Search "backck" 406 Items

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Blod)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Portland"s Jerry Joseph is a bonafide "triple-threat", a prolific and accomplished songwriter, a powerful singer and a memorable performer. In his four-decade career; as a solo artist, with the Jackmormons, supergroup Stockholm Syndrome, his two-piece The Denmark Veseys, his beloved 80s cult band, Little Women, or most recently with Drive-by Truckers backing him; he has continuously toured the world, including such unlikely locales as Lebanon, Israel, Kurdish Iraq, India, Cambodia and Afghanistan, and released a steady stream of albums.Baby, You"re The Man Who Would Be King was recorded in NYC and produced by Eric "Roscoe" Ambel, and features a band made up of some of New York"s best players.

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Blod

Ondskans Frö

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Alien Transistor)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie, Electronic & Dance

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The seed of evil has been sown and all the trees have been infected. The trees infect the water, the animals, the air and the children. The fragmentation is becoming more and more apparent. Have the one you trusted the most turned its back on you? All of a sudden you are all alone. Can you drink the water? Dead fish float to the surface. The sky is slowly fading away. What do you do when the last day is here?

Ondskans Frö ('The Seed Of Evil') is an album about the last day of the earth, when the evil forces finally has taken over both the people and the nature. The album starts in the morning and takes the listener through a 24 hour journey towards a new dawn where everything is gone. Recorded during April and May 2023, all music and instruments by Gustaf Dicksson. Paste-on artwork on re-used old record jackets. Edition of 500 copies.

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Gratin Carnival

Such December

LP | 2023 | JP | Original (P-Vine)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Alien Transistor announces a reissue of Such December, the fourth album by Japanese indie folk-pop artist, Gratin Carnival. Listeners might already know Gratin Carnival from their appearance on the Alien Parade Japan compilation of indie pop groups working with brass and woodwind. Gratin Carnival's "Just Watching" was one of the many highlights of that compilation, and its gentle bossa-folk glide reappears on Such December. Originally released in 2020, Such December captures beautifully the happy-sad charm of Gratin Carnival. The project of Koreyuki Mitsunaga, Gratin Carnival started in 2011; Mitsunaga had been home recording for some time and decided on the name as an umbrella for his music-making. Mitsunaga's main instruments are guitar, which he uses to great effect throughout, his gorgeous acoustic playing reminiscent of players like Ueno Takashi of Tenniscoats or João Gilberto, and alto saxophone and clarinet. Those three instruments make up the core of Gratin Carnival's sound, along with Mitsunaga's charmingly doleful singing. Recording at his parents' home, with a four-track cassette recorder and a MacBook, Mitsunaga created Such December during 2020, though the songs on it stretch back to 2016. As with plenty of musicians from the Japanese underground, Mitsunaga is involved in other music, too -- he's been working with The Otoasobi Project, which performs music in collaboration with individuals with learning disabilities, and their families; and he's also involved in improvised music. With Such December, though, you get to hear Mitsunaga's music at its most personal and individual, ten songs of still, gorgeously poised indie folk-pop, where the swooning clang of six strings meets the breathy bliss of woodwind and brass.

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Saho Terao

Going North

34,99 €*

Jump For Joy Orange & Black Swirl Vinyl Edition

Release: 2023 / JP – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Perhaps more than any other musician of her generation, Japanese singer-songwriter Saho Terao has pursued the perfect “song”. In the 16 years since her debut album, Terao has made songs ranging from Joni-mitchell inspired folk ballads to pop renditions of traditional Japanese lullabies. Saho Terao’s ninth original studio album, Kita e Mukau (Going North) is a celebration of her history, but sounds fresh from beginning to end.

The diverse cast of supporting musicians should be familiar to fans of Terao, with musicians such as Reizaburo Adachi (ds, sax.), Wataru Iga (b.) (who form the three piece band Fuyu ni Wakarete along with Terao), Shuta Hasunuma (arr.), U-zhaan (Tabla), Mahito The People (gt.), Wakana Ikeda (fl.), and more appearing on the record. Although Terao’s soothing voice and piano playing form the basis of each of the songs, the arrangements are at times times fun and upbeat, at times bordering on avant-garde, and at times so beautiful that you’ll find yourself teary-eyed.

At first listen, the relaxed atmosphere and laid back beat of title track “Kita e Mukau” (“Going North”), devoted to Terao’s late father, makes it feel like a song perfect for a cloudy day. But repeated listens reveal the kind of stirring allegories that other words can’t do justice. The emotional power imbued in the song is concealed at first glance by a modern arrangement, but careful listeners will be rewarded with an emotional gut punch of a song. “Asadoya Yunta” is a folk song from the islands of Okinawa that’s been covered extensively, including versions by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yuta Orisaka, and Haruomi Hosono. But where the YMO members turn the tune into tropical electronica, and Orisaka turns it on its head with his psych folk interpretation, Terao keeps it simple. Perhaps it’s her extensive experience covering traditional folk songs in her Favorite Children’s Songs series, but Terao’s sparse piano accompaniment highlights the beautiful melody and her own voice. Despite the plethora of covers by some of Japan’s best musicians, Terao succeeds in making the song her own, while somehow keeping to its folkloric roots.

But perhaps the best example of Terao’s musicianship is in the album closer, “Yumagure (electric guitar version)”. The song was originally included on Ai no Himitsu (2009), and it’s a shining example of contemporary folk. Played over a simple piano arrangement, the song received high praise for its use of everyday imagery (“At twilight, I’ll gaze at the blurry moon”). But over a decade after its initial recording, Terao revisited the song, enlisting the help of Gezan’s Mahito the People on guitar. Mahito’s playing is delicate, coiling and intermingling with the melody and piano, and making expert use of reverb to create an atmosphere altogether different from the original.

What Kita e Mukau accomplishes may not be the perfect “song”, but it unifies the often disparate parts of Terao’s discography into one cohesive project. Pressed on black wax, this record from one of Japan’s foremost singer-songwriters is sure to be one of the essential releases of 2023.

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Hiss Golden Messenger

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Merge)

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Nordic Notes)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Indie exclusive Peak Edition on Orange & Black Swirl Vinyl, in a gatefold cover + poster.

It's spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylor - leader of the band Hiss Golden Messenger - is feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal, he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well over a decade, this is something new. "The tunes on Jump for Joy were composed in free moments throughout 2022, a year during which Hiss was on the road more or less constantly," explains Taylor. "And perhaps because the post-pandemic energy out in the world felt so chaotic and uncertain, I found myself thinking a lot about the role that music has played in my life and how exactly I ended up in the rarefied position of leading a band and crew all over the globe through dingy graffiti-scrawled green rooms, venerated music halls, dust-blown roadside motels. Sometimes playing in front of 5,000; sometimes 200. Sleeping sitting up. Laughing until my stomach hurts. Not being able to fall asleep at 3 a.m. in some anonymous bed because my mind is spinning with anxiety or depression or adrenaline, or because my ears are still ringing. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, then robbing Paul to pay Peter back. Over and over again. It's an outlaw life but one, I'm coming to realize, that makes me happy." The songs that make up Jump for Joy - the sharpest and most autobiographical that Taylor has written under the Hiss name - read as a sort of epistolary, postcards between the present-day songwriter and his alias Michael Crow, a teenaged dreamer very much like Taylor himself, who trips his way through the 14 tunes that make up the record. In this way, Jump for Joy is a meditation on a life lived with art, and the ways that our hopes and dreams and decisions bump up against_ and, with a little bit of luck, occasionally merge with real life. "Creating this character became the way that I could explore these vulnerable, tender moments that were so decisive in my life, even if I didn't know it at the time," explains Taylor. Produced by Taylor and engineered by longtime Hiss compatriot Scott Hirsch over two weeks in the late fall of 2022 at the fabled Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, TX, just a short walk from the Mexican border, Jump for Joy dances with joyful, spontaneous energy that feels like a fresh chapter in the Hiss Golden Messenger oeuvre. Taylor is accompanied throughout the album by his crack live band: guitarist Chris Boerner, bassist Alex Bingham, keyboardist Sam Fribush, and drummer Nick Falk, a collection of musicians that have helped make Hiss Golden Messenger's live performances legendary affairs.

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Pekko K:H:H:L Käppi

Credo

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Discreet Music)

Leda

Neuter

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (April)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Sofie Herner (Enhet För Fri Musik, Neutral) returns with Neuter, the first proper album since the Gitarrmusik Iii-x LP released on Förlag För Fri Musik back in 2017. Neuter was recorded between 2018 and 2021 and is the culmination of a very distinctive and unmistakable sound Sofie has developed and refined during close to 10 years now. The music of Leda is based on primitive guitar loops of various lenghts, loops that intervenes and creates peculiar rhythms and subtle harmonies. Slow-burning proto-industrial basement buzz with occasional vocals buried in the mix. The connection to the sullen soundscapes of Neutral is of course there, but the skeletal, monotonous compositions and austere nature of things sets this apart widely. Years has passed and Neuter is ultimately more Malmö than Gothenburg. Hints has been thrown out on a handful of limited in-between releases on labels like Knotwilg and Kashual Plastik during the last few years, but Neuter is the pinnacle of Herner's body of solo work. Nine tracks, 37 minutes.

Mastered by Linus at Elementstudio and comes packaged in a cover jacket with full colour printed inside. Edition of 750 copies. Discreet Music 14.

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Nana Rashid

Music For Betty

LP | 2023 | US | Original (Digital Regress)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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With a timeless, emotive vocal quality reminiscent of the great Nina Simone, Danish vocalist Nana Rashid is proud to present "Music For Betty", her debut on April Records, this spring. Backed by critically acclaimed trio Little North, the record presents 8 gems which showcase an artist with a commanding stage presence and a knack for storytelling that belies her youth. Walking a tightrope between an homage to her idols and an undeniably modern, self-assured performance, the vocalist places herself in the present through her charged lyricism, and political/spiritual undertones.The heart and soul of everything Rashid does is rooted in the belief that music can remind us of what we have in common - our humanity. A reference to the first track "Poor Blue Betty", the album"s name is a tribute to the parts of ourselves we dismiss but still so badly desire as they are what make us whole. The eight tracks on the record were written and chosen out of a wish to make music for the dismissed parts of Rashid"s soul as a tool to reintegrate them into herself.A follow-up to her 2016 release "Sorrow In Sunlight", her use of piano trio Little North adds an extra dimension to the cohesion of the music. Appearing on the cover of Spotify"s "State of Jazz" playlist (twice!) and with a glowing review in Downbeat Magazine for their 2022 album "Familiar Places", their subtle musicianship shines a light on Rashid"s power-ful vocal and allows the lyricism and songwriting to speak for themselves.The arrangements are naked and raw, yet elegant. The piano trio has a dusty and at times almost cinematic sound to it. In other places, the trio slides into punchy, organic pression supporting the wailing messages of unfairness and sorrow. From the spacious, Scandinavian-jazz tinged "Goodbye My Love", to the world of texture and extended techniques from pianist Benjamin Norholm Jacobsen in "Johnny Guitar" to the laid-back groove of "Mother, Father" with an American attitude, the album flows through a sea of influences, grounded by i...

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Lloyd Pack

I Can't Remember

LP | 2023 | UK | Original (Shapes Of Rhythm)

Release: 2023 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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"Over the course of the last decade, Messrs. Russell Walker and Daniel Melchior have collaborated under the guise of THE Lloyd Pack. While much ink has been spilled about their work apart from each other [das Menace, THE Pheromoans, countless solo dispatches], their conjoined effort has a bit of a cloaked rep. Perhaps it’s their insistence on bucking genre constraints that thickens the shroud, as their lone commitment lies in coaxing each other’s instincts into wondrous tracks. I Can’t Remember, the latest assemblage of said tracks, imparts bright buzz with a decidedly late-night air. An odd bit of cynical groove runs throughout, all the way to sunrise.

"The finest moments of The Lloyd Pack essentially equate Russ and Dan completing each other’s sentences, relating and reacting on equal terms. I Can’t Remember is replete with such moments. Many of the entries begin with simple rhythm programming as bedrock, expanding through all manner of pile- on riffing. The waltzing, madcap “Pagsy” shoves several recognizable tenants of classic Uk-diy pop into the circus tent. The romantic escapism that feeds “The Firs Hotel” eventually concludes as mere routine. “Crossroads Mason Simulator” acts as centerpiece, undeniable with its gorgeous lights-off sound, recalling a lost entry from After The Heat. Every tune offers surprise and something to cling to.

"Digital Regress is pleased to present I Can’t Remember, the fifth LP from The Lloyd Pack." - Mitch Cardwell

Riyl: Bobby Would, The Rebel, The Shadow Ring, Nathan Roche, Itchy Bugger

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Mldva & Cinar Timur

20,99 €*

Aselefech Ashine & Getenesh Kebret

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Shapes of Rhythm is proud to present the self-titled debut LP of Turkish psychedelic pop from Mldva & Çınar Timur. This record is a celebration of the classic music and culture typically of the 70s and 80s, but which also leans into western jazz funk and soul jazz moments. If you're into the Turkish music legends of the 70s and 80s such as Barış Manço and more recently Altın Gün or Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, you've come to the right place.
Mldva were formed in Krakow, Poland in 2013 as a DJ and production outfit. Under the influence of Greek and Turkish folk and psych-rock music they began to transform into a band, taking up instruments including the Saz which is one of the most recognisable trademarks of the Turkish sound. Two years later in 2015 they invited Turkish instrumentalist Çınar Timur to join them and this completes the line up on their debut. This electric album is packed with excellently-recorded expansive tracks which are full of energy, psychedelic deep grooves, hard-hitting breakbeats and everything else you'd expect with classic Turkish sounds.
The instrumental double-header of Neşat Erkaş' Zülüf Dökülmüş Yüze, moving into the time-honoured traditional Kozan Dağıis the perfect opening track. The introduction is an overture of sorts with two minutes of Çınar Timur's pondering guitar. This tees up the record perfectly before heading into a break-beat driven workout with the band matching Çınar's evocative and energetic riffing. The result is a tight sound and a heavy groove that sets the tone for what's to come.
With the band unveiled, Sarı Çizmeli Mehmet Ağa, written by Barış Manço (a legend in Turkish popular music), hits a relaxed, deeper and more psychedelic groove, dominated by Wojciech Długosz's dreamy Rhodes piano, set against choppy wah-wah guitar licks that characterize that classic electric Turkish pop sound. We're introduced to Ulaş Çıbuk's vocals for the first time, telling the historic tale of a charitable village lord Mehmet Ağa from 19c Anatolia known for his generosity. He shared his fortune with people inneed and as a result, died penniless. This track also features the unique sound of Çınar's Mictrotonal electric guitar.
Bir Adım Öte is Mldva & Çınar Timur's magnificent mellow moment, marking the halfway point in their debut. The group shows that it's not all about the frenetic in a nod to western Soul-Jazz constructs. They showcase restraint, emotion and that joy in repetition of a wonderful guitar refrain. Not content with holding this down, Wojciech Długosz's Rhodes solo steps into a world that's US-influenced Soul jazzand is a lesson in reduction and feeling. Çınar Timur then takes a solo turn, keeping it western-influenced with an on the spot improvisation. When the three minutes of solos are over, we're brought back out of thedream and towards the East again.
Adımız Miskindir Bizim kicks off like a hip hop/funk crossover tune, until the chord changes muscle in, to remind you where you are in the world. As with other tracks on the debut, the tune is marked by recurring motifs, this time from Çınar's microtonal electric guitar. We've more solo Rhodes action, thist ime busier and more urgent. The lyrics–originally written by Yunus Emre – criticizevalues such as holding grudges that destroy ideas of love, friendship and peace among people which causes hostility. Adımız Miskindir Bizim concludes with an uplifting vocal vamp which switches it up unlike any of thetracks on the LP.
In Fesupanallah– made most popular by Erkin Koray – Ulaş Çıbuk sings about the simple subject ofbeing patient with never ending problems in life, and trying to find a solution for them. This cut takes a rhythmical side-step to the rest of the album. The kick drum maps out a solid four-four, but the vocals and guitar lines move around it to impose Fesupanallah as being the record's most traditionally Turkish-sounding cut.
The album's closing track Ölüm Allah'ın Emri (another Manço classic) was recorded live in the band's more familiar surroundings of Krakow's Cheder Cafe during 2020's Jewish Culture Festival. The lyrics tell the tale of someone who has accepted death but cannot accept the separation that comes with it. We open with a dreamy, psychedelic mood before progressing into a heavy-riffing rock feeling with probing synths. Ulaş delivers his vocals over the top of a stripped back, shuffling groove. As the track progresses towards a frenetic conclusion, drummer Szymon Piotrowski cuts loose, combining with Grzegorz Dąbek's synth lines.
Mldva & Çınar Timur's debut LP is not the sound of a band starting out. Taking time to hone their craft and let influences across the global spectrum of music mature, this is the result of years of jamming, gigging and collaborating. Now, after prestigious festival appearances and their place on Saz Power – an essential modern Turkish music compilation – they're making a lasting contribution to a rich, time-honored culture. Mldva & Çınar Timur releases Friday 30 June 2023 on limited edition vinyl LP and digital download/streaming services on Shapes of Rhythm. Global distribution by Kudos Records.

