Folk & Traditional / All styles

Originally released in 1968 For The Sake Of The Song is a re-issue of Townes' well known debut album. Produced by Jack Clement (Charley Pride, Chet Atkins, U2 etc.) and featuring original liner notes by Mickey Newbury, Townes Van Zandt went on to cement his status as a cult icon among gifted song writers.

One of four new CD reissues of the early albums of renowned songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Recorded between 1969 and 1978, these albums are the heart of any serious consideration of Van Zandt's brilliant career. Features some of the most iconic cover art in album history, each designed by Milton Glaser.

Be Here to Love Me is the official soundtrack from a documentary film by Margaret Brown about Townes Van Zandt. The music on these two discs is largely taken from Van Zandt's catalog on Tomato, but there are a couple of live cuts and alternate versions of previously released cuts contributed by his longtime manager Harold F. Eggers These include "Nothin'," "Black Crow Blues," and "To Live's to Fly." There are a few bits of movie audio offered by Brown. In sum, this is a two-disc compilation that…

Domestic version of Jack Rose's new full length, Dr. Ragtime And His Pals, coupled with a reissue of last year's self-titled CD/LP housed in a custom designed and fabricated off-set printed card cover with j-card style obi (there is also a jewel case version on the UK label Beautiful Happiness). Limited edition of 1000.

New Zealand based Stefan Neville is Pumice. My first contact with his music was 'Pumiceraft' (Last Visible Dog, 2004), one of the best record of the last 10 years if you ask me. This new single ep, offers 4 songs recorded in US in 2006, during his residence at AS 220, Providence, RI. And it's supposed to be the new Pumice classic! Tracks sound like a beautiful mix of psyche-pop songs and near-droning rock, all mixed in a lo-fi punk style! Have a listen to the most fragile approach to pop music e…

long deleted album by John Fahey, simply one of the most original & expressive guitarists ever, created the "American Primitive Guitar" genre w/his 1st Takoma Records release in 1959. This new comp concentrates on his best work from his later yrs at Takoma, much never available on CD. Also included are 3 tunes from his long-lost & unreleased album "Azalea City Memories," as well as a long work "They Fahey Sampler" rare & unheard for many yrs

Subtitled: A Collection of Demos and Outtakes, 1966-70. Described by Mojo magazine as 'Britain's pop Salinger,' the reclusive Bill Fay cut the classic 'Screams In The Ears'/'Some Good Advice' single in 1967 before making two dark singer-songwriter albums for Decca, at which point he opted for public silence. This CD features 25 stunning, previously-unreleased late '60s demos. Baroque '60s pop at its finest, this important release includes new quotes from Bill. 2004 release.

Another of Fahey’s most highly regarded records, ‘The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death’ was recorded in 1965 and shows Fahey on absolutely blistering form. The guitarist Leo Kottke has named this record as his favourite in Faheys 35 album back catalogue, so there must be something quite special about it right? Well there certainly is, this is his finest blues album, moulding the sound to his taste, fitting in ragtime and Indian classical music in there somewhere to come out with a breathtaking…

The only legally issued live recording by John Fahey came about through an unusual set of circumstances in 1980. Allegedly Fahey was touring Australia and decided on the spur of an inebriated moment that he wanted to play in Tasmania. A hall was booked at Hobart University, an audience rounded up, and the resulting show was recorded. There was no sound check and a large part of the concert was performed for the first time or improvised on the spot. It is quite possible that the audience had prob…

Opening with the incredible 'Sunflower River Blues' (covered recently by Jack Rose) this is easily one my favourite of Fahey's albums. It's by no means the best, or the most technically accomplished, but as an enjoyable piece of music from beginning to end, this just does it for me. This particular cd collects tracks from both the 1963 session and the 1967 session of the album, and it's interesting to hear the differences between the recordings. In four years Fahey's outlook changed a lot, so ra…

Every decade John Fahey's work creates a wave of followers all trying to fuse acoustic blues with the Indian and Western classical traditions. What most of them miss when studying their hero's albums is his knack for crafting wonderfully infectious tunes. Sure, Fahey is totally avant garde, as he descends into esoteric tunings and maze-like picking. But that never prevents an album like 1967's Days Have Gone By from making listeners hum, clap and whistle along. This is folk music, after all.

