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Most southern soul fans will tell you that that the music produced in Memphis in 1967 and 1968 was the pinnacle of quality. So following on from our look at the River City’s soul output in 1967, we now turn our attention to an album covering the next year. As before, the singers here are a heady mixture of local Tennessee talent and welcome soulful guests who journeyed down south hoping that a little of the famous Memphis magic would rub off on their songs. There are soul genres to suit all tastes here – from the deepest ballads to upbeat tracks that will rock your socks off. Soul doesn’t get much better than the artists and their tunes on this LP!

Blues And The Abstract Truth is Oliver Nelson’s triumph. Featuring his all-time classic ‘Stolen Moments’, Nelson assembled one of the most potent modern jazz sextets ever. Lead trumpeter Freddie Hubbard is at his peak of performance, while alto saxophonists Nelson and Eric Dolphy (Nelson doubling on tenor) team to form an unlikely union that was simmered to perfection. Bill Evans (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Roy Haynes (drums) can do no wrong as a rhythm section. Verve’s Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging.

Charles Mingus brought together an amazing lineup spanning the totality of the nation's jazz scene with such luminaries as Eric Dolphy, Buddy Collette, Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Grady Tate, and more. Brought together to perform new Mingus compositions for the first time in public, the recording was initially considered weak due to limited rehearsal time but the years have been kind to this recording and it's a fantastic set of Mingus compositions, including the powerful "Freedom" which rivals the works on Mingus Ah-Um (1959) for its strength of purpose and message, in a similar vein to Max Roach's legendary We Insist! album (1960). Mingus is one of the most important figures in 20th century music and this live recording documents his compositional and arranging process as well as sheer swinging joy.

EASYGOING PORTRAIT OF DOWN-HOME SOUL SINGER COMING INTO HIS OWN AND ESTABLISHING AN INDELIBLE BOND BETWEEN PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE
1/4" / 15 IPS / Dolby A analogue master to DSD 64 to analogue console to lathe


On par with the most treasured concert albums of the 60s and 70s, Bill Withers' transformative Live at Carnegie Hall is a forgotten classic – an easygoing portrait of a down-home soul artist coming into his own in front of an audience eager to share every moment of his brilliance. Soothing with subtlety, charming with calmness, and healing with a vocal timbre as relaxing as his grooves, Withers uses the stage to expand the range of favorites and engage in dialog with the crowd. Distinguished with sonics that restore the performances' balance and improve the sound-staging, this reissue takes you inside the venue.

Moreover, aspects that really make this concert document unique – the energetic crowd, Withers and his band's willingness to extend arrangements, and the undeniable communicative bond between the performer and his fans – are brought into fuller relief. While most live albums give you the sense of what transpired, our reissue allows it to seem that what you're hearing and sensing is happening right now, in the moment. You are as much a participant as listener. For this reason and more, Live at Carnegie Hall ranks with James Brown's Live at the Apollo and B.B. King's Live at the Regal. No small claims, but the proof is in the grooves.

The antithesis of the sweaty R&B shouter that prowls the edge of stages, Withers deals in mellowness and vulnerability, qualities that come to fore. The songs here span soul, blues, and folk and often times, contain elements of all three styles. Live at Carnegie Hall also deals with serious subject matter with unflinching honesty and simple directness. Companionship, poverty, war, maturity, family, and love all crop up within Withers' tunes, yet the messages are never overly cumbersome or preachy. Credit goes to his easygoing style and relatable lyrics, not to mention a tight-as-a-vice band that on this night is simply "on."


"One more time?" Withers asks in response to a request for another stanza during "Use Me," and like the snap of fingers, his musicians are right back on cue, the crowd clapping along on every beat. This classic, as well as the instantly familiar "Ain't No Sunshine," poignant "Grandma's Hands," and all-time favorite "Lean On Me" are delivered with utmost soulfulness, passion, and electricity. Few, if any, live albums demonstrate such a bond between the crowd and artist as Live at Carnegie Hall. You'll definitely want to be there.

