Khruangbin - The Universe Smiles Upon You New Sealed Vinyl $29.99 plus $5 shipping

Khruangbin

'The Universe Smiles Upon You' was recorded at their spiritual home, a remote barn deep in the Texas countryside where their first rehearsals took place. The band listened to a lot of different types of music on the long drives out to the country but their favourites were 60s and 70s Thai cassettes gleaned from the cult Monrakplengthai blog and compilations of southeast Asian pop, rock and funk. This had a heavy impact on the direction of the band, the scales they used and the inflection of the melodies; which coupled with the spaciousness of the Texan countryside culminated in Khruangbin forming their exotic, individual sound. Although the band was conceived as an instrumental outfit, 'The Universe Smiles Upon You' features the first Khruangbin recordings with vocals. Tracks 'People Everywhere (Still Alive)', 'Balls and Pins' and recent single 'White Gloves' show a new dimension to the band. "We never really thought of ourselves as having a "singer" but we knew that we wanted a voice for Khruangbin. We decided to write about something close to us, tell a story as simply as possible, and sing it together." The seeds of Khruangbin were sown when Mark and Laura were invited to tour with Ninja Tune's YPPAH supporting Bonobo across his 2010 American tour.

Miles Davis ‎– On The Corner 180g reissue-New Sealed $22.99 + $5.00 shipping

on the corner enjoys a special cult status among musicians, anticipating as it does the punk funk/acid jazz movements. for miles davis, on the corner was another seismic shift. miles was particularly fond of the lyric sweep of hendrixian electric guitar, the james brown-like rhythmic thump of fender bass, and the bell-like timbre and chordal possibilities of the fender/rhodes electric piano. now the trumpeter sought to incorporate the feel of street rhythms from around the world and to reflect the influence of modern electronic composers such as karlheinz stockhausen. so while on the corner is generously populated with top-flight jazz players, davis was zeroing in on a contemporary approach not beholden to jazz players of jazz rhythmic postures—although group improvisation is still very much the order of the day. in paving the way for his afro-psychedelic working bands of the mid-70's, davis was roundly dissed, but on the corner endures brilliantly—the dark lady of miles' musical sonnets. the album is a furious carnival of rhythm. the first section is dominated by an afro-cuban groove, the eerie distortion of miles' wah-wah trumpet, john mclaughlin's nasty electric leads and a swelter of rhythms—every instrument seemingly transformed into a drum. the second section beginning with "black satin" is driven along by a commanding michael henderson bass line, a celestial drone of indian bells, sitars, tablas, congas and handclaps, some skanky herbie hancock keyboards, and a skittering davis solo.