World / Traditional / India

Mapache presents the first solo album by Tim Bernardes, singer and composer of Brazilian band 0 Terno. A magical Chamber Pop album that can be totally explained with just a word. Beauty. Sao Paulo talented jack-of all trades, Tim Bernardes Recomegar shines exquisitely from head to toe. So, cut off the overheads, turn on a lamp or light a candle, perhaps some incense, and listen to it. Might we suggest starting with “Quis Mudar” a breathtaking folk song punctuated by crystalline eruptions of strings and horns. Bernardes’ voice is truly next level. – J. Steele, Aquarium Drunkard

Propelled by his 1956 Lee Hazlewood-produced hit “The Fool,” Sanford Clark was already a rockabilly legend in his own right by the time he swapped his hair gel and switchblade for a pair of cowboy boots on They Call Me Country. Recorded between 1965-67 and originally released as a series of singles for Phoenix’s Ramco label, the 12 tracks on this LP borrow Bakersfield’s outlaw sound and ignore Nashville’s countrypolitan flair, standing as a true lost masterpiece of country music’s third generation. Clark’s booming baritone tells tales of bar fights, heartaches, and drinking til you can’t stand, while Waylon Jennings provides a backdrop of fuzzed out guitar twang. Mastered from the original session tapes and back on vinyl for the first time since the Nixon administration.

The second LP compendium of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s early solo piano works, recorded throughout the 1960s – finally available again. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear!

These original compositions, performed by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru herself on solo piano, were originally self-released in Germany in small editions as fundraisers for orphanages, support organizations for widows of war victims, and other philanthropic causes. We are humbled and proud to present this album in collaboration with the EMAHOY TSEGE MARIAM MUSIC PUBLISHER and Foundation, and to assist in continuing her life-long mission of using music as a vessel to care for those who have been abandoned by society, or harmed by strife.

Black vinyl LP comes in black inner-sleeves and heavy cardstock jacket with color printing and gold-foil stamping, and song notes by the composer herself. Restored and remastered by Timothy Stollenwerk.

The second LP compendium of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s early solo piano works, recorded throughout the 1960s – finally available again. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear!

These original compositions, performed by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru herself on solo piano, were originally self-released in Germany in small editions as fundraisers for orphanages, support organizations for widows of war victims, and other philanthropic causes. We are humbled and proud to present this album in collaboration with the EMAHOY TSEGE MARIAM MUSIC PUBLISHER and Foundation, and to assist in continuing her life-long mission of using music as a vessel to care for those who have been abandoned by society, or harmed by strife.

Black vinyl LP comes in black inner-sleeves and heavy cardstock jacket with color printing and gold-foil stamping, and song notes by the composer herself. Restored and remastered by Timothy Stollenwerk.

The legendary Palm Wine guitarist S.E. Rogie’s early work. Truly beautiful songs from the 1960’s ranging from sweet acoustic solo numbers to blazing full band electric music. S.E. Rogie had a very long & pioneering career in Sierra Leone. His songs are some of the most beautiful ever – gentle & lilting timeless melodies. One of the greats.

Awesome Tapes From Africa the label began over 10 years ago with the reissue of Nahawa Doumbia’s Vol. 3. The recording kicked off a successful run of classic and new recordings from artists across Africa, being made available for the first time in the international marketplace. ATFA makes it possible for artists to expand their fanbases and revenues streams with legally licensed recordings and a 50/50 profit split. For its 50th release, ATFA presents iconic Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia’s beloved Vol. 2. Released on LP in 1982 and unavailable outside Mali until now, Vol. 2 is an intimate yet powerful document of the early efforts of one of Mali’s most enduring voices. Four decades of worldwide acclaim later, Doumbia is still touring the world blowing minds with her achingly emphatic singing backed by her partner guitarist N’gou Bagayoko. Vol. 2 is stark in its instrumentation—simply featuring voice and acoustic guitar—but massive in its sonic impact. Painstakingly extracted and remastered from LP by longtime ATFA audio engineer collaborator Jessica Thompson, this is the first time this recording has been cleaned-up for wider release. The master recording no longer exists and the original was pressed at relatively inferior quality, heightening the difficulty of presenting Vol. 2 with clarified audio. The historic recording was worth the effort. Doumbia’s voice soars above Bagayoko’s guitar as she lays out her plaintive approach to expressing relevant topics of the day. The room sound could be considered the third instrument as its shape and sonic affect is vibrantly apparent throughout. And the simplicity of this recording only enhances the immediacy of these four songs. As a bookend to both Doumbia’s long career and ATFA’s growing catalog, Vol. 2 is a grand yet unpretentious encapsulation of the energy behind this decade-long collaboration between artist and label.

