Black Truffle present the first ever vinyl reissue of David Rosenboom's legendary Brainwave Music, originally released on A.R.C. Records in 1975. This is an expanded double-LP edition with over 40 minutes of additional contemporaneous material. Pioneer of live electronics, innovator in music education, collaborator with artists as diverse as Jon Hassell, Jacqueline Humbert, Terry Riley, and Anthony Braxton, Rosenboom is renowned for his ground-breaking experiments with the use of brain biofeedback to control live electronic systems. Each of the three pieces that make up the original Brainwave Music LP integrates biofeedback with musical technology in different ways. In the side-long "Portable Gold and Philosophers' Stones", four performers have electrodes and monitoring devices attached to their bodies to receive information about brainwaves, temperature, and galvanic skin response. This information is analyzed and fed into a complex set of frequency dividers and filters, manned by Rosenboom, but essentially played by each of the performers through their psychophysiological responses. The result is a slowly unfolding web of filtered electronic tones over a tanpura-esque fundamental, possessing the unhurried, stately grandeur of an electronic raga. In "Chilean Drought", three different variations of a text about a drought in Chile, read by a different voice in a different style, are associated with the beta, alpha, and theta brainwave bands. Alongside an insistent piano accompaniment, three constantly shifting vocal recordings are controlled by the relative preponderance of each of the brainwave bands in the soloist. "Piano Etude I (Alpha)", the earliest piece included here, is based on research into the link between alpha brain wave production and the execution of repetitive motor tasks. As Rosenboom plays a very rapid, incessantly repeated pattern in both hands, two filters controlled by monitoring his brainwaves process the piano sound, moving gradually higher in frequency as the average alpha amplitude increases. For this reissue, the original LP is supplemented with an additional LP containing an unreleased 1977 live recording of Rosenboom's "On Being Invisible", in which the composer himself performs on an array of electronics that are fed information from his brainwaves. Stretching out over 40 minutes, the piece begins in similar territory to "Portable Gold and Philosophers' Stones" but eventually becomes far wilder, building up to pointillistic bleeps and dense layers of electronic fizz that unexpectedly cut to near-silence. As Rosenboom explains, the piece creates a situation in which the "performer's active imaginative listening became one of the ways to play their instrument, as well as an active agent in how self-organizing musical forms might emerge." Includes archival images and new notes from the composer. Gatefold sleeve design by Lasse Marhaug. Mastered by David Rosenboom from the original analog tape masters. Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

Soundway Records present the eponymous debut LP from in-demand Amsterdam five piece, The Mauskovic Dance Band -- fusing no-wave dance punk, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and space disco in a "controlled explosion" (The Quietus). Entirely self-produced, the band has reiterated their favorite elements of the '70s and '80s legacy of the Afro-Latin psychedelic music of Colombia and Peru, interpreting it through the context of modern-day Amsterdam. The output is a lo-fi no wave groove all its own -- rooted in a deep love of champeta, Palenque, psychedelic cumbia, chichi, classic Afrobeat, and picó soundsystem culture. Since the release of their Down In The Basement EP EP on Soundway Records in early 2018 (SNDW 12029EP), the band have found themselves on a hectic European touring schedule -- not to mention being involved in other side projects. Following stints with Turkish psychedelic folk rock group Altin Gün, and touring with the re-formed '70s Zamrock outfit W.I.T.C.H., Nic Mauskovic also teamed up with Dutch neo-psychedelic artist Jacco Gardner to form the "cinematic Balearic disco" duo of Bruxas (released by Dutch institution Dekmantel) -- and together, they mixed The Mauskovic Dance Band debut album in Lisbon. Lead single "Space Drum Machine" encapsulates the band's prototypical brand of busy rhythmic patterns interwoven with insistent synth stabs and vibrant disco toms, layered with an elastic guitar riff drawing inspiration from Kenyan kikuyu and benga styles. High-pitched vocals describe being on a flight together and inciting each other to press a button of unknown consequence with "push it, push it" -- and push it they do, at breakneck pace. And of course, the undeniable influence of Amsterdam's hotbed of underground dance producers shines through as it does on all tracks - with the vintage psychedelic swirl of synthesizer, lo-fi drum machines, and tape recording. RIYL: Jacco Gardner, Bruxas, Nu Guinea, Voilaaa, Sofrito, Meridian Brothers, EUT, Altin Gün.

2019 repress; double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. The third and globally astounding album from the young, talented Swedish multi-instrumentalist Gustav Ejstes aka Dungen. Ta Det Lugnt (2004) is a beautiful multifaceted musical trip straight into your head and deep out in the Swedish forests. It offers Dungen's most exciting and adventurous recordings and features stunning musicianship, stellar vocals, Hammond B-3 organ, flute, violin, groovy bass, swinging drums, electric and acoustic guitars, screaming fuzz, and spellbinding Swedish folk-rock pop psych. Original Pitchfork rating: 9.3!

LP version. New York based producer and engineer Marc Urselli had the idea to bring people together who had never met before and let that meeting of minds create beautiful soundscapes. Film director and musician Jim Jarmusch, Sonic Youth co-founder and guitarist Lee Ranaldo shared space with versatile drummer Balázs Pándi (projects with Keiji Haino, Venetian Snares, Merzbow) for a night session at Urselli's EastSide Sound studio in downtown New York. These are the unfiltered results. Absorbing instrumental patterns of cinematic sounds and improvised rhythms. No overdubs, no editing. All was recorded live and analog, produced and mixed by Marc Urselli. The front/back cover photos were taken by photographer William Semeraro in Norway. That is why Marc Urselli gave all the songs titles inspired by Norwegian mythology.

