MUSIC

Back in print for the first time in fifty years, The Magic of The Majestic Arrows is the crown jewel of Chicago sweet soul obscurities. Originally released on his own Bandit label, Arrow Brown’s singular LP was conceived in the basement of his Bronzeville headquarters—part home, part harem, part DIY recording hub. A lush, string-heavy suite that bridges the street-corner harmonies of ‘50s doo-wop and the opulent studio sounds of the 1970s, the album is a testament to Brown’s outsider vision.

Sung by his teenage daughter Tridia and falsetto powerhouse Larry Brown of The Moroccos, and backed by the Chosen Few and the Scott Brothers, the album was arranged by Benjamin Wright and features cover art by Eugene Phillips of The Wind. This long-overlooked artefact of soul music history is less a relic than a spell—unmistakably personal, uncannily timeless.

Adroit jazz guitar, prog rock fantasia, and Japanese environmental music all rest comfortably behind Leo Takami's Next Door. The follow up to the acclaimed Felis Catus & Silence, Next Door finds Takami ruminating on passages — of time, seasons, consciousness. Through music, Leo contemplates daily events and finds beauty in ordinary moments. He also seems to be questioning the value of being stuck in the world, allowing his mind to wander towards something beyond it. His music is earnest, deeply personal and introspective, and is sort of akin to Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker or Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad. On “As If Listening” Takami takes inspiration from a Van Gogh art show organized chronologically, articulating the sense of “enlightened resignation” that is intrinsic in the act of creativity. “Beyond” is a dream of otherworldly nostalgia, a watercolor of past lives. His music is a hazy cinema of memory, the soundtrack to a cherished memory that may have never really happened, but still radiates in the mind like the sun on an unusually warm winter day.

Sam Gendel and Antonia Cytrynowicz didn’t set out to make a record – it just happened. LIVE A LITTLE, a collection of songs resulting from one late summer afternoon in Gendel’s Los Angeles home, is less an album and more a moment. The ten tracks here were recorded mostly in one sitting, fully improvised, in the order in which they appear. It was the first and last time the songs have been played – a snapshot of an idea, an artifact of inspiration, at once both a beginning and an end. At the time of recording, Cytrynowicz was only eleven years old. The younger sister of Gendel’s significant other and creative partner Marcella, Cytrynowicz is an artist in her own way. She has no formal musical training, but is the product of a creative family and is someone who makes art the way many kids do – in the purest way, simply because they are moved to. On LIVE A LITTLE, she spontaneously crafted all the melodies and lyrics on the spot as Gendel played alongside her. Cytrynowicz’s musicality is sophisticated, strange, and other-worldly, and the resulting record is experimental jazz colliding with some sort of fantasy universe. Because of that, LIVE A LITTLE is a stand-out amidst Gendel’s extensive and varied catalog. Over the years, the multi-instrumentalist has been known for his prolific musical output as both a sought-after collaborator and as a solo artist. During 2021 alone he collaborated with Vampire Weekend, Maggie Rogers, Moses Sumney, Laurie Anderson, and Mach Hommy, as well as released Notes With Attachments with Blake Mills & legendary bassist Pino Palladino. In the same year he also released the 52-track Fresh Bread, as well as the follow-up to the acclaimed Music for Saxophone & Bass Guitar with Sam Wilkes. Then Mouthfeel / Serene, AE-30, Valley Fever Original Score, and singles “Isfahan” and “Neon Blue.” LIVE A LITTLE, though, exists on its own island. For one, the majority of Gendel’s work under his own name skews instrumental, but here the playfulness of his saxophone and nylon-string guitar work alongside the twinkle of Cytrynowicz’s voice. It’s the sound of unapologetic imagination running amok – and really, more than anything, the sound of having fun. Cytrynowicz is the ideal collaborator for Gendel, who throughout his career has remained largely unconcerned with the pageantry and presentation of the music business, instead focused solely on the music-making itself. Here, he found the purest sort of writing partner – he admires Cytrynowicz’ “supreme openness,” explaining: “Whatever is happening, she’s there with you. We really meet right where we are. She’s all ears, I’m all ears. I don’t even know how to explain what it is. It just works out somehow.” Gendel remembers first being impressed by her musicality one day while they were gathered in the backyard at her family’s home; she improvised a strange and fully-formed little composition. The melody struck Gendel - he pulled out his iPhone and had her sing into it, then later orchestrated an ornate, fully fleshed out world around the voice memo. It came easily and simply. The subsequent LIVE A LITTLE session unfolded naturally, too – no discussion, no plan, no ambition – just “let it rip.” They started when it felt right and ended when it felt finished, once the flow of ideas dissipated. Then they put it away without discussion and moved on to the next activity. For a week afterward, Gendel tinkered with the live recording, adding a part or three on top of the initial session, sculpting it into its final product; a moment of raw creativity condensed into a polished little stone. Then he brought it back to Cytrynowicz, who hadn’t heard it since that summer afternoon, and was floored by hearing what they had created. LIVE A LITTLE is a series of “what ifs” cascading into one another, off-kilter and experimental, a kaleidoscope of spontaneity and imagination. It’s a sweet distillation of the musical present, of daring to follow through on an impulse – what happens when a project is helmed by someone who doesn’t have time for second thoughts or self-doubt. “That’s why she and I can make music I think, because I don’t think I ever deviated from that approach - or at least, I hope I didn’t,” Gendel says. “I really think that’s the best way that works for me musically – that ‘no mind’ sort of thing.” And here they both decisively follow that intuition, chronicling the way an idea blossoms and moves through you. The moment is the thing, and LIVE A LITTLE just happens to capture it.

