An incredible debut from Public Image Limited – one of the most striking records of its generation, and a huge surprise – given that the Sex Pistols had broken up just a few months before! The record is the key transition of Johnny Rotten into John Lydon – and the whole thing is light years ahead of the Pistols in terms of boundless creativity and originality – different from Lydon's own earlier revolutionary punk act and different from pretty much everything else on the late 70s landscape – even darker than punk, if you can imagine that! The dissonant, driving post punk guitars and sneering vocals are recognizable, sure – but the dubby textures and more angular touches are so far outside the box and so hugely influential that it's hard to fathom myriad underground rock acts existing without it. Of course, part of the credit also goes to the amazing band that John Lydon assembled to put the whole thing together – a quartet that includes incredible guitar from Keith Levene, and heady bass from Jah Wobble – both key parts of the sound. Titles include "Theme", "Religion", "Religion II", "Annalisa", "Public Image", "Low Life", "Attack" and "Fodderstompf". LP, Vinyl record album

A hell of a debut from The B-52s – and a record that's become surprisingly timeless over the years, despite a retro-styled approach by the group! These guys aren't the silly group of later years here – and instead, they've got this moody darkness that's wonderful – a re-envisioned postwar America, one in which the neuroses are all on the outside – served up with instrumentation that's stark, but incredibly tight – snapping drums, riffing guitar, and these great organ lines that sound beautiful next to the vocals of Fred and the girls. The set gave the group their perennial hit "Rock Lobster" – but taken as a whole, it's an incredibly different landscape – as you'll discover on tracks that include "Planet Claire", "52 Girls", "Dance This Mess Around", "Lava", "There's A Moon In The Sky (Called The Moon)", "Hero Worship", "6060-842" and "Downtown". LP, Vinyl record album

A rhythmic, moody and moving set from Nik Bartch's Ronin for ECM – somewhat relaxed material that still has an something of sinister melodic undercurrent. Bartch's piano leads some dynamtic, and quite wonderful drum work by Kaspar Rast and percussion by Andi Pupato, with bass by Bjorn Meyer and alto sax and bass clarinet by Sha. Patterns repeat for hypnotic effect, but it's an ever evolving landscape. 7 pieces including "Modul 48", "Modul 52", "Modul 55", "Modul 47", "Modul 53", "Modul 51" and "Modul 49_44". LP, Vinyl record album

Huge, dark, and heavy – an album of mythical proportions, and that's a lot to say for a mainstream album – especially one that crossed over as big as this one! It would be hard to imagine the modern rock landscape without this album or group, who provided the template for so much music to follow – and the soundtrack to many bong-fueled excursions to the dark side – a huge legacy in sound, but one that may well still be best begun on this landmark self-titled album! Titles include "Black Sabbath", "The Wizard", "Behind The Wall Of Sleep", "NIB", "Wicked World", and "Warning". LP, Vinyl record album

Take a trip through hell with the CA Quintet – an obscure late 60s combo from the Twin Cities – and one who've got more than enough psychedelic power to live up to the Cali promise of their name! The album's got a pretty amazing cover – nude models dancing in a satanic landscape – and the sounds within are even more incredible – way more eerie and offbeat than other records of this nature, with a true undercurrent of evil that really comes through in both the darkness of the instrumentation, and the creepy way the vocals are put across. Titles include "Trip Thru Hell" – in two parts – plus "Sleepy Hollow Lane", "Smooth As Silk", "Cold Spider", and "Colorado Mourning". CD features lots of bonus tracks – including "Fortune Teller's Lie", "Bury Me In A Marijuana Field", "I Want You To Love Me Girl", "Bring All Your Love", "Dr Of Philosophy", and "Ain't No Doubt About It". CD

