New Arrivals
Basement Recordings 1978-1982
A while ago one of the members of the youngest antwerp based free jazz band SHELDON SIEGEL (all 16 year olds..) visited me, I had just met them and he wanted to come by to get some records. We spoke about free jazz for a while, then he said the magical words "My dad use to play free jazz in the 70's as well".. I was like "ow, and if that was in antwerp, was it with WIM?", he said "Yes yes, he's on one of their tapes with Fred Van Hove, Ivo Van Der Borght etc". My heartbeat went a little faster, …
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 …
The outer darkness
"Our third volume of Sun Ra spoken word opens with a rare space story that I discovered on an unmarked five inch reel of tape. When I played the recording, I discovered an incredible story recited by an unknown artist, with Sun Ra going beyond the call of duty on keyboard. Included are two complete lengthy performances from this 1967 session.... The group recitation, 'The Outer Darkness,' is a reworking of the poem 'I Seek A Better World' originally recited by Ray Stubbs on the first volume.... …
Grey onion
"For this new Latitudes release All Tomorrow's Parties mainstay Alexander Tucker joins forces with Dean Garwood, resulting in three terrific stretched out jams. Perhaps it's got something to do with the fusion of prog influences with jazz and psychedelia, but stretches of this bring to mind the Canterbury scene of the '60s and '70s from which Robert Wyatt and Soft Machine came to prominence. 'Golden Dome' slips into a bluesy cello riff (if that's not too much of a contradiction in terms) that lo…
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…
Alphabet 1968
Black to Comm's Marc Richter is an artist that perpetually seems to be on the verge of releasing an absolute masterwork, always creeping closer and closer but never quite nailing it. Alphabet 1968 does not quite buck that trend completely, but it is an oft-brilliant and unforgettable album nonetheless. Richter's impressive artistic evolution is showing no sign of slowing.
Oh Me Oh My... The Way The Day Goes By The Sun Is Setting Dogs A
To say Devendra Banhart is unique is an absurd understatement. When I first heard the voice of this completely unknown, precociously talented 21-year-old songwriter, I could not believe it. His occasionally warbling falsetto is alternately bizarre, comical, and often a little frightening. Coupled with his advanced finger-picking guitar style - which itself often veers schizophrenically from gentle grooves into jolting, non-rhythmic stabs and weird harmonic flights of chaos -- and the wildly surr…
And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees
A flop-eared rodent frolics in a lush field. In from the horizon sweeps a black cloud, kicked up by an army of similar-looking rodents. That's the basic set-up of Varmints, a 24-minute film by Studio AKA animator Marc Craste, based on a book written by Helen Ward and illustrated by Craste. Jóhann Jóhannsson draws the title of his latest album from the book, and this is the music he composed for the film's soundtrack. There's quite a bit of extra material-- the album is a full 1…
Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy
This disc brings together the Sun Ra recordings "Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy" and "Art Forms Of Dimensions Tomorrow" (recorded in 1963 and '61-'62 respectively). Cosmic Tones functions as a kind of blueprint for the sort of large-scale jazz weirdness that would inform much of Sun-Ra's subsequent works, featuring the woozy reeds of 'And Otherness' and the afro-jazz experiments of 'Thither And Yon'. On 'Adventure Equation' a space echo treatment on the recording which is reprised for the sax f…
Alkyle
First released of Malass aka Vincent Malassis. Project from experimentation and improvisation based on the research for organic textures and maximum musical expression. The purpose of this approach is to create a balance between noise, dissonance and melody. Thought as a filmic trip that allows emotion thanks to a sound design inspired from american minimalism and french concrete music. Ambient music mixed analogically in order to get a landscape of feedback, reverb and echoes which acts on both…
Lip Syncing to Verme
As a slow motion Stan Brakhage on K, this last and definitive new album from Aaron Dilloway is fluid and cinematic. After the monumental Chain Shot Lp and a furious live activity, the Mid West's mad tape-scientist is back to take your hand and dive you in a buzzy ocean of muddy water loops. Welcome to this creepy journey to the south of heaven, here you can just crawl like a worm.
