Books 507 Items

Biz Markie, Busta Rhymes, Chuck D, Cypress Hill, Da Brat, DJ Kool Herc, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Nas, Sean “Pu!y” Combs, Wu-Tang Clan The Notorious B.I.G., and many more...

Foreword by Ice-T
An inside look at the making of Hip-Hop documentary Rhyme & Reason, over 25 years
since its ground-breaking release. The ultimate back-stage pass. Over 130 photographs from 1994 to 1997. Released to mark 50th anniverary of Hip-Hop.

THE BOOK: In the mid-nineties, documentarian Peter Spirer embarked on a three-year odyssey to o!er a realistic view of Hip-Hop and the people and culture it encompassed, interviewing over 80 artists involved in the art form. Spirer managed to capture a seminal moment as the culture balanced on the cusp of the mainstream. As Ice-T comments in his foreword to the book, “Rhyme & Reason is one of the few films that was there to document us before Hip-Hop truly exploded.”

While filming, Spirer took accompanying stills using a medium format Rolleiflex camera. It is these photographs that form THE BOOK OF RHYME & REASON. “The Rollei allowed me to capture some amazing moments: Pu!y getting a trim in his o"ce while doing three tasks at once, Biggie opening record plaques on his couch, Ice-T and Mack 10 hanging
with their homies, Heavy D at the barber, playing pool. There was the Jack The Rapper convention with Death Row making a statement, at a Disney World Hotel, that ended in chaos. There were magical moments such as Redman and Erick Sermon freestyling on the mic to amazed onlookers at a block party in Newark and watching Wu-Tang Clan chop it up on the block in Staten Island on a cold winter’s day before they exploded.”

This co!ee table volume features over 130 of Spirer’s photographs from 1994 to 1997. As Hip-Hop commemorates its fiftieth anniversary in 2023, it is particularly fitting that many of these images from this formative period are being seen and published for the first time.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Peter Spirer is an Academy Award and Emmy Award nominated director and producer, particularly renowned for documenting Hip-Hop culture.

Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW), or “German New Wave,” was made extraordinarily popular in the 1970s and 1980s by the likes of Nena's "99 Luftballons" and Trio's "Da Da Da"-and then left as quickly as it came. Conventional wisdom among artists dictates that it's better to burn out than fade away, but this doesn't tell the full story of NDW-the reason for its rapid rise and fall, the historical context that necessitated the genre, and where the energy of the NDW movement went after its end.

The genre has international influences but still demonstrates a uniquely German desire to build a new, sanitized identity in the aftermath of World War II. Originally quite subversive and underground, NDW became exponentially more mainstream until it could no longer sustain itself creatively. And rather than disappearing, it helped give rise to the post-Cold War rave craze and is still an important touchstone in music history.

Claudia Lonkin is a historian of popular music and culture based in the United States.
Her research focuses on global music trends in the 1970s and 1980s, examining congruences and points of contrast between scenes in Europe and the Americas. She has been published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies and Punk & Post-Punk.

168 pages
197 x 127 mm

Photographer and road warrior Hannah Verbeuren presents a vivid, lurid, rabid history of mysterious heavy metal animals Midnight. Captured in live, portrait, and candid settings, the hooded band plays with fire, swords, and sex in settings ranging from European castles to the the smutty back alleys of their native Cleveland. Essays by Verbeuren and Midnight main man Athenar ring the bells and keep everything street. You will believe a band can fly… “Hannah Verbeuren’s photojournalistic odyssey of and about Ohio’s own king cult band, Midnight, will hit home with even the hardest of souls. The visual essence is raw and sensual—Midnight is so down and dirty! This is a definite must for hardcore, hard rock, punk, and metal fans.”—Jeff Becerra, Possessed

High Energy / Disco Mexican Flyer 1980 – 2000 is a collection of sonidos music event flyers collected in Mexico City by Hector Mosko.

It gathers more than 120 artworks in the fantastic art style. Originally hand printed on different sort of papers, sizes and colors to promote Sonideros or club parties.

Second edition 100ex Format : 17×17,5cm 92 pages

"For A Fleeting Moment" is the result of the dialogue between the Swiss photographer Simone Kappeler and the Japanese musician Tomotsugu Nakamura initiated by Iikki, between March 2023 and May 2024.

