…..news letter #982 – winter?…..

The good news is, if you are reading this, you didn’t get blown away on Tuesday. Probably thanks to all your records weighing down your house. Thankfully new releases are starting to flow! 

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 11-6 Monday – Friday & Saturday 11-4. Stay safe!

Oh ya… if you don’t follow us on Instagram, WHY NOT?! And now you know.

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…..picks of the week…..

Various: Somewhere Between: Mutant Pop, Electronic Minimalism & Shadow Sounds of Japan 1980-1988
(Light in the Attic) LP

Somewhere Between: Mutant Pop, Electronic Minimalism & Shadow Sounds of Japan 1980–1988 hovers vibe–wise between two distinct poles within Light In The Attic’s acclaimed Japan Archival Series—Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980–1990 and Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976–1986. All three albums showcase recordings produced during Japan’s soaring bubble economy of the 1980s, an era in which aesthetic visions and consumerism merged. Music echoed the nation’s prosperity and with financial abundance came the luxury to dream. Sonically, Somewhere Between mines the midpoint between Kankyō Ongaku’s sparkling atmospherics and Pacific Breeze’s metropolitan boogie. The compilation encompasses ambient pop, underground electronics, liminal minimalism and shadow sounds—all descriptors emphasizing the hazy nature of the nebula. Out–of–focus rhythms wear ethereal accoutrements, ballads are shrouded in static, and angular drums snake skyward on transcendent tones. From the Avant–minimalism of Mkwaju Ensemble and Yoshio Ojima, to the leftfield techno-pop of Mishio Ogawa and Noriko Miyamoto (featuring members of YMO), and highlights from the groundbreaking Osaka underground label Vanity Records, these are blurry constellations defying collective categorization. These tracks also exist in a space of transition when the major label grip on the Japanese recording market began to give way to the escalation of independents. Thanks to the idyllic economic climate and innovations in domestically–manufactured music gear, creators on the edges were empowered to focus on satisfying their artistic visions in the open headspace of home studios. While labels like Warner Music and Nippon Columbia explored new sounds through traditional channels, it was possible for Vanity, Balcony and other indie labels, not to mention self–released artists like Ojima and Naoki Asai, to publish their work via affordable media such as cassettes, 7″ vinyl, and flexi–discs. Expertly curated by Yosuke Kitazawa and Mark “Frosty” McNeill (dublab), Somewhere Between is a collection of music, much of it released for the first time outside Japan, that is bound more by energetic vibration than shared history, genre or scene. They are the sounds of transition and searching—a celebration of the freedom found in floating.

File Under: Japan, Electronic, Pop, Weirdness
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Eric’s Trip: Peter (Blue Fog) LP
Out of print and unavailable for many years, one of the most memorable Eric’s Trip releases, aside from the “Love Tara” album, is the indie EP that introduced them to the world. Their youthful energy, catchy songs, and noisy lo-fi recording techniques set them apart from many of the other bands of 1992-93. This newly remixed and remastered vinyl edition now contains more songs, all recorded during the same time period, including the songs from the Belong 7”, their first single. Six songs has now become fifteen, turning the “Peter EP” into the “Peter LP”! Pressed on three colour swirl vinyl, newly scanned artwork and printed inner sleeve. More in next week too!

File Under: Indie Rock, Lo-Fi
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…..new arrivals…..

Chet Baker: Sextet & Quartet (Cinevox) LP
Chet Baker is one of the most important and essential characters of modern jazz and over the years he has not lost his strength and color, a fact that’s clearly demonstrated by this release, indeed showing us a quite different Chet Baker. His style has become less slender, more excited, more precise, more violent, and several tracks of this record prove it. The musicians here accompanying Chet Baker are the very best the Italian jazz scene of the time could offer Glauco Masetti on alto sax, Gianni Basso on tenor sax, Renato Sellani on piano, Franco Cerri on double bass, together with the Italian-American Gene Victory on drums. As usual in such situations, arrangements were entrusted to Giulio Libano, who wisely provided the musicians with ample space for their solos. Chet Baker is undoubtedly the protagonist, but a lot of freedom of expression is granted to his fellow adventurers.

