MUSIC

Their first album to chart in multiple countries around the world, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s sophomore record II was released in 2013. Featuring the significant American hit ‘So Good At Being In Trouble’, it received plaudits for its funky, groove-laden blend of DIY indie-rock, classic Sixties pop and psychedelia. Tenth anniversary edition features an unreleased song from the same sessions (‘Two Generations Of Excess’), the era’s B-sides and the five acoustic tracks from the contemporaneously released ‘Blue Record’ EP.

激レア化している2018年作が初の再発。ノースカロライナ州アッシュビルを拠点に、フォーク、カントリー、ブルース、そして宇宙的なアメリカン・ロックを見事に溶け合わせるソングライター、Ryan Gustafsonの変名The Dead Tonguesによるアルバム『Unsung Passage』が〈Psychic Hotline〉よりヴァイナル・リイシュー。常に各地を飛び回ってきた冒険家であるグスタフソンが、歌うにふさわしいといえるほどに見てきたものを、その一人称で見つめ直した作品。慌ただしい現代に向けた内省的なアンセムに注ぎ込まれる秀逸な一枚。

Created between Palm Springs, California and Hilo, Hawai'i, V is the first double album from the Hawaiian-New Zealand singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Ruban Nielson's Unknown Mortal Orchestra band. Designed to play as one continuous movement and road-tested on dry California freeways, V is the definitive Unknown Mortal Orchestra car record. It's also the fifth full-length album Ruban has released in twelve years. Across fourteen sun-bleached songs - written solo or with his brother Kody - Ruban draws from the rich traditions of West Coast AOR, yacht rock, weirdo pop and Hawaiian Hapa-haole music. Over a laidback blend of singalong anthems and cinematic instrumentals, he evokes blue skies, afternoons spent lounging by hotel swimming pools and the alluring darkness that lurks below perfect, pristine surfaces. It's a duality expressed in the dilapidated sunset blues and the salt-corroded soul Ruban explores through tracks like 'Layla' and 'Nadja.'During the pandemic's early days, Ruban reunited with Kody at a cousin's wedding in Hawai'i. With assistance from their father, Chris Nielson (saxophone/flute) and longstanding Unknown Mortal Orchestra member Jake Portrait, they brought everything Ruban had been thinking about together. The result was V, due for release on March 3, 2023, through Jagjaguwar. When they talked about records that moved them in that spine-shivering manner, Ruban started thinking about the 70s AM radio rock and 80s pop songs that had lurked on the edge of his subconscious mind for most of his life. He wanted to write his version of records like that, leading to the two glorious uptempo singles Unknown Mortal Orchestra released in 2021, 'Weekend Run' and 'That Life'.However, the golden good times never last forever. Not long after, health issues began to plague his extended family. Putting his recordings aside, he helped his mother and his uncle move home from New Zealand and Portland to Hawai'i, and began dividing his time between Hawai'i and Palm Springs. During this period he reconnected with his relatives, reassessed his past, and started to look at things with fresh eyes. Hawai'i brought back memories of the darker side of his parents' lifestyle as entertainers. On those trips, he heard those classic AM radio rock records everywhere. They were inextricably intertwined with the palm trees, swimming pools, and glamorized hedonism he’d internalized from his childhood. There's a type of music in Hawai'i called Hapa-haole (Half white). You can hear it expressed in signature Unknown Mortal Orchestra style through the humid guitar-led atmosphere of V's penultimate song, 'I Killed Captain Cook'. Although the songs are presented in a traditional Hawaiian manner, they’re mostly sung in English. Having been influenced by Hawaiian music since Unknown Mortal Orchestra's first album, Ruban saw a space for himself within the tradition. When he reflected on his success, he realised he had the responsibility and platform to represent Hapa-haole music on the global stage.

