Yabby You - (2012) Deep Roots: Dub Plates And Rarities 1976 - 1978 CD

  Pressure Sounds ‎– 077

Tracklisting
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1. Smith & The Prophets - Valley Of Joeasaphat [02:47]
2. Smith & The Prophets - Joeasaphat Rock [03:00]
3. King Tubby - Thanks And Praise [03:01]
4. Barrington Spence - Don't Touch I Dread [02:26]
5. The Prophets All Stars - Tutch Dub [02:30]
6. Tommy McCook & King Tubby - Fighting Dub [04:02]
7. Yabby You - Deliver Me [02:55]
8. Yabby You & King Tubby - Deliver Dub [02:59]
9. Don D Junior & The Prophets - Milk River Rock [03:21]
10. Prince Pampidoo - Dip Them Bedward [03:08]
11. The Prophets All Stars - Dub Them Bedward [02:57]
12. King Tubby & The Prophets - Dub Vengence [03:16]
13. King Miguel - Forward On The Track [03:00]
14. King Miguel & The Prophets - Caymanas Rock [03:02]
15. King Tubby & The Prophets All Stars - Love Sweet Love Drums[04:09]
16. The Prophets All Stars - Lazy Mood [03:04]
17. King Tubby & The Prophets - Open Your Hearts [03:31]
18. King Tubby & The Prophets All Stars - Poor And Needy Dubwise[03:18]
19. Hot City All Stars - Cleo's Dub [03:05]

Playing Time.........: 59:41
Total Size...........: 120.44 MB

Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth For Christ Choir - (2010) Jingle Bells 7''

Light In The Attic ‎– 019 

“One of the most important albums ever made. Ranks right up there with What’s Going On, Dark Side Of The Moon, and Pet Sounds as a flawlessly executed vision brought to life in perfect harmony. Enriches the soul and expands the mind.”

– Jim James, My Morning Jacket

“The most euphoric celebratory music that makes you want to jump around the house and explode with joy.”

– Colin Greenwood, Radiohead

“Like A Ship evokes the Beach Boys’ ’ ‘Til I Die’ and Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.’ ” – Spin

“When the electric piano and sleigh bells ring in over an almost ghostly rhythm section on disc opener ‘Like a Ship,’ it’s hard to tell whether one’s listening to an artifact from 1971 or one of the myriad collectives that rose from the ashes of freak-folk over 2009 … Pastor Barrett’s definitely a master composer who deserves wider recognition and study.” – Other Music

“The powerful rhythm section lifts Barrett’s simple, melodic keyboard riff high as the boisterous choir fills the air with sorrow and hope … Pastor Barrett could hear the sound on the horizon. The sound of anger, of change, the sound of soul…” – Wax Poetics

Chicago pastor and activist T.L. Barrett’s rare gospel soul classic Like A Ship… (Without A Sail) is finally receiving a much-needed reissue. Long revered by record collectors, this album remains one of the holy grails of gospel soul. Self-released in 1971, Like A Ship was the result of Barrett channeling his passion for music, a determination to keep children off the streets, and his charismatic preaching (which attracted the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire and Donny Hathaway to his sermons at Mount Zion Baptist Church) into the production of the album, a project bolstered by the saxophonist and arranger Gene Barge of the famed Chess Records, and backed by a cast of players that included Richard Evans, Phil Upchurch and the rapturous vocals of the Youth For Christ Choir. Like A Ship… is filled with sanctified grooves and spiritual praise delivered with a righteous, infectious chorus.

Johnnie Frierson - (2016) Have You Been Good To Yourself

 Light In The Attic ‎– 127 

Followers of our output might have a pang of recognition on reading the name Frierson. That was the surname of Wendy Rene, whose work was collected into the 2012 LITA anthology After Laughter Comes Tears, and indeed, Johnnie Frierson is Wendy’s brother – a fellow member of her mid-’60s Stax four-piece The Drapels.

But Have You Been Good To Yourself will come as a surprise to anyone expecting more of the beat-driven R&B Johnnie and his sibling produced – including that compilation’s much-sampled title track. A mix of spoken word and gospel songs laid down direct to cassette, these ultra-rare home recordings draw from Johnnie’s religious upbringing and his history in the music business, which was interrupted in 1970 when he was sent to fight in Vietnam.

Crate digger Jameson Sweiger found Have You Been Good To Yourself and a companion album, Real Education, released under the name Khafele Ojore Ajanaku in a Memphis thrift store, but it was noticeably Frierson’s work. They hadn’t made it far – they would originally have been sold at corner stores and music festivals in the Memphis area, where Frierson continued to perform and host a gospel radio show, all the while working as a mechanic, laborer and teacher.

The seven songs on Have You Been Good To Yourself are overtly religious; some, such as “Out Here On Your Word,” are strident and faithful; others, like the self-questioning “Have You Been Good To Yourself,” are more meditative. They reflect the difficult situation that Frierson was in when recording, shell-shocked from his time in the military and grieving the untimely death of his son. “He was really trying to find his way,” remembers Frierson’s daughter Keesha in Andria Lisle’s liner notes. “And writing and making music were a way out for him.”

Remastered and released professionally for the first time, the message spread by Frierson – who passed away in 2010 – remains undimmed.

Acetone - (2017) 1992-2001

 Light In The Attic ‎– 159 

“Acetone are into it for what they get out of it. Their music reflects who they are, and that’s so rare in music today. It’s a soul music thing.” – Jason Pierce (Spiritualized)

“Acetone are one of my all time favorite bands. Their music is still as electrifying and beautiful now as it was back then.” – Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star)

“A lovely mix of what would it be like if Dick Dale and Neil Young played with Isaac Hayes and The Velvet Underground. A seminal American band.” – Richard Ashcroft (The Verve)

This fall, the independent literary press All Night Menu will publish Sam Sweet’s Hadley Lee Lightcap, a nonfiction novel that traces the backstories of the three members in Acetone, a band that played in Los Angeles for nine years. Though few heard them, their recordings are time capsules of who they were, how they lived, and where they came from. Light In the Attic has partnered with All Night Menu to present Acetone 1992-2001, the first anthology of the trio’s music. The book and the album will be released concurrently on September 22.

Counting their early years in the scuzz-rock band Spinout, whose sole self-titled release came out in 1991 on Delicious Vinyl, guitarist Mark Lightcap, bassist Richie Lee, and drummer Steve Hadley played together for a total of 15 years. They disbanded in July 2001, when Lee committed suicide in the garage next to the house where the trio practiced. Afterwards, Rolling Stone ran a short obituary saying Acetone’s albums were “well received” but “failed to make any waves.” It was the first and only time they were featured in the national music press.

