New Arrivals
Electronics Without Tears
LP eition: the excellent Public Information label really comes into its own with this revelatory collection of early concréte tape music by F.C. Judd - a much overlooked British electronic music pioneer and contemporary of Daphne Oram. Born in Woodford, East London in 1914, Frederick Charles Judd served in the RAF coastal command during WWII working with highly secret radar equipment. After being demobbed he applied this knowledge and skilled engineering background to his musical interests…
Split
Limited vinyl pressing of this excellent split LP self-released by Grouper in this scarce second edition* The music on this split release arrives remastered after its initial release via C40 cassette a while back. Likeminded souls Eva Saelens (inca Ore) and Liz Harris (Grouper) are in brilliant form on these recordings, so it's great to hear them in a cleaned up format - though of course with these two, it's fairly difficult to tell where the muddy cassette hiss ends and the foggy, dusty …
Oppenheimer Analysis
The first release from Minimal Wave, Oppenheimer Analysis, is back by popular demand. The EP is a second pressing limited edition (500 copies) on 180 gram vinyl of selected tracks from the Oppenheimer Analysis cassette entitled “New Mexico” released in 1982, as well as two others that were previously unreleased. Andy Oppenheimer (nuclear weapons consultant) and Martin Lloyd (previously involved in the Survival Label, also known for his project “Analysis”) formed Oppenheimer Analysis in the early…
Astra & Knyst
Now Voks is finally presenting his first full-length album (though only 30 minutes long this is epic in Voks' universe - both 3"CD's included 10 tracks each within 20 minutes). While keeping his trademark style of hyperactive and nervous high-pitched twisted pop songs a newborn interest in (italo-western) movie soundtracks seems to be evident. The sound of super fast surf guitars is colliding with what seems chinese opera samples, world music is combined with children's whisteling tunes. Think R…
The Wyrd Meme
A quartet of new songs from the ever-wonderful Alasdair Roberts - a follow-up to his long-player Spoils, released earlier in the year. The tone is carefully poised between staunchly traditional folk values and more modern arrangement styles; though Roberts' fingerpicking and unaffected delivery are faithful to the genre's purist leanings, there's nothing conventional about the songs' segmented structures or the often very minimalist arrangements. It's quite strange to hear such a seemingly old-f…
…On Sea-Faring Isolation
"A casual interweb cruiser could be forgiven for confusing Dolphins Into The Future the “band” (aka the one-man tape-loop blue-age ambient project executed by Belgian Cetacean Nation ambassador Lieven Martens) with Dolphins Into The Future the book (written by dimensional traveler Joan Ocean concerning her 20-year-long real life spirit quest to commune with a school of 200 wild Hawaiian Spinner dolphins). And, to be fair, they’re a LOT alike. Both deal heavily in trippy, drifting logics, vibrati…
Split
The third LP in the series produced by Kommisar Hjuler and Mama Baer has just Mama Baer on one side and on the other side we find the highly respectable Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock. This originally Swiss project has moved to Japan ages ago, and there (and most likely anywhere else) he performs his pieces, aktions as they are called in the best performance tradition. Here a piece from April 2009 in Osaka and its quite a surprising one, if you know their previous work. Much of that older work consis…
Music From Italian TV
New LP - The Phantom Family Halo - Music From Italian TV - The label behind this release is using a very cryptic description for this record. One that, unfortunately, won't help sell many copies of a very enjoyable record. We won't be reprinting said description here, but what we will tell you what we know. Phantom Family Halo Band is from Louisville, Kentucky. At least one member of the band Sapat (remember their great LP on Siltbreeze from a couple years back?) is involved, but thi…
Sun Circle
The most recent release on the lichen label; all releases are hand-assembled by zach wallace in his native ann arbor environs and offer of a lovely wave of art-sound, field recordings, improvisation with natural non-instruments, and, in the case of this particular title, a pair of pieces by greg davis and zach himself on farfisa, distorted vocals, and bells. the first appears to be a zonked “cover” of lamonte young’s “31 vii 69 10:26 - 10:49 pm munich from map of 49's dream the two systems of el…
