From Shrine to Stax, Isaac Hayes to Gloria Ann Taylor, The Mad Lads to The Staples Singers, Detroit to Atlanta, Kendrick to Pusha-T, Dale Warren's singular voice is the lone constant. Beneath the ...

2021 Repress features 140g Gold Vinyl and a Velour Sleeve. LP in tip-on jacket with purple velvet and gold foil stamping. In 1975, Brooklyn transplant Pepe Willie booked time at Cookhouse Recording ...

1982, Brussels: The former au pair for Rick Wakeman of Yes and two of her teenage friends are at the doorstep of Les Disques Du Crepuscule, ready to cut an album with Gilles Martin. Living on busking ...

Originally slated for release by Kansas City's own Titan in 1980. Omaha's Boys captured their June 1979 appearance at The Music Box on tape, only to have the project shelved when Titan quietly went ...

Previously issued on three rare cassette-only editions, Joanna Brouk's 1980 sophomore album The Space Between has finally been given spacious LP quarters. The side-long title track, performed by ...

Though boxing titan Joe Louis was throwing his last professional punches before they were born, teen group the Brown Bombers befit the Detroit ring legend's ballistic nickname. Standouts among ...

Though not a household name, Bernadette Carroll is one of the more successful teen vocalists of the girl group era. She performed on at least two #1 hits, selling over a million copies of each. ...

Cut in 1967 at Chicago's Universal Studios the Cave Dwellers thought they'd locked their first hit down. Given just a few minutes to produce a b-side, the quintet unleashed their as yet unheard ...

Warrior horse-woman of myth or chimerical beast of late 1970s funk? It is simply Centaura, available here for what amounts to the first time. For Atlanta hillbilly impresario Bob Riley, the 12" ...

From the blown-out motherboard of West Philadelphia's Master Control Programmers, Charles Grossman broke off to explore his own personal outer space experience. With just a DW-8000 to keep him ...

This is the ultimate burnout biker-psych masterpiece. Finally repressed directly from tapes to flawlessly restore the cigarette burns, Harley fumes, and cocaine hangovers of the original ride, ...

Available on vinyl for the first time since its 1994 release, The White Birch ended New York slowcore pioneer Codeine's original existence on a note of defiant restraint. It's faithfully restored ...

Ten road-weary tales from the wrong side of outlaw country. Jeff Cowell may have huffed the same narcotic air as Townes Van Zandt and David Allan Coe, but hunkered far from the Nashville city limits, ...

The Creation were a go. A dynamic band with an equally engaging image, they would burn brightly for less than two years, yet would leave an indelible mark upon music history. With producer du jour ...

Before Green Day, Operation Ivy, and Lookout Records put the East Bay's burgeoning punk scene on the map, a trio of Berkeley kids were reinventing the genre with music that was melodic but full of ...

Before Green Day, Operation Ivy, and Lookout Records put the East Bay's burgeoning punk scene on the map, a trio of Berkeley kids were reinventing the genre with music that was melodic but full of ...

A branch pruned from West Indian-born Trevor Dandy's 1970 LP Don't Cry Little Tree, "Is There Any Love" is the stand out track from our 10th release, Good God: A Gospel Funk Hymnal. Produced by ...

Gary Davenport went deep with his very first record, made with his band Mannequin. "Scattered Thoughts" is a brilliant musical reflection on rumination, a track so good we named our collection of ...

Before new age hit terra firma at the dawn of the 1980s, the classically-trained Bay Area composer Jordan De La Sierra's consciousness soared with cosmic concepts. A student of Terry Riley and La ...

Before new age hit terra firma at the dawn of the 1980s, the classically-trained Bay Area composer Jordan De La Sierra's consciousness soared with cosmic concepts. A student of Terry Riley and La ...

The Numero 12" series returns after a three year hiatus with an oddball nugget from the Boddie Recording Company vault. No record of the identity Doc Rhymin' was discovered in our thorough ...

A few years before Maurice White and Earth, Wind & Fire established their Los Angeles outpost, James Dockery made that same Chicago-to-LA trek alone and deeply embedded himself in the soul music ...

Y2K prepper-rock for the underemployed. Tracked at home in 1999, the 1975 EP expands on Stratosphere's slacker-positive dreamscape, with layers of guitars both clean and fuzzy, humming organ, and ...

Y2K prepper-rock for the underemployed. Tracked at home in 1999, the 1975 EP expands on Stratosphere's slacker-positive dreamscape, with layers of guitars both clean and fuzzy, humming organ, and ...

San Jose's sonic cure-all for the Y2K hangover that never materialized, Duster emerged from a cloud of lonely bong rips to take indie rock to the moon, and beyond. Scotch-taped guitars toggle between ...

Amuffled cry into the technological darkness, Contemporary Movement slid into the world right as the MP3 was seeping out of college dorms. A 39-minute drift into the void, drenched in Cold War-era ...

A muffled cry into the technological darkness, Contemporary Movement slid into the world right as the MP3 was seeping out of college dorms. A 39-minute drift into the void, drenched in Cold War-era ...

Best listened to from inside the womb, Duster's 1998's debut Stratosphere simultaneously capped off and reinvented the slow core's first wave. A four track dreamscape that will wake the neighbors and ...

Best listened to from inside the womb, Duster's 1998's debut Stratosphere simultaneously capped off and reinvented the slow core's first wave. A four track dreamscape that will wake the neighbors and ...

Incarcerated funk has no right to feel this free. Musical convicts and actual convicts from across the Commonwealth, The Edge Of Daybreak's membership wrote and recorded Eyes Of Love while serving ...

A decade ago, Dante Carfagna issued a somewhat anonymous LP under the Express Rising heading. That self-titled affair went in and out of print before 2003's summer gave way to fall, thanks in part to ...

