LP version. Cluster can be counted among the most important international protagonists of the electronic avant-garde. Some credit them with having invented ambient music, others as pioneers of synthesizer pop, whilst to some they are firmly embedded in the krautrock universe. There is some truth in all of these notions. Cluster (or Kluster as they were in the beginning) were founded in 1970 in Berlin by Conrad Schnitzler, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Dieter Moebius. A change in direction and musical differences moved Moebius and Roedelius to split from Schnitzler after which the duo recorded ten regular studio albums between 1971 and 2009. Their debut album (Cluster 71) was in Wire Magazine's "One Hundred Records That Set The World On Fire" list. Cluster II is influenced by Berlin and Hamburg; situated somewhere in the middle of artistic happenings, musical outrageousness and drug abuse: an urban mixture.

"The question as to whether Cluster II has to be considered part of serious music or rather of popular music seems as obsolete today as it was back in 1972. Interestingly enough, however, the album was among the first ones to leave people in confusion when trying to tell what musical category it belonged to. As opposed to now where there is a large transitional area situated somewhere in between the two poles and made up by all sorts of electro-acoustic music, serious and popular music were still categories strictly set apart at the beginning of the seventies. Moebius and Roedelius, however, simply did not care about categorizing their music, thus contributing to the trend towards abandoning the categories altogether. When listening to Cluster II today, fifty years after it was recorded, the album's historic significance becomes as clear as never before. A lot has already been written about Cluster's historic impact. Let me just underline in this context that it was not least this album that opened up doors through which generations of electro-acoustic musicians were yet to step." --Asmus Tietchens

LP version. After more than 40 years, Silberstreif's EP Ich suche dein Gesicht, first released on Sky Records in 1983, is available again. Rather unusual for Sky's catalogue, the duo played flawless synth-pop with German-language lyrics. This EP sank into obscurity in the 1980s flood of hyper-commercial German New Wave releases. The band later became an insider tip and the EP a sought-after collector's item. The re-issue is accompanied by four previously unreleased bonus tracks.

"Overdue, a re-issue of this great, rare EP from 1983. While that year, the major labels were finally exploiting everything commercially that even rudimentarily fitted the NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle -- German New Wave) buzzword, we can now look back and realize that there were still countless creative bands, projects and artists in the musical underground. The release by Silberstreif shows like no other that the focus of the German 1980s underground was not only on odd and experimental sounds, but also on poppy and melodic ones. Listening to these hopeful, almost innocent synth melodies paired with dark lyrics circling around obsessive male protagonists, one can't help but imagine how this band re-asserted its artistic freedom by leaning into the musical tropes of sell-out and commercialization -- with a subtle subversive middle finger. The duo play fantastic and timeless synth-pop which is still relevant today and still gets crowds dancing in trendy clubs between songs by Human League and Grauzone. Like I said, this re-issue is long overdue!" --Marco Floess

Corbett vs. Dempsey presents the release of PRO FAKE NO REJECT by pianist Erez Dessel. This is Dessel's first solo CD. One of the most astonishing young musicians to emerge in contemporary improvised music, Erez Dessel (b. 1998) is helping to revitalize the practice. An ace technician who studied at the New England Conservatory, Dessel is in no way conservative. Indeed, his bracing approach to the keyboard and deeply intuitive sense of form can be explosive, uncorked energy summoning references to Cecil Taylor and the Don Pullen/Milford Graves duets, and an almost Russian Romantic darkness -- imagine an improvised Mussorgsky -- offset by keen emotional intelligence, with joyful melodicism and an airborne quality. And nestled within Dessel's playing there's a perverse streak, a contrarianism that might call to mind Misha Mengelberg or Jim Baker. An active participant in Chicago's current creative music scene.

LP version. "While they have collaborated a good many times, Next is the first recorded evidence of Danish guitarist (or more properly Bastardist) Jørgen Teller playing with American ex-pat multi-instrumentalist Mark Cunningham. The pair both have long histories on the fringes of known sounds. I first heard Teller as a member of the dizzily freakoid Tzarina Q Cut and Cunningham's decades of musical adventurism with Mars, Don King, Bestia Ferida, Blood Quartet, etc. have been well documented, not least by us. This is Mark's tenth FTR release! The four pieces here are improvised instrumental duets. The material was recorded in October 2023, as part of an ongoing residency Mark has at the Fabra I Coats creation center in Barcelona. Throughout, Teller plays Le Bastard (a Hofner 137 electric guitar with two bass strings and three guitar strings). Cunningham plays mostly trumpet and delays, but also whips out his old Dan Electro for one of the tracks. Overall, the sonic results are droney, druggy, lightly-noisesome slabs of brilliant buzz. In a general way, Jørgen's amped strings set up a humbucking sound-sheet against which he and Mark can each toss spontaneous squibs of creation and destruction, When Mark is playing trumpet and pedals, the music sometimes manifests a strange sort of charm that almost has the feel of a noise rock approach to the Canterbury Sound. By which, I mean the stuff is rackety, but there are built-in glissandos that make me think of nothing less Camel's brilliant live work on the Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dancehall. Of course, these moments resolve themselves in weirder ways than any Pete Bardens has ever dreamed up, but it demonstrates the duo's avant-prog game is strong! The doubled guitar track (called 'Next 3' to contrast it with 'Next 1,' 'Next 2,' and 'Next 4') is a superb piece of string work with rockist overtones that put fellow in mind of some of the best moments by classic two-man string units like the Smashchords or early Half Japanese. But with a more overtly hypnagogic overlay that forces your brain's receptors to stretch themselves in new ways. It's all amazing stuff. Sounding so fully evolved you'll be tempted to swear it weren't improvised! But you'd be wrong, friend. Some people just have the gift. To paraphrase that old softy, Lou Reed, their week beats your year. Get up with it!" --Byron Coley, 2025

Laetitia Sonami was born in France, where she studied with Eliane Radigue. She moved to the United States to study electronic music, first with Joel Chadabe at SUNY Albany, then at Mills College where she was mentored by Robert Ashley and David Behrman. Laetitia Sonami is not only a gifted composer/designer of electronic music, but a compelling presence on stage. This collection of early works covers a period when Sonami transitioned from live mixing with cassettes, homemade analog synths and objects in the early eighties, to working with MIDI, MAX software and "off the shelf" synths and samplers. At the same time, she begins a long collaboration with Melody Sumner Carnahan, using her dramatic texts to evoke characters and behaviors to inhabit musically and visually. All but two of the works on this release utilize Sumner Carnahan's stories, and all but one use Sonami's famous invention, the lady's glove, an arm-length tailored glove fitted with movement sensors allowing the perform to fluidly control digital sound parameters and processing, as well as motors, lights and video playback. Sonami has since moved on to works for another of her inventions, the Spring Spyre, which applies Machine Learning to real time audio synthesis.

