Reissues
Éthiopiques 8: Swinging Addis
*2024 stock* In the 1960s there was a Swinging Addis just as there was a Swinging London. In Ethiopia, as in Europe bor the USA, the first generation born after the war made their noisy, colourful breakthrough onto the scene. A veritable cultural revolution rather than a simple generational conflict. With music as its detonator and its common denominator. This volume aims to collect the clearest examples of soul, R'n'B and even twist in the recordings of the Ethiopian 'sixties'. The quintessence…
Éthiopiques 7: Erè Mèla Mèla
*2024 stock* Erè mèla mèla was the very first record of modern Ethiopian music released in Europe (Crammed Discs, Brussells, 1986). It is only logical that it should be reissued today, expanded and remastered, in the Ethiopiques series. This volum 7 of Ethiopiques includes all of the Mahmoud Ahmed's recordings released in 1975 by Kaifa Records, i.e. the LP KF 20 plus 2 tracks released on another 45 and two additional songs included in the first Crammed release, two masterpieces from an album rel…
Éthiopiques 6: Almaz
*2024 stock* For many years everything we knew about Mahmoud Ahmed (and Ethiopian music in general) was limited to the cult album Erè Mèla Mèla (Ethiopiques 7 CD 829802), recorded in 1975 but released for the first time in Europe in 1986. Mahmoud's first LP, Almas ("Almaz men eda nèw"), recorded two years before Erè Mèla Mèla, now bears new witness to the talent of one of the greatest Ethiopian artists of the past 35 years.
Éthiopiques 5: Tigrigna Music (Tigra / Eritrea 1970-1975)
*2024 stock* "Tigrigna music" refers to music of Tigray and Eritrea. The majorities in each of these territories share the same language, Tigrigna. Tigrigna music, dominant in Tigray and Eritrea, is quite distinct, both rhythmically and melodically, from 'Ethiopian' music, though both share the pentatonic scale. However, the instrument and traditional musical practices are similar, while their names may vary. Aside from the Tigrean Bèzuayènè Zègèyè, most of the artists featured on this album are…
Thai? Dai! (The Heavier Side Of The Luk Thung Underground)
Temporary Super Offer! 2023 repress; originally released in 2011. Fourteen slabs of the heaviest Thai funk and psych rockers ever committed to vinyl. The styles featured on this compilation fall somewhere between luk thung ("song of the countryside") and luk krung ("song of the city"). Bangkok was a melting pot for the evolution of these two genres, the former alluding to musical themes and lyrics aimed at the wider national population and the latter looking westward with a more urban audience i…
Pirate!
Temporary Super Offer! As one of the most prolific and viciously self-sufficient exponents of the early 80s French DIY/domestic synth pop scene X Ray Pop are a group who are easy to scratch the surface but almost impossible to get the bottom of. Peeping out of a warren of unexplored passages their seminal self-distributed debut singles and appearances on the genre defining alternative funk Alternative Funk Folie Distinguée compilation in 1984 made them an omnipresent fixture for the French tape …
Éthiopiques 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974)
*2024 stock* In the Ethiopian musical world, Mulatu Astatqé is a typical, totaly unique personality, a legend unto himself. For 30 years, he has been an inescapabe presence, a virtual statue casting a long shadow over the Ethiopian scene. His true singularity resides in his efforts in instrumental music in a country where musical culture and tradition are strangers to it. Note: Jim Jarmush put some of these hypnotic instrumentals to great use in the soundtrack of his film Broken Flowers
Éthiopiques 3: Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* The Amha Records label issued approx 250 tracks in six years (1969-1975). 8 songs on this "Ethiopiques 3" CD are accompanied by bands affiliated with the Police. Indeed, until the very end of the 1960s, Ethiopia had no independant modern bands. Musical life was wholly dominated by the institutional bands attachd to either the Imperial Body Guard, the Police, the Army, the ciry of Addis Ababa, Agher Feqer Mahber or the Hayle Sellasie Theatre. Each of these institutions developed seve…
Éthiopiques 2: Tetchawet!
