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NA Hawa Doumbia's La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3 marks the first release for new label Awesome Tapes From Africa, a blog and DJ project known worldwide for shedding light on obscure and wonderful musical treasures from the African continent. This early recording'made in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 1982'captures the dualities inherent in Doumbia's music from early on: a stripped-down, raw backdrop supported by warm sonics; feminist expressions of social issues imparted through stark refrains.Visit product page →
Doumbia's urgent, distinctive vocals and hypnotic didadi rhythm from her native Bougouni have made her a respected voice in Mali for more than three decades. Today she is best known for her contributions to Wassoulou music. The singer was raised by her grandmother'her mother died shortly after giving birth. But before passing away she predicted Doumbia would be a singer'something surprising, since she didn't come from the jeli (or griot) caste of hereditary singers. Her grandparents resorted to the magical powers of blacksmiths to fight it, but ultimately the prediction proved correct.
Doumbia's music is more powerful than magic. Long out-of-print seminal album. First release for well-known blog/DJ Awesome Tapes From Africa. Nâ Hawa Doumbia has seen decades of success in Mali and is poised for wider recognition. Fair trade music--artists receive 50/50 split of all proceeds.
Tracklisting:
1. KorO Dia (Ã Mamaye Dramé L'inoubliable)
2. Kungo Sogoni
3. Danaya (Ã Sidi Konaté Pour Toujours)
4. Dan Té Dinyé La -
Awesome Tapes From Africa
Hailu Mergia 'Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument: Shemonmuanaye'
£11.99
vAwesome Tapes From Africa
Hailu Mergia 'Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument: Shemonmuanaye'
£11.99
Hailu Mergia is a one-man band. In 1985 master accordionist and veteran Walias Band leader/arranger/keyboardist released the Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument / Shemonmuanaye cassette. The tape is a nostalgic effort to bring back the vintage accordion sound of his youth. Hailu was already celebrated for his work with the industryshifting Addis Ababa ethiojazz and funk outfit the Walias Band, and he pressed forward using new tools to reshape the popular sounds of the past. Adding a Moog synthesizer, Rhodes electric piano and rhythm machine to the harmonic layering of his accordion, he creates hauntingly psychedelic instrumentals.Visit product page →
These songs draw from famous traditional and modern Ethiopian songs, as Hailu matches Amhara, Tigrinya and Oromo melodies to otherworldly flavors soaked in jazz and blues. The result is a lush, futuristic landscape, balancing Ethiopian music's signature pentatonic modes and melodic shape with beautiful analog synth flair. Hailu Mergia was born in Debre Birhan, Ethiopia in 1946. He went to school in Addis Ababa and then joined the army music department. He was later singing in small bars as a freelance musician when he joined a casual band, touring across the Ethiopian provinces as a singer and accordion player for almost a year. After the group broke up, he started performing in nightclubs across the city. He and his mates formed Walias Band and did something no other band in Ethiopian nightclub history had done: they started buying their own musical instruments.
Until then the club owners were supplying the instruments and had the power to fire musicians at will. Following eight years playing at the Hilton Hotel, Hailu and Walias Band went to the United States and toured widely in 1982-1983. Despite breaking ground as the first private band to tour the States and play state dinners at the Derg government palace, some of the band stayed in America while others went back to Addis. After settling in America, Hailu made a one-man band recording with accordion for the first time, mixing in Rhodes electric piano, Moog synthesizer and a rhythm machine. That was 1985. This recording was inspired by the early memories of his first instrument, the accordion.
Nowadays he's making his living as a self-employed taxi driver at Dulles International Airport while continuing to record and practice his music as often as possible. The reissue of this recording brings back a moment when Ethiopian music was shifting from acoustic-based performances to recordings using more and more synthesized elements. While the resulting sound of that shift has its critics Hailu Mergia's initial experiments with "switched-on" solo instrumentals based on Ethiopian folk and popular music captures a singular feeling dripping in ambiance and a very human emotional energy.
Tracklist:
1. Shemonmuanaye
2. Sewnetuwa
3. Laloye
4. Wegene
5. Hari Meru Meru
6. Amrew Demkew
7. Anchin Alay Alegn
8. Ambasel
9. Hebo Lale
10. Belew Beduby
11. Shilela -
Bola s music melds sheer force of spirit with a sound not often heard by ears outside the remote Upper East Region of Ghana. This man who grew up herding livestock in the savannah, far away from the tropical coast and cosmopolitan cities of Accra and Kumasi, has aligned himself with national and international means of expression to transform his hometown sound into something downright avant-garde.Visit product page →
His bold fury stems from the kologo'a two-stringed lute with a calabash gourd resonator' and Frafra language vocals, emitted in raspy bursts. Traditionally, kologo performances occur at pito (local beer made from fermented millet or sorghum) bars, weddings, funerals, festivals or spontaneous jams on the street, which are the environments where Bola honed his craft as a solo musician. In recent years, he came into contact with people like his mentor Guy One who helped him get into the studio to document what is some of the most dynamic music to come out of Ghana since the emergence of hiplife in the mid-'90s.
Volume 7, which came out in 2009, is just one entry in a brilliant series of recordings Bola has released on CD and cassette. Although he employs a traditional instrument and the age-old mode of griot story-telling, Bola embraces elements of up-tothe- minute mainstream Ghanaian music'drum machines, synths, bone-shaking bass. Inspired by pioneering kologo greats like King Ayisoba, Bola has taken a dynamic instrument used by traditional healers and herbalists to sing to god in search of advice and taken it to futuristic heights.
