Rolling Reissues 2022

More from Numero 2021 Wrap-Up in-stock sale picks (this first one is on same page, though not out yet):

The bastard love child of Elvis and Lux Interior, Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira brewed a heady amalgam of ’50s trash rock, surf-y tremolo, and reverb-drenched goth during his all-too-brief 44 trips around the sun. He recorded seven albums worth of material in 15 years, primarily issued on CD-R, most of which is now unreadable or in a landfill. Armed with only an Eko guitar, a black tuxedo, and his signature wrap-around shades, Charlie Megira was a mold-breaking artist who disintegrated while we were all staring at our phones.

On his 2000 debut, Da Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic, Megira channels the optimism of post-war America, narcoleptic surf, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack into a lo-fi masterpiece all his own. Sung in both Hebrew and English, Mambo Chic moves at a deliberate pace, unconcerned by the traffic of the modern world and wrapped in a blanket of Tascam 4-track hiss. On “Tomorrow’s Gone” Megira achieves the feat of being so far back in time that he’s somehow living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to arrive.

Da Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic LP out 1/28/22.
https://numerogroup.com/products/charlie-megira-da-abtomatic-miesterzinger-mambo-chic

Lodged between a heartbreak and a smoke break, Kathy Heideman’s Move With Love wandered off I-5 somewhere just south of Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area and broke down. At its dusty roadside, cheap truck-stop java flows over plaintive coffeehouse tunes concerning “Bob” and “Need.” Her session hand’s lanky, echo-laden guitar might’ve twanged a bit strong for the typical sandal-shoed hitchhiker, who’d have fell harder for Dylanesque grandeur on “The Earth Won’t Hold Me.” More Bakersfield than Laurel Canyon, and set to walking in 1976 by the one-off Dia imprint in a plain-Jane, black-on-white sleeve, Heideman’s lone LP suffered the geographical misfortune of having ripened in the pre-silicon orchards of San Jose, California, far from more marketable realms—Emmylou’s backyard, say, or Joni Mitchell’s summery lawn. Heideman herself faded out thereafter, packing her shaken, singular voice into a rustic suitcase, moseying on, and leaping into the moving sun. https://numerogroup.com/products/kathy-heideman-move-with-love

The Unwound album that ended all Unwound albums. Recorded in a moldering farmhouse basement at the crest of the new century, Leaves Turn Inside You is the no-wave response to Spector’s wall of noise call. Infinite layers of choppy guitar stabs and bridge scrapes, guttural bass thronk, thrift store synths, and monotone chanting wash over suffocating rhythms to deliver the world’s only choral grunge LP. Remastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on heavyweight vinyl for the discerning noise-nik.
The 2xLP is back in print on limited edition "Scarlette" color vinyl, packaged in a tip-on gatefold jacket pressed at Record Technology Inc., and we are hoping to get these shipped early January.https://numerogroup.com/products/unwound-leaves-turn-inside-you

2021 Repress features Gold Vinyl.

In 1975, Brooklyn transplant Pepe Willie booked time at Cookhouse Recording Studios in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to demo five original compositions. Without roots in the Twin Cities’ insular scene, Willie had no fixed backing group to help realize the arrangements he and vocalists Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry had been rehearsing. Willie organized a young cast of backing musicians for the session, among them his wife's cousin: a 16-year-old guitar prodigy named Prince Rogers Nelson.

Known colloquially as “The Cookhouse 5” these recordings showcase Prince’s instantly recognizable guitar playing, seasoning to perfection 94 East’s short-but-sweet songbook. A crucial document concerning the origins of the Minneapolis Sound, the B-side boasts instrumental versions of each infectious tune, providing an even greater vantage point from which to admire the Purple One’s expressive playing style, already evident in his teenage years. https://numerogroup.com/products/94-east-the-cookhouse-5

Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these 17 Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing. Collected here are the fruits of Cuca’s documentary approach to record making, capturing the voices and stories of a culture and glacier in abatement.https://numerogroup.com/products/driftless-dreamers-in-cuca-country

A post-modern mixtape of 12 micro-genres created by The Numero Group. Bending the rules of the compilation with a selection of songs bound by their soaring spirit and adventurous approach, REACH is inspirational living for algorithmic times. Available as a limited edition LP (500 copies) with broadsheet liner notes poster or much cheaper compact cassette (200 copies). The only LP guaranteed to save your life during humanity’s apocalyptic demise.https://numerogroup.com/products/reach

Just a couple more from Numero sale stock (maybe I shouldn't have put so many in the same posts, sorry)

Art-house kosmische from the battered basements of pre-9/11 New York. Polyrhythmic screamo for underemployed Gen-Xers and trust fund weed dealers alike. La Mia Vita Violenta, Blonde Redhead’s 1995 sophomore effort, in print as a definitive single LP for the first time since… ever.

