MUSIC

Building on the promise of nearly 10 years testing limits within club music, Batu presents his debut album Opal. Experimentation is a well-established facet of Omar McCutcheon’s identity within the leftfield techno zeitgeist, but more than ever on Opal he seizes the opportunity to incorporate ideas beyond dancefloor impetus into his animated, forward-leaning sound. Through the course of 11 tracks, rhythmic forms are mutated and manipulated, sonic matter bends across the frequency range and narrative structures coalesce and dissolve according to Batu’s own internal logic. Unpredictability lies at the heart of all this music, bound together by a consistent modernist glint. It’s a sound intrinsically connected to the superlative string of club 12”s, EPs and collaborations Batu has spun behind him thus far, even as it moves into unfamiliar terrain, guided by abstract inspiration from coastal landscapes and the mineral matter all life on Earth is built on. On Opal the visceral production isn’t necessarily geared towards shock tactics. Instead, emotional depths are explored through melodic and textural forms which take on an elemental quality. It’s a space which can accommodate the explicit heart and soul of the human voice, as recent collaborator serpentwithfeet demonstrates weaving a mesmerising vocal through ‘Solace’, but it can also take in broad sweeps of interpretive landscape. There’s also room for small fragments of instrumentation, recorded by Memotone, processed by Batu and subtly threaded throughout the album. Balancing micro and macro in specific sounds as much as moods, Batu’s finely-sculpted work calls to mind the immensity of passing time cast in cliff faces, and the intimate personal growth we experience in our own lifetimes. Mimicking the iridescent stone it takes its name from, Opal refracts Batu’s distinctive artistic imprint, giving us a deeper, more revealing impression of the artist as he explores ideas bigger – and indeed smaller.

Previously unissued music by Alvin Curran. Collecting works recorded between 2018-2021 and a side-long epic dating back to the early 80s, as the title suggests, »Drumming Up Trouble« focuses on a hitherto almost unknown aspect of Curran’s encyclopaedic and omnivorous musical world: his experiments with sampled and synthesised percussion. As Curran’s wonderful, wildly sweeping liner notes make clear, his fascination with drumming belongs to the radical investigation of music’s fundamental elements that has marked his output since the beginnings of MEV, who aimed (as he says in a recent interview) to return 'in some collective way to a non-existent start time in the history of human music'. Whatever kind of music our proto-human ancestors played, he writes, 'drums were front and centre in the mix. Drums rule!' In a paradox typical of Curran’s approach, »Drumming Up Trouble« interrogates this most ancient dimension of music with contemporary technology. On the first side, we hear recent pieces performed using the sampling software and full-size MIDI keyboard setup Curran has refined since the 1980s. Two of them are wild real-time improvisations, primarily utilising an enormous bank of hip-hop samples. Building from polyrhythmic layers of drum machine fragments to wild cacophonies of clashing vocal samples, scratching, and frantic pitch shifting, these energetic and at times hilarious pieces occupy a space somewhere between John Oswald’s Plunderphonics, Pat Thomas and Matt Wand in the Tony Oxley Quartet, and the propulsive Kudoro/Grime fusion of Lisbon’s Príncipe label. They are improvisations are accompanied by two austere, minimal compositions realised in collaboration with Angelo Maria Farro: »End Zone« for orchestral bass drum and high oscillator, and »Rollings«, where a snare roll is gradually stretched and filtered by digital means into ‘floating electronic gossamer’. The incredible breadth of Curran’s output makes it pretty unlikely that a listener familiar with his work would be surprised to find it branching out in a new direction. But no degree of familiarity with his work can really prepare for side B’s epic and bizarre »Field it More«. It’s perhaps best to let the maestro describe this unhinged and infectious offering in his own words: ‘It features an 8 bar funky minimal riff à la James Brown, played on synth and an-out-of-tune piano, synced to a pre-paid patch on the Roland drum machine. Over this is laid a heavily processed track of the voices of dancer Yoshiko Chuma and movie-maker Jacob Burckhardt discussing an upcoming performance of theirs at the Venice film festival, capped by a track of my playing an increasingly out of control blues over the top of all of the above’. Only Pekka Airaksinen’s Buddhas of the Golden Light comes to mind as a reference point that might even vaguely compare to this wild home-brew of drum-machine funk, mad improvisation and squelching electronics, which eventually dissolved into a massive, layered cluster. Ancient and modern, synthetic and human, hysterical and rigorous, Drumming up Trouble is 100% Curran.

