MUSIC

The out-of-this-world recordings of Dilson de Souza, leading a kind of tropical chamber jazz on leaves from a ficus tree. Dilson was from Barra do Pirai, in the Brazilian countryside; moving to Rio as a young man, where he worked in construction. He recorded his first record in 1954, for RCA Victor. He travelled to Quito around 1957, soon hooking up with Benitez & Valencia, who introduced him to the CAIFE label. Dilson played the leaf open, resting on his tongue, hands free, with his mouth as the resonator. Though a leaf can also be played rolled or folded in half, this method allowed for more precision, a tethered brilliance. A picked ficus leaf stays fresh, crisp and clean-toned for around ten hours. He could play eight compositions, four at each end, before it was spent. Biluka plays trills and vibratos effortlessly, with utterly pure pitch, acrobatically sliding into notes and changing tone on the fly. In Manuco, he leads Los Caníbales into a mysterious landscape on a rope pulled from an Andean spaghetti western, and corrals and teases them into a dialogue. A leaf, a harp, a xylophone, and a rondador — joined in Bailando Me Despido (Dancing As I Say Goodbye) by a saucy organ, doing sloshed call-and-response. In Anacu de Mi Guambra, Biluka shows his full range of antics, hiccuping melodically over a set of magic tricks. His expressiveness was boundless. The eucalyptus leaf is popular among Aboriginal Australians. In China, they’ve played leaves for 10,000 years. In Cambodia, people play the slek, a leaf plucked from either the sakrom or the khnoung tree. But ain’t nobody like Biluka, ever. Astounding music.

The tenth and final anthology from Blank Forms explores the early electronic work of French composer Éliane Radigue, whose radical approach to feedback, analog synthesis, and composition on tape has long evaded historical and technical interpretation. Combining key texts, newly translated primary documents, interviews, and commissioned essays, this compendium interrogates the composer’s idiosyncratic compositional practice, which both embraces and confounds the iterative nature of magnetic tape, the subtleties of amplification, and the very experience of listening.

Among these entries is an in-depth overview by cellist Charles Curtis, a close collaborator of Radigue’s, examining the composer’s earliest experiments with feedback techniques and analog synthesis, her eventual shift to composing for unamplified instruments and live performers, and her unique aesthetic configurations of time and presence. A number of detailed conversations between the composer and researchers Georges Haessig, Patrick de Haas, Ian Nagoski, and Bernard Girard provide crucial insights into her working methods at different points throughout her career. Religious studies scholar Dagmar Schwerk reflects upon Radigue’s profound synthesizer work Trilogie de la Mort (1988–93) in the context of Tibetan Buddhist thought and its history, while texts by musicians Daniel Silliman and Madison Greenstone examine, in notably different ways, the technical characteristics of Radigue’s sound practice. Sketches for unrealized work, contemporary reviews, concert programs, and other ephemera mapping the performance history of Radigue’s early work are presented together for the first time. The anthology concludes with a roundtable discussion between Curtis, Greenstone, and Anthony Vine, untangling the knot of paradoxes at the center of Radigue’s artistic practice to trace the thread of her continued “ethos of resistance.”

Nobukazu Takemura’s music is singular in its ability to create a musical sense of childlike wonder and curiosity with gracefully executed yet complex compositions. His pieces embody an innocence and the intricacies of self-discovery that every human is faced with as their worlds become more complex. An acclaimed artist and composer, Takemura is known for his idiosyncratic music and video artistry as well as his prolific collaborations including those with Tortoise, Yo La Tengo, DJ Spooky and Steve Reich. knot of meanings, Takemura’s first proper album in a decade, finds the Japanese artist wrestling with the rise of technological influence on art and culture in the modern era, in tandem with his own relationship to religion, and where those struggles meet. Like the colorful, irregularly shaped glasses on the cover, the album is a mosaic of technicolor elements that come together to form a complete picture, a dense portrait of interconnected struggles and triumphs.

For Takemura, the knot of meanings explores a universal and yet deeply personal and complicated knot, a metaphor for defining spirituality's role in life. “Personally, I see this knot as an opportunity to rebuild my relationship with God,” says Takemura. “I feel that the meaning of life is to find and rediscover this connection every day.” The knot acts as a further metaphor for the barriers between people, their connectivity tangled by developments in technology that drive division rather than create community. “Much of technology has unfortunately developed in a way that pursues convenience and promotes egoism,” Takemura continues. “The world has lost its center, people have become scattered, and culture has stagnated by repeating the same things.” Takemura’s search for meaning across the record is less in search of some preconceived idea of piety or heavenly ascension, but instead focuses on an optimism of originality.

