MUSIC

Before coming to Europe, in 1970, pianist Manuel Villarroel was a vet in his native Chilli. A few years later, as leader of the Machi Oul Big Band, he returned to the animal kingdom. A very specific kind of animal, for sure, the Quetzalcoatl, also known as the Feathered Serpent. What is behind this title (also the name of one of the three original compositions on this album released on the Palm label in 1976), is first and foremost a sort of homecoming… After discovering the jazz of Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Villarroel was taken by the free jazz which was all the rage at the time in America and Europe, and this would inspire the first version of his Machi-Oul, project. This was a septet, with which the pianist would record, in 1971, the tremendous Terremoto (re-released by Souffle Continu FFL085). After this masterstroke Villarroel was invited to record with Perception (Perception & Friends) and with Baikida Carroll (Orange Fish Tears). While these were notable contributions, Villarroel was already looking into other combinations. “I had to deal personally with my situation as an expatriate, without disavowing it. I tried not to betray my roots, I tried to translate into my music what was essential to me, to reflect my origins – Latin America, its musical and above all human feelings – while remaining faithful to jazz, which is the mode of expression of the musicians in the group”. This then is the ‘homecoming’ we mentioned, which would incite Manuel Villarroel to compose what he would call “structured free music”. In January 1972 the pianist enlarged his formation to reach the size of a real big band: the Septet became the Machi-Oul Big Band. Three years later in January 1975, with producer Jef Gilson at the helm, fifteen musicians including those from the old Septet (Jef Sicard, François and Jean-Louis Méchali, Gérard Coppéré) worked on a rare form of jazz. From togetherness to dissonance, we danse to it “Bolerito” then shake it up on “Leyendas De Nahuelbuta”. As for the concluding serpent, it is a piece which is impossible to pin down: “Quetzalcoat” is as impressive as it is difficult to grasp. To remind ourselves of this, lets listen to it again.

To abandon animals for music – and avant-garde jazz at that –, could seeming shocking to some people. However, it is exactly what Manuel Villarroel did, as he was a vet for three years before leaving his native Chili for Europe and a career in music. And though the animals may have suffered, the world of music can be grateful. Born in 1944, Manuel Villarroel lent an ear to the best pianists from North America: Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner then Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Cecil Taylor. Manuel left Santiago in September 1970 to participate in the Contemporary Music Workshop in Berlin. To pursue his musical career, he rapidly decided to remain in Europe. The following year in Paris, Manuel began a quartet with saxophonist Jef Sicard (who would also play with his brother Patricio, in the Dharma Quintet). But the group would rapidly expand: Villarroel and Sicard added Gérard Coppéré (saxophone), William Treve (trombone), François Méchali (bass) and Jean-Louis Méchali (drums). And with the arrival of Sonny Grey, a Jamaican trumpeter heard ten years earlier with Daniel Humair, the Matchi-Oul Septet was complete. Complete and ready: on May 8th, 1971, Matchi-Oul was in the studio for Gérard Terronès’ Futura label. The septet recorded seven of the pianist’s compositions. A succession of tracks which flow magically from one to the next: from the first drum strokes to the last deep notes of the bass, the successive waves roll over the piano and whistle through the wind instruments. And when they all come together it gives even greater force to Villarroel’s beautiful songs. Terremoto is a masterpiece of collective expression: but what else could we expect from a “supergroup’’ of this stature?

Recorded in 2007 and 2008, Cursory Asperses was created with cassette tape recordings of water sounds from various rivers, streams, lakes, beaches, and pools, combined with direct to tape instrument recordings from synthesizers, an organ, cello, piano, and bowed instruments. Instead of traditionally mixing these, at the time we were interested in software, using free Mac OS Classic programs such as Audiosculpt and Soundhack. Before we had a DAW, before VSTs, we used non-realtime convolution processing through software, using the water recordings as an impulse for the instrument sounds. The instrument sounds were "arranged" (by adding silence before, during, or after) in layered, visual swathes, to create an audio interpretation of the movement of water and waves, slowly evolving and shifting, for a meditation on deep and focused listening. Opposed to passivity, where sounds become lost in distant tones and layers upon layers are misinterpreted as single, meaningless tones. Or, it's just as meaningless as the passing of water, the flow of rivers - the crashes of sparkling ocean waves, all those sounds that we recognize. The tones are unpolished, left in their fuzzy form, with the high noise crushed into the deep. Behind the swells, and under the depths is a longing, or a lack thereof. It's passing by, no different than it was years before.

