★Beta-lactam Ring Records
Lactamase 01 (10")
Limited edition hand-numbered split 10" with the odd pairing of minimalism master Tony Conrad with the wonderful Legendary Pink Dots' Edward Ka-Spel. Complete with all inserts.
Screaming Zenith
Cacophony plus catastrophe divided by calliope minus colostomy=crepe-noizette! Sound sound off like a delicious blend of fresh When and finely ground Aphex Twin mixed with just a dash of Pascal Comelade drool.13 tracks of dark dementia sewn together as a quilt of mini symphonic diversions, embroidered with bits and bytes and twisted sub rhythms and the occasional driving breakbeat. Whimsical and dada-esque with solid musical foundations, this record can also stand as rightful heir to the likes o…
Music For The Rothko Chapel
Here's a rose plucked from the magnetic garden. Rick Reed's solo project from 1985. Entitled "Music For The Rothko Chapel" . Reed has long had a fascination for the chapel, located in Houston, Texas, which contains some of the last large scale paintings by the late abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Almost completely monochromatic, in deep shades of purple and near black, the paintings seem to want to pull the viewer into it's mysterious world of the void. Reed wanted to create not so m…
Pure Drone (Drone Compendium One)
The album title certainly does not deceive. But there is something absolutely worthy about Baker's approach to drone composition. He employs a subtle, patient counterpoint that offers an appealing spaciousness when played loud. The music is utterly enveloping, seemingly forcing the listener into a meditative state (Do not operate heavy equipment while listening, unless that heavy equipment is speakers or a spaceship). The compelling organic majesty of these 2 long tracks wafts deep oceani…
Un Jour Comme Tant D'Autres
This is an unreleased album from 1975 of studio/live material! Dieu has smiled upon us, for a previously shelved early album (1975) by Ilitch finally has its jour in the soleil. Thierry Müller's strange musical arc is further enriched and confounded by this exploratory cosmic release. A brilliant mix of Krauty space groans and experimentalism (see also Conrad Schnitzler and Ash Ra Temple, etc) and the progressive electronics of Igor Wakhevitch. There is some psych in the folds, and the albu…
Cosmic Space Drone
An edition of 300 numbered copies and the first 50 copies will include an original piece of artwork from the 'hand' sessions and signed insert packaged in a custom made book bound gatefold sleeve. Also includes a bonus remix of 'Part One' by Scot Solida/Christus & the Cosmonaughts. “Cosmic Space Drone” lives up to its name, travelling into the deepest void, its gaping maw swallowing up meteoric dust and wayward celestial souls alike to fuel its endless journey into the infinite. Your jour…
La Maieutique De La Quantique
All new Ilitch studio recording! An horrific grandchild springs from the magma: Ilitch'll itch your progadelic scratch with its well manicured talons of fire. This Ilitchian renaissance zigs deep space experimental and zags full metal Zuehl. Electronics chirp and howl like the opening coda of Susperia, then explode into Weidorje intensity fuzz violence, cheered on by a pecussive force that sounds like Mussolini being kicked to death. The shifting interplay between total rockers and extrat…
Friday Group
From out of the Great Republic of Texas, and a new side project from Tom Carter (Charalambides) and Brian Smith (Iron Kite) rises a lone star called Friday Group. In a seemingly appropriate gesture, the opening scherzo of droney solo guitar twang blows dusty debris across the speakers, as if a small sand storm in a remote part of Amarillo. With wind wrestling loose gutters and flat chimes, the first movement is almost a weird paean to Ry Cooder's desolate Paris Texas score. Axe attacks ho…
Black Ohms
An edition of 500 numbered copies. Thank Expo ‘70, O Lord, for the drones you are about to receive. A deep quivering of transcendental electronic mantras pulsates to the patient beat of the third Bardo. Slow, shape-shifting ambiences expand like groaning baritone crystals crawling out from sub-oceanic ooze. Psix pstring psychedelic pspews bisect the curve of extraterrestrial buzz with a surprising terrestrial fluidity until bioluminescent fish gather to choke out quiet hymns around the th…
Green & Cold
A kind of different album from A. Baker (Nadja) as it leans more into shoegazery and drone-pop songs. “Green & Cold” is the strength of strings proved by A. Baker. His soft lyrics suffuse weightlessly into a humming cloud of perfumed guitar scour. Yes, when gazed upon, these patent leather shoes really do reflect up. However, “G&C” is accomplishes much more than throwing Loveless lights back up to Heaven. An ass-load or so of previous avant-garde releases has developed in Baker a skill-se…
Book Of Nods