The sprawling 18 pieces of knot of meanings sift, tumble and stutter against obstacles as they bloom with moments of distinct beauty. The album makes expert use of Takemura’s signature blend of electro-acoustic arrangements, inquisitive melodic fluidity and tonal poetry. Gentle vibraphone plonks are layered with synthetic horn lines. An electric piano follows guest vocalist doro’s melodies across “savonarola’s insight” where electronic strings lope beneath her on “the gulf” in steady, staccato harmonies that build and break tension. Pieces like “ladder of meaning” showcase just how diverse Takemura’s sound palette can be, an emotive compositional metaphor blending field recordings, text-to-speech allegory, glitching electronics and sparkling glockenspiel which explodes in waves on “iron staircase”. Cymbals and snare drums are used less as time-keeping rhythmic devices as they are drops of rain pattering against surreal landscapes or roiling thunder crashing into sparse arrangements. In resistance to stagnation and repetition, the compositions flow freely, but with resolute purpose in their movements. Musically and metaphorically uncovering joy in trying to answer a question only to find more questions.

Throughout the album, Takemura exudes an unpredictability that builds surprise from unlikely combinations of instruments, tonalities and harmonic motions that embody bewildering knots to untangle, held together with a youthful sense of wonder. “I attended a Catholic kindergarten as a child and cherished those early years, which laid the foundations for my future. This is in part why I have always used the keyword 'child' in my work as an adult,” notes Takemura. knot of meanings culminates his use of that child’s perspective, or as Takemura has used extensively, that “Child’s View” to explore deeper life philosophies to ecstatic ends. The meanings and mysteries contained within make for an enchanting excavation for those attuned to deep listening, a journey that rewards the kind of inquiring open-mindedness of the listener.

The fifth and final volume of World Arbiter's Japanese Traditional Music marks the completion of the label's excavation and restoration of 60 10" 78RPM discs of Japanese traditional music, bringing a great body of lost music to light and offering in full a legacy that has been almost entirely unavailable until now, even in Japan. The original set was manufactured in 1941 by a company now called the Japan Foundation, and was intended to be presented exclusively to libraries (though the Japan Foundation now has no record of having produced it). There are only two known sets of these discs, both missing the same final 10". World Arbiter acquired one original set of 59 from Beate Sirota Gordon (daughter of pianist Leo Sirota) in the 1990s, and, after a ten-year search, finally located a test pressing of the 60th disc in a theater museum in Japan. Upon first hearing these recordings, World Arbiter's Allan Evans was shocked to hear that the discs contained every species of traditional music, from the court's origins in shamanic rites, Buddhist chant, Noh plays, kabuki, and blind biwa players' haunting songs of chilling epics, to the recordings presented here: a final volume full of folk songs that captures rice planters, weavers, tuna and herring fishers, and children, all funkier than one could imagine and with the presence of eternity in their every sound and breath. The sounds and intensity of Volume Five's folk music surpass anything heard in the classical music of Japan. With Japan's ongoing modernization and loss of its traditional music, World Arbiter's audio restoration removes artifacts from chronological chains to resonate in the eternal flow of sound that defies time and space, remaining vital and always in the present. Includes 24 tracks of performances by anonymous Japanese singers.

Originally released on Lovely Music in 1998. Double CD of all five of Elaine Radigue's songs in tribute to the Tibetan saint and poet from the 11th century. Two of the tracks dates from Radigue's first release in 1983, two are previously unreleased and the final 62-minute track was previously issued as a sole CD in 1987. The material is performed by Radigue (synthesizer and recording), Robert Ashley (English voice), and Lama Kunga Rinpoche (Tibetan voice). Radigue was born in France and has studied under Pierre Shaeffer and Pierre Henry; her musical has an extremely organic and mystical electronics vibe, and has been previously documented on Phill Niblock's XI label, as well as Metamkine and Lovely. Milarepa is a great saint and poet of Tibet who lived in the 11th century. Through years dedicated to meditation and related practices in the solitude of the mountains, Milarepa achieved the highest attainable illumination and the mental power that enabled him to guide innumerable disciples. His ability to present complex teachings in a simple, lucid style is astonishing. He had a fine voice and loved to sing. When his patrons and disciples made a request or asked him a question, he answered in spontaneously composed free-flowing poems or lyric songs. It is said that he composed 100,000 songs to communicate his ideas in his teachings and conversations.

Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike. In Toliara and its surrounding region, funerals, weddings, circumcisions and other rites of passage have been celebrated for decades in ceremonies called mandriampototse. During these celebrations – which last between three and seven days – cigarettes, beer and toaky gasy (artisanal rum) are passed around while electric orchestras play on the same dirt floor as the dancing crowds and zebus. The music, tsapiky, defies any classification. This compilation showcases the diversity of contemporary tsapiky music. Locally and even nationally renowned bands played their own songs on makeshift instruments, blaring through patched-up amps and horn speakers hung in tamarind trees, projecting the music kilometers away. Lead guitarists and female lead singers are the central figures of tsapiky. Driven as much by their creative impulses as by the need to stand out in a competitive market, the artists distinguish themselves stylistically through their lyrics, rhythms or guitar riffs. They must also master a wide repertoire of current tsapiky hits, which the families that attend inevitably request before parading in front of the orchestra with their offerings. This work, a constant push and pull between distinction and imitation, is nourished by fertile exchanges between various groups: acoustic and electric, rural and urban, coastal or inland. What results during these ceremonies is a music of astonishing intensity and creativity, played by artists carving out their own path, indifferent to the standards of any other music industry: Malagasy, African or global.

