Books 19 Items

In 1991, a loose-knit collective released a record called Blue Lines under the name Massive Attack, splicing together American hip-hop and soul with the sounds of the British underground. With its marauding bass lines, angular guitars, and psychedelic effects, Blue Lines built on the Caribbean soundsystems and nascent rave scene of the 1980s while also looking ahead to the group's signature blend of epic cinematics and lush downtempo. In the process, Blue Lines invented an entirely new genre called trip hop and launched the career of a rapper named Tricky.

Ultimately, Blue Lines created the sonic playbook for an emerging future: hybrid, digital, cosmopolitan, and rooted in the black and immigrant communities who animated the urban wreckage of the postindustrial city. Massive Attack envisioned an alternate future in sharp counterpoint to the glossy triumphalism of Brit Pop. And while the group would go on to bigger things, this record was both a warning shot and a definitive statement that sounds as otherworldy today as on the day of its release. As Blue Lines's iconic flame logo spun on turntables the world over, Massive Attack and their spaced-out urban blues reimagined music for the 1990s and beyond.

Over the course of several long conversations with Josh Davis (DJ Shadow), we learn about his early years in California, the friends and mentors who helped him along the way, his relationship with Mo’Wax and James Lavelle, and the genesis and creation of his widely acknowledged masterpiece, Endtroducing.

Extravagantly opaque, willfully vaporous — Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, released by the estimable British label Warp Records in 1994, rejuvenated ambient music for the Internet Age that was just dawning. In the United States, it was Richard D. James's first full length on Sire Records (home to Madonna and Depeche Mode) under the moniker Aphex Twin; Sire helped usher him in as a major force in music, electronic or otherwise.

Faithful to Brian Eno’s definition of ambient music, Selected Ambient Works Volume II was intentionally functional: it furnished chill out rooms, the sanctuaries amid intense raves. Choreographers and film directors began to employ it to their own ends, and in the intervening decades this background music came to the fore, adapted by classical composers who reverse-engineered its fragile textures for performance on acoustic instruments. Simultaneously, “ambient” has moved from esoteric sound art to central tenet of online culture. This book contends that despite a reputation for being beatless, the album exudes percussive curiosity, providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes.

144 pages.

A guy you don’t know writes a message you don’t understand in neighborhoods you don’t go in and yet you still think you know what it all means? What are you smoking and can you pass that this way? People go on podcasts claiming to know what the writings on walls and objects mean while city officials use the writings to win political points and slumlord land developers follow the writings in order to know which poor area to buy up to take advantage of the most vulnerable. Whatever they are smoking, pass that.

Much has changed since the first edition of this groundbreaking text, therefore, we have to break bread one last time before putting this world of ideas to rest. This third, and final green edition, brings in a new post-pandemic hyper speed internet migrant over the border crack is back chapter where a zone of exceptionalism is discovered & recovered.
In this book, King Kong Novy goes through time portals in subway tunnels dressed as Santa to translate simple graffiti into abstruse DIY folk music, keeping the driving question Can the WoWO Speak? foremost in mind.

Dr. Dumar Novy is the proud step-father once removed of Graffito Studies. His writings have helped people use an obscure name in their Works Cited pages as well as be a reference for Wikipedia pages that probably should be debated more in the sandbox. Take LSD and understand the truth. Some newly published essays are: Peace 2 Fred & 16art (2023), Sazo, Spair & You (2011), Desa & Les Are Beautiful (2022), Tsombikos & Tianen Rock & Roll (2019), Phase II Spawned Writers (2025).

160 Pages Book (Boodk/Auduio Combination sold as "Merch Item"), containing 13 QR codes to download 13 songs.

Aho Ssan debuts on Other People with second solo album and book 'Rhizomes' featuring Nicolás Jaar, Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid, clipping., Blackhaine and more

Aho Ssan debuts on Other People with second solo album and book 'Rhizomes' featuring Nicolás Jaar, Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid, clipping., Blackhaine and more

Paris based composer Aho Ssan, the artist moniker of Niamké Désiré, presents his new full-length 'Rhizomes' on the Other People label following his debut LP 'Simulacrum' (2020) and collaborative record 'Limen' (2022) with fellow musician Kmru.

