Tag Archives: jazz

…..news letter #935 – master…..

It really seems like the music industry took the last month or so off. Another lite week for new releases, and a few of these are just late comers as it is! Never mind the fact that my Fed Ex truck hasn’t shown up yet with some of these and many of the restocks. But who knows it could show up any minute. Or tomorrow.

And before you do come down, take a look in your closet for some old sheets, or blankets, or towels, or dry dog food, etc. My daughter and her pals are collecting donations for Scars & Wharf animal rescues. Bring in something for the puppers and get 10% off your purchase!

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

CHECK OUT OUR WEBSTORE!!! 
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWS LETTER!!!!

…..pick of the week…..

a0572868824_16Jeff Parker & The New Breed: Suite for Max Brown (International Anthem) LP
The label behind Angel Bat Dawit’s amazing debut present a glorious side from persistent jazz innovator Jeff Parker (Tortoise), melding deeply soulful charm with naturally explorative leanings operating at similarly loose but focussed levels of intuition and dextrous freedom across his swirling ‘Suite For Max Brown’, but with plusher recording and production values. Preceded by a 7” that signalled this LP would be special, ‘Suite for Max Brown’ lives up to its promise with a canny mix of supple, live chops and Parker’s own sampling/editing tekkers that makes the LP feel at once fresh and vintage. Manning electric guitar, plus all sorts of percussion (drums, glockenspiel, pandeiro), and electronics (sampler, Korg MS20, Roland JP-08, midi), as well as Mibira and vocals, Jeff is flanked by a hand-picked band of Interantional Anthem regulars on strings, brass, drums and vox for a sophisticated and deeply cool iteration of 2020 jazz music. The smooth fusion of ‘Max Brown’ off the aforementioned 7” single now closes the LP, but before you get there, the album will charm your socks off in 10 ways. On the A-side he puckers up a selection of succinct bewts, stroking MS20 subs under loping drums, guitar vamps and Ruby Parker’s serene, lilting vox on ‘Build a Nest’, and going all J Dilla with the sample/edit cut-up of Otis Redding on ‘C’mon Now’, before lurching into devilish jazz-funk breaks in ‘Fusion Swirl’, then melting the vibe with a gorgeous take on Coltrane’s ‘After The Rain’, alongside dreamy electronic vignette ‘Metamorphoses’. On the B-side however it sounds like they returned from lunch (and perhaps a spicy zoot) with a much more laid-back, woozy appeal explored thru Parker’s signature, quietly joyful electric guitar and spongiform MS20 bass on ‘3 For L’, while ‘Go Away’ simmers on the good foot for classy ‘floors with Makaya McCraven’s drums synched to Parker’s vox, sampler and chiming, almost highlife-esque guitar. As with everything we’ve heard on IARC over the past few months (admittedly since being wowed by that amazing Angel Bat Dawid debut), Jeff Parker’s contributions fall squarely within the label’s focused yet broad appeal and properly rooted styles, offering the sort of Jazz slab that will seduce fence-sitters and light up harder-to-please beret wearers.

File Under: Jazz
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…..new arrivals……

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Antibalas: Fu Chronicles (Daptone) LP
Over the years, different members have traded production and composition duties from album to album. On the new album—“Fu Chronicles”—Amayo leads us through a thrilling sonic journey of kung fu meets Afrobeat, weaving together the strands of Edo and Yoruba cultural memory from Nigeria with his training and study in Chinese martial arts. Recorded in the Summer of 2018, over seventeen musicians and singers crammed into the storied Daptone House of Soul in Bushwick to record the massive body of work. With live versions and arrangements stretching up to thirty minutes, Perna, Amayo, and Roth worked tirelessly to preserve the hypnotic power of the long-form live arrangements into six concise and powerful album tracks.

File Under: Funk, Afrobeat
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Black Lips: Sing in a World That’s Falling Apart (Fire) LP
It’s country music but not as we know it which begs the question: Have these bad kids of 21st century rock ‘n’ roll finally grown up on their ninth studio album? Are they at peace with themselves? Have they made a record their parents could listen to? The Black Lips new album Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart and new single “Gentleman” both continue to flick the middle finger to one and all. This ain’t another gaggle of bearded southern sons fleeing their collective suburban upbringings and collegiate music education. There aren’t the usual clichés about drinking, honkytonks, and heartbreak. These are, after all, the same Black Lips who rescued the waning garage punk subgenre by not sounding or dressing their musical predecessors. They also dug contemporary hip-hop and punk and actualized themselves. Like so many dramatic moments in the Black Lips career, Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart was born out of crisis. The band’s stylistic evolution through decades of prolific touring and recording took them where no garage punk band had gone before – huge venues, network television shows, and major music festivals. Here Black Lips are at their grimiest, most dangerous and equipped with the best collection of songs since the aughts. Skidding onto the asphalt in a shower of sparks, they roll on with an unapologetic southern-fried twang, pacing the beast, every now and then dropping a psycho howl into the rubber room madness lurking underneath the truckstop fireworks. This ain’t your granny’s country album. And conversely this ain’t your mama’s Black Lips!