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Beauties

LP | 2023 | US | Original (Domino Sounds)

7" | 2023 | UK | Original (Mr Bongo)

Release: 2023 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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For many years, this has been on the Domino Sound reissue wish list, and finally the wish has been granted. A reissue in cahoots with Mississippi Records of a 1976 gem of a record from Ethiopia. Aselefech Ashine and Getenesh Kebret met in Addis Ababa at the Hager Fikir Theater, a music and dance icon of Africa. They released one 45rpm single, and this album under the musical direction of Tishome Sisay. Ten beautiful songs, each of them sung as closely intertwined duets between the two “beauties”, backed by the tip top sounds of the Army Band. The LP comes in a Stoughton “Tip-On” sleeve with lyrical translations and a short interview with Aselefech Ashine. A split release with Mississippi Records, we are ecstatic to have more copies for the world to enjoy. Dig in!

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Kit Sebastian

L'Addio / Hayat

18,99 €*

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (On The Corner)

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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The illustrious, London-based duo Kit Sebastian, aka Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, return with a limited edition 7” single. It features ’L’addio’, a breakbeat driven, sultry ballad, and ‘Hayat’, a hazy, psychedelic scorcher that delves into the band’s Turkish and Azerbaijan influences.

‘L’addio’ saw the band perfecting their production and orchestration, with strings, horns and double bass, and an Italian synth found in a French dump. The music was greatly influenced by Italian soundtracks and Italian female singers, such as Mina or Rita Pavone. The track announces itself with a break that is guaranteed to get samplers twitching. The tone of the melody and lyrics is heartfelt and aching. It has a beautiful, intimate sadness like the closing scenes to a love affair, and it exquisitely rides over the slow, psych-funk-dramatic backing track. The lyrics are inspired by a flat opposite Merve's window that's occupied by drug addicts, with many guests coming in and out every night. Merve elaborated “Being both neighbours and strangers, and with the boredom of a post-tour everyday domestic life and a pinch of urban voyeurism, it was hard not to wonder what was happening in that flat. The words imagine an addict before her/his golden shot as if it's a love relationship between them that comes to an end.”

Having spent much of 2022 touring and writing, ‘Hayat’ was the first original composition the band recorded since their October 2021 album, ‘Melodi’. Here we see them weaving a psychedelic tapestry of Mugham melodies, organ-driven grooves, and jazz-pop harmonies in classic Kit Sebastian fashion. Recorded to Fostex 1/4” tape, the essence of the production is perfectly balanced between being brand new and retro, which is a feat very hard to pull off.

‘Hayat’ is sung in Turkish and the title translates as ‘Life’ in English. The song examines our desire to find one's place in the world and the provisionality of existence. Merve's searching lyrics ask “Where are you? Where is the universe?”. Her vocal delivery perfectly reflects the lyrical focus, its texture is probing and ethereal, almost as if sung from looking above us.

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BCUC

Millions Of Us

LP | 2023 | UK | Original (Worried Songs)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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A stone"s throw from the church where Desmond Tutu organised the escape of the most wanted anti-Apartheid activists of Soweto, Bcuc rehearses in a shipping container-turned-community restaurant, where their indomitable outspokenness echoes in a whole new way. Like its elders, Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness sees its music as a hedonistic trance, but also as a weapon of political and spiritual liberation. "Millions Of Us" is their first full-length album and most ambitious work to date - distilling their magic on record, summoning mainstage festival-energy and stewing down, casting spells for the intimate audience.

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Bob Martin

Seabrook

22,99 €*

29 Written In Stone Live From Music City Colored Vinyl Edition

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Bob Martin began what would become his final studio album in a beach front condominium in Seabrook, New Hampshire in May 2008. The recordings sat dormant for the next 13 years. This album began when James Endeacott of 1965 Records sent Jerry David DeCicca to Charlottesville, Virginia to meet Martin, hoping to reissue Martin’s 1972 debut on RCA Records, Midwest Farm Disaster. DeCicca, who had co-produced the final recordings of folk-funk, Heartworn Highways’ songwriter, Larry Jon Wilson, for 1965 Records (and later reissued by Drag City Records) had played the LP for Endeacott several months earlier. Midwest Farm Disaster is that rare album that feels joyful and yet full of sorrow; Martin’s Lowell, Massachusetts voice yearning with a backbeat from Nashville session musicians, Norman Putnam and Kenny Buttrey, the later fresh from his “Heart of Gold” session. The reissue never happened, as Martin was already in the process of rescuing his forgotten masterpiece for his own self-release. But Bob and Jerry’s breakfast led to Martin’s daughter, Tami, hiring DeCicca and engineer, Jake Housh, who also worked on the Wilson album, to capture her father in a similar manner. After Midwest Farm Disaster, a second album for RCA was under contract, but when a record executive there wanted Martin to put his girlfriend’s poetry to music, Bob bailed on the deal. Martin continued to tour around with a pickup band until advice from his father resonated, and he left the road to raise a family. Bob worked as an educator, teaching math and computers, and even founded a school in West Virginia that taught traditional art forms in Appalachia like fiddle playing and weaving. Bob returned to the studio in 1982 to record Last Chance Rider for the June Appal, a label that focused on music from Appalachia and had released albums by Nimrod Workman, Si Kahn, and Betty Smith. In the late-90’s, Bob returned with two self-released CDs, The River Turns The Wheel and Next to Nothin’ that continued capturing stories of people and places that exhale their own mythologies. He wrote novels, cared for his family, and taught, and played only the occasional gig. But it’s this album, Seabrook, that finds Bob at his most wise and wistful; the histories of Lowell and his own life hanging longest in his voice. New songs about the West Virginia coal mines (“Three Miles Beneath This Mountain”) and living in an extended stay motel (“Midway Motel”) sit beside new and more urgent interpretations of late period classics, like “My Father Painted Houses,” and, for the first time, one of his oldest songs he didn’t record for Midwest Farm Disaster called “Give Me Light”, along with “Stay Awhile Sunshine,” which he had been singing to his family for decades and features Gary Mallaber (“Tupelo Honey”) on vibraphone. After DeCicca and Housh returned from the beach with Bob, they all agreed to flesh out the songs with other instrumentation to present as a draft for what the new record could be with a little more money and time. This was the time when the epilogue of musicians’ work was still of interest to labels. Everyone with a guitar over 65 was still in the shadow of Rubin’s Cash, and recent records by Loretta Lynn, Charlie Louvin, Soloman Burke, and Candi Staton were both fashionable and profitable. But Martin wasn’t as well known and his classic debut was only licensed for a limited physical release, proving him a difficult sell. Labels passed or made unreasonable requests, and Bob eventually lost interest; instead, choosing to record a solo acoustic live album, Live at the Bull Run, and tour Europe for the first time. There were hiccups of hope, like a feature in No Depression and a song in the TV show, Justified, but the new recordings quickly began collecting dusk. In the meantime, DeCicca continued producing records for other older artists, like Ed Askew’s For the World (Tin Angel), two Chris Gantry releases (Drag City), Will Beeley’s Highways and Heart Attacks (Tompkins Square), and reissue projects for the Numero Group (Elyse Weinberg, Rob Galbraith). Then, in 2021, DeCicca received a call from Bob’s daughter, Tami, giving him permission to finish the album as Bob’s health was failing. Upon revisiting the tracks with Housh, the album needed very little tidying up and the songs were completed with DeCicca’s former bandmates, The Black Swans, who had previously played on the original mock up back in 2008. With new technology and a new perspective, the album was completed, but not before Martin’s health had deteriorated more. Bob Martin passed away September 21, 2022 at 80 years of age. Sadly, he never heard his final album.

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Carly Pearce

2LP | 2023 | Original (Big Machine)

38,99 €*

Release: 2023 / Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Bubuj Bulan / Naghm El Uns

Rully DJohan / Munif

12" | 2023 | UK | Original (Soundway)

14,99 €*

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Penny)

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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Following on from Soundway’s 2022 compilation, Padang Moonrise, are two late 1960s tracks from Java, Indonesia. one instrumental psychedelic organ version of Classic Indonesian track ‘Bubuj Bulan’ and the other a raw funk cut sung in Arabic. Rully Djohan recorded this unique, psychedelic instrumental version of Benny Corda’s classic ‘Bubuj Bulan’ for his album of instrumental organ versions of popular Indonesian songs recorded in 1971-72. With echoes of Indian, Ethiopian and Egyptian jazz melded with traditional Javanese music this version is a shimmering, dubbed-out take on a song that has been recorded by many Indonesian vocalists. Djohan is backed by The Galaxies Band, and led by one of Indonesia’s most original band leaders and arrangers Jopie Item, who also plays sitar and guitar alongside Djohan’s electric organ. On the flip-side, Munif Bahasuan delivers a deep funk track sung in Arabic. Munif was a Jakarta-based vocalist who sung mostly in Arabic and English. Jakarta has a small population of Arabic, ethnically Middle Eastern people who settled in Indonesia via connections with Islam and Islamic culture, the dominant religion in Java, Sumatra and many other of the main islands in the Indonesian archipelago.

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Badawi

The Book Of Jinn

16,99 €*

LP | 2023 | JP | Original (P-Vine)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie, Electronic & Dance

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“Ghost Producer” aka Badawi (aka Raz Mesinai aka Bilal ibn Yakub al-Badawi) is a prolific producer and artist whom has been on the forefront of underground experimental jazz and electronic music scenes around the world for over thirty years, with a massive catalog of genre defying albums on such legendary labels as Roir, Asphodel and Tzadik under various monikers dating back to the late 1980’s. Ghost Producer released his first albums starting in the late 80’s under the monikers “Psy Co.” and “Ruff Riddim Productions”, selling his cassette tapes in NYC, he produced, on average, at least one album per week since 1988 till present day. One of the twenty or so monikers was “Badawi”, later being signed to Roir Records and releasing the seminal experimental dub, punk albums “Bedouin Sound Clash” and later “The Heretic of Ether” on Asphodel. Spending time as a child between Occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank (Balata) and New York City (Rock Steady Park) during the height of the B-Boy era in the 70s and 80s informed Ghost Producer’s singular sound of heavy driving Sufi rhythms, sonic experiments, percussion, piano playing and sound design which has connected him to a wide variety of artists ranging from Maryanne Amacher to John Zorn, to added elements of darkness to music by such artists as Hanz Zimmer (Black Hawk Down) and rappers Danny Brown (Pneumonia) and Skepta and Double D (Don) among many others. At age 14, Ghost Producer was discovered by visionary jazz and rock musician, Juma Sultan (Jimi Hendrix) whom later trusted Ghost Producer with producing the archive of over 2000 hours from recordings from “Studio We” and the Free Jazz Loft Movement in NYC in the 60s and 70s. As a composer, he has worked with Kronos Quartet and has had premiers at Carnegie Hall (Cross Fader, The Echo of Decay) and Lincoln Center (String Quartet For Four Turntables). In addition, Ghost Producer has released several albums on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, where he explored producing to the books of Franz Kafka (Before The Law, Resurrections for Goat Skin, Cyborg Acoustics) As a composer for film, he coined the term “score design” to describe his work in conceiving and producing scores for films with particularly demanding needs, working on such films as A Late Quartet (director Yaron Zilberman composer: Angelo Badalamenti), The Fountain, Black Swan and The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky/Clint Mansel), Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott/Hans Zimmer) and many more. In 2014, he was awarded as a fellow in the Sundance Composers Lab. In 2015, Ghost Producer formed the “Underground Producers Alliance”, a unique program for developing producers, performers and composers, with co-founders Scotty Hard (Wu Tang Clan, Medeski Martin and Wood, De La Soul), HPrizm aka High Priest (Anti Pop Consortium), Honeychild Coleman (the 1865, The Slits) and Prince Paul (Jungle Brothers, De La Soul), where Ghost Producer produces entire albums with student participation in his master course on production “The Ghost Program”. This album, The Book of Jinn, is one of many productions done within the course, featuring players/mentors Juma Sultan (percussion), Chandenie (voice) and Shahzad Ismaily (electric bass), with additional student participation from Adam Culbert and Jonah Sollins (aka Goodnight 1500) on synths and percussion as well, then all remixed and rearranged by Badawi into what you hear here, The Book of Jinn.

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Isato Nakagawa

Solar Wind

34,99 €*

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Not Now)

Release: 2023 / JP – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Known as one of the greatest fingerstyle guitarists of his generation, the late Isato Nakagawa’s “Solar Wind” is getting a long awaited analog reissue!

With incredible technical talent and an ear for beautiful melodies, Nakagawa was a pioneer of Japan’s fingerstyle guitar scene, mentoring world-renown guitarists such as Kotaro Oshio and Masaaki Kishibe. Originally released over two decades ago, ‘Solar Wind’ saw Nakagawa at the height of his powers, a guitarist confident in both his compositional skills and unrivaled technical ability. Of course, this talent is disguised, with melodies often so simple they could be from lullabies. Yet at times, his talent is on full display, with moving harmonies so complex it seems impossible that he’s playing with only two hands. Whether you want to sit down and study the music of a master, or simply sit back and listen to beautiful guitar melodies, this album is perfect. Reissued on vinyl for the first time ever with an obi strip, this album has never looked or sounded this good! Don’t miss Isato Nakagawa’s Solar Wind, only from P-vine Records.

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Buck Owens

Essential

18,99 €*

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Strange Strangers Teal Vinyl Edition

Devon Church

LP | 2023 | US | Original (Felte)

Grief In The Kitchen And Mirth In The Hall

Release: 2023 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Devon Church ist ein aus Winnipeg, Manitoba, stammender und in New York City lebender Singer-Songwriter. Er war viele Jahre lang Multiinstrumentalist, Co-Autor und Produzent des Dreampop-Duos Exitmusic, dessen Album Passage 2012 bei Secretly Canadian erschien und von Pitchfork als "aufrührerisch, cineastisch und manchmal brillant" beschrieben wurde. 2018, im selben Jahr, in dem Exitmusic ihren Abgesang The Recognitions auf felte veröffentlichte, brachte Church sein Solodebüt We Are Inextricable ebenfalls auf felte heraus, das die texturalen elektronischen Elemente, die er während der Exitmusic-Jahre genutzt hatte, in den Dienst eines Songwriting-Stils stellte, der in der Folk-Rock-Tradition verwurzelt ist. Nachdem Church 2019 in den gesamten USA aufgetreten war (im Vorprogramm von Orville Peck, Adam Green, Kirin J Callinan und Black Marble), machte er sich an die Arbeit, um sein neuestes Werk, Strange Strangers, aufzunehmen, während er in einer Scheune im ländlichen Pennsylvania Zuflucht vor der globalen Pandemie suchte. Das größtenteils selbst produzierte Album klingt, als hätte Eno aus der Apollo-Ära Phil Spector auf halbem Wege zu den Aufnahmen von Death of a Ladies Man die Regler (und die Pistole) entrissen. Die atmosphärischen Elemente von Churchs früheren Produktionen werden auf dem Album sublimiert und in den Dienst von bandgesättigtem Gesang, Combo-Orgeln und Gitarren gestellt. Seine Stimme, die seit seinem Debüt selbstbewusster und zurückhaltender geworden ist, ist immer noch irgendwo zwischen einem lakonischen Lee-Hazelwood und einem rauchigen Tom Waits, aber sie wird bei Stücken wie dem intensiv melodischen und treibenden "Flash of Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky" deutlich ruhiger. Die engelsgleichen Backing Vocals von Churchs Partnerin, der Künstlerin Ada Roth, verleihen dem Bariton des weltmüden Erzählers eine Aura von traumhafter Leichtigkeit. Wenn Roth in gedämpften, an Hope Sandoval erinnernden Tönen in den Vordergrund tritt und einen Text wie "We're so bored of the apocalypse" vorträgt, nehmen die Dinge eine subtil bedrohliche Wendung in Richtung Pop-Surrealismus. Ein Sinn für kosmischen schwarzen Humor hat sich in Churchs Texte eingeschlichen. Strange Strangers leiht sich den Titel von dem Öko-Philosophen Timothy Morton: "The strangeness of strange strangers is itself strange, meaning the more we know about an entity the stranger it becomes.”

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Alasdair Roberts

LP | 2023 | US | Original (Drag City)

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Glitterbeat)

Release: 2023 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Critically-acclaimed, criminally-overachieving Glasgow-based singer and guitarist Alasdair Roberts is known as a superlative original songwriter as well as an interpreter of traditional songs from Scotland and beyond. For the past twenty years, his recordings have alternated between these two complimentary poles, with "pop" records such as The Amber Gatherers and A Wonder Working Stone nestling in his expansive back catalogue alongside "folk" albums such as No Earthly Man and What News (with Amble Skuse and David McGuinness). Additionally, all of these records possess a further dimension, derived from their collation of songs together into one album-length statement. This is part of Alasdair"s great achievement in his career - for him, this thing of music and song hasn"t come the eons it"s travelled to simply entertain.These impulses fully present and well honed, Alasdair returns to his roots with Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall, his fifth full-length collection of traditional song. Recorded live in the studio, it is an entirely solo collection of twelve traditional ballads and songs sparsely arranged for acoustic guitar, piano and voice. The majority of the songs originate in Alasdair"s homeland of Scotland, with a couple from Ireland and one from Prince Edward Island on Canada"s eastern seaboard too.The record takes its title from a line in the final verse of one of its songs, "The Baron o" Brackley" - a ballad of feuding clans and matrimonial betrayal from the north-east of Scotland. Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall: it"s a title which goes some way towards encapsulating many of the record"s themes. Collectively the songs treat of various conflicts and tensions - those of gender; of class, status and position; and of geography and tribal belonging - and the roles and responsibilities expected at the various intersections of these constructs. That we should never forget!As with many of Alasdair"s recordings, Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall contains ballads aplenty...

