You may have noticed there was no update last week, if so, thanks for listening. If not, well, you’re listening now it would appear. Anyway, I’m back from a quick tour of Alberta and here’s last week and this weeks new arrivals. Some really great stuff in again. Things are really starting to pickup for the fall new releases. Don’t fall behind!
…..picks of the week…..
Caterina Barbieri: Born Again In The Voltage (Important) LP
Born Again In The Voltage is an astonishing collection of electro-acoustic pieces for Buchla 200 system, cello, and voice composed and produced by Caterina Barbieri at Elektronmusikstudion (SE) between 2014 and 2015. Cello by Antonello Manzo. Images by Giovanni Brunetto; Photography by Angelo Jaroszuk Bogasz; Layout by Important Records. Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi. Edition of 500.
Caterina Barbieri/Eleh: split (Important) LP
Highly synergistic split from Eleh and Caterina Barbieri featuring two sides of similar audio dimensions. These two electronic sound poems slowly unfurl rich timbre and harmonics with an austere stillness that is, somehow, ever-changing. It hardly matters whose side is whose.
File Under: Ambient, Electronic, Drone
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David Axelrod: Songs of Experience (Now Again) LP
Audiophile reissue, lacquered directly from Axelrod’s original EQ’ed master tapes at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster, housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket. “Audiophile reissue, transferred directly from Axelrod’s original EQ’ed master tapes at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster ‘Songs of Experience was supposed to have a different feel than Song of Innocence. You see, music is a great outlet. And regardless of what the titles say, and as close as I wanted it to be to William Blake, what was going on in my life took precedence.’ –David Axelrod Songs of Experience is visionary composer/arranger/producer David Axelrod’s second album; it was recorded after the death of his beloved son Scott. Experience is an ominous affair, an album concerned with mortality and spirituality — the solitary, pastoral musings of William Blake set to the urban bombast of a full Los Angeles orchestra, with Wrecking Crew vets grounding the proceedings with dark funk. This is the next Now-Again issue in a series of reissues centered around Axelrod’s Capitol Trilogy — Song of Innocence, Songs of Experience and Earth Rot — which will see release through 2018. Contains 32-page booklet that delves into Axelrod’s incredible life and music, replete with never before published photos. ‘There are very few people who see the Grand Picture of the Universe and understand the Nothingness that it all comes from. There are even fewer who can express these ideas through music — David could do it all.’ –T-Ray”
File Under: Funk, Psych, Breakz
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…..new arrivals…..
Gyedu-Blay Ambolley: The Message (Analog Africa) LP
Prepare yourself for new directions in Afro-funk: Analog Africa presents the ninth release of their Limited Edition Serie. During the 1980s, Ghanaian bandleader Gyedu-Blay Ambolley began to experiment with electronic instruments, and the result was a potent mix of highlife, funk, exploratory synths and righteous vocals, the sound of a restless genius intent on pushing the traditional sounds of highlife into a brave new future. By the end of the 1970s, Ambolley was already a legendary figure on the Ghanaian music scene. He rose to prominence during the late 1960s, serving with countryman Ebo Taylor in the Stargazers and the Uhuru Dance Band before launching his own career with “Simigwa-do,” the 1972 hit that propelled him to West African stardom. As a founding member of the Apagya Show Band and the Complex Soundz, he stretched the boundaries of highlife with electric instruments, funky rhythms and socially charged lyrics in Fante and English. With a new band, Zantoda Mak III, he recorded “The Message,” a seven minute funk workout built on a highlife foundation, and decorated with shimmering synths. Recorded in 1980, the song became a hit that would change the direction of Ambolley’s music: over the next decade, electronic instruments played a much larger role in his sonic experiments. “The Message” receives a long overdue re-release on this 12″ along with three other peaks from Ambolley’s eighties output. Difficult, if not impossible to find for decades, Analog Africa is proud to make Gyedu-Blay Ambolley’s extraordinary eighties recordings available to a wider audience. 180 gram vinyl; silkscreen printed cover and color vinyl.
File Under: Psych
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Olafur Arnalds: Re: Member (Mercury) LP
“This is my breaking out-of-a-shell album,” explains Icelandic BAFTA-winning artist, composer, musician and producer Ólafur Arnalds about his newest recording Re: Member. “It’s me taking the raw influences that I have from all these different musical genres and not filtering them. It explores the creative process and how one can manipulate that to get out of the circle of expectations and habit.”
