MUSIC

A long-standing figure on the London jazz scene, trumpeter Harry Beckett kept his music fresh over a long career, and none more so than on his debut On-U Sound release in 2008 produced by Adrian Sherwood, which invites reggae and dance music influences to happily live alongside his modal jazz flavours. Harry sadly passed away in 2010 but this is a fitting testament to the versatility and innate musicality of his talents.

The only solo LP from “Deadly” Headley Bennett and released back in 1982. The title refers to the legendary Alpha School in Jamaica from where so many instrumental talents on the island emerged. A saxophonist-for-hire who played on countless recordings sessions, and was in the ranks of backing groups from the golden era of reggae such as the Sound Dimension and the Arabs.

January 1981 found Gudrun Gut and Bettina Koster in Christopher Franke’s Berlin-Spandau Studio recording their first Malaria! EP (Zensor Records). Christine Hahn of The Static with Glenn Branca and Barbara Ess, joined in from New York, and Manon P. Duursma fresh from Nina Hagen’s O.U.T. project and Susanne Kuhnke completed the Line-Up. Malaria! started touring intensively soon after the release of their 12”, commencing with a concert with New Order at Brussel’s Ancienne Belgique, and going on from there to concerts with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Birthday Party, The Slits, The AuPairs, Raincoats, Nina Hagen, John Cale, Einstuerzende Neubauten. They played venues as diverse as the Mudd Club, Peppermint Lounge and Studio 54 in New York, the Documenta in Kassel, the Bat Cave in London, Les Bains Douche in Paris, Milky Way and Paradiso in Amsterdam, ICA in London, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella in Florence and Markthalle in Hamburg and naturally, again and again, at the SO36 in Berlin. While touring, Malaria! used their time off to record in Studios in New York, London, Brussels, New Orleans, and in Berlin (How Do You Like My New Dog? 7”, Weisses Wasser 12”, New York Passage 12”, Revisited MC, Emotion Album). At the BBC studios in London Maida Vale Malaria recorded an Kit Jensen and a John Peel Session. Malaria! took a break in 1984 - Bettina and Christine re-located to New York, and Gudrun and Manon stayed in Berlin to form, with Beate Bartel, Matador, but not before they recorded their Mini-Album, Beat the Distance. 1992 Gudrun, Bettina, Christine, and Manon met up in New Orleans with Jim Thirlwell (Foetus) to record Elation 12”. Elation was followed by Cheerio, Album, which again was recorded in Berlin. Chicks on Speed did their own version of Malaria’s song, Kaltes Klares Wasser in 2001, and the Remix went into the German Top 10. Malaria has been an instrumental part of Berlin Music History, as recently presented at the „Zurück zum Beton“ at Düsseldorf’s Kunstakademie, Kunsthalle Wien „Punk!“, „Geniale Dilletanten“ Goethe Institut, and in B-Movie.

Re-release of Blue Chemise's debut LP, which originally appeared in 2017 as a limited private release of 105 copies. We are proud to make this much sought-after record available again on both physical and digital, with remastered sound by Christophe Albertijn and updated artwork, all true to the original intentions of, and in close collaboration with, the artist. ‘Influence On Dusk’ forms an idiosyncratic cycle of fourteen mysterious, sometimes uncanny electroacoustic compositions, a personal and subdued eruption of 'melancholy of the healthy kind’, suddenly here and suddenly gone… This is the second release on B.A.A.D.M. by the Australian artist Mark Gomes, following his equally atmospheric but more romantic 'Flower Studies' from 2021.

A limited edition 2024 repress of 'Descending Moonshine Dervishes' by Terry Riley. Originally recorded live in Berlin in 1975 and released by Kuckuck in 1982, Beacon Sound reissued the album in 2016 to widespread acclaim.

