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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.

One of the finest hip-hop albums ever made, A Tribe Called Quest's debut record (featuring stone-cold classics like "Can I Kick It?" and "Bonita Applebum") took the idea of the boasting hip-hop male and turned it on its head. For many listeners, when this non-traditional, surprisingly feminine album was released, it was like hearing an entirely new form of music.

In this book, Shawn Taylor explores the creation of the album as well as the impact it had on him at the time - a 17-year-old high-school geek who was equally into hip-hop, punk, new wave, skateboarding, and Dungeons & Dragons: all of a sudden, with this one album, the world made more sense. He has spent many years investigating this album, from the packaging to the song placement to each and every sample - Shawn Taylor knows this record like he knows his tattoos, and he's finally been able to write a fascinating and highly entertaining book about it.

128 pages.
• See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/a-tribe-called-quests-peoples-instinctive-travels-and-the-paths-of-rhythm-9780826419231/#sthash.cFZ9YfTa.dpuf

The first ever book of its kind on the history of the artwork of The Residents and their label Ralph Records. The life of Ralph Records and The Residents has always been cloaked in obscure mysteries, woven by the anonymous Cryptic Corporation, around which many luminaries have revolved; painters, graphic artists, cartoonists, musicians, film-makers, and writers. All have been channeled together by a powerful creative synergy that helped champion a new, mercurial and thoroughly multi-faceted artifact. Buy Or Die!, for the very first time, brings together a collection of images that represented the sounds of Ralph from 1972 to the present. A historical journey that traces the path of one of the most innovative record labels of the last fifty years. A collection of original, rare, and remarkable images drawn from record covers, fan catalogs, posters, and a wide variety of promotional material, demonstrating the technological and stylistic adaptations undergone through the arc of half a century.

"From acid house to prog-rock, there is no form of modern popular music that hasn’t been propelled forward by the synthesizer. As a result, they have long been objects of fascination, desire and reverence for keyboard players, music producers and fans of electronic music alike. Whether looking at an imposing modular system or posing with a DX7 on Top of the Pops, the synth has also always had an undeniable physical presence.

Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital (and Back) celebrates their impact on music and culture by providing a comprehensive and meticulously researched directory of every major synthesizer, drum machine and sampler made between 1963 and 1995. Each featured instrument is illustrated by hand and shown alongside its vital statistics and some fascinatingly quirky facts.

From its invention in the early 1960s to the digital revolution of the 1980s right up until the point that analogue circuits could be modelled using software in the mid-1990s, this book tells the story of synthesizers from analogue to digital – and back again.

Tracing that history and showing off their visual beauty with art-book quality illustrations, this a must for any self-respecting synth fan. The book has 128 pages, is 23cm x 17.4cm in size and printed on high quality 130gsm matt art paper.

Author Oli Freke says: “This book has grown out of a life-long obsession with synthesizers and electronic music, and it’s fantastic to be able to share this with my fellow synth obsessives and music fans who celebrate the synth’s role in modern music. I’m eternally grateful to Velocity Press for going with me on this journey and supporting the project so keenly.”

Reviews

“When the author’s passion for synths combines with his artistic talent the result is a book with a difference. The hand-sketched illustration style sets this book apart helping turn the technical facts and figures into a visual feast insightfully embellished with interesting anecdotes. This book is a joy to look at and a delight to read.” – Sound On Sound magazine

“Like a Victorian botanist climbing mountains in search of a rare flower to sketch, Oli Freke tracks down scarce examples of synthesizers to lovingly sketch and share with the rest of us to marvel at. His collection is an essential bookshelf addition for the analogue obsessive.” – Electronic Sound magazine

“Such a fascinating survey of the synthesizer world, demonstrating a depth of passion that will amaze even the greatest synth-head.” – Benge (Expanding Records)

“Every tweak of a button, every plug of a wire, every minute detail examined on some of the most iconic synths ever made… its really geeky & strange, but its the bible on every great synthesizer behind all of your favourite songs.”

Lotus Capo (Sony ATV Publishing)

The Secret DJ’s first two books lifted the lid on what really happens behind the decks in the sometimes hilarious, sometimes harrowing world of the superstar DJ. Now they’ve reached out to dozens of DJs from around the world – and from every scene and genre – for their own true stories of the DJ life.

Tales From the Booth raises the BPM, rounding up an all-star cast of Secret DJs to tell their anonymous stories of what it’s really like to rock dancefloors for a living. From strange encounters on tour to side-splitting debauchery and afterparty excess to the seamy and even dangerous side of the industry, this is your access-all-areas backstage pass. You’ll never look at a DJ quite the same again.

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.

"Legendary drum & bass magazine Knowledge returns for a one-off special book to celebrate their 25th anniversary. It's been ten years since the last issue and five years since they called it a day and over the years people have clamoured for its return but Knowledge always resisted the temptation. So why are they bringing it back now? Well, they feel they have unfinished business. Reaching 20 years was such an important milestone but it was a bittersweet moment and they didn't celebrate it at all because they knew the end was coming. What better way to mark their 25th anniversary than with one last issue?

Knowledge Magazine returns with a special one-off book celebrating their 25th anniversary. There have been some special issues in the past but this is the biggest and best Knowledge ever. This is one for the collectors:

10” x 10” large format book
Hardback material cover with debossed logo
Premium 130gsm matt art paper
160 full-colour pages featuring new and classic long-form features and interviews"

Written by veteran journalist Shawn Reynaldo, First Floor is a weekly newsletter that focuses on electronic music, along with the culture and industry that surround it. Over the course of just a few years, it’s become one of electronic music’s most influential platforms, routinely putting many of the genre’s thorniest issues under the microscope while reckoning with changes in the culture during a time of profound transformation.

A collection of Reynaldo’s most thought-provoking essays, First Floor Volume 1 provides a nuanced, wide-ranging look at contemporary electronic music culture, with a particular focus on systemic issues that often go undiscussed.

Topics covered included the evolving nature of electronic music fandom and artistry, value shifts brought on by the current changing of the generational guard, the shortcomings of the modern music press and the growing gap between electronic music’s foundational rhetoric and the genre’s present-day norms.

Incorporating both pieces originally published in the newsletter (all of which have been updated) and exclusive new material from Reynaldo himself, the book also features a foreword by veteran artist and 3024 label founder Martyn.

»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.«

At long last, we’re got the massive biography on THE Bangles and it is nothing short of a whopper. This monumental project, started by author and unofficial band historian Eric Shade back in the 1990s has had quite a journey from start to finish. This insane overview of the early days of the members’ obscure early groups, as well as an amazing snapshot of the sorely-undocumented Paisley Underground scene of early 80s LA, all the way up through the core band members’ current projects, is a feat we never though we’d see fulfilled. For a band as huge and omnipresent as The Bangles still in are 2023, the revelation of their earlier efforts, such as the mind-blowing story of Micki Steele in the first lineup of the fledgling Runaways, while the Peterson sisters were rocking out in bands such as THE Muze, Hollywood Girls, and THE Fans right around the same period is the legendary stuff mostly outside of public knowledge. The intertwining stories of Susanna Hoffs meeting David Roback (later of The Rain Parade) and getting inspired by The Last, with Vicki & DEBBI’s growing interest in garage bands like The Unclaimed around town, All Over The Place shows how many moving parts were swirling around, generating a indescribable electricity around Los Angeles as the hardcore scene raged on the other side of the coin. As the Paisley Underground scene evolved during its short window, bands such as Salvation Army/the Three O’clock, Long Ryders, and Dream Syndicate are given their long-overdue historical appreciation here. 438 page softcover book. First edition of 600 copies.

The extended play recording. Not quite an album. More than a single. And not only an artifact of the vinyl era—the EP has survived and even thrived at every turn of the music industry’s evolution, from vinyl to tape to CD to stream. This definitive book unearths the EP’s origins, history and cultural impact and enlists nearly 50 music-industry veterans (musicians, scribes, producers, executives, superfans) to create a list of the 200 Best EPs ever recorded and shapes these opinions into a book that seeks to trace the arc of the EP’s development and, in so doing, chart the history of the music industry writ large. From Dangerhouse to Touch & Go to Sub Pop to Flying Nun, and all roads in between, savvy labels have used the EP to great effect and its been the way to introduce bands in a less risky mid-sized format for decades. This super-interesting guide shows how the format developed and how it took on a life of its own, from early jazz & rock’n roll through the beat & psychedelic rock era, right on through punk, new wave, and post-punk, and into the alternative/indie rock era, right up to the modern age. This rousing guide through the mid-sized mindset features a huge swath of guest writers galore, each offering up their enthusiastic opinions on which EPs deserve your attention, divided by decade, along with all of their details on long-forgotten B-sides and extras that couldn’t fit on the 7” version, yet easily pad out a 12”. 202 pages, softcover. First edition of 600 copies.

The first biography of rapper Mac Miller, the Pittsburgh cult favorite–turned–rap superstar who touched the lives of millions before tragically passing away at the age of 26—now in paperbackMalcolm James McCormick was born on January 19, 1992. He began making music at a young age and by 15 was already releasing mixtapes. One of the first true viral superstars, his early records earned him a rabid legion of die-hard fans—as well as a few noteworthy detractors. But despite his undeniable success, Miller was plagued by struggles with substance abuse and depression, both of which fueled his raw and genre-defying music, yet ultimately led to his demise. Through detailed reporting and interviews with dozens of Miller’s confidants, Paul Cantor brings you to leafy Pittsburgh, seductive Los Angeles, and frenzied New York, where you will meet Miller’s collaborators, producers, business partners, best friends, and even his roommates. Traveling deep into Miller’s inner circle, behind the curtain, the velvet ropes, and studio doors, Most Dope tells the story of a (...)

The definitive overview of the artwork of seminal Manchester-based Factory label, covering its iconic record sleeves, posters, ephemera, venues and packaging.

Between 1978 and 1992, Factory was one of the most important record labels in Britain. It launched the careers of Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays, to name but a few; it opened the legendary Haçienda club and Dry bar; and it introduced to music the concept of high-quality, cutting-edge design. The visual languages developed alongside the music, by designers such as Peter Saville, Central Station Design and 8vo, are still widely recognized and imitated today.

