MUSIC

Minamata features music by internationally renowned composer, musician and environmental activist Ryuichi Sakamoto composed for the 2021 film directed by Andrew Levitas. The sweeping, atmospheric and somber orchestral score is a poignant accompaniment to the story of industrial disaster in the Japanese port town of Minamata, as told through the lens of American photojournalist Eugene Smith. Of the film’s music and working with Sakamoto, director Andrew Levitas says “Ryuichi was my dream collaborator – he would be on any film – but on this mission in particular, there could be no one else…The music quite literally needed to represent both the absolute best of humanity as well as the worst…In my opinion, Ryuichi was able to elegantly ride this razor’s edge and deliver on this concept entirely” Also included on the original soundtrack is the film’s end credit song “One Single Voice” performed by Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, who stars in the film alongside Johnny Depp. The vinyl release of Minamata is pressed on a pair of translucent grey with black and gold smoke discs and comes housed in gatefold packaging with a 12” photo insert, credits and liner notes from director Andrew Levitas.

Synth legend Suzanne Ciani, Demdike Stare's Sean Canty & Finders Keepers' Andy Votel come together on this killer hour-long 2014 synapse popper of a collaboration pooling the occasional group’s esoteric collage-based approach into a remarkably foreboding session pregnant with a dread that’s never quite resolved. Think Vladimir Ussachevsky, Todd Dockstader, Spectre and Company Flow melted thru the Deutsch-Italo industrial DIY tape era and funneled thru an almost impenetrable fog of Ann Arbor basement noizze. 

Hustling some of Neotantrik’s most amorphous gestures, ’241014’ is a four-segment movement of reduced Buchla treatments, destroyed vinyl loops and scraping foley suspense; like a cosmic dream diary layered into a collage of drones and clatters. Little in Ciani's extensive catalogue has hinted at what's on display here; the joyful lullaby-pop of "Seven Waves" or metallic alien soundscraping of "Flowers of Evil" are only hinted at. She instead paints new sonic vistas, allowing space for her collaborators to make themselves known; Votel's chiming toy autoharp and Bubul Tarang (a Punjab string instrument) add a distinctive flavor, while Canty's grimy drones and noise-soaked textures drizzle pitch-black molasses into the cracks and crevices. Together, the effect is a bit like hearing Philip Jeck improvising over Popol Vuh's peerless Moog-led debut "Affenstunde" or Demdike Stare knocking out impromptu reworks of Tangerine Dream's abstrakt early run.

Perhaps unusually, the trio have still never set foot in a studio together, exclusively maintaining their practice in-the-moment and on stage when schedules intersect. So it’s all the more remarkable that their improvisations naturally find a democracy of role and such a heightened level of intuition, beautifully converging their thoughts to mutual, open-ended conclusions that leaves billowing room for interpretation. In a most classic sense, it's like the sensation of sleep paralysis or dream/nightmare ambiguity, with a level of suggestiveness that’s disorienting from end to end.

For the first time the recordings are now available in high fidelity (there was a tape version a couple of years back) - now remastered by Rashad Becker to better represent the otherworldly scope of their actions on stage, from the NWW-like queues and drone of ‘Scanned Accents’ and keening silhouette of ‘Second Action,’ to new sections of subaquatic Porter Ricks-like murk in ‘Anti-Contraction’ and the levitating webs of synth and tactile, sampled textures in ‘Last Canción.’  

Tape music and synth music have long shared a passionate embrace, and here turntablism coolly slides in on the action. Canty and Votel's background in beat tape assembly and crate digging pays off: they're keenly experimental creators but bring an unfussy sense of rhythm and performance that's miles beyond any facile repetition of a nostalgia for vintage glory. Combined with Ciani's delicate Buchla work - it’s a unique proposition.

