★Survival Research

A chilling artifact from one of history's most infamous figures emerges from the shadows: Charles Manson – Live At San Quentin, a raw, lo-fi collection of improvised folk songs recorded in 1983 inside the legendary prison. Captured with just an acoustic guitar amid the echoes of flushing toilets and jailhouse chatter, this album delivers Manson's most accessible – and surprisingly poppy – performances ever taped. Following his 1971 conviction for the brutal murders of seven people, including act…

Recorded at the infamous Spahn Ranch in 1970, while their leader Charles Manson was facing trial for the murder of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, The Manson Family Sings is a highly disconcerting listen. Beneath the harmonic brilliance and folksy innocence of these campfire-styled recordings are the hallmarks of Manson’s twisted worldview, rendering a dystopian edge to what is otherwise compelling singalongs. Squeaky Frome, Brenda Gold, Gypsy Share and Sandra Blue all feature, with Clem Grogan fron…

Super Mazembe's "Greatest Hits," serves as a definitive collection celebrating the band's remarkable contributions to East African music. Released in 1986, this compilation features a carefully curated selection of the band's most iconic tracks, encapsulating their vibrant sound and the infectious energy that made them a household name. Highlights include fan favorites like "Shauri Yako"  and "Kasongo" each track showcasing the band's skillful musicianship and unique ability to blend traditional…

Released in 1960, this album stands as one of the most powerful stories in Brazilian music. Born into deep poverty in a Rio favela, Elza Soares faced a life marked by unimaginable hardship, forced into marriage at 13, surviving abuse, and enduring the heartbreak of losing three children. Yet she refused to be defined by tragedy. Through sheer strength and talent, she rose to the top of Brazil’s music scene, her voice becoming a symbol of resilience and fire. A Bossa Negra is often hailed as her …

On Ali Toure "Farka", the legendary Malian guitarist and singer presents a nuanced journey through desert blues, crafting hypnotic grooves and lyrical vignettes that connect tradition with a restless creative spirit. Touré's mastery lies in the interplay of voice and guitar, exploring personal and cultural landscapes across languages and styles.

On May 13th, 1987, at Tokyo's Rokumeikan, Les Rallizes Dénudés delivered what may stand as their definitive performance—a concert that captured the band's unique ability to transform noise into transcendence. Critical Trip: Live At Rokumeikan, Tokyo documents this extraordinary evening, preserving the raw, immersive power that made Mizutani Takashi's ensemble one of Japan's most enigmatic and influential musical forces. By 1987, Les Rallizes Dénudés had spent nearly two decades perfecting their …

Survival Research is thrilled to announce the reissue of Erkin Koray, the legendary debut album by Turkish rock icon Erkin Koray. Originally released in 1973, this seminal record is a cornerstone of Anatolian rock, blending psychedelic, acid, and hard rock with traditional Turkish folk influences to create a sound that is as innovative today as it was over fifty years ago. Erkin Koray compiles Koray’s groundbreaking singles from 1967 to 1973, capturing the evolution of a visionary artist at the …

Survival Research is thrilled to announce the reissue of a true underground gem: Something To Take Up Time by Doctor Feelgood. Not to be confused with the British pub rockers, this Doctor Feelgood is an American band whose only album, originally released in 1971, has become a cult classic among collectors and aficionados of experimental rock Something To Take Up Time is a wild, genre-blending journey through progressive rock, free jazz, blues, and psychedelia. The album is packed with adventurou…

Survival Research is proud to announce the reissue of the cult classic album Haystacks Balboa by the legendary New York hard rock band Haystacks Balboa. Originally released in 1970, this self-titled debut is a hidden gem of the early American heavy rock scene, now available once again for a new generation of listeners and collectors. Haystacks Balboa captures the raw energy and innovative spirit of the late 1960s and early 1970s New York rock underground. The band, formed by Lloyd Landesman (Ham…

Survival Research is proud to announce the reissue of Looking For The Answer, the cult classic album by The Elders. Originally recorded in 1971, this vibrant record is a hidden gem of soul-infused rock and funk, now available once again for a new generation of listeners. Looking For The Answer is a playful and energetic blend of influences, drawing inspiration from the likes of Rare Earth, Iron Butterfly, Rhinoceros, and especially Sly & the Family Stone. The album is seasoned with touches of Bo…

