‘Studio One Space-Age Dub Special’ is a brand new Studio One release on Soul Jazz Records which draws on more rare and classic dubs taken from the mighty vaults of Studio One Records.

Most of these tracks are taken from Studio One’s superb long out-of-print series of dub albums released between 1974 and 1980, such as ‘Zodiac Sounds’, ‘Ital Sounds and System’, ‘Roots Dub’, ‘Dub Store Special’, ‘Juks Incorporation’ and others. Many of these classic dub albums were originally released only in Jamaica in shortrun pressings with special silk-screen printed sleeves, all with striking minimal designs, and which now fetch many, many hundreds of pounds.

These tracks, credited to the Dub Specialist, use the original music tracks to seminal Studio One rhythms, which are broken down, reconstructed, and manipulated using the studio mixing desk as an instrument. With these albums, producer Clement Dodd and engineer Sylvan Morris helped create some of the finest dubs ever known.

The cover shows Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd in orbit, an image inspired by DJ Lone Ranger‘s 1982 ‘Badda Dan Dem’ album for Studio One, the cover of which portrays Sir Coxsone at the controls of a spaceship with the DJ in space.

The tracks on ‘Studio One Space-Age Dub Special’ are mainly instrumental cuts with occasional snippets of original vocals brought into the mix. Lone Ranger’s complete vocals feature on ‘A Lie Gal A Tell’, a superb six minutes plus dubbed out piece of musical madness. Also included are a selection of rare dub versions that only ever appeared on rare singles.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Intriguing release (all new releases), credited to Dub Specialist yet mining the wealth of Studio One-released source material to create shimmering new dubscapes that refract the past through a space echo and a reverb. Dub heads will need no convincing on this one!

TRACK LISTING

1. Dub Specialist - Red Neck
2. Dub Specialist - Marcus Dub
3. Dub Specialist - Accra
4. Dub Specialist - A Lie Gal A Tell
5. Dub Specialist - Squash Dub
6. Dub Specialist - Pick Up The Version
7. Dub Specialist - Saucy Perila
8. Dub Specialist - RoaringReggae
9. Dub Specialist - Still Water Version
10. Dub Specialist - My Man (Part 2)
11. Dub Specialist - Disco Dub
12. Dub Specialist - Tricky
13. Dub Specialist - Illiteracy Version
14. Dub Specialist - Wailing Sounds
15. Dub Specialist - Juk’s Inc.
16. Dub Specialist - Barb Wire Version
17. Dub Specialist - Queen Of The Rub
18. Dub Specialist - I A See I

“There are certain records that ‘split the atom’, creating a totally new sound - serendipitous moments in time when an artist pulls a rabbit from the hat and forecasts a change ahead.” - Greg Wilson, DJ Mag.

Few records crossed over into different musical worlds as successfully as the Funk Masters’ sublime UK disco / jazz funk monster classic cut, ‘Love Money’. A monster underground hit in New York - everywhere from Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage and David Mancuso’s Loft in New York - through to the new wave / no wave dance crowds at Area, Club 57, Danceteria, Limelight and Mudd Club, and artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who similarly played the track to death. The track then also became a huge Chicago house club track and influenced everyone from Masters at Work’s Louie Vega to Francois Kevorkian with its dubbed-out sound.

Originally released in 1981, the track came out on the flipside over a rap cut to the song by Bo Kool, one of the earliest examples of UK rap, but it was the instrumental ‘Love Money’, with its dubbed out sound effects, that was more often played, filling dancefloors everywhere. This nod to reggae and dub was not by chance. The track was produced by long-time UK resident Jamaican reggae DJ and producer Tony Williams. This was his first attempt at a club track but, by using reggae musicians, he created new style blending funk, disco and reggae, years ahead of its time.

So if ever you want to hear a record that encapsulates the world of disco, funk, proto-house, hip-hop, no wave dance and reggae in one go then this is it.

This is the first release from Soul Jazz Records’ delving into the Tony Williams Tania Music and Funk Masters catalogue, which contains a wealth of UK jazz funk killers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Funk Masters - Love Money
2. Bo Kool - (Money) No Love

Superb exact reproduction of the debut (and only) punk single by Johnny and The Self Abusers, originally released on Chiswick Records in 1977.

In classic punk style, the band split-up two weeks after this hi-octane debut, only to start a new band called Simple Minds.

