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Rare Nigerian Afrobeat-Afropop Album.

First vinyl reissue since 1985.

Solo Album by Ofege Frontman Melvin Ukachi.
First Ever Release Outside Of The African Continent.
180g BLACK vinyl limited to 500 copies (w/obi strip). Non-Returnable.
Melvin Ukachi needs little introduction, the Lagos (Nigeria) based vocalist and bandleader is a living legend. Melvin is known for his fantastic solo albums, his vocals for the afrobeat star-groups M.F.B. and Ozzobia…but his biggest legacy is without a doubt him being the singer and bandleader of Ofege.
Melvin formed Ofege in the early 1970s (when he and the other band members were all still a bunch of teenagers). Due to their vibrant combo of sweet harmonies, hooks & fuzz, Ofege would become one of the most legendary Nigerian groups of all time, with expressive sales and national stardom to follow. At the turn of the century (and because of tracks appearing on various compilations) Ofege would receive international acknowledgment for being the first of their kind and THE ultimate West-African psychedelic funk band!
Melvin Ukachi recorded four milestone albums with Ofege: ‘Try and Love’ (1973) ‘The Last of The Origins’ (1976), ‘Higher Plane Breeze’ (1977) and ‘How Do You Feel’ (1978). When the Ofege story came to an end, Melvin recorded two astonishing solo albums: ‘Evolution-Bring Back The Ofege Beat’ (1981) and ‘I am Ok’ (1985). Both of his solo recordings have now become much sought-after holy grails for collectors and fans alike.
On the album we are presenting you today (I AM OK from 1985) the listener is treated to Ofege’s trademark sound…but we’re also shown a perfect glimpse of the late 70’s afrobeat works combining soul, jazzy rhythms, William Onyeabor style laid back electro funk synths & fluid boogie-danceability. The female backing vocals and handclaps by Princess Bunmi Olajubu (Femi Kuti) also deserve a special mention because they add so much depth and grooves to this amazing record.
Expect some serious local ‘all-star’ guest musicians on this record as well. Next to him playing the synth, Jake Sollo also produced this gem of an album! To top things off the tracks were recorded and mixed at the legendary RAS Studio in Akwa, Nigeria…all slickly engineered by John Malife (Black Children Sledge Funk Band, T-Fire, BLO).
‘I AM OK’ was released on CRS Nigeria in 1985 and is a total Afro-pop-funk classic that begs for a special place in your record collection. It’s tight, funky and Melvin’s soulful vocals are to die for. This record is a monster!
Tracklist:
I'm Ok , I Don't Mind , Come and Dance , We are Fine , Keep on Loving Him , Wanted , I Wanna Hide You

We finally made it: BEWITH100LP! And what better way for a re-issue label to celebrate such a landmark catalogue number than to give it to a record of new music. We couldn’t resist when the artist is Official Be With Family Member Kenny Dickenson and when the music is his lovely, lovely score to French-Vietnamese artist Mai Hua's 2020 documentary film “Les Rivières”. If you enjoy the more minimal, intimate piano of the likes of Nils Frahm or John Carroll Kirby’s solo work, you’re certain to fall for this beautiful album.

Taking six years to make, Mai’s film explores what happened when she brought her dying grandmother to France, pulling together four generations of women from the same family. Kenny’s score accompanies all the pretty things, sad things, dirty, beautiful, happy, broken and reborn moments of these women’s experiences.

The whole score is built around delicate, sparkling piano motifs. At times they’re joined by cello and complemented with ambient chords and other flourishes. It’s a very particular palette that Kenny and Mai established early on, as Kenny explains: “We had agreed on a particular sonic aesthetic early on in the process - to use specific and relatively minimal instrumentation, reflecting the intimacy of the picture. So piano and cello were quite prominent in instructing a sense of space and immediacy. Until I had to get the junkyard percussion out… ”

When it comes to describing the end results, Kenny’s happy to wear his influences on his sleeve:

“When the director and I sat down for the creative meetings early in the process, we watched ‘Wolf Children’, a Japanese animation film by Mamoru Hosoda. The amazing soundtrack by Masakatsu Takagi was a launching point for me and thereafter I leaned into more modern classical composers - Reich, Sakamoto, Glass as well as Jon Hassell’s Fourth World output. Richard Reed Parry’s ‘Music for Heart and Breath’ was a good early touchstone for me and Mark Hollis’ sparse, considered and deliberate approach was a constant presence. Also labels like Ghostly, ASIP and the ubiquitous Erased Tapes should probably get a nod here too…”

We’d even suggest there’s the occasional Yann Tiersen moment in there too.

Out of sheer necessity the collaboration between Kenny and Mai continued beyond this initial creative direction. With Kenny speaking neither French nor Vietnamese, Mai acted as translator, a process that naturally lead to discussing the film beyond just what was being said in the footage. Mai herself explains just how successful this relationship felt to her: “Music plays a very important role in all my work, particularly in Les Rivières. I cried every time Kenny sent me a new composition. I felt understood in a way that words cannot describe. It was absolutely magical and I am so happy if this music can make your soul vibrate too.”

Kenny composed much of the music in London, at the same time that Mai was shooting and editing. As the film took shape and the music also evolved, another challenge presented itself when Kenny relocated to Los Angeles part way through, resulting in Arnulf Lindners beautiful cello taking on new shapes- multi sampled, played and manipulated by Kenny into new compositions.

What Kenny has put together for the film score release is definitely a “soundtrack LP”, with the music arranged to work as a proper album in its own right that should be listened to from start to finish. Indeed the album also includes a new piece “Pour Marthe” that Kenny composed in memory of Mai’s grandmother who died after the film was finished.

Kenny’s personal highlight is also ours: “When I listen back to the album as a whole now, I never want part II of the Trilogy (Belles Larmes) to end. I have fond memories of recording it and I love how the dynamic of the piece gradually evolves from falling on the ‘1 and the 3’ to the ‘1 and the 2’. It’s so short and sweet, I keep wanting it to last for longer. But it’s kind of perfect as it is.”

Pretty much our sentiment for the album as a whole.

Running a record label means we often get asked advice about pressing a record. In this case the music was too good not to offer to release it ourselves. To Kenny, having the Les Rivières score on vinyl also feels like the final part of the project.

“It’s a beautiful thing to have it on vinyl. It’s quite an intimate soundtrack so there’s something really perfect about being able to listen to it on that format. When I was a kid, my Uncle Pat who used to work at Woolworths would visit and bring random records from their record department over to us. I can remember listening to “Theme From Exodus” by Ernest Gold. I had no idea what it was about but the imagery it conjured up when listening to that record was just mind blowing to me at that age. Soundtracks can have their own life on vinyl I think, and removed from their original context is this unique format for reinvention. So I’m excited that people who haven’t (and have for that matter) seen the film can have that experience.”

This might not be a re-issue, but the Les Rivières film score album has still been given the full Be With treatment. The vinyl has been mastered by Simon Francis (under Kenny’s ever-watchful eye/ear, of course), cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry. The sleeve follows the film’s poster and other promotional material, including Lucile Gomez’s almost magical illustration.

We’re under no illusions that many people reading this will have seen “Les Rivières”, but that doesn’t really matter when it comes to listening to the score. Just on its own, Kenny’s music still captures the robustness and the delicacy of lives lived.

Mattiel, the Atlanta based group made up of Mattiel Brown and Jonah Swilley, announce
the release of their third album, ‘Georgia Gothic’, on Heavenly Recordings. ‘Georgia
Gothic’, a magic third in Mattiel’s run of full-length albums, was shaped in the quiet
seclusion of a woodland cabin in the north of the Atlanta duo’s mother-state; “Some
faraway place that just Jonah and I could go where there would be no distractions,
nothing else going on, and we could turn everything off and only focus on writing songs,”
reflects Brown.
 Where 2017’s self-titled debut and its 2019 follow-up Satis Factory were written with what
Swilley refers to as a “hands-off” approach - he arranging the music and Brown the lyrics
and vocals, the two working largely separately - the making of ‘Georgia Gothic’ was, for
the first time, a truly collaborative undertaking. “This was the first time we made a point to
just be together and work out ideas in the same room. That was the initial intention... it
was about learning what each other wanted to accomplish on a sonic level, and then just
trying different things out,” Swilley continues. “Everything happened backwards. Normally,
you’d have friends that make a band... with us, we started making music from the jump,
and then became homies.”
 Cultivated by time spent together on the road touring the first two albums, it is this
newfound sense of intimacy between Mattiel’s members that enabled the writing of
‘Georgia Gothic’ not as two separate musicians, but rather as one creative entity. The
album remained within the four walls of Brown and Swilley’s private world for much of its
evolution - with recording taking place in a simple studio set up by the pair in the
borrowed room of a dialysis centre, Swilley in the producer’s seat - until, nearing
completion, it was transferred into the trusted hands of the Grammy award-winning John
Congleton (whose extensive list of credits includes artists as diverse as Angel Olsen, Earl
Sweatshirt, Erykah Badu and Sleater Kinney) for mixing.
 Not only does the affinity between its creators translate into an electric synergy between
‘Georgia Gothic’s words and music - the brine-shock of Brown’s taut lyricism cut against
the bourbon-smoothness of Swilley’s instrumentation - but here too are the palpable
spoils of experimentation, each party trustful enough of the other to trial and error their
practices into new geometries. Swilley puts this wide palate, in part, down to the place
they call home. “I definitely feel like being from Georgia allows us to have a certain way of
approaching music.” Brown chimes in: “We haven’t really highlighted where we’re from in
the past two records, even though those were also written in Georgia. There’s so much
great art and great music that’s come from Georgia, from all different types of genres and
all over the state - but take R.E.M. and OutKast: there’s this weirdness that I can’t really
put my finger on.” Swilley concurs: “It’s the same with the B-52s, the Black Lips... it
doesn’t feel like L.A., it doesn’t feel like New York, it feels like another planet. We’re not
really in a ‘scene’ here in the same way. You have to make your own sound, create your
own identity.”
 And it is precisely the forging of Mattiel’s distinct musical identity that ‘Georgia Gothic’
signals; its members guiding each other ever-homewards not just in a geographical or
sonic sense, but spiritually, too.
 Initial LP pressing on Red Hot coloured 140g vinyl with digital download code. (Once this
format has sold out, a black 140g vinyl edition with digital download - HVNLP202 - will be
made available.)

Green coloured vinyl edition of William The Conqueror’s
‘Maverick Thinker’ album from last year, released to
coincide with the band’s upcoming tour and book
publication.
 William The Conqueror have paid their damn dues. Like
the sportsman cutting chipped teeth in the lower leagues
before shooting to the very top, this band have lugged all
the amps, placated the in-house sound guy for an easier
life, their nails dirty, their hair unkempt. Enough.
 Except it’s never enough, because despite their slinky,
swampy, razor-sharp, blues-drenched, guitar thrashed
alt. rock songs that form new album ‘Maverick Thinker’
and suggest that the door is opening for bigger rooms
and broader audiences, it’s those sticky basement bar
stages where the songs have always shed a skin and
come alive. The record put the three piece behind the
glass at Sound City Studios in LA, treading the same
carpet as the likes of Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Neil Young,
and Fleetwood Mac and they might well have inhaled
the spirit of them all.
 William The Conqueror’s protagonist is Ruarri Joseph,
who knows his way around a melody and a verse.
Joseph’s wryness suggests life just ain’t plain sailin’ and
he fizzes that sigh and lament into something that
breathes heavy with heart and with soul.
 LP in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeve and
digital download card.

On the tribute album Songs for Tres, Psychic Ills band members come together to commemorate the late Tres Warren who passed away just as the world turned upside down in March of 2020. Isolated, feeling helpless and lost by the death of her musical soul mate and collaborator of 18 years, bassist Elizabeth Hart found making music to be her only outlet in a time where people were unable to be physically together to mourn. So, she reached out to Adam Amram, Jon Catfish DeLorme and Brent Cordero, the main players in the Ills line up since the release of their last full length album Inner Journey Out (2016), to ask if they would embark on this cathartic journey with her. This was a different kind of production endeavor for Hart driven solely by “the aching need and urgency” to do something to honor her friend.

Hart, Amram, DeLorme and Cordero reunited for the first time five months after losing Warren at Amram’s loft – the same spot where they’d rehearsed countless times before – although this time with a different objective. In an effort to share, support and create, the old friends joined in the painful and healing experience of making this tribute album to cope with their loss. The band members wrote, arranged, and rehearsed for months and the result of their work culminated in a weekend of recording in the southern Catskill mountains at the end of 2020. This isolated and intimate environment was a perfectly serene and fitting location to finalize their story.

Throughout the album, Hart, Amram and DeLorme take turns as the vocal lead on each of the songs while Cordero showcases his finger-picking guitar skills in addition to his piano and organ playing, which he is known for. Along with the core band members, a number of other musicians played on the album, many of whom had collaborated on prior Psychic Ills releases and wanted to be a part of this last collaboration in memory of Warren. Keeping the project in the Ills family, Hart produced the album alongside Iván Diaz Mathé, the long-time Psychic Ills sound engineer.

The album consists of five original tracks and four cover songs. Initially, learning the covers was just a method for the musicians to “break the ice” and play together again for the first time without their band leader. However, those tracks became just as important to include as the originals because of their essential role in the process of coming together to make the album. The cover songs were chosen because of their unique connections to the band’s memories of Warren. Dennis Wilson’s "Rainbows" and Fleetwood Mac’s "Station Man" come from two of Warren’s favorite albums, Pacific Ocean Blue and Kiln House. The band also recorded Blaze Foley’s "Clay Pigeons" and Powell St. John’s "Right Track Now." The idea for the latter was suggested by Amram. Warren once sent him a clip of Roky Erikson singing a moving rendition of that song in the film Demon Angel and it had stuck with him ever since.

