Gary, Indiana is maybe best known as the hometown of the Jackson 5 – but the city also had plenty of other soul singers back in the day – as you'll discover on this really well-done collection of tracks! The set's titled after the Chicago Skyway, a huge industrial structure that links the south side of the Windy City with Gary – and that link is a key one, as many of the artists here have a resonance with Chicago soul too – working with qualities that are often a bit more sophisticated than usual, and not as directly aimed at the charts or the dancefloor – a really special breed of soul music that makes for a wonderfully rich collection! As usual with Numero, the package is as great as the track list – and titles include "Trouble" by General Lee & Lost Weekend, "Sweet Jo-Ann" by El Anthony, "Main Squeeze" by Nate Evans, "So I Can Make This Change" by The Krash Band, "Bridge Of Love" by Lost Weekend, "Give Your Love To Me" by Wilton Crump, "Don't Be Afraid" by Sky's The Limit, "Let's Ride" by Junei, "You Just Be You" by Into New Dimensions, "I Need Your Love" by Billy Foster, "Pleasure" by General Lee, "Night Music" by Billy Foster, "The Look On Your Face" by Nate Evans & Mean Green, and "We've Been In Love Too Long" by El Anthony. LP, Vinyl record album

Gary, Indiana is maybe best known as the hometown of the Jackson 5 – but the city also had plenty of other soul singers back in the day – as you'll discover on this really well-done collection of tracks! The set's titled after the Chicago Skyway, a huge industrial structure that links the south side of the Windy City with Gary – and that link is a key one, as many of the artists here have a resonance with Chicago soul too – working with qualities that are often a bit more sophisticated than usual, and not as directly aimed at the charts or the dancefloor – a really special breed of soul music that makes for a wonderfully rich collection! As usual with Numero, the package is as great as the track list – and titles include "Trouble" by General Lee & Lost Weekend, "Sweet Jo-Ann" by El Anthony, "Main Squeeze" by Nate Evans, "So I Can Make This Change" by The Krash Band, "Bridge Of Love" by Lost Weekend, "Give Your Love To Me" by Wilton Crump, "Don't Be Afraid" by Sky's The Limit, "Let's Ride" by Junei, "You Just Be You" by Into New Dimensions, "I Need Your Love" by Billy Foster, "Pleasure" by General Lee, "Night Music" by Billy Foster, "The Look On Your Face" by Nate Evans & Mean Green, and "We've Been In Love Too Long" by El Anthony. LP, Vinyl record album

Folk legend Woody Guthrie was no stranger to struggle – which is the subject highlighted in most of these tunes – pulled together in the shape of this album, which offered a great counterpoint to the Bicentennial madness in America when it was released in 1976! The titles of the songs give plenty of an idea of the nature of the music – with classic Guthrie recordings done for Folkways in the 40s, including "The Dying Miner", "Waiting At The Gate", "A Dollar Down & A Dollar A Week", "Lost John", "Union Burying Ground", and "Ludlow Massacre" – many of which echo the continuing struggle of the working man, even as America was shining forth as an industrial giant. The recordings mostly feature Woody on vocals and guitar, but there's also some guest contributions from Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry – both key contemporaries of Guthrie. LP, Vinyl record album

Number five, and the Steve Miller Band is still going strong – working here with some great help from Area Code 615, who bring a slightly rootsy vibe to the set! That core Miller brilliance is still very firmly in place – and Steve's got an even sharper ear for writing songs this time around – working in more influences than before, and really finding his voice – or more appropriately, that great way his vocals can be filtered in with the production. Other guests include Ben Sidran and Nicky Hopkins – helping to reinstate the keyboard sound in the group – and titles include "Steve Miller's Midnight Tango", "Industrial Military Complex Hex", "Never Kill Another Man", "Going To The Country", and "Hot Chili". LP, Vinyl record album

