Part one of the TVD Record Store Club’s look at the new and reissued releases presently in stores for December 2021.
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Beauty Pill, “Instant Night” (Northern Spy) The title track of this 4-song EP came out digitally last year. In his notes accompanying this physical expansion (clear vinyl in a transparent plastic sleeve and a clear CD with a silver center in a transparent jewel case), Beauty Pill’s singer-guitarist-producer-chief songwriter Chad Clark describes the song’s political-protest genesis, it’s poetical (rather than polemical) sensibility, and it’s unexpectedly quick finish via socially distanced recording (on a rooftop), so that the cut was rush released by Northern Spy in hopes of inspiring citizens to vote in the Presidential election in November of 2020. The track is also noteworthy for its lack of drums and for highlighting Beauty Pill’s woodwind quartet. Clark says it sounds like Phillip Glass music, which is detectable but not blatantly. The main thing is that the song is built to last rather than carrying the rapid-fire datedness of so much political music. The drums roll back into the picture on the other cuts, and the horns stick around for the swank “You Need a Better Mind,” which gets a nifty remix. A-
Robert Ashley, eL / Aficionado (2021) (Lovely Music, Ltd.) Per the title, this is a 2021 recording of an opera by the late avant-gardist Ashley, a work that premiered in 1987 with many performances following over the next seven years and a prior recording released by Lovely Music in ’94. Until October 21-23 of this year at Roulette in NYC, the opera was last performed in 1995. This CD, released on 10/22, features the cast of the 2021 production, with mezzo soprano Kayleigh Butcher stepping into the role formerly played by baritone Thomas Buckner. eL / Aficionado offers a series of conversations between an “agent” (Butcher) and her three interrogators (Brian McCorkle, Interrogator No. 1; Bonnie Lander, Interrogator No. 2; Paul Pinto, Interrogator No. 3). Espionage and intrigue are essential components in the work, but Ashley’s intent wasn’t to construct a spy story, not even a post-modern/ nonlinear example of such. Instead, the unwinding complexity seems focused upon the friction between public personas and private-inner lives. Tom Hamilton’s orchestration, recording, and mixing are essential. A-
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: Robert Ashley, Foreign Experiences (Lovely Music, Ltd.) For this 1995 recording of Foreign Experiences, an opera that’s part of Ashley’s early 1990s tetralogy, with Perfect Lives and Atalanta (Acts of God) to follow, Sam Ashley is Don and Jacqueline Humbert is Linda, characters familiar from Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), which preceded Foreign Experiences in said tetralogy, first recorded for Nonesuch in 1991 (a new recording of Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) was released on CD in 2019 by Lovely Music, featuring a new group dedicated to realizing Ashley’s work). For this release of Foreign Experiences, the ensemble consists of Robert Ashley himself along with Thomas Buckner, Margareta Cordero, Joan La Barbara, and Amy X Neuburg, this group having interpreted Ashley’s work from 1992-2012. Here, they are recorded by Tom Hamilton and Cas Boumans, with the release mixed and edited by Hamilton. Even at this relatively early point, the “band” is in prime form, and the prose is some of Ashley’s very greatest. He was an absolute master of language. A+
Calvin Keys, Proceed With Caution (Black Jazz – Real Gone) Keys got his start in the ’60s backing up a slew of soul jazz organ heavyweights, and on Shawn-Neeq, his debut as leader from 1971 (reissued early in 2021 as part of Real Gone’s Black Jazz reissue program and already sold out at the source), it’s not hard to tell, as he has a crisp, lithe, clean approach that’s occasionally reminiscent of Grant Green. Keys notably nixed the organ for Shawn-Neeq, electing instead for the electric piano of Larry Nash, a decision retained for Proceed With Caution, though the pianist this time is Kirk Lightsey. Those allergic to Fusion need read no further, but ears open to the style should understand that while Shawn-Neeq is a solid effort, its follow-up is an all-around improvement; the scope is broader both instrumentally and compositionally, there’s plenty of heat and edge, and nary a trace of smoothness. The year was 1974. Had this been released by one of the major labels in the mid-’70s, say Columbia or Warner Brothers, my guess is it would be perennially in print rather than getting its first-time vinyl reissue in 2021. A–
Paris, FR | Paris 18th: the Dizonord record store organizes a large vinyl clearance sale in a loft: Notice to all diggers and vinyl hunters, a rather exceptional event will take place on the weekends of December 4 and 12. Dizonord, record store emeritus of the 18th arrondissement, organizes with the distributor Topplers a large clearance sale of 50,000 vinyl records of electronic music at declining prices. …The place was still kept secret until now. Finally, a loft close to the store was chosen to host this great event. Specialist in experimental music, the northern Parisian record store Dizonord celebrates all musical genres, even those you have probably never heard of before. Suffice to say that we can find nuggets among the tens of thousands of records put on sale for the occasion. And for once, we can combine 
New York, NY | NYC’s First-Ever Vinyl Record Craft Beer Bar Survives Pandemic and Readies for Expansion: Who would have thought a business that combined craft beers and vinyl records would be a winning concept? It’s been working for NYC-based Chris Maestro, who opened BierWax in late 2017 in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. And now, having survived the pandemic, he is opening a second location in the borough of Queens. BierWax was on a business boom just before the pandemic. The business was turning a profit right before the pandemic, making about half a million dollars a year, The Gothamist reported. The 45-year-old former city public school teacher combined two of his passions: 
Seattle, WA | Meet the record store aspiring to be the U-District’s newest creative space: In January, vinyl collector and business owner Ken Tomkins moved into a space on the north end of the Ave that would soon become Seattle Records, a store specializing in vinyl and multilingual books. With only a fraction of students living on campus during the 2020-21 school year and the continued digitization of so many aspects of life, businesses in the U-District were hurting. However, aided by the recent vinyl revival and a massive collection of inventory, Tomkins took to the Ave in search of a space that would spur community gathering. Prior to opening the storefront, Tomkins sold records and books online via e-commerce sites like Amazon. Among his concerns were the isolation and high fees associated with online sales. After six years, Tomkins made the transition to a physical store, hoping to create a space that could serve as a meeting place instead of just a retail shop. “It’s good to have physical places,” Tomkins said. “
Melbourne, AU | Soundmerch launches record store in Melbourne: Independent Australian music merchandise company Soundmerch has launched a new record and merchandise store in Melbourne. Open now, the store can be found on Oxford St, Collingwood and is open every day. The store is set to host in-house performances, exclusive merchandise drops, album signings and more. …“When Covid hit…..touring died off, and we found a massive increase with our online sales. The business flipped on its head overnight,” he said. “The online store went insane and became the main part of what we do. Artists were pushing their merch online, for many it became their main source of income. We were the facilitator between bands and their fans. “Previously we were all about the production of merch for touring. Then it turned and was all about the production of merch for online. With that came a massive uptake and demand for vinyl records. So we started stocking more and more titles. To the point where we could (and did) open 
