★Backwards
Fun House Mirrors
Fun House Mirrors is the 4th album by Almagest!, the 2nd under the Almagest! moniker being the first 2 releases credited to founding members Palumbo/Tomasini. After four years the band comes back with a new sound far from the piano driven pieces of the previous Messier Objects (Tourette Records 2013) and manifesting itself into 5 long electric richly textured and arranged, as the title suggests conceptually and sonically distorted cinematic compositions made of the fabric of sensual and disturbi…
Weather Report
cosmic improvisation by the trio of musician / producer Luca Massolin (Golden Cup, Golden Jooklo Age), French avant-garde guitarist Michel Henritzi and Rinji Fukuoka, formely member of Overhang Party and currently of Majutsu No Niwa.Recorded in November 2011, eight months after the Fukushima disaster, ‘Weather Report’ is an onirical yet political soundpiece, developed in two long movements, ‘A Chuva Obrigado’ and ‘Radioactive Arigato’.The first side is a cornucopia of ghostly shapes and ha…
Endless Autumn
Each new album by Fabio Orsi is an experience apart. The atmospheres created by the Apulian artist, who lives in Berlin since few years, penetrate the smallest gaps of the cerebral cortex, just where the memory lives. Backwards is proud to present, in collaboration with Puglia Sounds, "Endless Autumn", a work that draws inspiration in its title from "Endless Summer", by the acclaimed Christian Fennesz, but shines with its own light anyway. Entirely recorded between Taranto and Berlin, it embodie…
Light On A Wall
New album from Mike Cooper recorded live on Radio Lebanon in Beirut. Cooper plays electric lap steel and sings several of his 'Spirit Songs' - a body of vocal works that he has been presenting live over the past few years. These 'songs' are constructed by chopping up - (William Burroughs /Brion Gysin/Tom Phillips style) - Gravity's Rainbow and V - two novels by Thomas Pynchon. No chords, melodies or harmonic patterns for each song are planned prior to them being performed. Both accompanime…
Nostra Signora Delle Tenebre
There was a time in Italy when movies did not suck. Or at least, when they sucked, they did it in a graciously peculiar way.Alongside the world-famous auteurs (the Fellinis, the Viscontis, the Bertoluccis), there was a plethora of lesser known, critically unappreciated directors, often mockingly called cinematografari, frantically tackling (and twisting) every kind of movie genre: western, comedy, thriller. For some reason, they excelled especially in their wild, sick take on horror and cr…
Bloody Language
* Limited edition of 100 copies on clear green vinyl. Silkscreened cover * Bloody Language is the new Control Unit single and represents a new phase of the band after exploring various forms of improvisation and after they has experimented with a large range of dynamics and tonal variety, are now composing their songs reconnecting to the tradition of rock 'n' roll in all facets (psychedelia, industrial, punk, no wave ...).Three new exclusive killer tracks! Released in two different vinyl colours…
Drum Solos
**Initial copies pressed on Initial copies pressed on transparent wax** Driven by my love for solo albums by drummers and percussionists like Jon Mueller, Wil Guthrie, Nick Hennies and Burkhard Beins, I've made Drum Solos. It's my take on a solo drum record, despite the fact that I lack the talent to hit a steady beat or a play a drum roll. Instead, I used the sounds of a drum kit as a source for further processing.I booked a rehearsal room with a drum kit, and recorded as much sounds as I could…
Cascando
The work of both Fabio Orsi and Claudio Rocchetti has long been a varied study in internal dynamics. Through an array of instruments and sound sources, Orsi and Rocchetti have made an album that both feels very internal, and yet firmly roots observation on the external; that which is indeed beyond view. The very 'falling' of Cascando is at play across the work. Typically, of course, one associates the act of falling as a negative; something which is accidental and brings pain. Yet as the a…
Some Songs
