Released the week of January 28th, 2002

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During the early 1950s while in Los Angeles, Texas-born Ornette Coleman's musical ideas were so controversial, he rarely found public performance possibilities. Known for playing out of tune with a wild passion on a white plastic sax, Coleman was a pariah for years; even following his return to alto, players would leave the bandstand when he tried to sit in. A tardy Dexter Gordon arrived to find Coleman playing with Gordon's rhythm section and demanded Coleman stop playing "immediately. Right now. Take that tune out and get it off the bandstand." Another famous incident involved getting punched by Max Roach. Coleman did, however, find a core of musicians - namely Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell and Charlie Haden - who took his musical concepts seriously enough to midwife the birth of The Ornette Coleman Quartet.

With the release of his 1959 debut album, Something Else!, Coleman had ushered in a new era in jazz history. This music was free from the prevailing conventions of harmony, rhythm and melody, and transformed the art form with a concept he called Harmolodic. "When our group plays," Coleman once stated, "before we set up to play, we do not have any idea what the end result will be. Each player is free to contribute what he feels in the music at any given moment." Soon he was signed to Atlantic Records, where he recorded some of his most brilliant work, characterized by an "immensely vocal" sound, "with virtually no vibrato: it is gutsy without being raspy, because there is a sweetness to it. He also had what in conventional mainstream jazz would be called the 'Texas cry,' only he pushed it further, distorted it more often."

Originally released in 1961, This Is Our Music marked Coleman's third release for the label and certainly one of his finest. Sepia-Tone has newly re-mastered this important release, presenting it with the best sound quality it's ever had. The Ornette Coleman Quartet made music that was simultaneously radical and beautiful-- This Is Our Music is incontrovertible evidence.

Track Listing

1. Blues Connotation
2. Beauty Is A Rare Thing
3. Kaleidoscope
4. Embraceable You
5. Poise
6. Humpty Dumpty
7. Folk Tale

• Newly remastered for the finest sound quality this landmark release has ever had
  
• Never before available in the US on CD
  
• Groundbreaking, history-making work by world-famous quartet
  
• Sepia-Tone is proud to present This Is Our Music as one of the debut releases for the label

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Released the week of January 28th, 2002

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One of the rare female instrumentalists in jazz, Alice Coltrane studied classical music from the age of seven, and jazz with Bud Powell; she gained early experience in church groups and in the jazz ensembles of Kenny Burrell, Johnny Griffin, Lucky Thompson, and Yusef Lateef. By most accounts, she was a fine bebop pianist in her early years. In 1966, she replaced pianist McCoy Tyner in her husband John Coltrane's group. Coltrane's work became a spiritual wellspring for her, but she surely developed her own style on piano, organ, harp, and later, Indian instruments such as the tamboura. Chris Kelsey in All Music Guide admires the "rhythmically ambiguous arpeggios and pulsing thickness of texture" of her playing on Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard Again and Concert in Japan.

After Coltrane's death in 1967, Alice began recording under her own name for Impulse!, leading groups that included at various times saxophonists Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Joe Henderson, Frank Lowe, and Carlos Ward, double bass players Cecil McBee and Jimmy Garrison, and drummers Rashied Ali, Ben Riley, and Roy Haynes.

In the mid-70s she moved from Impulse! to Warner Bros., for whom she recorded some of her most spiritual and adventurous music ever. Deeply infused with Hindu religious music, whole sides of her albums were devoted to arrangements of religious chants. Transfiguration was recorded live at UCLA in 1978, during a time when she briefly set aside the Hare Krishna choirs and exotic instruments in favor of the trio format of her early period, revisiting with Reggie Workman on bass and Roy Haynes on drums several of her own tunes as well as her late husband's way-out opus "Leo." This performance was deeply spiritual, but definitely jazz. A string section was later overdubbed on the nine-minute "Prema" which included: violinists Noel Pointer, Murray Adler, Sherwyn Hirbod, Michelle Sita Coltrane, and Jay Rosen; Pamela Goldsmith and Janice Ford on violas; Ray Kelly and Christina King on cellos.

Originally released as a double-LP, Sepia-Tone inaugurates the label with this historic recording on CD for the first time ever, newly re-mastered and released as a double-disc package with brief new notes from Alice herself.