Emboldened by the success of the recent reissue of It's Cosy Inside, Mark and Clive had a listen to hundreds of previously unreleased tracks recorded in the 70s and 80s to assemble their first new record in two decades, When The Past Arrives, out in March from Drag City / Yoga Records.

With comparisons to Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Animal Collective, Cluster, and Brian Eno, WOO's profile in the world of atemporal music has been growing for years. For the lucky few who know, like Fela, or Neu!, WOO has their own instantly recognizable vibrantly pulsing sound, a quiet sound of comfort and contentment.

If we got something good happening it would continue into the early hours. I remember one morning waking up still sitting at my keyboard, the phone as my pillow. The woman below us would thump the ceiling with a broom handle when she got sick of the noise, so that influenced a lot of what we could do and how we would work: drums became triangles, clarinets were played real breathy, guitars were plucked, not strummed. Even hitting the keyboard keys were not to be struck too hard. This new album is mainly a result of these late night recordings. Soft melodic compositions created on either piano or guitar, then multi tracked with improvisations and harmonic patterns. -- Clive

When The Past Arrives is a collection of deceptively airy jams, addictive, crystalline. Uncut called It's Cosy Inside "the epitome of domestic bliss," and Pitchfork observed the album "stakes itself on the premise that the most cosmic and revelatory experiences you'll ever have will all happen between your house and the backyard." As if to answer, the Ives brothers selected a vocal track to complete the album, which asks,

"How far out, will you go today
up the garden path?" 

Precious musical legacies may not be forgotten. Therefore, ReGrooved makes sure that one-of-a-kind records receive a well-deserved re-release. God’s Prescriptions, Camille Doughty’s sole solo effort, is a prime example of a soul/gospel album that earns the right to be heard, time and time again. Born in mid-January 1944, Camille Doughty the singer proved to be gifted at age 10 when she joined the Green Spiritual Singers and performed with them throughout her home state, Ohio. At 12, she was six years shy of the minimum 18 years age limit to join the Young Adult Choir. However, her extraordinary vocal qualities warranted an exception in her case. Two years later she was recruited by her uncle, Rev. Shellie R. Doughty Senior into the Inspirational Choir of the Mr. Herman Baptist Church, a renowned ensemble in Doughty’s hometown of Columbus. 1972 marked the year in which Camille finally went solo, urged on by numerous admirers of her singing capabilities. Since then, she has appeared in several concerts, radio programs and television shows in the United States. In many of her appearances, she had the opportunity to perform with celebrated professionals of the gospel genre. All these efforts culminated in the release of her only solo record, God’s Prescriptions. Released in 1978 on Gospel Roots, it was never reissued… until now! ReGrooved is proud to present a beautiful, supreme quality remaster of the original album, first released by the Gospel Roots label. It features her famous rendition of the traditional spiritual ‘Elijah Rock’ and several other standards, including ‘I Trust in God’, ‘It Don’t Cost Very Much’ and ‘I Asked the Lord’. Our third release is a wake-up call to those who have been touched by Doughty’s voice back in the day, as well as a beautiful introduction to new fans.

