New Arrivals
Jubilation
William Hooker is a musician, composer, and poet with over 70 recordings as a leader, encompassing jazz, new music, experimental music and multi-disciplinary forms of expression (e.g. dance, silent film and spoken word). He has been recognized as “an iconoclast, and one of the most innovative musicians and drummers of his generation” - The Wire, which is evident nowhere more than on his latest album, Jubilation. The new work features collaborators Matt LaVelle on trumpet, Sarah Manning on alto…
Kiss Of The Earth
Many have been taken by the works of New Orleans’s Byron Asher and NYC’s Tomas Majcherski, but few have heard them as the Sonic Chambers Quartet. Joined by rising bassist (and frequent collaborator) Matt Booth from North Carolina and NOLA’s beloved avant-garde drummer Doug Garrison, the new group has teamed up with 577 Records to release its debut album, Kiss Of The Earth. It’s a beautiful, thought-provoking arrangement of emotion, creativity, and freedom that soothes your soul.
Though not offi…
What About The Butterfly
There is something intensely alluring, almost addictive, about Kansas City-based artist Jackie Myers. Known for her innovation and fluidity on the keys and her sultry, bluesy vocals that could spark warmth in even the iciest of souls, she has a way of leaving all your flabbers ghasted and with a voracious appetite for more. Now, 577 Records is ecstatic to present her latest work of art, What About the Butterfly, a technical masterpiece born from the depths of this vocalist/pianist/composer’s bea…
Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism
How architects and designers helped define America’s ecological movement in the 1960s―featuring Ant Farm, Buckminster Fuller, John C. Lilly and many more
During the 1960s, as Western notions of endless progress and growth gave way to concerns over industrial pollution, resource depletion and ecological limits, attitudes toward the environment became social, political and ideological. Published to accompany the first expansive survey of the history of environmental thinking in architecture, Emerg…
Yo! The Early Days of Hip Hop 1982–84: Photography by Sophie Bramly
The birth of hip hop in New York: rare images of the bands, the MCs and DJs, the artists and the fans, from Afrika Bambaataa and Run-DMC to Keith Haring and the Rock Steady Crew.
This book features more than 150 rarely seen images documenting the rise of hip hop in the early 1980s, taken by French photographer Sophie Bramly. Bramly lived in New York during this period and became firmly embedded in the emergent scene. The book features many stunning, intimate images of a star-studded roll call of…
Soundings: A Contemporary Score
Soundings: A Contemporary Score investigates the ways in which some of the most innovative contemporary artists are working with sound today. These artists approach sound from a variety of disciplines--visual arts, architecture, performance, computer programming and music--yet they share an interest in working with, rather than against or independent of, a given situation or environment. Their responses include architectural interventions, visualizations of inaudible sound, explorations of sound…
Black Music
The long-awaited reissue of the sequel to Amiri Baraka’s seminal work, Blues People, and latest selection in the AkashiClassics Renegade Reprint Series. This collection of essays by Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones includes a new introduction by the author and Q&A by Calvin Reid.
“Baraka writes with the passion and lyricism that can only come from a jazz critic who is uncompromisingly invested in the social and aesthetic dimensions of the music.” ―WBGO (Newark Public Radio)
In 2007, Akashic Books ushere…
Relic Radiation
Edition of 300. Of my first visit to Earth in 2024 I have only the fuzziest recollection, for here I must fall back on my own mnemonic resources. My chief impression seems to have been of sunlight, the authentic, inimitable sunlight of Earth. Organs that have evolved under particular conditions will naturally be most comfortable where those conditions obtain, and thus no substitute, however artful, can provide just those balances of colour and intensity, those alterations of night and day, summe…
Tsapiky! Modern Music From Southwest Madagascar
Recorded live on location by Maxime Bobo, this vinyl LP includes a 4-page full-color insert with detailed liner notes plus photos of the musicians and surroundings. Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike.