Emeralds — musicians John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire — emerged from the rust-pocked, post-millennial Midwest drone/noise scene seemingly unable or uninterested in keeping up with themselves. Their proliferation of material was intimidating; mountains of improvised, home-recorded music were released on limited-edition tapes, CD-Rs, and split LPs. There is and was a sense that the Ohio trio was after something beyond physical mediums. By 2008, their sprawling live sets were a known can't-miss at any underground experimental event. Tiny Mix Tapes reviewed that year's appearance at No Fun Fest: "No one's sawtooths, sines, and other various waveforms were so beautifully sculpted and beamed out into the Plejades as Emeralds'." These basement dwellers were shaping meditative, psychedelic, arpeggiated electronic music in the veins of German kosmische forebears like Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, and Klaus Schulze. Made primarily with synthesizers and guitar, Emeralds' music possessed the same astral psyche with a home-crafted punk edge, a distant descendant of that pioneering era, and a bridge to someplace new, someplace scorched. Released on Aaron Dilloway's (Wolf Eyes, etc.) Hanson imprint, Solar Bridge was the first Emeralds album to receive any kind of proper distribution and represents the first attempt to archivally preserve their fluid craft. Giving the album top honors in their 2008 Rewind issue, The Wire wrote: “John Elliott and Steve Hauschildt’s billowing synth drones, together with Mark McGuire’s sedately plangent guitar melodies, are uncannily good at carving out a space for the imagination to crawl into and wander about.” The first of an inimitable five-LP run before their disbanding in 2013, Solar Bridge is a moment of glistening primacy that boots up a catalog and legacy that the heads still grapple with. Emeralds begin to make sense of it in the fall of 2022 with a remastered Solar Bridge LP release on Ghostly International. The Midwest leaves an indelible mark on Emeralds' sound; their debut characteristically vibrates as if from a ghost mall or some other relic of the rust belt. Side A, "Magic," finds the three young musicians summoning by way of analog synthesis and processed guitar motifs. Though it could be loosely called "drone," this miasmic wall of melody ripples through dynamics; pulses ebb and flow in and out in a way where every edge disappears. Like any good magic trick, there is something invisible at play here. On Side B, "The Quaking Mess," oxidized squeals and shuddering mechanical whines commingle with square and saw wave pads and flickering guitar details to create a post-industrial parking lot tableau. Eventually, the ground swells up, and a massive firmament trembles below the wobbling synths and rickety electronics. There is a power at the heart of Emeralds’ sound that displays a kind of egalitarian psychedelia, a working-class kosmische, a proletariat trip zone. Everyone is welcome to watch the world fold in on itself as they are pulled into the portal. "Photosphere," a previously unreleased recording included as a digital exclusive, affords a look at a more serene stretch from the same session. A demure guitar loop wafts above slowly shifting tectonic synthesizer drones; the tremendous restraint the trio shows here hints at part of the unique place they would carve out for themselves, both together and respectively, in the annals of American DIY experimental music. Elliott, McGuire, and Hauschildt are known now for being tuned into a mutual vocabulary as Emeralds. They are players that exercise a kind of profound listening. Slowness, as a kind of punk ethos. As the static sputters into the right channel around the twelve-minute mark, the scene becomes self-aware, and we are released into the ether. Emeralds materialized as a fully formed entity radiating cosmic potential. Their discography evolved and incorporated different qualities and vocabularies, but hearing where it started will always feel different. The density, the patience, and the sheer refinement presented on Solar Bridge legibly demonstrates how and why Emeralds has become a legendary part of the contemporary electronic music canon.

Originally released in 1976, My Ancestors is one of the greatest releases from Zambia’s Zamrock scene.

The album travels the darker undercurrents of 70s rock and roll, warping and heightening the influences of Jimi, the Stones, the Beatles, Black Sabbath, and James Brown.

27 year old Chrissy “Zebby” Tembo provided drums and vocals while Paul Ngozi, one of the chief architects of the Zambian rock sound, was responsible for the aggressive guitar leads. Created amidst an explosion of creativity and positivity in Zambia in the mid to late 70s, this album is an absolute stunner we’re glad to see in print again!!!

Licensed from the family of Chrissy Zebby Tembo via Now-Again Records.

