On The Turntable: Brian Eno's Ambient Series October 15 2018

The second wave of Brian Eno reissues covers his genre-defining ambient albums from 1975 to 1982.

Starting with Discreet Music (which was originally a part of Eno's Obscure series), Astralwerks' campaign also includes the aptly named Music For Films and the gorgeous soundscapes of Music For Airports and On Land.

Together these records are some of our all-time personal faves, constantly spinning here at Stranded.

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Photo by Roberto Masotti


A Beautiful Collection September 28 2018

We recently acquired a beautiful collection of jazz and ethnographic records. Top copies of classic Blue Note, Impulse! and much more. Only the first part has been priced, but we can't wait to start sharing it with you.

1,000 LPs hitting the floor tomorrow (Saturday) in SF and Oakland. Both stores open at noon.

See you this weekend.


On The Turntable: Stereolab's Switched On Series August 16 2018

We're beyond thrilled Stereolab is reissuing their Switched On series via the band's own Duophonic label.

Featuring early singles and rarities, Switched On, Refried Ectoplasm and Aluminum Tunes showcase their distinctive sound – a mix of beautiful analog melodies and one-chord Kosmische grooves – that would make Stereolab one of the most influential underground rock bands of the '90s. Timeless and absolutely essential.

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Records Make the World Go 'Round June 08 2018

We were recently in Europe and bought tons of stellar used records – jazz, ethnographic, avant-garde, post-punk and beyond. Since getting home, we've been busy pricing like crazy. Check our Instagram for a sneak peek.

1500+ LPs hitting the floor at both shops tomorrow (Saturday). Opening at 11am in SF and Oakland.

"The earth cannot move without music." – Sun Ra


On The Turntable: Dave Bixby's Ode To Quetzalcoatl May 29 2018

There are genre records and then there are records that define a genre. Dave Bixby's legendary 1969 self-released Ode To Quetzalcoatl is definitely the latter. Perhaps the purest and exact distillation of "loner-folk."

Following the break up of his psychedelic garage-rock groups and subsequent LSD experimentation, Bixby recorded Ode To Quetzalcoatl on an echo-drenched 4 track. The album plays out like the solo journey of a man struggling to find meaning in life with nothing but his haunting voice and an acoustic guitar, stripped bare for all to see. Essential for fans of dark, deeply burnt songwriting.

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On The Turntable: Warren Sampson's Traveller May 21 2018

Warren Sampson released his only album, Traveller, in 1987 and not long after, it was gone. Not gone in the figurative sense as in ignored or quickly forgotten, but rather literally gone as Sampson threw most of the original pressing in a landfill. It's fortunate for us, then, that Chicago-based label Love All Day (who resurrected another beautiful, private-press obscurity, Planetary Peace) presents a timely reissue of this lost ambient classic.

At its heart, Traveller drew inspiration from a painting that Sampson first saw in London in 1980. About that painting, the artist reflects, "Looking for it online now I find I had the title wrong and it probably wasn't hanging in the gallery I thought it was. Oh well. How much new art is created by trying to copy something and getting it completely wrong? ... Chinese ink painting in particular is something I have to restrict to those small doses. It absolutely, completely overwhelms me. I mean holy shit. The power and depth and atmosphere of simple black ink – the stuff they sign checks with – applied to take the maximum effect of the swirling, cloudy texture of silk. Those Chinese painters invented negative space."

This sentiment perfectly captures the vibe of Traveller: poignant without pretension. Displaying a warmth not usually associated with the "fourth world" scene, Sampson finds solace and humanity in the sparse contours of Traveller. Perhaps the fact that he is from Minnesota appears apropos. Where else does one find tenderness amid the icy brutality of nature?

Built on repeating guitar and synth patterns that slowly unfold over 46 minutes, Traveller is a journey through the long Midwestern winter. Its sound is reminiscent of Sampson's influences like Brian Eno and Jon Hassell, but also of post-rock artists like Explosions In The Sky or Stars Of The Lid. While electronic music of the '80s is often presented as an offering to a higher power (supernatural or technological), the beauty of this LP is in its simple earthiness – an offering to the dirt, the ice, the unending flow of a river, the purity of black ink on paper.

Limited edition of 250 copies.

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On The Turntable: Aktuala May 17 2018

Formed in Milano in 1972 by husband and wife Walter and Laura Maioli along with percussionist Lino Capra Vaccina, Aktuala (meaning "current" in Esperanto) are often compared to their German and UK contemporaries, Embryo and Third Ear Band. The Maiolis collected ancient and traditional instruments from around the world, and their compositions combine Eastern and African influences with Italian folk modes as well as avant-garde and progressive leanings. The results are stretched-out jams that are psychedelic in mindset, but acoustic in nature.

The group released three albums (Aktuala, La Terra and Tappeto Volante) between 1973 and 1976 on the Bla Bla label, which is most famous for releasing the early work of Franco Battiato. Following the group's disbanding, Walter Maioli went on to play with an incredibly diverse set of artists from Futuro Antico (with keyboardist Riccardo Sinigaglia) and the brilliant Amazonia 6891 project to Armenian duduk player Djivan Gasparyan and German artist Christina Kubisch. Vaccina would become a pioneer in his own right, best known for his 1978 solo record Antico Adagio. Aktuala's reeds player Daniele Cavallanti went on to be a noted jazz musician, performing with the duo of Roberto Musci and Giovanni Venosta.

Though much noise has been made regarding subsequent work of its core members, Aktuala's three fantastic albums remain largely underappreciated – reissued to little fanfare outside of their native Italy. In addition to being important pieces of the Italian ambient, experimental and "fourth world" scene – a historial period that has seen dozens of archival releases and huge amounts of review copy dedicated to it in recent years – Aktuala deserve to be rediscovered not only for their influence, but also for the beautiful music contained therein. Essential listening for current times.

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On The Turntable: Wire's First Three Albums March 28 2018

Between 1977 and 1979, Wire made three astounding albums with all appropriate economy and precision, delivering maximal effect via minimal structure. Not a single superfluous note. Impossible to forget.

Pink Flag remains punk's first and most potent autocritique. 21 songs in 35 minutes. A surly, brutalist piss-take, airless and above all abstemious. No guitar wankery, no sloganeering, no quarter. The lyrics, wayward and gnomic, are quotidian language rendered deeply alien, compressed and explosively suggestive.

Confronted with the opaque estrangements of Chairs Missing, a listener might be forgiven for thinking that this is stuff of a different lineage altogether. Wire's sophomore LP takes the monochrome negations of their debut and turns them inside out. In-studio experiments and controlled doses of synthesizer introduce ambience, dissonance and texture into the band's kaleidoscopic sound.

The menacing pointillism of 154 yields some of Wire's most exquisitely harrowing moments of détourned melodic beauty. Oblique freeze-frame explorations of psychology and gesture, position and perception. Songs against themselves. Such an enduringly influential and preternaturally inventive hat trick has hardly been matched, let alone bested, in the years since.

