MUSIC

He is also well known for his sampling of Sekito Shigeo's ‘The Word II’ and collaborations with Haruomi Hosono. This cassette is a demo of Salad Days, the second studio album by Mac DeMarco, a musician from British Columbia, Canada, now based in Los Angeles, released on Captured Tracks in 2014.

Mac DeMarco’s debut full length, 2, released in 2012, cleaned up the songwriter’s warped take on soft rock and brought it to a broader audience. Given DeMarco’s affinity for keeping things lo-fi — 2 was the first time he’d bothered to record demos — it’s revealing to hear these songs in their most embryonic form. The performances here are a little looser and the sound a little hazier than on the actual LP, lending an atmosphere of dreamy vulnerability, especially to ballads like “Annie” and the Lennon-esque “Sherrill.”

〈Captured Tracks〉The biggest seller! Along with masterpieces such as "Salad Days", this is definitely an introductory board for this person! Mac Demarco is a current indie pop cult icon from Canada, known for his activities in Makeout Videotape, sampling Sekito Oshigeo's "The Word II", and the popular split single "Honey Moon" with Mr. Hosono. The 10th anniversary edition of the masterpiece "Rock And Roll Night Club" released in 2012 has been released as an analogue. A masterpiece of psychedelic and addictive indie pop that makes you feel like you're listening to Deerhunter's "Microcastle" cassette demo!

Before you ancients out there turn your heads and scoff at the premise of a twenty-something rock-and-roll goofball calling himself an old-anything, consider this: said perpetrator, he who answers to the name Mac DeMarco, has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releasing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip, and pretty much on his own. This Old Dog makes for his fifth in just over half a decade - bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs. According to the DMV, MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is 26. But in working-dog years, ol' Mac here could easily qualify for social security. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks.

Like the days of Steely Dan or Harry Nilsson releasing a classic album every year (or less) comes Mac DeMarco's Another One, a Mini-LP announced one year after the release of the meteorically successful Salad Days. Written and recorded during the downtime between a relentless touring schedule, Another One is an eight-track release that expands the arsenal of Mac's already impressive catalog, showing the maturity of Mac's progression as songwriter: it's a bit more refined, a bit more sophisticated, but nonetheless retains the guts and soul of classic Mac. Despite working at the same pace as artists like Creedence and The Rolling Stones, coupled with an equally unending schedule of touring and press, it's odd that Mac is labeled as a slacker. With two full-lengths and two EPs released and hundreds of sold out shows performed in the last several years, a recent late night television debut on Conan following a special performance on The Eric Andre Show, it seems, as Mac nears his 25th birthday, there's not a slack bone in the man's body. Great songwriters don't need to reinvent themselves; they just need to keep going and let the songs out in the world. Thus, here's Another One.

“As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder…” is the opening line from Mac DeMarco’s second full-length LP ‘Salad Days,’ the follow up to 2012’s lauded ‘Mac DeMarco 2.’ Amongst that familiar croon and lilting guitar, that initial line from the title track sets the tone for an LP of a maturing singer/songwriter/producer. Someone strangely self-aware of the positives and negatives of their current situation at the ripe old age of 23. Written and recorded around a relentless tour schedule (which picked up all over again as soon as the LP was done), ‘Salad Days’ gives the listener a very personal insight into what it’s all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format. The lead single, “Passing Out Pieces,” set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like “…never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me…” Clearly, Salad Days isn’t the same record that breezily gave us “Dreamin,” and “Ode to Viceroy,” but the result of what comes from their success. “Chamber of Reflection,” a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn’t be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. Standout tracks like these show Mac’s widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory. Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. The same crisp John Lennon / Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have walked out of Geoff Emerick’s mixing board in 1972, but with that peculiar Mac touch that’s completely of right now. “Brother,” a complete future classic, is Mac at his most soulful and easygoing but with that distinct weirdness and bite that can only come from Mr. DeMarco.“Treat Her Better” is rife with “Mac-isms,” heavily chorused slinky lead guitar, swooning vocal melodies, effortless chords that come along only after years of effort, and the other elements seriously lacking in independent music: sentiment and heartfelt sincerity.