File Under: Electronic, Classical
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Autechre: NTS Sessions 1-4 (Warp) LP
3LP sets in tomorrow, 12LP boxes next week. Autechre weigh in the labyrinthine 8 hour ‘NTS Sessions’, parsing the guts of their hard drives for gold and other precious materials dating back to 2011. The duo were initially commissioned to do a DJ residency on NTS, following their show from early 2016, but what transpired is closer in approach and results to a super extended Peel Session, featuring stacks of reworked material along with exclusive new notions generated by their infamous ‘System’ of software patches. Given so much time to roam, they explore a full spectrum of meters, tones and alien machine feels ranging from succinct hyper-symphonies to an hour long closing passage of unfathomably deep ambient music, all sequenced with a non-linear narrative arc influenced by the stunning 3rd series of Twin Peaks, and with distant echoes of their seminal, freeform Disengage shows for Kiss firmly in mind. Call it an album, call it a radio show, call it a massive excuse to lock yourself away for 8 hours, either way ‘NTS Sessions’ is a vital dispatch from the North Face models, with material such as the squirming tech-step of ‘North Spiral’ and the slimy electro of ‘Four Of Seven’ from the 1st session, or the footwork-esque ‘Gonk Tuf Hi’ from the 2nd, and the free-floating structures of ‘Cluster Casual’ off the 3rd volume offering some deeply satisfying rhythmic convolutions for the dancers, whereas the preponderance of durational cuts, including highlights such as the hour long ‘All End’, the breathtaking visions of ‘Turbine Epic Casual, Stpl Idle’, and the plasmic wormhole of ’Shimripl Casual’ reach deep into the most abstract, amorphous nooks of their sound in a way comparable with visionary work from Roland Kayn or Iannis Xenakis. In other words, it’s fuucking mint.
File Under: Electronic
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Big Red Machine: s/t (Jagjaguwar) LP
In 2008, Aaron Dessner sent Justin Vernon an instrumental sketch of a song called “Big Red Machine” for the 2009 compilation Dark Was The Night. This was before they had met in person. Justin wrote a song to it, interpreting the “Big Red Machine” title as a heart. Ten years of friendship later, there are ten more songs. Each song includes a large number of collaborators via the PEOPLE platform and the record was produced by Justin and Aaron with longtime collaborator Brad Cook and engineered by Jonathan Low primarily at Aaron’s studio Long Pond in Upper Hudson Valley, NY. PEOPLE is a steadily growing group of international artists who have come together to create and share their work freely, with each other and everyone. It was born out of a wish to establish an independent and nurturing space in which to make work (generally around music) that is collaborative, spontaneous and expressive in nature and where all unnecessary distractions or obstacles that get in the way are removed. PEOPLE is for the benefit and development of the artists involved and just as importantly, for those who would like to access and enjoy the output. It is as much about the process of making work and showing all that openly, as the final outcome.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Mac DeMarco: 2 Demos (Captured Tracks) LP
To celebrate Captured Tracks’ 10th Anniversary, a limited edition pressing of the vinyl is now available on green vinyl. Limited to 5000 copies. Demos from Mac DeMarco’s critically acclaimed debut, 2.
Mac DeMarco: Salad Days Demos (Captured Tracks) LP
To celebrate Captured Tracks’ 10th Anniversary, a limited edition pressing of the vinyl is now available on white vinyl. Limited to 5000 copies. Demos from Mac DeMarco’s critically acclaimed sophomore album, Salad Days.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Ted Dicks: Virgin Witch (Trunk) LP
Unreleased baroque jazz horror score to controversial lesbian sex cult witchcraft exploitation drama from 1973, composed by Ted Dicks, the man who wrote the Catweazle theme. Ted Dicks is not that well-known as a composer these days, but back in the mid-1960s he was composing library music as well as penning some of the greatest comedy songs of the era, including “Hole In The Ground” and “Right Said Fred”. His work was performed by Kenneth Williams, Petula Clarke, Bernard Cribbins, Topol, and more. But until now, little has been known of his brief flirtation with film music. Virgin Witch was his first brush with film scoring — one of only two score he wrote. The film was produced by legendary wrestling commentator Ken Walton (under his sexploitation pseudonym of Ralph Solomans), with the help of Hazel Adair, a woman famed for co-creating the long running UK TV soap Crossroads. Virgin Witch was a racey film, turned down at least once for certification by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), passed uncut with an X for release just in London, then cut and passed for general release shortly afterwards. The score itself is a unique and quite beautiful pop baroque work, utilizing the cimbalom, an instrument more than likely played here by Ipcress File (1965) musician John Leach. A very limited release of a most unique 1970s pop horror lesbian witch score. Full color, eye-catching sleeve with great sleeve notes.
File Under: OST, Exploitation, Jazz, Funk
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Hildur Gudnadottir: Sicario: Day of the Soldado OST (Varese Sarabande) LP
In tomorrow… In Sicario: Day of the Soldado, the series begins a new chapter. In the drug war, there are no rules – and as the cartels have begun trafficking terrorists across the US border, federal agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) calls on the mysterious Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), whose family was murdered by a cartel kingpin, to escalate the war in nefarious ways. Alejandro kidnaps the kingpin’s daughter to inflame the conflict – but when the girl is seen as collateral damage, her fate will come between the two men as they question everything they are fighting for. Sicario: Day of the Soldado is the 2018 sequel to the globally successful 2015 film, Sicario, which earned composer, Johann Johannson an Oscar nomination for Best Score. The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Soldado was composed by Hildur Gudnadottir, a collaborator on the Sicario score, and a well-respected classically trained cello player who has recorded as a solo artist and collaborated with The Knife, Animal Collective, Hauschka, and Fever Ray. The New York Times calls Gudnadottir’s score, “relentlessly foreboding, throbbing… Her music creates the impression that ‘Day of the Soldado’ is a dark, high-stakes thriller, much as the bulked-up military hardware and souped-up operational jargon make it look like a war movie and the border backdrop gives it a sheen of sour topicality.”
