BHAJAN BHOY is Ajay Saggar. He released his debut solo album “Bless Bless” on 5 June 2020 which was met with unprecedented universal praise from the music press and received widespread airplay from radio stations in the USA (WFMU) to the UK (Steve Barker’s “On The Wire” and BBC 6 Music) to Australia (Eastside FM).

- “a gloriously blissed out set” (The Wire / August 2020)
- “ a great, deeply energising record” (The Quietus / June 2020)
- “as contemporary deep psych trips go this is seriously potent gear
- the perfect soundtrack for invoking the messianic spirit of Timothy Leary” (Shindig / July 2020)
- “fascinating guitar mantras” (Lust For Life / June 2020)
- “superb meditative collection” (Narc / June 2020)
- “J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.) said it was a “killer album”. I bow to that accordingly” (OOR / June 2020)

BHAJAN BHOY now follows the release of “Bless Bless” with a 10” EP….“That Summer Oh Creator!” EP. It features 2 tracks, clocking in at over 17 minutes, that were recorded in June and July 2020 and takes Saggar’s sonic explorations into even deeper territory. Yes the kosmische psych guitar touches are there, but the 2 beautiful songs are enhanced by pastoral electronica and dynamic field recordings.

- “For Robbie Basho” is a musical piece that reflects on the life of one of Ajay’s musical heroes…moments of heightened beauty and exaltation and moments of physical and mental suffering that touched Robbie Basho’s brief time on this earth.

- “Pinecone” has a pastoral, laidback feel to it. Composed, recorded and produced in one day in Malberg (Germany) at the house of Kat Bornefeld (drummer for The Ex), this track has already received airplay on BBC 6 Music and WFMU.

FORMAT INFORMATION

10" LP Info: 200 copies only.

An unknown and precious album recorded in 1975 by two friends who recorded one side each, they made just two acetates and then handmade beautiful covers from two enlargements of a photograph of the Isles of St Kilda. Side one is a neo classical prog rock epic in the style of Renaissance and Continuum, inspired by the wild and pagan isles of St Kilda where, as a 16 yr old, the composer Peter Mc Kerrow was taken by military launch to conduct a census on the rare Soay Sheep that live there. A storm blew away his tent on the first night. The other side is by his canadian pal who attended the same Uni in england, deeply homesick for Canada and surviving a broken relationship these songs are melancholic and Cohen-esque. The original Lp is astonishingly gorgeous and one of the most desirable looking artefacts of the prog era.

Post Arcadium psychedelic folk masterpiece, lost since 1969, just one original acetate LP exists,valued at £7000+, the lp has an intense pagan mood and deals with themes of alienation, notably in “Outsider”, it sounds very similar to Comus with flutes, violins but replaces the insanity of Comus with dark folked out melancholia. Short at 24 mins. Quite possibly the finest prog-folk lp ever made, with songwriting and lead vocal by Miguel Sergides who crafted the psych lp masterpiece by Arcadium. Accomplished and meticulous prog folk genius

Cut in northampton’s Beck studios circa 1969 and thought to be connected to Axe’s lead guitarist, this band remain completely unknown - only one battered acetate exists which has been held in a private collection for decades, it has track titles but no band name, with all research drawing blanks. regardless, this is arguably the finest example of blistering undergound heavy prog jamming ever graven in acetate or vinyl. And the band are at the top of their game,not a dodgy private press, it’s the real mc coy, a band that’s honed a perfect organic sound, with fantastic interplay, male and female vocal leads, and a guitarist completely on fire, possibly Axe’s Anthony Barford (rip) as theorised by Dark’s Steve Giles...we can’t be sure. Just 4 long tracks, 24 mins, if you like Heep, May Blitz, and a touch of Jefferson Airplane, you need this. And the final track is a space ballad with the girl on lead vocal, and she outclasses Grace Slick and Julie Driscoll. Fact. Ranks with Dark. Valued in excess of £10,000

Agitated is more than pleased to announce the long over-due return to wax (and CD) by Carlton Melton, the new album from San Franciscan / Northern Californian space-trippers is here, and its ready to tune you out and turn you on.

Nestled deep in the forests of Mendocino County in Northern California, huddled under the protective shade of towering redwoods and within earshot of frothy waves crashing against the Pacific coastline, squats a geodesic dome that has served as crucible for the experimental genius of Carlton Melton. Nature and Man operate under different logics. But here, Carlton Melton wholly entrusts this idyllic environment with the task of inspiring and guiding their musical improvisations.

