"Recorded on July 28th, 2023 -- right around the time Mercury was pairing up with Regulus in the evening twilight. The Flu were in the middle of celebrating National Moth Week and recording this occult sonic ritual. Psychic warfare via sound against forces hostile to the residents of Iquitos. Fully improvised, fully alien, no songs. The entire album is one jam cut in half to fit on both sides of the vinyl. Hand numbered edition of 150 copies with insert."

LP version. The second volume of the perfect pairing Brötzmann & Nilssen-Love, recorded at Zuiderpershuis in Antwerp, August 2015. The music is less frenzied and aggressive than listeners may be used to, as the musicians shared their exploration of new tools with a more contemplative approach. To be sure, both Brötzmann and Nilssen-Love summon the usual energy here and there, but it's a genuine revelation to hear them feel out new sounds in real-time, whether it's the former caressing the rheumy nasality of the contra-alto clarinet, or the latter reveling in the sustained resonance of his new gongs. Still, even if they were trying out new tools, their rapport and level of engagement was just as strong and deep as ever. Colliding schedules prevented them from ever wrapping up the production on the album, but they began planning for it during the pandemic. Sadly, it fell to Nilssen-Love to shepherd the project at home, but it was worth the wait. This duo album represents a major statement from both musicians. Artwork by Brötzmann, design by Lasse Marhaug. Liner notes-transcription of an interview with Peter Brötzmann. Peter Brötzmann: tarogato, contra-alto clarinet, bass saxophone. Paal Nilssen-Love: drums, gongs, percussion.

LP version. While they've been active for more than two decades, it's only been in recent years that the Berlin and New York based contemporary sonic arts platform, Soundwalk Collective, has begun to gather the accolades and attention that they rightfully deserve. Firmly rooted within a multi-disciplinary practice that engages the narrative potential of sound within the contexts of visual art, dance, music and film, as well as tapping anthropological, ethnographic, and psycho-geographic research, they've gained great note for collaborations with Jean-Luc Goddard, Nan Goldin, Sasha Waltz, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and numerous others. Building on the back of 2023's brilliant All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (AF 002LP), Soundwalk Collective now returns with Khandroma, one of their most fascinating and singular endeavors to date, which re-engages their enduring creative partnerships with Patti Smith. Issued by Ubi Kū, a brand-new imprint founded by the Italian Buddhist Union dedicated to the relationships between Buddhist cultures, music, and sound, across the album's stunning two sides this incredible ensemble draws inspiration from and conjures Tibetan deities, the Himalayan Plateau, the valleys of Nepal and the highest peaks where the most ancient Buddhist temples reside, culminating as a sprawling sonic tapestry like little else. Issued as a beautifully produced, limited-edition vinyl LP and CD, mixed and mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, complete with a booklet featuring liner note essays penned by Chiara Bellini and Filippo Lunardo, and images by Stephan Crasneanscki, it's hands down among the label's favorite releases by Soundwalk Collective to date and not to be missed. Perhaps the best way of approaching Khandroma is through Soundwalk Collective's longstanding focus on the discipline of psycho-geography -- a practice that interrogates the impact of an environment's embedded histories and meanings on the psychology of the present -- as well as the group's integration of observations of nature, and uses of non-linear narrative, as a vehicle for recording and the synthesis of meaning. Like previous projects that have encountered them traveling extensively across the world, occupying diverse environments for long periods of investigation and fieldwork, during which they source materials for subsequent works, the material roots of Khandroma are a body of field recordings made by Crasneanscki, Francisco López, and Simone Merli at altitudes between 2,760 and 4,500 meters, in varying locations across Upper Mustang during 2016. Immersive, stunningly beautiful, and haunting, Khandroma draws the ancient and distant into the consciousness of the present, close to home, bordering on the profound.

Despite their Michigan roots, with their hearts anchored in the golden age of 1970s German Krautrock, Fling ii celebrate the sound of that sensational season of experimentation. In the chords of the band dwell the typical motorik style of Neu, the percussive obsessions of Can, as much as the pulsing, hypnotic electronic textures of Cluster and Kraftwerk. The absolute protagonist of this adventure back in time is the legendary Boss Super Phaser PH-2, the dual-circuit modulation pedal that shines through the entire development of all the tracks; it's the main demiurge of deep resonances, of impulsive intergalactic excursions, of dust and mists in perpetual motion. The sound is as dreamy and cosmic as ever, revealing such instrumental rigor in which the strongly emotional blend of the original sources of inspiration finds a perfect balance between rhythm and dynamics.

Here for the first time from Clock Tower Records is a collection of gems brought back from the '70s: Augustus Pablo's Yard Style Melodica Songs. All tracks produced by Brad Osbourne in the '70s, some of which were only released on 7". Featuring Robert Shakespeare and Aston "Family Man" Barret (bass), Earl "Chinna" Smith (guitar), Carlton Barret (drums), Augustus Pablo (organ, piano, and clarinet), Richard Hall (tenor sax), Bobby Ellis (trumpet), and Vincent Gordon (trombone). Produced by Brad Osborne. Includes poster.

Die Schachtel returns to their long-standing dedication to the historical, Italian avant-garde with Musica Elettronica 1969/1971 allo Studio di Fonologia della RAI di Milano, the first ever release dedicated to the visionary electronic and electroacoustic composer Angelo Paccagnini. Containing some of the most potent and emotive experimental music ever laid to tape -- imbued with the political tensions of the moment -- this collection takes great leaps toward illuminating the brilliant output of one of Italy's most remarkable and neglected avant-garde, electronic and electroacoustic composers of the 20th Century. The first ever release dedicated to this profoundly important figure in the history of European electronic music has been fully restored and mastered by Andrea Marutti from the original tapes, housed in a matt silver cover with silver foil design, specially created by Bruno Stucchi/dinamomilano. It contains some of the most singular and emotive electronic and electroacoustic music ever recorded, which is presented to wide audiences for the very first time. A student of Bruno Bettinelli at the Milan Conservatory, and a collaborator of Bruno Maderna and Luciano Berio, Angelo Paccagnini (1930-1999) remains one of the most unjustifiably obscure figures who emerged within Italy's early Electronic Music scene during the 1950s. While Paccagnini worked with a wide range of instrumentation and sound sources over the course of his career, among the most engrossing of all his works are a series of electronic and electroacoustic compositions created during his early years as director of the Studio di Fonologia Musicale, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, four of which are comprised for the first time across the length of this album. The LP comprises three works; "Flou II," composed in 1971 for tape, piano, improvised percussion, and orchestral groups; "Partner," composed in 1969 for female voice and electronic sounds; and "Underground," composed in 1971 for four synthesizers. Unquestionably drawing on the political ferment of the era during which they were created, each is astoundingly tense in their structural arrangement and tonal and dissonant relationships, culminating as some of the most emotive avant-garde music created anywhere during that period. Historically significant in countless ways, this release takes huge leaps to illuminating the brilliant output of one of Italy's most remarkable and neglected avant-garde, electronic and electroacoustic composers of the 20th Century. 200 copies featuring a deluxe cover with handmade silver foil printed on 450g paper. Includes a 30x30cm double-sided insert with detailed notes, pictures and more.