Egypt’s “official” popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo.

However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the Libyan border, dozens of fully marginalized artists were developing a raw, hybrid shaabi/al-musiqa al-shabiya style of music, supported by smaller upstart, independent labels, including the short-lived but deeply resonant Bourini Records.

Launched in the late 1960s in Benghazi, Libya, Astuanat al-Bourini اسطوانات البوريني (Bourini Records) published some 40 to 50 titles from 1968 to 1975. Bourini released 7-inch 45 RPM singles by 15 artists, all but one of them Egyptian, igniting brief careers for Alexandrian singer Sheikh Amin Abdel Qader and the blind Bedouin legend Abu Bakr Abdel Aziz (aka Abu Abab).

The tracks compiled here comprise a full range of styles covered by the label, while highlighting some of its most gob smacking moments, from Basis Rahouma’s beastly transformation into a growling and barking man-lion by the end of “Yana Alla Nafsa Masouda,” to Reem Kamal’s hopeful-if-bitter handclapping party pivot “Baed Al Yas Yjini,” which descends into an almost Velvet Underground outro-groove of nihilistic dissonance.

All the tracks on this compilation were laid down in stark divergence from the mainstream Egyptian popular music topography of heightened emotions buoyed by lush arrangements. The contrast is most evident in Mahmoud al-Sandidi’s “Ana Mish Hafwatak,” wherein his voice weaves heavily but deftly through a constant accordion drone, and Abu Abab’s “Al Bint al Libya,” a sparse, slow-burning lament with minimal percussion, violin, and Abab’s nephew Hamed Abdel Muna'im Mursi on lyre.

Whereas the Egyptian mainstream was aspirational, attempting to reflect Egyptian culture at its most refined, the performances captured by Bourini were manifestations of everyday life lived by the mostly otherwise ignored masses.

More than half century old, this music has lost none of its urgency, presence, or relevance. We hear these artists as if they’d just joined us in our living room, and not on a stage decades ago surrounded by tens of thousands of long-forgotten acolytes.

An early 1982 masterpiece by Scientist, a dub alchemist also known as King Tubby's right arm. The jacket and title are amazing, but the content is heavy, crazy and humorous dub processing.

reissue of the 1976 historic collaboration between producer instrumentalist Augustus Pablo and dub engineer King Tubby.

The soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's 1986 film Down By Law is composed and performed by John Lurie, who also plays the pimp Jack in the movie. His world-weary avant-jazz pieces like "Please Come to My House," "What Do You Know About Music, You're Not a Lawyer," "Strangers in the Day," and "Fork in the Road" convey the film's seedy but humorous crime story.</p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cL5J0kRwGQc?si=Lr_tt6C9OrxfJKu5" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Village of the Pharoahs is the eighth album by American saxophonist and composer Pharoah Sanders, released in 1973. The key word, and concept, informing this album is percussion: of the 13 musicians appearing on Village of the Pharoahs, seven of them are credited with contributing drums or percussion… and there is a conga player. The centerpiece of Village of The Pharoahs is the three-part title suite, which stretches over 16 minutes. This is the work of a confident explorer willing to go anywhere and do anything.

AKARMA

In fact, Organisation was the first iteration of Kraftwerk and if the band had managed to overrule its record label, RCA, Tone Float would have been credited as such. But given that the album was to be released only in the United Kingdom, the label opted for the more Anglicized name, "Organisation". Tone Float is the only album produced under this name and is a seminal example of the genre. Audiences in West Germany were fortunate enough to watch and listen to the whole album, played live for German television station, EDF, and it is this broadcast featured here.

Caetano Veloso, one of the great masters of Brazilian music, released his first album "Irene", also known as "The White Album", in 1969, and his second studio album as a solo artist. Veloso and his ally Gilberto Gil were arrested and jailed for criticizing the military regime without any clear reason. This is the monumental album that he left behind just before his exile to London, England, and sent out to the world as his own message. Limited edition of 500 copies on clear vinyl.

2025 repress forthcoming in Feb. One of the brightest and most famous projects of the entire punk/new wave scene, No New York was released in 1978 on Island's sub-label Antilles. Featuring some of the most incredible rule breaking bands of the underground N.Y.C. art and music scene, the project - produced by Brian Eno - is a genuine snapshot of the massively creative N.Y.C. scene. Artists: Contortions, Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, Mars, D.N.A..

