Breezy electric vocals from 70s Sweden – a great little record that's heavy on electric piano and organ, and which features some sublime vocals from singer Meta Roos! The record does a great job of blending influences from bossa nova and sophisticated American soul – in a style that manages to draw on some of the bigger songwriters of the time, but which makes the work come across with a fresh sound of its own – thanks to creatively grooving arrangements from keyboardist Nippe Sylwen! Sylwen's keys dominate the music almost as much as Meta's warm vocals – and titles include great versions of "Zazueira", "Feel Like Makin Love", "For Peace & Love", "Oh Lori", "Here We Are Falling In Love Again", "You've Got A Friend", and "Street Walking Women". LP, Vinyl record album

Breezy electric vocals from 70s Sweden – a great little record that's heavy on electric piano and organ, and which features some sublime vocals from singer Meta Roos! The record does a great job of blending influences from bossa nova and sophisticated American soul – in a style that manages to draw on some of the bigger songwriters of the time, but which makes the work come across with a fresh sound of its own – thanks to creatively grooving arrangements from keyboardist Nippe Sylwen! Sylwen's keys dominate the music almost as much as Meta's warm vocals – and titles include great versions of "Zazueira", "Feel Like Makin Love", "For Peace & Love", "Oh Lori", "Here We Are Falling In Love Again", "You've Got A Friend", and "Street Walking Women". CD

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One of Ornette's best LPs from the 70's! Recorded in 1976, this is a perfect demonstration of the harmelodic style, with the whole group jaunting along in tight choppy bits. James Blood Ulmer's on guitar, and the sound is very dark and deep. Tracks include "Voice Poetry", "Macho Woman", and "Home Grown". CD

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Anthony Bailes on lute. CD

Anthony Bailes on lute. CD

With Daniel Erdmann on saxophone. CD

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A great later moment from Pharoah Sanders – a set that's one of his few from the time that really stretches out in the same open, spiritual territory of his classic recordings for Impulse! The group's a trio – with Sanders on tenor and wood flute, Hamid Drake on drums and other percussion, and Adam Rudolph on a host of different instruments – from hand percussion, to kalimba, bamboo flute, and gong! The style's probably mostly like Rudolph's other material – not nearly as outside as some of Drake's recordings – but the presence of Sanders' horn really shapes things a lot, and gives the whole thing a lot more bite than some of Adam's other material. The tracks are long, and mostly have Pharoah soaring out with beautifully emotive work on tenor. Titles include "Morning In Soweto", "Sunrise", "The Thousand Petalled Lotus", "Roundhouse", "Sunset", and "Calling To The Luminous Beings". CD

Adam Rudolph works here with a whole host of instruments of his own, then opens the door for a huge amount of guests – all of whom help the proceedings come across with an organic, earthy blend of both acoustic and electric instrumental elements! Rudolph himself handles kalimba, keyboards, and a global mix of reeds and percussion instruments – and the set features guitar from Eivin Aarset, Fender Rhodes and organ from Alexis Marcelo, and drums from Hamid Drake – plus more contributions on sitar, tablas, wood flute, and other instruments that really echo the post-jazz, pan-global approach that Rudolph has brought to his work, both as Hu Vibrational and in other settings too. Titles include "Psychic", "Hittin", "Space", "Timeless", "Honey Honey", and "Proto Zoa Gogo". LP, Vinyl record album

Chamber versions arranged for piano and string quartet. CD

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Striking sounds from Michel Magne – an artist who's best known for his groovy soundtracks of the 60s – but who steps out here with a rare experimental set from the late 50s! The style is very much in keeping with the most compelling of the postwar generation in France – as Magne mixes together electronic and acoustic sounds with amazing power – modes that are sometimes as spacious as Pierre Henry, other times as sonically powerful as Xenakis – yet always very much Michel's own unique musical vision! Instrumentation includes some great cymbalum, plus piano, violin, vibes, and percussion – as well as some amzing vocalizations from Jaqueline Dano and Christiane Legrand. Titles include "Memoire D'Un Trou", "Self Service", "Concertino Triple", "Meta Mecanique Saccadee", "Larmes En Sol Pleureur", and "Pointes De Feu Amorties Au Dolsal". LP, Vinyl record album

A lost western score from Ennio Morricone – directed with some nice musical flourishes by the great Bruno Nicolai! The work's got the feel of some of Morricone's more famous spaghetti western scores – with some great moody passages that hint at the offbeat instrumentation of his horror work, coupled with more driving action-related tunes that have a more driving feel overall – and together, these tunes weave a very visual tapestry of sound – possibly even more compelling than the actual film! Titles include "Viva La Revolucion", "Tepepa E Price", "A Meta Strada", "Una Povera Casa", "Consegna Delle Armi", and "Tradimento Secondo". LP, Vinyl record album

