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Rare and obscure dub roots reggae compilation, produced by Clement Bushay in 1975 and released on Chalwa Records in 1978. Arranged by Alton Ellis and mixed by King Tubby. Recorded at King Tubby Studio, Kingston, JA and Chalk Farm, TMC, SWM Studios, UK...Featuring King Tubby, The Cimarons, Dennis Alcapone, Dave Barker, I. Pablo. A must for every reggae fan!

An ambitious compilation album of rare early recordings of "calypso," which originated in Trinidad at the beginning of the 20th century and developed into its modern form, has been released in analog format. In the 1920s, when calypso was in its infancy, singers and composers called "calypsonians" performed in "tents" (tarpaulin-covered gardens and union halls) for the people of Trinidad and tourists. This album is a compilation of all of these calypso classics!

An unbelievable collection of dynamic Cambodian music recorded between the 1960s and the 1990s, both in Cambodia and in the United States. A truly Khmer blend of folk and pop stylings - Cha-Cha Psychedelia, Phase-shifting Rock, sultry circle dance standards, pulsing Cambodian new wave, haunted ballads, musical comedy sketches, Easy-Listening numbers and raw instrumental grooves presented in an eclectic variety of production techniques. Male and female vocalists share the spotlight, embellished by roller rink organ solos, raunchy guitar leads and MIDI defying synthesizers. Culled from over 150 ageing cassettes found at the Asian Branch of the Oakland Public Library in California, these recordings showcase a pre and post holocaust Cambodian musical lineage that can't be ignored.

Before the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, unleashing a horrifying genocide, Cambodia had one of the most vibrant and exciting music scenes in Asia. With a mixture of traditional Khmer music and a myriad of western genres (from French and latin music, to rock-and-roll , rhythm-and-blues, surf, psychedelia, soul and many more) the few pre 75 Cambodian recordings that survived -most of them were destroyed- are enough to make anyone with a taste for good music shocked by the amazing quality of the sounds created during those golden years.
 
Gathered in this amazing album are some of the most talented and unique musicians from that amazing era with an explosive collection of tracks sure to blow the mind of the listener. A celebration of some of the best music ever made.

Canto A Lo Divino is the unique musical expression of the Chilean peasant world - a conversation with the divine nourished by Biblical and other sacred texts. It is communal music, played in packed rooms throughout the night on the 25-string guitarron, its ancient melodies transmitted through the 10-line decima form originating in Spain and found across the Caribbean, South America, and even into the Mississippi Delta. Rooted in the remote Central Valley of Chile at the skirt of the mountains and following the slopes of the major rivers, the Canto tradition has persisted for centuries in the voices of hundreds of men and women who sing of saints, divine images, and angelitos (very young children who have died). The verses are also centered around daily life in the valley - labor and drought, family, animals, and plants. There are countless entonaciones (melodies) that define this region, its communities, and its unique worldview. Mississippi Records is privileged to work with the Museo Campesino En Movimiento and their archive of hundreds of hours of intimate field recordings of the Canto - music rarely, if ever, heard outside of the region.Artwork is provided by another inhabitant of Chile's Central Valley, a baker called Frederico Lohse, who brought divine visions from the Cantos to life, painted on reused flour bags.Canto A Lo Divino celebrates the complexity and solemn, stunning beauty of this nocturnal, communal form of musical devotion.Double vinyl LP comes housed in deluxe gatefold jacket with 8 pages of lyric translations and liner notes about the Canto tradition by researcher Danilo Petrovich.

The OCORA recording of Sanza (thumb piano) by the Gubaya tribe in Central Africa, one of the best recordings of all traditional music, not just in Africa, has been repressed for the first time in 25 years!

Music played only with Sanza, Shaker and muttering songs is a deep sound world that can not be believed from the simplicity of its composition. In the silence of the voices of insects and the sound of the forest, different rhythms and timbres support each other and are in harmony. It has a very real and direct feel to appear as if you were waiting to be born. The chirping sound of metal pieces attached to the keys, the sound that resonates with the space in the big gourd and disappears, and the sound of the floating keys themselves are wonderful, and the moment when the concept of tone as an element of music cannot be captured. There is strength. I can't help but wonder if it's the music of people who lived with nature in an empty African country village.
A masterpiece that even people who don't usually listen to folk music want to pick up. By all means before it runs out!