Have You Been Good To Yourself will come as a surprise to anyone expecting more of the beat-driven R&B Johnnie that he and his sibling produced – including that compilation’s much-sampled title track. A mix of spoken word and gospel songs laid down direct to cassette, these ultra-rare home recordings draw from Johnnie’s religious upbringing and his history in the music business, which was interrupted in 1970 when he was sent to fight in Vietnam. Crate digger Jameson Sweiger found Have You Been Good To Yourself and a companion album, Real Education, released under the name Khafele Ojore Ajanaku in a Memphis thrift store, but it was noticeably Frierson’s work. They hadn’t made it far – they would originally have been sold at corner stores and music festivals in the Memphis area where Frierson continued to perform and host a gospel radio show, all the while working as a mechanic, laborer and teacher. The seven songs on Have You Been Good To Yourself are overtly religious; some, such as “Out Here On Your Word,” are strident and faithful; others, like the self-questioning “Have You Been Good To Yourself,” are more meditative. They reflect the difficult situation that Frierson was in when recording, shell-shocked from his time in the military and grieving the untimely death of his son. “He was really trying to find his way,” remembers Frierson’s daughter in Andrea Lisle’s liner notes. “And writing and making music were a way out for him.”

Released in 1980, ‘Mysteries Of The World’ was the final studio album from MFSB (standing for ‘Mother, Father, Sister, Brother’), the highly influential soul ensemble of around thirty session musicians and whose ‘TSOP’ single was influential in forging disco. The project ended with a bang, with producer Dexter Wansel helping the group achieve a dazzling blend of Philly soul, jazz-funk and orchestral flourishes.

In 1968, three sisters from Fremont, New Hampshire strapped on their instruments and declared themselves The Shaggs. At that moment begun a peculiar tale that would last far beyond the group’s five-year run. Dot, Betty and Helen (and occasionally Rachel, the fourth sister) played in the group on the insistence of their father, Austin Wiggin Jr., who was convinced they were going to be big. Years earlier, Austin’s mother gave him a palm reading, predicting that her son would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after his mother died, and that his daughters would form a popular music outfit. The first two became reality, so Austin was certain the third would follow suit.

With pure confidence and his mother’s bold prediction, Austin decided that his daughters would forgo attending the local high school in favor of home schooling interspersed with a strict regiment of instrumental and vocal practice, along with jumping jacks and sit-ups. Soon after The Shaggs would enter Fleetwood Recording studios in Revere, Massachusetts to record their sole album, Philosophy Of The World, a collection of garage rock tunes that balanced charm and discordance in equal measure. Austin would spend most of his savings not only on the session but also on the manufacturing costs to press up 1,000 copies of the album (900 of which mysteriously vanished upon completion).

Throughout _Philosophy_… simple truths are revealed through the pen of sister Dot, the songwriter of the band. The rich people want what the poor people got, just as the poor people want what the rich people got. Your parents love you. There is happiness in nearness and sadness in the farness.

The album failed to fulfill Austin’s expectations of rock stardom, though the group remained together until their father’s death, performing frequently at the Fremont town hall and a local nursing home, no further albums were released. That might have been the end of it, until rock band NRBQ discovered a copy at a Massachusetts radio station and re-released it in 1980. Rolling Stone’s reviewer at the time described it as “the most stunningly awful wonderful record I’ve heard in ages”.

Nearly 50 years later, the album ranks among the most polarizing LPs of all time. Some said it was the worst thing ever made. Others felt it was one of the great long players of the 20th century. Frank Zappa famously dubbed the band “better than The Beatles”, while Kurt Cobain placed the album at #5 on his list of Top 50 favorite albums. Original copies of the album fetch for $10,000.

Decades later and one could argue that maybe Austin was right all along. We’re all here, still enthralled by the purity of The Shaggs.

In 1968, three sisters from Fremont, New Hampshire strapped on their instruments and declared themselves The Shaggs. At that moment begun a peculiar tale that would last far beyond the group’s five-year run. Dot, Betty and Helen (and occasionally Rachel, the fourth sister) played in the group on the insistence of their father, Austin Wiggin Jr., who was convinced they were going to be big. Years earlier, Austin’s mother gave him a palm reading, predicting that her son would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after his mother died, and that his daughters would form a popular music outfit. The first two became reality, so Austin was certain the third would follow suit.

