"Michael is the third LP we have done with Boston-based musician, Joseph Allred. The first, O Meadowlark (FTR 451LP, 2019) was a suite for guitar and banjo. For its follow-up, Traveler (FTR 491LP), Joseph added splendid vocals to the mix. With Michael, Mr. Allred gives airing to his fine harmonium playing, alongside string majesty and vocals. Maybe on the next one he'll teach us how to fly. Michael is an album with a dreamy narrative core. Its loose tale deals with the idea of the Archangel Michael appearing during a spirit ritual, performed by the character Faulkner (something like Allred's alter-ego) in hopes of remembering the contours of heaven. But this concept only emerged after the music was recorded. Allred compares the process of divining narrative content form musical improvisation to 'throwing an inkblot on paper.' I can dig it. All of the instruments as acoustic -- harmonium, autoharp, singing bowls, dulcimer, bowed guitar -- and the overtones and interplay on surfaces here is unbelievably rich. And even though they're connected, the individual tunes flow from different head spaces. 'Ascent + Return' is long-tone meditation, conceived for harmonium, singing bowls & autoharp soon after Allred performed a Tony Conrad piece as part of the big MIT Conrad exhibit. 'Every Thing in the Dim Night' (a random quote from Whitman's Blades of Grass) lies midway between that and a string improvisation with Indian tonalities. 'O Death' follows the original Lloyd Chandler lyrics (originally entitled, 'A Conversation with Death'), before evolving into swells of drone and strum. And so on. Each piece different, but expanding the boundaries of the drone-based universe has created for this album. Joseph Allred's music is an always evolving, constantly astounding wonderment. His live shows are quite otherworldly, but we're sure you'll find his records equally transportational." --Byron Coley, 2020

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download. Cugate Classics presents a reissue of the 2001 release Works For Choir by Arvo Pärt, one of the most important and influential composers of our time. Arvo Pärt (born 1935 in Paide, Estonia) doesn't need to be introduced to anyone who has the slightest interest in classical music, and his audience reaches far beyond the regular attendants of symphony halls. After first serial compositions, "Credo" (1968) was a turning point in Pärt's life and work, being the first piece carrying a religious title and expressing a creative crisis that Pärt answered by lesser compositions and studying medieval and Renaissance music in search for a new musical language. In 1976, Pärt returned with "Für Alina" and introduced his new (and self-developed) style that should become his trademark sound which made him the famous and honored composer he is now: the so-called tintinnabuli. In 1984, after the Estonian composer and his family emigrated from the USSR and settled in Germany, the album Tabula Rasa opened the next important chapter in PÄRT's career: the ever continuing close relation to Manfred Eicher and his ECM label where many of the composer's works have been released since. Works For Choir presents several compositions for choir from the period from 1989 to 1991, recorded in Vilnius with the award winning Vilnius Municipal Choir Jauna Muzika under the artistic direction of Vaclovas Augustinas. The Vilnius Municipal Choir Jauna Muzika choir was founded in 1989 by the conductor and composer Remigijus Merkelys and long-time director Algimantas Gurevičius and has since won several prizes, among others six Grand Prix in 16 international choral competitions around the world, and in 1993 it was awarded with the highest prize, the Grand Prix Europeo, in a competition organized by the International Federation of Choral Music. Remastered by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

"These rare recordings were recorded as part of the legendary Prescription label subscription-only album series in the late 1990s that resulted in the Astral Disaster album. Halloween 1998: Coil were invited to record at Sun Dial's studios beneath the London Bridge Hop Exchange -- a studio first known as Samurai Studios, originally built and owned by Iron Maiden. The premises in Victorian times had been a debtors prison, with three underground levels -- and the original chains, manacles and wrought iron prison doors. This caught the attention of John Balance, who was very keen to record there. With Gary Ramon's help, Coil developed a number of tracks, some of which resulted in the Astral Disaster album. But there were other tracks recorded during those Halloween sessions, including the recordings on this very limited LP release, Astral Disaster Sessions Un/finished Music Vol. 2. The album includes all previously unissued mixes and alternative versions, and includes 'The Mothership,' which was the first version of a track which was later remade and re-named during the sessions as'The Mothership and the Fatherland.'"

Siti Of Unguja tells the story of pioneering women, of the "golden voice" of Siti Muharam, heiress to the singular legacy of her great grandmother, the mother of taarab, Siti Binti Saad. On The Corner Records teases this first taste of a landmark recording that the label embarked upon two years ago on Zanzibar. Siti Of Unguja has a transformative atmosphere, brimming with romance, passion and protest. Zanzibar is an island archipelago that lies six degrees south of the equator and 30 miles off the East African coast out in the Indian Ocean. It is known for its spices, traditional Dhow sailing boats, and being a mercantile trading capital of Swahili culture. The modern history of Zanzibar can be animated through the life and legacy of one artist, Siti Binti Saad. Born in 1890 in the small fishing village of Fumba, on Unguja (Zanzibar's largest island), she became the first Zanzibari recording artist and her recordings sold in tens of thousands across the Swahili world. The tracks recorded for Siti Of Unguja demonstrate Siti Binti Saad's eclectic influence on Zanzibari taarab and her great granddaughter, Siti Muharam imbues the compositions with feeling. Siti Muharam's golden voice carries the poetry and invents a timeless passion. It is Muharam's deep humility and love that brings the spirit of these two women together. With Sam Jones at the controls, taarab's conservative layers were opened up and given more than a little wiggle room. Under the direction of Matona, the recording of this album paid homage to Siti Binti Saad's innovations by bringing back the percussive Kidumbak style of music that originated on the streets of Zanzibar. By stripping back the typically dense string section of taarab a space was created for Muharam's beguiling timbre that is gilded with emotion. Liner notes by Pete OnTheCorner.