Furthering the passionate exploration of cinema that has guided her two previous LPs -- 2017's Fassbinder Wunderkammer and 2020's I Should Have Been a Gardener -- the Milanese guitarist/composer, Alessandra Novaga, returns to Die Schachtel with The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle, two sides of shimmering, tense compositions freely inspired by the life and work of the Russian director Andrej Tarkovsky and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Classically trained at the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland, over the last decade Alessandra Novaga has emerged as one of the leading figures within northern Italy's thriving new, experimental, and improvised music scene. Remarkably ambitious and forward thinking, her approach to the guitar embarks upon a relentless deconstruction and rethinking of her instrument's unique properties through distinct applications of structure, resonance, space, and tone, creating in a deeply personal and emotive music, seeking narrative and meaning within the abstractions of sound. The seeds of The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle can be traced to a conversation that Novaga had with Alan Licht relating to the connections between music and cinema, which led her to consider Andrej Tarkovsky's use of Bach's music within a symbiotic framework: how the music illuminates the imagism of the films, and the film illuminates new dimensions of the music. Slowly developing over the subsequent years, the resulting album comprises six individual works, some of which draw directly upon pieces of Bach's music that Tarkovsky used in his films -- specifically "Erbarme dich, Mein Gott," "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist," and "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" -- while others draw upon the sensibilities and moods evoked in the imagination by the director's films. Encountering Novaga moving into fairly uncharted waters, three of the album's pieces incorporate the human voice, including that of the poet Arsenij Tarkovsky, the director's father. Roughly alternating between solo excursions on guitar and bristling electroacoustic pieces, over the course of the album's two sides Novaga weaves one of her most abstract and ambitious bodies of recordings to date, shifting between the complex tonal mediations generated by the six strings of her instrument, and phycological densities activated by the expanded pallet of sonority made possible by the tactics and approaches of musique concrète. The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle is available on as a limited edition of 300 dark turquoise vinyl LPs. The LP, designed by Bruno Stucchi/dinamomilano, comes with an eight-page insert illuminated by Alessandra's text as well as the lovely and intense photographs of Matilde Piazzi.

Alga Marghen/Formalibera present the first of a series of released documenting the work of Danish composer and multi-instrumentalist John Tchicai. This new LP features two previously unpublished recordings, "Beautiful United Harmony Happening" with Don Cherry and "Education Of An Amphibian" with Sahib Shihab. Tchicai returned to his native Denmark in July 1966 after spending a remarkable four years in New York City. In that short span, he helped redefine and expand the relationship between soloing, collective improvisation, and composition in small free jazz ensembles such as the New York Art Quartet, the New York Contemporary Five, and on albums such as New York Eye and Ear Control with Albert Ayler and John Coltrane's Ascension. It certainly counts as one of the most fertile periods in any artist's career. Yet when he returned to Europe, Tchicai turned his attention primarily (although not exclusively) to large ensemble music. The breakthroughs made in New York were not lost, but transferred to a large group context, opening up further avenues of exploration. "The Education of an Amphibian" by the John Tchicai Octet represents a first try at "Komponist Udøver Ensemble," or "Composing Improvisers Orchestra," an approach that further blurred boundaries between improvisation and composition. Recorded in October 1966, the piece presents Tchicai as composer and guiding presence; an organizer of sounds; and an explorer of a widening musical vocabulary drawn from contemporary classical and African influences. "Beautiful United Harmony Happening" is something different -- an opportunity to embrace new modes of interdisciplinary performance. From the beginning of his return to Denmark, Tchicai sought out not only musicians, but artists in all artforms and began to organize happenings. Although rarely noted, ideas linked to Fluxus, performance art, and happenings were a large influence of Tchicai's thinking at this time. All these related movements sought to blur or erase boundaries between media and set up juxtapositions between styles and artforms that disrupted received ideas of "high" and "low" art. Participation by non-artists introduced elements that challenged ideas about virtuosity and legitimate expression. Random elements were embraced, and non-Western music and concepts were welcome. This performance, heard here in an excerpt from the full two-hour performance, is very much in this vein. It is one of the last performances involving members of Cadentia Nova Danica, but they are only one component (and hardly the focus) of an ensemble that included a five-member chorus of disciples of the Swami Narayanananda (Tchicai lived at the yogi's ashram and had organized the choir himself), the Diane Black Dance Theatre, and trumpeter Don Cherry. Includes insert.

This revelatory album positions John Tchicai's large ensemble, Cadentia Nova Danica (CND), in the broad context of international new music activity. All previous releases by the group presented them as a free jazz unit. There were only three -- their self-titled release on Polydor (1968); Afrodisiaca (MPS, 1969); and Live at Jazzhus Montmartre (Storyville), recorded in 1967 but not released until 2016. They are all on jazz labels, so the bias is perhaps understandable. CND was a great free jazz group, to be sure. But the band and its leader were willing to experiment with a wide range of musical developments outside of jazz and incorporate them into their music. This LP encompasses a collaboration with classical composer Svend Erik Werner, an experiment with taped sound collage, and a remarkable sui generis composition by Tchicai. With the addition of this album to CND's discography, a broader and deeper portrait of the band's courageous spirit begins to emerge. Tchicai formed the group just after returning to his native Denmark in 1966 after four highly productive years in New York. Upon his return to Copenhagen, he immediately sought out musicians with whom he could form a band. He was soon working with an ensemble that included trumpeter Hugh Steinmetz and altoist Karsten Vogel. By late 1966, they became Cadentia Nova Danica (New Danish Cadence). They made their Danish debut at Café Montmartre and quickly developed a reputation as one of the most creative bands in Europe. They remained together until 1971, when Tchicai entered the ashram of Swami Narayanananda for an extended period of meditation during which he didn't publicly perform. The cryptically, if absurdly, titled "Mc Gub Gub, (I-VIII)" is a stunning example of the creative ways Tchicai used ostinatos to structure his compositions and provide a supporting trellis for improvisation. Recorded during a Danish Avantgarde Jazz concert that also included the Contemporary Jazz Quintet, the piece opens with the band loosely repeating a phrase. There's a constant interchange between composition and improvisation. The written passages also function as transitions between improvised sections, in one case setting up a piano solo whose fluidity contrasts starkly with the angular writing. "Ode to Skt. John" is contemporary in form and outlook but based on methods taken from Gregorian music. It also makes room for improvisation from members of Cadentia Nova Danica. Although vividly contrasting, the two modes of musicmaking speak to one another. The alto saxophone and trumpet duet has a songlike, vocal quality in keeping with the spirit, if not the form, of Gregorian music. "Pladepip," Tchicai's foray into musique concréte, another modern classical genre, is unlike anything else in Tchicai's recorded canon. Two full-band improvisations bookend a remarkable audio tape created by Tchicai. Includes insert.

