Late notice on this one, please get orders in ASAP. Clear vinyl is for Indies only. For Fans Of.. Durand Jones & The Indications, Aaron Frazer, Kelly Finnigan, The Altons, Thee Sacred Souls, Thee Sinseers, Malik Malo. Producer, songwriter, and member of Thee Sinseers. Forthcoming debut album on Colemine Records. Joey embodies the East LA sweet soul scene. Featuring Joey Qionones’s debut Colemine single ‘Love Me Like You Used To,’ this 45 epitomizes the artist. Drowning in lush and soulful tracks, both ‘There Must Be Something’ and ‘Love Me Like You Used To’ bring you into Joey’s world, where he embodies the East LA sweet soul scene. This is Joey’s second 45 in collaboration with Colemine Records, but expect a dynamic, rich, and stacked debut LP from him later this year.
Late notice on this one, please get orders in ASAP. Clear vinyl is for Indies only. For Fans Of.. Durand Jones & The Indications, Aaron Frazer, Kelly Finnigan, The Altons, Thee Sacred Souls, Thee Sinseers, Malik Malo. Producer, songwriter, and member of Thee Sinseers. Forthcoming debut album on Colemine Records. Joey embodies the East LA sweet soul scene. Featuring Joey Qionones’s debut Colemine single ‘Love Me Like You Used To,’ this 45 epitomizes the artist. Drowning in lush and soulful tracks, both ‘There Must Be Something’ and ‘Love Me Like You Used To’ bring you into Joey’s world, where he embodies the East LA sweet soul scene. This is Joey’s second 45 in collaboration with Colemine Records, but expect a dynamic, rich, and stacked debut LP from him later this year.
Tony Joe White's, The Beginning was originally released on CD in 2001,
Stripped down and recorded without any bells and whistles, this is Tony
Joe recording himself playing his classic swamp blues sound
This album is regarded as the first album where Tony Joe controlled all elements
of the studio. Until 2020, Tony Joe White's 29th album had been long out of print.
New West Records released a limited edition color vinyl pressing that was the
first and only vinyl pressing of this record. This record was remastered and resequenced for that specific pressing. Due to popular demand, New West is
bringing this title back on vinyl and CD. The CD is packaged in a jewel case with a
booklet of lyrics and photos.
Amália Rodrigues, international star, nicknamed "the Queen of Fado", had a special relationship with France and Paris in particular. From the end of the 1950s, she met with success and became a popular artist, filling the Parisian halls. This record recounts this through three performances at the ABC, the Alhambra and the Bobino, preceded by a recording in the French radio studios.
Strictly limited to 10,000 numbered copies, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl at RTI, and mastered from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity's ultra-hi-fi UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP collector's edition enhances the blockbuster work for today – and the ages to come. Surpassing the sonics of any prior version, it peels away any remaining limitations to provide a transparent, lively, ultra-nuanced presentation of a record that won six Grammy Awards – including prizes for Album of the Year, Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, and Best Rock Song. The expanse and depth of the soundstage, fullness of tones, natural snap and extension of the guitar strings, realistic rise and decay of individual notes, and roll of Clapton's vocals all attain demonstration-grade levels.
Housed in a deluxe box, the UD1S Unplugged pressing features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendor of the recording and the reissue's premium quality. No expense has been spared. Aurally and visually, this UD1S reissue exists as a curatorial artifact meant to be preserved, touched, and examined. It is made for discerning listeners that prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in the art – and everything involved with the album, from the images to the finishes.
Truly, everything about Unplugged matters. Having sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. and more than 26 million copies worldwide, the 1992 work resonates with listeners of all generations and speaks a universal language. Recorded for MTV before a very small audience on January 16, 1992, the 14-track set became the signpost for future acoustic-based endeavours that witnessed artists of all stripes re-examining their catalogues and, in many instances, as Clapton does here, placing familiar originals in fresh contexts and unveiling spirited versions of cover material. Needless to say, Clapton's session turned MTV's series into can't-miss programming for which the likes of Rod Stewart, Tony Bennett, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and more would soon participate.
Kicking off his performance with a spirited instrumental to establish the mood, Clapton immediately wades into the style that originally caught his attention as a British teenager in the early 1960s: American blues. Backed by a superb band that includes guitarist Andy Fairweather Low, pianist Chuck Leavell, bassist Nathan East, and drummer Steve Ferrone, Slowhand delivers a rhythmic, toe-tapping rendition of Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me" that announces he's come to reconnect with his muse. What follows over the course of nearly the next hour stirs the heart, shakes the soul, moves the mind, and invigorates the senses.
Of course, there's no talking about Unplugged without keying in on "Tears in Heaven," the striking ballad Clapton penned about the death of his four-year-old son. More emotional, direct, spare, and healing than the studio version released a year prior, it crackles with an intimacy, maturity, poignancy, honesty, sweetness, and integrity that inform the entire concert. Indeed, how Clapton frames other favorites here – transforming "Layla" into a relaxed, comfortable stroll and ruminating on the seasoned ripples flowing throughout "Old Love," for example – indicate both a creative rebirth and gleeful acceptance of the next phase of his career.
And that very direction (two of Clapton's next three albums would be all-blues projects) is what really makes Unplugged so indispensable. Equivalent in mastery if not in volume to the output that earned him his "God" nickname, interpretations of Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues" (complete with kazoo!), Big Bill Broonzy's "Hey Hey," Robert Johnson's "Walkin' Blues" and "Malted Milk," and Muddy Waters' "Rollin' & Tumblin'" showcase a learned professor in his element and all the wheels turning.
In every regard, Clapton's Unplugged session was appointment listening when it came out in August 1992. With the arrival of MoFi's UD1S pressing, that sensation is more urgent than before.
More About Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step and Why It Is Superior
Instead of utilizing the industry-standard three-step lacquer process, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's new UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) uses only one step, bypassing two processes of generational loss. While three-step processing is designed for optimum yield and efficiency, UD1S is created for the ultimate in sound quality. Just as Mobile Fidelity pioneered the UHQR (Ultra High-Quality Record) with JVC in the 1980s, UD1S again represents another state-of-the-art advance in the record-manufacturing process. MFSL engineers begin with the original master tapes and meticulously cut a set of lacquers. These lacquers are used to create a very fragile, pristine UD1S stamper called a "convert." Delicate "converts" are then formed into the actual record stampers, producing a final product that literally and figuratively brings you closer to the music. By skipping the additional steps of pulling another positive and an additional negative, as done in the three-step process used in standard pressings, UD1S produces a final LP with the lowest noise floor possible today. The removal of the additional two steps of generational loss in the plating process reveals tremendous amounts of extra musical detail and dynamics, which are otherwise lost due to the standard copying process. The exclusive nature of these very limited pressings guarantees that every UD1S pressing serves as an immaculate replica of the lacquer sourced directly from the original master tape. Every conceivable aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the most perfect record album available today.
