The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now is a ritualistic and expanding collaborative album between Holy Tongue and Shackleton. Holy Tongue are a trio composed of Valentina Magaletti, Al Wootton, and Susumu Mukai. Accomplished musicians in their own right, they combined to create psychedelic, free-form, high energy, spiritual dub-dance music across a trilogy of critically acclaimed EPs and their debut album Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare. Their high energy live performances invoke the experimental dub of On-U-Sound, the frenetic rhythms of 23 Skidoo, Liquid Liquid, and ESG, and the spiritual energy of free jazz. The trio's dynamic collaboration extends in their meeting with Shackleton, one of the most original and critically lauded voices in electronic music. Shackleton has moved from the depths of the early 2000s dubstep underground to a diverse range of international collaborations and commissions over the last two decades. After honing his hypnotic beats on the cult UK record label Skull Disco, his unique rhythmic touch is now heard on some of the most adventurous and progressive projects that have emerged from the European dance scene in recent years. Shackleton's work explores conceptual and spiritual themes with an emotional depth beyond most artists working in European dance music today, and his visions of inner space, apocalypse and dread are more-timely than ever before. This record was conceived after Holy Tongue and Shackleton shared a festival line up in Sweden. Holy Tongue were initially keen to get Shackleton to remix one of their existing tracks but they soon decided to have a project together and work on some fresh new music, allowing Shackleton to do something more creative with it in the studio. Thus, Holy Tongue recorded a collection of raw material in the studio and sent it to Shackleton. The result is far more than the sum of its parts. A psychedelic, ritualistic, dub trip, oscillating between the maximal and the minimal, the internal and the external, the micro and the macro, ecstasy and agony, all The Tumbling Psychic Joy Of Now.

Double LP version.Monolake: "My studio is my shelter, I feel comfortable there, surrounded by wonderful inspiring machines. A small cozy room where ideas emerge, mature, morph, and solidify into their final shape. Studio is the result of spending time in that space. The album's intention is simple: Presenting a beautiful personal musical journey. The creative process in itself matters to me, the interaction with my instruments, the accidental discoveries, the successful execution of a vision and anything in between. Most of the tracks on this album got revised countless times, and then even more, once I knew in which context and order I wanted to arrange them. I have been living with my music for months now, listening, thinking, changing, diving deeper and deeper into each piece. I love albums, they are a beautiful long-form format where each part has its place, a journey from the start till the end. Each piece has its own story, its own flavor and history. Some of them have been with me since a while already. There is material which I created years ago for installations and music derived from previous audiovisual works, all completely ripped apart and rearranged multiple times. During their creation my pieces often turn into something completely different, they repeatedly shift from one state to another until they become solid. What I consider a core element at the beginning might be later discarded completely, and a little detail in the background might become the essence. Many explorations ended in the trash bin before the results had a chance to be part of Studio. Things did not fall into place, did not feel right. Other compositions had to fill the void instead, some created quickly in a rush of inspiration, some slowly, shy, questioning their significance. This album did not come into existence in a hurry, it took as long as it needed. I used the time to walk around my creations, to listen to them from the distance, physically, mentally, with friends, in all kinds of different contexts. I tried to understand what I just did. I started to see patterns, hidden motifs, things that were buried in between too many layers of sound. What is essential? What is ornament? I reduced, rearranged, added again. The closer I got to the final state of Studio the more clarity I found..." Composed, mixed and produced by Robert Henke, 2024.

Meaning shifts throughout Martha Skye Murphy's debut album Um with songs that meld moments of baroque beauty with crashes of electronic noise, employing textures that are by turns organic and artificial, hi-fi and lo-fi. Collaborations with the likes of Claire Rousay and Roy Montgomery are finely intertwined with the fruits of rigorous studio sessions with producer Ethan P. Flynn. Lyrically Martha conjures images inspired by everything from Ancient Roman hand-binding torture to a Fred and Ginger tap routine. The listener is catapulted across landscapes and left disoriented. "First Day" consists of individual notes recorded remotely on different instruments across Texas, New Zealand and London, coalescing into one hovering chord around a field recording Murphy took while wandering New York. It's telling that when Marta Salogni, who mixed the album, first heard Um, she commented that it was like experiencing a memory of an experience that hadn't yet happened. As a vocalist Murphy has a rare talent for transformation, from her intimate, cracked whispers over the hypnotic drift of "Theme Parks," to her piercing disembodied wails as "Kind" implodes into a cataclysm of electronic noise. Elsewhere, she offers little more than a distracted hum. In the studio, she and co-producer Ethan P. Flynn focused on maximizing those vocal capabilities by teasing out different personas. On the crystalline "Pick Yourself Up," part of which she wanted to sound like a lullaby, she cradled objects as she sang in order to draw out the maternal. It would be an oversimplification to say that Murphy inhabits different characters on the record. Rather, she extracts different characters from the depths of her own psyche who gesture towards the fact that "the self" is ultimately a vague and impermanent thing. She can be both exorcist and orator.

LP version. After dipping into the archive to deliver a series of essential reissues, Bureau B continue to encourage the chaotic brilliance of Faust with an LP of brand-new music curated by originator Zappi Diermaier and a band of musical friends, including fellow founder Gunther Wüsthoff. Over the years Faust has become many things, each as separate as the fingers, but as together as the hand which makes up their eponymous fist. From 1971 to 1974 the Hamburg band blazed a bold sonic trail, helping to create the distinct and delirious strand of German music we've come to know as Krautrock. Uncompromising, innovative and experimental, their releases in that period, and the stories accompanying their creation, are nothing short of legendary, and the fact that after a hiatus, the band returned and remained active in a variety of separate and simultaneous incarnations is entirely fitting for these musical revolutionaries. On Blickwinkel, Diermaier's incarnation embrace synchronicity and chance in order to capture the moment in a six-track snapshot of industrial churn, unsettling ambience and psychedelic motorik. Sonically and politically, Blickwinkel is a profoundly Faustian venture, a communal project based on democratic ideals which eschews external influences to create something entirely out on its own. As with the previous LP, Daumenbruch, the journey started with Zappi behind a drum kit at the home studio of his neighbor Dirk Dresselhaus AKA Schneider TM (bass), alongside electronics whizz Elke Drapatz (drum effects). The trio embarked on a session of instant composition, playing wordlessly with a deep empathy to each other as well as the energy in the room. While the Daumenbruch session, which took place in the midst of lockdown, delivered three long-form pieces, this two=hour spell served up six diverse tracks, an audio analogue for the speed of life post-lockdown. Drones, delays, clatter and clang came from all corners -- in fact, only Uwe Bastiansen (Stadtfisch) added melodies, lending long distance support to Dirk Dresselhaus' insistent bass sequences, and channeling the magic of their moment into potent pagan tonalities. The stylistic definitions are constantly disrupted by unexpected guests -- baroque strings, impish horns, found sound breakdowns, or else mind melting phasing and flanging -- each offering a new combination on this radical and forward-facing record.

