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Éthiopiques 22: More Vintage! 1972-1974
*2024 stock* Alèmayèhu Eshèté is no less than one of the great voices of the heyday of modern Ethiopian music -- the Swinging Sixties which, in Ethiopia, went on until the fall of the Emperor Haile Sellassie I in 1974. On a par with Tlahoun Gèssèssè, Bzunèsh Bèqèlè or Mahmoud Ahmed, Alèmayèhu is a star at the top of the constellation that once lit up the wild nights in the capital city Addis Ababa. The singer, as remarkable for his frenetic rock numbers as for his heart-rending ballads, has, by …
Éthiopiques 24: Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* As was the case with Ethiopiques 1 and 3, this 24th CD in the Ethiopiques collection presents a selection of powerful pieces from the historical Amha Records catalogue. We meet again with such artists as Ayaléw Mèsfin, Gétatchèw Kassa and Sèyfou Yohannes, and are introduced to other artists as yet unreleased or hardly known in the West, among them Menelik Wèsnatchèw, Seyoum Gèbrèyès, Tamrat Molla and Wubshèt Fisseha. Bonus tracks: Two pieces by the young Mulatu Astatqé, recorded in …
Éthiopiques 26: Mahmoud Ahmed & The Imperial Bodyguard Band (1972-74)
*2024 stock* “An authentic legend in Ethiopia, Mahmoud Ahmed has set the bases of a truly original musical style in that he synthesizes the most diverse influences into a language both typical and universal. With his haunting, husky and velvety voice that rises up in wild spirals, Mahmoud Ahmed has invented a world of uncertain borders, an unlikely mix of East-African rhythmic turns, mysterious melodies with refined ornamentation and surprising Indian inflections, all this streaked with electric…
Éthiopiques 28: Great Oromo Music
*2024 stock* For a long time downplayed and deprived of any recognition whatsoever, oromo music is one of the liveliest Ethiopian musical traditions. This 28th volume of Ethiopique pays tribute to Ali Birra, the man in whom Oromo music has irrepressibly affirmed itself since the 1960s. A very unusual groove, very different from gouragué, amhara and tigrignarhythms, a relentless quest for identity and, on top of that, a guitar style that would stand out anywhere. (Most of the pieces presented her…
Éthiopiques 29: Mastawesha
*2024 stock* Kassa (1927-1973) belongs to the long tradition of melancholy raconteurs with a decided gift of gab. The unique embrace of his deep voice heightens the emotion generated by the hum of his lyrics. For Ethiopians he is, along with such other great post-war voices as Assèfa Abatè, Fréw Haylou, Asnaqètch Wèrqu or Kètèma Mèkonnen, a perfect example of the culture of the word: poetry and freedom of expression, wit and impressive verve that hits the mark, quiet vehemence and merciless loqu…
Éthiopiques 30: “Mistakes On Purpose”
*2024 stock* Girma Bèyènè is a true legend of Ethiopian music. After an exile in the United States and a silence that lasted 25 years, he jubilantly accepted the invitation of the group Akalé Wubé to return to the front of the stage. The comeback was held last September at a memorable concert with Akalé Wubé in Paris. The adventure could not stop in such a good way ...Under the direction of Francis Falceto (director of the famous Ethiopiques series) Girma and Akalé Wubé recorded this album to im…
OWsT
** Collector's edition of 20 copies, each featuring bespoke talismans, painted by the artist in squid ink, to be worn as patches or kept safe somewhere to ward off misanthropists **
Xing presents the new LP OWsT by Elvin Brandhi, eighteenth release of XONG collection - artist records. The release is on white vinyl, in a limited and numbered edition of 150 copies, including a collector's edition of 20 copies, each featuring bespoke talismans, painted by the artist in squid ink, to be worn as patc…
Singe Tema
The return of the Zanzibara series: a Deep Taarab masterpiece from legendary singer Zuhura Swaleh, recorded in Nairobi in 1981.
