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The Sea and Cake's fifth album Oui is back on vinyl. Pressed on color vinyl for the first time (yellow with white!) and packaged in a high gloss jacket with a free download card. Oui marks the triumphant return of The Sea and Cake after a three-year absence which saw the members of the band pursue a variety of interests; musical, professional and personal. The line up of the band remains Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, Eric Claridge and John McEntire. The Sea and Cake formed in 1994 out of the ashes of Shrimp Boat (Sam and Eric), and The Cocktails (Archer). John was a friend of the three and had just begun playing with Mosquito, which would later rename itself Tortoise. In fall of that year the band released their self- titled debut record and followed it with three more for a total of four in four years, each gaining in popularity and critical acclaim. In 1997 after months of touring in support of their most successful record The Fawn, the band decided to take some time off to focus their energy in other places. Eric went to work on his paintings with a series of shows in Chicago and a bi-monthly insert in the Chicago Reader. Archer recorded his second solo record, toured and continued to concentrate on his Sof' Boy merchandise and comics (published by Fantagraphics). John played with Tortoise, built a studio (SOMA) and engineered the Stereolab record among many others. Sam painted for his debut solo show in Chicago and a July 2000 show at Clementine in Chelsea, released his debut solo record and toured extensively. When things began to quiet down in late 1999, the four began setting aside the time to record what would become their finest record yet, Oui. "Surprisingly the long lay off didn't seem to pose any ill effects, somehow the distant perspective supplied a new necessary focus", says Prekop. There were no impediments as far as reconvening and songwriting were concerned. Sam added that "I think (the fact that) Archer and I continued to work together during The Sea and Cake's down time was crucial. So when we started writing it wasn't like we were starting over, we were just working in a new context."

CLEAR VINYL W. PINK STREAKS

2xLP pressed on virgin vinyl, packaged in a wide spine jacket printed on uncoated stock with custom high gloss slipcase and free download card. Love is what makes us human. It guides our decisions, shapes our worldview, and defines our experiences. Its absence equates to tragedy while its presence gives our lives meaning. "Love has been well worn theme throughout a lot of rock music, but most commonly in terms of love-lost, overly romanticized versions of new love, or as a veil for sexual conquest," says SUMAC guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner (Old Man Gloom, Mamiffer, ISIS). "It is rarely addressed in its more spiritual and vulnerable aspects." Those less-traversed territories of humankind's connective bond became the central theme SUMAC's third full-length album, Love In Shadow, though their explorations of that motif are a far cry from traditional manifestations of love in the realm of art. Across four protracted songs, Turner and his cohorts-Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists, Erosion) on drums and Brian Cook (Russian Circles) on bass-interlace and mangle sounds from their instruments in a sonic homage to both the innate warmth of human magnetism and the cold realities of corrupted love-jealousy, obsession, perversion, addiction.

This cassette collects some of these stills, or better said freeze frames. Freeze frames that become almost landscapes that one can enter or not, listen closely to or use as mere background ambience. Wilson went in and untied the knot, yet while investigating the situation, posing more questions. This is as open-ended a release can get, so captiously simple.I met Andrew Wilson, (aka Berko, Art Wilson, Andras), a few months ago in Tokyo where we were both to perform on a sort of Balearic Ambient variety show in the heart of Shibuya. At some point Andrew was telling me about his interest in Youtube videos of truck accidents, animals attacking people and bloopers. With creating one-shot samples of these sort of “popular fringe finds” he started creating long-form drones of harmonic beauty, without being overtly and subjectively emotional. Wilson presented some of these pieces on said night in Tokyo, in a dandyesque manner all dressed in white, sitting behind a small restaurant table. "Table for one, please … "

An exploratory record that dances across time and genre, guided by fidgety miniatures and jazz inflected collage. Throughout, the band pool together their instrumental chops, moving from fluid and serpentine R&B to meditative, minimalistic piano, evoking a contrast of virtuosity and self-surrender.

While constructed from the inspiration of soul, funk and film music, BÉE mediate those influences having first digested them through the productions of Madlib & the RZA.
A sticker on the sleeve tells us Self Help “combines jazz-funk and mysticism,” a signpost to where its musical and spiritual concerns align. The jazz-funk component translates to arresting hooks in sideways song forms: echoes of Gainsbourg spooled through Azymuth-style Brazilian jazz and punctuated by the whip and snap of Steely Dan. “The Sound Where My Head Was,” the instrumental centrepiece, exemplifies present-wave jazz but also ancient sounds, giving off the mothballed air of a Hiroshi Yoshimura record in a library-music archive.

Self Help’s mysticism emerges in broad and specific ways, denoting not only a search beyond cliché and intellect but also an inquiry into the beat, the spirit, the one will. This isn’t new territory for them: Turnbull—the artist formerly known as Slim Twig, who writes and performs with U.S. Girls and various other Toronto concerns—named the group’s Nature, Man & Woman EP after the Alan Watts book. Building these songs from his drafts over three weekends at Toronto’s Palace Sound studio, the ensemble was free to tap out of the city and into some other place, taking up residence in a collective mind maze. The album produces, in equal measure, familiar surprises and the surprisingly familiar. Intoxicated jazz riffs swerve left at phantom intersections. Rhythms cut loose and tie you in knots. But wired in to each song is a sense of gentle accumulation, making every featherlight flourish weigh a ton. U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy brings serenity to “Sing a Silent Gospel,” and wears its antic melodies lightly. The soul shimmer of “Unity (It’s Up to You)” lets the players pool their R&B chops into something fluid and serpentine while, on guest vocals, the musical performance artist James Baley issues urgent declaratives: “Water must pool, as a rule, before tasted/Or else the water is wasted.” The words throughout the record complement the ensemble music while riffing on the precarious nature of unity itself. Then, closer “Extinct Commune” finds Turnbull deserted at the piano, playing phrases of meditative minimalism taking after the composer Joanna Brouk.

