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Just one week after the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987, Riad brought his sisters Hanan, Alia and Nariman together in their living room and began recording The Intifada album on equipment he had made himself. One of these was co-written with their friend, the acclaimed Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish. Riad printed 3000 copies of the cassettes which he began distributing in the Old City of Jerusalem and across the West Bank. The Israeli Army immediately confiscated all the copies they could find, the vast majority of which remain in the military archives to this day. Riad was arrested, interrogated and detained for several months. Straight after his release, he formed a band, Palestinian Union, and put out a new album. He then founded a school, offering kids in the West Bank an alternative musical education, teaching them how to create their own electronic equipment. In 2005, Riad was tragically killed in a car accident. His legacy lives on through his family, his timeless music and his powerful story, which continues to inspire 34 years on from the First Intifada. *** During the first lockdown of 2020, artist and music collector Mo’min Swaitat was in Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, when he met up with a family friend and former record label owner, whom he remembered from childhood. The family friend told him he no longer ran the label and that all his cassettes were now in storage and had not been played for decades. Mo’min purchased over five thousand cassettes from him, amongst them a large collection of music from the First Intifada. One of these was The Intifada album.

In 2018, Rian Treanor left his home in Rotherham, UK, and headed to Kampala for a residency at Nyege Nyege's villa studio. The mind-expanding experience inspired his critically acclaimed 2020 full-length "File Under UK Metaplasm", but that wasn't the end of the story. Treanor also spent time working alongside Acholi fiddle player Ocen James, developing an improvisation-heavy collaboration that would push both musicians' idiosyncrasies into completely new places. Treanor wanted this collaboration to be as tactile and reactive as a live performance with traditional instruments, so he set about working on a digital process that would synchronize with James' approach. Using physical modelling techniques, Treanor created an instrument that explored the tunings and sounds of the a'dungu, an arched harp, and the nah or nag. With Ocen playing his rigi rigi, a single string violin, they intuitively experimented with the spectral properties of sound, using texture and acoustic contours as their structural framework. They were able to develop a sound together that was unconventionally rooted in traditional Ugandan culture, but shuttled into different dimensions of noise, computer music and radical UK rave. "Saccades" is the buffer between two vastly different sonic universes, united in respect and sprightly curiosity. Treanor's hyperactive computer-controlled rhythms are immediately identifiable on opening track 'Bunga Bule', but the sound palette is distinct: it's more flexible and less digital. James' expressionistic fiddle strokes are a revelation, contorted into hoarse squeals and rough vibrations that rub and flex off Treanor's tin can shuffle. The fertile back and forth continues through the ruff DSP tumble of 'As It Happens', before James cracks open the melodic core of his instrument on 'The Dead Centre', allowing Treanor to dispense with rhythm and meet his fiddle strokes with heavenly drones. Each track steps down a different avenue for the two artists, from the nightmarish microtonal twang of 'Memory Pressure' to the 4AM inverted sci-fi club pressure of 'Naasaccade' and the folky dancefloor swing of 'Rigi Rigi'. And when the album closes on a cacophonous remix from Vienna laptop noise pioneers Farmers Manual it's an unexpected gift that makes perfect sense. "Saccades" is a cross-cultural collaboration that swerves simplicity but refuses to over-complicate itself - it's about interaction, improvisation and passion.

