Hot Casa present a reissue of K. Fimpong & Super Complex Sounds' Ahyewa Special, originally released in 1975. Essential highlife and Afro funk from Ghana! The legendary K. Fimpong's fantastic rare second album recorded in 1975 at Ghana Films Studios. K. Frimpong was born on July 22nd, 1939 at Ofoase in the Ashanti-Akim district and entered music right after elementary school by joining Star de Republic. Later he was in Oko's band after which he went to K. Gyasy's band where he worked for more than six years. As a prolific songwriter and singer, here's the reissue of his second album, a modern fusion of highlife and the traditional beat called "Ahyewa". The excellent background is given by the Super Complex Sounds band which makes the Ahyewa beat abundantly, danceable, and colorful. Originally produced on the Ofo Bros label led by the Ofori brothers in Kumasi, these two side-long recordings were divided into six themes per side on the original release, each delivering a deep, 16-minute long hi-life trance. A must have vinyl of percussive Afro funk and modern highlife for all the music connoisseurs. Fully licensed by the Alhadji Kwame Frimpong Family.Remastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery Pressed on Replika format.

2020 repress. LP version. "After two LPs and over half a decade spent toiling in the margins of the American Songbook, Bill Orcutt returns to original composition and the blues with his latest LP, Odds Against Tomorrow. Taking its title from Robert Wise's 1959 film noir, Odds Against Tomorrow retrofits familiar folk/blues forms to the unique sound of Orcutt's guitar and the result crackles with a freshness and authority that nostalgic retreads cannot deliver. Odds Against Tomorrow is more than an expansion of the territory charted by Bill Orcutt, his eponymous 2017 studio electric debut, although it's certainly that. With its nods to existing musics, half-step fluctuations, and near-songwriter-ly manipulations of tension/release, Odds Against Tomorrow is a rock record -- almost. Clearly and simply recorded through a clattering Fender Twin in Orcutt's living room and lovingly mixed by Bay Area neighbor and pedal-steel savant Chuck Johnson, no one would mistake it for any era's radio fodder, yet the precision of its technique and the swaying Child-ballad logic of its gentler improvisations comfortably seats it between John Mayall and Richard Thompson in your Ikea Kallax. Three songs ('Odds Against Tomorrow,' 'The Writhing Jar,' 'Already Old') are multi-tracked, an innovation that, for guitar buffs familiar with Orcutt's stripped-down vernacular, jumps out of the grooves like a Les Paul sound-on-sound excursion in 1948, or a Jandek blues rave-up in 1987. Specifically evoking John Lee Hooker's double-track experiments on 1952's 'Walking the Boogie,' the steady chord vamps of 'Odds Against Tomorrow' and 'Already Old' form a harmonic turf on which Orcutt solos with lyrical abandon . . . For the more 'contemporary-minded,' 'The Writhing Jar''s crashing overdubs recall the brassy six-string voicings of This Heat or Illitch. With the exception of the unreconstructed Elmore James-isms of 'Stray Dog' and the 'Layla'-finale-like haze of 'All Your Buried Corpses Begin To Speak,' the remaining non-overdubbed tracks dovetail snugly with Orcutt's previous solo output, reeling gently in a Mazzacane-oid mode or vibing up the standards ('Moon River'). On their own, these tracks would still be an important contribution to Orcutt's canon. As part of Odds Against Tomorrow's greater whole, they provide a through line, connecting the idiosyncrasies of Orcutt's past explorations with the scrambled tropes of his present work. Odds Against Tomorrow challenges contemporary solo guitar practice in a way that simultaneously nullifies hazy dreams of folk purity and establishes a new high-water mark for blues-rock reconstruction." --Tom Carter

"Eugene Chadbourne is one of the great guitar players of the modern era. At the time he began recording in Canada in 1975, his music was a unique syncretic formulation. While its most obvious component was free improvisation in a style then most widely associated with English and European players, his music also contained elements of jazz, country, folk, blues, psychedelic and international sounds, referencing these threads in ways that were so diverse and intensely personalized it would take scholars decades to decode them. Volume 4-1/3 is the fourth of four Feeding Tube LPs in this series, devoted to documenting some of the music Dr. Chadbourne created in the years he lived in Canada, avoiding the shadow of Richard Nixon. As always, exact details of the recordings are vague, but trivial. Here are four tracks of improvisational guitar madness at its most glorious. Describing their textures is a fool's errand, but that is the job I was born to do. 'Bow' is new to me, but the sonics suggest the title may be a practical description of how some of the effects are achieved. 'The Bird', which has been issued on cassette previously, is a wonderful example of Eugene's most swinging jazzbo playing. 'Be' is another piece that's new to me, with long sequences of bent-string attack accruing epic grandeur as they unspool. And 'Mao Tse Tung Did Not Have to Deal with People Who Were Watching Seven Hours of Television Every Day', which was a bonus track on the CDR version of Solo Guitar Volume Two, is a sidelong ode to revolutionary techniques of all kinds, employing a bunch of them as it evolves, with results that are pure bananas. If you play all four volumes of this set in order, you will begin to imagine a whole new universe of guitar technique. We hope they fill in some gaps for you. We have been blown away by each and every one. And would like to thank Doctor Chadbourne for sharing his archives with us." --Byron Coley, 2020 Edition of 400.

