MUSIC

Seminal Japanese jazz album from 1971. Journeys through jazz fusion, soul and big band moods. Impossible to obtain in its original format, these days. Hozan Yamamoto was recognised as a "living national treasure" by the Japanese government in 2002. This highly sought-after album from the Japanese wood flute player is more upbeat and swinging than some of his other records. The big band he recorded this album with (Sharps & Flats) played a big part in the genesis of the album’s groove. Forming in 1951, they helped to make jazz popular in Japan after World War II. Yamamoto's flute lines weave over the heavy brass sound and groove, creating an MPS label blending of funky jazz and Japanese vibes. The closest comparison would be Dorothy Ashby's grooviest albums for Chess / Cadet – substituting Yamamoto’s flute for the harp. Licensed courtesy of Universal Music Group Limited.

The American jazz-funk/boogie group Ambiance, led by Nigerian player Daoud Abubakar Balewa, who played saxophone, flute and clarinet, was active in LA from the late 70s to early 80s. spiritual jazz funk/fusion masterpiece released by Ambiance in 1980! This is the first analogue reissue of this spiritual jazz funk/fusion masterpiece from the connoisseurs HIGH JAZZ! "Drift Up To Space" is an anthem with sweaty interplay that explodes from the very beginning, and "Devika" is a spiritual jazz fusion that blows a cool breeze with divine grace. Just By Chance" with the amazing female scat is also amazing!

This second album consists of covers of Nena Cherry's "My Love", Bim Sherman, Horace Andy, B.B. Seaton, and others. The impulse and sharpness of punk and dub are still intact, but the melodic side is also present, making this album more listenable than the first. This is a milestone of post-punk/dub, completed by Adrian's divine dub mixing of rhythms created by Eskimo Foxx, Krushal Tony, and George Orban, who were also active in Creation Level and Aswad.

Foundation Steppers" is their third album, following the shocking first and second albums, and includes their signature song "Some Love". The tingling sensation of the previous albums was overshadowed, and the sound was closer to roots reggae, with more warmth. Frontwoman Ali Up moved to Jamaica and had a session with Style Scott at the legendary Channel One and the tapes were mixed by Adrian Sherwood. The result is an album of the highest quality, approaching reggae while breaking with tradition with colorful synth sounds and a post-punk sense of production. This is the first vinyl reissue since the original release!

Leon Ware ( 1940-2017 ) is a singer-songwriter/arranger from Detroit who has been active since the 1970s and has released works on such labels as United Artists Records and Elektra, and is also known for his work producing Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye. 1940-2017). His latest album, his last, is out now on Be With. The album is a double-pack of songs by Ronald Bruner Jr, a drummer known as Thundercat's brother, Stephen Bruner, Kamasi Washington, Ariana Grande, and singer Taura Stinson, who also sings backing vocals for Usher.

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

This is an analog reissue of the 1956 album "Exotica" by Martin Denny, the undisputed king of exotic fantasy music! Once you drop the needle, you're transported to another world... A monumental album that launched Denny's 30-year career and opened up a whole new genre of exotica music! As the tropical mood from the iconic artwork suggests, the album showcases the full range of fantastic space-age sounds that reek of exoticism and imaginary charm.

The title track, which uses the entire B-side, is excellent. The album was recorded in 1972, the same year as his masterpiece "Space Is The Place", and has been reissued on 180g Discipline 27-II!
The album includes "Pan Afro," a modern Afro-jazz masterpiece, and "Discipline 27-II," one of Sun Ra's best songs, which features Sun Ra at the center of a floating Saturn circle, delivering words to the people of this world from there. Especially the title track "Discipline 27-II" is one of the songs that fans cannot ignore. This is a great album with great artwork.

Black Saint present a reissue of Archie Shepp's A Sea of Faces, originally released in 1975. Recorded in Milan (Italy), A Sea of Faces stands as one of Shepp's strongest recordings of the '70s. A highly varied program, covering Shepp's entire spectrum and performed by an all-star line-up featuring Archie Shepp (tenor & soprano sax, piano, vocals), Charles Greenlee (trombone, tambourine, vocals), Dave Burrell (piano), Cameron Brown (bass), Beaver Harris (drums, tambourine, vocals), Rafi Taha (vocals), and Bunny Foy (vocals, maracas, percussion). The album includes the famous 26-minute long "Hypnosis," a groovy extended jam in full spiritual Jazz mode.

