LP version. Berlin-based Swedish bassist and producer Petter Eldh returns with a new Koma Saxo album Post Koma, out on We Jazz Records. The title Post Koma aptly describes the vibe of this one: The Koma Saxo sound continues its evolution, morphing into a holistic vision of jazz now and soon, where live instrumentation and repurposed sampling lose their boundaries. Post Koma is a culmination of Eldh's sonic study, resulting in a music vision that never second-guesses throwing tasty hooks and everlasting melodies out the window after a mere bite of them. But fear not: there are even more new ideas just around the corner. Eldh's compositions and ideas merge together in a way that just flows. There are quality musicians in the mix, including Koma Saxo live band members Sofia Jernberg, Jonas Kullhammar, Otis Sandsjö, Mikko Innanen, Maciej Obara, and Christian Lillinger, but that's like saying that a cake includes flour and sugar. This music is not about playing, it's essentially about how the music is and how it takes its shape, so you quickly lose track of who did what, and that's all in the benefit of encountering this music as an entity that is constantly challenging itself while moving forward. The musicians are valued contributors, and an integral part of what's here, but this is far from traditional jazz playing where a band sits in a room playing takes after takes of compositions on sheet. That being said, this is jazz to the fullest. That is, music that understands its past but always moves forward, and is never afraid of taking risks. Petter Eldh uses jazz as a starting point, not the end goal. This gives his music edge and mobility beyond what can be contained on one album. In a way, an album, then, becomes a snapshot of a creative process in constant flux and evolution. It feels like an ending, and also like a new beginning. RIYL: Art Ensemble Of Chicago, J Dilla, Don Cherry, Madlib.

"The debut issue of Head Voice, created by James Toth, Donovan Quinn, and Ben Chasny. Featuring Matt Valentine, Peter Laughner, Naomi Yang, Cheval Sombre, Kristen Gallerneaux, and Jason Quever. Head Voice is an audio recording zine focused on creative musical pursuits and unorthodox sound production. Our work strives to be of interest to those intrigued by the imaginative ingenuity behind audio recordings, regardless of whether you record music yourself. This zine is tailored from the threads of a thousand conversations between recording musicians. Many of these conversations share a common theme: the creative, non-technical side of sound recording. While the world seems to be overflowing with tips and tricks about how-to-do-this and how-to-do-that, Head Voice is more interested in the joy of recording while keeping in mind the primacy of the music. Dogmatic opinions about the 'right' and 'wrong' ways to create and record music -- in both the analog and digital realm -- tend to obscure and even dismiss the intuitive approaches that have been utilized to create art since the dawn of recorded time. Such strategies are often as unique, idiosyncratic, and individual as the artists who implement them, and these are the corners Head Voice wishes to explore. It is dedicated to the spirit of inquiry and transparency; to asking, not telling, and dispelling many discouraging myths about the recording process. It seeks to answer questions about the creation of music and art, as well as questions about the artists who make it. Head Voice hopes that this shared knowledge provides both resources and inspiration. Its motto: You are doing nothing wrong."