File Under: Jazz
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Jane Birkin: Di Doo Dah (Light in the Attic) LP
“Di Doo Dah” is the first true solo album from British born actress, model, singer, mother, and French national treasure, Jane Birkin. Emerging as a creative and beatific force in London’s Swinging 60s, she met Parisian provocateur Serge Gainsbourg in 1968 on the film set of Slogan and birthed one of the most fantastic creative collaborations the world has ever known. After the 1969 duet album “Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus” and the landmark “L’Histoire De Melody Nelson” Jane was ready for her own namesake debut. “Di Doo Dah” sees Birkin, Gainsbourg, and co-conspirator Jean-Claude Vannier (“L’Enfant Assassin Des Mouches”) meld Jane’s fragile vocals with jazz, rock, and lush orchestral textures: a perfect album for living and loving. Light In The Attic’s definitive version of “Di Doo Dah” is available for the first time in North America on 180-gram vinyl, with original artwork, unseen photographs, and extensive liner notes by renowned music journalist Andy Beta (Spin, The FADER). With full cooperation and insight from Birkin herself – not to mention French lyrics and English translations – this reissue truly allows listeners to delve into the album’s witty and frank world of sex, sin, voyeurism, motorcycles, Brighton, and banana boats. So what exactly does Di Doo Dah mean? “Nothing at all!” replied Birkin in a BBC interview from 1973. But this album is far from a throwaway, showing a maturity and musical understanding from all parties involved. By the early 70s, this lady was already a mother and very much aware of traditional gender roles as well as the sexual revolution – clearly able to plumb the necessary emotional depths required to translate Serge’s madcap lyrics and songs. It is true that in Birkin, Serge had finally found his match and most transcendent muse. And although the couple eventually went their separate ways, they left us all whistling much more than “Zipp-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” in the process. Viva Di Doo Dah!

File Under: French, Pop, Chanson
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Decemberists: Her Majesty The Decemberists (Kill Rock Stars) LP
For all intents and purposes, “Her Majesty. . .” could best be described as the charming older brother to the band’s previous outing. And, while being recognizably related to its sibling predecessor, it is an altogether different beast. Present and accounted for are the Victorian literary tropes, the rakish mariners, and the Dickensian downtrodden that slouched their way across the lazer imprinted surface of “Castaways and Cutouts”; in “Her Majesty the Decemberists,” a new cast of characters is introduced as well, giving further depth to the richly bizarre songcraft of the band’s bespectacled leading player, Colin Meloy: an aristocratic Jewess, slumming it blindfolded among the exotic avenues of a Chinese bazaar, the coifed and coked-up bon vivants of greater Los Angeles, the writer Myla Goldberg, and a pair of affectionate soldiers, celebrating their comradery among the mortar blasts and trench mud of World War I Belgium. Musically, the band travels.

