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Funk covers of "I Shot the Sheriff" (Bob Marley), "Low down" (Boz Scaggs), "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" (Leo Sayer) and many more. Official Release from Hong Kong.

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Few albums in the canon of popular music have had the influence, resonance, and endurance of John Coltrane's 1965 classic A Love Supreme-a record that proved jazz was a fitting medium for spiritual exploration and for the expression of the sublime.

Bringing the same fresh and engaging approach that characterized his critically acclaimed Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn tells the story of the genesis, creation, and aftermath of this classic recording. Featuring interviews with more than one hundred musicians, producers, friends, and family members; unpublished interviews with Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison; and scores of never-before-seen photographs, A Love Supreme balances biography, cultural context, and musical analysis in a passionate and revealing portrait.

Reviews:

“Along with Miles Davis's seminal album, Kind of Blue, saxophonist John Coltrane's A Love Supreme is undoubtedly one of the world's most influential jazz recordings. Recorded with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones over the course of one evening in 1964, the record "caught Coltrane at a pivotal point in his creative trajectory: the crystallizing of his four years with this renowned quartet, moments before his turn toward the final, most debated phase of his career." In A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, Ashley Kahn (Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece) covers how the album was made, where it was made, why it is so important and how it reached such a broad audience (it is one of the top-selling jazz albums of all time). Music fans and historians will devour the book, which is rife with anecdotes and commentary from Bono, Phil Lesh, Alice Coltrane (Coltrane's widow); black-and-white photographs; and previously unpublished interviews with Coltrane himself. It features a foreword written by Elvin Jones.” - Publishers Weekly

“Jazz writing appears to be moving toward high art, with Kahn leading the way. In his second study of a groundbreaking jazz recording (the first was on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue), he addresses the less obvious aspects of Coltrane's album, including the saxophonist's ideas and the actual recording session, interweaving them all with snippets of interviews with the Coltrane family and musical cohorts. Five brief sections, or interludes, discuss topics like the label that released the record (Impulse), the producer, and related poetry, while the epilog concisely summarizes the text. A Love Supreme, Kahn reveals, was a spiritual manifesto that touched countless listeners. Many issues come to the fore: the cultural movements of the mid-1960s, including expression of spiritual values, and technical musical challenges. Coltrane fulfilled his desire to record in one finite session without regard to commercial pressures. He was able to pull together much of his previous work and concentrate it in one piece. The only book-length treatment of the record, this is absolutely essential jazz history for all libraries. [This book's publication coincides with the Verve Music Group's release of an expanded, two-disc version of A Love Supreme.-Ed.]-William G. Kenz, Minnesota State Univ., Moorhea.” – Library Journal

“Coltrane was already a jazz colossus, acclaimed by peers, critics, and audiences alike, when he, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones recorded the spiritually informed four-part suite A Love Supreme, very efficiently and in sequence, on December 9, 1964, in recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio. After its release and much greater popularity than avant-garde jazz customarily enjoys, Coltrane became a spiritual as well as musical hero to every subsequent generation of jazz players and listeners. Here Kahn does for A Love Supreme what he did in Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (2000) for Coltrane's former employer's biggest hit, and because A Love Supreme was pivotal in Coltrane's career--he became the fountainhead of free jazz almost immediately after recording it--Kahn winds up writing the great saxophonist's biography again, more lucidly, if in less detail, than anyone has before. He injects fine sidereal pieces on Impulse! Records, Van Gelder, the prayer at the heart of the suite, the single live performance of it, and the recording's many editions over the years, which will soon include an augmented two-CD version, the only companion to this lucid, brilliant, resplendently illustrated book that could better it in aesthetic satisfaction. Ray Olson” - Booklist

"The emotions I experienced while reading Ashley Kahn's A Love Supreme gave me a feeling of beauty, elegance, excellence, grace and dignity. I congratulate him for a supreme effort well done." - Carlos Santana

About the Author:

Ashley Kahn is the author of critically acclaimed Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece; the primary editor of Rolling Stone: The Seventies, and a primary contributor to The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide. His freelance features on music and culture have appeared in the New York Times, TV Guide, MOJO, Newsday, The New York Observer, New Statesman (UK), Jazz (France), GQ (Japan), Down Beat, Jazz Times and many other publications. He was music editor at VH1, and has also been a concert producer and tour manager, working with a wide variety of artists from Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and Britney Spears, to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cassandra Wilson and Debby Harry and the Jazz Passengers.