Tomotsugu Nakamura is a musician and graphic designer residing in Tokyo, Japan. His primary artistic practice is to compose music with some fragments of minimal acoustic and electronic tones and some field recordings. In Concert, he he has played with various genre of musicians and his works have been released by Kaico, Audiobulb Records, and more recently by the French label Laaps.

Born in 1952 in Frauenfeld (Switzerland) where she lives and works, Simone Kappeler started taking pictures at the age of 11. After studying German literature and art history, she studied photography at the Zurich University of the Arts. During a three-month trip to the United States in 1981, she took her first pictures using cheap cameras, especially the Diana camera. Hasselblad, Leica, Diana, Brownie, Polaroid, disposable camera, expired or infrared films, since 1970, Simone Kappeler has explored all types of photographic techniques. Her work, experimental and poetic, reveals to us the curiously foreign world that surrounds us. Since 1982, ongoing projects in southern France and the Grisons.1982/83, studio in New York, conceptual photography and Super 8 films. 1983/84, theater photographer, Schauspielhaus Zürich. 2009, six-week photographic study of Japan, 2015 studio in New York. Her work was the subject of a first monograph: "Seile. Fluss. Nacht. Fotografien 1964–2011", edited by Hatje Cantz and is regularly exhibited in Galleries and Museum in Europe and United States. For A Fleeting Moment is her first book gathered exclusively a part of her wide polaroid works from 2011 to 2023.

Fine Art Book, Ltd. to 700 copies: Hardcover book printed on Glossy Modern Paper 170g/m2 // 104 pages, 19cm x 22.5cm, 66 photos // Front cover points and back cover logo embossed // Selective UV varnish // Hand-numbered.

deadHYPE is back with the 3rd issue of their magazine deadHYPE CLTV. As always you can look forward to various interviews, articles and photo series from and about the community of the Berlin based creative collective.

“Raghunath’s transformation shows how one person’s choice to evolve can change the lives of so many. This book is real, funny, and inspirational.” – Jay Shetty The heartfelt memoir of Ray Raghunath Cappo, a legendary hardcore-punk musician-turned-monk—and pioneer of the straight-edge movement—told with warmth, candor, and humor. Ray Cappo was a hardcore-punk singer and pioneer of the straight-edge movement living on the Lower East Side of New York City in the ’80s, where his band Youth OF Today played to packed clubs and touched thousands of people across the globe. But despite the accolades from fans, the popularity of his records, and the positivity he’d brought to the punk music scene, none of this success gave Ray joy. He felt stagnant, and he yearned for something more. This, along with his father’s untimely death, led him to abruptly quit the band and buy a one-way ticket to India in pursuit of the answers to life’s great mysteries. Living as a monk in the sacred city of Vrindavan and traveling across the country on a series of train trips, Ray embraced the rich, spiritual culture he discovered there. As his unusual adventure unfolded, he encountered extraordinary characters, witnessed deep acts of devotion, and experienced profound moments of divine connection, leading to a radical transformation that was ego-crushing and blissful all at once. Inspired to write music again, Ray returned to the US, where he and other monks founded Shelter, a band dedicated to spreading a message of faith, hope, and love. Told with warmth, candor, and humor, this heartfelt memoir chronicles Ray’s emotional and

Prince of Grass is the debut poetry collection from Dan Wriggins, songwriter and frontman of the band Friendship. Loving and absurd, Wriggins' poems are overflowing cauldrons of metaphor, always inviting, always in motion. For fans of James Tate, C.D. Wright, David Berman, and pie for breakfast. Dan Wriggins is a writer and musician from Maine. He records and tours solo and with the band Friendship. His debut poetry collection, Prince of Grass, is coming in July of 2024 from Dear Life Records. He lives in Philadelphia with his dog, Roy.

A crossroads of reggae and punk; a travelogue of Jamaica, UK, and Japan from 1982 to 2023, written and photographed. To resist is to live. 1982-2023. Jamaica, UK, Japan. The intersection of reggae and punk. There are photographs that take on new meaning as time passes. The lifework of photographer Masataka Ishida, who has been following the world's rebel music. A record of his 41-year journey in search of true freedom. The first product from Type Slowly.