File Under: OST
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Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny: Beyond the Missouri Sky (Verve) LP
In tomorrow… Though Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny recorded together in many different contexts, 1997’s Grammy Award-winning Beyond The Missouri Sky (Short Stories) marked their first duet recording. One of the most celebrated figures in jazz, Metheny’s creativity, like Haden’s, knows no boundaries and Beyond The Missouri Sky is the culmination of a 25 year friendship of two of America’s premier musicians. These “short stories” add up to a moving, beautiful anthology of American music. “I have always admired Pat’s musical vision, his melodies, chords and voicing are unique unto him. He is an innovator in the sound he gets, as he is in his composing and improvising. His musical presentation is always beyond category, and his sense of the sound in music that comes from the feeling of this country is uncanny. Of course, he is from Missouri, as am I, which surely has something to do with it. I call his sound contemporary impressionistic Americana,” says Haden. Adds Metheny, “Charlie has been a huge influence on me as a musician and as a person. He is simply one of the greatest improvising musicians ever, and his bass playing has set the standard for what is now several generations of musicians. It was an honor to be asked by Charlie to make this record. For me, personally, this is one of the most special recordings I’ve ever been a part of.”
File Under: Jazz
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Catherine Christer Hennix: Selected Early Keyboard Works
(Blank Forms) LP
Selected Early Keyboard Works is the first in a series of planned archival records of the unheard music of Swedish composer, philosopher, poet, mathematician, and visual artist Catherine Christer Hennix, co-released by Blank Forms Editions and Empty Editions. It comes hot-on-the-heels of Traversée Du Fantasme at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, Hennix’s first solo museum exhibition in over 40 years, and coincides with both Blank Forms’ publication of Poësy Matters and Other Matters, a two-volume collection of her writing, and the closing of Thresholds of Perception, a retrospective archival show of Hennix’s visual work at The Empty Gallery in Hong Kong. The record also marks the first time Hennix’s own music has been given a full-length vinyl issue. In 1976, Catherine Christer Hennix’s just intonation live-electronic ensemble The Deontic Miracle performed Hennix’s original compositions, alongside works by La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Terry Jennings, as part of Brouwer’s Lattice at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Culled from rehearsal tapes recorded during the ten-day Dream Music Festival, Selected Early Keyboard Works features three pieces of minimal music, performed by Hennix on tunable electric keyboards. “Mode Nouvelle Des Modalités”, for well-tuned just intonation Fender Rhodes and sine wave drone, is a consummate expression of Hennix’s formative years, a probing meditation giving the mercurial quality of early electronic music an instrumental life replete with the dexterity of Cecil Taylor and shades of Paul Bley’s synthesized reveries. “Equal Temperament Fender Mix”, performed on the same Rhodes but in twelve-tone equal temperament tuning, employs a tape delay system not unlike that used famously by Terry Riley, here towards more somber, hallucinatory means. Hennix is joined by Hans Isgren for the collection’s centerpiece, “The Well-Tuned Marimba”, for well-tuned Yamaha, sheng, sine wave, and live electronics. Using the same approach and just intonation keyboard featured on Hennix’s The Electric Harpsichord (2010), but with marimba in place of harpsichord stops, the piece is an undulating marvel of lysergic drone, equally deserving of its companion’s status as “THE obscure masterpiece of the days of the early American minimalism”. Now accessible for the first time, these recordings only begin to fill gaps of silence from a figure whose work has until recently remained flickering at the margins of some of the most enduring cultural developments of the 20th century. Tape transfer and master cut by Andreas (Lupo) Lubich. Audio restoration and mastering by Stephan Mathieu.
File Under: Experimental
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Interpol: Marauder (Matador) LP
Interpol follows-up 2014’s El Pintor with their sixth studio album, Marauder. For the first time since 2007’s Our Love to Admire, the band has opened themselves up to the input of a producer. For two-week spells between December of 2017 to April of 2018, they traveled to upstate New York to work with Dave Fridmann – famed for recording with Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips, MGMT, Spoon, Mogwai, and countless more. In the run up to writing and recording, Sam Fogarino found himself immersed in soul drummers such as Al Jackson Jr (Otis Redding’s drummer) and 80’s funk producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. “How can I make shit swing?” was the question Sam repeatedly asked himself, and the answer is in the striding gallop of opener “If You Really Love Nothing,” the embellished skip ‘n’ bounce of “Stay in Touch” and the R&B swagger of closer “It Probably Matters.” Interpol have always been world-beaters at creating a feeling, but Marauder is where the feel is just as crucial. Paul Banks may have stepped out of the shadows as a bassist, but he steps into an even brighter light as a songwriter here. During Interpol’s previous albums, the singer largely kept himself out of his own work, preferring to fill his lyrics with detached thoughts, characters, and observations, often phrased in abstract. But more than 20 years on since forming at NYU, the frontman is finally allowing himself to play a role in his own stories. “Marauder is a facet of myself,” he explains. “That’s the guy that fucks up friendships and does crazy shit. He taught me a lot, but it’s representative of a persona that’s best left in song. In a way, this album is like giving him a name and putting him to bed.”
