Indie / Alternative
319 products
![V.A. - The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake (Grey Vinyl 2xLP+7")](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/BRC75_6cf7cdf7-fcbd-4709-9c3b-be7ebdb8c566_{width}x.jpg?v=1691226333)
![V.A. - The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake (Grey Vinyl 2xLP+7")](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/chrysalis-records-various-the-endless-coloured-way_d40954b2-596f-4d4d-bba7-14f2ae4c8efb_{width}x.png?v=1691226333)
![Baba Stiltz - Paid Testimony (LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/144296_0-Baba-Stiltz-Paid-Testimony-LP_{width}x.jpg?v=1691051377)
![pel mel - Late, Late Show (LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a3901140392_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1691047798)
![Gezan with Million Wish Collective - Anochi (Red Vinyl LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a1843630391_10_3cd20b9d-0e03-49f2-8a94-7c6ea109ffa9_{width}x.jpg?v=1690961224)
Izumi Kato on the cover illustration that blinks between the indigenous and the universe. Following the previous work, the recording & mixing engineer is Naoyuki Uchida, a master of the dub world who is also currently operating GEZAN's live performances.
![Duster - Moods, Modes (Ocean Blue 3xVinyl 7")](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/01293817-A043-491A-B2DF-F100A29CD9BA_303cde9c-13fd-46f9-928d-e1ae097bb250_{width}x.jpg?v=1690197496)
![Duster - Moods, Modes (Ocean Blue 3xVinyl 7")](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/B17AC237-8DED-4CC1-8826-64D6219B144E_9292dbe5-8234-4556-80c5-42679a9dcf58_{width}x.webp?v=1690197496)
![Saicobab - Nrtya (CD)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/1008668557_{width}x.jpg?v=1689577740)
SAICOBAB is a one-of-a-kind NEW HIGH WAVE artist. The title of this album "NRTYA" is Sanskrit for "DANCE". It is a quaternistic dance music that expands raga (melody) and tala (beat) into the realm of the imaginary!
YoshimiO _ Vocalization
HAMA _ Req
YOSHIDADAIKITI _ Electric Sitar, Electric Bass Sitar, Electric Bass Tanpura
Resonant String Speaker
*All handmade instruments by YOSHIDADAIKITI
TATEKAWA YO2RO _ Drums
Music by SAICOBAB
Recorded in 2020-2021, Engineerd by KABAMIX
Mixed by YoshimiO & KABAMIX in 2022
Mastered by Sarah Register @SR Mastering,NYC
Art works by OOIDO SYOUJOU + YoshimiO, Design by QOTAROO
Photo by HOMMA TAKASHI
![Lutalo - Once Now, Then Again (CS)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/0031636681_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1688896974)
![Lutalo - Once Now, Then Again (CS)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a1075240094_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1688896974)
![The Particles - 1980s Bubblegum (LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a3943808421_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1688884079)
![Penguin Cafe - Rain Before Seven... (Clear Vinyl LP+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a0215151297_10_800ae16a-8aed-4f5d-9924-c00068462744_{width}x.jpg?v=1688639202)
![Penguin Cafe - Rain Before Seven... (Clear Vinyl LP+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/0032116485_10_8091cab2-55c9-4b17-a1e1-a6234dae4ee3_{width}x.jpg?v=1688639202)
A sense of optimism infuses Penguin Cafe’s fifth studio album Rain Before Seven… not the braggadocious, overconfident kind, but more a blithe, self-effacing optimism in keeping with the national character. Even when all signs point to the contrary, it operates within the certainty that things are going to be alright. Probably.
The title comes from an old weather proverb with the rhyming prognostication — fine before eleven — hinting at a happy ending, irrespective of the science: “I found it in a book and I'd never heard it before,” says Arthur Jeffes, leader of Penguin Cafe. “It has faintly optimistic overtones and I quite like it. It's fallen out of usage recently but it does describe English weather patterns coming in off the Atlantic.”