A very important crossover soul album – a huge hit for Otis Redding that was released after his tragic death in December 1967 – but it's also hard to say if it would have had the impact it did had Redding not passed while the LP was still in production. In a way, the record sort of set the stage for the mythologies of pop stars that would surround the tragedies in the coming years of the late 60s – with liner notes on the back by Jon Landau about the impact of Redding's work and passing on the rest of the music industry, which would be even more charged with meaning to folks buying the album at the time, who certainly knew that Redding had cut "Dock of the Bay" a few days before his death, and had missed its meteoric rise to #1 after his passing. And in fact, the album itself is more of a loose collection of tracks pulled from singles and other sources to cash in on Redding's passing – and includes odd numbers like "The Huckle Buck", which had previously appeared on a Stax promo album, or "Tramp", his famous funky duet with Carla Thomas. Other titles include "I'm Coming Home", "Ole Man Trouble", "Open The Door", and "Let Me Come On Home". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the rarest records to ever feature the work of groundbreaking writer and language experimentalist William S Burroughs – an album that originally came out on the Industrial Music label, home to the early work of Throbbing Gristle! Peter Cristopherson and Genesis P-Orridge worked with Burroughs associate James Grauerholz, and dug through countless ours of tapes, to bring together some of his most experimental recordings – work that really shows just how much the writer's fascination with the properties of magnetic tape had an influence on his writing, and his legendary cutup technique! Some tracks are straight readings – of the more familiar sort that feature Burroughs' incredible voice – but many others have sound experiments on tape, transforming language in a really great way – with contributions from Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville too. Wonderful all the way through – and one of the few recordings to really plumb the depths of the sonic genius of William S Burroughs! LP, Vinyl record album

A pair of really unusual albums from Mike Cooper – presented here in a single package, one record on vinyl, one on CD! The core set, Life & Death In Paradise, is one of the last in a run of classics that Cooper gave the world at the start of his career – and has really unusual collaborations with members of the London jazz scene – including bassist Harry Miller, saxophonist Mike Osborne, and drummer Louis Moholo! The jazz component of the record is small – this is definitely acoustic singer/songwriter material, not the work the musicians might have issued on the Ogun label – but the set does represent a really nice shift for Cooper, and a great setting for the kind of offbeat songs he does so well. Titles include "Critical Incidents", "OMM Coda", "Suicide De Luxe", "Black Night Crash", "Rocket Summer", and the long "Life & Death In Paradise" suite. The LP package also features a bonus CD with material from many years later – a live acoustic set recorded in Milan in 2018, showing Cooper still as a hell of a talent, with an even more complex understanding of the acoustic guitar – matched by his own unique vocalizations on some of the best tracks. Titles include "Peach Trees", "In Moments Of Reverie", "Lord Franklin", "Sage & Thyme", and "Industrial Hazard". LP, Vinyl record album

A mindblowing debut from Cybotron – one of the most unusual groups to ever hail from Detroit – and that's saying a hell of a lot, given the musical legacy of the city! Cybotron have a sound that's starkly electronic, and a huge influence on later electro, hip hop, techno, and house – served up here as a spare, fuzzy approach to funk – but with lots of the colder touches you'd find from post-punk imports at the time! The blend is quite unique, and even more unusual given the fact that the trio were working in virtual obscurity on the Detroit scene – as an early project from the legendary Juan Atkins, with guitarist Jon-5, and the mysterious electronician 3070! There's more funk here than most of the group's electro contemporaries – but the sound is still nicely cold in all the right parts too – and titles include the seminal "Clear", which was years ahead of its time – plus "Cosmic Cars", "Cosmic Raindance", "Industrial Lies", "The Line", and "Alleys Of Your Mind". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

One of the strangest records you'll ever buy! Even on our storied pages this one's a bit of anoddball to describe – kind of a sound play of words, songs, noises, and lots of odd effects – an effort of classic rock proportions, but the brainchild of Lol Creme and Kevin Godley after their departure from pop group 10CC. It's nearly impossible to believe how a record like this got made – especially in the year that punk was taking over the British record industry – but the fact that it became an instant cutout may say a lot about its ill-chosen release. Whatever that history, though, the album's a near-legendary one now – some where between Ivor Cutler-esque sound poetry and some of the weirder pop of British mid 70s groups. Peter Cook wrote and performed all the spoken bits on the record, and Sarah Vaughan even makes a guest appearance! LP, Vinyl record album

The masterpiece by one of the most obscure artists in the Italian sound library scene of the early 70s – music that easily moves from funky sounds to cosmic styles to jazzy moments and beyond – sometimes within the space of a single tune! Gerardo Iacoucci's music is a huge change from the kind more facile sound library material coming out of the UK – the sorts of short, catchy songs designed for easy use in commercials or TV – and instead, the work here is richly conceived and presented, with a new sort of surprise at each track on the record – and just the right sort of balance to appeal to fans of both groovy and more wild sound library material. Titles include "Violenza", "Il Cobra", "Produzione Industriale", "La Caverna", "Citta Del Capo", "Zombie", "From Tokyo To Las Vegas", and "Assenza Di Gravita". LP, Vinyl record album

