DIRE STRAITS

By the mid-'80s Dire Straits were a platinum band dismissed in their native England as safe, yuppie rockers, yet the original quartet's lean, guitar-driven music struggled to find a label home when first recorded in 1978. Mark Knopfler offers craggy vocals, literate blues-based songs, and sinuous, virtuosic guitar work. He melds keening solo lines and rapidly picked fills and dodges the synth washes and postpunk power chords of then-competing new wavers; he relies on atmosphere, character, and pure musicianship intead of heavy irony or pop fashion. "Sultans of Swing," codifies this stance, a galloping paean to aging jazz musicians playing for the sheer love of the music. This became a major hit and has endured as a radio classic. The album itself has proven equally sturdy thanks to cinematic imagery and the tightly wound arrangements of "Down to the Waterline," "Six Blade Knife," and "Water of Love."

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG

Vinyl Disc:VG
Insert:Picture/Lyrics jacket sleeve
Label & Pressing:1978 Warner Bros/USA
Price: SOLD

LED ZEPPELIN III

Led Zeppelin III is the third album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was recorded between January and July 1970 and was released on 5 October 1970 by Atlantic Records. Composed largely at a remote cottage in Wales known as Bron-Yr-Aur, this work represented a maturing of the band's music towards a greater emphasis on folk and acoustic sounds. This surprised many fans and critics, and upon its release the album received rather indifferent reviews. Although it is not one of the highest sellers in Led Zeppelin's catalogue, Led Zeppelin III is now generally praised, and acknowledged as representing an important milestone in the band's history.

As noted above, Led Zeppelin III marked a change in focus for the band from late 1960s hard rock to a more folk rock or electric folk and acoustic inspired sound. These styles had been present to a lesser degree in the band's first two releases, but here it was the main emphasis—and one that would remain prominent in some of the group's later albums. This development endeared the band to many progressive rock fans who would never have listened to Led Zeppelin's established blues and rock repertoire. With Led Zeppelin III the group's songwriting dynamic also changed, from Page's domination of the first two albums towards a more democratic affair in which all four group members contributed their own compositions and ideas. 

It's a remarkable piece to have.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:NM (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:
Label & Pressing:1977 Atlantic/USA
Price:SOLD

*There's a 0.5cm crack on the vinyl rim, losing some seconds on the first track of each side.

  The rest plays really good.

PINK FLOYD - The WALL 1979 UK Harvest

Pink Floyd's the Wall is arguably one of the most intriguing and imaginative albums in the history of rock music. Since its release in 1979, and the subsequent movie of 1982, the Wall has become synonymous with, if not the very definition of, the term "concept album." Aureally explosive on record and visually explosive on the screen, the Wall traces the life of the fictional protagoinst, Pink Floyd, from his boyhood days in war-torn England to his self-imposed isolation as a world-renownedrock star, leading to a climax that is as questionably cathartic as it is destructive. 

From the outset, Pink's life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born to a war-ravaged nation that takes his father's life in the name of "duty," and an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of her love and phobias onto her son, Pink chooses to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life's physical and emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, a country whose king signs his father's death certificate with a rubber stamp, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion, each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world, Pink spirals into a void of insanity, cementing in place the final brick in the wall. Yet the minute it is complete, Pink begins to realize the adverse effects of total mental isolation, helplessly watching as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and thereby defiled his own life from birth. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, the story ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of Pink's life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title "art."

*It's hard to find a very nice condition of this album around. This is one flawless piece.

Condition:Used/Original/2 LPs
Cover:NM (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:Card board jacket sleeve
Label & Pressing:1979 Harvest/UK
Price:SOLD

BELLE & SEBASTIAN - Tigermilk (OOP)

Tigermilk is simply gorgeous, an unaffected debut equal to the Smiths' finest work, and seemed to arrive fully formed out of nowhere in May 1996. In songs like the pastoral, shimmering "The State I Am In" and the wonderfully naive "We Rule the School," bandleader Stuart Murdoch had already laid the seeds that would later come to such full, poignant fruition on If You're Feeling Sinister and The Boy with the Arab Strap. The 10 songs here have such a natural pop sensibility, such a grace and resonance, it's hard now to believe that Tigermilk was only originally intended as a small-time project between seven Glaswegian friends (the original vinyl release was limited to 1,000 copies). Whimsical, surreal, and beautiful, this reissue is well worth the wait.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:NM

Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:White paper sleeve
Label & Pressing:Electric Honey Records/UK
Price:SOLD

SIGUR ROS - Agaetis Byrjun (1st Press OOP)

Reykjavík-based noise quartet Sigur Rós are the biggest band in their native Iceland, which should say much, much more about the collective insanity of that earthquake-ridden, blizzard-beaten crag of an island than anything to do with Sigur Rós's sound. But in their music, Sigur Rós reflect all the breathtaking glory of the Icelandic wastes--a fairy-tale explosion of unhinged elemental majesty that's finally crystallized here, their debut European release. Frontman Jon Por Birgisson sings in a language that Sigur Rós dub "Hopelandic"--an otherworldly mutation of Icelandic, sung in the falsetto cadence of angels; similarly, he plays his guitar with a violin bow, opening the floodgates for brilliant waves of feedback. And while it's the opening "Svefn-G-Englar" that's Sigur Rós' moment to date, there's far more that they have to offer; listen to the pomp and flourish of a full orchestra on "Flugufrelsarinn," or the awe-inspiring near-religious mantra of "Ny Batteri."

