★De Stijl
Outside/Inside
Charlie Nothing was the fractured-psyche pseudonym of author, father, horsekeeper, organic farmer, beekeeper, philosopher and clown Charles Martin Simon, inventor of the dingulator (guitar sculptures made out of the metal from American cars). Charlie's only visible offering to the record buying public was really anything but. Due to its rarity, The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing, issued by Takoma Records in 1967, has been a source of consternation for in-the-know types for years. Outsi…
Songs 2002
Double A sided cassette reissue of a severely limited one-sided LP, and what might be C Spencer Yeh's most trying, challenging and rewarding foray into a world previously unknown to him, and us: his world of song. Songs 2002 contain what are perhaps subtle homages to early Eno and primo era Bowie vis a vis the studio treatments of the raw sounds with which we're more familiar in his previous work. Yeh's songs work within two generalized veins: ala Brian Eno's early attempts to communicate liquid…
Spill Into Atmosphere
Hey kid, need a lift? Like, right up off the ground? Spill into Atmosphere is the freshest whitecap in the crashing-upward wave known as Wet Hair, the Midwestern duo-cum-trio that’s been holding it down for years as a multi-stop repeat-shop-’n-hop psych-pop pin-drop right there in the dead center of everything and/or nothing, Iowa City. The Wet Hair discography having spired itself to a respectable vantage – shared releases with such powers as Rene Hell, Naked on the Vague and Peaking Lights, bo…
Lose today
restocked!! Michigan trio Wolf Eyes are known for bursts of harsh noise, but they've also made lots of interesting music on the way to those climaxes-- during the pregnant pauses, eerie bits of calm, and gradual build-ups that explode into raucous release. Stare Case, the "blues roots" duo of Wolf Eyes' John Olson and Nate Young, deal primarily in that restrained territory, where minimalism and quietude bulge with possibility. On Lose Today, the implied eruptions never come, but always seem to b…
Earth
EARTH is a 2009 silent film by Ho Tzu Nyen, one of Singapore's foremost artists. The visually arresting film has been live-soundtracked by a number of artists (including Oren Ambarchi) in several locales, and after Black to Comm, a.k.a. Marc Richter's accompaniment at Berlin's Asian Film Festival and the Unsound Festival in Krakow (both in 2010), he decided to commit it to record. In Marc's own words: 'Most of the music was composed under the influence of heavy pain killers while recovering from…
Presents In The Midst Of Chaos
Recorded in 1978, In The Midst Of Chaos is this western CT free-jazz group's only release. It would become improv jazz sax player Paul Flaherty's 1st record, who, as a youth, was smitten by the world, it's creator and Pharoah Sanders. Chaos is also the only release of legendary guitarist Barry Greika, who, along with bassist Bob Laramie and drummer Glen 'Hobbit' Peterson, remain the most under - recorded trio in history. A screamin', howlin', blisterin', slap of a record that defies categorizati…
Wavelength
First Lady of Winds and Stars Samara Lubelski returns to her once and future label home for her sixth album, Wavelength, and the spheres harmonize at the news. Wavelength comprises a dozen new arrowed whispers, Samara's feathery touch on guitar and microphone now so at balance with the elements that the whole, her music and the air it enters, become inseparable. Don't be fooled by the persistent "psych-folk" labels she gets -- oh, they may be accurate as far as modern usage goes, and that scene …
The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World
Peter Jefferies's extraordinary debut solo album, The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World, first saw life as a cassette via the Xpressway label of Port Chalmers, New Zealand, in 1990. As a result of some international underground acclaim in fanzines and mailorder catalogs -- for both the album and a striking 7-inch, 'The Fate of the Human Carbine,' released around the same time -- it soon appeared on LP and CD as well, through the Ajax label of Chicago. Within a couple of years it slipped…
No Answer : Lower Floors
CD version. "No Answer : Lower Floors is the record of 2013 you need to be most worried about. No Answer : Lower Floors is further flesh to the shadowy silhouette cast by this Michigan art abstraction unit, perenially poised on the cusp of a precipice. Wolf Eyes will carry on forever but always remain mysteriously unfinished. The No Answer : Lower Floors material covers all bases: tough to toughest to tangled, all done in the Wolves' least convoluted smooth style. The vocals, delays, primit…
Message Bag
We come burdened with the glorious purpose of having readied the latest recordings by Messages, a double LP set called Message Bag. It's a set of pieces that imparts a vibe rife with history, and yet clearly focused on the future. You buy these 2 LPs, poster and insert in a bag, but in all of its formats and strategies Message Bag operates as a return to an unresolved system, as an alternative to the rest of yr choices, and bestows something that can't be bought. We call it Wisdom.