MoFi SuperVinyl
Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analog lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.
SACD
Mastered from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity's numbered hybrid SACD enhances the blockbuster work for today – and the ages to come. Peeling away remaining sonic limitations to provide a transparent, lively, ultra-nuanced presentation of a record that won six Grammy Awards (including prizes for Album of the Year, Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, and Best Rock Song), it places Clapton and company in your room. The expanse and depth of the soundstage, fullness of tones, natural snap and extension of the guitar strings, realistic rise and decay of individual notes, and roll of Clapton's vocals all attain demonstration-grade levels. A perennial audiophile favourite, Unplugged now tosses its hat into the ring as a demonstration disc.
Fresno is the highly anticipated 6th studio album by Joyce Manor
Produced by Rob Schnapf, this 9 song album is an honest, hard-hitting, post-emo,
power pop masterpiece packed with the elevated writing and earnest delivery
Joyce Manor is loved for.Joyce Manor is a band from Torrance, CA consisting of
Barry Johnson (vocals/ guitar), Chase Knobbe (guitar), Matt Ebert (bass), Neil
Hennessy (new drummer, from The Lawrence Arms). Johnson and Knobbe
started the band in 2008 in the Disneyland parking lot, named after an apartment
complex that Johnson would walk past every day. Joyce Manor made their debut
as an acoustic two-piece. Quickly they learned that playing loud was much more
fun and invited friends to join the lineup. The band has released five studio
albums; Joyce Manor (2011), Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired (2012), Never
Hungover Again (2014), Cody (2016), and Million Dollars to Kill Me (2018).
Joyce Manor has toured extensively and their live show has been the driver
behind the band's success. They have made festival appearances at FYF Fest,
Coachella, Riot Fest and since the release of their last studio album in 2018, the
band has headlined NYC Central Park SummerStage, sold out two nights at the
Palladium in LA, and sold out two matinee show at LA's historic Union Station.
Truly sensational modern soul double sider. Fantastic group vocals, swirling string arrangement and top notch punchy production. Impossible to find on original format (came out on private press on KickBack Records). Spun only by a handful of deejay around the world, to include George Mahood and our very own Dj Camembert. Recorded at United Artist studio, Beverly & 3rd Street Los Angeles California in 1978. Co-Produced by JJ Wilson who was also the band leader at the time and Bert (Humberto) Agudelo who was also Chief Engineer on this project and is a mastering engineer known to have worked at Liberty/United Artists Recording Studio. He also produced the famous Rocky movie album on United Artist. Executive producer Cecil Lyde Holden from the well known Lyde, Fisher & Giles band, who has cut the classic Serve Me Right to Suffer in 1977 on HAB records. Enjoy and support the venture, and if you like the Starfire too, please bundle up and spare something. One in every home!
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
AMPLE SOUL'S FAT JON returns with a 7 inch release featuring blissed out Hip Hop.On the A Side "YOUR PURPOSE" was originally featured on the SAMURAI CHAMPLOO series. On the flip,"WHY WE DREAM" is a rare Lo-Fi masterpiece. Full anime style pic sleeve included!
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.
In Trux We Pux 04 is the last in a series of four records organized by Favela Discos, set out to shine a light on Porto’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene. Throughout the collection the label tries to expose the eclectic sound and collaborative practices that have been in development in the last few years in the city by promoting the collaboration between artists and the creation of new collective improvisation pieces.
As the first album dwelled into the electronic spectre of the scene, this volume veers itself to the physical side of experimental and improvised explorations. Although there is space for outsiders manipulating the sound by electronic means, most of the music in this album is plucked, bowed, percussed or sung. The artists themselves are as varied as the music they played, among the 13 artists that collaborated for the creation of this album are many promising newcomers but also some of the more recognizable and relevant names in the scene, with the presence of the Sonoscopia founder Gustavo Costa, João Pais Filipe one of the most characteristic drummers in Portugal, and the DIY duo and underground staple Calhau!.
As we could suspect, the diverse selection of musicians, while providing us a view on the various kinds of musical languages that populate the city’s scene, also creates a dynamic collection of sounds. Spanning a large gamut of sub-sub-genres, from near-musique concrète to tribal noise, the album is a rollercoaster collage that miraculously achieves logic and cohesion, like a voyeur listener taking us on a journey through an abandoned mall where most of the bands in Porto rehearse, whose halls reverberate with a cacophony of music.
Lazy Jones und Hazenberg sind zurück auch wenn sie für 99% der Deutschrap Fans nie da waren. Nach „Unter einem Berg“ (2021) erscheint mit „Über einem Berg“ demnächst das zweite Album des Producer/MC-Duos aus Köln. Für Fans von Retrogott, Twit One und Kapitalismuskritik die swingt. Artwork: Julian Kramer. Limitierte auf 500 Stück. Mit freundlicher Unterstützung von A.U.D.D.A. Records und Melting Pot Music.
It's the first album in many years by cantaor Tomas de Perrate, known as PERRATE, and it's titled Tres golpes
Tres golpes comes from a radical view on flamenco that is not just radical because of the extreme form of its artistic proposal, but because it is the embodiment of its own roots.
It's radical and pure. It's well defined, raw, familiar, and alongside producer Refree, Perrate manages to give another twist to the screw of modern flamenco, making it as incisive and visceral as possible.
[h] A8 . Los Fonemas (Karawane) [tonas] (Karawane)
Jodorowsky's Dune tells the tale of cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's unsuccessful attempt to adapt Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel, Dune, to the big screen. Composer Kurt Stenzel gives life to a retro-futuristic universe as fantastic as Jodorowsky's own vision for his Dune-a film whose A-list cast would have included Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, and Mick Jagger in starring roles and music by psychedelic prog-rockers Pink Floyd.
Building upon director Frank Pavich's idea for a score with a Tangerine Dream-type feel,' Stenzel lays out a cosmic arsenal of analog synthesizers that would make any collector green at the gills: among other gems are a rare Moog Source, CZ-101s, and a Roland Juno 6, as well as unorthodox instruments like a toy Concertmate organ and a Nintendo DS. I also played guitar and did vocals,' says Stenzel, some chanting... and some screaming, which comes naturally to me.' The score also features narration by Jodorowsky himself. As Stenzel notes, Jodo's voice is actually the soundtrack's main musical instrument-listening to him was almost like hypnosis, like going to the guru every night.'
This highly-anticipated soundtrack LP was sequenced and mixed by Stenzel with the listener in mind and flows through a four-sides' LP approach. I wanted it to play like the records I grew up with, where every side was a journey.'
