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It was 1977, there may well have been “knives in West 11”, but at a student’s hall of residence in Leicester, a packed room of cross legged intellectuals were about to witness the debut of The Disco Zombies; Andy Ross on vocals and guitar, Geoff Dodimead on bass, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Hawkins on guitar and Andy Fullerton on drums. They were loud, fast and they had some witty one-liners.
The four-piece became five with the addition of Dave Henderson from The Blazers, a chirpy power pop punk quintet, who were part of a burgeoning scene in the city that included The Foamettes, Dead Fly Syndrome, Wendy Tunes, The RTRs, Robin Banks And The Payrolls and many more. Wine bars, canteens and bowling alleys in pubs were the home of this phenomenon until Subway Sect and The Lou’s arrived for The Great Unknown Tour. They needed a local band for support and the Disco Zombies obliged.
Record Shop owner - and now Mayor Of Mablethorpe - Carl Tebbutt was keen to ride the punk rollercoaster and decided to launch Uptwon Records with a Disco Zombies EP. Recorded in Chester in one four hour session, it included The Blazers’ ‘Top Of The Pops’ and Andy’s ‘Time Will Tell’, ‘Punk A Go Go’ and ‘Disco Zombies’.
Carl had done a deal with a one-stop music production company who went bust almost immediately and the record was shelved. Unperturbed the band pressed on and recorded a session at the local radio station, ‘TV Screen Existence’ being the only track that survived. A tour of Leicester – five pubs in five days – was the end of that era and the band without Johnny ‘Guitar’ who had another year to do at Uni, relocated to London taking with them The Foamettes’ guitarist Steve Gerrard who wisely returned to Leicester and become part of The Bomb Party. Steve was replaced by Mark Sutherland in what was to become the recognised line up of The Disco Zombies for several years, playing lots of London gigs from The Hope And Anchor to The Moonlight Club, North London Poly to the Scala.
By 1978, there was an eruption of small DIY indie labels and Andy Ross launched South Circular Records to release the band’s debut single, ‘Drums Over London’ - an ironic stab at people’s hostility to the arrival of other cultures, a piss-take of Spear And Jackson-wielding Tory attitudes. John Peel played it regularly until Rock Against Racism complained even though Peel explained that it was actually supporting their views. Ho hum. South Circular wasn’t to last but Dave Henderson launched Dining Out. Dave and Andy journeyed to Ipswich to record the debut EP from the Peel-approved Adicts, the plan being to follow it with a Disco Zombies’ single and regain momentum. ‘Here Comes The Buts’ was the second Dining Out release, featuring the breakthrough Dr Boss drum machine; it was greeted with great enthusiasm in some quarters, although strangely it was likened to The Cramps meets Neil Young in NME.
Dining Out was always just one step ahead of going out of business and even though the follow up had been recorded - ‘The Year Of The Sex Olympics’, backed with ‘Target Practice’ and ‘New Scars’ – it never saw the light of day as the money finally ran out.
Somehow, Dining Out had a second lease of life and Andy wanted to record a new track for a new release amid 45s from The Sinatras, New Age and Spit Like Paint. By now, the Zombies had been through their dark post punk phase and ‘Where Have You Been Lately Tony Hateley’ was a clever upbeat anthem which told the tale of the nomadic footballer. The test pressing gained many Peel minutes but by the time it was ready to release, the band had finally split up. It eventually saw the light of day on the Cordelia label’s ‘Obscure Independent Classics’ album. Very fitting.
So, it was 1980: Mark Sutherland opened a studio in Bow, Dod got a day job, Andy Fullerton already had one. Andy and Dave went a bit experimental in Club Tango; Andy eventually discovering Blur for Food which he started with The Teardrop Explodes’ David Balfe, while Dave flirted with Worldbackwards.
In 2011, the drum machine line up descended on Mark’s studio, rehearsing for a show at the Bull And Gate. They recorded two of their lengthier tracks – ‘Night Of The Big Heat’ and ‘LHO’ powered by a waning Dr Rhythm – these were pressed as an extremely limited edition ten-inch. A few years later Andy Fullerton returned to the fold recording three more originals ‘Hit’, ‘Lenin’s Tomb’ and ‘Paint It Red’ for an even more limited edition ten-inch in 2018 and a show in October that year at The Dublin Castle.
Since then, meandering lunchtime discussions in restaurants that were popular in the ‘70s (Joe Allen, Café De Pacifico, etc) have led to arguments about the lost tracks – ‘Man From UNCLE’, ‘I Need You Like I Need VD’, ‘Throwaway Line’, ‘I Thought You Were Only Joking’, ‘London Nights’, ‘Cosmetics For China’, ‘When Doo Wop Hit Hampstead’. It’s only a matter of time. Until then.....

