★Lion Productions
Nuestra Soledad / Vera
* 2021 Stock* It was—and is—almost impossible to categorize Vera Sienra’s musical style, but we’ll try: wistful songs with the world-weariness of Fado, and the pulsating sadness of the bossa nova. Her powerful and unique tone of voice, plus the softness of her guitar, have always been an unmistakable trademark. Listening to the songs of Vera’s debut album (from 1969), few people believed that those mature melodies were created by the beautiful and timid blonde who could be seen on their black & …
Shin Joong Hyun & Yup Juns
* 2021 Stock* Spring of 1974 witnessed the birth of psychedelic power trio Shin Joong Hyun & Yup Juns. “In Korean, yupjun literally means a brass coin,” Shin explains. “However, during that time it was used as slang to describe a sense of unpleasantness and dislike. Since I was so unpleasant and dissatisfied [in my career], I told myself, ‘Ok, fine, I am just a yupjun,’ and named my band with a rebellious attitude.” He began by renting a room at Seoul’s Tower Hotel to serve as a creative base fo…
Can You Send Me a Silver Thread
* 2021 Stock* There is nothing ordinary about Sandstone. This private press folk/psych album (1971) is so head and shoulders above almost every other album in the genre, it’s hard to believe it’s not better known. The instrumentation and compositional style are reminiscent of heavy English folk hitters like Mellow Candle, Pentangle, and Heron. The Sandstone album was not a major label production like those records. But the local studio at which it was recorded must have been quite high end, beca…
There Is A Universe
** 2021 Stock ** "Rare private press jazz/space rock album, on reissue wish lists for years.This masterpiece crawled up my spine like a kundalini snake and proceeded to take the top of my head off. Probe 10 are unquestionably linked to a very specifically American form of proto-prog-into-jazz-rock synthesis of the precise sort Elektra Records used to specialize in, from Tim Buckley's Starsailor to David Stoughton's Transformer. Toss in trumpet fanfare laden acid psych straight out of the C.A. Qu…
Nocturnal Earthworm Stew
* 2021 Stock* Nocturnal Earthworm Stew is a glorious experiment in electronic music, capturing the vitality and early curiosity of the 1970s. An earlier press statement called it "Serious headphone music made under the influence of Stockhausen, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Stravinsky, Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Charles Ives and others." The influence of prog and space rock is pronounced, and contributions from Canadian prog legends Nash the Slash and Martin Deller (of FM) solidify Nocturnal's p…
Underwater Kites
* 2021 Stock* Arriving in the wake of inspirational releases from Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA and Throbbing Gristle, Modern Art’s Underwater Kites pinched those templates into a range of nervy, minimalist styles porous to influence and defined by the moody character of Gary Ramon’s vocals and his feel for expressive, evocative melody. As the founder of Color Discs/Color Tapes, there’s reams of evidence that Ramon was a proper locus for the post-punk scene at that time, and his outp…
Oriental Towers
* 2021 Stock. Edition of 300 * Another entry from the darkly enchanting minimal synth-pop and psych-tinged world of The Modern Art. As an introduction to the world of Coil and Current 93 collaborator (and Sun Dial main man) Gary Ramon and his orbiting bandmates, you can't do better. "From a time when drummers were as rare as a tune with a melody. It could have been made yesterday, by one of those modern bands of foppish young men, whose parents' record collection contained stuff like The Wake an…
Mateo Solo Bien Se Lame
* 2021 Stock* A record that requires many superlatives in order to do it justice: from it’s first moments, the music is lilting, poetic, intimate, in turns life-affirming and melancholic, with pulsating percussion backed by unheard-of guitar chords and tunings (perhaps the reason for the frequent Caetano Veloso comparisons); it is an album that sounds—simply put—honest. Released at the end of 1972 in both Argentina and Uruguay, it was received from that first moment as a classic. When iconoclast…
Vida e Obra de Johnny McCartney
* 2021 Stock* Leno’s “Vida e Obra de Johnny McCartney” was intended as the next musical step after Tropicália, it’s full-blooded rock and roll approach intended to link the music that had already been made to the music that would be played a few years later. This record just might have been that bold step had CBS released it in 1971. But censors banned most of the tracks, and Leno was fortunate (thanks perhaps to his string of innocent sounding Jovem Guarda number one chart hits in Brazil as hal…
A Game For All Who Know
* 2021 Stock* Fabulous grooving folk rock sounds with plenty of atmosphere, first released by the much beloved Village Thing label in 1972. Ian Hunt and John Turner first teamed-up in the late summer of 1970, the inevitable collaboration of two of the West Country’s most sought-after session musicians. String bassist and guitarist Turner had just left the infamous Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra and Hunt, a wizard guitarist and song writer who was already a ‘big-name’ on the Bristol scene, was looki…