SOURCED FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES: 2LP SET PRESENTS 1991 ALBUM IN 45RPM SPEED FOR FIRST TIME.

PCM Digital Master to Analog Console to Lathe.

Dire Straits never made a big to-do about its final run. In classic understated British fashion, the band simply let its music speak for itself. And how. Originally released in September 1991, On Every Street became the group’s swan song – a lasting testament to the influence, musicianship, and integrity of an ensemble whose merit has never been tainted by cash-grab reunions or farewell treks. It remains an essential part of the Dire Straits catalog and a blueprint of the distinctive U.K. roots rock the collective played for its 15-year career.

Sourced from the original master tapes, housed in gatefold packaging, and pressed at RTI, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 45RPM 2LP set of On Every Street presents the album like it has always been meant to be experienced: in reference-grade audiophile sound. Recorded at AIR Studios in London and produced by Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler, it features all of the band’s sonic hallmarks – wide instrumental separation, visceral textures, seemingly limitless air, broad soundstages, atmospherics that you can almost reach out and feel. Each element is made more vibrant, physical, and lifelike on this collectible reissue, which marks the first time this 60-minute work has been available at 45RPM speed.

Afforded generous groove space and black backgrounds, the songs from On Every Street burst with nuanced details and vibrant colors. Dire Straits’ playing appears to float, their intricate performances organized amid hypnotic, fluid, three-dimensional arrangements. Mobile Fidelity’s definitive-sounding set also brings into transparent view Knopfler’s finely sculpted guitar lines, expressive tones, and laid-back vocals – as well as the balanced accompaniment from his band mates. Here’s a record on which you can hear the full blossom and decay of individual notes, and imagine the size and shape of the studio. It is in every regard a demonstration disc. And it happens to be filled with timeless fare.

Remarkably, On Every Street almost never came to light. Dire Straits initially dissolved in September 1988 after touring behind its blockbuster Brothers in Arms and suffering the departure of two members. At the time, Knopfler professed his desire to work on solo material; bassist John Illsley also explored side projects. But Knopfler’s decision in 1989 to form the country-leaning Notting Hillbillies reignited a spark to reconvene his primary band and craft a fresh batch of songs. Six years removed from Brothers in Arms, Knopfler, Illsley, keyboardist Alan Clark, and keyboardist Guy Fletcher teamed with A-list session pros – steel guitarist Paul Franklin, percussionist Danny Cummings, saxophonist Chris White, guitarist Phil Palmer included – to create what still stands as an unforgettable farewell.

The platinum record brings the band full circle in that it returns Dire Straits to a quartet formation; finds the group refreshingly out of step with the era’s prevailing trends; and sees Knopfler and Co. knocking out song after song with the deceptive ease of a punter tossing back a pint at a pub. That subtle cool, clever poise, and innate control – signature traits that no other band ever matched – dominate On Every Street. Knopfler’s clean, virtuosic six-string escapades unfurl with dizzying melodicism and economical efficiency. Led by his winding fills and focused solos, Dire Straits traverse a hybrid landscape of rock, jazz, country, boogie, blues, and pop strains with near-faultless prowess.

More than any other entry in the group’s oeuvre, On Every Street welcomes quick detours down back alleys and into the depths of human souls. What makes it more brilliant is its staunch refusal to cater to commercial expectations or take advantage of prior successes; every passage feels true, every measure echoed in the service of song. It’s evident in the humorous satire of “Heavy Fuel,” closeted desperation of the witty “Calling Elvis,” and shake-and-bake bounce of “The Bug.” It pours from the album’s darker corners, as on the high-and-lonesome melancholy of the title track and bruised emotionalism of “When It Comes to You.”

Hinting at the open-minded approaches and boundless curiosity he’d embrace as a solo artist, Knopfler doesn’t limit himself when it comes to style or subject matter. Look no further than “You and Your Friend,” a shuffle whose all-inclusive lyrics encourage an array of interpretative meanings. Another of the album’s deep cuts, “Iron Hand,” comes on as one of the band’s most memorable moments – the narrative addressing the abuses of power at the 1984 Battle of Orgreave during the U.K. miners’ strike. Given cinematic heft by the expert production, the true-fiction account puts into perspective the richness, poetry, and depth of On Every Street.