Zuhura Swaleh & Party rose to fame on the Mombasa scene in the 1970s
with a new fast-paced taarab style based on local ngoma rhythms and its
melodies. The group sound was lead by an electrically amplified
tashkota (actually a Japanese instrument correctly spelled as
taishokoto), its shape best rendered as being a kind of “typewriter
banjo”—a trio of strings shorted…
Zanzibara
*2024 stock* Taarab is a genre of music popular in Tanzania and Kenya. It is influenced by the musical traditions of the African Great Lakes, North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. In the 1970s, a new taarab emerged in the coastal towns of Mombasa and Tanga: in Mombasa, Matano Juma's Morning Star replaced strings with distorted organ sounds, amplified violin or clarinet; and Zuhura Swaleh made the electrified tashkota the dominant instrument in his orchestra, while drawing in…
Soundscape 1: Surround
"If Surround can be listened to as music that’s as close to air itself, allowing us to enter each listener’s sound scenery, or as something that exists within a new perspective, expanding the middle ground between sound and music, and transforming it into a comfortable space, it would be much appreciated."- Hiroshi Yoshimura
Originally released as an album in January 1986, Surround was recorded by Yoshimura as a commission from home builder Misawa Homes, intended to function as an “amenity” desi…
Heisei No Oto - Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age 1989-1996
Music From Memory are excited to announce a special compilation that they’ve been working on for some time now; MFM053 – VA – Heisei No Oto – Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996). Compiled by long-time friends of the label, Eiji Taniguchi and Norio Sato, Heisei No Oto delves into a world of music released almost exclusively on CD and brings together a fascinating selection of discoveries from a little known and overlooked part of Japan’s musical history. The last ten or so years h…
Trout Mask Replica
2025 repress. Trout Mask Replica is a touchstone in the history of recorded music. The mix of dada absurdist blues and previously unexplored experimental avenues has long been praised as one of the greatest albums of all time. As it was so eloquently put by John Peel, "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work."
In …
Hill Country Piano
Dan Melchior has a wild history, brain and catalogue. Penultimate Press is honoured to add to it. The former and later that is. This is Melchior's first piano recording. “I used my girlfriend Jessica's piano and got a fairly cheap mic from the guitar centre that could just be plugged onto the end of a guitar cable.” The reverb is natural, as the piano sits in a large, mostly empty room. Hill Country Piano is the result of a human music box mind brimming with many a corner somehow aligning with c…
Freeze
2003 release ** "Michael Hartman and Junko Okada of the electronics group TV Pow has established his own Kuro Neko imprint, and based on the label's first two offerings, he's got his eye on a number of different scenes. Motor is a man from Moscow who, whether working in abstraction or (as is the case here) with pulse-based forms, prefers austerity and minimalism. Though rhythms clearly sit at the center of Freeze, they are subtle and don't detract from the melodic elementss, the subtle electroni…
The Flight of the real image
2006 release ** Packaged in an oversize gatefold cardboard sleeve with five postcard-sized prints. "Reissue of 'The Flight Of Real Image' MCD, released on Hic Sunt Leones (1993), with six bonus and exclusive tracks. The classical sound of Alio Die is harmoniously combined with his newer musical experiments with zither, salterio,flutes, bells and other instruments. All original material has been carefully re-mastered. Additionally this release comes with 5 art-cards showing installations by Itali…
A Pauper's Guide To John Cage
2011 release ** Packaged in oversize paper sleeve. "A Pauper's Guide to John Cage, on the budget Another Timbre Byways imprint, originally intended to feature lesser-known musicians. Across its 44 minutes, it features two compositions by Anett Németh played by the composer herself alone on a range of instruments and equipment. The album opens with the brilliantly-named title piece, which has an underlying drone/hum (maybe produced by "domestic electronics") over which Németh plays well-spaced pi…
Caja Antelice
2009 release ** Limited edition of 100 copies. Packaged in an oversize cardboard sleeve. "The music ranges from ambient and industrial, to free improvised sampling and more experimental sounds and even a bit of noise. Its however a bit unbalanced, still, and could certainly use a lot more editing and a somewhat more detailed production. But there are pieces (all untitled) around here that are certainly quite nice, or even could pass on as structured compositions, such as the longest drone piece,…
Motorcycle Fuck With The Ghost Rider
2007 release ** Packaged in a special oversize sleeve. Recorded live at Earthdom, Tokyo Japan March 3rd 2007.
Drum – Lasse MarhaugGuitar – John HegreDance – Reiko ASynthesizer (Ems Synthi), Electronics, Vocals – Masaya NakaharaSynthesizer (Ems Synthi), Vocals – Hiroshi Hasegawa
Muzika Elektronica
2006 release ** Packaged in an oversize paste-on cardboard sleeve with resistor attached. "Igor Krutogolov is an experimental multi-instrumentalist and composer from Tel Aviv, Israel. He founded the Klezmer trio Kruzenshtern & Parohod and Igor Krutogolov Karate Band (a mini big band plays grind-core, black metal, rock-n-roll and tango on toy instruments). He also frequently collaborated with Chaos As Shelter, Tidal and Agnivolok as well as various other projects in genres ranging from ambient to…