After a limited self-release in 2022, Extravision, the deeply therapeutic musico-psychonautic offering from experimental guitarist Guy Blakeslee has received the Leaving Records “all genre” re-release treatment, with the understanding that more listeners should hear with this vulnerable and graceful document. The record is, in a word, a balm. Like a window flung open on a sweltering day, Extravision occasions the sudden awareness of space, of calm, of context, of possibility. The record also catalogs a musician’s search for meaning and healing in the wake of catastrophe. Since its initial run, Blakeslee has been bracingly open about Extravision’s genesis. On March 13th, 2020, while walking across the street, Blakeslee was struck by a car. Upon regaining consciousness the following day, the hospitalized Blakeslee found both the outer world and his inner world suddenly transformed. As lockdowns took effect, it was immediately clear that the brain injuries Blakeslee sustained had not only affected his vision but altered his very consciousness and would inevitably affect his music-making. From Los Angeles, to Virginia, to Baltimore, he pursued physical and spiritual recovery with music as his primary medicine. Sitting for hours at the piano, the man for whom guitar had always been the primary instrument now intuited the riddles and patterns laid out neatly before him in black and white. Armed with beginner’s mind and a cassette 4-track, Blakeslee began to experiment with wordless, impressionistic songcraft. Extravision is the transcendent result, an hour-plus compendium of humble and fiery dalliances with the musical and psychical unknown—a record from a lifelong musician rediscovering the joys and vexations of learning. Throughout Extravision, the guitar exists as both specter and reference. A majority of the album’s tracks notably do not feature any discernible guitar—the songs functioning as emotive, drone-based exercises in texture and duration. And yet, one never doubts the extent to which Blakeslee’s practice has been (and continues to be) informed by a uniquely American folk guitar idiom. We are, with Blakeslee as our guide, gladly charting the vast and newest horizons of so-called “American Primitive” music, now often referred to as “Cosmic American.” And when Blakeslee’s interdimensional guitar does eventually emerge — see the album’s fittingly final title track, “Extravision”— the sweetness, not untinged by loss, is palpable. Blakeslee has stated that his goal, with Extravision, is to induce in the listener a trance-like state, to inaugurate the conditions under which time might function “differently.” To be sure, the drones and gentle recurrent phrases that comprise much of Extravision are a welcome antidote to the now commonly felt acceleration of time. But it is the experience that Blakeslee is transmitting with and through and beyond these musical gestures—the experience of non-linear time, of total time-loss, of starting again, of retracing one’s steps and rerouting one’s journey—that challenges and rewards us.

'Science, Art And Ritual' is a story of ‘process'. Growing up in Harrow (a then quiet suburb of London) in the 70’s and 80’s from the age of about 10, Kingsuk Biswas aka Bedouin Ascent's ears opened up to sound as he scanned the airwaves. The undeniable righteousness of 80’s dub via David Rodigan’s Roots Rockers shows was the first prominent influence he received, and with punk roots —and his burgeoning record collection— became exposed to the breathless post punk experimentation that followed in the early 80’s sweeping up free jazz, noise, dub and much more. Throughout though, he maintained his fascination with Indian Classical music which was a mainstay in his parent’s house and spoke with the same infinite space as Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures', and King Tubby’s Studio dispatches. Through those teens he assembled and de-assembled, knocking about with fellow travellers —punk bands, garage, space rock, noise. Something was happening. On-U Sound, ECM, Factory Records kept him plugged in and sane. At that time Kingsuk's core studio setup revolved around his vintage Gretsch, Fender Jazz, Moog, TR-606 and rudimentary FX. He added congas, folk instruments, pipes, hand percussion, gongs, and jammed out shards of funk, noise, jazz fusion, electro and ambience into his hungry Tascam Portastudio. By 1987 these had morphed into what we’d now refer to broadly as techno, but the genre didn't exist beyond the reverberating walls of his bedsit, and he hadn’t yet plugged into the global conversation. 'Science, Art And Ritual' was released in 1994 by Rising High Records and was presented as Bedouin Ascent's debut album, although 'Music for Particles' (released in 1995, again on Rising High) was recorded even before —'SAR' sessions span from 1992-1993, whereas 'Music for Particles' were earlier from 1989-1992, with some older 4-track references from about 1986 too. Weaved in throughout the album are subconscious references to music that Kingsuk heard in the past that still remained within sight as companions. The opening track "Ancient Ocean III", referencing the extinct ocean Tethis, unapologetically channels Tackhead, Colourbox, Mantronix and Lee Perry. The style was also deliberately juxtaposed to the prevailing sound in techno at the time, which had locked onto a rigid form of symmetrical kicks and light snare drums. Elsewhere 80’s soul and funk are frozen and captured in fragile glass lattices. Electric pianos resound throughout, such as in "He Is She", probably a half-memory of 70’s MOR radio from childhood sleepy night drives. A duel between kick drums from three generations of Roland drum machines —TR-808, TR-707 and R-8— is a central theme in "Transition-R", all in conversation, calling and responding. These were not just machines to Bedouin Ascent, but part of an extended family, with heart and soul. Three decades after seeing the light, Lapsus is proud to present a special 30th anniversary reissue of this left-field techno gem in a repackaged and redesigned edition. All pressed on a deluxe 3LP marbled vinyl and including a limited lithographic insert print of the original album cover. All tracks have been restored and remastered directly from the original DAT tapes, and the album also features previously unreleased tracks such as "In the Clouds" and "Thru Water" —regularly performed live at that time and produced in the same period as the album sessions in 1993. 'Science, Art And Ritual’ may refer to esoteric traditions in Indian philosophy, but equally embodies the collision of the science, the art and the ritual that is at the core of being immersed in a deep musical journey.

