My Favourite Reissues of 2023

Here's a list of fifteen of my favourite reissues from the year that has almost been.

Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.

Over the last decade, a big part of my bread and butter has been writing about reissues of interesting records from the 1970s-1980s (and increasingly the 1990s). Initially, this all started with articles for websites like the now-defunct The 405 and Dazed before later expanding to include outlets like Bandcamp Daily, Wax Poetics and Audio Culture.

In more recent years, however, this process has morphed into working with labels such as Glossy Mistakes, Frederiksberg Records, Lo Recordings, Gazebo, Studio Mule, and Soundway Recordings to help put together reissue projects. Things change, and things remain the same. Anyway, here’s a list of fifteen reissues I’ve enjoyed spending time with over the last twelve months.

Dream Dolphin, Gaia: Selected Ambient & Downtempo Works (1996-2003)

Co-compiled by Music From Memory and Eiji Taniguchi, Gaia: Selected Ambient & Downtempo Works (1996-2003) collects some of the best tracks from the twenty projects of Japanese musician Noriko Kodera, aka Dream Dolphin, recorded between 1996 and 2003. Running the full gamut of ambient, IDM, techno, trance, and drum & bass, Dream Dolphin makes her stylistically diverse soundworld singular by sprinkling naturalistic sounds and spoken word vocals through her oeuvre.

Emeralds, Does It Look Like I’m Here? (Expanded Remaster)

In the late 2000s/early 2010s, Emeralds, the Cleveland, Ohio-based super-synth music trio of John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire, were on a tear, dropping limited-run cassettes, CD-Rs, and vinyl releases that were beloved by the D.I.Y concert scene and the blogosphere in equal measure.

Viewed retrospectively, many agree that their third album, 2010’s Does It Look Like I’m Here? was Emeralds’ watershed moment. Thirteen years on, Ghostly International’s expanded remaster reissue of this now-classic work only serves to reassert how exciting and vibrant the album was. You’re gonna want to listen to this one loud.

Genji Sawai, Sowaka

Mikey IG Jones put me onto Sowaka around the same time I wrote about Midori Takada, Through The Looking Glass and YouTube Autoplay for Dazed, and I spent the next few years thrashing some of these tracks in my DJ sets. In 1984, the great American sound explorer Bill Laswell travelled to Tokyo to record with the Japanese saxophonist Genji Sawai and a cast of collaborators that included Michael Beinhorn and the aforementioned Takada. The result was the absolutely bonkers fusion of J-jazz, electro, no-wave, folk and world music that they fashioned via the use of some very oblique creative strategies. When Glossy Mistakes reissued Sowaka this year, I was overjoyed. Amazing work, Mario.

Hiroshi Yoshimura, Surround

Most ambient/kankyo ongaku heads have long known Yoshimura-san’s Green and Music For Nine Post Cards albums, but as we found out this year, 1986’s Surround was the environmental music album that almost got away. Commissioned by the home building company Misawa Homes, Surround was intended to function as an “amenity” designed to enhance the company’s newly built living spaces.

So spectral it almost isn’t there; the album’s true power is emblematic of Brian Eno’s vision of ambient music as a subtle sonic tint that could change the whole atmosphere of a room with effortless ease.

Laraaji, Segue To Infinity

During the pandemic, I was granted an audience with the great American musician, mystic and laughter-meditation practitioner Edward Larry Gordon, aka Laraaji, to interview him for Test Pressing. I say “audience” because the experience genuinely felt more like spending time with an oracle than any interview I’ve ever conducted before.

Released through Numero Group, Segue To Infinity compiles Laraaji’s 1978 debut Celestial Vibration and six additional side-long studio sessions recorded off previously unknown acetates from the same period. It’s a stone-cold introduction to a man who uses the piano, zither, and mbira to express melodies that encapsulate the never-ending flow and the eternal now. He’s also one of the funniest people I’ve ever talked to. Get you a mystic who can do both.

Peter Barclay, I’m Not Your Toy

When I wrote about this collection for Dazed, I described it as “A corrective compilation that pays homage to the musical genius of Peter Barclay.” A bedroom music dreamer who passed away in the late 90s during the AIDS epidemic, Barclay created queer anthems for an alternative reality where good always triumphs over evil. Bringing together the best qualities from boogie, synth-pop, lounge music and smooth synth-jazz – even bossa nova – the songs on I’m Not Your Toy have a timeless feeling. 33 years on, they don’t even feel a day late.

Roger Bekono, Self-Titled

Roger Bekono was one of the most important musicians in Cameroon in the 1980s. When the bikutsi (beat the earth) style emerged out of Yaoundé, he helped give it an international appeal, singing joyfully over an uptempo big city life updating of the genre. Released through Awesome Tapes From Africa, this concise LP collects four bikutsi classics from his golden streaks in the 1980s and 1990s. Vibrant, life-affirming, revitalising stuff, I could say more, and more; and more.