Magic Landscape
* 2021 Stock* Fabulous grooving folk rock sounds with plenty of atmosphere, first released by the much beloved Village Thing label in 1972. Ian Hunt and John Turner first teamed-up in the late summer of 1970, the inevitable collaboration of two of the West Country’s most sought-after session musicians. String bassist and guitarist Turner had just left the infamous Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra and Hunt, a wizard guitarist and song writer who was already a ‘big-name’ on the Bristol scene, was looki…
The Human Zoo
* 2021 Stock* Along with The Human Expression, The Human Zoo were from the Los Angeles suburbs of Westminster and were signed to Accent Records. Their album, released in 1970 was pressed in limited numbers and has become a rare collectors item. Just recently, a still sealed copy sold for $900 on e-bay. The Human Zoo album is a quirky blend of psychedelic, garage, and funky music. Managed by Jim Foster of The Human Expression and originally called The Circus, the band changed their name to the hi…
Alice Through the Looking Glass
* 2021 Stock* The first release (1969) from the home studio of future BBC Radiophonic Workshop composer Peter Howell (he wrote the second version of the Doctor Who theme tune for BBC-TV) and his musical partner John Ferdinando, makers of legendary albums under the names Ithaca, Agincourt, Friends, and Tomorrow Come Someday. This private press record was recorded as a musical backdrop for a stage version of “Alice through the Looking Glass” by local amateur dramatics group the Ditchling Players. …
Sidewalk Talking
* 2021 Stock* I love this record. For me, it has a trace or two of Arthur Lee and Love at their best (‘Krishna Dov’ would not sound out of place on “Forever Changes,” for example), with dashes of maybe Terry Callier in some of the jazzier tunes. I also like that Hollins & Starr wrote a gentle tribute to one of my favorite old-time bluesmen, Mississippi John Hurt. At times this album is a gorgeous, ethereal blend of psychedelic folk and offbeat pop; but there are some funk and avant-garde moves t…
Fragile
**2021 Stock** The rarest, and I would dare to say best, folk/psych album from Peter Howell and John Ferdinando, musical brainchildren behind Ithaca, Agincourt, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Tomorrow Come Someday. This fifth Howell/Ferdinando album had just been completed in or around 1974 when the partnership came to an end. Howell had been working at the BBC as a studio manager since 1970 (he’d provided a stiff upper lip voiceover for John Peels Top Gear shows), but he was now offered a…
Saat
**2021 Stock** Recording in a good studio in 1972 with an accomplished engineer/musician such as Dieter Dierks (Ash Ra Tempel, Cosmic Jokers, Tangerine Dream, and yes, the Scorpions), certainly enabled Emtidi to expand their musical style on “Saat.” The end result was a shimmering, lush cosmic folk trip, with multi-tracked and treated acoustic guitars plus electric piano, fragile angelic femme vocals, vibes, and mellotron, (punctuated by the occasional acid guitar solo). Yes, “Saat” is an elevat…
Para Castukis
* 2021 Stock * Here at last is a chance to discover why people have been willing to pay a very steep price to hear Sandhy & Mandhy, the duo who were not a duo, the band who were not a band, creators of perhaps the rarest and most expensive album from Argentina. To tell the story of Sandhy & Mandhy, we have to go back to 1967, when Alberto Infusino (Sandhy) and Alberto Vanasco (Mandhy) began their musical partnership in the beat band The New Free Men. Like many bands of that time, Los Shaker’s an…
A Buen Puerto
**2021 Stock** A record that sounds like a summertime sunset, if ever there was one. Lilting melodies, infused with an undercurrent of bossa nova and the drowsy, faded memory of sun-drenched islands. All of this melodic loveliness is made ever-so-groovy in an Afro-Cuban sort of way thanks to a mighty contribution from world famous percussionist Jorge Trasante, Totem drummer Roberto Galletti, and Limonada drummer José Luis Sosa. Pippo Spera came into the orbit of Uruguayan iconoclast Eduardo Mate…
Ayahuasca: Psychedelic Cumbias Vol. 1
**2021 Stock. Edition of 50 Yellow Clear Vinyl** This 14 track compilation of pure obscure tropical cumbias, latin soul, with some influences of psychedelic music. An hybrid between jungle music and psychedelic rock, cumbias w/ electric guitar, tropical music with fuzz! This is what you're looking for! Bands like Ranil y su conjunto, El Opio, Los Telstar's, Grupo Santa Fé, Los Darlings de Huánuco among others. Great original tunes, but also cool covers like "Bongocero" by Los Telstar's (playing …
Folklore Afro Uruguayo
* 2021 Stock. Edition of 300 * A masterpiece of South American percussion, recorded in 1977 by worldwide legend and Gipsy Kings percussionist Jorge Trasante—and impossible to find for decades—finally reissued! “In the mid-’70s I was struck by a young Uruguayan percussionist named Jorge Trasante. I met him accompanying Rada and Pippo Spera, in recordings in the Sondor Studio. He turned out to be an experienced percussionist and remarkable musical researcher, despite his young age, only 23 years o…