Hometown to Come, the second full-length album by Minhwi Lee, is set to be released in November 2023. The eight tracks were written over a period of seven years after Lee's first album and loosely form a single story, contemplating how people who have lost their hometown can return. “What I had imagined from the title, Hometown to Come, was something forever delayed yet constantly approaching; however, upon repeated listens, it takes on a different meaning—a promise of hospitality being realized every day. Even if our places to meet disappear, ‘the song we sing today’ will remain. We will continue to grow, cross paths again, venture far away, and encounter more faces. And when time has passed and you, having forgotten me, ask about my smile or sadness, I will hum ‘the same song,’ cherishing it as a keepsake.” (morceau j. woo, sound designer)

Don't miss it! Known for his collaborations with big names such as Ry Cooder, Vampire Weekend and Moses Sumney, and as the leader of the jazz trio Inga, he has been active in a variety of fields, from psychedelic to outsider to meditative. This is a follow up to his last album, which was self-pressed in 2018 and has been reprinted many times since then and is a huge best seller in our store. The collaboration with Sam Wilkes is now available on cassette from Leaving Records, and is a continuation of the previous album recorded between 2017 and 2018. The album is a confident work that combines a sophisticated jazz mind with a unique, experimental sound that is full of the free spirit of the West Coast, and sublimates it into a unique, even meditative, sound. The muffled sound image with a perfect balance makes the listener feel even better. Limited edition of 350 pieces. Whether you were baptized by the previous album, missed it, or haven't experienced it yet, this is a must-have album for this year.

A new ambient/new age masterpiece is born, a must-have for those who love Japanese 80's ambient music/ambient by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Gigi Masin, H.Takahashi, Mary Lattimore, etc.! Constellation Tatsu, a famous label from Oakland, California, has been pushing the new age revival from the underground cassette scene, along with Rotifer, Inner Islands, and Leaving Records. From Constellation Tatsu comes the debut album by Loris S. Sarid, a musician and sound designer from Rome, Italy, now based in Glasgow, Scotland. This is the arrival of an up-and-coming artist who has managed to keep Hiroshi Yoshimura, H.Takahashi and Joseph Shabason on his toes, and is even looking ahead to the future. This is a piece of "environmental music for plants," created as a musical tribute to a tomato farm, inspired by the small tomatoes I tended on the windowsill of my apartment this winter. This year, Leaving released Green-House's debut EP, "Six Songs for Invisible Gardens," which was based on the concept of "communication between plant life and the people who grow it. A work! It is described as "a tribute to the casual courage in simplicity, and the beauty and lightness of casual things".

A new ambient/new age masterpiece is born, a must-have for those who love Japanese 80's ambient music/ambient by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Gigi Masin, H.Takahashi, Mary Lattimore, etc.! Constellation Tatsu, a famous label from Oakland, California, has been pushing the new age revival from the underground cassette scene, along with Rotifer, Inner Islands, and Leaving Records. From Constellation Tatsu comes the debut album by Loris S. Sarid, a musician and sound designer from Rome, Italy, now based in Glasgow, Scotland. This is the arrival of an up-and-coming artist who has managed to keep Hiroshi Yoshimura, H.Takahashi and Joseph Shabason on his toes, and is even looking ahead to the future. This is a piece of "environmental music for plants," created as a musical tribute to a tomato farm, inspired by the small tomatoes I tended on the windowsill of my apartment this winter. This year, Leaving released Green-House's debut EP, "Six Songs for Invisible Gardens," which was based on the concept of "communication between plant life and the people who grow it. A work! It is described as "a tribute to the casual courage in simplicity, and the beauty and lightness of casual things".

Some marriages are made in heaven and this is definitely one of them. Two of the great ambient masters of recent times concoct a stunning EP full of spine-tinglingly beautiful moments, subtle rhythms and soul-soothing tones. Echoes of Ry Cooder and Eric Satie mingle with found-sounds and warm electronics to create a landmark of ambient exotica.