A TAV Curator's Pick.

A Tribe Called Quest – Q-Tip, Phife Dawg (who passed away on March 22, 2016), Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White – the groundbreaking '90s group that forever transformed the urban music landscape, detonates new shock waves on their first – and last – new studio album together in 18 years, We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service. The landmark release represents the first new music from A Tribe Called Quest since they disbanded in 1998, after recording The Love Movement, their final album together. Renowned painter/photographer Richard Prince was commissioned to create the album's show-stopping cover art.

"The extraordinary times in which we now find ourselves desperately call out for a new message from A Tribe Called Quest, and We Got It From Here... is that message," said LA Reid, Chairman and CEO, Epic Records. "For nearly two decades, it has been my deepest personal wish to add one more chapter to their incredible legacy. I am deeply honored that Tribe entrusted us with this historic and final album."

Queens, New York natives Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of Brooklyn, formed A Tribe Called Quest in 1985. The group is one of hip-hop's most legendary, beloved and revered groups of all time. Easily recognized for their unique approach to rap music by employing jazz infused soundscapes to Afro centric rhymes, ATCQ was largely responsible for the popularity of a new genre that dominated the East Coast sound of the early-90s. Sonically, ATCQ was a decisive and welcomed tangent of jazz, bass-heavy rhythmic vibes and eclectic sampling when compared to the mundane recycling of soul loops, breaks and vocals of their contemporaries.

Lyrically, emcees Q-Tip and Phife Dawg addressed social issues relevant to young blacks such as use of the n word and its relevance, date rape and other interpersonal relationships, industry politics and consumerism with infectious energy and fun and having a good time while still promoting positivity. ATCQ composed a number of successful singles and albums with their creative approach to rap music. In 1990, the group released Peoples Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Their sophomore effort, 1991'sThe Low End Theory, considered one of the greatest albums in hip-hop history, solidified them as legends.

In recent years, the anticipation for another ATCQ album has been building. Today, the power of the Abstract Poetic, Five Foot Assassin, and Mr. Muhammad is still evident in their dynamic stage shows and in the reception of their adoring fans. We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service finds the group paying respect to both their legacy and their fans and it's a cathartic moment for all. – Press Release

“It can’t be said enough how simply good this record sounds and feels. Everyone here shows themselves to be a better rapper than they have ever been before, but that still doesn’t capture the ease and exuberance of it all, how Q-Tip curls flows and words on “The Donald,” how Jarobi surprises with packed strings of rhyme at each turn, how Phife and Busta Rhymes dip effortlessly in and out of Caribbean patois and Black American slanguage. (And that’s not even taking into account Consequence’s inventive word marriages on “Mobius” and “Whateva Will Be,” Kendrick Lamar’s energetic angst on “Conrad Tokyo,” or André 3000’s and Tip’s playful tag team on “Kids…”) The music is decidedly analog, a refutation of polished sheen and maximal perfection; it’s an extension and culmination of ATCQ’s jazz-influenced low-end theory. But that doesn’t capture the bounces, grooves, sexual moans, random bleeps, stuttering drums that float throughout—like every classic Tribe album, it defies simple descriptions.” – Pitchfork

“A record rooted in anxiety and mourning, We Got It From Here remains musically as dark and electrically relaxed as 1996's Beats, Rhymes and Life and 1998's The Love Movement. With help from visionary producer J Dilla, those critically mixed, commercially sturdy records were moody, muted, experimental, deeply funky and remarkably prescient, but ultimately unable to wrangle the proper amount of attention in the shiny-suit era. We Got It From Here checks in with similarly off-kilter but undeniably grooving beats. Tribe utilize the Dilla innovation of letting samples clash at odd angles; they let a copy of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" skip endlessly until the real John pops in for a guest spot, and the drum beat to "Lost Somebody," one of the album's Phife tributes, doubles up and separates from itself like a Steve Reich phasing experiment before abruptly slamming into total silence. In a contemporary move, Tribe abandon the Nineties hip-hop format and allow for modern musical and melodic sprawl, like a guitar solo from Jack White, a psychedelic keyboard detour or a spiraling verse from Anderson Paak.” – Rolling Stone

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Hits, Rarities & Remixes is a compilation album by A Tribe Called Quest. It features two previously unreleased songs ("Mr. Incognito" and "The Night He Got Caught") as well as remixes and some of the group's more familiar songs. It also contains songs that were featured in movie soundtracks.