On The Corner Records announce the release of Dialectic Soul, the debut album from one of Cape Town's most cutting-edge, visionary artists and musicians, the drummer Asher Gamedze. This is jazz at its most spiritual, most progressive, and most appealing form. As Asher himself says: "Dialectic Soul is about motion and a refusal to remain static or stay still. It's the commitment to be continually moving." Recorded live over two days at the Sound and Motion Studios in Cape Town with renowned musicians -- Thembinkosi Mavimbela (bass), Buddy Wells (tenor sax), Robin Fassie-Kock (trumpet), Nono Nkoane (voc) -- Dialectic Soul is breathtaking in its musical vitality and expression of soul seeking truth. By incorporating the concept of the total art for this project, it fits perfectly within On The Corner's aesthetic of music, art and vision for creative innovation. Label art director Victoria Topping created the sleeve design working with Asher's drawings and concept. Asher continues: "My composition 'state of emergence' introduces the themes that constitute the album; free drums representing autonomous African motion, the saxophone reflecting deeply and honestly on the violence of colonialism, the teachings of Coltrane, Steve Biko, Makeba, and Malcolm X and others inspired the music's positive manifestations of resistance. Fundamentally, it is about the reclamation of the historical imperative. It is about the dialect of the soul and the spirit while it moves through history. The soul is dialectic. Motion is imperative. We keep moving." Gamedze is best known for his work with Angel Bat Dawit on International Anthem.

About this record and how Limpe and Paul Fuchs got together with Friedrich Gulda: In 1968, the Austrian classical and jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda organized the First International Music Forum of Ossiachersee with the theme "Improvisation in Music -- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow". During the third edition of the festival, Gulda got to know the band Anima Sound and was fascinated by their "absolute free music", which they played on home-made instruments. Anima Sound was Limpe and Paul Fuchs, who had already released two albums in 1971, Stürmischer Himmel (Stormy Heaven) on Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser's OHR label and the self-released Musik für Alle. Musik für Alle developed during a 4,000-kilometer tour throughout Europe when the band and their two children hitched a handmade mobile home and stage to an old Hanomag tractor, bringing their anarchic, uncompromising improvisations to an impromptu public, free of charge. German documentary filmmaker Helga Tiedemann captured part of the tour for the film Mit 20 km/h durch Europa. Gulda and Anima Sound often toured together throughout the '70s and the band became regulars at Gulda's festivals of free music. In 1972, they released the simply titled LP Anima. In 1973, Tiedemann captured one of the shows, and the film Gruppe Anima in Salzburg. The International Music Forum of Ossiachersee ended in 1974. In the same year, Gulda and Limpe and Paul Fuchs went on tour with some of their festival musicians and recorded the double-LP It's Up To You. Gulda and partner Ursula Anders's festival in Ossiach attracted top-class guests, including among others Pink Floyd, Weather Report, Tangerine Dream, and many great jazz and world music musicians. The follow-up festival, Tage Freier Musik (Days of Free Music) at Castle Moosham in the Lungau region of Salzburg, Austria in 1976 again offered a high-class bill. A year later in 1977, the guests were Don Cherry and Moki, The Revolutionary Ensemble, Günther Rabl, Makaya Ntshoko, among others, and Anima Sound with Limpe and Paul Fuchs. The recordings here were made during the 1977 festival and have been restored and are released for the first time ever. The music critic Baldur Brockhoff wrote for Süddeutsche Zeitung about the Anima Sound concert: "Paul and Limpe Fuchs played superbly. As archaic as the instruments may seem (sand shovel, circular saw, hand-knitted crumhorn, sheet metal), as simple as the musical patterns and structures are, far from all virtuosity, the two have meanwhile found a complete harmony in making music together. The most beautiful thing about this music is probably the unfamiliar; no role model is used here."

Second Editions presents Both by claire rousay. claire rousay has been exploring the sensitivities of sound always in relation to "the self" and "the other", equally. Her work is always seen as a contribution, as engagement. Recording, collaging, and composing become acts of considering, remembering, giving. Therefore, music becomes a context, or more precisely, a habitat. But what does it say about this music when the artistic choice goes deeper, when it is not only an urge to express but to find oneself? When there is more to communicate, to connect to than a "musical work"? This new record features two attuned location-based Hörstücke that sit somewhere between conceptual composition and magical realism. "Library" is a site-specific piece recorded at, and played back to the halls of the Central Library in San Antonio, Texas. A meticulous recording of social against functional space. Mixing a live microphone feed through a pair of loudspeakers and accompanying it with two sine tones pitched specifically to the building's dimensions and resonant frequencies, rousay is blending architectural space and human interaction into one curated arrangement. On the opposite side, "Two Things" acts as a transient dream sequence, an elusive mise-en-scène. It provides a sense of location so familiar yet very disorienting. A (re)introduction to a periphery state, a fictional truth, an outside world constructed entirely and deliberately from the inside of an apartment. Composed and produced by claire rousay at Central Library San Antonio in Texas, 2019, and in Ciudad de México, 2019. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at Duplates & Mastering in Berlin, 2020. Includes download code; edition of 300.

Double LP version. Includes insert. Through Experimental & Parametric Music 1976-2017, more than 40 years of composer Joris De Laet's work is unveiled. The collection discovers for the first time the great coherence of this work: from "Signalisations" (1976) to "Mnemosyne Pour Une Acousmaman" (2017). The compositions are annotated and explained in detail by the composer, as well as a kind of wild autobiography. Released in Sub Rosa's Early Electronic series.

Joris De Laet was born in 1947. Belgian by birth, self-taught by definition, parametric music and art video composer by choice. Founder of the S.E.M. (Studio voor Experimentele Muziek) in Antwerp, 1973. Internships at the IPEM (Instituut voor Psychoakoestiek en Elektronische Muziek) in Ghent, 1972-1975, under Karel Goeyvaerts, Lucien Goethals, and Dr. Herman Sabbe. De Laet is the founder of the SEMensemble, a group of musicians-composers specialized in performing experimental music and live electronics. From 1975 until 1990, he gave concerts with this ensemble throughout Europe (Germany, France, The Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Croatia, etc.) and in Canada (Montreal, Kingston, Toronto). Inspired by the deep control on electronic sonics, De Laet has been defining his work since 1979 as "Parametric Music", music where composition is based on transformation flows of one or several parameters, selected by the composer, that form, through their converging (or diverging) processes the main characteristics of the regulated sonics of the composition.

