Reissues
Moving Along
Matsuli Music continues its reissue program of rare indigenous afro-jazz sounds from South Africa with the release of Sowetan group Batsumi's self-titled debut from 1974. The reissue has been lovingly re-mastered from the original tapes and features material compiled on the recent Next Stop Soweto series from Strut. The album arrived amidst a period of intense political, intellectual and artistic ferment stimulated in large part by the teachings of Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement…
This Is It
Psychedelic music all began with the tiniest possible bang: a minuscule pressing of a self-produced LP by Zen Buddhist scholar Alan Watts. In one cosmic flash of inspiration and group improvisation, the next two decades of musical innovation was pre-supposed: psychedelic rock, spiritual jazz, and even new age. As this micro pressing barely made it out of the ashram, it was his writings that actually spread his ideas, usually through osmosis: he was profoundly influential on the beat poets and th…
Delirious Elaborations
An outstanding and truly lavishly packaged 4CD-Box collecting 1987-1997 material by the legendary ULTRA (Christoph Heeman, Achim P. Li Khan, Jon Carlson) containg four CD’s each in individual picture sleeves, 16 page booklet, housed in foil-debossed slipcase. Very recommended humourous electroacoustic power electronics.The entire recorded output of the 'classic' Ultra lineup of St Degeneratus (Jon Carlson), Herr Mucke (Christoph Heemann) and Dr Tengelmann (Achim Flaam) along with lyrics, artwork…
Ennui
After a grueling year-long tape transfer endeavor from the original reels, Primary Male is proud to announce the long awaited and obscure second full length by Ono, ‘Ennui’, is finally readily available for mass consumption. Originally released by Thermidor in 1986, the legendary experimental group from Chicago’s southside expands upon their incredible ‘Machines That Kill People’ album three years prior while simultaneously experimenting with atmospherics and becoming fu…
Machines that kill people
Finally restocked...OUTSTANDING!!! Dark experimental electronics with ritualistic edges, one of the most important US electronic/experimental LP of the 80s (Mutant Sounds) "Massively unlikely grant-assisted archival reissue of this wild cultic/ritual psych/no wave one-off from Chicago's Ono, their debut LP from 1983, originally released on the legendary Thermidor label: Thermidor released a ton of great shit back in the early 80s Birthday Party, Meat Puppets, Minuteman, Nig-Heist but nothing co…
Ottoman Black
Ottoman Black is a masterful damn record, an album of midnight drones and true noise, a definitive statement that makes most other noise records of this ilk seem immature, if not outright stillborn. From cover’ s photography , presenting mundane situation with an air of isolated, hysterical desperation, to the track titles, presented in the style of an academic outline (I.,II.,a.,b.,etc.) this is a formally conceived and meticulously crafted 35 minutes, leaving nothing untitled or untidy.…
Inflatable Boy Clams
There is no sense in trying to outdo Angel of Madness, Destry Hampton's bona fide cult classic. Caught up in the international punk zeitgeist, Hampton laid down his une saison en enfer in late '77 in the North Beach district of San Francisco with a pack of friends that included Danny Mihm from The Flamin' Groovies. Buzzsaw riffs and manic leads underpin Hampton's feral, reverb-doused vocals ("I'm feeling mean / Screwed up tight / O I'm ready to kill"). Angel of Madness is one of the most elusiv…
3R4
In 1980, after three relentlessly creative albums, the members of Wire were at an impasse, unsure of how to push themselves any further as a four-piece rock band. While frontman Colin Newman spent the band's hiatus mining Wire’s knack for intelligent and contorted pop songs, guitarist Bruce Gilbert and bassist/vocalist Graham Lewis joined forces for a series of experimental projects (Dome, Cupol, etc.) where the primary motivating concept was "studio as instrument."3R4, the duo's only LP under t…
Pink Section
Named after San Francisco Chronicle's pink-hued arts and entertainment guide, Pink Section coalesced at SF Art Institute and performed their first show at the legendary Deaf Club on Valentine's Day, 1979. These self-taught musicians existed on the fringe (even in the local underground scene), producing an unusual brand of off-kilter post-punk against a backdrop of Dadaist aesthetics. The group itself was strangely symmetrical: singer Judy Gittelsohn and drummer Carol Detweiler (both members of I…
Music of Tanzania
Music of Tanzania is a spectacular collection of field recordings gathered by Laurent Jeanneau between December 1999 and March 2000. This debut volume of Sublime Frequencies' exploration of indigenous Tanzanian music compiles sacred and profane songs and dances of the Hadza, Datoga, and Makonde people. Highlights include stoned ecstatic dancing in a Hadza encampment; a drunken celebration of preteen sexual initiation from a Makonde fishing village; baboon imitations performed on the malimba…
Slot Machine Music
