Private Release

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Alireza Ghorbani - (2014) Eperdument... Chants D'Amour Persans CD

Accords Croisés ‎– 160

With this new album "Eperdument... / Lost in love", Alireza Ghorbani draws on the roots of Persian classical music while renewing the genre.
Texts of great classical Persian poets like Rumi and contemporary authors (Mohamed Reza Shafie Kadkani, Fereydun Moshiri) set to music with original compositions by Saman Samimi.

Pete Seeger - (2000) American Folk, Game & Activity Songs For Children CD

Smithsonian Folkways ‎– 45056

This hour-long CD combines the entirety of two children's-oriented Seeger LPs, 1953's American Folk Songs for Children and 1962's American Game and Activity Songs for Children, onto one disc. The eleven songs on American Folk Songs for Children were specifically selected from an identically titled book anthology of folk songs for children collected by Seeger's stepmother, Ruth Crawford Seeger. Pete Seeger renders them plainly and simply, singing and playing and banjo, on a program designed especially (but not solely) for children between three and seven years of age. "Jim Crack Corn," "Frog Went A-Courting," and "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" are some of the better-known tunes on the record, but not all of them are as overly familiar. American Game and Activity Songs for Children focuses especially on songs associated with activities and dancing, sometimes sung a cappella, sometimes sung with accompaniment from Seeger's banjo. "Skip to My Lou," "Ring Around the Rosy," "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush," and "Yankee Doodle" are some of the more well-known songs here -- at this point, they're probably more over-familiar than they were when the album was first released -- but there are less overdone ones here too, including the spiritual "Liza Jane."

Harry Smith - (1997) Anthology of American Folk Music 8xCD

Smithsonian Folkways ‎– 40090

Originally released in 1952 as a quasi-legal set of three double LPs and reissued several times since (with varying cover art), Anthology of American Folk Music could well be the most influential document of the '50s folk revival. Many of the recordings that appeared on it had languished in obscurity for 20 years, and it proved a revelation to a new group of folkies, from Pete Seeger to John Fahey to Bob Dylan. The man that made the Anthology possible was Harry Smith, a notoriously eccentric musicologist who compiled 84 of his favorite hillbilly, gospel, blues, and Cajun performances from the late '20s and early '30s, dividing each into one of three categories: Ballads, Social Music, and Songs. Smith sequenced the three volumes with a great amount of care, placing songs on the Ballads volume in historical order (not to be confused with chronological order) so as to create an LP that traces the folk tradition, beginning with some of the earliest Childe ballads of the British Isles and ending with several story songs of the early 20th century. The cast of artists includes pioneers in several fields, from the Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon to Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mississippi John Hurt, and the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers. Many of the most interesting selections on the Anthology, however, are taken from artists even more obscure, such as Clarence Ashley, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and Buell Kazee. After the Anthology had been out of print for more than a decade, Smithsonian/Folkways reissued the set in a six-disc boxed set, with the original notes of Harry Smith, as well as a separate book of new reminiscences by artists influenced by the original and a wealth of material for use in CD-ROM drives.

