Iron & Wine is excited to participate in Record Store Day 2017 with this blue vinyl release of Archives Volume 3. This entry in the ongoing series jumps to the year 2009 and that fertile time between The Shepherd’sDog and Kiss Each Other Clean. Volumes 1 and 2 explored the home spun recordings from The Creek Drankthe Cradle-era, while these two tracks have a fuller and richer sound of those two recordings. “A Stranger Lays Besides Me” has been performed live a number of times and become a fan favorite. “Miss Bottom of the Hill” has never been heard in either a live or recorded format. This package may contain one of FIVE GOLDEN TICKETS, granting free admission worldwide for you (+ guest) to every Iron & Wine performance.
Pressed on translucent blue vinyl and limited to 2000 copies worldwide.
As part of an ongoing set of releases featuring material recorded at various points from Iron and Wine’s career, the Iron and Wine ‘Archive Series’ returns with ‘Volume No. 3’.
This third instalment in the series jumps almost ten years forward to 2009 and showcases two songs that could have easily found themselves on either ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ or ‘Kiss Each Other Clean’.
The A-side track and a fan favorite ‘A Stranger Lay Beside Me’ has turned up on tour and been performed in a live setting a number of times over the years. The flip side features the track ‘Miss Bottom of the Hill’ (which, until earlier this year, was believed to have been erased in the great Sam Beam computer crash of 2010) is a sleeper of a track.
In total the 12” clocks in at just over 13 minutes.
But wait Black Cricket is proud to offer FIVE Golden Tickets – each of which guarantee the finder to a lifetime of entry to live performances by Iron and Wine.* The Golden Tickets will be inserted by the record plant and then packaged and sent blindly worldwide. So whether it’s your home town, Seattle, Dublin, Sydney or Des Moines Black Cricket have you covered (* certain restrictions apply. For entry, see label website for full details).
Record Store Day Release 2017 limited to 1300 COPIES / 350 Transparent blue mixed into black vinyl .
All three LOOP “John Peel” sessions collated on one vinyl album from 1987 – 1990, these are some of the best recordings by LOOP. Remastered by Kevin Metcalf when the CDs were reissued in 2008, Reactor has decided to reissue the famed “Wolf Flow “ on a 2LP set for Record Store Day 2017. In a new / updated sleeve, with new printed innerbags. Wolf Flow captures LOOP in their ascendency in the the late 90s, featuring tracks from all three of their albums, a cover of Rocket USA and the track Sunburst (b-side of Arc Lite)…theres a 10 minute version of Straight To Your Heart! this is Essential!! Recorded live at BBC Maida Vale Studios.
Anna Calvi recorded live at David Byrne’s Meltdown Festival
Domino Recordings are extremely proud to present a Record Store Day 2017 exclusive 2LP red vinyl of Anna Calvi’s standout live set from the David Byrne curated Meltdown Festival.
Featuring a 12 piece choir and performed at London’s South Bank Centre, one of London’s most gorgeous venues, is perfect for what Calvi has in mind, where her phenomenal voice and guitar-playing is joined by a 12 piece choir from The Heritage Orchestra. ‘Live At Meltdown’ features live renditions of tracks from Anna’s previous albums ‘Anna Calvi’ and ‘One Breath’. I miss the stage.. until we are reunited I am releasing a Live album of my concert at Meltdown Festival, featuring a choir and a collaboration with David Byrne. This will be a Limited Edition Double Red Vinyl which will come out on Record Store Day, April 22nd.
Play it loud. With love, Anna
Features a guest appearance from David Byrne (on ‘Strange Weather’. Limited to 750 copies for the UK and Eire.
TRACK LISTING
Sing To Me
Rider To The Sea
Blackout
Suddenly
Suzanne & I
Wolf Like Me
I’ll Be Your Man
Strange Weather (with
David Byrne)
Desire
Love Won’t Be Leaving
Ghost Rider
Vespers Movement 5/The
Bridge
By Summer 1966, the Animals were ready to call it a day. John Steele had bailed out back in February and Nashville Teens drummer Barry Jenkins was drafted in as his replacement. The band had decided to break up in May, but they were contracted to do a lengthy American tour along with teen stars Herman’s Hermits, so the reluctant five-piece dragged themselves over to the States to fulfil the commitment. But it turned out to be a pretty eventful tour, culminating in a trip to San Francisco where Eric Burdon saw the light.
