved swing. Each song is an exquisitely crafted gem that will warm the heart and enrich the soul.
File Under: Jazz
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Sandro Brugnolini: Abstract Forms
(Musica Per Immagini) LP
Abstract Forms is a selection of rare as yet unreleased in any physical format Sandro Brugnolini recordings from the late ’80s and early ’90s. The sixteen electronic tracks were produced for television background use or synchronization and, thanks to their great intensity and suspense, are still perfect to be scored in any number of thriller sequences, connecting smooth jazz memoirs filtered with machines overplayed on videogame sounding backgrounds. The majority of these experiments are not only characterized by their use of electronic instruments, as dictated with the requirements of the time, they also have a specific rhythmic inventiveness that gives them their identity. One more time, the Italian brilliant composer follows his strong drive in drawing inspiration from what technology can offer him.
File Under: Library
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Merry Clayton: Gimme Shelter (Real Gone) LP
As the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom made abundantly clear, Merry Clayton is one of the greatest and most distinguished female backup singers in rock and soul history, having sung with everybody from Bobby Darin to Ray Charles to Joe Cocker to Linda Ronstadt to Neil Young to Lynyrd Skynyrd (on “Sweet Home Alabama”). But her most famous vocal turn, of course, was her 1969 duet (“It’s just a shot away!”) with Mick Jagger on “Gimme Shelter.” The notoriety she gained from that led to a recording contract with Lou Adler’s Ode label, and to this 1970 debut solo record, which took its title from the Stones track and featured Merry’s own hit solo version of the song. But don’t stop there—produced by Adler, arranged by the great Gene Page, and featuring Billy Preston on keyboards, this album is an overlooked soul classic, with Merry’s indomitable voice taking songs like James Cleveland’s “Here Come Those Heartaches Again,” The Doors’ “Tell All the People,” and James Taylor’s “Country Road” to dizzying heights (she also turns “Bridge over Troubled Water” into the sanctified gospel hymn it truly is). For this reissue, we’ve pressed up 700 copies in totally cool, black & white “gray eye” vinyl!
File Under: Soul
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John Coltrane: A Love Supreme
(Acoustic Sounds Series) (Verve) LP
Some music is so finely crafted that the genre in which it is conceived becomes irrelevant to the music itself. Such was the case with much of the work of saxophonist John Coltrane – an artist commonly regarded as a jazz composer, but one whose musical vision transcends the boundaries of what is considered jazz and what is not. Decades after his death, Coltrane continues to inspire musicians of every perspective – not just jazz players, but any composer or performer who recognizes and respects the inherently explortory and universal nature of music. Originally issued on the Impulse label in 1964, A Love Supreme is the essential document of the genius of John Coltrane and remains one of the most important and influential jazz records ever made. The four-part suite finds Coltrane yearning for spiritual and musical freedom while coalescing the hard bop sensibilities of his early career with the free jazz style that he would adopt later on. Trane is without a doubt an artist whose sincerity and integrity shines through his work and A Love Supreme is as genuine and fully realized as they come. This all-analog 180g vinyl LP Verve reissue was mastered from the original analog tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound, pressed at QRP, and comes housed in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket.
File Under: Jazz
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Croatian Amor: All in the Same Breath
(Posh Isolation) LP
The different seeds that have been planted throughout the life of Croatian Amor come to bloom on All In The Same Breath, affirming an equilibrium that’s all its own. Spiraling through the half-light electronics are gentle bumps and breaks that are layered into moments of elevation. A coarse edge remains just an arm’s length away, but there is an unmistakable element of celebration throughout the album’s ten tracks. As the syncopated terrains ring out, their perpetual rhythmic motions call a medley of human voices that speak in security. They sing to everyone just as they sing to themselves. In the years since the seminal Croatian Amor album Love Means Taking Action, Loke Rahbek has strode a twofold path. There are the delicate, meditative compositions that he has made with Frederik Valentin; setting acoustic instrumentation against affecting digital treatments, each of their collaborative albums are an exercise in the magnificence of subtle restraint. And with the sharpest of turns you’ll find Rahbek’s parallel universe of rave-shocked rhythms and kinetic helixes that eddy through genre and tempo with few constraints. Collaborations with Varg²TM have yielded the wildest of this, and remain ongoing, yet the traces were already apparent across much of the previous Croatian Amor album Isa with its treated vocalizations and cascading rhythmic mechanics. All In The Same Breath, arrives as a steady handed synthesis of these divergent instincts. Elaborating the distinct techniques and themes that form the wistful essence of the project, the album’s quiet composure is a sign that these familiarities have been set adrift to settle into their own private ecosystem. Small vessels travel in a perfect array. Light following shadows, following light. Every movement a signal, every second is camouflage. All In The Same Breath is perhaps more than anything an invitation to be open to wonder.
File Under: Ambient, Experimental
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Dead C: Unknowns (Ba Da Bing) LP
Some bands struggle to transcend their initial mythos, those stories that introduce them to the public eye. But The Dead C is a notable exception. They appeared in 1986 under a cloud of mystery, their unconventional location (South Island, New Zealand) helping to fuel their erratic sound. Name-dropped through the nineties by groups like Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo, they gained influence and acclaim but never strayed from their original mainlined performing technique, which can sound like chaos to the casual listener.What kind of a world greets them and their new album Unknowns in 2020? New Zealand culture is better known throughout the world, not to mention a low-virus paradise. Yes, isolated as in the past, but this time for being a nation of efficacy in tackling a public health crisis. But what about the rest of the world? The music of Mssrs. Robbie Yates, Bruce Russell and Michael Morley endures, partially because their errant sounds, once so alienating, now feel like they’ve been made flesh in a large part of the modern day world.Continuing to delve inwards for inspiration with tin ears towards trends, styles and technique, The Dead C forge onward. Unpolished, dusty and gritty, these three have again taken two guitars and drums, a combo which has less to say than ever, and leave the listener stunned. Unknowns has Morley slurring over spiraling dissemblance, with tracks ricocheting from intense to assaultive to drained, yet consistently magnificent. As reliable as ever, The Dead C are firmly grounded as an unassailable Truth.
File Under: Experimental, Noise Rock
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Napoleon Demps: Norma Jean (Daptone) 7″
It brings us great pleasure to introduce the baddest new voice in the land, Napoleon Demps. A Flint Michigan native, he grew up listening to Soul luminaries OV Wright, Willie Hutch and Sam Cooke, whose influence led Demps down a path to becoming an accomplished Soul singer himself – scoring his first hit at the age of 24 in the still thriving Southern Chitlin Circuit of the early aughts. Demps, having been a long time Daptone fan, connected with the Dap-Kings at a soundcheck at a Detroit nightclub for an impromptu rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come.” Bosco Mann was floored by his voice and swore they would meet again. Last year, with that sweet soulful voice still ringing in his ears, Mann would reconnect with Demps and bring him out to Penrose Recorders in Riverside, California to finally cut his first Daptone side. “Norma Jean” is a funky
File Under: Soul, Funk
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Dojo Cuts: Rome (Colemine) 7″
Gold wax. Dojo Cuts were one of the first groups to release a 45 on Colemine Records back in 2009 and eleven years later, they represent the 89th 45 in the label’s history. As perhaps the most soulful outfit to come out of Australia the last few decades Dojo Cuts with the help of leader singer Roxie Ray and producer Nathan Aust are back to cranking out new tunes like they haven’t since 2012. “Rome” and “Falling In Love Again” are from the most recent LP Tomorrow’s Gonna Come.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Gord Downie: Always is Mine
(Arts & Crafts) LP
Away Is Mine is Gord Downie’s final solo recording, recorded at The Tragically Hip’s studio in Bath, Ontario, in July 2017. A questing and idiosyncratic work steered to life by “my oldest Toronto friend,” guitarist and co-writer Josh Finlayson, the last ten songs Gord wrote hold fast to his unwavering artistic spirit, deft hand with words and forever inscrutable sense of humor as he locks eyes head-on with the Great Inevitability. Away Is Mine is a contemplation on Gord’s life – a document of an artist disappearing into his art, essentially becoming his art through that process. Presented as a double album with electric and acoustic versions, the 20-track collection highlights Gord’s poetic mastery with vibrant yet haunting production by Nyles Spencer that casts each song in different otherworldly light. Downie and Finlayson recorded in a burst of live takes over three days with Travis Good of The Sadies on fiddle, mandolin, and guitars, and drum parts shared by Dave “Billy Ray” Koster and Lou Downie (Gord’s son). Like all of the music and poetry and the memories and the genius that Gord gifted us during his 53 years on our planet, it is immortal – and yet it took a fearless reckoning with his own mortality to get us here. Deluxe 180g 45rpm vinyl 2LP pressing housed in a double gatefold jacket and die-cut inner sleeves with matte coating. Includes a 24-page booklet insert featuring Gord’s handwritten lyrics and liner essay by Ben Rayner. Artwork by Clare Downie and Willo Downie.
