★Spectrum Spools
The Aquaplano Sessions
Over 5 years ago, Dozzy and fellow Italian engineer/producer Manuel Fogliata aka Nuel coined a strain of pure techno distilling their deeply engrained experience of '90s techno with a further reduction of noughties minimalism made with finely tuned hardware production techniques, basically burning away the cliches and impurities to leave a potent ambient techno residue. The result was a series of powerfully monotone, hypnotic and droning 12"s issued in typically low-key fashion by Berlin's Hardw…
Petit cochon
"Petit Cochon" is the third LP and debut album for Spectrum Spools by James Donadio under his Prostitutes guise. From "Psychedelic Black", the self-released debut LP limited to only 100 to the esteemed "Crushed Interior" on Digitalis, it's safe to say Donadio has crafted a style unmatched in the climate of contemporary electronic music. The top shelf E.P.'s on Mira and Diagonal were a small glimpse into all that has led up to the new full-length, which we are proud to unveil. "Petit Cochon" is a…
Seed
If previous releases for Nihilist, Arbor and his own Catholic Tapes established Chicago\'s Brett Naucke as one of the more accomplished practitioners in the American synth underground, Seed, his debut LP for Spectrum Spools, is a veritable career apex, brimming with sonic ingenuity, detail, and mastery over both instrument and musical form. It is hard to fathom due to the sheer diversity of sound and affectations of the eight individual pieces on the album, but Seed was recorded -- almost im…
Pangaea Ultima
Double LP version. Pangaea Ultima, Steve Moore's debut record on Spectrum Spools, is an epic musical achievement, not simply for its sonic sophistication and compositional mastery, but also because Moore has crafted here an album that has come as close to any in transcending the boxed human logic of time and place. The album title refers to the name which geologists have given to the future super-continent that is suggested may form on earth in the next quarter-of-a-billion years. Over th…
Weird universe
Valerie Martino's Unicorn Hard-On project has been a long running staple in the American underground since it's inception in 2003. Through her own Tangled Hares imprint, as well as many others, she's built a strong, constantly evolving catalog of singular works that serves to many as a prototype of the current beat-oriented phenomena currently sweeping the nation. Martino's vision, however,remains unphased and flourishes accordingly to her own unique vision; standing outside of any trends and re…
Escape From New York
Spectrum Spools give flight to a right zinger from Palm Highway Chase. 'Escape From New York' has already achieved cult status in the synth interzones, notching up over 5000 downloads from the artist's myspace and bandcamp pages since 2009, before John Elliott and Peter Rehberg colluded to present the tangible artefact on wax. Flashback to 2009, maybe late winter or something like that. The Road Chief comes back from his extended stay in Belgium all laced up with new jams from the undergro…
Plays Bee Mask
Double LP version. In hindsight, the pairing of Chris Madak and Donato Dozzy was inevitable from the moment when the two connected on Mount Naeba, Japan at the storied Labyrinth party last fall. Both artists have worked to craft singular visions unlike anything else happening in electronic music today, yet despite each producer's unmistakable individuality, there is a deeper reservoir of shared sensibility between them which makes Donato Dozzy Plays Bee Mask feel like a logical and necessar…
Translations 01
Material Study 01 (Sand) is a recording from a stereo hydrophone buried under the sand in a lake. Standing on top of the transducer, holding the MiniDisc recorder in my hand, and monitoring the feed with a pair of in-ear earphones, I slowly shifted my weight and the sand beneath my feet. My younger brother was on the shore throwing firecrackers into the water; this was an Ôaccidental' aspect of the recording. Material Study 02 (Cello and jacket) is made from a cello as it is dropped onto a…
Persuasive Barrier
Three Legged Race is the ongoing, ever-evolving project of Robert Beatty, a Lexington, Kentucky-based multi-media artist and founding member of noise band Hair Police. 2012 has been a busy year for Beatty, as he's provided his personal brand of visual art for countless excellent albums, and has also released new audio works (the outstanding Wrong Element 12" on Acoustic Division is essential). Persuasive Barrier is the debut full-length album from Three Legged Race, recorded over a period o…
When We Were Eating Unripe Pears
The seven pieces on this LP were developed over a period of about five years; 'Rain in Coffee' is built on a Hyperborean Trenchtown-era demo, while 'Pinq Drinq' -- sorrel, for the record, and neither guava nor antacid as certain wags have already ventured -- was reanimated directly from the cutting-room floor, 11th hour, 2012. As a whole, they should probably be considered the proper 'sequel' to Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico, extending that record's preoccupation with the drea…
