$65.00
The first color vinyl reissue of Redman's landmark third LP, this is the Hip-Hop Record of the Month for October 2020. It comes on exclusive green and black smoke vinyl -Vinyl Me Please
"Coming live from 96, Redman rooted his third album 'Muddy Waters' in the classic East Coast boom-bap ethos of rapping for dear life, slathered in traces of G-funk tones. But Redman's power lies in how his incomparable charisma ceaselessly elevates the standard stoner fare into an otherworldly territory. No matter which spliffs he'll smoke or functions he'll ditch, he stops at nothing to secure the listener's attention as our streetwise guide through life on high. Scaling back from the heavier drug tones of his previous works, Redman teams back up with Erick Sermon behind the boards to make 'Muddy Waters' a no-frills, first-person romp from the vantage of everyone's one homie thats never startinâ shit, but always into shit. It's a rap clinic you can only find from the right connect, scoring many days in an alluring haze with many more stories to tell."
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Label: Def Jam Music Group 3145334701, UMe 3145334701, Def Squad 3145334701 |
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Series: Vinyl Me, Please. Rap & Hip Hop RH038 |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Club Edition, Reissue, Translucent Green With Black Smoke |
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Country: US |
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Released: Oct 2020 |
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Genre: Hip Hop |
$65.00
The 20th Anniversary edition of OutKast's landmark 2000 album, it is the Essentials Record of the Month for October 2020. It's on exclusive black and white galaxy vinyl. Vinyl Me Please
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When OutKast released its fourth studio album Stankonia, the pioneering duo out of Atlanta, Ga., was not new to this, but they remained true to the hip-hop thing. Released on Halloween 2000, months after the initial Y2K scare that left people terrified of being throttled back into a period of darkness and technological paranoia, Stankonia took full advantage of the new millennium. They stayed true to what they did best and created something powerful on the fringes of mainstream pop culture's expectations of them as southerners and as rappers.
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Breaking new ground cleared from the debris of nostalgia, burned with their Chonkyfire, Stankonia challenged listeners to reconsider what it meant to be OutKasted in the wilderness of an unknown new world. Never ones to shy away from the stank of imagined and social-historical realities, Stankonia is a demonstration of André Benjamin and Big Boi evolving their sound, their identities, and their art. Benjamin was blasting centuries ahead with his latest moniker, André 3000, an Afrofuturist prediction that the future was Black and dope as hell, and Big Boi was growing increasingly experimental in not only his lyrical delivery but his fashion sense, paralleling Benjamin's own eccentric flair for fashion. - NPR
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Label: LaFace Records 88875100511, Arista 88875100511, Sony Music Commercial Music Group 88875100511 |
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Series: Vinyl Me, Please. Essentials E094 |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Club Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Black And White Galaxy, Gatefold |
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Country: US |
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Released: Oct 2020 |
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Genre: Hip Hop |
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Style: Pop Rap, Conscious |
$48.00
The title supposedly referred to the band's personalities: Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes brought the crazy, having recorded her vocals on day release from court-mandated rehab, after burning down her boyfriend's house in a jealous rage. Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, with her no-damns-given demeanour and raspy vocals, was effortlessly cool; while Rozanda "Chilli" Thomas was, for the sake of this anecdote, "the sexy one" (she also had an incredible voice and no shortage of attitude).
Propelled by the hit singles Creep and Waterfalls, it became the first album by a girl group to reach diamond status (representing 10 million sales) in the US. Globally, only the Spice Girls' Spice has sold more. - BBC
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Label: Sony Music Commercial Music Group – 88725499401, LaFace Records – 88725499401, Arista – 88725499401
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
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Country: US
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Released: 2012
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Genre: Electronic, Hip Hop, Funk / Soul
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Style: RnB/Swing
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$39.00
Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow, a key transitional album in the Sun Ra catalog, was produced in two sessions shortly after the bandleader's 1961 migration from Chicago to New York (with a brief stopover in Montreal). One of about a dozen Arkestra albums compiled from recordings made at the Choreographer's Workshop, Art Forms displays Sun Ra's increasing tendency to juxtapose stylistic incongruities on vinyl in the interests of showcasing his versatility—or accommodating restless attention spans (perhaps his own).