File Under: Indie Rock
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Kamal Keila: Muslims & Christians (Habibi Funk) LP
“Songs about the unity of Sudan, peace between Muslims and Christians and the fate of war orphans, backed by grooves equally taking influence from Arabic sounds, American funk as well as neighboring Ethiopia. Kamal Keila was among the first artist we met in Sudan during our two trips to Khartoum and Omdurman last year. He is one of the key figures of the Sudanese jazz scene that was a vital part of the musical culture in Sudan from the mid-1960s until the Islamist revolution in the late 1980s. When we meet Kamal he luckily presented us with two mold covered studio reels. Each tape included five tracks. One with English lyrics and another with Arabic ones. Musically you can hear the influence of neighboring Ethiopia much more than on other Sudanese recordings of the time, as well as references to Fela and American funk and soul. His lyrics, at least when he sings in English which gave him more freedom from censorship, are very political. A brave statement in the political climate of Sudan of the last decades, preaching for the unity of Sudan, peace between Muslims and Christians and singing the blues about the fate of war orphans called ‘Shmasha’. A note inside one of the boxes specified the track titles, durations and the fact that the sessions were recorded on the 12th of August 1992. Both sessions stand as a hearable testament how Kamal Keila stuck to a sound aesthetic from decades ago, while incorporating current events into his lyrics. Kamal Keila’s album is the first in a series of releases covering the Sudanese jazz scene on Habibi Funk. Be on the lookout for albums by The Scorpions and Sharhabeel coming soon.”
File Under: Funk, Soul, Afrobeat
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Konrad Kraft: Arctica (Tal) LP
Includes full-size insert and download code; Edition of 400. Tal present the first reissue of Konrad Kraft’s Arctica, originally released on cassette on SDV Tonträger in 1987 in a handmade edition of about 50 copies. Pioneering production from the Düsseldorf mid ’80s electronic underground world. Transferred for the first ever time from the original cassette to vinyl and CD. Konrad Kraft (Detlef Funder) is one of the still overlooked producers of Düsseldorf’s fertile electronic music scene. Reduced to its essential musical elements, Arctica certainly contains some of the most uncategorizable and bewildering pieces of mid-eighties electronic music. Set between the areas of post punk and early techno, the album undulates between analog as well as digital instrumentation. After Konrad Kraft’s appearance on the enthusiastically received compilation Sammlung: Elektronische Kassettenmusik, Dusseldorf 1982-1989. Cassettes were the medium of choice for self-produced recordings at the time. At the time of the Arctica sessions, the newly set up SDV studio consisted of a Tascam 38, an eight-track tape recorder, and only a handful of synthesizers such as a Roland JX3P and a Korg Monopoly. The style of Konrad Kraft’s productions displayed (ever since and up until today), a strong adherence to an idea of continual self-creation and a quality of wanting to be responsible for one’s own identity. Even three decades after its recording, Arctica still evokes images of an expedition into an edgy cold place which has strange wonders, polar lights, structures of ice and innumerable worlds and creatures in store. Konrad Kraft (who today runs Paraschall mastering studios): “In the early ’70s I got a transistor radio as a gift and immediately fell in love with the shortwaves. So many different sounds that was truly fascinating. I can imagine that nowadays as music is endlessly compressed to fit into mobile phones and as music on the radio sounds dreadfully the same, there might be a renewed interest by a young generation in discovering electronic sounds. I can listen to Arctica much better now than when it originally came out, because there is a distance which allows me to approach the recordings on a more neutral plane . . . Arctica seems to sound even more contemporary today than it did in 1987.”
File Under: Electronic, Minimal
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Lemon Twigs: Go To School (4AD) LP
A musical conceived by brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, The Lemon Twigs’ ambitious 15-track opus Go To School was written, recorded, produced and mixed by the pair at their home in Long Island, NY. Their second album overall tells the heartbreaking coming-of-age story of Shane, a pure of heart chimpanzee raised as a human boy as he comes to terms with the obstacles of life. Todd Rundgren and the D’Addario’s mother Susan Hall play Shane’s parents. The album also features contributions from Jody Stephens (Big Star) and their father Ronnie D’Addario. The Lemon Twigs emerged in 2016 with their debut LP Do Hollywood, which was praised by Rolling Stone for “toting hooky songs that stand out for their intricate arrangements and delectable melodies” and NPR Music who mused, “Like listening to music from a time that never was…a baroque rock romp.” The band quickly earned fans in Elton John, Questlove, and Jack Antonoff among many others, the latter of whom said, “Prediction: The Lemon Twigs will usher in a new phase of rock.”
