MUSIC

180g heavy vinyl. Recorded in 1958, exactly one year before the legendary 'Portrait in Jazz' album, this is Bill Evans' second album as a leader. With Sam Jones on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, the cover features endorsements and signatures from Miles Davis, George Shearing, Ahmad Jamal, and "Cannonball" Adderley, four of the biggest jazz players of all time. Peace Piece', which is described as "quieter than silence", is Evans' quintessential masterpiece, expressing deep lyricism and life in a beautiful silence.

This is the 1976 album by Weldon Irvine, an American jazz piano player who has a huge following among jazz and rare groove enthusiasts.

‘Conquering Lion’ stands as one of the few truly essential albums of the roots era. As devotional as anything by Burning Spear, as polemical as Bob Marley, and as militant as the Mighty Diamonds, the album also communicates a haunting spiritual quality that is uniquely its own. Amazingly, for such a coherent work, the tracks were recorded over a period of at least four years, yet come together to present a single coherent vision. The album was first issued in Jamaica by Micron, and in the UK with a different tracklisting as ‘Ram-A-Dam’ on the Lucky label in 1976. Here the album is presented for the first time in expanded form, together with its dub counterpart.

Vivian ‘Yabby You’ Jackson is often portrayed as a strange, otherworldly figure. Yet his life was filled with two opposing forces, the spiritual and the earthly. Even as Yabby was yearning for a higher plane of existence, he was scratching out a difficult living in the ghetto. Whilst warning of sinful secular behaviour, he was working at the race track taking bets. As well as creating some of the most powerful and heartfelt music to come out of Jamaica, Yabby was busy cutting deals with studios and musicians, and hustling round the record shops to sell his products. And these contradictions seem to have fuelled some of his best music, pushing him into places that other artists shied away from. When I had a couple of lengthy phone conversations with Yabby shortly before his death, his religious musings were frequently interrupted by the loud squawking of the chickens in his yard. If the theology he espoused seems stern and prescriptive, he could also be charming and generous in conversation.

‘You have the rasta business, like the rastamen believe Emperor Haile Selassie is the creator who create people. I used to try to show them he is just another man like anyone of we. I show them Jesus Christ is recorded in history as a great individual and him also great. So with God now: I was trying fe educate them and I feel like if I use music I will be able to spread out all over the world, spread out and reach those type of people, for them have a zeal for godliness.’

So Yabby’s religious views put him immediately at odds with rasta orthodoxy, and he often wore his belief as a shield against the world, certainly against the more ruthless side of the record business. Indeed Yabby’s personal dogma was sometimes deployed as a tactic to clinch a negotiation, by wearing down his ‘less godly’ opponent to the point of compromise. And the unshakeable strength of his beliefs gave rise to some of the deepest of roots music.

Run Come Rally + Rally Dub
The album opens with an immensely powerful call to turn away from the earthly wickedness of ‘the land of the sinking sand’ before the upcoming apocalypse. ‘The sun shall be darkened / And the moon shall be turned into blood / One of these days.’ ‘Run Come Rally’ was recorded by Lee Perry at his Black Ark Studios, and the dub contains typical disruptive Perry touches, like cutting in and out on isolated syllables of the voice.

Jah Vengeance + Tubby’s Vengeance
Amazingly the album’s second track intensifies the sentiments of the first: ‘Jah Vengeance surely will come down on anyone / Who still insists to stay in wicked Babylon’. Its release as a single was backed by a stark King Tubby’s dub which perfectly highlights the end of days sentiments of the vocal, but Yabby explained that the backing track was again recorded at the Black Ark: ‘Black Ark was a great studio and Lee Perry is really a great producer with a great sound. You know the tune named “Jah Vengeance” and the one named “Run Come Rally” and the first song Wayne Wade do named “Black Is Our Colour”? Well I did those three tunes at Black Ark. Them times there Bob Marley used to be up there. Lee Perry have a unique sound when you recording. Is a pity him turn to the mad business, but between me and you I don’t really think him mad, you know, him just turn to that business. Him had to keep off certain artists who come pressure him for money. But sometime me think him take it too far.’