“Every victory has a taste that’s bittersweet,” sings Knopfler on the title track. At least that bittersweetness seldom sounded so damn good on record.

Northern Minimalism 3, the latest album from Mat Handley performing as Pulselovers, is a deeply personal “love letter to South Yorkshire, or at least to Doncaster and Sheffield”, not just the urban environment but the region’s post-punk and electronic-pop legacies.

Inspired by the concept of spreading a project over multiple formats taken from Virgin Prunes’ ‘A New Form of Beauty’, this is the first full album in Pulselovers’ on-going ‘Northern Minimalism’ series following a 7” and 10” release on other labels over the past few years.

Taking a different approach than the rurally-inspired ‘Cotswold Stone’ album, ‘Northern Minimalism 3’ delivers a sprawling, genre-hopping release that is less focused on melody but explores suburban drones and industrial rhythms.

“The term “Northern Minimalism” was coined by Simon Berkovitz of Sensory Leakage, who released my “Live at Doncaster College” tape in 2020,” adds Handley.

“I loved the description and wanted to use it to pay tribute to the early electronic and post-punk sounds I was listening to in the first two or three years of the 1980s, particularly The Human League (mk1), Cabaret Voltaire, John McGeoch (Magazine) and Eric Random.”

Trailblazing instrumental synth pop experiments created to soundtrack Japan’s booming 1980s cartoon and comic industries. The brightly futuristic instrumentals on this collection reflect the mindset of composers and musicians who believed in a technological future where everything was possible.

In the late 1980s Japan experienced a brief but heady period where societal changes combined with new-found wealth to open up a world of possibilities. A huge influx of cash - artificially created by slashed interest rates after an agreement with the US to weaken the dollar relative to the yen - resulted in the inflation of real estate and stock market at a rapid pace. While the economic bubble it created was unprecedented and impossible to sustain, for a while money was in plentiful supply.

The musical genre City Pop reflected the aspirations of the country’s booming leisure class. Video games flourished with Nintendo's 1983 launch of their Family Computer (or FamiCom). Studio Ghibli was founded 1985 to later became one of the most famous and respected animation studios in the world, and Anime and Manga were established as major forms of entertainment for all generations of the Japanese public.

Music was no mere footnote to the anime and manga boom: the two forms of media often went hand in hand, and not simply through the presence of background melodies. With generous budgets available, even two-dimensional static manga comics could be released with an accompanying soundtrack of original music known as an ‘Image Album’.

Composer and arranger Kazuhiko Izu was one such beneficiary of this open budget approach. Written to accompany artist Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga comic Domu, the composer and arranger took advantage of the world-leading (and wallet-busting) Japanese synthesiser technology available at King Records’ fully equipped studio. Featured on this compilation, A3: Act 2 Scene 26 reflected the story’s sci fi themes with a blazingly futuristic yet warmly funky slice of synth pop that presents a joyful celebration of synthesisers and their seemingly endless possibilities.

Kan Ogasawara was another composer who made early mastery of the litany of synthesisers, drum machines and sequencers that had become available. Two tracks written to accompany the 1985 period manga Yume No Ishibumi are featured here; Honowo’s experimental electronic textures add spice to a jaunty electro pop melody that recalls the Rah band’s 1983 hit Messages From Stars; the jazz-tinged Utage rounds out Ogasawara’s shimmering synth textures with beautifully crafted backing from legendary musicians Yuji Toriyama (guitar), Pecker (percussion) and Jun Fukamachi (piano).

Before becoming one of the pioneers of Japanese Kankyo Ongaku (Ambient Music), Takashi Kokubo worked on the proto techno track Kiki (Jungle At Night). It was put together for the 1984 anime film Shonen Keniya (Kenya Boy) using some of the most expensive music technologies available at the time. This Africa-Inspired dance track offers a contemporary parallel to the early techno music that young Detroit based producers were then creating using cheap Japanese Roland drum machines and synthesisers.