"I was hanging out with Bill Orcutt at the 930 Club nearly 30 years ago, watching a famous post-rock band (who shall remain nameless, but whose moniker contained two-and-a-half times more articles and conjunctions than nouns) when he said: 'This band is like my band in college -- all major 7th and 9th chords.' I relate this to emphasize that in the case of Bill Orcutt and Harry Pussy, the seemingly untutored ooze of 'Please Don't Come Back From the Moon' and 'Girl With Frog' had its genesis in something far more Apollonian than is usually understood. It's debatable whether or not Watt, the duo of Orcutt and drummer Tim Koffley featured on Recorded in Miami, is the above referenced grad-school band. Watt is not resplendent with jazz chords, but it's certainly more tutored, offering a mannered link between the contemporaneous Thunders-esque punk of Orcutt's Trash Monkeys and Harry Pussy's mayhem. The continuity with Harry Pussy is more than temporal -- Recorded in Miami is Orcutt's first use of the four-string guitar, and Harry Pussy claimed the same amp and drum kit. The resemblance more or less ends there. To further put Recorded in Miami -- made on Orcutt's Walkman, Rat Bastard's North Miami studio, and South Miami's Natural Sound (total bill $289) -- into context, consider the fecundity of the underground music world as the '80s rolled into the '90s. It's hard to relate to those who missed it, but it was a time when post-hardcore hadn't quite given way to the bloat of grunge, when the Minutemen held sway (for the moment) over Led Zeppelin. The indie world was ruled by an ever-propagating compost heap of jagged guitar bands like TFUL282, Truman's Water, and (to crank it back a couple years) Phantom Tollbooth. And in some ways (although Orcutt swears Watt's prime influences were James Blood Ulmer and Fred Frith's Massacre), this record seems very much cut from that decade-ending cloth, seemingly only one vocal overdub away from a Homestead catalog number. Track after track (mostly titled after episodes of Art Clokey's slyly Buddhist TV masterwork, Gumby), Recorded in Miami's tracks spill over with right angles, rockist tropes, and verse/ chorus structures, from the Minutemen-oid funk of 'Band Contest' to the stroked Moore-Ranaldo-isms of 'The Young and the Decoding.' Yet Orcutt's fretboard-spanning angular melodic runs are right up front in the latter, and the final two tracks introduce a bit of the explosive chaos that would follow when Adris finally claimed the drum kit. Consider 'Wattstock,' where Koffley forms the bedrock for an extended Orcutt hotbox of instantly-composed harmolodics. Or 'God Are You There, It's Me, Watt,' where we can hear the spontaneous vocal bursts (the only vocals on the album) that would re-emerge on Orcutt's early solo records. Watt began to crumble when Koffley, as drummers will do, yearned for rhythmic grids of increasing complexity, while Orcutt instead wanted to 'smoke more pot and improvise.' For a few records with Harry Pussy, Orcutt would get his wish (though some of the structuralism of Watt would creep into later records). But we shouldn't regard Recorded in Miami as mere transitional scraps of juvenalia, or stunt-rock delivered for the mere thrill of pulling it off. Rather, it's an early, major piece of the unfolding and complex puzzle of Orcutt's music. A foundation. And without the earth beneath our feet, how can we ever reach the sky?" --Tom Carter

2023 repress. Lilith present a reissue of Caetano Veloso's Caetano Veloso (A Little More Blue), originally issued in 1971. Often referred to as "Brazil's unofficial poet laureate" and the "Bob Dylan of Brazil", this heavyweight of Brazilian music was also a young revolutionary who used his music to protest against Brazil's oppressive military regime. This protest music, which became known as tropicalia, first earned Veloso a stint in jail, but by the time this dour album was released in 1971, it had placed him in exile in the UK. Veloso's extreme bitterness and melancholy can be heard on every groove of this album, but don't let the album's gloomy atmosphere stop you from buying it; it is dripping with some of the best moments of saudade in the history of Brazilian music. Color vinyl.

2023 restock, last copies. LP version. Includes insert with liners notes; Includes download card. Continuing with their reissue campaign of the Toby Robinson's Pyramid label catalog, Mental Experience now present Temple's self-titled release. Probably the most "rock" sounding of all the Pyramid titles, Temple were an ad-hoc outfit born out of several late-night sessions at Dierks Studios (where Toby was working at that time), involving local friends of Toby and other musicians from adjoining studios, among them Zeus B. Held (Birth Control). Temple played a kind of heavy, dark psychedelic krautrock with ahead of its time proto-Goth vibe. Loud guitars, Hammond, Mini-Moog, Mellotron, distorted and echoing vocals, effects... RIYL: Amon Düül II, Hawkwind, Birth Control, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel, Emtidi... 24-bit remaster from the original tapes; Insert with liner notes by Alan Freeman (The Crack In The Cosmic Egg); Includes download coupon.

