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2LP
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HMRLP 030LP
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Once again it's quite difficult to pin down exactly what's going on through Herandu's debut album, Ocher Red, but it's a little bit like Metalheadz meets Weather Report out on the Siberian steppes. Herandu are brothers Evgeny and Mikhail Gavrilov from Novosibirsk in Siberia. Mikhail and his brother have played music together since they were very young eventually forming the band FPRF together in the mid-2000s. Eventually the group split as the members dispersed around Russia, but Evgeny and Mikhail continued to make music, Evgeny under the alias Dyad and Mikhail under the name Misha Sultan (some of you may remember his excellent cassette, Roots, which came out on Hive Mind in 2022). Herandu was born in 2022 during several studio sessions they managed to grab whilst both visiting Siberia. They both quickly realized that together they were making music that didn't quite sound like either of their solo projects but which was influenced by the music of their formative years. Their friend Vladimir Luchansky was invited in to add saxophone and the result is an "urban music" that's as influenced by the gritty cityscapes of '70s TV cop thrillers as it is by 21st Century urbanism. The paintings on the album cover are by Italian artist Mauro Reggio, who kindly allowed Hive Mind to use his work, and whose paintings seem to convey something of the mood of Herandu.
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LP
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HMRLP 029LP
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Born in Poti, near Lake Paliastomi in Georgia, Nino Gvilia is a singer-songwriter whose lyrics offer up meditations on what it is to be human in the 21st Century, and aim to carry listeners beyond into ecology and the politics of the non-human world. Her songs are influenced by folk and minimalism and make use of magnetic tapes, field recordings, vocal samples of contemporary thinkers and philosophers, and an array of strange instruments and vintage textures, drawing for us an intense dreamlike atmosphere. However, Nino Gvilia does not exist. She is a purely fictional character invented in order to help reflect on the place of the songwriter in times of global crisis.
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HMRLP 024LP
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Hive Mind Records presents Muito Sol, the third solo album from Brazilian auteur Ricardo Dias Gomes. The album is a deep, widescreen exploration in classic Brazilian song that brings all the subtlety and delicacy you'd expect from the pioneers of musica popular Brasileira coupled with a thoroughly 21st-century sensibility and taste for sonic innovation. A respected innovator on the Rio de Janeiro music scene since the mid-'90s, Gomes is perhaps best known for his work on the trio of critically-acclaimed albums Caetano Veloso released in the late '00s: Cê (2006), Zii and Zie (2009), and Abraçaço (2012). Playing bass on these modern milestones in post-Tropicalia, and subsequently touring the world with Veloso, inspired Gomes to record his debut album -11 (2015), followed by the mini-album Aa, which featured Arto Lindsay (2018). Muito Sol was recorded between New York, Lisbon, and Rio de Janeiro and features a stellar cast of global players such as Jeremy Gustin (drums), Will Graefe (guitars), Ryan Dugre (guitars), Gil Oliveira (percussion), Alex Toth (trumpet), Tiago Queiroz (sax, flute), Jonas Sá (synths), Julian Desprez (guitars), Pedro Sá (guitars) and Shahzad Ismaily (synths); the album is often deceptive in its simplicity and repeated listens reveal layers of intricate instrumentation and arrangement, making listening something like an exciting exercise in excavation. Unlike Gomes' previous solo outings, Muito Sol includes a number of songs that explicitly celebrate Brazil's musical heritage and culture that are based on the Samba Ostinato. The songs, led by Gomes' gentle and dreamy voice, are often reminiscent of classic innovators such as Caetano Veloso, João Bosco, or Edu Lobo, though they take unexpected lines of flight into more experimental territory. There is also an element of drone underpinning the whole album which surfaces and takes full charge on "Fllux" and "Transição," before the album is closed by what turns into the molten, distorted piece of raging hardcore, "Coração Sulamericano," Ricardo's expression of pride in his Latin American heritage. Muito Sol is a sun-drenched dream from start to finish and album to be bathed in.
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HMRLP 026LP
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Hive Mind Records have worked with Honiunhoni to bring you a vinyl version of Jingul by Ustad Noor Bakhsh. The album contains six exclusive solo tracks unavailable anywhere else. This is the debut solo release of Benju maestro, Ustad Noor Bakhsh, from the Makran Coast of Balochistan. The album is named Jingul, after a bird that often frequents Noor's house, and whose songs inspired the last track on this release -- an original by Noor. The album was recorded live on location, over a memorable sunset on the Shadi Kaur creek, close to Noor's village, near Pasni, Balochistan. Noor plays an Electric Benju, amplified using an old pick up and Phillips amp that he found in a market in Karachi three decades ago. The Benju is said to have once been a Japanese children's toy called the Taishōgoto. At some point in the 20th century, it was modified and naturalized by Baloch musicians who made it in to a refined folk instrument for themselves. Balochistan straddles the space between modern day Pakistan and Iran but its music, particularly that of Makran, evokes the well documented migrations and seafaring; historical intimacies with Africa, Persia, and Arabia, via the greater Indian Ocean world. It is this world that Noor's music wanders through.