In 1968 an album by The Family of Apostolic was released on Vanguard Records -- and a lot of people consider that double-LP to be a great work of folk-rock and psychedelia. If songs from that album like "Won't Be Sad Again", "Dholak Gheet", or "Fiddler A Dram" made you howl for more you're in for a surprise now. After the Family of Apostolic album three of its key musicians -- Lyn Hardy, Jay Ungar, and John Townley -- teamed up with bass player Peter Smith and drummer Jim Willis to form Ocean. This short-lived band was in a way the follow-up to John Townley's Family of Apostolic, in another way the starting point of Jay Ungar's songwriting career as well as a showcase for Lyn Hardy's incredible voice. But no matter how you want to look at Ocean, they recorded a wonderfully eclectic album in the summer of 1969 which remained unreleased until now. The album contains mostly original songs and it has influences which reach from old-time/bluegrass to Middle-Eastern music -- apart from that some of the songs even have a British folk-rock feel to them. Needless to say, the album is full of virtuoso playing and gorgeous female/male vocal harmonies. This LP is taken from the only remaining reference-copy of the final mix -- and even if it is not taken from the original reels (which are lost) it still sparkles with the crystal clear 12-track-sound that was typical for the Apostolic Studios in New York City. For anyone who needs some more credentials: Fiddler, guitarist and singer Jay Ungar for sure is famous for writing "Ashokan Farewell" -- before that he recorded albums with Cat Mother, The Putnam String County Band, and Lyn Hardy. Today, he plays in a duo with Molly Mason. Singer and guitarist Lyn Hardy recorded with Jay Ungar and The Putnam String County Band, these days she performs with Skye Trio and works as a luthier. Multi-instrumentalist and singer John Townley founded the Apostolic Studios after he studied guitar with Rev. Gary Davis and played with David Blue and The Magicians. Today, he's an expert on maritime folk music and plays as a solo act doing folk, blues, and original songs. A lost '60s folk-rock gem on vinyl for the first time... Includes insert with archival photos and liner notes by John Townley; also includes postcard with download code. Ocean blue vinyl; edition of 300 (hand-numbered).

"The Wire Tapper 53! -- attached to the cover of every copy of the August issue will be a CD of the latest in our ongoing series of underground music anthologies, featuring 16 new tracks by Beatriz Ferreyra, Max Eilbacher, Sheng Jie, Chouk Bwa & The Ångströmers, Manongo Mujica & Terje Evenson, Tolouse Low Trax, McPhee/Rempis/Reid/Lopez/Nilssen-Love, and more. Meanwhile, in the magazine: Six-string theories -- An extended feature exploring the cosmos of fingerpicking guitar new and old, with outlaw counter-cultural storyteller Marisa Anderson profiled by fellow guitarist James Toth aka Wooden Wand, plus Robbie Basho, Sarah Louise, Glenn Jones on tuning, and much more. The Primer: DJ tools -- From beats 'n' breaks to locked grooves and sample libraries, Michaelangelo Matos provides a user's guide to the DJs' weapons of choice that have shaped club sounds of the last 40 years. Invisible Jukebox: John Edwards x Caroline Kraabel -- Two of London free music's most energetic improvisors test their reactions in our regular mystery record text."

First time vinyl issue of the debut album by Helios, Unomia, originally released in 2004. Keith Kenniff's debut album under his Helios moniker. Originally only released on CD in 2004 via Miami based Merck Records, this album of hazy ambient electronica is now presented as a vinyl edition for the first time. Includes download code.

All Music review by Joshua Glazer: "Those who mistake ambient music for an endless tapestry of unwavering atmosphere, pleasant yet indistinguishable, should be handed as an argument to the contrary this album by a recent signee to Merck's rapidly expanding roster. Through 13 tracks of inarguably pretty music, Keith Kenniff displays the musical equivalent of a genius screen actor, able to send a million moods and messages with the most subtle of facial gestures. The opening pair of songs, 'Velius' and 'Cullin Hill,' point to a blissful treat which sits on just the right side of new age symmetry (particularly given the former's live glistening piano treatment). But only eight beats into 'Nine Black Alps,' the sensation is irreversibly altered by a single, mournful bass note which rumbles like Hades against the bucolic tone that lead up to it. Unshackled, Kenniff continues to roam, drifting into circular beats on 'Two Mark' before wandering off into weightless asphyxiation on 'Samsara.' He even allows for the organic sound of faint acoustic guitar and piano to join his endless travels, giving a moment of real-world clarity at the eye of this hallucinogenic work. Few could get away with a singular ghostly voice transmission without implying a stretch for ideas, but by the time he reaches the song, 'Suns That Circling Go,' Kenniff is so recognized as an explorer that you cannot be surprised by where he may arrive next."

2020 repress. "Arthur Russell's most extraordinary work, World of Echo is reissued in this remastered vinyl edition by Audika Records. 18 tracks are featured including drumless versions of his disco classics 'Let's Go Swimming,' 'Tree House,' and 'Wax The Van' along with four previously unreleased tracks. Originally released in 1986, World Of Echo is a deeply intimate and meditative work of awe-inspiring grace and remains a timeless work of sublime beauty. Arthur's aim was to achieve what he calls 'the most vivid rhythmic reality,' with just cello, voice, and echoes. Arthur achieved all of this and more on one of the most incredible albums you will ever hear."

Customer's Copy is the debut LP of contorted cosmic jazz and eccentric minimal electronics by Exotic Sin. The duo of Naima Karlsson and Kenichi Iwasa first came together for a performance celebrating the art and music of Karlsson's grandparents, Moki and Don Cherry, before continuing as an independent unit that still incorporates some of the Cherrys's instruments as well as their synergetic integration of music with artistic practice. Preferring the stark contrast of analog/digital, acoustic/electric, and natural/unnatural sounds, Karlsson contributes synthesizers in addition to piano, celesta, and bells, while Iwasa collides anachronistic '90s Yamaha keyboard and guitaret with contrabass recorder, drums, kalimba, and three of Don Cherry's instruments: one of his trumpets as well as two of his "zen saxophones", handmade woodwinds appending reed mouthpieces to plastic plumbing parts, also called Don's kettles after their high-pitched sound. With such timbral juxtapositions, the spirit of Exotic Sin is reminiscent of a number of leftfield jazz-meets-electronics '70s duos from Don Cherry's maverick collaborations with Jon Appleton and Terry Riley to Anthony Braxton's work with Richard Teitelbaum, İlhan Mimaroğlu and Freddie Hubbard's Sing Me a Song of Songmy (1971), and Muhal Richard Abrams's electronic works. On album opener "Dot 2 Dot", Karlsson's measured, monastic piano sets an elegiac stage for kettle bends and absurdist electro-percussive filtering courtesy of Iwasa before a flourish of cascading ebonies and ivories together with restorative circular trumpet motifs bring the sidelong piece to a majestic resolution. Named after the character from Ridley Scott's 1989 film Black Rain, the schizosphere of "Charlie Vincent" interfaces ominous, dystopian synthesizer with permuted organ swells before album closer "Canis Minor" sets gentle sail for a distant bed of lonesome stars. A visual artist as well as an archivist and coordinator for the Cherry estate, Karlsson continues to learn and study Don's compositions and approach to piano with her uncles Eagle-Eye and David, who were taught by Don himself, and his use of short piano compositions as loose scaffoldings for improvisation is prevalent across the record's three otherworldly unfurlings. Improvisor and multidisciplinary artist Kenichi Iwasa is also known for his legendary Krautrock Karaoke night, his contribution to Beatrice Dillon's 2020 album Workaround, and collaborations with visual artists and musicians from Linder Sterling to members of Can, Neu!, Faust, Cluster, and Wire. Recorded and mixed, with additional alto flute, woodwinds, and contrabass recorder by Robbie Lee.