File Under: Country, Punk
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Elkhorn: The Storm Sessions (Beyond Beyond is Beyond) LP
The Storm Sessions is the latest glowing proof that Elkhorn are one of the most durable and adventurous platforms of the new guitar age. Snowed in with their friend Turner Williams (Ramble Tamble, Guardian Alien) on the night of an emotionally important gig, the duo-plus-one turned it into a cathartic blizzard-bound collaboration and rumination — and a new step for Elkhorn. A powerful turn outside the duo’s comfort zone, The Storm Sessions consists of two side-long improvisations by guitarists Jesse Sheppard (12-string acoustic) and Drew Gardner (6-string electric) along with Turner’s rare and lovely vibrations (electric bouzouki on one side, shahi baaja on the flip). No strangers to improvisation or collaboration, The Storm Sessions is their most spontaneous studio work yet, and perhaps their most beautifully flowing. Formed by old friends Jesse Sheppard and Drew Gardner in 2013 and naming themselves ‘Elkhorn’ the following year, it’s the pair’s telepathic bond that has made them so much more than two dudes with guitars. With Sheppard’s rigorous 12-string acting like a meditative rhythm section for Gardner’s textured flights, the duo’s third voice emerges into a space that often borders on soulful cosmic jazz. Committed collaborators and community organizers in their vibrational corner of the world, both members of the band are deep students of the music. In 2018, Sheppard organized The 1000 Incarnations of the Rose, an already historic three-day festival in Takoma Park, Maryland–John Fahey’s hometown–that showcased generations of wide-eared guitarists. Ambassadors to an often-hidden creative lineage as well as an often-hidden network of modern players, Elkhorn have hewn to the most sage advice Timothy Leary ever proclaimed: Find the others. Mark Fosson (who played the 1000 Incarnations of the Rose) was one such Other, forming a cross-generational bond with Sheppard. Scheduled to play a New York show with Elkhorn in late 2018, the 68-year-old Fosson fell ill and passed away. A rescheduled performance featuring Williams (another Other) turned into the extended session in Gardner’s home studio in Harlem. The Storm Sessions is filled with flickering textures that might create warmth on a cold day, or a bubble of human atmosphere inside a dreary dystopian vacuum, no matter the weather outside. Their sixth full-length in five years, Elkhorn are both well into their journey and have only just begun.

File Under: Psych, Guitar
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Nils Frahm & Anne Muller: 7fingers (Erased Tapes) LP
Fans of the Berlin based Nils Frahm are by now familiar with his beguiling live shows where more often than not fellow touring artists are encouraged to join Frahm on stage – the likes of Rachel Grimes, Rob Lowe of Balmorhea as well as label colleagues Peter Broderick and Ólafur Arnalds have all obliged with fascinating results. It will come as no surprise then that Nils Frahm, an accomplished composer and producer who signed to Erased Tapes in 2009, has extended his collaborative live musings to encompass the recording studio, working for the first time with noted cellist and fellow Berliner Anne Müller to produce 7fingers. With their first collective release Frahm and Müller have built a world where modern classical and electronica collide creating an ‘intoxicating and delicious’ collection of songs. Primarily a pianist Nils Frahm provides evidence with 7fingers that he can effortlessly turn electric throwing in loops, samples and glitches to accompany and showcase Müller on cello. Anne Müller, a renowned musician noted for her work with the Wolf-Ferrari-Ensemble, Phillip Boa and recent tours with Agnes Obel, proves an amp musical partner for Frahm. As the recognition continues to grow for Nils Frahm’s previous solo piano works Wintermusik and The Bells, 2011 sees a new side to this young talent as he embarks on a detour into strings, symphonies and glitch beats alongside the estimable Anne Müller.

File Under: Ambient, Classical
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Khruangbin & Leon Bridges: Texas Sun (Dead Oceans) LP
Driving anywhere in Texas can cost you half a day, easy. For example, it’ll take you over four hours just to get from R&B singer Leon Bridges’ hometown of Fort Worth down to Houston, where the psychedelic wanderers in Khruangbin hail from. The state is vast, crisscrossed with rugged expanses of road flanked by limestone cliffs and granite mountains, forests of pine and mesquite, miles of desert or acres of sprawling grassland, all depending on what part you’re in. And it’s all baking under the Texas Sun that lends its name to Bridges and Khruangbin’s new collaborative EP. “Big sky country, that’s what they call Texas,” Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee says. “The horizon line goes all the way from one side to another without interruption. There’s something really comforting about that.” On Texas Sun, these two members of the state’s musical vanguard meet up somewhere in the middle of that scene, in the mythical nexus of Texas’ past, present, and future – a dreamy badlands where genres blur as seamlessly as the terrain.

File Under: Psych, Soul, Funk
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Pete La Roca: Basra (Blue Note) LP
In honor of Blue Note Records’ 80th Anniversary, the legendary jazz label is launching the Blue Note 80 Vinyl Reissue Series. Distinct from the Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series, this second series curated by Don Was and Cem Kurosman features 180g vinyl LP releases in standard packaging with albums spanning the many eras of the label’s history presented by themes: Blue Note Debuts, Blue Grooves, Great Reid Miles Covers, Blue Note Live, and Blue Note Drummer Leaders. Everything that drummer Pete La Roca did before making Basra was a prelude in his career, and all of his later accomplishments are anti-climatic in comparison with this album. In 1965 La Roca, a respected but somewhat obscure drummer gathered together an unbelievable quartet comprised of tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Steve Kuhn and bassist Steve Swallow for the Basra album. This was the only time that this group ever played together yet they sound very much like a major band that had been performing this music for years. Henderson is in astounding form, inspiring the other musicians to create famous versions of “Lazy Afternoon,” “Eiderdown” and “Malaguena,” renditions that are not only memorable but became the definitive way to play these songs. La Roca contributed three colorful originals that deserved to become standards while his very stimulating drumming helped to bring out the very best in the players. But it is Henderson who lifts Basra into the cosmos, making the album magical and one of the must-hear recordings of the mid-60s! This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl LP at Optimal.