Brian Eno leaves the Airports, and moves On Land – but still keeps things pretty much in the spare sound of the Ambient series! The lineup here features a few more extra musicians – including Michael Beinhorn on synth, Jon Hassell on trumpet, Axel Gros and Michael Brook on guitars, and Bill Laswell on bass – but all players are used sparingly, and the overall sound hardly acknowledges their presence. Daniel Lanois helped in the recording of some of the material – an early moment in his famous partnership with Eno – and the tracks were recorded over the space of 4 years – with occasional glimmers of the British countryside through the hazy atmospherics of Eno's landscape. Titles include "Lizard Point", "Tal Coat", "Shadow", "A Clearing", "Unfamiliar Wind", "Lantern Marsh", and "The Lost Day". LP, Vinyl record album

We've really loved the music of pianist Amaro Freitas in the past, but this time around he's got a special sort of something extra in his music – both in the way he approaches the sound, and the way he works with other players! The first half of the set is an exploration of landscape, both in sound and spirit – which then opens up to tracks that have Freitas coming into contact with other important musicians as well – flute from Shabaka Hutchings on two tracks, one of which also has drums from Hamid Drake – harp from Brandee Younger on another, and guitar from Jeff Parker on one more – all musicians we really love for their own work, and who we're delighted to hear interacting with Amaro, who has maybe been a more underground artist in recent years. Titles include "Mar De Cirandeiras", "Gloriosa", "Encantados", "Viva Nana", "Sonho Ancestral", and "Danca Dos Martelos". LP, Vinyl record album

Rock and roll poster art from the late 50s onward – a lavish book that starts with early images of R&B revue posters, moves through the 60s underground through the big years of rock festivals and Fillmore shows – into the ever-evolving 70s landscape, right up through the revival of classic rock acts in the 80s! The author has a great eye for more stunning imagery that moves way past the obvious – the kind of special styles served up by key figures who helped shape visual representation of live music – presented here in a lineup that includes work from Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Hapshash, and others – figures who also helped move some of the aesthetics of the comix world into the service of music. There's lots more images along the way – plenty of surprises that go way past rock posters – and the softcover edition features over 700 images over the course of 224 oversized pages, most in full and striking color! Book

A fierce 10th album from the Roots – hard hitting and straight up angry, without sacrificing the musicality that makes them the most unique crew in hip hop of the past 15 years! We'll do our best to recommend this vital LP without tagging it with the dreaded "concept album" tag (wish us luck on that) but it's for the most barbed commentary on the state of Philly – and the larger social and cultural landscape. The Roots are still bringing some truly exhilarating material after all these years! Titles include "Rising Down" feat Mos Def & Styles P, "Get Busy" feat Dice Raw & Peedi Peedi, "@ 15", "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)", "Becoming Unwritten", "Criminal" feat Truck North & Saigon, "I Will Not Apologize" feat Porn & Dice Raw, "Lost Desire" feat Malik B & Talib Kweli, "The Show" feat Common & Dice Raw, "Rising Up" feat Wale & Chrisette Michelle and more – plus a few unlisted bonus tracks on the CD version. CD

The massive third album from Run DMC – made at the top of their game – an pivotal effort that brought them to peak popularity and helped break hip hop in a huge way in the pop culture landscape! Part of the album's strength is its guitar-heavy sound on some of the grooves – produced by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons with a classic early Def Jam vibe, in the same manner that helped the Beastie Boys get their records in the hands of folks who'd never buy hip hop otherwise! That sound comes to culmination on the album's hit collaboration with Aerosmith on a remake of "Walk This Way", resulting in the commercial breakthrough, but the real triumph here is the increased complexity in both the lyricism, and the way Jam Master Jay serves up their beats – which makes for a stone classic all the way through, on tracks that include "Peter Piper", "It's Tricky", "My Adidas", "Proud To Be Black", "You Be Illin'", and more. LP, Vinyl record album