Landscape Tantrums Lost for two decades, the recent rediscovery of Landscape Tantrums the first attempt at recording the music that would become The Mars Volta’s De-Loused In The Comatorium revealed an important and hitherto missing chapter in the group’s evolution. Selfrecorded by Omar (assisted by Jon DeBaun) at Burbank’s Mad Dog Studios within a head spinning four days, Landscape Tantrums captures De-Loused in somewhat embryonic form, though much of what would make The Mars Volta’s debut album such an electrifying, sublime experience was already in place: the fearless invention, the fusion of futurist rock elements and traditions from outside of the rock orthodoxy, the sense of virtuosity working in service of emotional effect. From a distance, The Mars Volta must have seemed as if they were on a high when they walked into the studio to record what they expected to be their debut album (“I didn’t think of it as demos or a dry run,” Omar says). The group had recently played the Coachella festival to rave reviews, a vindication of the quixotic risk Omar and Cedric had taken, quitting At The Drive In to lead such an uncompromising musical proposition.
Their debut EP, Tremulant, had similarly signalled their singular vision, and been rewarded with similarly positive feedback. But the truth was that The Mars Volta entered Mad Dog in tatters, scarcely believing anything other than failure lay within their reach. They’d recently lost their bassist, Eva Gardner, and parted ways with keyboard play Ikey Owens. Tensions were brewing with drummer Jon Theodore, too himself a replacement for founding drummer Blake Fleming Omar questioning Theodore’s commitment to the group. And sound manipulator Jeremy Michael Ward’s drug problem had gotten so far out of hand that he’d been sent to rehab, and wouldn’t return until two days into the Landscape Tantrums. The pressure upon Omar was intense, and it began to manifest in the form of physical and emotional breakdowns. His art was his life, but now he began to wonder if it was actually going to kill him. Under such heavy manners, miracles occurred at Mad Dog. Surely that’s the only way to describe the music contained on Landscape Tantrums, as Omar fashioned early versions of Inertiatic ESP, Drunkship Of Lanterns and Eriatarka that rivalled the Rick Rubin produced versions that ended up on De- Loused for intensity, precision and immediacy, as Cedric delivered a powerfully intimate reading of Televators, and as a bare bones version of the group sketched out the peaks of what would become their debut masterpiece in barely half a week, on a shoestring, and believing they wouldn’t last long enough to see it hit the shelves. Listening to Landscape Tantrums now, with the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of what these songs will become, one notices Cedric has yet to fully find the voice that will lend The Mars Volta their devastating authority, that Eriatarka will evolve even further under Rick Rubin’s watch, and that the lyrics to De-Loused’s climactic chapter, Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt, have yet to be penned. But one also notices how lithe the group sound here, how hungry, and one appreciates the raw edge that Rubin would later polish to a venomous sharpness. More than mere historical curiosity, Landscape Tantrums is an essential text for the dedicated Mars Volta aficionado, and a breathtaking album in its own right.
[a] a1. Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) [Unfinished Original Recordings Of De-Loused In The Comatorium]
Mastered by Bernie Grundman from the Original Analog Master Tapes & Pressed at Gotta Groove!
Numbered Deluxe Laminated Gatefold Jackets!
Only 2500 Numbered Limited Edition Copies Worldwide!
John Coltrane returns to his roots using the Blues to explore the boundaries of Jazz! Features McCoy Tyner, Steve Davis and Elvin Jones! Recorded in 1960 during the My Favorite Things sessions, Coltrane Plays The Blues features "Blues To Bechet," "Blues To Elvin" and "Blues To You" in addition to three other tracks.
"Coltrane's sessions for Atlantic in late October 1960 were prolific, yielding the material for My Favorite Things, Coltrane Plays the Blues, and Coltrane's Sound. My Favorite Things was destined to be the most remembered and influential of these, and while Coltrane Plays the Blues is not as renowned or daring in material, it is still a powerful session. As for the phrase "plays the blues" in the title, that's not an indicator that the tunes are conventional blues (they aren't). It's more indicative of a bluesy sensibility, whether he is playing muscular saxophone or, on "Blues to Bechet" and "Mr. Syms," the more unusual sounding (at the time) soprano sax. Elvin Jones, who hadn't been in Coltrane's band long, really busts out on the quicker numbers, such as "Blues to You" and "Mr. Day." - Richie Unterberger
"The Coltrane Quartet, three-fourths complete at the time of this recording, had begun its historic rise and had also turned the corner in Coltrane's music, transitioning from the expressive verticality of Giant Steps to the more elongated, long-limbed lyricism that would define his role in the avant-garde. It can come as no surprise that to do so, he engaged the material he'd known longest and best - the blues." - Neil Tesser, author of The Playboy Guide To Jazz
The music world is most fortunate that the past two decades have witnessed the rediscovery of mind-opening music that went under-recognized when originally released, and the wellspring of musical content produced by a generation of brilliant musicians. One such musician was the late great drummer Steve Reid, whose reissued eclectic recordings on his own Mustevic Sound label gave his career a second wind.
Though teased on a well-received compilation, one Mustevic release never saw reissue: New Life Trio’s Visions Of The Third Eye, a tremendous collaborative effort between Reid, guitarist Brandon Ross and bassist David Wertman.
Due to overwhelming demand, Early Future Records and Finders Keepers Records are proud to announce a second limited edition pressing of the classic and final Mustevic recording. The release also includes a 20-page written zine featuring an in-depth testimonial and interview with Brandon Ross, and an explorative essay by Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel, as well as a wealth of archival photos, scores and reviews.
Reid’s long and varied career began in his native New York City, where he was involved early on as a member of the Apollo Theater House Band and the R&B scene of the 1960s, including recordings with Martha Reeves and James Brown. In the late 1960s, Reid spent three years in West Africa absorbing musical traditions and experimenting with artists such as Fela Kuti, Guy Warren and Randy Weston. After a stint in prison for dodging the draft as a conscientious objector, the drummer came out swinging in the 1970s. He worked regularly as a session and Broadway musician even while immersing himself into the jazz world, from the straight-ahead styles of Freddie Hubbard and Horace Silver to the otherworldly sounds of Sun Ra and Charles Tyler.
The do-it-yourself ethos of the New York Loft Scene inspired Reid to create his own label, Mustevic Sound, on which he began releasing his own recordings and those of a couple of friends. One of these trusted friends was David Wertman, a young bassist from New York who released his own Kara Suite on Mustevic in 1976.
New Life Trio’s story began when Wertman moved from New York to the more sedate but creatively vibrant town of Northampton, Massachusetts. Here Wertman met Brandon Ross, a young guitarist from New Jersey who had relocated there with his brother to join a coterie of New York expats who had found a comfortable, collaborative environment amidst the liberal college towns in the area, including avant-garde legends Archie Shepp and Marion Brown. Wertman and Ross became friends and began to perform together regularly, both formally and informally.