Factory Records documents the label’s entire visual legacy and its role in bringing design into the mainstream. Every item with a famous Factory inventory number is illustrated or listed, including album sleeves, singles, special editions, flyers, posters, stationery and architectural projects. With a foreword by Tony Wilson, Factory’s charismatic record label owner and nightclub manager, this book amply conveys the energy, creativity and enthusiasm of one of the most dynamic (and chaotic) record labels ever.

'Its depth, detail and sheer brilliance put other coffee-table music books to shame' NME

'A lovingly compiled collection' Independent (10 of the Best Rock Books)

'By the time you reach the Happy Mondays’ explosions of graffiti and goo you’re properly convinced of the genius of everyone involved' The Word

'A collectible item in its own right' iD Magazine

'As an indicator of time’s passing, a document of an important pop-culture moment and just as great a book of superb looks, serial number Fac 461 is the business' GQ

'Breathtaking … a must-have reference for music aficionados' Computer Arts Projects

About the Author: Matthew Robertson works as a designer in Bath, England. His personal collection of Factory items includes a number of rare pieces, and he works alongside several former Factory artists.

The now deceased Tony Wilson co-founded Factory Records in 1978.

Format:Paperback with flaps Size:29.0 x 25.0 cm Extent:224 pp Illustrations:400 Publication date:10 September 2007 ISBN:9780500286364

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.

ESG were one of the first bands to sign to British indie label Factory Records, working with famed producer Martin Hannett on their early EPs. The band's signature guitar sound from iconic single 'ufo' has been sampled in hundreds of hip hop records, and everyone from Karen O to Kathleen Hanna lists the South Bronx group as a direct influence. So why do the Scroggins sisters appear as nothing more than a footnote in the 1980s music scene?

Through interviews with founding member Renee Scroggins, alongside cult-figures from 1980s New York and North England, this book follows the story of a group of sisters who made it out of the New York projects and into the heart of the dancefloor. Come Away With ESG repositions ESG in their rightful place as punk pioneers and explains how their primal beats have paved the way for modern dance music today.

A unique record of hip-hop history from the late 1990s through to the present, captured through informal Polaroid portraiture.

Just as Andy Warhol: Red Books defined a generation of artists, Big Shots offers a collection of photos that captures the energy of the world of hip-hop and the greater worlds of music and fashion alike. Started as snaps of friends and visitors, this unprecedented volume shot by Phillip Leeds, former tour manager of Kelis and N.E.R.D., is a compilation of previously unpublished work documenting some of the biggest names in hip-hop and fashion. His collection of Polaroid portraits has effectively grown to capture an important moment in music and fashion.

With more than 250 Polaroids of artists and figures including Mos Def, Jay Z, Tyler the Creator, Quest-love, and Rita Ora, Big Shots gives readers a unique and oftentimes impromptu look into an era of music and fashion shared through the ever-nostalgic format of the Polaroid.

From a Los Angeles hospital bed, equipped with little more than a laptop and a stack of records, James “J Dilla” Yancey crafted a set of tracks that would forever change the way beatmakers viewed their artform. The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music as “hip hop music” is typically defined; they careen and crash into each other, in one moment noisy and abrasive, gorgeous and heartbreaking the next. The samples and melodies tell the story of a man coming to terms with his declining health, a final love letter to the family and friends he was leaving behind. As a prolific producer with a voracious appetite for the history and mechanics of the music he loved, J Dilla knew the records that went into constructing Donuts inside and out. He could have taken them all and made a much different, more accessible album. If the widely accepted view is that his final work is a record about dying, the question becomes why did he make this record about dying?

Drawing from philosophy, critical theory and musicology, as well as Dilla’s own musical catalogue, Jordan Ferguson shows that the contradictory, irascible and confrontational music found on Donuts is as much a result of an artist’s declining health as it is an example of what scholars call “late style,” placing the album in a musical tradition that stretches back centuries.

152 pages.

From New York pioneers who helped create the art form in the 70s, to freight train kings in Florida and hall of fame spray can wizards in California. In the American Graffiti Coloring Book, more than 45 of America’s most prominent graffiti writers have provided the initial outlines – now it is up to you to give them color! With full pages devoted to the artwork, each spread becomes its own unique full color piece of art as you go along filling out the pages, and there is plenty of room for the small details. American Graffiti Coloring Book is printed on marker friendly paper. Use your markers and color-in on both sides of the page with no risk of the ink bleeding through. The content is carefully curated by the influential artist and Museum of Graffiti co-founder Alan KET, and the striking cover and

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.

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.

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.

Hundreds of millions travel by underground train every day. The subway is one of the world’s most common
means of transport and an environment where many of us spend a great deal of time.
Subway cars are important “canvases” for the artists behind one of the most widespread modern art movements
today - graffiti.
Subway Scrawl is a collection of 10 classic subway de- signs in a practical notepad. Bring out your creative side
and add your own personality to the cars. Try your hand at making a New York subway wholecar, scribble diary
notes or write a to do list on a London Underground car.

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.

The history of India’s first electronic music studio founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad by David Tudor.

A book companion to the compilation album The NID Tapes: Electronic Music in India 1969-1972 released by State51.

Subcontinental Synthesis explores the history of India’s first electronic music studio, founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad with the support of the composer David Tudor. The essays and writings unravel the narrative and context surrounding the studio as well as the work of the Indian composers who created groundbreaking recordings during its four years of activity.

The texts reflect on the role of electronic music within a post-independence India, considering its interconnections with experimental design, radical pedagogies, and the international avant-garde, as well as the encircling conditions of Western ideological soft power within the global expansion of Modernism.

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.

Trip-hop described some of the 1990s' best music, and it was one of the decade's most revealing bad ideas.

The music itself was an intoxication of beats, bass, and voice. It emerged amid the social tensions of the late 1980s, and as part of hip-hop's rise to global dominance. It carried the innovations of Jamaican soundsystem culture, the sweet refuge of Lovers Rock, the bliss of club jazz dancefloors and post-rave chill-out rooms. It went mainstream with Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, DJ Shadow, Kruder & Dorfmeister, and Björk; and with record labels like Ninja Tune and Mo' Wax. To the artists' despair, the music was tagged with a silly label and packaged as music for the boutique and the lounge; made respectable with awards and acclaim.

But the music at its best still sounds experimental and dramatic; and its influence lingers through artists like FKA twigs, Sevdaliza, James Blake, Billie Eilish, and Lana Del Rey. This short book is a guide to 'trip-hop' in its context of the weird 1990s: nostalgia and consumerism; pre-millenium angst and lo-fi technology; casual exoticism amid accelerating globalization and gentrification. This book presents a survey of the music and its leading artists, packed with recommended listening, essential tracks, great remixes, and under-recognized albums.

Finally, a brilliant exploration of the German rock band Can's monumental 1971 album Tago Mago.
Tago Mago is a hugely unique and influential album that deserves close analysis from a fan, rather than a
musicologist. In this officially approved account of one of the most influential and powerful albums of the 1970s, Scottish novelist Alan Warner details the
concrete music we hear on the album as well as how it was composed,
executed and recorded—including the history of the album in terms of
its release, promotion and art work. Warner includes a backtracking of
the history of the band up to that point and also some description of Can's unique recording approach taking into account their home studio set up. Yet this tale of Tago Mago is more than just a history of the band; it is also the tale of a young man obsessed with record collecting
in the dark and mysterious period of pop music before Google.
Through a combination of Warner’s own experiences and interviews with the two surviving members of the band (drummer Jaki Liebezeit, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukay) Can’s Tago Mago
is a hilariously personal and illuminating picture of one of the biggest names in experimental rock.

160 pages, paperback.

»Queen Of Nowhere« is the result of the photographic works by Kourtney Roy and the musician Dayve Samek (Trance Farmers). Samek has recorded his first album in 2014 on Leaving Records (Stones Throw Records). His music ranges between sweaty, garage-born ballads brush shoulders with drifter anthems and gasoline drenched doo wop with at some points some beats close from the past Anticon works. The Canadian photographer Kourtney Roy was born in Northern Ontario in 1981. She conjures an intimate universe pervaded by both wonder and mystery. Her photographer’s eye is drawn to places and settings whose lyrical qualities underscore the sublime banality of everyday life.

Why is it that thousands of clubbing tourists land at Berlin Schönefeld airport every weekend? Why have clubs like Berghain become the stuff of legend the world over? Why have some of the best-known producers and techno DJs like Richie Hawtin and DJ Hell moved with their labels to this city? These are the kind of questions explored in Lost and Sound by Tobias Rapp, a German music journalist who has been living, working and partying in Berlin since the beginning of the nineties. He has spoken with DJs, clubbers, label bosses, hostel managers and urban planners; he has looked and listened carefully; and most important of all, he has been part of the dance floor himself. Every day of the week – from Wednesday night (in Watergate) right through to Wednesday night (back in Watergate).

Lost and Sound is not one of those books that try to grasp techno from a desk-bound position. Rapp zooms in to relate intimate moments in front of the DJ booth and at the bar, and then cuts to historical tangents and theoretical reflections. Detailed research is interspersed with accounts from a first-person perspective. An excellent portrait of Ricardo Villalobos, the biggest star of the Berlin minimal techno and after-party scene, stands alongside a precise sociological portrayal of the queue for Berghain. Through this interplay of music, architecture, infrastructure and drug-induced explorations of personal limits, Rapp is able to capture what makes Berlin such a unique place for electronic music and how this music is experienced.

Following its publication in Germany in February 2009, Lost and Sound made an impact not
seen from a book about popular music for a long time. This was undoubtedly due in part to the
term coined for its subtitle: the ‘Easyjet set’ is a new group of music fans who – thanks to the
deregulation of the European air travel market – now regard the aeroplane as a taxi service for
parties, effectively making Barcelona, London and Paris suburbs of Berlin.

