MUSIC

Kita --------! It's like presenting a new style and outlook on music through a "book-off" music dig that is unique to Japan. also got a score of "8.4" and BEST NEW MUSIC, but 10 points are necessary for historical significance ... The last sanctuary released on CD in Japan in the 90's Heisei. It's no exaggeration to say that the overwhelming piece "Heisei No Oto", which is a compilation of unknown left-field pop music, has ignited various revival since the 10's and is a prestigious name in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Appeared from the label ! Including Jun Sato and Love, Peace & Trance, which were also published in "New Age Music Disc Guide", Haruomi Hosono produced Yosui Inoue's Japanese realic "Pi Po Pa", and Toshifumi Hinata produced Xácara, Sakurai. Keisuke's statement Deep House "Harai", Yoshihiko Yokokawa (P-Model, 4-D, etc.) and Kazuko Hashimoto's new-age, ambient, and experimental sounds, as well as An ambitious compilation album that includes the abstract texture peculiar to 90's J-POP, which has not been revival yet like POiSON GiRL FRiEND and Tomoko Kino, which were mentioned before. It seems to be the freshest lineup among the editing boards released from the neighborhood that has promoted the obscure analog recurrence boom since the 10s. The music was selected by Norio Sato of and Eiji Taniguchi of , both the managers of a well-known niche store in Osaka. Supporting is a heart-warming gem called ! And the perfect liner notes by Chee Shimizu. It's a monument! MUST !!!!!!!!!!!

This sampler compiles 14 killer tropical tracks for the dance floor, all taken from the vaults of Peru’s MAG records, including cumbias to descargas, boogaloo to salsa. Classic songs such as ‘Arroz Con Coco’ or ‘Aprieta (Oye Como Va),’ and also obscure recordings like the stunning ‘Ritmo Veregua’ by Tito Chicoma or the totally under-the-radar —recorded in Lima— ‘Mi Son Combinado’ by Cuba’s legendary Orquesta Revé. MAG will turn 70 in 2023 and is a pivotal label in Peruvian music, mainly focused on tropical rhythms although its extensive catalogue also includes rock, pop and jazz recordings. This compilation celebrates the recent addition of Discos MAG to the Vampisoul family, where the best and most elusive titles from the MAG archive will become available again.

Discrepant introduces a new series of albums based on the concept of "aquapelago", with gooey compositions from Andrew Pekler, Sugai Ken, Mike Cooper, Yannick Dauby and others. What is it about water that makes it so inspiring for experimental musicians? Discrepant's new series of albums promises to expand on a concept that imagines a deep underwater world. So it makes perfect sense that Japanese composer Sugai Ken - who impressed with 2020's slippery "Tone River" - should start things off with the unsettling 'Boundary', a spoken word piece in English and Japanese leading into Andrew Pekler's predictably balmy 'Shima No Yume', that sounds like being underwater and marooned on a desert island simultaneously. Brussels-based Mexican sound artist Vica Pacheco takes a different approach, splicing together environmental recordings and juxtaposing them with half-speed, haunted brass that sounds as if it's been recorded in an empty swimming pool. Mike Cooper swerves any obvious signals completely, preferring to create a secluded paradise on 'Lamma Island' with gusty field recordings and beachy guitar harmonics. Italian duo Babau bolt together one of our favorite tracks, using idiophones to create a shimmering backdrop that harmonizes with Visible Cloaks' cult "Fairlights, Mallets And Bamboo" mixes.

This is alga marghen’s third installment of Smegma’s original “Suburban Primitive Avant-folk music” Period (1973-1975) based in Pasadena, featuring three previously unreleased tracks from the deep vault of their home recordings. In the beginning, the Band Smegma had only one rule. No Musicians. Starting from scratch, they took the Road much less traveled. They were inspired by outsider musical artists of the time such as John Cage, Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart, Wild Man Fisher, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, etc. and they recorded every experiment with youthful enthusiasm. Mostly they only succeeded in tormenting their own friends and neighbors (except for the few who joined the band), but somehow they never chose imitation, but stumbles on a path that allowed Past (shamanistic) and Future (space) sounds to lead the way. The titled track gently pulls you in and carries you off with a way-out inner-mind group Jamming/not-Jamming trip, featuring Prepared Piano, Modular Synthesizer, Human Mouth sounds, Pan Pipes, Tabla and Electric Bass Guitar. “Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow” (definitely not the 1960s pop Hit) rips you straight into a high energy New Year's Eve Party Jam, in a romping free jazz style with stream of consciousness vocals and exuberant alto sax solos. Side B starts with Beatnik finger Popping and wild dogs barking from a record player, while breathless flute playing leads you down the rabbit hole of mysterious group vocalizing, including imitating the cry of the wild Tropical Parrots that lived in the palm trees in the front yard of the house in Pasadena that they had lived in. Always out of sync with their own time, 49 years later, these tracks still throb and pulsate Beautifully with their own inner logic.