New age for the suburban city, spun from a poor planting in the suburbs or from an apartment room along the national highway. "Suiyu" is the first album by Hajime Orikawa, a musician living in Chiba.

From side A, which is composed of home recordings and environmental sounds in a room at home, and contains a lo-fi yet theological resonance, to the title track "Suiyu" which exceeds 15 minutes and where various instruments such as autoharp, electronic piano, Moog synthesizer, organ, and tenor saxophone beautifully blend with a free-spirited singing voice like a wild rabbit running through the fields, the melancholy of the suburban city floats gently.

The cassette version includes a DL code for “Ikkojiteki,” a collection of outtracks, along with a DL code for "Suiyu". 

Big Crown Records is proud to present Forever & Ever, the debut album from Thee Heart Tones.Hailing from Hawthorne, California, Thee Heart Tones are both carrying on a tradition and pushing the boundaries with their music. Lead singer Jazmine Alvarado is just 19 years old and the oldest member of the group, Jorge Rodriguez is 21, but one listen to their record and it becomes blatantly apparent they are a talent well beyond their years.Thee Heart Tones are Jazmine on vocals, Ricky Cerezo on keys and organ, Jorge on drums, Jeffrey Romero on bass, Peter Chagolla on lead guitar, and Walter Morales on rhythm guitar. As the story goes, "one day I got a DM from Ricky Cerezo asking if I wanted to write a song for his new (then unnamed) band," Jazmine says. "I knew his drummer and the other boys from middle school, so they were familiar faces. They sent me an mp3 of an instrumental they'd written and told me they wanted lyrics, so I wrote some and sent it to them." That song ended up being "Don't Take Me as a Fool," a downbeat, minor key ballad on which Jazmine's sultry, pitch-perfect vocals soar, and which is now destined for their debut album. Ricky went home to play "Don't Take Me As a Fool", recorded as a voice note on his phone, to his dad. "I was hesitant. Dad knew this music better than anyone; he grew up with it. But he grabbed my phone and held it to his ear. His approval meant a lot to me. But he had the same reaction Jorge and I did when we first heard Jazmine sing. 'This is going to be a hit,' he told me. 'You guys have something really special here'." It was that same recording that caught the ears of Leon Michels and Danny Akalepse of Big Crown Records, who both heard the potential in the group immediately. After they signed to the label, Leon flew out to Los Angeles to record their debut album with Tommy Brenneck at Tommy's Diamond West studio. They knocked out 14 songs in five days, capturing the charm of teenage soul and mixing it with their seasoned production prowess and the result is a modern classic Soul album.Album opener and title track "Forever & Ever" is an infectious two-stepper that instantly lifts your mood while heavy duty B side ballads like "Should I Call You Tonight", "Cry My Tears Away", and "It's Time" hold court with the genre's classics. They pick up the pace and fill the dancefloor with "Need Something More" as Jazmine matter of factly sets the record straight on a Northern Soul styled track. They cover the Álvaro Carrillo penned classic "Sabor A Mi" to great effect, doing it justice and putting their version right up there with the best of them. Another standout is their version of The Vanguards classic "Somebody Please" which they change the tone of and take to a different level. The punching drums of "No Longer Mine" juxtapose Jazmine's honeyed vocals and wind up with the gritty energy of a mid 90s hip hop sample.Forever & Ever is both a testament to their unmistakable musical chemistry and talent. Their intentions as a band are testament to their collective character. Choosing to cover "Sabor A Mi" "allows us to let our audience know we go back to our roots," Jazmine says. "Growing up in LA, you get influenced by the city, the artwork, the music," Ricky says. "Dad didn't own a lowrider car, but other members of our family did. Impalas. El Caminos. We were influenced by the culture, particularly the Chicano culture. And oldies and soul music played a big part." The style. The culture. The nod to the past. "That's what we're going for. We want to connect young Chicanos with their heritage. And we want to unite people — old and young."

