Sonic's Rendezvous Band were Detroit '70s legends that included Fred "Sonic" Smith of The MC5 and Scott Asheton of The Stooges. In 1978 Sonic's Rendezvous Band recorded only two studio tracks which are in this LP, including the mighty "City Slang" plus other tracks recorded live in Detroit in 1978 with excellent sound quality. A total must-have for all fans of The Stooges and The MC5 as well as Bored!, Radio Birdman, The New Christs, The Hellacopters, etc. This album has been previously released under the name Too Much Crack. Released under license from Easy Action Records.

LP version. Includes download card. Cold Spring Records present the complete recording of A Slow Fade To Total Transparency. Recorded on August 24th, 1983 at the Air Gallery in London, UK. Personnel for the performance: John Balance (Coil), John Gosling (Zos Kia), Marc Almond (Soft Cell), and live mix by Peter Christopherson (Coil, Throbbing Gristle). Features: "How To Destroy Angels", the complete 23-minute piece; "How To Destroy Angels (Zos Kia Remix)", a nine-minute, unheard remix by John Gosling; and "Baptism Of Fire", an unreleased recording of Zos Kia/Coil at Recession Studios, London, England on October 12, 1983. Liner notes by Michel Faber (Under The Skin (2000), The Crimson Petal And The White). All audio, previously unreleased, has been remastered from the original tapes and is exclusive to this release.

Michel Faber: "Imagine how out-of-step with the dominant culture Coil were when they unveiled themselves in the Air Gallery to perform A Slow Fade To Total Transparency. Subtitled: How To Destroy Angels, the music -- a backing track prepared by John Balance, John Gosling and Peter Christopherson -- bears only scant resemblance to the How To Destroy Angels 12" that Coil would release as their debut vinyl the following year. Instead of the meditative ritual gongs of the 12", what we hear here is a restless, queasy melange of industrial noise, its eerie whistles the perfect backdrop for Marc Almond as he recites a bitter tirade against an ex-lover."

Jay Glass Dubs sublimates Athenian distress and ennui into plasmic dub ether on Plegnic, his lushly evolved first collection of new material for Ecstatic, following from on from Dubs (ELP 032LP, 2017). Where Dubs was a set of his earliest, hard-to-find tape releases, deconstructing and rebuilding Jamaican dub with Musique Concrete production methods and a lingering air of inspiration from classic 4AD, new age and laïko, or Greek popular music, on Plegnic Jay Glass Dubs fascinatingly evolves his sound with richer melodic and harmonic arrangements in a concerted effort to expand the nostalgic, esoteric and dance floor dimensions of his unique sound world. Plegnic is an extinct word meaning "to strike like a hammer", and offers a palpable sense of nostalgia. In this archaic context, JGD uses vintage machines and obsolete samples in conjunction with vocals from Yorgia Karydi -- former beau of his childhood neighbor, and Andreas Kassapis, one of his oldest friends, who provides the cover art -- to conjure a mutated take on classic and well-trodden styles, metaphorically and anachronistically renewing their purpose while connoting his newfound dance floor drive in the process. Recording took place at his mother's house in the Athens suburbs, with Fugazi's Steady Diet Of Nothing on repeat. It was here that he dug out an old Juno, a Yamaha RX5 drum computer, and some "crappier equipment" that provides the structural scaffold to his array of nostalgic, melancholic Laïka samples, which could be considered the diffused soul of this superb five part-crop. On the A-side he sets out to spook with the desiccated, stepper's motion of "Temple Dub" featuring heavily processed vocals by Karidi, but heady nostalgia takes over with a sublime tactility in the vaulted chorales and reverb tails of "Umbro Dub", and again in the aching sehnsucht of "Mouthless Dub", where traces of Laïka's bouzouki melodies glimmer. However, the B-side is far more upfront and up-for-it, putting weight behind the cranky skank of "Dry Dub" with its hexagonal drums and acidic bass squirm, then in the super-squashed swagger of "Fearless Dub", the near-ten-minute pinnacle of his dance floor output to date. Ultimately, Jay Glass Dubs's music is riddled with the kind of nostalgia that can make an unfamiliar piece of music feel like an intense déjà entendu, like you've heard it before in a dream or some altered state; that's a rare and precious thing. Limited to 500.

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Includes download code. Up until Nova Bossa Nova, Marcos Valle's first release for Far Out Recordings originally released in 1997, Marcos Valle hadn't released an album for well over a decade. After 1983, he resented the way the music industry had changed with commercialization and new demands curtailing his creative freedom. This was until 1994 when Marcos met Far Out Recordings boss Joe Davis and they recorded a track for Far Out's first Friends From Rio album. This new collaborative partnership resulted in a new solo album, which commenced recording in 1996. Nova Bossa Nova brought Marcos bouncing back into the '90s, slotting nicely in place alongside the acid jazz movement as well as a voracious new demand for Brazilian music on dancefloors from London to Tokyo. It was witnessing the London club scene's growing appetite for Brazilian music, as well as a lack of new sounds coming out of Brazil at the time, that a young Joe Davis put in a proposal to record a new album with one of his musical idols. Joe wanted to facilitate an album which would combine the latest technologies and production techniques, with live to analog tape recording: a Marcos Valle album tailor-made for London's clubs. Always open to modern influences and possibilities, Marcos agreed to the project, and Joe and his production partner Roc Hunter flew to Rio in '96. The record wasn't released until '98, as the original ½ inch tapes were stolen from Far Out's London studio, meaning parts of the album had to be re-recorded. Nova Bossa Nova was unveiled at the peak of the of the Brazilian movement, the record would also prove to be something of a revolution, inspiring a new generation of artists like Bebel Gilberto, Sabrina Malheiros, Da Lata, and Bossacucanova, who continued to fuse Brazilian influences with modern electronic sounds. The album takes a panoramic view of Valle's career, which was so fundamental in defining the standard of bossa back in the sixties and continues to do so to this day. "Nova Bossa Nova", the album's title track is an update on Marcos's trademark style, developing a more modern, funkier sound. Other gems include the dancefloor ready re-work of his 1970 hit "Freio Aerodynamico", and the smooth instrumentals "Bar Ingles", a jazz fusion looper, and the sun-soaked samba "Nordeste".

