MUSIC
4977 products
Originally compiled & released in 2015 by Leaving Records & Laraaji, we proudly present (again), with humble gratitude, three re-issues of seminal works by new age musician, composer, and laughter meditation workshop leader Laraaji - recorded between 1978 and 1983. Although some excerpts of the material have been featured on various compilations, this was the first time in over 30 years that one can experience the uninterrupted duration of these cosmic etudes in their complete form. The added length creates an immersive environment of fresh, exploratory, experimental and healing sounds in which to dwell– these are the proper, entire experiences as intended by their creator.
1978’s Lotus Collage was recorded live in a Park Slope, Brooklyn living room during Laraaji’s busker years. The sounds consist of freestyle electric open tuned zither/harp, Ecstatic Rhythmic hammer percussion, and free flow open hand ethereal moods. This recording crucially predates Laraaji’s now mythological “discovery” by Brian Eno, and is significant as one of Laraaji’s first electric zither recordings. This early recording captures a youthful Laraaji at the outset of his musical journey, still ripe for discovery, exploration, and transcendence. 1981’s Unicorns in Paradise was performed on electric keyboard Casiotone MT-70, and once again features Laraaji’s iconic zither in a flowing atmospheric improvisation. Laraaji describes its sonic environs as “an ideal habitat in another dimension of timelessness.” Many years later, this description holds true as its vibrant sounds inspire sensual reflections of the excited imagination. The final re-issue consists of two parts. Its first side, “Trance Celestial,” is a glowing, amorphous survey of muted and malleable electric sounds. Its uncharacteristically dark atmospheres nevertheless still paint a surreal atmosphere for self-reflection. Much beauty and inner-wisdom can be found in the depths of its inward trajectory. In contrast, the title track is a guided meditation full of light and optimism. Its spoken word segments and patient arrangements illustrate a constructive framework for enjoying the whole of Laraaji’s extensive catalog.
Originally, these releases were hand-made and dubbed to cassette by Laraaji himself. Of the process, he says “I felt like I was distributing artwork. As a matter of fact, for some of the cassettes I actually did some extra handwork on the label, doing a screen print or magic marker to add some color. So there was a sense of how to be an industry homemade artist direct-to-consumer feeling in the early years. People would ask for cassette tapes of an issue that I had not mass produced. So, now and then I’ll run into somebody who has a cassette tape… I’ll look at it and say, ‘Oh Wow, hand-made label, J-card and HEART.'”
Available on both cassette and digital, these re-issues offer Laraaji’s early music in both its original form and a form that did not exist at the time of its recording. Regarding this parallel, Laraaji reflects, “Having the music move in dimensions I didn’t predict… It feels like an extended blessing.”
Reissue of the drop-dead classic album from 1978, Alimantado with Horace Andy, Lee Perry, King Tubby, Gregory Isaacs, Jah Woosh, Jimmy Radwell and Jackie Edwards. Recorded in several sessions, at the Black Ark, Channel One, Randy's and King Tubby's studios, it was the first album put out by Greensleeves, now reissued by the good Dr. himself on his Keyman label. Alimantado's graffiti, daubed round Westbourne Park and Notting Hill back in '78 survived longer than any Banksy could, without a sliver of perspex in sight.
A wonderfully fine-feathered free jazz zinger from L.A., 1978, Horace Tapscott and the Pan Peoples Arkestra’s ‘The Call’ is reissued by DJ Harv’s Outernational Sounds for the first time
“Our Music is contributive, rather than competitive” - Horace Tapscott. Working under the right kinda steam, Tapscott and company play a blinder here, sending us reeling with the deliciously complex, rolling syncopation and flighty horns of ‘The Call’, then seducing with the mellifluous appearance of Adele Sebastian in ‘Quagmire Manor at Five A.M.’ before erupting into needlepoint bebop, and back out to Adele. Percussion fiends will then be in their element with the lithe, Afro-latinate swing and frenzied paso-doble vamps of ‘Nakatini Suite’, before they switch up and out again with the heady sway of strings and wind, hunched breaks and searching clarinet of ‘Peyote Song No. III.’
