Books 124 Items

This is the first book from New Orleans organist and inventor, Quintron: a multi-layered tome that pays tribute to the perilous world of devoted musical road-dawgs. The setting is Europe, but the book is just as much about the myriad illusions of American identity. A not-so-glamorous life in rock gets pulled apart to reveal vivid blood vessels running beneath the obvious. The tales are funny and thrilling—and mostly true. Someone almost dies on every page!

Renowned puppeteer Panacea Theriac (aka Miss Pussycat) has contributed drawings throughout. Foreword by novelist and psychoanalyst Timothy Lachin.

“If Dr. Frankenstein were working with raw material from Madame Curie, Delia Derbyshire, James Brown, and Wilhelm Reich, the result might be something like Quintron. Underground inventor, composer, record maker, impresario, and performer par excellence. There is nothing and no one like him and this is his first book and it’s a gas!” —Ian Svenonious

“Great reading! Microtel description was right on. Stockholm to Helsinki ferry was always a Dead Moon curse. How do you get 86’d out of a cafeteria? Way cool.” —Fred Cole, Dead Moon

“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

Released to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the coolest and best- known label in jazz, this book celebrates over seven decades of extraordinary music from a company that has stayed true to its founders commitment to Uncompromising Expression. Tracing the evolution of jazz from the boogie- woogie and swing of the 1930s, through bebop, funk and fusion, to the eclectic mix Blue Note releases today, the book also narrates a complex social history from the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany to the developments in music and technology in the late 20th century. Blue Note is not only known as the purveyor of extraordinary jazz but is also famous as an arbiter of cool. The photography of co-founder Francis Wolff and the cover designs of Reid Miles were integral to the labels success and this highly illustrated, landmark publication featuring the very best photographs, covers, and ephemera from the archives, including never-before-published material commemorates Blue Notes momentous contribution to jazz, to art and design as well as to revolutionizing the music business.

A landmark publication celebrating the life and work of American musician and composer Arthur Russell, the man the Guardian called 'One of the 20th century's true musical visionaries'

The music of Arthur Russell defies classification. From his pioneering compositions as part of New York's vibrant avant-garde scene (alongside artists including Philip Glass, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, John Cage, and Allen Ginsberg) to his genre-expanding disco productions, from his new wave and art pop to his posthumously released folk songs, Russell crafted timeless and foundationally influential work until his premature death in 1992 from AIDS-related illnesses.

Now, in a landmark publication assembled by critically-acclaimed writer Richard King, Travels Over Feeling collects the extensive ephemera found in Russell’s New York Public Library archive, along with pieces from the personal collections of those who were closest to him. Combining unseen visual material—handwritten scores, lyrics, photos, letters, and drawings—with new texts by King and extensive original interviews with Arthur’s collaborators, contemporaries, family, and friends, Travels Over Feeling paints a portrait of Arthur Russell unlike any which has come before, revealing a true picture of one of the most distinctive artists of the last fifty years.

Charles Arthur Russell Jr., better known as Arthur Russell (May 21, 1951—April 4, 1992) was an American cellist, composer, producer, singer, and musician from Iowa whose work spanned a disparate range of styles. After studying contemporary composition and Indian classical music in California, Russell relocated to New York City in the mid-1970s, where he became involved with both Lower Manhattan's avant-garde community and the city's burgeoning disco scene. His eclectic music was often marked by adventurous production choices and his distinctive voice. He died from AIDS-related illnesses in 1992.

Richard King was born in South Wales and for the last twenty years has lived in the rural county of Powys, in mid-Wales. He is author of Original Rockers (2015), which was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, and How Soon Is Now? (2012), which was Sunday Times Music Book of the Year. The Lark Ascending was published in 2019, and was a Rough Trade, Mojo, and Evening Standard Book of the Year. His latest book, Brittle with Relics, was published in February 2022.

