Huffin Rag Blues
Brown particles vinyl. Here is an expanded edition of one of Nurse With Wound's most intense and unique albums, so much so that for long-time fans, it was a strange, chaotic lounge oddity upon its release. For the first time, all four audio sides are complete (originally, there were only three sides). To top it off, there is a stunning new cover by the great and talented Babs Santini, who is none other than Steven Stapleton using his artist pseudonym, continuing in the luxurious tradition of the…
Übers Jahr
The German band Schatterau returns to Hands in the Dark with their latest release, Übers Jahr ('Throughout the Year'), which follows their acclaimed debut album from 2024. This sophomore effort, as its title implies, delves into the cyclical nature of time and the duality of the transient and the eternal unfolding of events. The album comprises 17 vignettes that reflect on the seasons, capturing their unique light and sounds, the passage of time, and the interplay of movement and stillness, as w…
Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds
From Lawrence English: "I like to think that sound haunts architecture. It's one of the truly magical interactions afforded by sound's immateriality. It's also something that has captivated us from the earliest times. It's not difficult to imagine the exhilaration of our early ancestors calling to one another in the dark cathedral like caves which held wonder, and security, for them. Today the ways in which sound occupies space, the so-called liquid architecture, holds just as much wonder, albei…
Journey to the Cave of Guanyin
The inspiration for these pieces comes from the Chinese folklore of Guanyin, a deity whose name translates to ‘the one who perceives all the sounds, or cries, of the world’. Also known as Guanshiyin 觀世音, she is the embodiment of infinite compassion. I grew up knowing of Guanyin as a female deity, but recently discovered that she had transformed through the centuries from the male Hindu bodhisattva, Avalokiteśvara. I instantly found an affinity for this gender-fluid figure, who was said to have a…
High Tide
*2025 repress* Able Noise are a cross-continent duo based between The Hague (NL) and Athens (GR), built around the experimental baritone guitar and drum playing of George Knegtel and Alex Andropoulos. After a few formative attempts at collaboration, they officially came together as the Able Noise we see now in 2017, uniting over shared thoughts on art and performance encountered while studying at The Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. Their first recorded work, a seamless 30 minutes of glisteni…
Light_Earth_Blue_Silver
This "cinematic poetry" dual film by Roberto Opalio was shot in January 2005 in a remote location of Italy's Western Alps, using a 8mm cassette handheld cine camera. In April 2005 a first version was premiered at The Sage Gateshead (Newcastle) and at CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow) during My Cat Is An Alien's live performances. The final editing was made in 2008, adding an original soundtrack by My Cat Is An Alien. This version has been published in a DVD+CD set in 2009 by American l…
Chromatic
*Limited Edition of 100 copies!* Commissioned by 180 Studios as part of the UVA exhibition Synchronicity, Chromatic is a software-driven optical instrument that explores the harmony of form and the interaction of colour and sound. Each line, shape, and colour plays a role in constructing this generative audio-visual installation. A computationally programmed, rule-based system endlessly assembles and re-assembles abstract formations and harmonic sequences, producing geometric compositions that p…
Fortune's Mirror
Solo instrumentalists navigate a free and rambling road through an imaginative, oneiric wilderness. So much expressed without singing/words, a direct power line to the psyche, open for interpretation and brimming with melancholy, joy, and somber reflection. The annals of solo guitar music, much like solo piano, can tap into these almost subliminal lines of communication. The new album/debut LP from Los Angeles by way of Ohio guitarist/flautist/songwriter Barry Archie Johnson sings out as a start…
Camoufleur
2025 repress, LP version. "Sometimes it's like an overstuffed musical armchair -- quite comfy, even when lumpy. The contribution of Markus Popp, whose style of digital scratching has made Oval an experimental household name, adds to the density and often provides an echo of Gastr past while the rest of Camoufleur paints the future." Jim O'Rourke's last album with Gastr del Sol is a subdued, meditative affair, bringing together elements of folk, jazz, film music, and the avant-garde. "The Seasons…
Dog FM
'Dog FM is the debut release by the London-based duo of field recordist Oliver Chapman and poet Phoebe Eccles. Combining Chapman’s seemingly banal snapshots of a family car journey with Eccles’ fantastic, reflective spoken verse, Dog FM deftly transports the listener through a series of uncanny and oft-times bizarre audio travelogs where tension and expanse alternate to disorientating effect. By exploring the dynamics of a typical close-quarters family exchange, and with repeated use of ‘canine’…
Salt
*Limited Edition Of 150 Copies* When it travels, the voice is a double agent, a trickster, or a dubious guru, but when it pauses for a recording, it's historical, capturing a mood or an emotion for all time. I didn't expect that I would hardly recognize the people who made Salt — myself and Hessel Veldman — a year and a half after recording it, but this is where I find myself now, so I'll say a few words about this temporary prosopagnosia. Twelve years ago, when I moved to the Netherlands from J…
Papotier
Marking the final chapter of a visionary trilogy, “Papotier” sees Pancrace return in full force. A haunting exploration of breath, language, and acoustics, recorded around a historic Silbermann organ in Alsace, the album is a radical statement of sonic identity - fragile, fearless, and gloriously unclassifiable.