The story of Jackson C. Frank is tragic. The victim of a school fire in his youth, struggling with homelessness and mental illness throughout his life, half-blinded in old age before his death in 1999, Frank met continuous obstacles. And yet he enjoyed a shining moment with the release of Jackson C. Frank on Columbia Records in 1965. The album would go on to be seen as one of the greatest folk albums of the decade—maybe of all time—and its opening track “Blues Run the Game” has become a standard covered by hundreds. Jim Abbott’s book is the result of years of research piecing together evidence, relations and apocryphal stories from Frank’s life. It is also part memoir, as Abbott cared for Frank through the final decade of his life. Their friendship was fraught with difficulties, which Abbott portrays with the honesty of a journalist. In doing so, he draws a portrait of a uniquely gifted songwriter, blessed with talent and besotted by demons. At 250 pages, Abbott’s memoir shows a flawed and caring individual whose struggle was best depicted in his songs. Following the release of Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light of Genius, Ba Da Bing will release three volumes of Jackson C. Frank: The Complete Recordings in early 2015, compiling work from throughout his life, including unreleased material.

By the mid 1970s the Southern African nation known as the Republic of Zambia had fallen on hard times. Though the country’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda, had thrown off the yoke of British colonialism, the new country found itself under his self-imposed autocratic rule. Kaunda protected Zambia from war, but his country descended into isolation and poverty. This is the environment in which the 70s rock revolution known as Zamrock flourished. Fuzz guitars were common, as were rhythms influenced by James Brown’s funk. Songs, mainly sung in the country’s constitutional language, English, were often bleak. In present day Zambia, Zamrock makers were few. It was not a likely scene to survive — but it did. Welcome To Zamrock! Vols. 1 and 2 are an overview of the movement’s most beloved groups, and trace its ascension, fall, and finally, resurgence. Each volume chronicles the the history of the Zamrock scene with never before seen photographs and ephemera. Volume 2 Includes 18 track CD.

56 pages, 5,75 x 8,75 inches, paperback.

“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

‘Cuba: Music and Revolution: Original Album Cover Art of Cuban Music: Record Sleeve Designs of Revolutionary Cuba 1959-90 ’ is a stunning new deluxe 250-page large format hardback book compiled and edited by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker (Soul Jazz Records) that features many 100s of stunning and unique Cuban record sleeve designs made since the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959. These album covers have rarely been seen (nor heard) outside of Cuba and show a rich previously hidden history of both music and design.

‘Cuba: Music and Revolution’ is the first ever book about Cuban record sleeve design and has been five years in the making, made in full co-operation with the Cuban government. The record sleeve designs reflect both the rich cultural Latin musical legacy of Cuba, as well as the political and aesthetic influence of revolutionary Communism, which manifests itself both in the music created on the island and the artwork of the designs included here.

Cuban music is the source of much Latin music in the 20th century. Salsa, the all-encompassing Latin music that came out of New York in the 1970s, and soon spread across Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, owes all of its success to the Cuban music on which it is fundamentally based.

These record sleeves help document the dramatic change in Cuba’s identity from that of 1950s tourist paradise to socialist state. Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the United States imposed a trade embargo which exists to this day, and as a consequence the many 100s of Cuban records featured here have rarely been seen outside of Cuba.

The book is edited and compiled by Gilles Peterson, BBC broadcaster, record label owner, DJ, record collector, founder of Worldwide FM and Stuart Baker, founder of Soul Jazz Records. Together they have edited two earlier critically-acclaimed music and design books ‘Freedom, Rhythm and Sound – Revolutionary Jazz Cover Art 1965-83’ and ‘Bossa Nova and The Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s’.

In conjunction with the deluxe book, Soul Jazz Records will be releasing an album also compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker, charting the rise of Cuban music in the 1970s and featuring many of the artists who appear in this book.

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.

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.

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.

"As government legislation, standardised music and bad drugs forced the euphoria of the rave phenomenon into the darkness, a new underground movement emerged – the jungle and drum & bass nexus.

It was the sound of the beating heart of Britain’s multi-cultural urban rave, produced by the children of the Windrush and their closest friends, and distilled via the journey from a Tivoli Gardens soundclash, to the UK’s inner city blues parties and onto jazz-funk all-dayers and soul weekenders.

It was a space that was forged in the hidden edges of urban warehouses and the darkened recesses of clubland’s backrooms; schooled in the swagger of dancehall, the thunder of hardcore, the fury of bebop and the depth charge of dub.

Jungle and drum & bass was like nothing else the world had experienced before – simultaneously black and white, urban and suburban, old skool attitude and new school innovation. A socio-cultural melting pot of early-90s broken Britain seizing the wheel and taking control of the machine.

Originally published in 1997, State of Bass explores the scene’s roots through its social, cultural and musical antecedents and on to its emergence via the debate that surrounded the apparent split between jungle and drum & bass. Drawing on interviews with some of the key figures in the early years State of Bass explores the sonic shifts and splinters of new variants, styles and subgenres as it charts the journey from the early days as the deliberately hidden underground, ignored by the media in favour of the post-rave progressive house scene, to its position as a global phenomenon.

State of Bass: The Origins of Jungle and Drum & Bass extends the original text to include the award of the Mercury Prize to Roni Size & Reprazent for the groundbreaking New Forms album and brings new perspectives to the story of the UK’s most important subterranean urban energy.



Quotes

“Cogent, well researched and hardly oblivious to the nutty charisma of jungle’s lexicon and nomenclature. The first serious attempt to document the drum & bass realm is a total success.”
Select

“Exceedingly well researched, endlessly authoritative and undeniably ace…”
Melody Maker

“(State of Bass) deserves a special mention. A thorough account of the story of jungle.”
Ben Osborne, author of The A-Z of Club Culture

“The best book so far on the evolution of drum & bass”
Sheryl Garratt, author of Adventures in Wonderland: a decade of club culture

“Martin James comes up trumps with an in-depth examination of Jungle’s roots, history and even a recommended listening guide.”
Muzik

“Essential reading for anyone who is interested not only in the jungle scene… but in dance in general, in the music industry as a whole or even British society and its infrastructures.”
DJ

“An acutely perceptive and thought-provoking account of the circumstances and celebrities surrounding the development of a modern music that we can finally call our own.”
The Scotsman

“Well worth rattling through if you can track it down.”
FACT

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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.

Super Sharp Shooter is a carefully curated selection of over 700 images from event photographer Sarah Ginn’s extensive archives, many never before seen. Spanning drum & bass, dubstep, house and techno, the book showcases festivals, clubs, press shots and record covers, providing an unsurpassed document of electronic music in a colourful and dazzling celebration of beats and bass.

It’s a deluxe coffee table book: 480 pages in full colour on heavyweight 150 gsm paper.

After picking up a camera in 2006 to shoot events at London superclub Fabric, Sarah Ginn started her journey of documenting the dance music scene. With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access at the likes of Fabric, Ultra Festival, Boomtown, Glastonbury, Outlook, Printworks, Creamfields and Hospitality, Sarah captured the sights of UK rave and dance culture in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.

Super Sharp Shooter is a carefully curated selection of over 800 photographs from Sarah’s extensive archives, many never before seen. Spanning drum & bass, dubstep, house and techno, the book showcases festivals, clubs, press shots and record covers, providing an unsurpassed document of electronic music in a colourful celebration of beats and bass.

This deluxe book features artists like Andy C, Skream, Chase & Status, Shy FX, Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Goldie, Chemical Brothers, Jon Hopkins, Sub Focus, DJ Zinc, Ben UFO, Craig Richards, Erol Alkan, Miss Kitten, Dusky and many more. Also contained is Sarah’s essay,

The Feedback Loop Theory. A demonstration of how music affects time and energy and makes it a magic entity. Set in colour order to reflect the visible light spectrum, this gorgeous book is a must-have for all music and photography enthusiasts. It has 480 pages in full colour on heavyweight 150 gsm paper. It's available as a book only and as a bundle with an exclusive A2 poster.

“‘I’m looking forward to publishing this book because these actually are my only memories!Research shows that when you take photos it actually affects the way you remember things. So on that note, I hope you all enjoy my crazy spectral journey into sound, the many sights of the rave and everything in between.” - Sarah Ginn

In the early ‘70s, Detroit was the musical hub of America. Everything from the chart-topping sounds of Motown Records to the vicious proto-punk of THE Stooges and MC5 was being brewed out there and it seemed like there was no end in sight. But by the early ‘80s, the city was both a physical and cultural wasteland due to major-label buyouts of the artists as well as the crippling drug habits of some of the others. Detroit’s most known musical export at the time was the vapid sounds of new wave heartthrobs THE Romantics; this wasn’t good. It took a gaggle of suburban skateboarders, a grade school teacher, and a census bureau clerk to wake this city up from its slumber and start one of the first hardcore punk scenes in America. Why Be Something That You’re Not chronicles the first wave of Detroit hardcore from its origins in the late ‘70s to its demise in the mid ‘80s. Through a combination of oral history and extensive imagery, the book proves that even though the Southern California beach towns might have created the look and style of hardcore punk, it was the Detroit scene— along with a handful of other cities across the country—that cultivated the music’s grassroots aesthetic before most cultural hot spots around the globe even knew what the music was about. The book includes interviews with members of THE FIX, Violent Apathy, Negative Approach, Necros, Pagans, Bored Youth, and L-seven, along with other people who had a hand in the early hardcore scene like Ian MacKaye (minor Threat), Tesco Vee, and Dave Stimson (Touch & Go Fanzine).

Music from the punk era transformed the world of music. If you could play three chords, you could make records. You didn’t even need a record label. You could start your own. The same thing happened in graphic design. All you needed were a few sheets of Letraset and access to a photocopier, and you could make your own record covers. And lots of people did just that. Action Time Vision: Punk & Post-Punk 7” Record Sleeves is a celebration of DIY graphics from the punk and post-punk eras. You might call it outsider graphic design. With a few exceptions, trained designers rarely did 7” singles covers for this notoriously shouty and aggressive music. Apart from a few covers done by Barney Bubbles and Peter Saville, most punk and post-punk covers were designed by band members, label owners or friends. Few of the sleeves showcased here are beautiful in the normal sense of the word. But they all have an urgency and an exhilarating disregard for design conventions that makes them exceptional. They are all clarion calls for independence and freedom from pop industry norms. The work in this book is culled from the record collections of designer (and Unit Editions co-founder) Tony Brook, and leading punk scholar Russ Bestley. As one of the world’s leading authorities on punk and post-punk music, Russ has contributed an insightful essay to the book. The book also features interviews with designer Malcolm Garrett, Mute founder Daniel Miller and Sniffin’ Glue editor and musician Mark Perry.

