"The go-go band's sought after debut album. Enriched funk. Magical, mystical, Afrocentric, progressive --words that could be used to describe any number of musical compositions by Sun Ra or his cosmic brothers and sisters, from John to Alice Coltrane, early '70s projects on record labels like Detroit's Tribe or Houston's Lightin' or the interests of one Washington, DC native named Jimmy Gray that centered under one, perfect moniker: Black Fire. Gray spent nearly three decades pushing boundaries as a Black American promoter, distributor and, finally, record label owner. Together with Oneness Of Juju's leader James 'Plunky Nkabinde' Branch, Gray oversaw sixteen releases on Black Fire Records between 1975 and 1996. These are the definitive reissues of five of the label's key titles; all were lacquered -- most directly from master tape - by legendary Los Angeles mastering engineer Bernie Grundman, with this set, Oneness Of Juju and Black Fire's story burns forth into its fifth decade, its message not tempered, its sound pure. It's cycle, once again, complete. Each release is packaged in a thick, tip-on sleeve and includes a deluxe booklet with extensive notes on the album, the Black Fire collective, and the musical and cultural revolution they created. Limited edition, one time pressing."

"Previously only available on private pressing. Housed in a gatefold jacket filled with photos and liner notes by Uchenna Ikonne. When most people think of the musical legacy of San Francisco, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the Summer of Love. Much less likely are you to hear about the City by the Bay's rich heritage of gospel music. Cultures Of Soul is proud to revisit this chapter in the city's history with the reissue of The Sound Of The San Francisco Christian Center. The San Francisco Christian Center was one of the first churches to open its doors to disaffected hippies searching for a deeper spiritual substance. This era saw new, youth-driven forms of 'Jesus music' that fused gospel messages with rock aesthetics. Chief amongst these new-style gospel artists was the San Francisco-based Andraé Crouch, who was one of the influences behind this recording. As a historical document, it provides a breathtaking view into the roots of contemporary gospel music, but as just pure music, it is a transcendent listening experience."

Recording is the Trip - The Karen Dalton Archives is a three-LP, three-CD box set, including a download card and a shirt. Three LPs: Includes for the first-time ever on clear vinyl, limited edition the 1962 double live album Cotton Eyed Joe remastered, the 1963 home recordings album Green Rocky Road remastered. The three CDs are the same albums as the LPs. Includes one download card of 13 unreleased home recordings including a mesmerizing take on "God Bless The Child". 56-page book with scans of Karen Dalton Personal Archives photographs, music sheets, lyrics, memos, all disclosed here for the first time. Includes a Karen Dalton recycled fabric t-shirt (featuring her own guitar tabs), press about Cotton Eyed Joe (1962/2007) and Green Rocky Road (1963/2008), Box set size: 12.4x12.4x1.5.

"All the informality of someone thinking aloud, which suits her signature vocals perfectly. In overdubbing, she seems to consider tempos and time signatures almost as restricting as a real studio. A particularly personal statement, a career marker" --Pitchfork (8/10)

"Like a lost book of the Old Testament. Less like a folk record and more like a warp in the space-time continuum. The most beautiful and harrowing album you'll hear this year. The results are startling. Her rendering of 'Katie Cruel' on In My Own Time has been hailed as definitive but she improves it here. Bewitching." --UNCUT (4/5)

"Chicago beatsmith Maker returns for another volley into the Now-Again Music Library series with his first album to include vocal performances. From well known indie-vets like Bishop Lamont and Guilty Simpson to less known but talented vocalists like Adeem and PremRock -- Maker's beats -- all based on samples from the Now-Again Catalog -- surround them all with swirling pastiches of soul, funk, jazz, rock and music from all over the globe."

"Asmus Tietchens, one of the most prolific German composers in the electronic/musique concrete direction since late '70s. Bleiche Brunnen is his 3rd album on Stille Andacht, the sublabel of Dark Vinyl. Electronic music of extreme abstraction. Sounds and noises far from human beings from pale, forgotten wells. Porous remains in deserted landscapes, crystalline evidence of inorganic states of highest transparency. The music conveys calm, but in no way invites contemplation. For fans of: Pierre Henry, Stockhausen, Nurse With Wound, Hafler Trio. 6 Page-Eco-Digifile, 500 copies."

Second outing from Kassel Jaeger and Jim O'Rourke following the release of Wakes on Cerulean on Editions Mego in 2017 (EMEGO 223LP). Covering a vast terrain with delicacy and poise this new release unveils a spectral showcase for all manner of deep abstraction. The first side positions itself somewhere between stoned komische synth and more nuanced electroacoustic tactics, all weighted by a melancholic undertow. The second side builds on the tension of the former as an undulating drone teases all variety of matter to rise and fall amongst the foreign space it inhabits. The effect creates an enormous sense of deep space before subsiding into a smaller more anxious flickering world. All manner of machines fold into play; digital machines, industrial and analog machines. The seemingly random yet ordered nature of events is reminiscent of the behavior of the natural world providing this machine driven release a convincing organic feel. Whether invoking mirrors, distant galaxies, or a pond of frogs, it is a delightful challenge to focus and locate what is nature and what is nurture. To play this loud is to immerse oneself in a fascinating journey which carries the listener through an array of dizzying emotional states.

