Song

	5UU's: Crisis In Clay Code:ReR5UU2 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Second Installment from monster band 5UU's, featuring rock complexity, extraordinary production (by bassist and singer Bob Drake) and high energy precision mixed with eccentric song-writing. People that work this hard are becoming an endangered species. Extraordinary.
	5UU's: Hunger's Teeth Code:ReR5UU1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
The re-formed 5UU's first CD, featuring, one-of-a-kind drummer Dave Kerman with new line-up- Sanjay Kumar (keyboards) and Bob Drake (Bass, Guitar, Vocals) and guests Susanne Lewis, Tom Dimuzio, and James Grigsby. Power, complexity and intelligence - an express train that can pirouette on a dime.
	9RAIN: 9Rain Code:X0PCD34 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
I don't know how many of you follow me down this path - not many judging by the sales of other examples, but here is another who writes straightforward but somehow great songs. This came completely out of the blue. The singer, songwriter and sometimes wind player is Steven Brown (Americano), the rest of band are Mexican. The music is steady- near rock, with a latin edge and no machismo, including flugelhorn, trumpet, winds and, when needed, 3 female backup singers. Extremely well arranged and perfectly played. Subject matter, text, delivery exemplary. Atmosphere Lowry-Beneath the Volcano-esque. It's a rare achievement. Nice design too. Mexican import of uncertain supply.
	AA KISMET: What's the use of crying when the wolves have arrived? Code:Z60991 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
AAK is Lukas Simonis and Bob Drake with various guests on some tracks (inc Deborah Perry, Pierre Bastien, David Kerman). A CD of songs in bent 60's, 70's, timeless styles, immaculately produced.
	AA KISMET: Where's the rest of me? Code:ADM32975CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Dull Schicksal svengali Lukas Simonis, drummer Cor Hoogerdijk and singer Eveline Ketterings with Bob Drake playing and producing.
	AFTER DINNER: Paradise of Replica Code:ReRAD2 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Long out of print, the second and last After Dinner LP with 4 additional recent radical remixes. This is a classic.
	ALLEN, DAEVID, HUGH HOPPER, CHRIS CUTLER: BRAINVILLE 3: Trial by Headline Code:ReRBV3-1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Three old hands out of Soft Machine, Gong and Henry Cow stretch already flexible musical material into one shape after another, then tie it in knots and generally have a fun with it. High quality recordings combined with seat-of-the-pants playing keep the tension high, underpinning a richly labile music, full of shape and colour that is constantly in motion. Compiled from recent concert recordings in Berlin, London and Tel Aviv, this clutch of extended songs should be to the taste of anyone familiar with the protagonists - or who longs to hear a little more straightforward instrumental playing in place of computers, heavy processing and sanitised post production. Brainville offers you tightrope walking, imagination, fast thinking, and a seasoned musicality: a social music, played by old friends, that blithely goes its own way.
	ART BEARS: Rats and Monkeys/Collapse Code:RR7904 Price: £7.00 Quantity in Basket: none
	ART BEARS: The World As It Is Today (vinyl) Code:Re6622 Price: £17.04 Quantity in Basket: none
THIS IS A VINYL RELEASE
	AYERS, KEVIN and The WHOLE WORLD: Hyde Park Free Concert Code:RR002 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Summer 1970 and a great band that drew in Lol Coxhill (national treasure), David Bedford (enfant terrible), Mike Oldfield (wildly over-qualified bass-player) and both Robert Wyatt and bandleader Kevin Ayers (respectively current and ex Soft Machiners). Someone recorded it all, and here, cleaned up as much as possible, are the traces. '70s PA system, big noisy space, wind blowing the sound about; it's all engraved into this CD. And through the lo-fi you can hear what made this period so interesting; bands didn't try to sound alike, they took risks, they shuffled up the genres and they found their own way to a musical language that was full of ideas, details and imagination. The Whole World was exemplary, and you can just about hear what it was all about here. Fans will like it, researchers will be informed and it's nice to hear Robert in this fluid, melodic context; if you were there, this will bring it all back; but doubters should go first to the studio CDs. These are precious documents, however.
	BAILEY, Denio & Palmer: The Gospel Record Code:SRRCD004 Price: £12.93 Quantity in Basket: none
Amy and sometimes Dennis sing Gospel songs. Derek plays the guitar, Dennis Synthesiser and Samples. This is not improvised music, as known, it is rather stretched arrangements of Gospel music. It's great to hear Derek in this context - as with the great ‘Ballads', it's a rare occasion on which he leavens the abstractly free with the generic, melodic and harmonic and it suits him. More of this. Palmer orchestrates with taste and imagination. Amy does some daring and some risky things and holds everything together. Altogether a fine release. Short. 7 songs. But who need quantity when there's quality to be had.
	BIDZILIBA: RocQ Code:FMC022 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
See below - they just get better.
	BIDZILIBA: Uchu Code:FMC017 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Songs, pop songs, simple - fairly -, transparent, perfectly arranged and extremely engaging. Singer Fuchigami Junko has a very personal style and great pitching. .Bass and tuned percussion are exquisitely placed. Not an earthquake but a small gem. Japanese import.
	BING SELFISH: The art of selfishness Code:BINGSELFISHTheartofselfishness Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Another grainy low rent message from the undisputed voice of his generation, last of the great cryers in the wilderness, now exiled in a cave somewhere in the teeming souks of the south. This new message to the faithful tackles the topics a supine brit-pack prefers not to face: Geoffrey Archer, Accountancy, being busted on the tube, Bovicide, Financial Advisors, Alcohol and the New Economic Policy. Not to forget Alcohol, Laudanum and a paean to Andre Breton. With his guitar, a small band and some sound effects, Bing proves again that sybarites can still find the time to be bitter and twisted, as well as snacking on lotuses. My Coup DÕetat. A dilly. Fans of Bing will be happy.
	BIOTA: Object Holder Code:ReRBCD4 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Stunning work that breaks new ground; an extraordinary achievement that was 3 years in the making and rewrote lot of rules in passing. With texts and singing by the inimitable Susanne Lewis, the CD also features contributions from Charles Vrtacek (Piano), Andy Kredt (Guitar) and Chris Cutler (percussion, electrics, and some texts). A Dense, profound field of sound, music and silence.
	BITTOVA, IVA/VLADIMIR VACLAVEC: Bile Inferno (dbl) Code:MAM055-2 Price: £23.27 Quantity in Basket: none
Iva on top form and multi-tracked with the great Vladimir V and playing, between them, violin, electronics, guitar, mandolin, kailimba, percussion and singing, with numerous guests, including Tom Cora. A very great collection of complex, subtle and inventive pieces, exquisitely arranged and full of surprises. Piled up cycles of strange additive rhythms with winding interpolations, in the Dunaj style, but in a layered soundscape .. My personal favourite work of Iva's for a while. Two CD's in a substantial box with a fat book of texts and photographs. Pretty indispensable.
	BLEGVAD, PETER: Choices Under Pressure Code:RES143CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A hard one. Peter calls this an acoustic retrospective - it was rushed through to coincide with the official release of his wonderful book. There are two new songs here, the rest are lite revisitations of old material, with John Greaves and Danny Thompson, variously, on basses and Jackko Jakszyk playing guitar, percussion, keyboards and some other things. So, an easy listening Blegvad, with the edge shaved off, though I'm sure a lot of people will like it. Reservations: because I consider Peter to be a great talent, my disappointment is based, I guess unfairly, firstly on comparisons with existing versions of these songs, some of which, like "King Strut", "That'll Be Him Now" and "Daughter", really lose out, and secondly on the general toothlessness of the whole enterprise. I have to ask why? These aren't radical revisions (such as Dylan is a master of) and they aren't solo singer-songwriter versions either. I'm afraid, as the title suggests but doesnÕt excuse, the why? answer seems to be- in order to have some product to market with the book. But thatÕs just me - and I'll bet mine is a minority view. It's just that from Peter I expect much, much more.
	BLEGVAD, PETER: Hangman's Hill Code:ReRPB3 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
13 new songs from el maestro with the standard trio featuring John Greaves and Chris Cutler, and guests B.J.Cole, Geraint Watkins, Adam X, Chris Stamey, Bob Drake and Stoffer Blegvad. Listen to a sample of this release
	BLEGVAD, PETER: Just Woke Up Code:ReRPB2 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
For my money, the best yet. Great songs performed by Peter, John Greaves, Chris Cutler and various guests including B.J. Cole, Kristoffer Blegvad and Jakko Jakszykx. Roll back the carpet, turn up the stereo. Listen to a sample of this release
	BLEGVAD, PETER: King Strut & other stories Code:What9CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Fine song album, back in print. With guests including BJ Cole, Anton Fier, Syd Straw, Stoffer Blegvad, Andy Partridge, Peter Holdsapple, Chris Stamey.