Punk is widely considered the last authentic youth pop cultural movement – and Malcom McLaren was its chief orchestrator. Full transcript of a previously unpublished 1996 interview with Malcolm McLaren alongside extensive portrait photography of him being interviewed. Malcolm McLaren provides a clear account of the creation of punk as a collaborative endeavour with primarily, Jamie Reid, Vivienne Westwood and the Sex Pistols. He describes his background and artistic formation and addresses punk for the first time as an artistic production. He analyses the specific effect of the graphic language adopted by Jamie Reid and the anti-fashion he created with Westwood with reference to key designs. Recorded in 1996, the interview also draws comparison between punk and the yBa artists of the 1990s.

Previously unpublished interview with Malcolm McLaren, the progenitor of punk, clearly outlining his motivations and ambitions, while also personally reappraising punk’s legacy 20 years later. Malcolm McLaren, Interviewed at The Eagle Gallery, London 1996, prints for the first time a 1996 interview with the artist and pop impresario Malcolm McLaren. He reflects on punk as an artistic project, while also offering a unique insight into the thinking behind the visual iconography that surrounded the Sex Pistols. Just as the clothes that McLaren designed with Vivienne Westwood in the 1970s have been seen as punk fashion, so has the music of the Sex Pistols – the band he managed – and the associated graphics by Jamie Reid been understood to define the character of punk. Twenty years after the event, McLaren for the first time offers a reappraisal of punk as a collaborative artistic production defined as much more than just music or fashion. The interview is accompanied by a full photographic documentation of McLaren giving the interview through which you can see him in the act of reformulating his response to punk with the recognition that it was the result of his artistic activity. For the rest of his life McLaren became increasingly focused on art activity, through film and installation. A short afterword by Young Kim (McLaren’s partner) and by Andrew Wilson (copublisher of the book) sets the interview into context. The interview and accompanying photo-portrait of McLaren offers unique insights into the creation of punk.

The artist Malcolm McLaren was manager of the Sex Pistols as well as throughout his life a fashion designer, shop owner, singer, songwriter, musician and impresario. He is best known but also historically least understood as a key force in the creation of punk in the 1970s. His understanding of popular culture and art continues to have an enduring legacy. Young Kim was the partner of Malcolm McLaren during the last decade of his life. Andrew Wilson is an art historian and curator and for 15 years until June 2021 was senior curator of modern and contemporary British art at Tate. Paul Stolper is a London contemporary art dealer.

Archivio is a new series of publications by Never Sleep focused on the exploring archiving practices displaying private collections of visual artefacts, memorabilia, collecting garments and graphic curiosities. A memories wunderkammer: from rave-club culture to the youth subcultures. The first issue, curated by Gabber Eleganza, is a publication made it during the Covid lockdown, collecting and scanning Rave records store advertisements, graphics curiosity and illustration ephemera find consulting tons of old techno and rave fanzines from the early 90s from: USA, UK, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany. A pure, rough and beautiful visual testimony of a unique and unrepeatable historical moment. Preface by Colin Stevan (Knowledge magazine and Velocity Press founder)

Moon Pix was conceived during a hallucinatory waking nightmare in the South Carolina home of Chan Marshall one fateful day in 1997. Spirits violently swam up around her house, looming at the windows, beckoning her to join them. Her and her acoustic guitar warded them off song after song, nearly the entire album rushed forth onto a tape recorder that night. Facts, fictions and visions ripple throughout the accounts of Moon Pix from every angle- memories of screaming at an audience, spirals of drunkenness, swimming with sharks in Australia, intense, resonant lyrics and thunderstorms ringing through speakers. Like all legends, the aura surrounding them is an impression, a sensory feeling of unreliable memories: layers of stories become histories.

Through interviews with key players, audience member accounts, fictional narrative imaginings, a collection of record reviews and other explorations of truth, this book, like Moon Pix itself, is an ode to the myth within the music and the music within the myth.

Dangerous is Michael Jackson's coming of age album. Granted, that's a bold claim to make given that many think his best work lay behind him by the time this record was made. It offers Jackson on a threshold, at long last embracing adulthood-politically questioning, sexually charged-yet unable to convince a skeptical public who had, by this time, been wholly indoctrinated by a vicious media. Even though the record sold well, few understood or were willing to accept the depth and breadth of Jackson's vision; and then before it could be fully grasped, it was eclipsed by a shifting pop music landscape and personal scandal-the latter perhaps linked to his assertive new politics. This book tries to cut through the din of dominant narratives about Jackson, taking up the mature, nuanced artistic statement he offered on Dangerous in all its complexity. It is read here as a concept album, one that offers a compelling narrative arc of postmodern angst, love, lust, seduction, betrayal, damnation, and above all else racial politics, in ways heretofore unseen in his music. This record offered a Michael Jackson that was mystifying for a world that had accepted him as a child and as childlike and, hence, as safe; this Michael Jackson was, indeed, dangerous.

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.

For the biggest artists to the most underground, field recordings have become the vital spark of electronic music. Whether documenting nature, sampling the city or capturing the atmosphere of archaeological sites, musicians are using found sounds to make sense of our world. Ears To The Ground explores the relationship between electronics, landscape and field recordings in the UK, Ireland and around the globe, discovering how producers and artists evoke the natural world, history and folklore through sampled sounds.

From the cacophonous surrounds of London to the sea stacks of Orkney, via the abandoned military facilities of the Suffolk coast and the watery expanses of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, from the quarries and neolithic sites of Snowdonia and the wide open skies of Norfolk to the hubbub of Nairobi and Berlin, the streets of Kyiv and the windblown wilds of Antarctica – music is everywhere. You just need to know or learn how to listen.

Ears To The Ground: Adventures in Field Recording and Electronic Music explores how electronic music producers and sound artists use field recordings and samples to document their environments. Author Ben Murphy takes you on a journey to discover how field recordings can create context, emotion, atmosphere, humour and meaning – and examine the most pressing topics of our times.

Composed of extensive interviews with music producers, the book will show how field recordings have become a vital way of understanding, celebrating and interrogating the landscape and the places we live. The book features interviews with Leafcutter John, KMRU, Ultramarine, Kate Carr, Erland Cooper, Proc Fiskal, Flora Yin-Wong, Langham Research Centre, Claire Guerin, Toshiya Tsunoda, Lawrence English, Heinali, Oliver Ho, Matthew Herbert, Matmos, Scanner, Felicia Atkinson and many more.

On its journey, the book takes in abandoned military test sites, remote bird colonies, estuaries, cities, coastlines, old quarries, neolithic burial grounds, scientific research centres and docklands, and ventures between Orkney, Edinburgh and Cork to Norfolk, Kent and Snowdonia, before heading to Kenya, Ukraine, Japan and Antarctica

Quotes:
“Recording or celebrating ‘place’ in art and music feels increasingly relevant, as our environment faces more serious threats than ever before, and Ears To The Ground is a timely examination of this development.” Ultramarine

Jim Ottewill’s exploration of UK club culture and the urban landscapes that have housed it returns in a newly remixed form. This extended version features a new chapter exploring hidden histories and untold stories within Birmingham’s nocturnal scene to provide more insights into the past, present and future of electronic music culture.

“We don’t want more unaffordable flats. We want somewhere to dance…”

Since the dawn of time, humans have had the urge to come together and move to music. It may have started in caves but these days it happens in clubs often found in the shady corners of our towns and cities.

Or at least it did until these places succumbed to the beat of property developers rather than DJs. In London in the five years to 2016, half of the clubs were lost while a further quarter have disappeared in the devastation of Covid. So what now?

At this critical moment, Out of Space plots a course through the different towns and cities club culture has found a home. From Glasgow to Margate via Manchester, Sheffield and unlikely dance music meccas such as Coalville and Todmorden, this book maps where electronic music has thrived, and where it might be headed to next while exploring other shades of club culture too, such as pirate radio, dance music festivals, and sound system culture.

As our lives become increasingly digitised and real estate more valuable, we’ll look at the new clubbing models emerging in the 21st century. Rather than an epitaph, this is a rallying cry and celebration of the club’s resilience based on a lifetime of getting wide-eyed inside them.

Quotes:

“As gentrification, lack of funding, stifling politics and the pandemic continue to pummel nightlife, it feels all the more poignant to chart the past and present of raving, while questioning what’s next. With lively and forensic research, clarity of thought and a passion for keeping clubbing’s resilient spirit alive, Out of Space is less of a commemoration and more of a rallying cry.” – The Face

“Ottewill’s book is tireless in its seeking out of new buzzes in grassroots clubland, LGBT collectives and local scenes, all of them ensuring euphoric highs for future generations of ravers.” – The Wire

“Jim Ottewill lands in Glasgow, South Yorkshire and beyond to write this comprehensive rave chronicle ‘Out of Space’. In an era where nightlife spaces are increasingly endangered, Ottewill posits his record of the past as a pugilistic rallying cry.” – Resident Advisor

“Most importantly, the book goes beyond the four walls of each club to the urban sprawl that surrounds it as we’re taken on a local history tour. The author reminds us that clubs and parties, despite operating on the fringes of society, are an integral part of our culture, and many of us have gone through our own rights of passage, often travelling miles to experience our favourite clubs. Clubs and their supporting infrastructure not only have a heritage worth saving but also one worthy of capturing for posterity in a book – something which Ottewill has done justice to.” – Now Then

“Jim Ottewill’s look into urban rave culture defies expectations.” – The National

Take a break from your stressful day-to-day sneaker hunting and amp up your creativity. In the Sneaker Coloring Book you can color your most beloved shoe models in what ever way you want. You can relax your mind with some peaceful coloring fun, or get head on creative adding that complex design you always wished for your favorite sneaker model.