Songs. Not Really. It's more about ghosts.The Ghost of the Song. Or we can substitute a more meaningful term: memory of song. Sound lost in space, refractions. Irregular shapes, exploring, engaging the void. A very uncommon work from Claudio Rocchetti, with strange experimental songs with a "folk" touch and field recordings. Featuring Stefano Pilia on guitar (from In Zaire and Massimo Volume). Limited edition of only 200 copies with a silkscreened jacket and silkscreened blank side of the vinyl.…
Heading South
Heading South is the eighth Mirts' album. The record was created with great help of TER between 2011 and 2012. Like its predecessors it is to some extent a concept album. This time, derived from exotic vision of class B old adventure films and cheap comic stories. As usual this inspirations are barely visible and immersed in typical for Mirt hazy and dark mood. This are only some hints and whole album leaves a much wider scope for interpretation. After instrumental Artificial Field Record…
Elegy For Rusted Souls
After their last release from 1982, the seminal "California Babylon", San Francisco industrial pioneers Factrix are back with a new studio album, recorded together with Italian duo Control Unit (whose critically acclaimed debut "The Fugitives" was released on Backwards last year). The quartet formed by Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, Silvia Kastel and Ninni Morgia moulds a new language of industrial music with guitars, bass and electronics, resulting in a fusion of acoustic and electric elements, pri…
Smudging
Backwards proudly presents a new Aidan Baker vinyl LP, issued in a edition of 450 copies. For this releaseAidan Baker, co-founder of Nadja and member of Arc, is aided by his brother, Richard Baker, at drums. Recorded variously in Toronto and Berlin, 'Smudging' includes six songs comprised in two long epic tracks, with guitar textures and hypnotic rhythm structures to create a beautiful and dreamy listening experience. In the wake of his most experimental and characterized by dilated atmospheres …
Das Testament
Backwards proudly presents the reissue of a private Maurizio Bianchi vinyl LP, issued in a small edition of 300 copies in 1983 and titled "Das Testament". M.B. is an Italian pioneer of noise music, born near Milan. Bianchi began to produce music in 1979, and since 1980 has used electronic equipment with the avowed goal "to produce technological sounds and in such a way to work on complete realising of the modern decadence". Now remastered, for this release MB plays electronics, rhythms, neutroni…
Copal Flow
Like the strong scent of copal brings ancient memories and visions, each track here depicts a scenery and involves the listener directly, totally. Introduced by the obscure night of "Notturno", like in a wood, crowded with spirits and animals, you're guided through 9 gates, each one opening on a different space and time. As if the purpose was to awake the slumbering ancestral memory of man, this record is fundamentally based on the dualism of elements strictly relating to the human being: "voic…
Tender
Backwards is proud to present the new album by Clara Engel, the Canadian musician with the warm and dreamy voice, also known for the intimate and melancholy character of her compositions, heartfelt and passionate. "Tender" is a sort of manifesto of Clara's way to conceive music: her songwriting is intense and fraught with emotions of the broadest range; her melting lyrics bring us back to the "poetry in music" by artists as Jacques Brel or contemporary balladeer Antony Hegarty. Listening to the …
Von Zeit Zu Zeit
In few years of work Fabio Orsi has achieved critique and fans, imposing his name as one of the most important and representative of the whole international experimental and electronic independent scene. Backwards proudly presents his new work titled Von Zeit Zu Zeit. This composition was recorded live in Berlin (2010) and after edited and mastered by Fabio Orsi in late 2011. Orsi plays synth, guitar and filters and, for once, he just puts aside the warmth of the melodies and the sampli…
The Fugitives
**Limited edition of 300 housed in handmade silkscreened sleeve. Tipped for fans of Atelecine, Carter Tutti Void, Factory Floor** Ninni Morgia and Silvia Kastel make their first appearance as Control Unit on Italy's freshly minted Backwards label. Guitarist Ninni Morgia is a respected member of the New York underground scene, known for his work with La Otracina for Holy Mountain and Ultramarine Records. His co-conspirator Silvia Kastel was a willing participant in his Ninni Morgia Control …