Svart HHV Records 494 Items

A limited-to-300 reissue of this rare west coast psych inspired album from 1972. With all lyrics and liner notes by Jaakko Riihimaa.

Bengt Huhta, known by his nom de plume Kristian, made this unusual album in 1972, after enjoying a pop star career in the late sixties.

As a singer he suffered the same fate as most sixties pop singers - no matter how ambitious the artist, his choice of songs to record was always made by the label, the songs more often than not being Finnish translations of popular international schlager tunes. Most live appearances took place on small stages inside restaurants or at traditional dance halls, with the expectation that the band would perform music suitable for dancing, which meant a selection of evergreen material mostly. The artist could sneak their own material in at the end of a long set or between shorter dance sets.

Winds of change were in the air, though, and Kristian grew bored of his one-dimensional role as a domestic pop star. In 1971 he decided to quit altogether, but as his Finnish cover version of Let The Sunshine In was still in the charts, the record company persuaded him to make one more album. He agreed, but with the condition that the album would record his own English language material only.

For a Finnish singer-songwriter to release an album of English language rock music influenced by the post-hippie psychedelic and progressive movements of the time was a career suicide, and this is what happened with this album as well. What few original copies there are in circulation still have become very expensive. Svart Records are happy to present a new edition of this underrated light psych rock gem to the new millennium.

Darker Days Ahead is Terrorizer's follow up to their classic 1989 album World Downfall. It features original members Pete Sandoval (Morbid Angel) and Jesse Pintado (Napalm Death, Brujeria) on drums and guitar with new members Anthony Rezhawk and Tony Norman joining in on vocals and bass. Despite the long gap between releases, the band picked up exactly where they left off in 1989 and created an album full of pure extreme metal that is guaranteed to satisfy all fans of old school death metal and grindcore.

The Netherlands' premium progressive gothic metal artists The Gathering caught live on the stage of the legendary Paradiso in Amsterdam, 1999. The Svart Records official reissue comes on 180 gram vinyl, wrapped in a heavy gatefold jacket.



"It is a very good representation of where we stood back in 1998/99. We also didn’t do any overdubs so what you see is what you get. It’s a very honest document of what THE Gathering was like in 1999", says Hans Rutten of The Gathering,"It's very pure and I'm very proud of it, especially to see it finally reissued on vinyl after a first, very limited run in 2013."

The Netherlands' premium progressive gothic metal artists The Gathering caught live on the stage of the legendary Paradiso in Amsterdam, 1999. The Svart Records official reissue comes on 180 gram vinyl, wrapped in a heavy gatefold jacket.



"It is a very good representation of where we stood back in 1998/99. We also didn’t do any overdubs so what you see is what you get. It’s a very honest document of what THE Gathering was like in 1999", says Hans Rutten of The Gathering,"It's very pure and I'm very proud of it, especially to see it finally reissued on vinyl after a first, very limited run in 2013."

An astounding compilation of rarities by The Gathering. Features all tracks from EPs and singles from the band's golden metal days 1995-2000, plus a heap of material entirely unavailable elsewhere. Pressed on three 180 gram LPs and presented in a special die cut slipcase.



This 140 plus minutes and 27 songs long triple album is a bit all over the place, mixing works-in-progress demos, the odd cover song or alternative version plus occasional unreleased or live material. Yet, while in terms of years it covers a quite short period (1995-2001), it is one essential release that takes you right at the very core of their creative growth at a time when they were rapidly evolving, both on a human and musical level.



"The main idea behind it was pretty simple, to make available to our fans all those B-sides, unreleased tracks and versions that had been sitting on the shelves for too long. Everything. And before we knew it, we ended up with a double album with a lot of things on it! It’s quite a mish-mash but I also think it’s a nice bouquet so to speak of everything we had done", comments Hans Rutten from the band.

The first half of Accessories gathers 14 tracks from the band's singles between 1995 and 2001. None of these songs are available on other albums. The second half contains two sessions which remained unreleased until Accessories - the first being a studio session with krautrock legend Eroc, who the band wanted as their producer, and the second session the uncompromised result of the band being locked in a small analog studio for a week with nothing or nobody to restrict their creativity.

An astounding compilation of rarities by The Gathering. Features all tracks from EPs and singles from the band's golden metal days 1995-2000, plus a heap of material entirely unavailable elsewhere. Pressed on three 180 gram LPs and presented in a special die cut slipcase.



This 140 plus minutes and 27 songs long triple album is a bit all over the place, mixing works-in-progress demos, the odd cover song or alternative version plus occasional unreleased or live material. Yet, while in terms of years it covers a quite short period (1995-2001), it is one essential release that takes you right at the very core of their creative growth at a time when they were rapidly evolving, both on a human and musical level.



"The main idea behind it was pretty simple, to make available to our fans all those B-sides, unreleased tracks and versions that had been sitting on the shelves for too long. Everything. And before we knew it, we ended up with a double album with a lot of things on it! It’s quite a mish-mash but I also think it’s a nice bouquet so to speak of everything we had done", comments Hans Rutten from the band.

The first half of Accessories gathers 14 tracks from the band's singles between 1995 and 2001. None of these songs are available on other albums. The second half contains two sessions which remained unreleased until Accessories - the first being a studio session with krautrock legend Eroc, who the band wanted as their producer, and the second session the uncompromised result of the band being locked in a small analog studio for a week with nothing or nobody to restrict their creativity.

The Finnish masters of explosive krautrock, the band of a thousand guitars, Teksti-TV 666 are ready to let loose their second album in February 2023 after the five year long wait. Svart Records are proud to release Vapauden Tasavalta on CD, vinyl and digital platforms on February 24th 2023.