Genius dembow rhythm science from DJ Python on his second album for Anthony Naples and Jenny Slattery's Incienso. Following from the reticulated deep house-paced reggaeton hybrids of that acclaimed 2017 debut, the new side by Brian Piñeyro Mas Amable takes a rambling, sidewinding trip exploring slippery, mutable 90/180bpm metrics with a serpentine guile that surely lives up to his moniker. Imagine Beatrice Dillon jamming with Gescom and Kelman Duran, and you've nearly got a grasp on this incredibly constructed album. Across 50 minutes of seamlessly arranged transitions from lush field recordings to hip-gripping dembow permutations and semi-conscious and tripped-out vocals, Python dangles the dance by a fine conceptual thread that ties the constant rhythmic chronics to their subtly shifting tonal/textural variables. Call it ambient-jungle-dancehall, avant-dembow, deep reggaeton, whatever; it's just an incredible record for lovers of rhythm and sound of all stripes. Starting up with five minutes of rustling, shoreside ambience in "Te Conocí", the album elegantly and rudely shifts its weight between seven mutations of dembow's tressilo drum pattern and junglist markers, toggling the pressure gauge from gently propulsive sway in "Pia" to tighter, darker steppers type in "Alejandro" and wave-y whistling melodies in "oooophi", before technoid neuro D&B stabs light up "Descales" and it all fades out in the narcotically effective downstroke and tripped vox of "ADMSDP", and slunks into the deep blue reggaeton electronica of "Juntos" and "mmmm". Cast somewhere between the horizontal and vertical, and thus primed for dancehall or late-night satisfaction, whatever angle it's approached from, Mas Amables is a unique and richly immersive experience that will surely rank among the definitive records of the year. Cover photo by Lazaro Rodriguez; graphic design by Josh Abramovici; front cover design by Sophie Diiorio. Mastered by Chris "CZ" Wang, cut at Dubplates & Mastering.

Co-released with Umland Records, Germany. On one night in 2019, The Dorf (German for "village") took a heavy dose of the music of Phill Niblock. The impact on the musicians, gathering to play a double-length version of Niblock's "Baobab" and (in a second set) three "Dorf" tunes, was deep. It felt a bit like going to church -- a truly spiritual experience. At first, the audience did not believe the announcement that the "drone" piece would last for 46 minutes. Afterwards, their reactions showed the impression Phill's music had made on them. After a 20-minute break, three pieces followed -- a different game altogether, but connected to "Baobab" in the way that the energy and the feel for the evening had been thoroughly set by Mr. Niblock. Already his physical presence changed the reception for both musicians and listeners and the taste for this "wall of sound" was palpable. The Dorf (in itself already an orchestra of something like 25 people) had been augmented by friends to a total of 35 musicians -- almost too big to be true. In the second part of the evening, Katherine Liberovskaya projected along to the music some of her outstanding video work, which is obviously not documented on this album. Play the record at a not-too-soft volume and stick with it. One way or another, the music will get to you. Recorded live on September 19, 2019, domicil Dortmund Germany. Personnel: Moritz Anthes - trombone; Marvin Blamberg - drums, sampler; Julia Brüssel - violin; Simon Camatta - drums, sampler; Denis Cosmar - sound; Marie Daniels - vocals; Felix Fritsche - saxophone; Sebastian Gerhartz - saxophone; Christian Hammer - guitar; Florian Hartlieb - computer; Stefanie Heine - saxophone; David Heiss - trumpet; Volker Kamp - bass; Oona Kastner - synth, vocals; Jan Klare - saxophone, directing; Anja Kreysing - accordeon; Maika Küster - vocals; Katherine Liberovskaya - visuals; Raissa Mehner - guitar; Alexander Morsey - sousaphone; Johannes Nebel - bass; Fabian Neubauer - keyboards; Phill Niblock - composition; Kai Niggemann - Buchla; Adrian Prost - trombone; Gilda Razani - Theremin; Guido Schlösser - synth; Ludger Schmidt - cello; Hanna Schörken - vocals; Oliver Siegel - synth; Maria Trautmann - trombone; Luise Volkmann - saxophone; Martin Verborg - violin; Andreas Wahl - guitar; Florian Walter - saxophone; Max Wehner - trombone; Emily Wittbrodt - cello; Achim Zepezauer - electronics.

The Dwarfs of East Agouza are back with The Green Dogs of Dashur. Once again, the prolific American-Egyptian trio composed of Alan Bishop (acoustic guitar-bass/alto sax), Sam Shalabi (electric guitar), and Maurice Louca (organ/synthesizers/beats) breaks off all constraints and reveals a resolutely free album offering the listener variations of seductive melodies and unhinged improvised trance. The hot embossed metallic double-headed dog designed by the Lebanese artist Lynne Zakhour perfectly illustrates this album that blurs the boundaries of rock and jazz. A new album that will certainly delight fans of the Sun City Girls or the Land Of Kush. Comes with printed inner sleeve and download card.