Henri Chopin also praised. Katalin Ladik, a poet, actress and visual artist based in Budapest, Hungary, who was born in former Yugoslavia (now Novi Sad, Serbia) and now lived in the 1990s. One of the most pioneering artists of our time, who has worked in connection with the feminist problem of Eastern Europe, Ladik's work reflects the personal, social and existing difficulties faced by female artists. Double structures, sexually ambiguous figures, gender-neutralizing elements, etc. appear repeatedly in. From the 1960s to the 1970s, she was also an actress of the Serbian avant-garde theater group . Limited to 300 copies.

This would have been the Brazilian post-punk supergroup. It would have, because bassist and singer Sandra Coutinho moved to Germany, leaving these recordings behind – only two songs were released, in an independent compilation (Enquanto Isso).

Sandra (Bass, As Mercenárias) along with Denise Camargo (keyboards and voice, BruhaháBabélico and Dequinha e Zaba), Biba Meira (drums, De Falla) and Karla Xavier (guitar, R. Mutt), expressive musicians in expressive bands, were AKT. And this powerful repertoire, composed and recorded in the short period of the group's existence, recorded and produced by R.H. Jackson (Caracol) the complete session remained unheard until now.

A milestone in the history of electro-pop and post-punk music in Brazil! Finally gathered in a 12" the two 7" of the seminal band Agentss, ground zero of Brazilian post-punk. Originally released in '82 and '83, until now these recordings were only available in their original format. Their members were key figures of the São Paulo underground, after the band split-up they went to create important bands such as Voluntários da Pátria, Azul 29, Violeta de Outono, and Mumia. The track "Agentes" was included in the Não Wave (Brazilian Post Punk 1982-1988) compilation released by Man Recordings in 2005. The release comes with an insert featuring unpublished photos and texts telling the story of the band. A milestone in the history of electro-pop and post-punk music in Brazil. Agentss was a seminal band that recorded only two singles, did few shows and imploded. It's no exaggeration to compare their debut show with the famous Sex Pistols concert in Manchester, when approximately 50 people that left the place with the idea of starting their own band. The band's sound was a transitional one. Part of what is perceived as post-punk is actually pre-punk (including bands as Suicide, Chrome, Cabaret Voltaire, and This Heat) and we could draw comparisons of Agentss with the initial Ultravox (John Foxx era), the albums by guitarist Snakefinger produced by The Residents and the experimental early Devo.

Ten Numero-minted, dance floor ready dive bombers from disco’s all-too-brief heyday, previously swept under rug by the whitewashed glitz and glam of the era. Chugging grooves, bubbling synths, soaring strings, and sonorous voices are guaranteed to light up your night, on living room rugs and dance floors alike.