Hart wrote "I’ll Walk With You" on the day of Warrens’ passing, at the time not knowing what it meant. When she got the call with the heartbreaking news, it became clear to her what the song was about. Relying on a gently lilting string arrangement to set the tone, this duet features Mazzy Star vocalist Hope Sandoval alongside Hart. Sandoval previously collaborated with Psychic Ills accompanying Warren on "I Don’t Mind" (2016). The ideas for "Home" and "Walk Around," two other songs on the album by Hart, started simply with an acoustic guitar and lyrics, a hopeful exercise to connect with her lost friend. Brent Cordero’s instrumental "Whole Lotta Piece of Mind" is nothing short of a transcendental experience. By running his pedal steel through a Leslie speaker, Jon Catfish DeLorme crafts the unique tone showcased on Wonderful Feeling, a moving example of studio experimentation combined with old school techniques. DeLorme describes it as “an attempt to highlight the musical experience I shared with Tres both sonically and thematically. What resulted is the unguarded exaltation I feel lucky to have shared with my fellow bandmates.” Adam Amram’s “Into the Sea” was composed spontaneously the week Warren passed. The melodic tune has a hopeful lightness and Amram describes it simply as “a song to my brother”. Their connection shines through.

In fact, the entire album is one that radiates the layers of friendship, love and music that will forever exist between this family of musicians. As the band themselves state: “This album was made out of love and a commitment to honor our dear friend and bandmate.” A portion of the proceeds from the album will be donated to RAICES, a charity who aids children who have been displaced at the Texas/Mexico border.

This beloved 1963 Impulse! LP is a career highlight for both Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane. Hartman was apparently Coltrane's suggestion for the recording date, and his deep, dark voice meshes perfectly here with Coltrane's tenor. The material is well-chosen, including definitive readings of 'My One and Only Love' and 'Lush Life.' McCoy Tyner fills out the chords, augmenting the harmonies and keeping the tone of these ballads respectful but not overly sentimental. All the players get to the deep structure of the songs and are not afraid to play in the most essential and elegant manner.

"This is the kind of songwriting I've always been drawn to," says Jeremy Ivey. "The perpetual motion, the intricate melodies, the sprawling arrangements. This album is the real me." Juxtaposing raw, unflinching personal reckonings with jaunty, buoyant melodies and rich, kaleidoscopic production, Invisible Pictures, Ivey's third album for ANTI- Records, is indeed a revelation. Though the songs are rooted in a 21st century swirl of chaos and uncertainty, the record is, at its core, an undeniably feel-good collection, one that refuses to surrender to the existential ache it so artfully captures. Instead, Ivey embraces the sheer, unmitigated joy of creative freedom and sonic exploration here, drawing on everything from flamenco and classical music to vintage indie rock and British Invasion tunes to craft a passionate, transcendent album more reminiscent of John Lennon or Elliott Smith than anything coming out of Nashville these days. "I try to put a little bit of hope into everything I do," Ivey reflects. "No matter how heavy, no matter how dark things may get, there's always a little bit of light shining through."

**LTD BLACK AND RED MARBLE**

As humans, we are aware of our inner beast and should therefore be able to control it. We understand our hard-wired primal urges and why they exist in an evolutional sense. We understand the relationship between mind and body. Highly evolved and intelligent, we should be able to recognize these genetic hangovers and control them as a means to act positively and move forward as a compassion-ate species. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Recent global events have proven this. The human race is consuming itself.

World Eater, the new album by Benjamin John Power's Blanck Mass project, is a reaction to this. There is an underlying violence and anger throughout the record, even though some of these tracks are the closest Power has ever come to writing, in his words, actual love songs.'

Maybe subconsciously this was some kind of countermeasure to restore some personal balance,' Power explains.

On World Eater, Power further perfects the propulsive, engrossing electronic music he has created throughout his impressive decade-plus career, both under the Blanck Mass moniker and as one-half of Fuck Buttons, as he elaborates upon the sound of 2015's brilliant double album Dumb Flesh. As massive as the sonic world of the new record often feels, its greatest achievement is in its maximization of a limited set of tools, a restriction intentionally set by Power himself.

As an exercise in better understanding myself musically, I found myself using an increasingly restricted palette during the World Eater creative process. Evoking these intense emotions using minimal components really put me outside of my comfort zone and was unlike the process I am used to. Feeling exposed shone a new light on this particular snapshot. I feel enriched for doing so.'

(A) 1. John Doe's Carnival of Error
(B) 2. Rhesus Negative
(C) 3. Please
(D) 4. The Rat
(E) 5. Silent Treatment
(F) 6. Minnesota / Eas Fors / Naked
(G) 7. Hive Mind

Back in stock! Ghanaian Afro-Rock From Producer/Composer JJ Whitefield, Inspired By His Karl Hector & The Malcouns And Whitefield Brothers Projects JJ Whitefield, who in the early ‘90s revived the gritty, analogue Funk sounds of the ‘60s and ‘70s with his Poets Of Rhythm, has been working with Now-Again Records for over decade, releasing a flock of acclaimed projects with Karl Hector & The Malcouns, Whitefield Brothers, Rodinia and the Original Raw Soul anthology. He first started exploring African rhythms with the Whitefield Brothers in the late ‘90s, continuing in the ‘00s with Karl Hector & The Malcouns. He’s been instrumental in launching Ghanaian Afro Beat/Funk legend Ebo Taylor´s international career, decades after the maestro recorded the landmark albums that have inspired thousands. Whitefield recorded two new studio albums with Taylor and toured in his band between 2009 and 2013, where he met Taylor’s son Henry and percussionist/Singer Eric Owusu. The trio now front the Johnny! band and find inspiration not only in Ghana’s hypnotic grooves, but also the full frontal fuzz guitar assault heard on the legion of 70s Zambian Zamrock albums reissued by Now-Again. Indeed, Whitefield credits his tours with Zamrock godfathers Rikki Ililonga and WITCH’s Jagari Chanda as instrumental in creating the Johnny’s sonic backdrop. The band is rounded out by Turkish drummer Bernd Oezsevim (Woima Collective, Rodinia) and Indonesian bassist/multi instrumentalist Tomi Simatupang (Whitefield Brothers). This is what was oft-called “Afro Rock” at the core, with the possibilities to stretch out into swinging highlife, sweet soul or psychedelia . The results, point at a new direction for the music inspired by the Great Continent. One that takes a direction once mocked as derivative and asserts its importance on the globe’s current musical stage.

Highway Butterfly: The Songs of Neal Casal is a 5LP vinyl boxset
celebrating the prolific body of work Casal left behind over the course of
14 studio albums
Recording sessions for the project began in February 2020 led by co-producers
Dave Schools of Widespread Panic and seven time Grammy- Award winning
recording engineer/ producer Jim Scott at PLYRZ Studios in Valencia, CA.Over
forty artists appear on the tribute including Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks,
Jonathan Wilson, Phil Lesh and The Terrapin Family Band, Steve Earle, Warren
Haynes, Jaime Wyatt, and Shooter Jennings among numerous others. The first
single and video from the recording was captured during the initial sessions in
February 2020. It features Billy Strings with Circles Around the Sun performing
"All The Luck In The World.

Guitarist Grant Green explored Latin & Brazilian influences on his highly enjoyable 1962 album The Latin Bit featuring Johnny Acea on piano, Wendell Marshall on bass, Willie Bobo on drums, Carlos "Patato" Valdes on conga, and Garvin Masseaux on chekere. Blue Note Records’ Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series is produced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tapes, 180g audiophile vinyl reissues in deluxe packaging. Mastering is by Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio) and vinyl is manufactured at Record Technology Incorporated (RTI).

Guitarist Grant Green explored Latin & Brazilian influences on his highly enjoyable 1962 album The Latin Bit featuring Johnny Acea on piano, Wendell Marshall on bass, Willie Bobo on drums, Carlos "Patato" Valdes on conga, and Garvin Masseaux on chekere. Blue Note Records’ Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series is produced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tapes, 180g audiophile vinyl reissues in deluxe packaging. Mastering is by Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio) and vinyl is manufactured at Record Technology Incorporated (RTI).

"Eternity" - Alice Coltrane (org, hp, el-p; perc, arr, cond); Terry Harrington (ts); Jerome Richardson (ss); George Bohanon (tb); Oscar Brashear (tp); Tommy Johnson (tba); Hubert Laws (fl); Charlie Haden (b); Ben Riley (b, dr); Armando Peraza (cga); a.o.

When the brilliant saxophonist John Coltrane died in 1967, the core values of jazz music had long drawn him into the spiritual world ("A Love Supreme", "Ascension", "Meditations" etc.). His widow and final pianist followed in his footsteps. Alice Coltrane (1937–2007) sought after »cosmic sounds, higher dimensions, astral levels« – she had an important influence on the spiritualised, esoteric music scene of the 1970s. Her first album was only released after John Coltrane’s death, but "Eternity" was already her tenth. (In the same year she founded a Hindu Vedantic Center in California.) The album draws its power from highly contrasted sound worlds. The size of the ensemble ranges from an unaccompanied harp solo ("Wisdom Eye") to a large orchestra with a big band of up to 25 plus a 12-man string section. Alice Coltrane’s main instrument is the electric Wurlitzer organ, whose rasping sound conjures up John Coltrane’s saxophone (especially in the opening number "Spiritual Eternal"). Mostly she improvises modally, sinuously, or with meditative ecstasy – whether in the style of Latin rock ("Los Caballos") or quite without a firm tempo ("Morning Worship" with a tamboura accompaniment). Support comes from such renowned musicians as Charlie Haden (bass), Jerome Richardson (saxophone and flute), Hubert Laws (flute) and Ernie Watts (cor anglais). In the number "Om Supreme" Coltrane switches to a gently swinging Fender Rhodes electric piano, which is joined by a six-voice vocal group. A surprising finale to the album is an orchestral adaptation of an excerpt from Stravinsky’s "Le Sacre du printemps". Here the moments of dissonance and free jazz are far from meditative contemplation.

'Still Life' Carson McHones drittes Album und zweite Veröffentlichung bei Loose Music erscheint Ende Februar. Nach ihrem 2019er Album "Carousel" zählt die aus Austin, Texas kommernde Musikerin zu einer der innovativsten Künstlerinnen aus den Staaten. Inspiriert von u.a. John Cale, The Kinks, Richard und Linda Thompson – gleichgesinnte Künstler der späten 60er und frühen 70er, einer anderen Ära des Übergangs und der Innovation. McHone schrieb die Songs von 'Still Life' in ruhigen Momenten zwischen den Tourneen in ihrer Heimatstadt Austin und nahm sie dann in Ontario mit dem kanadischen Musiker und Produzenten Daniel Romano auf. Diese erstmalige Zusammenarbeit zwischen McHone und Romano offenbart eine unwiderstehliche Dynamik von den präzisen Arrangements bis hin zu den ausgefeilten Lyrics der Songs. 'Still Life' ist mehr als zeitlos, es ist zeitgemäß, von Natur aus modern und ist für Alternative Country Fans ein Highlight!

Reissue of George Duke's classic 1975 jazz-funk-fusion album 'I Love The
Blues'
On the fourth album of his fusion cycle, George Duke substantially expanded the
number of his colleagues. As before, drummer Leon "Ndugu" Chancler beats as
the heart of the rhythm section, and the Brazilian couple, Airto and Flora are again
on board. The ten tracks perform a stylistic balancing act. The jittery funk of
"Chariot" and the smooth ballad "Someday" show off Duke's soulful vocal flair.
Flora Purim crowns the complex "Look Into Her Eyes" with her spheric sound as
she and guitarist George Johnson take care of business on this stratospheric
piece with its bluesy electric shuffle. With two high- voltage guitarists (Daryl
Stuermer and Byron Miller), "That's What She Said" points to the tie between rock
and funk. The most eye- opening outing occurs with star guitarist Lee Ritenour
stomping on "Rokkinrowl, I Don't Know", and its Hendrix parody. "Sister Sirene"
shows that, naturally, the typical dreamy Duke instrumentals are not left off the
album. An almost animistic soundscape is woven into the fabric of "Mashavu",
and "Giant Child Within Us - Ego" is a small fusion suite encompassing the
spectrum from the classical to the Zappaesque finale. The title piece is indeed a
blues, dished out pure and simple - a far cry from the sounds of the preceding
piece with its mountains of synthesizers. Rather, the sultry delta heat, the
acoustic simplicity and raw truth of the song prevail - the blues.

Sony CMG label release. Pitch perfect whether hitting magnificent highs or sliding into sultry depths, Judi’s voice recalls some of music’s great divas. The majority of this album was recorded in London or Milan between 2019 and 2021, with all fifteen songs written or co written by Judi. Other notable collaborators include Reuben James (John Legend, Nile Rodgers),Tim Baxter (Jasmine Thompson, Muse) and Tom Excell, leader of the UK’s acclaimed afro jazz collective Nubiyan Twist. Specialist promo/marketing activity across all media outlets.

RAWAX welcomes John Shima to the Family!
His great debut for us will be out 10th of January on vinyl!
Highly recommended!

Kapingbdi came together in Liberia, West Africa, during the late 1970’s and had their own unique style. This six to seven-piece band played original compositions in a vibrant mix of African Rhythms, Soul, Spiritual Jazz, Funk and Rock. Led by Kojo Samuels on sax, flute and vocals “Born in The Night” presents the essential tracks from their rare studio LPs produced between 1978-1981. The work has been carefully edited and remastered in 2019 for vinyl LP and a 6-Page Digipack CD, which includes two additional recordings. Kapingbdi toured through Europe and the U.S. and were the only Afro funk band to ever come out of Liberia.

Kapingbdi hail from Liberia, West Africa and have their own imitable style. They effortlessly combine traditional African music in a modern mix of Jazz, Funk, Soul and Rock. The band is a fusion of the old and the new.

The word "Kapingbdi" is taken from the Sierra Leone language Mende and means "born in the night". Kojo Samuels was given the name by his Latin teacher whilst attending high school in Freetown, They often meet and debate at night in the city and soon after Kojo is called Kapingbdi. The name serves as a description of his origin. Born In Lagos, Nigeria in 1943. The son of slave children. His mother from Nigeria and father from Sierra Leone who moved the family to Liberia, during the 1950’s.

Kojo has played music for as long as he can remember. He starts with the harmonica and later becomes a drummer and percussionist in his first band at school. During his art studies 1965-1972, he tours Germany and works as an art teacher in the USA. His band Kapingbdi is reorganized five times and consists of up to seven musicians. In a VW-Bulli he drives the group from concert to concert and if the drummer fails, he jumps in himself. Between 1978 and 1981 three Kapingbdi LPs are produced for the independent label Trikont, recorded in Hamburg and Munich. During this creative period, the band plays at festivals in Africa and Europe. In 1984, the band tours the United States and shortly after, they came to an end.

