Folk /
Compulsions
*200 copies limited edition* 'The isolation of lockdown was challenging for guitarist J.R. Bohannon. In refreshingly vulnerable linear notes, he describes how his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were made worse by the pandemic. But he accommodated by creating Compulsions, a set of solo acoustic guitar improvisations in an American folk style, each recorded during a panic attack.
These slow and melancholy pieces have compelling melodies, which Bohannon used to calm himself. He …
Kazuki Tomokawa 1975–1977
Tip! A poet, soothsayer, bicycle race tipster, actor, prolific drinker, self-taught guitarist, and living legend of Japanese sound, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-folk scene in the mid-1970s, forging a sound and sensibility marked by throat-wrenching vocals and searing ennui. Among his musical peers in postwar Japan, Tomokawa distinguished himself as a pioneer of radical individualism. He had “the personality of a hydrogen bomb”—as the notorious ultraleft band the Brain Police on…
Finally, His First Album
Tip! At the tender age of twenty-five, while he was working part-time at an Italian restaurant in Tokyo’s Kamata district, Kazuki Tomokawa released his debut record, fittingly titled Finally, His First Album. While he had already penned hundreds of songs, including his first single “Try Saying You’re Alive!,” written on a long train ride past fields and rice paddies, it was this recording that introduced Japan to one of its most unique musicians of the postwar era. Each track, as record label …
Straight from the Throat
Tip! In the 1970s, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-garde scene with his cathartic and utterly electrifying performances. Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa’s second album, released in July 1976 by Harvest Records, finds the musician in his truest form: as the “screaming philosopher” he would come to be called—cynical but fair, cheeky and melancholic, and looking at the world with truth-seeking eyes.
In Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa shrieks and shouts and wallows with ritualis…
A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth
Tip! In a generation of musicians that came of age in postwar Japan, Kazuki Tomokawa stands as a pioneer of radical individualism, with a sound marked by shocking intimacy and blistering honesty. In his third album, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth, released by Harvest Records in 1977, Tomokawa creeps “ever more inward,” as Kiichi Takahara writes in the record’s original introductory text—embracing an attitude pervasive amongst musicians of the time who interrogated the prosaic…
After the Bend
*300 copies limited edition* 'After the Bend is the second album from Louisville based Flanger Magazine, and the follow up to FM’s 2018 debut, Breslin. Whereas Breslin was the solo creation of Christopher Bush, an album noted for “an astute synthesis of ‘library music’ and solo acoustic guitar,” and “a seamless blend into the uncluttered and airier side of classic 1970’s giallo,” After the Bend is an ensemble affair. An ecosystem, a perfect mutualism bodies forth—of strings, outdoor recordings, …
De Dreit Nien
The Jericho project is fully in line with the approach of the La Nòvia collective from which it originates, a hub for like-minded musicians reinventing regional folk repertoires, marrying traditional French song with minimalism via the use of drone. Jericho is just one of many available permutations of La Nòvia members, with the line-up including Yann Gourdon, Clément Gauthier, Jacques Puech and Antoine Cognet – you could say it’s La Nòvia’s flagship, or super-group. There are no dramatic stylis…
The Story Of Valerie
*2022 repress* The discovery of a cassette of Carola Baer's early 90s private home recordings was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. Made as a one off mixtape of newly recorded songs, and given away to a long-since forgotten recipient, this cassette was found in 2017 at a Goodwill "bins" location in Portland, Oregon. These chaotic, by the pound thrift stores contain 1000's of unsorted items in constant flux, which are only available for the public to buy for a limited time before…
Breslin
“A set of spry, pastoral Aecoustic Guitar and errant Electronic pieces that harken back to libraries by Teisco, Vittorio Marino, and the like, yet mapped in an alien manner unlike any known lanes. Unusual, and uniformly excellent.” - Keith Fullerton Whitman
Opsigno
An important figure of the Argentinean acoustic school, his 4th album released in 2004, which is praised as the best album of his career, is now available on vinyl for the first time in the world! The latest release from SRRD label, which has released albums by Motohiko Hamase, Mono Fontana, Edison Natali, Yoshiharu Takeda and others!Alejandro Franov has been surrounded by music since he was a child, and became a multi-instrumentalist as he should. On this album, he plays a variety of percussion…
Concert 1975
Yasumi No Kuni, long-running Japanese folk group, originally formed in 1969 by the members of Jacks & Teruyuki Takahashi, recorded live just after Fy Fan second album.