A string trio of Wertman, Ross and violinist Terry Jenoure was set to record, but Jenoure dropped out just prior to the date. This led Wertman to call his friend Steve Reid to come join the two at the Tin Pan Hollow Studios in Vermont to record what would become Visions Of The Third Eye on December 6, 1978. Originally conceived as an all-acoustic date, the recording would morph slightly when Ross added electric guitar muscle on a number of pieces. Reid would then take the helm and release the recording in 1980, giving a very auspicious birth to what has now become a classic spiritual jazz recording.
Fast forward to 1995…..New Life Trio gets a belated second wind from Stuart Baker’s inclusion of the Ross-voiced “Empty Streets” on his Universal Sounds of America compilation. The brief, haunting lead track just hinted at what the full Visions Of The Third Eye album had to offer. Audience awareness resulted in the pursuit of out-of-print original LPs, thus the rarity of Visions Of The Third Eye led to it becoming a kind of “holy grail” record for collectors of jazz and creative music. The album’s cover image was even incorporated into the cover of Freedom, Rhythm & Sound (SJB, 2009), a wonderful coffee table book presenting album covers from those revolutionary decades in Black creative music. The recording’s legend was cemented.
New Life Trio’s legend continues to grow partly due to the brevity of its existence. The triumvirate of Reid, Ross and Wertman would never work together again. Each member would continue along his own path, finding success in numerous projects. Reid’s career was reinvigorated with the reissue of the bulk of his Mustevic Sound recordings in the early 2000s, which led him to a rewarding partnership with Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden until Reid’s untimely passing in 2010. Wertman balanced life between Florida and Massachusetts as a regular in the local jazz scene, recording numerous projects with his wife, Lynne Meryl, before passing away in 2013. The fantastically creative Ross has remained active in the New York creative music scene with a number of projects, most notably with Henry Threadgill, Cassandra Wilson and Harriet Tubman, a wildly eclectic co-led band with underpinnings of rock, dub and free jazz.
Peer through the windows of the sun-dappled homes in Sicily and you will be faced with a small, strange ceramic object adorning each hallway. It is a glistening pine cone standing upright – a pigna – the longstanding symbol of Sicilian openness and welcome hospitality.
The pigna is a delightfully unusual and yet apt symbol for the title of the third record from Benjamin Harris, AKA Yarni. Ever since his debut LP release in 2017, Yarni has established a following committed to his musical openness, an intuitive curiosity that has spanned everything from house and techno to cinematic ambience and Japanese percussion, as well as jazz horns and afrobeat fanfares. For Yarni, anything goes and everyone is welcome. Now, Pigna sees Yarni reach his fullest and most musically diverse expression, taking its name and ethos from Sicily, but finding a sonic home in the luscious orchestration of a new ensemble of musicians.
Here, at the helm of a nine-person ensemble, Yarni artfully pieces together live improvisations to create the warmth of a seasoned group performing deep within the groove. Opener “Midnight Getaway” places the listener squarely within the disco-funk of Daft Punk as Yarni’s top-line synth intersects with a rolling bassline and a lyrical flute solo from Rachel Shirley. This optimistic tone of sunlit spaciousness is then heightened on “Utopia”, as Yarni’s horn section comes to the fore to pay homage to the ineffable syncopations of Fela Kuti’s pioneering afrobeat.
Rather than scratch at the surface of these musical genres, Yarni’s attuned ear embodies the emotive essence of his various sounds by paying intimate attention to their creation. There is the punch of that afrobeat sax on “Utopia”; the rhythmic skitter of breakbeats on “The Astral”; the sludging thump of funk in the bassline on “Nova”. Collaborators are given free reign, too, to incorporate their own unique stylings into this remarkable whole, from vocalist Emily Marks’ languid tone on “In A Dream”, to saxophonist Jonoa’s innate swing on “Cherub”, and the metronomic movement of bassist Ally McMahon’s playing throughout.
Listening to Pigna is ultimately to find yourself squarely within the comforting embrace of Yarni’s musical mind. It is a truly LP experience – a record to be placed on the turntable’s platter and then left to play, allowing yourself an immersion in these journeying soundscapes. It is no wonder fellow sonic travellers such as the late Andrew Weatherall and DJ Harvey have been supporters of Yarni’s work, since here is a kindred spirit – an artist shaped in the form of radical openness, speaking the hospitable, universal language of beautiful music.
Peer through the windows of the sun-dappled homes in Sicily and you will be faced with a small, strange ceramic object adorning each hallway. It is a glistening pine cone standing upright – a pigna – the longstanding symbol of Sicilian openness and welcome hospitality.
The pigna is a delightfully unusual and yet apt symbol for the title of the third record from Benjamin Harris, AKA Yarni. Ever since his debut LP release in 2017, Yarni has established a following committed to his musical openness, an intuitive curiosity that has spanned everything from house and techno to cinematic ambience and Japanese percussion, as well as jazz horns and afrobeat fanfares. For Yarni, anything goes and everyone is welcome. Now, Pigna sees Yarni reach his fullest and most musically diverse expression, taking its name and ethos from Sicily, but finding a sonic home in the luscious orchestration of a new ensemble of musicians.
Here, at the helm of a nine-person ensemble, Yarni artfully pieces together live improvisations to create the warmth of a seasoned group performing deep within the groove. Opener “Midnight Getaway” places the listener squarely within the disco-funk of Daft Punk as Yarni’s top-line synth intersects with a rolling bassline and a lyrical flute solo from Rachel Shirley. This optimistic tone of sunlit spaciousness is then heightened on “Utopia”, as Yarni’s horn section comes to the fore to pay homage to the ineffable syncopations of Fela Kuti’s pioneering afrobeat.
Rather than scratch at the surface of these musical genres, Yarni’s attuned ear embodies the emotive essence of his various sounds by paying intimate attention to their creation. There is the punch of that afrobeat sax on “Utopia”; the rhythmic skitter of breakbeats on “The Astral”; the sludging thump of funk in the bassline on “Nova”. Collaborators are given free reign, too, to incorporate their own unique stylings into this remarkable whole, from vocalist Emily Marks’ languid tone on “In A Dream”, to saxophonist Jonoa’s innate swing on “Cherub”, and the metronomic movement of bassist Ally McMahon’s playing throughout.
Listening to Pigna is ultimately to find yourself squarely within the comforting embrace of Yarni’s musical mind. It is a truly LP experience – a record to be placed on the turntable’s platter and then left to play, allowing yourself an immersion in these journeying soundscapes. It is no wonder fellow sonic travellers such as the late Andrew Weatherall and DJ Harvey have been supporters of Yarni’s work, since here is a kindred spirit – an artist shaped in the form of radical openness, speaking the hospitable, universal language of beautiful music.