Black Market Brass is proud to present Hox, due out on Colemine Records on September 8, 2023. Their third LP is a new take on afrobeat that combines traditional grooves with heavy, hypnotic, sci-fi sounds that reflect the band’s myriad of influences as record collectors across genres. “We didn’t leave the traditional afro-beat sound behind, but we did allow ourselves to pull from different places with less hesitation.” Shared saxophonist Cole Pulice. Like their previous albums, the 9-piece band recorded Hox live to tape. “The sound and aesthetic of the analog recording process is important for this kind of music,” Pulice explained. “We’re looking to capture lightning in a bottle.” With that, the album features several sections of heavily processed synthesizers, harsh glitches, fuzzed out guitars, and a burning percussion section that pays homage to the traditional drumming cultures of Nigeria and Ghana. The performances are dynamic and confident. The grooves are infectious and hypnotic. BMB has pushed further into musical experimentalism, but at the end of the day, they’re still making dance music. Krautrock, free-jazz, doom metal – the inspirations for Hox stem from all kinds of musical backgrounds, but the sound is far from scattered. It’s a polished, innovative record that’s sure to exceed expectations and keep the listener engaged from start to finish.

This is the first official vinyl reissue from Superior Viaduct of the 1975 historical masterpiece by Takehisa Kosugi (1938-2018), Japan's leading figure in sound art known for his work with Group Ongaku, The Taj Mahal Travellers, Fluxus, and others. This is the first official vinyl reissue from the prestigious Superior Viaduct label. The psychedelic and meditative musicianship with electric violins and voices drifting comfortably in the space is still unique even after 30 years. The sound quality is perfect with the reliable Superior Viaduct. For fans of La Monte Young and Yoshi Wada, this is a must have on vinyl.

An album such as this obviously owes a lot to the atmosphere in which it was recorded, which we can imagine was magical. We know it took place in Fromentel, Normandy, in a farm converted into a studio by the producer Jacques Denjean, known for his work with Dionne Warwick or Françoise Hardy as well as having been a member of the Double Six. It was also at Fromentel, that Denjean would record two fantastic albums with Albert Marcoeur. When Emmanuelle Parrenin followed in his footsteps a year later she was in good company: the sound engineer at the studio was her partner and therefore uniquely capable (we imagine) of creating an adequate soundscape for her delicate universe. What is more, five years previously, Bruno Menny, the sound engineer partner, recorded his first and only album, but what an album: in electroacoustic terms we can hear things which make him appear as the spiritual son of his mentor Xenakis! 

What makes Maison Rose unique is exactly this fusion between the two conceptions of Emmanuelle Parrenin and Bruno Menny, creating a perfect marriage of tradition and experimentation. The tradition comes from the songs collected by Emmanuelle Parrenin in rural areas, in a similar vein to the work carried out by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins. The experimentation is in the sound captured by Bruno Menny, who both arranged and recorded the album. This is not to forget those who came with their guitar (Denis Gasser), or their lyrics (no less a figure than Jean-Claude Vannier). On the one hand we have the humble and non-demonstrative singing, with melodies which remind us of songs we would sing to calm a child's nightmares, and on the other hand a pronounced rhythmic intensity at certain points, such as on "Topaze" where the drums in particular evoke the Motorik of Faust. 

A real haven of peace, Maison Rose is enchanting with its aura of mystery and spirituality, with soft, gentle songs which seem both ancestral and futurist. Originally published by Ballon Noir in 1977, this album follows on from other folk marvels such as Le Galant noyé from the pre-Mélusine period. 

On the subject of Maison Rose, if we had to risk a few comparisons we would mention Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Joanna Newsom, Collie Ryan, Shirley Collins, Trees Community, Sourdeline and Véronique Chalot as those which spring spontaneously to mind. But this is too reductive for the timeless singularity of Emmanuelle Parrenin: because Maison Rose was recorded in 1977, in the midst of the punk revolution. 

Say She She, the soulful female-led trio, stand rock solid on their discodelic duty with their boundary breaking sophomore album Silver. The three strong voices of Piya Malik (El Michels Affair staple feature, and former backing singer for Chicano Batman), Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown front the band. Following the NYC siren song, the trio was pulled from their respective cities — Piya from London, Nya from DC, and Sabrina from NYC — to Manhattan’s downtown dance floors, through the Lower East Side floorboards, and up to the rooftops of Harlem, where their friendship was formed on one momentous, kismet eve. Silver was entirely written and recorded live to tape at Killion Sound studio in North Hollywood earlier this year and produced by Sergio Rios (of Orgone). While these analog recording techniques help root Say She She’s sound in a bedrock of tonal warmth that only tape can achieve, it is also their process of cutting the track in the moment and capturing the magic of communal creativity that has seen their sound described as “a glorious overload of joyful elation and spiritual elevation” (MOJO) and “infused with the wonky post-disco spirit of early '80s NYC” (The Guardian). Musical inspirations include Rotary Connection, Asha Puthli, Liquid Liquid, Grace Jones and Tom Tom Club. Ultimately, Silver oozes with quirk and adventure and embraces the multifaceted nature of what it means to be a modern femme. Say She She fully embrace their role as beauticians, actively reminding people of the inherent beauty in the world. They skillfully employ double entendres and humor to encourage open dialogue and fearlessly address important matters that demand attention.