LP version. When they performed a handful of concerts as a duo in the summer of 1998, Kristen Noguès and John Surman had already worked a lot on the interweaving of genres: Noguès had confronted traditional Breton music with contemporary music and Surman had changed his jazz into atmospheric numbers that would be amongst the finest recording on the ECM label. As a duo, the harpist and the saxophonist would go on to invent something different: free folk, traditional ambient, modal 'fest-noz'. It is difficult to label, because the duo Noguès/Surman is one of a kind. Diriaou means "Thursday" in Breton. It is also the title of the first piece that Kristen Noguès and John Surman played together in 1991. Noguès learned the Breton language as a child, at the same time as the Celtic harp, "taking lessons with Denise Mégevand, who would go on to teach others, notably Alan Stivell. At the beginning of the 1970s, she discovered the Breton song tradition (soniou and gwerziou) and became involved in Névénoé, a cooperative of traditional expression founded by Gérard Delahaye and Patrick Ewen. She recorded a single with the two musicians in 1974, then her first album, two years later. Everyone who has listened to Kristen Noguès debut Marc'h Gouez is now aware of her mysterious plucked strings. Her art, leaving Brittany, would go on to take in all landscapes and folklores, in the same as that of John Surman, conceived a little further north including vernacular jazz, international fusion with Chris McGregor or Miroslav Vitou, and exploring more personal territory. Kristen Noguèsand John Surman thus shared an "extra-Celtic" inspiration infused with free improvisation. On this recording, made in 1998 by Tanguy Le Doré at the Dre Ar Wenojenn festival, the duo uses original compositions which refer back to traditional songs (Maro Pontkalek, Le Scorff). The musicians then create fantastic impressions: Baz Valan, on which Noguès and Surman have a heavenly exchange; Kernow, on which the shared theme slowing disappears into the mist; Maro Pontkalek and Diriaou which move from the storm to the calm. Elsewhere, there is singing, first with Surman (Kleier) and then moving on to Noguès (Kerzhadenn and her signature song Berceuse). On a canvas of traditional music, the two musicians weave countless memorable landscapes.

LP version. Formed in London in 1992 by singer and songwriter David Christian, Comet Gain were originally inspired by early Creation Records, Television Personalities and mod culture, drawing from the same ideals as Dexys, The Style Council and Vic Godard, and from the lineage of The Velvet Underground, The Byrds and the 13th Floor Elevators. In the ensuing years they have released eight albums on such esteemed labels as Wiiija, Kill Rock Stars, What's Your Rupture and Fortuna POP! that blend French New Wave with English kitchen-sink heart, Riot Grrrl with acid punk, and C86 with post-punk and Northern soul, somehow outliving their peers and in turn inspiring a younger generation of DIY musicians. On this record, their second album proper for Tapete Records, Comet Gain are David Christian (vocals, guitar), Ben Phillipson (guitar), Rachel Evans (vocals), Robin Christian (percussion), Anne Laure Guillain (keyboards) and Clientele bassist James Hornsey, with additional vocal, brass and keyboard contributions from producer Sean Read (Dexys, Edwyn Collins, Rockingbirds).

"After Comet Gain's last LP Fireraisers Forever! which was a necessary exorcism of the Moron Era that has in fact only got worse -- they have put aside the fuzz drenched broken glass howls for a more immediate, toe-tapping rush of melody and intent. Sifted through from the library of songs David Christian Feck had been recording over the last couple years for Bandcamp LPs of homemade snap, crackle and POP and picked the best bunch and streamlined, improved and muscled up 8 or so and wrote new songs that would fit into a living thing - a jukebox of favorites playing somewhere in the background -- evergreen sixties UK pop with tough edges, soul stompers with a slight tear in the eye, Alex Chilton, Gene Clark, 'Sound Affects' Jam, euphoric melancholic folk rock, Hitchcock and Cope, The Fall when they made pop records, snarling freakbeat, yearning '80s baroque popness and jangled mornings and sad midnights -- an alchemy mix to make something direct with hooks and hope and heart-looking back to look forward and looking forward to be in the NOW? Truly this is one of the best of the Comet Gain LPs -- a concise mix of all their bags of tricks but in a way where everything fits like close friends that finish their own sentences -- pop singles, garage snarl, midnight ballads, morning floor shakers, folkrockers, obtuse angles and direct hits. Just good things to hum for the 'Ordinary Outsiders' everywhere as they watch the world falling down around them, because sometimes that's all you can do." --Allen Ginsberg, Bordeaux, Jan 2025

