Folk /
The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
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…
Live in Tasmania
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…
Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes
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…
Days Have Gone By
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.
God Damn Religion
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…
While My Guitar Violently Bleeds
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…
Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind (1964-1967)
The accidental matriarch at the head of the recent folk revival, Vashti Bunyan had been championed by everyone from Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and Adem as one of folk music's great lost voices. After the reissue of her 1970 LP Just Another Diamond Day, Vashti was coaxed out of retirement to record the Max Richter-produced Lookaftering, an album which featured guest appearances from many of the nu-folk crowd's movers and shakers and formally reintroduced her to the contemporary music scene. …
Give Me Love: Songs of the Brokenhearted: Baghdad, 1925-1929
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…
Tan-Tan Therapy
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…
Frowny Frown
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…
A Taste of Ra II
 The mysterious pseudonym remains, in this, the second release in the Taste of Ra trilogy. The accompanying information describes the music as such: "When your ears are gates and they're wide open. Levels of sound will chase you down, collide, kiss and fight. In the yard that you now found; The past will meet the present, you're paying past with present. When you finally hear her voice that makes you leave your body behind and meet as gods...Sound will evolve and something that was once heard…
Snaketime Series
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…
Playing Moondog\'s Music
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…
The Viking Of Sixth Avenue
re-released on its original label, Honest Jon's, with new and improved gatefold card wallet sleeve packaging. Poet, composer, street musician and cosmologist Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin, 1916-1999) learned rhythm from American Indians and counterpoint from J.S. Bach. Many of his recordings feature instruments he built himself: trimba, yukh, tuji, oo. Sometimes you can hear in the background the streets of New York, where Moondog often slept. In addition, he was blind, due to an accident when he…
The Mill Pond EP & Collected Paintings
The Mill Pond was originally released in 1997 as a double 7' that went immediately out of print. For it's 10th aniversary we're issuing it on compact disc housed in a deluxe letterpressed jacket and including an extensive booklet collecting John Fahey's paintings for the very first time. Limited edition. The Mill Pond is all over the place stylistically, so it should confuse those who try to pigeonhole Fahey into any one category. The Mill Pond further proves that there is only one category into…
Tomorrow, Tomorrow
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…
La norma del cielo
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…
Bleecker & MacDougal
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). …
Space Chanteys
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, …
Leaves From Off the Tree
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…