Whether you are an advanced sneaker head or just have the slightest interest in street fashion and sneakers, you can t go wrong with the Sneaker Coloring Book! Equally well suited for kids and adults, the book s 50 pages are packed with illustrations of some of the most iconic sneaker models of all times. From the original Pro Keds, Adidas Superstar and Vans Sk8-Hi, via 80s classics such as Troop and Air Jordan, to recent models like Nike Marty Mcfly, Puma Creeper, Balenciaga triple S and Adidas Yeezy just to name a few of the many models included in the book.

The shoes in the Sneaker Coloring Book are illustrated by Alexander Rosso, a sneaker nerd of rank who has spent the past 12 years working as a graphic designer and illustrator, mainly in the music and streetwear business.

The Sneaker Coloring Book is marker friendly! Use your favorite markers without the risk of ruining the illustration on the other side of the paper. The Sneaker Coloring Book is the latest in Dokument Press popular coloring book series, with themes such as hip hop, graffiti, skateboarding and lowriders.

Yo! The Early Days of Hip-Hop 1982-84 is a new book published by Soul Jazz Books/Records that features 300+ pages of stunning photographs documenting the rise of hip hop in the early 1980s, taken by French photographer Sophie Bramly.

Featuring: Fab Five Freddy Futura Afrika Bambaataa Grand Mixer D.ST Beastie Boys Kool Herc Run DMC Cold Crush Brothers Rocksteady Crew Grandmaster Flash and many more!

Introduction BY: Bill Adler

With Additional Text BY: Fab Fab Freddy Grand Mixer D. St Rahiem of The Furious Five Arthur Baker Zephyr Muhamad of The Magnificent Force Lady Pink Mister Freeze of The Rock Steady Crew Patti Astor & Slick Rick

“All these photos speak for a time that is so special, is never coming back and changed the world. It’s pretty much this experience that changed everything for ever. What makes it amazing, is that you hear stories about superheroes that changed the world, and that was us.” Grand Mixer D. St

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Sophie Bramly lived in New York in the early 1980s and became firmly embedded in the emergent scene. The book features many stunning, intimate images of a star-studded roll call of legendary hip hop figures, all of whom were only just getting known or in their ascendency.

These include Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmixer DST, Jazzy Jay, Red Alert, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow, Lisa Lee, the Fat Boys, Run-DMC, Beastie Boys and many more.

Bramly knew that hip hop was becoming a cultural force rather than just a musical fashion, and spent many hours photographing the four essential elements of this new world: the emcees, the deejays, the graffiti artists and the break dancers.

Aside from the musical stars of hip-hop you will also see legendary graffiti artists captured at work and play, such as Keith Haring, Dondi, Futura, Phase One, Zephyr and Lady Pink, and break dancers including members of Magnificent Force, Dynamic Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew

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Sophie Bramly is a French photographer born in 1959. In 1982, she moved from France to New York at age 22 and for two years documented the burgeoning hip-hop scene, taking pictures of everyone from graffiti artists and breakdancers to rappers such as the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. She returned to France in 1984, bringing a number of US hip-hop artists to Europe and then in 1987 moved to London to host and produce MTV’s first ever hip-hop show, Yo! MTV Raps.

She currently lives in Paris and her work is featured extensively at Hip-Hop 360 a six month long exhibition showing at the prestigious Philarmonie de Paris, France (Dec 21–Aug 22)

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“One of the curious facts about hip-hop’s history is how little photographic documentation exists of the culture’s early years. Come the dawn of the Eighties, a handful of talented photographers finally began to pay attention, most notably Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, and Joe Conzo. In retrospect, it’s clear that each of them focused on a particular element or two of the multiform explosion of creativity that came to be called hip-hop. Henry zeroed in on graffiti. Martha devoted herself to graffiti and breakdancing. And the heart of Joe’s work documents the career of the Cold Crush Brothers. Uniquely Sophie Bramly, unlike the others, managed between 1982 and 1984 to put her arms around all four of the hip-hop elements: the emcees, deejays, graffiti artists, and breakdancers.” Bill Adler from the introduction.

Isbn: 978-1-9163598-2-6

Flexibound, 304 pages, Dimensions 224 X 284 mm, Weight 1.75Kg

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.

The previously untold story of British dance music’s first sub-bass revolution, tracing the origins, development, impact and influence of bleep techno, and the subsequent musical styles it inspired, on UK club culture.

Originally published in 2019, it has now been revised, updated and expanded. Errors have been corrected, some chapters have been expanded, analysis has been added and further footnotes have been included to include even more information and citations.

There’s also now an additional ‘Afterword’ chapter that reflects on the story, the author’s journey as a researcher, and changing perspectives around UK dance music history.

"Since the dawn of the 1990s, British dance music has been in thrall to the seductive power of weighty sub-bass. It is a key ingredient in a string of British-pioneered genres, including hardcore, jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, UK garage and grime.

In the Join The Future book, dance music journalist Matt Anniss (Resident Advisor, DJ Magazine, Red Bull Music Academy) traces the roots, origins, development and legacy of the sound that started it all: the first distinctively British form of electronic dance music, bleep techno.

A mixture of social, cultural, musical and oral history, Join The Future reveals the untold stories of bleep’s Yorkshire pioneers and those that came in their wake, moving from electro all-dayers and dub soundsystem clashes of the mid-1980s to the birth of hardcore and jungle in London and the South East.

Along the way, you’ll find first-hand accounts of key clubs and raves, biographies of forgotten and overlooked production pioneers, stories of bleep outposts in Canada and the United States, and the inside story of the early years of one of electronic music’s most iconic labels, Warp Records.

Based on five years of research and hundreds of hours of new interviews, the book is a radical alternative history of the rise of British dance music during the late 80s and early 90s.

Join The Future is also available as a compilation album.

Quotes

“This was a vital creative era in British electronic music that deserved deeper exploration, so Matt Anniss’ history of ‘bleep and bass’, which sets the sound in the socio-political environment of its time, is a significant addition to the literature of dance culture.”
Matthew Collin, author of ‘Altered State’ and ‘Rave On’

“You wouldn’t have had hardcore had it not been for bleep. If you took bleep out of the equation, Britsh dance music would be completely different.”
Mark Archer, Altern8

“Bleep provided the building blocks of the UK sound that followed – the emotions, the edge, the darkness and the sub-bass. Later generations have taken these elements and done something new, but the fundamentals are still there.”
Neil Landstrumm"

"The Secret DJ returns with the follow-up to their acclaimed debut book. Less a sequel and more a panoramic wide-angle painting of the biggest youth movement in human history, The Secret DJ: Book Two charts the rise of dance music over the last 30 years and its connection to western capitalism and culture.

While never claiming to be instrumental, The Secret DJ was around for every stage of the journey and is a continually wry observer of this unstoppable growth. The Secret DJ’s signature humour and wit are ever-present in this ascent, charting personal ups and downs as well as the buying and selling of the acid house revolution.

Covering topics as wide as drugs, music production, anthropology, the gentrification of the scene, technology, travel, fame, devaluation, inflation, relationships, technique, festivals, rejection, social media, situationism and hypernormalisation; almost no aspect of the last four decades go unmentioned in terms of what we know today as Electronic Dance Music.

“No one in publishing would have the balls to touch this book with a bargepole,” says the Secret DJ. “It takes courage to speak up. There’s not much in the way of reward for telling it like it is, not any more. If you expose an industry, that industry hates you for life with the intensity of the sun. I have nothing but admiration for Velocity Press, they’ve taken a big risk working with me. I appreciate it greatly. It’s good to know there are still people out there willing to stand up.”

“I loved The Secret DJ – some all-too-familiar characters mixed with the highs and lows of what this industry can throw at you. Excited and intrigued to read the second instalment… how much more extreme can it get?!” – Denney

“I never read books about electronic music, why would I? But I guess The Secret DJ is more an anarchist handbook for shattered dreamers than a manual on how to make it big on the scene. Can’t wait for his new adventures.” – Ivan Smagghe

“We all have war stories, us jobbing night-lifers. From having sets ended by soldiers with automatic weapons in Juarez to coming-round in Glasgow city centre suddenly best pals with a gangster who’s most affectionate nickname was ‘Wolf’. I’ve bagged a couple over the years. And yours are undoubtedly more vivid, funnier or more ludicrous than mine. The Secret DJ’s are better still.” – Ewan Pearson

“I loved book one, waiting to live the DJ life vicariously again thru book two!” – Arthur Baker

“The Secret DJ’s first book managed to do something very different to the existing dance music memoirs (and I should know as I have read them all). It functioned not only as a hilarious jaunt through the insanity of the glory years of dance music – i.e. when there was still money in music – but as a harrowing portrayal of the emotionally, physically and mentally taxing straits an international DJ will find themselves in. Anyone with even a passing curiosity about ‘the industry’ should read it and await its follow up, especially if they have any frankly dangerous notions of joining up professionally, which I cannot in all good conscience recommend.” – Manu Ekanayake (music and culture journalist)

“It’s rare for a writer to capture the excitement and absurdity of dance music culture at the same time, but the Secret DJ did that to great effect in the first book. This latest chapter in the story promises to be every bit as exhilarating, providing an important critical voice at a time when ‘the society of the spectacle’ threatens to suck the life out of those clinging to the acid house dream.” – Justin Robertson

“The first book is a raw, effective and bizarrely emotional tale of ‘the life’. Superbly true and direct. I can hardly wait to hear the tale of the music movement being told by The Secret DJ in Book Two!” – Miguel Campbell

“The Secret DJ returns to once again pull back the curtain on the world of dance music and the sometimes harsh, but always hilarious, realities of what lurks behind it. Get ready for a second descent into the far(cical) side.” – Neville Watson

“Really enjoyed the first book, both hilarious debauchery and insightful commentary on a world usually kept behind the curtain. I’m looking forward to the next instalment, hoping for a lot more righteous anger within.” – Posthuman

“Every participant in the music industry will wince at the thought of falling under the glance of the Secret DJ’s withering pen, but still find themselves avidly leafing through his pages for the merest mention.” – Carl Puttnam (Cud)"

Vier Männer müssen eine Band gründen. Deshalb begeben sie sich aufs Land in Meeresnahe. Sie wollen dort in mehrtägigen Sessions gemeinsam Songs erarbeiten. Durch Umwelteinflusse (Wetter, Unterkunft, Küche, Wald und Tiere) entsteht etwas: Es ist unvorhergesehene Musik. Jeder der vier schreibt währenddessen heimlich eine Art Tagebuch, um die unerträglichen Spannungen im Bandgefüge abzuleiten. Das Buch versammelt diese illustrierten Aufzeichnungen. Eine absurde Welt, beherrscht von größenwahnsinnigen wie liebevollen Figuren. Es passiert viel, sogar unerklärliches. Doch lasst sich die Erde das alles gefallen?