'Rhizomes' draws inspiration from a concept coined and developed between Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri. The idea of an ever evolving structural model, constantly in motion and spreading out in all directions at once. It has no beginning and no end, but always remains in a middle, through which it grows and overflows.

"The root thought is the one that kills everything around itself while the rhizome is the root that stretches out to meet other roots," Désiré explains considering the works of French writer Édouard Glissant who addresses questions of identity, crossbreeding of cultures and its evolution.

Much like the name it borrows, Aho Ssan's 'Rhizomes' is a multimedia project that embarks on a myriad of disparate, unique musical and artistic partnerships. This piece adapts this concept to explore the influence of sound materials on creation, the appropriation of a sound object, and the collaborative nature of a composition that responds to modernity.

"Rhizome represents an underground stem system that fosters connections between various organisms and allows them to flourish collectively. It's an album that celebrates collaboration and brings together a diverse group of talented artists," Désiré continues.

Aho Ssan collaborated with a comprehensive cast of artists to create a musical rhizome including Nyokabi Kariuki, Josefa Ntjam, Blackhaine, Nicolás Jaar, Resina, R?n C?p ?uôi, Richie Culver, clipping., Lafawndah, 9T Antiope, James Ginzburg, Exzald S, Valentina Magaletti, Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid and Mondkopf. Cooperation and community are at the root of this project and the lens through which all the compositions can be understood through.

Aho Ssan will present 'Rhizomes' AV show together with visual artist Sevi Iko Dømochevsky at Berlin Atonal 2023. 'Rhizomes' received a Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2023 Digital Music

In conjunction with the album, 'Rhizomes' comes complete with a set of illustrations by Kim Grano in a book release. The drawings become a hybrid language, each an emotional response to the musical half. The book contains an extended version of the album with 3 additional songs and 2 longer versions of the album songs. It also includes a sample pack by Aho Ssan and a collection of solo tracks by Elliot Blaise, Kmru, Lamin Fofana, Brodinski & Se?bastien Forrester, Valence Drake, 9T Antiope, Exzald S and Valentina Magaletti. The extended version package is only accessible through the QR codes in the book.

Edited by Damon Murray, Edited by Stephen Sorrell

Packed full of vintage hi-fi brochures, many of which are extremely rare and previously unpublished in book form.

A striking screenprinted graphic cover on ‘brushed aluminium’ paper, to echo the hi-fi systems shown in the brochures.

Another Jonny Trunk / FUEL publication, acting as a companion title to (and same format as) Auto Erotica, AZ Record Shop Bags and Own Label.

Description
Audio Erotica is a perfectly pitched visual anthem to home audio entertainment. Using sales brochures from the 1950-1980s, a symphony of graphic nostalgia tracks the technological progress of our listening pleasure.
Remember roller-skating wearing your first Walkman? Or relaxing to easy-listening in your pure white Philips lounge? Or playing chess on your JVC tabletop radio? All these scenarios can be found in the geeky and rarefied world of the vintage hi-fi brochure, where graphic design and acoustic apparatus make magical music together.
From austere post-war Britain to poppy pre-millennium Japan, Audio Erotica presents a nostalgic nirvana of the strangest and most significant period hi-fi brochures.
Alphabetically listed, from Aiwa to Zenith, with Braun, JVC Nivico, Nakamichi, Sony and everything in between, this book will resonate with any music fan.
Setting the tempo are the pipe-smoking, high-end separates (amplifiers, speakers, turntables) of the 1950s, followed by the swinging Dansette record players of the 1960s, the prog-brushed-metal music centres of the 1970s, and the sleek capitalist cabinet stack systems of the 1980s – not forgetting the aerobic stereo sound portability facilitated by the boom-box, and that final high-fidelity, hardware hurrah: the compact disc. All accompanied by questionable fashion decisions and acres of shag-pile carpet.
The evocative brochures in Audio Erotica track the technological development of audio equipment before the digital download, while simultaneously revealing the way hi-fi was marketed to the listening public. With knobs on.