File Under: Indie Rock
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Donald Byrd: Byrd in Flight (Tone Poet) (Blue Note) LP
Blue Note was very lucky to have their Three Trumpeteers; Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard on the roster at the same time. Their combined, prolific output of albums, many of which attained classic status, is legendary. One constantly near the top of most lists is 1960’s Byrd In Flight. Byrd decided to mix it up, with Jackie McLean (alto) on one date and Hank Mobley (tenor) on the second. Duke Pearson’s signature smooth piano work appears across the board as does the reliable drumming of Lex Humphries. Reggie Workman and Doug Watkins split duties on bass. Both sessions resulted in classic be-bop romps, mostly on originals such as Byrd’s Afro-Cuban tinged “Ghana” and “Lex,” a song dedicated to drummer Humphries. Pearson contributes three solid cuts with “Gate City,” “Bo and My Girl Shirl.” The lone standard tackled, “Little Boy Blue” is given an intelligent yet playful injection of the quintet’s personalities. Blue Note Records has announced the continuation of the acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series in 2020. Launched in 2019 in honor of the label’s 80th Anniversary, the Tone Poet series is produced by Joe Harley (from Music Matters) and features all-analog, 180g audiophile vinyl reissues that are mastered from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray of Cohearent Audio. Tone Poet vinyl is manufactured at RTI in Camarillo, CA, and packaged in deluxe Stoughton Printing “Old Style” gatefold Tip-On jackets. The titles were once again handpicked by Harley and cover the crème de la crème of the Blue Note catalog along with underrated classics, modern era standouts, and albums from other labels under the Blue Note umbrella including Pacific Jazz and United Artists Records. Every aspect of these Blue Note/Tone Poet releases is done to the highest-possible standard. It means that you will never find a superior version. “The LPs are mastered directly from the original analog master tapes by Kevin at his incredible facility called Cohearent Mastering. We go about it in the exact same way that we did for so many years for the Music Matters Blue Note reissues. We do not roll off the low end, boost the top or do any limiting of any kind. We allow the full glory of the original Blue Note masters to come though unimpeded! Short of having an actual time machine, this is as close as you can get to going back and being a fly on the wall for an original Blue Note recording session.” – Joe Harley

File Under: Jazz
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Funkadelic: Uncle Jam Wants You (Charly) LP
Masterminded by the larger-than-life figure of George Clinton, Funkadelic was a key component of his influential P-Funk empire. Funkadelic’s unique combination of Rock, Psychedelia and Soul led to the band to crossing over into the pop mainstream and gaining an international following, to become one of the most important groups in the evolution of funk. ‘Uncle Jam Wants You’ was the band’s eleventh studio LP released in 1979. More militant in tone than its predecessor ‘One Nation Under A Groove’ which described a Funk utopia, ‘Uncle Jam’s’ stated mandate was to “rescue dance music from the blahs”. The album features a 15-minute version of what was to become the band’s last hit single ‘(Not Just) Knee Deep’, an edited version of which made no.1 in the US R&B chart. Uncle Jam… had a huge influence on the hip-hop scene, notably the legendary Uncle Jam’s Army. This was Funkadelic’s first album since 1972 not to feature a cover design by artist Pedro Bell (although he did contribute to the interior design). A reference to the “Uncle Sam Wants You!” US Army recruitment poster, the sleeve depicts George Clinton aka Dr Funkenstein in a Huey Newton Black Panthers pose.

File Under: Funk
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Jerry Goldsmith: Total Recall (Quartet) 3LP
The first vinyl edition of the complete and iconic Jerry Goldsmith score for Paul Verhoeven’s classic presented in 3 LPs, celebrating its 30th anniversary. DeLuxe trifold package, remixed and mastered by Bruce Botnick, Lacquer master cut by Bernie Grundman, and produced by Botnick and Neil S.Bulk. It contains a booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond.

