Rock /
Kesämaa
2003 release ** "Pekka Streng's music was fundamentally far from rock or pop; his intimate and reflective songs were more reminiscent of folk, vocals and often even children's music (Tove Jansson was one of Streng's great idols). Love Records' brilliant insight was to have Tasavallan Presidentti accompany his first album. This synthesis gave rise to music that, instead of acoustic folk, was influenced by prog, psychedelia and sometimes even jazz. However, the arrangements did not banish the deli…
Chaleur Humaine
2021 release ** "Uman’s Chaleur Humaine, the debut album from the French duo of musicians and siblings Danielle and Didier Jean, resurfaces for the first time since its original release in 1992. While history, both private and public, is scattered with creative relationships between siblings that simply “did not work,” UMAN’s story is uniquely different and defined by this bond, and a shared journey impressing footprints along an adventurous musical terrain. Prior to Chaleur Humaine, Danielle an…
Few Traces
2018 release ** "Few Traces surveys a near decade of Mark Renners scarcely released and unreleased material from 1982 to 1990, embracing and evoking the timelessness of his artistic statement: a wordless translation of the individuals musical experience, met with the poetic expression of being here. Mark Renner first encountered punk while a teenager in Upperco, a country town in rural Maryland. Growing up on his family farm, he became a young acolyte of the British exports hitting not-so-distan…
SuperFunk3.
2002 release ** Featuring: The Showmen Inc, Johnny King And Fatback Band, Renaldo Domino, Wally Cox And Nate Branch, Preston Love, Everyday People Unlimited, Camille Bob, Lil' Buck, Chet Ivey, Dave Hamilton, Count Yates And The Rhythm Crusaders, TKOS, Freddie Love, Houston Outlaws, Lowell Fulson, The Soul Blenders, Chico & Buddy, Preston Love, Maurice Simon And The Pie Men, Soul Senders. "Funk collecting has reached new heights in the last couple of years-.-prices for funk records, that a few ye…
Naked City
1990 release ** "Naked City was formed a year and a half ago to give Zorn a focused vehicle for his omnivorous compositions and rearrangements. Taking its name from the gritty pulp TV show ("There are eight million stories in the ..."), this collection of downtown all-stars – John Zorn, Bill Frisell on guitar, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, Fred Frith on bass, Joey Baron on percussion – did a four-night, eight-set stint at the Knitting Factory, in New York City, last summer, never repeating a tune.…
Sea Shanties
2010 release ** "With the Misunderstood, Tony Hill co-wrote epochal psych-rock anthems like "Children of the Sun"; however, while High Tide's sound has roots in the peace-and-love era, the band was also in tune with the post-psychedelic comedown at the decade's darker end. On Sea Shanties, there's nothing fey and flowery in Hill's bleak lyrics or his doomy Jim Morrison-like delivery, and psychedelia's melodic whimsy is supplanted by a physicality more in line with the visceral heft of metal prog…
My Story...
2007 release ** "Vinc Project is primarily the work of Vincent Zermatten (Vinc for short) of Switzerland. His regular job is guitarist in the band Ever Since, who apparently are one of the three million metal bands in Europe. But My Story has very little to do with metal. Vinc plays just about everything here: keys, acoustic & electric guitars, bass, drums and vocals, and is assisted by a violinist, a cellist, and two singers. The music is melancholy, full-sounding symphonic rock that sounds ver…
Silver Monk Time - A Tribute To The Monks
2006 release ** "Unlike many tribute projects that fall flat due to those involved being either overawed or ignorant of the original material, Silver Monk Time succeeds because the participants have taken the group´s primitive rock surge as a template to experiment with. As a result the sound of The Monks is treated to a 21st century workout with synthesizers and beat tracks threaded through the original quartet´s already way out psychotic minimalism". Featuring: fsk, the fall, faust, fehlfarben…
All That May Do My Rhyme
2017 release ** "His mind may be fried, but Roky's vocal talents are relatively intact on this mid-1990s effort, which turns out be one of his more subdued, folkier outings. (About half of the tracks, however, are actually remixes of sessions from the mid-'80s.) Roky's most excessive traits are mostly absent; he sounds sort of like an eccentric, updated Buddy Holly. It's the kind of roots rock that may well please the more open-minded fans of, for instance, John Fogerty or Van Morrison, although…
Covering For Solace
2009 release ** "Covering for Solace, a debut album of a Königsberg-based band Sunset Wings, is a widely opened window to the world of neo-folk music. Inspired by pearls of English romantic poetry together with traditional ballads of the British isles and the art of Pre-Raphaelites as well, this album takes you to a marvelous journey in the land of children dreams, sweet sorrow and melancholy. Silver strings of acoustic guitars and tender violin, deep cello sounds and warm flute, harmonica, bri…
Heimkunft
2010 release ** "Svalbard’s debut full-length album is titled Heimkunft, German for “homecoming.” Beginning with the three minute instrumental track “Zeitwende,” Svalbard offers us a glimpse of their earlier sounds. Initially reserved, the song soon snowballs into an intense and somewhat epic piece. Heimkunft then swiftly jumps into more mainstream territory with tracks such as “The Mist that Hides Your Trace” and “Endless Fall” as such tracks demonstrate a very willful pop sensibility, even if …
Action, please!
2008 release ** "If many indie bands, for at least a year now, look to the German area and the Eighties as their only point of inspiration, Kobenhavn Store pushes higher, going towards Scandinavia, towards the ice and the pure and rarefied atmospheres of Sigur Ros or Amiina, but with a strong electronic contribution and an excellent management of the arrangement. To this attention to sound are added the pleasant influences developed by multiple listenings: they are positive influences, made of …
Kalutaliksuak
2007 release ** "Kalutaliksuak was one of the first weird, ethno-psychedelic and proto-space rock bands in Russia. They took their name from the Ice goddess of the Eskimos and operated during the first half of the 90’s, but never released any official recordings..."
UNZ!
2005 release ** "Antisisters ( Pavel A. "Nowayout" Gromov (vocals), Sergey "Foxygene" Gromov (machines, live drums), Alexander "Sandwitch" Sosnovsky (guitar), Igor "HAnGo" Gomonov (machines, live keyboards) is one of the eldest darkwave bands from Moscow, Russia. In spite of the long biography Antisisters is still an underground band that is deliberately avoided by the musical press. The members hide their faces on band photos and you can see their real faces only on concerts that are very rare.…
Regal Daylight
2004 release ** "First edition of Nick Grey's debut album: an unexpected, elegant cross between avantrock and classical music, not far from the Tindersticks' poignant laments, David Bowie's "Outside" LP and Current 93's haunted ballads. "Regal Daylight", which features the participation of Nick's father, Romanian tenor Vasile Moldoveanu, is a hypnotic, lyrical and intimate experience."
Joys Of Summer
2007 release ** "Atonal ragadelic phreak-out noise jam with an extra helping of free-jazz style surf guitar on top."
Of Ruine Or Some Blazing Starre
Rare original edition on clear blue vinyl and gatefold sleeve on Durtro of C93's 1994 album featuring Tibet, Stapleton, Nature and Organisation's Michael Cashmore and Louis Wain!. With insert.