Psychedelic / Progressive

A dreamlike dispatch from mid-80's Japan, the first and only Hallelujahs album is an entrancing and gentle work of psychedelic pop brilliance. Friends gathered in the studio by Shinji Shibayama (Nagisa Ni Te), Hallelujahs created a music of deep feeling and wonderment with simple song craft and a guileless magic. The album was the first release by the now revered ORG Records in 1986 in a micro-edition of 300 copies. With affinities to the sounds of the Rough Trade and Flying Nun labels, the Paisley Underground and Galaxie 500, the album is an utterly unique masterpiece that remains a touchstone for generations of like spirited artists in Japan and around the world. Black Editions is proud to present this all-time classic in a deluxe vinyl edition, remastered from the original tapes and presented in a heavy tip-on jacket with textured paper, mounted high quality print, foil stamped finishes and spot colors. Also released with a special limited edition 7" featuring two previously unreleased tracks and hand stamped envelope with seven photo cards.

Back in 2016, producer Seth Applebaum released two EPs that marked the inauguration of the band Ghost Funk Orchestra. ‘Night Walker’ and ‘Death Waltz’ were conceived as one-man-band, reel-to-reel tape recorded experiments that would bring together elements of all the sounds that Seth most adored at the time: tape-saturated drums, gratuitous spring reverb, surfy guitar, Latin-style percussion, odd time signatures, and Spanish-language female vocals. Initially released only in the digital domain and on a short run of cassette tapes, these two EPs that defined the early era of GFO are now finally available together on a single LP via Colemine Records. The tracks have been lovingly remastered by Doug Krebs. We invite you to take a dive into the humble beginnings of a project that has continued to grow, shape shift, and accrue new and exciting sounds for its sonic palette.

“As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder…” is the opening line from Mac DeMarco’s second full-length LP ‘Salad Days,’ the follow up to 2012’s lauded ‘Mac DeMarco 2.’ Amongst that familiar croon and lilting guitar, that initial line from the title track sets the tone for an LP of a maturing singer/songwriter/producer. Someone strangely self-aware of the positives and negatives of their current situation at the ripe old age of 23. Written and recorded around a relentless tour schedule (which picked up all over again as soon as the LP was done), ‘Salad Days’ gives the listener a very personal insight into what it’s all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format. The lead single, “Passing Out Pieces,” set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like “…never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me…” Clearly, Salad Days isn’t the same record that breezily gave us “Dreamin,” and “Ode to Viceroy,” but the result of what comes from their success. “Chamber of Reflection,” a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn’t be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. Standout tracks like these show Mac’s widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory. Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. The same crisp John Lennon / Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have walked out of Geoff Emerick’s mixing board in 1972, but with that peculiar Mac touch that’s completely of right now. “Brother,” a complete future classic, is Mac at his most soulful and easygoing but with that distinct weirdness and bite that can only come from Mr. DeMarco.“Treat Her Better” is rife with “Mac-isms,” heavily chorused slinky lead guitar, swooning vocal melodies, effortless chords that come along only after years of effort, and the other elements seriously lacking in independent music: sentiment and heartfelt sincerity.

The 5th album released in 2001 by the five-member UK rock band Radiohead.

This work, which was recorded at the same time as the previous work "KID A", is a beautiful work that swallows everything from noise to blues. Includes "Pyramid Song", "I Might Be Long", "Knives Out" and others.

White Heaven’s second album, Strange Bedfellow, is one of the great unsung albums of the 90’s Japanese underground. Released two years after their striking debut, Out, the album reveals the group shifting to a more dynamic and finely honed sound. You Ishihara’s songwriting & arrangements take center stage, leading the group to transmute classic west coast psychedelia and garage into a thrillingly direct collection of songs that span from fuzz drenched, driving rockers to smoldering numbers that fade into the night... Only ever available in an edition of 700 LP’s released in 1993 by PSF Japan, Black Editions is pleased to present Strange Bedfellow, newly remastered in this deluxe edition.