With pure confidence and his mother’s bold prediction, Austin decided that his daughters would forgo attending the local high school in favor of home schooling interspersed with a strict regiment of instrumental and vocal practice, along with jumping jacks and sit-ups. Soon after The Shaggs would enter Fleetwood Recording studios in Revere, Massachusetts to record their sole album, Philosophy Of The World, a collection of garage rock tunes that balanced charm and discordance in equal measure. Austin would spend most of his savings not only on the session but also on the manufacturing costs to press up 1,000 copies of the album (900 of which mysteriously vanished upon completion).

Throughout the album’s simple truths are revealed through the pen of sister Dot, the songwriter of the band. The rich people want what the poor people got, just as the poor people want what the rich people got. Your parents love you. There is happiness in nearness and sadness in the farness.

The album failed to fulfill Austin’s expectations of rock stardom, though the group remained together until their father’s death, performing frequently at the Fremont town hall and a local nursing home, no further albums were released. That might have been the end of it, until rock band NRBQ discovered a copy at a Massachusetts radio station and re-released it in 1980. Rolling Stone’s reviewer at the time described it as “the most stunningly awful wonderful record I’ve heard in ages”.

Nearly 50 years later, the album ranks among the most polarizing LPs of all time. Some said it was the worst thing ever made. Others felt it was one of the great long players of the 20th century. Frank Zappa famously dubbed the band “better than The Beatles”, while Kurt Cobain placed the album at #5 on his list of Top 50 favorite albums. Original copies of the album fetch for $10,000.

Decades later and one could argue that maybe Austin was right all along. We’re all here, still enthralled by the purity of The Shaggs.

Never released outside South Africa since its original release in 1974, Outernational Sounds presents one of the most sought-after international jazz exclusives ever to appear on South Africa's famous Gallo imprint: the funky, spiritual and outward bound Habiba. Limited, fully licensed vinyl reissue of a lost modal classic by renowned pianist Kirk Lightsey and Black Jazz stalwart Rudolph Johnson. As the archives of South Africa's premier record labels steadily give up the treasures that were hidden in the darkness of the apartheid era, the incredible heritage of South African jazz is gradually finding an international audience. And while most of the laurels are naturally for South Africa's own overlooked musicians, the South African discography contains a few sparkling, nearly unknown jazz sessions by visiting players. Habiba is the greatest of them -- a raw, impassioned set led by bop pianist Kirk Lightsey, who had been a regular sideman for Chet Baker and Sonny Stitt, and saxophonist Rudolph Johnson, a key player at the storied West Coast indie Black Jazz. Visits to the apartheid state by respected Black musicians were hardly a common occurrence during apartheid's darkest years -- so how did a crew of crack American jazz players end up in the Gallo studios? The story starts with the now almost forgotten crooner, Lovelace Watkins. Sometimes billed as "the Black Sinatra", the Detroit-born Watkins sang standards, show tunes and ballroom classics on the Las Vegas circuit. In his 1970s heyday he was a huge star in the UK and in southern Africa, where he toured regularly. In 1974 he hired a jazz big band to accompany him on a tour of South Africa -- and among their number were Lightsey and Johnson, as well as Mastersounds bassist Monk Montgomery, West Coast trombonist Al Hall Jr., and Marshall Royal, musical director of the Count Basie band. The tour was a huge success, and during downtime from performing, members of Watkin's group independently record no fewer than three albums. Two of these LPs appeared on the IRC label, billed as the Mallory-Hall Band -- the third, on the more prestigious Gallo, was Habiba. Three tracks deep, the album is a heavy-duty excursion into post-Coltrane spiritual modernism, ranging from the modal, cerebral intensity of the side-long title track "Habiba", to the downhome breakbeat groove of "There It Is", and the dark glitter of minor key waltz "Fresh Air". Long one of the most desired global jazz LPs, and never before available outside South Africa, Habiba is a forgotten masterpiece of its era.

