New Arrivals
SpiriTuaL HeaLinG: Bwa KaYimaN FreeDoM SuiTe
Saxophonist Omicil builds atmospheres then upends expectations in this free-jazz homage to Haiti’s successful 18th-century slave insurrection - The Guardian
Night Train: Transcontinental Landscapes 1968 – 2019
From Dusk, through to Dawn. A collection to accompany the change of the fields, the coastline the colour of the sky outside your window as you take your journey. From the compiler of Music For The Stars comes the next collection for Brighton label Two-Piers. Featuring artists such as J.J Cale, Chris & Cosey, The B-52s, The Asphodells, Bob Lind, Linda Perhacs and The Menahan Steet Band.
…This choice of tracks is just one journey, a celebration of the beauty created by the artists, the musicians,…
Talisman
Debut release on reissue label Otic curated by mastering engineer and musician Joshua Stevenson (Otic Sound, Staked Plain, Von Bingen, Cast Exotic Archives, JOMF).
Orientations
A raid on the values of oriental jazz master and pioneering ethnomusicologist Lloyd Miller.
Merci Yaya Bongo - Female Animation Groups in Gabon 1982-1989 (2LP)
Gabon, 1980’s. President Omar Bongo has been in power since 1967. Together with his wife, the infamous singer Patience Dabany, he invents one of the ultimate political propaganda machine: ‘animation groups’, massive female choirs and dancers, up to 60 women deep, singing the praise of his regime over some of the best soukous rhythms ever, broadcasted live on TV. Between 1982 and 1989, mainly thanks to the flourishing oil economy, a record-label is created, a state-of-the-art recording studio is …
Over The Stations
The power trio that is charging up, charging up and charging up.
Rewind and release. - Guy Mercier
Togo Soul 2
Hot Casa Records present Togo Soul 2: Selected Rare Togolese Recordings from 1974 to 1989.
Ukouk. Round Singing Voices of the Ainu 2012-2024
Marewrew (pronounced: Ma-leoo-leoo / mɑleːul̯ eːu)̯ is a female vocal group that sings traditional Ainu songs. The music of the long-suppressed people from northern Japan has been a particular focus of Pingipung's output in recent years, together with Oki Kano who recorded and produced many Ainu artists. Following various re-releases by Umeko Ando, the late grande dame of traditional Ainu music, the spotlight is now on the a cappella music of Marewrew, which by the way means ‘butterfly’ in Ainu.…
Coraje Buenos Aire
Killer unreleased 1973 post-bop, avant jazz album from Argentina, with highly political texts. The missing link in Argentina's jazz history finally sees the light. Coraje Buenos Aires was recorded in 1973, conceived as a follow-up to the historic Bronca Buenos Aires (1971). More explicitly than its predecessor, the texts in Coraje denounced the atrocities of the military junta that ruled the country, and the album was inevitably censored before being released. The tapes, thought to have been bur…
Festareilla
*70 copies limited edition* Two documents of Avarus in live action, at two legendary festivals. First we witness the group at Avanto in Helsinki 2007, close to the peak of their caveman "rock" era, road-tested on several extensive tours in Europe and USA. After a lengthy vocal/electronics intro, the band chases the ghost of early Ash Ra Tempel down the hillside and inevitably off the cliff, in a Wile E. Coyote style. Ideas, both good and bad, are thrown around with almost reckless abandon.