Urashima presents the split reissue of Dead Body Love/Atrax Morgue on vinyl, a collaboration that epitomizes the raw power and unwavering creativity of Italian noise. This limited edition second pressing, presented in an eye-catching lunch bag format, is strictly limited to 199 copies with new note by Gabriele Giuliani, the creative force behind Dead Body Love. By juxtaposing the crushing avalanches of sound from Dead Body Love with the penetrating intensity of Atrax Morgue , this release serves as a visceral experience that celebrates the true essence of industrial noise. Expect a sonic journey through abrasive textures, haunting synth, and meticulously crafted compositions that push the boundaries of the genre -- this split LP is a must-have for any enthusiast!

"It feels like I've been writing about Dead Body Love for as long as I have been recording harsh noise... I can't express enough how much of an influence Italian harsh noise has had on my own personal works, but it also lets me and several peers investigate the techniques and styles of the 1990s harsh noise and the atmosphere that was created expressed from different regions of the world. The more I listen and revisit the material of '90s Japanese harsh noise, the '80s UK power electronics, and the celebrated rougher tendencies of '90s Americanoise, the Italian material and different projects flare up that dictate a powerful 'Coles Notes' of harsh noise and how it can be deconstructed and eventually materialized into vivisected lines and layers of crumbling, throbbing, cracking and creaking sound? Then you take the obsessions and the lines of moving sound and have them expressed by something like the fanatical Atrax Morgue. Fearsome concentration and jarring meditation on lines of warbling and predatory analog synth work portray something invariably real about the obsession acted out from the Italian project Atrax Morgue. A different display of penetrative and studied sound seethes from Atrax Morgue as now the listener and 'fan' of Italian industrial and harsh noise is confronted with another genre defining sound that pits throbbing and rough synth against haunting and manic vocalizations, disturbing the listener with its undeniable dedicated concentration. The resulting split tape with material from Dead Body Love and Atrax Morgue isn't as black and white as one might think. Dead Body Love makes use of dark and rough early industrial-like lines and meld into the eventual crushing forces that he is known for. In the vein of Atrax Morgue, samples are also manipulated and drawn out for the listener reminding us of his more delay heavy work. Atrax Morgue's material works with DBL's material almost seamlessly via further haunting and throbbing dark material, slowly churning and deconstructing into his own distinct sound of heavily concentrated focus and mania for singular sounds and how they can repeat, move and create total atmosphere." --Sam McKinlay.

Limited Edition of 299 copies. Black vinyl. Urashima present the eagerly awaited reissue of Merzbow's seminal album Mercurated on double vinyl, originally released on CD in 1996 by Alchemy Records. This milestone in the noise genre captures the essence of Masami Akita's innovative approach to sound, an exploration of the boundaries of auditory experience that continues to resonate with artists and listeners alike. The new vinyl edition features a remaster by James Plotkin, whose expertise breathes new life into the album, revealing the intricate layers hidden within Merzbow's amazing work. In this reimagined format, the album presents "Electricwatersheep" divided into two distinct sections: A1, which encompasses the entire A side of the vinyl, and B1, which opens the B side. This piece is a hallmark of Merzbow's chaotic yet meticulously crafted style, showcasing his prowess in noise electronics through an electrifying mix of metal performances and a diverse array of filters. Each section invites the listener to plunge deeper into a sonic terrain where silence is shattered, creating an immersive auditory journey that is as unpredictable as it is captivating. Side B continues with "Semisolid Mass 1-3," a brand-new bonus track exclusive to this vinyl release. This addition serves to deepen the listener's experience, expanding upon the album's already rich sonic palette with a uniquely disorienting atmosphere that is characteristic of Merzbow's artistic vision. On Side C, "Tree of Kusukusu" envelops the listener in a phantasmagoric soundscape crafted from bowed metals and the eerie tones of the Ems Synthi "a," all accentuated by meticulous filtering techniques. Side D concludes the journey with "Surfactant," presenting another quintessential Merzbow composition. Here, the interplay of metal and electronic noise converges, showcasing Akita's artistic finesse and his relentless quest to explore sound as a medium of both chaos and beauty. Each track on Mercurated stands on its own, providing a coherent yet varied listening experience that invites repeat contemplation. This stunning double vinyl reissue comes in an astonishing gatefold cover mirroring the original artwork, beautifully designed by Masami Akita himself, ensuring that the visual component is as striking as the auditory experience. The design work by Masahiko Ohno further enhances the presentation, making this release not just a collection of sounds but a holistic sensory experience.

Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joining their broad efforts in building networks of context and understanding, Blume returns with the first ever vinyl release to attend to James Tenney's legendary Postal Pieces. This marks the first ever appearance of five of the suite's works -- "Maximusic, for Max Neuhaus" (1965), "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion, for John Bergamo" (1971), "FFor Percussion Perhaps, or... [Night], for Harold Budd" (1971), "Cellogram, for Joel Krosnick" (1971), and "Beast, for Buell Neidlinger" (1971) -- on vinyl, drawing upon recordings made in 2003, by the Amsterdam based ensemble, The Barton Workshop, under the direction of James Fulkerson. Among the most important and highly regarded efforts in Tenney's canon of compositions, as well as within the history of 20th Century music, these five pieces represent a crucial bridge between Fluxus-oriented conceptualism, minimalism, and the microtonal complexities that would emerge in their wakes. A student of composition under Carl Ruggles, John Cage, Harry Partch, and Edgard Varèse, as well as acoustics, information theory, and tape music composition under Lejaren Hiller, James Tenney carved a wide path within the contexts of experimental and avant-garde music during the second half of the 20th Century. A suite of eleven compositions, The Postal Pieces, stands among Tenney's well known and celebrated compositions, and illuminates the dualities embraced by the composer, notably his use of sound to develop consciousness in and of others, and his willingness to draw on elements and observations of everyday life; citing his strong dislike of writing letters as being the primary inspiration for their inception. The suite is composed around three themes: Tenney's concept of swell form (utilizing repetition and progressing through a structurally symmetrical arch), intonation, and the desire to produce "meditative perceptual states." A hugely important addition to Blume's ever-expanding efforts in context building and networks of creative practice, James Tenney's Post Pieces is issued in a highly limited vinyl edition of 300 copies, which includes an exact replica of the original postcard graphic scores, and features newly commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey.