"Minneapolis guitarist, Matt Sowell, is another of the many great players we were first introduced to at the Thousand Incarnations of the Rose festival in Takoma Park, MD. Matt played a richly dark and brooding set at Rhizome, with a style deeply indebted to the American Primitive tradition. His set had the raw strength of Fred Gerlach, the precision of Peter Lang, showed a country/blues influence that seemed to reference Fahey, and possessed the raga-meets-ragtime eclecticism of Jack Rose. We were blown away. Later, talking to Matt while we watched Mark Fosson play in the bandshell, we talked about what he's up to. He's a family guy, a committed union member, and an all-around nice fellow besides being a killer guitarist. He said he'd get in touch when he had something together that might make a good LP, and we are proud to present the results. Organize or Die is both a call to collectivism as a way to fight crony capitalism, as well as a damn lovely record. Matt's technique and compositions continue to blend raw power, delicate note placement, and wild imagination into a unique alloy. While it's easy to close your eyes, lean back and know you are listening to a record in the great Takoma tradition, the borrowings here are solely of tone and mood. The specific approach is all Matt's. This allows his work to be familiar and all new at once. In this sense, he's akin to every new generation of finger picking guitarists who have found something special in the syncretic blend of traditional and modern that Fahey head-birthed. But Matt's playing is illuminated by a very special kind of light. And we think you are gonna dig it like crazy." --Byron Coley, 2020

Maja S. K. Ratkje is at the forefront of the musical avant-garde. Her music is bold, original and it is meant for sharing. At its heart lies Ratkje's own voice, an open door to her individual musicianship and a constant tool for realigning her work with natural expressions and human truths. On Mara, layers of vocals overlap and layer their way through the reverberant woodwork of an early baroque parish in Austria. At times slow and beautiful, other times frantic and sinister, this live recording is full of depth, passion and life. Live-recording at Pfarrkirche, Lockenhaus at Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus July 9, 2018. Recorded and mixed by Peter Laenger and Andreas Ruge from Tritonus Musikproduktion. Mastered by Maja S. K. Ratkje at Svartskog 2019. All music created and performed in real-time by Maja S. K. Ratkje, except sung parts from the Norwegian traditional Hanen sten på stabburshella and the American traditional Mining for Gold. Maja is using voice processing software created by Øyvind Brandtsegg. Picture disc; edition of 300.

The Log and the Leeway follows a six-year journey of personal exploration and drastic change for Bram Bosteels and his singular Kaboom Karavan universe. What entails is a sound-curiosity of rare format, following a metamorphosis that goes beyond the musical. Early in the process, Bram was struck by the word/concept of a "Leeway": the gradual departure from an intended course due to external influences. Following a boyish fascination for explorers' travel journals, logbooks, and the farfetched corners of the world, he could not have foreseen how fitting of a title he had chosen. Drastically all of a sudden one day, completely unexpectedly, Bram experienced his own father dying in front of him from a rare disease. Shocked and confused by this intense encounter, his perspectives and musical course departed from its original path. But at the same time, it was an enlightenment and a necessary influence for him to realize the initial idea and finish this album, started over half a decade before. The ones familiar with Kaboom Karavan already know that nothing really sounds quite like it. Bram's musical (and non-musical) universe is of the rare breed that seems to be entirely his own. Self-contained, but never opaque. Quite the opposite actually. Bram never pushes us away, instead, by listening to his music we are given view to a synesthetic wunderkammer of images, places, objects, and possibilities. Distant but magnetic, alien but intimately familiar, Kaboom is folk music from another dimension. Listening to The Log and the Leeway is like waking up next to a bonfire in the middle of a swamp wearing somebody else's clothes: you may not know how you got here, but whatever is happening seems to very directly involve you. Note from Erik K Skodvin (Miasmah): "All the sounds, fabrics, instrumentation, and stories that binds The Log and the Leeway together go far beyond what can be touched up in this simple writeup. As someone who have followed this journey since the beginning, and seen it shift from lighthearted fun to the most crepuscular personal experience, heard the stories behind (almost) every field recording and gone through boundless amounts of clips, visual details, notes, and inspirations..." Cover painting by John Lurie. 16-page booklet of illustrations/collagés by Walter Dhoogh and Erik K Skodvin that more or less connects (or confuses) the dots between the music and stories behind. Mastered by Lupo at Loop-O. Edition of 200; includes download code.

Limited repress! LP reissue of Land And Sea's limited 2016 tape documenting a performance by guitarists Michael Morley and Bill Orcutt at the L&S gallery in Oakland.

"... Once regrettable antics were permanently affixed to the rearview mirror, the pair chauffeured across the bay to Land And Sea, the cozy gallery on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland and sobered up on vegan cocktail wieners and gummie vitamins. You may doubt, you may scoff -- have fun with it, champion, seriously -- but on July 6, 2016, they rendered a landscape where miniature squalls grind in between seamlessly intersecting improv, and they did it sharp as the slap of a palmful of plum-colored hazelmyer elixir following a good, close shave. The distinctive sound of the Fender Telecaster as played without effects by Orcutt ('one of music's premier abstractionists,' according to Osmo Montesanto) remains unblunted throughout the album, an aggressively serrated presence within Mr. Morley's contrapuntal flanking. This freely improvised performance is imbued with discipline and deliberate restraint, the better to connect the players more to the sound than to the instruments . . . The duo's number-one fan worldwide Cye Husain, pictured on the back cover, would surely attest that the singular structure-building of Orcutt and Morley defies and transcends most any 'well, actually' bloviature that the usual bore-splainers will need to hurl into the troposhere. For instance, that a third guitar is clearly audible at certain parts in the mix -- beautifully recorded by Gabie Strong, by the way -- can be accounted for most sensibly by Aotearoan metaphysics. Mr. Morley's ax of choice was 'Patu Tutae Opoko Nui, a 2006 Squire Telecaster made in Indonesia that I had modified over the years. It died and was ushered up to Valhöll in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2018.' Readers opting to take a moment to refer to Morley's Instagram post dated 6 June 2018 and view the last rites of this extraordinary combination of wood and metal should do so now. He cried. You should expect to do the same . . . Electric Guitar Duets is that otherworldly modulation we all crave and rarely find, hovering halfway between a deeply satisfying lattice of blurred sky roars and the soundtrack from a Stefan Jarworzyn biopic scored by Sergio Leone left on the floor out of its sleeve. Morley and Orcutt hold everything sideways at least as well as the centrifugal force required for slow-motion footage of mannequins riding tiny motorcyles around the inside of a chrome replica of Lee Van Cleef's skull. For other examples of fluid-splattered shards glistening inside crimson murk pulsations, only murder rolling through cold, cold blood comes to mind as superior to this 44-minute live recording." --S. Glass

