Heavy week for new arrivals and restocks! I’m swimming in at the moment, so I won’t keep you. Read on and hit up the site!
As previously mentioned, in line with current health restrictions we are operating as below..
– in-store shopping/pick ups – 11 – 6 pm Monday – Friday, 11 am – 4 pm Saturday
(if you don’t want to come into the store for a pick up, call and/or use the back door)
– Max 4people in the store at a time
– Wear a mask(if you don’t have one, we’ll have some)
– Sanitizeyour hands(we’ll have some)
…..picks of the week…..
Ignatz & De Stervende Honden: Saturday’s Den (Ultra Eczema) LP
On their third LP for Ultra Eczema, psychedelic blues gloomers Ignatz & De Stervende Honden have driven off the bendy sideroads and onto a straight, if not exactly narrow, path. And there’s new sounds coming out of the stereo: The Les Rallisez Dénudés-type guitar fuzz of previous journeys has been phased out in favour of softer, repetitive VU stumbling and even some Fleetwood Mac-esque romance. But it remains an unmistakenly Ignatz & De Stervende Honden record, with all the necessary ingredients for long car rides, living room break-ups, morning glory, sunsets and drunken rambles about length, size and whatever else matters.
File Under: Psych, Blues
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OST: A Field in England (Invada) LP
Invada Records announce the re-release of Jim Williams’ score to the Ben Wheatley’s ‘A Field in England’! This is the retail variant, pressed on 2 x frosted clear vinyl. Please note this picture is a mockup and colours may vary in real life. Ben Wheatley’s black-and-white chamber horror, set amidst the strange margins of the English Civil War, is a puzzling, inexplicable nightmare, made all the more disturbing by Williams’ sparse, brooding score of early music textures that gradually morph into electro-psychedelic overload, aided by Martin Pavey’s sound design and – in one terrifying sequence – the use of Blanck Mass’s Chernobyl. Previously released on Rook Films as a 400 copy ltd run, the prices on the black market have risen to over £250.00 per copy! Although this doesn’t come with the original poster as released with Rook Films, this new Invada release uses the same artwork and packaging as the Rook Films edition, but includes a digital download card.
File Under: OST
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Arthur Russell: Another Thought (Be With) LP
Gatefold sleeve with insert and original liner notes. Another Thought was the first collection of Arthur Russell’s music to be released after his death in 1992. Released on CD by Point Music in 1993 it marked the beginning of nearly 30 years of work to let the world hear the enormous archive of unreleased recordings Arthur left behind. Be With Records revisits this first compilation. This is the only place where you can hear some of Arthur’s most recognizable music, like the title track “Another Thought”, “A Little Lost”, “This Is How We Walk On The Moon”, “Keeping Up” and the woozy disco of “In The Light Of The Miracle” and “My Tiger, My Timing”. Though technically a compilation, the whole of Another Thought comes together as a consistent, coherent, wonderful album. Janette Beckman reproduced her iconic photograph of Arthur in his newspaper boat hat for the sleeve. Tom Lee gave permission to include his liner notes from the original CD booklet, together with Arthur’s lyrics. Another Thought is absolutely essential for even the most casual Arthur Russell collection. In fact, it’s essential for any fan of non-obvious pop music.
File Under: Pop, Experimental
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…..new arrivals…..
Bardo Pond: Amanita (Matador) LP
Coloured wax! Formed in 1991, the Philadelphia-based quintet have spent some thirty years mapping guitar music’s outer limits – dialing into extremes of noise, chaos, and harmony in free-form compositions that now unfurl across 12 full-length records and a near-limitless body of EPs, cassettes, and CD-Rs recorded by the lineup of John Gibbons (guitar), Michael Gibbons (guitar), Isobel Sollenberger (voice, flute), Clint Takeda (bass), and Joe Culver (drums), Amanita is the place where the band’s spontaneous collective creativity blazed into maturity. “Amanita was a manifesto of everything we were trying to do,” says Michael Gibbons. “It was really a template for everything we did later. We were a real unit – just so creative, just making up riffs. There were songs, but they were still rooted in our free-improv base. We had a beauty, but we also had a really strong impulse to be dissonant.” Even within the heady subcultural micro-verse of ’90s underground zoner-music, the Fishtown-basement-dwelling quintet’s vision of “psychedelia” was singular in its heaviness. “We weren’t interested in the cliched idea of what that term meant,” he adds. “We were very interested in the psychedelic experience as it being a bridge to rebirth. What’s the chemical your brain releases when you’re overwhelmed? Endorphins. That’s what we were trying to get to when we played these parts.” Matador Records celebrates the 25th anniversary of Bardo Pond’s long out-of-print second album and label debut, Amanita, with a newly remastered colored vinyl 2LP reissue.
File Under: Psych
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Bush: Razorblade Suitcase (Round Hill) LP
Ten bands re-issue their albums on pink colored vinyl, all for one cause. This is the eighth year for the initiative that has raised over $250,000 for Red Door Community, an organization that provides community support for both those diagnosed with cancer and their caretakers. 2021’s set includes releases by The Hold Steady, Grandaddy, The Allman Brothers, Bush, Plain White T’s, Less Than Jake, Primal Scream, Umphreys’ McGee, Minus The Bear and Tom Tom Club. Bush followed up the breakout success of their 1994 debut Sixteen Stone and its hit singles “Everything Zen,” “Little Things,” “Comedown” and “Glycerine” with Razorblade Suitcase in 1996. Produced by Steve Albini, notorious for his abrasive productions for Pixies, Nirvana, and PJ Harvey, the album entered the U.S. charts at No. 1 on the strength of the hit single “Swallowed” and eventually went double platinum. In celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary, it was remastered and pressed on double vinyl LP with four rare bonus tracks from the Razorblade Suitcase era (“Old,” “Sleeper,” “Broken TV” and “Bubbles”) plus new, re-interpreted cover art and design.
File Under: Rock
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Doug Carn: Adam’s Apple (Real Gone) LP
Doug Carn made four records for the Black Jazz label, more than any other artist, and each one topped the previous release’s lofty standard. Adam’s Apple was his last (1974) album for the label, representing the final note in his staggeringly creative crescendo. It was also the first record without Jean Carn, but Carn and crew (John Conner and Joyce Greene) don’t miss a beat on the vocals. And the band is absolutely sick, featuring reedman Ronnie Laws and fellow Black Jazz recording artist Calvin Keys on guitar, and led by Carn’s increasingly electronic forays on various keyboards. The result is a record that brings to mind Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, electric Miles, maybe even Earth, Wind, and Fire (Carn covers EW&F’s “Mighty Mighty”), but all overlaid with an uplifting gospel vibe. To quote Pat Thomas’ liner notes (which feature extensive quotes from Doug Carn himself), “Adam’s Apple is more energetic, funky, and futuristic than Carn’s earlier Black Jazz work. In short, sublime.” Newly remastered and available on CD, black vinyl, or orange with black streaks vinyl limited to 750 copies and exclusive to independent record stores.