Limited color vinyl (Marble Orange & Red)/ Gatefold sleeve specifications. The masterpiece "Kaleidoscope" released in 2000 released from the DJ Food project devised by the founder Coldcut. Produced by then-members Kevin Forks, aka Strictly Kev, and Patrick Carpenter, aka PC, this work sets it apart from DJ Food's original concept of providing DJ material, and the future of beat music. It was a perfect work as if I had foreseen. Twenty years after its release, Kev and PC celebrated the 20th anniversary of Kaleidoscope by discovering different versions, different mixes, and unpublished ideas from past archives and original recording session material. It was decided to put together a mixed sound source, make improvements and make it into a work as "Kaleidoscope Companion", and release it as a 4-disc LP together with the original album.

The opening "The Ents Go To War" has a gloomy arrangement and heavy drums, "Skylark" has a hypnotic dance between the bassline and the snare, and "Zoom Zoom" has a whimsical percussion. The airy synthesizer is impressive. In addition, "Kaleidoscope Companion" is full of moments that fans will be surprised at. The big band meets easy listening "Hip Operation" was reused in the first version of Sukia's "Feelin'Free" remix, and "A Strange Walk" was included in the compilation "Xen Cuts". An unreleased version of the remix. "Stealth" is another version of the Gentle Cruelty Remix of "The Aging Young Rebel", also included in "Xen Cuts".

Another version of DJ Food's signature song, "The Crow (Slow)," extends the melodic theme to a calm soundscape that eventually blends into another dub version. The 13-minute-long "Quadraplex (A Trip To The Galactic Center)" is made by stitching together various takes from different synthetic tracks. Closing Kaleidoscope Companion, Boo Hoo is an early short version of The Sky At Night that conveys the cinematic mood of the album.

It's not a new DJ Food album, it's an album that wasn't born at the time. In another reality, these songs may have been on Kaleidoscope, but now, 20 years later, they will be released as an adjunct to the original album. --Strictly Kev

The End is the Three 6 Mafia album that took them to the next level and eventual Grammy and Academy Awards. Available for the first time on vinyl. This newly remastered limited edition double LP on translucent Orange vinyl.

Limited edition green and yellow colored vinyl. A supergroup that arguably revolutionized the future of rap in Memphis, and rap itself, Three 6 Mafia was formed in the early '90s by mixtape DJs who had made a name for themselves as one of the top acts in the area. The End, a 1996 masterpiece by Three 6 Mafia, formed by mixtape DJs who had made a name for themselves as top acts in Memphis in the early '90s, proved that Memphis rap was commercially viable, and former member Koopsta Knicca's 1999 gangsta rap masterpiece was miraculously released on vinyl for the first time. It was remixed, edited, and remastered from the solo material that had been available only to underground audiences long before he became famous as a member of Three 6 Mafia, and became an instant hit. This is the long-awaited official vinyl release of one of the most sought-after albums in Memphis rap!

Includes the classic song "The Thief", which has been covered by Radiohead! The 13th album was recorded in 1968 when Malcolm Mooney, the first vocalist of German Rock Gods Can, was in the band, and was not released until 1981. By 1968, the band had already foreseen the arrival of post-punk, no-wave and even electronica, and their edgy psychedelic sound was already in full swing. This is a masterpiece that fully showcases their edgy psychedelic sound.

