Cosmic Machine: The Sequel is Because Music’s second collection of French electronic goodies from the ’70s and ’80s. As with the first volume, cheeky space disco coexists with library music and more avant-garde pieces, even tipping into more academic composition this time around with the inclusion of a movement from musique concrète pioneer Pierre Schaeffer’s 1978 work Le Trièdre Fertile. The compilation mixes lesser-known experimental gems from French pop stars (Christophe, Alain Chamfort under the alias Araxis) and film composers (Roger Roger, Pierre Porte) with disco cult classics, and even a few tracks that were fluke hits at the time. The Peppers’ 1973 instrumental funk ditty “Pepper Box” hit the American pop charts, for example.

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The Sequel seems to tip a little more toward the obscure than the original; there aren’t as many unearthed rarities by names as big as Serge Gainsbourg or Jean Michel Jarre, nor are there as many well-established classics like Space’s “Magic Fly” or Jean-Jacques Perrey’s “E.V.A.” on this volume. There is, however, one of hundreds of cover versions of Gershon Kingsley’s Moog standard “Pop Corn,” this one being an instrumental version by glam rock project Anarchic System (who also recorded a vocal version). As with most vintage renditions of the tune, it is nearly indistinguishable from the 1972 hit version by ad hoc studio group Hot Butter, but it is a fun version nonetheless. Richard Pinhas gets a lot of love on this collection, as he is represented by “Ruitor” (one of his more accessible pieces, from his 1980 album East West), a track from his band Heldon’s 1977 prog classic Interface, and an incredible minimal synth track he produced for one-off project Video Liszt in 1980. On the whole, the collection doesn’t seem to go for quite as much of an intergalactic disco vibe as the first volume, but it does include a few neat cosmic gems such as “Asteroide” (a Rah Band-like instrumental by Joël Fajerman and Jan Yrssen) and Moon Birds’ stunning “Cristal Nº 3,” which opens with distorted vocals that almost resemble Coil’s John Balance. The compilation also includes a track from Rosebud’s Discoballs, a 1977 disco tribute to Pink Floyd (!), but instead of going for the “obvious” cut from the album (the excellent version of “Have a Cigar,” which actually became a club hit at the time), the compilers went the esoteric route and chose “Main Theme (From More),” which ends up sounding like something from one of Patrick Cowley’s porn soundtracks.

Even more so than the original Cosmic Machine, the selection and sequencing on The Sequel feel somewhat random, but the music itself is fascinating, and nearly uniformly excellent.

The first volume of Birds Of A Feather Flock Together. A 20 track compilation CD and accompanying fanzine from Grow Your Own Records. Originally set up to Anthrax recordings, Grow Your Own started putting out material by other bands in 2015 to promote new music. So far Grow Your Own issued three 7″ EPs featuring The System / Virus / Bug Central, Anthrax / Pedagree Skum / Dog Shite / Slug and Anthrax / Hagar The Womb. The Birds Of A Feather comp CD features some of the artists on these releases as well as many others. The idea was to produce a sampler, along the lines of Bullshit Detector, to give a taster of bands. Grow Your Own releases are put together with love and by hand in true DIY fashion, with an emphasis on quality of design and packaging.

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1. Sanction This – Sanctify Genocide [02:17]
2. Hagar The Womb – Showing Off [01:53]
3. Anthrax – Surprise Surprise [03:06]
4. Terminal Heads – Must Be [02:01]
5. Burnt Cross – Refugee Of War [02:30]
6. Virus – Futile [02:27]
7. Andy T – Diy Punk [04:04]
8. Dogshite – Spies [02:55]
9. Hysteria Ward – The Lodge (Hand On My Face) [01:56]
10. Flowers In The Dustbin – Brixton Tube [02:41]
11. Feroxide – The Incredible Miss Direction [03:14]
12. Surgery Without Research – Some Things Can’t Explain [02:43]
13. Slug – Stop [02:14]
14. Eslege – Eslege [03:16]
15. Pedagree Skum – Meat Hook [03:58]
16. The Commited – Be Afraid [03:07]
17. The System – Consumerism (Live) [03:28]
18. Liberty – Push Back [03:37]
19. Contempt – Direct Action Master [02:54]
20. Burning Flag – Broken [01:57]

Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Studio One Dub Fire Special’ brings together 18 heavyweight dub cuts all recorded at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s.
Featuring a stellar selection of dub cuts to classic and foundation songs recorded at Studio One with music from the legendary in-house bands – The Sound Dimension, New Establishment, Soul Defenders and Brentford All-Stars – featuring the likes of reggae’s finest musicians – Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Cedric Brooks, Freddie McGregor and more.
These fresh dub sounds employed the mighty mixing desk skills of The Dub Specialist, aka Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd and studio engineer supremo Sylvan Morris to full effect. Studio One Dub Fire Special features our latest chapter…

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…of raw, stripped-down bass and drum sounds direct from Studio One.

