NEW ARRIVALS

In 1980, Les Rallizes Dénudés welcomed another guitarist, Fujio Yamaguchi (The Dynamites/Murahachibu/Teardrops), as a member. Although it was only for a short period of time (until March of the following year), the performance by the lineup with Yamaguchi left a strong, yet unique impression for the Rallies, and excited many fans.
The performance at Shibuya Attic on October 29, one of their only seven shows, is now available in its entirety in the best sound quality in existence.
The tight rhythm section in the background and the two guitars clashing and intertwining with each other create a space that is blacker than jet blackness, and it has now been brought back to life with overwhelming vividness.
I am Darkness” - ‘Ice Flame’ (*The order of the songs was changed on the LP, with the first song on the A-side and the first song on the B-side), which lasted over 30 minutes, is definitely one of the most notable performances in Raleys' entire career.
The jacket features an unpublished photo taken by Uji Akira.

SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their debut album 'Small Medium Large' began as a collection of long form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park, Los Angeles venue ETA. Unfortunately, this major development site for the burgeoning new West Coast jazz & improvised music sound closed its doors permanently at the end of 2023. The venue, perhaps best known outside of LA for Jeff Parker's 2022 album 'Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy', was the perfect location for the start of SML, especially given that both bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson are part of Parker's quartet that held down a regular gig at ETA since the venue's early days (and hence thoroughly documented, heard on Parker's album). 'Small Medium Large' was engineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales and compiled, arranged, and edited with additional production, recording, and studio composition by SML across their various home studios. While editing, chopping, and rearranging stereo mixed improvisations is hardly a new idea (for a modern and relevant example we can look to Makaya McCraven's output on IARC) these results are a stunning expansion of the Teo Macero / Miles Davis editing concept explored on classics like 'In a Silent Way', 'On The Corner', and 'Get Up With It'. Stylistically though, these recordings have more in common with the proto-trance repetitions of Harmonia, and with Holgar Czukay's re-assembly technique used in his work with Can. Throw in a supremely intuitive utilization of polyrhythmic floating patterns (a la Susumu Yokota), and the result is a truly innovative take on time-clocked electronic rhythms augmented with live instrumentation that never loses that elusive human sway. 'Small Medium Large' is a sublime assemblage of circulatory grooves and textural anomalies, at different moments recalling the synth-laced improvisations of Herbie Hancock's Sextant, the jagged dance punk of Essential Logic, the rhythmic revelry of Fela Kuti, the low-end elasticity of Parliament/Funkadelic, or the glitchy dub techno of Pole. Taken in totality, the album captures a euphoric creative synchronicity between some of today's most exciting musicians.

“It’s is an extraordinary noise, an acidic tone dialled up in all directions, not just distortion but an intense vibration with huge amounts of treble to emit a stinging sound that could loosen your dentistry.” MOJO ★★★★ “There is a lot of colour crammed into this compilation…an escalating dense cascade, a display of virtuosity” The Quietus (Compilation of the Week) "Azerbaijan’s Rəhman Məmmədli dazzles, deserving of recognition for his imaginative reconfigurations of longstanding forms and palpably impassioned playing" Pop Matters In the heartlands of Azerbaijan, where the melodies of the Caspian Sea meet the rhythms of the Caucasus Mountains, the electric guitar has become more than an instrument—it's a symbol of cultural fusion and artistic expression. Building upon the success of their first compilation, "Azerbaijani Gitara," which showcased the pioneering work of Rustem Quliyev, Bongo Joe Records are thrilled to present the highly anticipated second volume, featuring the legendary guitarist Rəhman Məmmədli. The roots of Azerbaijani gitara culture run deep, stemming from a rich tradition of musical experimentation and innovation. From the early 20th Century oil boom to the socialist era of Soviet rule, Azerbaijani musicians and composers embraced the electric guitar as a vehicle for blending indigenous traditions with global influences. The introduction of electric guitars from the Czechoslavakian factory 'Jolana' sparked a musical revolution in the Caucasus, with young musicians like Rəmiş leading the charge. Draw

