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SMK aka South Memphis King is one of the real godfathers of Memphis rap. He released his first album in 1991 and is still active today. This is one of his early recordings, never released on vinyl before, Straight bangin' underground shit for the streets of your city. Roll a blunt and enjoy the sick madness over here.

After last year’s Black Clouds Above The Bows, Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the second entry of their trilogy for Important Records, which is dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe. For this album the artists incorporated the sound of a dying organ, fatally wounded in a climate related event.

All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea consists of electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe. Wailing odes tell the story of the catastrophic activity of eroding waves and winds shaping the land that are enhanced by the climate crisis. First hand experiences and meetings with local maritime experts on the subject of these receding coastlines inspired Wanderwelle to compose these albums.

During their travels, the artists stumbled upon a small church in a town on the east coast of Scotland. The building was quite damaged, the roof was being stabilized and the ancient walls showed great tears running vertically down the structure. One of the church’s volunteers told Wanderwelle that the damage had been caused by a nearby cliff that collapsed in the sea. An event increasingly common in the region.

The church organ was ruined in such a way that it was deemed unplayable, as most of the pipes were gravely damaged and in dire need of restoration. Musical instruments directly affected by the environment -and especially the climate crisis- are quite rare. Despite the damage, the artists were allowed to record a few tones of the instrument with their equipment, which was actually meant to be used for field recordings later that day.

In Black Clouds Above The Bows, antique cavalry trumpets were recorded and manipulated by Wanderwelle to sound an environmental alarm in the same manner as they were once used to warn men on the battlefield. Similar processing was used on the recordings of the dying organ, resulting in spectral, deconstructed tones beyond recognition. In addition to the damaged organ, the artists recorded piano, cello and harmonic additive synthesizers in later stages of the composition process, manipulating these sounds to mimic the perpetual activity of the sea shaping the land.Furthermore, a great deal of inspiration was found in maritime superstition, lore and mythology.

As told in the legend of Aspidochelone, a legendary sea creature of enormous size, was once mistaken for an island. After sailors docked and lit a fire, the beast submerged resembling a land mass sliding into the sea. The album’s title is derived from the saying ‘All Hands Bury The Dead’, a maritime burial phrase, as the duo likes to think ‘All Hands’ refers to all of mankind since we are all responsible for these impending catastrophes.

Cello, violin, voice, pipe organ (damaged), bowed guitar, EBow, Prophet-6 synthesizer, modular synthesizer, field recordings.

RIYL: Oliveros/Deep Listening, Arvo Part, Lambda Sond, Sarah Davachi

Tod Dockstader's Aerial series, an electronic/drone masterpiece, is cherished among fans of the artist's work and this second volume is available in an audiophile quality double LP edition.

Tod Dockstader's Aerial series is sourced from his life long passion for shortwave radio. Dockstader collected over 90 hours of recordings, made at night, and comprised of cross signals and fragments plucked from the atmosphere.

Opening with airwave drones, Dockstader gradually allows elements to slowly come and go, summoning an ominous atmosphere of ethereal cloud clouds. Malignant placidity continues, giving the feeling of eavesdropping upon late-night audio activity not unlike discovering number stations while sweeping the dials. These sounds pull you in as their density and rhythms come and go.
Backward voices, deep echoing choruses of conversations flowing under the surface, ocean sounds, pulsing electro-rhythms, all seem to be created via the collaging of many hours of source recordings. A masterwork of collage and juxtaposition by an overlooked pioneer of American electronic music.

Artwork by John Brien (Imprec) is inspired by the propagation of shortwave radio signals throughout the earth's atmosphere.