The music of Sun Ra, taken into very different territory – every bit as cosmic as before, but maybe also a bit more down to earth in its presentation! Sun Ra classics are reworked here by a mix of different Brazilian musicians, with contributions from a few key American artists who really enrich the soulful qualities of the proceedings – with results that are tremendous, and which make the record one of the real standout projects in the long legacy of Red Hot recordings! The sounds here are all original, created for the project – and the Brazilian artists include some of our favorite underground talents of the past decade, mixed with a few who are more well-established, yet still very much on the left side of the spectrum! Titles include "Astroblack Orunmila" with Jazzmeia Horn & Orquestra Afrosinfonica, "Interstellar Low Ways" with Hamilton De Holanda Trio, "When There Is No Sun (Intergalactic version)" with Xenia Franca & Tigana Santana, "Eu Sou Um Instrumento" with Fabricio Boliveira & Jazzmeia Horn, "O Codigo" with Fabricio Boliveira & Edbrass Brasil, "Nature's God" with Meshell Ndegeocello & Munir Hossn, and "Nine Rocket For The Planet" with Meta Meta & Edgar. LP, Vinyl record album

A wonderfully genre-hopping collection – put together by Toru Hashimoto, the man behind such incredible Japanese series as the Free Soul, Cafe Apres Midi, and Suburbia compilations for many different labels! Toru really lives up to his legend here, and mixes music from different scenes and styles, but in a way that not only makes total sense – but also seems to have the tracks resonate even more strongly in the company of each other – moving from soul to bossa, jazz, vocal, and even hip hop cuts! Titles include "It's You" by Joyce Cooking, "I've Got You Under My Skin" by G9 Group, "Persian Love" by Holger Czukay, "Never Did I Stop Loving You" by Alice Clark, "What Else Can I Say" by Ingram, "Another Day" by Precise Hero, "NYC Tonight (version voc Shintaro Sakamoto)" by Dump, "Beautiful Love" by Myron & the Works with Meshell Ndegeocello and Robert Glasper, "Just The Way You Are" by Meta Roos & Nippe Sylwens Band, "Little Girl Lost" by Penny Goodwin, "Hunk Of Heaven" by Lemuria, "Why Don't We Fall In Love" by John Valenti, "Love Oh Love" by Vince Andrews, "You've Got To Have Freedom" by Pharoah Sanders, and "In All The Wrong Places" by Kero One. CD

The fiercer side of Paal Nilssen-Love – heard here in a set of duets with Terrie Ex on guitar! The guitar's got plenty of the heavy overtones you'll know from Terrie's work in The Ex – and Paal's pretty free on the kit himself, really moving loosely in ways that match Terrie's energy – sometimes really full-on, and other times spare – not really gentle, but spacious, which creates this strong sense of anticipation amidst the improvisations. Titles include "Meta", "St George", "Harar", and "Bedele". CD

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An amazing little record from Joe Byrd – an artist with roots in serious music, but who's serving things up here with a wild hippie aesthetic that makes the whole thing come across more like a "happening" than the usual sort of studio album – but in ways that also echo an earlier generation of Americanist composition too. The process of the record mimics some of Byrd's famous work in New York – and has a very collaborative feel overall, with elements of electronics, acoustics, and vocals coming together beautifully! There's some great tabla, harpsichord, moog, and organ on the record – plus more serious woodwinds and brass – and vocals from Victoria Bond, Susan De Lange, Christie Thompson, and Ernie Anderson – plus Joe himself. Titles include "Kalyani", "Moonsong Pelog", "You Can't Ever Come Down", "Gospel Music", "Nightmare Train", "Leisure World", and "The Elephant At The Door". CD

A set that's even more searing and sonically intense than the debut of this genre-hopping group – served up in this bracing blend of electric and acoustic instrumentation that almost takes us back to the 90s experiments on Axiom Records from the Bill Laswell generation! there's plenty of guitar and bass here – the former from Javi Perez, the latter from Jamie Benzies – driven strongly by the fierce drum work of Tim Toyle, and topped with trumpet from Axel Kaner Lidstrom, tenor from James Mollison, keyboards and electronics from Tile Gichigi Lipere, and a mix of tenor, bass, clarinet, and flute from Rob Milne – all coming together with a very dark, textured, almost layered sort of sound – even though the performance here seems to be mostly live. Titles include "3301", "Fallacy", "The Cracks In The Bricks", "Ashen Faun", "Last Throes Of The Temporal Monolith", and "Crystalline Peaks". CD

