Reissues
Lamkin: Versions & Variants Across the Northern Hemisphere
Death is Not the End teams up with folklorist Derek Piotr once more for this bumper archive of North American folk music, this time focusing on every version they could find of the ballad 'Lamkin'. It's a fascinating study that displays how a standard was able to shift and evolve as it moved from person to person over the decades.
I Had the Craziest Dream: Modern Jazz and Hard-Bop in Post War London, Vol. 1
Another luminous compilation from London's Death is Not the End, this time examining the city's modern jazz and hard-bop scenes from the end of the 1940s until the early '60s.
Punkt
After the overwhelming success of last years 1971-74 box set release, containing the first four studio albums and for the first time ever this lost ‘last’ album recording, ‘Punkt’ gets a deserved and necessary stand alone release to the relief of fans and collectors and the undoubted future gratification of those yet to experience the magic in these recordings. 'While working on the “lost” album which the band recorded in Munich, it became clear that I was listening to the last ever made recordi…
MEZ 31'00 (Experimenteller Elektronik-Underground DDR 1989)
*In process of stocking* Dieter Zobel aka Didier Leboz: serial tinkler, inventor, freestyle freak Tension. Performance. Resistance - our Zonic Spezial documenting underground cassette culture in the latter years of the GDR caused quite a stir when it first appeared in 2006. A collaborative effort with the legendary ZickZack label and Verbrecher publishing house, “Spannung. Leistung. Widerstand. Magnetbanduntergrund DDR 1979-1990” (to give the work its full title) caused many listeners, especiall…
Acht Gesänge Der Schwarzen Hunde
*In process of stocking* 'When in 2006 our Zonic Spezial "Voltage. Power. Resistance. Magnetic Tape Underground GDR 1979-1990" was published in cooperation with Verbrecher Verlag and the legendary label ZickZack, there was some amazement. Especially when the enclosed CDs were listened to from a Western perspective. Part of this weird Kassettentäter-Ost potpourri of swirling post-punk variety, which Bert Papenfuß, Bo Kondren, Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok compiled with well-founded interpretive…
La Banda Del Sole (LP)
500 numbered copies Remastered from the original tapes. Orange Vinyl During the 1970s, Italy was one of the most exciting and fascinating musical contexts in Europe, birthing seminal projects and artists like Franco Battiato, Aktuala, Lino 'Capra ' Vaccina, Giusto Pio, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Futuro Antico, and so many more. Defining the scene was an ethos that rigorously pursued creative freedom and experimentation, with its artists fluidly moving between popular music - rock, prog, jazz, etc. -…
Finally, His First Album
Tip! At the tender age of twenty-five, while he was working part-time at an Italian restaurant in Tokyo’s Kamata district, Kazuki Tomokawa released his debut record, fittingly titled Finally, His First Album. While he had already penned hundreds of songs, including his first single “Try Saying You’re Alive!,” written on a long train ride past fields and rice paddies, it was this recording that introduced Japan to one of its most unique musicians of the postwar era. Each track, as record label …
Straight from the Throat
Tip! In the 1970s, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-garde scene with his cathartic and utterly electrifying performances. Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa’s second album, released in July 1976 by Harvest Records, finds the musician in his truest form: as the “screaming philosopher” he would come to be called—cynical but fair, cheeky and melancholic, and looking at the world with truth-seeking eyes.
In Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa shrieks and shouts and wallows with ritualis…
A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth
Tip! In a generation of musicians that came of age in postwar Japan, Kazuki Tomokawa stands as a pioneer of radical individualism, with a sound marked by shocking intimacy and blistering honesty. In his third album, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth, released by Harvest Records in 1977, Tomokawa creeps “ever more inward,” as Kiichi Takahara writes in the record’s original introductory text—embracing an attitude pervasive amongst musicians of the time who interrogated the prosaic…
Natural Sources
"Some albums show you right away what kind of spirit backs them. Ronald Snijders solo debut from 1977, Natural Sources, is one of these. It begins with a free improvised, sometimes scatting flute and while the flute goes more and more crazy some scat vocals join in to make this first track a kinda strange affair. Jazz, free and spirited, seems the way but Ronald Snijders, son of Surinamese composer Eddy Snijders, outwits us in all our tiny minded expectations with the next song already. An everg…
Equator
*300 copies limited edition* British post-industrial / ambient group O Yuki Conjugate arrives on Aguire with a vinyl run of their previously CD only 1995 release Equator. Coming four years after their lauded Peyote release, the group split and reformed into their Mk II phase with the two original members Roger Horberry and Andrew Hulme, along with Malcolm McGeorge, Dan Mudford & Pete Woodhead (who later went on to form Sons Of Silence on Leaf Label).