File Under: Jazz
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Alex Chilton & Hi Rhythm Section: Boogie Shoes: Live on Beale Street (Omnivore) LP
Memphis is a city with music in its blood. When Fred Ford, co-founder of the Beale Street Music Festival, was diagnosed with cancer, David Less organized Fredstock, a fund raiser to help with his medical bills. Less contacted Memphis legend Alex Chilton (The Box Tops, Big Star), who was living in New Orleans, to ask him to participate. Alex said he didn’t have any musicians to play with in Memphis, so Less suggested the Hi Rhythm Section (the band behind classics from artists including Ann Peebles, Ike & Tina Turner, O. V. Wright, Otis Clay, and Al Green). Alex replied, “That will work.” This previously unissued live set contains versions of soul classics from The Supremes and Otis Clay, rock numbers from Chuck Berry and Little Richard, and even a cover of the KC & The Sunshine Band title track. Available here on vinyl LP, Boogie Shoes: Live On Beale Street was recorded at the New Daisy Theater in Memphis in 1999, during Fredstock. Packaging contains liner notes from producer David Less, a friend of Chilton, and author of the acclaimed Memphis Mayhem: A Story Of The Music That Shook Up The World, and features a cover from rock & roll and folk art painter, Lamar Sorrento. “I never saw him have so much fun on stage. Without rehearsal, Alex called songs and the band locked in. The horn section consists of top Memphis session guys who huddled together when each song was called creating parts on the fly. The pure joy of playing this music so freely with such legendary musicians comes across in every groove of the record.” – David Less, from his liner notes
File Under: Rock
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Amelia Cuni: Parampara Festival 13.3.1992 (Black Truffle) LP
Black Truffle release Parampara Festival 13.3.1992, a stunning performance by Amelia Cuni captured live in Berlin almost thirty years ago. Milanese by birth and resident in Berlin for many years, Cuni lived in India for over a decade, studying the classical vocal style of dhrupad under masters of the form. Though perhaps known to many listeners primarily through her performances of the vocal music of John Cage and collaborations with Werner Durand and Terry Riley, she is recognized internationally as one of the great contemporary proponents of traditional dhrupad singing. These recordings document her performance at the 1992 Parampara Festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a landmark event celebrating the global spread of Indian classical music, bringing together Indian teachers with their international students. Accompanied by Gianni Ricchizzi on vichitra vina (a plucked zither played with a glass ball slide) and her own tanpura, Cuni stretches out for a languorous side-long performance of the late night “Raag Bageshri”, the limpid tones of her vocal improvisations illuminating the droning strings like flashes of the moon revealed by rushing clouds. Initially working patiently through a series of subtle dialogues between Cuni’s melodic extemporizations and phrases in response from Richizzi’s vichitra vina, the performance builds to a series of strikingly beautiful, virtuosic held notes from Cuni at the beginning of its second half, before picking up some brisker rhythmic articulation on the way to its conclusion. On “Devino Amor”, Cuni presents her own composition, a setting of mystical texts by the 13th century Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi, elaborated through various traditional raags. Like the words used for most dhrupad compositions, the text Cuni has selected from da Todi praises divine love, thus linking her otherwise unorthodox use of Italian text to the dhrupad tradition. The result is a performance of a yearning intensity that communicates across any language barrier. On the final performance, Cuni and Ricchizzi are joined by Helmut Waibl on the two-headed pakhawaj drum for a piece using a 14-beat rhythmic pattern that sets in motion a cycle of tension and release, metrical dissolution and resolution, possessing a subtle grandeur. Illustrated with archival images of the performance and accompanied by new liner notes from Peter Pannke and Lars-Christian Koch, Parampara Festival 13.3.1992 invites listeners to lose themselves in Amelia Cuni’s unique approach to ancient tradition.
File Under: Middle Eastern
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Decemberists: Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars) LP
The Decemberists know that the psychology of a culture at war is complex; that historical archetypes can inform the masses on current events far better than the evening news; and, perhaps most importantly, that life is ultimately a spectacular and colorful pageant. They remind us that, on any given day, we might rub shoulders with rogue spies and runaway prostitutes, child monarchs and vengeful mariners, boy ghosts, couples contemplating suicide, cannibals and drowning angels. This existence is indeed a spectacle to be revered.In August of 2004, Rachel Blumberg, Jenny Conlee, Chris Funk, Colin Meloy, and Nate Query set up shop at a former Baptist church in Portland, Oregon. With co-producer Chris Walla at the controls, the five musicians collectively known as The Decemberists emerged three weeks later with the bulk of the work completed for Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars – March 22, 2005), their most ambitious and realized effort to date.Features: 5 extra songs and incredible packaging – double lp in a gatefold with a 20 page color booklet.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Aaron Dilloway & Lucrecia Dalt: Lucy & Aaron (Hanson) LP
“Lucy & Aaron is the debut collaboration LP from the duo of Lucrecia Dalt (RVNG Intl.) and Aaron Dilloway (Dais Records). Full length LP in full color cover with printed inner sleeve featuring art by artist Pieter Schoolwerth.” “I met Aaron in Madeira around 10 years ago, and I was blown away by his set, when I was going to tour the US for the first time, Forest, my US my booking agent asked me if I wanted to tour with someone from his roster and I suggested Mr Dilloway, the first show we played together was in Toronto, he started with a very groovy loop, some kind of soul extract that felt just right. With that, he levelled the dynamics and the atmosphere of the room, moving back and forth from the stage to the audience to double check if everything was sounding right. I have never seen such an elegant, disturbing and powerful show at the same time, it was a wild combination. We played a couple more shows together and on my journey throughout the states I was never in a place where his name didn’t pop up with a positive comment of admiration. We became extremely close and utopian. We started this record during a two week visit of mine in NYC, we crossed our signals, sometimes his affecting mine, or the other way around, we just wanted to make a fun, weird and inevitably emotive record that somehow captured so many things we love about music, to put oneself in character and go with the flow.” –Lucrecia Dalt “Lucrecia and I met briefly 10 years ago while performing at a festival together. We traded some releases and I was very excited by what I heard. Her records stuck out to me over the years as something very special. I was a fan. We met again recently while performing on a bill together in Toronto, and while watching her perform, I was mesmerized by her selections of sounds, as well as her movements and control of the mixing board. I felt like we worked similarly. We struck up a very close friendship and what followed was a year of intense discussions about art, music, performance and recording. Immediately we began working on music together and her expertise in mixing and her highly trained ears and overall drive were very inspirational. This album was recorded in 3 different locations, Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY where Lu was doing a residency, sessions at Lu’s home in Berlin, Germany and finally at my home in Oberlin, OH. It was one of the most inspirational periods of my life and helped me overcome some intense musical and psychological obstacles. I learned so much by making this record.” –Aaron Dilloway
File Under: Experimental
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Fucked Up: Year of the Horse (Tank Crimes) LP
The follow-up to 2018’s critically lauded Dose Your Dreams full-length, Fucked Up’s hugely ambitious Year Of The Horse is operatic in scope and artfully assembled offering up one track with a ninety-plus-minute runtime. The epic tone poem is spread across four sides that pass through the realms of metal, classical, ‘70s groove, and international hardcore punk to explore themes of motherhood, ecology, stewardship, and the deep myths of our civilization. Recorded over the past few years by Alex Gamble in Toronto, who worked with the band on Dose Your Dreams, and mastered by Dan Randall at Mammoth Sound, Year Of The Horse includes guest appearances by Matt Berninger (The National), Julien Baker, Maegan Brooks Mills (Chubby And The Gang), and Tuka Mohammed and is dedicated to Power Trip’s Riley Gale and Iron Age’s Wade Allison.