This film is a diabolical experiment in hypnotic mind control-a phantasmagoric presentation of demonic & divine imagery, meticulously assembled & designed to put the viewer into an altered state of darkened awareness. First edition comes w/ bonus audio CD of the quasi soundtrack Elektronika Demonika. Official dvd release of Richard Bishop's cracked movie God Damn Religion. First edition comes with a bonus audio cd of the quasi soundtrack Elektronika Demonika. For centuries, man has used organize…

Violently Bleeds" This is an essential document by one of America's most original & inventive unaccompanied guitarists working today. It's a splendid three piece gem in which the good Sir branches out & nods to points west, east & otherworldly. Classic spaghetti western tinged spidery fretwork, Fushitsusha style feedback drenched psych decay & a brilliant lengthy raga epic round out the proceedings by the SUN CITY GIRLS master musician“Bishop displays a virtuosity that borders on the flabbergast…

In the mid-1920s, The Gramophone Company sent representatives into Iraq to investigate the indigenous music found in its record stores and performance halls. Their research laid the foundation for sessions that produced almost 1,000 recordings. The selections on this disc, restored from their original 78s, present a compelling multicultural portrait of Iraq that is all but forgotten today.Rural Arab folk singers, Kurdish violinists, professional Jewish musicians, and prostitutes share equal bill…

This is the seventh release for Tenniscoats, the Tokyo area-based husband and wife team of Saya and Takashi Ueno, and their first for the Häpna label. They are also members of the Japanese music collective Maher Shalal Hash Baz. On Tan-Tan Therapy, they distill the experiences of the last two years, when Tenniscoats and Tape (Andreas and Johan Berthling, Tomas Hallonsten) have socialized, toured together and exchanged musical ideas. The album gives a slightly new picture of Tenniscoats. Found he…

EXCLUSIVE ADVANCE RELEASE! A could-have-been classic from John Terrill, cofounder of Bloomington's the Dancing Cigarettes. Unlike the wiry art-punk of his late-'70s band, "Frowny Frown" is a far more intimate set of homespun pop-psychedelia, recorded between 1989-99 and only hand-pressed for close friends. A halcyonic journey with rich layers of vocal harmonies (perhaps a sly nod to "Smiley Smile") that fans from Bobb Trimble to Galaxie 500 will find much to love. Includes a bonus track from '84…

This really is a treat, a re-issue of the incredibly rare debut LP from legendary blind outsider Moondog. Originally released back in 1956 on the musician's own Moondog Recordings imprint, this incredible album showcases the man at his way-out best, blending Eastern instruments and ethnic music with American exotica to come up with a sound which is impossible to categorise. A mostly self-taught musician, Moondog (real name Louis Thomas Hardin) performed in the streets of New York City for most o…

this rare 1955 set of recordings features the composer in collaboration with a brass section, although one of its defining aspects is the extensive influence of Native American musics on its rhythmic makeup. From the irrepressibly unconventional jibber-jabber of 'Rabbit Hop' to the tribal weirdness of 'Single Foot', this could only have come from the pen of Moondog. 'Dog Trot' is a more conventional swingtime piece, offering an oasis of accepted logic in an otherwise wildly outside-the-box set o…

With the renewed interest in Bill Fay's past work, the reissue of his first two albums, Bill Fay and Time Of The Last Persecution, and recently made-available pre-Decca demos (From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock), it's surprising to discover that twenty new songs have remained unreleased for over two decades. Fay has been portrayed as a mysterious figure who somehow created two brilliant albums and then vanished. But as Fay himself has said, "It wasn't me who left the music, it was the m…

Always influenced by eastern doctrines (he later became a Hare Krishna), Rocchi was also active in anti-war movements and always present at various italian pop festivals during the early 70's. His second album, released in 1971 and titled "Volo magico n.1", is usually considered as his best effort, in much the same style as Alan Sorrenti's "Aria" with a side-long title track and softer tracks on the other side. "Volo Magico n.1" features a 18 minute long title-track starting with a soft introduc…

