"Silk is the fantastic third LP by Maxine Funke, a New Zealand musician whose first recordings were with the legendary $100 Band (Funke, Alastair Galbraith, and Mike Dooley!), whose music was drifting experimental dust of a very high order. Maxine's first two solo albums, Lace (2008) and Felt (2012) (originally released as CDR on Galbraith's Next Best Way and a lathe on Epic Sweep, respectively), were reissued by Time-Lag to great acclaim in 2016, securing her place in the upper echelons of contemporary folk inventors. With the release of Silk, Ms. Funke manages to create an album that merges both of these style threads. Many of the tracks are cast in an intimate mood congruent with artists like Sibylle Baier, Barbara Manning, Myriam Gendron, Joanne Robertson, and other women who have pulled sweetly dark sounds from pockets of deep emotion, abetted largely by acoustic guitar. On a few other tracks, electronic instrumentals hearken back to her work with transceivers in the $100 Band days. The balance between these posts is delicately intoxicating. A readymade classic from start to finish, Silk travels a brilliant series of spaceways with grace and assurance. We should all be so lucky." --Byron Coley, 2018. Edition of 400.

"Patriots is the first actual vinyl record dedicated entirely to the music of Boston's boss post-core art-punk trio, (New England) Patriots. Their other two long players are splits, with Palberta (FTR166EP, 2015) and Skimask. And while those two bands are certainly estimable in their own rights, the unadulterated churn of (NE) Patriots gives this album a very special squirm. Certain aspects of the blabber still make me think of the late, lamented Cows, and their whole whizzing raunch shebang. But there's nothing in my personal listening history that has this exact brand of sonic adventurism. The Pats still just use guitars, drums and tongues at work in shaping their sounds (certain bass register tones being ascribed to fat strings, perhaps?), and they have a beautifully anarchic approach to song assemblage. Some of the tunes stretch out like worms in Gibby Haynes' colon, others are compacted the way the Hobson Brothers' nut sacs might have if they'd given each other cube-dunks back in Killdozer's heyday. A firm and mighty sound." --Byron Coley, 2018. Numbered edition of 300.

"You know that old phrase, 'Teach a penguin to cuss, and you'll never have to buy another comedy record' I'm sure you do. But what about its codicil? 'Teach a guitarist to play synth, and you'll never have to buy a new age record?' If you know that one, you might well be put off by the fact this album features one of New Zealand's most wickedly post-tongue guitar players fiddling about with oscillators and analog synths (in concert with a guy who does this stuff all the time). But you need not fear. The only New Age being brunted about here is the same one Fahey disemboweled back in '97. An ornery cuss, it has lived in the cracks some-damn-place, only re-emerging now that it has been called forth by Bruce Russell and Noel Meek. Much of the sound on Classical Music (how Fahey would have loved everything about this record!) makes me think of Chris Marker's classic film, La Jetée (1962). As you certainly recall, the central motif in that film is the main quay at Aéroport de Paris-Orly, where visitors gather to watch the jets land and take off (just as I did at New York's Idlewild Airport when I was a kid). Well, particularly on the second side, this record is a jolt of aural déjà vu for me. If I close my eyes I can almost see a parade of 707s and DC-8s careening around the flats of Long Island, missing collisions by what seem like a series of miracles to me. Mr. Russell's last LP for us was 2016's Howling and Instability at High Volume Settings (FTR 219LP), and it is a sheer pleasure to realize how unstable he can be on instruments besides the guitar. Mr. Meek is wildly successful at this as well, and the combination is as bracing as an early morning slap of Old Spice. Step up for blast of Classical Music-style reality today. You'll be oh-so-glad you did." --Byron Coley, 2018. Edition of 250.

"Newly remastered reissue of Willie Lane's 2009 solo guitar LP, Known Quantity, originally released on his own Cord Art label. Over the last few years, this album has been requested at the store more often than just about any other, but it sold out not long after it was issued and has risen in price consistently since that time. Listening to Known Quantity, it's not hard to understand why it has such a strong rep. Lane came out the Hampshire College scene that aligned itself with the Apostasy Records crowd (Krefting, Shaw, Rosenblum, etc.). His first known recordings were actually with some of the noisier experimental units associated with this cabal. Willie was based in Philadelphia for a long time after college, where he fell in with Jack Rose and the whole Fishtown scene of the early Oughts. Moving back to the Valley, Willie also began working with Matt Valentine's tribe, and his first solo album,Recliner Ragas, was issued as a C.O.M. CDR in 2006 before getting vinylized by the Humito label in 2012. And keen listeners out there will detect a certain "Spectrasound" feel to some of the electric passages here. The music on Known Quantity is a buttery mix of electric and acoustic string aktion. Samara Lubelski plays bass on one track, but it's all solo apart from that. And it's a wonderland of textures and sound shapes. Some of the pieces are almost straight ahead (somewhat more in tunes with the work Willie does when he plays live), but others are as wobbly and jagged as a drunk peacock. It's an amazing record, and rewards multiple listens with constantly unfolding details. Max Milgram (from Watery Love) did the new cover art (based on the original LP's photographic frontispiece) and the mastering by Carl Saff is mighty nice. Enjoy..." --Byron Coley, 2018. Edition of 500.