01. Cairo [02:08]
02. Lourenco Marques [02:14]
03. Callie Roots [03:04]
04. Libra Dub [03:02]
05. Dakar [02:58]
06. Better Dub [02:55]
07. Rockers Hop [02:03]
08. Roots Dub [02:29]
09. Moving Dub [03:10]
10. Just Can’t Dub [02:29]
11. Meet 7 Million [03:30]
12. Scorpio Dub [02:36]
13. Nairobi [02:28]
14. Dub Creation [02:46]
15. Virgo Dub [02:48]
16. This Race [02:39]
17. Darker Black [02:44]
18. Capricorn Dub [03:23]

Litmus is the soundtrack to Andrew Kidman’s 1996 surf film. It features The Val Dusty Experiment, The Screaming Orphans and Yothu Yindi.
By 1996, surfing was on the upswing in popularity as professional surfers became marketable athletes. The three-fin, high performance, “thruster” shortboard was the tool of choice, lending to a fast-paced slashing style and ultimately a more aggressive “surf and destroy” movement in board culture. Litmus, Kidman’s first avant-garde surf film, served as a soulful reaction to the pop-punk progression that dominated the mainstream.
Prior to filming, Kidman’s band, The Val Dusty Experiment, recorded a total of thirty-five songs in one day. The outcome of the “one-and-done” sessions was a lo-fi, rustic, experimental…

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…rock ‘n’ roll sound, adding a rough-around-the-edges ambiance to the surf scenes that span Ireland, Australia, California, and South Africa. Litmus was a defining moment in surf filmmaking — it sparked an open-minded retro-progressive movement as surfers formed a higher consciousness about the types of boards they were riding and why.

1. The Val Dusty Experiment – Rain (3:14)
2. Wayne Lynch – Wayne Lynch Quote (0:46)
3. Yothu Yindi – Gapu (5:09)
4. Derek Hynd – Derek Hynd Quote (0:41)
5. The Val Dusty Experiment – Mo Walker (1:00)
6. The Val Dusty Experiment – Cow (2:38)
7. The Val Dusty Experiment – Time (2:29)
8. The Screaming Orphans – Black Is the Colour (4:55)
9. Joel Fitzgerald – Joel Fitzgerald Quote (0:15)
10. The Val Dusty Experiment – Green Hornet (2:32)
11. Tom Curren – Fire Jam (2:53)
12. Rosie Sutherland – Elizabeth (3:53)
13. The Val Dusty Experiment, Jon Frank – Dump Swimming (2:49)
14. The Val Dusty Experiment – Hawaiian Surf Forecast (0:17)
15. Kevin Baker and The Val Dusty Experiment – Riding the Wind (5:32)

The huge musical influence of the church has meant that gospel music and the blues have long been intertwined. From the true guitar evangelists such as Blind Willie Johnson and Reverend Gary Davis to blues legends Charley Patton and Skip James, these recordings illustrate how the line separating the Lord’s song and ‘devil’s music’ was very thin.
Although the blues and gospel music of the African American in the pre-war era seem quite distinct, they were essentially two sides of the same coin. Both genres shared the same longing for a better life and an almost blind hope in deliverance and redemption. The musical influence of the church was profound on many blues singers, as this was often where they started out.

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Many early bluesmen would freely switch between playing blues and gospel and it was not uncommon for artists to go back and forth between careers as preachers and blues performers.

Ultimately famed for his ‘devil’s music’, Blind Lemon Jefferson’s version of ‘All I Want Is That Pure Religion’ was one of two recordings from his first session in 1926 which were gospel songs, released under the name Deacon L. J. Bates. Later that year Blind Joe Taggart and Edward W. Clayborn were the first genuine guitar evangelists to record. Clayborn only performed gospel tunes but Taggart also recorded secular music under a number of different pseudonyms. The success of these early recordings led to other singer-guitarists being sought out and recorded.