Disc: 1
1. Henry Lee - Dick Justice
2. Fatal Flower Garden - Nelston's Hawaiians
3. House Carpenter - Clarence Ashley
4. Drunkard's Special - Coley Jones
5. Old Lady And The Devil - Bill & Belle Reed
6. The Butcher's Boy - Buell Kazee
7. The Wagoner's Lad - Buell Kazee
8. King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O - Chubby Parker
9. Old Shoes And Leggins - Uncle Eck Dunford
10. Willie Moore - Richard Burnett And Leonard Rutherford
11. A Lazy Farmer Boy - Buster Carter And Preston Young
12. Peg And Awl - Carolina Tar Heels
13. Ommie Wise - G.B. Grayson
14. My Name Is John Johanna - Kelly Harrell
Disc: 2
1. Bandit Cole Younger - Edward L. Crain
2. Charles Giteau - Kelly Harrel
3. John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man - Carter Family
4. Gonna Die With My Hammer In My Hand - Williamson Brothers And Curry
5. Stackalee - Frank Hutchison
6. White House Blues - Charlie Poole And The North Carolina Ramblers
7. Frankie - Mississippi John Hurt
8. When That Great Ship Went Down - William And Versey Smith
9. Engine 143 - Carter Family
10. Kassie Jones - Furry Lewis
11. Down On Penny's Farm - Bently Boys
12. Mississippi Boweavil Blues - Masked Marvel
13. Got The Farm Land Blues - Carolina Tar Heels
Disc: 3
1. Sail Away Lady - Uncle Bunt Stephens
2. The Wild Wagoner - Jilson Setters
3. Wake Up Jacob - Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers
4. La Danseuse - Delma Lachney And Blind Uncle Gaspard
5. Georgia Stomp - Andrew And Jim Baxter
6. Brilliancy Medley - Eck Robertson
7. Indian War Whoop - Hoyt Ming & His Pep-Steppers
8. Old Country Stomp - Henry Thomas
9. Old Dog Blue - Jim Jackson
10. Saut Crapaud - Columbus Fruge
11. Acadian One-Step - Joseph Falcon
12. Home Sweet Home - Breaux Freres
13. Newport Blues - Cincinnati Jug Band
14. Moonshiner's Dance (Part One) - Frank Cloutier And The Victoria Cafe Orchestra
Disc: 4
1. You Must Be Born Again - Rev. J.M. Gates
2. Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting - Rev. J.M. Gates
3. Rocky Road - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers
4. Present Joys - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers
5. This Song Of Love - Middle Georgia Singing Conv. No. 1
6. Judgement - Sister Mary Nelson
7. He Got Better Things For You - Memphis Sanctified Singers
8. Since I Laid My Burden Down - Elders McIntorsh & Edwards' Sanctified Singers
9. John The Baptist - Rev. Moses Mason
10. Dry Bones - Bascom Lamar Lunsford
11. John The Revelator - Blind Willie Johnson
12. Little Moses - Carter Family
13. Shine On Me - Ernest Phipps & Holiness Singers
14. Fifty Miles Of Elbow Room - Rev. F.W. McGee
15. In The Battlefield For My Lord - Rev. D.C. Rice And Congregation
Disc: 5
1. The Coo Coo Bird - Clarence Ashley
2. East Virginia - Buell Kazee
3. Minglewood Blues - Cannon's Jug Stompers
4. I Woke Up One Morning In May - Didier Hebert
5. James Alley Blues - Richard 'Rabbit' Brown
6. Sugar Baby - Dock Boggs
7. I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground - Bascom Lamar Lunsford
8. Mountaineer's Courtship - Ernest And Hattie Stoneman
9. The Spanish Merchant's Daughter - Stoneman Family
10. Bob Lee Junior Blues - Memphis Jug Band
11. Single Girl, Married Girl - Carter Family
12. Le Vieux Soulard Et Sa Femme - Cleoma Breaux & Joseph Falcon
13. Rabbit Foot Blues - Blind Lemon Jefferson
14. Expressman Blues - Sleepy John Estes & Yank Rachell
Disc: 6
1. Poor Boy Blues - Ramblin' Thomas
2. Feather Bed - Cannon's Jug Stompers
3. Country Blues - Dock Boggs
4. 99 Year Blues - Julius Daniels
5. Prison Cell Blues - Blind Lemon Jefferson
6. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean - Blind Lemon Jefferson
7. C'est Si Triste Sans Lui - Cleoma And Ophy Breaux And Joseph Falcon
8. Way Down The Old Plank Road - Uncle Dave Macon
9. Buddy Won't You Roll Down The Line - Uncle Dave Macon
10. Spike Driver Blues - Mississippi John Hurt
11. K.C. Moan - Memphis Jug Band
12. Train On The Island - J.P. Nestor
13. The Lone Star Trail - Ken Maynard
14. Fishing Blues - Henry Thomas

Disc: 7
1. Memphis Shakedown - Memphis Jug Band
2. Dog And Gun (An Old English Ballad) - Bradley Kincaid
3. Black Jack David - The Carter Family
4. Down On The Banks Of The Ohio - Blue Sky Boys
5. Adieu False Heart - Arthur Smith Trio
6. John Henry Was A Little Boy - J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers
7. Nine Pound Hammer Is Too Heavy - Monroe Brothers
8. Southern Casey Jones - Jesse James
9. Cold Iron Bed - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
10. Packin' Trunk - Lead Belly
11. Baby Please Don't Go - Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers
12. Last Fair Deal Gone Down - Robert Johnson
13. Parchman Farm Blues - Bukka White
14. Mean Old World - Heavenly Gospel Singers
Disc: 8
1. Hello Stranger - The Carter Family
2. Stand By Me - Sister Clara Hudmon
3. West Virginia Gals - Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters
4. How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live? - Blind Alfred Reed
5. Wreck Of The Tennessee Gravy Train - Uncle Dave Macon
6. Governor Al Smith - Uncle Dave Macon
7. Milk Cow Blues - John Estes
8. No Depression In Heaven - The Carter Family
9. I'll Be Rested (When The Roll Is Called) - Roosevelt Graves And Brother
10. He's In The Ring (Doing The Same Old Thing) - Memphis Minnie
11. The Cockeyed World - Minnie Wallace
12. Barbecue Bust - Mississippi Jook Band
13. Dans Le Grand Bois (In The Forest) - Hackberry Ramblers
14. Aces' Breakdown - The Four Aces

