MUSIC

In the late 1980's, Kramer brought Daniel Johnston into his Noise New York recording studio and produced the LP that remains - to this day - his masterpiece; "1990". Prior to these recordings (his very first in a "professional" studio), Daniel was an underground/'outsider' artist with an extraordinary catalog of cassette-only releases, a small but infinitely loyal cult following, and a fast-widening range of established artists covering his songs and proclaiming him to be the best songwriter of his generation. They were right. "1990" (originally released on Shimmy-Disc) brought his rapturous songs to new ears. In American Indie Music, there was the world before "1990", and the world after. It was a watershed moment in the musical arts. There was nothing else like it. There still isn't. Daniel's place in history will be studied for centuries to come. He had many disciples, but no peers. His songcraft stands alone in the American songbook. Following the global success of "1990", Kramer travelled to West Virginia the following year and produced "ARTISTIC VICE", a very different LP of songs featuring a full band that Daniel had been performing concerts with while living at his parent's home. The recordings were made in their garage over the course of 3 days on a barely functional 8-track tape machine. The resulting LP was the perfect follow-up to "1990", and set Daniel on a path that would bring him a major label deal with Atlantic Records, and the attention he'd always deserved both as a songwriter and as a visual artist. It wasn't long before his drawings began to appear in art galleries, and eventually his work was featured at the renowned Whitney Biennial. The rest is history. Daniel left us on September 11, 2019. We will never see the likes of him again, but we can experience his music anew with "I KILLED THE MONSTER", available now for the very first time on Vinyl following its initial 2006 CD-only release. Kramer re-Mastered all 21 songs from the original CD, and hand-picked 11 of his favorite songs for this limited-edition Vinyl LP release. The Cassette and Download versions include all 21 songs. (Note: This is the first Cassette release from Shimmy-Disc since the 1990's. We love Cassettes. TAPE, is where it all began. We are thrilled to bring this archival format back to the Shimmy-Disc catalog. Nothing sounds as good as tape, and we have spared no expense in bringing the highest quality product to the avid Cassette collector.) This "Various Artists" compilation of songs by Daniel Johnston filters the Texas genius's snow-globe sad-pop confections through the mercurial lens of indie rock and anti-folk. Daniel's painfully honest lyrics and gently ecstatic melodies easily lend themselves to the interpretations of others, whether it's the genius collaborations of Danielson & Sufjan Stevens ("Worried Shoes") or Jad Fair & Kramer ("True Love Will Find You in the End"), the honest-to-goodness real-life realities of Kimya Dawson ("Follow That Dream") or Jeffrey Lewis ("Adventures of God As a Young Boy"), or the proto-psychedelic pop of R. Stevie Moore ("Cathy Kline") and home-grown Shimmy-Disc artist Lumberob, or Kramer himself with the definitive version of the song he considers Daniel's very best, "Bloody Rainbow". Produced by Kramer in 2005/2006, the LP closes with his daughter Tess singing Daniel's seminal tearjerker, "It's Over". Recorded when she was 13 years old, it's the perfect song to bring the curtain down on this indispensable LP.

"Dark Haired Girls" There Must Be Someone by Tor Lundvall Share / Embed In Wishlist view supported by Nightflyer thumbnail Nightflyer Can't wait to receive this beautiful box by one of my absolute favourite dark ambient artists ! :-) Erik A. Ingmanndsen thumbnail Somewherecoldfan thumbnail foccil thumbnail Chris Hibler thumbnail little_black_cat thumbnail nk11clouds thumbnail Leather thumbnail yukbon thumbnail Mick Zeuner thumbnail miosotide thumbnail Brian Nelson thumbnail Concrete Violin thumbnail treehandthingy thumbnail CMB thumbnail cjrfel thumbnail Jeff Irish thumbnail kholkhoz thumbnail eyespark thumbnail swensej thumbnail infiniteinalldirections thumbnail Bruce Levenstein thumbnail diespach24 thumbnail keith schuerholz thumbnail pinofalcone thumbnail selectrecs thumbnail apossession thumbnail noddyprof93 thumbnail ANTOINE LOGUILLARD thumbnail LELONG CHRISTIAN thumbnail Exbtn Records thumbnail Matthew Stradling thumbnail Forget It! 03:22 / 05:53 5-CD Box Set Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album package image PREORDER - Out December 9th, 2022. Includes 5 albums: Passing Through Alone, A Strangeness In Motion, A Dark Place, Beautiful Illusions, and the long out-of-print Ghost Years - with art & lyrics booklet. Includes digital pre-order of There Must Be Someone. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released. digital album releases January 27, 2023 item ships out within 3 days edition of 1000 Pre-order Compact Disc $34.99 USD or more Send as Gift Digital Album Streaming + Download Pre-order of There Must Be Someone. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released. releases January 27, 2023 Pre-order Digital Album $29.99 USD or more Send as Gift 1. Original One 2. Procession Day 3. The Clearing 4. The Melting Hour 5. Flight 6. Watched 7. Hidden 8. The Night Watch 9. Lessons That Kill 10. August Rain 11. Violet Bird 12. South Pacific 13. He's Falling 14. Power Failure 15. Dangerous Snakes 16. Days 17. Forget It! 05:53 video lyrics buy track 18. Where is She? 19. Pollen 20. Dark Angels 21. Ghost Years 22. Raven Eyes 23. Cloaked 24. Poison Symbols 25. Birds in Spring 26. Murder 27. The Pathway 28. Midnight Question 29. Grey Sunday 30. Pollen (4-Track Mix) 31. Dark Angels (Demo) 32. Ghost Years (Demo) 33. Raven Eyes (Demo) 34. Cloaked (4-Track Mix) 35. Murder (4-Track Mix) 36. Grey Sunday (Demo) 37. Grey Sunday (Video Version) 38. Ghost Years (Alternate Version) 39. Evening 40. Leaves 41. Winter Song (Original Version) 42. The Watchers 43. Birds Asleep 44. Tears and Rain 45. Aliénor 46. Lost At Sea (2) 47. Routine 48. My Weakness 49. The Falling Snow (Remixed Edited Version) 50. Winter Song (7-Inch Version) 51. Last Rays 52. A Room By The Sea 53. Quiet Room 54. Haunted By The Sky 55. The Moment 56. The Invisible Man 57. Negative Moon 58. The Void 59. A Dark Place 60. The Next World 61. Dark Haired Girls 04:02 video 62. Negative Moon (Early Version) 63. Their Souls 64. Forever Rain 65. Drowning 66. Blessings Counted 67. Love Song 68. Four Bluebirds 69. Lonely Boy 70. Two Windows 71. Dark Sea 06:45 about To commemorate the quarter century anniversary of Tor Lundvall’s self-released debut, 'Passing Through Alone', Lundvall and Dais have joined forces for a fresh 5-CD box set of long out-of-print titles, vinyl-only releases, and unheard bonus tracks: 'There Must Be Someone'. Spanning 33 years, the collection showcases the subtle but striking evolution of Lundvall’s sound, from brisk autumnal synth-pop to desolate dark place devotionals to fragile winter moon meditations and beyond. What remains constant is his exquisite sense of mood and movement, qualities reflected in his iconic oil paintings of willowy figures amidst luminous, liminal landscapes. The box set begins with 'Passing Through Alone', Lundvall’s first full-length, issued in 1997 on his Eternal Autumn Editions imprint. Engineered, mixed, and co-produced by his brother Kurt, and sold primarily at Lundvall’s gallery exhibitions, the album is an intriguing entryway to a world still dawning. Brooding and melancholic but distinctly more linear and melodic than later work, the songs flirt with the fringes of new romanticism, sketched in his signature palette of synth, sequencers, guitar, drum machines, and hushed, spectral voice. Next included is an expanded edition of the eclectic 2010 collection 'Ghost Years', an array of stray singles, alternate mixes, and compilation tracks dating between 1995 to 2020. It’s bracingly varied but effectively immersive, showcasing Lundvall’s sharpening gift for spatial dynamics and icy minimalism. The other three discs are inaugural CD editions of a trio of Dais vinyl titles from 2018 to 2021: 'A Strangeness In Motion (Early Pop Recordings • 1989-1999)'; 'A Dark Place'; and 'Beautiful Illusions'. The first is an archival anthology of material predating his debut, bedroom synth-pop born of solitude and the supernatural, alternately anthemic, wounded, and windswept. The latter two are shadowy recent full-lengths capturing Lundvall at the height of his powers: refined, remote, revelatory. Reflecting back on this vast body of work is “strange and bittersweet,” but Lundvall fin