LP version. Citron Citron is back! The ethereal sister-and-brother duo has worked hard over the past two years on their new album Maréeternelle. Maintaining their majestic compositions, dual lead vocals, and home-made organic sound machinery, Citron Citron delves deeper into their sonic universe, singing about daily life, death, and love with the same poetic and personal vibe. Recorded in their home studio, and with a rare '70s EMS synth handed down from their respected avant-garde artist grandfather Rainer Boesch also making an appearance, Citron Citron's light touch is an analogue charm, measuring up to the giants of the genre's history. Its title, Maréeternelle, is a compound word coined by the duo and translating as "eternal tide." It references the continuous cyclical flow of existence -- day and night; life and death -- and how they, you and I structure our lives around this.

"Dark Entries picks up Severed Heads yet again for Ear Bitten, a double LP reissue of some of the band's earliest material. As originary Aussie industrial legends -- although founder Tom Ellard would balk at being branded as such -- Severed Heads shaped the continental subcultural sound with their kitchen electronics, chaotic tape loops, and quietly infectious nursery-rhyme-esque melodies. In 1979 Ellard, Richard Fielding, and Andrew Wright abandoned the moniker Mr. and Mrs. No Smoking Sign and adopted the edgier name Severed Heads 'to pretend to be an industrial band such as Surgical Penis Klinik & Throbbing Gristle.' Noise-rockers Rhythmx Chymx had placed an advertisement in a local shop looking for a band to share the costs of pressing an LP. The Heads set about recording a Dadaist racket on a pair of open reel dictaphones and a cassette deck using a TRS-80 computer, Kawai Synthesizer 100F and Korg Mini Pops drum machine. Ear Bitten was released in 1980; original copies now fetch obscene sums, in part due to most of Severed Heads' copies perishing in a fire at Richard's home. The band's next endeavor was a cassette titled Side 2, a collection of free-form experiments fashioned as Ear Bitten's second side. For this reissue, Dark Entries has collected both Ear Bitten and Side 2 on the first disc, presenting the album in its full form. Disc two includes the original first version of Ear Bitten, which was only unreleased because it was recorded in a format not suitable for pressing. The album comes in a gatefold sleeve designed by Eloise Leigh and includes photos, liner notes, and reproductions of the original Xerox inserts from the 1980 issue. Ear Bitten delivers 22 tracks of pain you can dance to!"

LP version. In 2024, fans were treated to the first new music from Trentemøller since 2022. A new single, "A Different Light," showcased a stunning blend of prismatic space rock and folk. For anyone wondering if it foreshadowed the release of a full-length, In My Room now presents Dreamweaver. Featuring ten tracks that traverse Trentemøller's many musical strengths, Dreamweaver also represents an obvious artistic leap, treading new ground while retaining the overall plot. Tracks featuring vocals come courtesy of Iceland's Disa, who has been in Trentemøller's fold since the Memoria tour. Dreamweaver's nylon string-led opening track, and first single from the album, "A Different Light," contains many of Trentemøller's trademarks: exploring dichotomies, musical shadowplay, Nordic frigidity, and warm waves. It opens the door for the steady, hypnotic "Nightfall," with its tetherless vocal, wistful guitars, and early morning desert chill. Ostensibly keeping a ruminative pace with the previous two tracks, the song and, by extension, album soon opens up as the rest of the elements drop into place with a grand, luxurious burst. With the hatch blown off of the portal, the noisy "I Give My Tears,' driven by its glissed and fuzzy bass line, pours into the void. It's followed by its sibling, the most chaotic track on Dreamweaver, "Behind My Eyes." Arriving as a piece of noise rock pandemonium, "Behind My Eyes," can't be contained in its plush vault. A whip-crack snare and convulsing guitars smash against each other in the song's verse chamber. The tension builds, as the particles collide, pushing past the point of critical mass, kicking off the chain reaction which is the chorus. At times it harkens back to the proto-gaze tracks that gave birth to dream pop, at others it newly defines what that is. There's no time to contemplate it, though, as the song disintegrates in a microphonic feedback instant. A respite follows with the somnambulistic pair of "Hollow" and "Empty Beaches." Then, a moment of intensity returns as the soaring textures and tribal drum bursts of "In A Storm" take control, before being taken out with the ambient slo-core of "Winter's Ghost" and "Closure."

De La Catessen offers the first re-release in over 40 years of the long-lost soundscape composition Sounds Like Work, initially privately released on cassette in 1978, by South Australian composer and scholar, Chester Schultz. Drawing from material recorded in late 1976 in the workplaces of members of the Maylands Church of Christ congregation, subsequently edited at the electronic music studio of Adelaide University in early 1978, Sounds Like Work has an oddly contemporary cast, given both the sophistication and intelligence of its composition, and the ever-relevant address of the meanings of the "working environment" that Schultz explores here. Doing this via sound, however, reveals plenty of previously unnoticed, or under-recognized, things about peoples' lives at work. Schultz's composition is refreshingly free of direct polemical or political intervention, though there is a subtle undercurrent of critique of the way the workplace makes us both suffer, and conform to expectation. Schultz's questions about the workplace -- what it does to the worker; the ways the worker tries to wrest control of the working day; work's alignment, or not, with our inner private lives and beliefs -- are poetically explored through lyrical editing, curious juxtaposition, and an unerring ability to know when to 'leave things be.' There's also an understanding here that the socio-cultural context of sound has both its specificities and its generalities. The voices heard here could be from nowhere other than Australia, yet what they speak of, and the everyday sounds they're surrounded by, could come from most anywhere. Schultz's approach to the use and understanding of sound via the soundscape came predominantly from reading and listening to R. Murray Schafer, and you can certainly hear the implications of Schafer's thinking in Sounds Like Work. It also recalls other, loosely analogous compositions, like Luc Ferrari's acousmatic tour de force, Presque Rien. Most of all, though, Sounds Like Work is a startling composition, one which subtly redraws the histories listeners long been told about Antipodean avant-garde sound.