Stunning album from Ann Margaret Hogan, aka Annie Hogan -- prolific collaborator with the likes of everyone from Nick Cave to Simon Fisher Turner's Deux Filles, Kraftwerk's Wolfgang Flür, Lydia Lunch, and countless others -- here resurfacing on Karl O'Connor's Downwards label, of all places, for a gorgeous swirl of reflective solo piano and field recordings that somehow reminds us of Virginia Astley's life changing early '80s masterpiece From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. Honeysuckle Burials is a quintessentially native reading of the dramatic Welsh landscape described via solo piano and location recordings -- a hauntological approach that marks out Hogan's more personalized phase shift into a musical exploration and expression of self as inspired by place and memory. Produced in Ann's Studio Blue in 2019, the melancholy but life-affirming vibe is rooted in feelings felt during walks around the rugged North Welsh countryside. Mixing field recordings of her surroundings with her impressionistic solo piano translations of the sights and sounds of Wales' ancient landscape, the finished article most subtly bridges the physical and imaginary with a painterly sensuality. The results firmly fall into a long and enduring field of music from these septic isles inspired by its pastoral wilds. Like many before her, the landscape's palimpsest of stories inspired by and accreted in its hills, rocks, water and sky urge Ann to conclusions that are at once personally poignant but resoundingly familiar, drawing on a shared Celtic heritage and, with it, a pagan appreciation of Mother Earth's natural elements that had previously influenced countless folk, classical, and contemporary works of art. New on Regis's Downwards label. Edition of 300.

Eurydike is a four-track EP from Liebezeit & Friedman including two unreleased "Secret Rhythms" tracks in a picture sleeve! João Pais Filipe (drums) and Burnt Friedman (electronics) ultimately hypnotize their audience by activating cosmic mechanics. Both refer to it as "automatic music," yet their focus is on playing and exploring rare rhythmic modes; in Friedman's terms: "We organize pressure mediation according to mother nature." Friedman and Pais left behind the consensus artificial paradise of cultural musical idioms, developing an immersive, archaic next-level dance music, deeply rooted in natural laws of motion. Informed by the works of Jaki Liebezeit -- one of the most influential drummers of all time -- Friedman and Pais pursue a different path. On side two the listener is confronted with two more recent, unreleased "Secret Rhythms" contributions. The two Friedman & Liebezeit studio tracks were recorded in 2016 and were played lived frequently. Since his passing in early 2017, Liebezeit's drum theory has been carefully retrieved and presented to the public for the first time.

Birmingham, UK's sprawl of low rise warehouses and their links to the military-industrial complex inspires this crushing new take on the "Brummie" sound and spirit from former native Arash Moori for his longtime pals at Type. In nine harsh and disorienting bouts of angular drums and hazardous noise texture, Exothermic doubles down on the tonal and rhythmic brutalism of Moori's debut for Type, Heterodyne (TYPE 125LP, 2015). It forms a deep topographical reading of his home region's maze of one-story munitions workshops, flyovers, canals, and spaghetti road systems, all intersected by the ghosts of Jungle pirate radio and lit up by hotspots of nostalgic reminiscence; places where he studied, walked thru, DJed at and protested with long-time friend and Type label co-owner, John Twells. Moreover Exothermic is concerned with how this environment and the city's progressive past affects the mood and music of its contemporary population, and how it ultimately came to inform the visceral nature of the "Brummie Sound". Working to a fierce, noisy aesthetic that's been firmly expressed in hard-bitten Brummie and Midlander music by everyone from Black Sabbath to Scorn, and even Coventry's Delia Derbyshire, who acknowledged the infamous Luftwaffe blitz on her home city as a formative sonic experience, Exothermic explodes with a tightly coiled, abstract-industrial energy that's surely worthy of comparison with any of them. In fits and bursts, rhythms inspired by the city's pirate radio jungle heritage clash with sheets of metallic calamity; sawn-off percussion ricochets the space like shrapnel searching for a target; and structures are torched like Raymond Mason's municipal artwork "Forward" which went up in flames during the city's 2003 demonstrations against the Iraq war. It's all intended to mirror a negative feedback loop of intensity between the place and its people, and does so with a mix of bostin' glee and dark humor familiar to the region. From this meld of psychogeography, subjective hauntology, and objective history, Arash Moori's work in Exothermic most cannily and explicitly results a simulacra of a place shaped by emotions, personal memories, and accreted histories, and rendered in a temporal flux as chaotically tiled and riven with radical energies as the place itself. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork by Arash Moori.

Ko Shin Moon's third LP puts the use of samples on a background layer and asserts his place as an instrumentalist. Leïla Nova presents itself as a nocturnal digression where analogical synthesizer, rhythm box, vocal tinkering, and colorful instrumentation are mixed together. Psychedelia, electronic variations, dance music, synth folk, and filmed approach, blend with traditional Greek, Afghan, Lebanese-Syrian, Turkish, and Indian revisited repertoires. The artwork is designed by Lebanese artist Raphaelle Macaron. Three pantone colors sleeve; includes download card.