Conquering Lion + Conquering Dub + Big Youth Fights Against Capitalist
One of the most devastating debut singles of all time, the vision recounted in ‘Conquering Lion’ gave the young Vivian Jackson his nickname of Yabby You. Yabby told me the history of how he created this classic, expanded here with two of its most imaginative versions, a mix from the ‘King Tubby’s Prophesy of Dub’ album, and the brilliantly named B-side of Big Youth’s ‘Yabby Youth’. ‘I recorded the riddim down at Dynamic – the drum, the bass, the riddim guitar and the organ. From the day it do at Dynamic everyone know say it going to be a hit. Waterhouse and Gullybank was an underworld place, where most of the sufferers come from, and they never expect someone from Gullybank would make that quality or make that type of riddim. So all of them things there add together a lickle bit. “Chinna” did play the guitar, Aston “Familyman” Barrett play the bass and Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace play the drum. I never have the experience to know say well I must get a 4 track tape so we just use 2 track tape. So after we put on the riddim pon one track, we only had one track left and “Familyman” dub the organ onto that second track. The rest of the instrument them me dub on afterwards at Tubby’s. We dub on the horns, the voices – like the lead and the two harmony. And then that inspired you as a singer now to sing pon it comfortable, you know.’

Covetous Men
A stinging denunciation of greed, Yabby’s lyrics here move from attacking avarice in general to exposing the exploitation of the poor, ‘The big fishes feeding on the small ones’. Sadly no dub version exists for this track, which balances its message of condemnation with the optimistic conclusion that ‘Just through our faith, that’s why we overcome’.

Anti Christ + Anti Christ Rock
Yabby rails against dissembling and hypocrisy on a track renamed ‘Dem-A-Wolf’ on the ‘Ram-A-Dam’ album. ‘See them there / Them favour Christ but them a Anti-Christ.’ The dub shows King Tubby masterfully emphasizing the ‘flyers’ drum pattern.

Carnal Mind
This is probably the closest Yabby ever came to invoking the sound of a Pentecostal church meeting, as verses from the Books of Romans and Psalms are quoted in an uplifting devotional. With no dub existing for this track, we can only speculate on how Tubby might have transformed it.

Jah Love + Jah Love Dub + Warning Version
Originally released as a single with the title ‘Warn The Nation’, the lyrics call for an escape from the mental chains of slavery: ‘No shackles on our feet, no whip on our back / Yet I and I must realize we are still being enslaved’. The two Tubby’s dubs bring out different nuances of the backing track, particularly the heavy one drop drums and their repeating hi-hat pattern.

Love Thy Neighbour + Love Thy Neighbour Version
Yabby casts himself as a preacher addressing his flock after a unique intro featuring Richard ‘Dirty Harry’ Hall playing the fife, a simplified flute that originated in medieval Europe, and in Jamaica is usually made from bamboo. ‘Me used the fife, and people always wonder where me get that sound. Well sometimes we used like three fifes, like lead, tenor and alto, and that fife thing was a unique special sound. Tommy McCook would play one fife and you had this brother named “Dirty Harry” who used to blow tenor sax too, and then me would dub back the third one on top. You see, horns take a lot of time and very expensive. And those days reggae music was very poor, and so most producers try fe avoid using horns.’

Love Of Jah + Love Of Jah Version
A simple song elevated by strong harmonies and a plaintive lead, the dub version is sparse and stripped down, highlighting the insistent percussion.

The Man Who Does The Work + Work Without Pay Version
Like ‘Love Thy Neighbour’, this version is mixed without clean drums and bass. Both versions are compelling nonetheless: here echoes on the organ catch the ear, and both versions show varying degrees of high pass filtering across the mix. ‘Tubby’s have that precise timing like with all the echo. And him have that high pass filter – him have that sound inside of the board, and him did arrange it. Him was one of the greatest engineer, and him was a technician too, and him develop the sounds, like all the bass – him have resistors and things there and him make it become more round.’

Yabby’s music is both intense and warmly human, both militant and yet strangely fragile, a quality it shares with some of the greatest instrumentals by Augustus Pablo, who appears here on piano. The songs are defiant and strong, but at times seem almost translucent, inviting the listener in to share the vision of their composer. With King Tubby’s dub mixes reassembling the songs into fascinating new patterns, ‘Conquering Lion’ is a timeless classic of Jamaican reggae.
Diggory Kenrick

Modern Obscure Music turns to Japan for inspiration. Suemori debuts on the Barcelona based imprint with an album of striking textures and sounds. From the first track, you can feel the influence of the Far East in both the melodies and rhythms created by Suemori. The music is complemented by Mayte Nicole Esteban’s impressive artwork. Suemori’s real name is Yoshinobu Hoshina. He previously recorded as Hoshina Anniversary. Under this alias, Hoshina released music on labels such as Boysnoize Records and ESP Institute. As Suemori he released the Maebashi album earlier in 2021 on Elena Colombi’s Osàre! Editions imprint. Tawamure is an album of richly textured compositions. Pianos and electronics are equally important. Some tracks are beatless and others have an unorthodox approach to percussion. We begin with the playful yet sombre pianos and strings of Mou Aenaindesune もう会えないんですね. Honshin 本心 has a magical beauty and Konton 混沌 Chaos is as chaotic as you would expect. There is so much to explore on this wonderful album from Suemori.