“Unquestionably one of the most influential acts in the history of hip-hop, the Tribe left behind them a legacy few could contend with and most have revered since their debut release. And while Hits, Rarities & Remixes is not as thorough a compilation as 1999's Anthology, it does offer highly sought-after tracks that are out of print, including a few that were featured exclusively on movie soundtracks. A good number of the crowd-favorite anthems that made Tribe one of the most adored groups of its time are featured here, and a few that were secret weapons in many a DJ crate during their initial release. What separates this collection from the earlier anthology is its ability to function as a comprehensive road map through the group's career for the inquisitive first-timer as well as offer up obscure tracks for the die-hard beat heads.” – AllMusic

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A TAV Essential Listening Album.

Midnight Marauders is the third album by hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, originally released in 1993 on Jive Records. It was released two years after A Tribe Called Quest's second album, The Low End Theory.

Midnight Marauders is also seen by many fans and critics as a classic jazz rap album along with The Low End Theory.

“Though the abstract rappers finally betrayed a few commercial ambitions for Midnight Marauders, the happy result was a smart, hooky record that may not have furthered the jazz-rap fusions of The Low End Theory, but did merge Tribe-style intelligence and reflection with some of the most inviting grooves heard on any early-'90s rap record.

The productions, more funky than jazzy, were tighter overall -- but the big improvement, four years after their debut, came with Q-Tip's and Phife Dawg's raps. Focused yet funky, polished but raw, the duo was practically telepathic on "Steve Biko (Stir It Up)" and "The Chase, Pt. 2," though the mammoth track here was the pop hit "Award Tour." A worldwide call-out record with a killer riff and a great pair of individual raps from the pair, it assured that Midnight Marauders would become A Tribe Called Quest's biggest seller.  …

A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders was commercially successful, artistically adept, and lyrically inventive; the album cemented their status as alternative rap's prime sound merchants, authors of the most original style since the Bomb Squad first exploded on wax.” – AllMusic

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People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is the debut album by alternative hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released in 1990 on Jive Records. Although the album was critically acclaimed, it had little mainstream appeal. However, the album did earn the band a devoted following among the alternative hip hop community. The album was praised for its lyrical inventiveness and bizarre sense of humor, mixed with socially aware and literate message tracks.

One of three A Tribe Called Quest albums to be included in The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums, certified gold by the RIAA on January 19, 1996. The record was given the perfect rating of 5 mics in The Source in 1990 — according to Pitchfork, it was the first album ever to receive this honor.

“The group is marked for their social consciousness, but not merely because of their awareness, but their ability to wax simultaneously about politics and art. On "Push It Along", Tip traverses police brutality, community unity, and rap dreams in a few bars, managing to be an approachable advocate for responsibility without seeming didactic: "The pigs are wearing blue/ And in a year or two/  We'll be going up the creek in a great big canoe / What we gonna do? Save me and my brothers?/ Hop inside the bed and pull over the covers?/ Never will we do that and we ain't trying to rule rap/ We just want a slab of the ham, don't you know, black?" The lyrics are 25 years old. But were they released today they'd seem right on time, while being out of place—because all these many years later People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is more than a nostalgia artifact. It's a worthy listen, not because of what it was, but because of what it is.” - Pitchfork

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A TAV Essential Listening Album.

The Low End Theory is the second album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released after their debut album People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990).

Originally released in 1991 through Jive Records, the album produced three singles: "Check the Rhime," "Jazz (We've Got)," and "Scenario."

The Low End Theory was one of the first records to fuse hip hop with a laid-back jazz atmosphere. Ali Shaheed Muhammad along with Q-Tip and Phife Dawg showcase how rap was done before commercial success influenced many rappers' creativity. The album's minimalist sound is "stripped to the essentials: vocals, drums, and bass." The bass drum and vocals emphasize the downbeat on every track.