After arriving in Gotham, Sunny set about broadening his resume by reinventing older jazz and blues forms while edging towards tomorrow's dimensions. "Cluster of Galaxies" and "Solar Drums" are modernistic percussion soundscapes, bracketing "Ankh #1," a swaggering R&B rework of a late '50s tune from the artist's Chicago years. "The Outer Heavens," sans rhythm section, echoes Third Stream chamber jazz, while "Infinity of the Universe" offsets a percussion battalion with thunderous low-register piano. "Lights on a Satellite" and "Kosmos in Blue," both recorded at an earlier Choreographer's session, ground the set on terra firma with some stylish hard bop. "Lights" remained a staple in Sunny's concert repertoire for the rest of his life.
Like many albums recorded during this period, Art Forms was not released on Saturn until several years later (1965), by which time Sun Ra's repertoire and concerts had progressed beyond conventional jazz forms. ("Lights on a Satellite" and "Kosmos in Blue" were recorded at the late 1961 session from which emerged the Bad & Beautiful album—which was not released until 1972.) Like all Choreographer's sessions, the ad hoc acoustics painted the proceedings with a raw, warehouse ambience—what we call "Garage Jazz."
Art Forms is one of the first Saturn releases to feature what became a trademark effect on many Sun Ra recordings during the 1960s: an otherworldly reverb courtesy drummer Tommy Hunter's open-reel tape deck. Hunter discovered the process while testing the unit during a band warm-up. He ran a cable from the output back through the input, creating a mind-bending feedback loop that could be shaped by adjusting the volume of the playback knob. You can hear Hunter's alchemy on "Cluster of Galaxies" and "Solar Drums." Tommy was initially apprehensive that Sun Ra might be furious at the cacophony, but when he heard it, the bandleader was delighted. The reverb became a recurring instrument in the band's lineup (and later an overused gimmick in psychedelic rock). It is, by serendipity, Sun Ra's initial foray into experimental electronic music. - Bandcamp
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Label: Saturn Research – SR-LP-9956 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue |
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Country: US |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Free Jazz |
$39.00
The astonishing sessions that went light years beyond "free jazz" improvisation to create a music of deeply-felt, explosive and gentle gesture made from sound itself without reference to previous notions of melody or harmony. Recorded by Richard Alderson on April 20, 1965, this set of tunes finds Sun Ra breaking ground by using synthesizers and having the Arkestra musicians double on percussion.
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Label: ESP Disk – 1014 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Stereo, Esperanto Green |
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Country: US |
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Released: 2015 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Free Jazz |
$39.00
The two-piece band’s journey to commercial and critical superstardom stretches back into the early years of last decade, including a plethora of breakthroughs and milestones along the way. No disrespect to bluesy garage rock debut The Big Come Up, but sophomore LP Thickfreakness, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last month, is where The Black Keys first fully harnessed the subversive, raucous verve that underpins their most liberated and puissant cuts. Raw, densely textured, and tightly configured to fundamental blues paradigms, Thickfreakness revives Delta Blues with a scabrous laxity that‘s rooted not in the cotton fields of the South but in the decrepit unmanned factories of the deindustrialized Midwest. Though the band indisputably tweaked and modified their sound over the years this recalcitrant rejection of rustbelt paralysis serves as the backbone for their subsequent five offering, from their 2004 follow-up Rubbery Factory to 2010’s platinum polished Brothers and 2011’s Grammy-adorned, El Camino.