2020 repress, LP version; includes download code. Soulsheriff Records presents a milestone in electronic music, Liaisons Dangereuses' legendary 1981 self-titled debut album, newly remastered and reissued for the first time since 2002. Liaisons Dangereuses still fascinates today, through its innovative sound and the mystery encompassing it. The 10 electrifying songs, produced by Chrislo Haas (DAF) and Beate Bartel (Mania D, Matador) and reinforced by Krishna Goineau's French and Spanish speech-attack lyrics, created a unique style. The album, anything other than a typical Berlin or Düsseldorf thing, became an international favorite. Songs like "Peut Être... Pas" and "Los Niños del Parque" played a decisive role in the development of house in Detroit and Chicago, as well as various forms of European techno.

Repressed. The musician and spiritual seeker Alice Coltrane was much more than just John Coltrane's second wife. One of the few harpists to feature prominently in jazz, she was also a renowned pianist and composer and her interest in spiritual matters greatly helped steer her husband deeper into Krishna consciousness, which had significant bearing on his music, most notably evident on A Love Supreme (1965). This mesmerizing performance, held at Carnegie Hall four years after John's untimely passing as part of a benefit event for Swami Satchidananda's Integral Yoga Institute, comprised a stunning and largely improvised rendition of Coltrane's "Africa," with Alice's subtle piano and harp expressions excellently framed by the wailing saxes of Pharaoh Sanders and Archie Shepp, Cecil McBee and Jimmy Garrison trading non-standard bass lines, a dual drum onslaught from Clifford Jarvis and Ed Blackwell, along with members of the Institute on harmonium and tamboura.

NYZ on the recording: "The Buchla 100 experimental session begins with a documentary recording of the noise generators. Something I find endlessly fascinating is listening to different noise sources, so I always feel compelled to record them. The remaining tracks are sequenced by my MANIAC Cellular Automata sequencer. First up are three little sequenced ditties that also incorporate the ARP 2600 modular interconnected to the Buchla 100. After this is an ultra-minimal setup using MANIAC and the mind-numbingly rare Waveform Synthesizer Model 132 module. As far as I'm aware this is the only one of these modules that Buchla ever built! A truly unique module where you have 32 pots that setup the output waveform, and an FM input as well. The last two tracks are a Cellular Automata / FM crossmod oscillator stereo setup, lots of crunchy high pitched stuff with some deep bass notes thrown in too :]" Recorded at Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, Oakland, CA, USA on April 5th, 2015. Mixed and arranged at Noyzelab, NSW, Australia between July 2015 & February 2016.

This is Mr. Mat Walerian's fourth album as a leader, all on ESP-Disk'. He also appears in the Matthew Shipp Quartet on the album Sonic Fiction (ESPDISK 5018CD, 2018). Credits: Mat Walerian - alto saxophone, bass clarinet, soprano clarinet, flute; Matthew Shipp - piano; William Parker - double bass, shakuhachi; Hamid Drake - drums, percussion. Recorded May 21, 2018 at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn, New York. Produced by Steve Holtje.

"Walerian is alternately introspective and fiery, and the passion of Jungle at times recalls David S. Ware's groups . . . They both soothe the soul and make the heart race . . . Walerian has obviously been studying Ware, Coltrane and their ilk . . . he's on his way to becoming a free-jazz force." --Steve Greenlee on the project Jungle, JazzTimes

"... jaunty and joyous, encapsulating the sound of two superior musicians for whom age and cultural differences mean nothing . . . At times they sound like youthful renegades breaking down barriers with the power of their sound. During others, they come across as wise elders..." -- Michael Roberts on The Uppercut, JAZZIZ

"Mat Walerian is one of those rare musicians whose approach seems to span several eras of jazz history, sometimes even within the same solo..." -- Mark Keresman on the project Jungle, The New York City Jazz Record

"Sort of the new sheriffs in town . . . The difficult task is to choose the highlights. There are so many..." --Mark Corroto on the project Jungle, All About Jazz

"The groans of Walerian's alto against the maelstrom of Drake's drums and Shipp's piano are like listening to a hurricane strain against the walls of an old wooden house . . . He evokes the mastery of John Coltrane in the epic 'One For,' as Shipp plays his most Tyner-esque block chords . . . Walerian interjects flute phrases that sound like tropical birds." --John Swenson, Stereophile

"Mr. Walerian's tone on alto sax is immensely mature sounding and closer to the way some of the elder statesmen of tenor play, lush and sublime . . . The music has a regal elegance, not too dark yet consistently enchanting. A true consistency of excellence!" --Bruce Lee Gallanter on the project The Uppercut, Downtown Music Gallery

Repressed! Multila was the third album by Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti under the moniker Vladislav Delay. It compiles the Huone and Ranta 12" EPs Ripatti released on Basic Channel's Chain Reaction label in 1999 and 2000. The album features six hauntingly murky dub ambient tracks and the impressive 22-minute techno odyssey "Huone". 20 years after its original release as a full-length CD album (Chain Reaction), these timeless recordings of modern electronic music are now finally available for the first time as a double-vinyl edition. The label Keplar has been on a long hiatus and is now back with its KeplarRev series presenting vinyl re-issues of essential electronic albums from the '90s and '00s, as well as new recordings by momentous electronic and ambient artists. Drawings by Kaisa Kemikoski; Layout by Marco Ciceri. Remaster by Rashad Becker and vinyl cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering. Includes download code.

