Reissues
Rock Power
Reissue of an extremely rare and essential Sunroof! CD-R released during a European tour in 2003 on Matthew Bower's own imprint, Rural Electrification Program (REP). On this LP, Bower is joined on guitar by Mick Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra and Flower-Corsano Duo) and the result was once qualified as Sunroof's rock record and its tribute to Neil Young and AC/DC (hence the title). RockPower is a very singular record because it documents a very short time period in the M. Bower/Sunroof! evolut…
On The Beach
Phil Cohran is one of America’s resounding jazz survivors. In the late 50s he was introduced into the fold of Sun Ra’s legendary Arkestra, but it is with his own ‘Artistic Heritage Ensemble’ that he really made his name. This record (usually referred to as ‘On the Beach’) is where his virtuoso skill really stands out, and his steadfast desire to create a sound that was different from his peers is obvious from even the opening bars. This is where Chicago jazz (rather than its then way more popula…
La musique electronique du Niger
Mammane Sani Abdullaye's 'La Musique Electronique Du Niger' is a spellbinding side of organ pieces written and released on cassette in 1978 and plucked from obscurity a few years back by Sahel Sounds' Christopher Kirkley. Born to a relatively well-to-do family in Niger, Mammane was previously a UNESCO functionary and during one of his meetings came in contact with a Rwandan delegate with his Italian "Orlo" organ. He managed to persuade the delegate to sell it and came into possession of the firs…
Galaxies
Laurence Vanay is the pseudonym for Jacqueline Thibault, wife of producer and musician Laurent Thibault (Magma). Her debut album "Galaxies" (1974) is pure genius: almost all instrumental, with gorgeous keyboards of many types, acoustic/electric guitar, even a little Zeuhl bass. There are wordless vocals on many of the tracks, although she occasionally sings in a soft, seductive manner. Incredible, spacey “avant-garde progressive chanson,” a Holy Grail for most collectors of 70's underground Fren…
The Hollow Organ
Luke Younger's Helm returns to PAN with four vital incursions marking his first new material since the sessions that birthed his acclaimed 'Impossible Symmetry' and 'Silencer' releases these last couple of years. Since those releases Younger has been hard at work building his Alter label into one of the most interesting imprints around whilst also honing a petrifying, improvised live set that's turned our bones to stone every time we've heard it. 'The Hollow Organ' delivers four tracks of…
Gamma
""Vinyl of the Month must surely go to the epic "Gamma" by Italian quartet VipCancro, whose startlingly out there performance pitches the ensemble against such Krautrock epics as German Oak, Yatha Sidra and early Guru Guru. Indeed, for anyone requiring brain tissue abandonment Gamma will entirely do you justice. Their peculiar line-up of two synthesists, bass player and samples places VipCancro into a pure avant-garde territory, allowing splendid outbursts of canon-like percussion, and cin…
Has anybody seen our freedoms?
"Peter Walker is an American original, as eclectic and enigmatic as the songs he writes. The legendary seventy-five year old raga/psychedelic/folk acoustic guitarist, who was schooled by masters such as Ravi Shankar, and Ali Akbar Khan, has been described by Larry Coryell as, “One of the most original practitioners of contemporary music” and proclaimed by the Beatles’ press agent Derek Taylor as “Perhaps the greatest guitarist in the world.” His music, celebrated by the late Jack Rose, James Bla…
Cosmic Machine - A Voyage Across French Cosmic & Electronic
Impeccably presented, deluxe 20-track double LP & CD gatefold edition illustrated by legendary graphic artist Phillipe Druillet. Hand-numbered edition. There's little contest to the claim that French musicians pioneered electronic music in the 20th century. This compilation traces the period following the innovations of Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer at the GRM, post '68 when bold artists were intersecting their avant-garde concepts with pop, disco and rock. 'A Voyage Across French Cosmic & E…
Hypnosis, distortion & other innovations 1969-1978
In 2010, against all odds, Angola Soundtrack Vol. 1 (AACD 069CD/AALP 069LP) was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize in the category "Black Music." This victory was all the sweeter for its triumph over the predicted winner, Aloe Blacc's multi-platinum record, Good Things. Many were surprised that the award was handed to a compilation that covered obscure music, but it didn't surprise the team behind Analog Africa, who believed such an award should have come much earlier. Since discovering th…
Let No One Judge You: Early Recordings From Iran, 1906-1933
Gorgeous 4LP box set presented in two gatefold sleeves inside a heavy card slipcase, with a 12” square, 20 page, saddle stitched booklet on art paper. The set is a 34-song anthology of Early Recordings From Iran painstakingly restored from 78s at Abbey Road studio in London "Ravishingly beautiful, achingly precious songs and instrumentals, ranging from two performances by the Royal Court Orchestra in 1906 — with futuristic, overlapping trumpets and exquisite clarinet improvisation — through to a…
Winds & Skins
Winds & Skins transpired to be the very last set of recordings made by Afro-Cuban percussionist Sabu Martinez, who sadly passed away precisely one month after this December 1978 session was committed to tape. The album draws a line under a career that saw the illustrious musician performing alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey as well as releasing a string of out-and-out classic Latin jazz records. Here the noted conguero teams up with the lauded saxophonist/flautist Sahib Shihab, who himsel…
Northwoods box
One of the hippest, deepest release that Sagittarius A Star has ever published, a really wonderful set that opens up a whole new side of this legendary band: a journey into Middle Eastern music and free harmonic extractions, where one can hear the magic and effortlessness of the band's intimate communication.