Previously issued on three rare cassette-only editions, Joanna Brouk’s 1980 sophomore album The Space Between has finally been given spacious LP quarters. The side-long title track, performed by Brouk’s Mills College instructor and sometime-lover Bill Maraldo is among the deepest and most distinctive pieces in the new age canon, while side B’s three cuts expand the theme in hypnotic new directions.

This recorded autobiography of Catherine Howe, age 20, briefly appeared in 1971. Too young for memoirs, most artists have barely established any sort of musical competence by the age of legal adulthood, let alone compositions matching the maturity and complexity of Howe’s. What A Beautiful Place, however, is a prodigious effort wrought from the melancholy ruminations of post-adolescence. The album’s twelve songs unfold like a classic bildungsroman, beginning in the smoke-stained industrial county of Yorkshire, transformed by the electrified creative landscape of mid-century London, and retiring to the warm pastoral bliss of the county of Dorset on England’s southern coast. Produced by noted jazz pianist Bobby Scott, the LP—oft-mistaken for a concept album—was available for only a month in the summer of 1971, disappearing after Reflection Records’ shuttering in 1971.

As the empowerment of the '60s gave way to the societal bankruptcy of the '70s, a turned-on Black music emerged to soundtrack the agony of America at a crossroads. Tracked at DB Sound in Silver Spring, Maryland by producer R. Jose Williams, Your Funny Moods is built around the rhythms and keys of drumming wiz James Purdie. Remastered here from the original analog tapes, this 50th anniversary edition is peak group harmony soul from the Chocolate City.

Where everything Numero begins. Three guys in a purple Saturn station wagon drove down to Columbus, Ohio, and came back to Chicago with a lost label—the rest is history. In the early ’70s, Bill Moss’ Capsoul imprint could barely break wind in the larger music marketplace, and yet today the label’s output can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any classic soul of its era. Isolated in central Ohio and lacking the funds to back them, groups like the Four Mints and Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr might’ve easily withstood ten rounds against the Temptations, Smokey, or Otis. The scrappy Capsoul writing team of Dean Francis, Jeff Smith, and Norman Whiteside would’ve gone blow-for-hook-filled-blow with any Gamble & Huff or Holland/Dozier/Holland cared to throw at them. From Bill Moss’ civil rights meditation “Sock It To ‘Em Soul Brother” to Marion Black’s future hit about the future “Who Knows” to Kool Blues bounding “I’m Gonna Keep on Loving You,” Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label remains dollar-for-dollar the best soul compilation of its century and the perfect primer for anyone piqued by the Eccentric Soul series.

