Reissues
1981-87 Vol 1 (LP)
Abrasive and challenging, mad, unpredictable, with a wistful, quirky, even humorous side!
Kuge Yoshio Solo
* Edition of 200 * Japanese punk/underground drummer legend. Born in Osaka. Has played with many Japanese underground groups including Les Rallizes Denudes, Keiji Haino, Pungo, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Masami Shinoda Unit, Paradise Garage
Kakashi
2023 much-needed repress. A wonderful, rare record wrapped in a mysterious yet playful ambiance. Or maybe it’s just the impression that the Japanese language often gives me. ‘Suiren’ is an odd jazz-fusion-wave tune that sounds like its boiling, waiting to burst but somehow manages to stay in control. Like the nervous tick of a leg fidgeting under the table of a restaurant on a first date.Yasuaki Shimizu is a Japanese composer, producer and saxophone player. He worked with Ryuchi Sakimoto on cert…
Dancing Kojiki
This album was the Yosuke Yamashita Trio's first-ever work, and it is considered to be a real masterpiece. It is a live recording of a superb performance in July 1969 that involved Takeo Moriyama and Seiichi Nakamura on the barricaded campus of Waseda University. This analogue reissue captures the three stunning pieces as well as plenty of ambiance and atmosphere from the gig itself, making it a real moment in time.
One of the earliest albums ever from Japanese pianist Yosuke Yamashita – and a …
Dancing Kojiki
*2023 stock* Japan's legendary drummer steps out here with a killer combo – definitely a "big 4", given that the group features excellent tenor work from Hidehiko "Sleepy" Matsumoto, plus Fender Rhodes and acoustic piano from Hideo Ichikawa! George Kawaguchi's famous sense of swing really gets the whole thing going – that big, round approach to the drums that was somewhere in a space between Art Blakey and Buddy Rich – and which was definitely hitting some of its hipper tones by the time of this…
The Big 4
*2023 stock* Japan's legendary drummer steps out here with a killer combo – definitely a "big 4", given that the group features excellent tenor work from Hidehiko "Sleepy" Matsumoto, plus Fender Rhodes and acoustic piano from Hideo Ichikawa! George Kawaguchi's famous sense of swing really gets the whole thing going – that big, round approach to the drums that was somewhere in a space between Art Blakey and Buddy Rich – and which was definitely hitting some of its hipper tones by the time of this…
Light As A Feather
Full length remixed and re-mastered version of this classic lp featuring top 20 classic jazz carnival!
Time & Condition
** The first cassette edition of this album to exist in the universe, ltd to 100 copies in white **Malik King was an important part of the St Louis jazz scene of the 70's & 80's. He studied under Albert Ayler in NY in the early 70s before returning to the Midwest. He was a member of the Shirley Le Flore's ensemble "Free N' Concert". He also served as musical director of The Creative Arts & Expression Lab, The African Peoples Continuum, & The Black Arts Alliance, The worrier poets, The Human Arts…
Artistry
** The first cassette edition of this album to exist in the universe, ltd to 100 copies in white ** Artistry was Sirone's first album as a leader, recorded in 1978, just after the split of the Revolutionary Ensemble. Artistry has an Atypical combination of instruments, bass, cello , flute and percussion and delivers aplenty. Listen and you will know. Sirone ( Norris Jones) had an enormously prolific career as a bassist, both as a member of the Revolutionary Ensemble and playing with many of the …
Conspiracy
** 100 copies limited edition cassette with j-card (with ltd edition poster by Shabaka Hutchins) ** Jeanne Lee (1939-2000) was an African-American vocalist, poet, composer, improvisor, activist and educator. In her 40 year career she performed with Archie Shep, Marion Brown, Gunter Hampel, Frank Lowe, William Parker, Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Braxton, Ran Blake, Billy Bang, Cecil Taylor, John Cage, Rashsaan Roland Kirk, Pauline Oliveros, Reggie Workman, and many others.
"Jazz is a music that comb…
The Painter's Family
*300 copies limited edition* Recorded 2008-2016 and originally released on cassette in 2018. The Painter’s Family is the first duo release from Andrew Chalk and Francis Plagne, recorded intermittently, both together and apart, over eight years, in Hull, Melbourne and various places in Japan. Eight pages from the sketchbook, sequenced into two languorous side-long suites.
