Books 109 Items

A vibrant, unconventional, highly opinionated guide to the triumphs, joys, struggles, and heartbreaks of the modern era of the game, for every obsessive basketball fan who loves to hate hot takesThe Joy of Basketball celebrates the meteoric rise of basketball over the last quarter century by ignoring the bland, traditionalist binary of wins or losses. Instead, the book's focus is on everything else. Using text, charts, and illustrations that upend conventional jock wisdom, the book details the most incredible players in history, draft flops, long-limbed oddballs, superteams, the international talent wave, brawls, scandals, the rapid evolution of contemporary gameplay, coaching, fashion, crime, positional erosion, tragic tales, memes, and the sacred Kardashian Blessing. Bouncing between witty graphics and keen sociopolitical observations, The Joy of Basketball is a subversive sports manifesto camouflaged as a colorful reference book for your coffee table.

Daft Punk’s Discovery is a record that looked into the future and liked what it saw; an album that predicted the electronic music explosion, YouTube and the end of privacy, while dragging soft rock back into vogue. Discovery was not only one of the best albums of the 2000s, it was one of the most prophetic, the kind of record that makes you wonder: how did they know?

You can draw lines from Discovery to Glass Swords, Kanye West, EDM, Autotune, iTunes, Beyoncé, Guilty Pleasures, social media and more. Discovery's footprints can be found all over the modern world but it also looked back to Daft Punk’s childhood, to Van Halen records, Japanese cartoons and even Johann Sebas-tian Bach.

Discovery was a record that confounded many fans when it was released in 2001, thanks to its blatant pop hooks and unlikely sonic bricolage. It was a record that was - and still is - widely misunderstood; Discov-ery’s impact has only become clear with the passing of time, as Daft Punk have been proved right time and time again.

This book is a homage to a fascinating, troubled beast of an album that casts a huge shadow over the 21st Century, as Discovery reaches its 20th anniversary.

hardback cloth-bound book of lyrics, poems and photographs, designed in collaboration with Oliver Van Der Lugt, with single-use download code included. For those only familiar with her previous releases, aya sinclair's `im hole' will be a dramatic revelation. Under the Loft pseudonym, she attracted global acclaim for her fwd-thinking club inversions that juxtaposed the British addiction to breaks 'n bass with critical, self-sluicing logic and untethered abstraction, tearing down dance music's hallowed pillars of respectability while winking knowingly to voyeuristic onlookers. On `im hole' this routine has evolved; aya has distilled the incisive sonic experimentation of her earlier releases, the tongue-in-cheek giggles of her DJ sets and edits, and the identity-fluxing lyricism of her live shows. Contorting language, dialect, gender and sexuality between intermittently controlled bursts of rhythm, noise and aural goop, she has sculpted a set of autobiographical vignettes that challenge established norms, question supposed truths and affirm a spectrum of interlocking experiences. But while it's wide open and personal, `im hole' also challenges queer art's tendency to veer towards repetitive solipsism, the music fragmenting familiar sounds and twinning them with familiar words, assembled in unfamiliar ways. Stories are muddled with phonetics just as dubstep is macrodosed with microtonal drone. The anxious, explorative personality that made aya's past releases so magnetic is magnified here, and her sense of humour is completely naked. It's a Gregg Araki animated biopic of Burial. It's Shakespeare with hoop earrings and a busted skateboard.

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.

Featuring fresh insights from Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie, Unzipped digs deeper than ever before into the Stones’ archives to present a comprehensive collection of Stones artworks, instruments, stage outfits and notebooks alongside key work by some of the legends of rock photography.

For almost 60 years the Rolling Stones have helped shape popular culture around the globe. Unzipped captures the compelling character and dynamic spectacle of the band through distinctive photography and interviews with the Stones themselves, tracing their impact and influence on rock music, art, design, fashion, photography and filmmaking.

Evocative archive photos, artworks, outtakes and memorabilia, together with dazzling images of the band’s instruments and outfits, plunge you into the ever-changing world of the Stones. Many of the instruments and outfits are paired with pertinent archive photos, so you can examine the detail and see the objects in use. Peppered throughout with engrossing and insightful new commentary by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood, the book also features a compelling introduction by Anthony DeCurtis, which chronicles their career, and perceptive articles by some of their most important creative collaborators, including Buddy Guy, Don Was, Anna Sui, John Varvatos, Martin Scorsese, Shepherd Fairey, Patrick Woodroffe and Willie Williams.

Bold, glamorous and captivating – and beautifully bound and finished – Unzipped is the perfect showcase for ‘the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world’.