OK this is a full madness; visually impaired pensioners Anne Goss (75), Kathleen Allott (74) and Mick Gladwin (65) aka Rotherham Sight & Sound play the music of persistent prism disruptor Rian Treanor with a knockout set of mutant dancehall and mercurial electro-styled zingers, a huge tip if you’re into Autechre, SND, Kakuhan, Iueke, Shubharun Sengupta. Rian Treanor keeps knocking new doors of possibility with his new label Electronic Music Club and its initial focus on Rotherham Sight & Sound, participants of a community-based initiative in their shared post-industrial home town Rotherham. Utilising software synths designed by Rian and his dad Mark Fell, the trio twist out vortices of shearing, asymmetric anarchitecture, rudely resembling the sort of hyper-contemporary styles alluded to in Rian’s solo works, but inflected with cranky timing and an intuitive freedom that bears extraordinary results, especially when considering the fact the trio had no prior musical ability, and only encountered electronic music a few years ago. After a couple of years of practice and performance, ‘Action Potential’ now firms up their quicksilver sound for club and home buzzes with seven actions that warp and morph from the needling jolts and hoof of ‘Pass The Go’, to shuddering detonations in ‘Dial’, each with a properly electrifying force carrying a genuine futureshock. Working within Rian’s systems-based framework, Anne, Kathleen, and Mick deploy a tactile feel for the machines, finely honed over the course of many sessions at the Rotherham Sight & Sound facility, that uses their visual impairments to synaesthetic advantage. Between the wickedly metallic ragga swivel of ‘Hold’, the diffractive chain reactions of ‘When It Ends’, and more tempered, sloshing sensuality of ‘30 Seconds’, the trio follow their noses down wormholes that manifest an ideal of accessibility and expressionism within electronic music contexts that Rian and Mark have long worked towards, with Anne, Kathleen and Mick’s relative lack of cultural conditioning in this paradigm prompting them to act on pure instinct. Seriously, this has to be one of the most unexpectedly brilliant and boundary shattering sides of the year, not to be missed by any self-respecting follower of the future or hyper present.

Recorded and released in 1987, the original cassette bore a minimalist plum tree design on the cover and music soothing to match. There are only 2 confirmed copies of the original cassette, one of them was used in the restoration and revival of this classic new age album. 

Five years after the New Age cult-classic album Music For Massage hit the shelves, it’s sequel was silently released. Never intended for consumer sale, Music For Massage II was only known to a select few masseuses and tape collectors. The very definition of esoteric. Musically, it’s both an homage to how far the genre had come in those five years and served as a predictor of what was to come. Comprising elements of Folk, Drone, Ambient, Ethereal, Minimal, Modern Classical, the recording is quintessential of all things New Age. These are sounds meant to induce healing, therapy, and relaxation. Hand crafted by Ric Kaestner and inspired in part by an encounter with one of the fathers of modern music, John Cage, for actual massage or for casual listening, it holds its own almost four decades later. 
 

“…this album is very much a product of the current Rio scene (where it was also partly recorded), and it ranks with the best experimental Brazilian rock albums that scene has produced in the last decade” Rod Taylor, Brazil Beat “Personally this has everything for me: finely balanced Brazilian songwriting with an edge of noise.” Andy Cumming, Sounds & Colours “Muito Sol reinforces Ricardo Dias Gomes’ position at the forefront of contemporary Brazilian music.” Joseph Neff, The Vinyl District “Dias toggles effortlessly between melodic gems and more sound-driven excursions…It’s one of my favorite albums of the year” Peter Margasak, Nowhere Street “Gomes is a minimalist at heart, adept at conjuring up intimate worlds from the sparest of gestures” Andy Beta, The Shfl “…a strange beautiful work of skewered pop, and unexpected weirdness” Bob Baker Fish, Cyclic Defrost “…enticingly original music” John Parry, Backseat Mafia “…unveils new, intricate elements with every new play” Ljubinko Zivkovic, Echoes & Dust Hive Mind Records are excited to bring you Muito Sol, the third solo album from Brazilian auteur Ricardo Dias Gomes. The album is a deep, widescreen exploration in classic Brazilian song that brings all the subtlety and delicacy you'd expect from the pioneers of Musica Popular Brasileira coupled with a thoroughly 21st century sensibility and taste for sonic innovation. A respected innovator on the Rio de Janeiro music scene since the mid 90s, Gomes is perhaps best known for his work on the trio of critically-acclaimed albums Caetano Veloso released in the late 00s: Cê (2006), Zii and Zie (2009) and Abraçaço (2012). Playing bass on these modern milestones in post-Tropicalia, and subsequently touring the world with Veloso, inspired Gomes to record his debut album -11 (2015), followed by the mini-album Aa, which featured Arto Lindsay (2018). Muito Sol was recorded between New York, Lisbon & Rio de Janeiro and features a stellar cast of global players such as Jeremy Gustin (drums), Will Graefe (guitars), Ryan Dugre(guitars), Gil Oliveira (percussion), Alex Toth (trumpet), Tiago Queiroz (sax, flute), Jonas Sá (synths), Julian Desprez (guitars), Pedro Sá (guitars) & Shahzad Ismaily (synths); the album is often deceptive in its simplicity and repeated listens reveal layers of intricate instrumentation and arrangement, making listening something like an exciting exercise in excavation. The album was recorded following Gomes' move from Rio to Lisbon and was inspired by the sense of unease that followed the move from a culture of vibrant spontaneity to a more genteel and 'civilised' country. Unlike Gomes' previous solo outings, Muito Sol includes a number of songs that explicitly celebrate Brazil's musical heritage and culture that are based on the Samba Ostinato. The songs, led by Gomes' gentle and dreamy voice, are often reminiscent of classic innovators such as Caetano Veloso, João Bosco or Edu Lobo, though they take unexpected lines of flight into more experimental territory. There is also an element of drone underpinning the whole album which surfaces and takes full charge on Fllux and Transição, before the album is closed by what turns into the molten, distorted piece of raging hardcore, Coração Sulamericano, Ricardo's expression of pride in his Latin American heritage. Muito Sol is a sun drenched dream from start to finish and album to be bathed in.