For all the record’s reach, it is these contrasting quiet moments that bring Self Help’s communal spirit into focus. A note on personnel: Badge Époque Ensemble now has a seventh member in Karen Ng, the saxophonist and sometime collaborator of Do Make Say Think, Feist, and others. In BÉE, Ng joins Chris Bezant and Giosuè Rosati, her bandmates in the Andy Shauf live band, as well as U.S. Girls co-conspirators Turnbull and Ed Squires, and other Torontonian cross-pollinators listed below. Guest vocalists across Self Help include Meg Remy, who sings with Dorothea Paas on the opener, James Baley, and Toronto singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle on the remarkable “Just Space for Light.” Words by: Jazz Monroe

Ein einzigartiger Künstler an einem legendären Ort: Tripping with Nils Frahm dokumentiert seine transzendentalen Liveshows in der geschichtsträchtigen Kulisse des Funkhaus Berlin. Gleich vier Shows im Funkhaus Berlin gaben den Auftakt zu Nils Frahms ambitionierter All Melody Tournee Anfang 2018, die sein gleichnamiges und allseits gepriesenes Studioalbum in den nächsten zwei Jahren auf die Bühnen dieser Welt brachte. In den folgenden über 180 ausverkauften Shows war der Ausnahmekünstler unter anderem im Sydney Opera House, in der Disney Hall in Los Angeles, im Barbican in London, in der Elbphilharmonie sowie auf zahlreichen großen Festivalbühnen zu Gast. Dennoch blieben Frahm die Konzerte im ehrwürdigen und für seine großartige Akustik gerühmten Saal 1 im Funkhaus Berlin in,mm besonderer Erinnerung.

Als Frahm ein knappes Jahr später zu vier weiteren Konzerten im Funkhaus einlud, waren die Tickets binnen Stunden vergriffen. Frahms langjähriger Freund und Filmemacher Benoit Toulemonde, der unter bereits für die Film-Konzertserie La Blogothèque mit zahlreichen weltbekannten Künstler-innen und Bands zusammenarbeitete, hielt die Abende an diesem geschichtsträchtigen Ort mit einem siebenköpfigen Kamera-Team fest.

Tripping with Nils Frahm ist ein Dokument Frahms vielfach gepriesener Fähigkeiten als Komponist und passionierter Live- Musiker sowie der besonderen Stimmung und Atmosphäre seiner legendären Funkhaus-Shows. Ein außergewöhnlicher musikalischer Trip — exklusiv und intim, roh und direkt.

"It was about time to document my concerts in picture and sound, trying to freeze a moment of this period where my team and I were nomads, using any method of travel to play yet another show the next day. Maybe tonight is the night where everything works out perfectly and things fall into place? Normally things go wrong with concerts, but by combining our favorite moments of four performances, we were able to achieve what I was trying to do in

these two years of touring: getting it right! When you hear the applause on the end of the film you should know that I was smiling happily, being a tad proud and feeling blessed to share these moments with you.

Much love, Nils"

A modern psych classic!

This album was released in 2017 as free download packs with the band encouraging fans to create their own physical copies with provided templates.

From the band's post accompanying links to different digital packs:
"This album is FREE. Free as in, free. Free to download and if you wish, free to make copies. Make tapes, make CD’s, make records. ... Ever wanted to start your own record label? GO for it! Employ your mates, press wax, pack boxes. We do not own this record. You do. Go forth, share, enjoy."

The Master Scratch Band was first break-dance / hip-hop / electro funk band in Yugoslavia in 1984. The band members were Zoran Vracevic, Zoran Jevtic and Milutin Stoisiljevic, previously known as Data and Sizike. Jugoton, the biggest label in Yugoslavia, published Data 7'' and MSB's 'Degout' 12'' with limited edition cassette containing two bonus tracks. Impossible to find on the collectors market, Fox & His Friends team in collaboration with Jugoton / Croatia Records is releasing a full, complete version of the rare "The Breakwar" tape, with tracks "Tonight" and "Pocket" never pressed on vinyl. All tracks are sourced from original studio tapes. With the kind help of Zoran Vracevic on credit list and liner notes, this is now the ultimate Master Scratch Band album, released originally in a year 1984 when break-dance was in the peak of its popularity in Yugoslavia. While Data was synthpop, Sizike mellow synth-disco recorded in private studio, this release is pure breaks and hip-hop electro, done old-school way in one of the best studios in Yugoslavia, Enco Lesic's 'Druga maca' in Belgrade. MSB used impressive electronic gear and were helped by huge list of famous musicians and guests: Duca Markovic from hit-show 'Hit meseca' (Yugoslavian Top Of The Pops); Japanac on bass, Max Vincent of Max & Intro on synths, Dudu Vudu from Du-Du-A, Goranka Matic as photographer and many more. MSB sampling technique and choices are unique: from obscure industrial records to freestyle; from found-sounds to cut-up breaks and even real prank-calls. This is document of time that still sounds fresh and needs to find it's new, young audience of hip-hop history researchers, break-dancers, b-boys, b-girls and DJ's. When you know that it's produced in 1984 Yugoslavia, far away, but actually, so close to its USA & EU brothers and sisters, it's even more mind-boggling. Thanks to Fox & His Friends and Jugoton CR collaboration, this gem is waiting for your freezes, footwork and electric boogie moves. ----- Equipment used: Commodore 64 Computer, Roland MC-4B Microcomposer, Prophet Pro-One, RSF Cobol II Expander, Korg Mono-Poly Synthesizer, PPG Wave 2.3 Synthesizer, PPG Waveterm Computer, Boss DE-200 Digital Delay, Drumtraks Digital Drum Machine, Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, Electro Harmonix Vocoder, Linn Drum MKII, Juno 60, SH-101, SVC-350, VP-330 Vocoders, Polysix & MS10, Simmons drum module.

