Bis Aufs Messer Weekly News Oct. 05 2024
Hi. Welcome to the first newsletter for November. A bunch of cool new records arrived like the GLACIS - Borders: Innocence LP, THE NECKS - Bleed LP, ALLEGRA KRIEGER - Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine LP, IRENE BIANCO - Kronblade LP, RICHARD HAMILTON & DIETER ROTH - "Collaborations" Readings DLP, SILVER SCROLLS - Mind Lines LP, SOLAR UNITY ENSEMBLE - Upstream LP, TAHMELA SIX - Mount LP, WENDY EISENBERG - Viewfinder DLP, SILVER SCROLLS - Mind Lines LP on Three Lobed (along with some Polvo restocks) and more along with a bunch of cool restocks like the ANA ROXANNE - Because Of A Flower LP, MIZMOR DLP, some BRATMOBILE re issues, OREN AMBARCHI - Quixotism LP, some BURNING WITCH restocks …
Thank you also for coming to our Birthday Bash it has been fun. We have two more in stores coming up. On Nov 8th we have CONNY OCHS playing an afternoon show to present his latest album and on NOV 11th we have Michael Zerang & Georges Paul playing a show at BAM.
We also got a few of the new TINE FETZ & DANIEL SCHNEIDER - Places 2025 CALENDAR
Today also will celebrate our 18th Anniversary. Brendan Eder Ensemble from LA will play LIVE from his latest Album on Worried Songs and then we have a new Artshow starting with beautiful photography of Suse Fischer - Strömungen
We also added (adding) a few more second hand LPs and 7“s to our discogs
https://www.discogs.com/seller/XMESSERX
Thank you as usual
Til then thank you for all your orders & support.
Robert & Norman
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LP
ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO UFO - Trust Masked Replicants LP (important - Japan's long running masters of psych/kosmische jamming return to Important Records for a vinyl outing featuring beloved original member Cotton Casino. Trust Masked Replicants finds AMT in fine form, creating experimental psych-rock improvised around skeletal compositions. The group's leader, Kawabata Makoto, holds the group together while they navigate chaos infused, drone based jamming at the outer edges of human consciousness. Side B, featuring the 20 minute track Asoko Ananda, is a classic side-long fast paced AMT burner combining sped up kosmische rhythms, filter sweeps, free-jazz piano, tabla drumming and vocal experiments. Asoko Ananda utilizes many of the group's skills, ascending to the height of their collective, mountainous ability. Channeling prog, krautrock, modern composition and noise, Kawabata Makoto formed the Acid Mothers Temple in the early 90's. The group has gone on to release countless albums while touring the globe.) 32.00
ALLEGRA KRIEGER - Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine LP (double whammy - On the ground level of an apartment building in Manhattan’s Chinatown, multiple lithium batteries combusted in an e-bike shop. It was just after midnight when songwriter Allegra Krieger awoke to a banging on her door. She made it out, fleeing down eight flights of stairs and a “wall of grey smoke,” which she recalls in her song, “One or the Other.” Throughout the song, Krieger cradles gratitude and conjures a universe in which she responded differently to the fire. Ultimately, she leaves us with two questions: “What do we know about living? What do we know about dying?” It was in the months following the fire that Krieger wrote much of Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine, her second full-length album with Double Double Whammy, a collection of 12 songs that pick at the fragile membrane between life and death. Krieger’s previous album, I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane, hewed more closely to the domestic spaces of city and mind. Rolling Stone regarded the album as “ten songs of heady philosophical meanderings packed with emotional dynamite,” and likened her “finely phrased lyrics” to those of “Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, [and] David Berman.” Krieger’s existential meditations remain on Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine, however her meandering melodies have taken on a stronger sense of direction. She narrates candidly and assertively; the full-band arrangements never overpower, only offer a robust platform on which Krieger’s voice reaches new heights. The full band brings a heightened sense of drama to the album’s arrangements, which contrasts the quieter approach of Krieger’s previous LP. There are noisy interludes, jazz-inflected discursions, impactful stops and starts, and occasional spaces for Krieger to stretch out her impressive vocal range (most prominently at the dazzling climax of album stand out “Came”).) 30.00