B-sid…
Farrads 4 Jupiter
*75 copies limited edition* Phantom Chips is an instrument maker who performs with wearable synthesizers that control sound through squeezing and stretching. Her homemade ‘lectronix squeals create bent charm, running harsh mangled tones through tactile electronics. Concocting rhythms from an array of homemade electronic instruments, samplers and wearable noisemakers, Phantom Chips invites the audience to play and manipulate sound with her touch-based electronics. ”Farrads 4 Jupiter”, the debut r…
Ordet
*150 copies limited edition* Four of the five pieces on Ordet can be considered as solo collaborations – or perhaps, collaborations with oneself. These assemblages/constructions are reworked/reimagined/revisited/recycled pieces - transformed into something new. The one exception, Livermorium, is more accurately described as a process piece. Al Margolis is a composer/performer, improvisor, and painter. Since 1984, often under his project name If, Bwana, he has worked in the field of non-commercia…
Intercommunications
*150 copies limited edition* Paige Emery is an artist, herbalist, and plant dreamer exploring ways of remembering the Earth. Her music practice is intertwined with visual and performance art, plant medicine and healing rituals, all of the expressions affecting one another. Paige’s previous musical work has been in the context of performing sound pieces for healing rituals within art installations and gardens to guide people through ecological journeys within a site-specific place.Intercommunicat…
House of Gold
Sofa is proud to announce the debut album of Montreal-based band House of Gold, a very special group playing American composer Isaiah Ceccarelli’s songs and compositions. House of Gold is a quartet that blends quiet melodies and songwriting, chamber music, minimalist folk song, improvisation, jazz harmony, and early music influences into an immersive and embracing sonic experience. Composer, drummer, and singer Isaiah Ceccarelli has built a repertoire of songs around his original texts and intim…
Triple Music
In the spring of 2020, Muddersten did not go to Japan. Nor did the trio collaborate with alive painting artist Akiko Nakayama as planned before the global lockdown. Instead, a video triptych was made by Akiko and sent to the trio serving as a score for a musical performance. The piece was commissioned by Muddersten and had its first performance at the Periferien Festival in Oslo, in August 2020 in the midst of the Covid pandemic. On this release the trio uses sonic ready-mades as a method for i…
Funky Stuff
Fresh reissued magic of Funky Stuff, formerly a rare exquisite by jazzmaster Jiro Inagaki, originally released in 1975. An enduring, pioneering fusion of jazz, funk, soul and rock - the album features some of the best and most acclaimed Japanese musicians of the time, enlisting the talent-wares of Hiromasa Suzuki on keyboards, Akira Ishikawa on drums and Takeru Muraoka on sax.
Labyrinth: British Jazz On Record 1960-75 (Book)
Hardcover Edition, large format. Labyrinth is a massive hardback book, 375pp in length, printed on high-quality art paper, with an embossed cover and cloth quarter-binding, written by Richard Morton Jack. This beautiful, limited edition hardback is the most comprehensive overview of the subject ever published. It celebrates over three hundred albums, offering detailed background info about each, alongside excerpts from original reviews and masses of high-quality images that reproduce their fabul…
Six Crossings
*300 copies limited edition* "Six Crossings" is c_c’s ultimate recording with the electronic setup he has honed for nearly 10 years of live performances: several drum machines and a sampler interconnected to a mixing system and feedback effects, analog and digital hybrid. Between basic writing and improvisation, all the songs were recorded in a single take during the same day, at ZZLand, while he was back from the ZAD of Notre Dame Des Landes, charged with the good vibes of a huge party in suppo…
Cryptophasia
Cryptophasia is the third album from Scottish twin brothers Andy and Mike Truscott under their Kinbrae moniker. Shifting focus from their previous landscape-based releases, Cryptophasia sees the band explore their relationship growing up as twins and how this has shaped and formed them as people both individually and collectively. Reflecting on experiences across their lives, the album deals with themes including family dynamics, lived experiences and memories, identity, sibling rivalry, isolati…
Diana
Progressive folk act Comus was a true one-off, their unique take on folk rock a spine-tinglingly shocking one, even as the music draws the listener into singalongs. Formed by singer-guitarist Roger Wootton with some art school mates, including guitarist Glen Goring, violinist Colin Pearson and oboist Rob Young, Comus began recording their debut LP for RCA, who dropped them halfway through, leading to further recordings for Dawn with Barry Murray. Every song on this single bears the hallmark of t…