OOOOOFFFF… this might just be the biggest news letter ever. There’s a hell of a lot of great new stuff in this week. I can’t even see the counter in front of me, so I’ll leave you to this massive update.
Also! Like the Other Music Documentary, we are again teaming up with Oscilloscope Labs for the distribution/viewing of the new documentary TRUTH TO POWER, about System of a Down’s frontman Serj Tankian. Click the link to rent the film and we’ll get a cut of the proceeds. Rent it HERE
As always, big thanks to everyone who’s been hitting up our webstore and placing orders! It’s getting competitive around 6 pm 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!
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…..picks of the week…..
Andy Stott: Never The Right Time (Modern Love) LP
It’s been a decade since Andy Stott released Passed Me By (2011), a radical re-imagining of dance music as an expression of “physical and spiritual exhaustion” (Pitchfork). What followed was a process of rapid remodeling: We Stay Together (2011) — slow and fucked, for the club, Luxury Problems (2012) — greyscale romance, Faith In Strangers (2014) — destroyed love songs, Too Many Voices (2016) — 4th world Triton shimmers, and It Should Be Us (2019) — the club, collapsed, a run of releases that gradually untangled complex ideas into a singular, chaotic body of work somewhere between sound-art, techno and pop. In early 2020 – with a new album almost done and an offer to produce for a completely mainstream artist on the table — personal upheaval brought everything to a sudden standstill. Months of withdrawal eventually triggered renewed curiosity, a different approach. Stott began to record hours of raw material; slow horns, sibilance, delayed drums, wondering flutes — whatever, whenever. And although software made it possible to iron out every kink and knot, Stott tirelessly looked for them — in pursuit of a sound that was human in all its awkward asymmetry. With vocals recorded by Alison Skidmore, the album was finally completed late in the year — taking on a completely different shape. Its songs were desolate, melancholy, defiant, beautiful — often all at once. The sounds echoed music around Stott during those months: Prince, Gavin Bryars, A.R. Kane, Bohren & der Club of Gore, Robert Turman, Cindy Lee, Leila, Catherine Christer Hennix, Junior Boys, László Hortobágyi, Nídia, Prefab Sprout — the unusual, the familiar. And echoing that mix of new and old, each of the songs on Never The Right Time seem woven from the same thread despite following different trajectories; from the lovelorn shimmer of opener “Away Not gone”, to the clattering linndrum pop of “The Beginning”, through “Answers” angular club haze, and the city-at-night end-credits “Hard To Tell”. These are songs fueled by nostalgia and soul searching, but all hold true to a vision of music making as a form of renewal and reinvention. A ten-year cycle, complete. Mastered by Rashad Becker.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, Techno
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Screamers: Demo (Superior Viaduct) LP
“These songs were recorded a few months after the Los Angeles punk scene began. These five statements of intent transcend Punk and project forward into the future: to the analog synth wave of the late ’70s and beyond, to the present day, four decades later, when they finally receive an official release. Sourced from the original reel-to-reels, they are a revelation compared to the countless copies that have been circulating by multiple generations of tape-traders. Here, for the first time, is the Screamers’ initial and legendary manifesto. “The Screamers concept was simple, yet audacious: take the spirit and the look of Punk—the pseudo-psychotic aggression, the spiky hair, vacant stares and barely concealed sadomasochism—and match it to a different configuration than the typical ’60s rock template. As launched, the Screamers featured two keyboard players (Tommy Gear and David Brown), a drummer (KK Barrett) and an intensely charismatic singer (Tomata du Plenty). The idea was to be confrontational—to evoke (as Tomata described in an early interview) a state of anxiety. “Forty years later, this release builds on the groundswell of interest in the Screamers that has been occurring in the early 21st century. There are web sites with detailed histories of the group and several bootlegs of demos and live material from 1977-79. The video of ‘122 Hours of Fear’—perhaps their peak moment, recorded at Target Video in August 1978—has now passed over 650,000 views online. This is the Screamers’ time, and the time is now.” —Jon Savage (excerpt from the liner notes)
File Under: Punk
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…..new arrivals…..
Alessandro Alessandroni/Francesco De Masi: Lesbo (Vinyl Magic) LP
“Lesbo” is a 1969 erotic film directed by Edoardo Mulargia, his only experiment in this genre within a filmography mostly focused on Western films and sentimental/romantic comedies. Calling “Lesbo” an underground film is practically an understatement, as no official home video releases of this movie seem to exist; its soundtrack instead has luckily survived to the present day and, given the caliber of its two composers, it could only be a terrific work. The friendship between Francesco De Masi and Alessandro Alessandroni is even more dated than the artistic partnership that was later born between the most famous spaghetti western whistle and Morricone, and “Lesbo” is ‘only’ one of the various collaborations between these two composers. Introduced as usual by a sensual theme sung by a seducing female voice, this warm and Mediterranean-flavoured soundtrack has numerous variations with a romantic/symphonic, lounge, even jazz taste, with some typicall ‘Morriconian’ moments of tension too. An extremely varied work, therefore, of which in 1969 – the year the film was released in theaters – only eight tracks were published on the single side of an LP containing, in addition to the soundtrack of “Lesbo”, also that of “L’amore questo sconosciuto” on side B. Recently reissued with the addition of numerous bonus tracks, it is here in its full version – 24 tracks! – on vinyl for the first time ever.
File Under: OST, Library
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Alostmen: Kologo (Strut) LP
Strut present the brand new album from Alostmen, led by Stevo Atambire, a band at the forefront of kologo music in Ghana. Formed by Stevo and Wanlov The Kubolor (Fok’n Bois) at the suggestion of co-producer Percy Yip Tong, Alostmen’s music is based around the Frafra traditions of the kologo, a stringed lute and uses purely traditional instrumentation in entirely new ways. “I always like to do something “out” with my instrument, I like to force it to work,” explains Stevo. “I’m a yout’man and into different kinds of music: commercial, rap music, reggae, Malian sounds. I add all of it to the band’s sound in different ways.” Wanlov continues, “The kologo is traditionally played a certain way but Stevo will play it at the shortest end of bridge and accentuate, almost Hendrix-style! He plays with a pedal sometimes and can keep it an octave down with a bass sound. He has evolved the instrument in his own way.” “I had been touring with Stevo in my band Afro Gypsy in 2017,” Wanlov adds, “and we began recording the tracks for this album on the road during one of our last tours to Uganda and the upper North West region of Ghana. I had a mobile studio unit and recorded him in his hotel rooms, in closets, wherever we could find that sounded good.” The band comprises Jo Ajusiwine, a brilliant goje (two-string fiddle) player and singer, talking drummer Aminu Amadu who has played in Ambolley’s highlife band and Sowah who plays heavy Ga rhythms on the gome box, djembe and conga. Stevo and Wanlov also invited selected guests to join the album sessions. Ambolley himself features on the driving “Minus Me” while one of Stevo’s childhood friends and a national star, Yaa Pono, appears on the yearning “Fauziah.” “We just chose the right tracks for different guests and it all fit naturally,” notes Stevo. “Medikal was a really nice guy with good vibes, now also a major artist, Villy is a great Nigerian singer based in Ghana and Eli Muzik has an unusual operatic vocal style. We play with him a lot. We didn’t just use ‘names’, just people that were great at their craft.” The band call themselves Alostmen “because we were lost in the street, the forgotten people,” explains Stevo. “My people listen closely to my lyrics so I never just sing anything. People at home see music as a teaching so I always try to send a good message. I talk of this region, how they used to live and what they experience today. I try to bring development, peace and unity to the community, to give them hope to achieve.” Wanlov continues: “The language of the music is Frafra, a Guruna language. The Frafra people are semi-nomadic, they deal with herds of cattle, they practice goje, kologo and a type of flute. The kologo players are similar to griots. Having already played dates across West Africa and Europe, Alostmen continue their journey with their superb debut album, Kologo. The album was mixed by DrumTalk and mastered at The Carvery. Cover artwork is courtesy of Lewis Heriz.
File Under: Funk, Afrobeat
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Michael Beach: Dream Violence (Goner) LP
Coloured vinyl! Dream Violence, Michael Beach’s fourth full-length, is an epic album that explores the duality of the human condition. Or, as Beach himself puts it, the album is about “human futility, passion, desire, anger, frustration, and the struggle to maintain hope in a somewhat hopeless time.” Dream Violence, then, addresses the existential crisis of being an artist in 2020 (and 2021). Known for his work touring with the Australian guitar pop band Thigh Master and the late, brilliantly eccentric Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira, currently the focus of a number of reissues by the Numero Group, Beach is the architect of a sound that is both well-built and ramshackle, straightforward and indeterminably complex, out of the norm yet familiar in all the best ways. This album unfolds like a revelation, filled with sonic tumbleweeds that reference Neil Young’s On The Beach, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, the Velvet Underground’s Loaded, and the Go Betweens’ Before Hollywood. Influences ranging from the enigmatic outlier Megira to Glenn Branca to the Oblivians are combined to create a new, exhilarating sound, part of the path that Beach has been on since 2008’s Blood Courses. A veteran of year-end indie rock round-ups beginning with Golden Theft in 2013 and continuing with Gravity/Repulsion, released in 2017, Beach distills the best of those early albums and adds sharpened intent.