Author
Nostalgia enthusiast Jonny Trunk founded his record label Trunk Records in 1995, which specialises in releasing lost and archived recordings. He compiled and wrote The Music Library a book that documented the hidden world of library music, and Own Label a book about Sainsbury’s packaging from 1962-1977. He has worked with Oliver Postgate, Derek Griffiths, Tony Hart and other celebrated artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Jonny also writes for a number of magazines and broadcasts his own weekly Patreon show.

Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell – FUEL – have been publishing books since 2004. They have worked with Jonny Trunk for almost 20 years on a number of publications, including The Music Library, Own Label, Wrappers Delight and A-Z
Record Shop Bags.

The International Topsprayer book published by Publikat in 2011 - which has been sold out for several years and traded at horrendous prices on Ebay - is now coming back in a completely revised limitation period edition. Like the first version, the successor will again feature the legendary lenticular shaking cover, which crisply sums up their concept.

It is believed that shortly after its release, a note similar to the following will be found in the files of various graffiti investigation groups: "Between 2007 and 2010, the defendants Moses and Taps switched their pseudonyms. With the help of an unknown number of others involved in the crime, they bombed 1000 trains over a period of 1000 days. In May 2011, they published their deeds in the illustrated book International Topsprayer. However, since no evidence of perpetration could be derived from the book, the relevant preliminary proceedings had to be finally closed after ten years due to the occurrence of the statute of limitations according to section 78 of the Criminal Code.

After the expiry of the statute of limitations, Moses & Taps are now clearing the air with the book Topsprayer Expired, Moses & Taps now comprehensively admit all accusations of the proceedings in words and pictures. Furthermore, the suspects supplement the accusations with previously unknown photographs and descriptions of the crimes. In addition, several hundred previously unknown graffiti crimes are documented, especially from the years 2011 and 2012.”

Size: 28 x 24 cm

The question of control for Black women is a costly one. From 1986 onwards, the trajectory of Janet Jackson's career can be summed up in her desire for control. Control for Janet was never simply just about her desire for economic and creative control over her career but was, rather, an existential question about the desire to control and be in control over her bodily integrity as a Black woman.

This book examines Janet's continuation of her quest for control as heard in her sixth album, The Velvet Rope. Engaging with the album, the promotion, the tour, and its accompanying music videos, this study unpacks how Janet uses Black cultural production as an emancipatory act of self-creation that allows her to reconcile with and, potentially, heal from trauma, pain, and feelings of alienation. The Velvet Rope's arc moves audiences to imagine the possibility of what emancipation from oppression--from sexual, to internal, to societal--could look like for the singer and for others. The sexually charged content and themes of abuse, including self-harm and domestic violence, were dismissed as “selling points” for Janet at the time of its release. The album stands out as a revelatory expression of emotional vulnerability by the singer, one that many other artists have followed in the 20-plus years since its release.

Nine years after their legendary book International Topsprayer™, which is out of print long-since and traded for hundreds of euros by now, Moses & Taps™ release a brick twice as thick: Graffiti Avantgarde™

Graffiti Avantgarde™ is a heavyweight! With 544 pages, more than 2000 photos in ten chapters as well as a variety of exciting and subtle texts, it gives a deep insight into Moses & Taps™ broad work as graffiti artist since 2011. The book shows how they managed the balancing act between bombing trains and being accepted artists and explains why these two worlds are not mutually exclusive.

At the outset of summer in 1990, a Houston gangsta rap group called the Geto Boys was poised to debut its self-titled third album under the guidance of hip-hop guru Rick Rubin. What might have been a low-profile remix release from a little-known corner of the rap universe began to make headlines when the album's distributor refused to work with the group, citing its violent and depraved lyrics. When The Geto Boys was finally released, chain stores refused to stock it, concert promoters canceled the group's performances, and veteran rock critic Robert Christgau declared the group "sick motherfuckers."
One quarter of a century later the album is considered a hardcore classic, having left an immutable influence on gangsta rap, horrorcore, and the rise of Southern hip-hop.
Charting the rise of the Geto Boys from the earliest days of Houston's rap scene, Rolf Potts documents a moment in music history when hip-hop was beginning to replace rock as the transgressive sound of American youth. In creating an album that was both sonically innovative and unprecedentedly vulgar, the Geto Boys were accomplishing something that went beyond music. To paraphrase a sentiment from Don DeLillo, this group of young men from Houston's Fifth Ward ghetto had figured out the "language of being noticed" - which is, in the end, the only language America understands.

