Ahhhh yeah, its Friday! You know what that means…time to dust off the ole’ pipe and get ready for a Free Basin’ giveaway! This week’s prize is yet again another sweet title from our distro catalog. We’ll be giving away John Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s score of Escape From New York, from of our pals over at Death Waltz Recordings Company.
Exclusively re-mastered for this vinyl release including 6 tracks that never made it into the original film. John Carpenter not only directed Escape From New York but also composed and recorded all of its music too. This score sounds as fresh today as it did when it was first released. Laden with brooding electronic pulses, flashes of Krautrock and healthy dose of nu disco ensures that this soundtrack sounds as happy on the dance floor as it is in your headphones.
Exclusive cover art by Jay Shaw (aka Iron Jaiden) one of the most in demand poster artists working today, his recent work has been selling out in minutes creating a huge demand on the aftermarket. Jay is heavily influenced by the abstract posters of the polish film industry and is not afraid to experiment with his work.
This weeks Free Basin’ Friday question is: What is your favorite quote from the film Escape From New York? Please give your answer in the comment box below. Do not forget to included your email address in the box provided, all addresses will be visible to Light In The Attic employees ONLY. Winners will be announced next Friday via Twitter and Facebook.
TGIF! It’s Free Basin’ Friday…time to giveaway some free stuff! This week we’ve got a distro vinyl LP of Teo Laura Amao’s El Sonido de la Carretera Central from the Masstropicas catalog. This album isn’t even in stores yet!! Be the first on your block to own El Sonido de la Carretera Central, featuring 12 essential tracks, spanning from 1973 to 1985, featuring various groups that Teo wrote and arranged songs for. Bands like Los Sanders, Los Blue Kings, Costa Azul, and of course, Los Jharis, with their hard rock and soul-influenced cumbia songs, are mainstays in the neighborhood known as ÑaÑa, as well as various other working class barrios in Lima, and Teo worked with all of them.
Compiled from various 45, LP and cassette releases, we’re sure this compilation will get you hooked on Teo’s unique guitar slinging and his often imitated but never equaled ‘estilo Carretera’.
In the spirit of this rad cumbia compilation giveaway. This weeks Free Basin’ Friday question is: If you had a cumbia band what would the name be? Please give your answer in the comment box below. Do not forget to included your email address in the box provided, all addresses will be visible to Light In The Attic employees ONLY. Winners will be announced next Friday via Twitter and Facebook.
Masstropicas brings you another installment from “the sound of the Carretera Central” with the king of that style, Teo Laura Amao. El Sonido de la Carretera Central brings 12 more rare essential tracks, spanning from 1973 to 1985, featuring various groups that Teo wrote and arranged songs for. Bands like Los Sanders, Los Blue Kings, Costa Azul, and of course, Los Jharis, with their hard rock and soul-influenced cumbia songs, are mainstays in the neighborhood known as ÑaÑa, as well as various other working class barrios in Lima, and Teo worked with all of them.
Compiled from various 45, LP and cassette releases, this is just the tip of the iceberg for the uninitiated. We’re sure this compilation will get you hooked on Teo’s unique guitar slinging and his often imitated but never equaled ‘estilo Carretera’.
>> Highlights from the 40+ year career of Teo Laura Amao
>> 12 songs never released outside of Peru
>> One time pressing of 500 LPs
>> Features full color 11 × 22 insert with never before seen photos & liner notes
El Sonido de la Carretera Central comes out May 28, 2013, but you can pre-order your copy now from LightInTheAttic.net
The San Francisco based label, Dark Entries is an office favorite here at Light In The Attic and the focus of this weeks label spotlight. Dark Entries was established in 2009 by Josh Cheon to showcase out of print and unreleased synth-driven music, as well as contemporary bands with a similar sound. Founded on the DIY ideals leftover over from 1980s independent record labels, each release is a limited run, hand numbered and sometimes stamped. You wont find CDs from Dark Entries, as the label is strictly vinyl and cassette only. Cheon, A vinyl-focused DJ and avid collector, takes great care in assuring that Dark Entries releases ”preserve sound quality and respect the aesthetics of its artist.” We recently chatted with founder Josh Cheon to talk about the label’s history, the process behind their releases and what’s coming up next for the label.
Tell us about Dark Entries. What possessed you to start the label?
I’ve been obsessed with records since I was a teenager growing up in New Jersey. I would take the bus to New York City and dig in the used bins of the vinyl stores trying to find out of print music from the 1980s. Now I use my record label to re-issue that hard-to-find music from my youth.
