New Arrivals
If Paul K.'s Life Was A Movie, This Would Be The Soundtrack Of His Death
Patrick Stas arrived on planet Earth on January 25th, 1954, in Ixelles, Brussels. Here he would spend his early years, until the moment his parents bid their Brussels catering career farewell. By his own admission, music was of no interest to the young Patrick. His parents’ record collection left him cold. Bands like Les Compagnons de la Chanson, much-loved by Patricks parents, got on his nerves. Just one record managed to charm him: a soul record by Sam & Dave. Not coincidentally a record his m…
Crescent
*2023 stock* "John Coltrane's Crescent from the spring of 1964 is an epic album, showing his meditative side that would serve as a perfect prelude to his immortal work A Love Supreme. His finest quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones supports the somewhat softer side of Coltrane, and while not completely in ballad style, the focus and accessible tone of this recording work wonders for anyone willing to sit back and let this music enrich and wash over you.
While not quite at th…
Sketches And Ballads
*2023 stock. White vinyl edition* If you know the score, you might actually think of the piece's title as a bit of an understatement. After all, it is made of 50 densely-written pages, which might cause some interpreters to lose track of sight. For Michael Wertmüller's composition Sketches And Ballads is full of seemingly unplayable rhythms, which hail from his extensive experience as a percussionist: complex 256th parts and 512th parts are no exception in Wertmüller's work. Even the visual appe…
Vätterns Pärla
Tip! As an important agent of Gothenburg’s underground scene, Dan Johansson has been a member of several experimental harsh noise projects such as Sewer Election, and lo-fi indie folk bands like Enhet För Fri Musik and Amateur Hour. Ordeal is his latest solo output, and might as well be ashes stuck in the blast furnace's edges of his last longing career. Not by means of summing up genres or as a culmination of his musical development, but as a profound music piece weaved in his own household. Wi…
Shakara
*50th Anniversary reissue* These percolating, horn-heavy grooves simmer while Fela Kuti lays down his trademark rants, often in deliberately skewered pidgin English....totally unstoppable in its mix of music and message. His voice, interlocking guitars and percussionist Tony Allen turn grooves that often have 1 or 2 chords into complex statements - minimalism made for dancers.
Fairport Convention
By far the most rock-oriented of Fairport Convention's early albums, this debut was recorded before Sandy Denny joined the band (Judy Dyble handles the female vocals). Unjustly overlooked by listeners who consider the band's pre-Denny output insignificant, this is a fine folk-rock effort that takes far more inspiration from West Coast '60s sounds than traditional British folk. Fairport's chief strengths at this early juncture were the group's interpretations, particularly in the harmony vocals, …
New Bodies
*2023 stock* First two tracks and Side A of New Bodies. From Los Angeles, also of Open City – first full length-- single takes, live--Intensely physical and abstract music that constantly, unpredictably shifts and evolves. Impulse, memory and intent, laid bare in real time. Post-melody, post-groove sound. Concrete, brutal, yes fun-----
Correct Me If I Am Incorrectly You
Berlin based Philipp Otterbach debuts on Offen with "Correct Me If I Am Incorrectly You". Post-music phantasmagoria for the world in which the past became more unpredictable than the future. Remember Cowboy Bob, Salaryman and Gary Floyd in that opium den in Fischeln? Deconstructed entertainment for hopeless romantics and testament to Otterbach's unique artistic language. Supersound vinyl LP, full cover inside out print.
Best Of
Underground prominent figures of the Belgian 80's scene, Alain Neffe and Nadine Bal have released and produced dozens of tapes under different monikers. Bene Gesserit is probably their most famous and iconic one due to its multiple facets. Originally a tape released in 1981 on their own Insane Music label, "Best Of" encaptures all the DIY and creative freedom of the band. From the yagé vapors of "Erg Habbiana" to synth madness of "Gloria" or "Gppm" this album summarizes the full spectrum of the…
Mehmet Aslan Presents Senza Decoro: Liebe + Anarchia / Switzerland 1980-1990
A new compilation explores the far reaches of the post-punk, experimental and electronic landscape in Switzerland on Senza Decoro: Liebe & Anarchia in Switzerland 1980-1990. Curated by producer / DJ Mehmet Aslan. During the mid-‘70s, Switzerland had embraced punk within its cities, informing the subsequent post-punk era of the 1980s as music splintered into freeform musical strands across the whole of the country. It was to become one of the most innovative periods in Switzerland’s modern day mu…
Shakuhachi: The Ballads Of The Village
*2023 stock* "A great blend of funky jazz and wooden flute – the Japanese shakuhachi reed instrument, blown by Kifu Mitsuhashi here – then mixed with some larger backings that almost have a CTI Records sort of groove! The approach is similar to some of the best 70s projects from Hozan Yamamoto – and like those, updates older Japanese styles with just the right dose of jazz – never getting in the way of the soulful lines from the lead instrument, but also really warming things up nicely with Fend…
Live In Europe 1970-1971
*2023 repress* There can be little more exciting or rewarding than listening to a band playing live and firing on all cylinders at the absolute peak of its powers, and the live performances presented here by Nucleus are no exception. They capture the group in arguably its finest incarnation right at the start of its long career, exhibiting a staggeringly high level of musical discipline matched by an equally impressive ability to improvise and solo.