'BATSUMI’s 1974 classic. Repressed at Pallas in Germany on 180g black vinyl. Cover printed on reverse board and includes printed inner sleeve with liner notes from Francis Gooding. Initial copies shipped with exclusive 30cm x 30cm print of Batsumi performing in 1974.

Batsumi is a masterpiece of spiritualised afro-jazz, and a prodigious singularity in the South African jazz canon. There is nothing else on record from the period that has the deep, resonant urgency of the Batsumi sound, a reverb-drenched, formidably focused pulse, underpinned by the tight-locked interplay of traditional and trap drums, and pushed on by the throb of Zulu Bidi’s mesmeric bass figures. The warm notes of Johnny Mothopeng’s guitar complete a soundscape that is at once closely packed with sonic texture and simultaneously vibrating with open space, and in whose shimmer and haze Themba Koyana and Tom Masemola soar. A sonorous echo emanating from an ancient well, reverberant with jazz ghosts and warmed by the heat of soul and pop, Batsumi is nothing short of revelatory.

Many groups from this period did not issue recordings at all, and Batsumi are unusual in even having left an official recorded legacy. Out of print since the 1970s, and never issued outside of South African in its entirety, Batsumi is a landmark South African jazz recording, and a key musical document of its time.'

Moroccan Jajouka master Bachir Attar meets American experimental musician Elliot Shrap for a live jam of drum machines and traditional Moroccan instruments in 1990. Bachir Attar's Career spans five decades and represents the transcendental sounds of Jajouka, a small Moroccan village situated between Fes and Tangier, known for its unique mystical sound. Fans include William Burroughs and The Rolling Stones with which Bachir recorded with in 1989. A year later Attar collaborated with the prolific avant-garde jazz musician Elliot Sharp on this very Album. Both Sharp and Attar have dedicated their careers to exploring the meeting points between east and west and this album is a unique example of two brilliant minds creating a new, ultra trippy sonic experience. This release is a first collaboration between Fortuna Records and our friends Dikraphone Records out of Morocco, serious unearthers of lost Moroccan music. Look out for more Dikraphone-Fortuna collaborations in the future!

That color of the sky is back ... One of the few domestic anime soundtracks that can be called "Kankyo Ongaku"! A terrific reissue project has arrived alongside the monumental soundtracks such as "AKIRA" and "Ghost In The Shell" .... Kenji Kawai, one of Japan's leading film composers, is well known for his extremely unique soundtrack work, including "Ghost in the Shell," "Innocence," and "Collector Yui." From the soundtrack series of "Patlabor", which is famous for its famous work in that career, the long-awaited analog / CD reissue of one of the most popular "Patlabor 2 The Movie"!! The Swiss landmark , which is also known for its historical reproduction of Japanese ambient / ambient music such as Midori Takada, Yutaka Hirose, Satoshi Ashikawa, and Motohiko Hamase, has also come to the fore. Along with cult-like works such as "Uruseiyatsura 2 Beautiful Dreamer", "Angel's Egg", and "Ghost in the Shell" directed by Mamoru Oshii, this is a 1993 masterpiece science fiction anime movie that is popular with fans. Accompanied work. An ambient / experimental masterpiece with a sharp and beautiful distopian feel that is familiar to post-industrial music since the 10's..

“There are few musicians in jazz who can make you feel that essentially all is right in the world.” - The Times

On The Balance:

"Getting the balance just right has always been Ibrahim’s great strength, drawing from a source but keeping it fresh..." - Julian Cowley, The Wire

★★★★★ - The Evening Standard

"A modern master... his graceful playing leans on equal measures of force and restraint, of dense clusters and open space. Mr. Ibrahim’s music is dotted by satisfying, sometimes stunning, passages of repose." - Larry Blumenfeld, Wall Street Journal

Entitled 'The Balance', this project featured his long-time septet Ekaya, a line-up that he's been recording with since 1983. In this case, the album was recorded over the course of one day at London's RAK Studios last November. The lush horn lines, lilting melodies, and uplifting chord progressions are characteristic of Abdullah's own particular brand of Township Jazz. This is contrasted with various solo piano improvisations, which epitomise the nostalgic yet hopeful nature of Abdullah's musical spirit. Hence, The Balance.

