[engl] Part Two of the Cellophane Suckers’ 45 RPM session series, 9 Tracks! WHITE VINYL running on 45RPM!

[engl] After years of mythology, misinterpretation and procrastination Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton finally chooses Finders Keepers Records as the ideal collaborators to release “the right tracks” from his uber-legendary psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List, commencing with a French specific Volume One of this authentically titled Strain Crack Break series. Featuring some Finders Keepers’ regulars amongst galactic Gallic rarities (previously presumed to be imaginary red herrings) this deluxe double vinyl dossier demystifies some of the essential French free jazz and Parisian prog inclusions from the alphabetical “dedication” inventory as printed the anti-bands 1979 industrial milestone debut. When Steven Stapleton, Heman Pathak and John Fothergill’s anti-band Nurse With Wound decided to include an alphabetical dedication to all their favourite bands on the back of their inaugural LP the notion of creating a future record dealers’ trophy list couldn’t have been further from their minds. By adding a list of untravelled European mythical musicians and noise makers to their own debut release of unchartered industrial art rock they were merely providing a suggestive support system of existing potential likeminded bands, establishing safety in numbers should anyone require sonic subtitles for Nurse With Wound’s own mutant musical language. Luckily for them, the record landed in record shops in the midst of 1979’s memorable summer of abject apathy and its sound became a hit amongst disillusioned agit-pop pickers and artsy post-punks, thus playing a key role in the bourgeoning “Industrial” genre that ensued. On the most part, however, the list , like most instruction manuals, remained unreadable, syntactic and suspiciously sarcastic… As potential “real musicians” Nurse WIth Wound became an Industrial music fan’s household name, but in contrast many of the names on The Nurse With Wound List were considered to be imaginary musicians, made-up bands or booby traps for hacks and smart-arses. It took a while for the rest of the record collecting community to catch on or finally catch up. Since then, many of the rare, obscure and unpronounceable genre-free records on The Nurse With Wound List have slowly found their own feet and stumbled in to the homes of open-minded outernational vinyl junkies, D’s and sample hungry producers, self-propelled and judged on their own merit, mostly without consultation of the enigmatic NWW map. But, to the inspective competitive collector’s chagrin, one resounding fact recurs, NWW got there first! via vinyl vacations, on cheap flights and Interrail tickets, buying bargain bin LPs on a shoestring while oblivious to the pending pension worthy price tags after their 40 year vintage, Stapleton and Fothergill, even if you’ve never heard of them, were at the bottom of the pit before “digging” became paydirt. And NOW at huge international record fairs that occur in massive exhibition halls (or within the confines of your one-touch palm pilot) amongst jive talk acronyms such as SS, PP, BIN, DNAP and BCWHES the coded letters NWW have begun to appear on stickers in the corner of original copies of the same premium progressive records accompanied by a customary 50% price hike to titillate/coerce the initiated as dealers extort the taught. Like “psych” “PINA” or “Krautrock” did before, “NWW” has become a buzzword and in the passed decades since its first publication The List has been mythologised, misunderstood and misconstrued. It’s also been overlooked, overestimated and under-appreciated in equal measures, but with a growing interest it has also come to represent a maligned genre in itself, something that all members of the original line-up would have deemed sacrilegious. Bolstered by the subtitle “Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden,” all bands on the inventory (many chosen on the strength of just one track alone) were chosen for their genre-defying qualities… A check-list for the uncharted. Forty years after Nurse With Wound’s first record, Finders Keepers Records, in close collaboration with Steve Stapleton remind fans of THIS kind of “lost” music, that there once existed a feint path which was worn away decades before major label pop property developers built over this psychedelic underground. As long-running fans and liberators of some of the same records, arriving at the same axis from different-but-the-same planets, Finders Keepers and Nurse WIth Wound finally sing from the same hymn sheet resulting in a collaborative attempt to officially, authentically and legally compile the best tracks from the list, succeeding where many overzealous nerds have deferred (or simply, got the wrong end of the stick). Naturally our lavish metallic gatefold double vinyl compendium would only scratch the surface of this DIY dossier of elongated punk-prog peculiarities hence out decision to release volume one in a series which, in accordance with Steve’s wishes, focuses exclusively on individual tracks of French origin, the country that unsurprisingly hosted the highest content of bands on the list. Comprising of musique concrète, free jazz, Rock In Opposition, Zeuhl School space rock, macabre ballet music, lo-fi sci-fi, and classic horror literature inspired prog, this first volume of the series entitled Strain Crack And Break throws us in at the deep end, where the Seine meets the in-sane, introducing the space cadets that found Mars in Marseilles. Like the Swedish flat-pack record shelves that attempt to house the vast amounts of vintage vinyl that goes into a multi-volume compilation like this, it is time to prepare your own musical penchants and preconceived ideas about DIY music and hear them slowly strain, crack and break.