This is the first compilation of Japanese anime and manga soundtracks curated by Kay Suzuki and Rintaro Sekizuka from Vinyl Delivery Service (a Tokyo based online record shop which also operates in East London's renowned wine and hifi shop Idle Moments). With a cover by artist Kazuki Takakura and two pages of liner notes, this vinyl only compilation of music never before released outside of Japan, captures a vital aural snapshot of an era whose forward-thinking sounds went hand in hand with cutting edge technology.

Since the release of Foodman’s debut album Shokuhin in 2012, the music of this Japanese artist has found ever larger audiences, developing along its own inimitable path, as heard on a growing pile of albums and single releases, as well as at concerts all around the world. Now, more than ten years later, it is worth going back to the fascinating beginning, which sounds as refreshingly weird today as it did back then. While Foodman’s music has often been described as a sort of lopsided relative of the Chicago-based footwork, it doesn’t really resemble anything else, and this idiosyncratic approach was evident right from the start. Here, by being cut and diced into strange rhythmic structures, samples gain a dreamlike life of their own, simultaneously alien and charming, and without any resemblance to the real world from which they came. With this re-release of Shokuhin, the album is not only being reintroduced to new Foodman fans, it is also being released on LP for the first time, in a collaboration between Orange Milk and the new label Xtroplast, which is focusing on vinyl releases of electronic music hitherto not available on that format.

Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series)
Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records!
Bad Company's eponymous 1974 debut featuring "Ready for Love"
180-gram 45 RPM double LP
Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings and RTI
Tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing

From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, the English hard rock supergroup fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also managed Bad Company until 1982.

The group's eponymous 1974 album debut decidedly proves the band is proudly not progressive — the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing "Seagull" — reducing their rock 'n' roll to a strong, heavy crunch; compare "Ready for Love," a tune Ralphs brought over from Mott the Hoople, to the original to see how these quartet members keep their heads down as they do their business. Appropriately enough given their name, there's a sense of slow, churning menace to Bad Company, writes AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine.

Their first three albums, Bad Company (1974), Straight Shooter (1975), and Run with the Pack (1976), reached the Top Five in the album charts in both the U.K. and the U.S.. Many of their singles and songs, such as "Bad Company," "Can't Get Enough," "Good Lovin' Gone Bad," "Feel Like Makin' Love," "Ready for Love," "Shooting Star," and "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy," remain staples of classic rock radio. They have sold 20 million RIAA-certified albums in the U.S. and 40 millon worldwide.

The self-titled debut album was recorded at Headley Grange, Hampshire, in Ronnie Lane's Mobile Studio. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the U.S, and No. 3 on the U.K. Albums Chart, spending 25 weeks on the U.K. charts. The album has been certified five times platinum in the U.S., and became the 46th-best-selling album of the 1970s. The singles "Can't Get Enough" and "Movin' On" reached No. 5 and No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 10.

All the hallmarks of a top-notch Analogue Productions reissue are here for your pleasure: Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and cut at 45 RPM. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings and RTI, and housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

Hot Apple Band’s long-awaited debut album, So Long, Noodle House is a collection of 11 tracks recorded between 2019-2022, mostly at Jack Kinder’s home studio in Strathfield, Sydney. Once the pandemic hit, Jack and Lewis Mosley had ample time to give birth to the songs, allowing for this body of work so it could become all that it deserved to be. The resulting album will no doubt please long-time fans, with a number of songs being staples from the band’s live repertoire. So Long, Noodle House is symbolic sign-off on the band’s past and an exciting peek into what’s to come. The record covers broad ground, from 70s imbued alt-country and catchy Beatles-era pop, through to emotive folk and soft rock. Coming-of-age themes run deep in the album, as Jack Kinder's lyrics touch on life changes, friendship, shitty jobs and of course, love. With Kinder's smooth vocals, clever arrangements and gorgeous vintage production, and Lewis Mosley’s unforgettable lead guitar, slide and keyboard performance, Hot Apple Band’s debut has the same charm of some of the best records from the early 1970s, radiating George Harrison, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Harry Nilsson and Fanny in a similar style to modern counterparts such as Drugdealer, Weyes Blood, Daniel Romano and The Lemon Twigs.