Between 1993 and 2001 the trio released two LPs and an EP on Vernon Yard—a Virgin subsidiary—and two LPs on Vapor, the L.A.-based label founded by Neil Young and manager Elliott Roberts. In that span, they were selected to tour with Oasis, Mazzy Star, The Verve, and Spiritualized. Against a rising tide of post-Nirvana grunge and slipshod indie rock, Acetone tapped into a timeless Southern California groove by fusing elements of psychedelia, surf, and country.

They rehearsed endlessly in an empty bedroom in northeast Los Angeles, recording hours of music onto cassettes that were subsequently stuffed into shoeboxes and left in a shed behind the drummer’s house. Those tapes are being released for the first time in this anthology, which also includes highlights from Acetone’s official releases. Taken together, the songs form a companion soundtrack to Sam Sweet’s book, which maps the character of Los Angeles as a place through the lens of these three unique characters bonded by music.

“I think our music is all about moods and feeling but hopefully it will get as weird as it possibly can,” said Richie Lee in 1997. “We want things to get weird in the way that you could hear an Acetone song and know that no one else in the world could make that kind of music but us.”

Hayes McMullan - (2017) Everyday Seem Like Murder Here

Light In The Attic ‎– 152 

Bluesman. Sharecropper. Church deacon. Civil Rights activist. Hayes McMullan should be a name on every Blues aficionados’ short-list and thanks to the preservation fieldwork carried out by one of the genre’s greatest researchers some 50 years ago – it might soon be.

Born in 1902, Hayes McMullan was discovered by the renowned American roots scholar, collector and documentarian Gayle Dean Wardlow. Wardlow, author of the seminal blues anthology Chasin’ That Devil Music – Searching for the Blues, may be most famous for uncovering Robert Johnson’s death certificate in 1968, finally revealing clues to the bluesman’s mysterious and much disputed demise. Moreover, in his tireless and committed mission to preserve the Blues for future generations, he captured McMullan’s raw talent on tape and on paper. Wardlow recorded these sessions, transcribed the songs and now, writes the sleeve-notes for this landmark release.

Wardlow and McMullan met by chance on one of the former’s record-hunting trips, in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, in 1967. Having introduced himself to McMullan on a hunch, it turned out this unassuming elderly man had not only heard of Wardlow’s idol, Charley Patton, but had played alongside him in the 1920s, as part of a brief musical journey that took him from the plantation to the open roads and juke joints of the Depression-era South. Striking up a friendship that was deemed unorthodox in 1960’s Mississippi, Wardlow traveled to McMullan’s sharecropper’s shack and convinced him to play guitar for the first time since he quit the Blues for the Church in the 30’s. “Hayes was playing like no one I had ever heard,” Wardlow writes with amazement.

Wardlow visited McMullan on a handful of occasions, always taking his recorder, a guitar and some whiskey with him. It was during these visits that Wardlow captured – with surprising clarity – the songs that make up Everyday Seem Like Murder Here.

Hayes McMullan passed away at the age of 84 in 1986, his talent and legacy largely unknown. “Reflecting now on our brief time together, I marvel at the small glimpse of something much larger I was lucky to have captured,” writes Wardlow. “The few old snapshots I took, the handful of tunes we recorded, and his brilliant performance of “Hurry Sundown” captured on film are all that’s left of the musical legacy of Hayes McMullan, sharecropper, deacon, and—unbeknownst to so many for so long—reluctant bluesman.”

Bobby Whitlock - (2013) The Bobby Whitlock Story: Where There's A Will There's A Way CD

Future Days Recordings ‎– 602 

Bobby Whitlock’s story is a classic rock’n’roll saga about a guy who was in the right place at the right time and made the most of it. The son of a preacher man, the Memphis native would sneak out of his father’s services to revel in the ecstatic sounds of the choir at a nearby black church. Already an accomplished pianist by this teens, Whitlock became a fixture at Stax studios, where he learned the nuances of R&B from the masters, released a couple of singles and hung with Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn. When the latter brought Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett to Stax to record what would be their first album, Home, for the label, early in 1969, Whitlock was enlisted as the first of Delaney & Bonnie’s Friends.

Later that year, Eric Clapton became so taken with the band that he brought them to the UK for a tour, becoming an unofficial band member and persuading George Harrison to jump on board as well. Following the run of dates (documented on 1970’s On Tour With Eric Clapton), the whole crew contributed to Clapton’s self-titled first solo album, after which D&B&F splintered, several of them joining Mad Dogs and Englishmen while Clapton grabbed Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon and formed Derek And The Dominos. After playing on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, they headed to Miami and recorded the one-off masterpiece Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, Whitlock co-writing and harmonizing with Clapton as well as playing keys.

Booking studio time at London’s Olympic Studios in April 1972, the month before Derek And The Dominos were scheduled to record their second album at the facility, Whitlock cut his self-titled solo debut (which shares a single disc with follow-up Raw Velvet on this reissue) in front of a mind-blowing studio band: Clapton and Harrison on guitars, Gordon on drums and Beatles buddy Klaus Voormann on bass, with Andy Johns co-producing. Fronting a band for the first time, the expat Southerner unleashes his rich, fervent, gospel-rooted baritone on the soulful rockers “Where There’s A Will” (written with Bonnie Bramlett) and the made-up-on-the-spot “Back In My Life Again”. He’s even more striking as an R&B balladeer on tracks like “A Game Called Life” (featuring a flute solo by Traffic’s Chris Wood) and “The Scenery Has Slowly Changed”, which recaptures the dusky melancholy of his Layla closer “Thorn Tree In The Garden”. After finishing the album in LA, Whitlock turned it in to his label, Atlantic, which rejected it despite the record’s all-star cast. It was picked up and released in the US by ABC Dunhill but sank without a trace.

That wasn’t the only disappointment for Whitlock, as Clapton pulled the plug on the sessions for the second Dominos LP. Determined to turn around his recent run of bad luck, Whitlock formed a new band in LA with lead guitarist Rick Vito (who’d be on the Stones’ shortlist following the departure of Mick Taylor and would later briefly replace Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac), bassist Keith Ellis and drummer David Poncher, and went right back into the studio with Stones producer Jimmy Miller. They emerged with Raw Velvet, a far more uptempo record overall than its predecessor, featuring the guitar interaction of Vito on lead and Whitlock on rhythm. They revisit Layla with a blistering “Tell The Truth” and summon up the intensity of the Dominos on “Write You A Letter” and “If You Ever”, all featuring jaw-dropping solos from Vito, who also plays a rhapsodic, Clapton-esque slide on the yearning “Dearest I Wonder”. Slowhand himself, Gordon and the Bramletts appear on Delaney and Mac Davis’ rousing “Hello LA, Bye Bye Birmingham”, which sounds like an outtake from On Tour. The album closes with “Start All Over”, Whitlock wailing on Leslie guitar and singing his heart out, though hardly anyone would hear him do so.