Zero Kama was an experimental music project founded by Zoe DeWitt in 1983. The first release of Zero Kama was the title V.V.V.V.V., recorded for the Nekrophile Rekords cassette compilation The Beast 666. In 1984 followed the cassette release of the album The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H., which is commonly regarded as one of the key albums of the industrial-subgenre 'ritual'. The fact that all instruments used for this recording were exclusively made from human bones and skulls, its elusive musical style, the implied occult symbolism as well as the short-time existence of Zero Kama, whose backgrounds remained unknown for a long time, have been contributing to the cult status of this project until now.

Following an invitation of the NL-Centrum Amsterdam, Zero Kama played two live concerts in the Netherlands in 1985, and - after two more releases on the Nekrophile compilation The Archangels of Sex Rule the Destruction of the Regime - completely withdrew from the public. While The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. was recorded solely by Zoe DeWitt, the later live performances were realized with befriended musicians such as Didi Neidhart and Muki Pakesch, whom Zoe DeWitt knew from the Austrian music underground of the 1980s.

Since that time there have been a couple of re-releases of Zero Kama recordings, amongst others the 1988 Vinyl version by the French label Permis de Construire, followed by the CD release in 1991. In 2001 the French label Athanor published The Goatherd and the Beast, a 10" vinyl containing tracks from various compilations that were recorded besides The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H.. This collection was also included as a bonus CD in the Live in Armhem double CD release by Athanor in 2008. In 2014 Athanor finally published a remastered version of The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. as both vinyl and CD.

Infinite fog Productions presents an anthology release of Zero Kama. The first time ever, everything recorded by the project released as one set on limited CD, VINYL and CASSETE. Recordings transferred from original tapes, carefully mastered by Martin Bowes at the Cage Studios and Micro Majong at Micro Majong Studio. Designed by Cold Graves.

• Brilliantly remastered picture LP/CD with new stunning artwork! • Unique tribal dub-trance music influenced by arabic culture with a touch of post-industrial. • Hypnotic rhythms mixed with with eastern vibes. • Muslimgauze at it's best! • Released as picture LP in gimmix cover limited to 500 copies • Also available as black vinyl and CD A1 taken from VA - 110 Below - No Sleeve Notes Required (110 Below, 1995) A2 taken from VA - Assemblage Volume Two (Extreme, 1996) A3 taken from Nonplace Urban Field – Golden Star (Incoming!, 1996) B1 taken from VA - Le Sacre Du Printemps (Gonzo Circus, 1994) B2 taken from VA - X-X Section (Extreme, 1991) B3 taken from VA - Directions 2 (Direction Music, 1989)