Søren Skov Orbit's debut album, Adrift, is at once subtle and profound. The saxophonist and his collaborators have created something quite special and consistently deep. This record may not easily be classifiable, but the most interesting music creeps between the lines. Danish tenor and soprano saxophonist Søren Skov (Debre Damo Dining Orchestra) and keyboardist Peder Vind co-founded the trippy quintet Søren Skov Orbit in 2016 to explore "more jazzy ideas," as the saxophonist puts it. Joined by a rhythm section steeped in contemporary improvisation and psychedelia, bassist Casper Nyvang Rask, drummer Rune Lohse and percussionist Ayi Solomon of the legendary '80s Ghanaian roots/highlife band Classique Vibes, the Orbit belts out a richly focused helping of broadly African-inspired modern jazz with a hazy sheen. As a tenor player, Skov has done his homework and has a kinship with Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, J.R. Monterose, and the Dutchman Hans Dulfer, but he clearly has got his own robust phraseology and expressiveness. He also cites multi-reedists John Gilmore, Yusef Lateef, and Bilal Abdurahman as, "some of the players I've been listening to the most for the last 10-15 years." A healthy dose of reverb is present throughout the album, echoing Alton Abraham's studio wizardry with the Sun Ra Arkestra or the trance-inducing and compressed fidelity of certain Ethio-jazz and Mystic Revelations of Rastafari sessions. Skov notes that, "everything is recorded live at the same time in the same room. I wanted to do it that way in order to catch the dynamics and authenticity of the music." There is, in fact, a complex teetertotter between crisp and hazy execution, achieved by a delicately balanced mix that keeps the group's sound simultaneously advancing and receding. Vind's phrasing is terse and introspective, a vibrating echo that nudges and reflects on Skov's brusque tenor in a dance of sonic displacement. The coupling of Solomon and Lohse is a big part of the group's detailed energy; as the leader puts it, "Ayi knows everything about regional differences in drum patterns. He is always listening and super responsive, and his and Rune's dynamics are amazing." The music both presents a "vibe" and keeps the door open for engaging well under the surface as repeated listens will be extremely rewarding. RIYL: Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Fela Kuti, Nat Birchall, Nubya Garcia.

2024 restock. "When the band Agitation Free came together in 1967 as a result of the merging of two Berlin rock groups, one of the most interesting groups in a dawning independent German music scene was created. With their improvisations between rock, jazz and new music, Agitation Free - soon relegated to the not so flattering category of 'krautrock' - made musical forays into areas that few of their fellow German musicians had ever penetrated."

2024 repress. "After producing two albums celebrated by a thirsty underground network of fans, Galaxie 500 released what turned out to be their unexpected swansong, This Is Our Music. The title is an intentionally declarative statement. After being labeled masters of the disengaged and forlorn, Damon Krukowski, Dean Wareham, and Naomi Yang delivered a full-length comprised of their most stately material. Here, one can hear potential realized, as well as changes afoot. For the first time since its original pressing, This Is Our Music is available again on vinyl. Cut by vinyl ace Kevin Gray from a remaster by Kramer and Alan Douches, the album sounds more vibrant than ever, and Galaxie 500 exists again as one of the most enrapturing and glorious bands to emerge from the underground in the past 25 years."

Dam Swindle return to Heist in excellent form with a four-track EP in their signature style. The iconic Amsterdam duo returned to the studio after their much-lauded Minor Fools EP, where the lead track "That's Right" became one of the most heartwarming tracks 2023. The guys are known for their ability to bend different styles into something very much their own and their newest addition to the Heist catalog is no different. The Touch Me Again EP sees them go from sample-heavy house to classic '90s piano-driven tracks with a touch of acid and it's one you don't want to miss. The record starts with "Touch Me Again," a house jam with chopped vocals, energetic synth stabs and a big breakdown. Add to that a touch of acid and you've got a follow-up to their Phonica hit of 2023. "Hang On" takes you back into classic Swindle territory, with their signature sampling style and knack for finding those lush vocals. The synth chops and bassline give the track its upbeat energy and the distant filtered pads move in an ever so subtle way, that there's always something new happening while keeping the attention on that catchy main hook. On the flip, the guys take things a bit deeper with emotive vocals and introverted keys layered over a steady groove on their track "The Joy of Melancholy." Fast-forward to the drop and all that energy comes free with a huge piano break, which propels the track into a blissful "hands-in-the-air" dancefloor moment. The EP closes with "Forever and Ever," a gospel-inspired deep house tune full of organ hits and off-kilter sample chops. This four-track EP gives you jam upon jam upon jam and sees Dam Swindle solidify their position as the go-to artist in the house scene and keeps them at the forefront of electronic music.

2024 restock. "Reissue of the sought-after deep/spiritual jazz album, the first time it's been pressed from the master tapes. All analog lacquer by Bernie Grundman. Liner notes delving into the history of Hamilton and this special album. Bobby Hamilton founded the band Anubis in Syracuse, New York, and they put out their awesome 'Ecology' single on Charles Bazen's Salt City imprint. It's a highlight on the Soul-Cal anthology Now-Again issued in 2012, something akin to Terry Callier and Gil Scott Heron's most soulful works. Shortly after issuing that single, Bobby put together the Bobby Hamilton Quintet Unlimited and recorded and issued Dream Queen in 1972. The last clean copy Bobby Hamilton had, he sold to the musician Jamie XX in 2021 for a princely sum. Few originals will ever surface again -- its original run of 500 units having disappeared into the ether decades ago. This is your chance to hear a masterwork of deep, spiritual jazz lacquered directly from its original master tape in an all-analog transfer by the legendary Bernie Grundman. Dream Queen's story is told for the first time in extensive liner notes by Torii McAdams. Dig deeper and expand."

2024 repress. Adventurous southern California punk trio Agent Orange was the first band to mix surf rock with punk. The group was formed in1979 in Placentia, a small town close to Fullerton and Anaheim, by front man Mike Palm on guitar and lead vocals, Steve Soto on bass, and Scott Miller on drums. That early line-up recorded the classic version of "Bloodstains" in 1979 as a demo produced by Daniel R. van Patten (of the group Berlin). A year later it was included on the seminal Rodney On The Roq compilation album released by Posh Boy Records. Meanwhile, James Levesque had replaced Steve Soto (Adolescents) and the new line-up released their own self-produced and self-released 7" EP in 1980. A year later, the group signed with Robbie Fields' Posh Boy Records for their debut LP, Living In Darkness, co-produced by Fields and former Simpletones guitarist, Jay Lansford. The album was recorded at Brian Elliot's store front studio in North Hollywood (a few years before Elliot struck gold writing Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach"). A milestone in California punk rock history. Includes five bonus tracks. Black vinyl.