File Under: Garage, Experimental
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Bi Nostalgia: Exemplum Rhythmicus (cHoon!!) LP
Exemplum Rhythmicus is Bi Nostalgia’s minimal wonder from 1990 (originally released under the artist’s name Luca Rigato on the Veronese cassette label Diagrapho). Long coveted and hunted by collectors, it falls among the strange and definition resistant artefacts of Italy’s remarkable avant-garde music scene of the 1980s. An emblem of sonic diversity rendered through electronic sound, distilling a daunting number of traditions and ideas, while sculpting its own world of creative singularity, standing apart from the rest. While a great many of Italy’s avant-garde and experimental music practitioners began within the spectrums of popular music, slowly pushing into more explicitly ambitious and challenging realms as the years wore on, Bi Nostalgia represented a change in the directional tide. Exemplum Rhythmicus was part of a movement towards the incorporation of popular forms within avant-garde music which swept across the globe during the 1980’s. As challenging and complex as it is seductive and inviting, Exemplum Rhythmicus weaves a world without boundary, of collision and harmony. A vision of possible futures rendered in its present day. A melodic realm almost entirely constructed through the use of synthesizer, with subtle interventions of electronic rhythm, piano and bells. Exemplum bridges the metronomic territories explored by American minimalists and the highly cultivated harmonics of Balinese percussion, with the adventurous spirit of the avant-garde. Available for the first time on vinyl and produced in cooperation with Luca Rigato for chOOn!!, a label specialising in obscure, archival and forgotten releases. Remastered for vinyl and digital by Josh Bonati with artwork by Luke Bird and liner notes by the artist.
File Under: Ambient, Minimalism
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Black Angels: Live at Levitation (Reverberation) LP
The Reverberation Appreciation Society is proud to announce the 2nd entry of the Live at Levitation series with festival founders — The Black Angels. The series captures key moments in psychedelic rock history, and live music in Austin, Texas. The artists and sets showcased on Live at Levitation have been chosen from over a decade of recordings at the world-renowned event, and document key artists in the scene performing for a crowd of their peers and fans who gather at LEVITATION annually from all over the world. Levitation (formerly known as Austin Psych Fest) began as a simple idea in a Black Angels tour van in 2007 – let’s invite all our favorite bands and all our friends, for our version of a music festival. The first Austin Psych Fest was held in March 2008, and expanded to a 3 day event the following year. From there the festival quickly developed into an international destination for psychedelic rock fans, with lineups spanning the fringes of indie rock, from up-and-comers to vintage legends, and capped off with headlining performances from The Black Angels each year. The Black Angels and LEVITATION helped spark a movement, inspiring the creation of similar events across the globe and a burgeoning psych scene that would soon ignite.
File Under: Psych
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Black Keys: Delta Kream (Nonesuch) LP
The Black Keys follow-up 2019’s Let’s Rock with their tenth studio album, Delta Kream. The record celebrates the band’s roots, featuring eleven Mississippi hill country blues standards that they have loved since they were teenagers, before they were a band, including songs by R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others. The duo recorded Delta Kream at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville; they were joined by musicians Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton, long-time members of the bands of blues legends including R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The album takes its name from William Eggleston’s iconic Mississippi photograph that is on its cover. The full circle Delta Kream release is a fitting tribute to these architects of hill country blues and further recognition of their enduring contributions to American music. Dan Auerbach says of the album, “We made this record to honor the Mississippi hill country blues tradition that influenced us starting out. These songs are still as important to us today as they were the first day Pat and I started playing together and picked up our instruments. It was a very inspiring session with Pat and me along with Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton in a circle, playing these songs. It felt so natural.” Patrick Carney concurs, “The session was planned only days in advance and nothing was rehearsed. We recorded the entire album in about ten hours, over two afternoons, at the end of the ‘Let’s Rock’ tour.” Auerbach on Delta Kream’s first single “Crawling Kingsnake”: “I first heard [John Lee] Hooker’s version in high school. My uncle Tim would have given me that record. But our version is definitely Junior Kimbrough’s take on it. It’s almost a disco riff!” Carney adds, “We fell into this drum intro; it’s kind of accidental. The ultimate goal was to highlight the interplay between the guitars. My role with Eric was to create a deeper groove.” The music from Northern Mississippi, which came to life in juke joints, has long left an imprint on the band’s music, from their cover of R.L. Burnide’s “Busted” and Junior Kimbrough’s “Do The Romp” on their debut album, The Big Come Up; to their subsequent signing to Fat Possum Records, home to many of their musical heroes; and to their EP of Junior Kimbrough covers, Chulahoma.
File Under: Rock, Blues
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Blod: Missvaxt (Grapefruit) LP
“Blod is the solo project of Gustaf Dicksson (Enhet För Fri Musik, Oroskällan), a prolific and crucial figure in the Swedish Underground scene radiating out of Gothenburg and centered around a number of independent labels and including bands such as Enhet För Fri Musik, Monokultur, Oroskällan, Loopsel, and Neutral. Blod has released various home-recorded cassettes and a handful of albums since 2014, all mercurial in nature, exploring various facets of Dicksson’s preoccupations. The melodies borrow from tradition and possess a lonesome quality inspired by Swedish melancholy, close relations, and white trash culture. Combined with intentionally banal artwork, the experience can be beguiling and sometimes bleak but at the same time warm and humorous. Missväxt is Dicksson’s greatest work yet, exploring the myth of ancient Swedish being and misery but with a sound that is uniquely ecstatic. Inspired by medieval folk music, it’s reminiscent of Fairport Convention’s marriage of traditional folk music and psychedelic rock. Missväxt features guest appearances by Elin Engström (Loopsel, Monokultur) on drums, Astrid Øster Mortensen on vocals and flute, Joakim Karlsson (Facit) on production and synth, and Magnus Jäverling on flute.”
File Under: Lo Fi, Experimental
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Phoebe Bridgers: Copycat Killer (Dead Oceans) LP
Copycat Killer is a colored 12″ featuring four exclusive new versions of songs from Phoebe Bridgers’ wildly acclaimed Punisher album. Collaborating with arranger Rob Moose (Sufjan Stevens, The National, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, Jay-Z), these are brand new orchestral arrangements of the songs “Kyoto,” “Savior Complex,” “Chinese Satellite” and “Punisher,” all given a luscious revamp that is sure to delight any fans of Phoebe’s album and serve as a perfect gateway for new listeners into what makes her one of the most special artists of 2020 and beyond.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Stu Cisco: Amanita (Glossy Mistakes) LP
Originally released in 1980, ‘Amanita’ is an early approach of Canadian artist Sherine Cisco, formerly known as Stu Cisco, to the limitless world of synthesizers in music, through ambient, progressive rock and drone noise. A unique combination of ambient, progressive rock and even drone noises and space-age that converged in ‘Amanita’, her first full album and a piece of music history. This LP marks a milestone in the investigation, experimentation and evolution of musical instruments, where the Mini Moog demonstrated its versatility and creative potential, opening Sherine to a path of limitless possibilities. By the time ‘Amanita’ was first released in 1980 (only 300 copies were pressed at the time), Sherine had been playing synths for seven years. But far from acknowledging how traditional instruments were played, she tried to do things her own way, creating moving landscapes and a unique language of sound. This DIY approach to music was, as well how the album was made, in her own studio, with synthesizers that were originally meant for live performances such as the Elka Rhapsody or the Elektro Harmonix, channeled through a Dokorder 4 Tape Recorder. However, what Sherine Cisco was living in her personal life, a gender transition, was as important to the record as the instruments she used to create it. “Beginning in the early 1980s, I began experimenting with taking the female hormone, estrogen. I felt like I was gradually being re-born. It affected my music, the mood of the music, and me, physically and mentally”.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, CanCon
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Clan Caiman: Asoma (EM) LP
Clan Caiman returns to EM Records for their second album, continuing the instinctive evolution of their music: a wordless, timeless, gently pulsing and sweetly melodic soundworld, based on composer Emilio Haro’s vision of a band playing the music of an imaginary undiscovered ethnic group. Woven together by Haro’s self-made kalimbafon, a tuned percussion instrument, these five Argentinian musicians also use threads of lap steel, guitars, bass and percussion to knit their beyond-genre textures, seemingly ageless despite being recorded in December 2019. “Asoma” is perfect music for imaginary voyages during travel-restricted times.