Although I was not yet aware of the extent to which casinos tailor their environments for maximum comfort (and, correspondingly, profit), I did know as I crossed the threshold of my first casino floor earlier this year that it would not be my last visit. Hit by a cornucopia of slot machine tones, triggering aleatorically and coalescing into shimmering masses, I was struck by the need to return and record the sounds that so entranced me. It wouldn't prove to be easy--casino security is inte…
The beauty bath
"Alternate version of very limited LP (250 copies) on Japanese label Rockatansky. About 50% of this is actually different & reworked material than what is on the Rockatansky LP. This edition is a one time pressing limited to 500 copies. Recorded 2008 / 2013. Mastered for vinyl by Jason Lescalleet." "...an amazing LP, with low-level battlefield tectonics and the sound of smeared and tortured magnetic tape coming over like a rusty, Industrial scale take on classic 20th century minimalism. Som…
An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings: 1972 - 1979)
RVNG seem to be doing an enviable job of unearthing some of the most pre-eminent performers of progressive synthesizer and horizontalist ambient world music and this guy, whose stunning 'Osmose' is rarely off my record deck, is surely one of the most treasured. His work during the 70s is, quite simply, incredibly important to lovers of esoteric spiritual synth music and will leave you with a massive helpless grin and a notable dearth of tension in your muscular system come the climax of any jour…
Lorrach, Paris 1966
"The enthusiasm of the Paris audience, the strong following the Aylershad in France does not come as a total surprise, For, as the musician and his brother explained in the Down Beat story: if you really understoodthe message of Sidney Bechet, you should have no difficulty to this newkind of free spiritual."-Peter Niklas Wilson
"The two concerts presented on this disc represent two of the finest dates of Albert Ayler's European tour of 1966. The band -- with brother, Don, on trumpet, violinist M…
Morning Joy ...Paris Live
"Reissue as part of the 40th anniversary of Hat Hut Records. What we have here is a one-nighter by the Steve Lacy Quartet at Paris' Sunset Club...The four members of the quartet get a chance to stretch out and you can feel the club energy clearly in the recording - it's a good night at the Sunset...in this era of homogenization - of jazz players who are filled with technique but have gotten their sound from textbooks - there is not enough attention that can be focused on an uncompromising jazz i…
As Serious As Your Life
In 1996, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Joe McPhee's first solo release, McPhee recorded this remarkable album of solo reeds, pocket cornet, and electronics, using overdubbing to create gripping music including an homage to Miles Davis and unique versions of standards. "For me, 1996 was an important transitional year in which I decided to pursue what I called Project Dream Keeper. The goal, to begin realizing projects which had been shelved for years. One such project was to produce a s…
Lsd
Originally issued by Capitol Records in July 1966 and subtitled a documentary report on the current psychedelic drug controversy!, this notorious album offers both a background report into the new phenomenon of lysergic acid diethylamide and a recording of an actual trip. Fuelling anti-psychedelic prejudice beneath a veneer of objectivity, it stands as an important early artifact in the history of the psychedelic movement, and features contributions from Timothy Leary, Allan Ginsberg, Aldou…
Solo Acoustic Volume Eight
2015 restock. "First new solo acoustic recordings from the master guitarist in years, SRB returns to familiar themes and introduces new ideas simultaneously on this tour de force performance of his singular style."
"Need flamenco picking on the streets, but Jungian consciousness symbols in the sheets? Sleepy & even polite on the surface, due to SRB borrowing someone's very un-Andalusian acoustic while staying by Lake Geneva in Switzerland for several months to work with a dance troupe. Undern…
Profondita'
Restocked, last copies around....One of the more enigmatic and best kept secret albums in Italian discography, which has sparked lengthy discussions among collectors, has been unearthed by Cinedelic Records who found the original masters and put an exclamation mark on the year of production: 1977. 'Profondità' is a double LP of strongly progressive and psychedelic tunes with space, underwater, intimate and rarefied atmospheres. Full of the kind of technicolour psychedelics you expect by a Floyd-…
Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh
Spare and spooky – and a cool Italian soundtrack for this horror film that's also known (alternately) as The Blade Of The Ripper, The Next Victim, Next, and The Strange Vice Of Mrs Ward. The style is kind of a mixture of Piccioni and Morricone – as some tracks have a spare, moody, evocative sound with piano and wordless vocals, mixed with other tracks that have a lighter bossa-ish sound on organ or harpsichord.. (Dustygroove)