Roots
Deeper Roots

Muriel Grossmann’s new album is a great opportunity to experience the energy of a live performance. UNION was recorded in early autumn of 2019 during a two-day recording session in Mallorca studio Caja Del Ruido. In the context of this record and the previous ones, we can clearly talk about Muriel Grossmann’s music as a style of music that is distinctive and recognizable from the very first note. This is music performed with a great artistic concentration, integrity and energy. Released on a 12" heavyweight vinyl record in old-style sleeve with spot matte varnish on top of glossy laminate. Includes insert with liner notes and band photos. Edition of 1500 ex.

DE269 - US - 2019Patrick Cowley was one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the canon of electronic dance music. Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study music at the City College of San Francisco. By the mid ’70s, Patrick’s synthesizer techniques landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco diva Sylvester, including hits like “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, “Dance (Disco Heat)” and “I Need Somebody To Love Tonight.” This helped Patrick obtain more work as a remixer and producer. Cowley created his own brand of peak time party music known as Hi-NRG, also dubbed “The San Francisco Sound.” By 1981, Patrick had released a string of his own dance 12″ singles, like “Menergy” and “Megatron Man”. He also co-founded Megatone Records, the label upon which he released his debut album, Megatron Man. Around this time Patrick was hospitalized and diagnosed with an unknown illness: that which would later be called AIDS. Throughout 1982, he composed two more Hi-NRG hits, “Do You Wanna Funk” for Sylvester, and “Right On Target” for Paul Parker, as well as a second solo album Mind Warp. His life was cut short on November 12, 1982, when he passed away 24 days after his 32nd birthday from AIDS-related illness.Mechanical Fantasy Box is a new collection of 13 unreleased songs recorded between 1973-80 released in tandem with Cowley’s homoerotic journal of the same title. Featuring Patrick’s first electronic compositions in the Electronic Music Lab at CCSF when synthesizers were new technology to songs made at his semi-professional studio on Minna Street equipped with an Oberheim DS-2 digital sequencer. The sounds flows from funk to kraut to psychedelic ambient electronics inspired by Tomita and Krafterwerk. As Maurice Tani wrote in the liner notes that accompany this release, “What you hold in your hand is a collection of Cowley's work from the years preceding his meteoric rise as a pioneer of Hi-NRG dance music. This was before drum machines. Before programmable, polyphonic digital synthesis. This was before “cutting edge”. This was experimental music in every sense.”Some songs were mixed from 4-track stems by Joe Tarantino and all songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studio in Berkeley, CA. The vinyl comes housed in a black and white gatefold jacket designed by Gwenaël Rattke featuring a photograph by Susan Middleton and include an essay from music partner Maurice Tani and an 8.5x11 insert with notes. Proceeds from Mechanical Fantasy Box will be donated to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, who have been committed to ending the pandemic and human suffering caused by HIV since 1982.

McKenzie & Gardiner "Got To Get Away 2020 / From Time" by McKenzie & Gardiner

We are delighted to present a raw, young talent from Copenhagen - the city of fairy tales. Indeed, Parks at Night, the debut album from 17 years old Teis Ortved, could very easily provide the soundtrack for a recently unearthed Hans Christian Anderson story. In fourteen moves, the devoted multi-instrumentalist tells us the tale of his relatively short journey so far with confidence that belies his age. There's no ego or showboating here as this modest musician brings together seemingly disparate technologies with apparent ease, marrying sequenced beats and plaintive pianos overlaid by ethereal vocals that take his very special music somewhere other-worldly.To fully appreciate Teis' universe we need to dip a toe into his upbringing, his wonder years and the family unit that has had so much influence on his fascinating musical output. Both his father and mother are musicians - the former having previously been a drummer in a danish band, and almost from birth, Teis would sleep backstage at his parents shows. Teis has been immersed in music his whole life - even his sister is a renowned violinist. There was no escape from the arts in the Ortved household, nor was there been any desire to do so, which probably explains the sense of calmness in Teis' productions. His music feels like a pleasure; a natural outlet; one that's never been stifled and always been encouraged.

Sikiza Matshikiza by Pat Matshikiza

Shrimp Boats by Lionel Pillay feat. Basil Mannenberg CoetzeeAssembling unreleased recordings from 1979 and 1980, Shrimp Boats is a South African jazz archival compilation from 1987 built around its epic side-long title track featuring saxophonist Basil "Mannenberg" Coetzee. The recording was made during pianist Lionel Pillay's November 1979 session with Coetzee for the As-Shams/The Sun album Plum and Cherry. Side Two is composed of material recorded in September 1980 from the session for Lionel Pillay's Deeper in Black album. The 1951 pop standard "Shrimp Boats" was first given its unlikely jazz arrangement by Abdullah Ibrahim (recording as Dollar Brand) in 1971. Pillay and Coetzee take this seed of an arrangement to its furthest reaches with their mesmerising performance. Although the title track casts a big shadow, Pillay's "Slow Blues for Orial" is a welcome original composition on the flip side that stands proudly next to a rare 1970s cover of Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi's "Yakhal 'Inkomo" (Pillay was the pianist on Mankunku's original 1968 recording) featuring saxophonists Barney Rachabane and Duke Makasi. The set closes with a nod to the contemporaneous jazz fusion scene with a take on Weather Report's "Birdland" from 1977.