Tapetopia 002: GDR Underground Tapes (1984-1989)
To release a tape in East Germany in 1986 called Ihre großen Erfolge (Their Great Successes) illustrates how every situation produces people that are unwilling to accept that situation. Claus Löser and Florian Merkel were two such people. Their band Die Gehirne and their many side-projects ensured that their hometown of Karl-Marx-Stadt, today's Chemnitz, could assert its role in the independent art world of the GDR. Inspirations included Frank Bretschneider from the experimental electronic band …
Tapetopia 001: GDR Underground Tapes (1984-1989)
Tapetopia 001 -- A Collection of East German Underground Tapes. In 1988, the legendary freak wave outfit Ornament & Verbrechen handed out some 20 to 30 copies of their Rotmaul-Tape to friends. The band, formed by the Lippok brothers, emerged from the first East Berlin punk group Rosa Extra and the avant-wave project Fünf Wochen im Ballon. From the moment of O&V's inception, the band was the wellspring for many acts that would subsequently branch off as tributaries and streams in the East Berlin …
Im Lungau
About this record and how Limpe and Paul Fuchs got together with Friedrich Gulda: In 1968, the Austrian classical and jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda organized the First International Music Forum of Ossiachersee with the theme "Improvisation in Music -- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow". During the third edition of the festival, Gulda got to know the band Anima Sound and was fascinated by their "absolute free music", which they played on home-made instruments. Anima Sound was Limpe and Paul Fuchs, who…
Forgotten, Hardly Written
**50 numbered copies** "Matthew Crowe and Bob Bucko, Jr. met at a DIY basement show in Bucko’s hometown of Dubuque, Iowa in 2009. Despite living three hours apart, the two proceeded to strike up a friendship that led to endless hours of friendly jamming with various assemblages, eventually coalescing into a focused duo exchange. Sex Funeral’s sound is reflective of the interaction between two friends more than being representative of any particular genre.Early in their trajectory, there was no a…
Ike Yard
Ike Yard remain a legendary band of early '80s New York City – at once immensely influential, yet obscured by a far-too-brief initial phase. Their debut EP, the dark and absorbing Night After Night, sounds almost like a different group, so rapidly would Ike Yard evolve towards the calmly menacing electro throb of their self-titled LP. Originally released on Factory in 1982, the album put Ike Yard's indelible mark on the synth-driven experimental rock scene then emerging all over the planet. Whi…
Katarynka
Małe Instrumenty (Small Instruments) are a band exploring new sounds using a wide array of small instruments. The instruments used in their sonic experiments feature an ever expanding array of professional instruments, sound toys made for children or naive in nature, strange musical inventions as well as a whole array of small items that aren't really instruments but do make a sound. The music created in this way reveals unique colours of sound sometimes beautiful and fine, sometimes surprising …
Walce w Walce
Małe Instrumenty (Small Instruments) are a band exploring new sounds using a wide array of small instruments. The instruments used in their sonic experiments feature an ever expanding array of professional instruments, sound toys made for children or naive in nature, strange musical inventions as well as a whole array of small items that aren't really instruments but do make a sound. The music created in this way reveals unique colours of sound sometimes beautiful and fine, sometimes surprising …
Chemia i Fizyka
Małe Instrumenty (Small Instruments) are a band exploring new sounds using a wide array of small instruments. The instruments used in their sonic experiments feature an ever expanding array of professional instruments, sound toys made for children or naive in nature, strange musical inventions as well as a whole array of small items that aren't really instruments but do make a sound. The music created in this way reveals unique colours of sound sometimes beautiful and fine, sometimes surprising …
Antonisz
**CD version** Małe Instrumenty (Small Instruments) are a band exploring new sounds using a wide array of small instruments. The instruments used in their sonic experiments feature an ever expanding array of professional instruments, sound toys made for children or naive in nature, strange musical inventions as well as a whole array of small items that aren't really instruments but do make a sound. The music created in this way reveals unique colours of sound sometimes beautiful and fine, someti…
Ροαξη Φινγερζζ ΒΣ. Ροψκ Σλινγερζζ
Sewn Leather is a trigger, a road warrior, the punk that can be smoked. Somewhere between Whitehouse nihilism, Wolf Eyes' high pitched suffocation and evil Prodigy rhythmology, Griifin Pyn re-invents the 21st century punk! On "Ροαξη Φινγερζζ ΒΣ. Ροψκ Σλινγερζζ", he offers his four latest (and yet cleanest) songs, soaked in battery acid, swallow-ready for the confusion generation. Sewn Leather is real.Edition of 200 copies w/ 1-color offset covers.