The Dome has been the ideal setting to facilitate their creativity. Without forcing a specific dynamic or theme, the band inhabits its womb-like confines to improvise, explore, dream. Their music draws on psychedelia, stoner metal, krautrock, and ambient atmospherics to convey, above all else, a mood.

A prickly guitar melody will float lazily, a wall of dissonant feedback will resolve into a hypnotic drone, or a colossal riff will exhume the soul of Jimi Hendrix. One hears Hawkwind or Spacemen 3 jamming with Pink Floyd at Pompeii.

Indeed, Carlton Melton have one foot in the ancient world and one tentacle in deep space. They are both the pack of proto-humans drumming with femurs in Kubrick’s 2001 and the film’s inscrutable monolith hinting at the universe’s mysteries. The “Stoned Ape” theory holds that early hominids ingested psychedelic mushrooms that provided an evolutionary boost to their brains, helping them blossom into Homo Sapiens. Imagine such cavemen trippin’ balls, their nightmarish visions sending them into feverish bouts of rage and then gentle moments of introspection. They very well could have heard the music of Carlton Melton rattling inside their skulls, first driving our ancestors mad then upward into a higher realm.

Andy Duvall (drums, guitar), Clint Golden (bass), and Rich Millman (guitar, synths) have yet to play Pompeii, but they have already wowed crowds at European festivals such as the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, Roadburn, and Desertfest Antwerp. Live, they are jaw-dropping. On record, mind-altering.

In fact, with each album, Carlton Melton adds a subtle new element, synapses firing new neural connections. In 2020, they release new full-length Where This Leads, marking ten years of the band’s working relationship with their UK label Agitated Records and five years of recording with Phil Manley in his El Studio in San Francisco. With Where This Leads, the band rewires the listener’s mind. “Smoke Drip Revisited” is a ticklish acid flashback, “Porch Dreams” a dabbling in country psych, and “Closer” a driving, freak-out of guitar heroics.

One senses that the group is conveying a message that cannot be expressed verbally but only suggested through synth sighs, walloping rhythms, and soaring solos. Would Carlton Melton therefore be a group of stoned apes dizzily grasping for meaning or telepathic futurists communicating to us through crude man-made instrumentation?

Well, lower the stylus to find out.
- Eric Bensel, Paris July 2020

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Indies Vinyl Colourway:
Disc 1 Green Transparent
Disc 2 Marbré Opaque

One can hardly imagine the genre-busting, culture-crossing musical magic of Outkast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, or even the early Red Hot Chili Peppers without the influence of R&B pioneer Betty Davis. Her style of raw and revelatory punk-funk defies any notions that women can’t be visionaries in the worlds of rock and pop. In recent years, rappers from Ice Cube to Talib Kweli to Ludacris have rhymed over her intensely strong but sensual music.

There is one testimonial about Betty Davis that is universal: she was a woman ahead of her time. In our contemporary moment, this may not be as self-evident as it was thirty years ago – we live in an age that’s been profoundly changed by flamboyant flaunting of female sexuality: from Parlet to Madonna, Lil Kim to Kelis. Yet, back in 1973 when Betty Davis first showed up in her silver go-go boots, dazzling smile and towering Afro, who could you possibly have compared her to? Marva Whitney had the voice but not the independence. Labelle wouldn’t get sexy with their “Lady Marmalade” for another year while Millie Jackson wasn’t “Feelin’ Bitchy” until 1977. Even Tina Turner, the most obvious predecessor to Betty’s fierce style wasn’t completely out of Ike’s shadow until later in the decade.

Ms. Davis’s unique story, still sadly mostly unknown, is unlike any other in popular music. Betty wrote the song “Uptown” for the Chambers Brothers before marrying Miles Davis in the late ‘60s, influencing him with psychedelic rock, and introducing him to Jimi Hendrix — personally inspiring the classic album ’Bitches Brew.’

But her songwriting ability was way ahead of its time as well. Betty not only wrote every song she ever recorded and produced every album after her first, but the young woman penned the tunes that got The Commodores signed to Motown. The Detroit label soon came calling, pitching a Motown songwriting deal, which Betty turned down. Motown wanted to own everything. Heading to the UK, Marc Bolan of T. Rex urged the creative dynamo to start writing for herself. A common thread throughout Betty’s career would be her unbending Do-It-Yourself ethic, which made her quickly turn down anyone who didn’t fit with the vision. She would eventually say no to Eric Clapton as her album producer, seeing him as too banal.

