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2022 re-press, 180g vinyl

A monumental force firmly rooted in the soul canon, Willie Hutch is most notable for recording two of the best Blaxploitation soundtracks, The Mack and Foxy Brown. Yet his legacy is much greater. Outside of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, Hutch was arguably Motown's top male solo artist of the 70s. Prior to his association with Gordy et al, Hutch crafted his opening statements for RCA, two vital LPs that Be With Records is honoured to present today.His debut, Soul Portrait (1969), is an incredible slice of gritty, Southern-fried soul. Think Stax with a touch of Detroit sparkle. As a whole, the album demonstrates the self-contained act Hutch was, he wrote every tune on the album while also arranging and conducting for it. It features 11 timeless grooves, with a blend of beat ballads and undeniable dancers.
The album's centrepiece is undoubtedly the iconic, brooding minor-key masterpiece "A Love That's Worth Having". The album's most recognisable track, it's a towering ballad drenched in stylish, sliding horns and elevated by its stunning backing vocalists. It was famously sampled by Madlib to augment his soundtrack for Stones Throw's Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton as well as 9th Wonder for the Murs classic "Dreamchaser". Whilst one can understand these iconic beatmakers for leaning on the work of a master, you really need to own the track in its full, unedited glory.
Horn-heavy opener "Ain't Gonna Stop" is a funk-fuelled monster, Hutch's fatback vocal aided by a vicious drum 'n' conga rhythm whilst the bumping uptown soul of "You Can't Miss Something That You Never Had" anticipates the Motown-vibe that Hutch went on to create. Supple guitar licks propel the loping, head-nod breaks of "Good To The Last Drop" whilst "That's What I Call Lovin' You" features gospel piano and plaintive, tender vocal turn. Rounding out Side A, the blazing horns of "You Gotta Try" hints at the Blaxploitation that was to come.Ushering in the flipside, the thundering proto-70s-Motown rhythm of "Let Me Give You The Love You Need" segues neatly into the bouncing Northern Soul favourite "Lucky To Be Loved By You" whilst Hutch's gutbucket guitar stylings are all over the smouldering "Keep On Doin' What You Do". "Your Love Keeps Liftin' Me Higher" is not a rendition of the Jackie Wilson classic, rather, it's a powerhouse original that indicates where Hutch would take his sound on The Mack. Closing the album, the anthemic "Do What You Wanna Do" name-checks contemporary dance fads before instructing the listener to just get up and dance.Brilliantly supported by a heavy roster of studio cats who combined to create a winning combination of horns, strings, and gorgeous female background vocalists, Soul Portrait is as complete a soul album as the decade's very best. Tricky to find for a number of years, this lovingly produced reissue is certainly welcome. Paired with the soaring follow-up, Season For Love, these recordings shine a new light on the early work of a soul legend. Officially licensed and remastered for vinyl by Simon Francis, it has been pressed on audiophile 180g vinyl for the first time and features the original artwork and liner notes.

"Moody Disco Vol. 1" finds Los Angeles disco/funk maestro, KCRW fave & rising TikTok star (250k followers for his "Interpolation" videos) LUXXURY aka Blake Robin exploring new disco directions.

Leading the EP, "Let's Stay Together” blends house and jazz-funk rhythms with his trademark dusty basslines, dreamy ‘70s keys, and minimal vocals. Next up, “Don't Give Up (I Believe in You)” is a fresh, funk-infused fusion of 'Forget Me Nots'-style Rhodes, infectious bass, dusty lo-fi beats and a simple, uplifting mantra-like vocal delivered by Robin in his gorgeous falsetto.

On the flip, "Two Hearts" revitalizes a familiar 80s Hi-NRG topline with a new chill-yet-funky instrumental. Rounding out the EP are two popular remixes never before released on vinyl, the upbeat piano house classic “Pleasure!” and Crackazat’s floor-filling take on “Hold On.” Moody though it may be, the EP is a gimmer of hope near the end of a dark period.


