[engl] Get your ears around this stunner, second album by our beloved canadian troubadour Buck Hildebrand and his basement rats. Running away from life, hiding from starving polar bears, the opener "Only The Bad Remains" settles in to the groove immediately, pack you on a Winnipeg monochrome winter night dog sled ride until almost imperceptibly ratcheting up the intensity towards a cave where they pull off a garage punk mammoth awakeners like "Animal Blood" and "Unseen Love". "Bad Men In The Grave" has resonances of hatred failure and charming turns in dazzling daylight and truly exceeds the Primitive Hands past works. Considering their three singles from a decade ago, these recordings are the most expansive, career spanning release and maybe the first *real* album. This was self recorded by the band, respectively J.Quakenbusch and M.Blackburn.Chiming fuzz-drenched guitar folk songs like wonderful sonorous "The Food´s No Good", "Turkey" and barren "Vivid Storyteller" are the psych-rock preacher counterpart of the blues gospel of BEATMAN, the outlawed COWBOYS rock and roll. Third release on ALIEN SNATCH! after sonic force debut LP in 2017,nearly crashing of its own sheer weight of sonic force and some sticky melodic washes of Berlin streets, which turned into the "Heartless Man" 45 in 2018. Brian Hildebrand plays on the claviature of melancholy and rage in bands like DEMON'S CLAWS, MIND CONTROLS and GENITAL HOSPITAL and toured many times around the globe. Rootsy, black/white ink artwork by Darren Merinuk, printed on reverse side stunning ultra heavy cardboard stock. Third time there is limited edition on golden wax! Meet at the bar.

[engl] For those who prefer to spin their music on vinyl, an eclectic and gorgeously packaged 14-track collection of girl group artefacts from the mid-60s. Compiled and annotated by Mick Patrick, this vinyl-only collection is housed in an eye-grabbing sleeve containing an inner bag featuring scarce photos and a 3000-word track commentary chronicling the often convoluted histories of the featured artists. Mary Saenz kicks off proceedings with the handclap-propelled title track from the catalogue of ‘Monster Mash’ producer Gary Paxton. This is followed by front cover stars the Ikettes’ magnificent dancer ‘(Never More) Lonely For You’, Paxton protégées the Fashionettes’ flute-driven ‘Earthquake’, Denita James’ simmering ‘I Have Feelings Too’, the Supremes-style ‘This Couldn’t Be Me’ by the Sweethearts and Tanya Marie’s Chiffons-like cover of Ann Kirk’s ‘It Kinda Picks Me Up’, another Paxton production. Doré Records’ trio the Puffs channel the Chantels on the dramatic closer ‘Moon Out There’. Side Two begins with another Doré act, the Shades Of Jade, with the effortlessly cool ‘Why Does It Feel So Right (Doing Wrong)’ and the Charmaines with the 1966 revamp of their earlier regional hit ‘G.I. Joe’. The Bermudas’ ethereal hit ‘Donnie’ leads seamlessly into an entrancing version of Dylan’s ‘He Belongs To Me’ by Carol Connors, aka Annette Kleinbard of the Teddy Bears, the 2 Of Clubs’ dynamic cover of Garnet Mimms’ ‘Look Away’ and Pat Powdrill & the Powerdrills’ semi-psychedelic ‘They Are Lonely’. The album concludes in high style with a recently uncovered recording by the Blossoms of the otherworldly ‘Moon Walking’ featuring celebrated arranger/guitarist Billy Strange. In conclusion, “Would She Do That For You?! Girl Group Sounds USA 1964-68” is a blast from start to finish. Dig it. IAN JOHNSTON