Swooping, sub-heavy sci-fi from Riz Maslen. Leda Maar is a new moniker for the established artist who’s released a crop of downtempo and electronic music as Neotropic and Small Fish With Spine, as well as collaborated with the likes of Future Sound of London, filmmaker Andrew Kötting, and featured in PSP-era Grand Theft Auto soundtracks. Mana’s long lasting love of Riz’s 1996 Laundrophonic EP, released under her Neotropic name, spurred this new release. That 12” was a deep and dark web of rhythm and ghostly urban found sound that one Discogs reviewer aptly named “coin-slot Dubstep”. With elements mostly sourced from tape recordings made in and of her local laundromat, it still stands out as a remarkably contemporary feeling work; more like a post-Fisher, post-hauntology observation of urban life from the last decade, taking the ambient temperature and undercurrent pressures of the 90s. Asking if she had anything in continuity with this slice of her discography, and describing our interest in her take on “space and bass”, Maslen returned to us with Stairway 13. Heavy-lidded and ethereal in long form, Stairway 13's balance of bass weight, mechanical metre, and darkly tinted new age feels like a cinematic re-approach to some of the textures, moods, and themes of Laundrophonic. Originally composed for an installation, Stairway 13 folds in her decades’ experience in sound design and theatre, along with shards and elements abstracted from her more recent folk-like music, zoning into a deep, retreated, altogether dreamlike and expansive atmosphere. The scale and soundscape is reminiscent of Geinoh Yamashirogumi and their Ecophony album series, resonating to similar frequencies and exploring themes of chaos and rebirth in feature-length form. Stairway 13’s four parts spread and swoop as single extended sides across this double LP. Carried by waves of sub bass and heavenly chorus, and later punctuated with autonomic clicks of machinery, whirrs, and pulses -sometimes reminiscent of FSOL’s weirder and more clipped staccato sampling in sections of their cyberpunk ISDN-the work forms a gothic, otherworldly ambience. A subtle space opera.

Runhild Gammelsæter and Lasse Marhaug are two Norwegian musicians/sound artists. Both started in the early 1990s music underground and have worked in many constellations with a wide range of collaborators. Despite knowing each other for a long time, Gammelsæter and Marhaug’s first collaborative work was the “Quantum Entanglement” LP in 2014. The album ignited a collective spark that both wanted to pursue further. Still, other commitments got in the way, and the project lay dormant until Stephen O’Malley, and Greg Anderson invited them to open for Sunn O))) for a special gig in the St. James Church of Culture in Oslo in the autumn of 2019. The two gathered for a long series of rehearsals, and after the successful performance, it was clear that it was time to start working on new compositions and recordings. That process initiated in late 2019 and continued to early 2021, encompassing before and after the world went through the lockdown. The result of this long development to be heard accumulated upon their new album “Higgs Boson” on Ideologic Organ Music. Throughout the profound process of creating “Higgs Boson”, Gammelsæter and Marhaug drew inspiration from various subjects and artists. For Marhaug, it was concepts informed by the structuralist experimental cinema of Japanese directors Takashi Ito and Toshio Matsumoto, futurist worlds of French comic book artists Philippe Druillet and Jean Moebius Giraud, landscape photography of Fay Godwin, Kåre Kivijärvi, and Tamiko Nishimura, amongst others. It became a metaphysical juxtaposition involving Gammelsaeter’s research and lyrical ideas based on several seemingly unrelated principles. A process of association inspired by “the Glass Bead Game” by Herman Hesse. The discovery of the Higgs Boson as a confirmation of the physical universe. The work of Ernst Schrödinger on the uncertainty principle. The four forces of physics. The Force. Helplessness under armed forces - as the war sailors in World War II. The influence of magic as expressed in tarot. Gammelsæter experiments with a boundary involving the thresholds amongst various states of focus and legibility by forensic experimentation with techniques such as exclusive expression of consonants, syllabic repetition, retrograde text vocalisations and multi-lingual layering. Her vocal inspirational sources include Sidsel Endresen, Diamanda Galas, Natacha Atlas, the choral works of Rachmaninov, and the bands Carcass and Grave. Two worlds coming together, making the music special. Mixing hard facts with science fiction helps create a kaleidoscopic cross point between the complex realities of the past and a possible future. “Quantum Entanglement” featured two long-form pieces centred around a prepared piano and layered voice, while “Higgs Boson” developed a much more elaborate and ambitious compositional work. Across eight parts, the two artists brought a broad palette of instrumentation and sound. Electronic and acoustic, objects and field recordings, and pipe organ define the structures of which the centre is Gammelsæter’s magnificent voice. She has become known for her legendary voice, with her vast and unique range of inflective techniques and affective colour through her 30 years creating music. In the mix, Lasse approached the instrumental elements like landscapes, then Runhild’s vocals as characters that inhabit those worlds. Often, Gammelsæter multiple characters fused with the landscape. Make them occupy space, sometimes blend into it, sometimes dominate it. Constructing and setting visual guidelines helps set focus and open possibilities. As an album, “Higgs Boson” is direct and focused, drawing on song structures. Within these tracks are vast strata of sound, an immersive multi-dimensional depth of music. Creating a feeling of depth while working with a flat two-channel stereo format - and how dimensions of texture and distortion can help develop the illusion of a space. The album structure is a story-like arc, a malleable subjective path, set as the album traverses oblique and suggestive areas, opening the concepts for the listener to unpack as they like. – exclusive consultation with Gammelsæter & Marhaug, edited by Stephen O’Malley, June 2022

