MUSIC

ike an unsent love letter to a psychedelic London where everyone is trying to find their way to a secret Television Personalities gig, Cuneiform Tabs emerge with an astounding debut of lo-fi pop and DIY experimentation. A hazy collage of joyful heartaches, twisted children's TV themes and sing-song melodies, the album echoes the sounds of '60s AM radio from a dozen narrow alleyways to the North. Over 18 months, the Tabs' Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon traded 4-track tapes between the Bay Area and the UK. While they previously played together in indie band Violent Change, the duo's physical distance and their songwriting process of building, blurring and distorting across the Atlantic would create something no one saw coming. Grabbing any instruments at their disposal and splitting vocal duties, Bleyle and Mackinnon pushed their Tascam to its limit to make glittering, odd-shaped gems. There is an insular feel to Cuneiform Tabs, suited for late nights after the entire city has stumbled into dreamtime or lazy afternoons when you can't quite recall where you need to be, but you know you won't make it there on time. It's like a pirate radio show where Bob Pollard alternates Swell Maps and Cleaners From Venus records while randomly unplugging various bits of gear and reading passages from a book on R.D. Laing.。

The second part of Matador’s reissues of the essential early records by Texas’s Butthole Surfers continues with three of their most insane slabs -- 1985’s ‘Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis,’ 1987’s ‘Locust Abortion Technician’ and 1988’s ‘Hairway to Steven.’

The period during which these records were first issued parallels the Buttholes’ transition from being weirdo Texas outcasts to becoming internationally recognized smut-kings of the American underground. In 1985 they were still the sole province of hallucingen-soaked punk rock freaks. By 1988 they had toured Europe, had records licensed internationally, and bought a house in Driftwood Texas to serve as their home base. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

‘Hairway to Steven’ is a blast, ranging from the blood-smeared guitar-overload of “Jimi” to the acoustic guitar-based sing-along sweetness of “I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas” to the Fugs-like ranting of “John E. Smokes.” Yet somehow, the album managed to get the straight media to actually notice. For all its strangeness, ‘Hairway’ got rave notices in places that had never paid the band any attention previously. It was the Buttholes’ last album of the ‘80s and marks the beginning of their ascendance into something akin to commercial success. Not that the band actually imagined anything at all like that occurring.

Diane Birch emerges as a formidable American singer-songwriter and pianist, boasting a repertoire of critically lauded releases spanning a rich decade-long career. With an eclectic array of musical influences stemming from a globe-trotting childhood - ranging from her humble beginnings as a preacher’s daughter in Zimbabwe and South Africa to her transformative years as a gothic teen immersed in the vibrant cultural underbelly of Portland, Oregon. Her discovery while living in London via Myspace led to a record deal in New York, where she then spent the next few years. Diane's journey is as diverse as her sound. Her profound experiences have culminated in a unique musical blend, characterized by her stint performing soulful covers and original pieces in the swanky lounges of the Beverly Hills elite. Receiving widespread attention with her debut album “Bible Belt” and her follow-up projects “Speak A Little Louder” and “Nous”, these works not only cemented her position in the international music scene but also earned her accolades and respect from esteemed peers including Prince, Daryl Hall, Mark Ronson, Dave Stewart, Questlove, Elvis Costello, Bryan Ferry and Stevie Wonder. Returning with her latest work, “Flying On Abraham”, Diane presents a meticulously crafted collection of original compositions. This album is a heartfelt homage to her vast and varied musical roots, weaving together the rich tapestry of 70s AM radio, soul, jazz, classic rock, 80s/90s pop and R&B. Despite the eclectic mix, Diane's sound remains distinctly her own - her voice a blend of raw emotion and refined grace, echoing the legacy of iconic artists like Carole King, Carly Simon and Rickie Lee Jones, yet standing out with an authenticity and individuality that is unmistakably Diane Birch. Produced by renowned English musician Paul Stacey, known for his work with Noel Gallagher and the Black Crowes, “Flying On Abraham” was recorded in the UK, backed by an impressive lineup of musicians. This album is not just a collection of songs but a narrative of her artistic journey, offering a window into the soul of a woman who has traversed continents and musical genres to create something truly extraordinary. With “Flying On Abraham”, Diane Birch reaffirms her status as a musical virtuoso, continuing to enchant audiences worldwide with her evocative lyrics. It represents Diane's enduring vision of “making American music with an English sensibility.”