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Mindblowing music from Hapshash & The Coloured Coat – a group with a sound that's every bit as freewheeling as their name! The set's a unique collaboration between DJ/producer Guy Stevens and psych poster designers Michael English and Nigel Weymouth – and has this loose, unfettered feel that's almost more like a "happening" in the studio instead of some road-jamming band cutting its music to vinyl – a really hair-down party with instrumentation on trippy percussion, jangly guitar, and other odd sounds that step in and out of the mix – showing a larger studio sense of manipulation for the whole record. There's an odd groove to the record at parts – almost a chaos theory return of the eternal – and titles include "H-O-P-P Why?", "A Mind Blown Is A Mind Shown", "The New Messiah Coming 1985", "Aoum", and the epic side two jam "Empires Of The Sun". LP, Vinyl record album

This is the new remix of Pierre Henry's famous funky electronic ballet from 1967. They've selected a wide range of artists to handle it, from the great Dimitri from Paris, to the popular Fatboy Slim, and the list includes other names like The Mighty Bop, William Orbit, Coldcut, and Funki Porcini. The sound varies, but there's some very nice moments that add a good bit to the original. Some of these cuts were floating around on expensive 12" singles before, and although this French issue isn't cheap, it's still a nice jam-packed selection of cuts, and has some great moments that bridge the history of electronica. CD

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A record that's not a complete metamorphosis for Iron Butterfly, but one that definitely has the group stretching out with even more force and confidence than before! The group were maybe one of the few to come to hard rock via psych, instead of the blues rock path that so many others took at the time – and that difference is key here, as the songs really resonate with the potential for trippiness, but have this great sense of focus – one that makes the vocals sound even more potent than ever. There's still plenty of great organ work too – and titles include "Free Flight", "Shady Lady", "Best Years Of Our Life", "Slower Than Guns", and "Stone Believer". LP, Vinyl record album

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Metallica's breakout smash, the album that catapulted the band and the thrash metal genre to the top of the charts. While the production shines just a little brighter then the first few albums, the band is far from extinguishing their torch as metal trailblazers – to this point, there's very few songs as heavy as "Enter Sandman" got into regular airplay rotation and the most of the album hits even harder, even as they fully embraced the more melodic capabilities they barely touched on in the past. Includes "Enter Sandman", "Sad But True", "Nothing Else Matters", "Don't' Tread On Me", "Holier Than Thou" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

With Ray Brown on bass and Jeff Hamilton on drums. CD

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One of those totally cool records from the German new wave – a set that's every bit as cartoony as you might guess from its cover, and which resonates strongly with work at the time from artists like Pyrolator or Der Plan! The music is in the territory of cold wave electronics, but warmer and more playful too – almost like some of the Japanese work that sprung up at the end of the 70s, but with some of the quirkier elements that makes us love the German new wave so much! There's plenty of cool keyboards and processed vocals – and titles include "Butterfly Baccanal", "I Can Sing", "Wutt Wutt", "Bubbles & Smoke", "Shine On Me", and "I See Stars". CD

One of those totally cool records from the German new wave – a set that's every bit as cartoony as you might guess from its cover, and which resonates strongly with work at the time from artists like Pyrolator or Der Plan! The music is in the territory of cold wave electronics, but warmer and more playful too – almost like some of the Japanese work that sprung up at the end of the 70s, but with some of the quirkier elements that makes us love the German new wave so much! There's plenty of cool keyboards and processed vocals – and titles include "Butterfly Baccanal", "I Can Sing", "Wutt Wutt", "Bubbles & Smoke", "Shine On Me", and "I See Stars". LP, Vinyl record album

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Pianist Enrique Villegas has an amazing command of the keyboard – one that really comes through on his other records, but which is maybe the most striking here on this set that expands on a set of themes from Chopin! The material is very different than any other jazz-meets-classical records – in that the themes are taken very loosely, and swung in very modern ways – but also delivered in short takes too – which almost seems to give them more of an edge, and more of a sense of surprise! The trio is great – with equally dynamic work from Jorge Lopez Ruiz on bass and Eduardo Casalla on drums – and the set runs through 24 short variations on Chopin Preludes, Op 28. CD

13 tracks from Tourniquet, Deliverance, Sacred Warrior, Vengeance Rising, Recon, Bloodgood, and scaterd-few. CD