At their best, Kapingbdi would rouse the audience with original compositions like "Human Rights", justice for all, especially for South Africans, and "You Go Go You Go Come". The officials and employees in the government departments have no time for the common man, for any questions such as job search, scholarship or similar, he receives the answer "go, come back tomorrow" and the same thing the following day. Or "Now Is The Time For Cry For Love." Now it is time to scream for love and finally, time for humanity and justice. Despite immense difficulties, the musicians consciously live and work in Africa and are at home in Liberia.

On April 12, 1980, ordinary soldiers and non-commissioned officers organize a coup against the government. This is an attempt to put an end to a policy of exploitation of the Liberian people. Whilst efforts to eradicate poverty, lawlessness and illiteracy are obvious throughout the country, Liberia is still Americanized to a high degree. This is evident, as the radio programs of that time almost exclusively played American disco music. Under these conditions, the people seek a reconnection to their folk music, and Kapingbdi were aware of this. Kojo tried many times to come together with traditional Liberian musicians. This passion takes him north of the country. Meeting and playing with the old hornblowers and playing music on traditional instruments, such as the elephant tusk.

Kapingbdi make high quality tape copies of their own vinyl LPs and patiently try to displace all unauthorized tapes from the domestic "market". Nevertheless, it is hard to make a living through music in Liberia. Kapingbdi, is now celebrated. The radio plays are in abundance, but royalties are not forthcoming. Their musical link is the feeling of Afrobeat and Highlife, which is found in each of the many Kapingbdi pieces. They embody Jazz, which is understood to be the most refined example of black music outside of Africa. In Liberia, Jazz is virtually impossible to hear. Bright shining names such as John Coltrane, Charlie Parker or Miles Davis were widely unknown. Thus, the Black Jazz, including its Back-To-Africa movement of the 60’s and 70‘s, passes by without leaving a trace in Africa itself.

Kojo's claim at the time, was to make African music with the depth, sensitivity and the freedom of the technical level of Jazz. This makes Kapingbdi the torchbeares. The underpaid prophets in small Liberia. It is the passion with which the founder of the band continues to work on their music for years. Tirelessly, stimulating and encouraging his fellow musicians. This is ultimately responsible for the success of Kapingbdi in Liberia itself. The local audience seems to listen to the band in fascinated astonishment. One wonders about the ability to develop as demonstrated by Kapingbdi on the basis of their music. It is African and unusually jazzy, danceable and better than the American disco music heard on the radio.

Rather than chase the money and the job opportunities in Europe, Kapingbdi are firmly rooted in Africa. The musicians live in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, at the Kabingbdi workshop, located in the Congotown area on the eastern edge of the sprawling city. Kojo works here as a sculptor, painter, batik artist and musician. The sales revenue that his activities generate, gives him the opportunity to support the development of African Jazz music. The highest percentage of funds are from Germany and Kojo’s work ethic is “to work on your own thing“. The stance taken aims to support the welfare of Liberians and Africans. The other musicians of the group live in a second house that is nearby.

For the sake of consistency, Kapingbdi is a full-time band. However, the revenue, from all of the sources, could not keep them afloat. Equally, as important to the group are Kojos's knowledge of traditional African music and his sculpting skills. His knowledge is shared with others at the afternoon workshops. It is here that they discuss new lyrics, engage in political debate and the self-imposed task of improving conditions in Africa. At times the debate became heated, especially during rehearsals. This was regarded as good and integrative, sowing the seeds of innitiative to keep the band together.

From 1980 to 1985 Kojo also opened and ran the club "Panjebota", located on the grounds of the U.S. Consulate in Monrovia. Almost every evening Kapingbdi perform the song "Wrong Curfew Walk", whose lyrics lament the killing of citizens during the curfew imposed by the Liberian government. When the head of state Samuel Doe hears the song, he behaves agressively and forces Kojo to close the "Panjebota". Kojo had already moved on. Soonafter he meets Fela Kuti at the Africa-Festival and plays concerts in Germany with Cecil Taylor's workshop band.

Kapingbdi is for thinking, dreaming, dancing. What they sing about is what they have experienced. Kojo Samuels is 76 years old today and still follows his vocation as a critical musician, artist and activist.

Ekkehart Fleischhammer / Sonorama 2019 (with the help of original press sheets and the memories of Kojo Samuels)

Prong’s distinctive industrial Metal sound influenced subsequent bands such as Korn and Nine Inch Nails.

Former New York club CBGB’s soundman Tommy Victor founded Prong in 1987 as his outlet for sonic fury. Having their roots in the Thrash Metal and Hardcore scenes, Prong carved a niche for themselves - groovy, angry, massive; just perfect mosh music.

The trio wrecked stages and impressed audiences all over the world. They built on their signature sound with their 4th full length album Cleansing. Aptly titled, the album indeed cleansed their sound, resulting in 12 stripped down, highly effective musical precision bombs. The single “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” became one of their significant highlights.

Cleansing is produced by Terry Date and feat. ex-Killing Joke members Paul Raven and John Bechdel. Prong will be performing the album live around the globe in 2019.

This is a limited 25th anniversary edition of 666 individually numbered copies on silver & black marbled vinyl.

The eagerly awaited second release from Roland Johnson, backed with the equally brilliant “Can’t Get Enough” on our Yellow series brings the fabulous Yours and Mine from the first album – Imagine this – to vinyl. Elmore magazine said; “Yours and Mine” and “Promised Land” bring to mind the loving duets of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, sounding perfect for film.

and when reviewing the flip; The horns and saxes are crisp and energetic. Johnson co-wrote 9 of the 10 songs including the inviting up-tempo opener “Can’t Get Enough” with its O’Jays influence.

Source:

Roland’s first album, “Imagine This” was released by Blue Lotus Recording studio in 2016. This album was a deliberate move into mainly self-written songs and marked the desire by Roland to break out to wider audiences, gaining even more success than that shown by his live performances appreciated by all on the St Louis and Beale street Blues and Soul Scene.

Often compared to Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, which you can hear the influence, but Roland Johnson is a singer destined to come out of the shadows.

ROLAND-JOHNSON-MD-RECORDS-1.jpg

The success and increased interest in Roland’s first album bright about more interviews with the Missouri press and News, with interviews and award nominations celebrating his highly successful blend of heartfelt Southern Soul with a classic vintage delivery in a new way. In the UK Brian Goucher of Vibe UK picked up on the album and reviewed it excellently.



I dot think we need to add much more than that in all honesty, Roland is the real deal, hit the play buttons and decide for yourself.



Mark n Des

Originally released on CD in 2000, the expanded soundtrack edition of John Carpenter's classic 1981 thriller included over 20 minutes of previously unreleased music plus music from scenes deleted from the final print. The masters were re-mixed from the original multi-track session tapes by long-time John Carpenter associate Alan Howarth.This is the first time the expanded edition has appeared on vinyl in its complete form, including original dialogue highlights

Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Dawes, Father John Misty, Conor Oberst), Erin Rae's highly anticipated new album Lighten Up is a timeless amalgam of classic pop, cosmic country and indie rock, recorded earlier this year in California’s Topanga Canyon. Three years have passed since the release of her critically acclaimed debut Putting On Airs, which drew high praise from publications from Rolling Stone to NPR Music. She mostly spent her time on the road, performing at Newport Folk and Red Rocks, sharing stages with Iron & Wine, Jason Isbell, Jenny Lewis, Hiss Golden Messenger and Father John Misty, before her touring came to a sharp halt at the start of the pandemic. The solitude of the road and then the pandemic created space for Rae to undergo a sonic and philosophical shift where she found personal catharsis in creating an album that reflected on her newfound lessons of self acceptance, alongside finding the confidence to offer social commentary on the environment, gender identity and equality. “My last record was a lot of self-assessment and criticism, and trying to kick old habits and ways of relating and not relating to people,” Rae acknowledges. “This one is about blossoming, opening up, and living a little more in the present moment. Fully experiencing what it is to be human.” With a renewed sense of agency, Rae also took a more active role in creating the kaleidoscopic soundscape that became Lighten Up, setting out to reflect a sound she calls, “an emotional pallet, I could get lost in.” Alongside Erin and Jonathan Wilson, who contributed various instruments, the album also features guest appearances from fellow rising star singer songwriters, Meg Duffy, Ny Oh, and Kevin Morby.

 The Slow Show release their fourth studio album, their first for three years, entitled ‘Still Life’,
via PIAS. The four-piece, who first formed in Manchester, will support the release with a
European tour in February and March 2022, culminating in an already sold-out hometown show
at Manchester’s Hallé St Peters on 4th March.
 Lead track ‘Blinking’ is a perfect taster to the new direction ‘Still Life’ offers. Same but different
again. “An ode to love and loyalty. The song is a defiant pledge to never giving up on the
people you love. Musically we wanted the song to have impact, a directness and powerful
punch that we’d previously shied away from.” - Robert Goodwin (vocals)
 The making of ‘Still Life’ has been quite the ride. Following their breakthrough album, ‘White
Water’, it was clear The Slow Show were not just ‘another band from Manchester’. The legacy
of The Smiths, Joy Division and all those other great predecessors is not something to be trifled
with, but The Slow Show didn't need to wear their address on their sleeve: this was something
else, fully formed, with a mesmerising sound, rich in atmosphere and melody.
 With the band’s desire to push each other outside of their respective comfort zones during the
recording process, ‘Still Life’ subsequently offers a more diverse, rich and interesting sound
than previous albums.
 “We did develop our sound,” says Rob Goodwin. “We had to try something else. We felt we
owed that to ourselves, and to the people that come and enjoy the music. We explored a lot of
stuff: different sounds, different feelings, different ideas, different processes as well. Some of
them didn’t work at all, but some did. It was difficult and challenging, but it felt good in the end.”
 This experimental side to the creative process allowed the band to introduce new elements to
their work. “Some new approaches and sounds crept in,” keyboardist Frederik ‘T Kindt admits.
“Some were far from our older work. For instance: after some initial encouragement from me,
Rob was keen to sing a bit higher on this record. Chris was encouraged to make his drums a
bit more present; some things almost sound like a breakbeat to my ears.”
 Recorded remotely over the course of the past year, with Goodwin recording vocals from
Dusseldorf in Germany and the rest of band recording in the UK, ‘Still Life’, as a concept, takes
inspiration from the experiences of lockdown: “Before the virus arrived, I had a busy life;
spending two weeks in Germany with my girlfriend, and then flying to Manchester to work with
Fred or to a gig.” Goodwin remarks: “And then all of a sudden, life came to a halt. It took a little
getting used to, but I actually had a really nice realisation during that time. I understood that the
slower life got, the more I saw. I spent a lot of time in nature, seeing things in a different
perspective. And that's what you need when you're trying to create. You have to really look,
and then you see things happening everywhere.”
 The tracks themselves are brimming with emotion and reverence towards the significant
relationships we encounter in life. Stand-out anthem ‘Blinking’ is a defiant pledge to never
giving up on the people you love. Musically the band wanted the song to have impact, a
directness and powerful punch that they’d previously shied away from. Whilst ‘Woven Blue’
deals with the aftermath of uncoupling. The idea that meaningful relationships are very often
woven and complex, making resolve difficult.
 These very personal tracks are counterbalanced with the more topical, ‘Breathe’, which
documents some of the unjust and heart-breaking scenes of 2020 with spoken word references
to John Boyega’s emotional rallying cry in support of Black Lives Matter movement in London’s
Hyde Park.
 In all, Still Life marks another evolution of a band that have never tried to fit in any particular
box but have inhabited their own unique universe.
 LP pressed on white viny

" Joe Pass’ For Django, recorded for Pacific Jazz in 1964, has long been considered a classic of the jazz guitar repertoire with Pass paying tribute to Django Reinhardt without in any way attempting to emulate him. Rather, Pass honours Django using his own masterful guitar style joined by fellow guitarist John Pisano as well as bassist Jim Hughart and drummer Colin Bailey.
Highlights in this program of tunes either composed by or associated with Django include “Rosetta,” “Nuages,” and “Fleur D’ Ennui.”.
Blue Note Records’ Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series is produced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tapes, 180g audiophile vinyl reissues in deluxe packaging. Mastering is by Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio) and vinyl is manufactured at Record Technology Incorporated (RTI)."

Following up on 2021"s highly acclaimed Hologram EP, the rebooted lineup'
vocalist/guitarist Oliver Ackermann plus drummer/vocalist Sandra Fedowitz and
bassist John Fedowitz (both of Ceremony East Coast)' delivers an overclocked
set of futuristic electronic punk music encoded with punishing industrial rhythms,
swirling voltage- starved guitars and unclassifiable auditory annihilation. Across
thirteen tracks recorded in seclusion throughout the nihilistic absurdity of the
coronavirus pandemic, See Through You is proof-positive that the group hailed as
'The Loudest Band in New York' is still finding new ways to push the needle
deeper in the red

Highly innovative outsider folk-horror score by John Mehrmann receives lush vinyl and CD treatment from Svart Records. Honeydew is a rural cinematic scare written and directed by Devereux Milburn and stars Sawyer Spielberg, Malin Barr and Barbara Kingsley. Described by writer/director Milburn as a “modern-day Hansel and Gretel narrative,” Honeydew follows Rylie (Malin Barr) and Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) on a camping-trip-gone-wrong. Mehrmann’s soundtrack to this underground horror feast is an eerie organic assembly of human and animal groans, mumbles, vocals, meat and metal percussion. Mehrmann’s (Maine, USA) online biography lists him as a composer for choirs, movies, orchestras, soloists, kids’ shows, commercials, and churches; a pianist, singer, conductor, percussionist, and accordionist; the music director at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Auburn, Maine; a member of the Bangor Symphony percussion section; and a teacher, at Bay Chamber Music School in Rockport, Maine, and at the University of Maine at Augusta. In the score’s accompanying notes Mehrmann explains: “When I started to write the soundtrack for Honeydew, my first few tracks were for fairly traditional instruments, but the director made it clear that he didn’t want that, and he encouraged me to get weirder and weirder. I recorded the entire album with a single mic in my living room, using whatever sounds were at hand namely, my voice, my body, long kitchen knives, glasses filled with water, little percussion instruments and sound effects.