File Under: OST, Getyourasstomars
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Quinn Harris: Statements (Tidal Waves) LP
Born in Texas but raised in Riverside, California, Quinn Harris first started playing music in 1954 when he saved up his paper route money for an alto sax. At a young age, Harris was influenced by jazz greats John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Eugene “Jug” Ammons, and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. After a stint in the military playing with the 52nd Army Band, Harris attended Berklee College of Music in Boston where he met the Tavares brothers. His relationship with the brothers would continue throughout his career as Harris would later become their touring music director. Harris moved to San Francisco in 1970 where he supported himself gigging in nightclubs and doing promotional work for a number of clubs and bands in the area. While playing around the Bay Area with such acts as Canned Heat, The Whispers and Buddy Miles, Harris was approached one night after a gig by Janis Joplin who invited him to accompany her for a series of upcoming shows. After a chaotic rehearsal Harris turned down Joplin’s offer to join her Kozmic Blues Band and focused his energy on recording and opening a jazz club in Haight-Ashbury called “Quinn’s After Hours”. In 1970 Harris recorded his first full length LP “All In The Soul” with his then band The Masterminds and it was released the same year on the boutique San Francisco label Reynolds Records. The album was followed up with a 7inch single penned by Harris and featuring the female Grammy nominated singer, Lady Bianca (Sly & The Family Stone). The single charted briefly in the UK and is considered a classic to this day. Harris’ second album “Statements” was recorded and self-released in his hometown of Riverside, CA in 1975 (with his eight-piece ensemble The Masterminds). Now considered a classic…back then the album received little notice beyond the small jazz community of the Inland Empire. Harris’ brother Huey, who had experience producing records in Los Angeles, offered to help Quinn with his next recording. What resulted was another great 7’’ single of two originals, “Protect Me From Myself” b/w “I’ll Always Love You”. Getting frustrated with the music industry, Harris decided to pursue his education. First obtaining his teaching credentials and then his master’s degree. Harris spent the remainder of his working career teaching music to High School students, eventually retiring in 2005. Although Harris never received the proper recognition he deserved during his recording career, his music has since found a proper audience with rare soul, jazz and funk collectors all over the world. Today we are extremely excited to announce the FIRST official reissue of Quinn Harris’ funky soul-jazz classic “Statements”. The album features songs made popular by Al Green, Roberta Flack and Minnie Riperton, as well as two originals penned by Harris himself. Fetching hundreds of dollars for an original copy, now this private-pressed record is finally getting a much-deserved reissue! Available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) complete with the original 1975 artwork.

File Under: Funk, Soul
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Haruomi Hosono: Medicine Compilation from the Quiet Lodge (Great Tracks) LP
“Medicine Compilation from the Quiet Lodge” features ultimate ambient music that invites listeners to another world, including masterpieces such as “Honey Moon”, which has a duo vocal with Akiko Yano, and was originally recorded on the album “Tropical Dandy” and the funky “Aiwoiwaiaou” with lively singing voices. The album was originally released in 1993 and is now issued on vinyl in Japan for the first time.

File Under: Japan, Ambient
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Japandroids: Massey Fucking Hall (Arts & Crafts) LP
Coloured wax! Vancouver duo Japandroids release their first-ever live album, reverently titled Massey Fucking Hall after the historic Toronto venue where it was recorded. The 12 tracks include live versions of songs from all three of the band’s critically acclaimed studio albums. Massey Hall is a celebrated Toronto venue that originally opened in 1894. With a capacity of nearly 3,000, the theater has hosted historic performances from fellow Canadian artists Oscar Peterson and The Tragically Hip. Landmark live albums by Neil Young and Rush were also recorded on its stage. “We never thought we’d have the opportunity to play at Massey Hall,” drummer David Prowse explained. “It’s the most legendary venue in Canada by far, but it didn’t seem like a natural spot for a band like us to play. It’s a 100+ year old seated theatre, which isn’t the usual type of spot you expect to see Japandroids. Honestly, when we got off the stage that night, I remember feeling a sense of relief and exhilaration, but the whole thing felt like a bit of a blur. It was a very emotional show for me. We were both pretty nervous getting up on that stage.” A band known for their kinetic live shows and rigorous international touring schedule, Japandroids hope releasing their first-ever live album during this global pandemic can be a healing balm for their fans. “I really, really miss live shows,” Prowse admits. “I miss playing them and I miss being in the crowd. When you love music, there are few things more uplifting and cathartic than being in a room full of people at a live show. To not have that opportunity to experience live music together with a group of people has been hard to adjust to. It’s disorienting and it makes me sad to think about it. I hope that maybe in some small way people who are feeling similarly can find some solace in this record. They can hear the crowd and listen to us having the time of our lives at a historic venue and maybe that makes life a little easier for a minute, and reminds them that those moments will happen again down the road.”