Written by Spiral Tribe’s co-founder and visual artist, Mark Angelo Harrison, A Darker Electricity charts the infamous sound system’s nomadic journey and the rapid escalation of their popularity – and notoriety.

From small squat-scene parties in early 90s London to enormous warehouse raves and free festivals. The undercover police operation against them. The record deal with Youth. The creation of their community recording studio. The government stitch-up and their prosecution. The escape to Europe and the start of the teknival scene.

he exiting story about how the street wear pioneers Shirt Kings created a style that would define hip hop culture in the 1980s and beyond. Jamaica, Queens, New York in the mid 1980s. Rappers, celebrities and hip hop fans came from all over the city to get their own customized T-shirt by the Shirt Kings. The style traveled all over the world through record covers and music videos, and the Shirt Kings designs soon became synonymous with hip hop and the culture of making something out of nothing. Shirt Kings: Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion looks at the early days of street wear through the lens of the pioneering group of artistic entrepreneurs known as the Shirt Kings. By adapting the graffiti skills from the trains and spray cans to shirts and airbrush they created a new look for a new generation. Edwin Phade Sacasa is a founding artist of the group and it is through his archives that we are transported to the 1980s in New York City where the fashion was loud, colorful, and filled with cartoon imagery. But not just any cartoon imagery for the cartoons where urbanized. Mickey Mouse with a Fila suit, Casper the Friendly Ghost with gold teeth and Pink Panther with gold chains. People from across the city made their way to Jamaica, Queens to a small shopping mall known as the Coliseum where you could easily bump into the biggest names in hip hop of the day. From DJ Red Alert to LL Cool J to Big Daddy Kane to Mike Tyson – they all had to have their Shirt Kings designs. Shirt Kings: Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion chronicles the art, the styles, and the people who where loyal supporters of the Shirt Kings, and takes us on a trip down memory lane to when customization and art reigned supreme in New York City. After the hardcover has been sold out for years, just in time for Hip Hop’s 50th anniversary comes another chance to take part of the Shirt Kings’ inspiring history as pioneers of hip hop and street wear in this beautiful soft cover edition. “Shirt Kings brought the hip hop element into the clothes for real and integrated it, and it was the first time I saw hip hop culture completely merged with clothing.” — LL Cool J “The Shirt Kings network was fashion TV of the times, and advertising and promotion way before it became trendy.” — Chuck D, Public Enemy ”Phade and the Shirt Kings are pioneers of hip hop fashion, also it is duly noted that the graffiti element has been elevated and made fashionable thru their airbrushing work.” – RZA ”Phade has been my go to guy since the eighties for all airbrush collabos!” – Dapper Dan Born in East New York, Brooklyn, Edwin Phade Sacasa founded the Shirt Kings in the mid 1980s, where he serviced many of todays Hip Hop stars and pioneers, such as Jay Z and Run DMC. Phade is working with youth in the inner city and have developed a program that teaches urban fashion through art therapy and entrepreneur skills. Alain KET is an artist, photographer, author, artistic consultant, marketing professional and frequent lecturer on the topic of graffiti.

The King Of Covers' is the concluding part of the month long Lemi Ghariokwu exhibition that ran at the Rush Hour store 1-28 november 2023. The thirty sleeves that were at display are now nicely bundled into this full colour 70 page booklet. Each sleeve comes with a story by Saffa Khalil, who analysed the covers, listened to the music and talked to Lemi. Saffa mentions: "As you flip through each page, listen to the album(s) and fully immerse yourselves in the history(ies) and stories narrated visually and sonically. I hope you uncover more about Afrobeat's influence and the richness that African musical history offers us. "

The booklet is preceded by an essay from 2013, first published in Granta entitled 'A Dynasty Of Album Cover Art' which talks about Lemi's friendship with Fela Kuti, the social and political situation of Nigeria at the time the cover art was created and off course.. giving a closer look to some of the landmark covers from the Fela catalogue that come from Lemi's hand.

Book design is by Atelier Estiva. Graphic design by Mauricio Kuhlmann.

70 pages, 20x20 CM - edition of 250

Isbn: 9789090380254

Join the author as he journeys back to those mutant rockin’, venue wreckin’, snakebite sodden days of the Psychobilly/neo-Rockabilly scene of the 80’s. His fanzine ‘The Crazed’ was right there, reporting on the scene as it grew and writing about bands such as The Meteors, GuanaBatz, Demented Are Go, King Kurt, Long Tall Texans and Restless.

Travel back through those articles and interviews and revisit the experience. Enjoy noisy nights at The Klub Foot, mecca of all things Psychobilly, where many of these interviews were conducted after sweaty gigs. Read the bands own words, full of enthusiasm, excitement and optimism about what the future might hold, and discover what it was like to produce and edit a fanzine back then.

The scene meant so much to so many and ‘The Crazed’ was there to document it. This book recaptures how it felt at the time. After lying dormant for over 30 years ‘The Crazed’ has now been resurrected.

Foreword by Craig ‘Bracko’ Brackenridge of Vintage Rock magazine. Klub Foot cover art by Paskal Millet.

Written by Harry Harrison, one of DiY’s founding members, Dreaming in Yellow traces their origins back to early formative experiences, describing in detail the seminal clubs, parties, festivals and records that forged the collective. Dreaming in Yellow is an attempt to distil the story of DiY’s tumultuous existence and the remarkably eclectic, outrageous and occasionally deranged story of them doing it themselves.

Five young men in their early twenties, carrying backpacks and guitars, climbed onto the bus in Mendoza, Argentina, that was to take them over the Andes to Santiago de Chile, where they would play the last show of their South American tour, and then board a plane the day after back to their home country of Germany. In spite of the South American winter, the weather in Mendoza was bright and sunny. The ride was supposed to take six hours, after three of which they would cross the border to Chile at a post called Cristo Redentor, at more than 3000 meters above sea level. Not long after the bus had left the station, the weather started to change for the worse. It started raining, and as the road wound itself higher up the Andes, rain soon turned to snow, and before long, white drifts were growing larger on either side of the road. When they finally reached the border crossing, a long line of trucks and cars was standing ahead of them, not moving an inch... Starting a band is a lot like a romantic relationship. You spend time together, find that common spark, and live through emotions and experiences. You create music together. Songs, lyrics, entire records. You find a name for your band. Each member contributes to creating something uniquely your own. Then there's also the other side of the medal: fights, breakups, broken hearts. The entire emotional bandwidth of a relationship is contained within the complicated inner workings of a band. ‘This Is My Everything’ is about one forgotten screamo band's travels into and out of the worldwide DIY hardcore scene in the late nineties and early noughties, with guest appearances by Against Me!, Shelter, Refused, Ink&Dagger, Yaphet Kotto, Snapcase and many more.

"If there’s a cultural artefact capable of withstanding the vagaries and fickleness of the digital age as well as the printed book, it’s the vinyl record . . .

In Listening to the Wind, Ian Preece (editor, and co-author of In The Heyday of The Football Annual) sets out on an international road trip to capture the essence of life for independent record labels operating in the twenty-first century. Despite it all – from algorithms and streaming to the death of the high street and the gutting of the music press – releasing a record to serve its ‘own beautiful purpose’, as 4AD’s Ivo Watts Russell once said, is a flame that still burns through these pages. With countless labels, albums and artists to be discovered, this book is for those who share that inextinguishable love for music.

Features extensive, original interviews with the likes of Analog Africa, Light in the Attic, Thrill Jockey, International Anthem, Dust-to-Digital, Pressure Sounds, Heavenly, Touch, Mississippi, Sublime Frequencies and more! [like Japan Blues for instance] "

"you can't help warming to his anti-populist folly, and soon acquire a shopping list as long as your arm" **** Mojo

"A garrulous, engaging and deeply informed travelogue" The Wire

A daily planner with facts on what happened on this day in hip hop history! The Hip Hop Journal: A Daily Planner provides you with a notebook as well as a daily update on the most important historical events that took place in hip hop culture on each date. Simply turn to today’s page to and find out what classic records were released on this day in the past, and next to it note your schedule, ideas, grocery list, or even your rhymes. Get inspired by what has happened in hip hop’s past and make the most of your day! The journal offers ers a variety of facts, from record releases and movies to important cultural events relating to the development of hip hop culture over the last 45+ years. The Hip Hop Journal is a loving celebration of the rich body of work that builds one of the most influential cultures of our times, and an invaluable help in planning your day-to-day activities. In the Hip Hop Journal you plan your year accompanied by the many events in hip hop history, visualized by hip hop illustrator Mark 563’s illustrations, depicting the most iconic rappers and hip hop personalities from the ‘70s until today. You may not know them all, but if you spend a little time every day, listening and catching up on the classic record releases listed in this book, you will be close to a PhD in hip hop by the end of the year. The Hip Hop Journal is the latest title in Dokument Press’ publications related to hip hop, graffiti and street art, and it is the third release with illustrator Mark 563, following the tremendously popular Hip Hop Coloring Book and Hip Hop Coloring Book: East Coast Edition.

