New Arrivals
Roll the dice
Massively anticipated release of this mysterious Fever Ray related project for fans of John Carpenter, Emeralds, Cluster, Afx - on a strictly limited vinyl pressing* Roll The Dice is a very special collaboration between two Swedish studio boffins, Peder Mannerfelt and Malcolm Pardon. The keener eyed among you will recognise Mannerfelt from his involvement with the stunning Fever Ray project, while Pardon is known for his work as a behind-the-scenes producer of music for film and TV. They'…
Solo Acoustic Volume Five
Subtitled: 12 String Meditations For Jack Rose. "Limited to 1000 copies. Solo, untreated, 12-string compositions in tribute to one of the greats. An album of instrumentals in requiem."
Pre Language
Right on cue, the third annual report from Chicago's Disappears is submitted for your consideration. Following up on the acclaimed Guider album released just over a year ago, and with new drummer Steve Shelley now fully integrated into the group, these songs were again forged into proper shape during live shows before heading to the studio and the tape machine. Never ones to dither or be indecisive, it's a full-bore assault from the opening track to the last as Disappears attack these new…
Heaven's Youth (Reptilians Demos)
Starfucker’s highly regarded full-length LP Reptilians was originally titled “Heaven’s Youth”. Like most artists, song ideas, the album concept and even the artwork continued to evolve. The band changed the title, continued to edit and develop the songs until the final version (Reptilians) was released in 2011. The original versions of the songs, that were until now only heard by the band, are being released for the first time in a very limited edition of white vinyl. Heaven’s Youth (Re…
Stone/Water
With any sizeable Brötzmann group, the temptation is always there to compare it to his classic Machine Gun unit. This new tentet doesn’t match up to the unbridled ferocity of that earlier grouping, but then what has? Perhaps the greatest sea change since the heavy-drinking glory days of 1968 is that ecstatic playing is now as much an idiom as an instinctive response. For all its supposed iconoclastic freedom, this idiom now has its own traditions, its own heroes, and its own stock cliches. Youth…
Luminous Night
Luminous Night is the first set of new Six Organs Of Admittance material to leap forth from Ben Chasnys' cerebral cortex in 18 months, and what a joy it is. With the release of odds-and-sods collection RTZ earlier in the year there to bridge the gap between 2007s Shelter From The Ash it doesn't seem like he's been away for long per se but for serious Chasny-heads a new album is something to get pretty excited about and with his other musical outlet Comets On Fire either on extended hiatus or spl…
Midnight At Mary's House
"Vagabond American legend Carlos Gonzalez drops his first NNF full-length, and it's 10 of his greatest junkyard surf-slime tunes of all time. Edition of 500."
Babylon bypass
“Janne Martinkauppi (as, bs), Taneli Tuominen (ts), Sami Pekkola (as, ts), Jaakko Tolvi (dr), Petri Pirtilä (dr). Recorded 12.Dec. 2007. Recording, mixing and mastering Marko Yiianttila at Studio Kuu, Helsinki, Finland. TAKE YOUR DISSONANCE LIKE A MAN : From time to time, I suddenly realise just how differently it is possible to hear exactly same sounds using the exactly same, god-given hearing devices – your ears, that is. Of course, it's never about JUST hearing, it's always linked to w…
Public Service
“Almost Washed My Hair” erupts from the stereo like some bastard child from a universe where Iggy Pop fronted The Velvet Underground and the only song in their repertoire was “Sister Ray” but they could never remember how to play it. This ear-splitting and cacophonous rock sounds as raw and powerful as anything else in my record collection. The deafening guitars dominate everything; only ghosts of vocals and a hammering beat are perceptible under the overloaded amplifiers. However…
Leaving The Commonwealth
D. Charles Speer & the Helix came together through a shared love of musical interplay that moves the mind and body. Born from the obsessions and predilections of David Charles Shuford, strains of glassine cruelty, broken glasses and ruptured knees mixed with memories of Chet Atkins lullabies and ZZ Top vids to generate a songcraft steeped in tradition but themed for the burned. A practicing multi-instrumentalist in various New York City improvisational ensembles for the last 15 plus yea…
Atlantis