In his own words, "We push ourselves out of our comfort zones. So that we can present to the listener our striving for excellence. So that we can engage with our listeners without any barriers of our ego. It's not jazz. For us, it's a process of transcending barriers."

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

Silencio" is the ninth album in total, and the last album released on Haruomi Hosono's private label, Daisy World Discs, in 2010. At the time of its release, Haruomi Hosono praised this quiet masterpiece with the comment, "The path Soichiro Suzuki found on 'Silencio' among the miscellaneous sounds buzzing in the labyrinth will be a valuable guide for those who come after him.

The strange thing about the music of Anima is that it’s often considered as strange, while it’s actually very natural. It has a free spirit, analog to nature. For this release the natural spirit is strengthened by the participation of indigenous American flute player and composer R. Carlos Nakai who did a series of concerts in the US and Europe with Paul and Limpe Fuchs in the 1980’s. As with almost all Anima work, the natural feel manifests itself not only by the musical approach and sounds generated by metal, wood, stone and air, but also by the absence of electronic devices. This LP is a reissue of a rare privately released cassette from 1988 and was recorded by the Bayerischer Rundfunk. May this slice of timeless free spirit be a trigger to more awareness concerning our decaying freedom.

Since more than 40 years, Anne Gillis has discreetly unfolded her proper singular universe without any compromise. She playfully moves with determined restrictions, excavating contrasting forces; sensual and visceral, mechanical and organical, black and white, … She extends this personal expression in her visuals using self-portrait photos, handwritten text and her theatrical performances are equally aligned. Her music can be considered as musique concrète using the tape machine as compositional tool, manipulating her recorded sources, mainly consisting of extended voice and different (instrumental) sounds with addition of electronics and treatments. In both her photography and her music, Anne Gillis works fully analog.

First compiled as a double CD in 2002, 'Moon’s Milk (In Four Phases)' is a suite of four EPs that Coil released seasonally via their in-house Eskaton imprint across 1998. The line-up for these sessions were John Balance, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, Drew McDowall, and William Breeze. Recorded primarily at their home studio in Chiswick, London on the eve of a permanent relocation to the small seaside town of Weston-Super- Mare, the collection has long loomed as a pivotal and pinnacle work in the group's discography, but has never been officially reissued, or repressed on vinyl. Time has only ripened its tapestry of regal strangeness. Arranged sequentially in tribute to the equinoxes and solstices, 'Moon's Milk' captures Coil at a revelatory crossroads, leaning deeper into improvisation, spontaneity, and sound design. "Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull" initiates the proceedings on 'Spring Equinox', a two-part netherworld organ séance woven from vocal drones, cathedral keys, seasick strings, and opiated undertow. From there, 'Summer Solstice' skews lighter but no less incantational, with Balance embracing his voice- as-instrument across lucid dream torch songs ("Bee Stings"), purgatorial spoken word ("Glowworms/Waveforms"), sultry chamber pieces ("Summer Substructures"), and falsetto ravings ("A Warning From The Sun (For Fritz)"). 'Autumn Equinox' exudes more of a pensive and twilit mood, from the Rose McDowall-sung neofolk ballad "Rosa Decidua" ("I hear your voice sing near to me / I've put away the poisoned chalice (for now) / And lie down amongst the flowerbeds") to hall-of-lords hallucination "The Auto- Asphyxiating Hierophant” to the liminal string-plucked classic "Amethyst Deceivers," featuring excellent alien guitar by Breeze layered with Balance’s oft-quoted couplet: "Pay your respects to the vultures / For they are your future." The album’s final chapter, 'Winter Solstice', is its most swooning, remote, and ceremonial. Opener "A White Rainbow" stirs strings, layered choral vocals, and shivering rhythm into an imploding burial hymn. "North" oscillates bleakly, a ghost in the machine murmuring opaque prophecy ("This black dog has no owner / This black dog has no odour"), while "Magnetic North" is its inverse, a guided meditation of gently flickering software and surreal chakra poetics ("Red rose filling the skull / Yellow cube in the lower pelvis / Silver moon crescent below the navel"). The suite fades to grey with a traditional English carol ("Christmas Is Now Drawing Near"), rendered like an executioner's song by Rose McDowall’s doomed, beautiful voice. The Dais box set includes the entirety of the rare 'Moon's Milk Bonus Disc' CD-R / 2019 Threshold Archives Copal CD, which includes three collaborations with Thighpaulsandra. This material is as rich and intoxicating as the previous four phases, ranging from electro-acoustic singing bowl rituals ("Copal") to dissonant electronic recitations of visionary Angus Maclise poetry ("The Coppice Meat") to ominous classical melancholia ("Bankside"). Once again, Coil confirm the vastness of their confounding, infinite alchemy, explored and refined across decades of experimentation – both sonic and bodily. From post-industrial to post-everything, theirs is an art untethered, in the wilds of its own design.