File Under: Jazz

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OST: Parasite (Sacred Bones) LP
Parasite, the seventh feature film by Korean director Bong Joon Ho, premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it took the coveted Palme d’Or for best film in competition. Since then, it has become the most critically acclaimed film of the year. For the film’s bracingly original score, Bong turned to Jung Jae Il, who brings the world of Parasite to life with plaintive piano and stirring strings. “The script for Parasite begins as follows: “Dark and hopeful music plays.” For a long time, I contemplated whether this piece of music could actually exist. Director Bong and I began with a sound that could permeate through the entire film and progress with focus. What is the one singular tone that can accompany emotions ranging from the most trivial humiliation to the extremities of murder, express all sorts of chaos, and embody the exhilaration of speed, or peace, or loneliness, or messy and dirty situations? I thought that a string orchestra could express these various narratives with one consistent tone – the elegant and refined sounds of baroque music, grotesque and neurotic sounds of contemporary music reminiscent of Penderecki or Ligeti, sounds used to heighten emotions in many films, and violin and cello sounds that carry the bleakness of wandering nomads. In terms of the melody, it was structured as a repetition of ascension and descent as the Kim family ascends to the rich house only to descend back to their poor home and further below to the dreadful bunker hidden beneath the Park family’s basement. “The final music that closes the film is “Soju One Glass.” Director Bong said that he wants the audience to crave a shot of soju as they leave the theater after watching the film. Soju, the cheapest Korean liquor, has been with the joys and sorrows of everyday Koreans for decades. I think he wanted the audience to leave the theater feeling bitter after facing the pain and helplessness of reality, woeful from Ki-woo’s impossible dream, and wanting to release the inexplicable frustration and disquiet this movie brings. To paint a picture of Ki-woo drinking soju while mulling over his unattainable dream, sleeping on the streets, and waking up to a lonely morning, the actor Choi Woo-shik sang the song himself and Director Bong wrote the lyrics. I haphazardly recorded the song with my guitar after sleeping on my studio floor, and I couldn’t recreate the rough recording’s sense of misery and shabbiness in the actual recording studio, so we ended up just using the demo version.” – Jung Jae Il

File Under: OST
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Andy Shauf: The Neon Skyline (Arts & Crafts) LP
Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. The Toronto-based, Saskatchewan-raised musician’s songs unfold like short fiction: they’re densely layered with colorful characters and a rich emotional depth. On his new album The Neon Skyline he sets a familiar scene of inviting a friend for beers on the opening title track: “I said, ‘Come to the Skyline, I’ll be washing my sins away.’ He just laughed, said ‘I’ll be late, you know how I can be.'” The LP’s eleven interconnected tracks follow a simple plot: the narrator goes to his neighborhood dive, finds out his ex is back in town, and she eventually shows up. While its overarching narrative is riveting, the real thrill of the album comes from how Shauf finds the humanity and humor in a typical night out and the ashes of a past relationship. For The Neon Skyline, Shauf chose to start each composition on guitar instead of his usual piano. Happy accidents like Shauf testing out a new spring reverb pedal and experimenting with tape machines forced him to simplify how he’d arrange the tracks. Over the course of a year-and-a-half, Shauf ended up with almost 50 songs all about the same night at the bar. Though paring down his massive body of work to a single album’s worth of material was a challenge for Shauf, the final tracklist is seamless and fully-formed.

File Under: Indie Rock
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Wolf Parade: Thin Mind (Royal Mountain) LP
Every moment spent gazing at our screens is oversaturated with content, an ever-accelerated news cycle conditioning our ever-decreasing attention spans. The struggle to stay present, and to foresee a clear, sustainable future, feels very real. Wolf Parade address this phenomenon head-on with Thin Mind, the band’s fifth full-length and second to be produced by John Goodmanson (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Unwound). Thin Mind marks a return to the original power trio of Dan Boeckner, Spencer Krug, and Arlen Thompson, following multi-instrumentalist Dante DeCaro’s amicable departure from the group in 2018, after the conclusion of their world tour supporting Cry Cry Cry. The band’s decision to forge a future-forward sound using a myriad of synthesizers – from ‘80s synths and ‘90s MiDi to more modern, kitchen sink instruments – recalls the sonics of Wolf Parade’s earliest EPs. Album highlights include “Julia, Take Your Man Home,” “Forest Green” and “Against the Day”, with lyrics split evenly between Dan and Spencer. On “Julia, Take Your Man Home,” Spencer imagines the worst version of himself over a deep groove and an exaggerated, fictitious caricature. “Forest Green” gallops along to a synthetic clip of Arlen’s electronic drum kit while Dan’s lyrics encapsulate the profound beauty, and ugliness, of Vancouver Island – not only where Thin Mind was recorded, but where Arlen and Spencer now live, and Dan grew up. “Against the Day,” which features shared verses from Spencer and Dan, similarly constructs a synthetic shell to examine what’s natural and what is not. John Goodmanson produced Thin Mind at Risque Disque on Vancouver Island, BC, and mixed it at Bogroll Studios in Seattle, WA. It was mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel Mastering in Toronto, ON.

File Under: Indie Rock
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…..restocks…..