Finders Keepers present a reissue of Popera Cosmic's Les Esclaves, originally released in 1969. For the few people lucky enough to have heard the entire album in the five decades since its release, the mythical Popera Cosmic album is now considered to be France's first dedicated psychedelic album and the shrouded blueprint for the hugely influential Gallic concept album phenomenon that followed -- including Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson (1971) and Gérard Manset's La Mort D'Orion (1970). Spearheaded by François Wertheimer (songwriter for Vangelis, Barbara, and BYG Records), composed with future Jodorowsky soundtracker and genius all-rounder, Guy Skornik, and based on an embryonic concept co-conspired by a teenage Jean-Michel Jarre, this instantly deleted 1969 recording is a true essential for any outer-national-radicalized record collection. With credentials that mark the birth of the cosmic funk (later disco) that helped shape the influential sound of France today, this LP also includes the first pressed instrumentals by members of Space Art, some of the best orchestra rock arrangements by William Sheller -- Lux Aeterna (1972), Erotissimo (1969) -- and orchestrator Paul Piot (Jean Rollin), as well as sitar psych benchmarks courtesy of uber legend Serge Franklin -- all pinned down by the rhythm section that would later be known to prog aficionados as Alice. Subtitled Les Esclaves ("The Slaves"), this street theater/rock opera (influenced by the work of Julien Beck's Living Theatre) now celebrates its 50th birthday standing firmly as a sonic tome to the birth of the no-no era (that rebuked France's yé-yé hamster wheel) leading directly to the thematic progressive network of Wakhévitch, Manset, and Magma while comprising an inter-Gallic intergalactic super group from the early annals of France's pop psych revolution. Imagine a rock opera where the cast of Mister Freedom perform Clash Of The Titans at the foot of The Holy Mountain -- then pinch yourself...

dieb13 on Philip Jeck: "... In his hands, a tool as simple as a hammer that blocks the arm of the record player creates a loop with a taste of eternity. Two or three such hammers can create musical galaxies far beyond the reach of traditional instruments, where no human ear has ever been before. From unidentifiable rumble and grinding to brilliant instrument-snippets and comical voice fragments, Philip Jeck glues sounds together as if they were never meant to exist on their own. Whether it be Pachelbel's Canon or some mid-90s dance music that's on Philip's vinyl, but what we hear in the Vinyl Coda is his very unique musical voice -- articulated with a perfect sense for structure, suspense and sound."

"Composer, filmmaker and photographer Phill Niblock is a true pillar of the New York avant-garde. In the past 50 years, he has curated over 1,000 performances at his Centre Street loft and steadfastly built a massive, multidisciplinary body of work. While his earliest musical compositions date back to 1968, Niblock waited until the early '80s to release any recordings. Nothin To Look At Just A Record, a powerful debut with densely layered trombones, would be the first to unfurl his unique approach to sound. The second album and perhaps the most rare in Niblock's vast catalogue, 1984's Niblock For Celli/Celli Plays Niblock is a meeting of two great minds. Working with reed player Joseph Celli (a composer in his own right, who has collaborated with John Cage, Pauline Oliveros and Ornette Coleman), Niblock nimbly removes the breathing pauses from Celli's oboe and English horn to create seamless, enchanting drones. Niblock insists that his music be played loud: only in this way can one experience the visceral ringing of these long instrumental tones through the speakers and their natural overtones generated by the room. Niblock For Celli remains deeply absorbing. This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Alvin Lucier, Yoshi Wada and Dome."

"Vampisoul present the latest volume in their Discos Fuentes reissue series, Salsa Con Monte, an instant tropical Latin dance party from Blas 'Michi' Sarmiento. Honestly, all Michi Y Sus Bravos albums are all so good. However, a poll with fans and DJs, selected his sixth album Salsa Con Monte, from 1973, issued here for the first time. 'El Michi', as his grandmother nicknamed him, is the son of the famous reedman Clímaco Sarmiento, a bandleader who recorded with Fuentes for decades. Proficient in percussion and singing from an early age, Michi is most known for following in his father's footsteps with clarinet, saxophone, composition and musical arranging as his signature skills. By 17 Michi had his own band and by 1967 his Bravos were competing with local sound systems and radio stations that were playing salsa, descarga, charanga, and boogaloo. While Sarmiento has consistently maintained his love of traditional Afro-Colombian-rooted 'música costeña' to this day (porro, cumbia, cumbelé, gaita, paseo and merecumbé), Los Bravos always played it hard, loose and fast, because they had to compete with the DJs. Michi preferred recording "live" in the studio with the result being an accurate document of what a powerful outfit they must have been to experience in person. This album contains a number of excellent cover tunes, including the rather surprising choice of Gilberto Gil's "Viramundo". This opening cut is followed in quick succession by a dizzyingly diverse gaggle of genres, namely cumbelé, calypso, pasebol, cumbión and rumba. One could truly say Michi and his band of 'braves' bring us quite a heavy load of salsa 'mounted' on this record (Salsa Con Monte, referring to Michi's motorbike 'mount' on the cover), which is exactly what's happening by the look of the front and back jackets of this classic Discos Fuentes LP." --Pablo Yglesias, aka DJ Bongohead Issued with facsimile artwork and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.

