Smegma
improvization band with a heap of Unfinished Sixties Business factored in (the real-time-from-scratch multilayered equivalent of "I Am the Walrus," let's say)...Free Music in its grandest, and least superficial, sense (à la the denser moments of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz)...a ritual fusing of any and all musics and non-musics at the level of the hum, the blap, the tink, the boom.
improvization band with a heap of Unfinished Sixties Business factored in (the real-time-from-scratch multilayered equivalent of "I Am the Walrus," let's say)...Free Music in its grandest, and least superficial, sense (à la the denser moments of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz)...a ritual fusing of any and all musics and non-musics at the level of the hum, the blap, the tink, the boom.
Member of: LAFMS - Los Angeles Free Music Society
Second Life: Light Bulb 1977-81
As part of our Second Life series, we are pleased to present a special anthology of Light Bulbmagazine (1977–81), produced in cooperation with the Los Angeles Free Music Society and edited by LAFMS founding member Chip Chapman. Light Bulb was the house organ of the Los Angeles Free Music Society, made by and for the experimental collective of musicians that formed in 1972 Pasadena and soon "became a lightning rod for art-damaged, weird-music lovers everywhere." Nowhere is the DIY, visual complex…
Guff Vout Mulch
The Smegma & Blood Stereo collab LP "Guff Vout Mulch" on Nashazphonehas finally landed. Old fashioned postal collab finished up in 2009, sweet printed colour sleeves and bonkers liner notes by the noise soulman John Olson.Good old fashioned Trans-Atlantic postal collaboration LP between Smegma and Blood Stereo, recorded in Brighton, Pasadena and Portland. The whole shebang was finished in 2009, but Cairo's Nashazphone label didn't think you dinks were ready for it then, now they reckon yo…
Ever And Anon
The mythical LAFMS collective Smegma really needs no introduction, where would we all be without them? How many bands were so ahead of their time (1973!), and have been for so long, like Smegma have? Well, here they are with a brand new LP of their famous mix of free jazz, industrial noise, improvisation, straight-up weird music so typical of these masters / US freaks. On the opening track, they are riding on the amazing drums of historical member Dennis Duck (of Dream Syndicate) to pay h…
Blorp Esette
2011 remastered edition. Remastered in June of 2011 by Ju Suk Reet Meate. Perhaps the only logical follow up to the historic LAFMS: The Lowest Form Of Music 10CD box on RRR, is this 4CD compilation based around the 2 LP volumes of Blorp Esette which Ace Farren Ford released under the LAFMS umbrella in 1978 (Vol. 1) and 1980 (Vol. 2, a double LP set). Both of the LPs featured cover & label art by Don Van Vliet which as been reproduced on this CD reissue. Capt. Beefheart cover art was quite a c…
Suite The Hen's Teeth
*Exquisite black and silver silk screen printed cover. Limited edition** Oh man, this match-up must be a dream come true for at least a handful of freaks, somewhere, us included! The tenth release on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint sees the label curator jamming with LAFMS legends, Smegma at the Pink House in Portland, 2010, infusing his 13-course swan neck baroque lute into their uncontainable free improvisations in eight parts. They appear to be entirely respectful of each others space,…
Unboxed
Unboxed, a collection of dissected from the Lowest Form of Life 10CD box set (on RRR) (including tracks not available in the box set) is a splash introduction to a newcomer of the L.A.F.M.S. The Lowest Form of Music is an utterly devastating set of the works of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. This tremendously obscure collective -- a loose assemblage of artists and with shared subversive musical interests (John Cage, The Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, The Residents, Derek B…
Mirage
With Mirage on Important Records, Smegma again does the impossible. 38 years after reinventing the musical wheel, they have recorded a stunning masterpiece. With four of the original members working together again for the first time in many years, together with many new collaborators , they have kept alive their unique brand of old school primitive, Avant/Garage music. Running the gamut from the Musique Concrete inspired subtilely bombastic mood of the Title track.to World of my Own's frenzied n…
s\\t
'On side one, a live performance of smegma and Liz Young at LAFMS Telethon Revisited 24hr performance on February 2009. On side two, studio recording of smegma + John Wiese. With member of Airway (Ace Farren Ford, Dennis Duck, Frederik Nilsen), Ju Suk Reet Meate, Nour Moborak, Oblivia, Parker Lemus, Victor Sparks, John Wiese with special guest vocalist Liz Young. With a poster, cover print on recycled paper, to open like a book... Art work by fleur D. Limited and numeroted to 500 copies.' label …
I Am Not Artist (1973-1988) 6Lp Box
This astonishing 6LP/DVD Box-Set compiles most of Smegma's long out or print and impossible to find Vinyl-releases and contributions on labels such as their own legendary Pigface Records, LAFMS, TRAP, DOM and SELEKTON. The box incl. their first three 7" inches "Disco Diarrhea", "Flashcards", "Pigface Chant", their Lp's like "Pigs for Leper" or "Glamour Girl 1941" as well as a 2Lp-sided extract of the Live 73-82 Double Tape „Spontaneaous Sound, all in one place. Smegma started collectively by Ju …
Split
Inspired split LP that pairs feral European art soundists Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer with the avant garage surrealism of LAFMS stalwarts Smegma. Numbered edition of 177 copies with colour paste-on sleeves. The Smegma side bundles an eerie track from 1975 with two pieces from 2008/2009 that use loops, electronics and waves of extended muzzy tone to confuse time lines completely. The Kommissar side is less about outlaw sound poetry and more plugged into their destructo rock style as documented…
Morass
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.