As the latest work of Ricardo Villalobos, the double EP "Agglomeration Of Atomised Souls" is a collaboration work with producer/DJ Ferro (Jasper Verrijzer), who is also known as the co-organizer of VBX Music, a popular collective/record label in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.・Pack is analog release! A powerful board containing 4 songs of hypnotic minimal techno with an experimental and strong skeleton. I'd love to!

Oren Ambarchi’s recent Editions Mego release 'Hubris' gets the remix treatment courtesy of electronic music legend Ricardo Villalobos. Villalobos expertly tranforms Ambarchi’s layered web of countless sustained and pulsating palm-muted guitars into a funky, mesmerising and propulsive long-form piece.

Ricardo Villalobos - modular synths, drum machines, keys Samuel Rohrer - drums/percussion, electronics, modular synths, keys The Ricardo Villalobos / Samuel Rohrer partnership has yielded increasingly interesting results over the past few years, with the former’s remixes of the latter’s trio Ambiq being supplemented by further reinterpretations of Rohrer’s solo work and live meetings at selected events like Berlin’s Funkhaus. As should be the case with any strong collaboration, this partnership has been based on mutual challenge rather than compromise, seeing each participant shuttle key technical and emotive aspects of the other’s work to previously unexpected places. Those who have been closely following this relationship will notice a definite sense of continuity between previous outings and the new collaborative release entitled MICROGESTURES. As with those earlier Villalobos / Rohrer pairings, these five new pieces are defined by a special quality of being many things that once: that is to say, depending on the listener’s own level of focus, these can feel very tightly constructed and disciplined, or playful and freely wandering. That the tracks are equally engaging regardless of one’s chosen listening “mode” is a testament to the level of thought put into them; you could almost imagining the creators poring over some elaborate sketched set of architectural blueprints rather than coolly monitoring the usual multi-track editing software. Altogether the music here is firmly a-melodic and percussive, but within these deliberate limitations there is still a greater variety of individual sounds than most would bother with. Each track is its own observatory of micro-gestures clustering together into a dense communicative fog or a sort of robotic sound swarm. Yet while all these tracks are variations on that theme, each one has its own character and, consequently, its own rewards in terms of the exact sectors of the imagination that it activates. Take for example “Cochlea” and its twin “Helix,” on which the magnetizing, busy layers of percussion are tempered with mischievously disruptive blossomings of digital noise, as well as sampled radio communications (which again bring us back to the idea of listeners’ attentiveness changing the meaning of this music - these curious transmissions can either be taken as a purely aesthetic element or as something to be actively decoded). Club-oriented elements are also not absent from this suite, particularly on “Incus” with its traditional sequenced baseline, crisp synthetic trap and hats, and dizzily sliding set of bell-like tones laid on top. Yet this track, too, is powered as much by its restless desire to deviate as by its rhythmic consistency: throughout the eleven-minute running time, a mass of ambiguous and restless machine sounds build a parallel narrative, and will maybe prompt the occasional glance over the shoulder as they seem to be taking on their own life. “Lobule” rounds out the program with the most rhythmically eventful sound set of the five. What this all adds up to is a confident music which builds that quality from its faith in possibilities rather than firm conclusions: it’s an inspiring addition to both the musical landscape and reality in general.