Antony and the Johnsons - (2012) Cut The World

Rough Trade ‎– 663

Antony and the Johnsons: CUT THE WORLD is a collection of live symphonic performances of songs from the band's 4 full length albums (SWANLIGHTS, THE CRYING LIGHT, I AM A BIRD NOW, S/T). Recorded in Copenhagen, DK with The Danish National Chamber Orchestra, CUT THE WORLD features arrangements by Nico Muhly, Rob Moose, Maxim Moston and Antony.

Additionally the title track "Cut The World" is featured here for the first time. It is one of Antony's new songs for The Life and Death of Marina Abramovi directed by Robert Wilson and staring Antony, Marina Abramovi and Willem Dafoe.

CUT THE WORLD was recorded live on September 2nd and 3rd, 2011 at the DK Concert Hall in Copenhagen, DK and represents Antony's continued meditation on light, nature & femininity. Antony discusses his ideas on the track "Future Feminism", a speech he made during one of the concerts. Addressing the affects of patriarchy on the global ecology, Antony explores the possibility of shifting towards feminine systems of governance in a gesture to restore our world.

Arthur Russell - (2017) Instrumentals 2xLP

Audika ‎– 1016

Taking cues from his studies in Buddhism, and Indian and Western classical and folk music in San Francisco, combined with a growing awareness of the American pop consciousness and the wide-open possibilities of minimalist composition, Instrumentals forms an early and timeless testament to Russell’s syncretic consolidation of myriad styles which would have been considered mutually exclusive back then, but which are now thought of as malleable components of a whole thanks to his pioneering, border-crossing principles and refusal of the putative distinctions between ‘low’ and ‘high’ art in music.

To start at the beginning, the rare Instrumentals, 1974 Vol. 1 was written by a then 23 year old composer in response to photos of landscapes and cloudy skies taken by his West Coast pal, a Shingon Buddhist priest named Yuko Nonomura, shortly after Russell’s move to New York City, where he was staying on the sofa of Allen Ginsburg and curating important downtown hub, The Kitchen.

It was there, at The Kitchen where he recorded Instrumentals with an ensemble of legendary luminaries - Ernie Brooks (electric bass), Rhys Chatham (flute), Jon Gibson (alto and soprano saxophone, flute and clarinet), Peter Gordon (piano and organ), Garrett List (trombone), Andy Paley (drums) and David Tiegham (percussion) - all working to his loose commands and gestures, leaving lots of room for aleatoric happenstance and improvisation in a way that blurred the lines between avant orchestral, communal (folk), easy listening and disco/dance ensembles in a way that pretty much nobody else had tried before, perhaps predictably leading some audience members to claim he was diluting proper serious music with pop (groan).

However time has honoured the results as just magic; eternally optimistic in that big-skied Iowan farm boy manner, but with an underlying sense of melancholy to match, while also betraying a rhythmelodic suss rooted in his all-encompassing studies of world musics, much like Reich was doing with African music around that era. It’s heart-melting stuff. Open the windows and let it in!

Likewise, Instrumentals - 1974,Volume 2 holds some of his most sublime, quietly yearning works, which were issued on an unsatisfactory edition on Another Side in 1984, and features here in all its languorous glory.

The other two pieces, meanwhile, play into Russell’s more experimental side, making a noisier, textured departure from the bittersweetness of Instrumentals with the fusion of tone generators and field recordings made on a tugboat in Sketch for ‘Face Of Helen’ - predating and recalling to an extent, Ingram Marshall’s Fog Tropes - before Reach One completes the set with a meditatively cool, playfully lower case, side-long piece for pianists and stethoscopes rendering one of the quietest compositions in Russell’s canon in the process.

