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Greetings everyone. Thanks for giving us a look this week. We’re into November now and the holiday season, although I hope you all had a great Halloween weekend. As predicted, my night was on the quiet side. I stayed in and watched movies, some horror but also a fun one with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in a comedy that was cool. This week on the eve of the special elections here in the States, I had to watch some war movies and see Nazis getting their asses handed to them, including one of my favorites that I watch at least once a year, Where Eagles Dare with Richard Burton. Classic.

Musically, the soundtrack over Halloween weekend included a couple of plays of the tape Jeff wrote about so eloquently in last week’s newsletter. If you haven’t checked out The Ancient Pulse yet, get on it. We still have a couple copies left for sale here. I was really impressed by this one, and for me it’s in the mix for release of the year. Great job fellows.

As for this week and my pick for you? Well, it’s an old one from the mid-1970s that some will love and others will hate or, if that’s too strong a word, be indifferent to. I’ll admit that when I first heard this record, it wasn’t for me, but over the years, I have come to appreciate it. I’m talking about the self-titled album by Debris’. Released in 1976 in a run of 1000 on their own Static Disposal label. The label name later being confused with the band name by folks discovering the record years later. Indeed, the first reissues in the late 90s and early 00s referred to the band as Static Disposal. Even now, if you look on Discogs, the Static Disposal moniker is still used. From what I have read, that isn’t the band name nor the album title, but it seems that time has other ideas and that’s just how some will still refer to it.

Debris’ were from that hotbed of punk and underground sounds that was Chickasha, Oklahoma. They formed as a trio in 1975 and took advantage of a local studio's package deal of ten hours of studio time and 1000 pressed and sleeved records. They went in rehearsed and caught each song in one take, and in April 1976 their album was released to the world. It must be noted that the sleeve design depicting a girl tied up in cables and shown as a purple-hued photographic negative image with the band’s name across her eyes is quite striking and cool looking. Musically, the band sounds like a mix of Roxy Music with Eno, Sparks, The Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. It’s art rock with a punk attitude filtered through a 1970s Midwest LSD and reefer fueled teenage wasteland. Sort of. Maybe not an easy listen for some. There is a stray saxophone that rears its head in a couple of spots, so those of you like Jeff here at Sorry State who have an aversion to that take note. LoL. A couple of other friend musicians of the band add some organ, percussion and vocals, and there’s even a credit for an 8” circular saw.

There weren’t many bands making these types of records back then, and of course Debris’ went largely underappreciated and unheard for many years. Critical reviews at the time were few and far between and mostly unfavorable. Locally, the redneck normies certainly didn’t get what they were doing, but apparently folks in New York liked them and an offer was made for the band to play at CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City. Unfortunately, these offers came too late, and the band had disbanded. However, the reputation of the record spread throughout the underground and record collecting circles, gaining a sort of cult status over the years. Original copies have always been hard to find and expensive and would certainly command three figures of some sort for a nice copy, if they pop up for sale. The album has seen CD and vinyl reissues over the last couple of decades, and more recently the reissue label Superior Viaduct has put out a nice version. The CDs also contain demos for the album that were recorded in 1975, the year before original release. The band also take on The Stooges and cover “Real Cool Time.” The current vinyl pressing from Superior Viaduct is a straight reissue and does not contain any bonus cuts. I’m fine with that, as those rehearsals and demos are available elsewhere. My only gripe might be that it would have been nice if they could have included an insert or small booklet with additional information and photos etc. Especially as that information is out there now. Small complaint. We have the internet don’t we? It’s the music that counts, and honestly, I prefer a straight reissue over big heavy releases with additional discs. For the most part.

If you aren’t familiar with the album, click here for a listen, and if you end up liking it, snag the current pressing and save yourself a few hundred dollars.

Okay, that’s my lot for this week. Thanks for reading and your support, and happy listening.

Cheers - Dom

Hey there Sorry Staters. Thanks for checking out our Halloween week newsletter. I hope everyone who enjoys this time of the year is having fun. Whatever you end up doing on the night, have a good time. I don’t tend to dress up these days and will probably be at home watching old Hammer House Of Horror films. My favorites of the genre. Not that I am a big horror buff to be honest. I like the old classics mostly over the newer, darker stuff and have never really been into the super violent and gory end of things. I’m a bit of wuss when it comes to all that stuff. Unless it’s done in an over-the-top comedic way, then I can just about stomach it.

You’ll need to talk to Jeff or the others here at SSR for a Halloween film recommendation, if one is needed. I’m sure Jeff will have a great one here in this very newsletter. I’m going to stick to music and records though for my pick this week, but it is one that Jeff turned me on to. A few months back we had beefed up the metal section here at the store with some choice imports that Jeff had ordered from one of our overseas vendors. It was an opportunity for us to put some cool and interesting titles on the floor for our customers, and ones that they perhaps might not know or see much. Whilst working one day, Jeff and I listened to a bunch of them, but there was one that stood out for me, and it was called Sin Will Find You Out by a group called Original Sin. It was from 1986 and purported to be an all-girl speed metal band from New York. Cool. The front cover has a bit of cheesy shot of an almost topless woman tearing off her bra, but on the back is a photo of the band. They look like cool punk metal goth chicks that could be in a band. The only thing is they weren’t. There never was a band. It was a studio band and totally fake. Damn. However, it is a good record and rocks and has great catchy tunes with titles like Bitches From Hell and is still definitely worth hearing and getting to know.

So, a bit of backstory. The album was one of several metal-sploitation albums that the Canadian label Cobra was putting out at the time. That label was managed by a fellow named Zoran Busic, who managed Canadian group Saga. The actual musical talent behind these releases was mostly provided by a guy called David DeFeis, a keyboardist, writer and vocalist from New York. For the Original Sin album, he had his sister Danae sing. She’s credited as Danielle Draconis. Guitars are played by Edward Pursino, who’s listed as Cynthia Taylor. He plays on some of the other fake metal bands on the Cobra label with David DeFeis. On bass is Joe O’Reilly, called Pandora Fox on the record and on drums is Mark Edwards. His pseudonym was Darlene Destructo. Brilliant. Not sure who the actual girls pictured on the record cover are and if one is at least Danae DeFeis. I guess they were girlfriends of the musicians and scenesters around at the time. I’ll need to consult Jeff; maybe he knows. Besides their fake band activities, David, Ed and Joe were in a real metal band, Virgin Steele. Their label Cobra had just released what is considered a classic, the album Noble Savage, by them the previous year. To give you some idea of what these musicians were doing at the time.

The Original Sin album doesn’t hang about. Just over thirty minutes and ten songs of banging speed metal with titles such as the previously mentioned Bitches From Hell, and To The Devil A Daughter and Enchantress Of Death. How can you go wrong? It’s a great Halloween metal spin. Of course, I am not an expert and don’t know too much about these sorts of things, so I might be way off, and more experienced heads might not think it’s all that great. I don’t know. I guess click the link here and check it out yourself. I like it and think it rocks. It would have been way cooler if it really was an all-girl band for sure, but it is still real musicians and real humans singing and not AI, so it at least has that going for it. Whatever, I thought it was cool, even if the cover is a bit Benny Hill meets Page Three Girl. Looks like the album came out in Canada, America and the U.K. at the time and is now being made available by German label High Roller Records. They seem to do a nice job on their reissues, and the price point is decent too. Kudos to them. Originals don’t seem to go for that much, but a nice copy will probably set you back fifty bills.

