NEW ARRIVALS

Original 2xLP Remastered by Bob Weston pressed on maui blue vinyl

Never-Before-Released Live Studio Album pressed on orchid purple vinyl

all 3 LPs are packaged in a triple LP gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves

After finishing American Don with (Steve) Albini, we were nearing the peak of interpersonal tensions that would eventually wash us overboard. I (Eric) became convinced we lost the true essence of the songs in the recording process. It was not a unanimous decision to record with Steve. We wrote the album entirely on guitar loops and Team Storm & Stress wanted to go further in the studio with Pro Tools, which felt related to both what we were doing and where we were going. Steve had just finished building the magnificent A room at Electrical and Damon insisted we would record there for the drums. He never budged on it. As soon as we got there we realized all the songs, which were written in stacks of overdubs on our pedals, would only allow for mono guitar recordings. We worked around this by performing the songs to a single loop and overdubbing all the guitars later allowing for a full stereo field to match the glorious bombast of Steve’s drum recordings. This approach

dramatically changed how we played. While it allowed for magic moments of improv (Peter Criss intro), once the album was done, it sounded bloated and the performances sluggish. With increasing certainty I was sure the sound of the Akai Headrush, and the tempos it set for Damon was the heartbeat of these songs. Ian agreed.

In an audacious last ditch hail mary, I had the idea to call Greg Norman (who worked for Steve!) and asked if we could secretly come to his studio in S. Chicago *road hot* after our next shows and re-record the album LIVE. It was an enormous gesture that could’ve never worked, but miraculously everyone agreed to do it and we gave it a try. Greg captured us at our most fiery hot personally and professionally. The tempos are faster and no one is holding back with anything to lose. These true live tapes show the songs exactly as we played them on the road where they were developed between June of 1999 and July of 2000. Now, 25 years later, the Greg Norman tapes have been dusted off, baked, and transferred to digital. With the aid of modern restoration tools, and the expertise of Sir Bob Weston, we were able to re-mix and master these recordings for the first time.

Beat Records is glad to present GOLDRAKE GENERATION VOLUME 1, the first release of a series dedicated to Italian 70s, 80s and 90s cartoons’ main titles songs. A franchise with roots in Japanese immense cartoons’ production that stormed Italy with a high wave of images, sounds and colours which left a remarkable sign in the period children. Goldrake Generation is dedicated to a musical period deeply rooted in screen emotions which, every time we experience it, generates a chain reaction, this first episode dedicated to music composed for cartoons having Robot as protagonists. Grande Mazinger, Trider G7, Ufo Diapolon, Yattaman and many more, for going back to the origins and to the memories of a wonderful childhood, among the dearest belonging to the Goldrake Generation to which we dedicate the series. This CD presents Universal TV theme songs belonging to former RCA catalogue, a selection by Francesco Piccardo that together with Simone Pellecchia and Claudio Fuiano remastered 13 cues for a great listening experience. Liner notes by Daniele De Gemini, Goldrake Generation mascotte by Jacopo Cigarini, graphic layout by Daniele De Gemini.

Beat Records is glad to present GOLDRAKE GENERATION VOLUME 1, the first release of a series dedicated to Italian 70s, 80s and 90s cartoons’ main titles songs. A franchise with roots in Japanese immense cartoons’ production that stormed Italy with a high wave of images, sounds and colours which left a remarkable sign in the period children. Goldrake Generation is dedicated to a musical period deeply rooted in screen emotions which, every time we experience it, generates a chain reaction, this first episode dedicated to music composed for cartoons having Robot as protagonists. Grande Mazinger, Trider G7, Ufo Diapolon, Yattaman and many more, for going back to the origins and to the memories of a wonderful childhood, among the dearest belonging to the Goldrake Generation to which we dedicate the series. This CD presents Universal TV theme songs belonging to former RCA catalogue, a selection by Francesco Piccardo that together with Simone Pellecchia and Claudio Fuiano remastered 13 cues for a great listening experience. Liner notes by Daniele De Gemini, Goldrake Generation mascotte by Jacopo Cigarini, graphic layout by Daniele De Gemini.