Tracklisting:
1. Burilbunbol Suma
2. Makamiba
3. Yine Ntaripaga
4. Tivona Vonbubo
5. Yine Mmema
6. Tigantabame
7. Hoyenbesa Nini
8. Abayetidu Ma -
From the late 1960s until the early 1990s, a vibrant music scene in Somaliaʼs capital Mogadishu was teeming with pop and folk musicians exploring the boundaries of regional sensibilities. With influences spanning several genres of Somali traditional music, often meshed with Western pop, jazz and Middle-Eastern elements, a swirling diversity of sounds were being created, consumed, supported and encouraged.Visit product page →
Dur-Dur Band emerged during a time when Somaliaʼs distinctive contribution to the creative culture in the Horn of Africa was visible and abundant. Thousands of recordings made at the Somali National Theatre, Radio Mogadishu and other studios, were complemented by the nightclubs at Hotel Juba, Jazeera Hotel and Hotel al-Curuuba, creating a flourishing music scene. Bands like Dur-Dur, Iftin, Shareero, on one hand, were inspired by everyone from Michael Jackson and Phil Collins to Bob Marley and Santana, as well as James Brown and American soul music.
Equally active were groups performing regional folk musics and promoting the traditional side of Somali music. These groups helped develop a continuity with historical musical practices and oral literature that persist in popularity to this day. Seminal outfits like Waaberi and Horseed, in addition to a litany of celebrated qaraami musicians, generated a legacy of masterworks. These seasoned musiciansʼ efforts rippled through the music scene and spread to countries beyond as many artists began to emigrate when the country destabilized.
This recording, which was remastered from a cassette copy source, is a document of Dur-Dur Band after establishing itself as one of the most popular bands in Mogadishu. The challenge of locating a complete long-player from this era is evidenced by the fidelity of this recording. However, the complex, soulful music penetrates the hiss. By 1987 Dur-Dur Band's line-up featured singers Sahra Abukar Dawo, Abdinur Adan Daljir, Mohamed Ahmed Qomal and Abdukadir Mayow Buunis, backed by Abukar Dahir Qasim (guitar), Yusuf Abdi Haji Aleevi (guitar), Ali Dhere (trumpet), Muse Mohamed Araci (saxophone), Abdul Dhegey (saxophone), Eise Dahir Qasim (keyboard), Mohamed Ali Mohamed (bass), Adan Mohamed Ali Handal (drums), Ooyaaye Eise and Ali Bisha (congas) and Mohamed Karma, Dahir Yaree and Murjaan Ramandan (backing vocals). Dur-Dur Band managed to release almost a dozen recordings before emigrating to Ethiopia, Djibouti and America.
Dur-Dur Band was considered a 'private band,' not beholden to government pressure to sing about political topics. They practiced a love- and culture-oriented lyricism. Government-sponsored bands like those of the military and the police forces, as well as many of the well-known folk musicians, made songs that were chiefly political or patriotic in nature. In a country that has been disrupted by civil war, heated clan divisions and security concerns, music and the arts has suffered from stagnation in recent years. Many of the best-known musicians left the country. Music became nearly outlawed in Mogadishu in 2010.
Incidentally, more than ten years after Volume 5 (1987) was recorded at Radio Mogadishu, the state-run broadcaster was the only station in Somalia to resist the ban on music briefly enacted by Al-Shabab. Dur-Dur Band is a powerful and illustrative lens through which to appreciate a facet of the incredible sounds in Somalia before the country's stability took a turn. But Somali music of all kinds continues to thrive thanks in part to the diaspora living in cities worldwide.
An extensive network of news, music and video websites, along with dozens of voluminous YouTube channels, makes clear an exciting relentlessness among artists. Reports of musicians returning to Mogadishu from years abroad bodes well for the immediate future of music and expression in Somalia.
Tracks:
1. Dur-Dur Band Introduction
2. Hayeelin
3. Halelo
4. Fagfagley
5. Ilawad Cashaqa
6. Garsore Waa Ilaah
7. Aada Fududey Iga Ahow
8. Tajir Waa Ilaah
9. Dholey
10. Amiina Awdaay
11. Dooyo -
Senegalese griot Aby Ngana Diop was famous for her taasu, a form of oral poetry spoken to the rhythmic accompaniment of sabar and tama drums. Taasu is typically created and performed by griot women (a class of poets, storytellers and/or musicians), with a lead taasukat (practitioner of taasu) performing her distinct style of heightened, rhythmically declaimed speech in call-and-response with a small chorus of female vocalists. (Taasu is seen by some to be a predecessor to rap.) Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Diop developed a reputation for being one of the most sought-after taasukats in Dakar, performing with her backup singers, dancers and drummers at parties, weddings and baptisms of the Dakar elite, including government officials and dignitaries. Aby Ngana Diop was undisputedly the best taasukat of her generation.! In 1994, the Dakar diva released her one and only studio cassette recording, Liital, to the Senegalese market.Visit product page →
Liital was groundbreaking in the history of Senegalese music because it was the first commercial recording to feature a traditional female taasukat performing to the modern accompaniment of mbalax, Senegal's quintessential pop genre. The combination of Diop and her backup vocalists with their powerful taasu, along with the driving, complex rhythms of the sabar and tama drums, mixed with key elements of mbalax (such as the syncopated, polyphonic marimba sounds played on the Yamaha DX7 keyboard) was something the Senegalese public had never heard before. But it wasn't only because of the fusion of taasu with mbalax; unlike in other mbalax tunes, the musical arrangements on this cassette are instead peculiarly minimalist and almost trance-like, with static harmonies and melodic figures playing more of an atmospheric role.
