For Christmas I got a new record player: The Numark TTUSB.
Yes, it's a cheap new USB turntable, but it does the trick and it was
available dirt cheap from Amazon. I consider it to be a stopgap until I can track down a nicer turntable, whenever that may or may not be. I'm also looking forward to putting it's digitization capabilities (including the 1/8" input to USB support) to good use.
In celebration of the new record player, I finally got around to borrowing a camera and took some fairly dodgy pics of my latest acquisitions. First off, a couple of albums I snagged earlier in the year:
I freely admit that I was compelled to buy
Sidiku Buari's Disco Soccer for the awesome cover. (I figured I'd best do a bit of censoring just to keep it on the safe side; you can see the NSFW original
here.) Cover aside, I was also psyched to hear the combination of disco sounds and Ghana grooves, and while the results were a lot heavier on the disco than I expected I'm definitely not complaining.
Speaking of awesome covers:
It took a bit of doing to track down the Wax Poetics double-LP reissue of
the Lyman Woodard Organization's Saturday Night Special, but thankfully I was able to find it available via
discogs.com from a local seller who allowed me to drop by and pick it up rather than go through shipping. At any rate, the music here is fantastic in a funky soul jazz sort of way.
Meanwhile, each and every
People's Potential Unlimited release continues to kick ass. Here's some of their latest:
When you're rescuing cassette tape demos it's not exactly audiophile material, but I'm still digging the hell out of
Tri-Fire Volume One, releasing rare material from the founders of the Midnight Express Show Band. But, the synth funk shines through and there's a nice insert in the PPU fashion.
There are also a couple of new 45 releases available from People's Potential. First off,
4 Reel's "One Life To Live"/"Oh Lover" has been lovingly resurrected from private label obscurity. Then there's
"Love Junky" by Dr. Otto Gomez(!), which is as awesome as it sounds.
I decided that I needed a couple of records to go along with the player under the tree, so these were waiting for me on Christmas morning:
The celebrated Mulatu Astatke's 1972 album
Mulatu of Ethiopia was quietly gathering dust at my local record shop. It's a nice 180 gram reissue featuring that awesome Ethiopiques sound.
The same shop has been stocking some recent Honest Jons albums compiled from their raids on the EMI archives, including
The World is Shaking: Cubanismo From The Congo 1954-55. It's a terrific document of the infusion of jazz, Latin, and European pop music into the traditional Congolese sound, with plenty of tunes spread out over two LPs, with detailed liner notes to put it all into perspective.
I'll be heading back to the shop for some more Honest Jons action after I've had some time to absorb this round.
Finally, I couldn't resist grabbing at least a couple of albums from the newly remastered and reissued Kraftwerk discography.
Each album came in a cover sleeve, with the original vinyl artwork inside, along with a full-sized booklet of pictures to admire while enjoying the pioneering music. I'd be happy to have the entire catalog, but the two I most wanted were
Autobahn...
...and
Radio-Activity.
And there you have it. Hurrah for Kraftwerk! Hurrah for vinyl!
FnordChan