The Low End Theory helped shape alternative hip hop in the 1990s. It established the musical, cultural, and historical link between hip hop and jazz. – Wiki

“From the sinuous Art Blakey samples and myth-making rhymes of "Excursions" to the joyous free for all of the epic posse cut "Scenario", The Low End Theory is a stone masterpiece that establishes Tribe's place in hip-hop's history. They draw on everything from the crowd-hyping improvisations of their early park jams, to the complex sciences of Golden Age rhyming styles. Simply put, The Low End Theory is essential for anyone seeking to understand hip-hop.” – Fat Beats

“While most of the players in the jazz-rap movement never quite escaped the pasted-on qualities of their vintage samples, with The Low End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest created one of the closest and most brilliant fusions of jazz atmosphere and hip-hop attitude ever recorded. The rapping by Q-Tip and Phife Dawg could be the smoothest of any rap record ever heard; the pair are so in tune with each other, they sound like flip sides of the same personality, fluidly trading off on rhymes, with the former earning his nickname (the Abstract) and Phife concerning himself with the more concrete issues of being young, gifted, and black.  … It's a tribute to their unerring production sense that, with just those few tools, Tribe produced one of the best hip-hop albums in history, a record that sounds better with each listen. The Low End Theory is an unqualified success, the perfect marriage of intelligent, flowing raps to nuanced, groove-centered productions.” – AllMusic

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2016 release from the Harlem-based hip hop artist, a member of the A$AP Mob (along with A$AP Rocky and A$AP Yams). Always Strive And Prosper is the long-awaited follow-up to 2013's Trap Lord. The album features collaborations with Schoolboy Q, Future, Big Sean and others.

“Despite the strong production and features including Missy Elliott, Ty Dolla $ign, and Rick Ross, Ferg's latest is mainly about his wise observations on family, fame, and what comes next.” - Pitchfork

“Rap albums are inherently narcissistic, the product of one person’s values and interests, yet on Always Strive And Prosper, the secondary characters are every bit as fully drawn as the buoyant personality at the center of it all. Without succumbing to false sentimentality or restricting himself with the overly linear narrative structure of many of rap’s recent prestige albums, Ferg has crafted a tender tribute to the people he loves most. It’s not often that albums that bang this hard are this moving.” - AV Club

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Long.Live A$AP is the debut studio album by American rapper A$AP Rocky, originally released in 2013. The album features guest appearances from Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Drake, Big K.R.I.T., San-tigold, OverDoz, Yelawolf, Florence Welch, Danny Brown, Action Bronson, Joey Badass, Gunplay, ASAP Ferg and Kendrick Lamar.

The album's production was handled by Hit-Boy, ASAP Ty Beats, Soufien3000, Clams Casino, Danger Mouse, Noah "40" Shebib, T-Minus, Skrillex and Emile Haynie, among other high-profile producers. The album was supported with four singles—"Goldie", "Fuckin' Problems", "Wild for the Night" and "Fashion Killa". – Wiki

“LongLiveA$AP delivers on and even exceeds the promise of LiveLoveA$AP. Like that mixtape, the album is a triumph of craft and curation, preserving Rocky's immaculate taste while smartly upgrading his sound.” – Pitchfork

More about A$AP Rocky:

Rakim Mayers (born October 3, 1988), better known by his stage name ASAP Rocky (stylized as A$AP Rocky), is an American rapper, record producer, director and actor from Harlem, New York. He is a member of the hip hop group A$AP Mob, from which he adopted his moniker. Rocky released his debut mixtape Live. Love. A$AP, in 2011 to critical acclaim. The success of his mixtape led to a record deal with Polo Grounds Music, RCA Records, and Sony Music Entertainment. He subsequently rec-orded his 2013 debut album Long. Live. A$AP, which was also well received by critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. In 2015, Rocky released his second studio album titled At. Long. Last. A$AP. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, making it Rocky's second con-secutive album to debut at number one and has received critical acclaim from music critics. – Wiki
 

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"Ghettoville is the bleached out and black tinted conclusion of the Actress image.

Where the demands of writing caught the artist slumped and reclined, devoid of any soul, acutely aware of the simulated prism that required breakout.

Four albums in and the notes and compositions no longer contain decipherable language.

The scripts now carry tears, the world has returned to a flattened state, and out through that window, the birds look back into the cage they once inhabited.

Spitting flames behind a white wall of silence.

The machines have turned to stone, data reads like an obituary to its user.

A fix is no longer a release, it's a brittle curse. Zero satisfaction, no teeth, pseudo artists running rampant, but the path continues.

R.I.P Music 2014."

- Actress (Ninja Tune)

“At a first glance, techno and contemporary classical music do not seem like ideal partners. One, a bass-heavy hedonistic genre designed for dancefloors, the other suited to the calm of the concert hall. Yet Darren Cunningham, aka electronic producer Actress, and the London Contemporary Orchestra have built their careers in pushing boundaries of genre.