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Altin Gün

Ask

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Bretford)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The first thing that grabs you about Altin Gün"s new album is the energy. With Ask, the Amsterdam-based sextet turn away from the electronic, synth-drenched sound of their 2021 albums, Alem and Yol. While those two, created at home during the pandemic, paid homage to the electronic pop of the 80s and early 90s, Ask, marks an exuberant return to the 70s Anatolian folk-rock sound that characterised Altin Gün"s first two albums, On (2018) and Gece (2019). But there’s development here too. Ask is the closest the band have come so far to capturing the infectious energy of their live performances. "It"s definitely connecting more with a live sound - almost like a live album," says bassist Jasper Verhulst. "We, as a band, just going into a rehearsal space together and creating music together instead of demoing at home." "We didn't record it like we did the last album," agrees vocalist Merve Dasdemir. "We basically produced that one at home because of the pandemic. Now we've gone back to recording live on tape." How many more worlds do Altin Gün visit in this joyful expedition? "Rakiya Su Katamam" is glowering space rock, as though Gong had taken a stopover on the Bosphorus. "Canim Oy" is a psychedelic freak-beat stomper from a world where Istanbul's Kadiköy district was the Carnaby Street of the east. "Güzelligin On Para Etmez" is a dreamy acid-folk anthem. And the finale, "Doktor Civanim," is an irresistible slice of sci-fi disco camp with lava-lamp synth squiggles that wouldn't sound out-of-place next to Baris Manço"s "Ben Bilirim." Fresh yet timeless. Rooted in antiquity yet yearning for heavenly futures. Ask wants to take you places.

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Oska Wald

Motel Reno

Linda Smith & Nancy Andfrews

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Welcome to Motel Reno, situated on a purgato-rial stretch of the Highway to Hell, where the amenities include cable TV, a door mat for dust-ing off your cowboy boots, running water that works most of the time, a bed with a pillow and a couple of blankets with mysterious stains - well, okay, so not much, but enough to launch a series of dreams both good and bad_ Oska Wald, frontman of Berlin garagesters Chuckamuck, here on his solo outing. Motel Reno gives old-fashioned lo-fi neo-folk craftsmanship, reminding us that the art of songwriting might have yet another day to live. And perhaps that's all we can really ask for, in these troubled times, which Wald gets to the very bottom of, only to come back up to the surface with the hope and irony we need to breathe. The Eagles might have their Hotel California, Leonard Cohen his Chelsea Hotel, but Motel Reno will always be Oska Wald's home away from home.

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A Passing Cloud

LP | 2023 | US | Original (Grapefruit / Getrude Tapes)

I Saw A Star Behind Your Eyes, Don't Let It Die Away

Release: 2023 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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In 1983, Nancy Andrews and Linda Smith shared a big house in Baltimore with a continuously revolving cast of artists and musicians. It was there the like-minded artists formed their first band, Ceramic Madonna Head (with Plastic Arms), a short-lived project which included housemates Elizabeth Downing and Peggy Bitzer. By the time the lease was up, Smith and Bitzer had decided to move to New York where they would form a new band called The Woods while Andrews and Downing remained in Baltimore and formed a performance art band called Lambs Eat Ivy. While playing guitar in The Woods in the mid-’80s Smith purchased her first 4-track cassette recorder and embarked on a pioneering decade of solo, DIY home recording with a series of cassettes and 7-inch records of smart and moody singer-songwriter bedroom pop music. This trailblazing period was recently documented on the Captured Tracks retrospective compilation Till Another Time: 1988-1996. Her band, The Woods, made a record which was shelved for decades but will finally see release in 2023. During this same period Andrews pursued art, animation and filmmaking with occasional forays into music including another short-lived collaboration with Smith called The Gertrudes as well as a 7-inch under the alias Pinky on Harriet Records in 1992. The friends stayed in touch but hadn’t worked on a project together in nearly thirty years. In 2020, Smith rediscovered in the back of a drawer some old tapes of Andrews’s songs she had recorded for her in the ’90s. In the process of digitizing the old recordings she was inspired to reach out and float the idea of a new collaborative recording project with her old friend. A Passing Cloud is the fruit of their rekindled long-distance musical conversation. They began the songwriting process by flipping through Andrews’s pulp fiction collection and pulling provocative phrases from the lurid titles and hard-boiled storylines. Then, they set out to create new stories from personal, feminist perspectives. All the songs were composed incrementally by passing tracks back and forth between Maine and Maryland during the late pandemic. A Passing Cloud’s lovely and beguiling pop music may be borne out of isolation but it draws one in with a carefully rendered intimacy made possible by decades of artistic collaboration.

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Bennett Wilson Poole

LP | 2023 | UK | Original (Bwp)

19,99 €*

If I Could Only Fly / Let Me Ride In Your Big Cadillac

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Nearly five years on from their acclaimed debut, Bennett Wilson Poole reveal the follow up. It's been a long time coming, but... That eponymous first album was only ever intended as a one-off collaborative project — a serendipitous series of events which began with a late evening session where the trio wrote ‘Hate Won't Win’. A response to the murder of MP Jo Cox, it was something of a fresh take on Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s classic protest song ‘Ohio’. The release saw Bennett Wilson Poole embraced by the Americana community, playing live on the Andrew Marr show and crowned as ‘UK Artist of the Year’ at the 2019 UK Americana Awards, in front of a watching crowd including Graham Nash himself. The new album came together in similar fashion; Robin (Bennett) and Danny (Wilson) started writing new songs late into the night whilst on tour to promote the first record — a tour which unfolded from a three-night residency in a London pub into a year-long odyssey culminating in a headline show in Hall One at King’s Place — and before they knew it, there were enough songs to begin recording an unplanned second album. Where the first record drank deep from 70s US west coast folk-rock, the second has been heavily spiked with 1960s British psychedelia, even featuring a cover by legendary counterculture artist John Hurford (whose credits include 60s artwork for Oz Magazine and International Times).* Tony Poole’s meticulous and inspired production has spun Robin and Danny’s fresh batch of songs into a delicate web of musical delight. Fans of the ‘spot the reference’ game Tony started on the first record won’t be disappointed this time either, as there are plenty more to be found here. As with the first album, the lyrics don’t shy away from current affairs – by the end of that year of touring, the band were already playing “I Wanna Love You (But I Can’t Right Now)”, reflecting on the state of US politics, yet optimistic that the problems are only temporary. Many of the tracks on the new album feature live rhythm section Fin Kenny (drums) and Joe Bennett

(bass) for the first time on a BWP record.

The title of the album comes from the lyrics of ‘Help Me See My Way’, the first single, a prayer for strength in difficult times, the trippy animated video for which was originally issued during lockdown. The dreamy positivity of the line "I saw a star behind your eyes" is tempered with the plea "don't let it die away", a message which feels as important as ever two years on.

All three collaborators have had critical acclaim in their own right. Danny Wilson’s credentials go back to his days in Grand Drive with brother Julian, and his consistent high calibre output with his Champions of the World led them to sweeping the board at the first UK Americana Awards with Album, Artist and Song of the year awards richly deserved; Tony Poole’s Starry Eyed and Laughing were hailed as “the English Byrds” on the back of their two CBS-released albums in the mid-seventies and he has since built an enviable reputation as producer and engineer; Robin Bennett has been relentlessly turning out timeless songs from his Oxfordshire base in bands from Goldrush to The Dreaming Spires

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Blaze Foley

7" | 2023 | US | Original (Mapache)

14,44 €* 16,99 € -15%

LP | 2023 | UK | Original (BC)

Release: 2023 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Back in 1979, Blaze Foley presented his first single. If I Could Only Fly / Let Me Ride Your Big Cadillac was released by short life label Zephyr Records and A side song became one of most loved songs from Blaze. The 7” became a high collector’s item and Mapache Records brings for the first time a stand alone reissue of this legendary 45 r.p.m. record.

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The Mary Wallopers

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Vivre La Mort Du Vieux Monde

Maajun

CD | 2023 | EU | Original (Souffle Continu)

15,99 €*

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Before Mahjun (of which Souffle Continu reissued, in 2016, the two albums released on Saravah), there was… Maajun. Five musicians (Jean-Pierre Arnoux, Cyril and Jean-Louis Lefebvre, Alain Roux and Roger Scaglia) and three times as many instruments at the service of an electric-poetic guerrilla group moulded from folk and blues. The group’s unique album, “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde” evokes an (imaginary) association of Frank Zappa and Jacques Higelin, of Sonny Sharrock and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. Under these conditions, Long Live Death!

“The most French of all the French groups, determined to take Maurice Chevalier’s place in American hearts.” This was how Rock&Folk presented Mahjun in 1977. So be it. But when “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde”, was issued, it was 1971, and the name, though the same group, was still spelled Maajun. So, let’s look back at the story. At the end of the sixties, five blues fans decided to form a French group ready to break down the barriers: Jean-Pierre Arnoux (drums, vibraphone, saxophone), Cyril Lefebvre (guitar, organ), Jean-Louis Lefebvre (bass, violin, guitar, vocals), Alain Roux (saxophone, flute, harmonica, vocals) and Roger Scaglia (guitar, vocals). This was Maajun, and Vivre la mort du vieux monde would be their only album, but which would (nevertheless) be followed by those of Mahjun created later by Lefebvre (Jean-Louis) and Arnoux. Recorded for the Vogue label, “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde” would disturb a number of people. This is mostly due to the lyrics, many of which were written by Gérald Escot-Bocanegra, who, while summoning the spirit of Lautréamont and Rimbaud, turned the Maajun musicians on to rock and free jazz. Add a bit of politics into the mix, and the release of the album was delayed for several months. But then, wasn’t it worth waiting for? Because “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde”, a real concept-album, is an important and iconoclastic statement made directly in the face of (francophone) dreamers of all countries. Over heavy guitar riffs, psychedelic interludes or fantasy-fuelled digressions, Maajun built mazes on the advice of alchemists known only to themselves before heading off on a long march on the “cracking walls”. It was an ambitious project, but Maajun could handle it, going so far as to proclaim: “Tomorrow will be a huge party!” But as we can see “tomorrow”, is now!

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Tape | 2022 | UK | Original (Kitchen Label)

Altar Of Dreams

15,99 €*

Buck Owens & His Buckaroos

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Aspidistrafly, the Singaporean duo comprising April Lee and producer Ricks Ang, return with Altar of Dreams, their first studio album in a decade.

While their last album A Little Fable introduced the world to their bucolic and wispy brand of folk songwriting, Altar of Dreams sees the duo – also the founders of Kitchen. Label – harness their experiences over the past decade to create a wholly new and inspired vision. In this new and third album, they drew upon a rich palette of shapes, sounds and movement: straddling between the visionary photography of Serge Lutens and Dora Maar, 80s Japanese ambient pop, musique concrète and the mournful strings of Béla Bartók.

The world in which Aspidistrafly once inhabited was foggy and awash in faded memory. A feeling of being suspended in time felt inescapable with each listen. In Altar of Dreams, the fog is clearing up. At nine songs under 35 minutes, the album possesses all the defining hallmarks of Aspidistrafly – poetic lyricism, cosmic introspection, lush strings, surrealism, tenderness and texture. But what was once seemingly inscrutable has now been explored with astounding clarity, the duo maneuvering through a space-time continuum with delicate leaps.

‘How To Find A Marblewing’, the opening track, is a heady sound collage of early internet sounds, film, anime, and chopped-and-screwed 90s J-pop. It’s a presence deeply embedded throughout the record, a method Lee describes as “a form of environmental/tape treatment”.

The compositions glimmer with sincerity, addressing all at once destruction, mystery, uncertainty, hopes and dreams. The resulting music is backed by an opulence only possible with a line-up of guest musicians. ‘The Voice of Flowers’ is stirring in its balance of flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone and piano, bolstered by a string quartet. Kitchen. Label artist haruka nakamura features on the track alongside Kyo Ichinose (who arranged the strings for the album) and wind instrumentalist Araki Shin.

‘Interlude: Chrysalises and Larvae’ takes the heavy path downward, adopting its name from the 1973 surrealist odyssey The Hourglass Sanatorium. It leads into ‘Companion to Owls’, a gothic pop paean to mortality inspired by the Book of Job.

Before the namesake centrepiece of the album, another interlude arrives in ‘A Ceremonial Ode’, both of which were stirred by a series of regal Shiseido ads from the 1980s starring model Sayoko Yamaguchi. ‘Altar of Dreams’ is haunted by the lucid dreams that once provided escapism for Lee. Its tranquility belies a simmering tension, just as how a lucid dream would offer control in the face of the unknown. “In one of them, I was floating in a vast darkness safe and secure, and then I fell into a turbulent mirage where I willingly allowed myself to be swept away further and further from reality, hoping that I would never wake up,” she says. “Needless to say I did, and ended up writing this song on one of these dead nights.”

If the title track replicates the feeling of falling deep into that spiral, ‘Silk and Satins’ is a direct analysis of the phenomenon. Warped frequencies collide with nature and television sound effects – the latter sourced from 80s Singaporean horror series Mystery – within an inter-dimensional music world. The track was made with featured artist Sugai KEN, whose own work is an endless scroll of intoxicating found sounds.

‘Quintessence’, the sweeping closing track, distills all the elements scattered across the album into a coda that beautifully refuses to resolve. At first an exercise in guitar looping, the song was then written without a beginning and end in mind. “I’d like to think of it as poetry that’s sung,” says Lee.

In Altar of Dreams, Aspidistrafly are renewed and hopeful. They’ve emerged from a decade spent reframing the world they see through vivid dreams and memories. Now, it’s all yours to experience.

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Christmas With Buck Owens And His Buckaroos

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Sundazed)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie, Christmas

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Al Di Meola, John Mclaughlin, Paco De Lucia

Saturday Night In San Francisco

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Ear Music Classics)

36,99 €*

4LP | 2022 | US | Original (Earth)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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Used Vinyl

Medium: Sealed, Cover: Sealed

Clear vinyl. Still sealed with hype sticker.

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Bert Jansch

At The BBC

93,99 €*

Blackberry Rose Blackberry Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Used Vinyl

Medium: Sealed, Cover: VG+

Still sealed. Tear in cardboard covers back spine. Limited edition.

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Lavender Country

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Don Giovanni)

10" | 2022 | UK | Original (Loose Music)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Four decades after releasing the first openly gay country album, Patrick Haggerty & Friends are back with a fresh batch of songs as poignant as ever. Running the gamut from gut-wrenching ballads to rowdy marxist singalongs, Haggerty uses his knack for sharp storytelling to shine a light on institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. The current emergence of fascism and the deep political divisions in American culture are making Lavender Country a critical component of progressive and radical politics. 'Now 74 years old, Haggerty again respects no limits lyrically or musically. Where else can you hear a honky-tonk number about author and activist Clara Fraser, a socialist and radical feminist who died in 1998?' - Country Queer 'The band on the album is both cross-generational, cross-gender, and multi-racial, the kind of Lavender Country community described in the title track of the first album' - Adobe & Teardrops 'The new music blends a striking mix of radical queer and socialist politics, rural aesthetics, and classic country sound. Haggerty examines the risks intimacy, lust, and unconventional values pose to those seeking human connection and purpose in life' - Slate

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Joe Pug

Nation Of Heat Revisited

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Martha Scanlan & Jon Neufeld

Last Stars First Light Rose Glass Vinyl Edition

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Jealous Burcher)

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Vacancy)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Jon Neufeld and Martha Scanlan's unique alchemy on stage began ten years ago when they first played Portland's Indie Roots festival Pickathon together. It was an immediate friendship and musical connection that has only deepened with time and years spent touring festivals and venues across the country, the sense of adventure and improvisation in the music becoming more fluid and expansive with each show, each passing mile. In January 2020, when so much began to shift and live shows ground to a halt, what began as a loose plan to work on a new record seemed to become a musical journey of it’s own, a necessary sort of refuge. They began passing songs and ideas back and forth from their respective homes/studios; Martha in Western Montana and Jon in Portland Oregon, often in the early hours before the world was awake, often waiting to listen to the track until tape was rolling, almost as though the improvisational live interaction onstage was occurring over time and space, in slow motion. The result is a continuing collaborative project in motion, an unfolding story. Welcome to the first mile-post, "Last Stars First Light"

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Barrie-James

Strange Desire

Tumai Takahashi / Uya Nu Kukuru

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Limited to 1800 copies with obi strip & sleeve notes. Rare Soul-Jazz-Funk album from 1985. First ever vinyl reissue. Jazz guitarist Calvin Keys is a legend among soul-jazz-funk fans for both his work as a session & touring musician and for the catalog of classic releases under his own name. Key’s playing style is lean & muscular and his unique phrasing balances sophisticated jazz harmonics with funky R&B & soul grooves. Since the 1960s Calvin Keys has performed/recorded with renowned artists such as Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson. He is also a mentor to young talent, offers private lessons, and is a frequent teacher at the yearly happening ‘Jazz Camp West’.

