New Arrivals
Inexistence
A brand new album of minimal, cryptic & static sounds. The inexistence is the aplanatic condition of what is not existing, therefore doesn't subsist in the shot reality. Transferring this entomologic concept to radical music, we're consequently asking: inexistent sounds for existing people or existing sounds for inexistent people? Without schizoid presumption, "Inexistence" is replying to this existential question
Lost Prayers
Originally released in a tiny pressing of just 200 CD-Rs by Digitalis Industries, this early James Blackshaw release is brought back in print by the Tompkins Square label, who on the back of last year's 'Cloud Of Unknowing' are intent upon reintroducing the guitarist' back-catalogue to his growing legion of fans (of whom there is almost certainly more than 200). 'Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances' is a single thirty-five minute composition, opening with droning harmonium passages and only…
A Bureaucratic Desire for Extra-Capsular Extraction
A Bureaucratic Desire for Extra-Capsular Extraction gathers all of the music drone metal progenitors Earth recorded in October 1990, during their earliest sessions at Portland's Smegma Studios. Earth, featuring soon-to-be Melvin Joe Preston in its second lineup, intended for those seven tracks to serve as its debut. Record label decisions interfered. Three of those tracks were released a year later via Sub Pop, on the out-of-print EP Extra-Capsular Extraction; four more were released…
Catch-Wave
Takehisa Kosugi is an inter-media artist and performer who started his career back in the '60s in Tokyo. With his first band Group Ongaku (free anarchist-conceptual improvisations) he was introduced to the Fluxus avant-garde movement. During the '70s, he was a member of the mystical, psychedelic, droning rock band Taj Mahal Travellers. He co-founded the band in 1969. Since the end of the '70s until now, he has released several solo albums and commissioned works for events and sound installations…
Returnal
'Returnal' is the fourth album from Daniel Lopatin's Oneohtrix Point Never project, after 'Betrayed In The Octagon' (Deception Island, 2007), ÔZones Without People' (Arbor, 2009) and 'Russian Mind' (No Fun, 2009). All 3 albums being superbly compiled on the 'Rifts' double CD set (No Fun, 2009). It sees Lopatin fine tune his craft for creation of deep atmospheres and texture even further. Starting off with the mind blowing triptych of 'Nil Admiari'-'Describing Bodies'-'Stress Waves', which …
Surface of the Earth
Gunn Amps and Smashed Guitars. Surface of the Earth was recorded live to cassette, using two microphones in a wooden community hall in Wellington, New Zealand. The lp was gathered from two or three recording sessions in 1994/95. Back then we used to book out the hall for a couple of days, set up our gear and then record everything. It was a very atmospheric room for recording. Tony and Donald would put their guitars through their two old Gunn valve amplifiers and get to work. Tony often used thi…
This Is No Fun Acid 3
Tour only CD for the no fun acid project, see no fun acid 02 for description, this was recorded in an intense studio session with less than a week to go for the tour. Limited to 500, all copies left after tour sent to distributors. "They should be amazing in theory, Carlos Giffoni bringing a Noise mindset to the acid template and all that. OK, the first track on the CD starts off with a nasty little drone which slowly subsides as the 606 kicks in, very satisfyingly as it happens, and continues …
Play robot dream
Trumpet virtuoso Marco Blaauw, known for his pioneering performances of contemporary classical music has been working with composer and sound improviser Yannis Kyriakides in numerous projects including a multi-media perfomance 'co-inc', and several projects for the ensemble musikFabrik in Cologne. 'Play Robot Dream' is a set of improvisations for trumpet(s) and computer. At times playful, at times meditative, they fuse a haunting melodic tendency with a provocative mix of drum machines an…
Crookt, Crackt Or Fly
Crookt Crackt Or Fly is a 1994 album by Gastr del Sol released on Drag City. The album was written and performed by David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke, with John McEntire (percussion), Steve Butters (percussion) and Gene Coleman (Bass Clarinet) also contributing. All tracks were recorded by Brian Paulson in October 1993 at King Size studios.
Junkyo
First collaboration between Maurizio Bianchi and Akifumi Nakajima, the second one being the Mectpyo Saisei on Para Disc. Four long tracks of drowsy noise ambiance.