韓国初のロック・バンドとされる「Add4」を率いた同国のロック・ミュージックのパイオニアであり、「ロックのゴッドファーザー」と称される、ロック・ギタリスト／シンガーソングライターのShin Joong-hyunの決定版的アンソロジーをストック。「Add4」の一員として1960年代から1970年代にかけて同国のサイケデリック・ロック・シーンを盛り上げたコリアン・ロックの父、Shin Joong Hyunのキャリアを網羅した一枚。

“...as important to Korean rock in 1970-75 as Phil Spector had been to America's pop scene a decade earlier, and every bit as busy.” - MOJO Shin Joong Hyun’s tale is personal, spiritual, and deep, not only reflecting the full spectrum of human emotions but also reverberating with echoes of sound, some beautiful and life-giving, others restless and ungovernable. These career-spanning anthologies gather Shin’s work as a guitarist, songwriter, producer and arranger of mind-altering experimental pop, acid-folk, and extended psych-funk jams. A musical trip existing somewhere between Motown, Hendrix, and the Velvet Underground.

Federico Ughi Together with Leo Genovese and Brandon Lopez Explores the Spaceways in the New Multidimensional LP/CD ‘Infinite Cosmos Calling You You You, Vol. 1’ Federico Ughi, drum wizard and producer, is back with an album under his own name for the first time in five years. The project features outstanding musicians: Leo Genovese, originally from Argentina but now Brooklyn-based on keyboards and synths, and Brandon Lopez from NYC on upright bass. This album celebrates the advanced creative dialogue between these artists by fully immersing the listener in the world of sound conjured by the trio. The expansive scope of this experience suggests that Ughi's artistic enterprise extends beyond the music itself to the idea of connection between artists, music, and the audience. In this conception the musicians are conduits for the delivery of cosmic sound, the music world, the cosmic dimension of sound and light. The message is launched towards the audience and refracted back through them, aspiring to achieve a sort of universal consciousness through presence and participation. The trio moves away from a specific genre, opening up to limitless possibilities. Anything is possible when these improvisers listen to each other so closely. This music is dynamic and defies particular labels. It’s the universal language of sound, frequencies, beat and vibration. The project is strongly influenced by the music, philosophy, and persona of Sun Ra, to whom one of the tracks is dedicated. The album will be followed soon by Vol. 2, containing the other half of the material recorded on the day at Sear Sound, the oldest recording studio in NYC.

Horse Lords bring the fervor and fury of their live show to the confines and comfort of your trusted playback device with As It Happened: Horse Lords Live, a collection of recordings that capture the quartet’s galvanic energy as never before while toying with the trope of the live album. Captured at a series of concerts across Europe spanning Horse Lords’ multiple 2022 and 2023 tours, As It Happened is a mediated, sometimes obviously edited presentation of a live performance that strives for a certain level of idealization. With performance at the center of the band’s practice, and elements of chance colliding with Horse Lords’ tightly composed and complex music, As it Happened works as both provocation and total jam.