One-take ambient instrumental travels, composed in strict committee by the trio of Kevin Blagg, William Suran, and Dante Carfagna. Recorded spontaneously in rural Arkansas, bulging sub-woofers lope ...

One-take ambient instrumental travels, composed in strict committee by the trio of Kevin Blagg, William Suran, and Dante Carfagna. Recorded spontaneously in rural Arkansas, bulging sub-woofers lope ...

The fourth Express Rising LP (and second featuring the expanded lineup of William Suran and Kevin Blagg, in addition to leader Dante Carfagna) finds the trio largely eschewing percussion in favor of ...

The fourth Express Rising LP (and second featuring the expanded lineup of William Suran and Kevin Blagg, in addition to leader Dante Carfagna) finds the trio largely eschewing percussion in favor of ...

By 1980, rap was the most cutting edge musical medium in New York City, just shy of its inevitable spread from the street to the studio. The groundswell of excitement surrounding this new sound was ...

Family Circle's 1973 LP draws a tight ring around the most beguiling soul tropes of its era, with its full house of ambitious players and hook-laden originals. Newark, New Jersey's Simmons ...

As spiritually adherent to black music as much as they were to black Islam, Father's Children were born of Washington, D.C.'s dirt and grime. Their soulful funk awareness might have found its ...

As spiritually adherent to black music as much as they were to black Islam, Father's Children were born of Washington, D.C.'s dirt and grime. Their soulful funk awareness might have found its ...

Behold the Female Species! A once-in-a-decade discovery of two sisters, married to music for life, always charging forward, indefatigable, indomitable, at last seen and heard. From their origins as ...

Continuing a tradition that began with Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song and culminated with Shaft and Superfly, Brotherman was a blaxploitation film set to hit screens in 1975. Prior to the script's ...

Continuing a tradition that began with Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song and culminated with Shaft and Superfly, Brotherman was a blaxploitation film set to hit screens in 1975. Prior to the script's ...

Continuing a tradition that began with Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song and culminated with Shaft and Superfly, Brotherman was a blaxploitation film set to hit screens in 1975. Prior to the script's ...

Gently Down Your Stream marked a creative zenith within the Columbus, Ohio, soul scene, at the juncture of the 1960s and '70s. The Four Mints were one of the most influential local group harmony ...

Gently Down Your Stream marked a creative zenith within the Columbus, Ohio, soul scene, at the juncture of the 1960s and '70s. The Four Mints were one of the most influential local group harmony ...

Gently Down Your Stream marked a creative zenith within the Columbus, Ohio, soul scene, at the juncture of the 1960s and '70s. The Four Mints were one of the most influential local group harmony ...

The story of the Capsoul master tapes is well known: after City National Bank of Columbus foreclosed on the debt the label incurred to found the city's most successful soul label, owner Bill Moss hid ...

Atortured songwriter and struggling addict who jolted the tired Chicago DIY scene with his own brand of primal despair, Trey Gruber and his band Parent were on track to join the ranks of Twin Peaks, ...

The first authoritative compilation of American dream pop artist Happy Rhodes, whose singular songwriting and four-octave vocal range emanated from the pastoral confines of upstate New York in the ...

The first authoritative compilation of American dream pop artist Happy Rhodes, whose singular songwriting and four-octave vocal range emanated from the pastoral confines of upstate New York in the ...

A seamless mix of the organic and inorganic, the recent past and distant future, and the possible and impossible, Japanese multi-media artist Masumi Hara's sophomore album arrived like a fish on the ...

A seamless mix of the organic and inorganic, the recent past and distant future, and the possible and impossible, Japanese multi-media artist Masumi Hara's sophomore album arrived like a fish on the ...

Previously unreleased, this 1972 pair of Calvin Harris' masterfully crafted Earl Wiley-produced sweet soul demos might've stayed totally unknown, if it weren't for Ed Cody's devious forethought. An ...

Lodged between a heartbreak and a smoke break, Kathy Heideman's Move With Love wandered off I-5 somewhere just south of Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area and broke down. At its dusty ...

Experience the punishing sonic origins of a punk icon. Collected here for the first time, and skillfully remastered from original board tapes, demos, and session masters, this collection is an ...

Inspired by the infinitely numbered harmonies transmitted by Vista, a benevolent being from a distant dimension, Iasos broke ground for a new age of electronic sound manipulation. His was pioneering ...

Inspired by the infinitely numbered harmonies transmitted by Vista, a benevolent being from a distant dimension, Iasos broke ground for a new age of electronic sound manipulation. His was pioneering ...

The fourth leg on the early emo table of Rites of Spring, Moss Icon, and Cap'n Jazz, Indian Summer's Giving Birth To Thunder compiles their complete discography. Emo's second wave crashed into the ...

After an obscure acetate turned up in Connecticut in 2004, Zero Street Records issued a 300-copy limited edition LP of the complete works of Johnny Lunchbreak. The non-album was a mélange of ...

For outsider gospel visionary and Detroit native Otis G. Johnson, the Holy Ghost was in the machine...in this case a rhythm-equipped Hammond organ. Everything - God Is Love 78, a singular 1978 mid-fi ...

Joining Otis, Wilson, and Percy, plus both Sam and Dave, is a new deity in the eternal soul pantheon. Take it from Syl Johnson himself: "This box set is the history of a masterful artist whose time ...

Syl Johnson's first LP hit stores in the summer of 1969. True to its era, it wasn't so much an album as a collection of singles. The four non-single tracks ("Soul Drippin'," "Fox Hunting On The ...

Her voice was all Saturday night, delivered on a Sunday morning. Patsy on Jesus. Elvis without the pelvis. Fern Jones' only album, released by Dot Records in 1959, captured 36-year-old Sister Fern as ...