Emotional Response is proud to welcome renowned multi-instrumentalist Alan Briand aka Shelter, to the label with a striking new EP that delves deep into the realms of modern Digi-Dub.

Over a myriad of releases Shelter’s dextrous ability to straddle genres, from ambient, Balearic, improvisation and most recently a series of acid ragas, releasing on an impressive roster of today’s electronic labels including Antinote, Growing Bin, International Feel, Séance Centre and his own Protopost imprint.

After making waves on Emotional Response's All Trades compilations with his standout track "The Four Knights Dub," Briand returns to further explore his passion for digital dub and UK roots. Across four tracks, all recorded live, he merges sound design, found sounds, and world music with seismic basslines, creating a truly immersive sonic experience.

The rise of Digital Dub is often traced to the groundbreaking "Under Me Sleng Teng" by Prince Jammy / Wayne Smith, but it was the UK's later reversioning – adding electronic drums to roots and steppers rhythms – that gave birth to the unique sound of Digi-Dub.

Shelter pays homage to this tradition, drawing inspiration from the likes of Alpha & Omega, Bush Chemist, and Jonah Dan. His process is as raw as it is innovative: building an analog setup with a MIDI sequencer, DCO synth, live vocals, and sound effects fed through Boss pedals. Digital drums from the KPR77 and DD10 are layered in, with everything mixed live to tape, no overdubs, capturing the raw, live energy of the performance.

This EP must be experienced as a whole – a continuous live set of steppers 4/4 rhythms, cryptic titles (a nod to chess tactics) that acts as rewinds, paying tribute to dub classics of the past. 

Elis and Tom is a bossa nova album, released in 1974, recorded by Brazilian singer Elis Regina and singer-songwriter Antônio Carlos Jobim. Recorded over a 16-day period at MGM Studios in Los Angeles, California, the album was an old wish of Regina, who always wanted to record a full album of Jobim's songs with him. This finally came true in 1974, when Elis was celebrating her 10th anniversary as an artist of Philips Records. The label approved the project as a gift for her.

First released in Brazil in 1960 this is Joao Gilberto's second studio effort. A seminal album that just one year later introduced Bossa Nova to the United States. Joao Gilberto, one of the true masters of the genre, displays a great selection of songs including various Tom Jobim's classic gems such as "Samba de Uma Nota Só" ("One Note Samba"), "Corcovado" and "Outra Vez". An essential piece of work in the whole history of Brazilian music.

Reissue, originally released in 1963. Ellis Regina one of the greatest Brazilian interpreters of all time. Originally released in 1963 when she was not even 20 years old, this was her fourth album and second for Columbia Records. Still a few steps before she became a star, here Ellis Regina's fresh and extremely ductile voice shines on top of sophisticated jazz arrangements by Astor Silva and a mixed repertoire based on charming romantic songs and vibrant sambas, all composed by Brazilian authors, among them a couple of highlights such as Baden Powell's "Se Você. Quiser" and "O Ben do Amor" the title track composed by guitarist Rildo Hora. This is an early and fine statement in Regina's fast way to the peak of Brazilian music history.

"A Taste Of India" released in 1968 by Martin Denny's , the king of exotic fantasy music, has been re-released from ! This work is one of the most outstanding and unique works of Martin Denny, who worked on the theme of Indian music! In the midst of the psychedelic movement, the King of Exotica responded! A gentle, gentle and friendly Martin Denny manners sound trip with sitar and tabla! The Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense and Peppermints" is an impressive cover, and your own "Hypnotique" self-cover is full of highlights!