There, R&B was out but Psychedelia was very definitely in. The group cut a couple of tracks in Los Angeles with Frank Zappa, one of which, The Other Side of This Life, came out as a US 45 in November after the break up. Over on the East Coast, they played a gig at New York’s Wollman Rink Central Park on August 3rd and later on that evening, Chas Chandler had a Damascene moment after seeing an obscure, unsigned guitarist by the name of Jimi Hendrix. Chandler’s days of playing bass were over.
The group’s last gig was on September 5th at the Steel Pier Resort in Atlantic City and that was it for the Animals – at least, until Eric Burdon and The New Animals made their appearance.
Tracks:
Side One: 1. Inside Looking Out (Lomax / Burdon / Chandler) 2. Sweet Little Sixteen (Berry) 3. In The Wee Wee Hours (Turner) 4. Maudie (Hooker) 5. She´ll Return It (Rowberry/Burdon) 6. John Steel (Interview) 7. One Monkey Don´t Stop No Show (Tex)
Side Two: 1. Shake* (Cooke) 2. Don´t Bring Me Down* (Goffin/King) 3. Inside Looking Out* (Lomax / Burdon / Chandler) 4. That´s All I Am To You* (Blackwell / Scott) 5. One Monkey Don´t Stop No Show* (Tex) 6. It´s My Life* (Atkins/Enrico) Work Song (Adderly/Brown)
Last February one month after the death of his close friend and collaborator David Bowie ,Iggy Pop covered Bowie’s “The Jean Genie” at Carnegie Hall. Two weeks earlier, he had said in an interview that he’s probably “closing up” and retiring from the recording business after the release of his new album Post Pop Depression with Josh Homme. If Pop seems a little morbid these days, well, it’s nothing new. A hell-bent, self-destructive streak runs through his entire body of work; in fact, that streak long ago became his calling card, along with this feral, hair-raising baritone. Hard to believe he launched his music career innocuously enough as fresh-faced James Osterberg, the drummer of various ’60s garage bands in Michigan such as The Iguanas and the Prime Movers.
iggy Pop’s next band, The Stooges, hit the scene like a runaway earthmover. Not that the band was particularly popular during its time. Formed in 1967 when he was still going by the name Iggy Stooge, The Psychedelic Stooges (soon shortened), the group harnessed the jet-engine power of fellow Michigan band The MC5 while droning on in a spectacularly Neanderthal way. The Stooges’ self-titled debut appeared in 1969, produced by The Velvet Underground’sJohn Cale, and it turned psychedelia into something overwhelmingly new: simple, primal, brutal, and blazing the trail for a new style of music still a decade away, punk rock. On the album’s best-known track, “I Wanna Be Your Dog,”Pop howls in an lascivious imitation of Ron Asheton’s wah-wah guitar, celebrating sexual submissiveness while paradoxically playing up the group’s own aggressive, distorted domination.
As great as The Stooges was, it’s an album that all but painted the band into a corner—that is, until Fun House blew off the roof. The blueprint from the first album is dutifully carried over no one ever accused The Stooges of being eclectic but the band’s attack is deepened, sharpened, and given a far more insidious atmosphere of transgression and hedonism. On top of that, the decision to bring saxophonist Steve Mackay into the mix on songs like “1970” and the sinuous, swaggering title track lent a jazzy edge that only enhanced the album’s ominous atmosphere. And Pop’s blistered voice urges on the noise like a drug-pushing drill sergeant. At the start of the ’70s, as rock ’n’ roll was congealing into corporate slickness, Fun House ripped off the skin and pissed in the wound.
Three years passed between “Fun House” and its follow-up, “Raw Power”. The album was billed under the name Iggy And The Stooges, reflecting the new star power of its self-abusive front man, whose bloody, destructive stage performances were already becoming the stuff of legend. But the band itself had disintegrated in a haze of drugs and reformed in those three years, giving Raw Power a far more abrasive and hard-edged sound; co-produced by Pop and his admirer David Bowie, the album’s ear-shredding, in-the-red chaos kick started the punk movement. On songs such as “Search And Destroy,” guitarist James Williamson threatens to split the heavens with his unhinged solos; meanwhile Pop weaves a new mythology of rock decadence that teeters on the brink of sanity and reality.
