First-ever reissue of the 1988 album. Gatefold LP includes new and restored artwork and a chapbook, featuring forty-eight pages of lyrics, essays, photographs, and Gordon's extraordinary drawings for each song. The Choctaw, Assiniboine, and Texan poet, journalist, visual artist, American Indian Movement activist, and musician Roxy Gordon (First Coyote Boy) (1945-2000) was above all a storyteller, known primarily as a writer of inimitable style and unvarnished candor, whose wide-ranging work encompassed poetry, short fiction, essays, memoirs, journalism, and criticism. Over the course of his career he recorded six albums, wrote six books, and published hundreds of shorter texts in outlets ranging from Rolling Stone and The Village Voice to the Coleman Chronicle and Democrat-Voice, in addition to founding and operating, with his wife Judy Gordon, Wowapi Press and the underground country music journal Picking Up the Tempo. Along the way he cultivated close friendships with fellow Texan songwriters such as Lubbockites Terry Allen, Butch Hancock, and Tommy X. Hancock, as well as Ray Wylie Hubbard, Billy Joe Shaver, and, most famously, Townes Van Zandt, whom he called his brother. Although his work covered a vast array of topics exploring strata personal, local, global, and cosmic alike, Gordon's primary subject as a writer, musician, and visual artist was always American Indian culture, specifically the ways it collided and coexisted with European American culture in the South and West-and within the context of his own life and braided identity. The ten songs on Crazy Horse Never Died, his first officially released and distributed album, were recorded in Dallas in 1988. "Songs" is perhaps an imprecise taxonomy for what Roxy captured on this and his other albums, all of which remain out of print or were released in instantly obscure limited editions of homebrew cassettes and CD-R's. (Paradise of Bachelors plans to reissue remastered, expanded editions of his catalog; Crazy Horse is the first.) He only occasionally attempted to sing, and his musical recordings are primarily corollaries of, and vehicles for, his poems. His sharp West Texan drawl, tinged by formative years of reservation living in Montana and unmistakable once you hear it-high, lonesome, flat, and cold-blooded as a bare rusty blade-instead patiently unfurls in skewed sheets of anecdotal verse and discursive narrative rants. Although Gordon's music at times incorporated powwow style drumming, fiddling, or unaccompanied ballad singing, the majority of it hews to an idiosyncratic spoken word style, accompanied by atmospheric, sometimes synth-damaged country-rock that skirts ambient textures and postpunk deconstructions. His songs are essentially recitations over backing tracks of finger picked guitars, rubbery washtub bass, and buzzing, oscillating keyboards. On the stark yellow and red jacket of Crazy Horse, which he designed himself, Gordon describes these recordings as innately ambivalent in terms of form, content, and identity: These are poems and/or songs about the American West, white and Indian. My life has been Indian and/or white. Maybe there's not a lot of difference-maybe. I guess that's mostly according to which white person or which Indian you're talking about. That's probably what this album's about. Crazy Horse Never Died comprises songs that span the personal and political arcs of his writing practice and the poles of his native and white ancestries.
“In the afternoon we performed in a rather austere theatre in East Berlin. Then I remember we crossed Checkpoint Charlie that evening to play in a club in West Berlin. The atmosphere was completely different. I felt as though we were living in a black and white spy movie.” Nicolas Fiszman recalls that chaotic day of 13 June 1982. Two outstanding guitarists, Philip Catherine and Nicolas Fiszman, who at the time was only seventeen years old, were taken from one side of Berlin to the other in pouring rain to perform to unlikely audiences. At both concerts, they played the same programme of seven pieces written by Philip, with the exception of “Crystal Bells”, composed by Charlie Mariano. The pair were not master and student. Rather, Philip remembers Nicolas like a young brother he might have taken to the beach. After the 1960s, Philip became a major figure on the jazz scene, working with the greatest: Charles Mingus, Chet Baker, Stéphane Grapelli, Dexter Gordon, to name only a few. Nicolas has played with Charles Aznavour, Vanessa Paradis, Francis Cabrel and Eric Serra, and travels the world with Sting.