Born from ten-hour jam sessions in peeling Brighton bedsits, the technical parameters of a bootstrap recording process and the osmotic, multi-genre influence of internet music archives, quintet Ebi Soda have been steady-cultivating a unique sound amidst the exploding UK jazz scene.

Balancing irreverent musical and technical improvisation with an uncompromising instinct for vibe and prodigious musicianship, the Ebi ascent has been swift. Their eponymous debut EP, follow-up aptly titled “Bedroom Tapes” and debut LP ‘Ugh’ were originally released on Sola Terra, and won international plaudits, major radio plays and performances at Gilles Peterson’s We Out Here, London’s Jazz Re:Freshed, EFG London Jazz Festival and Latitude.

Despite their steep rise – the Brighton outfit have preserved as much as possible of their unique recording process, originating from their very first sessions. With just a two-track recorder around, the band would lay down whole takes, one instrument at a time, then immediately transform the overdub, digitally reshaping the sound with the same mischievous, adderall energy as the musical performance. This call-and-response between performance and production spurs an instinctive development – with musicality, player and producer egging one another on through naturally developing phases and textures.

‘Honk If You’re Sad’, their sophomore full-length album, stays true to these foundations, while bringing more ambitious experimentation, technical mastery and a stellar lineup of guest players to the studio including Yazz Ahmed, Deji Ijishakin and Dan Gray.

In typical Ebi style, while recalling jazz pioneers in playing style, ‘Honk If You’re Sad’ draws from a vast neural network of influences: the Ebi Brain has been marinating in a digital soup of trap, drill, dub, post-punk and no wave to name but a few. The result is a mercurial record that beams in psychedelia, dissonance, serene ambient passages, tough, neck-snapping beats and lush textures, all underscored by the intersection of jazz, hip hop and electronic music.

Across opening heaters, “Tang of the Zest” and “My Man from College”, Will Heaton’s trombone growls in and out of focus over a tight uptempo breakbeat. Deji Ijishakin’s tenor sax solo shrieks and shudders between lush layers of sound. Driving basslines, liquid keys, murmuring dissonant brass, delay and hazy reverb tumble into progressive cycles of frenetic climax and oceanic calm.

These patterns recur over the record. “Giraffe Bread” and “Listen, King” opens with a tight funk on the bass; short crisp phrases from drummer Sam Schlich-Davies dissipate in cascading dub echoes and the track opens into an instrumental, psychedelic jam, with rippling synth pads and trombone murmurs peeking out from a deep, reverberating soundscape. Ijishakin’s hyperactive sax solo on “Gated Community with a Public Pool” sits on a glitched-out rhythm section: a rocking, window-shaking bassline and sparse stuttering drums.

From influences as diverse as Kokoroko, Can, Lounge Lizards, BadBadNotGood, Ronin Arkestra, and The Fall, ‘Honk if You’re Sad’ focuses a cohesive whole; an explorative, playful and technically brilliant record that coaxes the listener through immersive phases of fun, chaos and harmony. 

"Amassakoul", the follow-up to "The Radio Tisdas Sessions", has been remastered and reissued with additional previously unreleased material. Featuring bouncy rhythms, desert rumblings, and of course electric guitars, four guitars growl and groove in the vast desert. The riffs are more diverse and the musical maturity is evident on this masterpiece! The first pressing will be on Indigo vinyl and will include a 24-bit WAV download card.

The underground music scene in Asia has experimented a notorious rise in the last years, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand or South Korea are more inside the radar than ever, contributing actively with amazing djs and super talented producers; creating an effervescence subculture where to keep an eye on. Multifaceted producer Mogwaa is not a stranger anymore, awarded in 2021 with best electronic album of the year in South Korea, his versatility and skills have found a place in labels as "Klasse Records", "Spring Theory" or Sound Metaphors' "Bless You" among others. We are glad to present one of the most awaited records on MM Discos; “Del Mar” is a bliss of fresh air, a story about all this little things that make us dream everyday. “The Sea” as the main actor of the movie orchestrated by Mogwaa and supported by crackles, waves and little islands where to get lost in.

