Psych /
Høvikodden 1971
Tip! This well recorded and carefully mastered set captures the most famous version of the band (the ‘classic quartet') on their final European tour on two consecutive nights on February 27 and 28, 1971. While the two sets from the second night (February 28, 1971) have been released before, this is the first time that the entire two-night stand has been released. So half of this is previously completely unreleased.
This is a excellent, stereo recording of the band performing in a relatively smal…
This Is Not The End
Despite it’s title, This is not the end, is, indeed, the final release by the legendary Rock In Opposition band Present, as founder and composer Roger Trigaux died during its recording. The final result is blindingly precise works of syncopated instruments, all seemingly coming from different angles but ultimately working together as a cohesive, if powerfully overwhelming whole.
Trigaux admits that “I use lengthy repetition and polyrhythmics to push not only the listener but myself to a paroxysm…
Dondestan (Revisited)
*2024 stock* Originally released in 1991 Dondestan was remixed and reappraised in the studio in 1998 as Dondestan Revisited. Wyatt claimed he ‘ran out of words’, so by basing half of the album’s tracks on her beautifully fragmented lyrics, he began a songwriting collaboration with wife Alfie Benge that continues to flourish to this day.
Opus Avantra Box
The long-standing Italian imprint, ARTIS Records, returns with one of its most ambitious releases to date, the towering “Opus Avantra Box Collection” by Opus Avantra , a stunning Deluxe Box set which includes no less than five LPs, six CDs, two 7" records, a DVD, a book and various ephemera, offering a thrilling retrospective of one of the most singular bands to emerge from Italy's movement of Prog and “Rock in Opposition”. Ambitious, experimental, and wholly uncategorizable in the ways that few…
Rock Bottom
2023 Repress. Robert Wyatt: gifted songwriter; political activist; drummer in the Canterbury jazz/prog pioneers Soft Machine and contemporaries of the original lineup of Pink Floyd; collaborator with the likes of Brian Eno, David Gilmour, Phil Manzanera, Fred Frith, Paul Weller, Scritti Politti, Elvis Costello and his beloved wife Alfreda Benge, to name but a few.
Perhaps his greatest gift though is his voice, a reedy instrument of great warmth and emotion; one need only hear his interpretation …
Classroom
The lost Belgian blueprint of Brussels based jazz fusion and how free form Franco-Flemish punk put Zeuhl school in the Classroom via the conception of COS. Emerging from behind the same clouds that kept formative Belgian progressive jazz records like Brussels Art Quintet and Kiosk's Mona Call in tangible obscurity, these impossibly rare early Euro jazz recordings shed a new ray of light on the intricate foundations of the scene that elevated COS, Marc Moulin, Placebo, Marc Hollander and Telex to…
Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned
** Special edition of 300 copies on Transparent/black marbled vinyl housed in reverseboard printed sleave with printed inner sleave. Comes with lyric booklet, poster and postcard inserts ** Formed in 1968, The Plastic People Of The Universe – named after a Mothers of Invention song and heavily influenced by Frank Zappa and The Velvet Underground – were iconic figureheads of the Prague Underground, a loose collective of Czech poets, philosophers and artists considered a threat by the Communist g…
Maledetti (Maudits) - Color LP
Temporary nicer price ** 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl ** 1976 was a year of flux and change. For the recording of the fifth Area album, the core membership of Stratos, Fariselli, Tofani and Tavolazzi were present, but drummer Capiozzo only appears on about half of the album, replaced on various tracks by either Walter Calloni or Paul Lytton. Steve Lacy augments the band, as do several other studio musicians (including a string quartet). Perhaps it was the contributions of t…
Picchio Dal Pozzo
2022 Repress. "One of the most original, impressive and highly respected of all the experimental groups to have come out of Italy in the 1970s." - Chris Cutler. "Picchio dal Pozzo can be considered as the definitive 'Canterbury' inspired band, coming from Italy's 1970s progressive rock scene. Their 1976 debut album shows an incredibly rich sound texture, made out of some peculiar musical ingredients. Oblique tunes and liquid harmonies, airy flutes, crispy horns, loads of electric piano, fuzz bas…
Leg End
2022 (much needed!) Repress. "Their first, 1973, release by Britain's most enigmatic and unclassifiable band. Formed in 1968 by two Cambridge students, Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson, Henry Cow's original influences included the likes of Soft Machine and Frank Zappa. However, in their undying quest to push the boundaries of conventional music, members soon took out their machetes and began hacking a new trail into an unmapped wilderness of sound. The band was thereby also staunchly anti-commercia…
