Mu
REISSUE OF THE YEAR! Truly deluxe edition in hardboard linen LP box contains 2 LP's and a 16 page booklet with biography text and notes limited to 300 copies only.The only time this ensemble got together before was for the singular and legendary 'Wired' session recorded in 1970 and published on the Deutsche Grammophon box set 'Free Improvisation' in 1974. The Wired session also included Karl-Heinz Böttner while this release of 'Mu' just has the trio of Ranta, Lewis and Plank. Mu got recorded a …
Imaginary Softwoods
Three years ago, a triple cassette oddity appeared out of nowhere adorned in washed-out nature collages and zero information. Turns out that John Elliot of Emeralds was behind the madness, and after further dissection of the sounds enclosed and it all began to make sense.Those three tapes (one yellow, one blue, one red) were the first taste of something that felt like a lost private-press object from the early European electronic experimentations of the '60s & '70s. Each vignette is its own stor…
truth & distance
This is an extended, limited vinyl edition of a dark ambient classic, featuring an extra 10 minutes of bonus material. Initial copies come on white vinyl!* Another heart-stopping debut brought to you by the increasingly inspired Digitalis imprint, Concern is the recording project of Gordon Ashworth who in a previous incarnation (as Oscillating Innards) delivered an altogether more brutal take on experimental music before planting his feet firmly in the world of shimmering, layered drone…
Choral
The idea of deep or detailed listening is a useful one because it’s purposefully vague. That vagueness comes in part from being understandable without needing to route it through a definition. It’s also rich enough in connotation to suggest a whole lifestyle. The idea of detailed listening is not the same as Michaelangelo Matos’ slow listening movement, but they seem to share the same spirit of deliberateness and presence. Mountains, the Brooklyn duo of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg, …
Last Whole Earth
RESTOCKED Asheville, North Carolina resident Ross Gentry performs and records under the guise of Villages. With dense layers and glacial droning, he creates engaging narrative soundscapes that evoke the shifting fragility of the early ambient movement as well as the elegance of symphonic composition. The Last Whole Earth is engagingly contemplative and meticulously well-crafted drone. With washes of guitar and synthesizer, subdued vocals, field recordings and minimal noise, Villages devise…
Sunspotted
transparent red vinyl - strictly limited!* Type records break new ground with a blood red side of free-rock from Jed Bindeman's Heavy Winged trio. Contemporary avant and heavy instrumental rock fiends will probably be familiar with the group's sprawling, cacophonous mass of CDRs, cassettes and wax for NNF, Digitalis and Aurora Borealis, but unless you're in the band yourself, you've never heard them playing quite like this before. The underground safety net of lo-fi recording techniques h…
Mimikry
Having nicely set up the release of this album with their Ret Marut Handshake EP a few months back, Alva Noto and Blixa Bargeld (of Einsturzende Neubauten fame) deliver a set that exceeds all expectations. One of the most strikingly obvious comparisons to arise from that first batch of material was the Alan Vega/Pan Sonic collaboration, yet Mimikry goes much further than combining the established aesthetics of its constituent parts and creates something that actually feels very new. Car…
Pruitt Igoe
Enhanced and incredibly produced bass music from the Raster Noton camp courtesy of Kangding Ray, reinforced with stunning remixes from Alva Noto and Ben Frost. With 'Pruitt Igoe' Kangding Ray augments his sound to Raster's current avant-techno agenda, logging onto the 'floor with the burly swing of 'Rise' and 'Fall', both echoing Dubstep's move into slower tempos and elevated groove technology like some uncompromising Teutonic cousin to Pinch's 'Croydon House' sound or a steel-plated Shac…
Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again
Restocked, edition is limited to 750 copies. Tim Hecker needs much less of an introduction today than he did when he released his debut recording Haunt Me nearly ten years ago; he now easily holds his own with top tier electronic artists from around the world. Despite its age the album remains interesting and vital. While not nearly as complex as more recent outings such as Harmony in Ultraviolet and Imaginary Country, it gives a very clear view into the artist’s approach and style. Haunt Me…
Trilogy Select
Another highly sought-after pressing from the Olde English Spelling Bee, this time from Christelle Gualdi aka Stellar Om Source, featuring Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point never* Intrepid sci-fi soundtrack-y synth excursions from the mind of electronic visionary, Christelle Gualdi aka Stellar Om Source, collated by the good folk at Olde English Spelling Bee. 'Trilogy Select' is essentially a directors cut of tracks taken from Stellar Om Source's trio of self-released CDr albums made bet…
Dagger Paths