	CARDEW, CORNELIUS / PLM: Consciously Code:mncd009 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A collection of 27 songs by Cardew and/or People's Liberation Music - the agitprop band Cardew worked with between 1972-80. In support of strikes and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), at demonstrations, socials and in factories, combating racism, police brutality and imperialism, PLM, armed only with a quiver full of earnest, clunky and often rather ungainly songs, merged traditional melodies, workers' songs and pop clichés in pursuit of some sort of proletarian authenticity. Their sympathies were in the right place - and certainly they worked selflessly for the causes they espoused (mainly the chimera of 'the' revolution), but musically they seemed wilfully to betray their own culture and talents, while at the same time failing completely to understand the people or the cultural forms they so earnestly aped. The problem seemed to be that, at root, their work didn't grow out of their experience but was imposed upon it in the name of theory. In fact, the forms of folk, rock and pop seemed positively antithetical to them. Nevertheless, they soldiered on, as if wrapping themselves in wool might yet turn them into sheep. Particularly at the level of political and aesthetic failure, this music rewards attention: It ticks so many of the right boxes - so why doesn't it work? One obvious lack is any understanding of the role of the human voice in the forms they adopt; only Cardew, in a composition of his own, manages to find a voice that seems actually to inhabit the song he is singing. Cornelius, Keith Rowe and Hugh Shrapnel feature on many of these recordings, Dave Smith, Evan Parker and Pip Pyle make appearances, John Tilbury is credited as the co-composer of a proposed PLM single (never released) and, importantly, these are mostly recovered documents from the time, not recent reconstructions - though individual annotation is poor in what are otherwise very useful notes). A very British document.
	CASSIBER/GROUND ZERO: Live in Tokyo/Ground Zero remix (dbl) Code:ReRCGZ2 Price: £20.00 Quantity in Basket: none
This is a collection of pieces developed from and using the live recordings of Cassiber's Tokyo performance by Otomo Yoshihide and Ground Zero. This is also in part a tribute, and it is the last recording of Ground Zero, marking the end of Otomo's main project of the last 7 years. Taken together, these have much to say about the connections, innovations and changes at the musical boundaries between the mid 80's and late 90's. Listen to a sample of this release
	CASSIBER: A Face We All Know Code:ReRCCD Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Christoph Anders, Heiner Goebbels, and Chris Cutler. "A Face" breaks new ground altogether; it is a single work with texts by Chris Cutler, Rainald Geotz and Thomas Pynchon and documents the last days of a political nightmare. Beginners start here. Listen to a sample of this release
	CHARMING HOSTESS: Punch Code:ReRCH1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A few of you will already have heard either the Hostess's first wild American release or founder Jewlia Eisenberg's ear-opening Tzadik CD of last year. The Hostesses here are an extraordinary 7 piece band, tight, a little rockish, comprising bass, drums, guitar, fiddle, various horns, accordion and other occasional instruments (singing saw, for instance) - but the work is distinguished by the amazing vocal arrangements (everyone sings, and exceptionally). Additive rhythms stretched harmonies, pinpoint playing; this is evolved material, executed with great skill - and great looseness. Some traditional pieces from Bulgaria, Palestine, Transylvania and Southern America appear in very personalised arrangements alongside original songs that go way beyond world music genres.
	CONVENTUM: A L'affut 'un Complot Code:MPM12 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A very welcome reissue of this seminal Quebequois ensemble, first released in 1977, a project of a tireless Andre Duchesne featuring himself, Rene Lussier and Jean-Pierre Bouchard (all manner of guitars and mandolins - and all of whom re-emerged later, electrified, in Les Quatre Guitaristes de L'Apocalpso-bar), Bernard Cormier and Charles Kaczynski (violin, viola, cello, metallophone), Michel Therrien (oboe, alto sax), Jacques Laurin (electric and contra bass) and Alain-Arthur Painchaud (texts, occasional speech). Two percussionists and 5 singers also appear as guests throughout. Andre is the main singer, and though many tracks are songs, the material is mainly instrumental. Highly orchestrated, beautifully executed and detailed writing mingles acoustic and electric languages, folklore, progressive rock and contemporary music (Bartok) in an uncategorieseable melange. They undoubtedly would have been inducted into RIO had that organisation survived longer. And many will remember them from the recommended sampler. This CD contains the entire first LP with 7 extra tracks taken from a live concert in 1977. Great and enduring compositions. Nicely repackaged with good notes in French and English. Essential
	CONVENTUM: Le bureau Central Des Utopies Code:MPM13 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Second and last release from this important band. Now stripped back to a quartet (Duchesne, Lussier, Cormier and Laurin, with Painchaud still on board) they remained equally inventive and versatile. Actually more so, by some distance. This is a record that sets a standard extraordinarily hard to beat. The title track is breathtakingly accomplished and imaginative and there are two great, and long, extra tracks. If you like one of these CDs you will want both. Again, nicely repackaged with good notes in French and English.
	COOPER, LINDSAY: Rags/The Golddiggers Code:ReRLCD Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Consists of the whole of the LP previously issued as Re/arc and most of "The Golddiggers". Featuring Lindsay Cooper, Sally Potter, Phil Minton, Georgie Born, Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Marilyn Mazur, Kate Westbrook, Collette Lafont, Eleanor Sloan, Lol Coxhill and Dave Holland. Explores the song form as so many of the early post Henry Cow records by ex alumni did. With a full book of texts and pictures (74+ minutes). Listen to a sample of this release
	COOPER, LINDSAY: Oh Moscow Code:VICTOCD015 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Lindsay Cooper, Phil Minton, Sally Potter, Marilyn Mazur, Hugh Hopper, Alfred Harth, Elvira Plenar. Long awaited release of the highly praised Cooper/Potter 1988 project group.
	CURLEW: Beautiful Western Saddle Code:RUNE50 Price: £12.00 Quantity in Basket: none
With Amy Denio. For me this is the first really outstanding work by a group that is full of great players. And the addition of Amy is inspired.
	DENIO, AMY: Birthing Chair Blues Code:KFWCD-111 Price: £5.00 Quantity in Basket: none
Amy solo with her best so far, playing guitar, bass, saxes like a demon and singing better than ever. Strong arrangements, exact and exiting use of musical sound, and beautiful, seductive recording. Lyrical, tough, mysterious in proportions not available elsewhere. Amy's is a unique voice, as player, singer and composer. Addictive repeated listening and highly recommended.
	DOMACI KAPELA: Jedne Noci Snil Code:R0010 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Legacy of the PPU. An excellent Suite of Songs, with a highly distinctive harmonic signature, fine singing, good arrangements, light but authoritative drums and concise guitar. There is still life in Rock and Roll.
	DRAKE, BOB: The Skull Mailbox Code:CTA9 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
The strangest so far. Mostly songs; a lot of acoustic instruments, a lot of unidentifiable sounds, a lot of fragments borne on a wind from somewhere else; bizarre picking interludes, humour (maybe) and snatches of incandescent playing. You can't pin this one down; it's full of twists and turns and a geometry that doesn't quite add up. Seemingly casual, there's not an ounce of fat on it, and the production - or anti-production - is, on repeated listening, quite extraordinary. Impressive. Listen to a sample of this release
	DRAKE, BOB: Medallion Animal Carpet Code:CTA7 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A rollercoaster of a record - intensely musical and highly attentive to the quality of sound - only not in the usual directions. This is what happens when a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and engineer gets to do what he wants his own way, free of the norms of the musical and production values most everyone else is running after. If you think you've heard it all here's something else again. The closest to a description would be his previous CD "Little Black Train". Listen to a sample of this release
	DRAKE, BOB: The Shunned Country Code:ReRCTA Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A collection of 52 very short songs on uncanny themes, illustrated in the exquisite 24p full-colour booklet with a set of 20 commissioned paintings by Ray O'Bannon. Perhaps the scariest thing is that each of these miniatures is a fully formed, fully orchestrated and complete structure - no lazy snippets here - and Bob plays all the parts with his famously Paganini-esque virtuosity in spooky variable tempo synchrony, packing more ideas and material into 50 seconds than many manage on an entire album. You think I exaggerate? A paltry 11 pounds will settle the question once and for all. Classic. Listen to a sample of this release
	DULL SCHICKSAL: Ambush Code:AMF1057 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Latest and possibly last bulletin from this formation. Another collection of songs large and small, bizarre and almost normal. Some gems. Recorded and mixed by Bob Drake.