Satoshi Suzuki (鈴木慧), Distant Travel Companion (​遠​い​旅​の​同​行​者​)

Released through Incidental Music, the Distant Travel Companion (​遠​い​旅​の​同​行​者​) compilation tells the story of the until-recently-little-known 1980s D.I.Y Japanese musician artist Satoshi Suzuki (鈴木慧), who once codified his musical practice as consisting of 40% Jazz, 30% Soul, 20% Brazil, and 10% Kayokyoku - a musical mixture not too far off from what is now referred to as City Pop.

In a review of Distant Travel Companion (​遠​い​旅​の​同​行​者​) for Resident Advisor, Shy Thompson noted that beyond being the tale of one man, the compilation was “A microcosm of Tokyo's complex landscape, showing just one possible permutation of the countless global influences that rippled throughout the city.” It’s an assessment I thoroughly agree with, but I also just want to add one point: for my money, Distant Travel Companion ( 遠 い 旅 の 同 行 者 ) sounds like some of the coolest side-scrolling video game music I’ve ever heard in my life.

Shinsuke Honda, Silence

When I wrote about Silence for Studio Mule, I said: “Honda-san’s contemplative guitar instrumentals tint the air with nostalgia, longing and a gentle sadness at the impermanence of all things, transporting the listener to an eternal sunset of the mind.” Simply put, this album is an essential desert island disc for lovers of ECM contemporary jazz, steel-string blues and balearic guitar bliss.

Steve Weichert, Self-Titled

Rendered in a style equal parts folk, soul, country, jazz, psych, and lounge, which Steve described as “Oklahoma Bossa Nova”, Steve Weichert and The Five Dollar Band’s self-titled debut album unfolds like a series of summertime daydreams about young love, loss, reflection, and the land. Expect a deep sense of yearning intertwined with sunkissed guitar figures, sometimes accompanied by cello, harp, harmonica, electric piano and shakers, sometimes stripped bare, but always arranged in service of the spirit of the song by a late, unsung Austin/Oklahoma great.

The Particles, 1980s Bubblegum

As Tim Sendra put it for AllMusic, “Though they may not be known to any but the most dedicated fan of far-flung post-punk, during the early '80s Australian group the Particles were making music that in retrospect is, along with bands like Dolly Mixture and the Television Personalities, one of the missing links between punk and indie pop.” Long story short, if any of that resonates with you, you’re gonna want to listen to the Chapter Music released 1980s Bubblegum compilation album.

Various Artists, Gonzo Goa - Party Music 87’- 94'

My esteemed Test Pressing colleague Piers Harrison described ‘Gonzo Goa - Party Music 87’- 94'’ as “a snapshot of a wild and fertile time in underground electronic music” when “a stone was thrown in the pond, and we're still feeling the ripples today.”

Basically, it’s more or less what the name suggests, a collection of bug-eyed party music from the late 1980s/early 1990s Goa scene, as explored by the Transmigration and Sound Metaphors labels and the author and DJ Ray Castle, who kindly opened up his archives for the project.

Gonzo Goa - Party Music 87’- 94' is a story of a time when deep-digging and enterprising DJs combined new beat, progressive house, acid house, and post-punk into a ritual that began at midnight and progressed well into daylight.

Various Artists, Searchlight Moonbeam

Searchlight Moonbeam is the latest narrative compilation from London-based NTS Radio duo Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney). Following on from Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022, Searchlight Moonbeam brings together a very special set of songs.

In the words of Apiento from Test Pressing: “The music held within this compilation is a slow burn... But like most slow burns, these are the things you really learn to love and keep close to you for a long time.” I couldn’t agree any more.

Various Artists, The NID Tapes: Electronic Music from India 1969​-​1972

Wait, a collection of electronic music compositions recorded at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India, between 1969 and 1972? Sounds interesting, right? For my money, The NID Tapes: Electronic Music from India 1969​-​1972, curated by the British artist and electronic musician Paul Purgas, is hands-down the most important archival release of the year.

As Joshua Minsoo Kim observed in his recent review of the collection for Pitchfork, “The NID Tapes directly challenges Western conceptions of Indian culture. Three years after the Beatles drew from Indian classical music for Revolver, an architecture student named Jinraj Joshipura looked not to old musical forms but to the next century, composing science-fiction pieces inspired by James Bond flicks and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Wally Badarou, Colours of Silence

Originally recorded in 2001 as soundtrack music for one of Island Records founder Chris Blackwell's friend Nathalie Delon’s yoga DVDs, Colors Of Silence has been quietly loved by Balearic heads for over two decades. On the surface, a new age album, Wally Badarou’s sophi synth swirls and emotive keyboard figures ripple with character and life, in the process moving beyond genre.

On reissue, Be With Records cited some reference points as “A.r.t. Wilson or Suzanne Kraft, with traces of CFCF and Jonny Nash. But it was made a good decade earlier than the work of these modern giants.”

FIN.