At Jazzman have already given legitimate release to albums that fell foul of the notorious '70s 'tax scam' practice, namely those by Sounds of the City Experience and Ricardo Marrero. It now gives us great satisfaction to present Reality's 'Disco Party' album, for the very first time in agreement with the surviving members of the band. Possibly the most obscure of all the obscurities in the TSG catalogue, 'Disco Party' isn't actually 'disco' at all, moreover it's a fully rounded excursion into mid-70s dancefloor funk and proto-disco-jazz, performed by a group of expert musicians at the height of their powers. Recorded in one long session in NYC, until now, bandleader Dr. Otto Gomez and the rest of his crew had never even heard the recordings they'd made almost 50 years ago. Indeed, none of the band even knew that their album had been released! At Jazzman, we consider it our mission to shine new light on music that went under-appreciated at the time of its original release. There are many varied circumstances which can cause an otherwise great record to not do so well - for instance, poor budget, marketing, promo and sometimes just plain old bad luck. Perhaps the most unjust circumstance involves the tax loss releases of the mid-70s - records made purely to cheat a few dollars out of the tax man. Here, along with restoring the music, we have dug deep into the backstory of the group, interviewing Gomez and others to find out exactly who this unheralded NYC funk orchestra were and what happened to them before and after the monumental session laid out on this record. Our liner notes tell the story of the TSG label and the 'tax loss' phenomenon, and we delve into the history of the band from their humble beginnings as the Smokin' Shades of Black(!) to the present day. We also find out exactly what it means to record some brilliant music - only to have it taken away - and discarded.

Dang-Khoa Chau aka Đ.K. gives up a self-released treat, sidewinding into psychedelic realms of radiant gamelan and slow, humid bangers, highly recommended if yr into ’Forest of Evil' period Demdike, early Shackleton, DJ Python. A pivotal presence in the Parisian scene thanks to his rounds for Antinote, L.I.E.S., Second Circle, and most recently 12th isle & Good Morning Tapes; Đ.K now takes matters into his own hands to issue some golden material, drawing on his South East Asian heritage and sultry, stylized nEuropean club music for a properly hypnotic seven track trip. In deep pursuit of atavistic urges, and modelled with electronic futurism, his ‘Gate Of Enlightenment’ calls up a spectra of spirits that invoke altered states; vocal swirls meet purposeful gamelan in ‘Enlightenment Process’, aligning for the deftly weight trample of ‘Middle Path’ with its mystic horns, and a slippery sort of dancehall swivel in ‘Sacred Creatures.’ ‘His ‘Day of Mourning’ makes room for contemplation with sound sensitive instincts heightened to unnerving degrees, while ‘Metal Frames’ yokes back to the ‘floor with something like an industrialised echo of the Ghost In The Shell OST, while the closing couplet see his percussive proprioceptions at their most devilish and immersive.

French photographer, musician, and lifeguard Romeo Poirier is also known for his cult favorite "Plage Arrière," a meditative deep sea ambient cassette released on Kit Records. A long-awaited repress of this popular work, originally released in 2020! Is this truly a miraculous fusion of Andrew Pekler and Biosphere? Mastered at Schwebung by Stephan Mathieu. If you like Jelinek or Boards Of Canada, you will love this. Limited edition clear vinyl.