Recorded and released in 1959, Jazz in Silhouette is considered by many to be one of interplanetary traveler and jazz legend Sun Ra's best records from his Chicago period. Featuring long-time collaborators Marshall Allen, James Spaulding, and John Gilmore, Jazz in Silhouette has an exotic soundtrack vibe; it's dark, smoky, and absolutely stunning. An essential piece of American jazz history from one of the most unique artists of the 20th century.

The voice of a soul that has gone through loneliness and despair. The night before the legendary ESP and Impulse recordings. Originally released in only 10 promo copies, this is the earliest recording of Albert Ayler at the Academy of Modern Arts in Stockholm on October 25, 1962. Despite being away from home and unfamiliar with the band members, the familiar standart numbers grab your attention with the roar of Ayler's soul.

John McLaughlin commented that he "went into a kind of trance and saw visions of myself flying to Africa" after listening to this album. "Dimensional Ascent" is a masterpiece of collective free improvisation released in 1965, when Coltrane entered the field of free jazz in earnest. 180g vinyl

Recorded at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California, October 1972.

He has collaborated and performed with Kamasi Washington, Thundercat and Carlos Niño. Jamael Dean is a 20-year-old jazz pianist & producer who is influenced by legendary soul jazz drummer and his grandfather, Donald Dean, as well as Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane, and his latest cassette is out now on the prestigious Stones Throw label. Dean's debut album, co-produced by Carlos Niño, was a hit at Stones Throw, and he's back with a 30-minute cassette album of three lengthy tracks. The album features jazz singer Sharada Shashidhar (Leaving Records), with whom he collaborated on his debut, viola player/arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, who has also worked with Masaaki Hara of dublab.jp's "rings" and "Alpha Pup," and Aaron Shaw. Aaron Shaw, and other gorgeous musicians. With soaring piano, a sacred horn section, and Shashidhar's lustrous vocals, this is a masterpiece that updates Alice Coltrane and Herbie Hancock to the present day, while blasting out tremendous soul jazz vibes!

The singular expressions of music across Indonesia are seemingly limitless, though few are as dynamic and hold such a colorful history as jaipongan of West Java. The form of jaipongan we know today was born from the fields of Java where an early form of music called ketuk-tilu echoed over fields during harvest times. Known for intense and complex drumming coordinated with equally dynamic solo female dancing, ketuk-tilu performances included a rebab (a small upright bowed instrument), a gong, and ketuk-tilu (“three kettle gongs”). Though the original performance context of this music revolved around planting and harvesting rituals, with the singer accepting male dancing partners, over time ketuk-tilu became an outlet for village life expressing fertility, sensuality, eroticism, and, at times, socially accepted prostitution. Activities in the first half of the twentieth century that were best suited amongst the elements of harvest and outside of urban criticism.

Fast forward to 1961, the year the Indonesian government placed a ban on Western music, most specifically rock and roll, ostensibly to revive the traditional arts and have the country refocus on Indonesian ideals. Though, this attempt to reclaim, and in many ways conservatize, musical output had an unexpected musical outcome. In the early 70s the composer and choreographer Gugum Gumbira (1945-2020) took it upon himself to retrofit and creatively expand the core elements of ketuk-tilu into a contemporary form. One that would harness ketuk-tilu’s core dynamics and nod to the government’s pressure to revive traditional forms, while creating a fresh and socially acceptable art form where enticing movements, intimate topics and just the right degree sensuality had a collective musical expression. Born was jaipongan.

Musically, Gumbira added in the gamelan thereby augmenting the overall instrumentation especially the drums. Importantly, he brought a new and very focused emphasis to the role of the singer allowing them to concentrate solely on their voices opposed to dancing as well. These voices weren’t there to narrate upper class lifestyles or Western flavored ideals (and colonial mentalities in general), but the worldview and woes of the common people of West Java. Intimacy, love, romance, money, working with the land, life’s daily struggles and the processes of the natural world were common themes in jaipongan that ignited the hearts of the people and directly spoke to both the young and old. The two timeless voices that would define the genre and fuel it to echo out across the globe were Idjah Hadjijah, featured here, and Gugum’s wife, Euis Komariah (1949-2011), two nationally cherished voices that catapulted the genre into the sensual, elegant and other-wordly.