Courtney Barnett: Sometimes I Just Sit (Mom + Pop) LP
Beastie Boys: Hello Nasty (EMI) LP
Art Blakey: Buhaina’s Delight (Blue Note) LP
Tina Brooks: Minor Move (Blue Note) LP
Nick Cave: Murder Ballads (Mute) LP
Czarface & Ghostface: Czarface Meets Ghostface (Silver Age) LP
Daktaris: Soul Explosion (Daptone) LP
Death Grips: No Love Deep Web (Harvest) LP
Renaldo Domino: No Laggin’ & Draggin’ (Colemine) 7″
Gil Evans: New Bottle, Old Wine (Blue Note) LP
Goat: Requiem (Sub Pop) LP
Robert Haigh: Black Sarabande (Unseen Worlds) LP
Herbie Hancock: Takin’ Off (Blue Note) LP
Andrew Hill: Black Fire (Blue Note) LP
Kacy & Clayton: Carrying on (New West) LP
Kacy & Clayton: The Siren’s Song (New West) LP
Monophonics: Chances (Colemine) 7″
Nehiyawak: Nipiy (Arts & Crafts) LP
Jeff Parker: New Breed (International Anthem) LP
Parquet Courts: Wide Awake (Rough Trade) LP
Parquet Courts: Human Performance (Rough Trade) LP
Prince: Originals (Warner) LP
Quasimoto: The Unseen (Stones Throw) LP
Queens of the Stone Age: Rated R (Interscope) LP
Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf (Interscope) LP
Django Reinhardt: Gypsy Jazz (Not) LP
Daniel Romano: Finally Free (New West) LP
Spoon: Hot Thoughts (Matador) LP
Throbbing Gristle: DOA (Mute) LP
Throbbing Gristle: Second Annual Report (Mute) LP
Throbbing Gristle: Part Two (Mute) LP
Thundercat: Drunk (Brainfeeder) Box
Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (Tamala) LP
Various: Space Echo (Analog Africa) LP

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…..news letter #925 – return…..

Not a huge amount of stuff in this week, but look out, cuz next week is our biggest sale of the year! Our annual BLACK FRIDAY RECORD STORE DAY/ANNIVERSARY SALE! Next week we’ll update you with all the details, but if you’ve been following along, you already know what to expect….

And speaking of top albums of the year… Looks like we’ll be HIRING someone again real soon! If you dream of hanging out and talking about records all day, then bring us a resume along with your top ten albums of 2019 and of all time!

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

CHECK OUT OUR WEBSTORE!!! 
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWS LETTER!!!!

…..pick of the week…..

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Didgin’ For Rainbows: s/t (Didgin’ For Rainbows) LP
On a snowy restless night, Dan Tansy was giving the performance of a lifetime to his roommate, Warren Krick, on his didgeridoo. Warren later joined in on his keyboard and the two quickly realized they were on to something but didn’t know what to call this new band. That night Dan had a dream, where a little man on a flaming pie said, “You will be known as the Beatles but with an A.” “That’s already been taken, mister man,” said Dan… “What about Bananarama?” asked the little man. “A no-go unfortunately,” replied Dan. “Then it must be Didgin’ for Rainbows!” History was made. Our heroes had a name for their new band! But what would a two-piece didgeridoo/keyboard band sound like? Early shows would have sets split up: fifty percent music, fifty percent feeding the crowd watermelon and opening presents! It wasn’t until the addition of new members Lanny McHardy and the greatest Edmonton band, NEK Trio (Ross Nicoll, Dean Kheroufi, Connor Ellinger) that the split leaned more towards music. Gone are the days of watermelon and pinatas full of cooked spaghetti. It was time for the band to take the music seriously and write a full-length album! Recorded over three years, Didgin’ for Rainbows’ debut record is a journey like no other, jumping from genre to genre throughout its running time. Death Bossa, pop, jazz, country, baroque and experimental, all suitable for a perfumed garden, are represented here through the catchiness of the melodies and the band’s top-level musicianship! Didgin’ for Rainbows broke up shortly after recording when Yoko Ono declined their offer to join the band, but they felt it would be criminal not to release their final swan song… One last present for the fans.

File Under: Local, Pop, Psych, Lounge
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…..new arrivals…..

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Aphex Twin: Peel Session 2 (Warp) 12”
On the summer solstice 2019 the extended Warp family came together with online radio station NTS to celebrate the label’s 30th anniversary. With over 100 hours of original music programming, the weekend-long communion featured mixes, documentaries, live performances, film and sessions from the whole Warp roster including Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Flying Lotus, Danny Brown, Autechre and Kelela, plus a handful special guests including Death Grips and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of music fans tuned in to share in the celebration with the label, artists and each other via chat rooms, forums, social media and IRL playbacks in record shops, cafes and bars around the world. Now, Warp continues the radio theme with a special set of releases. WXAXRXP Sessions features ten specially selected sessions recorded for radio from across the history of the label, from Peel sessions in the very early days right up to the aforementioned WXAXRXP x NTS weekend. In the age of immediate, unelected, often low-quality rips of anything that is broadcast, these releases present each session in the highest quality, adorned in beautiful packaging designed by Michael Oswell, with photography by Synchrodogs. Aphex Twin’s Peel Session 2 TX: 04/10/95, one of only two radio sessions Aphex Twin has ever recorded, is comprised of all original material at the time. Presented here as a complete session and on vinyl for the first time!