Ekkehard Ehlers' seminal plays series was originally released on three 12inches (Staubgold) and two 7inches (Bottrop-Boy) in very limited runs. The entire series was previously only available as a CD compilation or digitally. Keplar finally presents it on double vinyl for the first time, featuring a new cover artwork. Domestic ethnology: Ekkehard Ehlers plays. ‘Play’ is a word in English with many meanings attached. Each one sends you down a different cognitive pathway. When I think of ‘playing’, in the sense of a game, I think of an activity involving more than one person. When Ekkehard Ehlers plays, he is very much on his own. Or, at least, alone but at the same time keeping intimate company with the artistic innovators named in his titles. Robert Johnson. John Cassavetes. Albert Ayler. Cornelius Cardew. Hubert Fichte. Is he playing with them, against them, about them, for them, to them? This can never be known. It is certainly a mistake to try to hear the ‘work’ of these originals in the sounds played by Ekkehard. They’re not cover versions. They’re hardly tributes in the conventional sense. Cassavetes and Fichte are not even musicians, although music played an important part in both their careers. Sure, there are little nods and flashes of recognition – tiny guitar licks among the minimal beats of ‘Robert Johnson 2’; rich bowed instruments in ‘Albert Ayler’, recalling the violin, cello and double bass arrangements on Ayler’s 1967 Live in Greenwich Village LP; the elongated organ lines of ‘Cornelius Cardew 1’ gesturing towards passages in Paragraph 1 of the British composer’s 1971 Marxist monolith, The Great Learning. Ekkehard is not so much playing these figures as allowing himself to be played by them. Playing as an activity also suggests freedom. Maybe the only thing all five named persons have in common is that they were all quiet radicals. In music, literature and cinema, they all stepped, without self-promotion or fanfare, into unmapped territories. Once there they found it necessary to invent new languages in order to survive. Necessity was the mother of their inventiveness. They were also uncomfortable avant gardists. Lonely types, fighting their corners out on the margins, with little reward, often misunderstood, ridiculed or ignored. All died unfairly young. Fichte a victim of HIV/AIDS, Cassavetes of cirrhosis of the liver. (‘Cassavetes 2’ sounds like a tender farewell played across the 59 year old alcoholic director’s death bed.) The deaths of Johnson, Ayler and Cardew have never been satisfactorily explained, and remain shrouded in myths and conspiracy theories. The pioneering expeditions of all five began in that spirit of playful freedom, but inexorably drew them towards the heart of darkness. So these ‘plays’ are micro-dramas, sonic soliloquies, monolog-ins to the private accounts of various geniuses in Ekkehard’s ‘follow’ list. Hacked sensibilities. Artistic manifestos boiled down and distilled, skinned and dried in the digital smokehouse. (Ekkehard Ehlers Flays.) Each of these plays was originally floated out into the world alone on its own disc. The collected works play well as a team – a tranquil, introspective experience where each artist has his own identifiably unique sound character. As an album, Plays is a ‘Plattenragout’ – a ‘record stew’ – which was the title of Hubert Fichte’s LP review column in the leftist culture magazine konkret in the 1960s. The novelist’s work investigating the cultures of South America and the Caribbean islands has been called ‘domestic ethnology’. The writer himself referred to his ‘ethnopoesie’. Ekkehard Ehlers’s intuitive electronic portraits are a form of domestic ethnology in themselves. Invoking another of Ekkehard’s musical aliases, they are portraits of cultural ‘autopoiesies’ – creators whose works were strong enough to have their own self-regenerating life force. (by Rob Young)

Limited 200 copies, Black Vinyl. On behalf of re:discovery records, it is with great excitement that we announce the release of 'Ambient7 - Excepts from 1995-2000' compilation. Ambient7 was a threesome out of Japan that included Chica Asamoto, Masayuki Momo and Shuichi Ikebuchi. Chica Asamoto, an accomplished saxophone player while Masayuki Momo and Shuichi Ikebuchi both talented synthesizer players and producers in their own right. Together, they released 3 full albums during a 6 year span from 1995-2000. Ambient7's sound was a blend of chill out styles including ambient, techno, balearic house and everything in-between. A unique and heartfelt far east version of chill out techno music . 'Escape' is a soft ambient techno track with a touch of dub that is sure to sit along the greats of genre and the time. Surrounding 'Escape', are two short but worthy examples of the Ambient7 sound. First, is the unique tribal attention getter that is 'Prologue' then ending with the beautiful balearic saxophone serenade that is 'Epilogue'. Flip the record and you 'Deep Sea' that comes in just under 11 minutes. A very unique track that we will just encourage you to take the trip and describe it how you would like. Lastly, is the balaeric ambient house lullaby that is 'Orange Sunshine'. Some who have heard this track call it a reason to buy the record alone for not even hearing the other tracks on this EP. A standout and a perfect set opener or closer, this is sure to be the re:discovery track for the summer for 2022. Genre: Techno, ambient, balearic, chill out, dub