Barring the officially released demo Kill City in 1977 (recorded in 1975 and credited to Iggy Pop and JamesWilliamson), The Stooges’ time in the studio was long over by the time Pop began in solo career in earnest with The Idiot. Released in 1977, the year punk exploded, it took a different route than all the groups The Stooges had inspired; instead of raw power, the album bears the cool, dour, synthetic tones that co-produced and collaborator Bowie was about to use on his Berlin Trilogy (The Idiot was also recorded in Berlin). In a way, Pop is fish-out-of-place on Krautrock-inspired tracks like “Nightclubbing” and the ethereal “China Girl” (later turned into a hit by Bowie himself). But it’s exactly this bewildered displacement and fresh context that makes The Idiot such a welcome jolt in Pop’s career arc—one that stretched his formidable voice into strange new shapes.
The second of Iggy Pop’s Berlin collaborations with Bowie released in 1977, Lust For Life produced Pop’s most identifiable solo hit: the Bowie-penned title track, a thumping, sinewy anthem that gleefully hurls Pop’s suicidal image back at itself. Falling much closer to Pop’s raw rock wheelhouse than The Idiot, Lust For Life nonetheless produced one of his most sultry songs: “The Passenger,” whose slinky, menacing vibe taps into the dark poetry that Pop always has lurking beneath his bad-boy surface. With punk in full swing, the movement’s forefather claimed his snotty offspring while striking out on his own assured yet anarchic path.
Pop’s third solo album, New Values, was released in 1979—his first without Bowie. Instead it was produced by his old Raw Power cohort James Williamson, who also supplies guitar. Rather than sounding like a Stooges rehash, though, the album ventured forth into bold new territory: sleek, sculpted, and lean, songs like the nervy title track gave Iggy Pop a clean canvas on which to reinvent himself. Accordingly, his vocal range is fully explored for the first time on record: From spoken-word proclamations to supple yelps to stentorian moans, he’d finally settled into his solo-artist role as a sophisticated provocateur and enfant terrible—even while Williamson sets off Stooges-era guitar explosions.
The ’80s should have been the decade where Pop reaped his hard-earned artistic rewards. Instead, it was pretty spotty. In spite of a strong pool of collaborators (The Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock, Blondie’s Clem Burke and Chris Stein, Patti Smith Group’s Ivan Kral, and Bowie sideman Carlos Alomar) the run of albums including 1980’s Soldier, 1981’s Party, and 1982’s Zombie Birdhouse reflect a desperate frenzy of weirdness, mediocrity, and experimentation with only sporadic bursts of brilliance. Following a four-year break from studio albums, 1986’s Blah Blah Blah was Pop’s attempt to court the mainstream; with David Bowie back in the producer’s chair, the record resulted in a minor hit and something of a calling card for Pop in the ’80s, a slick cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s rock ’n’ roll oldie “Wild One (Real Wild Child).” Pop’s rebelliousness comes off as canned, but the album gave Pop another lease on music life—although it wasn’t capitalized on by 1988’s Instinct, a middling hard-rock team-up with The Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones that feels like a washed-out echo of Raw Power.
In the ’90s, the alternative boom brought many borderline underground artists out of the shadows—Pop somewhat included. He came out swinging with 1990’s Brick By Brick, a substantial album that boasted appearances from members of Guns N’ Roses plus another minor hit—a genuinely stirring duet with The B-52s’ Kate Pierson, “Candy.” With a new generation of stars, led by Kurt Cobain, singing his praises, the decade might have been huge for Iggy Pop, but his next three albums of the decade (1993’s American Caesar, 1996’s Naughty Little Doggie, and 1999’s Avenue B) were mostly muddled and confused, each one lesser than the one before it. Pop’s status as an icon was cemented—especially after “Lust For Life” was resurrected by its appearance on the soundtrack to 1996’s movie Trainspotting but his inability to funnel that into another classic record was frustrating. Yet wholly in line with his perverse brand of self-destructive integrity.
In the ’70s, few would have predicted that Pop would make it to the year 2000, let alone release some of his most intriguing music in the 21st century. That’s not to say 2001’s Beat Em Up and 2003’s Skull Ring are good—they aren’t—but two significant things happened to Pop’s career in the new millennium: One, he started dabbling in French pop , and jazz, and two, he also got The Stooges back together. His French-inflected albums, 2009’s Préliminaires (consisting of original songs) and 2012’s Après (comprising covers of everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Édith Piaf), aren’t entirely successful, but they’re both brave and compelling in their own way, giving Pop’s ever-more-cavernous voice a new atmosphere to breathe. The Stooges’ two reunion albums, 2007’s The Weirdness and 2013’s Ready To Die, are wildly uneven—the second is much better—but there are flashes of real combustion to that decades-old chemistry. His new album, Post Pop Depression, once again relies on top-notch collaborators, in this case a group led by Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age, and it’s one of Pop’s best solo albums since The Idiot, Lust For Life, and New Values—mostly because it draws heavily from The Idiot, Lust For Life, and New Values. But if Post Pop Depression is indeed Pop’s swan song, he’s going out on a note that’s both dignified and fittingly creepy.