On that gloomy afternoon, the two guitarists, alone on stage, decided to brighten up the morosity that reigned. The pieces they played bore titles such as “Janet”, “Babel” and “Petit Nicolas”. It is hard to believe that this varied, well-constructed, polyphonic music was not entirely written down on paper. Philip says, “Nothing is written from beginning to end. I compose the themes and some harmonic bridges. Then we have a chord chart … and that’s it.” The foundations are written; inspiration, taste, fantasy and friendship do the rest. We feel as though we are taking a nonchalant walk through Rio or Miami. The concert is punctuated by thunderous applause.
For these brief minutes in that year 1982, the East Berliners were able to fly over their tightly closed borders.
We are privileged to have unearthed this unique concert where two outstanding artists bring together two cultures to create an intense blaze of happiness.
Philip Catherine, Guitar
Nicolas Fiszman, Guitar & Bass
With the kind authorization of the Artists
Scratch The Super Ape is the 1976 studio album by Lee Perry’s studio band The Upsetters. The lineup consisted of Boris Gardener on bass, Mikey Benbow on drums, Earl Smith on guitar, Keith Sterling on keys and the horn quartet Bobby Ellis, Dirty Harry, Herman Marquis, and Vin Gordon. The album is recorded at Lee Perry’s studio and is both composed and produced by him.
This edition of Scratch The Super Ape features the original Jamaican album cover and is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on orange coloured vinyl.
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Like Sun Ra's Arkestra and John Coltrane are to jazz, the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari are to reggae – the ultimate expression of roots music and Rastafarian ideology in reggae music, music functioning at a high level of spiritual consciousness combined with an equally avant-garde and forward-looking approach to sound.
The group's stunning, unique and groundbreaking 1973 album ‘Grounation’, a mighty conceptual triplealbum (the first ever reggae triple!) is, similar to Marvin Gaye's 'What's Goin' On', a definitive allencompassing cultural statement of its time and place. A sprawling album of raw and unique cultural expression that combined Rastafari consciousness with deep spiritual jazz music – an absolute and essential classic of Reggae music.
The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari group came into existence at the start of 1970s, the union of two artists (and groups) of equal repute – Count Ossie and his African Drums and saxophonist Cedric ‘Im’ Brooks’ and his group,
The Mystics. Both Ossie and Brooks were alumni from the great Studio One Records. Master drummer Count Ossie and his collective of Rastafarian drummers performed for Haile Selassie on his
momentous visit to Jamaica in 1966. Cedric Brooks came out of the Alpha Boys School – the fertile breeding ground of musicians who dominated the Jamaican music scene from the 1960s onwards; Tommy McCook,
Don Drummond, Johnny Moore, Headley Bennett, Johnny Osbourne, Yellowman, Leroy Smart, Bobby Ellis, Joe Harriott, Eddie Thornton, Vin Gordon, Rico Rodriguez, Owen Gray, Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace and more.
The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari’s ‘Grounation’ is a massive opus, a work of profound musical genius that tells the story of Jamaica through music and words. The album is a cornerstone in the history of reggae, a unique and other-worldly album the like of which has never been made since.
Soul Jazz Records are releasing this long-revered album release in two unique vinyl formats: a one-off pressing limited-edition deluxe box set triple-vinyl edition complete with a free 45 single + art print + an exact-replica reproduction Mystic Revelation 1977 mag/zine + download code; And secondly as a triple album + download
code. There is also a deluxe 2 CD version
complete with large format booklet encased in
double-walled slipcase. All editions come with
extensive new sleevenotes, photography, exact
reproductions of the original text and artwork
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CLAMM's music was already concerned with the woes of the world, but
the last two years have added extra urgency to their blown out, dystopian
punk power
New album Care is bigger, louder and darker than its predecessor. CLAMM
dodged lockdowns to record at Rolling Stock and Sound Park Studios with Nao
Anzai (NO ZU, Cash Savage, Rolling Blackouts). Nao also plays fearsome synth
on the album and has joined the band on- stage at recent shows. Saxophonist
Anna Gordon (Mangelwurzel) contributes wild free jazz skronk to a number of
tracks.