Brand new edition of Soul Jazz Records" massive deluxe 400-page Punk 45s cover art book edited and compiled by Jon Savage (author of the seminal book on punk, England"s Dreaming) and Stuart Baker (founder of Soul Jazz Records). This new edition comes with a new introduction from Bobbie Gillespie, founder of Primal Scream (who has recently also published his memoirs Tenement Kid). Contributors include Peter Saville, Richard Hell, Richard H Kirk, Seymour Stein, Geoff Travis, Martin Moscrop, Glenn Branca, Jamie Reid, Dave Robinson, Roger Armstrong, Martin Mills, Gee Vaucher, Savage Pencil, Dennis Morris and more. This book is a revelatory guide to hundreds and hundreds of original 7" record cover sleeve designs - visual artefacts found at the heart of the most radical and anarchistic musical movement of the 20th century.

A collection of hip-house record stickers from 1990 to 2000 compiled by Masala Noir. Masala Noir - 24 pages - 15*21 cm

A collection of Jungle record stickers from 1990 to 2000 compiled by Masala Noir. Masala Noir - 24 pages - 15*21 cm

A collection of Dancehall record labels from 1990 to 2000 compiled by Masala Noir. Masala Noir - 24 pages - 15*21 cm

Written by former DJ/producer Harold Heath, Long Relationships: My Incredible Journey From Unknown DJ to Small-time DJ is a biographical account of a DJ career defined by a deep love of music and a shallow amount of success. It’s the first book to detail exactly what DJing is like for the 99% of DJs who never make it big. Covering electro, hip hop, rare groove, acid house, rave and the UK underground club scene, it’s a 30-odd year tale of a life lived in dance music. Long Relationships is full of tales of clubs, raves, warehouses, DJing, music, record production, record deals, low-level international travel, shady promoters, dodgy club security, magical dance floor moments and much more.

The definitive study of the work of Kaws, one of the most influential and much-loved forces in contemporary art and culture

Kaws is one of the most popular and recognizable contemporary artists, whose reach extends far beyond the art world into the realms of fashion, music, and popular culture at large. Beginning his career as a graffiti artist in the 1990s, Kaws has expanded his repertoire into painting, sculpture, drawing, product design, and augmented reality, together forming an artistic vision that unites all of these practices. Kaws has collaborated with some of the most prominent international brands, including Uniqlo, Comme des Garçons, Supreme, Nike, Dior, sacai, General Mills, and many more, and the book includes images of the artist’s studio by Jason Schmidt and a selection of Kaws’s previously unpublished preparatory drawings as well as work spanning his entire career, from his early graffiti days to his highly collectible vinyl toys, complex abstract paintings, and monumental public sculptures. Richly illustrated and featuring the most significant scholarship on his work to date, this book is a definitive study on the life and career of this extraordinary artist.

Specifications:
Format: Paperback Size: 290 × 250 mm (11 3/8 × 9 7/8 in)
Pages: 160 pp
Illustrations: 200 illustrations

Lennon and McCartney – Together Alone This is the definitive book on the solo recordings of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, two of popular music’s greatest writers and performers.

The story is told chronologically, starting with their first work outside The Beatles: McCartney’s soundtrack for The Family Way film and Lennon’s Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins with Yoko Ono. The book details Lennon and McCartney’s creative highs and lows in an authoritative, complete, and engagingly critical fashion. Information for collectors includes release dates, catalogue numbers, composer credits, recording personnel, recording studio, and producer credits, and there is a keyed index to help trace each song and the albums it appears on. Blaney’s perceptive style makes this a fascinating read as well as a work of reference, and the book includes illuminating archive quotes from Lennon, McCartney, and others. Together Alone tells the stories behind the songs of two giants of modern music. John Blaney is a passionate fan of The Beatles who brings to his writing the expertise and rigor of a professional historian. Born in Devon, England, he trained as a graphic designer before starting a career in music retail. He subsequently studied History of Art at Camberwell College of Arts and Goldsmith College (both in London) before taking up his present post as curator of a museum of technology. He is the author and publisher of previous books on both Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

The Impossible Dream – Smart Books for musical Minds! The Walker Brothers were the US counter-strike to the British invasion of the mid-60s. While The Beatles, the Stones and many others were busy colonising the US charts, three tall, handsome American men went into voluntary exile in a freezing London bedsit and launched their quest for pop stardom.

Not actually brothers, John (Maus), Gary (Leeds) and Scott (Engel) succeeded against the odds, becoming one of world’s biggest bands of 1966/67. With that came hit records – including two British chart-toppers, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ and ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ – and all that success entails: screaming girls, package tours, and intense interest in their private lives. The pressure of success eventually caused them to split, and the Walkers went their separate ways. Of the three, Scott is now the most prominent, having embarked on a mysterious solo career that has since become the stuff of myth, but Gary and John have recorded varied and interesting work, too. All three drifted into obscurity before reforming in 1976 and releasing the classic ‘No Regrets’ single. They concluded their recording career with one of the decade’s most influential records, 1978’s Nite Flights, about which Brian Eno recently exclaimed: “We haven’t got any further than this. It’s a disgrace.”

The Impossible Dream is an in-depth biography that traces the career of one of the most successful bands in pop history. In addition to assessing and analysing the talent and appeal of the enigmatic Scott, the author also covers the history and contributions of the other ‘brothers’, John and Gary, and provides a thorough analysis of all three men’s careers both as individual artists and as a group, from 1963 to 1978.

Drawing on decades of archive interviews with the band (some previously unpublished), and many new interviews with backing musicians, record label staff and producers, The Impossible Dream is the definitive telling of The Walker Brothers’ story.

Anthony Reynolds is a musician and a writer. He has released eight critically acclaimed albums, the first of which, contributed essays and critiques to many US and UK magazines, and has published a biography of Jeff Buckley.

To Live is to Die — The Life And Death Of Metallica’s Cliff Burton This is the revised and updated new edition. Metallica, the seventh-biggest recording act in American history, are consummate musicians—but it wasn’t always that way. A significant proportion of their playing expertise was acquired from a pivotal three-year period in their history—1983 to 1986—during which their music, a potent variant of thrash metal, evolved from garage level to sophisticated, progressive heights thanks to the teachings of their bass player, Cliff Burton.

Touched by Grace – My time with Jeff Buckley Touched By Grace is an up-close-and personal account by the legendary guitarist and songwriter Gary Lucas of the time he spent with his friend and collaborator, Jeff Buckley, during Jeff ’s early days in New York City. It describes their magical performance together at the Greetings From Tim Buckley concert at the Church of St Ann in 1991—the event that first introduced Jeff to the world at large; the creation of their songs ‘Mojo Pin’ and ‘Grace,’ which started life as guitar instrumentals by Gary and would later become integral to Jeff ’s debut album, Grace; and their plan to take on the world together in Gary’s band Gods & Monsters. Just as the band was set to soar, however, Jeff pulled the plug, opting instead to sign a solo deal with Columbia Records—the very label that had recently cut short its recording contract with the original incarnation of Gods & Monsters.

Gary Lucas (www.garylucas.com) is a world-class guitarist and Grammy-nominated songwriter. Dubbed “the greatest living electric guitarist” by Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain In Music, Lucas has recorded more than 20 acclaimed solo albums spanning everything from psychedelic rock to Chinese pop. He was a key member of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band during the 80s, and is currently working on a variety of new projects, including a collaboration with Van der Graaf Generator front man Peter Hammill.

Tragedy – The Ballad Of The Bee Gees The rise and fall of the brothers Gibb—Barry, Robin, Maurice, and younger brother Andy—is perhaps the greatest saga in Australian music history. Although the Bee Gees enjoyed several rebirths in a career that spanned many decades, it seemed that tragedy followed the Gibbs like a curse. For every incredible career high there was a hefty personal downside: divorce, drunkenness, and death seemed as synonymous with the Gibbs as falsetto harmonies, flares, and multi-platinum record sales.

Recital presents a book and CD homage to the New Zealand-born American composer Annea Lockwood (b. 1939). The unique concept for this album was conceived by artists Noel Meek (New Zealand) and Mattin (Basque Country), who each share a deep admiration for Lockwood. A longform Skype conversation between the three artists was arranged at the end of 2020. They discussed politics, aesthetics, and Annea’s compositional practice among other things. Noel Meek & Mattin had from the beginning decided that the conversation itself would be used as a score for this album, Homage to Annea Lockwood.

“My work is my way of exploring the world” says Lockwood. Each piece on the album reflects her prismatic compositional practice: sound maps, scores that unfold temporally or environmentally, synchronous with nature, and pianos transplanted to exotic locations (often engulfed in flames). Meek & Mattin maintain a playfulness and curiosity of Annea’s sound world; from electronic verbal fizz, a recording of lighting a laptop on fire, hydrophonic diaries from underneath an old oak tree in New Zealand, to a polyphonic choral piece which concludes the album.

Homage to Annea Lockwood is housed in a hand-numbered paperback book, which carries a full transcription of the conversation, in this case… the score, along with lush photographic documentation, and ending with a lovely afterword written by Annea Lockwood. Recital is especially happy to be working with Annea again years later, after publishing her 2014 album Ground of Being (R7, CD). What a joy it is to celebrate Annea, and how appropriate it be done through the ritual of music.

Following the success of The Ultimate Sneaker Book and SOLED OUT, Sneaker Freaker are set to release a new 752-page title published with TASCHEN. The newest book, World’s Greatest Sneaker Collectors, is a journey into the priceless stockpiles and obsessive minds of footwear aficionados. From Tokyo to New York via London Philadelphia, Melbourne and Stjørdal, no crumbled midsole is left unturned.

Simon "Woody" Wood, founder and editor-in-chief of Sneaker Freaker magazine, has spent the last two decades analyzing the global cult of footwear fanatics. That experience directly inspired World's Greatest Sneaker Collectors, a stonking 752-page journey into the priceless stockpiles and obsessive minds of prominent aficionados.From Tokyo to New York, via London, Philadelphia, Melbourne, and Stjørdal, no crumbled midsole is left unturned as over 2,500 vintage classics, unique athlete SMUs, unobtainable samples, handmade 1-of-1 prototypes, stratospherically priced colabs, and Player Exclusives and game-worn Jordans with multi-million-dollar price tags are lauded with gusto. The endless quest for "Holy Grails" is both blessing and curse as our collectors fiend, scheme, and dream of "the one" shoe they don't yet own! Luxuriously photographed profiles are augmented with a series of informative "How-to" guides stuffed with pro tips on sneaker photography, storage, insurance, cleaning, and avoiding the counterfeit curse. The expertise is priceless. The stories will entertain for days as we seek out the fundamentals of what it means, and takes, to define yourself as a "true collector."

