★Kranky
Our Bed Is Green
With ethics that even Igor Stravinsky would be proud of, 'Our Bed is Green' was originally released by the Charalambides on cassette way back yonder in 1992 before it made it onto CD then vinyl and now back onto double CD as part of Kranky's reissue series. Comprised of heavy-psych veteran Tom Carter and Christina Madonia, Charalambides are an aural vulture that picks through disperate genres and styles to find the sound that best matches that in their heads. Opening with the overt fragili…
Likeness
Likeness is the newest release from the duo of Tom and Christina Carter. Recorded over a period of several weeks during the Spring of 2006, the album is a return to the spontaneous composition of previous Charalambides records such as Houston and Union. With the exception of "The Good Life", which appeared in a primitive version on the Wholly Other CDR Home, all of the tracks on this release sprung forth after 'record' was pressed, and were fleshed out via overdubs, editing, and a malfu…
Joy Shapes
To say that the words "unique" and "singular" are over-used in describing music is to state the obvious. To apply these words to the sounds created by the various duo/trio configurations of the Texas group Charalambides over the last decade plus would be understatement. To be sure there are numerous antecedents to their music; to deny this of any artist's work would be akin to saying that they are deaf. But they have surely broken new ground in the primitive/folk/mystic/improv/psych valley in …
You Are The One I Pick
"Nottingham duo Felix make their Kranky debut with this fine and idiosyncratic collection of songs. The main focus here is the vocal/piano/cello talents of Lucinda Chua, whose sparse yet quirk-loaded minimalism receives guitar and bass backing from Chris Summerlin, who's probably best known for his work in the rock band Lords. Chua's writing is quite unlike anything else currently out there; her lyrics convey strange or often very simple, domesticated ideas delivered in a pared-down, plaintive f…
Kompilation
2 CDs filled with 21 tracks. Over 148 minutes of music. Brand new music from PAN AMERICAN. A preview of forthcoming albums from STARS OF THE LID & KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN. An exclusive mix of an album track by GREG DAVIS. All priced CHEAP at less than the cost of a CD EP! It's been years since there's been a KRANKYsampler (& that one came out in Europe only) so it's time to show what we've been up to for the last few years. Way back when compilations like Pillows & Prayers& Wanna Buy a Bridge? i…
Magnog
Debut from a guitar/bass/drums/moog trio from Washington state. Not since the heyday of early Guru Guru and the original Ash Ra Tempel have we experienced such unrestrained, free playing taking place within the confines of a 'rock' band. More recent examples of this aesthetic might include the early recordings of Dif Juz on 4AD, Milwaukee's F/i, the recent collection of 4-track recordings from Cul de Sac or the homespun psych of Charalambides...
The Dream House / Dedications To Flea
The Dream House is the first album of new material from Windy & Carl in five years. Recorded at their home studio in Dearborn, MI it consists of two tracks. The Dream House is in many ways the duo's simplest and most straight-forward release, concentrated as it is on two evolving pieces. It is also Windy & Carl's most ambitious recording, with the duo deliberating on longer forms. Windy & Carl are capable of sustaining melodic ideas and patiently apply attention to singular musical gestures. Win…
Rainwater Cassette Exchange
12" version. Certainly not a group to rest on their laurels (especially difficult when they have new songs burning a hole in their collective back pockets), Deerhunter delivers five new tracks on this extended play. This is not some stop-gap release between albums, or mere leftovers from their most recent Microcastle album, but an all new session. The band loves the EP format and thinks it does not get the respect it deserves. Hell, some bands arguably work best in the EP format, think Cocteau T…
Mutually Arising
Davis' second album for Kranky following 2004's Somnia. Features two tracks over 51 minutes, "Cosmic Mundra" is a subtle & slowly changing circle, a sun, the sun, the moon. Not the Arpeggio Minimalists, rather: the quiet time stretchers of long tones & long tones sustained & hyper-sustained until buzz value outweighs pitch, sounds seeming to fly around the screen, hyper-spiritual with hardly a word. "Hall of Pure Bliss" is a chord and all sorts of wonderful sounds which live to its left and righ…
Schöner Flußengel
here we go... lp-only release #2 for the magnificent kranky label. this turned out exactly as i had planned it (no typos to be found!). don’t let the doom/industrial cover (which was a take off on “a sucked orange” and “ohrenschrauben”) fool you... this is a psychedelic-drone freakout of just about the highest caliber i’m currently capable of producing...this particular record had its roots in a “krautrock-themed” lp i was working on for the deluxe label a few years back (i.e. “hrvatski ‘73”). a…
Tape Chants
A series made up of performances & compositions using tapes as the main source material, as well as mono speakers of various cassette players for the piece's amplification. Inspired by experiments with tape loops, cassette players & recorders, analog synths, sine oscillators, mixer feedback, contact mics & various acoustic sound sources. The studio version adds rhythmic textures to the once static drone compositions.