Deluxe LP features 140g virgin vinyl; heavy-duty board jacket, artwork by Art Rosenbaum + DL. RIYL: Bob Dylan, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Ry Cooder, Michael Chapman, Michael Hurley, The Youngbloods & Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Jake Xerxes Fussell’s 4th album finds the acclaimed folksong interpreter, guitarist, and singer navigating fresh sonic and compositional landscapes on the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. Produced by James Elkington and featuring formidable players both familiar (Casey Toll, Libby Rodenbough) and new (Joe Westerlund, Bonnie “Prince” Billy), it includes Jake’s first original compositions; atmospheric arrangements with pedal steel, horns, and strings. One of the most striking and strangely moving moments on Jake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washington.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded. In all his work Jake humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing here he plays more acoustic than ever before pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects. On Good and Green Again, Jake not only ventures beyond his established mastery of songcatching and songmaking into songwriting, but likewise navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes, going green with lusher, more atmospheric and ambitious arrangements. The result is the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. It’s also his most deliberately premeditated album, representing his fruitful return to a producer partnership after two self-produced projects, What in the Natural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) (William Tyler produced his friend’s self-titled 2015 debut.) This time James Elkington produced and played a panoply of instruments, bringing to Jake’s arcane song choices his own peerless sense of harmony and orchestration, balance and dramatic tension. The pair enlisted a group of formidable players including regular bandmembers Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and veteran collaborator and avowed Fussell fan Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals. Album opener “Love Farewell” (featuring some beautiful singing by Bonnie “Prince” Billy), an elliptical tale of the folly of war, set to the world’s most heartbreaking goodbye march for a lover left behind. “Carriebelle” and “Breast of Glass” each similarly concerns, in its own way, romantic love and leavings. All three songs highlight Jacobson’s diaphanous, understated brass parts, tying them together in a true lover’s knot. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. Nine-minute tour de force “The Golden Willow Tree,” the sole explicitly narrative song herein, is a hypnotic, minimalist rendering of a tragic maritime ballad about scuttling an enemy ship in exchange for wealth and glory and a captain’s inevitable betrayal. “Fussell is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.” The New York Times // “So elegant … It’s relaxing in the way that pondering a Zen koan is relaxing, and sweet in the way that the wounded, honey-voiced blues of Mississippi John Hurt are sweet.” Pitchfork // “Music that resides at the seams of Appalachia and the cosmos.”

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.

Alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins follows-up his acclaimed debut Omega (NY Times Best Jazz Album of 2020) with another striking album featuring his remarkable quartet with Micah Thomas on piano, Daryl Johns on bass, and Kweku Sumbry on drums plus special guest appearances by flutist Elena Pinderhughes and the Farafina Kan Percussion Ensemble The album consists of an hour-long suite comprised of seven movements that strive to bring the quartet closer to complete vesselhood by the end, where the music would be entirely improvised, channeled collectively. The title is derived from a question steeped in Biblical symbolism: If the number six represents the extent of human possibility, Wilkins wondered how it would sound to invoke divine intervention and allow that seventh element to possess his quartet. “It’s the idea of being a conduit for the music as a higher power that actually influences what we’re playing,” he says.

EELS release their fourteenth studio album, ‘Extreme
Witchcraft’, via PIAS and the band’s own E Works
Records.
 EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, co-produced the
record with PJ Harvey producer and guitarist John Parish,
marking the first time the two have recorded together since
2001’s ‘Souljacker’ album.
 EELS have had one of the most consistently acclaimed
careers in music. The ever-changing project of principal
singer / songwriter E (Mark Oliver Everett), EELS have
released 13 studio albums since their 1996 debut,
‘Beautiful Freak’. In 2008, E published his highly acclaimed
book ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know’ and starred
in the award-winning ‘Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives’
documentary about the search to understand his quantum
physicist father, Hugh Everett III. 2020’s ‘Earth To Dora’
album, received extensive critical praise, and was
described as “their sweetest natured album ever” by The
Independent and awarded four stars in MOJO and NME.
 Deluxe box set features 45rpm 180g translucent yellow
double vinyl LP in heavy cardboard packaging, lenticular
print, custom EELS Ouija board, CD with booklet and an
A5 sticker sheet.
 Single LP format pressed on 180g vinyl with screen printed
poster and digital download.
 Tourdates - March 11 Telegraph Building Belfast, 12 Olympia
Theatre Dublin, 14 Roundhouse London, 15 Albert Hall
Manchester, 16 Barrowland Glasgow, 17 Rock City Nottingham,
18 O2 Guildhall Southampton.

The latest addition to Chick Corea's remarkable discography is Chick
Corea Akoustic Band 'LIVE', the long-anticipated reunion of his beloved
Akoustic Band with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Dave Weckl,
together as a trio for the frst time in more than two decades
Under any circumstances, these thrilling live recordings would be a welcome
addition to Corea's prodigious discography. With the news of his passing still so
fresh in listeners' minds, its release comes as an opportunity for fans to bid
farewell while cherishing the communal energy and playful vigor that made the
pianist a favourite of jazz lovers around the world for nearly 60 years. 'LIVE', the 2-
CD/3-LP set was recorded January 13, 2018 at SPC Music Hall in St. Petersburg,
Florida. The trio's intricate interplay and highwire jousting refects more than 30
years of collaboration between Corea's Akoustic and Elektric Bands and serves as
a celebratory reminder of Corea's singular genius, with more than two hours of
inspired playing and spirited camaraderie.
Chick Corea attained iconic status in music. The late keyboardist, composer and
bandleader was a DownBeat Hall of Famer and NEA Jazz Master, as well as one
of the most nominated artists in GRAMMY Awards history with 68 nods - and 24
wins, in addition to 4 Latin GRAMMYS. From straight-ahead to avant-garde, bebop
to jazz- rock fusion, children's songs to chamber and symphonic works, Chick
touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his career after playing with
the genre-shattering bands of Miles Davis in the late '60s and early '70s

MOMENTS LIKE THESE, THE NEW ALBUM FROM SUBWAY SECT, PRODUCED BY MICK JONES AND FEATURING THE 1981 SUBWAY SECT LINE-UP, VIC GODARD WITH SEAN MCLUSKY, CHRIS BOSTOCK, JOHNNY BRITTON, & DC COLLARD and guest appearances by MICK JONES, PETE WILLIAMS, TERRY EDWARDS and SIMON RIVERS. Sukhdev Sandhu runs a publishing imprint Texte und Töne in New York.

The LP, the imprint's first, is also the first-ever Subway Sect record to come out in the States. (Perhaps unsurprisingly: they did have a song called U.S. Cunts!) It's been produced by Mick Jones of The Clash. (A White Riot '77 reunion of sorts.) ‘There’s a certain element of unspoiltness about the whole thing and that’s what really appealed to me about it.’
Mick Jones MOJO ‘This is Vic reflecting on a lifetime in the music business. It sounds like a record that he had to make and is perfect for now. When I was a kid, I used to make up my fantasy punk band with members from different bands and they almost always
contained Vic Godard and Mick Jones. The songs are as good as it
gets and with Mick Jones producing and playing piano, what more do
you need?’ Jim Reid, Jesus and Mary Chain ‘The Subway Sect story is one of the strangest, and therefore one of the best. Vic Godard indicated ways that pop should go. He dropped hints, left clues. It is all there.’ Kevin Pearce ‘Vic's always walked his own path. He's a model of independence.

No wonder that he's recorded for some of the best UK independents
(Rough Trade, el, Postcard). Years ago, when I was writing a book
about nocturnal London, he took me on a postal round with him, all
the while telling me funny stories about some of the prog rock
aristos whose mail he delivered, and enthusing about the latest hip
hop and bhangra he was listening to.

Asked by Time Out to write an essay about my favourite Londoner, I wrote it about Vic. Now, in summer 2021, I'm very happy to help release Moments Like These. It's about thinking back and thinking forward, about walking your own path. It's got soul, swagger and swing. Vic Godard: always onward!’ Sukhdev Sandhu ‘It was an accident really as Sukhdev wanted to put What's the Matter Boy out until I told him I'd just recorded a new LP. I'd been in discussions with loads of record labels but they all wanted to get my back catalogue digital rights and weren't into the idea of putting out a new LP. I thought it was on course to be my 2nd lost album until the phone calls with Sukhdev.’ Vic

First ever box set from one of the most thrilling bands of the Twentieth
Century.
 Deluxe 7” singles box set featuring the phenomenal original run of singles
with two bonus singles exclusive to this set. Seven 7” singles housed inside
a lift-off lid box with a booklet featuring an essay by Clinton Heylin,
reminisces from Thurston Moore, Henry Rollins, Mark Lanegan X and Dan
Stuart, rare photographs and flyers, new exclusive issue of the ‘Fire of Love’
fanzine, Ruby Records postcard and a ‘Gun’ button badge.
 If ever there was a band seemingly determined to come from nowhere and
go straight back there, it was The Gun Club. Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s search and
destroy combo was spawned by the LA punk scene in 1979. Two years later
their first LP, the incendiary ‘Fire Of Love’, was spewed out by Slash
Records, a matter of months after the punk zine Pierce wrote for, and the
label named itself after, breathed its last. ‘Fire Of Love’ was one of the 80’s
genuinely shape-shifting US debuts, igniting post-punk depth and minting
genres including blues, psychobilly and Americana.
 Jeffrey Lee Pierce was an extraordinary character. Learning to play guitar at
the age of 10, he quickly immersed himself firstly in reggae and later the
Delta Blues, particularly works by Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson. By
1976, he had become obsessed with Blondie, going on to become President
of the West Coast Blondie Fan Club. It was Jeffrey Lee Pierce who
suggested to the band they cover ‘Hanging On The Telephone’. The Blondie
connection would later resurface in 1982 when Chris Stein signed and
produced The Gun Club for his Animal Records label. In 1996 after releasing
seven studio albums, 37-year-old Jeffrey Lee Pierce sadly passed away
following a stroke. What he left behind is a legacy of work that has had a
prolific effect on some of the most distinguished rock acts of the past 20+
years, these include Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Sonic Youth, The White
Stripes, Mark Lanegan, Primal Scream and The Black Keys.
 “Jeffrey was a human tornado. Yet during the most turbulent points in his life,
he was able to tap what seemed to be a limitless supply of astonishingly
beautiful music. Even now, songs like ‘Flowing’ and ‘Desire’ catch me up.
The immense power that passed through Jeffrey, like an electrical current,
informed his amazing body of work. That level of unrelenting heat and
incandescence is simply not survivable. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” -
Henry Rollins (April 2021)
 Six 7” singles reprinted with original artwork. Additional ‘Miami Demos’ 7”
exclusive to this box set. All singles remastered especially for these vinyl
editions.

How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World is the 2019 American computer-animated action fantasy film based on the eponymous book series by Cressida Cowell. It’s the third and final chapter of the trilogy. The story is written and directed by Dean DeBlois and stars the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson and F. Murray Abraham. The plot follows Hiccup who discovers Toothless isn’t the only Night Fury and how he must seek ‘The Hidden World’, a secret Dragon Utopia, before a hired tyrant named Grimmel finds it first.

The trilogy received acclaim from critics for its animation, voice acting and musical score. This third installment grossed over 525 million dollar worldwide, becoming the fifth highest grossing animated film of 2019. It was even nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 92nd Academy Awards.

The score was conducted by John Powell, who is best known for his work on Happy Feet (2006), Ferdinand and Solo: A Star Wars Story. He was nominated for an Academy Award for How to Train Your Dragon (2010). Powell has worked closely with Hans Zimmer and was a member of his music studio.

How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World features the track “Together from Afar” by Jónsi (Sigur Rós) and the bonus track “The Hidden World”. This 2LP is housed in a gatefold sleeve and is available as a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on solid blue (LP 1) and solid red (LP 2) coloured vinyl. The package contains a 4-page booklet and an exclusive postcard.

As the 21st century was born, so Kreator underwent what was nothing less than a seismic creative rebirth. By this time, the iconic German band had released nine studio albums in the 1980s and '90s, which had established them as one of the most important metal names of these decades.In the first period, they had helped to shape and pioneer the thrash scene through such releases as 'Pleasure To Kill' (1986), 'Terrible Certainty' ('87) and 'Extreme Aggression' ('89). During the following decade, the band had opened up exciting horizons of experimentation on albums like 'Coma Of Souls' (1990), 'Renewal' ('92) and 'Endorama' ('99).
Now, though, it was time to move into a fresh era, as vocalist/guitarist Mille Petrozza explains.
“During the 1990s, we were definitely experimenting with what the band were doing. But (drummer) Ventor and I decided that for this album – our first of the new millennium – we wanted to go back to the sort of sound that we had at the start of Kreator. In other words, to get back to the reason why we began the band in the first place.”

There was also new guitarist introduced, as Sami Yli-Sirniö (who had made his reputation with Finnish band Waltari) took over from Tommy Vetterli. The latter (also known as Tommy T. Baron) had joined in 1996 and played on the 'Oucast' (1997) and 'Endorama' albums.

The producer for this album was Andy Sneap, who was now making a name for himself as one of the pre-eminent masters of this art in the modern metal world.“I had known and liked Andy since the days he had been the guitarist in Sabbat, as they were signed to Noise Records as Kreator were on that label. He was our first choice to work on this new project. I liked what he'd done for Testament on their album 'The Gathering' (released in 1999). He had given them a sound they'd never had before, and that really was what we were after. It was natural and organic, and also very modern. I remember phoning him at his Backstage Studios in England (Ripley in Derbyshire). And Warrel Dane, the vocalist in Nevermore, answered. Andy was producing their new album at the time ('Dead Heart In A Dead World', 2000). And when I heard this, again I was very impressed. So, I was delighted when he agreed to produce the new Kreator album.”

The album title came from something Petrozza had read. “In a book I came across a comment that John F. Kennedy said (in 1962). This was: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. I thought 'Violent Revolution' would make a good title for an album. So, I kept it in my mind for this record. I think 'Violent Revolution' is a title that makes a real impact.”