Movement-wise, Gumbira included some of the original sensual moves of ketuk-tilu and intertwined them with movements based on the popular martial art called pencack silat. With just enough new and just enough old, and just enough safe and just enough bold, men and women danced together in public in ways never allowed before. The genre and its performances were an oasis for the optimal amount of controlled intimacy and sexual nuance to be socially acceptable. Jaipongan was embraced by a country longing for new societal norms and creative expressions.

All these elements combined rooted Jaipongan in the hearts of West Java and set the genre on fire. Gumbira established his own studio, Jugala studio in the city of Bandung, where a cast of West Java’s best players resided. This record, as well as hundreds more that have defined music in West Java of every style, were recorded there. Radio, a booming cassette industry, and live performances of jaipongan flooded the country, so much so that the government's attempts to reel it in were futile. Jaipongan had tapped into the hearts, daily worldview, airwaves and clubs of West Java and wasn’t going anywhere. And by listening here, it’s still as alive as ever.

The meaning of “Kanawa” is so simple. We see our children trying to cross the ocean all the time. I said that many of our children die in the ocean and some of them while crossing the Sahara. Some climb over the wires across the borders and they have gotten shot. We have asked them not to leave and instead stay home. But I ask them why do they leave their country? Why do they decide to go? They said that they leave because of the family situation or problems, poverty, and unemployment. We told them if ever they are to leave, they should privilege legal ways. They should abide by laws vigorously when they are to emigrate. That’s better than hiding in boats or adopting other illegal means. I ask them to stay and work in their country. So that we can help each other find a solution to this problem. I call on the UN and African leaders so that we can coordinate our efforts to find a solution, to create jobs for them so that young people stop leaving. This song is about that message and I chose it as the title of my album because I like it. My choice is because it is very meaningful and it is something we see on a daily basis. I chose it in order to alert and sensitize everybody about this question of illegal immigration. To sensitize our brothers and sisters. It is a message. That’s why I chose it as the title of my album so that everybody can learn from it and also so that there is a reduction in the number of people emigrating. To sensitize them so that some can stay home and grow the land. Leaving is not the only solution. That’s my message. 
— NAHAWA DOUMBIA


The debut album by C. Blumberg (living in Berlin DE) is a series of composite images. Anecdotes with distorted perspectives. Documents or maps - impressions...? However if you look a bit closer you see something very different, quite like a technologic fantasy. The second track, ¿À´ñ¿¹ÎӾ峤 (tr. Shanghai Magical Forest), holds a certain key to enter the psyche of the album. Here Blumberg is inspired by a photo found on Flickr. The author of the photo gave it a made-up name, c.q. a theme park that doesn¡Çt exists. But in the canon of the Internet this place was misunderstood to be an actual real place. Resulting in bewildering daytrips and unfulfilling online voyages to find the apt information about this amusement park. It became a glitch. The attentive listener hears a similar fabrication in the sounds. And is witness to: the simple creation of a truth. Contrasting with Murmansk, the opening track. This track grants its name from something we should not see. Think about demarcation lines where none can go. I see a certain relationshop between this release and the Berko album we produced two years ago. However where Andras Fox, as Berko, wanted to pay homage to YouTube bloopers and animal-attack videos – threating these as a mirror of society – C. Blumberg changes the gaze. Blumberg hints at the Internet of Things. Resulting in a gloomy album, infused with enough humor and affection to enjoy. And with enough hidden meanings for the listener to explore ¡Ä ¡ÈThe Drake-YouTube Piano Tutorial combined with the chords of a Schubert Impromptu in Like when Chrysler ¡Ä . (¡Ä) The sound of driving a mountain road in a Youtube video, while someone is reading of Kenneth Goldsmith¡Çs ‚Wasting Time on The Internet¡Æ (also if it¡Çs edited you won¡Çt understand it or identify it anymore).¡É

David Shea¡Çs The Thousand Buddha Caves explores his deep and continuous interest in the nexus of eastern and west- ern musical forms. The recording charts his life long fascination with the caves and their connection to sound, ritual and Buddhist teachings. The record transposes those interests and is an evocation to the mythologies spinning forth from the caves.

