New Arrivals
Jack Allett / Kalbakken
"Relay I" is the first in Smeraldina-Rima's Relay Series. An artist for the A-side is chosen by the Smeraldina-Rima clan, after which the A-side artist decides upon who will get to fill the B-side. For every Relay 7" a different artist will be chosen to create the outside artwork. The A-side of "Relay I" fell to Jack Allett, the fingerpicking whirlwind formerly known as Spoono. Allett chose Kalbakken for the B-side. A great choice, Kalbakken, with its shamanistic folk, offers a great supplement …
The miraculous mechanical monster
'The Miraculous Mechanical Monster is the latest addition to the ever growing and highly collectible 'Monster' series from Andrew Liles. The Miraculous Mechanical Monster is in part a concept LP that tells a tale of malfunctioning robots, monsters and bizarre sex. With robotic narration throughout, the story can be followed by reading the text on the back of the LP. As with all of Andrew Liles' output this LP fits into no established musical genre and is arguably one of his strangest and …
Periodic Orbits Of A Dynamic System Related To A Knot
The album features two 23-minute halves that Fell describes as “almost live”. These tracks combine out-takes from his recent album ‘Multistability’, with bits he originally produced as part of a “quadraphonic piece” he performed live in Barcelona this year, which is called Supersimetria: New Languages In Computer Music.
‘Periodic Orbits Of A Dynamic System Related To A Knot’ was produced when Fell moved to a new home and studio, where he was limited to only internal speakers on his MacBook…
Incognita
These works are a collaboration between the Japanese figure of experimental electronic music, KK Null, and Mexican artists and brothers Israel and Diego Martinez. Diego is best known as Lumen lab, and both are mentors of the label Abolipop - Suplex. The process started at the end of 2012 when Kazuyuki Kishino, based in Tokyo and Israel Martinez in Berlin, started to share electronic sounds and field recordings. They tried making new pieces exploring various approaches to composition such as the …
Elegy For Rusted Souls
After their last release from 1982, the seminal "California Babylon", San Francisco industrial pioneers Factrix are back with a new studio album, recorded together with Italian duo Control Unit (whose critically acclaimed debut "The Fugitives" was released on Backwards last year). The quartet formed by Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, Silvia Kastel and Ninni Morgia moulds a new language of industrial music with guitars, bass and electronics, resulting in a fusion of acoustic and electric elements, pri…
Kilo
Finnish experimental electronic musician Mika Vainio's first solo album for Blast First sees him return to his classic power electronics/heavy beats approach that made Pan Sonic garner a worldwide reputation. The album developed from Vainio's recent live sets to make 10 tersely-titled tracks inspired by the shipping container industry. Four stars in Mojo: "heavy-freight," The Quietus describes it as "fearsome."
the 15,000 day boat trip
november 2009 release ; pristine electro-acoustic work from cenotaph’s john w. fail (responsible for both a criminally under-appreciated quadruple tape-box on c. spencer yeh’s dronedisco &, partially, the “lied music vs. boy-band tax returns” lp on ultra eczema ... as well as full-length collaborations with spiral joy band & ben reynolds) ...inhabiting similar head-space as graham lambkin’s recent “softly softly copy copy,” the piece in question here takes it source material from live-played ins…
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.