Marking its first decade of activity, Blume returns with the first ever vinyl reissue of the seminal New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, from 1977, the third and final instalment in a suite of releases that includes James Tenney's Postal Pieces (BLUME 022LP) and Ben Vida's Vocal Trio (BLUME 024LP). Unquestionably among the most important collections of experimental music to emerge during the 20th Century, New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media is the original feminist presentation in its context, releasing the work of Johanna M. Beyer, Annea Lockwood, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Spiegel, Megan Roberts, Ruth Anderson, and Laurie Anderson under its collective banner. Includes newly commissioned liner notes by Jennifer Lucy Allen and Bradford Bailey. New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media can be understood within two simple frameworks. On one hand, it is an astounding document of the landscape of experimental music toward the end of the 1970s. On the other, it is a historically significant feminist statement, being the first collection of experimental music entirely dedicated to female composers, a number of whom were grossly under-celebrated at the time, but have since gone on to be regarded as among the most important composers of their generation. The eight pieces gathered by New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media might be regarded as the first cohesive vision of alternate proximity or expression of experimental music to what has always been a frustratingly male dominated environment, and to the tropes, temperaments, and sensibilities that have been historically perceived to define it. It is an expanded vision of truth. While its historical significance and groundbreaking nature cannot be debated in its totality, nearly half a century on New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media remains compelling in both its musicality and the palpable sense of its lasting influence. Every composition across the album's two sides is not only engrossing and deeply compelling -- feeling as fresh and relevant as the day it was laid to tape -- but clearly tangible in their lasting influence. Absolutely seminal and not to be missed.

Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joining their broad efforts in building networks of context and understanding, the label is now offering a brand new, ambitious work by the American composer Ben Vida, entitled Vocal Trio, conceived, performed, and recorded in Bremen, Germany, during the Spring of 2022. A truly stunning work of compositional conceptualism, combining the ideas of systems based synthesis with real-time vocal collaboration -- issued in a highly limited vinyl edition of 200 copies mastered by Stephan Mathieu, featuring specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert offering the piece visual score -- it's a landmark in contemporary experimental practice and arguably the most forward-thinking and exciting piece by one of the most exciting American artists working today. Vocal Trio is a work that encounters Vida composing for the human voice with the ideas that allow for synthesis -- transferring the underlying concepts and structures of both subtractive and additive synthesis to the acoustic realm -- without using a synthesizer. During the Spring of 2022 Vida was in Bremen, Germany, collaborating on a dance piece with the choreographer Fay Driscoll, when the production fell into delays. Finding himself with time on his hands, a space at his disposal, and the company of two dancers -- Amy Gernux and Lotte Rudhart -- he set out to utilize the larynx as audio paths (multi-harmonic or harmonically pure) while conceptualizing each person's mouth as a filter to sculpt the timbre and resonance of a given tone. Considering how typographical scores might be developed into a non-linguistic social framework, Vida drafted a single page of text -- what became the score for Vocal Trio -- accompanied by a set of harmonic suggestion and loose parameters, seeking a core meaning from each word's phonic make-up by each of the three singers (Vida, Gernux and Rudhart) singing as slowly as possible. At the core of the pulsing vocal drones -- intoxicating, harmonically rich long-tones -- that make up the duration abstraction of Vocal Trio, is Vida's regard for music as a social space. It is an experiment that seeks liberation through the act of collective music making, by challenging the terms through which the act of composing is perceived and then relinquishing control.

Trost Records presents the latest release in its ongoing cooperation with Berlin's legendary FMP label, with the long overdue reissue of two classic live albums by the singular alto saxophonist Noah Howard, a key figure in New York's free jazz revolution during the 1960s. Berlin Concert was recorded live in the titular city in January of 1975 with a quartet featuring pianist Takashi Kako, bassist Kent Carter, drummer Oliver Johnson, and percussionist Lamont Hampton. It was released on the SAJ sub label in 1977. It deftly captures the full diapason of Howard's fiery art. Fueled by the propulsive swing of the great Oliver Johnson, bassist Kent Carter -- both Americans who spent many years living and working in Europe, including long stints with Steve Lacy -- and percussionist Lamont Hampton, Berlin Concert nonchalantly toggles between modal workouts, where Japanese pianist Takashi Kako invokes the ironclad drive of McCoy Tyner, and the needling fury of "New York Subway," summoning the all-out fury of the '60s New Thing. This album reinforces the scalding passion of Howard's playing, while simultaneously highlighting a stylistic depth and lyrical grace that's often overlooked in his music. Howard, who suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage in 2010, at age 67, has been duly celebrated for his work in the 1960s, but the return of this gem makes it plain he had plenty more to say. Recorded live by Jost Gebers on January 30th and 31st,1975 at the Quartier Latin in Berlin. Cover design by Wolf Walt. Photograph by Roberto Masotti. Produced by Jost Gebers. Originally released and published on FMP in 1977.

Trost Records presents the latest release in its ongoing cooperation with Berlin's legendary FMP label, with the long overdue reissue of two classic live albums by the singular alto saxophonist Noah Howard, a key figure in New York's free jazz revolution during the 1960s. Schizophrenic Blues was a quartet date taped live in Berlin in May of 1977 with a quartet comprising Oliver Johnson, bassist Jean-Jacque Avenel, and trumpeter Itaru Oki. It was released on the SAJ sub label in 1978. It deftly captures the full diapason of Howard's fiery art. The piano-less quartet Schizophrenic Blues casts the music in a different light, with the great Japanese trumpeter Itaru Oki serving as a worthy frontline partner for Howard's livewire alto sax. Johnson is back in the rhythm section along with another Lacy disciple in the French bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel, who had already formed a strong musical bond, a mind meld readily apparent in grooves both ferociously energetic and contextually nimble. The leader reveals his curiosity by extending his repertoire to include an unexpected reading of "Bird of Beauty," a Stevie Wonder tune that released a few years earlier on Fulfillingness' First Finale, while the album concludes with a rousing, soulful rendition of the "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known fondly as the Black National Anthem. It reinforces the scalding passion of Howard's playing, while simultaneously highlighting a stylistic depth and lyrical grace that's often overlooked in his music. Howard, who suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage in 2010, at age 67, has been duly celebrated for his work in the 1960s, but the return of this gems makes it plain he had plenty more to say. Recorded live by Jost Gebers on May 21st and 22nd,1977 at the Quartier Latin in Berlin. Cover design by Dieter Hahne. Photographs by Dagmar Gebers. Produced by Jost Gebers. Originally released and published on FMP in 1978.

Dischi Fantom's Sussurra Luce series, blurring the boundaries between text, music and voice, returns with its fifth instalment, an expanded version of Hanne Lippard's Talk Shop. Sculpting a fascinating bridge between radically experimental sound practice, conceptual art, and sound poetry, across its two sides the Berlin based multidisciplinary artist taps an almost dada sensibility, delivering a suite of poems and texts where singular words and sentences are looped and repeated creating a sensory experience of the efficiency and stress found in private as well as public life. An extension of the Milan based cultural platform Fantom's broad and diverse activities (exhibitions, installations, performances, etc.) across numerous artistic disciplines, the Sussurra Luce series, curated by Francesco Cavaliere and Massimo Torrigiani, delves into the "science of imagination," working with contemporary authors to explore and blur the boundaries between text, music and voice. Released in a limited edition of 200 copies and coming with an LP-sized booklet, it combines orality and textuality with the idea of loop and repetition to explore the notion of time, and it's a stunning gesture of performative poetics that plums a startling range of subjects through its sonorous forms. Working across the fields of text, vocal performance, sound installation, printed objects and sculpture, for more than a decade Hanne Lippard has deployed language as the raw material for her work. Talk Shop began as a live performance. Combining orality and textuality with the idea of loop and repetition to explore the notion of time, its relationship with the world of work today, and its personification through the experience of the human body, the conceptual underpinnings of the piece depart from the notion that the human voice has become commodified by the ubiquitous nature of contemporary productivity, and intertwined with the mechanics of capital. Addressing vocal anonymity as a spearhead of the digital economy, Lippard's Talk Shop taps this dada sensibility through its unexpected layers of meanings drawn from a maximalized approach to the potential of the human voice, creating an engrossing and challenging listen from the first sounding to the last, that continues to reveal itself and unfold with every return.