Now Wire's first three records return as timely redeployments, poised as ever to confound expectations and puncture the pompousness of warmed-over rock posturing. Music that is forever ahead of any moment. If these records were to appear tomorrow, for the very first time, Wire would still upend everything we thought we knew. Decades on, we listen more closely than ever before.

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On The Turntable: Steve Roach's Dreamtime Return March 19 2018

California ambient pioneer Steve Roach released Dreamtime Return, arguably his finest album, in 1988 following extensive travels to the Australian outback. The word "dreamtime" refers to the Australian Aboriginal belief system, specifically to their notion of the distant past and its inhabitants. Though now considered a dated and anthropologically inaccurate term based on the faulty interpretation of an Aboriginal concept, in the '80s it was widely used in popular culture especially within the nascent new age movement. Roach's goal, to which the title alludes, was to evoke the sensation of the mythologized ancestral landscape while looking to the potentialities of the future, a quintessentially new age sentiment.

As a means to that end Roach incorporates ancient instruments such as the didgeridoo, gourd drums and dumbek into his electronics, and the effect is seamless. Oftentimes this approach of incorporating acoustic instruments into the electronic ambient/new age realm feels clunky at best, but the drums and wind instruments are recorded and produced in such a way that they fit perfectly in place with Roach's glassy synth work. Featuring assistance from notable contemporaries like Kevin Braheny and Robert Rich, Dreamtime Return sounds simultaneously like a return to his Berlin school origins as well as a look to the future of the '90s ambient and electronic scene, and it's clear that his work here was hugely influential on the dark ambient scene that was set to explode across Europe.

With songs ranging from the ambient bliss of his earlier classic Structures From Silence all the way to tracks that, in the right light and heightened mind state, could conceivably fill a dance floor, Dreamtime Return is Roach's most diverse and exploratory album. A welcome reissue of a truly essential piece that connects the legacy of peak era '80s Hearts of Space new age and the fourth world movement with a sound that presages the oncoming convergence of ambient and techno.

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Stranded presents Ellen Arkbro & Sarah Davachi February 26 2018

Please join us for this special concert with two of the best composers / multi-instrumentalists to emerge in the past few years, Ellen Arkbro and Sarah Davachi. It will be Arkbro's West Coast debut and a welcome return for Mills alumnus Davachi. Recommended for fans of Terry Riley, La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros.

Sunday March 11th at The Lab, San Francisco
Doors at 8pm / Music at 9pm

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Photo by Marcus Pal.


On The Turntable: Sons Of Kemet's Your Queen Is A Reptile February 20 2018

London reed player Shabaka Hutchings is a relentlessly inventive and tireless musician. In no less than three groups (Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & the Ancestors) as well as guesting on albums by Yussef Kamaal, The Heliocentrics and more, Hutchings has firmly positioned himself as one of the most sought after and progressive players on the contemporary jazz scene. While his renown spread around the globe with 2016's The Wisdom of Elders on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings, Sons of Kemet is where his forward-thinking ideas have been fully realized. Your Queen Is A Reptile, the group's first for the legendary Impulse! label, is indeed his finest release to date.

Sons of Kemet feature Hutchings on reeds, tuba player Theon Cross and two drummers (a rotating core including Tom Skinner, Seb Rochford and Eddie Hick). That may not sound like your standard jazz quartet, but Sons of Kemet are far from standard jazz fare. Taking inspiration from such diverse sources as the Afro-Caribbean carnival tradition and contemporary UK club culture of grime and dubstep, Your Queen Is A Reptile is party music with a purpose – like Fela Kuti and James Brown. The title itself is an attack on the concept of lineal superiority, the absurdity of the notion that one can possibly be more deserving by birthright. In his song titles, Hutchings offers alternate queens, powerful and influential Afro women from the famous to the familial (Ada Eastman of album opener "My Queen Is Ada Eastman" is Hutchings' great-grandmother).

With the group's drum interplay and tuba driven basslines, one can't help but be reminded of New Orleans' brass band and second-line traditions, yet the reference points here lie further to the Southeast, deep in Hutchings' Afro-Caribbean heritage. Poet Joshua Idehen's vocals on the opener are reminiscent of another brilliant British artist from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, Linton Kwesi Johnson. Delivered with dramatic pacing and power, Idehen confronts themes of racism in contemporary London.

"My Queen Is Nanny Of The Maroons" begins with a Nyabinghi-esque drum pattern – a nod to the spiritual music of the Rastas which was itself derived from the musical traditions of African slaves brought to Jamaica in the 17th and 18th century – while "My Queen Is Angela Davis," perhaps the most "spiritual jazz" leaning track here, is informed by the Afro-centric sounds of late '60s America. It is these subtle allusions within Your Queen Is A Reptile that show Hutchings is not simply listing off names he read in a book, but rather he is paying homage to women that deeply inform his political views, compositional personality, his very self-identity.

For decades Impulse! has been a beacon of pioneering jazz, releasing some of the heaviest recordings from heavy artists such as Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler – truly revolutionary fire music. For adventurous listeners, the signing of Sons of Kemet is a sincerely warm welcome. On the closing track Idehen sings, "I don't want to take my country back, I want to take my country forward." While this sentiment is surely about present day England, it could just as easily refer to the group's feelings about the contemporary jazz landscape. As Hutchings himself described his playing, "I'm trying to just spit out fire." And indeed he does and Sons of Kemet do.

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Records Are Always A Sound Investment January 11 2018

We just priced almost 1,000 used LPs. From international, post-punk and new wave to avant-garde, kosmische and free jazz. All killer, no filler. If you're curious, check our Instagram for some photos.

Hitting the floor this Saturday at both stores. Opening at 11am in San Francisco and noon in Oakland.

See you this weekend.


The Monochrome Set - Box Set December 21 2017

The Monochrome Set is one of those underrated UK bands inhabiting their own demimonde – somewhere between '60s psychedelia and tense, dark-humored post-punk – that we can't recommend enough.

1979-1985: Complete Recordings is the full account of their frantically productive early period, including several fantastic Rough Trade singles. Limited to 700 copies worldwide, so you better act fast.

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On The Turntable: Derek Bailey December 13 2017

Derek Bailey was a leading figure in free improvisation through his inventive guitar playing that shattered many conventions and inspired generations of avant-garde and free-jazz musicians to follow.

Partnering with Incus, Honest Jon's presents a trilogy of reissues including his Solo Guitar Volume 1 from 1971 and a pair of duos with two long-time collaborators. Royal by Derek Bailey & Anthony Braxton dates to 1974, and the eponymous Derek Bailey & Han Bennink is that duo's second session, recorded in 1972.

All of these have been remastered from the original tapes and expanded to double LPs with a considerable amount of extra, mostly unreleased material.

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Our Favorite Releases of 2017 December 07 2017

Happy Holidays from all of us here at Stranded.