Kiki's Island
UK-based Alasdair Willis, who makes music under the name The Vitamin B12. Active since the mid ’80s, Willis is primarily known for A legendary 4xLP box set that compiled selections from various free improvisational sessions from his Brighton loft in 1986. In the intervening years, The Vitamin B12 has proven to be an elusive figure in the European free improvisation scene, which also includes acts like Nurse With Wound and H.N.A.S.The Vitamin B12 was formed with the same ease as his childhood pro…
Along the Sun and the Rain
**60 copies** Based in Jyväskylä, Finland, Keijo Virtanen is somewhat of a legend in the whole finnish psych scene (on the same level as Pekka Airaksinen - in fact the two have collaborated before). He’s been working on music for ages but his work has only been starting to get attention during the last few years. This artist’s music is unlike any other, it is often based in ambient and drone and incorporates weird traditional folk instruments from around the world just as much as electronic inst…
Heavy Space Records - Anthology Volume 2
**80 copies** This is the second volume in the Anthology of Clayton Noone's (aka CJA) Heavy Space Records, which released 25 limited edition lathe-cut 7"'s between 2013-2017. It includes the following artists / tracks:1-2: Vlubä - New Mutation 7" (2014 / Edition of 20 copies)3-5: Rupert Hunter - Shreds 7"EP (2014 / 20 copies)6-8: The Futurians - Spacies 7"EP (2014 / 20 copies)9-10: Patrick O'Brien and Karl Von Bamburger - The Salt of the Earth The Salt of the Sea 7" (2014 / 20 copies)11-12: Fabi…
Radio Silence
With This Kind Of Punishment, Graeme Jefferies and Peter Jefferies produced some of most adept DIY sounds to emerge from New Zealand's 1980s post-punk scene. After their phenomenal self-titled debut and classic A Beard Of Bees, the brothers would make one last album together, In The Same Room. Originally released in 1987 on Flying Nun, In The Same Room is perhaps the straightest rock offering in TKP's esteemed catalogue. Opening track "Immigration Song" expertly pairs jagged guitars with wrathf…
Schland Is The Place For Me
**300 copies** Fehler Kuti on the album (Munich, Autumn 2019): "I remember the first time I read W.E.B. DuBois eclectic masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk. The way in which this Weberian scholar flowed from personal account to prose to sociological analysis to music and even political intervention has had a lasting impact on my own work as a cultural anthropologist. It made me understand that as scholars we must use different means in order to give expression to the totality of the lived experi…
The Fluid Computer
**220 numbered copies** Floris Vanhoof works on an hybrid form of music and visual arts. Inspired by structural film and early electronic music he makes audiovisual installations, expanded cinema performances and music releases. Experimenting with cross-medium translation and compatibility, he questions our viewing patterns and the possibility of the new perspectives to emerge. Regardless of nostalgia, he purposively chooses analog technology, reinventing 'high-tech' and looking for ways to make…
Achwghâ Ney Wodei
**300 copies** Achwghâ Ney Wodei was a quartet of François Boitière (drums, keyboards, vocals), Didier ‘Higgins’ Copp (bass, percussion, vocals), Eric ‘Riton’ Sterenfield (guitar, keyboards, percussion, vocals) and Phillippe ‘Wodi’ Royer (percussion, trumpet, bass, vocals). They released a cassette for the French label V.I.S.A. and later, in 1987, a triple 12″ for New International Recordings, a short-lived label by Simon Crab, of Bourbonese Qualk (maybe that should serve as an explanation?). Th…
The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen
In process of stocking. After two singles for Fast Product, Leeds art-punk collective The Mekons signed with Virgin Records in 1979. The band would have to borrow gear from their mates Gang Of Four to record their major label debut. In classic Mekons style, the album’s back cover featured a photo of Gang Of Four instead of themselves. As Simon Reynolds writes, “The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen got a mixed reception at the time. Listening to it now, though, the first LP sounds more of a piece w…
In the Same Room
With This Kind Of Punishment, Graeme Jefferies and Peter Jefferies produced some of most adept DIY sounds to emerge from New Zealand's 1980s post-punk scene. After their phenomenal self-titled debut and classic A Beard Of Bees, the brothers would make one last album together, In The Same Room. Originally released in 1987 on Flying Nun, In The Same Room is perhaps the straightest rock offering in TKP's esteemed catalogue. Opening track "Immigration Song" expertly pairs jagged guitars with wrathf…
Dogs' Ears Are Stupid
Mental Experience presents a reissue of Care Of The Cow's Dogs' Ears Are Stupid, originally released only on cassette in 1983. The album is a fascinating blend of psychedelic folk, minimal electronics and post-punk weirdness. Acid fuzz guitar, incredible vocal harmonies, drum machines, and analogue synths make it one of Chicago's best kept secrets, with a history that goes back to 1974. A trio formed by Victor Sanders, X Baczewska, and Sher Doruff, they had a very unique and eclectic sound, expe…