LP version. "The latest in VP's acclaimed Reggae Anthology series focuses on producer Hugh 'Redman' James. A reggae revolution powered by Steely & Clevie and Roots Radics at Channel One and Tuff Gong. 12" in-demand '80s classic from Gregory Isaacs, Conroy Smith, Carl Meeks, and Admiral Tibet. Includes inner sleeve with extensive liner notes and rare photos."

"This is Lee 'Scratch' Perry's final studio album recorded shortly before his passing in October 2021. Lee was one of 'the major cultural figures' of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. His contribution to the furtherance of Jamaican music as producer, arranger, writer and artist is beyond compare. He played a pivotal role in, and was the inspiration behind, many of the key movements in the development of reggae throughout the '60s and '70s. Released on 180m gram vinyl, including a booklet with extensive sleeve notes by Noel Hawks, plus photos."

First ever release of female French composer, musicologist and writer Nicole Lachartre (1934-1991). This ten-track triple LP set comprises most of her electronic and musique concrète compositions recorded in the 1960's and 1970's, all previously unreleased. It includes her first tape composition from 1968, recorded in Pierre Henry's Apsome studio, electronic and electro-acoustic compositions realized at the IPEM in Ghent, The Institute of Sonology in Utrecht and the Radio Belgrade Electronic Music Studio, and a première concert recording from 1978 with the legendary Jeanne Loriod playing the Ondes Martenot. Lachartre studied with Darius Milhaud, Iannis Xenakis and Michel Philippot. Her broad formation and interest as well as her profound commitment and singular vision created a solitary voice, even within the field of electronic and concrete music, strangely enough unheard till this day.

In addition to the unique musical proposals and the large body of work that they have developed separately, Amelia Cuni and Werner Durand have been performing together as a duo as well as in collaborations (Tonaliens, Born of Six) for more than 20 years. Fusing her Indian Raga singing in the Dhrupad style with his minimalist and experimental approach, they have expanded the reach of their soundworlds as well as proposed new paths for contemporary music. In this occasion, Uli Hohmann joins them in a range of hand drums from the Middle East and North Africa, plus a dulcimer-sounding hammered guitar. Durand's various self-made wind instruments, soprano sax, and blown kalimba shine along with Cuni's astounding vocals, which are sometimes sung through a mirliton (a medieval type of kazoo). Clearing is the trio's first published recording. With a condensing sound going from Buddhist morning chants down to Indian festive traditional music, the title track, which closes the album, is the most vibrant of all, permeating a bit of commotion through buzzing drones and galloping percussion. Without disorder, yet without measure. Clearing is therefore this shuttle into the distance, this space that weaves, unites, and tenses the different cords that we are made up of. When the clouds advance silently, gray, until they become dark in a few minutes, it means that the monsoon is coming. It reaches us without apparent noise, but then resounds in its images, leaving behind lightness, freshness, clarity, and a tremendous luminosity that comes from so far away: from the Himalayas, from so ancient, from Sanskrit, from a sound where the darkness and the divine, where the concrete and the landscape, where the rock and the humidity leave a mark that brings together and ties a sky loaded with new clouds.

