Another lovely week out there, and another heap of new wax in the shop! Two new slabs of experimental lofi weirdness on Mamma’s Mysteriska Jukebox. A whack of Japanese electronic reissues. The long awaited reissue of Dan The Automator’s Lovage! The new Black Midi. Another killer ambient jazz record on International Anthem from Carlos Nino. And many more tasty slabs. Come on down for a dig!
Current operations…..
– in-store shopping/pick ups – 11 – 6 pm Monday – Friday, 11 am – 5 pm Saturday
(if you don’t want to come into the store for a pick up, call and/or use the back door)
– We will be wearing masks, if you want to, great! If not, that’s also fine, but please be respectful of other people’s space and decisions.
– Sanitize your hands (we’ll have some)
…..picks of the week…..
Telesoniek Atelier: A Selection of Improvisations (1989 – 2017) (Self Released) LP
“Fascinating improvs. I loved ‘Gruesse’. ” Suzanne Ciani (Atmospheric, USA) “Beautiful music with real subtlety and depth” Anthony Child (Surgeon, Transcendence Orchestra, UK) “Lovely, pure synth music.” Mark Pritchard (Warp Records, UK) Telesoniek Atelier is the nom d’artiste of Dutch audiovisual explorer and electronic music sorcerer Hans Kulk, who’s been steadily carving a name for himself in Dutch art circles while constantly shining a light on the electronic music pioneers that came before him. ‘A Selection of Improvisations’ brings together some of his work of the last quarter of a century, veering back and forth between avantgarde classical music (the post-Bachian opener ‘Chateauroux’, ‘Oberheim Impro’), thoughtful minimalism (‘A Prophet Oberheim Impro’), emotive ambient (the wonderfully understated ‘I Am’ and the Klaus Schulze-dedicated ‘Gruesse an KS’) and eerie retro-futuristic soundscapes (‘Improvisatie’, ‘Montage De L’Histoire’). It’s a varied bunch that’s so heartbreakingly beautiful you can’t help but wonder why none of this was ever released before. “There was never much focus on recording quality – I was interested only in capturing the momentary musical idea improvised on those great SCI, Oberheim and ARP instruments”, Kulk humbly states in the liner notes of this beautifully designed double album. While he’s obviously selling himself short here – ‘Improvisations’ sounds great from start to finish and that can’t be solely attributed to the expert mastering of Frédéric Alstadt – it’s this sense of selflessness and unpretentiousness that makes this such a thrilling ride. The music speaks for itself here and it speaks volumes. (Rogier)
File Under: Ambient, Experimental, Kris’s Picks
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Thomas Bush: Preludes (Mamma’s Mysteriska Jukebox) LP
“I saw Thomas Bush play in a field in France a couple of years ago. Remembering it now, it seems to me he was wearing a woolly jumper despite the summer heat. He laid all of his instruments out on the grass, I think there was a recorder, a guitar maybe and various boxes and pedals. The details of my memory are hazy but I can bring the feeling of the music to mind. Some of what he did seemed scrappy or confusing at first. But when everything came together the effect was transporting. There was a deep feeling of English-eccentric melancholy mixed with a commitment to the distressed, ragged edges of sound. Most of all there was a keen, if slightly obscured, sense of melody. Like lots of my favourite music, Eno/Fripp/Can/Cos/SFT this was pop wearing the clothes of experimentalism, or maybe the other way around. His new record brings that afternoon back. Here again are songs like scraps of remembered conversation and hooks of melody that break apart and fall together as the the sun dips behind the hills.” Jack Rollo, Time is away
File Under: Experimental, Folk, Ambient, Kris’s Picks, Ian’s Picks
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Soft Estate: The Painted Ship (Mamma’s Mysteriska Jukebox) LP
“Soft estate are a band I don’t know. Their songs are here and gone, gauzy, blank and romantic. This record is a brief heady waltz through a hall of mirrors. Drum machines tick past, oil and water synths swirl by and and a sleepy solemn voice sings. The reflections of 40 years of art-school electronics are pulled and twisted into new shapes. I can hear broadcast, AC Marias, Rexy, Lydia Tomkiw, Solid Space. And then before I know it I’m out the other side blinking in the daylight.” Jack Rollo, Time is away
File Under: Experimental, Post Punk, Electronic, Pop, Ian’s Picks
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…..new arrivals…..