He had no choice but to start all over following his brush with fame – playing music was the only thing he knew how to do, and he’s continued making records in semi-obscurity over the decades. But for those three remarkable years, Bobby Whitlock was swept up in history, serving as an essential, if unsung, participant in its making.

His Name Is Alive - (2016) Patterns of Light

Silver Mountain Media Group ‎– 045

Having been invited to perform at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland by one of the scientists, HNIA spent a year studying particle physics and then created Patterns of Light. The scientist, Dr. James Beacham, was asked to "fact check for bad data, misquotes, dragons, pseudoscience and to make sure the witchcraft to physics ratio wouldn't be too embarrassing," he agreed and soon sent pages of notes, screenshots, event displayes and also recommended books and videos.

Patterns of Light is the result of this exchange of information. The research focuses on dark matter, dark energy, the search for extra dimensions, mini-black holes and the machinery that collides particles at high speeds using thirteen teraelectronvolts but also studies the fundamental forces of nature as seen through the classic creation myths, the visionary theology of Hildegard Von Bingen, medieval manuscripts and cosmic maps, all in an effort to turn the physics back into poetry.

Ray Stinnett - (2012) A Fire Somewhere CD

Light In The Attic ‎– 088 

To the extent that he is known at all, Ray Stinnett is best known as the guitar player for Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs. That’s him supporting the grotty garage groove of “Woolly Bully” and shearing through “Black Sheep,” two of their biggest hits. At the height of the band’s popularity — just after Billboard magazine named “Woolly Bully” song of the year in 1965, over hits by the Stones and the Beatles — they disbanded acrimoniously and Stinnett, along with his wife and newborn, set out for California. First he made the Haight-Ashbury scene, then he settled briefly at the infamous Morningstar Commune just outside San Francisco, where he expanded his musical and spiritual horizons.

Stinnett’s sole solo album, A Fire Somewhere, reflects that westward journey, blending the folk-rock and pop spiritualism of the West Coast with the R&B-descended grit of the Mid-South. He’s a fine guitar player, with an agile strum that has much in common with his more famous Memphis contemporary, Steve Cropper of Booker T. & the MGs. Stinnett’s never quite as tight as his Stax counterpart, but commune living may have taught him that not everything had to be so squarely in the pocket. A Fire Somewhere is loose but not laconic, with a rambling vibe that belies its darker sentiments.

Nor did everything have to adhere to the strict structures of the kind of mainstream pop Stinnett played in the Pharaohs. Much like Arthur Lee of Love — another Memphian transplanted to the West Coast — he apparently felt no need to repeat his catchiest melodies or to assign much emphasis to choruses or bridges. A sudden key change imbues “Silky Path” with ominous foreboding: “If you go down to see the lights of the city,” he sings, before lowering his voice in warning, “don’t you fall off of your cloud.” Stinnett’s songs meander and lope, but they always end up someplace interesting. Closer “The Rain” begins as a stoner gospel-folk number, then morphs into a hectic pop jam, florid with saxophone and piano. The two halves of the song couldn’t be more different, yet they make a skewed kind of sense sutured together.

At the behest of friend and mentor Booker T. Jones, who was by then embarking on a second career as a producer and talent scout, Stinnett signed to A&M Records. For a variety of reasons, most having to do with friction between label and artist, A Fire Somewhere was shelved and largely forgotten for four decades. But yesterday’s insufficiently commercial dud can be today’s revelatory relic, and the album is finally getting a proper release via Seattle-based Light in the Attic Records (which has a fine track record with Memphis-related releases by unsung Stax horn player Packy Axton and singer Wendy Rene). Even so many years after its creation, this album still sounds lively and wiry and full of ideas, suggesting a very different path that Memphis pop music might have taken — one that wandered defiantly westward.

Lewis - (1985) Romantic Times LP

  R.A.W. Records ‎– 1002 

Earlier this year, the mysterious, bewitching L’Amour, a 1983 private press record was thought to be the only release by one of music’s true lost talents: Lewis.

So lost, in fact, was Lewis, he eluded every effort to track him down. Scant details were known: just a series of possibly apocryphal stories about a sports car-driving Canadian with a model on his arm and a habit of skipping town when there were bills to be paid.

Deciding that Lewis’ spider web-delicate songs demanded to be heard, we put the album out anyway, offering to present the due royalties to anyone who could prove they were Lewis.

One sure thing was this: Lewis was a man of many names: Randall A. Wulff among them. Now we have either found another alias – or perhaps even his real name – on the sleeve of a completely unknown album.

Sourced soon after the re-release of L’Amour, Romantic Times is the 1985 follow-up to L’Amour – and it’s released as Lewis Baloue. The name may be slightly different, but this is absolutely our man: a familiar blond posing on the sleeve, a familiar, tortured voice pouring his heart out over languid synths and synthetic waltz beats.

Remastered from a sealed, vinyl copy of the ultra-rare album, the album was discovered in the vaults of DJ and collector Kevin “Sipreano” Howes in Vancouver, BC. It’s so rare that what is, at present, the only other known copy – found in the same Calgary store where Aaron Levin discovered a batch of sealed copies of L’Amour – is presently soaring into quadruple digits on eBay.

Even engineer Dan Lowe, credited for working on the album at Calgary’s Thunder Road Studios, remembered little about the session other than that Lewis seemed to be “under the influence”. Yet the music is utterly captivating.

The album further fleshes out the Lewis myth – we see him pictured in that white suit with his famous white Mercedes and a private jet too; we hear him focussing more intently on matters of the heart, and appearing to unravel in the process. “I felt like I was witnessing a full-blown exorcism of a phantom clad in the finest linen,” writes filmmaker and historian Jack D. Fleischer in his brand new liner notes. “This record went further [than L’Amour ]. It was a personal plea, of sorts. Something had gone wrong. Nerves were clearly exposed.”

It paints Lewis, then, as being more like a David Lynch character than even his debut did, exposing the darkness beneath the sheen. The album is presently being readied for release to the throng of new fans Lewis has found, willingly or not. The man himself remains a total enigma.