As with most everything to do with Arthur, context is key to fully understanding these works in light of musical history, but no prior knowledge is required to sit with and immerse yourself in the iconoclast genius’s presence.

Omar Souleyman - (2015) Bahdeni Nami CD

Monkeytown Records ‎– 056

Perhaps Syria’s most successful musical export, international singer Omar Souleyman has returned with his second proper studio effort and most personal album to date, “Bahdeni Nami”, coming this July from Monkeytown Records.

For the new album Omar opened his doors to collaborations with a number of renowned
electronic producers, all of whom were established fans keen to offer unique interpretations of Souleyman’s established sound. Four Tet returns to produce a track, Gilles Peterson lends his considerable talents to one song, Modeselektor turn in the two fastest dance numbers of the set, and Legowelt offers a remix for the title track. Additionally Black Lips’ Cole Alexander treats one of the heart-wounding ballads to a thoroughly distinctive remix that will appear on a 7” in August.

The new album was recorded closer to home, in Istanbul, and appropriately the singer is joined by traditional accompaniment. Souleyman has reunited with his favorite poet, Ahmad Alsamer (who penned his pre-west hits “Kaset Hanzel”, “Khattaba”, and “Shift –al Mani”), heard throughout the album offering claps and wails of encouragement. The songs come alive with musical contributions and support from the virtuosic saz work of Khaled Youssef, another long time collaborator from his hometown. Keyboards by Rizan Said improvise devotedly to every tune and turn of Souleyman’s choice. The lyrics are familiar territory for the singer –
declarations of eternal love, consolation of one’s aching heart, please to his lover to sleep in his arms forever – realized as four fast dance numbers, an introduction mawal, and an elaborate araby style ballad.

Despite world’s insistence to associate him with his home country’s unending war, Omar gives back nothing but Love.

VA - (2009) Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners 1905-53: Classic Yiddish 78s from the Mayrent Collection 3xCD

JSP Records ‎– 5201

Two intertwining traditions of music—jazz and Jewish—became part of my life in early childhood. Hearing a cantor, or hazan, in passionate dialogue with God on the human condition at an Orthodox synagogue during the High Holidays in 1932 when I was 7 set me on fire. A couple of years later at a Jewish wedding, I was nearly lifted into the dancing by a rollicking klezmer band, especially by its swinging, playful clarinetist.

Molly Picon, a musical star of the Yiddish stage and screen, is one of the performers in this collection. Getty Images

During a break in the music, the clarinetist, noting my awe as I looked at him, leaned over, winked, and said: "Where do you think Benny Goodman came from?"

But it was Artie Shaw, not Benny, who hurled me into jazz when, at 11, I heard his "Nightmare." Years after, I learned that "Nightmare" was based on a cantorial nigun, or wordless melody, and I understand why Artie, in his retrospective "Self Portrait" (RCA Victor/Bluebird), said: "Certainly, I can't deny the influence of my Russian-Jewish ancestry."

In the early 1950s, because Artie had led me to Duke Ellington, the blues and Count Basie, I became New York editor of Down Beat. My first working visit was to Birdland ("the jazz center of the world," as it advertised itself). But my next was a pilgrimage to the Lower East Side to hear the legendary—at least to Jewish musicians—clarinetist Dave Tarras.

Still part of both worlds, I have many books on the musical and social history of jazz, including discographies. But until now I've owned nothing of substance on the nearly 6,000 Yiddish or Hebrew recordings released in the U.S. between 1898 and 1942, and especially the golden age of Yiddish 78s from 1905 to 1953.

At last, though, from Klezmer clarinetist Sherry Mayrent's collection of Yiddish 78s—as far as I know the largest in the world—there now comes a gloriously wide-ranging compilation from those golden years: "Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners 1905-1953" (JASP Records, available on Amazon.com). There are 67 tracks in this three-CD set, including 42 never before reissued. Because of the extraordinary skills of engineer Christopher King, all of them bring you into the very presence of these carriers of the Yiddish ethos. At home in the Boston ghetto, I had grown up with a few of these, but they didn't sound as if the performers were actually in the room with me. They do now.

As a Jewish kid growing up in then virulently anti-Semitic Boston—a place where Henry Brooks Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, could say without censure that "snarling a weird Yiddish . . . the Jew makes me creep"—I got a kick out of defiantly playing this music at a proud volume.

