Amazingly rare records I wish I owned

1- Davendra Banhart- My People Were Fair and Had Knots in Their Hair But Now They're Content to Wear Thrift Store Jeans CDR (self-released 2000) Tour only pre-Gira cdr recorded in attics, lofts and backyards on Davendra's seemingly neverending "freight trains and growing pains" tour from 97-99. Stunning yet fragile guitar and low moaning vocals make love to the sound of cicadas in a South Carolina breakfast nook. The absolutely amazing cover of the Cowsills' "Captain Sad and His Ship of Fools" is what drew Mr.Swans attention after he'd been loaned a copy of this by Thurston Moore. Apparently of the 25 copies Davendra could afford to burn all but 5 copies were saddled with the dreaded disc rot just months after the tour making this rarer then hen's teeth and one of the most sought after artifacts in the new american minstrelsy underground.

2- Derek Bailey/DJ Rupture- Live Mix Resonance FM London 2003
Not an actual collaboration but a cut-up/remix session of Bailey's funkiest tin-ear improv guitar by Spain-via-New England's Mixologist dijour DJ/Rupture. Rupture's remix of Bailey & Benninks classic rump-shaker, "Shake Your Arse White Man", from the estimable Live at Verity's Place album (one of the finest pieces of shepherd's pie phunk on par with The Payback or One Nation Under a Groove) has more twists than a chickenhead's weave. Who knew it was Bailey & Bennink who put the stumble in Clyde Stubblefield? Obviously Rupture did!

3- La Monte Young's Forever Bad Blues Band- 66 Years, 10 Months and 14 Days of Ornamental Light Years Tracery: The Tortoise Needs a New Pair of Shoes 8 SACD Boxset (Dia/MELA Foundation) Limited Preview Edition.
Massive and stomping live set of "just intonation" blues from a marathon session of LY's FBBB residency at the New Orleans' House of Blues club. Released in a strictly limited and numbered editon of 50 copies complete with the lovely magenta and black hand-printed cedar chest box to coincide with Young's 66th Birthday and the anniversary of Young's invention of the twelve bar blues. Quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about his unusual residency at the famed hotspot of "authentic" blues, Young had this to say, "Well it was really the opportunity for me to bring some authentic twelve-bar blues music down here to New Orleans. Although I invented the twelve-bar blues back in Idaho in the forties I'd never had the adequate opportunity to really show these southern people how it's done. So many people down here have made millions off my invention I thought I'd come down here and show them the real thing. Hound Dog Taylor, Sonny Boy Williamson those fellows were ok but their intonation is all wrong."
this was available through the MELA Foundation for the princely sum of $598 (members price) or $768 (non-members price.) Sure to be fetching at least double that on Ebay.

4- Stellan Skarsgard- Zure Golven en de al Daling onderaan Rangers CD (Warp) withdrawn.
Recording during the breaks in the filming of Lars Von Triers' Breaking the Waves. Skarsgard (electric swan guitar, ring modulator), Udo Kier (log drum,didgeridoo,porch swing) and Jean Marc-Barr (thighbone trumpet,12 string guitar) would settle down with a couple of bottles and some imported Amsterdam hydro and play into the wee hours of the Denmark morning a noxious blend of acid folk, ethno-psych and free-form stoned chanting that rightly had the press release comparing this to outsider folk classics like Bobb Trimble's "Iron Curtain Innocence" and Michael Yonkers psychfolktokeopus "Grimwood". Cornering the market on actor/musicians this was to be released on the UK-based Warp label. Promo copies were pressed and a few leaked to the press before a lawsuit by Waves director Von Triers claiming un-authorized use of his "studio, microphones and air" had all but a few copies withdrawn and destroyed by order of Zentropa Pictures.
Highly covetable and already reaching four figures on the international psych and idm-collector scenes.