A bigger step into a piano led jazzy style from Allen Toussaint – grooving in a timeless Crescent City influenced sound – a wonderful record, one we'll go back to for years to come! Allen's been a huge part of the New Orleans musical landscape for many, many years, and it's not a stretch to imagine he's had the laidback, but evocative jazz of the territory in his blood for just as long – so it's a wonder that he hasn't made a record like this before now. There's nothing cliche or cheesy in Allen's work here, which has kind of an after hours vibe that suits it well, and he's put together an outstanding group of players. Marc Ribot is on guitar, Don Byron on clarinet, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, David Piltch on upright bass, Jay Bellarose on drums, and guests Joshua Redman on tenor sax and Brad Mehldau on piano. Titles include "Egyptian Fantasy", "Dear Old Southland", "St James Infirmary", "Singin' The Blues", "Winin' The Blues", West End Blues", "Blue Drag", "Bright Mississippi", "Day Dream", "Solitude" and more. CD

The brilliant third album from Mike Westbrook – a sharp-edged, two volume set with a scathing anti-war theme! The work is Westbrook's first total-concept album, and it's still one of his best – written with an edge that's free from some of the more whimsical touches that showed up in Mike's later years, and played by a core group of British avant soloists with searing intensity! You've never heard large group scoring like this – bold, ambitious, and quite different than most of what's come before. And although the whole thing sounds as if it's going to fall apart at any moment, it always snaps back into a sharp focus just in the nick of time – with brilliant results that bring the same sense of surprise that you might get from, say, a classic album from Charles Mingus or Archie Shepp! Players include Kenny Wheeler and Henry Lowther on trumpets, Mike Gibbs and Paul Rutherford on trombones, John Surman on baritone and soprano sax, Mike Osborne on alto and clarinet, Alan Skidmore on tenor and flute, Brian Smith on tenor, and Harry Miller and Barre Phillips on bass. This set features both volumes of the recording – with titles that include "Landscape", "Hooray", "Other World", "Marching Song", "Transition", "Rosie", "Tension", "Ballad", "Conflict", and "Requiem". Great 3CD set features a full bonus disc of rare material – including the 7" single of "Original Peter" and "Magic Garden" – 1970 recordings of "But It Must Get Better & It Will Get Better" and "When Young" by The Mike Westbrook Quartet, and a 1966 recording of "Marching Song" by the Mike Westbrook Sextet – the last three of which have never been released! CD

The title's maybe a bit misleading – as most folks think of day-glo as a color associated with some of the most throwaway culture of the 80s – but the brightness of the hue definitely marks the big explosion in styles during the key British year of 1978 – a time when the punk revolution of 1977 opened the door for a big range of modes to follow! It might be said that the post-punk years came immediately after the initial days of punk – and they definitely begin here, as hard and fast modes are mixed with more unusual styles that include mod revival moments, electronic experiments, and even some offbeat pop – expressions of humor, anger, and a shifting political landscape – served up as an amazing document of the creative intensity of the time! As with other Cherry Red boxes, the overall package is great – a huge amount of notes to support the 79 tracks within – a diverse array of music from Blue Steam, The Others, UK Subs, The Jam, Monochrome Set, Wreckless Eric, Spizzoil, Public Image Ltd, 999, The Stranglers, Japan, The Only Ones, Magazine, Alternative TV, Slush, Time Machine, Eater, The Bozos, Tyla Gang, Ed Banger, No Sweat, The VIPs, John Cooper Clarke, Scritti Politti, Penetration, Stiff Little Fingers, Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias, Teardrops, Coventry Automatics, Menace, Bleach Boys, Jilted John, Zones, Electric Chairs, and many more! CD

A stunning collection of work from one of our favorite bands of the 60s – a group who sprung up on the San Francisco scene of the mid 60s, then evolved with an amazing sound in just a few short years! The set begins with the group's three albums for the Autumn label – Introducing, Volume Two, and Beau Brummels 66 – and packs those with 47 related demo tracks, outtakes, and alternates – giving a really amazing picture of the group at the start! Then, the package moves into their two tremendous albums for Warner Brothers – Triangle and Bradley's Barn, both of which are real highlights on the late 60s creative landscape of the label – presented here with 32 associated demo tracks and rarities from those sessions! Then, the set moves into a 1965 demo session for Autumn Records, with over two dozen songs in development form in the studio. CD7 features solo work from Ron Elliott and Sal Valentino of the group – including some unheard material! CD8 features 28 more tracks – all single cuts from the group, including cancelled releases, and some solo singles from Sal Valentino. 228 tracks in all – all newly mastered, with many titles on CD for the first time ever! CD