Graf Spee
Two tracks of incredible beauty characterized by unbelievable depth and intensity, from one of the finest masters of contemporary electronic music.Deep, powerful, brutal, quietly melodic drone massages from The King. Housed in a beautifully packaged LP edition, "Graf Spee" is a collaboration between artists CM von Hausswolff, Jan Håfström and Juan Pedro Fabra for an installation commissioned by the 5th Nordic Biennale of contemporary art and by Wanas Foundation in Sweden
The sacrifice for the music became our lifestyle
Chris Abrahams, upright piano. Kai Fagaschinski, b-flat clarinet. Cover painting & sleeve design by Zev Langer. How do you run a duo when both of its protagonists are living at two opposite ends of the planet ? Well, it's not that dramatic. For many years Chris has used his European tours as a springboard for extended stays in Kai's hometown of choice, Berlin. After appreciating each other's work for quite a while they began collaborating at a friend's piano-armed kitchen in 2007. While C…
Open Casket
romantic low-fi death rock creepers from prolific Providence showman/illustrator/film-maker Carlos Gonzalez. Some of his catchiest tunes yet. To be listened at night on headphones. Reminds me of morbid childhood, the thing in the mirror, the AM rock n roll station and it’s chintzy announcers, hair collectors and men in heels - - #1 pop hit of the year - - -
United World In Outer Space
Decades before his time, political and musical revolutionary, Sun Ra, developed a new plane of cultural existence where black people were all-powerful beings from outer space, sending their intergalactic message through jazz music. Recorded live in 1975 at Cleveland's legendary jazz club, the Smiling Dog Saloon, when Sun Ra and his Arkestra descended on the city for a week-long residency. You can imagine how the uninitiated's jaw must have dropped when Ra and his 15 musicians marched out onto th…
World Complete
Harmonizer, or as lovingly referred to as HARMO around these parts is the Vermont duo of Toby Aronson and Greg Davis, whose previous effort, their self-titled debut on Aronson's own stellar NNA Tapes label was the definitive 5th world statement, and solidified them as sensais in the koan of new drone worship shared by the likes of fellow melodic noisers Caboladies and OPN. In fact Greg Davis (Kranky, Carpark) is zone veteran shredder whose explorations into pastoral electronics have been w…
Harmonia & Eno \'76
AWESOME!! Fans of ambient music and Brian Eno will want to watch for a new album on the new Amazing Sounds label, Harmonia & Eno ‘76 Remixes. The album features remixes of tracks from the classic album Tracks & Traces by Shackleton, Appleblim & Komonazmuk. 2 tracks 12"
Broken Bones
This latest in the Latitudes series of limited LPs comes from American noise-pop band Gowns, whose Red State album you may recall as being one of 2007's more unclassifiable recordings. A folkish spectre hangs over these pieces, particularly when it comes to the wiry, haunting violin sequences strewn liberally across the session - they bring to life the sinister spoken word of 'Dog', crowning a soundscape that's always on the precipice of turning nasty. Much of Gowns' music tends towards uncertai…
You Are The One I Pick
"Nottingham duo Felix make their Kranky debut with this fine and idiosyncratic collection of songs. The main focus here is the vocal/piano/cello talents of Lucinda Chua, whose sparse yet quirk-loaded minimalism receives guitar and bass backing from Chris Summerlin, who's probably best known for his work in the rock band Lords. Chua's writing is quite unlike anything else currently out there; her lyrics convey strange or often very simple, domesticated ideas delivered in a pared-down, plaintive f…
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…
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…
The Remixes Part 1
Limited to 455 transparent vinyl copies, including remixes from Vatican Shadow, Roly Porter and Kangding Ray* Violetshaped is a collaboration between the enigmatic Violet Poison and Berlin-based artist Shapednoise. "Violetshaped Remixes Part 1" is the first of a remixes series divided into several parts. This first instalment features remixes from Roly Porter (formerly of Vex'd) following on from his acclaimed debut album for the Subtext label, Vatican Shadow - aka Dominick Fernow, owner …