« Sphæra » (1984/89), 42’09 « ... this spherical shape being the most perfect of all and the most similar to itself, for he thought similarity to be infinitely more beautiful than dissimilarity. » Platon, Timaeus Between 1984 and 1989, my acousmatic work was focused on processing and merging the four fundamental substances. Each « element » gradually became articulated with the others, thus crystallizing my subjective perception of their materiality. Over the years, helped by the enthusiasm of a Greek friend who propelled me into the Socratic universe, what started out as an exploratory path has become a circular, spherical unity, in which each occurrence simultaneously belongs to one of the four substances as well as the whole. These four sections, of uneven durations, embody the different resonances of each « element » upon my imagination. The movements are ordered compositionally and range from the intangibility of the air to the extreme density of the earth. In Eterea, the dual nature of air, a space for the dissemination of sounds and an environment for mobile masses, shaped the work and the development of its forms. Whether it be the vast expanse of particles as organised movement or the displacement of sources in our three-dimensional perception, ethereal air fills the space and drives the immaterial motions and gestures. Aquatica locates the materiality of water in relation to its amazing extremes: from the drop to the ocean, an extensive journey unfolds through the various phases of the reinvented liquid. Still waters, deadly waters, raging waters follow one another, leading to the aerial fusion of a primordial equilibrium eventually retrieved. Then comes Focolaria and the unsteady fires, the elusive and wild will-o’-the-wisps that open and adorn the gates leading to the depths of the earth. The land of Terra is devoid of atmosphere, a land of matters before the advent of life. The sounds of the original matter merge and evolve into purer forms. The motions trigger progressions towards new equilibriums of forces, the ultimate fusion, the very last attempt, needed for the emergence of life. The sphere is now complete, the world ready for creation… Daniel Teruggi

In the years leading up to 1971, Sun Ra wrote many compositions and poems specifically inspired by the ancient African Kingdoms and many others with associated mythological and heliocentric connotations. As such, a visit to Egypt and the opportunity for the Arkestra to play there was a matter of necessity. Ra’s first ever concerts outside of the US had occurred in late summer and autumn of 1970 with performances in France, Germany and the UK and a second European tour was arranged for late 1971. At the end of that second tour, Ra caught wind of cheap flights from Denmark to Cairo. This release comprises recordings made by Arkestra member Thomas “Bugs” Hunter made in December 1971 in the streets around the Mena House Hotel, Giza, from a concert held at the house of Goethe Institute ex-pat Hartmut Geerken in Heliopolis, from a live Cairo TV channel broadcast and a concert at the Ballon Theatre in Cairo. The impact and significance of these few weeks upon Sun Ra can be measured by the growth and development of his output over the next few years; the immediate post-Egypt period included new studio and live recordings on the Saturn, Blue Thumb, Atlantic and Impulse labels and the ‘Space Is The Place’ movie. Ra also edited the three LPs of the ‘Live In Egypt’ series which were subsequently released on his Saturn record label and its affiliated twin, Thoth Intergalactic: ‘Dark Myth Equation Visitation’, ‘Nidhamu’ and ‘Horizon’.