File Under: Punk
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Gnod: La Mort Du Sens (Rocket) LP
If one overarching feeling has dominated the last two years on this orbiting rock, it’s uncertainty. A sense of an old order in ruins, and nothing lined up to replace it. With societal strife, psychic warfare and sheer boredom assaulting us from all fronts in this still-fresh decade, co-ordinates have been hard to place forging a path forward. Therefore, who better to turn to as a soundtrack for this tumultuous new era than Gnod – longtime chroniclers of discord. “The Death Of Meaning” is the translated rendering of the new Gnod album’s title, and this also reflects its creation. As Paddy Shine of Gnod notes: “I think the title sums it up well because this album was coming together at a time when confusion was king for us all – still is. I think we can all relate to that. This record is a really strange beast because of the big change that happened between mixing and recording. I think the title really does sum up the vibe of ‘What the Fuck’? Maybe we should have called it that!” Wielding the taut, stripped-down and bludgeoning sound that had evolved on 2017’s ‘Just Say No The Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine’ and 2018’s Chapel Perilous, Gnod initially recorded the tracks for ‘La Mort Du Sens’ with key soundman and collaborator Raikes Parade in ‘an old mill in Manchester’ around the Christmas period of 2019. “It’s the first album in a while where we kept it in-house and DIY, and we wanted it to be as ferocious as our live sets have become” says Paddy, “We banged it all down live – two drummers and a load of cabs in a room pushing each other forward” Nonetheless, the arrival of the pandemic in early 2020 took the record on another course, adding to a turbulent and cathartic vitality that electrifies the likes of the caustic Melvins-in-hell assault of ‘Pink Champagne Blues’, the uncompromising percussive battering ram of the twelve-minute ‘Giro Day’ and the post-punk angularity of ‘The Whip And The Tongue’ with a fearsome elemental charge. “The world changed two months later so we were mixing this old world record in the new world and a lot of the vox got laid down during lockdown” reflects Paddy. “‘Pink Champagne Blues’ is a burst of total nihilist abandon and the lyrics wrote themselves in the midst of a dark wintry night of the soul” Masters of an approach which manages to be both unmistakable and unpredictable. Gnod are now well established as prophets of the dispossessed. ‘La Mort Du Sens’ is no less than another relentlessly invigorating stop-off on their wild ride to who knows where. “It’s all about the energy” reckons Paddy. “We never really know what’s coming next. It just organically shifts around, and I think we are getting better at not analysing where it’s going and just going with the flow” “Got No Obvious Destination, innit”
File Under: Psych
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Irreversible Entanglements: Open The Gates (International Anthem) LP
Irreversible Entanglements’ third full-length album Open the Gates is ethereal shards of jagged onyx, a melancholic exploration of the post-colonial debris that surrounds us. Let’s watch and listen, as this platter snakes through the sandy ashes of possible histories, dialogs with a nervous present, and asks to be birthed into a holographic new future. “Together in holy sound!” the band stitches patient anthems out of atmosphere. Pulling from a wider sonic vocabulary than on previous excursions, the agit-jazz found here is simultaneously pre- and post-apocalypse, as bass lurches in a tranced-out loop, horns are up in the track grooves like poltergeists playing in the streets, poetry cascades like a warrior call at a satsang, the drums both wild and refined pulse with uhuru-heart cadence. This is Irreversible Entanglements on new ground; same as the old ground.
File Under: Jazz
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King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: L.W. (Self Release) LP
Freewheeling six-headed freak-rock movement King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard return with their seventeenth album L.W. Serving as both a standalone work and a companion piece to 2020 predecessor K.G., L.W. sees the prolific and fearless Melbourne-based innovators produce a truly original album. L.W. is the third volume in the band’s explorations in microtonal tunings which began with 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana. As the band enter their second decade, the creative future of this most 21st century of outfits only promises to be bolder, madder and more imaginative than ever.
File Under: Psych
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King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Butterfly 3000 (Self Release) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s eighteenth studio album, Butterfly 3000, might be their most fearless leap into the unknown yet; a suite of ten songs that all began life as arpeggiated loops composed on modular synthesizers, before being fashioned into addictive, optimistic and utterly seductive dream-pop. The album sounds simultaneously like nothing they’ve done before, and thoroughly, unmistakably Gizz, down to its climactic neon psych-a-tronic flourish. This is undoubtedly their most accessible and jubilant album to date. Colored vinyl LP with gatefold jacket packaging.
File Under: Psych
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Annea Lockwood: Becoming Air/Into the Vanishing Point (Black Truffle) LP
Following on from the acclaimed Tiger Balm / Amazonia Dreaming / Immersion LP (BT 028LP, 2017), Black Truffle present two major new instrumental works from legendary sound artist and experimental composer Annea Lockwood. Demonstrating the ever evolving and radically open nature of Lockwood’s practice, these two recent works were developed in close collaboration with their performers. “Becoming Air” (2018), developed with and performed by trumpeter Nate Wooley, uses extended technique and electronics to interfere with Wooley’s virtuosic control over his instrument, pushing him into areas of fluctuating pitch and timbral instability. Motivated by a desire for “the letting go of sound to be itself”, “Becoming Air” unfolds as a series of texturally distinct moments separated by pauses, each fixing on a particular approach to the instrument (long tones, upper-register whistles, breathy wooshes) and maintaining it in an essentially static fashion, focusing our attention on subtle changes and variations. Dipping into near-inaudibility in the fragile high tones of its opening section, the piece dramatically increases in volume and intensity in its final third, climaxing with a passage of roaring distortion, where the interaction between feedback and trumpet pitches calls up the shuddering interference effects of Robert Ashley’s Wolfman. “Into the Vanishing Point” (2019) is a collaborative work developed with New York piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, who have performed work by major contemporary composers such as Olivia Block, Catherine Lamb, and Klaus Lang. Carrying on the ecological and environmental concerns of some of Lockwood’s previous works, “Into the Vanishing Point” was inspired by a devastating news article on the global collapse of insect populations. Discovering that the four members of Yarn/Wire had also read this text, Lockwood mapped out a loose structure for the piece that would allow the composer and four performers to explore their “feelings about what is happening ecologically”. Working with a huge variety of instruments, objects and techniques of sound production, the resulting work is an alluringly lush, organically unfolding tissue of unorthodox textures and haunting tones. Though not intended to sonically represent ecological issues in any direct way, its unique sound world of rubbed piano strings, gently handled objects and chiming pitches often calls up natural images: of insects and frogs, wind rushing through trees, a bird’s wings in flight. Presented in a stunning gatefold cover with liner notes by Lockwood, Wooley and Yarn/Wire, Becoming Air / Into the Vanishing Point is a testament to the generosity and experimentation that continue to characterize the work of this extraordinary artist, active for over fifty years.