In All This and So Much More Tasha is an artist flung open. For Tasha, the last few years have been propulsive, dynamic, bursting at the seams. They've included painful encounters with grief; a sudden break up; new flirtation; new hair; the glitter of world travel and not least, a role in Tony-nominated Broadway musical Illinoise which adapts Sufjan Steven’s Illinois for the stage. If Tell Me What You Miss The Most was an introspective meditation on love with a few moments of glancing toward what’s next, All this and So Much More is Tasha turned outward, flourishing, telling us what it’s like to take life by the chin and look it in the eye. Take, for example “Eric Song.” This was the first song to be written on the album, penned while Tasha grappled with the sudden, tragic death of Eric Littman, the co-producer of her last album. Though the instrumentation is a familiar 3/4 guitar strum, lulling us into a comforting waltz, Tasha’s voice is breathy with grief, adding depth and dimension to the hushed sound. “No, I’m not alone after all / You must be near / Facing this soaring sprawl,” she sings, transforming the experience of loss into a talisman of love and courage meant to help usher in a new self. Said a different way, All This and So Much More is a full-throated ode to all of the ups and downs of becoming. In the opening track, “Pretend,” when Tasha sings about “feelings outgrowing this little life,” we get the sense, both lyrically and sonically, of someone in the throes of growth. This is an album crafted with a big, ambitious sound (in part, thanks to the production of Gregory Uhlmann)—cinematic droning, orchestral woodwinds, dazzling arrays of jangling guitar, all lining up to capture a sweeping moment in Tasha’s life. Written over the course of 2022 and 2023, right on the cusp of Tasha being cast in Illinoise, the songs in this album invoke friendship, heart ache, flirtation, doubt. From the social anxiety of “Party” (“Do they think I’m funny? / Did they like my jokes last night?”) to the questing for meaning in “So Much More,” Tasha brings us along on a journey of finding out that the person you wanted to be was inside of yourself, just waiting to bloom all along. She sums it up neatly in her final track, “Love's Changing,” charging us with a brilliant, sweeping vision of the future, singing: “Suddenly the world is bigger than it ever felt before / Feel the weight of my future sinking in / See the joy I’m running toward." In All This and So Much More, Tasha asks us to consider abundance in its truest form. Our lives, a deluge of possible experience if only we will surrender to it, all the way from the citric ache of heartbreak to the chest bloom of new adventure.

A new series from Jazzman featuring selections from Greasy Mike, the notoriously shady Super Spiv from the dark underworld of super rare records! After many years in hiding, Greasy Mike has finally opened up his vinyl dungeon, and we were first to raid it! What did we find? Only the lowest of the lowball schlock n' roll 45s never known to exist! We have left no box untouched, no crate unrummaged, no pile unpilfered! Just the greasiest and grimiest, the most shocking and sordid 45s have made it onto our selections. Watch out for more!!! But first - and just in time for your Halloween Horror Shock Hop - Greasy Mike has unearthed his all-time all-hallowed Halloween Monsters: The Zombie Walk, Night Sweats, the Chiller, Prowler and Screaming Vampire! Putrid pieces of raucous rot n' roll records direct from Greasy Mike's manky mitts! Not to be missed! Oww-ooooh!!!

If there's one musician in the last decade that you may hear in wildly diverse musical contexts it is Belgian electric bassist and sound sculptor Farida Amadou. Not only can you enjoy the unerringly skillful command she has over her instrument but also the transformative power to reinterpret and expand her material in spontaneous and unconventional ways. Amadou is self-taught and radically aware of her idiosyncratic relationship with the bass guitar. She neither emulates the virtuosos of the electric bass, nor does she use the instrument as a pure sound generator that merely emits humming and feedback. She takes a completely independent and unique approach. This freedom enables her to create an overwhelming wall of sound, as well as simple, clear structures that are rhythmically concise yielding a wide associative space that lands somewhere between free jazz and noise. Her work is often concentrated and circular where motifs are established and developed outward. It is an organic sound in the literal sense of the word, constantly in motion, yet resting in itself. The three solo pieces she has recorded for Week-End Records emphasize her impressive ability to ignite ecstasy from tranquility, to fan out a whole range of moods from a few potent ideas. These attributes make her a musician who enriches every group she plays in, because she is present with her assured and crystallized sound but refrains from being domineering. However, her strengths are even more apparent when she plays solo: the contrasts between the dark, heavy clouds of sound and the rhythmic passages, and the transitions between movements which always sound "logical" yet surprising. Her new solo album, "When It Rains It Pours" presents Amadou as an inspired improviser who follows her musical intuition and acumen to create a truly unique soundworld. Rarely has improvised music sounded so succinct and compelling.