File Under: Exotica, Ambient
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Duster: Contemporary Movement (Numero) LP
A muffled cry into the technological darkness, 2000’s Contemporary Movement slid into the world right as the MP3 was seeping out of college dorms. A 39-minute drift into the void, drenched in Cold War-era reverb and then submerged in four track hiss for good measure. Duster constructed a Brutalist masterpiece on the outskirts of a suburban mall, as if to say, “We were here.” “Music for dark spaces and closed eyelids, deeply psychedelic but without sprawl, ambient music with a serrated edge of punk.” – The Ringer “Warm, fuzzed-out sounds that hit home like a tight, melancholic embrace from your favorite person.” – Vice
File Under: Indie Rock, Spacerock
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John Dwyer, Ted Byrnes, Brad Caulkins, Tom Dolas & Greg Coates: Endless Garbage (Castle Face) LP
“Walk the dog. Exercise. Make art.’The mind is happy when the body is.’ Things I can potentially fill my days with if I am stuck at home for months on end…Then, one day, I hear a frenetic, free drummer playing in his garage a few blocks from me. And I think ‘interesting’. I stand outside his garage staring at the wall, like a fool, for a minute, then decide to leave a note on the car parked there. This is how I ended up meeting and working with Ted Byrnes. He wasn’t creeped out, and he ended up sending me a pile of truly spontaneous drums recordings from the carport to work with. I decided to have every musician come in one at at time and just take a wild pass at their track over the drums. None of these people had ever met or played together. I was the connecting thread. I scratched the surface initially with electric bass, saxophone, guitars, cuica, synthesizers, flute and effects, but soon realized I would need heavy hitters to make this place habitable. “Greg Coates, upright bass expressionist extraordinaire, hacked through the dense weeds, vines and frayed cabling. He lays the map out and makes breathing room. Space to swing a cat. Tom Dolas (keys), my often foil, came in and began tip-toeing through the rubble and refuse. Dotting the layout with flecks of light, flights of fancy and potential tangential trajectories. Then the finisher, Brad Caulkins on horns. As always, Brad came in like grace itself, scanned the floor for food, and huffed and puffed and blew the house down. He takes a bruiser situation and lends it some warmth and hospitality, old school. “After I spent a bit of time mixing and editing this down to a palatable offering I couldn’t help but think about human consumption. …Endless Garbage seemed a fitting title. A cacophonous and glorious sketch of ourselves. For fans of Albert Ayler, ECM records, Gong, improvisation, sustainability and consumption” —John Dwyer
File Under: Psych, Jazz, Experimental
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Earthless: Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 1 (Giant Rock) LP
Live in the Mojave Desert is a livestream concert film series created in the California wilderness. Inspired by Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii it includes live on location performances from Earthless, Nebula, Spirit Mother, Mountain Tamer, and Stoner (a new band by Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri). To capture it all Giant Rock brought in a crack squad of filmmakers, photographers and audio engineers, and now they bring it to music fans around the world. Recorded in 24 track ProTools and shot in full HD, these films/recordings will turn your living room into psychedelic rock n’ roll happening. Grab a couch, turn it up, and hang on man! “Having the opportunity to set up out in the desert and play how we do was one of the best experiences ever actually,” says Earthless drummer Mario Rubalcaba. “Adding to it the Mad Alchemy liquid lights and the surroundings made for a very satisfying day/night of jamming. Thankful for the label preserving the night by filming and recording this. I hope people can enjoy the release as much as we did doing it.” “In October 2020 we filmed and recorded five bands in four days, deep in the deep sand and iconic rocks of the desert,” shares Live in the Mojave Desert producer Ryan Jones. “It was a major undertaking to bring this many people and this much gear out to a very remote desert location. Including the bands, we had 25 people onsite daily. With only one road in, everyone and all the gear had to come up a half mile long hill of deep sand – 30 miles from nowhere. We had to hire local desert guys with huge 4×4 pickups to help. The Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show projected on a four-story high, double pyramid of boulders and we had a crack squad of filmmakers, photographers and recording engineers there to capture it all. It was insane, but it was worth it to see our favorite bands play again!”
File Under: Psych, Stoner Rock
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Gil Evans Orchestra: Out of the Cool (Acoustic Sounds) (Verve) LP
If one album evokes the style, the ethos, and the vibe of Creed Taylor’s Impulse! label it is The Gil Evans Orchestra’s 1961 masterpiece Out of the Cool. The 48 year old pianist, arranger and bandleader had done much to establish his reputation working with Miles Davis on his Birth of the Cool sessions in the late 1940s and this album’s title is a nice nod to its antecedent. When Miles went to record for Columbia he called upon Evans for arrangements for his Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), and Sketches of Spain (1960) albums, the latter LP released four months before Out of the cool was recorded. It features Evans on piano with drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Ron Carter as the rhythm section plus a fabulous horn section, with Ray Beckinstein, Budd Johnson, and Eddie Caine on saxophones; trombonists Jimmy Knepper, Keg Johnson, and Tony Studd; Johnny Coles and Phil Sunkel on trumpet; Bill Barber on tuba; and Bob Tricarico on flute, bassoon, and piccolo. This album was a move towards greater freedom in Evans’ compositions and arrangements, but at the same time there are echoes of his recent work with Miles. It includes two great Evans compositions in “La Nevada” and “Sunken Treasure.” There’s also the lovely standard, “Where Flamingos Fly,” George Russell’s “Stratusphunk” and Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s, “Bilbao Song.” This all-analog 180g vinyl LP 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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Exeh: Biased Advice (Castle Face) LP
“A weird trip of a band…the second this was playing I was immediately hooked. I initially dove in because their name was attached to Mikey Young for mastering (I have a rule with Mikey…if he had his hands on it, it’s probably worth a listen). This band exceeds in all my trials. “Esoteric nature, but oddly poppy and ready to prick up any ears out there. Deconstructed, but full of hooks. If I were a lazy man, and I am, I would say its for fans of PiL, but they transcend that pigeon-hole. “Wonderful production lends its self to this unique LP. It seems as if the room expands and contracts throughout songs. Pulling away, then blocking your field of vision entirely. Wasteland funk. Dub from the depths. Punk from the pit. “Even the instrumentation is worth mentioning: saxophone, drums (and cut-up drums), guitar, synthesizer, vocals (poetry) and general fuckery all combine to make this a very interesting and worthwhile escape from the average. And thank the Gods for that right now. Inspired and desired by the active mind. A job well done by EXEK, and there’s new stuff brewing too… “For fans of BEAK>, Phantom Band, PIL and general Jah Wobbleness, Magazine, short-wave radio, ESG and underground Kraut”. —John Dwyer
File Under: Post Punk
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The Fall: Live at St. Helens Technical College (Castle Face) LP+7″
“I’ve had the pleasure of being a [The] Fall fan since I was a teen. I was lucky enough to have some guidance from my local record shop stoner-lords. They turned me on to many of my heroes, but once I heard my first slanted and barky Fall song, I was part of the army for life. The word prolific gets tossed around a lot. It almost seems like a slag-off in the press, as if they wish the artist would produce less so they wouldn’t have to do their self-imposed job of judging releases for the rabble. The Fall is subjected to this lazy word often. Yet I can honestly say that I am so thankful for any nugget of Fall that lands at my feet and in my brain. Live Fall performances are always a pleasure because they seem to take what already made the Fall great and push it even a bit more into the rough and bloody uncharted wasteland that is drug scorched proto-punk and heady political poetry. So, it is with great pleasure that we introduce this Fall bootleg soundboard recording to you. Recorded during one of the many strong points in the bands vast and mighty history. They really burn bright here and bring every ounce of what you expect from this formidable force. We have reached out to every surviving member of the band, the sound person, the bootlegger who recorded it and the photographer and received their blessings and help piecing it all together. Castle Face will be donating 50% of our profits to Centrepoint, which helps the homeless in the Manchester area get back on their feet, so the local and deserving Fall fans get a little, and give a little back, too. Nothing but the hits here folks and as raw as you dig it. This one really is exceptional in terms of live sound for The Fall. All the stars were aligned over St. Helens that eve. And it wouldn’t be complete with a bit of Fall fan saltiness so, fuck you too, Jason.” –John Dwyer
File Under: Punk
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Fiver: With the Atlantic School of Spontanious Composition (You’ve Changed) LP
Simone Schmidt is a versatile and thorough craftsman — a distinct vocalist, guitarist, and wordsmith; a rigorous researcher, producer, and designer; a friend to many and enemy to some. Over the past 13 years and 7 full length records, Schmidt has largely rejected the logic of the music industry, employing many aliases in the course of creating a robust discography that engages various strains of North American folk and Country music, from Old Time to Psychedelic Country . In a totally unpredictable follow up to the historical fiction of Fiver’s Audible Songs From Rockwood (2017), Fiver with The Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition wrangles the impulses of a new generation of improvisational musicians (best known for their work with Beverly Glenn-Copeland) toward an unexpected reimagining of Country music and its possibilities.
File Under: Indie Rock, CanCon
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Mark Fry: Dreaming With Alice (Now Again) LP
“The definitive reissue of one of rock’s rarest and most sought-after albums — ‘acid-folk’ — equal parts pastoral folk and contemplative psychedelic. The fi¬rst time since 1971 that this album has been run from the original master tapes, recently discovered in Italy. Mark Fry was 19 — recently graduated from high school and in Italy studying painting — when he walked barefooted into RCA’s Italian subsidiary, played some songs he’d written on his guitar and was signed to record the album that would become legend. The first recordings he made proved stuff, so he was paired with members of the Scottish band Middle of the Road, who were in Rome while under contract to RCA Italiana. Convening in a basement home studio with two 4-track reel-to-reel recorders, Mark’s visions coalesced in a dreamy, airy manner — ‘Nick Drake meets Dr. Strangely Strange with a touch of Lewis Carroll’ The Word Magazine would later write. Pressed in small amounts for Vincenzo Micocci’s RCA sub-label It, Alice remained an out of reach masterpiece for many but its creator, who returned to England in 1971 and subsequently traveled the world, playing music, sometimes recording and painting. By the time of its rediscovery, its master tapes were assumed lost. The pristine source material reveals nuances not heard on anything but original It pressings and pairs Alice with previously-unreleased recordings from the mid-70s.”
File Under: Acid Folk
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Hoodoo Fushimi: Kenka Oyaji (180g) LP
1987, Kanagawa, not so far from Tokyo, Japan. Minoru Fushimi teaches his high-school classes during the day. Back from work, he transforms into “Hoodoo” Fushimi, turns on the drum machines, the synthesizers and the sequencers, blends them with his own shamisen playing and builds a cult album: Kenka Oyaji is born and becomes a milestone in Japan’s early hip hop and electro-funk history, now reissued for the first time since its original release, in collaboration with Hoodoo Fushimi himself. Essential!
