This 1970 live recording arrived at the end of the line for the true Velvet Underground – before latter-day bassist Doug Yule took over the name for a short and (thankfully) long-forgotten stint, in a performance that became known as the group's last live set! Maureen Tucker and John Cale were indeed MIA at this point, making it Lou's show all the way, performing his soon to be seminal songs from throughout the REAL band's too-short existence – and tracks include "I'm Waiting For My Man", "Sweet Jane", "Lonesome Cowboy Bill", "Sunday Morning", "Femme Fatale", "After Hours", and "New Age". 2LP version features bonus tracks – including "White Light/White Heat", "I'm Set Free", "Candy Says", "Some Kinda Love", and "Lonesome Cowboy Bill (version 2)". LP, Vinyl record album

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Maybe the most evocative title of all the Three Sounds albums of the 60s – and one that really gets at the dark beauty of the entire record! By the time of this release (the group's 7th for Blue Note), Gene Harris and the trio had really come into their own – and were moving past simple soul jazz modes into this wonderful blend of grooviness and lyricism – still very much beholden to Harris' rhythmic approach to the keys, but also filled with loads of complicated lines, especially from the group's wonderful bassist Andrew Simpkins – whose round tone is especially great on the mellow numbers. Titles include Randy Weston's "Saucer Eyes" , Neal Hefti's "Black Orchid", and the tracks "Don't Go Don't Go" and "Oh Well Oh Well", both originals by Gene Harris. LP, Vinyl record album

Sweet funky jazz from pianist Gene Russell – one of the hippest albums he ever recorded! Russell's a pianist with a wonderfully fluid touch – used here to near perfection in a small combo date that really stands out from most of his other albums – just the kind of effort we'd have to expect at the time, given that Gene was the head of the Black Jazz label! The sound is acoustic, but has a definite sense of electricity to Russell's phrasing on the piano – a bit like work from Vince Guaraldi from the time, when he was shifting between acoustic and electric – as if the latter instrument held on and helped shape the acoustic sound. The rest of the group features Henry Franklin on bass, Steve Glover on drums, and Tony William on congas – and the groove is kind of a soulful extrapolation of a core piano trio vibe – 60s soul jazz taken to hipper 70s territory. Titles include a great cover of "Listen Here", plus "Black Orchid", "Hitting the Jug", "Making Bread", and a version of "Silver's Serenade". LP, Vinyl record album

A killer set from Joe Farrell – one of the 70s greatest reed players, and an always-exciting talent who was one of the first artists to really use the extended CTI format to break into a whole new level! The set's a drawn-out quintet side, with Chick Corea on electric piano, Buster Williams on bass, Elvin Jones on drums, and Airto on percussion. Farrell was playing with Jones at the time, and the album's got some of their strong choppy reed/percussion interplay – but with a sharpness and focus that you don't always hear on Elvin's records! Tracks are all long – and titles include "Outback", "Sound Down", and "Bleeding Orchid". LP, Vinyl record album

The third album by Black Sabbath – the album that put the heavy in metal – one of the most influential rock albums of all time and a record that finds Sabbath at absolute peak perfection! This is the one that set the Sabbath style in stone, honing in the the heavy riffs, thundering drums and eerie mood perfectly. Includes the ultra classics "Sweet Leaf" and "Children Of The Grave", plus "After Forever", "Lord Of This World", "Solitude", "Into The Void" and the instrumentals "Embryo" and "Orchid". LP, Vinyl record album

This is a live recording from Duke Kahanamoku's in Honolulu. Songs include "Rain", "Hilo March", "Hawaiian Wedding Song", "Volga Boatmen", "Black Orchid", "Pretty Maui Girl", "Cock-Eyed Mayor Of Kaunakakai", "Lei Aloha Lei Makamae", "On The Beach At Waikiki", and "Ol' Man River". LP, Vinyl record album