File Under: Electronic
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The Band: s/t 50th Anniversary (Universal) LP
When The Band’s seminal eponymous second album was released fifty years ago in September 1969, not much more was known about the reclusive group than when they released their landmark debut, Music From Big Pink, to widespread critical praise and bewilderment, just the year before. The group, made up of four Canadians and one American, was still shrouded in mystery, allowing for listeners and the music press to let their imaginations run wild about who these men were and what this music was that sounded unlike anything else happening at the close of the psychedelic ’60s. Dressed like 19th century fire-and-brimstone preachers and singing rustic, sepia-toned songs about America and the deep south, The Band – Garth Hudson (keyboards, piano, horn), Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin), Richard Manuel (keyboards, vocals, drums), Rick Danko (bass, vocals, fiddle) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals) – was an enigma, unlike any group that came before or after. And their self-titled “Brown Album,” as it would lovingly be called, cemented their status as one of the most exciting and revolutionary bands in years, on the strength of now-classic songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up On Cripple Creek” and “Rag Mama Rag.” The Band’s pioneering, self-titled album receives a suite of newly remixed and expanded editions in November 2019 to mark its 50th anniversary including this 180g vinyl 2LP version featuring the new stereo mix by Bob Clearmountain and all tracks mastered from the original multi-track masters by Bob Ludwig. Chris Bellman cut the vinyl lacquers for the album’s new stereo mix at 45 rpm at Bernie Grundman Mastering. All of the configurations were overseen by Robbie Robertson, similar to 2018’s acclaimed 50th anniversary Music From Big Pink editions. Clearmountain and Robertson’s approach to remixing the beloved album was done with the utmost care and respect for the music and what The Band represents. “The idea was to take you deeper inside the music, but this album is homemade,” Robertson says. “You can’t touch up a painting. It has nothing to do with what you get when you go into a recording studio.” When he expressed his concerns to Clearmountain, the renowned engineer and producer reassured him: “We’re just trying to overcome the original technological limitations in order to bring you closer into the room,” he explained. “I’m going to do everything in my power not to get in the way of this music at all.” The result is a new mix that allows listeners to hear these classic songs in stunning, and often times startling, clarity, packing more of a sonic and emotional punch than ever before. Released in 1968, The Band’s game-changing debut, Music from Big Pink, seemed to spring from nowhere and everywhere. Drawing from the American roots music panoply of country, blues, R&B, gospel, soul, rockabilly, the honking tenor sax tradition, hymns, funeral dirges, brass band music, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll, The Band forged a timeless new style that forever changed the course of popular music. Shortly after its release, Danko broke his neck in a serious car crash and was in traction resulting in The Band’s inability to tour. This only fueled the mystique as they had yet to play live and had only done a few mysterious interviews. Once Danko was healed, the guys relocated to Los Angeles to record their follow up album. Searching for the same clubhouse vibe they had at Big Pink, they eschewed a traditional studio and moved into a house in the Hollywood Hills that had previously been owned by Sammy Davis Jr. The place had enough bedrooms that the group could reside there with their families and a pool house where they set up the studio. While Capitol Records was dumbfounded the guys didn’t want to record in one of their state-of-the-art studios down the street, they ultimately relented and paid for the shipment of their equipment across the country. Recording here was not without its obstacles as getting an upright piano up to the house proved trying and since they were in a residential neighborhood, the pool house needed to be soundproofed from the outside, which was quite a sight. Following dinner together with their families in the main house, The Band, joined by co-producer John Simon who helped shape their sound, as on their debut, would shuffle off to their makeshift studio to write and record their masterpiece, working through the night and stopping around dawn. Listening to these dusty, rural songs, it’s hard to believe they weren’t written in the Appalachian Mountains but instead perched up in the hills overlooking Los Angeles’ sprawling, smoggy metropolis. It’s fitting then that the first song the group recorded for the album was “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” a Civil War story that was inspired by a visit Robertson made to Helm’s family in Marvell, Arkansas. During one of their talks, Helm’s father insisted to Robertson that “The South will rise again!” “I felt that I understood something about Levon from meeting his family,” Robertson says. “I wanted to write a song that he could sing better than anyone in the world.” The song imbues the people of the South with a forlorn dignity much in contrast to their stereotypical portrayals in popular culture – and Helm’s heart-rending vocal tells the song’s story with consummate grace. This was not subject matter that other songwriters were mining from at the time and illustrated how The Band’s primary songwriter, Robertson, did not draw inspiration from typical rock sources, instead pulling from history and his love of classic films and screenplays. Indeed, The Band explores America’s thorny history through indelible archetypes – “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” refers to Union cavalry officer George Stoneman’s attack on southwestern Virginia in the last days of the Civil War, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” is sung from the perspective of a poverty-stricken farmer who becomes a “union man” to his disappointment, and “Up on Cripple Creek” is about a truck driver’s debauched time with a local girl in Lake Charles, Louisiana. “It was a complicated record,” Helm wrote in his memoir, This Wheel’s On Fire. “We wanted to make one that you didn’t really get until the second time you played it.” The Band was released on September 22, 1969 and made an immediate cultural impact. The days of the group being a so-called ‘underground’ band were over. In short order, the Band appeared on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ one of only two television appearances the group would ever make, and it had a hit single with “Up on Cripple Creek.” In addition, The Band appeared on the cover of Time magazine in January of 1970, the first North American group ever to do so. The Band was instantly hailed by press with The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau, calling it an “A-plus record if I’ve ever rated one” and deeming it “even better” than the Beatles’ classic Abbey Road, released the same week. Ralph J. Gleason wrote in his glowing review for Rolling Stone: “It is full of sleepers, diamonds that begin to glow at different times. As with the Beatles and Dylan and the Stones and Crosby-Stills and Nash, the album seems to change shape as you continue to play it. The emphasis shifts from song to song and songs prominent in the early listening will retreat and be replaced in your consciousness by others, only in later hearings to move to the fore again. Little things pop up unexpectedly after numerous listenings and the whole thing serves as a definition of what Gide meant by the necessity of art having density.” Now, listeners can experience that brotherhood once more on The Band (50th Anniversary Edition), in which five visionaries ended up capturing the soul of America with an album that’s influence still ripples through current music today five decades later!

