In Our Name
Pioneering American electronic music composer Annea Lockwood presents "In Our Name", based upon two of the many poems written in Guantánamo by detainees, with no expectation that they could ever be heard "outside the wire". Many poems were confiscated by the Pentagon before the writers' lawyers could read them and remain locked away, the Pentagon "arguing that poetry 'presents a special risk' to national security because of its 'content and format.'" Marc Falkoff writes, in his introduction to t…
The World Is A House On Fire
Veterans of the sprawling Chicago music scene, Zelienople have carved out a unique sound over their album releases. The World is a House on Fire is the latest chapter in the band's story, and frames their music more succinctly than ever before. Mike Weis (percussion), Matt Christensen (vocals, guitar) and Brian Harding (bass, saxophone) managed to perfect brooding, melancholy doom-pop on their last full-length Give it Up (TYPE 054CD), and this latest LP finds the band in a more evocative mood.…
Sinus
A simple synthetic-based, sine wave-generating freeware program was used as a sound source for creating single pulses and long static tones in several different tonal pitches. No additional sound design or other analog or digital processing was used during the creation of the sounds. The single sound elements were layered and sequenced into different movements of varying shapes and colors, focusing on the pure essence and aesthetics of sound. Each track interweaves longer, stretched, tonal…
Dawn In 2 Dimensions
After the dark conceptual ambience of Beyond the 4th Door, the members of Eternal Tapestry decided the time was right to do an album embracing their live show - blistering psych rock filled with lyrical guitar soloing and a caveman approach to rhythm, an oddly euphoric state where melancholia is blasted by ecstatic noise. Compiled from a variety of sessions at Tapestry Space throughout the spring of 2011 (some of this material first found a home on the two fall tour tapes), this set of so…
Kandodo
Kandodo is the solo project of Simon Price, singer/guitarist of The Heads. Price was raised in Zambia and Malawi, which left an indelible mark on him personally, and is manifest in the song titles, artwork, and name of the project. The influence is less obvious on his instrumental music, but Simon says that if there were lyrics, they'd be about animist religions, hyenas, sharks and dusty drives. Named after a Malawian supermarket that he used to shop in back in the late '80's, the debut self-tit…
California Babylon
* LP version with insert * "California Babylon is a far more sparse and caustic offering than Factrix's debut, Scheintot, documenting their live collaboration with notorious artist Monte Cazazza, who along with recording for Throbbing Gristle's Industrial label also coined its 'Industrial Music for Industrial People' motto. Originally released on the seminal Subterranean Records in 1982, California Babylon remains one of the best collections of violent guitar and primitive machine-noise resonanc…
Glass Canyon
It's been a little while since we've last heard from Oakland-based sound artist Marielle Jakobsons in a solo capacity, but that's certainly not to say she hasn't been busy. Last year saw full-length outings by her two duo projects, Date Palms and Myrmyr, and already in 2012 works with Bay Area drone ensemble Portraits and trio recordings with Helena Espvall and Agnes Szelag have been released. Her last major solo outing (under the nom-de-plume Darwinsbitch) came in form of the dark, comple…
Already Gone
Already Gone is the second full length album from West Coast dream-drone unit En, the duo of Maxwell August Croy and James Devane, following their well-received debut album The Absent Coast (released in 2010 on Root Strata, which Croy runs alongside Jefre Cantu-Ledesma). For their sophomore release, the pair has opened up their tonal palette considerably. While the comparisons that critics made of their first album to the work of Tim Hecker and Stars of the Lid still hold true, Already Gone find…
Ahh-Ahh: Music For Ed Tannenbaum's Technological Feets
Last copies of this 2012 release. The music on this LP was originally composed by Maggi Payne from 1984-1987 for the performance group Technological Feets. Formed by video artist Ed Tennenbaum in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1981, the group combines dance, live video processing and music. This is the first time these recordings have ever been released on vinyl, and aside from the track "Ahh-Ahh (Ver 2.1)," the first time any of it has ever been officially released. Composed on an Apple II …
Forever Falling Toward The Sky
Forever Falling Toward the Sky is the first ever release by Bay Area based Vestals, AKA Lisa McGee. A taught set of haunting electric ballads, these five tracks weave together a number of layered guitars and vocals into a smokey tapestry of blown electricity. Rather than the ephemeral drones McGee has been involved with recently, most notably the group-mind ensemble Portraits & the duo Higuma, Vestals retains the clarity of song, with these hypnotic gyms having been slowly carved out over…