File Under: Indie Rock
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Modern Minds: Go (Ugly Pop) LP
This Edmonton outfit formed in January 1979, playing a raw but melodic punk influenced by Buzzcocks and Undertones. Quickly developing a reputation as one of the city’s finest underground live groups, they went into the studio to record four tracks, three of which would appear on an excellent 7″ EP, ‘Theresa’s World’, in 1980. As was so often the case with tremendous groups of the era, The Modern Minds soon went their separate ways, frontman Moe Berg going on to real commercial success with his next group, The Pursuit Of Happiness. This new Ugly Pop LP collects the original EP and eight more unreleased studio cuts, along with a deluxe gatefold insert featuring photos and new liner notes.
File Under: Punk
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The Mods: Reactions (Ugly Pop) LP
Among cognoscenti of the era, this Toronto unit are known for one of the great lost singles of early Canadian punk. As great as 1978’s ‘Step Out Tonight’ 45 was, however, there was much more where that came from. Filtering the clear inspiration of mid ’60s Who and Kinks through the aggressive delivery of such contemporaries as The Jam and The Clash, The Mods honed their attack into an unstoppable rush, hard-edged but melodic, and began working on a planned major label LP that never did materialise. This new Ugly Pop LP includes the single and highlights of the aborted album session; hyperbole aside, it’s an astonishingly good record, and one of the best we’ll ever release. New liners and rare pictures inside.
File Under: Punk
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Mogwai: Kin OST (Temporary Residence) LP
Scotland’s Mogwai are not only legendary experimental rock icons, but also well-established soundtrack titans – sound sculptors behind an impressive spectrum of cinematic releases (both full soundtracks and contributions): Including their last film soundtrack, Atomic (2016), there’s been consistent acclaim through Michael Mann’s Miami Vice (2006), The Fountain (2006, collaborating with Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet), Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2007), Amnesty International’s PEACE project (2010), international hit French TV series Les Revenants (2013), and Leonardo DiCaprio’s climate change documentary Before The Flood (2016) alongside soundtrack Oscar-winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The staggeringly prolific force that is Mogwai return less than a year after their standout new album, Every Country’s Sun, to provide the soundtrack to the anticipated, acclaimed new sci-fi major motion picture, KIN. Like their beloved soundtracks to Atomic and Les Revenants, KIN uses the band’s original score as the genesis and point of departure for an expanded, fully developed album of new songs. KIN is cinematic maximalism and synth-rock minimalism delivered with the signature introspective grace that has defined and refined Mogwai’s decades-long reputation.
File Under: OST, Post Rock
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Nurse with Wound: Homotopy to Marie (Rotorelief) LP
Silver and black vinyl version. Metallic gatefold sleeve. Rotorelief present a reissue of Homotopy To Marie. the fifth album by Nurse With Wound, originally released in 1982. Music and sleeve created by Steven Stapleton. The album is “a step on from the Dadaist rock of Merzbild Schwet, with much use of tape manipulation and classical avant-garde techniques”. The album, which combines tape edits with resonating gong tones and disembodied children’s voices to create a sonic collage, is far removed from the harsh improvisations of the group’s early albums. The title of the brief closing track derives from a passage from “Les Chants de Maldoror” (1869), a surreal poetic novel written by Le Comte de Lautréamont. This appropriation of a phrase from Maldoror is shared in common with the title of Nurse With Wound’s debut album, Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella (1979); both phrases appear in Lautréamont’s work. The album was first issued on Stapleton’s own United Dairies label on vinyl, cassette, and later in remastered compact disc including an extra track “Astral Dustbin Dirge”. This masterpiece reissue is the official full, double album from the original recording sessions. The four tracks from the original LP are accompanied by additional recordings from the same period. This second, double album masterpiece in the “silver collection” of Nurse With Wound albums, is a technically better, crystal clear performance, in comparison to the original 1982 cut.