But as the years went on, these American Jewish recordings from that era became hard to find. Ms. Mayrent amassed her collection—now at 5,000 records and still growing—from collectors in America, Canada, Israel, South America, Russia and other countries with transplanted Jews. In her introduction to the CD set, she describes why they became so rare: "Archives did have rudimentary catalogs, but they restricted access to individuals demonstrating some serious academic purpose, and either did not permit copying the discs or charged extremely high per-side fees."

Until now, I had no idea of the range and the striking individuality of these Yiddish stage singers, actors, cantors, comics and instrumentalists. For one example, in my youth women had to sit in the balcony of Orthodox synagogues, and the notion of a woman cantor was inconceivable to me. Yet several powerful female cantors from back then are included here.

The producer of this set, copies of which I intend to give to my children and grandchildren, is Henry Sapoznik, whom I've known for years as a scholar of klezmer music. He will soon head the new Mayrent Institute of Yiddish Culture to be located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He wrote the notes for each track from his fount of historical and anecdotal knowledge of Yiddish culture and history.

Among the vivid time-travelers of this cast is cantor Berle Chagy, born in Latvia in 1892, who came to America around 1909 to avoid army conscription, as my father had from the Old Country some years later. For Jews, the army was worse than the ghetto. As Mr. Sapoznik notes, "Chagy displays a powerful lyrical tenor and a breathtakingly ethereal falsetto rendered with spectacular and seamless abandon." Hearing him I was back in shul, next to my father.

And from 1915 there is the first klezmer ensemble to record in America, Elenkrig's Yiddishe Orchestra playing the spirited "The Rabbi's Melody" from the Hasidic vocal tradition. I hope Mr. Sapoznik will unearth a set of such joyously melodic Hasidic religious services. Elie Wiesel has called the Hasidic sages "souls of fire," like their music.

Soon after moving to New York in 1953, I went to Second Avenue, where Yiddish theater flourished, to see a musical star of that genre, Molly Picon. Here she is, "petite and pixieish" as Mr. Sapoznik describes her, singing "Katya, laughs at the world and goes her own way."

I'm also glad to be introduced to comic and actor Fyvush Finkel ("Picket Fences," "Boston Public") singing "Ich Bin a Boarder Ba Mein Weib" ("I Board at My Wife's"), which for years was a favorite Jewish song, particularly among some husbands for his recipe for a tranquil marriage. A typical lyric: "What an improvement in our lives. No more problems, never harried. We are happily unmarried. I am a boarder at my wife's."

For zestful Yiddish swing, there is Abe Schwartz. Born in Romania, he came here in 1899, and formed a band with "swooping trombones, staccato banjo," and a powerful front line of fiddler Schwartz and the magical clarinetist I yearned to be, Dave Tarras.

Dark Yiddish memories are memorialized by cantor David Roitman in "The Trumpet Has Sounded," based on a poem attributed to the 11th-century Rabbi Ammon of Mainz. Despite being under continued pressure to convert, this rabbi refused and "was arrested, his hands and feet severed," writes Mr. Sapoznick. Mortally wounded though he was, Rabbi Ammon "asked to be carried to the synagogue after extemporaneously reciting this prayer" that was later set to music.

That reminded me of my mother's story of being a child in the Old Country, which could have been put to music. One day her mother heard the Cossacks were coming and popped her daughter into the oven. Fortunately it was not lit.

In one of the rarest of all Yiddish recordings, Sholom Aleichem speaks a few lines from his "If I Were Rothschild" during a 1915 test recording at a Victor studio. When he stopped, the engineer called out "Is that all you got?" and the recording was never issued. When Aleichem died 10 months later, 500,000 people attended his funeral. On that day in the studio, he said that if he were a Rothschild, "First I'd give my wife a three-ruble note so that when it comes time to shop for Shabbos, she'll have the note in her pocket and won't have to bother me." But he'd also "Buy this house, and give her everything from the cellar to the attic." He wasn't just a boarder.

On "Tartar Dance," the first track of this recovery of Yiddish resilience in music and life, another clarinetist, Naftule Brandwein—"If he didn't exist, he would have had to be invented," says Mr. Sapoznik—exults in being descended from a line of Hasidic rabbis. "Even at the end of his life when he was playing in Catskill hotels," Mr. Sapoznik admiringly and candidly tells us, "a drunken Brandwein was reported to have been "'propped up in a chair and blowing like crazy.'"