[engl] A stylish vinyl collection of Maxine’s finest Wand recordings, including a trio of 60s soul stompers discovered in the tape vaults in the 80s. Maxine Brown has been popular in the black music world since 1960. ‘All In My Mind’, her hit debut, is cited as one of the first soul records but it was not until she moved to the Wand label in 1963 that her career really took off. Maxine’s golden period included her signature hit ‘Oh No, Not My Baby’ and beautiful ballads such as ‘It’s Gonna Be Alright’ and ‘Gotta Find A Way’. These are loved in the UK but it was her less familiar, uptempo Wand releases that turned her from an admired artist to a soul goddess on the Northern Soul scene. The hard-to-find ‘One In A Million’ and ‘Let Me Give You My Lovin’’ were played at rare soul dances for many years, attaining classic status on the scene, despite not selling enough to chart in the USA at the time of release. Interestingly, when her run of solo R&B hits dried up Maxine continued to reach the pop charts with ‘One Step At A Time’ and ‘If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’, illustrating that she had picked up a sizeable white audience. By the 1980s the depth of her catalogue was being appreciated and ‘Yesterday’s Kisses’, ‘Since I Found You’, ‘Little Girl Lost’ and the Van McCoy-penned beauty ‘I Wonder What My Baby’s Doing Tonight’ all gained DJ plays. Her music appealed to the mod revivalists as much as the Northern dancers. Then, at just the right moment, Kent Records raided the Scepter-Wand vaults for previously unissued tracks, including the glorious dancers ‘It’s Torture’, ‘I Want A Guarantee’ and the Otis Redding-produced stomper ‘Baby Cakes’, all of which were first issued in 1985 by Kent on vinyl. The recent upsurge of interest in Kent LPs gives us the opportunity to make them available to vinyl lovers once more. Maxine is still performing and her reputation as an all-time great continues to grow. ADY CROASDELL

