Back catalogue: All genres

Notes: Mechanical Reproductions stay true to their original mission statement of being 'an outlet for editions of vinyl and print' and, for their third release, serve up a 48 page archive of some of the posters created by Young Echo's Amos Childs & Sam Barrett for the long running nights the collective have been running since 2010.

'Heavyweight Champion is the result of six years' collaborative collage works for Bristol's Young Echo collective.

The collective's 12 members have been running club nights, radio shows and releasing music since 2010. Two of them, Amos Childs & Sam Barrett (who also make music together as O$VMV$M), have been responsible for creating the posters to promote the club nights since the start.

These posters are a regular fixture in the visual landscape of the city, on walls, bins, bus stops and pretty much any other available surface in the lead up to each event. Their informal visual language immediately sets them apart from the other flyers vying for attention. They're intriguing: through not having the artist names featured as prominently as possible they encourage the viewer to take a deeper look. There's dense layers of images and cut-and-pasted phrases to be deciphered - ultimately a far more engaging experience than being shouted at by a generic and large-fonted neon specimen.

Thanks to the local council (and keen fans who would rather see them on their walls at home), more often than not these works are gone soon after they're tacked up, meaning the only archive of them is as low resolution images on various social media channels. 'Heavyweight Champion', then, aims to provide a lasting document of this unique and vital part of Bristol's musical culture...'

48 page, A4, full colour book, 100gsm evolution uncoated inner pages.

Notes: "Matinee: All Ages On The Bowery" was created during the early 1980s when New York City was embroiled in debt and crime, and as the middle class continued to evaporate, the city confronted one of the most trying periods in its history.

Paradoxically, its underground music scene was teeming with vitality like never before. Still staggering from the violent outset and eventual deterioration of punk rock, hundreds of disenfranchised kids living in the city and outlying boroughs began forming their own groups to rail against the everyday trials and prejudices of urban existence. As a result, New York City became a hub for a flourishing hardcore scene; a cultural phenomenon that used punk rock as a platform for a politically charged, inherently regional catharsis.

Between 1983 and 1985, local photographer Drew Carola began photographing the patrons of the now infamous hardcore matinees that were going on at the seminal underground music club, CBGB. During the week, Carolan was working as an assistant to legendary portrait photographer Richard Avedon, and on weekends he set up a makeshift studio across the street from CBGB and intercepted kids on their way to the all-ages afternoon shows. The result is a collection of photographs capturing the beauty, vulnerability, and the unbridled energy of youth during the height of the Reagan years.

Now more than thirty years later, all of that has disappeared and a copacetic, prosperous, and gentrified element has taken its place. While the hardcore punk scene still thrives today, these photographs capture a time and place in history that no longer exists.

Notes: "It was Saturday night, the year was 1993, and I had recently moved to London to try to push my photography career along when I went down to the 100 club where they play rare American 60's and 70's soul music.

I had been on that scene up until a few years before and was curious to see where it had gone in the meantime, so I took my camera along with me. Going down those stairs into that dark basement, seeing those shadowy figures moving energetically in sync with each other made me hesitant.

The scene had gone further underground, the crowd older, little new blood, the records more obscure and the attitude on the dancefloor was as fierce as ever. Could I really take pictures in this place? As I suspected, the blast from my first flash altered the atmosphere. I braved it to shoot a few more from different angles but things felt worse with each blinding shot.

The relief I felt when I heard the familiar opening bars of 'This Won't Change' by Lester Tipton. A fast, raw, jerky, but tender sound. I pushed the camera bag under a chair and got lost in the shadows until morning.

I very soon became a regular again, travelling to different venues around the country but I'd often wait till morning when the lights came on before taking any pictures. Mostly though I went to dance and enjoy the music with friends, leaving my camera at home."

Elaine Constantine 2023

Pictures were taken in varied venues including the Manchester's Ritz, London's 100 club and in a lad called Steve's kitchen, plus other places too numerous to remember.

36 pages
Printed in England
Staple bound
14cm x 20cm

Notes: Drawn from private collections around the world, this is the first comprehensive collection of the Saturn label's printed record covers, along with hundreds of the best hand-designed, one-of-a-kind sleeves and disc labels decorated by Sun Ra and members of his Arkestra.

Considered the foremost exponent of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra mastered a wide array of styles that spanned jazz, R&B, exotica, Afro-hybrids, electronic, big band, solo piano, orchestral, experimental, and chamber works. In his 45-year recording career, he issued an epic number of albums and he was one of the first Black musicians to own an independent label, which he named Saturn, after the planet on which he claimed to have been born. The covers of Saturn LPs, issued from 1957 to 1988, are iconic- some rolled off commercial printing presses but many were hand-crafted. These records were sold at concerts, club dates, and by mail order. As collectibles, original handmade Saturn covers sell for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. More than just packaging for a slab of vinyl, they are works of art in their own right.

Sun Ra: Art on Saturn is the first comprehensive collection of all Saturn printed covers, along with hundreds of the best hand-designed, one-of-a-kind sleeves and disc labels, decorated by Ra himself and members of his Arkestra. Essays by Sun Ra catalog preservationist Irwin Chusid, noted Ra scholar John Corbett, and Glenn Jones, who in the 1970s signed Ra to a distribution deal that put countless homemade covers into circulation, add unique insights into the interplanetary life and work of Sun Ra and his Saturn partner Alton Abraham.

Historians have written extensively about Sun Ra and his music. This book is a tribute to the covers and to the uncredited visual artists and their rich imaginations. From the simple to the baroque to the absurd, the covers that sheathed Ra's discs reflect the tenaciousness of a genius who refused to compromise or relinquish control of his destiny.

Pages: 240
Format: Hardback
Colour: Full-colour.
Dimensions: 11.75" × 11.75"