ANA ROXANNE - Because Of A Flower LP (kranky - The sublime songs comprising Los Angeles-based musician Ana Roxanne's second release, Because Of A Flower, germinated gradually across five years, inspired by interwoven notions of gender identity, beauty, and cruelty. She describes her process as beginning with "a drone element and a mood," then intuiting melody, syllables, and lyrics incrementally, like sacred shapes materializing from mist. The experience of identifying as intersex informs the album on levels both sonic and thematic, from spoken word texts borrowed from tonal harmony textbooks to cinematic dialogue samples and castrati aria allusions. It's an appropriately interstitial vision of ambient songcraft, a chemistry of wisps and whispers, sanctuary and sorrow, conjured through a fragile balance of voice, bass, space, and texture. Despite a background studying at the prestigious Mills College in Oakland, Roxanne's music rarely feels conceptual, instead radiating an immediate and emotive aura, rooted in the present tense of her personal journey. She speaks of the flower in the title as a body, singular and sunlit, as many petals as thorns, an enigma beholden only to itself. But whether taken as surface or subtext, Because is a transfixing document of a rare artist in the spring of their ascension.) 30.00
BRATMOBILE - Girls Get Busy LP (kill rock stars - GIRLS GET BUSY: Equal parts sass, snark and surf-punk infused guitar, Bratmobile’s third album bursts with catchy hooks and thought-provoking critiques of their scene, consumerism and the patriarchy. It's clear what Bratmobile was busy doing in '02: creating the most brutally honest anthems brimmed with the defiant punk attitude the original grrrl gang is known for.) 30.00
BRATMOBILE - Pottymouth LP (kill rock stars - With its “personal is political” lyrics read straight from our collective diary, Bratmobile’s full-length debut delivers 28 minutes of fury, fun and D.I.Y. punk, making Pottymouth one of riot grrrl’s most defining albums.) 30.00
BRATMOBILE - Ladies, Women and Girls LP (kill rock stars - Bratmobile’s sophomore LP finds Allison Wolfe’s singsong delivery of her trademark barbed-wire lyrics center stage - each line catching the ear and cutting with truth. Backed by Molly Neuman’s heart attack drumming and Erin Smith’s shark-in-the-surf riffs the band returns pulling no punches. This is essential feminist punk.= 30.00
GLACIS - Borders: Innocence LP (occasion - File under: Piano / Ambient / Modern Classical In December 2015 I moved with my family to the Scottish Borders. Having lived my entire life in cities this was my first time living in the countryside. It was remote, living in a cottage on a farm up a single track road. Out the front window was an old farmhouse, looking down on these quaint workers' cottages. Out the back window were endless fields along with the sound of silence. And yet the countryside is never silent. We simply cannot hear the incredible noise made by animals and plants that exist all around us. One of the first things I did when we moved to the Borders was source and purchase an upright piano. I’d not had access to one since I lived at my parents house in Dundee. Overstrung. The only choice. It took time to source one and to ensure that it was capable of being tuned. It was a beautiful creature too. Simple on the outside but when the front was removed the inner detailing was like a snakeskin - something that my piano tuner commented he had never seen before. However, it wouldn’t tune to concert pitch, due to its age. So, while in tune it was half a tone out and, as such, when working with other musicians I had to constantly explain the need to transpose. Still, it was my piano and it was on this piano that I wrote all of the movement one of Borders entitled Perseverance.) 25.00
HARRY BERTOIA - Mechanization LP (important - On this new LP Harry Bertoia shows why he may have been the first industrial musician. Bertoia often referred to his sound sculptures as a "collaboration with industry" and on this LP Bertoia is intentionally creating heavy, rhythmic music he described as "mechanized," "mechanical" and "factory like."Recorded in 1971, percussion and repetition emulate the pounding rhythms of machinery on this unique pair of conceptual Bertoia compositions. Bertoia utilizes innovative performance techniques to create new sounds unheard in his ouevre. Even in the busy factory of Bertoia's mind, distant stillness rises up as Bertoia exhibits the massive amount of control he possesses over his many looming sculptures. "Mechanization" is just one of the many sonic directions Bertoia took while composing and recording between the late 1950's and his death in 1978. He documented all of his ideas and directions in notes accompanying the hundreds of tapes discovered in his barn. Bertoia's recordings are as much a celebration of sustained tones, intervallic relationships, healing vibrations, deep listening and shimmering harmonics as Indian Classical music, singing bowls, The Well Tuned Piano or Benjamin Franklin's glass armonica. Through these rich harmonics and pulsing pure tone, Bertoia was able to more clearly articulate his inner spirit than he could with sculpture alone – a point he made himself many times in interviews.) 32.00