Ricardo Villalobos lands on Dana Ruh’s BQD TRAX for the label’s second ever release with two fresh sides of marathon-length minimal and broken beat entitled I’m Broken. Offering two different looks at a similar palette of sounds, Villalobos favours a mid-tempo break-y chug here, drawing deep emotion and ennui out of a vocal chop uttering the title and some stormy, high frequency synth lines. The B side’s Mix 2 clears away a bit of the clattering noise, but stutters the vocal line to give it an alien or computer malfunctioning feel. It’s a neat trick from a master at work.

For over a quarter of a century, sound artist and composer Richard Chartier has interrogated an ever deepening thread of minimalist sound that meshes questions of stasis, pulse and timbre. The results of this work is some of the most quietly intense compositions of this century. His is a music of subtle variation, unwavering concentration, and also patience. This five-part work created between 2020 and 2022 is dedicated to his friend and fellow sound artist Steve Roden. "I first became friends with Steve Roden (and later his wife, Sari) back in 1998 when my first album 'direct.incidental.consequential' was released. He was one of the first group of artists to whom i sent the album. Almost instantly he had been there on the other side of the phone (or email) and ever since. His way of listening and attention to details (no matter how small) was inspirational — the clarity and complexity of his understated and only seemingly simple compositions, engaging. Underneath it all, 'the less' truly opened your ears to 'the more.' Steve saw and heard everything between the noise, no matter how faint. Some of the last times I was able to see Steve were right before the pandemic. The effects of his advancing Alzheimers were present, still somewhat subtle, but increasing. I am still regretful that we were unable to spend more time together prior to his succumbing to his condition's cruel effects. Another regret is not engaging in the collaboration we had both talked about for YEARS. 'We should really start on that sometime soon' Steve and I would say with each passing year. I worked on the compositions included on this album as Steve gradually slipped away from communication. He was not in my life like he had been before. During this time it became apparent that these pieces were for Steve. A reflection of his ability to find beauty in the most minute details. Even when finally reviewing the final masters after his passing, I tried to think about how Steve would listen. What would Steve hear in the details? His effect on this album is strong... the accumulation of influence and inspiration. This album feels organic and warm and was developed during a time when his absence in my life increased. That warmth is reflective of the nature of who Steve was himself, his friendship, and his visual & sound work. on listening... on loss... on leaving... As Steve and I mutually suggested... for quiet amplification or headphone listening."

The original was released on Folkways in 1983, and the phantom board, which was highly acclaimed by the world's experimental music enthusiasts, has recurred from M! A Fluxus-like work that "plays" a bicycle by attaching a voltage-type self-made pickup microphone developed with advice from David Tudor to the bicycle to generate a gamelan-like sound. Disc 1 contains the contents of the original record and the performance scenery as extras. Disc 2 contains works by Richard Rahman from 1964 to 1986. Both are the world's first CDs. It ’s a historic achievement.

An important piece in the history of experimental music, Richard Maxfield's 1969 album “Electronic Music” has been reissued by PAROLE! The album contains electronic music/music concoctions created in the early 1960s while Maxfield was a member of Fluxus and deeply involved with La Monte Young, David Tudor, and others. Pastoral Symphony" is a soundscape of continuous electronic sounds, an innovative experiment at the time. Bacchanale" is a collage of disparate materials, including jazz, Korean folk songs, spoken word, and Terry Jennings' saxophone. Piano Concert for David Tudor" has an underground tension, mixing internal piano techniques with amplified metallic sounds. The “Amazing Grace” piece, which is a minimalist work that anticipates Steve Reich and Terry Riley by layering tape loops at different speeds, greatly expands the possibilities of electronic music of the 1960s, and is also connected to the origins of minimalism and contemporary music. It still has a stimulating resonance. The vintage equipment and hand-crafted collage textures that stand out only on analog vinyl are irresistible!

LPs "CODA" is @ Bam Balam Records. Produced and All rights and responsibility @ Richard PINHAS.2022/ Special Thanks to JJ from BamBALAM Records(2023)

Bastard Science EP is a modular synthesizer-based work by Richard Scott, who is also known as a member of the band Twinkle³ and teaches at the Catalyst Institute, a creative arts and technology school in Berlin.

Richard began his musical journey in the early 1980s and released his first modular synthesizer piece in 1992. Since then, he has continued to release works both as a solo artist and in collaborative projects, while also contributing to the design and development of modular systems.