Before I sign off and let you get back to your trick or treating, I want to mention that our Raleigh shop still has some great horror movie soundtracks left in the bins and a bunch of cool metal and punk records that will sound great this time of the year, or at any other time. If you are local, try and stop in if you haven’t already. But don’t worry, we do our best to make sure there are killer records in the bins whenever you come by to shop and say hello.

Finally, I must mention that there have been a bunch of cool, fun and interesting new release records coming through of late. I’m a sucker for anything that sounds like UK DIY or C86. That indie sound that isn’t punk but isn’t bed-wetter wimp either. Preferably with female vocals alongside male. There has been a continuous lineage of bands since picking up that mantle and carrying on. Not only in the UK and Ireland but in Europe and particularly here in the US. Labels like Slumberland and the new Inscrutable over here, for instance, are releasing great records by new indie bands.

I’d like to quickly list three new ones that came in that I liked and want to recommend.

Firstly, from Richmond, K9 and their album Thrills. We just got copies hand-delivered the other week (thank you) and I really like this one. It’s got a lot of charm but has bite too. Good mix of male and female vocals, good songs. Take a listen.

The Inscrutable Records label has their #10 release out, and it’s a likable lo-fi, bedroom pop album called Permanent Opposite. Essentially a solo, one-man project from Jared Leibowich covering emotional issues that most of us may have dealt with or might be going through and can relate to. Worth checking out if you like this sort of thing.

Lastly, underscoring how good the Richmond scene is, another interesting one from there. This time courtesy of Sarah Everton and her project called Added Dimensions. The album is titled Jane From Preoccupied America. Swell Maps fans will instantly get that reference. Again, I liked this one a lot. Seems to hit that nerve in me. We were playing this in the store when we first got it in, and my ears pricked up immediately. I don’t want to throw out lazy journalistic comparisons saying it sounds like this or that, but if you like decent lo-fi, indie post-punk flavors, then you should give this one and the records above a listen.

Okay, cheers everyone. Thanks for taking the time to read our newsletter. Thank you for supporting record stores and the artists who make the records that we champion. It’s important and appreciated.

-Dom

Hey there everyone, what’s up?

Thanks for checking in with us. I missed the newsletter last week as I visited Norfolk, Virginia to attend the Johnny Marr gig. He was over here stateside with his band making a whistle-stop tour of a few cities before heading back for a more extensive European tour. It was fantastic seeing him again. A true legend and the nicest and coolest guitar slinger around. The show gave me a chance to catch up with some old friends and provided a welcome break from all the madness happening here in America currently. Shout out to local band Community Witch, who supported and got the crowd warmed up. Nice one.

Talking of good shows, I didn’t get a chance to mention the fun time we all had seeing Modem from Finland the other week. Despite a less than sold-out crowd, they gave us the full Monty. We were entertained to say the least. Kudos to their support Clear Channel from Washington D.C., who were ace. If you like ESG-like funky bass lines and Go-Go influences in your pop music, then check these guys out. We still have a couple of their records for sale. Check them out.

I’ll be listening to and watching more live music this weekend as I return to Shakori Hills for the first time since the pandemic. It’s a small bespoke festival that takes place twice a year here in North Carolina and always has good vibes. Musically, it’s billed as grassroots and dance. The lineups have everything from bluegrass to Afrobeat, and I always end up hearing something cool that I wasn’t aware of or expecting. My local DJ buddies and I will be at the Vinyl Lounge tent all weekend spinning records before, between and after bands play. It’s always a good hang and laugh. I haven’t camped in a while, so hope I can remember all my boy scout knots. LoL.

Here at the store, we have been processing several cool collections. Lots of different styles of music to cover a lot of different tastes. One I was pricing had some cool jazz records that are on the floor currently. A few heavy hitters and a lot of nice clean represses of some classics. One that I have in my personal collection is a record by Larry Young called Larry Young’s Fuel. It’s a cool, funky jazz fusion record from 1975 and recommended listening.

Larry Young left the world prematurely, aged just 37, dying from pneumonia. I’ve had that and just made sure I got my vaccine the other week. It’s no joke. The Fuel album came out in 1975 and was released on the Arista label, his new label after a one-album deal at Perception and an almost decade-long residency at Blue Note. His Unity album on Blue Note from 1966 with Joe Henderson is considered a classic and a signpost recording for progressive jazz. Not quite free jazz, but moving in that direction. The Coltrane influence is apparent. Young was an organist primarily, although he played piano too. His style was initially influenced by Jimmy Smith, but he soon developed a unique style and sound of his own. Either as a leader or sideman, his name is on some of the best records that Blue Note released during the sixties. He even turns up on a recording with Jimi Hendrix that surfaced after the guitar hero passed. His contributions to Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew cannot be underestimated, nor can his work with Tony Williams Lifetime. His jazz credentials are firmly established.

At Arista, Young cut two albums. The follow-up to Fuel came out the following year in 1976 and was titled Spaceball. I like that one too. The pair of records could be described as prog-jazz, jazz-fusion, jazz-funk or space-funk. The tags are all accurate. Obviously, Spaceball would fit the last category. Interestingly, the first album is credited to Larry Young, whereas the second artist’s name is Larry Young’s Fuel. I imagine after the first album he considered the group a project and so Spaceball was credited to the group and not him singularly. Maybe? There is a third album, called The Magician, that has a lot of the same musicians and producers, which was recorded in New York but only released in Germany in 1977. He sadly passed the following year.

On these records, Larry Young not only plays the organ and piano but incorporates Moog synths and Fender Rhodes electric keyboards into his repertoire. There are also vocals on the records, making them more soulful, and the rhythm section is definitely funky. Spaceball even has a guest appearance from guitar ace Larry Coryell, who was in the midst of making his own funky fusion records with his group Eleventh House. Another name that might be recognizable is that of Julius Brockington. He was a keyboardist also and an arranger and released a couple of cool soul-jazz records on the Today label a few years prior. Today was a sister label to Perception and part owned by producer Terry Philips, who exec-produced the Larry Young’s Fuel albums. Connect the dots.

These records might not please jazz purists, taking on as they do a very commercial approach much different to his earlier work, but to the modern ear, I think they hold up very well. A big part of that might be the vocals from Laura Logan, who has been described as giving the record a similar vibe to the ones being made by Betty Davis. The production style is much more modern sounding too, and proved tempting for hip-hop producers to sample. The drum and keyboard sounds are both tight and futuristic, yet based on a solid foundation of soul and funk from the past. It’s a shame that Larry had to leave us so early, as based on these outings he was far from over as a musician and artist.

