A landmark techno mix, Swiss ambient pop, psychedelic folk spirituals, cumbia rebajadas, ’00s latin pop, and more archival favorites!

Here at In Sheep’s Clothing, we’ve always believed that a healthy music discovery practice requires an equal bit of looking forward, while also looking backwards. Reissues and archival compilation projects from the many diggers and labels putting in the work of unearthing unknown treasures continue to serve as crucial guiding lights in our journey into the past. As we enter into the second half of the ’20s, it’s been exciting to see more reissues focusing on ’90s and ’00s CD-era releases and the digital electronic-infused sounds that we grew up listening to as teens.

This year, we took our first step into the world of archival music with our reissue of Mitsuto Suzuki aka Electric Satie’s previously CD-only 1998 release Gymnopédie ’99. Drawing from the proto-ambient melodies of beloved French composer Erik Satie, the album is a perfect meeting point between the ’90s era electronic and chillout music that we love along with the ambient and modern classical that we often play in our listening rooms.

Last copies available here: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/product/electric-satie-gymnopedie-99-lp/

Below, a few more of our favorite archival releases selected by the team behind In Sheep’s Clothing:

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• ARTIST: Various Artists
• TITLE: Lost Coast: Some Visionary Music from California, 1980–1992
• LABEL: Goaty Tapes / House Rules
• STYLE: New Age / Electronic
• LOCATION: California
• YEARS: 1980-1992

In Northern California, the most beguiling tapes aren’t found at record stores. You chase them through yard sales, flea markets, and the fog. Lost Coast: Some Visionary Music From California is a new compilation assembled by Zully Adler, founder of Goaty Tapes and House Rules. Issued on LP, it documents in a brilliantly sequenced collection a hidden strain of personal, often homemade spiritual music recorded across the state between the 1970s and 1990s.

Sourced from private collections, estate sales in Eureka, and near the Humboldt County Airport, the songs on Lost Coast reflect a quiet regional counterculture rooted in solitude, experimentation, and metaphysical exploration. One track came from a mescaline dealer in Humboldt who was selling a few old tapes at a yard sale. Others were originally composed for yoga classes, ceramics studios, or no audience at all.

Available Now: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/product/various-lost-coast-some-visionary-music-from-california-lp/

• ARTIST: Soar
• TITLE: Soar
• LABEL: Efficient Space
• STYLE: Ambient / Indie Rock / Lo-Fi
• LOCATION: Switzerland
• YEARS: 1995-2010

Soar is a compilation of tape-warbled ambient pop and lo-fi indie rock from Christian Aebi, an amateur sonic wanderer who lived his entire life in Langenthal, a small town in the Swiss provinces. These sort of outsider bedroom tape discoveries are a dime a dozen these days, but the songs collected here have an undeniable and frankly irresistible charm, filled with haunting melodies, tape hiss, and layered vocal harmonies. Made from half-working keyboards, toy instruments, drum machines, and other curious tools gathered from flea markets, Aebi’s music draws you immediately into his delicately constructed floating sound world, and it’s a space you won’t want to soon leave… Highly recommended for fans of Durutti Column, Stereolab, and of course all the other incredible archival outsider pop releases on Efficient Space!

• ARTIST: The Durutti Column
• TITLE: The Return of the Durutti Column (Expanded & Remastered)
• LABEL: London Records Ltd.
• STYLE: Post-punk / Dream Pop / Ambient
• LOCATION: UK
• YEAR: 1980

One of our absolute favorite albums, The Return of the Durutti Column is the quietly radical debut from guitarist Vini Reilly. While his post-punk Factory Records contemporaries (Joy Division, Happy Mondays, A Certain Ratio) were often reaching toward heavier or even chaotic tonalities, Reilly centered his music around a sort of atmospheric minimalism blending jazz, rock, and ambience into an otherworldly haze of sound. This new “Expanded & Remastered” comes with an entire disc of studio demos & live versions along with the iconic sandpaper sleeve LP that accompanied the original release. Essential!

