New Arrivals
Joke in the hole
Black Dice bod returns to DFA with a playful solo LP of sample-splitting psychotomimetic grooves. Like an unhinged, PCP-huffing cousin of Smith 'N Hack, Copeland deranges plunderphonic globs into stomping, jerry-rigged and unstable structures, equal parts garage rock, wayward blues, disco, techno and avant-garde noise collage. Yet far from being a total mess, 'Joke In The Hole' is possibly his most "musical" effort to date, enriched with fragments of melodic hooks that give something to hold ont…
Ablation
Welcome return for Robert Hampson with the first Main album in seven years, new on eMego. Hampson founded Main with Scott Dawson upon disbanding Loop in '94, and while their initial releases still bore traces of their space-rock origins, the goal was always total ecstatic abstraction, and by the time of the Hz series, completed in '96, they'd pretty much achieved it. Main's music has been called many things: industrial, noise, isolationist electronica, dub, drone; the truth it, it's all a…
Light that comes, light that goes
One of two new releases from Brian Pyle (the other being 'Interval Signals'), Light that comes is a rich exploration of Ensemble Economique's range and power. With a palpable sense of the sublime throughout, the listener is guided through drones like the pillars and buttresses of a cathedral for a sombre new religion, into the sounds of the ocean (somehow elegiac), flute tones springing up in the fog like gravestones, and fallen kosmische. These are followed by the wonderfully odd 'As the Train …
Toxic Cosmopolitanism
Kassel Jaeger is a Swiss-French artist based in Paris, France, and is a member of the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales). Toxic Cosmopolitanism is his second full-length release for Editions Mego -- a release which explores and questions the very nature of the material experiments contained within. Each side consists of two clearly-defined sections based on the same material. Side A comprises of "Toxic Cosmopolitanism," a large-scale work based on distinct sounds of different cultures, …
Open
"Following on from their two track LP release, Mindset (2011), Open sees legendary artists-in-resonance The Necks return to the territory they are best known for, a single piece running for over an hour. The piece emanates a calm, immersive stillness throughout. Already The Wire has said that Open "(displays The Necks') astute handling of pacing and momentum, finely honed collective sense of timing, (and) their shared ability to balance at length a group equilibrium". Here the band returns…
Criminale - Vol.2 Ossessione
A record as weird and wild as the cover – filled with really tripped-out sounds from the obscure Flipper sound library in Italy! The music follows strongly in the best style of the rock-driven sounds from Italian horror films – but there's also a more compact approach too, with some funky elements that really make the whole thing sparkle – and a restrained approach that's far less indulgent than the prog styles that Italy was famous for at the time. The whole thing's great – a wicked mi…
Fur mich
Tired of quarreling endlessly with his imperious brother Klaus, Thomas Dinger quit the production of Viva, the second La Düsseldorf album, and promptly set off for the south of France. Frustrated and far away from home, his mind turned to the possibility of a solo album. An album devoted to his own musical ideas, free from domineering voices telling him what to do. Presenting his own vision in the context of a La Düsseldorf LP would have been difficult at the best of times. "I wanted to cre…
Live in Istambul
"Collective improvisation based on a Turkish folk tune. One of the most ecstatic piece of music i ever heard (simple as it is) ! suddenly i found myself dancing madly, like a Whirling Dervish... unfortunatly i didn't get Enlightment BUT, it was fun !" ep
Goose vibrations
GOL (Jean-Marcel Busson, Frédéric Rebotier, Ravi Shardja, and Samon Takahashi). GOL was formed in 1988 in Paris by Jean-Marcel Busson, Frédéric Rebotier, Ravi Sharda and Samon Takahashi. The quartet embodies, within a post-dada spirit, a lost rural tradition. GOL plays flute, horns, guitar, violin, toys, selfmanufactured instruments, tapes, turntables, voices, various percussion instruments and electronics, an appropriateness of both traditional string instrument and handmade low fi equipment. G…
Orilla Oscura
Heavyweight, tip-on style gatefold jacket printed on uncoated Stoughton stock includes download code redeemable from the label. Vinyl mastered by Lupo at D&M** In swift succession to his excellent Vallens 12", Barn Owl Jon Porras presents his third solo side under his birth name. Inspired by a book on the San Francisco Tape Music Centre, Jon creates expansive atmospheres from slowed down tape manipulated with analogue FX to complement the hazy grain and shapes of his signature, plangent g…
Live at the Cairo High Cinema Institute
