Easily one of our favorite albums by Tim Buckley – and a record that really opens up with some key jazzy touches! Buckley's still got his roots in folk here, and his vocals are yet to hit the extremes of Starsailor or Lorca – but there's also a new sense of inflection to the way he puts over the lyrics, shaded in by use of vibes, kalimba, harmonium, and harpsichord – the latter two of which are played on the session by Don Randi! Tracks are relatively short, but high in concept – and include the protest song "No Man Can Find The War", plus "Hallucinations", "Phantasmagoria In Two", "Carnival Song", "Pleasant Street", "Morning Glory", and "Goodbye & Hello". LP, Vinyl record album

The bass is right out front in the picture of the band on the cover – and it's also right out front in the sound of their music as well – helping to drive the rhythms of this Turkish combo with a rolling sound that's almost funky at times! Bunalim hail from the same Turkish scene as Erkin Koray – and the group's founding bassist also played on Koray's classic Elektronik Turkuler – a record that's quite similar to this one with its mix of Turkish roots, psychedelic roots, and trippy production! And although the group is represented here with material recorded over a 3 year period, with a shifting instrumental lineup – there's still a core sound that's really unified, with plenty of great Andalusian elements in the mix! Titles include "Basak Saclim", "Bunalim", "Tas Var Kopek Yok", "Yollar", "Yeter Artik Kadin", "Guzel", "Ayrilik Olmasaydi", and "Bir Dunya Da Bana Ver". LP, Vinyl record album

A sublime album from The Insect Trust – a really unique group who blend folk rock, jazz, and some nice trippy Eastern overtones! The style's really a great product of the time – a cross-cultural late 60s session recorded with a freedom from labels and categories – featuring instrumentation that includes bottleneck guitar, soprano recorder, kalimba, banjo, and a rich array of percussion – all in support of lead vocals from the lovely Nancy Jefferies. The sound is wonderful – experimental, but always tuneful – and titles include "The Skin Game", "Special Rider Blues", "Miss Fun City", "Declaration Of Independence", "Mountain Song", and "Going Home". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the weirdest records ever from Shel Silverstein – and that's saying a heck of a lot, given what a weirdo he is! The set was recorded hot on the heels of the big Johnny Cash recording of "Boy Named Sue" – and it features Shel singing that famous tune, plus a host of other original country material – all of which is quite different than the usual songs coming from Nashville in the 60s! Production was done by Chet Atkins – who must have flipped a wig recording this one – and Shel's raspy, nasally voice is surprisingly at home in the professional Nashville backings. The record's a great leftfield country relic from the 60s – and titles include "Boy Named Sue", "Dirty Ol Me", "Alimoney", "Someday's Here", "Time", "Comin After Jinny", and "Daylight Dreamer". (Vocalists, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic CD collection – one that brings together all five volumes of Stereolab's Switched On albums in one set – a huge collection of unusual material and rare singles! On the original Switched On record, moog, fuzz, and farfisa have never sounded so great together – and although these guys drank deep of the well of 60s pop magic before making this modern-day classic – they also come off sounding pretty darn original on their own! When this gem of a record first hit the world, it was as if all of us were hearing music from the cosmos for years, but could never find a way to make it part of our everyday lives. Then along come Tim Gane, Laetitia Sadier, and crew – and completely change the world for the better! An album that no home should be without – with titles that include "Contact", "Super-Electric", "Doubt", "Brittle", "Au Grand Jour", "The Way Will Be Opening", and "Changer". Refried Ectoplasm is the second in the holy trinity of "switched on" albums from Stereolab – a set that collects together all the unusual recordings and other side bits the group were doing in the early years of their career – standing strong as a testament to their non-stop efforts to forever push the boundaries of electric fuzzy pop! The vocals Laetitia Sadier are completely sublime – almost a bridge between the darker modes of the previous pop generation and all the new ideas of the world to come – when the rest of rock music would finally catch up to these guys, and realize that the best path to the future is through the past! Titles include "Farfisa", "John Cage Bubblegum", "Tempter", "Exploding Head Movie", "French Disko", "Harmonium", "Revox", "Mountain", and "Sadistic". By the time of Aluminum Tunes (Switched On Vol 3) – it had only been a few years since the previous Switched On set, but Stereolab had already created so much musical magic, they needed a double-length record to keep the whole thing intact! The sound here is somehow getting even more dreamy and wonderful – definitely showing their work with the mighty Sean O'Hagan, and also really opening up into all the many musical ideas that Tim Gane was picking up from his never-ending search for unusual records! The 60s swirl through time and space, and make the future sound even better than we could have imagined it – while the Channel is drained, and England and France become one in a genius marriage of pure pop modes. Titles include "The Extension Trip", "How To Play Your Internal Organs Overnight", "Space Moment", "Iron Man", "The Long Hair Of Death", "One Note Samba/Surfboard", "Percolations", "1000 Miles An Hour", "Klang Tone", and a great take on the theme to "Get Carter". Switched On 4 is full of fantastic sounds from Stereolab – an assortment of rare singles and other unusual recordings that were mostly issued on their own Duophonic label, and which are far more obscure than their bigger label albums during the same period! Even though Stereolab gave the world some undeniable classics in the late 90s and early 00s, they were also working endlessly, and seemed to record more than they could ever fit on a full length set – which resulted in all the cool singles, limited releases, and other material included here – not dusty tapes pulled from the archives, but beautiful work that often returns the group to all the space age charms of their first few records! The package is huge – 25 tracks in all, of varying length – and titles include "Barok Plastik", "Calimero", "Fried Monkey Eggs (voc)", "Solar Throw Away", "Variation One", "Monkey Jelly", "Explosante Fixe", "Jump Drive Shut Out", "The Super-It", "L'Exotisme Interieur", "Pandora's Box Of Worms", "Retrograde Mirror Form", "Nomus E Phusis", "I Feel The Air Of Another Planet", "Outer Bongolia", and "Intervals". Includes tracks from Duophonic 45s, Underground Is Coming EP, Moog, First Of The Microbe Hunters, and work from compilations, unreleased tracks, and even a collaboration with Brigitte Fontaine! Switched On 5 is maybe the coolest entry so far in this really wonderful series – a set that's overflowing with rare and unusual work from Stereolab – most of it done at a time when the group were riding high on a major label, but still managed to issued a huge amount of music on their own, and work in a variety of collaborative settings too! One of our favorite is their work with Nurse With Wound, and tracks from that partnership begin this set – which then moves into rare singles, work with artists, compilation contributions, and plenty more – all with the usual Stereolab charm, but often with a nicely different vibe too! Titles include "Simple Headphone Mind", "Symbolic Logic Of Now", "Magne Music", "Forensic Itch", "Spool Of Collusion", "Robot Riot", "Trippin With The Birds", "Cybele's Reverie (live)", "Nth Degrees, "Refractions In The Plastic Pulse (Autechre Feebate mix)", and "Plastic Mile (original version)". CD

A classic album of jazzy tunes from the British pop scene of the early 80s – and the kind of work that really helped set the stage for the later Acid Jazz movement in London – but which is equally enjoyable as one of the loveliest moments in the post-punk generation! Weekend's a combo that features players from Young Marble Giants, Working Week, and other Brit groups of the period who were strongly committed to the warmer sounds of music in a world that was often a bit colder and more post-punk – and they work here in styles that borrow heavily from bossa and certainly have a bit of jazz – all gentle pop of a style shared by contemporaries Antena, Everything But The Girl, and Kalima. Titles include "Sleepy Theory", "End Of The Affair", "Life In the Day Of", "Drum Beat For Baby", and "Summerdays". (Rock, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album