Bill Direen is a legend of the New Zealand underground. He has given us poetry, novels and a catalog of important and challenging underground music. Weaned on a garage band youth in the late '60s, Direen started producing 7" records in the early '80s, all of them total stunners. These releases—Six Impossible Things, Die Bilder, Soloman's Ball and High Thirties Piano—were self-financed and distributed through Flying Nun. 100 Years Of Darkness, his latest book, is a homage to a century of films and film music. The front cover boxes represent film aspect ratios (1.17:1 up to 2.35:1) as used worldwide between 1888 and the present. The films are drawn from many countries, such as Japan, U.S.A., France, Germany, Russia/Ukraine, Vietnam, Sweden, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Lebanon. Since some of the films may not have been commercially distributed in all countries, the chosen films are carefully listed in a detailed index of sources at the close, which corresponds to the order of the poems as listed in the contents. This makes it easy for film and music lovers to find the films' directors and years of first appearance, and eventually see them for themselves. It is very limited in an edition of 200 and beautifully printed with textured jackets in the spirit of vintage Black Sparrow Press books.

- 400 page hardcover large format book - Includes CD with 10 Japanese Jazz tracks - Compiled by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden - Only 2000 copies printed - Largest picture book on Japanese Jazz ever printed - First and only picture book devoted to Japanese Jazz covers to be produced outside Japan - Extra sections on non-Japanese artists and Blue Note albums produced exclusively for the Japanese market - Includes intro by Terumasa Hino plus articles by Yusuke Ogawa, Mats Gustafsson, Tony Higgins and interview with Tohru Aizawa - DJ J Jazz Top Tens from around the world BBE Music is thrilled to present J Jazz: Free and Modern Jazz From Japan 1954-1988, a remarkable large-format book covering some of the deepest, rarest, and most innovative jazz music released anywhere in the post-war era. Compiled by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden, co-curators of BBE Music's acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series, the book also features a foreword by Japanese jazz icon, Terumasa Hino.

This is the first time a book of this type has been published outside of Japan and the first anywhere of this size and scale. It is a unique collection of over 500 albums of free and modern jazz released in Japan during a period of radical transformation and constant reinvention. An era that saw Japan return from the ravages of World War Two to become a global economic power and emerge as both a technological leader and an international cultural force.

Through a unique gallery of albums, J Jazz charts the development of jazz in Japan from the first stirrings of the modern jazz scene in the mid to late 1950s and on through the hard bop and modal jazz of the 1960s. It steers the reader into the radical directions of the 1970s when free jazz, fusion, post-bop, and jazz-funk opened up a growing number of Japanese jazz artists to a new global audience before consolidating in the mid to late 1980s with a musical scene that laid the path for the contemporary jazz generation to follow.

Over 500 full-colour sleeves from many of the leading names in Japanese jazz sit alongside rare and private pressings that tell a story of constant change and musical exploration. J Jazz includes profiles of several leading record labels such as East Wind, Frasco, King Records, and Nippon Columbia as well as critical independents such as Three Blind Mice, ALM, and Aketa’s Disk. J Jazz includes interviews with celebrated jazz photographer Tadayuki Naito, and pianist Tohru Aizawa, bandleader on the totemic spiritual jazz album, Tachibana Vol 1, as well as free-jazz record collector and jazz musician Mats Gustafsson.

The book also features a chapter on albums by non-Japanese artists that only received a Japanese release, with collectible, rare, and obscure releases by figures such as Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, and Art Blakey. J Jazz includes Japanese jazz charts from some of the world's leading jazz DJs including Gilles Peterson, Toshio Matsuura, Paul Murphy, and Shuya and Yoshihiro Okino. Among the specialist content is a feature on obi strips by record dealer and Japanese jazz expert, Yusuke Ogawa, plus a special article on Japanese Blue Note albums.

Across its 300-plus pages, J Jazz includes a detailed introduction contextualising the music, tracing the story of Japan's fascination with jazz back before the war. It also features biographical information on many of the key artists involved in shaping the post- war Japanese jazz scene including Sadao Watanabe, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Masabumi Kikuchi, Masahiko Togashi, Terumasa Hino, Yosuke Yamashita, Fumio Itabashi, Masayuki Takayanagi, Takeo Moriyama, Isao Suzuki, and many more.

