Experimental / Avant-Garde

'First reedition. Recorded in 1981. Originally released in 1982. Lydia Lunch: vocals, piano. Dix Denney: guitar. Greg Williams: bass. Cliff Martinez: drums, percussion. Digipack.'

This is an identical 180-gram vinyl reissue of the 1973 Vertigo release, wich is possibly Magma's great opus. Whether one prefers one of their other studio or live releases to it, there is no doubt that Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh is the most original, definitive Magma album around (although this reviewer personally prefers the Mekanik Kommandoh version!).Featuring a cast of thousands including a choir, brass section, flute and tuned percussion, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh marries the stripped…

Double Dagger’s new EP, Masks, continues in this vein, taking up where their acclaimed 2009 full length, More, left off. Masks presents a series of vignettes, ranging from acerbic to facetious to self-reflective, on the facades we build within our lives. Masks contains some of Double Dagger’s most catchy songs to date, yet characteristically the tone of the album encompasses the abrasive and sarcastic as well as the upbeat and closes with a surprisingly delicate instrumental. The EP was recorded…

American group Destroy All Monsters caused quite a stir when they first appeared in the UK. Featuring guitarist Mike Davis who had previously played in The MC5, Ron Asheton, bass player from The Stooges and drummer Rob King, the band were completed by vocalist and ex-model Niagara. Despite all of this, the band recorded only three singles for Cherry Red, all of which are contained on this mid-price CD.

2010 release. Wheezing skyward-born machine groans and gasped tremolo root to a kinetic pulse, while distant melody zones ascend to circulate around the bass flex on this face-chewer by Neil Campbell. On the flip is the first vinyl cut by Glockenspiel; flocculent tones weave with tom rub and bowed metal harmonics, drifting on the back of a drum dub to the heart of a snow-blind haze of feedback, amplified string scrape, and analog electronics. Art by Noah Campbell.

300 copies. Three years after his debut Miniaturen, the Berlin-based composer and producer Konrad Sprenger - real name Jörg Hiller - returned in 2009 with Versprochen, his second solo album and first for the Italian imprint Schoolmap. Where the earlier record traded in short, clipped statements, this one stretches out into a longer, more spatial scale, twelve pieces with evocative German titles given room to unfold across darker emotional registers. The word Versprochen itself sits somewhere bet…

In 1987 the Morass tape was released. One studio side. One live side. Totally killer. The studio side was recently re-released as bonus material on the Nattering naybobs CD (Harbinger). We decided to re-release the live side on vinyl. And to add 15 minutes of extra material. Astounding unreleased live recordings from 1986. Full colour artwork and labels. Black vinyl bag.

Brand new album by the experimental duo made up by Xabier Iriondo and Paolo Cantù. Lots of adjectives could define this album made by Paolo Cantu and Xabier Iriondo, talentuous italian musician who also worked to A Short Apnea, Tasaday, Minute War Madness, Four gardens in one. This project began more by an idea, a conversation or a project but the audio result is impressive.

Their amazing 2nd album!! Paolo Cantù e Xabier Iriondo one more time together for a second chapter following s/t release of 2005 ( read past komareview ), - coming from previous series of free-jazz voltage to a new album somewhat tantric and stoned, untypical altough with kraut explosions (let me cite Kroko): i mean, it's the suicidal well-known sound of Wallace rec - that one wisely well-grounded in its sinister slants - perfect for a quarantine room. Federico Ciappini (formerly from Six Minute…

a rare 7-inch single of studio outtakes by the violin-and-percussion drone masterpiece Outside the Dream Syndicate. Long out of print

They call their home studio the Space Room; they name their pieces after galaxies and nebulas; and their cat appears to be an alien. Please act surprised when you learn that this duo from Torino, Italy, plays space music -- not your ordinary brand, though: experimental space music. Maurizio Opalio and Roberto Opalio are exploring the cosmos through epic improvised journeys involving astral percussion, electric astral guitar drones, and space toys. Their territory is somewhere past the fringes of…

Intro sampler collection of Glenn's various guitar orchestra classics for the uninitiated. Glenn has personally selected a track listing representative of his absolute unique-on-this-planet vision, with material ranging from the delicate celestial beauty of Symphony No. 3 to the demonical, otherworldly terror unfurled in No. 10. Selections is the ultimate 'in' to Branca's work if you're yet unacquainted with the most influential composer of the era.

idiosyncratic French musical provocateur's finest moments and laden with ace contributions from an international cast of oddballs including Pierre Bastien and Clive Bell, the provisional constructs Berrocal and co. jerry-rig around the free floating music signifiers that comprise Berrocal's aesthetic M.O. are slippery, beautiful things, riding across the seams of art song, meditative orientalia, drunken free jazz bleat, dark electropop, hazy jazz reverbed into Hassell-esque fourth-worldisms and …

Reissue of a magnificent, impossible-to-categorize French classic originally released on the hopelessly obscure d'Avantage label in 1976. Pretty much the definition of musical anarchy, "Paralleles" begins with an atonal duo for trombones, wends its was through accompanied poetry readings and cornet solos, vamps into a rap delivered by Vince Taylor (France's answer to Eddie Cochran and Bowie's inspiration for Ziggy Stardust!) on 'Rock N Roll Station' (which Nurse With Wound deconstructed later on…

III projects the atmosphere of Jack London and The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog onto a modern world ruled by technology. Devens brings us the most genuine melancholy contemporary pop music has seen since quite some time. This album leaves the underground scenery that is troubled by trends so often far behind and just shows us the pure essence of what Music has to be: raw emotions put to sound. With his third full album Bram Devens has once again amazed us with a masterpiece. In his usual brain-meltin…

RESTOCKED! By 1982, recommended was in its fourth year. the catalog had expanded and the label was firmly established. a sampler seemed an obvious and necessary next step. we asked the most interesting groups in our catalog to record something new. the result was two hours of music released as a double lp in a hand silk-screened sleeve that was a time capsule - a tidy slice taken across a fascinating forking of musical paths that captured a moment of growth that foresaw a variety of possible fut…

first-time ever legit ri for this lost gem from the late '60s euro psychedelic underground. belgium-based portuguese soul brothers tony & waldo lam (better know as jess & james) join forces which american jazz man scott bradford and belgian mad scientist & electronics grand daddy Arsene Souffriau for a crazy trip of groovy free-rock and soul into electronics trip in the best pierre henry's 'jerks electroniques pour la messe du temps present,' cecil leuter's 'pop electronique,' jp massiera's male…

Unless Sun Ra's most out there moments, one of many behavioral components from Chaos 1978-86, were beamed alongside televised presidential messages for years, or the ravenous fire from Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar had a heated soundtrack of its own on the Billboard charts, it's hard to imagine anyone being ready for this crazy shit in the early 80s. The appropriately named Wicked Witch, a richly decadent and spooky avant-garde affair of off-kilter rhythm and blues-based x-spunk, was the masterm…

Smegma has been around, in one form or another, since 1973, issuing an average of a record a year out of odd tape-loops and jarring-yet-ambient original instrumentation long before electronic sampling was even a glimmer in Mr. and Mrs. Casio's eyes. They achieved a small degree of noteriety in the '80s as one of that proud elite of North American new-music acts hiply obscure enough to have European-only record deals. They're also known among the anti-pop sound exchangers of the international cas…

Split/collaborative release between Denmark's Family Underground with Finland's Rauhan Orkesteri. Rec. April 19, 2005 @ Cinema Nova.