New Arrivals
Live 1976
Well further gifts abound, as this 1976 concert on Galactic Zoo Disk/Drag City will attest. Clearly, the explorations of Sandy Bull were not lost on the far-out audiences of the Bay Area, and though the heady days of the '60s have gone, the Berkeley heads are still in full force, hanging on Sandy's every note with a clearly expressed delight as they wait for headliner Leo Kottke to take the stage. Even though there were no further albums after 1972's Demolition Derby (a candidate for unhi…
The watchers
The Watchers is a historic collaboration between Lubomyr Melnyk and James Blackshaw. These new pieces are being released as a CD/LP with material exclusive to each format. LP is pressed in an edition of 500. I first met Lubomyr Melnyk at a festival called Hea Uus Heli in October 2008. We were both scheduled to play that day and I was very excited to see him perform. Before the show I bought several LPs from him and mentioned as much. Lubomyr (more than modest and courteous, as he always i…
Blue Clouds
Some cream for your acid-folk tea - hitherto unreleased sides from the two and a half bards (well, two bards and a maiden - forsooth!) who self-released All On the First Day back in '72. These include studio recordings from later in the 70s, a couple live songs and an outtake from the legendary album itself! Well, the first legendary album anyway - for Blue Clouds is clearly another.
Retro-2038
COH is the moniker used by Ivan Pavlov from Russia for more than a decade. COH is also the Russian word for 'sleep'. Yet, do not be deceived - RETRO-2038 is much more of a deep space than a deep sleep. The second COH release on Editions Mego is a true delight to behold, inviting as it does its exploration of electronic sound in minimalism, futuristic pop and the uncharted territories inbetween. Ranging from digital updates of Giorgio Moroder's pulse experiments to menacing lingering LF to…
Traces Two
2014 repress, Recollections GRM presents four "forgotten" and compelling electro-acoustic pieces from the institute's world famous archive. Recollection GRM, a label within the Editions Mego family of labels, offers a second selection from the vast archives of Groupe De Recherches Musicales (GRM). "The idea of the Traces series is to unearth from the GRM Archives short, forgotten, or ignored pieces of music. This second volume, which gathers works prior to 1976, features the 'early' works of f…
The Dew Line
Deluxe gatefold sleeve reissue of this all-time classic of deformed rock song and avant guitar downs from Michael Morley of The Dead C: originally issued in 1994 by Table Of The Elements/Precious Metal, this new edition re-masters the original while adding five bonus tracks from the same time period and re-jigging the running order for maximal wipe-out.. Michael Morley has trawled through his extensive collection of unreleased tracks from the original recording period to integrate a furth…
Infinite Hum
Intense, squally noise drones from Dublin's Where Is This, his first for The Tapeworm. To date Mark Ward aka 'Where Is This' has released a slew of his own recordings on his Bored Bear label, along with countless others by the likes of Black Orgasm, Piss Gag, Female Harikiri and other such friendly-monikered miscreants. His 'Inifinite Hum' opens The Tapeworm's 2014 catalogue with a bracing 20 minute blast of viscous, vicious white noise licking up high peaks of blizzard-like distortion in hypnot…
Fever Logic
Ensemble Economique has emerged as an unusually globe-trotting creative valve for Arcata, CA, beachcomber Brian Pyle. The last year alone has seen him backpacking through Scandinavia, Europe and Russia—twice. Maybe his spirit’s too absorbent, ’cause he’s brought back some deeply heavier moods and ancient world weariness since his last outing on Not Not Fun, 2010’s demonic tribal monsoon Psychical. Recent splits with similarly instinctual psychedelic unclassifiables like Lee Noble and Her…
Probability A: three studies for compositions of infinite lenght
Probability A collects three pieces composed by William Hutson between 2009 and 2012. Over the past seven years Hutson’s project Rale has evolved to incorporate more negative space into the music. The three pieces herein contained were recorded as proofs-of-concept; they are tracks that Hutson made to loop indefinitely in his house as he built up the courage to use long silences in what is supposed to be a noise/drone act.
