Outsider IDM magnificence, the tightest funk band going, pop gold and the best single session jazz LP ever!
It’s a big one for a Monday! Originally released in 1993, Surfing On Sine Waves is the second album released under the Warp Artificial Intelligence series and the sole album released under Richard D. James’ (aka Aphex Twin's) Polygon Window alias. This expanded edition (across double CD or triple LP) combines the original record and its four-song companion EP, Quoth, which came out the same year. Little flashes of the ambient timbres and some serious industrial propulsion too. He really got us going.
Jackpot Records release a couple of straight up scorching essentials this week from New Orleans funk band, The Meters. Both released in 1969, the band’s eponymous debut lights up with the iconic Cissy Strut and just doesn’t let up; twelve slices of deep groove and ludicrously tight performances. The following Look-Ka Py Py was produced by fellow Big Easy icon Allen Toussaint as is arguably even more of a funky ride.
They both sound fantastic, really essential stuff.
No One Waved Goodbye was the sole album from underground Scottish band Tacoma Radar, a hushed and wistful set that ran adjacent to the big indie sounds of Camera Obscura, Arab Strap and Belle and Sebastian. Full of melancholic hues, but never downbeat necessarily. Reissued for the first time, this deluxe double album features No One Waved Goodbye, both seven-inch singles, and the previously unreleased Live From the 13th Note.
+ Available on double Ghost Channel White colour vinyl.
We hadn’t listened to King Creosote’s breakout KC Rules OK LP in ages, so we did over the weekend, and it’s a right charmer! Lush instrumentation and euphoric songs, but it’s his voice that’s the real ticket here.
Sigur Rós reissue their fourth album - Takk… - on their own Krunk label, which has been out of print for over a decade now. Recorded in the Icelandic countryside, it’s as ethereally swooning as ever and surprisingly jolly too.
+ Available on a triple LP Bio-Vinyl pressing with an exclusive print.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut EP, Time to Pretend, MGMT present some of their earliest sounds for the first time in yonks. Featuring unique, hand-made versions of the hit songs "Kids," and "Time to Pretend," the 6-song set is pressed on banana yellow vinyl with original artwork by SKWAK. Limited!
Yeah yeah, it’s wildly too early and you’ll all get horribly cross that we’re talking about Christmas already, but we do have to tell you about an absolutely essential ‘Christmas Tree’ vinyl pressing of Vince Guaraldi Trio’s iconic, essential and perennially evergreen, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Splattered shades of green vinyl, a glittering holographic foil sleeve and a cute fold out poster. We also have just taken stock on last year's special edition gold foil sleeve and snowball-vinyl pressings, so the Charlie Brown shelf is looking pretty tight right now. Speaking even as a ridiculous collector of this album, every home does really rather need one.
And lastly for today, few albums are quite as vast in scope and epic in cultural importance as John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. To mark its 60th anniversary, the album is presented in its mono mix for the first time in over 50 years. Faithfully mastered from the original analog tapes by Ryan K. Smith, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI, and housed in a tip-on gatefold jacket. This is intense and far from easy going, but every bit the masterpiece.
