***Carving an unlikely and elaborate niche in the stoney academic landscape which she once shared with the likes of Phill Niblock, John Cage, and Sorel Hayes, the excitable proto-punk poèmes sonores of the linguistic loose cannon known as Beth Anderson first rolled through New York in the mid-1970s (from Kentucky via San Francisco) like a jumbled tumbleweed of lost Letterism, face paint and threadbare drummy funk to astonish gallery floors, lecture theatres and loft apartment stages. One thousand leagues under the radar of the commercial music industry, with a sense of humor that elevated way above her highbrow peer group, the music of Beth Anderson has successfully evaded the pressing plant for most of her creative career, and not unlike fellow New York gallery actionist Suzanne Ciani, it has taken decades to successfully collect and contextualize these early recordings—expanding her elusive discography beyond the rare and mysterious solo single entry in the process. In 1980, the 45rpm single "I Can't Stand It" combusted into the consciousness of adventurous participants with its deep rhythmic backbeat (courtesy of future Sonic Youth / Dinosaur Jr producer Wharton Tiers, member of the new wave band Theoretical Girls), climaxing with two colorful and commanding linguistic tantrums before disappearing in a puff of smoke leaving would-be fans dumbstruck without so much as a label name or distribution contact to explain what they had just heard. For those who have spent the subsequent years on the edge of that same seat, it might come as some comfort...
LP $35.35
09/06/2024
***The very first Buchla synthesizer performance by revolutionary composer Suzanne Ciani finally makes its fifty-year journey from its switch-on New York art gallery to its long deserved and discerning global phonographic audience. With this previously unheard vinyl pressing, Finders Keepers Records present an archival project of "art music" that not only redefines musical history but lays genuine claim to the overused buzzwords such as pioneering, maverick, experimental, groundbreaking and esoteric, while questioning social politics and the evolution of music technology as we have come to understand it. To describe Italian-American composer Suzanne Ciani's resurrected Buchla Concert records as genuine gamechangers would be a gross understatement. These records represent a musical revolution, an artistic revelation, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counterculture creativity. This sonic installation album, alongside her recently liberated WBAI / Phill Niblock 1975 sessions are triumphant yardsticks in the synthesizer space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial musical moon. While pondering the early accolades attached to these golden era New York recordings it's daunting to learn that these records were in fact not even records at all. What exists on this disc now was a manifesto and a one-time gateway to a new world, which somehow was only partially pushed ajar. Captured here is a genuine live act exploring new territories with a fully performable music instrument. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic pulses, tones and harmonics found on these 1970s artistic gallery collaborations/live presentations (then soon to be...
LP $35.35
08/02/2024
***REISSUED!!! Finders Keepers presents these incredible early Buchla synthesizer concerts / demonstrations providing a distinctive feminine alternative to The Silver Apples Of The Moon if they had ever been presented in phonographic form. This record is a triumphant yardstick in the synthesizer space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial moon. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic, pulses, tones and harmonics found on this 1975 live presentation / grant application / educational demonstration had been placed in a phonographic context alongside the promoted work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos, or Tomita then the name Suzanne Ciani and her influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound and gender of record collections. Suzanne was a self-imposed twenty-year-old employee of the Buchla modular synthesizer company, San Francisco's neck and neck contender to New York's Moog. Suzanne Ciani, as one of the very few female composers on the frontline (and also providing the back line) did not lose faith. These "concerts" are the epitome of rare music technology historic documents, performed by a real musician whose skills and academic education in classical composition already outweighed her male synthesizer contemporaries of twice her age. In denouncing her own precocious polymathmatic past in a bid to persuade the world to sing from a new hymn sheet, Suzanne Ciani created a bi-product of never before heard music that would render the pigeon holes "ambient" and "futuristic" utterly inadequate. Providing nothing short of an entirely different feminine take on the experimental "records"...
LP $35.35
08/02/2024
***2015 release. After a twenty-three-year hiatus, The Dance of Reality marked the triumphant return of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the visionary Chilean filmmaker behind cult classics El Topo and The Holy Mountain. In the radiantly visceral autobiographical film, a young Jodorowsky is confronted by a collection of compelling characters that contributed to his burgeoning surreal consciousness. The legendary filmmaker was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on the edge of the Chilean desert, where the film was shot. Blending his personal history with metaphor, mythology, and poetry, The Dance of Reality reflects Jodorowsky's philosophy that reality is not objective but rather a "dance" created by the imagination. Written, performed and recorded by Alejandro's son, the acclaimed actor, director and musician Adan Jodorowsky, Dance of Reality's original soundtrack expands from gossamer folk acoustic guitar themes and solo piano compositions to rich cinematic orchestral arrangements echoing the work of John Barry and Ennio Morricone combined with extrovert narrative traditional pieces executed in the vein of Nino Rota. This LP contains the sixteen original compositions that make up the score for Alejandro's seventh feature film which witness a return to the ABKCO film company who produced his underground classics El Topo and The Holy Mountain.
LP $17.00
06/14/2024
***The lost Belgian blueprint of Brussels based jazz fusion and how free form Franco-Flemish punk put Zeuhl school in the Classroom via the conception of COS . Emerging from behind the same clouds that kept formative Belgian progressive jazz records like Brussels Art Quintet and Kiosk 's Mona Call in tangible obscurity, these impossibly rare early Euro jazz recordings shed a new ray of light on the intricate foundations of the scene that elevated COS, Marc Moulin, Placebo, Marc Hollander and Telex to Zen master status, while also capturing one of Europe's best female vocal artists in the midst of her wide eyed and uninhibited prime. Never before released on vinyl, these tracks provide a sonic chalkboard of Daniel Schell's ambitious musical equations, recalculated by precocious polymaths, then conveyed via Pascale Son's inquisitive child-like vocal explorations. For those keen to learn the Histoire De Melody COS? The classroom door is open—prepare to be schooled!
LP $34.25
10/13/2023
***Part fantastical historic sonic biopic, part anthropologic journey into the deep roots of Belgium's monstrous cosmic rock sound, this wholly individualistic concept album combines the lead members of the mighty COS (Daniel Schell and Pascale Son) with studio genius Alain Pierre (Ô Sidarta), Des Morts and celebrated Dutch progressive rock singer Dick Annegarn, for what many consider to be both the overlooked hiding place of Belgium's deepest psychedelic moment and European prog's lost map to the "Franco-Flemish Boom". Emerging from the wider musical family that counted Marc Moulin , Placebo , and Marc Hollander amongst its creative kin, Daniel Schell's most profound conceptual project ambitiously combines the tale of the heroic historical figure of Count Egmont (1522-1568), while simultaneously tracing the evolution of the ud, or oud, ("the grandfather of the guitar") in this multifarious hallucinogenic epic. Featuring key members of other collectable groups such as drummer Felix Simtaine from Solis Lacus and bass player Jean-Louis Baudoin from the mythical Classroom (COS predecessor), this best-kept secret vinyl release also harbors the voices of Dirk Bogaert (of Belgian hard rockers Waterloo ) as well as Catalan singer Ilona Chale (Marc Hollander/ Aksak Maboul ) before her later tenure as the COS front woman. Initially released in 1978 via Zeuhl school distributors, Free Bird, alongside French pressings of Don Cherry , Jacques Thollot , and CAN , it is plain to understand the niche nature of this maligned "lost COS" LP as it finally blooms from between the cracked branches of European...
LP $34.25
08/11/2023
***Expanded reissue of mega rare 1979 unknown vanity pressing LP that blends ethnological field recordings, musique concrète principles, and introspective synthesizer music from this cult European studio maverick and historic collaborator of COS, Philippe Druilet, Marc Moulin, and John Surman. Alain Pierre's Mondo movie soundtrack to the controversial Des Morts shares very few stylistic rivals, but fans of Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain soundtrack and some of the more eldritch early sampling experiments of Jean-Pierre Massiera will certainly draw fragmented comparisons herein. Other listeners might file this album at the weirder end of your Smithsonian Folkways shelf, just before the Video Nasty soundtracks. Presented in remastered form comprising extra vintage studio outtakes (in accordance with the films morbid narrative), Des Morts serves as a would-be sequel to Finders Keepers' previous Ô Sidarta release witnessing Pierre balance his allegiance to the Belgian bandes dessinée scene and Thierry Zéno's shock cinema oeuvre from the heart of his uber-legendary Brussels based experimental recording studio through the 1970s. Presented in remastered form comprising extra previously unreleased vintage studio outtakes. Edition of 750.
LP $35.25
05/05/2023
***Eighteen sacred psychedelic suppositories from the laboratory of Mad Scientist and scalpel happy pop mutilator Jean-Pierre Massiera . Including the rarest and most sought-after fuzz funk, spooked surf and interplanetary prog from "The French Joe Meek" and all his schizoid split-personalities and freakish friends—The Maledictus Sound, Chico Magnetic Band, Visitors, Human Egg, The Pirhana Sound, and Jesus himself.
LP $34.45
08/05/2022
***Fourteen slabs of the heaviest Thai funk and psych rockers ever committed to vinyl. The styles featured on this compilation fall somewhere between luk thung ("song of the countryside") and luk krung ("song of the city"). Bangkok was a melting pot for the evolution of these two genres, the former alluding to musical themes and lyrics aimed at the wider national population and the latter looking westward with a more urban audience in mind. Thai? Dai! collects experiments by both little-known groups and established figures like Plearn Promdan. Even within Thailand the majority of these tunes remain unissued outside of this compilation, making this a truly essential glimpse into the strange underbelly of Thai luk thung in all its unique, original, and outlandish glory; a small snapshot of an otherwise forgotten era, gloriously remastered from the original sources and officially licensed from the original label, Sound of Siam Co. Ltd. Includes performances bySroeng Santi; Plearn Promdan; Rung Petchburi; Rung Fah Puping; Petch Burapa;Teungjai Bunpraruksa; Riem Daranoi; and Jalwal, Annie & Geerasak.
LP $32.45
05/20/2022