File Under: Experimental
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Radboud Mens: Sine-Plus+ (Staalplaat) LP
Sine is one of the earlier works by renowned sound-artist, composer and sound designer, Radboud Mens. It was constructed in 1998 and released on CD by Staalplaat in 2000 who now reissue this on vinyl in 2021, featuring two new tracks updating the themes of the original material. Having forged out a unique path in music for many years this is a means by which to view the genesis of what would become “Radboud Mens music”. Side A comprises the original Sine which is considered a minor masterpiece of the early 2000s click dub electronica. “Funkenkammer” launches proceedings through a measured gathering of elements; buzzes and hums traverse the rhythmic spikes that punctuate throughout. Already at this starting post one can acknowledge machine music with a human pulse. Machines lurch and growl gently amongst a tiny ping pong pulse on the next track “Steel”. “Moi” attaches itself to the subconscious with its dizzying sinewy highs and bare bone bass shadowing an equal love for dub processes and experimental forms. With “Metal/Dub/Plate” a dark drone anchors the mischievous random play on the surface whilst “For Da” presents light clicks and woozy atmosphere. Here we enter the new chapter in the story of Sine. Radboud works on music that binds disparate forms together into one sound, as a result these new tracks incorporate all styles witnessed in the original, retaining the clicks and cuts mentality whilst incorporating a deeper ambient drone approach with a minimal dub influence sweeping throughout. Tape shifts gears into a deep haunted world consisting of a skittering beat and a repetitive melodic cloud of sound. Condition takes the experimental dub further into space leading into a remix if his own track “Circle of Fifths” which wraps up the release with an uplifting conclusion where ascension takes hold. Equally unnerving and enticing the original and updated Sine fit firmly together as a unique whole bringing together a sparse assured sound carefully crafted to ignite a transcendental mood in the listener. Color vinyl in special packaging; edition of 400.
File Under: Experimental
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Motrik: Moon: The Cosmic Electrics of Motrik (Jealous Butcher) LP
Portland-based krautrock band Motrik formed in 2013, its four members united by a pledge to modernize their beloved genre. Sharing a passion for pioneers like Can, Kraftwerk, and Trad, Gras och Stenar, the group has demonstrated its ability to deliver over a series of EPs and albums, most recently 2020’s acclaimed Artificial Head. As they continue to experiment by incorporating additional influences ranging from funk and jazz to psych and prog Motrik’s third full-length, a double LP titled MOON: The Cosmic Electrics of MoTRIK, is a further continuation in the story of an historic genre befitting of the album’s cosmic artwork. Motrik boldly takes full advantage of the space that four sides of vinyl allow on this latest offering. The middle of the album features two long suites that feel typical of the group’s dynamic live performances, which frequently feature fog cannons, lasers, and other prop homages to Kraftwerk and company. The 13-minute ‘Stabilize’ emerges from a haze of synth pulses and guitar tones, settling into a steady NEU!-like chug that swells and recedes like an ecstatic wave. On ‘Space Elevator’, the motorik drive from which the band take their name evolves into an insinuating and sensual disco-like throb before the perfect proggy comedown in the final minute.
File Under: Prog, Kraut Rock, Kosmische
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Muslimgauze: Jackel The Invizible (Staalplaat) LP
Listeners who know much of anything about Bryn Jones’ work as Muslimgauze know that he was prolific in both his work and in the way he sent out his work to labels and other interested parties. Fittingly enough for an artist that feverishly productive and often taciturn to the point of frustration, he didn’t tend to give much more information than handwritten track titles on the sleeve of a DAT. Why he would submit multiple copies of the same or similar tracks to those he worked with, often in totally different configurations, is now a permanent mystery, but it does lead to Jackal The Invizible, essentially a compilation of material from multiple other releases that Jones had also submitted at the time on its own DAT. All of the songs here were released at least 20 years ago (a few over 30) and as with practically all Muslimgauze releases they were limited and/or hard to get ahold of now. Jackal The Invizible is both a way to issue those tracks on vinyl as the Archive series has been consistently doing, and in interesting look into how Jones would organize and sequence his albums. The track listing here was faithfully reproduced from the way Jones titled these tracks on this submission, which is how you get Fedayeen’s “Bharboo of Pakistan Railways” here called “Fedayeen Bharboo of Pakistan Railways 2001”. This compilation as with most of his work was submitted without comment, so it can be asked, was it intended to be a compilation? Had he at some point decided he preferred these tracks in this arrangement rather than on their other tapes? Did he produce so much work and/or was so disorganized he simply forgot this batch had been mailed off before? Did he have a standing arrangement with his postal worker and just handed him whatever was closest to the door each week? The new juxtapositions can be quite striking; shifting suddenly from the harshly distorted blurts of “Resume and Shaduf Fatah Guerrilla 1999” to the cooly nocturnal atmosphere of “Abu Nidal 1987” and then to the dubby bass pulses and rattling hand percussion of “Hand of Fatima 1999” is an experience unlike much else in Jones’ oeuvre, even though all three modes are ones he has worked in before. Engineered and mixed by J. Delf. Mastering by Rinus Hooning. Edition of 700.
File Under: Industrial
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My Bloody Valentine: Loveless (Domino UK) LP
FINALLY! Loveless, was originally released in 1991. Musically, it took an unexpected leap forwards, standing ahead of anything released at the time. Shields and the band moved further towards a music of pure sensation, creating textures and tones that could be felt as much as heard; with loveless the band created an album that overwhelmed the senses. Loveless is widely considered a flawless whole and rightly regarded as a masterpiece; a 1990s equivalent to Pet Sounds, In A Silent Way or Innervisions, a record constructed by exploring the edges of what a recording studio is capable of. It is a record best experienced as a whole, in one sitting – a listening experience like no other and unmatchable in its sonic brevity.