In wrapping up 2017, we reflect back on some of our favorite new and old releases that came out this year. Highlights includes the posthumous, final album by Alan Vega, a reissue of Midori Takada's entrancing, first solo album and Sublime Frequencies' incredible Ocora book.

Check them all out right here. Keep listening!

Favorite New Records

Favorite Reissues

Favorite Book

The Photographs Of Charles Duvelle: Disques Ocora And Collection Prophet
by Charles Duvelle & Hisham Mayet
(Sublime Frequencies)

Disques Ocora was a French label dedicated to folkloric culture from around the world. Started in the late '50s by musicologist Charles Duvelle, Ocora has a massive legacy for pioneering field recordings and photography. Sadly, M. Duvelle passed last week in Paris. May he rest in peace.


On The Turntable: Current 93's Thunder Perfect Mind November 24 2017

Thunder Perfect Mind has long been considered one of the best and most well-rounded albums for the very prolific Current 93.

Up until this 1991 album, Current 93 had conjured a mythology out of occultism, apocalyptic literature and pataphysical dialectics that went hand in hand with the post-industrial research from Psychic TV, Clock DVA, Lustmord, etc. Yet, with Thunder Perfect Mind, Current 93's figurehead David Tibet began to explore his own relationship with these theologies and begin to actively form his own highly personal, visionary interpretations of ancient, esoteric texts.

The title to this record itself comes from a cryptic poem written in the 2nd Century and associated with a various heretical sects of Christian Gnosticism. The text describes a female deity who acts as metaphysical balance between the opposites on the earthly plane. Inspired by the beauty and riddles of this poem, Tibet firmly established the blueprint of Current 93's music which continues to this day: an eccentric reworking of '60s British folk tinged with an epistemological sadness that reflects Tibet's own notion of the fall of humanity against the backdrop of a Godly perfection.

Lilting melodies for acoustic guitar laced with violin and flute dominate Current 93's Thunder Perfect Mind, with the ever-present Tibet divining his own personal mythology with its pantheon that includes Christ, Hitler and Khalki as its protagonists as well as saintly references to his many friends (notably Death In June's Douglas P and at least one proclamation toward one of Tibet's former lovers). As strikingly personal as Tibet's lyrics are, there is a portentous universality and stylized beauty that he invokes through his fragile folk music.

Reissued for the first time on vinyl since 1992.

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On The Turntable: T.J. Hustler November 01 2017

T.J. Hustler Metaphysical Synthesized Orchestra is the work of one Tim Jones, a Bay Area soul and funk scene veteran who had previously released two 45s in the early '70s as part of the group Dawn And Sunset and an LP in 1975 as leader of The Mysterious Minds. Though Jones plays a keyboard instrument of his own creation (The Brass Orchestra Cabinet) on The Mysterious Minds LP, none of his previous work could possibly predict the visionary brilliance that is 1979's Age Of Individualism. A concept album performed entirely by Jones and his ventriloquist dummy partner, the titular T.J. Hustler. Age of Individualism is part party record, part philosophical manifesto, part self-actualization workshop, part comedy routine.

Originally released as a double 12" (one at 33 rpm, one at 45) Age Of Individualism is 4 side long tracks of lo-fi synthesizer and drum machine funk that rival anything on the now legendary Personal Space compilation of electronic soul. We're hesitant to label T.J. Hustler as outsider music because, while the record is extremely personal in its creation and vision, Jones performed regularly with his ventriloquist dummy in a traveling show at the time, and continues to perform live bookings to this day. The original packaging of Age Of Individualism was two cardboard covers bound together by a length of yarn, the idea being that this was the first volume of his personal statement and there would be many more volumes released which you would be able to house in the same package by loosening the yarn and widening the spine. While Jones only released this lone document on vinyl, he has continued making music under the Preacherman moniker and has released keyboard instructional videos, all of which is highly recommended. On Preacherman's CD Baby page it says "Recommended if you like: Fairytale Rap, Philosophy Funk, Sun Ra Dianetics" and that sounds about right to us.

Age Of Individualism has been lovingly reissued by our friends at Companion Records, so you know that the utmost care has been put into the sound quality and packaging. Released in a limited edition of 500 copies, this probably won't last long.

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On The Turntable: N.A.D.M.A. October 23 2017

Die Schachtel presents the first vinyl reissue of N.A.D.M.A.'s Uno Zingaro Di Atlante Con Un Fiore A New York.

Originally released in 1973, the group's lone release blends a range of instrumentation and cross-cultural reference – a wild imagining of the potentialities of modal folk traditions and free-improvisation. While the Italian avant-garde ranks as one of the most rigorously democratic movements in the 20th century, N.A.D.M.A. is among the greatest documents of Italian music – an important addition to the European free-jazz canon.

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On The Turntable: Zazou / Bikaye / CY1's Noir Et Blanc October 18 2017

Noir Et Blanc is a signature record for Crammed Discs, the Belgian label that has curated an eclectic roster of artists from around the globe since 1980 (Tuxedomoon, Konono No. 1, Arto Lindsay and more). Originally released in 1983, Noir Et Blanc marks the first collaboration between Algerian-born / French-resident Hector Zazou and Congolese singer Bony Biyake, joined by an interesting cast of characters including analog synth duo CY1 (Claude Micheli and Guillaume Loizillon), Fred Frith, Marc Hollander and (future producer of the Congotronics series) Vincent Kenis.

Within this inspired marriage of Central African music and post-punk electronics, Zazou's arrangements are kept minimal, yet funky through his supple sequencing. Amidst the choppy, art-rock guitars and mechanized polyrhythms, Noir Et Blanc always turns its focus back to Biyake's marvelously rich voice.

Since its initial release, generations of fans and DJs have discovered/rediscovered this amazing LP – hailing it as an unsurpassed milestone of Afro-electronics. Recommended for fans of Liquid Liquid, African Head Charge, William Onyeabor and Music From Memory's ethno-ambient hybrids.

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On The Turntable: Harry Partch's And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma October 09 2017

Composer, instrument builder and part-time vagabond, Harry Partch was born in Oakland, California. In the 1950s and 1960s, Partch ran his own label Gate 5 out of an abandoned Sausalito shipyard, creating intricate musical works that rejected the traditional equal-tempered system and inspired generations of microtonal composers such as Lou Harrison, James Tenney and Ellen Fullman.

New World Records presents this reissue of And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma, which includes previously unpublished bonus tracks. Assembled over a three-year period, the album features multi-tracked parts of Partch's unique instruments and therefore could never be recreated in a live performance context.

An all-time favorite of ours here at Stranded, Petals is one of the best records in Partch's vast catalogue.

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On The Turntable: A Certain Ratio October 04 2017

A Certain Ratio is one of the early bands the Manchester post-punk community alongside Joy Division and The Durutti Column who all were at the heart of Factory Records. Taking their name from a Brian Eno lyric, A Certain Ratio crafted a sound that evolved through the bleak references of post-punk into a groove-oriented, funk-pop ensemble by the mid-'80s.