His work spans not only solo electronic projects but also improvisational sessions with acoustic instruments. He regularly performs concerts across Europe. In this EP, Richard explores new rhythmic possibilities, reflecting his belief that “Although music has expanded enormously over the past hundred years in terms of timbre, melody, and harmony—through contemporary music, jazz, and experimental electronic music—I feel rhythm is still relatively underdeveloped.”

An insert included with the record features an interview with Richard, in which he shares his thoughts on engaging with experimental music and the experience of generating sound through the modular interface.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce a major archival release from legendary American composer and live electronics innovator Richard Teitelbaum, centred around his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt’s cult 1978 animation Asparagus. Best known to some listeners for introducing Europe to the Moog synthesizer as a founding member of Musica Elettronica Viva in Rome, Teitelbaum’s extensive and radically experimental body of work includes collaborative recordings with master improvisers like Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille and George Lewis, intercultural experiments combining electronics with non-Western instruments such as the shakuhachi, works for computer controlled piano, and large-scale multi-media operas. Recorded at York University, Toronto in 1975–1976, ‘Asparagus (European Version)’ sprawls across both sides of the first LP. Discovered by composer Matt Sargent in Teitelbaum’s tape archive, this is a previously unheard major work for Moog modular and Polymoog synthesizers, unique in Teitelbaum’s oeuvre for its lushness and gently melodic quality. The music unfolds slowly, submerging lyrical melodies and burbling arpeggios into uneasy, glacially shifting harmonic swells, the luscious texture thickened with subtle changes of modulation and phase, calling up the shifting layers of Costin Miereanu’s classic Derives or the kosmische Musik tradition more than any academic synthesizer exercise. Teitelbaum incorporated much of this material into his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt’s Asparagus, which receives its first official release here. Asparagus, famously paired with David Lynch’s Eraserhead for a two-year run of midnight screenings at New York’s Waverly Theatre, uses hand-drawn and stop animation to unfurl an oneiric succession of images, beginning with a sequence in which the female protagonist defecates two stalks of asparagus, which multiply and float out of the toilet bowl to form the letters of the title. Teitelbaum’s soundtrack interweaves delicate drifting tones from the ‘European Version’ with contributions from Steve Lacy and Steve Potts on saxophones, George Lewis on trombone and Takehisa Kosugi on violin. Edited closely to the film, even without images the soundtrack proposes a surreal journey through floating synth tones, squealing horns, propulsive arpeggios, distant chatter, and an old-timey waltz. The final side of the set presents a new realisation of Teitelbaum’s text score ‘Threshold Music’, performed at a memorial concert at Roulette, New York in 2022 by Leila Bourreuil (cello), Alvin Curran (sampler and objects), Daniel Fishkin (daxophone), Miguel Frasconi (glass objects) and Matt Sargent (lap steel). The piece asks musicians to match their instrumental volume to that of the sounds of the environment in which they play, sometimes with the addition of recorded environmental sounds, reinforcing frequencies they encounter in listening deeply to their surroundings. Here the players use a field recording taken at Teitelbaum’s home in Bearsville, New York, their long tones and shimmering, glassy textures delicately emerging from the white noise of the location recording. Released with the full approval of both Richard Teitelbaum and Suzan Pitt’s estates, Asparagus is illustrated with striking images from Pitt’s film and accompanied by detailed liner notes by Francis Plagne. These previously unheard pieces shed new light on the work of a key composer in the American experimental tradition, offering up some of Teitelbaum’s most beautiful and engaging music.

Richard Wolfhouse comes through on Trule with his debut release, Percussion Edits Vol. 1. Three tracks indebted to 1970s African percussion records and 2000s minimal techno. Long, winding percussion workouts woven with modular synthesis and drum machines primed for dancefloors.

The inimitable Richard Youngs returns to Black Truffle with this third full-length for the label, Hidden. Like CXXI and Modern Sorrow, Hidden unfolds across two side-long pieces at once eminently listenable and possessed of the ‘bloody-minded’ dedication to ‘having an idea and sticking with it’ that Youngs himself has identified as one of the key qualities of his work.

