Reissues

One of the most righteous albums ever issued by the always-righteous Tribe Records label of Detroit – a really collective effort, one that features ensemble vocals and spiritual jazz – all pulled together by pianist Harold McKinney! The album showcases a group named Voices Of The Creative Profile – formed by McKinney to accompany his Creative Profile instrumental group – and the overall style is a great blend of spiritual soul jazz that gives equal time to the voices and instruments in the set. …

Genius work from the Detroit underground of the 70s – one of the greatest records ever on the now-famous Tribe Records label, and a masterpiece of soul, jazz, and righteous spirit! The session's headed by tenor player Wendell Harrison – and it's got an all-star Motor City lineup that includes Marcus Belgrave on trumpet, Phil Ranelin on trombone, Jeamel Lee on vocals, Charles Eubanks on electric piano, and Charles Moore on flugel horn.The tracks have a spacious spiritual approach that recalls som…

The remarkable Music, Inc. Big Band remains the apotheosis of trumpeter Charles Tolliver's singular creative vision. Rarely if ever has a big band exhibited so much freedom or finesse, while at the same time never overwhelming the virtuoso soloists on whom the performances pivot. Built around the core of Tolliver, pianist Stanley Cowell, bassist Cecil McBee, and drummer Jimmy Hopps, the music boasts the kind of give-and-take born equally of talent and telepathy -- each player seems to communicat…

Phil Ranelin was a session trombonist recording with the likes of Steve Wonder before setting up the Tribe label with Wendell Harrison in Detroit. Like other contemporary artist run labels like Strata East and Black Jazz, Tribe releases were characterised by a heady mix of post Coltrane free jazz, soul and funk, all informed by a strong political conscience. Vibes From the Tribe is a fine record. The title track is lusciously, greasily funky and stands in pretty stark contrast to the kind of air…

Rahsaan Roland Kirk's live club gigs were usually engaging, freewheeling affairs, full of good humor and a fantastically wide range of music. The double album Bright Moments is a near-definitive document of the Kirk live experience, and his greatest album of the '70s. The extroverted Kirk was in his element in front of an audience, always chatting, explaining his concepts, and recounting bits of jazz history. Even if some of his long, jive-talking intros can sound a little dated today, it's clea…

This jazz recording is considered as the 'magnum opus' of master "drummer extraordinaire'', composer, arranger, producer, and leader Norman Connor's in a career that has spanned 4 decades. This recording is what many will consider the debut of the legendary vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater who has since gone on to a brilliant career. Connor's put together an all-star group with Herbie Hancock and Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano and Fender Rhodes, Dr. Eddie Henderson on trumpet/flugelhorn, Carlos Garnett …

Five decades after the event, Charles Lloyd's Love-In, recorded live at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in 1967, endures as much as an archaeological artefact as a musical document. From sleeve designer Stanislaw Zagorski's treatment of Rolling Stone photographer Jim Marshall's cover shot, through the album title and some of the track titles ("Tribal Dance," "Temple Bells"), and the inclusion of Lennon & McCartney's "Here There and Everywhere," Love-In's semiology is a powerful reminder of t…

When Alan Parker recorded the killer library soul-funk LP The Voice of Soul with session vocalist Madeline Bell in 1976, some bright spark at Themes decided to also release all of the backing tracks as a separate, and equally innocuously title LP called The Sound of Soul. Thank goodness for bright sparks. Released as a collection of “unobtrusive musical backings in various rhythmic styles”, the LP’s original description dryly explains “these tracks have been issued without melody and are therefo…

Veteran library musician Alan Parker recorded with session vocalist Madeline Bell for his Themes International Music label and the result was 1976’s The Voice of Soul. The sensational uptempo dancer That’s What Friends Are For is probably the most well known track on the record, and is a big hit on the rare groove scene, but it is by no means an anomaly. The Voice of Soul is essentially a perfect, sophisticated soul album with heaps of swagger and sass from beginning to end. Its once generic-sou…

James Clarke’s Mystery Movie was released in 1974 as “modern, small group compositions in various moods. Ideally suited to the new Americanised style of T.V. and cinema film where music is used to create the mood and carry the action”. So this collection covers a lot of bases, but it does so brilliantly and has absolutely no right to be such a fantastic listen from start to finish. Mystery Movie is best known for the slick drum breaks underpinning the top-notch jazz-funk chase theme Car Patrol, …

