New Arrivals
Staran Wake
*300 copies limited edition* Staran Wake is a collaborative project by Andrew Bunsell and Tom Relleen. After several years creating music in various groups together, followed by countless hazy late night recording sessions at each other’s studios and crisper afternoons producing the results, the British duo’s musical vision materialised with this self-titled instrumental album, taking nearly 4 years to complete.
This collection of pieces is composed with a wide range of instruments and combines …
As-Shams Archive Vol. 1 - South Africa Jazz, Funk & Soul 1975-1982
As-Shams Archive Vol. 1 introduces the core catalogue of As-Shams/The Sun, the independent record label that documented some of the most exciting developments in jazz, funk and soul from South Africa in the 1970s. With 10 tracks from 10 iconic albums featuring 10 different artists and 10 original compositions, this compilation delivers 85 minutes of South African music history.Including essential tracks by the likes of Dick Khoza, Black Disco and Harari, remastered from the original analog tap…
Early-Mart
Gideon Nxumalo was a key figure during the formative years of South African jazz in the 1950s and 60s, helping shape a modern African jazz sound as a composer, arranger and pianist and contributing to the scene as a music teacher and radio presenter. His recorded output as solo artist/bandleader is comprised of a trilogy of iconic albums from Jazz Fantasia (1962) to Gideon Plays (1968) to Early-Mart (1970).Early-Mart was Gideon Nxumalo's tribute to friend and musical compatriot, drummer Early Ma…
Love
*In process of stocking* Repress of Wildflower's 2nd album. The band continued to explore areas of groove-based improvised jazz. Taking a slightly freer approach to the writing process, simple but effective melodies and bass motifs are explored to create fully realised pieces with dynamic extremes that bring a full range of emotion. Recorded over a two-day session at Studios in London, the band sounds relaxed and at ease, giving space to explore intricate improvised interplay and dialogue fully …
Don't Ever Let Me Know
*200 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Don't Ever Let Me Know is Sheffield's first solo release since 2018's Repair Me Now (Glistening Examples) and is a work in a similar mode to that album in that it comprises two lengthy pieces of multiple movements and moods. For this new work, and as a kind of ode to his late father, Sheffield has employed samples entirely taken from (or inspired by) the city in which both men were born. In this way, the sounds have been utilized as a kind of …
Danza Sin Nexo
*300 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* A new mutation on Mecánica Clásica's sound, preserving the essence of previous works: ambient inspired by electronic pioneers such as Craig Leon, K. Leimer, Marc Barreca, Jon Hassell or Cluster. Continuing with their contemporary update of these sounds, this new delivery evolves to more rhythmic tracks, oriental influences and percussive sequences that bring it closer to leftfield vibes, with a wide range of textures and details that appear an…
Filtraciones de Luz
*200 copies limited release. In process of stocking* Finally a vinyl edition of the first release by Valencian electronic experimental band Mecánica Clásica. A very limited edition of just 200 copies. Originally released on cassette in 2019. Eight tracks of early electronic experimentation, meandering rhythms, minimal modular ambient passages and bleeping synth sequences. From Cluster to Craig Leon, from K. Leimer to Marc Barreca. A journey to the inner reaches of the sound modulation.
Finn Von Eyben Workshop
150 hand numbered copies. Kick-ass free music recorded in the glorious year of 1966 in Copenhagen. From Finn Von Eyben a leading exponent of the fertile Danish free jazz movement of the 1960s, comes these never-before-released live and studio recordings, offering an interesting addition to our understanding of a time in Danish music history where past, present, and future clashed to create a whole new sound. This is as essential as it gets. Piano, double-bass & drums in total interaction.
150 h…
Being Below
Being Below is a mini-album of short songs created with digital and analogue instruments, recorded in 2020. Written with a structure that reflects shifting states, overlooking the past and future as a split pathway with the present endlessly fluctuating between. The pangs of rumination. An exercise in loop-less writing.
"Staring out, tense. Looking down isn’t so different than looking up, but it passes by faster. Contentment at the accomplishment that I'm here, and the fear that what I’ve always…
Deep Red. A Tribute To The Cinema Of Dario Argento
*200 copies limited edition.* Dario Argento was born in Rome, Italy, on September 7, 1940. Before becoming a screenwriter and later a director, he was a film critic. Ever since his "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" heart-stopping directorial debut in 1970, Dario Argento has been redrawing the boundaries of cinematic horror with flamboyant violence, feverish plotting, and deliriously stylized compositions. Initially associated with giallo, the pulpy Italian subgenre he helped formalize and woul…
For Future Reference
Never-before-released early 1980s sessions by a band of top British players and composers which never released an album, led by drummer Trevor Tomkins. This is, in effect, the late Trevor Tomkins debut album release as leader, as well as his memorial. We were working on this with Trevor when he died last last year and it's now released with the help and support of his family.