	DULL SCHICKSAL: Dikke Mannen Code:ADM24975 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
Songs. Bizarre arrangements, impressive playing and some musically lateral thinking. A sound collection with plenty going on. As usual, exquisite graphics and design work.
	DULL SCHICKSAL: Dull's Dullest Vol 2. Code:FLOATING102 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
See above.
	DULL SCHICKSAL: Herfstblad'ren Code:AMF1043 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
encore
	DUNAWAY, JUDY: and the Evan Gallagher Little Band Code:AMF1036 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
With a lot of classy guests, extraordinary songstress and guitarist JD breaks as many popsong rules as she can think of, to great effect. Sharp, funny, musically interesting, good songs. Drummer EG fits like a glove.
	EC NUDES, THE: Vanishing Point Code:ReRN1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
The (ec) nudes are- Amy Denio, Listen to a sample of this release
	EGG: The Metronomical Society Code:CD69-7202 Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks. For my money one of the most interesting and least acknowledged of the groups of the early '70s, explorers of additive rhythms, complex through-composition and occasional stretches of psychedelic noise. They released three CDs in their lifetime, all still intermittently available, but this collection - all of unreleased recordings complied by the band (mostly from radio broadcasts and well recorded live performances between 1969 and 1972) gives the best impression of the scope and talent of their very substantial enterprise. Released on their own label in a solid digpack with an excellent and informative 20pp booklet, this has some great - and really original - music on it.
	FOMOFLO: Slug and Firearms Code:MOMUS005 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A remarkable meeting of Amy Denio and the legendary Hoppy Kamiyama with Dennis Gunn, Tada Makio, Honda Tatsuya and on two tracks The Billy Tipton Memorial Sax Quartet. Enormous sound and a lot of wild music here, mostly songs and mostly big rock, but excellently done. A pretty remarkable piece of work.
	FRITH, FRED / COSA BRAVA: Ragged Atlas Code:INTAKTCD161 Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Fred's latest touring band with Carla Kihlstedt (violin, nykelhapa, bass harmonica, voice), Zeena Parkins (keyboards, accordion, foley objects, voice), Matthias Bossi (drums, percs, voice) - and sound engineer/manipulator The Norman Conquest. Fred plays Guitar, Bass and sings. These are all tightly composed, economically arranged, layered and rhythm driven pieces; some are songs. There are many skeleton crew echoes in the form, though extended forward in time, experience and technology. A lot of great playing and intriguing compositions.
	FRITH, FRED /HENRY KAISER: Friends and Enemies double CD Code:Rune117/118 Price: £20.56 Quantity in Basket: none
Reissue of the two now classic LP's 'With Friends Like These' and 'Who Needs Enemies', plus an unreleased album of live material plus 27 minutes of newly recorded pieces.
	FRITH, FRED: Cheap at half the price Code:ReRFRO Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Fred's third LP for Ralph Records, back in 1983, was a collection of four-track home studio songs (and a couple of instrumental pieces) in which Fred played all the instruments (exceptions: two bass cameos from Tina Curran and Bill Laswell, and some great drum samples from Hans Bruinnsson. Causing raised eyebrows at the time (from, as Fred calls them 'progressive music snobs' - of which I guess I was one) for its apparent simplicity and departure from what was then thought of as Fred Style, this work has matured with age and perspective and no longer seems (to this former critic) to stand outside the oeuvre, but rather to exemplify a persistent strand within it. Echoes appear in many later works. In context it's a record that makes sense - what was all the fuss about? - and it has become a record that's refreshing to listen to. And political - political and personal. In fact, as well as being a very rewarding, darkish, toe-tapper of a record, it seems also to have tapped an important biographical moment. There are some great guitar sounds, production ideas and of course the expected exemplary playing of everything, all the time. A good argument for reissues. Very nicely re-mastered, and in a nice new package.
	GOEBBELS, HEINER: Eislermateriel Code:ECMnewseries1779 Price: £15.00 Quantity in Basket: none
Heiner has studied, played, absorbed and reworked the music of Hans Eisler from his earliest performing days, and in this tribute, all that respect and immersion finds expression in an exquisite programme of arrangements, treatments and extensions that retain the strange intense fragility of Eisler's melodic settings. No one else wrote tunes like this - at once so moving and so unsentimental. Wisely, Heiner chose an actor to sing, where singing was required, whose voice - remarkably like Eisler's own - is just sufficiently untrained, human and fallible. Written in the worst of times, these pieces chronicle the transfiguration of despair into resistance, or at least a kind of beauty. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Heiner succeeding so completely not only to respect and reflect upon Eisler's work, but also to situate it in the present without bringing it in any way up to date. Admirably performed by an engaged Ensemble Modern, with a thorough 96pp trilingual booklet.
	GREAVES, JOHN : Loco Solo- Live in Tokyo Code:LSR004 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
At last John, a piano and his songs. Taken from a concert at Star Pines, Tokyo and wisely minimally edited, this follows the dynamic of the concert and lives in the minutiae of its performance. Persuasive and gripping because so real - warts and struggle and all. What comes out is the essence of a performance that is engrained with character and engagement.
	GREAVES, JOHN: Little Bottle of Laundry Code:BP232CD Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
With Sophia Domancich, Francois Ovide, Pip Pyle, Pete Kimberley and 22 guests. 10 songs featuring highly evolved arrangements and excellent performances.
	HACO & TERRE THAEMLITZ: Yesterday's Heroes Code:LOUCH001 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
The inimitable Haco sings and plays in a rich, stripped back, quietly industrial, full frequency, cinematic- sound environment where electronically enhanced and mechanical sounds either float or make cold fake landscapes. To these Haco either succumbs or resists. There is a strange atmosphere of emptiness and fragility that undermines the perfection and brutality of the mechanical half of the production. Music for schizophrenic cyborgs maybe. Sorry I can't be more helpful. If you like Haco you'll like this. Her smart charm always trumps on her battles with technology
	HACO: Ash in the Rainbow Code:ReRHACO3 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Out of print immediately after release, now re-issued. A test-bed of experimental arrangement and production ideas set in the context of songs that only just hold together - exquisitely realised. Extraordinary sounds, treatments and arrangements - in part because the whole project was made, so to say, in reverse - starting life in a body of existing material by Avant Garde Cellist Hiromichi Sakomoto, then reworked, with texts, vocals and other materials added (reversed vibraphone, and all manner of percussion, for instance)..by the incomparable Haco. One of a kind. Listen to a sample of this release
	HACO: Haco Code:ReRHACO1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
From legendary After Dinner's HACO, with guests Tom Cora, Sam Bennett and Peter Hollinger, Tsuneo Imahori, Hiroshi Nakagawa, and Nobuhisa Shimoda. Great work. Listen to a sample of this release
	HACO: Happiness Proof Code:ReRHACO2 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Haco and many guests (including Otomo Yoshihide, Peter Hollinger, Uchihashi Kasuhisa, Pierre Bastien amd Ichiraku Yoshimitsu with a new collection of songs, in inimitable Haco style. Nothing to explain. Listen to a sample of this release
	HAIL/SNAIL: How to live with a Tiger Code:FM-025 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
Further adventures of HAIL's Susanne Lewis and Azalia Snail. 11 songs - richly instrumented with immanent CHAOS turning into sense. Interesting and extreme arrangements.
	HAIL: Kirk Code:ReRHCD2 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Second Hail CD, with guest appearances from Chris Cutler, David Kerman and Bill Gilonis. Listen to a sample of this release
	HAIL: Hello Debris Code:ReRH3 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
After a break of almost 15 years Susanne Lewis and Bob Drake have reconvened their classic partnership. In the meantime rock and post rock has mainly moved away from the song and its classic shapes, leaving commercial pop to straighten them out and endlessly repeat the same tropes and tricks. Hail is rare amongst bands in its adherence to the notion that what makes a song interesting is the application of imagination and skill to its arrangement, performance and recording. The plan is not to drag songs away into other domains by grafting on bits of jazz, classical or electronic vocabulary, but to make them more what they are; to concentrate and distill them. Susanne Lewis's voice is extremely personal, never generic, Bob Drake's signature rhythm section work always exemplary. The songs are real rather than clever, and the production constantly invents contrapuntal detail and colour. This is a virtuosic album that never shows off. For those who wish there were more good songs on the experimental side of transfigured pop.