Daniel Bachman - (2018) The Morning Star CD

Three Lobed Recordings ‎– 126

the very act of change is a natural state. just as order seeks disorder and high and low concentrations seek equilibrium, musicians, like all other humans, are not immune from these transitional forces. for the musician, change occurs if and as their art is to evolve. sometimes it takes the form of a conscious choice and other times it is an act dictated by outside forces. in those rare and inspired instances, a musician’s changes represent an evolution in their craft. daniel bachman’s the morning star in one of these moments.

the morning star is the product of various change elements directing themselves at daniel bachman. first, the months following the recording and mixing of bachman’s 2016 self-titled album saw him physically move from his multi-year residence in the north carolina triangle area back to his native virginia. next was the 2016 american presidential election. while not an overtly political album, the morning star is truly an artist’s personal reflection on the chaotic days and nights in america following the revelation of that election’s results. lastly, a focused period of listening, reflection, and space to come down off of a heavy few years of touring created a few changes in bachman’s writing style that took him a period of time to truly feel comfortable with. never one to compromise songwriting quality despite his otherwise prodigious output, bachman’s efforts to change things up a bit result in exceptionally patient and mature works such as “song for the setting sun III,” a song whose very form would have taken different directions in prior eras. all of these factors combined to leave 2017 as the first calendar year since bachman started recording and releasing music that he did not issue a single release. while the morning star sits as the sum of these parts and represents a transformed daniel bachman, that very point should not surprise those who have followed his path so far.

the morning star begins with the side-long “invocation” which is reminiscent of the two drone-focused variations on “brightleaf blues” from bachman’s 2016 self-titled album. its placement here is a statement of intent, a break from the exacting studio sounds of his two most recent albums. “sycamore city” is replete with the sounds of insects, vehicles, and a summer rain storm. the recording is so effortlessly one with its own particular environment, presenting itself almost as if the listener is walking within their neighborhood and stumbles upon the sounds of a contemplative guitar player coming out of a window on a mid-summer evening. the ghostly and focused “car” is a new sort of guitar-free work within bachman’s oeuvre. the track opens with – and continues to feature the foundation of – an organ done that leads into a series of manipulated AM radio recordings. “song for the setting sun III” and “song for the setting sun IV” thematically return the morning star to two of the centerpiece tracks from 2015's river. “III” starts deliberately and gains steams as it progresses to a fahey-conversant midpoint before transitioning back to a variation on the song’s original structure. the recording is vibrant and full of location-specific details such as a creaking chair and a police siren. fully lived in and confident, it is a track that demonstrates how far bachman’s compositional skills have progressed from his earliest recordings. “IV” shares that same confidence, punctuating its long run with slides, a deliberate performance, and field recordings of frogs, crickets and other nocturnal fauna. following on the heels of the buoyantly open “scrumpy,” the morning star pulls matters to a close with the epic “new moon.” underpinned by an organ drone, bachman slowly unspools a pensive and breathtaking performance of a truly gorgeous and moving composition. tempos change and the drone eventually fades away, leaving only bachman’s emotive guitar as the track slows to a conclusion. those lucky enough to see bachman perform in 2017 may recognize the composition as one that would frequently close his sets.

change is natural and change is good. in the case of daniel bachman, gone is the player who originally played with such an irrepressible power. the morning star demonstrates that years have permitted bachman to grow into a complicated and transfixing performer whose compositions bear a sympathetic ear with few peers. if it sounds like high praise, it should. daniel bachman’s the morning star is the complex, seemingly timeless, and beautiful album that we all need now more than ever. -three lobed recordings

Davaasuren Bayarbaatar - (2007) Mongolian Diphonic Songs CD

Editions Lugdivine ‎– 6065

Elle Osborne - (2011) So Slowly Slowly She Got Up CD

Folk Police Recordings ‎– 005

Elle Osborne is back! Following her critically acclaimed EP, 'Good Grief', her much anticipated new album, 'So Slowly Slowly Got She Up', is released on July 4th. An album of traditional songs featuring a supporting cast of Alasdair Roberts, Cath and Phil Tyler and Trembling Bells? Alex Neilson, it is described by Barry Dransfield as "delicately compelling - combining subtle rootsy touches with an easy and natural originality." From haunting unaccompanied ballads to full blown electric folk, Elle seamlessly blends the traditional and the exploratory around her powerfully heartfelt, emotion-wracked vocals.