5- Coil- SkyYen Again 4CDR set in clamshell video case.
Jhon Balance & Peter Christopherson's tribute to the Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley's 1974 purpose built oscillating, kraut classic, Sky Yen. 4 CDRs of beautiful, haunting drift courtesy of Peter collection of rare Russian oscillators. 4 fuckin cd's one perfectly bent and pitched note! What more could you want a waterpipe and a rug to smoke it on?
This was listed on Coil's website for most of 2000 as being available soon and orders were taken. Dozen of punters have complained this has never actually been released yet but tracking down Christopherson in Thailand he said he was sure it had come out, in fact he even had a copy lying around somewhere. Sure to hit the filesharing networks soon-ish?

6- Matt Valentine & Erikka Elder- I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Cocola Harmony CDR (Child of Microtones #1.5)
Second official, non-official COM release in (apparently) unlimited edition of 5. Available only from the Microtones paypal list with a donation of at least $50 to the send Matt and Erika to Manhattan fund during the summer of 2001. Another beautiful homemade release replete with silkscreened cover of MV & EE's Tim Buckley meets Tiny Tim space fuckery. Catch them at your local free-folk festival and make new friends by counting how many copies of #3 in the ltd edition of 5 folks in audience have. Not to worry though two copies still available from Father Yod for the low-low price of $125.

7- Jack Rose- The Life and Loves of Mr.Jive Ass Ragtime lathe LP (Eclipse/Klang Industries)
Super limited album of blues, rags and hollers by Mr.Philadelphia recorded live in the field in Talulah, Mississippi during the 2002 Pelt tour. Fantastic instrumentals for diddley bow and finger-picked tenor guitar as well the the side long recording of Jack's renditon of the classic delta field holler, "Old Boweevil Moan". Has to be heard to be believed. Liner notes by Dick Spottswood.

8- Afrika Duul- Kumasi Underground LP (Parallel World/Shadoks Music)
a collection of the best of various tapes renowned psych-collector Paul Major collected during his 1989 record buying trip to Ghana. Massed drumming, Eight Palmwine guitar players going absolutely ape shit, phased-as-hell chanted vocals (apparently due to poor quality microphones, a major problem for most ghanian bands is faulty equipment sez Mr.Major). The perfect nexus between Exuma's voodoo folk and the first Hapshash and the Coloured Coat album. Released in an edition of 300 in a split distribution between Germany's Shadoks music and NY's Parallel World, super-thick gatefold cover and nice 180 gram pressing from eq-ed master street vendor cassettes. Sadly already oop. The beginnings of the "Amon Duul-ization of World Music."- JW Bellbottoms, Midheaven Mailorder.

9. Kevin Drumm- Angel of Heft cassette ltd ed of 1 (SFSDR Tapes)
The holy grail of cassette releases. Drumm's bump'n'grindcore tribute to Slayer's all-time classic, "Angel of Death". One long 45 minute mutated loop of Tom Araya's opening screaming from Death, screwed with a thousand and one ways. Released as an edition of one for the birthday of Drumm's high school buddy, Metalhead Paul. So, Paul dude could you please put the bong down and rip this one for me. PLEASE!

10- Marc Almond/Fennesz- Modos CD (Mego) shelved.
Recorded in between Fennesz Plays and Endless Summer this sadly, unreleased collaboration between the Soft Cell frontman and Viennese idyllic glitch-guitarist extraordinaire predates his work with David Sylvian by nearly three years. Said to be initiated by Fennesz after hearing a copy of Soft Cell's much-maligned, This Last Night in Sodom LPat Peter Rehberg's flat in the autumn of 99.
Almond and Fennesz apparently met up at Fennesz's studio in Vienna whilest Almond was in town promoting a new remix cd of "Tainted Love" by Munich's DJ Hell. It is known that at least thirty minutes of material was recorded straight to Fennesz's hard drive including a much whispered about version "Mr.Self Destruct" that Almond described in an interview with The Wire's Rob Young as the 'ardest thing i've done since Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Apparently as Fennesz's relationship with Mego records cooled so did the prospect of this collaboration being released. But one can hope can't they.