Like the itinerant bluesmen, the guitar evangelists had to ply their trade on street corners and anywhere that would allow them to scrape a meagre living together. One such artist was Blind Willie Johnson who, although a devout Christian performing only religious material, became a seminal figure in the history of the blues. From the dazzling slide guitar playing and earthy, pained vocals on Johnson’s extraordinary recordings one can draw an obvious musical comparison with the blues. It is, however, the shared subject matter of human struggle that connects the blues and gospel which resonates at the deepest level. After Johnson’s initial recordings sold very well, many star bluesmen of the time such as Barbecue Bob and Charley Patton followed suit with versions of Negro spirituals, often credited under pseudonyms in order not to offend the church.

Undoubtedly, the most technically adept of the true guitar evangelists was Reverend Gary Davis, whose incredible ragtime-infused style has been a huge inspiration to guitar fingerpickers ever since. Davis was an important inspiration to the folk music revival alongside other featured bluesmen such as Skip James (who was later ordained as a minister), Mississippi John Hurt and Bukka White, all of whom had recorded a small number of spirituals and were given a new lease of life in the 1960s. Josh white was another and here he teams up with Blind Joe Taggart, a man whom he later described as ‘tricky, nasty and mean’. The pointed ‘Scandalous And A Shame’ was his first popular Paramount recording. Blind Willie McTell was an active preacher later in life playing only religious material but sadly died a few years too early to benefit from the 1960s blues revival.

It has been said that the ‘Queen Of Country Blues’ Memphis Minnie only once went to church to see a gospel group perform, but you wouldn’t know this when hearing her take on ‘Let Me Ride’ which evokes the mood and fervour of Southern black worship. Likewise, many of Bessie Smith’s classic blues songs have a hymn-like quality as a result of the fusion of the sacred and the secular in her delivery. Her beautiful version of ‘On Revival Day’ undoubtedly reflects the dynamics she would have heard in the sacred songs in her childhood church. Less is known about Mother McCollum whose stompin’ masterpiece ‘Jesus Is My Air-O-plane’ displays her wonderful guitar-playing and soulful vocals.

01 Rev. Gary Davis – I Am The Light (2:59)
02 Blind Willie Johnson – I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole (3:00)
03 Mississippi John Hurt – Praying On The Old Camp Ground (2:34)
04 Bukka White – The Promise True And Grand (3:02)
05 Rev. Edward W. Clayborn – (Your Enemy Cannot Harm You (2:54)
06 Blind Roosevelt Graves – I’ll Be Rested (When The Roll Is Called) (2:26)
07 Blind Boy Fuller – Twelve Gates To The City (2:40)
08 Blind Joe Taggart – Scandalous And A Shame (2:53)
09 Mother McCollum – Jesus Is My Air-O-Plane (3:17)
10 Tallahassee Tight – Got Heaven In My View (3:03)
11 Skip James – Be Ready When He Comes (2:52)
12 Julius Daniels – Slippin’ And Slidin’ Up The Golden Street (3:09)
13 Blind Mamie Forehand – Wouldn’t Mind Dying If Dying Was All (3:24)
14 Lil’ McClintock – Mother Called Her Child To Her Dying Bed (3:08)
15 Bo Weavil Jackson – I’m On My Way To The Kingdom Land (2:58)
16 Memphis Minnie – Let Me Ride (2:56)
17 Blind Gussie Nesbit – I’ll Just Stand And Wring My Hands And Cry (3:13)
18 Blind Willie McTell – Georgia Rag (3:09)
19 Blind Willie Davis – I’ve Got A Key To The Kingdom (3:10)
20 Henry Thomas – Jonah In The Wilderness (2:52)
21 Barbecue Bob – When The Saints Go Marching In (3:05)
22 Bessie Smith – On Revival Day (A Rhythmic Spiritual) (2:53)
23 Charley Patton – Jesue Is A Dying-Bed Maker (2:50)
24 Sam Collins – Lead Me All The Way (2:39)
25 Blind Lemon Jefferson – All I Want Is That Pure Religion (3:10)