Mute revisits ACR's back catalogue with a trio of necessary reissues. The Graveyard And The Ballroom, their debut from 1980, introduced the world to the band's gritty, raw energy. Furthering their fusion of funk, electronics and jagged post-punk, To Each found the group in the studio for the first time with legendary producer Martin Hannett. Their swan song for Factory, Force, features loose-limbed, club culture grooves.

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Stranded Turns 5 September 22 2017

Stranded just turned 5 ... First of all, a heartfelt thank you to our customers! Big thanks to all the artists, bands, authors, filmmakers and DJs who did in-stores. Thanks also to our friends and family for their support. Last but not least, a shout-out to our staff (past and present) who made Stranded into the little monster that it is.

To mark the occasion, we will have 20% off all new and used records this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Discount is good in both San Francisco and Oakland locations. (Sorry, it does not apply to online orders.)

Be sure to stop in this weekend and say Hello ... and here's to another 5 years!


On The Turntable: Coil's Time Machines September 13 2017

The art of Coil involves a confluence of the surreal, the deviant, the magical and the psychedelic, all stemming from their inception within Industrial culture in the early '80s. Time Machines was conceived by Coil's John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Drew MacDowall back in 1998 as a series of audio hallucinogens, constructed by means of method acting. The zeitgeist of Time Machines is the very same as Spacemen 3's early compendium Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To, while the compositional sensibility travels down a very different path. For Balance, the concept to the album reflected the notion of hallucinogens as means of time travel, as he posited, "they can conjure up histories of yourself and/or act as predictors of the future. In any case, they can remove you from 'temporal reality.'" The four tracks are named after four powerful chemical compounds with hallucinogenic properties, with each track presumably engineered both for and through those exact chemicals. Such is deeply rooted in the tradition of kosmische electronica and psychonaut minimalism. La Monte Young, early Tangerine Dream, Nurse With Wound and certainly Coil stand at the pinnacle of a tradition for lysergic music that transcends the need for drug-taking to embrace the full experience.

Time Machines remains one of the few truly successful pieces of electronic music in this liminal oeuvre. Slow oscillating tones gird vibrating patterns, and black-hole echoes of rhythm slither in the distance behind slightly dissonant saw-tooth drones. This simple structural sensibility belies the investigative and imaginative prowess that Coil have long mastered. You can't just turn on a synthesizer and have these sounds spill from the circuitry. In Coil's calibration of electricity with chemistry, this immersive pool of sound is a stark document of their power in dissolving time.

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On The Turntable: Alvarius B.'s Three New Albums August 23 2017

Here donning his Alvarius B. persona, Alan Bishop returns with a trilogy of albums, all recorded from 2014-2017 in Egypt with various members of Cairo's Invisible Hands and the Master Musicians Of Bukakke.

Alan, his brother Richard Bishop and Charlie Goucher were the legendary Sun City Girls - the outsider free-noise / ethno-punk outfit that deliberately confused the unenlightened and frustrated their die-hard fans. In any given set of recordings, glorious melodies and teasingly brilliant psychedelic hooks would erupt with a thousand ideas culled from the world's songbook: Morricone's serpentine drama, John Leyton's murder ballad / pop glory, Trịnh Cong Son's torrid simplicity and Omar Korhseid's non-occidental rock'n'roll passion. Yet at the same time, the Sun City Girls thrived on undermining any given perception as avant-rock geniuses with their impish humor that angrily jabbed with a misanthropic bile. Those who love the Sun City Girls may have come to an understanding to disagree with the politics of these jokes, but there's a recognition that the Girls needed to shove back at polite lefty-liberal society.

Charlie Gocher died in 2007, and the Bishop brothers dissolved the Sun City Girls in honor of their partner. Many of the ideas continue unabated in the Bishop brothers' solo careers. Alan Bishop, especially as Alvarius B., comes the closest to manifesting the panoply of horror and glee found in the Sun City Girls, leading us here to these three volumes of With A Beaker On The Burner And An Otter In The Oven, which are filled suitably filled with a trove of horror and glee.

Across the three albums, Bishop crafts effortless reconstructions of a century's worth of folk-rock-blues idioms through his slack acoustic-guitar splutter. His songs alternate between the sensible and the snarling in varying ratios across the trilogy. It may be true that the first volume is the most "melodic, savvy" of the three as Bishop quipped in his thorny press releases, but his bitter melodic croon persists throughout the trilogy. It may be true that Alan believes the second volume to be his favorite. It may also be true that the final album may be the most problematic of the lot, but when is an Alan Bishop project not problematic? Art should never be easy.

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Stranded presents Grouper & Sarah Davachi August 21 2017

Wow, can't believe it's already been 5 years of Stranded ... To celebrate, we put together a show with two of our favorite artists, Grouper and Sarah Davachi. Each will perform individual sets for Early and Late shows.

Sunday, September 24th at The Lab, San Francisco

Early Show: Doors at 5pm / Music at 5:30
Late Show: Doors at 8:30 / Music at 9pm

Grouper, the moniker of Liz Harris, continues to bewilder with the most basic resources: a voice, one instrument and the ambience of her surroundings. Her sparse compositions occupy an intimate space between sound and song, with performances transcending the relationship between performer and listener, offering a meditative and restorative experience.

As a composer of electronic and electroacoustic music, Sarah Davachi's compositional projects are primarily concerned with disclosing the antiquated instruments and forgotten sonics of a bygone era in analog synthesis, with concurrent treatment of acoustic sources – particularly organ, piano, strings and woodwinds – often involving de-familiarization through processing. Her work considers the experience of enveloped sonic dwelling, utilizing extended durations and simple harmonic structures that emphasize variations in overtone complexity and psychoacoustic artifacts.

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Grouper

Sarah Davachi

On The Turntable: Maria Monti's Il Bestiario August 10 2017

Holidays Records present a welcome first-time vinyl reissue of Maria Monti's Il Bestiario, a hidden gem of the Italian avant-garde. Monti's collaborators form a free music supergroup with Alvin Curran, Steve Lacy, Prima Materia's Roberto Laneri and guitarists Luca Balbo and Tony Ackerman. Monti sings evocative texts by radical poet Aldo Braibanti, whose imprisonment in the late '60s under Fascist-era legislation caused a furor among the Left a few years prior to the album's 1974 release.

Il Bestiario is anchored by Monti's hypnotic voice, around which the ensemble constructs lush electro-acoustic filigrees. Braibanti's plaintive texts stand as wry allegories saturated by an inchoate desire – cautionary tales of snakes, peacocks and chameleons that only partly mask a more general protest against needless privation, loss and longing. While breathing the same air as Emmanuelle Parrenin, Brigitte Fontaine and Desertshore-era Nico, Il Bestiario remains an unlikely and beautiful record at the intersection of several visionary careers.