Forest Law's debut album, "Zero," is a vibrant journey blending Balearic funk with urban Tropicalia, showcasing his adept guitar playing, old-school sampling, and UK-styled beats alongside his mellow yet sombre vocals. Recorded across eclectic locations from Icelandic fish net factories to a garden shed in Romford, this innovative release marks a new chapter for the multi-instrumentalist producer. Released in collaboration with the UK home for jazz and electronic sounds, Total Refreshment Centre, Zero is Forest Law’s first release since his debut EP on Brownswood Recordings four years ago, marking a new and exciting chapter for the up-and-coming talent. Crafted over seven years, "Zero" is deeply influenced by Law's experiences, from immersive stays in Porto where he delved into Portuguese music to an artist residency in a remote Icelandic fishing village. The album was finished, and recorded in his garden shed in Romford, East London. It’s a beautiful juxtaposition about a boy from Essex, who fell in love with international music, discovered the world, and then produced a musical treatise about his adventures from his shed.

Placenta is the fourth collection of broadly imaginative and highly collaborative Carlos Niño & Friends music released on International Anthem in the last four years. It is also the first new music to be released by Carlos Niño & Friends following the November 2023 release of André 3000’s New Blue Sun – an album which Carlos produced alongside André, while co-writing, co-creating/playing, and co-mixing every song. Placenta is announced on April 11th, 2024, a date chosen because it is the 1st solar return of Moss Niño (a new being in human form, who Carlos and his partner Annelise are Earth parents of). Their experience of pregnancy, labor and delivery were all profoundly impactful for Carlos. Becoming a father again (a whole 24 years after the birth of Azul Niño, who has become a regular artistic collaborator with Carlos) he felt total Inspiration for this set of recordings, and hence it is perhaps the most conceptually-grounded Carlos Niño & Friends album we've yet to present – fully connected to the spirit of family, birth, and "how we get here."

MESTIZX is Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly's debut album as co-composers, arrangers and musicians. Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices. Rosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice to all of us that live in-between.” Ferragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.” The album was produced and recorded primarily at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, where Ferragutti and Rosaly were joined by a community of musicians and beloved friends including Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, and Mikel Patrick Avery, with addditional contributions from Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens and Fredy Velásquez. The music creatively infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk. A wholly original but undeniably universal sound – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic - MESTIZX contains points of reference and resonance for fans of Juana Molina, Café Tacvba, Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln, Liquid Liquid, Arto Lindsay, As Mercenarias, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular... It’s a vast, vibrant and encompassing spectrum of sounds, but at its core MESTIZX is a lucidly conscious collection of auto-biographical statements from Ferragutti & Rosaly on the deeply personalized effects of colonialism on geography, history, and identity. Despite its heavy subject matter, however, MESTIZX finds a lifeline in communal, celebratory, soul-bearing and movement-inducing music.

In July of 2022, just one month before jaimie branch’s death sent shockwaves around the world, the trumpet player and composer was in Chicago at International Anthem studios putting finishing touches on an album. It was a suite of music she had composed and then recorded with her flagship ensemble, Fly or Die, over the course of a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. In her wake, the album was near complete, with only mixing tweaks, final titles, and artwork to be fully realized. In the months following, her family (led by sister Kate Branch), her band (Jason Ajemian, Lester St. Louis, and Chad Taylor), and her collaborators at IARC banded together to gather memories, texts, emails, photographs, artwork and fragments belonging to jaimie to light the path forward. The goal was always to do what jaimie would have done. Packaged in stunning artwork by John Herndon, Damon Locks, and branch herself, Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) is jaimie’s final album with her Fly or Die quartet. From the album's liner notes, written by jaimie's Fly or Die bandmates: “jaimie never had small ideas. She always thought big. The minute you told her she couldn’t do something, or that something would be too difficult to accomplish, the more determined and focused she became. And this album is big. Far bigger and more demanding — for us, and for you — than any other Fly or Die record. For this, jaimie wanted to play with longer forms, more modulations, more noise, more singing, and as always, grooves and melodies. She was a dynamic melodicist. jaimie wanted this album to be lush, grand and full of life, just as she was. Every time we take a listen, we feel the deep imprint of her all over the music, and we see all of us making it together.”