On his new album Sun Glories, Oakland-based musician, composer, and producer Chuck Johnson explores themes of time, memory, and illusion through his unique blend of pedal steel, synths, organs, strings, and drums. Opening track "Teleos" explores the linear and cyclical qualities of time itself through episodic sections and motifs, which evoke the bittersweet relief and nostalgia that flood the senses with the arrival of the first warm and sunny day after a long, dark, and rainy stretch of winter. According to Johnson, the piece "took a surprising turn when I started adding guitar textures that recall the music I played and listened to when I was much younger." Evocative fields of guitars and pedal steel conspire to spark an intoxicating palimpsest of memories, before being ushered forward by an improvisatory and propulsive drum performance from Ryan Jewell. The guitar-based "Sylvanshine" captures a moment between improvisation and nascent composition, elevated by a radiant glissandi performance by electro-acoustic saxophonist Cole Pulice. "This track is an appreciative nod to Rachika Nayar, whose recent works have re-opened the electric guitar for me and inspired me to play that instrument again after a hiatus of several years," explains Johnson. On "Ground Wave" Johnson revisits the composition technique of weaving a small string ensemble into clouds of pedal steel, similar to his approach on "Red Branch Bell' from his 2021 LP The Cinder Grove. "When the pedal steel solo comes in at about 3:30, I wanted to make it feel like the ground suddenly disappearing from under the listener’s feet." To achieve his vision for this piece, Johnson work with cellist Clarice Jensen (who Johnson has worked with on film scores and in live performances), and violinist Emily Packard (who Johnson knew from his time at Mills College), both of whom layered multiple parts to create a virtual chamber ensemble. The album concludes with "Broken Spectre," a play on a term describing a ghostly optical illusion caused by sunlight bending over a mountain covered in mist or clouds. Once again Johnson's gorgeous pedal steel melodies build into a hypnotic swirl, which develops an epic sense of grandeur with the addition of Ryan Jewell's anthemic drumming. As the mist clears and the sun breaks through, this final track leaves the listener with a feeling of hope and resolution.

Following in the wake of baroque chart toppers by the Zombies, Beatles, and the Left Banke, a dandier approach to garage rock flowered in the back half of the '60s. Awash in majestic harpsichords, lilting guitars, melancholic organs, and middle school orchestras, Soft Summer Breezes captures the decade’s last gasps of optimism via 16 gentle moments of soft psychedelia.

The temptation to mythologize Bill Fay can be overwhelming; Fay was, for decades, as prolific as he was under-appreciated. Fay’s unsung-hero status has changed slowly, steadily, on the order of almost twenty-five years. With each new album comes new hosannas and evangelizers — Jeff Tweedy, Kevin Morby, Adam Granduciel and Julia Jacklin, to name just a few. The Bill Fay Group, in particular, is Fay’s most significant collaborative work; he records as a member of a larger group here, and the result summons a grander sonic scale, an elegant counterweight to Fay’s instincts for the understated. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow brings to bear the galactic qualities of early rock, the intricacy of jazz improv, and Fay’s earthy folk magic. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow has a patchy release history: recorded between 1978 and 1981, it was not released until 2005, when it appeared on CD with limited streaming and no vinyl companion. A 2006 reissue brought the album onto vinyl but with a truncated sequence and nine songs missing. Now, finally, Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow arrives in full worldwide. Available on streaming services worldwide and pressed to a double-album vinyl edition, it features the album’s original 22 songs and includes rare and previously unseen photographs from Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow’s original recording session. In the words of Gary Smith and Rauf Galip, missing Bill Stratton, and abbreviated from the forthcoming album notes: We chose five songs to record as finished pieces: Life, Spiritual Mansions, Cosmic Boxer, Strange Stairway, Isles of Sleep, all recorded in two studio sessions. We sent them out to try and get a record deal. There were few really independent labels back then and Punk was in the record labels’ ears. No deal. And now, Dead Oceans who have a lot of faith in Bill’s music wants to re- release the ‘Tomorrow’ album. A double vinyl package. Is there any more unreleased music for the fourth side? Of course. So, we’ve been opening old boxes, finding CDRs, cassettes, a musical archaeological dig. This is our choice from all the music we found. Fly Like a Bird.

