Reissues
Mantra
Limited picture disc LP release. "I composed Mantra: soundscapes for meditation in response to several requests from some of my fellow prisoners. I was asked to create some gentle music that they could listen to on their personal cassette players as an aid in practicing meditation and relaxation techniques widely accepted as valuable tools in the process of healing mind, body and spirit. The challenge was to produce a musical composition that would help to mask the noise of the environment witho…
Bashovia
Drawing his name from a Japanese poet, his musical style from eastern raga sounds and his sartorial style from American Indians, Robbie Basho was eclectic and eccentric. He was also one of the most gifted and original acoustic guitarists that the John Fahey/Leo Kottke/William Ackerman axis produced. Recording for Fahey's Takoma Records, and being cited by Ackerman as a principal influence on the founding of Windam Hill Records, never produced the kind of fame and acclaim that Basho's prodigious …
The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
Another of Fahey’s most highly regarded records, ‘The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death’ was recorded in 1965 and shows Fahey on absolutely blistering form. The guitarist Leo Kottke has named this record as his favourite in Faheys 35 album back catalogue, so there must be something quite special about it right? Well there certainly is, this is his finest blues album, moulding the sound to his taste, fitting in ragtime and Indian classical music in there somewhere to come out with a breathtaking…
Live in Tasmania
The only legally issued live recording by John Fahey came about through an unusual set of circumstances in 1980. Allegedly Fahey was touring Australia and decided on the spur of an inebriated moment that he wanted to play in Tasmania. A hall was booked at Hobart University, an audience rounded up, and the resulting show was recorded. There was no sound check and a large part of the concert was performed for the first time or improvised on the spot. It is quite possible that the audience had prob…
Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes
Opening with the incredible 'Sunflower River Blues' (covered recently by Jack Rose) this is easily one my favourite of Fahey's albums. It's by no means the best, or the most technically accomplished, but as an enjoyable piece of music from beginning to end, this just does it for me. This particular cd collects tracks from both the 1963 session and the 1967 session of the album, and it's interesting to hear the differences between the recordings. In four years Fahey's outlook changed a lot, so ra…
Days Have Gone By
Every decade John Fahey's work creates a wave of followers all trying to fuse acoustic blues with the Indian and Western classical traditions. What most of them miss when studying their hero's albums is his knack for crafting wonderfully infectious tunes. Sure, Fahey is totally avant garde, as he descends into esoteric tunings and maze-like picking. But that never prevents an album like 1967's Days Have Gone By from making listeners hum, clap and whistle along. This is folk music, after all.
Hirocosmos
Top quality eye-popping reissue housed in hard cover mini-LP style gatefold sleeve complete with obi and liners of this rare 3rd album by psychedelic maverick Hiro Yanagida. Another totally vanished and ear bleedingly rare gem out of Japan's psychedelic history, this was Hiro Yanagida's (ex Apryl Fool, Food Brain, Sato Masahiko & Soundbreakers, Floral, etc) second solo album released in 1973. Original copies hardly ever surface anymore so this reissue is more than a welcome feast. The music is a…
Hiro Yanagida 1971 (2nd Album)
Second Yanagida Hiro album, with Kimio Mizutani at the helm, swirling acid leads, heavy psych moves with at one point even an acidic Elvis joining the trip. Originally released in 1971. Deluxe gatefold sleeve packaging.Keyboard player and prime mover Hiro Yanagida began his musical life in Ground Sounds outfit The Floral, before founding the considerably cooler Apryl Fool in 1968. However, Yanagida is best known for his contributions to the so-called ‘Super Session’ period of 1970-72, during whi…
BaraMon
The Tenjo Sajiki Company was an avant garde theater troupe formed by Terayama Shuji & was an audience participation street theatre designed to shock along the lines of the Living Theatre. Popular music was always incorporated in their projects, and so lots of rocker runaway teens were quickly attracted. By the early 70s, J.A. Ceazer and Kuni Kawauchi (of the GS group Happenings Four) had joined, and the music got really fucking weird along with the performances. Instead of just staging a version…
Saraba Hakobune
Another rarity is this original soundtrack album to Terayama Shuji's last movie with music by JA Seazer (Tenjo Sajiki, JA Caesar). Released in 1984, it was Terayama's last completed movie and Seazer's last contribution to his visionary and reactionary world. Saraba Habobune's soundtrack is just stunningly beautiful, far removed from Seazer's trademark bombastic scores. Instead it ventures into more pastoral and almost meditative psychedelic realms filled with traditional string plucking, eerie f…