The Essentials purchases,
1. The Stooges, Fun House (1970) More confident and corrosive than The Stooges’ self-titled debut a year earlier,Fun House is not only IggyPop’s most potent statement about the dark side of the modern psyche—it captures American civilization at the cusp of an epic comedown.
2. Iggy Pop, The Idiot (1977) The Idiot is as much a Bowie album as a Pop one, and that’s its strength: icy, experimental, starkly chiseled, and filled with both dreamy electronics, it gave Pop’s wild-man persona a chillingly robotic sheen.
3. Iggy And The Stooges, Raw Power (1969) If ever an Iggy Pop album explodes out of the speakers, it’s RawPower. Savage and incediary, every second feels like it’s about to shake apart at the molecular level. And Pop has never topped his fierce, apocalyptic imagery here.
4. The Stooges, The Stooges (1973) There’s something endearingly numbskull about The Stooges’ eponymous debut—a psychedelic record that bulldozes over every flower in its path. But it’s also steeped in shadows and Pop’s pulsing, psychotic desire.
5. Iggy Pop, Lust For Life(1977) The title track of Lust For Life may have been used in one too many TV commercials for its punch to be fully retained, but Pop’s sophomore solo album as a whole remains a giddy, meaty match-up between Bowie’s vestigial glam stomp and Pop’s fiery abandon.
just something dadaistic to share unreleased The Black Angels from their new record,Death Song, which is either one of the best things they’ve done or i’m simply really starved for this kind of wonderful noise..and voice..and mellotron..what a welcome aural libation in this drought of psychemagik, and an early frontrunner for album of the year.
The Record Store Day version of their album is on glow in the dark vinyl, black light cover, double LP, sticker, poster and download card. The Black Angels – Austin’s psych rock masters release their fifth album Death Song. This is the five-piece’s first full-length release in four years, and their debut for Partisan Records. Written and recorded in large part during the recent election cycle, the music on Death Songserves as part protest, part emotional catharsis in a climate dominated by division, anxiety and unease. Currency, a strong contender for the heaviest song the band has ever put to wax, meditates on the governing role the monetary system plays in our lives, while slow-building psychedelic earworm Half Believing questions the nature and confusing realities of devotion. Recorded between Seattle and Austin, Death Song features production from Phil Ek (Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, The Shins). The 11-track collection offers a sharply honed elaboration on their signature sound – menacing fuzz guitar and cutting wordplay, steeped in a murky hallucinatory dream.
So long after their explosive heyday The Doors and Jim Morrison retain their gold-standard of cool.
Strip away the fables surrounding Morrison and The Doors . Live at The Matrix in San Francisco March 7th & 10th, 1967, part 1 on vinyl for the first time.
Although these tapes will be well known by hardcore Doors fans, this is the first time they’ve seen the official light of day. Massaged into life by Bruce Botnik (engineer on those original Paul Rothschild produced albums), they offer a glimpse, as Ray Manzarek observes, of the band having fun. Playing a sizable chunk of their first album and half of their follow up record (yet to be laid down in a studio), Just a few weeks on from the release of their debut, word about the band’s impending canonisation does not appear to have reached the handful of punters who turned up to Marty Balin’s nightclub in San Francisco, The Matrix , who can be heard offering only the politest of applause between numbers.
Without the catalyst of audience reaction and in the face of such indifference, the sparks rarely fly and despite Manzarek’s assertion about the extent to which this meant the band could stretch out and experiment, we have a performance that only occasionally smoulders, never quite ever catching fire.
Die-hard Morrison-ologists will however be cheered by the inclusion of alternate words grasped from his poetic writings and scattered about in songs such as a pulsing cover of the old Them stomper, Gloria and their sinuous classic, The End.
With Kreiger’s blazing guitar solo on When The Music’s Over, and Manzarek’s faux-classical noodling, there’s a lot of potential waiting to be called upon. However, at The Matrix we’re in the company of a somewhat quaint and reserved bar band, and with it, quite literally in the case of The Doors, the stuff of legend.
