New Arrivals
Works for String Quartet and Percussion
"The evolution of the string quartet repertory has accelerated during the last half of the twentieth-century and beyond as composers from both the mainstream and the avant-garde have mined its seemingly inexhaustible creative resources. This CD features the virtually unprecedented combination of string quartet and percussion. It contains three works by prominent American experimentalist composers from several generations exploring the ensemble's unique sonic resources in diverse stylistic settin…
Make It Real
Wait, this is the new Pocahaunted album cover? Gone may be the days of cassette cases featuring creepy collages and hand-dyed bags with feathers attached, but this is something else entirely. I mean, there’s a parrot with blue Ray-Bans, a giant dollar sign, a “He’s on fire!” NBA Jam-style basketball…What is going on? After the shock of the cover art, I waded into the unfamiliar soup that waited within. From the opening thrums of “Touch You”, the lo-fi recording aesthetic seemed to be held …
Polar satellites
Polar Satellites is a mesmerising collection of percussion improvisations performed in duo by Nathan and Scott deep in the winter of 2009 and 2010 with absolutely no overdubs. Building on the starkness of last years Effigy by Pelt, the duo have recorded an even bleaker, more minimal and hermetically vibed record together. Unnerving and hypnotic, Polar Satellites is an intense journey into the unknown, awash with uncategorisable percussive instruments, kalimbas and banjo.
Nathan and Scott first m…
Tragedy & Geometry
On Tragedy & Geometry, Steve Hauschildt, one-third of Cleveland’s neo-kosmische revivalists Emeralds, crafts an hour’s worth of instrumental synthesizer vignettes. His pieces tend to evoke thoughts of bygone eras of technological pop culture — many of these tracks could be placed seamlessly into Blade Runner, or into some lost Playstation-era (you know, when Final Fantasy VII was cutting edge) videogame. Hauschildt doesn’t craft wholly formed songs so much as he works with detached, technologica…
Sorrow Come Pass Me Around
A collection of spiritual and gospel songs performed in informal non-church settings between 1965 and 1973. Most are guitar-accompanied and performed by active or former blues artists. "Most records of black religious music contain some form of gospel singing or congregational singing recorded at a church service. This album, though, tries to present a broader range of performance styles and contexts with the hope of showing the important role that religious music plays in the Southern bl…
Complete Spiral
Two of the world's most distinguished electronic musicians have drawn upon their shared passion for the sensuality and groove of late '80s / early '90s NYC House to hatch a genuine anthem for unsuspecting and open minds. DJ Sprinkles, aka Terre Thaemlitz, is a now Tokyo-based producer who, among so much other stuff, released the hugely loved, genre-defining "Midtown 120 Blues" album back in 2009. Mark Fell is the South Yorkshire-based sonic genius known for groundbreaking work as half of…
Split LP
Luca Sigurtà is very active in the electronic music scene, playing solo and with the bands Harshcore and Luminance Ratio. In Hookers he composes a cold and frozing atmosphere, with gusts of noises and drones together with a bare drum, the song ending surprisingly with an ecstatic mood.
Noise veterans Panicsville plays Paura nella Città dei Morti Viventi mixing old schoool industrial together with their strong oniric and terrifying fantasy: organ, synth drums and samples are used to compose …
Das Testament
Backwards proudly presents the reissue of a private Maurizio Bianchi vinyl LP, issued in a small edition of 300 copies in 1983 and titled "Das Testament". M.B. is an Italian pioneer of noise music, born near Milan. Bianchi began to produce music in 1979, and since 1980 has used electronic equipment with the avowed goal "to produce technological sounds and in such a way to work on complete realising of the modern decadence". Now remastered, for this release MB plays electronics, rhythms, neutroni…
Wounded Laurel
Hospital Productions present a heavy 30-minute session of layered drone and tormented, bass-heavy bombast from Max Gudmunson's Virile Games project, now available on vinyl for the first time after a sold-out micro edition of cassettes in 2013. Operating somewhere between his label-mate Lussuria's gothic ambience, the ear-bleaching concrète of Helm, and the more blown-out cinematic visions of Leyland Kirby, Wounded Laurel oscillates between sublime and wretched with a gripping night-time narrat…
Imaginational Anthem Vols. 1-5
"Since 2005, Tompkins Square label's Imaginational Anthem compilations have featured some of the greatest acoustic guitarists in the world, with recordings spanning five decades. More than mere samplers, these albums have served as state-of-the-art dispatches from the front lines of the art form. Imaginational Anthem Vols. 1-5 is a specially priced 6CD box set, limited to 999 copies, featuring the first five volumes in their originals packaging, plus an exclusive live bonus disc from Willia…
Inside Wino Lodge
New solo LP of strange sounds, vocal improvisations, tape manipulations mangled strings and hiss drones from Dylan Nyoukis (Decaer Pinga,Blood Stereo) Inside his Wino Lodge. Sounds like it was recorded in a 4 track in 1972 in an insane asylum, then puked over and thrown into the sea, then discovered recently and transfer directly to Vinyl via marine analog tape communication device (thats a compliment).Good one to buy if you are wondering what a naked Scotish man and his daughter look and sound …
The last house on the left O.S.T.