File Under: Indie Rock
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Maggot Brain #3 Magazine
“We’re back with ink on paper and stoked to bring you a Super-Packed special issue of our arts and music quarterly Maggot Brain! For our cover story, we dive into the genesis and continued import of our namesake, with a lengthy feature by Detroit music journo Ana Gavrilovska on the mind-melting fifty-year-old Funkadelic masterpiece Maggot Brain. We also have rare photos of the White Stripes live at Paychecks Lounge in Hamtramck Michigan from 1999 by noted photographer Doug Coombe. There’s a mini-roundtable discussion on gay rights pioneer Morris Knight and San Francisco’s brilliant hippie queer activist pranksters the Cockettes and the must-see pages with Rachel Leah Gallo’s eight-page bio-comic on the delightful and obscure kitchen-folk singer Connie Converse. Includes: Jessica Beard’s vital, personal yet succinct piece on accountability and community in the music scene; RJ Smith dives deep on Fortune Records in a review of the Mind Over Matter book; Murat Cem Mengüç documents the impromptu art show that sprung up around the White House at the start of the Black Lives Matter movement; Andy Beta on Brazilian composer, anthropologist, and musician Priscilla Ermel’s gorgeous work; Instagram sensation Tara Booth in an intimate interview with Amy Gillfeather; Joshua James Amberson goes deep on poet Lydia Tomkiw and her stunning new wave band Algebra Suicide; Michael Gonzales on 1990s neo-soul singer Ephraim Lewis; Robert Gordon on Memphis’ primitivist aesthete Tav Falco — an excerpt from the final chapter to It Came From Memphis.”

File Under: Reading
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Meridian Brothers: Cumbia Siglo XXI (Bongo Joe) LP
After the very acoustic “¿Dónde estás María?”, I decided to try a new experiment taking as a reference the legendary group “Cumbia siglo XX” which is a group who explores a futuristic vision of coastal cumbia in the 80s, together with other groups such as “Grupo folclórico”, “2000 voltios” and others, mainly under the label Machuca and Felito records. This new 80s cumbia was a combination of funky basses and a further evolution of the rhythms, blending this style with disco and even rock music and superimposing the traditional versus the urban context and the modernity. Meridian Brothers took this as a departing point and inspiration, making the same experiment but in XXI century, using the modern media of this time; all kinds of drum machines, guitars and synths, algorithmic software etc, and also taking into account the global exposition of modern cumbia in the 2010s. So all kinds of influences and genres are blended around this cumbia axis. Urban beats, synthy grooves, glitches and all kinds of swear words (and its censoship &$*/&##), and all kinds of slang languaje are included in the songs of the album. All these elements are filtered and passed through the traditional train of thought of Meridian Brothers, which is the figuration of an abstract picture of sound put it within a concrete context or cultural tendency.

File Under: Latin America
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Rza: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai OST (36 Chambers) LP
Available on red, or white vinyl! “Ghost Dog – Original Motion Picture Score, produced by The RZA, is now available on official Vinyl and CD editions! This masterpiece was previously only given a limited Japanese release, and is the first film score produced by The RZA and features appearances by Wu Tang Clan.”

File Under: OST, Hip Hop
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Seatbelts: Cowboy Bebop OST (Milan) LP
Black vinyl. The legendary original soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop is finally available on vinyl! The Bebop crew is just trying to make a buck. This motley lot of intergalactic loners teams up to track down fugitives and turn them in for cold hard cash. Spike is a hero whose cool façade hides a dark and deadly past. The pilot Jet is a bruiser of a brute who can’t wait to collect the next bounty. Faye Valentine is a femme fatale prone to breaking hearts and separating fools from their money. Along for the ride are the brilliant, but weird, hacker Ed and a super-genius Welsh Corgi named Ein. On their own, any one of them is likely to get lost in the sprawl of space, but together, they’re the most entertaining gang of bounty hunters in the year 2071. Composed and performed by Yoko Kanno and the band SEATBELTS, the music of Cowboy Bebop is one of the signature elements of the series. The energetic jazz-infused pieces rip and roar across the stars and are as indispensable as the crew of the Bebop themselves.