Side A: 1. Back Door Man 2. Soul Kitchen 3. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) 4. Light My Fire
Side B: 1. The Crystal Ship 2. Twentieth Century Fox 3. The End
There is a VERY limited quantity of this Record Store Day 2017
A1. Goatfuzz (Single Version) B1. Goatfizz. Goat release an unreleased edit of the track Goatfuzz – one of the stand out tracks off their latest album ‘Requiem’ as a special ltd edition 7″ for Record Store Day. The Bside of the 7″ is a brand new track, entitled Goatfizz which once again shows another side to the bands take on ‘world music’. The 2 colour ‘splatter vinyl’ 7″ is ltd to 2,000 copies and will only be available on Record Store Day – these tracks will not be made available on digital formats.
Priests’ Early Recordings combines the band’s first two cassette-only tape releases, originally recorded in 2011 and 2013. The small run cassette releases were originally intended to be for purchase only at the band’s live shows. “We didn’t want everybody to hear it,” said drummer Daniele Daniele. “We were still learning our instruments, so these tapes were not intended to impress the world, just document where we were for our own sake.” Daniele met vocalist Katie Alice Greer the same week she arrived in Washington, DC to complete a fellowship at Georgetown University, and the two decided to start a band. Guitarist GL Jaguar joined soon after, and bassist Taylor Mulitz completed the lineup the following year.
Tape 1 was recorded by Jaguar in his parent’s basement in Maryland. The band had existed for one week, and the trio had written four songs. “I was very eager to have evidence of the band exist for myself, because I didn’t know how long it would last, and I wanted to make music more than anything,” said Greer. “Diet Coke”, the band’s first song, is a hundred second blast of pummeling energy and what would become Jaguar’s signature riffage. A winking nod to advertising that sneaks into culture, the tune is followed by the more contemplative “Talking”, a song on which both Greer and Jaguar play guitar. Greer’s lyrics speak to US public school systems “rewarding complicity” and children being “being socialized by reality TV”. “The World”, perhaps foreshadowing the band’s krautrock-inspired penchant for repetition, is a jubilant intermission before “Cobra”, a playfully minimal stop-start closer inspired by cult favorite rock group She (also known as “The Hairem”).
On Tape Two the band was eager to showcase their fuller sound as a newly expanded quartet. The tape’s seven songs were recorded by Kevin Erickson and Hugh McElroy, who had already recorded the band’s first single “Radiation/Personal Planes” a year earlier and would go on to produced half of Priests’ Bodies and Control and Money and Power EP and all of Nothing Feels Natural. “Leave Me Alone” nods to the Priests’s affinity for inverting the cool funk of a song like Bush Tetras’ “Too Many Creeps” (“I see you when I’m out on the street/ I think you look like a creep”) while exploring more melodic territory on tracks like “Twelve”, hinting to material that would later surface on Nothing Feels Natural. Lyrically, Priests continued to explore themes that center women’s lives (“Lillian Hellman”), critique social perception of female celebrity (“Lana”), interrogate assumptions of US history (“Incantations”), and invert the male gaze on the Daniele Daniele-penned closer “Watch You”. Priests was already interested in expanding their musical palette, as evidenced by metallic clangs and a purring drum machine on “Watch You” and creeping mellotron weaving in and out of a few different tracks throughout.
With the full list of Record Store Day releases 2017 now unveiled, you’re faced with the lengthy task of sifting through so much great stuff, and preparing to save for what you want to rush out and get on RSD itself .
To aid your journey down to one of the participating record stores, we’ve put together some top picks from a wide spectrum of genres (with emphasis on psych, jazz, rock, experimental) and highlighted potential collectible items, as well as releases that are just incredible regardless of future value.
Preparing for RSD is a noble activity, too. It’s thanks to movements like it that music fans are shifting further away from wanting to own every mp3 under the sun, and toward collecting records that are special to them.
When RSD started vinyl album sales amounted to just £1.1m, accounting for just 0.2% of the physical albums market. Now, 10 years on, vinyl sales are worth £65.6m, representing 14% of total spend on physical format albums in the UK. Sure it’s not the only catalyst but it’s definitely a key force. Materialism has never felt so good.