Building upon but never merely appropriating the discontent of 20th century Delta Blues, Thickfreakness applies traditional blues reflexes to the modern day daemons of social alienation, vocational mediocrity, and the urban grind. – Consequence of Sound
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Label: Fat Possum Records – 80371-1 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: US |
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Released: 2003 |
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Genre: Rock, Blues |
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Style: Blues Rock |
$39.00
As minimal two-man blues-rock bands go, this has to be near the top of the heap. The problem with minimal two-man blues-rock outfits (and there have been more of them than you think) is that they're, well, usually too minimal, with thin garage sound and a shortage of variety. The Black Keys' sound, impressively, is not too thin (though it is garage-ish), and there's enough deft incorporation of funk, soul, and hard rock into the harsh juke joint-ish core to avoid monotony. Most importantly, Dan Auerbach has a genuinely fine, powerful blues voice, sometimes approximating a white, slightly smoother Howlin' Wolf (particularly on the opener, "Busted"). Auerbach's a good guitarist, too, conjuring suitably harsh and busy (and sometimes heavily reverbed) riffs out of what sounds like a cheap but effectively harsh amp. Patrick Carney's drums might be the cruder component of this two-man band, but they keep the sound earthy without sounding sloppily punkish for the hell of it, as too many such groups searching for the blues-punk fusion do. The very occasional insertion of hip-hop snippets seems neither here nor there, and the cover of the Beatles' "She Said, She Said" seems like an odd choice. But overall it's quite cool raunchy electric blues with more vigor and imagination than similarly raw, elderly Southern juke joint artists who came into vogue starting in the 1990s. And it's way fresher than the standard bar band blues-rockers with slicker execution and more reverence for blues clichés. – All Music
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Label: Alive Records – ALIVE 0044-1 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: US |
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Released: 2002 |
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Genre: Rock, Blues |
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Style: Blues Rock |
$39.00
Secrets of the Sun consists of sessions recorded by drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter in 1962 at the Choreographer's Workshop in New York City, the Arkestra's regular rehearsal studio. Since they had only recently moved to New York (some decided to stay in Chicago), these are small-group Arkestra recordings. This is an interesting transitional album because you can still hear echoes of the Chicago sound in some of the pieces, but the sound is growing beyond merely "exotic," with percussion playing an increasingly larger role and the pieces starting to sound more amorphous. "The Friendly Galaxy" has the same sort of mysterious vibe as "Ancient Aetheopia," with nice trumpet and piano work as well as John Gilmore on bass clarinet (which he plays on a couple cuts). "Solar Differentials" has a similar but weirder feel because the horns change to "Space Bird Sounds" and Art Jenkins adds some of his distinctive "Space Voice." "Space Aura" is built on a great horn riff, while both Gilmore (again on bass clarinet) and Sun Ra both shine on a stripped-down version of "Love in Outer Space." Things head a bit more out for the last couple tracks, where percussion and reverb start to dominate the sound, as they would on several of the Choreographer Workshop recordings. This is an interesting album for Ra fans because it's such a small band and shows how new ideas were taking hold in the music, not to mention Gilmore's use of bass clarinet, which he stopped playing completely sometime in the '60s. – All Music
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Label: ORG Music – ORGM-2110 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Limited Edition, Reissue |
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Country: US |
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Released: 21 Apr 2018 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Free Jazz, Hard Bop |
$38.00