Her voice was all Saturday night, delivered on a Sunday morning. Patsy on Jesus. Elvis without the pelvis. Fern Jones' only album, released by Dot Records in 1959, captured 36-year-old Sister Fern as ...

The missing link between her Barry and Columbia singles, "I Can't Stand It" b/w "Only Yesterday" is Thelma Jones with her back against the wall of an empty and indifferent Holiday Inn lounge and ...

Dead Man is a 13th Floor Elevator descent headlong into southern-fried bloody Sabbath. Released on the Hookah imprint in 1970, the LP's gaping cranium cover, sludged-up blues, and bone-bleached riffs ...

The Great Alternative Boom of the early '90s had begun to wither on corporate FM barely halfway through the decade, but the ever-changing underground had almost entirely regenerated after two ...

Vision Songs Vol. 1 is the Laraaji album like no other, located at the intersection of new age and gospel, his outlier and magnum opus, the feel-good DIY tape of the century. Casio synth jams ...

Vision Songs Vol. 1 is the Laraaji album like no other, located at the intersection of new age and gospel, his outlier and magnum opus, the feel-good DIY tape of the century. Casio synth jams ...

After wrapping the tracklist for Local Customs: Downriver Revival, we knew there was a smaller second record buried in the mountains of tape rescued from Felton Williams' Ecorse, Michigan, basement. ...

These six cuts_five doleful reinterpretations and one self-penned pastoral love song_are the last of Linda Bruner's known recordings. This aching set of missives "to a friend" took place in the back ...

Lion_and the mean ecstasy of "You've Got A Woman," the B-side to their sole release_comprise a rare burst of psychedelic-Western soul from two names best known for Dutch progressive rock and new ...

One part War, two parts Santana, and a dash of Motown, immersed in a rich Puerto Rican stock, Los Nombres were the undisputed kings of Northern Ohio's Rust Belt barrios. Following successive ...

One part War, two parts Santana, and a dash of Motown, immersed in a rich Puerto Rican stock, Los Nombres were the undisputed kings of Northern Ohio's Rust Belt barrios. Following successive ...

In the late '70s, three do-right women from Cleveland forged a brief partnership with Ohio's everything man, Lou Ragland. Unlike the prefabricated singing combos of the day, Lily Pearson, Annette ...

In the late '70s, three do-right women from Cleveland forged a brief partnership with Ohio's everything man, Lou Ragland. Unlike the prefabricated singing combos of the day, Lily Pearson, Annette ...

The son of a prominent Nicaraguan politician, Alfonso Noel Lovo was an obvious target when Sandinista rebels hijacked a Managua-bound flight from Miami in December of 1971, ultimately putting several ...

The son of a prominent Nicaraguan politician, Alfonso Noel Lovo was an obvious target when Sandinista rebels hijacked a Managua-bound flight from Miami in December of 1971, ultimately putting several ...

Steve Byrd, known to his friends as "The Birdman," was a songwriter and arranger, given to stomping around in cowboy boots and feathered ten-gallon hats, flouting his university degree in music ...

The second in our series of disco 12"s traces back to the T.S.O.B. label, a tiny Brooklyn outfit that operated from 1980 to 1982. While the label is best known for supplying the infectious horn ...

Recalling Ennio Morricone spaghetti westerns, the electrified belly dance music of Omar Khorshid, and '90s bedroom psychedelia at once, the music of Branko Mataja is from its own epoch. Snatched from ...

Recalling Ennio Morricone spaghetti westerns, the electrified belly dance music of Omar Khorshid, and '90s bedroom psychedelia at once, the music of Branko Mataja is from its own epoch. Snatched from ...

Just as Al Green's "Back Up Train" was pulling out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a whistle-stop tour to the top of the charts, producer Palmer James began eyeing another Furniture City branch line: ...

You must physically hold this album, kneel at its altar; we will fail to describe it. Medusa's First Step Beyond might have forever shifted the perception of Chicago rock history had it managed to ...

You must physically hold this album, kneel at its altar; we will fail to describe it. Medusa's First Step Beyond might have forever shifted the perception of Chicago rock history had it managed to ...

The bastard love child of Elvis and Lux Interior, Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira brewed a heady amalgam of '50s trash rock, surf-y tremolo, and reverb-drenched goth during his all-too-brief 44 ...

This collection is the first attempt at putting the pieces together, compiling a life's work of an artist whose spark almost shined unto the world. His was a music both familiar and entirely alien at ...

Constructed around a sunburned guitar lick of prominence, Phoenix bluesman George Bowman's unreleased two-parter "Don't Down Me People" is a lost document of Arizona's under-publicized soul output. ...

Best known for their 1969 paper hit "Iron Leg," the mixed instrumental combo Mickey & the Soul Generation came to semi-national attention following Nipsey Russell's performance of the Iron Leg dance ...

Culled from a warped acetate cut at Variety Recording Service in 1962, Songs Of Leaving is the complete songbook of New York folkie Niela Miller. Something of a Bleeker & MacDougal scenester, Miller ...

Awinsome and dizzying spin on disco pop, recorded in westernized Iran during the last moments before the 1979 revolution. All but criminalized in the wake of Ayatollah Khomeini's theocratic ...

Jimmy Jam Harris was just 16 when he began writing and arranging for Minneapolis 11-piece Mind & Matter. Boasting a perfectly calibrated vocal quartet, an aggressive rhythm section, and stacks of ...

Jimmy Jam Harris was just 16 when he began writing and arranging for Minneapolis 11-piece Mind & Matter. Boasting a perfectly calibrated vocal quartet, an aggressive rhythm section, and stacks of ...

Funk's answer to the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Florida's Montgomery Express stood at the crossroads of politically conscious soul and mystically awakened dance music. Comprised of two blind ...