LP version. Picture one of the greatest living singer-songwriters in a kitchen. He is on holidays, he's just had a swim. His wife is out on the beach, and he finds himself faced with a bowl of irresistible strawberries. They're meant to be shared, of course, but their taste is "out of the ordinary," so he just can't help himself. Minutes later all of the delicious fruit are gone, but there's the germ of a song as the phrase "Someone ate all the strawberries" has just popped into Robert Forster's mind, sounding "so weird, but normal". Thankfully, he has taken his guitar with him. As the story goes, his wife Karin Bäumler not only forgave her husband, she actually joined him on a duet of what was to become the title song to his ninth solo album. Robert Forster has perfected the art of being outré in a least ostentatious way, from his time in the Go-Betweens to his solo career, now spanning almost three decades, interrupted only by the old band's reformation in 2000 which ended with his songwriting partner Grant McLennan's untimely death in 2006. Strawberries follows a recent spate of deluxe reissues of four of his older solo albums as well as the third and final volume of the career-spanning series of G Stands For Go-Betweens boxsets with a much awaited helping of new material. Next to admittedly bigger names such as Bob Dylan or Nick Cave, Robert Forster is the rare case of an artist with a celebrated past whose current work evokes genuine interest among a faithful fan base. As a straight-up personal song, "Strawberries" is a bit of a red herring in the context of this new album that, unusually for Forster, deals almost exclusively in observational character studies or, as the author would have it, "story songs". Louis Forster, by the way, also makes an impressive appearance on lyrical lead guitar in "Such a Shame." As his slapback echo vocals tuck into a rockabilly vibe, you can hear Forster enjoying the company of his Swedish backing band: producer Peter Morén (of Peter, Björn and John fame) on guitar, Jonas Thorell on bass, and Magnus Olsson on drums, crucially augmented by Lina Langendorf on various woodwind instruments and Anna Åhman on keys. The album's monumental closing track "Diamonds" starts off as a cross between Lou Reed and Buffalo Springfield, then takes off via Astral Weeks into an (almost) Albert Ayler direction, with Lina Langendorf given free rein on the tenor sax and Forster himself relinquishing his trademark understatement for some unexpected outbursts of falsetto.

Krautrock as an escape from post-war Germany. Krautrock Eruption is a rousing counter-narrative to the usual depictions of Krautrock, written by Wolfgang Seidel, member of Conrad Schnitzler's band Eruption and co-founder of Ton Steine Scherben. Seidel's groundbreaking book, which includes unique historical photographs, paints a vivid picture of the old Federal Republic of Germany, with all of its contradictions and struggles. What is now celebrated as Krautrock emerged in this environment, and at the time was an attempt to contribute the soundtrack to the revolution. As a fly on the wall, Seidel recounts the squats, demos and first concerts of bands such as Cluster, Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel. Just as precisely and vividly, he recapitulates the influence of minimal music composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass, the origins of many Krautrock musicians in jazz and the role of the synthesiser. Wolfgang Seidel delivers a captivating account on Krautrock that dispels many of the founding myths of the first genuinely German pop culture, which above all did not want to be German. In addition, the book is supplemented by a discography of the 50 most important Krautrock records, written by music journalist and Krautrock expert Holger Adam. Translated from German by Alexander Paulick (member of influential Düsseldorf-based avant-garde band Kreidler). Paperback, 186 pages, 7.5 oz, dimensions: 7.5" x 5".

Belgian musician and filmmaker Jef Mertens has been an active force in the experimental music and film scene for nearly two decades. Known for his documentaries on artists like Sonic Youth and Borbetomagus, as well as his work with the now-defunct Dadaist Tapes label, Mertens continues to push the boundaries of sound exploration. His previous solo works include No Mathematics, released on KRAAK/Feeding Tube Records. With Orchid Alto, Mertens dedicates himself to the taishogoto, a Japanese stringed instrument that became a new focal point in his sonic explorations. Initially drawn to its unique tonal qualities, he approached the instrument with an open-ended curiosity, using it as a means to reshape his musical language. The transition to taishogoto marked a shift away from guitar-based compositions, offering a fresh perspective on texture and resonance. Through these explorations, Orchid Alto serves as a blueprint for new sonic possibilities. A bold and immersive sonic journey, Orchid Alto merges traditional resonance with modern experimentalism, further shaping Mertens' artistic voice -- one influenced by artists like Michael Flower, Turner Williams Jr., and Bill Nace. Edition of 200. Co-release with Aguirre. Performed, recorded and edited by Jef Mertens at Scherpendries, Geel, 2023. Mixed and mastered by Jürgen De Blonde. Artwork by Jim Faes.

Limited restock; fully licensed and limited to 500 copies. Includes two bonus tracks. Brought to life in 1976 on his small imprint Stars, In Dub is one of the most sought after Tappa Zukie albums. Alongside Man Ah Warrior, it is a mandatory purchase for any reggae lover more akin to the spacey reverberation of the studio facilities. With his deep, rumbling bass and the prodigious engineering of King Tubby (the album was cut at his own studio) the record still maintains his adventurous tenure. This crucial re-issue presents the complete original tracklist with the addictions of two extra tracks. Dig deep into the ark-eology of dub side.

LP version. "This record follows the embrace of winter time; the closing in of darkness, the cold, the pull to turn inward. But also, the customs of the season, and gathering for the ceilidh: songs and stories told round the fire; where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur."

Thus, Brìghde Chaimbeul introduces her third album, a release which comes after two years of incredible acclaim for its predecessor Carry Them With Us (GB 139CD/LP), which won awards from such diverse places as The Guardian (Best Folk Album Of 2023 #7) and The Quietus (Best Albums of 2023 #13). Since that album, she has played stages from Tennessee to Denmark, often far outside the traditional/folk circuit where she first made her name, and often playing for audiences who'd never seen someone play small pipes before. To appear alone on the main stage at 2024's Supersonic Festival in Birmingham and reduce a hungover festival crowd to rapt silence probably isn't what Chaimbeul expected, and nor would she have expected to be hailed as leading a revival of interest in an instrument that was arguably fading into obscurity. Sunwise is more a solo record than Carry Them With Us, which saw her collaborate with acclaimed artist and peripatetic collaborator Colin Stetson. Chaimbeul explains that she'd spent the last two years playing live solo, "so that's where I was naturally going at the time of recording, most of the collaborators came on after I had recorded my parts," the exception being "Sguabag/The Sweeper" where she recorded live with the three other pipers. She explains that she's learned a great deal about how to record her instrument, where "a lot of it is about tone, and the depth and richness of that tone, paying attention to detail -- what mics you're using, and how to get the best sound possible." However, Stetson returns on the rousing, whirling "A Chailleach," which also features Chaimbeul's lovely, sparingly used voice. Sunwise is a remarkable album, a record steeped in folklore and tradition but also embracing minimalism, experimentation and the eternal presence of the drone. Her love for this music, these traditions and shared stories, shines through everything she does: "It's a music and language that has survived so much and for so long -- it's the music of people. It's music of the land. And I think it's extremely relevant to hold on to that and learn from that in current times."