One interesting aspect of the track listing was that the 52 second instrumental 'The Patriarch' actually came after the opening song 'Reconquering The Throne'. Fans might have been expected that it would have opened the album. But for Petrozza, there was a logical reason for this not to happen. “We really wanted to lead off with a thrashing track, to show everyone what we were now doing musically. After 'Endorama', it was important that everyone should recognise this was a new era for Kreator.”

'Violent Revolution' is without question an excellent album. While in some ways it does hark back to the glories of the band's earlier days, nonetheless it does not sound at all nostalgic. The performances and production values are very much part of the contemporary era, and the strength of the compositions themselves are of the highest values. Rising to the challenge offered by a new generation of ambitious metal bands, Kreator proved they were far from being a spent force. Unlike so many of their peers, here was a band who still had so much creativity to offer, and were also clearly excited themselves by what they were doing. And when you hear the band themselves enjoying the entire process, then you know this is a bona fide revitalisation.

Newly remastered audio.
LP pressed on black vinyl & housed in a gatefold jacket.

Willie Nelson’s 1996 album Spirit is an emotional concept album illustrating the forlorn tale of a man abandoned by the great love of his life. We follow him down the path of loss as he confronts grief, gets back on his feet, and eventually finds solace in acceptance. While producing Spirit, Nelson assuredly knew the commercial risks behind releasing an album this melancholic. After all, in 1973 he himself wrote: “sad songs and waltzes ain’t selling this year.” Beloved by those familiar with Nelson’s deep catalog, Spirit largely slipped through the cracks in the mainstream, but remains highly revered amongst critics and fans alike.
Backed by legendary country fiddler Johnny Gimble (of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys), sister Bobbie Nelson on piano, and his longtime touring guitarist Jody Payne, the song-cycle is anchored by lilting Spanish-inspired instrumentals that absorb a lonesome gravity when placed next to ballads that tug at even the most unwavering heartstrings. Likened to Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind or Waylon Jennings’ Right For the Time, Spirit sees Nelson maturing most gracefully: he trades rousing sing-alongs and saloon tunes for gut-wrenching lyrics and instrumentation of greater precision and skill, proving this release as deep and as challenging as his career-defining albums released twenty years before.
Originally released by Island Records in 1996, Spirit is newly remastered and housed in a gatefold jacket. This is a chance to own this unique album in its most beautifully presented form.

Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these 17 Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing. Collected here are the fruits of Cuca’s documentary approach to record making, capturing the voices and stories of a culture and glacier in abatement.

Miles Davis Kind of Blue meets Analogue Productions' UHQR, the pinnacle of high-quality vinyl!
Best-selling album in jazz history; mastered from the original master tapes by Bernie Grundman
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings using Clarity Vinyl® on a manual Finebilt press
Purest possible pressing and most visually stunning presentation and packaging!
Dream team of Davis, Adderley, Coltrane, Evans, Kelly, Chambers, Cobb make history.

Legends have a way of sticking around. If there was ever an album awaiting a high-fidelity, custom-pressed vinyl treatment of the level you now hold in your hands, it is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. The top-selling jazz album of all time, it has been lauded, entered into "Best Of" lists and Halls of Fame, and universally acknowledged as a landmark recording — a five-track masterpiece of melancholy mood and melody.

It continues to be one of the most listened-to and studied recordings of all time, a required primer for many young musicians, and one of the most transcendent pieces of music ever recorded. Davis played trumpet sublime with his ensemble sextet featuring pianist Bill Evans, drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley with Wyton Kelly playing piano on "Freddy the Freeloader."

Now Analogue Productions, together with Quality Record Pressings, is putting Kind of Blue where it belongs: the Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR) pressed on Clarity Vinyl on a manual Finebilt press with attention paid to every single detail of every single record.

The 200-gram records will feature the same flat profile that helped to make the original UHQR so desirable. From the lead-in groove to the run-out groove, there is no pitch to the profile, allowing the customer's stylus to play truly perpendicular to the grooves from edge to center. Clarity Vinyl allows for the purest possible pressing and the most visually stunning presentation. Every UHQR will be hand inspected upon pressing completion, and only the truly flawless will be allowed to go to market. Each UHQR will be packaged in a deluxe box and will include a booklet detailing the entire process of making a UHQR along with a hand-signed certificate of inspection. This will be a truly deluxe, collectible product.

Kind of Blue is more than Miles Davis's most enduring recording, it's a testament to Miles' experimental approach, drastically simplifying modern jazz by returning to melody unlike the chord complexity more often heard at the time. "The music has gotten thick," Davis complained in a 1958 interview for The Jazz Review. "... There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them." Kind of Blue is, in a sense, all melody — and atmosphere.

None of the musicians had played any of the tunes before heading into the first of two recording sessions in early spring of 1959. In fact Miles had written out the settings for most of them only a few hours before the session. Miles also stuck to his old recording procedure of having virtually no rehearsal and only one take for each tune.

Miles remained proud of the album, performing at least two of its tracks — "So What" and "All Blues" — for years after, until his musical path took him in a different direction.

History was on the side of Kind of Blue; it was born in 1959, at the peak of the golden age of high-fidelity, featuring innovations in studio equipment (magnetic tape, high-quality condenser microphones), matched by advancements in home audio reproduction (long-player records — LPs; high-end turntables, and other stereo components). Kind of Blue also benefited from Miles' being signed to the leading major record company of the day — Columbia Records, a part of the CBS media conglomerate. Columbia had the means and wisdom to invest in cutting edge recording technology, and their own professional recording studio.

A minor audio complication with Kind of Blue has been addressed with this UHQR edition. The motor on the studio's 3-track master recorder was running slowly the day of the album's first session. This speed issue affected the album's first three tracks, "So What," "Freddie Freeloader" and "Blue in Green," making them a barely perceptible quarter-tone sharp. Before now, it was only addressed in 1995 for the Classic Records edition and by Columbia Records — or their latter-day parent, Sony Music — on a CD reissue in the late '90s.

Sixty years have passed; this LP bridges that time span in the best way possible, struck from the master reel of Kind of Blue, free of speed issues and replete with all the instrumental detail, sonic environment and minimal noise. As we set out to make our UHQR series the world's best-sounding vinyl records, we have also used Clarity Vinyl, which is free of any carbon black pigment which might introduce surface noise. All-in-all this edition of Kind of Blue meets the highest audiophile standards and offers the truest sound for the most enjoyment.

"Of the records Ayler made during 1964, the LP New York Eye and Ear Control...is probably the most important link between the epoch-making collective improvisation Free Jazz by the Ornette Coleman double quartet, and John Coltrane's Ascension. Apart from that, it is—in my opinion—one of Ayler's very best recordings. New York Eye and Ear Control owes a large part of its success to the contrasting temperaments of the three musicians used by Albert Ayler in addition to his trio, namely, trumpeter Don Cherry, trombonist Roswell Rudd and alto saxophonist John Tchicai. Don Cherry improvises in broad melodic lines or places sharply accented staccato passages. Roswell Rudd interposes fragmentary flourishes in the highest register, or growl sounds and glissandos in the manner of the old tailgate trombonists. John Tchicai presents the polarity of a slightly 'cool,' linear style and offers motivic linkage by insistently repeating melodic patterns. All three inspire Albert Ayler to a breadth of expression which is too often missing in his improvisations with smaller groups. There is less limitation to his sound-span playing, more contrast, more punch and rhythmic accentuation, and with quick response Ayler takes motives from Cherry, Rudd and Tchicai, transforms them
into his own musical idiom, and in turn gives a new direction to the flow of ideas." - Free Jazz by Ekkehard Jost

"The music is fiery but with enough colorful moments to hold one's interest throughout." - Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

"...a valuable window into the music's early history as well as what might have happened outside record dates, more than one is usually privy to." - Clifford Allen, AllAboutJazz

Repress!

‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’, the new studio album from Damon Albarn, is released by new label home Transgressive
Records.




‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’ was originally
intended as an orchestral piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland.
This last year has seen Albarn return to the music in lockdown and
develop the work to 11 tracks which further explore themes of fragility,
loss, emergence and rebirth. The result is a panoramic collection of
songs with Albarn as storyteller. The album title is taken from a John
Clare poem Love and Memory.


The deluxe version of the album takes the form of a casebound book
with additional photography, original scanned lyrics and artwork from
Damon, alongside a clear vinyl version of the album and a bonus 7”
featuring an exclusive song from the recording sessions, plus a high
quality digital download. Also available on black vinyl and cassette.
A recent special Globe Theatre performance in London sold out
immediately and was streamed globally to 72 countries around the world and received rave reviews across the board.

Due for release on December 17th, the ‘Fever Dreams Pt 2’ EP will preview four brand new tracks that make up the second quarter of Marr’s forthcoming double album, ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’. Sensory Street, Tenement Time, Lightning People and Hideaway Girl. The ‘Fever Dreams Pt 2’ EP is released digitally and on very limited edition 12” transparent violet vinyl, exclusively through his webstore and UK RSD Stores – limited to 750 copies.
Early previews of ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’ (due February 25th 2022) have been met with widespread acclaim. ‘Spirit, Power and Soul’ was playlisted by BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio 2, described as “his strongest solo composition yet” by the Evening Standard, “an exercise in progressive creative ambition” by DIY, “invigorating” by Uncut, with “defiance in its DNA” by CLASH and simply “banging” by The Telegraph.

Led with the singles ‘Sensory Street’ and ‘Tenement Time’, the second EP is set for another outstanding launch, with ‘Sensory Street’ confirmed for a premiere with Steve Lamacq on BBC 6Music. ‘Sensory Street’ follows on electro soul album opener ‘Spirit, Power and Soul’s anthemic strand, a startling track with strident electronics, whilst ‘Tenement Time’ marks the end of the double album’s first half. A rousing, reflective creation fusing sonic power with an emotional potency. Both highlight ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’s sheer sonic scale.

Triumph breeds confidence, and with confidence comes an expansion of ambition, a focus of ability, an emboldening of audacity. De-Loused In The Comatorium had risked everything Omar and Cedric possessed on the wildest of gambits, the most impossible of dreams: making sense of the riot of influences ricocheting about Omar’s head, and memorialising their departed friend Julio Venegas through Cedric’s magical realist roman-a-clef. It Clouds Hill shouldn’t have worked. But it did, and with that fiendish tightrope act successfully accomplished, the duo stretched the wire even further and higher, over a figurative fiery pit peopled with lions, crocodiles, piranha and other sharp-toothed beasts not yet known to man. Because how do you make great art without taking great risks? Frances The Mute was no De-Loused Part Two. For one thing, the band’s configuration had changed, in the most painful way. Shortly before the release of De- Loused, sound manipulator and founder member Jeremy Michael Ward passed away, a wound Omar says the group never recovered from. But even though his inspired fucking- with-the-sonic-parameters is absent from Frances The Mute, his spirit and influence can still be determined, the album’s concept derived from a diary Ward had encountered in his day-job in repossession. “Jeremy picked up lots of interesting stuff when he was a repo man,” remembers Cedric. “Weird things, including this diary, He let us read it a bunch of times. It was by a guy who’d been adopted and was searching to find his real parents. It was very surreal, it didn’t make much sense – the guy might’ve been schizophrenic – but it was very inspiring. It felt like how certain music helps you escape your boring every-day life. The names and scenes in the diary directly inspired these songs.” Some of the tracks pre-dated De-Loused, having their origins in early demos Omar recorded at the duo’s Long Beach home Anikulapo, songs such as The Widow and Miranda The Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. Cedric had heard these jams in their embryonic state and began working in his mind on what he could bring to them. “I was attracted to The Widow like you would be to a lover, right?” Cedric remembers. “I sang over it with Omar while we were touring De-Loused in Australia on the Big Day Out, like, ‘Okay, I’ve got something for this.’” A potent ballad, laden with emotional crescendos and evoking the epic drama of Ennio Morricone – an effect aided by an elegiac trumpet part performed by Flea – The Widow would become The Mars Volta’s first song to chart on the Billboard Top 100, capturing the album’s potent sorrow and widescreen sprawl in miniature. Indeed, the lush sound of the album, the depth of detail and breadth of instrumentation, belies its grungy roots. Having tasted the luxury of Rick Rubin’s mansion, Omar veered in the opposite direction when recording Frances, cutting the album in what he describes as “a shithole... Basically a warehouse with one little air conditioner on its last legs, awful wiring and a console you couldn’t rely on. We were there night and day – I would literally lock engineer Jon DeBaun in there. He slept on a mattress in the vocal booth.” A considerably more complex and ambitious album than its predecessor – four of its five tracks lasted over ten minutes in length, with its closing epic Cassandra Gemini spanning over half an hour – Frances The Mute wasn’t recorded “live” by an ensemble, but with the individual musicians coming into the “shithole” and recording the parts Omar had scripted for them separately. “They had to have absolute trust in me,” Omar remembers, “Like actors trust their director.” In addition to the core band – now fleshed out with incoming bassist Juan Alderete, and Omar’s brother Marcel on keyboards and percussion – the album featured guitar solos from John Frusciante, saxophone and flute by future member Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales, a full string section, and piano played by Omar’s hero, salsa legend Larry Harlow. “It was a childhood dream come true,” Omar says. “We recorded with him in my hometown in Puerto Rico, and my father flew in to watch the session. Larry was a perfect gentleman, and a very lively spirit.” The album’s fevered intensity infected even the staid string section, Cedric remembers. “When they performed the part on Cassandra Gemini, ’25 wives in the lake tonight’, one of the guys in the orchestra played so hard he broke his bow, this real old, antique bow. And you could see his ‘classical’ side come out – like, ‘I broke this playing a fuckin’ rock song??’ He was pissed off. But I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, man, that’s on the record! You’ve got to realise things like that are cool.’” The album also features field recordings of “the coqui of Puerto Rico” during the opening minutes of Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. “We took a page out of the Grateful Dead’s book there,” laughs Cedric. “They recorded air. We recorded fuckin’ frogs in Puerto Rico.”