File Under: Rock
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Kahil El’Zabar: Kahil El’Zabar’s America The Beautiful (Spiritmuse) LP
Innovative multi-percussionist Kahil El’Zabar composes, arranges and conducts an incredible new album. It features masterful performances by the (late, great) Hamiet Bluiett, Corey Wilkes, Tomeka Reid & the James Sanders String Qt. A strong percussion section is complimented by strings and brass, in a powerful blend of spiritual groove, melody and improvisation – an inspired re-imagining of a “better” way, parallel to the central message of this album. America the Beautiful is Kahil El’Zabar’s musical testament to the state of affairs, expressed with love, urgency, hope & spirit.
File Under: Jazz
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Electronic System: Vol. II (Real Gone) LP
In the early-to-mid 1970s, Belgian recording engineer and synthesist Daniel Lacksman née Lanckmans recorded and released a series of pop music records, using early analog synthesizers as a central sonic element. Under an admittedly confusing array of names, Lacksman (who later founded the group Telex) created music that was equal parts innovation and ear-candy accessibility. Those often happy-go-lucky records gained some popularity throughout Europe, but their lasting influence can be heard in the music of Portishead, Massive Attack, The Moog Cookbook, and Air, not to mention among the lengthy list of 21st century artists who have sampled these recordings. And a casual survey online quickly reveals that these records are among the most collectible of their kind, with original copies commanding hundreds of dollars. Among those albums, the one Lacksman recorded in 1973 under the pseudonym Electronic System featured the first full flowering of his synthesizer mastery. His hit recording “Coconut” had enabled him to buy a modular synthesizer, which offered a vastly expanded sonic palette—if you had the patience to re-wire for each sound you wanted to achieve. Which was the perfect set-up for a studio engineer like Lacksman…the result is an album full of sonic surprises, with each track presenting multiple, unique synthesizer tones and attacks, even on such nakedly commercial moves as his cover of Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba.” An analog synth tour de force! Our Real Gone Music reissue has been mastered for CD and LP from the original tapes by Lacksman himself, and feature liner notes by Bill Kopp that include exclusive quotes from Lacksman and photos from his private archive. Presented on CD and a yellow vinyl pressing limited to 900 copies!
File Under: Electronic, Experimental
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Electronic System: Tchip Tchip Vol. 3
(Real Gone) LP
In the early-to-mid 1970s, Belgian recording engineer and synthesist Daniel Lacksman née Lanckmans recorded and released a series of pop music records, using early analog synthesizers as a central sonic element. Under an admittedly confusing array of names, Lacksman (who later founded the group Telex) created music that was equal parts innovation and ear-candy accessibility. Those often happy-go-lucky records gained some popularity throughout Europe, but their lasting influence can be heard in the music of Portishead, Massive Attack, The Moog Cookbook, and Air, not to mention among the lengthy list of 21st century artists who have sampled these recordings. And a casual survey online quickly reveals that these records are among the most collectible of their kind, with original copies commanding hundreds of dollars. None of Lacksman’s records, however, are quite as collectible as the one he recorded in 1974 under the name Electronic System, Tchip Tchip (Vol. 3). While much of side one Tchip Tchip presents the composer’s signature blend of synthesizer kitsch and boundary-breaking creativity, ranging from the oom-pah sound of the title track to the wacky “Spider,” almost all of side two is devoted to the 14-minute “Sky Lab,” which sounds like it came right off an Air record recorded 25 years later, with maybe a little Dark Side-era Pink Floyd thrown in. A true marvel, this track is why original copies of Tchip Tchip are downright unaffordable…it’s not to be missed. Our Real Gone Music reissue has been mastered for CD and LP from the original tapes by Lacksman himself, and feature liner notes by Bill Kopp that include exclusive quotes from Lacksman and photos from his private archive. Out on CD and orange vinyl limited to 900 copies!
File Under: Electronic, Experimental
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FUJI||||||||||TA: iki (Hallow Ground) LP
“FUJI|||||||||||TA has created a work that operates as a beautiful nexus between the material and immaterial qualities of music. It is a lived-in dreamscape of deep, rich tonality. A remarkable debut.” (Lawrence English) /// FUJI||||||||||TA, real name FUJITA Yosuke, is a Japanese sound artist. After countless performances in different contexts either solo or along artists such as Yamantaka Eye of Boredoms and the legendary avant-gardist SUZUKI Akio as well as a slew of solo releases, his LP »iki« (»breath«) for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label is his first in nine years. On these four pieces, Fujita explores the idiosyncratic sound qualities of the pipe organ he has built all by himself in 2009. This – quite literally unique – instrument features only eleven pipes, an air pump called »fuigo« which was modelled after a traditional blacksmith’s one and has no keyboard. Inspired by traditional gagaku, it was designed to evoke rich landscapes rather function as just another musical instrument. While his previous records saw FUJI||||||||||TA explore various modes of abstraction, »iki« is a highly emotive yet meditative album, musically restrained but full of imagination. »keshiki« immediately sets the mood for this record with a long sustained note that is punctuated by the soft clicking of Fujita’s air pump. Once Fujita carefully starts bringing melodies into play, the interplay of the drone and the discrete rhythmic element gives way to a fuller harmonic whole. »keshiki« is an intimate piece that perfectly displays the artist’s knack for painting a rich sonic picture with only a reduced palette. »nNami« juxtaposes the sounds of two pipes that are out of tune with each other, creating a hypnotic sensation of ebb and flow (»nami« translates to »wave«) that is full of subtle friction. It’s a staggering artistic interpretation of the instrument’s material characteristics. Clocking in at ten minutes, »osoi« (»slow«) is an overall melancholic piece that explores the relationship between different tone colours through minute changes in pace. Finally, »sukima« (»blank space«) is the shortest and the most rhythmic piece of the four. Composed of only staccati, it is a masterful exploration of the harmonic qualities Fujita’s stunning pipe organ has to offer. Recorded between September and December of 2019, »iki« marks the culmination of FUJI||||||||||TA’s ten-year-long work with the instrument that he had built without any prior knowledge and started to teach himself to play without a manual in sight. It is, in other words, the unique result of a unique musical mind paying his dues to the uniqueness of his own creation; introspective and welcoming at once.
File Under: Ambient, Drone
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Fuzz: III (In the Red) LP
Limited coloured wax! One only knows one. Two is balanced therefore stagnant. III both active and reactive. Charles Moothart, Ty Segall and Chad Ubovich are Fuzz. Fuzz is three. And III has returned. Songs for all, and music for one. III was recorded and mixed at United Recording under the sonic lordship of Steve Albini. Keeping the focus on the live sounds of the band, the use of overdubs and studio tricks were kept to a minimum. Albini’s mastery in capturing sound gave the trio the ability to focus entirely on the playing while knowing the natural sounds would land. It takes the essential ingredients of “guitar-based music” and “rock and roll power trio” and puts them right out on the chopping block. It was a much more honest approach for the band—three humans getting primitive, staying primitive. The goal was never to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it’s just about seeing how long one can hold on before getting thrown off. Three points reflected in three mirrors; a pyramid of sonic destruction and psychic creation. Nothing people feed the roots while the freaks fly free in the treetops—blind to vines, eyes closed, stuck in spit, triumphing the returning of beginnings and ends returning while beginning to see the time collapse. Love is the only way to annihilate hate, and sketchy freaks live to bleed. All shades of color, truth and lies, III is the pillar of unity and singularity. All is nothing, and only nothing can generate everything. Log out, drop thought, turn up.
