New record pressing — Pale Jay – Low End Love Songs, more so than previous releases, is a diary in form of song. I knew I just had to wait for the songs to be ready to be picked, like ripe fruit from a tree. The entire album came together in just four weeks, a process that was both cathartic and joyful.
Each tune encapsulates a distinct moment in my life, with music serving as my means of processing complex and sometimes conflicting emotions.
In this album, I depart from loop-based song structures towards more intricate and lush compositions. Latin influences permeate the music, adding new layers of rhythms and textures to my soul-music roots.
New record pressing courtesy of Daptone Records! Caracoles ushers (GRAMMY-award nominated) Orquesta Akokán’s unique brand of mambo into the 21st century, imbuing it with the group’s signature sense of akokán–a Cuban Yoruba word meaning “from the heart”. Back at the helm are producer and multi instrumentalist, Jacob Plasse and virtuosic pianist, composer and arranger Michael Eckroth – a collaboration that continues to lead Orquesta’s exploration of the sublime mambo in all its depth and breadth. On this, their third album, they combine talents with Cuban lyricist, singer and composer Kiko Ruiz, who has toured and recorded with Pancho Amat’s illustrious Estrellas del Buena Vista Social Club as well as having a longstanding history as a singer, composer and arranger with Orquesta Maria Alejandra y Cubanía.
And although Caracoles is of this moment, its raices stretch deep into the past, presenting a glorious return to the iconic grooves of an era indelibly marked by Benny Moré, Perez Prado and Machito in New York bands and Cuba’s orquestas gigantes of the mid-twentieth century. While some songs are everyday Cuban life story-telling, Ruiz, a tata —priest— informs his lyrics with a Palo Mayombe spirituality propelling the mambo back to its original meaning. Despite being popularized world-wide as a festive, light-spirited, danceable genre, mambo is not to be taken lightly in the Palo Mayombe religion. Mambo is both a song and a prayer, beseeching good spirits to guide one’s journey away from darkness. Two of the album’s songs —including the title tune— are in this Congo dialect, designed to be impenetrable by the uninitiated. Caracoles’ fierce, effervescent grooves, Ruiz affirms, can “…vibrate your soul, which is precisely what the world needs right now”. The tunes offer an irresistible invitation to heed the title song’s invitation, “Cucha mambo que yo emboa montero…este mambo es pa’ ti.” Listen to this story, I bring it to you as a traveling song…This mambo is for you.”
An extremely limited Wax Mage edition will be available 07.19.24 as well…
New record pressing – Expected Highs – The Last Song on the Album.
Expected Highs is a recording project led by Victor Thompson, multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, and producer and the former lead singer of The Flavor Channel. Building on a foundation of big guitars and big hooks, Expected Highs combine elements of power pop, post-punk, new wave, garage, surf, and 21st century psych rock into a heady sound that pulls the past into the future.
New record pressing – Charlie Nothing – The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing.
John Fahey’s Takoma label is best known for pushing the envelope when it comes to acoustic guitar playing, but in 1967 it released a record that has become one of the true cult classics of the ‘60s free jazz movement. Charles Martin Simon was an aspiring writer whose artist wife died in 1965. When he tried to pick up the torch and become an artist using her art supplies, he was, in his words, “reduced to nothing,” and thus created an alter ego or “psyche fragmentation,” Charlie Nothing. Under that moniker he became most famous for creating “dingulators,” working guitar sculptures made from parts of American cars; in 1967, though, he recorded The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic, an album consisting of two separate saxophone improvisations accompanied only with gong, tabla, and ukelele. Its cover adorned by Nothing’s own hand-drawn art, this record has since become not only something of a “secret handshake” among free jazz fans, but also a classic of outsider art, fitting right next to your Moondog records if not in sound than in spirit. For its first ever reissue in any format, we’ve gone back to the original tapes to present an all-analog release of The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic on black vinyl with the original art intact, offering an unfiltered experience of this man’s cracked genius. A memorable look ‘n’ listen to say the least.
New Record Pressing — Julian Velard is a classic entertainer – a rare combination of Nilsson-meets-Newman, piano-driven singer-songwriter sensibility and razor-sharp comedic timing. His versatile stage presence makes him equally comfortable in the spotlight or as a sidekick – a modern-day Paul Shaffer. He’s become a cult sensation in America and Europe, and an in-demand performer in his homebase of Los Angeles. All those facets are on display on his newest album In the Middle of Something, an introspective song cycle about the pitfalls and promises of middle age.
New Record Pressing — AJ Lee & Blue Summit are an award-winning, energetic, and technically jaw-dropping bluegrass band quickly rising on the national roots music scene. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the group met as teenagers, picking together as kids at local bluegrass festivals until one day, they decided they would be a band. Their Signature Sounds debut, City of Glass is a spellbinding collection of original songs and covers that’s just as much country soul and gritty, bluesy Americana as it is rock club and festival-ready string band fare, all framed through a California folk lens.
City of Glass not only focuses on AJ Lee’s songwriting and once in a generation voice, but also features the Bakersfield sound of guitarist and second lead vocalist Scott Gates on three tracks along with the guitar wizardry and indie rock influence of Sullivan Tuttle, the younger brother of Bluegrass superstar Molly Tuttle. “I Can’t Find You at All” features Molly Tuttle singing a verse and harmonies.
New record pressing — R.R. Williams is the solo project of Mike Williams. It is named after his father Reginald Roy Williams as a tribute to his memory. All recorded music is performed by Mike in his garage.
New record pressing! Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 12–Providence Civic Center 6/26/74 & Boston Garden 6/28/74 (6LP Set)
Combining the second sets of two different nights is not standard operating procedure for the Dick’s Picks series of live Dead shows, but this volume is the exception that proves the rule-the playing is so extraordinary, and the repertoire so unusual, that one can understand why Dick Latvala played more curator than archivist on Vol. 12. The first disc picks up the second set from Providence three songs in, featuring a short jam that leads into what many have labeled the most extraordinary live version of “China Cat Sunflower” ever recorded, complete with a sublime transition (“Mud Love Buddy Jam” a.k.a. “Mind Left Body Jam”) into “I Know You Rider.” The revelatory moments continue throughout the Providence set, highlighted by a dazzling, 15-minute “Spanish Jam.” But the second set of the Boston show-which appears here complete, beginning on CD two after a superb encore performance of “Eyes of the World” from Providence-is the one that has passed into legend among Dead fans (that it begins with a rare performance of Phil Lesh and Ned Lagin’s electronic music piece “Seastones” gives you an idea of what an adventurous night this was). The set boasts one of the most renowned live jams of the band’s career, a flawless, 14-minute “Weather Report Suite: Prelude/Pt. 1/Pt. 2-Let It Grow” leading into a 27-minute “Jam” that is simply one of the most far-ranging, telepathic improvisations ever played by, well, anybody. That this set also includes a separation of the “Sunshine Daydream” section from “Sugar Magnolia” for only the second time ever is just gravy.
New Record Pressing — Shawn James – Honor & Vengeance. Thanks Shawn – it’s the third album pressed at GGR for you! This is a wild western concept album telling a tale of gunslingers and outlaws.