Numbered and limited to 1000 copies each worldwide. Recorded in Berlin & remotely between 2020 & 2021, the opening track “The Real” is from the forthcoming album “Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees” the second track “Where Do We Go From Here?” is exclusive to this release. With Anton Newcombe (Vocals/ Guitars), Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt (keyboards), Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar), Hallberg Daði Hallbergsson (bass), & Uri Rennert (drums) playing on this offering. It is 30 years since the release of their first single She Made Me / Evergreen. Released in 1992, the band continue to deliver the sound of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Cover artwork by Anthony Ausgang.
Numbered and limited to 1000 copies each worldwide. Recorded in Berlin & remotely between 2020 & 2021, the opening track “The Real” is from the forthcoming album “Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees” the second track “Where Do We Go From Here?” is exclusive to this release. With Anton Newcombe (Vocals/ Guitars), Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt (keyboards), Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar), Hallberg Daði Hallbergsson (bass), & Uri Rennert (drums) playing on this offering. It is 30 years since the release of their first single She Made Me / Evergreen. Released in 1992, the band continue to deliver the sound of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Cover artwork by Anthony Ausgang.
Solo bedroom-pop project of Michael Ramos (Flowertown, April Magazine, Hectorine). Mostly recorded between last Christmas and New Year's during a window of isolation at home, “Hey There Flower” preserves Tony Jay’s prowess at making beautifully eerie lo-fi pop; like a hazy memory where your favorite Sixties girl-group melody is perpetually slowed down. Without a band to practice with, Tony Jay recorded the music alone, but recruited a slew of friends to remotely record backing vocals: Karina Gill (Cindy), Griffin Jones (Galore), Kati Mashikian (Mister Baby), Alexis Harper (Al Harper), & Hannah Lew (Cold Beat). "Hey There Flower", the most recent release from the prolific and mysterious Tony Jay delivers real melodies -- both lacey with vocal harmonies and dusty with layered guitars -- as fans have come to expect. This release also carries forward and elaborates on Tony Jay's tradition of songs that express a kind of naked honesty about things we all know -- love and loneliness and all that -- while communicating at the same time a wry edge of skepticism, so that the songs are like coins spinning on edge before landing heads, tails, or lost under the couch. Tony Jay brings us into a nostalgia where we recognize moods from music of the past -- Marc Boland definitely comes to mind, as well as Velvet Underground of the Nico era, and Tony Jay even covers Francoise Hardy on this collection -- but the songs create a three dimensional space with what feels like a thousand layers so that instead of being thrown back in time, it's like stepping into a little world with its own laws of nature, of which the listener gets just a few hints. - Karina Gill, Cindy/Flowertown. “Hey There Flower” is introduced by thudding snare beats eliciting reverb-stained tattered noisy guitar scrapes, to weave abrasive shimmery emotive vibrations, imbued with shattered nostalgic dreams, lit by brittle yet dazzling forsaken keyboard flows, over submerged and distorted male vocal’s whispery deluge of obsessive longing, lonely melancholy, and dark desire to exude a hazy gritty concoction of awkward sadness and brooding unrest.” White Light // White Heat // “What Tony sketches are concise commentaries on love, loneliness and a few things in between. His mode of expression is sparse, intense, and captivating. The arrangements are invariably lo-fi and slow tempo, blanketed with a fuzzy hiss. And it only took one listen to decide that it is a very special album. It has a '60s feel, albeit washed in an eerie slowcore machine. An ace example is "September Skies", which could be the 1965 'last dance' at the prom for the introverted students.” - When You Motor Away
Now available at a much cheaper price. SOS JFK, the one and only album from folk two-piece The Children’s Hour, which featured Josephine Foster and Andy Bar. Initially released in 2003, the album introduced audiences to Foster’s enchanting vocals and poetic folk, which would be developed to staggering effect in her later solo recordings, such as the recently released critically acclaimed album Blood Rushing (Fire Records). The Children’s Hour were an acoustic duo comprised of members Andy Bar and Josephine Foster. The two friends first connected in 2000 in a short-lived rock trio called Golden Egg, and then on a lark formed the pop song-writing duo oriented toward more naïve themes. Foster was a recent opera school dropout and the band became a vehicle for her to explore singing in a non-operatic manner into a microphone and learn to play the guitar. Bar was finishing studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and was honing a personal and highly melodic fingerpicking style inspired by bossa nova in particular. They were heard performing in a Chicago dive bar and given a surprise invitation to make a studio recording (SOS JFK), which both found to be an extremely nerve-wrecking learning experience. Meanwhile fans of their music rose up from unexpected corners, even invited by the band Zwan to open all the shows of both bands´ maiden tour. Initially conceived of as a modest front porch collaboration and side project, the band did not withstand all the attention long. Bar and Foster took meandering paths in diverse directions, although the two remain stalwart pals and both continue to dedicate themselves to the muses.
John Coltrane's classic 1962 LP 'Coltrane' plus 2 bonus tracks pressed on
180g green vinyl, incudes a unique sticker
Overlooked on its original release, 'Coltrane' has since been regarded by as a
major recording in the saxophonist's discography. Featuring the classic quartet
and produced by Bob Thiele for Impulse, this special edition has two bonus tracks
from the same sessions not included on the original LP: 'Impressions' and 'Up
'Gainst The Wall'.
The movements of KUNZITE’s Mike Stroud and Agustin White have seen them orbiting around each other, occasionally crossing paths yet consistently admiring each other’s work. The pair traversed the globe separately with their different projects and personal adventures -- Mike touring with his band Ratatat and Agustin on a spiritual journey exploring yoga, meditation and psychedelics -- while looking to one day do something together. The formation of KUNZITE saw them finally able to merge their minds and mission, with a sound that blends psychedelia with electronic, beat-heavy production and live instrumentation. Most of the recording process for their new album, VISUALS, started while at Agustin’s stripped back studio in Hawaii, and finished at Mike’s barn studio in upstate New York, with instrumentation including acoustic, electric and lap steel guitars, organ, synthesizers and the charango.
"It takes time and lace, to make a French Mademoiselles" the adventure of this chic and sexy duo begins with these words!
THE FRENCH MADEMOISELLES, an artistic collectif run by two females singing :Miss K.T (for Katia, french native) & Miss L (for Lexie, American native). It is an interactive musical journey and quest that allows all women to understand how French women have created this spontaneous elegance and balance of life that allows them to maintain their professional and private lives simultaneously. Pop and Groovy 12 titles album... Bubble gum pop made in Paris ! Always with this cynical 60's vintage French movie atmosphere with a taste of Jacqueline Taïeb « 7 :AM » which cult singer brings their name… Recorded in Paris and mixed in London... This first album has been produced by renowned sound engineer of Elvis Costello, Shirley Bassey or The Pretenders. Already seduced 200.000
fans on internet with their digital singles and sexy and funny videos… Enjoy some "fresh air" from France with The French Mademoiselles.