File Under: Classic Rock
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Art Blakey & The Jazz Messngers: Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World 1 
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messngers: Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World 2 (Blue Note) LP
In honor of Blue Note Records’ 80th Anniversary, the legendary jazz label is launching the Blue Note 80 Vinyl Reissue Series. Distinct from the Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series, this second series curated by Don Was and Cem Kurosman features 180g vinyl LP releases in standard packaging with albums spanning the many eras of the label’s history presented by themes: Blue Note Debuts, Blue Grooves, Great Reid Miles Covers, Blue Note Live, and Blue Note Drummer Leaders. The series resumes in November 2019 with Part 1 of the Blue Note Live theme  –  Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World Vol. 1 and 2 (1960), Horace Silver – Doin’ The Thing (1961) and Grant Green – Alive! (1970) – and will continue with three albums released each month for the coming year. The legendary NYC jazz club Birdland was sacred ground for drummer Art Blakey who recorded three live albums for Blue Note at the venue between 1954-1960: A Night at Birdland, At the Jazz Corner of the World, and Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World. This last date featured one of the greatest lineups of Blakey’s powerhouse outfit The Jazz Messengers with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Bobby Timmons on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass. Spirits are high on this superb outing from the iconic introduction by MC Pee Wee Marquette through two volumes of thrilling hard bop! This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

File Under: Jazz
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Boards of Canada: Peel Sessions (Warp) 12”
On the summer solstice 2019 the extended Warp family came together with online radio station NTS to celebrate the label’s 30th anniversary. With over 100 hours of original music programming, the weekend-long communion featured mixes, documentaries, live performances, film and sessions from the whole Warp roster including Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Flying Lotus, Danny Brown, Autechre and Kelela, plus a handful special guests including Death Grips and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of music fans tuned in to share in the celebration with the label, artists and each other via chat rooms, forums, social media and IRL playbacks in record shops, cafes and bars around the world. Now, Warp continues the radio theme with a special set of releases. WXAXRXP Sessions features ten specially selected sessions recorded for radio from across the history of the label, from Peel sessions in the very early days right up to the aforementioned WXAXRXP x NTS weekend. In the age of immediate, unelected, often low-quality rips of anything that is broadcast, these releases present each session in the highest quality, adorned in beautiful packaging designed by Michael Oswell, with photography by Synchrodogs. Boards of Canada’s Peel Session TX: 07/21/98, the group’s one and only radio session, is presented here for the first time in its complete form, with the inclusion of the previous broadcast-only track “XYZ.”

File Under: Electronic
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Delia Derbyshire & Martin Hannett: The Synth & Electronic Recordings Exchange (Ozit) LP
Forty years since Martin Hannett first used synths and electronic sound effects in production work on Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, this album looks at 21 tracks of electronic and synth music that Hannett had compiled in the the mid 70s to early 80s whilst exchanging tapes by post with electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire. The compiled work from the two electronic music geniuses was to have been released by Hannett but was shelved in the early 80s. Here it is as he put it together for the planned album. Gatefold 180g vinyl LP.

File Under: Early Electronic
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Flying Lotus: Infinity Infinitum – Maida Vale Session (Warp) LP
On the summer solstice 2019 the extended Warp family came together with online radio station NTS to celebrate the label’s 30th anniversary. With over 100 hours of original music programming, the weekend-long communion featured mixes, documentaries, live performances, film and sessions from the whole Warp roster including Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Flying Lotus, Danny Brown, Autechre and Kelela, plus a handful special guests including Death Grips and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of music fans tuned in to share in the celebration with the label, artists and each other via chat rooms, forums, social media and IRL playbacks in record shops, cafes and bars around the world. Now, Warp continues the radio theme with a special set of releases. WXAXRXP Sessions features ten specially selected sessions recorded for radio from across the history of the label, from Peel sessions in the very early days right up to the aforementioned WXAXRXP x NTS weekend. In the age of immediate, unelected, often low-quality rips of anything that is broadcast, these releases present each session in the highest quality, adorned in beautiful packaging designed by Michael Oswell, with photography by Synchrodogs. Flying Lotus Presents Infinity Infinitum – Maida Vale Session TX: 08/19/2010 – a classic live session from around the breakthrough Cosmogramma album, featuring a full live band including Thundercat, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Ravi Coltrane. The session features the otherwise unheard track “Golden Axe.”