Houndstooth, the artist-led label from London's renowned fabric nightclub and label, delivers a new compilation, In Death's Dream Kingdom. T.S. Eliot published The Hollow Men in 1925, yet his poem feels as relevant as ever, given its apocalyptic overtones and claustrophobic, despondent air. Twenty six artists producing the cream of leftfield electronic music have been given a brief: to take the phrase In Death's Dream Kingdom, or the whole of Eliot's poem as inspiration. The result is a compilation that features original tracks from Lanark Artefax, Pan Daijing, Gazelle Twin, and Fever Ray co-producer Peder Mannerfelt, among others. Vibrating with vivid sonic references, the poem is a feast for the ears, which makes it a ripe subject for musical interpretation. Not an album in the traditional sense, it brings together a seriously diverse array of talents into a coherent whole with a vivid aesthetic reverberating through it. It occupies a similar space to the great home listening electronica acts of the '90s: FSOL, Global Communication, the Artificial Intelligence axis. But there are no throwbacks here; this is radical in sound and thought. Dark music for dark times. Features the apocalyptic artwork of Rotterdam-based artist Jazz Szu-Ying Chen. Cut and mastered by Matt Colton at Alchemy. Also features: Otto Lindholm, Petit Singe, Tomoko Sauvage, Pye Corner Audio, Sophia Loizou, Abul Mogard, Par Grindvik, Koenraad Ecker, Roly Porter, Hodge, Shapednoise, ASC, Batu, We Will Fail, Peter Van Hoesen, Spatial, Yves De Mey, Mindspan, Kangding Ray, ZOV ZOV, Ian William Craig, and Christophe De Babalon.

Mannequin Records starts a series of re-presses dedicated to the legendary Nocturnal Emissions, one of the best kept secrets of the industrial genre since the 1970s. Led by Nigel Ayers and Caroline K, the band was one of the first to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was being cultivated by like-minded artists like Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire. Originally self-released in 1988 on Earthly Delights, Spiritflesh is a masterpiece and a major reference for the early drone/dark ambient minds. By the time the album came out, Nocturnal Emissions had already produced several albums of electronic music which varied from noisy to funky. Displaying his usual perversity, Nigel chose to ditch electronic dance music immediately before the acid house revolution and produce a series of utterly compelling atmospheric albums which are often referred to these days as being "ambient industrial". Spiritflesh was the first offering by the new shape of Nocturnal Emissions. The record "came out of a long, hard thinking, a personal examination of my own motives for working within music." Nigel Ayers played church harmonium, chime, and music box on the record, and used samples of chimpanzees, cattle, and African and European wild birds. While generally ambient, the music is not like Brian Eno's work; it is atmospheric, but impossible to relegate to the background. "There's always a dangerous intrusion of the real world into our music," Ayers said. "We're looking into the relationship between people and the environment, the kind of feedback which happens between people and locations. Underneath it all, this planet has got its own message."

Double LP version. "Jazz, funk, disco and boogie from the unlikely city of Houston, Texas: the definitive issue, with bonus tracks, mastered from the original tapes. Drummer, bandleader and activist Bubbha Thomas had toured America with R&B revues, served as a session musician for Peacock and Back Beat Records, and played straight ahead jazz with legends before the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s led him to a path first charted by Coltrane. Country Fried Chicken, his fourth LP with his Lightmen band is his most accessible, a mixture of funk and spiritual jazz. Contains second disc with bonus tracks: alternate, synth-lead mixes of songs from his first two LPs as well as rare and unreleased disco and boogie tracks. Extensive booklet included."

Spyglass presents Live at the Boston Tea Party '68 & '69, The Velvet Underground on an eight-disc collection bringing together four performances at the legendary Boston Tea Party. Lou Reed once described the venue as his favorite place to play, and finds the quartet tearing through a series of extended and reworked versions of their classics, with fiery guitar interplay throughout, as well as performing numerous tracks from their recently released self-titled third album (1969). An essential collection of a great band at their most vital, it's presented here as over forty tracks for the first time together, professionally re-mastered with background notes and images. Packaged in clamshell box.