From the widescreen reverie of opener ‘Welcome to London’ with its cheeky nod to Morricone to ‘Goldfinch Yodel’, the self-described “Maypole banger” at the denouement, there’s a welcome sense of sanguinity, always with an undercurrent of exotic rhythmic exuberance. Playfulness pervades, with a titular nod to A Matter of Life… from 2011, the last album title that concluded with an ellipsis. That Penguin Cafe debut is the bridge between the legendary Penguin Cafe Orchestra, led by Arthur’s father Simon Jeffes, and the much-loved descendent, led by Arthur.
“Stylistically it's really satisfying to get back to playful rhythms and instruments,” says the younger Jeffes, who kept the group’s debut from 12 years ago in mind when writing the new album. “Certainly when starting out, I became aware that we’d stopped using quite a few of the textures that had been there at the beginning—and it was certainly there in my dad's earlier stuff. So there's a lot of balafon and textures from completely different parts of the world, musically and geographically: ukuleles, cuatros and melodicas that you can hear.”
It’ll become clear when listening to Rain Before Seven… that the themes explored transcend mere weather chat. In a sense, it’s a sonic diary scribbled from below the parapet, waiting for the danger to blow over. Jeffes, like many of us, found himself in lockdown in 2020. COVID-19’s first European destination was Italy, where he and his family were staying at the time in a converted convent in Tuscany, bought some twelve years ago with his mother, the celebrated stone sculptor Emily Young. There might be worse places to be stranded during quarantine than a hilly enclave surrounded by olive trees, though the family were faced with the same sobering fears and uncertainties that much of the world was forced to contend with.
And so titles often refer to personal experience during this period. ‘Galahad’ is a triumphant celebration of Arthur’s beloved dog who died, aged 16, written in an irrepressible 15/8 time signature, and ‘Lamborghini 754’ is named after the 40-year-old tractor he bought for his mother, which he could see from the studio as she traversed the olive grove. Jeffes is the first to admit that he was fortunate to have space to manoeuvre, a luxury that was denied to millions living in cities and towns. Moreover, the plight of city dwellers seemed to eerily coalesce with a vision Arthur’s dad had that would inspire the Penguin Cafe Orchestra into life in the first place.
The story goes like so: back in 1972, Simon Jeffes ate some dodgy fish whilst holidaying in the South of France, which caused him to hallucinate: “As I lay in bed I had a strange recurring vision,” he said later. “There, before me, was a concrete building like a hotel or council block. I could see into the rooms, each of which was continually scanned by an electronic eye. In the rooms were people, everyone of them preoccupied…” Jeffes could make out “electronic equipment. But all was silence. Like everyone in his place had been neutralised, made grey and anonymous. The scene was, for me, one of ordered desolation.” The antidote to this premonition of an uncannily familiar future was the freewheeling Penguin Cafe “where your unconscious can just be”.
Simon Jeffes took “a slightly eccentric antiquarian approach” to assembling his music, according to Arthur, repurposing sounds that were unapologetically easy on the ear; a reaction, perhaps, to the earnestness of the post-war serialists, which happened to coincide with the rise of minimalism. “But he loved Boulez,” adds Arthur, “and John Cage too. I think my dad felt that there was a lot of sub-Cage that didn't need to be there.” Classical music dovetailing with pop and East African rhythms might not sound all that remarkable in the internet age (and in advertising, which PCO were never averse to), though in the 1970s they found a home on Brian Eno’s Obscure label, such was the arcane nature of what they were doing. The Penguin Cafe Orchestra wouldn’t remain recherché for long.
“I think his novel approach was to take interesting, weird ideas and do strange things with them,” says Arthur, “but always while keeping an eye on making sure it sounded beautiful and emotionally engaging.” That ethos has been carried into Penguin Cafe. “It’s a commitment that we made when I picked it up again, because we play my dad's music but we also perform new music in the same sound world. That means I’m honour bound to keep an eye on the original thread and make sure we don't start heading off into thrash metal territory.”