The first new music from the post-emo trio in two decades. Out of the brain of Geoff Farina spills 10 new tales from their unlikely reunion, tracked with long-time Karate collaborator Andy Hong. Make It Fit crams 35 minutes of Wes Montgomery homage, Fugazi dub plate party rocking, Lynott lyricism, and Clash city crooning into a graceful seventh album.

Queer tweemo from the pop fringe of Little Rock, Arkansas’s thriving ’90s DIY scene. Paper Airplanes, Paper Hearts gathers Everyone Asked About You’s complete recorded works, including the Let's Be Enemies LP and their two and a half 7"s released between 1997-2000. Remastered from the original DATs for maximum nostalgic crunch, this deluxe 2xLP is housed in a gatefold tip on sleeve and includes a 20-page book crammed with flyers, photos, lyrics, and an extensive essay on this crucial missing link between midwest emo and the Moog synthesizer.

The acclaimed and highly sought-after LP by Hailu Mergia and the Walias, Tche Belew, an album of instrumentals released in 1977, is perhaps the most seminal recording released in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. The story of the Walias band is a critical chapter in Ethiopian popular music, taking place during a period of music industry flux and political complexity in the country. Hailu Mergia, a keyboardist and arranger diligently working the nightclub scene in Addis Ababa, formed the Walias in the early 1970’s with a core group of musicians assembled from prior working bands. They played Mergia’s funk- and soul-informed tunes, while cutting 45rpm singles with various vocalists. While the Walias performed at top hotels and played the presidential palace twice, their relationship with the Derg regime was complex, evidenced by the removal of one song from the record by government censors. Decades later, Hailu Mergia was surprised to see the album fetching more than $4,000 at online auctions (it helped that the most popular of all Ethiopian tunes “Musicawi Silt” appeared on the record). Now everyone has the chance to listen again―or for the first time―to this timeless pillar of Ethiopian popular music.

*** TRILOGY *** post-punk experiments VOLUME 2 of a series of 3 re-releases of the 80s underground solo cassette tapes by Menko Konings (aka EM / Menko / eM.) This second re-release/remaster is the cassette tape “B-Movies” (1985) by EM, with almost one hour music Remaster (2024) by Rude 66 Edition of 50 (hand numbered) ice white cassette tapes with original J-card “When I went solo in 1983 I only had a guitar, a bass and a four track cassette tape recorder. Sometimes I borrowed a rithmebox or a synth for a couple of days. These solo cassette tapes were created in that period.” (MK) Music journalist Oscar Smit described these tapes in the 80s - in his column Dolby of the legendary Dutch magazine Vinyl - s.a.: “Big city music, metropolis beat, drum composers, funking basses, nervous rhythm guitars, radio and TV sounds in the background and intonationless vocals.” Menko Konings was also the founder s.a. of S.M. Nurse, Plastic Cocon, No Honey From These and Top Tape.