"Essential spiritual jazz originally issued on the lauded Strata-East label. 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."

LP version. Collocutor enter a new decade with the timeless, introspective Continuation. Continuation is a remarkable work in which the interplay of emotional experience and life motion experienced by band leader Tamar Osborn (AKA Tamar Collocutor) is channeled and explored by Collocutor. The band's third album assuredly strides forward following the critical acclaim awarded to The Search from 2017 from the likes of The Wire, Vinyl Factory, and Gilles Peterson. Continuation is an album about coping with grief and loss/bereavement: The music charts the many (and sometimes surprising) emotional states encountered, moving from acknowledgement, trying to keep "normal" life going, the need to sometimes put a pause button on the world/existence and let the waves of feelings crash and roll, sudden anger and confusion, finally to moving (perhaps with uncertainty) forward. Tamar Osborn has led Collocutor through a line-up shift from septet to quintet for Continuation. The modified line-up creates space for the musicians to express themselves through the shadows of Continuation's movement. The quintet allows for more group improvisation, based on just a few motifs and thereby giving the musicians more space to converse. The tracks "Lost & Found" and in particular the album's title track, "Continuation" (the only piece with three horns), hark back to the intricate arrangements of The Search. It's a deeply personal album, the writing of which acted as Tamar's way of processing and understanding experience and the need to channel feeling. In listening truly Continuation bares that rare and precious gift of a morsel of the human experience being illuminated by artistic genius.

"Beside Myself is the second full-length release from Canadian sound artist crys cole. Known to many through her extensive collaborative practice with artists such as Oren Ambarchi, Leif Elggren, and James Rushford, in her solo work cole uses contact microphones, voice, simple electronics, and field recordings to create sonic environments that linger uneasily at the threshold of perception. Demonstrating how cole's work has developed and deepened since the relative austerity of her first solo LP Sand/Layna (BT 017LP, 2015), Beside Myself offers two lushly immersive side-long pieces that explore ideas of compositional drift. 'The Nonsuch' is inspired by the aural hallucinations experienced in the hypnagogic state during the onset of sleep. Opening with scratching contact mic textures and unintelligible vocal murmurs, the piece threads together live and studio performances with field recordings of urban environments to create a texture that is at once seemingly consistent and marked by constant transitions. Individual elements rise up from the background thrum only to disappear just as we become conscious of them; heterogenous sounds and spaces succeed one another with the unassailable logic of dreams. 'In Praise of Blandness (Chapter IX)' also focuses on drift and transition, but in a much more single-minded way. Over a rich, slowly-evolving organ drone, cole reads a passage from the French sinologist François Julien's book In Praise of Blandness (1991) exploring the concept of 'blandness' in the Taoist aesthetics of sound. Beginning crisp and clear, cole's voice becomes gradually less distinct over the course of the piece, the spoken words blurred by resonant frequencies à la Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room until we are left with only the rhythm of incomprehensible speech. The text that cole reads acts a perfect description of her aesthetic project: 'We hear it still, but just barely, and as it diminishes it makes all the more audible that soundless beyond into which it is about to extinguish itself. We are listening then, to its extinction, to its return to that great undifferentiated matrix'." --Francis Plagne (November, 2019) Includes download code; edition of 300.

"France Gall was a prolific French vocalist and performer, remembered as one of the central figures of the 1960s yé-yé pop movement. Aligning catchy, spirited rhythms with lighthearted lyrics and drawing from the beat music a la early Beatles and Hollies, the yé-yé artists promoted a sort of new freedom of expression and breaking down of social barriers in post-WWII France. Third Man Records is beyond honored to bring this music to a larger audience by issuing the first authorized North American vinyl pressings of these titles, some of the most brilliant highlights from Gall's catalog. Without a doubt this is the weirdest France Gall record. 1968 dives further into the psychedelia that she was hinting at on Baby Pop. Even with addition of sitars and echoes of The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks and Pet Sounds era Beach Boys all over this record it is still 100% French and could only have been made by France Gall. The addition of English expat producer/arranger, David Whitaker, brought a new and welcome airiness to the mix that was lacking on Gall's earlier recordings. The album contains 2 of Serge Gainsbourg's strangest and most out-there arrangements, 'Nefertiti' and 'Teenie Weenie Boppie' about an LSD trip gone horribly wrong. 1968 is an absolutely essential addition to any record collection."

Aus Music's first release of 2020 is from Nachtbraker. Fatoe Morgana has a sound that draws from obscure Dutch techno and trance as well as vintage UK tech house with a maturity and class of an artist who understands how to move a dancefloor, the Night Hawk's latest release will prick up the ears of those that have come before him as well as let his previous listeners know where he's headed.

xDream is the re-awakening of the child spirit. The child spirit lives everywhere: in our memories, the corners of our emotions, moments of mischief and euphoria, and whispers in the trees. In our youth, it grew from a seedling into the shape of the internal conscience, that little voice in your head that tells you right from wrong. The debut album by Dasychira features contributions by fellow artists Malibu, Embaci, and Baby Blue, as well as live violin by Iglooghost collaborator Vivek Menon and voice acting by mirukii and daisyvoice. Dasychira completed an Asia tour in 2019 performing A/V sets with Yikii in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hongkong, and Shenzhen before going to Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo. xDream was released digitally on Halloween 2019 via Blueberry Records x UNSEELIE with music videos by Awe Ix, Dante Capone, Slama & Delong, and others.

