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Communication
one of the most surprising, varied and knockout albums of the year, ranging from widescreen soundscapes to intimate drone transmissions, hip hop variations and miniature bleepy interludes - an absolute mustBetween 1992 and the early 2000's, former folksinger turned lo-fi avant-garde minstrel Bugskull (aka Sean Byrne) released a string of highly acclaimed compositions for a selection of Portland, Oregon's finest independent imprints. Since then his name has circulated in hushed tones among those …
Assemblage Blues
As Dan Melchior continues to kick the Medway gutbucket to the curb, he is also willfully absorbing all manner’ve underground cankerous crud along the way. For those endeared to wallet chains and crisp, cuffed jeans, this has been tantamount to heresy. But for thems what’s embraced the sounds of “the new Dan,” said aberrations are as welcome to caustic ears as a cold beer is to a set’ve parched lips. And while last year’s Visionary Pangs LP (released with Das Menace on the S-S label) was a grower…
Stone Academy
The latest addition to the fast-growing Digitalis catalogue comes from Zelienople, a band from Chicago who have a certain knack of making that other-worldly folk ambience we've all grown so addicted to sound totally singular and incredibly beautiful. Maybe it's because they aren't afraid of occasionally breaching into the odd pop structure or two that 'Stone Academy' is so inviting, in fact if you hear it at a distance you might even mistake it for a decomposed cassette recording of an old Pavem…
Burners
Like this week's brilliant Sun Araw release, On Patrol, Robedoor's Burners is vying for sleeve art greatness, truly looking like something that's arrived from another age and most probably another dimension. Recorded and mixed last year at the same studio that birthed the band's formidable Raiders long-player, this new album joins some of the dots between the group's menacing drone past and their recent turn towards more confirmedly song-based material. Pick of the tracks has to be the …
African Rhythms
A landmark of Afro-centric jazz in the 70s – and the first album by this famous underground collective! Oneness of Juju were a Washington DC-based group that grew out of the ashes of the Juju avant jazz ensemble "One of the most groundbreaking bands of their time. From early avant-garde jazz work on the Strata East label to their later fusions of Afrobeat, funk and spiritual jazz, Oneness stand as a huge influence for today's jazz scene. Released in 1976, the African Rhythms album is Onen…
A fidgety and excitable engine
For more than 25 years Jeph Jerman, previously with the moniker Hands To, has heavily explored the realm of field recordings and the devices to record it.Over the years his sound has become gradually more gaunt and essential, leaving more and more the electronic aspect apart and instead increasing the acoustic size.This made the sound of his compositions, if possible, even more organic, succeding to play entirely acoustic sets using only small objects found in nature such as stones, seeds, pine …
You Wait to Publish
Alessandro Bosetti, voice, electronics. Tony Buck, drums. Kenta Nagai, guitar. With guests : Hilary Jeffrey, trombone. Els Vandeweyer, vibes. 'You Wait to Publish' is the third release of the powerful voice and electronics, fretless guitar, drums trio led by Italian (via Berlin) speech musician Alessandro Bosetti with Tony Buck The Necks) from Australia and Japanese, based in the USA, Kenta Nagai (Shelley Hirsch, Tatsuya Nakatani). This album sticks to the band's original core approach based on …
Early Astral
Chris Forsyth has recently been touring around Europe with his Paranoid Cat Band in support of their excellent LP on Family Vineyard as well as playing with Meg Baird on her recent record and a continuing member of the Peeesseye. Koen Holtkamp plays as part of Thrill Jockey's Mountains, as well as releasing solo material on aformentioned Thrill Jockey and Type. On Early Astral Forsyth and Holtkamp team up, playing guitar and synthesizer and modular electronics respectively. The record consists t…
Ready for the House
The 1978 release of Corwood Industries Ready For The House, began one of the most compelling, disturbed, and singular legacies in musical history. In the 30 years since this unique debut, Jandek has released 53 albums of mournful, atonal music that continues to defy classification and accessibility. And while the past three decades of intense productivity have yielded a depth of discussion, a handful of legendary live performances and even a film documentary, no amount of time or experien…
Ithaca
Restocked!! Last copies arounf - recorded on november 2010, 'Ithaca' stands as one of the missing links between the tradition of free jazz and the current explorations in sound art. Bringing together one of the greatest living free jazz saxophonists and a young talented percussionist and sound sculptor, you have a record that sounds like a 'classic' and yet way ahead of its time. McPhee’s playing here is so lucid that it feels like a compendium of all those aspects of his style that have e…