Calvin Keys was born in 1943 in Omaha, Nebraska. His first musical influence was his father Otis, a well-known drummer in the city's music scene…he passed the music bug on to Calvin, who picked up the guitar early. Keys landed his first notable gig as a member of Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson's band when he was 17 and then went on to play with Preston Love (of the Count Basie Orchestra). Later on, he would also join The Jimmy Smith Trio and then worked through the rest of the 1960’s with legends such as Jimmy McGriff, Richard 'Groove' Holmes and Brother Jack McDuff.

After moving to Los Angeles in the 1970’s, he signed to Gene Russell's now-legendary Black Jazz label where he cut his first two albums: Shawn-Neeq (1971) & Proceed with Caution (1974). Next to his own output on Black Jazz Records, Calvin Keys also did session work for the label and played on several of its hit records. At this point in time Keys also auditioned for the Ray Charles Orchestra…his unique phrasing and his ability to balance sophisticated jazz harmonics with tough R&B and soul grooves were showcased nightly in Charles’ band. Before relocating to San Francisco in 1975, he also played on Billy Brooks' jazz-funk classic ‘Windows of the Mind’ (1974) and focused on more live and session work. Keys then joined Ahmad Jamal's group and spent close to a decade with the pianist, touring the globe and recording six albums with him.

The 1980’s and 1990’s also proved similarly fruitful for Calvin Keys…he was a ‘first-call’ studio & live sideman and amassed massive credits for touring with all-stars from the likes of Tony Bennett, Pharoah Sanders and Sonny Stitt. He released two more fantastic solo albums: Full Court Press (1985) & Maria’s First (1985), this time on Olive Branch Records. In 1991 he was featured on the recordings for the original score of the film ‘Dying Young’ composed by James Newton Howard. Next to all of this, his session and live work with his own trio continued at a relentless pace. He settled down in the Bay area and played a multitude of gigs throughout the 1990’s.

After being sidelined in 1997 by heart surgery, Calvin Keys entered the new millennium with a bang! He released five widely acclaimed Jazz-charting albums & worked with major players from the likes of Taj Mahal (Santana, Miles Davis), Chester Thompson (Tower Of Power), Big John Patton (Blue Note), Phil Ranelin (Tribe), Sonny Fortune (Roy Ayers, Strata East), Buell Neidlinger (Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones), Peter Erskine (Joni Mitchell, Weather Report) and Lonnie Smith. There’s no such thing as ‘slowing down’ for Mr. Keys!

On the album we are proudly presenting you today (Full Court Press) you’ll find seven sublime tracks recorded in 1984 and released in 1985 on the Olive Branch label. This was Calvin Key’s first solo album since his recordings for Black Jazz Records back in the 1970’s. Full Court Press features an impressive arsenal of working road dogs that Keys had shared the stage with over the years. Included are: Maxayn Lewis (The Ikettes, Morris Day), Mike Thompson (Freddie Hubbard), James Gadson (Marvin Gaye, Herbie Hancock), Donny Beck (Buddy Miles, Bobby Lyle)…and many others.

Full Court Press is THE dictionary definition of smooth (yet funky) soul-jazz, with washes of warm, laid back grooves pinned under Keys’ endless dancing up and down the fretboard. The playing is ‘deep in the pocket’ and comes off elegant and effortless. Fluid rhythmic fingerpicking that makes you forget all about time and space. This essential release deserves a prominent place in your record collection!

Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the First ever vinyl reissue of “Full Court Press” (originally released on Olive Branch Records in 1985). This rare record (vintage copies are not easy to come by) now comes as a deluxe 180g vinyl edition, strictly limited to 1800 copies worldwide with obi strip and features the original artwork by John Heard (Azar Lawrence, Count Basie) & sleeve notes by Sherman Ferguson (Pharoah Sanders Quartet). Released exclusively for Record Store Day 2022 and available in participating stores on April 23, 2022.

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Misako Oshiro

7" | 2022 | JP | Original (Tuff Vinyl)

LP | 2022 | JP | Original (Tuff Vinyl)

Release: 2022 / JP – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Two songs recorded in 2007 at Kadena Studio One in Kadena, Okinawa, come back alive on 7" analog vinyl after 15 years. The recording is a miraculous session produced by Makoto Kubota and is surely precious being their very first performance in Japan. “Tumai Takahashi” is often sung in a set with “Yatcya guwa” but in this recording it is performed as a stand-alone song, which makes it very rare. The coupling song “Uya nu Kukuru” is a classic piece by Teihan China, Misako Oshiro's mentor. Misako Oshiro sings with Kanako Horiuchi, her top pupil, in a relaxed and lustrous voice.

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Sadao China

Akabana

51,99 €*

LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Gusstaff)

Release: 2022 / JP – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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This is an innovative work of Okinawan Pops, based on Okinawa island songs and subtly blended with the essence of reggae, soul, rock, and beyond, with unique laid-back feel good vibes. The rare masterpiece includes many originals such as “Bye Bye Okinawa” “Akabana” and “Kijimuna Blues” Nenes' hit songs produced by Sadao China in the 90ʼs.

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Dead Cat In A Bag

We've Been Through

Dawnbearer Box Set Edition

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The last album of Dead Cat In a Bag on vinyl! 180g + downloadcode.

"Do you know it? Ennio Morricone, Nick Cave, Mark Lanegan, Tom Waits and Zach Condon walk into the bar, and there are all the seats occupied by the Dead Cat In A Bag musicians. Really." - this is how Jarek Szubrycht started the review of the last album of the Italian group Dead Cat In Bag in Gazeta Wyborcza. And he was right. Really. Yes! Dead Cat In A Bag is back! They are back with a new album "We've Been Through".

After exploring several so called Neo-Folk regions, flirting with Folk Noir, mostly with Traditional Folk in a modern perspective, for example Americana to Tex-Mex and Balkan Music to Alternative Country, on this third record the ensemble drifts to a cinematic landscape, focusing on the theme of overcoming.

We've Been Through puts together World Music elements incorporating an almost soundtrack experience for a journey into both Day and Night, Hope and Disillusionment and telling stories of broken romances and shipwrecks.

Utilizing banjo and theatrical vocal delivery, together with with classic and odd instruments, the band remap the original charts but still set sail the desired destinations. And if, about the previous records, critics were prone to recall the prowess of Waits, Cave, Lanegan, Cash and Tindersticks, this time it will be harder to name the grandfathers. Now there is a Morricone (or was it Badalamenti?) guiding spirit and a dreamlike universe full of memories, from the dry electric blues of a stream of consciousness duet in Duet For Nothing to the unexpected crooning vocals provided by Liam McKahey (CousetauX) in Lost Friends (a banjo droven dirge dealing with electronics and a bassoon, with steal percussions and a music saw for a frame), from the rendition of the traditional Wayfaring Stranger, balancing between electric guitars and Bluegrass, to the intimate cover of Leonard Cohen's Hunter's Lullaby, from the rock-(swamp)blues of The Cat Is Dead (enriched by Italian bass hero Gianni Maroccolo, from Litfiba and C.S.I.) to the soft meloncholy of the string quartet in Between Day And Night, from the dark cabaret of Fiddler, The Ship Is Sinking to the soft porch song, between Willard Grant Conspiracy and Kris Kristofferson, of the final title track. You can hear a shrawn and a blues harp, whispers and choirs, love and dudgeon as the record goes. This is the sound of an orchestra playing on a sinking ship: what else could a fiddler do? And what can we do, in the end?

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Hexvessel

2LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Svart)

49,99 €*

Tucker Zimmerman & Joshua Burkett

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Limited Svart exclusive box set edition. The demo LP will not be available separately.

Hexvessel and Svart Records celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Hexvessel’s debut album Dawnbearer with a set of reissues, including CD, double vinyl plus an exclusive vinyl box set with a bonus LP containing demos and early versions of tracks on the album.

“Dawnbearer is a very important album for us, being our first album but also the first original album release for Svart Records. It’s also a very special record for our fans, and one that’s particularly close to my heart, in a world of its own when compared to the other records we have made. Considering that it’s been out of print now for some time, I’m delighted to be able to oversee a reissue of this album, together with original demos and out-takes, and liner notes showing the making of this album which carries the initial DNA of Hexvessel’s musical and spiritual journey”, says band leader Mat McNerney, “We haven’t touched a thing on the original layout, but added some bonus material for the limited edition, should you wish to own a luxury edition of this, our now classic debut.”

Hexvessel band was founded by English singer/songwriter Mat McNerney (Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures, Carpenter Brut etc) after he moved to Finland in 2009. Their style of music has been referred to as “forest folk” or as Noisey/Vice puts it: “Weaving English folk, lilting Americana, and mushroom-induced psychedelia”. Their debut album 'Dawnbearer' was released worldwide in 2011 on Svart Records and is considered to be an influential classic record of the modern Occult Rock revival. Highly popular with Hexvessel fans and unique in their catalogue, featuring guitars by Andrew McIvor (Code), violin work of Daniel Pioro (who works on Paul Thomas Anderson’s soundtracks with Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead), the early production work of Jaime Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Paradise Lost), and guest vocals from Carl Michael Eide (Virus, Ved Buens Ende, Aura Noir).

“Think Woven Hand, haunted ’60s/’70s pastoral folk, or a darker riff on Midlake. McNerney covers Clive Palmer’s post-Incredible String Band crew C.O.B. and successfully transforms and darkens Paul Simon’s “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes.” He quotes Crowley, Truman Capote, Isaac Babel, etc. Unlike black metal-ready folk, this is folk by a talented, ambitious black metal musician. But the energy’s there. As is the atmosphere.” - Stereogum

“(Part of) a new wave of bands who share many of the original occult bands' musical and philosophical characteristics, spearheaded by Ghost, from Sweden, and the Devil's Blood, from Holland – have begun to lure in a new generation of fans, predominantly from the metal scene, their names alone – Ancient VVisdom, Hexvessel, Blood Ceremony– point to a focused step back to the age of Wheatley and Hammer. ” - The Guardian (2011)

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Tunnel Visions

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Idea)

35,99 €*

Buck Owens & His Buckaroos

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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In The 1970s, Tucker Zimmerman made some low-key acoustic guitar records in England. He was raised in Caifornia, and sang like it. And between those two circumstances, Zimmerman happens to have sat in with a whole lotta famous people; The Spiders From Mars, guys from Yes & Traffic & T Rex, Mary Hopkin, Paul Butterfield, Aynsley Dunbar, Ricky Fataar, and plenty more. The seriously famous are always moving along to whatever's new. But Zimmerman has kept his hand in. There were a couple records in the 80s, an interest in novels and words, one in the 90s, an 00s collaboration with another American expat who works on the Belgian version of The Voice, etc. Now he has a new record for the teens. Of himself reading poetry no less. And that is exactly the sort of project that could easily degenerate into the underground dude's answer to a Stan Lee cameo. The reason it doesn't is less about the words chosen (though they're fine) and more about the obvious lived grit in the mucinex-wracked glottis that is Zimmerman's voice these days. The sensitive folk rocker has given way to a grizzled gentleman. Zimmerman is more confident as his 77 years and sounds like a paisley Sam Elliott who spends days wandering outside dispensing advice to clouds & dogs. Zimmerman has also found a precise complement in accompanist Josh Burkett, whose life reads like an indie update to the performer Zimmerman was in the 70s. Joshua Burkett runs a record store in Western Mass, and has been a heavy in interesting underground projects of one sort or another for roughly 30 years (vermonster, Bimbo Shrineheads, Tarp, playing with Ed Askew, & his array of solo records). The seams are allowed to show on these recordings. You can hear Zimmerman stop and go back to correct himself, and the sound levels vary. That puts things firmly in the contemporary camp, ensuring that this ain't no greatest hits that never were. In fact, Josh nips in with his acoustic guitar so subtly, and gets the rhythm of each talking point so just right so that the two performers dovetail again and again. And so the record can exist between them both, a new thing all it's own.—Thanks much, Angela Sawyer, 2022

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Christmas Shopping

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Sundazed)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie, Christmas

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LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Left Ear)

Twin Cosmos

Double Action

24,64 €* 28,99 € -15%

Note To Self Smokey Clear Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Twin Cosmos is not only the name of the musical output of fraternal twins Morihito & Yasuhito Ito, but more philosophically, an album that encapsulates, “the universe of twins”.

The pair were born 1953 in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture. A port city 50 kilometres west of Nagoya, famous for its chemical plants. Despite their surroundings, they grew up in an environment that fostered learning and self-expression. From an early age, they began to carve out their own paths.

Morihito was fascinated with scientific endeavours, space travel and spirituality. His father, an electrician by trade - motivated him to build his own musical equipment. This led him to attend an acoustic engineering school in Tokyo from 1972-1974, after which, Morihito returned to Yokkaichi where he worked in the instrument and audio section of a department store. This helped him keep up to date with the latest equipment, while allowing him to simultaneously work on his own musical endeavours.

Morihito’s side of the ‘Double Action’ LP is a cohesive piece, which effortlessly drifts from one song to the next through samples of flowing water and rockets launching into space ,that were recorded while visiting his brother in the States. His music is carried by flowing vocal harmonies, guitar strums, and floating synths to create an eternal dreamlike ambiance.

In contrast, Yasuhito gravitated towards philosophy and the arts and in 1976 followed his Englsih teachers’ advice and moved to the ‘foreign world’ of the United States. It’s here that he further explored his interests in Christianity, sadomasochism and poetry. He was exposed to artists like John Cage and Sun Ra, as well as a variety of ‘Do It Yourself’ recording techniques that enabled him to record remotely.

Using samples, poetry, and an original approach to traditional folk & rock songs, he recorded his side of the LP. The outcome being provocative, dark and confronting realisations, which solely used English lyrics to represent his experiences in the ‘Western world’. In 1980, Yasuhito was wooed back to Japan by his brother and the prospect of a combined record release.

The self-released album ‘Double Action’, was completed at Victor studios in Japan. Without a distribution network, the release was sold mostly to family and friends and fell into obscurity. Despite not reaching commercial success, the pair have continued to make music over the past four decades, crediting it as their driving force in life. This 2022 release includes an insert with archival images & liner notes in both English & Japanese.

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Randy Houser

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Magnolia)

Eritrea's Guitar Pioneer, 1970-73

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Born and raised in Lake, Mississippi, a small town east of Jackson, Houser was the son of a musician and took to music himself at an early age. Picking up the guitar before his tenth birthday, he played in bands throughout his adolescence, sharpening his songwriting skills as he attended East Central Community College in Decatur, Mississippi. Prior to his success as an artist, Houser lived as a songwriter, co-writing singles including "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" by Trace Adkins, "Back That Thing Up" by Justin Moore, and "My Cowboy" by country pop artist Jessie James.

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Tewolde Redda

Tape | 2022 | US | Original (Domino Sound)

12,99 €*

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Sahel Sounds)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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From Asmara, Eritrea (formerly Ethiopia) Tewolde Redda revolutionized the sounds of traditional Eritrean music by amplifying his kirar, playing his Eko electric guitar, and recording six singles in the first part of the 1970s. Including the first Eritrean songs to use a horn section, traditional songs reworked into his new sound, and originals influenced by radio broadcasts from the United States military base in Asmara, Kagnew Station, these ten songs originally released on the Philips, Amha, and Yared labels show off his talents with stringed instruments, a talented back up band, and often the hand clapped beat shifting into double time near the song’s end. Tewolde’s thick, deep voice sings songs of love over somber and joyous tunes. Comes in a tip-on sleeve with extensive liner notes, lyrical translations, and unpublished photos. A co-release with Mitmitta Musika of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia.

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Wau Wau Collectif

Mariage

Derya Yildirim & Grup Simsek

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Wau Wau Collectif's second album, Mariage, is instilled with a newfound sense of purpose. Expanding upon the inspirational themes of their acclaimed 2021 debut, Yaral Sa Doom (Educate The Young), this long distance collaboration from musicians in Senegal and Sweden's Karl Jonas Winqvist is an even more stylistically expansive affair Joyful children's songs collide with fuzzy guitar solos and thumping hip-hop beats. Shimmering synths lift off from the plunky percussion of the balafon and versatile sounds of the 22-string kora. Familiar voices from the first album return with more explicitly political lyrics, while the music feels both rhythmically dense and sonically weightless, flowing from one spellbinding moment to the next. For Mariage, band members from each country were inspired to include a wider array of instrumental flourishes unique to their cross-continental collaboration. "Yay Balma" revolves around the cycling riffs of Jango Diabaté's xalam guitar, as this song's fuzzy tones and soaring sax solos open side two with a bang. "Pitchi Goubidi" provides a stark contrast, with the kora played like a harp and Gilbert Badji's gravelly lyrics about "the bird of the night" disappearing into dubbed-out chamber pop. Winqvist's omnichord hovers back into focus on "Yonou Natangue," a free-floating jam that maintains the messages of Wau Wau Collectif's debut, promoting youth education to address the social issues facing contemporary Senegal: "Peace is the better wealth / The way to wander."