The cassette became a huge hit, propelling Diop to a new level of superstardom. It could be heard blasting from taxis and from loudspeakers at house parties, weddings and baptisms for years to come. Liital bridged the gap between the more traditional taasu and the modern mbalax sound, thus appealing to all generations of the Senegalese public - and they simply couldn't get enough of it. ! When Aby Ngana Diop died unexpectedly on July 4, 1997, the country mourned her passing, but continued to celebrate her music.
Other artists such as Cheikh LO, Thio Mbaye and Lamine Touré released recordings based on some of Diop's taasu and accompanying drum phrases, paying further tribute to her musical legacy. Although this cassette has caught the attention of some African music aficianados who have stumbled upon it in recent years, it remains largely unknown to the wider world. Hopefully this re-release from Awesome Tapes From Africa will change that.!
Tracklisting:
1. Dieuleul-Dieuleul
2. Ndame
3. Yaye Penda Mbaye
4. Liital
5. Sapaly
6. Ndadje -
LP Limited edition of 1200 only / CD pressing of 1000.Visit product page →
"Including GOAT remix by Anton Newcombe from The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Fuzz Club Records and the American The Reverberation Appreciation Society (founders of Austin Psych Fest) are set to co-release The Reverb Conspiracy Volume III. As usual, the album feature some of the best acts of the underground scene on its side of the continent. From its beginning in 2012, The Reverb Conspiracy was a catalyst moment for the European Psych Nouveau movement.
It brought together young bands from all over Europe, sparking a creative and professional synergy among many artists. A turning point was probably the first Reverb Conspiracy Tour, which most of the bands from the compilation joined to perform a successful showcase a-la Stax Records in the 60s, in many European capitals, including an epic two day sold out festival at the Shacklewell Arms in London. That was also the year of first Liverpool Psych Fest. Since then, Psych festivals and new bands have been sprouting up all over the continent.
The fifteen outfits taking part in the third volume - including Goat (mixed by Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre), Mugstar, The Oscillation, Camera are representative of the impressive diversity and quality of a scene that is much broader than its definition. While all of them are certainly inspired by Psychedelia, each one of them incorporates different elements of Blues, Folk, Rock & Roll, Stoner, Kraut Rock, Electronica, Noise, Ambient and more.
All is impeccably delivered in a pure and honest DIY approach that is reminiscent of the early days of the Punk era. A double album, the Reverb Conspiracy Volume III will be limited to 1200 numbered copies, white vinyl with gate-fold cover. On top of that, there will also be 1000 CDs available. For the third time, the cover was created by iconic Icelandic artist and band member of Dead Skeletons, Jon Saemundur, aka Nonni Dead.
Tracklist:
Side A:
1. The Oscillation - No Place To Go
2. Holy Science - Moon
3. Deathcrush - You Now
4. The History of Colour TV - Suddenlines
Side B:
1. Singapore Sling - You Drive Me Insane
2. Newcandys - Meltdown Corp.
3. Sound Sweet Sound - Death is on the way
4. Undisco Kidd - Green Like An Alien
Side C:
1. Camera - Ausland
2. Future - Side Effects
3. Mugstar - Hollow Ox
4. One Unique Signal - Tungsten
Side D:
1. GOAT - Hide From The Sun (Remixed by Anton Newcombe)
2. Lola Colt - Away From The Water
3. Francois Sky featuring Jeff Levitz - As We've Been As One -
East London's Tigercats first release for Fortuna POP!, Mysteries, is vividly emotional and sonically expansive, blending the very best of indiepop with complex song structures, lush production and beautiful arrangements.Visit product page →
Tigercats combine the talents of songwriter, singer and guitarist Duncan Barrett with his brother Giles on bass, Laura Kovic on keyboards and vocals, and Jonny Evans on drums, as well as recent recruit Paul Rains from Allo Darlin' on guitar. And on Mysteries they're joined by living legend Terry Edwards (Gallon Drunk / Tindersticks), who contributes saxophone and trumpet on several tracks.
Mysteries is the second album from Tigercats, described by The Sunday Times in a review of their 2012 debut Isle of Dogs (Fika Recordings) as 'a very, very good band - ¦. The kind of band that make you want to be a teenager again, so they can be your band.' Isle of Dogs fizzed with jangly punk, afro rhythms and spoken word sections, while Mysteries is a sophisticated pop record, effervescent and spirited, with care and love poured into every song.
What makes a very, very good band even better? Two years of heavy touring for one, bringing them closer as a band but also pushing themselves and honing their skills. Many of the songs on the album have been live staples, starting off one way and mutating in to something totally different, giving the songs time to grow and develop before heading in to the studio. And once they did head in, bassist Giles Barrett's day job at London's legendary Soup Studios allowed the band nearly unlimited time to get deeper in to the recording process - so deep that it verged on insanity. As Giles says, 'We took every song as far as it could possibly go. There was a lot of speeding up and slowing things down with the tape machine, and the arguments over fractions of a bpm would get heated. There were a few times the tapes were mysteriously wiped overnight."
Highlights include album opener 'Junior Champion', a pop gem in the shape of bishops, knights, kings and queens - a Bobby Fischer-referencing love song and anthem for chess fans everywhere - and 'Wheezer', of which Duncan says cagily, 'I don't want to say what this song is about, the record's not called Mysteries for nothing. Although this one is just a small, silly mystery and it should be pretty easy to work out - the clue is in the title'. The album closer, the gorgeous, woozy 'Wendy & Lisa', sees Duncan referencing another of his musical obsessions, saying, 'This is the result of reading too many terrible Prince biographies and conflating The Revolution's private lives with my own in dreams. There is a dream logic to the song that made sense when I wrote it, but I can't figure it out now.'