In 1973, Davis would finally kick off her cosmic career with an amazingly progressive hard funk and sweet soul self-titled debut. Davis showcased her fiercely unique talent and features such gems as “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up” and “Game Is My Middle Name.” The album Betty Davis was recorded with Sly & The Family Stone’s rhythm section, sharply produced by Sly Stone drummer Greg Errico, and featured backing vocals from Sylvester and the Pointer Sisters.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: Limited Light In The Attic 180g reissue in heavyweight paste-on board sleeve and biography insert.

One can hardly imagine the genre-busting, culture-crossing musical magic of Outkast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, or even the early Red Hot Chili Peppers without the influence of R&B pioneer Betty Davis. Her style of raw and revelatory punk-funk defies any notions that women can’t be visionaries in the worlds of rock and pop. In recent years, rappers from Ice Cube to Talib Kweli to Ludacris have rhymed over her intensely strong but sensual music.

There is one testimonial about Betty Davis that is universal: she was a woman ahead of her time. In our contemporary moment, this may not be as self-evident as it was thirty years ago – we live in an age that’s been profoundly changed by flamboyant flaunting of female sexuality: from Parlet to Madonna, Lil Kim to Kelis. Yet, back in 1973 when Betty Davis first showed up in her silver go-go boots, dazzling smile and towering Afro, who could you possibly have compared her to? Marva Whitney had the voice but not the independence. Labelle wouldn’t get sexy with their “Lady Marmalade” for another year while Millie Jackson wasn’t Feelin’ Bitchy until 1977. Even Tina Turner, the most obvious predecessor to Betty’s fierce style wasn’t completely out of Ike’s shadow until later in the decade.

Ms. Davis’s unique story, still sadly mostly unknown, is unlike any other in popular music. Betty wrote the song “Uptown” for the Chambers Brothers before marrying Miles Davis in the late ’60s, influencing him with psychedelic rock, and introducing him to Jimi Hendrix - personally inspiring the classic album 'Bitches Brew'.

But her songwriting ability was way ahead of its time as well. Betty not only wrote every song she ever recorded and produced every album after her first, but the young woman penned the tunes that got The Commodores signed to Motown. The Detroit label soon came calling, pitching a Motown songwriting deal, which Betty turned down. Motown wanted to own everything. Heading to the UK, Marc Bolan of T. Rex urged the creative dynamo to start writing for herself. A common thread throughout Betty’s career would be her unbending Do-It-Yourself ethic, which made her quickly turn down anyone who didn’t fit with the vision. She would eventually say no to Eric Clapton as her album producer, seeing him as too banal.

Her 1974 sophomore album 'They Say I’m Different' features a worthy-of-framing futuristic cover challenging David Bowie’s science fiction funk with real rocking soul-fire, kicked off with the savagely sexual “Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him” (later sampled by Ice Cube). Her follow up is full of classic cuts like “Don’t Call Her No Tramp” and the hilarious, hard, deep funk of “He Was A Big Freak.”

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: Limited Light In The Attic 180g reissue in heavyweight paste-on board sleeve and biography insert.

Favourite People is a new band from the Brooklyn boroughs orbiting blues-rock with faint psychedelic radio waves. The band met in ‘International Waters’, the legendary after-hours club in the East Village and soon began rehearsing at Selva after a chance meeting with Quantic. These two cuts boast more fuzz than Bootle Street, taking the form of a lascivious swagger and hippy cartwheel respectively.

FORMAT INFORMATION

7" Info: Limited to 127 copies.

Searing art rock monsterpiece dominated by a relentlessly coruscating lead guitar sonic attack as if played by a demonically possessed John Mclaughlin, Flux is ex Babe Ruth, ex Motiffe, with lead guitar by John Grimaldi before he joined Argent and worked on their prog masterpiece Circus. This LP is taken from a mono mastertape recorded on a BBC Mobile Unit at a live gig in 1973, a shocked Record Mirror journalist witnessed the concert and described it in a published Record Mirror review as ‘a new form of music’.

Sound quality is great and this is a band in top form playing exactly what they want, in a zone a bit like King Crimsons Red, but with insane guitar leads that bludgeon the listener to death. The vocalist later joined italian prog rockers Flea On The Honey. Play this with a hangover and you will die in screaming agony. 1 very short track, and 4 very long ones. The gig ended with an IRA bomb scare. yes really.