File Under: Experimental, Industrial
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Orquesta de las Nubes: The Order of Change (Music from Memory) LP
The subject of Music From Memory’s compilation here focuses on Suso Saiz’s output as part of the group Orquesta De Las Nubes, formed by Suso Saiz and percussionist Pedro Estevan when the two met whilst studying a course on “Techniques of Contemporary Composition” in Madrid. Following on from a retrospective compilation of solo work and an album of recent work in 2016, Music From Memory continue to explore the work of Spanish ambient and experimental pioneer Suso Saiz. Sharing a curiosity for American minimalist and non-western music, the pair began to share music through many listening sessions, during which the idea slowly evolved to try and make music together. Pedro’s partner at the time, soprano singer María Villa, would later join the two on vocals. With Suso’s sparse use of guitar loops, synthesizers, and drum computers in combination with the hypnotic percussion of Pedro Estevan and the wordless drifting vocals of María Villa, Orquesta De La Nubes would evolve as a group with a truly unique musical language; an ethereal and almost otherworldly musical realm. Developing at first as a live act, through a number of performances in Madrid and beyond, Orquesta De Las Nubes was very much connected with, and inspired by, the avant-garde arts scene in Madrid at the time. Throughout their shows, a close circle of friends, including a number of painters, sculptors, and designers, would collaborate with the trio to create unique imagery and elaborate stage sets for the group’s performances. Yet, despite the growing fascination surrounding Orquesta De Las Nubes’ live performances, the trio would however find it extremely difficult to find a label willing to release their music on record. The group’s then manager Silvia Lovosevic therefore decided to set up her own label Linterna Música in order to make the work available. The group would release three albums between 1983-1987, two on the Linterna Musica label as well as an album and CD compilation of live tracks on the cult Spanish label Grabacionnes Accidentales. Between this period, the trio would also team up with American percussionist Glen Velez to record as the group Musica Esporadica; a one-off project in which they recorded a single album of the same name in 1985.
File Under: Electronic, Ambient, New Age
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Bernard Parmegiani: Les Soleils de L’ile de Paques / La Brulure de Mille Soleils (WRWTFWW) LP
WRWTFWW Records announce the release of two never-released-before soundtracks by French award-winning composer, audio experimenter, electroacoustic, and musique concrète magician, and all-around sound visionary Bernard Parmegiani, sourced from the original reels, and with English and French liner notes. Les Soleils De l’Île De Pâques (1972), by French director Pierre Kast, is a sci-fi feature which secured itself a well-deserved place in the pantheon of mysterious cult films thanks to hallucinatory (and superb) cinematography, exploration of supernatural phenomenon and occult symbolism, and one hell of a trippy atmosphere. La Brûlure De Mille Soleils (1965) also comes from Pierre Kast, but this time with the help of none other than writer, photographer, multimedia artist, homme à tout faire Chris Marker — notably known for films La Jetée (1962), A Grin Without a Cat (1977), and Sans Soleil (1983) — who edited this bizarre short to brain-melting results that live up to the promises of its synopsis: A depressed millionaire poet, accompanied by his cat Marcel and a sign language robot, travels in time to shake a persistent feeling of ennui and falls hopelessly in love with a woman from another planet. ‘Nuff said! A renowned member of the prestigious GRM (Groupe De Recherches Musicales, the French equivalent of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop) and frequent collaborator of Pierre Schaeffer, Iannis Xenakis, and Pierre Henry, among others, Bernard Parmegiani does what he does best with these two rare soundtracks: create moods with electroacoustic experimentation, elevating the weird and hypnotic with soundscapes from other dimensions, and cementing his status as a true innovator.
File Under: Electronic, AvantGarde
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Phew: Voice Hardcore (Mesh-Key) LP
“Living legend Phew follows up her brilliant Light Sleep album with another masterwork — Voice Hardcore — comprised entirely of her iconic, instantly recognizable voice, twisted, folded and layered over six mesmerizing tracks. Recorded at home in summer 2017, this release finds Phew exploring an idea she first hatched while recording her debut single ‘Finale’ in 1980 — to, in her words, ‘ make new reverberations that I have never heard before, using only my body.’ 37 years later, Phew proves herself again to be the exception to the rule — a veteran artist with an estimable catalog spanning decades who, rather than repeating herself or playing it safe, charges headfirst into uncharted territory. Phew’s self — released tour CD of Voice Hardcore was voted # 23 Best Album of 2017 by The Wire Magazine. This Mesh-Key vinyl edition features a silver foil stamped cover and a double-sided, full color insert, and comes with an mp3 download card.”
File Under: Experimental
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Scientists: Weird Love (Numero) LP
Unhinged Aussie grunge captured just as the Scientists were imploding/attempting to explode. Recorded over three days in February 1986, Weird Love is the band’s last ditch effort to bring their bad vibes to bedrooms the world over, a colossal failure and brilliant mistake that sounds best when blasting out of a 1982 Corolla’s blown Alpine tweeters. “The Scientists proved to me that rock ‘n’ roll could be played by gentlemen in fine silk shirts half unbuttoned and still be dirty, cool and real.” – Thurston Moore “They wrote fantastic singles and looked like they just crawled out of the ooze. What more could you ask for?” – Warren Ellis “The Scientists turned my head around and made a man out of me! They grew hair on my palms and made my socks stink!” – Jon Spencer
File Under: Garage, Punk
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Shovels & Rope: Predecessors (Dualtone) 3LP
Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent (known jointly as the Americana/folk duo Shovels & Rope) started their career performing independently as solo artists, each releasing records under their own names in the mid-to-late aughts and early 2010’s. In 2008 they released the album titled Shovels & Rope as a collaboration and the two artists decided to tour together. Performing live, they’d play together on songs from Hearst’s Lions and Lambs (2011), Trent’s The Winner (2010), and their collaborative album, creating the first live glimpses of the band that would eventually become Shovels & Rope. Dualtone is excited to offer these early individual solo albums alongside early collaborations in the form of Predecessors, a three LP package featuring Hearst’s Lions and Lambs, Trent’s The Winner, and a third LP with never-before-released material from Shovels & Rope’s archives.