For all the attention that was paid to her 2012 break-through Tramp, Sharon Van Etten is an artist with a hunger to turn another corner and to delve deeper, writing from a place of honesty and vulnerability to create a bond with the listener that few contemporary musicians can match. Compelled by a restless spirit, Van Etten is continuously challenging herself. Now, the result is Are We There, a self-produced album of exceptional intimacy, sublime generosity, and immense breadth.Most musicians are quite happy to leave the production end of things to someone else. It’s enough to live your music without taking on the role of producer as well. Yet Van Etten knew it was time to make a record entirely on her terms. The saying goes “fortune favors the bold” and yet this boldness had to be tempered. For this, Van Etten found a kindred spirit in veteran music producer Stewart Lerman. Originally working together on Boardwalk Empire, they gently moved into new roles, rallying around the idea of making a record together in Lerman’s studio in New Jersey. Lerman’s studio expertise gave Van Etten the freedom to make Are We There the way she imagined. Van Etten also enlisted the individual talents of her band, consisting of Heather Woods Broderick, Doug Keith and Zeke Hutchins, and brought in friends Dave Hartley and Adam Granduciel from The War on Drugs, Jonathan Meiberg (Shearwater), Jana Hunter (Lower Dens), Peter Broderick, Mackenzie Scott (Torres), Stuart Bogie, Jacob C. Morris and Mickey Freeze. It is clear from the opening chords in the first song, Afraid of Nothing, that we are witnessing a new awareness, a sign of Van Etten in full stride, writing, producing and performing from a place that seems almost mythical, were it not so touchable and real. Always direct, and never shying away even from the most personally painful narratives, Van Ettten’s songwriting continues to evolve. Many of the songs deal with seemingly impossible decisions, anticipation, and then resolution. She sings of the nature of desire, memory, of being lost, emptiness, of promises and loyalty, fear and change, of healing and the true self, violence and sanctuary, waiting, of silence. The artist who speaks in such a voice is urging us to do something, to take hold and to go deeper. Living in this way, the questions of life remain alive, as close and steady as breathing. Many of the ballads of old are as dark as pitch, and people for whom the issues of life and death were as vivid as flame wrote them. You could turn off the electricity, remove all the instruments and Sharon’s voice and words would remain. They connect her to the mystic stratum which flows just beneath the everyday, which is rarely acknowledged as the forces of distraction sweep our attention away.

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five full-lengths of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

The 3rd album by Scottish industrial enigma Cinder aka Cindytalk began life as the soundtrack to an experimental film by English director Ivan Unnwin entitled Eclipse (The Amateur Enthusiast's Guide To Virus Deployment), and was originally slated for release via Factory Records' video division, Ikon. Inspired heavily by Alan Splet's eerily disembodied sound design in David Lynch's Eraserhead, the collection's 15 pieces seethe between field recordings, wistful piano vignettes, and lurking metallic haze – a hybrid palette Cinder characterized at the time as “ambi-dustrial.” Unfortunately Ikon collapsed on the eve of the project's completion so the film was never distributed, but the Midnight Music imprint repackaged Cindytalk's score as an LP in 1990 under the name The Wind Is Strong... (full title: The Wind Is Strong - A Sparrow Dances, Piercing Holes in Our Sky).

Long out of print, the album remains one of the most elusive and adventurous in the Cindytalk discography, a mix of musique concréte, haunted reverie, and desolate beauty. Even unaccompanied by their intended visuals, this is overtly cinematic music, conjuring forests at dusk and shadowed corridors, equal parts remote and reflective. Cinder cites a belief that “all sound is music,” which fully manifests here, utilizing tape hiss, ticking clocks, flicking flames, and distant whispers as evocative accents in tapestries of luminous negative space.

Although Cinder included the subtitle “A Cindytalk diversion” in the sleeve notes, The Wind Is Strong... is crucial to the project's canon, demonstrating the depth and versatility of her unique ear and intuition. She describes each album as a direct response to the previous one, and in that sense The Wind marks a bold break from the coiled song-oriented post-punk of 1988's In This World, venturing into unknown, unnamed terrain, and finding foreboding new futures to call her own.