File Under: Psych, Punk
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Ryo Fukui: A Letter from Slowboat
(We Release Jazz) LP
180 gram vinyl; Half speed mastered; Heavy sleeve and obi. We Release Jazz announce the official reissue of Ryo Fukui’s final album, the very personal contemporary jazz offering, A Letter from Slowboat, sourced from the original masters. Known for his miraculous albums 1976’s Scenery and 1977’s Mellow Dream, legendary Hokkaido pianist Ryo Fukui, with the help of his wife Yasuko, opened his very own jazz club in Sapporo in 1995, Slowboat. This is where Ryo Fukui spent the latter half of his career, playing again and again, welcoming peers for unforgettable sessions, and perfecting the craft he lived for: jazz. A Letter from Slowboat is a poetic, soulful, and honest love letter to Hokkaido, to Fukui’s jazz club, and to endless hours of practicing artistry in a place called home. Backed by longtime collaborators Takumi Awaya on bass, and Ittetsu Takemura on drums, Ryo Fukui flows through classics and originals with natural class, fluidity, and absolute precision, expressing a smooth balance between skills and heart. Slowboat, full of breathtaking solos and exquisite moments of clarity, is another crucial piece in the career of one of the most fascinating jazzmen to ever grace the piano. It was released in 2016, sadly the year Ryo Fukui passed away, leaving behind a legacy of works that is sure to captivate jazz lovers for generations to come, and Slowboat, where the magic still happens to this day. Reissued in conjunction with 1999’s Ryo Fukui in New York, also available via We Release Jazz.
File Under: Jazz
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Ryo Fukui: In New York (We Release Jazz) LP
LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Half speed mastered; Heavy sleeve and obi. We Release Jazz announce the official reissue of Ryo Fukui’s New York sessions with Lisle Atkinson and Leroy Williams, the aptly titled album Ryo Fukui in New York, sourced from the original masters. Recorded in February 1999 at Avatar Recording Studios in New York and inspired by Ryo Fukui’s idol and mentor Barry Harris, the fourth album from the famed Sapporo pianist captures memorable sessions with seasoned American jazz musicians (and frequent Barry Harris collaborators) Lisle Arthur Atkinson on bass and Leroy Williams on drums. Ryo Fukui in New York is pure bop heaven, glowing with poetic takes on classics by Charlie Parker, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Bud Powell, plus a supreme remake of Fukui’s very own Mellow Dream. It’s expressive, soulful, and vibrating with a bouncing swing feel all the way through; every note falls exactly where it should, undeniable brilliance. Much like the other albums by the genius from Hokkaido, it’s got that “special something”, hard to grasp, hard to describe, but 100% felt. Skills and heart, the Ryo Fukui way. Following his New York adventures, Ryo Fukui headed back to Sapporo, and more precisely to his jazz club Slowboat, where his newly acquired experience inspired numerous jam sessions and a full dedication to perfecting his craft. He sadly passed away in 2016, leaving behind a legacy of works that is sure to captivate jazz lovers for generations to come, and Slowboat, where the magic still hap-pens to this day. Reissued in conjunction with 2016’s A Letter from Slowboat, also available via We Release Jazz.
File Under: Jazz
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Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist: Alfredo (ESGN) LP
After releasing the critically acclaimed Bandada album in 2019, Freddie Gibbs returns with The Alchemist behind the boards for what is already being hailed as one of the best albums of 2020! A play on both Freddie and Alchemist’s names, Alfredo boasts features from Rick Ross, Tyler, The Creator, Benny The Butcher, and Conway the Machine and is introduced by the lead single “1985.” Alfredo is their second collaboration together following 2018’s Fetti with Curren$y which Pitchfork called “an example of the good that can happen when seasoned vets link up.”
File Under: Hip Hop
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Mike Hanapi: With Kalama’s Quartet
(Mississippi) LP
Mike Hanapi was a brilliant steel guitarist and vocalist from Honolulu, whose recordings with Kalama’s Quartet and the Ilima Islanders remain among the highest peaks of 20th century Hawaiian music. Hanapi’s gorgeous falsetto voice is backed by lush harmony vocals, like a lonesome yodel floating above an oceanside choir. The purely acoustic instrumentation of lap steel guitars, ukeleles and harp-guitars weaves gently in and out of the vocal melodies, creating fluid and harmonious layers and achingly beautiful blue notes. While past reissues of Hawaiian music from this era have focused on “hot” and up-tempo material, this compilation is entirely dedicated to the peaceful, deeply emotional and lilting style in which Mike Hanapi and Kalama’s Quartet excelled. Most of these songs have never been reissued on any format, and have been remastered from original 78 rpm discs by Tim Stollenwerk, with beautiful clarity and presence. Truly peaceful, tranquil and unique music. 12” black vinyl LP with reverse-board jacket, and 8-page full sized booklet with biographical notes, rare and previously unpublished photographs, and full lyrics in Hawaiian and English.
File Under: Hawaiian, Exotica
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Ernie Hawks & The Soul Investigators: Scorpio Man (Timmion) LP
A new star rises in the twilight of funky-soul-jazz as Ernie Hawks releases his debut album Scorpio Man on Timmion Records. The impressive trombonist/flutist is known to hold no punches when performing live in the ranks of The Soul Investigators. Here he delivers a fierce selection of S.O.U.L. and Cymande flavored instrumentals that also bring to mind some of the finest sample-fodder library music. Take a chance with the Scorpio Man, his sting will give you a high much better than what they sell in the streets.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Nicolas Jaar: Cenizas (Other People) LP
Limited “Sound Edition” double-LP, includes 92-page book and O card. Nicolás Jaar is a Chilean sound maker born in 1990. He is known in the club world for his various dance 12″ EPs and remixes he put out from 2008 to 2011. Since his first full length (Space Is Only Noise, 2011), he has embarked in multiple divergent path. For the last seven years, he has released a large volume of recordings through his label Other People. In 2015, Nicolás scored Dheepan by director Jacques Audiard (winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2015). In 2016, Jaar launched The Network, a web of 111 fictional radio stations done in collaboration with artists Jena Myung and Maziyar Pahlevan. In 2017, The Network became a book, published by Printed Matter in NY. In the spring of 2019, Jaar was commissioned for a nine-hour improvisation in the Oude Kerk Church in Amsterdam which he performed alongside two organists and a dozen surround speakers pointed at the ceiling of the church. Nicolás is currently curating a residency for sound artists in the West Bank that takes place in a 130 year-old converted food storage shack in Bethlehem (within the Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir For Art And Research دار يوسف نصري جاسر للفن و للبحث.) Residents so far include composer Sebastian Jatz Rawicz and researcher and artist Rolando Hernández. In the fall of 2019, he presented Incomprehensible Sun, a sound and light installation in a 200-meter-long ex-military shooting range in Zaandam (The Netherlands) and Retaining The Energy, But Losing The Image alongside artist Vincent De Belleval which consisted of ten large rotating parabolic reflectors that capture and emit hyper-focalized surround sound. For the first Sharjah Architecture Triennale (curated by Adrian Lahoud in 2019). Nicolás performed a piece for 16 buried speakers in the desert near the Mleiha Archaeological Centre. Nicolás has collaborated with artist Lydia Ourahmane, FKA Twigs, and Patrick Higgins under the name AEAEA.
File Under: Electronic
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Kidambi Elder Ones, Amirtha: Holy Science (Jazzman) LP
First released on digital formats back in 2016, and here now given a richly deserved full vinyl release, Holy Science, the debut outing from Amirtha Kidambi and her New York based quartet The Elder Ones, is a work of dazzling singularity. Delicately yet unashamedly divulging its complex network of influences at every turn, Holy Science simultaneously disperses of boundary and limitation, emerging as an album steeped in tradition yet located firmly in the futuristic present. Amirtha Kidambi, the Elder Ones’ leader, composer and vocalist, was a child of South Indian heritage, and she grew up immersed in the tradition of devotional singing, joining in with free-form, improvised Bhajans on regular Sundays. She began simultaneously accompanying her voice with the harmonium from the age of three. These formative experiences continued to instruct and merge with her ongoing musical explorations as she went on to study classical music, all the while ingesting the punk, R&B and rap that surrounded her. A particularly significant discovery was that of free and avant jazz, and in particular the music of Alice and John Coltrane, in whom Kidambi found clear echoes and parallels with those Bhajans and Ragas of her earliest musical awakenings. All these influences collide on Holy Science, at times as explosive blasts of sky-opening thunder, at others as moments of soothing, meditative bliss. These holy bursts are enacted by Kidambi’s assembled musicians and are given permission to explore the science of spiritual alchemy, plundering their individual and collective soul for the sake of musical expression, and all of the unpredictable and profound revelations such an approach might yield. Holy Science is a work underpinned by traditions, be they the Bhajan spirituals, or the jazz and classical avant gardes, that are in their own manner, archetypal. But perhaps most importantly, all of these forms contain an inbuilt capacity for discovery and progression. Amirtha Kidambi’s musical pathway has been defined by a studied determination to occupy this specific space, the unbounded realm of improvisation and exploration, summoning the acquired instruments of experience, knowledge, culture, and tradition to unlock secrets of the past, present and future. The most cherished music is often remarked upon as having a timeless quality — ancient, modern and futuristic, all at once. And so it is with Holy Science. Liner notes by DJ Cherrystones.
