Embrace the dawn of a new year with the thirteenth installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board.”
Category: Mixtapes
Astral Loitering: Excursions In New Age, 1970-1989
New age was, in many ways, a confluence of developments across genres: prog and krautrock, electronic and space music, ambient and fourth world, modern classical, spacious ECM-style Euro-jazz. All of them were cultivating their own approaches to paradise music. What tips any of these experiments into new age may have been, more than anything else, a vibe—an earnestness about the spiritual potential of the music being made.
The Secret Hemisphere: New Age, Fusion and Fourth World, 1970-2002
Fourth world music belongs to an occult geography. This is by design. When the late trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell coined the term, he conceived of it as “an attempt to create a kind of musical scenery which is not entirely ‘primitive,’ not entirely ‘future’ but someplace impossible to locate either chronologically or geographically.”
There is no atlas to the fourth world. The best that we can offer is something like a star chart. You may have to draw the constellations yourselves, out of lines connecting ECM jazz to phase music, woolly hippie cult rock to a thousand forgotten new age cassettes. Navigate by those for now. You’ll get somewhere eventually. Here’s a compass.
First & Last: Japanese Private Press, Vol. 12
Welcome to the twelfth installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board.”
As autumn fades into the quiet embrace of winter, immerse yourself in the hushed tones of acoustic introspection, where each note invokes the stillness of the changing seasons.
Anatolian Psych Out: Volume One
As Western rock music dominated the global airwaves of the 1960s, perhaps no region adapted this music into such a rich and swirling stew as did Turkey. Mixing the heavy riffs of Zeppelin and the Stones with traditional Anatolian folk melodies and instrumentation, the Turkish psych rock of the golden era (1960s-80s) surely represents some of the most gloriously untethered interpretations of the classic rock canon.
First & Last: Japanese Private Press, Vol. 11
Welcome to the eleventh installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board.”
Aquarium Drunkard Presents: Tele Music Mix Volume 1
Back in the deep, bleak, pandemic dog days, Be With Records struck a deal with the legendary Parisian library music catalog, Tele Music to reissue the very best, most sought-after LPs in the catalog. With much of this music now commercially available for the first time, the series of albums recently reissued presents an expansive grip of heavy funk, drama-jazz, deep disco, synth-wave, psych-rock, cosmic soul and beyond.
First & Last: Japanese Private Press, Vol. 10
Welcome to the tenth installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board.”
First & Last: Japanese Private Press, Vol. 9
Welcome to the ninth installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board.”
First & Last: Japanese Private Press, Vol. 8
Welcome to the eighth installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board.”
Abstract Truths: An Evolving Jazz Compendium – Volume 9
Sparked by a recent re-obsession with Miles Davis’ On The Corner sessions, Abstract Truths returns with a grip of records that have been hovering around the LA hq these past few months. Electric fusion, Turiyasangitananda jams, hard bop, jazz funk, spiritual. Myriad modalities abound…all rooted by an earthy funkiness. File under: soul music.
Grey On Gray :: A December Mixtape
All vinyl hour long slide to close out another weird year. Fireside GORP-jazz, new age, and beyond. 1969-2022.
First & Last: Japanese Private Press, Vol. 7
Welcome to the seventh installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board.”
Groove Orient: South Asian Elements in Psychedelic Jazz
Jazz’s engagement with South Asian musical ideas and instruments in the 1960s and 70s didn’t just make ‘spiritual’ or ‘world’ jazz. Out of the extraordinary variety of jazz experiments with Indian musical traditions came all kinds of funky, soulful, groovy, exploratory and just plain far out sounds. We collected some of our favorites.
Saturnalia: Deep Jazz for Long Nights, 1969-1980
The days are growing shorter and the holidays are upon us. In the interest of making everyone’s lives slightly easier this season, we returned to the golden era of electric jazz and put together a long compilation of cocktail funk and rare groovers to spin for a house full of family and friends. Press play and let it spin. One less thing to worry about.