Huge, dark, and heavy – an album of mythical proportions, and that's a lot to say for a mainstream album – especially one that crossed over as big as this one! It would be hard to imagine the modern rock landscape without this album or group, who provided the template for so much music to follow – and the soundtrack to many bong-fueled excursions to the dark side – a huge legacy in sound, but one that may well still be best begun on this landmark self-titled album! Titles include "Black Sabbath", "The Wizard", "Behind The Wall Of Sleep", "NIB", "Wicked World", and "Warning". CD

If you've never had the pleasure of visiting Wisconsin, you're really missing something – and one of the state's greatest treasures is its long legacy of local watering holes – including some of the taverns pictured in this book! The volume is everything promised in the title – loving portraits of local bars in Wisconsin – shot around the state, in full color – and in a variety of formats that shifts focus from the landscape of the tavern, to special features within, to some of the owners and managers of these well-established bars. In a generation of too-big TVs and too much sports in drinking establishments, places like this are falling by the wayside – and the book is a loving portrait of a slice of American life that may soon be lost if we're not careful! Hardcover, 125 pages, full color throughout. Book

A really evocative little album from Bill Frisell – and that's saying a lot, given the rest of his work! The music was all written at a ranch in Big Sur – and has this spacious, airy sort of feel – one that draws on Bill's earlier style of guitar, but also inflects it with a slight Americanist tone – in ways that echo some of Charlie Haden or Pat Metheny's projects with a similar landscape ethos. The group retains a very ethereal feel – and features Eyvind Kang on viola, Hank Roberts on cello, Jenny Scheinman on violin, and Rudy Royston on drums – on titles that include "Hawks", "Cry Alone", "Animals", "Highway 1", "Gather Good Things", "The Big One", and "Going To California". CD

Unusual material from Chico Hamilton – recorded around the same time as his groundbreaking work for Pacific Jazz – but for the smaller Crown/Modern label in LA! The format's a bit unusual, and changes a bit throughout the record – showing Chico's already-strong ear for creative formats that go way beyond conventional jazz. There are 2 numbers at the end of side 2 featuring Chico in the familiar chamber jazz lineup, with Fred Katz on cello and Paul Horn on reeds – "Crazy Cats" and "Lord Randall". The rest of the tracks feature the stringed instruments handling most of the melody, in a free floating style that's got the same "modern yet swinging" approach of some of Jimmy Giuffre's best late 50s recordings, which ultimately places it in a similar context to the chamber jazz numbers. Titles include "Porch Light", "Autumn Landscape", "Uyawda", "Lolly Pop", "Pluck It", "Katz Up", "Crazy Cats", and "Lord Randall". CD

Great musings on love and other weirdness – done in the amazingly offbeat style of the young John Hartford! Titles include "Windows", "This Eve Of Parting", "The Six O'Clock Train & A Girl With Green Eyes", "Landscape Grown Cold", "Prayer", "Empty Afternoon Of Summer Longing", and "Natural To Be Gone". LP, Vinyl record album

Much as we love the legendary debut from Joy Division, we love this second album even more – as the whole thing's a perfect realization of their genius – and such a strong step forward, it still pains us to remember that singer Ian Curtis was taken from us all too soon, and the group never got to fully move past this moment! Everything that made the first record great is here – but there's also a more cohesive approach to both the song structure, and the overall album presentation – so that the landscape of darkness we first viewed on Unknown Pleasures comes into even greater focus here – as the songs follow one another in a beautifully logical order, and the slight refinements in production make all the best elements of the musicianship – especially the bass and drums – even more powerful than before. Titles include "Twenty Four Hours", "Heart & Soul", "Decades", "Colony", "Passover", and "A Means To An End". CD