File Under: Jazz
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Quin Kirchner: The Shadows & The Light (Astral Spirits) LP
“My favorite albums have always been the ones that take the listener on a journey. I aim to do that, to create worlds with my albums – universes. I wanted The Other Side of Time to unfold like a story and I’ve continued that process with The Shadows and The Light. I’m influenced by so many different styles of creative music and I like to try and bring all those influences into harmony on these records. There is long-form and short-form composition. You have groove and you have free improvisation, sometimes at the same time. I chose to honor some of the greats – Elvin Jones with Frank Foster, Phil Cohran, Carla Bley & Sun Ra – by covering their material, while my original compositions pay homage to the influences of Charles Mingus (Lucid Dream) and Mr. Blount (Jupiter Moon). I also make room for sound explorations (Shadow Intro & Ecliptics). The title cut is an epic journey all on it’s own and a composition I’ve been working and reworking for many years. I’m happy to have finally brought it to life in it’s truest form.”—Quin Kirchner
File Under: Jazz
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Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio: Fo Sho
(Colemine) 7″
Pink wax! The first new material from the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio in several years is coming in hot! They’ve been on the road for the last two years and just finished cutting their upcoming album for 2020 and plan on hitting the road again in a big way to support it. “Fo Sho” finds the trio right where they left off: super pocket funky organ jazz! Dig!
File Under: Funk
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Roberto Laneri: Anadyomene
(Black Sweat) LP
Black Sweat Records present a reissue of Roberto Laneri’s Anadyomene, originally released in 1987. The eclectic sensitivity of the composer Roberto Laneri (Prima Materia) looks unparalleled in the Italian avant-garde context. Anadyomene, published for the first time in 1987, shows the myth of Venus in a dystopian and dreamlike world. Laneri conceives a sound poem that opens up to the archetypal dimension of the water creation, through the symbol of bivalve conch, the myth of the feminine power is narrated thanks to the verses of the renaissance poet Angelo Poliziano. Creating a daring connection between Western and Eastern music, travelling on the Mediterranean Sea, the contemporary technologies and techniques revive and re-read ancient musical practices: contrapuntal structures and minimal electronic procedures venture into exotic analogies, strange Renaissance allusions, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean repertoires. Among otherworldly fairy voices, symphonic wandering pathos, aquatic disturbances, Indian Hindustani echoes, or psychedelic radiances. A special relationship between space and time, architecture and music, the manipulation of sounds conceived as the art of memory in its various meanings of preservation, transformation, and distortion.
File Under: Electronic
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Magik Markers: 2020 (Drag City) LP
2020! Now it can be told: the charade of a world without new MAGIK MARKERS records (six-plus years!) has finally ended. In these times of contagion fables and hacky blockbuster N95 disaster imagery IRL, Markers emerge again like three Lazarus from their three individual firmaments, just in the nick of the end of time. Never doctrinaire, on 2020, Markers capture a humid kind of chlorinated heat, playing like children of divorce at the condominium pool: strangers feeling out games to play, contests to have underwater, blowing by minutes without noticing at all. There is no more contemporary, they say, only emergency. So, here we are with results, the murky and public airing of songs, improvised and planned. Like damp concrete made up of the collected wet footprints of every single night since last we heard these Magik Markers MARKERS. The results are amazing, sometimes, dare it be said: magical…
File Under: Indie Rock, Experimental
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Ayalew Mesfin: Che Celew (March Forward) (Now Again) LP
“Ayalew Mesfin stands aside the likes of Mulatu Astake, Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Alemayehu Eshete as a legend of 1970s Ethiopia. Mesfin’s music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation. Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7″ singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation. Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974, he has returned almost 50 years later with this triumphant set albums — the first time that his music has been presented in this form. These albums give us a chance to discover a rare and beautiful moment in music history, in anthologies built from Mesfin’s uber-rare 7″ single releases and from previously unreleased recordings taken from master tapes. Che Belew gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history, in an anthology built from his uber-rare 7″ single releases.”
File Under: African, Ethiopian, Jazz, Funk
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Ayalew Mesfin: Tewedije Limut (Let Me Die Loved) (Now Again) LP
“Ayalew Mesfin stands aside the likes of Mulatu Astake, Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Alemayehu Eshete as a legend of 1970s Ethiopia. Mesfin’s music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation. Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7″ singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation. Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974, he has returned almost 50 years later with this triumphant set albums — the first time that his music has been presented in this form. These albums give us a chance to discover a rare and beautiful moment in music history, in anthologies built from Mesfin’s uber-rare 7″ single releases and from previously unreleased recordings taken from master tapes. Tewedije Limut gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history, in an anthology built from his uber-rare 7″ single releases.”
File Under: African, Ethiopian, Jazz, Funk
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Monolord: Empress Rising – Instrumental (Riding Easy) LP
“Without vocals, Empress Rising suddenly becomes a post-metal, stoner epic in the vein of Sleep’s Dopesmoker and Monster Magnet’s 30-minute opus ‘Tab.’ Arguably Monolord’s most atmospheric work, the instrumental treatment gives the album a new life and listening experience.” — Consequence of Sound Swedish trio Monolord release a special all-instrumental version of their beloved 2014 debut album Empress Rising. The sleeves are printed on premium chrome jackets limited to 1000 copies each album. Begun as a digital-only release for Empress Rising – instrumental, the response was so overwhelming the band and Riding Easy Records decided to release both revised albums on vinyl as well.
File Under: Metal
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Monolord: Vaenir – Instrumental (Riding Easy) LP
About the release, Esben Willems, Monolord drummer and recording & mixing engineer for the original album and this version, says, “Listening to the mixes for the instrumental version of Vænir opened an unexpected door. We seriously didn’t expect that the album would take such a different shape and feel in an instrumental version. Really stoked to see how our fans will experience this release. Also, getting both instrumental versions (Vænir & Empress Rising) released on LP adds another layer. Hope you like it.” Swedish trio Monolord release a special all-instrumental version of their second album, Vænir originally released in 2015. Begun as a digital-only release for Empress Rising – instrumental, the response was so overwhelming the band and Riding Easy Records decided to release both revised albums on vinyl as well. The sleeves are printed on premium chrome jackets and limited to 1000 copies each album.
File Under: Metal
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Ennio Morricone: Western (Music on Vinyl) LP
Music on Vinyl proudly presents the brand new Ennio Morricone Themes series, a unique collection of the greatest scores ‘The Maestro’ composed for movies over the past 70 years, divided into different Themes. Western is the first in a series of five double vinyl releases that bring together some of Ennio Morricone’s greatest soundtrack music. Each Theme centers on a different movie genre, together they allow the listener to rediscover the unmatched genius of the greatest movie composer of all time. Western contains a selection of defining Morricone songs, featured in legendary (Spaghetti-) Western movies like “Once Upon A Time In The West”, “A Fistful of Dollars”, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, “A Pistol for Ringo”, “The Return of Ringo” and many more, selected on 2 LPs. Starting 70 years ago as an arranger for the piece Mamma Bianca, Ennio Morricone is the emperor of scores and soundtracks. Morricone has always been a huge influence for the likes of Hans Zimmer, Danger Mouse, Muse, Metallica, and many more musicians. He’s one of the most successful composers of all-time, selling over 70 million records and winning dozens of awards.
The package includes a 4-page insert with liner notes written by Claudio Fuiano.
