★Honest Jon's
Maki Asakawa
2019 Repress. A stunning survey of the 1970s heyday of this great Japanese singer and countercultural icon. The “Queen of the Japanese Underground” stuck to her unique personal style – long black dress, dark glasses, cloud of cigarette smoke…Deep-ind…
Time Wept: Vocal Recordings from the Levant, 1906-1925
Stunningly beautiful, poignant music from BilÄÂd al-ShÄÂm -- "the countries of Damascus," known nowadays as Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine -- including performances from the very first recording sessions in the region. The legendary, moody Beir…
Rang'ala
Open-hearted, fresh, lovely, bumptious recordings of women’s singing, from Rang’ala village in southwest Kenya. ‘Dodo’ is a type of traditional Luo music mostly used for entertainment at weddings, drinking parties and wrestling festivals. Songs in p…
Kelan Philip Cohran & The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
2018 repress; double LP version. For the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, the voyage to where they are now -- whether tearing up festivals from Glastonbury to Melbourne, or touring with Gorillaz, or recording their first album on Honest Jon's -- has involved…
To Scratch Your Heart - Early Recordings From Istanbul
The music here is so transfixing, intensely devotional and sublimely beautiful, that some contemporary listeners thought they were levitating. Drawn from recordings made in istanbul by the gramophone company and hmv, during the first three decades of…
Marvellous Boy: Calypso From West Africa
endlessly satisfying' (Boston Phoenix); 'Blending cheeky calypso with rocking highlife — and by turns breezy, wistful and downright uproarious' (Daily Telegraph); 'gems at every turn... weaving highlife, swing, military brass bands, Afro-Cuban jazz, …
Open Strings: Early Virtuoso Recordings From The Middle East
'Superbly stylish in conception and packaging, it shows that small independent labels can still be an inspirational force' (Daily Telegraph); 'definitive and essential' (Brainwashed); 'stunning in its historical interest and musicianship' (Boston Pho…
Open Strings: Early Virtuoso Recordings From The Middle East, An
Spectacoular 4LP box on Honest Jon's called Open Strings which features 2 LP's of 78's from the MIddle East circa the 20's (we're talking Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey) and 2 LP's of more contemporary folks who are clearly inspired by such greatness. The…
Sprigs Of Time: 78s From The EMI Archive
2LP version, in deluxe gatefold sleeve with 2 booklets of photos and notes. This is the third in Honest Jon's series of albums exploring the earliest 78s held in the EMI Hayes Archive. Honest Jon's has spent the last two years delving through more th…
Give Me Love: Songs of the Brokenhearted: Baghdad, 1925-1929
In the mid-1920s, The Gramophone Company sent representatives into Iraq to investigate the indigenous music found in its record stores and performance halls. Their research laid the foundation for sessions that produced almost 1,000 recordings. The s…
The Viking of 6th Avenue - The Authorized Biography
Here is one of the most improbable lives of the 20th century: a blind and homeless man who became a famous eccentric in New York, and who rose to prominence as an internationally respected music presence. Born Louis Thomas Hardin in 1916, Moondog fir…