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Eventually crowned Queen of the Norfolk Sound, Barbara Stant was just a teenager when she auditioned for Shiptown impresario Noah Biggs in 1970 A dozen sides were tracked throughout the decade, producing a body of work that stretched from deep soul to northern soul to sister funk By 1978 disco was in overdrive, Noah Biggs...
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Whatever sense of unity bound a hodgepodge of underground American punk sounds in the 1990s like a Duct-tape wallet began to come unglued by the end of the decade A couple years into the new millennium and the emo scene that once had enough space for a band as brazen in their fusion of slowcore, jazz, and post-hardcore as...
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From the most affordable studio on Chicago’s west side comes a document of unknown and remarkably eccentric soul music, all produced in late-night sessions after day jobs and family dinners had ended With little more than a Hammond organ, a piano, and a two-track tape machine, Gene Cash's one-room enterprise quickly became a...
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In the past it’s been called Terminus, The Gate City Of The South, Dogwood City, The City Too Busy To Hate, more recently The ATL, and always Hotlanta But despite also being called the Black Mecca, Atlanta produced a relatively small batch of black records Citizens of the greater metropolitan area can tell you about...
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A '70s homemaker stuck between the studio and a getting dinner on the table, Joyce Street eked out an arresting countrypolitan discography in the margins of an otherwise traditional American life With lyrics drawn from the pages of her diary, Street's stirring Mississippi warble led her into the fly-by-night world of custom...
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Meeting at the halfway point between Bleach and Damaged, Unwound's 1995 self-titled album arrived years after the original trio of Vern Rumsey, Justin Trosper, and Brandt Sandeno made their Avast Studios debut Compiling their EPs for Kill Rock Stars and Gravity Records with five more session outtakes, Unwound was released on...
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With no less than a mansion, a state beach, and a three-mile stretch of Los Angeles road bearing his surname, Ned Doheny easy-glided into the 1970s on a crest of notoriety Signposting Ned’s sojourn through the LA recording industry were Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Chaka Khan, Graham Nash, “Mama” Cass Elliot,...
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As progenitor and contemptuous poster boy for the music that came to be Cosmic American, Gram Parsons found himself mired in a recording career spent mostly in scouting the perimeters of chart success “He hated country-rock,” Parsons collaborator Emmylou Harris would later reflect “He thought that bands like the Eagles were...
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As the hippie movement hurtled towards its imminent demise, bad vibes infiltrated the rock world Tainted LSD, loud motorcycles, and a series of brutal deaths spawned inspiration for guitar-wielding teenagers across the globe Implementing deafening fuzz and satanic screams to create their proto-metal monstrosities, short-lived...
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The diminutive Peter Barclay was that guy in early ’90s Oakland, the eccentric with the most style, the most talent, the local magician This self-taught musical wizard recorded at home and produced two barely-released albums, 1990’s dreamlike Acceptance and 1992’s synth pop What Kind Of World, winning over the few who heard...
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The definitive collection of Laraaji's earliest works, Segue To Infinity compiles his 1978 debut Celestial Vibration and six additional side-long studio sessions from previously unknown acetates from the same period Numero Group are thrilled to announce Segue To Infinity, a 4-LP boxed set containing the earliest-known...
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After Belgian electro-samba wunderkinds Antena split at the end of 1985, singer Isabelle Antena immediately shed her cold wave crown for a sophisticated pop princess tiara On 1986’s Martin Hayles-produced En Cavale, echos of Madonna and city pop abound, with a lipstick stain of L80s Euro dance and spilled cosmopolitan’s worth...
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Dusty, down-home country folk by west coast troubadour Allan Wachs - impossible, or at least dead expensive, to pick up 2nd hand - all treated to Numero’s faithful remastering and reproduction values “Cosmic American Music from the far flung reaches of rural Oregon Issued in 1979 on Allan Wachs’ own True Vine imprint,...
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Rex’s seminal 1996 sophomore album C, now on deluxe double vinyl for the first time Every one of C’s 66 minutes is a delightful exploration at the intersection of slowcore and alt-country, weaving heartfelt Americana, stately strings, progged-out rhythms and crashingly heavy climaxes into captivating epics Remastered from...
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Underground rock festered and splintered as it spread through the US in the mid-’90s, the alternative boom giving rise to microcosmic regional scenes singularly focused on feral powerviolence or screamo songs about breakfast Boston’s Karate emerged as a force that could grip a national youth movement whose disparate tastes...
