New Arrivals
Antipodean Anomalies
For musicians inhabiting the Antipodean countries of Australia and New Zealand during the 70’s and 80’s, it was a geographically and culturally isolating environment. Boutique shops, community radio and mail order exchanges championed independent and contemporary music from across the globe. It was, however, this isolation that caused a number of small community-focused scenes to evolve, creating their own unique interpretation and reappropriation of outside influences. Through both these scenes…
Le Personnage Principal est un Peuple Isolé
Benjamin Lew was an enlightened amateur, in the noble and almost Renaissance-like sense of the word: he dabbled with equal grace in photography, writing, visual arts ... and worked part-time as a cocktail mixer in a tropical bar which was one of the favourite watering holes of Brussels’ thriving artistic community of the early ‘80s. Tuxedomoon had just moved to Brussels, and Steven Brown was among the many musicians, designers & artists who patronized the bar. Benjamin had a secret passion: he w…
Ata Tak - The Collection, Box 2: Experimental
** 400 copies** The second installment in the "Ata Tak - The Collection" series is a lavish 5CD box set designed by Moritz R. that also includes a bonus 7" in replica sleeve. What is nowadays classified as modern electronic music (Elektro, Techno..) has enjoyed a long tradition at Ata Tak (the label exsist since 1979) Those who have made their debut on the Ata Tak/Das Büro label include DAF, Der Plan, Pyrolator, Wirtschaftswunder, Holger Hiller, Andreas Dorau, Element Of Crime, Lost Gringos, Pic…
Cleopatra Jones (Soundtrack) LP
One of the best of the blacksploitation scores of the early 70s – a masterpiece of music that we rate every bit as high as Shaft or Superfly – maybe even higher! The music here is incredible – a surprising funky turn for JJ Johnson, who most folks know for his straighter jazz work – and like Marvin Gaye, Barry White, and others who were surprising the world with their ability to score music for a full film during the early 70s, JJ really knocks it out of the park with this one – coming up with a…
Manifest Being
** 250 copies ** "A lot of people flipped out over how amazing Mako Sica's last album, "Ronda" (FTR 409LP, 2018), was. "Ronda" was a 2LP set whereupon the Chicago trio collaborated with legendary local percussionist Hamid Drake. This pairing seemed like a natural to us, but for some reason people have been woefully unaware of Mako Sica despite the fact they've been releasing killer records for a decade, and playing live shows that submerge your brain in a sonic soup that recalls the Sun City Gir…
Ata Tak - The Collection, Box 5: The Single Collection
** 400 copies** The fifth and final installment in the "Ata Tak - The Collection" series focuses on the early singles released by the label. Once again, this box set was designed by Moritz R. and it includes three 7" records in replica sleeves and 1 CD with many tracks finally entering the digital domain for the first time and two completely unreleased numbers. What is nowadays classified as modern electronic music (Elektro, Techno..) has enjoyed a long tradition at Ata Tak (the label exsist sin…
Stereo
**300 copies** "Stereo" is the latest studio recording by Berlin based duo of Tony Buck and Magda Mayas. Conceived as rendering of a live concept the two have been developing over the last year or so, featuring multi-speaker and multi-layered audio, the essence of "Stereo" sees Spill performing in the studio, improvising and reacting to previously recorded improvisations and pre-structured, pre-recorded elements. The result creates a music with a sense of space and depth and an internal logic no…
Roars Bangs Booms
**150 copies** This composition by Alessandra Eramo shows for the first time a vocal interpretation of eight onomatopoetic words from the Manifesto of Futurist Music “The Art of Noises” by Luigi Russolo (1913). Alessandra Eramo creates harmonious miniatures of rough beauty and embodies urban soundscapes using her voice. Her very original approach to onomatopoeia as well as the humorous, yet profound interpretation of the original material reflects her intense exploration of sounds of industriali…
Sensudestricto
Has there ever been a better time to fuck off to the stars? Is a prison breakout ‘escapism’? Crisis carve some wound-space to let the dreams back in. In nights we turn to fire, in flight we burst into stone, where are the exits in this theatre of the damned? Strict luggage allocations – guitar (David Knight), saxophone (Stephen Thrower) – and all the electronics your thoughts can carry. Headspin echoes, round and around, tilt wind-sails at a dark horizon, cut a stutter through the distance barri…
Conventional Wisdom
Rich, multi-layered vocal studies and shortwave electronics from avant-garde polymath John Duncan (LAFMS, collaborator with Pan Sonic, Chris & Cosey, Jim O’Rourke and countless others), bolstered by synths, drum machines and arrangements by Joachim Nordwall. Highly recommended if you’re into anything from Scott Walker and Pere Ubu to Jay Glass Dubs, Coil and Ilpo Väisänen’s classic Liima Versions. Venerable avant-garde composer John Duncan follows his prized cycle of cover versions ‘Bitter Ear…
