Various - The Complete Obscure Records Collection 1975-1978 10xLP

Label: Dialogo

Vinyl version. Edition of 1,000 copies. Includes hand-numbered certificate, 10 LPs in faithful replicas of the original covers and polylined inner sleeves, an 80-page LP-sized book in English, all housed in a custom lavish linen box.

Over the last few years, the Italian imprint, Dialogo, has showed a remarkable dedication to the history of experimental music via reissues of seminal artefacts from the Cramps catalog, and important albums by Piero Umiliani, Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Enrico Rava, and others. This initiative now takes on a towering scale with the first ever box set gathering the entire ten album collection of Brian Eno's Obscure Records, originally issued between 1975 and 1978. A truly groundbreaking body of recordings - many of which have remained out of print and difficult to find for decades - it contains some of the most important, influential, and enduring music to emerge during the second half of the 20th Century, which collectively reconfigured the terms of minimalism and laid the groundwork for the emerging movement of ambient music over its short, three-year run.

This historic collection marks the first time such a seminal series has received a complete repress and is certainly one of the year's most interesting, essential, and widely anticipated releases, stunningly produced with the complete involvement of all the artists or their estates.

Includes texts / contributions by Gavin Bryars, Bradford Bailey, David Toop, Max Eastley, Richard Bernas, Tom Recchion, Carlo Boccadoro, Walter Rovere and Bruno Stucchi, and rare photos, including several by Roberto Masotti.

When viewed collectively, the Obscure catalog reveals a remarkable, and previously unexplored counterpoint – bridging the United Kingdom and the American West Coast – to the dominant threads of minimal and experimental music, centered in New York that had long dominated the public consciousness.

• LP1 Gavin Bryars - The Sinking of the Titanic
• LP2 Christopher Hobbs, John Adams, Gavin Bryars - Ensemble Pieces
• LP3 Brian Eno - Discreet Music
• LP4 David Toop, Max Eastley - New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments
• LP5 Jan Steele, John Cage - Voices and Instruments
• LP6 Michael Nyman - Decay Music
• LP7 The Penguin Café Orchestra - Music From the Penguin Café
• LP8 John White, Gavin Bryars - Machine Music
• LP9 Tom Phillips, Gavin Bryars, Fred Orton - Irma
• LP10 Harold Budd - The Pavilion of Dreams