DJ Support:

Purple Disco Machine, Polo & Pan, The Reflex, JKriv, KCRW

Das Label Crammed Discs stellt in einer weiteren Folge seiner Komponistenserie "Made To Measure" einen Soundtrack vor, den die Bands Tuxedomoon und Cult With No Name 2015 für die Dokumentation "Blue Velvet Revisited" geschrieben und eingespielt haben. Die Doku basiert auf Bildern, die der deutsche Filmemacher Peter Braatz auf Einladung von David Lynch 1985 am Set von "Blue Velvet" machte. Für den Soundtrack haben sich die englischen Elektronik- und Neue-Klassik-Band Cult With No Name und die legendären amerikanischen Post-Punk-Kammerpop-Pioniere Tuxedomoon zusammengetan. Im Ergebnis verschmelzen Elemente zeitgenössischer Klassik ("Lumberton") über Jazz ("So Fucking Suave") bis hin zu Ambient-Electronica ("Do It For Van Gogh") und Krautrock ("Jeffrey Nothing"). Außerdem mit dabei ist ein Pate moderner elektronischer Musik, der Brite John Foxx.

"In Vivo" is the result of the photographic work of Klavdij Sluban at the Fleury-Mérogis Young Offender Institution (France) from 1995 to 2016 Beds in addition to his work from Izalco prison, located in El Salvador, from 2008 [visiting rooms] connected to the music of Gareth Davis.

Gareth Davis is an artist, composer and musician living in Amsterdam. He plays clarinet(s), the result of a somewhat impulsive purchase whilst window shopping in Covent Garden, London, around ten years before the turn of the century. The serendipitous location of a rather wonderful (and equally important, rather cheap) second hand record shop less than 10m from the bus stop required for seven years of schooling, combined with delivering newspapers on a daily basis, lead to a somewhat eclectic, dusty and generally unclassified taste in music.

The result. Activity covering sonic art and contemporary classical music through rock, improvisation and noise with collaborations that have included the premiering of new written pieces by composers such as Bernhard Lang, Peter Ablinger, Toshio Hosokawa and Jonathan Harvey, soloist with orchestras including the SWR Symphonieorchester, Warsaw Philharmonic and Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, performances with groups and performers ranging from the Neue Vocalsolisten and Arditti Quartet through to improvisers Elliott Sharp and Frances Marie Uitti, electronic artists Robin Rimbaud and Merzbow and multimedia work with artists including Christian Marclay and Peter Greenaway.

"In Vivo" is his second solo release after to have recorded a bunch of collaborative albums with artists such as Scanner, Machinefabriek, Steven R. Smith, Kleefstra Brothers, Frances-Marie Uitti, Merzbow, Adain Baker, Duane Pitre and more...

Klavdij Sluban, winner of the European Publishers Award for Photography 2009, of the Leica Prize (2004) and of the Niépce Prize (2000), main French prize in photography, is a French photographer of Slovenian origin born in Paris in 1963.

He develops a rigorous and coherent body of work, nourished by literature, never inspired by immediate and sensational current affairs, making him one of the most interesting photographers of his generation. The Balkans, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, Central America, Russia, China and the Antarctic (first artistic mission in the Kerguelen islands) can be read as many successive steps of an in-depth study of a patient proximity to the encountered real.

His images have been shown in such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Rencontres d’Arles, the Museum of Photography in Helsinki, the Fine Arts Museum in Canton, the Musée Beaubourg, the Museum of Texas Tech University. His many books include East to East (published simultaneously by Actes Sud, Dewi Lewis, Petliti, Braus, Apeiron & Lunwerg with a text by Erri de Luca), Entre Parenthèses, (Photo Poche, Actes Sud), Transverses, (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) and Balkans -Transit, with a text by François Maspero (Seuil). Since 1995, Sluban has been photographing teenagers in jails. In each prison he organizes workshops with the young offenders to share his passion. First originated in France, in the prison of Fleury-Mérogis with support of Henri Cartier-Bresson during 7 years, as well as Marc Riboud and William Klein punctually. This commitment was pursued in the disciplinary camps of Eastern Europe –Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Latvia – and in the disciplinary centres of Moscow and St Petersburg as well as in Ireland. From 2007 to 2012, Sluban has been working in Central America with imprisoned youngsters belonging to maras (gangs) in Guatemala and Salvador. In 2015, he started photographing imprisoned teenagers in Brazil. In 2013, the musée Niépce showed a retrospective of K.Sluban’s work, After Darkness, 1995-2012. In 2015/16, he was awarded the Villa Kujoyama Residence in Kyoto, Japan. K.Sluban is member of national and international jurys, such as prix Niépce, prix de la Jeune Photographie de Niort, prix Leica, All About Photo…