Although Duncan is the vocalist for most of the songs, Laura takes the lead on two, the dreamy Saint Etienne-esque 'Laura & Cesar' (based on two minor characters in Roberto Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives), and the forthcoming single, the fabulous 'Sleeping in the Backseat', of which Duncan says, 'I've always wanted to write a good driving song, but I don't have a license so this is probably the closest I'll get.'
Mysteries is the sound of a band of outstanding musicians fulfilling their potential and using their talents in the studio to realise their musical vision, retaining their infectious hooks, their heart and their sheer danceability, and coupling it with a bright new contemporary sound. Superbly crafted and full of personality, Tigercats'second album suggests that they won't remain a mystery much longer.
Tracklisting:
1. Junior Champion
2. Laura And Cesar
3. King Of Vic
4. Globe Town
5. Call Me If You Need Me
6. Wheezer
7. Too Sad To Tell You
8. Sleeping In The Back Seat
9. So Haunted
10. Wendy And Lisa -
Darren Hayman is a thoughtful, concise and detailed songwriter. He eschews the big, the bright and the loud for the small, twisted and lost.Visit product page →
For 15 years, and over 14 albums, Hayman has taken a singular and erratic route through England's tired and heartbroken underbelly. He returns with a powerful new collection of songs based based on William Morris's Chants for Socialists. The album was recorded at three of Morris's homes; The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow (with a choir of left-leaning locals), Kelmscott House in Hammersmith (where they used the Albion press used by Morris to handprint the record sleeves) and Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire, (where Hayman played Morris's own piano).
The result is a beautifully crafted album, lovingly produced with a team of enthusiastic helpers who lent their expertise and time, which will be made available to anyone who wants to listen, allowing people to pay what they can afford or what they think it's worth. Chants for Socialists is an album of 19th century chants made relevant to the 21st century while staying true to many of William Morris's ideals. Darren explains the process below: In 2012, I found a photocopied leaflet in the William Morris Gallery, in Walthamstow, called Chants for Socialists'. It struck me as a bold and divisive title. Not one you would be likely to find on a record or CD today. There are very few of my contemporaries that sing political songs and I understand why.
Today's politics can be very nuanced and personal. The way we discuss today's problems can be hard to reduce to a song or short poem. Political songs can be gauche and hectoring. I struggle myself, and can only really claim to have written a handful of overtly political songs over a 15-album career. William Morris wrote these lyrics in the late 19th century; they were to be sung to the popular tunes of the times. In only two cases did he specify a particular melody. I saw these as emergency'protest songs, something to draw on in times of strife. I think we are in troubled times. I regard these as useful lyrics. Morris grouped these songs under a banner of socialism and I class myself as a socialist, but these songs, to me, are more about simple kindness and hope.
I acknowledge the naivety and rhetoric in these words. They offer few practical solutions for today, but I love their simplicity. They make me feel young again. They remind of the hope I had in the Red Wedge movement, and how politicised I was around the 1984 miner's strike. Adapting the lyrics was not easy. In places I have edited hard and tried to contemporise the syntax. Elsewhere, I have been more faithful to Morris's elliptical and florid prose. Similarly with the music, I have tried to build a bridge between the 19th and 21st centuries. I have dressed the songs with a simple, urban folk sound. Warm, fuzzy guitar distortion sits alongside broken pianos and dented brass.
I offer these songs as political, historical curiosities and as something to comfort aging lefties like myself. They are uplifting, songs to be sung in communities. A communal approach was taken in the recording of this album. The group vocals were recorded at two of Morris'ss former homes: the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow and Kelmscott House in Hammersmith. Singers were invited indiscriminately from the local area.
Morris's own Kelmscott'letterpress was used to hand print the limited vinyl edition of the record, and I also travelled to another of Morris's homes, Kelmscott Manor, to record his piano.
Tracks :
1. Awake London Lads
2. May Day 1894
3. March Of The Workers
4. The Day Is Coming
5. Down Amongst The Dead Men
6. A Death Song
7. All For The Cause
8. The Voice Of Toil
9. The Message Of The March Wind
10. No Master High Or Low -
When they're not busy with their other projects (the Steve Adamyk Band, Crusades, the Ottawa Explosion festival, Bruised Tongue Records, etc.), four dudes in Ottawa make harsh, noisy hardcore under the name Pregnancy Scares. - ¨Visit product page →
The EP blasts through four songs in six minutes, and shows that the band are capable of evolving their sound without sacrificing any of the raw aggression that they're known for. "Master Race" will induce a circle pit, while "The Bait" plods along angrily.
"Graveyard" is a feedback drenched hardcore song with a killer breakdown, while "Lobotomy" closes the record out with some white noise.
Tracklisting:
1. Master Race
2. The Bait
3. Graveyard
4. Lobotomy -
The jacket is an exact replica of the original 1982 edition designed by Philippe Fichot, with a photograph of a porcelain doll holding a syringe. Each album includes two post cards with never before seen photos of Philippe with lyrics and liner notes by the band. Prepare to indulge your lustiest hedonistic fetishes.Visit product page →
Die Form is a French post-industrial and electronic band formed in 1977. The name 'Die Form' means '(the) form/shape' in German, like the Bauhaus diary and is a play on the English homonym 'deformed' and on the French homonym 'difforme' (deformed). Die Form is the primary project of electronic musician and multimedia artist Philippe Fichot.
He began by recording a number of experimental cassette releases in the late 1970s and formed the Bain Total label to release these early cassettes and various side projects including Krylon Hertz, Mental Code, Camera Obscura, Eva-Johanna Reichstag, Hurt and Fine Automatic. In 1982 Die Form released their debut vinyl album, 'Die Puppe' in a limited edition of 1,000 copies. These are the first esoteric electronic experiments, often improvised, from what would become the sound of the project.