Sub Rosa present Octavian Nemescu's Gradeatia - Natural 1973-83. Nemescu was born in Pascani, Romania in 1940. He studied composition with Mihail Jora at University of Music in Bucharest. While still a student, he imposed himself as part of avant-garde movement in Romanian music composition. After 1965 he produced works of the "open creation" type, a blending of conceptual and environmental music. He involved himself after 1967 in the Romanian spectral trend. Starting with the work Concentric (1969), his creation received archetypal vocation by cultivating an aesthetic of the essential. Octavian Nemescu cultivated the archetypal goals on all parameters and musical forms. He is the author of Implosive Music and of Imaginary Music. He composed Multi-, Post-, Non- and Pre-Symphonies. Later, he became interested in music with initiation character, developed in a non-spectacular, ritualistic atmosphere, as a chance to reinvigorate the old mysteries and as a modality of awakening from biological, mental and spiritual sleep. Gradeatia was composed in 1982, commissioned by the Electroacoustic Music Studio in Gent (Belgium), where it was elaborated. It was conceived as ambient music for Voronet Monastery in Moldavia, as an electronic-audio fresco paralleling the existing one, embracing the idea of mural-visual consistency. It happened in a historic moment when the communist regime in Romania demolished many churches, and was conceived as a protest to these actions. Natural was composed in 1973, in its first version, and again in 1983, in a final version. This music has a spectral aesthetic orientation and at the same time, process-based and archetypal orientations.

Limited 2018 repress; LP version. "Following on from 2012's acclaimed Imikizushi (BT 007CD/LP), Now While It's Still Warm Let Us Pour in All the Mystery is the fourth release from the established power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi, recorded in January 2012 at their yearly concert at SuperDeluxe, Tokyo. While the trio's two previous double LP releases featured sprawling, side-long performances, the music here is presented in six shorter pieces, each one displaying a different side of the trio's interactions, from holy minimalism to cave-man rock. The record begins with the trio joined by special guests Charlemagne Palestine and Eiko Ishibashi, conjuring ghostly tones from wine glasses as an accompaniment to Haino's angelic vocals. This 10-minute piece, which moves from near silence and the sound of onstage footsteps to a stunning passage of clean guitar work from Haino, is steeped in the same mysterious atmospherics as Haino's great folk-drone project, Nijumu. When Haino turns to the flute on the LP's second track, a performance that clearly demonstrates the importance of the special concept of space and silence (ma) that Haino has developed from traditional Japanese aesthetics, O'Rourke and Ambarchi transform into the delicate and probing rhythm section of a classic '70s fusion side. When the trio returns to the crushing free-rock of their last two records, O'Rourke's heavily effected bass rolling alongside Ambarchi's tumbling rhythms as Haino's guitar squeals and slashes above them, their performances display a new purposefulness and concision. Now truly operating as a band after a number of years of playing together, the pieces here feel like instant rocks songs -- O'Rourke and Ambarchi instantly locking into solid riffs over which Haino alternates between jarring no-wave chords, intense soloing and his signature vocalizations. When the trio slow down and stretch out, the rhythm section plods like an abstracted Crazy Horse on the brink of collapse, and Haino elicits long, mournful solos reminiscent of the first classic Fushitsusha double live LP. Perhaps more accessible than the trio's previous recordings because of its range and concision, Now While It's Still Warm... exudes the dark, alien quality of Haino's greatest recordings and testifies to the strength of the musical bond that has developed between these three players. --Francis Plagne, Jan 2013." Limited edition LP in a lavish gatefold with a printed inner sleeve. Design by Stephen O'Malley with high quality live shots by Ujin Matsuo and stunning artwork by Shunichiro Okada.

LP version. It's ten years that The Rongetz Foundation is hanging around the five boroughs. Ten years of wonderful jazz-tainted recordings, with Gary Bartz, Gregory Porter, Corey Fonville, and Ronnie Cuber, to name a few, "stained" with the grit of soul and funk music that Rongetz (aka Stephane Ronget) likes to bring to the table. This album, Alphabet City Music Club is a marvelous example of that stylish balance established in between raw and sophisticated feel. The place of the recording first, Alphabet City, is a genuine inner town in Manhattan that was for long time defined like this: "Avenue A, you're Alright. Avenue B, you're Brave. Avenue C, you're Crazy. Avenue D, you're Dead". There are two sessions that are part of the album: one is very much jazz-funk oriented with Corey Fonville (drums), Corcoran Holt (bass), Mathis Picard (keys), Morgan Guerin (tenor sax/EWI), and Erena Terakubo (alto sax/flute). The other one spreads soul music all around with: Homer Steinweiss (drums), Jeremy Kay (bass), Kyle Koehler (organ), and Guerin (tenor sax). The two sessions, ultimately came together with the help of talented young vocalists Alina Engibaryan (Snarky Puppy), Vuyo Sotashe, Vanisha Gould, Lewis Parker, and Mr Day. Mix all those elements in a rusty blender and you will enjoy the bootleg Bourbon, hard shake that is Alphabet City Music Club.

Snapshot release by new Editions Mego signing, the Bristol-based Finlay Shakespeare. Routine is a twitchy electro monster confronting the listener with a worked up a blend of AFX, Cabaret Voltaire, and New Order. The B-Side "Perris" propels itself as a crazed analog drama that is as ambitious as it is unholy. Simultaneously a modern throwback to the brooding synth pop age and an absolute belter in the contemporary mainframe, Finlay Shakespeare has made it quite clear, that he is here.