"This return of Dockstader is something to cherish, not just because his output has been so limited and scarce but because what we do have is so intriguing, persuasive and cliche-free; the music of an inspired explorer who trails in nobody's slipstream." The Wire

"One of the great figures of musique concrete composition." Dusted

The Aerial project

I've written before of my interest in shortwave radio, in the notes to the Quatermass CD. Also, in the notes to the Omniphony CD (which has my first "Aerial" mix, "Past Prelude," in it), I mentioned "The Aerial Etudes," which was my working title for what became the three CDs you have. And, at the end of an interview with Chris Cutler (which can be found in the "Unofficial TD Website"), the piece I mentioned I was starting to work on at the time became Aerial.) When I was very young, people got most of their entertainment from radio. They called it "playing the radio," as if it were a musical instrument. That's what I've tried to do in this piece. About this time, a few people encouraged me to look into using a computer for this work.

I'd never used one, but I saw it would allow me to keep my mixes digital - no more transfer losses. So, at the end of 2001, I got a computer and an editing program for it, and spent what seemed a long time learning it. I began selecting mixes and loading them into the computer in late March, 2002. Out of the 580, I selected 90 "best" mixes - eventually reduced to 59, the ones on the CDs. Finally, in assembling the CDs, I followed David Myers' suggestion to allow each piece to flow into the next - making a continuous journey to the end. Tod Dockstader, 14 september 2003

About Tod Dockstader: Dockstader moved to New York in 1958 and became a self-taught sound engineer and sound effects specialist and apprenticed as a recording engineer at Gotham Recording Studios. It was around this time that he started to use his off-work hours to experiment with mixing and manipulating sounds on magnetic tape (musique concrète). By 1960 he had amassed enough material to assemble his first record Eight Electronic Pieces which was released on the Folkways label in 1961 (this would later be used in the soundtrack of Fellini’s Satyricon). The last of the eight pieces was later re-worked into his first stereo piece. In 1961 he applied to use the facilities at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and was denied access by Vladimir Ussachevsky. Ussachevsky’s official reason was the “overstrained” scheduling of the studios, although many suspect that Dockstader’s lack of academic training was a factor in the decision. He continued to create music throughout the first half of the 60s, working principally with tape manipulation effects. His last piece at Gotham was Four Telemetry Tapes in 1965, after which he left to work as an audio-visual designer on the Air Canada Pavillion at Montreal’s Expo ‘67. It was around this time in 1966 that some of Dockstader’s pieces were released on three Owl L.P.s, and his work became known to a larger audience. He achieved modest recognition and radio play alongside the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse, and John Cage.

In October 1974, the first number of “L'Indépendant du Jazz”, a small self-produced magazine DIY -before punk supposedly invented the concept- was launched by Jef Gilson, Gérard Terronès, Jean-Jacques Pussiau and a few other specialists of a different kind of jazz in France, it looked at the already long career of Jef Gilson and in detail at the album with saxophonist Philippe Maté:
“The ‘Workshop’ is, with Philippe Maté (alto-sax), an undeniable success. Maté is genuinely ‘the’ most inventive French saxophonist since Michel Portal burst onto the jazz scene (who has also worked with Jef Gilson on both “Enfin” and “Gaveau”).”

Even though the author of the article is a mysterious I.H. Dubiniou, and it is difficult to know if it is a real person or a pseudonym used by one of the merry bunch, it is also tempting to hear it as what Jef Gilson really thought about his new discovery. Even more so as the two men would work together over a long period, as Maté became one of the key figures of Gilson’s Europamerica orchestra up until the 1980s.

Philippe Maté had started to make a name for himself with the Acting Trio when they released an album on the BYG label in 1969, and he was also one of the regular sidemen for the Saravah studios (he can notably be heard on albums by Higelin, Fontaine or his cult duo album with Daniel Vallancien).