If mid 1970s funk and fusion is your thing and you haven’t listened to Fuel and Spaceball, I would highly recommend you do. We have a copy of Fuel here at the store for anyone interested. Great thing too, not expensive. Another cool record that punches above its weight. Check it out here. Don’t forget to Turn Off The Lights.

Cheers - Dom

Hi there and thanks for clicking on our newsletter. How are things with you? Surviving, I hope. It’s not easy, that’s for sure. I know I say it all the time, but thank God for music and the arts. I’d go insane if I didn’t have records, films and books to escape with. Currently watching World War Two movies is really doing it for me. They always have, but there’s something even more satisfying now about watching Nazis getting their faces kicked in. I highly recommend it as therapy for the times we live in. It’s a good reminder of who the bad guys used to be in the world. This past week I watched a bunch about European resistance fighters foiling Nazi plans and generally f’ing them up. Great stuff. I also watched one of my favorite old Tarzan films, where Nazis are trying to kill the local tribes and steal their mineral resources. Tarzan puts a stop to them, helped by Cheetah who steals a part to their radio and does a good job of annoying them. Fantastic. Got to love seeing a chimp outsmart a bunch of Nazis.

Anyway, back to the music. There’s never a slow week as far as new records coming into my life is concerned. Whether it’s new releases or cool old used records, I always feel blessed when something that I haven’t heard is introduced to me. The reason I am here and why we are all here. Music. It’s the best. It’s what feeds our souls. Not to sound too corny. You know what I mean. When we come to write our staff picks, I think we all try to write from our hearts and tell you about stuff that we genuinely like, and with me it tends to be whatever I am listening to at that moment. So, for this week I am going to encourage you all to check out the album, Even When I’m Not, by Harry Kakoulli. Released in 1980 on Oval Records.

Regular readers might remember that I mentioned him a few weeks back. It was regarding his song I’m On A Rocket that was included on the great compilation All The Young Droids that I recommended you all to check out. We just got that restocked btw. That song is great and one of my favorites from the comp, and it led me to finding a cheap copy of his full-length LP on Discogs that includes the tune. I hoped that the rest of the album might yield at least one more song as good as Rocket and at the very least not suck. It doesn’t suck, but I’m On A Rocket is still the jam in my opinion. However, I do like the rest of the record. It’s got a quirky new wave vibe with a lyrical delivery that could have only come out of the U.K. circa late 70s/early 80s. There’s lots more interesting synth sounds on the other songs, and even the obligatory reggae/dub track that all records at the time had to have. Thankfully, it sounds more like The Clash than The Police.

Kakoulli was the bass player in Squeeze previously and was also in the short-lived band England’s Glory with Peter Perrett of The Only Ones. This was his debut solo album. The Rocket single was the only accompanying 45 and was backed with another track from the LP called I Wanna Stay. He saw out the rest of the decade releasing a few more pop singles and then moved into house music and tribal electro territory.

I can’t talk on any of those records, but can highly recommend listening to Even When I’m Not. It’s a fun record. Lots of good songs. Check it out.

Cheers - Dom

Hi there Sorry State newsletter readers. I trust we find you well.

A quick bit of housekeeping before I proceed. In these pages last week, I was giving the thumbs up to Finnish jazz and to Ville Valavuo, whose recent album I really liked. I said I wasn’t aware of his other projects, but that wasn’t true. Jeff reminded me about one that we stock here at Sorry State and one that yours truly promoted when it came out, namely Modem and their Megalomania LP. Sorry Ville, I didn’t mean to forget that one. We are all fans of that record and are looking forward to seeing you next month when you hit Raleigh on your US tour.

For those of you into cool synth-based electro pop, check Modem out on that tour and pick up a copy of their album, if you haven’t already.

Okay, with that addressed, what else have I been listening to this week? Inspired by John Scott’s French vacation, I recently picked up a nice French pressing of an album by the original Ye-Ye girl herself, Sylvie Vartan from 1967 called simply Sylvie. The album has her covering some Motown numbers like Same Old Song and You Keep Me Hangin’ On, along with a few other rock and pop hits of the day. My favorite so far has been L’amour Est No. 1, which has a cool fuzz guitar riff going on in it. The album packaging also must be mentioned. A gatefold, with great photos of Sylvie in the studio on the inside and a cool color pic of her on the back cover wearing a sharp military jacket. Tres chic. This French RCA pressing sounds great too. Cheers to the US dealer on Discogs who gave me a great price on it and santé to John Scott. I hope it’s nice in Nice mate.

Here at the store, we have been enjoying stocking represses of two great groups, Broadcast and Stereolab. I love them both. The Stereolab reissues have all been well done, with plenty of bonus material and sounding great. Fill your boots on any missing in your collection. The Broadcast demos and BBC sessions however are a must for fans. Highly recommended if you haven’t heard these versions.

With that in mind and having already spoken about Modem, if you were still hungry for more sophisticated, cool electro-pop that has always been tough to get on vinyl, then you must pick up the reissue of 604 by Ladytron. The band’s debut from 2001 still sounds fresh almost twenty-five years later. Another fine act from Liverpool, let it be noted. They had a bit of a time with their record labels over the years, resulting in vinyl pressings of their albums becoming in short supply. I was shocked to see the current prices on their back catalogue. Fortunately, as with Broadcast and Stereolab, their music does seem to be getting new vinyl pressings. Their follow-up to 604, Light & Magic, is also now available, and their critically acclaimed third album, Witching Hour, is about to get an anniversary repress. So that’s good news. We’ll make sure we get copies of those in for you. I wish for Light & Magic the original UK artwork was used, but I guess most people only know the US version and so it makes sense to use that, but I wonder about the thought process back in 2002 for then label Emperor Norton to release the record with the close-up shots of the band members as artwork instead. Not that it’s a bad cover; just different. They probably couldn’t go with a cover that didn’t show the group and looked more like it was a Factory or Creation Records release from ten years ago. Maybe?

I admit to not being a huge fountain of knowledge on Ladytron, but they are an internationally recognized and successful group, and a quick click of your mouse will take you to all the information you should need. Because their albums haven’t been so widely available on vinyl, as with many artists, I just haven’t had the opportunity to come across copies and spin them. I don’t tend to listen to much music that isn’t a record. I know that sounds like a crazy luddite. I just don’t stream and download that much, if at all. It’s always been records for me, with tapes being okay and then CDs. I just like physical media. That’s all to say that I had 604 and Light & Magic on CD, but that’s as far as my listening to them went, unless I heard them out somewhere etc. I’ve been enjoying listening to 604 again after so many years, and this current vinyl pressing sounds decent to my cloth ears.

I’ll sign off with copying excerpts apparently taken from the record’s original press release at the time. Whether that is true or not is almost immaterial as they are perfect descriptions:

• ‘methadone ABBA’

• ‘Kraftwerk meeting Nico in the 24-hour chemist’

• ‘the hit stage version of Brave New World’

• ‘a teasing glimpse of how Britney Spears might have sounded, had she been born in the GDR and a heroin addict........’

There you go. If that appeals, then you know what to do. See you next time. Thanks for reading our newsletter and supporting the store and the artists that we stock. It means a lot to us all.