Exclusive Mesh-Key release of Sakamoto's brilliant third solo album, with completely different art from the Japanese release. Comes with full-color inserts with lyric translations, and digital download cards.

After 20+ years with psych legends Yura Yura Teikoku, Shintaro Sakamoto’s third solo album is a bonafide masterpiece of warped steel guitar, ambient disco and AOR soul.

“Like a language of Sakamoto’s own…made with a ship-in-the-bottle-like focus.” Pitchfork (7.8)

“Love If Possible is the pay-attention-moment. Not enough know. More should know.” Under The Radar

“Perfectionist pop for the extraterrestrial bachelor pad.” Spin

JACKSON C. FRANK is the highly regarded debut and the only official album he ever released, produced by friend and fellow musician PAUL SIMON in England and released on Columbia Records in 1965. Jackson has been called the most famous folk singer of 1960s that no one has ever heard of and his influence was felt more in England, where his album was a hit, rather than in the U.S., where his record was a commercial failure at the time of its release. His most famous song “Blues Run The Game” has been covered by scores of musicians including Simon and Garfunkel, Counting Crows, Colin Meloy, Bert Jansch, Laura Marling, and Robin Pecknold, while Nick Drake also recorded it privately.

This is the first official vinyl reissue from Superior Viaduct of the 1975 historical masterpiece by Takehisa Kosugi (1938-2018), Japan's leading figure in sound art known for his work with Group Ongaku, The Taj Mahal Travellers, Fluxus, and others. This is the first official vinyl reissue from the prestigious Superior Viaduct label. The psychedelic and meditative musicianship with electric violins and voices drifting comfortably in the space is still unique even after 30 years. The sound quality is perfect with the reliable Superior Viaduct. For fans of La Monte Young and Yoshi Wada, this is a must have on vinyl.

For over half a century, Takehisa Kosugi was one of the most unique and enduring figures in the Japanese underground. As an art student in Tokyo in the early 1960s, he joined the Fluxus-styled performance unit Hi Re Centre and founded the improvisational ensemble Group Ongaku, but his most legendary project was The Taj-Mahal Travelers – a multicellular organism that included Kosugi, Ryo Koike, Yukio Tsuchiya, Seiji Nagai, Michihiro Kimura, Tokio Hasegawa and sound engineer Kinji Hayashi. With a penchant for long psychedelic jams (some lasting 12 hours or more) The Taj-Mahal Travelers lived up to their name. Touring in a Volkswagen van across Europe and Asia in the early '70s, they eventually reached the actual Taj Mahal in India. Upon their return to Japan, they held a concert to raise more touring funds and released their very first recordings. Their debut album, July 15, 1972, would extend the band's matter-of-fact titling: all the tracks were named precisely for the times they began and ended. With a grab bag of instrumentation (electric violin, double bass, santoor, vibraphone, harmonica, radio oscillators, sheet iron, etc.), The Taj-Mahal Travelers weave together mesmerizing waves of sonic texture. Featuring longtone concepts that Kosugi discovered while working with sound generators in New York in the mid-'60s, July 15, 1972 remains just as much a collective tone poem as psych workout. These leader-less sounds coalesce into a unified whole that feels both subconscious and sublime, as if the waveforms bypass the listener's ears and land directly inside one's synapses. This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 750 numbered copies. Comes with poster.

180-gram LP version. Originally released in 1975. Remastered by Manuel Göttsching. Recorded July-August 1974, Inventions for Electric Guitar is Manuel Göttsching's first solo album. Written and performed entirely by Göttsching on electric guitar, with a four-track TEAC A3340, Revox A77 for echoes, wah-wah pedal, volume pedal, Schaller Rotosound, and Hawaiian steel bar.