Reverse side print. Re-issue of the Canadian band's only album released back in 1973 on the small Kot'Ai label. Moonstone came from Winnipeg, Manitoba and were a small cult band active in the early 1970s. They played mainly acoustic folk rock with psychedelic overtones and beautiful harmonies.

A late '60s Japanese compilation investigating the so-called "group sound" movement. Includes early recordings by a series of musicians later to perform with legendary bands such as the Flower Travellin' Band, Speed Glue & Shinki, Les Rallizes Denudes, and Foodbrain. Featuring Golden Cups, Dynamite, Outcast, Carnabeats, Tempters, Beavers, Bunnys, Mops, Spiders, D'Swooners, Zoo Nee Woo, Fingers, Outcast, and Bunnys.

Matador is pleased to announce the reissue of a collection of classic albums and EPs from the weird, grotesque, and unparalleled first decade of Butthole Surfers, a legendary band of weirdos who mix hardcore, metal, psych, funk, and even hip-hop to create their own unique sound! The three vinyl releases are the most junk-heavy and malevolent of the three, the first "Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac", the first one is the most junky and malevolent, the second one is "Rembrandt Pussyhorse", a scum sound that goes back and forth between punk/garage/funk covered in psychedelic noise, and the third one is a live show featuring the band's twin drummer system for the first time. EP, PCPPEP, all of which were remastered under the band's supervision. Butthole Surfers, formed in 1981 by Gibby Hines and Paul Leahy, who met in Texas, was an avant-garde band that emerged from the American '80s underground and gained a cult following for their insane live performances, and their legend has Their legend has always shone brightly. Now their scum career is being reevaluated and rediscovered!

Jim O'Rourke's Burt Bacharach covers album "All Kinds of People ~love Burt Bacharach" (2010) Reissued in limited edition in double-jacket LP format. It features 11 vocalists including Haruomi Hosono, Tadashi Kosaka, Thurston Moore, Donna Taylor, Kahimikari, and Etsuko Yakushimaru, and is composed of unique Bacharach numbers. Together with "Eureka" and others, this is one of Jim O'Rourke's best-known works.

This austere song-cycle is a collection of tunes addressing youth, sexuality and human morays in an utterly unique fashion. Barely released in its day (1970), Corky's remains one of the pinnacles of excellence in the career of Mayo and his Red Krayola. ==== "I first heard the sudden unbelievable wave-rolling sound of this strange, acoustic, old time cartoon band singin 'I'm a student of human nature' in '94 in good ol' Memphis, TN. Played to me by a giant man with an exploding pillow of blond curls wearing overalls. Wot the fuck was this? I was 22 and getting a fast-paced indie rock education after dropping out of college mid-semester a few months earlier. Was I wasting my parents money when I called from the Blues City Cafe and told them I had moved across the country? Ah, yes it's true, I surely was. But here on the turntable was a suitable replacement for the out-of-state tuition throw to the breeze - a corduroy-professorial-erotic-swinger vibe pouring off a re-issued LP!? Who is this massively turned on man singing about Shakespeare? The picture of the man on the back said it all. I could not have imagined this existed at all. But wot does it sound like? To me, his record has sonic values of the 60's but sounds distinctively weirder than anything I've heard from that decade. And wot an incredible bit of luck there, on the decade's cusp." - Mike Donovan

Unearthed from the neolithic tar that eventually swathes all history, Aerial M’s early-98 Peel Session is once again among us. Compared to the studio takes, played strictly and singly by Aerial/Papa M-astermind David Pajo, these versions swing from the necks of road-burned players, breathing more bestially than their canonical cousins, glinting ‘pon the dark metallic roots that fed all of Pajo’s best guitar lines, winding thru time immemorial.