Money Maker is a rare 1978 release by the great Jamaican organ wizard Jackie Mittoo. A must have instrumental reggae classic which blends a series of killer-riddims originally laid down at Studio One and Mittoo's highly infectious gritty funk organ work.

Collected Works and War of the Martian Ghosts is the definitive recorded collection of living Chicago DIY legend, Dr. Charles Joseph Smith. Born on Chicago's southside in 1970, Smith is a lifelong resident of the Beverly neighborhood who went on to earn 3 degrees in piano (Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate) and perform as a concert pianist in 5 countries (USA, Italy, Germany, France and Hungary). The album also marks the first archival release from Chicago’s Sooper Records.

All of the music here is being made widely available for the first time. This 90-minute collection is compiled from 30 years of Charles’ self-released original music spanning concert piano, electroacoustic experimentation, electronic beats, free improvisation, and two instrumental sketches of his evolving sci-fi opera, War of the Martian Ghosts (a 2023 electronic realization, and a 2018 piano realization). This double Vinyl / Triple CD Collector’s Edition comes with an extensive Insert Booklet containing 9000 words including poetry, interviews, quotes, 30 archival photographs, and extensive liner notes on the life and work of Charles Joseph Smith written by Sooper co-founder Glenn Curran (edited by Sadie Dupuis). This is a piece of Chicago music history.

Dr. Charles Joseph Smith’s remarkable story begins with a mute child’s gift for music, and the purposeful way he nurtured this talent to become both life practice and raison d'être. Charles recounts this artistic journey in his autobiography, The 88 Keys that Opened Doors, a self-published book that chronicles a life in which music was (and still is) the primary key to overcoming immense challenges posed by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

His career as a musician starts in the church, reaches into the international concert piano circuit, and eventually settles to bear strange fruit in Chicago’s experimental underground. Along the way, Charles Joseph Smith’s compositional voice absorbed and metabolized popular music spanning pop to jazz, the gospel of the church, the canon of the classical conservatory, modern dance scores, and the rule-shattering experimentalism of his city’s DIY subculture, where he has been a mainstay for over 30 years. Since the mid-1990s, Charles has been performing, dancing, and selling his self-published musical and written works in person, often at the local shows he frequents. He is known around Chicago as a living symbol of the power of music, and of the beloved spirit of community at the heart of DIY. This is the definitive collection of his original recordings—though it would be impossible to ever encompass the galaxies of music, poetry, and prose penned by the prolific Dr. Charles Joseph Smith.

"Every Nigger is a Star" the legendary soundtrack to the cult 1973 Jamaican film! Composed and arranged by popular Jamaican singer and bassist Boris Gardiner, this music still sounds as the perfect blend between reggae and Blaxploitation oriented Soul-Funk groove. Needless to remember that in 2015 the title track was sampled for the opening track of Kendrik Lamar's iconic album "To pimp for a Butterfly" in other words an essential release for all the ghetto-sounds freaks out there!

Alex Zhang Hungtai stands in stillness on 'Dras', but it's the kind of stillness that contains entire ranges of possibility. Recorded in 2019 inside Montreal's Saint Joseph Oratory (right before a piano demolition, no less), these nine pieces sat dormant on his hard drive through pandemic years until something finally clicked. What emerges now feels like watching someone trace the contours of their own interior landscape, each melodic line a careful negotiation with the unconscious. This is only a saxophone record in the barest sense.

The terrain here is tactile and unforgiving. On the title track, difficult melodies get torn apart and molded into emotive drones, dissonance interlocking where tones cut paths through the senses with metallic sheen. "El Khela" refracts into spectral layers that pull with eternal gravity, while "Estado" finds solace inside its own haze, rhythms barely audible but guiding forward with their cadence smeared against grey walls. These are small moments that become cathartic sonic breaths, each one revealing new passages through psychic geography.

There's beauty encased in the subtle repetitions of opener "Erg,” and in the glowing progressions of "White Dwarf." Zhang's saxophone becomes a dowsing rod for the uncharted, with electricity running through the album's veins while his breath anchors everything to something wordlessly human. The digital manipulation applied to those church recordings doesn't obscure that human element of 'Dras'. It transforms the raw material into something that navigates between external space and internal landscape.