After the 2021 Re-Release of “Schwingungen” (MG.ART612) we proudly announce “Seven Up” as Part 2 of the authorised 50th Anniversary “A.R.T.” Re-Edition Series. “Seven Up” is the third studio album by Ash Ra Tempel and their only album recorded in collaboration with American Ph.D. in psychology, Dr. Timothy Leary. The Coverart for “Seven Up” was designed by famous Swiss Artist Walter Wegmüller. Recorded in August 1972 at Sinus Studio in Berne, Switzerland, remixed September 1972 at Dierks Studios in Stommeln, Germany. First release in spring 1973 by OHR Musik - the first release on the new sub-label "Kosmische Kuriere", Kat-Nr. KK 58001. We release “Seven Up” in a Re-Cut carefully overseen by Manuel Göttsching himself, on September 9th 2022, also being Manuel Göttsching´s 70th Birthday. Our Edition features the full original text for the “7 levels of consciousness” by Timothy Leary in English, i.e. “Instruction Manual for Pleasure Panel” plus a previously unreleased glimpse view of the original scripts incl. notes and mark ups as well as partly unreleased photos from the recording session. ->continued on page 2->continued on page 2 As for the music itself we again refer to Julian Cope´s review and remarks from his book “Krautrocksampler” (published by Head Heritage, 1st ed. 1995): “When the Leary Mob met the Kaiser Gang, the sparks flew ever Up-wards... 7up is a stone classic in every way. Yes, it is unlikely to find Timothy Leary singing lead vocal in a cosmic group, but even weirder that he chose to sing a wild yelping freaked out blues ! Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke had begun their careers in The Steeple Chase Blues Band back in the mid-'60ies, and they quickly felt their way through what Barritt and Leary were aiming for. They reconciled it all as a kind of West Coast chordless psychedelia, where blues riffs sparkle out of nowhere and the sheer weight of synthesizers renders everything with an unreal Pere Ubu/early Roxy Music quality. The greatness of Ash Ra Tempel burned so brightly on 7Up that there is really nothing else like it. Hartmut Enke and Manuel Gottsching here returned to their riffy roots. It can hardly be called a retro act, though, as the context of music is everything. And with Dierks at the controls, even the New Kids on the Block would have sounded psychedelic. 7Up is like a late night radio show glimpsed through a shattered tuner where all but the most truly dangerous sounds have been allowed to stay, to drift and to dance around the performers. The result is an extreme gem, a flash of hysterical white lightning, and a pre-punk Technicolour yawn in the grandest of traditions. In typical Ash Ra Tempel style, the record is divided into two pieces, “Space” and "Time”. Within this, though, Timothy Leary’s ideas are allowed to free-flow and the two sides are therefore divided into mini-songs all segued together. The highlight of Side 1 is “Power Drive”, a West Coast burn-up that transcends any W. Coast music I ever did hear. Leary and Barritt present the greatest twin-vocal of all time, coming on like Jagger and Morrison but too caught up in their own maelstrom to be anything less than Heralds of the Punkfuture still five years away. In chaos it was conceived and in chaos it was recorded. Yet Dieter Dierks, the great Aural Architect of the Cosmic Couriers, turned 7Up into a personal triumph and a Kosmische dream.”

Subtropic Cosmos is the international debut album by Japanese artist Hitomi Moriwaki. Composed and recorded at her Fukuoka home during the worldwide pandemic between 2020-2022, the album was produced by Hideki Urawa, who has also worked with Kikagaku Moyo and other musical acts on Guruguru Brain. "Subtropic Cosmos" in particular is a wonderful work that conveys the "joy of making things" to listeners, as it is filled with various influences from her diverse activities. As suggested by the album title, most of the songs were created under the unprecedented conditions of corona--and as a result, were inspired by the consciousness of traveling through imaginary foreign lands and nature. As if adventuring through the universe inside of her own mind, Moriwaki's versatility is best experienced through her fearless fusion of hip-hop, pop and experimental music. Through a lens of psychedelic production by Hideki Urawa, this album is a truly special, one-of-a-kind space experience for listeners to enjoy and embark upon.