The Berlin-based duo of Alex Tsiridis and Hüseyin Evirgen release new work recorded alongside DJ Nobu, Tensal, and Lady Starlight via their own Arcing Seas imprint. Leaning towards the more heady, high-octane end of the genre -- the three track EP showcases the duo''s natural affinity for collaboration, maintaining Evirgen & Tsiridis's characteristic finish and attention to detail, whilst providing ample space for the guests to properly color the work.

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. 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. After acquiring the Beta Band's catalog last year, Because Music will reissue their releases. Alongside The Three EPs (20th Anniversary Remaster) (BEC 5543617), they start with the double-CD, The Best Of The Beta Band. The release compiles all their best hits and includes a live show recorded at the Shepherd's Bush Empire (London) in 2004.

Repressed. Through a remarkable and singular body of work, over the course of the last decade, the composer and percussionist Sarah Hennies has slowly emerged as one of the definitive voices of her generation. Initially coming to focus as a member of Austin's experimental music scene during the early 2000s, before relocating to upstate New York, with a delicate, clattering grace, she has continuously offered vision, conceptual armature, crucial understanding for the contemporary proximity of avant-garde, and experimental practice. Entirely of her moment, she defies what we know and expect, owing allegiance to none. Hennies has been darting around the edges of modern composition for years, but that world has never been an entirely comfortable fit, nor is it the best framework and context within which to approach her work. She is better understood in the proximity of figures like Jim O'Rourke, a creator of a countercultural music, which incorporates everything, while owing loyalty to none. Hennies could equally be framed with composers like Steve Reich, Arthur Russell, Julius Eastman, and Mary Jane Leach, all of whom struggled to create more inclusive musical hybrids, attacking the institutions as they stood. As these figures once were, Hennies's position within the contemporary landscape is challenging and requires work to understand. Her music isn't always what it seems. What is unquestionable is that it is entirely of this moment and not a product of appropriation or pastiche. Comprised of two site-specific compositions -- "Foragers" and "Embedded Environments" -- recorded in a silo in Buffalo, New York, these recordings are a crowning moment within the long arc of Hennies's practice. Each work is composed for a quartet of percussionists -- Jason Bauers, Tim Feeney, and Bob Fullex, with Hennies contributing on vibraphone and percussion. While "Foragers" and "Embedded Environments" are products of Hennies's quest for elemental meaning and relationships within sound -- those which lay beyond traditional understandings of structure, beat, and tone, here there is a third and unfamiliar actor in play: the space itself. Activated by the silo for which they were composed, Hennies's broken, staggering rhythms and resonances are offered new freedom through a seductive Trojan horse, pushing them toward even more complex and jarring depths. "Foragers" and "Embedded Environments" delves into a realm of ideas, proximity, and place, offering a new vision for our sonic present, and what may be to come. Edition of 300.

Silver vinyl version. Cal Comunicaciones/Discos Eternos present a reissue of Los Destellos' En Orbita, originally released in 1969. This hundred-percent modern group has invaded the musical environment with many tropical versions that are received with great enthusiasm and applause by all audiences. With En Orbita, Los Destellos mix tropical music with the rhythm of guajiras, paseíto, and the boogaloo sabor, highlighting one of their greatest instrumental successes: "Para Elisa", an original theme by Beethoven, was included in Pedro Almodovar's film The Passenger Lovers. Cumbias with "Cucaracha", "Cumbia Del Desierto", and "Virgencita" continue on a path that was captivating, experimental, and novel for the time.

Die Orakel presents two Edward reinterpretations of new age-ambient excursions by German composer Rolf Trostel, originally recorded in 1982.

Espacial Discos present a reissue of Aviador Dro's first, self-released album, Alas Sobre El Mundo, originally released in 1982. Legendary Spanish synth-pop band Aviador Dro was formed in Madrid in the late 1970s, influenced by bands like Devo, Kraftwerk, and Cabaret Voltaire as well as by science fiction and movements like punk, futurism, anarchism, and Dada. Dressed in matching space-age uniforms, the group created a particular synth-pop sound, which they defined as "tecno-pop". Signed to the major Movieplay label, where they released a couple of 45s, in 1982 the band decide to go the DIY way and they launch their own record label, DRO which became the most important independent label in Spain during the 1980s. In 1982, Aviador Dro released their groundbreaking first album, Alas Sobre El Mundo ("Wings Over The World"), which is now widely considered as synth-pop/minimal wave classic, full of analogue synths, drum machines, and Vocoder. Alas Sobre El Mundo includes some of Aviador Dro's most famous songs like "Ondina", "Selector de Frecuencias", and "La TV es Nutritiva". Remastered edition comes with original artwork and 12-page LP-sized insert.