“These songs combine a raw need, a ready access to neediness, with seemingly incongruous cinematic changes reminiscent of ‘60s Italian pop music and movie scores. They switch between emotional grandeur and eye scratching immediacy.” —Arto Lindsay
https://numerogroup.com/products/blonde-redhead-la-mia-vita-violenta

This recorded autobiography of Catherine Howe, age 20, briefly appeared in 1971. Too young for memoirs, most artists have barely established any sort of musical competence by the age of legal adulthood, let alone compositions matching the maturity and complexity of Howe’s. What A Beautiful Place, however, is a prodigious effort wrought from the melancholy ruminations of post-adolescence. The album’s twelve songs unfold like a classic bildungsroman, beginning in the smoke-stained industrial county of Yorkshire, transformed by the electrified creative landscape of mid-century London, and retiring to the warm pastoral bliss of the county of Dorset on England’s southern coast. Produced by noted jazz pianist Bobby Scott, the LP—oft-mistaken for a concept album—was available for only a month in the summer of 1971, disappearing after Reflection Records’ shuttering in 1971. https://numerogroup.com/products/catherine-howe-what-a-beautiful-place-50th-anniversary-edition

FRANK ZAPPA’S LEGENDARY 1971 FILLMORE EAST RUN IN NYC AND SHOCKING FINAL RAINBOW THEATRE GIG IN LONDON WITH THE MOTHERS GETS PROPER 50TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION WITH DEFINITIVE EIGHT-DISC BOXED SET, THE MOTHERS 1971

ASTONISHING AMOUNT OF UNRELEASED LIVE MATERIAL UNEARTHED FROM THE VAULT CONTAINS EVERY NOTE PLAYED OVER FOUR SHOWS ACROSS TWO NIGHTS THAT CLOSED FILLMORE EAST, INCLUDING FAMED JOHN LENNON AND YOKO ONO ENCORE; PLUS FULL FINAL SHOW AT RAINBOW THEATRE IN LONDON NEWLY MIXED BY EDDIE KRAMER, BONUS HYBRID HARRISBURG AND SCRANTON, PA CONCERT AND MORE

COMPLETE COLLECTION ALSO AVAILABLE DIGITALLY IN STANDARD AND HI-RES AUDIO

EXPANDED FILLMORE EAST – 1971 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION FEATURING NEW REMASTER OF ORIGINAL ALBUM ALONG WITH BONUS TRACKS AND PERIOD-PERFECT MIXES BY ZAPPA, NOT FOUND ON THE BOXED SET, AND RAINBOW THEATRE CONCERT, TO BE RELEASED CONCURRENTLY AS 3LP SETS

AVAILABLE MARCH 18 VIA ZAPPA RECORDS/UMe

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/Snd4ZGpoQ0tTRkpCeVdIWTBUeWJQZz09/sjr-lp507-life-between-islands-sleeve.jpeg

Life Between Islands
Soundsystem Culture : Black Musical Expression In The UK 1973 - 2006
SOUL JAZZ RECORDS

3×LP£28.00
Expected 28 Jan
2×CD£13.00
Expected 28 Jan

This collection coincides with the launch of Tate Britain’s exhibition of the same name. This landmark exhibition explores the links between Caribbean and British art and culture from the 1950s to now.

Soul Jazz Records album, sub-titled “Soundsystem Culture – Black Musical Expression 1973-2006,” focuses on the most important Black British musical styles to emerge out of the distinctly Caribbean world of sound systems. The album features an all-star line-up including Dennis Bovell, Shut Up and Dance, Cymande, Digital Mystikz, Brown Sugar, Funk Masters, Janet Kay, Ragga Twins and more.

The album is a lightning-rod journey across Roots Reggae, Jungle/Drum & Bass, Jazz-Funk, Lovers Rock, Jazz, Dubstep and more. Much of Soul Jazz Records’ catalogue comes out of these genres and this album is partly an overview of some of Soul Jazz’s earlier releases (including Digital Mystikz’ long-deleted groundbreaking and now highly-collectible single, ‘Misty Winter’) alongside some choice rare and classic tunes that span over 30 years of sound system culture.