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five full-lengths of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

Across decades of activity Cinder’s body of work has forever followed its own elusive muse but nowhere is this restless spirit more apparent and ambitious than the 4th Cindytalk LP, Wappinschaw. Conceived as “a call to arms” inspired by Scotland and its struggle for independence, the title refers to an archaic Scottish battle inspection during which clan chieftains surveyed their group's weapons to ensure they were combat ready. A mindset of reflective preparation threads throughout the record, manifested in forms both naked and noisy, ancient and anguished.

Opening with an aching solo vocal rendition of the British folk standard “The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face),” the album then surges into the Cindytalk classic, “A Song Of Changes,” sparkling and spiraling in strange waves of sorrow and joy. From there the mood fragments, tracing asymmetrical paths of feverish dirge, pensive spirituals, noir abstraction, spoken word (landmark Glaswegian writer Alasdair Gray guests on “Wheesht”), bagpipe drone, and apocalyptic post-punk. Given its aggressive eclecticism, it's not surprising that Cinder describes the creation of Wappinschaw as a “precarious” process, composed from “scraps” with abruptly shifting personnel – a situation only compounded by the impending dissolution of their label at the time, Midnight Music.

Despite, or perhaps because of, these factors, the collection stands as a testament to Cinder's belief that “so-called experimental can only remain so if you keep challenging yourself.” This is singular and challenging music, texturally jagged and emotionally conflicted, swimming through shivering darkness into fragile pockets of light. At the time of its recording, Cinder was attempting to leave London after many years in the city, dreaming of an ancestral return. But as much as “ideas of homecoming were percolating,” there remained unfinished business, old ghosts to exorcise, culminating in Wappinschaw's heady, harrowing voyage: “An invocation of spirits of resistance – as much a declaration of war as a declaration of love.”

Big Crown Records is proud to present Brainstory’s sophomore full-length album Sounds Good. Based in L.A. but hailing from the Inland Empire's own Rialto, California, two-thirds of Brainstory, Kevin and Tony Martin are brothers by blood, while Eric Hagstrom is a brother through their music and long term friendship. Since they started the band they have constantly faced situations that forced them to rise to the occasion. They got signed to Big Crown Records, they stepped up their game. COVID happened, they learned to record themselves. They started touring a ton sharing the stage with the likes of Lady Wray and they got their live show super tight. All of this time spent grinding and growing has certainly paid off. The path to take their art to the next level is clearer than ever, and once again, they are here for it. If there is one thing that is abundantly clear on Sounds Good, it’s that Brainstory has leveled up. Part of this evolution is undoubtedly attributed to having access to and working constantly in their own studio in Long Beach. Another major factor is that their brotherhood has expanded. "I've been playing music with my brother all my life and now with Eric for a long time," Tony tells us. "Leon, though, is like another brother I've just met." Leon Michels, Big Crown's co-owner, produced this record and applied his unmistakable golden touch in crucial ways. The other member of the extended Brainstory brotherhood whose contributions were essential to the album, is studio engineer legend Jens Jungkurth who controls the tones and textures of the music. "That's what you're hearing, our connection, the fun moments, the little details," Kevin describes. "This record isn't half what it is without them—and it made us want to match that effort," and match that effort they did. Album opener "Nobody But You" is an uplifting, dance floor burner, that shows off a new side of Brainstory's range. Drummer Eric Hagstrom’s crushing back beat lays the foundation for an inspirational feel good banger that manages to take the uncomfortable truth that “nobody will save you but you” and turn it into pure blissful motivation. "Peach Optimo" is a laid back half time tune that blends the bounce of Down South Hip-Hop with California G funk and Jazz. They once again show off their B said ballad talents with "Gift Of Life" but this time taking the genre to a new place with lyrics about existentialism and a track that is drop dead gorgeous, haunting, and profound all at once. "NyNy" is an homage to Kev and Tony's recently deceased grandfather while "Too Yung" is a show stopping, deeply personal, stripped down number about being introduced to alcohol at a young age. They put another hit on the boards with "Hanging On," a Latin / Psychedelic Soul inspired banger featuring Claire Cottrill on background vocals while "XFaded” addresses the all too common vicious cycle of smoking and drinking too much over a trippy shuffle. "It's been four years since our last full length record, and with everything that's happened since, it's like we've been catching up to ourselves." That's one way to describe change: catching up to oneself. Each member of Brainstory has gone through shifts, both personally and musically, and all of that threads through Sounds Good. It's easy to say that the music industry can be short on lasting, genuine relationships. However, for Brainstory, from day one it's been about standing by each other, for each other. Their friendship started the group, and now, this expanded brotherhood is supporting them to push it further. The stars have aligned for them to take a big and well deserved step with this new album and it couldn't have happened to a better group of guys. Ups and downs of course, but they are acutely aware of how good the big picture has been for them and you can hear it in their music—music that just Sounds Good.