NOW Music is delighted to introduce our new sub-brand ‘NOW Presents…’. This new series starts with ‘NOW Presents… The 1970s’, the first-ever NOW vinyl boxset featuring 5 LPs uniquely designed to reflect the era.

The boxset is a musical time capsule of the decade that saw so many different genres find chart success. Across its 74 tracks over 10 sides of vinyl, the massive hits sit alongside enduring classics from each year. The set not only includes 5 beautifully designed front covers on the individual albums (that slot into a rigid slip case), but also features track by track annotations with chart positions and facts about the artists and songs.

Each year, 1970-1979 is presented as 1 side of each LP… Kicking off with the iconic ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon & Garfunkel from the biggest selling album of the year, and of the decade. 1970 also includes Motown classics from Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, and the debut hit ‘I Want You Back’ from the Jackson 5.

1971 includes the seminal ‘What’s Going On’ from Marvin Gaye, alongside Elton John’s breakthrough – the timeless ‘Your Song’, Rod Stewart’s breakthrough ‘Maggie May’, and The Who’s defining rock anthem ‘Baba O’Riley’.

The charts in 1972 began to reflect the popularity of ‘Glam Rock’ – and ‘Virginia Plain’ by Roxy Music, and ‘Metal Guru’ by T. Rex are included, as is the David Bowie-produced ‘Perfect Day’ from Lou Reed.

‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ – one of the most beautiful songs, and vocals ever from Roberta Flack opens 1973’s side – and is joined by, amongst others, Billy Joel’s signature song ‘Piano Man’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’.

1974 celebrates Queen having their first Top 5 single with ‘Killer Queen’, and title tracks from two of the decades’ biggest selling albums: Paul McCartney & Wings with ‘Band On The Run’, and ‘Tubular Bells’ from Mike Oldfield.

John Lennon released ‘Imagine’ in 1971 – but it became a UK hit in 1975, and so, starts this side… and finds space for some of the year’s perfect pop from Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, David Essex, 10cc, and the biggest hit ‘Bye Bye Baby’ from Bay City Rollers, at the peak of their popularity.

ABBA enjoyed 7 UK Number 1’s in the 1970s, and their biggest was the enduringly popular ‘Dancing Queen’ which leads into 1976. Electric Light Orchestra had a huge hit with ‘Livin’ Thing’, as did Thin Lizzy with ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ – plus Joan Armatrading emerged with ‘Love And Affection’.

1977 saw Fleetwood Mac release their mega-selling album ‘Rumours’, and from it ‘Don’t Stop’ is here, as is Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ – one of the most influential dance tracks of all time – and one of 1977’s favourite TV stars, David Soul, enjoyed a #1 single with ‘Don’t Give Up On Us’.

With ‘Wuthering Heights’, Kate Bush not only had 4 weeks at number 1 in 1978, but became the first female artist to achieve this with a self-written song. The Jam, The Boomtown Rats and Siouxsie And The Banshees all found consistent success as Punk & New Wave established new chart stars.

1979 concludes the set and opens with the iconic ‘London Calling’ from The Clash, and includes two of the biggest bands of the era, The Police and Blondie. A couple of years later the first video played on MTV would be ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ from The Buggles – and it’s fitting that this is the final track on the collection, a #1 in late 1979 – it signposted the synth-pop wave that would define the early 80s…. (but that’s a different box set).

A live experience on its own! A never before released live recording from the Lady Soul ! On July 21 1970 Aretha Franklin made her appearance at the great Antibes Jazz Festival in the south of France. At the head of a twelve piece backing band, "Lady Soul" gave a great performance based on a fine set-list full of hits such as "You Send Me", "Dr. Feelgood", Spirit in the Dark and a couple of tributes to "British Pop", via two heartfelt renditions of the Stones's "Satisfaction" and the Beatles's "Eleanor Rigby".