File Under: OST
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Carlos Nino & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson: Chicago Waves (International Anthem) LP
In late 2018, long-time collaborators Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson flew to Chicago to participate in the album release performance of Makaya McCraven’s Universal Beings. The night afterward, International Anthem hosted a performance for the duo at our Chicago HQ. At the conclusion of their 44-minute improvised set that night, Carlos spontaneously dubbed the piece “Chicago Waves.” His proclamation gave us the distinct impression that the previous days spent in South Shore (& many commutes along Lake Shore Drive) had imprinted the deep blue vastness of early-Winter Lake Michigan into Carlos & Miguel’s consciousness, and thus, into the spirit of the luminous music they created that night. We at IARC are happy to share this recording with the world in a time when peace-bringing sound and a sweet memory of live music, sparkling inside the collective breath of community in communal space, has the potential to provide the utmost nourishment.
File Under: Jazz
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No Age: Goons Be Gone (Drag City) LP
Goons Be Gone, No Age’s second record for Drag City, kicks into gear, takes you out west and gets some dirt on it, with what’s possibly their most honed in and direct record yet. A guitar/drums duo (Randy Randall and Dean Spunt) with a penchant for self-recorded samples, No Age are mostly unconcerned with things like space or pause, and Goons Be Gone is gorgeously thick – a hazy, delirious expanse that’s both comforting and disorienting. Listening to Goons Be Gone, it’s hard to comprehend how just two people can manage to make so much noise while still sounding so subdued and mysterious – it’s easier to imagine Randall and Spunt spewing these songs underwater, bursting forth from some colossal California quarry rather than a tiny, stuffy art space a few blocks from L.A.’s skid row. Goons Be Gone is so cacophonous, so fertile, and so ripe with sound that parsing out the samples and effects and various layers of guitar is nearly impossible.
File Under: Indie Rock
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OST: Return of the Living Dead (Real Gone) LP
There are zombies…and then there are brain-eating zombies! And Return of the Living Dead was the film where brain-eating zombies got their first lease on, er, life. Co-written by John Russo, who was George Romero’s writing partner on Night of the Living Dead, this 1985 quasi-sequel introduced more “splatstick” humor to the horror formula as well as the indelible image of ghouls groaning “Braainsss” as they shuffle along. All set to a KILLER score featuring the greatest punk and death rock bands of the era, including The Cramps, 45 Grave, The Flesh Eaters, The Damned, Roky Erickson, The Jet Black Berries, T.S.O.L. and SSQ. This vinyl reissue of this classic soundtrack is just so Real Gone: limited edition clear with blood red splatter vinyl! Braainsss!
File Under: OST
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Papillon: Banco (Discrepant) LP
After his debut album for Discrepant, Papillon, and a couple of tapes for Dinzu Artefacts and Sucata Tapes, Papillon aka Gonçalo F. Cardoso returns to the wax treatment for one last hurrah into the depths of tropical disquiet. Taking liberties from Henri Charriere’s book sequel of the same name, Banco (1972), the audio reader here dives straight up/down into a world of random dream logic. The same themes of nightmare vs. paradisiac dreams are present here yet with more nuance than the first volume. The adventure here is more subdued, less spiritual as most of it is lived outdoors, free from the state’s shackles of abuse. A lighter tone then, for what will probably be the last Papillon adventure. As with the first volume the album counts with contributions from fellow label artists, Mike Cooper, Cédric Stevens, David Daan, and Yannick Dauby all feature in a way or another, raw or cooked into a boiling pot of irreverence. All tracks were composed and edited by Gonçalo F Cardoso in the island of La Gomera, Lisbon and London between 2017-2019. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Edition of 300.
File Under: Ambient, Experimental
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Justin Pinkerton: Aak’Ab (El Paraiso) LP
California native Justin Pinkerton, aka Golden Void drummer and the man behind El Paraiso Records’ own Futuropaco project, delivers a full-length album of playful synthesizer music. In contrast to a lot of the other projects Justin has been involved in over the years, Aak’Ab radiates slowness and tranquility. There’s a rare sense of calm in these pieces. It would, however, be a mistake to categorize it as ambient or new age — the intricate pattern-work and the raga-like structure of these pieces avoid the usual new age pitfalls, and reveals stronger musical ties to the tradition of American classical minimalism and the electronic side of German kosmische from the 1970s. Stylistically Aak’Ab harkens back to ideas that first materialized in Terry Riley’s compositions in the 1960s and early 1970s. It’s about patterns that gradually evolve and transform themselves — much like an organic process unfolding before your ears. The six pieces ebb and flow, and slowly creates a sense of peace and buoyancy in the listener. However, Justin avoids any kind of unnecessary sonic sweetening, instead letting the synthesizers buzz and hum in all their purity. File next to: Terry Riley, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Cluster.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Jeremiah Sand: Lift it Down (Sacred Bones) LP
Limited coloured vinyl! In 1974, Jeremiah Sand and his nascent cult The Children Of The New Dawn decamp LA for the Shasta Mountain region and Redding, CA. They set up shop, begin printing leaflets, hold gatherings and start growing their ranks through recruitment. Jeremiah and the Children are not necessarily an odd addition to Redding in 1974. Since the 1930s, psychonauts and spiritual seekers have been drawn to this area in Northern California under the shadow of the dormant volcanic cone of Shasta. By 1974, urban California hippies worn down by direct political engagement with state security forces have started drifting North and the towns along the border with Oregon state are filled with ad-hoc spiritual organizations, commune builders and lost souls. Jeremiah and the Children fit right in. A few years prior to assembling his flock, Sand had self produced and released an album of psych-folk that was unremarkable in almost every way, save for the unrelenting vanity and egoism on display in the lyrics. This early album is one of the only existing documents of Sand. The commercial failure of the album became the catalyst for Sand to leave Southern California and settle in a place where his “truth” would be “received by pure and open hearts”. By mid 1974, the Children have grown in rank and Jeremiah becomes obsessed with recording “his masterpiece”…a musical message to the world, communicating a “Truth” that only he has been given spiritual access to. This project becomes the central focus of the Children. His lieutenant Brother Swann overhears that there is a small recording studio just North of the city. He arrives one day at the reception with a large gym bag full of cash and instructs the owner to cancel all sessions on the books. The studio will now focus on one thing and one thing only: helping Jeremiah realize his vision Tents and rough structures appear on the surrounding property as the Children make the studio and its grounds their new home. They hold recruitment meetings where Jeremiah evangelizes in between endless recording sessions. The owner and his staff begin to feel as though they’re being held hostage but the money is good and the Children keep paying. Overpaying. This goes on for years. New members drift into the sessions. A disgraced professor from the Electro Acoustic Music program at Evergreen state arrives with a full Buchla system he’s “liberated” from the university, Jeremiah is entranced by it and for a few weeks the only sounds coming from the studio are blasts of atonal, corroded noise underpinned by ominous chanting. The mood changes. The town begins to turn against the Children. A few people have gone missing. Some teenagers. A studio engineer. By the Spring of 1977, the entire session has broken down into hallucinogen and cocaine fueled chaos. Bad vibrations. One night in early March, after a particularly grueling mixing session, the producer and owner of the studio is startled awake by an extremely agitated looking Brother Swann. Swann is sweating and wild eyed, casually holding a gun, explaining to the producer that “plans have changed” and that Jeremiah has “heard a calling and a Great Summons.” They are leaving. All of them. That night. Swann directs the producer to put the existing reels in a lock box along with a short 16mm film, lyrics, album art and scribbled notes. Swann tells the producer Jeremiah will be back to finish his masterpiece. It all goes in the box and it’s not to be opened until the Children return. They never do. In 2018, wildfires rip through Redding, CA and burns it to the ground. Over a thousand homes are incinerated. One rough structure north of the city is partially saved. There’s a massive concrete basement filled with smoke and water damaged recording equipment and in the back…a lockbox. No one knows who originally took the tapes out of the charred ruin of the studio but in a few months, a very strange album is making the rounds in the more esoteric circles of the underground. A long and confusing chain of custody ensues. A lost artifact of the transitional period between the late 60s and late 70s. A flawed and malignant sounding unfinished thing, clearly the product of a psychotically inflated ego and hubris. The album is by turns: amateurish, haunting, deranged, ridiculous and (for those attuned to these things) filled with crackling negative psychic energies. So much so that Light In The Attic flat out refuses to reissue it. Eventually, it lands in Sacred Bones’ lap and they decide to restore the audio and give it a general release all in the name of preserving a historical document of a very weird place and a very weird time.