Alan Hawkshaw (piano/Hammond) and Shadow’s drummer Brian Bennett are responsible for some of the slickest, funkiest and most sought-after library records ever made in the UK, particularly ones recorded on the legendary KPM label. Their work has now become the go-to place for sampling in music today. Artists such as Dilla, Nas, and the xx, right through to the billion selling Kanye & Drake have taken Hawkshaw’s and Bennett’s immaculate beat-driven soundscapes for their own usage.Their new album, …

Released in the same year as Synthesis over on KPM, 1974’s Synthesizer and Percussion is its essential companion piece. “This record features the many distinctive sounds of the ARP Synthesizer plus percussion in various moods and tempos” is the even more underwhelming than usual library record sales pitch for Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett’s second collection of what is basically minimal G-funk, with overtones of primitive acid house. This is ridiculously good. This is one of Hawkshaw and Benne…

Hot Wax is an assured KPM masterclass from a dream team line-up of Brian Bennett, Alan Hawkshaw and John Fiddy. Here we’re treated to what happens when all three decide to explore “the latest trends in production music”. The latest as of 1976, of course. John Fiddy’s numbers are sumptuous, string-led and light. Floaty soft-psych underpinned by a solid groove, particularly on Taste For Living and Fresh Start. If you're into Koushik and those early Manitoba/Caribou records - and you should be - yo…

The “vivid contemporary sounds for a fresh visual image” make up the now canonised Synthesis from Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett. These two greats go deeper than usual on this collection, and the end result is a synth concept record of sorts. Released in 1974, it’s an essential companion piece to their Synthesizer and Percussion LP, released on Themes International Music in the same year.Like most of our favourite library records, Synthesis has that gloriously funky, “weird electronic music” vi…

Piano Viberations’ “small group jazz featuring piano and vibes with rhythm” makes for a gorgeous Francis Coppieters showcase, surely one of Belgium’s best-kept musical secrets. Released in 1975, and arguably the most low-key of the KPM and Themes records we’re re-issuing, this is easily our current favourite. The Open Highway is the appropriately-named opener, and immediately demonstrates Coppieters’ dexterous interplay between piano and vibes in assured, joyous fashion. The shuffling bossa of S…

The two sides of 1973’s Big Business / Wind of Change are mainly the work of the great Keith Mansfield but there’s a killer cameo each from Alan Hawkshaw and David Snell to help deliver “a thematic suite, diverse in mood, applicable to dramatic and environmental situations”. A Be With favourite and truly one for the heads. The Big Business of side A is all the work of Keith Mansfield. It’s heavy on the suspense and features the vital Hot Property, an insistent groove so good that Madlib sampled …

Voices In Harmony was released in 1973 as “a selection of contemporary pop titles featuring voices, brass and rhythm”. We choose to describe this collection of works by Keith Mansfield and John Cameron as “a string-laced, harmony-drenched KPM classic”.From the bright, lilting harmonies of Liquid Sunshine to the melting flutes of Loving Touch and Gentle Persuasion, this is warm, effervescent soul music for dreamy, idyllic moods. The supreme Husky Birdsong is so, so smooth, with its unrelenting bo…

Released in 1976, Distinctive Themes / Race To Achievement is legendary arranger Nick Ingman exploring the two distinct ideas of “impressive themes varying in style from Basie to Elgar” and “a study in the pressure and rewards of achievement”.Distinctive Themes is a veritable indulgence of variously-tempoed, full orchestra, big band workouts, from relaxed swing to more propulsive themes. The progressively building Expanding Markets is a true highlight, with its rolling pianos, contemplative elec…

Brian Eno's masterwork album from 1982. Standard 1 LP version. On ‘Ambient 4 (On Land)’ – the final edition in Eno's ambient series – his palate shifted from electro-mechanical and acoustic instruments towards “non-instruments” like pieces of chain, sticks and stones. “One of the big freedoms of music had been that it didn't have to relate to anything – nobody listened to a piece of music and said, ‘What's that supposed to be, then?’, the way they would if they were looking at an abstract painti…