RECORDED LIVE ON THE BAND’S 30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR. LIVE AT THE FORUM, LONDON, DECEMBER 2006. INCLUDES THE CLASSICS ‘EVER FALLEN IN LOVE’, ‘ORGASM ADDICT’, ‘WHAT DO I GET?’, ‘HARMONY IN MY HEAD’, ‘WHY SHE’S A GIRL FROM THE CHAINSTORE’ AND TRACKS FROM ACROSS THE BAND’S EXTENSIVE BACK CATALOGUE.

NEVER BEFORE ON VINYL.

PRESSED ON RED VINYL.

LIMITED TO 1,000 COPIES WORLDWIDE.

Join Buzzcocks as they celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the band’s formation in front of a ravenous London audience. Recorded in December 2006, and never before released on vinyl, ‘30’ captures the band on excellent form, performing twentyeight songs from across their back catalogue, including the seminal late ‘70s hits and highlights from the rest of their career. Still wired, still buzzing with punk energy and still playing loud, fast and unapologetically, this is the sound of a band on unstoppable form, led, as ever, by the inimitable combination of Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle.
This red vinyl edition promises to be a must-have for die-hards and collectors, and a brilliant primer for those not yet in the know.

• The Creation was formed in 1966 from beat combo The Mark Four, and was quickly signed to a production deal with Shel Talmy, The Who’s producer. The first release was the urgent “Making Time”, which featured guitarist Eddie Phillips playing his guitar with a violin bow, two years before Jimmy Page started doing so.
• Creation Records founder Alan McGee named his label after the band, and named his band Biff Bang Pow after one of their songs. So perhaps it was no surprise when in 1995 he came up with the idea of The Creation recording a song called “Creation” to be released on the Creation label. In the wake of reunion shows at The Mean Fiddler in 1993 and 1995, the original line-up re-convened, and the recordings expanded into an album. “Power Surge” was released in 1996.
• The album is pressed on 140 gram clear vinyl.

Before fronting classic post-punk group The Sound, Adrian Borland was a Wimbledon teenager enamored of Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground. With friends, he formed The Outsiders. In 1976, they home-recorded Calling On Youth, a searching full-length that straddles nihilo-punk argot (“Terminal Case” and “I’m Screwed Up”) as well as smudged glam balladry (“Start Over” and “Weird”). Its release in 1977, on the group’s own Raw Edge label, with Borland’s cityscape abstraction on the cover, marked the first independent punk full-length in the United Kingdom.

The Outsiders, featuring bassist Bob Lawrence and drummer Adrian “Jan” James, were punk in the moment before punk cut ties with solos and five minute songs. (Close Up, released in 1978, is more streamlined.) Like the Saints or Crime, they still trafficked in rock ’n’ roll. Calling On Youth, though, announces Borland as more than a precious teenage bandleader. The nervous introspection, wiry leads and negative space that he would refine solo and in The Sound, Second Layer and Witch Trials glistens throughout Calling On Youth, beckoning rediscovery.

James Yorkston and The Second Hand Orchestra release ‘The Wide, Wide River’. The album came to be after the blossoming of a long-term friendship between James Yorkston and Karl-Jonas Winqvist, the Swedish music producer, leader and conductor of The Second Hand Orchestra.
That communal feeling is apparent across the entire album. Recorded and mixed in Sweden over the course of three days, with a selection of musicians Winqvist had brought together, including Peter Morén (Peter, Bjorn & John), Cecilia Österholm (one of Sweden’s best-known nyckelharpa players), Emma Nordenstam (piano & cello) and Ulrika Gyllenberg (violin).
The studio approach with The Second Hand Orchestra was entirely improvised around Yorkston’s songs and the only song they heard in advance was ‘Ella Mary Leather’; Yorkston didn’t want to direct anyone too much but instead allowed for a welcoming, instinctive, free-spirited and joyful atmosphere.
‘The Wide, Wide River’ is a soothing, warm and sublime listen whilst also highlighting Yorkston’s skills for songwriting, collaboration and as a musical conductor. The record takes in past loves, advancing age and friends now gone, whilst also containing some of the most sanguine songs Yorkston has ever made.