Elle was born on the North Sea coast of Lincolnshire where she was raised amongst folk singers, writing songs and absorbing traditional music from an early age. She has collaborated with Alasdair Roberts, played with James Yorkston and Spiers and Boden and shared stages with Cath and Phil Tyler and King Creosote.

VA - (2011) Gaman: A Ceremony For Japan 2xCS

Electric Temple Records ‎– 004

The double cassette curated compliation on Electric Temple Records entitled “Gaman: A Ceremony for Japan” is a benefit directly contributing the recovery of Japan. We have all been troubled by the happenings across the sea, but for almost all musicians in the experimental music scene, Japan is a place of sacred innovation, inimitable soul, and a relentless discipline unlike any other country. We know this will carry over in to the recovery process of the current natural disasters, but for us musicians, this is a small token of our appreciation for the things we’ve been given by such a beautiful country with so much tradition.
All proceeds will go to Shelterbox. This organization provides emergency shelter and lifesaving supplies for families around the world who are affected by disasters at the time when they need it the most. They also are currently set up in Japan, making sure these beautiful gifts are affecting families one by one. As the benefit proceeds, we will be tracking the boxes that make it to families in Japan — that way each and every one of us that contributed know directly how we are helping and influencing, at least in some small way. Thanks to John Kolodij, John Twells, Nicole Yalaz, Rich Guzman (for the art!) and National Audio Company for their immense help in making this project a reality. Please join us in donating a small token for those in need.
NATION AUDIO COMPANY DONATED ALL 200 TAPES/ THANKS BE TO THEM.

Cassette 1:

Animal Hospital - Dreams
William Fowler Collins - Autumn Lights
High aura’d - Methodist Bells
Phantom Family Halo - Guns and Violens
Steven R. Smith-Regen Volt
Glenn Jones-Portland Cement Factory
Angel Olsen-She Came and She Touched Me
Pete Stampfel and Eli Smith - Castor and Pollux
Zelienople - Smoked
Derek Rogers - St. John Fahey
Lee Noble - August
Loren Connors - Yesterday and Today

Cassette 2:

Forma - FORMA 178
GDFX - Forever a Bone
Reuben Son - Dancing into Sandtraps
Ancient Ocean - New Rising Sun
Sic Alps - Anasazi Chemist
Herbcraft - Sunset Glow
The North Sea - Sugar
Clearing - Untitled
Amen Dunes - Lower Class
Heavy Hymns - Prayer
Swati (David First)
Rambutan - The Kingfisher
Steve Gunn - Taksim II (Live in Montreal)

VA - (2018) Gumba Fire: Bubblegum Soul & Synth Boogie in 1980s South Africa

Soundway ‎– 124

16 rare cuts selected by Miles Cleret and DJ Okapi - available for the first time on digital, and first time on vinyl outside of their original release*

- "The real, real sound of South Africa" MOJO
- "Unsurprisingly this is amazing. Beautiful, uplifting sounds." Alexander Nut (Eglo Records/NTS Radio)

In 1980s black South Africa a local form of pop music evolved as the disco boom died down and slowly mutated. It was often ubiquitously described as Bubblegum - usually stripped-down and lo-fi with a predominance of synths, keyboards and drum-machines and overlaid with the kind of deeply soulful trademark vocals and harmonies that South African music is famous for.

Compilers Miles Cleret (Soundway) and DJ Okapi (Afrosynth Records) present a selection of 16 rare, handpicked 1980s cuts that highlight the period that nestles in between the ‘70s (where American-influenced jazz, funk and soul bumped shoulders with local Mbaqanga) and the ‘90s when Kwaito and eventually house-music ruled the dancefloors of urban South Africa.

Alongside French-Caribbean Zouk this kind of music has slowly been making its way into the DJ sets of many of the most open minded selectors around the world. This compilation is in many ways a sister release to the hugely popular compilation of Nigerian boogie and disco that Soundway released in late 2016 : “Doing it In Lagos: Boogie, Pop & Disco in 1980s Nigeria”.

The album takes its name from the band Ashiko’s track of the same name Gumba Fire that features on the compilation. The term is derived from gumba gumba, the term given to the booming speakers of the old spacegram radios that broadcast music into South Africa’s townships and villages. The phrase later evolved into Gumba Fire to refer to a hot party. Put this record on and feel the heat!

