Light In The Attic: Dusting Off Betty Davis, Free MP3s

Light in the Attic is full of bright ideas lately. Adding two new chapters to its ongoing reissue series, the label is excavating more hidden gems from the Athena of noncommercial funk and second wife of Miles Davis, Betty Davis. So she’s not the most punk-rock artist we’ve ever covered. But she did her own thing and didn’t give a damn what others - particularly labels - thought, so she’s cool in our book.

October 6 will see the release of Is It Love or Desire, a 1976 recording so rare by the label’s estimation that it’s never even been on bootleg before.

But why stop there? The lamp upstairs is also retouching 1975’s perfectly titled Nasty Gal, which, like its partner, will come in the label’s typically classy digipak packaging. Mark your calendars for October 6 for that one too, all you funknomusicologists.

Finally, a few weeks back, some Light in the Attic folks broke out of their cubes, hopped in a van, loaded up a bunch of their stock and started driving around the country, hand-delivering their merchandise to record stores face-to-face-style. It was like a bunch of rock critics making their own record, but instead, this was a handful of label peeps launching their own national tour. Rock on.

Read all about the audiophiles’ road trip right here, and buckle up (huh, huh) for the latest installment of their video diary here. And in case you still don’t believe these guys are cool, they’re sharing three of their favorite road-trip songs free of charge. All three tunes are by artists on the Light in the Attic roster, which also includes the Black Angels, the Blakes, the Saturday Knights and more:

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