IRENE BIANCO - Kronblade LP (permanent draft - Kronblade, the Danish word for “petals”, is Irene’s debut solo album. The album includes six instrumental electroacoustic tracks recorded in a studio in Copenhagen in November 2023. Kronblade music aims to explore the spontaneous and unconventional, leaving space for unpredictability and whimsicality. Most of the sounds, rhythms and melodies have been collected and composed over the last years, during travelling around cities, in nature and in Irene’s everyday life. The tracks present layers of flexible forms and have a large use of improvisation. The acoustic instrumentation includes mainly percussion, from vibraphone and vintage bass drums to metal objects, bells, shakers, paper carillon, wind-up toys and an old zeither. Electronic sounds, effects and field recordings have had a main role in the creation process, not as an opposition but as a fundamental, complement merging component.) 33.00
KMRU - forge LP (seil - Edition of 300 copies, 180g vinyl On his new album ‚forge’, ambient artist KMRU explores the blend of melody and noise, rhythm and drone. ‚forge’ marks the third release on Seil Records for the Nairobi born and Berlin based producer. Made up of 10 tracks, the album effortlessly wanders from intimate compositions over field recordings to deep and rich soundscapes. The result feels like a living, breathing organism. Music you can immerse yourself in. Like few others, the 27 year old producer carved a niche of his own, capturing the essence of his raw live performances to form a highly unique listening experience that transcends what ambient music is known for.) 28.00
MEHENET - Ng'ambu LP (gilead - New Orleans black metal sect MEHENET announce the bands highly anticipated sophomore full-length album titled, Ng'ambu - meaning "the opposite shore“. Five tracks of masterful, ritualistic, and pitch-black evil make up the entirety of Ng’ambu - an album which is meant to be interpreted as a hymnal to invoke and praise spirits - shows the band drenched in offerings to the bands personal connection and dedication to Quimbanda, the Afro-Brazilian diasporic belief system based around magic, rituals, and offerings. The band explains, “It is both an offering to our Cabula, that is our house, as it is to the spirits of Quimbanda themselves. This isn’t a passing interest and all the members of the band have been involved in one way or another in a formal manner. What does it mean to engage these spirits? In some sense we are turning what could otherwise be poison into medicine. It is a process of engaging, through struggle, with those aspects of ourselves and the world which live at the pivot point of chance and desire. It is about seeking agency even in the thistles of the road. Quimbanda is the fire by which we forge our iron and the strangling plants that cure disease. Quimbanda is both the pox and the inoculation. Quimbanda is our anxiety and the motivation that anxiety produces. It is conflict and the strength that comes from engaging that conflict. People say, idle hands are the devil’s plaything, and so we have put those hands and The Devil to work.”) 32.00
THE NECKS - Bleed LP (northern spy - Australian minimalist-jazz trio The Necks' 20th studio album, Bleed, explores a sublime language of stillness. With a single, 42-minute composition, The Necks masterfully express the unspeakable beauty of decay and space in yet another totally distinct entry in a vast and stunning body of work.) 30.00
ONO - Kate Cincinnati LP (amercian dreams - Here lies a reissue of the first release from legendary long-running Chicago group ONO, Kate Cincinnati. ONO originally self-released the music in an edition of 300 tapes, and it shares several traits with the music of today's ONO. travis's singing moves effortlessly between gospel, blues, opera and noise registers; Shannon Rose Riley plays a maelstrom of music on her horn of choice, here saxophone; bandleader P. Michael Grego quietly orchestrates bass, guitar and lap guitar, creating a musical Jenga tower. If this is your first time with ONO, hop on board and see why Moor Mother, Black Midi, Algiers and countless other acts love them so. If you're already a fan: don't walk - run.) 34.00
