New Arrivals
808s & Dark Grapes II
The internet can be blamed for many things, and while the current consensus seems to be that it is single-handedly responsible for the destruction of the music scene, it's impossible to deny the influence it has had on contemporary rap music. Previously held hostage by industry moneymen, file sharing and social networking has democratized the genre and allowed people to hear what's really going on in the minds of young producers and rappers. Main Attrakionz are one such cottage industry ma…
Life (...It eats you up)
Whereas previous works by Mika Vainio have utilised guitar Life (… It Eats You Up) is the first to use the instrument as its primary sound source. A fascinating, sometimes disturbing and deeply personal work this new 10 track set bears all the hallmarks (exacting attention to detail of tone, rhythm and texture) of Vainio's previous works with some stunning surprises, such as his cover version of The Stooges' 'Open Up and Bleed'.Tracks such as ‘Mining’ hark bark to the banging beat exces…
A static place
Deluxe edition on double LP, an edition of 155 copies, individually inscribed and numbered, cear vinyl, 140g audiophile quality "Sourced from a mic’d gramophone playing 78rpm records from 1928 to 1932 with a cactus needle for a stylus, A Static Place has the more urgent, dynamic feeling to it. There is heavy use of hissing and layers of analog static to be heard on "Schwarzschild Radius", but it is used sparingly, burying processed choral arrangements and organ passages in its fuzzy warmth. Viny…
Narc Beacon/Nag Nag Bacon
Goodiepal or Gæoudjiparl van den Dobbelsteen, whose real name is Parl Kristian Bjørn Vester, is a controversial Danish/Faroese musician and composer. The eccentric and self-made Goodiepal has influenced the course of modern music through radical excursions into computer technology and media art. Until recently he has been employed as a teacher at DIEM (Danish Institute for Electro-acoustic Music) at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. Goodiepal declared intellectual war against …
\"The Vodoun Effect\" 1972-1975
Most Likely To: be one of the only albums you hear that will protect you from the smallpox virus. In the late 1960s, as traditional African culture rubbed up against an influx of Western influences, some of the most amazing modern musical forms birthed in the dance halls of West Africa. Rhythm and blues, soul, and funk elements electrified and popularized in the United States folded back upon themselves into their African origins. Afrobeat reigned supreme in Nigeria, a defiant and jubilant funk …
Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads
Dustin Wong's second LP Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, is a departure from Dustin's previous methods but more closely a distillation of his live show into recorded form. The pieces are so intricate and detailed that we've asked Dustin to explain his process and he happily obliges us: "When I begin to explore and to build a song through a series of pedals, I begin with the tuner. It helps keep my guitar's pitch consistent. An octave pedal and the distortion pedals allows me to …
The Unexamined Life
Supreme Dicks put out one single in their career. It was a double B-side. Maybe they had a sense of humor, but in hindsight it's hard to tell.Falling somewhere between Captain Beefheart, Throbbing Gristle and SALEM in the lineage of musicians who've found a muse in the nasty, brutish brevity of life, Supreme Dicks chose to cloak disarmingly real paranoia and grief in the contemporary trappings of late '80s and early '90s lo-fi college rock. They may have inhabited the same sonic and physical spa…
Palace of marvels (queered pitch)
Edition of 500. Composed by Marcus Schmickler. Recorded and Mastered at Piethopraxis, Köln. January-August 2010. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, October 14th 2010. Artwork by Tim Berresheim. Marcus Schmickler's new release following his acclaimed 'Altars of Science' is a must have for those interested in the rising field of contemporary Computer Music. It reconfirms Schmickler's interest in the liaison of sound, phenomenology and cognitive sciences. Schmickler therefore utilizes a n…
Kill For Love
16 Track Deluxe Double LP on Magenta coloured wax finally available, includes downloiad code redeemable from the label* At long last available for public consumption - Johnny Jewel and co make their loooong overdue return with a gorgeous new album. It's now five years since 'Night Drive' triggered an avalanche of copy-cats and even a film - Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Drive' - and although we were all blessed with Johnny Jewel's sumptuous 'Symmetry, Themes for an Imaginary Film' earlier this…
Reverse Atheism
Barbara Manning and S. Glass lead a small army of guest readers and musicians through barely musical versions of tunes, texts, and tracts. A survey of the exceptional, the eccentric, the feverish, and the pathologically peculiar within popular religious faith, to paraphrase William James, made by others, communicated by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit. 70+ minutes of music fragments leached of melody and harmony, looped, hacked, noisified and depas…