The album was recorded on 4 February 1972, at the Foyer de Montorgueuil, where Gilson had set up his studio, with more or less the same team found on “La Marche Dans Le Désert” by Sahib Shihab + Gilson Unit (recorded ten days later). This was drummer Jean-Claude Pourtier and pianist Pierre Moret (regular Gilson accomplices since “Le Massacre Du Printemps”), alongside Maurice Bouhana and Bruno Di Gioa on various percussions and/or wind instruments. On bass is Didier Levallet, of the now mythical Perception, (Jean-François Catoire would replace him with Shihab) and Philippe Maté who took top billing, rather than the American saxophonist afterwards. The two albums are however quite different. This “Workshop” is more abrasive, more free. Made up of two long improvisations each of over 22mn, “L'Œil” on side A and “Vision” on side B (Gilson specialists would recognise the nod to one of his albums from the 60s), the album plunges you into the depths, attempting to drown you in electronic waves, dragging you back to the surface by the collar, giving you a good shakedown, before showing you the light, leaving you breathless on the shore after 46mn of the most intense music French has to offer. “An undeniable success”, they said. (by Jérôme "Kalcha" Simonneau)

One of the most effective ways of exposing the nature of any sphere is when it is interrupted, in a kind of alienation effect, by children. Whether one imagines that troops of them storm the foyer of a luxury hotel, occupy public squares and buildings with a view to getting on with their specific activities, whether they shape the profile of public political assemblies, whether owing to a security lapse they enter a television studio in large numbers during a live broadcast - in every case the reified character of each context, its rigidity, and the fact that the sphere is always that of adults, immediately become apparent as well as what is play and what is not and what is work and what is play and what is playing and who is playing with what or whom for what or whom ?

Another one from the fruitful collaboration with LA's highly regarded Patrick Houchen aka Shakaman. After Shakeena's “I bet you” 12" re-issue flying off the shelves, we deepen the exploration within Shakaman's treasure chest of Reggae/Dub gems with Shakeena's first and last album on Majicaa Records. Originally released in 1987, this album is a proper act of musical generosity, not so easy to point out the “hit” track here – clearly a case of all killer no filler. Unlike too many albums where the format length sadly gets the best of the artists' work, rest assured with this one you can play from the beginning to end and you'll only have to come back to flip it. The professional execution of what is hands down an ensemble of highly seasoned musicians sets the tone for the dreamy lyrics and arrangements to unravel. Besides expected reggae rhythms, Shakaman brings in other influences with subtle electro/freestyle hints that might have been hard to ignore in LA at the time. New remastered version sounding especially big and cozy on the low end. Can't go wrong!

Deluxe limited edition vinyl LP of the unpublished Nenad Vilovic lost synth-masterpiece Prizma. The Yugoslavian and Croatian disco and pop chart-maker and once a Split International Music Festival headman (also in groups Grupa ST, Mladi Batali, etc.), producer of Dino Dvornik, Ambasadori, Oliver Dragojevic, Meri Cetinic, Leo Martin and many more, recorded this space-prog-electronica album in complete secrecy. It was refused in the 1980s by major Yugoslavian record labels for being too experimental, but it is actually a game changer in the field of socialist YU electronica. Miha Kralj, Laza Ristovski, Igor Savin and Kornelije Kovac now have company in the field of complex analog synthesizer concept albums, with this one being finally released by Fox & His Friends Records after 37 years of being shelved. Every instrument on this album has been played by Vilovic himself. This rare piece of vinyl is cut by Pauler Acoustics, mastered by Antony Ryan and features exclusive cover design by Eric Adrian Lee. The studio master is here presented in its entirety; no track was replaced or changed its order. This is how it was imagined to be released in 1985, when Nenad Vilovic played all instruments, produced, composed, arranged, recorded and even sang on the whole thing. However the title "Prizma" may suggest, this is not a structuralist concept album, but a conceptual use of his studio, instruments and musical knowledge. It mixes the ethnic, electronic, geographical and ambient roots of the crowned festival producer, hit-maker and fast-skilled studio musician who spent all of his money on new machines and his musical progress.

(Produced, Arranged and Conducted by Claus Ogerman)

Not long after the dawn of her career, as a teenager in Rio de Janeiro, Joyce was declared “one of the greatest singers” by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Yet despite reputable accolades and the fact that she has since recorded over thirty acclaimed albums, Joyce never quite achieved the international recognition of the likes of Jobim, João Gilberto and Sergio Mendes, all of whom became global stars after releasing with major labels in the US.