In Toliara and its surrounding …
Orchid Mantis / Breach
Breach, by American composer Olivia Block, engages in a dialogue between field recordings and synthesised sounds, creating a vibrant plea for wild spaces that face an ever-growing threat to their survival from human activities. The work is based on recordings collected in the San Ignacio lagoon in the Mexican part of Southern California. This lagoon is known as a breeding ground for eastern Pacific grey whales. With the help of precise electronics, the music unfolds like a drift, depicting the s…
Air de repos (Breathworks)
A double vinyl and a catalogue that constitute a proper extension of the exhibition with which the Capc in Bordeaux continues to question the forms that the museum can take (here transformed into a temporary breathing assistance machine) by developing the idea of the exhibition as an atmosphere, with the aim of creating a renewed awareness of what it means to breathe, not only on an individual level, but also on a collective one, at a time when the world is living in a climate of generalized asp…
#freakinmeout
2025 stock "Strange music by Clubsoundwitches, but there is something in there that I found very captivating. Maybe this is the new dance music?" – Vital Weekly #1237
The Interstices Of These Epidemics
2025 stock In April 2017, Barnaby Oliver and I started recording with the aim of improvising long-form pieces made up of a restricted palette of gestures and sound sources. Throughout the next two years we came together sporadically as we continued this quest, working through various ideas and changing instrumentation. Our work was gradually refined done to what you hear on this album: a combination of harmonics arising from bowed metal bowls and violin (or piano), coalescing into other-worldly …
Indistinction #2
“indistinction #2” comes from the same session as ‘indistinction #1’ and creates the same immersive pull. here, too, rsn works exclusively with his bass and a series of effect devices - no overbuds. everything is created live in the flow and reflects the intensity of the moment. often everything sounds deeply distorted, then it clears up again and metaphorically lets light into the scenery. the mixture of drone and ambient gives “indistinction #2” a broad and balanced sound palette that is best …
Indistinction #1
The game with quiet and loud is not new, but it has not lost its effect. “indistinction #1” proves this impressively, as the three songs on rsn's debut album create a highly immersive moment. they move and yet remain rigid in their depths. they build up and break down. like a current through which you are sucked - wild, yet somehow safe, always moving forward. if you allow yourself to do so, “indistinction #1” is an excursion into your inner self.
Clarity #1
The collaboration between pianist Merle Louise and rsn follows an improvisational approach, as all the songs were created spontaneously and in a flow. while the use of piano is or has become a main element in ambient music, the sound of “clarity #1” is different. instead of reproducing the typical patterns and harmonies of the genre, two styles meet here and interweave at the moment of creation. the drone and ambient soundscapes of rsn are enriched by piano melodies and patterns that are atypica…
Porosity #1
The permanence and recurrence of “porosity #1” by Rsn creates a kind of meditative permeability. the musical maelstrom creates a seemingly endless surface that develops from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional. but this surface is porous and has loopholes. it is not a fast ride through this soundscape, but rather a walk - and the landscape hardly changes noticeably, but there is a resolution, a small aftermath. “porosity #1” is slow and deliberate, waiting and gentle.
Shift #1
"shift #1" is a collaboration album by the two drone/ambient artists rsn and N. the album comprises three songs that deal with semitone shifts, creating an aesthetic depth of sound on the one hand and building up a long arc of tension on the other. "shift #1" is a musical colossus - sound, structure and length create an immersive sound experience. quiet, rather contemplative sounds gradually develop into an alert sound construct. sometimes, however, it remains calm and inward-looking, meditative…
Interweaving #1
“interweaving #1” is the sound-aesthetic result of an improvised session by rsn and NAGEN. With a setup of stereo guitar, bass, electric kalimba, selfbuilt instruments like the "portanuum", sampled field recordings and some little synths, seven songs or sound collages were created, which combine the drone and ambient of rsn with the improvisational art of NAGEN. “interweaving #1” is a dynamic sound experience with a focus on noise and drone, but much more.
Love Hurts/Beautiful Doll
* 2025 stock. With Obi. * Love Hurts / Beautiful Doll is the fifth and most important record by He6, the leading band of the 1970s golden age of ‘group sound’ bands in Korea. It features the band's notable funk/psychedelia track ‘Beautiful Doll (Get Ready)’ which was sampled by DJ Shadow in ‘the Number Song’. It also includes ‘You Don't Know’, the hit number led by Choi Heon's heartfelt vocals, as well as another He6 original track to listen to, the lively brass rock number ‘I Can't Tell’. The d…