Lucrecia Dalt is a Colombian recording artist, songwriter, and producer. After studying civil engineering in Colombia, Dalt worked at a geo-technical company for two years and has since lived in Barcelona and Berlin, where she currently resides. She has released six solo albums and has collaborated with musicians Aaron Dilloway, Jan Jelinek, and Gudrun Gut, to name a few. No era sólida is Dalt's seventh solo record, and her second on RVNG Intl., following the release of 2018's Anticlines. No era sólida is an introspective venture into visceral sonic terrain, as Dalt sets out to capture the moment when one becomes pure sound. The album observes a transition in Dalt herself through the emergence of an alternate ego / state of self named Lia. Each song identifies a different state experienced by Lia, opening with Disuelta (`dissolved') and transforming through pieces such as Seca (`to be dry'), Ser boca (`to be mouth'), Espesa (`thick'). Lia's poetic reflections on the panspermia echo her origins, having come from some other ether. As a lifeform seeded through sound, the very essence of Lia is embodied in the exploratory instincts of her creator Lucrecia Dalt, an artist whose innate sonar system traces the far reaches of musical experimentation.

Tibor Szemző returns with a new album, based on the music for his film about historic figure Alexander Csoma.

Tibor Szemző is a Hungarian composer, performer, media artist. Recently his album Snapshots From The Island (1987) gained renewed interest. Over the years Tibor Szemzo continued composing classical / electronic works. His pieces often include spoken texts, film and other media. He creates installations and composes music for his own and others’ films.

Csoma, his new album, is based on the music for this film about Alexander Csoma. Alexander set up to research the origin of the Hungarians 200 years ago. During his student years, before he enrolled in college, he and two fellow students vowed to go to Central Asia to discover the origins of their nation. In the first thirty-five years of his life, he spent his humble pilgrimage in Asia traveling and studying with Buddhist priests in Tibet in isolation, and devoted the remaining eleven years of his life to publishing some of the material he had collected in India.

Now on the 200th anniversary, Szemző’s Cinematic Opera wishes to pay tribute to Alexandar Csoma. Over the course of two vinyl sides classical and acoustic instruments are mixed with angelic voices, spoken word in German, Hungarian & English. Sounding like vintage Tibor Szemzo compositions, vividly performed by the Gordian Knot Company and the Voces Aequales Ensemble.

Barang Bang Records Archive Series vol. 1

Previously unreleased recordings
Compiled by Gianmarco Liguori

Bernie McGann - alto sax
Kim Paterson - trumpet
Bobby Gebert - piano (side A)
Andy Brown – bass
George Neidorf – drums

Recorded by Trevor Graham in Sydney, Australia (copyright 1966)

There is no more engaging nor distinctive alto saxophone sound on the planet than McGann’s.
Sydney Morning Herald

McGann takes the language of Bebop then bends and stretches it to fit the contours of his own remarkable im-agination.
The Wire

Bernie McGann’s sound is exciting and physical, as heated as any post-coltrane modernist.
Downbeat

A lost treasure of Antipodean jazz

This compilation documents part of an exciting period in Australasian jazz. Recorded in Sydney, 1966, we can hear Bernie McGann was already one of the great Australian jazz stylists. At the time, the only publicly available recording he made was two tracks on the Jazz Australia compilation (1967) (CBS BP 233450).