2023 repress. "...and at the heart of Bitchin Bajas, there is pure peace. Bitchin Bajas have been around the world in five years; chasing sonics through space and time and coming up with a lot of conclusions along their discographical path. Always, they push forward, recklessly consuming processes in order to realize their own works -- but the sound and the music regularly emerges with tranquil essence, bringing them and their listeners into a shared experience. Bitchin Bajas' output has been remarkably diverse in search of this singular goal, which makes for great listening across multiple albums etc. -- and with the release of this new double-LP, they have mapped and traversed their own ecosystem as they journey in search of the aural epiphany, the true unknowing. With plenty of room stretched over four sides, Bitchin Bajas use their many methods to attain perfect flow throughout the 76 minutes of this self-titled record. Self-titled because this is who they are at their core; these are the flares and oscillations of their soul. They will be other things again, horizons will continue to rise and fade away in their path as they continue forward and upward -- but this self-titled record is a pure vision at the heart of Bitchin Bajas. Acoustic is the beginning. Eastern tonalities relocate Bitchin Bajas farther inside the source, finding the timeless time from long ago and slowly sliding via fader until then is now, until acoustic goes analog. Something pure and natural is happening -- within the sound, within the songs; in the album and in you. The shifts that come makes changes in your moods and your body temperature. Something delicate yet definite, gradually washing over your consciousness. Electricity just comes, it doesn't even begin. Bitchin Bajas is climate-controlled comprehension -- on one hand, an ultimate album, and on the other, barely even an album at all. What began in randomness, pitch-shifting and tape manipulation emerged in the cutting as a single direction, a journey in scales, divided by the format perfectly into four stages, eight discreet parts. Bitchin Bajas reach high and low in their consciousness as expressed through equalization to see (hear) what affect it will have on them -- and what it does to them, reaches through to you. The space found on Bitchin Bajas was located with organ, synthesizer, winds, xylophone and autoharp, employing a 1" 8-track tape machine to the fullest extent. Additional contributions from strings, keys, guitar and field recordings helped make Bitchin Bajas everything that it is."

2023 repress. "A year after the cassette-only release of Switched On Ra, another format has fallen from whatever kind of rare ether Bitchin Bajas occupy when they're at home. The LP edition of Switched On Ra bears all the same riches (only richer of course) in its grooves, adding a lovely screen-printed rendering of the graphics to its larger-than-cassette-cosmos dimensions. Switched On Ra is the outcome of a typical Bajas exercise: pouring some out for the pioneers that came before (as they've done with Bitchitronics and their participation in the annual Chicago performance of 'In C' over the years) . . . Before long, they're playing with the inspirations twined, as they can only come from within. For Switched On Ra, this meant a deep delve into the song-book of one of their soul-predecessors, Sun Ra, whose music is literally written in the Bajas DNA. Digging into this music sounded wild on paper: the drone synth group taking on the Arkestra harmonies and Ra's loose grooves? The trick was to get that sense of rhythm to translate across the spectrum from Ra to Bajas, in a way that worked for them both. Their rearrangements of the tunes went good -- up and down the EQ band, they were finding the round sounds and jagged edges that brought Ra's music into their own thing. Then at the last minute, there was another twist -- why not pay tribute to the Queen herself, and think of the arrangements with a Wendy Carlos vibe? A little side homage? After all, Switched on Bach was visionary, bringing analog synths from the outside all the way into the mainstream in the late '60s -- and this take on Ra is meant to take him to new ears everywhere . . . Bitchin Bajas have been content to dominate in a microtonal world, usually without a single chord to be found anywhere. But here, they step up righteously, their vibe triangulated as they bring Ra's music forward with some Wendy C style, making an unexpected space for all to thrive. There's a real feeling of joy as these collected signals bounce off the platter and through the speakers into your space. To get this unique colloid exactly right, Bitchin Bajas used nineteen different keyboards. They abstained from deploying their arsenal of reed and woodwind instruments: everything had to be on the keys. This meant Yamahas, Rolands, Korgs, Casios, a MicroMoog and of course their trusty Ace Tone organ. They even broke out the Crumar DS-2, to have some of Ra's chosen tone in the mix. Then Jayve Montgomery added an EWI as a solo voice on a few tunes, just to get some air-blown signal (and a natural shout out to EWI master Marshall Allen) in there, after all..."

2023 repress. "Classic 1971 Peter Fonda film soundtrack from Dylan side-man & folk scene impresario. Beautifully melancholy score performed with guitars, tonal effects, fiddle, banjo, sitar, and more that evokes high plains drifting, lonesome cowpokes. 'It's The West seen as Purgatory, its characters endlessly moving on, but Langhorne conjures beauty from the pain." -- The Wire.