Secrets of the Sun consists of sessions recorded by drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter in 1962 at the Choreographer's Workshop in New York City, the Arkestra's regular rehearsal studio. Since they had only recently moved to New York (some decided to stay in Chicago), these are small-group Arkestra recordings. This is an interesting transitional album because you can still hear echoes of the Chicago sound in some of the pieces, but the sound is growing beyond merely "exotic," with percussion playing an increasingly larger role and the pieces starting to sound more amorphous. "The Friendly Galaxy" has the same sort of mysterious vibe as "Ancient Aetheopia," with nice trumpet and piano work as well as John Gilmore on bass clarinet (which he plays on a couple cuts). "Solar Differentials" has a similar but weirder feel because the horns change to "Space Bird Sounds" and Art Jenkins adds some of his distinctive "Space Voice." "Space Aura" is built on a great horn riff, while both Gilmore (again on bass clarinet) and Sun Ra both shine on a stripped-down version of "Love in Outer Space." Things head a bit more out for the last couple tracks, where percussion and reverb start to dominate the sound, as they would on several of the Choreographer Workshop recordings. This is an interesting album for Ra fans because it's such a small band and shows how new ideas were taking hold in the music, not to mention Gilmore's use of bass clarinet, which he stopped playing completely sometime in the '60s. – All Music
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Label: Saturn Research – Saturn 9954 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 180g |
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Country: US |
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Released: 2014 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Free Jazz, Space-Age |
$42.00
In 1972, Sun Ra inked a high-profile deal with ABC / Impulse, bringing his recorded work to the widest audience he’d had to date. A slew of Saturn back catalog titles and two newly-recorded albums (Astro Black, Pathways To Unknown Worlds) were issued before ABC cancelled the contract, dumped the records into the cut-out bins, and left the unreleased albums to languish. Now, over four decades later, Roaratorio is proud to offer one of the lost Impulse recordings for the first time. Sign Of The Myth hails from the same studio session as Pathways, and shares its emphasis on guided improvisations. With a constantly shifting palette of Moog textures, Ra tosses off a dazzling array of ideas throughout, supported by the usual Arkestra stalwarts; in particular, bassist Ronnie Boykins and drummer Clifford Jarvis are in shining form here, giving shape and solidity to these pieces. Sign Of The Myth is a welcome augmentation to an especially fertile period from Sun Ra’s time on Earth. Download coupon included. – Roaratorio
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Label: Roaratorio – ROAR35, Roaratorio – roar35 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: US |
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Released: 26 Oct 2014 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Avant-garde Jazz, Free Improvisation, Post Bop |
$45.00
Space Is the Place is the soundtrack to a film that was made but never released, and the tunes are among his most ambitious, unorthodox, and compelling compositions. Between June Tyson's declarative vocals, chants, and dialogue and Ra's crashing, flailing synthesizer and organ fills, and with such songs as "Blackman/Love in Outer Space," "It's After the End of the World," and "I Am the Brother of the Wind," this disc offers aggressive, energized, and uncompromising material. Ra's pianistic forays, phrases, and textures were sometimes dismissed as mere noodling when they were part of a well-constructed multimedia package. This comes as close as any of Ra's releases to being not only a concept work but a blueprint for his live shows from the early '70s until the end of his career. Features some previously unissued cuts. – All Music
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Label: Sutro Park – SP1004 |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Gatefold, 180g |
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Country: US |
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Released: 2010 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Free Jazz, Space-Age, Big Band |
$45.00
“ … to consider the Song Books as a work of art is nearly impossible. Who would dare? It resembles a brothel, doesn’t it?” John Cage.
Volume 3 in the PERIHEL series on KARLRECORDS is dedicated to one of the most iconic composers of 20th century: JOHN CAGE. All 92 pieces of the “Song Books” in stunning interpretations by REINHOLD FRIEDL, recorded at RASHAD BECKER’s Clunk Studio who also contributed live electronics.