Double LP version with printed inner sleeve. Born Bad Records presents the music of Cameroonian musician Francis Bebey, circa 1982-1984. "The first time I saw a sanza (a type of African 'thumb piano'), it was just sitting there on a piece of furniture in my family's living room/dining room -- a space that our father also transformed into a recording studio every day. It seemed more like a box than a musical instrument: a mysterious instrument, which arrived at our house, like many things, in a somewhat miraculous way. The sounds it produced seemed particularly bizarre; to my young musician's ears, trained in Western classical music, it sounded out of tune. That's because, like my brothers and sisters, I had been trained on the piano. I had trouble understanding how anyone could endure these tones and, honestly, our father's passion for 'unusual sounds' did not interest me. I was in secondary school at the time (the very late 1970s) and was not at all oriented toward musical projects. I planned to graduate, and then become a chef. In the early 1980s, my interest in music picked up. I was still undecided about my career. I was content to pursue my 'serious' English studies while hanging out at jazz clubs at les Halles in Paris, where I sometimes joined jam sessions. Next, I put together my first band with professional musicians; I had hidden my age and lack of experience from them. France was just beginning to accept 'world music.' Musicians of every nationality were performing in Paris. It was a wonderful period. My father asked my brother Toups and me to accompany him for a few concerts. In particular, we toured Tunisia together at the time of the 1983 Carthage International Festival. Back then, my father was renowned across the French-speaking world. Everyone looked forward to hearing his humorous songs, like 'Agatha' and 'La condition masculine.' But, behind the scenes, he continued his research concerning electronic music, the sansa, pygmy polyphony, etc. One day he put a sansa in my hands, without saying a word. He was sending me a message: 'Let's see what you can do with it!' That's when I really discovered something. Exploring the instrument and playing, I transcended the 'imperfect' aspect of its sound and began to discover its fascinating potential. Playing the sansa, you enter a world that enraptures you in a very serene and mesmerizing way. I think its sounds evoke a rainbow, with rain falling while the sun shines. A very peaceful feeling. It allows you to make music that truly sounds like life. The sansa is also the instrument that my father and I shared the most because I am a pianist and he was a guitarist. I also share this eminently African instrument with my musician brother, Toups. Our father loved to tell us one of the legends of the sansa: how it even managed to dispel the boredom felt by... the Creator himself! This instrument gives life to the world, to beings and things. I did not participate in the production of the various records that my father devoted to the sansa. He did it himself, you might say, in his 'laboratory.' Yet today, I cannot imagine playing a concert without using a sansa. The piano remains present so that listeners don't become disoriented and wonder about the weird sounds invading their ears! However, I find the eccentric and disturbing side of sansa interesting. And the sansa always affects the audience: in reality, it excites them. The secrets of this instrument are surely its beneficial powers and... its magic!" --Patrick Bebey

Cameroonian musician Francis Bebey is truly one of a kind. He entered the music scene with his African compositions for classical guitar. He gave recitals while pursuing a career in journalism and then as an international civil servant. The same creative impulse also led him to write pop songs, and some of which (based on novels he had written) became big hits in Africa and in the French-speaking world. But few people know that in the ’70s, Francis Bebey delved into electronic music. The first electronic keyboards, organs and drum machines offered him new possibilities of totally controlling his compositions. He embraced the technique of “sound on sound” recording (recording several tracks, sequentially juxtaposed on the same tape). This new stage in his musical career included the production of several records (“Savannah Georgia,” “New Track”, “Haiti”), rarities both for their creative explorations as well as their manifestations on vinyl. This was a particularly rich period for him, as he tested the limitless possibilities of the medium, and made use of surprising and novel instruments. Incredible sounds – in the literal sense of the word – would soon appear on the planet Bebey…

Jacqueline Nova (Ghent, Belgium, 1935 - Bogotá, Colombia, 1975), a representative figure of Colombian avant-garde music, developed important and radical work within the field of electronic and instrumental music, as well as in interdisciplinary forms. This album, Creación de la Tierra - Ecos palpitantes de Jacqueline Nova: Música electroacústica e instrumental (1964-1974) ("Creation of the Earth - Throbbing Echoes of Jacqueline Nova: Electroacoustic and Instrumental Music (1964-1974)")¸ under the curatorship and research of the Colombian composer Ana María Romano G., recovers Nova's most important electroacoustic works: "Creación de la tierra (Creation of the Earth)" (1972), "Oposición-Fusión (Opposition-Fusion)" (1968) and "Resonancias 1 (Resonances 1)" (1968-69), as well as the music for the film Camilo el cura guerrillero (Camilo the Guerrilla Priest) (1974), composed during her stay at the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM) , of the Torcuato Di Tella Institute, in Buenos Aires, as well as in the Study of Phonology of the University of Buenos Aires. The compilation also includes the instrumental works "Omaggio a Catullus" (1972-1974), "Transiciones (Transitions)" (1964-1965), and "Asuimetrías (Asymmetries)" (1967), in which she explores randomness, timbre possibilities or the encounter between acoustic and electronic media. The interest in experimenting with the human voice, and interdisciplinary work involving visual arts, were some of the aspects that have defined Jacqueline Nova's work. Ana María Romano has written: "Nova lived in an environment hostile to change, to debate and discussion, hostile to her being an autonomous and lesbian woman. She undertook feats that make her a pioneer, even though she did not set out to be taken as one, but only as a result of the commitment, dedication and passion of a creator with her society. Jacqueline Nova died in Bogotá of bone cancer. Her tragic and early death not only cut short a career in full creative force, but also directly affected the development of electroacoustic music in the country. After her death there was a great silence -- close to 15 years -- in musical creation with electronic means. Nova challenged a conservative milieu and survived alone, working in a field thought to be exclusively masculine. But it was a woman who strengthened the use of technology in Colombian music. A risky bet that sadly represented a high cost: Nova was relegated during her lifetime, but her noises managed to shake and question the comfort zones of the Colombian musical establishment." Includes a booklet with extensive information written by Ana María Romano G.; edition of 300.

