((((( NEW ARRIVALS: CDs ))))) Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, Africa Scream Contest, Ghostface, Islands and more

ost WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE LP / CD
*** "KAREN O composed the music to Where the Wild Things Are with Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age, The Dead Weather), Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes), Nick Zinner, (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and an untrained children's choir."

v/a AFRICAN SCREAM CONTEST: Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds From Benin & Togo 70s CD+BOOK
*** RECOMMENDED "Delve into the forgotten raw and psychedelic Afro sounds from '70s Benin and Togo and experience the African Scream Contest! Benin is the birth place of Vodun (or, as it is known in the West, Voodoo), and some of the rhythms used during traditional rituals -- sakpata, sato, agbadja, tchenkoumé and many others -- were fused to soul and Latin music as early as the mid-'60s and later to funk."

v/a COSMIC BALEARIC BEATS, Vol. 2 2xCD
*** "The Eskimo label's second installment in a series dedicated to cosmic Balearic beats features 16 exclusive and unreleased tracks of beautiful, sun-kissed cosmic house, disco, funk and more, mixed for the ultimate slo-mo house party and including a bonus mp3-disc featuring the unmixed full-length versions of all the tracks."

v/a GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN CD
*** BACK IN STOCK! "The acclaimed 2004 compilation of underground folk music selected by DEVENDRA BANHART, expertly sequenced and paced, like one long, slow flow of a particularly rich vibe."

v/a LEGENDS OF BENIN CD
*** "Super-rare and highly danceable masterpieces recorded between 1969-1981 by four legendary composers from Benin -- a thick brew of agbadja, soul, cavacha, funk, Afrobeat, and Afro-Latin sounds all mixed in with heavy traditional rhythms. Enjoy the mind-blowing sounds of Benin." On ANALOG AFRICA.

v/a OPEN STRINGS: 1920s Middle Eastern Recordings- New Responses 2xCD
*** RECOMMENDED "A dazzling selection of virtuoso string-playing from Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, recorded in the 1920s and unheard ever since. Also included: a disc of newly-commissioned responses to the themes by underground luminaries such as SIR RICHARD BISHOP, SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE, VOICE OF THE SEVEN WOODS and more. Ancient, timeless and transcendent. Scorchers past and present, every one. For more info, hit up:
http://www.honestjons.com/label.php?pid=34152

v/a SIAMESE SOUL: Thai Pop Spectacular 1960s-1980s Vol. 2 CD
*** RECOMMENDED "1970s hard-grooved roots funk, hypnotic Luk Thung tracks from the Northeastern Thai countryside, 1960s rock & roll and 1980s groove anomalies. All cuts come heavily laced with electric organs and guitar, thick horn sections, the traditional khaen, driving bass and stunning vocal performances with a richness that can easily be called Thai soul music of the highest order."

v/a ELECTRIC PSYCHEDELIC SITAR HEADSWIRLERS, Vol. 6 CD
*** "A collection of '60s and '70s psych obscurities, all featuring the sitar. UK folk-psych, Turkish fuzz, echoed Eastern chants, radiant raga jams, lysergic Gregorian warbling, Swedish prog, the inevitable backwards sitar tidbits, tablas, crunchy drums and other delicacies."

v/a KOMPAKT TOTAL 10 2xCD
*** "Kompakt Total 10 promises to be one of the most diverse collections of tracks the label has ever brought forward: essential tunes from the Kompakt catalog and exclusive highlights from DJ KOZE, WOLFGANG VOIGT, and others."

v/a TRANSMISSIONS FROM SINAI CD
*** "Curated by OM's Al Cisneros, Transmissions From Sinai is a compilation of introspective, expansive 'metal' that stands out as flashes of color in the unified spectrum of blackness that dominates the genre plays like a companion piece to those albums." Featuring GROUPER, LICHENS, LINVAL THOMPSON, SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE, and J. MASCIS among others.

v/a WHERE YOU GONNA' GO? Motor City Garage Bands 1965-1969 CD
*** "Inside this package is over 75 minutes of electrifying music -- a fine batch of recordings, some of which are bonafide NUGGETS." Featuring THE TIDAL WAVEs, THE UNRELATED SEGMENTS and more.

