New Arrivals
Espejismo
We Are Busy Bodies announces the reissue of the rare and sought-after 1973 Venezuelan jazz album Espejismo ('Mirage') by Virgilio Armas Y Su Grupo, offering a fascinating snapshot of the thriving music scene in early 1970's Caracas, until now largely undocumented because of the musical dominance of Venezuela’s far larger southern neighbour, Brazil. Pianist and bandleader Virgilio Armas skilfully combined Latin Jazz, post-bossa swing (Balanço), with home-grown variants of Son Cubano, Montuno, Mer…
Like A Child
We Are Busy Bodies reissues Sadayasu Fujii Trio's 1977 album, Like A Child. Led by pianist, Sadayasu Fujii, the album includes jazz standards "A Sleepin' Bee" and "If I Should Lose You", along with original compositions.
Deleuze Deluxe Doll
*Limited edition of 200 copies.* Background music for the late Anthropocene: play this loudly for as long as you want or can stand. Verena Becker had always been a bit of a loner. She loved spending time alone in nature, hiking, and exploring new places. But when Verena was sixteen, she met a grizzly bear. The bear was friendly, and they became friends. Verena would often go on long walks with the bear, and they would talk about everything. One day, Verena asked the bear about gFFr. The bear did…
El Awama
Tip! *Limited edition of 500 copies. Includes french and english liner notes by Rabah Mezouane.* For its second release, Elmir once again puts 1980s pop-raï in the spotlight with the identical reissue of Cheb Kader's masterpiece: El Awama. Originally self-produced on cassette in 1986, this album was then released on vinyl by Michel Lévy, who was then Cheb Mami’s manager and producer. Back then, the album was not the hit it was expected to be, because a little too avant-garde for the time. But mo…
Visions of Krychlic
Edition of 70 copies. We are back with good old fashion live recording of two jingling guitars, just the way you like it. Two long tracks, some jokes in the middle and long loooong applause at the end, of course, because this show was so good, that it just had to be transferred onto tape. This recording is a perfect showcase of Arn's and Bogner's (aka Margaret Unknown) artistic versatility. On this eerie two acoustic guitar bonanza, they are giving a big nod to Derek Bailey with their mind boggl…
Covered in Mud
*140 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Japanese electronica and ambient composer Morimoto Naoki presents his 3rd album for Seil Records. »Kotoba« is a mesmerizing collage of sounds and the most beautiful, gentle phrases. Each sound tells a story, each word has a sound.
Enfold
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 200 copies.* Enfold was created over the span of four months in the early morning hours. Its structure alternates between mechanistic dub techno rhythms and sections of deeper ambience. Each of the three names listed within the album's track titles symbolize multiple hours of improvised source material.
Field recordings appear throughout the album's duration. Thunder, rain, wind, and cicada sounds are prominent. The fifth track contains processed recor…
Who Remembers Light
*In process of stocking. Limited edition 340 copies.* "Four years after their magnificent, eponymous debut, this Connecticut trio returns to vinyl with another brain-blurring set of tunes. Picking up where that last LP left off, drummer Michael Kiefer, guitarist/vocalist Jon Schlesinger and guitarist/bassist/mandolinist/electronics/mark tree-rep, Steubs, dig ever deeper into the pulse of the Earth. The first track here, 'Hot Peace,' sounds like stuttering, shimmering emanations from the core of …
What The Truth Leaves Out
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 100 copies.* "Rootless (or, more properly, rootless) is a solo project that's been going for better than five years now, helmed by Brooklyn's Jeremy Hurewitz. Two types of sounds are created under this banner -- low key electronics is one, and fingerpicked acoustic guitar is the other. What The Truth Leaves Out focuses on the latter. The shared thread between these styles is a highly personal and intimate feel. When listening to rootless, you often get…
Wamono A To Z Vol. III (Japanese Light Mellow Funk, Disco & Boogie 1978-1988)
Tip! Active as a professional DJ in Japan since the late eighties, DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite is also a renowned remixer, compiler and producer. An avid record collector and an expert of the Wamono style, Yoshizawa published the Wamono A to Z records guide book in 2015 which instantly sold-out. The book unveiled a myriad of beautiful and rare records from a highly prolific, but still then unknown, Japanese groove scene. After many years working as a record buyer for several stores, DJ Chintam open…
Some Moments 1994 - 2022
Kaplan's second release represents a collection of his versatile work through last three decades. Leaving the previous concept of short abstract vignettes, he moves into more "structured" approach, more complex explorations of loop asthetics, cut-up techniques but also pieces for improvised ensembles.