Another side of Serge Gainsbourg permeates this 1963 film soundtrack about ‘a stripper lost in the nocturnal world’ of Paris, according to director Jacques Poitrenaud, who cast Nico in the lead role (after her appearance in La Dolce Vita and just prior to the single she cut with Jimmy Page for Andrew Loog Oldham). Created by Gainsbourg with arranger and longstanding collaborator Alain Gourager, the music is fittingly the cool jazz of dingy nightclubs and seedy bordellos, with Gainsbourg on piano…

Norwegian rock trio Crossbreeze’s self-titled LP is one of the rarest of all beasts to emerge from the Scandinavian rock scene of the 1970s. Pressed in minute quantities on Experience, the label and studio founded by engineer/guitarist Nils Johan Øybakken in the small northern town of Mosjøen, Crossbreeze moves between acid rock and prog-y folk-influenced rock, Terje Nilsen’s fuzz guitar and Walter Albriktsen’s Moog bleeps adding shades of psychedelic space-rock. Crossbreeze disbanded after this…

During the mid-1970s, Jorge Ben could do no wrong. Known as the father of samba rock, Ben gained an international audience with an infectious singing style marked by bright optimism and funny satire; A Tábua de Esmeralda deviated from the script by delving into the alchemy of the Middle Ages, as well as the second coming of Jesus, but the production is so nuanced and his voice so agreeable that the album was a surefire hit, and Ben manages to squeeze in some groovy numbers saluting womanhood, an…

Laxmichand ‘Babla’ Shah began his career and a drummer and percussionist on Bollywood soundtracks composed by his older brothers Kalyanji V. Shah and Anandji V. Shah, and then made history through Babla’s Disco Sensation, the adventurous disco and synth-pop recasting of popular film hits released by Polydor in the late 1970s. This rare beast kicked off the ‘Disco Dandia’ craze and is a total killer from start to finish, the sitar funk grooves and eastern melodies clashing with all kinds of Moog …

This compilation simply needs to be heard to be believed. Who knew that a psychedelic beat garage scene thrived in the pre-revolution Iran of the 1960s? As revealed herein, artists such as Googoosh and Kourosh and groups such as the Littles, the Flowers, and the Golden Ring did their best to muster echoes of the Shadows, the Ventures, the Beatles, and the Stones, delivering their lyrics in poetic Persian and keeping plenty of reverb on those rocking lead guitar riffs. With tons to discover on th…

*In process of stocking* Avant-garde pioneer Eric Dolphy achieved incredible things with the bass clarinet, establishing it as a vehicle for solo improvisation, and was equally adept on alto and flute, gaining kudos from peers such as John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. Outward Bound holds a special place in jazz as Dolphy’s first LP fronting his dynamite quintet, leaving conventions behind from the get-go. With the entire group on tremendous form throughout and Dolphy reaching the heights of his …

Industrial music pioneers and chaotic art terrorists Throbbing Gristle came together in 1975 in Kington Upon Hull, a formerly industrial city then in the midst of a long spiral of decline. Very Friendly, aka The First Annual Report is the legendary ‘lost’ album the quartet recorded in 1975 as the group morphed out of its COUM Transmission beginnings, the shocking title track an epic confrontational dirge recounting the brutal Moors murders of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley; elsewhere there are minim…

Recorded in Stockholm on October 25th, 1962, this session marks one of Ayler's earliest recordings, featuring a European backing group he assembled during his brief stay there, before returning to the States in 1963 and beginning his legendary run with ESP-Disk and Impulse! Though his genius was not yet fully formed, one can easily hear he's headed that direction, and this rare and long out of print recording is an essential piece of the history of one America's most uniquely lyrical voices on t…

Following the breakup of Cream, lyricist/vocalist Pete Brown formed his Battered Ornaments with guitarist Chris Spedding, drummer Rob Tait, bassist Butch Potter, percussionist Pete Bailey and saxophonist Nisar Ahmed Khan, but during the recording of sophomore album Mantle Piece, Brown fell out with Spedding, resulting in his departure. The resultant spacey venture has jazz and blues shades, riding the sonic waves under Spedding’s direction, with Khan’s sax and Potter’s bass fitting foils to Sped…

*In process of stocking* The final installment of the electronic fusion projects that Walter Bachauer concocted for Klaus Schulze’s Innovative Communication label, Visions of Audio delves further into minimalist musique concrete, extending themes developed on Memorymetropolis in drawing on non-European vocal chants, here applied in dissociative layers. The diverse, complex arrangements include the symphonic synths of ‘Promised Land’ and the war-mode Sensurround of ‘1922 In Baku,’ as well as the …