Both sets of artists explore the hybridity between the electronic and the acoustic: the LCO regularly records experimental film scores, including Jonny Greenwood’s recent anxiety-inducing compositions for You Were Never Really Here, and last year Actress performed a live rendition of Steve Reich’s 1988 work Different Trains. On Lageos, rather than have the orchestra approximate the alien sounds of Actress’s electronics, they formulate a new sonic palette that is in equal measures intriguing and unsettling.

The album is often upbeat: strings streak in between clattering, fairground rhythms on Galya Beat, while Hubble and N.E.W. are softer, more melodic interpretations of Actress’s previous releases. It is in moments of quiet ambience, though, that Lageos excels, blurring the boundaries between static and harmony on Momentum or between creaking double bass and kick drum on Voodoo Possee, Chronic Illusion. A challenging yet satisfying listen.” – The Guardian

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A suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dreamtime rhythms, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion.

Right from Hazyville, Actress’s music has been deeply marked by London’s rave music heritage. But after the angular dynamics of Splazsh, R.I.P heads out into deep space. The rhythms and pulses are smudged or blurred, or are hinted at by their absence. 2-step garage is collided into gamelan, and freeform interludes explore microtonal spaces and imagined string instruments.

R.I.P underlines Actress’s reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music. His intuitive and original grasp of beats, textures and rhythm puts him on a parallel path to dance music innovators such as Basic Channel, Burial and Aphex Twin. But the way he engages with electronic sound from first principles, realising his own self-contained sonic worlds, hints at less obvious kinships outside the dance music fraternity, with pioneers of homebrewed sound experiments such as Cabaret Voltaire, Pan Sonic and Oval. It moves the body but the sounds also tap into to something more intangible inside you; you dance, but also ‘slip/drift into another realm, probably without even realising.’ – Honest Jon’s Records

“Darren Cunningham is a dance producer who references extroverted, populist music to create a meditative, introverted, immersive experience.…It's not the sound that makes the music, though, but the structure of it. R.I.P. is a deliberately uncoordinated album. Rhythms, basslines, and melodies slip in and out of line with each other. Comparatively straightforward, house-oriented tracks like "Shadow From Tartarus" are situated next to murk and ambience like "Tree of Knowledge". The emphasis here, though, is on "comparative": Even R.I.P.'s steady 4/4 tracks sound grimy and deconstructed. But there's something almost flirtatious in the way he lets the sounds worm around in the dark, looking to hook up with something firm. When they do, it's both mechanical and mystical, like watching a sculpture cut from raw stone.” – Pitchfork

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This, too, is a story about control. It’s a manual, maybe half Rosetta Stone, half bird guide. It was made the way they made electronic music in the good old days, all analog everything, right after synthesizers shrunk to a manageable size and you didn’t have to trek down to a university to use one anymore. Hard-earned. Tastes different. Our parents’ electronic. And its subject is staying together, that thing we thought was their province. It’s about trying to fix what hurts. It’s about knowing better. Black Noise is men talking to men about women; Lemonade is a woman talking to women about men, and they both orbit around a failure we take for granted like the sun: loving you is complicated. It’s a skill; we forgot.

Adrian Younge calls The Electronique Void an academic album, by which he means it is both instructional and informational. There’s a problem at the heart of it, a woman who’s been told that she’s loved, but she doesn’t recognize that, can’t feel it, may have heard it all before, may be worrying about the wrong things. Jack Waterson, long a guitarist in Younge’s band, plays the role of narrator, sounding professorial and rather superior as he lays out for the woman where she’s erred. That vocoder you hear is Adrian, talking to her on a subterranean level, the way an artist must. There’s a strong sense of rules here, a prescription and a presumption that there is an agreed upon way to do it, and there is also a wrong way, or at least a way that won’t work. And the fact is, as didactic as that sounds, it might be the truth. Maybe everybody who’s alone can be cured. The discourse on the album is the kind of thing that happens when you go blonde and then you can’t keep ‘em off you. These truths are cold and hard, and our hero begrudges the well-meaning advice being rained down upon her as any independent woman would.

The science of love, its formulas and if-then constraints, causal relationships and observable properties, is best taught experientially, but learning it hurts so, so bad. Music, especially electronic music, reliant as it is on abstraction and unrepentant as it is about hijacking your physiological responses to tempo and rhythm and dynamics, is a way to get there without going through it. Electronic music as practiced and developed by pioneers like Dick Hyman and Raymond Scott and Wendy Carlos is precise and intentional. In making his first electronic album, Younge took his cues from them, reminding a contemporary audience what a synthesizer, deep in its heart, really could be.