Track Listing

1. Transfiguration
2. Spoken Introduction / One For The Father
3. Prema
4. Affinity
5. Krishnaya
6. Introduction of Musicians and Prefatory Commentary to Leo / Leo, Part One
7. Leo, Part Two

• 83-minute 2xCD at a special price. Never before on CD
  
• Recorded live at UCLA, April 16, 1978, with Reggie Workman and Roy Haynes, a one-time-only return to Coltrane's early period trio style
  
• Her last official album (except for self-released cassettes of devotional music); originally released by Warner Bros. in 1978
  
• Coming soon: reissues of two other WB-era Alice Coltrane treasures-- Transcendence and Eternity

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Released the week of January 28th, 2002

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Ben Kunin patiently mentors students of sarod and Hindustani music theory 20 miles north of San Francisco in San Rafael, at the school founded by one of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century, sarodist Ali Akbar Khan. In addition to being a master student of Hindustani music theory and sarod-playing, Kunin is also an incredible classical guitarist who can stand the hairs on your arms and neck on end and slip time out of its more linear patterns. With an acoustic nylon-stringed guitar, he can blow you away with some of the most inspired guitar-playing since John Fahey, Terry Riley or the Sun City Girls. Anyone who has felt the joy in the playing of Fahey, Robbie Basho or other noted folkische fingerpickers will need to rush to their CD player and pop this jewel in.

The nine tracks on Acoustic Adventures beautifully demonstrate the disciplines one learns in both Indian and Western classical theory, while also displaying the transcendant freedom that all great musicians channel in their own unique ways. The music is closest to the Takoma-era players, but with its own special approach to the "great tradition."

Ben Kunin's debut CD is simply a beautiful collection of classical-folk guitar sure to please anyone who will listen.

• The Communion label releases another classic CD that bridges East and West, heaven and Earth
  
• Timeless music that is fresh and inspiring
  
• Essential purchase for any fan of Fahey, Basho and Bola Sete.

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Pastoral Suite {i}
  Pastoral Suite {ii}
  Pastoral Suite {iii}
  A Minor Key
  Brindavan
  Meditation of the Heart
  Ghost Story
  The Crossing
  Julie

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SWANS
The Great Annihilator
(YOUNG GOD YG18) CD

Released the week of January 14th, 2002

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The Swans are a study in metamorphoses. In 1983, when Melody Maker dubbed the NYC noise mavens "a deeply repulsive form of audio pornography," it was more a compliment than a slam. Cacophonous, confrontational, and unrelentingly loud, the band used vocal rants and bone-crunching distortion to achieve unparalleled levels of sonic pain. Then, around '87 or so, rock's ugliest duckling found its inner Swan and blossomed into a vehicle for sweeping, complex arrangements of keyboards, strings and evocative sound effects. Vocalist Michael Gira traded his guttural growl for the croon of a balladeer, and the latter-day Swans were born.

Their twelfth album, The Great Annihilator, is a majestic symphony of haunting melodies and shifting moods. Spirituality - or rather the absence of it - provides the linking motif. With a kinetic, industrial goose step, "She Lives" plays with chanted images of madness and martyrdom, while the jagged coda of "Celebrity Lifestyle" lays the groundwork for a cutting look at material dreams.É "Warm" forms the album's thematic center, overflowing with ethereal vocal loops and drums that patter like raindrops accross the lyrical landscape. On "Mother/Father" and the mantric "My Buried Child," vocalist Jarboe outdoes herself with a spectrum of darkly distinctive voices.

Taken on its own, this album is a vivid example of how to combine the dissonant with the dulcet while retaining a dangerous edge. Viewed in the context of the Swans' 12-year journey from audio pornography to majestic romanticism, The Great Annihilator serves as an epic apotheosis.

--Neva Chonin, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 1995

• Reissue of their twelfth album
  
• Lushly packaged in digipack with lyrics book insert
  
• Contains some of Gira and Jarboe's most haunting and ethereal vocal work
  
• Dissonant, dulcet, dangerous - some of the best late-period Swans material

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  In
  I am the Sun
  She Lives
  Celebrity Lifestyle
  Mother/Father
  Blood Promise
  Mind/Body/Light/Sound
  My Buried Child
  Warm
  Alcohol the Seed
  Killing for Company
  Mother's Milk
  Where Does a Body End?
  Telepathy
  The Great Annihilator
  Out
  I am the Sun (Live at The Flesh Club)

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HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
The Eye-Popping Sounds Of...
(BIRDMAN BMR029) CD

Released the week of January 14th, 2002

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In 1962 exploitation filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis and his partner David Friedman (a former carny and future porno kingpin) abandoned nudie films and invented a new film genre. Dubbed "the godfather of gore" by John Waters, Lewis began his career in graphic grue with Blood Feast, a film that shocked and disgusted drive-in movie audiences across the country. He followed Blood Feast with a string of gore, biker, horror, juvenile delinquent, and sexploitation films that all bore his trademark style, part of which was his unique soundtrack music. Whether incidental, bluegrass, rock'n'roll or pop, the music in his films was almost always written and often performed by Lewis himself. When outside help was needed, he usually called on inept garage bands and lounge acts to do the job. The Eye Popping Sounds of Herschell Gordon Lewis collects the very best songs from his entire filmography in one bloody package for the very first time. Thirty-seven tracks in all, including rare radio spots and hilarious soundbites, and a beautiful, 24-page color booklet full of disgusting stills from his films and liner notes from the Godfather himself. This package is an absolute must for any fan of grade-Z films and trash culture.