Last copies, reduced price. Japanese pressing of his 1965 folk classic from the Elektra period, his second album for that label. Neil has been seriously ignored in the CD era and this is highly in demand. Originally from Florida, Neil was heavily factored in the early days of the East Village folkie boom (Bob Dylan played harmonica for him at Cafe Wha? in 1961). His recording career went from 1964 to about 1971, peaking with Everybody's Talking on Capital (featured in the film Midnight Cowboy). …

Matt Valentine creates, has created, and will continue to create from inside of a continuum that unspools from a source that is also so distant as to be invisible. Mysterious Translucence is not just the name of his shoe. Space Chanteys is really the first honest solo album that Matt Valentine has created. There have been others that are somewhat like it, or are related to it, in shape, or in style, but they are not it. This alone is it. It is Space Chanteys. Recorded live, back in October ’00, …

Bo' Weavil is so excited to be releasing Leaves From Off The Tree: a three-way project of Sharron Kraus, Meg Baird (Espers) & Helena Espvall (Espers). This is a beautiful recording of traditional folk material, with the most stunning singing and arrangements of some of England and Appalachia's finest songs. 'The songs on this record were recorded after many an evening swapping songs (and beers!) in Fishtown, Philadelphia, where Sharron had moved from her native England, and Meg and Helena were a…

Judee Sill's first album is now available in special miniature replica gatefold LP style packaging. This album heralded a major new talent in the airy, contemporary folk world of the early '70s. Featuring all original compositions, many of which relied on Sill's unique cosmological imagery to make their point, Judee Sill is a remarkable debut. There is a cohesive feel to the album; her lyrics are exceptionally poetic and her smooth voice gives every song a shimmery feel. The essence of the music…

Subtitled: Hi -- I Love You Right Heartily Here -- New Songs. Singer/songwriter Judee Sill died of a heroin overdose in 1979 before she completed her third album that was, like her first two, to be released on David Geffen's Asylum Records. The eight songs intended for that album are included here, freshly mixed by Jim O'Rourke (Wilco, Sonic Youth). This 2CD set also includes many Sill rarities from the '60s and '70s, including a 12-minute five song live video clip on enhanced CD. This replaces …

Recordings from 1969 of Tuvan folk music and throat-singing with liner notes by Dr. Pekka Gronow of the University of Helsinki. With the advent of the folk music revival in the 1960s, a new interest in Tuvan music swept through Asia and Eastern Europe. Capitalizing on this appeal, these 16 recordings were issued in 1969 in the Soviet Union. Dust-to-Digital is proud to reissue for the first time on compact disc these traditional performances including several khoomei songs plus one modern take on…

The third Jandek album from 1981, reissued for the first time ever. "Another installment in the digitization of the Jandek back catalog, and for those who have never heard his earliest records because of their scarcity, you can now own another piece of the Corwood catalog without having to fend off those cutthroat members of the Jandek 'community'. This record, like Jandek's first (Ready for the House), is comprised of not just basically one chord throughout, but as far as I can tell he barely e…

2005 remastered version. The 2nd Corwood album, reissued on CD. Originally issued in 1981, this was the first actual album to be entitled to an artist named Jandek (the first Corwood album, 0739, was credited to the Units -- although that practice has been abandoned in the CD domain, an epic travesty in the minds of a few hardliners). The cover features a crude black & white photobooth-style portrait of the man we've come to assume as the singer, depicted at his most youthful, ready to accompany…

There were plenty of significant events in 1978, ("You're The One That I Want" by John Travolta & Olivia Newton John was quite a popular track, for example), and one of the most low-key yet significant events was the debut LP release on the Corwood Industries label out of Houston, TX. Mysteriously enough it came out under the name "The Units", but it was obviously a singular vision and not a band. That individual would come to be more commonly known as Jandek, and a total of 40+ albums have been…

Rhythm is paramount to the Kabiyé of Northern Togo. This recording presents a selection of music played by the tribe's orchestras consisting of percussive instruments, flutes, whistles and trumpets. Also heard is the rare pichanchalassi lithophone ('the sound of the stones') -- an instrument played for entertainment and in initiation rites of young boys. These fascinating ethnic music recordings were made in Togo between 2001 and 2004 by Lorenzo Bianchi and Daniele Segre Amar.