Personnel: Lee Ranaldo - guitar, pedals, bells; Jim Jarmusch - guitar, pedals, mini-synthesizer; Marc Urselli - bass, laptop; Balázs Pándi - drums.

AllChival present a reissue of Michael O'Shea's self-titled album, originally released on Wire's Dome Records imprint in 1982. Having sold his instruments to fund a nomadic 1970s lifestyle, eccentric Irish experimentalist Michael O'Shea was forced to create his own handmade answer to the sitars and zelochords he'd become accustomed to playing on his travels around the globe. Using an old door, 17 strings, chopsticks and combining them with phasers, echo units and amplification, the new device was to become his signature sound, mixing Irish folk influences with Asian and North African sounds in a mesmerizing and soulful new way. Born in Northern Ireland but raised in the Republic, O'Shea was keen to travel and escape the troubles of his home. Wandering throughout Europe and the Middle East, O'Shea found himself living and working in Bangladesh in the mid-Seventies where he learned to play sitar. A later period spent busking in France accompanied on zelochord by Algerian musician Kris Hosylan Harp led to O'Shea's idea of combining both instruments as a homebuilt instrument -- Mo Cara (Irish for "My Friend"). A combination of dulcimer, zelochord, and sitar, O'Shea would play it with a pair of chopsticks, striking the strings softly using Irish folk rhythms mixed with the rich, nostalgic sounds of the many Asian artists he'd encountered on his travels. Perfecting the instrument on the streets, there were further spells spent busking in the underground stations and cafes of London's West End and Covent Garden. His work with Rick Wakeman never saw the light of day but O'Shea's contact with the world of post-punk London ensured his name would live on. Introduced to Wire's Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis via cartoonist Tom Johnston, O'Shea eventually acquiesced to an open invite to record at their studio. Turning up unannounced in the summer of 1981 the LP was recorded in a day in the legendary Blackwing Studios and released on Dome the year after. The first side features the fifteen-minute masterpiece "No Journeys End" with the B side featuring more input from Wire in processing the Mo Chara sound. After an aborted LP with The The's Matt Johnson the following year, O'Shea quietly disappeared from the formal recording world and his brief but unique contribution to the music world came to a sad end with O'Shea's passing in 1991. Remastered and reissued with the approval of both Dome and his surviving siblings.

Not Glass is the debut collaboration between Alessio Natalizia (Not Waving) and his longtime correspondent Dimitris Papadatos (Jay Glass Dubs), paying tribute to Latin and Greek authors Ovid and Heraclitus in a suite of dramatic electronics and cryptic rhythms comparable to a theatrical soundtrack. Knowingly, ironically pretentious, yet serious with it, Forma is the result of years of daily Facebook chats between the London and Athens-based artists where they cemented the album's concept around key quotes by the legendary poet/philosophers, who hail from their respective homelands of Italy and Greece. The results are in effect a spellbinding attempt to transmute those notions within the collaborative, contemporary framework of their music, using patented palettes of hardware, vocals, and FX to render and reflect core classical mythological and philosophical ideas about drama, love, metaphysics, cosmology and the "unity of opposites". On this timeless plane, Natalizia and Papadatos both step outside of themselves to find "what opposes unites", spaciously consolidating their typical, yet contrasting, rhythm-driven approaches in a reverberant, often beatless sphere of exploration. Removed from their usual handrails, the artists operate at their most open-ended and subtly suggestive, amorphously shapeshifting from gloaming shadow plays of synth and keys to investigate arcane percussive impulses and iridescent ambient whorls. The result is a perfect, finely shaded marriage of their mutually esoteric, outsider Southern European energies, which intuitively acknowledges and inhabits the paradoxes of their respective styles. The illusively static yet mercurial ebb-and-flow of the atmospheric intro "Fallite Fallentes" sets the scene, where "Dum Loquor, Hora Fugit" invokes a viscous but brittle tangle of wide bass and pointillist rhythms beside a stately cello vignette "Ludicrum" that recalls aspects of Scott Walker's mystic charm "Soused". The rapid arps and slow moving, glassy pads of "Pauper Ubique Iacet" conjure a sublime tension that becomes diffused into the cavernous, hollow dub dread of "Ut Ameris, Amabilis Esto", possessed with its throaty, processed vocal, and the lonely strings and plasmic electronics of "Forma Bonum Fragile Est" connotes a psychedelic coming-to-terms with their artistic/philosophic duality. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 500.

Saxophonist/guitarist/composer/music historian/ provocateur Allen Lowe spans the history of jazz in his music in a way that few besides Jaki Byard, Beaver Harris, Steven Bernstein, and Air have ever done, intertwining blues, early jazz, bebop, and the avant-garde. A prolific composer who was incorporating American roots music into his jazz decades before it was hip, he has led project bands featuring a broad array of jazz greats ranging from Doc Cheatham, Randy Sandke, Joe Albany, Don Byron, Ken Peplowski, and Percy France to Matthew Shipp, Julius Hemphill, Marc Ribot, Roswell Rudd, David Murray, Gary Bartz, Nels Cline, Ray Anderson, DJ Logic, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, and Hamiet Bluiett. With two notable but out-of-print exceptions, most of his work has been released on his own Constant Sorrow label. ESP-Disk' has long admired his work and is happy to partner with him on the career-spanning An Avant Garde Of Our Own: Disconnected Works 1980-2018, which consists of four CDs (3-6) of previously unreleased material and four thematically arranged CDs (1-2, 7-8) collecting a wide variety of material that was mostly previously -- but not widely -- available.