YOUTH are back in town on a 3rd Sports volume packed with exclusive chops from Michael J. Blood, Rat Heart, Sockethead, pigbaby, FUMU, and Iueke, plus new cats Craig Birrel and Zesknel among many others. Programmed by footie-mad graphic designer/DJ, Andrew Lyster, ’Sports 3’ casts a wide net over work by Youth label friends and extended family with results limning a dead cranky conception of club music and blooz/beatdown pressure. All sharing a taste for texture that sounds like the masters were left to decompose for winter, the 16 cuts map odd gooches and ginnels of the contemporary soundsphere from the washed-out jazz reminiscence of Zesknel next to harder-to-place works such as the metallic cyborgian slug of ‘Driesh’ by Craig Birrel, or the groggy breaks of ‘Cocaine’ from HR For Drug Dealers. Pigbaby plays the game with a highlight of midnight keys on ‘Far From Home’, and we spy a zinger from Sockethead on the feral yowl of ‘Coarse Ground’, while Dave Saved keeps it slanted on ‘Abisso 66’ and into a super glum one by the still enigmatic Yugen Disciple. That sense of entropy also infects the set’s more energetic bits, as with the PointilisticT arp flight of ’T’ by S, and the drowning struggle of ‘When It Rains (It Pours)’ from Significant Other complementing the worn out acid trample of Iueke’s ‘Videoslash’ and Jessic*nt’s murky stealth bomb ‘Manic/Panic’. Rat Heart, Michael J. Blood x Sockethead unsurprisingly steal the show on the slow cymbal-crash blooz of ‘True’, and the album ends with Lyster’s own VIP of NW / HR tripped & screwed hardcore submersion.

Jim Kirchstein founded Cuca Records in 1959 to capture the undocumented musical talent of rural Wisconsin. Originally a tiny recording studio in the corner of a record store, the independent label quickly expanded in response to the success of its early releases. Despite its remote location in the hills of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, the label’s growing popularity attracted a diverse group of artists and performers from Wisconsin, Michigan, and the Chicago area. The combination of the label’s remote location and the area’s cultural diversity created a unique catalogue that was often divergent from the current music trends. The country music that Kirchstein recorded is best described as “outsider country”—lo-fi, dreamy, and just a little too weird to make the charts. Driftless Dreamers tells the story of these artists and their takes on the term “country.” Driftless Dreamers takes its name after the Driftless Area, a geological region of the American Midwest untouched by the last continental glacial movement. The majority of the Driftless Area lies in southwest Wisconsin, but extends into the corners of Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. The area’s lack of glacial drift is what preserved the land’s rugged terrain of forested ridges, inhabited caves, carved river valleys, and some of North America’s last true prairies. As a preserved area, the Driftless is home to many species of rare wildlife species, unknown to the rest of the country. The area’s black, fertile earth is also very suitable for farming. In the 19th century European immigrants poured into Wisconsin and began to farm. Small agrarian communities dotted the hills of the Wisconsin Driftless. Agriculture was, and still is, the lifeblood of these communities, as is music. The mainly German and Irish immigrants established community bands to carry on the musical traditions that they carried with them from their homelands. The domination of farming as the main industry in the Driftless area encouraged these musical styles to develop into the country music that Jim Kirchstein would record in the 1960s. After a stint in the Navy, Jim Kirchstein returned home to the Driftless Area to pursue an electrical engineering degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kirchstein lived on the eastern boundary of the Driftless in the sleepy town of Sauk City, close to his school in Madison. To support his new family, Kirchstein started selling records out of the basement of his brother’s hobby shop, located next to their family’s grocery store. Through his work at the record store Kirchstein soon recognized a need for a recording studio for the area’s local musicians. In 1959 Kirchstein founded the original Cuca recording studio in his basement record shop. Despite its remote location, the studio drew in a variety of artists from across the Midwest. The studio was also popular with local communities, whose mixed heritages produced a variety of folk and country genres. Jim Kirchstein intended for his recording studio to serve the local population’s need for both a creative outlet and historical documentation of their music traditions. As the label grew, Kirchstein created genre-specific sublabels, including Top Gun Country. The Driftless Dreamers series is a glimpse into this trove of recordings, focusing on the isolated interpretations of popular country music and the lonesome twang of outsiders. Driftless Dreamers in Cuca Country Volume 1 is a survey of the range of Wisconsin’s country music. This volume starts with a regional hit and ends with an echoing ballad from an untrained voice. Along the way we visit some family band bluegrass, teenage Nashville sound, rockabilly, and improvised bar tunes.

Who do we become when we live our dreams? It's all here - the high hairdos, the dreams and schemes, the tender camp, the wedding bell fantasias and chaste tragedies. Sister acts, studio receptionists, classmates, angelic voices of the 1960s; some legendary, many hidden in the basement of expired rainbows.

The third installment of Numero’s ode to lowrider souldies, Rust Side Story compiles highly sought after sweet soul singles from the Buck Eye State. Prepare for a low and slow ride from Youngstown to Dayton, Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, all soundtracked with silky falsettos and dreamy harmonies.

Pure Wicked Tune is a mixtape-style collection of extracts & cut-ups, taken from DIY cassette recordings featuring rare groove and "soul blues" soundsystems playing at early morning house parties and blues dances - mostly in South & East London - between the mid 1980s & early 90s. Sounds like Funkadelic, Touch of Class, Latest Edition, JB Crew, Manhattan, 5th Avenue (and the many more featured on this tape) originally began to form in the mid-1980s. With lovers rock dwindling, and the reggae scene becoming dominated by harder digital-style dancehall, these sounds provided a tight but loyal crowd with a potent alternative - playing a mixture of killer rare soul, funk and boogie records in an inimitably reggae soundsystem style, complete with toasting, sirens and effects aplenty. They were most well-known for playing at house parties and blues dances, typically in small flats or warehouses, with timing of such events generally running from the early morning hours until late the next afternoon. Though the popularity of the sounds faded following the dance music explosion of the early 1990s, there has been continued demand for revival sessions ever since. Whilst the influence of key British reggae & dancehall soundsystems on subsequent UK sounds like hardcore & jungle is relatively well documented, a similar line can just as easily be drawn from these sounds and the aforementioned styles' tendency toward sampling popular rare groove cuts, particularly well evidenced in the work of Tom & Jerry, 4hero, Reinforced & LTJ Bukem among others. This represents the first outing in a series of collections exploring the sounds of UK soundsystem culture, via extracts from archival DIY cassette recordings of blues parties, dances & clashes made between the late 70s and early 90s. Often duplicated and shared widely, these ruff and ready "sound tapes" provided keen ears with music that wasn't otherwise readily available on the airwaves or in the record shops, and would go on to leave a deeply-rooted but too often overlooked influence on the UK's musical landscape. The first work of a new series that explores the sound of change.