Terry Gross is an engrossing trio composed of guitarist Phil Manley (Trans Am), bassist Donny Newenhouse, and drummer Phil Becker. The trio are also connected as owners and engineers at Bay Area recording spot El Studio, where they began improvising together as a way to test the boundaries and gear of the studio. Their loose, organic chemistry burgeoned into a deep camaraderie and a sound both expansive and exacting. The three experienced musicians crafted their first fulllength album through the pure joy of playing together with no expectations. With the tapes rolling on their rehearsals, the band captures the exuberance of live performance and elevates those recordings through a deft use of the studio as their collective instrument. On their debut LP Soft Opening, Terry Gross channels their cosmic powers and considerable chops into a gleefully mesmerizing odyssey fit for an arena. Soft Opening took shape over the course of 2016-2019, with Terry Gross writing and refining their songs. "Space Voyage Mission" and "Worm Gear" parallel one another as sinuous jams that pulse with adamantine fervor. Each mountainous epic churns spellbinding repetition and simplicity into dizzying gallops that take hairpin turns into sinewy riffing and elysian vocal melodies. Phil Manley's guitar takes on a constellation of tones across "Space Voyage Mission" with drifting delays soaring over the Newenhouse and Becker's driving rhythm section which all succumb to frothing overdrives that spin the song into entirely new pastures. The hypnotic throb of "Worm Gear" grows all the more enchanting as Newenhouse and Becker add subtle shifts to the single-chord barrage. "Specificity (Or What Have You)" contrasts these two in its more traditionally pop-oriented structure while retaining its predecessors wide-eyed energy and delves further into the album's lightheartedyet-earnest take on sci-fi tropes from space and time travel to the singularity. As Terry Gross, Phil Manley, Donny Newenhouse, and Phil Becker are sonic scientists traversing the borderlands of rock. Soft Opening captures the simple joy of a no-holds-barred trio in stunning detail, transporting the listener into the splendor and freedom of rock.

‘Chet Sings’ by the trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker is a classic of West Coast cool jazz. Recorded between 1953 and 1956 this CD reissue includes 10 bonus tracks and vinyl inludes 2 bonus tracks.
The collective personnel accompanying Baker includes Russ Freeman on piano & celeste; Jimmy Bond, Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon, bass; Peter Littman, Lawrence Marable, Bob Neel, Shelly Manne, drums; among others. The 20-page booklet features complete information and specially prepared liner notes by Penguin
Guide to Jazz’s writer Brian Morton and by France’s prestigious Jazz Magazine.
SINGS

Houston’s reputation for developing first-class jazz acts is well-established, as a stream of young players have been distinguishing themselves for decades…among those musicians and mentors who stood tallest, Bubbha Thomas was no exception (and a major key-player) in this long tradition of talent.

Before becoming an artist and educator, Bubbha Thomas (born 1937) was a Fourth Ward kid who grew up in a music-filled household. In High School he divided his time between music & basketball (he excelled at both) and studied with jazz legend Conrad “Prof” Johnson. “Prof” would later bring jazz glory to Texas with the Kashmere Stage Band, the group of teenagers who would win the “Best High School Stage Band In The Nation” prize in Mobile, Alabama in 1972 and who were anthologized in 2006 on Now-Again’s ‘Thunder Soul’ (which led to the 2010 Jamie Foxx documentary of the same name).

After finishing college, Bubbha got drafted in the service (he was a Korean War veteran) and would return to Houston in the early 1960s where he found work as a session drummer for the Duke and Peacock labels. Thomas drummed on recordings by O.V. Wright, Buddy Ace and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. He was playing his own stuff and backing luminaries such as R&B singer Chuck Jackson and homegrown legends like Lightnin’ Hopkins. Bubbha Thomas also teamed up with some of his equally legendary peers (like guitarist Melvin Sparks & organist Leon Spencer) and eventually established his own group, the Jazz Merchants.
Bubbha learned every style that was thrown at him and he played straight-ahead jazz with renowned artists before the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s led him to a path first charted by Coltrane and Sun Ra…the result of these new found influences was the incredible spiritual jazz ensemble ‘The Lightmen’, who released four incredible recordings in the 1970s. Their first album ‘Free As You wanna be’ predates the deep-set, maverick jazz issued by the likes of Tribe and Strata East and is a harbinger of some of the best in the 1970s jazz underground. The Lightmen albums eventually fell out of print until 2017 when the Now-Again record label brought them back into circulation and generated new interest in Bubbha Thomas’ work.
Thomas had a storied career as a drummer and bandleader, but perhaps his most enduring work is that as founder of Houston’s Summer Jazz Workshop, a remarkable program that nurtured upcoming talent for generations...we can’t begin to count the number of young people who benefitted from the exposure to music-arts because of Bubbha Thomas and what he meant to the Houston music community. In his career he earned five Grammy nominations and authored a pair of books. Next to this he was also a writer/editor for several local newspapers, ran one of the first Houston African American Television shows and he hosted a radio program on KYOK. Impressive to say the least!

Bubbha Thomas passed away in March 2020 at the age of 82. It was obvious he was a principled, fiery & wise person…and any anger he felt at America’s (and the world’s) injustices he met with music, intellect, activism and unity!

Next to his work with ‘’The Lightmen’’, Bubbha also released the fantastic (solo) album ‘Life & Times’ in 1985. ‘Life & Times’ (which we are proudly presenting you today) is particularly interesting to boogie-enthusiasts because of its high doses of funky twerks, solid grooves, crazy synth work, soulful vocals and excellent drum-beats courtesy of Mr. Thomas himself. You’ll quickly find yourself shaking hips the moment the needle hits the first track! The whole album is backed by a fantastic cast of all-star players and includes Howard Harris (Ruth Copeland), Dwight Sills (Bobby Lyle - TLC), Jerry McPherson (Donna Summer), Leo Polk (Kashmere Stage Band), John Gordon (Strata East) and Jackie Simley (Queen Latifah - Lionel Richie). All of the above makes this LP an essential purchase for any self-respecting fan and collector.

Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the FIRST ever vinyl reissue of this fantastic album (originally released in 1985 on Lightin’ Records). This rare record (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) complete with the original artwork.

RCA Records release this anticipated 9 track EP (already available digitally). Part of a (potential)series of four releases across 2021. The band are experimenting with their sound and style across each of the 4 releases. The first release is full on aggressive/industrial/metal. Collaborators include Yungblood, Amy Lee (Evanescence) and Baby Metal. Includes the singles "Parasite Eve", "Heavy Metal" and stand out track "Teardrops".