Teksti-TV 666 plays loud and stretched-to-the-max alternative rock songs filled with motorik-beats, shoegaze, psychedelic elements, and suddenly a proto-metal riff or two emerging out of nowhere. The band likes to avoid the excessive seriousness surrounding their music and instead vows to their constantly growing wall of sound -army and to the various vocalists joining them on stage. Teksti-TV 666 is the band to light up the party anytime, anywhere.

The Finnish masters of explosive krautrock, the band of a thousand guitars, Teksti-TV 666 are ready to let loose their second album in February 2023 after the five year long wait. Svart Records are proud to release Vapauden Tasavalta on CD, vinyl and digital platforms on February 24th 2023.

Teksti-TV 666 plays loud and stretched-to-the-max alternative rock songs filled with motorik-beats, shoegaze, psychedelic elements, and suddenly a proto-metal riff or two emerging out of nowhere. The band likes to avoid the excessive seriousness surrounding their music and instead vows to their constantly growing wall of sound -army and to the various vocalists joining them on stage. Teksti-TV 666 is the band to light up the party anytime, anywhere.

Oriental Beat by Hanoi Rocks gets the redux treatment, officially mixed and revived from the original sessions, and released on March 17th on deluxe vinyl, CD and digital formats. The CD and vinyl come with the song lyrics, checked and approved by Michael Monroe.

Dubbed the “re(al) mix”, this 40th anniversary edition was mixed by Petri Majuri at E-Studios in Finland in collaboration with the band. Vocalist Michael Monroe calls this release “the longest and slowest album project ever,” stating that “40 years in the making, it's not just a remix, but the Real MIX supervised and approved by Hanoi Rocks”.

Recorded in London, UK in 1981, for 200 pounds a day, Oriental Beat was made during the height of the British punk + New Wave movement, when the band was hanging out with everyone from Phil Lynott to the Damned. Hanoi Rocks’ original drummer Gyp Casino says of Oriental Beat that: “Back in the days we gave heart, soul and a bit of pain to make this record something else” but the sound of the album, originally released in 1982, did not match their efforts at the time. Bassist Sami Yaffa called it “the worst sounding album of our career” and Michael Monroe said that “the producer of the album didn’t have a clue what the band was about and his mix of the album was horribly wrong”.

Oriental Beat’s original engineer Peter Wooliscroft, was not a rock producer, and according to Hanoi Rocks’ manager Richard Bishop he “tried to mix the album to sound like Spandau Ballet”. Released before the band could remix or rerecord it, as the label had run out of money, and the master tapes had gone missing, the band has always considered the original mix of Oriental Beat to be a “disaster”. With the tapes mysteriously showing up in the Universal vault recently, the band was finally able to mix and resequence the album the way they wanted it to sound.

Oriental Beat is a defining masterpiece made when Hanoi Rocks was about to explode onto the world scene and written at the absolute peak of lead guitarist Andy McCoy’s creativity as a songwriter. Rhythm guitarist Nasty Suicide says “only now, with stripping it down to the bare essentials and tweaking it to bring out what was really laid down it became our dream come true! This is what it's all about” as this definitive edition of Oriental Beat now fully displays the ultimate arrogance and attitude which defined the band. Monroe says: “now, 40 years after its original release in 1982, we finally got the album sounding as great as it deserves, with no overdubs or samples,” and McCoy adds that: “It's better now than ever. This is what it was meant to sound like. So enjoy it...Another shot of Hanoi Rocks”.

Oriental Beat by Hanoi Rocks gets the redux treatment, officially mixed and revived from the original sessions, and released on March 17th on deluxe vinyl, CD and digital formats. The CD and vinyl come with the song lyrics, checked and approved by Michael Monroe.

Dubbed the “re(al) mix”, this 40th anniversary edition was mixed by Petri Majuri at E-Studios in Finland in collaboration with the band. Vocalist Michael Monroe calls this release “the longest and slowest album project ever,” stating that “40 years in the making, it's not just a remix, but the Real MIX supervised and approved by Hanoi Rocks”.

Recorded in London, UK in 1981, for 200 pounds a day, Oriental Beat was made during the height of the British punk + New Wave movement, when the band was hanging out with everyone from Phil Lynott to the Damned. Hanoi Rocks’ original drummer Gyp Casino says of Oriental Beat that: “Back in the days we gave heart, soul and a bit of pain to make this record something else” but the sound of the album, originally released in 1982, did not match their efforts at the time. Bassist Sami Yaffa called it “the worst sounding album of our career” and Michael Monroe said that “the producer of the album didn’t have a clue what the band was about and his mix of the album was horribly wrong”.

Oriental Beat’s original engineer Peter Wooliscroft, was not a rock producer, and according to Hanoi Rocks’ manager Richard Bishop he “tried to mix the album to sound like Spandau Ballet”. Released before the band could remix or rerecord it, as the label had run out of money, and the master tapes had gone missing, the band has always considered the original mix of Oriental Beat to be a “disaster”. With the tapes mysteriously showing up in the Universal vault recently, the band was finally able to mix and resequence the album the way they wanted it to sound.

Oriental Beat is a defining masterpiece made when Hanoi Rocks was about to explode onto the world scene and written at the absolute peak of lead guitarist Andy McCoy’s creativity as a songwriter. Rhythm guitarist Nasty Suicide says “only now, with stripping it down to the bare essentials and tweaking it to bring out what was really laid down it became our dream come true! This is what it's all about” as this definitive edition of Oriental Beat now fully displays the ultimate arrogance and attitude which defined the band. Monroe says: “now, 40 years after its original release in 1982, we finally got the album sounding as great as it deserves, with no overdubs or samples,” and McCoy adds that: “It's better now than ever. This is what it was meant to sound like. So enjoy it...Another shot of Hanoi Rocks”.