A rare UK sound library set, and a very dark one as well – served up with lots of electronics that were years ahead of their time, almost a preface to some of the industrial modes that would arise in the post punk years! LP, Vinyl record album

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A fantastic LP by Betty Carter – and one of the first she issued on her own Bet-Car label, which she formed after years of being screwed by the music industry! The groove is extremely soulful – and backing is by Norman Simmons on piano, Lisle Atkinson on bass, and Al Harewood on drums. Titles include Betty's own "Please Do Something", her great version of Randy Weston's "Ego", and her always-great rendition of "By The Bend In The River". LP, Vinyl record album

Dire Straits stretch things out a bit here, on the 14 minute leadoff track "Telegraph Road" – alongside shorter nuggets that include "Love Over Gold", "It Never Rains", "Industrial Disease", and "Private Investigations". LP, Vinyl record album

Mos Def and Diverse are joined by the genre pounding, beat twisting, influential producer Prefuse 73 to churn out another memorable song from the "Urban Renewal" compilation on Chocolate Industries. The B-Side is a remix by Def Jux heavy hitter RJD2. 12-inch, Vinyl record

Here's a strange one! The record features an extended party that covers both sides of the record – with crowd noises, music, and glasses being clinked. The microphone zooms in on different partygoers from time to time, who are engaged in witty, often bawdy banter – very similar to a Mad magazine "Goes to a Party" type sketch. At some points, bawdy songs are sung – and the whole thing has a kitschy 60s cocktail party feel. Nice cover by Wally Wood, too! LP, Vinyl record album

One of the most mindblowing sonic experiments of the 70s – Lou Reed's legendary Metal Machine Music opus! The double-length set is a really revolutionary batch of music – hardly what you'd expect from Lou's previous records, and a noisy, metallic album that really lives up to its title. The album's been argued about for years – hailed by some as a key precursor to industrial sounds to come in later years – written off by others who just say that Reed was delivering a "screw you!" message to RCA. But whatever the case, the album's a completely compelling one – and features the extended composition "The Amine B Ring" – served up in four parts that are spread over the 2LP length of the set! LP, Vinyl record album

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The record that really broke the White Stripes out of the box – a set that was recorded as an indie, then later got wider circulation around the globe – as a fantastic demonstration of the raw, back-to-basics energy that made the duo such a standout in contemporary rock at the start of the century! All these many years later, there's still a sense of power that has the group rivaling some of the bigger garage punk legends of the past – on titles that include "Dead Leaves & The Dirty Ground", "Hotel Yorba", "Fell In Love With A Girl", "I Think I Smell A Rat", "Now Mary", "We're Going To Be Friends", "Expecting", "I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman", and "The Same Boy You've Always Known". LP, Vinyl record album

Earl McGrath looks pretty darn cool on the cover, and from all reports he was a pretty darn cool guy in the 70s too – head of Rolling Stones Records, and friend and confidant to some very hip folks in the music industry! After Earl passed, a closet full of unreleased tapes was discovered at his home – really wonderful material by artists big and small, brought together here in a treasure trove of tracks that give us a whole different look at the 70s! Given the obscurity, most titles are demo recordings with lean instrumentation – but that quality makes the work by big stars even more interesting, and really delivers the best work of the special singer/songwriters that McGrath would always champion. Titles include "Cocaine Cowboy" and "Gonna California" by Terry Allen, "California" by Mark Rodney, "Baby Come Closer" and "Dry In The Sun" by Hall & Oates, "Funky But Chic" by David Johansen, "Tension" by Jim Carroll, "Oh La La" by Shadow, "Christopher" by Michael McCarty, "Holy Commotion" by Paul Potash, "Sail Away" by Jabor, "Invisible Lady" by Johnny Angel, "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" by Blood Brothers Six, and "Salt Showers" by Len & Betsy Green. LP, Vinyl record album

A legendary bit of noise from the United Dairies label of Stephen Stapleton – a set that combines his own experimental sounds with some contributions from the avant French scene as well – all at a level that shows how that sometimes-overlooked 70s generation ended up having a bit impact on 80s pioneers like Stapleton! Much of the music here is without easy description – not the rawer industrial of some of Stapleton's Nurse With Wound projects, or free jazz, or analog electronics – but a hybrid of so many earlier experiments served up in very personal representations of musical frontiers! The set features four long tracks – "Anatomy Of Aphrodite" by Sema, "Frissons Dans La Cochlee" by Helene Sage, "Tunnel Sous La Manche/Under The Channel" by Un Drame Musical Instante, and "The Strange Play Of The Mouth" by Nurse With Wound. LP, Vinyl record album