[engl] Britain wasn’t on its own in having a thoroughly miserable 1973: O Lucky Man! and Badlands both found a great year to premiere; Watergate brought America to a new low. But America didn’t still have back-to-backs and outside bogs. Tens of thousands of Britons were still housed in wartime pre-fabs. The bright new colours of the post-war Festival of Britain and Harold Wilson's talk in the 60s of the “white heat of technology” now seemed very distant as strikes, inflation, and food and oil shortages laid Britain low. What had gone wrong? And what did pop music have to say about it? Many of the year’s biggest acts had set out on their particular journeys in the most idealistic years of the 60s (Yes, Genesis, the Moody Blues) and still held traces of that era’s promise. For acts such as Bowie and Roxy Music who had emerged in the new decade, one way out of the British malaise was to look into the future, embracing modernism and the space age beyond, a world of electric boots and mohair suits. Another was to draw heavily on the revered 50s, retreating to rock’s unsullied roots while remaining ostensibly current – Wizzard, Mott The Hoople and even the Rubettes managed to reshape the 50s to their own ends, much as Springsteen did in the States, although beyond them lay Showaddywaddy, Shakin’ Stevens, and a sickly nosedive into nostalgic yearning. This left a small rump of acts diligently soundtracking Britain’s present, not with a wagging finger but a fuzzy guitar, a primitive synthesiser, and a pitch-black sense of humour. Quite often these records were cut in home studios – many featured the same basic synth (just the one) that Roxy’s Eno and Hawkwind’s DikMik used; the guitarists still played blues progressions picked up from the Stones; and they sometimes touched on glam – the era’s brightest, newest noise – found inspiration in its disposability and its energy, but didn’t have the luxury of a Chinn and Chapman or a Mickie Most to sprinkle fairy dust on their final mix. And outside the studio door were the strikes, the cuts, economic chaos, teenage wasteland – these musicians created music that, intentionally or not, echoed their surroundings. It wasn’t glam, but it emerged from what Robin Carmody has called “the glamour of defeat, the glory of obliteration”. The songs on “Three Day Week” amplified the noise of a country still unable to forget the war, even as it watched the progressive post-war consensus disintegrating. We hear shrugs and cynicism, laughter through gritted teeth. Comparing it to the richness of records made just five or six years earlier, you might think musical instruments had been rationed, and that everyone has one eye on the clock, cutting corners to get the recording finished before the next power cut. You picture engineers in donkey jackets, with a brazier by the mixing desk. You hear odd electronic explosions, quacks and squiggles. The pub piano is predominant, with its brown ale, Blitz-spirit, grin-and-bear-it jollity. And under many of these tracks is a barely concealed frustration (sexualised on the Troggs’ ‘I’m On Fire’) and even anger (how else to read ‘Urban Guerrilla’, or the howling and the hand grenade at the end of Stud Leather’s ‘Cut Loose’?). Think of “Three Day Week” as an extended, musical Play For Today. The Three Day Week itself – which only lasted eight weeks, but was the nadir of a four-year-long depression – had been a result of the Tory government’s limit on pay rises in October 1973 and the miners strike that followed. Back at the start of 1972 the miners had struck for higher pay and won, averting Prime Minister Edward Heath’s threat to introduce a three day week in manufacturing and industry to hold on to energy reserves. By late 1973, though, the miners had slipped from top of the industrial wages league to 18th. Amid strikes by civil servants, medical staff, railway and dock workers, the miners went on strike again. The Three Day Week proper lasted from New Year’s Day to 7 March 1974. TV shut down at 10:30. Power cuts and blackouts in homes across Britain meant the sales of candles and torches soared. Old soldiers tutted. The Army were on standby. And, nine months later, there was a spike in the birth rate. For the younger generation, however, the Three Day Week is not remembered as a period of woe. Power cuts were fun! Who wouldn’t like the idea of a three day week? More time to play! It was also easy for kids to confuse pop culture and politics when the Prime Minister was Ted Heath and the leader of Britain’s biggest union, the TGWU, was Jack Jones. Even the TUC’s leader Vic Feather sounded like the bassist from a RAK act. There is also the folk memory of the period being a high-water mark for the power of trade unions, who seemingly always struck for higher pay and won, a dreamtime for many on the left. The second miners strike brought down the Tory government – what a time to be alive! Margaret Thatcher was only education secretary at this point, the hated “milk snatcher”, and no one had a crystal ball to see what the Tory reaction might be several years down the line. The records on this collection were almost all released as 45s, sent to shops in cost-cutting plain white paper bags, and – thanks to the oil shortage caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict – pressed on thinner vinyl than you’d have had ten years earlier. On every level, they felt as if they were being recorded and released under wartime restrictions. Many of these tracks were B-sides, recorded in haste, with no commercial forethought or relevance to the A-side, because, as Peter Shelley recalls, “You’d made the wild assumption that no one would ever play it”. Why did the music end up sounding this way? There had been a general sense of decline in Britain since the turn of the decade – not only in industry but in film, art, fashion, and in people’s expectations. You could trace its roots further back to 1968, when the collapse of the Ronan Point tower block in East London sounded a death knell for modernist dreams. Or to 1967, a year for which Swinging London has prevailed in popular memory over Cathy Come Home, but which should be remembered for the devaluation of the pound and the capital's nationalistic dock strikes as much as Alexandra Palace’s 14 Hour Technicolour Dream. By 1972, everything new – be it a brick wall or a terylene suit – was a shade of brown or orange, and the smell of sweat and odour-hugging man-made fabrics (not only clothes but carpets and curtains) was dominant. The worsted mills of Bradford and cotton mills of Manchester were fast disappearing, and the mix of wet wool, chimney smoke and boiled cabbage that Shena Mackay recalled being London’s olfactory default in the 60s had been replaced by weeks-old fag smoke, BO, and something plasticky you couldn’t put your finger on. Few of the songs on “Three Day Week” are politically direct: the Edgar Broughton Band had been Ladbroke Grove rabble rousers at the tail end of the 60s, but their ambitions sound entirely blunted on the monochrome hopelessness of ‘Homes Fit For Heroes’; Phil Cordell’s ‘Londonderry’ is diffuse, but it was an odd place to single out for a song title in 1973; Pheon Bear appears to be losing the will to live even as he shouts himself hoarse on ‘War Against War’. The ambivalence of the Strawbs on ‘Part Of The Union’ – a #2 hit – is entirely in keeping with the pub humour and shrugging cynicism of the era. So there is a little agitation here, but there is plenty of gleeful irreverence. One more drink? What have we got to lose? The government’s on its knees and we might all be out of work tomorrow. Quick, somebody, get on the piano before the lights go out again. BOB STANLEY