I saw him at a street party in Giza where a few hundred people had amassed to dance and scream into the night. Flanked by Khaled Mando and Islam Tata, his two drummers pounding furiously asthe signature tone of his synth intensified for almost two hours, Islam Chipsy demonstrated his completely revolutionary take on modern Egyptian Shaabi. The sound was raw and distorted, thevolume was deafening, and the energy was high. Thirty minutes into the set, the trio pulled out blindfolds and put them on…
The Disintegration Loops
*Deluxe 5CD+DVD+Book set* "To mark the 10-year anniversary of its original release – and its forthcoming induction into the 9/11 Memorial Museum this year – Temporary Residence and William Basinski presentThe Disintegration Loops in a fashion truly befitting a library of music with such a lasting legacy. This massive limited-edition box set contains all four historic volumes, plus a pair of stunning live orchestral performances from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 54th Venice Bien…
Osaka Fortune
Osaka Fortune is the meeting of two Norwegians and to Japanese artists Ð two drummers and two noise musicians. The album was recorded in Osaka, Japan February 2011. The quartet had previously performed live together, but this time they set up a studio recording on their tour of Japan. Jojo Hiroshige is the guitarist and leader of infamous Japanese noise band Hijokaidan, which has been going since 1979, known for their violent and energetic performances. Hiroshige has also run Alchemy Records sin…
Overloaded Ark
A sequel to last year's eponymous debut as a duo, this new Drag City LP from Espers cellist Helena Espvall and Ghost's Masaki Batoh delves even deeper into traditional and ancient musics, making use of an armoury of instruments that extends beyond 'mildly obscure' (renaissance harp, sho, hurdy gurdy, etc) and enters into the realm of 'are you sure you haven't just made that up?' (auschpfeife, crumhorn, cornamuse, rig and darbuka). On hand to assist in this piece of instrumental archeology is anc…
Along the way
Former Emeralds member Mark McGuire has planned a new album following his 2011 albumGet Lost. Along the Waythrough Dead Oceans. On Along The Way, McGuire writes in the liner notes, “This story is an odyssey through the vast, unknown regions of the mind…the endless unfolding of psychological landscapes, leading to perpetual discoveries and expansions, in a genuinely emergent and infinite world of worlds.” Further he writes “[the new album] is not a critique, it is not instructional, nor is it a p…
A World Out Of Time
Both words in Eternal Tapestry's name say something about their music, but it's the first that's key. This Portland band's expansive psych rock sounds like it could go on forever, and most of their releases have in fact been culled from longer, open-ended improvisations. The way they slowly build these jams-- adding parts, increasing volume, and cresting in unison-- you get the feeling they're always playing, and their records are just glimpses of an endless stream.For A World Out of Time, Etern…
Mitosis
"12k kicks off its 11th year with a new release that takes the label down new sonic pathways. Caught between the organic and electronic minimalism that 12k is known for and the unconventional Japanese pop musings and songwriting style of Happy, Moskitoo's Drape is an infectiously strange, bleepy, and dreamy debut release. Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo) hails from Sapporo, Japan in Hokkaido, the country's northern-most prefecture. Perhaps a reaction to the cool climate of her home, her multi-instrumen…
Cinema
Diverse musical elements - coruscating cymbal scrapes, shimmering amplifier hum, melancholy saxophone circlings, sharp hits of snare, string and reed, slow motion guitar riffs, deep tam-tam surges and floor tom rasps, hypnotic prepared piano figures, and hovering fragments of song-like melodies - fracture and coalesce in this single intense improvisation.
Featuring two of the foundational figures of free improvisation alongside a younger arrival, this recording captures the first meeting …
Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco
Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco is a full-length LP that features six extended tracks from the golden age of the Moroccan record industry. After Morocco gained its independence in 1956, Moroccan-owned record labels sprouted and flourished in Casablanca. The inexpensive 45 rpm format allowed the record companies to release thousands of songs during the 1960s, creating a snapshot of the raw and hypnotic Berber music that thrived throughout Morocco. Powerful traditional styles were still aliv…
Homicidal Texture
Homicidal Texture was released by Slaughter Productions in early 1995 in a bizarre packaging consists of a metal mesh that completely envelops the cover. The four tracks on the tape are based on obsessive synth drones. The smell of death is soaked in every sound produced by the brilliant and twisted mind of Marco Corbelli. Anxiety, alienation and hypochondria turn into a deep paranoia in pain. Without hesitation, the bodies are emptied, leaving the field to an electronics purulence of rare power…