LP version. "Anoyo ('the world over there') draws from the same sessions which led to the 2018 work Konoyo but rendered starker, solemn, and stripped back, with more of a naturalist tint. Tim Hecker's processing here moves in veiled ways, soft refractions and whispered shrouds woven within improvisational sessions of traditional gagaku interplay, evoking a sense of vaulted space, temples at dawn, shredded silk fluttering in the rafters. This is boldly barren music, skeletal and sculptural, shaped from wood, wind, strings, and mist. Modern yet ancient, delicate and desolate, Anoyo inverts its predecessor to compellingly conjure a parallel world of illusion, solitude, and eternal return."

LP version. Mental Experience present a reissue of Galactic Explorers' Epitaph For Venus. Another album from the Pyramid label shrouded in mystery and produced by Toby Robinson in Cologne, circa 1974. Kosmische and head sounds with plenty of Minimoog, analog synths/keyboards, effects, loops, tape manipulation, treated percussions, etc., courtesy of Galactic Explorers, an electronic, minimal, ambient krautrock trio featuring Reinhard Karwatky (Dzyan). Take a trip to the inner regions of your mind, see ancient solar systems forming, and listen to cosmic winds and vibrations while sine waves of pure bliss will give you total peace of mind. RIYL: Terry Riley, Popol Vuh, Sand, Peter Michael Hamel, Tangerine Dream, Baba Yaga, Cluster, Cozmic Corridors, Brainticket. 24-bit domain remaster from the original tapes; Insert with liner notes by Alan Freeman, head boss at Ultima Thule and author of The Crack In The Cosmic Egg (1996).

After a five-year pause for breath, last releasing in 2014, Rainer Veil return with their debut full-length for Modern Love; an immersive, kinematic tumble through electronic forms from hyper trance to tape dub experiments and loose polyrhythms -- a summoning of 'ardcore spirits in flux. A hypnotic sound world tempered by weighty bass and angular construction, Vanity marks a breaking away from the binds of overthinking, an embrace of imperfection. It's a brighter set of tracks then anything we've heard from Rainer Veil before, discarding the foggy filters and guitar pedals that were the signature of their first two EPs in pursuit of a more loose-limbed and swung ideal. Opening on the skeletal trance vapor-trail "Sim Screen" and the agitated "Repatterning", you head into a ferociously asymmetric warehouse swerve "In Gold Mills" conjuring an uncanny, nighttime vision of suburban bass riddled with tension and bliss. "Shallows" retreats through isolation dub, echoing "Change Is Never Easy", a re-worked house template fractured to its bare percussive core, while "FM2" entwines a double helix of DX7 patches with a heart wrench, and "Gauze" dismantles a mosaic of Kwaito patterns, buried under a haze of smoke. Tracing rapidly mutating electronic forms, from ringtone hooks to latinate rhythms and Razor synth edits, Vanity explores an instinctive swell of ideas and influences in perpetual and unstoppable forward motion, a sequence of flash frames captured and distilled for posterity. RIYL: Photek, Caterina Barbieri, SND, Lee Gamble, Gábor Lázár. Mastered and Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 500.

Double LP version includes 7" with two bonus tracks, postcard, and download. Robag Wruhme takes synthetic sounds and sampled noises, cuts them to fit, and turns them into beats without his music ever sounding pieced-together; every single percussive sound is a compact unit, bursting with melody. For Venq Tolep, his first album-length release on Pampa Records in eight years, Wruhme chooses to dig deeper, expanding the space of these elements. He finds beats inside the beats, opens them up further, discovers hooklines, harmonies and feels where he can dispense with rhythm entirely. From his first releases on Freude am Tanzen one could hear it, a light-footed sense of rhythm. Venq Tolep opens with two melodic, melancholic pieces: "Advent" sets one to dancing, while "Westfal" has the listener lying in the grass amid the buzzing heat and rustling wind, hearing the voice of Lysann Zander, with whom Wruhme has worked previously on projects including his album Thora Vukk (PAMPA 002CD, 2011). Hers is not the only familiar name on this album -- Sidsel Endresen and Bugge Wesseltoft have both appeared on releases from Wruhme's bootleg label. Here, they are featured on "Nata Alma," a laid-back club track. "Iklahx" and "Ak-Do 5" both possess a carefree percussiveness, while "Komalh" and "Ago Lades" prove that when Wruhme talks about techno, he means club music more akin to the elegance of London two-step, fueled by R&B/hip-hop and swingbeat, and far removed from the Belgian-Teutonic bunker sound. "Bézique Atout" is a reinterpretation of "Domino," a track from French producer Oxia which Wruhme remixed in 2017, stylishly making it his own. Two more familiar tracks are "Volta Copy," a version of his 2015 hit "Volta Cobby," minus the beat, but now propelled by arpeggios, and "Ende #2," like greetings received from around the world in a day, picks up where "Ende" from Thora Vukk leaves off. Title track "Venq Tolep" draws on all the album's various movements in four minutes and 18 seconds: the light, pensive mood, the subtle, driving rhythm, the ambient-sounding layers of synthesized strings and the percussive electric piano melody lines. Venq Tolep has a well-rounded sound, like an arch unfolding in space; that, of course, is the universe of Robag Wruhme. With Venq Tolep, Wruhme creates something extraordinary -- the album may speak the language of club music, but the music verges on feeling like songs. Is it techno pop? Pop techno? Pop ambient? Ambient pop?