Cindy Lee is the diva alter-ego of singer / guitarist / drag queen Patrick Flegel, the one-time captain of heralded Canadian experimental guitar pop act, Women. In Flegel's working on / as Cindy Lee exclusively over recent years, their songwriting makes a move toward high atmospherics, often achieving a mysterious sweetness rooted equally in beauty and ache. As Cindy Lee's first long-form statement, Act Of Tenderness makes use of antipodal themes to create a living sound: static with grace, distortion and sugar, all masterfully arranged with crooked nods toward pop classicism. The layered vocal on "Power And Possession" creates a palpable haunt, bringing historical girl-group lament to choir-esque heights. The feedback shriek and industrial grind of "Bonsai Garden" provides near-operatic damage, yet never stumbles into the irrevocably grave. These snowy pieces give the album a decidedly cinematic feel, albeit one bent more towards Eraserhead. Originally released in a scant private edition in 2015, Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH is pleased to give Act Of Tenderness its deserving wide release.

Abner Jay is an extraordinary one-man-band with one of the deepest emotive voices ever recorded. ¡ÈMan Walked On The Moon¡É features Abner material from two different periods. Side A opens with an early deep 1970¡Çs version of his signature song ¡ÈI¡Çm So Depressed,¡É which has never before been reissued on LP. The hit is followed by four previously unreleased songs from the same period - ¡ÈThe Royal Palm¡É (a classic train song), ¡ÈOld Black Joe,¡É ¡ÈI¡Çm A Hard Working Man,¡É and his paen to space travel, ¡ÈMan Walked On The Moon.¡É All are sung and played by Abner with his standard one man band set up - electric banjo, drums played by his feet, and harmonica. Side B of the LP features Abner¡Çs emotionally charged last recordings. These were made two months before Abner passed away, and here we nd him pensively playing acoustic guitar and singing. The songs are incredibly emotional and not for the faint of heart. These mournful tracks were previously released on a Mississippi 10¡É EP back in 2011 (¡ÈLast Ole Minstrel Man¡É) and is long out-of- print. This LP collects some of Abner¡Çs greatest work from across his career, all rare or previously unreleased classics! LP comes housed in an old school ¡Ètip on¡É jacket and includes a 20 page booklet with photos and a loving tribute to Abner Jay written by Jack Teague. All tracks fully licensed from Brandie Jay, Abner¡Çs daughter.

Weirdo-rockabilly, early pop-electro, great drums, haunting. from collection of 45s

Henry Flynt took a high-brow approach to so-called low-brow music. Combining sounds from his native North Carolina with an avant-garde sensibility honed in New York City's loft scene in the 1960s, Flynt created what he describes as "new American ethnic music." As a student of Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath alongside La Monte Young and Terry Riley, an associate of the Fluxus movement, and even a live collaborator with The Velvet Underground, Flynt was a part of one of the 20th century's richest art and music milieus. Graduation, recorded between 1975 and 1979, was meant to be the debut of his avant-garde hillbilly music. The album's title track is a slow, twisted ballad that unfolds like a funeral dream over dirge-like country riffs. "Celestial Power," the album's 20-minute closing track, is an entrancing minimalist composition performed strictly with oscillating vibrato guitar. As Flynt explains, "I aspire to a beauty which is ecstatic and perpetual, while at the same time being concretely human and emotionally profound." Shelved upon its completion in 1980, Graduation was not released until after the turn of the century. In 2013, it still sounds years ahead of its time.

"After a cancer diagnosis last year, Charlotte felt the urge to produce and release new music. ¡ÈIt became like a vital thing.¡É MRI Song and Planet Ping Pong were recorded during chemotherapy. Mind Contorted is a duet with Terry Hall, also featuring Terry¡Çs son Theodore, and Noel Gallagher on guitars, in a cover of Daniel Johnston. The song Fourteen Years is the oldest inclusion. Meant for LVC¡Çs second album — I Wish Dee Dee Ramone Was Here With Me — it announces a fresh, freer direction."

British Vashti Bunyan, known for the 70's freak folk masterpiece Just Another Diamond Day. This is Lookaftering, the second album released in 2005 after a long period of silence since the first album.
The simple beauty that hasn't changed since 1970, the use of sounds, the singing voice like a precious crystal, and the many melodies that make you think of the countryside, the atmosphere that instantly turns into a fairy tale world from the first note played... The arrangement gives an elaborate impression, and it is full of charm that will not just be a resurrection work, but will soar into another masterpiece.