William Hutson began recording and performing as Rale in 2006. He …
Appalachian excitation
The meeting of composer Arnold Dreyblatt and psych-folk trio Megafaun shouldn’t be seen as unlikely just because it’s cross-generational, or even (arguably) cross-genre. Such categorizations have to be set aside before taking in their Appalachian Excitation. Born in New York in 1953, Dreyblatt came up under such lauded experimental groundbreakers as Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young, obtaining a Master’s degree in composition from Wesleyan University. Now based in Berlin, where h…
Vanilla Call Option
Packaged in a pro-press color jacket and a silkscreened pvc sleeve, Jeff Witscher, aka idiosyncratic electronic musician Rene Hell, presents a typically considered, challenging debut release via PAN. Those who've encountered his acclaimed albums for Type, or his NNA Tapes split with OPN, will hear a defined progress in 'Vanilla Call Option', whilst those new to his music should be prepared for a visceral, cerebral exploration of piercing timbres and sheer, hi-end computer sounds that in turn rec…
More Alien than Aliens
While the band is preparing for the recordings of the fourth album, Mamuthones goes back to the solo output of Alessio Gastaldello for a new EP of meditative and trascendental music. Once again deeply involved in tradition and ancestral memories, More Alien Than Aliens is mostly based on acoustic instruments with the aid of few analogue synthetizers. You can hear antique rites being consumed around fires at night, cavemen’s invocations and signs of extraterrestrial life as seen by the anc…
Red sky
Joe McPhee, tenor saxophone, pocket trumpet. Paal Nilssen-Love, drums & percussion.Recorded live in concert at Kongsberg July 2008.
Arghiledes
Arghiledes' is a brilliant homage to Greek Rebetiko music of the early 20th century by No Neck Blues Band's David Shuford aka D. Charles Speer. It's his 2nd solo LP under this moniker and a deeply researched, beautifully executed effort replete with in depth sleeve notes and paste-on cover. Coming from a Blues playing American of Greek descent, the project reflects the syncretic nature of Rebetiko music, itself made up of the many disparate elements which formed Greek urban folk music (European …
L'experience acoustique
Francois Bayle's 'L'Experience Acoustique', Realised between 1966-1972 using the best technology available at the time, this 2 hour opus, powerful and immense in its scope, which explores a universe of electronic sounds and sound relationships. It's an investigation of acoustic sound at its purest levels and borders on psychedelic in effect. Chopping material from the world around him, manipulating it and juxtaposing against other, unlikely sources with illusive sleight-of-hand and haptic te…
Soul Translation - A Spiritual Suite
A beautiful little record – and one that definitely earns the "suite" distinction in the title – given the thoughtful longform approach of the set! The album's got a more composed feel than other spiritual jazz sessions of the time – not in a stiff way, but in a style that shows that leader Donald Alexander Strachan really has a strong vision in his music – not just in the compositions he spins forth on the record, but also in the way he directs the rich energy of the ensemble! The lineup featur…
Wound Response
Already sold out at source ! Ltd edition of 350 LP. 'Wound response' is the third solo harp release by improviser and harpist Rhodri Davies following his albums 'Trem' (2003) and 'Over Shadows' (2007) on the Confront Label. Moved by the diverse and vital music scene in the North East of England this is a weighty departure for Davies. wound response is loud, distorted and forms an attempt to work with rhythm and pitches in an open and fluid way. The album comes pressed on heavyweight transl…
The Rocker
THE WIRE'S BEST OF 2010!
Jailbreak s the duo of pedal steel-vocalist Heather Leigh and drummer Chris Corsano. The name foregrounds the kind of outlaw violence with which the two reformulate rock-roll instants by bringing free jazz fire power to amp-humping sex beats. Their musical alliance goes all the way back to the legendary Brattleboro Free Folk Fest, the birthplace of the 'New Weird America', where Corsano and his long-term saxophone partner Paul Flaherty joined Leigh and Christina C…
Future Slip
For her fifth solo album, Samara Lubelski finds a new home on Ecstatic Peace, with label boss Thurston Moore taking on a role as producer, even roping in his band's drummer (the estimable Steve Shelley). Moore recruited Lubelski for violin duties on his own solo LP, 2007's Trees Outside The Academy, and set about coaxing her into recording a different type of record from her established Social Registry output. Future Slip certainly diverges from the more baroque folk tendencies of her recent wor…
1986-1991
"The Venom P. Stinger retrospective is on. One of the roughest groups of the '80s is back in print on vinyl and for the first time ever on CD, and still nice and hard and rough and wild on either format. File under: punk rock/noise rock/free-of-constraints rock. If you think of Venom P. Stinger simply as the proving ground for 2/3rds of the Dirty Three first, then you're seriously missing it, and fuck you. It was the mid-'80s and everything was going fine. The music underground was its ow…