[engl] A key figure during the birth of Turkish rock and roll, a founding father of Anatolian Rock and the studio brains behind the first Turkish electronic pop records, Gökçen Kaynatan’s influence runs like the lifeblood through Turkish pop and rock. Having shunned the recording industry early in his career he remained a driving force behind the scenes and on TV screens, spearheading the explosion of synth technology in Turkish music with his pioneering use of the EMS Synthi AKS, the fruits of which would only be shared on stage, never to be repeated television broadcasts, and in archival recordings that haven’t seen the light of day, until now! Having chanced upon the newly released EMS Synthi AKS in 1972 during a sabbatical in Cologne, Gökçen undertook six months of tuition in order to fully explore every intricacy of the highly versatile portable modular analog synthesiser. As the beating heart of his now self-sufficient custom-built studio it would propel Gökçen’s forward-thinking aural ambitions to a new plain. Making his first entirely synthesiser based public performances in Germany in 1974 he then returned to his homeland to soundtrack the dawn of the Turkish television age as in-house composer and one-man house band for Turkey’s first TV channel TRT, signalling the arrival of a new era in Turkish pop and rock. Increasingly dogged by ill health, Gökçen privately harnessed the Synthi to channel his suffering caused by what would later be diagnosed as a brain tumour, dutifully recording and archiving his studio experiments, which would remain in the proverbial can for over 40 years. With unparalleled access to Gökçen’s closely guarded private vault, Finders Keepers Records presents another first with this previously unheard collection of EMS Synthi AKS recordings that represent a vital yet hitherto missing thread in the development of modern Turkish music. Recorded between 1973-75 this modest compendium comprises two of Gökçen’s earliest synthesiser compositions and an updated recording made whilst recovering from brain surgery – arguably some the earliest Turkish synthesiser music committed to magnetic tape, further cementing Gökçen’s indelible legacy within Turkish popular culture.

[engl] Untameable Anatolian feline fuzzy folk funk finally uncaged. A spontaneous Turkish-Norwegian-Dutch expedition, where seafaring jazz cats entangled with fugitive roadies and Tee-Set mods, makes the story of Durul Gence’s highly anticipated/ill-fated Asia Minor Mission group the stuff of lost-rock legend and remains one of Turkish music’s great “what ifs?” The black cat is finally out of the bag. Having forged a celebrity status as one of Turkey’s premier percussionists and bandleaders, Durul Gence assembled the underground fusion group known as Asia Minor Mission (AMM) in early 1972 (with ?rfan Sumer, O?uz Durukan and U?ur Dikmen) while trying to escape the constant daze of paparazzi camera flashes that followed him across Turkey. During a far-fetched post-gig brainstorm the group pondered relocating to Norway (based on fact that none of them had ever visited the country) when a local seaman who claimed to have recording studio connections in Oslo overheard them. Enlisting the roadie services of a streetwise Istanbul taxi driver friend on the run from the police AMM took the plunge, accepting the sailor’s offer of passage on his next sailing. In these new idyllic surroundings, the same region that played host to fellow Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz, Durul found the peace he desired discovering a muse in Norway’s welcoming creative climate. Much like Bar?? Manço and Mo?ollar in France, Cem Karaca and Gökçen Kaynatan in Germany, Gence’s relationship with Norway rekindled a passion for composition in ways he couldn’t have imagined in his homeland, opening doors thought previously unreachable. As a potential prodigal son for Anadolu pop Durul joined a wider pop-cultural diaspora alongside electronic pioneer Ilhan Mimaroglu, Tülay German (aka Tuly Sand) Karda?lar’s “Alex” Wiska (collaborator with Krautrockers Can) and Maffy Falay from the band Sevda. Despite a blooming fan base and original repertoire the Nordic dream was not to be and after two years without a studio session, AMM called it quits during a tour of Holland after which Durukan and Dikmen went home to join Cem Karaca’s band Dervi?an – Dikmen’s keyboards feature on Finders Keepers releases by Turkish singer Selda (FKR011). Retreating to the city of Delft to ponder his next move, Durul met Peter Tetteroo, former vocalist from successful Dutch psych-pop combo Tee-Set, who also found himself in a lonely boat after the demise of his long-running group. As an AMM fan, Tetteroo suggested they record two Gence penned AMM demos for Dutch Philips signed exotic songbird Sasi Naz at Peter’s home studio. A session was hastily arranged and a talented, yet unconfirmed, guitarist was enlisted. Durul maintains it was the work of Ferry Lever from Tee-Set/After Tea, something Ferry has denied, and with Tetteroo having died in 2002 the question remains. Upon entering the humble studio Durul stumbled upon a skeletal drum kit. Lacking hi-hat, toms or even a snare he cobbled together a bongo and a tambourine and set to work. Together, under the watchful eye of Tetteroo, the pair jammed stripped back versions of the AMM live staples Black Cat and Boo Song, with an added freak factor otherwise missing from their jazzier approach. Laid down in just 30 minutes, with Gence’s accomplished guide vocals and fuzzy overdubs, the rudimentary but professional recordings never made it to Philips execs and the tapes returned to Turkey under Durul’s arm as one of only two documented AMM recordings (the other being a live performance in Oslo’s Hennie-Onstad Art Centre in May 1973). Unintended for commercial release, curiouser and curiouser, Finders Keepers proudly present these previously unheard tracks sourced directly from original tapes, which stand as a testament to the inimitable talent of Gence and the only studio document of the mythical AMM Turk jazz funk troubadours, representing a pop-psych Hollandaise holiday postcard which has taken five decades to be delivered. 45 revolutions later… The cat’s got the cream.