There was a moment when it seemed she might be on the cusp of an international breakthrough. While living in New York, Joyce was approached by the great German producer Claus Ogerman. Ogerman had already played a pivotal role in the development and popularisation of Brazilian music in the 1960s, recording with some of the all-time greats like Jobim and João Gilberto, as well as North American idols like Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Bill Evans.

"I met him in New York City, in 1977”, recalls Joyce. “I was living and playing there, and João Palma, Brazilian drummer who used to play with Jobim, introduced me to Claus. We had an audition, he liked what we were doing and decided to produce an album with us.”

Featuring fellow Brazilian musicians Mauricio Maestro (who wrote/co-wrote four of the songs), Nana Vasconcelos and Tutty Moreno, and some of the most in-demand stateside players including Michael Brecker, Joe Farrell and Buster Williams, the recordings for Natureza took place at Columbia Studios and Ogerman produced the album, provided the arrangements and conducted the orchestra.

But mysteriously, Natureza was never released, and what should have been Joyce’s big moment never happened. As Joyce remembers, “I returned home, but Claus and I remained in contact, by letters and phone calls. He was very enthusiastic about the album and tried to hook me up with Michael Franks. He wanted me to go back to NYC in order to re-record the vocals in English with new lyrics, which I actually wasn’t too happy about. But then I got pregnant with my third child and could not leave Brazil. And little by little our contact became rare, until I lost track of him completely. And that was it. I never heard from him again."

While Claus was known to be something of an elusive character, the album’s disappearance might also have been a result of timing. The Brazilian craze was coming to an end, making way for disco and new wave at the end of the seventies, and Ogerman struggled to find a major label interested in a new Brazilian sensation. Additionally, as Joyce mentions, it wasn’t quite finished. Ogerman wanted to add finishing touches to the mix and to record alternative English lyrics for the US and international markets - a critical artistic difference between Joyce and Ogerman.

As the military dictatorship’s grip on Brazil began to subside in the 1980s, Joyce had a handful of hits in her home county, including a tribute to her daughters ‘Clareana’, and the iconic ‘Feminina’ - an intergenerational conversation between mother and daughter about what it means to be a woman. But already a feminist pioneer, these successes were hard fought. Joyce had caused controversy as a nineteen-year-old when she became the first in Brazil to sing from the first-person feminine perspective, and the institutional sexism she faced was worsened by the dictatorship who would often censor her music. Even once the Junta was out of the way, Joyce found herself up against the male-dominated major record companies in Brazil, who sought to dictate her career and sexualise her image, before dropping her for refusing to play along.

A few years after the success of her albums Feminina and Agua E Luz in Brazil, Joyce’s music began to find its way to the UK, Europe and Japan, and “Feminina” and “Aldeia de Ogum” became classics on the underground jazz-dance scenes of the mid to late-eighties and early-nineties.

The full-length version of “Feminina” from the Natureza sessions was first heard on a Brazilian Jazz compilation in 1999 and “Descompassadamente” was licensed for a CD compiling the work of Claus Ogerman in 2002. Following these, word began to get out about an unreleased Joyce album with Claus Ogerman and the legend of Natureza grew.

Forty-five years since it was recorded, Natureza finally sees the light of day, as Joyce intended: with her own Portuguese lyrics and vocals. Featuring the fabled 11-minute version of ‘Feminina’, as well as the never before heard ‘Coração Sonhador’ composed and performed by Mauricio Maestro, Natureza’s release is a landmark in Brazilian music history and represents a triumphant, if overdue victory for Joyce as an outspoken female artist who has consistently refused to bow to patriarchal pressure.

***Disclaimer! While “Feminina” and “Descompassadamente'' were mixed by legendary engineer Al Schmitt and mastered from the original master tapes, the remaining five tracks are unmixed. Due to significant deterioration of the master-tapes, the best audio source for these tracks was an unmixed tape copy Joyce had kept of the recordings. The best care has been taken in the restoration and mastering of this release, but the sound quality may differ from other releases on Far Out Recordings. We advise listening to sound clips before buying where possible.