VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings is honoring the roots of electronic dance music with a nod to the foundational contributions of Detroit electro-outfit Cybotron, and their futuristic genre-masterpiece Enter. Noted by Pitchfork and others as “where Detroit techno began,” the 8-track collection is being released November 9, 2018 on vinyl with remastered audio—George Horn and Anne-Marie Suenram cut the lacquers at the iconic Fantasy Studios—and includes the original album version of the hit track “Clear.”
First released in 1983 on Fantasy Records, Cybotron’s debut album Enter became an influential record in the evolution of electronic dance music. Often cited as one of the forbearers of modern techno, Enter is commonly regarded as the only old-school electro album with major staying power, largely due to the strength of the writing (“Alleys Of Your Mind,” “Cosmic Cars,” “Clear”) and the harmonious collision of Juan Atkins’ penchant for cosmic funk production techniques and Rik Davis’ arena rock sensibilities.
Most recently, The Wire cited “Clear” as a “groundbreaking…first-generation piece of pure machine music,” while newer listeners may recognize it as the hook from Missy Elliott’s “Lose Control,” among other major hip-hop hits.
Cybotron was founded in 1980 by Juan Atkins and Richard “3070” Davis in Detroit, Michigan; guitarist John “Jon 5” Housely soon joined. The name Cybotron is a verbal mashup of the words of “cyborg” and “cyclotron.” The group released a series of classic hit singles of the electro genre including “Alleys Of Your Mind,” “Cosmic Cars,” “R-9,” and most notably “Clear.”
Nashville, TN | Fond Object to Close Downtown Location. Original location in Riverside Village to remain open. Bummer news in Nashville record retail: Roughly 18 months after much-loved East Nashville record and vintage shop Fond Object opened a second location on Fourth Avenue South, co-founder Jem Cohen tells the Scene that the downtown store will be closing up shop. “Downtown was an amazing opportunity, but I think it’s best to focus our attention to one location and a neighborhood that truly supports us,” Cohen says in an email. In addition to offering records, vintage clothing and other items for sale, the Fourth Avenue store has played host to notable shows including two enormous Record Store Day parties, a surprise set from Eagles of Death Metal, a tape release for locals Shell of a Shell and a phenomenal show from A Giant Dog. The East Side store’s backyard space continues to be an 
Salt Lake City, UT | Through 40 years of highs and lows, Salt Lake’s Randy’s Records keeps spinning: When you talk to Randy Stinson, the conversation quickly turns to numbers. Some of those numbers are small: one to five (the number of dollars his music store, Randy’s Record Shop, used to charge for Led Zeppelin albums); 45 (the RPMs at which 7-inch vinyl singles are played); 60 (“I worked probably 60 hours a week for most of my life,” Stinson said); ’67-’69 (the years he was in Vietnam). Those numbers quickly skyrocket: 1989 (the year major record labels stopped printing new vinyls); 10,000 (the number of dollars he borrowed to open Randy’s Records in 1978); and more than 100,000 (the number of records he once owned). 
Silver Spring, MD | Hints of trouble in (Joe’s Record) Paradise; owner blames upcoming elections: The Instagram post left vinyl-loving music fans in the Washington area holding their collective breath. On Friday, Johnson Lee, owner of Joe’s Record Paradise in Silver Spring, photographed a Post-it note with a fading black magic marker, reading “Come in for deals this weekend. We may not be around much longer…” For a record store with a long local history and that struggled to reopen in 2016, owner Johnson Lee tells WTOP his post was a bit heavy on the hyperbole. “It was worded a little more ominously than I should have, perhaps,” said Lee, the son of founder Joe Lee, who took over the business in 2009. “It’s been 
Islington, UK | Editor’s comment: What can we learn from Alan? …My childhood was spent in record shops. I can’t have been older than Alan’s eight-year-old customer when I started digging through dusty crates for the music that would go on to soundtrack my teenage years – the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Pink Floyd – and soon enough I was planning entire day trips around shops I’d found in the Yellow Pages, in towns that were just about accessible by train with the assistance (or resignation) of a long-suffering parent. It seemed like a whole world had opened up to me but in truth those years – late ’90s, early 2000s – were vinyl’s nadir. Sales, despite my pocket money, were unsustainably low; shops were closing or downscaling to focus on easier, more reliable sources of income; industrial investment was minimal or non-existent, with manufacturers left to salvage parts for ailing record presses from decommissioned Eastern European plants. Yet fast-forward 15 years and the picture is 
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Madison Washington, (((( FACTS ))))) (Def Pressé) This NYC-UK duo’s “Code Switchin’” EP from last year was solid, but here is a major leap forward and one of the best hip-hop full-lengths (available on 2LP) that I’ve heard in quite a while. After the short opening track’s spoken poetics (with a touch of sonic manipulation) reassert the politically-socially conscious verve of their debut, the title cut delivers a rhythmic tour de force, setting matters into motion with a high point, and it’s to MC Malik Ameer and producer-DJ thatmanmonkz’ credit that what follows never falters or even runs low on gas. Interestingly, I’m hearing a much stronger P-Funk/ Outcast vibe than I did before but sprinkled with some jazzy bits and bushels of smart rhymes. A knockout that’s invigorating for the body and mind. A
V/A, Mexican Summer: A Decade Deeper (Mexican Summer) Emerging in 2008 as a subsidiary of Kemado Records, Mexican Summer has grown into one of the more interesting labels on the contempo independent scene, and stylistically diverse, which means that the previously unreleased selections on this anniversary compilation (which lean toward the imprint’s recent and current activities) are unlikely to please most listeners equally. As evidence, my preference is for the tracks by Arp, Drugdealer, Robert Lester Folsom, Allah Lahs, PAINT, Connan Mockasin’s Jassbusters, Gregg Kowalsky, and Tonstartssbandht over Part Time’s lite-pop-fuckery and Dungen’s cut, which kinda sounds like America with their mouths sewn shut. But hey, nothing gets even close to stinking thing up, so cheers for ten good years. B+
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: V/A, Damaged Goods 1988-2018 (Damaged Goods) Rearing to life as a punk reissue label in ’88 London, Damaged Goods began dishing out fresh stuff not long after. With 30 years of elevating global record store bins in the books, this 37-track 2LP anniversary celebration of “top tracks, deep cuts, lost gems and personal favourites,” if far from exhaustive (as there’s 500 releases in the catalog), delivers a roaring, banging, at times grabbingly melodic, and more than adequately varied good time, even as the label’s enduring and crucial stewardship of Wild Billy Childish’s output (in its assorted guises) is well-represented (and fairly diverse, as selected here). Highlights? Too many to list, but if punk classique brings you warmth, this’ll get ya nice and toasty in the record den. A-
Black Artists Group, In Paris, Aries 1973 (Aguirre) Formed in St. Louis, the Black Artists Group was a free jazz collective similar in operation to Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. An additional connection was Joseph Bowie, the brother of Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpeter Lester Bowie. BAG membership included saxophonists Julius Hemphill, Luther Thomas, and Hamiet Bluiett (RIP), but for this recording, the players are saxophonist Oliver Lake, trumpeters Baikida Carroll and Floyd LeFlore, drummer Charles Bobo Shaw, and trombonist Bowie. Having traveled to France a la an earlier excursion by the Art Ensemble, the likenesses between the two collectives extend further, but much of this fire is of the BAG’s own making. Far more than of historical interest, and in an edition of 500. A-