"I tried few times (and i usually try only once) to convince Mike Johnston to put together all this but i understand why: Faruq's passing was kind of a shock and bewildering event for North…
Drained of connotation
Drained Of Connotation is a collection of synth improvisations recorded by Stefan Jaworzyn in 1982, recently rediscovered by the artist when trawling his cassette archive for the 2013 Skullflower KINO reissue/compilation series. Writer, musician and misanthrope Jaworzyn was a notorious and energetic presence in the UK underground of the 1980s and '90s. Following a brief stint in Whitehouse, in '86 he formed Skullflower with Matthew Bower and remained the band’s guitarist for four years, playing …
Free Love
"Free Love", the only LP ever released by Kaleidon, is one of the many 'forgotten ones' from the Italian progressive rock era. The title "Free Love" takes its name from the eponymous band, 3/5 of which were North American musicians living in Italy. Free Love released two 45rpm's in 1970; the first one, "Sandy / Temple of Stone", highlights the remarkable ability of each individual component, if we also consider their young age. The second single contains the theme of the movie western "Roy Colt …
Mu Ro Bi Ko
Full concert recording from Suzuki’s first performance in Milano. Three different sections played on Analapos (one of these is the spiral echo instrument consisting of a coil spring and two iron cylinders that function as resonating chambers, and is played with the voice or by hand), a selection of small stones, and the De Koolmess Glass Harmonica. Recorded in April 2003 at A+MBookstore (a small storefront gallery and art bookstore in central Milano) by Pierre-Olivier Boulant. With three ne…
Suspension
Half High is Lucy Phelan and Matthew Hopkins, the duo at the centre of the group Naked On The Vague. In their musical lives the two members have explored the realms of rhythm/song based music in Four Door and Lucy's recently released solo outing under the name Lucy Cliche, as well as the complete outer bounds of music in Hopkin's solo work and as a member of The Bowels and Vincent Over The Sink. Whatever they're doing it's always quality stuff. ALWAYS. Half High create eerie, disorientating pass…
From the edge of the world: California Punk, 1977-81
Born in New York, Ruby Ray migrated to San Francisco in the mid-'70s. She entered the underground scene while working at Tower Records in North Beach. When she acquired her first camera, she quickly turned it into a weapon. RAY shot using a Nikon FM and Tri-X 400 film, the fastest film of its time. While documenting new bands and people for Search & Destroy magazine, she wielded her lens like many young DIY artists were brandishing guitars – bold, carefree and absolutely necessary.
As a fixture …
Orgies of Crime
Long unavailable 12" single with the spaghetti-Whitehouse sound of violence by The Sodality. 50 discs of the original 1989 release (of some 500 copies) were found without the original sleeve and were re-packaged as '25th Anniversary edition' in occasion of The Sodality's concert in Rome at the beginning of 2014. The new cover is made of two xeroxed drawings by Bruno Richard pasted on the innersleeve, housed in transparent plastic sleeve. Edition of 50.
2nd Movement
Continue reprints of the amazing tapes by Pierpaolo Zoppo aka Mauthausen Orchestra released on Aquilifer Sodality in the early eighties. Tape after tape Mauthausen Orchestra constitute, in a few years, the backbone of what we will know as an alienating and extremist style, made of metal nightmares and sonic torture , often dilated, dissected and extended up to the limit of endurance. 2nd Movement carry us, once again, as real rituals of a civilization without gods, in a pure world of suffering. …
Conflict
Continue reprints of the amazing tapes by Pierpaolo Zoppo aka Mauthausen Orchestra released on Aquilifer Sodality in the early eighties (Conflict also released on Broken Flag). Tape after tape Mauthausen Orchestra constitute, in a few years, the backbone of what we will know as an alienating and extremist style, made of metal nightmares and sonic torture , often dilated, dissected and extended up to the limit of endurance. Conflict carry us, once again, as real rituals of a civilization without …