★Superior Viaduct
Four Organs/Phase Patterns
** 2024 Repress ** Steve Reich remains one of the most important figures in 20th century music. Though he studied at the prestigious arts institutions Julliard and Mills College, by the mid-1960s Reich set about dismantling the very orthodoxy that he had been trained in. Forming a new musical language based on repetitive processes, Reich became established as part of the so-called "Big Four" of New York minimalists (along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Philip Glass). Reich's influence can …
Introducing Scientist - The Best Dub Album in the World
Tip! *2024 repress* Hopeton Brown, better known as Scientist, has been a pioneering figure in the world of dub for nearly 40 years. His early love of electronics proved fruitful when (still a teenager) he was hired at King Tubby's studio in Kingston. Brown quickly ascended the ranks and became heir to Tubby's throne, producing imaginative and technically impressive mixes that solidified his forward-looking nickname.
Introducing Scientist - The Best Dub Album In The World, his 1980 debut LP, live…
Dream House 78'17"
** Magenta vinyl version. Comes with download card. ** Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux.
Side one was recorded at a private concert (on the date and time indicated by the title) and features Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wav…
The Black Record
Necessary reissue of a truly seminal, minimalist totem and founding document of the avant-garde underground!
Kill From The Heart
Limited edition translucent red vinyl. Dicks' debut LP has been acknowledged as a foundational statement in Punk ever since its initial 1983 release. Following their first single, 1980's "Dicks Hate The Police," and a live split with fellow Austinites the Big Boys, Kill From The Heart does not disappoint. Originally released on SST, the album stands apart from the mass of generic thrash-hardcore contemporaries – fueled by the manic, but controlled power of singer Gary Floyd along with the origin…
Cuneiform Tabs
Like an unsent love letter to a psychedelic London where everyone is trying to find their way to a secret Television Personalities gig, Cuneiform Tabs emerge with an astounding debut of lo-fi pop and DIY experimentation. A hazy collage of joyful heartaches, twisted children's TV themes and sing-song melodies, the album echoes the sounds of '60s AM radio from a dozen narrow alleyways to the North. Over 18 months, the Tabs' Matt Bieyle and Sterling Mackinnon traded 4-track tapes between the Bay Ar…
Niandra LaDes And Usually Just A T-Shirt
** 2024 repress, gatefold sleeve incl. printed inners **Niandra LaDes And Usually Just A T-Shirt is the first solo record by John Frusciante. Between 1990 and 1992 the guitarist made a series of 4-track recordings, which at the time were not intended for commercial release. After leaving the band Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1992, Frusciante was encouraged by friends to release the material that he wrote in his spare time during the Blood Sugar Sex Magik sessions. Originally released on Rick Rubin's…
Tonics & Twisted Chasers
Originally released in 1996 as a limited fan-club pressing for Rockathon, Guided By Voices' Tonics And Twisted Chasers has always existed as an anomaly in Robert Pollard's vast discography. In many ways, the album serves as the tail of a creative comet that in just two years included the "classic line-up" trilogy of Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, Under the Bushes, Under the Stars and countless singles that crammed endless hooks in their grooves. In the intervening space, Tonics And Twisted Chasers h…
Tenor
There are lots of outstanding Joe McPhee LPs. Nation Time being chief among them, but there's also Pieces Of Light, Oleo and Topology. The Poughkeepsie, New York-based multi-instrumentalist, by now an international star of free music, has amassed a daunting discography, no doubt. If you want to peer deeply into the soul of Joe McPhee, however, there's no way around it, you need to spend some quality time with Tenor.
" Tenor is McPhee's first solo record. He did not set out to make it. It was an …
The Willisau Concert
Joe McPhee's first international release, Black Magic Man, was issued on the newly formed Hat Hut imprint in 1975. It was a watershed moment for the 35-year-old musician. Based in Poughkeepsie, New York, he was too far away from Manhattan to have participated extensively in the Loft Jazz happenings of the decade. European exposure, however, would give McPhee an alternative circuit, something of an escape route from the trappings of American cultural myopia.