2024 restock. The Young Gods release a record with Two Gentlemen, Play Terry Riley In C. Needless to say this is a fertile meeting between two monuments who have helped shape the cutting-edge music of the last few decades. Terry Riley, born in 1935, is the cornerstone on which a considerable number of artists have relied to liberate their relationship to the process and methods of creation. In the same way, The Young Gods revolutionized, from the second half of the 1980s, their relationship with rock music by converting guitars into samplers. Composed and premiered in 1964, In C is a major piece in the contemporary music repertoire of the second half of the 20th century, and a pivotal moment in its history. The score for In C is reduced to 53 musical phrases, which each musician must repeat in the order in which they appear, as many times as he or she wishes; the instrumentation is not specified; the impetus for the performance is not given by an orchestral direction, but by the musicians listening to one another. A perfectly open work, In C was the first work to offer a successful synthesis of repetition and variation. The Young Gods first approached In C in 2019 at the invitation of Benedikt Hayoz, director of the Landwehr wind orchestra in Freiburg -- this resulted in a performance of the work with 85 musicians. Other approaches were made with Ensemble Batida, a Geneva-based contemporary music collective, with the dance company Alias, and with the documentary filmmaker Peter Mettler, for his film Petropolis. In this album, The Young Gods offer a new interpretation of In C, as a trio and with their own sound vocabulary -- electronic instruments, drums, and guitars. They have chosen to follow the score and Terry Riley's indications, while allowing for some additional freedom, for example in terms of managing the sound intensity -- which evolves, in several long cycles, from almost silence to eruption and back again. They have also chosen to maintain a constant tempo throughout the live performance by building up a hypnotic flow and a continuous musical presence that meanders and oscillates in perpetually changing rings and atmospheres that transform in a perfectly fluid manner. By developing through a series of crescendos and decrescendos, by playing on the repeated addition and removal of musical phrases, by working sensitively on the sound quality (timbre, grain, alterations) of its elements, the piece aligns a series of ascents, ecstatic plateaus and lulls that give the work as a whole all the characteristics of a living form. Double LP version includes CD.

Friendship Is Deep, Golden Shoulders' second album. A collection of smartly observed, witty indie pop songs. In 2004, California-based indie band Golden Shoulders followed up their highly acclaimed debut with their second album, Friendship Is Deep. Now, on the twentieth anniversary of its release, the album most requested by their fans for a vinyl release is finally set for one on Unspun Heroes. Described as "one of the great semi-lost albums of the 21st Century", the album showcases singer, songwriter, and band mainstay, Adam Kline's knack for lyrical hooks and penchant for catchy melodies. But, like friendship, this is deeper than its pop sensibilities might suggest. From the moment the opening track "I Will Light You On Fire" opens with its simple piano refrain and vocal harmonies you know you're listening to something worthy of further exploration. From this building of tension between its temporary aural chaos and the beauty that ultimately emerges, you'll be hooked. Yet, scratch beneath the surface and you'll find this is an album that carries with it a political, pro-peace, and pro-humanity message, albeit somewhat more satirical than you might expect of a band hailing from America's West Coast. This is particularly notable on tracks such as "Golden Soldiers" and the "Committee," where Kline's turn of phrase and wit shines through, cleverly weaving words so they create detailed poetic mosaics. Golden Shoulders is a loose and ever-changing lineup of international talent, with Kline as the kingpin and sole songwriter. Given the pedigree of those whose talents grace the album -- among them, Todd Roper and Greg Brown (Cake), Josh Klinghoffer (PJ Harvey, RHCP, Pearl Jam), Neal Morgan (Joanna Newsom, Fleet Foxes), and Dan Elkan (Broken Bells) -- it's no surprise the compositions and attention to detail present in each and every one of the 14 songs is top notch. It's this pleasing mix of accomplished individuals, and their mishmash of influences, which lend a pinball effect to the set of stylistically diverse songs on Friendship Is Deep. Collectively though, the music you'll hear has a focus, one that channels late '90s Brendan Benson, the poppier side of '80s Violent Femmes, and even the mid-'60s flair of the Beatles' Rubber Soul.

2024 restock; double LP version. Gatefold sleeve featuring never-seen photos from the Mainstream vaults and new liner notes by UK journalist Paul Bowler. Wewantsounds continues its collaboration with Bob Shad's venerable jazz label Mainstream Records, and present a selection of 12 turntable-friendly tracks recorded between 1971 and 1975 and showcasing the label's superb blend of spiritual jazz, funk, and soul.Mainstream Records is one of the key independent jazz labels of the early 70s, together with Flying Dutchman, Strata East, CTI, and Black Jazz. Founded by legendary label man Bob Shad (who had been head of A&R at Mercury Records and set EmArcy in the '50s), the label concentrated on psychedelia in the '60s before switching back to Shad's jazz roots in the early '70s, signing a new crop of jazzmen fed on John Coltrane and Miles' electric experiments. Thus, was born the cult Mainstream "300 Series" with its distinctive artwork and outstanding music from which this selection is largely drawn. Giving their chance to many young jazz players and a few old friends, Shad recorded some of the most exciting jazz of the early '70s, mixing spiritual influences with funk and soul. It is interesting to note the Mainstream sessions included many of the hottest session players of that time such as Ron Carter, Eddie Henderson, Airto, Mtume, Earl Palmer, Mickey Roker, Merl Saunders, Cedar Walton, to name but a few. Shad also had a long-standing association with jazz divas showcased here with the opening track by Sarah Vaughan, a funkified version of Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" recorded the same year as the original in 1971. Mainstream Funk also includes a selection of superb tracks by young Turks who'd cut their teeth as sidemen for Blue Note and Prestige in the late '60s and were given a chance to record their own music on Mainstream. Buddy Terry's "Quiet Afternoon', Dave Hubbard's "Family Affair", and LaMont Johnson's "M'Bassa" are prime examples showcasing the label's desire to give these talented newcomers a chance to shine. Seasoned musicians from the Bebop scene were also welcome, such as trumpetists Blue Mitchell -- who'd released a string of great albums for Riverside and Blue Note in the late '50s and '60s -- and Johnny Coles who'd played with Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, and Herbie Hancock. Shad also released pure soul music on the label such as Sugar Billy's "Super Duper Love" which was released on his Fast Track sub-label in 1974, arranged by Jimmy Roach and featuring Marcus Belgrave in the line-up. Also features Prophecy, John White, Mike Longo, Barry Miles, and Pete Yellin.