By June 1993, when Washington, D.C.'s Fugazi released their third full-length album In on the Kill Taker, the quartet was reaching a thunderous peak in popularity and influence. With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990's genre-defining Repeater and 1991's impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart. When the album debuted on the now-SoundScan-driven charts, Fugazi had never been more in the public eye.

Few knew how difficult it had been to make this popular breakthrough. Disappointed with the sound of the self-produced Steady Diet, the band recorded with legendary engineer Steve Albini, only to scrap the sessions and record at home in D.C. with Ted Niceley, their brilliant, under-known producer. Inadvertently, Fugazi chose an unsure moment to make In on the Kill Taker: as Nirvana and Sonic Youth were yanking the American rock underground into the media glare, and “breaking” punk in every possible meaning of the word. Despite all of this, Kill Taker became an alt-rock classic in spite of itself, even as its defiant, muscular sound stood in stark contrast to everything represented by the mainstreaming of a culture and worldview they held dear.

This book features new interviews with all four members of Fugazi and members of their creative community.

Snoop rolls out 50 recipes, organized by meals and occasions, with epic
stories and archival photos and ephemera. This is a sincere, funny,
delicious collection of (cannabis-free) recipes and entertaining ideas from
one of the most beloved rappers of our generation. Get ready for Snoop
Dogg’s first ever cookbook! Complete with epic stories and photography
that brings this masterpiece to life and packed with 50 recipes straight
from his own collection, including:
• Baked Mac & Cheese
• Fried Bologna Sandwiches with Chips
• Soft Flour Tacos
• Easy Orange Chicken
• Lobster Thermidor
• Filet Mignon
Also included are Snoop's favorite munchies; chewy Starbursts, Frito
BBQ Twists, and of course, no party is complete without that Gin and
Juice.

Not only do scripts and alphabets form bridges between cultures, but their history and the stories they tell are the perfect springboard for calligraphic experimentation.

From India to Ethiopia, Tibet and beyond, Denise Lach has travelled widely in the world of script. Here, she documents complex and simple characters, playful shapes and vibrant colours, which she then translates into her own visual art. She demonstrates the exciting design possibilities offered by script: you can repeat, turn, mirror and rotate letters; you can also experiment with rhythms, contrasts, colours and line widths.

In addition to calligraphic techniques, Lach introduces examples from printmaking, fabric printing, collage making and digital techniques.

Brimming with beautifully photographed works of art – on paper, stone, fabric or ceramic material – Journeys in Calligraphy will take you to many surprising destinations.

Contents:

Early Writing
Ethiopia
Swahili
Kannada
Tibet
Burma
Runes
Malay
Other Journeys

192 pages, 26 x 23,5 cm, hardcover.

Christopher R. Weingarten provides a thrilling account of how the Bomb Squad produced such a singular-sounding record: engineering, sampling, scratching, constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing - even occasionally stomping
on vinyl that sounded too clean. Using production techniques that have never been duplicated, the Bomb Squad plundered
and reconfigured their own compositions to make frenetic splatter collages; they played samples by hand together in a
room like a rock band to create a "not quite right" tension; they hand-picked their samples from only the ugliest squawks and sirens.

Weingarten treats the samples used on Nation Of Millions as molecules of a greater whole, slivers of music that retain their own secret histories and folk traditions. Can the essence of a hip-hop record be found in the motives, emotions and energies of the artists it samples? Is it likely that something an artist intended 20 years ago would re-emerge anew? This is a compelling and thoroughly researched investigation that tells the story of one of hip-hop's landmark albums.

160 pages.

Contradiction, the yin and the yang, the simultaneous existence of two competing realities, and the larger than life persona that depicts populist realism are at the core of Nas's debut album, Illmatic. Yet Nas's identity -as an inner-city youth, a child of hip-hop, and a Black American - predicts those philosophical quandaries as much as it does its brazen ambition. Partly because of that recklessly broad scope, the artistic impact of Illmatic was massive. The record finds its place in the greatest transition in hip hop up to that point, the spot where the streets and the charts collided.

128 pages.