The saga of composer Tim Story's 1982 debut is a case study in the shifting sands of the early progressive music industry. Recorded on a Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel in his basement bedroom in Whitehouse, Ohio using a ragtag array of equipment – salvaged vibraphone, pawn shop Les Paul, his mother's spinet piano, a PAiA synth kit assembled by his girlfriend's father, and a Yamaha CS-30 – Story optimistically dubbed six cassettes and sent them around the world. Following a polite rejection from Klaus Schulze, the French avant-garde label Atem (This Heat, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd) reached out with an offer to release Threads via their new instrumental electronic subdivision, Labyrinthes. After several letters confirming terms of the arrangement as well as multiple rounds of test pressings, correspondence suddenly ceased. Some months later the label folded, never having begun. Synchronistically, however, Schulze's copy ended up in the glovebox of an engineer associate, who happened to play it for a couple visiting journalists with contacts at a newish Norwegian imprint, Uniton Records (Popul Vuh, Harold Budd). Impressed, they connected Story to the label head, but by then he'd already recorded a follow-up, the more neoclassical-leaning In Another Country, which became his inaugural release. Finally, 40 years later, Dais Records is rectifying history's error by properly issuing Threads on vinyl for the first time. It's a beautiful, beguiling work, exploratory but emotive documenting, as Story puts it, “the path not taken... like the first chapter of a book that was set aside to begin another.” Despite only being in his early twenties at the time of its creation, Threads feels finessed and considered, weaving through a diverse spectrum of moods and minimalist melodies. From sunburst synthesizer devotionals (“Tethered By A Thread”) to shadowy cosmic drift (“Without Waves,” “Iso”) to fragile piano vignettes (“Burst,” “Scene And Artifact”), Story's compositional instincts skew subtle and sophisticated, carving gemstones of fluctuating radiance. He cites his discovery of tape loops as a central tool in the process, allowing him to generate recurring patterns of echoes and texture, decaying in volume and fidelity as desired: “A whole new and inspiring world opened up.” As both time capsule and discographical fountainhead, Threads vividly captures the threshold sensation of early 1980's electronic music: post-kosmische, pre-new age, before ambient became codified, just as synthesizers began slipstreaming into the underground. It's an album of beginnings and forking paths, inner space voyaging towards limitless horizons, born of “youthful dedication to something one loves, in a world that feels uncertain.”

The gold standard for Hawaiian lounge miracles! This is the first analog reissue of Martin Denny's 1959 album "Hypnotique", the undisputed king of exotic fantasy music! Once you drop the needle, you'll be transported to another world... this record fully showcases space age music overflowing with imaginary appeal, armed with dripping melancholy and an exotic and fantastic mood. Limited edition of 1000 copies.

This is an analog reissue of the 1956 album "Exotica" by Martin Denny, the undisputed king of exotic fantasy music! Once you drop the needle, you're transported to another world... A monumental album that launched Denny's 30-year career and opened up a whole new genre of exotica music! As the tropical mood from the iconic artwork suggests, the album showcases the full range of fantastic space-age sounds that reek of exoticism and imaginary charm.

Six years before the release of his landmark Mother Earth¡Çs Plantasia LP, composer and arranger Mort Garson met experimental film director Skip Sherwood, who was interested in an electronic score for his new movie, Didn¡Çt You Hear? While not much is known now about the exact nature of their collaboration, we have Garson¡Çs magnificent score as a record of those heady, early days after his life-changing discovery of the Moog synthesizer. Notable for being one of the earliest screen appearances by a young Gary Busey, Didn¡Çt You Hear? also boasts one of the first-ever all-electronic movie scores. Though the score was first released in 1970, it sounds as adventurous and futuristic today as it must have then. Originally available only in the lobby of the theater at screenings of the movie in Seattle, the soundtrack LP went out of print shortly after the film's release. It has been a sought-after record for collectors of Mort Garson and early electronic music ever since. Sacred Bones is honored to reissue Didn¡Çt You Hear? as it was meant to be heard, taken from the original master tapes and given a pristine remaster by engineer Josh Bonati.

Swedish composer Ragnar Grippe gets an old collection released on Dais Records (Genesis Breyer P-Orridge And Thee Early Worm, SRSQ). Written in 1981 for an avant-garde theatre piece but only now seeing the light of day, Symphonic Songs finds Grippe marrying atonal Buchla experiments with a string section equal-parts Schnittke and Schoenberg. Artwork by Ascetic House founder J.S. Aurelius.

There are still so many treasures to be discovered out there, but once you find a gem like this you can definitely put the research on hold for a little while and give it a deep listen. Recorded at Fono Roma in 1971, Eroina is a series of haunting improvisations - each one inspired by the effects of a different drug - made of whirling electronic glitches, skronky horns, pounded piano, funky drums and weird tape experiments delivering the best drone/spaced/drugged out free jazz performed by the legendary ensemble of Ennio Morricone, Mario Bertoncini, Egisto Macchi, Battisti D'Amario, Franco Evangelisti and Walter Bianchi. A timeless masterpiece.