La Bas (1987-1992)
JFK is the project of British rock and electronic musician Anthony Di Franco (Ramleh, Skullflower, Ethnic Acid). Originally active between 1987 and 1992, JFK was conceived as an experimental rock band that could create "a total music, absorbing all possibilities." This exclusive CD compiles rare and previously-unreleased tracks, including the Temple of Set/Sexodus 7" (previously-released by Fourth Dimension in 1992). The JFK sound is a brain-melting clash of electronic rhythms, blazing guitar ri…
5IVE XIMES OF DUST
A classic, highly sought-after and influencial experimental electronic and acoustic tape from 1981, finally released as a deluxe vinyl LP in extended form with an additional LP to round-up this perfect release - Solo-Works and three more 5ive Ximes of Dust instrumentals by the two genius synth-and-cassette-culture-protagonists and musicians of Dada Computer; Mark Philips, who also ran the Tape-Label MAP-Tapes and Robert Lawrence who ran one of the first Cassette-culture Tape-Labels called Quick …
El Pianista del Antifaz
French-Catalan musician Pascal Comelade's world is atypical and his inspirations come from many different sources -- from contemporary music to The Cramps -- making him one of the most creative and original artists of our times. At the crossroads of many different arts, never where he's expected, he never ceases to surprise his audience, taking the listener on poetic paths of primitive perception. El Pianista del Antifaz is the latest album in Comelade's galaxy. The artwork was designed by Du…
Score: The Complete Sextet Works 2002-2007
In celebration of their 10 year anniversary New York City-DIY modern composition combo Zs offer this 4CD retrospective. Throughout 10 years of activity, the band has changed in countless ways without ever changing a fierce commitment to inscrutable easthetics & execution crafted to provoke reflection & challenge assumption in the consumption of music. Housed in a 2 piece 55pt box featuring artwork by Fredricks & Mae
Music For Fireworks
In 1978, Philippe Genion bought a guitar for 1000 belgian francs (25€). He connected it to his hifi amp, quickly learned how to play "smoke on the water" and a few punk songs with two fingers and within two weeks, pushing the amp more and more to the limit, blew his 200W speakers out. Later, around 1980, he bought an old ARP synthesizer from walloon band "Jo Lemaire plus Flouze" and started playing with these instruments and a few old flanger and distorsion pedals, and started recording so…
Ten Jin
Remarkable subterranean radicals have been getting to enter the stage since mid-late 2000's via the label Lust Vessel and the lineage, which are actual first ever fulcrum of genuine industrial cassette culture and the actuality in Japan, after a long period of the mostly scorched ground for that culture from the far east. This is a document of an aspect of thee lust-age and the assembly, featuring six assassins which are true to themselves and standing on their own territories.
Tongue Knax ; a h…
Instrumental Tourist
Instrumental Tourist' is one of the year's most anticipated electronic music albums. The meeting of established artist Tim Hecker and studio magician Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never at his Software Studio yields an otherworldly and near symphonic suite apparently conducted "...to mimic the tropes and techniques of jazz-based improvisation, with little preparation prior", effecting a wide-eyed and fascinating sound as dramatic and enchanting as any we've heard this year. As you'd expect …
Sub Contra
People of the North is Kid Millions (drums) and Bobby Matador (keyboard, synth, vocals) of Oneida, and Sub Contra is their Thrill Jockey debut. While their sound, like Oneida's, is constantly shifting and absorbing new concepts and ideas, Sub Contra is a work that fully embraces tumult and darkness in startling and dramatic ways. People of the North have been an active entity since 2003, but it wasn't until 2010 with the release of Deep Tissue on their own Brah imprint and Steep Formations, whic…
Glass Canyon
It's been a little while since we've last heard from Oakland-based sound artist Marielle Jakobsons in a solo capacity, but that's certainly not to say she hasn't been busy. Last year saw full-length outings by her two duo projects, Date Palms and Myrmyr, and already in 2012 works with Bay Area drone ensemble Portraits and trio recordings with Helena Espvall and Agnes Szelag have been released. Her last major solo outing (under the nom-de-plume Darwinsbitch) came in form of the dark, comple…
Spectral arrows : Rotterdam
Spectral Arrows is an ongoing series of long-duration performances for guitar and electronics. In Spectral Arrows, Fusinato arrives at the venue when it opens for business, sets up his equipment facing a wall and proceeds to play for the whole day until the end of business hours. Fusinato presents himself here in the guise of a worker, clocking on and unceremoniously clocking off at the end, refusing to allow the behind-the-scenes mystery of rehearsals and preparations to lend an aura to the per…
Dust & Mirrors
Dust & Mirrors’ is the second full-length album by the trio of Andrea Belfi (drums, percussion, electronics), David Grubbs (electric guitar, piano, voice), and Stefano Pilia (electric guitar). It follows 2010’s ‘Onrushing Cloud’ LP and finds the trio confidently taking stabs in a number of opposed directions. It dramatically widens the terrain in which the group operates. Between albums, the three musicians worked together on David Grubbs’s 2013 album ‘The Plain Where The Palace Stood’, and took…
Kenzo Deluxe
Guitarist Chris Forsyth is a unique voice in the realm of American music, having emerged from the challenging free form expressionism of his old group Peeesseye with a lyrical command rare in any genre. His newest work brings his trademark lyricism to new heights in his most straightforward setting yet. Gone are the fleshed out rock band arrangements of last year’s Paranoid Cat LP, replaced on Kenzo Deluxe, by Forsyth shunning overdubs and playing his transcendent songs alone in a room on his el…