BRIT Award-winning, multi-platinum selling musician George Ezra today announces his hugely anticipated new album Gold Rush Kid, due for release on 10th June via Columbia Records.
“The Gold Rush Kid? That’s me,” says George, reflecting on the title of his third record – a 12-strong suite of marvellous, transporting, elevational songs, that more than anything “sound like me. That’s what ties them together.”
After two blockbuster albums – Wanted On Voyage (2014) and Staying At Tamara’s (2018), both of which reached number 1 in the UK and sold millions around the world, and the latter of which earned him his first number 1 single in ‘Shotgun’ and won him the 2019 Brit Award for British Male Solo Artist – it was time to return to heart and hearth, with an album written and produced entirely in London with longstanding collaborator Joel Pott.
To celebrate the 60 years of the greatest Rock Band, rediscover
their song played by the Jazz scene. A selection of the finest
covres, from " Satisfaction " to " Paint it Black ", by Sharon
Jones, Luther Allison, Ann Peebles, Shemekia Copeland ...
First Word Records is extremely delighted to present 'Torn : Tonic' — the sophomore album from singer, performer, poet and producer, Allysha Joy.
Delivered unfiltered, straight from the soul, ´Torn : Tonic' pulls us into a 10 track journey that weaves through the multiplicity of letting go, standing tall, and creating space all at once. The album's expansive and vivid exploration of healing examines the power that comes with accepting the complexity of change. Allysha walks listeners through the remedy she finds in sound and emerges empowered to share this healing with others. Deeply moving and lyrically compelling, 'Torn : Tonic' hosts a stellar line-up of artists, creating a world of collective power, growth, and hope.
Allysha Joy is an integral member of the vibrant Melbourne soul & jazz scene, well known for both her solo work and as lead vocalist for 30/70. A uniquely-talented soul, her husky voice, and formidable Fender Rhodes prowess have garnered attentive audiences around the world.
Her 2018 debut album 'Acadie : Raw' was named 'Best Soul Album' at the Music Victoria Awards, featured in Bandcamp's 'Top Soul Albums' of the year and received a nomination for 'Best Jazz Album' at the Worldwide Awards. An incredibly prolific artist, Allysha has released on labels; Rhythm Section, Gondwana, Future Classic, Total Refreshment Centre and now another drop for First Word, after her acclaimed 2020 EP, 'Light It Again'.
Allysha's production on 'Torn : Tonic' effortlessly arches across a sonic palette, comprised of shuffling broken grooves and exquisite celestial melodies. There are healthy swathes of skippy neo-soul boom bap sensibilities, entwined with stark swing-laden electronic percussion, Detroit-esque sun-saturated synths, and Antipodean bruk backbeats. And whilst this project was produced entirely by Joy herself, she is far from alone, inviting in an array of female and non-binary artists to bless assorted tracks with their own unique gifts. Ego Ella May, BINA, Rara Zulu, Belle Bangard and Dancing Water all appear, expanding upon the formulaic roles of featured artists to share the creative space as equal collaborators.
'Torn : Tonic' exudes vibes, from the opening whiplash snare of 'Peace, to the rolling jazz-bruk of lead single 'Let It!', to the sweet soulful sonics of 'Still Dreaming', to the closing triumphant shout of "All Joy!!" on 'G.N.D.', this is a 40-minute opus that will definitely require repeat listening.
Allysha's poetic introspection reveals the album's intention to demand space, purpose, and pleasure. Her words are deliberate and direct to the alarm bells and messages her artistic vision carries. Fluid, cross-genre, and spirited with generational stories embodied, 'Torn : Tonic' sits at the intersection of a feminist manifesto of Joy's momentous leap as an artist, and her exploration of what it means to be human in today's capitalist-driven world.
In Allysha's words, 'Torn : Tonic' is exactly as the name describes. "It is looking directly into the shadow of pain and overcoming it with joy. No love songs! Just social, political, emotional anthems for change! It is the first record I have produced entirely on my own and it feels like that perseverance that I have consistently had to conjure up is embedded in this music, overcoming my own conditioning in a society and industry that constantly tells me I can't, so I must!"
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A classic and essential Hi-Life & Afro Funk album from one of the greatest Ghanaian singers and composers reissued for the first time!
The legendary Alhaji Kwabena Frimpong's fantastic rare album was recorded in 1984 in Germany and originally produced and distributed from Hamburg. K . Frimpong was born on July 22nd 1939 at Ofoase in the Ashanti - Akim district, died Oct 18th 2005 in Kumasi (Ghana).
He entered right into music after elementary school by joining "Star de Republic" and later "Oko's band" after which he left for K. Gyasy's band where he worked for more than 6 years. As a prolific songwriter and singer, here's the reissue of his amazing album, a modern fusion of Hi-life and Soul . The excellent background is given by the famous Cubanos Fiesta with members of Vis-A-Vis band such as the famous Sammy Cropper on guitar or Slim Manu on bass.
Originally produced by Atakora Mensah in Hamburg, this four songs recording is a blend of danceable and spiritual Soul and straight Hi-life. A must-have vinyl of percussive Afro Funk for all the music connoisseurs, Abrabo is a true masterpiece, so hard to find and reaching crazy skills for a decent copy affordable.
Remastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery. Pressed on Replika format. Fully licensed by the Alhaji Kwame Frimpong Family.
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Direct from the Parisian underground STEVE FRISCO returns with an homage to the SERIE LIMITEE vinyl only label created by MONSIEUR CEDRIC & himself. Having established a French connection via JORDAN FIELDS, this hot producer is set to feed the clubs with his flavor of deep vibes. Limited 1-Sider
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Black Truffle is pleased to present Landscape and Voice, a radical new work (and rare vinyl release) from major Japanese sound artist Toshiya Tsunoda. Undoubtedly one of the most influential artists working with location recordings since the 1990s, Tsunoda’s work possesses a rigorously searching quality that sets him apart from his contemporaries. Tsunoda is known to many listeners for the subtle atmospheric poetry of his early Extract from Field Recording Archive series, which focussed on vibrations recorded in various indoor and outdoor environments in his native Miura Peninsula, often inside pipes, bottles and other vessels. In more recent years, his work has explored the implications of his claim that field recording should be seen as ‘depiction’ rather than ‘documentation’. He has explored disorienting editing and processing in his works with Taku Unami, and, perhaps most radically, represented Maguchi Bay as a kind of kinetic sculpture for shaking speakers by removing all but the inaudible low frequencies from a field recording (Low Frequency Observed at Maguchi Bay).
One of the recurrent concerns of Tsunoda’s recent work, as he explains in the crystalline liner notes accompanying this release, is ‘exploring how I can establish a subjective relationship with an environment, rather than seeing it merely as an object to be recorded’. This has taken various forms, from documenting simultaneously an outdoor environment and the blood flowing through the listener/recorder’s body (captured with a stethoscope) on The Temple Recordings, to representing his own experience of the landscape as made up of ‘grains of space and time’ by inserting looped fragments into field recordings in Grains of Spring.