File Under: OST
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Tim Story: Threads (Dais) LP
Orange vinyl version! The saga of composer Tim Story’s 1982 debut is a case study in the shifting sands of the early progressive music industry. Recorded on a Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel in his basement bedroom in Whitehouse, Ohio using a ragtag array of equipment – salvaged vibraphone, pawn shop Les Paul, his mother’s spinet piano, a PAiA synth kit assembled by his girlfriend’s father, and a Yamaha CS-30 – Story optimistically dubbed six cassettes and sent them around the world. Following a polite rejection from Klaus Schulze, the French avant-garde label Atem (This Heat, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd) reached out with an offer to release Threads via their new instrumental electronic subdivision, Labyrinthes. After several letters confirming terms of the arrangement as well as multiple rounds of test pressings, correspondence suddenly ceased. Some months later the label folded, never having begun. Synchronistically, however, Schulze’s copy ended up in the glovebox of an engineer associate, who happened to play it for a couple visiting journalists with contacts at a newish Norwegian imprint, Uniton Records (Popul Vuh, Harold Budd). Impressed, they connected Story to the label head, but by then he’d already recorded a follow-up, the more neoclassical-leaning In Another Country, which became his inaugural release. Finally, 40 years later, Dais Records is rectifying history’s error by properly issuing Threads on vinyl for the first time. It’s a beautiful, beguiling work, exploratory but emotive documenting, as Story puts it, “the path not taken… like the first chapter of a book that was set aside to begin another.” Despite only being in his early twenties at the time of its creation, Threads feels finessed and considered, weaving through a diverse spectrum of moods and minimalist melodies. From sunburst synthesizer devotionals (“Tethered By A Thread”) to shadowy cosmic drift (“Without Waves,” “Iso”) to fragile piano vignettes (“Burst,” “Scene And Artifact”), Story’s compositional instincts skew subtle and sophisticated, carving gemstones of fluctuating radiance. He cites his discovery of tape loops as a central tool in the process, allowing him to generate recurring patterns of echoes and texture, decaying in volume and fidelity as desired: “A whole new and inspiring world opened up.” As both time capsule and discographical fountainhead, Threads vividly captures the threshold sensation of early 1980’s electronic music: post-kosmische, pre-new age, before ambient became codified, just as synthesizers began slipstreaming into the underground. It’s an album of beginnings and forking paths, inner space voyaging towards limitless horizons, born of “youthful dedication to something one loves, in a world that feels uncertain.”

File Under: Ambient, New Age
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M. Ward: Think of Spring (Anti) LP
Orange vinyl version! M. Ward’s new album Think of Spring is a collection of songs originally recorded by Billie Holiday – a muse to Ward and many others. Ward achieved the intimate sound of this record by filtering the original songs and strings through a single acoustic guitar, using various alternate tunings and a minimal amount of textures and studio manipulation. Most of the songs were recorded on an analog Tascam four track. The title Think of Spring comes from a poem written in 1924 by Jane Brown-Thompson that eventually became “I Get Along Without You Very Well” in 1938 – the first song on the record. “I first heard [Billie’s album] Lady In Satin in a mega-shopping mall somewhere in San Francisco,” M. Ward explained. “I was about 20 years old and didn’t know much about Billie’s records or her life or how her voice changed over the years. Anyway, the sound was coming from the other side of the mall and I remember mistaking her voice for a beautiful perfectly distorted electric guitar – some other-world thing floating there on this strange mournful ocean of strings and I was hooked for life.”

