Reissues
The Curfew Recordings
The Curfew Recordings were made at a disused industrial site on the river Tyne in 1984 and feature John Smith (then publisher of Interchange magazine), Sean Dower (ex Death Magazine 52 & later of Bow Gamelan Ensemble) And John Mylotte (of the band Metgumnebone). The recordings were made inside a 10m tall and 26m wide, steel-plated cylindrical, structure, once used for bitumen storage. The instrumentation is acoustic and the recordings are unprocessed (the space however adds a remarkable reverb).…
Purge
Kevin Drumm's 2007 cassette 'Purge' on iDEAL went out of stock in less than a week. This is the CD version of that killer thing. Intense listening taking you deep into the known unknown, or perhaps the unknown known. Drumm's noise is extremely powerful and dynamic.; travelling frequencies, rich with details, with very little hope, with guaranteed exhaustion after frequent listening. I always think about Black Metal when I am listening to Drumm's works,Ê they share the same cold and darkness. 'Pu…
The Schulze-Schickert Session
CD edition: Beautiful, previously unreleased private home recording of kosmische drifts starring Schulze alongside his roadie and noted early Krautrock guitarist. Glossy gatefold vinyl with liner notes and photos** "For the first time ever, from the vaults of Klaus Schulze, comes The Schulze-Schickert Session, a rare and previously unreleased private session featuring echo-guitar pioneer, Günter Schickert. Recorded on 26 September 1975 in Klaus Schulze’s home Studio in Hambuehren, Germany,…
Let's Start
His masterpiece "A treat for those into the pioneering works of Terry Riley and Steve Reich in that this combines use of delay lines on keyboards a-la Riley with phasing techniques on voices first explored by Reich" (Mutant Sounds). Originally released in 1979, Wakhevitch's last album before definitely settling down in Auroville (India) was his most meditative and relaxed effort to date. Fruit of his 1978 stay in Israel invited by the "Mishkenot Sha’ananim" Foundation, the album was again…
Nagual
Originally released in 1977, this was (once again) a product of the fruitful association between Igor Wakhevitch and american dancer/choreographer Carolyn Carlson. Compiling some of the pieces specially written for Carlson's "This, that and the other" (created for the Groupe de recherche Theatrale de l'Opera de Paris), the album follows the otherwordly steps of it's predecessor ("Les Fous D'or") in a more calm, relaxed, almost nocturnal way. Inspired by Carlos Castaneda's writings, Nagual is ano…
Les Fous D'or
Released by Pathe Marconi in 1975 and housed in a fantastic surrealist cover designed by his father, russian painter/art director Georges Wakhevitch, this album marks the debut of Wakhevitch's long-standing collaboration with american dancer/choreographer Carolyn Carlson. It also shows the composer's progression into a more esoteric and lyrical grounds: a departure from the violence of his first three albums into quieter yet equally dark and mysterious regions. Divided in two sides (calle…
Jazz Sahara
Decades before the advent of 'world music', bassist-composer Ahmed Abdul-Malik introduced Arabic music into jazz, creating a distinct, unique sound that was far beyond its time. Best known in jazz circles for his solid work with Randy Weston and Thelonious Monk, Abdul-Malik, who is of Sudanese descent, was also the first to use the oud, a pear-shaped, traditional Middle Eastern stringed instrument similar to a lute, as a jazz instrument. Recorded in 1958, with tenor saxophonist Johnny Gri…
II
2018 repress. Originally released in 1972, this is the second album by legendary German ambient pioneers Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Moebius and Roedelius essentially create ambient electronic soundscapes that ebb and flow, droning on in a suspended world of anti-gravity where machine has conquered man. Includes bonus CD of the album."This album closes Moebius & Roedelius early radical experimentations in electronic, guitar/organ works. Compositions are always made of repetitive p…
Septober Energy
A mammoth, fifty-person enterprise featuring the cream of the early-seventies jazz-rock brigade, Centipede's 1971 album 'Septober Energy' proved to be an exercise in both gargantuan excess and instrumental brilliance. Naturally, opinions on the release are divided. The line-up is far too numerous to list here, though it did include the likes of Soft Machine alumni Marc Charig(cornet), Elton Dean (sax), Roy Babbington(bass), Robert Wyatt (drums), Nick Evans(trombone), John Marshall(drums,…
Drones
In the beginning there was the piano. As soon as he had mastered the basics, Jean-Philippe Goude discovered the spell of melancholy while working on a little musical piece: an etude ringing out in the style of a somber hymn. Not the dead meat smells of somberness that, according to Picabia, serious people emit, but the earthen gravity of an abyss dug by life itself. Everything is the result of this bedazzlement. At 11 years old, Jean-Philippe Goude closed his eyes. When his eyelids finall…