Enigmatic sounds from the early years of the recording industry in Japan – served up in a style billed as ryukoka, which mixes older elements of traditional music with some of the newer flavors emerging from the west in the early 20th century! To our ears, these tunes still sound very traditional overall – but because of the lack of recordings, we also can't tell you what the Japanese music sounded like a generation before – and the whole package is a wonderful presentation of lost relics from the shellac era, similar to sets of this nature from Dust To Digital (although not in a larger book format.) CD features 16 tracks in all – work by Yayoi Tanaka, Mitsuko Nemoto, Ichiro Fujiyama, Chiyako Sato, Otomaru, Hamako Watanabe, Seki Taneko, Kouta Katutaro, and others. LP, Vinyl record album

A deep look at the electronic music underground in the 60s, 70s, and 80s – not the academic theoreticians who were slaving away in university laboratories, but the more independent, freewheeling talents who were using the initial analogue moment to open up their own boundaries in time and space! The work ranges from unusual 60s instrumentals, through 70s hippie electronics, to some 80s recordings that might have been termed new age by the uninitiated – but which instead, all these years later, stand as some lost moments of cosmic expression! There's few folks we trust to lead us down a musical path as much as the guys at Soul Jazz – and this time, they've definitely taken us in the right direction – with cuts that include "Midnight" by Tim Blake, "Gang (For Rock Industry)" by JB Banfi, "To The Other Side Of The Sky" by Michael Garrison, "By Water" by Stratis, "Improvisation On A Concerto Generator" by Laurie Spiegel, "Starborn Suite (part 1)" by Steven Halpern, "Ceres Motion" by Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company, "As Above So Below" by Carl Matthews, "In The Beginning" by Michael Stearns, "Ever New" by Beverly Glenn-Copeland, "Variations VII Sur Le Theme Des Bene Gesserit" by Richard Pinhas, and "Ancient Stars" by Kevin Braheny. LP, Vinyl record album

The insane debut of Big Stick – a record that came out around the same time that Sonic Youth were really taking off, and Pussy Galore were first getting their feet wet – and a set that's as equally noise-filled as the early work of both! The group are a duo – John Gill on guitar and Yanna Trance on drum machine – and the sound is very spare, but very noisy – heavy beats that are almost hip hop meets industrial – colored with lots of freaky, fuzzy guitar lines – and topped with lyrics that have this offbeat sense of wit – all with an approach that's in that mid-80s moment when underground music and performance art were somewhat comfortable bedfellows. Titles include "Shoot The President", "Drag Racing", "I Look Like Shit", "Hell On Earth", and "Jesus Was Born (On An Indian Reservation)" 12-inch, Vinyl record

A weird and wonderful little record – one that combines noisy industrial moments with acoustic folksy elements – all in a way that's not unlike the direction Current 93 would take later on in the 80s! Regrelh somehow manage to evoke both a primitive pagan past and an eerie apocalyptic future – working in some of the same genre-crossing styles as the hipper side of their French scene a few years before – but with a vibe that's completely their own, and completely stunning throughout! The vocals at times are almost medieval, yet the record also uses guitar and electronics too – which makes for a stunning blend of modes that's unlike anything else recorded at the time. As with most French underground work of the time, the record's very much in its own space apart from trends in the UK or US – as you'll hear on titles that include "Esmai", "Del Sieu Tort Farai Esmenda", "Pois Tals Saber Mi Sortz E'M Creis", and "Elogi De La Guerra". LP, Vinyl record album

The really great debut album from Sprung Aus Den Wolken – a group who got a bit more tuneful in later years, but who here are still very much at the forefront of the early German industrial scene! The set is full of noise, and vocals that are spoken more than sung – yet also is never too completely over the top, as like some of the best of their generation, such as Throbbing Gristle, the group really know how to make music from unusual sources, and not just create noise for noise's sake. The starkness of the album is wonderful – dark fuzz, heady echo, and a raw power that still holds up over the years – on titles that include "Que Pa", "Warte", "Als Ware Nichts Gewesen", "Langst Fallig", "Gong A Minute", "Begehre Dich", and "Sei Still". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album