Wonderful stuff – way more than just an easy instrumental album, and a great batch of exotic tunes with lots of jazzy touches! There's enough of the Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman influence here – but Rex and group take the sound a lot further, by playing like a true small combo, and swinging the tunes with a heck of a lot more jazz than you'd expect. Grooves are nice, and get quite Latiny at times – and the feel of the record almost reminds us of some of Bobby Montez work for Pacific Jazz in the late 50s. Titles include "Ginza Girl", "Sushi", "Patricia", "Wild Orchids", "Bird Train", "Bushi Bushi", and "Will He Like Me". LP, Vinyl record album

Rootsy noise sweetened by raggedly alluring melodicism from Califone – still one of the most vital and idiosyncratic groups of their time! We can no long heap the experimentalist tag on Califone – if we ever really could. They've got quite a sonic blueprint laid down after 8 or so albums, but they do continue to surprise us. Roots And Crowns is a strange and compelling blend of crackling, somehow rural sounds & percussion, strummed and sometimes chugging guitars, pastoral found-sound atmosphere and singing that's no more or less part of the ether than any other element. A timeless piece of work! Tracks include "Pink & Sour", "Spider's House" (which references Brian Wilson at his furthest out stage), "The Eye You Lost In The Crusades" (which references Nick Drake a bit in the guitar), "A Chinese Actor", "Our Kitten Sees Ghosts", "The Orchids", "Black Metal Valentine", "Rose Petal Ear", "3legged Animals", "If You Would" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

One of the greatest moments ever from Psychic TV – and a really stunning surprise after the breakup of Throbbing Gristle! Genesis P Orridge and Peter Cristopherson go in a completely different direction here – a mode that still holds onto some of the noise lessons learned in TG, but which also shows this incredible love of both more complicated pop modes from the 60s, and some of the farther reaches of minimalism as well! The album sports these tremendous ballads with eerie vocals by Genesis – including "The Orchids" and "White Nights" – which are both eerie recastings of an older mode of UK pop love songs – and there's other tracks that maybe echo a bit of Meredith Monk, or some of the underground experimentalists on the Lovely Records scene – including bits that have weird phone rings, dog barks, and other great touches. A spare and subtle use of noise and darker sounds wends its way throughout – but never with the heavier handed touches of later years – and titles include "Hymn 23", "The Orchids", "Botanica", "Iron", "Glove", "Always Is Always", "White Nights", "Finale", "Eleusis", "Medmenham", "Ancient Lights", "Proof On", "Eden 1 Eden 2 Eden 3", "Clouds Without Water", "Black Moon", "Silver And Gold", "In The Nursery", and "Circle". LP, Vinyl record album

A really unique session from these two great players – a rare moment when both were brought together in the studio – performing here in a German session that really knocks it out of the park, and has a different vibe than early 60s Blue Note material from either player! In addition to Donald Byrd on trumpet and Dexter Gordon on tenor, the group also features Herb Geller on alto and Ake Persson on trombone – horns criss-crossing in a great way, but with plenty of room for solos, especially from Byrd, who is sublime! The group also features Heinz Kitschenberg on guitar, with no piano at all – which makes for a nice change in the sound – and remaining players include Jurgen Ehlers on bass and Joe Harris on drums. The set's a bit short, just four tracks in all – but all the tunes are wonderful – and titles include "An Air For The Heir", "The Dexter Byrd", "Fly Me To The Moon", and "Blue Orchids". LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic musical tribute to the filmmaking genius of the late Agnes Varda – a set that brings together work from her earliest films of the 60s, all the way through some of her important contributions to cinema in the 21st Century! The scope of styles here is great – sometimes jazzy, sometimes more serious – sometimes vocal, and sometimes instrumental – yet that also reflects the range of styles that Varda brought to her films as well. The set features music by Michel Legrand for Cleo De 5 a 7, Francois Wertheimer & Orchidee for L'Une Chante L'Autre Pas, Matthieu Chedid for Visages Villages, Joanna Bruzdowicz for Jacquot De Nantes and Sans Toi Ni Loi, Laurent Levesque for Les Plages D'Agnes and Agnes De Ci De La Varda, Christian Legrand for HLM Et Cine-Roman, Michel Colombier for Pour Agnes, and Jean Michel Defaye for Le Bonheur. LP, Vinyl record album