Den'en Ni Shisu
Deluxe first reissue of this 1974 J.A. Ceasar-performed theatrical underground classic. A nice example of the recent flood of late 1960's-early 1970's psych reissues from Japan that are in the more fluxus/theatrical vein. The period saw political upheaval and protesting amidst much of the country's students and youth; and while the underground movements weren't as widespread as say those in the USA, the pockets of artistic institutions that responded to political causes (like the decimation of n…
Hatsukoi Jigoku Hen
Top notch and bang up identical reissue job; gatefold mini-LP style sleeve complete with inserts and obi. This was originally a private pressing on Terayama Shuji's own Tenjosajiki label. The disc is a soundtrack to his like-named movie, of which the title can be roughly translated as 'Volume of First Love Hell.' Psychedelic insanity, spoken word insertions and has included great vocal participations by sublime vocalist Carmen Maki of Blues Creation. Great disc that rarely surfaces with everythi…
Sho o Suteyo, Machi e Deyou
Reissued in 2003 by Show Boat/Sky Station - SWAX-62, the English title for this album is: Throw Away The Books, Let's Go Out on the Street and is subtitled: A High-Teen Symphony. There is a film soundtrack of the same title, but this recording contains entirely different material from the soundtrack. This album is based live recording of Tenjo Sajiki's 7th performance Sho o Suteyo ,Machi e Deyou at Asagaya Kokaido in October 1970. To add some studio workings, the performance was reconstructed an…
Canti Illuminati
long out of print, this is an overdue reissue of American composer Alvin Curran's third record. Following his involvement in the live electronics performance group Musica Elettronica Viva, Curran embarked on a more personal pursuit utilizing his own voice and a patchwork of minimal synthesizer and field recordings. The two parts of Canti Illuminati show clear affinities to the vocal style of Pandit Pran Nath and…
Red Buddah
Recorded in 1970 -- first issue 1971. First CD reissue of this incredible album of Stomu Yamash'ta. The 2 tracks performed by Yamash'ta are purely percussional. Yamash'ta is renowned worldwide for his work as an avant garde composer, and is deeply involved in the fields of 'musique contemporaine'. He also approached electronic music in the late 70s through a collaboration with Klaus Schulze." The 1st piece is composed for metal strings, tambury, cymbal, music saw, mandorin harp; the 2nd for stee…
Primitive Expression
First release of this archival material by this French rock band, best known for their classic Catalyse album (originally issued by BYG in 1970; CD is Spalax 14823). This posthumous archives release is comprising of Ame Son’s Catalyse period including when they called themselves Les Primitiv’s, some of their recording sessions from 71 and some post-second chapter mid-70’s recordings. Fairly aptly titled Primitive Expression, most of these tracks present on this album are not in their polished st…
Persian Surgery Dervishes
1993 CD reissue, original recordings from 1971/2. Terry Riley: electric organ + feed back. This is the reprint, in CD format (2 CD), of one of the masterpieces of American minimal music: Persian Surgery Dervishes by Terry Riley. Originally issued by Shandar in France as double LP album, the recording went out-of-stock in the early eighties and since then became a collector's item. Recorded in two different concerts in 1971 and 1972 in Los Angeles and Paris, Persian Surgery Dervishes presents two…
Long Night
Long Night, a 2 hour electronic drone work produced by Jim O'Rourke in 1990 around the time of his graduation from music school had been buried in the archives along with several other electronic music pieces Jim had created before he went about to explore other musical territories. Unearthed, remastered and now released for the first time, its ageless qualities shine as brightly as ever.
Rainbow Electronics 2
1996 release on Jim O'Rourke's old label, surprisingly repressed for 2008. First non-reissue on this label - an unreleased companion to the 1990 Alchemy label masterpiece. The designation 'Rainbow' contrasts with the odd colorlessness of the many noise records. Like Voice Crack, this is power electronics at its most detailed, most subtly varied, and most exhaustively kinetic. It doesn't stop. It's a thrill every two seconds, for seventy-five minutes... It splits into halves, quarters, and more u…
Amanita
Pratically impossible to make it brief here, HGeerken: author, composer, musician, film-maker, performer, actor, mycologist, archivist, stager of exhibitions, publisher of numerous authors from the circle of literary expressionism and dada, lumberjack, bumble-bee-keeper. during his six-year stay in Egypt in the 60's he is co-founder (together with Salah Ragab and Edu Vizvari) of the Cairo Jazz Band as well as founder and head of the Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble. played in various music groups: Embry…