Yazz Ahmed, hailed as one of the most influential trumpet players of her generation. An Ivor Novello award winning composer who makes sweeping epics that are rich with storytelling, depicting evocative ancient worlds and mythological muses. With her fourth studio album, A Paradise in the Hold, the British-Bahrani musician dives even deeper into her dual heritage and has come up with a treasure trove that draws on traditional music and stories from her childhood home. Ahmed writes for the voice for the first time, with lyrics inspired by Bahraini wedding poems and the yearning songs of the pearl divers. Deeply textural, expansive and full of potent performances, the album charts the heroic voyages of the jewel-hunters of yore, who sailed home through rough seas with precious cargo, and Ahmed’s own voyage of self-discovery over the past decade.

“A thread in my work has been searching for, establishing and, now, finally embracing and celebrating my cultural identity,” she says. Whereas she explored Arabian music more generally with her earlier material, this release is more explicitly linked to her homeland. “If my first album, 2011’s Finding My Way Home, represents the first steps on this path then with A Paradise In The Hold, I’ve arrived at a deeper understanding of how my British and Bahraini heritage can co-exist, in personal as well as musical terms.”

Ahmed began A Paradise in the Hold’s journey back in 2014, on a research trip in Bahrain, during her Jazzlines Fellowship. She’d trawl local bookshops looking for poems and lyrical inspiration. Many came from wedding songs, which were “a lot about beauty and connecting beauty with nature,” she says. Deepening her connection to the tradition, her grandfather even sang her some songs from his own wedding day. At the same time, she became fascinated by the celebratory music of women’s drumming circles and how they contrasted the work songs of the pearl divers. The latter dangerous pursuit has since ceased, though the divers’ sorrowful music – sung and clapped in a polyrhythmic style known as fijiri – lives on.

“They were songs that encouraged the fishermen to stay in good spirits, or songs about missing your loved ones,” says Ahmed. Some of the former pearl divers have formed choirs that tour around the Gulf and she caught a performance by the Pearl Divers of Muharraq, the name of her former hometown. “It gave me an opportunity to connect on a deeper level with the music that I grew up with as a child, but didn’t really embrace at the time.”

Ahmed grew up in Bahrain until the age of nine and lived there during the Gulf War in the early 90s. While she has happy memories of her childhood, many were overshadowed by conflict, like “having a gas mask and not being able to go to school. We went to school in people’s garages,” she says. “I remember the sirens going off when there was a bomb threat, and closing the curtains, turning off all the lights, and covering the plughole in the bathtub so no poisonous gases could get in.”

She moved to London with her mother and sisters in 1992 but says, “I felt like I didn’t quite belong and I didn’t know why that was. For a long time, I would lie about my heritage because of how Arab and Muslim people were represented in American films and British dramas. When I was at school, I never said that I was half Bahraini.” Music, however, helped to strengthen her sense of identity. She saw links between the jazz she studied at university and Arabian classical music, and started to learn Arabic. “I started to rediscover my mixed heritage,” she adds. “And that’s when I started to remember all this music that I grew up hearing but never fully engaged with.”

The fruits of Ahmed’s 2014 research trip became a 90-minute suite, Alhaan Al Siduri, which she performed the following year in both the UK and Bahrain. It’s named for the character Siduri from folk tale the Epic of Gilgamesh: “a wise woman who lives on an island of absolute beauty, which some scholars have suggested may be Bahrain,” Ahmed explains.

She has reworked the suite’s main theme into album opener ‘She Stands On The Shore’, which sets the tone for an inky odyssey through mermaids, goddesses, sirens and, on ‘Dancing Barefoot’, a runaway bride; and love, loss, new beginnings and a newfound freedom.

Ahmed has always been drawn to stories of women in mythology – her last album, 2019’s Polyhymnia, was based on the Greek goddess of poetry and dance – but this time she has wider intentions. “I want to change the narrative about Arab women,” says Ahmed. “A lot of people think that Arab women are just oppressed. But in Bahrain there are plenty of creative women trying to do something different in the world.” Ahmed notes how Arabic music has been stereotypically used in western entertainment and she wanted to challenge that perception. “We hear it a lot in movies to represent the desert, or poor villagers,” she says, “but you rarely see it representing strong women, for example.”

