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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…
Dagger Paths
RESTOCKED *Bit of a departure for the Old English Spelling bee, embracing scenic dubbed-out tapestries described by the label as a cross between Burial's sample-strewn claustrophobia and Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores...* The Olde English Spelling Bee label has lit up our week with this incredible debut from Forest Swords. Nope, we've never heard of them before either, but they're only based down the road in The Wirral so we'll send them a thank you message via carrier pigeon o…
Atlas Nation
French drone deities High Wolf might be best known for their shimmering Not Not Fun efforts, but this latest full-length (emerging on the ever-reliable Holy Mountain imprint) is probably their best yet. Apparently it was inspired by a long trip to India and Nepal, and this Eastern promise is clearly reflected in the band's sound palette. Pulsing tablas sit beneath a dense, sludgy bed of droning guitars - but 'Atlas Nation' isn't a chore to listen to. While a great deal of drone music can …
Solo Drumkit Improvisations
RESTOCKED!! Solo Drumkit Improvisations is a richly detailed document of Sean Baxter's explorations in extended percussive technique. Utilising stochastic structures applied to the conventional drumkit, Baxter exploits the sonic potential of a range of percussive implements including, bamboo wok brushes and chopsticks, enamel camping plates, aluminium wind-chimes and wok lids, scrap metal, and even the body. Recorded by acclaimed Australian engineer, Christopher Lawson, with assistance from…
The Illuminated
The music of Xela is not easily described. The alias of Type Records main-man John Twells, he has over the last decade moved through a dense fog of musical styles from abstract electronics to rusty soundscapes. In recent years his output has allied itself with darker realms, taking a liberal dose of influence from Norway's darker exponents, but retaining a deep and measured experimental focus. "The Illuminated" was originally released on cassette, a format very fitting to the gloomy, waterlogged…
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…
Tumbler
Total Head Crush Destruction from Mr Wiese (also of Sissy Spacek and LHD, works with Sunn 0)), etc,etc), if your head was made out of a boulder the sounds here enclosed are still designed to leave behind nothing but blood stain dust. Side A is the eternal acid rain that we all fear slowly melting your skin away and reminding of your insignificant humanity, Side B is a metallic behemoth continously punching you from all directions leaving you with just enough unbroken bones so that you can…
Orange You Glad
This is the debut full-length from Julian Lynch, who to date is probably best known for a split 7" with Matthew Mondanile of Real Estate, Ducktails and Predator Vision fame. The two are childhood pals and frequent collaborators, but here Lynch steps out of the shadows and into the lo-fi limelight. The album stitches together fourtrack recordings and various fragmentary, cross-cultural elements into a fluid tapestry of psychedelic doodles and hazy songs driven by keyboards and guitar. L…
Maria Minerva's Cabaret Cixous
Over the course of a 12", cassette, and a stream of ace youtube vids, Maria Minerva has emerged as one of the most interesting artistes to come into leftfield-pop focus over the last 12 months. 'Cabaret Cixous' is her debut album, a coruscating water-bed of mottled '90s dance-pop memes writhing under blankets of slyly sexy new age synths while her dreamy vocals whisper and croon seductively suggestive lyrics. It's not quite aural soft porn, but there's an inescapably lascivious element to …
All' Esedra
Lovely artist edition focused on a Renato Rinaldi sound installation, consisting of 34 audio postcards that saturate the area with unstable frequencies and phase shifted pulses. Some circuits are sensitive to the proximity of the human body, and are powered by small batteries, so the sound constantly change. Some of these frequently collapse but they reboot after a few seconds with a sound that suddenly blossoms on a carpet of pulsating high frequencies. This is the recording of a walk in t…
A Republic Of Sadness
Gate is the long-dormant alias of The Dead C's Michael Morley, who releases A Republic Of Sadness as the first Gate release in over ten years. The New Zealand avant-garde lynchpin is on tremendous form for this record, creating a dreamlike procession of slowed down loops, heavily treated vocals, jarring electronic textures and even beats. The first two tracks prove especially powerful, with 'Forever' elegantly crackling through a swathe of string sampling while pitched-down vocals utter…
s/t
RESTOCK! Limited to 500 copies with a numbered postcard insert, this a beautiful LP by the C. Heeman duo project with Af Ursin's Timo Van Luyck was started in 2004 and has produced two albums so far, the self titled first album (Some fine legacy) and Open Air (Robot), presenting yet another facet of Heemann's ideas of textural electroacustica, this time with a focus on improvisation.