Cien Fuegos present a reissue of Sven-Åke Johansson's Schlingerland / Dynamische Schwingungen, originally released in 1972. Sven-Åke Johansson (Mariestad, Sweden, 1943) works as a composer, drummer, accordionist, poet, and visual artist. Longtime collaborator of the free improv scene in the German '60s with Kowald, Brötzmann, Schlippenbach. He contributed to numerous exhibitions, publications, and recordings. Sven-Åke Johansson - drums. Recorded 1972 in Stockholm, Schweden. Engineered by Göran Freese. Cover photo by Norbert Eisbrenner. Cover by SÅJ. Remastering by Martin Siewert, 2019. 180 gram vinyl.

"Sven-Åke Johansson's 1972 record Schlingerland presents just the man and his drum set, exploring the polyrhythmic possibilities of his kit. Schlingerland fills a gap in the documentation of '70s European improvisation. At the same time, it retains a surprisingly contemporary sound which reverberates in the ear, mind, and heart of the 21st century listener." --All About Jazz

Third time is a charm, as the saying goes. But if the first two times were already so memorable, what more can one ask for? Nebraska comes back with a bang for his third release on Heist after Soften The Wireless EP (HEIST 017EP, 2016) and Metaphor To The Floor EP (HEIST 028EP, 2017). It's hard to believe it has been three years since his last appearance on Heist, but with Y'miss Me Baby?, Nebraska takes back center stage with another release full of disco-flavored electronics. Italian disco man-of-the-moment Giovanni Damico comes along for the ride and delivers a stunning '80s flavored remix. It's not to say that Nebraska (Alistair Gibbs) has been sitting still since 2017. He's launched his own label Friends & Relations where he explores his cut-and-paste style even more with some seriously cool disco dubs and other sonic adventures. Furthermore, he made a guest appearance on Aaron Dae and JKriv's Razor'n'Tape Reserve. His view is one of humor and positivity and one of creating new meaning through rearranging context. This is certainly true for his music and this new EP on Heist. The title track "Y'miss me baby?" oozes funk with a clever combination of samples from different contexts put together to create something altogether new, yet familiar. The track has a real '80s disco vibe to it and the vocoder adds even more to the Zapp and Roger flavor of things. It's a laidback track that feels like it was recorded on a gloomy Sunday evening with no pressure on anything and just room for fun. The vibe takes a complete left-hand turn with "Dip And Flip," a high-energy house track that rattles, loops and bleeps into a full-on disco frenzy. The B-side kicks off with Italian disco wizard Giovanni Damico remixing the title track. His "Jam" remix flips the track into a freeform arrangement where guitars, disco claps, delays, and retro synth licks all work together for a great taste of Italian boogie. The EP finishes off in true Nebraska style, with yet another curveball. "Xia Long Bao" sounds like a lost Nick Holder track with its loopy island-style Rhodes and lazy chanting. The choice of samples along with the catchy groove makes this a signature Nebraska track and a quality closer for this single.

Inner Space present a reissue of Organisation's Tone Float, originally released in 1970. German rock band, Organisation, is often referred to as the prototype or predecessor of Kraftwerk -- the godfathers of electronic music. In fact, it was the first iteration of Kraftwerk and if the band had managed to overrule its record label, RCA, Tone Float would have been credited as such. But given that the album was to be released only in the United Kingdom, the label opted for the more Anglicized name, "Organisation". Tone Float is the only album produced under this name and is a seminal example of the genre. Audiences in West Germany were fortunate enough to watch and listen to the whole album, played live for German television station, EDF, and it is this broadcast featured here. The bonus track "Vor Dem Blauen Bock" (more accurately, "Rückstoß Gondoliere"), is a notable rarity in that it includes a later Organisation line-up consisting of Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider and Klaus Dinger, and Michael Rother who would go on to form the band, Neu! Personnel: Ralf Hutter - organ; Basil Hammoudi - glockenspiel, conga gong, musical box, bangos-voice; Florian Scheider-Esleben - electric flute, alto flute, bell, triangle, tambourine, electro-violin; Butch Hauf - bass, shaky tube, small bells, plastic hammer; Fred Monicks - drums, bongos, maracas, cowbell, tambourine. Four-panel digipack; includes eight-page, full-color booklet with background notes and images.

Isle Of Jura's first LP reissue, the highly sought-after Voyage: A Journey Into Discoid Funk by Brian Bennett originally released in 1978. A cosmic disco classic completely remastered from the original master tapes by Matt Colton. Bootlegged badly in the past, reissued here with love now. The sound quality is top notch. CD version marks the first time the release is on the format.

Brian Bennett is best known as the drummer of the UK band The Shadows and as a composer of music for films and TV. During the 1980s, he was awarded two Ivor Novello awards and wrote music for a wide range of programs including Dallas, The Sweeney, and also the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. In the '70s, Brian released four albums, the last of which was Voyage released in 1978 and his first concept album.

"No long story to tell... I wanted to make something I could play at peak-time and then I went and asked three mighty producers whose stuff I adored if they would like to make a version each. unleash these bea(s)ts" --Prins Thomas, November 2019 Anything For You? features remixes by Eagles & Butterflies and Barratt.