Minami Deutsch 3rd full studio album "Fortune Goodies" "Everyone has their own imagination about outer space, and each one us gets to daydream about what exactly floats or exists there. ‘Fortune Goodies’ is Minami Deutsch’s long-awaited 3rd studio album. While not all the songs on the record function as straightforward Krautrock this time around, they still manage to capture the spirit and heart of the genre. After relocating from Tokyo to Berlin, Miula’s musical vocabulary has greatly expanded, thus resulting in this ultimate Japanese take on cosmic music in 2022.”

Kinzua debut a ritualistic, zonked outernational ambience, downbeat and cyberpunk bliss on Vladimir Ivkovic’s Offen Music - RIYL Morphosis, To Rococo Rot, CS + Kreme, Black Zone Myth Chant. Formed by Lucas Brell in Berlin and Leipzig’s Marvin Unde (Qnete), Kinzua emerge from the German club undergrowth with hypnotic slants of brownfield-pastoral electronica and meter-messing motorik pulses on their first release ‘None of the Above’. Smeared over a double LP, the hour-long album pitchbends with a properly lysergic quality as it executes its functions between the folksy crackle of ‘First Chapter’ and the grungy, viscous, post-D&B rolige of ‘Breath’. Rhythmic prompts ranging from klassic kosmiche to ‘90s UK armchair music and contemporary dembow dancehall underline Kinzua’s lines of melodic thought and dream-textured electronics in swirling permutations that feel in-the-moment but ever rolling towards an uncertain horizon. Kinzua act as spirit guides for the mind expanding new generation of trippers, with effortlessly oily grooves and keen attention to detail that suspend a sense of disbelief and mesmerise to their method. Seductive oddities such as ‘Domestic Affair’ follow to Detlef Weinrich-esque electro on ‘Elevator Moving Flor’ and ‘Heidi Peter’ echoes original Harmonia from a bleaker perspective, while supremely groggy drone in ‘Surface’ gives way to arid dancehall abstraction on ‘Sahara’, and ‘Gobi’ slopes off on a crooked outernational tip to a highlight of Laila Sakini-like scenes in ‘The Dancing Smoke’ starring vox by GiGi FM reciting from Baudelaire’s ‘Les Fleurs de Mal’.

Simultaneous purchase set of three original Les Rallizes Dénudés albums LPs with bonus 12-inch, available in limited quantities!

Special 12-inch for purchasing all three albums at the same time. 
The "Romance of Black Sorrow otherwise Fallin' Love With," which was cut from the analog LP of "MIZUTANI / Les Rallizes Dénudés" due to the recording time, and two bonus tracks from the reissue CD of "MIZUTANI / Les Rallizes Dénudés" will be included.
Two bonus tracks from the reissue CD of "'67-'69 STUDIO et LIVE" will be included.

FACE A 
1. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ otherwise Fallin’ Love With 
　Romance of the Black Pain otherwise Fallin’ Love With 

FACE AA 
1. Résonance 
2. Tobacco Road

3LP edition. The long-awaited reissue of "'77 LIVE", recorded live in Tachikawa, Tokyo on March 12, 1977 by Les Rallizes Dénudés, after remastering by Makoto Kubota! The contents of the album are an overwhelming flood of sound and transformative improvisation, allowing the audience to relive the miraculous one-and-a-half hour live performance.