First vinyl release of Ak'chamel, The Giver Of Illness after a prolific cassette discography, The Totemist is a deep psychedelic album hinted by mysticism which reminds the best hours of the free-minded 1960s rock. A shamanic album written and recorded in a ghost-town in the Chihuahuan Desert in far West Texas -- a place where the dead outnumber the living. Various overdubs and field recordings were captured in the historic Terlingua Cemetery, an ancient burial ground filled with small grottoes and graves made of sticks and stones. This being the final resting place for miners who succumbed from illnesses derived from the toxic rare-earth element known as mercury. Ak'chamel, The Giver of Illness is an enigmatic duo from a border state. Fourth world post-colonial cultural cannibalists circumcising the foreskin of enlightenment. Performing in homemade costumes and masks, they have played festivals in various cities around the US gaining international attention from Vice, The Wire, Tiny Mix Tapes, Consequence of Sound, and more. Enter the fourth world now! Printed inner sleeve; includes download card.

Too Slow To Disco regulars will remember Vibes4YourSoul's name from his standout remix for L'impératrice on 2019's Too Slow To Disco NEO - En France compilation (HDYANE 001CD/LP). He is one of the edit-producers that specialized in those slow jams and mid-tempo tracks on the record. With a lot of soul, Vibes4YourSoul (aka V4YS) is a French DJ and producer who blends elements of disco, rare groove, Afro-Latin, and soulful indie together with the deeper edge of contemporary house and nu disco sounds. The four reworks on this double-7" reflect all these styles, held together by Vibes4YourSoul's lush, mellow and funky production: "Mais Loucos" is a mellow, soulful slow-jam Brazil affair; "All The Way" is a mid-tempo disco edit and booty shaker; "Im in Luv" takes us straight down to Jamaica; and "Coney Island" is a cool slice of N.Y. no-disco. From of a long and passionate reflective experience, his DJ sets are eclectic journeys through different times and styles, with groove weaving it's way through each song, as a common thread. A member of Yuksek's Partyfine crew, he's regularly revisiting old or contemporary tracks through edits and remixes, widely shared and played by numerous DJs. Recent official releases include an original track for Cookie Records second compilation, an exclusive edit for Partyfine's compilation re-cover, an official remix for French pop band L'Impératrice on Berlin label How Do You Are?, "City Slang", and several funky edits for NYC nudisco weblabel Noc Boots.

2020 restock. 180 gram reissue of Miles Davis' expansive 1972 album. ""Here are killer groove riffs that barely hold on as bleating trumpet and soprano sax lines (courtesy of Dave Liebman on track one) interact with John McLaughlin's distortion-box frenzy. Michael Henderson's bass keeps the basic so basic it hypnotizes; keyboards slowly enter the picture, a pair of them handled by Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, as well as Ivory Williams' synthesizer." --All Music

C. Lavender is a New York based sound artist and sound healing practitioner whose third full-length album explores meditative physical rituals of sound with binaural recordings from inside a geodesic dome in the Catskill Mountains of New York. "The future is a choice between utopia and oblivion," noted architect, futurist, and geodesic dome theorist Buckminster Fuller. Myth Of Equilibrium delves into these divergent paths by featuring equal parts of pastoral raw acoustic percussion combined with C. Lavender's signature "devastating caustic drones" (Ad Hoc) via her custom bass guitar and synthesizers. An assistant to the late pioneering electronic composer and Deep Listening founder Pauline Oliveros, C. Lavender's astute editing and the binaural recording process places the listener within the heady fluctuating underworld she has created on this album. The recording environment of the geodesic dome allowed for sounds to transfer out beyond the confines of the walls as well as allowing outside sounds from the surrounding wilderness to permeate in like that of a mutating cell. The album suggests "headphone listening" for the full hypnotic experience Myth Of Equilibrium presents to the listener. C. Lavender is a 2020 Pioneer Works (New York) Music Artist-in-Residence. Photography: C. Lavender; Design: Richard Chartier. Recorded 2018-2019 at the Outer Inn Studios Dome (Catskills, NY). Mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12k Mastering.

2020 repress. "12 cuts from some of the rarest and most fuzz-drenched Jesus Rock obscurities from the 1960s and '70s. Artists are: The New Folk, Barrie Hobbie, Johann Black & Sweet Destiny, First Revelation, Wild Olive Branch Band, Earthen Vessel, Shekina Glory, The Jesus Band, The Ark, Children Of The Lamb, Renacimiento, Paul Clark and The Four Corner Gospel Experience. It's a limited (500 copies) press, all hand-numbered, of some of the rarest, most obscure & most fuzz-drenched Jesus Rock from the 1960s & '70s. There's 12 cuts from 12 different bands, all authorized, restored & re-mastered. The cover is an eye-popping throwback to the best of the '60s Fillmore posters and leaves no doubt about the nature of the music."