Tape / Cassette
Spite Cathedral is an S+M regular but the music found on his releases speaks for an artist that is constantly challenging his own creative boundaries. With equal ease Spite Cathedral delves in micro sounds, multilayered noisescapes or more conventional yet daring musical form and structure. ‘The Human Touchʼ is not an exception of this creative modus operandi and certainly takes things further. Dan Mortazaviʼs teams up with his long term partner Karsten Svendsen on his latest album as Spite Cathedral which is a 13-track sonic shapeshifter that will take you all the way from the clinical minimalist sub-tech realms of opener ‘Wake Up Darling Iʼm Spitting Bloodʼ to the industrial- influenced and raw vocal-driven ‘In Godʼs Cornerʼ, the microscopic sound bits and muted angst of “Without a Soundʼ, to the freeform drifting ambiance of ‘Spellcasterʼ. While these pieces might be a guideline of sorts between them there definitely lies more. While it is indeed impressive that Spite Cathedral can speak to us through a plethora of electronic sub-genres itʼs more fascinating how all his different ways are not only not clashing but are always somehow working together in a hypnotizing unison.

The latest signing to Parisian label No Format! (home to Oumou Sangaré, Blick Bassy and Mélissa Laveaux), Soweto-based 4 piece band Urban Village will release their debut album "Udondolo". Marrying the day-to-day experiences of black South Africans with ebullient elements from traditional Zulu music, Urban Village is the alias of four experimental musicians all born & raised in the township of Soweto at the tail end of apartheid; Urban Village release music under a name which specifically references the blend of cultures, music & rites which were assimilated into the now 1 million strong population of Soweto, when black South Africans from multiple provinces were brought to the area during the establishment of apartheid, under strict segregation from Johannesburg's white suburbs. Born for the most part in the last years of apartheid, whilst growing up the band plunged happily into house and dance music that turned the page of a heavy past. Guitarist Lerato came across older Zulu musicians and their style of maskandi playing. Lerato has since mixed styles from homelands and rural areas, sharpened in club jam sessions (where he went on to meet Tubatsi and form Urban Village) during which spoken word, hip-hop and jazz rub shoulders freely. "Udondolo" - partially recorded at legendary Downtown Studios in the heart of Johannesburg and at Figure of 8 studios in the leafy suburbs of Randburg - is a journey through all the colours of Soweto. This is where it draws its consistency, strength & identity. That of Soweto itself - a dormitory town designed to monitor those who were sent there, it has become a laboratory of music where the hopes of an entire people resonate, even today.

Among the heroes and innovators of 70s spiritual/progressive/funk/jazz, Doug Carn has always flown a little under the radar. He has long plied his trade with patience and dedication, releasing absolutely stunning albums that are cherished by cognoscenti but lesser known even to the jazz mainstream, even as his influence can be detected among his colleagues. Carn"s newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his "70s classics. There"s no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam"s Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn"s past work but which could only have been made right now.

MMODEMM teamed up with PH17 for a new release – a split tape with tracks from Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig. Side A by MMODEMM side B by PH17. In order to purchase the digital B-side of this tape, please visit PH17's Bandcamp.

Includes unlimited streaming of MMODEMM I PH17 (Split Tape, A-Side) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London

An amazing session of spiritual soul jazz – and one of the rarest albums on Strata East! Shamek Farrah's soulful alto is matched with the free spiritual piano of Sonelius Smith, for a totally memorable session that virtually defines the essence of the Strata East sound! The music is free, but not too free; lyrical, but never indulgent; and always turning over with a fresh sense of imagination, and a soaring groove that's very much in the classic Strata East mode!

In 1978 Pharoah Sanders went into the studio with pianist, Ed Kelly, who was an important figure in the local San Francisco and Oakland jazz scene. The two of them recorded six tracks which ranged from covers of standards, through soul jazz through to two real gems. The album was originally released as Ed Kelly and Friend due to Pharoah being contracted to Arista Records at the time. Indeed, as you can see, the cover shows Kelly playing next to Pharoah’s hat, shoes and Selmer tenor saxophone.

Rainbow Song, a Kelly composition, opens matters in a manner far removed from Pharoah’s work on his Impulse albums (although there had been a dramatic change of course when he signed with Arista and recorded). This is firmly in Grover Washington Junior territory with a liberal sprinkling of oh so tasteful strings. The Master’s sound is full and mighty as ever.

With the radio track out of the way it is business as hoped for and Newborn is a Sanders composition that burns with intensity. The power of his solo is as good as anything he has produced and he runs over the full span of the tenor’s range and onwards into territory lesser known or explored by 99% of sax players.

Sam Cooke’s You Send Me is treated with reverence and respect, with Pharoah delivering a sensitive and heartfelt rendition and ending with some extraordinary phonics, which we will meet again on later albums. Kelly’s accompaniment complements Sander’s playing before he receives his own space for a shimmering yet restrained solo which discloses what this non-pianist assumes to be an agile right hand.

Answer Me My Love is an early 50’s ballad with a fascinating back story. On its initial release in post-war Britain, covers of this fine melody stirred sufficient controversy for the song to be banned by the BBC. What led to it being barred from broadcast on the Light Programme and treated like Anarchy For The UK, Wet Dream and Give Ireland Back To The Irish? I can reveal that the reason for this draconian action was that the original version was entitled ‘Answer Me, My Lord’. In the olden days, it seems that a direct appeal to God was considered to be blasphemous- especially if set in a secular or selfish. Further research indicates that Nat King Cole made the most celebrated recording and that Bob Dylan used to sing it live in the 1990’s, presumably during his overtly Christian phase. Anyway, it is a grand tune.