File Under: Japan, Hip Hop
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The Gordons: s/t + Future Shock (1972) LP
The Gordons crashed upon the do-it-yourself scene of early 1980s Christchurch with torrential force, self-releasing two foundational planks of the vibrant New Zealand underground. Future Shock, a three-song 7-inch released in 1980, is a wild-eyed rampage, as staggering as any feedback-addled punk then being recorded at Southern Studios. The Gordons LP, which followed in 1981, matches the abandon with motorik churn and livewire dissonance, evoking New Zealand antecedents as divergent as This Kind Of Punishment and the Dead C. Brought together on this release, they’re a noise-rock landmark anticipating fans such as Sonic Youth. Flying Nun Records, the storied Christchurch label and symbol of the island nation’s rich independent music scene, re-released The Gordons and Future Shock together in 1988 following the formation of Gordons outgrowth Bailter Space, which frontman Alister Parker founded with Clean drummer Hamish Kilgour. Bailter Space, which would also come to include founding Gordons members Brent McLachlan and John Halvorsen, settled on a droning shoegaze sound, drawing comparisons to Dinosaur Jr. and the Pixies. The Gordons and Future Shock, however, represent the trio’s unreformed id, as startling today as upon release.
File Under: Indie Rock, Noise Rock, Flying Nun
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Guided By Voices: Earth Man Blues (GBV Inc) LP
Is it really a musical?! The 33rd Guided By Voices album, Earth Man Blues, is a magical cinematic rock album, full of dramatic and surreal twists and turns. Lyrics and liner notes trace the growth of young Harold Admore Harold through a coming of age and a reckoning with darkness. Vivid scenes appear: snapshots of youth, fantastical nightmares, unknown worlds. The music hasn’t softened a bit. One will hear the impossibly perfect melodies and word play that you expect from Robert Pollard, with the band playing at peak-heavy. “Trust Them Now” rocks like an instant classic, “The Batman Sees The Ball” is lean, mean rock muscle. Opener “Made Man” tears and slashes at the ears and heart. Sweeping, colossal tracks like “Lights Out (In Memphis, Egypt)” and “Dirty Kid School” stretch far beyond the ordinary vocabulary of rock. Doug Gillard’s brilliant guitar playing explodes out of the speakers. The rhythm section of Kevin March and Mark Shue, always strong and reliable, has grown into a breathing composite organism. Along with Bobby Bare, Jr on rhythm guitar, they drive the songs and make one’s head shake. Producer Travis Harrison ties the talents of the band together, once again recorded remotely and individually, pandemic-style. This group brings to life the sounds in Pollard’s technicolor imagination.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Hainbach: Landfill Totems (SA Recordings) LP
Hainbach’s latest album distills many elements of his work into an immaculate project; an irrepressible childlike fascination and obsession for experimenting, a mischievous sense of humor and a completely unique and charismatic approach to electronic production and composition. The release started as an installation and a one-off performance in Berlin, before expanding exponentially into a full album and an accompanying sound library which will also be available via SA Recordings. Hainbach erected three huge sculptures from obsolete, once high-end research equipment, taken from nuclear research labs, particle accelerators and grandfather’s sheds. These forgotten relics of scientific progression and milestones of human evolution were repurposed by the artist and given a new lease of life in a completely unforeseen capacity as musical instruments dubbed the ‘Landfill Totems’. The juxtaposition of religious, totemic imagery and electronic landfill is, in part, meant to act as a commentary on the environmental cost of progress; what was once the pinnacle of technology quickly becomes unviable and destined for the scrapheap except for the intervention of Hainbach, upcycling and redesigning them as pillars and shrines to the idea that progress doesn’t always have to cause destruction. As the human brain searches for faces and patterns in everything, the repurposed totems began to take on a humanoid form, with faces appearing from rusty knobs and broken switches. Each figure has its own connection to a musical abstract, based on its function and look. When observing the absurd anthropomorphic figures, a deep appreciation and affection for the engineering technology of the past is apparent; totally unique instruments too good to let just fade away quietly assembled for one final swan song.
File Under: Electronic
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P.J. Harvey: Uh Huh Her (Island) LP
In an attempt to “get back to the earthy, rootsy, more dirty side of things,” following the more polished production of 2000’s love letter to NYC, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, PJ Harvey created 2004’s Uh Huh Her which does just that and marks a return to the raw, stripped-down sound she forged on her first two albums Dry (1992) and Rid Of Me (1993). Producing and playing everything on the LP herself (save drums and percussion which were provided by longtime collaborator Rob Ellis), Uh Huh Her is a vital 13-song set of scouring, urgent rock tunes that earned Harvey Grammy Award and Brit Award nominations once again. Features the singles “The Letter,” “You Came Through” and “Shame.” This 2021 vinyl LP reissue is faithful to the original recording and package, with cutting by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of longtime PJ Harvey producer Head.
File Under: Rock
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P.J. Harvey: Uh Huh Her (Demos) (Island) LP
In an attempt to “get back to the earthy, rootsy, more dirty side of things,” following the more polished production of 2000’s love letter to NYC, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, PJ Harvey created 2004’s Uh Huh Her which does just that and marks a return to the raw, stripped-down sound she forged on her first two albums Dry (1992) and Rid Of Me (1993). Producing and playing everything on the LP herself (save drums and percussion which were provided by longtime collaborator Rob Ellis), Uh Huh Her is a vital 13-song set of scouring, urgent rock tunes that earned Harvey Grammy Award and Brit Award nominations once again. Accompanying a 2021 reissue of the original album is this collection of the artist’s previously unreleased demos for the record including demos of the singles “The Letter” and “Shame.” Mastering by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering, under the guidance of longtime PJ Harvey producer Head. Features brand new artwork with previously unseen photos by Maria Mochnacz. The artwork was overseen by Maria with Rob Crane.
File Under: Rock
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Jesu: Infinity (Avalanche) LP
Justin K Broadrick initiated the Jesu project in 2003 which has gone on to be as critically acclaimed and beloved as his previous project Godflesh. Jesu is credited as being at the forefront if not the very beginning of the post-metal movement and the hybrid of metal and shoegaze. Infinity was originally issued in 2009 as an exclusive online store only release. It’s a sprawling, all consuming one song collection made up of two distinct parts; the first act being metallic and in places more ferocious than most Jesu releases, the second act more somber and reflective. One huge 43 minute song, uniquely all encompassing.
File Under: Metal, Drone
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Damien Jurado: The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania (Maraqopa) LP
The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania is Damien Jurado’s first release on his own label, Maraqopa Records. The album contains ten intense stories of people determined not to be broken by dire circumstances. The self-produced album is sonically among Damien Jurado’s most exposed, homespun ambiance and inspired by the dry sound of records like Lou Reed’s The Bells and Paul McCartney’s Ram. Jurado creates his own Twilight Zone, “a middle ground between light and shadow”, a dimension of imagination, of half-remembered dreams and people reaching out to cross into that liminal space between heartbreak and wholeness. Jurado knows the territory well and knows the secret words to whisper at the right time. “All is not lost/Even if you’re without a direction.” “Just stick around till the light pushes into the darkness,” Damien promises – or admits – Press your eye to the speaker, tune your ear to the horizon.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Masashi Kitamura + Phonogenix: Prologue for Post Modern Music (Ship to Shore) LP
Ship to Shore Phono Co. is proud to present the experimental Japanese ambient classic Prologue For Post-Modern Music for the first time on vinyl since its original release in 1984! Unavailable since its debut 37 years ago, Masashi Kitamura + Phonogenix’s LP can almost be seen as the natural progression from the experimental recordings put out by Brian Eno in the 1970s to the releases The Orb and The Future Sound Of London were famous for in the 90s. Prologue For Post Modern-Music is a mixture of ambient and electronic sounds that is both beautifully classical Japanese and New Age. An album to get lost in.
File Under: Japan, Electronic, Ambient
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Graham Lambkin: Solos (Blank Forms) BOX
The years between Graham Lambkin’s tenure with the legendary Shadow Ring and his more recent improvisational duos mark a distinct period of creative production within the artist’s insular career. Living with his family in Poughkeepsie, NY, from 2001 through 2011 Lambkin recorded and self-released four solo albums that valorized mundane domestic situations while reveling in the liminal spaces between the acts of listening, recording, and producing. Created through an ingenious economy of means, these solo records are as beguilingly seductive as they are uncanny. Perpetually laughing in his own duplicitous face, Lambkin breathed new life into musique concrète and sound poetry, giving outmoded forms a contemporary consciousness while setting the gold standard for a continuously unfolding canon of 21st century tape music. Poem (For Voice & Tape) (2001), Salmon Run (2007), Softly Softly Copy Copy (2009), and Amateur Doubles (2011) are now remastered and finally back in print, with Salmon Run and Softly Softly Copy Copy available on vinyl for the first time. This deluxe boxed set of Graham Lambkin’s first four solo records includes an expansive 42-page book featuring unseen photos and reproductions of artworks as well as essays and anecdotal recollections providing fresh insight and divulging hermetic secrets by Ed Atkins, Mark Harwood, Matt Krefting, Lawrence Kumpf, Samara Lubelski, and Adrian Rew. Graham Lambkin (b. 1973, Dover, England) is a multidisciplinary artist who first came to prominence in the early ’90s through the formation of his experimental music group The Shadow Ring. As a sound organizer rather than music maker, Lambkin looks at an everyday object and sees an ocean of possibility, continually transforming quotidian atmospheres and the mundane into expressive sound art using tape manipulation techniques, chance operations, and the thick ambience of domestic field recordings. His Kye imprint, founded in 2001, was an instrumental platform for the dissemination of and dialogue between work by an intergenerational cast of artists using sound, including Henning Christiansen, Anton Heyboer, Moniek Darge, and Gabi Losoncy. He began showing his visual art in 2014 with Came To Call Mine, an exhibition curated by Lawrence Kumpf and Justin Luke at Audio Visual Arts in conjunction with the publication of Lambkin’s children’s book (for adults) of the same name, and has since exhibited his work at 356 Mission, Künstlerhaus, PiK, and Blank Forms.