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JOHN CAGE (1912-1992) is one of the most important composers in modern music: with more than 250 compositions, many of which are considered key works of New Music, and theoretical essays on composition he significantly changed the way we think about and perceive music today. But CAGE not only left a major impact in the academic world, he is also cited as an important inspiration by a wide range of diverse musicians from a younger generation, be it electronic producers, experimentalists or noise artists. His “Song Books”, published 1970 in three volumes, is a collection of open works that contains not only songs but a strange hybrid collection of compositions, graphic scores, meditation rules, experimental settings, absurd musical instructions, performance settings, musical references, and Fluxus-inspired actions such as eating fruits or drinking cognac (CAGE loved whiskey and cognac)
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When REINHOLD FRIEDL (director of the ensemble ZEITKRATZER) entered the CLUNK Studio to record the whole cycle with RASHAD BECKER (who handled the feedback cabinet and live electronics), the idea was quite simple: to approach each single piece in an informal way but to do all 92 pieces in the right order. What came out in the end is a kaleidoscopic lecture and interpretation of the compositions with the help of a strange mixture of ancient and modern tools: new electronics, old and special microphones, self-built instruments, arbitrary garbage sounds, sophisticated live-electronics devices, quotes … “Complete Song Books” turns out to be an early hymn for sonic freedom, a sonic promenade full of beautiful references. – Bandcamp
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Label: Karlrecords – KR029 |
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Series: Perihel Series |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, 45 RPM, Album, Limited Edition, 180 gram |
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Country: Germany |
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Released: 18 Nov 2016 |
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Genre: Electronic, Non-Music, Classical |
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Style: Experimental, Musique Concrète |
$39.00
This work was originally used as music for the choreographed piece by Merce Cunningham entitled Second Hand, with stage decors and costume design by Jasper Johns. It is a work for piano derived from a 1918 dramatic composition by Erik Satie entitled Socrate, itself originally conceived for voice and orchestra. Cage’s original transcription (of one movement) of Satie’s score served as “accompaniment” for Merce Cunningham’s solo dance entitled Idyllic Song, first performed in Richmond, Virginia, on Nov. 20, 1944. In 1968 Cage wished to complete his transcription (of the other two movements), but was forbidden by Satie’s publisher, Salabert. His inventive solution was to compose a new work that perfectly matched the phrase structure of Satie’s music (and thus of Cunningham’s dance, which was already well underway). His technique was simple: he took only the vocal line of Socrate (or occasionally the prominent orchestral melody) and systematically transposed it up or down and into different modes. In the 1st movement, every pitch is transposed separately, but in the 2nd and 3rd, the transpositions occur only at every half-bar. In short, the result is a music that has the same phrasing, rhythms, and even some of the general contours of Satie’s music, but which is otherwise completely distinct. This solved Cage’s copyright problem, and he playfully named his modified new work Cheap Imitation. – John Cage
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Label: Мирумир – MIR100202 |
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Series: nova musicha – n.17 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue |
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Country: Europe |
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Released: 3 Aug 2012 |
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Genre: Classical |
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Style: Contemporary, Experimental, Avantgarde |
$39.00
This collection of John Cage's electronic work from the early 1950s through 1962 was realized via methods of reconstruction by a deliberately non-digital, retro quartet of engineer-composer-performers, called the Langham Research Centre (no such place exists). They utilized many of the same elements and methods available to the composer at the time. That said, the recordings don't resemble Cage's in that these are pristine-sounding and detail-oriented in aural presentation -- though perhaps we have the mixing engineer to thank for that. The group's applications use many of the now obsolete technologies that the composer made staples. This is especially true in "Cartridge Music," written for "small amplified instruments." Here, the pickups from old iron phonograph cartridges are tinkered with to amplify objects inserted between the knurled screw that holds the needle in place and the pickup -- wire, paperclips, pipe cleaners, etc. "Fontana Mix with Aria" has a twist. The original composition never used the last two words. Here, LRC use Cage's original layers of mono tape played back on open-reel tape recorders, atop of which a singer -- not Cathy Berberian -- delivers in a '70s-era avant-garde style. Cage is wonderfully democratic in conception: ""0.00" (No. 2) is designed to be played in a situation provided with maximum amplification (no feedback) to perform a disciplined action." It uses the inner space on vinyl recordings where no music remains, just scratchy noise; its timbre and pitch controlled completely by manual means. The subtitle of the classic "Variations I," is "for any number of players & any sound producing means." Here, it's the sound of whispered voices, a donkey braying, analog, ambient drone sounds, and numerous others. The end result is a kind of period instrument recording, one that explores noise as music, and refracts the 21st century's digital technologies in the mirror of sonic musical creation to de-center their meaning, underscoring it with the notion that there is still plenty of room for sound experimentation outside the definition of a preset on a keyboard. – All Music