One-off collectors’ pressing, comes in fold out paper sleeve and specially silk-screened Punk 45 outer sleeve.

Johnny and The Self Abusers’ ‘Saints & Sinners’ also features on Soul Jazz Records’ ‘Punk 45: I’m A Mess’, a collection of twisted, raw and energized proto-punk music from the late 1970s.

TRACK LISTING

1. Saints & Sinners
2. Dead Vandals

A stone-cold classic conscious Lovers Rock tune from the seminal British reggae group Brown Sugar. ‘I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks’ was originally released in 1977, and is now pressed loud for the first ever time on this new one-off press edition 12” on Soul Jazz Records.

Brown Sugar formed in London in 1976, made up of teenagers Pauline Catlin, Caron Wheeler and Carol Simms. After Brown Sugar, Caron Wheeler became known worldwide as the vocalist in Soul II Soul. Carol Simms launched a successful solo career under the name Kofi.

I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks’ was originally released on the Lovers Rock label, a fledgling reggae label formed by Dennis Bovell, John Kpiaye and producer Dennis Harris.

Brown Sugar were unique - not only were they one of the most important of the first wave of lovers rock groups, they were the only group who managed to successfully blend together a reggae roots consciousness with a lovers rock sensibility.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: One of two loud-cut Soul Jazz reggae twelves this week. The lover's rock classic by Brown Sugar has become of the most enduring tracks of this homegrown sub-genre. Complete with dub version there's simply no better pressing of this currently available!

TRACK LISTING

1. I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks
2. I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks (Version)

Hieroglyphic Being’s third solo album on Soul Jazz Records, a resolute and powerful statement of Jamal Moss’s raw, vital, pioneering, Afro-Futurist electronic (dance) music.

On his new album, Moss once again draws upon the vast scope of experimentation that has defined Chicago’s musical universe over the last half a century - from the birth of house music with the pioneers Ron Hardy, Marshall Jefferson, Lil Louis and others to the radical avant-garde jazz legacy of the city, The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra.

Chicago’s musical universe continues to push-further forward today with artists such as Hieroglyphic Being, Angel Bat Dawid, Makaya McCraven, and labels such as International Anthem and Hieroglyphic Being’s own Mathematics, all continuing to explore radical new music while drawing upon the city’s decidedly Afro-futurist lineage.

Jamal Moss remains at all-times a radical one-off musical explorer, a resolute pioneer of an avant-garde dance music aesthetic taking lineage from the founding fathers of acid house such as Ron Hardy and Adonis, and pushing the musical form to its own limits, adding his own harder almost industrial edge to this unique sound, which Moss sometimes describes as ‘Outsider House’ or, referencing the earlier avant-garde musical resident and pioneer, Sun Ra, ‘Rhythmic Cubism’ and ‘Cosmic Be-Bop’.

Hieroglyphic Being’s music crosses many boundaries and has led to remixes of a wide and diverse list of artists, from St Vincent to Hans-Joachim Roedelius (the pioneering German electronic composer and member of Cluster), King Gizzard and the Lizard Gizzard to Adonis and many more. In similar fashion, his music has appeared on Ghostly / Spectral, Warp, Ninja, Axis and his own Mathematics Recordings.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Our favourite sonic shaman returns! For new devotees expect - emotive acid, pointillist drum workouts, fried electrics, warped atmospheres and a total merger of machine and mind - taking cues from jazz, industrial and house music along the way. There's no-one else like him, yet he somehow manages to reflect 30+ years of dance music experimentation back at us through his own interplanetary lens. A feast for the ears, one of his best for a while - both a wonderful entry point for newcomers and a completely essential purchase for his existing cult fanbase.

TRACK LISTING

1.  Communion Of The Highest Order
2.  We Are The Light Vessels
3.  When Situations Get 2 Deep
4.  Look Over There 9 O'Clock
5.  Beyond The Outrage
6.  Frantic Moments
7.  Mephisto's Pulpit Of Stank
8.  Deconstructing The Path
9.  Nights Under The Nubian Sky
10.  Dark Acidic Organs From The Void
11.  Private Runner
12.  Let Me Know How U Really Feel
13.  There Is No Acid In This House (Just Emotions Remix)
14.  Dogs Don't Wear Pants

Brand new edition of Soul Jazz Records’ massive deluxe 400-page‘Punk 45’ cover art book, edited and compiled by Jon Savage (authorof the seminal book on punk, ‘England’s Dreaming’) and Stuart Baker(founder of Soul Jazz Records). This new edition comes with a new introduction from BobbieGillespie, founder of Primal Scream (who has recently also publishedhis memoirs, ‘Tenement Kid’). Contributors include Peter Saville, Richard Hell, Richard H Kirk,Seymour Stein, Geoff Travis, Martin Moscrop, Glenn Branca, JamieReid, Dave Robinson, Roger Armstrong, Martin Mills, Gee Vaucher,Savage Pencil, Dennis Morris and more.

