NEW ARRIVALS: CDs - Ariel Pink, Emeralds, Henry Jacobs, Ratatat, Omar Souleyman...

v/a AFRICAN PEARLS: Congo - Pont Sur Le Congo 2xCD
*** "A 2xCD sampling of Congolese music from the '60s and '70s combining influences of jazz and European and Cuban music resonating on both sides of the Congo River where Western productions like American rhythm'n'blues, British rock, and French pop also infiltrated the local musical customs. Includes 20-page booklet."

v/a MESSAGE FROM THE TRIBE An Anthology Of Tribe Records: 1972-1976 2xLP+BOOK / CD+BOOK
*** BACK IN PRINT! RECOMMENDED "After Motown, the boom of the car industry and the advances of civil rights in the 1960s, came a decade of governmental abandonment, high unemployment and inner-city violence and urban decay. Tribe (Phil Ranelin, Wendell Harrison, Harold McKinney, Marcus Belgrave) was a collective brought together to fight these negative forces. In the seven years it existed in Detroit, Tribe produced seminal deep jazz and funk albums, published Tribe magazine (featuring local community, music and arts issues) and ran numerous education workshops. This album features the best of the seminal music produced by this legendary Detroit collective." On SOUL JAZZ.

v/a WATCH HOW THE PEOPLE DANCING: Unity Sounds From The London Dancehall, 1986-1989 2xLP / CD
*** "Brilliant, haughty Jamaican avant‐gardism, inspired by Jammy's Sleng Teng explosion, rearing up at a Hackney crossroads in north East London, and facing down techno, hip-hop, breakbeat and rave. Staggering, exhilarating reggae music made by soundmen on a Casio and a drum machine, in a room over Eddie Regal's record shop. A Jamaican secession from London, with themes of inner‐city sufferation running alongside hymns to the dancehall and the herb superb brilliantly mastered by Moritz von Oswald from Basic Channel."

ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI Before Today LP+MP3 / CD
*** RECOMMENDED "As sublime as surreal, Ariel Pink's sound is loaded with hazy nostalgia and a fiercely experimental pop palette. This new album is blowing up & for good reason: it slays. The limited ed. 'Round & Round' 7" sold out in no time & the LP may do the same."

CAVE Psychic Psummer LP / CD
*** RECOMMENDED "Major momentum expertly crafted and embracing maximum minimalism, repetition, Can cloud-bounce & full on heavy chant. Like driving a train full speed off a cliff only to discover that the train can fly and you'll live forever if you stay inside."

THE CHARLATANS U.K. Some Friendly - Expanded 2xCD
*** "The Charlatans debut get the remastered treatment plus a treasure trove of all the releated singles and Peel sessions and more."

DARA PUSPITA Dara Puspita 1966-1968 CD
*** "Dara Puspita (trans. "Flower Girls") was arguably the world's greatest all-female garage rock band. Extremely popular in 1960s Indonesia, the music on this collection is guaranteed to appeal to all fans of the beat a-go-go era of the mid-late 1960s and is a significant missing piece of the global pop music history puzzle. Every single track is a classic, the sound quality is superb, and it should only take one listen to become completely addicted to and charmed by this legendary Indonesian group."

KAREN ELSON The Ghost Who Walks CD
*** "On her debut disc, Karen Elson spins intriguingly unsettling tales of lost love, dashed hope, romantic betrayal and various crimes of passion witnessed only by the full moon. In a coolly inviting voice, strumming an acoustic guitar, she summons up a dark yet seductive atmosphere, an after-midnight world that’s irresistibly alluring."

EMERALDS Does It Look Like I'm Here? CD
*** RECOMMENDED "Integrating complex analog and analog/digital hybrids as well as guitar synthesizers have yielded outstanding results for our heroes. Perfect melodies intertwined with ripping sequences and a new shortened 'pop format' for the jams. Fresh, shiny and totally essential."

EMERALDS Emeralds CD
*** RECOMMENDED "CD version of the sold out self-released/self-titled 2008 LP. Taking the thick drone sound of 'Solar Bridge' into an even more abstract and strange place, this is an intense journey that drops you off in a place just beyond death. Field recording contributions from AARON DILLOWAY."

INCREDIBLE STRING BAND The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter CD
INCREDIBLE STRING BAND The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion CD
*** BACK IN PRINT! Two of Incredible String Band's best albums, hugely influential on everyone from Led Zep to Boards of Canada. Remasterd & looking good, it'll take you one 'net search to read the many praises.

HENRY JACOBS The Wide Weird World Of Henry Jacobs CD/DVD
*** "Henry Jacobs is a sound artist and improviser par excellence with an irreverent sense of humor and a love for musics of the world. From the early 1950s into the 1970s, Jacobs experimented with tape music, staged the early surround sound and visual spectacle Vortex, and developed an array of absurd characters that would pop up as crank callers, relaxation coaches, or upside-down smiling instructors. This CD/DVD collection presents recovered and restored audio as well as rare animated films that will give you a taste of this man's special talents."

KOES BERSAUDARA Koes Bersaudara 1967 CD
*** "Sublime Frequencies is chronicling Indonesian popular music from the late 1950s through the late 1970s. This CD features the first-ever reissue of Koes Bersaudara's two extremely rare and almost impossible-to-find original recordings from 1967 considered by Indonesian music historians as their nation's legendary garage rock masterpiece, not to mention the first record to directly challenge or speak out against the Indonesian government."

PRINS THOMAS Prins Thomas CD
*** "First album from Norwegian disco superstar, Prins Thomas, showcasing Thomas's myriad musical gifts over seven sprawling, ever-evolving, head-nodding, navel-gazing, body-moving, kraut-rocky, mind-mushing tracks, perfectly assembled for an hour-long trip, almost all of it played by the man himself."

RATATAT LP4 LP+MP3 / CD
*** "Conceived during the creative streak that began during the LP3 sessions, LP4 is ‘weirder’ than LP3, with more instruments than ever before, a full string section, and spoken word interludes from Stroszeck and Days Of Heaven."

TERRY RILEY A Rainbow In Curved Air CD
*** BACK IN STOCK! RECOMMENDED "Riley is one of the granddaddies of Minimalism. A spooky & hypnotic masterpiece, the music on this extraordinary disc was made with electric organ, electric harpsichord, "rocksichord," dumbec, tambourine, and soprano saxophone."

OMAR SOULEYMAN Jazeera Nights: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria CD
*** "Omar Souleyman's third Western collection of Syrian street-level dabke folk-pop feat. live recordings spanning 15 years of Omar's tireless repertoire, and is rife with frenzied Syrian dabke, Iraqi choubi and a host of Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish styles."

SPACEMEN 3 Sound Of Confusion CD
SPACEMEN 3 The Perfect Prescription CD
*** BACK IN STOCK! And back in print, we should add, and lookin' good in mini-sleeves.

ARTHUR VEROCAI Arranjos E Composicoes: A Mix By DJ Nuts CD
*** "DJ Nuts is an astute and rigorous historian of Brasil's vast and varied musical culture commissioned to make a mix to illustrate the extraordinary legacy of Arthu Verocai. 78 minutes of all Verocai compositions and arrangements!"