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Label: Sub Rosa – SRV361 |
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Series: Early Electronic Series |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition, Silver White |
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Country: Belgium |
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Released: 2014 |
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Genre: Electronic |
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Style: Experimental, Musique Concrète |
$39.00
As an event, Depeche Mode's huge (attendance around 60,000) Los Angeles Rose Bowl concert in 1988 remains legendary; no single artist show had totally sold out the venue since eight years beforehand, while the film documentary done by Dylan-filmer D.A. Pennebaker based around the show clearly demonstrated fans' intense commitment to a near-decade-old band most mainstream critics continued to stupidly portray as a flash-in-the-pan synth pop effort. This start-to-final-encore record of the concert showcases a band perfectly able to carry its music from studio to stage as well as any other combo worth its salt should be able to do. Understandably focused on Music for the Masses material, the album shows Depeche experimenting with alternate arrangements at various points for live performance; big numbers like "Never Let Me Down Again," "Stripped," and "Blasphemous Rumors" pack even more of a wallop here. Slower numbers and more than a couple of ballads help to vary the hit-packed set, including a fine "Somebody" and "The Things You Said" combination sung by Martin Gore. "Pleasure Little Treasure," on record an okay B-side, becomes a monster rocker live, the type of unexpected surprise one could expect from a solid band no matter what the music. With a triumphant set of closing numbers, including magnificent takes on "Never Let Me Down Again," "Master and Servant," and the set-ending "Everything Counts," with what sounds like the entire audience singing the chorus well after the song has finally ended, 101 does far better at its task than most might have guessed. – All Music
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Label: Mute – Stumm101, Legacy – 88985337711, Sony Music – 88985337711 |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 180 Gram, Gatefold Sleeve |
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Country: Europe |
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Released: 14 Oct 2016 |
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Genre: Electronic |
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Style: Synth-pop |
$39.00
No More Shall We Part ended a four-year silence from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. A best-of was issued in 2000, but no new material had appeared since 1997's landmark album, The Boatman's Call. With that record, Cave had finally delivered what everyone knew he was capable of: an entire album of deeply tragic and beautiful love songs without irony, sarcasm, or violent resolution. It appears that The Boatman's Call altered the manner in which Cave writes songs, and the Bad Seeds illustrate it. Two musical directors -- the ubiquitous Mick Harvey and Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis -- craft a sonic atmosphere whose textures deepen and widen Cave's most profound and beautiful lyrics to date. The ballads have the wide, spacious, sobering ambience one has come to expect from the Bad Seeds. There is an ethereal change in sound in the uptempo numbers which are, for lack of better terminology, musical novellas. They plumb the depths of blues, yet contain glissando and crescendos from the orchestral music of composers such as Fartein Valen and Olivier Messiaen. There are places, such as in "Oh My Lord," where rock & roll is evoked as a device, but this isn't rock music. A listen to "As I Sat Sadly by Her Side," "Hallelujah," and the aforementioned track (the most "rock" song here) will attest that it is merely one color on a musical palette that is more expansive now than at any time in the band's history. Also in the band's musical treasure trove is the addition of the McGarrigle sisters on backing vocals -- nowhere is their contribution more poignant than on the tenderly daunting, haunted house that is "Love Letter." Lyrically and as a vocalist, Cave has undergone a startling, profound metamorphosis. Gone is the angry, humorous cynic whose venom and bile touched even his lighter moments. His deep, taunting ambivalence about Christ and Christianity in general is gone, vanished into a maturity that ponders spiritual things contemplatively. Humor that pokes fun at "churchianity" remains, but not as a source of inspiration. Over these 12 tracks, Cave has taken the broken heart -- so openly exhibited on The Boatman's Call -- and elevated it to the place where he has learned to live, and to speak from as both an artist and a human being – All Music
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Label: BMG – BMG15007V, Mute – LPSEEDS11 |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, 180 g |
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Country: USA & Canada |
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Released: Jun 2015 |
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Genre: Rock |
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Style: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock |
$45.00
Beyond the striking photography of the cover artwork, a cursory glance at this LP may appear misleading. One could be forgiven in thinking that what they had discovered was of a more obvious British provenance, but on closer inspection the truth is revealed… London in fact refers to London, Canada, an artistic hotbed that famously spawned the highly influential insurgent noise ensemble, ‘The Nihilist Spam Band’. Less celebrated yet equally remarkable was the improvisational powerhouse ‘The London Experimental Jazz Quartet’, a short lived group led by the forward thinking saxophonist Eric Stach.