Black Midi: Hellfire (Rough Trade) LP
Black Midi present their third album and second in two years, Hellfire. The LP sees the London three piece at their most direct. Written in isolation in London in 2021 almost immediately after it’s predecessor Cavalcade – no band can quite build their own universe like Black Midi. Hellfire picks up right where Cavalcade left off. Where Schlagenheim was much more based on ‘jams’ and collaboration, Cavalcade a mixture of isolation and collaboration, Hellfire falls on the other side of the spectrum of working in isolation. Musically, Hellfire builds on the brutality and intensity of Schlagenheim while also drawing on the more melodic elements that weave through Cavalcade. Lead-singer Geordie says, “If Cavalcade was a drama, Hellfire is like an epic action film,” that delves into overlapping themes of pain, loss and anguish.
File Under: Indie Rock, Math Rock
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Brian Jonestown Massacre: Fire Doesn’t Grow on Trees (A Recordings) LP
Recorded in Berlin and remotely between 2020 and 2021, The Brian Jonestown Massacre returns with their 19th full-length studio album. Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees is the beginning of a thrilling new phase for Anton Newcombe and his band. Joining him in the studio and remotely for this album were Ricky Maymi (guitars), Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt (keyboards), Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar), Hallberg Daði Hallbergsson (bass), and Uri Rennert (drums). Originally, Newcombe was heavily influenced by The Rolling Stones’ psychedelic phase — the name comes from Stones guitarist Brian Jones combined with a reference to cult leader Jim Jones. But his work in the 2000s has expanded into aesthetic dimensions approximating the UK shoegaze genre of the 1990s and incorporating influences from world music, especially Middle Eastern and Brazilian music.
File Under: Rock
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Edan: Beauty and the Beat (Lewis) LP
“While Edan’s critically acclaimed debut, Primitive Plus, was a celebration of hip-hop’s golden age and a true throwback, his sophomore album, Beauty And The Beat, is a vast musical collage that contains many different influences; hip-hop, rock, pop, dusty breaks, hazy loops, luxurious off-kilter samples and curveball tempo changes that are all crafted into one cohesive piece of art. In 2015, FACT placed it at number 30 on the ‘100 Best Indie Hip-Hop Records of All Time’ list. In 2013 NME placed it at number 392 on the ‘500 Greatest Albums of All Time’ list.”
File Under: Hip Hop
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Robert Fripp: God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners (Panegyric) LP
2021 remaster by David Singleton. Mastered by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering. Pressed on 200gram Super-Heavyweight vinyl at Vinyl Factory UK. Available on vinyl again for the first time since the mid-1980s. God Save the Queen: By the time Exposure had been released in June 1979 Robert Fripp had already embarked on one of the most unconventional tours to support a new record that had ever been undertaken; record shops, offices, public spaces, canteens, planetariums and, later, some conventional venues and theatres. Accompanied by a tour manager, a Les Paul guitar, a pedalboard, and two Revox tape recorders were packed into a car and they crisscrossed their way across Europe and America. This was, in part, a response to record label Polydor/EG management’s allocation of a mere $10k as a marketing budget. Using the money as a form of tour support, Fripp took “Frippertronics” directly to the offices of local record companies, record shops and, most importantly, audiences of fans and casual listeners alike. That tour in turn provided the material for many further recordings. Under Heavy Manners: Side two of the LP was given over to the next phase of Fripp’s Drive To 1981. Sometimes referred to as Discotronics, Fripp intended to create a bespoke meeting place between Frippertronics’ repetitious loops and a pulsating four-to-the-floor beat. With bassist Busta Cherry Jones and drummer Paul Duskin, the trio laid down a taut minimalist groove against Frippertronics loops lifted from the solo tour earlier in the year. The trio line-up was augmented by David Byrne as guest vocalist on the title track.