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Dost 2

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Les Disques Bongo Joe)

The Coincidentalist / Dust Bowl Golden Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Derya Yildirim and Grup Simsek are back with their third album Dost 2, the second of a two part series following 2021"s highly acclaimed Dost 1. The eight-track release sees Turkish singer, baglama player and multi- instrumentalist Derya Yildirim and her international band of brothers and sisters continue their psychedelic journey, meandering through Anatolian folk music and poetry with their electrifying grooves, while also delving into their own lives and personal experiences.

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Howe Gelb

2LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Fire)

Recordar E Viver: Antologia 1 (1976-87)

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Ltd edition Double Gold Vinyl, Gatefold sleeve, DL card. Released on gold vinyl, ‘The Coincidentalist’ and ‘Dust Bowl’ are two discs of Howe Gelb filled with randomness and happenstance, a typical treasure trove spanning all genres from alt country to Cohen-esque grandeur. They traverse, unflinchingly, his chameleon-like repertoire. This deluxe re-issue includes ‘Dust Bowl’ on vinyl for the very first time, with the records housed in a gatefold sleeve featuring updated artwork and liner notes. ‘The Coincidentalist’, originally released in 2013, features a raft of friends and collaborators including Bonnie Prince Billy, Andrew Bird, M. Ward, Steve Shelley, and Jason Lytle of Grandaddy with John Parrish on mixing duties. Ever the focal point of Giant Sand and Gelb releases, the Arizona Desert serves as a key inspiration for the record, animating the barren landscape with stories of those that have navigated them. Praise for the release was not short, with AllMusic proclaiming that it’s “one of Gelb's most realized efforts; despite its relaxed, airy presentation, it's musically and lyrically provocative, as poetic, strange, and mysterious as the desert itself." The accompanying collection ‘Dust Bowl’ is a personal sketchbook of songs, a more stripped back set than it’s counterpart. Featuring everything from the country blues of ‘Porch Banjo’ and ‘John Deere’, to off-kilter piano ballads like ‘The Old Overrated’ and ‘Reality Or Not’ and the deconstructed desert pop on ‘Forever And A Day’ and the fragile ‘Man On A String’. ‘Dust Bowl’ is an insider’s view of Howe’s songwriting craft, a unique insight into the man himself. “‘Dust Bowl’ was primarily for fans that have followed me for a while. ‘The Coincidentalist’ is for the friends of the fans.” Howe told Under The Radar. While Nightlife magazine reported that; “Without warning, the Giant Sand frontman and polymorphous countryman dropped this compilation of house recordings via Bandcamp… At a time when so much harmless, soulless folk resonates, Howe Gelb is a mandatory point of reference for any fan of the genre.”

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Pedro Lima

2LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Les Disques Bongo Joe)

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (No Format)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Pedro Lima was certainly the most iconic singer from Sao Tomé Island. Born in 1944, his career began at teenage, with his faithful band Os Leonenses, who were mostly members of his family and shared most of his musical life; and lasted until his death on January 31st, 2019. Until the very end, he kept performing big events all around the country, and was among the very few singers and bands from Sao Tomé & Principe that recorded in Luanda Angola for N'Gola and Merengue labels in the 70's, and in Lisbon for the essential Iefe imprint in the 80's. Respected father of 27 children from 4 different wives, people named him "A voz do povo de Sao Tomé", the people's voice of the island, as he always made very clear his political views on internal affairs and backed since day one the revolutionary party that took power after the independence obtained from Portugal on July 12th 1975. A powerful and free soul, expressing through his beautifully soft and deep voice range, the concerns of the poor, in this often-troubled country.

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Kouyaté-Neerman

Skyscrapers & Deities

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (37d03d)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Kouyaté without Neerman is Lansiné Kouyaté. A Parisian griot, a balafon virtuoso from the region of Kangaba in Mali, a child born among musicians, an early musical prodigy who learned the ropes with the National Orchestra of Mali before playing with the stars of world music (Salif Keita, Mory Kanté, Omar Sosa, Cheick Tidiane Seck.). Neerman without Kouyaté is David Neerman. A French musician who expanded on his training (classical percussion and the piano) by choosing an instrument that is both keyboard and percussion, the vibraphone, who meandered through various eclectic projects (jazz, world, electro, noise, with Youn Sun Nah, Anthony Joseph, Alice Lewis, Krystle Warren.), as long as they smelled of adventure. With Kangaba, their first album (recorded with a rythm section), released in the summer of 2008 they created a glorious future for themselves. Well received by critics, the record gave the opportunity to the duet to tour alot and as such, to strengthen their performance, provide more substance to their music and discover new energies. Skyscrapers & Deities, their second album recorded last fall in an analog studio in the Parisian suburbs, is the result of this evolution. Lansiné still plays like he's stirring up tropical rains on water lilies and David has still plugged (or even more) his vibraphone on bizarre pedal effects (distortions, wah-wah). The duo is backed up by a new rhythm section, that accompanied them on tour : Antoine Simoni on the double bass and David Aknin on the drums, two musicians open to the rythms of rock and hip-hop. The name of the album, Skyscrapers and Deities comes from the spoken-word lyrics of special guest and only voice on the album Anthony Joseph on the track 'Haiti'. The other guest on the album is the legendary kora player Ballaké Sissoko, long time friend of Lansiné, since the days of the National Orchestra of Mali. Skyscapers inspire modernity, altitude and a panoramic point of view. Deities inspire ancestral magic, spirits, be they from the forest or the clouds. The album floats in between all these things, between the horizon and vertigo, technology and spiritualism.

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Bonny Light Horseman

Rolling Golden Holy

2LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Efficient Space)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Bonny Light Horseman's self-titled debut was a folk masterclass, reimagining centuries-old standards with effortless grace and wonder. Those Grammy-nominated, listtopping recordings not only suggested renewed possibilities for aging songbooks but also marked the arrival of a trio fully capable of reorienting the wider folk landscape. Still, if it felt at all like the work of some short-lived supergroup or a one-off diversion (it never was), Rolling Golden Holy rebuffs the notion with preternatural beauty and charm, and imagination. These songs, all originals, follow the paths of the traditional tunes the band cherishes to new frontiers, the sounds and situations of history given the gravity and shape of now. This is a band working at the edge of modern folk. After the release of their debut, Anaïs Mitchell, Josh Kaufman, and Eric D. Johnson began discussing their next steps, loosely planning on writing and recording stints. Those sessions were delayed for all the unpredictable but nowfamiliar reasons until the Spring of 2021, when the trio reconvened with their families in tow in upstate New York. Their chemistry remained intact. Johnson's wife Annie had listened to him work with dozens of collaborators over the decades, but, listening in from one room over, she noted he'd never seemed so at ease and productive as he was with Kaufman and Mitchell in Woodstock. They were perfecting "California," a timely and incorruptible classic about moving on in search of something else, something more. These sessions were a series of "yes, and" encounters, each one encouraging the others to take an idea and run with it further to the new safety net they've built together, for one another. These songs continually suggest and embody an unspoken continuum between traditional and modern folk. Mitchell finds self-sustaining adoration in steamy backseats, nighttime visions, and seasonal storms during "Summer Dream," crisscrossing generational symbols to tie past, present, and future into a Gordian knot of devotion. Johnson reaches back to 19th-century wartime on "Someone to Weep for Me" to empathize with someone else descended from "a long line of nobodies," just trying to live long enough to feel like he's mattered to anyone at all, a notion that knows neither age nor border. Johnson and Mitchell trade lines on "Exile," their luminous response to another of humanity's eternal conundrums_how to revel in relationships that we know will one day leave us lonely. Love and loss, death and fear: the songs may be different, but the emotional sources remain. The band thrives in rendering fresh wisdom and insight from old models, whether scraps of ancient songs or the spark of entwined voices. Theirs is a space created for sharing, learning, singing, and playing as one. Rolling Golden Holy is the band's testament to partnership and trust at a moment when we crave such connections so much. They fully appreciate what they have found in one another. On Rolling Golden Holy, we get to live inside that magic, too.

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V.A.

Ghost Riders

LP | 2022 | EU | Reissue (Garrincha)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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A North American road trip of coming of age garage soul mapped by Ivan Liechti, Ghost Riders is Efficient Space’s latest narrative compilation, hovering in a liminal emotional ravine between moonlight melancholy, teenage heartache and unchecked, unrealised ambition. Across 17 open hearted ballads recorded 1965-1974, the 2LP collects and connects dots between British Invasion fanatics, child prodigies, the loners and the luckless, in a kind of trans-continental survey of those swept up in rock’n’roll mania and buoyed by local newspaper ads promising fame and gold records.

From the tangerine dreams of 8th grade all-girl combo The Mod 4 to the tri-state jukebox aspiring echoes of The Tempters, The Yardleys' poetic Farfisa vamp and lilting folk pop, and The Landlords’ weepy break up b-side blues, these are mostly one shots by dreamers whose experience was brief before being checked back to the reality of suburban normality and realistic career options. Hailing from the regional backwaters of Illinois, Arkansas, Nevada, Massachusetts, Ohio, Idaho, Texas and beyond, the licensed artists were scouted by way of local fire departments, spiritualist fellowships and animal welfare centres, often barely a stones throw from where their contributions were originally laid.

A barely teenage Dennis Harte's ‘Summer’s Over’ perhaps best taps the collection’s essence. A gut-wrenching lament of the passing of the season as if it was the last on earth. Flanked by players from The Left Banke, Harte, a now-piano tuner to the stars, is from the minor segment that found longevity in showbiz. Likewise with Michigan icon Lyn Nowicki who cast her ghostly voice over Beatles cover song chameleons The Common People and Jerry McGee, The Ventures member and conduit of Dr. John’s ‘Twilight Zone’.

Ghost Riders simmers with the scent of youthful summers, the pang of schoolyard romance, and the excitement (and disenchantment) of teenage naïveté, delivered via a deceptively simple and frequently wonky garage band set up. The vision of record collector and graphic designer Ivan Liechti, these eternal psych-folk howlers are further crystallised by Colin Young’s fastidious audio restoration, the original artwork of Elise Gagnebin-de Bons and an aptly penned forward from Sonic Boom.

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Fanfara Station

Boussadia

38,99 €*

LP | 2022 | CA | Original (Telephone Explosion)

Release: 2022 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Fanfara Station will be back with a brand new album on Garrincha GOGO, a Garrincha Dischi’s sub label devoted to world music contamination. The Band’s music is indeed mixing the power of a brass band with the energy of the rhythms and the chants of Maghreb and electronic music, an overwhelming dance party. Fanfara Station are Marzouk Mejri, a Tunisian multi-instrumentalist,
Charles Ferris, an American Horn player and the Italian DJ/producer Marco Dalmasso aka Ghiaccioli e Branzini. “Boussadia”, the new album, is the first chapter of a path that explores the cultures of each member. Nord Africa is the first chapter, a voyage trough the roots of the singer and percussionist Marzouk. He moved from
Tunisia to Napoli in the 90’s, where he worked with the most important artist such as Daniele Sepe, James Senese, Eduardo De Crescenzo, 99 Posse, Peppe Barra and many more up to his latest collaboration on Nu Genea’s latest album.“Boussadia” has been recorded in Tunisia in order to immerse and breath the capture, capture the streets’ vibe and work with local artists such as the rapper VIPA, a full immersion in the cosmopolitan Tunis.

This work is deeply inspired by the Stambeli, the animistic music of the Tunisian slaves. Boussadia is a Tunisian mask, a griot dress with multi color clothes. The result is an album on a fine line in between live and electronic music, enriched by a ritual and transcendental feeling that ressembles the band’s live show, his energy and hypnotic rhythms can lift the listeners and take it to a new dimension. Most of the tracks are created recording the band’s live improvisations in order to capture the energy of their concerts

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Quilting

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Habibi Funk)

Release: 2022 / CA – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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The mesmerizing debut LP by Nova Scotia’s Quilting on October 7, 2022. The album is a quietly stunning collection of pastoral ambience dotted with moments of tension that reflects the maritime environment in which it was created, inadvertently paying homage to the light and darkness of rural life.

Co-founded by Holy Fuck’s Brian Borcherdt, the quartet is comprised of a diverse and accomplished collection of musicians who came together when he moved back to his home province in 2019 after a lengthy stay in Toronto.

The shock of settling into a town of 600 people was softened almost immediately by a care package left on Borcherdt’s front porch. It included the curious juxtaposition of homemade preserves and a circuit-bent keyboard. His interest was piqued. As luck would have it, his new neighbour happened to be renowned folk guitarist Kim Barlow.

“Kim was in the process of organizing an improvisation series featuring over a dozen Nova Scotia-based musicians. The series struggled under lockdown restrictions, and on the second attempt only the four of us showed up.” Borcherdt recalls. “We didn't really know each other that well, were a bit shy and played very quietly. However, we really enjoyed how spacious our jam was.”

One week after their initial jam, Borcherdt was invited to perform a solo set at a Halifax-based experimental festival called Open Waters. He instead volunteered the same lineup: himself, Barlow, distinguished Isle Of Skye harpist (and Berklee professor) Mairi Chaimbeul, and Sahara Nasr, a noted songwriter and player of the rare Indian Sarangi. It wasn’t long before they began recording and soon realized a name was necessary to make the project official.

“When we get together to play music, it's our 'poker night'. That led us to think of other community or 'grown-up' gatherings, similar or antiquated... like barnraising bees, quilting bees.” Explains Borcherdt. “We were sort of quilting: four corners of fabric, texture, sewing threads, telling a story, all making one complete piece while drinking a few beers. We could've also called it ‘Therapy’.”

While providing a necessary distraction from early-COVID life, Quilting also offered a chance to improvise within a uniquely ambient soundspace. This was a welcome change for some of the members, including Borcherdt, who was used to creating music with decidedly more volume.

“Space is welcome. Writing in Quilting is a spontaneous and thoughtful process, very synesthetic and, of course, collaborative. I've only really gotten to explore space and silence with solo music.” He reflects. “With my other bands, even when spontaneous and improvised, the result is dense and cathartic, expressive through pulse and rhythm and volume. With Quilting we get to drift, no beats, no safety net. Every note counts. Yet rather than being stressed or scrutinized under a microscope we all have fun and daydream a bit.”

Sonics aside, Quilting has also given all four members the chance to experiment with the boundaries created by headquartering in a remote area not commonly associated with the avant-garde music community.

“Nova Scotia, unlike other provinces, has basically one city, one place where musicians congregate, play shows and hang out. Anything happening outside of Halifax can be considered an experiment, a test to see anything can get off the ground.” Borcherdt explains. “ In Toronto there's already an infrastructure, whether you play the same venues or build your own new thing- there's an audience, there are friends and like-minded individuals. It's healthier. Here we have to take what we get. But the good news is that it's kind of a blank slate.”

The LP, which features hand-calligraphed cover art from Upstate New York-based artist and musician Sarah Le Puerta, features five songs all recorded live off-the-floor in a single live performance. Moods range from reflective to unsettled, and even at its loudest parts a sense of intimacy persists.

“This album feels like a complete picture, a snapshot of one fun night.” He states. “That seems to me to be a perfect introduction. The listener gets to “attend” the concert, which is an amazing way to discover new music.”

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Maha

Orkos

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Les Disques Bongo Joe)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Completely unknown album by Salah Ragab's Cairo Jazz Band vocalist Maha, recorded in Cairo in 1979. Features productions by Hany Shenoda of Al Massrieen. Maha’s “Orkos,” originally released on cassette, is one of these standout musical diamonds that combines Jazz and Egyptian vocal traditions with Funk, Latin and Soul.

Maha’s “Orkos” immediately catches your ear as a unique album. A strong and energetic voice, equally grounded in jazz as well as Egyptian vocal traditions, Maha sings over instrumentals that offer a wide palette of influences, sonically emblematic of the cultural changes that were occurring in the country. The album features rich compositions and productions by renown Egyptian musician Hany Shenoda, who’s group, Al Massrieen, Habibi Funk worked with in 2017 (the release led to sync placements in Hulu’s “Ramy” TV Series).

At the time of its release, however, the “Orkos” cassette quickly faded away among the growing number of releases populating the Egyptian musical soundscape. For more than 40 years, it sat in near obscurity before being given new life in the form of a properly licensed vinyl release. Habibi Funk and Disco Arabesquo are honored to play a part in sharing Maha’s story. Below is a bit more context around the release as well as the campaign schedule.

The arrival of the cassette brought a seismic shift in how music was produced and consumed around the world. Smaller bands and labels were able to release music without the logistical and financial barrier present in vinyl manufacturing. At the same time, in Egypt, a new crop of musicians and composers made their way into the scene, seeking to bring something fresh to what was perceived as the widely monophonic musical traditions of Egypt. Hany Shenoda, Mohamed Mounir, Magdy El Hossainy, Omar Korshid, Salah Ragab and Hamid El Shaeri are some names that come to mind. Many built their sounds combining their own musical upbringing with influences coming from the outside. The success of these projects varied widely, but for each there were numerous lesser-known bands and singers. Many of these often-short-lived projects would release their music on cassettes on tiny labels only to fade into the musical ether.