Chris Korda is an internationally renowned multimedia artist, whose work spans thirty years and includes electronic music, digital and video art, performance and conceptual art, and culture jamming. Chris pioneered the use of complex polymeter in electronic dance music, and invented a unique MIDI sequencer in order to explore polymeter composition techniques. Chris composes and performs music in a variety of genres, and has released many albums on labels such as Perlon, Mental Groove, and Gigolo Records. Chris also worked as a computer programmer for thirty-five years. Her new album "Passion For Numbers" is one of the very few album in the world entirely composed in complex polymeter, meaning that each pieces of music uses several prime meters simultaneously. A unique way to compose music with a new generation of musical algorithmic, inside which Korda injects the DNA of neo classical, ambient and jazz music. This refreshing album will please you whether you are into complex musical composition, experimental music or just seeking for a beautiful, emotional and accessible musical moment. This is a "In your hearts not the charts" album, as Irdial Discs once said. Pleases read an extract of Chris Korda's letter about Passion For Numbers, included as insert in its entirety in this vinyl release: This is an album of piano music, but I wrote it without a piano. Not having a piano turned out to be constructive, because I had to rely on my brain instead of my fingers, and particularly on my imagination and inner hearing. The album belongs to a category called phase music, and it’s also algorithmic, or more precisely rules-based generative music. I don’t write music in the usual sense of the word “write.” I build kinetic sculptures, and the sculptures generate my music. My sculptures are virtual, meaning they’re invisible machines that exist only as data within my home-grown software. My process is related to the work of a relatively obscure early 20th century artist named Thomas Wilfred. Like me, Wilfred was an engineer-artist, and built machines that generated art from phase shift. My music is in complex polymeter, meaning it’s not just in odd time, but in multiple odd time signatures, and not one odd time signature after another sequentially, but all of them running concurrently. Most music isn’t constructed this way, which is why I needed to develop custom software in order to compose my music. My software is called The Polymeter MIDI Sequencer, and you can easily find it on the Internet. I also use music set theory, change-ringing and gray code, explanations of which can be found in Wikipedia. Chris Korda (extract from "Passion By Numbers" liner notes)

Dublin-based dub techno producer Odd Ned released great Dub Techno album from the very mysterious Irish label , which started its activities in 2018 and is gradually gaining underground popularity with good releases by very cult act such as Nashpaints and Frog Of Earth. An experimental dub techno album where a strong rhythm / bass skeleton, aquatic dub ambience, and derailed and freaky electronics intersect! 4-panel digipak CD.

Legendary Midwest electronic producer, the sadly departed LeRon Carson's late 80's productions are gathered on Sound Signature with this impressive overview of his work. ‘Under The Conditions’ is vintage, raw Chicago house music in the vein of his previous releases on Theo Parrish's esteemed label. Fans of Virgo Four's lush deep house trax should definitely check this out.

Includes a long version of "Get Down on It" sampled by Snoop Dogg & 98 Degrees and the original studio version of "Summer Madness".

Legendary performer Nico of the Velvet Underground released his last album in 1985. Featuring The Faction as his backing band, this eight-track album features the lead singer's voice and readings, striding with overwhelming presence through a variety of post-noise, industrial, and improvisational productions.　The album, which is also considered to be Nico's best work in the latter half of his career, includes a cover of the jazz standard "My Funny Valentine". For this RSD release, the album has been remastered from the original analog tapes to 24-bit HD audio, and reissued on blue vinyl in limited quantities.

Everything Pale Blue is the first collection of ambient music by New York City-based composer and Au Revoir Simone keyboardist Annie Hart. Performed on analog synthesizers and processed through daisy chains of delay, reverb and loop effects, Everything Pale Blue’s warm, sonorous tones and trance-like, minimalist arrangements recall the work of pioneering electronic music composers Wendy Carlos, Éliane Radigue and Brian Eno, as well as German Kosmische Musik groups of the 70’s like Kraftwerk, Cluster and Tangerine Dream.

Throughout Everything Pale Blue, Hart’s gentle arpeggios and playful melodic figures echo the harmonies and rhythms of our natural world, from the cycles of flora, fauna and weather patterns to the orbits of celestial bodies. Everything Pale Blue’s four gorgeously expansive instrumental tracks reward patient listeners seeking calm, melody and meditation.