Emotional Planet
Chris Rose's Robust Worlds has impressed us since first glimpse. He was actually barefoot, if you can believe that, and his set had the feel of a way more lysergic Kevin Ayers. It was freezing fucking cold and I'm pretty sure he wore a Hawaiian shirt. His debut LP is called Emotional Planet, and it's deceptively simple. Voice, guitar, some noisy shit, whatever. His playing is sick: fluid, unforced, warm, soothed and soothing. It's a bath you don't want to exit. Seriously, if yr going to play gui…
Tragic Pote B/W Jerusalem Stone
Aviram Cohen is a jerk. Who cares if he was in SIlk Flowers, Soiled Mattress and The Springs, or that he has a new project called Volunteers Park ? You can tell that his parents are immigrants. He’s a suburbanite from New Jersey, and now, another New Yorker with an attitude, who learned how to use a sequencer to program synths and drum machines, so that he can sing about how boring life can be. It’s like he’s creating all this atmosphere because it’s lacking in his life. It sounds like someone i…
Transitions
Having rattled the hinges with last year’s “In the Blink of an Eye†7-inch, C S Yeh (C. Spencer Yeh) flings open the door and steps inside with Transitions, his first full-length album of songs after years of establishing himself as one of Earth’s top humans in experimental music and unbound improvisation, both alone and in collaboration, on record and onstage. The effect Transitions has on you may or may not depend on your familiarity with Yeh’s past work; regard…
Here Come The Cars
A year after the Clean's reunion LP Vehicle (also their first proper album ever) put them back on the international-pop radar in 1990, guitarist David Kilgour retreated with his new Revox tape machine (which he'd been singing about rapturously in his side-project Stephen and elsewhere: "Have you seen my new tape machine?!") and cut his first solo album, Here Come the Cars, issued by Flying Nun in 1991. From the jarring cover image of David through to the last note, Here Come the Cars is a specia…
Gradient
Beautiful string experiments by Tashi Wada, son of original Fluxus member Yoshi Wada. Julia Holter is a fan of his, and from the strength of these pieces, so are we. Hand-stamped edition in wrap-around jacket** "Tashi Wada is a San Francisco-based composer and performer whose recent work focuses on sound perception as a basis for direct modes of listening. His work has been performed throughout the United States and Europe, and for several years now he has performed alongside his father, …
Morning And Sunrise
At some point all great explorers, from Amundsen to Kishan Singh Rawat, come to an opening up and cast their minds across a big space. A clearing, a promontory, a look out from a place no one's been before. Jakob Olausson ventured deep on Moonlight Farm, his debut for De Stijl in the winter of 2005. His singular expression returns on Morning and Sunrise, an explorer's codex, a gaze through to what's more important and less seen. The path yet traveled and the sun arcing over it. Morning and Sunri…
Hertta Lussu Assa
Lau Nau, Islaja, and Kuupuu all together in one band - it's like the dreamiest aQ daydream come true! All three of these ladies have been responsible for some of the most mystical and beautiful recordings of the last few years, all of which have become permanent favorites with everyone here. Lau Nau, and Islaja's recent recordings have shown them moving toward a more direct approach in their songwriting, but this project really lets all of these ladies dig deep into their textured, exper…
In The Blink Of An Eye
C S Yeh was born in Taipei, Taiwan, repped Cincinnati for many many years and is now based in Brooklyn, New York. Musically, Yeh is monolithically active both as a solo artist and improviser as well as with Burning Star Core. He has made seemingly hundreds of recordings, and we've yet to find one rotten egg in the basket. Yeh has collaborated with an insanely varied list of people. If we were to actually drop these names, you'd be impressed / confused. But you have NOT heard the result of him wr…
Politico/Zytol Automation
De Stijl's excavation of The Parasites Of The Western World turns up the lead single for their second album in the form of an exact reissue. Originally released circa 1980-81, 'Politico' opened the B-side to Substrata with a rippin' new wave roller full of glam stomp, proggy arrangement and punky attitude. The synth-fueled instrumental B-side was exclusive to the single, and as tradition dictates, far more interesting, featuring Terry Censky and Patrick Burke in an ebullient symphony of s…
DOST
One of James ‘Wooden Wand’ Jackson Toth’s favourite bands, these Midwestern lo-fi poppers make a good case for why the Velvet Underground are one of the most influential bands of the last fifty years. While they add their own spin to the sound, for the most part ‘Dost’ is an unpretentious and timeless garage-rock trawl through that very specific druggy Velvets-style basement subgenre. They manage it well too, apparently the band have been largely unrecorded even though they have been play…