LP version. Following the news that all three Lush albums are going to be reissued, Emma Anderson, the band's co-founder, has announced her debut solo album, Pearlies, which will be released by Sonic Cathedral on October 20, 2023. One of the most underrated British songwriters to emerge from the era that encompassed shoegaze and Britpop, she has teamed up with producer James Chapman (aka Maps) for this collection that combines effervescent electronic pop with psych and folk textures with lyrics covering themes such as confronting your fears, embracing independence and moving on in life. It arrives fully formed with a burnished beauty (aided by the mastering skills of Heba Kadry) that belies its somewhat protracted creation, which began with Emma feeling disillusioned after Lush's 2016 reunion came to an abrupt end. Left with songs and bits of music originally intended for the band, she began working with cellist and string arranger Audrey Riley and Robin Guthrie, formerly of the Cocteau Twins, both of whom encouraged her to sing her own songs. Covid put a temporary halt on proceedings, but the decision had been made. When Sonic Cathedral introduced her to James Chapman at the start of 2022, Pearlies quickly took shape and blossomed into a masterpiece, the perfect mix of Emma's incredible, idiosyncratic songwriting and James' electronic production nous. Plus, a little extra guitar magic on four tracks courtesy of Richard Oakes from Suede. The finished album has somehow written its own narrative. By her own admission, Emma tends to write words and "see what comes out", but Pearlies seems to tell the story of her decision to go it alone, with opener "I Was Miles Away" posing the question: "See if I make it on my own." The rest of the album provides the answer as it takes in everything from the unexpectedly funky first single "Bend The Round," to folky finger-picking and film theme references, via psych leaning electronic pop reminiscent of Goldfrapp or Melody's Echo Chamber. It concludes with "Clusters," a stunning, Stereolab-style groove which begins with the line "and now the party's over, the music's at the end". Thankfully, that is not the case. This incredible album is just the start of Emma's long-awaited solo journey.

Guillermo Gregorio has been exploring space and form and gesture in music for a very long time. In 1969, with composers Norberto Chavarri and Roque de Pedro, he cofounded the collective Movimiento Música Más, which for a while staged public interventions, performances, and happenings even as the political skies were darkening again. He finally left Argentina in 1985, living in Vienna, L.A., and Cologne through the end of that decade, before settling in Chicago for the next 25 years. Already in Vienna, he began his fertile relationship with the Hat Art label, which eventually put out half a dozen records under his name, plus other sessions playing the music of Anthony Braxton and Cornelius Cardew, as guest soloist with Ran Blake, and a piece he wrote commissioned by the Makrokosmos Quartet. The present record reflects a sort of pivot to his new home, New York, where Gregorio moved in 2015. For the trio that performed at Edgefest -- the festival's 22nd edition in 2018 focused on the Chicago connection -- he reached out to close associates from two decades earlier, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Carrie Biolo, neither of whom live there anymore either. That trio was the most productive and enduring group he ever played with, and their nuanced rapport, the fine weave of their sound, the mutual instincts, seem but a continuation without pause of their past work together. Chicago also proved highly receptive to the fruitful convergence of free jazz and twentieth-century European music that allowed him to flourish and become a recognized figure there in the nineties. Concurrently, by the time of the festival, Gregorio had been performing with Nicholas Jozwiak in different settings around Manhattan and Brooklyn, as they did at Downtown Music Gallery in 2020 just before the world locked down. DMG, Bruce Gallanter's friendly institution packed into a tiny space, has for decades seen fit not just to sell records but to host weekly concerts of improvised music and Gregorio has played there on many occasions since well before he left Chicago. On this late date, the trio was completed by one of his newest collaborators, Iván Barenboim, like Jozwiak a couple generations younger and like Gregorio a porteño (native of Buenos Aires).