File Under: Prog, Electronic
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Robert Fripp: Let the Power Fall: An Album of Frippertronics (Panegyric) LP
2021 remaster by David Singleton. Mastered by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering. Pressed on 200gram Super-Heavyweight vinyl at Vinyl Factory UK. Available on vinyl again for the first time since the mid-1980s. Let The Power Fall is the only full album of Frippertronics released during the original vinyl era and within two years of the original tour of shops/offices/restaurants et al that acted as venues for the concerts. With minimal promotion as the tour got underway, especially in North America, the shows quickly sold out. For many attending the effect of the music as it slowly unfolded was profound and deeply moving, and something which Fripp himself experienced. Speaking to Melody Maker’s Lynden Barber in 1981, Fripp argued that Frippertronics gave him a way of working that put him in intimate contact with an audience, something that had been increasingly impossible in the conventional band set-up. “You can’t play Frippertronics and coast. It’s never that safe. It’s almost an excuse to put me in a situation where one has the audience, performer, and music, and in a certain kind of way something remarkable can happen. And that has happened to me, and it’s not possible in a group. Frippertronics is the most enjoyable means of playing I’ve ever found. Of all the tours I’ve done over 12 years, the only one I can look back on without being revolted or feeling grubby is the Frippertronics tour of 1979, the most crushingly hard work I’ve ever done. “Released in April 1981 just weeks after the sole album by The League of Gentlemen, Let The Power Fall was the final solo album by Robert Fripp of that period, with the band that would become the next incarnation of King Crimson preparing to enter Basing Street studios in May. As the album has been unavailable in any format for many years and is very long (in vinyl terms) on both sides, this release is ideally suited to audiophile grade vinyl and has been long-awaited by fans.
File Under: Prog, Electronic
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Fu Manchu: No One Rides for Free (At the Dojo) LP
The fourth release in Fu Manchu’s 30th Anniversary vinyl reissue series, No One Rides For Free, is a new vinyl specific remaster of the band’s debut album. These songs are the only recordings of the band’s line-up of Scott Hill (vocals/guitar), Mark Abshire (bass), Eddie Glass (guitar) and Ruben Romano (drums). The 8-track collection was recorded in April 1993 at Sandbox Studios in LA, produced by the band along with Brant Bjork. Remastered by Carl Saff for optimum fidelity and pressed on colored vinyl with newly designed gatefold packaging that includes never before seen photos of the band and flyers from the shows of the era.
File Under: Rock, Stoner
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Hoshina Anniversary: Hisyochi (Impatience) LP
Hoshina Anniversary offers a new LP of fluid, alchemical dance music in the shape of Hisyochi, on Impatience. Moving well beyond the initial influence of jazz fusion, electronica and his Japanese heritage, Hoshina Anniversary continues to carve deeper into his own cosm, and Hisyochi arguably represents this prolific producer at his most singular, refined and potent yet. With nowhere to go and little to do, Hoshina was making music at a seemingly unstoppable torrent throughout the pandemic, sometimes sketching close to 100 tracks in any given month. Opening up a session from a previous track, he would erase all but one element, using it as a starting point for a completely new experiment, lending the body of work a subtle yet tangible coherence. Hisyochi was pieced together from a swathe of productions that came out of a particularly fertile period in the first half of 2021, which also birthed his recent release on Patience, Hyakunin Isshu. Roughly translating to “somewhere cool to relax during a hot summer” according to Hoshina, Hisyochi transcends seasons but undoubtedly runs hot. Drum patterns are crisp, varied and invariably body-moving, basslines ascend at vertigo-inducing velocity, and dimly-lit jazz-bar piano is often the only element anchoring the sound to terra firma. Following the plaintive, palette cleansing introduction of Rakka, Irahu plots the course with a light arpeggiator over a chugging rhythm before a warbly piano line to creeps in the back door. Misebayana is a jolt of gyrating mutant dance, part video game suspense and part footwork for drums and koto, while Kokoro no Heisei (Peace Of Mind) sees Hoshina deliver a salvo to stillness over a meandering, dubby spacewalk. Roman is an invigorating cut of warped dancehall tango, while the closing title track perfectly encapsulates the essence of the record and Hoshina Anniversary in 2022 in one elegant, acidic rinse. Hoshina Anniversary is Yoshinobu Hoshina, from Hachioji, outside of Tokyo. He’s released records as Hoshina Anniversary on ESP Institute, Alien Jams and Youth, under his Suemori moniker for Osare! Editions and as Shifting Gears for Toucan Sounds, amongst others. Hisyochi was written, produced and mixed by Hoshina Anniversary. It was mastered by Josh Bonati in NYC, and artwork is by Luca Schenardi.
