Products

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.

Item Description:

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 Featuring interviews with more than one hundred musicians, producers, friends, and family members; unpublished interviews with Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison; and scores of never-before-seen photographs, A Love Supreme balances biography, cultural context, and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and commentary from Bono, Phil Lesh, Alice Coltrane (Coltrane's widow); black-and-white photographs; and previously unpublished interviews with Coltrane himself.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.

Beats, Rhymes and Life is the fourth album of the hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Released in 1996, it followed three years after the highly regarded and successful Midnight Marauders. This album is a departure from the joyful, positive vibe of the earlier albums and is regarded as the group's darkest album in content.

It reached number-one on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B Albums charts. – Wiki

“"Damn, we ain't prophets/And if you think so, you need to stop it." A Tribe Called Quest launch that fiery verbal projectile in "Get a Hold," a slamming, paradox-driven track from the group's near-flawless fourth album, Beats, Rhymes and Life. A denial that serves as confirmation, the couplet snaps and frames the essence of this collection: selfless social commentary sneaked in between immodest claims to greatness.” – Rolling Stone

Item description:

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

Item description:

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

Item description:

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

Item description:

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

Item description:

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

Item description:

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
 

Item description:

A TAV Curator's Pick.

Actress, real name Darren Jordan Cunningham, known to friends as DAZ, returns with a new album, now on Ninja Tune and a new music system called “AZD” (pronounced “Azid”), a chrome aspect journey into a parallel world. An artist who has always preferred to make music than to talk about it, in “AZD” he has achieved another remarkable landmark, one which is as resistant to interpretation as it is demanding of it. Following on from his previous albums, R.I.P, Splazsh and Hazyville, an epilogue poem attached to the press release for Ghettoville was construed by media, commentators and spectators that Cunningham had retired. This led him to conceptualise this mass of conclusion as the key to ‘Giving power back to identity.’

So a few pointers, or possible ways to think about “AZD”. The album is themed around chrome – both as a reflective surface to see the self in, and as something that carves luminous voids out of any colour and fine focuses white and black representing the perfect metaphor for the bleakness of life in the Metropolis as suggested by Anish Kapoors Cloud Gate.

Another way to approach would be through the art of James Hampton and Rammellzee (who inspired “CYN,” which Cunningham also sees as a vision of New York in reverse…) – both of whom, though of different generations of the African-American slave diaspora, created art through “Sourcing castaway materials from their environment and reinterprating them into absolute majesty given from the fourth dimension.” There is also the career-long influence of the Detroit techno pioneers, something which becomes clear on this album “there is a contrast in the type of glow or reflection”.

Alternatively, you could write your PhD thesis on Jung’s Shadow Theory and AZD: “Lots of ideas come from dreams, this isn’t new, but sometimes the conscious mind starts to meld into the universal consciousness through constellation tunnelling.” If that sounds too taxing then you could always fall back on Star Wars and, in particular, the Death Star: “It has a dark dystopian backdrop, with highly sophisticated technology, but it is fading into the ether, still holding on and emitting a powerful energy. The music remaking the embers, binding them together and pulling them apart again.”

Alternatively, just listen. That “glow” Cunningham talks about makes this in some ways more immediate than previous Actress releases. Take lead single, “X22RME” (pronounced “Extreme”) which elegantly plays between the lines of Oriental classic rave and Balinese warehouse Techno machined in a Rotherhithe lock up welding the grooves into a seamless cracked joint.

At the other end of the spectrum is “Faure in Chrome,” a byproduct or development from his collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra, in which he “repatterns” aspect of Faure’s Requiem into a piece which sounds like the very institution of classical music being encased in electronic ice and scanned through a high frequency bandwidth. In between are gems like “Runner,” a personal re-soundtracking of Blade Runner “its from the deleted Fade Runner scene where AZD in a Peckham Cafe realises his barber has over the years etched a faded scroll into his head using early 80s African synthpop as a vexing serum“, or “Falling Rizlas,” an alienated music-box ballad. It’s a remarkable piece of work, that harks back both to Actress’ previous productions and to earlier iterations of the (broadly conceived) “techno” project without being beholden to anything but Cunningham’s forward-facing, individual and disembodied vision. – Ninja Tune