Aretha Franklin (Piano, Vocals)
Donald Towns, John Wilson, Charles Horse & Clay Robinson (Trumpet)
Chancey Outcalt & René Pitts (Trombone)
Louis Barnett, Miller Brisker, Donald Walden & Charlie Gabriel (Saxophone)
Truman Thomas (Organ)
Ted Sheely (Piano)
Leslie Harvey (Guitar)
Melvin Jackson (Bass)
Hindel Butts (Drums)
Evelyn Green, Almeta Latimer & Wyline Ivy (Backing Vocals)

Bukkha finally lands on LoDubs after over a decade of false starts and missed signals, and it's with a release he seemingly read our minds about wanting: A riddim album featuring some of the best toasting and instrumental performances yet on a release of its kind, rubbing it up with the likes of Dandelion of early Hyperdub renown, Jane Bee (the Ragga Queen of Germany) toasting in unison with fellow Jahtari Alumnus Roger Robinson, and Sarah Tobias, the current keeper of that classic Ska / Rocksteady / Roots Sax tone. Truly a melding pot of Roots-Centric sounds!

DJ Support From: O.B.F, Channel One Soundsystem + more

Editions Mego is proud to welcome Powell to its roster with a bizarre and strangely emotive new LP of synthetic computer works entitled Piano Music 1-7.

Via his own Diagonal Records imprint, his work on XL Recordings and, most recently, the opening of audio/film platform A Folder afolder.studio, Powell has firm footing in the contemporary electronic landscape. During a wry and obstinate musical life he has twisted myriad synthetic forms into shapes that explore and expand upon the districts of post-punk, techno, noise + computer music, and in the the last year alone he has released four albums of hi-def abstractions, each inspired by a formalisation of music proposed by Iannis Xenakis.

As an extension of this intense period of work/research/play with stochastic functions using probabilities to compose music, various processes emerged that Powell then began to apply to more traditional musical events. Where ordinarily in his work the probabilities and relationships are used to define parameters such as wave-shape, folding, FM, filter modes etc., he now began to use them to create musical formations and visual scores that could be played back using any software/MIDI instrument one of these can be seen on the rear cover of the LP release. While mapping out this cartography of relations, he used a basic Grand Steinway sampler as a placeholder instrument; the longer the process went on, though, the more he began to embrace the acoustic properties of the synthetic piano and make it the bedrock for this new constellation of work.

Piano Music 1-7, subtitled 'Music for Synthetic Piano and Assorted Electronics', consists of seven different synthetic islands strung together into a single composition. All were composed using the aforementioned processes that allowed Powell to play a piano, even if he never learned to do so with his hands. After all, 'In writing electronic music,' Robin Mackay once wrote, 'you also have to direct the invention of new tools.'

At times the piano skips gleefully over shadowing synthesis, whilst at others the synthetic sheets swarm and envelope the keys. The interplay between the two create a fantastical alternate reality, a cosmic machine in which time is eroded, shrunk and expanded, like a wax upon which operations and relations are inscribed or engraved. Many of the pieces express a playfulness or optimism verging on vitalism, as bundles of piano notes dance and interpolate with a never-repeating range of electronic gestures. The feel is of a brightly coloured flower-bed in various stage of bloom. This interplay of the artifical acoustic and the electronic builds on the pioneering processes developed by David Behrman in works such as Leapday Night, and Piano Music 1-7 could also be posited as a modern take on Conlon Nancarrow's investigations for player piano. Similarly, the razor-sharp sonic properties and unfolding of non-human events recall the computer works of Xenakis and the surgical precision of Mego mainstay Florian Hecker.

Recorded in late 2020, these new Powell works propose not just a bold and bright vision of electronic music but serve also as a map with which, for 35 minutes at least, we can navigate our way out of the current milieu. As the artist himself remarks in the sleeve-notes, '. . . What emerged from this fog or soup for me were ideas and processes that felt affirmative and life giving — sensations I had always hoped to convey in my music. Perhaps the optimism or positivity I felt at these musical events unfolding, these clusters and knots tumbling in different directions across time, can also be felt by you.'