Born in 1936 in New York City, David Hess began his career when he recorded the original version of the Otis Blackwell composition "All Shook Up" under the stage name Dave Hill in 1956. The song became a Number 1 hit for Elvis Presley a year later and Hess became a songwriter at Shalimar Music. David went on to compose "Start Movin'" for Sal Mineo and "Rockin' Shoes" for the Ames Brothers. He continued to write songs for Elvis throughout the '50s and '60s, (including the Presley hit "I Got Stung…
Live at the Red Garter 1970
his latest Transparency release brings an early July 1970 concert to our attention. "Live At The Red Garter" (later 'The Bottom Line' / New York City) doesn't offer the best sound quality, but it does give a glimpse of an exceptional version of the Arkestra: Sun Ra, Kwame Hadi, Akh Tal Ebah, Marshall Allen, Danny Davis, John Gilmore, Pat Patrick, Danny Ray Thompson, Eloe Emoe, Alan Silva, Alex Blake and a handful of unidentified percussionists...
Hen ogledd
180gm LP limited to 250 copies. Between them Rhodri Davies and Richard Dawson are busy people. Playing festivals across the UK, Europe and the US; with their last solo albums (Wound Response and The Glass Trunk) both receiving huge critical acclaim, and serially collaborating with prominent figures across music's counter culture. Hailing from Newcastle, Dawson:Davies: Hen ogledd is the new good buddy duo-project between pioneering harp-fiend-legend-dangerman Rhodri Davies and rebel singer-painte…
Combines
The GGRIL is an ensemble of musicians who have decided to give a space to experiment with various forms of interactions possible in an orchestra without a conductor. The group brings together a dozen musicians from different backgrounds, but all eager to explore new territories offered by bands where the music is alive, freed from the linearity of writing. Powered by Tour de Bras, Rimouski, this set is a way to involve a large number of musicians and composers in the region around a unifying pro…
Time of the Last Persecution
Time of the Last Persecution is Bill Fay's second and final album for the Deram label, originally released in 1971. An absolute classic of melancholy (borderline morbid) folk-rock that falls somewhere between Pearls Before Swine, Leonard Cohen, and a suicide prevention hotline. Time of the Last Persecution is almost single-mindedly obsessed with end times so it's fitting that this brilliant album would be his last release for over 30 years. Now that Fay is back with a new and highly laude…
Les Femmes Savantes
The Berlin based group Les Femmes Savantes, named after the famous play by Molière, Learned Ladies. This music is just as proud and individual, being a success and almost a myth in the improvised world, combining many styles of music. Les Femmes Savantes are Hanna Hartman, electronics, little objects, Andrea Neumann, inner piano, Sabine Ercklentz, trumpet, Ute Wasserman, voice, Ana Maria Rodriguez, electronics, each one of them an individual master. Together they let focus stay on either the gro…
The Electronic Belt
Jamal Moss aka Heiroglyphic Being presents The Electronic Belt, his second release for Alter, and perhaps his most dancefloor-oriented release. The EP is made up of three choice cuts from 2012's Man with the Red Drum transmission with each track bearing the signifiers of Jamal's rough and distinctive production; melodies twisting themselves into psychedelic wormholes, raw kicks and toms that hit hard and tight. Yellow vinyl edition in five different colored disco bags, mastered for vinyl by Step…
Natural causes
Two new tracks from LA based duo Pedestrian Deposit. Side A is a little more noisy than last works, starting from jon's harsh-noise origins and the use of multiple layers of sound, they created a piece of musique concrète, near of what they did in Austere.Side B is dominated by shannon's cello and behind it, the sound of manipulated electronics and minimal textures to build the perfect background.
Kitchen
Kevin Drumm is a musician not only known as a one-man-orchestra exploring the boundaries of music, but also a star under the banner of inestimable Bocian Records label. This time we were granted with access to his kitchen. The LP is limited to 34 minutes, consisting of 2 pieces, originally recorded in 1996 yet fully remastered in 2012. Side one piece slowly opens a kitchen door. Smooth, equilibrious and loopy sound fractions that surpass those requirements ambient music is bound to meet. F…