The simplest you could say about “AZD” is that it’s art – the unique creation of a unique mind. There will be few more distinctive, brilliant or visionary suites of music released in 2017. Call him what you will, this is the year that Darren ‘Daz’ Cunningham - aka Actress, aka AZD – asserts more clearly than ever before his complete independence. “Actress has a talent for melodies that snag at you, as demonstrated on the music-box ambience of Falling Rizlas, or Blue Window, on which house music battles to be heard over the sound of tape hiss. He also has an ability to twist the sound of dance music until it sounds private and intimate. Even the album’s most upbeat moment, X22RME, has a strangely introverted atmosphere to it: when the beats drop out, it doesn’t feel like a euphoric breakdown, but rather as if someone’s mind has wandered in the middle of the dancefloor.” – The Guardian

“…for all its artfully-deployed discordance, *AZD *maintains a musicality that holds the listener close. Sometimes this comes through in more danceable techno moments, like the single “X22RME” or the 80s-leaning synth-driven track “RUNNER,”; elsewhere, it’s in the  emotive minimalist breaks of “FALLING RIZLAS” or “THERE'S AN ANGEL IN THE SHOWER.” Cunningham participates in a futurist tradition, following an arc set by artists and writers like Rammellzee and Eshun. But that futurism isn’t predictive, something yet to come; rather, his combination of science fictions, music histories, and socio-spatial realities feels deliriously adjacent to the world we’re listening to it in.” – Pitchfork

Item description:

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

Item description:

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

Item description:

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

Item description:        

“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

Item Description:

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

Item description:

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

 Item description:

A TAV Curator's Pick.

Twentyears is a compilation album by Air, consisting of French duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, released in 2016, twenty years after their international debut.

The anthology includes one LP of the duo's hits, plus another LP comprising 14 rare or unreleased cuts. Selections include classics like "Sexy Boy" and "Kelly Watch The Stars," as well as lesser-known collaborations with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jarvis Cocker and Françoise Hardy, plus recordings of radio performances on BBC and KCRW.

“Twentyears does exactly what a compilation needs to; it shows how Air are arguably one of the last great singles bands, but by delving beyond the hits we are presented with an abbreviated version of a back catalogue of panache and flair. Always engaging, always different, but always Air.” - The Line of Best Fit

“As laid-back as it is, a track like opener “La Femme D’Argent,” from Air’s 1998 debut full-length Moon Safari, shimmies quite a bit—but in a totally nonchalant, debonair manner. The cool-strutting bass line paves the path as jazzy, improv-sounding piano flutters around and alien-noise squiggles slice into the synth breeze.

Pop-electronica big hits like “Playground Love” and “Sexy Boy” anchor the compilation, but the secondary and tertiary singles make the album move. An instrumental like “Alpha Beta Gaga,” from 2004’s Talkie Walkie, ratchets intensity in a way that’s both uplifting and cathartic.” - AV Club

Item description:

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

Item description:

A TAV Essential Listening Album.

Sound & Color is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the Shakes’ 2012 debut Boys & Girls, which earned the group three Grammy nominations, including a nod for Best New Artist. The gold-certified album’s breakthrough paved the way for the Shakes—Howard, guitarist Heath Fogg, bassist Zac Cockrell, drummer Steve Johnson, and touring keyboard players Ben Tanner and Paul Horton—to become one of the most celebrated live acts in the world, as they delivered unforgettable performances everywhere from Saturday Night Live to the main stages of such festivals as Bonnaroo and Glastonbury.

“We took our time to write this record, and I’m really glad we did,” says Brittany Howard, lead singer and guitarist of Alabama Shakes, about the band’s new album Sound & Color. “We were able to sit down and think about what’s exciting to us, explore all the things we wanted to on our first album. This record is full of genre-bending songs—it’s even harder now when people ask, ‘What kind of band are you?’ I have no clue.”

The album’s twelve songs reveal a band honed by years on the road, and drawing from a wide range of influences. The bluesy groove of “Shoegaze” or the garage-rock freak-out on “The Greatest” give way to the psychedelic space jam “Gemini.” The gently swaying, chiming title song opens the album with what Howard calls “more of a visual thing, I think of this whole scene going on,” then explodes into the urgent, tightly-coiled funk of “Don’t Wanna Fight.” Long instrumental intros and passages create hazy atmosphere, and then the intensity of Howard’s vocals snaps everything back into riveting focus.