Espoo
Vladislav Delay's EP Espoo features two conceptual, rhythm-intense tracks. Whereas the groove of the opener "Olari" derives from a sound loop which is manipulated by filters and echoes, the reverse is done with "Kolari." Starting from an impulsive, staccato beat, a sound carpet is woven by means of modifiers which gradually shape a permanent melody, close to Terry Riley's minimalistic concepts. Both tracks share a linear increase in density, and because of their break with the common four…
Le Couperet: Music For The Crimes Of Dr. Petiot
Near-mythical compilation originally released on Broken Flag as a cassette in 1983. Around this time there were compilations coming out all over the place, usually featuring at least one of Whitehouse, Ramleh, The New Blockaders or Sutcliffe Jugend along with a bunch of other obscure noise bands. This one's been completely unattainable and I've never even seen a copy come up for sale anywhere so having a viyl reissue is great! Featured on here are Ramleh, TNB and Vortex Campaign, along with Sir …
Piano Piano
Bureau B reissues Piano Piano by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, originally released in 1991 on the Italian label Materiali Sonori. In classical music, "pp" (piano piano = pianissimo) is a dynamic indication of particularly soft music. And Piano Piano is a very soft, quiet album. Roedelius assumes the role of a fairytale character with his piano music, transported to a strange, fantastical landscape where, filled with awe and amazement, he tries to get his bearings. What he see…
Document For The Future
LP edition of 100 numbered copies in hand painted/sprayed/mutilated jackets with insert and download code with copies from BlRR signed. Stimulus return from another long silence with their first release since 2008 and their first non-improvised release in the best part of 10 years! "Document for the Future" is a 6 track album of all new music and is a partial return to the earlier beat driven sound but with the added twist of vocals on all but the first track, resulting in a radical new s…
Plague Of Fantasies
Brand new solo material from Aidan Baker, one of the most prolific musicians recording at the moment, Aidan creates such a wide array of musical sound its hard to keep track, not only does he perform as part of the fantastic Nadja, as well as in projects such as ARC, and collaborating with other luminaries such as Tim Hecker, he releases a whole host of solo material. This new solo record is really something, pulling together all the genres he works in, fusing heavy drones, with broken drums bea…
Visits Planet Earth
180 gram vinyl version. Tracklisting: "Circe," "The Nile," "Brazilian Sun," "We Travel the Spaceways," "Calling Planet Earth," "Dancing Shadows," "The Rainmaker," "When Sun Comes Out." First two tracks probably made during the same session at the Choreographers' Workshop, late 1962 or 1963. Remaining tracks recorded during different sessions around the same period. The master tape of side B is in stereo; all known pressings of the album are in mono, however. The master tape also includes …
Let’s just see what happens
REL is proud to present the debut LP of the scottish duo USURPER (Ali Robertson and Malcy Duff). Creating a sound nearly impossible to describe, USURPER combines obsessive metallic clunk, destroyed voices, broken horns and dropped marbles (?), into dense fields of activity. Working towards an intuitive sound logic all it's own, USURPER creates a surreal, comic structure that is unmatched and an energy that will make you laugh as soon as you shake your head in bafflement. The B side features a tr…
Introducing
The Drag City / Galactic Zoo team delve deeply into the recesses of private press obscurity once again, further revealing the underbelly of American music's recorded history - this time the little known songwriter Ryan Trevor is in the spotlight, who released just one incredibly rare, homespun LP (this one, if you're wondering) which surfaced originally in 1977. Not much is known about Trevor, though the guys at Drag City bill him as a "loner genius", whose work is to be filed somewhere between …
ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ
Starring’s ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ combines minimalist musical patterns with dreamy poetry to create a new style front-woman Clara Hunter likes to call “sparkle prog.” It captures the frenetic energy of the band’s live show, but here it is overlain with a new palate of synthesizers, delay effects, drum processing, aux percussion, and vocals that create delicate, but sometimes radical juxtapositions between the lyrical and the experimental. Though songs like “the best” and “aphonia” …