Reissue of early seventies album, part of the ‘Live In Egypt’ series, documenting Sun Ra’s first trip to Egypt with his Arkestra in December 1971. Tracks A1-A3 were recorded at Ballon Theater, Cairo, Egypt December 17, 1971 Track B was recorded in the house of Hartmut Geerken, Cairo, Egypt, December 12, 1971.

Reissue of early seventies album, part of the ‘Live In Egypt’ series, documenting Sun Ra’s first trip to Egypt with his Arkestra in December 1971. Side A was a TV broadcast from Cairo, 12/16/1971, and side B recorded at the house of Hartmut Geerken, Heliopolis, Cairo, 12/12/71

Arthur Petronio's one and only LP, now reissued by Metaphon, was originally published by the Belgian Igloo label in 1979. An extravagant DIY montage of musique concrète and sound poetry. In addition to Petronio's voice several female readers/performers contribute to this theatre of voices as guest vocalists. An album as unusual as his lifecycle. Born Switzerland 1897, Petronio was a French-Italian musician, poet and painter. He was a young violin virtuoso studying with Belgian master violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, and played solo violin for Belgian King Leopold II at the age of 9. He was attracted to the avant-garde and visionary ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk and developed and presented his "Verbophonie" in 1919, integrating sound poetry into regular music scores. He was a friend to Kandinsky, Mondrian, Cocteau and Picasso, and published several avant-garde journals and poetry books with participation of like-minded artists. He wrote many scores for solo instruments, small ensembles, orchestral works, and operas and extended his musical ideas with new possibilities of tape composition.

Occasionally, you find music outside the commercial mainstream, outside of everything – the music of visionaries, eccentrics, inventors, loners, the keepers of secrets, the path-finders. Moondog, Daphne Oram, Harry Partch are from this mould. And so too is Lori Vambe. New on Strut, the first ever reissue of Vambe’s privately pressed original albums from 1982, Drumland Dreamland and Drumgita Solo. A self-taught drummer, inventor, and sonic experimentalist, Lori Vambe is a unique figure in British music. Creator of his own instrument, the drumgita (pronounced ‘drum-guitar’) or string-drum, Vambe intended to create a kind of music that had never been made in order to pursue access to the fourth dimension. Vambe was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and his father, Lawrence Vambe, was a noted Zimbabwean journalist and author. Moving to London in 1959, Vambe immersed himself in the Brixton squat movement of the early 1970s, teaching himself to drum and creating a short-lived performance group, The Healing Drums of Brixton (Vambe, the sculptor Alexander Sokolov and outsider musician Michael O’Shea). Vambe later had a dream-vision involving a feeling of ecstasy while playing an unknown instrument that extended from his own umbilical cord; the instrument would manifest itself as the drumgita. In 1982, he privately produced a pair of home recordings, the diptych set Drumgita Solo and Drumland Dreamland, releasing them on his own label Drumony. On these records, he rejected any commercial aesthetic and employed tape effects, temporal shifts, reversed sound and overdubbing to investigate space-time and access the fourth dimension. Combining layered drums with the rhythmic throb of the drumgita and, on Drumland Dreamland, an improvised piano performance by Brazilian concert pianist Rafael Dos Santos, the albums are both hypnotic and perturbing. Both albums were cut at Portland Studios by Chas Chandler and stand as a concealed monument of Black British experimental music. 500 copies of each record were originally pressed, and both were released together. The albums were never performed live. For this first ever reissue of Drumland Drumland and Drumgita Solo, Strut presents the two albums in their original artwork, housed in a deluxe slipcase including an additional 8-page 12”-sized booklet featuring unseen photos, liner notes and an interview with Lori Vambe by The Wire magazine writer Francis Gooding. Both albums are fully remastered by The Carvery.