• ARTIST: Sonido Dueñez
• TITLE: Rebajadas 1 + 2
• LABEL: Boomkat
• STYLE: Cumbia
• LOCATION: Mexico
• YEAR: 1992

Released by Boomkat in collaboration with Mexican artist Debit (a.k.a. Delia Beatriz), Rebajadas Tape 1 + 2 are faithful reproductions of Mexican selector Sonido Dueñez’s original 1992 slowed-down cumbia tapes. The story goes that on one fateful night, Sonido Dueñez’s turntable motor overheated transforming the cumbias he was playing into woozy, half-speed grooves. The crowd fell in love with the psychedelic, ghost-like sounds, and the subsequent series of Rebajadas Tapes became legendary across Latin America, birthing a sub-genre of cumbia that continues to be played today. Only a limited quantity of these reissue tapes were pressed, but luckily you can listen to both tapes in full on YouTube.

• ARTIST: Susumu Yokota
• TITLE: Skintone Edition Volume 1
• LABEL: Lo Recordings
• STYLE: Electronic / Experimental / Ambient
• LOCATION: Japan
• YEARS: 1998-2003

This year’s Skintone Edition reissues return the core of Susumu Yokota’s ambient catalog to circulation in newly remastered form. Originally released between 1998 and 2001 on Yokota’s own Skintone label and licensed to Leaf, these albums represent his most interior and emotionally expansive work.

The series includes Magic Thread (1998), Image 1983–1998 (1999), Sakura (2000), Grinning Cat (2001), Will (2001), The Boy and the Tree (2001), and Laputa (2003), collected as Skintone Edition Volume 1 and also issued individually. Often sprawling, sometimes double albums, they unfold slowly and change character with volume, time of day, and attention.

Yokota once described his goal through Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke, citing the coexistence of beauty and darkness. “There is always fear, rage, and ugliness existing behind beauty,” he said. That philosophy animates these records, which allow joy, sorrow, and unease to exist without resolution.

• ARTIST: Hiroshi Yoshimura
• TITLE: Flora
• LABEL: Temporal Drift
• STYLE: Ambient
• LOCATION: Japan
• YEAR: 2006

One of Kankyō Ongaku legend Hiroshi Yoshimura’s lesser-known works, Flora was originally recorded and completed in 1987 and first released on CD-only in 2006, three years after Yoshimura’s passing in 2003. Stylistically, the album is a continuation of his acclaimed 1986 works Green and Surround. Delicate, whimsical, and astounding in its melodic world-building, Flora sways and breathes with organic beauty through lush digital textures.

• ARTIST: Sister Irene O’Connor
• TITLE: Fire of God’s Love
• LABEL: Freedom to Spend
• STYLE: Folk / Psychedelic / Catholic
• LOCATION: Australia
• YEAR: 1973

Arriving from possibly the same cosmos as San Francisco’s Space Lady or folk-dentist Linda Perhacs, Sister Irene O’Connor was an Australian nun who recorded a few bizarre collections of unconsciously psychedelic folk spirituals. Opener “Fire (Luke 12:49),” in particular, sounds like it’s being transmitted or even summoned from another world through space echo and spring reverb. “Mass—’Emmanuel’” is also great with its surprisingly movement-inducing drum machine and almost ethnic electric keyboard groove.

• ARTIST: Kelan Phil Cohran
• TITLE: African Skies
• LABEL: Listening Position
• STYLE: Spiritual Jazz
• LOCATION: Chicago
• YEAR: 1993

In 1993, when Chicago’s Adler Planetarium asked Kelan Phil Cohran to score a program called African Skies, they turned to a mind fluent in both galaxies and neighborhoods. Cohran had once played inside Sun Ra’s Arkestra, studying the cosmos through a brass bell. By the time of the commission, he was a guiding presence on the South Side, shaping young musicians, building instruments, and teaching that sound is a form of communication. “Music is the language of life,” he said. “It is how everything communicates.”