Amazing photographs from Frank Paulin – a sometimes overlooked talent from mid century – an artist with an amazing eye for juxtaposing an individual and an urban landscape, which is mostly the subject matter of this book! Most of the photographs were shot in New York City in the 50s – and they're a fascinating portrait of the city and all of its charms – often with an individual set amidst the cityscape – not posed, but beautifully composed, and at a level that really shows Paulin's understanding of a photographic moment. There's also a number of great 50s shots of New Orleans scenes, plus a small number of later images too – and the hardcover book is 175 pages, with a horizontal rectangular shape, and black and white images throughout. Book

Revelatory work from the great Art Pepper – presented here in a complete package for the first time ever. In Pepper's later years, his live dates were often more mindblowing than his studio sessions – especially when the tape was rolling over a long stretch, as was the case over the three nights of recordings presented here! Art's on alto, in a tight group with George Cables on piano – arguably one of his most sensitive accompanists in these years – plus David Williams on bass and Carl Burnett on drums – a lineup that remains firm through the seven sets of music captured in this collection. The package features 42 performances, including 23 performances that appear here for the first time ever, plus bits of banter and other between-song conversation – all wrapped up in a box with a 44 page booklet of notes. Titles include "For Freddie", "Without A Song", "Road Waltz", "Mambo Koyama", "Allen's Alley", "Begin The Beguine", "Landscape", "Valse Triste", "But Beautiful", "Roadgame", "For Freddie", "Donna Lee", "Samba Mom Mom", "Yours Is My Heart Alone", and "Arthur's Blues". CD

A great late live date from Art Pepper – as well-recorded and as strongly played as his best work of the time on Galaxy or Contemporary Records – and done with a similar group as well! The album's no cheapy concert for the overseas crowd – as Art's working here with George Cables on piano, David Williams on bass, and Carl Burnett on drums – all grooving tremendously on these long-flowing tracks that show the best late Pepper modes firmly at work. Echoes of Coltrane come through his horn, as does a bit of Latin as well – but there's also a soaring, soulful quality to most of the tunes that really stands out – thanks in part to Cables, whose piano is always well-placed throughout! Pepper has a wonderfully sharp tone on most numbers – and titles include "Landscape", "Red Car", "Goodbye", "Straight Life", "Road Waltz", "For Freddie", and "Body & Soul". CD

The massive third album from Run DMC – made at the top of their game – an pivotal effort that brought them to peak popularity and helped break hip hop in a huge way in the pop culture landscape! Part of the album's strength is its guitar-heavy sound on some of the grooves – produced by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons with a classic early Def Jam vibe, in the same manner that helped the Beastie Boys get their records in the hands of folks who'd never buy hip hop otherwise! That sound comes to culmination on the album's hit collaboration with Aerosmith on a remake of "Walk This Way", resulting in the commercial breakthrough, but the real triumph here is the increased complexity in both the lyricism, and the way Jam Master Jay serves up their beats – which makes for a stone classic all the way through, on tracks that include "Peter Piper", "It's Tricky", "My Adidas", "Proud To Be Black", "You Be Illin'", and more. LP, Vinyl record album

A surprisingly deep batch of pop soul from Joss Stone – one that manages to live up to the title! Joss goes way out with her strong, deeply 70s influenced vocal histrionics on a batch of tunes that stretch all over the songwriting landscape. She tackles tunes by as far-reaching a group of writers as Harlan Howard on the opening "The Chokin' Kind" to the Isley Brothers' "For The Love Of You" and many points in between, with the same extroverted approach. She kind of comes off as a female equivalent of Remy Shand – and she's enlisted an all star cast of support players and producers including ?uestlove, Angie Stone, Little Beaver and others. Other tracks include "Super Duper Love", "Dirty Man", "I've Fallen In Love With You", "Victim Of A Foolish Heart", "I Had A Dream", "Some Kind Of Wonderful" and others. CD