The Ace Golden Age CD series has always been popular and has often received many critical plaudits. More Country Hits is the second edition in the country genre of The Golden Age of American Popular Music series (there is also a ‘Country Edition’ volume in ‘The Golden Age of American Rock ‘N’ Roll’), again compiled by Tony Rounce, and stands the equal of both previous releases.
The tracks transport us to a time when State Fairs were more likely to be on a country performer’s itinerary than stadiums, and superstardom meant you stayed for an extra hour or two after your show to sign autographs, rather than successfully market your own fragrance range. A promotional campaign might have meant a solitary trade ad in the back of Billboard, while radio airplay was…

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…the main way of getting your music heard, rather than streaming. These singles became hits because they sold in their thousands, hundreds of thousands, and occasionally millions. That’s what it took to get a record into the national charts in the ultra-competitive 50s and 60s.

Just about every big-selling country artist of the era is included. Many featured tracks have since come to be regarded as genre classics. If you can’t remember Ferlin Husky’s ‘The Waltz You Saved for Me’ too clearly, tracks such as Marty Robbins’ original of ‘Singing the Blues’, Johnny Horton’s ‘North to Alaska’  or Jim Reeves’ groundbreaking ‘Four Walls’ will surely not have slipped your mind.

Among the many scenes that came out of the post-punk explosion in the U.K. was a healthy psychedelic one, full of revivalists, sonic explorers, weirdoes, and even a fair amount of ex-punks.
RPM’s 3-disc box set Another Splash of Colour expands on the 1982 compilation album of similar name (A Splash of Colour) that rounded up some of the leading lights of the neo-psych movement, including Mood Six, the Barracudas, and the Times.
While A Splash of Colour was an essential sampler, plenty of bands could have been included but were not, and this set fills in the blanks. Collecting artists who are well-known like the Soft Boys, Julian Cope, the Icicle Works, and the Prisoners as well as some who were seemingly invented just for the occasion (Deep Freeze Mice, Future Daze,…

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…the Onlookers), the collection casts a wide net. Electronic inventiveness from Nick Nicely, whose “Hilly Fields” is a highlight, sits comfortably next to the glanging mod revival of the Purple Hearts and Squire. The jumped-up power pop of Kimberley Rew’s insanely catchy “Stomping All Over the World” makes perfect sense paired with Cleaners from Venus’ bedroom pop mini-epic “Wivenhoe Bells II” and the bracing psych-punk of the Blue Orchids’ “Work.” The contingent from Creation Records (Biff Bang Pow!, the Jasmine Minks, Revolving Paint Dream) fits in perfectly with jangle pop bands like the JetSet and the Dentists. The bands featured on the original album turn in some of the strongest entries, especially the High Tide, with their melancholy pop nugget “Just Like a Dream,” and Mood Six, whose two songs are so strong it’s no surprise they got signed to a major label soon after the album’s release.

Most of the groups on the original comp were poppier, with the psychedelic influence working as a complementary ingredient, not the main one. The addition of a bunch of groups that were just as trippy and odd as the original psychedelic artists — if not sometimes more so — shows another element of the scene that may not be as well remembered. The biggest name of the collected eccentrics is Robyn Hitchcock, and his contribution, “It’s a Mystic Trip,” is suitably bonkers. The other scattered wackos, like Magic Mushroom Band and Firmament and the Elements, add some levity and fun to the otherwise pretty serious proceedings. Indeed, part of the reason these bands succeeded at reviving a time and a sound was that they were reverent and sincere. They took the things that worked from the psychedelic era, added ’80s gloominess, and came up with something very British and very much worth exploring.

Another Splash of Colour is a perfect jumping-off point that covers most of the important players — sadly, no Dukes of Stratosphear tracks were available — and does a great job capturing and defining an almost forgotten scene with the care it deserves.