ALICE IN CHAINS Black Gives Way To Blue CD
*** "The new Alice In Chains album Black Gives Way To Blue is the sound of a new beginning of a legendary band returning to life. Throbbing rockers."

NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS White Lunar 2xCD
*** "White Lunar is a selection of pieces taken from various motion pictures & documentaries for which Cave and Ellis have composed and recorded music. Disc 1 has the big themes, the orchestra and the songs; disc 2 is fractured, haunting, and sometimes badly behaved."

VIC CHESNUTT At The Cut CD
*** "At The Cut picks up where North Star Deserter left off, settling into what is arguably the most intimate, pensive and heartbreaking work of Vic Chesnutt’s career with no parallel to date."

CLUSTER & ENO Cluster & Eno CD
*** "Recorded and released in 1977, the first collaborative album by Brian Eno and Cluster is considered a seminal, defining work -- Indian sitar and tamboura, to synth warbles and airy tributes to Western groove, it is a rare glimpse at what happens when masters meet."

GHOSTFACE KILLAH Ghostdini: Wizard Of Poetry CD
*** "Ghostface sprinkles his trademark wit and charm over signature sample-based grooves and modern R&B tracks." Featuring MARY J. BLIGE, MISSY ELLIOTT, NE-YO, JOHN LEGEND, RAEKWON, METHOD MAN and more.

GROUP DOUEH Guitar Music from the Western Sahara CD
*** "Raw and unfiltered Saharawi music from the former colonial Spanish outpost of the Western Sahara, influenced by Western music (Jimi Hendrix, James Brown). Distorted, loud and unhinged with an impressive display of virtuosity and style with two female vocalists singing poetry of the Hassania language."

ISLANDS Vapors CD
*** "Nick Diamonds' polymorphous pop band, Islands, is back with their third studio album, Vapours." Ex-UNICORNS.

NUDGE As Good As Gone CD
*** "Nudge returns with a slow burning full-length of sounds: layer upon layer of synth, guitar and vocals are draped over skeletal pop structures and anchored by dub basslines born of resin-stained fingers." On KRANKY.

ON Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night CD
*** "Steven Hess (PAN AMERICAN) and French composer/producer Sylvain Chauveau handed an album over to Helge Sten aka DEATHPROD resulting in a haunted and trembling work of dark ambient drone."

PANSONIC & HAINO KEIJI Shall I Download A Blackhole And Offer It To You CD
*** "The musical duel/last waltz between stand-up Finnish electronic technicians Pansonic and Japanese guitar shaman, Haino Keiji. Drone and percussive rumbling vs. soaring guitar scrawl in a tooth-and-nail cage match."

HOPE SANDOVAL & THE WARM INVENTIONS Through The Devil Softly CD
*** "The definitive star of the Paisley Underground scene reignites her trademark sound in an epic journey across the 11 song slowcore album with Sandoval's sensuous, hypnotic voice in the forefront."

OMAR SOULEYMAN Highway to Hassake: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria CD
*** "Souleyman is a Syrian musical legend with more than five-hundred studio and live-recorded cassette albums of classical Arabic mawal-style vocalization, high-octane Syrian dabke (the regional folkloric party music), Iraqi choubi and a host of Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish styles, among others. Often overdriven with phase-shifted Arabic keyboard solos and frantic rhythms, this collection offers a rare glimpse into Syrian street-level folk-pop and Dabke."

TO KILL A PETTY BOURGEOISIE Marlone CD
*** "Second album from a group exploring the union of the light and the dark, the sweetness of the female voice set against savory dissonance, searching for the fine balance between the calming and the equilibrium challenging." On KRANKY.

VOLCANO CHOIR Unmap CD
*** "The debut full-length from the collaboration between COLLECTIONS OF COLONIES OF BEES and Justin Vernon of BON IVER."

WHY? Eskimo Snow CD
*** "Eskimo Snow offers a sung, sobering take on mortality that unfurls in lush waves of Americana and pop-infused psych-folk. A shadowy and sprawling piece as intimate in subject matter as it is handsome in timbre."