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. Detroit Love present the second release on their eponymous imprint -- a collaborative venture from Planet E and !K7 which aims to capture the essence of Carl Craig's beloved event series. Following 2018's inaugural mix from Stacey Pullen (PEDL 001CD/LP), the second entry comes from none other than Carl Craig himself. Across a hazy, funk-driven voyage, he delves into the spirit of his hometown, championing the past and future of the motor city into an expertly curated mix. With a blend of '90s gems and new exclusives, Carl's track selections forge an atemporal vision of quintessential Detroit music. Opening up the mix are two rare, early '90s classics from Ectomorph and Rhythim Is Rhythim, neither of which have been reissued on vinyl for decades, followed swiftly by a 2015 collaboration from Carl Craig and Green Velvet, never before released on vinyl. New material comes in the form of an exclusive C2 edit of DJ Minx, another exclusive from Claude Von Stroke, tracks from TV Lounge affiliates Ataxia and Mister Joshooa, and unheard music from Matthew Dear under his new Brain alias, to name a few. Also features Kevin Saunderson, Virus J, Dave Aju & thatmanmonkz, Foxxee, Octave One, Waajeed, Sophie Lloyd, Dames Brown, Floorplan, BMH & Sal P, Gay Marvine, Delano Smith, Gaiser, Mr. G, and Mirko Loko & Stacey Pullen.

"End of the Night was conceived based around a simple, yet extremely emotionally resonant concept. Late one evening the musician and myself were listening to records at home. After many hours it got to the point where everything became completely still, the silence permeating the walls, reverberating. We agreed to listen to one more record, but what would it be? What music could answer that existential quandary of the perfect last record of the night at home? I instantly asked him to make me the very record we needed to hear at the moment, a record for the end of the night. Several years passed before the execution of the concept could take place but Brokaw was collecting notes in the back of his mind the entire time. I suggested collaborators like Greg Kelley (on Chet Baker style trumpet, knowing Brokaw's strong affinity for that player) and Samara Lubelski (whom he played with briefly in Thurston Moore and the New Wave Bandits). Bringing in guests such as Lori Goldston, David Michael Curry, Luther Gray, Jonah Sacks and Timo Shanko, each track has its own unique combination of small group formations (duos, trios, quartets) very much like jazz, both in instrumentation and mood, if not style or standards. While Brokaw himself is a brilliantly narrative guitarist, known for taking collaborative projects he's involved with to new heights, rarely has he opened his solo work to the same collaborative spaces as with his group projects. The result is a multi-hued, jazz-tinged instrumental record with a melancholy resolve and a deep blue/purple filter. Very much a product of his song writing and playing, End of the Night's guests allow the guitarist to show his interplay and prowess in a variety of settings rooted around a common theme. The album art was done by Hollywood legend Sandy Dvore (Buffalo Springfield, The Cake, Partridge Family), who composed the drawing after hearing the album in full, directly inspired by the music, adding a visual element similar to the stylistic innovations of David Stone Martin. Unlike anything else in Brokaw's catalog, VDSQ is proud to issue this essential recording that we believe merits new attention to a beloved artist who has been part of the fabric of the underground/independent music community for decades. While we have the utmost respect for his body of work, both solo and with his many groups, The End Of The Night may very well be the greatest record he's yet made. We hope this special album has a place on your stereo for many years to come. Play at night and not too loud."

Saine & Smith's Dirty Games is the second project from Jaja Saine and Leo "Love Tiger" Smith. The duo has been making their mark both as DJs and producers in the electronic music scene in Stockholm. Dirty Games is a wide range of tracks for various moods and settings. None of the tracks are alike; this EP highlights the various elements and styles they have been influenced by as artists, the title track "Dirty Games" and "Moon Monster" being the tracks to which one just can't help but dance.

"They say that the avant-garde moves faster than light and therefore has to travel under cover of darkness, flying blind, destination unknown. Little of today's realpolitik-related gloom casts its shadow over Strategies, the new album by restless avant-garde auteur Andreas Spechtl. On the contrary. Whereas the two preceding albums Sleep and Thinking About Tomorrow (And How To Build It) (BB 278CD/LP, 2017) documented quietly intimate, personal journeys along the margins of Europe or Iran, casting a skeptical eye on neoteric political shifts, Strategies is an altogether more explosive affair, buzzing with beats, effervescent with the energy of techno, dance, a celebration of resistance. The sense of unease engendered by global politics has given way to a new sense of self, to new strategies, an eagerness to escape into ecstasy, madness, anarchy. Right from the word go, as the first melodies take shape, as the first lines unfold, even as quiet, intimate moments from prior recordings linger on, a piano fades away, a saxophone passes by and then the beats kick in -- an almost anthemic 'yes, we will change the world/because we've done so/many times before' sets the euphoric tone for the rest of the album. And oh, the voice; following its disappearing act on the previous discs, it returns here on a wave of charming dandyism, dancing, screaming, whispering, moaning, striding unwaveringly, casually, aggressively, through techno, tribal and disco beats, scanning lyrics whose palpable, newly-gained coolness might just be a universal antidote against the world's political vacuum. It is also a voice which suddenly switches to Spanish on 'When We Were Young,' joined by Anna Seghers as a ghostly witness. The album was written in Santiago de Querétaro, not far from Mexico City. It was crafted mostly on a modular system and two synthesizers, without VST or digital equipment, the computer downgraded to the status of a mere multitrack recording device. Andreas Spechtl appears to have arrived at the core of his own self, all new, as if he had rewired himself amongst all the modules -- without having even tried to find himself, yet discovering someone in the circuits who had almost been forgotten or would be forgotten again, someone who only existed right there. With the philosophical and musical activism on Strategies he offers us the clearest, most readable signs pointing into the future." --Thomas Köck, January 2019.