After "Bristol Pirates" in '19, it's pirate radio all over again! From "Death Is Not The End", a great place to dig up antique music from all over the world, from pre-war blues to immigrant music and South American folklore, comes a super-impressive compilation of pirate radio commercials from the heyday of London stations between 1984 and 1993. Attack! This is a collection of about 10 years of pirate radio advertisements from the station, which is well known as a regular program on NTS Radio, and includes material provided by Simon Reynolds and the Pirate Radio Archive. "I find a recording of a pirate radio DJ set somewhere and listen to it whenever there's a commercial break. Most of the time, however, the people who recorded them stopped the tapes when the ads came on. It is truly a feat of hard digging, and the fact that most of the clubs, pubs, businesses, DJs, and promoters mentioned here no longer exist is a stiff antique... It is a historical documentary of the past, far from the present, and "the nostalgia associated with them has a certain It is a historical documentary about a past far removed from the present, and "the nostalgia surrounding them has a certain socio-historical significance" (Luke Owen, Death Is Not The End). This is a very valuable film that contains 40 air check scenes.

It's impossible to think about 'dub' without thinking about the late Osbourne Ruddock - the great King Tubby, the singular most creative human being of the great many who've plied their trade behind a mixing desk in the name of reggae since the early 1970s. Dub may well have existed before Tubbs raised its profile to almost unimaginable heights, and it has continued to exist in the 21 years since he was senselessly slain in 1989.

A lounge in the Poconos located just inside a Holiday Inn, 1973. The smoky haze clears to reveal a middle-aged couple on a one-foot high stage, prattling on about the weather or Watergate before launching into a serviceable cover of Burt Bacharach’s “Do You Know The Way To San Jose?” Tens of thousands of such combos littered restaurants, cruise ships, casinos, lobbies, and cocktail bars throughout the ’60s and ’70s, but far fewer cut a record worth buying from the stage, much less listening to on the home hi-fi. Gathered here are 14 lounge originals from across the entire easy listening spectrum. A spent matchbook’s worth of crooners, bossa nobodies, seafood jazzers, and Donca-Matic enthusiasts all in search of their ticket out of a red leather booth hell.

Just as Al Green’s “Back Up Train” was pulling out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a whistle-stop tour to the top of the charts, producer Palmer James began eyeing another Furniture City branch line: Tommy Mcgee. The result was 1976’s Positive-Negative, the creative apex in a career littered with endless bottoms. Gathered for the first time are Mcgee’s timeless album, singles for Golden Voice, Mercury, TMG, and Tosted, as well as the complete output of his nascent mid-‘60s funk combo the T.M.G.’s.

Biff! A violin bow scrapes across the strings of a guitar Bang! The hiss of a an aerosol can releases paint on to canvas Pow! As the violin bow pierces the canvas. “We were supporting The Walker Brothers on a string of dates around the UK,” recalled Creation guitarist Eddie Phillips. “We had just recorded ‘Painter Man’ and were really excited about it, and wanted to make it the central focus of our live performance. We were in the van, traveling to Great Yarmouth for a show and we came up with the idea of Kenny creating some artwork in the instrumental break of the song. It was a Sunday afternoon so when we arrived in Great Yarmouth, nearly everywhere was shut, but we found some wood, and our roadie Bill Fowler started making it into a six foot by six foot frame in the car park. He found an old decorating shop open and got some wall paper to make the canvas. The band, all in their purple and black finery, were bent down and bashing nails into it. No paint shops were open so we went to a garage and they had aerosol touch up spray paints. We started extending the break. I’d be playing away and the violin bow would get wrecked, so I’d chuck it at the screen like an arrow, and it would get stuck in there. The aim was to create a visual madness to illustrate the music. Then we got smoke effect powder from a joke shop and made a smoke screen around it, and eventually Kenny started setting the canvas alight.” The Creation were a go. With producer du jour Shel Talmy at the helm (The Who, Kinks, Easybeats, Cat Stevens, et al) the Creation went on an incredible two year tear of singles, including “Making Time,” “How Does It Feel To Feel,” “Tom Tom,” and “If I Stay Too Long.” By 1968 it was over. Eddie Phillips’ trademark guitar bowing would be nicked by Jimmy Page and Boney M would cheese-up “Painter Man.” Over the nearly five decades since, the Creation has seen a tremendous resurgence in interest. First it was the Jam flossing “Making Time” on the inner sleeve of All Mod Cons. A few years later Alan McGee formed the band Biff Bang Pow and his Creation record label. By the turn of the century a new generation had discovered the band via a strategic placement in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Presented here for the first time are the complete Creation studio recordings. All 42 tracks have been remastered from the original tapes by Shel Talmy, and given fresh stereo mixes where previously unavailable. New essays by Dean Rudland and Alec Palao tell the band’s story and dive into their complete studio sessions. Scores of previously unpublished photographs adorn the accompanying 80 page hard bound book. We’ve rounded the whole package out with four tracks by pre-Creation freakbeat quartet the Mark Four, making Action Painting the definitive collection of this legendary UK band.