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HMRLP 025LP
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$31.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 1/19/2024
Hive Mind and Sing A Song Fighter present their first collaborative release, the amazing solo guitar album from legendary Congolese guitarist Kahanga Dekula aka "Vumbi." Swedish producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist (founder of Sing-A-Song Fighter and member of Senegalese/Swedish act Wau Wau Collectif) has been a longtime fan of Vumbi Dekula's artistry which led to him releasing The Dekula Band's debut album Opika in 2019 with the Dekula Band. While watching the band perform was always a blast, says Karl Jonas, his desire to hear Vumbi play on his own, without the thunderous drums, wailing saxophones and chanting vocals grew in his mind, "Because, in a way, Vumbi's guitar playing is like an orchestra on its own. And the idea of just concentrating on all the amazing riffs and beautiful, uplifting melodies was just so appealing." Karl-Jonas proposed the idea of producing a solo album to Vumbi, and within a week the production process began. Recorded in two days during lockdown at the Helter Skelter Studios in Stockholm, Karl and Vumbi allowed the music to guide them. Vumbi was inspired to play second guitar adding some harmonies and melodies here and there, and on the final track ("UN Forces Get Out of the DR of Congo") he introduced a banjo into the world of Congo Guitar. Karl Jonas started up his old rhythm box machine to some of the songs to see how Vumbi and his playing would react to it. Elsewhere, wordless backing vocals from Karl-Jonas and Emma Nordenstam were added to "Maamajacy," bass melodica by Karl-Jonas appears on "Weekend," and a little piano tinkering from Emma adds some sparkle to "Zuku." But clearly, Vumbi's virtuoso playing remains the star of Congo Guitar.
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Cassette
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HMR 027CS
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$17.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 1/19/2024
Acclaimed Lebanese artist Yara Asmar is set to mesmerize listeners once again with her new album, Synth Waltzes & Accordion Laments. This eagerly anticipated album, a collection of intimate recordings, provides another glimpse into Yara's world. The album showcases her ability to channel raw emotion into her music. Vulnerable, intimate and moving these pieces were once again recorded at her home in Beirut using lo-fi recording processes. The sound palette here is richer than on her debut, with more focus on synth work and the warm drone of her grandmother's Hohner Marchesa accordion. Here are Yara's own words about the album: "In March 2023, I went to the Black Forest in Germany for a residency. I arrived to the forest with my late grandmother's accordion, and people were quick to inform me that this accordion had been built in Trossingen, only a few minutes away from where I was staying. Apparently this was a town of farmers, and during the winter when the farms were dormant, people would turn to building clocks and accordions for the local factories in order to get through the season. When I went to see the workshop, one of the men working there -- pleased and surprised to see teta's Hohner Marchesa -- said something in German and rushed to the back of the shop. He came back out with a ledger and said 'Libano,' pointing to the exact date this accordion was sent to Lebanon: the 21st of October, 1955, alongside seven other accordions, two of which were green. One of these was my grandmother's. To my grandmother, queen of solitaire, who left me her green accordion; gone but never forgotten. To my grandfather and his garden in the middle of the city, and in spite of it. To those who left Beirut, one way or another, and to those who come back. to those who stay."
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LP
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HMRLP 021LP
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Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas have long been key players in the experimental and underground music scene in São Paolo, Brazil. Grande Massa D'Agua (Great Body of Water) is their second album as a duo and it sees them continue to explore themes related to water as they dive into uncharted musical depths. In discussing the duo's relationship with water, Mauricio said: "...on the first record it kinda came a little by coincidence (or not), Carla had the name Linha D'água in mind and when we were listening to the opening track one day while I was filling up a bottle with water we thought the sounds combined well. So that kinda became a little bit of a remarkable sound of the record. Funny enough in the beginning of the pandemic we decided to take a turn and move to a small beach close to São Paulo, and that's right in the middle of the rain forest, so by then water definitely took a major role in our lives. We were living right in between the ocean and a waterfall, it'd rain for days on a roll sometimes and it was an open house where we had the sound of rain 360 degrees around us... I kinda think our music has a little of those different dynamics of water in its different states. also, it might seem strange but São Paulo is a city in the water too, and it has a very chaotic relationship with it." The music itself is difficult to pin down, always kinetic and driven by Takara's fluid, nimble percussion; there's a freeness to the sound as a whole, but also an atmosphere of tight discipline as the pair harness and channel the elemental force from which they've drawn the inspiration for their works. At times the lines between Takara's skittish percussion and Boregas's idiosyncratic synth work and sound manipulation blur into flowing rivers or torrents of sound -- here, both water and sound have the ability to awaken different memories and emotional or physical states. Carla Boregas's other projects include Rakta and Fronte Violeta as well as being a prolific solo artist and founder of AUTA, a venue dedicated to experimental music in São Paulo, and the record label Dama Da Noite. Mauricio Takara also plays with the bands Hurtmold, São Paulo Underground (with trumpeter Rob Mazurek from Chicago), and MNTH, as well as sitting in on live sessions with an array of improv/experimental/jazz figures. Recorded and mixed at Estúdio El Rocha by Fernando Sanches in 2022. Mastered by Julian Tardo at Church Road Studios, Hove. Cover painting by Rob Mazurek.