It seems like a lot of your records were originally released only on cassette. What is the process like for bringing these releases into the vinyl realm? Any stories of the struggle to find long, lost master tapes?
Yes the cassette was the most affordable medium back then, as well as today, for bands to release their material. The process starts with locating the master tapes. These are usually ½ or ¼ inch reel-to-reel tapes that must be “baked” or dehydrated before transferring. I use one of the best studios in California for this process, Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. All of my releases are then remastered for vinyl by George Horn, a true legend in the music production business. He cuts the lacquer on his lathe while I sit in the room.
The search for the master tapes of Jeff and Jane Hudson and Dark Day were a lucky coincidence. I knew the bands did not have their master tapes and one day a contemporary band on my label, Death Domain, alerted me to a message board where he saw a collector bragging about having the tapes of both bands. So I contacted the collector and we were able to borrow and eventually purchase the master tapes back for the artists to keep in their possession.
I’v been jamming your Alive Again reissue like crazy the last couple of weeks. I read in the notes that it was originally released exclusively on cassette and limited to 50 copies! A lot of your releases seem so obscure, it amazes us that you even find them! What led you to The Product, and how do you typically discover these lost basement gems?
It’s funny, a lot of my bands were found by watching Youtube videos over and over until a new band I had never heard of came on and I like them. I use search engines online to find the original band members and try to contact them. Sometimes I only have an address and write letters to the band members. For The Product I found a youtube video and contacted the person who uploaded the video, who led me the band.
What would you say is the thread that ties your releases together? What do you look for in a potential reissue?
The music has to move me. If my ears perk up and find myself humming along its most likely a match for my label. I like melodies and emotional extremes. I suppose these threads are found in all my releases.
What record has been the biggest challenge to reissue so far? What made it so hard?
Sometimes I encounter arguments between band members that are brought to the surface by the reissue. Many of these artists recorded their music when they were teenagers or in their 20s, a period of tremendous emotional growth, for some. I always take a very neutral role and sometimes act as a mediator when band members have stopped communicating.
Your Lives Of Angels Elevator To Edenreissue is a big favorite around our offices. Like much of your catalog, this was originally released only on cassette. What is your process for restoring or appropriating artwork for your LP releases?
I adore Lives of Angels! I have to thank Damon Way for that reissue, he begged me to reissue them a few years ago but I never paid any attention. Then one night at a party Damon was DJing and played “Ascension” by Lives of Angels and I ran to the booth and he held up the “Elevator To Eden” LP.
I’ll let my talented designer Eloise Leigh talk about the artwork restoration process:
“Some of the projects require completely new designs for compilations or releases that did not have a design before. Other projects are straight reproductions of the original releases, but with new inserts and printed ephemera designed to accompany them. In all cases, we strive to be as resourceful as possible to work within low budget limitations. Paper is often sourced from the local recycling center [S.C.R.A.P.], designs are often created in 1-color or 2-color with lower ink usage in mind, and layout sizes are often determined by what works best with local printers and their most cost-effective options. At the same time, quality of content is never sacrificed, and it has been an honor to help so many talented artists and musicians resurrect their amazing music in the most independent and authentic way possible.”
What have you been listening to lately?
I have been digging the new Chelsea Light Moving album, all 3 Grass Widow albums, the new album by Profligate, and Tonto’s Expanding Head Band Zero Time LP to name a few.
Any upcoming projects you can share with us?
At the beginning of April we have 3 female fronted bands from Nordic countries to celebrate Women’s History Month. KITCHEN & THE PLASTIC SPOONS from Sweden, Q4U from Iceland and BELABORIS from Finland. Then in May we are focusing on American groups, with LOS MICROWAVES from San Francisco, ALGEBRA SUICIDE from Chicago, and XEX from New Jersey, my home state. Later this year you can expect another compilation of BART (BAY AREA RETROGRADE), DARK DAY, NAGAMATZU and tons more surprises in store.
Originally released in 1976 in an edition of 300 copies, the sole album by Indianapolis’ Anonymous stands today as a high-water mark in psych-rock . The album combines the adventure of west coast ballroom groups, the 12-string majesty of Byrds, and breathtaking multi-part harmonies to forge something inimitable and one-of-a-kind, with powerful songs that pushed the limit and raised the bar at the same time. Long time top ten favorite for us, Anonymous’ Inside The Shadowis a true classic recommended for everyone into amazing rock records of all varieties.