With no less than a mansion, a state beach, and a three-mile stretch of Los Angeles road bearing his surname, Ned Doheny easy-glided into the 1970s on a crest of notoriety. Signposting Ned's sojourn ...

Somewhere in the early 1990s the world as Ned Doheny knew it ceased to exist. His wife walked out, plans with his son were relegated to the weekends, and his contract with Japan's Polystar label ...

Pre-dotcom electro-funk from the long-running S.F. collective New World Music, gathering the best of their opium-hazed Macola-issued singles on one tidy 12". Winding keys loosely hug an over-worked ...

What does teen spirit smell like, anyway? It might smell something like Noise Addict. Like the real life stars of some sort of choose-your-own-adventure book about pursuing rock stardom, few bands ...

After Chicago's Twinight label flamed out late in 1971, The Notations found themselves cutting on the far west side at Gene Cash's custom Cash Recording studio. A pair of 45s emerged on the Cash and ...

The final album in Pastor T.L. Barrett's 1970s four-part suite of gospel funk LPs, Do Not Pass Me By finds the fiery preacher getting spaced out on God's love. Accompanied by his Youth For Christ ...

A Civil Rights activist who marched alongside Jesse Jackson, preacher for Earth Wind & Fire, Stax recording artist, "Family Feud" contestant, Stephen Curry soundtracker, high school drop out, and ...

Limited Indie Exclusive Blessed White and Gold Vinyl 5xLP. A Civil Rights activist who marched alongside Jesse Jackson, preacher for Earth Wind & Fire, Stax recording artist, "Family Feud" ...

Der Klassiker des einstigen Pfarrers und Kreuzzügler des Allgemeinwohls PASTOR T. L. BARRETT & THE YOUTH OF CHRIST CHOIR von 1971 gilt bis heute als der heilige Gral des Gospel-Soul. Mit dem ...

Recorded in 1971 by a 27-year-old pastor and an after school program choir, Like A Ship is a stirring and powerful meditation on the wayward aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. Tracked with the ...

Sometime in 2005, a lone box of master tapes escaped an estate sale and made its way through a network of collectors, record dealers, and "junkers" into the hands of leading Ohio soul expert Dante ...

Sometime in 2005, a lone box of master tapes escaped an estate sale and made its way through a network of collectors, record dealers, and "junkers" into the hands of leading Ohio soul expert Dante ...

Issued in 1977, Caroline Peyton's sophomore album is a schizophrenic time capsule of folk's coked-out overdose. Jazz-disco table dancing gives way to electric hillbilly bluez and Boone's Farm-soaked ...

Born out of Bloomington, Indiana's Needmore Commune, Mock Up is the drug-damaged hippy stepsister to Joni Mitchell's Blue. A dark orgasmic love letter between Caroline Peyton and producer Mark ...

Much is made of Detroit techno progenitors proximity to the auto plants. Similarly, overlooked electronic pioneer Jeff Phelps was raised just blocks from a Western Pennsylvania steel mill_close ...

Though they were the most revered group of session musicians in Chicago, the Pieces Of Peace only managed to issue one recording during their larger-than-life existence. As a live band, they backed ...

Hoping to cash in on the instrumental craze made popular by Cadet's Soulful Strings project, Twinight hired journeyman guitarist Sidney Pinchback to set down a few psychedelic licks over the backing ...

1969's A Lovely Sight, Pisces' only attempt at an LP, never made wax in its day; but the fuzz guitar phrases and tambourine shuffle of "Dear One" instantly illustrate the band's woozy realm. Deeper ...

1969's A Lovely Sight, Pisces' only attempt at an LP, never made wax in its day; but the fuzz guitar phrases and tambourine shuffle of "Dear One" instantly illustrate the band's woozy realm. Deeper ...

Although Donnell Pitman is championed in modern disco cliques for his infectious rarity "Love Explosion," it was the unreleased masterpiece "Burning Up" that he brought aboard The Chicago Party in ...

After including Carla Sciaky's lovely "And I A Fairytale Lady" on our Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From The Canyon compilation, we went ahead and had the original tapes for the "Fairytale Lady" source ...

O'Jays road manager, Don King prison chauffeur, window washer, house painter, Ink Spot, Domino, engineer, label owner, guitorgan technician, and one-time steward of a coveted Jet Magazine delivery ...

O'Jays road manager, Don King prison chauffeur, window washer, house painter, Ink Spot, Domino, engineer, label owner, guitorgan technician, and one-time steward of a coveted Jet Magazine delivery ...

The unissued third single from the Prix label's unsung star Eddie Ray, cut directly from the original 15 IPS master. Tracked in 1972 just as Clem Price and George Beter's Columbus imprint was ...

Spliced alongside a handful of other Deep City instrumental takes, these two cuts were the first evidence that the grip of tapes that had turned up at famed Miami producer Willie Clarke's ex-wife's ...

The first ever compilation from the Alamo City's scrappiest souleros. The Royal Jesters were the kings of San Antonio's cross-cultural teen scene in the 1960s, soundtracking lovelorn slow dances and ...

The first ever compilation from the Alamo City's scrappiest souleros. The Royal Jesters were the kings of San Antonio's cross-cultural teen scene in the 1960s, soundtracking lovelorn slow dances and ...

Barely disco and hardly jazz, Rupa Biswas' 1982 LP is the halfway point between Bollywood and Balearic. Tracked in Calgary's Living Room Studios with a crack team of Indian and Canadian studio rats ...

Barely disco and hardly jazz, Rupa Biswas' 1982 LP is the halfway point between Bollywood and Balearic. Tracked in Calgary's Living Room Studios with a crack team of Indian and Canadian studio rats ...