Historically informed violin player, prize-winning street musician, new age experimentalist, chamber ensemble performer and conservatoire deviant. The career of Valentina Goncharova (b. Kyiv 1953) shares parallels with those associated with the broader new music movement of the 20th century and the dissemination of home recording technologies. Valentina’s was a youth spent immersed in the world of classical music study under soviet rule, first in Kyiv and later in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from the age of 16. With the supervision of professors M. Vayman and B. Gutnikov she learned concert violin and developed alternate playing styles alongside skilled pianists. A student of the Leningrad conservatoire during the years 1969 through to 1983, her repertoire included music for violin and later expanded to contemporary music composition. The improvisatory nature of free jazz and then budding experimental rock circles also intrigued Valentina during this period in Leningrad. Departing from the rules of the conservatoire, she briefly performed in underground rock clubs alongside future members of the industrial group Pop- Mechanika (Popular Mechanics). This perpetual state of flux is central to the variety found within ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, though as opposed to any degree of uncertainty Valentina’s practice is one in flux by way of earnest curiosity. Pushing further into an exploration of solo electro-acoustic sounds, she took to home taping on a modified Olimp reel to reel recorder. Intrigued by the manipulability of dubbing and the fresh sounds of DIY effects chains, Goncharova developed pickups alongside her husband Igor Zubkov. Her infatuation with the music of Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ganelin Trio and Pierre Boulez channels through considerations of space and erratic sound design, the three movements of ‘Metamorphoses’ embodying this textural approach to musique concrete. The compositional skills developed in Leningrad unfold in the romantic gestures of ‘Higher Frequencies’, whilst manipulated cello combines with synthesise keys across ‘Passageway To Eternity’. The slow, pulsating drone soundscapes recall the likes of Robert Rutman’s US Steel Cello Ensemble or even deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. The juxtaposition of written notation and improvisatory flare is central to Goncha- rova’s sound world. This period of home recording documents a confluence of minimalism, free form and flirtations with new age tropes (inc. bell chimes and cavernous vocal mantras). Experimenting with unusual performance techniques, such as shouting into amplified cello strings, Valentina’s home studio functioned as a place to foster full artistic and creative freedom away from any academic strictures. Relocating to Estonia in 1984, and in parallel to the deeply personal music of ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, Valentina performed at jazz festivals and gave classical concerts across Eastern Europe. In a sense, the recordings on these discs offer only a glimpse into her lifelong body of work. Over the past few decades she has taught at Tallinn Music College, expanded and updated post- Soviet popular music repertoire, collaborated with the Russian Philharmonic Society of Estonia and given concerts and charity events alongside the Catholic Church. Hers is a life dedicated to the exploration of sound, a career forged through careful study and ceaseless intrigue. In a time where technological interconnectedness has allowed for music of the past to be continually mined and evaluated through new lenses, Shukai present an artist whose tendency for private home-taping had allowed recordings to go unheard for thirty years.

Following the unpublished works of the Ukrainian/Estonian musician Valentina Goncharova, Volume 2 of Shukai’s archival project sits in direct contrast to the solo works of Vol. 1. Spending her youth studying classical music first in Kyiv and then in Leningrad, Valentina began her musical career with rigorous compositional study and concert violin performance. This long player of duets as such casts a light on Goncharova’s experiences with early free jazz, democratic improvisation and introductions to pure electronic sound. Where Vol. 1 explored her home studio experiments and flirtations with musique concrete and new age, this volume seeks to give audience to similarly DIY recordings developed in collaborative environments away from the conservatoire. Properly documenting sessions revolving around smoky jazz cafes, art galleries, salons and theatre venues across Riga and Tallinn, these seven pieces add to the historical narrative of the soviet era avant-garde and show the broader spectrum of Valentina’s work. We begin in Riga with an adapted score for a delicately unfolding violin drone, voice and saxophone performance produced by Valentina and Alexander Aksenov. Describing the nineties as temporarily narrowing the content of cultural life and thus nullifying the interest of free improvisation in both Tallinn and Riga, Valetina’s bond with the multi-instrumentalist and theatre director Aksenov led to decades of close friendship and several demo recordings such as ‘Reincarnation II’. Their initial chance meeting at a jam session set in motion various cross-country performances and experimental theatre works. With its focus on extended harmony, it is perhaps ‘Reincarnation II’ that most recognisably follows on from Shukai’s first volume. Across the rest of the disc are collaborative duets with Sergei Letov and Pekka Airaksinan respectively, the three tapes with Letov an example of recordings as a ‘rehearsal process’. These evenings spent in Moscow apartments and St. Petersburg art studios challenged Goncharova’s preconceptions of musical expression; “I was surprised by his (Letov’s) artistic language. He composed here and now music that was so intellectually advanced that it was quite comparable to the compositions of my fellow students. Only, to achieve such a result, it took months for them. So, for the first time, I took part in free jazz collective creativity” (2020). Atypical violin/saxophone techniques and light, difficult to place percussive textures interplay across the three duets with Letov, the sense of spatiality alluding to the very nature of the recordings. They strike ultimately as private, freeform experiments with sound, never intended for the listener but documenting a practice which explores the dichotomy of improv’s ‘non-professionalism’ and its potential freedom from trained performance. Just one curious corner of Valentina’s musical path, they are included as a deliberate variance to the tapes with Pekka Airaksinen, an already well-regarded composer, early synthesiser fanatic and Finnish radical. At their time of meeting, Pekka had diverted his attention from punk-indebted noise and free jazz groups to a pursuit of spiritualism via contemporary electronic technologies. Already familiar with the ‘Buddhas of Golden Light’ LP, Valentina found in his work an attraction to the sacred and, after an encounter at a 1988 Helsinki festival dedicated to futurist art and literature, she prepared to visit his studio. After a failed attempt to record a joint album, fragments of the tapes are presented here, highlighting Goncharova’s first real experience of electronic music making in a compositional sense. The result is a marriage of stunning organ tones, processed violin murmurs and progressive minimalism a la Terry Riley or La Monte Young. Fragmented guitar and additional keyboard patterns push and pull through delay units in unison with Valentina’s two violins, at times mimicking the howl of the wind or even the human voice. Once again, the duality of the indistinguishable unfamiliar vs. the harmonic familiar. Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2 completes Shukai’s dive into the sound world of an important yet overlooked artist working within Soviet era electroacoustics.