"Life films us exactly. Our experience of it, though, lies beyond images and descriptions. Emotions, coming in irrational flashes, are non-figurable. We lose our little connection to them very quickly. We look for forms which promise to take us to our own experience. We construct forms with this in mind: that they can take us to meet the subconscious. Multila's construction is principled this way. Fragments of experience, moments without definition or localization are captured within tiny fragments of time and then within one's mind space. We can look into it and see that experience has left some of its data to us. As we receive it, again and again, we are connected and reconnected to certain indefinable moments. Both during and after its recording, Multila is a tool to learn about the unintentional states of us. It is a way to see our own emotional loops. Multila is a soundtrack for vision." --Vladislav Delay (2000)

2020 repress. January 1981 found Gudrun Gut and Bettina Koster in Christopher Franke's Berlin-Spandau Studio recording their first Malaria! EP (Zensor Records). Christine Hahn of The Static with Glenn Branca and Barbara Ess, joined in from New York, and Manon P. Duursma fresh from Nina Hagen's O.U.T. project, and Susanne Kuhnke completed the line-up. Malaria! started touring intensively soon after the release of their 12", commencing with a concert with New Order at Brussel's Ancienne Belgique, and going on from there to concerts with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Birthday Party, The Slits, The AuPairs, Raincoats, Nina Hagen, John Cale, and Einstürzende Neubauten. They played venues as diverse as the Mudd Club, Peppermint Lounge and Studio 54 in New York, the Documenta in Kassel, the Bat Cave in London, Les Bains Douche in Paris, Milky Way and Paradiso in Amsterdam, ICA in London, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and Markthalle in Hamburg and naturally, again and again, at the SO36 in Berlin. While touring, Malaria! used their time off to record in Studios in New York, London, Brussels, New Orleans, and in Berlin -- How Do You Like My New Dog? 7" (1981), Weisses Wasser 12" (1982), New York Passage 12" (1982), Revisited cassette (1983), and the Emotion album (1982). At the BBC studios in London, Maida Vale, Malaria! recorded a John Peel Session. Malaria! took a break in 1984 -- Bettina and Christine re-located to New York, and Gudrun and Manon stayed in Berlin to form Matador with Beate Bartel, but not before they recorded their mini-album, Beat The Distance (1985). In 1992 Gudrun, Bettina, Christine, and Manon met up in New Orleans with Jim Thirlwell (Foetus) to record Elation 12". Elation was followed by Cheerio (1993), which again was recorded in Berlin. Chicks on Speed did their own version of Malaria!'s song, "Kaltes Klares Wasser" in 2001, and the remix went into the German Top 10. Malaria! has been an instrumental part of Berlin music history, as recently presented at the "Zurück zum Beton" at Düsseldorf's Kunstakademie, Kunsthalle Wien "Punk!", "Geniale Dilletanten" Goethe Institut, and in B-Movie.

On a collision course with Earth from the furthest reaches of the universe, The Colours That Rise announce their debut album Grey Doubt on the inimitable Rhythm Section International. Comprised of producer duo Simeon Jones and Nathanael Williams, The Colours That Rise have previously turned heads with 2017's 2020 EP released on Breaker Breaker (the label credited with breaking Ross From Friends). Returning with their most accomplished offering to date, Grey Doubt features acclaimed guests such as Yazmin Lacey, Yussef Dayes, and Andrew Ashong, each respectively complementing the incredible musicianship on display here, capturing the true zeitgeist of present day UK. Combining live instrumentation and analog synths, intricate, intertwining textures and melodies run deep throughout this beautifully crafted Afrofuturist voyage, exploring the darkest recesses of the galaxy, through weather-beaten and asteroid damaged synth waves and broken drum patterns reverberating out into the vastness of space. "Home Time" has picked up steam with support across BBC 6 Music and 1Xtra through the likes of Benji B, Tom Ravenscroft, Jamz Supernova, and Mary Anne Hobbs, who awarded it as her "Near Future" track.

"The highly anticipated sixth volume of the well-received electronic compilation series of tracks drawn from the vaults of the Color Tapes label. As with the other volumes you can find great examples of cold wave, minimal wave, and synth electronics made by obscure British bands in the 1980s such as: Berserk In A Hayfield, Lives of Angels, Silicon Valley, Modern Art, Disintegrators, Echophase, The Lord, and Mystery Plane. As with all of the other volumes, this is a co-production between Lion Productions and Color Tapes."

Last copies of this 2014 reissue, the first authorized release of Hinten since its original 1971 release. German krautrock band Guru Guru was formed in 1968 as The Guru Guru Groove by Mani Neumeier (drums), Uli Trepte (bass), and Eddy Naegeli (guitar) (later replaced by American Jim Kennedy (guitar)). By the time of Guru Guru's debut in 1970, Ax Genrich had replaced Kennedy to solidify the classic Guru Guru line up. Guru Guru were related to the free jazz scene both through their work with Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer and through Neumeier, who had already won several jazz prizes before forming the band. They were also influenced by psychedelic rock artists including Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Rolling Stones, and early Pink Floyd. Among the band's friends were Amon Düül, Can, and Xhol Caravan, with whom Guru Guru often jammed. This reissue of their second album, Hinten, originally released in 1971, is presented in a gatefold sleeve bearing the original artwork and the original Ohr catalog number, along with an insert with photographs. Limited edition of 500.

"What we immediately feel listening to this album is the strength both have gained in each one's very personal language. Matthew Shipp - Rob Brown - Then Now. Matthew Shipp (piano), Rob Brown (alto saxophone)."

