New Arrivals / Last 4 weeks
Rag Madhuvanti, Rag Misra Tilang
2024 Stock. Shivkumar Sharma's contribution to the Indian classical tradition is that he introduced the Santúr (hammered dulcmimer) to the classical Indian repertoire. That is no small feat, considering the conservative attitude that these performers take towards musical performance. "Sharma is credited with bringing this folk instrument, normally associated with the Sufi music of Kashmir, into Indian classical music. Indian music involves several of the elements I’ve been discussing in this lis…
Rag Miya ki Todi / Rag Bilaskhani Todi
2024 Stock. Ustad Imrat Khan hails from a great tradition of musicians called the Imdadkhani Gharana, named after his grandfather. It has produced great masters of the sitar such as Ustad Vilayat Khan and his son Shujaat Khan, Shahid Parvez and Budhaditya Mukherjee. This renowned gharana specializes in gayaki; the vocal style of sitar playing, which is obvious when listening to this recording, as I can't help singing along with the Ustad's beautiful lyrical playing. Imrat Khan is the master of t…
Rag Lalit
2024 Stock. The Nimbus recordings of Hariprasad Chaurasia are among the best of his recorded repertoire. Hariprasad Chaurasia's hauntingly beautiful interpretation of Raga Lalit probably is the best introduction to that raga for listeners unacquainted with Indian music. Lalit is a serene raga with a devotional mood to be performed at dawn, before sunrise. Most sandhiprakash ragas (to be performed at dawn or dusk) feature komal swaras (flat notes), which give them a certain dreamy, longing, even …
Rag Darbari / Rag Chandra Kanhra
2024 Stock. The album presents a deeply meditative world, resonating with the mysteries of India. When it comes to sarangi - a forgotten Indian instrument that has been overshadowed by the violin in terms of popularity and accessibility - nobody can compare to Ram Narayan. Both Ram's growth and the ragas performed on this CD are deeply emotional. Additionally, the tabla playing is both powerful and precise. To experience the ethereal sarangi sound, this is a must-have.
Ram Narayan (1927-) is a…
Rag Ahir Bhairav
2024 Stock. The Nimbus recordings of Hariprasad Chaurasia are among the best of his recorded repertoire. Hariprasad Chaurasia (born July 1, 1938, Allahabad, United Provinces, British India [now in Uttar Pradesh, India]) is an Indian flutist in the Hindustani classical tradition whose performances and compositions brought global recognition to the bansuri, a simple side-blown bamboo flute.
Unlike most other noted musicians of his generation, Chaurasia was not born into a family of musicians. Alth…
Ys
2024 stock. Double LP version; deluxe gatefold sleeve, with inserted 12"x12" booklet of lyrics. "Five songs, fifty-five minutes, what-an-album! Ys is to Joanna Newsom a dream collaboration between her voice and harp and a full orchestra -- a sound many of us fans have thought we were hearing when listening with closed eyes at her concert performances. Songs familiar to Joanna's following are a big part of Ys, having been performed in concert over the past year -- but not with the arrangements yo…
The Milk-Eyed Mender
2024 repress. "Drag City takes great pleasure in introducing to you a remarkable new musical singer, songwriter and all-around talent, Joanna Newsom. Joanna's music has more of an affinity with the folk revival of the 60s, or the bluegrass movement at present, than with most contemporary 'folk' (or 'anti-folk') scenes. Affinities aside, her style could hardly be called bluegrass; nor does it evoke the pastoral tonalities of 60s folk: she sings about whalebones, sleep, grammar, mollusks, accumula…
Issue 113: Pet Shop Boys Issue + ‘Love Comes Quickly’ / ‘Paninaro’ / ‘Always On My Mind’
This month's Electronic Sound cover stars are the one and only Pet Shop Boys and we're bundling the issue with a gorgeous gold vinyl seven-inch featuring previously unreleased live versions of three of the duo's best and biggest tracks.
SIHR
"SIHR" : sonic manifesto by a post-anything quartet feat. multi-instrumentalists from the Mediterranean inland Sea. New folklore for a devastated planet, including members of Oiseaux-Tempête, H, Karkhana, Polyphème..