File Under: Electronic, Japan
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Robin Jones Quintet: Denga (Jazz Room) LP
First time reissue from this essential latin jazz album from 1971! Often affectionately referred to as the “Godfather of British Latin music” Robin Jones was truly one of the great performers on the international Latin scene. Denga, his first recording from 1971 is a scintillating fusion of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazillian rhythms laden with heavy Fender Rhodes sounds and no less than three Afro-Latin Percussionists. The hard-to-find album has now been reissued by legendary London jazz DJ Paul Murphy’s Jazz Room Records imprint. It should be an essential purchase for anyone who loves Latin jazz. Feature’s Robin’s personal favorites including “Goodbye Batucada” which rightfully lays claim to be the first Brazilian Jazz Samba tune recorded in the UK and the Worldwide Sound standard setters “Denga” and “Africa Revisited”.
File Under: Jazz
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Kyoto Connection: The Flower, The Bird and The Mountain (Isle of Jura) LP
“A love letter to the masters of Japanese ambient and environmental music.” During the late 2010s, music lovers around the world began obsessively listening to increasingly esoteric albums on Youtube. More often than not, they’d leave the browser on autoplay. This was how Facundo Arena, the composer and producer behind The Kyoto Connection, discovered the technonaturalistic pleasures of Kankyō Ongaku (environmental music), a distinctly Japanese interpretation of European, British and American minimalist composition and ambient music. “It was a kind of algorithmic magic,” he says. Upload by upload, the utopian music of Hiroshi Yoshimura and his 80s Japanese contemporaries transported Facundo back to his childhood. When he was five, his father placed him in karate lessons and began watching martial arts movies with him. From those early experiences, Facundo became fascinated Japanese history, tradition, and culture, particularly that of Kyoto – the cultural capital of Japan. Kankyō Ongaku reminded him of hearing the sounds of Japanese folkloric instruments as a young boy, and suddenly, the way the influence of Japan had manifested in his music made sense. “I had the sensation that for many years, I’d been doing something similar to the style,” he explains. Inspired, Facundo used an iPad and an old Akai cassette deck to record Postcards, his homage to Japanese minimalism and Kankyō Ongaku. By this stage, he was twelve years deep with The Kyoto Connection, the musical project he launched in 2005 in his hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Over that late 2000s and 2010s, Facundo, later on joined by collaborators Rodrigo Trado (drums), Jesica Rubino (violin) and Marian Benitez (vocals, now his wife), released numerous D.I.Y albums. Project by project, they followed the threads between 80s synth-pop, ambient, new age, house, techno and acoustic composition. Postcards introduced The Kyoto Connection to listeners around the world and brought Facundo into our orbit. During Argentina’s covid lockdown, Facundo received a set of soundscapes recorded in Kyoto by the Japanese musician and sound designer Masafumi Komatsu. Over several insular months, he decorated them with synthesisers, samples and subtle rhythms, creating The Kyoto Connection’s next album, The Flower, The Bird and the Mountain to be released via Isle Of Jura offshoot Temples Of Jura. Ostensibly made up of twelve distinct tracks, listening to The Flower, The Bird and the Mountain feels more akin to spending calm, meditative time in twelve specific environments. Although the foundations they rest on are recordings made in geographic locations around Kyoto, Facundo has yet to visit Japan. As a result, the landscapes he paints sit somewhere between fiction and fact, richly pictorial sonic imagination juxtaposed with echoes of reality. Regardless, as his bubbling melodies and glistening synthesisers glide against Masafumi Komatsu’s recordings, Facundo guides us into a blissful zone of tranquillity well worth spending time within.