“I could not be alive alone,” a longtime family friend said to Merce with a smile. “None of us could be alive alone.” Within the quiet, cascading corners of Pittsburgh lies a community – nothing short of one large family – that spans zip codes, histories, occupations, and generations, always tumbling into itself, propped up by steadfast pillars of conviction toward spiritual and emotional mutual aid. The kind of earnest community scaffolding that gets bandied about, wielded as conjecture, particularly in an age of increasing fracture through digital sublimation, is alive and quite well within the universe surrounding Merce Lemon. When asked how the city has inspired her creative practice, she responds with a characteristic joke wrapped in an earthen warmth – “There are big hills, three rivers, and more bridges than anywhere in the whole world.” Growing up in a family of art and music in a city with a small, but vigorously supportive scene, Merce has been going to shows here her whole life, even playing them with the “grown up” friends of her parents – as recently as a few years ago, her band was comprised of her own father and his peers in the Pittsburgh music community. Merce took a step back in 2020, after releasing her last album 'Moonth', to reassess during an era of anxiety and lockdown – even the reliably nourishing exercise of sharing and playing music felt precarious. “I was grappling with what kind of relationship I wanted with music in my life. It was just something I’d always done, and I didn't want to lose the magic of that – but I was just having less fun.” In this time of restless non-direction, she turned her gaze inwardly, down to the roots – figuratively and literally. “I got dirty and slept outside most of the summer. I learned a lot about plants and farming, just writing for myself, and in that time I just slowly accumulated songs.” A never-ending creative hunger, supported by the community framework she’d always been able to depend on, had been newly fertilized by the wide-eyed inspiration that came from plunging her hands into both the earth’s soil and her own. Rooting around for an answer, finding and turning in her palms what had been buried there all along – from this rediscovery, imbued with the vitality of earth’s green magic, 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild' sprouted forth. The album emerges, enveloped in propulsive guitars and saccharine-sweet songs of blackbirds and blueberries, from the dead-calm center of a pastoral frenzy in a manner that one could argue as erratic, reckless — a grave misconception, as Merce is just as aware of where she’s being pulled from as she is curious about where to go next. Her sound is built upon a reverence and gratitude for the natural world, how paying respect to it charts a more confident path through the choppy waters of the heart. On the soft and confessional “Rain,” she maps memory onto the stillness of the landscape around her, panning for clarity in an endlessly blue sky: “I can see your relentlessness / in the muddy puddles where retting is / shattering the splintered stalks / where golden braids pour into drops." In her music, romantic and familial love rips into and out of itself, barely registering as disparate feelings in the flurry of reckoning. Lead single “Backyard Lover” is an honest and incisive exploration of this confused, raw intimacy. In it, a warm memory gently meanders alongside warbling steel and guitars, tinged with a classic outlaw haze, before it suddenly erupts with the frustration of a broken promise, making way for a cathartic sonic fury – “what dying felt like / a wooden spoon tossed in the fire / cause nothings good enough / you fucking liar.“ The song’s climax deftly uncovers the formidable heartbeat hidden underneath the floorboards of her creative expulsion: loss. “So many of my songs are touched by and explore death, specifically in relation to the loss I experienced of my best friend when I was fifteen years old” says Merce. “That loss has forever changed me and who I am in my relationships to lovers, friends, family." In reconciling the quiet conflict of a desire for closeness and a solitude cultivated by distrust, there is a fierceness, a persistence in her vulnerability, matched in droves by the wildness of her band. These songs range, often within the structure of a single track, from ballads to blown out electric riffs combating feedback, harmonies concealed behind wailing guitars, both dependent on each other as they careen towards new meaning. They build slowly, synthesizing a naturalist’s penchant for romance and nihilism to create the warring, triumphantly escalating nature of Merce’s lyrics and her band’s heavy entropy. For Merce, the only certainty is the endlessly shifting nature of a river, roaring straight past a dogwood, never missing the opportunity to watch a petal fluttering to the ground in the rear view. They are songs of belonging just as much as they are songs of longing – ”Say I was a lonely gust of wind / could I redirect them,” she muses in “Crow”, one of the more hopeful tracks on the record. Its structure is simple, gentle acoustics pushed forward by an ever-present and fluid percussion that guides the song as naturally as Merce hopes to guide the “murderous flock,” forgoing the voyeur in all of our hearts and comfortably settling in the supportive role of a shepherd – “I’d make a city of this ghost town / even let the crows come / rest their necks / and nest their young.” There is an oaken strength in 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild' that makes it easy to love – once wild, still free, honest and familiar. Its genesis is timeless, its restlessness eternal – it is one cohesive yet unanswered question built around, and dependent upon, the life-giving force of nature that came before Merce. The album’s closing track also inspires its title – a lonely ballad of forlorn projection into an unknown future, forever protected by the comforting green of Pittsburgh’s hills, rivers, bridges, and homes: “Old man howling / laughing his teeth out / with the dogs down the hill. And a tree fell / I smell the wood / and the bark is coming off in sheets / I write my words down on it. And honestly / the thoughts of a husband / weighing on me.”