Many of the tracks represent how Black British artists defined their own identity with songs such as Brown Sugar’s righteous ‘Black Pride’, ‘I’m In Love with A Dreadlocks’ and Tabby Cat Kelly’s powerful ‘Don’t Call Us Immigrants’. Aside from being musically rooted in the distinctly Jamaican-born phenomenon of the sound system, much of this identity is also shaped by the triangular relationship of being British-born, of Caribbean heritage, and with an equal love of African-American Jazz, Funk and Soul, as evidenced with many Lovers Rock tunes reggae covers of American soul tunes (such as those of Jean Carn, William de Vaughan and Rose Royce featured here). This stateside influence can also be heard in groups such as the Funk Masters, a group formed by reggae radio DJ Tony Williams, whose jazz-funk music successfully crossed over into New York’s clubland, as well as the great Cymande, whose unique street-funk became staple material for numerous US hip-hop artists in the years that followed.

In the early 1990s, jungle and drum and bass artists took the essence of reggae’s soundsystem culture – MCs, dubplates, crews – and applied them to their own music, applying heavy reggae bass lines to intense double-speed drum breakbeats. At the forefront of this new movement were the duo Shut Up and Dance, working closely with The Ragga Twins, aka Deman Rocker and Flinty Badman, both MCs for North London’s infamous Unity reggae soundsytem. In the early 2000s, dubstep, spearheaded by Digital Mystikz, became the latest instalment in this ever-evolving soundsystem culture.

Soul Jazz Records’ ‘Life Between Islands’ shows how these many styles are interconnected. The album comes as a heavyweight triple vinyl (+ download), deluxe double CD with slipcase and digital release. Lloyd Bradley (author of the classic book on reggae ‘Bass Culture’, and ‘Sounds Like London’), provides the excellent sleevenotes, which are also accompanied with exclusive and striking photography.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There is probably no better or more appropriate way to celebrate the Tate Britain’s exhibition, Between the Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now, than with an accompanying compilation album. As with the art itself, music has all the possibilities to reflect its surroundings through an array of lenses limited only by the creator’s imagination. Hence this astutely conceived and compiled soundtrack is as beautiful and as varied as the art itself, offering stories of immigration and settlement that can exist without filters or outside interference, providing a vivid snapshot of one of the cornerstones of black British culture.” Lloyd Bradley

Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now is at Tate Britain 1 Dec 2021 until 3 April 2022.
More info, audio:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/life-between-islands

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/TEJ6RHFaWnhvWHlwL28vRExiVlMzUT09/ethiopian-soul-and-groove.jpg

Ethiopian Soul And Groove - Ethiopian Urban Modern Music Vol. 1
Various Artists
HEAVENLY SWEETNESS

Brilliant compilation of rare Ethiopian music from the 1970s! Has Mulatu Astake left you hungry for more? Then this is the record for you!

Nine brilliant dancefloor tracks from obscure 1970s musicians and singers!
More info, audio:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/ethiopian-soul-and-groove-ethiopian-urban-modern-music-volume-1

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/VjVUVHFxMUtDU1NyRW50VWdrMzRXUT09/mine-kosuke-mine-quintet.jpg

Kosuke Mine Quintet
Mine
LE TRES JAZZ CLUB

Essential Japanese jazz rarity!

Sublime debut album from The Kosuke Mine Quintet, released in 1970 on the legendary Three blind mice label. The record comprises of 4 long pieces of dense, spiritual jazz. A welcome reissue from Le Tres Jazz Club. Recommended!
More info, audio:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/kosuke-mine-quintet-mine

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/akhFejlZYzBPVnRGOGVTcXdlU3pSUT09/101689-300.jpg

Sun Ra
Disco 3000
ART YARD

Legendary session recorded in Milan in 1978, this quartet recording gives John Gilmore, Michael Ray and Luqman Ali the space to improvise and solo more extensively than with the full Arkestra. The result is an astounding synergy of individual virtuosity and group interplay, but it's the man himself who arguably steals the show with the rhythmic atmospherics of "Dance Of The Cosmo Aliens".
More info, audio:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/sun-ra-disco-3000

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/bnY0QVEzRFp5MmsvbzM4NlVsamtNQT09/latin-underground-revolution-vol-3-ansonia-records-rare-groove-mambo-boogaloo-descarga-salsa-from-nyc-1960-1976-various-artists.jpg

Latin Underground Revolution, Vol. 3: Ansonia Records Rare Groove: Mambo, Boogaloo, Descarga & Salsa from NYC, 1960-1976
Various Artists
ROCAFORT RECORDS

More info, audio:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/latin-underground-revolution-vol-3-ansonia-records-rare-groove-mambo-boogaloo-descarga-salsa-from-nyc-19601976

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/bnY0QVEzRFp5MmsvbzM4NlVsamtNQT09/latin-underground-revolution-vol-3-ansonia-records-rare-groove-mambo-boogaloo-descarga-salsa-from-nyc-1960-1976-various-artists.jpg
Sorry!