While she was still a member of Nasmak, one of the leading bands of the Dutch ultra-movement, Truus de Groot started Plus Instruments in 1978 with herself as the sole member. When the project evolved, she found a wide range of rotating collaborators like Michel Waisvisz, Lee Ranaldo and James Sclavunos. Plus Instruments was about freedom and the live performances were largely improvised. The sound minimal but captivating. The music always came from within, but De Groot was also triggered by bands like Red Crayola, Suicide, DAF, Wire, Per Ubu, Devo and the No Wave scene in NY. She was always experimenting with primitive multi-track recording and whatever crappy gadgets she could find. Always looking for a gritty, dirty sound and bizarre overtones. At a young age she travelled to New York and began to immerse herself in the nightlife of the city that never sleeps. Here she found true creativity, passion and expression. The club scene was alive but highly competitive, so this fearless Dutch girl would just knock on promoter’s doors to get gigs booked at places like CBGB’s, Peppermint Lounge, Underground and the Pyramid. De Groot eventually settled in the United States and never stopped experimenting with sound. In recent years she reinvented Plus Instruments and led the group into new territory. The recordings for this LP were made by De Groot at home and the music is experimental, minimal, industrial but also playful, sounding nothing like most of the later material. 14 tracks in total of which 8 are taken from the elusive and impossible to find self-released debut cassette as ‘Truss Plus Instruments’ which was sparingly distributed by Nigel Jacklin and his legendary Alien Brains fanzine in 1980. The remaining 6 tracks are from the same period (1979-1980) and were carefully selected from the vast archive of De Groot. We are glad to present this anthology that serves as a long overdue testimony to the formative phase of a unique female pioneer of electronic music. The recordings for this LP were made by De Groot at home and the music is experimental, minimal, industrial but also playful, sounding nothing like most of the later material. 14 tracks in total of which 8 are taken from the elusive and impossible to find self-released debut cassette as ‘Truss Plus Instruments’ which was sparingly distributed by Nigel Jacklin and his legendary Alien Brains fanzine in 1980. The remaining 6 tracks are from the same period (1979-1980) and were carefully selected from the vast archive of De Groot. We are glad to present this anthology that serves as a long overdue testimony to the formative phase of a unique female pioneer of electronic music.

Chie Mukai & Yonju Miyaoka 'Song of trees' Comes in jewel case, with 8 page booklet and English translation kraft sheet. artwork by Yonju Miyaoka Lyrics translation by Alan Cummings Long notes by Takuya Sakaguchi, Short notes by Alan Cummings and Yu Hirayama. Mix & Mastered by Ippei Suda All lyrics and text has English translation Edition of 500

Dai Sayozoku (大サヨ族) is Sayozoku Septet avant-garde, free music, improvisational ensemble. live at Namba BEARS ,Osaka on 2021 August19th. イエレキルピネン Jere Kilpinen ..Shakuhachi, Drums 向井千惠 Chie Mukai ...Voice, Recorder, Percussions 佐藤史 Fumi Sato ...El-guitar 沼 タカハシシカロ Shicaro Takahashi ...Recorder, Toys, Percussions, Voice 　 染谷藍 Ai Sometani ... Recorder, Toys, Percussions サ 天神さやか Sayaka Tenjin ...Gopichand, Recorder, Percussion, Voice ヨ 宮岡永樹 Yonju Miyaoka ....Recorder, El-guitar, Hichiriki 族 Recorded by Yonju Miyaoka Mastered by Masami Baba Special thanks to Satoru Higashiseto (Forever Records), Naomi Kurimoto (Bears)

"First and last Inga Copeland album" The 2013 album, pressed on a limited edition LP. Premium material from the artist now recording as LOLINA.