"A masterpiece of South American percussion, recorded in 1977 by worldwide legend and Gipsy Kings percussionist Jorge Trasante -- and impossible to find for decades -- finally reissued! 'I left (Uruguay) in early 1977. We were finishing a cycle with Mateo, Buscaglia, Yánez and Mariana Vigil. I studied technical drawing at the Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay... and worked in a cigar and cigar factory -- that was my mother's trade -- which allowed me to buy the instruments that Emilio Acevedo made in Ansina 1036; he was the great teacher. The first drums I paid for in a thousand installments. He would lend me pailas, Ameijenda or Galletti would lend me a cymbal, I never had anything. I left because here I was very 'wounded' and the political thing got very hard with the dictatorship and the music weighed more than everything. I decided to jump to Europe, where there were great friends. And I went with 70 kilos of drums to Paris to Mario Aguerre, former bassist of Los Delfines. Knowing that I had arrived, Emilio Arteaga called me and he proposed to set up a group with Jorge Pinchevsky, a great Argentine violinist who had played in La Pesada del Rock & Roll. We set up an experimental group with Latin rhythms to play on the street, in clubs, where he would paint. I used to play a set of congas, timbales, and we made Andean music, very fashionable then... and that summer of 1977 in the south of France we did very well. There I crossed paths for the first time with the Gipsy Kings, who also played on the street doing 'the manga' with their gypsy rumba.' --Jorge Trasante. First ever reissue on vinyl. LP cut directly from 24-bit/96kHz master tape transfers. The ultimate investigation of South American rhythms. Latest entry in our acclaimed series of reissues of Uruguayan classic recordings."

"Traveling the spaceways as Spiral Galaxy, flautist/painter Sara Gossett and treated guitar/machines manipulator Plastic Crimewave (of Plastic Crimewave Syndicate/Galactic Zoo Dossier magazine) have created devotional sonic voyages and droney soundscapes with the occasional rhythmic pulse to conjure the textural and kosmische vibe of '70s German seekers like Yatha Sidhra, Emtidi, Popul Vuh, Achim Reichel, Sand, and early Kraftwerk. The duo has just completed their first album, expansive tracks they had been performing live on tours in the UK and Italy, plus USA events like Chicago Psych Fest, Milwaukee Psych Fest, Far Out Nashville festival, and The Feed Me Weird Things series in Iowa City. Treating the studio as an instrument, new layers, instruments and collaborators were added to the heady mix, like special guests Jean-Hervé Péron of legendary avant-German collective Faust (who Spiral Galaxy was lucky enough to open for, and collaborate with on stage); Kawabata Makoto of Japanese communal psychlords Acid Mothers Temple on chants and spoken voice; and Alisha Sufit of UK '70s eastern-folk band Magic Carpet (also chanting her heart out). Also appearing on the album are guitar wunderkind Ryley Walker (playing backwards guitar on this, not easy!), Taralie of Spires that in the Sunset Rise on Terry Riley-ish circular sax, sitar-player Hands of Hydra, Moog-maestro Will MacLean of Protovulcan, and Christian Luke Brady of meditative Virginia cosmonauts Fargon. What results is a dense, hallucinogenic, sonic tapestry of an LP that covers many moods -- from divine soundscapes to Krautrock's motorik beats, doomy experimental pieces to dark acid folk, and beyond. Expansive kosmische sounds with sitar and electronics, that travels from devotional soundscapes to motorik beats, freak-folk and beyond. Guest-starring: Jean-Hervé of the legendary Faust, Kawabata of Acid Mothers Temple, Alisha Sufit of Magic Carpet, and Ryley Walker. For heads who dig Yatha Sidhra, Emtidi, early Kraftwerk, La Düsseldorf, Popol Vuh, and Sand's Golem."

"The Animated Egg were a studio-only group that released a self-titled album of psychedelic instrumentals in 1967. Session guitarist Jerry Cole was the man behind the band, known for his fuzzy guitar play and his well written songs. All instrumental exploitation psych, featuring some very impressive sound effects. Featuring on his one and only record comes 'Sock It My Way', a dreamy feast of mesmerizing, piercing melodies all bound together by a steady, hypnotic rhythm. In the 1960s, Jerry Cole was one of America's most prolific guitarists, turning his hand to surf music, rock, country, jazz and blues and playing on sessions for Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. The Animated Egg is available as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on orange marbled color vinyl."

180 gram black vinyl. "Battle of Armagideon is one of the essential albums by Jamaican reggae artist Lee 'Scratch' Perry. His backing group by that time were The Upsetters. This album will get you to the heart of Perry's unique work as a mixer and producer. He explores the music by adding a lot of sound effects to the different tracks. 'I'm a Madman' is the best known album track, where Perry is going to the max. It's pure craziness at its best. Lee 'Scratch' Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development of dub music and worked together with artists such as Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Clash and The Beastie Boys. Nowadays he's still performing and recording music."

"Lee 'Scratch' Perry & The Upsetters' classic Return of Django. Lee Perry had already been rattling around the Jamaican music scene for about a decade before Return To Django hit the UK charts in 1969. Soon after, Trojan released a hugely popular collection of the producer's most popular instrumental releases to date, suitably titled after the best-selling single. Annotated by Lee 'Scratch' Perry biographer, David Katz, this is a must for all fans of both the producer and vintage reggae sounds. Lee 'Scratch' Perry was a pioneer in the 1970's development of dub music and worked together with artists such as Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Clash and The Beastie Boys. Nowadays he's still performing and recording music. Return of Django is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on orange vinyl."

