New Arrivals
Trick17
Since the late 1980s, dieb13 is one of the european key figures in the harnessing of tape players, vinyls, CDs, hard dics and IP protocols as instruments. It's been a while since he has released his last Solo album. After extensive touring and releasing CDs among others with Phil Minton, Mats Gustafsson and John Butcher Group, his latest solo output "trick17" is an enjoyment for both the ear and the eye. Side A ("audible") is a 25 minute solo piece that he developed in an Ping Pong method…
Prediction and Warning
“Steve Noble [‘s] armoury of textures and tones is an acoustic mirror of [Ikue] Mori’s electronica, and just as spellbinding. He attacks his orthodox, loose-skinned drum kit from all angles, lays upturned gongs on the drumheads and is a master of orthodoxy as well as the avant-garde. His duet with Mori was the evening’s highlight, a pulsating welter of scrapes, thumps and press rolls interrupted by silences made sinister by the tick of an off-kilter metronome.” – Mike Hobart, Financial TimesIkue…
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…
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, …
Forms
Forms represents Pausal's sophomore production for Barge Recordings and sees the British duo merging their finely detailed sound design and ambience with a newly heightened sense of space and structure. Simon Bainton and Alex Smalley have clearly developed their compositional abilities since their earlier output; the ten pieces here are presented as four long tracks and feel natural in their melding of experimentation and harmonic progression. The rich, sprawling waves of aural grandeur a…
Nepenthe
Julianna Barwick returns with the successor to 2011's charming The Magic Place. Given how successful that self-recorded LP was, it’s surprising to see that the Louisiana-born singer has looked to an external producer to document and frame her work this time around, namely Sigur Ros associate Alex Somers. Barwick once again uses delay-pedals to build heaven-scraping towers of chorused plainsong out of her earnestly, achingly pretty soprano, placing them in what John Foxx - whose 90s’ ambient reco…
Two characters
Through more than 25 years of existence, the french composer Christian Renou, aka Brume, has developed a unique 'handwriting' style within the experimental underground, something one may call 'atmospheric musique concrète'. It is the marriage of many concrete sounds, hand-played acoustic instruments and electronic drones noises that are arranged in a manner somewhat akin to a 'narrative' - highly emotive and often evolving in a dramatic way. We are delighted to have received two tracks for the S…
Greek Rhapsody - Instrumental Music from Greece 1905-1956
Greek Rhapsody -- Instrumental Music from Greece 1905-1956 is a 2CD collection featuring 42 tracks meticulously remastered from 78rpm recordings of Greek instrumentals (1905 to 1956). Many tracks are rare and never previously reissued on CD or vinyl; some are taken from the only known copies, while previously reissued tracks are here offered in far superior sound quality. This compilation offers, for the first time, a unique panorama of the instruments and styles of the Greek music of the…
Knot Invariants
Rotated and submerged. Drawn tight below the surface. Remnants of hair, string and wood.Tied across and back. Knot Invariants is Helena Gough’s third album. It was created using source material derived solely from recordings of cellists Anthea Caddy and Anton Lukoszevieze.
No Answer : Lower Floors
CD version. "No Answer : Lower Floors is the record of 2013 you need to be most worried about. No Answer : Lower Floors is further flesh to the shadowy silhouette cast by this Michigan art abstraction unit, perenially poised on the cusp of a precipice. Wolf Eyes will carry on forever but always remain mysteriously unfinished. The No Answer : Lower Floors material covers all bases: tough to toughest to tangled, all done in the Wolves' least convoluted smooth style. The vocals, delays, primit…
The Bacteria Magnet
Picture Disc in a plastic cover. Limited to 500. 'Cruisin' For A Bruisin' (Bacteria Bitch Mix)', 'Bei Mir Nist Du Schon', 'Thrill Of Romance...? (Burgo Partridge Mix)', 'The Bottom Feeder'.