Two years earlier, McGann was living in Auckland, New Zealand (1963-64). It was here that he worked regular-ly with Kim Paterson, Andy Brown and pianist Dave MacRae, and the basis of this band came into being.

‘Lazy Days’, ‘Chuggin’, and ‘Sky’ were salvaged from a cassette in Kim Paterson’s collection, one of the few remaining copies. Originally intended for a radio broadcast, the master tapes were reportedly destroyed after the session.

‘Rhythm-a-Ning’ and ‘When Will The Blues Leave?’ were taped by Trevor Graham at the Wayside Chapel in King’s Cross. Graham was a Sydney music journalist and ally of the avant garde, with the foresight to capture some of what was happening at the time.

This album is also notable for a rare appearance by the mysterious American drummer George Neidorf (mis-spelt as ‘Neidori’ in the liner notes on the first Soft Machine album), an early influence on drummer Robert Wyatt.

Field recordings of a major artist in strong company – a lost treasure of Antipodean modern jazz.

Amazing 1976 album where jazz meets world music !

An amazing document of the life experiment that was the Organic Music Society. This super quality audio, recorded by RAI (the italian public broadcasting company) in 1976 for television, documents a quartet concert focused on vocals compositions and improvisations. Here, Don Cherry and his family-community’s musical belief emerges in its simplicity, with the desire to merge the knowledge and stimuli gained during numerous travels across the World in a single sound experience. Don's pocket-trumpet is melted with the beats of the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, the Italian guitar of Gian Piero Pramaggiore, and the tanpura drone of Moki. A pure hippie aesthetic, like in an intimate ceremony, filters a magical encounter between Eastern and Western civiliziations, offering different suggestions of sound mysticism: natural acoustics in which individual instruments and voices are part of a wider pan-tribal consciousness. A desert Western landscape marries Asian and Latin atmospheres. Indigenous contributions with berimbau explorations find fossil sounds of rattles and clap-hands invocations. Influences of Indian mantra singing are combined with eternal African voices or with folkish-Latin guitar rhythms , while flute and drums evoke distant dances. In the Organic Music everything becomes an act of devotion and love, an ecstatic dwell in the dimension of a sacred free-rejoice.

Fred broke out on scene with his slept on debut, the crossover soul gem "Love Can Last Forever" in 2016. After a four year hiatus between releases, it's time for his sophomore single "Sweet Thing", and it's clear that his talent is like fine wine, a thing that needs its time. Since his premier release kicked off Stylart, the Timmion sublabel, Cold Diamond & Mink has put soul on the table with a steady pace and from this new track it's clear that they shine some special love for Fred.

As a result,"Sweet Thing" is as lush as it comes with a shimmering electric piano, horns on full blast and strings to boot. When fused with Fred's delicate delivery, passionate lyrics, overdubs and a mid-tempo soul dance groove, it all really comes together. There's a gentle southern breeze in the air and can we really demand less from Espoo's finest.

We are nowhere nearer to cracking the enigma of Fred's personality, but he does seem less complicated than on his first release. "Sweet Thing" is exactly what it sounds like, a soothing piece of soulful sunshine. Something to enjoy in good company.

Fred broke out on scene with his slept on debut, the crossover soul gem "Love Can Last Forever" in 2016. After a four year hiatus between releases, it's time for his sophomore single "Sweet Thing", and it's clear that his talent is like fine wine, a thing that needs its time. Since his premier release kicked off Stylart, the Timmion sublabel, Cold Diamond & Mink has put soul on the table with a steady pace and from this new track it's clear that they shine some special love for Fred.

As a result,"Sweet Thing" is as lush as it comes with a shimmering electric piano, horns on full blast and strings to boot. When fused with Fred's delicate delivery, passionate lyrics, overdubs and a mid-tempo soul dance groove, it all really comes together. There's a gentle southern breeze in the air and can we really demand less from Espoo's finest.

We are nowhere nearer to cracking the enigma of Fred's personality, but he does seem less complicated than on his first release. "Sweet Thing" is exactly what it sounds like, a soothing piece of soulful sunshine. Something to enjoy in good company.