Western Culture
On vinyl, this is a reissue of the final Henry Cow record, originally released in 1979 after the group had officially disbanded. The LP features guest appearances by Irene Schweitzer and Anne-Marie Roeloffs. Following their split with Virgin, the group's history became complicated; bass player John Greaves left, and after a dispute in the recording studio, what was intended as the next Henry Cow album mutated into the Art Bears' much respected Hopes and Fears. In 1978 the members of the Cow agre…
Odyssée
A relatively obscure band from the underground French progrock scene from the 70's, founded by sound designer Alain Coupel and guitar player Jack Mlynski. Half King Crimson's complexity, half Gong's fantasy, the quartet was best known for writing songs that were deeply occult and strange. Vocals are sparse, enigmatic and ghostly. The album’s real centerpiece is “Artcane I”, a
lengthy track encapsulating everything great about Artcane: patient
crescendos of cosmic atmospherics, hypnotic keybo…
Live At The Rock In Opposition Festival, 1978 - New London Theatre
Digipack CD Edition. Beatuful live album by the French avant-rock band founded in 1973 by actor and saxophonist Chris Chanet. They were one of only four bands invited by Henry Cow to perform at 1978’s Rock In Opposition festival. This, their third album, was recorded live while on tour in the United States. Recorded in public at the Squat Club, New York City, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. in November 1979, “En public aux états-unis d'amérique” is the perfect introduction to the group’s avant-…
Speed Limit
Revolving around three Magma members (Jannick Top, Joel Dugrenot et Yochk’O Seffer), Speed Limit has put out two cult albums during the 70’s, paying homage to Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew as well as Nucleus’ Elastic Rock. Mixing jazz, progressive rock, avant-garde pop, classical and Zeuhl music has never been a problem for the French septet, and even though its name sounds pretty obscure for the mainstream amateur, every French underground music lover sings praises about the band.
Moonsongs
*Limited vinyl edition LP / 300 copies, hand numbered Gatefold cover, hand stamped Lp's with acrylic paint** Originally released as a cassette on Endemic, the band’s label (Denver – 1986), and re-released as an LP on Dead Man’s Curve Records (London – 1987). Founded in 1982 by Mike Johnson and the legendary Bob Drake, Thinking Plague has been releasing impossible to categorize albums to a devoted fan-base for nearly 40 years, and have been a continuous presence in the underground since then, alt…
His Greatest Misses
The track selection seems to have been designed as an ideal introduction to the former Soft Machine drummer's solo work, collecting key album recordings and even one or two bonafide hits (regardless of what the album title says). Wyatt's debut single, a cover of the Neil Diamond/Monkees song 'I'm A Believer' is included in its extended form (although, as ever it sounds jarringly out of place when set among his own compositions), as is the 1998 remaster of 'Shipbuilding', Wyatt's memorable 1982 r…
Bohemian Vendetta
Reissue of legendary and classic, one and only, 1968 album by US Psychedelic Rock band! The Bohemian Vendetta are also known for playing as backing group for Faine Jade on their '68 album "Introspection". This is one of the best acid-punk CDs ever! Excellent Vox organ/fuzz teen garage psych and the covers are pretty fantastic as well. The cough syrup high school play vibe of 'Deaf, Dumb & Blind' must be heard to be believed. Easily one of the best on the label with lots of classy psych-punk orig…
Pacific Ocean
Early Dawn present a reissue of Pacific Ocean's self-titled album, originally released in 1968. It's a wonder they weren't touring the whole world and playing on huge stages in front of thousands of fans. This 1968 album smashes in like a hot stone with that soulful drive otherwise only Steve Marriott and Humble Pie could provide. A definite recommendation for fans of good old hard classic rock.
Abraxis
Remastered reissue of this prog/fusion/jazz record, featuring members of Cos, Julverne, Pazop, Brainstorm and Speed Limit. Comes on black 180 gram vinyl, limited to 500 copies. The musicianship is consistently outstanding throughout the album. A true obscure gem which reissue is more than welcome, when it comes to Canterbury/jazz-fusion flavoured mix with a pinch of Zeuhl sounds
Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem
In its open improvisations, lapidary lyrics, errant melodies, and relentless pursuit of spontaneity, the British experimental band Henry Cow pushed rock music to its limits.Its rotating personnel, sprung from rock, free jazz, and orchestral worlds, synthesized a distinct sound that troubled genre lines, and with this musical diversity came a mixed politics, including Maoism, communism, feminism, and Italian Marxism.In Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem, Benjamin Piekut tells the band’s story —fro…