Nucleus began its long jazz-rock journey in 19…
Ictus Records' 30th Anniversary Collection
*2023 stock* "This 12CDs Box Set is perhaps the most important collection of music in the Ictus Records history, a celebration for the 30th anniversary of the birth of one of the first independent labels of the 70′.
At that time for a young musician like me, the recording scene was fairly discouraging especially in my country of origin, Italy. Record companies were not interested in producing “avant-garde music”, and this music found its way out through few small musicians – owned labels. In o…
Che C'Entriamo Noi Con La Rivoluzione?
Beat Records is pleased to reissue on CD a classic OST by Ennio Morricone for the Western comedy film Che c’entriamo noi con la revoluzione? (aka What Am I Doing in the Middle of a Revolution?), directed in 1972 by Sergio Corbucci and starring Vittorio Gassman, Paolo Villaggio, Riccardo Garrone, Leo Anchóriz, Simón Arriaga, José Canalejas, Eduardo Fajardo, Carmen Pericolo. Taken directly from the mono and stereo tapes of the recording sessions, our CD contains everything that was recorded at th…
Ngunmal
"The work of Amby Downs, aka Murri/European artist Tahlia Palmer, occupies an intensely personal and unique space in the Australian music landscape. It is a project that speaks as much to trauma, as it does to aspiration or hope. It is work that recognises the complexities of intergenerational exchange; emotionally, socially, politically and culturally. For the past half decade, Tahlia has been seeking to trace unspoken, and in some cases deeply fragmented histories, and thread a linage that is …
A Field Guide To Phantasmic Birds
"All the birds I never recorded, and some I did. Re-imagined. Stretched and stuttering, glitching and morphing, swirling and sputtering. Artifact and performance, digital bits all. I imagine them swooping and calling in these scaffolds of sound I have made for them. Gleaming amid technicolour jungles. Alive, unassailable; in a world we haven't ruined. In a field recording I never made." - Kate Carr
Structures
"Anyone who knows me, knows my obsession with the 1981 film Thief. The opening scenes show a cold, methodical, neon lit diamond heist soundtracked by Tangerine Dream. Contrasted with, the thief sharing a danish with a stranger fishing on an endless ocean at dawn. The heist is technical and calculated. The fishing is grounded and ancient. I'm sure that I'm projecting some of my personal experiences onto the film unfairly. As over time i've come to see the line between these two scenes more and mo…
Infinity Squared
*2023 stock* "What happens when you multiply limitlessness by infinity? You absolutely do not know. Which is why it's such a great idea to toss Henry Kaiser and Andrea Centazzo into the same reaction chamber. As one of the West Coast's premier freakers for some three decades, Kaiser has made a career of sticking his guitar in unpredictable places. Dude's also an experimental-film-&-lit buff and an ace scuba diver, and grows radioactive coral on Neptune.Meanwhile Centazzo has crashed regularly ou…
Tao
*2023 stock* "When I had asked Steve Lacy how he should intervene with the percussion behind Lacy’s thematic statements and subsequent improvisations; the enigmatic Lacy replied: “Play what you feel.” Since then, this has been the guiding principle behind each work of art and everyday action of my artistic life. Here you can hear what Steve Lacy did mean saying that. This CD is dedicated to his memory. Even if we spent just short periods together I always kept a great memory of him in my heart: …
Bridges
*2023 stock* "On a summer-like evening of May 2012 in Milan, Italy, three master improvisers played together for the first time, and created music full of spontaneity and ethereal beauty at JapzItaly – Jazz Aid for Japanese Children. At a superficial level, Andrea Centazzo – the idiosyncratic composer and percussionist renowned for refined finesse – and Akira Sakata – the iconoclastic reedman famed with volcanic emotional display – would make an ‘odd’ musical team. Despite this presumption, guid…