File Under: Experimental
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Byard Lancaster: My Pure Joy (Strut) LP
“From A Love Supreme to The Sex Machine!” The personal musical mantra of the late Philadelphia reedman Byard Lancaster informed an open-minded and varied lifetime in jazz. Strut presents one of Lancaster’s lesser known classics, ‘My Pure Joy’, recorded in 1992 for Black Fire.
File Under: Jazz
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Dua Lipa: Future Nostalgia: Moonlight Edition (Warner) LP
Global pop superstar Dua Lipa followed-up her Platinum-certified, Grammy Award-winning 2017 debut with her Grammy-nominated, Gold-certified and counting second album, Future Nostalgia in 2020. Announcing a new era for the fast-rising English artist, it was introduced by “Don’t Start Now,” an adrenaline fueled, feel good dancefloor anthem of positivity and self-empowerment, and the title track “Future Nostalgia,” a pure slice of 80s influenced brilliance. “What I wanted to do with this album was to break out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to make music that felt like it could sit alongside some of my favorite classic pop songs, whilst still feeling fresh and uniquely mine,” Lipa explains. “I was inspired by so many artists on the new record from Gwen Stefani to Madonna to Moloko to Blondie and Outkast. Because of the time that I’d spent on the road touring with my band I wanted Future Nostalgia to have a lot more of a live element, but mixed together with modern electronic production. My sound has naturally matured a bit as I’ve grown up but I wanted to keep the same pop sensibility as I had on the first record. I wanted to make something that felt nostalgic but had something fresh and futuristic about it too.” “The ascendant singer’s star-making second album is a collection of sophisticated, hard-bodied pop-funk that gives way to slick, Kylie Minogue-inspired disco.” – Anna Gaca, Pitchfork Future Nostalgia: The Moonlight Edition features three more previously unheard tracks “If It Ain’t Me,” “That Kind of Women” and “Not My Problem” (feat. JID) plus the top 10 smash hit single from Miley Cyrus feat. Dua Lipa entitled “Prisoner.” Also on the album is “Fever” with Angèle and “Un Dia (One Day)” with J Balvin & Bad Bunny feat. Tainy. “We’re Good” is the incredible lead single from The Moonlight Edition which both creatively and sonically pushes boundaries of what people expect from Dua.
File Under: Pop
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Kohsuke Mine: First (BBE) LP
BBE Music present the latest in the acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series: Kohsuke Mine’s First, the debut album by one of the leading artists in the new wave of modern jazz that swept Japan in the late 60s and early 70s. First epitomizes the shifting sound of the Japanese modern jazz scene of the time, characterized by rich textures and tones, kinetic rhythms, punctuated by urgent, angular melody lines. Reissued for the first time since original 1970 release, Mine is joined by master keyboard player Masabumi Kikuchi on electric piano, and two American players – bassist Larry Ridley and drummer Lenny McBrowne – to deliver one of the strongest debuts in the J Jazz canon. First announced the arrival of a serious talent, one who was to be a hugely influential figure in the Japanese jazz scene across the decade that followed and beyond. First established an artist who built a reputation for standout albums spanning spiritual jazz, post-bop, modal and funk-fusion. All of that started here, on this exemplary album. The vinyl edition is presented as a double album, cut at 45rpm by the Grammy-nominated Carvery, with full original reproduction artwork, including obi strip. It also comes with a 4500 word sleeve note and interview with Kohsuke Mine by Tony Higgins, plus artist portraits by Shigeru Uchiyama. The J Jazz Masterclass Series is curated by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden for BBE Music.
File Under: Jazz
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Meat Puppets: Lollipop (Megaforce) LP
The highly influential Meat Puppets started as a punk rock band, but established their own unique style, blending punk with country and psychedelic rock. They later gained significant exposure when the Kirkwood brothers served as guest musicians on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance in 1993. 2011’s Lollipop, which celebrates its 10th anniversary here on colored vinyl LP, was recorded at Spoon’s HiFi Studio’s in Austin, TX and finds Cris and Curt flanked by drummer Shandon Sahm, son of Doug Sahm. Produced by Curt, the twelve original tracks further reinforced the band’s hypnotic power recognized by SPIN who wrote that, “the interplay of Curt’s drowsy vocals and freaky guitar can still induce vertiginous spells.”
File Under: Punk, Indie Rock
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Mighty Mighty Bosstones: When God Was Great (Hellcat) LP
Coloured vinyl! Since their formation in 1983, the BossToneS have been credited as one of the forefathers of ska punk and the creators of its subgenre, ska-core. With a career spanning over 30-years, Boston’s best dressed band has built and continued to build a devoted following with their unique brass-infused brand of punk rock. Here with their 11th studio album, “When God Was Great”, their first for Hellcat Records, produced by Tim Armstrong (of Rancid) and Ted Hutt (of Flogging Molly), and featuring guest artists from the many punk and ska bands that they have influenced. The Mighty Mighty BossToneS are vocalist Dicky Barrett, bassist Joe Gittleman, saxophonists Tim “Johnny Vegas” Burton and Leon Silva, Bosstone Ben Carr, drummer Joe Sirois, guitarists Nate Albert and Lawrence Katz, keyboardist John Goetchius, and trombonist Chris Rhodes.
File Under: Ska
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Mirry: s/t (Dutchess) LP
The discovery and musical re-imagining of Mirabel Lomer—an artist’s unheard world which is emerging from the shadows into the light. Mirry is one of those rare projects where the story seems so absolutely magical, that it’s almost impossible to imagine such beauty being lost in the shadows for so long. Thirty years ago, Edinburgh based musician Tom Fraser was helping with the house clearance after his grandfather’s death and found an old scratched Transco record left out on the street. He took it home where it sat on a shelf for years until one day during lockdown, he gave it a play—and a whole world opened up to him—his Great Aunt Mirry had recorded a number of piano compositions which she had kept secret from her family. Since then, Fraser has been re-working and re-mixing her compositions with his brother-in-law Simon Tong (The Verve, The Good The Bad And The Queen, and The Magnetic North) and together with project curator Kirsteen McNish they hope that this secret life will now reach beyond Mirry’s own four walls. Mirabel Lomer was born in 1906 to a military family and for the best part of her life stayed at home in Ireland looking after her elderly parents. In the early 1950s she became a paid companion to another elderly couple in Wiltshire, both of whom she nursed until they died. While most of her life was spent caring for others it also transpired that Mirry had written music (despite the fact that as a young woman, her father actively discouraged her playing music in the family home). In quiet rebellion and creative escape, she composed this piano music secretly and her nephew and confidant Geoffrey captured it on his tape recorder. Like untold numbers of women whose creative lives didn’t find an outlet, Mirry never received any accolades for her work but enjoyed the act of creating work for herself. She died in the 1980s but the story of Mirry’s music and secret life is still unfolding. The resulting album Mirry by Fraser and Tong is a celebration of Mirry’s work and a call and response to her original recordings with her family members—almost as if she were still in a room with them.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Nino Nardini & Roger Roger: Jungle Obsession (Farfalla) LP
Official reissue of the classic library album from 1971. Jungle Obsession is one of the true masterpieces of pop exotica. Nino Nardini & Roger Roger present here their own musical vision of The Jungle Book.
File Under: Library, Exotica
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Neutral: Gra Vag Gamlestaden (Grapefruit) LP
Neutral’s seminal album, Grå Våg Gamlestaden, is widely considered ground zero for the explosion of creativity that has transpired in the Swedish Underground ever since. It is the noisy experimental rock album that opened the door and welcomed in so many artists working behind the scenes. Gothenburgers Dan Johansson (Sewer Election) and Sofie Herner had previously made music together in the band Källarbarnen when they started discussing a new methodology and a fresh sound for recordings in 2013 under a new name as a duo. After witnessing Herner and Johansson’s live performance in an artist’s studio in the spring 2014, Gustaf Dicksson, who was running the Omlott record label at the time as well as performing under his own moniker, Blod, offered to release an album by Neutral on the spot. Herner recorded most of the instruments and voice, Johansson worked on manipulating the recordings, experimenting with reel-to-reel techniques. The title of the album translates as “Grey Wave Gamlestaden” and was chosen as an inside joke about the neighbourhood Gamlestaden where Johansson and Herner lived. A major theme on the recording is a certain kind of bleakness but with a wry smile closely identified with the spirit of the neighborhood. In the fall of 2014 Grå Våg Gamlestaden was released, limited to 200 copies, and sold out quickly without many copies making it outside of Sweden. Around the same time, Johansson and Herner joined forces with other underground artists in their widening circle to form a sort of Gothenburg supergroup making music together as Enhet för Fri Musik. Grapefruit’s reissue of Grå Våg Gamlestaden is the first time Neutral’s masterpiece has seen the light of day since it sold out quickly in 2014. This vinyl-only gatefold reissue is limited to 300 copies.