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. Favorite Recordings presents Jongler, the first album by Pat Kalla, produced by Bruno "Patchworks" Hovart. Pat Kalla is a musician, singer and storyteller. Patrice is his birth name, in tribute to the great Lumumba! Lover of words, French language, and music of course, he was born in Lyon, to a Cameroonian father, musician and political activist, and a French and literary mother. On Jongler, he explores from his childhood the soul, the slam, the funk ...and the art of telling stories, life being a great one. After years of touring alongside many bands (Conte & Soul, Legend of Eboa King, Mento Cloub, Voilaaa Sound System), several acclaimed tracks on two albums by Voilaaa (FVR 107CD/LP, 2013 and FVR 132CD/LP, 2017) and recently an acclaimed first EP revealing some hot singles such as "Lady Angola" or "Ancien Combattant", he comes back with this project to put a bit of primordial lightness in a rainy world. Jongler is a tribute to the African culture in honor of a father with "Sawa" origins, the tribe from the people of Makossa. Jojo Ngallé, Moni Bilé, Pain, Manu Dibango, Franco, Rochereau, Kabaselé, Fela, François Nkotti & The Black Style, all these legends' music has turned on the family turntable and the collection whetted the child's appetite. Through this new trip, Kalla revisits styles that are sometimes little-known to Western audiences, such as high life, makossa, Angolan music, afrobeat, afro-disco, and others. One could talk about "Franc CFA", one could talk about Jacques Foccart, but it's better to dance, because "the dancer seems naive, but his feet must be connected with earth to understand history." Backed by the Super Mojo Disco, a hyperactive band from Lyon with deep groove and positive energy, Pat Kalla offers us an anti-crisis project, where swaying and feel-good humor is mandatory! An album soon in the crates, beware; "c'est medicament" (it's medicine)!

2018 repress. "It's not often that an album disavowed by its own author at the time of release goes on to become considered a modern classic. Yet that's exactly what happened with Chicago blues legend Howlin' Wolf's 1969 LP The Howlin' Wolf Album, a release that has since attained mythical status due to the controversy behind it. Released on Cadet Records, a subsidiary of legendary imprint Chess Records, The Howlin' Wolf Album was a radical experiment for a well-established artist: attempt to integrate electric instruments and psychedelic arrangements into his revered signature blues sound. The result was an album that Wolf himself initially disregarded on the now infamous cover, but one that has won a special place amongst dedicated music aficionados thanks to its unique mix of traditional blues and electric rock elements. Get On Down's reputation for high quality reissues continues with The Howlin' Wolf Album, which features a special Stoughton vinyl pressing with audio remastered from the original analog tapes for optimum sound quality and comes packaged in a paste-on style jacket featuring the album's famous original artwork."

2018 repress. "The second of two electric-blues albums released on Chess Records and Cadet Concept imprint in the late '60s, Muddy Waters' After the Rain has achieved cult-like status amongst blues fans in the years since his death in 1983. After taking a backlash from critics with first attempt at adopting psychedelic influences on Electric Mud, Muddy made adjustments for the follow-up, despite keeping a majority of the same session players. This time, he toned down the psychedelic elements and put them in balance with his classic Chicago blues sound, and the results yield some vintage tracks that glow with fuzzy guitars and bass: 'I Am the Blues,' 'Ramblin' Mind,' 'Bottom of the Sea,' and 'Blues Trouble.' After being out of print for years, Get On Down is proud to present this rare classic from Muddy Waters pulled from the original masters and presented on LP with Japanese-style OBI and double-sided poster."

2014 release. Hariprasad Chaurasia celebrated his 80th birthday this year; a good moment for Ajanma, this unique solo album by the world legend bansuri master form India. Chaurasia is an Indian virtuoso flautist in the Hindustani tradition, born 1 July 1938 in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. Ajanma takes a unique place in the discography of the North Indian flute legend. The recording was captured in a small sixteenth-century church in Rhoon, Netherlands in June 2014, which is well-known for the character and quality of its acoustics. This double CD is comprised of two solo improvisations accompanied by a tanpura and a short piece of flute without the usual tanpura drone. The deliberate omission of a percussion accompaniment allows Chaurasia to take his flute on an intimate journey, carrying the listener through the honesty, density of color, and lyrical architecture of the world of sound. Chaurasia's patience and the purity of his musical mind enable him to use his flute to illuminate the landscapes of the listener's imagination, making this recording a truly profound, intimate and meditative communication with the maestro.