Rainbow Disco Club and Rush Hour, a long-standing friendship that transcends continents! House, disco, new wave, Caribbean, rare groove, leftfield.. Antal compiles the second release on "Beyond Space And Time", loaded with personal choice cuts. Internationally recognised and much-loved festival from Japan, Rainbow Disco Club’s offshoot project "Beyond Space And Time" record label presents their sophomore release! Following the work by DJ Nobu, their second compilation has been compiled by none other than Antal. Also known as the festival's headliner and the man behind Amsterdam record shop/label Rush Hour, all 8 tracks are selected by Antal in a 2 x 12-inch format. From newcomers to '80s Japanese cult music, rare grooves to danceable house music, and rare Caribbean soul, this compilation is a portrait of music enthusiast Antal Heitlager’s enormous collection and 30-year DJ career, a work of art that can be enjoyed by all music fans! An afro electronics track recommended by South African collector DJ Okapi, who co-produced the masterpiece compilation "Pantsula!: Rise Of Electronic Dance Music In South Africa: 1988-90" released in 2017, which brought Kwaito back onto the map. A-1 Improvisation Organic Deep House track by New Zealand’s newcomer. A-2 A rare breezin' boogie by Larry Heard’s alias Trio Zero from 1989. Highly sought after by all collectors as a cult Balearic track. Previously unreleased version. B-1 From the 2015 album by L.A. funk maker DAM-FUNK on the prestigious Stones Throw label. LO-FI beats and synthetic breakdowns that are reminiscent of early Rush Hour works and ‘90s house. B-2 The debut single of Japanese idol unit, Shohjo-Tai. Haruomi Hosono also produced some of their tracks later on in their career. Japanese new wave disco from 1984. C-1 The soundtrack from the Japanese manga "Touring Express". RDC fans will recognize this track from the final hours of the festival. A nostalgic oriental disco from 1985. C-2 80s Silky Mellow Soul by Connecticut jazz vocalist Dianne Mower who also contributed to the re-press of the prestigious Numero Group. D-1 The original version is a masterpiece from 1983 by Zouk singer Jocelyn Mocka of French Guadeloupe. This edit still very much emphasizes an emotional mid-tempo Caribbean soul, nicely reconstructed by Rush Hour's Bonnefooi. D-2 A total of 8 tracks from all types of genres and generations, a true masterpiece and representation of Rainbow Disco Club’s vision “Beyond Space And Time”. Bringing you the love from Amsterdam to the world!

Across two 7"s, 'Death Or Glory' (1982) and 'Death Rocks' (1983) and one 12", 'Anguish' (1982) Jimmy Smack carved his own bleak chasm amidst the Los Angeles death rock scene that he inhabited. After decades dormant in the crypt, Knekelhuis compiles Smack's full recorded output, providing it a lavish place to rest on the 'Death Is Certain' LP. The album comes with a printed inner sleeve featuring rarely seen archival photos, liner notes by Cooper Bowman and excerpts from an interview with Jimmy Smack by Juan Mendez (Silent Servant).

76 minutes collection of recordings made at the Friedrichshof commune between 1982 and 1990. Performed by Otto Muehl and members of the commune. Includes actionist group-music, improvised conceptual pieces, and barpianist-songs. Artist co-founder of the Viennese Actionism (with Hermann Nitsch, Günter Brus and Rudolf Schwarzkogler), controversial founder of the sulphurous utopian community of Friedrichshof in 1972 (which will earn him seven years in prison in the 1990s), Otto Muehl (born 1925 in Grodnau, Austria, died 2013 in Moncarapacho, Olhão, Portugal) staged a series of "material actions" from 1963 to 1970, for film and photography, in which the body becomes part of the environment. Since then, he has developed his work as an enterprise of "surpassing pictorial painting by representing the process of its destruction", with the idea that the body is also an "object" to be shaped, the living body, as well as the social body, art and life being inseparable.

