Hope everyone is safe during our second period of isolation :)
Got another great selection for you this week - and loads more not yet posted up online - so let me know if there was anything you are after!
Peace and love,
Enjoy x
ZOINKS!
Will's Wonder Wax of the Week...
Ippei Matsui & Aki Tsuyuko – Natsu No Zenbu
Lovely, twinkling Japanese ambient meditations from 2008 resurface as the second release on All Night Flight’s fledgling imprint. RIYL Dominique Lawalrée, The Boats, World Standard.
Leading on from the shop-turned-label’s unearthing of ‘The Clearing’(1982) by A Produce, ANF look to a regular haunt, Japan, to share their love for Ippei Matsui & Aki Tsuyuko’s quiet, hypnagogic ambient and coruscating drone descriptions of an old Japanese house in a first time vinyl reissue of the married couple’s impossible-to-find 2008 CDr.
Recorded at home, an old Japanese house with 13 rooms, and originally given away as a gift to guests at their wedding, ‘Natsu No Zenbu’ – translating to ‘All Of Summer’ – forms a soothing suite of background music that effortlessly lulls listeners into its headspace. With slow burning pace and wheezing, frothy charm, it unfolds in 26 sparing vignettes that suggest solo immersion or shared intimate consumption, conjuring iridescent melodies and gauzy harmonies that can’t help but encourage eyes to half mast and heads onto pillows.
James' Judiciary:
Trees (50th Anniversary Edition)
Trees classic albums, beautifully packaged as a four-disc anniversary edition includes 12” book with liner notes from founder member David Costa and comedian Stewart Lee – Features two new discs of alternate mixes, early demos, BBC session tracks and 2018 live recordings in London – Includes lost demos of Polly On The Shore and Streets Of Derry. It’s now over fifty years since Trees’ formation and, although ‘Acid Folk’ has now become a sub-category in the lexicon of record dealers and music critics, and although founder member David Costa feels the original noughties reissue helped consolidate a gathering wave of curiosity, they themselves remain in the shadows. Earth’s new Trees collection brings together both albums adding shiny alternate mixes of key tracks along with a selection of radio sessions and demos, all sounding brighter and cleaner than ever before.
Tokyo’s conatala label chase that Pale Cocoon gem with World Standard’s charmingly naif 1982 ambient anachronisms, plucked from demo tapes made before they produced their debut with Haruomi Hosono, and now issued for the first time on vinyl.
The first in a series unearthing World Standard’s early demos, ‘Asagao’ depicts two young lads in Tokyo gently going against the grain of new wave and techno-pop trends, and perhaps most crucially, forging an alternative to environmental ambient’s obsession with synths. Recording in a room in Michio Kojima’s parents’ house, he and Soichiro Suzuki coaxed out a dreamy folk-wise sound from acoustic instruments (upright piano, mandolin, ukulele, cardboard drums) ping-ponged between two tape decks, most beautifully incorporating the everyday sounds of TV bleeding in from other rooms and the sound of Kojima’s grandparents shuffling around and popping their heads into the room through sliding doors.
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 and playing.
Star Feminine Band are a group of 7 girls, aged between 10 and 17 years old, from Natitingou, a remote town in the north of Benin. In 2016 they responded to a local radio call out to take part in a series of music training sessions. Previous experience was not necessary. Indeed, none of the girls had come close to a guitar, microphone or drumkit before. In just two years, with tutoring by local musician André Balaguemon, the girls rapidly honed their craft, bonded like sisters (2 of them are) and were rehearsing regularly in their studio space presented to them by the local mayor of Natitingou.
Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter J.S. Ondara, mononymously known as Ondara, reveals Folk N Roll Vol 1: Tales of Isolation, a new collection of songs written in direct response to the current global pandemic. The album was composed and produced by Ondara while in lockdown in Minneapolis over the course of a week, and came out of Ondara’s deep need to create as a form of therapy during this incredibly uncertain time. Tales of Isolation is the follow up to Ondara’s critically acclaimed 2019 debut, Tales of America.