A new landscape is painted out of darkness by progressive strokes of the dawn. The finished piece is neither night nor day, but the transformation itself. Aidan Baker's (Nadja) "Book Of Nods" crests experimental peaks in similarly paced sonic transmigrations. His lustrous chimera blooms open in shifting onion layers built out of slow-moaning guitar, flute, organ and drums. The resonant frequencies of quietly crashing nodes vibrate the ozone with a sub-textural beating of multi-pianic fea…
Songs Of Flowers & Skin
Doomgaze. Is that a thing? In ancient times "Songs Of Flowers & Skin" might have done time on 4AD, Creation, or even Sarah. Except of course, for the slender demonic tail woven into the melodies, which would have left a smoldering pile of pointy shoes in its wake. Though the tracks here are not metal, there is no lacking of heavy. The songs (yes, songs) simmer to a point just below explosion. Aidan chooses to excavate with atmosphere in lieu of caterwauling electricity, filling the spaces…
Somewhere There (Drone Compendium Two)
There is a tribal element to Arc's 2 long suites that feel somewhat like being stoned in Cologne in 1971. The trios of Aidan Baker, Christopher Kukiel, and Richard Baker return to the quiet with hushed tribal timbres, however, these ambiences are riveting in a way that that other ambiences are not, probably because the group does not think with an ambient attitude. This is the sound of mining midnight. In a universe where experimentalism is often just a nice way of saying "boring," hearin…
White Nights/Drone Fields
Aidan Baker's anodyne ambiences almost act as aural dream machines on their own. But now Baker has collaborated with actual film makers for his Opus Dei, embodied in this double DVD set (one credited as Aidan Baker and the other to Nadja). Clocking in at nearly 6 hours, this in-home installation is the ultimate video aquarium for the acid-minded. Baker's thrum-scapes lay back and patiently coo mantras something akin to mid-period Nocturnal Emissions or Vidna Obmana, while spectacular visions wen…
The French Collection
To be issued mid Oct. 2010 as a double CD set housed in a custom made gatefold case with artwork by Jesse Peper. It started with a dusty box of DAT tapes. Perhaps it was years since anyone had listened to them despite the tantalising labels,"Paris #1", "Paris #2","Paris #3”... Indeed it was Paris where the Dots played their first residency in 1992. However , these tapes were a document of the Dots' one and only 3-nighter from the 10th to the 12th of March 1994 at the delightful Theatre Passage d…
The Shy Volcanic Society At The Bear And Bird Parade
A split album with Volcano the Bear and La STPO. VTB tracks 1-5 and STPO tracks 6-9. Bears and Birds, oh my! One side keeps the hot hot. And the other keeps the weird weird. VTB’s typically atypical entomological set scratches like a hive that has evolved just to the point of thumping out tribal fealties to its giant insect God-Thing. Environmentally ritualized sub-rhythms mix musique-concrete with actual concrete, forming freakishly minimal foundations for the hive of whatevers to swarm within.…
Mountains Among Us
This year sees the eruption of the Volcano with a myriad of releases leaving the town folk covered in a fine and mysterious silt of musical entropy. The limited release of "Mountains" finds our boy’s spelunking the creepiest of dream spawned caves, excavating crystalline fragments along the way, which are then set in beautiful mental jewelry appropriate for any formal occasion. Arpeggiated blurs and disinterred voices snap, crackle and pop as an unnamed rusted hulk is slowly pushed across an eve…
Amidst The Noise And Twigs
To say that Beta-lactam Ring records has released another typical Volcano the Bear album is to address only the initiated. Yet, it is meant to be a compliment. how best to describe the thrilling mixture of sounds, atmospheres and environments on offer? Those that have heard the group’s half dozen albums, and myriad other releases, have already embraced the unpredictability that remains this British aggrigate’s trademark. This newest offering is distilled, boiling elements from their previous dou…
Sonic Messenger
Limited ed. of 400 copies with a bonus album of music packaged in a custom designed full color gatefold case with a mounted 12 page booklet of bonus artwork. What if the Voyager space craft became sentient? Would it destroy humanity? Who is to say it wouldn’t become the most far-out musician of the galaxy? Expo ‘70’s sonic reach seems to extend past even the concept of space/time itself. One Eno Eon past normal, the patter of Expo ‘70’s dark matter squeaks and moans in wave forms, like the Dopp…
Anal Aura Gram(ophone)
An edition of 300 copies on 180 gram blue vinyl and packaged in a custom made book bound sleeve. Available late August 2009 (delayed from original release date due to nefarious pressing plant.) 'Anal Aura Gram' is a vinyl version of the long deleted CDR that came in limited quantities with the 2003 album 'Aural Anagram' and also features a bonus 7' disc of two remixes by Steven Severin (Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Glove). How many lives would be saved if every one had an Anal Aura Gram? Andrew …