Folk /
Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guèbru
"At last! The second LP in our ongoing series of releases from Mariam Tsege Gebru! More 1960s recordings of her truly unique solo piano performances. Mariam Tsege Gebru is a true original - her playing is somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear! All original compositions available for the first time on vinyl beyond the original early 1960s editions, …
Burkina Faso: Volume 3
Sublime Frequencies presents the third volume in a three volume set of contemporary field recordings by Hisham Mayet recorded in Burkina Faso during three expeditions from 2013-2015. Volume 3 includes regional instruments such as the Donso ngoni (hunters harp). The Donso hunters are a mystical animist sect living in western Burkina, Faso whose music is a source of protection and strength for the hunt. The Dioula are represented by one of Bobo-Dioulasso's premiere ensembles, Fassobolomba, who fus…
Burkina Faso: Volume 2
Sublime Frequencies presents the second of three volumes of contemporary field recordings recorded by Hisham Mayet in Burkina Faso during three expeditions from 2013-2015. Volume 2 spotlights Mossi, Bissa, Bwaba, Fulani, and Samo music. One side one, riveting string instruments such as the Mossi and Bissa koundé accompany gnarled, primal vocal epics extolling the virtues of kings and the common man. On side two, the otherworldly sounds of the thianhou (reed zither) and the lolongo (bow-shaped mo…
Burkina Faso: Volume 1
Sublime Frequencies presents the third volume in a three volume set of contemporary field recordings by Hisham Mayet recorded in Burkina Faso during three expeditions from 2013-2015. Volume 3 includes regional instruments such as the Donso ngoni (hunters harp). The Donso hunters are a mystical animist sect living in western Burkina, Faso whose music is a source of protection and strength for the hunt. The Dioula are represented by one of Bobo-Dioulasso's premiere ensembles, Fassobolomba, who fus…
Root/Void
Matt Valentine and Erika Elder take their homespun hypnotics and cosmic country sounds to new levels on Root / Void. I love this album - it trips hard and hauntingly - a gift for languid golden afternoons or late night moonlight powwows. Anthem-worthy tape edits on some cuts crack open surreal and cinematic vistas. While joined by fellow travelers here and there, this album remains in essence a fecund duet from two entwined souls, updating and re-defining their unique pool of sound. Intrep…
John Renbourn
English guitarist and songwriter John Renbourn (8 August 1944 – 26 March 2015) was possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the Folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence (1967–1973). On his 1965 self-titled album you can detect some of the influence on traditional Blues like "John Henry" and "Candy Man".
Bert Jansch
Scottish singer-songwriter Bert Jansch recorded his first album in producer Bill Leader's London flat with a borrowed guitar, sitting on the edge of the bed and singing into a portable tape recorder. As author Richie Unterberger writes in the liner notes, "When Bert Jansch's self-titled debut LP was issued in April 1965, he was already a major figure on the British folk scene. His synthesis of traditional British folk with blues and a bit of jazz was at the vanguard of a new generation of UK fol…
I Do Play Rock And Roll
Jack Rose was a practitioner of his own unique brand of modern Appalachia, a master of the steel string, whether finger picking or playing with a slide, Rose can coax amazing sounds from a guitar, and all by his lonesome create lush steel string guitarscapes, that range from haunting and mysterious to folky and familiar.
This lp originally released in 2008 gathers up three long live tracks, all quite different. The first is a track from Kensington Blues, a big favorite around here, recorded…
Dr. Ragtime & His Pals
Back in the day, a new Jack Rose record was always cause for celebration around here. Along with James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Richard Bishop and a few others, Rose was one of the new modern masters of the steel string guitar, helping to reinvent and redefine neo-Appalachia or modern folk or whatever you want to call it.Dr. Ragtime from 2008, features more of Rose's gorgeous steel string beauty, gossamer sheets of buzzing shimmer, droning ragas, traditional bluegrass, slippery slide, melancholy …
Jack Rose
John Coltrane died at age 40, and in retrospect it seems as if the intensity of activity in his last years, the sheer torrent of notes, was an attempt at purging the music from his soul before it was too late. The guitarist Jack Rose died at 38, in 2009, and listening back to his catalog one has a similar notion. Like Coltrane, Jack Rose’s last years were marked by a shimmering intensity, an outpouring of his spirit, onto audiences and records. I believe Jack Rose felt the duty of preservation b…
Christopher Idylls
Finally available again the near-mythical 1968 Nicholson’s stunning lone album. Upon first glance, one could be forgiven for wondering which is the artist and which is the title of this album. Memphis’ Larry “Gimmer” Nicholson still remains a great unknown today, despite his having orbited the periphery of the city’s music scene since the early ‘60s, playing with artists ranging from Furry Lewis to William Eggleston and influencing a young Chris Bell (Big Star). Fusing classical and folk …
INUIT 55 Historical Recordings Traditional Music From Greenland
Double LP version. 55 Historical Recordings Of Traditional Music From Greenland 1905-1987 features historical recordings of traditional Greenlandic music recorded between 1905 (by the British ethnologist William Thalbitzer) to 1987 and collected by the Danish ethnomusicologist Michael Hauser. It was published in Greenland by Ulo. Sub Rosa took the decision to enlarge the distribution of this tribute to traditions and roots of the Inuit culture. This is more than an hour of ultra-rare documents, …
Another Perfect Day
Back in 1971, Luke Gibson entered at the studio to record, for the first time a solo album. He had played before on garage blues group Luke and the Apostles and psych pop Kensington Market. He focused on his own songs and recorded them as he felt. The result was Another Perfect Day, one of the best singer songwriter albums to came out from Canada in the 70's and one of the most underated too.