A real soul gem from 1970 on the James Brown affiliated Deluxe label, the first and only album by this mysterious singer: Marie Queenie Lyons.
It is perhaps apropos that Queenie Marie Lyons’s best known song is titled ‘See And Don’t See.’ For all the acclaim that song has accrued, and all the times it has been compiled, reissued and, yes, bootlegged — for all the times it has been seen — Queenie herself has somehow remained unseen. How did a singer from Ashtabula, Ohio record one of the great female-led soul albums and then simply fall off the map, never to record or perform again? Queenie was a natural performer and a gifted singer. At the age of fifteen, she was doing three shows a week at a local venue. In early 1962, Queenie moved to Queens and was soon playing gigs across the city — an early engagement was with Gene Krupa at the famous Metropole Café in Times Square — as well as touring with established acts like Fats Domino and Ray Charles. The following year, Queenie made her debut recording, for a subsidiary of RCA called Groove, credited to an entirely fictitious “Shelley Shoop and the Shakers.” It remained Queenie’s only presence on wax until early 1968, when a Nashville-based label called Sims gave her her first accurately attributed single, “A Minute Of His Goodtime / Good Soul Lovin’.” Although the 45 is now a highly collectible part of the Northern Soul and Lowrider Oldies pantheons, it made no impact at the time, as Sims was focused on more typical Nashville sounds. A few months later Queenie was back in New York City, performing R&B and pop covers with her band when a man passed her his business card at a performance. The card read James Brown Enterprises. James Brown “was my idol,” she says, and someone whose business acumen and stage presence she strove to emulate. Although Queenie ended up on tour with James Brown for only a month or so, when the group reached Cincinnati in mid-’68 she entered the King Records studio there to record what would become the
album you hold in your hands. The songs were a combination of covers, some of which she’d been doing in her live shows, like ‘Fever’ and ‘Try Me,’ and originals written by producer Henry Glover and pianist Don Pullen, who was the bandleader on the session. The album opener, ‘See And Don’t See,’ was also recorded by the veteran R&B singer Maxine Brown, but Queenie’s version blows hers away. “Soul Fever” is a supremely funky and soulful affair, with Queenie’s powerful and captivating voice magnetically attractive, with an urgency that is impossible to ignore. ‘Your Thing Ain’t No Good Without My Thing,’ ‘Your Key Don’t Fit It Anymore,’ and ‘I Don’t Want Nobody To Have It But You’ are as funky and soulful as the best of Tina Turner and Aretha — a statement not to be made lightly!
The album was critically acclaimed — the October 10, 1970, issue of Billboard listed it as their sole “four star” pick in the Soul category — but perhaps due to the tumult at Starday-King, whose stewardship had turned over several times in only a few years, it never seemed to be able to break through to a larger audience.