"Towards the end of the 1970s, a film about me and my work was made in Kabul for the South German TV program. The director was Arpad Bondy. In order to find a venue for my music that is typical for Afghanistan, it was agreed that my 'percussion environment,' a tubular cube of 2x2x2 meters including the associated instruments, would be transported on a barren, stony ridge in the Hindukush mountains. The people called the place 'Maidan,' which means nothing but 'place.' While a couple of men dragged the frame pipes and the instruments up the hill, I decided to carry my large Wuhan gong (100 cm diameter) up the mountain, in a kind of ritual. Michael Ranta sent me this gong from Wuhan/China to Kabul. With slow and careful steps, carrying the heavy gong like an umbrella on my head, I walked over the difficult rocky terrain without a path up. Suddenly a snake about two meters long came out of the rocks towards me and hissed aggressively at me... As I later discovered, it was a very venomous snake... I had to bring myself to kill the beautiful animal... I decided to name my solo performance Requiem For The Snake Of Maidan... While I was playing I only had one musician with me: the wind. I hung my metallophones on the linkage so that the wind could touch them and create sounds. The recording captured a few parts where I didn't have to lift a finger and the wind did everything that was necessary. The room was a wide landscape without any echo. If an echo can be heard in the recording, it is the reverberation from the big gong. Only a few noises came, apart from the wind, from outside... The big gong and the boo chals (Tibetan cymbals) produced a whole series of overtones. The string instruments, the metallo- and lithophones dominate the recording. In addition to the acoustic environment of my instruments, in some parts of my improvisation I used a battery-powered tape recorder (Uher 4400 report stereo IC) with a pre-recorded feeding tape that I had pre-recorded before alone or together with Michael Ranta in Kabul. The stones of the lithophone were collected by Ranta and myself in the valley of Goldara around an old collapsed Buddhist stupa. Almost each of the hundred stone plate we had lifted was ringing." --Hartmut Geerken

Edition of 500 copies. Nancy Mounir's debut album, Nozhet El Nofous, is a remarkable communion with ghosts. Moody, hypnotic, and sneakily catchy, the album -- whose title means "Promenade of the Souls" in Arabic -- explores microtonality, non-metered rhythms, and bold vulnerability through a musical dialogue between Mounir's own arrangements and the sounds of archival recordings of once-famed singers from Egypt at the turn of the 20th century. Adding her own ambient arrangements over voices haunted with passion and desire as she creates a sound that is warmly familiar but utterly new. On the album, Mounir slips into the gaps left by the lost frequencies of the aging recordings, finding space for counterpoint and harmony in a traditional sound built on monophony. Elegant melodies unfold in measured gestures as Mounir -- who plays most of the instruments herself -- revels in the plaintive intonations and brash lyrics of the departed singers. With layers enmeshed together, it's at times hard to pin down when the past ends and the present begins, but beneath it all is a liberating attitude of defiance that feels timeless. Nozhet El Nofous is brilliant in the way it explores the techniques and perspectives of a more freewheeling time period in Arabic music, before Arabic maqam (modal systems) and other musical foundations were standardized by the Middle East's cultural power brokers in the early 1930s. As she summons a rich, atmospheric landscape of tone and texture, Mounir engages an older generation of musical rebels in a creative dialogue across time and space - and the results are stunning in their ambition and beauty. Mixed by Adham Zidan. Mastered by Heba Kadry. Remastered for vinyl by Matt Bordin at Outside Inside Studio. Artwork by Egyptian filmmaker and photographer Ahmad Abdalla, with original typography and design by Salma Shamel. Lyrics translation by Katharine Halls. Includes an eight-page booklet with lyrics in English and Arabic. Featuring Naima El Masreya, Saleh Abdel Hay, Abdel Latif El Banna, Mounira El Mahdeya, Hayat Sabry, Fatma Serry, and Zaki Mourad.

Automatic Popular Music was recorded and mixed by Nicola Ratti between July and December 2023. The tracks consist almost entirely of sounds generated by automatisms programmed on modular synthesizers. These are combined with tape loops on which fragments of both acoustic and digital pianos are engraved, generating tracks that are structured on repetitiveness in both their rhythmic and harmonic components. The adjective "popular" is in this case the result of the other adjective "automatic" since the machine has been entrusted with the task of generating the melodic patterns and harmonic structures of the tracks on the disc. Automatic Popular Music is the first release by LL, a curatorial and editorial platform based in Milano and formed by artists and curators. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Cover photo by Cédrick Eymenier. Soundohm review: "A stunning piece of generative composition that almost entirely draws upon sounds created by automatisms programmed on modular synthesizers, placed in conjunction with tape loops of acoustic and digital pianos, it's an astoundingly seductive rethinking of Minimalism, balancing the razor's edge between hypnotic repetition and the deconstructivity abstract. At its best, experimental music is a creative realm, rich with ideas, conceptualism, and radical new ways of generating organizations of sound that challenge and rework the way we navigate the world around us, particularly at humanity's expressive juncture with technology. Among the fascinating artists currently navigating and pushing the territory of exploration toward unanticipated depths is the multi-instrumentalist, Nicola Ratti." For the better part of the last two decades, the Milan-based multi-instrumentalist, Nicola Ratti, has remained one of the shining lights in Italy's localized scene of experimental electronic and electroacoustic music. Through a steady stream of striking solo LPs issued by Room40, Where To Now?, Holidays Records, Die Schachtel, and numerous other imprints, as well as within his duo with Giuseppe Ielasi, Bellows, he has simultaneously carved out a singular place in the global landscape of sound, creating a deeply personal music that engages both cutting edge, forward thinking ideas, and ground breaking approaches to technology. Automatic Popular Music almost entirely draws upon sounds generated by automatisms programmed on modular synthesizers, placed in conjunction with tape loops of acoustic and digital pianos. The inner structures of the album's eight pieces are rooted in repetitiveness in both their rhythmic and harmonic components, somehow alluding to a strange narrative that Ratti has set up in his statement about their underpinnings.