OREN AMBARCHI - Quixotism LP (black truffle - Black Truffle is pleased to announce a tenth anniversary reissue of Oren Ambarchi’s Quixotism, originally released on Editions Mego in 2014. Recorded with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA, Quixotism presents the fruit of two years of work in the form of a single, LP-length piece in five parts. Quixotism takes the driving rhythmic aspect of works such as Sagittarian Domain to new levels, with the entirety of this long-form work built on a foundation of pulsing double-time electronic percussion provided by Thomas Brinkmann. Beginning as almost subliminal propulsion behind cavernous orchestral textures and John Tilbury’s delicate piano interjections, the percussive elements (elaborated on by Ambarchi and Matt Chamberlain) slowly inch into the foreground of the piece before suddenly breaking out into a polyrhythmic shuffle around the halfway mark, and joined by master Japanese tabla player U-zhaan for the piece’s final, beautiful passages.) 33.00
PEEL DREAM MAGAZINE - Modern Meta Physic LP (slumberland - Yellow & black splatter vinyl. "Modern Meta Physic" is the debut album of Peel Dream Magazine, the nom de plume of New York City-based musician Joe Stevens. Stevens, a talented multi-instrumentalist, wrote, played, recorded, and mixed the album in his apartment in Brooklyn — quite surprising, considering how much "Modern Meta Physic" sounds like it was played by a tour-seasoned band. A nod to BBC Radio 1 legend John Peel, arbiter of all things underground, all things quality, and all things — it must be said — "cool," Peel Dream Magazine is highly evocative of a certain strain of independent music. As Stevens explains, “I wanted to conjure media . . . to create an outlet for subcultural wanderers. Something you can subscribe to.") 25.00
PETTERSSON & FREDRIKSSON – Sotali LP (nordvis - Originally released in 2010, the enchanting “Sotali” by the Swedish folk duo Pettersson & Fredriksson receives a well-deserved re-issue and becomes available on vinyl for the first time. The Swedish folk duo Pettersson & Fredriksson – featuring members of Otyg and Solsaate – has distinguished themselves with artful mastery of the keyed fiddle and mandola. Their stage performances, a rich blend of original compositions and traditional melodies, have captivated audiences worldwide. The 2010 release of “Sotali” showcased an unorthodox musical approach compared to its predecessor, “Virek” (2004). The album not only echoes the duo’s Västerbotten heritage but also draws from influences as wide-ranging as the innovative artistry of Sigur Rós to the minimalist melancholia of José Gonzalez. As a result, “Sotali” is infused with both folkish energy and soothing tranquillity. The instruments engage in a timeless interplay, creating a soundscape that is at once contemporary and steeped in antiquity.) 25.00
RICHARD HAMILTON & DIETER ROTH - "Collaborations" Readings DLP (recital - Edition of 300 copies, gatefold sleeve, incl. 2 booklets - Recital presents an artists’ record from the two giants Richard Hamilton and Dieter Roth. Hamilton (1922-2011) is revered as the father of British Pop Art as both theorist and practitioner, in addition to famously designing the artwork for The Beatles’ White Album. Dieter Roth (1930-1998) was a Swiss German artist who blithely ignored all artistic boundaries and aesthetic dictums. His oeuvre includes hundreds of artist books, almost half a thousand prints, sculptures, multiples and records, all balanced between magnetic playfulness and self-deprecating paranoia. Roth also ran his own record/book press Dieter Roth's Verlag and was a major force in the reckless improvisational music group Selten Gehörte Musik (1973-1979). The two artists most significant collaborations happened between 1976 and 1978, beginning with a series of 74 paintings in which they reworked each other’s art. The paintings were made for an exhibition for dogs (as suggested by the late Marcel Broodthaers, to whom the works were dedicated) in Cadaqués, Spain. Hamilton and Roth then produced the catalogue Collaborations of Ch. Rotham with reproductions of all the paintings alongside four brilliant new collaborative texts. The narrative of the texts sprung from the “fairy story” (Hamilton) quality that emerged from these dog paintings – a hallucinatory tapestry of sausages, gestating giants, Sancho Panza, Don Quixote, and a donkey. Together they gallop, humorous and beautifully absurd, across the wild field of an imaginary seaside backdrop with endless