... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

The most ambitious album ever recorded by this legendary group – a combination of all the artistic forces that were then in play on their scene in Ljubljana – brought together in a mix of music, stage design, and larger performance! The set has all the deeper sounds of Laibach's previous material – taken into sophisticated territory that rivals the scope and ambition of early Soviet modernist creations! LP, Vinyl record album

The legendary improvising pianist Alexander Von Schlippenbach makes a great appearance here with the quartet of drummer Oliver Steidle – a player with whom he'd worked in Globe Unity, but in a very different style here! The music is spun out on three long live improvisations – very striking contributions from Schlippenbach on piano, but matched by some equally powerful work from Rudi Mahall on bass clarinet, Henrik Walsdorff on alto, and Jan Roder on bass – all working under the leadership of Steidle. As you might expect, these instruments come together in ways that are very different than mainstream jazz – the piano hardly affects the reed interplay of Walsdorff and Mahall as it would in a conventional group – and the bass of Roder is often in a space that's very different than usual too. Titles include "So", "Sok", and "Soko". CD

One of the smartest books we've ever seen on album cover art – a lavish full color volume that not only presents loads of classic images, but also has plenty to say about them as well! The book is a bit smaller than LP format – maybe 8" square overall – but it's filled with loads of full page reproductions of classic hi fi, bachelor pad, and mood music album covers – most with a facing page of test that really examines the images, and also offers up other historical details too! The authors really follow a direction that's inspirational – treating these album covers not as kitsch, but as a rich document of midcentury America at the crossroads – full of deeper meaning if you know how to read things the right way. The book features chapters that include "Let's Have a Dinner Party", "Music For Hi Fi Living", "Cuba", "Airlines", "Adventures In Sound", "Sound Tour", and "Capitol Of The World" – and the hardcover volume is 420 pages, full color, with great notes at the end! Book