"Released in October 1971, Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels” was a miraculous feat, a cinematic collision of the venerated musician and composer’s kaleidoscopic musical and visual worlds that brought together Zappa and his band, The Mothers, Ringo Starr as Zappa – as “a large dwarf” – Keith Moon as a perverted nun, Pamela Des Barres in her acting debut, noted thespian Theodore Bikel, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and an incredible assortment of characters (both on screen and off) for a “surrealistic documentary” about the bizarre life of a touring musician. The 2LP set : We are pleased to present the original soundtrack, a double-album set featuring all original packaging including the booklet & poster and a brand new remaster by legend Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. Pressed on 180g black vinyl by Optimal Media in Germany.
In celebration of “200 Motels” golden anniversary, Zappa Records, UMC and MGM have assembled a definitive Super Deluxe six-disc box set of the beloved, yet hard to find, soundtrack. Fully authorized by the Zappa Trust and produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the monstrous 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition brings together the original soundtrack, newly remastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, along with a staggering amount of unreleased and rare material unearthed from FZ’s Vault, including original demos, studio outtakes, work mixes, interviews and movie ads, along with newly discovered dialog reels, revealing an early audio edit of the film. Also included is a wealth of never-before-heard audio documentary material surrounding the project.
The six-disc set will be housed in a 64-page hardcover book in a handsome 12” x 12” slipcase. The packaging replicates the original booklet updated with revealing new liner notes from Pamela Des Barres, Ruth Underwood and Joe Travers, as well as Patrick Pending’s essay from the 1997 reissue, and is chock full of motion picture artwork, stills and images, from the film and its making, many which have never been seen before. This must-have collector’s release will also include a custom “200 Motels” keychain and Do-No-Disturb motel door hanger and a full-size replica of the original movie poster. Years in the making, all the audio was meticulously identified and transferred over several years as Travers dug through the Vault to create a new high resolution 96K/24B digital patchwork stereo master from the original analog tapes. The Vault material was mastered by John Polito in 2021. We are pleased to present the original soundtrack on 2 compact discs featuring all original packaging including the booklet & poster and a brand-new remaster by legend Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. *Existing orders still stand."

Freestyle Records in association with Rare Sounds USA present a stellar repress of Speedometer's 2003 debut LP This Is Speedometer.

Originally released on Clive Johnson's Blow It Hard (started after the demise of the well-loved weekly Soho club night of the same name, and home to the New Mastersounds first releases alongside choice cuts from JTQ and others) This Is Speedometer showcased the sounds of one of the UK's premier acts in the deep funk scene of the early noughties for the first time on the long player format.

Starting out back in 1999, Speedometer started out as an instrumental quartet gigging in small clubs in the Southeast of England, paying homage to classic funk tunes by artists such as The Meters and The JB's. The band soon expanded and began writing original material, adding the highly regarded horn section and vocalists in 2001, which enabled them to deliver the powerhouse deep funk sound on display here. In addition to their own albums, singles and live shows, Speedometer have backed many US funk & soul legends including Sir Joe Quarterman, Eddie Bo, Marva Whitney, Sharon Jones & Lee Fields and more.

Now coming up on 20 years since it's original release, you can now marvel at Speedometer's classic, original soul-funk sound thanks to a sparkling new cut. Dig in!




d 04: Just Keep On (Doin the Do) feat. The Speedettes

Recorded inside of the latter’s Blue Lotus Recordings, Roland Johnson's “Best Outta You” is truly a collaborative affair between he and a pair of talented multi-instrumentalists, Kevin O’Connor and Paul Niehaus IV. All geared up to highlight the skills of the 71-year-old local soul legend. The recording, alongside the beautiful ballad “Ain’t That Loving You”, comes with a host of players and contributors outside of the core trio, many of them true local legends on their own. “Best Outta You” comes short after the release of the Long Player “Set Your Mind Free” and rides along the very same extremely positive vibes.

Born the seventh child and the youngest of Rev. and Mrs. Clougies Young in the city of Lake Charles, La.Raised in the Church of God in Christ in Lake Charles, La. Earl began singing in church as early as six years of age.

He performed in my church choir and high school Gospel Choir in San Francisco under the mentoring of Professor Johnny Land.

Before forming his own group Earl did background vocals for Patti Labelle's song Quiet Time in 1978 after which he formed his small group and recorded this one solitary single in 1983.

Probably one of the finest gospel bangers every cut to vinyl, that's all that needs said.

From its founding in the late 14th century, the kingdom of Buganda has been celebrated through sound and nurtured a rich musical tradition in its royal court. Coming from across the kingdom, musicians would take turns in the palace to sound drums, xylophones, flutes, lyres, and more to praise and honour the existence of the kingship. In recent years however, the tradition has been more difficult to maintain, especially since 1966 where there was a violent attack on the palace that abruptly abolished the kingdom and during which royal musicians fled or were killed. And while the kingdom was re-established in 1993 as a cultural institution, many of the remaining musicians had since chosen to sideline their skills to deal with the issues of their day to day lives, the practice of the royal tradition waning in popularity, especially with younger listeners and players. But all is not lost. Scattered across the kingdom, a motivated team of older veterans and attentive young players are still keeping the tradition alive. Offering a transversal glimpse into the past and the present, "Buganda Royal Music Revival" collects recordings made in between the late 1940s and 1966 illustrating the older generation's skills, and presents them alongside recent recordings featuring old and young musicians who still carry on this musical tradition, some even performing for the current king, Muwenda Mutebi II. The later were made during the shooting of the 2019 documentary "Buganda Royal Music Revival" that presents through a film what this album conveys through sounds: a packed dive into a century-old tradition. The music displayed here is diverse and vibrant, presenting a variety of styles and highlighting instruments that illustrate the depth and sophistication that stemmed from the royal court experience of Buganda. As a starter, the album opens with 'Mujaguzo'. Often translated as 'The Drums of the Kingship', the mujaguzo is a crucial ensemble for the cultural tradition, made from drums collected by the kingdom throughout its long history and numbering around 100 drums (historical records suggest there were at some point over 300). They are the vitality of the kingship packaged into sound. From here, we're introduced deeper to an array of instruments and textures, like the buzzing Bugandan lyre (endongo) by contemporary royal player Albert Bisaso Ssempeke, the resonant akadinda xylophone with its 21 large wooden keys, Temutewo Mukasa's restless praise sung with his harp (ennanga), the hand-made gourd trumpet (amakondere), the entenga "drum-chime" and its core set of 12 drums tuned like the amadinda xylophone, or the tightly intertwined melodies of the flutes ensemble (abalere). With the music, the hissing and swishing sounds of old tapes reminds at times the listener of the long process, from the original recording to its archival digitization, that allows the talent of past musicians to still vibrate nowadays. This rousing selection of music and moods is a unique and all too rare exploration of sounds that celebrates the common history of generations of musicians, and the question remains open as to how this rich cultural tradition will shape and be shaped by the upcoming Bugandan future, and what engagement it will trigger among audiences within, but also beyond, the kingdom of Buganda.

Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels” was a miraculous feat, a cinematic collision of the venerated musician and composer’s kaleidoscopic musical and visual worlds that brought together Zappa and his band, The Mothers, Ringo Starr as Zappa – as “a large dwarf” – Keith Moon as a perverted nun, Pamela Des Barres in her acting debut, noted thespian Theodore Bikel, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and an incredible assortment of characters (both on screen and off) for a “surrealistic documentary” about the bizarre life of a touring musician. In celebration of “200 Motels” golden anniversary, Zappa Records, UMC and MGM have assembled a definitive Super Deluxe six-disc box set of the beloved, yet hard to find, soundtrack for release on November 19. Fully authorized by the Zappa Trust and produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the monstrous 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition brings together the original soundtrack, newly remastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, along with a staggering amount of unreleased and rare material unearthed from FZ’s Vault, including original demos, studio outtakes, work mixes, interviews and movie ads, along with newly discovered dialog reels, revealing an early audio edit of the film. Also included is a wealth of never-before-heard audio documentary material surrounding the project. The six-disc set will be housed in a 64-page hardcover book in a handsome 12” x 12” slipcase. The packaging replicates the original booklet updated with revealing new liner notes from Pamela Des Barres, Ruth Underwood and Joe Travers, as well as Patrick Pending’s essay from the 1997 reissue, and is chock full of motion picture artwork, stills and images, from the film and its making, many which have never been seen before. This must-have collector’s release will also include a custom “200 Motels” keychain and Do-No-Disturb motel door hanger and a full-size replica of the original movie poster. Years in the making, all the audio was meticulously identified and transferred over several years as Travers dug through the Vault to create a new high resolution 96K/24B digital patchwork stereo master from the original analog tapes. The Vault material was mastered by John Polito in 2021. The remastered 200 Motels soundtrack will also be reissued on vinyl as a 2LP pressed on 180-gram black vinyl and on a 2CD format - both will include a smaller version of the movie poster.

Far Out Recordings presents a double bill of two monumental Brit funk classics. Keep In Touch and Stay were the first two 12” singles by the iconic Freeez, both self-funded passion projects of its founding member John Rocca, for his own Pink Rhythm imprint.

It all started over the counter at Derek’s Records on Petticoat Lane, London in the mid-70s. Rocca - at the time a budding teenage percussionist - met the prolific guitarist, composer, producer and all round brit funk fixer Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick (also the father of Far Out producer Daniel Maunick). Best known as the founding member of Light of the World, Incognito, and more recently Str4ta, Bluey’s involvement in the origins of Freeez are lesser known, but no less crucial. Bluey invited Rocca to a weekly jam session in an East London basement, where they would develop their craft, form their first band Freeez and develop the idea for ‘Keep In Touch’: “Back in the basement there was this one particular track we were playing that I really loved. It had a groove that I thought I could sell” Rocca reminisces.

Going against the advice of all the musicians involved, who thought he was mad and set to lose all his money, John decided to go full DIY, hire out a high end studio in the West End to record ‘Keep In Touch’ and release it as a private press, birthing his now famed Pink Rhythm label. Featuring Bluey on guitar, Peter Maas on bass, Paul Morgan on drums, Jason Wright on keyboards, and John Rocca on percussion, Keep In Touch was a surprise underground hit selling over 5000 copies and reaching #49 in the UK, leading Freeez into a record deal with Pye / Calibre.

Still giddy from the experience of having produced and pressed his first record at the age of just 19, John set out to do it all again with ‘Stay’ and ‘Hot Footing It’, enlisting Bluey & co once again. This time Rocca attempted to take things to the next level by adding vocals into the mix. Though this new arrangement initially backfired and cost John the deal with Pye / Calibre who weren’t feeling the slight change of vibe, original copies of the Stay 12” have become one of the most in demand from the brit funk canon.

These foundational DIY 12” singles paved the way for Freeez to become a household name in the history of British funk who went on to record hits like ‘Southern Freeze’ and ‘IOU’ as well as underground cult classics like ‘Melodies of Love’ and ‘India’ as Pink Rhythm, John Rocca’s later formation of Freeez named after his imprint.

Enterprising composer and musician Eddie Suzuki made his own path throughout his lifetime. Born on October 4, 1929, Suzuki worked as a young shoeshiner in 1940s Honolulu, saving enough money to take piano lessons. In high school, he lead a big band orchestra of 16, and sometimes up to 40 members. By the age of 18, he owned a piano shop that pivoted to become Honolulu’s top guitar store.

For Eddie Suzuki, music always came first. In 1973, after performing and composing songs for many years, Eddie Suzuki and his group, New Hawaii, recorded the now impossibly rare album, High Tide.

The LP is “not a rock-out”, local music journalist Wayne Harada ruminated in a 1973 review. “Rather, it’s one man’s vision — and version — of the now Hawaii.” A seasoned mix of psych, Hawaiian, and pop sensibilities, the music on High Tide gave the listener a look into Eddie’s singular vision celebrating the sights and sounds (and spirit) of Hawaii.

Eddie Suzuki’s New Hawaii:
Laurence Harada, guitar
John Schulmeister, bass
Gary Fittro, drums
Nani Kuaiwa, vocals
Eddie Suzuki, vocals, Hammond organ, Arp synthesizer.

"A beautiful album celebrating Hawaii’s warmth and spirit. The personal story here is that I reached out for a license just 1 week too late — Eddie Suzuki had died the week prior to my initial phone call. It took a couple years until I was able to connect with his son and get his permission to reissue Eddie's music." – Roger Bong, Aloha Got Soul

THERION have always been a band that have challenged themselves to explore new paths, while remaining true to their musical core values. For their 17th studio album, mastermind Christofer Johnsson and his collaborator Thomas Vikström have created something that has been previously unthinkable to the guitarist and the singer. "We have done the only thing that was left of all the different angles to explore", explains Christofer. "We have decided to give the people what they kept asking for. 'Leviathan' is the first album that we have deliberately packed with THERION hit songs."

True to the Swede's words, the album opens with the catchy and swift tune 'The Leaf Of The Oak Of Far' featuring female and male antiphonal singing as well as a choir that seems to have evolved straight out of THERION's breakthrough full-length "Theli" (1996). This is immediately followed by the obvious highlight 'Tuonela', in which Christofer cleverly underscores this hit-track's Finnish vibe by employing NIGHTWISH’s "metal voice" Marko Hietala. Next up in this parade of future fan-favourites is the title track 'Leviathan' that offers classic THERION material with operatic female vocals and a massive choir.

Christofer Johnsson's passion for classic voices, choirs, and orchestral elements as well as his penchant for epic melodies in combination with rock and metal shines clearly through the following sing-along ballad 'Die Wellen Der Zeit', which indicates another nod to German romantic composer Richard Wagner. "Ever since 'Theli', Wagner has been and will always be at the core of THERION", emphasises Christofer. "When we started to combine metal and opera, it was something new and original. Today, symphonic metal has long been a firmly established genre." When THERION came into being in 1988 by changing name from the already existing band BLITZKRIEG, which was founded a year earlier, Christofer had rather taken inspiration from SLAYER's "Reign In Blood" among other classic metal albums.