LP version. Biosphere's album The Way Of Time takes loose inspiration from Elizabeth Madox Roberts' novel The Time Of Man, sampling Joan Lorring's voice from the 1951 radio play adaptation of the novel. Biosphere's signature ambient loops, soothing arctic synths and melodies combine with Lorring's sweet, wistful and deep-south wonderings to create a record that is both deeply human and searching.

"Samara Lubelski builds delicate and intricate structures of webbed and sugary filigree but will also close her fist around a newly formed world just to watch what color it is when it oozes between her fingers. This music is the sound of becoming and unbecoming, of creation and destruction. The bow acts as an erase head on a tape machine in this context drawing half arcs that are then erased and redrawn with each stroke. Diving tones that circle back but to a new origin point and echo out endlessly. A Jim Starlin cosmos built of clusters and a kind of freeform geometry. Though creeping and alien there is also something very lyrical about this music, a poetry of momentum and stasis. Every move seems to create its immediate opposite -- patience/impatience, kinetic/fatigued, straight/curved, like opening a paper cutting to reveal its repeating shape but in a binary of opposition. 'Vol 1' begins with a descent into a world that is new and chaotic. The accretion of delicate shapes and the chaos of young jagged landscapes. A core rising in temperature, forcing out bubbling and colorful liquids in explosions and dripping piles. While in the distance a gaseous horizon line percolates into nothingness. With 'Vol 2,' listeners start with something more settled -- while still alien and exploratory there is an eye towards terraforming. A sense that we could settle here in this place where the wind screams through towers of glistening plants while geysers of silver viscous liquid arc into the sky and freeze there. By the end a silver and mirrored thread has looped together the mutating present with the far off and unknown and we are both here and gone. I hear in 'Vol 1' and '2' a stunning commitment to a liminality of sound. A denial of firm ground. It reminds me of 'Nordic skating,' the skaters that seek the black ice, the thinnest ice, to skate on. That's where the acoustic properties are the most beautiful and striking yet also where the most focus must be applied. Movement must be constant, not only to produce the sounds, but to avoid falling through." --Bill Nace, Philadelphia 2025

In Sightings, one of NYC's all-time greatest bands, the bass playing of Richard Hoffman fluidly shifted from propulsive to arrhythmic to sublimely melodic, sometimes all within one song. All the while occupying a teeth-rattling sonic space that was truly all his own. With his new solo project, Organs Obsolete, Richard's singular voice stands on its own, naked and unadorned. Here are eight solo bass meditations where looping patterns shift in and out of phase creating a hall of mirrors that is labyrinthine in its psychedelic potency. Even at lower volumes RRH1 presents a truly visceral experience with each track seemingly targeting a different part of the human anatomy.

It's one thing to have founded a notable band dedicated to exploring the possibilities of psychedelic exploration in many different sounds and styles. But it's arguably pretty darn rare to have done it, as Jeffrey Alexander has, four separate times. First emerging with the Iditarod in the mid-1990s before a later world oversimplified their sound as "freak folk," you'd be forgiven for thinking Alexander had settled into things with the feedback grooves of Dire Wolves. But 2020 brought forth another incarnation in the form of the Philadelphia-based Jeffrey Alexander and the Heavy Lidders, joined by local legends like Kohoutek's drummer Scott Verrastro and Drew Gardner and Jesse Shepherd of the exploratory guitar duo Elkhorn. Once more they're here to provide some needed balm in the form of their sixth formal album effort, Synchronous Orbit, released jointly by Feeding Tube and Cardinal Fuzz labels. With three lengthy songs showcasing their interwoven skills both in studio and live settings, Synchronous Orbit finds the Heavy Lidders once more, given the appropriate album title, aiming for a beautiful trip into outer space and in the inner mind. There's guest percussion from Ryan Jewell and, in a lovely matching of voices with Alexander, a wonderful turn from the legendary Kate Wright, famed for her work in the Bristol UK acts Movietone and Crescent. Plenty of space unfolds for a sweetly trippy midsection as the players do their thing, with Wright and Alexander's vocals returning to help wrap up the trip. The core quartet keep the calm but never cool vibes leading into a steady slow-building burn, guitar parts pouring over each other like glowing layers of honey with Verrastro's drumming both keeping pace and gently altering tempos and intensity. Synchronous Orbit concludes with its longest track at twenty minutes, taken from a live show at the Milwaukee Psych Festival in May 2024. There's a heck of a wonderful wild card factor in the form of 21st century jazz experimenter Isaiah Collier, contributing not merely saxophone but bullhorn and bird calls -- a real
menagerie of sound. His performances add both depth and even more energy to the proceedings, never simply a rampage outward even at his fiercest, but
embracing the sense of community and participation in the performance.

LP version. "Composer and lute player Jozef Van Wissem has created, in my opinion, the most beautiful film music of the year for Un Prince. Suites of princely pieces allow the film to be transported into a fantastic dimension where power and magic unfold." --Chaosreign

"Un Prince features a striking soundtrack -- part Baroque courtly dance, part Doors-like instrumental by Dutch lutenist Jozef van Wissem" --Variety/ Screen Daily

"The Dutch composer illustrates the initiatory story of the film (a young man discovers gardening and unusual sexual practices) and the scenes of a pictorial nature, in fixed shots, with captivating notes of the order of the procession, with a certain devoutness, like a ceremony." --Cinezik