Cheers - Dom

Hello to you, and thanks for clicking on our newsletter. We can’t say it enough, how we really appreciate it. The world keeps getting more bonkers by the day. It’s hard watching the news without despairing, but burying your head in the sand and pretending things aren’t going on isn’t the answer either. We all need something to distract us from the grimness, though, and should take it wherever we can get it. Music, film, books, art, sport, food, the list goes on. Celebrate life and the good things. Obviously, for us here at Sorry State it is music, but we all enjoy other aspects of the arts and culture. Even sport with a couple of us. LoL.

This week my record listening has covered a lot of territory. I’ve been diving deeper into a lot of those reissues of music from other parts of the non-Western world that I touched on last week. I’ve been listening to obscure metal albums from bands I hadn’t heard of that we have here at the shop from a collection we recently bought. With John Scott about to jet off to Paris any day now, he’s been playing a lot of Franco playlists here at the store. Plenty of yé-yé, French girl pop goodies, which I love. Any time the song Les filles c’est fait pour faire l’amour by Charlotte Leslie comes on, I am tapping my feet and nodding my head. That one was and still is a 60s Mod floor filler.

Talking of French pop, we listened to the French cast version of Hair this morning. I recently picked up a copy on Discogs. I explained to John Scott that I have a bit of a thing for collecting different versions of the Hair soundtrack. It came out around the time I was born, and I’ve been a fan of its composer Galt MacDermot and his music for a long time. He has sadly passed away now, but the Canadian released lots of cool and interesting soundtracks and records. Mostly in a jazz-funk vein, and many on his own Kilmarnock label. Hip-hop producers have been sampling him for years and that fact, along with the quality of the music, has made many of his records expensive items should you wish to own originals. Even some reissues command top dollar.

Anyway, moving on. I wanted to give a proper shout out and plug for a record that we got in here a while ago and that has been growing on me each time I’ve given it a spin.

Ville Valavuo: Commemoration Songs. Ultraääni Records

I know that we often talk about punk and hardcore bands from Finland, but not so much the jazz and funk that comes out of the country. It’s no secret that all of us here love Finland, its people and for that matter the rest of Scandinavia. The guys have been over there more recently, but I still have fond memories of my visits years ago back in the 90s when I worked on the ships. Over the years I’ve discovered a lot of great music coming out of Finland that was in a jazz and funk vein. Most folks may have heard of Jimi Tenor, perhaps. He’s terrific and has been making interesting music for over three decades now. Sort of future jazz if you like, with electronic influences. Warp Records was a good label for him. His partner, Nicole Willis, has put out some great soul and funk records backed by the Finnish band Soul Investigators. Members of that group are behind one of my favorite record labels, Timmion Records, which has consistently released cool and interesting records. One of their releases, TR-78 by Didier’s Sound Spectrum, released in the early 00s, is one of my desert island discs. Such a good record. Funky, instrumental album that sounds like a lost soundtrack or sound library record from the 70s that was made by musicians who were time traveling back from the future. If that makes any sense?

So, fast forward to this year and the Ville Valavuo album. Recorded over several sessions last year in Helsinki and mixed at the beginning of this, it’s a one-man band effort as far as I can tell. Credit for all instrumentation, programming, recording, mixing and layout go to the artist. He’s a guitarist and visual artist associated with several groups and projects, the majority of which I admit to not being familiar with. When we received copies of Commemoration Songs here at the store, Danny said to me that I might like this one. He was correct. It’s categorized as an avant-garde jazz album on Discogs, which I suppose is correct, although that tag typically makes me approach with caution. Ha, ha. I’m not actually a big free jazz lover as it goes. When things get too crazy and out there, I tend to lose interest. I prefer structure, melody and my saxophones not to sound like a gaggle of geese being strangled, if possible. Mercifully, there isn’t tortured honking going on with this one. The vibe is more laid-back and spiritual. If you have been enjoying the records made by Nala Sinephro, which incorporate electronic instrumentation to give the music a spacey, magical feel, then you’ll probably like this Ville Valavuo record.

The album consists of eight tracks, four per side that are variations on a theme that comments on the commodification of the world at the expense of human rights. A world where making money is the all-important thing. A world where our consumerism only helps keep the systems in place that hurt us. The music here is supposed to provide the listener sanctuary from all of that. Honestly, I think that has been accomplished. Like all of us, I have found the state of the world a lot to handle currently, and being able to immerse oneself into a headspace for a few minutes that takes you out of that and transports you to another place is very much welcomed. I’ve put this record on the turntable several times and have found myself flipping it a couple of times before taking it off and finding something else. You don’t have to do that. One listen at a time will still take you away for the thirty-odd minutes that the record lasted. It’s a good one to have on late at night or even early in the morning when you are reading, for instance.

At around the same time that this record came to us here at the shop, I picked up a couple of 45s that one of our distros had copies of. Two slices of more up-tempo, Mod-leaning jazz that also comes out of Finland. Both singles were released on the New Look Records label, which is an offshoot of Timmion Records, the label I mentioned previously. The music on these comes from The Jukka Eskola Soul Trio and The Sami Linna Quartet. I liked both. If you had told me both had been recorded back in the late 1960s or early 1970s instead of 2019, I would have easily believed you. Really nice soul jazz. Jukka Eskola plays trumpet, and Sami Linna is a guitarist, backed with a grooving rhythm section, nice percussion and organ. All four sides are winners. Time to discover Finnish jazz if you haven’t already. You’ll need something to act as a sorbet between courses of crushing hardcore. Right? Check them out and see what you think.

Okay, I must cut this off now. The deadline has already passed, and Daniel fines us whenever we submit late. He’s a hard taskmaster. Just kidding. He is, of course, the best boss ever.

Cheers guys. See you next time.

-Dom

Hey there everyone. Thanks for clicking on our newsletter this week. Hopefully you all have had a good week. That’s something that living in America is becoming increasingly difficult to do under the current regime, who seem hell-bent on enriching and protecting themselves and making America NOT great again. Fuck ‘em. Their day will come.

It’s hard to believe that the summer is just about over here, but the constant rain and the imminent beginning of the football season are reminders. Congratulations to Crystal Palace, who bookended their F.A. Cup win from last season with a Community Shield win to begin this season. A victory over my Liverpool no less.

My personal summer dentist chair surfing continues this week with a thrilling root canal. Sounds like great fun. I’ll be out of action for the day, but have some old movies lined up on the DVR and there’s always a stack of to be played records leaning up against the hi-fi. After barely recovering from the last procedure, I’ll be back on the liquid and soft food diet again. I am looking forward to having this all behind me. Along with the expense.

This week in the store we restocked our international section with one or two cool compilations and reissues of hard to find and expensive albums, and I’d like to draw your attention to some of these. Although I haven’t been able to do my radio show Worldy much these past few weeks due to my mouth being out of operation and my partner Matt being away (he’s currently in Brazil and hopefully bringing back some cool records for the show), several of these releases I wanted because they would be great for our show.

