Reissues
Music for Robots
Forrest James Ackerman was the ultimate American science fiction expert. He was a magazine editor (the man behind Famous Monsters Of Filmland), a science fiction writer, a literary agent (he represented authors such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury or L. Ron Hubbard, a.o.) and an avid collector of genre books and movie memorabilia. Frank Allison Coe was a famed sound effects editor in Hollywood. Films having benefited of his experience include Monsters Crash The Pajama Party, The Girl With The Hung…
Pythagoron
Bridging the worlds of fine art, drug culture, high New Age thinking, and musical Minimalism, Pythagoron’s sole LP is a near perfect artifact of its era - a mysterious sonic wonder, emerging from the fog of time. Privately issued in 1977 - sold via advertisements in High Times - America's iconic stoner publication, the album is thought to be a product of Usco (The Company Of Us), one of the earliest multimedia art collectives based in New York - pioneers in the field of immersive sound and light…
Astro Sounds - From Beyond The Year 2000
Swirling guitars and proto-ambient electronica sounds from many light years away! The Astro-Sound of Magnificence, from Beyond the Year 2000...a unique capsule of a funky, psychedelic rhythm section jamming, with snarling, stabbing and swooshing cranked-up-to-infinity electric guitar voyages piloted by Wrecking Crew veteran Jerry Cole, polished and primed for takeoff with a string section playing eerie, beckoning melodies in unison. These are the sounds of epiphanies concerning the future, …
Beat It Down
After the success of their debut EP, post-punk art rockers Y Pants performed regularly in NYC and other East Coast venues. In 1981 they toured Europe for six weeks and upon return went into the studio to record their only LP, Beat It Down, released in 1982 on Neutral Records (Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca et al). The album extends the band's signature pared down rollicking minimalism. The 10 songs are varied, using surprising and inventive instrumentation. The music is at once filled with a s…
Y Pants
"'In the late '70s and early '80s everyone had very fluid art identities. One day you were a filmmaker, the next day a musician, and Y Pants was very much a part of it... The lyrics are ironic without being callous, the voices are sultry, the music is repetitive and trance-like... [with] a sense of urgency - like something being driven out.' --Kiki Smith. Y PANTS were a three-woman New York band: Barbara Ess, Virginia (Verge) Piersol and Gail Vachon, all visual artists. They played in clu…
The Devil Speaks (& Plays)
Known to the world as the founder of the Church of Satan and author, among other cult esoteric texts, of the Satanic Bible (1969), Anton Szandor LaVey was also a skilled musician with a taste for weird, creepy and old-timey sounding tunes. Presented in this compilation are six of his best recordings and the first ever recording of a satanic mass conducted by the very high priest himself in 1968. A compendium of the words and music of one of the most singular and demonized (and rightfully so)…
Sound of Speed
In the late 1950s, when Mexican-born Space Age Pop avatar Esquivel was in his prime, orchestra leader/composer/arranger Bob Thompson was his American stylistic counterpart. They recorded for the same label (RCA Victor), employed many of the same musicians and vocalists, and experimented with sound in the same Los Angeles studios.His RCA albums, Mmm, Nice!, Just for Kicks, and On the Rocks, embody 1950s orchestral pop: brimming with sparkle and sophistication, an appealing soundtrack for the…
Thunder of the Gods
Sun Ra is still trying to get our attention 50 years after dispatching this transmission. Humanity’s path since then makes his message even more urgent today. Years after Herman Poole “LeSony’r Ra” Blount “left the planet” he’s still trying to reach us, to wake us up and to change our destiny.Sun Ra and the Arkestra weren’t a traditional studio band, and every star in the vast galaxy of their discography reflects this. The origins of these records can be hard to pinpoint at times, but when it co…
Veskunoita
Actor/singer/flautist Vesa-Matti Loiri's third album 'Veskunoita' (1973) delves deeper into the kind of vocal jazz-pop which he mastered on his second record, 'Vesku Suomesta', but with a more light-hearted approach. During the recordings Loiri was joined by a host of well known Finnish jazz and rock musicians. This is the first ever reissue of this title of which original copies are almost impossible to find.