Part of a series of three new archival releases from Ndeya that showcase Jon Hassell and group in the late 1980s exploring a radical tangent on his Fourth World sensibility.
The Living City captures the Jon Hassell Group in September 1989 performing as part of an audio-visual installation inside the World
Financial Center Winter Garden in New York City, with Brian Eno mixing the band live. Eno had designed an audio-visual installation in the 10-story glass-vaulted pavilion, inspired by the hunting, ceremony, animals, and weather sounds of the Ba-Ya-Ka pygmy tribe from Cameroon gathered by Louis Sarno.
Jon Hassell and his then band, the musicians who had recently recorded the City: Works Of Fiction album, played in the Winter Garden Atrium over the course of three nights, with Eno mixing the band live with the installation sounds.
The audio presented here is an edited selection from the performance on the second night, available on vinyl for the first time, cut across four sides by Stefan Betke aka Pole. Gatefold vinyl edition includes download card and extensive sleevenotes.
First time available on vinyl since 1982. Psychotic Jonkanoo was the sixth Creation Rebel album in three years, originally licensed to the post-punk oriented Glaswegian label Statik. Another solid set of killer dub, albeit less instrumentally inclined than their previous efforts and more focussed on militant-style conscious chants. Bandleader Crucial Tony was aided on the vocal front by harmonies from other group members, in a style reminiscent of Black Uhuru, plus the occasional guest such as John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited providing backing harmony (!) on “Mother Don’t Cry”, and the legendary Deadly Headley Bennett adding saxophone to the opening track.
“Anybody searching Adrian Sherwood's catalogue for an easy point of entry would do well to start here, and everyone else can simply applaud Psychotic Jonkanoo as the last truly great roots reggae album of the 1980s.” All Music
Kit Sebastian – composed of K. Martin and Merve Erdem – announce their new album ‘New Internationale’, set for release 27th September on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder record label, and unveil lead single “Metropolis”.
Speaking on “Metropolis”, Kit Sebastian says “The hook of this track was influenced by how many famous Azerbaijani’s musicians (like Vagif Mustafazadeh or Rafig Babayev) approach their melodies, but played over a more western funk groove. We use the familiar Italian analog synth found in a junkyard and a mock-choir to create a choral texture. It ends with a samba section, with two drum kits, horn section and string section partially fed through an analog synth to process it.”
Lyrically, “Metropolis” portrays the immigrant experience, highlighting the pressures and disillusionments of trying to find control, meaning, and a sense of belonging in a seemingly indifferent and foreign world, all while grappling with the compromises between pursuing art as a profession and seeking stability. It is about projecting one's hopes and desires onto a new city, the naive sense of freedom this brings, and the inevitable disillusionment and desolation that follow.
‘New Internationale’—their musically irrepressible and emotionally sophisticated third album, and their debut for Brainfeeder—is deliberate in a way Kit Sebastian has never really been. They wrote most of it on the road, energised by the sounds they discovered as they magpied instruments during their travels—Turkish clarinet, santour, oud, gangsa, zither, harpsichord, and on and on. They cut most of the tracks in London during brief breaks, longtime drummer Theo Guttenplan and double bassist David Richardson joining a panoply of horn, string, and percussion players. And during a year off from the road, where K. and Merve could concentrate on making sure the pieces moved together, they decamped to the French countryside for two weeks, leaving the distractions and moodiness of home. They captured vocals for 14 songs there in only half that time. Both Kit Sebastian’s busy touring schedule and subsequent break from it allowed Merve to step fully into these songs and their ever-shifting shapes, her confidence and versatility rising in tandem.
But rather than sounding stitched together from these assorted scenes, ‘New Internationale’ is a riveting synthesis of the sounds and styles that have long tantalised Kit Sebastian—French pop and Anatolian psych, vintage Tropicália and early rock ’n’ roll, with breezes of soul and prog blowing through the open windows of the pair’s collective imagination.