African Skies grew directly from that worldview. The program paired astronomical footage from observatories across Africa with a score that feels devotional and exploratory at once, written for an unusual ensemble of double basses, harps, percussion, violin, saxophone, voice, and the Frankiphone, Cohran’s electrified kalimba. The album is newly reissued by Listening Position, the Stones Throw–affiliated imprint, marking the label’s first release and the first widely available edition of Cohran’s 1993 planetarium score, restored from the original recordings and presented as a definitive version.

Pre-Order here: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/product/kelan-phil-cohran-legacy-african-skies-lp/

• ARTIST: Céu
• TITLE: Vagarosa
• LABEL: Jazzybelle Records
• STYLE: Electronic / Latin / MPB
• LOCATION: Brazil
• YEAR: 2009

Released in 2009, Vagarosa is the second album by São Paulo–based singer Céu, deepening her blend of MPB, reggae, dub, jazz and electronic rhythm. The record leans into bass, space and atmosphere, favoring restraint over flourish. “Nascente” moves like a strange collision of Can and Portishead, tense and submerged, while “Espaçonave” channels Bahia rhythms through funk and psychedelia. Céu also reimagines Jorge Ben’s “Rosa Menina Rosa,” slowing it into something hushed and interior. Her voice stays close and unforced throughout, guiding songs that feel intimate, elastic and quietly modern.

• ARTIST: Akiko Yano
• TITLE: 7 O’Clock in Tokyo
• LABEL: WEWANTSOUNDS
• STYLE: Synth-Pop / Live
• LOCATION: Japan
• YEAR: 1978

Recorded live in September 1978, 7 O’Clock in Tokyo captures Akiko Yano at a hinge point in Japanese pop, just before Yellow Magic Orchestra moved onto the world stage. Backed by Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, with Tatsuro Yamashita and Minako Yoshida in the band, Yano leans into funk-rock, pairing elastic grooves with sharp pop instincts. The set draws heavily from To-Ki-Me-Ki, including energized takes on the title track and “Katarun Kararan,” before slipping into the hushed restraint of “Riding in the Balloon,” where the room seems to hold its breath. The album closes with the long, groove-driven “Walk on the Way of Life.” Reissued by Wewantsounds, it appears outside Japan for the first time, newly remastered and restored, capturing Japanese pop mid-motion.

• ARTIST: Chuck Bynum
• TITLE: You Worked Your Miracle
• LABEL: The Sound Council
• STYLE: Boogie / Gospel
• LOCATION: California
• YEAR: 1990

In the late ’70s, Chuck Bynum had all the makings of the next R&B soul star: he toured and recorded with Marvin Gaye, worked on demos with Natalie Cole, and received a $50,000 advance from Warner Bros. to record his debut album, but all of those plans abruptly ended when Bynum was arrested for cocaine possession in Los Angeles, and sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent crime (Reagan Administration). He lost his deal, and the only traces of his music, two promo 7-inches on Warner, would pass on to the world of dusty record bins. Luckily, Scotty Coats and Stephen Chin have put in the work on an extensive archival reissue campaign starting with this unreleased gospel-boogie track recorded while Bynum was in the California State penitentiary!

• ARTIST: Jeff Mills
• TITLE: Live at The Liquid Room – Tokyo
• LABEL: Axis
• STYLE: Techno / House
• LOCATION: Detroit
• YEAR: 1995

Underground Resistance co-founder Jeff Mills aka The Wizard delivers 67 minutes of raw techno innovation on his seminal Live at Liquid Room mix. Recorded in 1995 in Tokyo, the mix is something of a prophecy, charting connections between Detroit, New York, Chicago, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, while also paving the way for the future of techno. Mills masterfully blends both techno and house in his signature high-octane style, developed during his days DJ-ing electro and hip-hop, featuring tracks from Mills himself, Derrick May, Claude Young, Joey Beltram, DJ Funk, Surgeon, Ian Pooley, Ken Ishii, and other dance music luminaries. 2025 reissue via Mills’ own Axis Records.