On Landscape and Voice, this meeting between subject and object becomes an almost mystical union between the natural and the human. As with all of Tsunoda’s work, a relatively simple concept leads to compelling, thought-provoking results. Landscape and Voice combines vowel sounds spoken by six voices with short, looped fragments of field recordings, their noise character suggesting consonants: voice and landscape thus join together in something like words. The record consists of three pieces, each using a different, richly evocative field recording, which periodically freezes, catching on a looped fragment to which is synchronised an abruptly looped spoken vowel sound. The lengths between these interruptions vary, as do the tempi of the loops. The interruption of these lushly immersive recordings of the world – bristling with bird song, rushing water, distant traffic, and clinking metal – only serves to intensify them, as if the depicted environment itself had been returned to the listener each time it abruptly reappears. At the same time, the constant interruption creates an uncannily frozen effect, as if the recorded environment were an object rather than a stretch of recorded time. When combined with the bare human presence of the vowel sounds, the result is both austere and magical. Pressed on 45RPM for maximum fidelity, in a gorgeous sleeve designed by Lasse Marhaug with liner notes from the composer, Landscape and Voice is a radical proposition from one of the deepest thinkers in contemporary sound.
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For Fans of Aasha Puthli, Grace Jones, Minnie Ripperton, The Supremes, Love Apple, Liquid Liquid, ESG. Say She She's debut 45 features "Forget Me Not," an homage to New York City's Guerilla Girls and to all the women's rights and protest movements who have paved the way for change. Doused in the funkiest rhythm section and bursting at the seams with harmonies, the song is a psychedelic siren's call to disrupt and dismantle male dominated spaces. "Blow My Mind" is the fiery and seductive B-side. A song about returning to reignite the fire of a former flame you still carry the torch for - even after all these years. The impassioned and sultry cries "Mayday in my heyday, crying out for you to save me!" teeter between youthful yearning and blazing independence. Let the dreamscape bridges guide you to climactic hindi riffs, accented with operatic cries that will lift you yonder.
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EALZ! Records & brand new label A.D.S team up to pay tribute to the mysterious bluesman and producer : Cleo Page.
Born in Louisiana, this L.A.-based musician worked with the great Johnny Otis, hang out on Central Avenue’s clubs and possibly jammed with top West Coast bluesmen like Jessie Allen, Pete “guitar” Lewis, Jimmy Nolen, Lafayette Thomas.
Curley Page for some, Sly Williams for others, difficult to follow his career and in definitive, little is known about him despite his “big deal” recently approved by blues specialists : Cleo Page IS the man who wrote and recorded the original Boot Hill, a blues classic covered many times up until now.
Cleo Page who lived in California since 14 years-old has been crossing Blues, Rhythm & Blues and proto-Rock'n'Roll in a personal way. He will run his own labels in the heart of Watts just after the 1965 riots. Those tragic events deeply influenced his laid-back groovy sounds, powerful guitar playing, organ-driven garage Blues with strong political and social messages. Somewhere between the first electric recordings of Howlin' Wolf and… Black Diamond Heavies!
You're about to discover 12 rare tracks probably recorded between late ‘60s and early ‘70s. This brand new release includes the ultra-rare track "Black Man part. 1 & 2".
Material reissued here for the first time in an arty/artisanal trifold Vinyl LP and a bonus Vinyl 7inch
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"A Ragged Ghost" is the eighth full-length album from electronic producer Jonas Reinhardt. Following albums on Kranky, Not Not Fun, Constellation Tatsu, and more, his debut release for Trouble In Mind brings together 11 new pieces that explore themes of life & death, netherworlds, and the liminal spaces in between. Taken together as a single narrative, the album offers a stirring exploration of mortality and immortality in what Reinhardt describes as 'a dance of religious syncretism, navigating spaces between the living and the dead'. "A Ragged Ghost" finds him synthesizing influences organically from familiar teutonic strains to the intense austerity of early 21st century electronic pioneers such as Biosphere and Susumu Yokota. A whisper of the Italo-disco-esque romps of Jonas' 2012's "Foam Fangs" EP & 2013's "Mask of The Maker" LP merge with his more kosmische leanings into a sinister, slightly funky, but also studious suite that at times feels like a lost sound library record from the KPM archives. Openers "Ape & The Universal Axis" and "In Lotto Commodore" decidedly sound like a selection from a lost film score while others like the bubbling "Sly Tomb" recall the works of Roedelius or Vangelis' serene soundscapes. Meanwhile, fans of the electro-ambience of Manuel Göttsching's strobe-light, proto-house (on his seminal "E2-E4") or the pulsing insistence of John Carpenter's visceral non-horror scores (i.e. "Escape From New York" or "Assault on Precinct 13") will find a lot to love about songs like "Tumb Tumb" and "Wretched Orchestra of Armistice".
"A Ragged Ghost" is the eighth full-length album from electronic producer Jonas Reinhardt. Following albums on Kranky, Not Not Fun, Constellation Tatsu, and more, his debut release for Trouble In Mind brings together 11 new pieces that explore themes of life & death, netherworlds, and the liminal spaces in between. Taken together as a single narrative, the album offers a stirring exploration of mortality and immortality in what Reinhardt describes as 'a dance of religious syncretism, navigating spaces between the living and the dead'. "A Ragged Ghost" finds him synthesizing influences organically from familiar teutonic strains to the intense austerity of early 21st century electronic pioneers such as Biosphere and Susumu Yokota. A whisper of the Italo-disco-esque romps of Jonas' 2012's "Foam Fangs" EP & 2013's "Mask of The Maker" LP merge with his more kosmische leanings into a sinister, slightly funky, but also studious suite that at times feels like a lost sound library record from the KPM archives. Openers "Ape & The Universal Axis" and "In Lotto Commodore" decidedly sound like a selection from a lost film score while others like the bubbling "Sly Tomb" recall the works of Roedelius or Vangelis' serene soundscapes. Meanwhile, fans of the electro-ambience of Manuel Göttsching's strobe-light, proto-house (on his seminal "E2-E4") or the pulsing insistence of John Carpenter's visceral non-horror scores (i.e. "Escape From New York" or "Assault on Precinct 13") will find a lot to love about songs like "Tumb Tumb" and "Wretched Orchestra of Armistice".