	HAIL: Turn of the Screw Code:ReRHCD Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A box of this classic showed up. While they lastÉ An extraordinary collection of songs by Susanne Lewis and Bob Drake. A cross between Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd and early Jefferson Airplane (best I can do). Strong, apparently simple tunes with subtle and very powerful arrangements - not shy of enveloping bass and emotional vocal delivery. Unequivocably performed, minimal and very much to the point. Perfect songs, perfectly realised.
	HEINZ, HERB: Another Code:HeinzHerbAnother Price: £11.50 Quantity in Basket: none
An interesting collection by Herb - songs, with involved, traditionally musical arrangements, but also extended into a more purely sonic realm. The voice is used as an instrument mostly, and subject to treatment like everything else.
	HEINZ, HERB: Failure Code:IST001 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
10 imaginative songs, well arranged and performed, not quite pop music, but not quite anything else either. Eccentric and musical, not a revolution but a well made, well thought out, substantial piece of work.
	HENRY COW: 40th ANNIVERSARY BOX SET - VOL 1 - 5 CDs , box, book Code:RERHCBOX1 Price: £47.00 Quantity in Basket: none
THE 40th ANNIVERSARY HENRY COW BOX SET 9 CDs and 1 DVD with 2 substantial books - in two solid Boxes. LIMITED EDITION. Assembled over 15 years, this collection gives for the first time some idea of the breadth and depth of Henry Cow's work. Always very much a live band, performance was their metier, and a concert might range far - always driven by an intense dialogue between tightly knit compositions and radically open improvisation. The officially released LPs tell at best only half this story, and one purpose of this definitive collection is to set the work back into its broader context. These are all previously unreleased recordings, that include many compositions and improvisations new to anyone who only knows the official releases, documentation of a number of one-off projects and events and - where different or remarkable enough to justify inclusion - live versions of parts of the LP repertoire. Many of these recordings are high quality radio transcriptions taken directly from the original masters, others are less hi-fi, but justified we think by their historic and musical quality. And everything has been carefully transferred and re-mastered by Bob Drake to the best audio quality that current technology allows without interference or tampering. It's all a million times better than the terrible bootlegs that are swimming around. Altogether, these 9 CDs embody some extraordinary, and occasionally prescient music. Taking this box together with the officially released albums, it is possible at last to get some impression of the extensive ground Henry Cow covered in it's 10 short years. Finally, there is the DVD: 80 minutes of the 1976 Cow (with Georgina Born and Dagmar Krause) performing many unreleased pieces as well as Living in the Heart of The Beast, Beautiful as the Moon &c. This is the only known video recording in existence - professionally made, multi camera - and has not been recovered since its original broadcast (just scour U-Tube, HC is conspicuous by its total absence). And last but not least, there is a great deal of written, photographic and textual documentation. Since this will probably be the last and definitive collection, it has to be thorough. For reasons of fairness and cost we have decided to split the set into two boxes - which can be bought separately or together. VOL 1 covers the period 1971 to the 1976 Hamburg radio show which documents John Greaves' last concert with the band, as well as the extraordinary Trondheim concert from the quartet tour that immediately followed. VOL 2 takes the story through to 1978 and includes more previously undocumented compositions as well as the Bremen radio recording. The Stockholm CD belongs to this second box, which also contains the DVD. Dusted Reviews: The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set
	HENRY COW: Stockholm Code:ReRHC7 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Stockholm will form part of the box set, and if you subscribe to the box, we will send this CD alone immediately. The rest of the box will follow when it is released. If you want this CD alone and decide later to get the box anyway, we'll send you the box minus Stockholm, cheaper than the full price, so either way you won't have to buy anything twice. Stockholm is a high quality Swedish Radio recording, made in 1977, that includes Tim's epic Erk Gah (now known as Hold to the Zero Burn), Phil Ochs' No More Songs and The March - none of which we ever recorded for CD release - plus Ottawa Song & other, untitled, pieces. Over an hour of music, taken from the original radio tapes and re-mastered for this edition by Bob Drake.
	HENRY COW: THE 40th ANNIVERSARY HENRY COW BOX SET - VOL 2 - 4 CDs, DVD, box, book WITHOUT STOCKH Code:RERHCBOX2NS Price: £42.00 Quantity in Basket: none
THE 40th ANNIVERSARY HENRY COW BOX SET 3 CDs, DVD, box, book. LIMITED EDITION. Assembled over 15 years, this collection gives for the first time some idea of the breadth and depth of Henry Cow's work. Always very much a live band, performance was their metier, and a concert might range far - always driven by an intense dialogue between tightly knit compositions and radically open improvisation. The officially released LPs tell at best only half this story, and one purpose of this definitive collection is to set the work back into its broader context. These are all previously unreleased recordings, that include many compositions and improvisations new to anyone who only knows the official releases, documentation of a number of one-off projects and events and - where different or remarkable enough to justify inclusion - live versions of parts of the LP repertoire. Many of these recordings are high quality radio transcriptions taken directly from the original masters, others are less hi-fi, but justified we think by their historic and musical quality. And everything has been carefully transferred and re-mastered by Bob Drake to the best audio quality that current technology allows without interference or tampering. It's all a million times better than the terrible bootlegs that are swimming around. Altogether, these 9 CDs embody some extraordinary, and occasionally prescient music. Taking this box together with the officially released albums, it is possible at last to get some impression of the extensive ground Henry Cow covered in it's 10 short years. Finally, there is the DVD: 80 minutes of the 1976 Cow (with Georgina Born and Dagmar Krause) performing many unreleased pieces as well as Living in the Heart of The Beast, Beautiful as the Moon &c. This is the only known video recording in existence - professionally made, multi camera - and has not been recovered since its original broadcast (just scour U-Tube, HC is conspicuous by its total absence). And last but not least, there is a great deal of written, photographic and textual documentation. Since this will probably be the last and definitive collection, it has to be thorough. For reasons of fairness and cost we have decided to split the set into two boxes - which can be bought separately or together. VOL 1 covers the period 1971 to the 1976 Hamburg radio show which documents John Greaves' last concert with the band, as well as the extraordinary Trondheim concert from the quartet tour that immediately followed. VOL 2 takes the story through to 1978 and includes more previously undocumented compositions as well as the Bremen radio recording. The Stockholm CD belongs to this second box, which also contains the DVD. Dusted Reviews: The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set
	HENRY COW: THE 40th ANNIVERSARY HENRY COW BOX SET ON INSTALLMENT PLAN Code:RERHCBOXINSTAL Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
We know it's expensive, and that's a problem. But it really is expensive to make, and there's no way around that. However, from feedback we've had we can proposes a special payment method. If you desperately want the box but just can't spend so much at once, you can buy in installments (at £12.5 per CD) and we'll send the boxes with CDs 5 & 10, as well as the extra box for the studio CDs.  At any time you can pay the balance and get the rest of the set all at once (when you win the lottery, for instance). Hopefully this will make it a more manageable proposition for some of you. Just add to the cart as many items as you want at any time, and then in the note section at the bottom of the shopping cart (Use this area for alternate selections and additional sale items) specify the title or titles you want. Please note: CDs 4 & 5 must be bought together, that's 2 items, and the DVD must be the last item you orderÊ - we will send the 2nd and 3rd boxes and the 2nd booklet out with it. Please order this seperately - it is the item listed after this one called: INSTALLMENT PLAN COMPLETION PAYMENT. Thanks. Installment unit Vol 1   £12.50 Installment unit Vol 2   £12.50 Installment unit Vol 3   £12.50 Installment unit Vol 4 & 5       £25 Installment unit Vol 6  (optional)  £12.50 Installment unit Vol 7   £12.50 Installment unit Vol 8   £12.50 Installment unit Vol 9   £12.50 Installment unit DVD    £15
	HETU, JOANE: Castor et Compagnie Code:AM037CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Solo CD by Joane of Justine, with Jean Derome, Diane Labrosse, Pierre Tanguay. Songs. Full of ideas and surprises. Excellent arrangements. Fine playing. Avoids the safe road.
	HOMOSEXUALS THE : Astral Glamour (3 CDs) Code:MSS204 Price: £20.56 Quantity in Basket: none
One of the outstanding bands of the eighties who came and went with hardly anyone noticing and just 2 EP's and a single released on their own label. In 1982, ReR compiled an LP from the debris of the surviving tapes and that was that for 20 years. Now more or less everything that can be found has been collected together on these 3 CDs. The first two assemble the handful of releases issued by the band plus our own 1982 best-of LP, the 'Ici La Bas' album (the HS under other names), 'Venceremos' - a cassette release with some tracks by the group and various individual members, and various fragments - preliminary backing tracks and so on. The third CD features the work of the later group, mainly Bruno and Suzy. There is a 30pp booklet with some useful recovered photos, Bruno's version of the band history and notes on the tracks. Those of you for whom this is a must know who you are. You will need this release. Those who want to test the water first, I suggest you start with our single CD reissue of the ReR 1982 release.
