Backwards HHV Records 5 Items

Still shrink wrapped but opened. Includes original insert and bonus 7inch in VG+ condition.

Flag Of Breeze' marks a new adventurous collaboration between Nicola Giunta/Lay Llamas and Gioele Valenti/JuJu seven years after Lay Llamas' acclaimed album 'Ostro' released in 2014 by London-based label Rocket Recordings. This mini-LP is figured out like a sort of radio tuning listening session among FM stations and mysterious shortwaves transmissions. The tracks come out like from an hazy ethering dimension and then melting again with alien lo-fi sounds from the unknown. Luminous and peaceful psych pop melodies meet exotic and ritual percussions recalling a strange surfers tribe on the beach around a campfire. A cosmic kraut sonic trip through the solar system to reach a Vernesque underwater jungle. Here it talks about universal flags made of breeze, nocturnal burings, mixtures and potions for unknown fever, ancient sleeping plants. The album artwork is an esoteric maps of symbols and forms. The visual key of this sonic journey. Standard edition of 225 copies only. Silkcreened cover and two inserts.

A new MIKE COOPER release is always a great event, and we are proud to do it! Distant Songs of Madmen was recorded live in Palermo and was my solo set in a concert organised by Lelio Gianetti and Curva Minore which included my trio Truth In The Abstract Blues and Eugene Chadbourne. My set was free improvisation; some cover versions of folk and pop songs and some of my own songs. The title of the record and some of the improvised pieces were taken from Sam Shepard's writing. Sam, one of my favourite writers, has sadly died since I recorded this record and I dedicate it to his memory. Mike Cooper Available in a beautiful designed cover with an exclusive amazing artwork made by Italian artist Carla Indipendente. Comes with one insert. Mastered for vinyl by Brian Pyle (Ensemble Economique).

White Vinyl Edition.
Includes silkscreened tote bag and pin buttons.

"Storia Notturna" is a collection of music written, produced and recorded mainly in September 2021, but its origins go back in time. As far back as my University studies in the early 90s. For one of the many extra-departmental courses that my study plan in Philosophy allowed, I chose Social History and found myself studying the seminal study by Carlo Ginzburg "I Benandanti: Stregoneria e culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento" (Einaudi, 1966). It was a revelation. Ginzburg started from the analysis of a curious and widely documented Friulian fertility cult to show, on the one hand, how the Catholic inquisition overturned the perspective of the suspects, turning them from enemies of the witches for the defense of the crops into worshippers of the devil and, on the on the other hand, how some of the distinctive aspects of this cult had very ancient origins and, above all, traits common to traditions traceable in an enormous variety of times and places all over the world. In the following years, for pure personal pleasure, I continued to deepen my studies on these topics, and a couple of years ago my bookseller friend (and author of a beautiful book published by Utet) Giovanni Spadaccini got me a copy of the first edition of "Storia Notturna", an essay from 1989 in which Carlo Ginzburg deepened and expanded the investigation on the themes already treated in I Benandanti. By the end of the book, something clicked in my head. Suddenly some of the many musical tracks that I continuously produce in my studio began to suggest a path that I hadn't guessed before. I felt the urgency to immediately write and record other songs that would complete the picture that had by now outlined. In a few weeks I had an album, “a tale of Italian psychomagic in music”, as a friend defined it. I’d like to thank Giovanni Spadaccini not only for providing the book, but also for having been the very first listener and critic of my music, immediately followed by my bandmate and lifelong musical companion Nicola Caleffi. Their encouragement convinced me to overcome my chronic indecision, my well-founded self-criticism and to decide to publish this material. Pasquale Lomolino was equally encouraging and happy to release the album through his Backwards label. I’ve played, recorded and produced this music myself, with the help of some contributions from friends and family, often unaware of the use I would make of their voices. I thank them and I hope they’ll forgive me. I know they will.