[engl] A vinyl-only 14-track collection of the Cincinnati trio’s best Fraternity recordings. A brief appearance on Billboard magazine’s Bubbling Under chart belies the fact that the Charmaines were Cincinnati’s leading 1960s girl group. Formed by Marian “Gigi” Jackson, Dee Watkins and Irene Vinegar, the group was awarded a contract with Fraternity Records for winning a talent show in 1960. Gigi’s sister Jerri sang on many of the group’s records but was too young to perform in nightclubs. When Dee left to get married, Jerri joined as a full-time member. By the time the Charmaines’ contract with Fraternity had run its course, the group had relocated to Canada. “We’d had a successful career at Fraternity and were quite happy there,” says Gigi. “We had a few little hits with ‘What Kind Of Girl (Do You Think I Am)’, ‘On The Wagon’ and ‘G.I. Joe’ and got lots of work, especially in Canada. We were going back and forth to Toronto so much, doing nightclubs and concerts, that in 1963 the Charmaines actually moved up there. When the British groups first became popular over here, we were living in Canada at that time. I remember the Dave Clark Five and the Rolling Stones coming up to Canada. They were at Maple Leaf Gardens, and at about four of those shows we were the opening act.” The Charmaines called it a day in the early 70s but several of their records remained popular with dancers on the UK’s northern soul scene. That popularity received a boost in the mid-2000s when their great version of Ike & Tina Turner’s ‘I Idolize You’ was made available for the first time, immediately finding favour with DJs and club-goers. During their career the group had singles on six different labels, but they never did have an album released. We rectify that situation here with this stylishly packaged vinyl-only collection of their finest Fraternity recordings. Along with the above-mentioned titles, highlights include ‘Goodbye Baby Goodbye’, the Shirelles-style ‘Where Is The Boy Tonight’, their rip-roaring version of ‘Rockin’ Pneumonia’ and three terrific examples of their work as backing singers for Fraternity label-mates Lonnie Mack and Carl Edmondson. MICK PATRICK

[engl] 70 cm3 of Your Chest is the volumina of blood an average adult heart pumps with one beat. It is also a crushing threepiece outfit from Vilnius, Lithuania (now living in Berlin) which plays heartfelt atmospheric music in the veign of Tidal Sleep, Touche Amore and alikes. This is what they say`bout themselves: Some of us had emotionally hard times while writing ‘when I was a dinosaur’- it was written in cooperation with pain, loss, childhood traumas and grief. In some sense it’s a tribute to the past and a lesson of letting go. Since it is pretty personal album and we are sure that many others can relate to the stories we tell, we are very happy we had a possibility to collaborate with Fabian from Sunsetter Recording Studio who did everything to make our vision happen. We had the best recording experience and we’re thankful that he kept it not only very professional but friendly and understanding as well. On 11th of April we are starting our 7th Europe tour through Switzerland, France and Spain heading towards Portugal to share “when I was a dinosaur” with everyone we’ll meet.

[engl] Before the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, unleashing a horrifying genocide, Cambodia had one of the most vibrant and exciting music scenes in Asia. With a mixture of traditional Khmer music and a myriad of western genres (from French and latin music, to rock–and–roll , rhythm–and–blues, surf, psychedelia, soul and many more) the few pre 75 Cambodian recordings that survived –most of them were destroyed– are enough to make anyone with a taste for good music shocked by the amazing quality of the sounds created during those golden years. Gathered in this amazing album are some of the most talented and unique musicians from that amazing era with an explosive collection of tracks sure to blow the mind of the listener. A celebration of some of the best music ever made.

[engl] Los Shapis, a legendary group of tropical Peruvian music, will be relaunching their first LP ’Los auténticos’ (1981) on the 23rd of December. The revival of this album, which was one of the pioneers of Andean Cumbia, will commemorate the 36th anniversary of the band led by Julio Simeón ("Chapulín el Dulce") and Jaime Moreyra and will include emblematic songs such as ’El Aguajal’ and ’Como un errante’. The relaunching of ’Los auténticos’ forms part of a project to rescue and revive Discos Horóscopo, a record label founded 40 years ago by Juan Campos Muñoz, and which boasts one of the most important catalogues of chicha music from the 70s and 80s. The label was created and can be recognized as the main driving force of Andean cumbia in Lima, as it took on producing albums of artists that gambled on not only creating a new sound, but also molding a new type of aesthetic, led by Chacalón y La Nueva Crema, Los Shapis, Pintura Roja and Los Ovnis. Formed in the city of Huancayo on February 14, 1981, Los Shapis – whose name was inspired by a traditional dance, "Los Shapis de Chupaca" – were hailed as ambassadors of chicha when they toured throughout different countries, which gave birth to the internationalization of Peruvian cumbia in the early 1980s By 1983, the band was based out of Lima. Its members composed iconic songs about the provincial and profound identity of Peru, in a time marked by racism and classism from the most privileged sectors. A rhythmic tradition that would accompany the two most conflictive phenomena of the era: terrorism and economic debacle, reasons that motivated the massive migration from the countryside to the city. "It is a culture that alludes to disorder and popular excess, drunkenness and chaos, but also a way of appropriating while simultaneously mocking the west, " says researcher Alfredo Villar, collaborator of the project to revalorize Peruvian cumbia.