[engl] Another small piece of the Lowland jazz puzzle put into place at a reasonable price The lesser-spotted jazz atoms that formed the fusion of Futurist Flanders! It might sound like an ambitious claim but having been a firm fixture at the top of many European jazz collector want lists over the past decade Finders Keepers wouldn’t be alone when proclaiming this extremely rare, lesser-known two-track 7? from 1969 as one of the best jazz 45s of all time! Alongside Polish pianist Krzysztof Komeda’s soundtrack 7? for the film Cul-De-Sac and ranking closely with François Tusques’ commemorative Le Corbusier exhibition 45 (featuring Don Cherry) this format-specific release known only as Brussels Art Quintet might well sit at the top of the podium while striking similarities and arguably combining the best stylistic traits of both aforementioned contenders. This is all speculative and clearly a matter of individual opinion but it’s not often that one should find a recording from this era, comprising such high production qualities, keen compositional values and robust craftsmanship spread across two equally spellbinding individual tracks, all of which awards this record justified hyperbole albeit subject to a 50 year delay. It is safe to say that this unique release is “rare” on many levels. Like all privately pressed art projects this 45 comprises some serious outsider art trappings. However, on closer inspection it also stands as a pivotal record in the micro-genre of Belgian jazz, pin-pointing an early axis for some vital progressive jazz players who went on to become sturdy pillars of the central European happening. Essentially as a five-piece, the short-lived Brussels Art Quintet neatly combines members of both the mythical Babs Robert Quartet (early exponents of Belgian spiritual jazz) and key players from the leading progressive jazz/rock/funk unit known as COS (formally Classroom) who would stand as close affiliates of the likes of Marc Moulin, Kiosk and Placebo through the 1970s. Reproduced in close collaboration with COS leader Daniel Schell, who, under the early guise of Daniel “Max” Schellekens, authored both tracks that make up this facsimile 45 single, this one-off single includes the only known output by the Brussels Art Quintet thus marking the essential in-road to instantly start and complete your entire BAQ collection not without reliving the early germination of the froward-thinking jazz fusion that came to shape Belgium’s truly unique movement.

[engl] Sweet and joyful sounds from the first half of 1960’s Tanzania. Salum Abdallah and Cuban Marimba Band were at the forefront of “muziki wa dansi”, the emerging dance music scene influenced by Cuban 78’s, crazes like the twist and cha cha cha, and the local sounds of their home country. Hailing from the town of Morogoro, they rose to be stars across the country. Out of over 100 sides recorded for local labels, mostly Mzuri Records of Kenya, these twelve songs are the cream of the crop. Only a few of these have ever been re-released in any form, and that hasn’t happened in eons. Lots of toe tappers, smile enhancers, and downright dancers, with a few slower and sweeter songs to round it out. Taken from 1961-65, these twelve songs shine a brighter light on an already bright light that was Salum Abdallah, taken away from this earth all too early at the age of 37. The 12 song LP comes in an old style tip-on sleeve with lyrics in Swahili with English translations on the inner sleeve. Released by our friends at Domino Sound in New Orleans.

[engl] Lost Train Blues: John & Alan Lomax and the Early Folk Music Collections at the Library of Congress brings together field recordings made by the Lomaxes along with other less well known folklorists making field recordings at the same time. The album includes 13 never before released recordings and many rarities drawn from the collections at the Library of Congress. This includes songs, ballads, banjo and fiddle music, blues, unaccompanied singing, Native American music and more. Liner notes essay by Lomax Archive Curator Nathan Salsburg. Includes 16 page liner notes booklet with new research and never before published photos by Anna Duensing.