180g "Chick" Yellow Vinyl
The $mokebreak EP follows Pink Siifu & Fly Anakin's critically acclaimed 2020 debut album FlySiifu's and further explores the musical community they've assembled around their imagined FlySiifu's record store.
Now FlySiifu welcome their friends Fousheé, Chuck Strangers, ZelooperZ, MAVI, YUNGMORPHEUS, Koncept Jack$on, Big Kahuna OG, 3wayslim and Peso Gordon into the store and onto the mic, with beats provided by Black Noi$e, Ahwlee, Budgie, Ohbliv, Graymatter, ewonee, and iiye.
Don't miss the video for their posse cut 'Tha Divide', featuring ZelooperZ, MAVI, and Koncept Jack$on, shot by Elijah Maura on a cold night in NYC.
"a wild taste of what the two artists can create just by reaching into their inner circles" – SPIN
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Beyond their highly sought after 1978 album Festa Para Um Novo Rei - home to the mystical jazz-funk classic ‘Vidigal’ and released on Philips’ iconic Musica Popular Brasileira Contemporanea series (MPBC) - little is known about Marcos Resende & Index, even to aficionados of obscure Brazilian music. Far Out Recordings is immensely proud to present their previously unreleased self-titled debut album from 1976, contributing a crucial missing work from the glory days of progressive Brazilian instrumental music.
Born in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Brazil in 1947, Marcos Resende was a prodigious child who learned to play the accordion at the age of two, and the piano aged six. In spite of his immense musical potential, he travelled to Lisbon in the 60s to study medicine. Yet continuing to explore his musical passion on the side, he formed a trio which went on to open for Dexter Gordon at the Cascais Jazz Festival in 1971. From here he formed the electronic oriented prog-jazz group Status, who opened shows for the likes of Elton John, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, but in spite of their relative live success they have no known recordings.
Now established as a highly regarded keyboardist, composer, and innovative electronic musician, Resende returned home to Brazil following Portugal’s Revolução dos Cravos in 1974. Inspired by US jazz and British progressive rock he’d experienced while residing in Europe, Resende went all out acquiring a keyboard arsenal to be reckoned with, which included the Prophet 5, Yamaha CP-708 and Mini Moog. Determined to integrate his newfound inspirations with Brazilian rhythms and jazz traditions, he formed a new quartet with Rubão Sabino (bass), Claudio Caribé (drums) and the late great Oberdan Magalhães, of Banda Black Rio and Cry Babies fame. Marcos Resende & Index recorded their self-titled debut at Sonoviso Studios with the legendary sound engineer Toninho Barbosa, known as the ‘Brazilian Rudy Van Gelder’ whose impressive resumé includes the era defining classics Light As A Feather by Azymuth, Previsão Do Tempo by Marcos Valle, and Quem É Quem by João Donato. Marcos Resende & Index fits perfectly amongst these masterpieces, sharing both the timeless ethereal qualities as well as the progressive and futuristic ideals of Light As A Feather in particular.
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On ‘Deciphering The Message’, Chicago-based jazz drummer and producer Makaya McCraven reworks some jazz classics. Tunes by the likes of Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Dexter Gordon and Ahmad Jamal are triumphantly reborn into the world of hip-hop. McCraven has chosen and reworked the tracks to work as a complete LP rather than individual tracks. “I always want to make music that will connect with people in one way, where it makes them nod or feel something or transport them somewhere,” McCraven said in a statement. “I also hope this makes them check out the source of this music if they have it. The music that we’re making now is part of the same route and is connected, so I want to honor tradition and release something that people can vibe to.”