File Under: OST, Psych, Folk
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Spirit Adrift: Enlightened in Eternity
(20 Buck Spin) LP
ON LIMITED GRAY INSIDE PINK W/ WHITE SPLATTER VINYL!!! Spirit Adrift refuses to slow down. With Enlightened In Eternity, Nathan Garrett, alongside drummer Marcus Bryant, has created yet another monument to the timelessness of heavy metal. And while this album builds on the sizable foundation established by previous releases, it also sets itself apart in formidable new ways, widening the scope of what Spirit Adrift can be. What this band has mastered, and where others have failed, is the ability to invoke the power of metal’s past, whether it be the ’70s, ’80s or even the ’90s, as one hears here, without ever feeling throwback or “retro”. Spirit Adrift urgently represent the sonic and emotional zeitgeist of 2020. Enlightened In Eternity carries the same enormous magnitude of the most significant metal records of every era, but Garrett has carved out his own place among the greatest of songwriters, by crafting uniquely classic and instantly recognizable songs. Vocally, Garrett again showcases an obvious evolution of his already high-level ability with more soaring soul and snarling venom injected into his classic metal form. The gorgeous guitar leads, melodies, harmonies and unforgettably heavy riffs benefit from a huge, timeless production quality. Bryant has elevated his drumming to new levels of intensity and tasteful subtlety. And as always, the tracks remain imprinted on the mind long after the album has finished. Whether it’s the ever-expanding catalog of incredible albums and songs or the searing live performances, the dominance of Spirit Adrift upon the current heavy metal landscape is now undeniable. And while Enlightened In Eternity already marks the band’s fourth album, Spirit Adrift have only just begun..
File Under: Metal
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Luke Stewart Exposure Quintet: s/t
(Astral Spirits) LP
Luke Stewart (of Irreversible Entanglements, James Brandon Lewis Trio, Heroes are Gang Leaders, etc) steps out on his first release as a leader in this Charles Mingus-esque debut. Quintet features Edward Wilkinson, Jr, Ken Vandermark, Jim Baker and Avreeayl Ra.
File Under: Jazz
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Sweeping Promises: Hunger for a Way Out (Feel It) LP
Straight from the depths of an unused Boston-area concrete laboratory comes the debut of Sweeping Promises. Written and recorded with a patented “single mic technique” just before quarantine, “Hunger for a Way Out”, is a post-punk leaning gem of unpolished DIY sound. The title track kicks things off in absolutely classic fashion, full of spirited hooks that echo the early Rough Trade sound. Angular guitars and sharp synth notes float atop a raw rhythm section, while Lira Mondal’s effervescent vocals truly define Sweeping Promises’ sound. There’s something simple yet otherworldly about these tracks – you have the DIY prowess of Kleenex/LiLiPUT and Girls at Our Best!, a brooding new wave-y minimal synth sound woven in, and an undeniable pop-leaning appeal captured in vibrant monaural glory. It’s hard to mistake these ten tracks of naturally urgent and driving post-punk for anything other than sheer brilliance. Sweeping Promises deliver in spades on “Hunger for a Way Out”.
File Under: Post Punk
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David Toop: Apparition Paintings
(Room40) LP
From David Toop: “Maybe these titles, torn as they are from cinema screens and the pages of literature and philosophy, give a feeling of romantic or sexual love or some dark pool of nostalgia but that’s not it, or it could be if you want it for yourself but not for me, not now; for me it’s about the teeming proliferation of complex events in the world, their vivid, hyperreal intensity as this human life steps closer to its end and their sense of fading, like a mist that thins out to leave not a clear bright day but almost nothing of substance as all that beauty is crushed, burned, dug up, wiped out, to be replaced by banality, so it’s about a language of love and desire in which we speak openly to all the unknowns, the speculative, the ancestral, the forgotten, the different, the extinct, the unimaginably distant and vast, the incomprehensibly small and intimately close, the fast or the slow, as if as we spoke we were becalmed in a wooden galleon off the coast of Java, sleeping microscopically in soil of a thousand years hence, hearing the voice of a dead person from the rim of a vibrating cup, gliding backwards and weightless through the alleyways of a city unrecognizable yet heartbreaking in its poverty, speaking in conference with winged and amphibious beings, crouching in a cavern whose opening only reveals the specter of many wonders now apprehended as memories of the skin, heard through cheekbones, nostrils, the crepitation as a neck turns, pains of the knee and thumb and some not yet fully understood sensation within the throat which suggests a way of comprehending that which is being lost of this magical place. All I desire is what already exists or once existed, now falling asleep outside the world. Don’t ask me about genre or consistency. Who cares? Half the world is drowning; the other half is in flames. Each story is an animal, a plant, something you drink, a surface you touch, a faint line, some memory emanating from a cardboard box . . . Apparition painting is the term used to describe a certain type of ancient Chinese painting of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In these works, often associated with Chan (Zen) teachings, the ink used to depict the subject was exceptionally pale, the background lacking in any detail. As Yukio Lippit has written: ‘This combination results in remarkably self-dissembling images that somehow compromise their own visibility. Apparition painting appears to capture its subjects in mid-fade, as if managing to preserve only a dimly translucent afterimage of a bygone entity.'”
File Under: Ambient
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Vertical Slit: Live at Browns
(Siltbreeze) LP
Rare live & unreleased tracks from 1979 by the legendary Vertical Slit, passed along from Jim Shepard (to Tom Lax) in 1998. Housed in silkscreened jackets with insert.
File Under: Experimental
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Roscoe Weathers: I’ll Remember
(Jazzman) LP
For every celebrated name in jazz, soul and related music, there are probably another 1000 musicians who had all the talent and potential but for whom widespread recognition remained elusive. Roscoe Weathers is one such figure, a jazzman who earned his chops the hard way, a sideman in smoky clubs from Memphis to Seattle, before finally settling in LA. He recorded a significant amount of music through the 1960s, but never found the slightest modicum of commercial acclaim nor the success that comes with it. Overlooked by all but the tiniest of record labels, Weathers’s released much of his material himself. Indeed, Jazzman Records can lay claim to be the first outside label to release any of his music since the early 1960s. That’s sixty years of being overlooked by the record industry, so Jazzman Records release this first full-length album of his music in a first attempt at righting that historic wrong. A multi-instrumentalist, Weathers mainly led on the flute in his recorded output. The music here spans the course of the 1960s, and moves from laid back beatnik jazz stylings through to percussion heavy Afro-Latin influenced workouts. As usual with Jazzman, the label has not only dug deep to unearth Weathers’s music but also his background and biographical details, shining much deserved light on this enigmatic and largely unheralded figure for the first time.
File Under: Jazz
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Various: A Stranger I May Be – Savoy Gospel 1954-1966 (Honest Jon) LP
The first of three volumes surveying surely the mightiest Gospel label of them all. Stomping, rollicking gospel music, intermingling with raw soul, searing blues, hard-rocking doo-wop and jazz, and storming R&B. Infused and incandescent with the hurting, surging indignation of the Civil Rights movement, here are twenty-four precious scorchers by giants like the Staple Singers and Jimmy Scott, alongside devastating sides by less celebrated names like the Harmonizing Five of Burlington, North Carolina, and teen-group the North Philadelphia Juniors, culminating triumphantly with slamming, sanctified versions of “Hit The Road Jack” and “Wade In The Water”. Drawn from nigh-impossible-to-find 78s, sevens and LPs, hardly any of these recordings have been reissued since their first release. Presented in a gatefold sleeve, with full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork. Sound restoration and mastering at Abbey Road; pressed at Pallas. Co-curated by Greg Belson, compiler of Divine Disco; with deep, extensive notes by Robert Marovich, author of A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music (University of Illinois), and host of the award-winning radio show Gospel Memories. Features Famous Ward Singers, The Harmonizing Five, The Sensational Six, The Gospel Harmonettes Specials, The Christones, The Staple Singers, Swindell Brothers, The Roberta Martin Singers, Jimmy Scott, Shirley Caesar and The Caravans, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Hightower Brothers, North Philadelphia Juniors, The Selah Singers, The Ward Singers, The Stars of Faith, Marion Williams, The Gospel Cavaliers, The Caravans, Eddie Williams and the Crusaders, The Davis Sisters, The Gospel Chimes, The Angelic Gospel Choir, and The Angelic Choir.