One of the key but underappreciated episodes in avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra's Atlantis sounds far out even today. Rather than a full-on assault on the senses, Atlantis is an exercise in build-up, with long, almost forlorn passages of Ra on electric keyboards setting a vast echo chamber for his Arkestra to spring forth within. Captured during one of the most adventurous periods for Sun Ra, *Atlantis* features the orchestral perfection of the best big bands of the century-and then proceeds towards mu…
Up To Earth
Vinyl edition of this joyous improvised music drawing on South African roots and European free jazz from Chris McGregor and a group including Evan Parker, Louis Moholo, Barre Philllips, &c. This album only had a few test pressings at the time of recording and this is therefore the first vinyl release of this classic work. In 1969 the Chris McGregor Group were riding high on the London jazz scene, playing and hanging out with all the rising stars of British free jazz. Sessions for the pre…
Versprochen
OUTSTANDING NEW ARRIVAL Vinyl Lp, edition of 300 copies. Three years after releasing his first solo record, 'Miniaturen' on his own label 'choose', Berlin-based Konrad Sprenger (aka Jörg Hiller) now releases 'Versprochen' on the Italian 'Schoolmap' label. As if coyly playing off the various connotations of the title, which could mean 'pledge', 'promise' or a 'slip of the tongue' in German, Sprenger delivers a more mature product. Rather than going for the short, abbrieviated, cut-off statements …
Voice of the Seven Thunders
Already drawing comparison to the heyday of '70s acid rock & the likes of Amon Duul II, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Japan's Flower Travelin' Band, early Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground's drone jams, the electronic kosmische of Cluster & the unhinged organic grooves of International Harvester
In Vogue Spirit
With their recent split with Naked on the Vague acting as a dip into pop's waters; Wet Hair's follow up, In Vogue Spirit is practically a jump into the pool. The band's most accessible batch of tunes to date boil with Krautrock rhythms, buzzing synths, and a new focus on vocals that has previously been mostly absent in the band's back catalog. It's not all motion and melody here though, the band still retains their experimental spirit, giving the record plenty of teeth to sink into any of …
Only Stories
Latest from the uber prolific Aidan Baker, of mighty doomdronedirge duo Nadja, and as we've discovered in the past, Nadja is Baker's outlet for the heavier stuff, while working under his own name he tends to veer toward the minimal, ambient and drone side of the spectrum. So that's what we were sort of expecting from this, and while it definitely does lean more toward those sounds that the crush of Nadja, it's actually something else entirely, a solo acoustic record. That's right, just ac…
Future Days Live
This album is made up of one long jam session recorded live-in-studio at Inner Space in Cologne during the 1973 Future Days sessions. More ambient than their previous efforts, Future Days was also singer Damo Suzuki's final album with Can. Members of Can had first encountered the self-defined '20th century nomad,' Kenji 'Damo' Suzuki, a few years earlier on the streets of Cologne. It was shortly after original Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney had left the band and they were left without a singer…
Sensacao Do Principio
Sensacao Do Principio is the third release proper from Tropa Macaca and their first with an American label. Their previous efforts on Ruby Red and Qbico were magnificent (though hard to find) efforts of blotted, aural sci-fi codifications somewhere between Anar Band and Blues Control. The two-track full-length continues their foray into post-psychedelic instrumental morphine, where Moolah's LP and Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with …
La Bamba
Over 15 years ago Daniël de Wereldvermaarde Botanicus (hat and cacti collector Cassis Cornuta) deejayed a ton of horrible la bamba versions for 2 hours in the now defunct situationist radioshow RTVS (Radio Centraal-Antwerp). The 'galdezen' of RTVS yelled-sung along, creating their own versions of la bamba while getting more and more hammered or naturally gone from a bamba trance! After telling me this short story Daniël mumbled 'I always wanted to dj all night long la bamba, I think it will driv…
Inventions
Sandy Bull's 1965 LP Inventions remains one of those legendary albums that almost no one has heard. Its impact, however, can be scene in the title of this new compilation spotlighting a great unsung hero of "psychedelic folk." "Blend," the 22-minute opus from 1963 that opens this disc, surely fits that designation, perfectly blending folk, jazz, and Indian influences into what Bull called "new guitar raga." An eclectic virtuoso who switched from acoustic guitar to banjo to Stratocaster to oud (m…