File Under: LoFi, Experimental
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Antonio L. Newton: Novaphonia (Tidal Waves) LP
Antonio L. Newton AKA Tony Newton (born 1948) is a multi-instrumentalist from Detroit, MI who began his professional career at the age of thirteen, playing bass guitar with blues legends like John Lee Hooker and T-Bone Walker. Discovered by Motown executive Hank Cosby while playing the Detroit blues circuit at the age of 18, he became the touring bassist with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on the famed 1965 European ‘Motown Review’ tour. Within two years, Newton became the Miracles’ musical director. Tony Newton also toured and recorded with other Motown artists such as The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5…and countless others. Earning the nickname “the Baby Funk Brother” he left his trademark of solid, hard-driving and deftly clever grooves on such timeless hits as “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Stop In The Name Of Love,” “Nowhere to Run,” “ABC,” “Never Can Say Goodbye,” “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” and many others. Next to his impressive body of work for Motown, Newton can be heard on several hit singles from labels like Invictus-Hotwax and Stax. Later, Newton gained recognition as a member of both the acclaimed jazz-rock fusion group: The New Tony Williams Lifetime (headed by Miles Davis’ drummer Tony Williams) and the British hard rock group: G-Force (with veteran guitarist Gary Moore). Tony Newton also recorded several solo albums during his impressive career, including the two total classics: ‘Mysticism & Romance’ (1978) and ‘Novaphonia’ (1987). On the album, we are presenting you today (Novaphonia from 1987) the listener is treated to something UNIQUE (and this is not an overstatement). Newton really puts the ‘multi’ into multi-instrumentalist, playing the synthesizers, the electric bass and the drum machine. Experimental is the keyword here, sounds vary from psych/trance (almost like a soundtrack from a space movie), to funk, fusion, rock, R&B, soul and jazz. Novaphonia has both elements of Tony Newton’s impressive musical past and his vision for the future. Spacious synths, unusual instruments and an all-around cosmic approach make this an ‘out of this world’ and VERY intriguing album. Resonant, sonically rich, sonorous, colorful, mind-expanding sounds are what one should expect from the 20th century Novaphonic sound developed to its greatest extent. These harmonies are innately pleasing to the human ear, mind and nervous system. Explore new musical frontiers intended to catapult the listener towards new dimensions…this is an album that just begs for a special place in your record collection! Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first-ever vinyl reissue of ‘Novaphonia’ since its release in 1987. This rare & private pressed album (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) complete with the original artwork.
File Under: Funk, Soul, Jazz
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OST: Evangelion Finally (Milan) LP
Evangelion Finally is a collection of vocal songs performed by Yoko Takahashi and Megumi Hayashibara as heard in the hit anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion and the 2009 film Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. Neon Genesis Evangelion originally ran from 1995 to 1996 and is credited with the big global spread of Japanese animation due to the popularity of the series.
File Under: OST, Anime
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Annette Peacock: The Perfect Release (Sundazed) LP
Released in 1979, this prophetic stew of spoken word, jazz, and funk from Annette Peacock was wildly ahead of its time and is still salient today. Her unflinching examinations of capitalism, sex, religion, et al. are underscored by lengthy, gorgeous grooves. Peacock wields her voice with wild abandon, at times delivering a melody like a Beat poet while other times wailing out of her throat like a saxophone, hitting blue notes as she pleases. Where most musicians riff, she creates sonic space. Perhaps too esoteric to garner commercial praise at the time, with this reissue we’re proud to encourage the discovery and praise that The Perfect Release deserves. Annette Peacock is one of jazz’s greatest voices. She is a musician, singer, songwriter, producer, composer, and arranger. Though her mother was a professional violinist, and she did a short stint at The Juilliard School, she is considered primarily to be a self-taught musician, composing and writing since early childhood. It is her ability to occupy both worlds of formalized practice and freedom of expression that is the crux of her identity as an artist. Her music contains a duality of deep self-awareness and projecting social criticism where meaning is obscured with austerity. A distinguishing part of her vision seems to be her intention to write music that is not bound by structures of power, which precisely how she manages to remain grounded in any style at all. Being ahead of one’s time is the curse of the prophetic voice, something Peacock should be considered to have. She and her music continue to evade clarity, but she should not be held in contempt for lacking universal or popular understanding, because sometimes it is better to be a follower than a pioneer. She and her work deserve their own power and subjectivity. What she does not deserve is to be buried under the accomplishments of the men who interpreted her work, or those she chose to work with. Colored vinyl LP cut and pressed at Third Man.
File Under: Jazz
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Annette Peacock: X-Dreams (Sundazed) LP
Arriving in 1978, X-Dreams is an infatuating and resolutely feminine free-form exploration of the politics and dynamics of sex. In the pursuit to reconcile the duality of attraction and repulsion and love and cruelty, the album oscillates between an assertive opening side and a sweeter side B. Assembling a crew of 22 musicians (including Mick Ronson on guitar and Bill Bruford on drums), Annette Peacock delivers impassioned vocal performances alongside an improvisational jazz-rock fusion masterpiece of musicianship, almost all of which was recorded in one take. Self-taught musician and composer Annette Peacock has described her early style as “free-form” songwriting. She came to prominence in New York City’s early 1960s jazz scene alongside players like Ornette Coleman, an association that puts her at the helm of what we now consider the free jazz movement. For all its complication, her approach suggests that music can and should be made by any one, in any way they want, with any one they want. She may talk-sing her lyrics through a melody like a Beat poet. She may wail out of her throat like a saxophone. She may invite another instrument to the podium to make its own statement. Or, she may rest a note out in the open, confidently enthroned on an apex of self-governance. Where most musicians riff, she creates sonic space. X-Dreams is Peacock’s second studio album and first for the Aura label. She serves as the album’s composer, producer, and performer. Most of the featured musicians had never played together and most of what you hear was recorded in one take. Her compositions are whimsical, sometimes to the point of feeling erratic. Her lyrics are often wry, but she seems to take great care that her distortions never hold contempt for the listener. Some critics have begrudged this musical waxing and waning over the years, misunderstanding the value of it as one of her great artistic strengths. Colored vinyl LP cut and pressed at Third Man.
File Under: Jazz
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Spike in Vain: Disease is Relative (Scat) LP
The cover art by the band’s Chris Marec tells nearly everything one needs to know about this album: a misshapen, CHUD-like figure wanders in a graveyard bearing a cross, while a mutated fish flops in a polluted ditch and a clutch of factories belch their smoke above it all. The message of the illustration is not to frighten or warn, but to celebrate and admire. Originally released in January of 1984, Disease Is Relative is an unapologetic and wholesale embrace of death, disease, and dystopia, with liberal doses of absurdism and an unrelenting devotion to anything unexpected, chromatic, or evil sounding. Sporting influences as diverse as no wave, death rock, funk, post-punk, hardcore, metal, and prog rock, this music somehow happened in the midst of a first wave hardcore scene, before there was a “post-” to be “post” of. Less surprising is that this happened in Cleveland, which also inspired a desire to recreate the feeling of the city’s post-industrial desolation in sound. There’s also some epic screaming and crazy guitar playing. The album features three songwriters (brothers Andrew & Chris Marec, Robert Griffin), who also divide guitar, bass, and vocals equally between themselves here. Drummer Bruce Allen is the secret weapon, and provides a clue to what a young Bill Bruford might have done in a band like this. And yet, beyond all odds, the end result is cohesive, cathartic, and utterly idiomatic. The distinct vibe of the album, and its sheer quantity of killer riffs, songs and performances have made it an album that people have championed over time, while others have come to know it through the interwebs as a result.
File Under: Punk
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Adam Stone/Dead Sea Apes/Black Tempest: Dataland (Feeding Tube) LP
Dataland is a collaboration with Black Tempest and Adam Stone, achieved mainly through internet data transfer during the Covid lockdown of 2020. Insistent, evolving electronic sounds encounter a variety of guitars and percussion, from the clockwork kosmische of “Lost Hours” to the stumbling noise dub of “Shop Soiled”, while Adam Stone’s words meditate on life in the post-industrial west, our increasingly atomized and data-driven society and its logical conclusion in a corporatized dystopia. Dataland is a meditation upon the average existence of a “developed-world” human in the early 21st century. Whilst not struggling with the harsh physical demands of industrial labor as we did in the recent past, our plight continues to embody the melancholia and confusion of alienation. Under the bewildering complexity of rationalized social and economic systems, we may indeed have become unwitting prisoners within, what the sociologist Max Weber termed, “the iron cage of bureaucracy” — tripping the minutes away in a daily pantomime of data-driven surrealism. This six-song collection is a fusion of electronica, monologue, “real drums”, and guitar, and was recorded at various locations in sad old England over the last two years or so. An almost psychedelic sense of puzzlement, nausea, and fatigue accompanies being lost in the omnipresent number-generating machines and anti-human modelling systems that now run our world. This is the realization that defines the essence of the album — that your life is now only as real as what is displayed on the screen of your constant technological companion.
