New Arrivals
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…
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 …
Hustler Power Electronics Convention
You must live in tokyo to be able to follow the immense output of the soundburrier that is Masaya Nakahara, aka Violent Onsen Geisha, most of his work doesn't make it out of Satou Dan's Tatsunoya bar in Shinjuku, not because no one wants it, just because the tokyo noise scene seems to gather there late at night to forefil their pork anus - chicken paw needs, and Nakahara's last 40 cdr's were the ideal soundtracks for this ritual. the old skool dead pan electronics, plunderphonics, parodies, nois…
Live at the Squat Theatre
LP, heavy fluorescent orange vinyl; ltd and numbered 1/99 only, rec. August 24, 1979; first landing of the Arkestra at Squat ! on back cover there's even an elusive photo of original Squat entrance/building. Arkestra personnel during that period:John Gilmore, Marshall Allen, Elo Omoe, Danny Thompson, Michael Ray, June Tyson, Pat Patrick, Hayes Burnett, and James Jackson, Jr."So many fond, fun memories of those magical, wonderfully endless Nights Of Ra at Squat - the time there was a massive b…
Big shadow Montana
"After producing their frozen trilogy of intoxicated dronemuzik for the Agency, these Scandinavian gentlemen have ventured into more absurdist territories through fictionalized soundtracks for imagined Mondo films and science fiction serials. It is in this context that BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa present the apparitional Big Shadow Montana, an album of slow-motion delirium manifested in occluded smears, nocturnal gasps, and arcane tones from a variety of analogue synthesizers. Amidst the n…
The Hour Is Now
An excellent compilation of beautiful early 70s folk tunes from three LPs that that legendary acid-folk hippy-goddess Collie Ryan recorded in 1973, pretty much in Fahey/Basho vein
Under Stellar Stream
For his latest album, UK avant-folk maverick Richard Youngs seems to be converging on some of the most assured and firm-footed vocal work of his career to date, fashioning rock-solid songs from typically leftfield instrumental tactics. On 'Broke Up By Night', Youngs sounds like a gnarled old folkie of almost Ewan MacColl proportions, albeit accompanied by organ drone and wispy electronics. It's a rather magical, mantra-like cadence he elicits, and the album springboards nicely from this point. S…
Eulogy for evolution
The vinyl version of Olafur Arnalds' debut album is back.
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…
Four Spells
The debut LP from eccentric ambient-psych pair Sherri West and Taylor Clark was recorded at a self-described "mountain fortress" in California, despite the couple generally residing in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And like their disparate locations, the duo dabbles in varying forms of weirdness, from the amateurish, Deerhoof-esque racket of opener "I Am A Pony" to the dreamier blips and bleeps of songs like "Particles," which evoke a Hawaiian vacation as narrated by Rod Serling. LAVA CHILDREN strikes a uniq…
Provocative Electronics
Provocative Electronics is an exploration in analog synthesizers and recording techniques. As in the days of musique concrete and the beginning years of synthesizer development, Ortmann experiments with tones and his own brand of electronic tweakage. Provocative Electronics is not a homage, but yet another document in the ongoing history of Electronic Music. For fans of the 20th century Greek composer Xenakis, minimalist John Cage, or pioneer of musique concrete Pierre Schaeffer, Mort Garson, Mi…
Bermuda Drain
This eagerly awaited new LP from Prurient begins with a blood-curdling scream - but thereafter all expectations are defied. If like us you've always been fascinated by the more reflective, electronic side of Dominick Fernow's catalogue - thus far restricted to the odd album track, his work with Cold Cave and a couple of choice side projects - then all your Christmases have come at once. Reportedly inspired by long drives around mainland Europe listening to minimal techno, Bermuda Drain pu…
Enthronement By God As The First-Born Of The Dead
Project from Dominick Fernow of Prurient/Vatican Shadow and Kris Lapke of Alberich. "Released first as a limited 4 x cassette box set now condemned to vinyl. Among the trinity of electronic projects of Dominick Fernow's studies in anxiety and fear from the mythic natures of rainforest spiritual enslavement, the info wars of Vatican Shadow and the creator's observation of Christian Cosmos. Lightning drums pound the rhythms for lost souls as the fall from paradise abounds and the trumpets o…
Eskra
Temperatures are a London-based duo formed by Peter Blundell (bass, voice) and James Dunn (drums, synth). Blundell's rumbling delayed bass runs against Dunn's bursting drums that simultaneously trigger an unruly ARP 2600. Vocals are both muffled and shouting at times and eventually end up getting buried under a (controlled) landslide of sounds. Thanks to their instinctive but thoughtful approach to noise, Temperatures can express a suffocating sense of alienation and mal de vivre, as well as tod…
Live at the Storyville, NYC - 24 October 1977
Quite simply one of Sun Ra's best live albums. This rare recording (originally on Horo records) finds Ra, along with a 19-piece Arkestra, playing a mix of his own compositions ('Images' and 'Lights') along with several jazz standards (including Jelly Roll Morton's 'King Porter Stomp' and Duke Ellington's 'Lightnin''). While Ra's own compositions were usually more avant-garde affairs, he always revelled in playing the classics as well in an effort to give his audience a lesson in jazz histo…
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…
Ancestral Songs
Daniel Higgs has an unparalleled presence in both body and voice. This, combined with hypnotic repetition, gives the material on Ancestral Songs both a loose discipline and an immense yet serpentine power. Ancestral Songs is comprised of apocalyptic tunes, a banjo raag, mellifluous birdsong, and the sci-fi-sounding duet of a searing Jew's harp and toy piano. "Are You of the Body?" brings out the electric tamboura tone and an accompanying acoustic guitar to melt the spine. A distorted motorik gui…
Musica Endoscopica
In its constant pursue of the lost treasures of the Italian avant-garde music, Die Schachtel in collaboration with the University of Padua has recovered from the ashes one of the lost and truly shining diamond of the early electronic/digital scene of the 60s and 70s. After more than two years of painstaking research and audio restoration, Die Schachtel is proud to present a new release dedicated to Teresa Rampazzi, a seminal yet very little known female Italian composer/musician, Founder of …
Brooding Forest
Hunting Rituals is the moniker of Scott Johnson (also Scott Cloud, Thoughts On Air) which was inspired from many impromptu collaborations with other weirdo musicians within the city limits of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Brooding Forest was the first recording to feature a second member, a fellow collaborator Jeremiah Buchan from Bottom Feeder who was also a main influence on the overall ritual sound process. This recording fuses Scott's focus of feral improv with Jeremy's premeditated lands…
Albeit Albeit / Sibelius Spiders
There's no shortage of electronic reissue imprints operating these days, especially ones concentrating on 'lost' synth-wave recordings from the late 70's - mid 80's - but few have access to the kind of material amassed over the years by Forced Nostalgia, a brand new label curated by one of Belgium's most knowledgeable and methodical sound archivists: Fré De Vos. The breadth and quality of the material already scheduled for release by Forced Nostalgia is just jaw-dropping - extending the r…