Condition:Used/Original/2 LPs

Cover:M (Paper Texture)

Vinyl Disc:M

Insert:Original Black paper sleeve
Label & Pressing:1999 FatCat/UK
Price:SOLD

LORD SUTCH & HEAVY FRIENDS (Rare)

If you ignore the poor voice and puerile lyrics this piece turns into an unexpected pleasure. Fans of the greats should give this a listen, then like me you won't stop playing it, worse still,you won't stop bragging to all your friends about how you've got half of Led Zep., a ton of Beck and Redding,plus the late great Nicky Hopkins. All on an album that NONE of your friends would ever have heard of. 

The soon to be superstars all seem to be having good clean fun, honing their skills for the future. Other members of the band --although unheard of (to any great extent)-- nonetheless do more than adequate work, All together a very nice surprise. Top notch. Fully recomended. 

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG

Vinyl Disc:VG
Insert:Original paper sleeve
Label & Pressing:Cotillion/USA
Price:MYR90

THE BAND - Rock Of Ages (In Concert)

This 1972 live album is a watershed recording for the Band. Recorded the previous New Year's Eve, the two-disc concert recording presents the core quintet fortified by a five-man horn section overseen by New Orleans ace Allen Toussaint, and it is capped by a guest appearance by Bob Dylan. The brass and reed players incite the group to gut it out with more unrestrained fire than these road-hardened vets were accustomed to. The lion's share of the set selections are culled from the quintet's first four studio albums; only an ebullient cover of the Marvin Gaye hit "Don't Do It," the unremarkable original "Get Up Jake," Garth Hudson's mind-boggling organ improvisation "The Genetic Method," and an absolutely piercing version of Chuck Willis's "Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes" spice up the reliable album selections on disc one. But Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel sound like they're having so much fun singing the likes of "King Harvest," "Stage Fright," "Caledonia Mission," and "Chest Fever" that it matters not that Robbie Robertson's writing muse had already pretty much dried up. The 2001 digitally remastered reissue includes an entire second disc of previously unreleased tracks, including four with Dylan at the mic. More than four years would pass before the Robertson version of the Band would call it a day following its star-studded Last Waltz, but, as a live entity, here is where they crested.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:NM (Gatefold Double LP)
Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:Original paper sleeve
Label & Pressing:EMI/Target Capitol/USA
Price:MYR80

KING CRIMSON - Larks' Tongues In Aspic

To worship at the sonic temple of King Crimson always meant dispensing with preconceived notions, and Fripp and company proved more than ready to lay waste to their more staid contemporaries on this 1973 masterwork. 

Like any King Crimson outing, "Larks Tongues in Aspic" is not everyone's cup of tea, but everyone needs to sample this one as a reminder of the power of imagination fueled by technique.  

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG-

Vinyl Disc:VG+
Insert:Standard paper sleeve
Label & Pressing:1973 Atlantic Records/USA
Price:MYR65

LED ZEPPELIN - In Through The Out Door

Though the band likely didn't know it at the time, this would prove to be the last studio record by one of the most famous rock & roll bands in the world. Drummer John Bonham died shortly after its release. Although nothing compares to early Led Zeppelin--and they lost many longtime fans in the late 1970s--this LP is nothing to be embarrassed by. They were quick to embrace and experiment with synthesizers, and while it wears a little thin by record's end (the synth-bloated "Carouselambra" and the slick AOR hit "All My Love"), it adds a certain majestic tone to the heavy-hitting opener, "In the Evening," and gives a rollicking good-time feel to "South Bound Suarez." Plant's howl and Page's bluesy guitars are in fine form on "I'm Gonna Crawl" and the lilting "Fool in the Rain" recalls the pretty numbers from their early career.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG-

Vinyl Disc:VG+
Insert:Picture jacket sleeve
Label & Pressing:1979 Swan Song/USA
Price:MYR45

PINK FLOYD - Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here is a song cycle dedicated to Pink Floyd's original frontman, Syd Barrett, who'd flamed out years before: two grimly funny songs about the evils of the music business ("By the way, which one's Pink?"), and two long, touching ones about the band's vanished friend. The real star of the show, though, is the production: sparkling, convoluted, designed to sound deeply oh-wow under the influence--and pretty great sober too--with David Gilmour getting lots of space for his most lyrical guitar playing ever. And, though the album is big and ambitious, even bombastic, it somehow dodges being pretentious--the Barrett tributes are honest and heartfelt, beneath all the grand gestures and stereophonic trickery.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG+

Vinyl Disc:VG
Insert:Picture/Lyrics jacket
Label & Pressing:Harvest/Holland
Price:SOLD