LP version. Acclaimed director and musician Jim Jarmusch and experimental lute player and composer Jozef Van Wissem met nearly 20 years ago, forming a close bond after they ran into each other on the streets of New York City. In 2011, they began performing and producing records together. This release is the follow up to American Landscapes entitled The Day The Angels Cried. The duo weaves an intricate lute and guitar string tapestry of droning, minimal free-folk compositions destined to captivate listeners with their dark hypnosis. This time vocals and electronics are added as well. Van Wissem's work comes from a tradition of avant-garde minimalism and lends itself well to the director's stark cinematic works. Jarmusch has played guitar in bands on and off since the late '70s. Van Wissem's compositional style involves hypnotic circular musical phrases that allow for a lot of contemplative space between the notes. Their first live performance was in Issue Project Room in Brooklyn in October 2011, where they appeared together for a Van Wissem curated concert program called "New Music for Early Instruments." The idea for their first album, Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity (Important Records) developed from their live performance. Jarmusch has said that he considers these songs as Van Wissem's compositions, and sees himself as someone filling in the background to Jozef 's foreground, like the "scenic" on a film shoot, the one who paints the backdrops. "The sound of the lute is as bright as the sun, a beautiful red color and my stuff sounds sort of like the moon, more like blue, like mercury." According to Van Wissem: "We started with layers of instrumental parts. Jim recorded an otherworldly Passerelle bridge guitar part to which we added vocals. This became the title track 'The Day The Angels Cried.' The lyrics for this song came to me during a vision I had in a dream. It was much like a vision Swedenborg writes about. In it he converses with angels. In my vision the angel looked down from the heavens upon the earth engulfed in flames. Recent events in Los Angeles and other parts of the world, have led me to believe that this dream was a premonition.'"

Double LP version. Part 1. One of the most politically charged terms of the 20th century, the Iron Curtain was a metaphor for political and cultural division. In a post-war telegram Winston Churchill referred to the fault line that ran through Europe between East and West as "an Iron Curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind." In this two-part album, as far as jazz is concerned, Jazzman will showcase, describe and celebrate exactly what was "going on behind." Music is the power supreme, with the ability to transcend all barriers, be they physical, political or metaphorical. The liner notes illustrate the complex and contradictory history of Soviet jazz, and the tracks chosen cover the key period of the early 1960s to the 1980s. It was during these dark years of the Cold War that the Soviet Union and its satellite states produced a number of outstanding artists playing in a variety of styles. The impact of modernism, from hard bop and Latin to modal and cool jazz, had found its way through cracks in the curtain. The deeply-felt ancestral strains of traditional European folk music were combined with the exciting new and progressive sounds of the West, and a radical, intoxicating brew was created that no amount of guns, tanks or polonium tea could overcome. Jazzman chronicles the triumph of jazz at a time of extreme geopolitical conflict. What went on behind the Iron Curtain in these countries was once mysterious and unknown to the West, but the perseverance of their artists provided sound and light amid the secretive, dark days of the communist-capitalist standoff. There was no end of life-affirming spiritual jazz behind the Iron Curtain. Featuring Collage, Manfred Ludwig-Sextett, Krzysztof Komeda, Polish Jazz Quartet, Vagif Mustafa-Zade, Quartet Jazz Focus-65, Theo Schumman Combo, Vaclav Zahradnik, Karel Velebny, Sevil, Focus '65, Golstain-Nosov Quintet, YU All Stars 1977, and Dan Mindrila.

Double LP version. Part 2. One of the most politically charged terms of the 20th century, the Iron Curtain was a metaphor for political and cultural division. In a post-war telegram Winston Churchill referred to the fault line that ran through Europe between East and West as "an Iron Curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind." In this two-part album, as far as jazz is concerned, Jazzman will showcase, describe and celebrate exactly what was "going on behind." Music is the power supreme, with the ability to transcend all barriers, be they physical, political or metaphorical. The liner notes illustrate the complex and contradictory history of Soviet jazz, and the tracks chosen cover the key period of the early 1960s to the 1980s. It was during these dark years of the Cold War that the Soviet Union and its satellite states produced a number of outstanding artists playing in a variety of styles. The impact of modernism, from hard bop and Latin to modal and cool jazz, had found its way through cracks in the curtain. The deeply-felt ancestral strains of traditional European folk music were combined with the exciting new and progressive sounds of the West, and a radical, intoxicating brew was created that no amount of guns, tanks or polonium tea could overcome. Jazzman chronicles the triumph of jazz at a time of extreme geopolitical conflict. What went on behind the Iron Curtain in these countries was once mysterious and unknown to the West, but the perseverance of their artists provided sound and light amid the secretive, dark days of the communist-capitalist standoff. There was no end of life-affirming spiritual jazz behind the Iron Curtain. Featuring Leningrad Jazz Ensemble, Sh Jazz Quintet, Josef Blaha Trio, Csaba Deseo Ensemble, Manfred Ludwig-Sextett, Anatoly Vapirov, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet, Tomsits Quartet, Nicolai Gromin Quartet, Valery Kolesnikov, Vyacheslav Novikov, Vladimir Molotkov, Alexander Christidis, Tone Jansa, and S+HQ.

Nils Frahm presents the follow up to Day, the collection of solo piano music he released in 2024. Night, which contains five new tracks, will be released on vinyl as well as via all digital platforms. A CD version, Night & Day (LTR 050CD), including all eleven tracks from both Day and Night, will also be made available. These follow Frahm's latest live album, Paris. Frahm recorded the pieces on Night on the Klavins M450 piano, installed in his studio at the renowned Funkhaus complex in Berlin. It was built by German-Latvian piano maker David Klavins for the first Piano Day in 2015, a celebration that will mark its 10th anniversary. At 4.5 meters tall and weighing over a ton, the model was the largest upright piano in the world at the time. The record is a reminder that, though he's since become celebrated for the complex, intricately arranged approach of his most commercially successful, multi-instrumental albums, Frahm first made his name with similarly meditative piano compositions on albums like 2009's The Bells, 2011's Felt, and 2012's Screws. Night, like Day, confirms that Frahm remains a prolific master of affecting simplicity, tenderness and romance, and as capable as ever of unforgettable, epigrammatic succinctness.