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Out of stockAfter a 19-year hiatus, Duster came back with their self-titled chef-d'oeuvre in 2019 Recorded in band member Clay Parton's garage (aka Low Earth Orbit), the record bears all the hallmarks of the band's early work: gaunt basslines, spindly guitars, and melancholy lyrics that lurk in the background Duster by...
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The bastard love child of Elvis and Lux Interior, Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira brewed a heady amalgam of ’50s trash rock, surf-y tremolo, and reverb-drenched goth during his all-too-brief 44 trips around the sun He recorded seven albums worth of material in 15 years, primarily issued on CD-R, most of which is now unreadable...
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Daddies don’t always come home for Christmas From the snow-covered plains of Wisconsin’s Driftless region to the palm-lined avenues of Los Angeles, the loneliness of the holidays is a universal theme, best expressed by tear-in-the-beer country music hopefuls Sung and strummed (and plucked) by an unlikely assortment of...
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Out of stock"You and Me” by Penny & the Quarters simply refused to stay lost For 40 years, the song sat silent in a box of reels before heartthrob Ryan Gosling selected it to star in 2010's indie weeper Blue Valentine The power of the track set off an international treasure hunt in pursuit of the mysterious artists behind it Since then,...
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Draped in a flag of patriotic shame, the Hated stormed onto the scene just as DC’s Revolution Summer was swerving out of control Channeling Bad Brains’ Black thrash and Hüsker Dü’s zen approach to hardcore, Dan Littleton, Erik Fisher, Colin Meeder, and Mike Bonner synthesized their own version of what became emo in 1985...
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It was a musical cocktail born in a marketing meeting: Two parts easy listening, one part jazz, a healthy dollop of conga drums, a sprinkling of bird calls, and a pinch of textless choir Serve garnished with an alluring female on the album jacket for best results Exotica! The soundtrack for a mythical air conditioned Eden,...
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Screaming suburban blues straight from the pages of HeartattaCk magazine, Current exploded out of the early-’90s Midwestern emo scene in a fit of DC hardcore-inspired rage Spread across three LPs, Yesterday’s Tomorrow Is Not Today compiles the quartet’s lone album, two EPs, split 7"s with Indian Summer and Chino Horde,...
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Out of stockAt the turn of the century and after three albums, Karate’s tenure within the insular east coast indie rock scene had expired, but the band was just getting started Collected here is the band’s spacious, adventurous, and sometimes difficult second half presented in fastidious detail This five LP box includes the trio’s...
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At the turn of the century and after three albums, Karate’s tenure within the insular east coast indie rock scene had expired, but the band was just getting started Collected here is the band’s spacious, adventurous, and sometimes difficult second half presented in fastidious detail This five LP box includes the trio’s...
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Feral art rock from the gritty depths of ’90s Manhattan Japanese-Italian guitar symphonies for 120 Minutes refugees and Keith Haring enthusiasts alike Blonde Redhead’s self-titled 1995 debut, in print as a definitive single LP for the first time since… ever “These songs combine a raw need, a ready access to neediness,...
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Among the rarest albums from Jim Kirchstein's Wisconsin-based Cuca label, 1964's Birdegs & Pauline runs a playful gamut of girl group soul, sultry R&B, bluesy torch songs, and junk shop doo-wop The Rockford, Illinois-based husband and wife duo struck gold with their Top 20 R&B hit "Spring" the year prior and frequently...
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Out of stockTheir third album in as many years, 1995’s The Future of What is an unrelenting, constructivist masterstroke The Olympia trio’s signature sound— grinding bass, syncopated drums, and fragmented guitar over measured yelps— ratchets past the thread into a strippedout metallic slurry Equal parts noise and adrenaline, the...
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Out of stockBasement Beehive - The Girl Group Underground Available here on Standard Double LP Amazing compilation Who do we become when we live our dreams It’s all here - the high hairdos, the dreams and schemes, the tender camp, the wedding bell fantasias and chaste tragedies Sister acts, studio receptionists, classmates, angelic...
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Gather your loved ones, Together is here Duster's fourth album is a 13-song exploration of comfortable, interplanetary goth A sonic vaseline of submerged guitars, solder-burned synths, and overdriven rhythm tracks "I know people say, 'Oh Duster music so sad, we've even said it ourselves before," Clay Parton said "But it's a lot...
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Their third and final album, 1998’s Transaction De Novo finds Bedhead destroying the sound it helped forge No longer concerned with loud and quiet, the quintet uses distortion at its leisure Tempos increase at will, chasing wave after wave with no break in sight Desert-dry guitars jangle along, nearly jaunty at times,...