The state we are in
The first thing this CD reminded me of was Tape...then I checked out the press release and it turns out that Tape's Johan Berthling (also very recently sighted on that Fire! with Jim O'Rourke record) is in fact one-third of this band, the other two being Andreas Soderstrom (Ass) and Per Eklund on drums. It is, as you would expect, gently paced instrumental stuff, slightly pastoral-sounding, with intertwining guitars and a some subtle Hammond organ and trumpet bits. This is a mightily rel…
Vacation Music
For a couple of years Ryoji Hojito, together with his wife Yoshiko, were coming to Lithuania for a one week autumn vacation. We've met in the course of their explorative journeys around the country and without thinking too much went to a studio for a spontaneous session and a year later played a concert at St. Catherin's Church in Vilnius. Both of us were happy about the music we've got on tape and today we want to share with you seven impro peaces!
Erroneous: A Selection Of Errors
Lovely collaborative project, result of the meeting of Italian cult band Larsen and Steven Stapleton’s ubiquitous creature Nurse With Wound. Almost 2 years of file swapping and occasional conceptual meetings led to a multi-headed collection of deformed sounds based on one long NWW piece and two Larsen tracks (that both bands have written specifically for this project) then deconstructed and rebuilt by each other into totally brand new opuses.Erroneous also features Neu! and Kraftwerk original me…
A color photo of the horse
Alessandro Bosetti provides voice and electronics on words & text from a variety of writers, as performed in a trio with drummer Ches Smith and fretless guitarist Kenta Nagai; fascinating and perplexing expression. Alessandro Bosetti: voice, electronics. Kenta Nagai: fretless guitar. Ches Smith: drums. Music and texts by Alessandro Bosetti. Dead Bird text by Alessandro Bosetti on words by Alasdair Campbell. Istruzioni text by Alessandro Bosetti on words by Jerry Mandel, George Dippel, Howard…
Pharmelodies
A colossal and epic post-ambient symphony in three movements, where echoes of string instruments, deep drones of indecipherable origin, layered synthetic waves, slowed-down and distorted dark sonic masses challenge time with a para-immobility in constant turmoil, in an unpredictable, progressive and sometimes cyclic combination of statuesque sonic forms whose physiognomy is often known and familiar, while at the same time elusive, disturbing, arcane and mysterious... Another highest and …
Industrial Murder / Menstrual Bleeding
Another classic album reissued by Phage Tapes and R.O.N.F. Records. An early work of Maurizio Bianchi recorded at Mectpyo Studio in 1981 and originally released by Banned Productions (US) back in 1992 as a vinyl LP. CD packaged in beautiful 5 colour screen printed arigato packs. 2 tracks totalling. 50 minutes in length. Limited edition of 300 copies. As with any early 80’s Bianchi this comes highly recommended.
Consequenz
Commercial Schnitzler? How quickly, how prematurely are opinions and judgements bandied about when an artist suddenly changes the form of his work. Conrad Schnitzler fell under such a cloud when, after 1978, his songs, for a time at least, did not exceed the catchy compactness of pop songs, while their harmonies and rhythms seemed to be drifting towards pop. Produced by Peter Baumann (Tangerine Dream) the Con (1978) album and the Auf dem schwarzen Kanal 12" EP (1980) ushered in this phase, …
Anro
A narrow path of safety extending through the gloom, its edges bleeding into the fearful zones of disorder and formlessness that enclose it. Paths create borders, they limn the known from the unknown, the clean from the unclean, the citizen from the exile, the present from the past. But while paths create boundaries, they themselves are ambivalent, neither here nor there, neither now nor then. The act of making a path where none existed always involves the subjugation of the unknown and f…
Planetary Unknown
"It's a great summer for music, with some excellent albums just released - and more reviews to come ... Let's start with the great David S. Ware and his new quartet, a great quartet, with William Parker playing the bass as on all other David S. Ware albums, with Cooper-More on piano instead of Matthew Shipp, and with Muhammad Ali on drums (the latest in a long list, with Susie Ibarra, Guillermo E. Brown, Warren Smith, Whit Dickey, Hamid Drake, ... and quite a phenomenal list at that).It is no do…
Caste O' Graye Skreeens
The bulk of Caste O Graye Skreeëns comprises the expansive 'Our Captain's Eyes', based around a loose unstructured style where Edward Ka-Spel, frontman of the Legendary Pink Dots, lets his imagination run a playful course dropping in everything from ambient soundscapes, drum machines, dance beats, distorted noises and fragmented voices. Ka-Spel's delivers his cryptic lyrics in his idiosyncratic sing - speak style, and via jaunty shanties over French horn. All points of Ka-Spel's prolific musical…