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This is a reissue of a now out-of-print album from live trio date by the legendary LA-based pianist, composer and multi-bandleader, Horace Tapscott. Pianist Horace Tapscott is always at his best when he is leading a trio. Born in 1934 in Houston, Texas, Horace came from a musical family centered around his mother, Mary Malone Tapscott, who worked professionally as a singer and pianist. When Horace was nine, the family moved to Los Angeles. As a teenager in the late 1940's, Horace was surrounded by the music of Central Avenue: Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, were among the many cats on the set. Around this time, Horace also began to take music lessons from teachers Dr. Samuel R. Browne and Lloyd Reese, whose other students included Eric Dolphy and Frank Morgan. Horace's musical studies included trombone in addition to piano.
In 1952, Horace graduated from Jefferson High, got married to Cecilia Payne and went into the Air Force. Horace played in an Air Force Band while he was stationed in Wyoming for his term of duty. After mustering out, he returned to Los Angeles where he worked around on various gigs until he joined the Lionel Hampton Big Band as a trombonist.
In 1959, Horace finally went with the Hampton Big Band to New York, where his friend Eric Dolphy introduced him to John Coltrane. A tough winter, a lack of gigs, and too many nights on the floor of a friend's art gallery finally sent Horace packing for sunny Southern California, where a life with wife and family awaited his return.
The sixties saw Horace emerge as a die-hard leader of the Avant Garde. Horace began to gain public notice playing with his own group, that included alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe, bassist David Bryant, and drummer Everett Brown II. Horace also appeared on records for the first time.
Horace was always outspoken about racism, politics, stereotypes, and social ethics. His forward-minded vocal presence on and off the microphone is as much a part of his art as his piano playing. As a result, he was labeled a "dissident," categorized as an "employment risk," and black-listed from the music industry establishment in the early 1970's. None of this slowed Horace down. He began gigging sporadically at Parks and Recreation events and for churches around Watts. This "dark period," with his only regular gig at his friend Doug Weston's Troubadour on Los Angeles' "Restaurant Row", was also a time of intense creativity.
Around 1977, Horace reorganized the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra with the help of several old friends and many new faces. The Arkestra performances involve singing, dancing, and poetry in addition to the music. Soon after the new group's debut, Horace came to the attention of producer Tom Albach who contracted Horace to record a number of albums for Nimbus Records. Albach also helped introduce Horace to an international audience by arranging several European tours.
The 80's saw Horace emerge as one of jazz's premiere solo pianists. He recorded several solo piano albums for Nimbus.
For his first release with Artificial Dance, Black Merlin aka George Thompson takes a departure from the hard-wearing techno and intricate field recording work that he has come to be known for. Scape One is a fifteen-minute psychedelic diversion recorded in one continuous live session. While the track’s sonic characteristics may echo dance music from the turn of the millennium, its pulsating rhythm is more suggestive of the slowly evolving landscapes seen outside of a train window as opposed to raves from the late ‘90s.
Appearing on the B-side is Gordon Pohl’s remix of Scape One. Like its source material, this track is long and subtle in the way it develops over time, but Pohl dissects the most salient elements of the original to construct a new rhythmic urgency. The high frequency accent that guides the remix does so at a speed that recalls the rotations of Brion Gysin’s stroboscopic Dream Machine, which taps into your brain’s alpha waves, aiding drug-free hallucinations.
Pohl and Thompson are frequent collaborators and release music together as Karamika. While Scape One is not a collaboration in the strict sense, there is plenty of crossover in the working methodology of the two musicians, especially when it comes to constructing uncomplicated arrangements.
The repetitive nature of their respective tracks locks the listener into a contradictory sensation of travelling whilst staying seemingly motionless. This sensation is not altogether uncommon, but in this instance it’s not quotidian either. The result is a record that unravels slowly, leaving space for the listener to home in on all the available information and, in the process, discover elements that can be just as unnerving as they are satisfying.