"In 1975, the critic Lester Bangs was seen moaning in the pages of Creem about the anti-emotionalism of the German band, Kraftwerk, and their whole concept of the man-machine. Skip ahead 43 years. Bangs is long dead, and the man-machine is thriving. As proof of this, one need look no further than the new Tarp LP, Part. Trapped inside its insanely lovely cover art (courtesy of Greta Svalberg), one finds the two hulking man-machines (Conrad Capistran and Joshua Burkett) attempting to figure out if it's okay for robots to hug each other in public. Right in the center of the highway, even. Heard in the most boorish way, the music on Part is all the work of unemotional man-machines (to use Bangs's moldy fig of a term). 'Anybody could play this stuff,' Chuck Berry fans will pout. But that's both untrue and beside the point. I mean a goddamn giraffe can play 'Johnny B. Goode' given a 30 minute head start. Music as subtle and fully communicative as the music on Part is a heavy conceptual lift. It occurs only after a lot of thought, a massive amount of jacking around, and about a ton of boo. One needs to be a committed freak to pull off such an elegant space-hack as this. But, of course Conrad and Joshua are lifers not dilettantes. Tarp is what they do. And no one could do it better. Their previous eponymous LPs (FTR 117, FTR 323) have been dandy, but Part is a real push into new areas of the void that amplify the duo's kosmiche wing beats. You can hear little pieces of the millions of records these guys have heard poking up now and then, but the way these elements are collaged into the whole is absolutely unique, absolutely Tarp. And not the mere burps of some man-machines. Roll over Lester Bangs, and tell Chuck Berry the news." -Byron Coley, 2018. Edition of 300.

A collection of early singles by the renowned Zimbabwean Mbira master and a true African music icon, Stella Chiweshe. The songs were mostly recorded in the 1970s, during the buildup to the Chimurenga revolution, and were only ever released in Stella's home country. Stella's album Kasahwa: Early Singles offers a fascinating introduction to the world of Mbira, with the term not only referring to the instrument, but also to a musical genre -- and on a much wider level, to an entire culture and deeply spiritual lifestyle at the core of the young Zimbabwean nation. Mbira is an ancient mystical music which has been played for over a thousand years by the Shona people. Mbira pervades all aspects of Shona culture, both sacred and secular. Its most important function is as a "telephone to the spirits of people, water, trees, stones and birds," used to contact both deceased ancestors and tribal guardians, at all-night ceremonies. Kasahwa is a collection of impossible-to-find early seven inches, eight cuts spanning the period from 1974 to 1983 and representing Mbira in its purest form. None of these songs has been released outside of Africa so far. In her humble beginnings, little pointed to the fact that young Stella at sixteen would become "The Queen of Mbira" and nothing short of a national icon. Growing up on a musical diet of white American rock n' roll and country, she initially showed little interest in local traditional music. It was not until two years later, that Mbira started to ring inside her head "loud and endlessly". This overwhelming, mystical experience turned Chiweshe into an avid student of the instrument and the philosophy connected to it. But playing Mbira music was by no means a career option for women in the British colony of Rhodesia: none of the (male) musicians were willing to teach her. And, almost worse, none of the instrument makers agreed to build an instrument for a woman. Stella ended up recording her debut single "Kasahwa" (1974) on a borrowed thumb piano. "Kasahwa" made Stella a local sensation. After the country had become independent in 1980, Chiweshe started to tour internationally, first as a featured soloist of the new National Dance Company of Zimbabwe, and later under her own name. New mastering by Nick Robbins.

"This is the third in our compilation series on the roots of salsa. For a general background on the ideas behind it, please refer to the notes in the first and second volumes. In a nutshell the Roots Of Salsa series is an investigation into early Cuban or Cuban-derived tunes that were either covered by salsa groups later (mid-1960s through today) or were highly influential on the development of salsa over the decades. The main criterion was to pick tracks that sounded adequate for today's DJ or collectors to play at a gig or on the radio, or were sufficiently interesting (or enough of a surprise to fans of the later version) to merit inclusion, but were not perhaps the best known or of more recent vintage." --Pablo E. Yglesias, aka DJBongohead.

Features: Roberto Faz Y Su Conjunto, Conjunto Estrellas De Chocolate, Cheo Marquetti Y Su Conjunto, René Touzet And His Orchestra, Noro Morales Y Su Orquesta, Xavier Cougat And His Orchestra, Monchito And His Mambo Royals, Orquesta Riverside, Los Jóvenes Del Cayo, Rosendo Ruíz, Jr. And His Orchestra, La Orquesta De Ernesto Duarte Con Rolando Laserie, Silvestre Méndez Y Su Conjunto, Pio Leiva Con La Orquesta De Bebo Valdés, and La Orquesta Casino De La Playa.