Pierre Bastien and Michel Banabila return with Nuits Sans Nuit, their second collaboration following their Baba Soirée debut from 2023. Recorded as an intuitive exchange between Rotterdam and Valencia, the album emerged from a simple ping-pong process: Banabila sculpted sounds and atmospheres, to which Bastien responded with his distinctive instrumental palette: flute-augmented cornet, mechanized log drum, and more. Mixed by Banabila, the result is a raw yet immersive work that resonates with a somnambulant, wide-awake presence. Nuits Sans Nuit unfolds through shifting shades of melancholy. "I don't know how to describe the feeling of these crazy times we live in," says Banabila. "Les plus désespérés sont les chants les plus beaux," Bastien quotes De Musset. Wordless yet deeply expressive, the album invites listeners into a space of contemplation, where meaning emerges through immersion -- like ritual music carrying an unspoken message. Echoes of saudade, blues, fado, and soleá surface in the duo's playful noise, reimagined through their singular vocabulary.

From Siavash: "What remains after mutilating and reassembling an essential historical recording? How is it connected to a particular event in a grotesque and cyclical novella riddled with medical procedures of an aesthetic and deforming nature? Malakoot -- this spiral, centers on a decision made one afternoon by a character. On a similar afternoon, full of anxiety, pressed by an unknowable presence in this city, I decided that the soundscape for such an inspiring work of fiction was a mutilated one; things collapsing in on themselves, self-decapitating, full of cuts and sutures. The material for all the surgeries was two of the earliest solo piano recordings in Iran's history, played by an incredibly ordinary but, at the same time, fascinatingly suspicious character. The procedures were performed both on the snippets and cuts of the recordings themselves and with the help of various digital methods, on synthesized resurrections made from their transcriptions."

Meet Motherfuckers JMB & Co! J is for Jim, M is for Marc, B is for Brian. The trio's first full-length is a rocket of rhythm and atmosphere that fearlessly treks into vast sonic spaces. Drumbeats spread into constellations, bass pumps air into the sky, drones flare into clouds. Thick grooves drift in and out of focus, but there's always a central force to cling to as all the vapor-trails shoot past. Decades of musical archaeology lurk behind this rainbow-hued swirl of psych, drone, improvisation, and ritual. Brian Weitz (hurdy gurdy) has spent 25 years crafting sound as Geologist in the ground-breaking quartet Animal Collective. Jim Thomson (drums) has been in scores of bands, from helping found Richmond art-metal legends GWAR, to jamming instrumentals in SST alums Alter-Natives (a fitting forebear to JMB's vocal-less jaunts), to driving the spirited dance-punk of Time Is Fire. Marc Minsker (bass, guitar, harmonium) has made music since the early '90s, initially in Third Eye Lounge (who backed legendary improviser Eugene Chadbourne), and later in myriad partnerships around the mid-Atlantic region. The trio came together via old-fashioned community, in the always-fertile ground of the DC/Maryland/Virginia experimental scene. Recordings for Music Excitement Action Beauty took place in Tonal Park studios during a single afternoon, with "lights lowered and incense and candles lit," as Thomson describes. Weitz edited the resulting material after a three-month break, trimming down improvisations and reworking cut-out sections into seamless transitions. Music Excitement Action Beauty features seven cascading tracks that blend like ice cream flavors overfilling a cone. Throughout Music Excitement Action Beauty, there's a communal vibe -- not just from the friends-through-friends connections of JMB, but also the larger environments they've moved in for years. There's a "Co." at the end of their name for a reason, as if Music Excitement Action Beauty was made by three on behalf of many more. "Every group I've played with was usually organically formed and informed by the community and friendships in some ways," says Thomson. "I was very attracted to playing with Marc and Brian because of the promise of repetition, drone, and psychedelia, and it delivered in spades."

LP version. Includes bonus 7". Wewantsounds continues its extensive Meiko Kaji reissue program -- in partnership with Teichiku Records and Kaji herself -- with the release of Yadokari, her third album from 1973. This marks the first time the album has been reissued on vinyl, featuring its original artwork and newly remastered audio. Renowned for her iconic 1970s films (Lady Snowblood, the Stray Cat Rock series) and admired by Quentin Tarantino, Meiko Kaji also released a string of outstanding albums on Teichiku, blending Japanese pop with cinematic grooves. Yadokari is reissued here with its original deluxe gatefold sleeve and OBI plus a two-page insert featuring new liner notes by Hashim Kotaro Bharoocha. As a special bonus, this edition includes an EP single featuring "Shura No Hana," famously featured on the Kill Bill soundtrack. Kaji was one of Japan's most iconic exploitation film actresses of the early 1970s. Beyond acting, she was invited by film studios to perform theme songs for many of her films leading to revered music career. Between 1972 and 1974, she recorded five albums for Teichiku, which have since become highly sought after. Yadokari ("hermit crab"), released in 1973, was Kaji's third album for the label. Like its predecessors Gincho Wataridori and Hajiki Uta, it offers a rich mix of kayōkyoku (Japanese pop), traditional enka, psychedelic rock, and cinematic '70s funk. The album includes two tracks, "Hagure Bushi" and "Kiba no Ballad," from the cult 1973 TV series Sengoku Rock Hagure Kiba, in which Kaji starred. "Hagure Bushi" stands out as one of the album's funkiest tracks. Like "Kiba no Ballad," it was composed and arranged by the legendary producer Yuji Ohno (best known for his work on Lupin the III). The album as a whole is a superb blend of atmospheric songs, from the haunting, slow-burning title track "Yadokari" to "Ah," which features groovy guitar licks, harmonica, and sleek string arrangements, evoking a subtle Morricone influence. To complete this reissue, Wewantsounds has included the rare 1973 7" EP "Shura No Hana/Hō Yare Ho" as a bonus. Only released as a single, "Shura No Hana" (Flower of Carnage") is a cult classic, famously featured on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 2 soundtrack. A key release in Meiko Kaji's 1972 - 1974 Teichiku Records catalog, Yadokari is a testament to her singular talent as a singer.