Raajmahal
Debut private press release in a run of only 300 copies for this otherworldly guitar-psych trio featuring Pat Murano (NNCK/Decimus/Key Of Shame), Carla Baker (Baba Yaga/Flower Orgy) and Santa Wolanczyk (Flower Orgy): Raajmahal are less focussed on the kind of low-level tectonics of NNCK et al and more on the levitation potential inherent in heavenly female vocals and endlessly glissing psychedelic guitar. The production style is total candy-floss soft focus and the guitars bloom into dista…
Tsar Ova Elk
Jason Meagher (No Neck Blues Band, Black Dirt Studio) and Pat Murano (No Neck Blues Band, Decimus) have sporadically been releasing material as K-Salvatore since 1995. The sparse and disturbing electronics captured on this LP, their first since 2006, reflect the dark and cold of the winter's night on which they were created. Edition of 300 in jackets silk screened."Been a long time since we heard from K-Salvatore, an offshoot of The No-Neck Blues Band that features Pat Murano (Decimus/Key Of Sh…
Decimus 11
Pat Murano’s Decimus project has been all over the map in the past few years, undertaking a massive effort to put out a series of 12 albums in accordance with the zodiac of Decimus Magnus Ausonius. Previous to this Murano was perhaps best known as one of the founding members of No Neck Blues Band, K-Salvatore, & Malkuth, but it is with Decimus that the full story finally unfolds. With 11, Murano is going schizo and taking you down a hellish aural rabbit hole, deep into the abyss.I’m not exaggera…
Deviation
If “Dream Tennis” was any indication, Heatsick has struck a nerve with his singles that stretch preset washes of polyphony through sunset-hued landscapes of disco and house. Equipped with only a Casio keyboard, he has played alongside everyone from Omar Souleyman to DJ Harvey, Daniel Wang and Legowelt, and has demonstrated his ability not only to extend his keyboard to its limits, but to transcend its musical territory, opening up a diverse range of styles, genres and gestures to his danc…
Impossible Symmetry
Impossible Symmetry is the third full length record by Helm, the project of London based artist Luke Younger. It marks a new chapter in the artists' canon as it's his first to be informed by live performance rather than studio experimentation. The recording and engineering was primarily a solo venture, with some technical assistance from John Hannon on a few tracks. Most of the compositions were created out of ideas / improvisations that were conceived in a live context and then fed back …
Altered Realities
Erdem Helvagioglu first broke through to the international audience with his Walk Through the Bazaar...a collection of sounds from the bazaar in Istanbul that he worked to create an emotional tour. On this record the listener is presented with the performer, on live guitar with live electronics and processing. This kind of work is straight up 'new music' and has strong affinities to the downtown, improvised and modern classical currents that are being played throughout the capitals of the …
Split
This four way split 2LP is released for Record Store Day 2012 and features exclusive full sides of material from Pulse Emitter, Date Palms, Expo 70, and Faceplant (Aaron Coyes of Peaking Lights) The material was mastered and cut to vinyl by Andreas [LUPO] Lubich at D&M in Berlin and pressed to high quality virgin vinyl at RTI. The 2LP is packaged in a beautiful uncoated stock jacket featuring visual artwork by Will Hutchinson and is limited to only 1,000 copies worldwide with a free downl…
By The Throat
2012 repress, LP version. This is Reykjavik-based composer/producer Ben Frost's second release for the Icelandic Bedroom Community label. By The Throat is blood red and cloaked in shadow. Produced in Iceland by Ben Frost and Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk, CocoRosie, Bonnie "Prince" Billy), this album features performances by Amiina of Sigur Rós fame, Arcade Fire's Jeremy Gara, Swedish metal outfit Crowpath and composer Nico Muhly. Aside from the purely musical language of harmony and melody, there'…
The Ann Steel Album
Repressed! "Roberto Cacciapaglia is an Italian electronic composer who's made albums using every possible permutation of the same six notes, right up to modern classical, with The Ann Steel Album as the weird anomaly. Made with an American model who moved to Italy to make it big in fashion, Roberto took her languid, Laurie Anderson-esque voice and created a detached futurist popstar. The odd sound of these European futurist pop songs make it sound like the machines are breathing, creatin…
Festival Electr�nica En Abril � 2003-2012
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Festival Electrónica en Abril, born in 2003 at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, La Casa Encendida has invited some of the artists that have left their personal mark on the event, right now the oldest music festival in Madrid. All of them have contributed exclusive tracks to this 2LP that provide an insight into the quality and diversity of the festival. These are ten exclusive tracks that research a very specific sound quality (Eleh, Radian, nsi.), take…