Folk /
Birthday Blues
Release Date on May 5th. Bert Jansch's freewheeling fifth album, Birthday Blues, occupies a unique place in his solo discography. Released in 1969, the same year Basket of Light propelled Pentangle into the UK pop charts, Birthday Blues almost sounds like a Pentangle LP missing John Renbourn and Jacqui McShee. Backed-up by bandmates Danny Thompson and Terry Cox, Jansch neither holds back his characteristic moodiness nor takes himself too seriously. What's more, Jansch is in love. Heather Rosem…
The Grail & The Lotus
A reissue of Robbie Basho's The Grail & The Lotus, originally released in 1966. It's become an oft-quoted statement that John Coltrane was the Father, Pharaoh Sanders was the Son, and Albert Ayler, the Holy Ghost. It could arguably apply to the holy trinity of steel string guitarists as well. Many claim John Fahey to be the Father, Kottke was considered the Son, and Robbie Basho would certainly be considered the Holy Ghost. The Basho/Ayler similarities are many, and both pushed their idioms furt…
Basho Sings
A reissue of Robbie Basho's Basho Sings, originally released in 1967. It's become an oft-quoted statement that John Coltrane was the Father, Pharaoh Sanders was the Son, and Albert Ayler, the Holy Ghost. It could arguably apply to the holy trinity of steel string guitarists as well. Many claim John Fahey to be the Father, Kottke was considered the Son, and Robbie Basho would certainly be considered the Holy Ghost. The Basho/Ayler similarities are many, and both pushed their idioms further physic…
Agrim Agadez: Musique Guitare de la Republique du Niger
Agrim Agadez is a compilation of contemporary field recordings of guitar music from the Sahelian empire of Niger. Focusing on guitar music throughout the country, from meditative starlight ballads, fuzzy Hendrix covers, rag tag wedding bands, to political minded folk guitarists. A beautiful encapsulation of the diversity of guitar as it exists today, recorded over years of travels. Like most of the Sahel, the guitar is found in every corner of Niger. Whether acoustic, electric, or built …
Living In The Shadows
Signifying a return to form that heralded one of the most prolific periods of his life, this special collection features some of Jansch’s finest work. Living In the Shadows includes an extra disc of demos, alternate versions and never-before heard tracks, transferred from Jansch’s personal tapes, alongside the three studio albums of the 1990s: The Ornament Tree, When The Circus Comes To Town and Toy Balloon. This trio of works represents quite different facets of Jansch’s talent; where Circus is…
Live In Australia
Bert Jansch, playing Live In Australia, in a cafe in 1998. This is a highly direct set, being mostly comprised only of Bert and his guitar, singing familiar favourite songs and newer lat-90’s material alike. The audio has been carefully remastered for this release, which is available on CD or LP, both with liner notes by Colin Harper. On Earth Recordings.
Dakhla Sahara Session
LP version. Includes an eight-page insert and a download code. The random-access memory of an hourglass. On the one hand, there's Cheveu, the French three-member band, whose soundtrack has never ceased to question music codes by exceeding various genres and pushing back their limits. On the other hand, you have Group Doueh, a Sahrawi band from the Sahara desert (Dakhla). Their music spans across many styles and hammers tradition with unprecedented finds. In between both their remote musical univ…
Waande Kadde
Dreamy instrumentals from Fouta Toro. Improvisational session of acoustic guitar and hoddu, drawing on regional folklore, ancient praise songs and epic ballads. Recorded in a fishing village in Northern Senegal, with an ever present backdrop of children's voices culminating in a clapping and stomping rhythm section. Debut release on Sahel Sounds & Mississippi Records new international imprint "Songs from Home."