Alhaan Al Siduri formed the basis of Ahmed’s album but it has evolved ambitiously over the following decade, during performances both solo and with orchestras. She expanded tracks with intricate sound design and added multiple trumpet parts. “I learned to think of them as antiphonal, so you can hear them from different angles,” she says. “And so it feels like you’re surrounded by this very majestic instrument.” The album’s texture, meanwhile, also stems from the field recordings she used to form loops and patterns, a technique Ahmed expanded upon with the track she made for US TV network Adult Swim’s jazz compilation New Jazz Century. On A Paradise in the Hold, ‘Dancing Barefoot’ is particularly exquisite, where vibraphonist Ralph Wyld played milk bottle tops and used cello bows made from coat hangers, “to conjure the feeling of a mind spiralling into a dream,” says Ahmed. Equally visceral, on ‘To The Lonely Sea’ collaborator Jason Singh created a “vocal sculpture” to echo the wind and waves.

Notably, Ahmed hadn’t written for the voice until now. For A Paradise In The Hold, she penned lyrics in English, which she then translated to Arabic, or, on ‘Though My Eyes Go To Sleep My Heart Does Not Forget You’, adapted the words from a pearl divers’ standard. She worked with a range of impressive singers to bring her vision to life: Brigitte Beraha, Natacha Atlas, Randolph Matthews and Alba Nacinovich. The voice of her father, meanwhile, can be heard on standout track ‘Into The Night’, which lands you in the centre of a percussive hubbub and which Ahmed intended as a celebration of female independence. “He was trying to conduct the recording session in the family house,” she says of her dad. “Everyone was gathered in the sitting room and I recorded some of the ululations and clapping that you can hear in the track. I’m so glad I got to have my family on the album.”

The collaborators on the album in particular, percussionist Corrina Silvester and the greatly missed giant of the jazz world and Yazz’s dear friend, drummer, Martin France, helped Ahmed to strengthen the connection between the two worlds; A Paradise In The Hold is a bold fusion that reveals its riches more with each rewarding listen. “It’s another step in my evolution of making music,” says Ahmed. “There’s so much beauty in Bahraini music. I hope this album gives people a flavour of how vibrant its culture is.” 

Chaoui is a genre of Berber music that originated in the Aurès region of Algeria. It is a mixture of Saharan and Atlas mountain music marked with dancing rhythms and is part of the oral living tradition of the Aurès region. The first recordings on magnetic tape date back to the 1930s when Aissa Jermouni’s music was introduced and published internationally. Over the years, Chaoui has given birth to various sub-genres. The genre was popularized in the 1930s and 1940s, and still generates a strong following of fans across the country and especially in the Aurès region in the 2000s. In its most frequent instrumental configuration, a chaoui music group includes a zorna, a gasba flute, a bendir and one or more singers. Originally, Chaoui musicians were shepherds who lived in the Aurès mountains, and they sang their own localized poetry of personal and regional topics. But also, joyful themes such as local or religious festivals or in the context of Chaoui weddings. Hocine Chaoui is one of the genre’s most famous and respected musicians and poets. ,Hocine modernized his sound with drum machines, incorporating intense and modern production techniques with phased gesba flute, reverbed out vocals, taking the genre to its logical new phase. This LP is a reissue of one of the most “in demand” of the genre’s cassettes originally released by Oriental Music Production, a cassette label dedicated to the some of the best regional releases during the heyday of the 80’s and 90’s golden era of rai and local Algerian music cassettes. These releases were only ever released on cassette and now command a premium on the collector’s market.

Ambient field recordings collected across the Western Sahel. Sounds of desert oases, late night radio broadcasts, village calls to prayer, and riverboats drifting down the Niger river. A nice companion piece to the musical work from the blog, this an hommage to the sounds that don't always find their way onto records.