A cosmic voyage into the unknown It’s hard to imagine El León Pardo, a loyal advocate of some of the most advanced projects in which folklore is the road map and the destination itself, without his kuisi. It’s hard to see him with his hands free. Always holding on to that ancestral instrument, that pre-Colombian flute that survived the conquest and has become a symbol of resistance, overcoming the ravages of time, the imposition of ideologies, dogmas and religions. Despite all that, the kuisi continues with its liberating sound, the power of its cry, its invitation to dance, its sound a cure and a blessing. That’s why it leads the way in this Viaje Sideral (“Space Voyage”), an astral journey in which the kuisi is the vehicle and the life force of the rhythm. Viaje Sideral feels like floating eternally in the infinite cosmos. This second long player from El León Pardo is inspired by humanity’s relationship with the stars, escaping to mythical planes and led into a trance by Caribbean percussions, analog synths, deep bass, electric guitars and the hypnotic vibrations of the kuisis and trumpets that complete the soundtrack of this voyage. Through these nine songs, El León Pardo continues to create a sound of his own, evolving in his intention to pay tribute to the psychedelia of the tropical world of the Caribbean in the 1970s and 80s, but this time also taking as reference artists like Terry Riley, Kraftwerk and Mad Professor, including the roots of ambient and electronic music with the characteristic sound of the kuisi, an encounter of dreamlike and astral sounds, with the music of the bandas pelayeras of the tropics and figures like Pedro Laza and Juan Lara. In this new universe the Cartagena trumpeter dialogs with the past, processing the ideas that have emerged over the years and morphed into his personal search that gives an identity to his ideas, nurtured by figures like producer Diego Gómez (Llorona Records, Discos Pacífico, Cerrero) who awoke his interest in electronic instruments, Edson Velandia and kuisi maestros like Juan Carlos Medrano and Fredy Arrieta. In his sound there is a particular feature, one that contains histories of personal experiences, accompanied by the kuisi, including ancient Zenú flutes dating from between 600 and 800 AD and which helped create the atmosphere of “Invocación.” “Viaje Sideral,” the song that gives the album its name, was born from a dream in which two stars speed towards the earth and an imminent collision. As the record continues, the stellar connection becomes clear with songs like “Urmah” with Edson Velandia, inspired by an article about extra-terrestrial races and how the Urmah were a race of hominid felines, the greatest geneticists of the universe; and “Cumbia espacial,” featuring rapping from N. Hardem, seeking to create that aura of immensity and consciousness of the infinity of the universe. So it is that between the earthly and the cosmic, El León Pardo offers a voyage under his command. Along the way we find elements that allow for escape through contemplation and the dialog between electronic and analog, connecting the synthetic aspects of the stellar universe, anchored to the earth and rooted in the unmistakable tropical sound of percussion and rhythmical woodwinds.

Ata Kak's cassette Obaa Sima fell on deaf ears when it was self-released in Ghana and Canada in 1994. The music on the recording - an amalgam of highlife, Twi-language rap, funk and disco - is presented with the passion of a Prince record and the DIY-bedroom-recording lo-fi charm of early Chicago house music. The astute self-taught song craft and visionary blend of sounds and rhythms has made the album a left-field cult favorite among adventurous listeners worldwide. Awesome Tapes From Africa founder Brian Shimkovitz found the tape in 2002 in Cape Coast, Ghana - one of only a few ever pressed - and later made it the inaugural post on the Awesome Tapes From Africa blog. Hundreds of thousands of downloads, YouTube views, music video tributes and remixes, as well as years of mystery regarding Ata Kak's whereabouts, culminate in this remastered release featuring rare photos and the full back story of one of the internet age's most enigmatic musicians.