Muireann Bradley is a young blues, ragtime, roots and folk guitarist and singer based in Ballybofey in County Donegal Ireland. “This is my first album. Most of these tunes were originally recorded by the great blues men and women who were making records from the 1920s and 1930s right up in some cases to the early 1970s. I have also found inspiration for the renditions recorded here in the playing of some of the musicians who began recording this music in the 1960s and later, and who in some cases learned at the feet of the greats. Many of these guitarists played pivotal roles in the 1960s blues revival and subsequent “rediscovery” of many of the greats of country blues. I grew up steeped in these old blues in the hills overlooking the valley of the River Finn just outside the town of Ballybofey in County Donegal. My father would play this music constantly at home and wherever we went in the car and talk about it endlessly whether anyone was listening or not, telling stories about the lives of these musicians as if they were legend, mythology or the evening news. My father could of course play all this stuff on guitar, I remember watching him when I was very young and thinking “I want to be able to do that”. When I was nine he agreed to teach me and bought me my first little travel guitar. I worked hard to learn how to play but as time wore on I seemed to have less and less time to practice as I became more and more invested in the combat sports I was regularly training and competing in. Then in March 2020 the first Covid lockdowns happened and all contact sports were shut down. I was lost for a while but soon found my way back to the guitar. I was now listening, playing and practicing with a new intensity and focus. In a very serious moment, I wrote out a list of tunes I was going to learn. The first tune on that list was Blind Blake’s “Police Dog Blues”. I’m not sure now how long it took to get that arrangement together but when it was ready we videoed me performing it and posted it on YouTube. It ended up getting a lot of attention, I remember my parents being quite shocked and soon after that Josh Rosenthal got in touch… and here we are! Each individual track on this album was recorded live in the studio and represents one entire take with me singing and backing myself up on guitar simultaneously. Most are either first or second takes. Nothing has been added or taken away, no overdubs or modern recording tricks of any kind have been used at all so at least in some respects this album has been recorded in the same way as those classics of the 1920s and 1930s

Reissue of this super hard to find self-released Brazilian garage-beat 7" from 1965. Still very unknown even among hardcore collectors of the genre, but surely an amazing example of genuine teenage garage rock from 60s Brazil reissued for the first time The band would later become Loyce e os Gnomos, a cult band featured on the compilation Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas. The reissue includes an insert with liner notes and a previously unseen photo of the band. Unearthing a forgotten chapter in Brazil's musical scene, Gatos Malucos emerges as an enigmatic garage/psychedelic band from the small city of Limera, in the Sao Paulo countryside. Comprising friends aged 14 to 16, Gatos Malucos combined their admiration for iconic acts like the Beatles and Yardbirds with an unmistakable Brazilian essence. Years later, two band members went on to form the amazing proto-punk band Loyce e os Gnomos. "I literally went crazy. I became a fanatic for the Beatles and proceeded on collecting everything related to them. Records, clothes, newspaper clippings and magazines and song lyrics. Even the Gretsch guitar, similar to the model that George Harrison played, I had the opportunity to pick up in the US. Then when the movies came up, it was pure bliss. The mood was set and, to assemble our band, it was a no brainer. After all, the music flowed harmoniously through our veins." Raphael (Gatos Malucos Guitarrist)

David Tattersall, the Wave Pictures guitarist and frontman releases a solo album of interpretations of John Fahey tunes, recorded live in the studio. "I have been a fan of John Fahey's music since I was very young; it has always been with me and I can't remember a time when I wasn't affected by it. It is weird music, and very good. Of course, Fahey is an important cult figure in the history of music: as the first man to find a language for steel string guitar that can stand proudly alongside the established tradition of nylon string classical guitar; as one of many men who rediscovered obscure old blues musicians and recorded them for a new generation in the 1960s; as one uniquely able to reconcile 20th century avant-garde music with folk tradition; as an early indie-label DIY pioneer. For me personally, Fahey went beyond technique, and to some extent beyond historical or intellectual justifications for his work. He explored his emotions through his instrument of choice, and in so doing made the case for the guitar as the ultimate conduit for emotional expression. While there are many imitators who try to play ''like Fahey'', I avoided using his fingerpicking style or sense of rhythm, and tried instead to use his music to explore my own emotions, my own dreams and memories. I was more interested in the lyrical and expressive aspects of Fahey's music than in the techniques of it. I tried to find myself within his compositions and without composing anything I feel that I have managed to make a David Tattersall record that says as much about me as any of the many albums that I have written. John Fahey's beautiful discography shows that the guitar can carry as much mystery and soul as the human voice, and simply put, I wanted in on a little of this action. This is my second all-instrumental solo acoustic album, and where this differs from my first attempt, Little Martha, is that here I improvised freely. I used Fahey's originals only as guides. I'm not sure what I was looking for, perhaps something beyond explanation, but I tried to be as free as possible, and I am delighted by the spontaneous results. Hopefully, they will make the listener feel happy and dreamy, just like the effect that Fahey's many albums have on me. One of the most important things that Fahey ever said was his advice to guitarists to try to feel the emotions that each chord they play on a guitar brings forth. He is telling guitarists to not only play the guitar, but to let the guitar play them. I did my best to follow this advice. I hope you enjoy listening to the album, that it brings you some dreamy moments, and that it sends you back to happily explore the originals. I had a great time recording it. Naturally, I can't put the experience adequately into words but that's the whole point. I think Fahey was a genius of the kind that creates a whole genre single-handedly. There could be thousands, millions, of reinterpretations of his compositions. In fact, there probably already are. And long may this continue. All tracks were recorded live with no tampering."