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On The Turntable: F.J. McMahon's Spirit Of The Golden Juice August 02 2017

Santa Barbara's F.J. McMahon cut one record, 1969's impossibly rare Spirit Of The Golden Juice, before disappearing into the ether (or, in reality, a career as a computer engineer). A brilliant slice of singer-songwriter folk-rock and one of the most brutally personal and honest treatises on the Vietnam War, Spirit Of The Golden Juice has long been one of the more coveted obscurities of the hippie era. It was originally released on the Accent label, the sort of befuddling enterprise that released 45 after 45 of the most tepid schlock you've ever heard while simultaneously gracing the world with three and four figure garage, psych and soul rarities from legends like The Human Expression, and intriguingly named acts like Soul Injection, Silk Winged Alliance and Peacepipe, as well as this lone(r) singer-songwriter masterstroke. Accent was the kind of label whose bi-polar A&R work could seemingly only be explained by something like the label owner's turned on, tuned in and dropped out offspring being brought into the fold circa 1967; the kind of label with such counter-cultural disconnect that they'd describe the monster garage-psych of The Human Expression on their 45 labels as "vocal with orchestra."

Inspired by McMahon's time in the military, the songs of Spirit Of The Golden Juice are dark and rarely hopeful. These are the reflections of a young man unable to come to terms with what he has seen and a humanity that would allow such things to happen. While the songs are anti-war, they are not cliched or preachy. Instead they are uniquely personal (like "Black Night Woman" about the suicide of a GI's foreign girlfriend or "The Road Back Home" about struggling to find yourself after war). They are the songs of a man who spent the Summer Of Love in Southeast Asia, not San Francisco, a man who hated war not just on principle but because he had lived its atrocities.

Spirit Of The Golden Juice draws comparisons to everyone from Tim Hardin and Fred Neil, to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. While the Dylan comparison falls flat lyrically and vocally, where it makes perfect sense is in the musicianship; Spirit Of The Golden Juice plays out like a West Coast John Wesley Harding, as it employs a country session drummer whose in-the-pocket drum work is a centerpiece of the record – subdued yet funky, complex but unobtrusive. It's the perfect complement to McMahon's stellar lead guitar work which was inspired by surf wizards like The Ventures and Dick Dale. When transposed to the acoustic guitar as it is here, it delivers a swirling, haunting effect that renders the songs even more powerful. But nothing is as important to the record as that voice and those lyrics. The gripping tenor of McMahon's voice rivals that of Hardin and Neil. Dare I say it, while both of those more famous artists may have had higher highs in their songwriting career, neither of them ever put together an album as consistently honest and striking as Spirit Of The Golden Juice.

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F.J. McMahon

On The Turntable: Die Schachtel July 31 2017

For almost fifteen years now, Milan based label Die Schachtel has been responsible for an unparalleled stream of reissues and archival releases that are as historically important as they are beautiful. The works of Lino Capra Vaccina and Claudio Rocchi are just the latest in this remarkable series.

Vaccina's Echi Armonici da Antico Adagio stands as a revelation in the canon of Italian avant-garde. Drawing from the same body of recordings as his masterpiece Antico Adagio, this previously unreleased artifact features two side-long works of pulsing, hypnotic drones with gongs, bells and cymbals. One of the great lost works of minimalism, this will surely be one of the most significant LPs to appear this year.

Rocchi's stunning Suoni Di Frontier, originally released in 1976, evinces introspection through crystalline electronics. This amazing album realizes a dream set forth by the pioneers of early electronic music, creating a new architecture of sound that is equally ambitious and accessible.

Fortunately, the aforementioned Antico Adagio has also been repressed. Anticipating countless experiments in the fields of new age, world music and avant-garde electronics, Vaccina interlocks melody and rhythm with vibraphones, marimbas, gong and occasional vocals. Together these subtle compositions create a work that Kieran Hebden / Four Tet calls "timeless and brilliant."

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On The Turntable: Annea Lockwood's Tiger Balm July 26 2017

Annea Lockwood is an iconoclastic composer, active since the late '60s. She works with tape, field recordings, electro-acoustics, smashed glass and other non-conventional instruments in her intermedia pieces that can extend into performance art, installation, dance and sound poetry.

Originally created in 1970, Tiger Balm is a seminal work in Lockwood's oeuvre. Drawing from choice sound sources, this piece preternaturally aligns itself to slow, circular rhythms and textures. Purring cats, gongs, a woman's breath and distant airplane roars make for a mesmerizing (and occasionally harrowing) listen.

Black Truffle presents this archival release along with two previously unreleased recordings.

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On The Turntable: Pharoah Sanders' Izipho Zam July 21 2017

Pharoah Sanders' Izipho Zam (My Gifts) is an absolutely essential part of the free jazz canon. Out of print for far too long, we are thrilled to see it available again in a new edition on Everland Jazz.

Izipho Zam was one of several sessions that Clifford Jordan had originally produced in the late '60s for a label that never came to be, and put out in the '70s as the Dolphy Series on legendary Spiritual Jazz imprint Strata-East. It features Pharoah at the height of his powers both as a player and a bandleader, accompanied by some of the biggest names in the free and spiritual jazz underground.

"Prince of Peace," the opener, was later re-recorded for Jewels of Thought, albeit under a different title and nowhere near as raw as the version here. Chunky piano chords and tender electric guitar riffs lift Leon Thomas' ecstatic vocals to higher and higher peaks, with a cast of five drummers and percussionists teasing at the chaos to follow. "Balance" announces itself with a fanfare of rollicking horns, but quickly devolves into a storm of furious playing – Sonny Sharrock coaxes tension out of nervous guitar riffs, cut up with shards of dissonant chords and blasts of howling amplifier feedback. His playing here is nothing short of incredible. Howard Johnson's tuba playing is unbelievably thick and heavy, sounding nothing like what one expects from the instrument, freeing bass players Cecil McBee and Sirone to add their part to the hurricane swirling above. Sonny Fortune and Pharoah himself trade screaming saxophone parts in the upper register, some of them richly melodic and others gleefully atonal, as Lonnie Liston Smith frenetically hammers along on piano.

Thomas once again takes the lead for the title track of the record. Basses and horns stumble after him through joyous but disjointed choruses, interspersed with brief intermissions that allow the percussionists to find each other and temporarily take charge of the proceedings. Of course, the whole thing is blown wide open before the end, and the resulting crescendo is completely spectacular.

Even considered among other Pharoah Sanders records from the period, there's something exceptional about Izipho Zam. It's a fantastic record, one of the key highlights from the height of fire music, and it's a real treat to be able to hear it again. There really are few free jazz records that are this much fun. Don't miss out this time.