File Under: Japan, Electronic, Ambient
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Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By (Bulk) LP
“‘Lovage’ is defined as ‘an herb that is said to be a benefit for relieving abdominal pains due to gastrointestinal gas…also touted to reduce flatulence when consumed as a tea.’ But when placed in the able hands of sonic mastermind Dan ‘The Automator’ Nakamura, recording under the guise of musical lothario Nathaniel Merriweather, the result is a concept album of ‘music to make love to your old lady by.’ With the help of collaborators such as Mike Patton (vocals), Jennifer Charles (vocals) and Kid Koala (turntables), Merriweather serves as your personal guide to the sensual side of life, painting a satirical, darkly funny portrait of love and sex with left-field hip-hop and instrumentals as only he can do.”
File Under: Hip Hop
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Tumi Mogorosi: Group Theory: Black Theory (Mushroom Hour) LP
Group Theory: Black Music is a stunning new statement from South African drummer and composer Tumi Mogorosi who is one of the foremost drummers working anywhere in the world, with a flexible, powerful style that brings a distinctive South African inflection to the polyrhythmic tradition of Elvin Jones, Max Roach and Art Blakey! Since his international debut on Jazzman Records in 2014 with Project ELO, Mogorosi has been in the vanguard of the South African creative music scene’s burgeoning outernational dimension, taking the drummer’s chair in both Shabaka Hutchings’ Shabaka and The Ancestors formation and with avant-garde noiseniks The Wretched, who featured on Brownswood’s acclaimed South African showcase, Indaba Is. Where Group Theory: Black Music moves an established format dramatically forward is in the addition of a nine-person choir. Their massed voices soar powerfully above every track as a collective instrument of human breath and body, and enter the album into the small but significant number of radical recordings to have used the voice in this way, such as Max Roach’s It’s Time, Andrew Hill’s Lift Every Voice, Billy Harper’s Capra Black, and Donald Byrd’s I’m Trying To Get Home. A collaborative project between South Africa and the UK, linking up Johannesburg pacesetters Mushroom Hour Half Hour (SPAZA, Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O) with rising UK imprint New Soil (Theon Cross, Ill Considered)
File Under: Jazz
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Carlos Nino & Friends: Extra Presence (International Anthem) LP
EXTRA PRESENCE – a 90 minute, 17 track, 2 LP collection showcasing the Los Angeles modern music scene pioneer’s unique, highly developed, self-described “Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Collage” sound, and featuring an incredible cast of collaborators (including Jamael Dean, Nate Mercereau, Shabazz Palaces, Deantoni Parks, Sam Gendel, Laraaji, Jamire Williams, Iasos, and more).
File Under: Jazz, Ambient
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OST: Drive – 10th Anniversary (Lakeshore) LP
The timeless soundtrack for Drive is now available on Neon Noir Splatter to celebrate the films 10th Anniversary! “One of the Top 40 Movie Soundtracks That Changed Alternative Music” spin.com The soundtrack features original music by Cliff Martinez (The Lincoln Lawyer, Traffic) with Eurosynth-styled songs by Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx (“Nightcall”), The Chromatics (“Tick of the Clock”), Desire (“Under Your Spell”), College featuring Electric Youth (“A Real Hero”), and Riziero Ortolani featuring Katyna Ranieri (“Oh My Love”). Rolling Stone Magazine named Drive the No. 1 movie of 2011. “One thing that was unique for me about this project was having songs exert such a strong influence on the score,” said Martinez. “That helped to create a unified, one-size-fits-all, style of soundtrack…the 80s electronic pop style made a lot of sense to me. I knew that Nicolas [Refn, director] was in love with that sound and I saw a way to acknowledge it with vintage synth sounds and cover most of the dramatic food groups while referencing that style.”