The lady of The Electronique Void, only ever seen through a man’s eyes, who’s being told what to do by him, sounds trapped by her history and by her position, her ancestors’ trauma echoing through her lineage and booming out of her as a phobia, distrust, misapprehension, rational response to a fucked up situation. Waterson’s text here seems to say that if his character could go back in time, catch her before the damage was done, she would be able to love. And that’s reasonable. Don’t get hooked. Don’t do wifey shit for a fuck boy. Don’t let it go to your head, no. It’s also possible he has no idea what he’s talking about. The lessons for men in The Electronique Void are unspoken but plain as day.

This music is an urgent tutorial. Adrian Younge looks at us and sees the frontline of a crisis, something we only have time to triage right now. This isn’t romantic and it isn’t about settling down. This is the fight of our lives: how to love. – Press Release

“Younge could be accused of dabbling, but he displays total mastery of his machines, whether he's coaxing sinister rhythms or playful melodies out of them. The drums often hit with as much force as his hip-hop productions, and a lot of the keyboard work carries a creeping menace similar to that of his Venice Dawn material. Presented as a sort of tongue-in-cheek guide to navigating romantic relationships, the set of ten, mostly brief tracks is narrated in affable fashion by longtime Younge associate Jack Waterson…

One can imagine this accompanying a film screened in a musty audio-visual room with flickering shots of a young couple flirting on a party line, frolicking in leaves, and hanging at a drive-in or bowling alley. It's stimulating and informative enough on its own, and too accomplished and substantive to be disregarded as a dilettantish novelty.” – Allmusic

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Jamal Moss, aka Hieroglyphic Being, returns for a new second album on Soul Jazz Records, after last year’s debut The Acid Documents. this time under the name Africans with Mainframes.

Hieroglyphic Being and fellow Chicago producer Noleian Reusse have been releasing music under the name Africans with Mainframes for over 15 years now, ever since their debut on Hieroglyphic Being’s own Mathematics Recordings label in 2005. ‘K.M.T.’ is the debut album from the group, a collage of apocalyptic Chicago acid meets industrial and transcendental post-house machine funk.

Both intense and unique, the album of forward-thinking, experimental, boundary-pushing Afro-futurist electronic music shows why Hieroglyphic Being is regarded as one of the most serious purveyors of experimental black music today. You can't stop the prophet! – Sounds of the Universe

“Devastating album of epic dancefloor rituals and visions from Jamal Moss (Hieroglyphic Being) and Noleian Reusse in their prized Africans With Mainframes guise, amounting to their most substantial and impressive collection.” – Boomkat

“…Working with fellow producer Noleian Reusse as Africans With Mainframes, [DJ and producer] Jamal Moss swings from Windy City jazz to Chicago acid at its most caustic. While the duo have released a slew of 12”s dating back to 2001, K.M.T. is their first full-length. Kemetic Modulating Textures is eight tracks of Moss and Reusse at their most unrelenting and there’s a coarseness to every texture that at times might make you mistakenly think it was just slapped together. Yet the frequent references to Egyptology (Googling each track title reveals a profound knowledge of prehistoric culture) suggest a greater thought at work, and if you manage to survive the bruising BPMs of the album's first half, it becomes mesmerizing.

Opener “Anachronistic” sets the table for what lies ahead: everything in the red, a snare fill stumbling and slipping across the grid, the 808’s edges increasingly fuzzy with distortion. And then just when it verges on pure noise, that telltale acid squiggle worms through and the snare coheres into a visceral thrill.

Last year, Moss explained his first encounter with Sun Ra’s music as a shock to the system: “His music wasn’t about making sense: it was just about receiving these transmissions, this knowledge.” It’s a lesson that Moss carries forward with K.M.T., suggesting that while some of his tracks might scan as scrambled transmissions, continued exposure reveals a profound signal beneath the noise.” – Pitchfork