Mulatu Astatke: New York - Addis – London. Strut Records

I mentioned the king of Ethiopian music the other week when talking about one of his contemporaries, Hailu Mergia and the musicians he played with. Well, now we have a great compilation on the master himself. Whether as an introduction to his music or to fill in gaps in your collection, this compilation is terrific. Spanning a decade from 1965-1975 and arguably his most productive period, the comp pulls from a variety of releases that would be tough to find as originals, and not all have been reissued. Curated by Miles Cleret, the founder of Soundway Records, for Strut Records. Both label names should be recognized by those of you buying cool vintage Afro and Latin music as for over twenty years they have been one of the best reissue labels in the market for this type of music. Anything that you see on either of these labels is guaranteed to be good music and presented in good sound quality and with informative liner notes. Buy with confidence.

Experience Unlimited: Free Yourself. Strut Records

So, Strut again with a nice reissue of an album that originally came out in 1977. This is a cool soul and funk record out of Washington D.C. that was released on the jazz label Black Fire, the same label that released the great records from Oneness Of Juju from Virginia. Original copies have always gone for decent money, but there have been reissues over the years. The US label Now And Again did a repress a few years back, and there was a Scorpio version too. Now And Again do a great job with their reissues, like Strut. Now And Again’s comes with a nice booklet, and Strut’s comes with a new essay from bandleader Gregory Elliott, known as Sugar Bear, and sports repros of the Black Fire labels on their pressing. I believe both come from the same remastered plates done by Bernie Grundman, so either will sound good. This record has become popular again recently after a New Balance commercial featured the song Hey You.

Various: Perú Selvático. Analog Africa

German reissue label Analog Africa has been making obscure but quality music available to the greater music-buying public for close to twenty years. They began concentrating on music from the African continent, but in recent years have branched out to other corners of the world. All their releases are of the highest quality sound and packaging wise, and you can buy any of their records blind. This set focuses on the cumbia music scene of the Peruvian Amazon between 1972 and 1986. It comes with a fabulous, annotated booklet full of record information and great color photos. The music itself is great, and if you have fallen for the magical and unique sound of cumbia music from other South American countries, then you’ll surely love this compilation. Highly recommended.

Rob: Make It Fast, Make It Slow. Soundway Records.

Soundway label again with the second album cut originally in the late 1970s by a Ghanaian artist known simply as Rob, full name Rob “Roy” Raindorf. I might have talked in these pages before about Rob’s first self-titled album from 1977 on the Essiebons label; this is the follow-up from the following year. Both albums would cost you a packet as originals, if you could even find them, so we owe thanks to Soundway for making these gems readily available. If you like Afrobeat funk with a touch of gospel, then this is the record for you and possibly my pick of the bunch out of these reissues. It was certainly the one I was most excited about getting a copy of. I’d encourage you to go take a listen and potentially add this one to your collection. The band backing him sounds great; the horn section kills it. The songs have humor, politics and a touch of religion on the more gospel-sounding tunes. Rob has a terrific delivery, and if you dig artists such as Fela Kuti, then this should be a no-brainer purchase.

Various: Nigeria Special Volume 3. Soundway Records

Various: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe. Analog Africa

Two more killer compilations from the aforementioned labels. The first follows on from two previous excellent volumes of mostly 1970s Nigerian Afrobeat and Highlife, with this one going into the 1980s and highlighting the use of synths and more modern methods of music making. The second concentrates on music made in the Zimbabwe townships during the latter half of the 1970s. The music styles here take in Afrobeat, Latin, Highlife and traditional African sounds.

I’ve only given these a couple of spins so far, but have been digging what I have heard. The quality level is on par with all the other compilations the respective labels have released. Remember, I said you could pretty much buy any of these going in blind. For lovers of retro Afro sounds, you can’t really go wrong.

Various: Ayo Ke Disco. Soundway Records

On this collection, we move to the South China Seas, and to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand for funky, disco and soul influenced music made in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As with all the previous collections, you’d be hard pressed to come across any of these records as originals, making these types of sets essential and great value for money. This one is curated by label manager Alice Whittington, who does a fab job on the selections, and the label as always presents the music with great sounding mastering. Matt played a track from this one on Worldy recently and it got a good response. Another one to give the thumbs up to.

You’ll have to excuse me for not giving you any detailed artist information on any of these, but honestly most of them were new to me. I trust the judgement of the compilers and the quality control of the labels though. I have many of their releases in my collection and can firmly vouch for their respective worthiness. Again, buy with confidence. Okay, that’s it for now. Go check out our website or pop into the store to see more of these types of things and to get more information. We didn’t order a ton of these, but will restock asap any that sell out. Don’t forget that you can add your email to any sold out product and receive a notification when we restock it.

Cheers folks. See you next time.

-Dom

Hey there everyone. Hope you are well, and thanks for reading our newsletter this week. For those of you north of the equator, I hope that your summer is going well. We have had some hot and humid days here in Raleigh, but the last couple of days saw the temperature drop significantly, and today as I write we’re experiencing biblical levels of rain. Very un-summer like compared to previous weeks, so it’s a little ironic that my pick this week is very much associated with the summer. In a lot of people’s minds at least.

With all the hullabaloo over the Oasis reunion shows this summer, I have found myself going on a bit of a 90s BritPop nostalgia trip. I have been playing a lot of live shows on YouTube and trying to find gigs I was at, as well as listening to live LPs from some of my favorites from that era. One of our distributors recently had some early Suede LP reissues available, which I ordered for the store. I added in for myself a copy of their fantastic live performance from Brixton Academy in 1993 that was released as a film at the time and titled Love & Poison, but never as a record. I had a bootleg tape for years and so was pleased to finally get a vinyl record of this show. Suede was an amazing band live. Like The Verve, their gigs were special, emotional events, especially in those early days. I wasn’t at this Academy gig, but saw them a bunch of times, including a couple of their famous fan club gigs. Talking of Verve, watch their US Tour film from 1997 called Do Not Panic; it’s a great example of how powerful they were live. That film, along with the footage from their hometown heroes’ gig in Wigan at Haigh Hall in 1998, is essential watching if you haven’t seen them and like the band. Richard Ashcroft of the Verve has been opening this summer’s Oasis shows.

A recent record purchase from a nice lady who brought in cool stuff to sell yielded another live album by another one of my favorite 90s bands, Ride. This record was a bootleg and compiled performances recorded in France, taken from the band’s tour for the Carnival Of Light album in late 1994. The sound quality is excellent, and if you like this period of Ride, I highly recommend checking it out. I know some Ride fans prefer the earlier more shoegaze stuff, but I think they moved into the mid-90s BritPop era well, and I remember liking Carnival Of Light when it came out. They too, as evidenced from this record, were a good live band. Another that I was fortunate enough to catch a couple of times.

Anyway, all this to say, that in the process I rediscovered another band from this period that I really liked and hadn’t listened to in years. Namely, Dodgy. I noticed our one-stop had reissues of their second album Homegrown from 1994 and a collection of their classic A’s and B’s called appropriately, Ace A’s + Killer B’s, and so ordered a copy of each for the store.