The second album by the American Gamelan composer and instrument builder, Daniel Schmidt, following In My Arms, Many Flowers (R 017CD), his majestic debut on Recital. Abies Firma lies next chronologically, collecting works from 1976 to 1991, considered the second phase of his compositional form. "We were like children playing with new toys," Daniel recalls of the early days of American Gamelan music. "Though, as we moved into the 1980s, I moved away from Javanese traditional formalism completely, no longer using a constant stream of notes." Daniel became a father twice over in the early '80s, transforming his compositional voice, finding himself open to new affects. Notably, the Sierra fir species, 'abies firma' -- "These trees gave me a sense of rising and rising, all their branches reaching toward sun and sky. Looking at them across open spaces, I felt myself part of their upward striving. The tall mountain trees became rising themes and arpeggios, sometimes even sweeping across the six octaves of the gamelan." This album holds a variety of recordings including an especially immersive tape-delay piece for the rebab, a bowed Javanese instrument. A sort of Eastern Frippertronics weaving the stereo field. Another standout is a semi-improvised flute and gamelan work, ebbing in slowly like a night's wind. "Accumulation" and "Abies Magnifica", the spirited opening pieces, exemplify the precision and dexterity of Daniel's group, The Berkeley Gamelan, who at this time were constantly performing around North America. Two pieces on the album were co-composed by Schmidt and the late Lou Harrison, who helped conceive of the American style of gamelan and enjoyed a similarly long and varied musical career. "Unempins to Sociseknum" is based on arranging Harrison's social security number against Schmidt's unemployment insurance number. A window into the cooperative spirit and experimentation of the late 70s. LP comes with a CD including the additional piece "One White Crow," a three-part tapestry of melodic fragments which epitomizes the second phase of Schmidt's composing; a divergence from both Javanese and European music. Daniel states, "William James once said that one white crow would suffice to overturn science's assertion that all crows are black. I felt myself to be 'one white crow' amidst the prominent, established musical styles." Includes 20-page booklet holding program notes, scores, and a new essay on American Gamelan by Jay Arms. Includes bonus track "Cypress", recorded in 1987.

"L-Seven were a short-lived but foundational post-punk band from Detroit, MI. Active between 1980-83, L-Seven only ever officially released one 7" on Touch And Go's Special Forces, a division of Touch And Go Records designated for releases that were not just straight-ahead punk and hardcore, the L-Seven 7'' was the only Special Forces release. L-Seven was formed by members of The Blind, Retro and Algebra Mothers and fiery singer Larissa Stolarchuk and are not to be confused with the similarly named LA grunge group L7 who would form a decade afterward. Following the demise of L-Seven, Larissa (now going by Larissa Strickland), while still donning her bleached blonde hair and tattered floral sundress with combat boots, would put down the mic and pick up a guitar and form the seminal Laughing Hyenas with her partner in (life of) crime John Brannon. During their time together L-Seven was loved and respected by all of the Detroit punk and hardcore bands. Larissa was the surrogate den mother to the hardcore scene and although L-Seven's sound was far from hardcore, their DIY attitude and willingness to bring art into their music was hugely inspiring and influencial to the 'Freezer Theater' crew. They shared stages with Negative Approach, Necros, Meatmen and all of the midwest superstars as well as many legendary touring artists. L-Seven opened for Iggy, The Birthday Party, Bush Tetras, did a small tour with Gun Club and even played U2's first ever Detroit show (proof of this is included on this LP). Third Man Records is beyond proud to be releasing an LP of unreleased studio and live recordings. It has been our honor to work closely with longtime fan and almost-member Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, all surviving L-Seven members as well as a few other folks from the L-Seven scene. Sadly, Larissa passed away in 2006, but her presence is missed and this record is dedicated to her. The limited colored vinyl exclusive LP includes a bonus 4 song 7" -- three studio tracks and one live, very raw version of L-Seven and John Brannon covering 'You Drive Me Nervous' by Alice Cooper."

"In this special issue we pay tribute to Phil May of the Pretty Things. Included our interviews with those who knew him best, including his close friend and lifelong collaborator, Dick Taylor, as well as an array of rare and previously unseen Pretty Things photos. Also this issue, the story behind the Electras' gnarly sixties punk masterpiece 'Dirty Old Man,' the tale of Midwest psychedelic masters the Paisleys (Cosmic Mind at Play), Southern California garage-psych combo the Search, guitarist Craig Tarwater (Hawk & the Randelas, Sons of Adam, Daily Flash, Arthur Lee & Love), and a night of music and mirth with Hasil Adkins. We also explore the world of gypsy jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo and its intersections with pop and psychedelia in the 1960s, and tell the strange story of the San Jose garage pop group People, who recorded a hit version of the Zombies 'I Love You,' only to become enmeshed in the sinister world of Scientology. All this and a lot more, including as always our expansive review sections covering all the latest reissues and rock & roll-related books."

Green vinyl repress! "Time is absolute garbage . . . But here's the thing: given enough time, your friends are going to keep making records, you're going to keep listening to them, and if you're lucky, some of them are going to seep into the cracks of your day-to-day . . . Since its initial appearance as a private press double cassette in 2016, Annual Flowers in Color has been exactly this sort of talisman for me. More to the point, it's also the closest thing to a definitive statement in the twelve-year history of John Elliott's Imaginary Softwoods and a no-brainer on the thinking head's shortlist of Elliott's most essential releases, alongside Outer Space's Akashic Record (Events: 1986-1990) (SP 019LP, 2012), Emeralds' Solar Bridge (2008) and What Happened (EMEGO 109LP, 2010), Mist's House (SP 004CD/LP, 2011), Lilypad's Capacitor (2008), Colored Mushroom and the Medicine Rocks' self-titled LP (2010), and Quiet Light Water Gap's Live at the Delaware County VFW Hall (2010). While each of these projects draws from the same reservoir of glittering pinpoint riffcraft and homespun surrealism and each reflects in its own fashion the awareness that a certain undercurrent of lurid horror is essential to all authentically psychedelic music, Imaginary Softwoods has always been distinguished in its relationship to a particular decades-long chain of private press loner music, or chamber music for shut-ins. You wouldn't necessarily be wrong to call Annual Flowers in Color 'deeply personal,' but that almost misses the point . . . it's handmade, human-scale domestic ritual music the making of which is inseparable from the sense in which it's been 'lived in.' . . . Above all, Annual Flowers in Color is an absolutely gorgeous, perfectly weathered, subtly strange record. It's exactly the thing you're thinking of when you think 'I want to hear really killer polysynths and tape delay,' but it's also much more, glistening with distended reflections of Steve Roach and Stapleton, ringing with simultaneous sublimated echoes of the dorkiest and most expensive French mellotron prog and the most incandescent cheap heat from the $2 exotica bin, and dripping with the 'as above, so below' that characterizes synthesizer records at their best. It's both a welcoming point of entry for the uninitiated and a sticky, seductive cut deep enough to envelop any heads seeking a way station on the search for the apocryphal second volume of Cosmos Farm Sessions." --Chris Madak (Philadelphia, February 2020)