Even as a relatively new face on the scene, Boaksi, isn't a stranger to longer format releases. The budding Zurich based producer made a splash with his first two releases Under The Pavilion and I Thought It Was Yesterday which featured remixes from Soela, Louf, and Al Zanders. Now he debuts on Seb Wildblood's all my thoughts label with a four-track emotionally visceral EP titled Keep Movin'. The title track, "Keep Movin'," takes a dynamic approach, layering creamy pads and impactful percussion with subtle dub techno influences that create a refreshingly deep groove, propelling a carefully positioned vocal sample into the forefront. "Didn't I," leads with a beautiful, progressive melody that evokes a sense of yearning, and the ever-relatable Romanticism of the club. Delicately triggered chords dance off the wonderfully unpredictable drum patterns, while Boaksi's minimalist vocals add a touch of human emotion. "Running Out Of Time" takes a more introspective turn, featuring distant, detuned textures that set the stage for a bed of soft, distorted pads. Stripped-back percussion allows the climbing arpeggios to take center stage, building to a cleansing break that allows the atmosphere to expand before settling back into a warm, percussive groove. The EP closes with "Wanna Be With You," another emotionally intelligent piece that showcases Boaksi's prowess for crafting captivating soundscapes. Elemental drums and breathtaking, climatic chords provide the foundation for a beautifully free-forming synth arpeggio that flutters playfully around an unforgettable vocal hook.

Double LP version. 2024 restock; deluxe Stoughton gatefold packaging. Singles and demos, 1964 to 1967. "Following the amazing success story of Vashti Bunyan's recent re-emergence as an artist after an exile of over 30 years, comes the release of Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind, a comprehensive compilation of early recordings dating from the period prior to Vashti's classic Just Another Diamond Day album which was originally released1970. Titled after Vashti's (Jagger/Richards-penned) debut single which opens the compilation, this double-album represents an attempt to both open out and draw a line under the past, and also to try to set the record straight about the disparity between how Vashti viewed (and still views) herself against the way she has been popularly perceived. Widely construed as a folk singer -- a tag she fundamentally disagrees with - these recordings instead reveal Vashti as a pop singer, however 'fragile' and unique."

2024 repress. LP version. "Before he developed into a star composer and arranger, Tom Scott was an ambitious 19 year-old saxophonist looking for his big break in 1967. The opportunity came when legendary jazz label Impulse paired Scott with 9-piece vocal group The California Dreamers and allowed the young musician to take the helm as a band leader, with The Honeysuckle Breeze as the spectacular result. This rare and long out-of-print album features Scott leading a stellar lineup of sessions players -- Bill Plummer (sitar), Glen Campbell (guitar) and Carol Kaye (bass) among them -- through warm, smooth versions of songs by The Beatles ('She's Leaving Home'), Donovan ('Mellow Yellow'), Joan Baez ('North') and Jefferson Airplane ('Today'), which many will recognize from it's sampling in the Pete Rock & CL Smooth classic 'T.R.O.Y.' Resurrected, refurbished and remastered by the talented folks at Get On Down, this special release is pressed on 150 gram vinyl for optimum audio quality and is presented in a paste-on gatefold packaging featuring high-gloss artwork reproduced from the original jacket design."

Limited 2024 restock. Anarcho punk was the one sub-genre of punk that emerged in isolation from the rock n' roll establishment. During its pioneering days of the early 1980s it thrived in opposition to the music industry, existing as a fiercely underground alternative to the bands, labels and venues of the commercialized mainstream punk scene. It continues to do so. Anarcho punk represented one of the last truly underground and autonomous music movements ever witnessed and remains a movement that has never sold out and has never gone away. The major differentiation between the anarcho punk acts and the more traditional punk outfits was that for the former, albeit often more due to musical limitation than intent, the message was more important than the music. Standard song structures were often dispersed with in favor of a relentless lyrical polemic accompanied by a similarly uncompromising aural assault. As the scene grew, so did the diversity of records that emerged under the anarcho punk umbrella: from D&V (drums & vocals) to the proto-EBM synth-pop of Belfast's one-man Hit Parade and the Dadaist Beefheart hybrid of The Cravats. In later days the two biggest acts of the scene, Flux of Pink Indians and Crass themselves, both released LPs which had more in common with improv Jazz than hardcore punk. The resounding victory of anarcho punk is that it is now the unifying soundtrack to a culture of resistance that spans Scotland to Indonesia and remains without compromise. It is still as removed from mainstream music and oppositional to conventional culture as it was over forty years ago and shows no sign of changing. Quite the opposite: the more popular anarcho punk becomes the less it has to engage with the music establishment and the more control it can enjoy. In 2023, that message remains as uncompromising as ever. This is a double vinyl retrospective compilation of some of the most radical music ever made, a musical force that changed lives. Covering the years 1979-86 and including classic tracks from Crass, Poison Girls, Flux Of Pink Indians, The Mob, Zounds, Annie Anxiety, The Ex, Alternative TV, plus ten more, all newly remastered by iconic punk mastering engineer Daniel Husayn. It has been lovingly compiled by JD Twitch and anarcho legend Chris Low and was ten years in the making. There are also a couple of previously unreleased mixes included. It comes as a high-quality double vinyl pressing, and has a full color sleeve with back and front images designed by the legendary Gee Vaucher. Also features Honey Band, Andy T, Alternative, The Apostles, Lack of Knowledge, Hagar the Womb, and Chumbawamba. Includes six-page fold out poster on one side with detailed sleeve notes, recollections and essays on the other side.

2024 repress; reissue, originally released in 1957. A multi-instrumentalist who reconfigured jazz many times during his long career, Yusef Lateef came to prominence in the late 1950s, after having toured with Dizzy Gillespie. Jazz Mood dates from 1957, when his quintet had some of Detroit's finest, including Alice Coltrane's brother Ernest Farrow on bass and future Jazz Messenger Curtis Fuller on trombone. The use of an argol on "Metaphor" and a rabat and finger cymbals on "Morning" point to Lateef's Islamic grounding and his belief that music serves a higher purpose; this edition has bonus track "Passion," from the equally excellent Before Dawn (1957). Rich, deep, and varied, this is required listening for all serious jazz heads.