Transformer, Lou Reed's most enduringly popular album, is described with varying labels: it's often called a glam rock album, a proto-punk album, a commercial breakthrough for Lou Reed, and an album about being gay. And yet, it doesn't neatly fit into any of these descriptors. Buried underneath the radio-friendly exterior lie coded confessions of the subversive, wounded intelligence that gives this album its staying power as a work of art. Here Lou Reed managed to make a fun, accessible rock'n'roll record that is also a troubled meditation on the ambiguities-sexual, musical and otherwise-that defined his public persona and helped make him one of the most fascinating and influential figures in rock history. Through close listening and personal reflections, songwriter Ezra Furman explores Reed's and Transformer's unstable identities, and the secrets the songs challenge us to uncover.

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

Shredders! – The Oral History of Speed Guitar (and more)
“How fast can you play?”
“What guitar do you have?”
“Who is better, Van Halen or Steve Vai?”

For metal fans in the 80’s these where commonand important questions. Tune in to MTV, pick up a magazine, or walk into an instrument store, and more than often you’d be exposed to what is now known as shredding – the fast, virtuoso soloing popularized by musicians like Vai and Van Halen, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads and Dimebag Darrell.

Drawing on more than seventy exclusive interviews with key shredders past and present, author and guitarist Greg Prato has assembled the definite guide to the fasted players of them all.

“Well, one person’s shred is another person’s slow hand …”
— GEORGE LYNCH

Redefining cool for a new generation, Pharrell Williams is a creative force, using music, fashion, and design to express his distinctive style. Originating at the crossroads of art, design, popular culture, and street savvy, Pharrell Williams’s output is unique. By playing off different disciplines—namely music, fashion, street art, and design—and using each as an element in the other, Pharrell has redefined the role of the contemporary recording artist, blazing a trail for other musicians and prominent cultural figures. Illustrated with lavish photography, this book also explores his musical career in depth, charting his many projects from his production team The Neptunes, to the band N.E.R.D., and his collaborations with friends Kanye West, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and other hip-hop royalty.
This unprecedented volume documents Pharrell’s prolific body of work and his contribution to contemporary culture. In his own unique graphic language, he details his extensive creative pursuits, including clothing lines, jewelry, and accessories designs for Louis Vuitton, furniture and other product design, limited-edition toys, graphic designs, skate graphics, and collaborations with Moncler, Marc Jacobs, the artist KAWS, and with architects Zaha Hadid and Masamichi Katayama/Wonderwall.

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm. The East End that I found when I arrived in 1970 was a different world to today's bustling, regulated prosperity. Bombsites and tumbledown, near derelict housing were the unremarkable norm. Walking home from my truck driving job to my rented slum room in Chicksand Street I would step carefully over gutters running with blood from the Lewcopak Kosher Chicken slaughterhouse emptying its tanks at the end of each day.

Residents' main source of income had evaporated as the docks and their many supporting trades closed down. Racism festered among the older population of white workers whose community was being destroyed by a lack of jobs and resentment stoked by their crumbling council estates. The area was abandoned, poverty and hopelessness hung in the air. Empty shells of buildings sheltered the most desperate homeless, mostly alcoholics, crazed by drinking meths and surgical spirit. Violence was common.

Tumbledown, leaky old houses made for easy squats or cheap rents and began to attract impoverished students, artists, political activists and young Bangladeshi men working in the rag trade. Slowly a younger, more able population emerged and the little corner shops and cafés became busier. Life started to return to the streets.

These books document aspects of that metamorphosis, capturing the lives that set the scene for what was on the brink of becoming just another anodyne, bustling, gentrified, high value inner-city district.

"Showcasing the mastermind behind some of the most iconic rave flyers and record covers of the late eighties and early nineties, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art is a comprehensive insight into Junior Tomlin’s incredible back catalogue.

Rave culture transformed the way people experienced music, sparking a revolution in British society and spreading across the globe during the late eighties. Its influence is still being felt today, as millions of people around the world attend clubs and festivals that embody the spirit of rave culture. Intrinsic to the spread of the culture in those pre-internet days was the dissemination of flyers, giving ravers information on where and when their favourite promoters would be organising parties. In order to stand out from the competition, it was imperative that the most respected events had distinctive flyer artwork.

Junior Tomlin’s visionary capabilities led to a long-running career as a flyer artist. His fantastical projections of the future and often surreal imagery earned him the title The Salvador Dali of Rave. Tomlin’s iconic work was highly sought after, with ravers collecting his remarkable work and promoters queuing up to commission him to produce imagery for their flyers. Junior’s imagination conjured up alternate worlds, references to outer space and gave us a peek into the endless possibilities presented by an unknown future. It was the perfect representation of the brave new world being cultivated by rave promoters and the community that sprung up around the culture.

Junior worked with a range of seminal rave promoters from 1992 onwards including Telepathy, Dreamscape, Slammin’ Vinyl, One Nation, Dream Odyssey and Ravealation. 30 years since he designed his first flyer Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art documents his work across 160 pages, with commentary and draft sketches provided by Junior himself. Divided into two distinct sections – Record Covers and Flyers – the book also features an in-depth interview with Junior and a foreword by Chelsea Louise Berlin (artist, flyer collector and author of Rave Art) plus words from former clients.

Chronicling the work of a pioneering artist whose art was intrinsic to early rave culture, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art marks a critical time in British history. In a time where division and conflict seem to be more prevalent than ever, the book allows us to escape into Junior’s fantasy worlds and travel back in time to an era when social barriers were being broken down.

The book is 25cm x 25cm, printed on premium 130gsm full-colour paper. It is the first time his work has been documented and presented in such a comprehensive, cohesive fashion.

“His record sleeves are classic examples of a hugely important artform now sadly deceased in the digital age.”
Danny Briottet (Renegade Soundwave)

“When I think of music and the concept of what I wish to express, I always want the visual representation to be in total synergy with that I am creating. Artwork is so important! This is why I did not hesitate when it came to choosing an artist and legend like Junior for specific work projects I had in mind.”
DJ Rap"

A companion book to Damon & NAOMI’s new A Sky Record LP. “Every audio format has its strengths and weaknesses… but those without liner notes are really missing out. “We thought we’d take advantage of the persistence of physical media for words and images and print a booklet to accompany what will be, inevitably, a digital album for many. Richard Youngs was with us when this project began, like a screwball comedy, with a (largely harmless) fall down stairs. Michio Kurihara lent his wonderful electric guitar to all its tracks, and Soichiro Nakamura skillfully recorded those parts at his Peace Music studio in Tokyo. Susanne Sasic joined us on the trip to Japan that made those recordings possible, a tour sparked by an unusual invitation in 2019 to play a cultural festival in the small port town of Tsuruga, on the Sea of Japan. We asked the music writer Lindsay Zoladz to tell the story of what happened next, to this project and to all of us, in the unexpected events of 2020. And Jarvis Cocker explains an audio ritual that helped us through that year. We’ve added some short notes of our own, on the genesis of the music and words for these songs; and their lyrics. Thank you for listening, however you choose to do so. And welcome to our Sky Record.”—Damon & Naomi.

Love music? Love illustration? Want to know more about some of the best musicians ever to record&;from Bowie and the Beastie Boys to The Smiths and St. Vincent? Then A Guide to Music's Cult Artists is for you.

Featuring 100 of the coolest artists from the last five decades, A Guide to Music's Cult Artists reveals the influencers and tastemakers who have helped to shape the contemporary music scene. Award-winning illustrator and comic artist John Riordan profiles cult musicians from genres including punk, indie, alternative, hip-hop, and electronic music. Not only does John create amazing illustrations, he also outlines key works from the artists and provides engaging trivia to accompany each entry. Enlightening, often amusing, and always stunning to look at, A Guide to Music's Cult Artists is a unique blend of the esthetic and the acoustic and is an essential addition to any music fan&;s collection.

Hidden Notes Records are proud to announce that in February next year we will be releasing a smorgasbord of new music; creative collaborations born out of the award winning music podcast excuse the mess. Two compilation albums featuring 17 unique voices from contemporary music worlds and beyond…

How does a podcast = two albums worth of music? excuse the mess is a music podcast with a twist - alongside your bread and butter artist interviews each guest takes on the challenge of writing a brand new piece of music on the fly, in the room and with excuse the mess host, Ben Corrigan. They follow three rules (limitations are liberating!): 1. There can be no preplanning, it is spontaneous music making. 2. The track must be finished the same day. 3. Only one instrument can be used as a sound source but there can be electronic manipulations of it.

Our upcoming release is the end result of each of those heart palpating writing sessions featuring Hannah Peel, Gold Panda, Anna Meredith, Galya Bisengalieva, Manu Delago, Robert Ames, Emily Hall, Oliver Coates, Mira Calix, Matt Calvert, Douglas Dare, Laura Jurd, Mark Lockheart, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Anne Nikitin, Alev Lenz and Elliot Galvin. Released as two albums, to mirror the two series of excuse the mess in which they were made.

All the music fizzes with an energy that only fast paced work can invoke and the compositional fingerprint of each guest artist is embedded into the core of each track, whilst intermingling with Ben's own artistic voice. For anyone interested in a further delve they can go back to the podcast episode and witness the composition unfolding bit-by-bit, from the blank page to the finished piece, you are invited on that compositional journey.

In Border/Between: A Symphony in Essays, Carol D. Marsh writes about death, addictions, and war while also exploring how written form and expression have a counterpart in music. Structured upon the 4-movement symphony and incorporating other forms such as the rock song and the Requiem, Border/Between seeks and finds its place in what lies between the sharp and unforgiving edges of ideology and judgment. In refusing to allow borders to govern her, Marsh is able to bring compassion and hope to what seems irredeemable.