Baton Rouge was arguably the blues centre of Louisiana and just about all of the artists featured in this compilation spent part of their lives there. Long-time favourites Lightnin’ Slim, Lazy Lester, Slim Harpo and Silas Hogan certainly honed their skills in its clubs and bars, although they travelled some 70 miles west to record at J.D. Miller’s studio in Crowley. Everything here emanated from Miller’s studio or from his close rival Eddie Shuler’s facility in Lake Charles, except series newcomer Chris Kenner’s track, which was cut in New Orleans. Other artists new to the series are Henry Gray, Juke Boy Bonner, Elton Anderson, Ramblin’ Hi Harris and Schoolboy Cleve.
All of which means we have another feast of classic blues, led by guitar, piano or harmonica, plus…

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…a little zydeco from Clifton Chenier and Boozoo Chavis, whose tracks sit comfortably alongside the work of Lonesome Sundown, Jimmy Anderson and our other artists. During the ’50s and ’60s zydeco was the blues of the French-speaking black population of Louisiana, with the accordion replacing the harmonica as instrument of choice.  — Ace Records

Mention Brazilian jazz to most music fans and the inevitable bossa nova images flood into view: the beach, the female whisper-vocal, the rimshot snare drumming, the chord-plucked acoustic guitar, possibly a little muted batucada percussion, breathy alto saxophone and cabaret-vamp piano. It’s an image ineluctably stuck in the 1960s, when most aspiring Brazilian musicians looked to America’s West Coast ‘cool jazz’ scene for inspiration, listening to artists such as the Modern Jazz Quartet, Chet Baker, Paul Winter, Jimmy Giuffre and Stan Getz.
Of course there were Brazilian jazz musicians in the 1960s whose work was highly original and owed little or nothing to bossa nova, obvious examples being Victor Assis Brasil and Dom Salvador, the only two ‘old-school’ players present in this…

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…compilation –  their presence I hope demonstrating the continuity of Brazilian jazz explorations way beyond bossa-jazz. There were also artists drawing inspiration from native Indian, regional folkloric and liturgical sources: Hermeto Pascoal and Egberto Gismonti made (and still make) thrilling and bizarre jazz that owed nothing to ‘conventional’ Brazilian jazz, or indeed ‘conventional’ jazz of any kind.

Brazil’s millennial musicians, however, use a different palette from that which has gone before. Disillusioned with the vapidity of manufactured national pop – pagode, axé, lambada, brega and the rest – they started digging for rare soul, funk, reggae and hip hop records for inspiration, an entry-point to the Blue Note and soul-jazz classics of America’s east coast, as well as richer meat – Sun Ra, Roland Kirk, Pharaoh Sanders and afrobeat. They also started listening more to European jazz: a fascinating ‘full-circle’ effect, because earl twentieth century choro jazz was strongly influenced by European music in template if not in tempo.

The large majority of players on this compilation are under 30 years old, most from São Paulo and Rio De Janeiro. Many have played with each other and are familiar with each other’s work – as were Rio’s 1960s bossa nova community. But the sheer range, energy and boisterousness of the approach is thrilling.

Iconili, Nomade Orquestra, Höröya and Bixiga 70 are essentially gafieira (dancehall) orchestras – with all the discipline, skill and ‘listening to each other’ that it implies – playing from a different songbook: a repertoire inspired by Nigeria, Guinea, Ethiopia, the Caribbean and New York. Thiago França’s sharp-elbowed genius makes itself felt in his solo work as well as in the more modal Space Charanga and European fans may know Thiago from the touring combo Metá-Metá. Juçara Marçal and Karina Buhr’s voicings explore similar territory to Carla Bley while Tulipa Ruiz’s sparkling Roy Ayers-style jazz-funk contribution wouldn’t be out of place on the 1980s London dancefloors of Dingwall’s, the WAG or the Electric Ballroom. — worldmusic.net

In the spring of 1968 a cargo ship was preparing to leave the port of Baltimore with an important shipment of musical instruments. Its final destination was Rio De Janeiro, where the EMSE Exhibition (Exposição Mundial Do Son Eletrônico) was going to be held.
It was the first expo of its kind to take place in the Southern Hemisphere and many of the leading companies in the field of electronic music were involved. Rhodes, Moog, Farfisa, Hammond and Korg, just to name a few, were all eager to present their newest synthesisers and other gadgets to a growing and promising South American market, spearheaded by Brazil and Colombia.
The ship with the goods set sail on the 20th of March on a calm morning and mysteriously…

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…disappeared from the radar on the very same day.

One can only imagine the surprise of the villagers of Cachaço, on the Sao Nicolau island of Cabo Verde, when a few months later they woke up and found a ship stranded in their fields, in the middle of nowhere, 8 km from any coastline. After consulting with the village elders, the locals had decided to open the containers to see what was inside – however gossip as scintillating as this travels fast and colonial police had already arrived and secured the area.

