Folk /
Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings
"It has been said that Robbie Basho's art was strongest in concert. To what extent the experience can be reconstituted is uncertain. Whatever the case, Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan is the mother lode of Basho live recordings. On these five discs we are treated to some remarkable pieces that have never been published, as well as surprising renditions of old favourites. Compiled from Basho’s sprawling personal collection of master tapes (discovered during the production of Voice of the E…
Žaltys
The new album by Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński is named after the grass snake Žaltys, a revered household spirit in Lithuanian folklore, and explores themes of Eastern European mythology and nature. As a conduit of cultural exchange, "Žaltys" connects with Rogińsk’s previous work, most recently his critically acclaimed 2023 album "Talàn".
"Žaltys" is deeply rooted in the rolling hills of the Suwałki region, in the northeast of Poland, where Rogiński spent childhood vacations and became intri…
European Primitive Guitar (1974-1987)
NTS presents European Primitive Guitar, a compilation of instrumental guitar compositions, mapping out European analogues of the American Primitive Guitar movement, spearheaded by John Fahey in the 1950s. European Primitive Guitar spans works directly influenced by and responding to Fahey’s approach to composition, alongside works by artists that arrived at similar conclusions independently.
The music is, at once, both starkly traditional and contemporary. This is no more evident than with the …
Still Valentine's Day 1969
Sandy Bull was an American folk musician who rose to prominence with a series of albums on the Vanguard label in the 1960's and 70's. Still Valentine's Day 1969 is pulled from two live shows recorded at The Matrix in San Francisco in 1969 with Bull playing shimmering electric guitar and oud, accompanied by tape loops. Previously available on CD, but now out of print in all formats - this is the first ever vinyl pressing and includes the original liner notes from Byron Coley.
Two Improvisations
*250 copies limited edition* "The first full length LP by Joshua Massad and Dylan Aycock. Massad is a tabla player living in India and studying under Zakir Hussain. Massad and Aycock came together in Tulsa to record these improvisations live at the legendary Church Studio which was founded by Leon Russell in the 70's. Over a few nights they captured some moments in the studio before it came under new ownership and just before Joshua moved to India. Aycock improvising on 12-string with Massad acc…
Anima
*100 copies limited edition* Raoul Eden is a french solo guitarist in the American primitive tradition. Leaving behind strumming, he began playing fingerstyle guitar. Coming from the old European continent, Raoul Eden has singular influences, which he puts down to the crossroad position of his roots – between the eastern and western world, north and south. Arabic music has always been present around him; he is fond of Gnawa music and plays guembri (a Gnawa bass lute also known as a sintir, gimbr…
Repertoire
Restock due soon! Edition of 500 copies. Shane Parish is a member of the Bill Orcutt Quartet and Tzadik Recording Artist. Solo guitar arrangements of various jazz /avant garde/electronic/etc. tunes. Imagine: It’s sometime in the back half of the 19th century, America. You’re sitting in the parlor of your mansion, or in the only room of your shack; things are dusty and smell like sweat and hair, no matter how wealthy you may be. You don’t own a phonograph, and you don’t know who Tony Hawk is, but…
Christmas Soli
CD. Remastered edition: John Fahey has made a habit of recording a new album of Christmas music every five or six years, but The New Possibility, which was originally released in 1968, is still his best. One of the best and most influential acoustic guitarists of his generation, John Fahey's music fused past and present, borrowing from the traditions of blues and folk music and filtering them through a modern musical viewpoint. Some of Fahey's most striking (and most popular) work appeared on a …
Bonn Ist Supreme
2023 restock. Subtitled: Live at the Kulturforum, Bonn, Germany, November 24, 1980. Another in the Wooden Weavil series, this time an unreleased live Robbie Basho recording from Germany in 1980. Robbie Basho was one of the great pioneers of the acoustic steel string guitar in the U.S., along with Leo Kottke and John Fahey in the 1960s. This program appears to have been recorded in one go. Robbie scatters his Americana numbers throughout, beginning with "Redwood Ramble," and ending with "Californ…
Aurora
*150 copies limited edition. 2023 stock* Tomáš Niesner started his guitar player path long while ago when he co-formed noise rock band Unna. Loud noise quartet stir the waters of little czech avant rock pond with music written directly to the precomposed beat of drummer Jakub Šimanský. Loud shows played all around Czech Republic took its toll and and by 2017 they turned down the DB to death low. The band was over. Jakub Šimanský was living in their former practice room in Přerov, playing acousti…