Breathe captures the Hammond B-3 organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith during his 75th birthday run at the Jazz Standard in NYC in 2017, the same week he recorded his acclaimed trio album All In My Mind. On this night the good doctor took the stage with an expanded line-up featuring Jonathan Kreisberg on guitar, Johnathan Blake on drums, John Ellis on tenor saxophone, Jason Marshall on baritone saxophone, Sean Jones on trumpet, and Robin Eubanks on trombone. Two additional studio tracks that open and close the album present the unique collaboration between Doc and Iggy Pop including a sublime cover of Donovan’s 1966 hit “Sunshine Superman.”

Founded by the pianist Robin Notte (from the former electro-jazz band WISE) Panam Panic is one of the best Jazz-Groove french band. Influenced by Musician like Yussef Dayes, Robert Glasper, Roy Hargrove or Christian Scott, Panam Panic mix up Jazz with groove, Hip hop and electronic textures. Love Of Humanity is their last album.
Robin Notte's gamble is to create a Jazz which is sufficiently sophisticated to delight the most demanding experts, yet also accessible enough to initiate neophytes.
As such, Panam Panic defends a resolutely actual Jazz, open with no borders or blinders, combining powerful organic grooves with tidy melodies, delicate harmonies and frenzied solos.

Opera Multi Steel was born during the winter of 1983 in Bourges, a city in the center of France. The band started off as a trio with Franck Lopez (Vocals, Keyboards,Recorder, Guitars), his brother Patrick L. Robin (Vocals, Percussion) and Catherine M. Marie (Keyboards, Vocals). They began to record demos utilizing a Elex Keyboard, Casio VL-Tone, Roland TR-606 drum machine, guitars and bass pedals. Layering organ-like keyboards over drum machine snares and a woodwind recorder, they created a unique style of Medieval or Baroque synth pop.

The Berliners present an unusual live album that is a testimony of strange times: their Phanerozoic concept album performed live in its entirety at a time when no shows were happening anywhere in the world. 3 LPs / 2 CDs plus DVD and access to HD video download and streaming. Phanerozoic I was streamed live from Pier 2, a big hall in the port of Bremen, on March 25, 2021. Phanerozoic II, recorded at "Die Mühle" studio, aired on April 16, 2021 as part of the digital edition of Roadburn Festival, this year abtly named Roadburn Redux. Both shows couldn't have been more different: where the first part boasts with a pompous, mesmerizing lighting production on a big stage, the 2nd part is quite the opposite: intimate, almost cosy, focused on musicianship rather than performance. A stripped down setup in a dark barn, with moody, minimal but not any less efficient lighting. "We wanted to give people 2 totally different experiences", says band leader Robin Staps. "In Bremen, we had the chance to record a proper Ocean live show, the way people know us. We played facing towards the front of the stage, to an invisible crowd, essentially to a huge empty room_ but we knew people were watching, even if we didn't see them. There was the same rush of adrenaline right before going on stage as you get before going on at any big open air festival_ maybe with a little extra anxiety added, because knowing that so many people are watching you without being able to see them yourself was super weird." This release is yet another master class of record packaging from Norwegian artist and long term friend and collaborator, Martin Kvamme: the trifold is made from thick, rough and incredibly fibrous cardboard, adorned with a filigrane copper foil embossing of a bitmapped live fotography from the Bremen event. It contains 3 vinyl records in printed inner sleeves or 2 CDs, plus a DVD and a concert ticket with a streaming and HD video download link to both concerts.

A new LP collection of incredible performances by the virtuosa of theremin, Clara Rockmore, accompanied by her sister Nadia Reisenberg on piano.

160 gram vinyl comes in old school tip-on jacket and includes an 8-page full-size booklet of interviews, photos, and insights with Clara Rockmore, Nadia Reisenberg, Robert Moog, and more.

Recorded in 1975 and never before released on vinyl, this compendium features stellar performances of compositions by Bach, Chopin, Schubert, Gershwin and more, and even features a cello ensemble on a few songs!