"I met Sandy Denny at the Troubadour in Earl's Court in late 1966," Strawbs vocalist, guitarist, and banjoist David Cousins said. "I dropped in late one night to hear an angel singing. Sandy was ...

With a sound that was swampy, primal and modern-urban all at once_as much in the tradition of rock n' roll and punk rock as it was a rejection of those things, the Scientists' formula was as ...

With a sound that was swampy, primal and modern-urban all at once_as much in the tradition of rock n' roll and punk rock as it was a rejection of those things, the Scientists' formula was as ...

Formed in the early '50s under the watchful eye of Tuskegee, Alabama, transplant Charles Chambliss, the Sensational Saints were handpicked from a Cleveland clothing store, a pool room, and from a ...

Girl group greatness for your holiday soiree! Figuring it would take a Christmas miracle to break them out of rural Indiana, the Shades_Cindi, Jannie, and Suzi_traveled to Chicago's RCA Studios in ...

Girl group greatness for your holiday soiree! Figuring it would take a Christmas miracle to break them out of rural Indiana, the Shades - Cindi, Jannie, and Suzi - traveled to Chicago's RCA Studios ...

Jackie Shane's immortal first hit / de facto soul manifesto "Any Other Way", and the hyperenergized flipside "Sticks and Stones" are (legitimately) available again in the convenient 7" format for the ...

Jackie Shane's immortal first hit / de facto soul manifesto "Any Other Way", and the hyperenergized flipside "Sticks and Stones" are (legitimately) available again in the convenient 7" format for the ...

Zion, Illinois' Shoes comes in second only to Cheap Trick in embodying the sound and story of Illinois pop in the late '70s and early '80s. Helmed by brothers Jon and Jeff Murphy and schoolmate Gary ...

Zion, Illinois' Shoes comes in second only to Cheap Trick in embodying the sound and story of Illinois pop in the late '70s and early '80s. Helmed by brothers Jon and Jeff Murphy and schoolmate Gary ...

Zion, Illinois' Shoes comes in second only to Cheap Trick in embodying the sound and story of Illinois pop in the late '70s and early '80s. Helmed by brothers Jon and Jeff Murphy and schoolmate Gary ...

Adding to a list that includes Little Anthony & the Imperials, Linda Ronstadt, Jackie DeShannon, Grant Green, and the Delfonics, Boyce & Hart's 1965 hit "Hurts So Bad" gets remade St. Louis-style on ...

A raw cry from the dark night of one man's soul. Cloistered away from the popular culture of 1982, rural Illinois priest Tony Trosley painted a pastoral refraction of early 1970s Laurel Canyon ...

After years in the SSW mines, the bookish Jim Spencer engaged cowriter Ed Tossing to create a hit, and turned out a song so catchy no less than two aspiring vocalists added it to their repertoire. ...

Cashed out on the rote, sheet music lounge fare of their casino and/or buffet day jobs, Spirit Free booked seats on a Starship instead, charting their jazz-fusion course deep into Las Vegas' outer ...

Synth chutes, synth ladders, popcorn 808 beats, dirge-y chants and busted sub-woofer hums from inner-galactic soul pioneers Nathaniel Woolridge and Anthony Freeman intertwine to create this hypnotic, ...

Soaring falsetto lead from 13-year-old Johnnie Gee, who, alongside brothers Jerome and Dewitt and a handful of kids from their Milwaukee stomping grounds, formed Step By Step in 1969. Gee and ...

Only the 10th record from DJ Shadow's long running Cali-Tex imprint, Stone Coal White fits the label's bill of unearthing the most wasted and primitive funk records ever recorded. Some will recognize ...

Intended as an introduction to Stormy, the man, the myth, the legend, "The Devastator" is a boastful proto-funk number accented wonderfully by the thoroughbred backing musicians. "I Won't Stop To ...

In founding Swell Maps, the post-punk prefacing Birmingham art-snots, Nikki Sudden and his drumming brother Epic Soundtracks charted new territory for racket and corrosive guitar. But after folding ...

After some bloody conflict around the office concerning which side of The Triads' superb but solitary single was going to be included on our Home Schooled: The ABCs of Kid Soul compilation, an accord ...

While in pursuit of a Radio and TV Broadcasting degree from Chicago State University, Cynthia C. Gibson directed the music video for the Universal Togetherness Band's "More Than Enough." Backed with ...

Two brilliant, previously unissued modern soul discoveries from the archive of U.T.B. mastermind Andre Gibson. "My Lucky Stars" rides the 120 BPM crest, with sharp horns, handclaps, triangle, and a ...

A late entry into the Universal Togetherness Band songbook, "My Sentiment" finds frontman Andre Gibson at the helm of a more refined manifestation of his cult-disco combo. With sweetening from ...

Between 1979 and 1982, The Universal Togetherness Band tracked unearthly portions of their sprawling songbook for bewildered students in Columbia College's audio engineering program. Storming the ...

Between 1979 and 1982, The Universal Togetherness Band tracked unearthly portions of their sprawling songbook for bewildered students in Columbia College's audio engineering program. Storming the ...

Unwound's paranoid and pulsating sixth album, Challenge For a Civilized Society explores the pre-Y2K technological dread of modern punk living. Producer Steve Fisk threads Justin Trosper's stabbing, ...

The climactic entry in our four-set Unwound exploration, Empire compiles the final pair of albums by the Olympia, Washington, trio. On 1998's Challenge For A Civilized Society, the band toyed with ...

The Unwound album that ended all Unwound albums. Recorded in a moldering farmhouse basement at the crest of the new century, Leaves Turn Inside You is the no-wave response to Spector's wall of noise ...

The Unwound album that ended all Unwound albums. Recorded in a moldering farmhouse basement at the crest of the new century, Leaves Turn Inside You is the no-wave response to Spector's wall of noise ...

