We tell yer what, this week’s (new) not-new sounds are both ample and absolutely fantastic.
Recorded between 1977 and 1985, Souvenirs is a collection of vocal-led tracks from beloved Ethiopian nun, composer, and pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. They are all fairly primitive in production and arrangement, but they are emotionally crushing, such evocative songs of loss, mourning, and exile. The sounds of birds at the window and the clicking of tapes starting and stopping is so transformative, it’s like you're in the room with her and that is powerful stuff. Sad, but such a beautiful listen. Very highly recommended indeed.
Neil Young has been back in the archive and this week releases Dume, a new, limited-edition, all-analogue vinyl pressing of sixteen songs that were originally collected for Neil Young’s ‘Archives Vol. II’, released in autumn 2020. Dume is ostensibly a radical expansion of 1975’s Zuma, with absolute blazers from ‘Young and the ‘Horse. Neil comments that it is “an almost complete picture of Zuma”. There is such a looseness to it, it’s a heady set with gnarled, free rocking that never fully drifts into the wild.
Next, back to Paris in ‘73 for the latest instalment of the curated Can live concert series with Live In Paris 1973. Oh boy, this one sure is magic on tape. Biting experimentalism with such killer drive, plus it features the magician Damo Suzuki (RIP) on vocals in what was one of his final shows with the band. It sounds absolutely fantastic and there are really interesting liner notes from journalist Wyndham Wallace on both CD/LP editions too!
Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow is an absolute peach this week on Dead Oceans from Bill Fay Group. Fay’s cult reputation seems to grow with each year, and this late seventies collaborative session is going to keep the flames well stoked. Bill Fay recorded with Gary Smith, Rauf Galip and Bill Stratton between 1978 and 1981 (although this was only really a little bit released in 2005), and Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow falls somewhere between prog and jazz, with the earthy weight of Fay giving it that mystical sort of folk magic. Give this one your time, there is much to discover.
Numero release a 50th Anniversary Edition of Your Funny Moods from Washington DC soul band Skip Mahoaney & The Casuals. Skip’s falsetto really is super nice, we enjoyed this one a great deal over the weekend as it brought some sparkling light to a drab February. We know, Numero releases always are, but this one is well worth checking out, and not just for the soul heads!
+ Available on limited Purdie Green Smoke colour vinyl.
Also in the racks as part of this full week; Demon Records present a 10th Anniversary Edition of Suede’s Bloodsports. Our limited Dinked Edition sold VERY fast. Winspear reissue Teethe’s 2020 self-titled album, a rich and warm set of slowcore calmers. This new edition is pressed on limited Green Geode colour vinyl and includes a bonus 7". Matador press a 15th Anniversary Edition of Fucked Up’s The Chemistry Of Common Life on limited Clear Orange colour vinyl. Chrysalis Records reissue The Waterboys’ third album, This Is The Sea. We have a limited restock on Sleep’s essential Volume One, you’ll be hearing us play that one from right down the street. A delicious pressing of Stan Getz & Bill Evans’ Previously Unreleased Recordings as part of the Verve Acoustic Sounds Series. On the equally exciting Contemporary Records’ Acoustic Sounds series, we have Art Pepper Quintet’s Smack Up, too! The love going into some of these Jazz reissues makes our heart swell.
Regular shop visitors will know how much we’ve been loving Gábor Szabó of late, so new pressings of Live In Cleveland 1976, Dreams, 1969 and Bacchanal on the Ebalunga!!! label have us well and truly stocked! Such constantly great energy and lightness.
We’ll gladly confess to having well and truly had a moment playing Congo Natty’s earth shaking Jungle Revolution this weekend, with Big Dada pressing a really lush (and limited) 10th Anniversary Edition. We threw an alternative RSD party back in 2015 and the Rebel MC came and absolutely blew the roof off… It was all-time limbs!
Lastly this week, some very handsome imports from our mates LITA in the USA, with super-limited, new, colour pressings of Serge Gainsbourg’s iconic Histoire De Melody Nelson, Betty Davis’ blazin’ Nasty Gal and both Green and Music For Nine Postcards from the maestro Hiroshi Yoshimura.
So, well and truly something for every stereo right there!
- Drift