Some of the finest examples of Clara Rockmore’s unrivaled art - rich with bittersweet moments of air, electricity, human grace and emotional composition all merging into some new thing that is transcendent of time.

Paul Gilbert have announced the release of a new seasonal offering titled 'TWAS. Gilbert’s 17th solo album features a dozen recordings, two of which are new, original compositions.

Gilbert shares, “Many will agree that in recent times, challenging events have been pouring down upon our heads like an Exploding Waterfall of Molasses. At least it sometimes feels like that to me. But while I was jamming Christmas songs with my friends, playing an assortment of red, green, and white Ibanez electric guitars, I felt like life was THE BEST. I hope that this music can put a smile on your face as well. Merry Christmas to all. And to all, a good night.”

The track listing features “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” “Frosty The Snowman,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “The Christmas Song,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “I Saw Three Ships,” “Every Christmas Has Love” (original), “Three Stings For Christmas” (original), “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” and “Winter Wonderland.” On the Japanese release of ‘Twas The Guitar Before Christmas, there will be a bonus track titled “Down the Chimney Blues” (original).

Gilbert offers, “Ten of the songs are classics. I was inspired by the Christmas recordings of Nat King Cole, Loretta Lynn, Stevie Wonder, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Ella Fitzgerald, and The Ventures. And of course, inspiration came from my guitar heroes, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Lifeson, Johnny Winter, Robin Trower, Frank Marino, Pat Travers, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page, to name a few. I also wrote some of my own new Christmas songs. As I have been doing recently, I begin with lyrics and a melody. Then I let my guitar take over, as it sings better than I do.”

Colorado songwriter Emily Scott Robinson beckons to those who are lost, lonely, or learning the hard way with American Siren, her first album for John Prine's Oh Boy Records. With hints of bluegrass, country, and folk, the eloquent collection shares her gift for storytelling through her pristine soprano and the perspective of her unconventional path into music. Though not fully autobiographical, American Siren gracefully blends imagined characters with meaningful people she’s encountered on her journey. Robinson grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and turned toward guitar at age 13, after a summer camp counselor closed out the nights by playing songs by Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, and Dar Williams every night. She taught herself to play in the early 2000s by printing guitar tabs from the internet and singing to CDs by Indigo Girls and James Taylor. But she didn’t pursue songwriting until after seeing Nanci Griffith perform in Greensboro in 2007. Robinson received significant acclaim for her 2019 album, Traveling Mercies.
Her long-held dream came true later that year when she sang on the Telluride Bluegrass Festival stage as the winner of the Telluride Troubadour Contest. A poignant standalone single in 2020, titled “The Time for Flowers,” prompted a private Instagram message from Oh Boy Records’ Jody Whelan, letting her know how meaningful the song was to his family. They struck up a fast friendship, then decided to partner for a release of American Siren. For her fans and for herself, this revealing collection proves that heeding the call to make music was the right decision.

Diving into the archives of Alter Ego - the Italian experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta - Die Schachtel is thrilled to present Microwaves, a never before released body of recordings of works composed by Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova, made with Pan Sonic (Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant-garde chamber and electronic music, the LP’s blistering structures, tones, and textures - plowing forward with frenetic energy - remain radical and ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape.

A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly anti-academic approach to music, over the course of its activities - running roughly between 1990 and 2010 - Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward thinking voices in experimental music, all the while collaborating widely with artists spanning a vast range of practices and disciplines, including Robin Rimbaud, Philip Jeck, Matmos, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Hooker, William Basinski, David Moss, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and near countless number of others.

Alter Ego’s diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer’s work. In 2004, this process led them to instigate a collaboration Pan Sonic, the Finnish duo of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen, pioneers of a remarkably distinct form of rhythmic, experimental electronic music, and regarded by many as one of the most visionary and irreverent projects working in the field during the '90s and 2000s.