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Following excellent reviews for ‘Forever Blue’, her
July-released debut album, A.A. Williams
announces ‘Songs From Isolation’, a 9-track album
of cover versions, released via Bella Union.
The ‘Songs From Isolation’ project began at the
beginning of the UK’s nationwide lockdown in
March. A.A. Williams took songs suggested by fans
and created a series of videos presenting the
tracks with stripped-down instrumentation,
recorded and filmed from her home in North
London.
The album represents a continuation of the project
into a full collection of recordings and features
cover versions of The Cure, Pixies, Deftones, Nick
Cave, Gordon Lightfoot, Radiohead, Nine Inch
Nails and more.
LP is pressed on black & white swirl vinyl and
includes a digital download code.
RSD2020 TITLE
After collaborating on a number of award winning vinyl albums, box sets and singles totalling over 80 songs together. They are back once again with this special, limited edition Vinyl Dub album.
Taking the original multi-track recordings of their co-produced 2016 sell out Roots Album for Max Romeo, ‘Horror Zone’. Lee & Daniel have created a new analogue Dub journey from those multi-tracks.
The original album was recorded live, using vintage Black Ark equipment to recreate Lee’s famous Lo-Fi Drum sound. With veteran Upsetter and Bob Marley and the Wailers musicians –
Glen Da Costa, Vin Gordon and Robbie Lynn, alongside Daniels Rolling Lion All Stars session band.
It has now been Deconstructed and Dub mixed live on Rolling Lion Studios SSL mixing console, using entirely vintage analogue equipment including the same pieces from Lee’s original Black Ark Studio. Driven by the idea to merge Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi. Merging the absolute best in class Analogue equipment available on the planet, with the very best Vintage equipment from the 1950’s-1970’s They have Dubbed these Bass heavy Lo-Fi recordings live, using space, depth and width. Paired with Phasers, Filters and Delays, resulting in a deep meditative, cinematic, psychedelic Dub journey into the stars.
Bought to you on super rare Glow in the Dark Vinyl, with a hand painted cover by Ellen G, the result sees the pair jumping into Lee’s Dub Starship to drive it straight through the Horror Zone!
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A follow up to 2018’s Jazz On The Corner which has now sold over 10,000 copies, and last year’s equally successful Soul On The Corner, this compilation see Martin and Eddie return to the world of jazz for another bite at the cherry after Volume one was declared to be “the best jazz compilation of the last 20 years” by Jazz FM’s Chris Phillips
The concept came from a radio show that Freeman and Piller put together for BBC Radio 6 Music which was so well received that the pair decided to dig deep into their record collections and build a double album of some of their favourite tracks.
The concept is simple: an album packed full of jazz gems which they hope are slightly off the beaten track. This year we have hidden gems from Nina Simone and Nicola Conte, classics from Roberta Flack, Roy Ayers and The MJQ, whilst the new British jazz generation is represented by Emma Emma-Jean Thackray. Running the gamut from hard bop, to progressive fusion via Latin beats, it’s an exhilarating listen from start to finish.
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Black Truffle is honoured to present the premier recordings of two recent works by legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier. A friend and contemporary of pioneers like Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, and Christian Wolff, Lucier has been crafting elegant explorations of the behavior of sound in physical space since the 1960s. Lucier is perhaps best known for I Am Sitting in a Room (1970), in which he repeatedly re-recorded his own speaking voice being played back into a room until the room's resonant frequencies entirely obscure the spoken text. Beginning in the early 1970s, he has written a remarkable catalogue of instrumental works that focus on phenomena produced by the interference between closely tuned pitches, such as audible beating, often using pure electronic tones produced by oscillators in combination with single instruments.