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.

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).

"Té De Flores Silvestres" is the result of the dialogue between the Belgium photographer Michael Roemers and the Argentinian musician Federico Durand initiated by Iikki, between February 2023 and May 2024.

Federico Durand’s music is a weave of sound searching introspection and delight through simple melodies, made in the heart of Argentina. Federico likes music, gardens, John Keats’ poetry, collecting stamps and Earl Grey tea. Since 2010 he has been released on some labels such as 12k, Home Normal, Iikki, Spekk, White Paddy Mountain, Laaps and more.

Michael Roemers, a child of the borders, was born in 1987 in the Belgian village of Plombières, studying sound at the Institute of Broadcasting Arts in 2008. He discovered the power of the image, and became passionate about photography. He began his photographic career following Belgian underground music bands as they toured Europe, capturing crazy moments on stage and backstage. Then, he decided to devote himself to a personal project, to capture his native Wallonie region, highlighting the richness and a part of these Belgian traditions region while exploring the themes of identity, memory and membership. Since 2021, Michael Roemers has added a new string to his bow by running the Vice Versa podcast with his partner Sébastien Van Malleghem. This podcast explores the themes of photography, art and culture by giving voice to renowned guests in these fields. Té De Flores Silvestres is his first book.

Fine Art Book, Ltd. to 400 copies: Hardcover book printed on Glossy Modern Paper 170g/m2 // 80 pages, 19cm x 22.5cm, 50 photos // Front cover points and back cover logo embossed // Selective UV varnish // Hand-numbered.

Mit den Büchern von Christiane Rösinger, Bernd íBegemann und Carsten Friedrichs starten wir eine Reihe, in der die Texte deutscher Musiker:innen erstmals in Buchform zugänglich gemacht werden. Texte von Musiker:innen, die die hiesige (Sub-)Kultur mit ihren íSongtexten in der Retrospektive ebenso geprägt haben wie die ausschließlich schreibende Zunft. Eine längst íüberfällige Würdigung außergewöhnlicher Songwriter:innen, deren Texte nicht bloße Anhängsel ígroßartiger Musik sind, sondern ebenso auch für sich stehen. Christiane Rösinger, geboren 1961, zog 1985 aus dem íBadischen nach West-Berlin, wo sie mit Almut Klotz und Funny van Dannen die Lassie Singers gründete. Nach deren Auflösung war sie Kopf der Band Britta. Rösinger war zudem eine der Betreiberinnen der legendären Flittchen Bar und betrieb das Label Flittchen Records. Sie veröffentlichte zwei Soloalben, mehrere Bücher und schrieb zahlreiche Theatermusiken. 2019 hatte ihr erstes Musical "Stadt unter Einfluss" Premiere im Hebbel am Ufer. "Was jetzt kommt" ist die Würdigung einer außergewöhnlichen Songwriterin. Ob Lassie Singers, Britta, Solo: das Buch enthält Lyrics aus allen Schaffensphasen, Geschichten und ein exklusives Christiane-Rösinger-Glossar.

Very limited edition document to accompany the Various Artists - Noho EP: Turning THE Crank EP. 68 page, A5 size 'Zine' Printed with Risograph in grey scale.

Northampton, Massachusetts. The Five Colleges. Hampshire College. Forward-thinking education. Electronic Music studies. A vast student population created and sustained a vibrant cultural scene. This is but a snapshot of a fraction, but a fertile and significant one that impacted the lives of many who came in contact with it. The book follows a tight group of people who got together, made music, promoted and released it, created the conditions for others to record and release music, booked bands and then scattered throughout the Midwest and East Coast.

First person memories and memorabilia from Christopher Vine, Craig O'Donnell, Elliott Sharp, James Whittemore, Nicholas Brown, Sean Elias and others, patch up a story of joyous action, firm and enthusiastic DIY endeavours to make things happen as they would like them to happen. It is about a local scene and some key protagonists and it communicates values and methods that are still current — and probably will always be in some form or another among young people with a serious drive to act upon their artistic inclinations. This is also a depiction of what was in fact a model of a music scene. A complete ecosystem was in place during this period. Northampton, sure, but extended across the whole of Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts. Bars, music and record stores, live music, College radio, electronic music studios, written press and a lot of energy going into creative work. The immediate "punk effect" motivated the appearance of numerous bands, many short lived, others evolving into New Wave / Power Pop territory, eventually crossing into Post-Punk experimentation.