File Under: Indie Rock, Shoegaze
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New Jazz Orchestra: Le Dejeuner Sur l’Herbe (Decca) LP
If one were asked to pick an album that represented the best of British jazz in the 1960s, ‘Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe’ by the New Jazz Orchestra would be a serious contender. Recorded in September 1968, it draws together many of the key streams that had developed in British jazz in the preceding years, and also presages much of what was to come. Notwithstanding the line-up, which includes some of the very best British jazz musicians directed by an inventive and ingenious leader in Neil Ardley, the session features pieces written by the most distinctive jazz composers active in Britain at that time alongside idiosyncratic interpretations of works by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. And it’s all captured beautifully by engineer Howard Barrow and producer Tony Reeves and it features a stella cast of some of the greatest musicians, not just from that era or genre but beyond; Jack Bruce, who would become one of the founding members of Cream, Barbara Thompson, Ian Carr, Michael Gibbs, Dave Gelly, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman, who went on to form one of the greatest jazz/progressive/rock bands – Colosseum.
File Under: Jazz
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New Pornographers: Mass Romantic (Matador) LP
Coloured vinyl! In December 2021, Matador Records celebrates the 21st anniversary of The New Pornographers’ debut record and breakout, Mass Romantic (2000), with a new reissue. The album – clocking three singers and twelve effervescent and undeniable power-pop gems – returns on colored vinyl LP complete with a bonus 7″ featuring the “Letter From An Occupant” single plus the two rare B-sides, “The End of Medicine” and “When I Was a Baby.” Mass Romantic officially introduced the music world to legendary übergroup, The New Pornographers. Together, Blaine Thurier (“Low Self-Esteem Girl”), Carl Newman (Zumpano, Superconductor), Dan Bejar (Destroyer), John Collins (The Evaporators, Thee Goblins), and Kurt Dahle (Limblifter), along with Neko Case on selected lead and accompaniment, produced an epic, baroque masterpiece of such hyperbolic grandeur that if it were a painting, one would not be able to stop studying it lest a vital detail be overlooked. One of the catchiest, most joyous records of recent years, the collection is highlighted by such power-pop gems as “Letter From An Occupant” and “Slow Descent Into Alcoholism.” “A striking power-pop album, forty staggeringly catchy minutes of four-part harmonies and Wall of Sound production, exploding with energy and joy; but the New Pornographers’ real secret is their arrangements: a stampeding legion of guitars, organs, hand claps, tambourines, and their idiosyncratic voices.” – Rolling Stone “The New Pornographers mix the pop purism of the Beach Boys, the power charge of Cheap Trick and the gentle psychedelia of Syd Barrett.” – New York Times
File Under: Indie Rock
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Alva Noto: HYbr:ID Vol 1 (Noton) LP
HYbr:ID Vol. 1 is the first installment of a new series of Alva Noto’s works bringing together heterogeneous composition methods. HYbr:ID Vol. 1 captures the music commissioned for the score of “Oval”, the choreographic piece directed by Richard Siegal and performed by the Staatsballett Berlin at the Berlin State Opera in 2019. The process of creating HYbr:ID Vol. 1 was defined by the search for a form to bind astrophysics phenomena, fiction, and performance movements. Its narrative is inspired by cinematic visual techniques and static images portraying scientific events which also inspired the titles of the nine compositions. The music possesses a dilated rhythmic base contributing to the images of gravity and spatiality. At points static is used with an ornate, delicate intricacy. The album’s sonic spectrum builds with deep sub-bass, gloomy sonics, spacious sound design, and inorganic ambiance that is gently coerced with artistic finesse. The nine compositions are accompanied by graphic notations informed by the album’s sonic and acoustic codes. Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai. Nibo mastering by Bo @ Calyx.
File Under: Electronic
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PDP III: Pilled Up on a Couple of Doves (Shelter Press) LP
Pilled Up on a Couple of Doves is the debut full-length by PDP III, who fell into alignment in December of 2018 amid a handful of immersive and improvisatory recording sessions held at Gary’s Electric Studio in Brooklyn, New York. The trio is a collaboration between composer/producer Britton Powell and two Berlin-based artists, the British composer/cellist Lucy Railton and the electronic artist Brian Leeds (Huerco S). At the outset of these sessions Powell presented a series of compositional sketches anchored around multi-tracked electronics and acoustic percussion. These concepts were then used as the framework for collective improvisation, with the musicians working on instinct and layering as many as eight separate takes across a track. A portion of the record also reflects moments that are purely spontaneous — in-the-moment invention with Railton on electronics and cello and Powell and Leeds working on laptop computers. The composition process involved little in the way of overt instruction, instead favoring discussion on more abstract notions of feel and energy. As a result, the final product was a bit surprising to all involved. “I don’t think the three of us had any idea how heavy and physical this thing was going to feel,” reflects Powell. Subsequently reduced, edited, and collaged by Powell over the next two years, Pilled Up on a Couple of Doves presents a succession of alien moods. Gauzy textures are buoyed by extreme low-end pressure. Serene industrial hum illuminates the rhythmic beating of waveforms. The sounds frequently evoke opposing emotions — tenderness and anxiety, claustrophobia and transcendence. The record culminates in 20-minute closer “49 Days,” where gradually unfurling textures for cello and electronics mirror the overtones of a ringing gong. It’s unsettling, but deeply meditative. A map of liminal space. Music to get lost to. “One thing that’s important in relation to my work with music is to access a place outside of physical space,” says Powell. “To pursue music as a tool to reach a place outside of physical existence. There’s something really simple, innocent, and timeless about working with acoustic percussion instruments,” explains Powell. “I think that they allow for a very true examination of sound. It feels vulnerable and really powerful at the same time.”
File Under: Ambient, Drone
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Phew: New Decade (Mute) LP
Renowned avant-garde artist Phew returns to Mute for the album, New Decade. Working within the medium of voice and analog electronics, New Decade’s six tracks define Phew as a master of her craft – fusing her ghostly vocals with intense droning textures and clamorous guitar feedback. New Decade is a stark and haunted album, populated by voices that intone empty pleasantries in English and Japanese or manifest as wordless shrieks and groans, against a backdrop of fractured, dubbed-out electronics. Phew explains that there’s a loose concept running through the album, relating to the perception of time: “During the ’80s, and up until the ’90s, things progressed along a line from past to present to future, but I think that’s changed, especially since the start of the 21st century. Personally speaking, I’ve stopped being able to see a future that extends from the present.” Described by Pitchfork as “a Japanese underground legend,” she was a founding member of Osaka avant-punk band Aunt Sally, who broke up in 1980. Since then she has worked solo and collaborated with an incredible list of musical luminaries including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jim O’Rourke, Ana da Silva (The Raincoats), Seiichi Yamamoto (Boredoms), Holger Czukay (Can) and producer Conny Plank (Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia). Her 1992 album for Mute, Our Likeness, features Alexander Hacke (Hackedepicciotto, Einstrürzende Neubauten), Jaki Liebezeit (Can) and Chrislo Haas (Crime & the City Solution, DAF, Liaisons Dangereuses).