Donnie & Joe Emerson - (2012) Dreamin' Wild CD

  Light In The Attic ‎– 082 

Pacific Northwest isolation mixed with wide-eyed ambition, a strong sense of family and the gift of music proved to be quite the combination for teenage brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson. Originally released in 1979, Dreamin’ Wild is the sonic vision of the talented Emerson boys, recorded in a family built home studio in rural Washington State. Situated in the unlikely blink-and-you-missed-it town of Fruitland and far removed from the late 1970s punk movement and the larger disco boom, Donnie and Joe tilled their own musical soil, channeling bedroom pop jams, raw funk, and yacht rock.
Spurred on their high school’s music program, Donnie and Joe received a further push from their lifelong farmer father, who drew up a contract stating that he’d support his sons lofty ambitions with their very own recording studio as long as they focused on original material, sage advice for a man with zero experience in the music business. After taking out a second mortgage to help cover costs, Don Sr. also built his children a 300-capacity concert hall (dubbed Camp Jammin’) replete with ticket booth, stage, and fully functioning snack bar. The only problem was that the projected audience never quite materialized, despite a prime time TV profile entitled “The Rock And Roll Farmers” from nearby Spokane, Washington. Even the Emerson brother’s school pals were nonplussed at their privately pressed long player; hand distributed to local music stores, but not as far as Seattle, five hours away from their rural home. Somewhat rejected by the muted response, but never surrendering, both Donnie and Joe continued down a musical path and are still active as performers today.
This rare slice of bedroom-funk gets the usual Light In The Attic treatment with newly remastered audio, detailed liner notes, and expanded original album art with loads of photos from the Emerson’s collection. 

VA - (2014) Native North America (Vol. 1) Aboriginal Folk, Rock And Country 1966-1985 2xCD

 Light In The Attic ‎– 103

Largely unheard, criminally undocumented, but at their core, utterly revolutionary, the recordings of the diverse North American Aboriginal community will finally take their rightful place in our collective history in the form of Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985. An anthology of music that was once near-extinct and off-the-grid is now available for all to hear, in what is, without a doubt, Light In The Attic’s most ambitious and historically significant project in the label’s 12-year journey.

Native North America (Vol. 1) features music from the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the northern United States, recorded in the turbulent decades between 1966 to 1985. It represents the fusion of shifting global popular culture and a reawakening of Aboriginal spirituality and expression. The majority of this material has been widely unavailable for decades, hindered by lack of distribution or industry support and by limited mass media coverage, until now. You’ll hear Arctic garage rock from the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, melancholy Yup’ik folk from Alaska, and hushed country blues from the Wagmatcook First Nation reserve in Nova Scotia. You’ll hear echoes of Neil Young, Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, and more among the songs, but injected with Native consciousness, storytelling, poetry, history, and ceremony.

The stories behind the music presented on Native North America (Vol. 1) range from standard rock-and-roll dreams to transcendental epiphanies. They have been collected with love and respect by Vancouver-based record archaeologist and curator Kevin “Sipreano” Howes in a 15-year quest to unearth the history that falls between the notes of this unique music. Tirelessly, Howes scoured obscure, remote areas for the original vinyl recordings and the artists who made them, going so far as to send messages in Inuktitut over community radio airwaves in hopes that these lost cultural heroes would resurface.

With cooperation and guidance from the artists, producers, family members, and behind the scenes players, Native North America (Vol. 1) sheds real light on the painful struggles and deep traditions of the greater Indigenous community and the significance of its music. The songs speak of joy and spirituality, but also tell of real tragedy and strife, like that of Algonquin/Mohawk artist Willy Mitchell, whose music career was sparked by a bullet to the head from the gun of a trigger-happy police officer, or those of Inuk singer-songwriter Willie Thrasher, who was robbed of his family and traditional Inuit culture by the residential school system.

Considering the financially motivated destruction of our environment, the conservative political landscape, and corporate bottom-line dominance, it’s bittersweet to report that the revolutionary songs featured on Native North America hold as much meaning today as when they were originally recorded. Dedicated to legendary Métis singer-songwriter and poet Willie Dunn, featured on the anthology but who sadly passed away during its making, Native North America (Vol. 1) is only the beginning. A companion set featuring a crucial selection of folk, rock, and country from the United States’ Lower 48 and Mexico is currently in production.

Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985 — FULL TRACK LIST:

1. Willie Dunn – “I Pity the Country”
2. John Angaiak – “I’ll Rock You to the Rhythm of the Ocean”
3. Sugluk – “Fall Away”
4. Sikumiut – “Sikumiut”
5. Willie Thrasher – “Spirit Child”
6. Willy Mitchell – “Call of the Moose”
7. Lloyd Cheechoo – “James Bay”
8. Alexis Utatnaq – “Maqaivvigivalauqtavut”
9. Brian Davey – “Dreams of Ways”
10. Morley Loon – “N’Doheeno”
11. Peter Frank – “Little Feather”
12. Ernest Monias – “Tormented Soul”
13. Eric Landry – “Out of the Blue”
14. David Campbell – “Sky-Man and the Moon”
15. Willie Dunn – “Son of the Sun”
16. Shingoose (poetry by Duke Redbird) – “Silver River”
17. Willy Mitchell and Desert River Band – “Kill’n Your Mind”
18. Philippe McKenzie – “Mistashipu”
19. Willie Thrasher – “Old Man Carver”
20. Lloyd Cheechoo – “Winds of Change”
21. The Chieftones (Canada’s All Indian Band) – “I Shouldn’t Have Did What I Done”
22. Sugluk – “I Didn’t Know”
23. Lawrence Martin – “I Got My Music”
24. Gordon Dick – “Siwash Rock”
25. Willy Mitchell and Desert River Band – “Birchbark Letter”
26. William Tagoona – “Anaanaga”
27. Leland Bell – “Messenger”
28. Saddle Lake Drifting Cowboys – “Modern Rock”
29. Willie Thrasher – “We Got to Take You Higher”
30. Sikumiut – “Utirumavunga”
31. Sugluk – “Ajuinnarasuarsunga”
32. John Angaiak – “Hey, Hey, Hey, Brother”
33. Groupe Folklorique Montagnais – “Tshekuan Mak Tshetutamak”
34. Willie Dunn (featuring Jerry Saddleback) – “Peruvian Dream (Part 2)”

National Wake - (2013) Walk In Africa 1979-81 CD

Light In The Attic ‎– 105

The South Africa of the late 1970s was neither the right place nor time to launch a mixed-race punk band. Yet, following the student-inspired Soweto Uprising of 1976, it was also exactly the right conditions to foster a band like National Wake, one formed in an underground commune, and one whose very name exists in protest at the divisive, racist apartheid regime. Never before collected together, Light In The Attic is set to release National Wake’s full body of work as Walk In Africa 1979-81.