File Under: Psych
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Streetlife: Nite Songs (Tidal Waves) LP
Streetlife was a short-lived soul-funk band from the Tampa Bay area and released just one album in 1980. The group was composed out of several dynamic musicians (ranging from street players to college professors) but at that time nobody knew (yet) that their Nite Songs LP would become such a much sought-after private pressed holy grail within the record collecting community! Streetlife was founded in 1979 by Sonny Pekerol and Phil Tolotta who were both members of the top-selling 1960s Washington DC Grammy Award-winning hit band ’The Winstons’. Their track Amen, Brother is the most widely sampled instrumental in the history of the electronic music & hip hop genres…it would become known as the Amen Break. When ‘The Wintstons’ story came to an end, Sonny Pekerol (founding member and originally playing the bass – then successfully evolving into the manager and promoter) and pianist/vocalist extraordinaire Phil Tolotta would continue their musical friendship/collaboration under the name ‘Streetlife’. Their high-energy sound got the attention of local crowds in no time…so the decision to record and cut a vinyl album came as a natural thing. Nite Songs (produced by Sonny & Phil, who also wrote the bulk of the songs) saw the light in 1980 and quickly gained attention and airplay (receiving radio & television coverage nation-wide). Described as the hottest band from the state of Florida, ‘Streetlife’ had the magnetism to captivate you, be it on concerts, nightclubs or on vinyl. Other members included: Octavia (responsible for the amazing lead & backing vocals on the album), Mark Halisky (on keyboards & the writer of two songs on Nite Songs), Ray Butler (on drums), Mike Milhoan (on trumpet), Bryan Mann (on the guitar) and Stephen Nathan (playing the trombone, flugelhorn & doing the arrangements). Charles Davis also played bass in the band for a while (he and bandmate-drummer Ray Butler were members of the ‘Washington Jamb Band’ back in 1977). Mike Flore (Sax) and Ramon Lopez (from the well-known ‘Stan Kenton Orchestra’) would also join them on the Nite Songs recordings. Collectively ‘Streetlife’ had more than 75 years of experience…and these extraordinary talents (with almost as many varying backgrounds) are meticulously coming together on the album we are presenting you today. The entire album is filled with sexy (yet strong) unique vocals that make the listener experience a lot of emotions, aggressive ‘slap & thumb’ bass lines & small yet groovy horn sections …one can clearly hear the influences of artists like Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, as well as several Motown, acts like Marvin Gaye softly slipping in. If you like your songs either slow, sexy and groovy or prefer them fast-paced and more experimental & cosmic…look no further, Nite Songs has it all. This is THE perfect combination of slick soul, blasting Hammond B-3 organ funk, smooth jazz and melancholic R&B piano works. This album just begs for a prominent space in record collections fans and crate diggers worldwide! Streetlife was a true example of a bright light burning out way too quickly. Thankfully we are left with the unique (and very rare) document that is their Nite Songs album. Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first-ever vinyl reissue of this fantastic private-pressed Florida soul/funk album (originally released in 1980 on D.C. Records). This rare record (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited vinyl edition (500 copies) complete with the original artwork. This reissue was supervised by founding members Phil Tolotta & Sadi Pekerol III (son of Sonny Pekerol) and comes with an insert that features exclusive promo shots and the original artist biographies.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Teenage Fanclub: Endless Arcade (Merge) LP
Coloured vinyl! Endless Arcade follows Teenage Fanclub’s 2016 album Here, a record that garnered universal acclaim, a mark of how much the group is treasured. The new album is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heartwarming and heartaching, guitars chime and distort, keyboard lines mesh and spiral, harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day. In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as Bandwagonesque and Grand Prix. This century, albums such as Shadows and Here have documented a more relaxed, less “teenage” Fanclub, reflecting the band’s stage in life and state of mind, alongside which Endless Arcade slots perfectly. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts of insecurity, anxiety, and loss.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Matt Valentine Preserves: Galactic Ooze (Feeding Tube) LP
“Originally issued as a CDR on Matt’s own Child of Microtones label, the stone madness of this session was so overwhelming we begged him to let us do it on vinyl. Luckily for one and all, he agreed. Recorded here and there, with a variety of different ensembles. Galactic Ooze is one of the most fully warped missives from Planet MV, and that is saying something. While there is a certain continuity between the layered threads of MV’s deeply processed vocals and amazing stunned-noodle guitar figurines, the music here is always in flux. There’s lots of electronic jiggering which brings to mind the squeedle elements of Blows Against the Empire (still the apex of the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra’s discography), but there’s none of the dogmatic claptrap that sometimes derails that album’s liberationist thrust. The music on Galactic Ooze is a sweet sideways slip into deep space. Amidst tightly forested jams, there are many beams of sound that act like sun rays, illuminating the process from within, with skeletal frameworks outlined in pure scorch. You can catch whiffs of everything from the roll of Soon Over Babaluma-era Can to the thunder-echo of Yabby You’s Beware It Dub at various points in the program, but the insanely sweet angularity of the guitar lines is trademark MV throughout, no matter how wildly the deck shifts at times. And for all their cosmic detailing, the songs are as abundantly human as always, addressing the eternal mysteries of life (whether lived in the woods of on the street). And asking the kinds of questions that require something more than a snappy answer. Galactic Ooze is a beautiful mutational meditation on where we exist inside our own personal cosmos. And its secrets unfold at their own pace, layer by layer by layer. As a great man once said, ‘walking on water wasn’t built in a day.’ You can that that to the bank.” –Byron Coley, 2021
File Under: Cosmic Blues, Psych
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Wolfgang Voigt: Ruckverzauberung Exhibition (Astral Industries) LP
Long-time Astral Industries associate Wolfgang Voigt returns to the London label with his next album, Rückverzaberung Exhibition. The Exhibition reimagines the concept with renewed purpose, opening the gates to deliver an arresting 60-minute journey into the underworld. Dense soundscapes mutate with alchemic fluidity, unravelling with vast symphonic counterpoints and synesthetic textures. Intoxicating in its Mephistolean dissonances and ambitious sonic structure, the sprawling Rückverzauberung itself becomes a nebulous organism shrouded in the seeping mist of the unknown.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Wode: Burn in Many Mirrors (20 Buck Spin) LP
LIMITED ELECTRIC BLUE / BLACK / ELECTRIC BLUE STRIPES W/ WHITE & SILVER SPLATTER VINYL!!! Returning with their third scathing blast of profane black death metal, England’s Wode now join with 20 Buck Spin to unleash Burn In Many Mirrors, their most potently wild and predatory work yet. With six new tracks spanning forty minutes of meticulously summoned infernal ferocity, Wode scorch the landscape and drape it in the foul reek of death’s fog. One may hear the ancient voice of obscure and revered gods reflected through the band’s sulphuric incantations, the raging fire of the most blasphemous legends of the past called upon by the spirit of chaos and death. Shrouded in sepulchral black metal atmosphere and freezing cold melodies Burn In Many Mirrors displays a studied regard for songcraft and motive well beyond mere convention, transforming into a concentrated dark chorus of ruin and abomination. Now into the second decade of existence in the material plane, Wode’s definitive melding of black metal’s ecstatic desecration, death metal’s sharply attuned sense of violent purpose and classic anthemic ’80s metal instills this album with the elements necessary to sear itself into the fervent heart of the faithful.
File Under: Metal
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Bobby Womack: The Poet (Abkco) LP
Bobby Womack’s classic 1980s albums The Poet and The Poet II have been remastered for reissue on heavyweight 180 gram vinyl LP in Spring 2021! The Poet was released in 1981 and reestablished Womack’s credentials as a master songwriter and performer. It reached No.1 on Billboard’s R&B album chart, fueled by the success of the single “If You Think You’re Lonely Now.” Other standout tracks from this hugely acclaimed set included “So Many Sides Of You,” “Just My Imagination,” “Secrets,” “Where Do We Go From Here,” and “Lay Your Lovin’ On Me.” “The Poet was split into two distinct musical moods,” writes Bill Dahl in the new liner notes for the reissue. “The first side of the album placed Bobby in uptempo settings and let the infectious grooves flow freely. Side two cast Bobby as the romantic balladeer, a seductive image that had long sent his legion of female fans into a frenzy.” The original tapes, long believed to be lost, have been recovered and are sourced for the remasters of The Poet. This 180g vinyl reissue makes the album available on the format for the first time in decades. The historic album is packaged with extensive liner notes by R&B scholar Bill Dahl.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Bobby Womack: The Poet II (Abkco) LP
Bobby Womack’s classic 1980s albums The Poet and The Poet II have been remastered for reissue on heavyweight 180 gram vinyl LP in Spring 2021! The massive success of 1981’s The Poet set the stage for the recording of The Poet II in 1983. As with its predecessor, The Poet II found both commercial and critical success on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the album’s highlights are three duets with Patti LaBelle, including “Love Has Finally Come At Last” which ultimately rose to No.3 on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles chart. Master guitarist and smooth soul star George Benson, who had recorded his breakthrough instrumental version of Womack’s “Breezin'” in the mid-1970s, also appears here. Other key tracks included “Tell Me Why” and “It Takes a Lot of Strength to Say Goodbye,” on a set co-produced by Womack, James Gadson, and former Rolling Stones co-manager and stylemaker Andrew Oldham. The original tapes, long believed to be lost, have been recovered and are sourced for the remasters of The Poet. This 180g vinyl reissue makes the album available on the format for the first time in decades. The historic album is packaged with extensive liner notes by R&B scholar Bill Dahl.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Woods: Reflections Vol. 1 (Bumble Bee Crown King) (Woodsist) LP
With no touring in 2020, and possibly this year, Woods decided to take a deep dive into their archives and put together the first volume of their much discussed archival series, Reflections. Featuring rare and unreleased recordings from 2009 – 2013, including a ghost town desert jam off the side of the highway, their first live performance in Big Sur, the first recorded version of “Bend Beyond” and some shelved diamonds in the rough that were finished up during quarantine. Their hope is that it plays like a “lost record” from an extremely strange and fruitful period in Woods history.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Zombi: Liquid Crystal (Relapse) LP
ZOMBI return with their new EP, Liquid Crystal! A 5 track EP, Liquid Crystal sees Steve Moore and A.E. Paterra continue to explore the very melodic sensibilities, synthscapes, and driving rhythmic section that propelled the band upon the release of their latest critically acclaimed full-length, 2020. Tracks such as “Black Forest” finds the band leaning on heavy grooves alongside soaring leads, while the opening “Mangler” oozes with ominous synths as crescendos build and build. Don’t miss out on one of the year’s most compelling companion pieces to the band’s already stellar full length!