2019 repress; Double LP version. "In this compilation I am inaugurating a style: vintage futurism. The best metaphor for this genre is Charanjit Singh's 1982 album Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, in which he created a sound which mirrors, but more importantly pre-dates, the first acid-house record by five years. It is no novelty record, but truly captures the hypnotic potential of acid/house music. It became my key track for Elaste Volume 04. Previous incarnations of Elaste have aimed to catch the spirit of the late '70s Italian cosmic discotheque, a place where the history of DJing was rewritten. For this latest installment, I was most intrigued by weird of-the-time (or 'out-of' as the case turned out to be) electronic disco, a vast genre that brings together those progressive avant-garde tracks that were expanding the genres of house, disco, acid, new wave. I ultimately use Elaste as a vehicle to highlight those tracks that were ahead of their time. These legendary works range from 1978 to 1996, a wide spectrum of musical history in which some of the older tracks may sound modern, and newer ones may sound vintage. Many of these authentic back-to-the-aural-future moments were initial sparks for whole genres -- Larry Heard's Disco-D alias happened just before house music. Greg Wilson's 1984 project Equip was produced for a UK electro compilation, but never made the LP because it sounded too futuristic. Michael Rinder's 'Gluttony' can't be called disco any more -- not even post-disco. For Elaste Volume 4, we have built vintage futurism as a home for these ultramodern mavericks." --Dompteur Mooner
Artists include: Charanjit Singh, C Cat Trance, Cybotron, Rinder & Lewis, Barbara Norris, Nad, Equip, Sandee, Disco D, and Dopplereffekt. Includes a vinyl-only bonus track by Tambien.

"Shimmering dream pop readymades are the heart of Cosine, the debut release by Ancient Pools (originally a cassette, and now an LP). Ancient Pools are a duo (Anna Jeter and Kevin Christopher), recently relocated from Olympia to Portland, where Kevin was offered a good set-up at a new studio. Anna is from Pensacola, FL, where she was in a folk-tinged pop band called 100 Watt Horse. Kevin remains the bassist for a more rockist Northwest quartet called Oh, Rose. But Ancient Pools, with its intimate, electronics-dappled approach to minimalist pop-tones is a whole different thing. The songs began gestation after Anna exiled herself to the woods of North Carolina for a summer, before moving to Olympia, where she met Kevin. They wrote the second half of the album in collaboration, but there's no obvious demarcation between the halves. Gently struck drums and quiet strings emerge through a hazy wave of vocals and synth that keep reminding me of the dreamy grace exuded by the duo version of Yo La Tengo, right about the time Georgia started singing. The effect of listening to Cosine on repeat (which actually resembles its creation process in certain ways) is like sinking into sweet cloud of sound, baked by the sun, with sounds of nature piping themselves into your system on a subliminal level. Quite a magnificent glide." --Byron Coley, 2019.

"The debut LP by Spiral Wave Nomads introduces a new psych duo comprised of two musicians with active histories inside the New England sub underground. Guitarist Eric Hardiman is one of the many hardened string wranglers for Albany's legendary Burnt Hills, as well as the proprietor of the Tape Drift label and half of the prolific experimental unit, Century Plants. Drummer Michael Kiefer is best known as a member of Myty Konkeror and the exquisite trio that emerged from them -- More Klementines, whose eponymous album (2018) has made brains tingle all around the globe. The Spiral Wave Nomads set is a lovely sprawl of electric guitar improv (aided in spots by bass, sitar and double-tracked guitar) mixed with elegantly tumbling drum work, guaranteed to illuminate many tunnels of spiraling trip-time. Parts of the album may momentarily recall Rangda at their most lysergic, but the crossed-eyed way the two players have of busting up and hanging on to shards of melody and rhythm is all their own. If you liked the More Klementines album, I dare say you'll like this as well. But it's in a slightly different bag as well. Vibrationally consonant without resorting to apery. A beautiful sonic spread." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 250.