Featured heavily in the recent documentary Punk In Africa , National Wake played punk, reggae and tropical funk, equally at home in the city’s rock underground and the township nightclub circuit. Ivan Kadey started the band with two brothers, Gary and Punka Khoza. The three were from different worlds – while Ivan was an outsider, a Jewish orphan born in the traditional Johannesburg immigrant neighborhood, Gary, Punka and their family were forcibly moved to the troubled township of Soweto under the apartheid regime. Later joined by guitarist Steve Moni, the whole band grew up against a backdrop of township unrest, social upheaval and suburban tedium that characterized apartheid-era South Africa.

National Wake released just one album, in 1981. It sold approximately 700 copies before being withdrawn under government pressure. The band subsequently disintegrated, but their influence could be traced in the racially mixed post-punk underground centered around Rockey Street in Johannesburg throughout the 1980s, their legacy transmitted through fanzines and underground cassette trading.

Sadly, Gary and Punka Khoza both passed away in their 40s. Kadey now works as an architect in Los Angeles, but his attention eventually turned back to the band as their legacy grew in the digital era, with the emergence of specialized music websites and Punk In Africa leading to their rediscovery. Czech State Radio memorably described the band as “perhaps the most dissident music scene of the 20th century: a multi-racial punk band in a fascist police state.”

In 2011, Kadey re-released the band’s self-titled album on CD in South Africa, but spoke about having more than 20 tracks that had never seen the light of day – until now. “All of these recordings put together they speak of the whole evolution of the band,” he has said. “From a sort of naive, almost belief that we could miraculously change everything to realizing what a struggle it was, and what the country was going through and what it would go through.”

VA - (2017) Even A Tree Can Shed Tears: Japanese Folk & Rock 1969-1973

 Light In The Attic ‎– 156

There was something in the air in the urban corners of late ‘60s Japan. Student protests and a rising youth culture gave way to the angura (short for “underground) movement that thrived on subverting traditions of the post-war years. Rejection of the Beatlemania-inspired Group Sounds and the squeaky clean College Folk movements led the rise of what came to be known in Japan as “New Music,” where authenticity mattered more than replicating the sounds of their idols.

Some of the most influential figures in Japanese pop music emerged from this vital period, yet very little of their work has ever been released or heard outside of Japan, until now. Light In The Attic is thrilled to present Even a Tree Can Shed Tears, the inaugural release in the label’s Japan Archival Series. This is the first-ever, fully licensed collection of essential Japanese folk and rock songs from the peak years of the angura movement to reach Western audiences.

In mid-to-late 1960s Tokyo, young musicians and college students were drawn to Shibuya’s Dogenzaka district for the jazz and rock kissas, or cafes, that dotted its winding hilly streets. Some of these spaces doubled as performance venues, providing a stage for local regulars like Hachimitsu Pie with their The Band-like ragged Americana, Tetsuo Saito with his spacey philosophical folk, and the influential Happy End, who successfully married the unique cadences of the Japanese language to the rhythms of the American West Coast. For many years Dogenzaka remained a center of the city’s “New Music” scene.

Meanwhile a different kind of music subculture was beginning to emerge in the Kansai region around Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. Far more political than their eastern counterparts, many of the Kansai-based “underground” artists began in the realm of protest folk music. They include Takashi Nishioka and his progressive folk collective Itsutsu No Akai Fuusen, the “Japanese Joni Mitchell” Sachiko Kanenobu, and The Dylan II, whose members ran The Dylan cafe in Osaka, which became a hub for the scene.

Even a Tree Can Shed Tears also includes the bluesy avant-garde stylings of Maki Asakawa, future Sadistic Mika Band founder Kazuhiko Kato with his fuzzy, progressive psychedelia, the beatnik acid folk of Masato Minami, and the intimate living room folk of Kenji Endo.

Nearly 50 years on, this “New Music” is born a new.

Track Listing
----------------
[01/19] Curry Rice (Kenji Endo) (3:02) 320 kbps 7.06 MB
[02/19] Sotto Futari De (Kazuhiko Yamahira & The Sherman) (2:52) 320 kbps 6.68 MB
[03/19] Anata Kara Toku E (Sachiko Kanenobu) (3:30) 320 kbps 8.12 MB
[04/19] Rokudenashi (Fluid) (2:52) 320 kbps 6.69 MB
[05/19] Arthur Hakase No Jinriki Hikouki (Kazuhiko Kato) (5:46) 320 kbps 13.33 MB
[06/19] Natsu Nandesu (Happy End) (3:15) 320 kbps 7.56 MB
[07/19] Man-in No Ki (Takashi Nishioka) (4:07) 320 kbps 9.56 MB
[08/19] Yoru Wo Kugurinukeru Made (Masato Minami) (3:27) 320 kbps 8.03 MB
[09/19] Konna Fu Ni Sugite Iku No Nara (Maki Awakawa) (3:57) 320 kbps 9.16 MB
[10/19] Mizu Tamari (Fumio Nunoya) (2:28) 320 kbps 5.79 MB
[11/19] Boku Wa Chotto (Haruomi Hosono) (3:56) 320 kbps 9.11 MB
[12/19] Aoi Natsu (Takuro Yoshida) (3:05) 320 kbps 7.19 MB
[13/19] Takeda No Komori Uta (Akai Tori) (3:09) 320 kbps 7.32 MB
[14/19] Marianne (Gu) (6:28) 320 kbps 14.93 MB
[15/19] Ware Ware Wa (Tetsuo Saito) (5:44) 320 kbps 13.24 MB
[16/19] Sugishi Hi Wo Mitsumete (Gypsy Blood ) (3:56) 320 kbps 9.14 MB
[17/19] Hei No Ue De (Hachimitsu Pie) (6:29) 320 kbps 14.97 MB
[18/19] Zeni No Kouryouryoku Ni Tsuite (Ryo Kagawa) (4:01) 320 kbps 9.33 MB
[19/19] Otokorashiitte Wakaru Kai (The Dylan II) (4:41) 320 kbps 10.83 MB

Total number of files: 19
Total size of files: 178.14 MB
Total playing time: 76:45

VA - (2014) Wheedle's Groove Volume II: Seattle Funk, Modern Soul And Boogie 1972-1987 CD

Light In The Attic ‎– 108 

In 2004, the first volume of Wheedle’s Groove shone a light on the formerly unheralded soul scene in 1960s and ‘70s Seattle, followed by a new album in 2008, and then an award winning feature-length documentary film. The on-going Wheedle’s Groove series continues to present a vast chapter of the city’s musical heritage that has little to do with long-haired rock dudes with guitars. No – in the world of Wheedle’s Groove, platform shoes and pimp hats were the order of the day.

