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Special Announcement
Wednesday, July 18: Other Music Digital Presents The Field
This is one night that we’re especially excited about! Next Wednesday, July 18, Other Music is throwing a party at Studio B to celebrate the launch of our new mp3 download store with The Field (Kompakt) headlining! Other special guests include Kate Simko (Traum, Kupei, Spectral) and DJs Brian DeGraw (Gang Gang Dance) and Scott Mou (Other Music). See you next week!!!
Studio B: 259 Banker Street Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$10 adv tix available at Other Music / $12 day of show
This Week's Featured Downloads
Trojan Records: 40 Years, 40 Tracks
Various
Trojan
$14.99
Listen & Buy
Originally launched by Island Records as a vehicle for Duke Reid’s productions, Trojan Records (and a slew of sub-labels) soon became home base for the best and brightest in the exploding Jamaican music scene. The imprint was instrumental in bringing that local scene to an international audience, with U.K. charting hits in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s from the Upsetters, Tony Tribe, Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, Toots and the Maytals, and Ansel Collins to name a few. The label was also an early supporter of genre-defining artists like Horace Andy, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Lee Perry, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, John Holt, Augustus Pablo, Linval Thompson, Black Uhuru and many, many more. Collectors of Jamaican music of the period know that in the heyday of that scene there were nearly as many labels as there were artists, with new imprints popping up almost daily, but there is no entity more closely entwined with the birth of reggae (from ska and rocksteady and up through modern dancehall) than Trojan.
Forty years on, Trojan Records has been preserving the legacy of the label and of this seminal Jamaican music with a seemingly endless series of reissues, both of original artists’ albums repackaged and expanded, like the stellar newly remastered Lee Perry Ape-ology release collecting three classic Perry albums (Super Ape, Return of the Super Ape, and Roast Fish, Collie Weed and Cornbread) in one great package, Jimmy Cliff’s sublime 1969 self-titled Trojan debut, the Maytals hit-filled 1970 classic Monkey Man, or I Roy’s 1973 debut Gussie Presenting I Roy, as well as thrilling compilations. In Jamaica, reggae was always a singles market, and even at its inception some of Trojan’s most popular releases were various artists comps, like the great Tighten Up series. Besides excellent artist overviews such as Augustus Pablo’s Skanking with Pablo: Melodica for Hire 1971-1977 or Big Youth’s Ride Like Lightning collection, the label has continued to release wonderful various artist comps, either curated by known selectors like on 2003’s Don Letts presents the Mighty Trojan Sound, or with their unbelievable triple-disc genre series dissecting the minute sub-sections of the reggae underground, like the percussion-heavy Trojan Nyahbinghi Box Set, the excellent collection of reggae soul covers on Trojan Soulful Reggae Box Set, or the brand-new X-rated Trojan Slack Reggae Box Set, and so many more.
Any and all of these records are worth exploring, and both in the shop and online they are consistently some of our best selling catalog releases. But in celebration of Trojan’s 40 glorious years, the label has released a great new 40-track overview of the label’s history that we are featuring today, with all-time classics from the Freedom Singers, Delroy Wilson, Junior Delgado, Marcia Griffiths, and so many more, including most of the artists mentioned above. Take a pause and take a listen, some tracks you will know and some are destined to become new favorites. We can’t think of a better way to celebrate the hot summer than with some cool reggae from the greatest label of the genre. Happy birthday Trojan Records, from Other Music!!!
-Josh Madell
Stars
In Our Bedroom After the War
Arts & Crafts
$9.99
Listen & Buy
JUST IN! Stars new full-length doesn’t see release in the physical world until September 25th, but the band is offering the download version now, just days after getting the master back from the studio. In Our Bedroom After the War is another fine release from the group, who effortlessly fuse the influences of baroque, international and '80s pop, and add a little soulful modern sheen, to create a sound that's very much their own.
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