Kendra Morris returns with Next, her fourth full-length of original material and a vibrant departure into rawer, more immediate territory. Co-produced with Leroi Conroy of Colemine Records, the album was recorded using vintage gear in Loveland, Ohio, tracked through a Tascam 388 for a warm, tactile sound that favours grit over gloss. Featuring contributions from Jimmy James (Parlor Greens, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio) and Ray Jacildo (The Black Keys, Jr. Thomas & The Volcanos), Next unfolds like a lo-fi concept album in reverse, drawing inspiration from old board games and the DIY spirit of retro television. Across ten tracks, Morris blends doo-wop, boom-bap, and rocksteady into a pastiche of New York nostalgia, where Brill Building songcraft and Warholian aesthetics share the same sonic real estate. It's a cut-and-paste world soundtracked by an artist equally at home behind the lens as she is behind the mic—imperfect, imaginative, and full of heart.

Originally released in 1973, Dzyan’s second album "Time Machine" marked a shift from vocal prog-rock to a unique blend of jazz, ethnic, and acid-rock influences. Showcasing virtuosic musicianship, it stands as a pioneering work in German rock, ahead of its time. Originally released in 1973 on famous German label Bacillus, Dzyan’s 2nd album “Time Machine” showed a “new” Dzyan line-up consisting of guitar player Eddy Marron (also playing a lot of other string instruments), bass genius, band founder and “mastermind” Reinhard Karwatky and drummer Peter Giger. Produced by Peter Hauke and recorded and mixed by great engineer Dieter Dierks the trio performed on Time Machine a new sound mutating away from vocal-prog-rock of the first album to explore further jazz and ethnic tonalities with far more space-out and exotic improvisations to an unusual hybrid of acid-rock with serious jazz chops approaching “Mahavishnuland”. Time Machine offers virtuous and unorthodox musicianship with a high and very own esthetic quality. Existing in a no-man’s land between jazz and rock, and as a pre-cursor to the post-rock crowd of the ‘90s, Time Machine was well ahead of its time. A highlight in German rock history.

Classic album from Gregory Isaacs originally released in 1981 on Alvin "GG" Ranglin's label. 10 tracks pure laid back roots featuring "Border" "Village Of The Under Priviledge" "Tumbling Tears" and many more.

Hard to find early 80s roots vocal album from Delton Screechie, voiced over tuff militant roots rhythms at Harry J's then voiced and mixed at King Tubby's studio.

Early recordings and dubplates. Gritty, diggers’ selection of sides originally out on Wackies, Aires, Earth and co; plus some tough dubplates featuring Leroy Sibbles and Stranger Cole. Sibbles chips in his own Guiding Star rhythm from Studio One days, re-worked at Bullwackies; and reputedly that’s him undercover on the opener with Little Roy, ripping off Glen Brown’s Wedden Skank.

Great late 70s roots DJ album from Beris Simpson aka Prince Hammer riding some of the tuffest rhythms of the day from Channel One. Featuring The Revolutionaries with Prince Jammy, Errol Thompson and Crucial Bunny at the controls.

Founded in 1977 by Berris (operator), Wolfman (selector) and Jagger (mike man), Man Fi Bill and Killer, Moa Anbessa International has established quickly as one of the UK top sound systems of the late 70s early 80s. Based in Battersea (SW London), after having made its first steps with Lord David Hi Fi, Moa Anbessa International played successfully until 1981 the main sounds of the time like Jah Shaka, Coxsone, Fatman, Front Line, Stereograph, Jah Tubbys, Quaker City, Mafia Tone, Quantro or Jungle Man. In 1980, the Moa Anbessa International label released his first production recorded in Jamaica.

A Colourful Storm proudly presents remastered first-time vinyl and digital editions of Lone Capture Library’s modern-day DIY environmental masterpiece, All Natures Most Mundane Materials.

“Environmental”, you say? Well, this certainly wasn’t recorded for dinner party ambience nor was it commissioned by Harrods. But it does document a haphazard wander through the English countryside, feeling the air and the earth, detaching oneself from confinement while attempting to make sense of it all.

