Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads
Dustin Wong's second LP Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, is a departure from Dustin's previous methods but more closely a distillation of his live show into recorded form. The pieces are so intricate and detailed that we've asked Dustin to explain his process and he happily obliges us: "When I begin to explore and to build a song through a series of pedals, I begin with the tuner. It helps keep my guitar's pitch consistent. An octave pedal and the distortion pedals allows me to …
Heaven's Youth (Reptilians Demos)
Starfucker’s highly regarded full-length LP Reptilians was originally titled “Heaven’s Youth”. Like most artists, song ideas, the album concept and even the artwork continued to evolve. The band changed the title, continued to edit and develop the songs until the final version (Reptilians) was released in 2011. The original versions of the songs, that were until now only heard by the band, are being released for the first time in a very limited edition of white vinyl. Heaven’s Youth (Re…
Infinite Love
Dustin Wong, like many of us, dove into the world of music and art as an unhappy youth looking to rebel against certain ideals and "absolute truths" that contrasted his own beliefs. A twisting path of punk discovery and a growing respect for sonic visionaries like Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson, John Fahey, and Brian Eno led Dustin to further pursue his muse. He eventually wound up at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he met and co-founded the critically acclaimed band Ponytail. …
Lucifer
Textural and whimsical, Lucifer is the latest effort by Peaking Lights couple in love, Indra Dunis and Aaron Coyes. Dunis enjoyed earlier success as a vocalist for Numbers, while wild child Coyes bounced between bands throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, always infusing his musical creations with spontaneity and psychedelia to spare. As he states in a piece for Domino Records: “I…went on a massive stone haze mushroom-induced tour-of-the-mind journey. I think the operative word is haze.”
Aft…
Alice
Limited, hand-numbered edition of 500 green vinyls housed in lavish die-cut and foil-block embossed jacket** Alexander Tucker (Imbogodom/Guapo) and Daniel O'Sullivan (Æthenor/Ulver/Guapo) reprise their Grumbling Fur alias for the Latitudes series following that excellent album for Aurora Borealis in 2011. Both artists have previously graced the series already - Tucker solo and with Ginnugagap, and O'Sullivan with Miasma And The Carousel Of Headless Horses - and don't disappoint with their…
Foam Fangs
West Coast synth guru Jonas Reinhardt (aka Jesse Reiner) makes his 100% Silk debut with 'Foam Fangs', which sees the usually downtempo producer pushing things up a couple of notches. The cosmic Jarre-esque synthesizer washes are still present, but are bolstered with chest-punching 4/4 rhythms and rubbery looping sequences straight out of the 1987 house rulebook. Somehow this gives the EP the glow of Detroit-era pioneer Juan Atkins and muddles it with the Italo-laced fuzz of Johnny Jewel. …
Human Fly
Another curveball from the Not Not Fun camp, 'Human Fly' pits Wolf Eyes noisenik Nate Young against veteran garage punk drummer Dave Shettler and while their collaborative moniker might be a little zany, their brand of dancefloor-ready industrial/techno variations is tough to ignore. Veering from hazy EBM-flecked speed garage (we're not kidding, take a listen) on the title track to Chicago bleep on the zonked 'Cyber Rebels' there's a sense that Young and Shettler are not only well studied…
Will Happiness Find Me
If Ariel Pink takes rock music history and trash-compacts it to suit his needs, then Estonian ex-pat Maria Minerva does the same with dance music. Her narcotic-laced brand of electronic music was showcased perfectly on last year's breakthrough 'Cabaret Cixous', an album which not only put a spotlight on Minerva but also the Not Not Fun imprint itself. 'Will Happiness Find Me' is that record's followup and thankfully Minerva avoids and of the usual pitfalls simply by not overthinking the c…
Quanta Of Light
Limited, hand-stamped white label edition** Highly disciplined master of visceral intensity, Daniel Menche, presents a one-off album for Touch's great white label series. Daniel's work is gladly accepted by both noise and more "musical" spheres, releasing on a wealth of labels including Important Records, Editions Mego and Sub Rosa among many others. Taken as a whole, they capture and play with a timeless sense of drama and direct emotional rawness that's hard to ignore. For Touch, 'Quant…
Certain Circumstances
In the summer of 2009, preeminent ambient guitarist Mark McGuire recorded with Cleveland mainstay jazz and rock drummer Nate Scheible. Mark's key compositions have been either solo guitar or collaboration with keyboardists, including Emeralds, Inner Tube (with Skaters' Charles Berlitz) and Skyramps (with Oneohtrix Point Never), so this presents one of the few recordings of Mark collaborating with a drummer and was captured pristinely in studio at Cleveland's own Zombie Proof. Recorded …