Henri Guédon is an artistic legend from Martinique. Musician, painter, sculptor and one of the main architects of modern Caribbean/Antilles music. Taking the music to truly new and progressive territory from the late 1960’s onward. Karma, his 2nd album is one of the holy grails of the Caribbean cosmic Latin/Jazz scene, near impossible to find in this day and age. Released in 1975 on a small Parisian label, La Voix Du Globe, a label releasing Algerian, Moroccan and Egyptian records, the album was an anomalous release in their catalog. Karma was a convincing and unswerving statement following his stunning landmark debut LP (Cosmozouk Percussion). Incorporating African, Latin and West Indies styles (Gwoka, Mazouk, Biguine, Bel-Air, Bomba...) with cosmic synths swirling all over intense roots percussion. The songs are propelled with a spiritual Jazz vibe mixing with deep ethno-folk music from Martinique and Guadeloupe. The LP belongs to the same vein as as Marius Cultier, Louis Xavier or William Onyeabor for its totally original take on a hybrid music.

Shivkumar Sharma, the guitarist Brij Bhushan Kabra, and flutist Hariprasad Chaurasia were all aged about 30 when they made Call of the Valley. Shivkumar Sharma, who had made his first solo album in 1960, was responsible for establishing and popularizing the instrument in Hindustani classical circles. Kabra was also having to prove himself because of the guitar's Western and Indian popular music associations Chaurasia's problem was the wide popularity of the bansuri -- a bamboo transverse flute -- and his need to establish himself with the instrument. In 1967, the concept behind this album was as revolutionary as it was traditional. Conceived as a suite, they used their instruments to tell the story of a day in the life of a shepherd in Kashmir using ragas associated with various times of the day to advance the dramatic narrative. If the newcomer buys only one Indian classical recording, it should be Call of the Valley. Call of the Valley is considered Kabra's most beloved recording. It is certainly his most popular globally. Newly remastered for this edition. Limited edition pressing.

Reissue of one of the most in demand Brij Bhushan Kabra LPs finally available. Remastered. In the 1920s, Tau Moe (pronounced "mo-ay"), a Hawaiian musician, arrived in India and introduced Hawaiian music to the sub-continent. After settling in Calcutta in the early 1940s, Moe and his family performed, taught and introduced Hawaiian music by building and selling guitars to the local musicians. Indian filmmakers and composers quickly fell under the spell of these instruments and sounds and made them suitable for playing ragas, the melodic patterns and modes in traditional Indian compositions. Soon these hot-rod guitars were accepted as legitimate instruments for performing Indian classical music, and a new breed of virtuosos emerged to write yet another chapter of the guitar's unpredictable evolution. Brij Bhushan Kabra was one of the Indian musicians who heard the steel guitar's siren call, but his vision went beyond adapting Hawaiian sounds to popular music. Instead, he saw the instrument's potential for playing ragas. To pursue this dream, Kabra began studying with Ali Akbar Khan, whose fretless sarod offered a sonic example for Kabra to emulate with his lap-slide guitar. Kabra's instrument was a Gibson Super 400, modified with a drone string and a high nut to raise the strings off the fretboard like a lap steel. Seated on the floor in the traditional style of Indian musicians, Kabra played his guitar horizontally, using a fingerstyle plucking technique and a bar to contact the strings. His approach set the standard for virtually all Indian slide guitarists. He is rightfully considered a master musician and regarded as one of Indian Classical music's most renowned ambassadors to the rest of the world.

Ocora masterpiece recurrence! A live recording of music for rituals handed down in Bon, an ancient Tibetan religion that is said to have existed before the introduction of Buddhism. Re-release of the first album in 1983.

01 Chant dedicated to the protective divinity Midü
02 --13 Nag-zhig ’s propitiatory ceremony (nag-zhig bskang-ba)
14 Tea Offerings (ja-mchod)
Tea offering
15 Drum-beating in Praise of Shenrab (gshen-rab mchod-rgna) A drum praising Shenrab

Recording: March 1981, April 1983 Live recording of rituals in Tibet

La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.

Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script.

Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.

Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.

Track Listing:

31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM
23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta

La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.

Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script.

Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.

Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.

Track Listing:

31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM
23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta

La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.

Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script.

Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.

Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.