By the time closer "Mazil" arrives, Alex Zhang Hungtai lets his saxophone speak its full resonance. Low, guttural expressions open up like chasms beneath melodic constellations floating in thick gravity. There’s a finality here even though something in these passages feels weightless. This is music permeated with inner dialogue, a wordless spell dancing above the psychic abyss. Tonal sequences disintegrate into narcotized sonics, a sharp elegant edge that cuts without drawing blood. This lonely work of exploration becomes something communal. 'Dras' is a map for traversing the space between where we are and where we might go.

An epoch is defined as an extended period of time typically characterized by a distinctive development or by a memorable series of events, and Scott Hansen, leader of the band Tycho, has named their new album Epoch with that in mind. The last installment in a trilogy, Epoch is the culmination of more than a decade’s work that has seen the band evolving and maturing through two sublime releases Dive (2011) and Awake (2014), and developing from featuring Hansen as a delicate solo performer into the iconic frontman of a powerful multi-layered live band performing on the world’s largest stages. “Dive was where the whole thing crystallized,” said Hansen. “I found that crossover space between what I was doing before, which was more IDM electronic stuff, and the rock music that reflected more of what I was listening to and not necessarily what I was making. Awake was a prototype of pushing it as far into the rock realm as I was comfortable with. Epoch is basically coming full circle. All the lessons of Dive and Awake were applied and then expanded upon. Epoch leverages the sonic aesthetic of Dive’s down-tempo vintage-style synthesizers and beautiful melodies while drawing on the kinetic energy of Awake’s progressive composition and organic instrumentation. “I felt like I explored a lot of open-ended unbridled, optimistic spaces with the other records. I don't know if it's a reflection of my life, but it seemed like that’s what just came out at the time.” For the new record, the themes felt a bit darker as he explored new musical territory. “My threshold for darkness is much lower. Things that seem dark to me seem happy and light to other people. I think it’s the darker sounds themselves. The timbres are a bit more aggressive.” Hansen initially attempted a more traditional recording process at Panoramic Studios in Stinson Beach, CA, but ultimately opted to do the majority of the recording in his home studio in Berkeley following a temporary relocation from his home in San Francisco. “I’ve been in the same San Francisco house the last 11 years. I made the last two records in the exact same room. I figured it was time for a change. There were a few other factors as well. I wanted to get some more space, be relaxed, and not be living in the middle of a crazy city. I wanted to have a more relaxed environment where noise or people didn’t bother me. Mostly just for the isolation.” Once complete, it was important to Hansen to release Epoch as a surprise album. “I've never been fond of handing in an album then waiting 4 months for it to be released,” he said. “I wanted to be more connected to the people consuming the music. There is a kind of visceral fulfillment you get from sharing something that you've just created with other people. That's a very satisfying feeling as an artist. “All art is in some way shaped by the current state of the world around the person creating it so there's a element of zeitgeist built into any album. We just finished mastering the album so it will be a month old when people hear it. I'm hoping people get a sense that this music is directly connected to the time they are experiencing it in.” Epoch was arranged alongside Zac Brown, a long time collaborator and partner in the Tycho project. Brown contributed bass and guitar parts to the songwriting process, while Rory O'Connor played drums. O’Connor was brought in during the Dive tour cycle. Hansen has known Brown since their Sacramento upbringing. “At the end of Dive is when we started to work together on a couple songs. I thought there should be more guitar. Zac played on a couple songs like on ‘Ascension.’ He played some bass and guitar on ‘Hours.’ I brought him on to play parts in the shows. We did Awake together. We took the same approach with this record.” Hansen sees Epoch as a multi-dimensional artistic vision at the confluence of his graphic design work via ISO50 and music with Tycho. The graphic presentation of the album artwork is as important as the music itself. The keystone is the central image of Epoch and the colour scheme red and black. This is a stark contrast to the almost rainbow palette of Awake.

