The state51 Conspiracy Vinyl & CDs

Review: A Gift from a Flower to a Garden made for a few firsts: the first double LP of Donovan's career, one of the first box sets in pop and, most importantly for Donovan himself; the first pop album for the children of tomorrow. He resolved to make A Gift from a Flower to a Garden an album of two halves. The first, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, was intended for his own generation as they started to think about the kind of world they wanted to leave behind. The second, For Little Ones, was for the children they had or would have in the years to come. The result was a kaleidoscopic folk-jazz suite on the power of love, imbued with all the romance and mystery of an Arthur Rackham illustration for an ancient English fairy tale. The songs, remarkably adventurous given Donovan was a globally famous singer at his commercial height, combined the influences he had amassed so far. There is something about A Gift from a Flower to a Garden that could never be repeated, though. It is such an innocent evocation of the childlike imagination, so redolent of its time, yet set apart from it too. All these years later, the peaceful qualities of this pioneering, enchanting, deeply unusual album feel more valuable than ever.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Record is slightly warped, otherwise in excellent condition***


A pair of classic Donovan tracks get pressed up to this new 7" from The state51 Conspiracy. They are taken originally from his seminal double album A Gift From a Flower to a Garden and come in a beautifully printed new sleeve with golden details and limited to just 500 copies. Both are mixed in mono and first is the delicate falsetto of 'The Tinker and the Crab' with is Americana overtones and light flute motifs next to the acoustic guitar strumming and 'Wear Your Love Like Heaven' is another lushly layered folk rock sound.

Review: Los Jaivas' Alturas de Macchu Picchu arrives newly remastered and reissued by state51 on heavyweight wax, and it remains a landmark of South American music. Its blurring of psychedelic rock, Andean folk and Pablo Neruda's poetic power makes the album, which was recorded in exile during Chile's Pinochet era, an evocation of both the spirit and struggle of Latin America. Tracks like 'La Poderosa Muerte' and 'Sube a Nacer Conmigo Hermano' swirl with emotion and complexity to deliver a cinematic spiritual experience. Inspired by Incan ruins and resistance, Alturas is more than music-it's a cultural beacon that invites you into a timeless soundscape.

Review: The debut album by Malcolm McLaren - former manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls, and infamous producer in his own right - was known as Duck Rock. First released in 1983, it showed off as far-flung a mix of genres as hip hop, international music, rockabilly, and disco, not least due in part to its hand in the production duties by Fairlight pioneer JJ Jeczalik, Trevor Horn and Anne Dudley, all of whom would form Art of Noise, as well as further guest appearances by Africa Bambaataa and Thomas Dolby. An electrifying medley of the sample-tastic sensibility of the day, the album also plays out as a form of satire, parodying the oft-chaotic flights of fancy indulged by the very same era.

Review: The state51 Conspiracy label comes very much correct early on in the New Year with this two-track grey marbled vinyl 12" in a fancy spot-varnished sleeve. It takes the form of two fresh Santaka reworks of original compositions by Rytis Mazulis and avant-garde choir Melos Collective which were first released back in 2020. Santaka, which means "confluence" in Lithuanian, is the coming together of DJ and producer Manfredas and drummer and producer Marijus Aleksa and here they layer up disembodied vocals and dark jazz melodies on 'Ramybe' and then 'Autoportretas' is a textural ambient exploration packed with fascinating sound designs.

Review: Following up its initial digital release comes the new double vinyl edition of the towering recent avant-garde drone work by Indonesian duo Senyawa, Vajranala. Made up of vocalist Rully Shabara and multi-instrumentalist Wukir Suryadi, the pair thematically explore the interface between nature and human power systems, pinning the ultimate basis of power on knowledge. It's the shamans, Shabara says, who were the first possessors of power: "If you're in a village, if you're considered to have the knowledge to connect people with the realm of the gods, then you will have power before the leader. It's very fundamental to explore this." A richly intense exploration of their heritage - centring on the mythology surrounding the Brojonalan Temple (aka Pawon Temple) in Indonesia - comes in a short burst of just six dread-inducing works, ranging from the ritualistically impassioned to the hypnotically driven.

Notes: The history of India's first electronic music studio founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad by David Tudor.

A book companion to the compilation album The NID Tapes: Electronic Music in India 1969-1972 released by State51.

Subcontinental Synthesis explores the history of India's first electronic music studio, founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad with the support of the composer David Tudor. The essays and writings unravel the narrative and context surrounding the studio as well as the work of the Indian composers who created groundbreaking recordings during its four years of activity.

The texts reflect on the role of electronic music within a post-independence India, considering its interconnections with experimental design, radical pedagogies, and the international avant-garde, as well as the encircling conditions of Western ideological soft power within the global expansion of Modernism.

Contributors:

Geeta Dayal, Alannah Chance, Matt Williams, Shilpa Das, Jinraj Joshipura, You Nakai, Rahila Haque, and Paul Purgas. Foreword by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay

Review: The NID Tapes is a collection of early Indian electronic music uncovered at the archives of the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, India. The compilation includes works by Gita Sarabhai, I.S. Mathur, Atul Desai, S.C. Shama and Jinraj Joshipura, who worked at India's first electronic music studio founded at the NID in 1969, with support from the New York composer David Tudor. A throwback to the early days of analog composition, the compilation escapes the usual tendency towards Eurocentrism in championing this field, and showcases the collective's experiments with Moog synthesizer, tape collage, vocal techniques and field recordings - creating a unique fusion of Western and Indian avant-garde traditions.