Cardinal Fuzz and Little Cloud Records are proud to bring to you for your listening pleasure the 5th album by your favorite Swedish purveyors of heavy drones, fuzzed nightmares and stökpsych – The Janitors – ‘Noisolation Sessions Vol.1’.

‘Noisolation Sessions Vol.1’ is a testament of three months in disturbing times. In March 2020 The Janitors had their new Album written and studio time booked -ready to unleash their latest shamanic fuzz meltdowns, then corona hit and everything changed. They figured they would go down into their own studio to work on those tunes some more until things passed over. While working there they recorded what they felt was a most apt tune for that moment back in Spring 2020 – A cover of Joy Divisions – ‘Isolation’ – It was epic and the reaction they got confirmed it. It re-energised The Janitors and in doing so the creative juices flowed and a though kicked in - that the next week they just start writing new songs, but with the same dogmatic rules, one night of recording, one week of mixing and then it's done - A challenge of just letting the creativity flow but then leaving the song as a testament to that moment.

These six songs are the product, All of it The Janitors came up with on the spot, all ideas were welcome as improvisations leads to new and far-out places, but also the occasional wrong note, lyrics reflecting the strange days we were witnessing and how they affected us, the people we love and the world. The Janitors say this is by far their least worked through art, but it turned out to be some of the best songs The Janitors have ever produced.
The next album will be recorded as soon as corona is gone, until then we'll see if there will be a volume 2 of the Noisolation series. Always and forever, fuck all right wing and capitalist oppressors. To create is to resist. To resist is to create.

Fuzz love from The Janitors

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Limited transparent blue vinyl.

At last, a new studio LP from superb London duo, The Left Outsides, to follow up on 2018's amazing All That Remains.

The basic building blocks remain the same -- half of the sound is Alison Cotton and her viola and keys, the other half is Mark Nicholas with a stunning array of guitars -- but the structures they create this time are darker and more forbidding than their antecedents. This album feels very much a piece of the season in which it is being released, as the leaves strip themselves from trees and the sky grows colder, greyer by the hour. More than once while Are You Sure I Was There spun I was put in mind of the classic Rainy Day LP, masterminded by Kendra Smith back in 1984. The Left Outsides possess the same sure grasp of that place where sorrow, ecstasy and psychedelics meet in a shower of dying stars.

The tunes here are wonderful. Most are new, although a few have been heard before in different forms (if you knew where to listen.) “The Wind No Longer Stirs the Trees” (with its glorious blend of backwards and forward motion) was on a 7” lathe, backed with “As Night Falls” (a beautiful ode to the promise of winter.) The track “Seance” was first recorded as part of an celebration of Help the Witch, the debut novel by former music critic Tom Cox (whose words were used for most of the lyrics.) And “My Reflection Once Was Me” (which recalls The Trees' epic tunes by combining massive blocks of raging guitar with Alison's steady vocals) was featured on the live A Place to Hide LP.

The other compositions are all-new and utterly great. The tunes that Mark sings tend to evoke a certain '60s whisp. Whether it's the Floydian lilt of “Only Time Will Tell,” the freakbeat pop of “November on My Mind,” or “Pictures of You,” which stacks a dreamy '60s overlay upon contempo pop structuring. Alison's vocals often display a more folky essence. “The Stone Barn” has a vibe very similar to some of Sandy Denny's later solo work, grounded by stately piano chords. “Things Can Never Be the Same” centers on a gorgeous mid-paced vocal performance, encased in spinning webs of very elegant guitar. And the conjoined vocals on “A Face in the Crowd,” sit atop a huge fuzz riff, sounding like the perfect anthem for the new Slow Music Movement. They wont back down!

And you shouldn't either. I'm not exactly sure where anyone gets their records these days but wherever that is, you should march there tout de suite (even if only figuratively) and demand a copy of Are You Sure I Was There today. And yes, I am sure. Today! (Byron Coley)

Ultra rare £3000+ serene folk inflected progressive rock, cherry red used one song from a poor condition acetate on a recent compilation, 3 acetate copies were made in 1970, we used the only surviving near mint lp thats owned by an ex member as source with great audio. the songs Oakenshade and Waxing of the Moon are poetic genius, using a guitar with a damaged bridge to create a sitar like drone, the vocals have an air of resigned melancholia, and the lyrics connect with a mystical understanding of and reverence for nature. issued with the full co operation of all the band, lifeblud later explored a heavier sound that sometimes hits the level of High Tide, and we have 2 more lifeblud lps scheduled for release. housed in a gatefold sleeve with band history, reproducing the original typed lyric sheets, and repro of the acetate labels.