Cumbia, currulao, bambuco, juga and Afro Colombian music taken to the realms of dub by Llorona Records & Discos Pacífico producer and dub maestro Cerrero. Cerrero steps into his lab like the alchemists of 1970s Kingston: cutting, repeating, filtering, letting the bass breathe, and allowing echo and reverb to give a new dimension to a unique selection of songs from the catalogs of Llorona Records and Discos Pacífico. Cerrero Dubs is a tribute to classic dub, crafted with the soul of cumbia, juga, and bambuco, from Palenque, San Jacinto, Guapi, and Tumaco: live manipulation, sonic experimentation, bass as backbone, delay as tool. Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, Son Palenque, Sexteto Tabalá, Bejuco, Agrupación Changó and Semblanzas del Río Guapi… transported into a universe where the sounds of Colombia 's jungles and coasts are not remixed — they are deconstructed, twisted, and dubbed. Cerrero —sound alchemist and founder of Llorona Records and Discos Pacífico— offers a selection of versions in which the Caribbean and Afro-Pacific sounds of Colombia are transformed into hypnotic, ethereal, psychedelic, and minimalist soundscapes. A reinterpretation of the legacy of iconic groups, shaped through the console and the sensitivity of a producer exploring the possible futures of local sound. Llorona Records presenta: Cerrero Dubs Canciones emblematicas de agrupaciones legendarias del sonido Caribe y Pacifico de Colombia llevadas al territorio del dub por CERRERO, productor al frente de Llorona Records y Discos Pacífico Cerrero —productor y fundador de Llorona Records y Discos Pacífico— entra en su laboratorio como lo hacían los alquimistas del Kingston de los años 70: cortando, repitiendo, filtrando, dejando que el bajo respire, y permitiendo que el eco y la reverberación de otra dimensión a una selección única de canciones del catálogo de Llorona Records y Discos Pacífico. Cerrero Dubs es un homenaje al dub clásico, hecho con alma de cumbia, juga y bambuco, desde Palenque, San Jacinto, Guapi y Tumaco: manipulación en vivo, experimentación sonora, bajo como columna vertebral, delay como herramienta. Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, Son Palenque, Sexteto Tabalá, Bejuco, Agrupación Changó y Semblanzas del Río Guapi… llevados a un universo donde el sonido de las selvas y costas de Colombia no se remezcla: se deconstruye, se retuerce, se dubbea. Cerrero nos entrega una selección de versiones en las que el sonido caribe y afropacífico de Colombia se transforma en paisajes hipnóticos, etéreos, psicodélicos y minimalistas. Una reinterpretación del legado de agrupaciones icónicas, desde la consola y la sensibilidad de uno de los productores que explora los futuros posibles de los sonidos locales.

This compilation introduces the sound pieces created by the Latin American experimental filmmakers and

is curated by the film artist Tetsuya Maruyama.

Tetsuya Maruyama

Born in 1983 in Yokohama, Japan and currently based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Graduated from the University at Buffalo's School of Architecture in 2007 and from the Visual Language Department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro's School of Fine Arts in 2024. His work spans film, text, performance, sound, ideas, and installation, without prioritizing any particular medium.

Maruyama’s practice is rooted in re-contextualizing ordinary elements and textures, presenting them as ephemeral records of everyday observations. As an independent programmer and researcher, he has curated screenings of Brazilian experimental cinema across the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, and Canada. He is also the founder of Megalab, an artist-run film lab based in Rio de Janeiro. His works are distributed by Light Cone, a nonprofit organization dedicated to experimental cinema in Paris.

Artist bio:

Ж

Ж (São Paulo, 198-) film-designer, programmer, educator & editor

Has a non-specialised and situated practice that explores the energetic, material,economic, political, and emotional cycles of (semio)capitalism. His work uses various strategies, materials, and media to reveal how these forces shape perception,memory, and subjectivity, especially in the context of our current ecological crisis.

His artistic propositions have taken the form of films, video installations, counter-spaces, writings, performances, and public space interventions, all aimed at reintegrating artistic practice into specific social and political contexts.

John Melo:

Visual artist, designer, and teacher of audiovisual arts. Graduated from the MAE (Master's in Technology and Aesthetics of Electronic Arts) at the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF), Argentina. Interested in the relationship between arts, technology, ancestry, and transdisciplinary and experimental work. Studies non-linearity in artistic creation processes, poetic thinking, magical thinking, spirituality, and political and social actions, with a deep interest in pedagogy. Their work combines creative languages such as installation, sculpture, illustration, writing, sound, and video primarily. Previously a tutor in the training program for self-taught artists at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá (MAMBO PFA)

In 2022, founded SEPAE (Seminar of Editing and Experimental Audiovisual Thinking). Also involved in"Colectivo Tal Cosa," a transdisciplinary project combining biology, sound

exploration, intuition, and non-linear thinking in creative processes. A member of "2 horas de diferencia coletivo," a space connecting Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia for projects that conceptually link the three territories. Part of the art collective "Blanco Conejo" in Bogotá, aiming to share, promote, and experiment with contemporary

modes of creation.

