Folk /
Red Favorite
Red Favorite, a cycle of compositions for guitars, electronics and voices created by Jeremy Pisani was first released as a limited edition CD on Spirit of Orr and is now offered, as it was originally conceived to appear, on an LP. He moved closer and looked through the peephole. And he saw: the world stretched out before him, a quiet and gentle space with a broad expanse of grass that practically glistened in its greenness. A sparkling brook ran through the meadow in the middle distance, and now…
Transmissions From Sinai
There's clearly a great deal of care and thought gone into the sequencing of this ace new mixtape on Arthur Magazine's record label, and that's down to the estimable taste and selection skills of Al Cisneros (known for his work in the bands Om , Sleep and Shrinebuilder). Opening with the introductory cosmic ambience of Lichens' 'Kopernik Trip Note', the playlist takes a left turn towards Linval Thompson's classic 'Wicked Babylon' before stopping by the sublime 'Everyone In Turn' by Grouper (the …
Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music...
..And Photography 1890-1950 The latest release from Grammy Award-winning reissue label Dust-to-Digital gives music fans another reason to rejoice. A stunning 96-page hardcover book of historic baptism photographs, taken between 1890 and 1950 and compiled from the collection of noted folk art collector Jim Linderman, is accompanied by a CD of rare gospel and folk recordings from original 78 RPM records (1924-1940), featuring artists Washington Phillips, Carter Family, Tennessee Mountaineers, …
Kensington Blues
Available now for the first time on vinyl, Kensington Blues is the fourth full-length release from Jack Rose and his most diverse outing by far. The album is an inspired mix of styles and sounds, with straight ragtime, heavy 12-string, and that sweet, sweet Weissenborn lap guitar all checking in. Honed during endless touring in 2004, the repertoire here is delivered with maximum authority in a series of first-take performances recorded in early 2005.
\"The Vodoun Effect\" 1972-1975
Most Likely To: be one of the only albums you hear that will protect you from the smallpox virus. In the late 1960s, as traditional African culture rubbed up against an influx of Western influences, some of the most amazing modern musical forms birthed in the dance halls of West Africa. Rhythm and blues, soul, and funk elements electrified and popularized in the United States folded back upon themselves into their African origins. Afrobeat reigned supreme in Nigeria, a defiant and jubilant funk …
Birth Canal Blues
Birth Canal Blues is the first CD release on Coptic Cat, the new label started by David Tibet and Current 93. The album consists of one 20-minute song in four movements that sets the basic narrative structure of Anok Pe Current 93's new Hallucinatory Mountain trilogy, whose first part, Invocation of Hallucinatory Mountain, is due in January 2009. Birth Canal Blues was recorded by Tibet, Baby Dee, John Contreras, and Andrew Liles. The packaging includes an 8-page color booklet with photographs fr…
E Pluribus Unum
a pure mantra: blending North African and Middle Eastern textures within a western context into our experience, regrettably the experience of a small few, but hopefully a wider community of listeners to come. Not only important historically, but musically: a wide range of music genres over the last couple of decades have worked with drone-note principles and it is an increasingly common device, but Sandy Bull was/is a superlative master of utilising the drone sounds;understated but effective in …
Inventions
Sandy Bull's 1965 LP Inventions remains one of those legendary albums that almost no one has heard. Its impact, however, can be scene in the title of this new compilation spotlighting a great unsung hero of "psychedelic folk." "Blend," the 22-minute opus from 1963 that opens this disc, surely fits that designation, perfectly blending folk, jazz, and Indian influences into what Bull called "new guitar raga." An eclectic virtuoso who switched from acoustic guitar to banjo to Stratocaster to oud (m…
The Freak Of Araby
Listen through Sir Richard Bishop’s six readily available solo albums, and you get the picture that the worldview of the former Sun City Girls’ guitarist is not only complex, but also more than a little ambiguous. What exactly is Richard Bishop? A dealer in the exotic? A dabbler in esoteric mysticism? A “traveling salesman”? The Freak of Araby doesn’t make Bishop’s worldview any simpler for us, but it does clarify it some. He is, first and foremost, a traveler, picking up inspiration as he roams…
The Glass Bead Game