Since its first publication in 1982, Modern Architecture Since 1900 has become established as a contemporary classic. Worldwide in scope, it combines a clear historical outline with masterly analysis and interpretation. Technical, economic, social and intellectual developments are brought together in a comprehensive narrative which provides a setting for the detailed examination of buildings. Throughout the book the author's focus is on the individual architect, and on the qualities that give outstanding buildings their lasting value.

For the third edition, the text has been radically revised and expanded, incorporating much new material and a fresh appreciation of regional identity and variety. Seven chapters are entirely new, including expanded coverage of recent world architecture.

Described by James Ackerman of Harvard University as 'immeasurably the finest work covering this field in existence', this book presents a penetrating analysis of the modern tradition and its origins, tracing the creative interaction between old and new that has generated such an astonishing richness of architectural forms across the world and throughout the century.

About the author: William Curtis has won worldwide acclaim for his architectural writing. His books include Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms and Denys Lasdun, both published by Phaidon.

Reviews: 'the book is excellent value.' Architects' Journal

'as close to a definitive guide to the architecture of our century as we yet have.' Sunday Times

'A book of this length and depth is an unimaginable achievement…' Building Design

'comprehensive, up-to-date and very readable.' Sunday Telegraph

'This should be a standard volume in all architecture collections.' Library Journal

'… the clearest and most authentic survey to appear in English. ... Essential reading, indeed breath-taking reading' Architecture New Zealand

Specifications: Format: Paperback Size: 245 × 210 mm (9 5/8 × 8 1/4 in) Pages: 736 pp Illustrations: 862 illustrations

An expanded edition of the popular landscape and photography book, celebrating the most majestic mountains and historic cycling climbs for enthusiasts and participants around the world

The mountains of Europe have many different meanings to many different people. For the locals they are a way of life; for visitors they represent breathtaking beauty, active holidays and peaceful moments. For cyclists, however, the dramatic landscapes mean something quite different: suffering, pain, agony – and glory. For over a century the mountains have provided the setting for the greatest cycling contests, where human determination and willpower can triumph over nature and opponents.

In recent years, as cycling’s popularity has changed our cities, made us more active and taken us down less-travelled roads, the mountains of Europe have become the primary destination for everyday riders who want to challenge themselves, experience the storied roads and escape their everyday lives. This publication is aimed at all who wish to be inspired by those challenges or celebrate those personal victories. With tributes and personal recollections from leading road cyclists, the photographs and words coalesce into a visual depiction that transcends any single perspective and will inspire awe and wonder in anyone who wishes to confront the power of the mountains.

'A tribute to nature's beauty and man's dogged determination' i

'[a] spectacular portrait of some of the most beautiful and challenging scenery in the world ... offer[s] cycling aficionados plenty of bucket list inspiration'

About the Author: Professional photographer and keen amateur cyclist Michael Blann spent his formative years racing his bike and dreaming of riding in the Tour de France. Aged nineteen, he left England for Australia to ride in a well-respected amateur team, during which he competed in the nine-day Golden West Tour in Queensland. This experience left him with the realization that a pro contract was out of reach. Returning to the UK, he enrolled in art college and eventually moved into advertising. This book brings together Blann’s two great passions – cycling and photography – and evolved from a desire to produce a definitive record of the immense, immovable landforms that have set the stage for the most intense, nail-biting dramas the cycling world has ever seen. Limited-edition prints are available at www.michaelblann.com.

Andrew Diprose is Group Creative Director at Wired magazine in London and a keen cyclist. He lectures regularly on art direction, photography and illustration. He is also the co-founder, publisher and art director of cycling independent title The Ride Journal.

Susannah Osborne is a journalist and has written for numerous newspapers and magazines on the subjects of travel, fitness and adventure sport. She has cycled since her late teens, first as a means to get around her native North Devon, and later as an active member of the women’s road and criterium racing scene in the UK. She worked and cycled with Michael Blann for several years before teaming up with him on this book, which appeals to her love of storytelling and her long-standing fascination with dramatic landscapes.

Format:Hardback Edition Type:Revised and expanded edition Size:25.5 x 30.5 cm Extent:256 pp Publication date:26 March 2020 ISBN:9780500023082