Merzbow is a Japanese noise legend who advocates and practices ahimsa and continues to experiment with alternative expressions that go beyond the boundaries of "noise". This is a rare cassette album released in 2010 by Gift Tapes, a prestigious American drone label that also produces works by Panabrite and Pulse Emitter.

THE LAMPINAK came first out in 1982 on Merzbow's own label ZSF Produkt in a small edition. Since than, this tape was never re-released in its entirety (a couple of tracks are available only on the "Merzbox") and is is much sought after. Finally OEC is re-releasing such tape in 149 hand-numbered copies. Special Yellow Cassette shell with full print / Special Yellow Cover Handanumbered eidition of 149 copies. All sounds by Masami Akita using metals, loops, voice, percussions, flute, chains, cymbals, effects, ritual orchestrations and chants. Recorded and mixed at ZSF Produkt - August / September 1985 Remastered at Munemihouse June 2019.

Comes in oversized o-card with label, piece of fabric and some paper rolled up. Recorded & mixed at Munemihouse, Tokyo, November 2023.

Madteo is next for Accidental Meeting’s mixtape series, recorded live at an AM party at Spanners, London. NY drenched house oddities and disco curveballs, all served up raw, rough & ready in Madteo’s trademark style.

When Festival de Frue’s organizers asked Sam Wilkes to put together an ensemble for their 2022 festival, they initially asked for the band he created for his 2021 album “One Theme & Subsequent Improvisation.” With keyboardist Chris Fishman (Pat Metheny, Louis Cole) the only member of that group who was available, Wilkes asked that the organizers select one of two groups as an alternative: a Trio featuring drummer Craig Weinrib (Henry Threadgill, Amen Dunes) and guitarist Dylan Day (Jenny Lewis, Jackson Browne)—with whom Wilkes recently released a trio album—or a Quartet featuring Weinrib, Fishman, and keyboardist and guitarist Thom Gill (KNOWER, Joseph Shabason). “I couldn’t make the decision on which band I should bring, I felt very confused about it,” he says. Through a strange series of miscommunications—or simply a bit of serendipity—both Wilkes and the Frue organizers thought the other had suggested combining the ensembles into a Quintet including members of both groups. An idea that neither side voiced somehow became the obvious choice. The combined Quintet represents what Wilkes calls “two disparate worlds in my community,” that of the “virtuosic, fast-paced grid” of music played with Fishman and Gill, “and this other thing with Dylan that’s coming from different elements of traditional American music.” Luckily, Weinrib fits seamlessly into both worlds. While all members of the group played on Wilkes’ 2023 album Driving, they’d never all played together. They had one five-hour rehearsal in Tokyo, but, Wilkes says, “It was impossible for me to predict how this music was going to sound.” His strategy, after showing them the arrangements of several of his own compositions and a few covers, was to “allow everyone to blossom fully” with the hope that “what I’ll get is everyone’s personality being expressed unfettered.” iiyo iiyo iiyo is Sam Wilkes’ fifth album as bandleader and arranger, and the atmosphere is so rich it spills out of the speakers. The album, a document of the Quintet’s meeting, was recorded live at Festival de Frue in Kakegawa and at WWWX in Tokyo, where they played headlining sets for hundreds of people. Not that you’d know it from the intimate interplay between the players or the small-room feel of the recording. In opener “Descending,” which made its debut on Wilkes’ 2018 self-titled album, the mood is so cozy you’d swear the sound of kids at play in the back of the hall had been sampled in—another perfect bit of serendipity. For Wilkes, setting the right tone for a performance or a recording is paramount, and it’s inseparable from how he understands his role as a bassist. “My entryway into understanding my thing, what I care about the most in music, was through accompaniment; focusing on time, feel, tone, form, and most importantly, listening.” he says. “There are things that are ineffable about that, which is the energy. But there are also conscious and subconscious decisions, where I’m arranging and orchestrating to create the ultimate environment for, say, Dylan to play his melody over, or Thom to play his. Those are choices as much as reactions, combining in equal parts in-depth preparation and total improvisation” The title iiyo iiyo iiyo is a Japanese expression used in response to an outpouring of gratitude, a cheeky way of brushing the accolades off of oneself. Accordingly, the record is full of charming, homespun personality. In a gorgeous version of the standard “I Wanna Be Loved,” Day plays the melody in a way that moves between washed-out ambient gauze and a traditionally beautiful run of lines that echoes the Dinah Washington original. While the band circulates the mantric melody in “Descending,” Fishman dots around it on his Moog One, opening a new seam in a song that’s quickly become a Wilkes standard. Weinrib’s patient, impressionistic brush strokes seem to swirl beneath the melody, while Gill fogs the room with thick, reverb-heavy accompaniment from his keys. And where is Wilkes in all this? He’s guiding his friends, helping them decorate a room that he himself built, drawing them deeper into the song’s wistful, hopeful, grounded atmosphere. His polyphonic voicings—a signature of his playing—sets out the song’s boundaries and acts as both its musical and emotional anchor. It’s the approach Wilkes takes across the album, using his phrasing as both the music’s gravitational center and its heart, and he does it to perfection in the opening minute or so of “Girl.” The song originally appeared on Sam Wilkes “Sings” (2014–2016)” in what he calls a “psychotically different arrangement.” On stage in Kakegawa, he slows the song to a crawl and isolates its central chords. He plays them gently, patiently; he voices the chords with the clarity of a person who’s just cried out all of their confusion. As Wilkes says, his role as a bassist means that he’s the foundation of these songs, and foundations by their very nature tend to be obscured. Here, for one lovely moment, he strips everything back to the studs, revealing the lush architecture that holds this miraculous music together.