Before Mahjun (of which Souffle Continu reissued, in 2016, the two albums released on Saravah), there was… Maajun. Five musicians (Jean-Pierre Arnoux, Cyril and Jean-Louis Lefebvre, Alain Roux and Roger Scaglia) and three times as many instruments at the service of an electric-poetic guerrilla group moulded from folk and blues. The group’s unique album, “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde” evokes an (imaginary) association of Frank Zappa and Jacques Higelin, of Sonny Sharrock and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. Under these conditions, Long Live Death! “The most French of all the French groups, determined to take Maurice Chevalier’s place in American hearts.” This was how Rock&Folk presented Mahjun in 1977. So be it. But when “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde”, was issued, it was 1971, and the name, though the same group, was still spelled Maajun. So, let’s look back at the story. At the end of the sixties, five blues fans decided to form a French group ready to break down the barriers: Jean-Pierre Arnoux (drums, vibraphone, saxophone), Cyril Lefebvre (guitar, organ), Jean-Louis Lefebvre (bass, violin, guitar, vocals), Alain Roux (saxophone, flute, harmonica, vocals) and Roger Scaglia (guitar, vocals). This was Maajun, and Vivre la mort du vieux monde would be their only album, but which would (nevertheless) be followed by those of Mahjun created later by Lefebvre (Jean-Louis) and Arnoux. Recorded for the Vogue label, “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde” would disturb a number of people. This is mostly due to the lyrics, many of which were written by Gérald Escot-Bocanegra, who, while summoning the spirit of Lautréamont and Rimbaud, turned the Maajun musicians on to rock and free jazz. Add a bit of politics into the mix, and the release of the album was delayed for several months. But then, wasn’t it worth waiting for? Because “Vivre la Mort du Vieux Monde”, a real concept-album, is an important and iconoclastic statement made directly in the face of (francophone) dreamers of all countries. Over heavy guitar riffs, psychedelic interludes or fantasy-fuelled digressions, Maajun built mazes on the advice of alchemists known only to themselves before heading off on a long march on the “cracking walls”. It was an ambitious project, but Maajun could handle it, going so far as to proclaim: “Tomorrow will be a huge party!” But as we can see “tomorrow”, is now!

Originally released in 1972 in very limited numbers. A trip of an album rich in percussive energy and African chant - made in Brazil! The sounds of continents colliding in a young, funky & soul fuelled 70s ....this is one is on full burn from start to finish ! This the only album by Massáhi Tribe and it became notorious for it’s unique sound and the almost complete lack of information about its creators. Check!

the Label say:

'This is a sound made in Brazil. All the members are Brazilians.
But the goal is to show the young african music, with all his distinctions that features the origin of the black continent’s music.

In this record we launch several curious things. Starting from a rhythmic draw, based on the camel steps that match the division 4/4, on the same line of YÁ YÁ YÁ and SOUL MUSIC, which was given the name of OGA, this, because in Lagos, Nigeria’s capital, is an intimate treatment among friends. There, a man feels good when compared to a OGA (camel).
Purposely and proudly we launch this new and different LP, not only dedicated to all record collectors in the world but also to all party lovers, nights in club, and even for who’s loving, because on both sides, there aren't intervals. It’s a contagious and crazy rhythm."

This is how, in 1971, Embaixador and Maestro João Negrão described the record on his back cover. These words did not aged a bit.

We are very happy and proud to announce, 44 years later, the first 100% official reissue of this genuine work that became legendary and considered as the "Holy Grail" of Brazilian music among collectors around the world.'

An album such as this obviously owes a lot to the atmosphere in which it was recorded, which we can imagine was magical. We know it took place in Fromentel, Normandy, in a farm converted into a studio by the producer Jacques Denjean, known for his work with Dionne Warwick or Françoise Hardy as well as having been a member of the Double Six. It was also at Fromentel, that Denjean would record two fantastic albums with Albert Marcoeur. When Emmanuelle Parrenin followed in his footsteps a year later she was in good company: the sound engineer at the studio was her partner and therefore uniquely capable (we imagine) of creating an adequate soundscape for her delicate universe. What is more, five years previously, Bruno Menny, the sound engineer partner, recorded his first and only album, but what an album: in electroacoustic terms we can hear things which make him appear as the spiritual son of his mentor Xenakis! 