Marasma Vussa is the BrainChild of Antonio Feola a long standing figure on the london music scene, Antonio has been running the Fish Factory Studio in Willesden North London for over two decades now. Throughout the year he has had a major role in helping many of the current lead players of the London scene have a place to record and define their sound. Antonio's project Masmara has existed for over 30 years and here has found its place on record. Recorded on tape over time with some of the most sought after players in London and edited during the lockdown period, Vussa is an album of mind-bending deep, cosmic mediative jazz experiments. Boasting catchy melodies and heavy, heavy jazz breaks! - Fascinating gentle post-jazz from Vussa that’s not about propulsion and force, but rather the profound impact of stillness. - Bandcamp MARSAMA VUSSA LP is distributed by honestjons

The inner journey of Lorenzo Fortino brings to mind many example of minimal and contemporary music, verging on sophisticated ambient electronics textures. A pleasant experience all in all, a tender scenario and a truly looking-forward album with a real taste for harmony and arrangements. A lifting experience for a mature young composer. (Luca Collepiccolo)

From the famous South African Afro-Jazz such as Hugh Masekela and Johnny Dyani, who have dug up many masterpieces, , the products of the rich jazz scene of Cape Town in the 1960s are reproduced! The masterpiece debut album of South African legendary pianist Ibrahim Khalil Shihab (only 22 years old at the time !!), formerly known as Chris Schilder, is an analog reissue after more than 50 years! Completed in just two hours of studio recording ... His first leader work, which was already in a key position in the Cape Town jazz scene at a young age. With the full support of the saxophonist Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi, who was highly acclaimed for his masterpiece “Yakhal'Inkomo”, this is a superb album full of creativity with unparalleled interplay! 180G heavy vinyl & remastered. Includes liner notes by Valmont Layne.

The Afro Modern Sounds of Soweto’s First Nightclub • Ten seminal tracks journeying through jazz, funk, fusion and disco, detailing the incredible story and sounds behind the Soweto nightclub during the height of apartheid • A uniquely South African take on the trans-Atlantic sounds of Philadelphia, Detroit and New York City • Presented in a gatefold double vinyl edition with printed inner sleeves, cover artwork by Zulu Bidi (of Batsumi fame), unseen photographs, and liner notes by Kwanele Sosibo featuring interviews with key musicians, players and a former president of South Africa • Audio mastered and cut for vinyl by Frank Merritt at The Carvery with heavyweight 180g vinyl pressed at Pallas in Germany A night-time haunt in the backstreets of Soweto run by a well-known bootlegger should have been a prime zone for nefarious underworld activities. Instead, it nurtured an underground of a different kind. Soon after its opening in 1973, Club Pelican became a spot where musicians steeped in the tradition of South African jazz began to cook up experimental sounds inspired by communion, competition and the movements in funk and soul blowing in from the West. Located in an industrial park on the western edge of Orlando East, Soweto, Club Pelican was off the beaten track, among a matrix of railway and industrial infrastructure. In a different time and place, this would have been a prototypical nightclub location, except there was no local precedent to follow. This was Soweto’s first night club. In the intervening years, this location has served to heighten the now-defunct spot’s legendary status as a singular venue, one that ruled the night in the Seventies. Initially called Lucky’s and established in 1973, the Pelican’s impact on the Soweto cultural landscape was immediate. Lorded over by a charismatic figure known as Lucky Michaels, the club became the jewel in a nondescript collection of family businesses. It boasted a diverse pool of talent in its succession of house bands and an A-list of ghetto-fabulous singers as its cabaret stars. Its VIP section was a veritable who’s who of Soweto society and its stage, hosting a mix of the day’s pop culture infused with the creativity and individual histories of the musicians, the Pelican filled a live music vacuum. One Night in Pelican captures the halcyon seventies period with a single nightclub embodying an indomitable spirit of its troubadour players. While schooled and rooted in “standards” and local forms, the music could take any direction, at a moment’s notice. This compilation features all the key groups and players of the time: Abacothozi, Almon Memela’s Soweto, The Black Pages, Dick Khoza and the Afro Pedlars, The Drive, Ensemble of Rhythm and Art , The Headquarters, Makhona Zonke Band, the Shyannes and Spirits Rejoice. Over ten years in the making, this is the first compilation from South African vinyl re-issue specialists Matsuli Music