After two years since second effort Eurybia, Francesca Heart returns to Leaving Records with a new seven-tracks album detailing the progress in her personal musical lore. Bird Bath expands on the musician’s childlike cosmic approach, crafting new tales where feelings and symbols of unearthly love and possibility, inner protection and desire become the album’s pillars. An iteration of the artist’s interest in mediterranean mythology and the evolution of sacred icons, Bird Bath begins with the figure of the angel as depicted by early renaissance Italian painter Beato Angelico, visible at Monastero of San Marco in Florence. In that period, the not-yet-achieved perfect perspective in painting would give an abstract feeling to the image, leaving room for imaginative contemplation and therefore aiding the monks in meditating for long periods of time. As the album unfolds, the listener is playfully transported through a puzzle of whispering grottos, mossy architectures and theatrical fountains that follow the idea of the Genius Loci, the generative essence of places, and the guardians that may inhabit them. It therefore calls for a devotional relationship to nature. Bird Bath is a playful, adventurous, and whimsical journey towards embracing a delicate vulnerability. Through Francesca’s imaginative musicality, the sacred unites with the mundane, the digital and even the kitsch to generate a healing field where her compositions can come to life. In Rose Petal Place fantasy-tales meet video game sounds with a repetitive, samba-like rhythm that could recall a secret spring party. Caryatids evokes marine ambiences and insular melodies and was inspired by the island of Ponza. Angelsummit.net is a tender sound tapestry enriched by sampling which invites the listener to collect shiny floating gems along the way. Continuing in the spirit of Eurybia, Bird Bath uses fantasy as a musico-devotional choreography where Francesca’s intuitive and impressionistic approach to composition, reefs of midi arpeggios, constellations of samples and foamy ambiences become instruments to build and connect the virtual, spiritual and earthly channels of the artist’s labyrinthine and spellbinding world.