Insignificance consists of rock plus multiple musical allusions, layers of discreet noises, great playing from all the players and, to top it off, funny pop tunes laced with lyrical arsenic. As the moving finger of O'Rourke points (and clicks...just kidding! Insignificance is an all-analog affair), moments will come and go -- to remind you of other moments. Moments will arrive that have no precedent. And different, conflicting emotions will flash within you. He'll have total control of you, the helpless listener.

Dirty Three Ahoy! Appropriately disheveled, the Three emerge from the unending waves of time to pick up their guitar drum and viola/violin/piano/synthesizer/loops/percussion for their first album in a decade. Their playing encompasses ALL – from the original fury of their unlikely power trio to an impressionist cinema later on; mercurial, tumultuous to ambient to adagio, mood and emotion drawn up to dazzling heights from the humble human scale.

Bad vibes, habits, and breath collide on this ten-song pile up on the freeway to nowhere. Melting neo-grunge, swamprock, and noise punk in a cauldron of drug-addled psychosis, 1985's You Get What You Deserve continues Australia's prison-as-country tradition of unhinged lunacy in the face of cultural isolation. Nuke nostalgia, femme fatale sharpshooters, demolition derbies, and a vacation at Hell Beach await.

When Dinosaur Jr. reunited, more than 20 years after their formation and legendary dissolution, the worry was that these guys were just flogging the back catalog, taking the old show on the road as a marketing gimmick. But the 2007 release of Beyond gave a hearty Marshall-driven "F**K YOU!" answer to those inquiring ears. Restoring the sound established by the unassailable hat-trick gambit of their first three albums -- Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me, and Bug -- Beyond continued the band's march into rock greatness by making old ears smile and new ears bleed afresh. And then came Farm, the 9th full length record by the original line-up: J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph. If Beyond was Dinosaur Jr.'s return to form, Farm is proof that Dinosaur Jr. could (and still do, to this day!) deliver timeless, exhilarating rock music. Farm encompasses Dinosaur Jr.'s signature palette: soaring and distorted guitar, unshakable hooks, honey-rich melodies. At times wholly 70's guitar-epic, at times perfect for sitting by a babbling brook with Joni and Neil, these songs get into your head and stay there, bouncing happily around. The ear-catching "Plans" is nearly seven minutes of classic whipped-topping rock dessert, while "I Don't Wanna Go There" is a meat-and-potatoes main dish, mixing unapologetic lead guitar with straight-ahead delivery a la James Gang or Humble Pie. This expanded deluxe edition of Farm features four songs never pressed to vinyl and never given worldwide release: “Houses”, “Whenever You’re Ready” (The Zombies Cover), “Creepies” (Instrumental), and “Show”. “Whenever You’re Ready”, a cover of classic pop-rockers The Zombies, is impossibly good for a hidden gem; Murph stomps in with a sledgehammer to the kit, J and Lou layer low-end and fuzz like two halves of one brain, and right when things feel biggest, airy and colossal, there’s J with a lightning bolt of a guitar solo. Pure electricity and melody like only he can make. Recorded in J Mascis' Bisquiteen studio in Amherst, Massachusetts, Farm was produced by Mascis himself, and delivers the singular, unique energy of one of America's greatest living rock bands.

In the swirl of kaleidoscopic recordings that is Spacemen 3's discography, Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To occupies a pivotal position – one at the nexus between their garage beginnings and expansionist future. Spacemen 3 capture the inspired spark of mid-'80s psychedelia, offering a distinct variation on high pop through layered feedback, a formidable rhythm section and shining vocals. Taking Drugs features the legendary Northampton demos, which secured the band's first record deal with Glass. While much of this material would be expanded upon on their first two albums, Sound Of Confusion and The Perfect Prescription, many devotees consider these early 1986 demos to be the vital document of Spacemen 3 at this primal stage. With urgent, minimally treated versions of "Sound Of Confusion" (aka "Walkin' With Jesus"), "Losing Touch With My Mind" and "Come Down Easy," this double LP collection serves to exalt the strength of Spacemen 3's songwriting over the deep-dive, sonic ruminations that would permeate their later studio efforts. Includes download card and new insert with liner notes by Byron Coley.