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/NE9RMWFrZ3BYMzFVbjNLRitFSXdTdz09/endless-summer-gatefold-vinyl-edition-fennesz.jpg

Fennesz
Endless Summer (Expanded Edition)
EDITIONS MEGO

Expanded reissue of Fennesz's groundbreaking, electronic/experimental guitar classic from 2001. Features 'Ohne Sonne' and '47 Blues' previously only available on the Japenese CD versions, as well as an new extended version of 'Happy Audio' exclusive to this release.
More info, audio:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/fennesz-endless-summer

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/RGlXZjNPbHNYeTgwd1B0TWwyMW1HUT09/0027066062-10.jpg

The D-Vine Spirituals Records Story Vol. 1
Various Artists
BIBLE & TIRE RECORDING CO.

In 1970, while the United States was recovering from the tumultuous unrest of the sixties and Southern segregationist George Wallace was between bids for the presidency, a young black preacher and an aging hillbilly bandleader struck up a friendship in a coffee shop in downtown Memphis. For the next decade and a half, record producer Juan D. Shipp and studio engineer Clyde Leoppard embarked on a musical journey that produced some of the most stirring sacred soul music ever laid to tape. Behold the story of Shipp's D-Vine Spirituals record label, told here for the very first time since its 45 RPM glory days.
More info:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/the-dvine-spirituals-records-story-vol-1
Second volume:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/the-dvine-spirituals-records-story-volume-2

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/cmV1VDJBQTFWeHJ4Z2NsVFFTbXNBUT09/oc-roundtrip-cover-3000x3000.jpg

Ornette Coleman
Round Trip: Ornette Coleman on Blue Note (Tone Poet Edition)
BLUE NOTE
6×LP Box set £230.00
Expected 28 Jan

Iconoclastic saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman shook the jazz world when he arrived at the Five Spot Café in New York City in 1959 and began his run of seminal albums on Atlantic that laid the foundation for the free jazz movement to come. After a period of disillusionment during which he withdrew from public music making, Coleman re-emerged on Blue Note in 1966 and began writing an intriguing new chapter of his legendary career.

The boxset Round Trip: Ornette Coleman On Blue Note presents all-analog 180g Tone Poet Vinyl Editions of all six albums featuring Coleman that were recorded for Blue Note Records, including his five albums as a leader—the two-volume At The ‘Golden Circle’ Stockholm (1965), The Empty Foxhole (1966), New York Is Now! (1968), and Love Call (1968)—as well as his lone sideman appearance on New And Old Gospel (1967) by fellow saxophonist Jackie McLean. The boxset includes a booklet featuring rare photos and an enlightening essay by critic Thomas Conrad.

The Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series is produced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tape 180g audiophile vinyl reissues packaged in deluxe Stoughton Printing “Old Style” Gatefold Tip-On Jackets.
(unperson says no bonus tracks)
More info:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/round-trip-ornette-coleman-on-blue-note

In here to mention the project Norske albumklassikere på CD (Norwegian Album Classics on CD), in case it is of interest to anyone here: At the start of 2021, a couple of guys with a record label began a series of crowdfunding projects with the aim of releasing CDs of Norwegian albums never before released in that format (or at best with very limited CD releases). This unsurprisingly mostly means stuff from the 1980s and earlier.

At any time, there are about 20 projects up, each running for 30 days with a target of NOK 30000, (about USD 3400 / GBP 2500 / EUR 3000), corresponding to ~150 people buying a CD at NOK ~200. If the target is reached, a remastering is done and a run of copies is made (I think in the 300-500 range), and the issue is added to the catalogue. If it is not reached, the money is refunded.

The interest turned out to be considerable; during 2021, something north of 200 projects were successful (and only a low-double-digit number unsuccessful, if I understand things right). I expect a lot of the releases are of interest primarily to Norwegians (and many probably for nostalgic reasons as much as anything), but certainly not exclusively. I think I've heard that contributing to the crowdfunding is problematic from abroad(?), but buying from the catalogue should work, I believe(?). There are naturally a few months' lag between addition to the catalogue and actual production and distribution, btw.