Turning The Crank is also a companion to an EP of the same title, including music played, produced and recorded in Northampton between decades (1970s going into the 1980s) by different combinations of individuals resulting in The Higher Primates, The Scientific Americans and Human Error. Music in turns mechanical and austere, gorgeously loose, in love with Dub.

Unfortunately we have to sell a few slightly damaged copies.

For millennia, “nirvana” has been a term associated with belief systems of the Indian subcontinent. But in 1988, a band from a small coastal town in Washington state decided to create some new associations with this word . . . through their music.

Active for just six years, Nirvana left an indelible mark on the late twentieth century that remains visible today. Photographer and self-described “music fanatic” Charles Peterson, a fellow twenty-something from the suburbs of Seattle, was present with his camera as a genre took form, and his images have become synonymous with the sounds, styles, movement and attitude known as grunge.

Charles Peterson’s Nirvana, in the tradition of many great documentary photobooks, expands beyond Peterson’s iconic images of the band seen repeatedly over the last thirty years (on album covers, in magazines, and in dozens of compilation books and exhibitions focused on this music and its birth era) to highlight gems never before published. Over a five-year photo edit, Peterson looked at each one of thousands of frames, considering what drew him to Nirvana in the first place—their songs. He honed in on the compositions that stimulated visceral memories of their live performances.

The resulting selection of photographs and their carefully constructed sequence mash up venues and years, suffering and the sublime, to arrive at a visual experience that one cannot help but also feel, and hear.

Book design by Jeff Kleinsmith.

9 x 12.25 inches vertical; ~90 black and white photographs; 168 pages;. Hardcover. Foreword by Krist Novoselic.

Charles Peterson (b.1964, Longview, Washington) is internationally known for his photographs of the Seattle music scene of the late eighties and nineties. He began making photographs while a student at Bothell High School, and then went on to study photography at the University Washington, where he first met as friends many of his future subjects.

Peterson’s distinct visual style and early work for Sub Pop Records became an important signifier of the phenomenon known as grunge.

His photographs have been featured in numerous publications, as well exhibited in group and solo exhibitions around the world. They are included in many private collections, and the permanent collections of the Seattle Art Museum and MoPOP.

Krist Novoselic (b. 1965, Compton, California) is co-founder of Nirvana.

Nirvana originated in Aberdeen, Washington in the late 1980s through the energies of Novoselic and Kurt Cobain. They were joined by drummers including Chad Channing (1988–1990) and David Grohl (1990–1994). Nirvana’s live performances, music videos, and albums Bleach (1989), Nevermind (1991), Incesticide (1992), In Utero (1993) and MTV Unplugged in New York (1994) made their music a defining component of the late twentieth century internationally.

The Shadow Ring (1992-2002) presents a comprehensive overview of the work produced by British musiciansGraham Lambkin, Darren Harris, and later Tim Goss over the course of a decade. Throughout theirlegendary ten-year run, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of teenagers in the port townFolkestone, were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. The group have leftbehind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7-inches, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zineappearances on both sides of the Atlantic. In aggregate, this significant collection not only plums the depths of theband and its attendant lore, but reveals a vivid minor history of mail-order networks, bedroom recordingsessions, cross-USA couch-surfing, and encounters with fellow travelers such The Dead C, Harry Pussy,Charalambides, Richard Youngs and the No-Neck Blues Band. Where is the connecting thread between RalfWehowsky and Squirrel Nut Zippers? Inquire within.The roughly 200 songs in this set trace the band from its earliest days recording in Lambkin's parents' house(SHP Studios), through its brooding mid-period, garnering word-of-mouth notoriety that peaked with the trioturning down an invitation to tour with Pavement, to a string of increasingly uncompromising experimentswith electronics, voice, and tape. Although the band's sound morphs considerably during this time period,from spartan beginnings using pots and pans as a drum set to their ultra-deconstructed latter-day approach,certain core sensibilities are apparent throughout: brash youthful rawness, wry and m...