'An evocative photo-led exploration of the band’s close-on 60-year career' Choice

'This handsome tome has much to offer the Stones fan who thought they knew everything' Record Collector

About the Author: The Rolling Stones - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood - have all been interviewed specially for the exhibition and accompanying book. Anthony DeCurtis is an author and music critic. He has written for the New York Times, Relix and Rolling Stone, for which he is a contributing editor.

Format:Hardback Size:31.7 x 24.1 cm Extent:288 pp Illustrations:400 Publication date:7 October 2021 ISBN:9780500023853

The ultimate love letter to the world's most magical plant: Weed. Best-selling author, rapper, chef, and television star Action Bronson is a marijuana superhero, and Stoned Beyond Belief is his masterpiece.

This is an exploration of every corner of the pot galaxy, from highly scientific botanical analyses and the study of pot’s medicinal benefits to a guide to the wild world of weed paraphernalia. It's also a very personal tribute to a substance Bronson refers to as life changing, horizon-expanding, a conduit for happiness, a connector. Weed is to Action Bronson what the madeleine was to Proust: the door to true consciousness.

Organized loosely as 100 entries, including 35 recipes, and packed with illustrations and photos, Stoned Beyond Belief is a trippy and munchie-filled experience as well as an entertainingly valuable resource for weed enthusiasts and scholars. Stoned Beyond Belief will delight Action Bronson fans and pot aficionados all across the universe.

Brand NEW & Expanded Edition! Packed with dozens of additional horror titles and containing limited edition enhanced packaging (foil cover elements + guilded foil page edges).

The expanded second printing of Blood on Black Wax: Horror Soundtracks on Vinyl profiles several additional soundtrack titles, reflecting the consistently strong trend of horror soundtracks being committed to vinyl. The full-color, 272-page book spotlights the intricate (and often rare) artwork on the LP sleeves, as well as album reviews, release details, and backstories. New titles include mainstream entries such as Child's Play, The Silence of the Lambs, Children of the Corn, Silver Bullet, and Cujo, alongside cult hits such as Troll / Troll 2, Bad Taste, Spookies, Ghoulies, and Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.

Co-author Aaron Lupton: ''I'll never stop being proud of Blood on Black Wax, a passion project conceived by Jeff and I and brought to life by 1984 Publishing about my life's obsession: horror soundtracks on vinyl. I'm so proud to see the book get this deluxe second printing with even more cool records to add to your shelf.''

Co-author Jeff Szpirglas: ''It was a thrill to go back and revisit Blood on Black Wax with Aaron, and not just as an excuse to re-listen to the Maniac Cop soundtrack. With the new edition, we redoubled our efforts to speak directly to a bunch of composers such as Jay Chattaway, Joe Renzetti, and Jonathan Elias about their work on classic horror film scores. Plus, I love it when I have to watch films like The Kindred for 'work-related purposes.'''

Are you obsessed with John Carpenter's iconic music for the Halloween series? Do you thrill to the unforgettable stabs of the Psycho score, or the pounding synth of Goblin's soundtrack to Suspiria? Do you find yourself being pulled into the hair-raising modern scores for the likes of Get Out, Hereditary, and The Witch?

You're not alone.

Blood on Black Wax is a defining horror soundtrack volume that spotlights iconic franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Jaws, The Exorcist , and George A. Romero's Dead films, highlighting both the music and the amazing - often rare - artwork that graces the record sleeves. It also tells the stories behind the soundtrack, from the mouths of the musicians who made them, including John Carpenter, Fabio Frizzi, Christopher Young, Harry Manfredini, Charles Bernstein, Pino Donaggio, John Harrison, and more.

Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas, both of Rue Morgue magazine, have curated Blood on Black Wax to reflect their own passion for the darkest slabs of soundtrack music. Their journey into the fascinating history of horror movie scores contains reviews, release details, and wild stories about both renown and unusual releases - everything from the orchestral sounds of Hammer and Universal horror, to the truly experimental albums for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Eraserhead, to the outlandish punk and metal songs of '80s soundtrack albums like The Return of the Living Dead and Shocker.

Go back to your favorite horror films one more time, through the jaw-dropping, spine-tingling music that helped solidify their place in cinematic history!

''Blood On Black Wax takes a deep dive into the history of horror movie soundtracks and the cool AF artwork that cloaks them.'' - Alternative Press

Mick Garris (director / The Stand, Sleepwalkers; writer / Hocus Pocus) wrote a foreword for Blood on Black Wax, while composer Christopher Young (Hellraiser, Pet Sematary) penned the afterword.

Blood on Black Wax will contain limited edition enhanced packaging (foil cover elements + guilded foil page edges).

Dimensions : 8.5 x 1.5 x 11 inches