Endless Coast
Nordic microsound operatives-turned-noise metallers Jazkamer (or Jazzkammer as they are also known) team up with legendary American underground pioneers Smegma and No Fun head boy Carlos Giffoni (who for this disc is listed as a member of Jazkamer) and make one unholy racket. Far from the overblown formless din this could have been, all parties do a magnificent job of keeping their more explicitly destructive tendencies to a minimum for much of the record, instead resting much of their attention…
Merzbow Plays Smegma Plays Merzbow
Chances are that most of Smegma's fans are already familiar with Merzbow's music. This collaboration, occasionally referred to as Smegma Plays Merzbow Plays Smegma or even Plays, features two 20-minute tracks. In "Electro Smegmacoustic Music," Masami Akita plays Smegma tapes, an audio generator, a teleband tranceiver, and a mixer. In "Smegma Plays Merzbow," Smegma use Merzbow tapes, tape loops, record players, and a few acoustic instruments. The result is surprisingly homogeneous -- enough to ma…
The Mad Excitement, The Barbaric Pulsations, The Incomparable Rh
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…
Glamour Girl 1941 + Pigface Chant
This CD collects the first Smegma long-player, Glamour Girl 1941, originally released on the LAFMS label in 1979, the Pigface Chant 7" released that same year and recorded five years earlier, and even adds in four bonus recordings from that same era. These early recordings of this long-running group of noise anarchists show an extremely primitive but non-conformist take on the musical world, even more so than, say, the Krautrock band Faust, as Smegma adds a messier element of chaos to its sound.…
s/t
Studio collaboration recorded and mixed by DR. ID. himself at Smegma's Portland studio during Metalux - Giffoni summer tour. Total weirdness full on psychedelic improvisation in the classic smegma style, amplified by giffoni's arsenal of unmatched apocalyptic precission machinery and Metalux's own arsenal of strangeness electronic sound and vocals from the next dimension. Already a total American classic before it even existed. Enjoy the Present. The Eternal Sound is now and forever. Coreleased …
Tiromancy
New recordings and a couple of their unreleased tracks. Another Japanese CD from 1997 by this oblique improv collective. In some ways, just as traditional as a bunch of Sun Ra acolytes, in others more bent than actual acid casualties, Tiromancy splashes down swaddled in rainbow dots, early Playboy chic, laughing gas electronics, conflicting vapors, surround-seep ooze-adelia, and highly agile mental capabilities. Japanese import.
Smegma is an American experimental noise group formed in Pasadena, …
Smegma Plays Merzbow
An awesome CD resulting from mail collaboration between experimental two noise legends. A dynamic mix of whirr, crystalline drones, and staticky noise abstractions.1-26: Electro Smegmacousic Music Merzbow used Smegma tapes. All composed by Masami Akita using MA-tape, audio generatior, teleband tranceiver & mixer. 27-50: Smegma Plays Merzbow Composed 1996 at Smegma Studios using Merzbow tape, tape loops, record players, wood flute, vocals, optigan, mussette & frequency analyzer. Recorded & mi…
The Beast
"Smegma man, fucking Smegma. They started the whole damn thing. Sure there was Lee Rocky & some soundeffects 78s that set the crew in motion but screw it.. you wouldn't be blasting The Beast or any Weird Handdrawn LP with rotten ears if it wasn't for this truly motley crew. In high school my sweet momma would give me ten bones a week for lunch, come Monday by noon that shit was blown at the local rec shop. When I only had a couple of raggedy bux left from gripping Zorlac stickers, the only optio…
33 1/3
Ostensibly a tribute to the ensemble’s influences from the late 20th century avant-garde and out/free jazz movements, 33 1/3 is an imposing and monolithic effort from Smegma, the long-standing, Portland-based underground noise collective. 33 1/3 finds the ensemble focusing heavily on electronics and bizarre vocal affectations on this outing, which relies on a framework of abstract free jazz as its basic foundation. It can be safely said, however, that Smegma’s material on the album defiantly ref…