What makes Maison Rose unique is exactly this fusion between the two conceptions of Emmanuelle Parrenin and Bruno Menny, creating a perfect marriage of tradition and experimentation. The tradition comes from the songs collected by Emmanuelle Parrenin in rural areas, in a similar vein to the work carried out by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins. The experimentation is in the sound captured by Bruno Menny, who both arranged and recorded the album. This is not to forget those who came with their guitar (Denis Gasser), or their lyrics (no less a figure than Jean-Claude Vannier). On the one hand we have the humble and non-demonstrative singing, with melodies which remind us of songs we would sing to calm a child's nightmares, and on the other hand a pronounced rhythmic intensity at certain points, such as on "Topaze" where the drums in particular evoke the Motorik of Faust. 

A real haven of peace, Maison Rose is enchanting with its aura of mystery and spirituality, with soft, gentle songs which seem both ancestral and futurist. Originally published by Ballon Noir in 1977, this album follows on from other folk marvels such as Le Galant noyé from the pre-Mélusine period. 

On the subject of Maison Rose, if we had to risk a few comparisons we would mention Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Joanna Newsom, Collie Ryan, Shirley Collins, Trees Community, Sourdeline and Véronique Chalot as those which spring spontaneously to mind. But this is too reductive for the timeless singularity of Emmanuelle Parrenin: because Maison Rose was recorded in 1977, in the midst of the punk revolution. 

With their debut album, "Isn't Anything," released in 1988, the band revolutionized alternative music and introduced a new approach to guitar music in the years that followed. Their sound became the template for numerous sub-genres and presented a groundbreaking approach to guitar music and studio production. The genderless vocals of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, who sing in the same vocal range and blend perfectly together, serve as another melodic layer that complements the dizzying intensity of Shields' guitar. The album is characterized by the eerie sense of space present in many of the recorded tracks, which range from intensely propulsive to quiet and unsettling.

Japanese obi included.
Mastered from original 1/4" analog tape using Studer A80 VU-PRE and Neumann VMS 80
180g vinyl weight
Standard gatefold outer sleeve
Four 300 x 300 mm art prints enclosed
Includes DL code (24-bit | 16-bit | mp3)

Meddle-era Floyd, simply mind-bending 

Tracklist:

Side A 
One Of These Days 6:31

Side B
Echoes 25:17 

Atom Hearth Mother-era Floyd, simply mind-bending

Side A 

1 The Embryo 9:57
2 Fat Old Sun 5:09
3 Green Is The Colour/Careful With That Axe, Eugene 10:46

Side B

1 If 4:23
2 Atom Hearth Mother with Orchestra 24:48

The bastard love child of Elvis and Lux Interior, Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira brewed a heady amalgam of ’50s trash rock, surf-y tremolo, and reverb-drenched goth during his all-too-brief 44 trips around the sun. He recorded seven albums worth of material in 15 years, primarily issued on CD-R, most of which is now unreadable or in a landfill. Armed with only an Eko guitar, a black tuxedo, and his signature wrap-around shades, Charlie Megira was a mold-breaking artist who disintegrated while we were all staring at our phones. We've chosen our 2 favorite cuts off his 2000 debut, Da Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic. Hear as Megira channels the optimism of post-war America, narcoleptic surf, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack into a lo-fi masterpiece all his own. Sung in both Hebrew and English, Mambo Chic moves at a deliberate pace, unconcerned by the traffic of the modern world and wrapped in a blanket of Tascam 4-track hiss. On “Tomorrow’s Gone” Megira achieves the feat of being so far back in time that he’s somehow living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to arrive.

Numero Group boxset providing chapter and verse on American slowcore pioneers Duster. Although short-lived, the trio dealt in uniquely spaced-out post-rock soundscapes over the course of two albums, one EP and a handful of singles and compilation contributions around the turn of the millennium.