But unlike Volume I, Seattle’s soul scene did not stop in 1975. A new volume, Wheedle’s Groove Vol. II, documents the period from 1972 to 1987, when funk was superseded by disco and modern soul. Heading into the ‘80s, artists in the Emerald City caught wind of the hip-hop and electro scenes that were growing in bigger cities across America, and gave the music their own distinct spin.

As the years unfurl in the tracks of Wheedle’s Groove Volume II, so does the recent history of American music, the songs tracing technological changes and social change, and music’s move from the club to disco as live bands moved aside for DJs. Witness Septimus, on the cusp of both, blending a live drummer with a Roland drum machine and cutting ‘Here I Go Again’ on a disco-friendly 12” single.

Separated from the major centers of soul music, Seattle was a scene that developed out of the gaze of the mainstream music industry, but one that moved just as fast. As John Studamire of the band Priceless remembers, “A lot of the groups around town would have to incorporate that disco sound or you’d sound totally dated.”

Seattle’s size and location had a great effect on its sound. Artists on the scene were accustomed to playing small, discreetly segregated club shows and pressing short runs of 45s for local radio stations. Touring happened mostly on a regional scale and artists popped up in a variety of different bands. Fans of Volume I will recognize some familiar names here: Robbie Hill’s Family Affair turn in the soul-jazz gem ‘Don’t Give Up’ and Cold, Bold & Together present the undeniable vocal beauty of ’Let’s Backtrack.’

Compiled and sequenced by Seattle’s DJ Supreme La Rock, this 18-track compilation will also introduce you to the long-forgotten blue-eyed soul boy Don Brown (‘Don’t Lose Your Love’) and frustrated talents Push, overlooked for record deals on account of singer “Big Joe” Erickson’s larger-than-life heft (‘You Turn Me On’). There’s Frederick Robinson III and his gospel-funk protest tune ‘Love One Another’, Tony Benton of Teleclere being Seattle’s answer to Prince (‘Steal Your Love’) and Seattle Mariners baseball star Lenny Randle recording a tribute to their infamous stadium

Track Listing
----------------
[17/18] I Don't Wanna Lose Your Love (Bernadette Bascom) (3:18) 320 kbps 7.72 MB
[14/18] Let's Backtrack (Cold/Bold) (3:20) 320 kbps 7.79 MB
[04/18] Your Love Is Fine (Lovin' Fine) (Deuce) (4:03) 320 kbps 9.44 MB
[03/18] Don't Lose Your Love (Don Brown) (3:58) 320 kbps 9.24 MB
[01/18] Get Off The Phone (Epicentre) (3:11) 320 kbps 7.47 MB
[16/18] Love One Another (Frederick Robinson III) (3:37) 320 kbps 8.47 MB
[09/18] Kingdome (Lenny Randle feat. Rashawna) (4:13) 320 kbps 9.83 MB
[10/18] Trouble In Mind (Malik Din) (2:57) 320 kbps 6.91 MB
[02/18] Love In Your Life (Priceless) (3:35) 320 kbps 8.38 MB
[08/18] Look At Me (Priceless) (4:26) 320 kbps 10.32 MB
[05/18] You Turn Me On (Portland Session Mix) (Push) (4:01) 320 kbps 9.35 MB
[18/18] Don't Give Up (Robbie Hills Family Affair) (7:15) 320 kbps 16.78 MB
[11/18] I'm Through With You (Romel Westwood) (3:53) 320 kbps 9.06 MB
[06/18] I Wonder Love (Seattle Pure Dynamite) (5:09) 320 kbps 11.96 MB
[07/18] Here I Go Again (Septimus) (5:19) 320 kbps 12.33 MB
[13/18] Darlin Oh Darlin (Steppen Stones) (3:42) 320 kbps 8.63 MB
[12/18] Steal Your Love (Teleclere) (3:42) 320 kbps 8.66 MB
[15/18] Holding On (Unfinished Business) (3:15) 320 kbps 7.62 MB

Total number of files: 18
Total size of files: 170.05 MB
Total playing time: 72:54

VA - (2004) Wheedle's Groove Seattle's Finest in Funk & Soul 1965-75

Light In The Attic ‎– 009

It’s one of those things where you kind of had to be there, to get the full effect of what Seattle was like in the late ‘60s and early ’70s. I really didn’t know what to expect, when I arrived from Buffalo, New York, in ’72, other than Seattle had a history rich in music – Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson and Ray Charles.

Back then, gas cost you twenty-seven cents a gallon to fill up your baddass ride. There was no Seahawks, no Mariners, or Microsoft or Amazon. Girls were still named Frances and Darlene, and guys were known by Freddie and Arthur. Garfield and Franklin were the leading high schools for setting Seattle’s soulful social standards. Dick’s and Dag’s were the spots for twenty-nine-cent burgers, while Helen’s Diner was (and still is) known for the best soul food on the West Coast. TJ’s and Mr. D’s were the clothing stores where most of the brothers shopped, and the CD, the Central District, was (and still is) the heart and soul of the city. The Facts and The Medium newspapers kept all abreast of what was happening in the CD, and KYAC radio tied everything together.

There was a minimum of twenty live-music clubs specializing in funk and soul, and all those joints jammed. There must have been twenty-five hard-giggin’, Superfly-like, wide-leg-polyester-pant-and-platform-shoes-wearing, wide-brim-hat-and-maxi-coat-sportin’, big-ass, highly-“sheened”-afro-stylin’, Kool & the Gang song-covering live bands playing four sets a night from 8 p.m. ‘til O-dark-thirty in the morning. And of course, the ladies were not to be outdone with their Pam Grier-Foxy Brown hoop earrings, mini-skirts and the ever popular Afro Puffs. Each night, some band, somewhere, was kickin’ it. You could find Manuel Stanton of Black and White Affair doing flips while playing bass on a Monday at the Gallery. Meanwhile, you might catch Robbie Hill, flashing like a Christmas tree in a red rhinestone-studded jumpsuit, matching red Big Apple cap and the huge hair, keeping the beat for his band Family Affair at the District Tavern. The Dave Lewis Trio, the highly stylized Overton Berry and the ultra-funky Johnny Lewis Quartet regularly played the Trojan Horse, while Cold, Bold & Together was house band at the legendary Golden Crown Up. Cookin’ Bag, with their heavy horn vibe was a major draw from Perls’ Ballroom in Bremerton to Soul Street.