Spoils
For this latest album Caledonian folk impresario Alasdair Roberts teams up with expected collaborators like Alex Neilson (whose drumming and percussion work has illuminated many a free-folk record over recent years, a few of which Roberts has been involved with) and more unusual contributors such as Niko-Matti Ahti of Fonal's Kiila. Perhaps more than ever, Roberts' music invites comparisons to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, traveling sufficiently far from the trad songwriting fold to be thought of as 'a…
Presque Rien
Recollection GRM presents four musique concrète masterpieces by French electro-acoustic innovator Luc Ferrari -- all of the Presque Rien's collected together in one vinyl set for the first time. Presque rien n°1, le lever du jour au bord de la mer (1967-1970): "Following the complete disappearance of abstract sounds, we can regard this piece as a sonic snapshot and the culmination of an evolution. This is a realistic rendering (as faithful as possible) of a fishing village waking up. T…
Divagazioni
Sicilian saxophonist, flutist, composer and arranger Nino Rapicavoli is one of the unsung heroes in the world of Italian soundtracks of the 1970s. A musician with a solid background in jazz as well as a long-time member of Italy's state-owned RAI TV orchestra, Rapicavoli has only a handful of library albums to his name, but each is of the highest quality. This Divagazioni ('Ramblings') is probably the best of the lot, an album that mixes jazz, easy listening and a pinch of prog with that …
The rings of Saturn
Originally only available as an artist-released CD, "The Rings of Saturn" spans a lengthy narrative of music prepared over the years 1997-2008. Infusing early field recordings along with recently completed studio compositions, this new album of "cinema pour l'oreille" (cinema for the ear) transports the listener to discrete locations that evoke rich memories and sympathetic recollections. This remastered vinyl edition is pressed on clear wax in a beautiful, full-color jacket. Available initially…
Wings of Desire
Blending glorious monotonous Krautrock with melodic tones and heavy slabs of Sabbath riffage, whilst finding time to declare sonic warfare on those tinnitus victims who have passed the point of no return.
Lard Free III
This one was their second album in 1975, featuring Richard Pinhas from Heldon and the most electronic effort of Lard Free. We can't hear bass guitar here anymore. The instruments on this item are mostly synths, in addition yet piano, drums, vibes, guitar - and clarinet as the first time guest on the recordings of LF. And the trips are longer (two LP-side-long trips here) than on earlier stuff. We can understand approaching to more meditative and athmospheric electronics with urbanis…
Remember
restocked: Israel isn't exactly konwn as a hotbed for acoustic steel-string guitar music, but Yair Yona's reissue of "Remember" is simply some of the most genre-bending music for solo steel-string guitar since Sandy Bull first opened the doors in the 60s. It's a celebration of the Takoma school, filtered by alternate tunings & yncopations, a John Fahey -esque compositional instint across landscapes of banjo, electronics, resonators, bass guitar & strings.
split LP
A split album by two masters of 'loud drone music' with an entirely electronic background. Piotrowicz already surprised us with 'Lasting Clinamen' on CD (see review in Vital Weekly 621), and this is now continued with 'Clinamen 3', also recorded using analog modular synthesizer. He plays what seems a loud, looped drone (no doubt repeated within the machine), which is piercingly loud at the start, but just like his great CD, he knows how to create a subtle piece music after that. It grows and it …