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CD
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HMR 022CD
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Seljuk Rustum is a Kochi (Cochin) based arts practitioner originally from Kannur, Kerala. He is a painter, musician, curator, producer, recording engineer, and the founder and current Creative Director of performance space, Forplay Society. As a musician he plays alto saxophone, guitar, percussion, and synthesizer with several bands and an expanding collective of like-minded artists. Being a self-taught musician, his sound work is an extension of his visual work and his music is a mixture of joyful noise and simple naive melodies. Seljuk has performed and recorded with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, Senyawa, Hada Benedito Mateo, Eiko Ishibashi, Mitsuaki Matsumoto, Pisitakun, Yuen Chee Wai, Dharma, DJ Sniff, Maximilian Glass, Duncan Bruce, Hilary Jeffery, and Hayden Chisholm. He has also worked with many theater practitioners and performance artists in India making music for theater as well as curating shows and workshops with actors and performers from around India. The recordings on Cardboard Castles were made at Seljuk's studio in Kochi between 2016 and 2021 and were mostly instant compositions and single take recordings created in collaboration with a number of fellow travelers who've passed through the studio. At the inception of the album's creation, Seljuk sought to reflect on what freedom means and what the musical limitations of this are, and how his involvement as a free improviser might project fixed ideas onto a listener. He wanted to use an improvisational approach that focused on presenting ideas with a beauty inherent in their sound, coalescing these into song form. Cardboard Castles is the resulting album and application of these concept. These deeply personal and highly idiosyncratic works defy easy description. Ranging from strange and wonky electronic improvisations, gentle acoustic instrumentals such as the lush opener with the input of the Cochin String Orchestra, through experiments in traditional Indian song, this album will keep you guessing. This is Seljuk's first to receive a physical release. Gatefold card digisleeve; edition of 250.
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HMR 020CS
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Yara Asmar is a 25-year-old multi-instrumentalist, video artist, and puppeteer currently living in Beirut with her cat, Mushroom. Hive Mind Records bring you this wonderful debut album of music she recorded at home on cassettes and a mobile phone over the past few years. On it you'll hear her play a range of instruments including the piano, her grandmother's old accordion which she found in the attic of her grandparent's home in Lebanon, the metallophone, synth, and various deconstructed and disassembled toy pianos and music boxes. You'll also hear her field-recordings of hymns sung in churches around Lebanon which Yara has turned into waltzes. These beautifully melodic works contain recognizable elements of classical music wrapped in layers of tape hiss, synth wash, reverb, and delay, and disturbed by the metallic percussive sounds of the dissembled music boxes. The atmosphere of melancholy that pervades the album should be familiar to anyone living in the 21st century. All music composed, performed, recorded and, produced by Yara Asmar at her home in Beirut. Mastered by Marc Teare. Photography by Yara Asmar. Design by Marc Teare.
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HMRLP 017LP
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Matir Gaan is a collaboration between young Bengali migrant, Mohammed After Hussain and Italian electronic artist, Andrea Rusconi (aka Paq). The resulting album delightfully combines the ancient folk songs of Md After's homeland with Paq's cosmic synth exotica. Mohammed After Hussain escaped Bangladesh in 2015 and arrived in Italy in 2017 after a long and dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from the violence he found in Libya. In Italy he found safety and hospitality as an asylum seeker in Rimini's Associazione Ardea, where Andrea is involved with "Ardea Recordings" -- a project aiming to create an archive of songs, stories and sounds by some of the people who spent some time with Ardea's refugee program. Md After was invited to sing and play the folk and village songs he knew on the harmonium and pakhawaj (two headed drum) while Andrea immersed himself in the songs providing a bed of warm Crumar synth and Veena drones to create a finished album of totally unique renditions of the mystic Baul folk songs known so well by people across the Bangla speaking regions of India. The Bauls are a famous group of wandering minstrels from the region of Bengal whose culture is derived from the teachings of the early Sufi mystics and Hindu Fakhirs. The Baul devotees are considered to be mad, or possessed, with the love of God. While transcending religion the Baul compositions celebrate celestial and earthly love and expound the key philosophy of "Deha tatta" or truth in the body, epitomized by the aphorism "whatever is in the universe is in the body." They reach for divinity here in this world and they seek to access it through music and dance. They seek spirituality in the music, they live for the music, wandering from village to village offering ecstatic sound waves in exchange for sustenance. Their presence remains an important part of village life in Bangladesh, and this is why Md After knows the songs despite the fact he would not consider himself part of the Baul ascetic tradition. A wonderfully psychedelic album with unique interpretations of ancient, mystic songs from the earth. Includes printed inner sleeve featuring sleeve notes and lyric translations by Brian P. Heilman.
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HMR 018CS
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Gustavo Yashimura-Arce comes from humble origins in the Ayacucho region of the Peruvian Andes. He started playing guitar in 1987 and two years later he travelled to Montevideo in Uruguay to study music at La Casa de la Guitarra. After spending some years playing classical guitar in Japan, Gustavo returned to Peru in 2004 and began his intense studies of the Andean guitar styles of the Ayacucho region. Later, in 2008 he found the perfect teacher -- 80-year-old veteran guitarist Don Alberto Juscamaita Gastelú, known locally as Rahtako. Through Don Alberto, Gustavo was able to learn songs and styles from across the Andes, though the main focus remained on the traditional styles of the Ayacucho region. The Ayacucho Province of Peru is mountainous and remote and mainly populated by indigenous people of Quechuan descent, with the main language remaining Quechua, or Runasimi ("the People's Language"). The Quechuan people of the Andes remained resistant to Spanish colonization and fierce in their preservation of their culture but on this album, you will hear one of those strange, hybrid artifacts that can arise when cultures meet. The Spanish guitar was taken by the Quechuan people of the Ayacucho region and employed as a new means to convey their traditional music. The melodies you hear are versions of the traditional Huayno melodies usually played on harps, Andean pipes, charango, and mandolin. Gustavo is joined by Luis Sulca Galindo on second guitar and Greys Berrocal Huaya on vocals on four tracks on the album. Hive Mind Records worked with Henkel Bellido (Sounds of the Andes) to bring this beautiful music to light.
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HMRLP 016LP
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Hive Mind Records present the second volume of the explosive collaboration between two legendary collectives of the ecstatic music underground. In 2017, Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple embarked on an extensive tour of South America. During the tour they carved out time to record and play shows with Argentine "disembodied" music provocateurs Reynols and the results of these improvised sessions are a unique and exhilarating leap into the infinite... ecstatic, shamanic, truly free psychedelic music, beyond language and beyond all rational thought. "Viva Acid Mothers Reynols!" --The Wire "These are the tunes to get your soul flowing!" --Anti: Music Review "where rock'n'roll meets the outer space" --aLive Reports.
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2LP
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HMRLP 015LP
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Hive Mind Records announce a new album from King Champion Sounds, the shifting Holland based collective centered around Ajay Saggar and Oli Heffernan (University Challenged), GW Sok (The Ex), Mees Siderius, Holly Habstritt Gaal & Elsa van der Linden. On Between Two Worlds, the band bring the same insatiable appetite for experimentation and exploration that made their previous four albums so special. This is music as an open conversation. An opportunity to exchange ideas. To be open-minded. To push boundaries and explore new worlds. Whereas elements of krautrock, electronica, free jazz and dub have always been part of the KCS armory, they have never stuck to a formula in the music making process, occupying instead the open space that lies between musical worlds. The core members have brought their different experiences into this rich new album that draws influence and inspiration from a dizzying range of sources -- from ambient guitar experiments, noisy avant-rock workouts, spidery gothic pop, otherworldly folk inflections -- and pulls them all together into a unique and coherent whole. Guest appearances on the album come from Gerry Love (formerly of Teenage Fanclub) adding beautiful vocals and instrumentation to "I'm In Between Two Worlds", Mia Doi Todd bringing her incredible voice to "Easby Abbey Remembered", Sally Timms of The Mekons takes lead vocals on "Thou Hurricane" with Jon Langford (The Mekons) and Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day) on backing vocals. Finally, the Glasgow poet Marieke McKenna brings words from her diary to "Seasick" on which she recalls a surreal escape to a millionaire's yacht and the stark contrast it provided to the "real" world outside. Hive Mind Records help bring this urgent, transcendent and wonderfully varied music out into the world. Gatefold package.
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2LP
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HMRLP 014LP
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Limited restock. Hive Mind Records offer this generous helping of Wet Tuna with their signature deeply fried rural psychedelia. Matt Valentine (MV) and Pat Gubler (PG Six) have been jamming together since the mid '90s, floating around in the US psych-folk scene, playing together in Tower Recordings and separately with influential underground crews Woods, The Golden Road, Garcia Peoples, and The Weeping Bong Band. Both MV and PG Six have been prolific with their solo work and over the years they've recorded for labels such as Ecstatic Peace, Drag City, Woodsist, 3 Lobed, and Crash Symbols. On these recordings, made during the first months of the COVID lockdowns in the forests of the Vermont wilderness, MV and PG Six handle the guitars and synths but they're joined by fellow forest freaks S. Freyer Esq, Jim Bliss, Coot Moon, and Carson "Smokehound" Arnold on bass and drums. Brought to you in their patented mind-expanding spectrasound, Eau'd To A Fake Bookie Volumes 1 & 2 delivers an irresistible gumbo of deep, cosmic psychedelia, primitive drum-machine grooves and woozy country-funk jams. These six songs are cover versions of artists as diverse as The Blackbyrds, Michael Hurley and Jimmy Cliff, but stretched out over four sides, the album is entirely Wet Tuna -- loose, free-flowing and lots of fun!
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HMRLP 013LP
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Hassan Wargui is a self-taught musician, composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and an expert in the songcraft and poetry of the Tachelhit speaking Amazigh tribes of the Anti-Atlas mountains in the south of Morocco. He was born in 1985 in the rural community of Issafen, which lies between Taroudant and Tafraoute in the Anti-Atlas mountains of Southern Morocco. His music draws from the deep well of Amazigh, or Berber, cultures that have long been suppressed across North Africa after the region underwent a process of Arabization following the Arab invasions of the 7th Century. Hassan grew up in an isolated mountain community in which art and music is embedded into daily life. This allowed him to develop an excellent musical sense, a deep understanding of the complex poly-rhythms that underpin Amazigh music, and time to become proficient on the banjo which, since the ascendency of the popular modern folk movement involving groups such as Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala in the late '60s and early '70s, has been the preferred instrument of the region. Like many musicians from the region, Hassan built his first instruments himself, and it wasn't until he moved to Casablanca in his teens to find work which was scarce in his local community, that he was able to save for his first real banjo. Since then, Hassan has been active in the Amazigh musical community and has worked with a number of groups, notably Groupe Lbouchart, Imanaren and Etran Tiznit, as well as recording prolifically as a solo artist at his home studio. In 2009, Jace Clayton (DJ/Rupture) stumbled across a CD by Imanaren which led to a fruitful series of collaborations in 2009 and 2011. Tiddukla (which translates to "Friendship") is one of Hassan's numerous group projects and he recorded the album with friends in 2015 and self-released it through YouTube due to the lack of music infrastructure in Morocco. The Tiddukla album is raw and hypnotic and sees Hassan and his group channeling the deep and contemplative sounds of classic Amazigh groups such as Izenzaren, Archach, Izmaz, all of whom risked their freedom by daring to sing in Tachelhit at a time when the language was still forbidden, and when Amazigh people were fighting for their rights to be recognized. Hive Mind release Hassan's beautiful music, and to introduce the fascinating rhythms of the Anti-Atlas Mountains into the wider world. Mastered by Julian Tardo at Church Road Studio, Hove. Art & Design by Theo Payne.
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HMRLP 011LP
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University Challenged are Ajay Saggar ("Bhajan Bhoy"), Oli Heffernan ("Ivan The Tolerable"), and Kohhei Matsuda ("Bo Ningen"). The trio began in 2019, playing shows in Holland, where they gained a reputation for delivering highly dynamic sense-rattling shows, ranging from gentle melodic orchestral spinouts to epic power jams, all backed by beautiful self-made films in the background. The plan had always been to record an album, and get the collective musical force and spirit cemented to vinyl. Many months of hard work and focus paid dividends with the majestic eight-track double album Oh Temple! ready to be delivered to the world at large. Mixed and produced by Ajay Saggar at his Soundation Studio in Holland in the summer of 2020, and mastered by Oli Heffernan in England. This is a beautiful collection of tracks where the pioneering spirit of the three artists allowed them to cross musical boundaries with their bold and accomplished playing to forge eight unique and mesmeric numbers. While there is commonality in the artists approach to music, there are a wide variety of styles -- kosmische musik, electronic experimentation, deep spiritual jazz, modern classical, pastoral guitar soli, and more. These tracks sound fresh and revealing now, and will certainly do so for a long time to come.
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HMRLP 010LP
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Sold out, next repress available June/2021. Hive Mind Records celebrate their tenth release by bringing the label full circle, right back where they started. They once again have worked with the Gania family of Essaouira to offer another reissue of the music of the undisputed King of Gnawa music, the late Maalem Mahmoud Gania. It feels like the perfect time to release this spiritual music, specifically played to heal and to cure us of our ills, as the world is in the grip of a viral pandemic and powerful forces seem to be polarizing people all around the globe. The label hopes that Aicha will enable you to carve out some healing space in amongst the chaos of the world. Aicha was previously released on cassette in Morocco only in the late 1990s. Maalem Mahmoud Gania was a particularly prolific artist recording for many labels in Morocco and many details about the recording of this particular album or the people involved are destined to remain a mystery. However, the album was recorded in the Gania's home town of Essaouira with only a small and intimate group of supporting musicians. The resulting album, after the dizzying intensity of the opening song, offers more relaxed, laidback interpretations of the Gnawa ritual repertoire, and a deeper, more gentle sound than Hive Mind Records' previous Gania release, Colours of the Night (2017). The album shines a light on Mahmoud's virtuoso guimbri playing and mastery of Gnawa songcraft, and is a standout amongst his many cassette releases. The album comes with extensive sleeve notes written by Tim Abdellah Fuson, Berkeley scholar and curator of the excellent Moroccan Tape Stash blog. First pressing of this release comes with a print of the album cover.
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2LP
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HMRLP 009LP
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Indonesian music has enraptured ears across the globe for many years, and few styles hold such a colorful history and place in the hearts of the people of West Java as Jaipongan. Hive Mind Records announce a collaboration with Kai Riedl of Javasounds to bring you these superb recordings of one of Java, Indonesia's most famed music styles of the '70s and '80s, Jaipongan. The album, recorded at the famed Jugala Studios in Bandung, Java in 2007, features the incredible vocals of Idjah Hadidjah, the country's most iconic singer of the genre, backed by members of the Jugala Studios house band. The album comes with a second disc of reworks of the original tracks by boundary pushing electronic musicians from around the world. Known for its rapid gamelan (gongs and metallophones) playing, angular and dynamic drumming, and erotically charged dancing, Jaipongan was invented by composer and choreographer Gugum Gumbira (1945-2020) in reaction to the Indonesian government's ban on rock and roll. As a form of rebellion, Gumbira took the core elements of a local, erotically charged harvesting ritual music and contemporized the sound by adding the gamelan instruments, dynamic drumming, the speed and urbanized subject matter of rock 'n' roll, and sensual dance moves. Idjah Hadidjah, a professional singer with Sundanese Shadow Puppet Theatres was approached by Gugum Gumbira in the early '80s and asked to sing with his Jugala Orchestra. Their collaboration was to last through the decade as she quickly became one of the country's most beloved Jaipongan singers. The Javasounds recordings saw her reunited with both Bandung's famous Jugala studio, and members of its famed house orchestra for the first time in a number of years.
The Remix Project: For the past few years Kai Riedl was executive producer and curator of Moogfest, the annual celebration of experimental electronic music and of the work of Bob Moog. As a musician himself, Riedl wanted to connect the musicians in Java with others around the world, and he was keen to make multitrack recordings in Java so that other musicians could have access to high quality recordings of individual instruments to work with. For + Reworks, he gave a number of artists from around the world access to the original multitrack recordings with the understanding they had free reign to work with them in an intuitive and open-ended way. Features Bana Haffar, Bergsonist, Lightbath, Sarah Belle Reid, Signals Under Tests, Fahmi Mursyid, Kai Riedl & Suny Lyons, and Ultrabillions.
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HMRLP 008LP
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Limited 2024 restock. The unique and magical sound of Los Siquicos Litoraleños (The Psychics of El Litoral), fermented in the rural north of Argentina, land of gauchos (Argentine cowboys), mate tea, chamamé folk music, and Psilocybe Cubensis. In this remote region, cut off from the fashions of the city, Los Siquicos were able to nurture their obsessions, hone their craft, and develop a singular style that takes the traditional chamamé folk music of rural Argentina, then throws it in a blender with Latin-American cumbia and chicha, the tropicalia of Os Mutantes and Tom Zé, the free music of Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart, The Residents, UFO conspiracies, radical philosophy, and a strong dose of the absurd. Out in the hinterlands, they fully embraced the spirit and ethic of DIY punk, gaining a reputation for wild, open air shows on the backs of flatbed trucks, or from makeshift set-ups in village squares and at local fêtes and fairs, where confused locals half recognize the twisted sound of a chamamé beamed in from another planet. Hive Mind Records are delighted to help bring Medianos Éxitos Subtropicales Vol. 2: El Relincho Del Tiempo (Medium Subtropical Hits Vol. 2: The Neigh of Time) out into the world. The album features a number of brand-new songs alongside tracks chosen from Los Siquicos' extensive archive of home recordings. El Relincho Del Tiempo contains the soupy dub-cumbia of "Para Ser Un Gran Hombre", the fantasy radio-hit "La Danza Del Brontosaurio", and the shamanic ecstasy of "Los Ninos Del Brasil" or "Dostoyevski En El Minimercado". Los Siquicos Litoraleños invite you to take a leap into their world in which the sounds of the future and the past blur into one, where the music of the whole planet is digested and spat out in new shapes, where the noise is joyful.
"... a unique triumph of homegrown rural psychedelia, standing alone on the edge of an unchartered vanguard... Los Siquicos Litoraleños are the contemporary group you keep hoping exist, but can never find. If you were to reach for spiritual comparisons, you wouldn't be forgetting the most spirited moments from Sun City Girls, Butthole Surfers, Faust, Os Mutantes, Captain Beefheart or The Residents." --Mark Gergis
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LP
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HMRLP 007LP
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"Osondi Owendi. What is cherished by some is despised by others. One man's meat is another man's poison. Different strokes for different folks. To each their own. Osondi Owendi. It's a conventional aphorism in the Igbo language but if you utter the word 'osondi owendi' in Nigeria today, the first thing that comes to anybody's mind is the cucumber-cool highlife music maestro Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and his legendary album that takes its name from the adage. Released in 1984, Osondi Owendi was instantly received as Osadebe's magnum opus, the crowning event of an exalted career stretching back to the early years of highlife's emergence as Nigeria's predominant popular music. Stephen Osadebe first appeared on the music scene in 1958 as a spry, twenty-two year-old vocalist in the Empire Rhythm Skies Orchestra, directed by bandleader Steven Amechi. With his dapper suits, urbane Nat King Cole-influenced vocal stylings and jaunty, up-tempo, calypso-scented dance tunes, he personified the frisky spirit and anxious aspirations of a young, educated generation that had come of age in the wake of the Second World War . . . 1959 would be the year that he truly made his mark in the business with his debut solo single 'Lagos Life Na So So Enjoyment'. A giddy exhortation of the music, sex, fun and freedom availed by life in the big city, the song became a sensation and an anthem, and Stephen Osadebe became the leader of his own popular dance band, the Nigerian Sound Makers . . . As Nigeria emerged from a devastating civil war, so did a new generation of youth inspired by rock and funk, confrontational sounds reflective of a more violent, less idealistic era. All of the sudden, the idioms of the post-WWII dance orchestras that nurtured Osadebe's cohort seemed quaint, the stuff of nostalgia. Osadebe needed to evolve to respond to the new tumultuous, turned-up times . . . Abetted by a new crop of fire-blooded young players, Osadebe slowed his music to a mellow, meditative tempo, brought forward the lumbering, Afro Cuban-accented bass and percussion, from the rockers he borrowed searing lead lines on the electric guitar. Over this musical bedrock, doesn't so much as sing as he dreamily muses, coos, sighs aphorisms, words of wisdom and inspiration . . . Osadebe christened the style oyolima -- a tranquil, otherworldly state of total relaxation and pleasure. Osondi Owendi represents oyolima at its finest, and possibly Nigerian highlife in epitome." --Uchenna Ikonne, June 2019
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LP
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HMRLP 006LP
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Nicolas Gaunin's surreal sound experiments lift you out of the everyday and transport you to an off-world Tiki lounge set high amongst the tree tops of a tropical rainforest, where you're surrounded by bizarre, colorful creatures, and weird psychotropic plants. Noa Noa Noa is modern Dada, a neon soundtrack to your most outlandish fever dreams. Nicolas Gaunin is the alter ego of Nicola Sanguin, part of the vibrant experimental music scene around Padua, Italy where he plays in outsider rock groups The Lay Llamas and Orange Car Crash. Nicolas Gaunin is his solo electronic project, a bright and playful cosmic mash-up that uses the rhythms of traditional African percussion groups and skews them slightly to create unsettling, off-kilter grooves. These drum machine experiments are laid over a teeming microscopic sound world of bird calls, insect chatter and weird jingles reminiscent of advertising earworms or video game soundtracks. Noa Noa Noa takes its influences from music from around the world, and inspiration from high and low culture; from composer Gyorgy Ligeti to the cosmic sounds of Italian DJ Danielle Baldelli, from the experimental music of Moondog or Harry Partch to the playful sounds of Francis Bebey or the exotica of Martin Denny, from Iannis Xenakis to 8-bit video game music. Noa Noa Noa ends up sounding something like the imaginary soundtrack to the Nintendo Gameboy version of a lost William S. Burroughs novel. Incredibly, most of the tracks on Noa Noa Noa were recorded live in one take with the express intention of creating music that is, in contrast to much of today's electronic music, bright, sunny, light-hearted and mischievous. The resulting album is both totally essential and also completely throwaway. These tracks were originally released in 2018 by Artetetra Records (Italy) as Noa Noa (cassette and digital) and Danse de l'Oiseau (digital only). Hive Mind Records present Noa Noa Noa on vinyl for the first time.
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2LP
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HMRLP 003LP
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2018 release. Hive Mind Records present a double-LP compilation of songs by Moulay Ahmed El Hassani, a master of modern Moroccan music, who updates traditional folk forms with drum machines, autotune, and incredible psychedelic guitar. Moulay Ahmed El Hassani is practically unknown outside of his home country of Morocco where he's released over 50 albums on cassette and CD over the past 30 years, however Hive Mind Records seek to remedy that situation with the release of this compilation featuring songs originally released on Ahmed's own label, Sawt el Hassani, between 2006 and 2014. Ahmed writes his own songs, plays all instruments himself, records and self produces at his home studio in Beni Mellal. His unique sound takes influence from a variety of Moroccan folk forms, particularly the Izlan and Ahidous styles of the Amazigh people of the mid-Atlas region. Ahmed has blended these styles with the rai and chaabi that were popular across the country through his youth. The resulting sound is like a twenty-first century folk music for a people caught somewhere between a vision of their own idealized pastoral past and a turbo charged, technologically driven urban future. Ahmed has embraced new musical technologies and his songs are made up of complex, polyrhythmic drum machine patterns, subtle loops, washes of new age synth, heavily autotuned male and female duet vocals, and his signature psychedelic microtonal guitar playing. His songs are sometimes gentle and melancholic, and sometimes more upbeat, but always deeply lyrical and melodic, and all feature lyrics in Amazigh and Arabic that deal with social issues and universal themes of love and loss. There's really very little that can be said in a press release to can prepare you for the sound of Moulay Ahmed ElHassani's music, other than that you're unlikely to have heard anything quite like it before.
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LP
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HMRLP 002LP
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2018 release. Hive Mind Records present Congo, the debut album from Brazilian guitarist and composer Rodrigo Tavares. Maintaining a meditative mood across its nine instrumental pieces, Congo blends composition and improvisation with subtly experimental yet sophisticated arrangements that evoke the mood and rhythms of classic Brazilian artists such as João Gilberto, Dorival Caymmi, Tom Jobim, Milton Nascimento, and Caetano Veloso. Rodrigo's work draws on a lifetime of immersive listening and diverse influences, and on Congo you can hear elements of jazz, post rock, minimalist composition, and disparate global sounds melt together to create a deep listening experience that falls between genres and willfully defies categorization. From reverb drenched solo guitar pieces such as "Cidade Sol I" to expansive full group pieces such as "De Roda" or "A Raposa E O Corvo", Rodrigo has crafted a lush sound world that rewards exploration and will appeal to fans of music as diverse as Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society, Collocutor, BadBadNotGood, Slint, or late Talk Talk, as much as it does to lovers of classic Brazilian music. Accompanying Rodrigo on guitar is Pedro Santana on the acoustic bass, Felipe Continentino on drums, Felipe Bastos handling the percussion, Breno Mendonça on saxophone, and Fred Selva on vibraphone. The genesis of Congo was a transformative road trip through Brazil which took in a Sun City Girls show in a remote former gay club, and a visit to a spiritual healer named John of God in a faraway central Brazilian town named Abadiânia. The end of the trip marked the beginning of a fertile creative period for Rodrigo: "I decided that I would try to forge, in my own way, from my references, from my universe and from the collective intelligence and sensibility that surrounded me, fundamental melodies, repetitive, minimal, hypnotic rhythmic and harmonic patterns that would be crossed by some sort of improvisation, something that referred to a reality that existed before my individual history, that linked to the life of other places and other times."
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2LP
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HMRLP 005LP
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[sold out, no repress planned] Hive Mind Records present the first vinyl issue of Sonny Sharrock's seminal final album, Ask The Ages, originally released on CD in 1991. Sonny's classic final album swings between deep, lyrical melodicism and passages of pure fire music and features jazz legends Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone and Elvin Jones, member of the John Coltrane Quartet, on drums. The album was produced by Bill Laswell and originally released in 1991 on his Axiom label. The crystal-clear production sounds amazing on 45rpm and this release is a must for fans of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra. 45rpm, double 12" edition.
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