LP version; 180 gram vinyl. 1929 - Das Jahr Babylon marks Thomas Fehlmann's third full-length release of 2018 and presents what appears to be a creative peak in a career that spans beyond his solo work to his early days in Palais Schaumburg, collaborating with Moritz von Oswald as 3MB to his long time work with The Orb. Having left The Orb in late 2017 has set free unforeseen energies in Fehlmann's studio. A departure from his recent dance floor-friendly album Los Lagos (KOMP 148CD/KOM 388LP), 1929 - Das Jahr Babylon is a film soundtrack from the documentary that aired on ARD network on September 30, 2018 and is now available as a podcast series. To complement the internationally-lauded TV series Berlin Babylon, German director Volker Heise has created a documentary about 1929, the fateful year during Germany's Weimarer Republik in which Berlin Babylon is set. Heise's stirring documentary portrays Germany's sizzling capital faced with radical changes by the dark forces about to toss the world into the abyss of World War II. This marks the second time that Fehlmann is partnering with Heise after 2010's marathon documentary 24 Stunden Berlin which was released as Gute Luft (KOMP 081CD, KOM 211LP) in the same year. Fehlmann's composition for 1929 consists of sample material taken from the era and thwarts the exaggerated lust for life with threatening undertones that anticipate the dawn of mankind's darkest chapter so far. Although all the sounds breathe yesterday's atmosphere this soundtrack bursts with modernity. Fehlmann accomplished the daring feat to musically render the unsettling resemblance between the political situation 90 years ago and our current time. KOMPAKT feels that Fehlmann's score has turned out spectacularly enough to give it proper release.

LP version. Created in 2006, Setenta, the Latin soul band from Paris, spread a unique mix over the world scene and now deliver We Latin Like That. After sparkling debuts with their first albums Funky Tumbao (2010), Latin Piece Of Soul (HC 025CD/LP, 2013), Paris To Nueva York (LBN 101CD/LP, 2016), and following successful live experiences and strong links developed with New York and Joe Bataan, the Latin soul legend, the French seven-piece combo is back with this modern definition of Latin music. Composed and arranged collectively, this new opus mixes up Latin, funk, pop and jazz, with the same percussive and strong vocal section, sung in Spanish, English, Creole and Yoruba, (cf. their arrangement of the traditional "Rezo A Obatala"). They also salute the great Camilo Azuquita with a rework of "Guajiro Bacan" (Ramon "Saoco" Perez), which they bring as a pledge of allegiance to the Latin soul genre. Setenta spreads love, peace and positive energy all over the world, breaking rules and claiming We Latin Like That.

Lyra is DeWalta's fourth large solo project and third full-length solo album following Wander in 2012, llumination in 2014, and Dark Matter in 2017. The album consists of two individually available parts: a double LP (Lyra) with six tracks, as well as a single LP (Lyra Pi (MEANDER 026LP, 2018)) with five synth and ambient works. The ambient part launches a new Meander series, a departure from Meander's well-known dance floor releases. Lyra is by far DeWalta's most extensive and refined project to date. With 11 exclusive songs, a total running time of over 100 minutes (plus a collaboration with long-time friend and Meander co-owner Fabian Geimer-Lorusso aka Jupiter), it marks a new beginning of ambient and score-like modern electronic music works as well as the continuation of his inspired intellectual-emotional approach to dance music. Lyra is a constellation in the northern hemisphere which is highest in the midnight sky in the early summer months. It contains one of the brightest stars in the sky -- Vega. Many of the songs on this album were produced in these warm and gentle months during an inspirational creative time in Portugal. In Greek mythology, Lyra represents the lyre of Orpheus, Apollo's son. Made by Hermes from a tortoise-shell, it was given to Apollo who then passed it along to Orpheus; it is said to be the first music instrument ever made.

2018 repress. Deluxe 3LP version: packaged in a six-panel triple gatefold jacket with a 16-page full-color booklet. "The untold story of Indonesia's various underground 70s musical scenes; extensive liner notes, photographs and ephemera; fully restored and remastered audio; officially licensed." Artists: Panbers, The Brims, Rollies, Shark Move, Golden Wing, AKA, IVO's Group, Ariesta Birawa Group, Terenchem, Benny Soebardja and Lizard, Super Kid, Koes Plus, The Gang Of Harry Roesli, Black Brothers, Rasela, Freedom Of Rhapsodia, Rhythm Kings, Duo Kribo.