The Lobi people of Southern Burkina Faso and Northern Ghana and Ivory Coast were fiercely resistant to colonization and remain a relatively close society today. This has aided the continuing existence of marvelous xylophone music to accompany funerals and initiation ceremonies. This album is of music played on buur xylophones, buur also being the name for the closing ceremony of the initiation of diviners. Recordings from 1998.

The Aka are one of the three groups of Pygmies found in Central Africa today. They are monogamous and settle in small family encampments that comprise parents, children, sons, and daughters-in-law and offspring, groups of thirty to forty persons organized in democratic communities. Pygmy music ,in the image of all their social activities, presents very similar characteristics, that is to say, relative autonomy of each participant within implied but strict structures. The recordings of this antho…

This is the same Clayton Noone who isn't (but will soon be) a legend; the same man behind the art-punk Futurians and junk-noise Armpit. Nevermind his super obscure CD-R- only collaborations with Last Visible Dog label-mate Antony Milton, going under the name 'Claypipe.' Ironclad however differs from so much of Noone's output in that it is both more personal and more accessible. While none of the trappings of the low-fi New Zealand noise aesthetic are gone, this is more gentle, more melodic; a fo…

Live at the Matrix, SF 1968/69. "One of acoustic music's true innovators and eccentrics drawing from blues, Native American music, Indian ragas, experimental dissonance, and pop, John Fahey was living in Berkeley, California in the late Sixties when this set at San Francisco's legendary Matrix club was recorded. Drawing the best material from his two sets at the club that night, The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick shows the influential fingerpicker at the height of his prodigious technique. Deluxe…

Nearly 40 years after her passing, Judee Sill remains one of the most important and singular talents of the Laurel Canyon scene. Her two releases for David Geffen's Asylum (1971's Judee Sill and 1973's Heart Food) are critically celebrated masterpieces of orchestral folk. Her songs have been covered by artists as diverse as The Turtles and Will Oldham, and her fans include Jim O'Rourke, Devendra Banhart, Graham Nash, Sleater Kinney and more. This amazing collection of previously unreleased live …

Ruthann recorded a single early '70s Reprise album of superb loner folk psych with fragile singing and delicate acoustic guitar playing...stark and deep meditations on lost love, topsy-turvy moons, ringing bells... First time on CD. Detailed liner notes, rare photos. And oh yeah, she was the writer of the Association's hit 'Windy.

Guitarist Peter Walker came up in the Cambridge, MA and Greenwich Village folk scenes of the '60s. He recorded two albums for the Vanguard label in the late '60s. Their style can best be described as American folk raga. He studied with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, and was Dr. Timothy Leary's musical director, organizing music for his 'Celebrations.' His debut album from 1967, Rainy Day Raga, features one of the first studio appearances by jazz flautist Jeremy Steig, as well as guitarist Bruc…

Released as a short-run private press LP in 1965, Fate Is Only Once has long been a coveted collectible among American Primitive guitar enthusiasts. The only other recorded work by Taussig surfaced on the out of-print Takoma LP Contemporary Guitar Spring '67alongside John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Max Ochs and Bukka White. 'Dorian Sonata' was recently featured on the acclaimed acoustic guitar compilation Imaginational Anthem Vol. 1, and now the album is here. remastered, with original liner notes and…

From the vibrant Southern quasi-capital of Durham emerge Megafaun, wearing earnestness across the chest and abstraction along the sleeves. They pour forth dulcet harmonies, as seeking vocals tug banjo lines up the Appalachian mountains; redemptive noise soaks everything, like thick air wafting from the Atlantic. Clawhammer banjo and strummed acoustics lock and roll with electric guitars and electronic textures. They realize that folk implies deep, personal, intense expression, whether the instru…

Dredd, aka Dan Ireton, has finally come out and ended a near decade of silence and Daze on the Mounts, a spiraling three-dimensional crest of the so-called avant-folk expression, is the celebratory homecoming. Originally a limited 2004 CDR, this reissue presents the colossal side for all. In collaboration with Matt Valentine & Erika Elder (MV&EE/Bummer Road and Tower Recordings), two of modern-time's purest interstellar travelers, Dredd Foole bounds between Tim Buckley-esque bellow and a hyper-e…