Pharoah went on to record at least three studio versions of his great anthem You’ve Got To Have Freedom but the one here is the earliest incarnation that I am aware of. It is also the most restrained treatment of the theme, although Pharoah’s solo shows his ability to play with fire and power over the entire range of the horn. There’s plenty of space for Kelly’s piano too and he provides an elegant setting for Sanders’ exploratory work.

As Midnight Sister, multi-disciplinary LA artists Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian make motion pictures. Yes, sometimes with moving images _ but most often only with the music they create together. Balouzian's serpentine, string compositions are movie scenes that allow Giraffe, a brilliant character actor, to cloak herself in a new roles and voices. A bit of Jon Brion's score work; some old Hollywood strings; a solid dose of glam and outsider disco from 70s independent cinema. Any perceived artifice is always matched by an indelible human fingerprint, something perfectly off. Giraffe and Balouzian's respective work in fashion, visual art, video and film scoring _ along with the gang of virtuosos with which they surround themselves _ all wonderfully coalesce as Midnight Sister. And if 2017's `Saturn Over Sunset' was their collection of short films about outcast life in The San Fernando Valley, then their new album `Paining the Roses' is the inventive, meta motion picture that cements them as auteurs. `Painting the Roses' is in many ways a fairy tale -- not so much the sweet-and-happyending kind as something richer, packed with imagination and rooted in the complex human messiness beneath a story's artifice. Frontwoman Giraffe describes it as "this tightrope of being real yet synthetic, organic yet staged, light yet dark, logical yet irrational, beautiful yet dilapidated. Joyful nonsense." Here, disguises like masks and paint are not meant to hide but to liberate, to "set a part of us free", and Midnight Sister often embody this themselves, appearing highly stylized, curious, warm and inviting but a little askew. `Painting the Roses' is a story told through the looking glass, one where we examine ourselves in a funhouse mirror but find clarity in its twists. Giraffe traveled to visit family in Argentina during the making of the album and reconnected greatly with that part of her family history, art and culture. Balouzian created the core album opener "Doctor Says" during a session in the desert outside of LA. The guitar, which reminded Giraffe of South America, has a slow, sweltering surf-tango to it, like Dick Dale doing Carlos Gardel. And even though the song was inspired by Giraffe's reconnection with Argentina, the song is about the fading of some close friendships during the making of the album. "Man, you have changed," Giraffe sings, unclear if tis directed to a friend or to herself. Later on the album, "Wednesday Baby" _ named after Giraffe's rescue dog _ is patient, subtly baroque pop. It follows Giraffe through one of those gloomy days spent in tunnelvision doldrums from which only a sunbathing turtle or your canine companion can pull you out. By the time collaborator Max Whipple's saw comes beaming down from heaven in the song's 3rd part, we're hypnotized by the song's charming ennui. The song lands someplace both familiar and aloof, a little slice of timelessness taken straight from The Cake of Perfect Songcraft.

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

Musa Ancestral Streams remains a relative oddity in the pantheon of jazz's black consciousness movement -- a solo piano set of stunning reach and scope, its adherence to intimacy contrasts sharply with the bold, multi-dimensional sensibilities that signify the vast majority of post-Coltrane excursions into spiritual expression, yet the sheer soulfulness and abandon of Stanley Cowell's performance nevertheless vaults the record into the same physical and metaphysical planes. Cowell's energy and touch are remarkable, as if guided by divine power, and for all the music's structural spaciousness and rhythmic freedom, not a note feels out of place, let alone excessive. Most intriguing is "Travelin' Man," an overdubbed "duet" featuring Cowell on both acoustic and electric piano that underscores his uncommon affinity for space and presence.

A never before issued recording of Horace Tapscott leading his legendary Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, 'Live at Century City Playhouse 9/9/79' documents the entirety of a 2 hours performance, sprawling across glorious 3 LPs, that rises as one of the most beautiful, striking, and historically important records of the year. A joyous explosion of sound, seeded by social, political, and community-based action, at the juncture of spiritual and free jazz, this one's a 10 out of 10 and not to be missed.

'An expanded edition of KT’s second studio album ‘Drastic Fantastic’, to be released on 2LP + 10″ coloured LP set, 3CD and digitally. Bonus content includes acoustic versions, live tracks, remixes and b-sides such as Journey which has never been delivered to streaming or released physically in the UK. The bonus 10″ will consist of 4 brand new, unreleased remixes of the album’s singles Hold On, Saving My Face, If Only and Little Favours.




























[xb] Hold On (The Freelance Hellraiser [Holed Up] Remix)


[xe] Little Favours (MyRiot [Big Flavours] Remix)

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

Strut present the first ever international reissue of one of the most sought-after albums from the Black Fire catalogue, Lon Moshe & Southern Freedom Arkestra's life-affirming 'Love Is Where The Spirit Lies' from 1977. This first international reissue of the album features new sleeve notes including interviews and commentary by Lon Moshe, Plunky Branch and band members with original illustrated artwork by Mary E. Greer. Audio was remastered from original tapes by The Carvery. "Lon was creating his own path in his music life at this time," remembers Black Fire's Plunky Branch. "We had met in San Francisco and he had become an original member of JuJu during the early '70s. He then wanted to pursue his own music, primarily in jazz; he was an avant-gardist and loved Tribe, Strata-East and Sun Ra." For his Love Is Where The Spirit Lies album, Moshe drew from musicians within the Black Fire stable. Oneness Of Juju's Jackie Eka-Ete sang and helped to write songs and members of Southern Energy Ensemble contributed, including their bandleader Marvin Daniels. "The band name, Southern Freedom Arkestra, was a proud declaration that this music was from the U.S. South," continues Branch.