Roots and full of energy. That's the best way to express it for me !

Over two years in the making, and it’s finally here. Amsterdam based, brand new old-school label “Betonska” kicks off with this highly diverse release for the selector, collector, radio host and club DJ.

Crisp instrumentation, tight retro drum computer programming and propulsive danceable bass lines are what you will find here. The Amsterdam based label will be focusing on previously unreleased and tough-to-find material from the 80s and 90s – all re-mastered, officially licensed and in collaboration with the original artist. In addition to the original material an occasional modern twist will be given by contemporary artists who cherish that signature sound.

The first release is an alternative issue of Flo Sullivan’s “Higher” release, originally recorded in 1984 in the world famous Amazon Studios in Liverpool and released in 1985. On the A-side both the 12” and the 7” version of the hard-to-get, firm synth-pop track “Higher” will be pressed on a loud 45rpm vinyl. The 12” version is the (bass-)heavier one, while the 7” version sounds more “organic” with an extended intro and an added horns part. The tracks on the A-side have been pressed before and are made available now again for the wider public, giving those tracks the recognition and attention they deserve.

The B-side focuses on previously unreleased original downtempo material by the same artist but released under her real name: Gayna Rose Madder. This, accompanied by a refreshing club-ready remix of one of those tracks by Vienna’s top-notch selector, producer and Neubau label owner: Heap.

Neither of the two original tracks “Over” and “Element” have ever been released on vinyl before, up until now. “Over” was written and recorded in 1983 in Splash Sound Studios in Liverpool. A beautiful melancholic synth-pop track, which was meant to be released, but unfortunately never saw the light of day. At the time it was recorded Gayna left her band “Shiny Two Shiny” and therefore needed a new deal from a different company for her solo releases. But by the time she found the right one, many newer songs needed release. Much later, in 2005, Gayna decided to self-release “Over” on a compilation CD to sell copies online.

“Element” is a spoken-word poem accompanied by a fire-crackling tribal kind of rhythm. It was written for a musical play and recorded in Sparks Studio Liverpool in 2004 and has never officially been released before. (For a short period it was available on a self-released CD on Gayna’s website; a compilation of the songs written for one of her musicals).

And last but not least, the icing on the cake is Heap’s remix of “Element”. He translated this spoken word poem into a refreshing 90s-style and danceable club-track to complete the diversity of Betonska’s first release. A chugging acid bass, breakbeat rhythms, crisp claps and sharp snares and a screeching lead synth to get you screaming on the dance floor.

Black vinyl editions of four 'Elephant' era singles ('Seven Nation Army', 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, The Hardest Button to Button' and There's No Home For You Here). Featuring badass non-album b-sides, 3 of which are covers of songs from some of Detroits turn-of-the-millenium best and brightest (Brendan Benson, Jason Falkner, Dan Miller (Blanche), Soledad Brothers), and one of which is a live White Stripes medley of "I Fought Piranhas" and "Let's Build a Home," recorded at New York's legendary Electric Lady Studios. Most of these tracks have been remastered from the original analog sources, and the artwork on all the singles has been improved upon by the Third Man Creative Hive. "There's No Home For You Here", which was originally coupled with a generic company sleeve, now has stunning new artwork. It looks electrifying! On top of looking good, these sleeves are soft as a baby, printed with an aqueous coating, so they feel like a cross between rubber and lambskin. It's nice.

Black vinyl editions of four ‘Elephant’ era singles. The four singles ("Seven Nation Army," "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," The Hardest Button to Button," and "There's No Home For You Here") feature badass non-album b-sides, 3 of which are covers of songs from some of Detroit's turn-of-the-millenium best and brightest (Brendan Benson, Jason Falkner, Dan Miller (Blanche), Soledad Brothers), and one of which is a live White Stripes medley of "I Fought Piranhas" and "Let's Build a Home," recorded at New York's legendary Electric Lady Studios.