Kleine
* 2022 stock. Edition of 300* Kleine was released in 2002 on tape only. Though it was recorded over the course of five years, this is probably their most coherent output – the record starts with mostly acoustic parts, mixed with more psychedelic parts. Towards the end, the more direct songs merge perfectly with the tape and drone experiments. On this record, Karin and Jeffrey get support from an impressive list of guest musicians: Alastair Galbraith on violin, B’Eirth (In Gowan Ring, Birch Book)…
Old Things
* 2022 stock* This record is a collection of rare and unreleased material, mostly recorded between the release of her second and third album. As such, it can be seen as the missing link between the rather droney second record, and the starker Jessica Bailiff record. This is more than ,,just’’ a collection of older material: this records explains why it took her so long to finish her third record: she was also working on these gems which form a regular full length on their own. Songs like Your so…
Long Way To Go Home
** 300 copies ** Kath Bloom is a quietly legendary artist. From her early work with Loren Connors, to her appearance in Richard Linklater’s 1995 film Before Sunrise, to international tours, and accolades from some of music’s biggest names, Bloom has truly had a stellar career. Yet she somehow still alludes widespread notoriety, culling instead a cult following of dedicated fans. In 2017 she began collaborating with guitarist David Shapiro, who is known for his work under solo moniker Alexander, …
Kirkfield Non (Tape)
Duelling blues, simultaneously piquant and distorted, from one of Death Is Not The End’s few extant acts, following the label string of compilation pearls Back for third servings after an eponymous debut and ‘Fayet’ in 2017, Torontonian siblings Kevin and Patrick Cahill pick out bittersweet, wayward blues on these 2020 recordings made in their home city and out by the lakes in Kirkfield. We’re not sure if they’re twins, but the Cahills appear to work at near subconscious, telepathic levels of fa…
Aman!!! #2
** 2021 Stock ** The duo of Tasos Stamou and Thodoris Ziarkas bring back the improvisational element to the old Greek rebetiko style and expand it towards other avant-garde musical genres. Acoustic hacked South Mediterranean tunes and noises. Live recorded in Clapton Sessions, the Depot, London and in K.E.T venue in Athens in 2018. Thodoris Ziarkas: parlour guitar. Tasos Stamou: Greek bouzouki & Turkish baglama saz, vocals.
Aman!!!
** 2021 Stock ** The duo of Tasos Stamou and Thodoris Ziarkas bring back the improvisational element to the old Greek rebetiko style and expand it towards other avant-garde musical genres. Acoustic hacked South Mediterranean tunes and noises. Thodoris Ziarkas: parlour guitar. Tasos Stamou: Greek bouzouki & Turkish baglama saz, vocals.
Similar & Different
Dal:um is a musical duo based in Seoul, who challenges the sonic possibilities of Korea's most well-known traditional string instruments: the gayageum and geomungo. Ethereal and otherworldly, Dal:um create a compelling soundworld that treasures subtle dynamics and the space between the notes. Two musicians. Two weighty acoustic stringed instruments. A dialogue between traditional and experimental practices. Dal:um was founded in 2018 by Ha Suyean (gayageum) and Hwang Hyeyoung (geomungo). Suyean …
Keijo Sings Woody's Songs
** Edition of 60 ** Keijo plays Woodie Guthrie's songs. Recorded between April 2019 and October 2020. All instruments, effects & voice by Keijo.
Mateo Solo Bien Se Lame
* 2021 Stock* A record that requires many superlatives in order to do it justice: from it’s first moments, the music is lilting, poetic, intimate, in turns life-affirming and melancholic, with pulsating percussion backed by unheard-of guitar chords and tunings (perhaps the reason for the frequent Caetano Veloso comparisons); it is an album that sounds—simply put—honest. Released at the end of 1972 in both Argentina and Uruguay, it was received from that first moment as a classic. When iconoclast…