White Bird Release
Vinyl! The sixth album from Mark Nelson's longtime solo project following Quiet City. A mix of warmth & foreboding expansiveness, neither of which is minimal nor overdone.
An Imaginary Country
Double LP version: An Imaginary Country continues from the trajectory of his last album, the critically acclaimed Harmony in Ultraviolet, while also showing a few new tricks. Tim has incorporated more pulses into this work and also works with a sound palette including overdriven mellotron strings and synthesizer. At times this album is less overtly aggressive than previous works, but the notion that this is pastoral work would be dead wrong as there are plenty of the agitated crescendos that he …
Playthroughs
The source material for every piece on Playthroughs is guitar: acoustic, electric or otherwise. From Sept. 2001 to April 2002 Keith Fullerton Whitman transformed those guitar pieces via laptop computer into the tracks on Playthroughs. Whitman has used ring modulators, granular shuffling algorithms, delays and spectral effects in a process that owes a lot to Terry Riley's Time Lag Accumulator and Steve Riech's 'Piano Phases.' Technology and Whitman's careful selection of notes combine to create s…
Multiples
Multiples was recorded at the Harvard University studios, where a stash of vintage synthesizers and electronics was made available to Keith Fullerton Whitman during his time as a lecturer there. The eight tracks on Multiples flow through hit hat shimmer to skull-scraping electronic tones to interlocking clusters of repetition. This is Whitman's most inclusive and developed album yet. The limited edition Antithesis and Schöner Flußengel LPs released in 2004 showed the range of Whitman's interests…
Lisbon
Lisbon is a new CD EP by Keith Fullerton Whitman, a document of his live shows after an extensive performance schedule in 2005 in the wake of the acclaimed Multiples CD. As Whitman describes it: 'This recording, captured to hard disk on stage at Galeria Zé Dos Bois on October 4th 2005, is... a single lilting piece of static sine-tone harmonics, squared-off electric guitar haze, clangorous room-tone eruptions, and high-end synth freakouts....'
Microcastle / Weird Era Cont.
LP version of Microcastle, with CD version of Weird Era Cont. included. Here it is, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2007's Cryptograms album, which launched the band into the stratosphere of hype. Whether or not that was or is deserved is entirely subjective. Microcastle was recorded over the course of a week at Rare Book Studios in Brooklyn, New York with Nicolas Verhes in April of this year. The album was recorded as a four-piece consisting of Bradford Cox, Lockett Pundt, Joshua Fauver, an…
Cryptograms / Fluorescent Grey
Deluxe gatefold vinyl version. This double album pairs the critically-acclaimed Cryptograms album with the all new Fluorescent Grey EP.
Songs For The Broken Hearted
Most everyone has experienced love as well as heartbreak. The 10 songs that form the new Windy & Carl album are interpretations of those emotions that run the gamut from pain, anger and longing, to warmth, admiration and joy. Started in early 2007 and finished in the spring of 2008 in the midst of some sudden inspiration, these songs are some of the best Windy & Carl have to offer, and a new mark in their always-developing sound. The opening track addresses the denial of trouble at home, while t…
Temper - Precis
The double LP vinyl version of Benoit Pioulard's new album Temper also includes the Precis album, issued on vinyl for the first time.