Portuguese scientists and physicians were ordered to the scene and after weeks of thorough studies and research, it was concluded that the ship had fallen from the sky. One of the less plausible theories was that it might have fallen from a Russian military air carrier. The locals joked that again the government had wasted their tax money on a useless exercise, as a simple look at the crater generated by the impact could explain the phenomena. “No need for Portuguese rocket scientists to explain this!” they laughed.

What the villagers didn’t know, was that traces of cosmic particles were discovered on the boat. The bow of the ship showed traces of extreme heat, very similar to traces found on meteors, suggesting that the ship had penetrated the hemisphere at high speed. That theory also didn’t make sense as such an impact would have reduced the ship to dust. Mystery permeated the event.

Finally, a team of welders arrived to open the containers and the whole village waited impatiently. The atmosphere, which had been filled with joy and excitement, quickly gave way to astonishment. Hundreds of boxes conjured, all containing keyboards and other instruments which they had never seen before: and all useless in an area devoid of electricity. Disappointment was palpable. The goods were temporarily stored in the local church and the women of the village had insisted a solution be found before Sunday mass.

It is said that charismatic anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral had ordered for the instruments to be distributed equally in places that had access to electricity, which placed them mainly in schools. This distribution was best thing that could have happened – keyboards found fertile grounds in the hands of curious children, born with an innate sense of rhythm who picked up the ready-to-use instruments. This in turn facilitated the modernisation of local rhythms such as Mornas, Coladeras and the highly danceable music style called Funaná, which had been banned by the Portuguese colonial rulers until 1975 due to its sensuality!

The observation was made that the children who came into contact with the instruments found on the ship inherited prodigious capabilities to understand music and learn instruments. One of them was the musical genius Paulino Vieira, who by the end of the 70s would become the country ́s most important music arranger.

8 out of the 15 songs presented in this compilation had been recorded with the backing of the band Voz de Cabo Verde, lead by Paulino Vieira, the mastermind behind the creation and promulgation of what is known today as “The Cosmic Sound of Cabo Verde”. — analogafrica.bandcamp.com

30 years ago Stefan Winter recorded his debut production for JMT (Jazz Music Today). The early works were exactly at the transition point from analogue to digital recording techniques. Without digital technology the AudioFilms such as “Orient-Express”, “Metropolis Shanghai” and “Wagner e Venezia” would have been unthinkable. Besides these AudioFilms, Stefan Winter developed artist editions with Teodoro Anzellotti, Theo Bleckmann, Uri Caine, Mauricio Kagel, Paul Motian (1988-2011), Ernst Reijseger and Fumio Yasuda to name only few. Kagel and Motian, two artists from entirely different worlds, inspired Winter again and again to dare new things. At the end of the 80s, Stefan Winter and Mariko Takahashi met in Japan. Under the direction of Mariko Takahashi the festival…

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…Taboo-Lu was initiated in Ginza in Tokyo, a notable presentation with live concerts, an art exhibition and recordings and with that the the idea of and for Winter & Winter was sown. Since the mid ’90s Mariko and Stefan have managed and directed Winter & Winter together and Stefan continues to produce sound installations and ‘sound art objects’.

The Rest is Silence is one of 10 extraordinary editions for Winter+Winter’s 30th Jubilee and is a collection of the contemporary classical composers the label has supported since day one and also the artists that are the mainstay of all their productions.

Music of our time is often said to be solely intellectual, inharmonious and inaudible … Composers like Abrahamsen, Berio, Gervasoni, Kagel, Sciarrino, Pärt and Yasuda are a source of musical abundance. The album The Rest is Silence offers the opportunity to get acquainted with music around the turn of the millenium. Mauricio Kagel, famous for his visionary sounds, condenses the atmosphere of our times in an enjoyable and sometimes satirical way. A form of Neo-Romanticism is the keyword for Fumio Yasuda’s work, and Hans Abrahamsen is counted among the representatives of the New Simplicity.