2019 restock, last copies... Originally released in 2009. It's a prescient hauntological elegy somewhere between Vangelis' Bladerunner OST (1982), Lynch and Badalamenti's Twin Peaks score, Erik Satie's solo Piano works, William Basinski's gradual tape decompositions, and James Ferraro's washed out visions. Back in 2009, James Leyland Kirby explained: "Here we stand, twenty years on from the first CD, and our optimism has been gradually eroded away collectively. 'Tomorrows World' never came. We are lost and isolated, many of us living our lives through social networks as we try to make sense of it all, becoming voyeurs not active participants. Documenting everything. No Mystery. Everything laid bare for all to see." A decade later, it could hardly have been more prescient. It's with this pessimistic sense of being that Kirby constructed these incredible pieces, creating a sequence of music designed to overwhelm and absorb, affecting our sense of time and place by tracing and retracing musical steps into a blur, re-using the same motifs with incremental differences, trapped in our own feedback loops of lost emotion. On this long double album, James Leyland Kirby once again acts as a spiritual bridge, holding fast against the perceived current of time and culture in order to afford a slow, lingering gaze on its ambiguous, ever-shifting ripples and eddies. Like staring at a body of gently moving water, the effect is strangely soothing and meditative, encouraging immersed reflection and dilated focus...

Von Spar celebrate the fifth anniversary of their groundbreaking 2014 album, Streetlife, with a reissue LP edition pressed onto 140 gram white vinyl. Precarious bon vivants, gifted musicians, radical guys -- Von Spar are many things, but above all, they are one of the most amazing bands in the realms that the British music press once baptized as krautrock. Sebastian Blume, Jan Philipp Janzen, Christopher Marquez, and Phillip Tielsch have in past been praised even more than the revenants of the genre (in 2012, together with Stephen Malkmus, before the watering eyes of Can founding members Irmin Schmidt and Jaki Liebezeit, they provided a reinterpretation of the album Ege Bamyasi at the Cologne Weekend Festival) -- even if the four were inspired equally by techno, synthpop, noise, post-punk, and new music. "The concept of the collective Von Spar seems to be to torpedo listeners' expectations from album to album," wrote the German newspaper TAZ about their album Foreigner (2010). And once again, much is new on Streetlife. Four of the eight pieces were recorded with the Canadian singer Chris Cummings, aka Marker Starling (formerly Mantler), whose fragile voice at moments recalls that of the great communist and musician Robert Wyatt. Other pieces feature the voice of Ada (Pampa Records) and of Scout Niblett (Drag City), for whom Jan Philipp Janzen has played drums on various tours (as he has for the likes of Owen Pallett and The Field). Streetlife has emerged as a heterogeneous album ranging from melodic piano disco ("Chain Of Command"), to tripped-out soundscapes ("Hearts Fear"), to grandiose soft rock ("Try Though We Might"). One might call it music for a better world, if that didn't sound so lofty. Yet Von Spar is not at all lofty, they are wide awake. This is not escapism, but life in the streets. And that's how they live it.

Captain Beefheart, live from the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver on January 17th, 1981. Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band toured Europe and North America to promote their critically acclaimed album, Doc At The Radar Station (1980). This would be their final tour together. A year later, Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, turned his back on the music business to focus on painting. Broadcast live by CBC at the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, on January 17, 1981, this gig featured a stunning set that showcased Captain Beefheart's blues-based aural art served with a twist of brilliant madness. As the Captain said, "If you got ears, you gotta listen." The entire CBC FM radio broadcast is presented here, digitally remastered, with background liners.

Reinhard Voigt returns to his own label with another episode of satiric techno. Reinhard embraces all that wildlife has to offer with Was Wir Spüren. A bass drum on "Das Singende, Klingende Ding" guides you through a voracious bee storm as the rooster crows gloriously towards duck quacking oblivion. "Tausendmal Zu Viel" fits perfectly as the soundtrack for to the artwork created by Mareena von Cube. "Der Mann, Der Nie Nach Deutz Kam" is classic Reinhard Voigt techno at peak-time point. A throttling bass drum is voraciously fueled by the jungle twilight.

2019 repress. Originally released in 1974, Zuckerzeit marked a turning point for these seminal German space rockers. Recorded shortly after their move away from the metropolis of Berlin, it sees some of the abrasiveness of their earlier material slightly diffusing. With the addition of proto drum machines and the producing talents of Michael Rother, their sound here - while remaining firmly in anchored in experimental territory - has more pop sensibility. Newly packaged with the CD of the album.

Alpha & Omega's Dubplate Selection Volume 1 first appeared on A&O Records in 1997. This is vintage killer addictive electronic reggae and dub selection by UK pioneers Alpha & Omega, a heavyweight vintage UK dub sound-system classic!

2019 is Mule Musiq's 15 years anniversary. Their seventh release of 2019 is Roman Flügel's debut single on the label. The title track on side A is an electric soul house tune and the B side is hypnotic jazzy deep house. It's reminiscent of Kuniyuki.

LP version. "Next in UT's reissue and remastered back catalog series, their first studio album Conviction, originally released in 1986. This 2019 remastered reissue will include song lyrics, photos of the band and an introduction by Stewart Lee. Radical rock group Ut was founded by Nina Canal, Jacqui Ham and Sally Young in 1978. Originating in the downtown NYC No Wave scene and inheritors of the collision between rock, free jazz and the avant-garde, the band exploded the rigidity of conventional rock, constructing songs through collective improvisation, swapping instruments and rotating the role of singer/director. Migrating to London in 1981, UT played with bands like The Fall and The Birthday Party and released music on its own label Out Records, including Live At The Venue in 1982, the UT EP in 1984, the Confidential 12-inch in 1985 and the LP Conviction in 1986. UT became a favorite of BBC's John Peel and recorded sessions for his show in '84, '85 and '87. Joining forces with Blast First in 1987, they released the live compilation album Early Live Life and then the highly critically acclaimed In Gut's House in 1988, which made the year's NME Top 50 Albums."