	KALAHARI SURFERS: Vol 1 The 80's Code:ReRKS1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Reissue on CD of the classic 'Living in the Heart of the Beast' remastered and with some tracks remixed (but all improved!), plus extra tracks and half of the LP 'Bigger Than Jesus' brilliantly incorporated. All reprogrammed as a coherent whole. Politically sharp, musically, compositionally and technically innovative; a rare mixture of simplicity, complexity, musicality and documentary imagination. A classic. Listen to a sample of this release
	KALAHARI SURFERS: In The Heart of the Beast (vinyl) Code:RRC24 Price: £10.34 Quantity in Basket: none
Newscasts. Troublemaker Warric Sony, master of documentary incorporation and edit, who steals the sounds, embarassing speeches and paranoias from paradise and winds them into music that is insistent, out of hand, danceable, tricky and hallucinatory by turns.
	KAMPEC DOLORES: Sitting On The Buffalo Code:ReRKD2 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Co-released with BAHIA. Listen to a sample of this release
	KERMAN, DAVE - 5UU's: Regarding Purgatories Code:RUNE135 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Dave's first solo record, with some assistance from singer Deborah Perry, bassist Keith Macsoud, and keyboardists Sanjay Kumar and Charles Turner. Not really 5uu's - the sound is very different, as is the approach to much of the material - and there are more minimal pieces. Though Dave's signature melodies and big orchestrations are here too. He plays a lot himself, which is welcome, and there is more open improvised and studio manipulated material (my favourite part of the record, I think, because the most different).
	KERMAN, DAVE : Abandonship Code:Rune158 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Dave plays all instruments (drums, of course, bass, guitars, keyboards and who knows what else) Thinking Plague's Deborah Perry sings. Full band material, well arranged with Kerman's trademark angular melodies, oblique texts and a curious tribute to Present (track 3). Mostly instrumental.
	KONTROLL CSOPORT: 1983 (Dbl) Code:BVD002-3 Price: £24.09 Quantity in Basket: none
The legendary Hungarian song group. Strange pop, related to Kampec Dolores (share composer/guitarist Csaba Hajnoczy) with bizarre edge and great singing. Document of the unavailable (or at least 'underground') music of the early '80's. Well recorded.
	L.VOAG: The Way Out Code:ALLVCD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Reissue of the genuinely strange and idiosyncratic masterpiece reclusive and light-sensitive LV. In the guise of VERY OPEN and stretched pop songs, experiments stream out at A LOT per minute. A melange of snappy tunes, highly unobvious arrangements, left handed humour, sound research, super radical mixing and one off words and singing style. With extra material including the legendary and wholly perfect Beauty Spreads 7-inch. In my view, this is a benchmark best of the late 70's Magnum Opus.
	LETARTE, GENEVIEVE: Vous Seriez Un Ange. Code:AM020CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Songs, supersharp recording, some interesting arrangements that pull away from convention.
	LEWIS, SUSANNE: Kissyfur Code:FM024 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
See HAIL/SNAIL Here by Susanne only, joined by various friends. Nice cover.
	LEWIS, SUSANNE: Susanne Lewis Code:SEDCD027 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
New CD of songs from the incomparable Susanne Lewis. Whatever that gift is, to write simple rock songs and make them work, Susanne has it. She plays everything (except drums - and a rare guitar solo appearance from Bill Gilonis of The Work).
	MARCOEUR, ALBERT : Plusiers cas de Figures Code:M8/2000 Price: £16.45 Quantity in Basket: none
Like Van Dyle Parks, Albert is sparing but a perfectionist; this is his first new work for a long long time, and again an exemplar of measured strangeness; it creates its own ground. The instrumentation is extensive and unusual - but restrained - and the arrangements flawless. A modest gem.
	MAXYMENKO, MICHAEL: Businesscide Code:ReRMM1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Michael, founder and brain behind the extraordinary Swedish post-Beefheartian group Kraljursastalten, and world-class ice-hockey player, here collects his extraordinary songbook including much of the two celebrated '70s releases by Kraljursastalten (the Reptile Institution: Michael plus the telepathic twins Stefan and Thomas Agaton), with later recordings from his solo record and released and unreleased pieces with Henry Kaiser, John 'Drumbo' French, Sten Standell, Andy West and others. Wild lurching swing complexity, ridiculous tempi, great rhythms, sudden mood changes, fine compositions and music that is always to the point: no fat, just coffee and cigarettes. Classic. Genre: Unpopular. Influences: Anatolij Tarasov, chief-coach and master-trainer of the Soviet national Ice-hockey team 1958-1972, inventor of "collective telepathy at high speed".
	MCH BAND: Live (dbl CD) Code:BP-0142 Price: £17.04 Quantity in Basket: none
Mikolas Chadima, Czech troublemaker and survivor, with a collection of great live recordings from 1985, 2002 and 2003. In another world he would have been a major figure; he has the intensity, the discipline, the imagination and the steady depth that makes a great performer and bandleader. His unique brand of rock is quirky, tinged with avant-garde detail and thinking, but remains categorically rock; steady and powerful, never callow or shallow. He's a phenomenon and much under-rated. These pieces sound good, are solid and nuanced, and range quite far, musically. For old fashioned craftsmanship, with an adamantine edge; this is the goods.
	MOE, JOE: Mainland Code:moeMainland Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Once in a while a really great song album comes along, with exquisite arrangements, surprising harmonies, intriguing texts and sideways melodies that exhibits both a sharp musical intelligence and a deep immersion in popular forms for their own sake (Van Dyke Parks sets a standard). This is one such. Joe Moe has managed to make a record that constantly shifts and twists yet remains firmly rooted and coherent - not an easy thing to pull off. He is much assisted by the arranging and producing talents of the not inconsiderable Brian Woodbury, Marc Doten, and Michael Webster, as Cheez Masheen. Van Dyke Parks also appears on two tracks, one of which is a luminous cover of his own Cowboy. There is a great deal of impressive composition at work, always leavened by a performative insouciance; and these are proper, not clever, songs that speak to the emotional complexity of life. If you appreciate the medium, I strongly recommend this rare example of brilliance in the field. Limited Edition.
	MOORE, R STEVIE: Phonography Code:ReRRSM1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
The first time I heard R. Stevie Moore was when the Residents played me goodbye piano - which would have been sometime in early 1978. Soon after that, I got in touch with him to import some copies for Recommended - followed over the years by many of his other releases. Phonography was Stevie's first, and a masterpiece. Terminally idiosyncratic but with all the compositional qualities of great pop. R Stevie Moore is a gifted songwriter and marches to his own drum - as this strange and compelling record attests. It's been out of print for some time and we have taken the opportunity to restore it to its original form and carefully re-master it. A classic.
	MOORE, R. STEVIE: Delicate Tension Code:mooreTension Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Very welcome reissue of this classic collection of (mostly) songs from a criminally neglected master of pop. I mean pop in the best possible sense. A series of eccentric, but entirely plausible gems, each with enough ideas, imaginative playing, devious studio work and detail to fill a side. Every song a short story or a miniature play. This is a breathtaking parade of mild mannered hits, just a stone's throw from the telephone booth. So, why didn't RSM ever get the Emmys he deserves? It's a good question. Probably because he's too smart, too original, too funny and way too eccentric. Still the pleasure is here for those that want to listen. Infectious, addictive, and unique. In addition to the classic LP there is the EP Stance, and 6 previously unreleased pieces.
	NATIVE SHRUBS, The: Of the Santa Monica Mountains CD-EP Code:shrubs Price: £7.70 Quantity in Basket: none
Long out of print CD-EP containing only 3 songs - each an epic - by the 1994 band uniting Joe Moe, Michael Webster and Marc Doten (all heavily featured on the 2008 Mainland by Joe Moe). As you'd expect these are unusual, epic, tricksy, high quality one-of-a-kind songs, with a nod to Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. Moe sings - and he can.
	NEUBURG, AMY X: Residue Code:OM1007-2CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
12 songs, with multiple Amys singing and playing. And a lot of studio work, with much manipulation of everything and choral work everywhere. Imaginative, and as close to theatre as to music, this is a record whose qualities emerge after a few listenings.