Nykysuomalaista - Contemporary Finnish
It seems bizarre that this LP’s original copy was pressed in such low numbers in 1969 that it has become an unusually expensive and wanted collector’s item that hasn’t been repressed on vinyl (and never released on CD) until now. Soulset were, after all, in the late 1960s one of the most popular pop groups in Finland. Their recorded legacy is relatively short, and when this split LP was released, Soulset were already about to call it a day. Here Soulset perform five fine cuts of jazzy Fenno-soul…
War In The Night Before
CD version. A reprint of one of the most important and rare Italian rock album of the 70s, all thanks to Cinedelic Records. The Underground Set are in fact the Nuova Idea under a different name for contractual reasons. They also produced under the name Psycheground Group another cult LP back in those years. "War in the night before" was produced in 1971 by Maestro Gianfranco Reverberi, (a sample from one of his e…
Etiquette
Black vinyl, edition of 300. Svart Records presents the first vinyl reissue of the first solo album by Juhani Aaltonen, a rarity since its original release in 1974 on Love Records. Saxophonist and flautist Juhani “Junnu” Aaltonen is a living legend among Finnish jazz musicians, having also performed stints with rock groups such as Tasavallan Presidentti. Encouraged by the ubiquitous Edward Vesala, with whom Aaltonen recorded several albums over the years, he ended up in the recording studio as …
3rd Version
3rd Version is Eero Koivistoinen's seventh album and finds him in the company of other excellent Finnish musicians: pianist Heikki Sarmanto, guitarist Jukka Tolonen, bassist Pekka Sarmanto and drummer Reino Laine, plus American drummer Craig Herndon. Except for Tolonen, who is mostly associated with jazz-rock fusion due to his membership in the legendary Finnish bands Tasavallan Presidentti and Wigwam, the rest of the players are all pillars of the Finnish modern jazz scene and all are vi…
Wahoo!
A fiery, raw burst of fusion jazz played by a large group with incendiary energy, Eero Koivistoinen’s commanding saxophone controlling the chaos! Don't be put off by the long name, or the overuse of vowels in the title – because this album's a killer batch of free jazz, filled with loads of choppy sax riffs, sweet Fender Rhodes licks, and plenty of heavy drums. The record's got a hard fusion groove – and all the tracks are long instrumentals served up with plenty of power, and plenty of …
Valtakunta
350 copies on clear viny, 8-page, 30 x 30 cm size booklet, with Finnish and English biography and Liner Notes (by Juha Henriksson), and with CreditsThe master of Finnish jazz and all-around composer Eero Koivistoinen turns 70 on January 13th. Svart Records celebrates the occasion by reissuing his first ever album, Valtakunta, on vinyl. Originally released on Otavan Kirjalliset Äänilevyt (a book publisher) in 1967, the album has since then only seen a very limited CD reissue in the 90s, and has b…
Appunti Per Un'Idea Fissa
** 2024 Repress, Yellow Vinyl **The Capsicum Red were a group of Italian progressive rock formed in 1970. The name Capsicum Red was chosen by the producer Pino Massara when he discovered Canzian, singer and guitarist of the Prototypes, and took him to the new label Bla Bla in 1970. To attract the interest of the press, the Capsicum Red were presented as a foreign group, and this caused some success for the first two 45 rpm. The group disbanded in 1973, when Red Canzian went for a short time in O…
1978 Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano
1978 Gli dei se ne vanno, gli arrabbiati restano! ("The gods depart, the angry remain!") is the sixth album of the Jazz fusion band Area and was released in 1978, as the title says. It is the first album without guitarist Paolo Tofani, and it is also the first album whose lyrics were not written by Gianni Sassi. Also, noticeably it is the only album in which Demetrio Stratos is credited as a composer.Area has stripped their sound a bit. Not drastically, but the experimental, avant-garde and fusi…
Tempo Sospeso
Bruno Nicolai is a leading figure in the world of Italian soundtracks although he is primarily known for being the most important of Ennio Morricone’s collaborators and his orchestra conductor in the period of Morricone's greatest production (60‘ and 70’s). But Nicolai's solo works are certainly not of lesser artistic relevance. Tempo sospeso (Suspended Time) is one of the most representative albums in this sense that it was produced by Nicolai in 1975 without any filters or restrictions,…
Fourth Sensation
First ever reissue of the sought after album Fourth Sensation, originally released in 1970. The band was formed by Ares Tavolazzi (I Giganti, Area) - who later was an active session musician as well as being a leading figure in the Italian jazz scene, accompanying Gil Evans, Steve Lacy, Max Roach, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods and many others - on guitar, Ellade Bandini on drums, keyboardist Vince Tempera - who, a few years later formed the progressive supergroup Il Volo with Mario Lavezzi and Al…
Il Gatto dagli Occhi di Giada
After 40 years since its theatrical release, presented here for the first time on vinyl is the phenomenal soundtrack for Il Gatto dagli Occhi di Giada (also known as ‘Watch Me When I Kill’) - directed by Antonio Bido (director of THE BLOODSTAINED SHADOW). This top-notch score is undeniably catchy, yet has its creepy moments.The film’s score was created by a supergroup specifically formed for this project and consisted of Adriano Monteduro (vocals and guitar; known for his 1974 record in which h…