First time release on vinyl of the breathtaking songs Patty Waters recorded with engineer Steve Atkins in 1970 at the Coast Recordings studio, together with the unreleased single ‘My One And Only Love’ and a recorded live session at Lone Mountain College in 1974. The album ‘You Loved Me’ is the missing link between her two groundbreaking pioneering and highly acclaimed ESP-Disk records from the end of the 60’s and her post 90’s releases. The missing link between the radical ingenue of the 1960s and her late 90’s songs wherein she expressed the resolution of all of her life’s moments through mature readings of traditional songs and jazz standards. This album aims to provide that missing link and to finally complete the picture of her storied recording career. In what would have been her third LP, the ‘You Loved Me’ album serves as the inverse of Patty’s debut. While her debut “Sings” concerned itself with themes of heartbreak, loneliness and yearning, there’s an abundance of love, joy and togetherness on “You Loved Me”. Or in Patty’s own words: “I was a young girl alone at age 19, I was longing for love and dreaming of how wonderful love could be“ On ‘You Loved Me’ Patty Waters velvet voice captures this longing for love, straight from her soul to your heart. Crossing the border of avant garde jazz entering a strange zone, somewhere between spiritual jazz, early folk vibes on the songs on the A-side while the 14 minute composition ‘Touched By Rodin In A Paris Museum’ on the B-side is (dixit David Stubbs for Uncut in 2004) a brilliant extended showcase for the uneasy Cageian minimalism of her piano playing. 'You Loved Me’ proves also again why Albert Ayler introduced her to ESP-Disk president Bernard Stollman, why Miles Davis was impressed by her and why she can count Patti Smith and Yoko Ono (to name a few) amongst her fans.

Antipodean Anomalies 2 is Left Ear Records most ambitious project to date, a compilation that took over 4 years to license and includes 17 artists across a double LP. AA2 picks up where the first iteration left off, with co-compilers Chris Bonato & Bridget Small continuing to dig through the music of the geographically isolating and maverick landscapes of Australia & New Zealand As with the first iteration, Left Ear continues to excavate the music from these vast micro-scenes that evolved out of a number of small community-focused domains creating their own unique reinterpretation of musical influences from near and far, spanning the years 1980 – 1992. The compilation scopes an overlooked epoch from Adelaide, presenting acts such as the DNA Lounge, TCH & Will Kuiper. A close-knit community of like-minded mates that made distinctive electronic music together throughout the 80’s, all of which remained unreleased until now. Buchanan Holbrook capture the ambiance of Perth’s heat prodded afternoon’s perfectly with their track Hunger, a breezy 9-minute minimal-jazz jam that includes kalimba, water samples & conga. Furthermore, artists like David Watson & Colin Offord use samplers and handmade instruments to offer a more abrasive and experimental aesthetic. To round out the compilation, artists such as Jane Stevenson, discovered a 7” at an op-shop and found the needle stuck on the word, ‘Aloha’. Using tape loops, she chose to highlight imperfections rather than hide them and in unison managed to cross boundaries of time; the 60s (album voice) and the 80s (my voice), of location; Hawaii and Australia, and of language; “Aloha and Hi”. This ethos echoes the compilation's vision, to champion artists that implement impromptu creativity, and who have a desire to create regardless of their surroundings and resources. AA2 signs off with the Back to Back Zithers, drawing inspiration from the haiku poems of Basho. To illustrate this, Kari set a Kacapi improvisation to the backdrop of the cicada chorus of summertime in outer Melbourne.

Some notes: tracks A1, A2, A3, A4, B2, B3 and B4 are mastered from 1980's demo tapes that Piitu got from the artists. Piitu exchanged letters and tapes actively with artists in punk, industrial and experimental scenes from all over the world. Some of the tapes we had to leave out from this compilation because we couldn't reach the artists. The three new tracks among the older ones underline the principle of infinity and immortality of music Piitu Lintunen: The first idea for this compilation came one night when Tommi text messaged me while I was having a good time with my Raisio-born punk friends. Tommi suggested that I compile an album from my musical history. After considering different directions I went through my archives and found a box of 1980's demo tapes. Some of the tapes were from 1981 and 1982, when we did the punk zine Pöly with my brother Sakke Lintunen. I had totally forgotten about many of them. A beautiful track from a Nurse with Wound demo turned out to be made by a NWW studio technician that lived somewhere in the Canarian Islands in early 2000. He couldn't be found. At first this collection consisted only of demo tracks. Then I got a feeling that I want to include some new tracks too. I asked for a track from Clair whose debut solo is one of my recent favorites. Corumn was another contemporary artist I thought should be there. Jimi Tenor sent me some demos when he moved to NYC in early 1990's. I chose one of those tracks for the compilation. I learned to know Pekka Airaksinen in the early 1980's. He passed away in 2019. Pekka has a big archive of unfinished songs. His wife Maarit gave me some unfinished tracks and Jimi Tenor made a new track out of them. DDAA sent me a tape in the 1986's. After I asked one of the tracks for this compilation they wanted to re-record the track. And they did so in a very original style. Kostruktivists sent me a tape in 1983 while they were recording Psykho Genetica. All 4 tracks from the tape could have been suitable here, but Opening Signs was the one. Ramleh's Black Ark is a unreleased chapter from the recording of Grazing on Fear in 1987. All of the tracks are electronic experimentations. In early 80's I did a lot of cassette exchange. It was a way of communication in the punk spirit. Everybody knew each other. Tasaday, Odal and Neljän seinän jumalat (my own project) are examples of the active players of the time.