Commissioned by the Chicago Cultural Center in 2005 to assemble a group representing the diversity of the city’s avant-garde, Mazurek began composing for what became his Exploding Star Orchestra (ESO). Including musicians from the often-segregated North, South, and West sides, ESO debuted in the urban epicenter of Chicago’s Millennium Park and, shortly after, recorded We Are All From Somewhere Else (Thrill Jockey, 2007). By the time of Galactic Parables Vol. 1, ESO’s 2015 triple LP on Cuneiform Records, Mazurek reflected to Pop Matters that “Exploding Star Orchestra is the conceptual, compositional and philosophical center of all my work... a life star of musical and visual and ideas."

In 2018 JazzFest Berlin invited Mazurek to present a new iteration of ESO. Meeting the commission with the boundless ambition characteristic of his approach, he imagined a jubilee of musicians – true to ESO’s essence in their widely diverse backgrounds and voices, but more tightly arranged than ever before. Mazurek’s debut was an ecstatic and wholly original program that marked a pinnacle in his distinction as a composer and conductor of Contemporary Music. When he returned to Chicago, International Anthem took the opportunity to capture these new ESO compositions with a cast of collaborators from their collective constellation of artists. In the studio between August 2019-March 2020, Mazurek channeled his arrangements through 11 musicians – Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Jaimie Branch, Joel Ross, Mikel Patrick Avery, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Macie Stewart, Angelica Sanchez, and John Herndon – and commissioned his long-time collaborator Damon Locks to do lyrics and vocals. After 3 months of rigorous post-production, editing and assembly, Mazurek completed Dimensional Stardust.

Somehow swirling adventurous elements of avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical into the most universal attractors of pop music, the cosmic opera of Dimensional Stardust is a pure spiritual extension of Exploding Star Orchestra’s unifying ethos, and a peak in the prolific creative career of Rob Mazurek.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Indies exclusive 'Cosmic moment' blue and white splatter vinyl.

"His songs sound like memories, as familiar as they are foreign. I’m addicted to this record.” - Cate Le Bon. In a time rife with alienation, Magic Touch, the third album by the ubiquitous and mysterious Jack Name, offers the comfort of contact. With a body of work that ranges from the catchy to the cacophonous, Name has earned the reputation of a musician who’s difficult to define. For over a decade, he’s been a fixture in the Los Angeles underground. His songs have appeared on albums by U.S. Girls (Heavy Light, 2020) and White Fence (Family Perfume, 2012); he’s produced recordings for Cass McCombs and collaborated with Ariel Pink; and his experimental music has been performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Magic Touch reveals yet another side of Jack Name. While it’s every bit as intricate as his previous releases, 2014’s Light Show and 2015’s Weird Moons, here he’s done away with the dense production of his earlier work to make a record that feels stark, personal, and effortlessly natural. With Magic Touch, Name brings his lyrical and conceptual focus away from the dream worlds of his first two albums and back to Earth: a simpler place, or so it seems, where humans are falling in and out of love, struggling with loneliness, reaching for connections to each other, and, for better or worse, affecting each other. In a year like 2020, it’s a place that feels familiar and far away all at once. The almost subliminal story arc of Magic Touch reminds us that touch itself is magic.

Porto-based experimental duo Paisiel comprise Portuguese drummer João Pais Filipe and German saxophonist Julius Gabriel. Both full-time musicians across several genres and disciplines, with Rocket Recordings having just released a collaborative album between João and Salford hit squad Gnod titled ‘Faca De Fogo’, the vibe Paisiel achieve across their second album ‘Unconscious Death Wishes’ sounds specific, singular and ultimately unique.

The pair first met in 2014, began recording as Paisiel in 2017, released their first, self-titled album on cassette through local label Lovers & Lollypops in 2018 and had it pressed onto vinyl in 2019 courtesy of Rocket Recordings, who have maintained the partnership for this follow-up. A progression from what was already forward-facing music, ‘Unconscious Death Wishes’ is a single 39-minute piece recorded using improvisation based around composed structures, or what the drummer calls “instant composition”.