Here in solo instrumental mode, the entire record consists of just one instrument, the pipe organ, and represents absolute liberation of the imagination.All Thoughts Fly radiates a melancholic beauty, and is distinguished by fluid transitions of contrasting elements; calmness and drama, harmony and dissonance, much like the place that inspires the music. About the album Anna explains"there's a sadness and wilderness that inspired me to write this album, also a timelessness. I believe that this park has survived not only due to its beauty but also because of the iconography, it has been liberated from predictable ideas and ideals. The people who built this park truly set their minds and imagination free. All thoughts fly is a homage to this creation, and an effort to articulate the atmosphere and the feelings that this place evokes inside of me. It's a very personal interpretation of a place that I lack the words to describe. I'd like to believe Orsini built this monumental park out of grief for his dead wife, and in my Sacro Bosco I used this story as a core for my own inspiration: love as a foundation for creation."

INDIE EXCLUSIVE, LTD PURPLE VINYL! Among the heroes and innovators of 70s spiritual/progressive/funk/jazz, Doug Carn has always flown a little under the radar. He has long plied his trade with patience and dedication, releasing absolutely stunning albums that are cherished by cognoscenti but lesser known even to the jazz mainstream, even as his influence can be detected among his colleagues. Carn's newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his '70s classics. There's no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam's Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn's past work but which could only have been made right now.

It is often the case with popular music that those recordings which have the most profound impact and long-term appeal are often the ones which are produced in a moment without much deliberation or agenda. And that has certainly been the case with Slow Club’s EP of Christmas songs.

The first single from the E.P, Christmas TV, was actually written in soundcheck at Birmingham Barfly and released as a free download for Christmas 2008. The rest of the EP was written and recorded in a short burst in late summer 2009 at Axis Studios in Sheffield and in their friend’s bedroom. It came at a moment of intense creativity for the band when the songs were coming thick and fast and the duo were really hitting their stride. The differing musical styles of the pair was already becoming apparent across the three original compositions and three covers, and there is a real sense of a band pushing their limits in a way which would coalesce in the recording of their breakthrough second album the following year.

This album could easily have turned top-heavy. After all, here’s a record which, in just under 40 minutes, covers anything from Arabic scales to Japanese sounds, from free jazz references to concepts by Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen’s favourite painter Vasiliy Kandinsky.
To realise his vision, Ikonen even personally developed a device allowing him to play micro-intervals on his piano. And yet, things turned out differently: If anything, the results sound dream-like and mesmerising rather than stodgy and severe.
The album’s genesis may serve to explain this paradox. In August of 2019, Ikonen suddenly found himself with a month of free time. Without thinking twice and as if in a premonition of the Covid-lock-down, he recorded ‘Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions’ at his own home. His only companion was his beloved Steinway, captured by a personal selection of high-end microphones. Just a few days after the final session, the pieces landed on the desk of ECM- and Blue-Note-engineer Johannes Lundberg who mixed the album at his Gothenburg Epideminstudios. Clearly then, the music is spontaneous. But it’s also refined and deep. The influence of Kandinsky inspired
Ikonen to write some of his most complex and monumental pieces.

Limited Coloured Vinyl

One Night In Hackney remixes.
At last, the long waited and anticipated remixes of acid techno's biggest anthem has finally arrived on vinyl. Featuring hard to the core remixes from Pet Duo, D.A.V.E. The Drummer, Chris Liberator & Sterling Moss. This a.must have release for the collection. Dedicated to all free.party members across the world.

James Giuffre was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger, notable for his development of forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians. His 1960 album Western Suite features an unusual trio of clarinet, guitar and valve trombone. The first half of the album is devoted to Giuffre’s country music/folk- inspired suite, while the second half features a lengthy and abstract version of the big band standard “Topsy” and a Thelonious Monk song.

“The greatest thing about being a musician is experiencing it with other people,” says Ed Riman, the Brighton-based Eurasian singer, songwriter and sound-scapist who records as Hilang Child. “Whether that’s playing with others, creating together, sharing a vision, whatever, I just think in all aspects it’s a totally elevated experience when you’re not alone.” Proof rings out with force and feeling on Hilang Child’s superlative second album, ‘Every Mover’, released on Bella Union.

In 2018, Riman delivered a serene, textured debut album in ‘Years’, rich in sound and feeling. Lauren Laverne, Q, MOJO and others lavished praise but the “isolating process” of making the album left Riman hungry to find alternative ways of working. Meanwhile, the “lonely, pressured” aftermath of ‘Years’ found Riman grappling with “rough selfesteem and anxiety issues,” amplified in part by social media’s “fulfilment narratives.” Duly, he set out to navigate and overcome these mindsets, drawing deeply on his own insecurities and those he recognised in others.

These themes converge emphatically on ‘Every Mover’, an album steeped in everyday emotional states and crafted for cathartic, communal performance. Drawing on a rich spread of collaborators, sounds and themes, Riman uses his frustrations as the impetus to transform the brimming promise of ‘Years’ into upfront and expansive new shapes. “I wanted it to sound a bit gutsier than the first album,” he says, succinctly, “heavier and closer to the kind of stuff that hits me when I go to shows or blast music in the car. I started out in music as a drummer playing for pop or beat-driven artists and grew up listening to louder stuff, but a lot of the music I’ve made as Hilang Child has been more ethereal. I wanted to bring it back to a place that feels more ‘me’ and make more of a thing of having big hypnotic drums, aggressive bass, ripping distorted instruments and a general energy to it.”

