Author – Azrael Abyss

This is the Flying Burrito Bros. record your mother warned you about.

For the most part this is an average to below average youth choir/band lp. However, there is a flash of brilliance in their version of “Summer Breeze” – which is absolutely delightful! Reminds me of something off one of those Langley School lp’s. I’d like to tell you more about this record, but liner notes […]

Private press Free Jazz lp from Bennington University in Vermont by Trumpeter Art Brooks. What originally got my attention when I dug this up in a local antique shop was that the liner notes were written by Bill Dixon, and that Brooks dedicates the lp to his teachers – Dixon, Cecil Taylor, and Milford Graves. […]

This is a recording of a concert by Robert Rutman and his steel cello’s recorded sometime in the late 70’s at a New York Art Gallery. If you are unfamiliar with the Steel Cello Ensemble, it’s basically a few people playing large sheets of metal which produce totally amazing, spooky, droning outer-space sounds. Very much […]

I suppose that Pygmies, being so naturally small, have a bit of a head start when it come to “getting down”. Bad jokes aside, this is a pretty amazing record. The ambiance is just awesome and on many tracks the jungle is as much a part of the music as the Pygmies. It is a […]

9.7 out of 10 people would probably find it completely unlistenable, but in 10 years of collecting records this is perhaps the most fascinating lp I’ve found.

I was finding this record all over the place when I first moved to the bay area. I like it, but I once enthusiastically sent a copy to my friend Daniel and he told me he was unable to listen to it because the cover frightened him. I guess it’s not for everyone. Swami guy […]

This is the kind of record that brings joy to my life and reminds me of why I got into collecting oddball records in the first place. It’s a local bay area lp from the early 80’s of a guy who, just as the name implies, recorded the sounds of cable cars. Side A is […]

One of those records that keyboard companies used to fund to show off their new gear – in this case the Yamaha “Electone E-70”. This one is actually quite a fun listen if, like me, your idea of a good time is video-game-core versions of pop songs of the late 70’s. There is a pretty […]

While there are plenty of examples of “why on earth wasn’t a record company interested in this?!?!” in the world of private press records, this is not one of them. Alexander “Chief” Longrifle is pretty much a textbook example of an artist who’s music would never have made it into the few homes it did […]

Fairly rare private press lp from Sacramento, CA (I think) by jazz vocalist/pianist Primo Kim. A good deal of this lp is quiet vocal stuff which didn’t really do much for me, but there are a couple of decent Bossa-y tracks. What really makes this worthy of note however is a good funky jazz instrumental […]

Howard Wales is probably best known for his association with the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia. But, he also stepped quite firmly on the terra firma of jazz funk via his playing on “Music of El Topo”, and with this private solo lp from 1976. The track that quite deservedly gets attention here is “Karnaval” […]

More than just a weird cover, as Mr. Allen seems to have actually been a pretty weird man.

Private press hippie commune stuff by guru dude Bhagavan Das. Unfortunately, three fourths of this double lp is the clan “getting their Om on” which I find somewhat less than compelling. I believe it is an honest and respectful attempt at traditional Indian music but it really does not work very well as far as […]

An early “Sitar-sploitation” record on Deram from 1966 which has much more of an MOR pop sound that stuff like Ananda Shankar which would come later. There are two originals on here that are in a Raga sort of mode, but it’s mostly comprised of pop covers of the day. The Sitar is superimposed over […]

I really just don’t know what to think about this one…

Asian Elvis dude smiles pretty for the camera. Great version of Little Richard’s “Lucille”. I honestly can’t tell if he’s singing it in broken english, or Japanese, or both.

This cover really gives me the creeps.

Pretty amazing lp on a tiny label called “Wim” outta Los Angeles. Robert Kraft conducts, but the album is credited to Ervin as she is the featured soloist on all tracks. The whole lp is quite good as an Avant Garde Percussion record, but the tracks that really set this apart are two spoken word […]

The menace of LSD on wax! One side is called “the Trip” and it consists of people talking about their personal experiences on acid. The best being a guy who they actually tape recorded having a bad trip. There is about 5 minutes or so of this dude just freaking out, all by himself, in […]

I try not to get too carried away with featuring records that I have never owned, but I will probably never ever ever own this one, so whatever. If knowing that I do not actually own an original pressing of this hinders your enjoyment of reading about it on the internet may I suggest you […]

Along with the early Fahey stuff, the first few Basho lp’s are probably pretty much ground zero for the “modern” sound of the solo acoustic steel string guitar music that would become popular on through the 70’s. This is Basho’s first record, and one of the first non-Fahey releases on Fahey’s Takoma label. Much more […]

Apparently this dude Heller owned an ad agency and did jingles and stuff, and some of the more tepid tracks on here have a corny sort of jingle feel to them. But, the hot tracks fall somewhere between Dick Hyman’s Moog experiments & “soft psych” like Free Design. It took me a couple of times […]

Elven harp lady who, according to the back cover of this LP, was given “a harp and the courage to make her music her way” by Bobby Brown (the hippie of private press fame, not the crackhead of Whitney Houston fame). I suppose a woman of lesser stuff might not take advice from a one-man-band […]

Another one I don’t have. I cry.