Graze the Bell is a collection of soul-stirring, mesmerizing solo piano pieces, and the most distilled offering of David Moore’s artistry to date. Known for his atmospheric compositions with Bing & Ruth, as well as his collaborations with guitarist Steve Gunn and Cowboy Sadness, this marks Moore’s first widely shared solo piano album. Using the piano to meditatively inquire into the human condition, Graze the Bell is a sanctuary of sound, and an invitation for listeners to meet him in the present moment.

Bulayo gathers extraordinary acoustic guitar performances recorded across Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and DR Congo in 1979–80 by British-Kenyan musician John Low. Travelling as a student rather than a producer, Low sought out masters of regional fingerstyle traditions, visiting and sometimes staying with artists including Jean-Bosco Mwenda, Losta Abelo and Emmanuel Mulemena, while also documenting under-recorded players such as Francis Kitime and Mtonga Wanganangu. Captured in homes, village squares and bars, these recordings are relaxed and immediate, with laughter, conversation and everyday sounds woven into the music. Far removed from studio polish, they offer a rare sense of how this guitar music was actually heard and shared. Some tracks previously surfaced on John Storm Roberts’ long out-of-print Original Music compilations; others appear here for the first time. All have been restored and remastered from Low’s original tapes by Andrew Walter (Honest Jon’s, Abbey Road). With notes and lyrics by John Low and commentary from Tanzanian scholar John Kitime, Bulayo stands as a vital document of East and Central Africa’s rich guitar traditions.

Recorded in 1988, as her self-titled debut was becoming a global phenomenon and establishing her as a new icon of socially conscious folk, this FM broadcast captures Tracy Chapman’s live performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival during the height of her initial breakthrough. Now available on vinyl, this release offers a raw and intimate look at an artist at the peak of her early powers.

Released in 1973 on Motown’s label, Share My Love is a richly layered and deeply expressive record that captures Gloria Jones at a creative crossroads. After years working behind the scenes as a songwriter and session vocalist, penning material for The Tams, The Marvellettes, and others, Jones finally takes center stage with a collection that radiates confidence, vulnerability, and undeniable soul. Known to many for her original 1964 version of “Tainted Love,” later immortalized by Soft Cell, Jones brought to Share My Love a seasoned understanding of both the heartbreak and hope that lie at the core of great soul music. More than just a product of its time, Share My Love feels like a declaration, a turning point where one of soul’s great, often-overlooked voices stepped into her own light. It remains a moving document of artistic self-assurance and one of the most heartfelt releases to emerge from Motown’s early ’70s era.

Market East finally shares their most important statement to the world in the form of their debut LP, French Street. The group, composed of Kurt Cain on vocals, Vincent John on vocals, bass, guitar and keys, and Maxwell Perla on vocals, drums and percussion, deliver their signature celestial three part harmonies over arrangements that have never sounded so rich and compelling.

French Street is extremely soulful and the vocals are lush, like if the Zombies recorded at Muscle Shoals. The lyrics are poetic and nostalgic, as the group wrote songs about their bygone “golden” years. Back then, the boys didn’t have much besides each other and their shared love of music. Vocalist Kurt Cain lived in a small rowhome in North Philadelphia on a nearly deserted alley named French Street. It was here that Cain, John, and Perla came together every week to escape reality and get high off sharing music. They developed a deep appreciation for all things 60s and 70s, from Simon & Garfunkel to the Moments, and everything in between.

All these years later, and Market East has created a classic record of their own. From the baroque pop of the title track and the roaring soul of “Roses,” to the Latin flavors of “Echoes of My Heart” and the orchestral flares of “Everyday, Springtime,” Market East shows their impressive range. Recorded to analog tape in Philadelphia, the record was produced by the band and Eraserhood Sound. Grab your copy of this timeless classic today.

Emeralds, the sophomore long player from Parlor Greens, finds the trio serving up a beautifully curated sampler of what funky organ music can be. On Parlor Greens’ debut LP In Green We Dream, they announced their existence boldly to the welcoming arms of funky instrumental fans around the world. Now, two years later, they’re back to up the ante. Three true masters of their respective crafts: Tim Carman (Canyon Lights, formerly of GA-20) on drums, Jimmy James (True Loves) on guitar, and Adam Scone (Scone Cash Players, The Sugarman 3) on organ. Seasoned and soulful pros coming together to make infectiously funky instrumental jams.