Rodrigo Faustini:

Rodrigo Faustini is a Brazilian artist and researcher, based in São Paulo/ Campinas. His practice focuses on mediation, materiality and noise in audiovisual forms. His work has been exhibited at Centro Cultural Kirchner, Images Festival, Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento, Annecy international animation festival, Vienna Shorts, Festival de Cine de la Habana, and others.

Francisco Álvarez Ríos:

Francisco Álvarez Ríos (1991 - Ecuador) is a filmmaker, curator, archivist, and visual and sound artist. He currently serves as the director and curator of the Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo Cámara Lúcida

As a filmmaker, he explores reality and its escapes, focusing on the demystification of the image beyond the literal recording of the real. His current practice delves into moving images, sound interpretation, film installation, and performance film—practices that coexist and interact within the less-defined territory of the contemporary expanded cinema.

Martín Baus:

Multimedia artist, filmmaker, musician, researcher and teacher. My artistic practice investigates the relationships between history, materialism and perception, converging my interest in the political dimensions of listening, the reappropriation of archives, and the procedures of translation between materialities such as celluloid,sound and text. I’m a member of CEIS8, a collective for experimentation with film formats and photochemical processes based in Santiago de Chile, and co-director along with Andrés Baus, of the independent record label Radio Fome, which releases improvisation-based music and sound pieces. I’m interested in aurality as a tool for a radical pedagogy from Latin America, as well as methodology for artistic and practice-based research.

I enjoy engaging with the sonic realm from non-audible or non-sonorous approaches, therefore, I’ve done poetry books related to listening and wording, text installations that engage with opaque language translation procedures, publications around the links between salsa rhythms, migration and working-class struggles, and fictional writings that speculate on the future of sound archives and digital archeology.

Lucía Malandro:

Lucía Malandro is a renowned Uruguayan filmmaker dedicated to the preservation and restoration of cinematic and photographic heritage.

A graduate of the Escuela de Cine y Televisión de San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, with a specialization in Documentary Directing, she continued her studies with a master’s degree at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola at the University of the Basque Country, Spain. As the founder of the Archivistas Salvajes collective, Malandro has taken initiative to rescue a little-known legacy: Cuba’s underground cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, a clandestine movement that emerged on Havana’s rooftops in response to official restrictions.

Since 2019, she has directed several short films focused on the reuse and revaluation of cinematic and photographic archives, earning recognition at prestigious international festivals. Additionally, she has contributed as a film critic to various publications, including the official newspaper of the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2023.

Malandro has worked on the restoration of archives at the Cinemateca Portuguesa and has contributed to research and archival projects such as Piezas Cinéticas and Vanguardia Scópica, collaborating with institutions like Gordailua, the Basque Film

Ivonne Sheen Mogollón:

My projects are developed as experimental audiovisual, photographic and sound works, publications, texts, curatorial work and organization of cultural initiatives. From a personal and critical voice, I explore questions and reinterpretations about my surroundings, structures, archive images, my family history and the hegemonic learning that we assimilate. I am interested in self-management and the collective creation of spaces and experiences. I currently live in between Cologne, Germany, and Lima, Peru. My film Animal Within co-directed with Rebeca Alvan has been showcased in different platforms and festivals in Latin America, Europe and the USA. I am co founder of Taller Helios and associate collaborator of Isole_islas.

Javier Plano:

Javier Plano is an artist and university professor that works and lives in Buenos Aires. He has a college degree in Electronic Arts from UNTREF, where since 2014 he has been teaching courses about time based media and audiovisual performance arts. He’s currently doing a master’s degree in Sound Art at UNTREF. In 2007, he begins to produce video works and installations, participating in various festivals and exhibitions organized by institutions locally and abroad. He has received numerous distinctions for his works, among others an honorable mention in the MAMbA / Fundación Telefónica Award for Arts and New Technologies, the 3rd prize in the UNTREF award to the Electronics Arts, and three different honorable mentions at the National Salon of Visual Arts. On 2016, he has his first solo exhibition, titled "Test Patterns", in the MACLA (La Plata, Argentina). That same year he attends an artistic residence program on Signal Culture (NY, USA), with a scholarship granted by the Department of Cultural Affairs of Argentina. In 2019, he does his first solo exhibition in Buenos Aires at the Eduardo Sívori Museum, and wins a Scholarship of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes to develop a new project.