Nevertheless, encouraged by co-producer Robert Raths, the rhythmic elements of Rain Before Seven… have never been more to the fore and, at times, even hint at the electronic. ‘Find Your Feet’, for instance, is underpinned with more than just a pulse. Mixed by Tom Chichester-Clark, it brings to the musical melange what Arthur describes as a “near electronic feel”. He adds, excitedly: “There are elements of fun here which we haven't really done with the last three records.” Another ebullient highlight is ‘In Re Budd’, dedicated to the late ambient godfather Harold Budd, who Arthur discovered had died on the day he’d been writing the celebratory ear worm with a deceptively tricky syncopation. Played on an upright piano with some “prepared” felt to accentuate the bounce, Jeffes feels a track with an Afro Cuban Cafe vibe would appeal to Budd’s contrariness.
And then there’s the aforementioned ‘Welcome to London’, which got its name as the world started to open up and people were finally allowed to fly again. Jeffes, who touched down on home soil for the first time in a while, was struck by its cinematic John Barry-esque qualities as he took a taxi into West London from Heathrow with the mise-en-scène of the opulent twilight. The optimism is there, and maybe a little caustic irony too. “Robert [Raths] added a layer of nuance which I think is interesting, because many Londoners are not from London originally. So you pitch up to London as an outsider, and you haven't really found your tribe yet, you get mugged… and then ‘Welcome to London’ takes on a more sarcastic resonance.”
![Say She She - Prism (Natural w/ Black Swirl Vinyl LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/KCR12021lp-C1_fd825351-189f-4bc3-ab74-41375fe7451d_{width}x.jpg?v=1688204689)
![The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention (Yellow Vinyl 2LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a1582944245_10_a3a50705-991f-4360-ac5c-db27405711e9_{width}x.jpg?v=1686976018)
![The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention (Yellow Vinyl 2LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/0028428435_10_94a18d39-64df-4a3e-a3f6-55bdb4e03e52_{width}x.jpg?v=1686976018)
The Smile will release their highly anticipated debut album A Light For Attracting Attention on 13 May, 2022 on XL Recordings.
The 13- track album was produced and mixed by Nigel Godrich and mastered by Bob Ludwig. Tracks feature strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass section of contempoarary UK jazz players including Byron Wallen, Theon and Nathaniel Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Robert Stillman and Jason Yarde.
The band, comprising Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner, have previously released the singles You Will Never Work in Television Again, The Smoke, and Skrting On The Surface to critical acclaim.
![Karate - In Place Of Real Insight (Indigo Vinyl LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/NUM904LP-C3KarateIPORIIndigoDieDye_540x_a74fb61e-afd4-4661-98b0-b03152010526_{width}x.png?v=1686394414)
![Karate - In Place Of Real Insight (Indigo Vinyl LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a0630460999_10_310fbe36-995a-468e-8537-5fe28ba63dac_{width}x.jpg?v=1686394414)
![Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏 Gong Gong Gong 工工工 (Red Vinyl LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/WCR095_e0d01e3b-5d65-4bcd-a388-40f4300b457c_{width}x.jpg?v=1684749750)
![Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏 Gong Gong Gong 工工工 (Red Vinyl LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/0030005035_10_5d027e66-06a2-448a-ba41-8f5f95ffbe44_{width}x.jpg?v=1684749750)
![Karate - Unsolved (Angels Halo 2x Vinyl LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/DDE4F747-DF00-4492-82B1-B6F7C135F6CE_4e3d1ff5-33b1-4a21-99e0-62647ea27277_{width}x.png?v=1684747465)
![Juana Molina - Halo (2LP+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a1459777469_10_8f6d73aa-50e8-45ad-96e2-4edf2acbe13f_{width}x.jpg?v=1684738249)
![Juana Molina - Halo (2LP+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/0010364292_10_dc2d2786-698d-4efb-8a6e-ec6efdfdec9a_{width}x.jpg?v=1684738249)
She's back with yet another masterpiece album, overflowing with emotions, musical ideas and mysterious atmospheres. With Halo, Juana Molina picks up where she left off with her previous acclaimed album Wed 21, and shows once more that she really is "on an evolutionary journey of her own devising" (Pitchfork), which has brought the "eerie, hypnotic" music on each of her albums "to increasingly haunting heights (Spin).