Never-before-issued music from three very different settings in upstate New York, all recorded in the period running up to Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's Nation Time (CVSD 054CD). From a year before that landmark LP, in the same hall at Vassar College, McPhee led a band with soulful vibraphonist Ernie Bostic and voluble rhythm section of Tyrone Crabb and Bruce Thompson, both of Nation Time fame, performing a John Coltrane-oriented set that included versions of Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue" and Coltrane's "Naima," as well as McPhee-fave "God Bless The Child." Deeply emotional and fiery playing with this unusual instrumentation -- rare to find McPhee playing with a harmonically based instrument like vibes. McPhee had organized a larger group also meant to feature Bostic and a French horn for a concert at a monastery in nearby New Windsor, but the band was pared down to a quartet with saxophonist Reggie Marks, playing a powerful combination of originals and the Patty Waters-associated traditional tune "Black Is The Color." (The concert also featured a cameo by David Nelson of the Last Poets, but technical issues in the recording scuttled that and several other tracks.) Finally, three cuts document a more rough-and-tumble gig taped outdoors in the park at Poughkeepsie's Lincoln Centre -- the only surviving recordings of this funky, bluesy, lowdown, explosive configuration, they feature vocals by one Octavius Graham, great drumming by Chico Hawkins, and Tyrone Crabb on electric bass. This two-CD set has been lovingly transferred from the original tapes out of from McPhee's personal archives, and is augmented by newly discovered photographs of the concerts. A spectacular deep dive into the pure magic of Mr. McPhee.

For a performance at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in spring of 1966, percussionist Milford Graves invited pianist Don Pullen to play duets. The two musicians had worked together in a band fronted by saxophonist and clarinetist Giusseppi Logan, with whom they had recorded two LPs in 1965 for ESP-Disk'. Graves was already a daunting presence in free music. One step at a time, he was busy transforming the role of drumming in jazz, introducing a new way of dealing with unmetered time and accomplishing this task with technique that was almost inconceivable. His experience playing timbales in Latin bands had been formative, suggesting that the snare could be used as accent rather than beat-keeper, but by the mid '60s he'd worked up a holistic approach to sound and energy that was the most radical of his improvising percussion contemporaries. And with a simpatico accomplice like Pullen, who would go on to have an illustrious career with Charles Mingus, co-fronting a band with George Adams, and as a soloist and bandleader. This early setting finds Pullen is at his most hard-hitting, and his piano concept as heard here lays to rest dubious claims of Cecil Taylorism. Inspired by their performance, Graves and Pullen issued an LP, In Concert at Yale University, Vol. 1 on their own Self-Reliance Program imprint (1966). The vinyl is impossibly rare, especially its first copies, which sported hand-painted covers by the musicians. A second volume titled Nommo (1967) was subsequently issued, and it too is a highly prized platter. None of this music has ever been available digitally. The tapes were lost, so in putting this production together -- in the works for ten years -- virgin copies of the LPs were used. One CD includes the two complete LPs together with original cover designs, a gallery of hand-painted LPs, and a photo of Graves and Pullen selling them at a Nation of Islam convention. An insert modeled after the original one presents an interview with Graves about the production of the records. This is beyond the holy grail of free music. It is as vital and challenging today as it was more than five decades ago. Corbett Vs. Dempsey is honored to have collaborated with Milford Graves on this historic reissue. Personnel: Milford Graves - drums and percussion; Don Pullen - piano.

Derek Baron is a composer, musician, and artist. Curtain is a diary. Both in musical and non-musical situations, they attribute a filmic quality to their journal-like aural self-documentation. Dreams turn real then dissolve. Single phrases and events arrive and leave, abruptly. Yet, the overall sense of place that Baron creates is understood. Opening Curtain is the eponymous piece. A 21-minute live chamber work for quintet recorded in 2018. A musical assemblage of glued-together fragments and scraps of sheet music from Baron's past. Compositions wrote in the small margins and folds of paper; illustrated in the art booklet included with the LP. The flute, violin, guitar, keyboard, and bass clarinet phrases saunter at a pre-sleep pace, until a subdued, yet ecstatic Mass theme ushers in periodically. Delivering the warmth of life... it is a slow beauty. It brings me such happiness listening to this piece. Its continuity is cut with scissors and pasted about oddly... all soaked in a certain malaise; a resigned grace. The next piece and other side of the LP, "Chancel," is rather different. An audio journal flipped through, dropped on the ground, picked up and opened to another page. A confusing montage of world-ized musical snatches: car radios, church choirs emanating to the streets, moldy organs, domestic piano recordings. Similarly, machine vibrations, bodega conversations, and other environmental observations segue the harmony and disharmony of this listening experience. Here are some of Derek's notes from the booklet: "Co-opting new achievements / Thank you for this incredible demonstration / This theatre of procedures / This consoling play of recognitions / No theatre but "what's that", / Nowhere for the silver ball to roll to. / How are we so in love." 16-page color pamphlet of artwork & text by Baron; edition of 150.

LP version. "'Godzilla just walked into the room. People just stood there with their eyes and mouths wide open.' To hear Randy Holden describe the audience's reaction in 1969 to his solo debut performing with a teeth-rattling phalanx of 16 (sixteen!) 200 watt Sunn amps is about as close as one will get to truly experience the moment heavy metal music morphed into existence. However, at last Riding Easy have unearthed the proper fossil record. Population II, the now legendary, extremely rare album by guitarist/vocalist Holden and drummer/keyboardist Chris Lockheed is considered to be one of the earliest examples of doom metal. Though its original release was a very limited in number and distribution, like all great records, its impact over time has continued to grow. In 1969, Holden, fresh off his tenure with proto-metal pioneers Blue Cheer (appearing on one side of the New! Improved! Blue Cheer album and touring for the better part of a year in the group), aimed for more control over his band. Thus, Randy Holden - Population II was born, the duo naming itself after the astronomical term for a particular star cluster with heavy metals present. 'I wanted to do something that hadn't been done before,' Holden explains. 'I was interested in discordant sounds that could be melodic but gigantically huge. I rented an Opera house for rehearsal, set up with 16 Sunn amps. That's what I was going for, way over the top.' And over the top it is. The six-song album delves into leaden sludge, lumbering doom and epic soaring riffs that sound free from all constraints of the era. It's incredibly heavy, but infused with a melodic, albeit mechanistic, sensibility. Troubles with the album's release bankrupted Holden, who subsequently left music for over two decades. It was bootlegged several times over the years, but until now hasn't seen a proper remaster and has yet to be available on digital platforms. 'The original mastering just destroyed the dynamics of it,' Holden says. 'They flattened it out. Now we got a really nice remaster that should be the closest thing to the original recording.'"