If Post Office reactions are anything to go by, there is something 'edgy' about buying a CD in 2026. Not unusual, necessarily; people have been buying records, cassettes and CDs again for years, and physical media has a special significance now that it's not the default way of listening to music. Sometimes, though, you buy a CD because it is the only practical way you can hear something at all. That was the situation I found myself in with Tendresses d’ours , an album by French musician Hubert Maël , released on CD in 1997. The strange thing is that I hadn't been searching for his music. I had been researching the Yamaha QY700 . The QY700 was Yamaha’s flagship music production workstation of the mid-1990s, combining a substantial sequencer with a sound generator, mixer and workstation-style interface. It came from a period in which a single piece of hardware could form the centre of an entire home studio, allowing a musician to compose, arrange, select sounds, program d...

The story goes that Miles Davis was so impressed by the song In Time that he played it to his band repeatedly for half an hour. It’s not hard to understand why: Fresh is a masterclass in rhythm, with Sly Stone pushing funk into new territory without losing a drop of its potency. After more than fifty years, the album still sounds cutting edge and its influence is everywhere. In Time has been sampled by the Jungle Brothers, J-88 (Slum Village) and Missy Elliott, while Babies Makin’ Babies found its way into tracks by Scarface and Theo Parrish . And then there’s If You Want Me To Stay , later covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There’s a chance that you know big pieces of Fresh without ever having heard the original. This copy is an Australian pressing of a record with a particularly personal connection for me: it was one of my mum’s favourite records, and I remember being completely obsessed with its artwork as a kid. Sly’s karate-kicking figure, stark white background and dia...

Public Image Ltd emerged in 1978 from the wreckage of the Sex Pistols, but John Lydon’s new band quickly became something far stranger than another punk group. PiL took the anger and confrontation of punk and pushed it into dub, funk, electronics, noise and avant-garde experimentation, producing some of the most influential and difficult-to-digest music of the post-punk era. By the time they arrived in Australia in 1984, they had already released two albums and were operating almost entirely on their own terms. That makes this dinky pressing like an artefact rather than a conventional release: an Australian-only 12” issued around the band’s 1984 tour, gathering four very different moments from PiL’s catalogue. From the abrasive The Order of Death to the huge, almost pop-facing This Is Not a Love Song , it makes for a great little snapshot of a band that had completely outgrown punk. Finding an original Australian pressing in near-mint condition makes it all the better – a strange lit...

Alternative scenes in Australia have always been something you assemble rather than inherit. Before the information age, music lovers expanded their listening through fragments: live gigs, radio, film soundtracks, and whatever your local record retailer could point you toward. Music couldn’t be “searched” yet – at least not without the help of an obliging Brashs attendant – and the leads you couldn’t verify, you often had to let go. For listeners, it was an endless quest. For artists, the reverse process (finding an audience) meant competing within a crowded scene that, while full of opportunity, didn’t always know what it wanted. By the mid-1980s, Melbourne was an incubator for artists working against the grain. The industry was still largely defined by it's export-ready rock – but in studios tucked into inner suburbs, bands were experimenting. Groups like I'm Talking  – led by vocalists Zan Abeyratne and Kate Ceberano – alongside progressive acts like Big Pig...

George Duke ’s 1986 self-titled LP sits at a fascinating crossroads in his career. By this point Duke was already revered as one of the most versatile musicians in American music – a fusion pioneer, former keyboardist for Frank Zappa, and increasingly a go-to producer for crossover R&B. In the early-to-mid ’80s he was busy behind the desk shaping records for artists like Philip Bailey and Jeffrey Osborne , all while maintaining a relentless solo schedule. Much of this work flowed through Duke’s own studio, Le Gonks West in Los Angeles, where he and longtime engineer Erik Zobler built records in a hybrid environment of analog synths, early digital gear, and meticulous overdubbing. That self-contained approach is all over George Duke  – a record that feels less like a commercial 'artist album' and more like a producer experimenting on company time – which is precisely why it's awesome. To modern ears, the album’s sound palette is strikingly forward-looking. Like ...

Yellow Magic Orchestra were early. Computer Game (1978) is built from arcade samples, laser-like sequencing and robust drum programming that still feels futuristic. YMO's sound was clean and functional without being cold – reflective of the three legit musicians standing behind the electronics; Yukihiro Takahashi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Haruomi Hosono. We can’t talk about Computer Game without mentioning that break – the stripped-back drum passage appearing throughout that became ammunition for B-boy DJs, looped on doubles and blended into early electro sets. It circulated through mixtapes and live routines, bridging Tokyo synth lab with South Bronx pavement. YMO were also early adopters of the  TR-808  Rhythm Composer, having borrowed a unit from Roland and road-testing its analogue pulse that would later define electro, rap and techno. For our purposes today, if the A-side is the bait, the B-side is the hook. Yellow Magic (Tong Poo) sounds like the groundwork for synth-po...

This promotional 12" captures a solid piece of Seattle hard rock history, long before the city became shorthand for another sound entirely. TKO were a stadium-ready heavy metal band, built on big hooks, driving guitars and an anthemic, radio-minded swagger that courted the working class. That sensibility led to a deal with New York–based Infinity Records , an ambitious MCA-backed label. Touring the East Coast, TKO opened for AC/DC and Van Halen, swiftly building momentum that resulted in their 1979 debut album Let It Roll . This advanced pressing of the title track had radio DJs in mind and plots them right on the cusp of breaking through. That momentum didn’t last: Infinity collapsed as quickly as it appeared after overspending on signings and promotion – including a bizarre Pope John Paul II record that few stores knew what to do with – and the label that should have been a platform instead became a pitfall. Let It Roll slipped out of circulation just as the band...

Best known as the frontman and chief songwriter of The Cars , Ric Ocasek made this sharp 12" during his solo run in the early '80s. Pulled from his Beatitude era, both tracks use lean drum machines, bright synth work and Ocasek’s unmistakable deadpan delivery. It will be familiar enough for Cars fans – but with a slightly looser, more experimental edge. Interestingly, this record exists as a promotional single in nearly all markets, with the exception of Canada. Jimmy Jimmy is punchy new wave pop with crossover appeal, while Connect Up To Me heads somewhere moodier and more nocturnal, nicely delivered in extended remix form. A cool snapshot of Ocasek stepping just outside the band framework, this one’s an underrated slab of early ’80s synth-rock that still holds up. Media Condition: Near Mint (NM) Sleeve Condition: Very Good Plus (VG+) *SOLD*

Japan has long been a place of good taste – a bastion where music scenes and subcultures often live their strongest lives outside their country of origin. Throughout the early 2000s, as vinyl collections were being dumped en masse across the world, Japanese dealers and archivists frequently travelled to musical meccas like New York City and London, buying entire sections of record stores for as little as fifty cents a piece. While most of the world moved on, Japan's used record market became the antithesis of an industry in decline – preserving historical music at staggering scale on what is, in our admittedly biased view, its most faithful medium. But there wasn’t just preservation on the demand side. There were still people fighting the good fight on the supply side too – labels insistent on putting new music onto vinyl in a world increasingly dominated by CDs and, later, purely digital listening. In the 1990s alone, this protest took many forms: Warp Records documenting emergin...