激レア化している2018年作が初の再発。ノースカロライナ州アッシュビルを拠点に、フォーク、カントリー、ブルース、そして宇宙的なアメリカン・ロックを見事に溶け合わせるソングライター、Ryan Gustafsonの変名The Dead Tonguesによるアルバム『Unsung Passage』が〈Psychic Hotline〉よりヴァイナル・リイシュー。常に各地を飛び回ってきた冒険家であるグスタフソンが、歌うにふさわしいといえるほどに見てきたものを、その一人称で見つめ直した作品。慌ただしい現代に向けた内省的なアンセムに注ぎ込まれる秀逸な一枚。

Say She She, the soulful female-led trio, stand rock solid on their discodelic duty with their boundary breaking sophomore album Silver. The three strong voices of Piya Malik (El Michels Affair staple feature, and former backing singer for Chicano Batman), Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown front the band. Following the NYC siren song, the trio was pulled from their respective cities — Piya from London, Nya from DC, and Sabrina from NYC — to Manhattan’s downtown dance floors, through the Lower East Side floorboards, and up to the rooftops of Harlem, where their friendship was formed on one momentous, kismet eve. Silver was entirely written and recorded live to tape at Killion Sound studio in North Hollywood earlier this year and produced by Sergio Rios (of Orgone). While these analog recording techniques help root Say She She’s sound in a bedrock of tonal warmth that only tape can achieve, it is also their process of cutting the track in the moment and capturing the magic of communal creativity that has seen their sound described as “a glorious overload of joyful elation and spiritual elevation” (MOJO) and “infused with the wonky post-disco spirit of early '80s NYC” (The Guardian). Musical inspirations include Rotary Connection, Asha Puthli, Liquid Liquid, Grace Jones and Tom Tom Club. Ultimately, Silver oozes with quirk and adventure and embraces the multifaceted nature of what it means to be a modern femme. Say She She fully embrace their role as beauticians, actively reminding people of the inherent beauty in the world. They skillfully employ double entendres and humor to encourage open dialogue and fearlessly address important matters that demand attention.

Psychedelic Rock … Long-awaited compilation of hard-rocking, psychedelic songs from Indonesia’s premiere rock outfit Panbers culled from their most fertile years with Mesra Dimita Records. For those uninitiated on the glory Panbers, consider this compilation an introduction to some of earliest and heaviest rock sound to come out of Indonesia.

DIY pop master from Saitama, JAPAN. love psychedelic pop/anime/dreamy pop

Part fantastical historic sonic biopic, part anthropologic journey into the deep roots of Belgium’s monstrous cosmic rock sound, this wholly individualistic concept album combines the lead members of the mighty COS (Daniel Schell and Pascale Son) with studio genius Alain Pierre (Ô Sidarta/Des Morts) and celebrated Dutch progressive rock singer Dick Annegarn, for what many consider to be both the overlooked hiding place of Belgium’s deepest psychedelic moment and European prog’s lost map to the ‘Franco-Flemish Boom’. Emerging from the wider musical family that counted Marc Moulin, Placebo and Marc Hollander amongst its creative kin, Daniel Schell’s most profound conceptual project ambitiously combines the tale of the heroic historical figure of Count Egmont, while simultaneously tracing the evolution of the ud, or oud, (‘the grandfather of the guitar’) in this multifarious hallucinogenic epic. Featuring key members of other collectable groups such as drummer Felix Simtaine from Solis Lacus and bass player Jean-Louis Baudoin from the mythical Classroom (COS predecessor), this best-kept secret vinyl release also harbours the voices of Dirk Bogaert (of Belgian hard rockers Waterloo) as well as Catalan singer Ilona Chale (Marc Hollander/Aksak Maboul) before her later tenure as the COS front woman. Initially released in 1978 via Zeuhl school distributors Free Bird alongside French pressings of Don Cherry, Jacques Thollot and CAN, it is plain to understand the niche nature of this maligned “lost COS” LP as it finally blooms from between the cracked branches of European jazz-rock-synth-psych-prog-pop history… and beyond!