The sessions were produced by Gene Martynec (Kensington Market) and captured all the emotions of …
Raag Manifestos
Includes download code. "Part of a collaboration with Jack Rose's estate and Three Lobed Records to restore all of his LPs to print, VHF presents new vinyl editions of the celebrated guitarist's first three solo albums, newly cut by John Golden Mastering from the original source material. Originally issued on LP by Eclipse Records between 2002-04, these releases chart an eclectic, more experimental approach left behind as his technique and compositions became more refined and deliberate…
Red Horse, White Mule
Includes download code. "Part of a collaboration with Jack Rose's estate and Three Lobed Records to restore all of his LPs to print, VHF presents new vinyl editions of the celebrated guitarist's first three solo albums, newly cut by John Golden Mastering from the original source material. Originally issued on LP by Eclipse Records between 2002-04, these releases chart an eclectic, more experimental approach left behind as his technique and compositions became more refined and deliberate on…
Opium Music
Includes download code. "Part of a collaboration with Jack Rose's estate and Three Lobed Records to restore all of his LPs to print, VHF presents new vinyl editions of the celebrated guitarist's first three solo albums, newly cut by John Golden Mastering from the original source material. Originally issued on LP by Eclipse Records between 2002-04, these releases chart an eclectic, more experimental approach left behind as his technique and compositions became more refined and deliberate on…
Trout Steel
2015 Reissue. With the oddly evocative choice of his third solo album’s title, appropriated from Richard Brautigan’s 1967 surrealist-pastoral novel Trout Fishing in America, Mike Cooper might very well have been describing his own mercurial musical practice. “Trout Steel” suggests a reflective, highly mutable, quicksilver riverine element, an apt metaphor for the lap steel runs summoned from his trademark National resophonic guitars and his restless, constantly evolving development as a singer, …
Lost Shadows: In Defence of the Soul - Yanomami Shamanism, Songs
2016 repress. Recordings from 1978 by David Toop of Yanomami ritual songs, shamanistic ceremonies, and rainforest sounds. The voices of spirits and animal familiars, ventriloquial illusions of sound in dark spaces, secret spirit languages, the clap of thunder that links shamanic trance with the sleep language of Finnegans Wake... Out of these passages of the everyday, intensity flares like flames caught by a gust of wind. Skin burns or oozes blood, the wind blows up havoc as the spirits m…
I Feel Lonely In My Town
"We are proud to present the first ever vinyl reissues of Dutch singer-songwriter Fon Klement, starting with their two BASF albums from 1973 and 1974, which will undoubtedly be the discovery of the year for anyone into the likes of Nick Drake, Nick Garrie, Duncan Brown or even Sixto Rodriguez. Originally released in BASF in 1973, the Wah Wah reissue will come housed in a quality glossy laminated gatefold sleeve reproducing the original artwork, remastered sound, and featuring an insert with phot…
Fon Klement
"We are proud to present the first ever vinyl reissues of Dutch singer-songwriter Fon Klement, starting with their two BASF albums from 1973 and 1974, which will undoubtedly be the discovery of the year for anyone into the likes of Nick Drake, Nick Garrie, Duncan Brown or even Sixto Rodriguez. Originally released in BASF in 1974, the Wah Wah reissue will come housed in a quality glossy laminated gatefold sleeve reproducing the original artwork, remastered sound, and featuring an insert with phot…