“He tried by every means to come close to nature, lying in the fields before daybreak and until nightfall in order to learn t…
Ben
*2023 reissue* The long unavailable ninth album by Brazilian star Jorge Ben. Released in 1972, "Ben" comes from one of Jorge Ben’s most artistically important phases, the early 70s. The album has some of Ben’s most famous songs, “Taj Mahal” (plagiarized by Rod Stewart on his song “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”, as the British singer admitted himself in 2012), and “Fio Maravilha”, paying homage to Flamengo’s iconic football player Fio Maravilha.
Gal
2023 reissue After Caetano Veloso broke out with his solo debut, the self-titled 1968 release recognized as the building block for the now infamous Brazilian Tropicalia movement, his friends and musical peers released similar albums, always upping the ante in terms of outrageousness and inventiveness. This release, the second of two self-titled albums released by Gal Costa in 1969, set the high watermark in terms of overall insanity and complete experimental freedom for the entire lot; not Velos…
Gal Costa
*2023 reissue* A lot changed between Gal Costa's pleasantly straightforward 1967 debut Domingo and her eponymous follow-up two years later. Domingo, also a debut for young Brazilian songwriter Caetano Veloso, featured a set of airy, somewhat standard bossa nova tunes, sung ably by Costa. Mere months after the release of this relatively safe debut, however, Costa and Veloso found themselves alongside Os Mutantes, Tom Zé, and Gilberto Gil, recording contributions to Tropicália: Ou Panis et Circenc…
Wa Maret El Ayam
From the two towering pillars of the Arab World’s Tarab, Om Kalsoum & Mohamed Abdel Wahab, comes another cult classic of Wa Maret El Ayam. With an iconic prelude featuring one of Abdel-Wahab’s quintessential fusions, this time a Libyan folk melody, Souma records bring a long-awaited remastering of the original studio version. Entrancing, magnetic and transcendental all at once.
Hakam Aleena El Hawa
Egyptian King Baligh Hamdy and “The Lady” Om Kalsoum meet for the final time in her parting ode, Hakam Aleena El Hawa. With a hypnotic intro featuring the rhythmic fireworks of Hany Mehanna’s organ, Souma records bring a remastering of the original studio version for The Voice of Egypt to live on. Musing, beckoning and triumphant as always.
Mogwai Young Team
*2023 reissue* Mogwai’s groundbreaking debut album ‘Mogwai Young Team’, originally released in October 1997 is to be reissued in February 2023, remastered and refreshed on coloured vinyl, CD and digital. Housed in a gatefold sleeve with original artwork, the sky-blue vinyl will come with a digital download code.The original recording engineer for the album, Paul Savage, whose production credits include Franz Ferdinand and The Twilight Sad, has remastered the album for this special reissue.Record…
Come On Die Young
*2023 reissue* 24 years after its initial release, Mogwai’s iconic second album ‘Come On Die Young’ is to be reissued on coloured vinyl. Presented in a gatefold sleeve with original artwork, the white vinyl will come with a digital download code.Originally released in March 1999, ‘Come On Die Young’s artwork references The Exorcist and a title scalped from a well-known Glasgow gang slogan. Instead of the cover’s suggested apocalypse-harbouring, pre-millennial assault on the senses however, this …
Blues For Gassman
Limited edition The most valuable of Gürtler’s (founder of Saar Records in 1950) jewels came from the jazz world. Gürtler donated all his passion and expertise to jazz, financing every project without complaints. The jewel in the crown of his productions was the LPJ 5007 album (Basso-Valdambrini Octet), considered by critics the best one ever published in Italy till that moment. The records selection, to which also Gürtler took part, leaned towards the classic themes of the American repertoire, …
Vision Songs - Vol. I
Vision Songs Vol. 1 is the Laraaji album like no other, located at the intersection of new age and gospel, his outlier and magnum opus, the feel-good DIY tape of the century. Casio synth jams recorded at spiritual retreat guest rooms and a tiny bedroom on the Upper West Side in 1984, lysergically-spectacular anthems for a continually arriving new moment. “Channeled from the sky,” humbly offered on vinyl for the first time, this is where this is going on, this is where this is taking place, this …