*2024 stock* Originally wandering minstrels, sharp-tongued peddlers who roamed the old Abyssinian countryside, many azmaris more or less settled down after the founding of Addis-Ababa just over a century ago. The cleverest of them quickly understood that they should set up their own businesses and take a cut on the drinks, instead of getting by on tips earned singing their way from one bar and tedjbèt (taverns serving tedj, the local mead) to another. (…) They have taken over the city by giving …
Éthiopiques 1 - Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* 1969-1978. The main body of Ethiopian records was produced in less than one decade: all in all, just under 500 45s and around 30 LP albums. Amha Eshèté, creator of the Amha Records Label, was the driving force behind this brief creative burst and one of the main founders of the modernist movement, which swept the Ethiopian scene during the end of the rule of the Emperor Haile Sellassie. In six years (1969-1975), Amha issued approx 250 tracks. From his first recordings, he dispayed a…
Zanzibara
*2024 stock* Taarab is a genre of music popular in Tanzania and Kenya. It is influenced by the musical traditions of the African Great Lakes, North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. In the 1970s, a new taarab emerged in the coastal towns of Mombasa and Tanga: in Mombasa, Matano Juma's Morning Star replaced strings with distorted organ sounds, amplified violin or clarinet; and Zuhura Swaleh made the electrified tashkota the dominant instrument in his orchestra, while drawing in…
Qawwali, The Essence Of Desire
Big Tip! *2024 stock* Qawwali is a syncretic musical form of heterodox Islam (the unorthodox doctrines of the Sufis, a group of ascetics and mystics) in South Asia. Derived from the Arabic Qaul (to say, creed, word), the term designates both an Indian and Pakistani musical genre and its manifestation. A religious song designed to convey the message of Sufi poetry, Qawwali is performed by an ensemble of professional male musicians (the Qawwal) ranging from 3 to 13 people.
De Sade
Quartet Records, in collaboration with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, presents the premiere complete CD release of Billy Strange terrific score for De Sade, an ambitious 1969 American International Pictures production directed by Cy Endfield. The film is a fictionalized biography of the world’s most famous sexual and physical pervert: Marquis De Sade, who was notorious for his sadistic behavior. The film stars Keir Dullea as the Marquis, Senta Berger, Lilli Palmer and John Huston.
Legendary musician and a…
The Food Of The Gods / Frogs
Quartet Records, in collaboration with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, presents the world premiere release of two 70s killer-animals exploitation film scores from the vaults of American International Pictures.
The Magic Place
Julianna Barwick's The Magic Place, is a nine-piece full-length album of magic and solace, bursting joy and healing tones. Julianna's mostly-a-capella music is built from her voice multi-tracked through a loop station. There's more backing instrumentation on this one than on previous albums but it's the vocals—soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies—that matter most here. It's the layered fragments and pieces that become an intricate pattern through technology; it's the sound of a ri…
Solar Motel (Expanded)
*2024 repress* Over the last two decades Philadelphia-based guitarist Chris Forsyth has released over a dozen critically lauded albums that have established him as one of today’s most unique and acclaimed guitar player /composers – a forward-thinking classicist synthesizing cinematic expansiveness with a pithy lyricism and rhythmic directness that makes even his 20-minute workouts feel as clear, direct, and memorable as a 4-minute song. In retrospect, Forsyth’s career can be divided into two per…
Six Pianos / Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ
Six Pianos is a minimalist piece for six pianos by the American composer Steve Reich. It was completed in March 1973. Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ – again – emerged in the same year. The piece is scored for glockenspiels, marimbas, metallophone (vibraphone without resonator fans), women's voices and organ. The piece is in four sections, played without a break, marked off by changes in key and meter.
Tropical
Tropical is Jorge Ben's fifteenth album, a “muscular” mix of previously unreleased material and rearranged covers such as “Taj Mahal” and “País tropical”. The openness to more Pop, more Western arrangements, foreshadows his future work oriented towards the stereotypical World-Dance of the 1980s. Tropical was originally intended for the market outside Brazil, and was not distributed there until 1977. A very fine confirming his immense talent and ability to adapt to the zeitgeist by intelligently …
World Galaxy
World Galaxy is the sixth solo album by Alice Coltrane recorded in November 1971 in New York City, and released in 1972 by Impulse! Records. On the album, Coltrane appears on piano, organ, harp, tamboura, and percussion, and is joined by saxophonist Frank Lowe, bassist Reggie Workman, drummer Ben Riley, timpanist Elayne Jones, and a string ensemble led by David Sackson. Violinist Leroy Jenkins also appears on soloist on one track, and Swami Satchidananda provides narration. World Galaxy features…
Jobim
Jobim is the eighth studio album by Antônio Carlos Jobim recorded on December 1972 at New York City. Though this is one of the more obscure Jobim albums, it did introduce what some believe is Jobim's masterpiece, the hypnotically revolving song "Aguas de Março" (heard here in Portuguese and English versions).