New Arrivals
Fete galante et pastorale
There were several ‘firsts’ involved in my initial encounter with Zygmunt Krauze’s music: my first visit to Poland (1970), my first ‘Warsaw Autumn’ festival and its first concert (19 September), and the Warsaw premiere of Krauze’s first Piece for Orchestra (1969). The memory has stayed with me ever since, not least because here was a work that was distinctly different from the other new Polish music that had so far filtered westwards. I was familiar with some Lutosławski, Penderecki …
Surrender to the Fantasy
Stop right there, hands in the air! If you want to know what Magik Markers think is good for you, you'll Surrender to the Fantasy. For this long-desired alpus, they've been working in threes and stuff. Triangles. The hermetic trifecta of knowledge, Christ and the two thieves, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the original tagline of the Markers' symbol: '3 down, no to go.' Meaning, these three get it and literally no one else needs to, 'cept the record-buying public, tra la la, ha ha ha ha. STTF (nev…
Remains unchanged
The Shadow Ring was founded by guitar player Graham Lambkin and percussionist Darren Harris in Cheriton, Kent, England in 1993. Tim Goss joined the Shadow Ring in 1996 performing on a variety of electronics. The group disbanded in 2003. 'Remains unchanged' is the long-time-coming archival overview of the shadow ring. Spanning the full decade of their existence, 'Remains unchanged' offers an alternate account of the group's labor, told through 20 never-before-heard tracks. From the lumbering mono…
Phantom Horse
Phantom Horse is the duo of Ulf Schütte and Niklas Dommaschk from Hamburg and Kiel (home of seminal Digitalis Recordings artist Jürgen Müller). Schütte is a (part-time) member of Datashock, Black To Comm, Aosuke et al and has recently released his modular synth explorations under the Alien Radio moniker on a (sold-out) Dekorder split-LP with Keith Fullerton Whitman and a 4-way split 7" with Köhn, Ducktails and Peaking Lights on Kraak. Dommaschk plays guitar, synth and electric piano.
With…
Dream Seeds
Extra Life’s first record for Northern Spy, Dream Seeds marks a dramatically new creative direction in the band’s still-young but prolific career. It is perhaps Extra Life’s most clearly-defined concept album : seven songs dealing entirely with the twin themes of dreams and children. In a lyrical left turn away from the morbid sexuality and black humor of Made Flesh, these songs look to the subconscious in search of innocence, morality and meaning. According to principal songwriter and e…
Crowded
Breathtaking slab of the black stuff from peerless drone/noise (de)composer Kevin Drumm - with "spectral editing and time domain consultation" by Russell Haswell. We shouldn't need to tell you that this is a big deal. But, in case you're a bit daft; it is. Haswell helps out on the wormholing A-side 'Repetitive Algae'; a single tract of cacophonous, morphing rhythmic noise reminding of Philip Corner's 'Coldwater Basin' - a home recording of cold water running from a faucet into a basin - b…
Barn Nova
After five years and 20-plus albums-- most released on their own Child of Microtones label-- MV & EE's 2006 move to Ecstatic Peace began on a high note. "East Mountain Joint", the opening track on Green Blues, is a hypnotic hymn to unscheduled freedom, and it's catchy without losing the duo's loose, do-what-we-feel-like vibe. In fact, it's so entrancing that it's made subsequent work by Matt Valentine, Erika Elder, and their various colleagues seem like insufficient attempts to recapture…
Another other places
"17 years after Other Places, a sophomore album from these innovative musicians. Dieter Moebius (Kluster, Cluster, Harmonia), Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru) and Jürgen Engler (Male, Die Krupps) got back together to carry on exactly where they left off in the 1990s. The long break has done no harm to their latest music, on the contrary -- as is clearly audible -- it has taken them to another level. The way they react to each other as they improvise, the powerful, subtle rhythms and the use of digital…
Ritual
gorgeous LP of this obscure live recording, an ethereal vortex of electric moon-sounding mandolin and slow bass (luca massolin), spacy keyboards (david vanzan), primitive astral soprano sax and voice (virginia genta). atmospheres for the end of the earthly. handmade collage cover art. limited edition of 280 numbered copies.