At the core of both pieces are rapid, randomised arpeggios generated with a Moog Grandmother, hypnotic patterns that wouldn’t be out of place on a Berlin School classic. Alongside these arpeggios, across the seventeen minutes of the first side-long piece Youngs builds an airy structure of shakers, synthetic handclaps and a brief, repeated sample, impossible to identify but sounding like a glitched foghorn. Over the top we hear his unmistakable voice, repeating single syllables—Ha, Ho—with a slow delay, something like a lonely one-man-band take on Anthony Moore’s Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom or a more musical elaboration of the hypnotically overlapping delayed phonemes of Anton Bruhin’s Rotomotor. Like much of Youngs' work, the arrangement of sounds is sparse, each layer punctuated by spaces that allow others to shine through, in a way that seems to have more to do with dub or early hip-hop than high-brow models of musical reductionism.

On the flipside, the arpeggios return, now accompanied by ringing, filtered guitar chords and long flute tones. The use of a similar ground layer across the two pieces with strikingly different overdubs calls up Youngs' first solo record, the classic Advent, reminding us of how consistent ‘theme and variations’ is as an approach in his enormous body of work. Joined by handclaps and a chiming sound, the piece almost feels like it is about to achieve dance-floor lift-off at times, only for the percussion to disappear and leave the listener once again floating among the guitar and flute, now joined by occasional cut-off vocal snippets, like a radio turned quickly on and off. The suspension of these disparate elements over the steady foundation of the Moog arpeggios might remind some listeners of the free-form studio explorations of Moebius & Plank and Holger Czukay or even give a nod to Youngs’ formative encounter with Cabaret Voltaire.

Like some of Youngs’ much-loved work with Simon Wickham-Smith, Hidden approaches relatively familiar sounds and instruments from skewed angles, delighting in loose structures of interaction that border on gleeful incoherence while remaining outwardly beautiful. Coming up to almost four decades of persistent activity, like little else in contemporary music Youngs’ work beams with the simple joys of exploration and experiment.



The endlessly prolific and unpredictable Richard Youngs returns to Black Truffle with Modern Sorrow. As any Youngs fan knows, one of the great pleasures of following his career comes from not being able to predict what the next entry in his inexhaustible string of releases will bring: Unaccompanied voice? Country songs? Shakuhachi? Guitar pieces played with his feet? Shredding fuzz bass over the top of hyper-speed distorted drum machine beats? Continuing in the grand Youngs tradition of exploring new techniques, instrumentation and approaches while bringing to all of them his idiosyncratic touch, Modern Sorrow serves up two sides of twistedly elegiac, radically stark takes on contemporary pop production. The side-long title track is built from a piano sample, synthetic bass notes and organ swells, and an iterative blurt that seems to have wandered out of a 90s jungle track. Eventually joined by a shuffling drum machine, the track moves very slowly through a series of chords, each delayed long enough that its arrival comes as a major event. Over the top, Youngs’ heavily pitch-corrected voice is heard. The processing paints his signature wandering melodic improvisations with shades of contemporary R&B; at the same time, it cuts the natural swoops and glides of Youngs’ melodies into rapid microtonal trills, giving his voice a quavering, middle eastern feel. Unfolding languorously over more than 17 minutes, the piece’s final minutes make room for an extended drumless coda, returning to the stark palette of its opening moments. On the second side, the two parts of ‘Benevolence’ push this minimalism ever further, its first half consisting of nothing more than a remarkably slow drum machine hit, bass-heavy chords and pitch-corrected voice, here so heavily processed that it starts to resemble a shawn solo. In its second part, the harmonic foundation drops out from under the piece while two more voices join; at some moments the voices pause, leaving nothing more than isolated, metronomic drum hits. Though Youngs has explored the sound worlds associated with dance music and contemporary pop in previous work, here these elements are radically reduced, foregrounding a meditative bed of silence with a boldness equal to any more academically inclined contemporary composer. Embracing the accessible digital tools of contemporary music production just as at another moment he would pick up a kazoo, like much of Youngs’ work Modern Sorrow uses simple DIY tools to generous ends, producing formally radical music that remains both free from pretension and deeply moving.

Debut album that serves as both an optimistic statement of intent and a final glance back at the painful places it explores

80s synth magic for the four-track mind.

DIY outsider Rick Cuevas was a post-punk refugee on a vision quest for a hit. Tracked at home in 1984, "The Birds" is that 40-year-delayed viral smash, one of eight retro-futurist anthems that make up Cuevas' debut album. Remastered from the analog masters, this 40th anniversary edition replicates the 200-copy original for max teleportation value.