Links (mostly in Norwegian):
Home page with catalogue
Currently crowdfunded projects
Facebook group
Discogs page (updated up to #178 of 216 as of now)

(For the record: I have nothing to do with this myself.)

Didn't Sunbeam do an Oriental Sunshine several years ago? Just seen that lp on the Home page link.

In addition to the Blue Note Ornette box, Craft Recordings is reissuing his first two albums, Something Else!!!! and Tomorrow is the Question!, as a 2LP or 2CD set in March.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACBYq-VWre8

Didn't Sunbeam do an Oriental Sunshine several years ago? Just seen that lp on the Home page link.

So it seems. And not that hard to find, it would seem. Maybe an oversight.

https://mcusercontent.com/a5ba45cdc0b267a9b6457e3cd/images/d59bf679-3173-593b-c9e0-dde8989381e0.jpeg

Norma Tanega’s I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971 is a comprehensive survey of the pioneering folk artist’s two commercially released studio albums, an unreleased album, and a trove of unheard demos.

Before playing a pivotal part in folk music’s cultural crossover in the ‘60s, Tanega was a curious little girl born at the very end of the ‘30s to a multicultural Navy family in Long Beach, California. Her parents often brought her to Los Angeles for piano lessons, and eventually Tanega earned an MFA at Claremont College, where she studied classical composers like Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin. Amidst her academic pursuits, Tanega learned to play acoustic guitar and autoharp by following Joan Baez records and hanging out at the Folk Music Center, a music store and performance space in Claremont that exists to this day.

After college, Tanega landed in Greenwich Village in 1963, and became active in the coffee house scene and early protests against the Vietnam War. Working summers as a camp counselor in the Catskill Mountains, the up-and-coming producer and arranger Herb Bernstein caught Tanega perform at the camp, and introduced her to songwriter Bob Crewe. The trio found their first collaborative success in 1966 when Tanega’s “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog” rocketed to #22 on the American and British charts (#3 in Canada). Her debut full-length of the same name followed that year, which saw her perform on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and Where The Action Is, and tour North America with artists including Gene Pitney and Bobby Goldsboro.

That same year, Tanega traveled to England to tour in support of Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog. During rehearsals for the British music television show Ready Steady Go!, Tanega met Dusty Springfield. The pair became fast friends, then partners in a committed long-distance relationship. Tanega moved to London to be with Springfield, for whom she also went on to write and co-write a number of songs.

While in London, in 1969 Tanega recorded Snow Cycles, a second album that would never see the light of day, and I Don’t Think it Will Hurt if You Smile, eventually released with little fanfare in 1971. As heard on the first half of I’m the Sky, the same whimsical and joy-filled spirit guides all three of Tanega’s studio albums, and provides a colorful stage for her idiosyncratic meter and songwriting. Tanega’s lyrics touch on love and adoration to introspection and melancholy, while her music offers an eclectic take on popular folk-rock and psychedelic sound of the late ‘60s.

The second half of I’m the Sky opens a rare and intimate window into Tanega’s songwriting process with a collection of demos discovered in Tanega’s Claremont home. Unfettered by instrumentation save for a single guitar on most songs, Tanega’s voice soars across the mid-range and above the six string reverberations, openly musing on life and love. More than merely sketches, the demos capture an essence of Tanega’s songcraft, and a tangible translation of the emotional range which sets her work apart from the banality in certain folk music of the era.

In 1972, Tanega returned to Claremont and shifted focus to her visual arts, teaching ESL, and participating in her surrounding community of LGBTQ experimental artists. She kept recording and performing music with a number of local groups as well. While Tanega, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 80, is essential to California’s legacy of folk and experimental music, she’s also essential to the canon of folk-rock writ large. Tanega left behind an exceptional catalog of music encapsulated in part on I’m the Sky, but, more than anything, she left an enduring expression of what it is to be free.

https://intl.shop.mexicansummer.com/release/288340-norma-tanega-im-the-sky-studio-and-demo-recordings-19641971

Karen Dalton's In My Own Time (50th Anniversary Edition)is out now, remastered with bonus tracks: all streaming here, with the KD backstory and overview: https://karendalton.bandcamp.com/album/in-my-own-time-50th-anniversary-edition

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3292896630_10.jpg