New Arrivals / Last week
Moving Images
Moving Images is a collaborative album by composers Frank Maston and Greg Foat, and marks the inaugural release on Magic Hollow, the new imprint founded by Daniel O’Sullivan. Rooted firmly in the tradition of classic library music, the album draws from the deep, elegant end of the form: vintage keyboards, analogue synthesis, drum machines, and melodic economy, realised with clarity, warmth, and restraint.
Recorded in February 2025 at Ritmo Studios in Leysin, Switzerland, high in the Alps, Moving…
Thi Nam
Originally released in 1981, Mr. Circle’s Thi Nam should really have been recognised decades ago as a jazz dance classic. A beautiful example of European jazz fusion at its most sophisticated and optimistic, the album is immersed in the sonics and rhythms of pan-Latin fusion and Brazilian samba, but with one foot in the upful jazz fusion exemplified by Roy Ayers or the Mighty Ryeders. Remastered from the original tapes at Abbey Road, Outernational Sounds is proud to present a true lost gem of Eu…
TripleAkuma
TripleAkuma is the third in a series of essential live documents from Merzbow. The stage and the studio are not the same place, and Merzbow has an acute understanding of this juxtaposition. Whilst the sheer density of the music might be maintained across both spheres, the live experience of Merzbow is truly something that exists as profoundly physical and moreover, overtly performative.
Merzbow’s live methodologies draw not just from a saturation of frequency at all levels, but a recognition of …
Polaroid Piano
Akira Kosemura’s Polaroid Piano is a record that is very close to my heart. In fact, it is Akira’s work that was one of the drivers for Someone Good, one of the Room40 sibling labels, to be founded. Polaroid Piano marks the beginning of what would later become known as felt piano music, an approach to the piano which was picked up by numerous artists across subsequent years. It captures an essential and intimate rendering of the piano at close proximity, but it does more than that, it allows the…
Soundsphere
Akio Suzuki has always been an artist in search of unexpected sound, and curiosity has been his guiding principle. Whether that be curiosity for objects, spaces or places, his work has been guided by a porousness and pliability which has allowed him to explore an enormous sonic terrain. This freedom has also allowed him to develop a language in sound that remains utterly his own. Nowhere is this more evident than in his approach to instrument creation. During the 1970s Akio Suzuki devised a seri…
Parasymbiosis
I have long pondered the concept of connectedness in relation to life’s existence. The Dalai Lama teaches that destruction of one’s neighbour equates to destruction of oneself. In contrast, modern Western culture has placed the individual at the epicentre of existence – to the detriment of non-humans and humans alike. Ecological Memory influences present or future responses of a community; it is this shared memory that enables organisms, objects and the environment to connect to each other, and …
Reference: Marion Brown Capricorn Moon Why Not? & With Burton Greene Quartet
The rhythm team by Rashied Ali and Reggie Johnson (with former Sun Ra member Ronnie Boykins adding texture on "Capricorn Moon") establishes a solid foundation, complemented by Alan Shorter's sharp trumpet, while Benny Maupin's close expressions in monophonic form also support it. The fact that pianist Burt Green recorded an almost unnoticed ESP album (just a month later) with Brown as a sideman illustrates how fluid and negotiable musical activities were within this nascent community.
Although R…
Reference: Albert Ayler Spirits & Spirits Rejoice
The album "Spirits," released by a debut label based in Copenhagen, marked the first opportunity for Ayler to record his "free music" in February 1964 in New York. The musicians selected by him included notable figures such as Cecil Taylor (with drummer Sunny Murray), members from Sonny Rollins' band (bassist Henry Grimes), and musicians from his Cleveland period (trumpeter Norman Howard, bassist Earl Henderson). This work also represents his first focus on his own compositions, which includes H…
Hot Five & Hot Seven at 100
On Hot Five & Hot Seven at 100, Louis Armstrong’s seminal Chicago sides are reborn in vivid new mastering, letting his trumpet solos, daring rhythms and easy charisma speak afresh as the very moment jazz pivots into a true soloist’s art.
Thirty-Second Annual Report
Thirty years on from the original, Throbbing Gristle returned to the source material of The Second Annual Report - their catastrophic debut of November 1977, pressed in a run of 785 copies on their own Industrial Records with white labels, a "Nothing Short Of A Total War" sticker, and a Xerox warning strip about the shortcomings of the pressing - and reinterpreted it live at La Grande Halle-La Villette, Paris, on 6 June 2008. That performance was captured in full and issued as this 12" 180gm LP,…
Solid Gold (LP)
Original UK edition on EMI of the second album from 1981, another post-punk masterpiece possibly as influential as the first one and certainly as essential.
No More Limits (picture-LP)
Unofficial 1984 Italian LP with a recording of the live show at Loughborough University Students' Union, December 8, 1983.
The Raven (LP)
Original Italian edition on United Artists of the superb and quite diverse 4th album from 1979. Quite a masterpiece indeed.
Pink Flag (LP)
Rare original UK 1977 edition on Harvest of possibly the most original debut album of the early new wave and all-time art rock by one of the greatest bands of the last 50 years. Essential masterpiece.
A Trip To Marineville (LP)
Rare original edition on Rather Records / Rough Trade of the wacky classic avant-garde punk debut album.
Weisses Wasser: White Water (12"EP)
1982 EP by the great German Neue Deutsche Welle band released by Les Disques Du Crépuscule in Belgium.
Songs Of The Free (LP)
Original UK edition on EMI of the great and funkier 1983 third album by one of the best and most influential post-punk bands.
Secrets Out (LP)
First LP of jazz-funk experimental new wave by the Sheffied band formed out of the ashes of the first Clock DVA, released by Go! Discs in 1983. Never re-issued on either LP or CD.
Emotion / Sound / Motion (LP)
Original and only edition on Illuminated of the sole album by Sheffield industrial new wave band. Never re-issued on either LP or CD.
Warsaw (LP)
Unofficial 1980 LP on RZM Productions with the tracks recorded for the unreleased album - the RCA sessions. This is an early 1980's re-press on yellow vinyl with laminated sleeve. The 7"EP it originally came with is not included.