Demdike Stare reunite with guitarist Jon Collin for a new album of concréte dreamweaving performed on tape, pedals and a homemade Swedish nyckelharpa - a type of keyed fiddle. More psychedelic than either of the trio's previous records, 'Minerals' drops the blues to dive headfirst into the smudged folk wellspring, touching on the pastoral ambience of Andrew Chalk via Loren Connors’ immersive drift and Tongue Depressor's subterranean drone expeditions. With the trio all hailing from the Pennine moorlands just above the manc sprawl, Jon Collin & Demdike Stare’s shared musical expression understandably reflects a parallax purview that follows leylines between lusher nooks of the inner city and windswept, barren landscapes. Never ones to play it straight, the Swedish Nyckelharpa - a sort of hybrid viola/hurdy gurdy - is deployed deep into a mix of oblique soundscaping, seeping into a swirl of field recordings, screwed spoken word and phosphorescent drones pinging with tape delay. Split into two distinct sides, the album opens with a scrape of wood and metal that introduces us to the nyckelharpa. Scratching its surface and strings, Collin reveals its peculiar tonality, while Demdike cut through its dissonant textures. Like ancient campfire rituals recorded to decaying 1/4" tape, the music on ‘Minerals’ feels as if it's in dialog with the past, shuttled into the present by abstract processes. By the side’s third act, resonant gongs billow around pitched wails that eventually collapse into silence. The second side is more spirited, opening with a thumbed kalimba cut through reverberant strings that recall Arthur Russell's iconic echo-drenched recordings. Through elaborate concréte techniques, Collin's ancient fiddle dissolves into a ferric gloop that’s slowly pulled apart like toffee, taking it to a place where you can no longer really tell what you’re listening to or how it was made. In fact, unlike pretty much everything we’ve heard from Demdike before, the material here feels mechanical rather than electronic, making for one of the most impactful, unusual releases in the vast sprawl of their catalogue thus far.

Bastian Epple makes an eagerly anticipated return to marionette under his elusive MinaeMinae guise that imagines rich sonic architectures for the journeying spirit to voyage to. Räumlichkeit is Epple’s debut album and third release to date following Gestrüpp from 2020, venturing further into melodic electronic nostalgia and percussive beat oriented soundscapes. Spanning fifteen vignettes that trapeze through uncharted winding trails and familiar spaces, the album’s recordings evoke a scenic state of mind. The tracks simulate a room or nested rooms where the breathtaking views of nature and contrasting brutalist structures are explored with an equal sense of curiosity and wonder. Taking the listener down unpredictable paths that are rooted within the music itself, Epple is as much present in the creation as the listening experience which gives the recordings an immediacy and a live element of unfolding before your ears, unfamiliar each time. This novel viewpoint is very much at the core of Räumlichkeit, poetically contemplating the concept of spatiality and how that, in turn, influences the receiving of those fleeting moments. Apart from the world building qualities of the recordings, it's the speed of travel that also impacts the perception of the journey, and Epple tends to manipulate time at a fully immersive rate that grips the mind and body.

Back in 2016, producer Seth Applebaum released two EPs that marked the inauguration of the band Ghost Funk Orchestra. ‘Night Walker’ and ‘Death Waltz’ were conceived as one-man-band, reel-to-reel tape recorded experiments that would bring together elements of all the sounds that Seth most adored at the time: tape-saturated drums, gratuitous spring reverb, surfy guitar, Latin-style percussion, odd time signatures, and Spanish-language female vocals. Initially released only in the digital domain and on a short run of cassette tapes, these two EPs that defined the early era of GFO are now finally available together on a single LP via Colemine Records. The tracks have been lovingly remastered by Doug Krebs. We invite you to take a dive into the humble beginnings of a project that has continued to grow, shape shift, and accrue new and exciting sounds for its sonic palette.

Hiroshi Tanaka and Yoichi Fuwa are two mysterious creatures who in 1974 made an album that contains 19 tracks without names. Their music is like a fairy tale. It’s leisurely and relaxed yet bursting at the seams with melodies and youthful ambition, exactly what you would expect from the self-proclaimed heirs of the Beatles. A holy grail of Japanese psychedelic pop, the Untitled White Album was self-released in only 100 copies. Reissued here for the first time with an additional bonus LP, an Untitled White Album II featuring 16 previously unreleased songs from the original sessions.