Golden Trees
RESTOCKED: Golden Trees is a minimalist psych-folk masterpiece. A supergroup of sorts, Helen Rush, Pat Gubler and Samara Lubelski have created seven songs characterized as much by quiet and restraint than by their acclaimed musicianship. The lyrical lines in these songs appear suspended between pregnant pauses of silence and subtle instrumental flourishes. On one side of the gap, Samara Lubelski's violin invokes the Velvets and other avant string-players. On the other side, P.G. Six layers effec…
The Curfew Recordings
The Curfew Recordings were made at a disused industrial site on the river Tyne in 1984 and feature John Smith (then publisher of Interchange magazine), Sean Dower (ex Death Magazine 52 & later of Bow Gamelan Ensemble) And John Mylotte (of the band Metgumnebone). The recordings were made inside a 10m tall and 26m wide, steel-plated cylindrical, structure, once used for bitumen storage. The instrumentation is acoustic and the recordings are unprocessed (the space however adds a remarkable reverb).…
The absence
“The Absence is a 7” single, a collaboration between Rainier Lericolais and Sylvain Chauveau, released on February 2011 for Abstracks, Rainier's exhibition at Le Confort Moderne (Poitiers, France). The two tracks on The Absence were built from Sylvain vocal recording sessions for his album Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (Type / 2010), Rainier added his delicate arrangements of piano, xylophone, cello and weird electronics, in a similar vein to his previous single, Intangible (Sordide Sentim…
Semelles de fondation
Ressuage: Michel Pilz (bass clarinet), Itaru Oki (trumpet, flugelhorn, reeds), Benjamin Duboc (doublebass, voice), Jean-Noël Cognard (drums, objects), Patrick Müller (electrosonic) and Sébastian Rivas (laptop). Recorded in 2010 by Patrick Müller. Mixed by Patrick Müller. A coproduction by Bloc Thyristors-Bimbo Tower Records.
Silent Partner
There’s probably not much to say about punk’s continued existence. Like jazz or sitcoms or party politics, it just carries on eating and breathing and shitting and propogating. It’s only interesting when someone comes along trying to advance the form. Like “Arrested Development” or Dennis Kucinich, they’re usually forgotten.
This would all be relevant if Neptune were a punk band, which we’re not at all sure is the case. They create a sense of undermining the status quo, which is pretty pun…
Far Side Virtual
RESTOCKED, last copies around - The Wire's Releases of the Year!!!!!!James Ferraro paints a 21st century still life on his debut album for Hippos In Tanks. The record is called Far Side Virtual. Each song, a melodious reflection of the moment now, comes shrink-wrapped in HD fidelity as glossy as a 2012 Toyota Prius. Ferraro's muse is some enigmatic modern metropolis, where the streets are as slick as i-Pads, and where the symphonies ring with Macbook message alerts. Through the steam risi…
Mother of fire
restocked - AA krauty, rhythmic throb & a sort of gutterized/behead the prophet stance that once seemed to have run up & down the west coast. Both of these things are filtered through post-Spacemen sensibilities & fueled w/ violin, bass & drums
Fast ohne Titel, Korrosion
Black Rose Recordings are proud to present the exceptional new album by Asmus Tietchens. Corrosion is a degradation mechanism. It is an insidious process often difficult to recognise until deterioration is well advanced. Are these new pieces a comment on the current state of noise music, serious music or both? As a pioneer of electronic composition his work spans over three decades and doesn't fit easily into any one category. Early recordings ranged from experiments with tape machines and elect…
Kithless
Pedestrian Deposit (Jonathan Borges and Shannon A. Kennedy) possesses a certain, restrained relationship to texture. Sources both electric and acoustic operate on a logic of hybridity_ becoming compositional elements organized through their activation of a shared acoustic space. This functions in multiple directions: in some instances, the cello is captured and converted to a subtle electronic variation, expanding the range of the tone through this capture, at other times it acts as a sort of …
In Search Of Light
In Search of Light is the full-length follow-up to the well-received Fountain (RS 057CD), Danny Paul Grody's debut solo release. Many listeners no doubt recognize Grody from his work in San Francisco-based groups Tarentel and The Drift. As a solo artist, he produces wistful, poignant music culled principally from acoustic guitar and synthesizer. Grody's work recalls aspects of the post-Takoma school in that fingerpicked, cyclical melodies make up the crux of many of his recordings. However,…