Category: Mixtapes

Jazz-funk and big band rarities from the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia from the 1970s and 1980s; tracks recorded in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia and Moscow, USSR. Armenia has been without the symbolic mountains of Ararat and Sis since the latter stages of the Armenian Genocide and during the inception of the Armenian SSR … think of these records as “the sound of Armenia on the other side of Ararat.”

~spiritual jazz, free improvisation, experimental electronics, ethnographic oddities, and world-wide psychedelic funk~

And now something far out. Avant-Garde Got Soul Too is a mixtape by David Mittleman, host of Tucson’s KXCI independent radio’s Observations of Deviance, a weekly “all vinyl, free form program that harkens back to early days of underground FM radio.”

Another soul-cleansing vinyl set from the folks that bring you the Gospel Jubilee every Sunday on Nashville’s Acme Radio. This volume features youth choirs, radio ensembles, organ maestros, local, regional and national stars…plus in-the-red vocals, a flute solo (!), heavenly harmonies, faint-inducing falsetto, sanctifying grooves and some of the best drum sounds you will ever hear. Selected from records rare and everywhere. Because the price tag shouldn’t be the thing that moves you.

Line Out, a one hour piece featuring twenty recordings from psychedelic and avant-garde mainstays like Can and Faust, lesser known practitioners such as Agitation Free and Novalis, and contemporary experimenters including Dungen, Beak >, and Califone, amongst others. The end result is a sometimes mesmerizing, sometime amusing, and wholly psychedelic experiment. Tune In. Turn On. Line Out.

Global entry, the following is a summer heater. Darone Sassounian recently wrapped a four year quest digging for 70s & 80s Armenian and Middle Eastern rarities. Based in Los Angeles, himself of Armenian descent, the DJ and record collector traveled through Lebanon and Europe, unearthing a cache of tracks by a handful of local producers and Armenian musicians.

Portland selector Mr. Wriff paid a visit to AD HQ last weekend, a visit that dovetailed with the weekly broadcast of his Friday night KMHD radio show, Altered State. We tuned in, and now you can too.

Click the play button as Traver and guest Allen Thayer (The Brazilian Beat), guide a late-night, spirituous journey sampling strains from Brazil, Italy, Poland and beyond.