WRWTFWW Records presents the first ever vinyl release for the outstanding soundtrack of 1999 Japanese action-political-thriller anime Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade by Hajime Mizoguchi. The epic full-length album is available as a limited-edition LP cut at Emil Berliner Studios and housed in a heavyweight 350gsm sleeve. Legendary animation film Jin-Roh was penned by Palme d'Or and Leone d'Oro award winning filmmaker, television director and writer Mamoru Oshii whose filmography includes Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 2: The Movie, and Angel's Egg -- critically acclaimed works praised worldwide, notably by luminaries such as James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, and The Wachowskis. The film was directed by leading studio Production I.G. affiliate Hiroyuki Okiura. The film's score, courtesy of famed anime and TV score composer, cellist and arranger Hajime Mizoguchi, evokes the dystopian world in which Jin-Roh takes place and captures the Little Red Riding Hood theme that carries the story -- a dark, atmospheric, and immensely emotional soundscape that takes you on a grand and immersive journey and stays with you forever. It blends classical, orchestrated ambient, and poignant melodies carried by ominous strings. This new project by WRWTFWW Records follows previous Japanese soundtracks from the catalogue: Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 2, Evil Dead Trap, and Violent Cop.

"For those of you who've mislaid your history goggles, this archival release recalls an ancient time in the world of recorded music. Yes, back in the dinosaur days of the 1990s, a creature known as Aerial M walked the earth, before evolving into Papa M and PAJO and beyond and back. Even then, the music of M had a next-wave vibe, walking upright among the knuckle-draggers (and having drinks in the evening with others of its genetic detachment). It was too much to last very long, of course -- but some things end up lasting forever, don't they? Fuck! So it is today that Drag City, an organization largely set up to bring you the best of all available M recordings, is proud to be there for the release of the only Aerial M session ever recorded for John Peel's BBC Radio One show, as it was originally recorded on March 3, 1998 and broadcast on April 2 of the same year. The studio versions of these songs, which appear on Aerial M's self-titled album and Papa M's Hole of Burning Alms comp, were played by "M" himself (now revealed to be David Pajo!), which makes this album a rare alternative view of the canonical M, played by an actual Aerial M band who, all too briefly, embodied the sound for a year or so before Papa brought a brand-new bag. This session found them fortuitously roadburned from several weeks in the European Theatre. OG-M's signature minimalist long-fuse sizzle is thrillingly intact here; in fact, even more so, as the tunes are jammed out past the studio versions' originally delineated borders, reaching rudely across the table in moments of liveness that the studio-bound project might have decided against when conferring only with the walls. For fans of their epic version of 'Turn Turn Turn,' this is more sweetmeats from that raucous old skull -- but if you've not been down this road before, be prepared: the taste will set you slowly aflame. And then, before you know it, the band is dined and dashed -- just like the band that Aerial M was, all too briefly amok on the earth that was too. Salute!"

It's a miracle that some records ever get made. Right in the middle of Ceausescu's ultra-repressive dictatorship, composer Iancu Dumitrescu managed to arrange for his first LP, a compilation of radical new music by Dumitrescu and three of his Romanian colleagues, all older than him: Ocavian Nemescu, Stefan Niculescu, and Corneliu Cezar. Dumitrescu was -- and remains -- one of the most iconoclastic figures in contemporary music. Often referred to as a spectralist (though he distances himself from the approach taken by the French spectralists) and self-described as an adherent of "acousmatic" music (though again he situates himself at a remove from the French electroacoustic composers) and highly influenced by deep studies in phenomenology, Dumitrescu's music often focuses intensely on one sonorous object, penetrating it until it is entirely blown open. He formed Ansamblul Hyperion, a chamber group featuring adventurous young musicians, in 1976. Four years later, against all odds, in a radio studio in Bucharest, they recorded this groundbreaking compilation for Electrecord, the state record company. The program starts with one of Dumitrescu's most important works, the breathtaking, string-centric "Movemur et Sumus" (1978), translated from the Latin as "move and exist." Nemescu's "Combinatii In Cercuri" (1965) was composed for the ensemble together with an electronic component that was added to the piece in 1980. Composed in 1979, Niculescu's "Sincronie" features Dumitrescu himself on piano, as well as conducting, as he does on all the works; written for an indeterminate number of performers between two and twelve (here featuring nine) it utilizes fixed elements in the score together with openly improvised elements, expanding from a core vibraphone part to encompass an almost ecstatic meditation on stasis and motion. Cezar's work "Rota" (1976) combines Romanian, Balkan, and other Eastern melodic resonances with electronics (some of them startlingly video-game-like) and preparations on various instruments, lending an ear to the natural sounds of wind, waves, and seagull calls. This historically charged document, released in 1981 in Romania and available for the most part only there, has never been reissued in any form. Gorgeously remastered from the original tapes, it appears here with its original cover design.

"Originally released in 2011, Julianna Barwick's debut full length The Magic Place is a nine-piece full-length album of magic and solace, bursting joy, and healing tones. Julianna's mostly acapella music is built from her multi-tracked and looped voice, with backing instrumentation, but it's the vocals -- soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies -- that matter most here. Layered fragments and pieces become an intricate pattern through electronics; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound that feels like hope and ascendance and patience and intimacy. Out of print for years, this 2024 version has been fully remastered by Heba Kadry, and is available through Julianna's Florid Recordings, the imprint she started in 2006 to self-release her earliest recordings. There's a very particular joy in listening to Barwick's music. Free of the constraints of narrative and traceable language, it's the same joy in giving yourself over to opera in a foreign language, of letting go of your pesky rational mind and allowing the feeling to come through in the voices and performance. The title track is next, a reverb-y beauty queen that soars to Promethean heights and builds its own kind of safe haven in the clouds. Even the gaps between songs are essential to the album's listening experience -- a sigh between stories or silence-as-drone, each second important. The New York Times called the pauses between Julianna's songs, 'the small pleasure of a chance to breathe between the greater pleasures of not wanting to have to.' Meet The Magic Place."

"The Magic Place is music for a specific constellation of feelings. They are real, many people share them, and this album owns them completely." --Pitchfork Best New Music 2011

"The next release in Now Again's Memphis Rap series is Comin At Yo Ass, presented on vinyl for the first time ever. Slithering nightmare raps recorded between carjackings and robberies, the only album by Carmike. This is part of Now Again Records multiple LP series on the History of Memphis Rap, which attempts to capture Memphis and its underground rap scene as it began to produce some of the most distinctive music of the '90s. This was a unique hip-hop strain -- visceral and often vicious. It was a local, low-fi, cassette-tape based movement -- yet it went on to change the course of rap music. These albums have never been pressed on vinyl -- until now. From Skinny Pimp and Carmike to Gangsta Blac and Shawty Pimp, these albums have been relegated to the proverbial bins of history and bootlegged, with unofficial copies still fetching top dollar on the secondary market. These albums were all licensed directly from their original creators, and come on limited edition colored vinyl with artist-approved imagery for their first LP iterations. You can read the story of the Memphis Rap scene in a 12-page, oversized booklet with notes by Torii MacAdams. It captures the story of Memphis rap starting with the city's founding and ending with an auto supply shop that sold these albums over the counter, with all points in between."