Their debut album, Invisible Roots is an overlooked jewel from the Canadian jazz scene. Inspired by the revolutionary artists from the New York free-jazz movement, (namely Ornette Coleman, Archie Sheep and Cecil Taylor), and fuelled by the exciting possibilities afforded by a completely free approach to music, Invisible Roots is an album of potent spontaneous composition, exhibiting both fiery unharnessed blowing alongside lyrical streams of consciousness. In recent years, the album has achieved notoriety in certain record collecting circles mainly due to the track Destroy The Nihilist Picnic, an infectious piece of vamping avant-funk. Despite the commanding presence of this track, it would be misguided to judge the merits of the album on this piece alone, for Invisible Roots is a much deeper and more complex musical statement. This is confirmed by the Iberian-jazz sketch, Spain Is For Old Ladies, the spiritual introspection of Jazz Widows Waltz or the ferocious yet soulful Eric’s Madness, a track which wouldn’t be out of place on an ESP-Disk or BYG Actuel album. Behold, a rare piece of fire music from the Canadian Free-Jazz underground. – The Roundtable
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Label: The Roundtable – SIR020 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Reissue |
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Country: Australia |
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Released: 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Avant-garde Jazz, Post Bop |
$55.00
The present record is a standout work amid the myriad records of the x-rated / lounge genre of the 1960s and 1970s that catered to adult audiences in both the east and the west. Masami Kawahara, who was a mainstay in both the jazz and pop scenes in Japan, brought together musicians including Akira Ishikawa, Masaoki Terakawa, and Jake H. Concepcion for this recording. As would be expected of such a stellar and diverse lineup of performers, the tracks boast a unique and eclectic mix of musical elements spanning Latin, soul jazz, Afrobeat, and psychedelic styles. The erotic moods conjured up through various sound effects and female moans / scat vocals are sure to evoke pleasure, as well as some bashfulness, in listeners. This record, which had often been categorized under the mondo / bizarre slot and was only found in the collections of a handful of cult fans, was rediscovered by Japanese DJs during the 1990s and subsequently attracted the attention of collectors around the world. A bizzare and idiosyncratic work that could only have been created during the 20th century (and the 1970s at that), it has now been reissued on vinyl for the first time ever! – Light In The Attic
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Label: Cobrarose Records – CR69041 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition, Reissue, Stereo, Gatefold Sleeve |
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Country: Japan |
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Released: 2020 |
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Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul, Pop |
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Style: Novelty, Jazz-Funk, Afrobeat, Latin Jazz, Soul-Jazz, Psychedelic |
$39.00
Columbus, Ohio's Rudolph Johnson drew comparisons to John Coltrane during his career; like the jazz legend in his later years, Johnson eschewed drugs or alcohol and spent his time every day either meditating and rehearsing on his horn. You can definitely hear a little bit of Coltrane in Johnson's playing on this, his 1971 debut release for the Black Jazz label, the first of two he recorded for the imprint and the first he recorded as a leader after some sideman work (most notably for organist Jimmy McGriff); his ability to explore the upper registers and overtones of his tenor sax while retaining control is quite striking. Of course, this being a Black Jazz release, along with the bebop sounds of 'Sylvia Ann' and the mid-'60s Blue Note stylings of 'Sylvia Ann,' there's the soul jazz of 'Diswa' and the groove funk of 'Devon Jean,' all played by, as is typical on Black Jazz releases, by top-notch sidemen including drummer Raymond Pounds, who's played with everybody from Stevie Wonder to Pharoah Sanders to Bob Dylan, and pianist John Barnes, whose work is very familiar to Motown fans (Supremes, Temptations, Marvin Gaye). Bassist Reggie Jackson, who appeared on the Walter Bishop, Jr. Coral Keys record we previously released, rounds out the quartet. First vinyl reissue of another stellar Black Jazz release, remastered for CD and vinyl by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision and featuring liner notes by Pat Thomas, author of Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975! – Real Gone Music