File Under: Electronic, Hip Hop
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Bill Frisell: Harmony (Blue Note) LP
Acclaimed guitarist Bill Frisell makes his Blue Note Records debut with his newest project Harmony. Produced by his longtime collaborator Lee Townsend – and recorded by Tucker Martine at Flora Recording in Portland, Oregon – Harmony features Frisell with a wholly distinctive quartet comprising two longtime collaborators – Petra Haden, voice; Hank Roberts, cello and voice – plus a relative newcomer, Luke Bergman, on acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, bass and voice. The result of a commission from the FreshGrass Music Festival, an organization dedicated to the vitality of contemporary American roots music, Harmony features new compositions, imaginatively reworked music from Frisell’s catalog and a typically sharp selection of jazz and Americana staples. Throughout, Haden’s dreamlike, often wordless lead vocals and the trio’s quietly powerful harmonies grant Frisell’s music dimensions it’s never known before. Remarkably, the thoughtful beauty and evocative patience that mark his guitar playing are both smartly accented and greatly magnified. Longtime fans will recognize Frisell’s ongoing calling to both honor the totality of American music and represent his personal history with integrity. “If I think back throughout my whole life, all the music that I’ve loved,” he says, “why can’t it all be there at the same time? You can play a Bob Dylan song and you can play a standard song or a Charlie Parker song, and they can fit together. Why not? There’s no reason why you can’t have ‘Lush Life’ and ‘Red River Valley’ on the same album. They’re both beautiful songs.” Frisell had long wanted to match these particular talents and test the alchemy of this unique, drum-less configuration. Hovering between a chamber ensemble, small-group jazz and a classic American harmony group, the dynamic and sense of interplay here are organic and unmistakable – not least between Frisell and Haden, who are essentially family. Petra’s father, the late bass champion Charlie Haden, was a mentor of sorts to Frisell, who played with Charlie in revered bands featuring the drummers Paul Motian and Ginger Baker. Frisell and Petra have developed their own sublime accord, which they’ve showcased on projects like Frisell’s gracefully nostalgic 2016 album When You Wish Upon a Star. Frisell, who does not sing, has worked with plenty of brilliant vocalists in the past, he points out. But Harmony is something altogether different, he explains. “We premiered in San Francisco in 2016,” Frisell says, “and, kind of at the last minute, I thought, ‘Wow, everybody sings.’ They sang a few things, and I was like, ‘OK, now I think we’re really on to something.'”

File Under: Jazz
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Grant Green: Alive! (Blue Note) LP
In honor of Blue Note Records’ 80th Anniversary, the legendary jazz label is launching the Blue Note 80 Vinyl Reissue Series. Distinct from the Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series, this second series curated by Don Was and Cem Kurosman features 180g vinyl LP releases in standard packaging with albums spanning the many eras of the label’s history presented by themes: Blue Note Debuts, Blue Grooves, Great Reid Miles Covers, Blue Note Live, and Blue Note Drummer Leaders. The series resumes in November 2019 with Part 1 of the Blue Note Live theme  –  Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World Vol. 1 and 2 (1960), Horace Silver – Doin’ The Thing (1961) and Grant Green – Alive! (1970) – and will continue with three albums released each month for the coming year. After a prolific five-year run from 1961-1965 when he made more than 20 great hard bop and soul jazz albums for Blue Note, guitarist Grant Green took a four-year hiatus from recording. When he returned to Blue Note in 1969, Green’s style had moved into funkier territory as was perfectly captured on his first-ever live album Alive! which captured a hard-driving set of jazz-funk at the Cliché Lounge in Newark, NJ in 1970. The band is propelled by drummer Idris Muhammad who keeps a fire burning under Green, saxophonist Claude Bartee, vibraphonist Willie Bivens, organists Ronnie Foster & Neal Creque, and Joseph Armstrong on congas. The closing track “Down Here On The Ground” was famously sampled by A Tribe Called Quest on their hip-hop classic Low End Theory. This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

File Under: Jazz
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Mogwai: Ten Rapid (Rock Action) LP
After the success of the limited edition coloured vinyl for 2018’s Record Store Day, Mogwai’s sell-out 1997 compilation album of singles, b-sides and rarities from 1996-1997 is getting a re-press. This time on a limited run of dark green heavyweight vinyl and released again via the bands own Rock Action Records. It will come with download code and this colour will only be available as a limited run worldwide and has been produced especially for National Album Day 2019 in Europe. After this, it goes back to black!

File Under: Post Rock, Indie Rock
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Mount Kimbie: WXAXRXP Session (Warp) LP
On the summer solstice 2019 the extended Warp family came together with online radio station NTS to celebrate the label’s 30th anniversary. With over 100 hours of original music programming, the weekend-long communion featured mixes, documentaries, live performances, film and sessions from the whole Warp roster including Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Flying Lotus, Danny Brown, Autechre and Kelela, plus a handful special guests including Death Grips and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of music fans tuned in to share in the celebration with the label, artists and each other via chat rooms, forums, social media and IRL playbacks in record shops, cafes and bars around the world. Now, Warp continues the radio theme with a special set of releases. WXAXRXP Sessions features ten specially selected sessions recorded for radio from across the history of the label, from Peel sessions in the very early days right up to the aforementioned WXAXRXP x NTS weekend. In the age of immediate, unelected, often low-quality rips of anything that is broadcast, these releases present each session in the highest quality, adorned in beautiful packaging designed by Michael Oswell, with photography by Synchrodogs. Mount Kimbie WXAXRXP Session TX: 06/21/2019 finds the expanded live line-up of Mount Kimbie demonstrating how their material has evolved on the road in this bespoke session first broadcast as part of the WXAXRXP x NTS takeover. Featuring a guest appearance from Mica Levi.

File Under: Electronic
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nêhiyawak: Nipiy (Arts & Crafts) LP
nêhiyawak hails from amiskwaciy (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory. On the band’s debut album, nipiy – out October 24 on Arts & Crafts – the trio of Indigenous artists – Kris Harper (vocals, guitars), Marek Tyler (drums), and Matthew Cardinal (synths, bass) – transcends a new intersection of traditional storytelling and contemporary sound. A collection of songs strongly inspired by the Idle No More movement, says Harper, “nipiy is for those who don’t seem to fit in for myriads of reasons. To inspire others to use their voice and to send messages to future generations.” nêhiyawak – whose name refers directly to their nêhiyaw ancestry – is a spirited expression of Indigeneity. nipiy, which translates to water, is the title of nêhiyawak’s first full length album. The flow and pace of the album, symbolic of the flow and pace of water, begins and ends with pieces dedicated to kisiskâciwanisîpiy (North Saskatchewan River), a river that flows through the center of amiskwaciy. In the band’s words, “There are many important ideas and teachings that we were raised with in our lives, but few more important that water. It’s a modern conversation with complex meanings and understandings. Our record is dedicated to the life-giving force of water.” Produced by Colin Stewart (The New Pornographers, Black Mountain, Destroyer), nêhiyawak’s sound combines terse post-rock soundscapes and surreal pop, with sheer electronic ambience, chiming guitars, and propulsive rhythm. At times grand and emotional, at times cool and reticent, their music is a tapestry of sonic and cultural exploration. Anchored by the hollowed pounding of carved cedar log drums and Harper’s resilient poetry, nipiy combines the teachings of nêhiyawak’s Elders with the band’s own interests in music, instrumentation and lyrics. nêhiyawak’s debut album tells their story of collective experience – a band empowered by history and progress, adding to the body of work.