garbled iterations of ever-mutating names riddled with mad typos. For these recordings the individual texts were read by Roth and Hamilton, actor friend Duncan Smith, and a huge cast of British artists for the final play Die Grosse Bockwurst, performed at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1977. The recordings were first released on cassette on the Audio Arts label in 1978, and have now been remastered from the original ¼″ tapes for this double vinyl edition. Also included are two booklets: one is a new essay written for this edition by artist and co-producer Malcolm Green (Red Sphinx, Atlas Press), alongside full reproductions of the Roth / Hamilton collaborative Ch. Rotham texts. Thanks to Björn Roth, Rita Donagh, Hansjörg Mayer, William Furlong, Tate Modern, and Hauser & Wirth. Limited edition double-vinyl record of 300 copies in full color gatefold sleeve with over 70 minutes of audio recordings. Including two booklets: a 16-page new essay on Roth & Hamilton by Malcolm Green that includes new Roth translations, and a 20-page complete reproduction of the collaborative Ch. Rotham texts.) 47.00
SHOVEL DANCE COLLECTIVE - The Shovel Dance LP (american dreams - The Shovel Dance is the most powerful release to date from nine-piece folk group Shovel Dance Collective, bringing studio fidelity and trickery to the rich arrangements and soaring vocals of their concerts. Their new album revolves around the group’s interplay and close listening, no matter how many members of the band play on a given song or how many instruments feature (there are twenty-five instruments and eight voices). With production by Mike O’Malley (caroline) and mastering by Matt Colton (Thurston Moore, Laura Marling), they give their arrangements an experimental edge—as close to Scott Walker or Swans as Shirley Collins or Bert Lloyd—that situates them on the bleeding edge of folk music, with unique beauty, force, and political charge.) 27.00
SILVER SCROLLS - Mind Lines LP (three lobed - In my experience, some albums simply wind up as a pair of psychic bookends. "Music for Walks", the first Silver Scrolls album, began when I was taking classes in an analytic institute and would walk to class from my therapy office. I had the idea for an album that was simultaneously about the action of taking a walk and also made explicitly to listen to while on a walk. Around this same time I was introduced to the psychoanalytic work of Christopher Bollas and gravitated to his thoughts on the ‘receptive unconscious’ (which is in addition to repressed unconscious functions). In one chapter he wrote about how during leisure walks, the mind can float in and out of conscious awareness creating a reverie which receives generative associations fueling the receptive unconscious, the genesis of dreamwork and creativity. The daydreaming we do on leisure walks. This coalesced the whole project. While this conceptual thinking was integral, I didn’t forget that I was really ‘just’ making a rock record; riffs are king. That first Scrolls album was written and recorded in that (fill in the blank) time right before Covid with Brian Quast (more on him in a sec) and released into the void of that first Covid summer.) 27.00
SOLAR UNITY ENSEMBLE - Upstream LP (mustik motel - The album is a two-part study of free expression in jazz music. Side A begins with “Emergence,” which was also chosen as a single release prior to the album launch, followed by “Mantra.” These tracks represent the group’s earlier works and are acoustic recordings. Side B continues the exploration, incorporating beautiful electronic elements into the play.) 27.00
STEFANO GUZZETTI - Lys LP (Oscarson - Lys is a classical piano album from musician and prolific soundtrack artist Stefano Guzzetti, entirely written, produced and mixed by Guzzetti himself. The album follows releases such as Piano, which similarly blend modern classical piano performance with expansive sound design and ambient embellishments. ) 25.00
TAHMELA SIX - Mount LP (mustik motel - For some time, audio engineer Jarno Alho had an idea cooking in his head. As a music lover the idea was to organise and record a free jazz session. Curious to see and hear the session from the very beginning till end while recording the moment. Finally in late 2023 he and the well-known local drummer Janne Tuomi met at lunch to figure out a list of players for the session. They came up with satisfying names from Helsinki, Tampere and Turku who all happened to agree to take part! The session was agreed to happen right after Christmas Eve 2023. During the darkest and coldest time of the year. Location was chosen to be one of the beautiful old Villa’s around Tampere, Tahmela Villa by the lake Pyhä. The session was a success and magic indeed happened as we all can hear from the recording. This was the birth of Tahmela Six and the album Mount.) 27.00