The debut album Tiempos de Vencer by Spanish psych folk rock band Esperanto is out on YaiYai Records! Tiempos De Vencer presents a well-oiled band (members of Mohama Saz, Maika Makovski etc.) with a need to transmit a hopeful message with their grooves and arrangements from the East mixing with Chicago free jazz after visiting Berlin kraut rock through Canterbury. From the ashes of Melange rose Esperanto. In 2020, Melange ended their short but intense and successful career. The void that remained was filled by the creative process of three former members of the band; Dani Fernandez and the Ceballos brothers, Serio and Adrean. Esperanto emerged from stolen moments between Maika Makovski and Mohama Saz, the latter from which Javier Alonso was recruited. Tiempos de Vencer is an absolute must have and has arrived at the perfect moment. During these extraordinarily toxic times, the arrival of this record is a crucial injection of high caliber, unprecedented music. Music that transports you from Chicago Free-Jazz to Berlin's Kraut Rock stopping off in Canterbury along the way. Its essence is perceived in every beat, a feeling that comes from times past, from hard work, from the soul. These songs envelope and adorn you with eastern arrangements, they help you find victory, they propel you forward, and they are here to stay. Esperanto has just arrived but, did you not notice that it was already here? These musicians have joined together to create a record that embraces you with a compilation of songs that are more necessary than ever.

2024 repress! Gary Wilson's monumental 1977 LP reissued with the original cover art (care of Owen Maercks's well-loved copy), delicately laid out by Scott Allison. Which makes it, perhaps, the last copy you'll ever need. You Think You Really Know Me (also the title of Michael Wolk's 2005 documentary about Wilson) was Wilson's second LP, but the first he recorded as a vocalist, hewing to his own bizarre vision -- a syncretic collision of romance, new wave cocktail jazz, heartbreak, disco porn-soundtrack music, and experimental tape manipulation. Home-recorded in Endicott, NY, the album found a few fans when released, but subsequently became the exclusive purview of record collectors and the women who tolerate them. Beck namechecked Wilson in 1996, which made a few new people scratch their heads. And the album was reissued in 2002. Rediscovery followed, and records, the documentary, and some odd live shows. Most of Wilson's moves are stamped with his unique aesthetic, and are also documented on other three recommended Feeding Tube LPs -- Lisa Wants to Talk to You (FTR 081LP), Forgotten Lovers (FTR 065LP), and Music for Piano (FTR 192LP). But as bodacious as these three albums are, the real root of Wilson's muse is most obvious on You Think You Really Know Me. It is the sound of a 23-year old oddball from upstate New York wrestling with his demons and actually winning. There's nothing quite like it. And it offers a story of hope to every weirdo who hears it. Hallelujah!

2024 restock. 32nd volume in the BYG Actuel series; gatefold sleeve, 180 gram vinyl. "Avant-garde jazz drummer Sunny Murray was a major player in the experimental jazz community throughout the 1960s. After three years as a member of Albert Ayler's band (1964-1967), Murray traveled to France where, after releasing two LPs on the BYG label, he recorded An Even Break, (recorded on November 22, 1969) for Affinity. Although his first release for the Affinity label, this was Murray's third release of the year! Featuring Byard Lancaster, Malachi Favors and Kenneth Terroade."

2025 repress. 180-gram LP version with embossed chessboard artwork print and printed inner sleeve. In celebration of the 2016 35th anniversary of the December 12, 1981, recording of Manuel Göttsching's legendary E2-E4, one of electronic music's most influential recordings, Göttsching's MG.ART label presents an official reissue, carefully overseen by the master himself. Includes liner notes by Manuel Göttsching, archival photos, and an excerpt of David Elliott's review in Sounds from June 16, 1984.

"As the story is sometimes told, Göttsching stopped in the studio for a couple of hours in 1981 and invented techno. E2-E4 is the most compelling argument that techno came from Germany-- more so than any single Kraftwerk album, anyway. The sleeve credits the former Ash Ra Tempel leader with 'guitar and electronics', but few could stretch that meager toolkit like Göttsching. Over a heavenly two-chord synth vamp and simple sequenced drum and bass, Göttsching's played his guitar like a percussion instrument, creating music that defines the word 'hypnotic' over the sixty minutes . . . A key piece in the electronic music puzzle that's been name-checked, reworked and expanded upon countless times." --Mark Richardson, Pitchfork

Listening to Jesse Justice's music or hearing the Los Angeles artist play live could mean something different on any given day. He might be shredding the keys with his group Human Error Club, playing a Rhodes alongside revered jazz talent or rocking boom-bap from his trusty sampler. But there's another side to Jesse Justice -- and that's the one behind Temporary. Because Temporary is primarily electronic, Justice plays the dual roles of musician and producer. Yet these songs forgo limitless digital sound design for a carefully chosen palette of old-school synthesizers and drum machines. As a result, the dreamy atmospheres flow from the compositions themselves. Even at its most ambient, the artist's sense of melody rises to the surface. In nu-age LA, ambient is where jazz and electronic music tend to intersect. Justice's music, however, incorporates everything from footwork to house to hip hop without conforming to any of the above. Even "Certain I'm Uncertain," which recalls the broken beat and acid jazz sounds of late-'90s London, remains firmly in Justice's sonic world. Over its eight tracks, Temporary drifts from one motif to the next in the seamless kind of way thoughts and memories trigger each other. Like the title suggests, no single mood sticks around for long, nor are the sentiments easy to describe. At the same time, it's complex without being jazz, electronic without being dance music and atmospheric without being ambient. In other words, it's music from in-between. While today's ubiquitous MIDI packs, plug-ins and producer hacks promise to lend any producer a professional sheen, there's no formula for something like this. Instead, it's the singular experiences and sensibilities Jesse Justice brings to these songs that separate Temporary from the rest.

LP version. Ex-Vöid -- featuring Lan McArdle (Joanna Gruesome, Lanny) and Owen Williams (The Tubs) -- return with their second LP: In Love Again. Joined by Laurie Foster (bass) and George Rothman (drums), the record sees the band flourish from a chaotic power punk group into a fully-fledged pop behemoth. Taking in elements of shoegaze ("Pinhead"), country ("Outline"), '90s indie rock ("In Love Again") and pretty much the entire history of guitar music, In Love Again reveals McArdle and Williams to be true students of perfect pop. The pair have been collaborating for a decade now, having played in Joanna Gruesome as teenagers, and In Love Again sees them both building on the sound they've honed together and embracing a new, unapologetic attitude towards songcraft. Backed by the tight-yet-raucous rhythm section of Foster and Rothman, In Love Again delivers as a huge pop album without sacrificing any of the hardcore propulsion that characterized the band's first album. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Ex-Vöid sound is the sublime blend of McArdle and Williams' vocals: close, folk-indebted harmonies which guide the listener through an onslaught of hooks. And while this is utilized to full effect on In Love Again, the album also sees McArdle make full use of their vocal range. In keeping with their new sound, McArdle and Williams have taken a more autobiographical, nuanced approach to lyric writing this time around, a move influenced by touring with Waxahatchee. The hints of folk and country embedded in the tunes also stretch to this new lyrical approach -- storytelling and heartbreak abound. The band's first LP, Bigger Than Before, received positive coverage in Pitchfork, SPIN, Stereogum, and others. It received airtime on BBC Radio 6, and saw the band support/tour with acts such as Waxahatchee, Speedy Ortiz and Alvvays. Williams also fronts The Tubs -- whose 2023 debut saw them touring internationally and receiving plaudits from Pitchfork, The Guardian and Iggy Pop.