Parlor Greens are truly in top form: tour tight and more confident than ever in who they are and where they’re going. The album’s opener, “Eat Your Greens,” kicks the doors off with a Charles Earland-inspired four on the floor beat, with Jimmy and Scone driving the tune down the tracks like an overloaded freight train, it simply cannot be stopped. On “Red Dog,” the group channels the absolute heaviest shade of early R&B with Jimmy’s crunchy guitar paving the way for both he and Scone to take scorching solos. “Lion’s Mane” shows a slightly more sophisticated side of the trio, with nods to one of Scone’s organ mentors, the incomparable Dr. Lonnie Smith. Not to be outdone by his bandmates, Tim Carman shows off why he plays the best shuffle this side of the Mississippi on “Letter To Brother Ben,” a gospel-tinged shuffler.

And while the results are stronger than ever, the mood of this second cooking session was much different. The first time these three met in Loveland at Colemine’s Portage Lounge studio was marked by a certain freshness. It was new, it was the first time they had all played together. It was exciting, it was unknown territory. The session for Emeralds weighed much heavier on all three members. All three dealing with personal tragedies in their individual lives, the session truly served as a genuine moment of joy for the group. Just three talented musicians, writing and playing music now as friends in a familiar environment. No moment is the weight of the session more obvious than with the album’s closer, “Queen Of My Heart,” a tune Jimmy wrote for his mother shortly after she passed away.

So with a heavy and soulful heart, Colemine Records is beyond proud to present the sophomore effort from three maestros. Parlor Greens presents…Emer

NYC’s Urner chimes with Dutch label topo2’s tastes for shimmering electronic melody and subtly crooked structures on a quietly charming LP made from Japanese lava, modular synths and software: tipped to fans of Irdial’s Anthony Manning, Georgia’s Brian Close, Visible Cloaks. In the wake of a self-issued 2020 debut and tape on Atlantic Rhythms, ’Afterimages’ is Isaac Pearl aka Urner’s 3rd album and the first to fix his ephemeral tactility to vinyl. Under a name and title hinting (to us at least) a play on psychedelic or oneiric experience, the music follows with an often fleeting, tongue-tip sensuality that patently fits topo2’s emerging remit, as heard in their sides by Upsammy, Mor Elian, Windu. It’s not hard to trace lines from ‘80s Japanese environmental ambient to ‘90s electronica and modernist reflections on new age, partly thanks to its combo of clinking, rhythmelodic Sanukite lithopone tones - think a xylophone made from rare volcanic rock - with analog and digital synth sources, applied with a mix of care and nuanced daring that feels timeless yet also up-to-date in its oloid asymmetry. A whispering opener ‘Options, Thoughts’ unfolds into hyaline dimensions, where the rest settles, offbeat, at meditative pace, between plucked melodic chin reactions of ‘Stranding’, dreamy aeolian harmonics of ‘Anni,’ and air-kissing romance of ‘Lover Cusp.’ The Visible Cloaks comparison is apt on a standout ’Suspend’ and the cascading notes of ‘Tides,’ to a quietly fizzing conclusion.

Personal Computer Music, 1997-2022 is the culmination of Chapter Music’s ongoing reissue series for Jeremy Dower.

"Reclusive Melbourne electronic figure Jeremy Dower announces a quarter century-spanning compilation of previously unreleased music, split into halves to showcase his unpronounceable 90s ambient techno project Tetrphnm, as well as the wistful faux-jazz recordings made subsequently under his own name.

Inspired at first by austere German techno such as Monolake and Mouse on Mars, Jeremy’s sound world grew to take in influences as various as The Sea and Cake, Joao Gilberto, Jaki Liebezeit and Alain Goraguer. But Jeremy worked through these touchstones all alone on the other side of the world, improvising systems of “subtractive composition” via cheap 90s sound cards, 12 bit samplers and banked noise gates. His music evolved in a parallel but separate world to genres later called IDM or Microhouse, but really it sounds like nothing but Jeremy Dower – magically inventive, touching and personal. Efficient Space comped a Tetrphnm track on their much-loved 2018 compilation of 90s Australian electronica 3AM Spares. But Personal Computer Music, 1997-2022 is your first chance to explore Jeremy Dower’s compelling musical history with the depth it deserves."

