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The 1967 Impulse Records legendary Funk/Soul Instrumental masterpiece album Chicken Fat. If you haven’t heard Chicken Fat yet, get ready because the LP won’t leave your turntable until your jaw stops hitting the floor. Sourced from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Grey. All Analog Process (aaa) Initially working as a guitar player for such greats as Sonny Boy Williamson & Etta James, Impulse Records eventually offered Mel Brown the chance to record his own material. Recorded in 1967 in Hollywood, CA, for the Impulse record label, Brown amassed a group of session musicians who had played with Charles Mingus, Marvin Gaye, and Dizzy Gillespie. Much of the album was arranged by Oliver Nelson, who worked with Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Smith and more. His touch is felt all over the record and helps solidify the journey. These recording sessions also reflected the Sunset Strip and the energy of late ‘60s Los Angeles so incredibly, you can almost hear the go-go boots hit the floor to dance til they drop.

The 1967 Impulse Records legendary Funk/Soul Instrumental masterpiece album Chicken Fat. If you haven’t heard Chicken Fat yet, get ready because the LP won’t leave your turntable until your jaw stops hitting the floor. Sourced from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Grey. All Analog Process (aaa) Initially working as a guitar player for such greats as Sonny Boy Williamson & Etta James, Impulse Records eventually offered Mel Brown the chance to record his own material. Recorded in 1967 in Hollywood, CA, for the Impulse record label, Brown amassed a group of session musicians who had played with Charles Mingus, Marvin Gaye, and Dizzy Gillespie. Much of the album was arranged by Oliver Nelson, who worked with Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Smith and more. His touch is felt all over the record and helps solidify the journey. These recording sessions also reflected the Sunset Strip and the energy of late ‘60s Los Angeles so incredibly, you can almost hear the go-go boots hit the floor to dance til they drop.

RidingEasy Records has teamed up with Permanent Records in Los Angeles to bring this very special heavy psych rocker back into the fold for RSD 2023. New York City based African-American & Latino hard rock/psych trio Maximillian released their sole self-titled album on ABC Records in 1969, then promptly vanished. It has remained a collectors’ conversation piece ever since. Maximillian combined elements of beat poetry, a little bit of The Fugs, a hit of Funkadelic, a lick of Cream and a vibe of Hendrix worship with an ambition that seems to have jumbled these influences. The Maximillian album is a rare artifact of late-60s psychedelic rock whose appeal is not the skill of their musicianship, but the downright strangeness of it. While at times it sounds like the trio is playing entirely different songs at the same time, it’s said that producer Teddy Vann had a hand in the album’s sometimes confusing production. Gatefold

The most important artists in the history of Japanese free jazz, Masahiko Togashi, Masayuki Takayanagi, Mototeru Takagi and Motoharu Yoshizawa. A solemn and crazy improvisation work originally recorded in 1969! "It was not until 1969, when this album was recorded, that the quality of Japanese free jazz works reached a world-class level. The most important artists in the history of Japanese free jazz feast the solemn and insane improvisation has not faded away even in the present age of 2022." - Kouki Hanawa (Craftman Records)

Recorded in November 1969 at Teichiku Kaikan Studio, Tokyo, "Speed and Space - The Concept of Space in Music" is one of those landmark works in which Masahiko Togashi is accompanied by talented musicians who possess a unique style and innovative approach. The album is an exploration of Togashi's notion of the “Time Law" and can be seen as a study of how texture, rhythm and differing rates of change effect our perception of the passage of time in music. Sounding quite obscure and contemplative, the brief introductory theme signed as “Presage” prepares the listener for powerful and scathing Free Jazz. In a pace of increasing intensity, “Panorama” remits us to the liberating ways of an absorbing percussion where the more muscular interventions are interspersed with moments of enormous sensitivity. Grounded by Togashi’s varied percussion, the disconcerting piano of Masahiko Sato and the vigorous bass of Yoshio Ikeda mark the guidelines of this long abstract exercise. Among several solo notes and brilliant moments played through an energetic improvisation, this theme of 14:35 minutes flows into a grand finale with the involvement of all the musicians. “Expectation” closes the A side in a short but intense reverie of percussion, bass and flute, guided by an improvisation free of harmonic prejudices. The floating world of 'Expectation' closes side A in a brief but intense reverie of percussion, bass and flute, guided by an improvisation devoid of harmonic prejudices. At the piano (and gong), Masahiko Sato (another illustrious representative of Japanese music) assumes a mediation function, granting some harmony traits to the, almost always, abstract and corrosive concepts of this collective. Certainly less known, bassist Yoshio Ikeda (which in the 70s recorded, among others, with trumpeter Terumasa Hino and in the early 80s with the renowned pianist Aki Takase) through a valuable contribution, imprints a decisive mark to the robust rhythm-section as to the overall sound of this date. Even with a less active participation, Mototeru Takagi helps impart a tonal diversity and a colorful exoticism through his forays into the tenor saxophone, bass clarinet and flute. Of sharp forms dominated by technique and irreverence, side B continues with the title track, divided in two distinct but equally penetrating parts. With a depth marked by Togashi’s percussion, “Speed & Space # 1” unfolds on a fast tune over 11 minutes of a harsh and incisive improvisation. The interaction of an irreverent rhythm section finds its complement in the disturbing screams of a delirious saxophone. Shorter, the 2nd part gives voice to an ambiental and minimalist concept in which the central role of Togashi finds an interesting matching in Masahiko Sato’s piano as well in the saxophone and flute of Mototeru Takagi. In this challenging exercise, the flank “space” reaches its fullness before culminating in an entrancing performance by Togashi (percussion, vibraphone, bells, etc.). Includes OBI and insert