3 × hullo, hullo
The first few minutes of ‘3 × hullo, hullo’ sound like a little mole creeping up through the soil. The little thing hoes and scoops up some sand, building a small pile of dirt. But then, anger... because this drives them mad—those who want their lawns clean and spotless. A clean lawn: a desire we inherited from the Brits. Dumped into our collective consciousness by humorless Victorians who enjoyed having their black pudding on the lawn. An uninspired impression from their misreading of Italian p…
Oh! Pebbles / 아 ! 조약돌
Tom Jacques and Eunsil Noh met recently on Tom’s first trip to South Korea. Their meeting was marked by instant musical chemistry and camaraderie. Their duo project, Oh ! Pebbles, consists of their complimentary singular practices in musical improvisation. Their sound centers on fusing minimalistic noise coming from mundane objects triggered by vibrating mini-motors and the re-actualisation of the storied history of voice art in the Pansori tradition. This combination, often supported by harmoni…
Progetti Interrotti (tape + ephemera)
Ultrarare 1985 20-minute 4-track cassette compilation on Squit Tapes of synth-wave music recorerd between 1980 and 1982 by very obscure 'bands': Alan's Lads, Johnny & Mark and the duo of 3- and 4-year-olds Raboceie Dielo. With A3 insert and bonus Rat News 4 A3 booklet.
The Extinction (tape)
Rare electronic/industrial music compilation cassette with Rinf, Nulla Iperreale, 2+2=5, Gregorio Bardini, Nocteau, "Airthrob In", Bourbonese Qualk, St. Spirale, Laxative Souls, Radio Honolulu, F.A.R.. Originally enclosed with The Scream 7 magazine, not included here.
Flaw Games
Bolide is an electro-acoustic improvising unit, formed in Brighton, UK, in 2007. Originally coming together under the name Bolide Awkwardstra, the group's inaugural performance was at the Colour Out of Space festival in 2007, followed by a show in a local park playing a soundtrack to an infants' football match. Ever since, Bolide have oscillated between these giddy poles. Somewhere along the way, it was decided that awkwardness and sketchy puns should no longer be a barrier to progress.
Tentatively Terminal 1977-1978
In the fall of 1972 my brother Daryl Frazier [a/k/a Billy Nightshade] started school at Bemidji State College in northern Minnesota. I was 11 years old and Daryl was 18. Every weekend he would come home and bring me amazing used records of rock and roll bands. His good friend Gary Zerott from BSC knew music inside out, and turned Daryl on to all kinds of brilliant artists! Kinks, Bowie, Alice Cooper, Stooges, MC5, Patti Smith, Velvet Underground, Slade, Deep Purple...the heavier the better. Back…
Borrowed Out Of Time
*150 copies limited release* "Borrowed Out Of Time is the latest album by Kaurna Country artist and writer, Tristan Louth-Robins. It follows a steadily paced run of releases for labels like 3LEAVES (2013’s The Path Described) and his own Studio Maurilia which share an inquisitive spirit, informed by, but different from, influences such as Alvin Lucier and Rolf Julius. While Tristan’s compositions might be neatly situated somewhere adjacent to both sound art and acoustic ecology, they aren’t beho…
Last Blues
*150 copies limited release* "A mysterious folio of sonic snapshots, as much recaptured as composed, by Jon Dale’s project, Moth, in Adelaide in the late ’90s and early ’00s.
From the ready means of guitar, amp, and tape, a congruous but diverse selection of unnamed tracks emerge - musical moments borrowed from oblivion with the as yet unfulfilled good intention of returning them. Their sounds evoke abstract polaroids of winter seascapes flecked with spare, brittle detail, or the scaly-winged fl…