Debut full-length from London-based three-piece originally hailing from New Zealand (Matthew Hyland), Germany (Anja Büchele), and Romania (Dennis Debitsev). Precious Waste In Our Wake (full title written nowhere: "The Fucking Terrible Receding Shapes, We Shed Precious Waste In Our Wake") is an endlessly beautiful, dense, and chaotic crawl through so many forms it can be difficult to ascertain what is actually at play here. Ostensibly a "rock" band carved from the same plank as previous outfits Philosophie Queen, The Mean Streaks, etc., Triple Negative have appeared in a somewhat complacent London with their wildly original blend of chaos shifting alongside the suggestion of a maelstrom of politics, spite, and humor. Bloodclaat Orange, Fatna Bent Lhoucine, The Associates, Aby Ngana Diop, Royal Trux, Brigitte Fontaine/Areski, and Babyfather are all somehow wished into the scenario, either suggestively, explicitly quoted or manifesting as some malformed degree of inspiration. Precious Waste features bloody-minded Schlagzeugspiel by Stephen Robinson (Aufgehoben) and Rohan P. Thomas (The Mean Streaks, Sigma Editions) with guest verses by Maria Callas/P.P. Pasolini, Marlene Dietrich, and actually existing urban foxes of Northeast and South London. Also contains "Destroyer", the first song written by Cameron Bain for The Mean Streaks (2000. complete lyric sheet: "Destroyer!"), followed immediately by Dr Moreau-style fusion of Herman Melville and Peter Perrett in glass-all-void "Immigrant Song". Also, bass sound of the miraculous Stylophone Beatbox, plus Casio MT 45 psychick dancehall, and three pairs of strings, not four, on the bouzouki. Following on from the quietly released Towers, Open, Fire/Looking For Business 7" towards the dying end of 2018 (PP 704EP), Precious Waste In Our Wake is a malediction forbidding mourning, a portfolio of old pathologies folded into a sleek new nervous wreck. Precious Waste In Our Wake exists as a hulking ride of audacious rhythmic passages swaying alongside the meanest of melodies suddenly swept over by flights most fragile. High gloss sleeve with insert.

Long standing influential British experimental group Coil began performing live again in 1999 after a 15-year hiatus. These now legendary performances included many pieces that were never released on album, including this album-length epic version of "The Universe Is A Haunted House", captured live on October 12th, 2002 at London's Convay Hall.

Sonor Music Editions present a reissue of Nello Ciangherotti (aka Nenty) and Silvano Chimenti's Sonorita' Nel Lavoro, originally released on Globe Records in 1971. Another insane and fuzzy Italian library killer. A top-notch set of sleazy psych, dope progressive riffs, and experimental rock themed music produced to score some obscure documentaries about world of work. Mad sections of evil psychedelic guitars and fuzzy wah-wah by the great guitarist Silvano Chimenti (the man behind Droga (1972) and further library grails) and studio arrangements by maestro and orchestra director Nello Ciangherotti. Stunning edgy vibes with loads of hand-made sonorities that recall sounds of industry, mechanical instruments, and smoking chimneys for a dope psychedelic winner. Remastered from the original tape. Cardboard sleeve replica of the original. 180 gram vinyl; Edition of 300.

Sonor Music Editions present a reissue of Giuliano Sorgini's Lavoro E Tempo Libero, originally released on Goldfinger in 1980. A highly sought-after Italian library jewel with mental disco-funk cuts and sleazy grooves. The music here was used to score various documentaries for Italian Rai TV, Lavoro E Tempo Libero by the eclectic maestro Giuliano Sorgini is another stellar recording from the comprehensive Italian library world, very different from his '70s masterpieces like 1971's Under Pompelmo (CNLP 037LP) or 1974's Zoo Folle, but with a perfect early '80s sound and clear funky greatness mixed with some very beautiful chill jams. An insane set of dark funk bangers filled with drum breaks and beats, different refined moods with soothing airs and lounge-y suites, exquisite flute notes by Nino Rapicavoli, along with sharp guitars and sleazy basslines. Easily one of the top albums out of library labels Usignolo/Goldifinger. Renewed artwork. Remastered sound from the original tape. 180 gram vinyl; Editions of 500.

Studio Mule present their third reissue of Fumio Itabashi with Rise And Shine: Live At The Aketa's, originally released in 1977. Rise And Shine Live At The Aketa's was his second release of 1977, and it was recorded at legendary Jazz Club in Tokyo. This album was actually recorded before his first release Toh. "Jumping Board" on side A is a Japanese hard bop classic. Itabashi's cover version of "My Funny Valentine" is very sweet and elegant while the main track, "Rise And Shine", is one of his best work. At times the album is reminiscent of Pharaoh Sanders if he played piano. Limited initial press.

Sunbeam Records present a reissue of The Habibiyya's sole album, If Man But Knew, originally released in 1972. The album stands as one of the earliest and most beautiful pieces of world music ever recorded in Britain. The musicians involved (including three members of UK underground legends Mighty Baby) had been profoundly affected, both musically and spiritually, by visiting Morocco in 1971, and became adherents of the Sufi faith. Upon their return to London they made If Man But Knew, featuring exotic instruments such as koto, shakuhachi, and mandola alongside guitar, organ and drums, conjuring a hypnotic, otherworldly ambience in the process. It makes its long-awaited CD debut here, accompanied by detailed liner notes, previously-unseen photographs, five rare bonus tracks, and an introduction by the group's leader, Ian Whiteman. Four-panel digipack; includes 12-page booklet.

