New Arrivals
By The Throat
2012 repress, LP version. This is Reykjavik-based composer/producer Ben Frost's second release for the Icelandic Bedroom Community label. By The Throat is blood red and cloaked in shadow. Produced in Iceland by Ben Frost and Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk, CocoRosie, Bonnie "Prince" Billy), this album features performances by Amiina of Sigur Rós fame, Arcade Fire's Jeremy Gara, Swedish metal outfit Crowpath and composer Nico Muhly. Aside from the purely musical language of harmony and melody, there'…
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…
Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay
The second in our series of exploration of the panAmerican funk experience, Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay is a deep overview of Funky Nassau’s redheaded sister city, Freeport, GBI. From 1969-1976 Frank Penn’s GBI studio and label cranked out a dozen LPs and twice as many singles infected with the Miami sounds drifting in over the 100 mile strait. The catalog is a fruity blend of rake and scrape, bush, junkanoo, calypso, reggae, and of course, goombay, wi…
YMCA
YMCA is guitarist Alan Licht's first solo release since 2003's A New York Minute double CD (on XI), and his first solo vinyl outing since 1994's long out-of-print Sink The Aging Process (on Siltbreeze). Largely recorded at a 2004 concert at a Cambridge Massachusetts YMCA by Keith Fullerton Whitman, YMCA documents Licht's solo guitar set of the time -- a three-part structured improvisation that moves from mournful, layered sustained tones that sound more like a reed organ than a guitar, to a gent…
White Summer of Love Dreamer
Brand new LP from Kawabata Makoto, his second for Blackest Rainbow following on nicely from where 2008's 'Rainbow Of Love' left off. White Summer of Love Dreamer continues to develop Kawabata's experimentation into psychedelic drone music using a variety of instruments. Across the two tracks on this LP, Kawabata seamlessly uses acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, sarangi, tambura, organ, hurdy-gurdy, electronics, field recording, and his voice to create a stunning soundscape of hazy summ…
Direct Current
Again, ultralimet release on qbico, the original music was rec. @ the qbico u-nite XIII which took place @ Issue Project Room in NYC back in Feb. 2009. for sure the opening set by Atiba & Dave Nuss was one of the most original live set i had the pleasure to... see i remember talking with Dave, trying to set up this gig... he came out with this duo, saying that Atiba is the best well kept secret in the NYC... he spotted him playing in Harlem Clubs... nobody knows him, Andrew Barker or Steve... no…
Ufo
The first 2 Guru Guru releases, both from 1971. Musically, these 2 represent (along with their 3rd, Kanguru) the reigning moments of this acid-destroyed-jamming Krautrock outfit, and are essential artifacts of pure thunder.
G.R.
Deathpile's latest power noise excursion extrapolates the mind of the Green River killer; Washington State's most notorious - and at the time of writing - unsolved serial killer case. This is harsh power electronics with sadistic lyrics delivered in a frenzied manner. Deathpile is an outlet for the twisted mind of Jonathan Canady. On G.R. he is aided by the undisputed talent of twisted musical troubadour David E. Williams who provides the lashings of non-rhythmic noise. There's a defin…
There Are Grapefruit Hearts To Be Squeezed In The Dark
Max goldt always knew how to take the rope off the german neck by using our language in a light and ironical way. however, before he became a national celebrity for his poetic satirical writings, he had produced a vast amount of home recording pieces whose quirky complexity and uber-earthly beauty has hardly been recorgnized and appreciated until today. after some years of silence, mr goldt - who never gives any interviews - has handed out a bunch of audio tape tracks to the soul scratchers of g…
Split LP
Amazing!! There is a murder in the beach. Ducktails arrives in his spaceship escalade to investigate the scene. Dracula Lewis is the principal suspect. They become best friends and decide to work on a split LP. When a vampire kills a body is never found. At the same time beautiful and terrifying cavern drone sounds from Dracula Lewis, Psychedelic spiraling melodies and electronics beats from Ducktails. Both investigate the limits of the space time continuum. This is the new dawn of expansi…
Didascalies 2
Vinyl-only release. Performers: Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven (piano); Claude Berset (piano); Vincent Royer (viola). Sub Rosa presents the first release after their Luc Ferrari trilogy. Didascalies 2 is not to be confused with 2007's Didascalies (SR 261CD) -- this is another composition entirely, never published before. "The other day I found a file from 1993, a score for two pianos entitled 'Revenir à la Note de Départ' (trans. 'Getting Back To The Initial Note'). So I decided to turn it i…
You Are The One I Pick
"Nottingham duo Felix make their Kranky debut with this fine and idiosyncratic collection of songs. The main focus here is the vocal/piano/cello talents of Lucinda Chua, whose sparse yet quirk-loaded minimalism receives guitar and bass backing from Chris Summerlin, who's probably best known for his work in the rock band Lords. Chua's writing is quite unlike anything else currently out there; her lyrics convey strange or often very simple, domesticated ideas delivered in a pared-down, plaintive f…
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.