Demonstrating the restless creative drive of an artist now in his 80s, the two recent works presented here both feature the electric guitar, an instrument Lucier has just recently begun to explore. In Criss-Cross, Lucier's first composition for electric guitars, two guitarists using e-bows sweep slowly up and down a single semitone, beginning at opposite ends of the pitch range. The piece is a model of simplicity, exemplifying Lucier's desire not to 'compose' in the conventional sense, but rather to eliminate everything that 'distracts from the acoustical unfolding of the idea'. In this immaculately controlled performance of Criss-Cross by Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley, (for whom the piece was written in 2013), a seemingly simple idea creates a rich array of sonic effects - not simply beating patterns, which gradually slow down as the two tones reach unison and accelerate as they move further apart, but also the remarkable phenomenon of sound waves spinning in elliptical patterns through space between the two guitar amps.
In the comparatively lush Hanover, Lucier draws inspiration from the beautiful photograph that provides the LP with its cover, an image of the Dartmouth Jazz Band taken in 1918 featuring Lucier's father on violin. Using the instrumentation present in the photograph, Lucier creates an unearthly sound world of sliding tones from violin, alto and tenor saxophones, piano, vibraphone (bowed) and three electric guitars (which take the place of the banjos present in the photograph). Waves of slow glissandi create thick, complex beating patterns, gently punctuated by repeated single notes from the piano. The result is a piece that, like much of Lucier's instrumental music, is simultaneously both unperturbably calm and constantly in motion.
Stunning LP design by Stephen O'Malley including an inner sleeve with a portrait of Alvin Lucier by Kris Serafin.
Criss-Cross' recorded at Studios Ina GRM, Paris by Francois Bonnet and mixed by Alvin Lucier. Hanover' recorded in Zurich and mixed by Alvin Lucier.
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Belin.
Criss-Cross' recorded at Studios Ina GRM, Paris by Francois Bonnet and mixed by Alvin Lucier. Hanover' recorded in Zurich and mixed by Alvin Lucier.
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin.
Lascelle 'Lascelles' Gordon - the driving force behind Vibration Black Finger – astonishes us yet again with a magnificent second album. Once more his inspiration is drawn from the obscure spiritual jazz collectives of the 1970s where he employs a vast array of like-minded collaborators to create a listening experience infused with an ever-present undercurrent of personal expression and cultural empowerment that's as enriched with ideas as it is progressive in its form.
Having earned his chops as founding member of the Brand New Heavies, Campag Velocet and Heliocentric World, Lascelle's latest album Can You See What I'm Trying to Say bursts with energy and vivid contrasts, flowing effortlessly between beat-laden grooves, oscillating improvisations, soulful recitations, audio verité and moody atmospherics. The album drops like a post-hip-hop reimagining of foundational genres, with a prayer to the future.
''Can You See What I'm Trying to Say' is a quote from Marion Brown, the great alto saxophonist' explains Gordon. 'The album was put together over the last three years, not in the conventional way of going into the recording studio with musicians, but starting from ideas I had on various formats (cassettes, mini disc, DATs & reel to reel). I also used field recordings. I did a lot of home recording with long time musical friends Ben Cowen & Diana Gutkind, some of them going back 20 years. The voices of my nieces (heard on Law of the Universe) were recorded 25 years ago. 'Only in a Dream' and 'Empty Streets' are the only songs that were recorded live in the studio.'
'I was blown away by the New Life Trio 'Empty Streets' (from 1978) and was fascinated by the vocals' continues Lascelles. 'I always thought it would be great to cover this tune'. Such is the power of this song, it's used to open the album, with vocalist Ebony Rose turning in a thoroughly haunting vocal performance. While not a concept album as such, Lascelles has nonetheless conceived and presented Can You See What I'm Trying to Say to be heard as a complete listening experience, with each track blending into the next, resulting in a seamless expression of music.
Following 'Empty Streets', some instrumental interludes segue into a dimensional drift of beats, space synths, horns and electronics; there's a vocal reprise of 'Acting For Liberation', sung with gusto by Maggie Nichols, and then there's the album's momentous finale, 'Only In A Dream', which takes off as an ominous drone before a delicious bassline from the late Ken Kambayashi transforms it into an intense, soaring epic which finally descends onto another world.