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“Afterglow is the music moniker for local fashion retailer HOAX's owner Julian. Having been involved in the local music scene for years as a guitarist and programmer, Julian has since found his muse in black music. Driven by this newfound passion, his recent music ambitions sees him going back to sounds he grew up with such as Michael Jackson and Prince, to the disco funk of the 70s and 80s, and the "Free Soul" series of Japanese compilations. "Different Light" is Afterglow's debut album, a music amalgam that takes cues from 80's synth-funk/boogie, electro from Street Sounds, r&b from Tabu, fusion from Herbie Hancock, to the sound of city pop greats such as Toshiki Kadomatsu, Tetsuji Hayashi, and Tatsurō Yamashita. A marriage of synths, thumping basslines, and drum machine grooves, the album also features the vocals of both SOPHY Wong and Yeung Tung. In contrast to what one might expect out of a vaporware aesthetic, the result is rather a pop music infused exploration of funk's past and future.” – Bandcamp

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“When Jaar released 2012 - 2017 in February, he did so with almost no notice or attempt to get notice. A.A.L. isn’t a new moniker for the producer, but not one that was known to most casual fans prior to his latest release. If works under his given name and projects like Darkside are Spider-Man and Wolverine, A.A.L. is more akin to Marvel’s U.S. Agent (if you had to look that one up, that’s the point). But the use of this more obscure name doesn’t feel arbitrary, especially considering the music Jaar has released under his other aliases over the last five years like the looming, spacious beauty of Sirens and avant garde soundtracks like Pomegranates to the telekinetic, spiraling energy of Darkside’s Psychic. The songs on A.A.L.’s first full-length feel like they come from another musical world. While Jaar has embraced house and dance elements in his music before, never has he covered the genres in such breadth and with so much confidence than he does with 2012 - 2017.”  - KEXP

“Kicks, snares, and hi-hats assemble in predictable motifs. Samples—largely sourced from funk and soul—sing loudly, and plainly. Pianos gallop, because that is what pianos do at 128 beats per minute. There’s plenty to unpack here, as there is with all of Jaar’s work, but if you wanted to simplify things you could call 2012 - 2017 his house album, in that Jaar imposes upon himself the conventions and requirements of traditional house music.” – Pitchfork

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After their first two incredible debut singles ("Modulator Mix" and "Casanova 70") were revealed to the world in 1995 and 96, Air released two follow up classics in 1997: "Le soleil est pres de moi" and "J'ai dormi sous l'eau". This RSD release includes both original versions and a remixed version of 'J'ai dormi sous l'eau" by the famous French electronic music duo l :cube & DJ Gilb'R .A.K.A Chateau flight and a Dan The Automator remix of "Le soleil est pres de moi". (Limited worldwide release of 4500.)

SIDE A: 01 Le Soleil est pres de moi 02 J'ai dormi sous l'eau

SIDE B: 01 Le soleil est pres de moi (Automator remix) 02 J'ai dormi sous l'eau – Press Release

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A TAV Curator’s Pick.

Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin have an uncanny ability to continually coax a magical range of tones from the wide array of instruments - analogue and digital - that they turn their hands to. Their third full-length, Talkie Walkie might not feature the stellar cast of collaborators that 10,000 Hz Legend gathered, but it certainly doesn't relinquish their tight grip on unashamedly synthetic postmodern pop.

Tracks like "Venus" and "Cherry Blossom Girl" recall the skewed pop of French pre-cursors Indochine. Dissonance, flipped melodies and synthetic held tones - that hold up to scrutiny against the high points of progressive rock - form the backbone of Air's ensemble moments. "Alpha Beta Gaga" - it's title forms an apt summary - encapsulates their talents precisely. Five minutes of collision-fun featuring: trickling analogue pulses, synthesized whistles and finger picking banjo in a context that amply demonstrates the (artificial) intelligence that forms the cornerstone of their prodigious output. – Press Release

Which makes the overwhelming beauty and longing of Talkie Walkie that much more stunning. No longer are Air's sincerities lost in translation. The album title (no, they're not being cute, that's just how they say it in French) knowingly acknowledges this fact. Like the communication devices, Talkie Walkie sounds intimate, yet distant and distorted. Hope Sandoval nailed "Cherry Blossom Girl" on a demo, yet in forgoing guest vocalists for the first time, Air unerringly personalize their songwriting. Stomping piano and opiated gospel handclaps march "Venus" in a brutal funereal pace through keyboards that break like dead, pale winter sunlight and falling ice. Tolling bells and crickets take the song into twilight. Somehow it's numbingly romantic. Atonal music boxes, Plutonian pings, and digital fugues create a Side One that evokes purgatorial drifting, running out of oxygen, and passing into the light after a Space Walk disaster. – Pitchfork

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A TAV Essential Listening Album.