This is the second edition of instrumental soundtracks, composed and edited for film or television companies, tagged (on CD sleeve) and conducted conveniently to provoke absorption. All pieces were produced by Burnt Friedman and/or Hayden Chisholm as part of sessions with The Embassadors and Friedman's score recording-sessions with contributions from The Embassadors, Root70 (playing The Nu Dub Players), Hayden Chisholm, Flanger, Daniel Dodd-Ellis, and Friedman's 90s outlet, Drome. It's not only a wild mixture of various jazz-centered quality tunes, but a continuously surprising assembly of sound substance under extremely different musical idioms. You hear compassion and anger, vulnerability and strength, but deepest of all, perhaps, a sadness that would be almost unendurable if it were not examined and transformed, somehow, into beauty. File under: instrumental soundtracks, golden-era jazz, outernational, magic realism, electronica, commercials. Also features Joseph Suchy.

Recital label head Sean McCann on the record (2020): "A spellbinding tribute from one multi-faceted artist to another. New York-based artist Aki Onda (b. 1967) conjured a transduction to the Korean multi-media pioneer Nam June Paik (1932-2006). Aki himself describes the project: 'Nam June's Spirit Was Speaking To Me occurred purely by chance. In 2010, I was spending four days at Nam June Paik Art Center in South Korea for a series of performances and had plenty of free time to wander . . . I have always felt a close kinship with him as an artist, and so it was a great opportunity to immerse myself in his works and ephemera. It was that night I made the first contact, via a hand-held radio in a hotel room in Seoul . . . Scanning through the stations, I stumbled upon what sounded like a submerged voice and I began to record it in fascination. I concluded this was Paik's spirit reaching out to me. The project continued to grow organically as I kept channeling Paik's spirit over long distance and receiving cryptic broadcasts/messages. The series of séances, conducted in different cities across the globe, began in Seoul in 2010, and continued in Köln, Germany in 2012, Wrocław, Poland in 2013, and Lewisburg, USA in 2014. The original recordings were captured by the same radio which has a tape recorder, with almost no editing, save for some minimal slicing and mastering. Paik is known for his association with shamanism, a practice that constantly surfaces in his works all through his career. In an interview, he stated 'In Korea, diverse forms of shamanism are strongly remained. Even though I have created my work unconsciously, the most inspiring thing in my work came from Korean female shaman Mudang.' . . . These recordings also became a way for me to explore the mythic form of radio -- a medium which is full of mysteries. The transmissions captured may be 'secret broadcasts' on anonymous radio stations. There are in fact hundreds of those stations around the world, although the numbers dwindle as clandestine messages can now be sent via encrypted digital channels...' Nam June's Spirit is a beautifully formed homage, I cannot think of any other like it. An intimate, flickering language discovered through the air." Includes 20-page art booklet including rare photographs of Nam June Paik from the set of Michael Snow's film Rameau's Nephew (1974), two essays on radio-wave phenomenon (by Onda and Marcus Gammel), and a remembrance of Paik by Yuji Agematsu. Edition of 250.

Parisian Maxime Iko delivers with Pray For Us, the follow-up to his BPitch debut Concilium (BPC 335EP, 2018), and it's a record which sounds as rousing, playful and danceable as before. Iko's music has always been based on a strong groove, concise basslines, pitched-down vocals, and a sensitivity to the sexually charged energy of the gay parties that Iko has co-organized in the French capital. The resident DJ at Ellen Allien's We Are Not Alone rave parties and the Parisian club Dehours Brut goes even further with Pray For Us and presents four equally strong tracks spanning hyperactive techno and retrofuturistic electro vibes -- the theme of the EP is various visions of the apocalypse. "Dagyde" sets the tone with a jagged pace, its stray arpeggio theme and bone-dry claps the perfect start to visualize Iko's fondness for playfulness and an otherwise rarely found subtle humor. The title track comes with Maxime Iko's bell-colored signature sound cascades, a simple but effective bass line and pitched vocals about a religious apocalypse - a deep prime time techno cut for dark, sweaty rooms. "Telekinesis" then slows down the pace and catapults the listener into the outer orbit of Saturn with its dramatic Detroit theme. And with "Words" Iko closes this EP with a concentrated electro techno track that cuts deeper and deeper into the cortex.

Repressed. 37th volume in the BYG Actuel series; gatefold sleeve, 180 gram vinyl. The quintessentail Actuel album and your basic cornerstone of Free Music 101. "An album recorded in Paris (on June 22nd, 1969) with his wife Linda plus Ben Guerin (bass) and Jacques Thollot (drums). Sonny Sharrock was one of the top avant-garde guitarists and his playing was intense and ferocious. He mixed together Jimi Hendrix and Pharoah Sanders." "Sharrock was the first guitarist to really embrace fire music. He wanted his playing to mirror the emotional scream of the tenor saxophone." --Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.