Kuro
PAN inaugurate Entopia, their highly promising, soundtrack-focussed sister label, with the tremulous beauty and dreamy ambient detachment of Tujiko Noriko’s ‘Kuro (OST)’ Realised alongside musicians Sam Britton and Will Worsely, experimental J-popstar and composer Tujio Noriko conceived the ‘Kuro’ soundtrack for the eponymous 2017 film which she wrote and directed with Joji Koyama, and in which she also plays the lead role. The film follows the tale of Romi, a Japanese woman living in the subur…
The Drought
After some serious pressing plant problems and several rejected pressings, here it is...Building from a reputation of arresting live performances and critically-acclaimed releases, Puce Mary breaks new ground with The Drought, evolving from the tropes of industrial and power electronics to forge a complex story of adapting to new realities. Remnants of noise still exist, sustaining the visceral penetration offered on previous records, however The Drought demonstrates an intention to expand on th…
Esox Lucius
The tracks of the album Esox lucius were recorded on high end analogue technique at the Czech Radio Broadcasting Studio in Prague. Four exceptional instrumentalists are creating bubbling and zizzling chamber music, they are blurring the edges of their instruments, but contemporarily dialoguing with a precise and unique vocabulary. The record is based on minimal drones, refined with analogue trumpet glitches and extended vocal techniques. Brass is bubbling, feedbacks are shrieking, it sounds as i…
BBC Session 1971
Previously only available as a vinyl release on John Peel’s and Clive Selwood’s Strange Fruit label during a brief period in 1988, this four track vinyl EP was the first of two sessions Nico performed for John Peel (the second was in 1974), and was recorded live for BBC Radio One’s Top Gear on 2nd February 1971 and broadcast the following week. This haunting session is Nico at the height of her creative powers as testified by those who saw her solo concerts accompanying herself on harmonium arou…
BBC Jazz For Moderns
**Edition of 500** First ever commercial release of the 1962 Maida Vale session on 180gr vinyl. The Joe Harriott Quintet was one of the most forward looking in Britain, but no jazz man works in isolation from the past and the great tradition of jazz is never absent from the work of the Joe Harriott Quintet. "Shepherds Serenade", composed for the Joe Harriott group by Dizzy Reece, one of Britain's many distinguished gifts to the jazz scene in New York. But jazz enthusiasts not only like to know w…
Music For Piano
Zeitkratzer's boss revisits the piano guts some years after his much acclaimed and genre-defying album Inside Piano (2011). While Reinhold Friedl's first solo album defined the practice of playing on the strings of a grand piano and revealed the source of sounds we couldn't identify on some of Zeitkratzer's recordings, Music For Piano, ... Spring/Flower/Cracker/Stream, brings concrete and quasi electroacoustic sounds together with clearly articulated piano notes. In the enigmatically titled Musi…
Songs Of Experience
Audiophile reissue, lacquered directly from Axelrod's original EQ'ed master tapes at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster, housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket. "Audiophile reissue, transferred directly from David Axelrod's original EQ'ed master tapes at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster 'Songs of Experience was supposed to have a different feel than Song of Innocence. You see, music is a great outlet. And regardless of what the titles say, and as close as I wanted it to be to William Blake, what was goi…
Live At The BBC 1972
This 1972 BBC Live recording is the perfect proof of what a band like Matching Mole could do in concert during their too short existence. The quartet playing was way more free and adventurous than in studio and the tunes were often stretched out and built to dense instrumental climaxes. Dave MacRae - electric piano, Phil Miller - guitar, Bill MacCormick - bass, Robert Wyatt - drums, vocals. A great live session from a key group in the Canterbury rock scene and an essential companion to the band'…
Nouvelle Ambiance: Wolf Muller Meets The Nile Project
In January 2016 arts and music organisation Santuri East Africa invited guest producer Jan Schulte to join the Nile Project gathering in Aswan, Egypt -- an intensive two-week musical experiment featuring musicians drawn from all around the Nile Basin that functioned as both a creative cauldron for cross-border collaboration, and a forum for artists and cultural activists to discuss the issues affecting the Nile river. Wolf Muller aka Jan Schulte has been a resident of Dusseldorf's era-defining S…
Your Queen Is A Reptile
A fantastic set from the London scene – really powerful sounds from a group who are heavy on percussion, but also do plenty with their horns! On Your Queen Is A Reptile, Shabaka Hutchings lays out a very fiery, progressive musical vision, and it is something as informed by reggae, the Carnival tradition, and underground UK culture (grime / dubstep) as by the greats of jazz, many of whom also released revered works on Impulse!: John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Charles Mingus, t…