"Eastern-influenced hypnotic psychedelic music" --The Tapestry Of Delights

Glitterbeat's instrumental music imprint tak:til, is undertaking an exciting label partnership with VDSQ Records, the acclaimed US based label specializing in "21st Century Guitar".

Chuck Johnson is a composer and musician residing in Oakland, CA. His 2017 album Balsams ended up on albums-of-the-year lists at Uncut, Pitchfork, and NPR. Tak:til is releasing Balsams for the first time ever on CD -- with two additional tracks. Chuck Johnson's pedal steel guitar debut delivers a group of pieces for ambient meditation. Recorded in a single two-week session during late 2015, and subsequently arranged/constructed/treated in the studio in spring of 2016, Balsams is awash in layers of tonal perfection. The album constantly evolves while maintaining a unified approach across both sides. Balsams is a record that lives outside genre and time, one that continues to develop with each successive deep listen. A unique expansion in the VDSQ catalog, Balsams is an album created in the hopes of providing solace and regenerative energies for many years to come.

"On this expressive and singular new album, Chuck Johnson gives his steel pedal guitar the starring role, and creates a kind of country post-rock. It feels like a universe unto itself." --Pitchfork (8.1)

"Chuck Johnson often writes for solo acoustic guitar, but lately has been stretching his ambient composition skills with the tenderness heard throughout his discography. For Balsams, he layers loops of pedal steel guitar that rest on the edge of dusk, just when the tumult of day subsides and seeps into the soul's reflection." --NPR (Best Music of 2017)

Alt-rock icon Josephine Wiggs is best known as bassist in The Breeders, rising to superstardom in the '90s and continuing to draw crowds and critical acclaim in the wake of their 2018 album All Nerve. But over the years, Wiggs has released several of her own albums, all of which delightfully defy genre. Her new solo record, We Fall, is both a departure and a distillation of an enduring personal aesthetic: moody and spare but also melodic, at once contemporary and nostalgic. Some influences are clear: We Fall is reminiscent of the experimentalism of Brian Eno's Another Green World (1975) and recalls the delicate, languid minimalism of Harold Budd. The album's classical inflections, sharpened by a dialog with electronic elements, evoke Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. This is an album of juxtapositions: minimalist at moments, richly layered in others; ambient while also sharply focused; melancholy yet resolute. There's something both dreamy and scientific about We Fall. Wiggs, an enthusiastic amateur mycologist, has an impressive collection of mushrooms she's photographed in her travels. We Fall could be the soundtrack to what can't be captured in a single photo -- the growth and decay of miraculous creatures that a less astute and sensitive eye might overlook entirely. Composed, performed, and recorded by Wiggs, with drums and electronics by her longtime friend and collaborator Jon Mattock (Spacemen 3, Spiritualized), We Fall is a lyrical, bucolic album with an undercurrent of disquiet. Think of a wintertime walk in the woods as dusk falls too soon. True to the classic album form, the ten almost entirely instrumental tracks on We Fall form a compelling whole: a crystalline meditation on paths not taken and words unspoken, an elegy for moments lost and last embraces.

2019 repress. Trunk presents a special, first-time, issue of David Shire's soundtrack for The Conversation (1974). This is the first time the complete score to The Conversation has been released on vinyl. The film itself was originally released in 1974 but until now nothing else has ever been pressed on vinyl. Jonny Trunk's obsession with this music began after he'd caught the film, late night, sometime in the mid-1990s. Musically it's an exceptional example of the "new minimalism" in film music of the period, marking a departure (for some) from big scores to smaller, more economic ensemble sounds. The film was written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and is a thrilling journey into sound, mind and murder. Heavily influenced by Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966) Coppola wanted to fuse the concept of Blow-Up with "the world of audio surveillance". The story centers around Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a professional wire-tapper and clandestine bugger consumed by a conversation he's been paid to record. Caul is a loner, an obsessive-compulsive character with numerous neuroses that play out brilliantly throughout the film. And as he slowly pieces together the conversation fragments and forms his own story around it, his world falls apart. For the music, Coppola wisely chose a young David Shire, his brother-in-law. Shire's deceptively simple piano theme is one of tragic beauty, capturing Caul's loneliness, his disturbed nature and this trip into darkness. The melody has both sweet and sour tones, feeling a little like a slow ragtime, developing throughout the film; there are even trips into avant-garde territory with electro-acoustic flourishes and Concrète. The agitated figure of Caul, wearing his distinctive transparent mac, is made all the more raw and poignant by the score, its sparse and curiously emotional compositions unlike any others from the period. The soundtrack for The Conversation proved to be a major break for Shire, his career taking off from this point. His next score was to classic Taking Of Pelham 123, followed up ironically by All The Presidents Men - a thriller about the Watergate scandal. The Conversation won several awards and nominations, and has become a classic of the "New Hollywood" movement. Personnel: Jack Nimitz - baritone sax; Ray Brown - bass; Shelly Manne - drums; Walter Murch - sound montage; Norman Wachner - engineer; Pete Jolly - piano; David Shire - piano; Clark Spangler - ARP 2600; Don Menza - tenor sax; Conte Condoli - trumpet.