As a robust rock underground got swallowed alive by the Major Label Industrial Complex, the very autonomous Unwound_Olympia, Washington's Great Noise Hope_toed the troublesome line between pay check ...

Dead-eyed post-punk from Olympia's reigning noise-niks. Repetition rejects the major label signing spree of the mid-'90s entirely, training its hulking focus on haircut hardcore, white belt Jiujitsu, ...

Their third album in as many years, 1995's The Future of What is an unrelenting, constructivist masterstroke. The Olympia trio's signature sound_ grinding bass, syncopated drums, and fragmented ...

Just as Duster's landmark debut album Stratosphere was making its first orbit, Clay Parton, Dove Amber, and Jason Albertini tracked a largely improvised companion capsule under their Valium Aggelein ...

Just as Duster's landmark debut album Stratosphere was making its first orbit, Clay Parton, Dove Amber, and Jason Albertini tracked a largely improvised companion capsule under their Valium Aggelein ...

School is back in session! A decade removed from our acclaimed Home Schooled compilation comes a new class of talent show titans. With enterprising parents, neighbors, and teachers turning play dates ...

School is back in session! A decade removed from our acclaimed Home Schooled compilation comes a new class of talent show titans. With enterprising parents, neighbors, and teachers turning play dates ...

We hear who these girls, these young women are, who they become behind that mic. Voice big, authoritative, divining sure devotion, dejection, and longing. The joy cuts through the rawness. Some of ...

From his studio in central Bobo-Dioulasso, West African photographer Sory Sanlé documented a nation's transformation from colonial foothold to cosmopolitan oasis. Captured on on 6x6 medium format ...

From his studio in central Bobo-Dioulasso, West African photographer Sory Sanlé documented a nation's transformation from colonial foothold to cosmopolitan oasis. Captured on on 6x6 medium format ...

From 1958 to 1993, Thomas and Louise Boddie's industrious Boddie Recording Company issued nearly 300 albums and 45s, recorded 10,000 hours of tape, and remained in operation longer than any other ...

From 1958 to 1993, Thomas and Louise Boddie's industrious Boddie Recording Company issued nearly 300 albums and 45s, recorded 10,000 hours of tape, and remained in operation longer than any other ...

An homage to the prairie state Numero calls home, From Champaign To Chicago is a 19-track survey of Illinois' Cheapest Tricks. Reaching back to 1973's Peoria outliers the Jets and winding up in 1987 ...

Here at Numero, our arousal over skinny ties, broad-winged melodic hooks, harmonizing young men, and monosyllabic bandnames is no new thing. What's getting us going all over again is Buttons, our ...

The national dish of Belize is a diverse mixture of ingredients: pig's tail, potatoes, plantains, bananas, boiled eggs, yams, and whole fish, thrown in a pot and stewed to perfection. They call it a ...

The national dish of Belize is a diverse mixture of ingredients: pig's tail, potatoes, plantains, bananas, boiled eggs, yams, and whole fish, thrown in a pot and stewed to perfection. They call it a ...

The second in our series exploring the pan-American funk experience, Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay is a deep overview of Funky Nassau's redheaded sister city, Freeport, on Grand Bahama Island. A ...

The second in our series exploring the pan-American funk experience, Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay is a deep overview of Funky Nassau's redheaded sister city, Freeport, on Grand Bahama Island. A ...

Far from the twin epicenters of New York and Miami, Carlos Ruiz and his Ebirac label were both feeling and generating the aftershocks of the mid-'70s salsa boom. Holed up in their own bustling Puerto ...

Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin's Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, ...

Over the course of seven years and over 70 releases, a fan began to create a mega-mix of his favorite loops, breaks, and vocal snippets, chopping them all up and piecing together an incredible ...

Ten Numero-minted, dance floor ready dive bombers from disco's all-to-brief heyday, previously swept under rug by the whitewashed glitz and glam of the era. Chugging grooves, bubbling synths, soaring ...

The Bandit Records legend could almost be fiction. The house passing as a home, the harem passing as a family, the rising star brutally murdered in his prime, the dream, the con: The end. Arrow Brown ...

Nickel and Penny are twin sides of the same eccentric coin, and in the '60s and '70s that coin was being flipped by Chicago's #1 Dusties DJ Richard Pegue. When he wasn't busy as a mobile DJ, a ...

Fifty records later, The Numero Group returns to its eccentric roots, Ohio's Capitol City and the sonorous Shangri-La carved out by the indefatigable Bill Moss. Filling in, around, and on top of our ...

The Bandit Records legend could almost be fiction. The house passing as a home, the harem passing as a family, the rising star brutally murdered in his prime, the dream, the con: The end. Arrow Brown ...

Where everything Numero begins. Three guys in a purple Saturn station wagon drove down to Columbus, Ohio, and came back to Chicago with a lost label_the rest is history. In the early '70s, Bill Moss' ...

As the capital of arguably the most soulful state in the nation, Columbus, Ohio is remarkably unassuming. Just south of the rust belt and barely above the Mason-Dixon, it is surrounded by the fertile ...

Toiling in Floridian swelter for just a few years, the Deep City label and its sound would permeate the Miami-metro area and dress the set for disco powerhouse TK's impressive 1970s run. Before ...

Toiling in Floridian swelter for just a few years, the Deep City label and its sound would permeate the Miami-metro area and dress the set for disco powerhouse TK's impressive 1970s run. Before ...

In 1969, after three years as Soul Sister #1 to James Brown's touring entourage, Marva Whitney came home to Kansas City, putting Ellis Taylor's Forte label back at full fighting strength. She'd ...

Left unexplored by Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label were those narrow roads leading away from the misfits of FAMU's Marching 100 band, out of Deep City, and into its suburbs: the Reid, Sun Cut, ...