Diamanda Galás In Concert is not simply a live album. With nothing but a piano and the full expressive range of her extraordinary voice, Diamanda Galás strips away the comforting patina of time, tradition and stylistic convention to expose and express the raw human emotion that is the living heart of a song. It explores an eclectic range of material; rembetika, soul, ranchera, country and free jazz, and her passionate eviscerations reveal their hidden kinship. Four of the songs-O Prósfigas, La Llorona, Let My People Go, and Ánoixe Pétra are for and by the forsaken, outcast and debased; the other three are hardboiled love songs. '...In Concert' features select recordings taken from performances at Thalia Hall in Chicago, and Neptune Theatre in Seattle from 2017. The songs are drawn from disparate sources. Diamanda is of Maniati Greek and Middle-Eastern Greek/Egyptian origin, but she was born near the border of San Diego and Mexico,hearing the corridos, ranchera, and ballades daily, so the album draws deeply from both sources. Crucial to her performance are song types with ancient roots, primarily the amané, a vocal improvisation of Anatolian Greek origin. Amanés can be defined as a last prayer to the mother by a dying soldier, with the word amané itself possibly deriving from the Greek word mana, mother. Echoes of amanés can be heard in the Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, but in origin it is a primal lament, expressing grief and loss. The origins of the amané are archaic; its spirit is urgent and timeless.

There are certain occasions when you can truly feel the stars align. One of these is when the interstellar voyager of cosmic soul Jimi Tenor finally lands his spaceship at full force on a Timmion recording. In 2023, he will be serving us two spaced out album sessions recorded together with Cold Diamond & Mink. Jimi is no stranger in these space ways as he has operated behind the Timmion scenes for years, furnishing several of the label's artists with his flute and reeds artistry. The first album out is titled "Is There Love In Outer Space?", which begs the question with the force of five extended tracks that are guaranteed to blow your mind to the stratosphere. The pieces are loaded with whooshing and glistening synth noises and span from lofi space funk to cinematic soundscapes. The sweetly floating title track is like some of those galactic ballads that rare soul collectors are spending their pensions on. At the other side of the spectrum, album closer 'What Are You Doing?' sounds like Sun Ra sat down at a JBs session, and is straight up meant to get that booty moving.Combined with the raw soul prowess of CD&M, Jimi is able to refine new shades from his already impressive repertoire of talent. Even if you are a friend of his previous work you might not have heard him get down quite like this.

Nearly twenty-five years after disbanding, Gastr del Sol have unpacked their archive, stringing together an alternative view to their genre-melting 1993-1998 run. This assembly of previously uncollected studio recordings and beautifully captured unreleased live performances forms a spacious ode to the flux that was their métier; a further set of reinventions that continue to alter the manner in which we hear music, and literally everything else!