In a career spanning several decades, Lascelle Gordon remains an omnivorous musical force, whether as DJ, collaborator or radio broadcaster. As amply demonstrated on Can You See What I'm Trying to Say, he refuses to rest on his laurels and continues to impress with music that is as rich, vital and contemporary as anything he's done before, covering an incredible amount of musical ground in the process.
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And we used to be such a nice record label .... BKV 026 swells up from the Bristol swamp in the forms of post-human industrial duo Bad Tracking. Here they have assembled variously, one spacious black metal intro (with original screams), an industrial-pop earworm not unlike Depeche Mode imploding in a feedback tunnel, two itch-tek dancefloor riddims namecheking local venue bans and I just don't know what to call 'Wellspring' really, the end of days? Well you had it coming anyway…..
Known in town for upsetting local MPs and lisencees with their live performances as 'naked technology sex slaves' think cassette-induced self harm, total nudity, blood from ears, Bad Tracking are the most visceral thing we've seen in this new wave of Avon experimental - a breath of life into the longstanding tradition of industrial performance art (and an antidote to idle BR club culture). Lyrically touching on censorship and tech // sonically they use feedback as a punishing instrument of anguish and expression.Widower EPis truly chewed nail sonics, more human than all your noise records, genuinely more scary than your edgelord power electronics nonsense, more forward than all yer government funded experimental think-records.
You may remember Bad Tracking from their remix of 90s soundsystem legends Bush Chemists on Bokeh last year. It sounded like they played the original through 1,000 knackered tape decks and added one kick drum. It was total sacrilege and we loved it. Bad Tracking is Gordon Apps aka reputed jungle/drumfunk producer Relapse (who also moonlights as Avon Terror Corp's Olivia Mutant John, buy his shit) and poet / VHS video artist Max Kelan (who has lent his visuals to MVs from Hodge, The Pop Group, OM Unit, Young Echo to name only 4). They've released on tRewdindForward family labels like Mechanical Reproductions and champions of bad taste and good music - Fuckpunk.
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Wewantsounds continues its collaboration with Bob Shad's grandchildren, Mia and Judd Apatow, to present a 2LP selection of 13 turntable-friendly Mainstream Records tracks recorded between 1970 and 1973 and showcasing the label's superb blend of Funk, Soul and Jazz. All tracks remastered from the original tapes, most of them released for the first time since their original release with a few highly sought-after ones. Liner notes by UK journalist Paul Bowler. The Mainstream sound is unmistakable: earthy, rich and funky, it's the signature sound of producer Bob Shad. After working with such geniuses as Charlie Parker, The Platters, Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin over three decades, Shad decided to go back to producing Great Black Music in the early 70s through his label Mainstream Records and started releasing a formidable series of jazz albums known as the 300 series. Released between 1971 and 1974, these albums are the main source of this set. Coincidentally, it opens with one of the two tracks on the tracklist not produced by Shad himself. Saundra Phillips' "Miss Fatback" is nonetheless fascinating as it's one of cult disco producer Greg Carmichael's earliest productions from 1975 (before he went on to produce Inner Life, Bumblebee Unlimited, Universal Robot Band with fellow producer Patrick Adams). The other track not issued by the Shad sound factory is Almeta Lattimore's 7" single "These Memories," a truly great soulful track from 1975 and now a sought-after classic on the international Soul scene. Shad's forte was Jazz, and the sessions usually used the best musicians you could think of, including Bernard Purdie, Billy Hart, Stanley Clarke, Dom Um Romao, Joe Sample, Freddie Robinson, Gordon Edwards, Larry Willis, Wilbur Bascomb to name just a few. Filled with gorgeous Fender Rhodes chords and heavy basslines, they define the unmistakable Mainstream sound which had one foot in the great jazz and bop tradition and the other in the sonic jazz explorations of the early 70s. Oscillating between jazzed-up covers of soul hits like Jay Berliner’s "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" or Afrique’s "Kissing My Love" and more introspective originals such as Hal Galper's "This Moment" or Dave Hubbard's "T.B.'s Delight", They all have this perfect balance between groove and depth. One perfect example is Pete Yellin's "Bird and The Ouija Board," a superb 12 min opus starting off with a deep abstract improvisation before switching to an up-tempo funk beat fueled by drummer Billy Hart and bass player Stanley Clarke.