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On The Turntable: Steve Roach's Structures From Silence July 19 2017

Steve Roach's Structures From Silence is one of those classic California records that, not too long ago, could be found languishing in bins up and down the coast for next to nothing. Like Bobby Brown's Live and Laura Allan's Reflections, it's the kind of record that you never would have even done a double take on in the pre-internet age, until your more adventurous friend placed it in your hands and, ignoring your skepticism, just said "trust me." It's funny because looking at the cover now, it looks amazing; I want every record I stumble upon in 2017 to look just like this, but there was a time when myself, and hundreds of others like me, would have flipped right past this corny bullshit in hot pursuit of psych and punk and funk and soul.

Which is not to say that nobody knew about Steve Roach until recently, he's a composer and analog synthesizer pioneer who has been successfully and prolifically recording ambient music for 35+ years; it's just that it took a long time for the world of record collectors to catch up. Roach began playing synthesizer at the age of 20 in 1975, inspired by the usual suspects of Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk. His early recordings, first with the group Moebius and later solo, are interesting pieces of synth-pop and Berlin School electronics, but it is with 1984's Structures From Silence, his third album, that Roach forges his own path.

Originally released on the pioneering new age/ambient label Fortuna (Bernard Xolotl, Emerald Web, Michael Shrieve), Roach spent months working on the album, listening only to his own work, endlessly tweaking and "fine tuning," spending much of his time in silence, the departure and return to which being the measuring stick he used to judge his compositions ("For me, the essence of this music is what is felt when it ends, a returning to the silence," he writes on the original sleeve notes). The result is nearly 60 minutes of perfectly restrained and flowing, slow building, pure ambient. Structures From Silence is a wonderful record that deserves to be in the conversation with the likes of Eno, Hassell, Riley, etc., and Telephone Explosion's brand new LP reissue is a welcome release, especially since I haven't seen a cheap used copy in years now, not even in Marin County.

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On The Turntable: Brian Eno July 17 2017

Brian Eno needs no introduction. After leaving Roxy Music in the early '70s, he embarked on an extraordinary solo career to further deconstruct pop music through sublimely detached approaches to composition.

His first four albums – Here Come The Warm Jets (1973), Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974), Another Green World (1975) and Before And After Science (1977) – are all essential. Highest recommendation.

These long-awaited vinyl reissues were mastered at half-speed and cut at 45 RPM for optimal sound quality.

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On The Turntable: Sun Ra's The Magic City July 13 2017

It is impossible to point to a single Sun Ra album as being his best. One would be better served waving a hand (or fully-extended arm) towards the Arkestra's output from the late '50s onwards and nodding, "There."

However, if your record shelf is about to collapse under the sheer weight of Saturn, there is really nothing like The Magic City. Recorded in 1965 just after the Heliocentric Worlds sessions for ESP, The Magic City captures some of the fiercest group improvisation ever. The epic title track alone is worth the price of admission.

This newly re-mastered edition from the Cosmic Myth imprint should be considered definitive.

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On The Turntable: Aphex Twin July 10 2017

Beginning his brilliant career as a teen prodigy of adventurous electronica in the late '80s, Aphex Twin (aka Richard D. James) remains a pioneering creative force. His command of acid techno, sentient ambient composition and polydactyl drum 'n' bass mayhem is matched by his preternatural grasp of melody and rhythm, made sublime through his unconventional approaches to technology.

One of the many pinnacles of the Aphex catalogue occurred in the mid to late '90s through an adventurous series of unparalleled recordings. These included I Care Because You Do (1995), Richard D. James Album (1996), Come To Daddy (1997) and Windowlicker (1999).

In this necessary reissue campaign, Warp revisits these timeless documents from one of the greatest electronic musicians.

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On The Turntable: Psychic TV July 05 2017

Psychic TV revisits two seminal recordings from the mid '80s with the reissue of Allegory & Self and Pagan Day. The band has long been synonymous with provocateur Genesis P-Orridge, as a platform for media-savvy, culture jamming philosophies. Throughout an iconoclastic career, P-Orridge has steered PTV through industrial experimentation, 'hyperdelic' mod-rock and acid-house electronica.

These two records represent an early chapter for Psychic TV highlighting the songwriting prowess of founding member Alex Fergusson. Allegory & Self (1988) is the final document with Fergusson on guitar. Pagan Day (1984) is a rare glimpse into the four-track recordings between Fergusson and P-Orridge.

Newly remastered and reissued on vinyl for the first time since the late '80s.

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On The Turntable: Bill Orcutt June 29 2017

It's only been eight years since Bill Orcutt's first post-resurrection single appeared out of nowhere. While his mangled 4-string shredding in legendary Miami outfit Harry Pussy borrowed as much from free jazz as hardcore, Orcutt's re-emergence as a blues guitarist has been a completely arresting, exhausting and exhilarating ride.

This new self-titled LP, his first solo electric studio album, is a tremendous capstone to dozens of releases issued on the artist's own Palilalia label. That one would someday be listening to Orcutt playing standards may have seemed unthinkable during HP's mid-90s heyday, but perhaps more shocking is just how gorgeous this record sounds. Rich chords and delicate arpeggios shimmer with vibrato, and Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" sounds just as radical here as it did six decades ago. Orcutt's playing remains striking, bold and inspired. This may be the best Orcutt record yet, and yes that says a lot, but beauty is still a rare thing.

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On The Turntable: Performing Ferret Band June 21 2017

Originally released out of the UK on the band's own Pig Productions label in 1981, Performing Ferret Band's sole LP finally sees a proper reissue in its entirety. This record stands alone as perhaps the finest self-released vinyl full-length to emerge from the golden era of the late '70s/early '80s UK DIY movement. It certainly best exemplifies that primal porridge of rock, folk and experimental dole-queue-inspired genius – utilizing the lowest-tech instrumentation by default, which defines the DIY genre to this day.

The Ferrets LP uses a bare-bones electrified approach to create a spare, arid sound that draws the listener in with a sort of trembling anticipation akin to reading the next page of a stranger's diary. There is also that dash of daft music hall humor that runs deeply through much of the best British music of the last half-century. The band themselves credit influences from Captain Beefheart and The Velvet Underground.

This album fully deserves its legendary cult status, and this reissue should properly elevate the band's rep up there with fellow travelers such as The Desperate Bicycles, Television Personalities and The Good Missionaries. Mark E. Smith was apparently an enthusiastic fan as well, which is the toughest-earned recommendation one could hope to receive.

Limited edition of 500 copies includes insert with the band's story, photos and memorabilia.

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On The Turntable: Yoko Ono June 19 2017

In the early '70s Yoko Ono was at the height of her musical powers, yet still maligned by post-Beatles controversies. Defying her critics, she created three albums of visionary beauty.

Fly, Approximately Infinite Universe and Feeling The Space feature scorching primitive blues, motorik grooves and haunting ballads. The perfect marriage of Fluxus strategies and Ono's singular voice that exemplifies the power, resilience and utter cool of one of the most unique figures in music.

Out of print on vinyl for decades, it is great to see these essential records available again.