Maha’s “Orkos” album fits this category. Put out in a small run of cassettes, it’s fair to say that the singer’s sole recording outing was not a financial success when it was originally released by Egyptian label Sout El Hob in 1979. While it may not have found an engaged and open-eared audience upon its release, the first few bars of the album indicate this is a special, timeless album that transcends the musical boundaries that many artists were seeking to break through at the time.

From the funk sounds of “Law Laffeina El Ard” (Single 1, out September 1 with Pre-Order announcement); the moody, mellow sounds of “Kabl Ma Nessallem We Nemshy” (Single 2, out September 23) or “We Mesheet;” to excursions into Latin sounds in the title track “Orkos,” and disco with “Ana Gaya” (Album Focus Track, out October 10) the album is an amalgamation of genres that stands out from the immense creativity present in Egypt at the time.

We connected Maha in late 2021 and she was clearly surprised to have someone call about music she recorded more than 40 years ago. She also seemed interested in the idea in bringing her music back to people’s attention. A few weeks later we were speaking with our friend Moataz, who runs the Disco Arabesquo project and showed him this great new album we found and to our surprise he knew the album, having found a copy of it a year or two before, in Cairo. It was then obvious to team up for a collaboration for this project. You can find Moataz’s story about Maha and her music, as well as extensive interviews with Maha herself, in the booklet accompanying the release.

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BKO

Djine Bora

2LP | 2022 | UK | Original (By Norse Music)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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In response to the current political and ecological turmoil, the famous Malian quintet BKO appeals to the magical spirit of the djinn with Djine Bora (the appearance of the genie). An explosive and mystical third album, embodied by a music of resistance, the fruit of their unique experimentation with Mandingo music and their extraordinary history.

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Nebala

Lustuz Lathu Wothuz Alu

44,99 €*

Chris Forsyth / Dave Harrington / Ryan Jewell / Spencer Zahn

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The Northman songwriter and actor, and former Heilung singer Jonas Lorentzen releases the debut full-length album of his solo project Nebala: “Lustuz Laþu Wōþuz Alu” on through By Norse Music! After being involved with Heilung for two years, and more recently with the worldwide-acclaimed movie The Northman as songwriter and actor, Jonas Lorentzen decided to focus on his own musical expression, based on a reimagination of Nordic Folk and spiritually driven music. The result is Nebala, spearheaded by Jonas Lorentzen, but assisted and graced by powerful talents such as Sebastian Gainsbourough (Vessel, The Northman, Manchester Collective), Kjell Braaten (Wardruna, Origami Galaktika) as well as non-musician minds assisting in the conceptual development, Doctor Mathias Nordvig (Professor of Pre-Christian Religion at CU Boulder) and Philosopher Naina Gupta (University of Kingston). “Lustuz Laþu Wōþuz Alu” is Nebala’s first full-length studio album and invites the listeners to dive into Old Norse Mythology. Nebala in Proto-Germanic means “the void”; the void through which all life originates. Sexuality is the essence of all life form. Through this album Nebala initiates sexuality into a space of sacredness. Using traditional frame drums, lyre, tagelharpa, Tibetan singing bowls, and throat singing, Jonas Lorentzen has developed a unique Indo-Nordic sound for Nebala that toys with timescapes, soundscapes, and cultural boundaries to bring you back to the primordial experience of music itself. He comments on the album: “When you let yourself be taken by desire and lust, you will be consumed by what the ancient Germanic peoples called Laþu. The ancestor of our modern word “to let,” laþu suggests giving into natural desire and emotion. When Wōdan sought the deepest knowledge of the cosmos he had to brave the dangers of the deep caves in Hnitbjörg and let himself be taken by the desire of Gunlaþu, the forceful goddess of the underworld.”

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First Flight

LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Algorithm Free)

The Beginning Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie, Electronic & Dance

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"First Flight" documents about 40 minutes of jams recorded during the third week of my September residency at Nublu last year, and, for me, this show was just about the most enjoyable hour of music I played all year.

The ideal of the residency was to mix things up with special guests, different band lineups, and varied set lists, keeping things fresh and new week-to-week, and this show was the wild card of the bunch.

That's because although Ryan and I have played together for years, and Dave and Spencer have played together for years, neither half of the band had ever met each other. I was tangentially aware of Dave and his music and was intrigued by what I'd heard, so I thought it was a cool idea when Chris Tart, the residency promoter, suggested a collaboration.

So, about 30 minutes after we'd all heard each others voices for the first time, we got up and played for a little over an hour, uninterrupted. The only thing discussed beforehand was that we shouldn't discuss anything beforehand - not a key or a riff to start with, nothing - so as to preserve maximum spontaneity.

I think this music demonstrates a real connection on stage. In other words, each player was completely present and actively listening on the bandstand. Listening back, there are moments I can hear Ryan saying - musically - "Hey, let's go over here! Check this out!," or Spencer being like "Wouldn't it be cool to go down this path?" And we followed. And it was cool.

In my mind, that listening thing is the number one most important factor in any collaboration or cooperative effort, but especially in improvised music.

And I think it's fair to say that a little more listening, a little more presence, would do the whole world some good right about now, don't you think?

-Chris Forsyth

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Tony Joe White

LP | 2022 | US | Original (New West)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Tony Joe White's, The Beginning was originally released on CD in 2001. Stripped down and recorded without any bells and whistles, this is Tony Joe recording himself playing his classic swamp blues sound. This album is regarded as the first album where Tony Joe controlled all elements of the studio Until 2020, Tony Joe White's 29th album had been long out of print. New West Records released a limited edition color vinyl pressing that was the first and only vinyl pressing of this record. This record was remastered and re-sequenced for that specific pressing. Due to popular demand, New West is bringing this title back on vinyl and CD. The LP is packaged in a standard jacket with a color sleeve.

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LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Kitchen Label)

A Little Fable

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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“I went mourning without the sun; I am a companion to owls.”

In the autumn/winter of 2010, Singapore-based April Lee and Ricks Ang of Aspidistrafly (also founders of Kitchen. Label) embarked on the recording of their second album A Little Fable in Japan in collaboration with several artists. Fascinated by the patina of time and themes of folklore, A Little Fable narrates a surrealist procession of tales, twelve compositions simmering one into the other lyrically and picturesquely. This album sees the duo returning to a warm, organic palette of closely-whispered vocals, fingerpicked guitar, string arrangements and their trademark texture-focused arrangements. Featuring guest collaborators Kyo Ichinose, Seigen Tokuzawa, haruka nakamura, Junya Yanagidaira (ironomi), honagayoko, Akira Kosemura, Janis Crunch and more.

A dusty bottom drawer of forgotten memoirs is unlocked, and the album opens with a mourning, solitary cello while a harmonium drone forebodes an oscillating motif of glockenspiel tones, or sprinkled stars if you will. In Landscape With A Fairy, a tale of loss and longing during the earliest dawn mist – the world in its daily transition – is daubed in the hues of intensified sunlight, foliage or shadows, only to be diffused and faded by time, not unlike Andrei Tarkovsky’s polaroids of the Russian countryside. April Lee’s intimate vocals and acoustic guitar gently break the silence of a cold morning, backed by graceful string flourishes arranged by Kyo Ichinose. Kitchen. Label’s very own haruka nakamura and Junya Yanagidaira (ironomi) add harmonizing colors of the guitar and piano respectively.

Tracing the mysterious migration routes of nocturnal animals, Homeward Waltz skips home along a breadcrumbed-path with ephemeral glimpses of forest sights, ornamented by violins and other curious sounds before fulminating into a amorphous guitar drone, as Seigen Tokuzawa’s improvised cello strokes drift and wander with split-second apparitions in the night sky. Sounds of wooden creaks and early morning spoon-in-coffee stirrings permeate the spontaneous atmosphere of Cocina. honagayoko’s quaint and chopped piano phrases waltz with spliced vocals and flute.

Emerging from the darkened foliage into a vast, cryptic hemisphere, the second half of the album teeters on the frailty and transitoriness of the world. A Little Fable’s voyage reaches a turning point by SEA OF Glass. Ricks Ang constructs a prolonged arpeggio of sonorous looping guitar motifs that float in and out of focus, reverberating almost like a narcotic percussion across tumultuous oceans. Now distanced and gauzy, sounds of surging waves open Countless White Moons in a misty indefiniteness, yet held together charmingly by Akira Kosemura’s luminous piano. The elusive narration in Language OF Flowers tells of a deliberate escape from the passage of time with a folkloric enchantress who wordlessly casts her spells. In Gensei, April Lee relates an unspoken anguish in her tender, wavering vibrato while Janis Crunch’s somber piano and chorus vocals loom like a harbinger of death. The last chapter Twinkling Fall, the second track to feature haruka nakamura, now shuts the drawer of secrets, dissipated monochrome colours restored once again to full bloom.

A Little Fable is available on CD and the digital format on 15th December 2011. The physical CD copy comes in a 48-page artbook edition (21 x 15cm) featuring photographs and collages by April Lee and Miu Nozaka, with styling by Rika M. Orrery, who have, from their expeditions during the making of this album, directed a dream sequence around the encompassing atmosphere of a secluded hilltop cottage, a forest hued in the splendor of autumn and distant, rocky shores.

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CD | 2022 | UK | Original (Kitchen Label)

Altar Of Dreams

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Kitchen Label)

Altar Of Dreams

Shine Baby Blue Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Sean Nicholas Savage

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Arbutus)

Florist Deep Purple Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Canadian cult songwriter Sean Nicholas Savage is renowned for his bitter sweet ballads, and beautifully raw live performances, his singing delicate and brave, full of energy and space. Each new record is an adventure in sensitivity and nuance.Shine is a record about recapturing the will to live after a period of sadness and stagnancy, and the return to positivity and hope wrapped up in music that adds a sense of rhythmic guitar-based folk intimacy to Savage's hallmark ebullient avant-pop. Savage says he was leaning into his "Tatsuro Yamashita and Elliott Smith fandom" for Shine, a mix that immediately comes through vividly on opener "Feel Like A Child," which was the first song he wrote for the record. The pandemic had taken both an emotional and artistic toll on Savage, sapping his ability to be creative. It was after a long stay spent alone on the island Crete, sitting and staring at the sea that he felt a spark coming back to him. He sang "a long joyful memo" into his phone as he fell asleep one night, transcribing the words upon return to his home in Berlin and putting them to music.This reaffirmation of love and healing is at the heart of all the songs that make up Shine, not only thematically but sonically as well. Shine was recorded in Los Angeles with Savage's longtime friend Mac DeMarco, who produced the record. "With [2020's] Life is Crazy, I was delving into the overwhelming emotional experience of life and with Shine, I just wanted to dive in and be more healing," he says. The difference is apparent in Savage's vocals, which have a raw and intuitive feel to them. Instrumentally, Shine differentiates itself from Savage's past records through the use of the guitar as the primary instrument. While these are not straight-ahead folk songs, they do borrow from that genre's sense of closeness. On the title track, Savage sings of a place at the end of the world where one can find the seed of an entirely new universe within the gleaming eye of a seagull, and how that can expand one's sense of existence within something greater - "Every night we're still alive/ The moon sighs over you and I," he sings.

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Florist

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Double Double Whammy)

33,99 €*

King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal I

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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"Florist" is the self-titled fourth full length record from upstate NY based indie folk band, Florist. "Florist" is the follow up to 2019's critically acclaimed "Emily Alone", and is the strongest album of the band's decade-long career; an immersive work that conveys the magic of the earth and of family, and the whole of the band's heart. For all of June of 2019, amid a hot and rainy summer, Emily Sprague (guitar, synth, vocals), Jonnie Baker (guitar, synth, sampling, bass, saxophone, vocals), Rick Spataro (bass, piano, synth, vocals) and Felix Walworth (percussion, synth, guitar, vocals) convened in a rented house in the Hudson Valley, to live and work together. It was the first time the quartet recorded that way, and for that long. "In the past we'd meet up for a couple of days, or one day here and there," Sprague recalls. "Living together for a month is a really big part of why the arrangements are the way they are, and also why the instrumentals are such a huge part of the record." The result is 19 tracks that feel like the culmination of a decade-long journey, their fourth full-length album, but the first deserving of a self-titled designation. "We called it Florist because this is not just my songs with a backing band," Sprague explains. "It's a practice. It's a collaboration. It's our one life. These are my best friends and the music is the way that it is because of that."

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Talazo Fuji Music Party!

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Decca)

17,24 €* 22,99 € -25%

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Double Double Whammy)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Back in Nigeria in 1995 everybody knew King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal I. Just
about every house party and club floor, every shop front and car window,
pulsed to such megahits as ‘Talazo’ and ‘Consolidation’; to the percussion-rich
polyrhythms and Yoruba chants typical of Fuji music, a genre this one-time
roadie (for Fuji music icon Ayinde Barrister) had customised by adding more
percussion – congas, the sakara frame drum – and an attitude straight off the
street.
Wasiu Ayinde had nearly twenty years’ worth of national fame under his floor
length robes (and occasional zebra-striped jumpsuits) when he played his first
ever WOMAD Festival that same year. Booked in for a session at Real World
Recording Week shortly afterwards, the artist and his 16-piece band were
inadvertently delayed and pulled in to Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire eight
hours late. The recording went ahead regardless. Against the clock. On-thefly. With a small live audience in party mode and microphones placed about
the floor, Wasiu Ayinde and his crew rode the adrenalin, summoning a set that
moved from trance-like call-and-response and vibrant Afropop ballads to those
aforementioned megahits, all of it soaked in groove and feeling. A kingly feat,
that seems even more majestic now.

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Katie Bejsiuk

The Woman In The Moon

I Go To The Railroad Tracks And Follow Them To The Station Of My Enemies

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Katie Bennett, singer-songwriter behind the bygone indie pop band Free Cake for Every Creature, spent the last three years exploring what it means to be her. She looked into the mirror and then she stepped into it; extended her arms forward, reached for the hands that reached back, and came together whole as Katie Bejsiuk. The name Bejsiuk is the singer-songwriter's original surname: her father, a first generation American with parents from Ukraine, changed it before she was born. By reclaiming the name for her solo project, the first new music we've heard from Katie since Free Cake disbanded in 2019, she has conjoined with a shadow version of herself who holds hands with her past, present, and future. And with the release of her debut album, The Woman on the Moon, out June 24 on Double Double Whammy, listeners are offered the most wholly version of Katie yet. The Woman on the Moon gently nods to the pre-band days of Free Cake - when it was just Katie and her guitar - but with a musical evolution cultivated from years of self-inquiry during which her confidence, direction, and self-possession bloomed. Whereas Free Cake buoyantly focused on the ecstatic wonders and wounds of youth in real time, Katie Bejsiuk pans out with wisdom and retrospection that comes with age. The Woman on the Moon is composed of 12 exquisite and refined songs that evoke the sensory through introspective lyrics and salve the heart with Katie's tranquilizing, cadenced vocals that devoted fans have clung to for over a decade.

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Tongo Eisen-Martin

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Rocks In Your Head)

20,99 €* 29,99 € -30%

Dangerous: The Double Album

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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"I came across Tongo saying something in passing in an interview with Mayor London Breed. It was so insightful, poetic and deeply felt I wanted to know who he was. I devoured the poetry books that were available and then set out to invite him to make a recording. I had no idea what the session would be like. We were strangers. He showed up, there was no small talk, and he went to the microphone. He then created a 22 minute poem, no notes in his hands, and I looked at the engineer, and our minds were blown. It was flawless, and it was meaningful, and it was channeled from some other place. I said, do you have anything else to say? And he began another piece that lasted another 22 minutes or so. And it was also flawless,and incredible. And so I looked at the engineer and I said, 'I think we have a record.' Now I’ve never seen a record cut in one sitting, I figured it was reserved for geniuses like Thelonious Monk or Robert Johnson or something. And so I realized Tongo is a genius too. The poetry is so loud and crisp and clear and fueled with energy. It has a connection back to Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets, Langston Hughes but it is also not derivative in the least, but new and of it’s own time."—Sonny Smith, Rocks in your head records “Tongo’s words are bricks-with which he builds houses, breaks windows, and - strangely- enticesyou to take a bath in. I first heard his poetry and got scared of dying. Like- I better figure shit out because this is the new shit and he’s on somethingI’m not. He’s noticing shit that I better notice if I want to experience life in color. He knows that to live- you gotta make shit aroundyou move. You can’t just watch. I’m thrilledthat this album is coming out so y’all can be scared of not living too.”—Boots Riley "Words are a kind of architecture – where the bricks exist on page or spoken into the either. A form is built and becomes a body that will not soon wilt… the spoken word is timeless and immortal. Here in this collection Tongo kicks the new jazz – a classic sense of form ad stylethat is dare I say it smolderingly masculine, drumming, with someone who clearly has an old ear for dialogue. This coolection read icadest and with a heavy hand in the past not withstanding, still boasts verbage that is very very fresh. Bravo."—Brontez Purnell

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Morgan Wallen

2Tape | 2022 | UK | Original (Big Loud)

38,99 €*

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The Significance Of Peaches Ivory Vinyl Edition

Chris Bathgate

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Quite Scientific)

The Midwest Book Of The Dead

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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After a five-year hiatus encompassing the birth of a son, a third coast to west coast and back to the third coast move, and an ongoing global pandemic - Chris Bathgate returns with 'The Significance of Peaches'. On this, his 6th full-length album, the NPR & BBC-lauded artist is found ruminating on time spent living in the National Forests of Michigan while homeless, his emergence into fatherhood, and yes, the significance a certain stone fruit has played throughout his life. Sonically, 'The Significance of Peaches' leans heavily on the structural support of parlor organ and Bathgate's signature multi-tracked percussion - surprisingly sparse use of guitar and strings sheathed in the middle - his haunted vocals and perching atop it all.For Fans of Horse Feathers, Michael Nau, Damein Jurado.