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After the success of Codeine’s Frigid Stars LP, the trio of Stephen Immerwahr, John Engle, and Chris Brokaw booked time at Harold Dessau Recording in June 1992 to track an eight-song sophomore album A few days and a couple of unexplainable high-pitched frequencies later, the record was scrapped, shelved, and forgotten about...
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From a humble storefront studio located in a shoeshine parlor on Norfolk, Virginia’s Church Street, Noah Biggs built a world Hustler by day, gambler by night, the always-in-a-suit Biggs took a gaggle of off-brand singers and combined his connections and charisma to forge timeless soul music during a period of deep upheaval...
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San Jose’s sonic cure-all for the Y2K hangover that never materialized, Duster emerged from a cloud of lonely bong rips to take indie rock to the moon, and beyond Scotch-taped guitars toggle between a chorus of brittle winter trees and a blanket of distorted fuzz The low rumble of a cardboard box being kicked in a dead mall...
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Out of stockBorn of Harlem doo-wop roots and refined by Boston’s counterculture scene, Willie Wright arrived in Nantucket in 1976 well worn by two decades of street corner and club performing, eager to make the easy money only a private yacht clientele could guarantee Trapped on the island over winter, a set of original songs poured into...
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Out of stockAfter the Pacific Northwest grunge raids of the early ’90s that saw Nirvana, Mudhoney, and even the Melvins hoisted up the major label flagpole, Unwound’s 1993 debut came as a welcomed reprieve for underground noise-niks everywhere A pulsing cluster of wiry feedback, lurching bass, and single stroke rolls, Fake Train entangles...
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Out of stockAn album Maximum Rock 'N' Roll deemed not punk enough to review, Unwound’s 1994 sophomore effort was a lethal depth charge aimed at major label grunge and independent hardcore alike From the off-kilter, vertiginous rhythm of “Entirely Different Matters” to the neck-snapping velocity of “What Was Wound” to the relentless...
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From the dawn of doo-wop to the death of disco, the Notations saw—and sang—it all Persisting through changing trends and technologies, on major labels and minor ones, produced by both Syl Johnson and Curtis Mayfield, nothing could stop the Notations from representing Chicago’s Southside for decades The first overview of...
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Out of stockTwelve unstoppable deep funk burners from across the Numerosphere A smorgasbord of sounds from R&B’s dapper younger cousin Loose guitars and chunky drums lie in wait for discerning break-makers to finely chop and flip The only funk record you’ll ever need to...
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Ten Numero-minted, dance floor ready dive bombers from disco’s all-too-brief heyday, previously swept under rug by the whitewashed glitz and glam of the era Chugging grooves, bubbling synths, soaring strings, and sonorous voices are guaranteed to light up your night, on living room rugs and dance floors...
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San Jose’s sonic cure-all for the Y2K hangover that never materialized, Duster emerged from a cloud of lonely bong rips to take indie rock to the moon, and beyond Scotch-taped guitars toggle between a chorus of brittle winter trees and a blanket of distorted fuzz The low rumble of a cardboard box being kicked in a dead mall...
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Out of stockNot to be confused with English commercial funk outfit, Lou Ragland’s Hot Chocolate trio steamed out of the Cleveland scene in the early ’70s powered by their own recipe of groove-forward R&B Housed in a replica jacket showcasing Dick Dugan’s ubiquitous cartooning, Numero is proud to present the first American repressing...
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The last and most monumental chapter of Lou Ragland's Cleveland career Understand Each Other serves as a spiritual magnum opus of generations of soul luminaries from the Forest City The album opens with the socially conscious title track backed by the full force of the Cleveland Orchestra, gutting out a second place finish to...
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Karate's 1998 album The Bed Is The Ocean, via Numero Group "A lingering guitar note A cushion of a bassline nudging along a hushed cadence unspooling impressionistic poeticism one halting line at a time; the sparse snap of a snare providing punctuation This is how Boston’s Karate opened their third full-length, 1998’s The...
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Out of stockFrom the landlocked tropical savanna of Upper Volta, an ever-evolving cast of musicians brought the world’s rhythms to the streets of their native Bobo-Dioulasso Combining Congolese rhumba, American R&B, French yé-yé, Cuban son, and regional Senufo and Mandingo traditions, Orchestre Volta Jazz was at the epicenter of the...
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The ninth installment in Numero’s Cabinet of Curiosities is 100% chart smashes Culled from the depths of the private press, Super Hits gathers 12 magical adaptations from the Me Decade’s introspective songbook Pop this oversized 8-Track into your Fleetwood Weltron and enjoy a motley crew of lounge singers, wedding bands, synth...