Aguirre Records present a reissue of Maggi Payne's Arctic Winds, originally released on CD in 2010. Fully immersive electronic music by US composer Maggi Payne, inspired by the arctic winds. Payne's sound worlds invite the listeners to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile and visible. The music is based on location recordings, with each sound carefully selected for its potential -- its slow unfolding revealing delicate intricacies -- and its inherent spatialization architecting and sculpting the aural space where multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist. With good speakers, some space in your schedule, and a mind-body continuum willing to resonate with Payne's electroacoustic journey, but then it will take you to places that other music can't reach. From the sounds of dry ice, space transmissions, BART trains, and poor plumbing she immerses the listener in a world strangely unfamiliar. Maggi Payne is a composer, video artist, recording engineer, photographer, and flutist and is co-director of the Center for Contemporary Music and a faculty member at Mills College, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Aguirre Records present a reissue of Maggi Payne's Ahh-Ahh, originally released in 2012 on Root Strata. Originally composed by Maggi Payne between 1984-1987 for the performance group Technological Feets. Formed by video artist Ed Tennenbaum in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1981, the group combines dance, live video processing, and music. Composed on an Apple II computer and various early sampling devices, Payne's compositions are a vibrant response to the call from the moving body. Populated with buoyant pulses, graceful analog swells, dense fog-like drones, and cascading rhythms that shift in space, Ahh-Ahh is a vital document of not only these early collaborations, but of computer-based music as well. She studied with many greats in the field, including Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley, and David Berhman.

Inspired by a poetry booklet by Kenneth Patchen (from which it takes its title), 14 Love Poems focuses on expression and emotion. Recorded and first released by FMP in 1984. Peter Brötzmann: alto, tenor & baritone saxophone; a-,e-flat and bass clarinet, tarogato. Cover by Peter Brötzmann. Producer: Jost Gebers, Peter Brötzmann. Mix: Jost Gebers, Peter Brötzmann. All compositions by Peter Brötzmann except "Nr. 1 baritone-sax / Lonely Woman" by Ornette Coleman. 180 gram vinyl.

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves and 32-page booklet; Includes download code; edition of 500. In collaboration with Markus Acher's Alien Transistor label, Morr Music presents a collection of hard-to-find Japanese independent music, compiled by Saya, who plays with Ueno Takashi in the iconic duo Tenniscoats. They are part of a current music scene, which is little known outside of Japan. Minna Miteru focuses on that very scene: the featured bands and musicians share a certain idea of DIY, and are also connected through frequent collaborations and mutual appreciation.

The following notes were written by Markus Acher, who also plays with Saya & Ueno in the band Spirit Fest: "In 2018 I was sitting in the Tenniscoats' kitchen with beer and music, looking at Ueno's wonderful risograph songbook 'Minna Miteru' (Everybody Watch) which collects the lyrics and chords of their friends' songs alongside his own illustrations, when Saya suggested putting together a compilation of these and other songs for our label. I couldn't have been happier, this sounded like a dream to me . . . here is Minna Miteru, a compilation of recent Japanese indie-music. And I'm very happy about it, because although there have been many great reissues of '70s and '80s Japanese music recently, most contemporary Japanese independent bands and artists are hardly known outside of Japan and so it's hard to find their music. And I couldn't think of a better guide to this special scene than Saya, whose love, dedication, and personal selections have made this such a unique and beautiful compilation. You'll hear some of the Tenniscoats' closest friends and collaborators (Eddie Marcon, Yumbo, Yuko Ikema), but also artists they are fans of, like the legendary Jun Konagaya (aka Grim) and many befriended bands that form a scene of uncategorizable outsiders in pop, like the one-man-orchestra Ichi, the trumpet-trumpet-organ-trio Popo, the mysterious psychedelic songwriter Aritomo, and the pianist/electronic musician, Ytamo. So many beautiful surprises: melodicas, electronics, folk-songs, brass bands, sound-experiments and melodies, melodies, melodies... Every song a treasure, exploding with ideas, and me personally, I could listen to the Tenniscoats and Yumbo collaboration and Zayaendo's 'Hiyodori' forever on repeat." Also features Takashi Hattori, namaeganai, Takako Minekawa ＆ Dustin Wong, Alpha, Vagamoron, Kasumi Trio, Go Hirano, Satoko Shibata, Tomoaki Saito + Tenco Matsuri, Cacoy, Andersens, Jiro Imai, Urichipangoon, Jun Konagaya, Nikasoup & Sayasource, Borzoi, and 2B.

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve; includes printed inner sleeves and download code. "With Mirage Mirage, avant-pop quintet Spirit Fest gifts their listeners with their richest, deepest record to date. It's no surprise when you consider the group's membership: Saya and Ueno, aka the duo Tenniscoats; Markus Acher, best known as singer of The Notwist; Mat Fowler, who plays with Jam Money and Bons; and Cico Beck, who's making music with Joasinho, Aloa Input, and The Notwist. If that feels like a heavyweight line-up, that's because it is -- yet the overarching mood of Spirit Fest is one of lightness and joy, of experiment and pure pop pleasure. Sessions for the album were split between the Tenniscoats' Tokyo home studio in November 2018, and a small apartment studio in Munich in June 2019. Saya, Ueno and Markus pitched in songs, but sometimes, as with 'Fish With Arms', beguiling moments grew from group improvisations, often kicked off by Cico and Mat. All members stretched their instrumental limbs, too . . . There's a sincere, child-like generosity to the music, and a playfulness with an everyday surrealism you can hear in some of the experimental interjections across the album. Its final sound is the rolling click-clacking of a bicycle wheel. The bike was key to one of Mat's explorations of the Tenniscoats' Tokyo neighborhood . . . Stumbling across art amongst the everyday; that's also core to Spirit Fest . . . There's more here than just avant-pop: see the pronounced folksy lilt to 'The Snow Falls On Everyone'; or 'Mohikone', a gorgeous instrumental, droplets of piano pattering amongst a plangent acoustic guitar. The seven-minute 'Zenbu Honto (Every Thing Is Everything)' is a spiraling psychedelic pop mantra, with field recordings and slithering electronics tracing a path under the scrub-growth of guitar, piano, and drums. There are guest appearances from Micha Acher (The Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio) on trumpet, and Aiko Okamoto, who takes part in the choral rounds of the album's closing tune, 'Saigo Song'. Whichever way you approach it, though, the guiding force of Spirit Fest is friendship and collaboration, giving life to collective dreaming..." --Jon Dale