Three years we told the world about Columbus, Ohio's secret soul history, Numero returned to the scene of the crime for further exploration. Victim: Clem Price and George Beter's no-rep custom studio ...

Three years we told the world about Columbus, Ohio's secret soul history, Numero returned to the scene of the crime for further exploration. Victim: Clem Price and George Beter's no-rep custom studio ...

The 20th volume of our flagship Eccentric Soul series has all the boxes checked: Gun-toting, skip-tracing record producers, child stars, rip-offs, the "World's Greatest Bail Bondsman," swindles, ...

The 20th volume of our flagship Eccentric Soul series has all the boxes checked: Gun-toting, skip-tracing record producers, child stars, rip-offs, the "World's Greatest Bail Bondsman," swindles, ...

Fueled by the financial drippings of number runners and boosted by Hall-of-Fame running back Jim Brown, Cleveland, Ohio's Way Out Records offered asylum for a rising crop of rogue soul men, rust-belt ...

By 1967, East St. Louis, Illinois_once dubbed an "All American" city by the US Chamber of Commerce_had become St Louis, Missouri's evil twin. Unemployment, drug addiction and vicious gang activity ...

The genesis of our Good God! series, dedicated to divergent sounds from devout records, A Gospel Funk Hymnal explores injections of a profane funk into gospel music's sacred beatitude. Completing the ...

The genesis of our Good God! series, dedicated to divergent sounds from devout records, A Gospel Funk Hymnal explores injections of a profane funk into gospel music's sacred beatitude. Completing the ...

In the firmament of independently financed gospel LPs, the stock album jacket would become as much a commonplace as any of the most obligatory hymns, from "Amazing Grace" to "Swing Low, Sweet ...

In the firmament of independently financed gospel LPs, the stock album jacket would become as much a commonplace as any of the most obligatory hymns, from "Amazing Grace" to "Swing Low, Sweet ...

The formula was simple: Merge bubblegum and soul with the crackling sincerity of an enthusiastic child, cross your fingers, and pray for airplay. Throw in a publicist, stylists, dance instructors, ...

On Cleveland's late '60s gospel scene, the BOS label was the refined, professional ying to Boddie's lo-fi yang, galloping to the fore bearing a torch for Curtis Mayfield's robe-wearing roots. Founded ...

On Cleveland's late '60s gospel scene, the BOS label was the refined, professional ying to Boddie's lo-fi yang, galloping to the fore bearing a torch for Curtis Mayfield's robe-wearing roots. Founded ...

Between 1975-77, Chicago's southside nightclubs were experiencing dark times. The after-hours routine may have been on the up, but the sound of urban blues was on its way down, getting funkier, ...

Not quite hell, but close enough. Local Customs: Cavern Sound covers six years lost in the deranging darkness of Independence, Missouri's Pixley limestone mine, where a team of misfit engineers ...

Not quite hell, but close enough. Local Customs: Cavern Sound covers six years lost in the deranging darkness of Independence, Missouri's Pixley limestone mine, where a team of misfit engineers ...

Between 1967 and 1981, Detroit's downriver neighbor Ecorse, Michigan, had its very own Moe Asch. Set up in a basement on 18th Avenue, electronics wiz, guitarist, and Ford plant foreman Felton ...

The second in our series of peeks into the world of regional studios hones in on Mickey Rouse's Lowland operation out of Beaumont, Texas. Long after the Bopper's plane crashed and the Winter brothers ...

The second in our series of peeks into the world of regional studios hones in on Mickey Rouse's Lowland operation out of Beaumont, Texas. Long after the Bopper's plane crashed and the Winter brothers ...

Record buyers of a certain age need no explanation for Los Alamos Grind!, they will be immediately transported back to a time when going to see The Dwarves was de rigueur for fresh-faced American ...

Record buyers of a certain age need no explanation for Los Alamos Grind!, they will be immediately transported back to a time when going to see The Dwarves was de rigueur for fresh-faced American ...

The lost yearbook from Louis Wayne Moody High's graduating class of 1967, chronicling the peaks and valleys of teenage angst, lost loves, and life after summer vacation. Fourteen moody melodies of ...

In 1988, David Blair Stiffler risked life and limb to document under-recorded cultural groups living lives of extreme isolation in the mountainous Philippine regions of Nueva Ecija, Aurora, and ...

As escapism from corporate banality turned the corner in the `90s, a new generation of vibrant, software generated soundscapes emerged. Communal access to the internet propagated the new hive mind of ...

As escapism from corporate banality turned the corner in the `90s, a new generation of vibrant, software generated soundscapes emerged. Communal access to the internet propagated the new hive mind of ...

In August of 1975, the world's first punk record label was born. Ork Records: New York, New York is a tale of Terry Ork, a film-obsessed fugitive of Warhol's Factory set. Ork's impresario ear would ...

In August of 1975, the world's first punk record label was born. Ork Records: New York, New York is a tale of Terry Ork, a film-obsessed fugitive of Warhol's Factory set. Ork's impresario ear would ...

Static filled signals emanating deep from inside the walls of Laurel Canyon, bouncing off clusters of incipient late century technology, are pulled through the twisted rabbit ears of a Chevy Astro ...

Bubbling up from the snow-blanketed land of 10,000 lakes, the Minneapolis Sound defied expectations, emerging late in the '70s as a slick, black, technologically advanced fusion, poised to storm the ...

The third installment of Numero's ode to lowrider souldies, Rust Side Story compiles highly sought after sweet soul singles from the Buck Eye State. Prepare for a low and slow ride from Youngstown to ...

The rawest DIY gospel ever resurrected. The West Side of Chicago was just an annex of the deep rural South for Gene Autry Cash and his flock of recent Old Dominion transplants looking to cut their ...