This is the first officially licensed reissue from Machu Picchu Ltd. comes with sleeve notes from Aaron Milenski (co-author of the essential reference guide The Acid Archives), and recollections from Ron Matelic, Anonymous’ visionary songwriter. You can pick up the LP, sleeved in a tip-on jacket with a reproduction of the original lyric insert, from LightInTheAttic.net.
This 4th volume in a series of compilations highlighting fiercely rare 45s from Tehran’s pre-revolutionary golden age. Vivacious ladies with sassy Dorothy Hamill haircuts and skin-bearing pantsuits were once plastered across Tehran’s newsstands. Those gorgeous sirens and their hunky male counterparts made all the teens sway to hand drums that boinked in 6/8 time.
Plush brass & string arrangements took their cues from Latin grooves, psychedelic guitars, ritzy soundtracks, and sugary pop from the West. Within months of the 1979 Islamic revolution, pop music was labeled a symbol of the previous regime and became illegal overnight. In those same months, it also became illegal for women to be in public without conforming to the hijab dress code. By hook and crook, these little round records survived, and they attest to a time when Tehran’s homegrown and exiled populations would have been united in an easygoing love for funk bass & buzzing synthesizers.
Hear the tunes that rivaled the hits of Googoosh & Kourosh by singers who only recorded a few precious singles.
Our pals at Heavenly Sweetness have continued their excavation of the prized Blue Note vaults! Check out these six new titles, all available now from LightInTheAttic.net!
One of Bobby Hutcherson’s greatest records ever – and a session that never got released at the time! The album’s an excellent quartet session, one that’s very much in the best spirit of Bobby’s great Happenings album on Blue Note – and it features a similar group that includes Hutcherson on vibes, Herbie Hancock on piano, Albert Stinson on bass, and Joe Chambers, one of Hutcherson’s best accompanists from the 60s, on drums. The format’s a bit more modal than Happenings – and the set features 6 wonderful little tracks that mix together the “new thing” sound of earlier Hutcherson Blue Notes, with some of the nascent soulfulness that started creeping into his work at the end of the 60s. The album was recorded in 1967, but only first issued in Japan in at the end of the 70s – and then later in the US, and even then only briefly – but we’d still rank the set as one of Bobby’s best for Blue Note! Titles include “Til Then”, “Mr Joy”, “Subtle Neptune”, and “Theme From Blow Up”.
New thing meets funk on this rare session from 1967 with Grachan Moncur III.The title track ‘Hipnosis” is a snake charmer kind of vamp that is an excellent showcase for both the rhythm section and the soloists. Of particular note is the way drummer Higgins and pianist Lamont Johnson interweave the basket out of which emerge the serpentine horn lines of Jackie and Grachan. Some might call this a super sophisticated “Sidewinder”. One of McLean’s most accomplished works of the 60’s.
A wonderful session by Andrew Hill – recorded in 1968, but issued only briefly in 1981 – and out of print for years! The session is a key one in understanding Hill’s work – as it’s a bridge between the arch modernism of his early Blue Note sides, and the more soul-oriented playing of the Grass Roots album. The group features Joe Farrell and Charles Tolliver on horns – both of whom open up the sound at the same time they’re giving it a nice bottom – and the rest of the combo includes Victor Sproles on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. The album’s an enchanting one – lighter than earlier years, but still with a compelling vision that’s all Hill’s own. Titles include “Dance With Death”, “Love Nocturne”, “Black Sabbath”, “Partitions”, and “Fish N Rice”.
One of the greatest modern moments on Blue Note – ever! From the cover, to the compositions, to the playing on the set – the whole album crackles with an unbelievable fire that was hardly ever matched again. A young Sam Rivers leads a quartet that includes Jaki Byard on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Anthony Williams on drums – coming together in a sound that’s got lots of sharp edges, yet which also beats with an undeniably swinging heart. Rivers blows incredibly on the session – held in check by the rhythm section, and never getting too free (or sloppy, as on some later sides) – and instead hitting these hard tones that really push the envelope of 60s jazz without rewriting the rules entirely. Brilliant all the way through, with tracks that include “Beatrice”, “Ellipsis”, “Cyclic Episode”, and “Downstairs Blues Upstairs”.