Miles Davis’s 1958 release, Milestones, is a universally acclaimed masterpiece that needs no introduction. Featuring a sextet that includes John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, the performances are rich in improvisation and tension. The title track “Milestones” marks a pivotal moment, breaking away from traditional hard bop chord progressions and introducing modal jazz techniques that would later be fully realized in the landmark album Kind of Blue. True to its name, Milestones stands as an essential milestone in the history of modern jazz.

Recorded in New Orleans and Kingston, this genre-defying album delivers innovative, timeless soundscapes for all listeners.

Lantern Records is proud to announce the release of Three The Hard Way, a groundbreaking collaboration between legendary dub engineer The Scientist, rising vocalist Maxie, and innovative producer Barnabas. This genre-defying album fuses deep reggae roots with modern production, creating a soundscape that is both timeless and forward-thinking.

Recorded in both New Orleans and Kingston, Three The Hard Way brings together the best of both worlds: the raw energy of southern soul and the pioneering spirit of Jamaican dub. The Scientist, renowned for his wild mixing techniques and mentorship under King Tubby, lays down the foundation with his signature heavy basslines and atmospheric effects. Maxie’s soulful vocals and Barnabas’ inventive arrangements add new dimensions to the classic dub template, resulting in an album that is as adventurous as it is accessible.

Three The Hard Way features ten tracks, each one a masterclass in sonic experimentation and collaborative creativity. From the hypnotic grooves of “Feed Back” to the haunting melodies of “Master Piece,” the album is a journey through sound that will captivate both longtime dub enthusiasts and new listeners alike.

A1 Part I - Acknowledgement

A2 Part II - Resolution

B1 Part III - Pursuance

B2 Part IV – Psalm

roduced and engineered by Jah Wobble at home in his bedroom (hence the title), the album was originally released in spring 1983, showing a different side in the bass player evolution. His proper 2nd album after a major label stint with Virgin - for his debut - and the stratospheric collaborations with Holger Czukay & The Edge. A mystical hybrid of dub fusion, ethereal wave and global beat, still ahead of his time.

Released for the first time in 1983 on the UK label Vista Sound, “Fight Against Corruption” sees Campbell backed by most of The Aggrovators musicians (Sly & Robbie, Earl “Chinna“ Smith, Jackie Mittoo, Winston Wright). The album was produced by the crucial Bunny Lee and Campbell, here, clearly skims some social criticism, but also does not disdain some more lovers tunes… another killer album to love forever!

The Payback is the 37th studio album by American musician James Brown. The album was released in December 1973 by Polydor Records. It was originally scheduled to become the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem, but was rejected by the film's producers, who dismissed it as "the same old James Brown stuff."

The Payback is considered a high point in Brown's recording career, and is now regarded by critics as a landmark funk album. Its revenge-themed title track, a #1 R&B hit, is one of his most famous songs and an especially prolific source of samples for record producers.

Klimt present a reissue of Don Cherry's Relatively Suite, originally released in 1973. Finally, available again on vinyl. Recorded with the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. At this time, Cherry was becoming increasingly interested in Middle Eastern and traditional African and Indian music, having traveled extensively and studied with Indian musician, Vasant Rai. This suite of songs was particularly influenced by the Indian Carnatic singing tradition, as can be heard from the very opening moments of the album. Featuring Carla Bley on piano, Charlie Haden on bass, and Ed Blackwell on drums, as well as an extended horn and string section, Cherry collaborated extensively with the Jazz Composer's Orchestra throughout the early '70s. His Swedish wife, Moki Cherry, plays tambura on "Trans-Love Airways". Clear vinyl.

1984 mandatory re-issue for british dub-roots combo. Co-produced by On U Sound and Cherry Red, the album shows the masterful production of wizard Adrian Sherwood and a series of sublime vocal performances by stalwarts Bim Sherman, Mikey Dread and Prince Far I. The sublime line-up is completed by master musicians Crucial Tony, "Deadly" Headley Bennett, Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and Evar Wellington. Enjoy the purity of this aquatic sound 1

“Soul Revolution Part II” is a landmark roots reggae album created in 1971 by Bob Marley & The Wailers in collaboration with Lee “Scratch” Perry. Before their major label debut, the band delivered raw yet striking performances, enhanced by Perry’s innovative production, resulting in a uniquely deep and minimal sound. The album features numerous tracks that would later be re-recorded and gain worldwide recognition, including “Sun Is Shining,” “African Herbsman,” and “Keep On Moving.” Marley’s powerful lyrics, combined with the harmonies of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, reflect a profound spiritual and musical exploration that defines his early work. This album captures a rare moment where the maturity of The Wailers and Perry’s studio wizardry intersected to produce a truly significant piece of reggae history.