Halo is Juana Molina's seventh album, it contains twelve songs and was recorded in her home studio outside of Buenos Aires, and at Sonic Ranch Studio in Texas, with contributions by Odin Schwartz & Diego Lopez de Arcaute (who have both been playing live with Juana for a number of years), and Eduardo Bergallo (who has taken part in the mixing of her previous albums), with Deerhoof's John Dieterich making a guest appearance in a couple of tracks.
![Sleaford Mods - UK GRIM (LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/files/a1928787080_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1682575871)
leaford Mods will return in 2023 with new album UK GRIM. Throughout their music the duo's poetic protest and electronic resistance has seen them consistency chart and call out their times with an eloquence and attitude that has made them one of the most urgent and unique voices in modern music. Hailed by the likes of Liam Gallagher, Seth Myers, Iggy Pop, Amyl & The Sniffers and a legion of loyal fans whose devotion for the band would rival most sports supporters.
Continuing this sonic vocation on their new album, Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn's creative evolution now finds them capturing the atmosphere of their era too. Though no strangers to the dancefloor, the minimal yet immersive beats and grooves of UK GRIM's tracks – which include collaborations with Dry Cleaning's Florence Shaw and Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro among them – add a new, physical dimension to Sleaford Mod's sound that makes their words more vital than ever. Music for body AND mind.
![Dirty Projectors + Björk - Mount Wittenberg Orca (Green Vinyl 2LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/a0453765807_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1682338996)
Mount Wittenberg Orca is named so because it is about whales, it was inspired by events on Mt. Wittenberg in California, and because it elaborates on David Longstreth's obsession with vocal harmony introduced on Dirty Projectors' 2009 album Bitte Orca. This seven-song, twenty-one minute collection is the first original music the band has recorded since Bitte Orca, and it feels more like a small album than an EP. It is also their most staggering collaboration yet — with the Icelandic artist Björk.
The music — originally written to be performed unamplified in a small Manhattan bookstore — was guided by a conversation between Longstreth and Björk about the small theaters in Italy where opera was born in the 1500s. The recording was informed by the simple, direct feel of early rock & roll recordings from the '50s. The band and Björk rehearsed for three days at the Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, and then recorded the songs as quickly and as live as possible, overdubbing only lead vocals and solos. The result feels like part children's story, part choral music from some strange future.
It's unlike anything else in the Projectors' body of work: Nat Baldwin's bass is massive and lumbering, like the silhouette of some undersea creature. Drums and guitars, so crucial to the songs on Bitte Orca, are all but absent. Instead, it's all about voices — and the voices are astonishing. Longstreth, sharing lead vocal duties with Björk, exudes a limber confidence. The Projectors women Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle sound beautiful and virtuosic. And Björk, seismic and elemental as always, sounds fresh in this new context, singing lead on half the songs.
This record is a triumph for Björk and for Dirty Projectors. It merges the energy and rawness of the band's live shows with the intricate arrangement and delicate beauty of Bitte Orca, and seems to do it effortlessly. Björk abides as a kind of artistic patron saint, sharing the spotlight rather than dominating it. Her mix of sophistication and emotion, of composition and instantaneity, has become the blueprint for a generation of creative musicians — and with Mount Wittenberg Orca, Dirty Projectors prove themselves at the forefront of that generation.
![Sadness - _____ (CS+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/a3433411205_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1681820834)
![Sadness - _____ (CS+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/0031596139_10_{width}x.jpg?v=1681820834)
![Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O. (2LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/a2072134049_10_78b01704-9754-40fd-a737-13d2b0174e69_{width}x.jpg?v=1681733796)
![V.A. - I Killed The Monster (CS)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/0030648467_10_4d50a004-be32-4b28-94d2-708a1a2c4cc3_{width}x.jpg?v=1680699455)
![V.A. - I Killed The Monster (CS)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/a0071269621_10_b57c80ed-3f34-4c99-89fb-66f9689e30de_{width}x.jpg?v=1680699455)
![My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything (LP+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/702_1fbc57f7-09a7-44e7-8b30-e7ccfac6e4a1_{width}x.jpg?v=1679559469)
With their debut album, "Isn't Anything," released in 1988, the band revolutionized alternative music and introduced a new approach to guitar music in the years that followed. Their sound became the template for numerous sub-genres and presented a groundbreaking approach to guitar music and studio production. The genderless vocals of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, who sing in the same vocal range and blend perfectly together, serve as another melodic layer that complements the dizzying intensity of Shields' guitar. The album is characterized by the eerie sense of space present in many of the recorded tracks, which range from intensely propulsive to quiet and unsettling.