2018 repress. "Issued in 1975, this is the articulation of Zambia's Zamrock ethos. While other albums -- Rikki Ililonga's Zambia, Witch's Lazy Bones!! -- are competitors, it's hard to best this album as it covers each major quadrant of the Zamrock whole: it came from the mines; its musicians were anti-colonial freedom fighters, it envelops Zambian folk music traditions, and it rocks -- hard. Amanaz were serious, and they made a serious stab at an album. They titled their album Africa, according to original band member Keith Kabwe, 'because of how it was shared and how its inhabitants were butchered and enslaved, its resources stolen... all the atrocities slave drivers committed. ' Thus, their 'Kale,' a blues sung in Nyanja, that traced the continent's arc from slavery to Zambia's independence closes the album. Kabwe and rhythm guitarist John Kanyepa have a winsome softness to their vocals, which sit politely aside the feral growl of drummer Watson Baldwin Lungu, bassist Jerry Mausala and bandleader/lead guitarist Isaac Mpofu. Africa's vibe ranges from anxious ('Amanaz') to escapist ('Easy Street') to straight-up pissed-off. On the 'History of Man,' his voice whiskey-burned, his distorted guitar buzzing like swarming hornets, Mpofu indicts his species. There's a darkness to Africa not found on any other Zamrock records, and a melancholy drifts throughout, specifically on Mpofu's more restrained 'Khala My Friend,' which stands as an effective, bleak situation for the Zambian everyman, the average citizen of a struggling, new nation, who might have had relatives in conflict-torn countries on the horizon, who might have been struggling to find his next meal, who might have seen a bleaker future than his president promised. Then there's the clear Velvet Underground-influence on the nostalgic 'Sunday Morning,' which, as Kabwe recalls, was the first song written for the album, back in 1968, when Velvet Undergound and Nico was a new release -- and the underground funk of 'Making the Scene.' The album also tackles traditional Zambian music and early-'60s rock -- punctuated, of course by Kanyepa's wah-wah and Mpofu's fuzz guitars. But every time Amanaz get too deep, too violent, they come back with an accessible song and woo their listener back to the groove. 'Green Apple' is a civil song, featuring Kanyepa's sighing guitar. It is a perfectly arranged album, from the dichotomy of Mpofu's and Kanyepa's lead and rhythm guitars, to the vocal harmonies, to the rhythm section's sense of space and time, which allows Africa's funk to build. Inexplicably, Africa was given two separate mixes and two separate presses: one version is dry, with the vocals and drums mixed loud, the other slathered in reverb, with the vocals and drums disappearing into the mix, and with the guitar solos mixed much louder. We've presented them both here as they each have their appeal: it's up to the listener to pick the one he or she prefers. This is a highpoint of the Zamrock scene and we hope that this can be seen as its definitive reissue."

Optimo Music releases The Sampler As Time Machine, the new album from Lia Mice, Australian-born but UK-residing DJ, producer and instrument designer. Mice on the album: "When I moved to London in 2015, many things changed at once (I started going to more techno and electro nights, I changed my live-set setup, and I had access to a fully-equipped recording studio through my music masters program. At the same time I was reading a lot of books on time travel, not just science fiction but also psychology and neuroscience (like how the human brain perceives time from moment to moment, how we can experience overlapping time, and how we interact with our past and future through memory and imagination. The Sampler As A Time Machine is the result of all these new influences coming together. The tracks were developed out of ongoing studio experiments interpreting these different ideas of time travel by using samplers and tape to re-sample and manipulate original music performed by me on various instruments including my voice."

Following Pingipung's reissue of Umeko Ando's Ihunke, the label invited an eclectic bunch of producers to remix Umeko Ando's Ainu folklore songs. Folktronica wizard Nicolá Cruz replaces Umeko's voice with a traditional flute and infuses "Battaki" with driving, percussive spirits. Gama and RLHBSLCN focus on the psychedelic tremors in Umeko Ando's brittle voice in "Iyomante Upopo" and "Atuy So Kata". Andi Otto captures a funky acid-bass energy in "Iyomante Upopo". M.RUX's take on "Herutun Rutun" is definitely another masterpiece in his oeuvre. El Búho takes the "Battaki" Tonkori, a Japanese hand-held harp, and creates a type of slow house.

Mark Barrott is the man behind International Feel, Roca, Future Loop Foundation, as well as being a founding member of the Balearic boy-band Talamanca System alongside Gerd Janson and Lauer. Nature Sounds of The Balearics is Mark's debut LP on Running Back Incantations.

2018 repress; LP version; black vinyl. "I believe the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard." --John Cage, 1937.

"Although John Cage occasionally worked in large, sophisticated studios -- for example, when he composed 'Fontana Mix' in 1958 -- his approach to electronic and tape music was often uncomplicated, makeshift, and pragmatic, employing simple tabletop devices: tape machines, phonograph cartridges, contact microphones, record players, portable radios, etc. He developed a soundworld that was utterly new, radical and demanding. It heralded the age of the loudspeaker, mass communication and Marshall McLuhan's 'global village.' The hiss, crackle and hum of electronic circuits, and the disembodied sounds, snatched by radio from the ether, spoke of the 20th century. Langham Research Centre works within the tradition firmly established by Cage, using resources that would have been available to him. For the realization of Cartridge Music, moving iron phonograph pickups were sourced and restored. These have a knurled screw designed to hold a steel phonograph needle and, in the piece, other objects are inserted and amplified: pieces of wire, toothpicks, paperclips, etc. The realization of 'Fontana Mix' includes the individual mono tracks from Cage's original tapes created in 1958. These are played using open-reel tape machines. These practices ensure we work within the limitations that Cage experienced and enable us to get close to the soundworld he inhabited." --Robert Worby, Langham Research Centre

Sylvain Chauveau on Pianisme: "Piano always had a central role in my discography and this selection of short pieces showcases what might be my musical signature: quietness, slow pace, long resonances, a close as possible to silence. Music to be played at night."