Cuneiform Tabs
Like an unsent love letter to a psychedelic London where everyone is trying to find their way to a secret Television Personalities gig, Cuneiform Tabs emerge with an astounding debut of lo-fi pop and DIY experimentation. A hazy collage of joyful heartaches, twisted children's TV themes and sing-song melodies, the album echoes the sounds of '60s AM radio from a dozen narrow alleyways to the North. Over 18 months, the Tabs' Matt Bieyle and Sterling Mackinnon traded 4-track tapes between the Bay Ar…
Mature Hybird Talking
On Mature Hybird Talking Frank Gratkowski, one of the world’s most advanced and original voices in the field of improvised music, teams up for the first time with one of the leading ensembles for composed contemporary music. He dedicates this 45-minute piece to James Joyce and Iannis Xenakis, who both had a major impact on him. Inspired by the rhythm and sound of Joyce's language, Gratkowski and the Ensemble Modern create a widely ramified, sensitive and incredibly vital musical organism. Energy…
Azimüth
2024 repress. Azimuth was the blueprint for the band's own 'samba doido'/ 'crazy samba' sound. Released in the summer of 1975, the album was a minor commercial success selling around 200,000 copies, but it's now recognised as an essential piece of Brazilian music history. Surely the rawest and funkiest of Azymuth's albums, every track exudes the brimming energy of three exceptionally creative young men from Rio, with incendiary results. Opener ‘Linha do Horizonte’ – a sublime piece of melancholi…
The Hygrades
Sleeve Records & Dig This Way teamed back to bring to light the history and the tracks of this iconic early 70' Psychedelic Afro-funk East Nigeria group. The Hygrades's album will include all 4 rare 45"s united in a single LP with an insert of their story told by a true Uchenna narrator.
Recoiled
Cold Spring is proud to present a unique collaboration between Industrial Breakbeat pioneers Meat Beat Mamifesto (Jack Dangers) and the undisputed king of Japanese noise, Merzbow (Masami Akita).
Coexistence
With the album “Coexistense”, the adventurous Finnish musician completes her remarkable Sonority trilogy – and invites us all to listen to other voices in search of a common humanity. Johanna Elina Sulkunen has demonstrated the power of her voice in numerous contexts. Both in the experimental vocal ensemble IKI and in various collaborations with names such as Blixa Bargeld, Michiyo Yagi, Tomasz Stanko, August Rosenbaum, the Copenhagen-based Finnish vocalist has gained recognition as an expressiv…
Terra
*2024 stock* With the second part of her trilogy with the solo project Sonority, the Finnish experimental vocalist creates a global vision while being trapped in Copenhagen, and invites the listener to question our modern life and its often destructive relation to nature.
Ironically, in a time where the Covid-19 pandemic has forced most of us into involuntary isolation, vocalist and experimental composer Johanna Elina Sulkunen was forced to abandon her plan of isolating herself in a small cottag…
KOAN
Discoveries in the sonic universe of human vocal sounds and electronics invite you to a room that resonates in all of us.
Sun Also Rises
* 2024 LP Reissue * Released in 1970 on the british cult label The Village Thing (owned by singer/songwriter Ian A. Anderson), the sole album by couple Anne and Graham Hemingway is a superb acid folk manifesto. Coming all the way from Cardiff, the duo has been described as a mystical, magical hippie small family. Alongside classic guitars, they played dulcimer, glockenspiel, vibes, bells, kazoo and small percussion, joined throughout by label-mate John Turner (bowed and finger-picked string bass…
Sarah Hennies: Motor Tapes
Sarah Hennies (b. 1979) is a composer and percussionist whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. The booklet for this, her second New World recording, features an extensive and wide-ranging conversation with the composer, wherein Hennies discusses her compositional practice and how these three pieces—all in some way related …
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Allowing yourself to find meaning or beauty in the mundane is an act of generosity, Whether it’s seeing a smiling face in an electrical outlet socket, or discerning cosmic design amidst the forest floor detritus, it comes from a place of kindness to yourself and senses – and openness to hidden spirit of the world. These tracks came together during a period of intense personal change for adaa, rooted in a fruitful reflection on the connections between spirit and body, “feeling my flesh so I can f…