"Ionisation is the first LP by Italian poet Adriano Spatola. Born in Yugoslavia in 1941, by the age of 23 he became a major force in the Italian avant-garde. 'Towards Total Poetry,' Spatola's critical study on the state of modern poetry, spells out his position: 'to become a total medium, to escape all limitations to include theater, photography, music, painting, typography, cinematographic techniques, and every other aspect of culture, in a utopian ambition to return to origins.' Graphic poetry (cut-up zeroglyphs), volatile and beautiful prose (particularly his books The Porthole and Majakovskiiiiiiij), and of course sound poetry, represented here for the first time. Spatola was the editor of many underground publications: Baobab (a legendary audio-cassette magazine), Tam Tam, and Edition Geiger. Each of his pursuits spread the margins of the format, all done with a relentless, piercing curatorial eye. Spatola has dark, drunken wit in spades. In his sound poems, an even more saturated persona is conjured. A desperate humor sneers through this LP, a humor that has surrendered to the severe joke of life long ago -- lashing out on syllables and ingrown word games. Particularly, his classic 'Aviation/Aviateur' (akin to his 'Seduction/Seducteur', 'Violacion/Violateur' etc.) Read by lesser performers, these pieces would falter and float by in the trough, though Spatola's bull-like confidence tears through. 'Poker Foundation' features the poet hysterically singing 'the play of the words' over a classical radio piece, mocking and squawking against the string swells. Steve Lacy plays scissors, knife, and saxophone on 'Hommage à Eric Satie,' a piece originally recorded for the luxurious Cramps LP boxset Futura. Collaborators Gian Paolo Roffi and Paul Vangelisti are also featured across the collection. The LP concludes with the titular work 'Ionisation,' recorded just days before his premature death in 1988. Feeling his sinking health, his belly in the quicksand, he prefaces the piece, 'a funeral march for my body.' He proceeds to scrape and pound the microphone on his chest, face, and clothing . . . I was born the day after Adriano died, which has some poetic meaning to me, naturally. I am indebted to him, his sickly sweet manner. The opportunity to publish these largely unknown sound works is an honor which brings a warmth to my torso. Much appreciation goes to Giovanni Fontana (poet and dear friend of Adriano), who helped produce this edition with me." --Sean McCann, January 2020 Includes CD and 20-page color booklet with essays by Giovanni Fontana and Adriano Spatola; edition of 250.

Song Cycle Records announce the release of Solaris. Sound And Vision: The Film Album, in collaboration with the Andrey Tarkovsky Institute. A collector's edition book that includes the exclusive photo book with unreleased images of the movie set and essays about music and cinema of the duo Andrey Artemiev and Edward Tarkovsky, and the soundtrack on CD realized by the great Russian composer Edward Artemiev for the Andrey Tarkovsky's masterpiece film Solaris (1972). List of contents: Dialogue with Andrey Tarkovsky about science-fiction on the screen by Naum Abramov; Interview with Edward Artemiev; Music in Solaris and other Andrey Tarkovsky films by Roberto Calabretta; Exclusive and unreleased images from Solaris. Deluxe photo-book (hard-cover); 30x30cm, 96 pp, 73 photos, 7 illustrations; limited edition of 1000.

Ubek returns. The mysterious Polish duo digs out a new collection of degraded echoes, salvaged from authority. Galvanized as if lost to the shock of formal experiments. Ubek II revises the present and takes you back to other versions of actuality. Ubek: UB +‎ -ek, with UB being an initialism of Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (literally "Security Office").

Tartelet present Jubiiilæum, a collection of early '80s songs by the legendary Danish composer and music educator Lotte Kærså and her band of young musicians, Græsrødderne. Breathing new life into old recordings, Tartelet has collaborated with the Danish composer and her family to restore and re-master an iconic production, digitizing twelve outstanding tracks from the family's extensive musical archives for the very first time. The reissued LP entitled Jubiiilæum (Anniversary) consists of songs taken from Lotte Kærså two first albums -- Jeg Har Set Det Selv (I've Seen It Myself) from 1979 and Hjemme I Vores Gade (On Our Street) from 1981 -- both of which have long been sought after items among diggers and vinyl collectors. In the nascent stages of her musical journey, Lotte Kærså's music was already imbued with a new kind of sound. Weaving genres from near and far, elements of exotic sounds such as samba, jazz funk, and dub-reggae come together with a distinctly Danish cheerfulness in the songs' lyrics. Stand out tracks in the 2020 release include "Prøv og Gør Ligesom Jeg" (Do As I Do), which has been heard in Nu Guinea's DJ sets, the Brazilian funk escapade "Karneval" (Carnival), reggae-inspired "Du Kan Bruge Din Krop" (You Can Move Your Body), the brilliant late night dub-not-dub tune "Byen Er Stille" (The City is Silent), and many more. Born in 1929, Lotte Kærså showed great musical promise from an early age. However, instead of pursuing her planned education at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music, she chose another path: early childhood education. Starting out her career as a kindergarten teacher, a lifelong commitment to children and their musical education was in the making. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Lotte Kærså pioneered innovative pedagogical methods. Combing rhythmical music with dance and movement-based activities, she helped promote their development in novel ways. In the following years, Kærså went on to produce TV for children, write music, and teach music education. To this day, Kærså has remained one of the most progressive music educators of her time, and continues to compose and teach. In the summer of 2019, Kærså turned 90 years old. To celebrate her life's work, a reissue of her greatest songs was compiled on a brand-new release: Jubiiilæum.