Jan Jelinek is a German producer of minimal electronic music, and his masterpiece from 2001 has been hard to find for a long time. This is a monotone, minimalist inner-zone piece that uses abstract sampling from old jazz records as the centerpiece, with click and dub textures typical of Pole's ~scape label, and minimalist, small movements that intersect and expand endlessly. The content is universal enough to endure even after 20 years, and nowadays it is highly recommended for listeners other than techno and electronica. Mastered by the trusted Rashad Becker, the sound quality is outstanding.

Tristes Tropiques is an album of synthetic exotica, pseudo-ethnographic music and manipulated field recordings.
Find out more about Andrew Pekler’s Tristes Tropiques in the following interview:
Jan Jelinek: You’ve titled your album Tristes Tropiques – a reference to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ famous account of his travels among native peoples in the Mato Grosso. If I remember correctly, the book can be read in two ways: as an ethnographic study of indigenous Brazilian tribes, and as a critique of anthropological methods. What exactly about Tristes Tropiques inspired you? The melancholy travelogue, or the formation of a new, critical school of thought?

Andrew Pekler: Both. Lévi-Strauss’ constant reflection on the purpose of his work and the often melancholy tone of his writing constitute an internal tension which runs throughout the whole book. Tristes Tropiques is many things; autobiography, traveler’s tale, ethnographic report, philosophical treatise, colonial history. But ultimately, it’s the author’s attempt to synthesize meaning from fragments of his own and other cultures that resonated most strongly with me – and led me to a new perspective on how I hear and make music.

JJ: Listening to Tristes Tropiques I noticed a certain oscillation between references, which is what I really like about it. Obviously, your music alludes to the beloved fairytale kitsch of exotica, but it also repeatedly shifts to a mode of ethno-poetic meditation music that seems to have no beginning or end. Where do you yourself locate the tracks gathered here?

AP: As a listener and as a musician, exotica music of the 1950s and 60s has always been a constant reference point and inspiration. And perhaps my listening has been ‘ruined’ by exotica, but as I have dug deeper into ethnographic archives of ‘traditional’ music, I’ve come to the realization that all recordings that evoke, allude to, or ostensibly document other musical forms have a similar effect on my imagination: I am most intrigued when I perceive some coincidentally familiar element within the foreign (a tuned percussion recital from Malawi that immediately brings to mind Steve Reichian minimalism, or the Burundian female vocal duet that sounds uncannily like a cut-up tape experiment, etc.). I suppose this album is an attempt to recreate the same kind of listening experience as what I’ve described, just with the electronic means that I have at hand.

JJ: I know that you perform Tristes Tropiques not only as music, and that there is visual and spatial aspect to the presentation. Can you reveal more about this?

AP: I made an accompanying video – mainly close-up footage, shot in Thailand, of various tropical flora. The video was recorded at very slow speed and this gives the plants, flowers, trees, bamboo, etc. the appearance of rather abstract objects. In live performance, this abstracting effect is further emphasized through real-time modulation of the colors, brightness and other parameters of the video image. There is also an installation version of the video that is meant to be projected on multiple screens / walls and with its own soundtrack of heavily manipulated field recordings captured in the same locations in the jungle.

JJ: We can get an idea of what this looks like from the beautiful video stills on the back cover of the album.

Nearly 15 years have passed since the original was release in 2010 with all tracks lovingly remastered for this new remastered edition; which also includes STL's first ever remix and sounds just as beautiful as the day we first heard it! Deep, reduced dub-techno with ethereal production nuances from Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell. Both original tracks here reveal the duo's obsession with the likes of Maurizio, Basic Channel and Chain Reaction.