Most of these tracks have been remastered from the original analog sources, and the artwork on all the singles has been improved upon by the Third Man Creative Hive. "There's No Home For You Here", which was originally coupled with a generic company sleeve, now has stunning new artwork. It looks electrifying! On top of looking good, these sleeves are soft as a baby, printed with an aqueous coating, so they feel like a cross between rubber and lambskin. It's nice.

SKYLAX RECORDS, THE company focused on realeasing original & obscure dance classics and everything that sounds fine to their ears!For our 16th release , we decided to bring you again the producer of Resident Advisor's 2009 album of the year, TERRE THAEMLIZ aka DJ SPRINKLES, with a VERY SPECIAL PROJECT !!!

A stunning new production by the Rhythm And Sound ace, drawn from his recording sessions with some of Senegal’s greatest musicians — a griot clan of Sabar drummers from Kaolack in Senegal, led by Bakane Seck, with guest players and vocalists, including many mainstays of the bands of Baaba Maal, Youssou N’Dour and company.
Jeri-Jeri’s style of Mbalax is swingeingly masterful — heady and hard-grooving, with highly complex, fiercely succinct poly-rhythms — an ancient-futuristic music, mesmeric but sharp as nails, super-charged with drama. Featuring the lovelorn vocals of guest Mbene Diatta Seck, Sabar traditions are fused with furious Afro-Cubanismo, hard funk-rock, and shards of high-life.

Ernestus’ nasty, hypnotic, stripped dub — an Mbalax first — edges in the bass, profiles the talmbat and tungun drums, and scoops the semantics out of the singing.

Award-winning International DJ and Producers The Prototypes release their third album ‘Ten Thousand Feet & Rising’. The Brighton based Drum & Bass duo were previously signed to tastemaker label ‘Viper Recordings,’ home to Matrix and Futurebound.

The Prototypes’ potent, hard-hitting production and broadsword body of work on seminal labels such as UKF, Viper Recordings, Shogun Audio, Ram Records, Technique Recordings and Formation. Anthems that have been supported across the entire D’N’B scene such as ‘Pale Blue Dot’, ‘Pop It Off’ and ‘Kill The Silence’.

Their expansive and versatile remixes of acts ranging from Ed Sheeran to Avicii to Friction by way of their sought-after bootlegs of Fisher and Knife Party and unreleased dubplate remixes of Bad Company and Pendulum. Not to mention their extraordinary debut album ‘City Of Gold’ that exploded in 2015, took them around the world several times over and elevated them to headline status.

‘Shadows’ is the first single from the new album, which they explain as ”a throwback to the Hardcore scene from the late 90s, with a piano line influenced by pivotal names through the history of the UK’s rave scene such as Vibes & Wishdokta, DJ Dougal, Slipmatt, and Nookie, to which we added a straight up banger of a bassline”.

Featuring Ulta Music’s singer Lily McKenzie, known for her collaborations with industry heavyweights including Giggs, Conducta and Wiley, as well as featuring on Crazy Cousinz’s 2017 smash hit, ‘No Way’, alongside Yxng Bane and Mr Eazi signed to Ultra Music.

Previously supported by the likes of Zane Lowe, Annie Mac, Andy C, Roni Size, Friction, J Majik & Wickaman, Pendulum, DJ Fresh plus many more.