Pablo Mazzolo:

Pablo Mazzolo (Argentina) is a filmmaker and educator born in Buenos Aires in 1976. He works exclusively in analogue film formats exploring the optical and chemical properties of the medium, with a particular focus on human and natural landscapes. His work has tackled themes such as indigenous sovereignty, the spectre of military dictatorship, extinction and environmental catastrophe.

He received an MFA from the University of Buenos Aires (2001). His films, including Diego La Silla (2000), Oaxaca Tohoku (2011), El Quilpo sueña cataratas (2012), Fotooxidación (2013), and Ceniza Verde (2019), have been widely exhibited at festivals, museums, and galleries internationally, including Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Melbourne International Film Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Block Museum of Art, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Anthology Film Archives, Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Brooklyn Museum, The Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, TIFF Wavelength, International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Punto de Vista Festival, Frontera Sur International Non-Fiction Festival, Museo Tamayo, Valdivia International Film Festival, FAMU International, The Latin American Museum of Art Buenos Aires, Chicago Underground Film Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque, The Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film, (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico, and Cinemateca Madrid, among many others.

His film Conjectures (2013) won Grand Prize, Media City Film Festival (2013); Fish Point (2015) was awarded the Kodak Cinematic Vision Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival (2016); and Cineza Verda (2019) was awarded Grand Prize, Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (2019). Mazzolo is Professor at the National University of Quilmes, works as a freelance documentary film editor, and teaches workshops on visual perception and image creation to young people living with autism. He lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Rosana Cacciotore:

Experimental filmmaker, documentary filmmaker, photographer, teacher, and

audiovisual researcher. Graduated in social communication with a master's and a PhD degree (thesis defense) in literary theory from UFSC/BR. She has taught film and visual poetics courses, had films screened in national and international festivals, and participated as a debater, curator, judge, and reviewer in festivals, shows, and film notices. She has a book and articles published.

In experimental work, I usually make the sound myself; I think it is part of the creation process. About sound in these works, I assume sound is an image that produces meaning (or sensation) as a sign independent of the image.

The popular work is repressed! Coco María, a Mexican DJ / musician based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, who also hosts the program at the online radio station operated by Gilles Peterson, the "music preacher", has been cued for . Introducing "Club Coco", a compo board with a unique perspective. Summery outer national Latin & Afro Roots Music Nuggets packed with the essence of the community that gathers in your own broadcast frame! Nico Mauskovic brings together creative acts such as Meridian Brothers, Graham Mushnik and Romperayo that harmonize both pride in Latin American and Afro culture with an interest in cosmopolitanism in the big European cities. Introduction! A masterpiece that Bongo Joe presents “Club Coco”, a summery outernational Latin and afro rooted music compilation curated by Coco María. An attempt to give back something to music lovers around the world and print on an object a piece of the essence of the community that has been gathering around her weekly radio show at Worldwide FM. In many ways, the tracks of the album showcase how these artists use music to reconcile both their pride in Latin American and Afro culture as well as their interest in being part of the cosmopolitanism of big European cities. Thus, each track adds a particular detail into building a perfect soundtrack for a community that is always travelling back and forwards between both regions, always looking for songs that explore the furthest frontiers of tropical music while staying true to the roots of their genres. This LP gathers some of the inescapable artists that have been part of Coco María’s shows. The list includes Nico Mauskovic, La Perla, Meridian Brothers y Grupo Renacimiento, Graham Mushnik, La Redada, Alex Figueira, Frente Cumbiero, Les Pythons de la Fournaise, Romperayo, Malphino, Max Weissenfeldt and even Coco María herself.