At the beginning, the Swedes were firmly rooted in death metal, a genre which they helped to define, as witnessed by their debut album "Of Darkness...." (1991). Yet even back then, there were hints of "something else" lurking beneath the rough surface. The use of female vocals is another core ingredient of THERION today, which developed gradually. CELTIC FROST had basically introduced the female element to extreme metal on "To Mega Therion" in 1985. THERION began with both a female and male vocalist emulating a church like choir already in their sophomore full-length 'Beyond Sanctorum' (1992). With Symphony "Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas" (1993) and "Lepaca Kliffoth" (1995), Christofer continued to developed his trademark sound by gradually drifting towards cleaner vocals and more keyboards.

With "Theli", the Swedes had firmly established a reputation of pushing the boundaries of metal in the 90s –among such acts as their compatriots TIAMAT, THE GATHERING, and MOONSPELL that were often referred to as "gothic metal" at the time. THERION continued to break new ground leaving inspiration for others to follow in their wake: On "A'arab Zaraq -Lucid Dreaming" (1997), Christofer further explored the use of Near Eastern music in metal which he had already begun in 1992, while "Secret Of The Runes" (2001) dared to have Swedish lyrics in some songs.

While critics were left confused and fans challenged, THERION were often ahead of their times and vindicated in hindsight. Even the band's 25th anniversary excursion "Les Fleurs Du Mal" has by now overcome the initial shock the album caused and is only beaten in terms of streaming by the classic "Vovin" (1998). When Christofer faced the question of where to go next after the dramatic "Beloved Antichrist" (2018) had finally fulfilled his musical mission, his answer is "Leviathan" named after a giant sea monster from Judeo-Christian myth that has roots in Babylonic lore: THERION have created a giant hit album –and for the first time in the history of the Swedes, their fans are not asked to explore something new, but simply to lean back and enjoy the best from their band!

By way of some cosmic miracle, only one Total Hell pops up
when the band moniker is searched on Discogs. And that would
be the band responsible for the five-song blast of heavy metal
sounds at hand. Now active for about two years plus change
and exported from the very metal and punk fertile New Orleans,
Total Hell is DD Deth (aka Drew Owen—Sick Thoughts
wheelman, Trampoline Team etc) on drums / vocals, Henry
Hell (John Henry of Static Static, Heavy Lids) on bass / vocals,
and guitarists Jason “Panzer” Craft (Persuaders, Tirefire) and
Michael Maniac (Michael He-man of Trampoline Team).
If self-deprecation is beyond the listener’s processing skills,
then please know that as self-described purveyors of the “New
Wave of Shitty Heavy Metal”, Total Hell’s big-boy debut is
not “shitty” in any manner whatsoever. These four recordings
(“Desecrate”, “Clones From Hell”, “Violator”, and “Disfigured”)
are melodic monstrosities that hit with a wall-to-wall, floorto-
ceiling hugeness, while doing so in an economical manner.
There will be no mistaking this for Broken Bones screeching out
of an iPhone inside the vegan squat. On the flip, this is no Bob
Rock joint. DD Deth elaborates: “Recorded on a Tascam 8-track
cassette live at home (aka “The Parkway”) by Michael He-Man
and the process was a nightmare. Original tape crapped out on us
back in early 2020 so we had to redo the whole thing. Intros and
interludes were done last minute by me with the cheapest midi
keyboard on the net.” Well, color Goner Records impressed.
One might get momentarily lost in the cavernous drums that
introduce opener “Desecrate”, but soon the buzzsaw-riff-wall
will crush one into a smudge on the bathroom floor. Without
rocking some safety goggles and diving headfirst down a
terminology rabbithole, this is punk jumping into the sack
with metal and leaving black boots on the bedroom floor rather
than white hightops. Xmas came early for fans of Anti-Cimex,
Celtic Frost, pre-shit Discharge, Motörhead, Blitz, Midnight,
Venom, Broken Bones and...one gets the picture.

‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’, the new studio
album from Damon Albarn, is released by new label home Transgressive
Records.
 ‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’ was originally
intended as an orchestral piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland.
This last year has seen Albarn return to the music in lockdown and
develop the work to 11 tracks which further explore themes of fragility,
loss, emergence and rebirth. The result is a panoramic collection of
songs with Albarn as storyteller. The album title is taken from a John
Clare poem Love and Memory.
 The CD edition includes a 20-minute ‘hidden’ track of a new and original
recording that inspired some of the record’s themes.
 The deluxe version of the album takes the form of a casebound book
with additional photography, original scanned lyrics and artwork from
Damon, alongside a clear vinyl version of the album and a bonus 7”
featuring an exclusive song from the recording sessions, plus a high
quality digital download. Also available on black vinyl and cassette.
 A recent special Globe Theatre performance in London sold out
immediately and was streamed globally to 72 countries around the world
and received rave reviews across the board.

Originally released in 1971. "What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With What's Going On, Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past -- as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty. These feelings had been bubbling up between 1967 and 1970, during which he felt increasingly caged by Motown's behind-the-times hit machine and restrained from expressing himself seriously through his music. Finally, late in 1970, Gaye decided to record a song that the Four Tops' Obie Benson had brought him, 'What's Going On.' When Berry Gordy decided not to issue the single, deeming it uncommercial, Gaye refused to record any more material until he relented. Confirmed by its tremendous commercial success in January 1971, he recorded the rest of the album over ten days in March, and Motown released it in late May. Besides cementing Marvin Gaye as one of the most important artists in pop music, What's Going On was far and away the best full-length to issue from the singles-dominated Motown factory, and arguably the best soul album of all time." John Bush, AllMusic

Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these 17 Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing. Collected here are the fruits of Cuca’s documentary approach to record making, capturing the voices and stories of a culture and glacier in abatement.

"Live in Paris" - Nathan Davis, (sax); Georges Arvanitas (p, org); Jack Diéval (p); Jacky Samson, Jacques Hess (b); Franco Manzecchi, Charles Saudrais (dr)

Style is not a given. Not many musicians reach the level of artistic personality where you can unmistakably recognize them. It takes character, roots, honesty, soulfulness. Nathan Davis had style.

His tone on tenor was unique. So was his soprano sound and his distinctive approach to flute. His musical world was equally original and knew no boundaries.

This concert in Paris is audible proof that as a performer, his fluid phrasing, distinct articulation, booming bottom register, growls and shrieks were fuelled by tremendous drive and furious invention - the man was on fire!

These live sessions demonstrate the limitless invention of Nathan’s solos. Holding no punches, weaving signature phrases, shouts and riffs into his solos, he was a fierce and fervid performer. With a sort of hollow resonance at the heart of his reedy and warm sound, Nathan Davis was a highly original artist, from an era when having a distinct sound on your instrument was the grail of jazz artistry. Harold Land, Jimmy Heath, John Gilmore, Paul Gonsalves, Charlie Rouse, George Coleman, Booker Ervin, Clifford Jordan ... Jazz is made of such giants and Nathan Davis was one of them.

Here at Z Records, we believe, quite simply that the world is a better place thanks to our good friend Madam Disco. Where would we be in 2021 without Chic, Sylvester, or Donna Summer? Let alone all the wonderful underground disco releases both new and old. A world not worth thinking about in short, this is why we have collected together the finest, most exquisite collection of disco music and presented them to you here.

We have exclusive brand new remixes, re-masters, and unearthed some of the rarer cuts from the vaults of the label and disco world in this bumper package that celebrates Disco in all its forms. Highlights include a brand new Dave Lee remix of Italo disco classic Firefly 'Love is gonna be on your side' and previously vinyl only remixes from Larry Levan and Blaze. A new song 'Sensationalized' from Crackazat. Digital exclusives from Ruffneck, Masters of the Universe, and a Walter Gibbons mix of the classic 'Set It Off'. Disco is a beautiful thing.

King Tubby's Hometown Hi-Fi was one the great Sound Systems in Jamaica. It also proved a fantastic outlet for the Dub Plate Specials cut at Tubby's studio, providing exclusive cuts to be played out and to intice the dance's audience. The tracks at the time were mainly cut over producer Bunny 'Striker' Lee rhythms, that Bunny stored at Tubby's studio which was in fact his home, 18 Drumilly Avenue,Kingston, Jamaica.The versions were given exclusive plays at Tubby's sound
before some finding their way on to vinyl, as the b-side version cut to it's a-side vocal, proving so popular that the records were often brought for its version side over its vocal counterpart. King Tubby and Producer Bunny 'Striker' Lee are intertwined in the birth of Dub Music, after discovering a mistake that made a 'serious joke' (more of which later...) they went on to release the first pressings of this new musical genre namely 'Dub Music'. Tubby's vast knowledge of electronics and Bunny's vast catalogue of rhythms would lay the foundations of what today is taken as a standard... the Remix / Version cuts to an existing vocal tune. Osbourne 'King Tubby' Ruddock was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 28th January 1941 and grew up n the High Holborn Street area of downtown Kingston. He studied electronics at Kingston's

Source: Declaration of Rights / Johnny Clarke

Source: Top Ranking / Johnny Clarke

Source: The Stal-O-Watt / Cornell Campbell

Source: Power Of Love / Ronnie Davis

Source: African People / Johnny Clarke

Source: Pumps And Pride / Leroy Smart

Source: Girl I Love You / Johnny Clarke

Source: King Of The Arena / Johnny Clarke

Source: Stealing Stealing / Johnny Clarke

Source: Satta Dread Wayne Jarrett

Source: Crazy Baldhead / Johnny Clarke

Source: Dread A Dread / Johnny Clarke

Source: No Love / Leroy Smart

clear red vinyl / incl. poster

The fourth release (ZC-ELEC004) of the Electro Acid Series has arrived. With "Lightsplitter", you can expect four dancefloor fillers that also provide truly captivating listening experiences. Created by The Human Behind Pluto, Johnfaustus and VSO who's passion for electro, acid and IDM meet on this high-quality release.

About the artists:
Human Behind Pluto: Born somewhere else, raised liked a human... using synthesizers, some hardware some not to express something hard to grasp... Eclectic mixes between IDM, Braindance, Electronica and Ambient is a good guess of what it would sound like if you join the ride...

Johnfaustus: Piano lesson in the 80's, rocking the guitar in the 90's, pacing free party since the end of the millennium (followed by a hardware addiction), johnfaustus is still making noise. Versatile producer, he navigates from dub to death metal with of course some mental acidcore in between.

VSO: VSO, aka Vasco Oliveira, based in Porto, started his journey in electronic music around 2017. Since then, he has been experimenting with acid, electro, IDM, breakbeat and ambient.

Human Behind Pluto - Lightsplitter
the Human Behind Pluto delivers an excellent up-tempo electro track with 'Lightsplitter' Superb atmospheres are driven by subtly distorted beats and a razor-sharp arrangement that manages to split light to be projected into the mind's eye. A truly captivating track that enchants instantly!

johnfaustus - Red Sonjia
With 'Red Sonjia' John Faustus tells a dark and ominous tale voiced by analog synths and mesmerizing vocals. A hypnotizing 303 line tops of this high-quality sonic adventure, where Sonjia manages just fine without Conan.

VSO - Sinking
With 'Sinking', VSO has created a beautiful and all-encompassing electro adventure. The hard-hitting beats won't stop you from sinking in the sonic pool filled with melancholy and acidic creatures.

VSO - Complacency
'Complacency' by VSO is an offbeat electro killer accompanied by 303 basslines and distant electrofied voxes. Don't get too comfortable balancing between the beautiful contrast of the intense beats and the dream state vibe because complacency is on the lurk.

When you’re trying to make it through tough times, you need a little light to find your way. That light blazes brightly on the alchemical second album from Penelope Isles, an album forged amid emotional upheaval and band changes. Setting the uncertainties of twentysomething life to alt-rock and psychedelic songs brimming with life, colour and feeling, ‘Which Way to Happy’ emerges as a luminous victory for Jack and Lily Wolter, the siblings whose bond holds the
band tight at its core.

 Produced by Jack and mixed by US alt-rock legend Dave Fridmann, the result is an intoxicating leap forward for the Brighton-based band, following the calling-card DIY smarts of their 2019 debut, ‘Until the Tide Creeps In’. Sometimes it swoons, sometimes it soars. Sometimes it says it’s OK to not be OK. And sometimes it says it’s OK to look for the way to happy, too. Pitched between fertile coastal metaphors and winged melodies, intimate confessionals and expansive cosmic pop, deep sorrows and serene soul-pop pick-you-ups, it transforms ‘difficult second album’ clichés into a thing of glorious contrasts: a second-album surge of up-close, heartfelt intimacies and expansive, experimental vision.

 Field recordings were made during a stay at a small cottage in Cornwall, where Penelope Isles began work on the album. With romantic heartache already in the air, things swiftly got worse:
lockdown began, claustrophobia kicked in and emotions ran high. As Jack puts it, “We were there for about two or three months. It was a tiny cottage with four of us in and we all went a bit bonkers, and we drank far too much, and it spiralled a bit out of control. There were a lot of emotional evenings and realisations, which I think reflects in the songs.”

 At different points along the way, Jack Sowton and Becky Redford left the Isles. An old friend, multi-instrumentalist Henry Nicholson, stepped in swiftly - “A godsend after a low time,” says Lily. Another friend, Hannah Feenstra, contributed drum parts; now, Joe Taylor is the band’s drummer. After Cornwall, the band redid many of the rhythm tracks, recorded a little in Brighton, then recorded more in Cornwall at their parents’ house. “It was,” says Jack, “a proper
rollercoaster ride.”

 The ride continued with Fridmann, whose recent credits include Isles’ favourites Mogwai’s No 1 album, ‘As the Love Continues’. As Lily puts it, the process of sending Fridmann a mix, receiving it back in the morning and then having five hours to make decisions on it resulted first in stress, then in something sublime. “I love everything he’s touched - MGMT, Mogwai, Mercury Rev. He would turn our mix into this electric, fiery thing. There were some moments that were
initially hard, like on ‘Miss Moon’, where he took out the bass when it gets to the chorus. But now it’s my favourite bit on the record. He made everything so colourful. It’s an intensesounding record - a hot record. It was so refreshing to have that blast of energy from Dave - it’s like he framed our pictures.”

 Away from the confines of the cottage, the Wolters also opened the door to a collaboration with storied composer Fiona Brice, whose credits include John Grant, Lost Horizons and Placebo. A
“big bucket-list tick” for Jack and Lily, the team-up results in glorious arrangements across the album: for Lily, ‘11 11’ stood out. “I was in absolute tears when she sent back the strings for ‘11 11’. It was like, oh my goodness, she’s nailed it.”