FIle Under: Electronic
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John Prine: Fair & Square (Oh Boy) LP
John Prine’s Grammy Award-winning album, Fair & Square, is available on vinyl for the first time in over 16 years courtesy of Oh Boy Records! The 2005 release won Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 48th Grammy Awards and achieved the fastest rise to No. 1 in the history of Americana radio. It marked a series of milestones for Prine, as it was his first album in nine years following 1995’s Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, as well as his first release after getting married to his wife and current president of Oh Boy, Fiona Whelan Prine. Released to widespread acclaim, Rolling Stone declared it, “an excellent set of songs full of rootsy warmth and unpretentious wit,” while The Washington Post praised, “this low-key masterpiece arrives not just as a reminder of Prine’s cleverness and mischievous wit but also as a confirmation of his deeply human values. These are values rooted in the enduring mystery and majesty of everyday, ordinary lives.”
File Under: Folk, Country
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Privat: Ein Gedachtnis Rollt Sich Auf Der (Alter) LP
PRIVAT is a band based in Vienna. With one live show and a compilation appearance under their belt, the duo of Robert Pawliczek and Robert Schwarz are short on extant information. Despite this, there’s a wealth of novel tact and flashpoints in the wicked intensity of PRIVAT that makes sense as a consolidation of the duo’s cumulative activity across music and the visual arts in the last decade. Their debut album, Ein Gedachtnis Rollt Sich Auf Der Zunge Aus, is an annihilating introduction to this new collaboration. Schwarz’s background lies in both architecture and computer music. Across a handful of labels, he’s presented field recordings and experimental works, and he’s participated in exhibitions with some of Europe’s most prominent institutions for adventurous art practices. He is also the co-founder and curator of the Viennese festival PARKEN; Or, Live in the Park, which aims to mediate experimental forms of music in public spaces. Pawliczek is a conceptual artist and musician, and it’s his work that graces the sleeves and can be found in accompanying video material. He’s been involved in some exceptional groups and projects that have been centered in and around Berlin in the last years. These include Bobby Would, Heavy Metal, Itchy Bugger, and Pitva. Having met in Antwerp in the orbit of Dennis Tyfus’ former gallery Pinkie Bowtie, the pair initially began to work on PRIVAT back in 2018 around a shared affinity for repetitive electronic music and an aesthetic preference for spartan coldness. Ein Gedachtnis Rollt Sich Auf Der Zunge Aus makes good on their pact. The album presents a set of works that carefully balance the galvanizing propulsion of rhythmic electronics with the kind of textural palette that betrays the pair’s experimental roots. Deadpan vocals are delivered throughout, developing a kind of frosty symbiosis. Tempered by just arrangements, there’s a song-writerly core that’s organizing the album’s somber meditations, piquing moments of comparison with Moroder’s rawness as readily as anything that’s cultivated in industrial music’s tape-worn dirges.
File Under: ELectronic
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Propagandhi: Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes (Fat Wreck)LP
Twenty years after its initial release, Propagandhi’s, Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes, has finally been given the remix it deserves! The legendary 2001 release has also been newly remastered from the original reels by Jason Livermore from The Blasting Room studio. Fourteen anthems of fast, heavy, irreverent, melodic, metallic punk rock with nods to mid-eighties political hardcore. Not just another pop punk album filled with songs about their girlfriends.
File Under: Punk
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Elaine Radigue: Chry-Ptus (Important) LP
Eliane Radigue’s Chry-Ptus is her very first piece for the modular synthesizer. It was composed in 1971 using a Buchla 100 which had recently been installed at NYU by Morton Subotnick. This double-LP was mastered by Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity. From the original press release: “Chry-Ptus (1971). Originally two tapes which were to be played simultaneously, with or without synchronisation, which does not affect the structure of the work, but creates changes in the game of sub-harmonics and overtones. Three variations on this piece were performed at the New York Cultural Center in 1971, with variations of amplitude and location modulation as well as synchronisation. Realized on the Buchla Synthesizer at the New York University. The booklet contains a text by painter Paul Jenkins, who also realised the watercolor on the front cover, written on occasion of Radigue’s first concert in New York, April 6th, 1971. “It’s with the Buchla that I constructed Chry-ptus, a piece made up of two tapes with an analogue duration, 22 or 23 minutes, which could be played either simultaneously or with a slight time difference, so as to establish slight variations every time the piece was played. I spent the first months eliminating everything I did not want; I even used a notebook in which I tried to determine a writing system resembling chemical formulae.” –Eliane Radigue
File Under: Experimental
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Royksopp: Lost Tapes (Cooking Vinyl) LP
Lost Tapes is a monthly release of rare B-sides, exclusives and even some previously unreleased tracks from Röyksopp. Now the first 10 tracks from the series are released on heavyweight 180g vinyl 2LP for the first time. Röyksopp on the Lost Tapes series: “Upon renovating our arctic chateau here in the desolate north, we came across an old sea chest containing an abundance of [tracks]. We thought the only right thing would be to make these ‘hard-to-find’ tracks available…”
FIle Under: Electronic
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Ayane Shino: Sakura (Mental Groove) LP
A love-filled tribute to the late Japanese techno and ambient pioneer Susumu Yokota. In 2021, talented classical guitarist Ayane Shino discovered his impressive works and recorded cover version of tracks from his acclaimed Sakura album. Those new contemporary musical pieces will please his ever-growing fanbase as well as listeners beyond the electronic music scene. First in a series (The Timbre Of Guitars) of classical cover versions by Japanese guitarist Ayane Shino. For fans of: ambient, new classical, electronica Japan, Susumu Yokota. Half speed mastering; inside out cardboard; edition of 500.
File Under: Ambient, Japan
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Spoon: Wild (Matador) 7″
“Wild” is drawn from Spoon’s forthcoming full-length, Lucifer on the Sofa. The song captures the band at its most visceral and vivid, with rough edges intact and a guitar solo perfectly slotted into the middle eight. This 7” single version comes backed with an alternate mix by British reggae innovator Dennis Bovell.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Swans: Soundtracks for the Blind (Young God) LP
“This album has everything in there – all the ideas from Swans’ initial 15 years of work. There’s some contemporary recordings of the band as it existed in ‘96/7, with Larry Mullins on drums/percussion, Jarboe singing and playing keyboards, Vudi playing electric guitar, and Joe Goldring playing bass and electric guitar, and me singing and playing electric and acoustic guitar, but there’s also a huge amount of sounds and recordings that Jarboe and I collected over the years. “These are reassembled, looped, mangled, and in many cases overdubbed upon to create new pieces of music… I really set my own trap, dug my own grave on this one. There was so much material to deal with, to sift through (whole trunks full of decomposing, moldy cassettes and discs with samples and sounds), and the task of making it into something coherent was at times debilitating. Really like climbing up a mountain of sand. I don’t remember why I set this goal for myself, to somehow incorporate such a ridiculously disparate amount of material. I think maybe it was so I could justify throwing all that crap into the local dump, which is what I did when I finished the album. “But in the end, after centuries of picking at this huge iceberg of material with a toothpick, my trusty engineer Chris Griffin and I managed to sculpt something out of it. It actually breathes, seems to live, in most places I think…When I decided to reform Swans in 2010 Soundtracks was what I referred to as a starting point” – Michael Gira / Swans
File Under: Rock, Goth, Industrial
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Ghedalia Tazartes & Rhys Chatham: Two Men In A Boat (Sub Rosa) LP
“The beauty of all this, as well as its sorrowful brutality, is even more powerful and stupefying since Ghédalia’s sudden departure. Because retrospectively, not only is this recording the trace of a rare moment in a Parisian garden, it also summons a ghost, that of a loved one that is gone, and of his voice, which is fully alive here.” Tazartes and Chatham had met once in 1977 at CBGB’s and had not seen each other since then when they were asked by their mutual agent to play a private show in Paris. This happened in September 2018 in a house with a garden where sax player Steve Lacy had lived back in the 1990s. This album presents the recording of this show plus another show at La semaine du bizarre festival in Montreuil, France a year later, mixed with a couple of studio sessions. This was probably the last music Tazartès, who died in February 2021, recorded. His unique singing blends perfectly with Chatham’s loops on electric guitar, trumpet and flute. Clear vinyl.