TROPICAL FUCK STORM - Tropical Fuck Storm's Inflatable Graveyard DLP (three lobed - ustralia’s Tropical Fuck Storm, Gareth Liddiard, Fiona Kitschin, Erica Dunn, and Lauren Hammel, cordially welcome you to TFS’ "Inflatable Graveyard", their debut live album. Released via the venerable Three Lobed Recordings, it captures their October 22, 2022 show at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall, at the peak of their “Fuck the Rain Away” tour. The performance, which spans 11 songs and over an hour of music, contains highlights from their three studio albums (2018’s "A Laughing Death in Meatspace", 2019’s "Braindrops", and 2021’s "Deep States"), accompanied by a pair of covers (“Ann” by the Stooges and “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees). Consider TFS’ "Inflatable Graveyard" a Greatest Hits album in the purest sense: their eldritch psychedelic ethos trapped on wax, raw and unfiltered. From TFS’ perspective, “Fuck the Rain Away” was no mere rescheduled trek, but a full-blown revenge tour; the pandemic hit right as they were gearing up to play these very shows, effectively exiling them for the next two years. They bided their time at home—dropping an LP, "Deep States" (plus a handful of EPs and singles); hitting the studio with King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard; and even releasing a feature film, "Goody Goody Gumdrops". Eventually, the world opened up again. And, new material and hand, so the quartet made their move.) 36.00
USURABI - Chita LP (an archives - Edition of 415 copies, silkscreened sleeve w/ obi, postcard, inserts Chita, the third album proper by Japanese guitar pop trio Usurabi, is their most elegant, stylish confection yet. Over the past four years, Toshimitsu Akiko (vocals, guitar), Kawaguchi Masami (bass) and Morohashi Shigeki (drums) have been recording, playing live, and releasing songs of rare melodic warmth, centring Toshimitsu’s unique musical vision, where melancholy and joy can co-exist, a split-second flick of her wrist switchblading the guitar from languorous sweetness to overloaded rock action. Chita expands on the smartly sculpted pop and rock songs found on their previous albums, Remains Of The Light (2021) and Outside Of The World (2023), while infusing the music with more of the rough- housing energy that also coursed through the live CD, Once In A Red Room, they self-released in January 2024. There’s still a through-line, of course, that connects the music here to Toshimitsu’s earlier groups, Doodles and Animone, but Chita feels more deeply like a sussed, sharp take on the crumbling edges of sixties psychedelic folk and rock: the harmonica that blasts through the opener, “Bansho”, is pure Dylan in effect. One of the many smart things about Usurabi, though, is that they never feel beholden to the historical moment. Soon after “Bansho”, we encounter “TurnOff”, a lush pop song that turns on a dime, with Toshimitsu tearing fuzztone notes from six strings that are like a more folk-reverent Kaneko Jutok. And there’s something about the guitar and bass riff that doubles through the thrilling two-and-a-half minutes of “Hakanonaka” that’s a dead ringer for the Only Ones. Flip the record, and things get more expansive, the spindly jangling of the title song spiralling ever inwards, before the sweet, sugary rush of “Kanata” resolves to the martial rhythms that pulse through “Aseranai”, winding the album down to its poetic, becalmed resolution.) 35.00
THE VOLUME SETTINGS FOLDER - Laguna LP + CD (Oscarson - M. Beckmann is a busy guy… Having self-released over 15 albums under The Volume Settings Folder. This is gorgeous, expansive, post-everything ambient music. Highly influenced by Sigur Ros and The Album Leaf but with the minimalism and solitude of Caught in the Wake Forever.) 20.00
WENDY EISENBERG - Viewfinder DLP (In a career full of bold, genre-blending statements, Wendy Eisenberg’s double album Viewfinder is their boldest yet. Viewfinder is about what happens when you reach clarity and it throws you off-balance, and what it means to love something without understanding why you love it. Eisenberg leads a large band of NYC jazz musicians, including Booker Stardrum (drums) and Chris Williams (trumpet). Together, they push the boundaries of jazz into songcraft, songcraft into art song, and art song into jazz, cementing Eisenberg’s work as a guitarist, improviser, composer - and establishing Eisenberg as a singular talent in 21st-century jazz.) 36.00