Felipe Gordon from Bogota is one of the names right now in the jazz-inflected house and broken beat scene that is growing so much these days. This is second EP on Toy Tonics and it's a step forward for him musically; he started to include more vocals and worked with Colombian vocalist Paula Pedraza. Gordon's music is special; with his background as a Colombian (with that great heritage of musicianship that the country has) and as an indie rock musician (he used to play in bands for years), he has his very own vibe. His tracks have much more groove than lot of the sample-based stuff one can hear currently, and his production style is more variable and musically interesting than lots of other stuff. Check these four new tracks. Especially the second, which adds some freshness to the current disco vibe, bringing in a punk/funk bassline that could have been made in 2005 from disco-not- disco artists like Chicken Lips, Headman, or Playgroup. This is post-90s revival music.

A Colourful Storm presents the first ever compilation of work by Velocette, the nom de plume of Jason Williams and one of the most unique producers from the '90s wider ambient-techno landscape of the United States. Gathered from recordings originally released on Jonah Sharp, aka Spacetime Continuum's Reflective label and Williams' own Parallel Recordings, the tracks are sublime, sought-after, and primed for modern audiences. "Bound In A Nutshell" and "Microcosmik" are chill-out room dreams, while "Memories For The Future" and "Stumm" are pure dancefloor and after-hours euphoria. Dreamy selection for dancers and stargazers alike. "Listening to Velocette is like gazing into a brilliant night sky -- a blanket of stars shimmering like a kaleidoscope just beyond reach." For fans of Klaus Schulze, Stasis, Likemind. Full-color, printed reverse card sleeve; includes liner notes by Jonah Sharp.

A fantastic Afro-Brazilian futuristic funk anthem! After a few other successful projects, Franck Biyong, the French-Cameroonian Afrobeat composer, guitar player, and singer, is back on Hot Casa with a futuristic Afro-Brazilian club anthem. The similarities and filiations between traditional West African drumming and Afro-Brazilian religious musical rites such as the Candomblé are many: under colonial rule African people and African slaves outwardly practiced Christianity but secretly prayed to their own God, Gods, or Ancestor spirits. So, Biyong aimed at keeping the gritty urban menacing sound and poetry of Afrobeat with the percussive mass rumble of Batucada with the poignant beauty of Carioca. He then got in touch Cristina Violle, the first lady of "Samba de Roda" in Paris, who graced the release with a startling inspired and heartfelt melody to address the same issues of hope, resilience, courage, and humility; the people who live in Africa's shanty towns of Brazil's favelas again have in common a shared living experience. The first completed version of the song then briefly went on alternative radio. They went back to the studio in the summer of 2019 and started ironing the song again from scratch. That same initial spirit and energy caught hold of the, again from the day they started and, like for Francis Bebey's New Track in 1982 or King Sunny Ade's Syncro System in 1983 who were recorded in Paris over 35 years ago, they worked relentlessly to create a balanced but experimental track showcasing roots-y sound, pop instrumentation, tight world beat drumming, song structure, jazzy horns, spacy synthesizers, choral-like vocal harmonies with call and response figurative vocals. 45RPM.

2020 repress; LP version. Printed inner sleeve; Includes download code. The world has changed rapidly since Lali Puna released Our Inventions in 2010 (MORR 098CD/LP), a fact that is also reflected in the band's fifth album, Two Windows. Written and produced over almost two years, these twelve new songs meet those changes head-on both musically and lyrically. Songwriter and singer Valerie Trebeljahr and long-time band members Christian "Taison" Heiß and Christoph Brandner -- Two Windows is the first album recorded after Markus Acher's departure from the band -- opted for a more dancefloor-friendly sound while not neglecting the pop sentiments rooted in Lali Puna's sound. Taking its cues from a brand of music spearheaded by the likes of Caribou, Ada, or even Mount Kimbie, Two Windows sounds lush and focused, balancing the emotional qualities of Trebeljahr's songwriting with energetic rhythms. A tour in South Korea rekindled Trebeljahr's urge to make music after she had focused her career as a journalist as well as on her family. While she was mostly working on new material with Heiß, Trebeljahr also sought out collaborations: Keith Tenniswood (Two Lone Swordsmen) contributes as Radioactive Man; Dntel, aka Jimmy Tamborello, is featured; harpist and Ghostly International alumna Mary Lattimore and experimental artist Midori Hirano (MimiCof) also appear. While Two Windows is thus partly a collaborative effort, it is first and foremost an album about emancipation and a new beginning for Lali Puna. The album explores topics including personal freedom, the presence of surveillance technologies in our lives, and the progressive gentrification of urban centers. Two Windows is not an explicitly political album however. In fact, much like a window, Trebeljahr's lyrics always allow their listeners to look at things from two sides. While they emphasize problems, they also empathize with those who have to put up with them. Trebeljahr has not come to preach, but wants to forge emotional connections. Musically speaking, the lyrical subtleties are reflected in a well-defined sound that likes to shake things up as well. Gender-flipping an old Kings Of Leon tune to present a great piece of music in an entirely different context? You possibly wouldn't expect that on a Lali Puna record, but as Trebeljahr sings herself in "Wonderland": "Cause all things will change / Cause all things must change". Two Windows, an album about emancipation, presents the Lali Puna sound in a different light than before. Glossy artwork and printed inner sleeve.