File Under: Soul, Gospel, Blues
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Various: Born to Hula! (Stag-o-Lee) LP
Stag-O-Lee continue the DJ Set series with this Born To Hula! compilation by Hamburg based DJ Crille. Since the early 1990s, Crille is spinning records in various clubs on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg and many other cities. He was inspired by The Cool and Crazy Record Store and Crypt Records. After many years of record-hunting he is ready to bring you this compilation of some of his favorite tunes. They’re all dancefloor-tested at the Komet Bar in Hamburg, where Crille finds his home. Enjoy his journey to the land of cool and exotic dance tunes! Features The Nortones, Maximillian, Boots Brown, Dennis The Rocket, The Pearls, The Downbeats, Johnny Guitar Watson, Owen Bradley And His Orchestra, Igor And The Maniacs, Al DeLory, The Creators, Ray Stevens, Magnificent Monta-Gue, Sammy Lowe & Orchestra, The Triplets, Wilder Brothers, Charles Blackwell & Orchestra, The Dynamics, Lee Denson, The Jet Streams, The Twisters, Damal & Rasheed, Googie Rene, The Key Brothers, Froggy Landers & The Cough Drops, King Tut, The Rivingtons, Sounds Inc., George Barnes, Zodiacs, and Stacy Bengal And His Six Outfielders.
File Under: Exotica
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Various: Buzzsaw Joint: James And Misty Cut 7 (Stag-o-Lee) LP
Buzzsaw Joint was born of a club offering Londoners the chance to revel in the sounds of good ol’ trashy rock’n’roll in all its vintage vinyl forms. Club top-cat, Fritz, then took the primitive Buzzsaw sounds online with a series of savage Mixcloud mixes created by record fiends from all over the globe. Now, the high-octane energy of Buzzsaw Joint has manifested into the physical form with a run of compilations on Stag-O-Lee. Get your ears around the wild n’ weird sounds of the extraordinary and inimitable Buzzsaw Joint! For lucky Cut 7, the series buzzes over to Osaka, Japan to sample the collections of a pair of record obsessed lovebirds. In 2016 acclaimed Canadian DJ Misty met Night Beat Records store owner and tip-top tune selector James and now they’re inseparable. Alongside digging obscure vinyl out of deep crates worldwide for their store and weekly radiocore.org show “Night Beat Radio”, they spin dance-crazed booty shakers together at the wild monthly “The!! Beat” party. Dare you not to dance to these twisted selections! Features The Opals, The Dells, Billz Martyn And His Corvairs, The Sevilles, The Cymbals, The Penguins, The Clovers, The Royal Dukes, Googie Rene, Curtis Byrd And The Jo Rag Singers, Cal Valentine & The Texas Rockers, Les Cooper & His Soul Rockers, Dee Clark, and Johnny Winter.
File Under: Rock n Roll, RnB, Rockabilly
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Various: Ghost Memories (Mississippi) LP
The companion to Six Feet Under, now finally back in print with a brand new cover! Yet more rare, whiskey-drenched country, raw rockabilly and rock instrumentals from the late 1950’s – early 1960’s. All incredibly hard to find tunes from obscure 45s. Co-released with Lost Train Records. Features BRENDA BURNS, THE CREW and GENE MCKOWN.
File Under: Rockabilly, Rock N Roll
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Various: Harry Smith B-Sides (Dust to Digital) 4CD Box/Book
The Harry Smith B-Sides box set contains the flip side of every 78-rpm record that Harry Smith included on the Anthology of American Folk Music. In 1952, Folkways Records published the legendary six-LP series entitled the Anthology of American Folk Music, compiled by eccentric record collector, filmmaker, artist, and anthropologist Harry Smith. Many historians cite Smith’s reissue, with its recordings of country, blues, and gospel music from the 1920s and ’30s, and its booklet containing idiosyncratic liner notes, esoteric artwork, and handmade design as a major impetus for the folk music revival of the 1950s and ’60s. 68 years later, The Harry Smith B-Sides offers both a resonant listening experience and the closing of a collector’s circle. Sequenced in the identical order that Smith created, this new box set offers the flip-side of each record selected by Smith for the original Anthology of American Folk Music. Newly-remastered audio under license from Gennett Records, Paramount Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group. This box set represents a mirror image of the Anthology of American Folk Music’s tracklist. However, the producers have omitted the following tracks due to lyrics containing racist language: track 5 on disc 1, track 4 on disc 2, and track 16 on disc 4. Cigar box, full-color 144-page book featuring original artwork by Harry Smith and four CDs; 84 newly-remastered tracks on four CDs with a full-color 144-page book featuring archival images, original artwork by Harry Smith, and essays by John Cohen, Lance Ledbetter, and Eli Smith. Transcriptions and annotations for each track by more than 80 artists, writers, and musicians that have been inspired by Harry Smith’s work including Daniel Bachman, Devendra Banhart, Sarah Bryan, Rosanne Cash, Dom Flemons, Steve Gunn, Will Oldham, Amanda Petrusich, Steve Roden, Art Rosenbaum, Nathan Salsburg, and Peter Stampfel. Features Dick Justice, Nelstone’s Hawaiians, Clarence Ashley, Coley Jones, Buell Kazee, Chubby Parker & His Old-Time Banjo, Uncle Eck Dunford, Burnett and Rutherford, Buster Carter and Preston Young, Carolina Tar Heels, G.B. Grayson, Kelly Harrell, Edward L. Crain, Carter Family, Williamson Brothers & Curry, Frank Hutchison, Charlie Poole with the North Carolina Ramblers, Mississippi John Hurt, William & Versey Smith, Furry Lewis, The Masked Marvel, Uncle Bunt Stephens, J.W. Day, Prince Albert Hunt’s Texas Ramblers, Delma Lachney and Blind Uncle Gaspard, Andrew & Jim Baxter, A.C Eck Robertson and Family, Hoyt Ming and His Pep-Steppers, Henry Thomas, Jim Jackson, Columbus Fruge, Joseph Falcon, Breaux Freres, Cincinnati Jug Band, Frank Cloutier and the Victoria Cafe Orchestra, Rev. J. M. Gates, Alabama Sacred Harp Singers, Middle Georgia Singing Convention No. 1, Sister Mary Nelson, Memphis Sanctified Singers, Elders McIntorsh and Edwards, Rev. Moses Mason, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Blind Willie Johnson, Ernest Phipps & His Holiness Singers, Rev. F.W. McGee, Rev. D.C. Rice and His Sanctified Congregation, Cannon’s Jug Stompers, E. Segura & D. Herbert, Richard “Rabbit” Brown, Dock Boggs, Mr. & Mrs. Ernest V. Stoneman, Stoneman Family, Memphis Jug Band, Joseph Falcon & Cleoma Breaux, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Sleepy John Estes and Yank Rachell, Ramblin’ Thomas, Julius Daniels, Uncle Dave Macon, J.P. Nestor, and Ken Manyard.
File Under: Folk, Blues
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Various: Spiritual Jazz Vol 12 – Impulse!
(Jazzman) 3LP
Triple LP version. Gatefold sleeve. In Jazzman Records’ latest chapter of Spiritual Jazz, the label returns to the source — the Impulse! label, and the monumental influence of its most prominent artist, John Coltrane. Since the first release in the series back in 2008, Jazzman Records has mapped out the growth of the spiritual sound in jazz. Spiritually energized and politically conscious, the spiritual sound in jazz music is one of the most important currents in the music. The label’s series has charted the growth of the style from early experiments at Blue Note and Prestige to European excursions, exiled experimentalists, and sounds from across the globe. But whenever you think of spiritual jazz, it’s a fair bet that the double exclamation mark and orange-and-black spine of Impulse quickly comes to mind. Home to John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef, McCoy Tyner, and countless other musical pioneers, Impulse! was the most important and forward-thinking jazz label of the 1960s. With the music-first attitude of an independent but the clout of a major, producers Creed Taylor and Bob Thiele made Impulse! the defining imprint of a crucial decade. They hand-picked the top players of the moment and gave them freedom to record the music they wanted, setting out their stall with a bold slogan: “The New Wave Of Jazz Is On Impulse!” Here, Jazzman Records dive deep into the Impulse! catalog, bringing celebrated masterpieces from Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders into the arena, together with lesser known cuts from Phil Woods and John Klemmer as well as straight-up classics such from Yusef Lateef and Elvin Jones. Fifty years on and the new wave of jazz still sounds fresh, vibrant, and as relevant as ever. Also features Max Roach, Freddie Hubbard, Archie Shepp, Michael White, and Marion Brown.
