New Arrivals
Black Fire! New Spirits!: Images of a Revolution: Radical Jazz in the USA 1960-75
At the start of the 1960s, jazz entered a unique period of revolution as African-American musicians redefined the art form in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, Afro-centric rhythm and thought and an ideology of black economic empowerment.
John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler and others developed a new cosmology of sound that was as revolutionary as the social and political changes that took place in America throughout the decade. From the musical explorat…
Yo! The Early Days of Hip Hop 1982–84: Photography by Sophie Bramly
The birth of hip hop in New York: rare images of the bands, the MCs and DJs, the artists and the fans, from Afrika Bambaataa and Run-DMC to Keith Haring and the Rock Steady Crew.
This book features more than 150 rarely seen images documenting the rise of hip hop in the early 1980s, taken by French photographer Sophie Bramly. Bramly lived in New York during this period and became firmly embedded in the emergent scene. The book features many stunning, intimate images of a star-studded roll call of…
Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers
At more than 120 bpm, electronic music sets the tempo on dancefloors around the globe. Accompanying the exhibition Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers, this book offers an insight into the visual culture of electronic music, and how technology, design, art and fashion have contributed to its power. With its roots in Detroit and Chicago in the early 1980s, electronic dance music was popularised across Europe through underground rave parties. Its impact on contemporary culture is s…
Soundings: A Contemporary Score
Soundings: A Contemporary Score investigates the ways in which some of the most innovative contemporary artists are working with sound today. These artists approach sound from a variety of disciplines--visual arts, architecture, performance, computer programming and music--yet they share an interest in working with, rather than against or independent of, a given situation or environment. Their responses include architectural interventions, visualizations of inaudible sound, explorations of sound…
The Farm at Black Mountain College
A record of the rise and fall of the BMC farm that foregrounds the voices of a new cast of characters Black Mountain College (BMC) was a wellspring of 20th-century creative unorthodoxy. From its founding in 1933 and over its celebrated 23-year history, the small liberal arts school in rural North Carolina attracted a remarkable number of famous and soon-to-be famous artists, writers and visionaries including Anni and Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Buckm…
We Owe You Nothing, Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews Expanded Edition
Revised and expanded edition of the punk classic (more than 15,000 copies sold), with six new interviews.
“Not just for fans of punk rock―Punk Planet is a fine source of articles about politics, current events, and do-it-yourself culture.” ―Utne Reader“All of the interviews are probing and well thought out, the questions going deeper than most magazines would ever dare; and each has a succinct, informative introduction for readers who are unfamiliar with the subject. Required reading for all mus…
Black Music
The long-awaited reissue of the sequel to Amiri Baraka’s seminal work, Blues People, and latest selection in the AkashiClassics Renegade Reprint Series. This collection of essays by Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones includes a new introduction by the author and Q&A by Calvin Reid.
“Baraka writes with the passion and lyricism that can only come from a jazz critic who is uncompromisingly invested in the social and aesthetic dimensions of the music.” ―WBGO (Newark Public Radio)
In 2007, Akashic Books ushere…
Relic Radiation
Edition of 300. Of my first visit to Earth in 2024 I have only the fuzziest recollection, for here I must fall back on my own mnemonic resources. My chief impression seems to have been of sunlight, the authentic, inimitable sunlight of Earth. Organs that have evolved under particular conditions will naturally be most comfortable where those conditions obtain, and thus no substitute, however artful, can provide just those balances of colour and intensity, those alterations of night and day, summe…
Born in the City of Tanta - Lower Egyptian Urban Folklore and Bedouin Shaabi from Libya's Bourini Records 1968-75
Egypt’s “official” popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo.However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the…
Tsapiky! Modern Music From Southwest Madagascar
Recorded live on location by Maxime Bobo, this vinyl LP includes a 4-page full-color insert with detailed liner notes plus photos of the musicians and surroundings. Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike.