Hospital Productions presents a reissue of K2's The Rust, originally released in 1996. From its imposing cover featuring massive Japanese characters fading from red to orange to yellow in a descending gradient to the title itself, rust would not have been enough for this edifice of decay. It is the rust, the final rust, the purest rust. The presentation only reiterates that this work is process driven, that it does not stop moving, clinging, falling, eroding, and covering its subject. As moisture turns metal to dust, this is Kimihide Kusafuka's grand mastering of decay. The Rust is a four-part cut-up metal junk noise classic. Not to be confused with the typical high octane '70s psych rock-obsessed outpourings by many of Japan's more well-known noise elite, K2 has settled on a physical process of his own that gets at the inner workman surrounded by the urban accumulation of not-so-precious metals. Like the towering waterfront refinery, or the wrought iron fence outside one's door that they may pass on their way to a busy morning routine, The Rust grinds away and piles on multi-track recordings that are violent and caustic and physical yet totally arcane in their construction. How was this made? Was K2 the executor of a junkyard? Has he lived among the ruins of automobiles, or perhaps locomotives based on the sheer dynamic range and scale of the rust? But that would be too misleading as when the gates open, naked moments are heard of isolated scraping and the unmistakable clutter of metal on metal sounds, pounded by human fists. The beating of metal is coated in feedback solvents and slashed with flange by Kusafuka's self-described "Friktor" device that apparently exhumes the soul of any aluminum, steel, and cast-iron sheets. These liberated industrial 'neighbors' that we live among and construct our dwelling places with ascend to spheres and cities of their own. The rust will crush you with its weight, it will question the scale of your body, and it will cut away at your patience of watching water erode metal to dust. Recorded 1996 in Chiba, Japan for Kinky Music Institute, The Rust appears here on vinyl for the first time, faithfully remastered by Kris Lapke (Alberich). Gatefold sleeve with the original artwork; Rust-colored vinyl; Edition of 250.

LP version. Includes 7". Gatefold Sleeve. Kalita Records present the first ever and definitive discography of Carrie Cleveland. Here, The label offers an expanded version of her 1978 album Looking Up, including both the issue and promotional versions of her single "Make Love To Me", and the previously unknown sweet soul single "I've Got A Feeling". Privately arranged, recorded, and produced by Carrie and her husband Bill as a labor of love in their backyard studio in 1978, Looking Up is one of the most in-demand soul/disco LPs in existence, sought-after in particular for their track "Love Will Set You Free". In addition, the promotional version of Carrie's single "Make Love To Me" is one of the best and rarest sweet soul records to have emerged out of the West Coast soul scene, and her single "I've Got A Feeling" is until today virtually unknown even to the most seasoned of collectors, with even Carrie herself unsure if it was ever released. With the album originally pressed in a limited run of just 1000, with 500 copies of each single, original copies of Carrie's records deservingly command eye-watering figures on the second-hand market. Kalita Records now satisfy the thirst with the first ever official reissue of her entire discography. Includes extensive interview-based liner notes and never before seen photos, detailing Carrie and Bills' life and musical career. LP version consists of both the expanded album and a bonus 7" single; housed in a gatefold sleeve.

Originally released in 1982 on the DRO label, La Marca De Anubis was the debut album by Los Iniciados, an obscure project related to legendary Spanish synth-pop band Aviador Dro. Always shrouded in mystery, Los Iniciados decided to hide their identities behind masks. The only visible and confirmed member was Arco Iris (Aviador Dro member Marta Cervera). According to rumors, behind the other nicknames were Biovac N (Servando Carballar, founder of Aviador Dro and DRO label head) and members of Spanish post-punks Alphaville. On La Marca De Anubis Jesús Arias of punk band T.N.T.) joins on electric guitar. The album was produced by Carballar and is an intriguing mélange of dark and eerie minimal synth/dark wave sounds with a post-punk edge. It is also highly influenced by The Residents, Dadaism, performance art and ancient Egyptian cults. La Marca De Anubis includes cult classics like "Peter Pan", "Soy El Vacío", and more. Remastered from the original tapes and presented with original artwork, a 12-page LP-sized booklet and a bonus 7" EP, El Cantor De Jazz (1982).

Munster Records present a facsimile reissue of Let's Go To The Beach, the debut 7" by legendary Los Angeles punk rockers The Gears, originally released in 1979. While The Gears embraced the fast and loud part of punk, they also added 1950s rock 'n' roll, surf music and garage into the mix, which made their sound a killer blend of punk speed and fury tempered with greaser cool and swagger.

The Height Of The Reeds started as a commissioned work to the city of Hull, Great Britain´s cultural capital 2017. Composed by Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang, the work celebrates the longstanding seafaring relationship between Hull and Scandinavia. It was originally the musical companion to a sound walk that took place in April, May and June 2017. Those who took part could listen to the music on headphones while crossing the Humber Bridge. Initially intended for April only, the arrangement proved so popular it ended up selling out three months. Only minor adjustments have been done to justify the transition from sound walk to album. Other than Henriksen, Aarset and Bang, the work includes important contributions from Hull sound artist Jez Riley French, providing field recordings from the bridge itself: the river below, the noise of engines, the creaking of steel wires, wheels against asphalt and the song of the reeds in the wind. Opera North´s choir and orchestra provides the necessary musical space for the soloists, and two actors and a child read from translated poems by Norwegian poet Nils Christian Moe-Repstad.

Vinilisssimo present a reissue of Giampiero Boneschi's Cybernetic Circus, originally released in 1973. Giampiero Boneschi is a complete musician: he composes, arranges, directs, acts as a producer, and also plays the piano. But he is also an adventurous artist who has managed to combine his work with vocalists, jazz or even easy listening music with other highly experimental projects. His name is familiar to library music fans, and his recordings for Music Scene, CAM, or Fonit are some of the most desired pieces among collectors of pioneering electronics. In fact, Boneschi was one of the first Italian artists to use synthesizers in the early '70s. This fabulous Cybernetic Circus LP was released in 1973 on the unconventional British label Chapter 1, founded by the composer Les Reed. The album retains part of its original easy listening aspiration but fortunately it also serves to show the sound experiments of master Boneschi. This is an album for lovers of the avant-garde that will also fascinate followers of bands such as Stereolab or Broadcast, who undoubtedly fed on the work of innovators such as Boneschi. "Flea's Dance" is a dynamic song of childish vibes but simultaneously plays about with the frequencies extracted from the synthesizer, achieving surprising results. "Modulation On Theme" and "Psyco-Analysis Lesson" contain aquatic echoes generated with the Moog and filtered voices that become mere noises at the service of the composer. But Boneschi does not always take his recordings to the sonic extreme, so you also find glimpses in which his experiments coexist with friendly melodies, perfect soundtracks for a sequence of a film set on the French Riviera, "Moderato Cantabile", or even approaches to classical music, as in "Synthesizer In A Classic Quartet". Lovers of library music will find in Cybernetic Circus one of the best and most enjoyable examples of early electronic music. Presented in facsimile artwork; 180 gram vinyl.

