New Arrivals
Machine Gun Nest: Cassette Works, Vol. 0
We've been waiting for a vinyl issue of Alberich material for an age, and here it is - an 8 track selection of often brutal, always heavy-hitting Industrial/Techno/Ambient productions from one of the most interesting characters to have emerged from the Hospital axis. Scoping rare and out-of-print highlights from his extensive cache over the last 6 years, it embodies a shell-shocked and embattled spirit in eight parts ranging from water-boarded ambience to remorseless industrial rhythms and night…
Quaking Myth
Long-running solo project by Jeffry Astin. Label head honcho of everyone's favorite underground cassette label Housecraft. His highly abstract style, represented on over 40 releases, predominantly cassettes, defies all attempts at elementary categorisation, but indicates broad influences from modern and ethnic drone, tape music, musique concrète, kosmische and lo-fi, amongst others. Two selected recordings “Pass Hidingly Seek” (2009) and “Quaking Myth” (2010) finally get the proper issue on wax!
The System of Objects
Silentes presents a new collaborative effort between two prominent artists of Italy's electronic and experimental scene, Corrado Altieri (Candor Chasma, Monosonik, Uncodified) and Gianluca Favaron (ab'she, Under The Snow, Z'been). Inspired by Jean Baudrillard's essay of the same name, "The System of Objects" offers seven compositions combining field recordings, analogue textures, computer music and concrète sounds. Altieri e Favaron dig deep in the unconscious of the french philosopher, devising…
Grain
CD edition "The new Zs lineup (Sam Hillmer, Greg Fox and Patrick Higgins) sounds very much like a new band, at least as evidenced by the Grain EP. The two side-length tracks (coming in at a total of 42-minutes) bear the marks of Zs' sound - repeated phrases, looped or played in situ; buried drones and harsh electronic tones - but it does sound very much like a new band.
There's an extended ambience to the album that trick perceptions of time. Glitches and waves that last only a minute or th…
Live At Skymall
Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Pekler have formed a trio that can truly be called a supergroup. As solo artists, all three members are among the most renowned of Berlin's electronic musicians. When playing together as Groupshow, the three instrumentalists -- themselves largely informed by minimalist sensibilities -- engage with the idiom of free-form collective improvisation, which has a long tradition in Germany dating back to the days of Fluxus and Krautrock. Consequentially, t…
The Spanish Suite
2012 Re-release "The Spanish Suite was written to magnify the contribution that Moorish Spain made on the European Renaissance. The relationship of music to cosmic rhythms and harmony was altered from the original state of Spanish music and eventually distorted down to the 12 tone equi-temperment system of tuning. The Artistic Heritage Ensemble was taught to play outside of the 12-tone system and to recognize natural tone relationships. The musicians had to be dedicated to music for life …
Kogetsudai
Kogetsudai is Sylvain Chauveau's 10th album, the second in a trilogy initiated by Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2010), where the song structure is dismantled and reconstructed on the fringe of silence. Whereas Singular Forms found inspiration from Abstract Painting, Kogetsudai is influenced by Zen rock gardens found in Japan Ñ also the location where the album was conceived (for the most part) Ñ and from which the album borrows its title. Layers of minimal electronic sounds and filtered f…
Capitaine Present 5
Monsieur Laurent Gerard, aka Él-g, aka one third of Ghedalia Tazartes' Reines d'Angleterre has been slowly building a little world of his own with several homemade records, cassettes and CDr's through the past few years and also through several interesting collaborations. Capitaine Present is his most intimate project with already 4 volumes released on CD, cassette and DVD. This fifth outing (and first on vinyl) consists of a hallucinogenic promenade inside his psyche. Cut up spoken words, poetr…
Enharmonic intervals (For Paschen organ)
Forget what you know about the Seattle-area sound-art project Mamiffer and the Finnish hypno-rock institution Circle. Enharmonic Intervals (for Paschen Organ), the first in a proposed series of joint efforts involving these parties, contains few of the musical hallmarks you might associate with either performer. The comforts of austere piano sketches and solemn nocturnes are largely absent; the wallop of repetitive rhythms and metallic kitsch is nowhere to be found. It’s as if an unseen h…
Erm
In the summer of 2011, I wrote to Francisco López to ask him whether he would be interested in working together on a project. He agreed but on condition that we worked on two separate tracks but using the same sound sources. These sound sources could be processed any way we liked, or even used in their original form, so as to highlight the aural roots of the tracks while at the same time exposing our different sonic approach. LUCA SIGURTÀ The end result is a split album comprised of …