Libreville Records is proud to present a focus on legendary electronic swiss project Mega Wave Orchestra in the form of a compilation LP including unreleased material.Originally released privately in Geneva in 1988 as a box set containing five LPs by The Mega Wave Orchestra and five prints by the artist H. Richard Reimann. The Mega Wave Orchestra, the brain-child of musician, mathematician and composer Christian Oestreicher, was conceived as an multi-media electronic music big-band. It was comprised of seven multi-instrumentalists Christine Schaller, Vincent Barras, Jacques Demierre, Olivier Rogg, Rainer Boesch, Roger Baudet, and Benoit Corboz, with Oestreicher as arranger and producer.The Mega Wave Orchestra created a new hybrid music. It was a music with roots in the jazz and classical traditions, but one which also drew on the sonic freedom of musique concrete and the kind of total experience offered by psychedelia. The diverse backgrounds and specialisms of each of the band leaders/writers resulted in a wide variety of music across the five discs: from austere drones and granular aural detail to warm oddball fusion and gorgeous but cracked vocal jazz. There are useful contemporary comparisons to be made: zoned synth jazz like the Azimuth LP on ECM or Karin Krog’s Freestyle; Larry Heard’s sequencer dreamtime; the Valium minimalism of Pep Llopis or Jun Fukamaki; Dexter Wansel’s shimmering arrangements for Loose Ends, or even the FM sheen meets cold war threat of Donald Fagen’s Night Fly. Here, too, is the sound of music technology about to snowball and define its own aesthetic, unknowingly prefiguring auteurish bedroom producers like Black Dog or The Detroit Escalator Company.Lovely crafted tip-on sleeve. Remastered from Master tapes. 600 copies.

Demon Records presents Distortion: 1989-1995, the first in a series of four expansive vinyl box sets chronicling the solo career of legendary American musician Bob Mould. Bob Mould’s career began in 1979 with the iconic underground punk group Hüsker Dü before forming the beloved alternative rock band Sugar and releasing numerous critically acclaimed solo albums. Volume one in this new series covers 1989 to 1995, beginning with Mould’s first post Hüsker Dü album Workbook and continuing through to Sugar’s final studio album File Under: Easy Listening.

Each album is presented with brand new artwork designed by illustrator Simon Marchner and pressed on 140g clear vinyl with unique splatter effects.

Includes a 28-page companion booklet featuring: liner notes by journalist Keith Cameron; a foreword by writer and actor Fred Armisen; a tribute from Richard Thompson; lyrics and memorabilia.

Mastered by Jeff Lipton and Maria Rice at Peerless Mastering in Boston.

Featuring an array of bonus tracks including Sugar’s 1995 collection of Bsides and non-album tracks Besides, along with Distortion Plus: 1989-1995 a new and exclusive collection of rarities and collaborations (pressed on clear vinyl).

Limited to only 300 copies this trio of tracks dangled in classic disco juice is one of Picnic Records finest.

"Disco Ynferno" is not quite a cover of The Tramps hit but borrows the lyrics to stay in theme with the release. A driving deep house groove, 909 drums gets things moving and when the big buzzy bass, smooth breaks and nonchalant vocals drop at the halfway point it just feels right.

Company B's Hi-NRG banger get chuggified. "Phasinated" vocals by Aussie soul diva 'Ofa Fotu shine through this deep and funky 110bpm disco groover. Tropical percussion sits underneath a bouncy electro synth bass. A bit of a Crooked Man vibe going on.


The stand out, "Dubbing Alive", a tropical dubbed out version of arguably the biggest disco track ever. It just settles in and washes you with familiar melodies pushed along by a weirdly amazing honky bass. Perfect for coming up, coming down or a Sunday session down the pub.

The Hammond organ was first manufactured in 1935. In 1954, the now famous Hammond B3 model was introduced with additional harmonic percussion feature. When the company went out of business in 1985, around two million of various models of the Hammond organ have been produced.

The Hammond B3 was originally marketed to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians in organ trios. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B3 inspired a generation of organ players, and its use became more widespread in the 1960s and 1970s in rhythm and blues, rock, reggae, and progressive rock.

This collection is centered on the exciting and dynamic sounds of the Hammond B3 organ!

Taken from their acclaimed self-titled debut album, ‘One Hand Tommy’ is its latest single and proves no matter how strange our world seems right now, it could always be stranger…

In a blitz session of blood curdling vocals, disarticulated fretwork and wickelly deranged lyricism, ‘One Hand Tommy’ sees The Imbeciles tell us the tale of: Tommy; a child trapped in a dystopian landscape of nuclear annihilation with only a giant killer snake for company.