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On The Turntable: Charlemagne Palestine June 12 2017

Since the 1960s, Charlemagne Palestine has been one of the seminal figures of American minimalism. His works for piano, voice, electronics and carillon remain vital performance-driven compositions through hypnotic chant and trance-inducing tones.

In 1974 Ileana Sonnabend commissioned the composer to create an album in celebration of the opening of her Soho gallery, and Palestine embarked on a series of recordings at Swarthmore College.

Now, over 40 years later, Alga Marghen presents Arpeggiated Bosendorfer + Falsetto Voice for the first time.

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On The Turntable: Keiji Haino's Watashi Dake? June 07 2017

Since the late '70s Keiji Haino has stood as figurehead for Japan's improv community, as black-clad psychedelic shaman with his signature incendiary guitar work and impassioned vocalizations.

Haino's debut album Watashi Dake?, originally released in 1981 on the legendary Pinakotheca label, was first heard by only a select few in Japan and far fewer overseas. Original copies have become impossibly rare and highly sought after the world over.

Black Editions' reissue, featuring metallic gold and silver artwork, is the first time that this avant-garde classic has been available on vinyl since its initial release.

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On The Turntable: Stax Records June 02 2017

Founded in the late 1950s, Stax Records is synonymous with Southern soul music. Among the many artists who scored hits on Stax during the '60s were Rufus and Carla Thomas, Booker T. & The MGs, Sam & Dave, Albert King and Otis Redding.

Stax Records is critical in American music history as it’s one of the most popular soul labels of all time – second only to Motown in sales and influence, but first in gritty, raw, stripped-down music.

In celebrating their sixth decade, Stax has reprised their relationship with Atlantic Records to reissue many of these treasured albums from their acclaimed catalogue.

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Upcoming Event: Jim Jocoy Book Signing May 19 2017

Celebrating the release of Jim Jocoy's latest book, Order Of Appearance (published by TBW Books), Stranded hosts this special event with the photographer who will be signing books and talking about the late '70s SF underground music scene.

"The eye of Jim Jocoy finds beauty in the wild. His photography is always in service to the magic of the devious iconoclast, exhibiting dignity to the outriders." – Thurston Moore

Sunday June 11th, 3pm
Free and all ages!

Stranded SF
1055 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

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On The Turntable: Swans' Great Annihilator May 19 2017

In 1995, Swans concluded a chapter to their storied career with The Great Annihilator. Throughout the '90s, Swans brought a baroque density to their constant crescendos of noise, riff and drone through a series of albums that culminated in this particular album. Two years after the release of this album, the band ceased activities for close to fifteen years.

The signature, militant goose step rhythms remain as punishing as ever, subjected to an all-encompassing swarm of buzz-saw guitar, bass and keyboard drones. The interlocking vocals of Michael Gira and Jarboe adeptly counter the jagged fury of the multiple guitar arsenals. For the 2017 reissue, The Great Annihilator has been entirely remastered from recently discovered unmastered session mixes.

Gira describes the discovery as "a revelation of great sonic effect."

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On The Turntable: Terry Riley's Persian Surgery Dervishes May 17 2017

Terry Riley is easily one of our all-time favorite composers. It's with great excitement that some of his exquisite '70s recordings are made available again on vinyl.

Persian Surgery Dervishes, originally released on Shandar in 1972, is (rightfully so) one of the most sought-after records in his catalogue. This double LP features improvisations for solo electric organ, steeped in North Indian classical tradition, yet coming from a majestic world all Riley's own. Absolutely essential.

"Music is my spiritual path. It's my way of finding out who I am." – Terry Riley

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On The Turntable: Can Singles May 15 2017

The Singles is a newly minted, triple LP anthology that traces Can's esteemed history through all of their singles released between 1967 and 1990.

Beloved songs such as "Vitamin C," "Mushroom" and "She Brings The Rain" are featured alongside the more obscure tracks such as "Silent Night" and "Turtles Have Short Legs." The latter was released in 1971 (from the Tago Mago sessions) and never appeared on a studio album.

Once again, Can reaffirm their status as one of the greatest Kosmische bands.

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On The Turntable: Alice Coltrane May 01 2017

The transcendent music of Alice Coltrane resonates deeper with each passing year. Through impressive releases on the Impulse! label in the late '60s and '70s, Coltrane has become one of the key figures in spiritually-aligned jazz. Even ten years after her death in 2007, Alice's legacy has retained its vital life-force largely because her music is informed by an elusive devotional mystique, which only grew stronger when the pianist/harpist retired to her Ashram outside of Los Angeles in the late '70s.

Luaka Bop's new series World Spirituality Classics focuses on this later period of Coltrane's work. The first title in the series – culled from cassettes recorded between 1982 and 1995 and originally only sold direct through the Ashram – immerses the listener instantly in the communal vibe mid-ritual. Ever-quickening clouds of jubilant group chants, hand-claps and warm synthesizers gradually unfold into Vedic hymns and soulful harmonies.

The real revelation here is Alice's solo voice, as this is the first time that she sings in her recorded catalogue. Coltrane's hypnotic vocalizations are at once understated and held back, yet insistent and passionate. While mostly featuring later compositions, the record also includes an incredible revisiting of her best known piece, "Journey In Satchidananda," which starts off as a long processional and slowly opens up into a beautifully sonorous chorus.

Alice Coltrane's music is steeped in both gospel and Hindu traditions, but transmitted as if beamed from outer space. Ecstatic music, indeed.

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On The Turntable: Eremite April 14 2017

On the turntable this week, we have a couple of great records from our friends at Eremite.

The latest from Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society, Simultonality strips from minimalism any sheen of academic sterility and returns it to the source, delivered by a furious motorik beat.

Then we got Byron Morris & Gerald Wise's Unity, a private-press free jazz LP recorded in 1969 at Howard University, which features Byard Lancaster. It's already sold out at the distributor, so you better act fast.

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On The Turntable: Flying Saucer Attack March 17 2017

Dave Pearce began his adventures in homespun shoegaze / drone-rock releases back in 1993 under the moniker Flying Saucer Attack with a series of releases on his own FSA Records, based out of Bristol, England.

The eponymous record is alternately titled "Rural Psychedelia" given that charmed epithet graced the back cover of the album. Pearce and company alternate between two complementary songwriting strategies. The more explosive and intense tracks build around the primordial post-VU drone-rock minimalism with surges of Jesus And Mary Chain blasts of noise that punctuate the chorus or a chord change. The iconic "My Dreaming Hill" and the outstanding cover the Suede's "The Drowners" belong to this camp of cracked art-drone-pop genius. In their more exploratory guise, FSA will set forth long drifts of tranced-out feedback and cavernous guitar drone with hypnotic rhythms that look back to the transcendent works of Amon Duul's first hippie incarnation and the Popol Vuh soundtracks. In fact two of these tracks give direct nods in the instrumental tracks "Popol Vuh 1" and "Popol Vuh 2." Still sounds so goddamn good after all these years.