‘Good To Be Young’ serves swift notice of this leap, its banked synths and twinkling sound clusters leading to an assertion of fresh force when the main beat lands and a congregation of friends - AK Patterson, Paul Thomas Saunders, Dog in the Snow, Ellen Murphy, members of Penelope Isles - unite for the gang-vocal refrains. “It’s all iridescent colour I’m on,” Riman exults, a claim lived up to on the full-flush folktronica of ‘Shenley’.

A reflection on spiralling insecurity, ‘Seen The Boreal’ ups the ante again with its monkish chorales, looping samples, spectral woodwinds (from multi-instrumentalist John ‘Rittipo’ Moore, of Public Service Broadcasting and Bastille previous) and ecstatic chorus, Riman transforming a meditation on hindsight’s limiting effects into a spur to look forwards. And surge forwards he does with the glittering synths, spacey guitars and Krautrock propulsion of ‘King Quail’, developed in jam sessions with dream-pop wonder Zoe Mead (Wyldest) in her basement studio.

Brought to a sublime close with ‘Steppe’, the resulting album projects its own epiphanic force. Thankfully, most of the main parts were recorded pre-lockdown between East London, Gateshead, Brighton, Wandsworth and elsewhere, before mixing proceeded remotely. Meanwhile, alongside indie-pop trio OUTLYA’s Will Bloomfield (percussion/coproduction on ‘Play ’Til Evening’), visual design collective Tough Honey (accompanying videos) and other collaborators, Riman’s bond with co-producer JMAC (Troye Sivan, Haux, Lucy Rose) proved crucial. “It felt freeing to work collaboratively and have that push-andpull of ideas,” says Riman. “Even the moments where we didn’t see eye-to-eye made it feel like I wasn’t alone, with someone else working just as passionately on the project.”

LP pressed on red transparent vinyl.

"Black vinyl issue - Features 2 x unreleased songs ‘Dark Places (Soundscape)’ and ‘I Am The Cosmos (42420)’
Brand new 2020 mixes of ‘Star’, ‘Hyperspace’, ‘See Through’ and ‘Die Waiting’
+ ‘Uneventful Days’ (St. Vincent Remix)
+ ‘Saw Lightning’ (Freestyle Live)"

4xLP in tote bag (black canvas with white screen print) limited to 50 copies

Amazing 1976 album where jazz meets world music !

An amazing document of the life experiment that was the Organic Music Society. This super quality audio, recorded by RAI (the italian public broadcasting company) in 1976 for television, documents a quartet concert focused on vocals compositions and improvisations. Here, Don Cherry and his family-community’s musical belief emerges in its simplicity, with the desire to merge the knowledge and stimuli gained during numerous travels across the World in a single sound experience. Don's pocket-trumpet is melted with the beats of the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, the Italian guitar of Gian Piero Pramaggiore, and the tanpura drone of Moki. A pure hippie aesthetic, like in an intimate ceremony, filters a magical encounter between Eastern and Western civiliziations, offering different suggestions of sound mysticism: natural acoustics in which individual instruments and voices are part of a wider pan-tribal consciousness. A desert Western landscape marries Asian and Latin atmospheres. Indigenous contributions with berimbau explorations find fossil sounds of rattles and clap-hands invocations. Influences of Indian mantra singing are combined with eternal African voices or with folkish-Latin guitar rhythms , while flute and drums evoke distant dances. In the Organic Music everything becomes an act of devotion and love, an ecstatic dwell in the dimension of a sacred free-rejoice.

Without warning, a group of young girls from a remote region of Benin is shaking up the world of garage rock with breathtaking freshness, ingenuity and energy, playing spot-on, loud and clear.

A musician named André Baleguemon decided to form an exclusively female band rooted in the concerns of its time. He puts the spotlight on the guitar, drums and keyboard, instruments he has admired since his childhood, symbols of modernity in this remote region. His observation is simple: “In the North, girls have no room to advance and women are put aside. I simply wanted to show the importance of women in the societies of North Benin by forming a female orchestra “.
On July 25th, 2016, with the support of the city of Natitingou, André launched a press release on Nanto FM offering to help train girls in music for free. A few days later, dozens of aspiring musicians showed up at the Youth Center. “The girls who came didn’t know anything about music. We selected seven girls of the Waama and Nabo ethnic groups from the surrounding villages, some had never even seen these types of instruments before. “
The girls quickly became passionate about their new musical activities, learning how to play drums, guitar, piano and sing vocal harmonies. Their progress was astounding. An intense work of musical training took place, starting with drum workshops, their favorite instrument. Angelique and Urrice on drums and vocals, assisted by Marguerite, the third drummer. Sandrine is on keyboards, as is Grace, who also sings vocals. Julienne is on bass and Anne on guitar.
André’s determination is one of the key elements of this human and artistic success. The girls have already performed dozens of concerts in the region, forging and expanding an already solid repertoire, while attracting an ever-increasing local audience. In addition to musical progress, he has been personally involved with each family, showing them the importance of his project, both musically and humanly and in particular the fact that each girl must remain in school and not be forced into marriage.

At the end of 2018, their encounter with the young French sound engineer Jérémie Verdier accelerated the course of things. On a mission in the region, he called on his Spanish friends Juan Toran and Juan Serra who showed up with their recording equipment in order to record the band’s first songs in the annex of the local museum. Random encounters and fate led Jean-Baptiste Guillot to hear the tapes. He decided to go meet them at the end of 2019. This short but memorable journey sealed the fate of the record you are now holding in your hands.