The brilliant 3rd album from Mike Westbrook – a sharp-edged, two volume set with a scathing anti-war theme! The work is Westbrook's first total-concept album, and it's still one of his best – written with an edge that's free from some of the more whimsical touches that showed up in Mike's later years, and played by a core group of British avant soloists with searing intensity! You've never heard large group scoring like this – bold, ambitious, and quite different than most of what's come before. And although the whole thing sounds as if it's going to fall apart at any moment, it always snaps back into a sharp focus just in the nick of time – with brilliant results that bring the same sense of surprise that you might get from, say, a classic album from Charles Mingus or Archie Shepp! Players include Kenny Wheeler and Henry Lowther on trumpets, Mike Gibbs and Paul Rutherford on trombones, John Surman on baritone and soprano sax, Mike Osborne on alto and clarinet, Alan Skidmore on tenor and flute, Brian Smith on tenor, and Harry Miller and Barre Phillips on bass. This set features both volumes of the recording – with titles that include "Landscape", "Hooray", "Other World", "Marching Song", "Transition", "Rosie", "Tension", "Ballad", "Conflict", and "Requiem". LP, Vinyl record album

Greasy Mike's been making the global rounds on records like this – serving up an imagined landscape of weird and wonderful sounds, all pulled from rare singles of late 50s/early 60s vintage! We're not sure Mike's efforts will ever win him a harem, but he's done a great job here – coming up with tunes that often have some slight exotic or Eastern sort of vibe, mixed with more familiar American sounds of the time – like electric guitar or Latin percussion! Titles include "Ole Tsasa" by Valisas & His Slaves, "Desert Wind" by The Vaqueros, "Cairo Twist" by The Royce McAfee Combo, "Cobra" by The Boys, "Sahara" by The Cotillions, "Port Said" by The Kasuals, "Moroc-Kin" by Arabian Knights, "Snake Charmer" by Torrents, "The Bagdad Fantasy" by Ilo Kay & His Trio, and "Istanbul" by Jol Coyes Boys. LP, Vinyl record album

Pianist David Ake works here at a level that maybe lives up to the slightly rural image on the cover – still jazz, but with a quality that's almost pastoral at times – as he allows the tunes to open up and build slowly, almost as sonic landscapes – but with a sense of warmth and tone that's very different than use of the word "landscape" might imply from a label like ECM! There's almost an Americanist vision here that echoes some of the quiet experiments of Bill Frisell – but with Ake's piano in the lead, beautifully balanced next to the tenor of Tony Malaby, who's at his warmest in the setting – in a quartet that also features Boris Kozlov on bass and Rudy Royston on drums and percussion. All titles are originals by Ake – and tunes include "Walker Evans", "Stu's News", "John Prine", "Green Thumb", "Street Food", and "Kendee". CD

Photographer Francois Marie Banier has an amazing eye, which you'll see instantly in this book – an unflinching look at the streetscapes of Paris, where he photographs human subjects in an array of modes – working, walking, sleeping, and sometimes just confronting the camera directly! The book is black and white throughout, and presented with no introduction – which makes the images maybe even more striking, as you're encountering them the same way that Banier did – as moments on the urban landscape, or figures in the daily play of the city. The book concludes with a few short essays on his work – which are very well-placed at the end, as they quietly illuminate the photographs, without taking away the power of seeing them unadorned and unexpectedly. Hardcover, 253 pages, and with black and white images throughout. Book

Maybe the most personal album to date from Fabiano Do Nascimento – a set that continues the Brazilian acoustic guitar legacy of players like Baden Powell, Egberto Gismonti, and some of the older greats – but which finds a way to express its sound in a very contemporary way! Fabiano plays a variety of guitars here, but also mixes the record with this airy sound that layers in bits of wordless vocals and other effects – all used gently, but beautifully – with this spacious, open sound that really fits the image of the landscape on the cover, yet which also has a lot more warmth than that picture too. There's almost an ECM vibe to the record at times, but the sound is a bit more dynamic – and titles include "Noite", "Ykytu", "Pelas Ruas", "Flower Of Life", "Corrida", "Planalto", and "Rio Tapajos". LP, Vinyl record album