During the 1990s, wherever you lived in France, you could see certain groups between 5 and 10 times a year - sometimes even without really wanting to. Guys who played so much, all the time, everywhere, that it was impossible to spend more than three months without being at one of their concerts. Right down to the depths of the Var or Jura, they pushed tons of kids to start their own band or fanzine, to access something different. It was more than just music. It was a spirit, an idea. A way of looking at the world. Rules are no longer the same. Music no longer has the same weight, the bands we come across between 5 and 10 times a year - sometimes even without really wanting to - are rarely the right ones, and the kids from the far reaches of the Var or the Jura have something else to do than formig bands or fanzines. But the spirit and the idea are still there. And in the last 10 years, in France, no group has played them better than Frustration. Like all these groups, Frustration we have seen them 5, 10, 100 times - sometimes without really wanting to. And because we're not quite the same either - more informed, more busy, more jaded, less easily impressionable - we always said to ourselves that we've gone around it, that their whole comedy is getting old.

But with each new concert, each new record, we go back to the roots. Because the fire is still burning, because the passion is still intact, because they are not trying to pass for what they are not. Because somewhere in the heart of the Var or Jura, some kids still need to see the world differently. However, we were not expecting a record like So Cold Streams. At this stage of the championship, Frustration could have been satisfied with releasing a record that was essentially identical to the previous one, intense, abrasive, honest but without risk, and could have continued to fill the rooms without anyone having to complain about it by slowly moving towards an exit as dignified as it was inevitable. But from the first bars of "Insane", an insane electro-punk pounding that you'd think you'd just come out of a 1988 EBM EP, you realize that the scenario isn't going to go as planned. Instead of setting up a comfortable routine, Frustration recorded his fifth album as if it were the first, like a band formed 6 months ago that would have nothing to lose and a serious desire to fight it. If the post-punk cavalry is still present (martial drums, elastic bass, hit-and-run guitars), So Cold Streams surprises with its energy, the virulence of certain lyrics and the many risk-taking, "Brume", a nightmare with industrial sounds screamed in French, to the very pop "Lil' White Sister" which looks surprisingly at the Smiths and Echo & The Bunnymen, as well as the sinuous and melancholic "Slave Markets" on which the band invited Jason Williamson, the singer of Sleaford Mods - a band that played a lot in Frustration's new youth. "Sleaford Mods is a band that, musically and humanly, gave us a real boost," explains Fabrice Gilbert (vocals). It gave us a real sense of freedom, it allowed me to really say everything I wanted to say in my words, to talk about extremely intimate subjects as well as much more general things, whether it be political or social. So Cold Streams is, paradoxically perhaps, our most disillusioned, energetic and free record. This observation is perfectly summarized by the cover of the disc, signed like all the others by the painter Baldo, and which represents a machine tarring a road through a field of wheat. A painting made more than 15 years ago and which was originally intended to be the cover of Full Of Sorrow, Frustration's first album. For such a renaissance, the best choice could not be better. Especially since the image alone contains the whole disc: space, strength, light, rage and disgust too. The desire to destroy everything. To make a clean slate. To propose something different. A little more than music. A spirit, an idea. A way of looking at the world.

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.

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.

E

ar–splitting hard–rock / proto–doom–metal from the early 70s! Electric Funeral were a pioneering Swiss hard–rock band who sadly never registered any studio recordings at the time. Formed in the late 60s by Edi Hirt (drums), Pierrot Wermeille (bass), Alain Christinaz (guitar) and Dominique Bourquin (vocals), they were influenced by bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Famous for their loud (they played behind giant stacks of Marshall amps) and powerful shows, their sound was too heavy–sounding for a regular label to offer them a contract. "The Wild Performance" is made of private live & rehearsal tapes recorded in 1970, very raw and lo–fi but it’s the only testimony of their brutal sound. First released in 1991 as a very limited (now heavily sought after) LP, here’s an expanded edition with newly remastered sound and four killer bonus tracks, taken from reels and tapes recently found in the band’s archives. These tracks were also recorded in 1970 except for "My Destiny" (1973). Sound is still lo–fi but slightly better than the original "Wild Perfomance" tracks, especially on the killer "You Can Help" (proto–punk á la Electric Eels!), "My Destiny" and the alternate version of "To Be One". *2LP expanded edition including previously unreleased tracks

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.