New Arrivals
Hertta Lussu Assa
Lau Nau, Islaja, and Kuupuu all together in one band - it's like the dreamiest aQ daydream come true! All three of these ladies have been responsible for some of the most mystical and beautiful recordings of the last few years, all of which have become permanent favorites with everyone here. Lau Nau, and Islaja's recent recordings have shown them moving toward a more direct approach in their songwriting, but this project really lets all of these ladies dig deep into their textured, exper…
The Ocean Above Your Heads
Limited edition vinyl LP in super deluxe, full-colour printed jacket, featuring cover artwork by Roberto Opalio. The idea of a recording collaboration by Nels Cline and My Cat Is An Alien was born one day in Torino, Italy, while Cline was touring with Wilco in 2007. After two other intersections of their respective orbits (first at Victoriaville, then at a UK All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2006), Cline eventually mailed them a CDR of prepared and heavily effected electric guita…
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…
Proceed with Caution!
Whereas the earlier black jazz album Shawn-Neeq had its share of riff-based funk, Calvin Keys' second outing Proceed with Caution! (1974) sticks close to straight-ahead jazz verities with the 30-something guitarist in the studio with seven similarly young, on-the-rise musicians including Charles Owens (saxophones, flute), Oscar Brashear (trumpet), Al Hall Jr. (trombone), Kirk Lightsey (electric piano), Henry Franklin (bass), and Leon "Ndugu" Chancler (drums). Keys can really play the guitar, e…
You Lost Me At Hello
LP version. Includes voucher for free MP3 download of the whole album. This is the second full-length release by Norway's Bushman's Revenge (Even Helte Hermansen, Gard Nilssen, Rune Nergaard). You Lost Me At Hello shows a distinct development from their debut Cowboy Music (Jazzaway, 2007). Founded by Hermansen and Nilssen in 2003 in their hometown of Skien, a couple of hours from Oslo, the trio aim to combine the jazz/improv background of the rhythm section with the rock/metal background of lead…
Damballah 58
Damballah 58 is the monstrous sequel to 2012's deadly Black Mamba 12". The title-track's diabolically addictive vaudou rhythms insinuate deeply before uncoiling convulsively into an irrevocable reclamation of the consciousness. The B-side features "Mamba Muntu" (sister track to the previous "River Mumma" and "Witness the Spread of the Dream"), the treacherously beautiful "Belladonna Theme," and the marauding, burning rush of "Immersion." Written and produced by William Bennett. Original vév…
Films super-8, la nature comme atelier
A book all in French about the Swiss artist Roman Signer and his work. Texts from François Bovier and Hamid Taieb, Geneviève Loup, Rachel Withers, + an interview with Roman Signer.
Kenzo Deluxe
Guitarist Chris Forsyth is a unique voice in the realm of American music, having emerged from the challenging free form expressionism of his old group Peeesseye with a lyrical command rare in any genre. His newest work brings his trademark lyricism to new heights in his most straightforward setting yet. Gone are the fleshed out rock band arrangements of last year’s Paranoid Cat LP, replaced on Kenzo Deluxe, by Forsyth shunning overdubs and playing his transcendent songs alone in a room on his el…
Plays Bee Mask
Double LP version. In hindsight, the pairing of Chris Madak and Donato Dozzy was inevitable from the moment when the two connected on Mount Naeba, Japan at the storied Labyrinth party last fall. Both artists have worked to craft singular visions unlike anything else happening in electronic music today, yet despite each producer's unmistakable individuality, there is a deeper reservoir of shared sensibility between them which makes Donato Dozzy Plays Bee Mask feel like a logical and necessar…
333 Loops (Volume 1)
333 Loops (Volume 1) is the first chapter of a CD/DL live series, which documents the sound events generated by the homonymous modular system, designed in 2011 by the Italian musician Emiliano Romanelli.