Annie Hart explains:

“I began composing Everything Pale Blue in November 2020 at an artist’s residency near Oneonta, New York called Aunt Karen’s Farm, which was funded through a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, whose mission is to support arts created by people with children. Normally, it’s a hub of activity, but due to COVID, it was just me, and for part of the time, my family, sharing an open, empty farm space; a true retreat. At first I was a bit bored by the same scenery every day in such a gloomy, wet, gray season, but after a while I started seeing the minute daily changes in the nature around me. Every day I went on walks through fallow fields spiked with mown straw, sometimes wet with mud, sometimes caked with snow, and on some magical days, encased in crystalline ice. I started seeing the trees around the farm as individuals, with their own personalities. I saw the leaves change on the ground from yellow and brown, to dry brown blowing ones, to wet, dark brown precursors to soil that would then nurture the same trees they came from. Obviously, in New York City, we see trees every day, but it is incredibly rare to witness their symbioses with each other and the soil and animals. I started noticing the differences in the bird songs of each species and their various moods.

“At the start of my residency, I visited Green Toad Bookstore in Oneonta where I was drawn to the 33 1/3 book on Another Green World by Geeta Dayal. She’s a great writer and laid Eno’s processes and philosophies out in an incredibly tangible way. I savored that book and bought AGW on iTunes and would listen on repeat while I ate my suppers. I had intended to use my time at the farm to finish recording a pop record, but I soon started sliding out of the typical song structure mentality and sliding into a playing/listening mentality. And I mean “play” in the childish sense. I brought my Oblique Strategies cards that I got for my birthday and I started just going to the recording studio I’d set up in the farmhouse’s living room and doing wild experiments.

“I’d brought along a few of my analog synthesizers (a Minimoog Model D, a Sequential Prophet-6, a Yamaha CP-20) plus some delay, reverb and loop effects. I started to think about just how meditative, playful and creative I could be within small parameters. I composed “Somebody Moves, Nobody Talks” like that, with the idea of how to make my own version of Eno’s studio with tape going around the room, looped on pencils.

“It was incredible to see the shift in my mentality over the time at the farm. To go from gripping and holding to just playing; allowing myself the freedom to create without guilt or responsibility, to see the shifts in my abilities as a composer and musician. It was absolutely magical and I consider that month an incredibly formative one that I am so lucky to have been able to attend and appreciate.” 

Limited cassette edition with 6 additional tracks not included on the vinyl. Brother Theotis Taylor is a 92-year-old spiritual singer and piano player known throughout South Georgia and beyond for his powerful voice and heavenly falsetto. His music took him from his home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, to the stage with Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, to Harlem’s Apollo, and even to Carnegie Hall.

Though his releases are limited to six stunning and rare singles on the Pitch label and a single small-press LP, his recorded archive is vast. For much of his life, Brother Taylor kept a reel-to-reel recorder atop his piano at home.

“The music just comes down on you,” Brother Taylor told us late last year. “You always have your machine where you can catch everything. ‘Cause what you can catch today you can’t remember tomorrow.”

Brother Taylor recorded himself on his DIY home setup only when he was inspired by a higher power, often fasting and praying for days before recording. These intimate home recordings were digitized in 2020 and are being heard for the first time with this release.

Revisiting these old songs brought Brother Taylor to tears. “[When I hear this music] I pick up the same spirit that I did it in. And you see me cryin’. It made me feel good ‘cause I know I did it and I did it well. And I want to see it get out, because if it made me feel good, it make somebody else feel good. Right? This is spiritual music.”