Underlying themes of eroticism, death and other 'taboo' subjects are apparent in both the music and the album artwork, which Philippe also produces. The album was recorded with entirely analog equipment (Roland MC4 Micro-Composer, TR-808 Rhythm Composer, ARP 2600, Kawai 60F, Revox B77). Songs range from hypnotic, minimalistic proto-IDM to pure, daring experimental sound manipulation. Unable to fit into any genre, 'Die Puppe' is in a class of music all its own.
All songs have been remastered from the original master tapes for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Automatic Death
2. Invalid
3. Eastern Ghost
4. Darkness
5. Prefazione Di Pompei
Side B:
6. After The Crime
7. Love With Animal
8. Lectura
9. Night Over My Life
10. Re-Search
11. In A Tea-Room -
Visit product page →Each copy includes a post card with a photo of the Nu Sounds crew DJing in 1984.
Dark Entries is excited to reissue a split EP of rare and out of print Detroit Electro jams from Nu Sound II
Crew and Magnus II. Both were projects of mastermind Sam Anderson aka DJ Maestro. Growing up on the westside of Detroit, Maestro joined the Marine Corps in 1979 and was turned on to electronic music. One of his fellow Marines was a DJ from Brooklyn who schooled Maestro on how to mix records, blending dance songs seamlessly.
While stationed on base in California, he set up a DJ crew called Nu Sounds and perfected his technical skills. He returned to Detroit in 1984 and auditioned for the Electrifying Mojo on WJLB. It was there that he met the Godfather of Techno, Juan Atkins, who introduced him to emerging new sounds of dance & party music. Juan showed him how to make and record music using a Roland 808 and 909, Linn Drum and a Boss DR-55 drum machine. In 1986 Maestro created a new alias for himself, Nu Sound II Crew, by adding a roman numeral II to his former DJ crew name.
That year he self-released his first 12" single "The Speed Of Light" on Sound Wave Records. Only 500 copies were made and distributed by Juan Atkins' Metroplex Records. Influenced by Kraftwerk and Cybotron, Nu Sound II Crew created fresh, fast, dark electro beats with tough drum machines and lyrics about traveling through outer space. A second single was released that same year, "1001 Beats", a slower, deep and heavy vocoder track with guitar by Jerome Blackwell that riffs the Batman Theme during the break. By the late 1980s, Maestro was using different aliases such as Sam and Dave, Zetta, and Magnus II to make it look like a lot of artists were on his new label Steppin' Forward Records.
Magnus II was named after guitarist Jeff Magnus who plays on the sole 12" single from the project "Roctronic/Space Age" released in 1993. For this EP reissue, all 3 original mixes of "Space Age" are included: LP Version, Dub, and Remix. "Space Age" blends EBM rhythms with tough drum machine beats to create an electro hybrid somewhere between Belgium and Detroit.
All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The jacket is specially designed by Eloise Leigh and features original illustrations from 1988 by Kevin Mann of an Egyptian pharaoh "steppin' forward" and the Roman numeral II.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
Nu-Sound Crew II
1. The Speed Of Light
2. The Speed Of Dub
3. 1001 Beats
Side B:
Magnus II
4. Space Age (LP Version)
5. Space Age (Dub)
6. Space Age (Remix) -
Sold outThe 12' is housed in a mind-alerting, metallic silver die-cut sleeve and a neon green label that pops through, featuring the psychic skull transformed into an alien cone head label all designed by Eloise Leigh. Each copy includes a 2-sided 11x11 square insert with black and white photo of the band from 1988 and liner notes by Fred Giannelli.Visit product page →
Dark Entries Editions is venturing into new waters with a remix EP of Psychic TV's classic Acid House song 'Alien Be-In'. Psychic TV was formed by Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson after the breakup of Throbbing Gristle in 1981. After various line up changes, the band shifted direction to dance oriented songs influenced by the Acid House scene in America. By 1988 experimental electronic musician Fred Giannelli, of Turning Shrines, joined the band and over the next 2 years started to record songs for 'Toward The Infinite Beat'.
The album was a mix of deep, multilayered tracks full of bright and hypnotic dance numbers, providing the soundtrack to the rave culture that sprung up in the UK in the 90s. 'Alien Be-In' was written in early 1989 on an E-mu Emax Sampler and an Alesis MMT-8 sequencer. Vocal samples were taken from a tape Germs drummer Don Bolles sent to Genesis. A didgeridoo rides throughout the song, heavily modulated by a Gristleizer creating a hypnotic effect. Near the end of the song the breakbeat slides out of time yet the band chose to leave this in because it sounded strange and fit the concept of the track.
Genesis played a spaced out Echo Violin and the band used 360 degree panning rotation devices. For this reissue Fred Giannelli takes a stab at remixing the mono mix of the original sequence sourced from the Emax floppy discs. On the flip are two brand new mixes, the first from Los Angeles based producer, Silent Servant, who updates the classic with his modern brand of driving EBM techno.
The second remix is a team effort from Silent Servant and veteran producer John Tejada, that re-creates the original melody using a Roland TR-808 and TB-303, paying homage to early Chicago Acid House artists like Lil Louis and Robert Owens. All songs have been mastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.
Side A:
Alien Be-In,
Alien Be-In (Fred Giannelli Mono Mix)
Side B:
Alien Be-In (Silent Servant Remix),
Alien Be-In (Silent Servant/John Tejada Remix) -
Visit product page →The return and final offering from California's STOIC VIOLENCE comes in the form of 8 new songs pressed on the always great 12' 45rpm format, housed in a gatefold jacket featuring some sick art from LA artist Austin Delgadilo.