The roots of Angolan popular music explored in the meticulous guitar studies of Mário Rui Silva 1980s albums. 

Whether on mesmerising acoustic ballads or hypnotic groove-led tracks, the music of Angolan guitarist, researcher and intellectual Mário Rui Silva has a beguiling, melancholy quality, woven into the dynamics of his deft guitar playing. 

Rhythmically complex yet supremely effortless, the music collected here stems from three albums Mário released in Luanda in the 1980s that reflect his diverse range of influences, from traditional Angolan and West African rhythms to European jazz and classical instrumentation. 

It is united by a sense of low-key beauty, whether on the chugging opener ‘Kazum-zum-zum’, the jazz-funk keys of ‘Lembrança Dum Velho’, or the twinkling, late-night poly-rhythms of ‘Kizomba Kya Kisanji’. 

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Born in Luanda, Angola in 1953, Mário dedicated his life to Angolan popular music. His fifty-year career has seen him live between Angola and Europe, rub shoulders with Cameroonian musicians Francis Bebey and Ewanjé, record the seminal album Angola ’72 with fellow Angolan musician Bonga, and draw influence from Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell. 

It was the teaching of Angolan legend and Ngola Ritmos co-founder Liceu Vieira Dias that Mário gained a technical, political and spiritual understanding of Angolan musical culture. In the hands of Liceu, the traditional Angolan semba and kazukuta rhythms of the 1940s and ‘50s helped create an emancipatory sense of national pride and collective agency that awakened its listeners to the racism and tyranny of colonial rule, underpinning the country’s push for independence in the process. 

What might sound like the intonations of Brazilian influence are what Mário attributes to the “African rhythms taken by the slaves [which] gave rise to other musical cultures” around the globe. Instead, this music emerged from a collective instinct to assert a cosmopolitan Angolan identity free from the patronising falsehoods of Lusotropicalism. 

“There was a need within me to contribute in doing new things,” Mário describes. “In the sense of solidifying the music of Angola that was the result of the meeting of two cultures, and wanting to value the Angolan part whenever possible.” 

A selection from Mário’s three 1980s albums, Sung’Ali (1982), Tunapenda Afrika (1985) and Koizas dum Outru Tempu (1988) have been compiled here as a 2xLP release by Time Capsule’s Sam Jacob and Kay Suzuki. Together, they provide a snapshot of one man’s journey to the core of his nation’s music, charged with the search for a culture uprooted by colonialism. 