Each of these tape versions contains several additional songs that don't appear on the LP versions, and are 1 hour running length! Professionally dubbed tapes, fancy printed colored shells with color 3-panel covers, and download cards. Shipping now and going fast! The Space Lady began her odyssey on the streets of San Francisco in the late ‘70s, playing versions of contemporary pop music an accordion and dressed flamboyantly, transmitting messages of peace and harmony. Following the theft of her accordion, The Space Lady invested in a then-new Casio keyboard, birthing an otherworldly new dimension to popular song that has captured the imaginations of the underground and its lead exponents ever since, with the likes of John Maus, Erol Alkan and Kutmah being devotees. Of her early street sets, only one recording was made, self-released originally on cassette and then transferred to a home-made CD. The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits (LSSN021) features the best of these recordings―mostly covers but with some originals―pressed on vinyl for the first time and features archival photographs and liner notes from The Space Lady herself. Greatest Hits contains The Space Lady’s personal favourites; her haunting take on The Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night),” a frantic “Ballroom Blitz” amidst other reconstructed pop music. Included are also four originals that easily match for the Pop canon. Following the release of this archive, The Space Lady will be issuing new material and travelling the world to present her message outside the United States for the first time. In the mid ‘90s The Space Lady packed away her Casio synth and silenced her distinctive voice, retiring from the streets of San Francisco. Now, more than 30 years after her initial forays on Haight Ashbury, she has surfaced with the first ever official release of her timeless, startling music and, even more remarkably, has re-started her live career. Now in Colorado, The Space Lady continues to spread her message of peace, harmony and love.

Rooms With Walls and Windows is the first album by Seattle-by-way-of-Chicago-by-way-of-Buffalo singer, songwriter & guitarist Julie Byrne. Blending psychedelic & traditional folk elements, Julie Byrne creates a highly personal & quietly mystical world that echoes the early work of Leonard Cohen & Vashti Bunyan. Rooms With Walls and Windows' twelve tracks were collected from two limited edition cassette releases, recorded between 2011 & 2012 by Jake Acosta in Chicago, IL. Each song was recorded live, with Julie accompanying herself on fingerpicked acoustic guitar or keyboard. Rooms With Walls & Windows was lovingly remastered for vinyl by Owen Ashworth & Matthew Barnhart.

Mike Hanapi (1898-1958), a famous steel guitarist and vocalist from Honolulu, Hawaii, left behind one of the greatest collections of pre-war Hawaiian music in the 20th century with his Kalama's Quartet. This is the long awaited analog reissue of the original 78rpm disc with remastering! This is a miraculous reissue of a number of recordings that have never before been reissued in any format. Gorgeous falsetto voice with a bottomlessly beautiful clarity and presence, and harmonious voice with a backing band as rich as a lonely yodel. Purely acoustic instruments such as lap steel guitar, ukulele, and harp guitar are gently woven into the vocal melodies, creating fluid, harmonious layers and hauntingly beautiful blue notes. This is truly peaceful, serene, and unique music. Reverse board jacket, 8-page full-size booklet with biography, rare photos, and full lyrics in Hawaiian and English.

Gorgeous and hypnotic Tanzanian dance music from the legendary Kiko Kids Jazz, a group that formed in the 1950s and produced a unique sound that stood out among the explosion of Tanzanian guitar bands in the run-up to the country's independence. Kiko Kids Jazz is the first LP album from Mississippi. With the endorsement of bandleader Salim Zahoro (1936-2021), who completed the collaboration shortly before his death at the age of 85, this is the first LP release of one of the most locally loved and innovative bands of the time. Remastered from the original tapes and pressings. The album explodes with funky, pastoral guitar music grooves inspired by the exciting music scene of acoustic and electric dance bands in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, as well as the poetic strains of Taarab and Arabic music. A full-size color insert (8 pages) is included. Officially licensed by Mzuri Records.

First ever vinyl collection of the legendary “Kostis,” the most enigmatic of all Greek rebetika artists. 12 tracks of truly unique guitar duets and black-humor lyrics chronicling the hash dens, prison culture and pickpockets of old Athens. Recorded under a pseudonym for export to the Greeks living in America, research has uncovered the musician, journalist and cartoonist Kostas Bezos as the figure lurking behind the Kostis name, with ties to the famous singer Tetos Demetriades. Renowned for his slide guitar playing in Hawaiian-style orchestras throughout the 1930s, the Kostis recordings reveal an entirely different underworld of the macabre and illicit. The use of guitar in these now-classic rebetika songs display a virtuosity of finger-picked Near-Eastern modes and unusual tunings at the dawn of rebetika, when the bouzouki was yet to become supreme.Presented in pristine audio quality mastered from original 78 rpm discs by Michael Graves, “The Jail’s a Fine School” stands as an important document of an enduring mystery in Greek music, and a high standard for what was once a truly subversive art form.