This book is a revelatory guide to hundreds and hundreds of original7” record cover sleeve designs - visual artefacts found at the heart ofthe most radical and anarchistic musical movement of the 20thCentury.

As well as the encyclopaedic visual imagery featured inside, the bookalso includes interviews with a number of significant figures in punkmusic: artists and groups, including Richard Hell, Martin Moscrop (ACertain Ratio), Richard H Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire), Glenn Branca andDavid Thomas (Pere Ubu); record label owners including SeymourStein (Sire Records), Geoff Travis (Rough Trade), Roger Armstrong(Chiswick), Martin Mills (Beggars Banquet), Dave Robinson (StiffRecords), David Brown (Dangerhouse); and the celebrated designersinvolved in creating punk’s original iconic imagery - Peter Saville(Factory Records), Jamie Reid (Sex Pistols), Gee Vaucher (CrassRecords) and Dennis Morris (Public Image Limited).

The revolutionary do-it-yourself ethic of punk was applied to theaesthetic of design as much as it was to music, and record sleevesacted as lo-fi signifiers of anarchy, style, fashion, politics and morewith an urban and suburban invective courtesy of the 1000s of newbands - punk, post-punk, pre-punk, nearly-punk and more - thatemerged at the end of the 1970s. This book is an exhaustive, thorough and exciting celebration of thestunning artwork of punk music - everything from the most celebratedand iconic designs through to the stark beauty of the cheapest do-ityourself lo-fi obscurities.

Michigan and Smiley’s all-time Studio One anthem,the latest in the series of all-time classic Studio One party bombs available on super loud 12”. Michigan and Smiley’s ‘Nice Up the Dance’ issimply one of the biggest, wickedest dancehalltunes ever made.

Originally released in 1979, Michigan and Smiley’sclassic rhyming over the seminal ‘Real Rock’ has proved one of the most enduring tunes in reggaeever. 100% essential monster tunes that rock anydancefloor.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Soul Jazz return to their loud-cut 12" classics series, giving another run to the dancehall staple, "Nice Up The Dance". You know the riddim - but doubt you'll have heard it this crisp n bassy! Update your scratchy 7" with this full fidelity 12" version! Niiiice up!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Nice Up The Dance
B1. Michigan & Smiley & Sound Dimension - Nice Up The Dance (version)

This new release is a vast leap into an ocean of space and sound, a quantum leap into cybernetics, biology, anti-gravity, time travel, dream speech and transfiguration. A seriously next step release! Showing no signs of slowing down their rapid creative pace – incredibly this is their fourth album in the space of just over one year – ‘Vertigo of Flaws’ is a mighty 29 tracks, one and a half hours of music across one double album that is surely going to be a defining point in their musical career, a giant leap into the sonic unknown, an epic exploration of intensity and sound.

Alongside their now trademark German krautrock motoric-beat rhythms, angular New York post-punk attitude, trippedout 60s spy soundtrack, psyche-rock, and 70s synthesizers and vocoders, here you will also hear a new cosmic spacial awareness (both personal inner space and galactic outer space) and a truly wilful pushing of sonic boundaries - as police sirens, static noise, alarms, radio signals, avant-garde voices, and orchestral string quartets, all collide to add beautiful dissonance to uber-powerful, intense, addictive and propulsive rhythms - in the process creating a truly unique soundscape that Trees Speak have made wholly their own.

If you ever wanted to hear Can, Hawkwind, Destroy All Monsters, Pere Ubu, electric eels, John Cage, Liquid Liquid, Tangerine Dream, Suicide, Neu!, Laurie Spiegel, Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Barry, Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company, Sun Ra, Stockhausen, John Carpenter, Electro-Acoustic and Musique Concrete and Mars in one band - then this is it! Trees Speak are Daniel Martin Diaz and Damian Diaz from Tucson, Arizona and their music often draws on the cosmic night-time magic of Arizona’s natural desert landscapes.