I remember really liking Homegrown when it came out, and the lead track especially. That song, Staying Out For The Summer, is terrific and kickstarted a run of hits and success for the three-piece band. Ironically, the album didn’t get released until the autumn of 1994, but the next spring and summer of 1995, you heard Staying Out… everywhere.

Dodgy was a pop band that wrote catchy songs, with great close vocal harmonies, reminiscent of bands from the 1960s like The Hollies and The Easybeats, to name a couple. Perfect for that moment in BritPop when 60s nostalgia was running high. They weren’t by any means a retro band, though, sporting sixties clobber and Beatles bowl cut hairdos. The influences in the songwriting might have been there, but not the look or the aesthetic. I liked them when they came out because their first album was produced by Liverpool’s Ian Broudie and they were involved in political causes and fights, like supporting the dockers and electoral reform groups. They were also one of the first groups to visit Bosnia and play in Sarajevo after the siege ended. They supported the War Child charity and returned to Bosnia the following year. When a lot of groups were yucking it up and partying, they were out there putting their money where their mouths were and doing good work and supporting worthy causes.

I’d say that Homegrown, their second album, is my favorite of theirs. It begins so strongly with the aforementioned Staying Out For The Summer and continues in a mostly happy and jaunty fashion, but if you listen to some of the lyrics closely, you’ll pick up a darker edge layered into the pop tunes. Album closer Grassman is definitely about drugs, something that the scene was awash with back then, whether it be a bit of smoke or harder stuff like coke and smack. Thankfully, a bit of herb and beer was enough for me back then. I’d already been scared off trying harder stuff by Grange Hill in the 80s and the Zammo storyline. That’s a reference for all the UK 80s kids reading. The vibe for Homegrown though was more about weed, and to drive that point home, if the title hadn’t already done it, some early copies of the album came with cannabis seeds included. So that you could grow your own. Get it?

Listening back to the album now, it fits right in with my love for smart, sixties-inspired pop, and I am reminded of the band from Arizona that I like, The Resonars, who I have written about here before. Those guys are probably a little more overt in the psychedelic sixties influences, but both bands share great vocal harmonies and know just when to insert a good guitar solo.

Dodgy hit the highs the following year with the album Free Peace Sweet. That album continued their run of hits. Unfortunately, still not reissued and quite pricey to find, just like their first album. Thankfully, for those that care, you can get a lot of the key tracks from that first album and the third, plus single sides on the A’s & B’s collection. The songs In A Room and Good Enough will always bring a smile to my face and take me back to those days.

Go check them out if this your first time hearing about them or give yourself a reminder like I did if it’s been a while. The band was well loved in the UK and had several chart hits, but didn’t make much of an impact stateside. After the release of their third album, singer Nigel Clark left the band and performed as a solo artist. The remaining duo brought in new members and carried on as a five-piece, releasing a fourth album in the early 00s. After an almost ten-year hiatus, they returned and have since released two more albums and played out live again. I admit to not knowing much about these 00s releases, but still like those first three albums and believe they have more than passed the test of time.

Cheers guys, see you ‘round here next time.

Dom

Hey there everyone. Thanks for taking the time to check in with us this week. Hopefully it serves as a distraction from the horrible news and bs that’s all around us these days.

We have had a lot of cool shit come through the store in the last week or so. Restocks on current bangers, reissues of classics, and more obscure deep cut titles. One that caught my eye and has proved to be a winner is my pick for you this week. It’s a compilation too, and anyone who knows me will tell you I love a good comp.

Various Artists – All The Young Droids (Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985). School Daze

This is a lovingly compiled collection of obscure and under the radar synth pop and DIY sounds from a bygone era. It has been curated by Phil King, bass player from Lush (among his many credits) and put out by Glasgow-based label School Daze, which is a subsidiary label to Night School Records. They have done a nice job indeed. Twenty-four tracks of synth-based pop and punkier sounds from artists whose names, for the most part, will be known only to the keenest collectors of music from this period. Almost all the tracks originate from the United Kingdom, but there are one or two Euro and World entries included for good measure. The collection comes with a nice booklet, reproducing sleeves and providing artist and track information. The copies we received were on pink vinyl, and there is supposed to be a clear version too. These are stated to be in a run of just 500 each, but there looks to be a more available black vinyl pressing. Obviously, once we sell the copies we have here, there is no guarantee that we will get more of the same, but hopefully we should get something. Should demand require it, naturally.

Synth pop, I know, isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Often looked down on by some, as a genre it’s almost a poor cousin to the cooler punk and guitar-based styles of the day. Every genre has good and bad examples of the respective music. I would argue that, if anything, a lot of the synth-based music being made during this pioneering period of the late 1970s and early 1980s was far more progressive, new and exciting than a lot of the stodgy rock music being made then. I’ve always had a soft spot for it, probably beginning with my love for Soft Cell, Human League, Heaven 17, OMD and the like. I still dig those records out and enjoy them to this day. I’m not opposed to pop music at all. A good tune is a good tune at the end of the day.

On this compilation, the focus isn’t on the known names, but rather those who were on smaller labels and those who just put out one or two records independently. There are some names, like Ian North from Milk ‘N Cookies fame, who might be recognized, but probably not this track by him. One of my favorite tracks is “I’m On A Rocket” by Harry Kakoulli, who was in Squeeze. His contribution is potentially the more post-punkish of the set and has guitars on it too. Great cut that sort of reminds me of the stuff Elton Motello was doing. Kakoulli released one album in 1980 under his name and it’s not too bad. It includes the Rocket track and a couple of other good ones. You should be able to find it cheaply, especially in the U.K.

For me, the cuts that work the best on the compilation are those like Kakoulli’s which are less than obvious synth pop. Out of the twenty-four tracks, it’s the ones that pull out all the pop cliches that are the least interesting. You’ll always have one or two tracks on a double LP collection that aren’t your faves, especially when digging into more obscure selections, but thankfully on this one there aren’t many. I’ve only had the record a week or so and played it a few times, but didn’t hear anything that made me say, “this sucks.” Naturally, individual experiences will vary, but dollar for dollar this set is great value in my opinion.

For archivists, historians and just those interested, the full-size color booklet is a treasure trove of information. Informative notes, photos, record sleeve scans and even a rundown of the electronic instruments used on the records heard. Phil King is no stranger to curating compilations of this nature, but on this one he has done an exceptional job I believe. Kudos, sir. It sounds great too. To make the package even more attractive, you will find some real rarities and some unreleased tracks that those of us stateside are very unlikely to stumble across in the wild.

I’ll leave by repeating the quote from NME music journalist Nick Kent that is printed in the booklet.

“And then came the rise of synth pop: blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended: not with a blood-curdling bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”

Hilarious. He thought he was being clever by putting down the music, but of course, as we all know, electronic music wasn’t the end of pop, rock or anything else. It continued to grow and evolve and spawn a whole new culture. Whether you like it or not. The dinosaurs of bloated ‘60s and ‘70s rock are the ones that sound dated now and barely hold up, whilst a lot of the “new” music made back then still sounds fresh today. I’ll take Depeche Mode over Foghat any flippin’ day, mate. Kent was also wrong in thinking synth-based music was new. He obviously hadn’t heard of Wendy Carlos or Delia Derbyshire or picked up a copy of Switched On Moog, which coincidentally we had a copy of the other day, and I was jamming in the store and sold right off the turntable. Don’t be a Luddite. Sewing machines didn’t end the world, and neither has a Moog synth. Will we eventually be killed by robots in the future? Possibly. But for now, let’s enjoy the noises they can make.