“hi leaves” is the new full-length record from soft tissue, the duo of Glasgow-based artists Feronia Wennborg and Simon Weins. Following their self-titled debut for Penultimate Press in 2019, this collection examines microsound by way of extended amplification technique, bone conduction, domestic recordings, and digital feedback. Tracks like “plant pot” and “kettle” appear to disclose their source material, presenting wonderfully tactile environments of highly articulate sound. Wennborg and Weins prove themselves to be masterful arrangers of discrete, organic material, weaving together knotty and immersive compositions from these sharp, prickly sounds. Ultimately, soft tissue inhabits an intoxicating soundworld somewhere in between the patient abstractions of composerly EAI music, the haptic indulgences of ASMR, and the diffuse digital pastorals of the 90’s a-musik/Cologne scene.

The fifth instalment of Ilian Tape’s Ilian Beat Series finds veteran Dutch producer Kid Sundance providing a fruitful selection of sample heavy hip hop tracks. ‘Neptunes’ opens with metal creaks and groans, eerie yet smooth, meanwhile Rones plays spacey, dreamy synths on ‘Wooden Loft’. The luscious delivery of ‘Ero’ combines the jazz expertise of Shigeto with loops programmed akin to Brainfeeder's Teebs. Tien Seconden feels like a lost beat tape from the 90s, with the warm crackle of Kid Sundance’s weapon of choice the EMU SP1200 coming through in spades, but an unmistakable modern glamour shines through.

Kazuo Imai is one of the few artists to traverse both Japan's early avant-garde and free jazz movements. Though he began performing in the 1970's, his 2004 P.S.F. album "far and wee" was only the second under his name. In a series of thrilling acoustic guitar improvisations - Imai's playing crackles with dynamic tension and physicality as well as a subtlety and nuance that reveals him as one of the instrument's true masters and innovators. Newly mixed and remastered under Imai's supervision, available for the first time ever on LP. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI and housed in heavy Stoughton "tip-on" jacket with laminate gloss finish and additional insert. Originally released on CD in 2004 by P.S.F. Records, Japan.

狂風暴雨，神獸互搏，溫柔的交織 An enchanting "in distance" collaboration between cello noise and percussions, weaving the sound of a harsh and dreamy landscape. 「這張專輯密集地撰寫著高功率的官能性噪音音樂，在藝術家和混音師的努力下抵達『好聽的噪音』的那個境界。」 "This album is a dense collection of high-powered, functional noise music, the artists and the sound engineer have reached that 'euphonious noise' level. " - 空之穴 holeinthesky This is a recording between two friends in Beijing and London during the pandemic, a wonderful long-distance collaboration. After releasing her critically acclaimed debut solo album '卵生 Oviparity' (The Wire's Top 50 of 2020), Sheng Jie 盛潔(a.k.a gogoj) continues to explore her own unconventional path in tandem experimentation with electric cellos and effects, while Shen Jing 沈靜 (a.k.a Shenggy, former drummer of the legendary Beijing punk band 'Hanging on the Box'), who has been in the music scene since the 90s, she started to develop her solo project in the field of industrial music, ambient and analogue synthesizers since 2003, for this record she returns to her role as a drummer, adding also gamelan and various percussion instruments from different parts of the world. A free, chaotic yet tender piece of work is what they deliver. 這是一份疫情期間的創作，分別身處北京和倫敦的兩位好友，心有靈犀完成了這份精彩的遠程合作。在出版了首張個人實體專輯《卵生》並且大獲好評（2020年英國《The Wire》雜誌年底50佳）後，盛潔（a.k.a gogoj）繼續在電子大提琴和效果器的各種串聯調試中探索著自己的非常規演奏道路，而作為90年代就已進入音樂領域的沈靜（a.k.a Shenggy，傳奇朋克樂隊“掛在盒子上”前鼓手），自2003開始就在工業音樂、氛圍、模擬合成器的領域不斷孕育自己的個人計劃，這次她又重拾鼓手的身份，使用鼓、甘美蘭、和其他多種世界不同地區的民間打擊樂器，和盛潔碰撞出了這張自由、狂躁卻又溫柔的作品。

Mega rare 1974 jazz funk rock album recorded by Argentina’s top jazzmen Pocho Lapouble, Ricardo Lew and Adalberto Cevasco (also members of Quinteplus, Jorge Lopez Ruiz’s band and Gato Barbieri’s group among many others). Includes the irresistible fast-paced funk rock track ‘Se Acabó el Recreo’ and the ethereal ‘Todo en Su Medida y Armoniosamente’ and ‘Haceme Shaft’, featuring Patricia Clark on vocals and unexpected moog arrangements. First time reissue, with remastered sound and original artwork.