The world premiere of a two-disc set of the ultimate rarities in dub history from a renowned label known for its archival reissues of rare and high quality reggae and dub material. The combination of Jamaica's most talented producer, Bunny Lee, Prince Jammy's mix and The Aggrovators' performance is the ultimate combination of Johnny Clarke, Tommy McCook, Hortense Ellis and Derrick Morgan. Conflict Dub" (1977) was released in very small quantities on the white label at the time and is rarely seen on the used market. And now, for the first time, we're reissuing this fantastic album (recorded around the same time as the previously reissued "Dubbing in the Backyard") under the name "Dubbing in the Front Yard". (recorded at the same time as the previously reissued "Dubbing in the Backyard"). This interesting release couples the early days and maturity of the creative and strong partnership between Bunny Lee and Prince Jammy, who produced many classic albums at King Tubby's, the heaviest mixing studio in Jamaica at the time. The newly prepared cover features a rare photo taken by Howard Johnson, director of the Channel 4 documentary "Deep Roots Music", in the same week as the 1982 recording.

Limited edition transparent blue vinyl in 3mm colour printed sleeve with printed inner , full sleevenotes, fold-out 24” x 12” Pay It All Back concert poster and download card.

'As always, the Pay It All Back series is intended to promote our upcoming releases and productions. It also offers soundtracks from artists we would like to promote, including unreleased songs and versions that will only be included on this one. Sadly, we lost many greats in the music world last year, including Lee Scratch Perry, George Oban, and John Sharp. Lee laughed at death. For him, death was just a part of life, a new beginning... I have faith in Lee. I am very proud to release this album. This album is a gift to all the On-U Sound crew and to all the irreplaceable friends I will never see again. Adrian Sherwood

A supreme soundscape! World premiere recording of a 1997 work by a composer/guitarist who has left his mark on the contemporary Mexican music scene! Eblen Macari has been ambitiously developing his unique musical style for 40 years, from the 1980s to the present. Production began. The work was inspired by the sound of the guitar and the ecology of the trees that make up the wood used for the guitar. The influence of Ralph Towner and Egberto Gismonti, whom Eblen admires greatly, and ECM Records, represented by Egberto Gismonti, is reflected especially strongly in Eblen's works.
・Remastered by Kuniyuki Takahashi
・First ever vinyl release (originally released in 1997 on CD)
・Limited to 500 copies
・For fans of Ambient, World music& ECM Records

Sydney-based jazz trio triosk and jan jelinek from Berlin have opened up a common equation. The title reflects their production method : jelinek mails selected samples and textures to australia, Triosk use these as a basis for composition and recording, the enhanced material then returns to Berlin for Jelinek to finalise.

But the mileage covered does not become audible - "four different instruments multiplied by four different approaches make one sense". Triosk and Jelinek play together with eerie assurance and emphatic sensibility. Archetypal, dissolving jazz elements correspond to repetitive patterns not known to the genre, electronics and acoustics circle each other but remain conjoined. A perfect evolution from the micro-contained glitch-house that Jelinek has adapted so brilliantly - forever searching for a myriad colour of jazz traditions and influences that have finally expressed themselves with a less contained form on this wondrous album.

Perhaps geographical circumstances have something to do with the fact that Jelinek and Triosk approach a similar musical task from completely different directions - but the result is a deep, timeless and brilliantly executed slice of machine soul music for the mellowest of blue nights - and another maverick album from a man who can seemingly do no wrong.

After a small nap, Tokyo’s finest Studio Mule is back on the scene, bringing the world some deeply composed guitar music from Japan, crafted by Shin Sasakubo. Since almost 20 years the guitarist is specialized in classic and contemporary Andean and Peruvian music. a knowledge that he deepened through a three-year stint in Peru between 2004 and 2007. During his time in Latin America, he played live in Argentina, Chile, or Bolivia and researched in the works of Peruvian novelist, poet, and anthropologist José María Ar-Guedas, as Shin Sasakubo’s take on art is not one-dimensional. He also loves movies, painting, photography, writing, and theater - artforms that con-stantly influence his music on many different layers. since his return to his hometown Chichibu City in the japanese Saitama Prefecture, he launched the "Chichibu Avant-Garde School”, a college that looks through art and lectures on the Chichibu region, and his en-vironmental and folkloristic history. As sincerely driven composer, he released three guitar leaning albums in the past ten years. his latest sensation “Chichibu”, originally only released in Japan, now travels the globe via Studio Mule, making his fantastique listening voyage available for all those souls that seek joy through the sound of guitar strings.