Originally released on tape in 2019, 'Big Room' helped establish Philly's Ulla Straus as one of the key figures in the post-"bblisss" wave of nu-ambient practitioners. Interchangeably glacial, gaseous and liquid, it's a rare downtempo tome that never shies away from sensuality and raw, messy emotionality. Gorgeous material: essential listening for anyone into Jake Muir, Perila, Shuttle358, Oval, Pendant or Space Afrika. 'Big Room' is a technically advanced record that never dangles its prowess in your face. Ulla's sound sculpting is remarkable, but the key to 'Big Room' is not her processing skill, it's her open-hearted emotional honesty. And if contemporary ambient and experimental music has been pocked by the Instagrammable nostalgia drip and hacky tacked-on PR narratives, 'Big Room' succeeds because it offers us a clear, demarcated alternative. Ulla doesn't need to shoehorn in a grandstanding press release or video footage of an elaborate modular setup to get our attention, the music does all the heavy lifting, drawing us in with clouded bathhouse textures and soft-focus dub rhythms, chiseled digital hiccups and levitational synthesizer loops. From the opening tones of 'Nana', with its sloshing pads and subtle glitches, to the dislocated wind chimes and blurry electronics of 'House', there's a resounding faded texture to Ulla's music that helps set a picture perfect mood. 'Big Room' is an album to lose yerself in - Ulla's able to dial in an aesthetic that goes beyond the surface level, piercing not just the production elements but the writing itself. Using relatively few elements, she's able to bridge the gaps between dub techno ('Net'), Mille Plateaux-esque processed glitch ('Past'), glowing Eno-influenced ambient ('Billow') and breathtaking arpeggio-led kosmische sounds ('Sister'), linking each track with her diaristic subtlety and careful choice of processes. In a forest of withered ambient mediocrity, 'Big Room' is a lonely, pristine evergreen - we just can't recommend it enough.

The KLF's 1990's great album that created ”Chill Out” zone and grew up ambient techno.

After critically acclaimed reissues of their mid-90s material, Seefeel return with their first new music since 2011.

Everything Squared is a one-off 6-track mini-album which presents a contemporary evolution of their trademark sound. Mainly composed and performed by the core duo of Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock, with bass on two tracks from Shigeru Ishihara.

Mastered by Berlin-based engineer Stefan Betke aka Pole at Scape Mastering, and housed in a sleeve designed by Ian Anderson at The Designers Republic.

UK hip-hop artist Roots Manuva's two classic albums Roots Manuva's two classic albums are reissued by Big Dada to commemorate the 25th anniversary of their release.

A classic. Boards of Canada's 1998 masterpiece, their first album.

Musician haruka nakamura will be in charge of in-store music at several Tsutaya stores in Japan for one year from 2023 to 2024. All music will be newly written for the Tsutaya project. Based on the concept of a bookstore and the theme of “forest,” the birthplace of pianos and musical instruments, four albums will be produced through the summer of 2024 under the title “Blue Forest,” which is connected to Nakamura's hometown, Aomori. The first album, the first synthesizer-only music, has become a topic of conversation and has been well received by many listeners. The second album is a piano ambient world. It was well received by listeners with its long-awaited musical worldview. This work is a world of blue like the dawn, as expressed in the jacket photo by Rinko Kawauchi. This is the third work in the series and the deepest blue sound as if diving into the deepest inner voice. The total conceptualization of the Blue Forest series has also been developed into a beautiful binding that you will want to keep with you.

Jiro Inagaki was one of the central musicians in the development of jazz rock in Japan. Sensing the limitations of existing jazz music, Inagaki said, “I want to play something that has never been done before, not to mention jazz rock, with a band that has a strong rock flavor,” and in 1969 he began working in earnest in the soul media. This work, “Head Rock,” recorded in 1970, symbolizes his activities and musicality.

Jiro Inagaki was one of the central musicians in the development of jazz rock in Japan. Sensing the limitations of existing jazz music, Inagaki said, “I want to play something that has never been done before, not to mention jazz rock, with a band that has a strong rock flavor,” and in 1969 he began working in earnest in the soul media. This work, “Head Rock,” recorded in 1970, symbolizes his activities and musicality.

Back in circulation after over a decade, Jahtari’s seminal “Jahtarian Dubbers Vol. 1 EP” receives the long-awaited reissue treatment, reviving the raw, 8-bit-infused dub vibes that defined a new era of digital roots music. Originally released in 2008 and quickly disappearing into dub obscurity, this heavyweight 12” returns with four essential cuts that perfectly encapsulate the Jahtari sound—where chiptune meets the echo chamber. The EP kicks off with Blaze Dem’s “Roots Defender,” a hypnotic concotion of deep basslines and eerie samples from a Swedish cult ritual, setting a heavy tone right from the start. disrupt’s cinematic “Kozure Okami” follows, channeling Black Ark vibes through 8-bit synth explorations. On the flip, John Frum delivers the hauntingly beautiful “January Dub,” while Rootah’s slomo slammer “Holy Mount Part 2” closes the EP with Lynchian, echo-soaked vibrations that linger long after the needle lifts. Timeless tracks, mastered by CGB-1 at D&M in Berlin for maximum impact. Pivotal piece of Dub music!