Brian Eno's pioneering Ambient album from 1978. Standard 1 LP version. “Arguably the most quietly influential of all his works” according to the BBC, this conceptual record was intended as a soundtrack for imaginary films, with excerpts later featuring in movies by directors including John Woo and Derek Jarman.The album is a loose compilation of material, composed of short tracks ranging from one-and-a-half minutes to just over four, making it the antithesis of the long, ambient pieces he later …

Brian Eno's Ambient album from 1982. Standard 1 LP version.. Though not the earliest entry in the genre (which Eno makes no claim to have invented), ‘Ambient 1 (Music For Airports)’ was the first album ever to be explicitly labelled ‘ambient music’. Eno had previously created similarly quiet, unobtrusive music on albums ‘Evening Star’, ‘Discreet Music’, and Harold Budd's ‘The Pavilion of Dreams’ (which he produced), but this was the first album to give it precedence as a cohesive concept. He gav…

Brian Eno's pioneering Ambient album from 1975 re-pressed for 2018. Standard 1 LP version. While his earlier work with Robert Fripp on ‘No Pussyfooting’ and several selections from his own ‘Another Green World’ feature similar ideas, ‘Discreet Music’ marked a clear step toward the ambient aesthetic Eno would later codify with 1978's ‘Ambient 1: Music for Airports.’The inspiration for this album began when Eno was hospitalised after an accident. Whilst bed-ridden and listening to a record of eigh…

The Book of AM* is a collection of inspirational songs, poems and stories composed in different parts of the world through the millennia up to the present day and edited and set to music and graphics by Juan Arkotxa and Leslie MacKenzie. The Book expresses core themes from Eastern and Western philosophical and religious traditions and it follows the cycle of day with five parts - Dawn, Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night. When the Book was first published in 1977 the incomplete Part V, Night, …

French acid folk recorded on two-track Revox machines between 1974 and 1975 by Yves Fajnberg and Anne Marie Butel. The original pressing was tiny, and copies now sell for over 400 euros.

'Sukram Gurk' was the title chosen for the Siloah second LP. It was the name of Markus Krug spelled backwards. Markus' name was chosen because it was the one that sounded better phonetically to the ears of the trio. The sound of the album takes it all one step further, turning into an electric storm, yet retaining the free psychedelic improvisation feel of its predecessor. The Wah Wah reissue is made in cooperation with Thom Argauer family, it has been cut from the original master tapes, has ori…

Coming out of the boiling Munich scene of the sixties that also gave us the original Amon Düül (Thom Argauer had played in a dixieland band with Chris Karrer in the late 60s, actually), Siloah are one of the best kept secrets of the krautrock production. Siloah had a hard core including Thom Argauer, Manuela von Perfall, Heinrich 'Tiny' Stricker and Wolfgang Görner, plus a host of guests coming and going, everybody was free to join and play at any time, guest members often joining from the Baums…

Fourth issue of CRU Magazine, the annual magazine of the Berlin art space La Plaque Tournante ran by french composer Frédéric Acquaviva and english mezzo soprano Loré Lixenberg, which states what has happened or could have happened in the last year at La Plaque Tournante. This issue, printed at 500 copies, includes  1CD, 1DVD, 3 playlists of exhibited material, 3 postcards, 3 affiches and 3 catalogues into the form of posters, featuring Frédéric Acquaviva, Isidore Isou, Orlan, Mats Lindstrom, Je…

Contains both original ZNR releases Barricades III and Traite de Mechanique Populaire, plus two extra CDs - one containing the whole of the post-ZNR LP Les Flots Bleus by Patrick Portella and Joseph Racaille as well as Joseph Racaille’s Pegase and his  ReR Six Petites Chansons EP. The second CD collects early ZNR demos and lost tracks togther, appearing here for the first time. With a very substantial and definitive book of memories, histories, reflections, photographs, documents, interviews and…

This really is a treat, a re-issue of the incredibly rare debut LP from legendary blind outsider Moondog. Originally released back in 1956 on the musician's own Moondog Recordings imprint, this incredible album showcases the man at his way-out best, blending Eastern instruments and ethnic music with American exotica to come up with a sound which is impossible to categorise. A mostly self-taught musician, Moondog (real name Louis Thomas Hardin) performed in the streets of New York City for most o…

Vous et Nous is the ninth album by experimental pop French musician Brigitte Fontaine and the seventh by Areski Belkacem, released in 1977 on the Saravah label. It's an avant-garde double album mixing a variety of instruments and vocal styles, with synthesizer and drum machine on some songs. Other, more acoustic, songs show the Algerian/African influence that Fontaine and Areski were known for. The album was not well understood upon release, but in later years was championed by musicians such as…