Prescient jazz-techno mutator Jamie Hodge (Conjoint, Studio Pankow) ushers a long overdue solo debut album, of sorts, with Demdike Stare’s DDS label; an archival harvest spanning his earliest experiments circa his Plus 8 debut thru to ’00s anomalies - hybrid ambient techno jazz and incredibly inventive forerunners of dubbed electronica - bookended by two Demdike Stare edits. Essential listening if yr into anything on the axis from Move D to Detroit Escalator Company, Jan Jelinek or Tortoise. Jamie Hodge grew up in Chicago in a jazz-loving family, first forming a band when he was a teenager, using drum machines and keyboards to rattle thru covers of Joy Division and Ministry tracks. His sound progressed into dubbier spaces when he befriended Ted Gray, a local record store clerk, and into off-kilter jazz when he ran into Bundy K. Brown and David Grubbs, who let Hodge watch rehearsals of the first Gastr del Sol recordings. But the transformational moment came when a friend (pictured on the "Diagonals" cover no less) played Hodge the 1991-released "From Our Minds To Yours Vol. 1", the first compilation on Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva's Plus 8 label. From here, Hodge took his growing obsession with dance music to early Chicago raves, and began to explore European techno and UK hardcore. Eventually he met Hawtin in person after convincing his mom to cut through Canada on the way back from visiting East Coast colleges, and released his Plus 8 debut by the time he'd moved into a college dorm in 1993, using the Born Under A Rhyming Planet moniker for the first time. Hodge was also immersed in Chicago’s famous experimental jazz scene of the ‘90s - later on establishing the short-lived but excellent Aestuarium label that brought the work of Philip Cohran And The Artistic Heritage Ensemble to wider attention. Hodge would release two more 12"s for Plus 8, heading to Germany to connect with David Moufang (Move D) and forming Conjoint, later Studio Pankow. The material presented on "Diagonals" takes us right back to Hodge's vintage era, when he was using a mutating spread of equipment - Korg MS-20, Atari ST, Nord Micro Modular, ARP Axxe, Yamaha TG77 and TX816, and Alesis HR-16B - to assemble tracks that reached through his wide range of musical interests. According to Hodge, more Plus 8 releases were planned but never materialised, so this long overdue set fills in the gaps between records like 2000's classic Conjoint plate "Earprints" and Studio Pankow's still-underrated 2005 slow-burner "Linienbusse”. ‘Diagonals’ sputters to life with a Demdike Stare edit of a track Hodge recorded in Brooklyn while he was on summer break from college and working at a local record distributor. Inspired by music he'd seen at that year's New Music Seminar, he used an Atari ST and Yamaha TG77, a glassy FM module, to conduct a mood that hovers between '80s new age DIY tapes and gaseous dub techno. ‘Handley' digs into the tranquil electrified jazz modalities over a swung drum machine rhythm, squeezing robotic soul from a modest arsenal of gear, lashing the hypermelodic post-Detroit sensitivity of The Black Dog/Plaid to Chicago-axis experiments from Tortoise and Gastr del Sol. The shorter interludes are just as engrossing: Hodge experiments FM spray on 'Trampoline' and dusty Jan Jelinek-esque electroid funk on 'Menthol', ducking further into jazz on 'Hot Nachos...', augmenting his electronics with fretless electric bass. Cherry-picked by DDS, the selection best portrays the mix of soulful depth and atmospheric effervescence that defined that elusive era in electronic music; spanning a late night spectrum of styles from dusty electro-acoustic ambient prisms to supple deep house pearls, with a special strain of gently frayed computer jazz touching on the outer limits of Detroit techno. It's exceptional material that reminds us of a time when electronic music was frothing over with hope, futurism and revolutionary spirit, so whether you're into the post-Artificial Intelligence era or the Jazz-looped investigations of Jan Jelinek and crew, "Diagonals" feels like stepping into a particularly good dream.

Tercer volumen de nuestra serie de sonidos afrolatinos de la época dorada del sello seminal Discos Fuentes en Colombia. Una excelente selección de 26 cortes difíciles de encontrar, muchos reeditados por primera vez, cubriendo una amplia gama de géneros de raíz afro, con un mayor enfoque en los orígenes folclóricos de la música que en volúmenes previos, incluyendo grabaciones de artistas como Michi Sarmiento, Wganda Kenya, The Latin Brothers, Los Corraleros De Majagual, Peregoyo… Incluye un extenso libreto con notas a cargo del compilador del proyecto, Pablo Yglesias aka DJ Bongohead.

Back in the early ‘90s, whenever the pirate radio MC announced “a pause for the cause”, I usually pressed pause on my cassette recorder. That’s something I would regret years later, when ad breaks had become cherished mementos of the hardcore rave era. Luckily, back in the day I often left the tape running while I went off to do something else. So a fair number of ad breaks got captured accidentally for my later delectation. Not nearly enough, though. So in recent years I started combing through the immense number of pirate radio sets archived on the internet. Sometimes the tracklists would note “ad break” or “ads”, helping to narrow the search. But often I’d just stumble on a bunch in the middle of a pirate show preserved on YouTube or an oldskool blog. A few of my original unintended “saves” and latterday “finds” are included in this wonderful collection by audio archaeologist Luke Owen. It’s the latest in his series of compilations of UK pirate radio advertisements, with this volume focusing on the audio equivalent of the rave flyer: MCs breathlessly hyping a club night or upcoming rave, listing the lineup of deejays and MCs, boasting about hi-tech attractions like lasers and projections, mentioning prices and nearest landmarks to the venue, and occasionally promising “clean toilets” and “tight but polite security” (“sensible security” is another variation). Some of these ads are etched into my brain as lividly as the classic hardcore and jungle tunes of that time. (Most rave ads incorporate snippets of current music, of course – big anthems and obscure “mystery tracks” alike). Names of deejays ring out like mythological figures: who were Shaggy & Breeze, Kieran the Herbalist, Tinrib, Food Junkie? Putting on my serious hat for a moment, I think these ads are valuable deposits of sociocultural data, capturing the hustling energy of an underground micro-economy in which promoters, deejays and MCs competed for a larger slice of the dancing audience. But mostly, they are hard hits of pure nostalgic pleasure, amusing and thrilling through their blend of period charm, endearing amateurism, and contagiously manic excitement about rave music’s forward-surge into an unknown future. The best of these ads give me a memory-rush to rival the top tunes and MC routines of the era. — Simon Reynolds, author of Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture.