‘One Hand Tommy’ is the latest exhilarating track to be released from The Imbeciles self-titled debut album - out now. Comprising 13 imploded songs which rarely last more than two minutes, the album was recorded on tape in eight deranged days on the Texan-Mexican border. Packed with stripped-down musical information and resonant with atmosphere, the album was hailed by CLASSIC ROCK as “Some kind of Apocalypse Now” (✭✭✭✭). The band also gained masses of support at radio from BBC 6 Music, Radio X, BBC Radio 1, amongst others. The delirious fun of ‘One Hand Tommy’ is just another reason to believe the hype...

And now it’s been remixed by DJ Tennis & Danny Daze, Mark Broom, Suzanne Kraft and Duncan Forbes.

The remixes have picked up a fantastic amount of support from a long list of names, including this lot – Radio 1’s Pete Tong, Red Axes, Jackie House, Len Faki, Gerd Janson, Laurent Garnier, Ben Sims and more!

Following the release of Milton Nascimento’s Maria Maria, Far Out Recordings proudly presents Nascimento’s 1980 follow up. With the success of Maria Maria in 1976 behind them, Nascimento reunited with his writing partner Fernando Brant in 1980 to produce another ballet, ‘Ultimo Trem (Last train)’. This time, they chose to tackle a more contemporarily relevant subject, the impact of the closure of a train line that connected certain towns and cities in the North East of Minas Gerais to the coast. “The military government shut down the route and the whole region began to fade away,” explains Milton. “I love train rides” adds the composer, “But today there are almost no trains to Brazil. So when I go to the US and Europe, any time I can, I go by train. The longer the journey the better.”

Featuring much of the same all-star line-up as Maria Maria – including legendary Brazilian musicians Naná Vasconcelos, João Donato, Paulinho Jobim and members of Som Imaginário, amongst many others, like Maria Maria, the album holds what Milton himself considers to be the definitive versions of some of his most beloved tracks, including 'Saídas E Bandeiras' and 'Ponte de Areia'.

The title track, ‘Ultimo Trem’ – performed exquisitely by Zezé Mota with a choir and piano – is a mournful lament about the human consequences of the axed line. The ballet brought great media attention to the campaign against closure. “Most of Fernando’s lyrics have some political tone,” says Milton, “This one helped the area a lot because the politicians grew concerned about the subjects.”

Fernando’s and Milton’s shared passion for the sounds, smells and memories of trains, inspired the soundtrack for the production which premièred in 1980. ‘A Viagem (The trip)’, launched with a train’s steam whistle, sees Milton’s guitar moving to a train’s rhythm. In contrast to the usual lyricism, ‘Bicho Homen (Beastly man)’ and ‘Decreto (Degree)’ are atypically upbeat and funky, their vocals a mesh of wordless male voices resembling the then fashionable Swingles Singers’ renderings of Bach. ‘E Daí? (And so what?)’, and ‘Olho d’Agua (Water’s Eye)’ were both drawn from ‘Clube Da Esquina’. ‘Olho d’Agua’ is mellow and delicate and Milton’s homage to the great voices of Brazil whilst ‘E Daí? (And so what?)’ is a stunning mosaic of voices. The unusual ‘O Velho (The Old Man)’ conjures up an image of an old shaman singing alone into the wind against the cries of nature. Perhaps the most affecting songs are Nascimento’s ‘Itamarandiba’ and ‘Oração (Prayer)’. The latter is a cry for a change in the situation whilst ‘Itamarandiba’ ends with an upbeat, whirling Hammond organ and guitar timepiece. The closing track ‘Ponta de Areia (Sand Edge)’, was based on one of Fernando’s newspaper stories and became one of Milton’s most famous pieces, covered by musicians across the planet, including Wayne Shorter and Earth, Wind and Fire. It reappeared as a ghostly 45-seconds memory on the ‘Milton e Gil’ album, his millennial collaboration with Gilberto Gil.

After 27 years of being locked inside contracts and record company legalities, these sublime songs were finally released in 2003 as a double CD package, along with Maria Maria. Set for its first ever vinyl release for this year’s Record Store Day, on limited edition red vinyl, Ultimo Trem sounds as fresh and relevant now as when Brazilian music was still a South American secret.