Making use of the emergent technology of …
Reflections
After a long break, we're happy to present another masterpiece in The Fact Of Being collection. A long-awaited reissue of the legendary ambient/new-age album "Reflections" by Laura Allan with Paul Horn. The album was recorded in 1980 and marked by the participation of twice Grammy Awarded jazz legend flutist Paul Horn. The meeting of Laura and Paul was a true miracle that brought amazing fruit. Since 80th "Reflections" captivate the minds of spiritual ambient music fans all over the world. Magic…
Deep Peace / New Atlantis
*2022 stock.* For the first time, Deep Peace and New Atlantis, two classics from Celestial Harmonies, are available on CD. Originally recorded in 1980 and 1983, these meditative masterpieces have long been recognized as remarkable and meaningful works.
Frank Perry employs a fascinating array of acoustic instruments, including 400 year old Zen Buddhist Densho bells and a Ming Dynasty Chinese temple bell. He adds various kyeezees (Burmese meditation gongs), Burmese chime bowls, other glass bowls, …
Mathes 1986-89
Arnold Mathes is a self-taught synthesist from Brooklyn-USA whose work was once characterized by Music Technology as "ambient music for experimental synth freaks." He ranks among the most prolific of the decade, self-releasing over 35 cassettes in the '80s, and "Mathes 1986-89" is a collection of best tracks taken from them.
Brij Bhushan Kabra
Reissue of one of the most in demand Brij Bhushan Kabra LPs finally available. Remastered. In the 1920s, Tau Moe (pronounced "mo-ay"), a Hawaiian musician, arrived in India and introduced Hawaiian music to the sub-continent. After settling in Calcutta in the early 1940s, Moe and his family performed, taught and introduced Hawaiian music by building and selling guitars to the local musicians. Indian filmmakers and composers quickly fell under the spell of these instruments and sounds and made the…
Raising Earthly Spirits
Raising Earthly Spirits is dark electro-tribal minimalism from Robin Storey (aka Rapoon). He builds organic atmospheres from low drones. The music is beatless, but there is a definite rhythm. Storey's drones create the rhythm and set the pace. Experimental sounds create auras of intrigue and mystery. The sound design is intricate and detached; the dark soundscapes are sinister with overtones of an evil existence. This is not a disc for listening alone in the dark.
The New Backwards
*2022 repress. It's in my blood edition. With slipmat. Picture LPs. Unique limited edition!!* "The New Backwards" was conceived by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn't seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber "Ape of Naples" from 2005, Coil's initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance. Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brill…
White Island
*First ever vinyl reissue* 'The Nanai people have their songs and instruments. Some of them were used by composer Alexander Lavrov and singer Kola Beldy who is of Nanian descent in their music on this, Kola Beldy’s fourth album. Just as all his records from the 1980s, this is extremely rare and originals in good shape can cost a small fortune. Just in case they ever turn up somewhere outside the vast Russian country. Now for the very outstanding music that as mentiond above is based on centuries…
Uzi
** 2022 repress, with poster ** Muslimgauze's gem from the late 80s. Cinematic, minimal, noisy, hypnotic, and gloomy. Probably not so overtly Middle Eastern as his later works, though definitely bearing an influence. Backed by electric drones percussion forms a living, breathing atmosphere of impending menace. For a strange reason, this album was missed in VOD's Chasing The Shadow Of Bryn Jones 10xLP Box-set. Now you have a chance to complete your Muslimgauze discography! All Tracks Written and …
50th Anniversary Edition Boxset
50th anniversary boxset containing all three Niagara albums. Limited edition of 500 copies, housed in a wooden box. Coloured vinyl. Hold on to your hats! This is the ultimate percussion trip you never knew you needed. German jazz drum legend Klaus Weiss assembled something absolutely unique with Niagara – an orchestra made entirely of drummers and percussionists. No guitars. No keyboards. No melody instruments whatsoever. Just RHYTHM in its purest, most hypnotic form.
The self-titled debut from …