"Mute is one of the most revered and influential indie labels of all time. Through the music of its tight-knit community of artists--ranging from Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Cave's The Birthday Party and Moby to Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Goldfrapp--it has had an incalculable impact on popular music for forty years. Daniel Miller created Mute to release his debut single (Warm Leatherette / T.V.O.D.), a pioneering electronic sound with a defiantly DIY punk attitude. Mute quickly established a reputation for cultivating the experimental, releasing cutting-edge industrial sounds, and chart-topping electronic music by the likes of Depeche Mode and Yazoo. The label was equally at home with the savage punk of Nick Cave's The Birthday Party and--to critical acclaim--his next outfit, The Bad Seeds. It also proved to be an Internet pioneer, launching the online site Mute Liberation Technologies in 1994. Mute features stunning artwork and photography--much of it previously unseen--and revelatory behind-the-scenes insights from the vibrant cast who have worked with the label"--

The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora is the definitive anthology of the maestro’s visual compositions, reflecting jazz, classical, and Latin music. Regarding his jam-packed canvases Flora once said he “couldn’t stand a static space.” There’s nothing static about the images in The High Fidelity Art: they wail, dance, bounce, and swing from the chandeliers. Flora had a knack for grooving with a paintbrush, making art to which you can tap your toes and snap your fingers.

What started out as a mutual affinity for kitschy Jewish album covers-think Neil Diamond baring his chest hair on the cover of "Hot August Night "or Barbra Streisand in hot pants on the cover of "Streisand Superman"-soon became a quest for identity, history, and culture between the grooves of LPs. Together, Roger Bennett and Josh Kun embarked on a thrilling journey, scouring the world to collect thousands of vinyl LPs from attics, garage sales, and dusty archives. Pieced together, these scratched, once-loved and now-forgotten audio gems tell a vibrant tale: the story of Jews in America. "And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl" spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s, weaving an account that begins with sacred songs and ends with the holy trinity of Neil, Barbra, and Barry. The LPs found here are also a love letter to forgotten moments in Jewish American pop history, celebrating well-dressed cantors singing Christmas tunes, Long Island suburbanites dancing the mambo, and Chassidic prog-rockers. The music, much of which is no longer available in any format, is brought to life through commentary from writers Aimee Bender, Etgar Keret, Michael Wex, and Shalom Auslander; performers Sandra Bernhard and Motown legend Lamont Dozier; music critics Oliver Wang and Anne Powers; and TV pioneer Norman Lear. A gateway to a forgotten kingdom of sound, the good, the bad, and the ugly of Jewish vinyl gives this aspect of Jewish culture the attention it so richly deserves.