Released in 1982 on Trumpett, the Colonial Vipers cassette offered an extensive snapshot of the Dutch home-taping scene at its creative peak. One of the earliest compilations of its kind, it brought together a diverse array of underground artists, nearly all contributing exclusive tracks. For this reissue, 13 of these rare pieces have been carefully selected, highlighting the experimental energy that defined the era. Naturally, it features core Trumpett artists Ende Shneafliet, capturing the spirit of the early ‘80s experimentation with their otherworldly minimal synth composition and Doxa Sinistra, blending cold wave and electronics in ways that remain strikingly fresh today. Also present are acts such as Van Kaye & Ignit, Nice Circles and The Actor, whose minimal and infectious tracks epitomize the DIY synth ethos of the period. Additional contributors like Genetic Factor, Det Wiehl, De Fabriek and Muziekkamer offer textured, atmospheric pieces that blur the line between the avant-garde and concrete industrial sound works. For the first time ever on vinyl, this revised edition preserves the energy, eerie atmospheres and mechanical beats that made the original cassette a hidden gem of the European underground. Carefully mastered to ensure every nuance of these pioneering tracks is fully realized, it is a must-have for minimal wave enthusiasts and anyone fascinated by the innovative sounds of the early Dutch post-punk scene.

A compilation of DEEP gospel from the 1960's and 1970's. all culled from the vaults of DJ Jumbo and Pyramid Records. This is the real stuff - all guitar forward ballads that address existential issues. As healing a record as there ever could be. Cover art by the great Lonnie Holley!

A companion to 2016's private country rock overview Cosmic American Music, this second volume goes way past Gram Parsons' “country-rock plastic dry-fuck” and explores the twangy falsettos and commercial curiosity that sent the Eagles soaring. Though rooted in the west coast folk rock of the late-’60s, these new kids in town rendered a safe-for-the-suburbs sound bleached of the hippie era's political strife. 20 tracks, two LPs, and gatefold tip-on sleeve for easy seed and stem separating are included.

"Crossover City – Misty Morning" is a curated compilation of Japanese jazz fusion and crossover gems from the 1970s and 1980s. Featuring artists like Terumasa Hino and Sadao Watanabe, it captures the smooth, urban soundscapes of a golden era. A must-listen for fans of city pop and sophisticated grooves.

Another cassette-only mixtape taking in Soviet punk selections, 1985 to 1992, issued in partnership with Philadelphia's World Gone Mad.

Dance The Ska is an essential collection of early Jamaican ska music. It includes iconic tracks from Prince Buster, Jimmy Cliff and other key artists from the 1963–1966 period, celebrating the energetic and upbeat sound of Jamaican independence. The album also features artists like Prince Buster (King of Ska), Derrick Morgan, Roy Panton, Stranger Cole, Millie and other leading figures from the Kingston scene. The real ska sound of '64!

Originally released in 2018 via Philadelphia-based punk archive label World Gone Mad and now reissued by Death Is Not The End, Dark Wave From Poland 1982-1989 takes a glance behind the Iron Curtain to look at the Polish underground and its fertility when it came to generating minor key, doom-laden post-punk and new wave, giving us twenty rare tracks.