Another side of Serge Gainsbourg permeates this 1963 film soundtrack about 'a stripper lost in the nocturnal world' of Paris, according to director Jacques Poitrenaud, who cast Nico in the lead role (after her appearance in La Dolce Vita and just prior to the single she cut with Jimmy Page for Andrew Loog Oldham). Created by Gainsbourg with arranger and longstanding collaborator Alain Gourager, the music is fittingly the cool jazz of dingy nightclubs and seedy bordellos, with Gainsbourg on piano…

*In process of stocking* An icon of Brazilian popular music, Tim Maia was a musical polymath and prolific recording artist best known for introducing American soul to the Brazilian music scene, pioneering the sambalanço style by blending elements of soul, funk, rock, and samba. Maia recorded four self-titled albums for Polydor Brazil, this fourth release from 1973 arguably the best, with its outstanding hits ‘Réu Confesso’ and ‘Gostava Tanto de Você’; ‘Do Your Thing, Behave Yourself’ shows how t…

Before joining vibraphonist Terry Gibbs’ quartet in 1962, Detroit-born pianist Alice McLeod played intermissions at the Paris Blue Note and appeared on French TV with saxophonist Lucky Thompson, reaching Gibbs’ attention in a duo with vibraphonist Terry Pollard; in the quartet, she became the perfect foil for Gibbs, her understated piano making room for his intense improvisation, stepping up with her own expression when needed. El Nutto, their third LP, captures Alice at her best in this setting…

** 2021 Survival Research Reissue ** In the early 1970s, the journalist and composer Walter Bachauer played with experimental fusion group Between, and after founding the Meta Music Festival, began working for RIAS Berlin. 1981’s Luna Africana was the first electronic album he issued as Clara Mondshine; produced by early Tangerine Dreamer, Klaus Schulze, it’s delightfully lo-fi analogue with a very Berlin feel, the ‘motorik’ style most evident on tracks like ‘Landung Bei Vollmond (Landing On The…

Arguably the most important figure in Turkish rock and psychedelia, Erkin Koray’s 4th album Tutkusu was originally released in 1977 on the Kervan Plakçılık record label and has become one of the most sought after pieces of Turkish progressive psych-rock. Fetching big sums online the LP has been out of print for years. Released right after Erkin’s etnic experiment ‘Erkin Koray 2’, ‘Tutkusu’ marked his comeback to pure psychedelic rock. This long-awaited reissue comes with full reproduction of the…

New York-based Arlene Farber, who later had a bit part in The French Connection, was renamed Arlene Tiger by future husband, Jerry Gross, for the lurid Female Animal, one of the exploitation films he directed and distributed in the late 60s and early 70s (here under the alias Juan Carlo Grinella). With a debauched plot about the raunchy misfortunes that befell an attractive peasant girl (with Gross appearing as a pimp), the film benefitted from a lush soundtrack by the Clay Pitts Orchestra, writ…

Before there was War there was Señor Soul, which saxophonist/flutist Charles Miller formed in Long Beach, California; he played on Brenton Wood sessions for Double Shot, who released their loose interpretation of Miriam Makeba’s ‘Pata Pata,’ the hit that led to this blinding debut LP. Blending funk, Latin jazz and psychedelic soul, the group makes a range of material their own, led by Miller and vibraphonist Edwin Stevenson; everything from Heard It Through The Grapevine to Psychotic Reaction ge…

Distinguished Los Angeles-based jazz pianist Horace Tapscott is probably best-known as the founder of the Pan-Afrikan People’s Orchestra of PAPA, also known as The Ark, though he began his career as a trombonist, working with Lionel Hampton and others during the late 1950s. The 1978 solo album, Songs Of The Unsung, released in small number on pianist Toshiya Taenaka’s Interplay label, features Tapscott alone on piano, delivering a superb set of freely interpreted jazz tunes, including an unfette…

**500 copies** Chilean prog band Embrujo began as El Embrujo Ques Besa or Kissing Spell, formed by the guitarist, singer and drummer Carlos Fernandez with chief songwriter Juan Carlos “Tato” Gomez on bass and vocals and Ernesto “Kiko” Murillo on lead guitar, with organist/flautist Ernesto Aracena and pianist/flautist Guillermo Olivares joining later. Signing to Camilo Fernandez’s Arena Producciones in 1970, debut LP 'Los Pajaros' was issued under the Kissing Spell moniker, but Chile’s unstable p…

This work was originally released in 1971 by Okko Bekker, a Dutch sitar player, keyboardist, and producer who has worked with the likes of Brian Eno, Conny Plank, Asmus Tietchens, and Moebius. As the title suggests, this is a sitar and synthesizer dominated trip through six groovy and jazzy originals and two covers. Featuring help from jazz legend Herb Geller on flute, 'Sitar & Electronics' is a funky and rare piece of European exotica that finally returns to vinyl again.