[engl] A true oddity - Side A features John Coltrane's meditation on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing on September 15, 1963, an attack by the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four African-American girls. The song is repeated for 19 minutes, with the "jazz section" removed. This creates a hypnotic effect. Not for the faint of heart. Side B features a beautiful and politically timely acapella Gospel song.

[engl] Nephew in the Wild is a nostalgic, melancholic & occasionally harrowing collection of lo-fi indie rock & electronic pop. Electric pianos, drum kits, drum machines, autoharps, Omnichords, Optigans, Mellotrons & the occasional guitar lay the foundation for sweetly sad stories about lonely Midwesterners trying to make sense of their troubled pasts. In the world of Nephew in the Wild, the internet hasn’t been invented yet, & a change of address is the only thing a person needs to exit their old life completely. Disappearance, displacement, hell-raising, child-raising, Christmas, Michigan, arson, aging & animals are recurring themes throughout the album. Nephew in the Wild was recorded by Ashworth in his basement in Oak Park, IL.

[engl] The 79rs Gang are Big Chief Romeo from the 9th Ward and Big Chief Jermaine from the 7th Ward, both of whom come from a lineage of Indian heroes and musical talent. After years of competition, they decided to collaborate to tell a unique story about past heroes, sewing and the foundations of Indian culture. With their deep knowledge of tribal history, these young Big Chiefs bring a fresh perspective and musical power to the traditional songs of the culture as well as their originals.

[engl] Violinist Alexis Zoumbas immigrated from the mountains of northern Greece to NYC in the 1910s, where he recorded with the great Marika Papagika before cutting his own instrumental sessions with small string ensembles. Zoumbas had the rare gift of expressing emotion so clearly and urgently through his instrument, and his violin feels like an extension of his heart, soul, and the deep musical history of his faraway home in Epirus. Zoumbas' original recordings were recently uncovered in pristine condition and have been restored in astonishingly clear and present sound quality. This new compilation features previously unissued takes and stunning solo improvisations. LP and digital versions include an 8 page booklet with extensive biographical notes, and is co-released by Orpheum Phonograph, Olvido Records, and Mississippi Records.

[engl] Michael Hurley's best-selling album, finally back in print!! Features classics like "The Werewolf," "Be Kind to Me," "Sweedeedee" and more. Includes reproduction of the original 1971 comic book by Hurley, "Boone & Jocko In The Barren Choking Land."

[engl] Dead Moon's third album – bursting into the 90s with Defiance – a record that arrived when some fellow Pacific Northwest underground rockers were getting ready to be flung head first into the mainstream, but DM remained defiantly underground! Raw, primordial and true to their own style and fiercely DIY ethic. Remastered from the original tapes.

[engl] A compilation of haunting, weird & obscure songs from the hillbilly underground at the end of the 50s – music that straddles the line between country, rock n roll, lonesome midnight rambles and raucous instrumentals. Compiled from rare 45s on little-known regional labels and co-released with Lost Train Records. Titles include "Walking The Streets After Dark" by Willie Hays, "Ghost Memories" by Gene McKown, "Fool Fool Fool" by Bill Whitley, "Cravin" by Bobby Roberts, "Sunset Blues" by Tony & Jackie Lamie, "Waiting For A Train" by Blankenship Brothers, and "Three Years" by Harold L & The Offbeats. The companion record to Six Feet Under! Includes liner notes.

[engl] One of our favorite Mississippi releases yet -- the transcendent piano of the classically trained Ethiopian nun Emahoy Mariam-Tsegue Guebrou (Gebru). This is the second LP in our ongoing series of releases of Emahoy Guebrou's back catalog -- all tracks that are nearly impossible to find on vinyl. More 1960s recordings of her unique solo piano performances -- somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, Ethiopian traditional music, and a touch of the divine. A spiritual salve for troubled times. Old-school tip on jacket with gold foil.

[engl] A compilation of uniquely Kenyan acoustic guitar songs, recorded in the homes and yards of Luhya musicians. In 2016, we set out to learn the origins of Omutibo, a playing style invented by George Mukabi and adapted by his neighbors in a region that proved to be truly fertile for guitarists. These are the songs and stories of a golden era Kenya on the brink of independence, beautifully resurrected by the songwriters themselves over 50 years later. LP comes packaged in a deluxe metallic spot-color jacket, with an 8-page full color booklet featuring interviews, photographs, and lyrics in English and Luhya. Co-released by Raw Music International and Olvido Records.