First released in 1971, Le Monde Fabuleux des Yamasuki is a delirious cult album that sounds as mischievous and unclassifiable now as it did then. Conceived not as a band but as a studio-born fantasy, YAMASUKI created a pan-cultural pop opera that gleefully ignored genre boundaries and common sense. Produced by Jean Kluger and written with Daniel Vangarde, the album sits at a surreal crossroads of psychedelic pop, funk, samba and bubblegum melodies. Phonetic pseudo-Japanese chants, performed by a children’s choir, collide with ritualistic cries from a Japanese judo grandmaster, turning each track into a playful piece of sonic theatre. What began as a single quickly expanded into a fully realised concept, one whose influence has travelled far beyond novelty. Elements of Yamasuki have resurfaced through reinterpretations, samples and pop mutations across decades, from underground soul and hip hop to mainstream chart pop and television soundtracks. Revisited today, Le Monde Fabuleux des Yamasuki remains a reminder that pop can be strange, joyful and inventive without explanation. It is music that laughs at rules, dances around definitions and proves that imagination never dates.

Label co-founder Conrad Pack returns to SELN with what is in essence a Dub EP, but so much more. The failsafe formula of stepping percussion and “ital” bass lean on a familiar soundsystem nature with engulfing pads finishing the job to evoke a true BIG SMOKE FEELING. Although the melody itself wouldn’t sound out of place in a UK Drill number the song overall still touches on DIY ++ sonics (yes it’s as good as it sounds if not better). Recorded during the height of the Scram era, masterminded by Leeway (Guy Gormley), and hosted by the late soundsystem luminary Julian Fairshare at Ormside Projects, the influences are crystal clear; Steppers-esq, leaning heavily on London’s musical legacy past and present, whilst still pushing for SOMETHING NEW. Praise EP will be available as a limited edition Vinyl (edition of 200) and digital download. You can catch Pack performing a special live set at our forthcoming 'late night event’ at Ormside Projects on 4th October alongside Kerrie, Jah Vibemaster & Sam Clarke.

Rave At Your Fictional Borders is not beyond borders. The band simply denies any notion thereof. Driven by a sense of community, it defines human existence as one bio-organism with planet Earth. Now comprising members Dave De Rose, Marius Mathiszik, and Salim Akki, this incarnation of Rave At Your Fictional Borders first released the 'Entanglement' and 'Utopia' tracks in March 2025. Analogue Nomadism is the project's first album release. Recorded in Morocco and then co-produced and mixed by Dan Nicholls, it is an album of dizzying, trance-inducing scope. Rave music stripped of all external signifiers. Repetition, noise, krautrock, avant-garde sensibilities. This is a search for a groove that both connects and interlocks. The soul of improvisation and exploration runs through all seven pieces on Analogue Nomadism. Genres are referenced and transcended. The open-ended is perpetually embraced. It is neither night nor day, but there is a half-light all the time. What used to be disconcerting is now not alien anymore. The sky boasts a faint light. Certain shapes are laid out, but get changed through communal ritual. Analogue Nomadism is the music of a feeling of community. It builds and breaks down. It is accepting of the psychedelic standards of the groove. Transportative and vertiginous. Endless.

Although it is difficult to classify, "A Way In" lends itself to the worlds of Afrobeat, Cumbia, Salsa, and Soul– a stirring of potent rhythms and enigmatic melodies that make Mitchum Yacoub’s sophomore album stand tall in the world of groove music. Syncopated dance tracks, definitive horns, and steady backbeats carry tales of anguish, love, and uprising. It is a record that reveals the human spirit: a confluence of thoughtful introspection and earth-shaking ritmo.