	PALE NUDES, THE: Wise To The Heat Code:RECDEC71 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
Amy Denio, Wadi Gysi, Mitch Gerber and Will Dowd in a post- (ec) Nudes. More 'acoustic' and much less experimental than the (ec) Nudes, but smoothly listenable. Well recorded and the addition of contrabasse is a plus. Usual good performance from Tone Dog Dowd.
	PALE ORCHESTRA, THE: Mirror Man Act 1 Code:CookCD175 Price: £15.57 Quantity in Basket: none
The Orchestra- Andy Diagram, Keith Moline, Peter Hammil, Chris Cutler, Jack Kidney, David Thomas. Singers and speakers- Robert Kidney, Linda Thompson, David Hild Jackie Leven, Jane Bom-bane, David Thomas. Commentary and voiceover- Bob Holman. In July 1998 David Thomas programmed three days of Disastodrome at London's Southbank. The centrepiece was David's epic journey into the heartland where it's all road and sky and one-horse towns on the outside and failure, deserts and tumbleweed on the inside. There are great stories and texts here, daring to be openly poetic. And songs winding in and out of them. On their way to somewhere and an unusual and courageous experiment with form. Bob's Kidney and Holman are a revelation and it is wonderful to hear Linda Thompson back on the boards. This is more than a record. Sorry about price – Cooking Vinyl!
	PERE UBU: London Texas Code:ReRPU01 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A great live recording of the sadly short-lived version of the band that existed between the arrival of Eric Drew Feldman and the departure of Chris Cutler. By far the best recording of the Scott, Cutler, Maimone rhythm section, I think, and the whole band is on intense concert form: David racked up to 11, Eric working equally on foundations and fine details as to the out-there manner born and Jim Jones somewhere in the stratosphere. Coming back to it, this was a pretty great band. The songs are economical, tightly arranged and take no prisoners. And there's that live energy - the closest we can get to being when and where we weren't. Studio recordings can't do this. Mastered by Bob Drake, and it stings like a bee - with a beret. Play it loud.
	PHEW: View Code:DSA54021 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
See above
	PICCHIO DAL POZZO: Abbiamo tutti i suoi problemi Code:ReRPdP Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
One of the most original, impressive and highly respected of all the experimental groups to have come out of Italy in the 1970s, Picchio dal Pozzo were also one of the early invitees to the canonical 'Recommended Sampler', and would have been in RIO, had RIO lasted another year - and had the group not folded up and disappeared before anyone had realised it was there. In the last decade the record was reissued briefly in Japan, then It disappeared again. We have now re-mastered it and put it back into the public domain, where it belongs. Copying no one, though there is some Zappa influence - Picchio had a unique and highly developed style of composition that was not only out of step with it's own time but which sounds contemporary still. Highly composed and devoid of jazz phrasing and riffs with solos, this record achieves maximum musical effect with minimum instrumental means through close attention to timbre, dynamics and expressed tempi and a kind of deep complexity that sounds simple but changes with each listening. A lot of ideas subtly developed - rather than experimented with; a one-off classic.
	PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE: 1997 Code:Gobus210240-2 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Recent live concert.
	PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE: Hovezi porazka Code:210218-2 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Volume 9 of the works.
	PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE: Jak bude po smrti Code:210215-2 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Volume 6 of the works.
	PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE: Kolejnice Duni Code:210217-2 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Volume 8 of the works.
	PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE: Lazy Love Code:Globus210309-2 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
In memoriam Mejla Hlavsa who recently died, featuring many of his songs. The Current PPU show how it's done. There's no one with sound like this, with an aesthetic like this, with a way to do Rock that's inventive, unaggressive but tough like this; doesn't show off but nails it down. And so many great singers.
	PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE: Pasijove hry velikonocni Code:210214-2 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Volume 5 of the works.
	PORTELLA, PATRICK: Winterreise Code:GMEME102 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
Patrick Portella (of ZNR and Les Flots Blues fame) here with an extremely radical reworking of Schubert's 'Winterreisse'. Electronics, Plunder, environs and the hair-raising voice of Brigitte Balian. A 20 minute miniature gem, tightly focused and sharply realised. Exactly - A winter journey.
	PULNOC: Pulnoc (vinyl) Code:GLOBUS21001 Price: £13.87 Quantity in Basket: none
The Plastic People as was. Now with a new name but the same commitment to a special kind of Rock that retains the clarity and simplicity of their influences (Velvet Underground/ Reed especially) - and no inverted commas. Czech Pressing.THIS IS A VINYL RELEASE
	PULNOC: Pulnoc Code:G210011-2311 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Plastic People as was. Now with a new name but the same commitment to a special kind of Rock that retains the clarity and simplicity of their influences (Velvet Underground/Reed especially) - and no inverted commas. Czech Pressing.
	QUARTERLY, ReR: Vol 4 No. 2 CD Code:ReR0402 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
CD contains commissioned works by Q.R. Ghazala: Sacrifice To Isis, , Mike Hovancsek/Paul Guerguerian:Three Cold Floors, Tom Dimuzio: Inception, Marie Goyette: Short-Cuts: Brahms, Ken Ando: Danseuse, Robert Iolini: Congo, Zimbabwe, Giovanni Venosta: Le Ombre Di Otello, Keith Rowe/A. De Fillips: Feu Brilliant, Brian Woodbury's Variety Orchestra:Shenandoah/Innsbruck, Richard Barrett: The Unthinkable, Stevan Tickmayer: Heterophony, Volapuk: Des objets de la plus grande importance, Boris Kovacs: Extract, Philip Perkins: Virgo Ramayana, Shelley Hirsch/ Jon Rose/Chris Cutler: After Hours/The Colour Of Blood.
	QUINTETTO ALLA BUSARA: Clandestino/Solaris Code:BusaraCD001 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Amy Denio wrote and sings and plays winds and accordion, with a quartet of electric and acoustic guitars, bass and percussion. A live performance, impressively.
	ROBERT WYATT: Solar Flares Burn for You Code:CN20175 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
1972 and 1974 BBC recordings, mostly of songs from the early LPs, 5 of them with Francis Monkman; plus the soundtrack to a short film (1973 - with a' quick-time' version of the film itself) and two recent pieces with Hugh Hopper, where Robert plays trumpet and keyboards. My hit? The Verb.
	SELFISH, BING and THE IDEALS: Dizzy with Success Code:ALBS1CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Back, with more ambitious arrangements and new songs about the big issues, this is an enigmatic record with subtle and strange relations to the 2nd half of the C20. Parallel universe where the 60's never went away but but no one believed in them . I hope that's enigmatic enough? A cult record? A sofa record? Bound to be badly imitated by Robbie Williams.
	SELFISH, BING: Space College & the Theory Of Everything Code:selfishSpaceCollege Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
'Old one-eye is back'. Fresh from a never less than controversial stint on Celebrity Rehab, louche megastar BS crashes back into the sixties with the help of old stablemate Xentos (fray) Bentos WHOSE MAGIC FINGERS. 12 songs that explain dark matter, relativity, quantum theory, cosmology, evolution, virtual mathematics, ludic pharmaceuticals and - pay ATTENTION at the back - this is a new, mature Bing, dedicating the months before his next court appearance to pedagogy and some profound reflections on the mysteries of life - to a rocking beat. This is what the '60s would have been like if everybody hadn't been so crap. An austin at the height of his powers. Selfish fans; you know who you are.
	SELFISH, BING: The Last of the Bohemians Code:bingLast Price: £13.51 Quantity in Basket: none
Grizzled, desperate and hoarse from decades of abuse, but with his shirts still washed and ironed, Bing is back with a dubiously legal version of his legendary MTV 'unplugged' debacle. Confounding the critics who said his sybaritic lifestyle would see him under the ground by the age of 35, Bing manages here to get through 12 new songs that make Huysman's Des Esseintes look like a brickie. The iniquities of modern life are not shirked, weary good advice is given, obscure topics are pointlessly aired as if they mattered. A national treasure (and therefore resident in Spain) Bing just won't give up. Your purchase will be tax deductible. Special Offer
	SHIRLEY ANNE HOFMANN'S EUPHORIA: From the Depths Code:LUS001 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Stretched songs by many brass (not reed), marimba, piano, accordion, sampler player and singer Hofmann - a major talent - with Pippin Barnett (drums, percs) featuring an enormous variety of styles and structures and a fine use of sonorities. A very musical and imaginative collection, full of good humour - and a pleasure to listen to.