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Wes Tirey

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Mapache)

Pape Nziengui Et Son Groupe

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Wes Tirey’s The Midwest Book Of The Dead, is an intimate study of the Midwestern condition. A double album, it tells of silos like chapels, spiders in the cane, of drunkards and saints and fugitives; it speaks of wild geese, and the good life, rhinestone suits, Coca Colas, and dishes drying on the rack. Sincerity, sensuality, and humor all reside in the candor and weight of these songs — its playing and arrangements, rich but unfettered, and Tirey’s voice grown several feet deeper and more sonorous. It is a sublime expansion of a trademark style he has come to call “rustic minimalism”.

The Midwest Book of the Dead finds Tirey both solo for acoustic laments and backed by close collaborators for barroom ballads, with Ryan Gustafson (Hiss Golden Messenger, Phil Cook, Charlie Parr) taking the helm as producer.

This assemblage of strangers and stories and snapshots of lives that make up The Midwest Book of the Dead, Tirey likens to “the book of photographs that you find at a Goodwill” — perhaps in Dayton, or Fayetteville, or in any of the stops on the highways that separate them. And while there are clues laid out across these lyrics, he believes there is an open-endedness to these songs. Still, the clues carry us on, into this land of high corn and pool halls, of farmboys, rusty Fords, and fathers like Elvis. Blue herons, hearts of steel, vinegar and piss; a land where people might rise “with everything to show, strong and comely as a colt.” They are songs told straight and sincere, but that are nonetheless beguiling; the work of a master songwriter, a craftsman, an artist; a man who will always be part of the Midwest.

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Kadi Yombo

2LP | 2022 | US | Original (Awesome Tapes From Africa)

Brennen Leigh Featuring Asleep At The Wheel

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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Kadi Yombo, published in 1989, is the most successful album in the quest for a fusion between tradition and modernity in Bwiti harp music of the Tsogho people of Gabon. Combining beating rattles with a layer of synthesizers, Papé Nziengui blends in a contrapuntal dialogue characteristic of harp playing: male song in appeal and female choir in response, male voice of the musical arc and rhythms of female worship. But above all it's Tsogho ritual music and modern studio orchestration. The result is an initiatory itinerary of 10 musical pieces which are all milestones likely to be simultaneously listened to, danced, meditated on, and soon acclaimed. In the years since, Nziengui has traveled he world from Lagos to Paris, from Tokyo to Cordoba, from Brussels to Mexico City to become a true icon, the emblem of Gabonese music. Like Bob Dylan, "electrifying" folk and Bob Marley mixing rock with reggae, some purists have criticized Nziengui for having distorted the music of harp by imposing a cross with modern instruments. They even went so far as to claim that Nziengui was just an average harpist covering his shortcomings with stunts that were only good for impressing neophytes; like playing a harp placed upside down behind his back or playing two or three harps simultaneously. Sincere convictions or venomous defamations, in any case, Nziengui never gave in to such attacks, imposing himself on the contrary to pay homage to the elders (Yves Mouenga, Jean Honoré Miabé, Vickoss Ekondo) while instructing the maximum of young people. He is thus the promoter of many young talents, the most prominent of which is certainly his nephew Jean Pierre Mingongué. In a conservative society where the sacred is confused with secrecy, exposing the mysteries of Bwiti in broad daylight can be punished by exclusion or even execution. Papé Nziengui has always claimed that he faces such risks because he never felt enslaved to a community that governs his life, that regulates his conduct, that has a right of censorship over his activities. Like Ravi Shankar, the famous sitarist, Papé Nziengui is a man of rupture but also of openness, a transmitter of culture. As proof, he has established himself in Libreville, Gabo's capital, as the main harpist for sessions and concerts, accompanying the greatest national artists (Akendengué, Rompavè, Annie-Flore Batchiellilys, Les Champs sur la Lowé, etc.) as well as foreign artists (Papa Wemba, Manu Dibango, Kassav', Toups Bebey, etc.). In 1988, he was the first harpist to release an album in the form of a cassette produced by the French Cultural Center (Papé Nziengui, Chants et Musiques Tsogho). At the same time, he created his own group (Bovenga), combining traditional music instruments (musical bow, drums, various percussion instruments, etc.) in the framework of a true national orchestra, which gave the first concert and the first tours of a traditional music that was both modern and dynamic, thus "democratizing" the harp, to the dismay of certain purists. On the other hand, in modern music, dominated by the logic of profit or even commercialism, artistic creation must often be adjusted for a specific audience based on reason rather than heart. But instead of allowing himself to be distorted, Papé Nziengui has always tried to produce music that is not a caricature, worthy in its expression as in its content, of the sacredness and transcendence of the music of the Origins. This is what makes Nziengui-not only the musician, but the man-someone whose age hasn't altered any of his freshness or authenticity.

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Obsessed With The West

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Signature Sound)

Look At It In The Light Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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I've been obsessed with western swing since I was a kid, and it's always been an influence, but my records in the past have ranged from bluegrass to hard country to folk, So I've never fully explored it.' So says genre-busting Fargo-born, Austin- incubated, Nashville resident Brennen Leigh, whose new collaboration with the kings of modern-day western swing, Asleep at the Wheel, Obsessed With The West (out on May 6, 2022), is a showcase not just for the Bob Wills fans, but for anyone who's ever curled up with Loretta Lynn, Hank Sr., Cindy Walker, Billie Holiday, or Willie Nelson. On twelve all original songs, Leigh's supple winking voice and multi-instrument fluency, her interplay with Ray Benson, and the undeniable chops of the Wheel serve up a treat on Leigh's seventh album. With cameos from Emily Gimble and Katie Shore, and all the players getting their moments in the sun, Leigh - a two-time winner of the Texas Music Awards Best Female Vocalist award - demonstrates on the terrific jump 40's rhythm and blues, 'Comin' in Hot' and the lonesome cowboy musing of 'Riding Off Onto Sunset Boulevard' why Rodney Crowell and Lee Ann Womack have recorded her songs. Obsessed With The West is a celebration of music for music's sake in 2022, not just an exercise in looking back on times gone by.

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Kate Bollinger

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Ghostly International)

19,99 €*

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Wagram)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Kate Bollinger's songs tend to linger well beyond their run times, filling the negative space of ordinary days with charming melodies and smart phrasings. She writes them at home in Richmond, Virginia, letting her subconscious lead, an open-ended process she likens to dreaming. From a chord progression appears a line, maybe a syllable will start to stick, enough to pursue, but she says sometimes the words don't feel likeher own, more like shapes that form in the mind's sky. Bollinger's musical universe is relaxed, tender, and unassuming; within lives a timeless sensibility, a songwriter's knack for noticing the little things and their counterpoints. Darkness and light, pain and pleasure, reality and escape. Her new EP, Look at it in the Light, her first project on Ghostly International, is collaborative; she shoots music videos with her friends and colors each of her folk-pop songs with musicians in her community. The title Look at it in the Light is a reference to the aspects of Bollinger's life that she knows need examining. For one, there's her persistent resistance to change _ she chooses to ignore it on the title track ("I try not to notice / I deny my fate"), as wiry strums sync with crisp drums. She surrenders to comfort on "Who Am I But Someone," a light and softly psychedelic number. "Yards / Gardens" finds Bollinger in full swing, skipping verses of uncertainty above a bright and nimble bassline and kick. Guitar riffs unravel across the bridge, trailing her lines like ellipses. The string-backed "Lady in the Darkest Hour" is the set's most luxuriant statement, recorded during a session at Matthew E. White's Spacebomb Studios with in-house arranger Trey Pollard (Natalie Prass, Helado Negro). Here her lines ring bittersweet yet reassuring, uplifted by swells of golden-hued instrumentation. From the hushed abstractions of "I Found Out" to the biting suspicions of closer "Connecting Dots," Kate Bollinger uses every inch of this dazzling EP to find her footing amidst the ever-present sways of life

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Ella Fitzgerald

How High The Moon ?

17,99 €*

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Nonesuch)

Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder

Get On Board

Look At It In The Light Dark Blue Marbled Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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“They were so solid. They meant what they said, they did what they did… here’s two guys, a guitar player and a harmonica player, and they could make it sound like a whole orchestra.” – Taj Mahal

“It was perfect. What else can you say?” – Ry Cooder

Nearly sixty years after they first played together, Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, longtime friends and collaborators, reunite with an album of music from two Piedmont blues masters who have inspired them all their lives: GET ON BOARD: THE SONGS OF SONNY TERRY & BROWNIE MCGHEE, on Nonesuch Records.

With Taj Mahal on vocals, harmonica, guitar, and piano and Cooder on vocals, guitar, mandolin, and banjo – joined by Joachim Cooder on drums and bass – the duo recorded eleven songs drawn from recordings and live performances by Terry and McGhee, who they both first heard as teenagers in California.

Explaining where Terry and McGhee took him musically, Cooder says, “Down the road, away from Santa Monica. Where everything was good. ‘I have got to get out of here,’ was all I could think. What do you do, fourteen, eighteen years old? I was trapped. But that first record, Get on Board, the 10” on Folkways, was so wonderful, I could understand the guitar playing.”

Taj Mahal adds, “I started hearing them when I was about nineteen, and I wanted to go to these coffee houses, ‘cause I heard that these old guys were playing. I knew that there was a river out there somewhere that I could get into, and once I got in it, I’d be all right. They brought the whole package for me.”

Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder originally joined forces in 1965, forming The Rising Sons when Cooder was just seventeen. The band was signed to Columbia Records but an album was not released and the group disbanded a year later. The 1960s recording sessions, widely bootlegged, were finally issued officially in 1992. GET ON BOARD is Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder’s first recording together since then.

Harmonica player Sonny Terry and guitarist Brownie McGhee, both originally from the southeastern United States, had active solo careers as well as collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of their time. But they were best known for their forty-five-year partnership, which began in 1939 and included mesmerising live performances around the world and numerous acclaimed recordings.

Their Piedmont blues style became popular during the folk music revival of the 1940s and ’50s, centered in New York City’s flourishing club scene for jazz, boogie-woogie, blues and folk music. Terry and McGhee traveled in the same circles as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, and Josh White, among others in a rich mix of writers, actors and musicians. As a new generation emerging in the 1960’s drew inspiration from folk and blues, Terry and McGhee toured the world as the foremost exponents of the acoustic music of the Piedmont. They were named National Heritage Fellows in 1982 in recognition of their distinctive musical contributions and accomplishments.

“You got the south on steroids, when you got the music of the south, the culture of the south, the beauty of the south, through Brownie and Sonny,” Taj Mahal says. He describes McGhee as a “solid rhythm player. To really play behind the harp like that. He would set stuff up. He wasn’t making many notes. Sonny had all the notes, running around. But Brownie, he laid it down.” Cooder adds: “This thing of squeezing the thumb and first finger and a little bit of the second finger, which I still do. I’d forgotten where it came from. That’s what Brownie did. I saw him do that and said, ‘I think I can do that.’”

Taj Mahal calls Terry “a wizard harmonica player”. Cooder says, “Sonny had incredible rhythm for one thing. Making sounds with his voice and the harmonica so you couldn’t tell quite which was which. He was good at that.”

“We’ve been doing this a while,” Cooder says. “Perhaps we’ve earned the right to bring it back. Taj Mahal concludes. “We’re now the guys that we aspired toward when we were starting out. Here we are now… old timers. What a great opportunity, to really come full circle.”

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Kate Bollinger

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Ghostly International)

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Psychic Hotline)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The Dead Tongues

Dust

Mohammed After Hussain & Paq

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Dust is the fifth album from The Dead Tongues, the folk project of the North Carolina-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Gustafson. Written in a near-fever dream of inspiration in a rural expanse of western North Carolina, Dust combines folk and jam-band spaciousness with overgrown nature imagery and ego death. It's an identity crisis caught on tape, an exploration of how turning away from your art can be the thing that ultimately leads you back. As Gustafson puts it best in the lyrics of Dust: Some stories have no endings, some things never die.

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Matir Gaan: Songs From The Earth

LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Hive Mind)

Pape Nziengui Et Son Groupe

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Matir Gaan is a collaboration between young Bengali migrant, Mohammed After Hussain and Italian electronic artist, Andrea Rusconi (aka Paq). The resulting album delightfully combines the ancient folk songs of Md After's homeland with Paq's cosmic synth exotica.

Mohammed After Hussain escaped Bangladesh in 2015 and arrived in Italy in 2017 after a long and dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from the violence he found in Libya. In Italy he found safety and hospitality as an asylum seeker in Rimini's Associazione Ardea, where Andrea is involved with 'Ardea Recordings' - a project aiming to create an archive of songs, stories and sounds by some of the people who spent some time with Ardea's refugee programme.

Md After was invited to sing and play the folk and village songs he knew on the harmonium and pakhawaj (two headed drum) while Andrea immersed himself in the songs providing a bed of warm Crumar synth and Veena drones to create a finished album of totally uniquela renditions of the mystic Baul folk songs known so well by people across the Bangla speaking regions of India.

The Bauls are a famous group of wandering minstrels from the region of Bengal whose culture is derived from the teachings of the early Sufi mystics and Hindu Fakhirs. The Baul devotees are considered to be mad, or possessed, with the love of God. While transcending religion the Baul compositions celebrate celestial and earthly love and expound the key philosophy of “Deha tatta” or truth in the body, epitomised by the aphorism “whatever is in the universe is in the body”. They reach for divinity here in this world and they seek to access it through music and dance. They seek spirituality in the music, they live fo r the music, wandering from village to village offering ecstatic sound waves in exchange for sustenance. Their presence remains an important part of village life in Bangladesh, and this is why Md After knows the songs despite the fact he would not consider himself part of the Baul ascetic tradition.

We hope you'll enjoy this wonderfully psychedelic album, with its unique interpretations of these ancient mystic songs from the earth.

Comes with a printed inner sleeve featuring sleeve notes and lyric translations by Brian P. Heilman

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Kadi Yombo

Tape | 2022 | US | Original (Awesome Tapes From Africa)

12,99 €*

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Grapefruit)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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Caroline No

7" | 2022 | US | Original (Anti-Corp)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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“Caroline No’s third album was built around a set of songs I was writing in the summer of 2019. I built the songs around real events, but looped these narratives into stories from song histories. The result is like an intersection of Brill Building characters such as Carole King and Neil Sedaka with the bedroom fanaticism of historical music projects like Virgin Insanity. After a year of playing the songs live in various formations, we aimed to record in the Australian summer. We knew Jim [White] (Dirty Three, Crime & The City Solution, Venom P. Stinger, etc) was going to be in Melbourne, and soon after he arrived in Australia, we met at Mick [Turner]’s (Dirty Three, Venom P. Stinger, etc) studio. Nick [Imfeld] and Mick engineered, with Ian [Wadley] (Small World Experience, Mad Nanna, etc) on bass, Jim on drums, Mick, Dee [Hannah] and me [Caroline Kennedy] on guitars, and Dee and me singing. The sense of intuitive knowledge and performance was exhilarating as we played. We spent two days in the studio, and when we listened back later, it seemed a compelling representation of what had happened, captured live. “The band on this album are artists I grew up with. We were friends first, and engaging with the material, there was no formal structure to follow. Our interpretive approach meant the songs grew from simple structural frames and narrative poetics into full sonic landscapes, engaging across pop, folk, psychedelia and improvisation. Caroline No became—for this iteration—a shifting sonic space tied to intimacy, musical conversation and relationship, expressed in an open improvisatory way. The sound of the record is the result of trust, responsiveness and mutual knowledge. “The name Caroline No was an imaginary character through much of the work, arising from the Beach Boys’ melancholic paen to encountering a past lover who has cut her hair off. My idea was for Caroline No to become the locus for an ongoing composition project where I would write back into songs’ history the perspective of patriarchal song’s subjects. “This is a recuperative project of easeful making; attempting reclamations of lost narratives, exploring love, loss and the psychedelic of the everyday.” —Caroline Kennedy

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Lost Dog Street Band

Glory

16,99 €*

III Colored Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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45rpm 7'' of the 2 namesake songs from the Lost Dog Street Band full length album 'glory'. 'Until I Recoup (Glory I)' recounts time wasted as a youth and the urge to reclaim one's path to righteousness, set to a heavy handed minor waltz. On the reverse side, 'I Believe (Glory Ii)' gives an optimistic nod towards a destiny attainable, backed with traditional style clawhammer banjo and bluegrass banjo.