"The phenomenon of the sound and music created here is very mysterious. These pieces of music, created without any intention of being published, reached my ears without warning. Of course, this happened because I have lived a life devoted to a certain kind of music, but there is a chance I would never have listened to them in my life. But, they came to me. Now they play over and over in my listening space - blending into the air that surrounds me. Vibrating. It is as if they had always been there from a long time ago." Chee Shimizu (Organic Music, Japan)

We write to you with the conclusions of our investigation into the synthesized audio transmissions picked up by the deep space telescope at regular intervals since 1986. The source was traced to two brothers in Kawasaki, Japan, who identified themselves as Satoshi and Makoto. When we raided the building, they were huddled around a synthesizer manufactured by the Casio Corporation, model number CZ-5000. 

In their archives we discovered a wealth of colourful and ear-pleasing material created entirely using this music-making device in the early 1990s. We asked them to provide copies so that we could make these compositions available to the public for the first time. They handed us a compact disc that bore the handwritten code “ST006”.

Scientific Bulletin From The Safe Trip Institute, Amsterdam. 

Our latest communication to colleagues concerns an audio artefact – library reference code ST019 – provided by our esteemed Japanese brothers Satoshi and Makoto. They unearthed it from their own archive of musical experimentations and laboratory tests, which have been ongoing since the 1990s. They have shared it so that the process of peer reviewing can begin in earnest. 

We have undertaken thorough testing in the Safe Trip Laboratory and offer the following observations: 

Colleagues in Japan provided us with sample product of the following audio artefact – file number ST015 – believing that it may be relevant to the Safe Trip Institute’s ongoing research in this area of study. After rigorous testing and analysis, we would like to offer the following observations: 
  
• By running each of the 10 pieces of music that make up the artefact through the Past Fire Particle Analyzer, we have ascertained that every single note, chord and aural element was created using the CZ-5000, an electronic instriment built by Japan’s Casio Corporation. 

• One of our researchers discovered that if you assign a Pantone colour code to each different musical note featured on the artefact, all bar 734 of the 1,867 “spot” colours are present. By gathering these together on one screen, she discovered that most of the “musical colours” employed by Satoshi & Makoto were shades of purple, orange, red, green, yellow and pink. 

• In laboratory tests, listeners were instinctively drawn to the following percussion-free compositions: ‘Crawl Up (ST019-02)’, a combination of vibrant melodies and rumbling sub-bass; ‘Updraft (ST019-08)’, which one listener claimed helped him see through time; and ‘Kass (ST019-09)’, a musical voyage through neural pathways that should interest colleagues within the world of phrenology. 

• Test subjects also responded positively to a number of other artefacts, with one insisting that ‘Corendor (ST019-03)’ induced intense feelings of joy thanks to its use of vibrant melodies and “shuffling beats”. We draw no conclusions from this comment but think it worthy of further discussion. 

We invite colleagues the world over to analyse and test this audio further in order to increase our understanding of Mr Satoshi and Mr Makoto’s archive aural artefacts. We eagerly await your correspondence. 

Before I’m gone I’d like to see us turn the corner and give up being spoilers of the land . . . In 1975 Wallace ‘Wally’ Smith Broecker published a paper that popularised the term ‘global warming’ and against a backdrop of change and environmental uncertainty, a musical concept album was commissioned. ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ - is a musical exploration of our place within the cycle of living things. All compositions were specially commissioned for the album and blended with natural sounds recorded in the wild – lending the entire project a conceptual air that still feels fresh today. The journey begins with the sun rising in the atmospheric haze of 'Dawn' - a track composed by new-age innovator Iasos. Gospel singer Walter Hawkins soon drops in with the soulful but ever so funky 'Metropolis' backed by a heavy array of session musicians with Patrick Gleeson, Ed Bogas and Tom Salisbury all adding their own misty magic to the album. David Riordan is the sorcerer conjuring up many of the compositions and also takes vocal duties on the evocative 'Mountain' and the climatic 'Before I'm Gone'. ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ was born when environmentalist Emily DeSpain Polk assembled a group of California residents to participate in a groundbreaking conservationist project. Christening the group SWAP (Small Wilderness Area Preservation) Emily needed funds and began a project to produce a promotional nature based music album. To acquire the financial backing Emily would need to source a musician of some calibre. Contacting Cliff Branch from ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ she was told the man she was looking for was David Riordan. David Riordan had been around the music business for several years, first with The Yankee Dollar, then Sugarloaf and then Sweet Pain, he saw huge success with the single 'Green Eyed Lady'. David had worked on Cliff Branch’s 'Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends' albums and then released his solo album, 'Medicine Wheel'. But bored of touring he made the move to more concept-driven albums. First with ‘Christmas in San Francisco’ and then, in quick succession, 'Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land'. Riordan, along with Peter Scott, a music producer friend in San Francisco, began piecing together an idea for the album. They brought in Ed Bogas to do string arrangements and Tom Salisbury to conduct. David had also asked his friend Patrick Gleeson if he knew of any R&B/Gospel singers in the Bay Area, and they soon added gospel singer Walter Hawkins into the mix. Other than the track ‘Metropolis’, which was recorded in LA, the rest of ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’ was recorded and mixed by Richard Beggs at the San Francisco studio of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola was filming ‘Apocalypse Now’ at the same time – so in between studio sessions, the musicians were able to view the seemingly never-ending film rushes arriving from the Philippines. Eventually, the record produced by David Riordan and Peter Scott drifted onto the radar of vinyl obsessives and selectors as several of its key tracks began popping up on mixtapes and sales lists. It wasn’t long before this privately pressed, art-funded masterpiece became something of a holy grail for collectors. At long last, a re-issue of this masterpiece is now available on EBALUNGA!!! Records. Paul Hillery - May 2022 Paul is a heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one, who’s handpicked compilation albums have been released on the labels BBE and RE:WARM - he is also the curator at Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours

