New Arrivals
Skate-Snorkel
The second LP in the RRR Foley Artist Series. Another great noise-wall record from The Rita. Two sound sources, one for each side. Because each side is a completely separate sound source, lets consider it a split LP.
Against the Day
Since Sam Shalabi enjoyed his mini-breakout in 2004 with the Shalabi Effect's The Trial of St. Orange, the Montreal composer has explored the overlap between popular Western music and traditional Middle Eastern musics, particularly those from Egypt, the country from which Shalabi's parents hailed. These projects tend to be diffuse and ambitious: Shalabi works with dozens of musicians on long, brash drones, or plays meditative oud pieces in comfy theaters. Land of Kush, …
(Fake) The Facts
After the runaway success of the Akita/Gustafsson/O'Rourke LP One Bird Two Bird (DEMEGO 016LP), Swedish sax legend Mats Gustafsson returns to Editions Mego with another storming collaboration. Now a resident of Vienna, he teamed up with experimental artists dieb13 and Martin Siewert for a live and studio session. (Fake) The Facts is the result. A dense fog of sound comes from all directions, but whereas the general impetus is a full-on attack, the trio finds enough restraint to create a deepe…
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…
Group: Xex
Xex were an all-synthesizer band from South River, New Jersey who recorded their debut album group:xex in 1980. Formed when a trio of high school misfits with funny names (Waw Pierogi, Thumbalina Gugielmo and Alex Zander) teamed up with some friends from Rutgers CollegePerformed entirely on then-state-of-the-art Arps, synths and electronic drums – no guitars anywhere – group: xex aims for the future, but comes across now like a time capsule from the deepest, darkest Reagan years. Each song burro…
Regine Flory
Limited to 200. Zak Boerger's combination of fuzz, acoustic guitar & extended downer ballads most immediately aligns him with the New Zealand scene centered around Peter Jefferies & Alastair Galbraith as well as associated international satellites like Flying Saucer Attack & the Twisted Village roster, but there's a lonesome edge to the music that would situate it ouside of any particular historical tradition & closer to the mystery school of regional private press obscurities. The acoustic trac…
Sufferers
Ohio-based noise upsetter Mike Shiflet has amassed an enviable amount of releases in the last decade. Tapes, vinyl, cdrs – you name it, he’s done it, but it’s taken until now for Shiflet to weld together what he regards as his defining work. The first in a series of two ‘proper’ albums, ‘Sufferers’ takes the listener to the very heart of Shiflet’s sound – through the abrasive noise heard on his early releases all the way to the shimmering ambience that made up his breakthrough album ‘Lla…
Brand
“Brand” is the new trio of Gary Smith (guitar), Silvia Kastel (voice and synth), Ninni Morgia (guitar). On this recording Gary Smith produces the playing for which he’s considered a master of avant guitar: multiple layering, complex grainy textures, dense counterpoint, influences of birdsong. Fused with the guitar of Ninni Morgia, which floats between minimal movements of primordial electronics, pre-war slide blues and Hendrix-esque feedback. Over, and blending with them, Silvia Kastel’s mo…
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…
Country Stash
By necessity, any conversation about the music of Matt Valentine (MV) and Erika Elder (EE) is eventually going to touch on their prolific output. The Vermont duo's constant production has simply become one of its defining facts. In addition to a steady stream of studio albums for Ecstatic Peace!, MV & EE have continued to release small-batch recordings on their own Child of Microtones label, including a Dick's Picks-style series of live recordings on the offshoot Heroine Celestial Agriculture su…
Ancestral star
Finally reprinted...Returning with a brand new album of arid, dustbowl blues and slow-motion desert-scapes, Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras resume duties as Barn Owl for a third album. Previously this band has tended to court associations with the sound developed by Earth for their Hex album; the overall effect is resolutely bleak and doom-laden, yet not entirely without some grounding in the language of grassroots Americana. Ancestral Star takes the Barn Owl sound to a new level of refinement, spe…
Belles Betes
“Belles Betes” features 4 new tracks fuzzed-out heaviness. The track ‘Green & Cold’ is currently streamable from Nadja’s MySpace page, and it sounds awesome - dark and brooding yet subtly melodic. Like most Nadja releases, “Belles Betes” is annoyingly limited. It’s being released as an LP and will be limited to 500 copies. Click the Beta-lactam link below for samples from each track and additional album info.
Copenhagen Dreams
Copenhagen Dreams is director Max Kestner’s documentary film portrait of Denmark’s capital. It’s a film about the physical surroundings that are part of shaping our lives. About the buildings we wake up in, the front doors we walk out of, the streets we traverse. It is also a film about how the way we live our lives affects our physical surroundings. About the places we dream of and the walls onto which we scratch the names of our loved ones, before it’s too late.It focuses on the city as a phys…
Ever And Anon
The mythical LAFMS collective Smegma really needs no introduction, where would we all be without them? How many bands were so ahead of their time (1973!), and have been for so long, like Smegma have? Well, here they are with a brand new LP of their famous mix of free jazz, industrial noise, improvisation, straight-up weird music so typical of these masters / US freaks. On the opening track, they are riding on the amazing drums of historical member Dennis Duck (of Dream Syndicate) to pay h…
Time Building
I started making music in earnest in 1994 with a Casio keyboard and a four-track cassette recorder. Since 1996 I have been using a Korg MS10 analogue synthesiser and some effects pedals which I have added over time Ñ delays, phasers, a ring modulator and a pattern generator. Occasionally I use acoustic sounds as well. On this LP, I made extensive use of a pattern generator (a Moog Murf) in combination with other effects. Before recording anything, I spend time designing and shaping the sounds I'…
Live At The Accident!
"Crazy 3-way collaboration from some of America's best underground musicians. Charalambides' Tom Carter is joined by Shawn McMillen, sometime member of Warmer Milks and Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast, with the added power of Starving Weirdos. This two track collaboration has been around since 2007 and it landed in my mailbox a few months back, and man, it's a real beauty. Side A is a total hypnotic slice of ravaged drone, the four musicians seamlessly blend their own styles of underground bliss …
Midden
Suum Cuique (pronouned Soom Kwi-Kwe, Latin for "To Each His Own") follows the remit of Young Americans to explore uncharted, experimental, and personal synthscapes, guided by the hand of intuition with an entirely analogue array of machines. In 'Lithic Reduction' concrète textures grind like a millstone to release powdery clouds of analog dust, settling only to be dispersed by gusts of blackened distortion, whereas 'Red Binary' is distinctly electronic, revolving around muted radar bleeps…
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…
Dream request
'Bo Weavil presents a sublime duo recording from old sparring partners Oren Ambarchi and Robbie Aveniam recorded live in Tel Aviv in 2009. This is a single edit of the performance which perfectly captures the chemistry between Robbie's busy percussive maneuvers and Oren's textural overlay. A previous performance of the pair was documented on the 'Clockwork' CD (re-issued by room40) and prior to this the notorious 'The Alter Rebbe's Niggun' CD was released on Tzadik. Here, the two come together w…
Cult Spectrum
Since 2009 Grant Evans has been peering ever deeper into the kosmische abyss with his records as Nova Scotian Arms for Aguirre, Preservation and Hooker Vision. He's also known for the lush Quiet Evenings releases with his wife, Rachel Evans (Motion Sickness Of Time Travel), but in solo flight his sound is more wide-eyed, exploratory, reaching heady new climes on 'Cult Spectrum', arguably his most vivid vision yet. Perhaps it's thanks to an exquisite mastering job by Lawrence English, but …