Japan’s cult, half-forgotten goldmine DD. Records opened and closed within a few frantic years. In that short time, they released exactly 222 cassettes (and a handful of vinyl records) of the strangest, boldest, most arresting and addictively subversive music within their social and creative circles. Each of their cassette releases came with abstract, xerographic artwork, often created by the musician themselves, while the label’s recorded output encompassed avant-punk, Cubist ambient music, sound collage, pop concréte, jazz-prog, early computer music, and anything else their roster cared to throw at them. Housed in sleeves of found imagery taken from classical and Medieval literature, contemporary and historic photography, science textbooks, magazines, homemade erotica, and endless more, these records reveal not only the strength of the community the label had fostered, but also the insular self-reference and in-jokes that kept the music from outsiders for decades. Two facets of DD. Records shine through even this unique story: firstly, they were friends. Founder T. [Tadashi] Kamada formed the label alone, but it wasn’t long before he was joined by like-minded allies T. [Teruo] Nakamura, K. [Koshiro] Yoshimatsu, K. [Keiichi] Usami, and T. [Takafumi] Isotani, among a few others. All were contributors to Kamada’s tape-trading network The Recycle Circle, formed at the University of Yamanashi, most of its members at the time around 20 years old. Their bond was a love of exploratory sounds and a hunger for deeper excavations into the tunnels and caves of experimental music. “An independent, private circle where members who owned expensive records or rare imported vinyl with limited distribution could send a cassette tape and a return postage stamp to dub the record back to each other for free,” Usami explains, in interview with Jon Dale for Bandcamp Daily. Secondly, the aforementioned cassettes remained almost entirely unavailable to the world outside Japan, with only a single US retailer engaged to carry the releases. Forty plus years hence, many of the records have been lost to time, but occasionally surface when (so writes an online observer) “a private collector has a medical bill to cover.” A German archivist, Jorg Öpitz, is primarily (and almost exclusively) responsible for the entire English-language directory of the label’s output, cataloguing online surviving and lost cassettes with completist dedication. Largely autodidactic, and almost always hermetic, this company of hobbyist and amateur (and in many cases, totally untrained) musicians rarely performed live. Many of them collaborated remotely, sending home-recorded tapes and collaged artwork in the post. “[We were] isolated from the rest of the [Japanese] indie movement,” Usami remembers. Strangely, and sadly for many, Tadashi Kamada has completely retired from public view. According to one-time collaborators, it is likely he is unaware of the cult following his label has garnered over the decades. Some sources point to a successful career in consumer electronics, a family, and a contented indifference to his early experiments in record label curation. But no-one seems certain about these details, none of which has harmed the image of a label that revels in mythmaking. An artefact left behind was Disk Musik. Though compilations were not unknown to DD. Records, vinyl was rare. Only a handful of Kamada titles - presumably self-funded - were released on vinyl, right at the start of the label’s life, and it is not until 1985 and Disk Musik that the format reemerges. It appears to be their final release: a parting gift to neatly bookend five feverish years of new music, rubber stamping their creative identity. In the twenty-first century, the second hand market for original copies is limited to scarce private sales at seriously hefty prices. There are endless and curious gems within. Opening with the fried psych-folk, dreamy vocals, and toybox percussion of trio サーカディアンリズム [Circadian Rhythm], Disk Musik’s stall is set out as much to bewilder as it is to beguile. Following, comes musician and painter Kumio Kurachi’s project Kum, with its homespun, acoustic glam-stomp always on the verge of falling to pieces, but revealing genuine songwriting chops and earworming melodic detail beneath the knowingly applied layers of hauntology, noise, and humour. Later, Tomomichi Nishiyama sends intergalactic plates spinning into black holes of solarstorm feedback with 10T track “Israel”, while T. Isotani’s “½ Orange” provides a welcome return to earth, an edenic utopia of plantasic blossoms and blooms. Across an extended duration (over fifty minutes on a single disc!), Disk Musik is relentless in its invention, wildly varied in its expression, and entrancing in its telling of a story truly unique in the world of independent and alternative music. Where else could Tadashi Tsukimoto’s rambling outsider folksong marry Yip/Jump primitivism to the scorched Casiotone ambience of “In and Out” by Takahiro Kuramoto’s Mask? While extensive efforts were made to contact every musician featured on Disk Musik, some are no longer within reach of known DD. Records associates. Keiichi Usami, Kumio Kurachi, and Teruo Nakamura all gladly approved the reissue of this compilation in the absence of their peers, and were vitally helpful throughout the curation process, offering insights into the history and significance of each artist and track featured here. We could not have done it without them. Usami-san, Kumio-san, Teruo-san: thank you. “Everyone has the right to make and enjoy music,” Tadashi Kamada once wrote. This spirit of inclusivity and equality underpins DD. Records and its gleefully weird catalogue, and we are grateful for it.

Strut present the first ever compilation series to access the archives of one of the greatest of all French Caribbean labels, Disques Debs out of Guadeloupe. Set up by the late Henri Debs during the late ‘50s, the label and studio has continued for over 50 years, releasing over 300 7” singles and 200 LPs, covering styles varying from early biguine and bolero to zouk and reggae. Debs played a pivotal role in bringing the créole music of Guadeloupe and Martinique to a wider international audience. Volume 1 of this series marks the first decade of the label’s existence and takes in big band orchestras, home-grown stars, touring bands and a new generation that would emerge at the end of the ‘60s. Early releases were recorded in the back of Henri’s shop in Pointe-a- Pitre, from his own sextet playing percussive biguines to young saxophonist Edouard Benoit, leader of Les Maxels and regular arranger for Debs bands. Other artists ranged from big bands like Orchestre Esperanza and Orchestre Caribbean Jazz to poet and radio personality Casimir “Caso” Létang and folkloric gwo ka artist Sydney Leremon. Debs also capitalised on recording foreign touring artists visiting Guadeloupe during the early ‘60s including Haitian trumpeter Raymond Cicault and Trinidadian bandleader Cyril Diaz. Compiled by Hugo Mendez (Sofrito) and Emile Omar (Radio Nova), ‘Disques Debs International’ is released in conjunction with Henri Debs Et Fils and Air Caraibes. The package features a host of rare and unseen photos from the Debs archive with both formats featuring extensive sleeve notes and interviews with Philippe Debs and Max “Maxo” Severin of Les Vikings. Volumes 2 and 3 follow in 2019. Album cover - top right

Stunning compilation of great soul songs. The third in a six part series of compilations following a similar logic as Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music – only where Smith covered folk, blues, gospel and old timey, this compilation covers just American soul music recorded between 1960 and 1972. Many deep ballads and a few rockers. Features extensive 12 page liner notes with lots of photo’s as well as a real special bonus insert. Cover has gold foil printing, and the records are housed in classy black sleeves. Super fancy limited edition double LP not to be missed.

