‘Their ability to harmonize together is stunning, their reedy voices coming together and pulling apart amid delicate fingerstyle guitar and concertina deployed in just intonation, which imparts a deeply resonant, almost glowing harmonic presence. It’s all quite subtle, and if you only listen to the way the voices of Cater and Rasten blend you might even miss it—but the full sonic spectrum is what distinguishes and, in certain ways, connects it to traditional practice… Although the album is pure balladry, unfolding with exquisite patience, each song contains nifty little flourishes or instrumental elements that set them apart, such as the slide guitar and wheezy bass harmonica on For the Ear That is No More, or the slow peal of trumpet on Death and the Lady, courtesy of Rasten’s partner in Pip and Oker, Torstein Lavik Larsen. (Peter Margasak, Nowhere Street).
‘All done with such grace and elegance, without a note wasted or any required. Wonderful… faultless and deeply considered’ (Glenn Kimpton, KLOF).

Three high English and Scottish ballads, and three original settings of European folk tales.
Matt gatefold cover; gloss spot varnish.
Check it out!

Beautiful, stoned, outsider American folk, remastered from the original tapes (with superior sound quality to the super-rare original). From the eight years between First Songs LP in 1964 and Armchair Boogie.

Two spellbinding extended improvisations referring to meteorological and planetary phenomena: evocations of light, wind, clouds, and tidal cycles as shimmering, roaring, rubbing, coalescing and diverging environments of sound; consistent and yet in perpetual flux. The quartet’s signature, singular, honed minimalism subsumes flashes of chaos into winding paths of musical detail; hushed but suspenseful.

Quietly ravishing, stunning music from Norway, by trumpeter Torstein Lavik Larsen, double bassist Adrian Fiskum Myhr, guitarist Fredrik Rasten, and drummer Jan Martin Gismervik.
Gorgeously presented, in a tiny run.
Warmly recommended.
Something else.

‘Rhino Reserve, cut from analog tape.’

One of the foundation stones of northern soul, courtesy of Sherlie Matthews and sisters Brenda and Patrice Holloway.

‘Hey, fellahs…The sisters are not going for that no more…’
Stone cold feminist funk classic from the Female Preacher. The JBs sound like they know there’s no turning back.

Stanley Bryan was a jack of all trades at Channel One in its heyday. As an engineer, he mixed the Eek-a-Mouse classic Wah Do Dem, for instance. If a drummer dropped out of a session, Stan was the man to step in. And into the night, Ranking Barnabas worked the mic for the Channel One Sound System, often toasting over rhythms that he had recorded himself in the studio. Though Barnabas mixed countless dubs during these years, The Cold Crusher is the only LP released solely under his name, as a limited edition in the US.
Very well presented by the Italian label Jamming, with new notes, and expert sound restoration at Dubplates & Mastering. The terrific cover photo is by Beth Lesser.
Dub fans, don’t dilly dally. This won’t stick around.

Stretching out in 1965, with John Gilmore, Joe Chambers and co, two extra percussionists, and two bassists on one track. Abstract, fierce, textured, compelling.

‘Listeners expecting unrelenting blasts of ‘energy music’ might be surprised to find a cohesion atypical of free jazz: amidst the wild, impassioned solos, Howard weaves in Latin rhythms and fat-bottomed grooves. On the first side, Domiabra and Ole Negro sound as if they could have appeared on some of Blue Note’s proto-spiritual jazz, groove-heavy releases — evoking the likes of Horace Silver or Bobby Hutcherson — before ceding the floor to the horn players’ anarchic firepower. As John Corbett writes in the liner notes, ‘Two players stand out. Bassist Norris Jones — aka Sirone — is given ample room, largely unaccompanied; his corporal approach foreshadows later work with the Revolutionary Ensemble. But the secret weapon on The Black Ark is Arthur Doyle. Straight from basement rehearsal sessions with Milford Graves, whose ensemble he had joined and who remained a favorite of the drummer for decades, Doyle is a human flamethrower.’ Trumpeter Earl Cross’ guttural, vocal effects complement Doyle’s take-no-prisoners approach, while the estimable combination of Muhammad Ali (Rashied’s brother) on drums and Juma Sultan on congas adds an ever-shifting propulsion. The septet is rounded out by the enigmatic pianist Leslie Waldron, who anchors the group with imaginative accompaniment and occasional boppish flourishes. Every bit worthy of its reputation as an ‘out-jazz’ holy grail, The Black Ark only sounds better with age.’