RESTOCKED *Bit of a departure for the Old English Spelling bee, embracing scenic dubbed-out tapestries described by the label as a cross between Burial's sample-strewn claustrophobia and Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores...* The Olde English Spelling Bee label has lit up our week with this incredible debut from Forest Swords. Nope, we've never heard of them before either, but they're only based down the road in The Wirral so we'll send them a thank you message via carrier pigeon o…
Police Water
Under the wickedly cryptic title of 'Police Water', Gary War delivers his latest psych-pop dazzler on Sacred Bones - also including the two tracks from his 'Reality Protest' 7". Just as everyone begins to catch up with his brilliant body of work from the last two years, he goes and switches up his sound with reinvigorated song structures, a broader tonal palette and far, far tighter rhythm programming. Don't worry, though, he's not lost the inexplicable post-apocalyptic weirdness, it's ju…
Mali: essential recordings of Carnatic bamboo flute (1969-1970)
Gorgeous double CD issue of two crucial albums by "the greatest living flutist of South India", T.R. Malingham or Mali to millions of South Indians, presented in respectfully opulent stye by Japan's EM reissue imprint. This is meditative, spiritual, and exotic music of the highest order, combining his two most revered recordings from 1969 and 1970 over two very special discs. Mali is said to be able to commune with birds via his playing and that's quite understabable. His virtuoso use of …
Last Days III - Atlantic City
Following volume I (8mm, 2008) and II (Presto?!. 2009), and previously released in a super small cassette edition on Tulip, Stefano Pilia's Last Days III is finally available in a new remastered one sided LP edition. The intuitions of the first two chapters of this series of 'Last days' shine in 'Atlantic City' in all their beauty. Stefano’s touch is so warm and gentle, always unique in creating that feeling of soft, warm nostalgia, loud, and passionate as he’s strumming his strings with …
Anthology One 1989-91
Anthology One is culled from the first three cassette releases by Voice of Eye; Isolation, Voice of Eye and Resonant Fields / Hot Gypsy Fink Hell, all three Tapes released on thier own Cyclotron Industries Label between 1989-1991 These are the earliest recordings by Voice of Eye.
Voice of Eye can be doubtlessly described as the protagonists and godfathers of the special genre of Ambient-Ritual-Music. Their specialty is "organic sound sculpting": a form of electronic ethnic ambient music th…
Shadows out of Time 1982-83
2010 release. Limited edition of 600. Shadows Out of Time is a collection of three LPs with previously unreleased and formerly cassette-only material from Hunting Lodge,
representing the first era of their creativity, a time when each sonic
experiment festered into a beautiful sore. Dark ambient, noise, power
electronics -- all represented here before these pigeons had holes in
which to fit. One LP comprises the now-legendary Exhumed (1983),
which was formerly released on cassette only, hea…
Disingenuity/Disingenuousness
FINALLY RESTOCKED! "Keith Fullerton Whitman has consistently blown our tiny minds this year with a stream of utterly crucial releases. Whether morphing the Arabic Oud into majestically ornate formations or commanding his self-generating hybrid analogue/digital modular setup into unimaginable arrangements, we're witnessing the culmination of years of dedicated research and experimentation blossoming into tangible, cherishable productions in 2010. Arguably, he's saved the best for this LP, u…
The poetry of decay
Recordings by Gordon Sharp (2001-2010) at Belmont shore (ca), mid-levels (hk) & Kobe (Japan) the mid-levels (hk) but manly at Roi vert, Okamoto, Japan. Cut at dubplates & mastering, Berlin, august 2010. Cindytalk have been active since 1982. During the 80s and the 90s their sound was defined by broken down rock structures and abstract piano ambience. A third side to their coin emerged at the dawn of the 21st Century with a turn towards obscure computer usage pushing all ressemblance of me…
Flamingo Breeze
Absolutely Incredible Electronic Soundworks and Pop pastiche, sort of like Oneohtrix Point Never crossed with ariel pink and Animal Collective, all fed through a 1980's television soundtrack filter and recorded to tape over and over again. The exceptional Olde English Spelling Bee label presents a remastered issue of Sam Meringue's out-of-print tape released in summer '09 by Not Not Fun, complete with full colour sleeve and a digital download coupon from the label itself. In a similar vein …
Rain In England
Oh my days. Lil B and Weird Forest present one of the most baffling, polarizing, and OUT THERE releases of the year with 'Rain In England'; a collision of stream-of-consciousness rap lyrics and beatless, new-age ambient synth music. It's entirely the work of internet sensation Lil B, a "based" rap savant with more than 150 myspace pages, millions of views on youtube, and the most distinctive style in circulation right now. He's been aptly described as the "anti-Drake", a lo-fi and chron…