Moon Safari is the debut studio album by French electronic music duo Air, released in. Moon Safari set the stage for the budding downtempo music style.

"French duo Air's debut album is a superlatively happy collection of experimental disco-mood sound nestled between ambient soundscape and breathy pop. It's jazzy and melodic, and mostly laid-back, but not excessively so. There are a few shake-it, shake-it numbers, too, like the absurdly daft hit "Sexy Boy." It's snap your fingers and hang out (while reading) music or dance around sexy-slow with your mate music. It's also the perfect music to do your ironing or some other chore to; it's hypnotizing wallpaper music. It slips in and out of your consciousness, forcing you to move around with a relaxed smile before you even realize it. Oh, and contrary to sampler fashion, Nicolas Godin and Jean Benoit Dunckel played the instruments themselves. Bravo." - Mike McGonigal

Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album #93 on their Best Album of the Nineties list, while the French edition named this album #65 on their list of the 100 Greatest French rock albums.

“Their space-pop debut, Moon Safari, was a truly obsessive hommage to easy listening, a sublime Eurocheese omelet. They built their music out of classic Sixties French schlock: bongos, castanets, vintage electric piano, dream-weaver synths and shag-carpet organ straight from the soundtracks of movies like Un Homme et Une Femme. … Loads of American bands tried to emulate the fab tackiness of 1960s French pop. But Moon Safari proves that the French really do it better themselves.” - Rollingstone.com

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Thanks to the lovely reissue label We Want Sounds, we've got the first international release of this fun, funky, synthy, beautiful pop record by Akiko Yano. A range of emotions from start to end, perfect cover and even more perfect lineup of musicians on this!

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“Ultra-rare jazz-funk/fusion album by Japanese drummer, Akira Ishikawa. Featuring percussion-heavy versions of ‘Let's Start’, ‘Bongo Rock’ and ‘Pick Up The Pieces’. 'Back To Rhythm’ was the final recording in Ishikawa’s African-influenced period. He cut this record with his band ‘Count Buffalos’, featuring Kiyoshi Sugimoto, Takeru Muraoka, Larry Sunaga and arranger Hiromasa Suzuki. Includes excellent cover versions of The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, BT Express, Stevie Wonder, Average White Band, Incredible Bongo Band and Fela Kuti.” – Mr Bongo

Beautiful, soulful African folk from singer Akofa Akoussah. Lovely reissue by Mr Bongo.  

“With the release of the album Al Green Gets Next To You, the music of Hi Records is brought to wholesome fruition. Green, simply, is one of the most highly energetic and intensely expressive new singers around, with a master’s ability (notably, Charles and Redding) to subordinate lyrics to the urgent rhythmic primacy of their sounds, while suffusing them with their corresponding emotional feeling.

When I saw Green at the Apollo a few months ago, he virtually confronted his audience and compelled them to respond with the energy he generated. And so it is on this record, with Mitchell opening musical terrains for Green to roam. On the cliche-prone “Light My Fire,” Mitchell sets up almost unbearable tension by seductively slowing the groove, with Green pacing through it, characteristically moaning, panting, shrieking, and even stuttering.

Other brilliant conceptions are the unprecedented rendition of a gospel song in a completely secular context, Johnny Taylor’s — cum — Soul Stirrers, “God is Standing By,” done in Mitchell’s most favored, insistently syncopated groove. And there is, of course, Green’s Top 20 hit, “Tired of Being Alone.” The ultimate Hi song, it is a compelling pastiche of hooks and riffs that coalesce more firmly and commandingly into song with each listening.” – Rolling Stones

A TAV Essential Listening Album.

Albert Leornes "Al" Greene, often known as The Reverend Al Green, is an American soul singer, songwriter, and record producer. Most notably known for a string of hit singles in the early 1970s, such as "Take Me to the River", "Tired of Being Alone" and his breakthrough song "Let's Stay Together".

Often referred to as one of the last great Southern soul singers, Al Green’s blend of deep soul and smooth Philly soul is captured perfectly within Greatest Hits, and is often ranked as one of the best greatest hits album in history.

“Other soul singers may have had more raw power or a wider stylistic range (although not many of them), but nobody else had Green's virtuosity or interpretive gifts. He could articulate unbelievably delicate shades of feeling with his voice alone; he had an astonishing sense of timing, of pitch, of emphasis, of drama.” - Pitchfork

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