File Under: OST
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Pino Palladino/Blake Mills/Sam Gendel: Live at Sound City EP (ISC Hi-Fi) LP
“Live at Sound City” is an instrumental collaboration between bassist Pino Palladino, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/producer Blake Mills, and LA-based saxophonist Sam Gendel. Recorded in one day at the legendary Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, the EP presents new versions of compositions from Palladino & Mills’ Grammy-nominated 2021 album “Notes with Attachments” in an intimate chamber trio setting. Across four tracks, the accomplished trio explores common musical vocabularies, then goes about the work of defamiliarizing them in search of something new, blending the sounds of West African and Cuban music, jazz, R&B, English folk, pop, and beyond. Pino Palladino is a Grammy Award winning songwriter, producer and bassist who helped create the rhythm-section sound of D’Angelo’s Voodoo and Black Messiah, and over a four-decade career has worked with artists including Keith Richards, Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Nine Inch Nails, Questlove, John Mayer, Paul Simon, Jeff Beck, Herbie Hancock and Adele. Blake Mills is a two-time Grammy Awards Producer of the Year nominee. He has released four solo albums and produced and recorded with artists such as Alabama Shakes, Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan, John Legend, Perfume Genius, Jim James, Moses Sumney, Laura Marling, Phoebe Bridgers, Cass McCombs, The Killers, Sara Bareilles, Weyes Blood and Randy Newman. His most recent album Mutable Set, released last year, was praised by Pitchfork as “a hushed collection that floats through the subconscious like a tender dream,” and earned their Best New Music title. Sam Gendel is a musician living in Los Angeles, CA. He is most known for his work with the saxophone, though he is proficient on multiple instruments. His work is diverse and includes collaborations with a wide range of artists including Ry Cooder, Laurie Anderson, Mach-Hommy, Sam Amidon, Perfume Genius, Moses Sumney, Knower, Vampire Weekend, and inc. no world.
File Under: Jazz
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Pearl Jam: Live on Two Legs (Legacy) LP
Post RSD restock! Originally released in 1998, Live On Two Legs documents that year’s US summer tour in support of the Yield album. Sixteen tracks on crystal clear vinyl, in double LP gatefold packaging.
File Under: Rock
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Picture Music: s/t (Left Ear) LP
Concocted in a share house in the South of Brisbane in the mid-80s, a small collective of well-acquainted musicians including Jon Anderson, Rainer Guth, Gary McFeat & Rod Owen gathered to compose film soundtracks, music for pictures, therefore ‘Picture Music’. To this end, a ‘spec’ tape of Picture Music recordings would be produced to give to potential clients and or sold to local stores. A distinct album comprising a collection of ambient, minimal-jazz and experimental music. If there is a red thread running through the Picture Music album, it is its “late night” ambience. The wrath of the sub-tropical summer heat of Brisbane is not kind on electronic equipment, which would crash regularly by day. So, all recording was done in the relative cool of the late evening, in a room only dimly lit by lamp and candle. The Picture Music collective would make music and party all through the night, departing around sunrise. They would sleep through the heat of the day, only to return in the evening for more of the same. This 2022 reissue of their self-titled 1987 cassette, was taken from the original master tapes and remains an evocative representation of the music that resulted from the late-night, dimly-lit, atmospheric-enabled environment, that sparked the creativity of a group of like-minded friends in a tiny corner of Brisbane. Dedicated to the memory Rainer Guth.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient
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Tony Price: IBM Contra LP (L.I.E.S.) LP
Prolific and often nomadic label boss, producer, and studio engineer, Tony Price (Maximum Exposure) has been making a name for himself over these last years, as he’s lurked in the shadows while moving from city to city around the world, leaving a unique and wide-spanning musical mark in his wake. On his 13 track IBM-CONTRA LP, Price conjures up a wild melange of free jazz and high speed electro funk next that sits next to dusty ambient, street tough house, and even Bill Conti-esque dark alley rainy street jams featuring saxophone work from Alex Zhang Hungtai and Colin Fisher. The album is unmistakably Tony at his best, as he weaves in and out of these genres making them make sense next to each other. Whether it’s providing a shady saxophone driven backdrop for the next inevitable worldwide bio-warfare crisis or tapping into the roots of stripped down classic electro and house for the floor, this is the artist at peak creativity flexing his skills.