Dance of the vampires
"Roman Polanski’s 1967 film ‘Dance Of The Vampires’ (as it was originally called, but more widely known by its re-named title ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’, or ‘Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck’) is a camp horror cult classic. At the time the film was marketed as a ‘farce’, which overlooked the fact that this film is fantastically eerie. The major part played by the soundtrack in giving the film this effect cannot be understated, and the cold-as-snow production did much to enhance the b…
Kilo
Finnish experimental electronic musician Mika Vainio's first solo album for Blast First sees him return to his classic power electronics/heavy beats approach that made Pan Sonic garner a worldwide reputation. The album developed from Vainio's recent live sets to make 10 tersely-titled tracks inspired by the shipping container industry. Four stars in Mojo: "heavy-freight," The Quietus describes it as "fearsome."
Spielt Noise Boys
This is Electro 80's minimal punk at its very best - think Grauzone meet D.A.F. meet Suicide!Stephan Eicher recorded the totally 7 songs (only 5 were later released on the debut 7") on a simple dictaphone recorder with no overdubs or mixing and purely with 'stolen' equipment (after the Police stormed the Spex club where Stephan worked, and where the band that was supposed to play had to leave behind their equipment.).With almost no equipment he tried to reproduce tracks by his short living first…
Alien, All Too Alien
Their cat may well be all too alien but there's quite an earthly feel to this epic voyage of a record from the brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio. It feels like you are slowly drifting through different continents perched on a floating glass-domed steel barge, observing the strangely contrasting cultures go about their business, seemingly unaware they are being watched. Though there are certain sounds contained herein that are quite familiar to many 21st century homosapie…
Zones Without People
**Re-press on vinyl, now with download code redeemable from the label** OPN's 'Zones Without People' was released in 2009 on a highly limited vinyl run for Arbor. All seven tracks featured in his Wire chart-topping 'Rifts' compilation, predating his mindblowing 'Returnal' album (surely one of the best of 2010) and displaying its prodigiously gifted creator amidst some of his most affective synthscapes. From the outset we could consider this to be classic material, as the miniature 'Computer Visi…
Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits
Thus was the simple dare handed to Richard Youngs from his friend Andrew "Paz" Paine during their weekly Sunday meet-up. Ever the modest master, Youngs said in accepting this friendly challenge that he merely endeavored to capture the "beats and hooks" of contemporary pop. He's never attempted to disguise his gift for catchy musical phrases, though they may have come by way of careening, pleading, soothing or challenging multi-tracked voices.We present the results here as Beyond The Valley Of Ul…
The Voice of the Turtle
The Voice of the Turtle is one of the most beguiling albums from one of America's most legendarily beguiling musicians. Originally released in 1968 on his own Takoma label, Fahey credits some of the compositions and performances to the fictional guitarist Blind Joe Death, and some of the songs are actually rumored to not be Fahey at all but in fact obscure blues 78s. Whatever the case may be, it's one of Fahey's most adventurous and beautiful LPs, with the three lengthy improvisational pie…
Inside Wino Lodge
New solo LP of strange sounds, vocal improvisations, tape manipulations mangled strings and hiss drones from Dylan Nyoukis (Decaer Pinga,Blood Stereo) Inside his Wino Lodge. Sounds like it was recorded in a 4 track in 1972 in an insane asylum, then puked over and thrown into the sea, then discovered recently and transfer directly to Vinyl via marine analog tape communication device (thats a compliment).Good one to buy if you are wondering what a naked Scotish man and his daughter look and sound …
Strange Passion
Mindblowing comp of obscure, highest-calibre DIY Post-Punk and Synthwave from the archives, brilliantly compiled by Darren McCreesh and brought to you by Finders Keepers' Cache Cache sublabel - so damn good. There's been a deluge of post-punk reissues and rarity compilations in the past five years, and in turning their spades to the same ground, Finders Keepers have dug way deeper than anybody else, and come up with a cache lost classics that are both truly lost and truly classic - the quality c…