Errol H Tout is a musician/architect from Perth (Australia). The selection presented here provides archival and unreleased material from the 1985-87 period. The set was compiled restoring the original analogue tapes, and the collection is sequenced impressionistically rather than chronologically. A sensuous mixture of muted electronics and guitar jungle

Joel Horwitz was one of those synthed-out figures in and around Oregon's iconic hippie stronghold during the 1980s. Recorded at Studio E Redlands, Ca. USA, 1978, using a large array of electronic devices, such as ML 101, Carlos Robelli String Machine, Voice, Kalimba, Drumset Percussion w/Gong, Dual Phase Shifters along with a heavy battery of phasing and time-based effects-lands somewhere between a ‘library music’-styled mood excursion and a genuinely transformative mind melter

Conrad Praetzel is a California-based electronic keyboardist and percussionist who concocts impressionistic vignettes, developing his knack for mixing electronic and ethnic instruments, with haunting short tracks wherev electronic sounds and Indian and folk traditions gather together in a multicultural fusion.

** Astonishing selection of tracks taken from privately released albums and obscure tapes by this obscure Texas-based loner musician under the influence of Cluster, Moondog, The Residents and Brian Eno** Second release on Passat Continu comes from the depths of Texas. “Basso Continuo” span works from the privately pressed LPs “In Human Terms” (1987) and “Texas Electric” (1989) and music released on limited cassettes during the early nineties. Charles Ditto created an intimate world of minimal 'p…

Since 2008 Düsseldorf based producer Stefan Schwander concentrates on his always evolving electronic venture named Harmonious Thelonious. It besprinkles the world with fractional musical structures in the spirits of American minimal music, in order to immingle them with African rhythm patterns. Exceptional hypnotic opiates, enlarged with twisted harmonies and tricky rhythm archetypes. 

The late great Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, perhaps most famous in the English world for Blowup, Zabriskie Point, and The Passenger created his most arresting work, the so-called “trilogy on modernity and its discontents” in the early 1960s. Comprised of 1960’s L’Avventura, 1961’s La Notte, and 1962’s L’Eclisse, this is not a narrative trilogy, but instead a stylistic one. With music from the brilliant composers Giorgio Gaslini, and Giovanni Fusco this is an essential collection…

Composer, multi-instrumentalist and mixed-media artist, Takehisa Kosugi has stood on the forefront of the Japanese avant-garde for over six decades. In the 1960s, he was part of Japan’s first improvisational music collective, Group Ongaku, and contributed to Fluxus in New York. In 1969, he founded the influential, experimental ensemble The Taj Mahal Travellers, and in 1975 he would release his first solo album, Catch-Wave. “Mano-Dharma ‘74” features improvised violin drones and voice with vario…

Few albums define a genre as succinctly as Simon Finn’s Pass The Distance does for psychedelic folk. Not even landmark recordings by Pearls Before Swine or Skip Spence can stand up to the sheer madness of Finn’s sole LP, originally released in 1970. After moving to London in 1967, Finn busked around town for a couple years before entering Camden’s Chalk Farm Studios, best known for producing a string of reggae hits. Pass The Distance, however, would become more than a solo-acoustic project. Back…

2017 Release. LP version. Gatefold sleeve. Wewantsounds present a reissue of Buddy Terry's Awareness, originally released in 1971. Following the highly-acclaimed release of theHarold Land's 1971 album A New Shade Of Blue. Awareness was Buddy Terry's first album for Mainstream Records, one of the three he recorded for Bob Shad's label. This is pure, undiluted spiritual jazz that is both deep and funky. Prior to the release of Awareness, Terry had recorded a couple of soul jazz albums for Prestige…

At the dawn of the 1980’s, a few years before her now legendary LP, Through The Looking Glass, took form, a young percussionist playing with the Berlin Philharmonic, Midori Takada, found her creative ambitions looking further afield. Her ideas brought her home to Japan, then peculating with new notions of what avant-garde and experimental music could be, to form The Mkwaju Ensemble with fellow percussionist Junko Arase and Yoji Sadanari. The project quickly recorded two astounding LPs in 1981 – …