Track listing / 30-second RealAudio excerpts:

From Blood Feast

Official Warning
Tragic Kettledrums/Eye Gouged Out/Legs Cut Off
Blood Feast (Main Title)/Homicide Bureau
Fuad Ramses Exotic Catering Service
Brains Knocked Out
Theme from 2000 Maniacs
Recurring Virtuoso Guitar Bit
Lister's Garbage/I Told You That Blade Was Sharp!
Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms
It's Almost Like Halloween
Tom's Bright Idea
Escape Attempt / Guests Of Honor
Quicksand!
Dixie
Safe At Last
Teetering Rock
Old Joe Clark
Gruesome Twosome radio spot
White Lightening (from Moonshine Mountain)
Suburban Roulette (from Suburban Roulette)
The Pill (from The Girl, The Body & The Pill)
She Devils On Wheels radio spot
Get Off The Road (from She Devils On Wheels)
Bad Day (from Blast Off Girls)
Noise (from Blast Off Girls)
Destruction (from Just For The Hell Of It)
Blast Off Girls Rock'n'Roll Party (from Blast Off Girls)
Living Venus (from Living Venus)

• 37 tracks collected on CD for the first time-- the best soundtrack material from cult legend's filmography, plus radio spots and sound bites
  
• 24-page booklet with disgusting stills and liner notes by Lewis
  
• Front cover lettered by Lux Interior of the CrampsA must for trash collectors

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NOVEX
Kleptophonica
(ZERO TO ONE 0TOO02) CD

Released the week of January 28th, 2002

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Along with a liberal dose of borrowed beats and noises, the eleven songs on Kleptophonica include healthy splatterings of cassette deck tomfoolery, Speak'n'Spell abuse, typewriter percussion, lap steel warblings, echo nonsense, singing-into-the-washing-machine experiments, push-button sample blasts, as well as more conventional instrumentation like drum sets, maracas and keyboards.

Using varying degrees of "unauthorized remixing," Agent Nova and Mor-X (both veterans of Milk Cult and Steel Pole Bath Tub) aim each song in its own direction, as melodies and rhythms are added and twisted and stretched on top of tape loops and scratchy thrift store records. The result is a softer, gentler sort of Frankenstein. More song-oriented then previous Milk Cult records, Kleptophonica is also a return to more basic recording. Whereas Project M-13 took about a month to record and an exhausting two years to edit, Kleptophonica, recorded in Olympia, Washington, at Mag Rec One, was completed in five days.

"In the art world it's an accepted practice to use other people's images to comment on the culture itself. But in the music world its way more uptight; no one wants anyone drawing a mustache on their Mona Lisa." -Agent Nova

• Another Milk Cult Dispatch (with buttons touched by members of Unwound) featuring Agent Nova and Mor-x (the former rhythm section Steel Pole Bath Tub)
  
• Limited tour dates are planned for Spring 2002, as well as the recording of Volume 2
  
• A new recipe made of old and crumbled store-bought cookies, homemade brownies and fudge

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Requiem
  Mary Gravy
  Interlude
  Paris is Burning
  Tea Pocket
  Joan & Jack & Nina & Steve
  The Pharmacist Will Help You Now
  Paris is Still Burning
  The Happiest Song in the World
  Flavoriffic
  Bullit

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CONSUMERS
All My Friends Are Dead
(IN THE RED ITR019) CD

Released the week of January 14th, 2002

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Much of what is passed off as "punk rock" these days is pathetic and limp - no secret there. The Consumers were the real deal antithesis of pathos and limpness. Formed in early 1977, The Consumers were probably one of the very first in Phoenix, Arizona, to play punk rock. Influenced by punk scenes in England and New York, The Consumers cooked up a sound that was fast and hate-fueled. You will not find lyrics like "I'm going to find a way to drive you mad like piss on you or fuck your dad" on a Pennywise album, no sir.

The Consumers recorded their one and only album in a small Phoenix studio in December of 1977 - eleven scorching tracks delivered in nineteen minutes, all loaded with anger and pure nihilism - and immediately moved to Los Angeles. Once in L.A., the band hit the live circuit, playing clubs like the Masque and the Whiskey A Go Go. Their sets were often violent; in an incident documented by Slash magazine, the entire band once beat vocalist David Wiley bloody onstage for no good reason! It didn't take long for them to be banned from clubs all over town. Legendary punk record label Dangerhouse agreed to release their album, but within a few short months, the label folded and the band imploded. Eventually the band members went on to other things: guitarist Paul Cutler formed 45 Grave and later joined Dream Syndicate, vocalist Wiley formed the Human Hands and the rest went on to lives of drugs, the military or dead end jobs. Presently, only two members of the band are still living.