Yacoub recorded, produced, and mixed the album, ensuring the meticulously layered sound first heard on his debut, Living High in the Brass Empire. His formidable horn section–Travis Klein, Bradley Nash, and Wesley Etienne–returns in full force and with a range of masterful spotlights. Longtime friend and collaborator Divina also returns, offering understated, soulful vocals on "Hurtin’", "When I’m With You", and "Gold". Panamanian vocalist, Lourdes Iri, stamps her debut on the resistance anthem 'Profecía" and the sensual upbeat Cumbia, "Deseo Celestial". These vocal tunes fit into a kaleidoscope of instrumentals, including "Away", found in the echoes of Ethio-jazz, and Sala, which feels like Hermanos Gutiérrez meets Willie Colón–after sharing a smoke and a listen to "Water No Get Enemy".

The diversity of vocal and instrumental pieces is unified by an understanding of vintage production styles and Afro-Latin musical sensibilities. Yacoub credits his father–who immigrated to Detroit from Egypt in 1968–for opening his ears to an array of global music. His childhood home resonated loudly with the sounds of Ali Farka Touré, Oum Kalthoum, Keith Jarrett, Santana, Toumani Diabaté, Stevie Wonder, Lauryn Hill, etc. Later, while attending UCSC, Yacoub studied African music with Karlton Hester–a tenor saxophonist and former student of Joe Henderson–who introduced him to Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. After hearing the hypnotic force of James Brown-infused funk with Yoruba drumming, Yacoub knew there was no turning back.

It wasn’t just Fela’s sonic phenomena, but the summoning of a higher power in the call for justice. A Way In channels the spirit of Afrobeat and imbues the many genres mentioned above with an angle of self-reflection. In a time when artificial music is rising and originality risks being buried, this album offers a refreshing dose of soulful dance music–meant to bring people together, and inward.

Grand Theft were a short-lived Seattle trio who detonated onto the scene in 1972 with a single, savage LP. Conceived as a tongue-in-cheek swipe at arena-rock excess, the project quickly shed its irony and became something far more visceral. Driven by Dave Baron’s barbed-wire guitar, Kevin Marin’s booming bass and Phil Kittgaard’s full-throttle howl, the band tore through their material in one chaotic studio session. The result is a raw, unpolished document of heavy rock at its most direct. Cuts like ‘Scream (It’s Eating Me Alive)’ and ‘Closer to Herfy’s’ channel late-night mania, inside humour and a growing appetite for abrasion. With DJ and manager Burl Barer fanning the flames, the record stirred regional buzz, a tongue-in-cheek “dream date” promotion and praise from Lester Bangs. Live appearances were scarce but explosive, adding to the mystique after the band dissolved. What started as a throwaway gag hardened into a cult proto-metal artefact — a reminder of how quickly a spark can turn into wildfire.

On his sixth LP In Another, Toronto-based, Japanese-born, musician and composer Masahiro Takahashi (髙橋 政宏) continues the collaborative expansion of his sonic universe that listeners witness on his 2023 release, Humid Sun. Here he enlists a rotating ensemble of ten guest artists from Toronto’s vibrant music community, including his labelmate Joseph Shabason, who also serves as the album’s co-producer and engineer. Spurred by his longtime admiration for chamber pop spanning the High Llamas and Free Design to the Beach Boys, Takahashi deviates from the underlying processes of his past two outings, trading Ableton sequences for lead sheets, focusing on creating robust melodic and harmonic foundations first. This difference is audible straight away; the album opens with a dialog between upright piano and plucked double bass that’s so gentle and transparent you can hear the breath of the players. Yet the record is not all as sparse as this intimate opening. The ensuing collection of 10 tracks—variously inspired by the vignette structure of Akira Kurosawa’s 1990 film Dreams and the parables of Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi—unfurls Takahashi’s most colourful, poignant and sophisticated set to date. With instrumental contributions from the likes of Thom Gill (collaborator to everyone from Chaka Khan to Sam Wilkes), Bram Gielen (Jeremy Dutcher, Owen Pallett), Philippe Melanson (Sam Gendel, Eric Chenaux),Orange Milk Records alum Nick Storring, Takahashi and company embrace everything from viscous jazz-funk to wistful ambience, languid balladry to groove-laden tropical repose. Then there’s the vocals, which play a key role in connecting this body of work to its pop inspirations. Fellow Telephone Explosion artist Dorothea Paas sings on nine cuts, while Chris A. Cummings (Marker Starling, Cici Arthur) crafted elegant vocal arrangements featuring both of them for six tracks. And just like the intricate songcraft that Takahashi so admires, In Another teems with personality and wit, offering surprise twists of colour tucked into its warm and evocative compositions.

