Reissues
Aa Sschmmettrroossppecctivve
1000 pictures and documents from the work and life of Charlemagne Palestine explode from the pages of the book, superimposed in ‘strumming’ layers, weaving the historical & present, works & performance, private & public into a tightly knit sschmmettrroobookk. Texts by Michel Baudson and Xavier Garcia Bardón.In 1974, the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, a great admirer of American avant-garde art, and Karel Geirlandt, the new director of the Centre for Fine Arts, invited Charlemagne Palestine to perform…
Don't Look Back
For a label that wasn't around long, Strata East achieved the same sort of label recognition that Impulse! or Blue Note managed to build. In other words, you knew what you were getting when you bought a record on the label, even if you didn't know the names on the outside of the cover. "Don't Look Back" is an album led by American saxophonist Harold Vick recorded in 1974 and released in the wake of Harold Vick's recovery from a heart attack, which may partially explain the passion with which he …
Freedom of Speech
2017 release. Most of the musicians who gathered to record this fantastic spiritual jazz record for the Strata-East label on May 24th, 1974 had crossed each other's paths in various musical pairings over the preceding few years. Husband and wife team Dee Dee Bridgewater (vocals) and Cecil Bridgewater (trumpet) had been working together on albums like Frank Foster's "Loud Minority", and Roy Ayers' "Coffy" and "Virgo Red". Ten weeks before the "Freedom Of Speech" session, the couple had been joine…
A Spirit Speaks
One of the most unique albums on the Strata East label – and that's saying a heck of a lot, given the creative energies flowing through that legendary jazz outlet! Descendents Of Mike & Phoebe is a righteous little project put together by Spike Lee's father, Bill Lee, and his brothers and sisters (Cliff Lee, Grace Lee Mims, and Consuela Lee Moorhead) – working here in a group named after their slave ancestors, who are paid tribute in a beautifully flowing batch of tunes! Lee's round, warm bass t…
Kingdom Come
Edition of 500. Swordfish proudly continue its reissue programme of classic vintage Arthur Brown recordings with Kingdom Come. The self-titled second album is the last recording of the original ‘Galactic Zoo Dossier’ line-up and sees the band developing even further the elements of Prog and Psychedelia played on the first album and stretching out into an almost Zappa-esque orbit. It also features two of Arthur’s most poignant recordings in ‘Love is a Spirit that will Never Die’ and ‘The Whirlpoo…
Instant Music
Instant Music is the trio of Bernd Schöll (Bass, Vocals, Rhythm), Mike Hauer (Guitar, Synth, Percussion) and Marion Siekmann (Vocals) from Munich, Germany. They formed in 1980 after meeting through mutual friends attending the local art and graphic design school. The trio were dissatisfied with their surrounding musical environment. Inspired by the Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, and Giorgio Moroder, they set out to create their own brand of Neue Deutsche Welle fusing Dada, disco and Krautrock.Ov…
A l'Abri Des Micro-Climats
300 copies. Etron Fou Leloublan were best known as one of the five original Rock in Opposition bands that performed at the first RIO festival in London in March 1978. Their music—a blend of punk rock, jazz, French music hall, comedy satire and "avant-garde mayhem"—established them as one of the most singular voices in European experimental rock. At the center of this controlled chaos sat Guigou Chenevier, whose drumming cut through conventional rhythmic logic with driven, metronomic precision.