Black Editions present the first ever vinyl edition of Go Hirano's third album, Corridor of Daylights, originally released in 2004. Corridor of Daylights is a quiet work of dreamlike brilliance. A home field recording where fragile piano melodies float alongside wind-chimes and wistful melodicas -- insects hum in the distance and a breeze gently rustles as summer day eases toward evening. Originally released in Japan by P.S.F. Records in 2004, Corridor of Daylights is a beautiful, soulful dispatch from early aughts Tokyo. Black Editions present Corridor of Daylights, newly mastered for its first ever vinyl edition. Includes bonus track. Comes in a deluxe edition featuring pearlescent paper, metallic inks, and foil stamped letters as well as two inserts including a newly translated illustrated story booklet; Includes download.

Second Editions presents Études by Roger Tellier-Craig. This CD holds four new compositions conceived by Roger Tellier-Craig during his studies at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal. Merging subject into object, opposing chance to narrative, putting source against sound. Tellier-Craig constructs and simultaneously questions the relation of composition and/as deconstruction. These pieces, or studies, are as much about organization as they are about irruption, or attention and idleness. Seeking to configure tensions through the use of differences, creating an extensive network of relationships between differing sonic phenomena. Time and sound coherent and in contrast in an acoustic space. But this goes beyond homage, and has nothing to do with electroacoustic nostalgia. These pieces carry a present-day urgency. What does it mean to utilize, to arrange, to listen? Edition of 300.

Double LP version. Rrose and Silent Servant team up to select for the ongoing leftfield compilation series, Air Texture. Featuring unreleased tracks from underground talent including Anthony Child (Surgeon), Ron Morelli, Laurel Halo, Octo Octa, Phase Fatale, Function, as well as Rrose and Silent Servant and legends like Charlemagne Palestine. Also included on double-CD and double-LP versions: James Fei, Not Waving, Luke Slater, and June and An-i, and Laetitia Sonami.

2020 repress. "First time LP edition of this miraculous follow-up to 1970's influential folk classic Just Another Diamond Day. Deluxe gatefold jacket with 'tip-on' style sleeve. Features contributions from Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Adem, Adam Pierce (Mice Parade), Robert Kirby (Nick Drake), Otto Hauser and Kevin Barker (Espers, Currituck County)."

"Eddie Flowers is a legend of the American rock sub-underground. Starting as an Alabama-bound fanzine scribe back in the early '70s, Eddie drifted to Bloomington to lend his presence to the Gizmos in the days before 'punk' was codified. Next, he turned up in L.A., where he founded the legendary acid squawlers, Crawlspace. Crawlspace was a thoroughly nuts collection of loosely rotating heads, who existed from 1985 into the new century. They played few actual 'shows,' but still managed to churn out endless documents of their music making. Still, Crawlspace's few vinyl offerings are exquisitely fucked, and include some of the first heavy deployments of Can-generated riff-pulsing heard anywhere on the scene. Anyway, L.A. has a way of eating its children, and Eddie was darn near gobbled by the Sunshine Monster before he was spirited away to Indiana by some old and solid friends. Once there, he lost no time getting a new 'situation' together, and this album is its first graspable evidence. The music created by The Wax-Lip-Swamp-Dub unit is thick with acid-haze (generated by a real random assortment of instruments) and powered into fields of Can-like glory by the superb drumming of Tyler Damon (previously heard on (Manas III (FTR 330LP, 2017)). Eddie's vocals sprawl across the top of it all, giving an entirely new meaning to R. Meltzer's phrase, 'blabbermouth lockjaw of the soul.' The vocals here are all that, but they lay out like a beatnik rattlesnake frying happily in the Texas sun. It is a beautiful trip. Hint to travelers: the higher you fly, the better your view" --Byron Coley, 2019. Edition of 300.

Outernational Sounds present a reissue of Nate Morgan's Retribution, Reparation, originally released on Nimbus West Records in 1984. A core member of the circle around Horace Tapscott, pianist Nate Morgan was a key member of the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra, known as The Ark. Here is the second of his two LPs for Nimbus West. His first, Journey Into Nigritia (OTR 008LP) had been a declaration of arrival laced with energies drawn from Cecil Taylor and Coltrane. One year later, in 1984, with nods to Herbie Hancock ("One Finger Snap") and Ellington ("Come Sunday"), Retribution, Reparation was a confident statement of purpose. Politically charged with pan-Africanist Black nationalism, and titled with uncompromising directness, the album focusses the sound world of the Ark into a surging, restless masterpiece of spiritualized modal jazz. Danny Cortez on trumpet and Jesse Sharps on saxophones comprise an explosive frontline. Fritz Wise and Ark regular Joel Ector hold down the rhythm section. Morgan's forceful, Tyner-like chords and virtuosic solos bind the music together. From the poised drama of the opening dedication to Tapscott's U.G.M.A.A. organization, through the propulsive militancy of the title track, "Retribution, Reparation" spreads the word: "Advance to Victory, Let Nigritia Be Free!" Fully licensed from Nimbus West founder Tom Albach.