Brokeback And The Black Rock
In the fall of 2010, when Douglas McCombs convened a new version of the band, Brokeback hadn't played a live show for more than two years and had not recorded any new music for eight. The band, a long-running side project for Tortoise and Eleventh Dream Day's Douglas McCombs, had stiffened up, sometimes getting lost in a welter of meticulously constructed electronics. McCombs's idea was not to start over, exactly, but to start fresh, approaching similar harmonic content from a different directio…
Otherworldy
Founded 40 years ago in 1972 “Otherworldlyâ€Â is the first Pyramids’ album in over 35 years. They released three albums before splitting up in 1977 – albums that made them one of the most mysterious and legendary of all the spiritual cosmic jazz collectives of the early 70s. Reunion? Re-Incarnation!!!
 The new album contains 14 never before released tracks. The Pyramids’ signature sound is still percussion driven, no surprise with Nash and Speller being two of the mo…
Love God, Love One Another
Black Humor was an experimental rock band from San Francisco in the early 80's. (Not to be confused with "blackhumor," alias of noise artist Frazer Hall.) They released just one, very hard to find LP on Fowl Records in 1982. Only 1,000 records were pressed, each with unique handmade covers: thick slabs of paint, collage, parrot feathers, dirt, whatever else happened to be laying around their Tenderloin flat. Many of these have since gone for high, collector prices or ended up in oblivion.…
New Ear
With this new album, Melmac reveals a new maturity gained in the course of three French and european tours that have enabled the group to initiate a major part of the ideas presented here through extensive improvisation sessions on stage in the spirit of the instant composing sessions ran by Kraut Rock bands during the psychedelics years. These new experiments have opened the artistic spectrum of the band to new horizons clearly rock, heavy, trippy or noise reminiscent of bands like Sleep or Sku…
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 …
Gate
A new 7" from Sissy Spacek on Wendy. If you have asked yourself this you know how this new vinyl sounds.Short crazy blast of terror, insane fast drums, screaming vocals, feedback and shards of noise. Play it loud. Play it at 45rpm. Flip side. Do it again. This time SS are John and Charlie. Essential lineup.
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…
French Antarctica
probably the most anticipated record of the year for this household. the clip below has been on repeat for a couple months. Kye is proud to present 'French Antarctica', the debut LP by Good Area. Drawing from a palette of guitar, rhythm box, cornet, shortwave radio and room activity Good Area have crafted the ultimate stand-alone testament to instantaneous expression. Bypassing such obsolete concepts as dexterity and restraint 'French Antarctica' cuts loose with a raw unbridled rush of creative …
A Life Is Everywhere
'A Life Is Everywhere' is an ecstatic mix of rhythm, noise, drone, texture and melody. Simultaneously heartfelt and not for the faint hearted. Within their self contained world Cindytalk continue the unique trajectory that has purveyed their career starting in 1982. This instalment further explores the fearsome terrain that was initiated with previous Editions Mego releases such as 'The Crackle of my Soul' and 'Hold Everything Dear'. Throughout the 6 tracks on offer the standard fair of m…
Mother of Thousands
As with their previous 'proper' full-length Gettin' Gone, new album Drone Trailer finds Matt Valentine and Erika Elder Still hooked up with The Golden Road, and ready to spurt forth blistering passages of galvanized psych-rock at a moment's notice: after a scorching pile-up of vintage guitar muck, opener 'Anyway' draws to an ill-behaved conclusion with some improv guitar and free-noise skronk, all completely undermined by a jazzy line in tremolo rhodes piano tinkering. Despite such flight…
Avast!
Avast! was created from field recordings made between 2009 and 2012 in Lyttelton, a volcanic harbour on the South Island of New Zealand. Sounds were captured at sites around the natural ampthitheatre of this extinct caldera: from abandoned wartime bunkers on the top of the crater rim to the port and its cacophony of cargo ships, tugs and workshops. The work is also haunted by the resonance of buildings such as the Timeball Station, which were destroyed when the town was at the epicentre of a maj…