Copenhagen Dreams
Copenhagen Dreams is director Max Kestner’s documentary film portrait of Denmark’s capital. It’s a film about the physical surroundings that are part of shaping our lives. About the buildings we wake up in, the front doors we walk out of, the streets we traverse. It is also a film about how the way we live our lives affects our physical surroundings. About the places we dream of and the walls onto which we scratch the names of our loved ones, before it’s too late.It focuses on the city as a phys…
It's You
Sydney, Australia's Holy Balm trio jack out a heat-warped LP of avant-dance songs for Not Not Fun. 'It's You' feels like dance music that's been made in a hot country. It's got a faded, sun-bleached quality and drunk-in-the-afternoon sloppiness that's entirely endearing to our tastes. Their synth melodies are always prone to slipping saltily off-key and the beats are basically functional - lumpy kicks and squirmy, acidic synth pop bass - ridden with alluring nonchalance by Anna John in a hybrid …
The Men Parted The Sea To Devour The Water
Numbered edition of 700 housed in die-cut, origami fold and foil-blocked jacket** 'The Men Parted The Sea To Devour The Water' is The Haxan Cloak's long awaited Latitudes edition. It's his first release since that jaw-dropping eponymous album (an end of year favourite across the board) and means that we're possibly one step closer to two things: a vinyl edition of said LP, and his hugely anticipated album debut for Tri Angle. But let's not get ahead of ourselves....here we find Bobby Kr…
Split
Limited vinyl pressing of this excellent split LP self-released by Grouper in this scarce second edition* The music on this split release arrives remastered after its initial release via C40 cassette a while back. Likeminded souls Eva Saelens (inca Ore) and Liz Harris (Grouper) are in brilliant form on these recordings, so it's great to hear them in a cleaned up format - though of course with these two, it's fairly difficult to tell where the muddy cassette hiss ends and the foggy, dusty …
Occupied With The Unspoke
Golden Retriever was started in 2008 by Jonathan Sielaff and Matt Carlson whose paths first crossed in the early 00’s when Sielaff and Carlson were in experimental pop bands that frequently worked together, Au and Parenthetical Girls respectively. Through collaboration, they developed a deep understanding of each other’s musical voice and sensibilities. After exchanging a few solo recordings, it became clear that they had remarkably similar aspirations for and theories on music, th…
I, Anatomy
Celer combine the chapters of 'All At Once Is What Eternity Is' and 'The Die That's Caste' EPs with new side 'I, Anatomy' to form a sumptuous extended narrative. The new material comprises two play-thru sides expanding and contracting between string swept serenity, blooming drone, location recordings and back again making for a truly transportive, blissful experience. Much the same can be said of their two EPs which were originally issued on 3" CD in 2007. Again using strings, theremin, t…
Sleepwalker
Keeping their winning streak going, Not Not Fun hit us with the lo-lite brilliance of Afterhours, an act that emerged from influential LA radio show 'Field Recordings of the Afterhours'. Citing Mo Wax and Anime as influences you can see how Not Not Fun were wowed by Afterhours' sultry electronics - this is music as indebted to Vangelis and Jean Michelle Jarre as it is 80s pop, industrial and Blech-era Warp bleeps. While title track 'Sleepwalker' is firmly in Blade Runner territory, the hi…
Gramercy
On 'Gramercy', we find clarinet abuser Gareth Davis (who might be best known for collaborations with Machinefabriek and Steven R. Smith) paired with virtuoso cellist Frances-Marie Uitti. Uitti is widely revered for her unusual and original twin bow technique, which allows her to eke out far more sounds from the humble cello that you might initially expect. These sweeps and drones are matched perfectly with Davis's patented haunted drones and breathy chokes resulting in a deftly academic yet unne…
Soulnessless EP 2 (DJ Sprinkles Remix)
The 2nd of two keenly awaited vinyl EPs supporting the ambitious 32 hour, 16GB microSD card release of Terre Thaemlitz's 'Soulnessless' - this time featuring a killer reworking from Terre's DJ Sprinkles Alias, plus a sublime 18 minute Piano excerpt of the original. With 'Meditation on Wage Labor and the Death of the Album (Sprinkles' Unpaid Overtime)' on the A-side Terre returns to the deeply arresting New York/New Jersey minimalist House approach which made his 2009 LP - 'Midtown 120 Blue…
The Disintegration Loops
***Worldwide delivery is free/included!*** This epic box set includes 9 LP's remastered from the original recordings, plus all of the remastered recordings on 5 CDs, the extremely rare 63-minute The Disintegration Loops film on DVD, and a 150-page full-color coffee table book featuring liner notes, and rare photos taken during the making of The Disintegration Loops. The Disintegration Loops has never appeared on vinyl, and will never appear so outside of this special, lavish collection* F…