	SLAPP HAPPY & HENRY COW: Desperate Straights Code:ReRHCSH Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
(Henry Cow Definitive Reissue series No. 4)In 1974, Henry Cow took a sabbatical while it considered what to do next. SlappHappy meanwhile was planning its second record for Virgin. One night the trio showed up at the quartet's door and proposed that the two groups make the second Slapphappy LP together. So incompatible - Slapphappy was making eccentric pop songs and Henry Cow was composing complex epic instrumentals - so how could a merger fail? Henry Cow jumped at the chance and Desperate Straights -was the result. It's still a gem to my ears, and now at last it's possible to release it, properly re-mastered (by Bob Drake), its sound closer to the original tapes even than our earlier Nimbus vinyl pressing. Great songs, great arrangements, great performances and Dagmar on top of her form... real people in a room together, playing straight to tape. Those were the days..
	SLAPP HAPPY: Sort Of Code:BP318CD Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
Reissue of the long unavailable and classic first LP, backed by Faust, with one bonus track (JumpinÕ Jonah, the b-side of their only single). Indispensible.
	SLAPPHAPPY/HENRY COW: Desperate Straights and Slapphappy Code:CDOVD441 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
The two Virgin LP's reissued on one CD. 'DESPERATE' was the classic 'merged' supergroup with HENRY COW and 'SLAPPHAPPY or' was the remake without FAUST of our own 'ACNASLBASAC NOOM'. Listen to a sample of this release
	SUE GARNER: Shadyside Code:Thrill112 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
So glad she made this. Bassist and guitarist Sue Garner with a collection of songs, beautifully arranged and performed, low-key, soft but gripping. Unlike anything else quite.
	SUMO: Sumo (sic) CDR Code:SumoCDR Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
A second collection of inventive and eccentric pieces (some of them songs) that mix fine real playing (families of strings, brass, piano, drums) with electronic manipulations, dipping into various styles in a broad tour of musical and sonic worlds that add up to a very personal and constantly unusual record. Limited edition CDR release.
	THE RECOMMENDED SAMPLER LIMITED JAPANESE FACSIMILE EDITION Code:recSampJap Price: £36.00 Quantity in Basket: none
We have a handful of these beautiful reproductions of the original gatefold double LP release with the extra mini CD. CDs are the same as the ReR jewel case edition, so this is for collectors.
	THE RECOMMENDED SAMPLER: (double CD) Code:ReR1982 Price: £20.00 Quantity in Basket: none
Faust, Art Bears, ZNR, Robert Wyatt, The Residents, Henry Cow, This Heat, Art Zoyd, Univers Zero, Stormy Six, Aqsak Maboul, Picchio Dal Pozzo, Decibel, Goebbels and Harth, The Homosexuals, The Work, Amos and Sarah, The Black Sheep, Feliu Gasul, Hector Zazou, The Muffins, R.Stevie Moore, Robel Vogel, Ron Pate/Raudelunas, Conventum, Joseph Racaille and Patrick PortellaOriginally released in 1982, this is a collection of specially commissioned and (at the time) newly recorded pieces by the most interesting groups and individuals then in the Recommended catalogue. Never reissued, it has slowly become a prized collectors' item - and remains an indispensable snapshot of the range and musical brilliance of this critical moment in the history of a small community of left-field groups struggling towards new musical languages. The breadth of imagination displayed is exemplary and it is amazing how fresh and original this music still sounds, and how much things have changed in only 25 years. What was intended on its release as a practical compendium has now become a definitive document so, on the occasion of Recommended's 30th anniversary, we have decided to reissue it fully re-mastered and with additional accompanying material.
	THE SCIENCE GROUP - CUTLER, CHRIS/TICKMAYER, STEVEN/DRAKE, BOB: ...a mere coincidence... Code:ReRSCIENCE1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A CD of songs following on from Art Bears, News From Babel and Domestic stories.This time the co-authors are Stevan Tickmayer and Chris Cutler, with Bob Drake, with guests Fred Frith, Amy Denio and Claudio Puntin. A dense, composed, gallon-in-a-pint kind of a record about the outer edges of hard science. Tightly composed, complex and layered. Listen to a sample of this release
	THE WORK: Rubber Cage Code:AdHoc14 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
My favourite of all the Work records, so newcomers start here. Dense compositions, high quality, powerful recordings that explore the fringes of rock; pop fragments, hypnotic repetitions and highly evolved arrangements coupled with a fine exploration of sonorities and techniques, this has a strong and unique musical fingerprint, always surprising while retaining its centre in performance. Now re-mastered with a dramatically improved sound. A modest classic.
	THE WORK: Slow Crimes Code:AdHoc15 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
First LP by The Work, formed in 1980 by Tim Hodgkinson and Bill Gilonis with Rick Wilson and Mick Hobbs. Song based, noise backed, tight-drum-riff-driven, complex, strange and edgy music, with a life-is-short basement aesthetic. Takes no prisoners. Reissued re-mastered.f
	THINKING PLAGUE: In Extremis Code:RUNE113 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
After 9 years, a new collection of (mainly) Mike Johnson pieces of fiendish complexity, impeccably performed and mixed. Personnel changes: Susanne Lewis' signature voice replaced by Deborah Perry, Bob Drake's bass largely replaced by Dave Willey and his place at the drums by the maestro Dave Kerman. It's sure that Americans now do what used to be the 'progressive' thing better than anybody else, in fact forming a kind of family (highly distinctive similarities between U Totem, 5uu's, and Plague are easy to spot - and not just because of shared musicians but also through compositional, harmonic and melodic affinities. Which is interesting I think, and going somewhere). Mike Johnson is an inventive and painstaking composer and there are sections and moments here which are sublime. As well as things which - for me - could do with crueller pruning (some instrumental prodigality, general prolixity and occasional lapses of taste). But I criticise only because this is a Rolls Royce of a band which sets a standard hard to match and they deserve to be taken seriously.
	THINKING PLAGUE: In This Life Code:ReRTPCD Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Remarkable song group from Denver whose state-of-the-art work is breathtakingly well represented on this CD, which features new pieces (a new 'LP') plus 'Moonsongs' completely remixed and remastered. 71 Minutes. 20pp Booklet. Listen to a sample of this release
	THINKING PLAGUE: A History of Madness Code:CN20180 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
2003, a mellower, sometimes rather romantic programme, and again with a changed line-up -Dave Kerman and Bob Drake are both missed. There is some impressive playing here, great precision, the usual surefooted compositional skill and some tricksy use of effects and arrangement detail - in this TP are light years ahead of the prog. Field - but in that field they toil, perhaps even more so than they did in earlier incarnations. And though unfair, one can't help but compare: the clarity and power of the early band (both in the sound and the arrangements) has given way to a more thoughtful but flattened music; impressively crafted but not inspired.
	THIS HEAT: Deceit Facsimile Edition Code:THDeceitFacJap Price: £22.03 Quantity in Basket: none
We have a few copies of the Japanese CD facsimile limited edition of deceit, in perfect cardboard sleeve duplicating the original vinyl release.
	THIS HEAT: Health and Efficiency Facsimile Edition Code:THHealthFacJap Price: £22.03 Quantity in Basket: none
We have a few copies of the Japanese CD facsimile limited edition of H&E in perfect cardboard sleeve duplicating the original vinyl release.
	THOMAS, DAVID (and Foreigners): Bay City Code:HR111 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
David with Danes P.O..Jorgens (drums, percs), Per Buhl (bass, clarinet) and Jorgen Teller (guitars). Lyrically related to Mirror Man, these songs sit somewhere between late Pedestrians and Current Ubu.
	THOMAS, DAVID: Monster (4 cd box) Code:HR110 Price: £29.96 Quantity in Basket: none
Four CD set in a slipcase box containing- THE SOUND OF THE SAND (with Richard Thompson, Philip Moxham, Anton Fier) VARIATIONS ON A THEME (Thompson, Hamann, Fier, Lindsay Cooper, Chris Cutler, Jack Monck) MORE PLACES FOREVER (Cooper, Tony Maimone, Allan Ravenstine, Cutler) MONSTER WALKS THE WINTER LAKE (David Hild, Maimone, Ravenstine, Garo Yellin) BLAME THE MESENGER (Jim Jones, Ravenstine, Maimone, Cutler. Produced by Chris Cutler.
	THOMAS, DAVID: Winter Comes Home (vinyl) Code:Redtlp Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
DT of PERE UBU fame plus CHRIS CUTLER and LINDSAY COOPER masquerading as 'The Legs'. This is a document of a live performance near Munich and is a kind of tour de force. David as stand-up- comic cum poet with the unruly and bolshie Legs sometimes with him and sometimes who knows where?