An Acoustic Confusion
An instantly captivating, all-original acoustic album of great depth and incredible maturity, the debut album (1971) by acoustic guitarist and songwriter, Steve Tilston. As for the making of the album: 'It was Ralph McTell who very kindly contacted Ian Anderson of Village Thing on my behalf,' Tilston explained. 'I followed it up and secured a meeting with Ian and a gig at the Troubadour Folk Club. I'd met Ralph through Wizz Jones at Les Cousins in Soho, and he'd been very complimentary abo…
This Forest and the Sea
Excellent 1976 private press acoustic album, self-recorded at various places in Colorado, and filled with beautiful fingerstyle acoustic guitar, plus some atonal bottleneck slide, string scrapes and drones (at times, very Ry Cooder/Paris, Texas about six years before that soundtrack existed). Although almost completely instrumental, what lyrics there are tend towards the dark and the satiric. The obvious points of comparison are John Fahey and Leo Kottke, although Scott Key certainly has …
Kesarbai Kerkar
restocked: "One of the greatest Indian classical vocalists of all time. Kesarbia Kerkar rose up from the bottom of the cast system in India to become one of the countries most respected vocalists. These recordings from 1947 - 1953 are beautiful ragas not to be missed. First LP issue of her material to be available in the US. A real treasure for fans of our Abdul Karim Khan and Pandit Pran Nath releases. Beautiful detailed liner notes by Ian Nagoski complete with photographs and sacred…
E Pluribus Unum
Long-awaited reissue of the first full-length album from 1980 by late '70s/early '80s UK DIY super-group The 49 Americans. The main instigator behind The 49 Americans was Andrew "Giblet" Brenner, who assembled a loose, disparate group of musical/non-musical practitioners as an experiment in equality and democracy. This democracy included David Toop, Steve Beresford, Max Eastley, Lol Coxhill and Peter Cusack, Nag and Bendle of The Door And The Window, Viv Albertine of the Slits, Vivien Goldman…
We Know Nonsense
LP version. Long-awaited reissue of the second full-length album from 1982 by late 1970s/early 1980s UK DIY super-group The 49 Americans. The main instigator behind The 49 Americans was Andrew "Giblet" Brenner, who assembled a loose, disparate group of musical/non-musical practitioners as an experiment in equality and democracy. This democracy included David Toop, Steve Beresford, Max Eastley, Lol Coxhill and Peter Cusack (coming out of the anything goes improv scene), Nag And Bendle of The Door…
Spiritual Jazz 4: Americans in Europe
Triple LP version. Housed in a deluxe triple gatefold sleeve with download card for the entire album. Jazzman Records presents the fourth volume in their Spiritual Jazz compilation series. It's well-known that throughout the 20th century, fed up with poor working conditions and racism in their home country, many American jazz musicians chose to leave the U.S. in order to live and work in Europe. What's less well-known is how their music developed and evolved during their time on the conti…
DNA on DNA
Limited edition 2LP version featuring newly-discovered songs exclusive to this LP: "Pompeii," "Shrinking Thing," "Drinking Water," plus two encores from DNA's final performance at CBGB's. Housed in a gatefold sleeve. New York's seminal no wave band, DNA, makes it's highly anticipated American CD debut with this definitive collection of studio and live recordings. Surviving two line-ups over a brief period of four years; this highly influential, strikingly original and extremely under-re…
Cartridge Music
Cartridge Music was composed in 1960 and is one of Cage’s earliest attempts to produce live electronic music. Sounds are produced using cartridges from record players. Performers insert different objects into the opening of a cartridge, and manipulate them in a variety of ways (scraping, touching, striking etc) so that the sound of the object is picked up by the cartridge and then fed to an amplifier and speaker. The choice of objects and means of manipulation are left entir…
Unseen Worlds
1994 release, Late-eighties works re-released by Spiegel's own label, after the demise of the original imprint Scarlet Records"I had started as an improviser, largely self-taught and playing by ear on "folk" plucked instruments. Once I began a formal study of music, only after college studies apart from music, I had to learn to adjust to writing silent notes on paper with a dim hope of possibly eventually hearing them played by others, though my lack of keyboard skills with which to compose and …
Obsolete systems
finally restocked: 2001 release. An overview of Laurie Spiegel's electronics works, ranging from 1970 to 1983. Utilizing analog synthesizers (Buchla 100, Electrcomp 100), tape, digital synthesis, Echoplex, Bell Labs' GROOVE Hybrid system, etc. Comparable to classic 70s-era Schnitzler streaming, this is a very memorable document of this obscure composer's best works. "Laurie Spiegel, electronic music pioneer, has been working with cutting-edge electronic instruments since the 1970s. She has…