File Under: Folk
Mako Sica & Hamid Drake: Ronda (Feeding Tube) LP
“Brilliant, inspired and somewhat surprising collaboration between Chicago’s premier free-rock trio and the truly legendary percussionist, Hamid Drake, who has played with everyone from Don Cherry to Peter Brötzmann to Lee Perry. This collusion was precipitated by Matt Jackowiak, a mutual friend, who thought a merging of their sounds might make for an ecstatic explosion. This feeling became mutual after they played a show together at Constellation. The set mixes Mako Sica tunes with improvisations that took everyone to places they hadn’t expected, and the trip was deemed an utter success. Ronda was done at two sessions, scheduled around Hamid’s insanely busy work schedule. The first was at Jamdek with Douglas Malone at the board, the second was at Electrical Audio with Taylor Hales. The Electrical session allowed the players access to a host of additional instruments, so the sonic palette on ‘Dance With Waves’ and ‘Emanation’ is wider and somehow more cosmic than usual. But the whole album has an extraordinary depth and width of sound. Even the great songs Mako Sica has had in its set for a while like ‘The Old Book,’ gain whole new levels of otherness here, and the material based in quartet improvisations, like ‘The Wu Wei,’ explores wild new territory for the band. Ronda (named after a town in southern Spain with a famous 18th Century bridge crossing a deep gorge) is the first span connecting the disparate musical worlds of Mako Sica and Hamid Drake. Let us hope it is but the first of many.” –Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 500.
File Under: Jazz
Television: Marquee Moon (Rhino) 2LP
Released in 1977, Marquee Moon is the highly-acclaimed debut album from Television. The deluxe LP contains the original album plus an additional LP of bonus tracks that featured on the 2003 remastered CD. Presented on 2LP, mixed blue vinyl.
File Under: Rock, Punk
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Thou: Magus (Sacred Bones) LP
Though often lumped in with New Orleans sludge bands like Eyehategod and Crowbar, Thou shares a more spiritual kinship with ’90s proto-grunge bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden (all of whom they’ve covered extensively, both in the studio and onstage). The band’s aesthetic and political impulses reflect the obscure ’90s DIY hardcore punk found on labels like Ebullition, Vermiform, and Crimethinc. From 2004 through 2016, the group has released four full-length albums, six EPs, two collaboration records with The Body, and enough material spread out over splits to make up another four or five LPs. Sacred Bones Records is proud to present the new album, Magus, Thou’s first full-length since 2014’s Heathen. In the months leading up to the release of the album, Thou will be issuing three drastically different EPs: The House Primordial on Raw Sugar, Inconsolable on Community Records, and Rhea Sylvia on Deathwish, Inc. Each record will focus on a particular sound – noisy drone, quiet acoustic, and melodic grunge – all of which is incorporated into the new LP, subsumed in the band’s more standard doom metal. While sonically, Magus may be a continuation of Heathen, thematically it stands as a stark rebuttal, a journey beyond the principles of pleasure and pain. It is more the culmination of these distinct EPs, which all orbit some internal black hole. FFO alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease.
File Under: Metal
Piero Umiliani: Bollenti Spiriti (Cinedelic) LP
Cinedelic Records present a reissue of Piero Umiliani’s sound track for the 1981 film Bollenti Spiriti. Bollenti Spiriti is a film by Giorgio Capitani, one of the most prolific directors of the Italian sexy comedy genre, starring Johnny Dorelli and Gloria Guida. Maestro Piero Umiliani recorded the soundtrack in his innovative Suono Work-Shop Studios in Rome, fusing his love for jazz — a genre that since the ’50s has been a leading figure in Europe — and his unmistakable arrangements. Cinedelic Records reprints it here for the first time in a limited numbered edition.
File Under: OST, Library
Phillip Werren: Electronic Music (Manufacturing) BOX
“An astounding, epic journey into the more obscure areas of early electronic music, Phillip Werren’s Electronic Music is a wellspring of contemporary composition across four LPs. Originally released in 1971 in an edition of 100 copies, this impossibly rare piece of early Canadian electronic music has finally been reissued on vinyl in an exact replica box with a silk-screened cover. Electronic Music was recorded at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), McGill University (Montreal) and Radio Warzawa (Poland) between 1967 and 1971. Influenced as much by serialism as by psychedelia and the occult, the album features elements of tape collage, voice, and experimental composition. Most of the recordings were performed on a Buchla System 100, one of the first modular synthesizers. An absorbing piece of the Canadian avant-garde, Electronic Music is a journey through space, sound, texture, and unbridled experimentation. Recommended for fans of artist ranging from Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Ferrari to Basil Kirchin, Conrad Schnitzler, Throbbing Gristle, and Coil –Manufactured Recordings’ reissue of Electronic Music aims to shed light on this crucially overlooked composer. Limited to 500 copies worldwide.”