Stoic Violence plays a stripped down, primitive, and spite fueled style of hardcore/punk. Split release with Video Disease.
Track Listing:
1. Chained
2. No Escape
3. Abused
4. Choke
5. Two Faced
6. When Will it End?
7. Cut Down
8. Empty Inside -
The second release from Earth Recordings is the one and only album from the virtually unknown Australian singer HOWARD EYNON, now to be reissued 40 years after it's original release. So What If Im Standing In Apricot Jam (note no apostrophe) is a bizarre and wonderful acid folk treasure in the vein of wild-eyed geniuses such as Syd Barret, Kevin Ayers, Neil Innes or Nick Drake, although perhaps even more beautiful and mysterious.Visit product page →
It's certainly more unusual, with its colloquial lyrics, acerbic wit and Howard's Anglo-Australian accented singing voice.' Howard Eynon was born in the small market town of St Ives, Cambridgeshire and then moved to Chichester. When he was eleven, his family moved to rural Tasmania. Settling on a dairy farm in the small town of Deloraine, Howard grew up milking cows, driving tractors, riding horses and blowing up tree stumps with gelignite and would often spend days on end in the bush without seeing another living soul. At 17 he left the farm on his motorcycle and made his way to Melbourne to pursue a career in acting. He worked mostly in theatre and joined various theatrical repertory companies.
He found himself in all kinds of small parts for local Aussie dramas such as The Sullivans. Later, he made notable small appearances in both the original Mad Max (1979) and as one of the horse riders in The Man from Snowy River (1982). Throughout this time he continued to play music. In 1971 he had won the Grand Final of Australian New Faces and became a much-loved solo artist in Tasmania, playing many shows and toured with great artists such as Hunter S Thompson. Whilst a member of the Tasmania Theatre Company, he was asked to write and record a guitar piece for a play, which lead him to Spectangle in Hobart, Tasmania where he met Nick Armstrong, who invited him to record a full-length album.
Recording took three months and Howard was joined by a host of amazing local players and utilising Violin, Mellotron, Flute, Synths, French Horns, Double Bass, Piano and more to capture a dozen quirky and addictive tracks that would become one of Australia's most interesting albums of the 1970's. It was originally released in 1974 by Basket/Candle Records but has been out of print ever since. The record ranks amongst the rarest and most sought after acid folk private pressings. Not much was known of his whereabouts or activities beyond the early 1980s.
So What If Im Standing In Apricot Jam'is a bold and madcap record on a par with Paul McCartney's Ram. The evocative lyrics take in everything from political commentary, to anti-authoritarian jabs, to bright homely humour and deep descriptive stories. This daffy folksy psychedelic ramble full of tall tales, delightfully quirky melodies, hilarious lyrics and marvellous wordplay, risqué irreverence and beguiling lapses into musical frippery, has not only stood the test of time, but completely and utterly blown it away.
Tracks:
1. Wicked Wetdrop, Quonge and Me
2. Hot B.J.
3. Village Hill
4. Commitment to the Band
5. Good Time Songs
6. Boots & Jam & Heads & Things
7. Happy Song
8. Now's The Time
9. Roast Pork
10. French Army
11. Gone to the Pine Tree
12. Shadows & Riff -
Emerging in a haze of demented riff science and booze-addled abandon, Hey Colossus have carved out a notable niche for themselves in the British underground's murkier quarters. They've dished out a formidable array of wax over the last decade, specialising in a primordial barrage of abject noise from overheated ampstacks.Visit product page →
Yet for all the grit and gnarl of their output thus far, it's seemingly only been a warm-up for their latest opus, which sees their monstrous assault finely honed into an album as beguiling as it is bulldozing. In Black And Gold', their eighth album proper and first for Rocket Recordings, ushers in a new incarnation of Hey Colossus.
Marrying malevolent attack to expansive celestial splendour, In Black And Gold'marks a point whereby Hey Colossus map out a sonic trajectory that expands on their trademark ornery overload. The songs herein may be leaner and more artful than the fearsome sound by which they made their name on albums like 2008's Project: Death'and the monstrous 2013 opus Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo', but they remain possessed of the wrath both Stoogian and Stygian that fuels their noiserock transgression.
Yet meanwhile, and with 2015 looming large, an evolutionary process has led to their maximalist tendencies being replaced by a sharp focus on space and restraint, not to mention a refreshing stylistic diversity, resulting in a strange aural alchemy. Here, they sound as comfortable tackling electronically-fried dub mantras like Lagos Atom'as they do the Cluster-esque lullaby of the opening Hold On'. Yet there's no shortage of primal rock action to be had on In Black And Gold'; on Sisters And Brothers'they summon up a swaggering, demented groove that sashays like a zombified Gun Club, whilst on the dramatic spaghetti-psych of the title-track a revelatory cinematic sprawl of sound sees The Bad Seeds and The 13th Floor Elevators engaged in a psychic duel in the noonday sun.
The vital and Spinal Tap-approved fine line between clever and stupid'has been a location that this London-based tinnitus machine has made fine work of dwelling on for the duration of their life thus far. Yet with In Black And Gold', in a laudable leap of faith, they've stepped beyond, and the result is both vicious and visionary. These unpretentious underworld overlords have emerged from the shadows to create an avant-garage pièce de résistance, and moreover it turns out that the sunlight suits them better than they ever realised.