With Sound & Color, Alabama Shakes prove that the response to Boys & Girls was no fluke. Expanding on the soulful blues-rock base that made their name, they defy predictable expectations and map an exciting, surprising, and innovative new direction. As they prepare to return to the road, what shines through is a sense of pride and self-assuredness—feelings not often associated with the always-tricky sophomore album. - www.alabamashakes.com 

“Alabama Shakes escape their "retro-soul" box for good on Sound & Color, a strange, mystical and unexpected record with traces of Curtis Mayfield, Erykah Badu, MC5, and the Strokes. This is stadium soul with one eye peeking toward another galaxy while hands and feet and throats desperately try to suss out life here on Earth.” – Pitchfork

Listed as one of Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2015.

 2016 Grammy Award Winner

• Best Rock Performance: Don't Wanna Fight
• Best Rock Song: Don't Wanna Fight

Item Description:

“My Name Is Albert Ayler is the debut album by American free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler recorded in Copenhagen in 1963 and first released on the Dutch Debut label.” – Wiki

“Hearing the soft-spoken voice of Albert Ayler at the beginning of this 1963 recording is spooky. Not because he's gone, but because he's so calm, so young, and so hesitantly articulate: Nothing like the voice of his saxophone playing at all. This session is a reissue of a Fantasy recording, and one which pairs Ayler up with a Scandinavian rhythm section that includes the 16-year-old Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass.” – All Music

Item description:        

1972 release by the legendary blues guitarist Albert King featuring various musicians backing him including some of the Bar-Kays, the Isaac Hayes Movement, and the Memphis Horns.

“Start to finish, King’s finest album on Stax (and arguably finest, period) is 1972’s I’ll Play the Blues for You. It was released as King was still basking in the success he’d built from Born Under a Bad Sign, and it solidified his standing as one of the most unique of blues talents — one of the three “Kings of the blues”, along with B.B and Freddie.” - PopMatters

“The combination of King, members of the legendary Bar-Kays, the Isaac Hayes Movement, and the sparkling Memphis Horns was hardly a risky endeavor. The result was a trim, funk-infused blues sound that provided ample space for King's oft-imitated guitar playing. King has always been more impressive as a soloist than a singer, and some of his vocal performances on I'll Play the Blues for You lack the intensity one might hope for. As usual, he more than compensates with a series of exquisite six-string workouts.” - AlMusic

Item description:

“Alfa Mist is laying himself bare on Antiphon. Based on an insightful conversation he and his brothers had about mental health and relationships, it feels like a record of firsts for this young British musician, once and for all freeing himself creatively to explore his jazz affinities. The first track "Keep On" clocks in at almost 11 minutes and truly feels like a defining piece, nearly anticipating this album's main sound and theme, and capturing a fitting snapshot of its essence. The mellow organ textures, enticing percussion work and melancholic saxophone leads are able to mesh perfectly, extracting natural beauty out of turbulent feelings of loneliness and depression. The song allows for plenty of improvisation but successfully avoids becoming meandering: instead, it feels as if every single note is absolutely essential to its complexion. It is a definite standout on a project of many highs, and, like its opener, so appears a vast majority of Antiphon: loose but focused, and an exercise of almost subtle yet intense catharsis…

… The record is assuredly abundant in highlights but does its trick even better when heard in its entirety. Antiphon captures a defining time for Alfa Mist both musically and personally, and represents a tremendous leap for this young promising artist. One can only hope it's only a sign of even better things to come. Perfect for a late listen, it sees him refine his craft while opening up artistic roads for him to hopefully explore even deeper.” – Sputnik Music

Item description:        

“In the Heart of the Moon is a 2005 record by Malian musicians Ali Farka Touré on the guitar and providing vocals and Toumani Diabaté on the kora. The album was recorded in the "Toit de Bamako" conference room on the top floor of the Hotel Mandé overlooking the Niger River in Bamako, Mali. It is the first in a three-part series released on World Circuit Records entitled "The Hotel Mandé Sessions" followed by Savane and Boulevard de l'Independence. The album's title is derived from Touré's own more lengthy descriptive title for the recording session; "A very important meeting in the realm at the heart of the moon."