Axis Mundi
*Limited edition of 200 copies.* "According to the anthropology of religions, the axis mundi is a bridge between three dimensions: Earth, Heaven and Abyss. It is an element of verticality and transcendence as well as of fall. Often identified with towers or altars, it indicates the axis of the cosmos, which relates the center of man, his deep soul, with what exists Outside and Beyond. The axis mundi embodies its impulse towards eternity, not only as an aspiration to a shining after life but also…
Atrabile
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 150 copies.* Black bile, in ancient Greek medicine, is one of the four humors that make up the human body and affect its existence. Specifically, black bile is the mood responsible for melancholy, anxiety and depression. “Atrabile” is an album about depression in its different stages, from despair (“Koma”) to suffocation (“Atlas”), via total discouragement (“Achlýs”), anxiogenic obsession (“Knōsós”) and deviant perception of time (“Kairos”). The work i…
Are You Ready?
First physical solo release from legendary vocal improvisor, dancer, and performer Maggie Nicols, and the follow up to Creative Contradiction (Takuroku 2020).
While she might be best known as an improviser (most notably in Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the Feminist Improvising Group and more recently with the likes of Les Diaboliques, Maggie Nicols’ talents stretch into song, dance, poetry, performance and composition. When Cafe OTO was shut over lockdown we invited her to follow up the wonderful …
Wesen
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 200 copies.* Imagined (?) dreams of being chased, false awakenings, etc. analyzed through a lens of the gestaltpsychologic understanding. Perceptions containing qualities that do not result from the arrangement of simple sensory qualities. An example of Gestalt-qualität, as Christian von Ehrenfels writes, is a melody that may consist of individual tones, but is much more than just the sum of these tones. Individual tones could combine to form completel…
The Arabic Room
* 300 copies * A critical meditation on variations of Orientalism practiced by Arabs themselves, as well as those who were born and raised within the diaspora. It originally began as a documentation of extended drum techniques, but eventually morphed into a project of more ambitious scope. Having an open timeframe, Julius Masri gave himself reasons to include all the instruments he obsessively picked up and learned over the years. The work accumulated intentions and guiding principles, and it be…
From Dusk Till Dawn
Tip! The new record by The London Sound Survey, From Dusk Till Dawn, is a dramatic journey, sonically celebrating the cyclical continuity of materiality’s impermanence. From the start, the listener is carried away, entranced and ferried on sound waves along the coastal habitats of Lakenheath Fen, captured as perpetually playing a graceful dance of life and death.
Released posthumously on Persistence of Sound, this is possibly the last album by Ian Rawes, the founder, artist and archivist of The …
Dick And Stewart Original Soundtrack
*2022 stock. a single sided 12' inch LP. UV printing on the reverse side.* Dick and Stewart is a series of short animations set in either Britain’s dismal past or the Britain that’s soon to come. It's hard to tell nowadays, isn't it? Either way, just imagine what it would be like if childrens’ TV programmes were written by George Orwell or Franz Kafka. Or the government itself. The stories follow the adventures of the eponymous Dick and an eyeball, which is all that’s left of his best friend, St…
Karaoke (7")
If you ever witnessed an Alvarius B. show you are probably aware that there are a few things only in underground music matching this level. If you haven't, don't miss him when he's coming close next. Karaoke shows one of the many characters you could explore during his shows. As his brother Richard, the other keyholder of Sun City Girls legacy, Alan Bishop played a lot of shows not only under the Alvarius B. moniker on various Unrock stages through the years. "Solo Nostalgia" (E. Morricone) and …
I'm Here
*Limited edition of 500 copies* Drummer and composer Edward Vesala, the most internationally renowned jazz musician from Finland, was very keen on percussion instruments. Oddly enough, this broad and enduring interest is hardly evident on his albums.Whether playing on his own albums or contributing to other musicians’ work, Vesala played a standard drum kit most of the time. He hardly used external percussionists on his own albums either. And most of all: his music was almost never percussive, a…