Tracklisting:
1. Hold On
2. Sisters And Brothers
3. Hey, Dead Eyes, Up!
4. Wired_Brainless
5. Black And Gold
6. Lagos Atom
7. Eat It
8. Sinking, Feeling -
Fantastic Planet is the soaring, evocative new album from Noveller, the solo instrumental venture of Austin-based composer and filmmaker Sarah Lipstate. The LP is a journey through eclectic sonic terrain, blending rich waves of synth with soaring cinematic guitar lines, guiding the listener through Noveller's most diverse and compelling release to date.Visit product page →
Originally self-defined as an electric guitar project, Lipstate began recording under the name Noveller (pronounced 'know-veller') in 2005 whilst living and studying in Texas. She uprooted to Brooklyn and subsequently made waves on New York's live scene and internationally, sharing the stage with the likes of Six Organs of Admittance, St. Vincent, Xiu Xiu, the Jesus Lizard, U.S. Girls, Aidan Baker and Emeralds, whilst capturing the attention of NPR, The Village Voice, Time Out New York and The Wall Street Journal. Noveller's prolific output has seen her release albums via No Fun Productions and her own imprint, Saffron Recordings, including the Desert Fires LP and the critically acclaimed Glacial Glow. She also released a split LP with unFact (David Wm. Sims of the Jesus Lizard) and has collaborated with several renowned musicians, including live improvised duo performances with Carla Bozulich (Evangelista, The Geraldine Fibbers), Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), and JG Thirlwell (Foetus, Manorexia). She has previously performed as a member of Cold Cave, Parts & Labor, and One Umbrella.
Upon returning to Texas, Lipstate developed her signature cinematic soundscapes further, and it was here she completed her spectacular new release Fantastic Planet. It is an album largely steeped in place, both real and fantastical, and influenced by Lipstate's various interchanges and relocations, physical and emotional. Noveller takes the elements of rhythm and synth textures introduced in her previous album No Dreams and expands them to a new level of prominence through her guitar work on Fantastic Planet. From the dark beat propelling "Pulse Point" to the distorted synth on post-punk track "Rubicon", Lipstate pushes her sound in new directions that complement and elevate her intoxicating filmic soundscapes.
'Some artists traverse boundaries. Sarah Lipstate's work seems to come from a world where they never existed. Her color-rich visual art has a mournful literary quality to it; her short films trigger collisions of emotional crosscurrents; and her instrumental music, which she makes under the name Noveller (emphasis on the middle syllable), seems to call to attention all senses at once, to the point where even the word music seems somehow limiting.' - Time Out NY
' - ¦simultaneously soothing and mind-wrecking noise, along with a compositional depth that most loud-for-the-hell-of-it guitar droners never reach.' - NY Press
' - ¦hypnotic, rich-textured electric guitar works.' - New York Times -
Sold outThe Fire Records Half Japanese reissue series continues with the second volume, covering the three releases of Music to Strip By', Charmed Life'and The Band That Would Be King'released one a year from 1987 to 1989. Following the Record Store Day 2014 release, Volume 1: 1981-1985', the next three Half Japanese records come in their original release form, with the additional tracks that were later added to the CD releases over the years available via download code (see below for track lists).Visit product page →
The LPs are wrapped together in a heavy wide spine outer sleeve with a specially designed paper cut image by Jad Fair, who also provides more illustrations throughout the booklet, with words by David Fair. As per Volume 1', all three records are combined together in a 3CD package.
Be careful. You can't unlearn information. I think that the best that you can hope for is a bad memory, but our brains are very remarkable and it is very difficult to actually unlearn something. I came upon this realization too late to help me with visual arts. I had already been taught about proportions and perspective. It's very hard to draw someone in the background larger than their friend in the foreground. Anyone farther away would look smaller.
That is how our eyes see them and my brain knows this. I cannot turn off this knowledge and draw it the other way around. I can choose to ignore it, but that is not the same. That is a strategy for dealing with the situation, but not as freeing as simple ignorance would be. It is a nagging strategy that whispers the rules and acknowledges your participation in their breaking. Luckily, with music, I do not carry the burden of knowledge. I was not educated in its terms and rules. I am not bound by its limits. I know that I have guitar skills. I have played around with one enough to know what feels right to me. If I were to turn it upside down and attempt to play it in a left handed manner, my ability would feel awkward and diminished. I am not unskilled, I am merely untrained. For me, this is the ideal situation.
Others may prefer acquiring rules and limits. I prefer that my art be directed by my heart rather than my brain. I have played in bands for nearly 40 years. In all of that time I have only learned three chords. I have resisted acquiring more. If I continue at this rate I am at risk of knowing six chords forty years from now. Instead, I am consciously slowing down. Hopefully in four decades I will remember even less about music convention than I know today.
Forty years is a long time to wait. In the meantime, here's Half Japanese Vol 2. It might get better in the future, but Vol 2 is here already. David Fair.
Track listings :
Music to Strip By'Disc 1:
1. Stripping for Cash
2. Thick and Thin
3. Diary
4. Big Mistake
5. Hot Dog and Hot Damn
6. The Price Was Right But The Door Was Wrong
7. Blue Monday
8. U.S.Teens are Spoiled Bums
9. Point / Counterpoint
10. Sex At Your Parent's House
11. The Last Straw
12. Gator Bait
13. La Bamba
14. Colleen
15. Ouija Board Summons Satan
16. You Must Obey Me
17. Salt and Pepper
18. Ancient Life
19. Silver and Katherine
20. Money To Burn
21. Hidden Charms
22. How
23. My Sordid Past
24. Silver And Katherine
25. Dusk to Dawn
26. Everybody Knows
27. Go Go Go Go Go
28. Scratch
29. Every Hour
30. Hey
31. Mongolian Stretcher
32. Colleen
33. Salt and Pepper
34. T For Texas
35. Terminator
36. Shiek of Araby.
Disc 2 : Charmed Life':
1. Said and Done
2. Penny In The Fountain
3. Evidence
4. Vietnam
5. Roman Candles
6. Love At First Sight
7. Snake Line
8. Bright Lights, Big City
9. Face Rake
10. Later In A Magazine
11. Red Dress
12. Charmed Life
13. Day And Night
14. One Million Kisses
15. Terminator
16. I'll Change My Style
17. Charmed Life
18. Trouble In The Water
19. Miracles Happen Every Day
20. Fortunate
21. Poetic License
22. Day And Night
23. One Million Kisses
24. Madonna Nude
25. I'll Change My Style
26. George Steele
27. Real Cool Time
28. How Many More Years
29. King Kong Burgundy
30. Something New In The Ring
31. Terminator
Disc 3 : The Band That Would Be King':
1. Open Your Eyes / Close Your Eyes
2. Daytona Beach
3. Lucky Star
4. Some Things Last A Long time
5. My Most Embarrassing Moment
6. Buried Treasure
7. Open Book
8. Little Records
9. Deadly Alien Spawn
10. Postcard From Far Away
11. Ventriloquism
12. Something in the Wind
13. Bingo's Not His Name-o
14. Put Some Sugar On It
15. What More Can I Do
16. Brand New Moon
17. Another World
18. Every Word Is True
19. I Live For Love
20. Werewolf
21. Ride Ride Ride
22. Sugarcane
23. I Wish I May
24. Ashes On The Ground
25. Curse of the Doll People
26. Horsesshoes
27. BlueBirds
28. Frankenstein Meets Billy the Kid
29. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It
30. Africans Built The Pyramids
31. Better Than Before
32. Daytona
33. Back Home
34. Mule Skinner Blues
35. Sugarcane
36. Jump Up
37. Postcard From Far Away
38. Big Wheels
39. Ordeal
40. Jump Down
41. Cowboys
42. Man Without A Head -
Evans the Death return with their second album Expect Delays in March via Fortuna POP! (Europe) and Slumberland (USA). Recorded again with producer Rory Atwell (Test Icicles, Warm Brains), the album bristles with an underlying tension and veers from rip-roaring noise to quiet contemplation, underpinned by Katherine Whitaker's extraordinary voice.Visit product page →
Still barely out of their teens, there's a tremendous sense across Expect Delays of a band coming in to their own, honing a plethora of influences to make a sound that is uniquely them. Each song on the album has a different feel to it: some of them are melodic and pretty; some of them heavy and dissonant; and some of them are, to quote guitarist Dan Moss, 'a bit strange'. While retaining the post-punk and 90s alt-rock inspired elements that peppered their debut, the music is more expressive, heavier and more experimental, and the lyrics more nuanced, the sense of despair leavened by sharp wordplay and humour.
The unsettling undercurrent of melancholy and hopelessness that pervades the record has its roots in the last three years, spent eking out an existence on the poverty line in Cameron's Britain. On the cusp of finishing school when their debut was released, the band rejected the opportunity of higher education in favour of focusing on music, a decision that backfired when the album failed to take off in the way they'd expected, leaving them with a succession of minimum wage jobs and unemployment benefits interviews. As guitarist Dan Moss relates, the album is about 'being in London and feeling hopeless and a bit lost. Not having any money, relationships falling apart, things just not connecting or going anywhere and getting absolutely wasted all the time.'
Named after the undertaker in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, the band's 2012 eponymous debut saw critical acclaim from the likes of Q, Uncut and Artrocker as well as radio play on BBC Radio 1, BBC 6Music and XFM. Following the departure of bassist Alanna McArdle to Joanna Gruesome and drummer Rob Mitson the band regrouped around the core of brothers Dan and Olly Moss and singer Katherine Whitaker for the recording of Expect Delays. Previously songwriting duties had been the preserve of the elder Moss brother, Dan, but with Olly now bringing his own songs to the table, the brothers resolved to switch between guitar and bass on a song-by-song basis. Drummer James Burkitt was recruited from Leeds'band The ABC Club to complete a new lean and taut four-piece.
Exploding into life with live favourite Intrinsic Grey, its incessant rhythms and squalling guitars a feral cry from the heart, Expect Delays contains more than its fair share of heart-stopping moments. The ebullient Sledgehammer is following by Idiot Button (named after the buttons at street crossings that don't actually do anything) and what is perhaps the key lyric on the album of 'I can't explain these gaps in my employment record / I'm an idiot for trying'. As if they were demonstrating their virtuosity and versatility the Stereolab-esque title track Expect Delays is followed by the grunge-heavy Enabler, which in turn is followed by the achingly beautiful ballad Waste Of Sunshine, while elsewhere the (late) Beatles-y Don't Laugh At My Angry Face deals with alcoholism and a relationship at its absolute bitter end. The album ends with a 'secret' track Don't Beat Yourself Up ('we would have listed it but I didn't want to have 13 tracks' - Dan), written on the night Lou Reed died.
More ambitious and focused than their previous record, whilst sacrificing none of their spontaneity and vitality, Expect Delays is a supremely inventive and intelligently crafted album from a band who have suffered for their art, and used that experience to inform and nourish their work. Expect no more delays, Evans The Death have arrived.
1. Intrinsic Grey
2. Terrified
3. Sledgehammer
4. Idiot Button
5. Bad Year
6. Just 60,000 More Days 'Til I Die
7. Expect Delays
8. Enabler
9. Waste Of Sunshine
10. Shanty
11. Clean Up
12. Don't Laugh At My Angry Face