Fuchs is a band that never was. It vanished as quickly as it appeared in the picture, much like the animal that can be seen on this album and after whom it was named. In 2005, Kante singer and guitarist Peter Thiessen travelled to Weilheim to visit Markus and Micha Acher in their studio, where they were joined, among others, by Notwist-affiliated musicians like Cico Beck, Robert Klinger, Carl Oesterhelt and Stefan Schreiber. Spirits were high, but schedules were full: after a week of improvised sessions, everyone went their own way. The recordings gathered dust until Markus Acher found them again in 2021 while cleaning out his studio. After carefully re-evaluating the rough mixes, the musicians decided to finally release them. The resulting album comprises six tracks that musically draw on jazz, aesthetically lean on dub techniques and ideologically pick up on krautrock: there’s no solos to be heard on this record, just a few equally skilled and open-minded musicians listening to each other carefully, providing each other with space in which to unfold. »Fuchs« is a document of egos dissolving in a collective spirit.
Thiessen and the Acher brothers met in the 1990s and bonded not only over their shared background in hardcore music and the DIY ethos in which it was rooted, but also over their love for jazz. »If you look at those two things combined, you will eventually become convinced that you don’t have to be formally trained to make music that at least resembles jazz«, says Thiessen today. He invited Micha Acher to join his band Kante on flügelhorn in 2004 for a tour that saw the expanded group play unusual encores after the official concert was over. »Micha had taught us some dixie pieces, so night after night we would play a freestyle dixieland ska set in front of the remaining audience!« Naturally, the Acher brothers didn’t have to ask twice when they invited him for a visit in Weilheim to further explore their mutual interests in a studio setting. »I got on my way immediately and took two or three loose ideas, a tape echo and a guitar on whose headplate you could create fantastic sounds with me«, says Thiessen.
Between immersing themselves in books by the photographer Leonore Mau, cooking together and drinking the occasional fruit schnapps, the trio went into the studio. Says Thiessen, »Micha brought his flügelhorn and some wonderful ideas with him, Markus an Indian harmonium and a plan, Carl Oesterhelt came with a glockenspiel and a Chinese zither and a bunch of amazing jazz musicians joined in, too.« He considers the resulting recording sessions to be a kind of attempt at musically translating their conversations during those days. They discussed different approaches to jazz, whether sampling and musical miscitations can unlock ecstatic potentials and the possible parallels between syncretistic religions and pop music. »There’s traces of glossolalia, it's like a blurry séance«, adds Thiessen in regard to the sessions.
It is especially this spirit that managed to live on even though the recordings themselves were abandoned. »What we all liked most when listening back to the recordings is probably their marginal and fragmentary character, the empty spaces—the moments in which the virtuoso solo never comes, in which the centre remains empty.« The six pieces on »Fuchs« are chock-full of exactly these moments. When at one instant, the players seem to disperse and improvise freely, they always meet again on common ground a short time later, continuing on their way together. There are no conventions or even previous agreements that guide them, just a shared will to explore a vast range of curious sounds and unusual rhythms together as a truly unified constellation of very different musicians. Fuchs is a band that never was. Its ideas still reverberate vividly even 17 years later.
Unrestrained by notions of style or genre, there is a distinct air of freedom that permeates Picture Music, the new project from André Bratten. On what is his fifth album, the electronic visionary didn't enter the studio with the notion of making a particular type of record. Conversely, it was viewed as an opportunity to simply create - to let the music take over and guide the journey. Bringing together sparse strings, meditative synths, lingering piano chords and fleeting field recordings, the result is a collection of captivating sonic vignettes - deftly assembled into something profound and endearing. Eschewing the darker, more abrasive elements of most recent LP Silvester, Picture Music features some of Bratten's most accessible and melodic music to date - a shift in outlook no doubt expedited by the isolation of multiple Covid-19 lockdowns. These minimalist compositions ruminate on how the past two years have forced people to reconsider the concept of "normal life", as well as the birth of Bratten's second child - an experience he describes as "like death in reverse". The album title is taken from a compilation on the legendary Sky Records, a label that has been an enduring source of inspiration for Bratten along with that of Klaus Schultze's Innovative Communication. But rather than mimicking the work of these electronic luminaries,Picture Music sees him forge his own path: one that uncovers beauty in the simplicities of everyday life. Norwegian electronic artist André Bratten released his debut album Be A Man You Ant on Prins Thomas' Full Pupp label in 2013. He has since released three albums on Smalltown Supersound, and more recently produced Cracks, the acclaimed project from avant-garde saxophonist Benedik Giske. On June 10th Bratten returns with fifth studio album Picture Music.
As Motorist, LA native Joe Rihn makes music which points in the direction of the soulful, jazz inflections of artists like Wax Doctor and Peshay. Time Is Now White Vol.20 pays testament to his dexterity in creating fully-immersive atmospheres, as well as his penchant for rhythmic experimentation.
The EP's smooth-as-silk opener 'Drip' typifies this, luring you in with the psychedelic-funk tones of wah-pedalled guitar plucks, and the instrumental quality of percussion which cruises along at half-time before Amen breaks pick up the pace. 'Balamb Garden' captures D'n'B's meditative potential, driven by a dynamic syncopation which swings beneath airy pads and piano tinkles before the harder-hitting raw club track 'Caldoria' brings the A-side to a storming close.
'Blast Route' picks things right back up again, together with 'Prism', which nod more to the hardcore proclivities of the likes of DJ Die with distorted drum breaks and warped basslines. 'Rover' strips things back once more, boasting Motorist's capacity for teasing out the slower, more mellow side of 160.
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The austrian musician and Live-Act / DJ Lukas Poellauer has been establishing a distinct production style with recent releases and remixes on Luv Shack Records, Fine Coincidence, Fortunea Records and Schönbrunner Perlen, melting classic house with airy, catchy melodies and mature songwriting.
“I Don’t Care” is the name of his first single for an upcoming release on Luv Shack Records and features the austrian funk Band Mary Jane´s Soundgarden and the piano player Valentin Zopp. The vastly featured musical talent of the Band makes the track oscillate between tight, club ready production and earthy, live-jazz café vibes, with the hazy voice of singer Tanja Peinsipp at its core.
For his second track Lukas Poellauer teams up with legendary singer Hubert Tubbs of "Tower of Power" fame. Tubb´s remarkable vocal timbre perfectly contrasts the light footed instrumental, as he sings about "When A Groove Is In Control". The actual groove itself is reduced and rather laid back, but Lukas Poellauer manages to bring in both dramatic and quirky overtones with a plethora of mallet, brass and string melodies.
On the flip, Patrick Pulsinger & Sam Irl deliver a fabulous dub rendition of “I Don’t Care” with a mad wobble bassline and classic reggae stabs, sitting comfortably between Grace Jones’ electronic tango and the hazy studio wizardry of dub emperor Lee Perry.
Luv Shack´s very own Space Echo put their spin on “When A Groove Is In Control”, opting for a cold and eerie vibe with the help of digital bell pads and a tight, stripped down four to the floor groove.
Rounding off the package, we have the Pulsinger & Irl Dub Instrumental which really makes the fantastic arrangement and mix shine even more.
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