 On its release, ‘Until the Tide Creeps In’ received rave reviews from Q, DIY, The Line of Best Fit and many others, while finding champions in Steve Lamacq and Shaun Keaveny. It also become part of a lifeline for music fans during the 2020 lockdown when the band participated in Tim Burgess’s Twitter Listening Party. Meanwhile, extensive touring saw the Isles develop into a formidable live force, with ‘Gnarbone’ emerging as a sure-fire showstopper.

 Now, the Isles have 11 more showstoppers to add to the mix. At the album’s heart, the band’s core traits have never been stronger: the bond between the Wolters, a sensitivity towards complex feelings, a desire to celebrate life in all its facets and an ambitious reach combine to create an album that feels utterly, emphatically present on every front, rich in depth and uplift.

 LP pressed on 180g clear vinyl with A4 print.

Long before John Brannon of Negative Approach cemented himself as a USHC icon, you
would hear rumblings about his pre-NA glam group, STATIC. Only a handful of people were
lucky/brave enough to see them live. Scenesters spoke of a tape but never seemed to have
one. Their most well-remembered song, Toothpaste and Pills, allegedly featured smashing
beer bottles against John’s mom’s basement wall as a percussion instrument. Could this be
real?

Fast forward to 2020 and a few months into the covid-19 lockdown, Brannon came across a
bunch of tapes he dug out of a box in his Mom’s closet - STATIC “DEMOS ‘78”, STATIC
“LIVE AT GROSSE POINTE SOUTH H.S.”, STATIC “LIVE AT PLEWA HALL”. Holy shit! The
legend is true! And best of all, STATIC rule!

John Brannon grew up in Grosse Pointe Park just a few blocks from the Detroit border. John
was always into music, but as soon as he heard T-Rex, The Stooges and Alice Cooper, he
was obsessed (and still is) and had to start a band to channel his obsessions. With the help
of neighborhood kid and collaborator Billy Daniels and a local drummer simply known as
“Red”, STATIC was born.

Before Negative Approach changed the face of punk and hardcore, before Laughing Hyenas
scared the world silly and blew everyone else off the stage and before Easy Action started
melting minds all over the world, there was STATIC. STATIC was real. STATIC was real as
shit.

Third Man Records is beyond ecstatic to be providing this long-missing piece of the
American Underground Music puzzle. We worked closely with John Brannon and Warren
Defever, one of Third Man Mastering’s resident wizards, to put together this essential
collection of demos and live recordings.

To celebrate Billy Preston’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in October 2021 Apple Records and Universal Music Catalogue will be making Billy’s highly regarded 1970 album ‘Encouraging Words’ available on vinyl for a limited period. First released in the UK on 11 September 1970 the album was co-produced by Billy and George Harrison, with two of George’s songs – ‘All Things Must Pass’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’ – issued here for the first time, two months before his own recordings appeared on the triple album ‘All Things Must Pass’.In 2010 Record Collector magazine described ‘Encouraging Words’ as “one of the finest titles in the Apple Records catalogue”, while virtuoso keyboard player Rick Wakeman told BBC Radio 4’s John Wilson he considered Preston’s two Apple albums “absolute gems – a perfect combination of gospel and funk.” The album was last released on vinyl in 1992. The original album credits did not include details of contributing musicians, though the sleeve notes of the 2010 CD reissue included Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Ringo Starr, Bobby Keys and the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

Over the past decade or so, Chris Forsyth has produced a series of perennially year-end list haunting studio albums of expansive art-rock, from 2013’s Solar Motel to 2019’s All TimePresent , in the process becoming one of the leading lights of the so-called “indie jam” scene, musicians combining omnivorous influences with post-Dead sprawl.

These critically lauded albums have established Forsyth as one of today’s most unique and acclaimed guitar player/composers - a forward thinking classicist synthesizing cinematic expansiveness with a pithy lyricism and rhythmic directness that makes even his 20-minute workouts feel as clear, direct, and memorable as a 4-minute song.

Pitchfork has called his music “a near-perfect balance between 70s rock tradition and present day experimentation,” NPR Music named Forsyth “one of rock’s most lyrical guitar improvisors,” and the New York Times calls him “a scrappy and mystical historian… His music humanizes the element of control in rock classicism (and) turns it into a woolly but disciplined ritual.”

But the studio records are just the tip of the iceberg.

You see, in a live setting Forsyth’s music is never really finished.

He hasn’t had a fixed band in years and plays with a rotating cast of characters. Regulars in Forsyth’s bands have included bassists Doug McCombs (Tortoise) and Peter Kerlin (Sunwatchers), and drummer Ryan Jewell (Ryley Walker, too many others to mention), among others - basically, whoever is available for the given gig or tour.

These are not groups that rehearse, exactly. Operating more like a jazz band, Forsyth and his players treat the songs as frameworks that remain identifieable but morph based on who’s playing them, like weather to a landscape.

Embracing this flux has become a cornerstone of Forsyth’s live sets, rendering every performance special and thereby catching the attention of tapers from his home base in Philly to New York City, Chicago, and Minneapolis. In fact, most of his live performances over the last few years are recorded and posted on the Live Music Archive site.

But the taper recordings, though many are high quality and full of character, are not professionally recorded and mixed multi-tracks.

Which brings us to Peoples Motel Band , the new live LP culled from a set that Forsyth played with NY-based group Garcia Peoples as his band, and is self-releasing on his own Algorithm Free label in a limited pressing of 500 copies.

Recorded September 14, 2019 before a packed and enthusiastic hometown crowd at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia, Peoples Motel Band catches Forsyth and Garcia Peoples (plus ubiquitous drummer Ryan Jewell) re-imagining songs from Forsyth’s last couple studio albums with improvisatory flair.

Forsyth and Garcia Peoples played a number of 2019 shows together, beginning with a semi-legendary jam set at Nublu in NYC in March, through a couple dates on Forsyth’s month-long weekly residency at Nublu in September and concluding with a five-date tour of the Northeast in December. The chemistry between the players is tangible.

As is often the case with Forsyth shows, the gloves come off quickly and the players attack the material - much of it so well-manicured and cleanly produced in the studio - like a bunch of racoons let loose in a Philadelphia pretzel factory.

Recorded and mixed with clarity by Forsyth’s longtime studio collaborator, engineer/producer Jeff Zeigler, the record puts the listener right in the sweaty club, highlighted by an incredible side-long take of the chooglin’ title track from 2017’s Dreaming in The Non-Dream LP (note multiple climaxes eliciting wild shouts and ecstatic screams from the assembled).

This is not the new Chris Forsyth album, exactly, but then again, it kinda is because whenever he sits down to play, something new comes out.

Our second LP this month is an unreleased magical modern soul LP from the band Coast To Coast, the full story below by band leader Mark Beiner...


I met Ben iverson in 1976 when I was 17 years old. I was a junior at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens. At that time, I took a part time job as a Produce Clerk at Walbaum's Supermarket on Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, Queens, where I met Ben Iverson who was the "Frozen Food Manager." In between the music, this job was steady income, and he and his Wife, Diane, started a family and raised two Daughters, Tonia and Cytherea, whom I am still in contact with today.

Back then, I remember going to work early just to talk to him about his musical background and his time spent in the 50's and 60's with the Ohio Doo Wop Group, "The Hornets", or better known as, "Ben Iverson and The Hornets." However, Ben was somewhat quiet and at a loss for words when I questioned him with regard to "Ben Iverson and the Nue Dey Express", as well as his short career as Manager and Songwriter for Brooklyn's own, "Crown Heights Affair" in the early 70's.

Between the 50's and 60's, "Ben Iverson and The Hornets" shared billing at music events with recording artists such as, The Drifter's, Bill Haley and The Comets, Pat Boone, Etta James, Mary Wells, Nancy Wilson, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Lloyd Price and Al Green. Many of these names got their start in the 50's, which Ben met at music concert events hosted by Radio Disc Jockey, Alan Freed. Alan was truly the first Concert Promoter for Doo Wop, Rhythm & Blues, and early Rock & Roll.

In 1978 after Ben and I discussed getting together and composing music, I started writing poetry and expressing in writing my break up with my college girl friend, Paula Vasta. Paula's middle name was Marie, so in kidding around, I would call her "Paula Marie." Ben thought my lyrics were "powerful" and wanted to put them in music. Thus our first recorded 45 rpm record called "Paula Marie", backed with "I Want You Dear." This launched our musical partnership and within a year, the Coast to Coast Band was formed. Ben and I went on to writing two albums worth of material, which in turn gave us a lot of time and presence on stage at our live gigs.

The regular Coast to Coast Band members consisted of Ben Iverson on Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitarist and Co-Executive Producer, Joe Crowley, who is known today as "New York Congressman Joe Crowley." Carl (Woody Wood) Morton on Bass Guitar, Jimmy Johnson on Keyboards. Woody and Jimmy used to hang and play rap in its early days with "Run DMC" in St. Albans, Queens. Lead Guitarist, Lou Jimenez, currently owns his own recording studio, Music Labs in Elmont, Long Island. On Drums, Eddie Byam, on Alto Sax, Jay Cohen, who in the 70's used to record for "Gary U.S. Bonds." Gary Pevols on Trumpet. On Bone, Scott Burrows, Trumpet player, Steve Becker, whom we lost to Testicular Cancer at the age of 25, along side Neil Levine, Stan Stockley, Tom Russo and additional members that came and went that we used for live gigs and studio recordings.

In addition, special recognition goes out to our Producer, Recording Engineer and Multi-sound Recording Studio, Owner, Dave Weiner and staff. Dave and I launched Multi-Sound Records under the Multi-Sound label in 1980.

Last, of course myself, Mark Beiner, where I served as Executive Producer, Songwriter, Business/Marketing Manager, and background vocals.

Unfortunately, Ben Iverson passed away on March 21, 2008, and cannot be here to share this with us, but his music and voice still lives on!

DENNIS BOVELL, from Barbados, based in London, England, is a legend - a bass player legend (band leader of the legendary Linton Kwesi Johnson Band) - a producer legend (THE SLITS, Fela Kuti, Bananarama, Madness, Joss Stone, a.o.). He produced the soundtrack for the critically highly acclaimed movie Babylon and the hit song "Silly Games" by Janet Kay. In recent years his works regained interest, also due to the recent rerelease of the 80's movie Babylon and his participation in Steve Mc Queens drama series Small Axe about the real-life experiences of London's West Indian community, set btw 1969-82. In 2019 Vienna's Dubblestandart produced a limited selection of reworks of reggae classics of Dennis Bovell's 1980's band Matumbi, Steel Pulse, Burning Spear, Twinkle Brothers, Culture a.o. , focusing on works that have been pivotal for the inspiration of Dubblestandart's bandleader Paul Zasky. Nicolai Beverungen, dub reggae label headman of ECHO BEACH outta Hamburg/Germany, invited DENNIS BOVELL to "REPULSE" the album at Robbie Ost's GoEAST Studio. Dennis felt inspired, loved the idea, re-voiced the songs, added a couple of guitar lines and also re-dubbed the album. "Repulse" Reggae Classics features DENNIS BOVELL on vocals and as a dub producer in co-operation with Robbie Ost from Dubblestandart, mixing on a legendary E - 6000 solid state mixing board (taken over from TEARS FOR FEARS studio in London), using selected vintage outboard Analog equipment, developing a distinctive dub reggae sound for this coming up 2021 release. What do songs like "I'm No Robot", "Babylon The Bandit" or Matumbi's "Hypocrite" have in common? All of them were written during the 1980's of the last century, but never lost their contemporary accuracy, still perfectly criticizing and analysing the "pulse" todays political leaderships and societies controversial points of view, have, while entering the digital age. Re- Pulse 21!

On the fringe of the indie Rust Belt scene since the 1990s,
Moviola has quietly forged a low-key career of high-quality
recorded output over twenty-five years, issuing ten (!) records
and countless 7-inch singles (including splits with Cobra Verde,
Hiss Golden Messenger, Handsome Family and many others).
In this artistic continuum, the band has evolved from everything
from 4-track fuzz to hi-fi country soul. Today, the band steps
forward with Broken Rainbows, its strongest collection of songs
to date, written, recorded, and mixed inside the group’s HQ in
Columbus.
Jake Housh started Moviola in 1993 as a student at “The”
Ohio State University as a noisy, fuzzed out lo-fi noisemakers.
Over the years, the band has morphed into a unique DIY
music and art-making collective with five distinct singers and
songwriters, recalling the creatively democratic lineage of The
Mekons, The Band, Pink Floyd, many others. Moviola is Jake
Housh, Ted Hattemer (Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments),
Scotty Tabachnick, Greg Bonnell, and Jerry Dannemiller.
Broken Rainbows is a milestone release, showcasing a band
newly energized and assured in its artistry, and supportive of its
members’ songcraft. The eleven-song album hovers over a plot
of ground that’s optimistic in its despair. Album topics range
from the personal to the political, showcasing each member’s
unique songwriting within an overall cohesive band aesthetic.
“Moviola was one of those groups I met early on back in the day
that showed me how to do it. Broken Rainbows is a highlight—
pastoral thumpers, fuzzy indie radness, hooks to spare, pretty
much all the good stuff. Feels like a glorious drive from one
disparate end of Ohio to another. I love this band.”
—Eric Johnson (Fruit Bats)

UMe will release an updated version of The Best Of Bond…James Bond, a 2CD and 3LP black vinyl compilation featuring celebrated theme songs from the longest-running film franchise. The new collection will include “No Time To Die” by Billie Eilish from No Time To Die, the 25th film in the series. Also now included will be Adele’s “Skyfall” from Skyfall, the highest-grossing Bond film to date, and Sam Smith’s Spectre theme, “Writing’s On the Wall,” – Oscar® winners for Best Song in 2013 and 2016, respectively. In addition to Billie Eilish, Adele and Sam Smith, included is the signature instrumental “James Bond Theme” by The John Barry Orchestra, which remains one of the most recognizable themes from film. The collection also includes Dame Shirley Bassey, Louis Armstrong, Nancy Sinatra, Paul McCartney and many other classics.