File Under: Electronic, Metal
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Various: Dear Sunny (Big Crown) LP
Coloured vinyl! Big Crown Records is proud to present Dear Sunny… a compilation of Sunny & The Sunliners covers by Big Crown artists. Everyone here stepped up to fill very big shoes doing these covers. Bobby Oroza teamed up with Cold Diamond & Mink and made a smashing version of “Should I Take You Home.” The Shacks took on the anthemic “Smile Now, Cry Later” while Holy Hive covers “If I Could See You Now” building off the uptempo dance floor energy of the original. Paul & The Tall Trees bring a crooning vibe to “Rain Makes Me Blue” and Brainstory turned “Runaway” into a haunting ballad reminiscent of early Lee Hazelwood productions. Some of these turn out to be covers of covers. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band takes on the funk collector’s holy grail from Sunny, his cover of War’s “Get Down” while 79.5 take Sunny’s version of “My Dream” and change the vibe from a floating love song to theme music for the brokenhearted. Lee Fields does “The One Who’s Hurting Is You” and the latest addition to the Big Crown Roster, Lizette and Quevin, do a rendition of the song that brought Sunny to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in 1963 and catapulted him to fame; his cover of Little Willie John’s “Talk To Me”.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Various: Indaba Is (Brownswood) LP
Fabled as the city where dreams come to thrive or die, Johannesburg is forever pumping out the life-giving force of criss-crossing sonic tributaries. As this collection of specially-recorded new music shows, every generation must discover for itself what perfecting the alchemy of that expression entails. Indaba Is – produced and managed by pianist Thandi Ntuli and The Brother Moves On bandleader Siyabonga Mthembu, tackles that inquiry with refreshing insight. Overall, the pair also provided enabling briefs which harnessed the collective energy of scenes often seen as operating centrifugally to Johannesburg’s all-consuming pull, or a little further down in its tiers of visibility. There are several examples where this approach yields astounding results.
File Under: Jazz, Africa
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Various: La Belle Records: One Night Stands 2 (Digger’s Factory) LP
Almost 10 years already… Just a short moment away from its tenth anniversary, the cutting-edge Label La Belle Records unveils the second part of its One Night Stands collection. If the first part portrayed very warm, tropical tones, this second opus feels more like the end of a party or the morning after, with a selection of tracks at a crossroad between slo-mo, synth-pop, lo-fi, ethnic groove, and nu-disco like few others have done before. This is something you’ve never heard before! All thanks to the insatiable digging from the master curator and co-founder of the label, Antoine Harispuru aka Golden Bug. From Rome to Bruxelles via Paris and Vilnius, this second edition hits hard with names like Get A Room!, Rodion, Ellis Island (a world collaboration between the Italians Bawrut and Hot Spell), Rodion, Front de Cadeaux, Claap! and some other electronic gems. You can find it on vinyl, in very limited / numbered pink edition.
File Under: Funk, Soul, Dance
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Various: Rust Side Story Vol. 24 (Numero) LP
Coloured vinyl! The third installment of Numero’s ode to lowrider souldies, Rust Side Story compiles highly sought after sweet soul singles from the Buck Eye State. Prepare for a low and slow ride from Youngstown to Dayton, Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, all soundtracked with silky falsettos and dreamy harmonies.
File Under: Soul
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Various: Something Weird – The Best of Doris Wishman (Modern Harmonic) LP
Doris Wishman was one of the most prolific female filmmakers that most people have never heard of. The pint-size sleaze queen helmed a variety of oddball exploitation classics that featured unique gimmicks and unusual, sometimes shocking subject matter. The Best Of Doris Wishman features audio from theatrical trailers, original theme songs, as well as some jazzy incidental library music from legendary exploiteers in the Something Weird world that are cherished and adored for the body of work they created, plus a zine-style insert and a DVD filled with Doris’ outrageous oeuvre!
File Under: Exotica, Jazz, Library
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Various: Sound Storing Machines: The First 78rpm Records From Japan 1903 -1912 (Sublime Frequencies) LP
The first commercial recordings from Asia were made in Japan in 1903 by Fred Gaisberg, the legendary producer and recording engineer who traveled the world making recordings for the Gramophone Company (later His Masters Voice). The recording industry barely existed at this time. Man’s ability to record and reproduce sound had only existed since 1877 (with the invention of Edison’s cylinder phonograph) and flat disc records, what we all collect and obsess over today, had only come into being in the late 1890s. It is a miracle what these fragile discs have survived: wars with Russia and China, the fire bombings (and worse) of World War II, modernization, the onslaught of Western media.They document, through a dreamlike haze of surface noise, a Japan that had just barely begun to open its doors to the rest of the world. Including gagaku, shakuhachi, shamisen, storytelling, folksong and more. these recordings are a unique glimpse into an ancient culture and an important document of the beginnings of the recording industry. Simple and complex. Alien and familiar. Featuring important artists and those who only appeared to sing before the strange Western recording horn and then vanished. Sound Storing Machines spans only nine years of recording — from 1903 and the first commercial recordings made by Fred Gaisberg to 1912, the beginning of Japan’s homegrown record industry, including a few sides taken from Japan’s notorious bootleg 78rpm industry. Collected on various trips to Japan and compiled by sound artist Robert Millis (Indian Talking Machine, Victrola Favorites, Climax Golden Twins, Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan, This World is Unreal Like a Snake in a Rope, etc.) This is part three in a series (all produced by Millis) of early recording from Asia — including Sublime Frequencies’ The Crying Princess: 78rpm Records from Burma and Scattered Melodies: Korean Kayagum Sanjo.
File Under: Japan, Historical, Folk
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Various: South Side Story Vol. 23 (Numero) LP
For the lowriders, the souleros, and for any armchair drag racer who still has a record player within reach, South Side Story pays tribute to the aftermarket sounds of soul music, inspired by the record industry’s metric trunkload of cruising compilations, legitimate and otherwise, that soundtracked an entire subculture. This getaway ride mixtape strips aesthetics from the timeless East Side Story series, and poaches music from Chicago soul groups (mostly, of course, from the historically soulful South Side). Tracks never before issued ride shotgun with songs known only from minuscule 45 pressings, with a few chromed-up classics to boot. Roll with a jacked-up masterpiece.
File Under: Soul
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Various: Southwest Side Story Vol. 19 (Numero) LP
Coloured vinyl! There are hundreds of bootlegs out there to sate the ravenous soulero set, and so often they incorporate songs in the vast Numero catalog. Rather than beat them, Numero joins them with our answer to the iconic East Side Story series. Eschewing our classic look and standard-bearing copious notes for sardonic artwork and impeccable selections, Numbero is proud to present a ‘bootleg’ you can be proud of (because it’s all licensed). This time we’ve set our sights on the most unique of soul cultures: the irreplicable melting pot of San Antonio. Included here are all songs never before issued other than in minuscule pressings on 45, never distributed outside of Bexar County limits. The Southwest Side Story rolas are obscure everywhere in the United States while eliciting intense nostalgia on the South and West Sides of San Antonio to this day. This could be a greatest hits of DJs like Henry Pena, who began his rein in the ’60s and continues it today with many of these same selections. Including such local luminaries as the Royal Jesters, Sonny Ace, the Dreamliners, Al Castana, Dino Bazan & the Dell Tones, George Jay & the Rockin’ Ravens, the Eptones, the Volumes, and Henry Pena, who never fully disappeared from view in the Alamo City.
File Under: Soul
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…..Restocks….
William Basinski: Lamentations (Temporary Residence) LP
Bitchin’ Bajas: s/t (Drag City) LP
Black Angels: Directions to See A Ghost (Light in the Attic) LP
Bohren & Der Club of Gore: Sunset Mission (Pias) LP
Don Cherry: Mu 2nd Part (BYG) LP
Childish Gambino: Because the Internet (Glassnote) LP
Cure: Disintegration (Elektra) LP
Armancio D’Silva: Konkan Dance (Roundtable) LP
Miles Davis: Dark Magus (Music on Vinyl) LP
Dead Moon: Defiance (Mississippi) LP
Dinosaur Jr.: Sweep It Into Space (Jagjaguwar) LP
Grateful Dead: One From the Vault (Future Days) LP
Gruppo D’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza: Niente (Roundtable) LP
Iceage: Seek Shelter (Mexican Summer) LP
Inoyama Land: Commissions 1977 – 2000 (Empire of Signs) LP
Khruangbin: The Universe Smiles Upon You (Late Nite Tales) LP
Lifetones: For A Reason (Light in the Attic) LP
Madlib & Freddie Gibbs: Pinata 74 (Madlib Invazion) LP
MKWAJU Ensemble: KI Motion (WRWTFWW) LP
Molchat Doma: F Krysh Nafhikh Domov (Sacred Bones) LP
Molchat Doma: Monument (Sacred Bones) LP
Mong Tong: Mystery (Guruguru Brain) LP
Natural Information Society with Evan Parker: Descension (Out of Our Constriuctions) (Eremite) LP
Arthur Russell: Calling Out of Context (Audika) LP
The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World (Light in the Attic) LP
Wayne Shorter: Etcetera (Tone Poet) (Blue Note) LP
Smog: Wild Love (Drag City) LP
Smog: Julius Caesar (Drag City) LP
Midori Takada: Through the Looking Glass (WRWTFWW) LP
Various: La Ola Interior: Spanish Ambient & Acid Exoticism 1983 – 1990 (Bongo Joe) LP
Various: Wamono A to Z Vol. II (180g) LP