" In support of the new record for thi…
Black Magic Man
Black Magic Man is arguably the pivotal Joe McPhee release. It bridged the span between the regional and the international, bypassing the national altogether. "Recorded in the same sessions that produced Nation Time, Black Magic Man consists of music not chosen for that LP. Like its much-feted sister, technically it falls under the domain of CjR, Craig Johnson's herculean effort in support of McPhee. An erstwhile painter, Johnson became a self-taught audio engineer, acquiring equipment expressly…
Decoy Street
Temporary Super Offer! Cube is the prolific and chimeric nom de plume of one Adam Keith, formidable tape experimentalist and artist / abraser currently operating in Oakland, California's vibrant subterranea. After countless cassette releases, 2016's well-received My Cube LP and a tenure in no-wave faction Mansion, Keith reaffirms Cube's pledge with Decoy Street – his second album and the most developed work he has made under any guise to date. Opener "In This House" serves as the ideal introduc…
A Casual Assembly
Temporary Super Offer! Right on the heels of their Ahead Of Two Thoughts LP released earlier this year, A Casual Assembly is the latest offering from Melbourne's EXEK. The EP coalesces around a stirring theme for synthesizer, trumpet and bass, bringing together reference points to Laurie Spiegel, Jah Wobble and The Velvet Underground's "The Gift."Frontman Albert Wolski's disembodied narration – at times reminiscent of Samuel Beckett or Robert Ashley – unfolds over a series of dark vignettes set …
Ends With The Sea
Temporary Super Offer! B.C. Gilbert/G. Lewis have always juggled darkness and light in their various collaborations (Dome, Cupol, etc.); Gilbert's pointillist melodicism counterbalanced by Lewis' menacing bass and sardonic lyrics. While the duo explores cinematic soundscapes on their album 3R4, here they return to more song-based territory with icy vocals, detached guitar lines and even a faint industrial vibe. “Ends With The Sea” provides a vital glimpse into the creative forces that even a ban…
Spin Age Blasters / Bunnies
Temporary Super Offer! Following their legendary punk-as-ever Agitated single, electric eels released their second posthumous single, Spin Age Blasters / Bunnies, on Mustard Records in 1981. Recorded in 1975 and taking the band's free-form jazz and art rock alliances to dizzying extreme, the twin-guitar swirl of "Spin Age Blasters" sounds like Trout Mask Replica on paint fumes, while "Bunnies" features Dave E.'s relaxing Bob-Ross-like vocals and frantic clarinet bursts à la Roscoe Mitchell.This …
Forever Came Today
Temporary Super Offer! In the wake of the star-filled A Minute To Pray A Second To Die, The Flesh Eaters' frontman Chris D. assembled a leaner, meaner band to deliver his next unbound vision. Forever Came Today, the group's third full-length album, was originally released on Ruby Records in 1982 and features Don Kirk on guitar, Robyn Jameson on bass, Chris Wahl on drums, Steve Berlin on sax and Chris D.'s unmistakable voice."My Life To Live" and "Shallow Water" are masterfully wrought punk tunes…
Brigitte Fontaine est folle
Temporary Super Offer! French poet and chameleonic vocalist Brigitte Fontaine's career spans over four decades. Only a few years before her 1968 debut, Brigitte Fontaine Est…Folle, she moved to Paris to become an actress and took her prodigiously mature voice into the studio. Rich in the drama she brought to theater, Fontaine synthesized chanson (French pop song) and world music, which eventually won her international acclaim as a performer and collaborator with a variety of artists from around …
Nine Months To The Disco
Temporary Super Offer! Digipack CD edition. The most impressive, but also the most overlooked of all the bands that lurched around the mutant extremes that trail through Gang of Four, the Mekons, and, ultimately, the Pop Group, the Glaxo Babies' debut album was actually cut following the collapse of the original band -- both vocalist/songwriter Rob Chapman and drummer Geoff Alsopp had departed, with saxophonist Tony Wrafter explaining the reason for the rift. "Rob was into songs and we weren't."…
Put Me On The Guest List
Temporary Super Offer! Glaxo Babies are the greatest UK post-punk band you've never heard. Formed in Bristol in late 1977 and named after the British pharmaceutical giant who allegedly inoculated thousands with a toxic vaccine, the original lineup included Rob Chapman (vocals), Dan Catsis (guitar), Tom Nichols (bass) and Geoff Alsopp (drums). The band's pioneering mix of metallic guitar, dubbed-out rhythms and shamanistic chants found its way into the bloodlines of generations on both sides of t…
Nommos
Temporary Super Offer! CD edition (mastered from the analog tapes). First appearing incongruously on John Fahey's Takoma label in 1981, Nommos remains enshrouded in impenetrable mystery – from its understated artwork to the rich assemblage of analog synths contained inside. According to Head Heritage, Nommos is the "missing link between the proto-industrial rhythm and drone of Suicide and the whole minimalist drone / static / repetition method of Terry Riley and La Monte Young." Best known as a …