End-of-year review 2021 – Top 50 Reissues

01.12.2021
Another year goes by, another list of visions of futures that have yet to become reality is being published. These 50 records from the past dreamed the loudest of a better tomorrow.
Akiko Yano
Ai Ga Nakucha Ne
Wewantsounds • 1982 • from 31.99€
To the review
More Australian jazz from the 1970s. Brian Brown and his quintet’s »Carlton Streets«, recently reissued by the Melbourne label The Roundtable, flouts at the standards — and falls squarely between Bobbi Humphrey and a loopy Hancock. Great stuff. Christoph Benkeser

Coil
Love's Secret Domain Black Vinyl Edition
Infinite Fog • 2021 • from 48.99€
Berlin-based label Altercat digs up gems from the past that don’t slip into YouTube recs by accident. Luckily. Otherwise, we probably would have never heard of Costa Blanca, a Spanish jazz-rock band from the late 1970s. The quartet produced an album, »Viaje A Prantia«, in 1977, but after that, they went into an indefinite hiatus. Christoph Benkeser

Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto
Cendre
Touch • 2007 • from 31.99€
»Tango 2000« is the less punky of the two albums recorded by the NDW band Nichts and even some forty years later sounds more witty than most contemporary (German) rock music. Jana-Maria Mayer

Nyssa Musique
Comme Au Moulin
Ici Bientot • 1985 • from 26.99€
If you liked Mort Garson’s music for plants, you also have to check out »Paradia« by Roland Bocquet, recently reissued by We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records. Christoph Benkeser

Seefeel
Succour (Redux)
Warp • 1995 • from 49.99€
Seefeel were an anomaly in 1990s electronic music. Their second album »Succour« was created without synthesizers and just a minimum of samples, yet eclipsed much of the IDM and ambient music their contemporaries were releasing on their label, Warp. Jens Pacholsky

Singing Dust
Singing Dust
Fresh Hold / Efficient Space • 2021 • from 21.99€
Robert Welsh blended jazz, but also traditional Indian music, folk, modern classical music, Miami-Vice-like synthesizers and drum machine preset rhythms in 1986. His work as Singing Dust remains outstanding in every sense of the word. Kristoffer Cornils

Stella Chiweshe
Ambuya!
Piranha • 2021 • from 23.39€
»Ambuya« by Zimbabwe-born Stella Chiweshe offers pure musical joie de vivre that and now — 33 1/3 years later — is finally available again on vinyl. If this one doesn’t turn your frown upside down, you must be legally dead. Christoph Benkeser

Sun Ra
Lanquidity
Strut • 1978 • from 27.99€
This is simply the reissue of the year. A classic, and an unusual one at that, since the centre of gravity of this jazz session led by Sun Ra is dominated by a fusion rather than free jazz approach. This new and sadly limited edition on Strut includes a complete alternative version of the album; an invitation to delve deeper into those worlds »they« have not told you about. Tim Caspar Boehme

The Humble Bee
A Miscellany For The Quiet Hours
Astral Industries • 2021 • from 25.99€
The Humble Bee’s »A Miscellany For The Quiet Hours« is a dub record at heart, but sounds like a corroded tape – mellow and dramatic at the same damn time. Pippo Kuhzart

New Age Steppers
The New Age Steppers
On-U Sound • 1980 • from 36.99€
In the early ’80s, producer Adrian Sherwood founded The New Age Steppers, which combined post-punk and reggae. The result was a record so tripped-out, it provided the blueprint for Rhythm & Sound’s entire career. Christoph Benkeser

The Same
Sync Or Swim
Freedom To Spend • 2021 • from 23.99€
To the review
Collages with tapes, cut together from various instruments, repetitive patterns, occasionally percussive, some synthesizer and guitar sounds:Released in 1981 on his own micro-label, the music by The Same, a project by the Brit Robert Cox, later active as Rimarimba, is now ripe for discovery. Tim Caspar Boehme

Trip Shrubb
Trewwer, Leud Un Danz
Faitiche • 2021 • from 19.99€
To the review
The Folkways catalog served as the starting point for these remixes by Trip Shrubb, but the only thing these 13 selected tracks on »Trewwer, Leud Un Danz« have in common with folk is a crude sense of longing. Essentially, this is dub techno, just without the techno, and dub not from Jamaica. Florian Aigner

Tülay German & Francois Rabbath
Tülay German & Francois Rabbath
Zehra • 1980 • from 17.59€
To the review
Anadolu pop pioneer Tülay German and double bassist François Rabbath went down a very different in 1980 with their collaborative album, carefully rearranging folkloristic forms, and combining expressive vocals and sparse instrumentation. The result was nothing short of timeless. Kristoffer Cornils

Ultramagnetic MC's
Critical Beatdown Black Vinyl Edition
Music On Vinyl • 2021 • from 34.99€
1988 is considered by many hip hop historians to be the beginning of the golden age and the year that produced the most genre classics. Among the most groundbreaking albums from that year is without a doubt »Critical Beatdown« by Ultramagnetic MC’s. More than 30 years after its first release, this rap classic is now available for the first time on double vinyl, remastered and accompanied by liner notes and rare photos by Janette Beckman. Benjamin Mächler

Uman
Chaleur Humaine
Freedom To Spend • 2021 • from 26.99€
To the review
»Chaleur Humaine« by French duo Uman – siblings Danielle and Didier Jean – could easily be considered a harbinger of contemporary society’s hyperpop-ification, but is nonetheless incredibly laid back. No wonder a label like RVNG Intl. would make it available again. Christoph Benkeser

Vinicio Adames
Al Comienzo Del Camino
Trueclass • 1985 • from 28.99€
To the review
The Venezuelan Vinicio Adames’ debut album, out of print for many years, is intoxicatingly delightful and its reissue a stroke of luck. Here’s where Robert Görl meets Robert Wyatt for a drink while Momus drives by on a moped… Lars Fleischmann

White Light / Jo Bogaert
Whale
Stroom • 2021 • from 20.99€
A few years before Jo Bogaert started Technotronic, he played in a band called White Light in his Belgian home town Aalst. Two songs and two more solo songs were reissued this year on ~STROOM as an EP. Especially »I Want You To Know Me« is a hit, one of those songs which you wonder how life could have been possible without it before. Sebastian Hinz