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We are delighted to present our fourth release on 12” format, a very special collaboration with legendary Jamaican trombone player Vin Gordon.
"Bowl go, packy come" is an old Jamaican proverb equivalent to “what goes around comes around”, or in a more positive form “one good turn deserves another”. In this EP it symbolises the migrations and cultural exchanges between Jamaica and UK and back from UK to Jamaica and the rest of the world, pretty similar to the life journey of Vin Gordon himself. The music and the artwork here try to represent that continuum of exchange between both shores.
The Ep contains two uptempo instrumental tracks that are a mix of classic Jamaican sounds with a UK influence, combining classic live instrumentation and modern programming. Each track comes with it’s own dub version mixed analog live by Ojah in traditional fashion.
Also available complementing this release is ALDBS7008 “What Goes Around Comes Around”, a 7” that contains an additional Hammond and melodica solo version and an additional dub of the “Packy” riddim.
Limited edition of 600 copies, 180g heavyweight 12” vinyl, hand-numbered, served in a spined sleeve with outstanding artwork by Victor Castro.
Hammond & melodica recorded by Nik Torp at Squat Sound Studio, London, UK, 2015
Percussion & keys recorded by Ojah at Rollover Studios, London, UK, 2015
Trombone recorded by Jamez at Black Lindy Studio, London, UK, 2015
Guitars recorded by Puppa Shan at Discoinferno, Madrid, Spain, 2018
All tracks produced, mixed and mastered by Oscar Pablos “Ojah” at Alchemy Dubs Studio, London, UK, 2018
Graphic design by Victor Castro
Karamika - a studio creation from George Thompson (Black Merlin) and Gordon Pohl AKA Dussuldorfs engineer supreme(Musiccargo / Kunstkopf / The Isolators...). This their second long player is a record full of mind games. Sounds leak from fractal-like holes, and are sedately trodden back into the cosmic fabric of the album. The noise of post cruise carpet.
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Having been endorsed by Andrew Weatherall on his June 2017 NTS radio show, the band were inspired to release this four-track vinyl EP on their own label Big Shanty Records.
A heady mix of influences colour The Spellbinder Project sound, with elements of jazz, post punk, psych and funk in the blend. These tracks were produced by Malcom Catto, head instigator of the Heliocentrics and collaborator with DJ Shadow, together with Mike Burnham, who has worked extensively with Little Barrie.
The core band of Sean Pereira Summers (guitar), Michael Levison (bass) and Michael Rathbone (drums) are joined live by Lascelle Gordon from Vibration Black Finger on percussion and Chris Williams from Led Bib on saxophone.
Bristol beat physicist Second Storey joins the fold of electro dystopians TRUST, and 'Telekinesis Via Fax' picks right up where recent releases for Houndstooth and his R&S collaboration with Appleblim, ALSO, left off. 'Attack Of The Modlings' has deceptively lush pads launch into an industrial grime furor that relentlessly underscores Second Storey's ambition to sonically innovate. Vienna's /DL/MS/, coming right off their recent TRUST debut, reassemble the bits into a subtly layered electro funk banger, before Second Storey steps back onto the plate with the eternally spiralling "Quantock Point To Point" and "Telekinesis Via Fax", the latter evoking memories of Robert Gordon's afro-futurist Black Knight project with hyperkinetic snares and free-wheeling synth licks.
The return of the returner. 6 track Mini LP. Produced By William Burnett, New York. Sleeve design by Art Crime. Mixed & Mastered by Gordon Pohl, Dusseldorf. TIP!