Black Truffle is thrilled to continue its program of archival releases from Arnold Dreyblatt with a recently unearthed concert recording from Dreyblatt and Paul Panhuysen’s "Duo Geloso". While isolated examples of Dreyblatt’s collaboration with the legendary Dutch multi-media artist appeared on the CD reissue of Propellers in Love and Black Truffle’s wide-ranging archival Second Selection, this is the first release to document the variety and playfulness of the concerts that Duo Geloso performed throughout Europe in 1987-88. Both working across sonic and visual forms, fascinated by numerical relationship and the infinite complexity of string harmonics, Dreyblatt and Panhuysen had a natural affinity for each other’s work, strengthened through Dreyblatt’s many visits to Het Apollohuis, the important experimental art space Panhuysen helped to found in Eindhoven. However, as René van Peer suggests in the liner notes enclosed within this release, Dreyblatt and Panhuysen took very different approaches to these shared interests; the wonderful energy of these Duo Geloso performances results from the meeting of Dreyblatt’s more austere, compositional process with Panhuysen’s spontaneity. Recorded at a concert at Het Apollohuis in December 1987 (a series of beautiful photographs of which adorn the LP’s packaging), each of the six pieces presented here is distinctive in terms of instrumentation and performance approach. Using electric guitar and bass tuned by Dreyblatt and played using E-Bow and Panhuysen’s motorised plectrums, the opening ‘Razorburg’ moves slowly through a long series of held notes with a madly insistent tremolo that crosses Dick Dale with a mechanised take on the layered guitars of Günter Schickert. The same pair of instruments returns on ‘Duo for Guitars’, where the mechanised attacks dissolve into a harmonic wash, reminiscent of the machine guitar work of fellow Het Apollohuis alumni Remko Scha. On ‘Love Call’, the guitars and bass are accompanied by Panhuysen’s distant warbled vocals, familiar to Maciunas Ensemble listeners. On the remarkable ‘Synsonic Batterie’, Panhuysen begins proceedings with a solo barrage of electronic percussion on the Synsonics Drum Machine (a simple drum synthesiser produced by the toy manufacturer Mattell), joined eventually by Dreyblatt performing his signature percussive natural harmonics on pedal steel guitar. When Panhuysen adds his bird whistle to the mix, the performance becomes the perfect exemplar of the Duo Geloso’s unique mix of studious close listening and subtle absurdity. Presented in a gatefold sleeve with archival photos and illuminating liner notes from René van Peer.

With this album, even the passing summer will make a comeback in the blink of an eye. The latest title from popular US disco producer Sorcerer arrives on Growing Bin. It's full of balearic house, modern boogie, downtempo, and new age vibes. It seems as if the West Coast's exhilarating breeze is blowing away the gloomy air. Superb!!

"Ambient Music For A Young Girl", a very good new title, has arrived. This is a masterpiece of ambient music that exudes warm nostalgia and a profound sense of tranquility towards the approaching footsteps of autumn. The latest solo album by Cass., one of Germany's most important new age/ambient artists, is now available from Growing Bin. Beautiful. With the music of the foreground, it is a fascinating experience to rescue oneself from ego. After a year of isolation in the current situation, this album is for many people who are going through introspection. Please listen slowly and deeply.

弊店でも毎度瞬殺完売必至の大人気レーベル、濃密な音楽体験をお約束する”Cairo Records”の最新タイトルとなる第８弾コンピレーション！Mississippi recordsがディストリビューションする、このコアな黒人音楽遺産レーベルの最新作は著名アーティストから発見することすら困難なオブスキュアな無名アーティストまで超絶ディープなバラッドを収録した、Harry SmithのAnthology Of American Folk Musicのソウル版とも言うべき、鋭い審美眼による選び抜かれた豪華ソウル・ミュージックを25曲収録。場末の酒場は今日も歌へと酔いしれ、哀歌へと沈み、黄昏の夕日へと焦がれる毎日。遥か遠い日を夢に見る男と女の心打つバラッドの数々に乾杯です！金箔プリント・カバー&ブラック・インナー・スリーヴ仕様。28ページにも渡るフルカラー・ライナーノーツが付属。完全限定盤。同レーベルからのコンピは再プレスもなく、瞬時レア化しているため今回も争奪戦が予測されます。この機会を絶対にお見逃しなく！全音楽好きに大・大・大・大・大推薦です！

