"Catching Ghosts by revered, iconoclastic 81-year-old reedist Peter Brötzmann (1941 to 6/22/23) with Moroccan Gnaoua adept Majid Bekkas playing two-stringed, camelskin-backed guembre and Chicago-bred drummer Hamid Drake, proves that 'free' spontaneous interactions deriving power from age-old traditions can transcend cultural lines. Improvising on incantations from Gnaoua liturgy, Brötzmann's horn cries as summons and statement; Drake's drums awaken inner impulses; Bekkas' strings, plucked and strummed, tie it all together, and his voice brings the song home. But this is no lucky success: The music is vital due to its players' career-long practice, their knowledge of heritage, and belief the past must always be reinterpreted, renewed. American jazz giants have jammed with Gnaouans, but for Brötzmann, Europe's exemplar of unfettered blowing, to grapple with such material is to hear a new synthesis. Bekkas aligns himself with Brötzmann, championing the revival of Gnaouan culture, which originates in the uneasy history of freed Black slaves integrating with Moroccan Islamic society. The music relates to American blues, as Bekkas knows. Drake orchestrates the open format, making drama from grooves so each track of Catching Ghosts tells its own story, signifying meaning though it be pre-linguistic. That suits Brötzmann's adjustment of his signature style." - Act
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