VH Essential - One of Swans finest finally receives remastering - 1987 LP recorded in Cornwall, a massive divergence from the sound they had been working on for years before - CHECK THIS OUT!!
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble recorded this album fresh off a collaboration with Snoop Dog (Motivation), Masta Ace (Young Black Intelligent), De La Soul (Royalty Capes), while touring as the backup band for BlackStar (Mos Def and Talib Kweli) abroad. They are founders of the modern brass movement, with their Chicago style taking horn additions into myriad genres that we now see as commonplace. HBE was integral in arranging horns for Maxell award-winning hit Pretty Wings, as well as being the authors of blockbuster movie Hunger Games theme song (War off HJ 2009LP). This new record is the bands seventh worldwide release but its first full band double LP in 7 years, after touring the live sound globally over 6 continents Hypnotic now offers a full suite of their original mix of jazz, hiphop, soul, and house music.
For Fans Of…Temples, Allah-Las, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Khruangbin, David Axelrod. Where will you hide when the world around you is closing in? On their latest LP, Ghost Funk Orchestra invites you to close your eyes and take a dive into your subconscious. Strings and horns float around from ear to ear while their three sirens explore themes of isolation, fear of the unknown, and the fabrication of self-image. It’s a soulful psychedelic journey that picks up sonically where A Song For Paul left off. The drums are heavier, the arrangements are more intricate, and the vocal harmonies soar over a bed of odd time signature grooves. This is an album that’s meant to be listened to in the dark. So won’t you join them? You’re not scared…..are you?
New 8 Track EP. Featuring the original 6 unreleased tracks recorded during the sessions for the recently released second album Agitprop Alterna which was released in April of this year plus two further exclusive tracks are added to this vinyl pressing. It’s kind of like a sibling to that record as well as the Up and Up EP from 2019. The title comes from Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics which talks about Mods in England during the 1960s.
Big Crown Records present the Leon Michels produced Liam Bailey debut Ekundayo. This album is a long time in the making, and after listening, clearly worth the wait. It didn’t take a long time to record, but it did take years for all the stars to line up.
Bailey, born and raised in Nottingham, England, the son of an English mother and Jamaican father got his early influences from his mom’s record collection. Bob Marley and Dillinger, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix would eventually shape the singer/songwriter we know today. Fast-forward to 2005, Liam is in London and doing the whatever-gig-you-can-get musician hustle with hopes of landing a record deal. And it was through this time that Liam first teamed up with Leon Michels, musician / producer luminary, and the co-founder of Brooklyn’s own Big Crown Records. Liam flew out to New York and those first sessions together produced the now classic tunes When Will They Learn and I’m Gonna Miss You which still get spins at reggae spots around the globe. That trip helped kick off what was to follow next for Liam: a slew of record releases, label deals, and working with some wildly-notable mainstream producers. Even a just-famous Amy Winehouse heard one of Liam’s apartment-made, lo-fi recordings through a friend and liked what she heard. Regardless of the audio quality, Liam’s particular sound shone through—all guitar, warm-rough and genuine soul. She signed him to her label shortly after.
Remastered version of No Need to Argue by The Cranberries. Originally released in 1994, No Need To Argue was the band’s biggest selling album with global sales in excess of 17 million and contained the band’s most commercially successful single Zombie. Dolores O’Riordan – the band’s powerful and captivating lead singer – tragically passed away in January 2018.
The expanded 2LP features the remastered album plus three B-sides and extra tracks Yesterday’s Gone and a cover of the Carpenters (They Long To Be) Close to You.
More brilliant long-lost, rare, and unreleased hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal tracks from the 60s-70s and clearly this has become a bonafide archaeological movement as each new edition leads us to more exciting new discoveries. All of these tracks were painstakingly licensed legitimately and the artists were paid. Make yourself comfortable and prepare for yet another deep, deep dive into the treasure trove of dank, subterranean, wild-eyed and hairy rock ’n’ roll. It features Adam Wind, Grump, Bagshot Row, Daybreak, Renaissance Fair and more.