弊店でも毎度瞬殺完売必至の大人気レーベル、濃密な音楽体験をお約束する”Cairo Records”の最新タイトルとなる第七弾コンピレーション！Mississippi recordsがディストリビューションする、このコアな黒人音楽遺産レーベルの最新作は今日までヴァイナルでのリリースも為されてこなかったデモ曲含め、著名アーティストから発見することすら困難なオブスキュアな無名アーティストまで超絶ディープなバラッドを収録した、Harry SmithのAnthology Of American Folk Musicのソウル版とも言うべき、鋭い審美眼による選び抜かれた豪華ソウル・ミュージックを36曲収録。場末の酒場は今日も歌へと酔いしれ、哀歌へと沈み、黄昏の夕日へと焦がれる毎日。遥か遠い日を夢に見る男と女の心打つバラッドの数々に乾杯です！金箔プリント・カバー&ブラック・インナー・スリーヴ仕様。28ページにも渡るフルカラー・ライナーノーツが付属。完全限定盤。同レーベルからのコンピは再プレスもなく、瞬時レア化しているため今回も争奪戦が予測されます。この機会を絶対にお見逃しなく！全音楽好きに大・大・大・大・大推薦です！

Group Theory: Black Music is a stunning new statement from South African drummer and composer Tumi Mogorosi. Standing in the lineage of South African greats such as Louis Moholo-Moholo, Makaya Ntshoko and Ayanda Sikade, Mogorosi is one of the foremost drummers working anywhere in the world, with a flexible, powerful style that brings a distinctive South African inflection to the polyrhythmic tradition of Elvin Jones, Max Roach and Art Blakey. Since his international debut on Jazzman Records in 2014 with Project ELO, Mogorosi has been in the vanguard of the South African creative music scene’s burgeoning outernational dimension, taking the drummer’s chair in both Shabaka Hutchings’ Shabaka and The Ancestors formation and with avant-garde noiseniks The Wretched. As Mogorosi’s first project as leader since 2014, Group Theory: Black Music marks a return to the drummer’s musical roots. The sound is anchored in the transnational tradition of Great Black Music, with the core of the group comprising a quintet of newcomers Tumi Pheko (trumpet) and Dalisu Ndlazi (bass) alongside the experienced guitarist Reza Khota, with Mogorosi himself and altoist Mthunzi Mvubu, another Ancestors member, representing the current generation of South Africa’s creative music torchbearers. Motivated by Mogorosi’s driving dynamism, the group create deep-hued modal grooves that burn with a contemporary urgency, while established pianist Andile Yenana brings an elder voice to three of the tracks. Featured vocalists Gabi Motuba (Project ELO, The Wretched) and Siyabonga Mthembu (The Brother Moves On) take differing approaches to the spiritual standard ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child’, while poet Lesego Rampolokeng pours out lyrical fire on ‘Where Are The Keys?’, creating a bridge back to the Black Consciousness movement and figures such as Lefifi Tladi and Wally Mongane Serote. But where Group Theory: Black Music moves an established format dramatically forward is in the addition of a ten-person choir. Conducted by Themba Maseko, their massed voices soar powerfully above every track as a collective instrument of human breath and body, and enter the album into the small but significant number of radical recordings to have used the voice in this way, such as Max Roach’s "It’s Time", Andrew Hill’s "Lift Every Voice", Billy Harper’s "Capra Black", and Donald Byrd’s "I’m Trying To Get Home". At the same time, the presence of this wall of voices brings an inextricable connection to the venerable tradition of South African choral music, and to the importance that the Black choir has had for South Africa’s religious, political and social cultures, including the culture of South African creative music itself. From the Manhattan Brothers and the choral compositions of Todd Matshikiza to figures such as Johnny Dyani and Victor Ndlazilwane, the collective power of voice has been one of the cornerstones of improvised creative music in the country. ‘I started out in a choir’, says Tumi, as he reflects on the significance of Black voices in concert. ‘There’s this idea of mass, of a group of people gathering, which has a political implication. And the operatic voice has both a presence, and a capacity to scream, a capacity for affect. The instrumental group can sustain the intensity of that affect, and the chorus can go beyond improvisation, toward communal melodies that everyone can be a part of.’ This potential for communality in the music swings close to Group Theory’s conceptual centres of gravity. The title refers to the mathematical theory of the same name, the essentials of which concern the axioms that make a simple set of items into a true mathematical group – associativity, closure and an identity element. These mathematical ideas offered Mogorosi a metaphorical platform for thinking about the way that individual players in a musical unit are also bound together at the moment of creation, in a unity that begins to challenge the individual and complicates conventional ideas of leadership and hierarchy. In bringing experienced musicians such as Yenana and Khota into the orbit of younger players, Mogorosi also wants to re-orientate the idea of teacher-student relations toward a more open vision of intergenerational knowledge sharing. ‘We are looking for questions, not answers’, he says. Mogorosi’s overarching vision on Group Theory: Black Music is encapsulated by the touchstone quotation from Amiri Baraka – ‘New Black Music is this: Find the self, then kill it.’ For Mogorosi, these words speak to an essential feature and function of Black creative and improvised art – the search for the point where individual boundaries collapse into the universal ongoing flow of the music, at the moment of group creation. This flow is not local, it is transglobal, and it joins the music of the diaspora with Africa, allowing connections and relations to range across historic and contemporary spaces of struggle, self-determination and transformation. Such effects are also transtemporal, dropping deep down into the wells of history to bring forth sounds from the present and future, and allowing the music to burrow back into the past. As Baraka’s words imply, the individual cannot escape this search unchanged, and the creative musician does not desire to: in the time of its creation, New Black Music intends to flow into and through the performers from sources beyond them. The writer of a song is never the only author; the soloist always speaks for others; the leaders are never one but a host of many. Previous times and places, previous performances and compositions, previous souls and struggles are always made manifest in the music; the search for the inner self is also a quest to dissolve the individual into the living soundways of those who came before and those who will come after. ‘The album is under my name,’ says Tumi, ‘but the ideas aim at a decentring of the individual composer or author, and a a decentring of the idea of the “leader” – it tries to encapsulate the idea of a group effect, to go beyond the point of origin, and it refuses geo-specific narratives.’ South African creative and improvised music, with its nomadic history of journeys between the US, Europe and South African, has always been exemplary of these ongoing processes, and it is fitting that Group Theory: Black Music should itself be the result of an international collaboration. Starting from a shared vision and understanding of the parallels between the music being made in their respective countries, South African label Mushroom Hour Half Hour and London based label New Soil were able to pool their resources to support Tumi’s large-scale creative vision for this project and enable it to find the global audience it seeks and deserves.