Pianisme is a collection of unreleased and out-of-print piano works composed and recorded since 2004. Most of them are part of soundtracks for feature films by French director Sébastien Betbeder (from 2007's Nuage and the very rare short film Nu Devant Un Fantôme, whose music was completely unpublished until now). Also released for the first time: "In The Twilight Of Paris" (written the day after Luc Ferrari's death, as a quiet homage to a composer whose works have often been part of the Sub Rosa catalog) and "Soñando", straight repetition and variations on a minimal pattern, created for choreographer Christian Rizzo's 2010 show L'Oubli, toucher du bois. Performers include Sylvain Chauveau, Pierre-Yves Macé, Olivier Lageyre, and Rasim Biyikli.

2018 repress. Reissue of Current 93's seminal double album from 1992, Thunder Perfect Mind. Newly and perfectly remastered by The Bricoleur, this reissue comes with a new face to the old sleeve designed by Ania Goszczyńska. Comes on transparent purple vinyl and includes a four-page lyric insert. This reissue marks the first time that Thunder Perfect Mind has been available on vinyl since its first pressing in 1992.

LP version, gatefold sleeve. Wan Chai Records is a Hong Kong-based label, specialized in rare Asian records and quality reissues. For their third release, after a few years of hard digging and historical researches, they went deeper with Hong Kong Score, an introspection into the music of the Chinese cinema industry with a selection of tracks from Hong-Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, specially produced for movies and illustrations. The result is a compilation of 12 totally unknown gems sung mostly in Mandarin and Cantonese, from real deep instrumentals, hip-hop breaks, Ethio-style crazy drums, to heavy bass in the Alain Goraguer style. This is an amazing introduction to '60s and '70s Chinese music, an inspiration for beat-makers, and a must-have for novices or Asian vintage music lovers. Features: Yao Su Rong, Lena Lim, Li Tai-Hsiang, Teresa Teng, The Apollo, Yuan Ye San Chong Chang, Soul Dance Music, Li Tai-Hsiang, You Ya, New Wave Orchestra, Chang Siao Ying, and Xian Jin Ren and Zeng Zhong Ying.

Chaos In The Cbd return to Mule Musiq quickly after their beautiful debut single on the label in the beginning of 2016, Digital Harmony (MUSIQ 193EP). Three first class, jazzy, deep house tunes.

Slices Of Life celebrates the tenth release with a two-part vinyl compilation. The A side of 10.2 is dedicated to the legendary Berlin producers and DJ duo Cab Drivers: "A Complex Situation" catches you with its irresistible swinging groove and synth lines. Oscar Schubaq, DJ, Producer and co-owner of the label Tardis Records, starts the B-side with "K-Beat", a rough jackin' house tune. The great finale comes from the Parisian Deeply Rooted label owner DJ Deep. With "Spices Of Life" he creates a wonderful, atmospheric, and deep piece of music carried by rolling basslines and playful melody fragments.

Arguably one of the most acclaimed and loved bands of the past 20 years, by both fans and their musical peers alike, The Beta Band formed in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1996. Innovative and singular, their unique musical and aesthetic approach to everything they did set them far apart from their musical contemporaries. Together for a relatively short period of time, the three albums and three EPs they released between 1996 and 2004 would nonetheless help define them as one of the most exciting and cherished bands of their generation. Heroes To Zeros is the third and final studio album by The Beta Band released in 2004. It was mixed by famed producer Nigel Godrich and rose to number 18 in the UK charts. Three-panel digisleeve with 12-page poster booklet.

"I think the first time I heard Merzbow must have been 1994. I remember not really knowing what to make of it. It was effortlessly deep and aggressive, but also emotive and lyrical in the way the waves of sound would erupt and decay. It wasn't easy then to discover information about artists, but within a few months I had learned as much as I could. In the mid 2000s, I had the chance to meet Masami Akita, aka Merzbow and present him live when I was co-producing the What Is Music? Festival. It was a pretty special event; the first (sonic) meeting of Merzbow and Keiji Haino took place here in Brisbane. Merzbow's solo performance was as transformative an experience as hearing his music for the first time. MONOAkuma is a live recording made in Brisbane in 2012; this was the second time I had the pleasure to present him live in Australia. To me, this performance epitomizes the physiology of Merzbow's sound work. He creates in absolutes; sonically he generates a tidal wave of frequency that sweeps across the spectra with tireless frenzy. Merzbow's capacity to conjure a massive swirling mesh of analog and digital sources is without comparison; his work is one of intensity, a seething, psychedelic and utterly visceral noise-ocean. What MONOAkuma represents is a resolution of Merzbow's work across both analog and digital noise mediums. Here, he brings together his formidable pulsing analog noise and his more recent digital approach. On MONOAkuma, he resolves these modes of operation into an ontology of noise in the absolute. There is no question - this is about the body and the ears being overwhelmed. In those moments of being wholly consumed comes an incredible bodily sense of euphoria that is a truly unique and profound experience. MONOAkuma which epitomizes Merzbow's 40 years as the most important noise musician of our time, demonstrating the intense and complex audio world he's created. It's the perfect starting point from which to wade into the noise ocean that is Merzbow's vast output." --Lawrence English. All proceeds from MONOAkuma will be used to fund research and preservation attempts for the Tasmanian Devil; which in recent years has suffered greatly due to effects of a transmissible facial cancer.