“Sono Stato Un Agente CIA” (1978), also known as “Covert Action”, is a twilight film directed by Romolo Guerrieri and set in Greece, starring David Janssen, in the role of a former Central Intelligence Agency agent who became a writer of incendiary books on prostitution and drug trafficking, flanked by Maurizio Merli, a colleague in possession of some compromising tapes, sentimentally linked to the romance novel character played by the seductive Corinne Cléry. The two are involved in a murky game: the stars and stripes secret services intend to eliminate those who could spread the dangerous content of the military plan designed to stem the advance of communism, to be implemented through the assassination of government officials.

It's not among the most famous crime stories. It's not even a real action movie. “Sono Stato Un Agente CIA” benefits, however, from the admirable compositional talent of Stelvio Cipriani. His soundtrack, released for the first time in full vinyl version, reveals an npredictable versatility. His 'classic' style expressed in the course of the scores for previous 'poliziotteschi' is enriched here with disco suggestions and Hellenic exoticisms. The writing on the staff of the Roman composer is effective and empathetic in commenting on every fold of the dark and violent story. A simple and catchy theme, even danceable. The atmospheric situations with guitars and synthesizers. Some funk echoes, tension peaks, melancholy notes. The constants of success.

The history of Black, Brown & Beige began on June 23, 1943, when Duke Ellington premiered this extended work at Carnegie Hall. It wasn't Ellington's first attempt to create an extended work, which was longer than a typical jazz song and more related to the classical forms than to popular music.
While the soundtrack he made for the short 1929 movie Black & Tan Fantasy included works from a number of previously recorded songs, it was presented in a kind of suite form, with the themes from these songs coming and going and presenting a dialogue with the images on screen. His 1931 Creole Rhapsody' was a composition that went beyond the usual three-and -a-half-minute duration of a standard 78 r.p.m disc, and thus had to be divided onto two sides. A few years later, in 1935, his Reminiscing in Tempo' would occupy four sides and had to be divided onto two discs.
However, those were never his best selling records, and the reception of his 1943 suite Black, Brown & Beige was cold at best. This is due to the fact that apart from being an ambitious extended composition, it was thematically related to racial issues regarding the history of Afro-American people. Most critics could not accept the idea of Ellington composing long musical works
and preferred to confine him to simple jazz songs (even though Ellington's songs were never simple).

System 108 resident Lipelis teams up with Carrot Green from Rio de Janeiro to create a dreamy, summer vibed EP simply dedicated to them both: Leo & Caito, with naming and artwork playfully inspired by Sertanejo genre standards.The duo emerged in early 2020 on the streets of Rio and started to jam same night in the studio of Carlos, who is affiliated with all cool gangs of the Brazilian dance scene. Just like on Lipelis's critically acclaimed Function As A Meaning EP (a System 108 instant classic by now!), things took off by themselves: intuitive sampling of chords taken from Brazilian gospel found some unexpected modular synth tweaking. For good!"Rolando Nascer do Sol" is THE track, that the duo is particularly proud of. In the words of Lipelis, who has once spinned it at Gop Tun carnival party, in a b2b set w/ Millos Kaiser - 'it produced an unforgettable euphoric effect".Having witnessed how all the tracks work on the dancefloors not only in Brazil, we are uber-excited to finally release this 4-track EP!