Its protagonist is Rory Salter, London's restless improvisor extraordinaire, who has contributed to dozens of solo and collaborative releases in an ecosystem centred around his Infant Tree private press, as well as recordings for Bison, Alter and MAL. Under his Malvern Brume alias, he is responsible for some of the most enchanting sides of contemporary concrète that has graced our ears, each record a dérive, revealing beauty and curiosity within London’s urban banality. And while we’d argue that Lone Capture Library applies this approach but instead seeks the peculiar within the pastoral, there, too, lies a certain hermetic recklessness, with its unique disruptive details and discarded sonic bric-a-brac permeating the air.

“I'd walked from Swindon to Avebury and back, which is about a 21-mile round trip. I'd been a muppet and did the whole thing down the A4361, which is not a road suitable for walking on - there was a lot of jumping into the hedges to avoid lorries. Turned out, there was a really nice walk across the fields I could have done instead. But maybe that sums it up quite well. Instinctive and very impulsive. The day following, I was at home and recorded it in single takes, improvised and straight to the tape. There was a good deal of significance for me in walking to the stones, passing the Hackpen Horse, being in the landscape and dealing with some brain rot after being stuck in a house, anxious and depressed. There was a sense of freedom and detachment. It was all about the materials of the earth and the body and fucking the brain off for a bit - just wanting to move between places. I dunno, it's all very cliché.”

180-gram LP version with embossed chessboard artwork print and printed inner sleeve. In celebration of the 2016 35th anniversary of the December 12, 1981, recording of Manuel Göttsching's legendary E2-E4, one of electronic music's most influential recordings, Göttsching's MG.ART label presents an official reissue, carefully overseen by the master himself. Includes liner notes by Manuel Göttsching, archival photos, and an excerpt of David Elliott's review in Sounds from June 16, 1984. "As the story is sometimes told, Göttsching stopped in the studio for a couple of hours in 1981 and invented techno. E2-E4 is the most compelling argument that techno came from Germany-- more so than any single Kraftwerk album, anyway. The sleeve credits the former Ash Ra Tempel leader with 'guitar and electronics', but few could stretch that meager toolkit like Göttsching. Over a heavenly two-chord synth vamp and simple sequenced drum and bass, Göttsching's played his guitar like a percussion instrument, creating music that defines the word 'hypnotic' over the sixty minutes . . . A key piece in the electronic music puzzle that's been name-checked, reworked and expanded upon countless times." --Mark Richardson, Pitchfork

Carrier makes his Modern Love debut with a collaboration alongside Equiknoxx leader Gavsborg, blending dub techno precision with stripped-back, bass-heavy steppers. Known for reshaping the intersection of dub and drum & bass, Carrier (Guy Brewer, Shifted et al.) here doubles down on the fundamentals, while Gavsborg’s distinctive vocal presence — previously heard on productions for Busy Signal and Thom Yorke — adds a dark, hypnotic edge. ‘The Fan Dance’ on the A-side is a masterclass in reductionist rhythm: intimate vocals drift across spacious stereo fields, sharp hi-hats, deep subs and spectral detail. The B-side dub pares it back even further, exposing skeletal mechanics that echo early Burial and latter-day T++. Guy Brewer never misses!

King of the house swingers (and shufflers, jackers, buckers) kicks off his bloodlines whitelabel series with two long sides of sweaty jams that act as a counterpart of sorts to that recent BLOOD LIVE tape, sniping groove-riding killers for the canny DJs.

The near half hour session portrays MJB deep in the flow in a way that seamlessly elides and blurs distinctions of his signature, jazz-taught and tracky studio and DJ tekkerz with mesmerising finesse.

Side A is a real killer, chopping out 15 minutes in transitional flux between multiple elements and nailing the in-the-blend, 3rd track effect as it snakes from salsoul hustle to a purring Motor City mode and riff-riding Prescription vibes.

Side B yokes back to big-boned, pendulous and tracky business glazed with glyding keys and pumping bass echoing Norm Talley, and switching up half way to a ruggeder offbeat tipping a cap at Theo.