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Label: Black Jazz Records – RGM-1170, Real Gone Music – RGM-1170 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue |
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Country: US |
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Released: Feb 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Soul-Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Modal |
$39.00
Calvin Keys's 1971 debut album for the Black Jazz Records label announced the arrival of a new star in the jazz guitar firmament. Keys had spent the '60s backing up the crème de la crème of jazz organists'Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff, Richard 'Groove' Holmes'but for his first record as a leader, he was eager to play with a piano player instead. So he recruited one of the best'Larry Nash, who, besides being a member of the L.A. Express, played with everybody from Eddie Harris to Bill Withers to Etta James. Bassist Lawrence Evans, drummer Bob Braye, and flautist-songwriter Owen Marshall rounded out the group on Shawn-Neeq, which might remind some of Pat Metheny's early work (Metheny acknowledges Keys as an influence), or Grant Green. But what gives Shawn-Neeq extra depth is that it comes from the heart; as Keys says in Pat Thomas' liner notes, which feature an interview with the artist: 'My thing was, I write about some of the experiences that I've had in my life.' Keys has since become a fixture in the Bay Area jazz scene; this is the album that started his journey. Another gem from the celebrated Black Jazz catalog, freshly remastered for CD and vinyl by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision and ready to be savored! – Real Gone Music
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Label: Black Jazz Records – BJ/5, Real Gone Music – RGM-1167 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo |
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Country: US |
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Released: 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Jazz-Funk |
The 16th entry to our mix series is brought to you by Isa Ong, the man behind the stunning Claude Glass debut on Syndicate late last year - Isekai. His contributions to local music have reached far and wide via his long running, deep involvement in bands like Amateur Takes Control, sub:shaman and Pleasantry. In this mixtape, Claude Glass takes us through an intense 45 minutes of pure rage rave, throwing conventions out the window and screaming straight into your soul. You aren't doing this right if you're not squirming inside.
Le Tres Jazz Club – a jazz reissue label, founded in 2017 by Fuzati a french artist, die-hard crate digger, and co-founder of the hip-hop act Klub Des Loosers along with Elvin Pagiras who runs Modulor / Modulor Records, a shop & record label based in Paris. Les Tres Jazz Club is a sub-label to Modulor Records specializing in rare and sought after Jazz titles, where originals have seen exorbitant prices on our friendly neighborhood site, Discogs.
We've been really interested in Japanese Jazz for a while now, and interestingly enough, this French label is a great doorway into that world. Their pressings are top-notch and the packaging comes through nice and neat! What really shines though, is the music they choose to reissue. Let’s dive into the reissues by Le Tres Jazz Club that are currently at the vault, which you might have missed in your time here!
It's hard to know where to begin with 2020 - with all the anxieties and uncertainty that came with the pandemic. With that also allowed a much-needed pause to all the human activity, that for a long time felt like a loop, numbing our sensitivity to the precious gift of life. 
The man of the hour, Louis aka Intriguant brings us the 15th entry to our mix series; a solid hour of power aimed straight at the dancefloor! Coming in hot and just in time to celebrate the arrival of his third album, Spirits, which we couldn't be more honoured to release on TAV Records. Lock in for some groove therapy, no wind instruments required!