I…
Pink Flag
These are the definitive re-releases. Each album is presented as an 80-page hardback book -- the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. After a special introduction by Jon Savage, Graham Duff provides insight into each track. These texts include recording details, brand-new interviews with band members, and lyrics. The original album is presented on its own CD, accompanied by discs that feature relevant extra tracks: singles; B-sides; demos; and many previously unreleased songs. All audio…
154
Presented as an 80-page hardback book -- the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. 1979's 154 represented the final tableau in Wire's Harvest released '70s tripych and was the first Wire album to be released to a universal set of 5 star reviews from the British Rock Weeklies thus it represented the point when the British 'pop culture establishment' publicly recognised Wire's primacy. "154 makes 95 percent of the competition look feeble" wrote Nick Kent in the NME; "Wire are achieving a l…
Chairs Missing
Presented as an 80-page hardback book -- the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. If Pink Flag proposed an almost cut and paste approach to deconstructing rock history, the Wire's Chairs Missing proposed something more radical, a definite futurism with much less influence from its antecedents. Chairs Missingwas at once more stark and more lush than its predecessor and has exerted its own influence on the course of cultural history, having laid down one of the earliest (if not the earlie…
Eros In Arabia
This year has been an incredible period for avant-garde, Minimalist, New Age, ambient, and electronic reissues. One after another, many of the most coveted and rare LPs from these movements have emerged from the shadows. While each of these movements had a tendency to avoid easy categorization, the reissue market has largely veered toward those whose location can be easily understood, offering less attention to those members whose work fell into the spaces between. With their fourth release sinc…
Music and Poetry of the Kesh
Small repress available, in process of stocking. Includes a facsimile of the original lyric sheet, liner notes, a letterpresses bookmark and an instant download.Buchla synth supremo Todd Barton’s hyperstitious soundtrack to Always Coming Home, an ‘80s American sci-fi novel by author Ursula K. Le Guin, is yet another ingenious recording dug out for reappraisal by Pete Swanson and Jed Middleman’s Freedom to Spend label - a division of RVNG Intl. Expect alien folk songs in made-up language, set to …
Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani, 9 March 1986
CD version. Unreleased archival recordings as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Around ten years ago, deep into a cozy and hazy night following a concert with my sound brothers Daniel O'Sullivan and Kristoffer Rygg in London (as Æthenor), they graciously introduced me to a recording of rudra veena (a kind of noble deeper bass relative to the sitar, in a way) as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Dhrupad, for those who do not know, is a branch of Hindustani classical …
Raga Yaman,15 March 1986
CD version. Unreleased archival recordings as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Around ten years ago, deep into a cozy and hazy night following a concert with my sound brothers Daniel O'Sullivan and Kristoffer Rygg in London (as Æthenor), they graciously introduced me to a recording of rudra veena (a kind of noble deeper bass relative to the sitar, in a way) as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Dhrupad, for those who do not know, is a branch of Hindustani classical …
Number of Sheep Who Jumped over the Fence
Restocked, reduced price Signed and numbered box, limited to 80 copies. Comes with inserts and and a photo of exhibition in 1974. “Number of Sheep Who Jumped over the Fence” by Fumio Takamizawa was originally presented in 1974. Throughout the history of Japanese art, there has been artists that filled museums, galleries, studios and other public spaces with all sorts of sounds. In most cases, however, once the sound faded, it couldn't be heard again. Within Japanese art history, which has been …
Selected Graphic Scores
Edition of 50 copies, Special Edition, Carboard box with 17 sheets Graphic Scores. This edition is published on the occasion of Alan Courtis’s exhibition, “Graphic Scores” on March 2-10, 2018.
Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music
For decades, library music has been a world of shadowy, mysterious depths - a place where only the most serious record heads dared to dive. It has no one genre, in fact it has them all and is one all its own. Often its artists come without a name. It’s albums, thousands upon thousands of them, were pressed but never released commercially, circulated within the film and television industries, but slowly, over the years, slipped out into the world. These LPs, the height of which appeared across th…
Hot Lotta
CD Version. Limited, exclusive, extended reissue of Hot Lotta, one of the rarest items in Peter Brötzmann’s oeuvre. Hot Lotta was a special cultural event, the meeting of the brightest free jazz talent from Germany and Finland. Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald were joined by Edward Vesala and Juhani Aaltonen for the studio session that resulted in the album but also toured Finland and recorded a radio session. That radio session has now been unearthed and is presented as an added bonus in this o…
Scenery
LP version. Mastered at half speed. 180 gram vinyl; Stoughton tip-on
sleeve. We Release Jazz (WRWTFWW Records' new sister-label) presents its
first release, the official reissue of Ryo Fukui's highly sought-after masterpiece Scenery, originally released in 1976. Unquestionably one of the most important Japanese jazz albums ever recorded, Scenery
reveals Ryo Fukui as a miraculously brilliant self-taught pianist
fusing modal, bop, and cool jazz influences for a very personal,
dexterous, and g…
For Friends And Relatives
2018 repress. Landmark work from the Finnish scene of the 60s – one of those ultra-rare European jazz records that collectors have dug for decades! The set's got a stark, modern sort of feel – but also a nice soulful swing, too – a balance that few of the other Scandinavians hit so well at the time – as they were either hanging between farther-out progressions, or more inside, tightly arranged jazz! Drummer Christian Schwindt's vision here is exceptional – full of rich feeling, deep tone, and ca…