Apolline and Thomas have been performing since 2022 under the KOU guise with 24 electronic harmoniums. Producing dense layers of tones and overtones. On their debut album, KOU steers in another direction. The harmonium appears occasionally, but more prominent are delicate guitar pluckings, distant vocal effects, synths, flutes, piano strokes, a touch of musical magic and Apolline's jazz-not-jazz vocals. Recommended for fans of: Nina Harker, Le Diable Degoutant, Fiesta En El Vacio. Played, written, recorded and glued at home and on the road by Apolline Schöser and Thomas Coquelet.

LP version. Dens concludes a trilogy of albums, aptly spelling out the last third of the group's name. And true to form, the band turns inwards rather than outwards, drawing on deep shades of ambient, slowcore, and the ghost of Mark Hollis. While maintaining their psychedelic edge, the trio weaves the lines between genres in a way that's becoming a signature of its own. Never in a hurry, but always moving somewhere. Causa Sui drummer Jakob Skøtt and Martin Rude's bass and baritone guitar lay out a robust yet fleeting foundation. Papir's Nicklas Sørensen's glistening guitar lines never felt more-free and explorative. While The Durutti Column tribute "Vini's Lament" is drenched in nostalgia, a cut like "Morgensol" (Morning Sun in Danish) explodes in Popol Vuh-esque gloomy euphoria. Engineered by Jonas Munk and produced by Jakob Skøtt, the album culls hours of free improvisation into a coherent size. Seamless edits and studio wizardry enhance the feeling of an almost narrative nature as the album progresses. Invoking anything from a crackling campfire, rattling bones, and the singing of sand dunes. The culmination lies in the 14-minute track "Sienita." A fully formed blistering improvisation, abandoning any studio trickery, besides a singly dubbed organ, rising and falling like the tide.

Tropic of Capricorn is the second album by Lawrence English and Werner Dafeldecker. Based on field recordings made by the prolific Room40 owner that were subtly but decisively altered with electroacoustic techniques through the German improv legend, these two long-form pieces blur the lines between acoustic ecology and aesthetic interventions, concrete local sound worlds and boundary-defying art. They put a focus on our relationship with nature as listeners as much as they call into question where nature ends and human perception begins. They are deeply confusing, disorienting perhaps, in the most beautiful ways. English recorded the material that form the basis of the duo's Hallow Ground debut on two different field trips. One led him from the Western coast to the Pilbara region in the North of the country called Australia, the other to the central desert into the lands of the Arrernte people. When recording the soundscapes, the artist put a focus on the residues of failed colonial aspirations. "The buildings and objects that remain from the failed cattle pastures and other endeavors create uneasy sound worlds of their own," English says of the regions that are also places of extraction, especially the heavily mined Pilbara. "There is a distant drone of industry in even the most remote of places; an unsettled sense of heavy breath on the land." He brought home a document of natural reclamation in time. The rich source material was then given to Dafeldecker. Spatializing the recordings with transducers applied to different surfaces such as wood, stretched animal skin, glass, or metal surfaces and also re-recording parts of the recordings, he created discrete events that were inserted into, or rather enmeshed with English's recordings. What Tropic of Capricorn invites its listeners to listen beyond the preconceived notions of how nature is supposed to be represented in sound and to instead embrace the immediacy of the sensation.

LP version. Reissue of Home Comfort by Mark Glynne and Bart Zwier, originally self-released in 1980. With this album, Glynne and Zwier, based in the Netherlands and connected to the Ultra scene, drew an insular blend of intimate post-punk and chamber (bedroom) songs with surreal scenic reflections. Probably its naked singularity defying categorization has left it so unnoticed, even 43 years after the making. It also features a reciting Marlène Dumas still quite unknown at the time. With biggest gratitude to Mark Glynne who instantly felt confident with my proposal to reissue this silent witness of lasting beauty.