‘Trees Speak’ relates to the idea of future technologies storing information and data in trees and plants - using them as hard drives - and the idea that Trees communicate collectively. Special guests from the hyper-creative hub of the Tucson music scene on this release are Gabriel Sullivan, Ben Nisbet, Saul Millan, Stephani Guilmette, and Davis Jones. The album Vertigo of Flaws was recorded in Brooklyn, New York, and Tucson, Arizona during the plague of 2021.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Ridiculously prolific Arizona natives Trees Speak come out with their 4th album in just over a year, and it has all of the cosmic heft and swooning arpeggiated bliss of the previous (very well regarded) LP's. This time though, we get a little more grit, turning otherwise upbeat pieces into slightly more avant-ambient-jazz territory. A sound all of their own, but one they do perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Seventh Mirror (3.23)
2. Cybernetic Dreams (4.07)
3. Interference (3.40)
4. Computer Garden (0.46)
5. Pyramid (2.34)
6. Halide Crystals (2.08)
7. Integratron (4.20)
8. Imaginary Forces (3.26)
9. Phantom LFO (3.13)
10. Opticks (2.56)
11. Mannequin (2.17)
12. Mind In Light (3.10)
13. Palantír (1.28)
14. Vertigo Of Flaws (3.15)
15. Exit Syndrome (1.11)
16. Stasi (5.35)
17. Atomic Voyage (3.11)
18. Ultraviolet (2.51)
19. Violence Cascades (3.27)
20. Traumsprache (3.51)
21. Zeitgeber (2.04)
22. Prism (3.03)
23. Threnody (2.56)
24. Mind Oscillation (3.19)
25. Hidden Machine (3.00)
26. Transhuman (1.01)
27. Ionization (3.12)
28. Cloud Chamber (3.16)
29. Harmonic Oscillator (1.19)

Limited Bonus 7” (LP Format Only)

A. Transfiguration (3.34)
B. Urzeit (2.37)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JULY 17TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JULY 17TH).

This album is released as a special one-off exclusive blue double vinyl edition for Record Store Day 2021. Out of print for nearly 15 years, this album was recorded at the start of the long-relationship between Kieran Hebden and drummer extraordinaire Steve Reid. Soul Jazz Records had begun to release Reidís music in 2000, reissuing much of his early catalogue of radical, deep and spiritual jazz music from the 1970s when an encounter between electronic music pioneer Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid effectively launched a new career for jazz drummer Reid - a man steeped in history having played with John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Motown and much more.

Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid released a set of ground-breaking albums together in London, New York and Africa (including four on Domino Records) and continued to work together up until Steve Reid died in 2010. This album launched the start of this new connection between the two very different and yet connected artists  a mixture of electronic and jazz sensibilities like no other. The album Spirit Walk contains an updated version of Reidís seminal Lions of Judah (originally released on Reidís classic Nova in 1976), For Coltrane, and the stunning and epic 15-min Drum Song. The album comes with complete original artwork, including innersleeves (featuring an interview with Steve Reid by Gilles Peterson).

TRACK LISTING

A 1. Lugano (7.02) 2. Bridget (5.49) 3. For Coltrane (8.03)
B 1. Blind Tom (1.23) 2. Which One? (6:43) 3. Lions Of Juda (8.26)
C 1. It Cannot Be True (6.04) 2. Unity (9:10)
D 1. Drum Story (14.29)

Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Cold Wave’ is a collection of current electronic artists who have all been shaped by the early European cold wave artists of the late 70s and early 80s.

This is the first release of Soul Jazz Records’ new Cold Wave overview and a second volume will follow.

These first artists created new electronic musical landscapes as well as pursuing a stubborn DIY aesthetic, often releasing material on cassette and pioneering use of lo-fi technology, primitive drum machines and home recording techniques. As part of this continued evolution today many of the artists featured here also self-release their own material, run labels, publish fanzines, or are part of wider musical collectives.

Aside from the first electronic, no wave and post-punk artists cited as influences – Suicide, Patrick Cowley, The Normal, Martin Hannett, Laurie Anderson, Public Image – this new generation of artists also show an exquisitely open source of electronic and disparate influences, everything from Underground Resistance to Purcell, from Scientist to new beat and more besides.