File Under: Experimental
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Trees Speak: Post-Human (Soul Jazz) LP
Trees Speak’s new album Post-Human once again blends 1970s German electronic and ‘motorik’ krautrock instrumentals (think Harmonia, Can, Cluster, Popul Vuh, Neu!), haunting and powerful 1960s and 1970s soundtracks (think Italian prog-rock Goblin and John Carpenter horror movies, Morricone and existential John Barry spy movies), together with a New York no wave electronic synth and guitar analogue DIY-ness (think Suicide, anything on Soul Jazz’s New York Noise series or Eno’s New York No Wave)! The new album Post-Human draws further upon German krautrock high-concept albums from the likes of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze from the 1970s, as Trees Speak create their own powerful new landscapes of sound that manage to be at once contemporary as well as both timeless and with a sense of science-fiction futurism. Trees Speak seamlessly segue together all these musical elements into Post-Human, a conceptually expansive album which follows on from their critically-acclaimed debut LP Ohms, and the follow-up Shadow Forms released on Soul Jazz Records less than six months ago. This powerful new album is a high-concept collage of retro-futurist science-fiction music, which is fantastically illustrated by a specially commissioned cover design by the artist Eric Lee, a dramatic vision of life after humanity.
File Under: Kraut Rock, Prog, Kosmische
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Universal Veil: Helios/Hind (Hood Faire) LP
The Universal Veil is a duo comprised of Sam McLoughlin (Twisted Nerve, Pre-Cert Home Entertainment) and Folklore Tapes head honcho David Chatton Barker. Their improvised live performances with their own handmade “ritual instruments” are by turns meditative, trancelike, joyous and surreal. Helios/Hind is a fascinating sonic artifact which unearths lo-fi cassette recordings from several years of past performances and weaves them together into a new whole, using an array of esoteric processes. It is possessed by the same spirit of mystery and discovery that is present at their live shows, where unusual sounds are spontaneously generated, recycled and transmuted into a deeply strange, magical and psychedelic soundscape which at times feels like it has a life of its own. Housed in a manila die-cut sleeve with a sun scorched sigil branded on the reverse and packaged with an insert pamphlet with triangulation notes; pressed at Vinyl Factory, UK; limited to 231 hand-numbered copies.
File Under: Experimental
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Vanishing Twin: Ookii Gekkou (Fire) LP
There’s a mystery to Vanishing Twin – from their name to the multitude of sounds that inhabit their music. They don’t sound like many but they hint at plenty. Ookii Gekkou (Japanese for Big Moonlight) is the sound of ordinary life under a different set of rules, a record conceived and created in dark times – a sort of dream catcher for all the madness of the past year. Vanishing Twin explore new ground on Ookii Gekkou incorporating elements of Afrofunk, outer jazz and avant-garde, all while referencing Sun Ra to Alice Coltrane, Martin Denny to Morricone, Can’s Holger Czukay to meditative Gamelan, or The Free Design, to library music of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Locked into their strangely-accessible groove is a history of ‘other’ sound, a crafted hauntology that evinces something completely new. Hurricanes, organisms, vibes, bells, and percussive rallies purvey throughout Ookii Gekkou, each infiltrated with influences as diverse as Piero Umiliani, Art Ensemble of Chicago and ELO among others. Indeed, even a cursory earful adds to an ever-expanding palette of sound, no mean feat for the newly-trimmed quartet of songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, and synth/guitar player Phil MFU, this reduction resulting in no fewer ideas and even bigger steps. Vanishing Twin is a conundrum in these fragmenting times; familiar, yet different; appealing to this world, but from another, parallel one.
File Under: Psych, Indie Rock, Library
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War on Drugs: I Don’t Live Here Anymore (Atlantic) LP
Coloured vinyl finally in! The War On Drugs return with I Don’t Live Here Anymore, their first studio album in four years. Over the last 15 years, The War on Drugs have steadily emerged as one of this century’s great rock and roll synthesists, removing the gaps between the underground and the mainstream, between the obtuse and the anthemic, making records that wrestle a fractured past into a unified and engrossing present. The War On Drugs have never done that as well as they do with their fifth studio album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore, an uncommon rock album about one of our most common but daunting processes – resilience in the face of despair. Just a month after The War On Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding received the 2018 Grammy for Best Rock Album, the core of Adam Granduciel, bassist Dave Hartley, and multi-instrumentalist Anthony LaMarca retreated to upstate New York to jam and cut new demos, working outside of the predetermined roles each member plays in the live setting. These sessions proved highly productive, turning out early versions of some of the most immediate songs on I Don’t Live Here Anymore. It was the start of a dozen-plus session odyssey that spanned three years and seven studios, including some of rock’s greatest sonic workshops like Electric Lady in New York and Los Angeles’ Sound City. Band leader Granduciel and trusted co-producer/engineer Shawn Everett spent untold hours peeling back every piece of these songs and rebuilding them. One of the most memorable sessions occurred in May 2019 at Electro-Vox, in which the band’s entire line-up – rounded out by keyboardist Robbie Bennett, drummer Charlie Hall, and saxophonist Jon Natchez – convened to record the affecting album opener “Living Proof.” Typically, Granduciel assembles The War On Drugs records from reams of overdubs, like a kind of rock ‘n’ roll jigsaw puzzle. But for “Living Proof,” the track came together in real time, as the musicians drew on their chemistry as a live unit to summon some extemporaneous magic. The immediacy of the performance was appropriate for one of the most personal songs Granduciel has ever written. The War On Drugs’ particular combination of intricacy and imagination animates the 10 songs of I Don’t Live Here Anymore, buttressing the feelings of Granduciel’s personal odyssey. It’s an expression of rock ‘n’ roll’s power to translate our own experience into songs we can share and words that direct our gaze toward the possibility of what is to come.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Roger Webb: Bartleby OST (Trunk) LP
Unreleased until now and super duper wow. Like British pastoral jam with killer (boom bap) drums, bass and percussion. Just dying for some huge hip-hop producer to come and piss all over it, in a good way. This record is the hidden monster, the one killer OST no one saw or heard. Bartleby the film is from 1970. Full color LP sleeve with Julian House artwork.