Track Listing:

31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM
23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta

Carlos Aguirre Grupo's third album released in 2008, known as “Violator (purple disc),” is now available on vinyl.
Carlos Aguirre, together with his trusted colleagues, strived to reach the heights of expression in terms of both music and ensemble, and this album is a masterpiece of highly refined sound world beyond the framework of contemporary neo-folklore. This work has influenced many artists in Japan and abroad, and even now, every time you listen to it, you will encounter fresh surprises and discoveries.

"Harmony / Balance is a piece of meditative, drone-based music that sometimes flirts with dystopian horror, but always resolves itself, throbbing and glistening with a quietly ecstatic joy.”
The Guardian

"Perfect harmonies and piercing synths rise together...Mesmerising"
The Quietus

"Sets a new benchmark in Afro-ambient"
DJ Mag

Nigerian electronic musician and violist Ibukun Sunday debuts on Phantom Limb with Harmony / Balance, a brooding, introspective take on Afro-ambient music that follows two acclaimed digital-only albums for Phantom Limb imprint Spirituals.

Based in Lagos, Ibukun Sunday has expertly positioned himself between the rarely-married cultures of ambient and West African musics. He entwines his compositions with field recordings from his native Nigeria and deeply considered philosophies of existence, humanity, and society. The themes of Harmony / Balance derive from Swami and Hare Krishna founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta and his work Bhagavad-Gita [Eng: “As It Is”], a script on the duality of human nature. In Bhaktivedanta’s text, two cousins - warriors from the sacred Hindu text the Mahābhārata - and their armies are pitted against each other. The humility, self control, and devotion of one cousin against the arrogance, envy, and pursuit of power of the other. Bhaktivedanta writes that from this battle we see the necessity to cultivate and nurture our love and faith, but to simultaneously understand our selfishness and hubris. Appropriately, in Ibukun Sunday’s music, a heavy, apocalyptic dread contrasts fascinatingly with passages of light. The static-spiked, corrosive sound design of Harmony / Balance conjures darkness, but its skipping rhythmic patterns and melodic contours are made of beautifully vibrant colours.

Though Sunday excels in drawn-out elegance and magisterial repetition, his unique practice, classical training, and core culture shine through in a pure and singular way. Scattered throughout Harmony / Balance are unexpected melodic antiphonies closely aligned with African music, interspersed between huge, spacious drones and field recordings. 

Composer Ahmed Essyad was born in Salé, Morocco, in 1938. After studying music at the Rabat Conservatoire (Morocco) he moved to Paris in 1962, where he became a student of Max Deutsch and, later, his assistant. Trained in the avant-garde practices of Western musical composition, he also claimed the Amazigh folk music of Morocco as a fundamental source of inspiration for his work.

In 1965, he was already incorporating elements of oral tradition in his work so as to question the language of his time, and therefore had to cope with the limits of musical notation and communication with musicians who did not share his cultural references. It was difficult
to agree on what was implicit, 'behind the notes,' especially regarding the management of musical time and micro-intervals. In search of new compositional tools, he turned to electro-acoustic music. Working in a studio made it possible for him to be the interpreter of his own work, which ensured a certain continuity with music of oral tradition. The pieces presented here were produced between 1972 and 1974 in a studio dedicated to electro-acoustic music, the S.M.E.C.A, which was part of the Music Workshop founded by Jorge Arriagada in Paris. The studio was equipped with EMS and Minimoog synthesizers, a piano, a marimba, a xylophone, as well as various percussion instruments and a tape delay system.

The practice of electro-acoustics may have been a mere parenthesis in Ahmed Essyad's long and prolific career as a composer of contemporary music, but the works presented here are nonetheless important. They show how strongly he both supported North African popular forms of expression and opposed its folklorizing through simplistic and 'exotic' representations. It's not about fusing together East and West - impossible, he says: "the real point is to open up an imaginary space where another modernity can exist outside the largely Eurocentric framework of avant-garde music. Synthesis means anticipation, knowledge. As for me, I'm increasingly ignorant. I write to discover what I don't know. Music feeds me, it pollinates me. It's my daily wine."