Soundway Records present a new compilation of twenty rare and mostly unavailable tracks from the slick and sassy world of Nigerian pop music and club culture of the early 1980s. Buoyed by an explosive oil boom and a return to democracy after a series of military dictatorships, Nigeria’s economy in the years of the early ‘80’s was mirrored by its recording industry as countless young artists and groups hit the airwaves and dancefloors of the capital and beyond. It was a glossy, brash new form of pop music born out of ashes of late 1970s disco and funk and, just as in America, was the soundtrack to a new generation for whom money, style and flirtation trumped the overblown psychedelia of the previous decade. Eager to sound as American as possible with no hint of the fervour for afro-beat, afro-rock and afrocentric thinking that the 1970s had thrown up, a new generation of young artists and performers turned their backs on their cultural roots in music and sought a new kind of stardom and fame firmly connected to the glossy, snazzy world of the 1980s that was erupting in the USA and Europe. The 1970s flares and cuban heels began to disappear, in their place came sleek suits, rolled-up sleeves, bow-ties, jumpsuits, leather jackets, greased hair and a firm nod in the stylistic direction of Michael Jackson.

The earliest cuts on the collection are firmly rooted within the deep disco sound of 1979 & 1980 before progressing into the boogie and pop that typified the years 1982-84: falsetto vocals, synths, slap-bass, handclaps and a sharp emphasis on the groove. Steered at the helm by a handful of legendary producers who had cut their teeth in the studios and groups 1970s (Jake Sollo, Lemmy Jackson, Tony Essien, Odion Iruoje) alongside some fresh new faces (Nkono teles and Tony Okoroji) the scene was fronted by a new generation of young singers both male and female and with the economy flourishing album sales were at an all time high. This was the age of the celebrity, mobile club-DJ and with vastly improved sound equipment, recorded music quickly began to displace live bands in the discos and clubs of a quickly expanding Lagos. These were places where a seamless mix of American and local music played all night - ever more pressure for Nigerian recordings to stand up against the offerings from overseas prompting some producers and artists to record in London or the USA despite Lagos having the best studios in West Africa.

With a never-ending discussion about what ‘World Music’ may or may not be and in a time where the influence of African, Latin and Caribbean music is firmly accepted as an instrumental and integral ingredient in the formation of disco and proto-house music, this compilation hopes to make a strong case for the Nigerian chapter of the story. This is disco-boogie-pop music that just happens to be from Nigeria and as such deserves to sit in the correct section of the record store and not in the restricting confines of the ‘World Music’ ghetto despite its geographic provenance. Echoes of the vast compendium of 1960 & 70s sounds from West Africa’s biggest recording industry are there if you listen carefully just as Soca and Latin music is echoed in the disco and soul of New York City but this is not music that deserves to be sidelined just because of where it’s from.

Many of the original albums these tracks are taken from fetch insane prices online due to their rarity and so it’s with great pleasure that we present a selection here that evokes a golden boomtime in Nigerian music history. It’s perhaps not for the purists who think they know what African music should sound like but hey, relax ...this music should make you make move, make you smile, (hopefully make some of you reminisce over your youth) …. it’s what it was made for. 