File Under: OST
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Kenny Wheeler: Windmill Tilter (Decca) LP
One of the landmark classics of the rising British jazz scene of the late 60s – an unusual pairing between modern trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and famous arranger John Dankworth – both coming together in this sublime set of instrumental tracks based on the story of Don Quixote! The music is something that stands alone from the story completely – a key moment in Wheeler’s rise to genius, as he crafts these tremendous solos over a larger group directed by Dankworth – almost a Sketches Of Spain for the Brit scene – with work from an array of players who include Dankworth, Tony Robert, Tony Coe, and Ray Swinfield on saxes – plus John McLaughlin on guitar and Dave Holland on bass – all working together in a really inventive lineup that instantly made the record a classic on the scene. Includes “Preamble”, “Don The Dreamer”, “Sweet Dulcinea Blue”, “Bachelor Sam”, “The Cave Of Montesinos”, “Altisidora”, and “Don No More”.
File Under: Jazz
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Jamire Williams: But Only After You Have Suffered (International Anthem) LP
But Only After You Have Suffered is a densely layered and deeply personal new work from multidisciplinary artist, composer, percussionist and producer Jamire Williams. Conceived as a spiritual, autobiographical artistic statement, Jamire applies sound collage practice to modern jazz composition, beat production, MC/vocalist features, and his uniquely impressionistic drumming style – making an album as akin to minimalist painting as an art-house film soundtrack or a classic hip-hop mixtape. A “self-reflective, almost testimonial work” that swiftly cycles across a vast spectrum of styles, it’s the culmination of his five-year musical journey to the outer reaches of his own sound. It’s the album he has always wanted to make. Across twelve multi-faceted tracks, he brings together artists from his hometown of Houston (vocalists Corey King, Lisa E. Harris, Fat Tony, Jawwaad Taylor), those he became close to over several years living in LA (Sam Gendel, Zeroh, Mic Holden, Josh Johnson, fellow International Anthem artist Carlos Niño), and other creative partners from his life-long journey in sound (Chassol, Svet, Kenneth Whalum). As such, But Only After You Have Suffered builds its own world from the pull between Jamire’s jazz heritage – eleven years as a drummer in NYC recording with world-renowned musicians like Jason Moran, Christian Scott, and Dr. Lonnie Smith – and the experimental, narrative art-pop of his more recent work with Solange, Moses Sumney, and Blood Orange. Rooted in his faith, Jamire opens the album with “Hands Up,” a devotional hymn cut against the stark reality of the modern world that sounds like an apocalyptic middle-grounding of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and Merry Clayton’s “Gimme Shelter.” Whether in the rousing, spiritual “Just Hold On” or the fluid verses of Fat Tony on “Safe Travels,” the music exists in the tension between higher realms and social realities – what Jamire calls the “duality of a personal thing and what I’m seeing in my community, in the Black community, as a Black man.” The album reaches its climax on “Pause In His Presence,” which features a chilling operatic performance from Lisa E. Harris, recorded in one take off the back of a single conversation and a shared vision between the two artists.
File Under: Hip Hop, Jazz
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…..restocks…..
Amyl & The Sniffers: Comfort to Me (ATO) LP
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works (R&S) LP
Arcade Fire: Neon Bible (Sonovox) LP
Arcade Fire: Suburbs (Sonovox) LP
Ash Ra Tempel: Schwingungen (MG Art) LP
Big Thief: Two Hands (4AD) LP
Art Blakey: Moanin’ (Blue Note) LP
CFCF: Continent (Paper Bag) LP|
Sonny Clark: Cool Struttin’ (Blue Note) LP
Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz (Atlantic) LP
Damned: Music for Pleasure (Sanctuary) LP
Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg (4AD) LP
Ella Fitzgerald: Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas (Verve) LP
Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders: Promises (Luaka Bop) LP
Ryo Fukui: Scenery (We Release Jazz) LP
Ryo Fukui: Mellow Dream (We Release Jazz) LP
Serge Gainsbourg: Historie de Melody Nelson (Mercury) LP
Maleem Mahmoud Ghania w/ Pharoah Sanders: Trance of Seven Colors (Zehra) LP
Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas (Craft) LP
Gunn-Truscinski Duo: Soundkeeper (Three Lobed) LP
Jon Hassell: Vernal Equinox (Ndeya) LP
Iggy & The Stooges: Raw Power (Sony) LP
Norah Jones: I Dream of Christmas (Universal) LP
Kimiko Kasai w/ Herbie Hancock: Butterfly (Be With) LP
Khruangbin: Hasta El Cielo (Dead Oceans) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Infest the Rats Nest (ATO) LP
Kraftwerk: Comptuerwelt (Parlophone) LP
Kyuss: Welcome to Sky Valley (Elektra) LP
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio: I Told You So (Colemine) LP
La Femme: Psycho Tropical Berlin (Born Bad) LP
Menahan Street Band: Make the Road by Walking (Daptone) LP
Mogwai: As the Love Continues (Temporary Residence) LP
Lee Morgan: The Cooker (Blue Note) LP
Nirvana: In Utero (Geffen) LP
Nirvana: MTV Unplugged in New York (Geffen) LP
Ol’ Dirty Bastard: Return to 36 Chambers (Get on Down) LP
Anderson .Paak: Venice (Steel Wool) LP
Parquet Courts: Wide Awake (Rough Trade) LP
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd) LP
Pink Floyd: Meddle (Pink Floyd) LP
Pole: 1 (Mute) LP
Pole: 2 (Mute) LP
Pole: 3 (Mute) LP
Pop Group: y (Mute) LP
Primal Scream: Screamadelica (Sony) LP
Radiohead: Kid A Mnesia (XL) LP
Horace Silver: Further Explorations (Blue Note) LP
Slits: Cut (Island) LP
Strokes: New Abnormal (RCA) LP
Hiroshi Suzuki: Cat (We Release Jazz) LP
System of a Down: Toxicity (Legacy) LP
T. Rex: Electric Warrior (Rhino) LP
McCoy Tyner: Expansions (Blue Note) LP
McCoy Tyner: Tender Moments (Blue Note) LP
Colter Wall: s/t (Thirty Tigers) LP
Colter Wall: Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs (Thirty Tigers) LP
Baby Face Willette: Face to Face (Blue Note) LP
Wrens: Secaucus (Craft) LP