A Double Promo Album By CAN
Vocalist Damo Suzuki’s departure from CAN in 1973 had forced the band to re-evaluate their sound. Now with Michael Karoli and Irmin Schmidt sharing vocal duties, the band had also begun drawing on influences from disco and glam. While still remaining staunchly outside the mainstream, they undoubtedly became more accessible to a wider audience, and soon had a huge fan base in the UK. In fact, just a few months after playing the live show found on this double LP (recorded in Lyon in January …
The Ballasted Orchestra
The much-in-demand vinyl version of the second (or third, depending on how you calculate) Stars of the Lid album, their first for Kranky, now finally reissued on vinyl. The original 4 track cassette recordings were remastered and new lacquers were cut, and the original artwork has been updated* When it comes to genre-defining releases, even releases that define a band's career, few sum up ambient music, and the work of Stars of the Lid in general like 'The Ballasted Orchestra'. Released in 1…
Mali: essential recordings of Carnatic bamboo flute (1969-1970)
Gorgeous double gatefold issue of two crucial albums by "the greatest living flutist of South India", T.R. Malingham or Mali to millions of South Indians, presented in respectfully opulent stye by Japan's EM reissue imprint. This is meditative, spiritual, and exotic music of the highest order, combining his two most revered recordings from 1969 and 1970 over two very special discs. Mali is said to be able to commune with birds via his playing and that's quite understabable. His virtuoso u…
On Patrol
Gorgeous double LP version "If a tree falls in a forest and no one's around, shit still gets crushed. If Cameron Stallones holes up solo-style in a suburban cave and wah-riffs over canned bongos for five straight months, double LPs still get dropped. These are basic life laws. The latest from Mr. Araw is easily his least compromising audio self-portrait to date. Three minute rhythm sketches are stretched into ten minute loop pedal odysseys. Organ solos last for entire vinyl sides. Ambiguou…
Drums Between The Bells
Gatefold 2LP version. "Pairing prickly electronics with live drum patterns, Eno dumps great globs of blotchy machine -- malfunction into the mix. Holland's poetry is interlaced courtesy of [a] monotone voice...the combined effect makes the whole undertaking sound like a wild William Gibson fantasy come to life." --Pitchfork "Brian Eno first came across the work of Rick Holland in the late '90s during the Map-Making project; a series of collaborative works between students of the Royal College, t…
Popofoni
This 2LP is a reissue of the holy grail of Norwegian free-jazz and electronic music, Popofoni, released by Sonet in 1973. It features compositions by Arne Nordheim, Terje Rypdal, Kåre Kolberg, Gunnar Sønstevold and Alfred Janson played by an extended Jan Garbarek Quintet. The Popofoni-project was initiated after a heated debate on Haagen Ringnes’ TV-show Åpen Post in autumn 1969, which dealt with the subject popmusic. Standing on one side you found the defenders of pop, actress and sin…
Black Mill Tapes Volumes 1 & 2
Not much is known about the shadowy figure of the Head Technician, the man supposedly behind Pye Corner Audio. There are rumors that in another life he was an engineer to the stars, and while that can't be verified, there's certainly an air of expertise in this bumper set of productions. Black Mill Tapes Volumes 1 & 2 were originally released by the Technician himself, and have been picked up for a very special vinyl release. These collect the first handfuls of tracks from the Pye Corner A…
Family Perfume Vol. 1 & 2
Fuck Nostalgia. Live the truth. Truth is feeling, Truth is sound, Truth is motion. I am believing. I am seeing. I am moving. TRUTH IS FOREVER. Meet The Presley/ White Fence Truth Serum. Imagine if you will, that your uncle frank, aunt jane and cousing ricky all made out with George Harrison at the same time and felt good about it. Thats what the family perfume smells like. Like the real shit. This aint your regular mutton chop rock. This is freak your fucking mom out cause she caught you n…
Mimikry
Having nicely set up the release of this album with their Ret Marut Handshake EP a few months back, Alva Noto and Blixa Bargeld (of Einsturzende Neubauten fame) deliver a set that exceeds all expectations. One of the most strikingly obvious comparisons to arise from that first batch of material was the Alan Vega/Pan Sonic collaboration, yet Mimikry goes much further than combining the established aesthetics of its constituent parts and creates something that actually feels very new. Car…
Spiritual Jazz 3: Europe
Gatefold double LP version. Esoteric, modal and deep jazz from the European underground, 1963-1972. At the end of the '50s, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue heralded the revelatory arrival of modal jazz. As the vibrations of these giant steps resonated across the world, European jazz musicians reassessed their bearings and began to steer a new course. Across the continent, they sent roots down into the rich soil of the European folk and Christian liturgical traditions, extended their music along a…