	TONE DOGS: Ankety Low Day (vinyl) Code:CZ016 Price: £13.87 Quantity in Basket: none
THIS IS A VINYL RELEASE
	Tiny Tim: I Love Me Code:SEELAND503CD Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
	UNE THEORIE DES ENSEMBLES: En Concert Code:AM022CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Montreal- treasure this, a musical community - where else do you find one ? And here are Michel Cote, Ander Duchesne, Jean Derome, Claude Fradette, Joanne Hetu, Diane Labrosse, Remi Leclerc, Robert Lepage, Rene Lussier, Danielle Roger, Pierre St.Jak, Marie Trudeau (amongst others, of Wondeurbrass, Justine, Les Quatre Guitaristes, Les Granules, Locomotive, Miriodor..) in an ensemble live concert, including pieces specially composed for the full ensemble. Excellent mobile recording (mixed later) - a tribute to the creativity and musicianship of this extraordinary group of active and exemplary musicians.
	UR KAOS: Ur Kaos Code:BAR0701 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Reissue of the fine 1987 release by Swedish trio Ur Kaos, featuring Lach'n Jonsson (who will be well known to old Recommended hands - indeed, included here as a bonus track is one of the pieces he did for the ReR Quarterly many years ago). An inventive, strong - but sombre - collection of instrumental-heavy songs that have internalised Magma, This Heat, Art Bears and other influences, while retaining their own character and mood. Bands used to be like this. Instrumentation is bass, drums, guitar, keyboards and singing. Sensibly divided by a silent track into the original A and B sides so as to retain the listening-programme of the LP, this is a memento of a time when bands had musical personalities, and when instrumental playing was nuanced and expressive. Music with character.
	VEES, JACK: The Restaurant Behind the Pier Code:ReRJV1 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
Seven pieces for solo bass. Sounds unappetising? Well. To 'bass', add a lot of pedals and extended techniques, add sound on sound and a mastery of harmonics; to 'solos' add versions of rock classics (Manic Depression - I Want You and As you said) as well as more abstract compositions and electoacoustics. Best known as a Bang on a Can composer, Jack played a lot of rock music in his life. Identity crisis? Postmodern condition? At least he's turning it into art. Not for everyone maybe, but an important work for bass. Listen to a sample of this release
	VERY LIMITED JAPANESE REPLICA EDITION OF DESPERATE STRAIGHTS Code:limitedDesperate Price: £23.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A handful of copies of this perfect replica of the original release in miniature gatefold sleeve with a perfectly reduced copy of the original 16pp biographical booklet made at the time by Peter Blegvad and Chris Cutler, containing original drawings, commentary and photographs - and circulated only to the press.
	WEBSTER, MICHAEL: Lotus Festival Code:LT669 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Los Angeles maverick, author and co-author of many of the songs on the luminous Joe Moe's Mainland, here with his own collection of highly individual songs, the closest influences discernible being Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. Fine arrangements, head turning musical twists, generous instrumentation and excellent lyrics. Very limited supply.
	WEBSTER, MICHAEL: Report CD-EP Code:websterReport Price: £8.00 Quantity in Basket: none
5 recent songs by the uncompromising Webster. If you like his other work, you'll want this. Musicians with their own aesthetic, a lot of serious skill and a devil-may-care attitude to success and popularity are an endangered species. This CD looks hand made and comes in folded card package with texts on an enclosed sheet. Of course it's good. Do your duty.
	WHEN: Psychedelic Wunderbaum Code:trick004 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A radical shift of direction for Lars Pedersen, though done with his exquisite ear, these are electro-songs, sample-techno-pop, restructured psychedelia with a lot of exotica. Hard to say much more about it, for the adventurous and curious. A lot of real playing here to alongside the samples and electroacoustic manipulations..
	WHEN: Whenever Code:TRICK036CD Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
Lars Pedersen with another excellent collection of intriguing pieces made from an interweaving of samples and real playing - taking complex, very musical forms and resembling - no one else I can think of. Mixing a deep instinct for pop form with a contemporary feel for sonic complexity and a great head for structure, this imaginative collection ploughs its own furrow. Largely song based (words by your humble reviewer).
	WILLIAMS, GARETH & MARY CURRIE: Flaming Tunes Code:LALR06 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
After leaving This Heat, Gareth went to south India to study kathakali, returning to the UK a couple of years later to attend London University. He also stepped slowly back into music and in 1985 he and Mary Currie released Flaming Tunes - which circulated in hand-coloured cassette boxes, now rare as hen's teeth. A CD reissue has been a very long time coming, but here it is.
	WOODBURY, BRIAN: All White People Look Alike Code:SomePhil6 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
Timely reissue of Woodbury's classic 1987 song rant, previously released in a small scarce vinyl edition. There are song blocks, ranting blocks, interesting arrangement blocks - all adding up to an impressive and quite unique 20 minute wind up. Don't drink coffee before putting this on. Followed by Harrangue - a cycle of 11 songs of varying lengths (0.54 - 3.18) and each following completely different genre rules, until you don't know what sort of a record you're on any more.And funny. When it wants to be.
	WOODBURY, BRIAN: And His Popular Music Group Code:FA013 Price: £13.51 Quantity in Basket: none
Remember songs ? Ochs, Van Dyke Parks, Tom Lehrer, R.Stevie Moore, Steely Dan - intelligent texts that mean something well sung, good tunes, nifty arrangements, surprises, satire, deadly undercurrents. Here's an anomalous contemporary production in the classic mould. Highly recommended.
	WOODBURY,. BRIAN: The Brian Woodbury Songbook Code:SomePhil5 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
For those who like songs, a little eccentric but not too strange, with full arrangements, more in the mainstream of show tradition, except with flashes of brilliance, Brian is one of the few- 'Consummate songwriting and craft, says Van Dyke Parks, 'not since Esquivel and the young Brian Wilson have I heard sound of this romantic design. Indispensable.' A song has to please many masters. These shift from the centre to the edge. Of course I prefer the edge; and you won't come across this CD anywhere else, I'm sure.
	WOOF: 7 Inches Code:AdHoc4 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
This CD collects for the first time all four 7" releases on the Woof label - the rare-as-gold-dust EP 'I do, I do, I don't I don't', by Tim Hodgkinson and Bill Gilonis (who went on to found The Work) and the Work's own three track 'I hate America' - plus 3 bonus tracks, one unreleased. 'I do..' is extremely strange, a little as if the Residents had got mixed up with Throbbing Gristle in a Cronenburg movie, only stranger. The Work are fast and furious, meaty and still very impressive This is big stuff. Next up are the ep and single by The Lowest Note on the Organ (Andy Bole and 'Billy Rebel' with, amongst others, 'Sven Halo', Alig, all the members of The Work, Trefor Goronwy, Chris Grey, Ian Hill, Ted Barrow, Veronique Vincent, and Catherine Jauniaux; a veritable who's who for those who follow this Brit strand). Six tracks that combine rather stretched recording techniques with very open form. Instrumentals, and a song or two with... you just have to listen to it. Then there are 4 bonus Bole/Rebel tracks, more obviously tuneful including a 7 minute medley from Ramshackle Pier, perfectly formed. The finale is Bill Gilonis' 'Naiwabi' from the ReR Quarterly. All in a very attractive 6 panel digipack with 12pp booklet of data, photographs and documentation. Nice work.
	WYATT, ROBERT: A Short Break (ep) Code:VP108 Price: £10.16 Quantity in Basket: none
21 Minutes of intimate RW Home recordings. To my ear some of the best he's done for a long time.
	WYATT, ROBERT: Nothing Can Stop Us Code:RobertWyatt:NothingCanStopUs Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	WYATT, ROBERT: Old Rottenhat Code:HNCD1433 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	WYATT, ROBERT: Ruth is Stranger than Richard Code:HNCD1427 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	WYATT, ROBERT: Shleep Code:HNCD1418 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	WYATT, ROBERT:Rock Bottom Code:HNCD1426 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	ZGA & OPUS POSTH: Carmina Morituorum (book/CD) Code:WHR001 Price: £21.00 Quantity in Basket: none
Extraordinary project written by Nick Sudnick and performed by a 5 piece Zga (adding trombone, voices, bass and drums to Nick's electroacoustic sound-sculpture instruments), plus Opus Posth a 9-piece string ensemble conducted by Tatiana Gridenko. These are fully scored pieces, with some great string writing and arrangements. A cycle of songs, spooky, powerful and monumental, sung in Latin. Electronic, acoustic, tonal and microtonal elements are fully integrated. And it's very nicely recorded. The CD comes packaged in a 36pp 21cm x 15cm full colour book made up of original paintings and the (short but substantial) texts translated into Russian and English. A remarkable and admirable work. Sadly in very limited supply.