Cheers and see you all next time.

-Dom

Hey there Sorry Staters! Thanks for clicking on the newsletter and taking a read. We always appreciate it. I hope your July is going well. My summer of dentist chair surfing is continuing well. Had a couple of fillings today and next week I have a triple extraction and bone graft to look forward to. Yay! I’m still not done either. The big one comes last. Certainly, as far as expense goes. Oh well. What else am I going to spend thousands of dollars on that I don’t have?

This week I thought I would shine a spotlight on some cool vintage sounds from the African continent. We recently stocked some interesting titles from the always impressive Awesome Tapes From Africa label along with one or two others from the Born Bad label from France and the always reliable Numero Group.

The other week, John Scott and I were listening to several cool records online, and I checked to see what we could order for the store and managed to get one or two in for you guys.

Firstly, we were loving the keyboard sounds of Hailu Mergia from Ethiopia. If you have dipped your toes into the world of Ethiopian jazz and funk, then you’ll be familiar with that unmistakable sound even if you don’t know the names of artists like this. Awesome Tapes From Africa, a great reissue label, has done us all a favor by making this wonderful music readily available to us here in 2025 on the other side of the world. Hailu Mergia played the organ, keyboards and synths and has had a career lasting over fifty years. We got in his first record, Tezeta, originally released in 1976, that has him backed by the famous Wallias Band. That group was formed by Mulatu Astatke, arguably the most well-known and successful of the Ethiopian new school. He was also a keyboard and organ player, but crucially brought the sounds of the vibraphone and a Latin influence on to the local scene. If you have listened to any of his records and liked them, you’ll no doubt enjoy the music of Hailu Mergia.

The second record we have by him, Shemonmuanaye, was recorded later in the 1980s and utilizes then current synths in addition to the already used organ. On this record, he revitalizes the sounds of the previous decade and creates a unique mood. Whenever we have had this spinning in the store, someone always asks who’s playing. This record and the previous one mentioned have a very calming and chill vibe to them. There’s nothing too crazy or funky here but just nice pleasing music. It’s hard to really describe. Just gentle, repetitive grooves over sparse drum machine beats. It can sound almost mystical in places and has a very hypnotic sound. One for a summer’s day to relax to or great to have on whilst working. Highly recommended. A companion record would be the collection of unreleased recordings from Charles Stepney called Step By Step, which I have spoken about here previously. If you dig that lo-fi retro groove thing.

From Cameroon, we have a cool collection of music from Frances Bebey called Psychedelic Sanza 1982–1984, released by Born Bad Records. Bebey was a multi-instrumentalist, writer, poet, singer and producer whose career spanned three decades. As the title informs us, these recordings stem from the early 1980s. Still a very fertile period in his career. There are a lot of interesting and cool sounds on this one. It’s folky, it’s funky, it’s soulful, it’s humorous. Bebey has a great vocal delivery, and his lyrics are funny in places and politically spot on. He sings in both French and English. This one has been getting a lot of spins on my turntable, and my favorite track so far has been one called Forest Nativity.

The same label has a compilation of slightly earlier, mid-70s recordings that we are trying to bring in, but for the time being our distributor is out of stock. We’ll keep trying for you as that set has some bangers on it too.

Lastly, from Nigeria, you shouldn’t sleep on Lijado Sisters’ Danger LP. We spoke about the Numero Group reissue of their later album, Horizon Unlimited, here in the newsletter before. That record came out originally in 1979 and has a more disco edge to the funk sound. Danger is from 1976 and on this one the sound is more afrobeat, but with psychedelic touches throughout. Great guitar playing from Biddy Wright, who played several instruments on the album and produced it. It’s a terrific record, doesn’t outstay its welcome and has a Nas sample on it, if that sort of thing interests you. As with the above records, highly recommended.

Okay, that’s my lot. Some cool summer (or anytime) jams for you. Go take a listen and see what you think and snag yourself a copy. Why not?

Cheers - Dom

Hey there everyone. How are you doing? In despair at the state of the world? Yeah, me too. Hopefully, though, none of you must spend the summer on a dentist’s chair instead of a sun lounger like I am. An attack of chronic toothache forced me to go see professional help and what they found wasn’t good. Luckily all can be fixed, but I have multiple teeth that need filling, pulling or capped. Yay! Fun times, and as we know, not cheap. Still, I suppose if I were to spend a couple of thousand dollars on anything other than records, then my own health isn’t a bad investment.

It was “Independence Day” this past weekend here in America and, following a couple of days later, my birthday. I wasn’t in much of a mood to celebrate either or do anything, and spent my b’day listening to records and watching old movies. I was also in a funk over the extremely sad news that we heard last week concerning the death of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva. In case you weren’t aware, they were professional footballers and died in a car crash in Spain. Jota played for Liverpool FC and as a supporter I have been affected by this in a much deeper way than when other famous people die. He just helped us win the Premier League title three months ago, played for the Portuguese national team who won the Nations League, and just weeks ago married his sweetheart and mother of their three children. It’s a tragic loss. I know it’s mad that we mourn celebrities and public figures so much when there are literally thousands losing their lives all over the world. That point was also brought home over the weekend here in America, when the news of the deaths in Texas came through due to flash floods. Sadly, the death toll from that event is in the three figures and climbing as I write. Of course, their lives matter just as much as a professional athlete or movie star, but when a human being does something special that touches you in some way, you don’t have to have met them or know them personally to feel sad and a sense of loss when they pass, especially when it’s premature.

Anyway, with that all said, it has put me in an odd head space as far as trying to write about a record or something that I want to recommend to you all. That dilemma was solved, I believe, when I came to work this morning and caught up with the store’s comings and goings over the last couple of days. I saw that a record I had ordered had come in. John Scott and I gave it a listen and enjoyed it, so it’s going to be my pick this week.

Marta Ren & The Groovelvets – Stop Look Listen. Record Kicks. 2016

This is a wonderful retro soul & funk album from the Modernist scene of about a decade ago coming out of Portugal. To honor Diogo, I thought it fitting to select a record from his home country. Although the music here is straight up sixties and seventies American R&B inspired and sung in English, all the players (as far as I can tell) are Portuguese.

Marta Ren has a powerful soul diva voice that is front and center throughout the album. The band back her up superbly with hard, tight and fast playing, perfectly nailing “that” soul sound that countless artists search for. If you own anything on Daptone Records, Colemine, Big Crown and similar labels that specialize in modern but vintage-sounding soul and funk, then this is a record for you.