• ARTIST: Various Artists
• TITLE: The Style of Life
• LABEL: Paradise Is A Frequency / Numero Group
• STYLE: Smooth Jazz / R&B / Digi-Soul
• LOCATION: St. Louis
• YEARS: ’80s to ’00s

Released digitally in 2024, The Style of Life introduced the St. Louis label Paradise is a Frequency’s hushed world of homemade R&B, soul and smooth jazz, well-lubricated music made for late-night lovin’ and low lights. The project grew out of the label’s YouTube channel, which has quietly traced this mood through private, often anonymous recordings that sit somewhere between demo, atmosphere and finished song.

Pressed to vinyl this year in collaboration with Numero Group, the collection finds its shape through sequencing. Across four sides, the pieces settle into an unhurried rhythm, drum machines ticking softly, synths glowing low, melodies allowed to bloom, hover and fade. What felt fleeting in digital form takes on physical patience on vinyl, the experience closer to a slow broadcast than a compilation.

• ARTIST: Various Artists
• TITLE: Telepathic Fish: Trawling The Early 90s Ambient Underground
• LABEL: Fundamental Frequencies
• STYLE: Ambient Techno / Chill-out
• LOCATION: London
• YEARS: Early ’90s

Telepathic Fish documents a formative early 1990s South London moment, when ambient music moved from the margins into squats, house parties and after-hours chill-out rooms. The release centers on the Telepathic Fish parties, hosted by Openmind, the collective of Chantal Passamonte, later known as Mira Calix, David Vallade, Mario Aguera and Kevin Foakes (DJ Food). Their nights sat at a key crossroads of the underground that helped birth Warp and Ninja Tune Records.

“We had three floors, four bedrooms and a huge living room,” Foakes told DJ Mag a few months ago. “We had neighbours who were in college, and they came around all the time and would party with us, and the other side was just empty – it was offices during the day. We didn’t have a problem with noise or neighbours, we were students and students like to party, so it was a no-brainer.”

Telepathic Fish paired immersive sound with handmade visuals and design, hosting artists such as Aphex Twin, Scanner and Andrea Parker and sharing bills with Autechre, Irresistible Force, Global Communication and the Higher Intelligence Agency. The compilation draws from music actually played at the parties, distilled from hundreds of tracks into a concise snapshot of the scene, and is accompanied by a 20-page history.

• ARTIST: Various Artists
• TITLE: Maybe I’m Dreaming
• LABEL: Anthology Recordings
• STYLE: Soft Rock / Folk
• LOCATION: New York
• YEARS: ’70s and ’80s

Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddie Current Suppression) and Anthology founder Keith Abrahamsson once again dig through their seemingly endless crates of lost gems to present their latest compilation Maybe I’m Dreaming. This time, Young and Abrahamsson have selected tracks exclusively from private press releases by lost dreamers who never made it anywhere close to the big time, but still managed to capture a bit of homespun magic. A few seconds into Jim Huxley’s sun-drenched “Tessa on a Magazine” and we were hooked… Highly recommended for fans of Forager Records, Sky Girl, Ghost Riders, etc. 

• ARTIST: Various Artists
• TITLE: Neon Castle
• LABEL: Smiling C
• STYLE: Pop Rock / Folk Rock
• LOCATION: California
• YEARS: Early to mid-’80s

Every dollar bin tells the same story: forgotten ’80s smooth rock, quiet storm and soft-focus R&B, records that missed the charts but not the craft. Much of it was disposable, but scattered among the gloss were strange, intimate albums where emotion and studio invention briefly aligned. Neon Castle, the new compilation from Charles Bals and Smiling C, digs precisely there.

The set gathers overlooked mid-’80s tracks that shimmer with atmosphere rather than ambition, balancing pop structure with late-night haze. Drum machines tick gently beneath fretless bass, slide guitars glow, and voices drift like half-remembered FM broadcasts. The result feels less archival than authored, a coherent mood assembled from fragments.

Bals, a French visual artist and longtime curator, sequences the collection like a film, letting each song unfold as a scene. Neon Castle doesn’t argue for reevaluation so much as immersion, a softly luminous world built from music that once slipped quietly past our attention.