The idea of Wheedle’s Groove (named after Wheedle, the worst mascot in the history of mascots ever) is quite exciting and long overdue. Each track on this compilation is an untold musical history lesson. Those of you who were around back then are likely to have a wonderful time reliving the good-old days. After all, you helped make it happen. Have fun.

Track Listing
----------------
[01/18] Bold Soul Sister, Bold Soul Brother (USDEA0400901) (Black On White Affair) (2:56) 320 kbps 6.94 MB
[02/18] Brighter Tomorrow (Soul Swingers) (2:52) 320 kbps 6.80 MB
[03/18] This Is Me (Cookin'Bag) (2:25) 320 kbps 5.74 MB
[04/18] Deep Soul Pt. 1 (Ron Buford) (2:05) 320 kbps 4.99 MB
[05/18] Hey Jude (The Overton Berry Trio) (5:35) 320 kbps 12.99 MB
[06/18] Thrift Store Find (Misterholmes & The Brotherhood) (2:40) 320 kbps 6.34 MB
[07/18] I Just Want To Be (Like Myself) (Robbie Hill's Family Affair) (3:17) 320 kbps 7.76 MB
[08/18] (Stop) Losing Your Chances (Cold'Bold&Together) (3:42) 320 kbps 8.70 MB
[09/18] Nothing In Common (Broham) (4:17) 320 kbps 10.02 MB
[10/18] Cissy Strut (The Johnny Lewis Trio) (6:35) 320 kbps 15.29 MB
[11/18] Little Love Affair (Patrinell Staten) (3:44) 320 kbps 8.75 MB
[12/18] A Bunch of Changes (Black On White Affair) (3:07) 320 kbps 7.37 MB
[13/18] Louie Louie (The Topics) (6:07) 320 kbps 14.22 MB
[14/18] Runaway Train (The Clarence Mack Express) (3:41) 320 kbps 8.65 MB
[15/18] Wheedle's Groove (Annakonda) (3:18) 320 kbps 7.76 MB
[16/18] Balek (Sharpshooters) (3:12) 320 kbps 7.54 MB
[17/18] The Song I Sing (Cookin'Bag) (2:46) 320 kbps 6.54 MB
[18/18] Somebody's Gonna Burn Ya (Cold'Bold&Together) (3:03) 320 kbps 7.19 MB

Total number of files: 18
Total size of files: 153.70 MB
Total playing time: 65:22

Zuider Zee - (2018) Zeenith CD

Light In The Attic ‎– 166 

An early/mid-1970s group that sound like a hybrid between T-Rex and Big Star, might sound like a band that should be universally adored but Memphis’ Zuider Zee have remained something of an untapped curiosity. Until now. With this first time release of the album Zeenith, recorded between 1972 and ’74 and featuring all previously unheard tracks, the band should no longer be a boxed-up mystery.

Prior to Zeenith, Zuider Zee’s 1975 self-titled LP was the only record out there that existed. Released on Columbia, it was hailed as a true great power pop record of the time by groups such as Cheap Trick. “Rick Nielsen called me one night,” Zuider Zee’s Richard Orange recalls. “He was asking about why weren’t we bigger and doing as well as they were. He said: “Man, you’re so damn good, do you know where I have your phone number? I have your number right beneath John Lennon’s number. Fuggin’ John Lennon, Richard!’

Despite love from such bands and a later line-up of Zuider Zee even supporting the Sex Pistols at the Taliesyn Ballroom in Memphis in 1978 – “Sid Vicious stumbling around out of his gourd. It was very unremarkable, the whole event.” remembers Orange – and with Columbia never even releasing a single for radio, Zuider Zee never quite took off and dissolved into the ether of cult band land. However, an untold chapter of the group’s history has now been unearthed as Light In The Attic’s ability to pluck gold from seemingly nowhere continues on this release.

Comprised entirely of previously unreleased tracks, Zeenith is an album in which sugar-coated glam stomp nestles up alongside Mersey beat and where rousing power pop, crunchy rock and a undercurrent of pop-peppered psychedelia all merge seamlessly.

Childhood pals Richard Orange and Gary Simon Bertrand had matriculated in late ‘60s Lafayette pop-psych outfit, Thomas Edisun’s Electric Light Bulb Band, before joining forces with Kim Foreman and John Bonar. Zuider Zee’s tale wasn’t always destined to be that of a mysterious cult band but they did face some difficulties in from the off, as they found when they moved from Jackson, Mississippi to their new adopted home of Memphis. “When we first rolled into town, we were completely unknown,” says Orange. “We couldn’t get a gig at any of the clubs for what seemed like at least a year or even longer. We were very different from bands in the South. We never covered any Southern rock – apart from The Allman Brothers who we all thought the world of – and as we grew into ourselves we didn’t sound anything like southern rock.”

It was Orange’s work ethic that kept the band driven and focused though through such tough times. “I can honestly say that there is one thing Zuider Zee shared with The Beatles experience,” he says. “We played for years in the crappiest most disgusting, dangerous and depressing places, and we played anywhere from 5 to 7 hours, 6 days a week – for years.”

A group led by such a hard-working and determined individual is glisteningly apparent on this release. Zeenith feels like a band at that magical juncture between a group perfecting their craft whilst still driven by wide-eyed optimism, youthful energy and a sense of fun that radiates throughout every note played. Ultimately, this was at the core of Zuider Zee’s aims. “Most important is to have fun whilst you’re up there doing it [on stage] because people will feel that joy – it’s electric and contagious and they will react to it.”

Something that still feels pertinent over 40 years since it was created.

Andrew Liles - (2015) Cover Girls CD

 Dirter Promotions ‎– 111 

This CD is a women only recording and has the following wonderful, unique, charming and beautiful women contributing their voices: Elisabeth Oswell, Katie Oswell, Gena Netherwood, Baby Dee, Jess Roberts, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Melon Liles, Lavinia Blackwall, Alex Jako, Miranda Kinkelaar and Bobbie Watson.

This album of cover versions includes songs originally by David Essex, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel, The Buggles, UFO, Einstürzende Neubauten and many more. 

Clay Christiansen - (1993) The Pipe Organ Of The Mormon Tabernacle Salt Lake City CS

 Klavier Records ‎– 7044 

Oops.