Man from Wareika was the first album recording for Rico Rodriguez led by his own artistic imagination, not to mention the only roots reggae album to be released on Blue Note Records in the USA. After 15 years Rodriguez returned for the first time to Jamaica. He had left the country in 1961 when he was already heavily involved in creating the then new ska sound. In 1976 he added something new to reggae music. The nine self-composed tracks on the album offer intense Jamaican rhythms with seriously horn lines more linked to the jazz heritage. The trombonist album was released on Island Records in 1976 for the UK market and soon labeled as a revolutionary step forward.

Rico Rodriguez, all-round brilliant Jamaican horn and and trombonist, played a pivotal role in shaping the sound of ska, rocksteady and reggae. Born in Kingston in 1934, he began his career in the 1950s then joined the Skatalites in the early 1960s, and whether one chalks this lucky break up to birthrights, shrewd decisions or chance sliding door moments is up to the historian. But his talent cannot be denied: over the years, Rico worked with Toots And The Maytals, Bob Marley, and The Specials. His masterful trombone solos lent parping bombast to a scene which abhorred tinniness, and the Man From Wareika album exemplified this. This dub edition is a crucial pre-release dub edition from the 1976 classic, in which we hear a full instrumental brass-and-bass dive-bombing across nine formerly unreleased Island Records trinkets.

Invisible City Editions continues our 10 year anniversary in adventurous sounds. We are thrilled to announce the re-release of Rico Toto’s 1993 CD recording Fwa Épi Sajès. Mind melting synthesizers and drum machines fuse with ancient Guadeloupe Gwo-ka rhythms in this musical endeavour Rico Toto describes as “Electro-ka.” The improvised live instruments of the Moundjahka ensemble meld with electronic abstraction to create a psychedelic, immersive digital diaspora dream state. With nods to Jon Hassell's atmospheric soundscapes, YMO and Baldelli / TBC Cosmic mixtapes, this selection of songs encompasses an entire spectrum of moods and sounds. The A side begins with fourth-world tropical percussions, opening with sounds of nature in “Jungle Meditation” and leading into the downtempo summer synthpop jam “Yadadé.” The B side takes a darker turn, starting off with the deep chugging rhythms of “Rawal Pindi” and continuing even deeper with synth sounds and haunting vocals that culminates into the dreamy meditative final track, “Golgotha.” Limited vinyl repress in collaboration with Rico Toto. Artwork by Floating Bstrd.

Strut present the first ever official compilation bringing together the complete in-demand reggae / disco singles of Risco Connection between 1979 and 1980.

Drummer “Drummie” Joe Isaacs had already created history as the house drummer at Studio 1 in Jamaica on countless pre-reggae classics before moving to Canada in 1968 and is credited with slowing down the fast pace of ska during the rocksteady era. With Risco Connection, Isaacs released a series of choice reggae / disco covers, from ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now’ and ‘Good Times’ to ‘I’m Caught Up (In A One Night Love Affair)’ and ‘It’s My House’ as limited 12” singles on his own Black Rose imprint. “Arriving in Canada, we were one of the first set of musicians out of Jamaica coming here,” explains Isaacs. “With Risco Connection, we wanted to try something new, songs that would have a crossover between disco and the rocksteady feeling and the right lyrics. We had trouble getting them well distributed widely at the time but people still picked up on the sound.”

Recorded at Glen Johansen’s small studio Integrated Sound in Toronto, musicians included Jamaican, US and Canadian players with Isaacs on drums and percussion, bassist Clarence Greer, guitarist Tony Campbell and keyboardist/singer Glen Ricketts. Isaacs also called on a number of great independent vocalists including Terry Hope (‘It’s My House’), Merlyn “Lorna” Brooks, (‘Caught Up’), Otis Gayle and Juliette Morgan (‘Bringing The Sun Out’ and ‘Sitting In The Park’) and Tobi Lark (‘Good Times’). The biggest hit of all the singles was Risco’s dynamite cover of McFadden and Whitehead’s ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now’. selling over 5,000 copies in Toronto and New York with the dub version becoming a firm favourite of David Mancuso at his famed Loft parties.

‘Risco Version’ brings together all of the vocal versions, dubs and extra tracks from the singles. Both formats feature an interview with Joe Isaacs and liner notes by journalist Angus Taylor. Audio is restored by Sean P and fully remastered and cut loud and proud by The Carvery.