Little Sunflower
*2023 stock* From Wales, the home of the harp, Amanda has taken her classical roots and forged them in the path of jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby.
She has toured extensively with Matthew Halsall and the Gondwana Orchestra performing at Jazz festivals around the world. More recent collaborations have included recording with DJ Yoda and Chip Wickham and touring Wickham's latest album including upcoming appearances at Ronnie Scotts and Le Petit Halle, Paris.
Whiting's first album was recorded as a trio…
Deeper In Black
Deeper in Black was inspired by the 1969 Blue Note recording of American trumpeter Blue Mitchell entitled Collision in Black and took its name from Pillay’s cover of the album’s Peggy Grayson composition. Pillay’s album featured another two compositions from Collision in Black by way of the Monk Higgins track “Keep Your Soul,” with distinct arrangements straddling Side A and Side B, and Vee Pea’s “Jo Ju Ja” closing out the set. Although the source material was over a decade old when Pillay recor…
Journey Test
'Journey Test' is composer and pianist Tristan Eckerson's first album under the moniker of Purple Decades, his new ambient project. While his past work has focused largely on solo piano, Purple Decades is an exploration into soundscapes, electronic textures, and hypnotic musical environments. While many tracks on the album still feature piano or keyboards in some form, the compositional approach is accompanied by extensive work with reverb, foley, and orchestral electronic arrangements, and some…
Thrust Too
Thrust barely made a blip in the marketplace; it was mostly available around the Akron area. But Niles was undeterred. He returned the following year with the just-as-good Thrust Too, which is a touch more muscular, more precise — partly due to being recorded in a slightly upgraded studio meant for jingles. What Thrust Too loses in atmosphere, it makes up for in deep grooves, like on “Hang Ten,” “Parrott City,” and “Machelle.” McNeal — the namesake of the latter — appears on the final track, “Su…
Thrust
At the makeshift Man-Ray Studios in Akron, Ohio, where barrels of soap were rolled away to make room for recording, guitarist Wilbur Niles and his then-girlfriend, Machelle McNeal, recorded "Ja Ja." Niles, a history major, titled it after King Jaja, who rose from slavery to become a wildly successful broker of palm oil in the 19th century. The humid tranquil track would lead off the pair's first and only album together, 1979's Thrust. It begins with an elliptical little electric-piano hook by Mc…
Plum And Cherry
Following the April 2022 reissue of the album Shrimp Boats, We Are Busy Bodies presents companion titles Plum and Cherry and Deeper in Black to round out a Lionel Pillay and Basil Mannenberg Coetzee “trilogy” as part of the label’s As-Shams South African jazz archive series. The connection between these three albums is tight as the 1987 release Shrimp Boats compiled unreleased recordings from both the 1979 session for Plum and Cherry and the 1980 session for Deeper in Black. These two rare recor…
Avoidance Language
*2023 stock* "There have been some very cool guitar duo LPs over the years -- Bert Jansch & John Renbourn's Bert & John, Danny Kalb & Stefan Grossman's Crosscurrents, Jody Harris & Robert Quine's Escape, Charalambides' Joy Shapes, Bill Orcutt & Michael Morley's Electric Guitar Duets, any comp of Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie, etc. -- but there has never been one quite like Avoidance Language. It is a wild-eyed classic from start to finish. Ostensibly a meeting between two guitarists lurking …
The Worm
Alternative title: Lovecraftian horrors from beyond space. Many nightmares has this caused me... A masterpiece. Even better than Howard the Duck. Nightmare fuel for me as a kid. Creepy little bastards. Dude this is terrifying. Almost on par with Troll 2. It's sad when the one that eats toes is the least scary. They look like the Chucky E Cheese characters on Meth. Random urination on the floor during a musical number! An alligator with a foot fetish!!!! Now I've seen it all! They don't make em l…
Live Under The Sky, Tokyo, 1982
The short-lived 'Super Star Quintet', which formed specially to play at the Live Under The Sky festival in Tokyo in July and August 1982, was accurately named. After all, those involved - tenor saxophonist Joe Handerson, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Tony Williams and trumpeter Freddy Hubbard - were all living legends at the time. Famously, the quintet's expressive, exuberant performances - think fizzing grooves, almost telepathic communication, extended improvisations and bl…