File Under: Electronic
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TR/ST: The Destroyer 1 & 2 (House Arrest) LP
This 2xLP combines TR/ST’s Destroyer Volumes 1 and 2 into one product, with two discs in a gatefold jacket. Both volumes’ original artwork is present with Volume 1 artwork on the cover and Volume 2 on the back of the jacket.
File Under: Electronic
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Melvin Van Peebles: Watermelon Man OST (Real Gone) LP
In an extraordinary career spanning seven decades, director and “godfather of black cinema” Melvin Van Peebles only made one studio film. 1970’s Watermelon Man shattered conventions with its bitingly satirical story about a white couple, intolerant and obnoxious insurance salesman Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) and his seemingly liberal wife Althea (Estelle Parsons). One morning, Jeff awakens to discover that his skin color has changed from white to black-and it’s not a result of his daily tanning routine. Unable to successfully change back, he learns what it’s like to live in America as a black man, and his eyes are opened. The uncompromising Watermelon Man shocked audiences in 1970 and remains all too relevant today. Accompanying the scathing comedy was an original soundtrack composed by Van Peebles himself, then recording for A&M Records and about to take on Broadway with a pair of Tony Award-nominated musicals. The soundtrack to Watermelon Man was released on the small Beverly Hills label, preserving Van Peebles’ enjoyably eclectic score – blending jazz, funk, rock, rhythm and blues, proto-rap, and even bluegrass – and the songs “Love, That’s America” and “Soul’d on You” as well as a special appearance by Estelle Parsons on “Where Are the Children.” All that and Ry Cooder, too: the slide guitar virtuoso, while uncredited, is said to have played the indelible slide parts throughout the album! Watermelon Man came to be overshadowed by Van Peebles’ seminal follow-up Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and the album disappeared, too. But the time has never been more right to rediscover Van Peebles’ prescient film and its killer soundtrack. Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records’ first-ever vinyl reissue (and first reissue in any format) of Watermelon Man features remastered audio from Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision as well as an insert with on-set photos and liner notes by The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese, with a green, “watermelon skin” pressing.
File Under: OST, Funk
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Jack White: Entering Heaven Alive (Third Man) LP
Coloured wax! Jack White returns in 2022 with not one but two brand new albums – his first new full-length collections in over four years! Fear of the Dawn arrives everywhere in April 2022 while Entering Heaven Alive will follow in July 2022. White has been writing and recording music throughout the entirety of the past several years, creating two entirely distinctive albums – each defined by different inspirations, different themes, different moods. Introduced by the countrified “Taking Me Back (Gently)” (which appears on Fear of the Dawn in a blazing electric version), Entering Heaven Alive is the fifth solo studio album from the founding member of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. True to his DIY roots, this record was recorded at White’s Third Man Studio throughout 2021, mastered by Third Man Mastering, pressed to vinyl at Third Man Pressing, and released by Third Man Records.
File Under: Rock, Roots
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Barney Wilen: Zodiac (We Are Busy Bodies) LP
We Are Busy Bodies is proud to announce the first official reissue of ‘Zodiac’ by brilliant French tenor saxophonist, Barney Wilen. Originally released on the Disques Vogue label in 1966, the album has been restored and remastered from Barney Wilen‘s personal copy of the album. The album was recorded a few years after performing on albums and European tours with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis. The album is an exploration of free jazz, dedicated to the signs of the zodiac. Wilen and his friend, photographer Jean Larivière worked together to create the photos and artwork for his album, Zodiac. The intention at the time was to also create a film with a storyline and characters developed by Jean. Unfortunately, the concept was never fully realized at the time,. Sketches, photos and further context are included in the accompanying album insert.