[engl] Lorenzo Palacios Quispe "Chacalón" is a myth. More than a musical star, he is both a religious and secular phenomenon for the masses. Every year on his birthday, his tomb becomes a place of fevered pilgrimage where devotees pray, make wishes and ask for miracles, all done over songs, cases of beer, dancing and toasting. In Peru, his figure and music erases the distance between the holy and the profane, the hero and the lumpen. Chacalón is, for many Peruvians, the people’s angel, the messiah of the poor, the marginalized ’Inkarri’. "When Chacalón sings, the hills come down", was one of his favorite phrases and with it he referred to the migrant masses that invaded the hills and beaches that surround Lima like a "ring of fire" (José María Arguedas dixit). It was the early 80s and while bombs and a dirty war exploded in the Andes, in Lima, the new and ever–growing population of migrants "climbed down" from their precarious homes and filled venues to dance "chicha" music and to celebrate who they saw as their redeemer. Despite being a model messianic figure, Lorenzo Palacios had very humble origins. The son of a music dancer from Huancayo and a singer of huayno music (Andean folk) from Ayacucho, Chacalon was born in Lima in 1950. As a teen, he had his debut on stage as the singer of huayno band "The Indios Quechuas". The main requirement to sing that genre of music was to have a powerful ribcage and young Lorenzo seemed to have the needed lung capacity for "guapeos", thunderous voice blows that the genre required. Chicha music is neither a replica or a copy, despite using Western instruments, such as the electric guitar, bass, drums and organs, and mixing them with cymbals, congas and tropical Guiros. Chicha music has indomestizo elements (like Huayno music) tucked deep in his blood. Listen to the powerful cries of Chacalon and you will hear the heartfelt music of Huancayo; listen to his delicate voice breaks and you will hear the sweet music of Ayacucho. The mix of delicacy and strength and rural and cosmopolitan elements, is part of the secret of seduction that chicha music has had over the masses. Aside from use of electric instruments, rock music has influenced chicha music in other ways. Chacalón’s band was called New Cream as a tribute to the British band Cream. Their use of powerful fuzz tones and wah wah pedals for acid riffs and catchy solos, are the echoes of a rebellious music that wanted to silence the noises of a marginalized and exploitative city atmosphere debased by the most savage capitalism. "I seek a new life in this city / where everything is money and there is evil, " reads "Provinciano", Chacalon’s most famous songs. It’s because lyrics like these that people saw Chacalón as a messianic figure who sang about the promise of a new life. He sang about pain, alcohol and betrayal, but also about solidarity, love and hope. Chacalon sang to the most marginalized part of society, the lumpenproletariat, and not the middle class or the wealthy. Lorenzo Palacios did not see differences between those who complied with the law or those who transgressed it, because in marginality, survival is the only rule and the boundaries between good and evil become very subtle. "Eat first, then morals, " said Chacalon.

[engl] Debut album (13 tracks) by Haru Nemuri from Yokohama/Japan.Her incredible music is a fantastic mix of Avant-Pop, Punk, Alternative Rock, Hip-Hop, and of course J-Pop. Graced with a similar vision as previous Japanese artists like the BOREDOMS or MELT-BANANA, her album is equally as beautiful and catchy, as raw and in-your-face. Totally awesome! Limited edition of 500 copies on clear/turquoise-mixed 180g-vinyl.