Boston/Tenor/Index presents for the first time some of the earliest works by the American composer Phil Niblock, including the three never before released "Index" (1969), "Tenor" and "Boston III" (both from 1972), thus making it possible to discover Niblock's starting point as a composer. Until now, it's been impossible to encounter Niblock's compositions from earlier than the '80s, a reality thankfully rectified by the long overdue publication of this Boston/Tenor/Index, now on CD from Alga Marghen. "Tenor" (1972) represents the first evolution of Niblock's musical thought towards the aesthetics of microtones, overtones, and drones which the composer would develop in following decades. The piece was recorded by the photographer Martin Bough on tenor saxophone and gradually dubbed back and forth by the composer in his New York studio. The audio materials activated in "Tenor" through technologically de- and re-composed sounding textures, became a vehicle for those sound anomalies that would determine Niblock's audio poetics. Performing gestures are deconstructed though disseminating and editing processes by the imperceptible gestures of the composer. With its smooth flowing structure, "Boston III" (1972) stands at the very beginning of this illusion. It was recorded at the Intermedia Sound studio in Boston with Rhys Chatham (flute, voice), Martin Bough (tenor saxophone), and Gregory Reeve (viola, voice); the composer himself also contributed with his voice. "Index" (1969) is an improvised sound performance by the composer himself. The listener is lucky to listen to the movements of the artist's fingers hitting a guitar string and the soundboard in breathtaking tempo. The piece itself represents early minimalism in its virgin state, untouched by distancing technology. Guitar (both its body and strings), fingers and fingering fuse in a vehement action around which barely listenable sounds and resonances vibrate. This CD also includes "Boston I" (1972), or the first chapter of the "Boston" series. This 25-minute bonus track is less massive than "Boston III," but this version is much richer in dynamics and presents a more recognizable voice of each instrument. The music changes according to the loudness of playback. The interaction of the upper harmonics changes especially, with much richer overtone patterns being produced at louder levels. Edition of 300 copies in digipak sleeve, including an eight-page booklet with photos and liner notes.

Karate Boogaloo are proud to present Hold Your Horses, a mesmerizing new long-playing disc of original instrumental tunes from Melbourne, Australia’s most dedicated. Sitting at the core of Melbourne’s burgeoning movement of cinematic instrumental soul, Karate Boogaloo’s roots go deep into the fabric of the DIY soul idiom. A mainstay of the Melbourne underground over the last decade, their now sought-after series of LPs delving into hip-hop sample culture and its relationship to funk music, The ‘KB’s Mixtapes’, are evidence of their long-standing contribution to the development of the Melbourne cinematic soul sound. Henry Jenkins, Hudson Whitlock, Callum Riley, and Darvid Thor have been playing music together since their playground days. Meeting as high school preteens, these four friends explored the teachings of the great small combo instrumental bands à la Booker T & The MG’s and The Meters. With these lessons in one hand and their characteristic sense of goofy humor in the other, the ensuing 15+ years saw Karate Boogaloo develop the kind of shared musical language that can only be built through countless hours spent together existing as friends and musical allies. Karate Boogaloo’s singular bond shines brightly on Hold Your Horses, the second album of original Karate Boogaloo compositions. Following on from the cult classic Carn The Boogers (College Of Knowledge Records, 2020), Hold Your Horses is a document of KB’s distinct interpretation of instrumental funk. A bona-fide journey from start to finish, each tune melds seamlessly into the next, deftly creating a world built on moments of cinematic tension, whimsical melodies and eerie discordance and underpinned by undeniable super heavy funk. Hold Your Horses respectfully builds on a legacy of soul music whilst remaining unimpeachably unique and authentic. Recorded and mixed by bassist Henry Jenkins, the mind responsible for the sound of the entire College Of Knowledge catalogue (Surprise Chef, The Pro-Teens, Let Your Hair Down, Karate Boogaloo), Hold Your Horses employs a methodology for writing and recording music that mirrors KB’s long relationship together. “It’s always instrumental, and it’s always recorded live. We have a strict no overdubs policy,” Jenkins explains. All of the songs were written collaboratively in the studio, with no pre-prepared material being brought in by any member. It's a process specifically designed to maximize the strengths of the band and their relationship to one another; KB’s MO is enabled by their innate understanding of one another as people and musicians. Stylistically, links can be drawn to the deep funk of the late 60s and early 70s, certain examples of European film music and new wave of instrumental soul. The restrained instrumental palette is limited to drums, guitar, bass and organ, establishing a distinct and consistent tone throughout, yet the use of dynamics, space and finite execution in the playing carves the experience, keeping the listener glued to their headphones from start to finish. The artwork, created by Melbourne-based visual artist Drez, is a stunning visual representation of the 12-track medley. To add to the experience, the LP cover creates an interactive optical art experience as the inner sleeve is removed from the jacket.