Vinilisssimo present a reissue of Os Mutantes' Tudo Foi Feito Pelo Sol, originally released in 1974. Os Mutantes showed an interest in following international music trends from the very beginning of their career, when they moved away from the traditional sounds of their native Brazil in favor of psychedelia. Even its own name gives us some clues about the ever-transforming will of the band. The continuous changes characterized the group's history until its dissolution in 1978 and, as part of that evolution, they embraced progressive rock in their final albums. Tudo Foi Feito Pelo Sol was released in 1974, when Rita Lee was already focused on her solo career and Arnaldo Baptista had also left the group due to internal and personal problems. The only original member remaining, Sérgio Dias, along with bassist Liminha, who had joined the band a few years earlier but left before recording this album, were responsible for composing most of these songs. Despite the obvious differences from the original sound of Os Mutantes, this record will not disappoint the fans of the band. "Deixe Entrar Um Pouco D'água No Quintal", "Cidadão Da Terra", or "Tudo Foi Feito Pelo Sol" clearly leave aside any reference to Tropicalismo to embrace instead the hardest sounds and progressive style of groups like Deep Purple or even Iron Butterfly. The keyboardist Túlio Mourão stars in some of the most intense moments of the album, along with the energetic and fierce guitar of Sérgio Dias, who was the band's leader at the time. An example of their virtuosity is "Pitágoras", written by Mourão, where piano and guitar take you into a progressive and almost psychedelic journey with music references as diverse as jazz and flamenco. Without any doubt, this is one of the strongest songs of the entire LP. Presented in facsimile gatefold sleeve; 180 gram vinyl.

WRWTFWW Records announce the reissue of the 1981 self-titled album from cult Japanese duo Colored Music. Includes liner notes in English and Japanese by digger, curator, connoisseur, writer, and legend Chee Shimizu. An incredible mix of cosmic new wave, unconventional disco, avant-garde synth pop, and hybrid electronic funk, Colored Music is enchantingly unique, a sort of experimental and magnetizing take on David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy with a psychedelic Haruomi Hosono touch. From the groovy post-punk glam title track to the proto-house dance floor killer "Heartbeat", Ichiko Hashimoto and Atsuo Fujimoto hit all the right (and sometimes not-exactly-right-but-truly-genius) notes to create the odd and beautiful, an unparalleled audio escape to the best elsewhere you can think of. Also playing on the album are celebrated musicians Mansaku Kimura, Shuichi "Ponta" Murakami -- 1978's Pacific (V 25AH426), 1981's KI-Motion by MKWAJU ensemble (WRWTFWW 026CD/LP), collaborations with Jun Fukamachi, Yasuaki Shimizu, Haruomi Hosono... -- Kiyohiko Semba, Tamio "Doyo" Kawabata, and Tatsuhiko Hizawa. CD version comes as a digipack.

It's Saturday night in Berlin and the Hoochie Krew is stirring it up. DJ Don Rogall surveys the crowd, takes a sip of beer, and slides a 10" screamer onto the deck. As the scruffy yowl of a guitar unites with an insistent upbeat, a man in a beret shouts into a mic, speaking in tongues, transported. Go-Go girls in leopard-print bikinis undulate to the wail of a sax. A sultry showgirl appears like a mirage and peels off a crystal-crusted glove to whistles and whoops. It's a juke joint, a barrel house, an alternate time and dimension, with the whole room flailing in giddy unison, spirited into that raw, earthy, elemental rhythm. That is the Hoochie Koo. This is the first volume in the Hoochie Koo series, the soundtrack to Berlin's best club night! Features: The Satintones, Clem Sacco, The Coasters, The Sherwoods, Hoochie Krew, Roger King Mozian, The Latins, and Robot.

"American composer and multi-instrumentalist Alvin Curran has remained one of the great emblems of experimental music for the last half-century. In 1966, along with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, Curran co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva, a seminal gesture in collective free improvisation. In the early 1970s, his solo work would become a crucial bridge between minimalist traditions on both sides of the Atlantic. Canti E Vedute Del Giardino Magnetico, Curran's solo debut, was recorded by the artist himself and issued on Ananda, the small Italian imprint started by Curran and fellow composers Giacinto Scelsi and Roberto Laneri. The piece itself was put together in the winter of 1973 and presented for the first time at Teatro Beat 72 (Rome's The Kitchen). Encouraged by the work of Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti, Curran binds the listener to aberrant notions of place and time: blending field recordings (wind, high-tension wires, beach waves, etc.) with simple and often primitive instruments. Across two sidelong tracks, Giardino Magnetico forms a lyrical collage of synthesizer, glass and metal chimes, plastic tubes, brass and the composer's alluring voice, converging in an immersive realm of Curran's inner / outer experiences. This first-time vinyl reissue is recommended for fans of Harry Bertoia, Michel Redolfi and Lino Capra Vaccina."