Jim Kirchstein founded Cuca Records in 1959 to capture the undocumented musical talent of rural Wisconsin. Originally a tiny recording studio in the corner of a record store, the independent label quickly expanded in response to the success of its early releases. Despite its remote location in the hills of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, the label’s growing popularity attracted a diverse group of artists and performers from Wisconsin, Michigan, and the Chicago area. The combination of the label’s remote location and the area’s cultural diversity created a unique catalogue that was often divergent from the current music trends. The country music that Kirchstein recorded is best described as “outsider country”—lo-fi, dreamy, and just a little too weird to make the charts. Driftless Dreamers tells the story of these artists and their takes on the term “country.” Driftless Dreamers takes its name after the Driftless Area, a geological region of the American Midwest untouched by the last continental glacial movement. The majority of the Driftless Area lies in southwest Wisconsin, but extends into the corners of Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. The area’s lack of glacial drift is what preserved the land’s rugged terrain of forested ridges, inhabited caves, carved river valleys, and some of North America’s last true prairies. As a preserved area, the Driftless is home to many species of rare wildlife species, unknown to the rest of the country. The area’s black, fertile earth is also very suitable for farming. In the 19th century European immigrants poured into Wisconsin and began to farm. Small agrarian communities dotted the hills of the Wisconsin Driftless. Agriculture was, and still is, the lifeblood of these communities, as is music. The mainly German and Irish immigrants established community bands to carry on the musical traditions that they carried with them from their homelands. The domination of farming as the main industry in the Driftless area encouraged these musical styles to develop into the country music that Jim Kirchstein would record in the 1960s. After a stint in the Navy, Jim Kirchstein returned home to the Driftless Area to pursue an electrical engineering degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kirchstein lived on the eastern boundary of the Driftless in the sleepy town of Sauk City, close to his school in Madison. To support his new family, Kirchstein started selling records out of the basement of his brother’s hobby shop, located next to their family’s grocery store. Through his work at the record store Kirchstein soon recognized a need for a recording studio for the area’s local musicians. In 1959 Kirchstein founded the original Cuca recording studio in his basement record shop. Despite its remote location, the studio drew in a variety of artists from across the Midwest. The studio was also popular with local communities, whose mixed heritages produced a variety of folk and country genres. Jim Kirchstein intended for his recording studio to serve the local population’s need for both a creative outlet and historical documentation of their music traditions. As the label grew, Kirchstein created genre-specific sublabels, including Top Gun Country. The Driftless Dreamers series is a glimpse into this trove of recordings, focusing on the isolated interpretations of popular country music and the lonesome twang of outsiders. Driftless Dreamers in Cuca Country Volume 1 is a survey of the range of Wisconsin’s country music. This volume starts with a regional hit and ends with an echoing ballad from an untrained voice. Along the way we visit some family band bluegrass, teenage Nashville sound, rockabilly, and improvised bar tunes.

On the occasion of RT 30 (the celebrations of Right Tempo's thirty years of activity) the Italian record company has decided, among other things, to publish a new volume of this successful series. The Easy Tempo series, born in 1996, aimed to disseminate a sound linked to black culture (in its broadest meaning and most varied forms) with contaminations ranging from psychedelia to vintage electronics through soul, funk and jazz. Having drawn from the world of soundtracks did not arise from a specific passion in this area, but from the simple fact that that universe offered a vast repertoire, however submerged, of music suitable for the 'groove' vocation of Right Tempo, as well as a distinctive sign of national identity, considering the caliber of the composers and musicians involved in writing and performing the music featured in the different tracking lists of the series. To this respect, starting from Volume 11 that you are holding in your hand, Easy Tempo will expand its editorial horizons, including tracks taken from obscure, underrated and/or hard to find records that transcend the congested world of soundtracks. It should also be emphasized that, given the label international vocation, the repertoire from which we will draw will no longer be limited to Italian record production, but will have a global perspective. The sound journey you are about to embark on is steeped in soul, funk, jazz, Latin, psychedelia, with a pinch of electronics at times. Travelling flutes, tight and driving rhythm patterns and rich and colorful arrangements perfectly indicate Easy Tempo series new direction. The most intriguing and ubiquitous aspect is particularly incisive thanks to the "cinematic" cut given to the selection. We believe, upon a first check of the musical content, that this new chapter will meet the expectations of all those who have enjoyed the ten previous volumes of this collection of sounds and emotions over time. Enjoy Easy Tempo Volume 11. Features Roberto Pregadio, Soul's Soul, Orchestra Mustang, Genius, Gianni Marchetti, I Raffazzonati, Brooklyn Bridge Group, Hugh Bullen, Carlo Cordara e i Waterloo, Les Chakachas, Le Streghe, Ninety, Lara Saint Paul, Ivano Fossati, Sandro Brugnolini, Gianni Basso Quartet, Enzo Scoppa, Gino Marinacci, and The Gypsy-Gershwin Medley.

"The only boogie record you'll ever need to own."

The next installment of our "Eccentric" single LP compilation series, in the same style as our Eccentric Funk and Eccentric Disco releases. A simple digestable run-down of our favorite genre specific tracks.