Saturday Night is the debut LP by old friends and collaborators Alex Twomey, Matthew Sullivan, and Sean McCann. Recorded over numerous evenings at the artists' homes, and completed just before the birth of Matthew's daughter, Flora. The album became an excuse to spend time with one another as well as perform. As the trio ordered take-out, drank scotch, smoked on patios, laughing off the weight of reality -- they stumbled into moments of musical focus. This album has a prism of fidelities. High and low resolutions press together as the environment blows through the instruments. The woozy, side-long titular track of hesitant cello and pianos opens the record. Quiet music with blemishes and inebriated pauses, breathing an alleviated air. Phrases with failing propellers, teetering between melodic and apathetic. The true speed of their Saturday nights. Side two opens with "London On My Mind." Reflecting the other pole, manic cassette treatments duel over Twomey's placid keyboard, ultimately breaking into a little joke on the piano. "Collection" features guitar by Sullivan, remembered for his thick fog of work under the alias Earn. With Sullivan's return to the instrument, he is joined by Twomey on upright piano and McCann processing the room in real-time. The brief final work, "Bird," recalls the style of the group's private press cassettes, The Bird and Charlotte's Office: poorly-played pleasant-hearted music. In 2019, two practice sessions were filmed by Sullivan on VHS, the audio has been isolated for this cassette. Includes 20-page color photo of stills documenting the recording process booklet; Edition of 225.

LP version. Includes download code. Tastaturstuecke Vol 1 introduces nine outstanding new compositions for church organ, harpsichord, and self-programmed software. The album comprises the first collaborative recordings of Brian Parks (Atlanta) and Phillip Schulze (Düsseldorf). The two musicians first met in the early 2000s at the famous Wesleyan University, Connecticut, where they regularly attended seminars of their teachers Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton. Through extended preparations for a series of live performances in Europe in 2019 (e.g. at the Approximation Festival, Düsseldorf) Parks and Schulze developed and refined a unique approach towards composition, highlighting their interest in the correlation of the invariable flawlessness of a computer versus the human performer on church organ or harpsichord. Largely written for church organ and harpsichord all pieces also correspond perfectly with the physical spaces the recordings have taken place at. The album was recorded in three different churches in Düsseldorf which have been chosen for the different qualities of their specific room acoustics. Treating slight differences in pitch, phasing, overtones and rhythm all compositions on Tastaturstuecke Vol 1 offer an evocative density and flexibility that imbue the music with an organic feel. The nine pieces range in shape and form from concise and sharp clarity such as "Ranking Studies 1-3" to the extended, exquisitely paced radiance of the eight minutes of "Partials Chrorale". "Mensuring Canon for 8 voices" is obsessively restated in constantly changing permutations whereas the metronomic "Reliefs For Ecclesial Space" sounds urgent, deep and explosive. The last piece, "Activated Progression", in particular reverses the roles between computer and the human musician. The software never messes up the phase. The human would do his best to gradually change from one state to another. Once decisions are made regarding registration and finger assignment, the human should behave like a well-fabricated wind-up toy. The two hands remain offset the entire time, and at the fastest possible speed, enact patterns of three notes (left hand) and four notes (right hand). The computer meanwhile, moves from Euclidean rhythm to Euclidean rhythm over leisurely time periods.

"Further honing a singular cosmic musical language, Matthew Shipp begins celebrating his landmark 60th year with this new work for solo piano. The Piano Equation is also the inaugural release from Tao Forms, a new label devoted to enlightened and elevated free jazz. Over more than half of his lifespan, Shipp has built up an unparalleled body of work and a wholly original musical language that only becomes more hyper-focused and distinctive with the passage of time. Shipp's abstract eloquence is on vivid display throughout The Piano Equation, which presents Shipp alone at the piano, brilliantly solving his higher-order musical mathematics, approaching each new unknown from unexpected vantage points as in some form of cubist algebra. Shipp builds his solo music in a cellular fashion, formed like the building blocks of human life out of disparate elements that combine and evolve in ever-unique and fascinating forms. 'There are billions of different human beings on the planet, all constituted with the same genetic material but all completely different,' he says. 'All of these pieces can be generated with a different mother/father idea and the basic cellular material can unfold in billions of ways.' Stride, swing and the avant-garde collide like so many elemental particles, the aftereffects radiating outward in increasingly complex and intricate formations. The scientific, the personal, the political and the fantastic co-exist throughout Shipp's work, melding in the radical vocabulary that the pianist employs on the album, which speaks with its own alien yet familiar logic. Fragments of melody coalesce and transform, dissolve or shatter into kaleidoscopic reveries."