Glass Fountain
The duo mainly sticks to their guns, mining the same post-Suicide art-trance vein they perfected on Dream, but here there's an added emphasis on the disembodied, oscillator pop mode that they often toy with. Mesmerizing organ melodies over plink-plonky vintage drum machines with weirdo soulful singing & outer space electronics, like an outsider-punk Silver Apples or something. Edition of 600
Bermuda Drain
This eagerly awaited new LP from Prurient begins with a blood-curdling scream - but thereafter all expectations are defied. If like us you've always been fascinated by the more reflective, electronic side of Dominick Fernow's catalogue - thus far restricted to the odd album track, his work with Cold Cave and a couple of choice side projects - then all your Christmases have come at once. Reportedly inspired by long drives around mainland Europe listening to minimal techno, Bermuda Drain pu…
Of Mythic Worlds
Exact repro of this 1980 album, the second Sun Ra album to be released on Philly Jazz following Lanquidity. Undated live recording, not previously reissued on either LP or CD! "Sun Ra's music is equational. It is based on a system and philosophy as old as the most ancient of civilizations, and it points the way of the future as well. Music is not seen as merely entertainment. Ra has oftentimes mentioned the potentials of music to change the social order. In fact, the highlight of many of his per…
Boca Negra
LP version, ultralimited: For a band with only two members, this group gets an impressive variety of sounds. Rob Mazurek on cornet and Chad Taylor drummer also use the studio as an instrument, alternating between post bop jazz and near ambient soundscapes. Taylor's rhythmic sense is unerring throughout the album, whatever the tempo. Electronics are added at times, and add effect, especially at slower tempos making for spooky music along with slurred horn. "Green Ants" has sputtering …
Luck In The Valley
LP version, presented in an old-style tip-on jacket with a hand-pasted letterpressed cover, limited edition...Like all pre-war recordings and all of Rose's releases, this album was recorded live. It was not created using overdubs but rather by recording a few 'takes' and selecting the best performance out of those. Rose stated, 'I wanted the songs to have an immediacy and spontaneity as they were being recorded. All the musicians chosen for the record know how to play the songs withou…
Cymbals In The Night
Heavy solo release from deep as Marianas Trench Swedish drummer Sven-Ake Johansson. Johansson is primarily known in the US as the drummer on the two hugely influential Brotzmann recordings: For Adolphe Sax and Machine Gun. However, the Berlin-based percussionist/composer/filmmaker/performance artist/painter -- all of which he is remarkably adept at -- also has numerous FMP releases and a well documented relationship with Alexander Schlippenbach. Notable contributions to the canon of exper…
Signs of a perfect disaster
**Limited edition of 300 copies on acid yellow wax with photocopied A4 insert** Rome, Italy's Sea Dweller make a gorgeous racket on their heavenly 2nd album of shoegaze dreampop. Returning to Upside Down Recordings after 2008's 'Underwater Town', they've seriously refined their sound in line with their too-obvious-to-mention influences. Head-flossing melodies made from reverb-effected and delayed guitar treatments swoon about vintage Alesis drum machines in clouds of old Crumar synths and…