Written, recorded & performed by Muslimgauze, this album was withdrawn by Bryn Jones, and replaced by the ‘Betrayal’ album in 1993. This is the album in its original form, as intended by Jones. The material was recovered from a cassette copy of the album as the original DAT was reused. ​ "Shekel Of Israeli Occupation' was never meant to be released. This is the only release of the album in its original form, as intended by Bryn. The material was recovered from a cassette copy of the album as the original DAT was overwritten with new material. Remixes of the tracks "Khan Younis", "Jerusalem Knife" and "Yasser Arafat's Radio" appeared on the album 'Hamas Arc'. The tracks "Caste" and "Amritsar" appeared on the album 'Satyajit Eye'. A version of "Drugsherpa" appeared on the mini album 'Drugsherpa'. Versions of the tracks "Khan Younis", "Drugsherpa", "Amritsar" & "Jerusalem Knife" appeared on the extended 'Drugsherpa' album."

olina project emerged at a time when CDJs became standard in clubs and artists from many disciplines began exploring their possibilities. In Lolina’s records and performances, they are used as a live sampling tool allowing her to move between composition and improvisation. On “Fast Fashion”, discarded vocal takes and phone recordings made while watching videos online or walking down the street are re-sampled across long-form collages. “Mark Ronson’s TED Talk Intro (Using Computer Remix)”, restyles a lecture about sampling and constructed of samples into a track that can’t be contained by any of its elements. Relaxed beats break down into stuttering, jokes turn into abstract situations, and meaning is altered through repetition. With transitions between different parts defining the listening experience, “Fast Fashion” reveals a process by which one thing can be changed into another. “Fast Fashion” is Lolina’s fifth album and first working with Deathbomb Arc. Digital to be released on Oct 27th with vinyl to follow in early 2022 ~ both on pre-sale now. Lolina previously released music as Inga Copeland and was a member of the band Hype Williams between 2009 — 2013.