Beginning quietly and mournfully, an array of percussion, avantelectro synths (think Cabaret Voltaire or Muslimgauze) and expansive sax swiftly takes hold. At times, this could be a late 60s proto-Krautrock cafeteria jam, early 70s New York loft jazz happening or Brazilian street parade from whichever decade takes your fancy.Listeners might read all kinds of emotions or states of mind into this music: Paisiel themselves play to transcend such earthly concerns. ‘Unconscious Death Wishes’ is their way of evoking, in Julius’ words, “landscapes, shapes, colours, proportions and movements”.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Red / Black vinyl.

Delicate Sound Of Thunder encapsulates a band at their best. The 3-LP 180-gram vinyl set includes 9 songs not included on the 1988 release of the album.

In 1987, Pink Floyd made a triumphant resurgence. The legendary British band, formed in 1967, had suffered the loss of two co-founders: keyboardist / vocalist Richard Wright, who left after sessions for The Wall in 1979, and bass player and lyricist Roger Waters, who had left to go solo in 1985, soon after the 1983 album The Final Cut. The gauntlet was thus laid down for guitarist/singer David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, who proceeded to create the multi-platinum A Momentary Lapse Of Reason album, a global chart smash, which also saw the return of Richard Wright to the fold.

Originally released in September 1987, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason was quickly embraced by fans worldwide, who flocked to attend the live tour dates, which started within days of the album’s release. The tour played to more than 4.25 million fans over more than two years, and, as a celebration of the enduring talent and global appeal of David, Nick and Richard was unsurpassed at the time.

The Pretty Things, iconic 1st wave R&B cult heroes, created some of the most exciting and innovative records of the sixties and early seventies. Winners of the Hero award at the 2009 Mojo Honours, the band have been a massive success and a huge influence on artists as diverse as David Bowie, Aerosmith, The Ramones, Bob Dylan, The Sex Pistols, The White Stripes, Kasabian and many, many more. 2018 saw the release of a 50th-anniversary ‘S.F. Sorrow’ box set and the band’s final and extensive UK & European tour, which included a performance of ‘S.F. Sorrow’ in full at the Isle of Wight Festival and ended at a farewell show in London at Indigo at the O2 with an impressive supporting line-up of David Gilmour and Van Morrison. Following the now legendary and critically acclaimed ‘S.F. Sorrow’, the psychedelic ‘68 classic, the band returned to Abbey Road Studios and started work on ‘Parachute’.

First new album in over 10 years from legendary German krautrock pioneer Michael Rother (Kraftwerk, NEU!, Harmonia). 

The ‘Dreaming’ album was part of the lavish 7CD box set ‘Solo II’ containing the solo catalogue of Michael Rother. It was also issued on vinyl and is now finally available as a standalone CD. 

“A soothing balm, ethereal and magical in the main and definitely worth the wait... ‘Dreaming’ feels like a culmination and one hopes Rother won’t take as long over the next one.” - Music Tech

Utterly beguiling folk rock trio with two beautiful girls at the helm writing and singing mesmerising faeirie-like folk rock, only clive the bassist could be found, the two girls vanished in 1971 after making the lp and abandoning music to start families, clive has not heard from them since the moment they gave him his 3 copies of the 50 copy srt pressing in a folk club that night in ‘71. tracks like “sleepy rain” and “changeling” are understated and gorgeous, with insistent and addictive guitar strumming under gentle sandy denny-esque vocals. the whereabouts of the girls remains a mystery and the lp is issued with clive the bassist’s blessing. only 50 were made, not 99, and the lp is extremely rare, every copy was given away to friends, the originals are valued at £2000-4000

25 copies were privately made in 1968 by the 17 year old strang, who carried them home from the studio several miles in a rucksack on foot. very few survive today, and it is a little understood lp. the title refers to nuclear armageddon and the total death of all life, not a hippie idyll, and the songs are apocalyptic poetry that confront the cold war, hiroshima and nagasaki, platonic forms and the nature of reality, there are also a few explicit drug references to lsd and amphetamines. this darkness of intent makes the lp exceptional for the time, and seminal. musically it draws from donovan and the incredible string band , at times becoming experimental, and yet with an air of fragility that predicts vashti bunyans lp made two years later. john strang continues to compose privately to this day, but walked away from a Transatlantic Records deal in the early 70s to pursue a career in Psychiatry, for which he was knighted. A concept lp about mental illness was due for release on Transatlantic, which we are currently restoring from surviving tapes and cassettes, entitled “Shame and Stigma” it is forthcoming. Full lyrics included which demand careful reading, plus an insert explaining the lp written by the artist himself.