Initially conceived with Fausto Romitelli in 2004 before being sidelined by the composer’s untimely passing the following year, Microwaves acts, in part, a remembrance in sound, featuring four works by some of his closest friends, the composers Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova. Each composition, Ingólfsson’s Snap, Verrando’s Harmonic Domains #3, Maresz’s Link, and Nova’s Thirteen13x8@Terror Generating Deity, have roots in a pallet of samples and fragments drawn by each composer from existing works by Pan Sonic. Upon completion, these compositions then entered into a collaborative process between Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (Pan Sonic) and Alter Ego (Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta), and were performed collectively by both groups during an extensive tour that year.

Distinct and free-standing, while operating as a seamless whole, the four works encountered across the album’s two sides - built from the sounds of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, electronics, and further treatments - present an engrossing intersection between electronic and acoustic sound that diverges from most standing conceptions of electroacoustic music. Each composer’s carefully rendered structures rise and fall within the startling, conversant interplay between the two groups, finding perfect balance - between the frenetic and restrained - in what can only be regarded as one of the most striking and singularly unique expressions of contemporary chamber music realized during the 2000s.

Vast in scope, visionary in concept and artistry, and sonically engrossing, Die Schachtel is thrilled to present these never before heard recordings from the archives of Alter Ego. Microwaves is available on black vinyl, in a limited edition of 350 copies.

Diving into the archives of Alter Ego - the experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, Fulvia Ricevuto, and Eugenio Vatta - Die Schachtel is thrilled to present Pranam - A(Round) Giacinto Scelsi, a never before released body of recordings interpreting the works of the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, made with Matmos (Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant-garde chamber and electronic music - moving at a glacial pace of tightly wound energy - Pranam’s two sides radically rethink the terms electroacoustic music in ways that still feel radically ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape.

A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly anti-academic approach to music, over the course of its activities - running roughly between 1990 and 2010 - Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward thinking voices in experimental music, all the while collaborating widely with artists spanning a vast range of practices and disciplines, including Robin Rimbaud, Philip Jeck, Pan Sonic, Matmos, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Hooker, William Basinski, David Moss, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and near countless number of others.

Alter Ego’s diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer’s work. In 2005, this process led them to invite Matmos, the American duo of Drew Daniel, Martin Schmidt - acclaimed for a body of visionary albums at the vanguard of electronic process and sampling - to collaborate on a series of interpretations of works by the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi.

Realized in collaboration with The Fondazione Isabella Scelsi, which holds Giacinto Scelsi’s archives, and performed at the Festival Roma Europa and the Festival Aeterforum during May of 2005, the album’s four works - Estratti dal Quartetto per archi n.3 (1963), Ko-Lho (1966), Riti: I Funerali di Carlo Magno A.D. 814 (1976), Aitsi (1974) - shift the boundaries of 20th Century chamber music toward markedly new and contemporary terms, incorporating everything from the sounds of the Revox tape machine that Scelsi used to record his own improvisations and processed electronics, to the plastic trumpets used by fans during football matches.

From intertwining, shifting lone-tones that render startling resonances and dissonances, to passages guided by a vast pallet of electronics and flurries of acoustic sounds, joined as a single ensemble, across the two sides of Pranam, Alter Ego and Matmos infuse these four works by Scelsi with humor and playfulness, while retaining all the urgency and rigour with which they were initially composed.

Delicate and meditative, while tightly wound and brooding, Pranam brings the works of Giacinto Scelsi to life in ways that almost no group ever has. Riveting and immersive from start to finish, Die Schachtel is thrilled to present these never before heard recordings from the archives of Alter Ego. Pranam is available on black vinyl, in a limited edition of 350 copies.

Die überaus erfolgreiche 3 CD-Box “50 Jukebox Hits“ gibt es
jetzt endlich für alle Analog-Liebhaber auf Vinyl. Auch die dritte Ausgabe liefert wieder 20 Hits von original Interpreten aus den 50er Jahren. Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Ricky Nelson,
Bill Haley, Chuck Berry lassen mit ihren zeitlosen und
unvergessenen Hits die Zeit der Tanzcafes, Petticoats noch
einmal aufleben.

Over nearly 20 years, Howlin Rain may have become the quintessential independent American rock ’n roll band: a steam-spitting Hydra of cranked guitars, kicking asphalt dust through a kaleidoscoping travelogue of desert motels and dives, volleying forth transmissions of sci-fi poetry from the blacktop veins of this cracked and aching country.