‘My intention with this music was to create an alchemy of the studio, to bring together impossible sounds, global voices and stories, obscure ethnographic narratives, new and ancient technologies, human and non-human species...’ - David Toop We are proud to launch our new library series with an incredible 12-track selection of music from David Toop. By compiling our favourite pieces from the albums originally released on Virgin, Pink Noir (1996) and Spirit World (1997), we have distilled the essence of this fruitful period into a new form: Pink Spirit, Noir World. Following the release of his debut solo album Screen Ceremonies (1995), David turned to a more expansive palate to record his next two LPs. Enlisting the help of a whole host of friends and collaborators who joined him in the Mark Angelo Studios, including the likes of Max Eastley, Toshinori Kondo, Musa Kalamula and Jon Hassell, the two albums share an unabashed openness to new sonic possibilities. Few recordings convey such a spirit of optimism; from a time when creation could be as free, unconstrained and ambitious. These albums are remarkable in both their harnessing of new recording technologies, and their weaving together a melting-pot of genres and influences that traverse the globe across centuries of musical tradition into something distinctly novel. They also document an almost visual memory, conjuring images both vivid and dream-like. Phantoms flit in and out of focus throughout their musical dialogues - perhaps the very same ones which were haunting Toop throughout the ‘wildly contradictory mixture of emotional harshness and ecstatic inspiration’ he found his life to be at the time. It’s the first time this music has been available on vinyl and to it’s new lease of life, all the tracks on this compilation have been remastered by sound designer/engineer Dave Hunt. This stunning compilation is housed in a gatefold sleeve and contains an exclusive piece written by David, reflecting on how he came to record these incredible songs.

Kristin Oppenheim is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for installation art based in performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York. INFO is pleased to announce Night Run, the first collection of early sound works of Kristin Oppenheim. This 2LP release features eight pieces recorded between 1992 and 1995 in her Brooklyn studio. In each recording, Oppenheim’s voice is the sole medium, forming repetitious phrases half-sung and half-spoken to compose disciplined but haunting environments that drift back and forth, panning across the stereo field. Over the last three decades, Kristin Oppenheim has composed vocal works not as a musician, but as an artist working in gallery and museum contexts. These immersive sound installations saturate space, touching on fragmented memory that blurs the lines between reality and abstraction. Oppenheim uses the physicality of sound to underscore the emotional tension between the absence and presence of her voice. Kristin Oppenheim is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for installation art based in writing, performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York. Since the early 1990s, Oppenheim’s work has been exhibited internationally. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including the 45th and 46th Venice Biennale, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Among others, She has had solo exhibitions at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva; at Secession, Vienna; KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; at FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Oboro, Montréal; the Jewish Museum, New York; and at the Villa Arson, Nice. Her work has also been seen in exhibitions including “X”, at FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou (2021); “Sound Museum” at D MUSEUM, Seoul (2020); “H(a)unting images. Anatomy of a shot” at Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona (2017); “Never Ending Stories” at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva (2014); “The International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias”, (2014); “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, ‘Nuit Blanche’, in Paris (2013); “NYC 1993: Experimental, Jet, Set Trash and No Star” at New Museum, New York (2013); “Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou” at Seattle Art Museum, (2012); “Volume” at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2011); “Silence. Listen to the Show” at Sandretto Foundation, Turin (2007); “Don’t Call it Performance” at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2003); “Voices” at Witte de With, Rotterdam (1998); “Young and Restless” at Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997); “29’ – 0 / East” at New York Kunstahalle (1996); “Threshold” at Fundacao de Serralves, Porto (1995); “Murs du son” at Villa Arson, Nice (1995); and “Encounters with Diversity” at PS1 MOMA, New York (1992). Kristin Oppenheim’s work is included in public collections of the Art Foundation Mallorca Collection, CCA-Andratx in Mallorca; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the FNAC Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; the FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; MAMCO Museum d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York. INFO is a label and interdisciplinary platform highlighting unique applications of sound in the field of contemporary art. Kristin Oppenheim artist page portrait courtesy of the artist, greengrassi, and 303 Gallery, 1985.

This one’s been teased for awhile, decades even. The Hated box set was an idea before Numero was an idea. Today we’re pleased to announce the first of five planned Hated collections that we’ll be rolling out over the next several years. Up first is Best Piece Of Shit Vol. 4, which compiles the Annapolis quartet’s earliest explorations into revolution summer emo. Spread across two LPs is the band’s 1985 debut cassette, the No More We Cry EP, and 14 period bonus tracks from these hardcore hooligans. We’ve also made a limited 7”+CD+tape edition with an additional five bonus tracks. Andrew Gephardt and Ken Shipley provide lengthy essays on the band and scene, illustrated by dozens of photographs from the band’s archive. We’ve got 500 copies broken bone white wax on both, but not for long. The Hated on Numero… Never said it’d be like this, right?