In 2017, the track "Still Numbers" on Ekin Fil's album Heavy caught the attention of a certain Richard D. James, who under his "user18081971" username reposted the track to his now historic Soundcloud dump. This is also how Ekin's work initially caught the attention of labels; at first listen it sounded like an unearthed Grouper demo, a parallel that can be drawn respectfully, seeing Ekin's trademarks are also those forlorn, muffled vocal whispers, layered under sentimental tape loops, paired with ambience and feedback. The album itself was originally produced during what Ekin Fil recalls as a down right depressing and tumultuous time during which she turned to music as a measure of rehabilitation. Heavy was later released on tape via Lee Nobles No Kings label in 2016 and re-mastered in 2018 from the tape rips by Rashad Becker, preserving the fragile and heavy-hearted auditory sensibility found in the original work, while making one of Ekin's earliest and most personally endearing releases available to a new audience of listeners. Includes download code.

First released on digital formats back in 2016, and here now given a richly deserved full vinyl release, Holy Science, the debut outing from Amirtha Kidambi and her New York based quartet The Elder Ones, is a work of dazzling singularity. Delicately yet unashamedly divulging its complex network of influences at every turn, Holy Science simultaneously disperses of boundary and limitation, emerging as an album steeped in tradition yet located firmly in the futuristic present. Amirtha Kidambi, the Elder Ones' leader, composer and vocalist, was a child of South Indian heritage, and she grew up immersed in the tradition of devotional singing, joining in with free-form, improvised Bhajans on regular Sundays. She began simultaneously accompanying her voice with the harmonium from the age of three. These formative experiences continued to instruct and merge with her ongoing musical explorations as she went on to study classical music, all the while ingesting the punk, R&B and rap that surrounded her. A particularly significant discovery was that of free and avant jazz, and in particular the music of Alice and John Coltrane, in whom Kidambi found clear echoes and parallels with those Bhajans and Ragas of her earliest musical awakenings. All these influences collide on Holy Science, at times as explosive blasts of sky-opening thunder, at others as moments of soothing, meditative bliss. These holy bursts are enacted by Kidambi's assembled musicians and are given permission to explore the science of spiritual alchemy, plundering their individual and collective soul for the sake of musical expression, and all of the unpredictable and profound revelations such an approach might yield. Holy Science is a work underpinned by traditions, be they the Bhajan spirituals, or the jazz and classical avant gardes, that are in their own manner, archetypal. But perhaps most importantly, all of these forms contain an inbuilt capacity for discovery and progression. Amirtha Kidambi's musical pathway has been defined by a studied determination to occupy this specific space, the unbounded realm of improvisation and exploration, summoning the acquired instruments of experience, knowledge, culture, and tradition to unlock secrets of the past, present and future. The most cherished music is often remarked upon as having a timeless quality -- ancient, modern and futuristic, all at once. And so it is with Holy Science. Liner notes by DJ Cherrystones.

"Oneohtrix Point Never and the new wave of soundtrack auteurs -- Daniel Lopatin talks to Dan Barrow about his new soundtrack for the Safdie brothers' double-dealing thriller Uncut Gems, as part of our survey of the new wave of underground and electronic musicians making inroads into the Hollywood system. Yeah You -- the father-daughter noise duo rewrite the rules of Carpool Karoake with their hyperactive performances, anarchic collaborations and underground link-ups, plus a stash of infamous in-car recordings. The new rules of rhythm -- vanguard percussionists Will Guthrie, Claire Rousay, Eli Keszler and Tim Barnes are pushing beyond the drum kit to forge new shades of rhythm through groundbreaking installations, dazzling studio science and off-the-grid thinking. Invisible Jukebox with Seb Rochford. Epiphanies with Jeff Mills."

"A focal point for the unique punk-funk that was coming together in Bristol as the bridge from the '70s to the '80s arrived, Maximum Joy was formed by Glaxo Babies multi-instrumentalist Tony Wrafter and 18 year-old vocalist Janine Rainforth. Soon they drafted in additional Glaxo Babies in the form of drummer Charlie Llewellin and bassist Dan Catsis, along with guitarist John Waddington, fresh from The Pop Group. The group set about making a one-of-a-kind mix of funk, punk, pop, jazz, dub, soul, afrobeat and reggae; creating a brilliant burst of danceable tunes wrapped around elastic basslines and complex percussion, punctuated by melodic horns and stabs of guitar, all of it highlighting Rainforth's naturally enthusiastic vocal style. They immediately took their place on the rosters of influential labels like Y and 99 with iconic debut single 'Stretch', as the band had clearly captured something special. Entering 1982, Kevin Evans had replaced Catsis as Maximum Joy set out to make what would be their only full length LP. Recording at Berry Street and The Lodge with producers Adrian Sherwood (On-U-Sound legend), Dave Hunt (the Flying Lizards and This Heat) and Pete Wooliscroft (Kate Bush, Talk Talk, Peter Gabriel and OMD,) the band would mix practiced grooves with imaginative improvisation. The results were absolutely jaw-dropping."

LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale, originally released in 1976. Heldon's Richard Pinhas has never been shy of pinpointing his influences while, at the same time, making music that is noticeably distinct from any of his designated sources. He has, for instance, made it clear that a significant font of inspiration was Robert Fripp's guitar style and melding of rock music with cutting-edge electronics (especially in collaboration with Brian Eno). Indeed, Heldon's fifth album, Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale, was named after a live bootleg of a King Crimson concert. Pinhas first met Fripp in 1974, and the pair became friends and have remained in contact ever since. Pinhas was even offered a deal with E.G. Records, the company that oversaw King Crimson alongside other successful groups like Roxy Music and ELP. "That was a dream," says Pinhas. "But when you are 22, you are in a hurry. They asked me to wait one or two years before joining the team. I couldn't wait two years!" Instead, Pinhas launched his own label, Disjuncta, which he later sold to purchase the Moog synthesizer that would make a huge difference to Heldon's sound. Heldon's output also drew from radical science fiction (Philip K. Dick, Norman Spinrad, etc.) as well as philosophy: the sleeve features a quote from Pierre Klossowski's Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (1969). Heldon never represented a mere facsimile of Pinhas's musical touchstones: King Crimson, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, or Frank Zappa. Heldon was always its own beast and by 1976 it was thriving and roaring like never before. More work was being completed in a proper studio, the Moog helped strengthen the sound and direction, and Pinhas's rotating cast of collaborators was solidifying into something resembling a regular lineup, with François Auger on drums and Patrick Gauthier on synthesizers. The result was a darker, heavier, and more intense sound. The LP opens with the prog-gone-skronk onslaught of "Marie Virginie C", sounding rather like Robert Fripp being sliced into bloody chunks in Thurston Moore's basement. Auger is the star of "Elephanta", in all its Moog-assisted polyrhythmic glory. On side two, "MVC II" offers six minutes of sinister dystopian squelch rock. It's followed by "Toward The Red Line", an epic piece conceivably serving to connect the dots between Hawkwind's most freeform passages and the Detroit techno innovations of the coming decade.

LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's 6 - Interface, originally released in 1977. A brilliant moment occurs right at the end of Heldon's sixth album, Interface. The album's final song, its side-long title track, builds up slowly into a roaring tornado of fiercely mutating drum patterns, effervescent synth work, and guitar licks that wail into the atmosphere like an abandoned astronaut. Then, after nearly 19 minutes of highly futuristic avant-garde space rock, this ultramodern music fades out and is replaced by a concluding few seconds of traditional blues-rock guitar. "We were finishing the track, the tape was rolling, and I started to play a normal boogie or whatever," remembers Heldon leader Richard Pinhas. "I think it was a good idea to keep it. It just came naturally, at the end." This event acts as a reminder of just how far rock n' roll had been transformed since its earliest incarnations. This blueprint had been jolted and nudged down all kinds of unexpected avenues after players like Chuck Berry and Bill Haley first found fame. The genre had branched out into every manner of mutated form. It had given rise to misshapen clones and had shifted into unrecognizable shapes, like a beautiful alien creature from one of the science fiction tales that were fondly admired by so many experimental rock musicians, Pinhas included. Heldon, surely, represented one of rock n' roll's most distant relatives; an innovative fusion of avant-garde rock sounds and synthesizer pulsations. At the same time, Interface's unexpected ending also tells us that such music, however improvisatory or fused with electronic elements, will forever have its roots in those early rock n' roll records that are responsible for so many varieties of aural exploration. Thanks to the increased presence of drummer François Auger and synth/Moog man Patrick Gauthier, Pinhas's project had solidified into a harder and heavier unit. Around the time of the album's release, the musician and composer Jean-Philippe Goude told Pinhas that because of its merging of synthesizer sounds with "real" instrumentation. Despite its often warm and near-funky feel, Interface has been cited as an influence on key industrial and noise musicians including Wolf Eyes and Merzbow.

LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's seventh and final album of the 1970s Stand By, originally released in 1979. After the release of Stand By, Richard Pinhas focused on solo LPs before quitting music for around a decade. "It was the end of the tale," he explains. "We decided to split for many reasons. The main one was that one or two of the other musicians wanted to stop. They were session musicians, mainly. At one point they said they didn't have so much time to give. And it was a time when a lot of bands who had become reluctantly successful decided to split . . . Split at the top, not waiting to go down." Heldon certainly went out on a high. Stand By's mood remains urgent and gripping throughout, fashioned via immense synthesizer sounds, a plethora of interweaving drum patterns, spiraling guitar chops, and lurching riffs. It's been likened to krautrock, yet Pinhas never paid attention to the German scene. There are other similarities to parallel innovations that John Carpenter was making in the field of sci-fi/horror soundtracks. The hazmat-suit-wearing figure on Stand By's cover could have starred in such a movie. The album's unearthly vocals were provided by Klaus Blasquiz of Magma. Some progressive musicians of the '70s felt threatened by the rise of punk -- Not Pinhas. As producer, he worked with French punk acts like Asphalt Jungle. No, Pinhas was more troubled by wider world developments. These miseries played their own part in Heldon's demise. "We recorded Stand By in '78, going into '79. Politics had all shifted to the right with your Maggie Thatcher and, in America, that very bad actor. They started the bullshit of neoliberalism that we have to live with now, everywhere. We're going to be in a very fascistic world within twenty years. Not even that long. The initiation of this change came with Reagan and Maggie. It started in the '80s." Stand By was recorded at Studio Davout, the Parisian home to recordings by everyone from Karlheinz Stockhausen to Johnny Hallyday. That, too, has fallen victim to brutal economics. It was demolished in 2018. "They destroyed the main historical studio in France to put up a supermarket!" says Pinhas. "It was a place where a lot of things happened. Musicians were working all night long. It could've been a museum for music."