Now, in America 2021, capping these strangest and sorest of times, the band returns with The Dharma Wheel, a six-track, 52-minute dive into a joyous fantasy realm of exaggerated present.

“I wanted The Dharma Wheel to be a portal from our everyday world, the one from which you stand on hard ground and hold the album in your hands and peer into the artwork, and into another universe,” says songwriter, guitarist and vocalist, Ethan Miller. “You enter into that universe with your eyes and ears and mind and take a ride through free-form meditation on these ideas — from big, fundamental concepts about our existence right down to the grease that rolls down the arm of a pulp novel killer as he eats a gas station hot dog in an old Dodge in an alleyway.”

Lyrically, Miller has completed his evolution into a mushroom-plucking Whitman of the West, singing outlandish tales in a topographic blend of Humbead’s Revised Map of the World and an inverted U.S. where downtrodden bodhisattvas roam the back streets and moonless country roads.

“Down in Florida swamps, run by nature’s law, standing in the water, Eden gone. Two men loading rifles, beasts making time, they shot a boy from an orange tree and watched the colored birds take flight, watch the colors as they soar and dive.” — ‘Under the Wheels.’

The band, Jeff McElroy (bass, backing vocals), Justin Smith (drums/percussion, backing vocals) and Dan Cervantes (guitar, backing vocals), again sounds hardwired into Miller’s vision, building tracks that swagger and sway in response to his verse. Lending a hand this time around is the legendary Scarlet Rivera (Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue) on violin, and the endlessly inventive Adam MacDougall (Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Circles Around the Sun) on keys.

Songs were shaped via the blast furnace of endless gigs, then recorded often mere hours after the band slipped the stage.

“The captured sonic fact about this record is that it’s the sound of a band that rehearsed this material a lot and put a ton of work into its construction and was on the road a lot and recorded on days off in the tour schedule,” Miller says. “In some cases we were on stage on Saturday night playing these songs at quarter-to-2 in the morning and by Noon the next day we were sipping coffee in the studio playing them for the machine.”

Rivera’s violin is the first sound heard as the album dawns on the instrumental “Prelude.” Soon, the band joins, twirling the theme into a psychedelicized awakening. “Don’t Let the Tears” brings the boogie, with MacDougall’s madcap synth work and wah-wah guitars showering 70’s glitter upon a parquet dance floor of the mind. “Under the Wheels” and “Rotoscope” center the album with taut, compositional epics populated by murdering drifters and fuzz pedal explosions. The blue hour comedown of “Annabelle” meditates upon the weariness of lost love, with Rivera again amping the heartache via her violin strings.

“In the evening the trains go by, and shake the dust from dirty walls, sometimes I feel like a spider in an old mason jar, who threatens only convex light from down the hall. I’ve been lost to the world since the photos of the black hole, landed on my desktop screaming, perhaps the all and nothing all-in-one is just too much to take, for particles and matter that never found their way.” — ‘Annabelle’

The record closes with the 16-minute title track, a multi-movement suite which cycles from Crazy Horse-meets-Traffic jams through colossal, mass-moving funk stomp, eventually cresting and washing into a sing-along gospel lament.

The Dharma Wheel is an album of great depth, and one steeped in good vibes: a rich, glistening world of the ultra-vivid. As illustrated in Arik Roper’s cover art, the grand dharmachakra has been set in motion, churning off the California coast.

“We were trying to build a world big enough that the imagination won’t go soft on you after just a few listens and where our love for this music, and music in general — along with a good dose of audacity — create a magic carpet ride through the world of The Dharma Wheel,” Miller continues. “In pursuing that I think we also managed to make a record that has a lot of joy in it: the joy of playing music, the joy of experiencing music, the joy of storytelling and poetry, the kind of singular joy and extended ecstatic moment that only a real ‘band’ can express in just that way.”

And it’s this joy, this exuberance and dedication to the lines of cosmic expression — all centered in the exalted art of the everyday — that constructs the heart of the record. At its core, The Dharma Wheel is the triumph of a working band, a transmission from a never-paused before arriving for our strange, bruised, spectacular now.”