Long-running UK techno label Blueprint is celebrating 20 years with a compilation of unreleased tracks from some of techno’s biggest and most influential names.
Titled Structures and Solutions: 1996 – 2016, the 17-track collection features exclusive tracks from veterans including label boss James Ruskin, Regis, Oliver Ho and Steve Bicknell alongside upstart techno producers Blawan, Randomer, Tessela and Truss. Structures And Solutions could be considered a microcosm of the state of the techno nation. Crunchy hardware jams rub up against slick, hi-fidelity tracks, and there’s even a nod or two to the current vogue for modular synthesis. The diversity of the tracks plays well. As catchy, dancefloor-ready bangers segue into…

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…moodier moments, such as Blawan’s excellently menacing Passer By, the listener gets the sense of a label that has been able to move with the times without compromising its principles.
As with all subcultures, what was once confrontational becomes part of an established vocabulary, but this is an inevitable part of growing up, and Blueprint seem comfortable with their elder statesman status in techno, able to enjoy the rude health of the genre. Original speed techno head Oliver Ho delivers a restrained master class in subdued aggression, whilst Regis’ Party Spoiler Too sees the producer returning to the single-minded repetition that made his name two decades ago in style.

O/V/R – Metal Slipper (7:19)
Lakker – Chain Of Combs (6:00)
James Ruskin & DVS1 – Page 1 (6:13)
Makaton – Slur (7:04)
Planetary Assault Systems – Pull (7:36)
Steve Bicknell – Disguise Of Beings (4:09)
Regis – Party Spoiler Too (5:09)
Randomer – Sheen (6:59)
Truss – Wonastow (5:58)
Rumah & Progression – Speak & Spell (5:56)
James Ruskin – 6teenth (5:22)
Tessela – Rub (6:11)
Rommek – Off The Radar (6:15)
Blawan – Passer By (6:07)
Oliver Ho – The Serpent Devours Itself (5:11)
The Fear Ratio – Lonor (4:53)
Lakker – Orange (5:09)

Chicago radio disc jockey and soul archivist Bob Abrahamian was deeply devoted to celebrating and documenting unknown Chicagoland group harmony music. Upon his untimely passing in 2014, he left behind hundreds of radio programs and a daunting collection of 35,000 carefully-selected 45s.
The Numero Group collection borrows its title from Abrahamian’s long-running and acclaimed WHPK radio show, and it spins a tale that’s cautionary, inspiring, and set to the sounds of the impossible-to-find tracks that made Bob Abrahamian’s on-air playlist and animated the radio programs that were his life’s work. Collected here are 16 artists featured on Sitting in the Park, in their own words and through the lens of our friend Bob.

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1. Cindy & The Playmates – A Portrait of God’s Love [02:45]
2. Shades Of Brown – How Could You Love Him [02:48]
3. The Mist – The Girl in the Window [03:01]
4. Puzzle People – Reach for the Truth [03:16]
5. The Enchanters – A Fool Like Me [03:37]
6. Oneness – Hard to Know You [02:50]
7. Procedures – Give Me One More Chance [04:54]
8. Master Plan Inc. – Try It [02:19]
9. Chocolate Sunday – Second Story Man [03:24]
10. The Krash Band – So I Can Make This Change [04:19]
11. Ahead Of Our Time – It Ain’t Fair (Pt. 1) [03:01]
12. Cliff Curry – Let Love Come In [03:06]
13. Walter & The Admerations – Life of Tears [02:25]
14. The Auditions – Returning Home from Vietnam [02:42]
15. Dontells – Moaning and Crying [02:42]
16. Otis Brown & The Delights – Southside Chicago [02:21]

1. Malcolm Middleton – Rainy Day Women…
2. My Darling Clementine – Pledging My Time
3. Steve Gunn – Visions of Johanna
4. Chip Taylor – One of Us Must Know (Sooner or…
5. Phosphorescent – I Want You
6. Promised Land Sound – Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
7. Michael Chapman – Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
8. Peter Bruntnell – Just Like a Woman
9. Thomas Cohen – Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine
10. Kevin Morby – Temporary Like Achilles
11. Marissa Nadler – Absolutely Sweet Marie
12. Ryley Walker – 4th Time Around
13. Night Beats – Obviously 5 Believers
14. Jim O’Rourke – Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

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…a specially commissioned start-to-finish cover of Dylan’s 1966 landmark, with interpretations by handpicked contemporary stars including Phosphorescent, Ryley Walker and more.