File Under: Indie Rock
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Various: Oto No Wa (Music for Dreams) LP
Clear vinyl! For the fifth entry in our Collector`s Series we enlist the skills of Japan-based musical connoisseurs, Ken Hidaka, Max Essa, and Dr. Rob. Their compilation Oto No Wa sets out to map the evolution of chilled Japanese sounds across 3 decades, collecting 14 tracks, produced by a wide range of artists. From ambient pioneers to dance-floor veterans, to a 9-piece reggae band, Little Tempo, percussionist Kazuya Kotani, and organic, psychedelic collective, Olololop. Beginning in the late 1980s, the era when “environmental music” became prevalent, there`s Yoshio Ojima`s cool computer-generated Sealed. The compilation also includes later work by his contemporaries Takashi Kokubo, and Yoshiaki Ochi. Theirs are compositions designed for art galleries and museum installations. “BGM” built from emerging technology, and / or counterpoint tapped out expertly on sticks and stones. The 90s give us the seminal electronics of Susumu Yokota, and the solar-flare strut of Scha Dara Parr – Japan’s answer to The Beastie Boys. Here, remixed by the legendary Major Force. Moving into the 21st century we have the post-house productions of Flower Records. Kentaro Takizawa`s oceanic Gradual Life, and Little Big Bee`s colourful coral reef-diving Scuba. Fellow traveller, Kaoru Inoue`s “Kyushu kosmische”. Representing the next decade are Flower Records’ current rising stars, Coastlines, who calmly combine classic fusion, library music, and gentle nova bossa nova rhythms. Alongside them are the sun-baked electro-acoustics of Karel Arbus & Eiji Takamatsu, plus Chillax` previously unreleased epic analog / modular jam. All of these selections are the result of some serious “digging” but more importantly they represent physical connections made during Ken’s 20-plus-year career in the “Biz”, Max` decade of DJing all over Japan. Music made by folks interviewed by Rob at the websites, Test Pressing and Ban Ban Ton Ton. Friendships forged at Lone Star – the trio’s long-running party, which takes place every month at Bar Bonobo in Harajuku.

File Under: Japan, Ambient
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…..Restocks…. 

A Tribe Called Quest: Midnight Marauders (Jive) LP
Bully: Sugaregg (Sub Pop) LP
Bully: Losing (Sub Pop) LP
Don Cherry: Brown Rice (A&M) LP
Coil: Sara Dale’s Sensual Massage (Infinite Fog) LP
Miles Davis: Nefertiti (Music on Vinyl) LP
Miles Davis: On the Corner (Music on Vinyl) LP
Nick Drake: Pink Moon (Universal) LP
Eric’s Trip: Love Tara (Sub Pop) LP
Fake Names: s/t (Epitaph) LP
Ella Fitzgerald: Sings the Cole Porter Songbooks (Verve) LP
G.I.S.M.: Detestation (Relapse) LP
Buddy Guy: Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues (Music on Vinyl) LP
Herbie Hancock: Empyrean Isles (Blue Note) LP
Herbie Hancock: Headhunters (Music on Vinyl) LP
Lauryn Hill: Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Legacy) LP
Khruangbin: Mordechai (Dead Oceans) LP
Clifford Jordan Quartet: Glass Bead Games (Pure Pleasure) LP
Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp A Butterfly (Aftermath) LP
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio: Live at KEXP! (Colemine) LP
Minor Threat: s/t (Dischord) LP
Minor Threat: Out of Step (Dischord) LP
Thelonious Monk: Genius of Modern Music Vol 2 (Blue Note) LP
Nirvana: Nevermind (Geffen) LP
Kelly Lee Owens: Inner Song (Smalltown Supersound) LP
Paul Simon: Graceland (Legacy) LP
Nina Simone: And Piano! (Music on Vinyl) LP
Jimmy Smith: Prayer Meetin’ (Tone Poet) (Blue Note) LP
McCoy Tyner: Tender Moments (Tone Poet) (Blue Note) LP
Blue Gene Tyranny: Out of the Blue (Unseen Worlds) LP
Kanye West: College Dropout (Def Jam) LP
Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Def Jam) LP
Various: Even A Tree Can Shed Tears (Light in the Attic) LP

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