Agnostic Front - With Time, the comprehensive visual archives of Roger Miret, withearly and unseen photos, flyers, t-shirts, and band history from pre- Agnostic Front band inception through the United Blood, Victim In Pain, and Cause For Alarm eras spanning from 1982–1986. The full- color book includes a complete archive of Agnostic Front flyers, photos, and art, including the tour diary and story chronicling their first US tour supporting Victim In Pain in 1985.

Helmut Newton’s lens captured the essence of elegance and glamorous sexuality, showcasing the allure of women as never before. His images tell stories of desire, seduction, intrigue, and powerplay, leaving an indelible mark in our cultural history.

The Captivating World of Helmut Newton - Eternal fashion icons and legendary celebrity portraits

Helmut Newton’s unforgettable images, at once sophisticated and provocative, constitute a rich and ever-relevant artistic legacy. This book presents a compact but wide-ranging and impactful portfolio of his work, supported by an insightful introduction and a detailed biographical chronology.

Newton’s images straddle the knife-edge of ambiguity, teasing out allusions and social observations that both entice and challenge their viewers. In this portfolio, Newton’s unique perspective is effectively showcased, reflecting the complex undercurrents that give his images their distinct character across the breadth of his editorial work in the fields of fashion and portraiture.

This book reveals Newton’s evolution into a contrarian, a savvy and mischievous cynic, at once voyeur and satirist, whose lens framed contentious yet pivotal aspects of high fashion and high society in the latter decades of the twentieth century. He worked as a “gun for hire” while imposing his own perspectives and obsessions, defining most notably his idea of a powerful, self-assured woman. This figure became his most insistent theme, developed in erotically charged scenarios, most typically set in the seductive environment of opulent apartments or grand hotels, most notably in Paris, Monte Carlo, and Los Angeles.

From the mid-sixties, Newton’s dynamic images established his reputation in the world of fashion, through work published in leading magazines, among them Vogue Paris, Elle, Marie Claire, Nova, Queen, and British Vogue. From the mid-seventies his notoriety was extended through his first books and exhibitions. His images immortalize such luminaries of society, film, and fashion as Princess Caroline of Monaco, Charlotte Rampling, Paloma Picasso, and Karl Lagerfeld.

Helmut Newton’s glamorous, ground-breaking, and boundary-pushing photographs have an indisputable signature authority that maintains their hold on our imaginations.

The photographer Helmut Newton (1920–2004) was one of the most influential photographers of all time. He first achieved international fame in the 1970s while working principally for the different internation editions of Vogue, where he was celebrated for his controversial scenarios and the ability to make a thoroughly planned photograph seem fresh and dynamic. His many titles and awards include Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

The author Sarah Mower is a fashion critic for Vogue, with a longstanding career as a commentator on fashion movements and their place within broader sociological and cultural contexts. In 2011 Mower was awarded an MBE for her contributions to the fashion industry.

The contributor Philippe Garner is an auction specialist in photographs and 20th century decorative art and design, a historian, writer, exhibition curator, and vice-president of the Helmut Newton Foundation.

Hardcover, 14 x 19.5 cm, 0.43 kg, 192 pages Edition: Multilingual (English, French, German)

Who had the greatest dunk of all time? Which version of Michael Jordan was the best Michael Jordan? What is allowed and absolutely not allowed in a game of pickup basketball? Basketball and Other Things takes readers through the most pivotal and ridiculous fan disputes in basketball history, providing arguments and answers to basketball’s greatest questions, explained with the wit and wisdom that is unique to Shea Serrano. Serrano breaks down debates that all NBA fans have considered, from the classics (Which years was Kobe at his best?) to the fantastical (If you could assign different values to different shots throughout basketball history, what would they be and why?). With incredible art from Arturo Torres, this book is a must-have for anyone who has ever stayed up late into the night debating basketball’s greatest moments, what-ifs, stories, and legends.

Illustrated by Arturo Torres, foreword by Reggie Miller.

Shea Serrano is an award-winning writer, author, and illustrator. His most recent book, The Rap Year Book, reached the bestseller lists of the New York Times and Washington Post, topped the Arts and Entertainment iBooks bestseller list, and was chosen for the Pitchfork book club. Currently, Serrano is a staff writer for The Ringer. He lives in Houston, Texas.