Posted this on wrong blog but too lazy to re-post over there.

No / not telling where the other one is either.

It's Private.

Big Techno Werewolves & Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet - (2002) Feel It CD

 ToYo Records ‎– 016 

Big Techno Werewolves is a former band of Sic Alps' Mike Donovan and The Oh Sees' Petey Dammit. They play noisy garage rock, could be compared to the early Red Krayola.

Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinett is one of the noise projects of former Caroliner Rainbows member Thomas Day (also of Grux?). I think Liz Albee is in it too but I don't know that exactly.

Graham Bowers & Nurse With Wound - (2011) Rupture CD

United Dirter ‎– 093 

This CD is the first collaboration of Steven Stapleton's Nurse With Wound and composer/sculptor Graham Bowers. It is, without doubt, one of the best things we have ever released. It's an extremely unnerving, but also hauntingly moving listening experience.The work is an attempt to create a musical illustration of the "goings-on" in the brain during the last hour and three minutes of a life after suffering a major stroke. It is multi-layered and is primarily concerned with the internal chaos caused by the loss of control of thought processes, responses and consequential actions, with all types of incoherent disjointed memories and present real time events - as well as moments of lucidity, panic and fear - clashing, merging and evolving.It's essentially one long piece, but is presented in three parts:
1/ "...a life as it now is 2/...is not what it was 3/...and will never be again". It arrives packaged in a beautiful 6 panel gloss laminated digipac, featuring artwork from both Babs Santini and Graham Bowers. The edition is limited to just 1000 copies in this format.

Nurse with Wound & Graham Bowers - (2014) Excitotoxicity CD

Red Wharf ‎– 011 

Nurse With Wound - (2017) The Swinging Reflective II 2xCD

 Dirter Promotions ‎– 134 

This double CD is the follow up to 1999’s The Swinging Reflective album. It features an array of Steven Stapleton’s favourite releases that are either his remixes of other artists, collaborations or have been co-written with individuals who have worked extensively with NWW. All tracks are remastered and some have been slightly or comprehensively remixed.

Disc 1 (01:05:32)
1. Colin Potter – Rock N' Roll Station (05:45)
2. Faust – Disconnected (13:12)
3. Freida Abtan – Electric Smudge (04:09)
4. Graham Bowers – The Squarewarp Paradox (07:21)
5. David Kenny – Easy Listening Nightmares (09:19)
6. Band of Pain – Gloakid With Phendrabites (09:18)
7. Andrew Liles – Cruisin' For A Bruisin (07:05)
8. Christoph Heemann – Painting With Priests (09:23)

Disc 2 (01:02:40)
1. Aranos – Tidal Whirlpool (13:57)
2. Sunn O))) – Ash On The Trees (Slices Of Midnight) (17:15)
3. Lynn Jackson – Livin' With The Night (02:04)
4. Sand – May Rain (Chromanation) (08:34)
5. Larson & Fritz Müller – Rock Baby Rock (05:04)
6. Blind Cave Salamander – Cabbalism III (15:46)

Total length: 02:08:12

Russell Hoke - (2016) A Voice From the Lonesome Playground 2xCS

Round Bale Recordings ‎– 005 

It was in the summer of 2011 that I first stumbled across a small stash of Russell Hoke albums while combing through the tastefully stocked bins of Chicago’s Dusty Groove Records, which I later learned was one of the very few places in the world to actually carry these. Tucked in their small “Folk & Country” section sat these intriguing looking hand-assembled, hand-scrawled record jackets with titles like Haunted Brain and If I Had Been the Universe that looked positively out of place amongst the more recognizable selections within that traditional-mind- ed genre. With no knowledge of what any of these would sound like, but lured by the cheap sticker price and curious song titles, I ended up purchasing a copy of Hoke’s He Would Have Been A Fine Young Man.

When I arrived back home and put the needle to the record for the first time, I was downright mesmerized by what I heard. The album was a haunting work of psych- tinged, outsider folk that sounded like a lost late-sixties/early-seventies artifact, adding a bit of mystery and confusion to the 2011 copyright date on the jacket. This, of course, immediately sent me on the hunt for any and all of the other Hoke recordings I could get my hands on and to seek out any further information I could about this elusive artist. There was, however, scant information to be found online about Hoke at the time (and to this day, in fact), with the exception of maybe a couple of mentions of his 2009 released double album, The Magic of My Youth. Fortunately, based on a slight hunch and a blind email inquiry, I was put in touch with Hoke directly, a connection that has provided me with years’ worth of enduring songs, poetry, and camaraderie, and which brings us to the present day and this collection in hand.

The bulk of the recordings featured on this anthology date back to the 1980’s and have been circulated amongst Hoke’s friends and supporters in various minuscule editions and under various titles for decades, from the “pizza box” cassette edition of Splashing Onto You, My Children in the late 80’s up through the more recent spat of limited vinyl editions on Hoke’s private label, Unheard-of Records. This anthology draws from the entirety of his archives and these later private press editions, including three previously unreleased tracks, to circulate a collection anew for the next generation of listeners and future fans of this under-appreciated, Texas-based songwriter and poet. With 38 songs spread out over two cassettes and a 16-page booklet of lyrics, A Voice From the Lonesome Playground presents a broad overview of Hoke’s work, providing what I consider more than ample evidence of his much-deserved place in that great conversation of notable left-of-center songwriters and wordsmiths, from Dylan to Johnston to Hazlewood to Hurley. Get in on the action, friends: the Cosmic Outlaw is back!

Ahmad Zahir - (2012) Volume 3 The King of 70's Afghan Pop 2xLP

 Pharaway Sounds ‎– 004 

Double LP of amazing Afghan pop obscurities, deluxe packaging* Pharaway Sounds' last instalment of Ahmad Zahir classics presents twelve psychedelic, romantic ballads by "Kabul's answer to Neil Diamond." Against a backdrop of wah-wah guitar, spaghetti western brass, discoid synths, swaying organ and tabla rendered with FX every bit as epic as the Hindu Kush, Zahir emotes for his country against adverse political conditions. As the son of prime minister Abdul Zahir, Ahmad was exposed to a more cosmopolitan lifestyle and would eventually surpass his father's fame, penning provocative lyrics which spread political themes as far as Iran, which was concurrently becoming as conservative as Afghanistan, eventually leading to parallel fundamentalist revolutions and resulting in his shadowy death at the age of 33. These tunes are testament to a time when that region was relatively as progressive as the rest of the world, a far more modern place than it is today.