Recorded in 2012, Musik Der 135. Aktion, Kuba captures the controversial performance from Herman Nitsch's Orgien Mysterien Theater ("Orgies Mysteries Theater") as part of the Havana Biennial art exhibition. For more than fifty years Nitsch has been an influential and striking figure of Austrian art ("Vienna Actionism"). In his Orgien Mysterien Theater Nitsch uses actors, blood, animal bodies and entrails, fruits, symbolic crucifixion, music, processions, and ritualistic gestures to enact a new form of Gesamtkunstwerk: pagan ceremonies that aim to a kind of collective catharsis. "Dionysos gegen den Gekreuzigten" ("Dionysus against Christ Crucified") was performed by 150 musicians and 30 actors, including the University's Symphony Orchestra ISA and the artist himself, celebrating Afro-Cuban rituals and ceremonies. Released In cooperation with Nitsch Foundation.

"Wingtip Sloat's slashing and arty post-punk sounds weirdly contemporary these days, so what better news than to have their first new music in almost twenty years! Purge And Swell is a 12-inch 45 RPM mini LP with ten new tracks, and is accompanied by a 76-minute bonus CD Lost Decade with thirty-one additional tracks. The 12-inch includes plenty of the trebly guitar blare and low-fi charm immediately familiar from the group's classic early '90s singles, backstopping winning and memorable tunes like 'Stars Bailed Out' and 'Gizzard Jett.' The bonus CD includes bric-a-brac from the Sloat rehearsal room, with found poetry, perfect ninety-second rockers (the DC-specific 'Cruisin' The Ellipse'), confusing instrumental detours, and winsome covers of Eno, Dylan, Wire, Belle & Sebastian and more."

Black Truffle present the first reissue of a true underground masterpiece, Massimo Toniutti's Il Museo Selvatico ("The Wild Museum"), originally self-released on LP in 1991. Like his better-known brother Giancarlo -- whose classic 1985 Broken Flag LP La Mutazione was reissued by Black Truffle in 2015 (BT 014LP) -- Massimo Toniutti was active in the vibrant underground industrial/noise scene of the 1980s, contributing to releases on legendary labels such as Broken Flag and RRR and self-releasing a series of cassettes between 1984 and 1988. Existing in a private world apart from the noise and dark industrial tropes of many of his contemporaries, Toniutti's Il Museo Selvatico is an entirely singular work of domestic electro-acoustic exploration. Made up primarily of what Toniutti calls "small and rare noises" or sonic "knick-knacks" recorded between 1987 and 1990, the five pieces that make up the original LP usher us into a crepuscular space populated by mysterious traces of everyday life. Toniutti weaves a loose net of distant clanks, dull thuds, metallic resonance, and skittering percussive sounds, allowing the sounds to breathe against a backdrop of near-silent atmosphere. Although the haunted ambience recalls the work of contemporaries like Organum, Toniutti generally steers clear of long tones and drones, preferring to arrange brief, sometimes staccato sonic objects into patters of repeating figures and isolated events whose overall compositional shape remains somehow ungraspable. Although glimpses of recognizable location recordings and instrumental sounds can occasionally be made out, for most of the record the sources of the sounds you hear remain teasingly mysterious, an abstracted memory of everyday actions and atmospheres. I Museo Selvatico is accompanied here by an additional LP of material recorded at the same time, composed especially for this reissue into two side-long suites that inhabit the same haunted space as the original LP while occasionally making use of more maximal compositional strategies. Essential listening for fans of Organum, Nurse With Wound, Christoph Heemann, and the tradition of outsider musique concrete. Comes as a double-LP in a lavish gatefold with printed inner sleeves featuring archival images and notes. Remastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

Running Back presents a history revealing reissue/ compilation project centering around the legendary Front Club in Hamburg, Germany that existed from the '80s-late 90´s --- a leading club in terms of music selection, mixing technique, rave culture --- in a very important period of time. Eponymous Resident DJs Klaus Stockhausen and the later on globally known Boris Dlugosch take a close look back at that time, guiding you through the history, the early beginnings and absolute key moments on (house music) club culture. 37 (!) legendary tracks -- many of which have not been on sale forever -- that mark the masterclass sound of that Era and could be an essential start or -- end -- point to any great collection. In addition , the stunning mixing brings back the "Front" itself and must be heard by old and new fans all over. "Why a Front mix and compilation 21 years after the club closed its doors? On the one hand, because its story hasn't been told yet and it's worth telling. On the other, German clubs like Robert Johnson or Berghain -- as divergent as they are -- both resemble Front's spirit, diversity and musical open mindedness. Spread over a double-CD and two compilation LPs that are mainly chronological, Klaus Stockhausen and Boris Dlugosch picked and mixed some of the club's most cherished records and sweetest moments. This is the sound of Front." --Gerd Janson
The double mix CD is housed in a digipack with a 24-page booklet. Tracks by: Answering Service, Blue Moderne, Connie, CT Satin, D.O.G., Dee Dee Brave, Executive, Fila Brazillia, Fortran 5, Hot Streak, Housefactors, John Beltran, KC Flightt, Mario Reyes, Mark Imperial, Modern Romance, Mood II Swing feat. Lee Smith Jr, Nick Holder, Nitro Deluxe, Ralphi Rosario, Sandee, Sensory Productions, Shirley Lites, Simphonia, Skyy, Solution, Station Q, Steve Arrington,Syncbeat,Temper, The 28th St. Crew, The Prince & The Wizard,The Wizard & The Prince, Toyin Agbetu presents Nemesis, Üdytü Ützeltürk And His Male Harem, Val Young and Wired.