"Shanghai'd Soul: Episode 4" versammelt eine robuste Sammlung von Numero Group-Klassikern. Die dreizehn Kammern von "Shanghai'd Soul: Episode 4" sind durch schwere Drums, launische Akkorde und ...

Between 1975 and 1981, a group of American ex-pats brought the native sounds of their Detroit and Chicago homes across the Atlantic, combined them with the messages of the Black Hebrew culture, and ...

For the lowriders, the souleros, and for any armchair drag racer who still has a record player within reach, South Side Story pays tribute to the aftermarket sounds of soul music, inspired by the ...

There are hundreds of bootlegs out there to sate the ravenous soulero set, and so often they incorporate songs in the vast Numero catalog. Rather than beat them, Numero joins them with our answer to ...

Switched-On Eugene documents the Eugene Electronic Music Collective and some of the many synthed-out figures in and around Oregon's iconic hippie stronghold during the 1980s. Whether connected by ...

Switched-On Eugene documents the Eugene Electronic Music Collective and some of the many synthed-out figures in and around Oregon's iconic hippie stronghold during the 1980s. Whether connected by ...

It was a musical cocktail born in a marketing meeting: Two parts easy listening, one part jazz, a healthy dollop of conga drums, a sprinkling of bird calls, and a pinch of textless choir. Serve ...

From a basement in New Jersey, Tommy Falcone remade himself into a DIY Phil Spector. From 1962 to 1970, he founded and ran Cleopatra Records, discovered and mentored young Garden State talent, wrote ...

From a basement in New Jersey, Tommy Falcone remade himself into a DIY Phil Spector. From 1962 to 1970, he founded and ran Cleopatra Records, discovered and mentored young Garden State talent, wrote ...

From 1978 to 1981, the Titan label issued just eight records, but over the years their tiny catalog has crawled to the top of power-pop want lists worldwide and appeared on scads of homemade tapes, ...

From 1978 to 1981, the Titan label issued just eight records, but over the years their tiny catalog has crawled to the top of power-pop want lists worldwide and appeared on scads of homemade tapes, ...

From 1978 to 1981, the Titan label issued just eight records, but over the years their tiny catalog has crawled to the top of power-pop want lists worldwide and appeared on scads of homemade tapes, ...

P-Funk and Prince & the Revolution led the world through the last stellar evolutionary stages of soul music as it was transmogrified through the pulverizing lens of the 1980s, when African-American ...

In the wake of 2017's Seafaring Strangers: Private Yacht, Numero is proud to present another addition to the soft rock canon: W2NG. Set your FM dial to smooth and sail away with 42 minutes of ...

With Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles, the impacts of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath on US shores and heartlands is revealed as a bludgeoning previously undescribed. In this collection, ...

Guitar Soli documents the solo acoustic guitar movement that flourished between 1966 and 1981. The collection highlights a range of little-known innovators who bridged the chronological gap between ...

Guitar Soli documents the solo acoustic guitar movement that flourished between 1966 and 1981. The collection highlights a range of little-known innovators who bridged the chronological gap between ...

No common ancestral folkie_no mercurial Fahey or lilting Joni_makes a fitting a touchstone to this third Wayfaring Strangers installment. These Lonesome Heroes are linked instead by mood: the turn of ...

No common ancestral folkie_no mercurial Fahey or lilting Joni_makes a fitting a touchstone to this third Wayfaring Strangers installment. These Lonesome Heroes are linked instead by mood: the turn of ...

Alounge in the Poconos located just inside a Holiday Inn, 1973. The smoky haze clears to reveal a middle-aged couple on a one-foot high stage, prattling on about the weather or Watergate before ...

Joseph Washington Jr.'s Merry Christmas To You is your shelter in a blizzard of bland holiday music. This barely-known 1983 private issue puts a soulful, funky, suave ribbon on nine frosty Christmas ...

Psychedelic music began with the tiniest possible bang: a minuscule pressing of a self-produced LP by Zen Buddhist scholar Alan Watts. In one cosmic flash of inspiration and group improvisation, the ...

Having written the infectious theme song to The Chicago Party television series, we felt necessary to bring the pianist/composer into the foreground for his own proper two-parter. This very demo of ...

In the wake of Capsoul's collapse, songwriter Norman Whiteside was left to fend for himself in a much bleaker Columbus, Ohio. After a few misfires and false alarms, he finally found a home in (Prix ...

Scoring the lives of small-time players, pimps, junkies, and prostitutes lurking around his simultaneously blessed and cursed existence, Wee mastermind Norman Whiteside lived in an entirely different ...

Scoring the lives of small-time players, pimps, junkies, and prostitutes lurking around his simultaneously blessed and cursed existence, Wee mastermind Norman Whiteside lived in an entirely different ...

Scoring the lives of small-time players, pimps, junkies, and prostitutes lurking around his simultaneously blessed and cursed existence, Wee mastermind Norman Whiteside lived in an entirely different ...

The Summer of Love hadn't reached Missouri, even by 1969. But White Eyes, a true anomaly of the Midwest, channeled the sound of Haight-Ashbury straight to the plains. The band was among the top ...

Years before Beavis and Butt-head headbanged "Thunder Kiss '65" and "More Human than Human" into the eternal rock video canon, there was primordial White Zombie_a quintessential, diabolically loud ...

No, not the first incarnation of Kiss, just three wasted kids from Cleveland, Ohio, infatuated with the new wave of british heavy metal. Kick-started in Cleveland in 1979, girls, drugs, sports, and ...

The nothing that is known about the Young Souls corresponds perfectly to the band's brief existence, during which it never even eked out a single release. Their bid to leave a recorded legacy was ...