In Toliara and its surrounding …
Basho / Still Forms
Beatrice Dillon and Hideki Umezawa's split record for the Portrait series. The title of this work by Beatrice Dillon is taken from the notion of ‘basho’, developed by Kitarō Nishida, Japanese philosopher and father of the Kyoto school. Kitaro’s ‘basho’ (場) refers to a fundamental ‘place’ or ‘field’ where things exist and interact. Not just a physical location, but a more abstract space where all experiences, thoughts, and phenomena are interconnected. In Nishida’s philosophy, ‘basho’ is a dynami…
Five Years of Failure
Five year anniversary compilation from Discreet Music featuring new or unreleased music from Facit, Eftergift, Demeters Döttrar, Sewer Election, Juho Toivonen, Leda, Shadow Pattern, Livskraft, Arv & Miljö and Franciska. As stated in the extensive liner notes, a little bit of everything and something for everyone, capturing the very essence of Discreet Music while at the same time looking forward rather than back.
Orchid Mantis / Breach
Breach, by American composer Olivia Block, engages in a dialogue between field recordings and synthesised sounds, creating a vibrant plea for wild spaces that face an ever-growing threat to their survival from human activities. The work is based on recordings collected in the San Ignacio lagoon in the Mexican part of Southern California. This lagoon is known as a breeding ground for eastern Pacific grey whales. With the help of precise electronics, the music unfolds like a drift, depicting the s…
Air de repos (Breathworks)
A double vinyl and a catalogue that constitute a proper extension of the exhibition with which the Capc in Bordeaux continues to question the forms that the museum can take (here transformed into a temporary breathing assistance machine) by developing the idea of the exhibition as an atmosphere, with the aim of creating a renewed awareness of what it means to breathe, not only on an individual level, but also on a collective one, at a time when the world is living in a climate of generalized asp…
Artefacts of Australian Experimental Music: Volume II 1974-1983
2025 stock The story of Australian experimental music continues with Artefacts volume II documenting the explosion of Australian experimental music practice from the mid 1970s; from the use of synthesisers and computers, through to the radical fringes of post-punk, and to the beginnings of industrial and dark wave. The double CD set complete with 16 page booklet features one of Warren Burt’s first compositions completed in Australia, the Loop Orchestra’s first performance, South Australian indus…
#freakinmeout
2025 stock "Strange music by Clubsoundwitches, but there is something in there that I found very captivating. Maybe this is the new dance music?" – Vital Weekly #1237
The Interstices Of These Epidemics
2025 stock In April 2017, Barnaby Oliver and I started recording with the aim of improvising long-form pieces made up of a restricted palette of gestures and sound sources. Throughout the next two years we came together sporadically as we continued this quest, working through various ideas and changing instrumentation. Our work was gradually refined done to what you hear on this album: a combination of harmonics arising from bowed metal bowls and violin (or piano), coalescing into other-worldly …
Creep (Sound Object)
Creep is a noise box with metal on one side and coarse sandpaper on the other. The box is equipped with a contact microphone and produces frightening horror sounds.Creep is a limited edition d.i.y. sound object. The box is handmade and not subject to industrial manufacturing standards.
Indistinction #2
“indistinction #2” comes from the same session as ‘indistinction #1’ and creates the same immersive pull. here, too, rsn works exclusively with his bass and a series of effect devices - no overbuds. everything is created live in the flow and reflects the intensity of the moment. often everything sounds deeply distorted, then it clears up again and metaphorically lets light into the scenery. the mixture of drone and ambient gives “indistinction #2” a broad and balanced sound palette that is best …
Indistinction #1
The game with quiet and loud is not new, but it has not lost its effect. “indistinction #1” proves this impressively, as the three songs on rsn's debut album create a highly immersive moment. they move and yet remain rigid in their depths. they build up and break down. like a current through which you are sucked - wild, yet somehow safe, always moving forward. if you allow yourself to do so, “indistinction #1” is an excursion into your inner self.