From what I can tell, this was a project put together by musicians in the Porto scene specifically to showcase Marta Ren’s vocal prowess. All the players, including Marta herself, had been members of other bands and projects in Portugal. A lot of the music they were making wasn’t necessarily retro soul music. Marta’s previous groups, namely Sloppy Joe and Bombazines, had played Ska and Reggae in the former and a more modern Funk sound with the latter. The backing group on Stop Look Listen was dubbed The Groovelvets and were plucked from several of Porto’s local scene groups. Musical director Sergio Marques, who plays bass, conducts the musicians here to fine affect. His background was more in a hip-hop and pop rock sort of thing. The producer is listed as New Max, alias Tiago Novo, and he was in a group called Expensive Soul with Sergio. Anyway, between them they do a great job and have produced a stellar, fun soul record.

There are too many highlights to pick out just one song, but currently I like the second cut on the album called Release Me. They made a video for that one and released several of the songs as 45’s, which were quickly gobbled up by the modern funk 45 crowd. Next favorite song might be So Long, followed by one called Smiling Faces. All good. Final track, I Wanna Go Back, name checks some of Marta and the group’s heroes and inspirations. Under forty-five minutes, eleven songs and never outstaying its welcome. The album itself has been repressed a couple of times since first being released in 2016 due to its popularity. Around the time, Marta and the band were a hot ticket on many of the European stages and in particular the British scene took to her by all accounts. This record, though, was the only album the group and Marta made together. A few more songs popped up as 45 B-sides and secret tracks on the CD edition of the record, but that was it.

I must confess to not being hip to this record when it first came out, although I recalled her name when I noticed one of our distributors had copies in stock. I like that label, Record Kicks, and have some nifty 45s they have put out. Hopefully they’ll have more copies for us to order for you guys.

I’ll leave a link here so you can go check the record out. Play it in between your Sharon Jones albums and something from Lady Wray and you’ll be in the right place if you’re looking for soul.

Thanks for reading and happy listening.

Peace – Dom

Hey, hey, hey Sorry Staters! It’s been a while. How is everyone? That’s a loaded question considering all that is happening around the world. We sincerely hope that you and your loved ones are happy and safe. It’s a scary time, especially if you live in certain places where you may be fighting for your very life. It makes talking about anything less seem trivial, but if history has taught us anything it’s that the arts are the last bastions of free speech and that great creative things can come out of adversity. Art, music, and culture are the things that will keep us sane and moving forward so that together we can escape this dystopian nightmare.

Traditionally the summer slows down as far as new music releases go, but that doesn’t mean that new records haven’t been coming into Sorry State these past few weeks. There have been plenty. Jump on over to our webstore for a quick glance at some of the latest new arrivals. In our physical downtown Raleigh store, the quality used records supply hasn’t been turned off either. We’re always hunting for fresh vinyl and welcome locals and those further afield to contact us if they are interested in selling their records. We always get the best killer shit from our customers, so don’t forget, if you are feeling the need to purge your collection a little, get in touch with us and we’ll help to pass on your music to new ears and put a ‘lil dough in your skyrockets at the same time.

On that topic, one of our customers stopped by recently and sold us some nice records, including some killer jazz heat. The man had good taste. After we had concluded our deal, he casually mentioned that he was a musician and had a record that he would love to see in as many stores as possible. Our “policy” at SSR is to always try to take a copy or two of touring bands’ record if they pop in the shop or to stock a local band’s record. Within reason, of course. If it’s totally out of our wheelhouse, then maybe not, but we try to support as much as possible. Anyway, he left us three copies of his record and I said we’d get it on the floor for folks to see. He described it as Psychedelic, which got my attention, and I made a note to give it a listen when I could. I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone who has worked in music and especially stores, all about the ton of promos you receive from new artists and bands and how many calls and solicitations you get for records that you have never heard of. It can tend to make you a little bit jaded. I always try to give everything a fair chance. I’ve been introduced to a lot of great bands and artists from their first promo or self-released record. My ears have always been reliable to me over the years, and I tend to be able to tell when something is good. That all being said, this fellow’s record is very good in my opinion and it’s going to be my pick for this week.

Faun Tempol: La Oprika – 2024

The band, as far as I can tell, is two blokes, Carter Gaj and Thomas Simpson, and they are based here in North Carolina. I’m not sure whether they are locals or transplants like me. Anyway, it’s good to shine a light on local talent. The album is presented as four sides of listening and although not expressed anywhere as far as I can tell, they do sort of represent four slightly different suites of music. It’s modern psychedelic music taking in several generations of bands and artists that have trodden the psych path before them. There are dips into exotica, world music, soul and jazz all intertwined within the songs but without overtaking anything. This is still a record with guitars and drums and songs that “bands” could play. It’s not all about texture and mood, although there is plenty of that, there are some cool poppy tunes and some more rocking moments here.

The opening track sets the mood and pace with a ten plus minute epic entitled Acting Like A Child that fans of Temples, Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala and other 00s psych bands would appreciate. That track slips into an avant-garde like tape loop and electronic track which gently eases next to an acoustic guitar strumming and an effects laden intro vocal before the full band sound kicks in and ends the first side with a song called Fools Count that features some nice lead guitar.

Side two begins with one of my favorite songs on the record, a catchy ditty called Sleeping Couch. Slightly reminiscent of the psych-pop sounds that Welsh bands were making in the 90s. Stand up Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s. This is a real earworm track and I enjoy it more with each subsequent listen. Following track Soup Du Jour has some nice keyboard/mellotron stuff going on over a Can inspired drum beat. Good song. The side ends with a funky guitar groove instrumental track titled Fukuyama 5, that again features some tasty lead guitar licks.

Side three opener, Hermit Song, gets into the world music inspiration with what sounds like aboriginal chants and digeridoos playing. Or something like that. Amor Fatigue continues the record and it’s another fine pop song, embellished with sound effects, like a whole bunch of clocks on the outro. The third side concludes with a song called Vines. Dreamy vocals float along on top of a gentle groove which made me think of 60s sunshine pop groups produced by Curt Boettcher, like Sagittarius and Millennium. Albeit through a modern lens. I’d say that if these psych-pop groups are your bag then you will most likely dig this album.

Lastly, we flip the record to the final side. It begins with another funky guitar groove track called Cheesies On The Board, that could have been stolen from a Sly And The Family Stone recording session outtake. This song nicely segues into next song, Materia Prima, a beautiful South American flavored love song lament. The journey is closed out by one final instrumental called Death Clop, which sort of reprises a little bit of everything we just heard. And there it is. Album finished.

I enjoyed the trip and will say that each repeated listen has brought out new sounds and tones that I missed previously. It’s well recorded and sounds good. All key ingredients for a decent record. I believe the lads in Faun Tempol pulled it off, and I recommend psych-pop fans to go check this one out. We have a copy still here at the store and I’ll investigate getting some more copies if it looks like y’all are interested. Big up to Carter for trading some cool shit with us and stopping by to introduce me to his record. I love it when stuff like that happens, and I discover a record that I may never have found otherwise.

Okay, back to work. What to play after listening to La Oprika? How about the 1968 UK psych classic from the group July? Yeah, that sounds about right. See you all around these parts next time.

-Dom