The Consumers album remained unreleased until 1994 when In The Red Records issued it as a limited-edition LP which sold out quickly. Now, for the first time, it is being issued on CD, newly re-mastered and sounding louder and nastier than ever. This is real punk rock - the kind FM radio is too chickenshit to deal with and video network lunkheads are paid handsomely to ignore.

• Shocking early works by psychos who would go on to 45 Grave, Dream Syndicate, and Human Hands
  
• Loud and nasty punk rock from 1977, on CD for the first time
  
• Initial limited pressing of the vinyl sold out immediately

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Teen Love Song
  Anti, Anti, Anti
  Consumers
  Concerned Citizen
  Your Problem
  Ballad to the Son of Sam
  My Type
  Dream Hits
  Get Out
  Media Ogre
  Punk Church

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LARSEN
Rever
(YOUNG GOD YG19) CD

Released the week of January 14th, 2002

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"Larsen's ideology seems to be arcane and extreme (though I'm not clear on all the details), and from what I could glean when I recorded their album in their hometown Torino, Italy, they operate as some sort of hermetic cult / collective. Protective of their personal identities, out of legal necessity as well as a firmly held belief in the superfluity of their own names and faces to the agenda of their work, they recorded Rever from behind a screen and communicated with me via assistants and translators exclusively.

"We worked as if executing a field recording. The band would play a piece, sometimes for hours, over and over until they felt they'd reached the correct level of concentration, at which time they directed me to record. I had the sense of eavesdropping on a private ceremony. I sat in the control booth for hours, watching the shadows move behind the screen with no "music" being generated at all - just the kind of highly ritualized sounds I recognized from the initial CDRs they'd sent me. Heated, violent arguments - shouting matches, really - would lead seamlessly into a soft and beautiful groove, or just as likely, a martial stomp, or a miasma of dissonant electric atmospheres. My role as producer was simply to capture these moments on tape. We worked later on the editing of this material (some ten hours of original recordings, as I recall) with the band standing behind the screen conferring, shouting, arguing, laughing, or simply directing me and the engineer (all in indecipherable Italian, sporadically translated).

"With electric guitars, accordion, organ, bass guitar, drums and percussion, their voices, a trumpet or trombone, and an occasional handmade tape loop, Larsen work and work themselves into the core of the rhythm and sounds they generate. Grooves begin with a certain feel and transmute entirely by the time they wring the essence into its final shape, which is what you hear, in edited form, on Rever. That's why I say they're like field recordings - excerpts from an ongoing rite, documented by a non-invasive stranger."

--M. Gira, Young God Records

• Ritualized dissonant groove-stomp "field recording" documented by non-invasive stranger M. Gira (Swans / Angels of Light)
  
• The Young God label continues its devotion to Europe's most interesting bands with this debut release from Italy's Larsen
  
• Released by Gira's highly visible Young God Records, featured on label's much hit site, www.younggodrecords.com

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Impro #2
  Radial
  Mentre
  Finger Number Six
  Intermezzo
  Akin
  Intro
  Maya
  Impro #1

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BROTHER JT
Maybe We Should Take Some More?
(BIRDMAN BMR35) CD

Released the week of January 14th, 2002

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Combining the classic trappings of '60s psychedelic guitar rock with an eccentric spirituality, Brother JT records are deep, penetrable and seek to entertain. He has racked up a multitude of impeccable releases on a multitude of independent record labels with impeccable taste. His palette expands with each passing release. Heavy pop, thick with guitars, thumping drums and stoned, tremulous melodies takes the listener on a trip through the complex patterns and designs that are unique to the mind of JT. From stretched-out zoner wail to agile, psychedelic strum, his body of work is singular, odd, outstanding and unimpeachable. It's a pretty tall order to name a contemporary artist with enough panache to carry on the legacy of wrecked pop and what writer Byron Coley would call "Blieb Alien rock" left behind by the likes of Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson, Skip Spence and sandbox-era Brian Wilson, but Brother JT is the only name worthy to stand alongside.

• It's been a long, glorious road since this cult artist, a longtime Revolver USA favorite, first appeared with the Original Sins
  
• Uniquely wrecked pop collides with unimpeachable, heavy psychedelia
  
• Endearing, eccentric, and decidedly, delightfully druggy
  
• Reference points: Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson, Skip Spence

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Jesus Guitar/1st Thoughts
  Twain
  Ring that Bell
  Juice
  S.O.S.
  Watcha Gonna Do?
  Layin Low
  Turnpike
  Ragamuff
  Child of the Sun
  Muff, VA.
  Lay It On
  Moon Chant
  Cheap Motel
  Honeysuckle
  Lassitude
  Dave's Thing
  Lullaby

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