Indoor_outdoor
The absolute deep electric-rain-forest sound atmosphere that the listener will hear on this record is the tip of the iceberg of a same rich and elaborate work process. For over 30 years, Norbert Möslang is making the world sound. He does not use things as instruments, but rather captures their vibrations. He immerses himself in the hidden world of vibrations and convert them into loud sounds and thick textures.Living simultaneously in spheres of inside/outside, micro-vibrations, spacial structur…
Con-gas
Of course we know Bocian since their earliest releases, which was all on 7". Now, an impressive catalogue further, they suddenly return to this format, and make two of them. On one hand Bocian is a label for strictly improvised music and on the other hand for radical experiments in electronic music. This 7" is clearly a product of the first interest. These four pieces were recorded earlier this year in Vienna and has Nilssen-Love on congas and Gustafsson on slide and brass saxophones. This is th…
Jealous Heart
Mark Templeton presents Jealous Heart, an album which re-imagines the story of his sound in an approach that is both staid and deeply emotional, reorienting what is offered and what is held back through a myriad of smeared stringed instruments, fragmented horn phrases, tape loops, and found-sound-driven explorations. Templeton's music is always difficult to truly classify, which is part of its charm. It is way too dense and detailed to qualify as ambient in a traditional sense -- instead …
Dance of the vampires
"Roman Polanski’s 1967 film ‘Dance Of The Vampires’ (as it was originally called, but more widely known by its re-named title ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’, or ‘Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck’) is a camp horror cult classic. At the time the film was marketed as a ‘farce’, which overlooked the fact that this film is fantastically eerie. The major part played by the soundtrack in giving the film this effect cannot be understated, and the cold-as-snow production did much to enhance the b…
Stupor Hiatus
Definitive collection of Ohio lo-fi pioneer's 1974-1992 material. A mash of home-recorded punk, pop & psychedelia. "Man, i hate it when someone's entire career seems to have passed me by, especially when it's someone as crazy as lo-fi pioneer and mad ranty man Mike Rep. I know fuck all about this guy but he sounds like a genius. I guess he may have come to prominence for his production work with Guided By Voices, Strapping Fieldhands and Times New Viking but this guys been kicking it since …
Gamma
""Vinyl of the Month must surely go to the epic "Gamma" by Italian quartet VipCancro, whose startlingly out there performance pitches the ensemble against such Krautrock epics as German Oak, Yatha Sidra and early Guru Guru. Indeed, for anyone requiring brain tissue abandonment Gamma will entirely do you justice. Their peculiar line-up of two synthesists, bass player and samples places VipCancro into a pure avant-garde territory, allowing splendid outbursts of canon-like percussion, and cin…
In Aeternam Vale
Minimal Wave presents a full length album by cult French band In Aeternam Vale. Having made over 200 recordings, I.A.V. were one of the most prolific bands of the French underground scene. Headed by Laurent Prot, the band released many cassettes all featuring his wonderful collage work. Their sound is extremely original, overflowing with character, and crossing between genres: electro, minimal, noise, and even garage. “With the passing of time, In Aeternam Vale’s work remains astonishingly power…
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.
Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music...
..And Photography 1890-1950 The latest release from Grammy Award-winning reissue label Dust-to-Digital gives music fans another reason to rejoice. A stunning 96-page hardcover book of historic baptism photographs, taken between 1890 and 1950 and compiled from the collection of noted folk art collector Jim Linderman, is accompanied by a CD of rare gospel and folk recordings from original 78 RPM records (1924-1940), featuring artists Washington Phillips, Carter Family, Tennessee Mountaineers, …
Voyage a l'ombre
CD in 4-panel chipboard sleeve. The complete, unabridged masterpiece from 1997. Almost impossible to find since more than 10 years. After a vinyl reissue (but not complete) here\'s the CD version again ! Voyage à l\'ombre was originally released in 1997, as a limited CD on the France-based Demosaurus label run by David Fenech, a frequent Tazartes-collaborator. With tracks featuring Pambin Thullal, Syeta Choir, and Yumi Nara. Original lbel note \'Ghédalia Tazartes combines an orchestra and a pop …