Back in the early ‘90s, whenever the pirate radio MC announced “a pause for the cause”, I usually pressed pause on my cassette recorder. That’s something I would regret years later, when ad breaks had become cherished mementos of the hardcore rave era. Luckily, back in the day I often left the tape running while I went off to do something else. So a fair number of ad breaks got captured accidentally for my later delectation. Not nearly enough, though. So in recent years I started combing through the immense number of pirate radio sets archived on the internet. Sometimes the tracklists would note “ad break” or “ads”, helping to narrow the search. But often I’d just stumble on a bunch in the middle of a pirate show preserved on YouTube or an oldskool blog. A few of my original unintended “saves” and latterday “finds” are included in this wonderful collection by audio archaeologist Luke Owen. It’s the latest in his series of compilations of UK pirate radio advertisements, with this volume focusing on the audio equivalent of the rave flyer: MCs breathlessly hyping a club night or upcoming rave, listing the lineup of deejays and MCs, boasting about hi-tech attractions like lasers and projections, mentioning prices and nearest landmarks to the venue, and occasionally promising “clean toilets” and “tight but polite security” (“sensible security” is another variation). Some of these ads are etched into my brain as lividly as the classic hardcore and jungle tunes of that time. (Most rave ads incorporate snippets of current music, of course – big anthems and obscure “mystery tracks” alike). Names of deejays ring out like mythological figures: who were Shaggy & Breeze, Kieran the Herbalist, Tinrib, Food Junkie? Putting on my serious hat for a moment, I think these ads are valuable deposits of sociocultural data, capturing the hustling energy of an underground micro-economy in which promoters, deejays and MCs competed for a larger slice of the dancing audience. But mostly, they are hard hits of pure nostalgic pleasure, amusing and thrilling through their blend of period charm, endearing amateurism, and contagiously manic excitement about rave music’s forward-surge into an unknown future. The best of these ads give me a memory-rush to rival the top tunes and MC routines of the era. — Simon Reynolds, author of Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture.

Now-Again Records presents a new, essential entry into the growing phenomenon known as Psych-Funk with Those Shocking Shaking Days: the untold story of Indonesia¡Çs various underground 70s musical scenes. Few are aware of the progressive music scenes from 1970s Indonesia, as censorship imposed by the dictator Suharto lead to crackdowns on those courageous enough to rebel. This insurgent sound - marked by relentless fuzz, over the top, politically charged lyrics, strong rhythms and a cranky low-fidelity - is as similar to that of Rare Earth protégés Power of Zeus as it is to that of South Korean psych-god Shin Jung Hyun. It is as informed by James Brown¡Çs funk as it is by the hard, progressive rock of Deep Purple and King Crimson. This anthology contains 20 tracks of hard, psychedelic, progressive rock and funk that has been largely unheard or ignored outside of the confines of this island nation. This is all thanks to the tireless (and expensive) research of Canadian hip hop producer and Southeast Asian music specialist Jason ¡ÈMoss¡É Connoy, the trust that Indonesian rock legend Benny Soebardja placed in Now-Again Records as he traversed his homeland¡Çs islands securing the necessary rights for the tracks contained within this anthology, and the cultural context added to the proceedings by Indonesian ex-pat Chandra Drews, who assisted in a track-by-track annotation. This anthology is the first of its kind – the first Western-based survey of the most impressive organizations to offer their take on the psychedelic and progressive rock and funk sounds during the shocking, shaking days of Suharto¡Çs regime. This gem can be purchased as a deluxe ¡Èmini-LP¡É tip on sleeve CD or a 3 LP triple paste on gatefold. Included are extensive liner notes, photographs, ephemera in full color booklets and, of course, fully restored and remastered audio.