James Blackshaw once made Michael Gira cry. Not by sucker-punching the poor guy. It was something much simpler: Blackshaw reduced the former Swan frontman — a menacing presence even as he eclipses AARP eligibility — to tears through nothing but a finger-picked acoustic and minimal, melancholic chords. It's easy to understand why. As Gira wrote in a press release celebrating Blackshaw's signing to his Young God imprint, the widely-acclaimed 12-string maestro writes "absolutely beautiful and spell…
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 Phoenix); 'phenomenal and mesmerizing' (Dusted); 'one of the major phonographic salvage operations of our time' (The Wire). 'The archival finds are, without exception, phenomenal – and mesmerizing. The oud, the santour and spike fiddle dominate. There a…
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. Thems being the likes of Richard Bishop (no longer calling him a sir as I don't believe the queen has chinned him with her sword), MV/EE, Ricky Tomlinson, Steffen Basho Junghans, Six Organs of Admitance, Micah Blue Smaldone, Michael Flower, Charlie Parr…
Siete Cantos De Espana
The three cultures at the center of the songs on this recording make a joint appearance in the finale of the Siete cantos de España. They are formed into a unified whole in Ensalada, as the soprano and the baritone begin singing together texts of Castilian, Sephardic and Arabic origin. The poems’ subjects are love, agony and death; and in order to bring them to life Halffter requires a large orchestra of about 100 musicians and two soloists with the baritone singing Spanish texts and the soprano…
Luminarium
Taking cues from pop, experimentalism, & minimalism TAPE has become recognized internationally for it's "luminarium of sound where past & present merge at the speed of light." Released on CD by Hapna in 2008, Immune is proud to release "Luminarium" on vinyl for the first time.
And I Await The Resurrection Of The Pedal Steel Guitar
This is the fifth solo offering by the Houston, Texas-based pedal steel sorceress, Susan Alcorn. 'The Heart Sutra' opens and is inspired by the 'Sutra of the Heart of Transcendent Wisdom' which was delivered by Buddha 2,500 years ago. It is a beautiful, yet solemn work that reverberates from within, as Susan strums those magical strings. The title track, 'And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar' was inspired by Messiaen's 'Et Expecto Ressurectionum Mortuorum'. It is a near 16-minu…
V.I.P. / Authority Stealing
Fela Anikulapo Kuti's 1978 Berlin Jazz Festival appearance, here as V.I.P. (Vagabonds in Power), is one of Africa 70's finest performances. V.I.P. castigates Nigerian authority more sizably than any other Fela album for one reason: he verbally beat down the country's power structure in front of a European crowd. It was a big move for the singer (who'd lost his mother, his home, and any sense of physical security in his homeland thanks to Nigeria's thoroughly corrupt military elite). Fela certain…
Sophisticated Beggar
This is where it all began, with a slim volume of poems and psychedelic ditties set to music, backed by a simple Revox machine, and transformed by instrumental turns that display British cult hero Roy Harper's deft guitar work. "Girlie," "Big Fat Aeroplane," and "Legend," while steeped in traditional folk idioms, show hints of Harper's unique songwriting style. His caustic wit and passion are already evident in the wordplay of this 1966 debut. "Forever" is as pretty a love song as you are likely…
Myrrh
this mindblowing album was originally released in 1972, when Robin Williamson was at the time still a member of the Incredible String Band, the ensemble he started with Mike Heron in 1966. These ten songs are all Williamson originals, with the exception of"Strings In The Earth And Air" by Ivan Pawle.Where his band's recordings were then getting increasingly electric, this is a return to a more acoustic bearing. This set includes some gorgeous, if overlooked, songs from the vast catalogue William…
The Black Dirt Sessions
Displays fully honed examples of all of Rose's various styles & themes - traditional, raga & ragtime. "Cross The North Fork" - a 13-minute revisiting of a track 1st laid down on the great "Kensington Blues" is a winding, thoroughly engrossing journey. It is a welcome neighbor to the album's other spendid joys ranging from the jaunty & infectious "Fishtown Flower" to the pensive & appropriate melancholy punch of "Box Of Pine." Limited to 2000 copies on 180g RTI vinyl.
Split
CURRENT AMNESIA's side features David Sutton (CAR COMMERCIALS) in a journey of hypnodrones galore. He bends & twists aural shards into glasslike works of art. The NORTH SEA side is shimmering like a sunken stone, drowning in a torrent of silver piss. Voices & chimes are blown apart in an epic battle to be king of nothing at all. Underwritten w/ a wall of synth dreams & other churns. LIMITED TO 80, pro-dubbed w/ the four horsemen of the apocalypse.