File Under: Early Electronic, Avant Garde
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Wild Nothing: Indigo (Captured Tracks) LP
Although civilization’s transition into a cyborg world seems inevitable, there are still those who recognize the beauty and power of a human touch to complement the circumvention. Jack Tatum understands this balance, and through a decade making music as Wild Nothing he has learned to embrace both sides of that dynamic – but perhaps never as distinctly as on Indigo, the project’s fourth album. On one hand, it is a return to the fresh, transcendent sweep of his debut, 2010’s Gemini, and on the other, a culmination of heights reached, paths traveled, and lessons learned while creating the follow-ups, Nocturne and Life of Pause. Indigo finds Tatum at his most efficient, calculated, and confident – resulting in an artful blend of hi-fi humanity and technology that fires on all circuits and synapses. To make it, Tatum confronted the Man vs. Machine dichotomy by seizing on the surrounding synergy. Finding the right people to work on the LP was integral, as was the proper place to record it. So, Tatum booked four days at legendary Sunset Sound’s Studio. Afterwards, producer Jorge Elbrecht (Ariel Pink, Gang Gang Dance, Japanese Breakfast) and Jack built out the rest of the album’s sound by adding new parts and repurposing sounds from his demos. Indigo is its own cyborg world, utilizing the artful mechanisms of human touch with the precision of technology to create the classic, pristine sound Tatum had been seeking his entire career. From the opening drum beat, chiming guitar, and sweeping synth of “Letting Go” to Tatum’s Bryan Ferry vocal turn on “Oscillation” to the ’80s-heavy blips, clicks, and strut of “Partners in Motion,” it’s clear that Indigo is at once vintage Wild Nothing and a bold, new leap into a bigger arena.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Various: Teen Expo: The Cleopatra Label (Numero) LP
From a basement in New Jersey, Tommy Falcone remade himself into a DIY Phil Spector. From 1962 to 1970, he founded and ran Cleopatra Records, discovered and mentored young Garden State talent, wrote songs and produced wild studio effects, and quit his day job to promote it all himself. Trained as an accordionist, Falcone had a whirlwind imagination and an omnivorous approach to genre, expressed through acts like the Centuries, the Tabbys, Johnny Silvio, the Inmates, Bernadette Carroll, the Hallmarks, Vickie & the Van Dykes, the Shandillons, Eugene Viscione, the Shoestring, and more. Cleopatra became a time-capsule of every 1960s pop style imaginable – garage rock, psychedelia, surf, girl groups, soul, novelties, exotica, even a crooner – a kaleidoscope of sound in search of the ever-elusive hit record.
File Under: RnB, Rock, Garage, Psych, Surf
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…..Restocks…..
1975: 1975 (Polydor)LP
Air: Moon Safari (Parlophone) LP
David Axelrod: Song of Innocence (Now Again) LP
Buffalo Springfield: What’s That Sound (Rhino) Box
John Coltrane: Both Directions At Once (Impulse) 2LP
Alessandro Cortini: Avanti (PIAS) LP
Daft Punk: Discovery (EMI) LP
Daft Punk: Random Access Memories (Columbia) LP
Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar: Raga Yaman (Ideologic Organ) LP
Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar: Ragas Abhogi (Ideologic Organ) LP
Brian Eno: Another Green World (Astralwerks) 2LP
Brian Eno: Before & After Science (Astralwerks) 2LP
Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets (Astralwerks) 2LP
Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain (Astralwerks) 2LP
Carla Dal Forno: Garden (Blackest Ever Black) LP
Gorillaz: Demon Days (Parlophone) LP
Howlin’ Wolf: s/t (Macomba) LP
Howlin’ Wolf: Moanin’ in the Moonlight (Macomba) LP
Ken McIntyre with Eric Dolphy: Looking Ahead (Down at Dawn) LP
Jackie McLean: Destination… Out! (Down at Dawn) LP
Roberto Musci: Tower of Silence (Music from Memory) LP
Parquet Courts: Wide Awake (Rough Trade) LP
Liz Phair: Girl Sound to Guyville (Matador) 7LP
Om: Advaitic Songs (Drag City) LP
U2: Achtung Baby (Universal) LP
Unwound: New Plastic Ideas (Numero) LP
Various: Welcome to Paradise Vol 1 (Safe Trip) LP
Various: Welcome to Paradise Vol 2 (Safe Trip) LP
Various: Welcome to Paradise Vol 3 (Safe Trip) LP
OST: Shadow of the Colossus (iam8bit) LP
Ross from Friends: Family Portrait (Brainfeeder) LP
Uniform: The Long Walk (Sacred Bones) LP
Why?: Alopecia (Joyful Noise) LP/DLX LP
Various: Birth/Work/Death (Iron Mountain) LP
Various: Hillbillies in Hell Volume 777 (Iron Mountain) LP