2025 restock, last copies! 2017 remastered edition. Discovered on the shelf of the late Teresa Sterne who created the Nonesuch Explorer series, Lost Sounds of the Tao was first published in 2001 and now comes back through new cutting-edge restoration software. Lo Ka Ping, guqin. recorded 1970, 1971. The guqin was Confucius' instrument, used by scholars and nobles for self-purification. Lo was a Taoist priest (1896-1980) who lived in the remote lands of the New Territories behind Hong Kong, recorded by a pupil in 1970. These rare archival tapes were assembled after an extensive hunt in Hong Kong, New York, California and Taiwan." From the liner notes: "A tape ready of four traditional pieces (Side I) and four original pieces (Side II) for ch'in, played by an old master who lives in a country home in the New Territories. There emerged a vibrant expressive art, its first impression the forthright spirituality of a Blind Willie Johnson (yes, some scales have the blue note intonation!) who made his Ming Dynasty qin state and moan out visions, as panoramas of ancient brush paintings danced before my eyes, attaining life in sound, all their varied densities in depicting nature now breathing amidst sonic rainbows unleashed through the qin's harmonics. The scratching of the silk strings as one changes the finger positions is referred to as the instrument's respiration. Lo's non-thematic use of the fundamental tones in the beginning of the first piece were akin to a veena beginning a raga, causing one to wonder if this manner had become embedded in his music from the early visits by Indian Buddhists, who had brought their own instruments to China. What so casually endows Lo's playing with profundity and depth is the philosophy behind the music, entering the sound through the Tao rather than displaying the fruits of a learned craft, for he was completely self-taught and thus freed from any burden of tradition. His performances, compared to most other players, brim with vitality and spirit, like found objects emerging forth into independent existences, unlike the imposed rhythmic regularity and extremely slow tempi the works are often given by scholars. Lo was alive until 1980 (age 84).

2025 restock. 180 gram repro of the 1978 album from North Carolina's Blind Boy Fuller. Blues circa 1935-1939, including "Homesick and Lonesome Blues," "Truckin' My Blues Away," "I Crave My Pig Meat," "Walking My Troubles Away" and "Sweet Honey Hole."

This recording showcases the three artists' unique interpretation of Philip Glass's famous Piano Etudes. The idea behind Glass Gaze began when in a moment seemingly suspended in time, Elfasci & Erard discovered Etude No. 16 in its original piano version. The duo soon began to arrange the piece for two guitars, and recorded the Etude beneath the vaulted ceilings of the Maladrerie Saint-Lazare, near Paris. Since then, the duo have always carried the complete collection of Philip Glass's 20 piano Etudes, listening to them on repeat, stating that 'like a small crowd of once-unfamiliar faces, these 20 Etudes gradually emerged from anonymity, each now resonating with listeners with the singularity of faces we have come to cherish.

2025 repress of this five track EP from 1994. Written-By/Performer: David Grubbs, Jim O'Rourke. Featuring John McEntire (percussion), Gene Coleman (bass clarinet). Recorded By: Casey Rice , John McEntire, Steve Albini.

Eric Arn has mined the nether regions of avant-rock, free improv, drone and psychedelia beginning with the Crystalized Movements in the 1980s, and continuing with Primordial Undermind for over three decades. Eric has released records on a wide range of other labels, including Feeding Tube Records, Stoned to Death, The Lotus Sound, Sloow Tapes, and Ramble Records, among others. Eric has also collaborated with the likes of Tom Carter (Charalambides), Jasmine Pender, Margaret Unknown, and Eyal Maoz. Nearly four years to the date after the release of Higher Order, Eric Arn's previous release for Carbon Records, comes his latest collection of guitar excursions. The songs on fixe Idee have a rolling, rambling guitar feel that builds sonic lattices which drift in the air like steel spiderwebs in the summer sky. The record opens with the American Primitive-esque storytelling saga "Impromptu pour le fantôme," setting the stage for a nice variety of playing and recording styles to follow. The more pastoral tracks "Sunrills" and "Gutbucket" are nicely interspersed with the more raw, lo-fi slide-based joints "Rhyolite" and "Ewigkeitsgasse," each with variations of tipsy tones dancing off the edge of the fretboard to bathe in a swirling concoction of acoustic fantasia. Fixe Idee finally moves back into the Primitive landscape with the "raag Melathys," then the closer, the perfectly titled "Bear," completely unraveled starts with more spastic and experimental Derek Bailey leanings, then eventually settles into more rhythmic patterns, and an exhaling finale. This is a record made by someone whose passion for the guitar as a physical instrument creating sound for enjoyment, and as a catalyst for getting right with the Universe, is deeply evident.

LP version. Kuunatic's hotly anticipated second album Wheels of Ömon takes another adventuresome deep dive into their self-made fantasy mythology, proposing whole new worlds of psychedelic drama and ritual. In addition to their core sonic palette of tribal drums, pulsing bass, atmospheric keyboards and grouped female vocals, the acclaimed Japanese psych-rock trio played an array of Japanese traditional instruments on Wheels of Ömon. The result is a thrilling, kaleidoscopic album that brushes against tradition as it whirls into an other-worldly future. Kuunatic are the trio of Fumi Kikuchi on keyboards, Shoko Yoshida on bass and Yuko Araki on drums. All three of them also sing. They formed in 2016 and released an EP and 7" single before, in 2021, dropping their debut album, Gate of Klüna (GB 117CD, 2021), on an unsuspecting public. Wheels of Ömon builds on the story of Gate of Klüna with more tales of prophecy, mysterious powers and magical healing lakes. Kuunatic's imaginative flights of visionary fancy achieve the same kind of epic, science-fiction world-building as legendary French jazz-prog heroes, Magma. But their inspirations come from further afield. "The three of us listen to completely different types of music so our ideas and influences come from all different places," they say. "We create fantasy stories," they say, "but it's deeply influenced by historical events that happened on Earth. So, when we stayed in Switzerland, looking at the Alps and Vallée du Rhône, they made us imagine vast histories of a grand Earth and times of several hundred million years ago. Perhaps it's this majestic natural setting that has imparted to the new album a deep connection to folk traditions, to human stories, to the very roots of storytelling. It's a mood that manifests most powerfully in the album's varied use of Japanese traditional instruments. Throughout the album, Kuunatic play chappa (hand-sized cymbals used at temple rituals or festivals), sasara (a percussion instrument of 108 wooden plates strung with a cotton cord), ryuteki (a flute used in gagaku), kagurabue (a flute used for Japanese traditional shrine music) ougidaiko (a fan-shaped hand drum), kokiriko (small bamboo stick instruments), and wadaiko (a huge traditional drum that has been used for rituals or festivals since ancient times).