Upset The Rhythm present Deaths, the final part in a trilogy of albums by Sauna Youth that started with Dreamlands (WAAT 048LP/049CD) in 2012. Dreamlands was followed by Distractions (UTR 071CD/LP, 2014) and consequently the songs that comprise Deaths are collectively about the act of finishing, an ode to "the ending". Creating this album was a working research project embodying what is sometimes the hardest part of musical endeavor: completing a record. Making a new album is always daunting, but when all band members also have full-time jobs and other commitments it can also seem logistically impossible. Then there is the nagging, unattainable perfectionism that can draw out a record for months or even years. The twelve tracks on Deaths touch on political rhetoric, artistic legacy, action and passivity, work and leisure, and, of course, distraction, referencing many musical genres in the process while never leaving punk's orbit. The album was recorded by John Hannon of No Recording Studios in June 2017 over three days, mixed by Jonah Falco and mastered by Kris Lapke. The cover was shot in a garden in Brixton by Owen Richards, who also photographed the covers for the previous albums. Additional artwork was provided by R.M. Phoenix. Sauna Youth is Boon, Mince, Ecke, and Pines. They played together in the band Monotony, and between them have played or do play in other bands and music projects including Primitive Parts, Feature, Child's Pose, Lilac, Cold Pumas, Oblate, Teufelskreis, Mind Jail, Gold Foil, and Tense Men as well as being involved with the organizations Good Night Out, The Positive Press, Constant Flux, and Heart n Soul.

Double LP version. Two years on from his last outing, The Follower (KOMP 130CD/KOM 350LP, 2016), Axel Willner puts on his Field suit again to present his sixth full-length effort for Kompakt, Infinite Moment. Infinite Moment sees him striding further across the deeper, richer rims of the hue cycle. In Willner's own words, "the threshold of creating something new had to be broken", as had been done with his past albums, including his acclaimed debut From Here We Go Sublime (KOMP 057CD/KOMRSD 002LP, 2007). For Willner, "stepping outside of the studio opened up fresh perspectives on the creation of new music"; it was the opening cut, "Made Of Steel, Made Of Stone", that got him into the flux of things, "making of the rest of the album easier as I went". Substituting the up-tempo vim of his previous pieces for a sense of mind-expanding horizontality, Infinite Moment is an album filled with hope and draped in a diffuse, appeasing light, easing the pain and troubles of the human soul through a lushly forested recital of shoegazing modular, complex textural interplays and solar, atmospheric fractals. "Made Of Steel, Made Of Stone" gets the ball rolling on a thumping down-tempo note, which as Willner explains, "gives me a lot of hope". "Hope is something I've been missing in the nowadays climate and this album is a relief to me, a type of comfort, like a moment that feels good and you don't want to end." "Divide Now" is a sonic mitosis, engaging the metamorphosis to come; like a larvae pupating and reemerging weeks later from under rough bark in the form of a butterfly - fluttering breaks shed their skin to make way for a more intimate and hypnotic second chapter. "Hear Your Voice" propels the lavish, pad-upholstered glamour of its melodic lines in a bolder syncopated re-visitation of 1980s-indebted pop harmonics, while "Something Left, Something Right, Something Wrong" returns to a flaring post-euphoric daze. A more arrhythmic affair, "Who Goes There" spins out into orbit wildly, fusing acid bass moves with a haunting motorik, playing with the listener's mind intensely before the ten-minute-long epic "Infinite Moment" ushers its listener into a highly immersive final ballet of buzzing chords, trampling drums and all-consuming drones. This album is a direct soul-to-soul transmission, aiming no further than at finding the right balance between contained emotion and an expressive eloquence.

Excerpt from liner notes by Keith Potter: "Georges Aperghis is probably still not much associated, by the public that internationally attends performances of his works, with music for solo piano. Music-theatre -- of an uncommonly original kind, with extended vocal techniques much to the fore -- has usually been his stamping ground. The concerns that his operas and other music-theatre compositions have embraced -- often focusing around a highly individual approach to words and to all aspects of language, developed with great musical sophistication, resulting in what one might call a kind of sound poetry -- are not among those immediately linked to the note-against-note preoccupations of which one tends to think where music for the piano is involved. This instrument's 88 keys, and the two hands of its (usually firmly seated) keyboard operative, are normally engaged to less obviously 'theatrical' ends." Personnel: Lenio Liatsou - piano, voice.

Double LP version. Steppas Records presents one of the most anticipated albums of the year, Alpha Steppa & Nai-Jah's The Great Elephant. The Great Elephant is the product of a yearlong collaboration between renowned UK rub reggae producer Alpha Steppa and French-Nigerian singer/songwriter Nai-Jah. The Great Elephant tells the story of Nai-Jah's reality growing up in Nigeria, painting a picture of corruption, greed, and suffering, a narrative to which each and every person across the globe can relate. Nai-Jah points to strength through unity and provides great inspiration and hope through his thoughtful lyrics and sincere delivery. Steppas Records presents all ten original vocal tracks plus the full dub album in one release. This is a truly unique and powerful protest album sure to provoke, inspire and uplift.