Music From Memory returns with their penultimate release of 2016, this time bringing together a compilation of works by the Italian composer and musician Roberto Musci. While studying guitar and saxophone in his hometown of Milan, Musci developed a deep fascination for non-western music and set out to travel across India, Asia and Africa, which he would do extensively between 1974-1985. During his many journeys Roberto would become deeply embedded in each unique world of rhythms, scales and approaches to making and performing music. Throughout this period of travel he would make many field recordings as well as collect and study many traditional and indigenous instruments that he would then later combine with synthesizers and electronics on his return to Italy.

Combining personal documents of music and sounds deeply connected to the history and cultures of those lands, with his own explorations and experiments with cutting edge sound technology Roberto Musci would develop through his music a very unique and at times wholly mystical space, where ancient and modern would evolve into a new musical language.

As well as making his own music, during the 1980’s and 1990’s Roberto would also regularly broadcast radio shows of experimental and indigenous music on Italian radio stations such as Rai and Radio Popolare. Deeply connected to the arts he would also compose and perform numerous pieces of music for theatre, dance and performance art pieces as well as soundtracks for film and television.

‘Tower of Silence’ brings together a double LP of material from Roberto Musci’s solo recordings commencing with the Loa of Music sessions from 1984 up until later very recent works. The compilation also includes a number of collaborative pieces, many performed and written in collaboration with Giovanni Venosa, such as material taken from their ‘Water Messages On Desert Sand’, which as an album was Grammy-nominated in in the UK in 1987. A unique and at times intensely mesmerising musical world ‘Tower of Silence’ offers an introduction to the work of a unique and visionary artist.

First time reissue of JP / US free jazz rarity. Old-style Gatefold LP with rare photographs & liner notes by Ed Hazell. Edition of 1000 BUY HERE: www.aguirrerecords.com/products/marion-brown-awofofora-lp The 1970s were Marion Brown’s most searching decade, a period during which he sought to move beyond the free jazz of the previous era and find more personal approaches to structuring improvisation and composition. After leaving New York for Europe in 1967, Brown began reshaping his music into what he described as “a more deliberate kind of music that had more structure to it,” pacing it so that moods and modes could develop over time. Albums such as In Sommerhausen, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Geechee Recollections, and Sweet Earth Flying trace this evolution: rhythmic structures moved to the foreground, harmony receded, and composition became a matter of orchestrating interlocking rhythmic parts as one would polyphonic lines. Released in 1976, Awofofora is an overlooked but crucial entry in that sequence. At the time, its use of funk and reggae beats, electric guitars, and grooves drawn from contemporary Black popular music led some to misread it as a jazz-rock detour. In retrospect, it is entirely consistent with Brown’s methodology. As he admired in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the stimulus comes from within the community. Here Brown filters Afro-Caribbean rhythms and funk through his own sensibility, abstracting their structural qualities rather than adopting surface style. “La Placita,” making its first recorded appearance, layers distinct rhythmic phrases in a manner reminiscent of African drum ensembles, over which Brown and trumpeter Ambrose Jackson spin extended improvisations. The standard “Flamingo” is reshaped through diasporic rhythm and lyrical soloing, while “Pepi’s Tempo” and “Mangoes” harness crisp funk and reggae grooves to generate what Brown called a “manifestation of community” through collective improvisation. Even the overdubbed solo feature “And Then They Danced” reflects his structural thinking, ingeniously re-voicing a duet composition for two alto saxophones performed by one player. This was the only recording by a short-lived band that briefly polarized audiences during festival appearances in 1976. Yet Brown consistently sought unity across change: different sounds, same principles — rhythm as structure, melody as architecture, collective improvisation, and above all, the primacy of tone. Awofofora stands not as a departure, but as a vivid synthesis of the elements he had been refining since the late 1960s, its grooves and golden alto lines conveying a sound drawn, in his words, “from life and from the world of experience.”