First time ever on vinyl, the legendary compilation taken from the infamous Kings Road ‘SEX ’shop jukebox. Curated by Marco Pirroni of Siouxsie & the banshees, Adam & the Ants and SEX shop regular, a hand-selected treasure trove of underground/outsider classics – All of which were on heavy rotation throughout the mid-70s on Malcolm and Vivienne’s SEX boutique jukebox..

Originally released in 2003 on OLLA records, “Sex: Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die”, The 2020 Stranger Than Paradise Records edition includes new updated artwork plus testimonials from Marco Pirroni, Don Letts, Jon Savage, Jordan, Paul Cook, and Manicured Noise’s Steven Walsh.

“…in my all-important role as ‘Sex’ shop layabout 1974-1976, it was my self-appointed duty to sit around and do nothing except be snide about everyone who came into the shop and continually play my favourite 20 records on the jukebox over and over again, until Jordan or Michael could stand no more and pulled the plug out of the wall……

.. I had never heard of any of the 19 artists who had made my 20 favorite records (I still haven’t) and couldn’t imagine what they were thinking when they made them (I still can’t) but whatever it was they were thinking, they believed it - body and soul - and were making the records they wanted to make against all odds, including at times their own lack of talent. The one thing I learnt from those days was that it’s more important for an artist to be actively discouraged than encourage”

Marco Pirroni

“Memories of a jukebox. The first thing we did when going into the shop was head to the jukebox and fire up some music. It was great listening to all those 50’s/60’s tracks and it was a bit of an education music wise.

Blasting out great Rock’n’Roll, Garage / Rebel Rock, it had to be the coolest jukebox in London at the time and we’d spend hours hanging around, digging the scene and looking cool. As time went by we’d add our own 45’s into the mix but the jukebox choice had Malcom’s stamp all over it with a selection of outsider, freaky misfits. ..Long live outsider, freaky misfits and R’n’Rollz “

Paul Cook, Sex Pistols

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Pressed on limited pink vinyl and includes a bonus 7" featuring two exclusive tracks taken from the jukebox –
A - side - Ian Hunter ‘Once Bitten, Twice Shy’
B- side - Jerry Byrne ‘Lights Out’

It makes sense that Detroit had a buzzy, thriving space-rock scene in the ‘90s. What American city’s denizens had a more urgent need to disengage and think outside the grim, post-industrial rustbelt realities? With space-rock (and its close sonic cousin shoegaze) being at once expansive and introspective, it naturally appealed to the young, intelligent artists who gravitated toward its vertiginous orbit.

The music of Southeast Of Saturn did not arise organically from metro Detroit’s fertile soil. Locally, garage-rock, goth-rock, neo-hippie groups, and the usual preponderance of adequate bar bands dominated the landscape. Thirsty Forest Animals guitarist Andrew Peters summarizes the prevalent attitude among the Motor City’s space-rock contingent: “I don’t think we really noticed the local Detroit scene earlier on. We were more into the bands you would see in the NME / Melody Maker, zines, and records - mostly from the UK - on the walls at Play It Again”. If anything was a major factor locally, it was Play It Again, the independent record store in the suburbs of Detroit that nurtured the scene with its amazing curation of imports and killer used records picked up on owner Alan Kovan’s British record buying trips.

Penned “Detroit Space-Rock”, the scene centered around Burnt Hair Records, Burnt Hair CEO Larry Hoffman’s Life According To Larry radio show, Zoot’s Coffeehouse and bands, such as Windy & Carl, Asha Vida, Füxa, Auburn Lull, and Majesty Crush. It was a modern movement of a more traditional “space-rock” sound, influenced less by The Stooges and MC5 and more by Spacemen 3, Loop, My Bloody Valentine and krautrock bands like Can and Neu!. Even the best-known artists on Southeast Of Saturn - Windy & Carl, Majesty Crush, Füxa - never achieved mainstream success, but within the rock underground, they inspired a cultish devotion that burns to this day.

If you missed their evanescent output the first time around, this compilation will get you up to speed over its 19 mind-altering tracks. ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Very limited indies exclusive deep space / aqua wave coloured vinyl.