Distance was first compiled back in 1994 as a collection of five tracks from the first three FSA singles with three tracks recorded during those same sessions. Those early self-published singles had quickly gone out of print, making this a necessity. These tracks follow the same dual track course laid down on the first record, with ungrounded echoplex bleariness set next to noise pop liberated through blown out Xpressway grit and shambolic radioluminescence. The punk throttle basslines that Rachel Brook gives to the FSA probably don't get due credit for providing the urgency for tracks like "Standing Stone" and "Soaring High," but these two tracks in particular highlight her influence on the FSA sound. It's still Pearce's chiming hypno-drone guitar that is center stage, dripping with a deep British folk melancholy that has been hot-wired and fried through a drugged-out noise not even Spacemen 3 had dreamed of.

First-time domestic release of these stellar albums on vinyl.

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On The Turntable: The Morning Glory December 20 2016

The Morning Glory have a backstory that is almost too good: three teenagers from The Bronx and Harlem in that heady year of 1966, a mafia associate named Salvatore and an ill-timed heroin bust. It's the kind of quintessentially New York tale that could easily have been a plot point left on the cutting room floor of Scorsese's Mean Streets. Of course, none of this would be anything more than a good yarn to spin if the music didn't pass muster. Fortunately for us, it does.

Check out our review right here.


December Newsletter December 12 2016

So many cool records in the shop right now ... We got the new Kleenex / LiLiPUT double LP comp, The Caretaker's latest album, guitarist Rob Noyes' debut on Poon Village (with cover by Raymond Pettibon), totally essential reissues of Slapp Happy, Mor Thiam and Tommy Jay and an archival release of Harry Bertoia's glistening sound sculptures.

Also, don't forget to pre-order our Ennio Morricone LP. First 500 copies on color vinyl (mail-order exclusive).

Check here for more reviews and restocks.


On The Turntable: Autechre October 24 2016

Autechre is the pioneering experimental electronic duo of Sean Booth and Rob Brown who began their illustrious career of algorithmic abstraction as teenagers in their hometown of Manchester in the late '80s. Hip hop, acid trax, breakdancing, hardcore techno and Miami bass were equal influences for these precocious lads.

After a couple of false starts in the early '90s, Autechre emerged fully-formed as a dynamic presence for the nascent Warp Records. At this time, Warp championed the supple techno and acid breakbeat portent of Tricky Disco, Sweet Exorcist, LFO and Nightmares On Wax. The 1992 compilation Artificial Intelligence was the first introduction to many of the artists who would become the icons of abstract electronic music throughout the late '90s and into the new millennium. Richard James / Aphex Twin, Alex Patterson of The Orb, and Richie Hawtin all appeared on this compilation alongside Autechre, albeit under different guises.

With UK dance machine churning out compilations of faceless techno and acid house, Artificial Intelligence was markedly different in its radical pursuit of an electronic signature that didn't necessarily have to align with the dancefloor. The infamous genre descriptor Intelligent Dance Music came directly from this compilation marked by darkly playful experiments and cerebral riddles. Autechre, like Aphex Twin, distanced themselves from the IDM tag, yet Autechre were at the center of this research and development – producing one of the few bodies of work from the era that easily stands the test of time.

Across Incunabula, Amber, and Tri Repetae, Autechre tangle the vectors of dissonance, rhythmic eccentricities and cybernetic ambience with in unpredictably brilliant and uncompromisingly complex avenues.

Check out our reviews right here.


New Reviews: Yoko Ono, Joanna Brouk And More October 10 2016

We're super excited about the Yoko Ono reissue project on Secretly Canadian. The series kicks off with three important albums – featuring Ono's inimitable voice – that have been out-of-print for far too long.

Plus, this week we listed some of our favorite LPs from inventive musicians/composers who just so happen to also be women (because let's face it, men often get too much credit) including Daniela Casa, Eliane Radigue, Grouper, Cate Le Bon, Alice Coltrane, Ellen Fullman, Joanna Brouk, Puce Mary and Circuit Des Yeux. Too many records to choose from!


On The Turntable: Sublime Frequencies October 04 2016

This week we're featuring one of our favorite labels of global esoterica.

Sublime Frequencies began in 2003 under the curatorial helm of Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet (along with a team of like-minded investigators) to celebrate cultural forms little known in the Western world.

If it wasn't for Sublime Frequencies, much of this amazing music may have otherwise been buried.

Long live Sublime Frequencies!

Check out our reviews right here.


On The Turntable: Jack Rose September 19 2016

This week we're psyched to highlight the long-awaited Jack Rose reissue series.

Rose created a prolific body of work before tragically passing away in 2009. Pivotal in reviving the introspective folk-blues-raga meditations of the Fahey school, Rose would reframe the solo guitar legacy for new audiences with his powerfully soulful performances.

Thankfully, VHF and Three Lobed have done a great service in reissuing these gems on vinyl.

Check out our reviews right here.


Oakland Store Moving September 15 2016

We're excited to announce that our Oakland store is moving! We found the perfect spot located off of Piedmont Avenue – right next door to our friends at Issues. Our new address will be 14 Glen Avenue in Oakland.

Our current Oakland location (4929 Telegraph) is open through Tuesday September 27th.

Stranded Oakland will then re-open on Saturday October 1st at our new East Bay digs.

The shop in SF will be open regular hours during the move.


New Reviews: Nick Cave, Roy Montgomery And More September 09 2016

A lil late getting this out today ... Like everyone else we were at the Nick Cave movie last night. It's beautifully shot and extremely touching. If you haven't checked it out, we highly recommended seeing it. We reviewed the record below, which came out today and is amazing.

This week our friends at Grapefruit sent us a promo of the upcoming Roy Montgomery box. It's epic so we wrote an appropriately sized review. Roy never ceases to amaze ... Also this week, we reviewed the latest Cass McCombs album – new label and another great record. Can't stop spinning this one in the shop.

Enjoy the reviews. Keep on listening!


Hello from San Francisco August 09 2016

We are excited to announce that Stranded has opened a new storefront in the former location of Aquarius Records. Stranded is the retail arm of the archival label Superior Viaduct. Some of our releases include Suicide, The Fall, Tony Conrad, Devo, Charles Mingus, Alice Coltrane and many more.

Those of you who have been regular AQ customers will be happy to know that the same folks who helped run this SF institution for many years are still here – behind the counter and laptops.

The new shop brings with it a fresh coat of paint, custom-made furniture, a lot of new and used records and a re-designed website. Continuing in AQ's tradition, we're going to review as many titles each week as possible.

You can expect a weekly email that features releases we love and upcoming titles you can pre-order.

So please make yourselves comfortable, check out the site, and let us know what you think.


Grand Opening Weekend July 30 2016

John Olson (Wolf Eyes) reading from Life Is A Rip Off and then ripping solo improv sax.