Japanese obi included.
Mastered from original 1/4" analog tape using Studer A80 VU-PRE and Neumann VMS 80
180g vinyl weight
Standard gatefold outer sleeve
Four 300 x 300 mm art prints enclosed
Includes DL code (24-bit | 16-bit | mp3)
![MJ Guider - Temporary Requiem (CS)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/MODEM-02_Cover_{width}x.jpg?v=1679368479)
![Cindy Lee - Malenkost (LP+DL)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/W25-03_web_1024x1024_56c8c638-4390-4ef3-9419-e799f652a95d_{width}x.jpg?v=1679124077)
Download card includes bonus track "Revelation."
Cindy Lee is the brainchild of singer / guitarist Patrick Flegel. While some may know Flegel from their time spent in Canadian experimental indie band Women, Cindy Lee has spent the past four years crafting songs that push and pull in opposing directions – from tales of tragedy laced with haywire distortion to moments of breathtaking beauty.
On Malenkost, Flegel combines everything that makes Cindy Lee so essential: heart-wrenching romantic pleas, rough shards of noise and twilit ballads. Featuring the lo-fi pop single "A Message From The Aching Sky," Malenkost sounds like Deerhunter playing The Supremes or vice versa.
Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH presents the first of many Cindy Lee releases. Spectral and timeless, the music of Cindy Lee is hauntingly familiar yet of another plane, a magical collision of Brill Building hooks and uncompromising No Wave.
![Aksak Maboul - Une aventure de VV (Songspiel) (Made to Measure Vol. 48) (2LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/a3003295142_10_99bb4ccd-271b-4c99-958f-b593965f6d10_{width}x.jpg?v=1678514422)
![Aksak Maboul - Une aventure de VV (Songspiel) (Made to Measure Vol. 48) (2LP)](http://meditations.jp/cdn/shop/products/0031176356_10_0b11b8a1-bc4f-421b-b49f-2f94c630a9fc_{width}x.jpg?v=1678514422)
In the wake of their acclaimed comeback album 'Figures' (2020), Aksak Maboul took a playful sideways step to create this total work, a 63-minute, continuous suite of fifteen pieces, which could be described as an experimental audio play.
The thread running through 'Une aventure de VV (Songspiel)' is Véronique Vincent’s text, an enigmatic philosophical-poetical tale unfolding through monologues and dialogues, spoken and sung by a series of characters, played by Alig Fodder, Laetitia Sadier, Audrey & Benjamin from Aquaserge, Don The Tiger, Blaine L. Reininger, and the members of Aksak Maboul’s current live band: Faustine Hollander, Lucien Fraipont & Erik Heestermans.
The music was written & arranged by Marc Hollander and features his characteristic genre-hopping tendencies: strands of electronica, pop, jazz, collage, techno, ambient, improv, krautrock, contemporary classical & systems music are merrily woven together, in the inimitable Aksak Maboul style.
The album’s subtitle, 'Songspiel', highlights its theatrical/musical aspect: the work pays oblique homage to the those experimental radio plays that once emerged from the creative workshops of the BBC, the RTF and the RAI, and especially to those German Hörspiels which, at their best, might combine spoken word, instrumental or electronic music, songs and sonic research.
Une aventure de VV also modestly alludes to certain stage works written by adventurous composers during the first half of the 20th century, which embraced singing, spoken dialogues and elements inspired by popular music. Those composers sometimes invented genre names to describe their pieces: fantaisie lyrique, mimodrama, or... songspiel).