File Under: Jazz
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Don Wilkerson: Preach Brother (Blue Note) LP
Blue Note Records has announced the continuation of the Classic Vinyl Reissue Series which presents 180g vinyl LP reissues in standard packaging mastered by Kevin Gray and manufactured at Optimal. The pressings are all-analog whenever an analog source is available, with Gray mastering directly from the original master tapes. While the first 16 titles of the series focused on the best-known Blue Note classics from the 1950s and 60s, the new run of titles curated by Don Was and Cem Kurosman broadens its scope to span the many eras and styles of the legendary label’s eight-decade history presented by themes: Bebop, Hard Bop, Soul Jazz, Post-Bop, Avant-Garde, The 70s, The Rebirth, and Hidden Gems. The deeply soulful Louisiana-born tenor saxophonist Don Wilkerson made his Blue Note debut in 1962 with Preach Brother!, an under-recognized soul jazz classic and a hidden gem of the label catalog. Wilkerson had joined Ray Charles’ band in the mid-50s and played on several of the soul legend’s classic Atlantic sides, the feeling of which carries over into this exuberant 6-song set of Wilkerson originals. Joined by Grant Green on guitar, Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums, Wilkerson is an absolute powerhouse from the opening flourishes of the jump blues “Jeanie-Weenie” to the swaggering closer “Pigeon Peas.” In between, Wilkerson takes his listeners to church on the irrepressible shouters “Dem Tambourines” and “Camp Meetin’,” downshifts for the expressive “Homesick Blues,” and carries on an animated conversation with Green’s soul-drenched guitar on “The Eldorado Shuffle.”
File Under: Jazz
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…..restocks…..
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile: Lotta Sea Lice (Matador) LP
Belle & Sebastian: Boy With the Arab Strap (Matador) LP
Breeders: Last Splash (4AD) LP
Breeders: Pod (4AD) LP
The Cure: Pornography (Rhino) LP
Flying Lotus: Cosmogramma (Warp) LP
Iron Maiden: Somewhere in Time (Sanctuary) LP
Iron Maiden: Number of the Beast (Sanctuary) LP
Jesus Lizard: Down (Touch & Go) LP
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasure (Rhino) LP
Jr. Thomas & The Volcanos: Beware (Colemine) LP
Khruangbin & Leon Bridges: Texas Moon (Dead Oceans) LP
King Woman: Created in the Image of Suffering (Relapse) LP
Mary Lattimore: At the Dam (Ghostly) LP
Paul Leary: History of Dogs, Revisited (Shimmy Disc) LP
Madvillain: Madvillainy (Stones Throw) LP
Nirvana: Bleach (Sub Pop) LP
Oasis: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (Big Brother) LP
OST: Wild Style (Mr. Bongo) LP
Pixies: Surfer Rosa (4AD) LP
Rada: Upadesa (Wah Wah) LP
Radiohead: The Bends (XL) LP
Radiohead: OK Computer (XL) LP
Rage Against The Machine: s/t (Legacy) LP
Otis Redding: Otis Blue (Rhino) LP
Replacements: Let it Be (Rhino) LP
Sigur Ros: ( ) (Krunk) LP
Tarotplane: 358 Oblique (Lullabies for Insomniacs) LP
Tarotplane: Light Self All Others (Impatience) LP
Townes Van Zandt: Delta Momma Blues (Fat Possum) LP
Townes Van Zandt: Flyin’ Shoes (Fat Possum) LP
Townes Van Zandt: For the Sake of the Song (Fat Possum) LP
Townes Van Zandt: Live at the Old Quarter (Fat Possum) LP
Townes Van Zandt: Our Mother the Mountain (Fat Possum) LP
Townes Van Zandt: s/t (Fat Possum) LP
Various: DFA Compilation #2 (DFA) LP
Various: Planet Love: Early Transmissions 1990-96 (Safe Trip) LP
Various: Planet Love: Early Transmissions 2 1990-95 (Safe Trip) LP
Various: Welcome to Paradise Vol. 2 (Safe Trip) LP