File Under: Indie Rock, Local
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LDO106218_Oneohtrix Point Never: KCRW Session (Warp) 12”
On the summer solstice 2019 the extended Warp family came together with online radio station NTS to celebrate the label’s 30th anniversary. With over 100 hours of original music programming, the weekend-long communion featured mixes, documentaries, live performances, film and sessions from the whole Warp roster including Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Flying Lotus, Danny Brown, Autechre and Kelela, plus a handful special guests including Death Grips and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of music fans tuned in to share in the celebration with the label, artists and each other via chat rooms, forums, social media and IRL playbacks in record shops, cafes and bars around the world. Now, Warp continues the radio theme with a special set of releases. WXAXRXP Sessions features ten specially selected sessions recorded for radio from across the history of the label, from Peel sessions in the very early days right up to the aforementioned WXAXRXP x NTS weekend. In the age of immediate, unelected, often low-quality rips of anything that is broadcast, these releases present each session in the highest quality, adorned in beautiful packaging designed by Michael Oswell, with photography by Synchrodogs. Oneohtrix Point Never’s KCRW Session TX: 10/23/2018 finds OPN’s Myriad Ensemble re-interpreting studio material in these four tracks picked from a recorded KCRW session with appearances by ADR, Kelly Moran and Eli Keszle.

File Under: Electronic
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Horace Silver Quintet: Doin’ the Thing (Blue Note) LP
In honor of Blue Note Records’ 80th Anniversary, the legendary jazz label is launching the Blue Note 80 Vinyl Reissue Series. Distinct from the Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series, this second series curated by Don Was and Cem Kurosman features 180g vinyl LP releases in standard packaging with albums spanning the many eras of the label’s history presented by themes: Blue Note Debuts, Blue Grooves, Great Reid Miles Covers, Blue Note Live, and Blue Note Drummer Leaders. The series resumes in November 2019 with Part 1 of the Blue Note Live theme  –  Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World Vol. 1 and 2 (1960), Horace Silver – Doin’ The Thing (1961) and Grant Green – Alive! (1970) – and will continue with three albums released each month for the coming year. “We’d like for you all to help us get in the groove, let your hair down, and come on and get in the music with us,” says Horace Silver in the spoken introduction to Doin’ The Thing, the only live album the great pianist made during his remarkable three-decade tenure on Blue Note Records. Recorded in May 1961 at the Village Gate in NYC, this exuberant live date featured Silver’s great quintet with trumpeter Blue Mitchell, tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Roy Brooks on a set of sterling Silver original compositions. This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

File Under: Jazz
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Various: Jambu (Analog Africa) LP
Jambu is an exhilarating, cinematic ride into the beauty and heart of what makes Para’s little corner of the Amazon tick. The hip swaying, frantic percussion and big band brass of the mixture of carimbo with siria, the mystical melodies of Amazonian drums, the hypnotizing cadence of the choirs, and the deep, musical reverence to Afro-Brazilian religions, provided the soundtrack for sweltering nights in the city’s club district. Booklet featuring previously unpublished photos from the archives of the musicians themselves, an essay about Belem’s night live, the development of the tropical music scene and a dozen of interviews made in the city of Belem between 2012 and 2016. Gatefold vinyl with 24-page magazine-format booklet & full digital album as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

File Under: World, Funk, Afro, Brazil

…..Restocks…..

Courtney Barnett: Sometimes I Just Sit and Think (Mom + Pop) LP
Boy Harsher: Country Girl (Nude) LP
Kenny Burrell: Introducing (Blue Note) LP
Don Cherry: Brown Rice (A&M) LP
J Dilla: Donuts (Stones Throw) LP
Nils Frahm: Felt (Erased Tapes) LP
Ernest Hood: Neighborhoods (Freedom to Spend) LP
Idles: Joy as an Act of Resistance (Paritsan) LP
Nick Ingman: Big Beat (Modern Harmonic) LP
Jaylib: Champion Sound (Stones Throw) LP
King Geedorah: Take Me to Your Leader (Big Dada) LP
Kiss: Alive (Universal) LP
Kiss: Love Gun (Universal) LP
Kiss: s/t (Universal) LP
JD McPherson: Socks (New West) LP
Charlie Megira: Tomorrow’s Gone (Numero) LP
Messthetics: Anthropocosmic Nest (Dischord) LP
Tom Rogerson/Brian Eno: Finding Shore (Dead Oceans) LP
Syrinx: Tumblers from the Vault (ReRVNG) LP
Gabor Szabo: Sorcerer (Impulse) LP
Tragically Hip: In Violet Light (Universal) LP
Tragically Hip: Up to Here (Universal) LP
Scott Walker: Scott 4 (Universal) LP

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