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viewing 1 To 5 of 5 items
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FRB 021LP
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$33.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/14/2025
Frederiksberg Records presents the long-awaited reissue of Ambonisye Lord Shepherd's 1981 debut album, Evidence For Real -- a deeply personal and spiritual fusion of soul and jazz that has remained a hidden treasure for more than four decades. The newly remastered edition arrives on vinyl, restoring the powerful work of a drummer, composer, and bandleader who chose to walk his own path, well outside the mainstream. Born Robert Charles Sheppard Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, and later known as Ambonisye Lord Shepherd, the artist carried a life story as inspiring as his music. From his formative years in Omaha's historic 24th & Lake district to his creative explorations in Los Angeles, Shepherd forged a sound that was at once fiercely personal and universally searching. Recorded in late-night sessions across Hollywood and Hermosa Beach with a close circle of collaborators, Evidence For Real reflects Shepherd's spiritual journey in the wake of his mother's passing, embodying his belief in music as a vehicle for healing and higher consciousness. Though self-released on his Verline Records label and overlooked upon its release, Evidence For Real has since become a cult artifact -- a record whispered about among collectors who revere it as a profound statement of resilience, spirituality, and independence. This reissue finally brings Shepherd's masterpiece back into the light.
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FRB 013LP
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Emerging from the depths of private-press obscurity, The People's People Present The Spirit of David is a remarkable testament to the ambition and discipline of its creators. This singular album, originally recorded in 1974 and released in 1976, marks the first original work by tenor saxophonist Jeff Jones, who also arranged, wrote, and conceptualized the project. That same year, Jones founded The People's People collective and The Voice of the People Publishing Company, using music and the arts as a platform to give voice to the voiceless. Performed in one continuous take, The Spirit of David weaves spiritual jazz with elements of soul, world music, and electric funk, producing a hypnotic, emotive soundscape that resonates with the era's social unrest and a longing for unity and transcendence. The band -- featuring Emmons Porter on bass vocals, Jack Spinovich on drums, Leonard Franklin on guitar, Ray Vega on percussion and congas (not the trumpeter of the same name), and Steve Espanosa on piano -- delivers a deeply cohesive and textured performance that transcends its time. Now reissued by Frederiksberg Records -- a label founded in 2013 by Danish video journalist Andreas Vingaard in New York -- the album's elusive history only deepens its mystique, inviting renewed exploration. That mystique is further illuminated in the extensive story found on the album insert, written by guitarist and composer Karl Evangelista, whose detailed liner notes provide essential context and insight into the album's creation and cultural significance. From the liner notes by Karl Alfonso Defensor Evangelista: "(Jeff) Jones had musicians commit to three years of preparation, and he was a harsh taskmaster; music was drilled -- 'like the army,' as Jones describes it. Participants were more or less forbidden from taking paying gigs in the interim, and the bandleader, saving most of his capital for studio time, could not afford to feed or pay the band. The ensemble was so thoroughly rehearsed by the time of the session that the entire record was performed in one take, and the album's myriad breaks and deft orchestration changes were accomplished without visual cues."
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FRB 015LP
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In July 1983, the Hebrew Israelite vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Margeeah Aharon recorded her debut album Looking For Love with the Kingdom Sounds community band at P.C. Studios in Tel Aviv, Israel. Fittingly -- given the meaning of her Hebrew name, soothing, calm and tranquil -- it's a questing melange of devotional jazz, soul, funk and reggae. More than just that, Looking For Love is an album full of yearning and reflective songs of spirit, heart and inner solace. Margeeah was born and raised in the American capital of Washington D.C. She grew up in a Baptist family with Hebrew cultural underpinnings. She was accepted into the Howard University School of Fine Arts as a music major in classical voice and a minor in English. During her Howard years, Margeeah's musical and spiritual horizons began to evolve, by way of a love of Doug and Jean Carn, Keith Jarrett, Roberta Flack, and Donny Hathaway and stretch out towards the infinite. "Throughout my upbringing and training in classical music, my soul and spirit were on a journey," she explains. "I began to become aware of social dynamics, racism, injustice, homelessness, poverty and disparity. I started to study the isms -- Socialism, Communism, Buddhism. I was searching." Forty years after it was released as a private press LP, Looking For Love's central themes and music remain timeless and eternal.
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FRB 017LP
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The music of Green Cosmos makes listeners realize that their never-ending quest for love can find fulfillment. You take a long, slow breath and feel the magic of transcendent wisdom. It's like looking up from your room to the brightly lit windows of the home of your neighbors. Might someone be standing there, watching? Listen to Abendmusiken and imagine what life would be like if you were one again with God's original ideas. Green Cosmos enchant listeners with their blend of jazz, the sound of heartbeats, emotional outburst, and folk-music. There is not one note too many, and everything gets to the heart of the matter. A saxophone that sails ahead on a world-map of sound, driven by the beat of Kalimba and drums, sometimes fraternizing with a bass that's now insistent and then shy, and closely listens to a reassuringly omniscient piano until the music merges into a unit that's greater than its parts. It's no exaggeration to say that this band has created something new and unique, and that the excellence of the moment got captured in this recording. This, quite simply, is beautiful and exciting music that steers us through the night. And if you are standing by a window seeing someone looking at you from their window -- give them a wave!
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FRB 020LP
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Søren Skov Orbit's debut album, Adrift, is at once subtle and profound. The saxophonist and his collaborators have created something quite special and consistently deep. This record may not easily be classifiable, but the most interesting music creeps between the lines. Danish tenor and soprano saxophonist Søren Skov (Debre Damo Dining Orchestra) and keyboardist Peder Vind co-founded the trippy quintet Søren Skov Orbit in 2016 to explore "more jazzy ideas," as the saxophonist puts it. Joined by a rhythm section steeped in contemporary improvisation and psychedelia, bassist Casper Nyvang Rask, drummer Rune Lohse and percussionist Ayi Solomon of the legendary '80s Ghanaian roots/highlife band Classique Vibes, the Orbit belts out a richly focused helping of broadly African-inspired modern jazz with a hazy sheen. As a tenor player, Skov has done his homework and has a kinship with Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, J.R. Monterose, and the Dutchman Hans Dulfer, but he clearly has got his own robust phraseology and expressiveness. He also cites multi-reedists John Gilmore, Yusef Lateef, and Bilal Abdurahman as, "some of the players I've been listening to the most for the last 10-15 years." A healthy dose of reverb is present throughout the album, echoing Alton Abraham's studio wizardry with the Sun Ra Arkestra or the trance-inducing and compressed fidelity of certain Ethio-jazz and Mystic Revelations of Rastafari sessions. Skov notes that, "everything is recorded live at the same time in the same room. I wanted to do it that way in order to catch the dynamics and authenticity of the music." There is, in fact, a complex teetertotter between crisp and hazy execution, achieved by a delicately balanced mix that keeps the group's sound simultaneously advancing and receding. Vind's phrasing is terse and introspective, a vibrating echo that nudges and reflects on Skov's brusque tenor in a dance of sonic displacement. The coupling of Solomon and Lohse is a big part of the group's detailed energy; as the leader puts it, "Ayi knows everything about regional differences in drum patterns. He is always listening and super responsive, and his and Rune's dynamics are amazing." The music both presents a "vibe" and keeps the door open for engaging well under the surface as repeated listens will be extremely rewarding. RIYL: Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Fela Kuti, Nat Birchall, Nubya Garcia.
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