The system is composed by an archive of 333 pre-recorded sound loops, produced between 2008 and 2011 by a sound synthesis software played in different acoustic environments, and documented mainly with internal microphones of several digital and analog portable recorders. Subsequently, by a custo…
Living Theory Without Anecdotes
The album Living Theory Without Anecdotes confates Nicolas Wiese's acousmatic compositions from the years 2009-2011. There is a common thread: all four compositions are constructed out of samples from acoustic instrument and object recordings, and mostly have rather foating structures with slow crescendos and little disruptions. A significant element in Wiese's soundworks is the spatial layering - there is an architecture of foregrounds, backgrounds and diferent midgrounds that integrate …
Birth/Speed/Merging
The Pyramids' psychedelic Afro-jazz masterpiece finally lands thanks to Disko B. Originally cut in 1975 before they disbanded, 'Birth/Speed/Merging' marks a highpoint of the group's production values and was their last recording together. Since then the LP's achieved cult status for its celebratory fusion of carnivalesque groove with Sun-Ra-like cosmic vibes and progressive values; a worldly and entirely enchanting sound blessed with a real tangible sorta magic. The one to check is 'Black Man An…
A Red Score In Tile
Composed way back in 1979, 'A Red Score In Tile' eventually surfaced as a vinyl-only edition in 2003. Made up of piano, this shows Basinski's patented tape-loop technique perfectly and still stands as one of his most affecting pieces of music. If you've heard 'Melancholia' you'll likely know what I'm talking about, piano notes are transformed into tones by the slowly disintegrating tape, and the loops become motifs all of their own. The beauty of Basinski's work is in its patience, and this earl…
Four Years Older
A new set by the coolest chap in New York City, documenting the development process of a solo electric guitar piece that Alan Licht has been playing out for the last four years. Revered for his work in the Blue Humans and Text Of Light, and a key figure in the pantheon of experimental solo guitar players born in the late '60s such Jim O'Rourke and Oren Ambarchi, Four Years Older is his debut Editions Mego release, representing another peak in a career of mining the rich seams of minimalism, noi…
Spit
Debut album from Ron Morelli, founder of the influential L.I.E.S. label featuring 8 electronic variants; from House and industrial tape experiments to saturated metallic beat tracks... There’s so much that could be said about Ron Morelli, his L.I.E.S. label, or the fact that his debut album comes to you via Hospital Productions, but instead, here are some words from the man himself. “I’m a regular guy, enjoy a good steak, drinking beer, and occasionally a game of pro basketball, Republican talk …
Amulet
Oren Ambarchi live recordings assembled on Cheryl Cole's iPhone at her house in Winnipeg. Not really, but it's that's how I first misread the description. Amulet actually presents two iPhone recordings assembled at Chez Cole, Winnipeg, July 2013 by the inestimable Oren Ambarchi. We've no further info but from what we can hear these are rudimentary iPhone recordings excerpted and crudely edited from a live performance (a shard of applause possibly gives the game away) between rippling, dynamicall…
Animalia Corolla
Most of us are living in an urban world, dominated by constant noise and contagious stress. Our ears are conditioned by this aggressive environment and have often lost the ability to perceive another discreet world surrounding us. It might be hidden but also swarming, vivid and incredibly musical. We are all able to prick up our ears to some birds chattering together, the wind shaking leaves, toads singing serenades or old spirits telling us their immemorial adventures…Since its creation in 2006…
Music for Earbuds
Music for Earbuds is composed entirely from headphone feedback which makes some surprisingly organic (as well as electronic) sounds, Stephen Cornford writes to introduce his new CD. A collection of sounds stark and stubborn, as a listener you hit against their form, slide on their surfaces. These sounds so alien yet alluring call you to spend time with them, attend to them. They mark the edges of hearing and understanding. The edge here is the ear that hears as listening encounters nothing but i…
Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music...
..And Photography 1890-1950 The latest release from Grammy Award-winning reissue label Dust-to-Digital gives music fans another reason to rejoice. A stunning 96-page hardcover book of historic baptism photographs, taken between 1890 and 1950 and compiled from the collection of noted folk art collector Jim Linderman, is accompanied by a CD of rare gospel and folk recordings from original 78 RPM records (1924-1940), featuring artists Washington Phillips, Carter Family, Tennessee Mountaineers, …
The Skipper at Home
Jazz-man Henry Franklin, widely respected for his service to the finest jazz players, brought that ineffable quality called soulfulness into play when he made his first record for producer George Porter at Black Jazz, The Skipper. Not unexpectedly, his follow-up affair titled The Skipper at Home teems with the same jaunty uplift. In sync with Franklin's musical spirit on the second recording are returnees Charles Owens on saxophone, Oscar Brashear on trumpet and Kenny Climax on guitar along wi…