Most of the featured artists are based in Europe and include Krikor, Dissemblance and VQOA from France, De Ambassade from the Netherlands, Moisture from Sweden, Kreidler from Germany, Céline Gillian and Carcass Identity from Belgium. One exception is FIT Siegel out of Detroit, connecting the electronic pathways of Europe to the Motor City.

All of the bands featured here make distinctive contemporary music out of the 80s roots of the first cold wave movement.

This first edition of ‘Cold Wave’ comes in two vinyl editions – a one-off pressing orange coloured vinyl edition and a black vinyl edition. Both come as heavyweight double vinyl housed in bespoke individual inner sleeves and the first pressing of this album comes with its own free pullout fanzine on the groups featured. The CD edition comes with artist booklet / fanzine and slipcase. All editions are printed in special dayglo colour finish.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Not content with rocking our Piccadilly socks with the angular energy of their contemporary post punk round up, Soul Jazz now take a tour through the modern age of Cold Wave, picking out former Piccadilly records of the week from Krikor, Wang Inc., De Ambassade, Celine Gillain and Krikor. As a result, this whole comp comes most highly recommended from your favourite vinyl hustlers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dissemblance – Capture
2. Carcass Identity – Reflexion Ocean
3. FIT Siegel – Wayne County Stomp
4. De Ambassade – Standhouden
5. Wang Inc. – Approdo
6. Krikor Kouchian – Niños Matadores
7. Céline Gillain – Fight Or Flight
8. Kreidler – Kannibal
9. Moisture – Gammut
10. Violent Quand On Aime – Of Course I’m A Liar

This is the new instalment of Soul Jazz Records’ ground-breaking ‘Deutsche Elektronische Musik’ series, “a near-definitive guide to some of the world’s most extraordinary music” - The Guardian.

This new Soul Jazz release features many of the classic German electronic and Krautrock groups from the 1970s and 1980s, including Can, Amon Düül II, Harmonia, Conrad Schnitzler, Agitation Free and Roedelius, as well as a host of lesser known artists such as Dzyan, Klaus Weiss, Gruppe Between and many more.

Deutsche Elektronische rarities unearthed on the album include Kalacakra (whose fanbase included the great Moondog) and their superb ‘Nearby Shiras’, taken from their super-rare spiritual / psychedelic private press concept album ‘Crawling to Lhasa’ from 1972. 

‘Deutsche Elektronische 4’ includes a wealth of German electronic experimental artists - the seminal pioneering group Harmonia (Roedelius, Moebius and Michael Rother) and avant-garde guru Conrad Schnitzler, as well as lesser known synthetic artists such as Klaus Weiss, Deutsche Wertarbeit, E.M.A.K. (Elektronische Musik Aus Köln), Günter Schickert and others.

Finally, the album also features an array of heavy and progressive German cosmic rock groups - Dzyan, Virus and the amazing Turkish/German tripped out sound of Alex’s ‘Patella Black’, recorded at Can’s Inner Space in 1973, produced by Holger Czukay and Jackie Liebezeit.

‘Deutsche Elektronische 4’ comes with extensive newly commissioned sleevenotes by David Stubbs, author of the seminal books ‘Future Days: Krautrock and the building of Modern Germany’, ‘Mars By 1980: The story of Electronic Music’ and ‘Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and its Legacy’.

This album comes as a deluxe double CD edition with outsize booklet and slipcase, as well as a heavyweight triple vinyl edition with full colour inner sleeves. Both formats include full liner notes and extensive rare photography.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I really can't get enough of these compilations. Superb, unheard of gems mixed in with some undeniable classics, and presented beautifully in true Soul Jazz style. Unsurprisingly brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Alex – Patella Black
2. Klaus Weiss – Driving Sequences
3. Can – I'm So Green
4. Agitation Free – Laila, Part II
5. Deutsche Wertarbeit – Guten Abend, Leute
6. Amon Düül II – Wolf City
7. Michael Rother – Flammende Herzen
8. Klaus Weiss – Pink Sails
9. Virus – My Strand-Eyed Girl
10. Conrad Schnitzler – Ballet Statique
11. Kalacakra – Nearby Shiras
12. EMAK – Tanz In Den Himmel
13. Et Cetera – Mellodrama 2a
14. Between – Triumphzug Kaiser Maximilian I
15. Roedelius – Halmharfe
16. Dzyan – Dragonsong
17. Harmonia – Deluxe (Immer Wieder)
18. Günter Schickert – Suleika
19. Witthüser & Westrupp – Schöpfung (1. Mose 1)