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Dusted

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Total Dust)

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Total Dust)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Brian Borcherdt (aka Dusted) is the founding member of Holy Fuck as well as Lids which includes members of Metz and Constantines, and has a single due out this year on Sub Pop. The new album is the follow up to the acclaimed 2018 release BlackOut Summer and will provide a welcome musical shot in the arm for fans who have anxiously waited three years for new music from Dusted. ‘The album's process began with Borcherdt finding a long forgotten favourite song, coming back to him in a dream. ‘’That same morning, I found a demo of it, along with countless others, on an old laptop,’’ said Borcherdt. ‘’It was a joyful moment, hearing long lost songs as if I was never part of them. I was a third-party listener thus allowing them to be innocent and unjudged. I added a handful of the favourites to a current set list, which became the inspiration to go into the studio, to lay everything down, live off the floor, simply to preserve them, to keep them from being forgotten again.' Dusted’s 2012 album ‘’Total Dust’’ was selected for the Polaris Prize Long List in 2013. The support from filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee earned Dusted two songs in his most recent film Demolition and a cameo role in Wild. With Holy Fuck, Borcherdt has been making music for 15 years and has released 5 albums. Holy Fuck has seen their music played on major TV shows like Breaking Bad and Mr Robot as well as ranking over 200k monthly listeners on Spotify and accumulating over 5 million career streams to date. Borcherdt has been releasing solo music since 2002. Previously to Holy Fuck, he was part of By Divine Right whose past band members count Feist and Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning.

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Dusted

III Black Vinyl Edition

22,99 €*

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Sahel Sounds)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Etran De L'Air

Agadez

Que Pasa / Georgia On My Mind Red Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Etran de L'Aïr (or "stars of the Aïr region") welcomes you to Agadez, the capital city of Saharan rock. Playing for over 25 years, Etran has emerged as stars of the local wedding circuit. Beloved for their dynamic repertoire of hypnotic solos and sun schlazed melodies, Etran stakes out a place for Agadez guitar music. Playing a sound that invokes the desert metropolis, Agadez celebrates the sounds of all the dynamism of a hometown wedding. Etran is a family band composed of brothers and cousins, all born and raised in the small neighborhood of Abalane, just in the shadow of the grand mosque. Sons of nomadic families that settled here in the 1970s fleeing the droughts, they all grew up in Agadez. The band was formed in 1995 when current band leader Moussa "Abindi" Ibra was only 9 years old. "We only had one acoustic guitar," he explains, "and for percussion, we hit a calabash with a sandal." Over the decades, the band painstakingly pieced together gear to form their band and built an audience by playing everywhere, for everyone. "It was difficult. We would walk to gigs by foot, lugging all our equipment, carrying a small PA and guitars on our backs, 25 kilometers into the bush, to play for free_ there's nowhere in Agadez we haven't played." Whereas other Tuareg guitarists look to Western rock, Etran de L'Aïr play in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues, Hausa bar bands, to Congolese Soukous. It's perhaps this quality that makes them so beloved in Agadez. "We play for the Tuareg, the Toubou, the Zarma, the Hausa," Abindi explains. "When you invite us, we come and play." Their music is rooted in celebration, and invokes the exuberance of an Agadez wedding, with an overwhelming abundance of guitars, as simultaneous solos playfully pass over one another with a restrained precision, forceful yet never overindulgent.

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John 5 & The Creatures

7" | 2022 | US | Original (Big Machine)

10,99 €*

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Impossible Love Songs From Sixties Quito

Benítez & Valencia

2LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Honest Jon's)

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Danger Collective)

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Gonzalo Benitez and Luis Alberto Valencia were kingpins of the musica nacional movement in Ecuador. Check them out on the cover, on a rooftop in Quito’s Old Town, surveying their dominion. In 1970, when Valencia collapsed onstage during a performance of the yaravi Desesperacion — ‘My heart is already in ashes’ — and died four days later, aged 52, his coffin was carried through those city streets on the shoulders of his fans.

They began singing as a duo in their mid-teens. During twenty-eight years together they recorded more than six hundred songs, for Discos Ecuador, Nacional, Granja, Ortiz, Rondador, Onix, Fuente, Real, Tropical, Fadisa, RCA Victor — and of course Caife.

Their exquisitely romantic harmonising is a sublime blend of collected forbearance and abject self-annihilation, underpinned and elaborated by the heart-piercing, improvisatory guitar-playing of Bolivar Ortiz. Effectively the third member of the group. ‘El Pollo’ sets the tone and intensity for everything that follows: listen to his soloing at the start of our opener, Lamparilla.

Musically a pasillo — a cross between a Viennese waltz and the indigenous yaravi rhythm — Lamparilla draws its verses from a poem by Luz Martinez from Riobamba, written in 1918 when she was 15, under the influence of Baudelaire and Mallarme. Another pasillo here, Sombras is one of the best-loved songs in the musica nacional canon, setting lines about undercover sex and loss by the Mexican poet Maria Pren, which were considered pornographic on publication in 1911.

And Benitez & Valencia looked back still further, to the indigenous roots of Ecuadorian music, as the key to its future. Carnaval de Guaranda is their take on a song dating back to the era of the Mitimaes, a broad group of Bolivian tribes conquered by the Incas and displaced to Ecuador. ‘Impossible love of mine / I love you for being impossible / Who loves what is impossible / Is the truest lover.’

Lovingly presented in a gatefold sleeve with spot-gloss, and printed inners, with stunning photos and expert notes. Excellent sound, drawn from original tapes, by way of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas.

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Emily Yacina

Remember The Silver

LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Fire)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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'Remember the Silver' is the debut studio album by New York by-way-of Pennsylvania musician Emily Yacina. Written over the span of two years and recorded in New York City with co-producer with Eric Littmann (Julie Byrne, GABI, Yohuna).Across it's 12 songs 'Silver' weaves an intimate and prismatic picture of the spark of new love, the way grief clings to the spirit and the small moments where magical things still feel possible. Gone is the lo-fi home-recorded feel that long-typified Yacina's previous work, confidently making way for a welcomed clarity that allows every corner of her first-rate songwriting to shine through.The title 'Remember the Silver' is lifted from a book by Dana Redfield about alien abduction where the subject uses the line as a private mantra to remind herself of how her experiences are real, despite the disbelievers around her. Similarly the songs on 'Silver' exist as reminders of experiences throughout a life cloaked in the kind of emotional subjectivity that, when looking back, can feel almost unreal in their beauty or loneliness. They're monuments to the complexity and the realness of love, and the beauty or isolation that can be amplified.

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Josephine Foster

Godmother

Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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A beautifully observed baroque masterpiece, part dream pop, part futuristic psych-folk with ambient synths and Josephine Foster's plaintive guitar. Godmother is a slowly unfolding song cycle that marries a myriad of previous musical escapades with electronic experiments.Exploring new horizons on this record, it sees Foster at her most expressive and hypnotic. Now back home in the mountains of Colorado, Josephine's 20-year journey to this new nirvana becomes enthralled further with a symphony of synths that sound like they are played in some neighbouring netherworld, through cotton gauze. It's music that's devotional, spiritual, a fitting soundtrack for any journey within or without, a means to experience places and vibrations beyond the boundary of time and space.Discussing the record, Josephine explains "You may notice me travelling a bit further sonically from our precious earth, aspiring to rise into broader astral perspective, to contemplate the light and origins of it all, as I do believe there is a grand source that is the sum of it all, us all. Performing all the parts on this recording, you may sense me focussing gestures of my singing into the instrumentation, which is a very great relief indeed, as the voice has such grand dreams to be set free.""With her haunted, theatrical delivery, Foster cuts an arresting figure." Pitchfork"Out of time yet timeless" The WireLP Black Vinyl, std sleeve, DL card.

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Made Out Of Sound

LP | 2021 | US | Reissue (Palilalia)

Country Outlaw-Take This Job & Shove It

Release: 2021 / US – Reissue

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Received an 8.1 rating from Pitchfork. "Sadly, many will hear Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt's latest LP, Made Out of Sound, as 'not-jazz,' though it would be more aptly described as 'not-not-jazz.' In a better world, it would warrant above-the-fold reviews in Downbeat, or an appearance on David Sanborn's late-night show (if someone would only give it back to him). More likely, we can hope for a haiku review on Byron Coley's Twitter timeline to sufficiently connect the various improvised terrains trodden by this long-time duo—but if you've been able to listen past the overmodulated icepick fidelity of Harry Pussy, it should surprise you not an iota that Orcutt's style is rooted as much in the fractal melodies of Trane and Taylor as it is in Delta syrup or Tin Pan Alley glitz. As for Corsano, well, it may seem daft to call this particular record 'jazz' (because duh, it has a drummer), but to me Corsano is beyond jazz, almost beyond music, his ambidextrous, octopoid technique grappling many stylistic levers and spraying a torrent of light from every direction. Corsano's ferocity has elevated many 'mere' improv records to transcendence, but here he's crafted his polyrhythms within more narrative channels, bringing to mind his 'mannered' playing in the lamented Flower-Corsano duo. It's not 'groove' playing precisely, but it follows many grooves simultaneously, much like Orcutt's own melodic musings—which is why they're so naturally lock-in-key here. Which maybe makes it all the more surprising that Made Out of Sound was in fact recorded in different rooms on different coasts at different times, and stitched together by Orcutt on his desktop. Corsano recorded the drums in Ithaca, NY, and (as Orcutt states), 'I didn't edit them at all. I overdubbed two guitar tracks, panned left/right. I'd listen to the drums a couple times, pick a tuning, then improvise a part, thinking of the first track as backing and the second as the 'lead', though those are pretty fluid terms. I was watching the waveforms as I was recording, so I could see when a crescendo was coming or when to bring it down.' Fluidity ties the tracks together. With a little more groove and a little less around-the-beat maneuvering, one could almost hear the boiling harmonic layers as Miles-oid in 'Man Carrying Thing,' but with new-found Sharrockian modalities, Corsano accentuating the tumbling nature of the falling notes. The Sharrock vein continues with 'How to Cook a Wolf,' its Blind Willie-esque melodic simplicity and repetition extrapolated 360-style in a repetitive descending riff that falls into Cippolina-isms (by way of Verlaine ) until the end crashes upon the shore. Much like Orcutt's last solo album, Odds Against Tomorrow, there's a gentler, almost pastoral flow to some tracks ('Some Tennessee Jar,' 'A Port in Air,' 'Thirteen Ways of Looking') that calls to mind the mixolydian swamplands of Lonnie Liston Smith—but unlike Odds , other tracks ('The Thing Itself') smash that same lyricism into overdriven, multi-dimensional melodic clumps that push several vector envelopes at once in an Interstellar Space vein. With the help of Corsano, Orcutt has managed to slither even further out of the noise/improv pigeonhole lazy listeners/writers keep trying to shove him into. Looking at the back cover of Made Out of Sound , we should not see Orcutt hurling a guitar into the air with post-punk bravado, Corsano toiling behind him in the engine room—we should witness an instrument levitating from his hands, rising on invisible major-key tendrils of melody, fired by percussion, spiraling into an invisible event horizon..."—Tom Carter

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Johnny Paycheck

LP | 2021 | CA | Original (Cleopatra)

Release: 2021 / CA – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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LP | 2021 | EU | Reissue (Astigmatic)

Jaubi

Nafs At Peace 6th Press

The Mystery Of Love Expanded Colored Vinyl Edition

Release: 2021 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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JAUBI continue the Nafs journey, which commenced with the single “Satanic Nafs” (featuring the remix by legendary LA producers The Gaslamp Killer & Mophono) released in March 2021. Now JAUBI draw on the elements of North Indian classical music, Hip-Hop and modal/spiritual jazz in their debut LP entitled “Nafs At Peace”.

The journey officially began back in April 2019 when London’s multi- instrumentalist and 22a Record label boss Ed “Tenderlonious” Cawthorne and Polish pianist/composer Marek “Latarnik” Pędziwiatr of EABS/Błoto, visited the group to record in Lahore.

Together they channelled their personal struggles at that time into the two recording sessions allowing the musicians to find a spiritual path to transcendence through this musical purge.

Nothing whatsoever was written down during the recording sessions - no sheet music and no song titles, which allowed the six musicians to forget about their worldly issues. In many ways, the journey represents a struggle for purity, an expression of gratitude, and an acknowledgement that the musician's inspiration comes from a higher power.

The album cover portrays the mother of JAUBI’s bandleader, tearfully praying to God to get her son through that dark period of his life, which is what the mothers of the other musicians also did for their children.
The first step of the journey can be heard on “Satanic Nafs” which refers to the lowest level of the Self which was released 26th March 2021 through Astigmatic Records.

The album title ‘Nafs At Peace’ refers to the last purification step the self has been through. At this level, the Self no longer struggles because one has complete love of God, by becoming at peace and tranquil with God’s will. We hope all can achieve the stage of “Nafs At Peace” … Inshallah.

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Jackie Leven

2LP | 2021 | UK | Original (Cooking Vinyl)

Release: 2021 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Devendra Banhart & Noah Georgeson

Refuge Black Vinyl Edition

2LP | 2021 | US | Original (Dead Oceans)

Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy

Release: 2021 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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“Last spring, Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson started to make a record that was like nothing they had made before _ an ambient album that would be both a haven from a suddenly terrified world and a heartfelt musical dialogue between two artists who have been friends and collaborators for over two decades. Refuge is an album of profound meditative beauty which offers the listener a much-needed sense of peace and renewal. But while it was recorded in 2020 its roots go back much further _ all the way to the start of their friendship and, beyond that, to the shared sounds and ethics of their childhoods. Devendra grew up in Venezuela while Noah, six years older, is a native of Nevada City, California. But as they got to know each other, they realised that they had a similar history in the New Age subculture of the 1980s: a world of meditation, Eastern music, the Bhagavad Gita and The Whole Earth Catalog. Childhood memories were coloured by the aromas of health food stores and the sound of New Age labels like Windham Hill Records. Noah, whose production and mixing credits include Joanna Newsom and the Strokes, came on board as co-producer of Devendra's 2005 album Cripple Crow and they have been working together ever since. It was while making Devendra's 2019 album Ma that the pair finally decided to make their ambient record. Despite complicating logistics, 2020 created an emotional craving for music with this contemplative, therapeutic quality. Inspired by both memories of the past and the needs of the present, Refuge is an act of companionship and generosity which gives the listener room to breathe. "We're hoping to create a sense of comfort and coming back to the moment," Devendra says. "It's really important to have a little bit of space between us and our anxieties and impulses. What you do with that space is up to you." - Dorian Lynskey May 2021

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Blind Date Party

2Tape | 2021 | US | Original (Drag City)

LP | 2021 | EU | Original (Indie)

Release: 2021 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The Blind Date Party hosted by Bill Callahan and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and featuring Azita, Matt Sweeney, Alasdair Roberts, Matt Kinsey, Sean O’Hagan, Bill MacKay, George Xylouris, Dead Rider, David Pajo, Mick Turner, Meg Baird, Ty Segall, Emmett Kelly, Cory Hanson, Six Organs of Admittance, David Grubbs, Cassie Berman, Cooper Crain and Sir Richard Bishop happened online in the fall and winter of ’20–’21 — but the party planning dated back to the spring of 2020. Stuck at home, with no gigs in the foreseeable future, Bill, Bonnie and Drag City needed an outreach program to keep themselves busy, not to mention sane. In the absence of any company or anything on the calendar, playing songs they loved was an idea; playing with people they loved, the desire. And making it fun — so pairing someone with someone else having no say in the matter, the essence of the blind date, was the plan. Favorite songs were chose; players from around the Drag City galaxy were messaged. Pretty soon, songs were flying back and forth — music in the air! And thus, they were entertained throughout the summer of 2020, when so much else in the world seemed so completely wrong. By the fall, the songs started to appear online: Bill and Bonnie singing a song by someone they loved and admired; each song cut by another another artist they loved and admired, then sent to Bill and Bonny to provide the finishing touches. The spotlight pointed in every direction each week: toward the singers and writers who’d originally played the songs (Yusuf Islam, Hank Williams Jr., Dave Rich, The Other Years, Billie Eilish, Steely Dan, Lou Reed, Bill Callahan, Jerry Jeff Walker, Robert Wyatt, Lowell George, Johnnie Frierson, Air Supply, Will Oldham, Leonard Cohen, David Berman, Iggy Pop and John Prine), toward their featured collaborators, the artists whose artwork adorned each digital single and videos made by still more collaborators. And you, the listener. Like the best parties, it turned out to be everything and more than they’d even hoped for. So many more people were involved in the process that we can get on the page here. Suffice to say, making records over the years has required a broad sense of community and an always-surprising mix of independence and unity, inspiration and utility. Some of our best memories are those where as many of our folks as possible were together in one place at one time. In those moments, it was just a great thing just to be there. And with others looking in . . . this was a joy one could only be infinitely lucky to feel and to take for granted, as well. The Blind Date Party was one of these, maybe the most improbable one yet. It’s for everyone who’s here and it’s in the name of everyone who’s gone but will never go and will always live with us here. This album will too. And thus, we are entertained.

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Gate

Nord

35,99 €*