An Introduction to Ored Recordings, Pt. 1: Song
The tireless Death Is Not The End returns with the first of two primers of Caucasus folk in conjunction with the Ored Recordings label. Established in 2014, Ored Recordings is a free ethnographic net-label that has drawn together a truly enlightening collection of field recordings based on documenting the folk and experimental musicians living in villages and towns throughout the North Caucasus region. Working together, the two labels draw together a 13-track collection that offers an illuminati…
An Introduction to Ored Recordings, Pt. 2: Dance
The tireless Death Is Not The End returns with the second of two primers of Caucasus folk in conjunction with the Ored Recordings label. We’ve been blown away by this joint endeavour from Death Is Not The End and Ored Recordings, a Nalchik, Russia-based net-label that is a treasure trove of ethnographic folk and experimental music spanning the North Caucasus region. This second volume profiles an intrinsic social function of the Circassian people; the urge to dance. Some ten tracks deep, it real…
Flight Of The Light Air Force
"A companion EP to the recent double LP retrospective This Song Was Borne, Flight Of The Light Air Force features three exclusive tracks by cult favorite outsider-folk duo Fraser & DeBolt. The majestic title track is an outtake from their second Columbia LP With Pleasure; left off that album for reasons of space (it clocks in at eight minutes), it would've easily been the finest song on the record and a highlight of their career. On the flip side, we have two cuts recorded live at a February 197…
Ragas And Talas (1959)
One of his earliest LPs in its entirety, Ragas & Talas (origibally on His Master’s Voice ALP1665), issued in 1959 is finally available again. All played with a hypnotic quality that's really wonderful! Indian musician Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) was one of the best-known exponents of the sitar in the second half of the 20th century. In 1956, he began to tour Europe and the Americas playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his …
London Taximi
The "London Taximi" cassette consists of some tracks recorded by Greek experimental musician Tasos Stamou and international artistic explorer Mike Cooper. These recordings took place from 2014 to 2016 in London. Although they have been playing together for some time, this is their first joint record attempt. In 66 minutes we hear the two authors "talk" in a very special musical language, whose vocabulary is derived by their common (and not) influences, using lap steel guitar, bouzouk…
Raga Piloo
Virtuoso Nikhil Banerjee, one of the 20th century’s greatest masters of the Indian sitar, passed away in 1986 at the age of 55. Banerjee was widely acclaimed for his intensely individualistic pursuit of the poetry of raga. Nikhil Banerjee studied northern Indian classical music with the sarodist Ustad Allauddin Khan, father of sarodist Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna and also teacher of Ravi Shankar and Pannalal Ghosh.
Raga Puria-Kalyan
Pandit Ram Narayan, brother of Chatur Lal (the first tabla player to impress the western world on a larger scale in the company of Ravi Shankar), ranks as the most eminent sarangi player of today. His novel style of musical expression has changed the role of the sarangi forever, from that of an accompanying instrument to a full grown solo instrument. Take particular note of his alap in Puria Kalyan, perhaps the best this writer has heard him play.
Raga Desh
Virtuoso Nikhil Banerjee, one of the 20th century’s greatest masters of the Indian sitar, passed away in 1986 at the age of 55. Banerjee was widely acclaimed for his intensely individualistic pursuit of the poetry of raga. Nikhil Banerjee studied northern Indian classical music with the sarodist Ustad Allauddin Khan, father of sarodist Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna and also teacher of Ravi Shankar and Pannalal Ghosh.
For his second recording he had chosen Raag Desh.
Raag Mishra Bhairavi on sitar
Before Ustad had constructed his giant rudra veena he played the sitar, and what a sitar player he was! Very few people have heard him play the sitar and there are no recordings besides this one. This Mishra Bhairavi was recorded at one of the Sunday concerts he held in his house in Chembur every week. It was first released on LP in Sweden but here is the original one long track.
Raga Madhukauns / Raga Piloo
One of today’s finest exponents of the Sarod, Krishnamurthi Sridhar was, from very early childhood, initiated into the Carnatic music and is one of very few South Indians to have made North Indian music their playing ground. From the age of five Sridhar was the student of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar of the Dagar School, the foremost master of the rudra veena and specialist in the traditionally classical and devotional Dhrupad Dhamar style of the North. Ustad it was who told him that the sarod was …
Raga Gangeyabushan
In 1968 Ustad did his first recording on his giant been, the rudra veena that he had designed. The recording was done in a private flat in Chembur on a quiet morning and was later released on a french label, B.A.M. with the name Raga Mangebushan. It is since long out of print. That morning Ustad did two takes of the same raga and we had considerable difficulties to choose which one to release since they were equally good and we finally settled on the first take. Ustad’s son Bahauddin Dagar has s…
SE Asian Noise(s)
Kicking off the brand new Sucata Tapes label is Gonzo with a new volume of the never-ending Noise(s) series. This time, he presents his alternate and surreal perspective of sounds and sights from the South East Asian sub-continent. Featuring recordings from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, SE Asian Noise(s) intersects randomly through AM/FM radio, field recordings, in situ compositions, and some re-interpreted recordings from Laurent Jeanneau's, aka Kink Gong, massive archive of the region. Not to b…