999 – Live And Loud
What is it: A live album Why buy it: As one of the punk bands that broke through in the wake of The Clash and Sex Pistols, 999 were one of those bands that rapidly built up a cult following thanks to singles ‘Homicide’ and ‘Feelin’ Alright With The Crew’. This live album finds the recording remastered and comes with background liner notes and rare archival photos. And thankfully no gobbing.
Allen Toussaint – The Allen Toussaint Collection
What is it? 16-track compilation on double vinyl Why buy it: If you want to find out how and why the sound of New Orleans made such an impact on modern music, then you’re advised to head in the direction of this two disc collection of the Allen Toussaint, one of the most influential song writers from The Big Easy. This 16-track compilation of Toussaint’s Nonesuch and Reprise recordings is available on 2 x 140g vinyl.
The Bevis Frond – Triptych
What is it: 2 x LP Why buy it: As well as being one of the most fiercely independent bands in the UK, they’re also one of the most pioneering in the field of psychedelia. Hailed as “a Hendrix devotee every bit as tough and contemporary as the serrated guitar chorales of Sonic Youth and Pixies” by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke, his immense psych-stoner-rock has seen him become a cult figure in his own right.
The Black Angels – Death Song
What is it: Vinyl album Why buy it: It’s the new album from Texan psyche warriors The Black Angels. This limited edition comes with glow in the dark vinyl, black light cover, double LP, sticker, poster, and download card. And from what we’ve heard of it so far, they’re back on coruscating form.
Brett Anderson – Live At Koko 2011
What is it: Vinyl album Why buy it: Recorded at Koko in Camden on October 12, 2011, Suede frontman Brett and his band (Jim Dare on guitars and backing vocals, Didz Hammond on bass and backing vocals, and Kriss Sonne on drums) played a rousing set that concentrated on Black Rainbows and its predecessor Slow Attack. The album is pressed on dark green vinyl, and the inner sleeve features previously unpublished photos from the rehearsal sessions.
Evie Sands – Shine For Me
What is it: Vinyl album Why buy it: Evie Sands was a Brill Building ingenue and Northern Soul legend and her songs have been covdered by the likes of Spritualized and Spectrum. Johnny Cash said of her: “She’s got the stardust in her eyes, she͛s got silver bells in her voice and you’d think she’s got electricity in her fingers the way she plays that guitar left-handed and upside down.” The album is limited to just 1000 copies worldwide.
The Flaming Lips – The Flaming Lips Onboard The International Space Station Concert For Peace
What is it: Red vinyl album Why buy it: The Flaming Lips Onboard the International Space Station – Concert for Peace – is a re-imagining of seven tracks from the Oczy Mlody album set as a fictional/fantastical live performance of the Flaming Lips on the International Space Station. Sounds like a good enough reason to us.
Follakzoid ft. J. Spaceman – London Sessions
What is it: Vinyl album Why buy it: For London Sessions, Chileans head Follakzoid and Spiritualized’s J. Spaceman join forces for new, live-to-tape renditions of ‘Electric’ and ‘Earth,’ two highlights from Föllakzoid’s III. The recordings were made in a private studio in London while Föllakzoid was on tour in Europe in June 2016, and Spaceman’s contributions breathe new life into the songs.
Goat – Goatfuzz/Goatfizz
What is it: 7” single Why buy it: Goat release an unreleased edit of the track ‘Goatfuzz’ – one of the stand out tracks off their latest album, Requiem, as a special ltd edition 7″ for Record Store Day. The b-side of the 7″ is a brand new track, entitled ‘Goatfizz’ which once again shows another side to the bands take on “world music”. The two-colour “splatter vinyl” 7″ is ltd to 2,000 copies.
Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression: Live At The Royal Albert Hall
What is it: 3 x vinyl LP Why buy it: Iggy Pop’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2016 was, quite simply the best of last year. Of this there can be no debate and we don’t care who your favourite band is. Backed by members of Queens Of The Stone Age Josh Homme, Dean Fertita and Troy Van Leeuwen, and Arctic Monkeys’ Matt Helders, Iggy brings to life his Berlin-era recordings The Idiot and Lust For Life as well as his swansong Post Pop Depression.
Alice Coltrane – Harp Improvisation
What is it: 10″ Why buy it: Alice, John Coltrane’s second wife, was an extraodinary jazz musician (she sadly passed away in 2007). This aptly titled piece is rare live unreleased nine minute solo harp improvisation recorded in Poland in 1987 for the Coltrane Legacy, it features etched lotus flower B side design and is numbered 1 – 1000. This would be a good investment for any serious collector and probably inspire you to buy a harp.