"A legendary concert by one of the great unrecorded bands in free jazz history is here at last. WEBO, the third installment in the Black Editions Archive series of previously unreleased recordings from Milford Graves' private tape library, roars into the station June 21, 2024. For the first time, Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, & William Parker -- three lions of the Black American jazz avantgarde -- are finally heard together on record, presented here across three audiophile-quality LPs for two brutalizingly joyous hours of real ju-ju & musical mastery. The trio of Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, & William Parker gave only seven public performances between 1985 and 2013, and released no recordings. Their June 1991 two-night stand at the short-lived Lower East Side venue Webo, long referenced as a signal event in New York free jazz's 1990s resurgence, has been a topic of discussion among close followers of the music for decades. In the uncompromising grassroots spirit of the 1970s New York Musicians Organization and loft jazz movements from which they had emerged, the band produced and promoted the WEBO concerts themselves. Photography and audio recording were not allowed at the concerts, and this official recording, commissioned by the artists, was never released -- until now. So vivid was the lore surrounding WEBO that it topped the list of recordings sought by Black Editions Archive from Graves' private collection. The tapes maximally substantiate eyewitness accounts describing extra-sensory levels of communication within the band, and the extraordinary clarity and impact of their performance. From William Parker's liner notes: 'Imagine a village or choir of drummers, horn players and strings. You can hear the bass and drums churning with a call and response, a melodic-rhythmic propulsion. In reality there is only one drummer, one bass, and one saxophone.' Age 52 at the time of these concerts, Charles Gayle had only recently made his first recordings. To all but the most immediate insiders he was still more myth than reality. Milford Graves, two months out from his 50th birthday, was about halfway into his body of recorded work and had sanctioned just one appearance on a commercially released recording in the last 14 years (Pieces of Time by an all-drummer quartet with Kenny Clarke, Andrew Cyrille, and Famoudou Don Moye). William Parker, the young man of the group at age 39, was a mere fifty entries into his discography, now 500+ entries and counting. All three musicians were at least a quarter century into passionately developing a personal and collective music rooted in the cultural values and radical aesthetics of the 1960s and '70s Black American avant-garde. 30+ years after the WEBO concerts, Black Editions Archive is honored to make these historical recordings available to the public. The three LPs are presented in a heavy black, pigment-stamped box with mounted cover painting along with liner notes by William Parker, commentary from Alan Licht (witness to night one of the WEBO concerts), a reproduction of the original concert flyer, and a set of 6"x9" printed photos from the 2021 WEBO reunion outside MoMA PS1, Queens, NY. Cover Painting by Jeff Schlanger/musicWitness, made June 8, 1991, at Webo during the band's performance. Vinyl pressed at RTI, lacquers cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio." --Michael Ehlers, 2024

Vanatühi by Kiwanoid is a technopagan concept album. The track titles refer to the word "nothing" in various languages. The sonic landscape is crafted using deprecated tools: a first-generation 4-bit laptop, the DOS operating system, and a tracker program. Inspired by glitch aesthetics, the sound palette includes clicks, error noises, and low-bitrate techno sounds. Initially, the structures of the pieces may appear complex and chaotic. This electronic thicket might seem abstract, cold, and inaccessible, yet upon closer examination, it reveals a plethora of diverse species, coming across as somewhat nostalgic and warm, evoking surreal associations. From beneath towering sequoias peek pixelated ferns, LED eyes are blinking from below the undergrowth, and against the backdrop of a crackling campfire and cave paintings, a lively stomping of microchips unfolds. Sudden contrasts, sharp cutting edges, a tachycardic bass drum engine, and irregular polyrhythms make themselves physically felt. Elsewhere, haunting lo-fi textures, hidden ambient drones, mysterious hums, and obscurely garbled samples offer introspective breathers. The dynamic range of the music is favorably extensive, and the raw imperfections of the sound are unmasked by reverb effects or other generic tools. Interwoven throughout are outsider rhythm loops, which could find a home at an alien rave party or a hobgoblin honky-tonk. Various human voice samples build a bridge to the listener, allowing them to embody a cyborg-like experience. While each twist and turn remains unpredictable, these diverse approaches align in complementary patterns and stochastic regularities, making the whole surprisingly coherent, despite its chaos. The album doesn't bore the audience with intentionally irritating compositions or pseudo-complexity -- it demands attention, but doesn't try to outrun its listeners.

2024 restock. 180 gram vinyl reissue, originally released on Yazoo in 1975. "Furry Lewis was an exceptional bluesman from Memphis who combined raggy and bottleneck guitar arrangements with wry lyrics. His first recordings, presented here, captured him at the height of his inventive power. His renditions of 'I Will Turn Your Money Green' and 'Kassie Jones' have become standards on the blues repertoire."

LP version. "Fans of Sun Ra's Space Bop and genre-bending jazz were in for a shock with Strange Strings. Even in the eclectic and sometimes baffling Sun Ra catalog, Strange Strings is an outlier. It's primitive, it's sophisticated, but it's not a gradient of either. It's brutal, yet highly sensitive. Is it music, or just noise? Or noise as music? John Cage could not be reached for comment. For this album, Sun Ra collected an arsenal of exotic string instruments and handed them out to his Arkestra on the precept that 'strings could touch people in a special way.' That the Arkestrans didn't know how to play or tune these instruments was not beside the point -- it was the point. Ra framed it 'a study in ignorance.' The result was primitive, yet sophisticated; brutal, yet highly sensitive. In his essay for this expanded edition of the 1967 Saturn LP, musician-curator David Toop calls Strange Strings 'saturated in mystery.' The original 1967 Saturn LP version of Strange Strings was monophonic, contained three tracks, and suffered distortion in the mastering (perhaps due to the high-decibel studio performance and excessive reverb). Yet some sessions were captured in stereo. A dozen strange-string works have been located, five of which are included on this remastered edition. (The others have been released on other labels; see discography inside gatefold.) No track titles appeared on the original Saturn LP verso, but the three works issued were later identified as 'World's Approaching,' the LP title track, and an inversion of the title, 'Strings Strange.' A belatedly discovered tape box listed the third recording as 'Strange Strange,' a title which has been used in this edition."