"Grumbling psych played on a whirring blender of guitars, synths and traditional Japanese temple instruments" -- The Wire

LP version. Denmark-based Tunisian producer Sofyann Ben Youssef has already created whole new worlds of sound. His startling debut as AMMAR 808 -- 2018's Maghreb United -- fused thumping TR-808 drum machine rhythms and bone-rattling bass with traditional North African folk instrumentalists and vocalists from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, suggesting a pan-Maghreb science-fiction mash-up worthy of William Burroughs' most fevered dreams. For his latest album -- Club Tounsi -- he sets his sights on home, with an album that investigates and explores the vibrant folk tradition of his native Tunisia. Named after the ancient mezoued goatskin bagpipes that provide the music's sinuous melodies, it's traditionally accompanied by popular singers also backed by clattering hand drums. Originating in the 1950s, when a surge of rural migrants flocked to the capital Tunis in search of work, it's the music of the downtrodden and the underdog, long frowned upon by polite Tunisian society. As AMMAR 808 explains, the music persisted. "It evolved out of that stigmatization and became something that actually speaks to all Tunisians, because it takes its roots from all available music in Tunisia." In Mezoued, you'll find Sufi devotional hymns, malouf melodies, Arabic scales and ancient folksong all part of one repertoire. Although it´s lyrics are preoccupied with hardship and the pain of love, Mezoued music wants to party hard. And rhythm is the key. On Club Tounsi, AMMAR 808 takes this "festive" tradition and reimagines it for the 21st century with pulsating basslines, shimmering synths, crunching distortion and mechanistic drum machine rhythms. Featuring Brahim Riahi, Mahmoud Lahbib, and Mariem Bettouhami.

Double LP version. Limited 2LP colored yellow and oxblood vinyl with A3 Poster, sticker, MP3 Download. How Do You Are? are back with another chapter in its ongoing series of unearthing smooth vibes from all over the world. This time, the label goes back to the future for you with: The Sunset Manifesto Volume 2. After a five-year break mainly concentrating on the late '70s/early '80s Westcoast Soul/Yacht/AOR sound, HDYA finally dives deep into the modern world of its beloved sister-label Too Slow To Disco NEO. TSTD NEO is the outlet DJ Supermarkt is using to unearth modern laidback, smooth, sunny slow disco vibes with a soulful Westcoast/Balearic touch. For him TSTD always has been about a laidback vibe/feeling, not a certain time period in musical history. And that sunny Westcoast vibe HDYA dug out on those traditional TSTD compilations has become a huge influence to so many modern artists. So it makes sense that the label presents the cream of new slo/mo nu-disco/dunset disco/daytime disco acts in the TSTD format, a luxurious compilation, with artists from all across the globe: Not only from the two homelands of that modern slow disco sound, Los Angeles/California and France, but also from Beijing, Montreal, Mexico, London, New York, Stockholm, Rotterdam. This music is more a state of mind, a feeling, then a geographical thing. Featuring Poolside, Woolfy, Prep & Eddie Chacon, Turbotito, Young Gun Silver Fox, Lovetempo, Kimchii, Goodvibes Sound, Nicholas Cangiano, Moi Je, B.U.M.P., 1-900, Moods & Nic Hanson, BowAsWell, and Joel Sarakula.

2025 restock; reissue, originally released in 1969. An iconic French free jazz record recorded at Pathé Marconi Studios. On June 27th, 1969, Michel Portal pushed the door of the Pathé Marconi studios. With him were drummers Jacques Thollot and Aldo Romano, bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark, and pianist Joachim Kühn. They hadn't rehearsed anything, as if entering the studio to record an album without any plan was something normal. The musicians were obviously very used to playing with each other, as the five tracks on Our Meanings And Our Feelings seem to flow perfectly without any hint of improvisation. The zokra, an oriental clarinet that Michel Portal plays on "Walking Through The Land" and "Dear Old Morocco" brings a singular touch to this album. This singularity is transcended by Joachim Kühn's ability to easily go from the piano to the saxophone alto, from supporting to soloing, before playing the bells, then the tambourine, opening the soundscape. Our Meanings And Our Feelings may not be the first French free jazz record -- as it was preceded by the fantastic Free Jazz by François Tusques, released in 1965 and on which Michel Portal plays as well -- but it remains one of the most important. Its incredible outburst of sounds and melodies is completely free yet never turns into cacophony. 44 years after its release, it is still urgent to listen to Our Meanings And Our Feelings and what these five talented musicians had to say.

Nils Frahm presents a new CD of solo piano music, Night & Day, to be released by Leiter, the label he runs with his manager, Felix Grimm. Containing all eleven tracks from both Day and a second, Night, it follows Frahm's latest live album, Paris. Night & Day's tracks are a reminder that, though he's since become celebrated for the intricately arranged approach of his most commercially successful, multi-instrumental albums, Frahm first made his name with similarly meditative piano compositions on collections like 2009's The Bells, 2011's Felt, and 2012's Screws. Recorded in Majorca, far away from his studio in the German capital's famed Funkhaus complex, Day provides six tracks, three over the six-minute mark. There are muffled pedal creaks on the cyclical, quietly jazzy 'You Name It' or, during the palliative ripples of 'Butter Notes'' arpeggios, the sound of dogs barking in the streets outside. Night adds another five tracks, opening at a glacial pace with "Wesen," conjuring images of Frahm, lit only by a candle, huddled over his instrument, playing for the sheer companionship that it offers. And the album closes with "Canton," its delicious airiness perhaps the record's equivalent of a glimpse of dawn. It's a perfect conclusion to a typically beguiling collection that, as always, points to a musical character that is immediately, distinctively Frahm's. It also highlights why the German pianist has continued throughout his career to return loyally to the piano as his first love. After all, it's notable that, even during his recent, expansive live performances, which find him leaping between multiple keyboards, synths, and even a glass harmonica, Frahm has always made space for such works.