The hind of 2023—our thirteenth year as a label—is nearly behind us, and herein lies its final Paradisiacal dispatch. Our tenth annual Krampus Day Sale is live! Through December 13, get 25% off (almost) anything in our webstore or Bandcamp with coupon code KRAMPUS.
We’re sorry to share the sad news that our friend Chance Martin passed away last night. We’re grateful to Chance (aka Alamo Jones, the Voice in Black aka the Stoned Ranger) for collaborating with us to reissue his utterly unique 1981 private-press countrydelic masterpiece In Search in 2013. It was our seventh release, and one of the first in which we went all-in with extensive liner notes, archival materials, and an unbelievable oral history.
Setting’s mesmerizing, meditative new album Shone a Rainbow Light On is finally here—shipping, in shops, and streaming worldwide. Early critical acclaim includes a 9/10 review by Uncut and a 4/5 review by MOJO, who call it “heavenly.” We agree wholeheartedly. Step into the pocosin.
Rocket Summer Sale (25% off) + the first of our unearthed archival clips of Roxy Gordon.
Discover Setting, a trio comprising Nathan Bowles on strings, keys, and percussion; Jaime Fennelly on harmoniums, synthesizers, and piano zither; and Joe Westerlund on drums, percussion, and metallophones. Shone a Rainbow Light On” sounds like a UFO sinking into a peat bog.
It’s Rocket Summer! The Wire calls Life and Death in Paradise “a fascinating album,” and we agree, twofold, of these utterly unique records by ageless octogenarian genius Mike Cooper, in shops and streaming worldwide today. This project has been in the works for nearly a decade, and we are thrilled finally to present it. Read on for links, an unboxing video, and critical praise.
Hear “Critical Incidents,” the newest single from Mike Cooper, ahead of “Life and Death in Paradise” + “Milan Live Acoustic 2018” releases.
“Everything exists and everything will happen and everything is alive and everything is planned and everything is a mystery, and everything is dangerous, and everything is a mirage, and everything touches everything, and everything is everything, and everything is very, very strange.”
— Roxy Gordon, text inscribed on a painting (1988)
Everything is very, very strange. All you have to do is listen.
Mike Cooper wrote his final songwriter record, a suite of gloaming glam-rock anthems performed with a spiritual jazz trio, while living on the Costa Tropical of Granada, Spain, an era when he was considering retiring from music altogether. A chance encounter and a last-ditch record deal convinced him to make one last album, which he recorded in 1974 at Pathway Studios in London, with “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World,” featuring the inventive South African jazz rhythm section of Louis Moholo and Harry Miller with UK saxophonist Mike Osborne.
This first-ever reissue includes a bonus CD of Milan Live Acoustic 2018, a previously unreleased solo set that represents Cooper’s return, after forty-four years pursuing free improvisation and electronics, to a new, deconstructed approach to singing, steel guitar, and songcraft.
Today we’re delighted to share the second single from our forthcoming reissue of Roxy Gordon’s Crazy Horse Never Died: “An Open Letter to Illegal Aliens.”