Off / On
LP version. Off/On is an evolutionary act of fissure, the opening of a rift in Forma's sonic landscape. The second LP from the Brooklyn cosmic synth trio of Mark Dwinell, Sophie Lam, and George Bennett, Off/On's universe is darker, its terrain more enigmatic and aggressive than 2011's critically-acclaimed self-titled album. Recorded at the renowned Schoolhouse space in Bushwick, Off/On combines swirling arpeggios, gnarled sequences, and deconstructed motorik rhythms to conjure an atmosphere …
The Sincere Interruption
It's been a long time coming and it's great to finally announce the release of Eric Lanham's 'The Sincere Interruption', his first long-playing record under his own name after performing for years under various solo guises such Carl Calm and Palmetto Moon Electronic Group and as one half of the Caboladies equation. Commissioned back in the summer of 2011, it was finally recorded in March 2012 and it's been well worth the wait. Lanham has crafted a very special set of improvised electronic…
Parthenon
Spectrum Spools is pleased to release the debut album by veteran musician Toko Yasuda's Plvs Vltra project. Toko has been working for years already in established pop acts such as Enon, Blonde Redhead and now touring with St. Vincent handling synthesizer duties for live events. In all her years of songcraft there have been sparse, if any solo output, until now. Parthenon is a sugar-sweet album of catchy pop songs, crafted with expert precision and outstanding composition logic. Everything is loc…
Fighting!
Alexander Moskos is a seasoned Canadian avant-garde musician active in projects such as Alterity Problem with Joel Taylor and the legendary Thames, who had an incredible 7" release on American Tapes in late 2011. Drainolith, his solo guise, has been active since the mid-'90s but has remained relatively under-the-radar with mysterious private press cassette and CD-R releases. In 2009, Moskos picked up a heavy U.S. tour regiment and caught the attention of U.S. underground heads with impressiv…
Motion Sickness Of Time Travel
DOUBLE CD EDITION In 2010, Rachel Evans released Seeping Through The Veil Of The Unconscious, an expansive, magic trick of a cassette which captivated an unsuspecting American cassette underground and made dedicated fans instantly. Digitalis released fine editions of Seeping... as well as the acclaimed follow-up Luminaries And Synastries on LP which packed an equally potent punch and created much anticipation. Evans has since been hard at work on an expansive, definitive 2LP project, caref…
Cold Nose
Franco Falsini is an Italian musician and producer perhaps best known for his work with his space/prog-rock group Sensations' Fix, who released seminal albums in the 1970s. His music was primarily crafted with impressive guitar technique (proven to be way ahead of his time), various synthesizers, and unorthodox recording methods to churn out beautiful experimental psychedelic sounds. Cold Nose was his debut solo outing, originally released on Polydor in 1975 as a soundtrack to a film that has ne…
Soft coast
Here at Spectrum Spools, one of the many missions is to make sure great, under-documented, and limited offerings get a chance to see a wider release. No UFO's debut cassette,Soft Coast (2010, Nice Up Int'l), is surely no exception. It was said about the Swell Maps A Trip to Marineville that the album had been obviously crafted by true music lovers who were record collectors. It seems that Konrad Jandavs' debut as No UFO's was calculated and carefully pieced together to spawn a whole new u…
Elemental Disgrace
Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin August 2011. 'Elemental Disgrace' is an album that needs to happen now. Finally, the next phase has arrived - a stunning double side-long record of some of the U.S. best underground synthesizer music we have heard here at the Spectrum Spools headquarters. Whatever rise to the synthesizer came later on in the 00's is hardly of any concern to Greh Holger and his Hive Mind project. Having released private press cassettes of solo synth works as far back as 2002, …
Container
Container is a recent moniker of Nashville, Tennessee resident Ren Schofield who's been actively shifting about the U.S. playing shows and releasing cassettes on his mysterious I Just Live Here imprint for a long while now. Known primarily for his God WIlling project, a disjointed, confusing, maze of crude oscillator, tape, and guitar, Ren has established himself as a staple in the east coast underground. Here we have a new experiment in electronic beat oriented music. This is no …
House
Already sold out at source, 'House' is the 2nd official full-length offering by Cleveland, Ohio duo MIST featuring Sam Goldberg (of Radio People) and John Elliott (Emeralds, Outer Space, Imaginary Softwoods etc) after 2009's self-titled debut effort on Amethyst Sunset. A suite consisting of 7 complex, layered compositions shows new progression in composition and melody from the duo. From the lightning fast, bittersweet crescendo of 'Twin Lanes' to the dramatic chord progressions of 'I Can Still …