The Congos – Heart of the Congos
What is it: LP Why buy it: Any copy of this seminal reggae album is great to have. But the 40th anniversary edition is special and will be worth a lot more than you pay for it down the line. It contains a recently rediscovered ‘vocal mix’, only on this vinyl pressing and it is limited to only 500 pressings. The cover includes hand painted detail by Tony McDermott which replicates the original modification by Lee Scratch Perry. Shrink wrapped and stickered.
David Bowie – Cracked Actor
What is it: 3xLP Why buy it: A previously unreleased live recording from Los Angeles on 5th September, 1974. This was Bowie at his zenith, the transition between the Diamond Dogs tour and the Philly Dogs tour. Diamond Dogs being his best album. The setlist is sublime.
What is it: X-ray picture disc Why buy it: It’s a unique piece of history. In the 1950s roentgenizdat – or X-ray publishing – became a trend in Soviet Union counterculture. ‘Bone music’ and ‘rock on ribs’ are two other terms that describe these bootleg recordings of music from the West, ingeniously cut onto X-ray film discarded by hospitals. This vinyl disc carries an X-ray image of a spine and pelvis – and a 1967 recording that has its own bootleg history: the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich smuggled it out of the Soviet Union when he was exiled in the 1970s. It is his world premiere performance of the Cello Concerto No. 2 by his teacher and mentor Dmitri Shostakovich, recorded live in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra under Evgeni Svetlanov. This is its first release on LP.
The Doors – Live at The Matrix ’67
What is it: 180g “12 Vinyl Why buy it: This is one of the earliest recordings of the band known to exist and it’s seeing vinyl release for the first time. They were relatively unknown outside of California at this point, you can even here in the background just a few claps between songs which contrasts massively to the live recordings when they’re huge. There’s nothing quaint about the sound of the band, though, and the setlist is incredible. It’s a piece of history that should be sought after by any fan.
Flower Travellin Band – Anywhere
What is it:LP. Why buy it: This 1970 debut album from the legendary Japanese psych rockers is seeing release on numbered coloured vinyl. Predominantly covers, it saw the band adopting a style that would stay with them for their band’s next release, the classic Satori. They’re perfect for fans of Hendrix, King Crimson, and Cream, and although they’re not as commercially successful, they’re no less potent – as their feverish cult following will testify.
The Future Sound Of London – Archived Environmental View
What is it: 180g 3xLP Why buy it: The duo are regularly praised for pushing the boundaries of electronic music experimentation and of pioneering a new era of dance music, and they still sound like the future. This Triple album brings together the two main strands of FSOL’s current output, namely the From the Archives series and the Environments albums. Comprising a total 48 tracks, 35 of them are new or previously unreleased.
The Headhunters – God Make Me Funky
What is it: 7″ Why buy it: This is the sort of release that has vinyl junkies elbowing each other to get at. It’s a rare disco mix version The Headhunters iconic ‘God Make Me Funky’ featuring vocals by The Pointer Sisters. It comes in at 4 minutes, and has only previously been issued as a rare Promotional only 45 in 1975 and has never been reissued on any format since. The original version is on sale on Discogs for £150.
Popol Vuh – Cobra Verde
What is it: LP (Green Vinyl) Why buy it: This is the OST to Werner Herzog’s film Cobra Verde, created by pioneers of German avant garde electronic music, is a tantalising listen. Out of print since 1987, now back available as a gorgeously packaged deluxe vinyl edition, exclusively for Record Store Day 2017. Strictly limited to 1000 copies on green vinyl with printed insert and extensive liner notes. A necessary purchase for both Popol Vuh fans and Herzog collectors.
Penguin Cafe & Cornelius
What is it: LP Why buy it: The combination of Penguin Cafe on piano and strings and Japanese producer Cornelius mastering the electronic soundscape makes for an enticing Umbrella EP. Made exclusively for Record Store Day, the pair reworked and reimagined existing tracks of their own, alongside two new Penguin Cafe songs. Limited to an edition of 1000 copies worldwide.
Sun Ra – Hello Mr. Schimmel
What is it: 7″ Why buy it: A very special release: A previously unreleased Sun Ra solo piano improvisation recorded in June 1990 during an interview with presenter and DJ Jez Nelson at the studios of Jazz FM in London.
Record Store Day Release 2017 limited to 1300 COPIES / 350 Transparent blue mixed into black vinyl .