File Under: Jazz
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Various: Trashcan Records Vol 5: Cha Cha Bop (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
Welcome to Volume 5 of Trashcan Records, a new compilation series on Stag-O-Lee, devoted to obscure and forgotten vinyl treasures from the 1950s and early 1960s. Compiled by Fedor, an Amsterdam-based record hound, whose huge collection mostly comes from flipping through thousands of used record boxes at Amsterdam flea markets for the last 25 years. For Cha Cha Bop, Fedor has selected an all-female beatnik extravaganza: the first vinyl compilation of its kind! From the bohemian misfit girl with her goateed boyfriend to the espresso sipping art school chick reading Kerouac… 12 tracks recorded between 1959-1963. Features Zena Ayo, Rhonda Fleming, Patsy Abbott with Margie Sherwin, Honey Sanders, Lynn Roberts, Carol Gray, Lyn Avalon, Nancy DuPont, Kay Martin & Her Body Guards, Cara Stewart with The Gold Coast Boys, Del Rae, and Sarah Northcutt.
File Under: Rock n Roll, Exotica
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Various: Trashcan Records Vol 6: The Natives are Restless (Stag-o-Lee) 10″
Welcome to Volume 6 of Trashcan Records, a new compilation series on Stag-O-Lee, devoted to obscure and forgotten vinyl treasures from the 1950s and early 1960s. Compiled by Fedor, an Amsterdam-based record hound, whose huge collection mostly comes from flipping through thousands of used record boxes at Amsterdam flea markets for the last 25 years. For The Natives Are Restless, you will find a cool selection of uncomped jungle-themed songs on Side A. Side B will offer up six dreamy exotica tracks with otherworldly vocals and sultry melodies. Ten tracks recorded between 1951-1962. Features Noro Morales, Ray McKinley, Ronnie Savoy, Bob Keene Orchestra, Spooky Jones & The Governors, Carmen Lesay, Dave Ford & The Hollywood Flames, Biscaynes with Co-Encidentals, Don Reid, The Voice Of Love, and Lynn Hope.
File Under: Exotica
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Various: Turn It Loose, Ain’t No Good: Savoy Gospel 1970-1979 (Honest Jon’s) LP
The second of three volumes surveying surely the mightiest Gospel label of them all. Sublime crossings of gospel with the soul, funk and jazz of the Black Power era. Twenty rapturous cuts dot dazzlingly between Muscle Shoals soul, screwed breakbeat, Mizells-style fusion, disco and proto-house. Triumphant re-workings of Sly Stone, Donny Hathaway, and Herbie Hancock’s “Head Hunters” will have listeners throwing their pew cushions into the air. Drawn from hard-to-find 45s and LPs, hardly any of these recordings have been reissued since their first release. Presented in a gatefold sleeve, with full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork. Sound restoration and mastering at Abbey Road; pressed at Pallas. Co-curated by Greg Belson, compiler of Divine Disco; with deep, extensive notes by Robert Marovich, author of A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music (University of Illinois), and host of the award-winning radio show Gospel Memories. Features The Artistic Sounds, The Holy Lights of Baltimore, MD, The Swan Silvertones, Gene Martin, Myrna Summers, James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir, Betty Hollins, The Metro Tones, The World Wonders, The Brooklyn Skyways, Ida Maxey, The Thornes Trio, Mildred Clark And The Melody-Aires, The Highway Q.C.s, The Gospelaires Of Dayton, Ohio, The Exciting Supreme Highlights, James Moore, Prof. Charles Taylor and The Charles Taylor Singers, and The Brockington Ensemble.
File Under: Soul, Funk, Gospel
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Various: You Better Get Ready: Savoy Gospel 1978-1986 (Honest Jon’s) LP
The third of three volumes surveying surely the mightiest Gospel label of them all. Seventeen gems of fierce funk, rapturous soul and transcendent disco and boogie, super-charged with celebration and affirmativeness, loaded with roaring choirs, rocking horns and popping bass guitars, from the years leading up to Savoy’s acquisition by Malaco. Hardly any of these recordings have been reissued since their first release. The stupendous opener by Edith Moreno only appeared as a blank-label promo, in a tiny run. Presented in a spot-glossed sleeve, with full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork. Sound restoration and mastering at Abbey Road; pressed at Pallas. Co-curated by Greg Belson, compiler of Divine Disco; with deep, extensive notes by Robert Marovich, author of A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music (University of Illinois), and host of the award-winning radio show Gospel Memories. Features Edith Moreno, The World Wonders, The Helen Hollins Singers, Solomon Burke, Genobia Jeter, The Lady Lois Snead with the Interdemoninational Mass Choir of Atlanta, GA, Charisma, The Stan Lee Revue, The Sensational Williams Brothers, The 4th Of May, James Cleveland And The Cleveland Singers, The Hollywood Stars, The Steele Family, and Glenn Jones And The Modulations.
File Under: Soul, Funk, Disco, Gospel
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…..Restocks….
Aix Em Klemm: s/t (Kranky) LP
Bobby Beausoleil: Lucifer Rising (Rustblade) LP
Big Black: Songs About Fucking (Touch & Go) LP
Boards of Canada: Campfire Headphase (Warp) LP
Glenn Branca: Lesson No. 1 (Superior Viaduct) LP
Dave Brubeck: Time Out (Music on Vinyl) LP
Bully: Sugaregg (Sub Pop) LP
Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle (Drag City) LP
Bill Callahan: Gold Record (Drag City) LP
Neko Case: Furnace Room Lullaby (Anti) LP
Chromatics: Closer to Grey (Italians Do It Better) LP
Coriky: s/t (Dischord) LP
Miles Davis: Big Fun (Music on Vinyl) LP
Frankie & The Witch Fingers: Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters (Reverberation) LP
Future Islands: Singles (4AD) LP
Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto: Getz/Gilberto (Acoustic Sounds Series) (Verve) LP
Dominique Guiot: L’Univers de Mer (WRWTFWW) LP
Keiji Haino: Watashi Dake (Black Editions) LP
Jon Hassell: Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Vol. 2) (Ndeya) LP
Jon Hassell/Farafina: Flash of the Spirit (Glitterbeat) LP
Heliocentrics: Infinity of Now (Madlib Invazion) LP
Johann Johannsonn: End of Summer (Sonic Pieces) LP
Charles Mingus: Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Impulse) LP
Moondog: And His Friends (Primitiv) LP
Oasis: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (Big Brother) LP
Oh Sees: Smote Reverser (Castle Face) LP
Osees: Protean Threat (Castle Face) LP
OST: Ghost in the Shell (WRWTFWW) LP
Shuggie Otis: Inspiration Information (Music on Vinyl) LP
Outkast: Stankonia (Arista) LP
Outkast: ATLiens (Arista) LP
Outkast: Aquemini (Arista) LP
Parquet Courts: Content Nausea (What’s Your Rupture) LP
Porcupine Tree: Deadwing (Kscope) LP
Purple Mountains: s/t (Drag City) LP
Kalyani Roy: The Virtuoso of Sitar Vol. 1 (Vishra) LP
Kalyani Roy: The Virtuoso of Sitar Vol. 2 (Vishra) LP
Smog: Knock Knock (Drag City) LP
Spectral Voice: Eroded Corridors of Unbeing (Dark Descent) LP
Stars of the Lid: Avec Laudanum (Kranky) LP
Swell Maps: Jane From Occupied Europe (Secretly Canadian) LP
Trees Speak: Ohm (Soul Jazz) LP
Marcos Valle: s/t (Light in the Attic) LP
Vatican Shadow: Persian Pillars of the Gasoline Era (20 Buck Spin) LP
X: Los Angeles (Fat Possum) LP
Various: Black Man’s Pride 3 (Soul Jazz) LP