Insanely Blue Note debut album from Andrew Hill – edgey brilliance at its best, a lean, stripped-down session that has Hill playing with Joe Henderson, Richard Davis, and Roy Haynes – in a mode that’s somewhere between his own Smokestack album, and the stark modernism of Jackie McLean’s mid 60s “new thing” work. The whole set’s pretty darn great – one of the more mindblowing Blue Notes you’ll ever hope to buy – and tracks include “Pumpkin”, “Subterfuge”, “Cantarnos”, and “McNeil Island”.
A Donald Byrd treasure – and an album that was almost left in the vaults by Blue Note, until they briefly released it at the end of the 70s! The cover and title are a bit unfamiliar, but the music is right up there with Byrd’s classic sessions with baritonist Pepper Adams – a great player here, with a deftness on his horn that’s incredible – matching all the sharp changes and soulful undercurrents of Byrd’s sparkling trumpet! There’s a nice hard sound to the whole thing – almost the raw power of the pair’s albums for the Warwick label – and as with those, Herbie Hancock is on piano – giving the whole thing an excellent soul jazz groove that really kicks the main soloists into action! Titles include “Great God”, “I’m An Old Cowhand”, “That’s All”, “You’re Next”, and “Chant”
Hear audio samples and order up these DELICIOUS Blue Note titles today from LightInTheAttic.net!
Haw is the name of a river, a modest tributary of the Cape Fear, flowing rocky and swift through 110 miles of Piedmont North Carolina, wending Southeasterly past abandoned and repurposed textile mills, rickety hippie homesteads, and red-clay farmland fringed with pine forests. Green corn in the fields/River running like a wheel. Haw is also one of a few names for a small Siouan tribe that once resided in the eponymous river’s valley and may have alternately known themselves as the Saxapahaw or Sissipahaw. After battling British settlers in the bloody Yamasee War of 1715-17, the Haw disappear from the colonial historical record. Their river remains, rolling on.
“Haw!” how a muleskinner moves a mule to the left. “Haw,” half a laugh.
Haw, herein, is an album of eleven songs about family, faith, and an ill-prophesied future, an artifact almost as archaic, lovely and seldom heard today as directional commands for beasts of burden. M.C. Taylor, who wrote these songs, once lived hard by the Haw with his wife Abigail and their son Elijah—Well I come from the bottom of the river Haw, he sings—but he doesn’t live there anymore. Having followed the slipstream to the relative bustle of nearby Durham, North Carolina, he has composed a new clutch of tunes that conjure the half-remembered dreams of peace promised by our pasts.
When pitted against rampant prognostications of a gathering American darkness in years to come, those easy domestic dreams falter and flicker and perhaps collapse. But if nostalgia is a potion that casts a crooked smoke, these smoky Southern blues suggest that fatalism frames the future. What will be will be enough. Don’t study on the ways of tomorrow. If we allow our yesterdays—our youth—to fade too far into the glow of malleable memory and doddering fondness, our tomorrows will surely assume a dire and bleak fixity. And so we sing out: Goodbye blackened abattoir/Hello, yellow dawn. It takes a worried man to sing such a worried song: Sara Carter knew that, and many other fellow travelers too.
Haw proposes a manifestly mature sense of anxiety and acute but unspectacular workaday pain, mapping a spiritual inscape pricklier and more unknowable than the places explored on Poor Moon (2011), the previous Hiss Golden Messenger record of all new material. Sonically, the arrangements – by turns lush with strings and saxophones and as kitchen-table direct as Bad Debt (2010) – belie the compositions’ Biblical claws with a longing for pastoral comfort, the ease of fellowship, and more minutes than they can contain. I do not go by the Book of Days. These prayers from Babylon posit that we are, all of us, ruled by the distant thunder of memory and ingrown or inherited gospel. The best we can do is to await the next storm with joy and devotion. Some call that faith. I’m trying to learn to love my conqueror.
Taylor’s writing and singing here achieve a tenebrous clarity, invoking—and occasionally challenging—a intermingling cast of prophetic characters both sacred and profane: Daniel, Elijah, the Apostles, and the Son of Man, sure, but also the Peacock Fiddle Band, Mississippi John Hurt, and by implication, Lew Welch, Waylon Jennings, Michael Hurley, and our friend Jefferson Currie II. Say whatever prayer you want: to Jehovah or Yahowah, or Red Rose Nantahala. More than ever before, the supporting players of Hiss Golden Messenger feature as tellers of the tale. Each episode earns a meticulously turned ensemble statement.