Bessie Jones with The Georgia Sea Island Singers - (2014) Get In Union: Recordings by Alan Lomax 1959-1966 2xCD

Tompkins Square ‎– 5074

- Produced by Grammy-nominated Curator of the Alan Lomax Archive, Nathan Salsburg

- Features 26 previously unreleased tracks. Unheard collaborations with Rev. Gary Davis, Sweet Papa Stovepipe, Mable Hillery, and others.

- Remastered from Lomax's original tapes

Bessie Jones was one of the most popular performers on the 1960s and '70s folk circuit, appearing - usually at the helm of the Georgia Sea Island Singers - at colleges, festivals, the Poor People's March on Washington, and Jimmy Carter's inauguration. "Get In Union" is a collection of her classic recordings with the Singers, combined with many previously unavailable solo and small-group performances captured by Alan Lomax between 1959 and 1966.

Alan Lomax first visited the Georgia Sea Island of St. Simons in June of 1935 with folklorist Mary Elizabeth Barnicle and author Zora Neale Hurston. There they met the remarkable Spiritual Singers Society of Coastal Georgia, as the group was then called, and recorded several hours of their songs and dances for the Library of Congress. Returning 25 years later, Lomax found that the Singers were still active, and had been enriched by the addition of Bessie Jones, a South Georgia native with a massive collection of songs going back to the slavery era. Over the next several years, Lomax and Jones worked together to present, promote, and teach Southern black folk song across the country, from nightclubs to elementary schools. "Get In Union" features freshly remastered audio from 24-bit digital transfers of Lomax's original tapes and notes by the Alan Lomax Archive's Nathan Salsburg and Anna Lomax Wood, who accompanied her father on his 1960 recordings of Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers.

Gillian Welch - (2016) Boots No.1: The Official Revival Bootleg

Acony Records ‎– 1601

When Gillian Welch released her debut album, Revival, in 1996, plenty of listeners and critics were taken aback by her strikingly accomplished re-creation of the sound and mindset of country music of the '20s and '30s, as if she'd miraculously stepped out of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music into Nashville in the late 20th century. It soon became common knowledge that Welch was born in New York City and had attended the Berklee School of Music, leading many to question the sincerity of the artist and the validity of the work. Twenty years later, Welch has released Boots No. 1: The Official Revival Bootleg, a collection of outtakes, demos, and alternate versions committed to tape before or during the making of Revival. The front cover of Boots No. 1 features a photo from the same sitting that produced Revival's cover art, except this time Welch is holding an electric guitar. The shot is a subtle but cheeky reminder of what should have been the point all along: Gillian Welch wasn't a savant but an artist, one who drew clear inspiration from the sounds of America's past, but used them as a starting point to tell powerful and eloquent stories of her own. And while Welch could pass for the lost member of the Carter Family when she saw fit, Boots No. 1 reveals there are plenty of other directions she could have taken that would have been just as compelling and just as valid. Most of the tracks here follow the essential template of Revival -- Welch and her constant collaborator David Rawlings blending their vocals and guitars with minimal accompaniment, sometimes in glorious mono. But the ragged but right rock & roll of "455 Rocket," the sinewy midnight groove of "Pass You By," and the evocative Patsy Cline-isms of "Paper Wings" (which appears in two versions, one featuring ethereal pedal steel work from John R. Hughey) testify to Welch's versatility, as well as her unerring skill as a singer and tunesmith. And while Welch had plenty of gifted accompanists on board (no surprise with T-Bone Burnett producing the sessions), you'd be hard-pressed to name two people who are as musically simpatico as Welch and Rawlings, and his graceful, lively guitar work is a joy to behold here. Boots No. 1 plays less like an expansion of Revival than a document of a fertile period of creativity in the life of Gillian Welch, and while fans of the original album will revel in it, you don't have to be familiar with it to be dazzled by the subtle passion, intelligence, and eloquence of this music.

VA - (2010) Honest Strings: A Tribute to the Life and Work of Jack Rose

Jack Rose LLC ‎– 001

Jack Rose was a masterful musician and even greater friend and supporter of the underground music community. Honest Strings: A Tribute To The Life And Work Of Jack Rose is a massive and exceptional collection of heartfelt contributions from forty artists who were friends with Jack and/or inspired by his prodigious talents. Due to the running time in excess of six and a half hours, this collection is only available as a download. The downloaded file also features new original digital artwork from both Arik Roper and Alex Jako as well as a set of liner notes with thoughts about Jack Rose by many of the contributors including compilation curator Cory Rayborn (Three Lobed Recordings).