The album includes twelve tracks, based mostly on Songhai traditions of the north of Mali and the Bambara traditions of southern Mali and neighboring Guinea, harking back to the period immediately before independence. The album was recorded without rehearsals; both musicians claimed that the music flowed naturally and effortlessly, Touré being long acquainted with Diabaté's family and musical traditions.” – Wiki

“One of the distinctions of this album is that it is a hybrid of two Malian traditions that rarely meet. Though Diabaté and Touré have known and admired each other for many years, they have hardly ever played together. This gives their collaboration a special quality: it is simple yet richly detailed, spontaneous yet courteous…

…The essence of the entire album - 12 tracks - was recorded in three short afternoon sessions on the top floor of the Hotel Mandé overlooking the River Niger at the beginning of the rainy season. The engineer is innovative World Circuit regular Jerry Boys and the album is produced by Nick Gold, the label's owner, with minimal intervention. The effect is of an easygoing jam session album.” – The Guardian

Item description:        

“Talking Timbuktu is the 1994 collaboration between Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré and American guitarist/producer Ry Cooder. The guitar riff from the song "Diaraby" was selected for the Geo-quiz segment of The World PRI-BBC radio program and was retained by popular demand when put to a vote by the listeners. In 2009, It was awarded a gold certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 100,000 copies throughout Europe. This album features in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.” – Wiki

“Guitarist Ali Farka Touré has repeatedly bridged the gap between traditional African and contemporary American vernacular music, and this release continues that tradition. Talking Timbuktu features him singing in 11 languages and playing acoustic and electric guitar, six-string banjo, njarka, and percussion, while teaming smartly with an all-star cast that includes superstar fusion bassist John Patitucci, session drummer Jim Keltner, longtime roots music great Ry Cooder (who doubled as producer), venerable guitarist Gatemouth Brown, and such African percussionists and musicians as Hamma Sankare on calabash and Oumar Touré on congas.” – All Music

Item description:        

“Ali Ibrahim "Ali Farka" Touré (31 October 1939 – 6 March 2006) was a Malian singer and multi-instrumentalist, and one of the African continent's most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues. The belief that the latter is historically derived from the former is reflected in Martin Scorsese's often quoted characterization of Touré's tradition as constituting "the DNA of the blues".Touré was ranked number 76 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 37 on Spin magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time …

… As the first African bluesman to achieve widespread popularity on his home continent, Touré was often known as "the African John Lee Hooker". Musically, the many superpositions of guitars and rhythms in his music were similar to John Lee Hooker's hypnotic blues style. He usually sang in one of several African languages, mostly Songhay, Fulfulde, Tamasheq or Bambara as on his breakthrough album, Ali Farka Touré, which established his reputation in the world music community." – Wiki

Item description:        

“Ali Ibrahim "Ali Farka" Touré (31 October 1939 – 6 March 2006) was a Malian singer and multi-instrumentalist, and one of the African continent's most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues. The belief that the latter is historically derived from the former is reflected in Martin Scorsese's often quoted characterization of Touré's tradition as constituting "the DNA of the blues".Touré was ranked number 76 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 37 on Spin magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time …

… As the first African bluesman to achieve widespread popularity on his home continent, Touré was often known as "the African John Lee Hooker". Musically, the many superpositions of guitars and rhythms in his music were similar to John Lee Hooker's hypnotic blues style. He usually sang in one of several African languages, mostly Songhay, Fulfulde, Tamasheq or Bambara as on his breakthrough album, Ali Farka Touré, which established his reputation in the world music community." – Wiki

Item description:        

“Ali Ibrahim "Ali Farka" Touré (31 October 1939 – 6 March 2006) was a Malian singer and multi-instrumentalist, and one of the African continent's most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues. The belief that the latter is historically derived from the former is reflected in Martin Scorsese's often quoted characterization of Touré's tradition as constituting "the DNA of the blues".Touré was ranked number 76 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 37 on Spin magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time…

… As the first African bluesman to achieve widespread popularity on his home continent, Touré was often known as "the African John Lee Hooker". Musically, the many superpositions of guitars and rhythms in his music were similar to John Lee Hooker's hypnotic blues style. He usually sang in one of several African languages, mostly Songhay, Fulfulde, Tamasheq or Bambara as on his breakthrough album, Ali Farka Touré, which established his reputation in the world music community." – Wiki

Item description: