Unavailable for over 20 years, In The Beginning There Was Rhythm was Soul Jazz Records first foray into post-punk and punk-funk in the UK and captures the ground-breaking and seminal groups that crossed the divide of punk and dance music for the first time. // "In the Beginning is essential missing-link history – and body-rockin' fun" The Guardian // "In the Beginning doesn't have a single limp tune. It'll amaze new listeners and give old ones some hard-to-find tracks. Buy it." Pitchfork // "There's no denying that In the Beginning There Was Rhythm is a great gateway into this expansive, fruitful, trailblazing era." All Music // First released in 2001, this album is fully remastered, remade and presented once more in its entirety and features A Certain Ratio, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, The Human League, The Pop Group, Gang of Four, The Slits, 23 Skidoo and This Heat. // The CD format of the album comes with extensive sleevenotes and original photography. // As Muzik magazine noted on its initial release 'In The Beginning' is a choice selection from the fertile post-punk period when bands thought nothing of combining politics and philosophy with imported dance rhythms and edgy industrial angst. // The bands featured come (mostly) from the then bleak post-industrial North of England – Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds as well as Bristol and London, and yet all show a fascination with black American rhythms and an experimentation in sound that was completely unique at the time. // The title of the album comes from The Slits track of the same name.

Floating through the void never felt so good. Adjust your helmet as you jet set through the cosmos with our newest compilation: Space Jazz. Featuring 29 artists across 18 tracks, this 50 minute project is sure to help you soar. Equal parts jazz cafe and sci-fi journey, smoked-out lounge and space station, this deep space voyage is guaranteed to bring some zero gravity chill. Trumpets and saxes dance through a haze of synths as distant planets come into view. If the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars was more inspired by laid-back beats, or if the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack had more brass. With familiar Chillhop names like The BREED, Birocratic, Psalm Trees, No Spirit, Ian Ewing, Aviino, and dozens of others, this compilation is packed with a beautiful kind of solitude, one that makes the world feel small and precious. Like an astronaut seeing our planet out of their window for the first time or someone on Earth in need of sitting still for a moment to relax and unwind. Press play as you moon cruise, as you apartment search on Mars, taking a smooth detour to avoid an asteroid storm. Sit back and maintain your chill, because after all, this is the coolest part of the galaxy.

Limited numbered edition of 5000 copies. AAA cut from the original stereo master tapes by Kevin Gray. Pressed on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl at Optimal. Heavyweight glossy gatefold jacket. Features an exclusive insert with new liner notes from original producer Chris Thomas.

The Doors are the stars of our latest free CD, The Other Side, available with the June 2025 issue of Uncut. The nine-track album includes rarities, alternate takes and live cuts, including a blistering performance from their final show outside America. “In 1965, I hoped this band might pay my rent for a decade or so,” John Densmore tells Uncut, “but it’s 60 years and we are still talking about The Doors. I am very grateful and very proud. It’s so kind of Uncut to make this CD.” It’s very much our pleasure to present this journey through an alternate history of the stellar LA band. Across nine songs and 44 minutes, we take a trip with Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison from an alternate take of “Love Me Two Times”, right up to their stunning performance at 1970’s Isle Of Wight Festival. Along the way, there are outtakes from LA Woman, a demo from Waiting For The Sun, a raw Soft Parade track stripped of its orchestration to reveal the raging group beneath, and many more. “It’s very cool that your readers will be getting these nine Doors songs,” says Robby Krieger. “It’s a great mix of live and studio from across our career. In fact, I wish I could get this CD – can I get one too?” See below for more on the tracklisting…

When the studio of ever-groundbreaking Krautrock pioneers Can was sold to Germany's Rock n' Pop Museum, the entire space was disassembled and moved, and in the process, reels and reels of poorly marked and seemingly forgotten tapes were found buried amid other detritus in the studio. These tapes held over 30 hours of unreleased music from Can spanning a nine-year period and including work from both vocalists Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki. Edited down to just over three hours, The Lost Tapes still includes an extensive amount of unheard studio, live, and soundtrack work from the band, and at its heights is as revelatory and brilliant as the best material on their well-loved albums. Early vocalist Malcolm Mooney left the band under doctor's orders after suffering a nervous breakdown connected with heavy paranoia, and his unhinged vocals characterize collections of early Can recordings like Delay…

On his second album Joyriding in the Subway, Vance Kelly pushes into new directions, blending funk and soul into traditional Chicago blues. Armed with a sturdy set of originals and covers, Kelly storms through the album, spitting out hot solos and singing with an abandon. His band provides supple support, giving him the freedom to branch into new areas with both his guitar and voice. The production may be a little too pristine for some tastes, but there's no arguing that Kelly provides enough grit on his own.

John Lewis takes on the music of Gary McFarland - working here in a very cool set of McFarland compositions and arrangements - often with a lot more tone, color, and feeling than usual for a Lewis album! John often punctuates his piano notes, almost as if he's using vibes - and the larger backings have this way of being quite spacious - as in some of McFarland's more modern recordings for Impulse from the same time - very open, and quite revolutionary for the time! Players include Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Eric Dolphy on alto, Phil Woods on clarinet, and Benny Golson on tenor.

One of the foremost Scandinavian progressive rock bands to emerge in the 1970s, Kaipa took root in the Swedish city of Uppsala. Initially the project of keyboardist Hans Lundin and bassist Tomas Eriksson, the band soon grew to include drummer Ingemar Bergman and singer/guitarist Roine Stolt, the latter of whom would eventually go on to form The Flower Kings. While Kaipa's membership would fluctuate wildly in later years, this is the lineup responsible for their 1975 eponymous debut and its follow-up, Inget Nytt Under Solen, which arrived a year later. By 1978, founding member Eriksson had departed and was replaced by the first of two different (and unrelated) bassists named Mats Lindberg. Stolt hung on for 1978's Solo, though he too eventually departed, leaving the vocals to newcomer Mats Löfgren for 1980's Händer…

Mythodea is subtitled "Music for the NASA Mission: 2001 Mars Odyssey," and it's certainly an epic work. If its aspirations were any higher, it wouldn't even need NASA to break earth's gravity. In essence, it's the focus of Vangelis' symphonic ambitions, utilizing not only an orchestra, but two sopranos and a full choir to go alongside his banks of keyboards. That itself isn't a problem. Epic can certainly be a good thing, and its roccoco grandeur can have its appeal. The problem, and it's certainly one here, comes when things are overblown, and the everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink attitude becomes wearying. After synth space noises, "Movement 1" shows its Mars intentions by borrowing the 5/4 rhythm from Holst's "Mars" (without credit) and overlaying it with symphonic stabs of melody and voices galore…

A rising star on the European jazz scene, German keyboardist-composer Simon Oslender plays with a maturity that belies his young age. After his auspicious debut on Leopard Records, 2020’s "About Time", the 24-year old prodigy reveals more of himself on his sophomore release for the label, "Peace of Mind" - to be released on April 14th, 2022 on Leopard Records!

Vivaldi's first opera, Ottone in Villa (loosely, Ottone's Vacation), is something of an anomaly in the composer's output of largely tragic, heroic works: a pastoral comedy. Written in 1713 when the composer was 35, Ottone demonstrates Vivaldi's instinctive grasp of the operatic form and his gifts for characterization and dramatic development. Naïve continues its admirable series, The Vivaldi Edition, with this outstanding recording of the opera, a real gem. Giovanni Antonini leads Il Giardino Armonico, which plays with gleaming transparency. The performance is wonderfully lively and the opera's dancing energy is conveyed with high spirits and humor. Vivaldi is not a composer usually associated with comedy, so Ottone surprises with its wealth of delightful, sly wit.

Alessandro Scarlatti's oratorio Il Martirio di Santa Teodosia is an exciting drama of life, love and death, set in the fourth-century Roman Empire. St. Theodosia of Tyre died at the age of eighteen, in the year 308. Preferring to devote her life to God, Teodosia rejects the love of Arsenio, the son of the Roman governor, and welcomes death. The dramatic strength and vocal beauty of this work flourishes in the hands Emmanuelle de Negri, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Anthea Pichanick, Renato Dolcini and the orchestra Les Accents led by Thibault Noally.

Behzod Abduraimov joins Alpha for several recordings, starting with this kaleidoscope of miniatures miniatures that are in fact fairly gigantic, and showcase the Uzbek pianists extreme virtuosity and sensitivity. Each movement is in itself a miniature, and taken together they form a kaleidoscope of human emotions and images of all kinds, says Behzod Abduraimov. In his view, the pieces in Debussys Childrens Corner are not intended for young piano students, but for adults, so that they can immerse themselves in the world of children with a little nostalgia and a lot of humor. When it comes to Chopin, each prelude has a different musical essence, creates its own atmosphere.

For the first time with naïve, the counter-tenor Andreas Scholl joins the Accademia Bizantina and Alessandro Tampieri to present a Neapolitan programme, centred on the Virgin Mary.

Time Life Music’s Singers & Songwriters: 1976-1977 collects 24 radio hits over the span of two discs. Despite the title, the compilation doesn’t just favor traditional singer/songwriters like Al Stewart, Linda Ronstadt, and England Dan & John Ford Coley, though they are represented here. Group contributions include Orleans (“Still the One”), Fleetwood Mac (“Say You Love Me”), Chicago (“If You Leave Me Now”), and Bread (“Lost Without Your Love”), but it’s the solo acts that provide the most recognizable hits.