"Drag City presents the first official reissue of Dorothy Carter's 1976 album debut, her folk-music exegesis, Troubadour. In her lifetime, Dorothy, a self-made traveling musician and folklorist, brought forth masterful evocations on hammered dulcimer and psaltery from a myriad of times and places. Her music was played, produced and sold outside of that era's mainstream music distribution. Troubadour reissue producer Eric Demby can look back to a childhood spent off the grid: the early '70s in rural Maine, and later on, in Boston -- wherever his freewheeling father brought the family, at one point or another, there too was Dorothy, as she lived and breathed, playing her hammered dulcimer. The early '70s found everyone living up on the farm up in rural Maine; it was here that Rutman, Constance, Dorothy and some others formed Central Maine Power Company, a troupe of almost feral improvisers playing on a combination of self-made and found instruments, with live video feedback to boot. In 1976, Dorothy had been playing music for decades, but had yet to record any of it. That year, she went to Cambridge's Studio B with Rutman and friend Steve Baer at the console. Constance and Sally Hilmer accompanied her. The performances captured there were released later that year as Troubadour. In addition to hammered dulcimer and psaltery, Dorothy played the flute and sang. She chose songs from all over: Appalachian folk tunes, old and ancient psalms and hymns, Scottish, Irish, French and Israeli melodies, with a few of her own songs for good measure. They all flow together effortlessly under Dorothy and friends' hands in a syncretic space that we can identify today as a garden of world musics -- a highly energized, alternately meditative and proselytic recital whose vitality has only burgeoned in the decades since it appeared. As it should be: the music of Dorothy Carter is akin to a portal, linking her with the eternal. This edition of Troubadour reproduces the original album package, adding an insert adorned with additional photos of Dorothy and her collection of instruments, as well as notes from Eric Demby exploring the era -- his childhood -- from a vantage point of some 50 years. This reissue is a long-held family dream come true, and it is dedicated in loving memory to Bob Rutman, Constance Demby, David Demby and Dorothy Carter."

Returning to the unreleased oeuvre of the master of cybernetic sound Roland Kayn, Frozen Reeds hereby unveils a new high watermark for longform electroacoustic composition, unfolding across 15 CDs in a luxurious gold-stamped boxed set. With Jim O'Rourke applying his signature restorative touch to the audio, and Robert Beatty taking his cryptic cybernetics-inspired artwork several steps beyond the label's previous Kayn box, The Ortho-Project (2007) finally sees a fitting release. In 1970, Roland Kayn began a decades-long period of research, development and creation at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Utrecht. In the mid to late '90s, Kayn retired, relocated to the Dutch countryside, and began to realize new electronic works at Reiger Recording Studio -- his modest home facility. "I finally came to the conclusion," he would later point out, "that I no longer needed studios to construct my own electronic music." The working methods Kayn arrived at individually -- without the room-filling synthesizers, mixing desks and signal-processing equipment of Sonology at his disposal -- saw him turning his own career into a cybernetic process. From the hours of recorded sound amassed in prior decades, he began processing and assembling a mountainous quantity of new music. His works of this period are focused on reabsorbing and recontextualizing his life's work to produce yet another series of utterly alien landscapes. From his retirement until his death in 2011, Kayn was wildly prolific, leaving an archive of dozens of finished electronic pieces. Earlier source material is often resculpted using the technology Kayn had available to hand, while other techniques such as sampling radio broadcasts or the plunderphonic quotation of others' works occasionally intercede. No notes accompany any of this music -- no word of explanation or expression of intent. Only the works and their titles remain, the latter often simply deepening the mystery. Their durations range from around 20 minutes to almost 18 hours. The Ortho-Project, presented here in its entirety, is among the longest. At this scale, Kayn's music is perhaps at its most immersive; the listener senses they are being invited to envelope themselves in a rich environment of diverse timbral physicality rather than a programmatic work. This is simply electronic music as you have never experienced it before.

"The mystery, the grace, the boundless invention -- Kayn's machine music is a vast catalogue of very human wonder." --The Guardian

Mick Harris has been an epitome of extremes: either as a drummer or as a sound sculptor and explorer of crushing beats, heavy bass or darkest soundscapes. Through the last 30 years, Harris has been an utterly prolific electronic artist (Monrella, The Weakener, Fret, Quoit), but known mostly for his famous project Scorn. At the beginning of the century, Harris started one of his longest-standing projects, HedNod. Alongside Scorn, HedNod turned out to be his most fruitful project, which in the meantime made up of as many as twenty volumes. GODrec is happy to announce the first instalment of HedNod boxes, featuring EPs that were originally available only as a download.

Wewantsounds presents the reissue of Steve Beresford's highly sought-after album Dancing the Line, released in France in 1985 on the French label nato. The album, taking its inspiration from French designer Anne Marie Beretta's fashion, features his Alterations acolyte David Toop plus Alan Hacker and Kazuko Hohki (Frank Chickens) with lyrics by Andrew Brenner. The music mixes sophisticated ambient pop powered by a RX11 drum machine with elements synth funk and experimental music. "Tendance" and "Comfortable Gestures" have become underground classics over the years and this is the first time the album is reissued, in partnership with nato. The reissue includes audio newly remastered by Translab in Paris, original gatefold artwork, and a four-page insert with liner notes by nato's Jean Rochard. British musician, composer and arranger Steve Beresford has been a vital force in the British and international music scene since the early '70s. Starting his recording career in 1973, recording with the Portsmouth Sinfonia alongside Gavin Bryars and Brian Eno, he went on to collaborate with a wide array of leading musicians in the free improvisation field and beyond, including Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Han Bennink, The Slits, Prince Far I, Thurston Moore, and Christian Marclay. In 1985, Rochard introduced Beresford to French fashion designer Anne Marie Beretta and, in Spring of that year, the musician came over to Paris with his friend and collaborator, lyricist Andrew Brenner to spend a few days at Beretta's atelier in order to write songs for an upcoming album themed around the designer's works. Together they came up with several songs inspired by the fashion ideas, the fabrics, the colors used by Beretta and the emotions they conveyed. The recording featured Beresford on piano, voice, Yamaha DX7 keyboard and RX11 drum machine, David Toop on flute and guitar, Alan Hacker on Clarinet and London-based Japanese singer Kazuko Hohki from the group Frank Chickens, which Beresford and Toop had recently produced. The album Dancing the Line was released in France in October 1985. It is a subtle mix of ethereal pop songs, funkier tracks, a beautiful piano ballad, and a couple of free instrumentals. In the last years, the album has been rediscovered by a growing legion of new fans and has become an underground favorite with many DJs and collectors around the world. Dancing the Line was only released in France at the time.