** 2021 Stock ** Pioneer Erkin Koray may have been the first Turkish rock artist, he and his band reputedly playing Fats Domino and Elvis covers in 1957; by combining rock ‘n’ roll and Turkish traditional music, he spearheaded Anatolian rock and became the leading Turkish psychedelic practitioner. East-west hybrid Elektronik Turkuler was an innovative concept album marrying rock with Turkish trad; in contrast, the 1976 release 2 is thoroughly grounded in Turkish traditional music, the understate…

Roman pianist and film composer Armando Trovajoli scored over 300 feature films during his remarkable career. Starting out in the 1930s as a player in Orchestra Rocco Grasso and Sesto Carlini’s beloved jazz orchestra, in 1949 he represented Italy at the Festival du Jazz de Paris and he began composing films three years later. Jazz Piano, released by RCA in 1959, saw Trovajoli fronting a quartet with three of his regular orchestra members, namely drummer Sergio Conti, bassist/arranger Berto Pisan…

A reissue of Jorge Ben's Solta o Pavão, originally released in 1975. Jorge Ben is one of Brazilian music's iconic and best-loved figures. Born Jorge Duilio Lima Menezes in Rio in 1942, he took the stage name, Jorge Ben, in deference to his mother's Ethiopian roots, and later used Jorge Ben Jorge for further distinction.Playing tambourine and singing in a church choir from an early age, Ben began playing in Carnival blocos and was performing in nightclubs as a teen. Signed to Philips in 1963, his…

Delaware-based power trio Mouzakis conjured an intriguing sound somewhere between traditional rhythm and blues and garage rock, with psychedelic and hard rock leanings. The band occupied something of a unique space during their short reign during the early 1970s, and it was partly their non-standard outlook that kept the group a trio, since other potential musical recruits simply could not find a way through their multidirectional sound. Drummer / lead singer Eddie Stevenson and bassist / keyboa…

The story of Japanese psychedelic band Apryl Fool and their eponymous debut album is simply extraordinary. It was the vehicle by which bassist Haroumi Hosono first came to prominence, years before he became known as the “Godfather of Japanese electronica” as the founding member and leader of Yellow Magic Orchestra, though this musical titan had work released prior to the group’s 1968 founding, such as the song The Sea of Summer Day, recorded with Yuko Okuyama and released by King Records the yea…

**500 copies with insert** Futuristic synthesizer specialist and sound designer Matsuo Ohno was responsible for the sound design of a broad range of film, television and radio soundtracks, most famously the animation series Astro Boy, which he began working on in 1963, together with his assistant, Takehisa Kosugi. Ohno was born in the heavily-populated Kanda district of central Tokyo in 1930 and was heavily affected by the repeated bombing raids on the city enacted in World War II, which took pl…

Cult, obscure 1976 proto-electronics masterpiece 'Viaje' is a purely brain frying avant garde flipout from the electroacoustic musicians Eduardo Polonio and Horacio Vaggione (probably most known for his album on Cramps 'Nova Musicha' series). Together, they deploy synths, electric guitars, organs and bass and squash them all up together in sundry sense befouling ways. On the A side, they're tangled into an overpowering threshing machine of spitting electronic mayhem, while the B side moves the p…

Most fans of garage know Count Five as the group behind the classic single Psychotic Reaction – a three minute and eight second distillation of everything that’s great about the genre, from its immediately recognizable opening fuzz riff to its last wigged-out break. Eminent garageologists all agree on the track’s importance in the canon, and its inclusion on the original Nuggets LP cemented its hall-of-fame status long ago. But make no mistake, the sum of Count Five is much more than that one si…

Industrial music pioneers and chaotic art terrorists Throbbing Gristle in a mythical live concert. Quoting the original announcmnet " In Berlin, by the wall, Throbbing Gristle will play their first ever gig abroad. 100 feet from the terrors of the Eastern bloc, the electronic wunderkinder will introduce their new compact selves; the four members appear on stage with nothing but a mysterious black suitcase each. This new streamlined handluggage style will enable TG to conquer Italy, Japan and Ame…