This Trio is very Californian, even though Surya is based on the East Coast . . .We swim together in the Pacific Ocean, Vibing, bonding, talking, listening, riding the Waves . . .as often as we can. - Carlos Niño Together these three adventurously creative Musical Artists have played in Portland, Oregon, Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York, London, England, Amsterdam and Zaandam, NL, Köln, Germany, San Diego and Ojai, California, and many times throughout Los Angeles County, since February 2022. They first came together in July 2021 at the Glendale, California Home Recording Studio of Jesse Peterson and Mia Doi Todd. Nate was invited by Carlos to meet Surya and to possibly play. No specific plans were set other than to explore with Surya. (Multi-Reedsman Randal Fisher was also there.) That Session turned out to be Day 1 of what became Surya's debut album Everyone's Children released by Spiritmuse Records on November 4, 2022. Suyra and Nate were both featured extensively on the Carlos Niño & Friends album (I'm just) Chillin', on Fire released by International Anthem on September 15, 2023, though not together on any of the same pieces. The first in-depth representation of the Trio was in collaboration with André 3000 on his album New Blue Sun released by Epic Records on November 17, 2023, where they are featured as co-writers and co-creators of 5 of the 8 album pieces. Niño also Produced that album in collaboration with André. Nate enthusiastically took it upon himself to be the Trio's Archivist and would get to Mixing and playlisting the group's recordings as soon as he received them from Live and Studio recordists. He took the lead on Producing and Mixing this album, Subtle Movements. His unique perspectives, thoughts, feelings and intense heart energy went into telling the story of how these pieces, recorded in different settings, with a wide range of gear, by an array of characters, all flow together. "It is a blessed opportunity and Cosmic Gift to be at the keyboards with Nate and Carlos," Surya gleams. "In appearance, I play a few keyboards at a time: a MIDI controller that I use in tandem with music studio software, my absolute FAVORITE analog sensibility synth Roland SH-201 (although it is digital), and typically another 88key board (the Roland SV-1). If there is a piano available, I will also use that with us for a total of 4 keyboards at my station, (that my cousin Georgia Anne Muldrow has forever deemed “Praise Console no.3”), Surya enthuses. "My instruments and sound are the last thing I consider about this Trio. For me, it is about us as human beings first; as members of our respective families and soul tribes before anything else. I think whatever sound that comes forth is a result of that inner connected soul conversation. That, at least in my view, is the Sound." "I play guitar, guitar synthesizer, and midi-guitar sampler," writes Nate Mercereau of his Instruments on Subtle Movements. "In addition to my main GR300 guitar synthesizer sound, I am sampling the band live as we perform and using the sound . . .It takes many different shapes, but I am often playing something like the sound of Carlos's percussion from 30 seconds earlier in a new key and tempo, or as a chord — or a quick slice of a pad from Surya’s keyboard pitched down into sub frequencies, anything can happen," Nate details. "I live-sample and expand, magnify, permutate, repeat, live-remix, live-edit, and reframe moments of our sound within our sound while it's happening. Worlds Within Worlds and Worlds Upon Worlds, Currents Within Currents. I also use previously recorded and created samples from my library in this context, allowing my guitar to be anything." Nate also offers: "I consider what I do in this trio to be a part of and extension of the greater sound of this group, which is often oceanic (which represents everything to me), waves, it's full communication. Love and support in sonic form. Going beyond together in all ways." Carlos Niño plays everything that you hear in the Aerophone, Drum, Percussion and Plant realms . . . He was the group's "Connector" and its first advocate. Depending on who received and accepted the opportunity to present the Trio their names have appeared in different orders. Hear, on Subtle Movements the order is Alphabetical by last name: Botofasina, Mercereau, Niño

A must-have for fans of Japanese environmental music such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa and Yutaka Hirose! Organic new age music that is swallowed by the beauty of nature that sways gracefully! Leaving Records is proud to present the debut EP by Green-House, a project by local artist Olive Ardizon. "The six tracks are based on the concept of "communication between plant life and the people who grow it. Based on field recordings that capture the sounds of water and the voices and movements of plants and animals in nature, this is a superb new age/ambient work that breathes an aesthetic synth sound that encompasses the beauty and serenity of the pull that is common in Japanese environmental music. Artwork by Michael Flanagan.

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.” 

It's like a dark ritual performed by subterranean people...?? A surreal and disturbing outsider and experimental jazz piece that captures mysterious sounds coming from a place beyond imagination!

Thee Marloes, by way of Surabaya, Indonesia are Natassya Sianturi on vocals, Sinatrya Dharaka on guitar, and Tommy Satwick on drums. Their unique sound mixes elements of their local culture and music with influences of Soul, Jazz, and Pop.