22,9 x 19,1 cm, 240 pages, paperback

Words like "inspiring," "expansive," and "moving" are
regularly used to describe Sigur Rós's ( ), and yet the
only words heard on the record itself are a handful of
meaningless nonsense syllables. The album has no
title—or rather, its title is no title: just an empty pair
of parentheses. The intention being that listeners will
fill in the parentheses with their own title, their own
interpretation of the sounds on the record. The CD
sleeve consists of twelve pages that are essentially blank, lacking song
titles, liner notes or production credits. Instead, it contains only semitranslucent
frosted images of abstract natural scenes (tree branches,
clouds, etc.), on which the listener is free to inscribe their own notes—
or no notes at all. And then there are the lyrics, sung in a deliberately
unintelligible tongue called "Hopelandic" which the band invites listeners
to interpret freely.
Ethan Hayden's book doesn't try to fill in the gaps between the album's
parentheses, but instead explores the ways in which listeners might
attempt to do so. Examining the communicative powers of asemantic
language, the book asks whether music can bring sense to nonsense.
What happens to the voice when it stops singing conventional
language: does it simply become another musical instrument, or is it
somehow more "human"? What role does space play on ( )? And how do
we interpret music that we cannot possibly understand, but feel very
deeply that we do?

168 pages, paperback.

Every Sneaker Story Worth Telling!

An anthology of cult magazine Sneaker Freaker

Back in 2002, Simon “Woody” Wood was dreaming up schemes to get free sneakers. Two weeks later, he was the proud owner of Sneaker Freaker and his life was never the same.

From its early roots as a punk-style fanzine to today’s super-slick print and online operations, the fiercely independent publication has documented every collab, custom, limited edition, retro reissue, Quickstrike, Hyperstrike, and Tier Zero sneaker released over the last 20 years.

Woody’s original premise that Sneaker Freaker would be “funny and serious, meaningful and pointless at the same time” has certainly been vindicated in The Ultimate Sneaker Book. With more than 500 pages jam-packed with insider knowledge and his own irreverent observations, the insane historical detail and otaku-level minutiae is beyond obsessive.

Traversing 100 years of history, each chapter paints a rollicking picture of the sneaker industry’s evolution. Air Max, Air Force, Adi Dassler, Converse, Dapper Dan, Dee Brown, and Michael Jordan—along with obscure treasures like Troop, Airwalk, and Vision Street Wear—are all exhaustively documented.

This is a definitive source of knowledge. This is… The Ultimate Sneaker Book!

Sneaker Freaker has been at the forefront of the global sneaker scene for over two decades. With over 500 redesigned pages, fresh photography, immense historical detail, and otaku-level minutiae, this anthology combines the magazine's finest and content created exclusively for this book into one big celebration of sneakers.

“The most definitive sneaker culture magazine on the planet!”
MTV

The editor and author
Simon “Woody” Wood established Sneaker Freaker in 2002 as the first and only international magazine dedicated to footwear. Today, Sneaker Freaker documents every colab, custom, limited-edition, and retro reissue in exacting detail across multiple digital channels and print projects. Based in Melbourne, Woody is recognized worldwide for his encyclopedic knowledge, inimitable writing style, and steadfast role as an authentic ambassador. His TASCHEN titles include the best-selling Ultimate Sneaker Book and The World's Greatest Sneaker Collectors.

Hardcover, 15.6 x 21.7 cm, 1.11 kg, 512 pages

Let the Music Play: How R&B Fell in Love with 80s Synths is the overlooked story of how R&B, disco and funk were transformed by the explosion of music tech in the era of ghetto blasters and Ronald Reagan. It traces how pioneers like Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock inspired a new generation of black musicians and producers to reinvent music with a whole new set of rules.

From superstars like Prince and Sade to production geniuses like Kashif and Jam & Lewis, it tells the fascinating stories of the artists involved and how they made some of the best-loved records of the era – creating a blueprint for music today.