"This work, a masterpiece of restraint, reflects the musical imagination of someone who has spent long periods in the quiet recesses of the mind." --Terry Riley

Beacon Sound present a reissue of Hans Otte's The Book Of Sounds (Das Buch Der Klänge) originally released in 1984. Hans Otte (1926-2007) was a multifaceted artist, poet, pianist, composer, and promoter who synthesized the strands of minimalism, Eastern spirituality, and radical art into his own unique and protean vision. In his younger years he studied under the composer Paul Hindemith and the pianist Walter Gieseking. From 1959 to 1984 he was the director of Radio Bremen and was instrumental in introducing artists such as John Cage, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich to European audiences. Although the compositions and recordings that Otte made over the course of his long career are wide­ranging, The Book Of Sounds is considered to be his masterwork. A solo piano piece, it was written between 1979 and 1982 after a major survey of his previous artistic output and should be viewed through the prism of his own self-development: both as a return to his roots and as a new beginning. It is a cyclical collection of 12 "chapters" that are inspired partly by John Cage's desire to get to the root of sound itself, to liberate it from the weight of expectation and tradition and to view all sound as a manifestation of nature. In a 1979 interview, Otte answered a question about whether his work had a "common core" by saying, "I would say that behind my artistic work, as an aim or hope, is the need to find myself. In other words: despite all the separating structures, the division of all the work, the ideologies, fixed ideas, systems, despite the state and everything that ceaselessly tries to separate and divide us, I fundamentally want to be complete." It might be tempting to assign The Book Of Sounds to the aesthetic of minimalism; however, it is a deceptively sophisticated collection of pieces that unfolds slowly over repeated listens with shifting harmonics and unusual structural touches that keep it firmly on the side of "avant-garde". Includes booklet with contemporary liner note contributions by Terry Riley, Inga Ahmels, and Dustin O'Halloran as well as a reprint of a 1982 Village Voice live review by Tom Johnson and photos taken by his daughter Silvia. First edition of 500.

"Rewind 2018, our mammoth annual survey of the last 12 months of key underground music activity in 26 pages of crucial charts and critical comment. Plus Marc Masters on the rise of minimalist rock, Lewis Gilbert on the sound of climate change, Chal Ravens on the death of four-to-the-floor, and more. Plus Kepla and DeForrest Brown, Jr, Still House Plants, Big Joanie, Jasmine Guffons and Invisible Jukebox with Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore."

LP version. Includes poster. Silent Servant returns with Shadows of Death and Desire. Now-legendary producer, DJ, and art director Juan Mendez arguably reset techno at least twice. Once with his surreal and Europe-by-way-of-LA '80s apocalypse culture aesthetics for Sandwell District, and again as Silent Servant capturing the youth-driven mutation of crossover electronics and dark parties churning in the American underground, which followed directly in the wake of his game-changing modern classic, Negative Fascination (2012). Mendez has evolved to more aggressive and stripped-down acid punk electro dance attacks Shadows of Death and Desire. Mendez took his time to deliver a more raw --yet refined-- brutalism on this, his second album. The otherworldly guitar feedback of opener "Illusion" is cut short with a relentless bass sequence erasing any preconceptions of softening with time. Stereo-panned dusty snares drag along concrete and break apart with without a past or future. The introductory hypnotic sprawl is hastily dissected and left behind for the systematic tension of single "Harm In Hand." Cold drum machine rolls that could have been removed with a laser from early Ministry are offset with a vocal delivery not felt in techno since Suicide. The narrative is constantly disrupted by caustic guitar stabs, its naked urgency like slamming on the brakes while inertia thrusts you forward in space but decidedly not in time. In his own words, "The record is a product of a significant life change that wasn't a benefit," which is eerily felt from the start but is surprisingly washed away with album closer, "Optimistic Decay" (which has become a mission statement from Mendez's visual ideology). "Optimistic Decay" sees Mendez reuniting with vocalist Camella Lobo (Tropic Of Cancer). Lobo's voice rises from spectral vocal delays beyond dub. A subtle nod to Silent Servant's initial Maurizio-leaning EPs but with the grandiosity and opioid slow-motion haze of My Bloody Valentine. Also a student of cinematic deconstruction, the album looks inward from the exterior of LA's untold stories in the netherworlds on the edge of the city, a rapid crash course in confidence games and subsequent letdowns. Shadows of Death and Desire sets the standard in electronic post-punk. Mixed and mastered by Josh Eustis. Designed by Silent Editions.