Requia & Other Compositions
*2023 Stock. 180gr LP deluxe heavy paste-on cover * In his liner notes to this release, John Fahey mentions his desire to have an entire world orchestra in his guitar, Western to Eastern, bagpipes to gamelan. Perhaps it's this mental approach that sets his music so deliciously far apart from other so-called folk guitarists. Requia is essentially in two sections. One is a series of blues-based pieces in line with music he had previously recorded. These include the lovely "Requiem for John Hurt" a…
The Unguitarist : Complete Works, 1969-2022
Ohio-born Rick Deitrick took up the guitar at 16 and decided to approach his playing as if he was the only guy on an island and the instrument had just washed ashore one day. According to Rick, "I completely divorced my playing from any formal music knowledge, but it was very important to me to use original tuning. During those years, the ‘60s/70's, there was a lot of acoustic guitar playing, often using open tuning as a base. I wanted to create whole tones without de-tuning and keep access to t…
Tance Neznámé
*2022 stock* "This album is a fantastic document of two guitarists complementing each other, giving each other space to work out ideas and while being technical top notch, they put a lot emotions into their compositions. Some of the melodies are touching something deep inside me, that is hard to explain, but I bet every music lover knows that feeling... Do not miss this album, even if you can't read or pronounce the track titles. This is pure bliss!" – Dying for Bad Music
There Is No Hunger in Your Shame
Tip! Builenradar is the new moniker under which Belgian visual artist and musician Wouter Vanhaelemeesch performs his damaged post-apocalyptic bikerfolk. Previously known as Urpf Lanze, he’s been producing trance-like guitar boogie that takes inspiration from disparate influences since the early 2010s. Builenradar plays in a self-developed unorthodox style with a resophonic guitar on his lap and a voice ranging from messy grunts to eerie whistling and absent murmurs. Once, after Vanhaelemeesch o…
Všechno Dobré
Stoned To Death delivers what might just be one of the most unexpected and beautiful records of the year, Šimanský Niesner's "Všechno Dobré". Created by the Czech Republic based acoustic guitar duo of Jakub Šimanský and Tomáše Niesner, within cascades of tonality emerges a profound meditation on place and time, binding elements traditional folk and drone, with American primitive guitar playing and thrilling attitudes toward experimentalism. It's a stunning thing to behold.
Distances
*Limited edition of 400 copies.* "Brilliant new instrumental fork-bending from the always amazing Elkhorn, presented here in a quartet setting I had not heard before. The basic band remains Drew Gardner on electric guitar and Jesse Sheppard on acoustic, but as often seems to happen with these guys, there are a couple more faces in the studio. This time it's two drummers. One is Ian McColm, a Virginia tub monster who has played in many excellent situations, including a 2012 Feeding Tube duo casse…
What The Truth Leaves Out
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 100 copies.* "Rootless (or, more properly, rootless) is a solo project that's been going for better than five years now, helmed by Brooklyn's Jeremy Hurewitz. Two types of sounds are created under this banner -- low key electronics is one, and fingerpicked acoustic guitar is the other. What The Truth Leaves Out focuses on the latter. The shared thread between these styles is a highly personal and intimate feel. When listening to rootless, you often get…
Compulsions
*200 copies limited edition* 'The isolation of lockdown was challenging for guitarist J.R. Bohannon. In refreshingly vulnerable linear notes, he describes how his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were made worse by the pandemic. But he accommodated by creating Compulsions, a set of solo acoustic guitar improvisations in an American folk style, each recorded during a panic attack.
These slow and melancholy pieces have compelling melodies, which Bohannon used to calm himself. He …
Bouquet
Tip! Almost 40 years since its original release on cassette, Robbie Basho's 13th album is now available for the first time on vinyl. Remastered from the original master recording (discovered during the production of "Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho"), it has never sounded better. Included are notes from the original lyric sheet, as well as insights from Glenn Jones, Henry Kaiser and others. Bonus tracks (Digital only) include an epic 13-minute solo version of "Land of Our Fathers"…
Dayspring
Released in 1983 on a miniscule run of 300-self-financed LP’s, Dennis Taylor’s ‘Dayspring’ remains a lost masterwork of transcendental instrumental guitar. An important missing link between the 60’s folkloric experimentalism of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, and the new age atmospherics mined by William Ackerman and Michael Hedges in the early 80’s. Though Taylor’s guitar playing remains crisply unadorned on these 10 tracks, his technique and his compositions stretch beyond the folk roots of the g…