»Here In, Absence« is the result of the dialogue between the Finnish photographer Mikael Siirilä and ambient artists The Humble Bee & Offthesky. Mikael Siirilä describes himself as a darkroom artist based in Helsinki, Finland. »My small individual photographs examine the themes of absence, presence and outsiderhood. My characters appear immersed in their inner worlds and moments of being: simultaneously absent and intensely present.«

As immediately believable as they were cartoonish, as much an inner city cipher as a suburban boys gang, the foursome that made up the Pharcyde were the most relatable MCs to ever pass the mic. On their debut and magnum opus Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, they created a record almost overstuffed with possibility, the sound of four restless man-children fresh out of their teens, finding a perfect outlet in a form of music that was just as young and fertile.

And like the product of any adolescent, Bizarre Ride wears its contrarianism and contradictions on its sleeve. It's a party album about shyness and unrequited love. A swirl of jubilant L.A. psychedelia recorded in the midst of the Rodney King trial. A blast of black consciousness that still makes room to poke fun at Public Enemy and reference the Pixies. A dense, sophisticated sonic stew punctuated by yo mama jokes and prank calls. While hip-hop was already calcifying its tropes of steely machismo and aspirational fantasy, Bizarre Ride was a pure distillation of the average hip-hop listener's actual lifestyle-the joys and sorrows of four guys who were young, broke, sexually frustrated, and way too clever for their own good. A touchstone for Kanye West, Drake, Lil B and a whole generation of off-center MCs, Bizarre Ride sketched out a whole strata of emotions that other rappers hadn't yet dared to tackle, and to a certain extent, still haven't.

Credited as one of the pioneers of ‘harsh noise wall’; influential artist Sam McKinlay (b. 1974, CA) has been operating under the alias The Rita for over 25 years. Having performed extensively and credited with over 200 releases, the project has grown into a laser focused multidisciplinary venture and is celebrated for pushing the boundaries of ‘harsh noise’.

Accompanying The Rita’s singular and often unpredictable sonic output is an inseparable and distinct visual language. By combining McKinlay’s fine arts education, research, experimentation, and collaboration; the project visually and texturally unites the artist’s interests in minimalist design, noise, ballet, sharks, choreography, and film.

‘Correlations’ presents some of the images and documents McKinlay finds most definitive in his practice The monograph is designed to provide a cohesive understanding of the artist’s creative trajectory, as well as illuminate The Rita’s uncanny process that visually, conceptually, and historically ‘connects’ seemingly unrelated subjects.

Published by Amaya Productions; the monograph includes essays by the author and Centre Pompidou art historian Nicolas Ballet (‘Shock Factory: The Visual Culture of Industrial Music’), associate Professor and harsh noise artist Lexi Turner (Cornell University), and author, writer, producer Kier-La Janisse (‘House of Psychotic Women’).

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...

"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.

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.

As Torch describes it:

In 2015, I decided to fly to NYC again. When I told Robert about it, he responded briefly: „I’m flying with you. I’ve never been to New York. Just book me the same flight as you.“ To my surprise, that’s exactly what happened. Our trip was from April 9th to the 21st, 2015, flying from Zurich to Newark. I had the contacts and knew my way around. He had the camera and captured everything. I was his guide on the ground, and he became my eyes.


Photography: Rob Hak
Texts: Frederik Hahn aka Torch
Authors: Robert Hak & Frederik Hahn


Written in 2024 / 1st Edition 2024
Editing: Adam Silverstein &
Bernd Kammerer / textonaut.de
Cover Design: Rob Hak / www.studiohak.de
Layout: studio hak, Rottweil
Printing: Otto Druck, Oberndorf a.N.
Bookbinding: Spinner, Ottersweier
Paper: Munken Print Cream

The perfect-bound 80-page coffee table book delves into our two decades of history through in-depth interviews with our founders Friction & K-Tee, as well as a range of artists past and present. Accompanied by beautiful full-colour photography from the archives throughout, this book is an essential for Shogun fans and D&B enthusiasts worldwide.