"Love Rudiments is a meditation by Ty Segall on his first love: the drums. Known popularly as a singing guitar player, he generally starts the recording of his songs by laying down a drum track. Love Rudiments kicks off with drums and percussion, then adds a few other percussive and production aspects. It travels a great journey in this configuration. However, Love Rudiments wasn't written or performed to present as some kind of solo drums album -- it's just another music album, with vibes (figurative as well as literal), feels, a theme and a through-line. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Ty's made an instrumental album of percussive music that rides the wild surf of a waxing-then-waning love affair -- from the first blinding look, to the eventual recognition, that look back at love's rudiments, viewed from beyond and outside that seemingly infinite sensation. And why not? Drums are a melody instrument too. Ty plays them with precision and sensitivity, delving deep into the textures of timpani, vibraphone, xylophone, percussion and e-drums, all of them occupying space within the luxe stereo spread of the drumkit. In the process, a psychological space is opened -- a private emotional location where only two can meet. Love Rudiments reembodies the passion and compulsion that drives all of Ty Segall's music in a suite of moments played on orchestral batterie to explore the most delicate passages of human interaction -- playing on the bones of love."

Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records present the second LP from Tomoyuki Trio (Tomoyuki Aoki, Mike Vest, and Dave Sneddon) following their debut LP Mars on the esteemed Riot Season Record Label. Tomoyuki Aoki is the founding member and lead guitarist of the legendary Tokyo Psych Monsters Up-Tight. Of all the Japanese psych-rock groups that emerged in the late nineties and early noughties, Up-Tight are the most reverent, the most directly plugged into the source, from their name (Velvet Underground) with knowing referential song titles like "Sweet Sister" to their extended heavy, dark black clad acid fried one chord psych melters -- bands like Fushitsusha, White Heaven, Kousokuya, Shizuka, and the grandaddies of 'em all, the deservedly-legendary, Les Rallizes Denudes. Shitsuren if anything has got an even heavier, dronier edge than the last one. Super fuzzed guitars, sad ballads, grinding distorto epics and numbed, narcotic rhythms. This is one to play at maximum volume so that you can soak up its molten magik, as over two sides of Shitsuren's grueling guitar hypnotics you uncover the darker side of the ensembles personality to find them digging deep to drag the audience with them into the shadows of stoner psyche. If you can picture Okhami No Jikan, Asahito Nanjo, Musica Transonic, and Toho Sara then you're close to the outrageous levels of psychedelic excess captured here, a riotous concoction of ferociously brooding, locked down heavy bearing intensity of fierce/brutal speaker battering in the red levels.

Ever wondered what music would sound like if it was ripped from the space directly preceding sleep? The tracks within this album are your gateway to discovery. These recordings, which were laid down especially for the USA radio stations WFMU and WGXC, will melt your speakers and your mind. Released on the ever-excellent Feeding Tube Records (USA) and Cardinal Fuzz (UK). Bhajan Bhoy (aka Ajay Saggar) symbolizes boundless creative freedom in all the music he has produced to date. This LP is no exception to that rule -- in fact, this album showcases an even wider spectrum of sounds and ideas than could ever be imagined. From heavy lysergic guitar excursions, to dub inflected guitar pedal pop, to nu-age minimalism, to electronic experimentalism -- all the terms and descriptions in the world don't do justice to the originality that lies within. When USA radio station WFMU asked Ajay to contribute tracks to a session for the show 'Feelings' (co-hosted by Michele and Creamo Coyl), he turned in five tracks that received tremendous feedback from around the world on the station's live chatline when broadcast. In addition, a session for WGXC further showcased the songwriting talent of Ajay. The ensuing three-week tour of the USA cemented Bhajan Bhoy's status as one of the most innovative musicians around. This LP marks another giant leap forward in Bhajan Bhoy's musical development. He's brimming with ideas and the imagination runs wild. This music is for the listeners who want to follow a path of discovery and be mesmerized and blown away by what they hear. Be sure to be one of the listening party. Written, recorded, mixed by Ajay Saggar at Soundation Studio in the summer of 2023. Mastered by Helmut Erler. Sleeve design by Jake Blanchard.

Evening Air is the result Loren Connors and David Grubbs's first trip to the recording studio in the two decades since their first duo album, Arborvitae (Häpna). Arborvitae stood out for its spell-binding, utterly unhurried meshing of electric guitar (Connors) and piano (Grubbs). With this long-awaited return, Connors and Grubbs take turns trading off on piano and guitar, with Grubbs at the keyboard for the two gently expansive pieces on the first side and Connors taking over the instrument for three gorgeous miniatures on the flip, including an album-closing and perfectly heart-stopping version of Connors's and Suzanne Langille's "Child." The album's wildcard is "It's Snowing Onstage," which finds the two locking horns with two electric guitars before Loren blew the minds of all present in the studio by unexpectedly switching to drums. Loren Connors is one-of-a-kind, one of a handful of deservedly storied musical greats gracing listeners with their presence, and with Evening Air David Grubbs again demonstrates that he's a stellar musician who also ranks among the most simpatico of collaborators.

"Black Magic Man is arguably the pivotal Joe McPhee release. It bridged the span between the regional and the international, bypassing the national altogether. Recorded in the same sessions that produced Nation Time, Black Magic Man consists of music not chosen for that LP. Like its much-feted sister, technically it falls under the domain of CjR, Craig Johnson's herculean effort in support of McPhee. An erstwhile painter, Johnson became a self-taught audio engineer, acquiring equipment expressly to document McPhee's music. In December 1970, five years after Johnson and McPhee had met, they recorded two days of activity -- a concert followed by an additional day of recordings -- at Vassar College where McPhee was teaching in the Black Studies department. About half of the material was used to make Nation Time. While they had planned to issue a follow-up, the money wasn't there, so the tapes sat dormant. Fast-forward five years -- Werner X. Uehlinger, a Swiss businessman who worked for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, contacted Johnson while on a trip to the US, and over dinner with McPhee, they discussed putting out some of the unused tracks from the Nation Time sessions. With this casual encounter in 1975, Hat Hut Records was inaugurated. The new label's maiden release was Black Magic Man, dubbed Hat Hut A, the first in what would become Hat Hut's letter series. Along the way, the series would feature seven Joe McPhee records, including the first four in a row." --John Corbett