In the band’s current incarnation, rhythm section stalwarts Terry Lonergan (drums) and Taylor’s longtime musical brother Scott Hirsch (bass, guitar, and production) are joined by Durham multi-instrumentalist Phil Cook of Megafaun, Black Twig Pickers banjoist Nathan Bowles of Blacksburg, and on Telecaster, Nashville’s own, William Tyler. Bobby Crow (saxophone), Matt Cunitz (keys), Gordon Hartin (steel guitar), Joseph DeCosimo (fiddle), Sonia Turner (vocals), and Mark Paulson of the Bowerbirds (strings) also crew, navigating Haw’s shoals of trouble and delight. Lyrically and musically multifarious and freshly urgent, Haw represents Hiss Golden Messenger’s most ambitious and challenging work yet.
In the end, the record, like the full tilt river, takes us through the gates and past all the creatures with their forkèd tongues (though the serpent is kind, compared to man.) But we needn’t follow it all the way to Cape Fear. Instead, cleave you to the rock; keep the sloughs astern. Row. Here comes Easter Sunday. There’ll be Cheerwine and chicken bog, red drum and Red Horse Bread. Got so drunk on brandywine/The scales fell away. And that’s worth at least half a laugh.
So: haw! Selah!
Paradise Of Bachelors present Hiss Golden Messenger’s new LP Haw. Preordernow from LightInTheAttic.net!
The eagerly anticipated, full-length, full-band follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2011 album Poor Moon (PoB-02)
Available on virgin vinyl, in a deluxe, limited edition of 2000, as well as on CD and digital formats
Vinyl edition features matte, tip-on jacket, full-color inner sleeve, and digital download coupon
For the score to one of his most iconic films John Carpenter and Alan Howarth created what can really only be described as electronic blues. The score is recognizable as Carpenter but has a dusty slow pulsating western feel that really does give it a life of its own. The They Live OSTis easily one of Carpenter and Howarth’s best and most unique collaborations.
The 1988 film follows a nameless drifter referred to as “Nada”, who discovers the ruling class within the moneyed elite are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a signal on top of the TV broadcast, concealing their appearance and subliminal messages in mass media. Yikes!
180gm vinyl with spot varnish cover
includes giant fold out poster
Re-mastered by Alan Howarth
Exclusive new artwork by Gary Pullin.
Liner notes by Alan Howarth & Gary Pullin.
Whether you’re a horror fan, a record nerd, or both, this OST is packed with jams for you. Pre-order your copy now at LightInTheAttic.net and cruise more great titles from Death Waltz Recording Co here.
Medical Records is proud to present the quintessential first album by Gina X Performance. Gina X Performance was composed of the charismatic Gina Kikoine (vocals/lyrics) along with famous German producer/musician Zeus B. Held and backing band. Released in 1978 on various labels including EMI, Nice Mover has been out of print on vinyl format since 1980. Zeus B. Held has previously worked with the band Birth Control and has recorded multiple solo albums as well.
Nice Mover has been an internationally regarded electro/disco record with various tracks appearing on compilations throughout the years (e.g. Andrew Weatherall’s “Nine O’Clock Drop”). The track “No G.D.M.” (a tribute to famous gay actor/writer/personality) was a club hit on both sides of the Atlantic and remains a commonly heard track on better DJ sets to this very day. It is made up of an infectious slow driving disco-esque beat with perfectly aligned and arranged synth accompaniments. Gina’s unmistakable and truly unique vocals and lyrics set this record apart from its contemporaries. Tackling controversial subject matter such as transgenderism, exhibitionism, and other fetishes, this record has left a deep mark on the history of new wave and electro/disco.
The title track “Nice Mover” is a cosmic sequenced synth hit and also has appeared on various compilations. The bouncing “Be A Boy” is a high energy dancefloor cutter that illustrates the internal thought processes and daydreams of a female longing to become a male. “Black Sheep” continues this theme and is a very catchy number with bonus sheep sounds to keep it interesting… The closing track “Tropical Comic Strip” starts off with peaceful cricket samples and piano and builds into a bombastic production that is a fitting close to the record. Master recordings provided by Zeus B. Held and remastered by Lafayette Masters, Freiburg. Officially licensed from Mr. Held (KGBeat Productions) directly.
This is a seminal work of electro/disco/wave and is essential for fans of late 70’s wave-synth-disco crossover and the like. Original reproduction artwork is preserved on the front (one of the best record covers of the entire scene) and back. Pick up your copy of Gina X Performance’s Nice Mover now from LightInTheAttic.net! Find more great titles from Medical Records here.