Corbett vs. Dempsey presents And Yeah So (1981-1985), the first ever compilation by Splat! Emerging amid the primo froth of the British post-punk era, Splat!'s lineup included vocalist Dave Parsons, the mastermind behind Ron Johnson Records. The band released its only 7-inch single as the label's maiden record, going on to follow up with a 12-inch EP. These (plus one track on a compilation) were the sum total official output, but the band was active and made loads of fantastic, high-octane, often hilarious and off-kilter recordings, the best of which are collected here, together with their full discography, and made available on CD for the first time. Nineteen tracks that give truth to the title "Jugular Blowjob," a heavy heap of blessed mess that kicks the whole comp off. Dave Parsons tells the full Splat! story: "Splat! were four, sometimes five, misfits from a small town halfway between Nottingham and Derby in the middle of England. Influenced by the likes of the Pop Group, PiL, The Fall, and the Birthday Party but also by all the punk stuff that they had experienced when they were fifteen years old or so. The band played mainly in the local area and got a good reputation for messy live shows that often ended in blood and tears (and some sweat). The band was around in 1982 -- after some pre-incarnations in 1980 and 1981 -- Paul Walker, drums (17 years old), Dave Parsons, voice (19 years old), John Allsopp, guitar (19 years old), Mark Grebby (bass, 20 years old) was the main lineup. A single was recorded at Cargo Studios. The first Splat! single did okay -- it sold most of its pressing of 1000 -- there was an interview in Sounds and John Peel played it a couple of times and plans went ahead for the second release. The 12" EP (RON2) came out in 1984 and did much the same. Soon after that the band split up, with some recorded but unreleased material (some of which is here for the first time in physical form). Dave continued Ron Johnson and the label had considerable artistic/critical success from 1984 to 1988 with Big Flame, A Witness, Stump, the Shrubs, MacKenzies, The Ex, etc. gaining the label a reputation for angular post-Beefheartian guitar noise-pop.

2024 restock. Reissue of this 1981 release, featuring arrangements from Charles Reid played by Sly Dunbar (drums), Robbie Shakespeare (bass guitar), Melodice Gladdy (piano), and others.

2024 repress. LP version. Currently based in Los Angeles, Laurel Halo has spent over a decade stepping into different towns and cities for a moment or more, to the point where everywhere almost became nowhere. Atlas, the debut release on her new imprint Awe, is an attempt to put that feeling to music. Using both electronic and acoustic instrumentation, Halo has created a potent set of sensual ambient jazz collages, comprised of orchestral clouds, shades of modal harmony, hidden sonic details, and detuned, hallucinatory textures. The music functions as a series of maps, for places real and imaginary, and for expressing the unsaid. The process of writing Atlas began back in 2020 when she reacquainted herself with the piano. She relished the piano's physical feedback, as well as its capacity to express emotion and lightness. And when the legendary Ina-GRM Studios in Paris invited her to take up a residency the following year in 2021, she spared no time to dub, stretch and manipulate some of the simple piano sketches she'd recorded over the prior months; these subtle piano recordings and electronic manipulations would go on to become the heart of Atlas. In the remainder of 2021 and 2022, with time spent between Berlin and London, Halo recorded additional guitar, violin and vibraphone, as well as acoustic instrumentation from friends and collaborators including saxophonist Bendik Giske, violinist James Underwood, cellist Lucy Railton, and vocalist Coby Sey. All of these sounds were shaped, melted, and re-composed into the arrangements, their acoustic origins rendered uncanny. In short, Atlas is road trip music for the subconscious. With repeated listens, it is a record that can leave a deep sensorial impression on the listener, akin to walking at dusk in a dark forest. Its humor and sharp focus would dispel any notions of sentimentality. Completely distinct from the rest of Halo's catalog, Atlas is an album that thrives in the quietest places, rejecting bombast and embracing awe. Fitting that it's the debut release on her new recording label, whose slogan parallels the mood and atmosphere of the album: Awe is something you feel when confronted with forces beyond your control: nature, the cosmos, chaos human error, hallucinations.

2024 repress. Be With Records present a reissue of Jay Richford and Gary Stevan's Feelings, originally released in 1974. Since its original release on Italian label Carosello in 1974, Richford and Stevan's Feelings has been described as the greatest library record ever released more than once. It's a tough funk, street jazz masterpiece coveted for many years by collectors of all musical genres. As the story goes, these were the pseudonyms adopted by Stefano Torossi and Giancarlo Gazzani who wrote the album but couldn't use their real names on the original release for legal reasons. But Torossi himself later both clarified and confused the tale further by explaining that fellow composers and musicians Sandro Brugnolini and Puccio Roelens also worked on Feelings. Infectiously funky, deliciously melodic and with impeccable, elegant production, Feelings record is the showcase for a stunning set of compositions and arrangements and with performances that are nothing short of virtuoso. The record's first side lifts off with "Flying High", soaring brilliant and shimmering with funk licks, menacing strings, and swaggering horns. The string-drenched cop-funk of "Going Home" raises the tempo with quick-fire bass lines and killer electric guitar. "Walking In The Dark" positively drips in blaxploitation-funk drama strings and horn struts, all laced with delicate drums, velvet piano, and more filthy wah-wah. "Fighting For Life" is another funk-fueled workout built around an effortlessly relentless drum track. The loping, open drum break that guides the much-loved "Feeling Tense" is filled out by heavy bass gloss, swirling strings, and ominous horns. "Running Fast" is a fine rollicking chase theme underpinned by frenetic (yet funky) Fender Rhodes and skipping bass and drums. "Loving Tenderly" envelops you in warm, velvety night-time vibes with easy listening horns and slinky strings. The pace picks up on the electrifying "Fearing Much" where strings dart around deep bass, buzzing guitars, and another funky drum break. The lush, melancholic "Being Friendly" is another easy beauty, all warm Rhodes and strings. The climactic "Having Fun" rides a pulsating, bass-heavy drum break with snatches of a funky guitar refrain, some luxurious keys, sweeping strings, and triumphant horns. Groove-laden bass, irrepressible horns, sweet flute lines, warm Rhodes, lush string arrangements, blaxploitation-styled wah-wah guitars and more make Feelings one of the finest instrumental soul LPs of the '70s, if not of all time. Remastered for vinyl by Simon Francis and cut by Pete Norman. Remastered from the original tapes.