★Important Records

"Cool Cruel Mouth" is Larsen's 9th full length studio album and marks 15 years of activity with a fine collection of textural, cinematic, haunting, nocturnal songs. Written and recorded in 2010. "Cool Cruel Mouth" finds the band as a 5 piece with the full time addition of lyricist Little Annie "Anxiety" Bandez as the official voice of Larsen. Also featured on "Cool Cruel Mouth" is inimitable Baby Dee playing piano on one of the two featured instrumentals as well as on her own composition "Unhear…

Magnetic Flights is entirely made of electromagnetic field recordings of international airports and inside airplanes. The recordings of this piece were made by Christina Kubisch on her travels in 2007 from and to the airports of Bukarest, Manchester, Chicago, Seoul, Munich, Amsterdam, Zurich, Frankfort, Paris, Lisbon, Berlin, Pisa, Milan and London. The sounds were not altered electronically nor changed in any other way. The only tool, which was used for a part of it, was a filtering program (DI…

This is the final offering  before entering the new wave of the failed future from MMOB. Totem Three journeys from quiet Bardo womb choosing meditations and instrumental mantras to the delusional glee of Kali Yugafied Indian rock. Totem Three is the most diverse and heartfelt of the Totem trilogy. A steady pulsating musical mirror prison expressing the atrophy of our "modern world" through No-Age hallucinations of passionate and unfolding melodies. A blissful mirage filled caravan with no destin…

The album combines both the live recording of the first ever Larsen & Z'ev In V.Tro live performances with extreme aural-mixes of Larsen's In V.Tro studio sessions by Z'ev. Larsen and Z'ev In V.tro is a soundtrack for micro-cinematic images of cellular studies captured by professors Dario Cantino and Antonio Barasa of the Istituto di Anatomia Umana Normale (Basic Human Anatomy Institute) between 1935 and 1985. Cantino and Barasa wanted to review the history and techniques of in vitro cultures as…

Arnold Dreyblatt (b.1953) is an American composer who has studied with La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Lucier. He is a member of the German Academy Of Art. He has released work on labels such as Table Of The Elements, Canteloupe, Tzadik, Hat Art and Dexter's Cigar.Turntable History is a recording of a 40 minute multi-channel sound composition which was concieved as part of an audio-visual installation installed in the circular vaulted brick space of a historical water container in Ber…

"Alchemic Heart is a special project presented by Vampillia who have colored these two colossal compositions with beautiful contributions by members of the Boredoms, Jarboe (ex-Swans), Inswarm and Japanese Noise-God Merzbow. Layered strings, piano, bass, noise and voices are weaved mysteriously and expand as two magnificently parallel aesthetic worlds. Comprised of two pieces, 'Sea'/'Land,' a primitive landscape is created via listening and destroyed when the pieces are complete. Vampilli…

Numbered edition of 500. Jackets letterpress printed at 43rd Parallel Letterpress. Split release between Ellen Fullman & Eleh. 'By examining the waveform produced by the Long String Instrument through a spectrum analyzer, I have observed that every overtone of the fundamental being played is represented nearly equally through the entire range of hearing. Just intonation, a tuning system based on pure ratios, lends itself to a consideration of not only precise tuning of fundamental frequencies, b…

Featuring members of Pelican & X-Bax. For the new album three single- Chord compositions were charted out, one freeform and tone driven, one long-form piece with charts dictating the players' intensity of performance, and one grid-like chart where each players' note continually shifts, though the combination of voices continue to maintain the chord. Six chords were chosen and arranged in a progression that encompasses two separate performances of each of the three compositions. Though the CD and…

Shortly after ordering this 14 CD set; I read a newspaper article about the plight of the Eurasian cuckoo whose habitat is being gradually destroyed both in Britain and abroad. It is this type of threat to birdlife that inspired Japanese ‘noise music’ meister and long-time animal activist Masami Akita’s (aka Merzbow) 2009 album series, “13 Japanese Birds”. Now the entire set, plus a new CDR and piece of screen print art-work have been reissued as “13 Birds In A Bag”, with a navy blue eco-f…

Magnificent reissue of this tape obscurity from 1980, Cluster's eighth album (the first of three live LPs) originally released on the YHR label (which was curated by Pump's David Elliott), also including archival material never before issued on CD. With so much stuff from this era coming to the surface recently it's sometimes easy to get blasé about it all, but this is one you really ought to give your fullest attention to. As the title says, this was recorded live in Vienna in 1980 at th…

With so much being made of current practitioners of the Kosmiche/New Age vibe here's your opportunity to hear an original. Original copies hardly ever surface and even the 2007 repress (which sounded quite thin) commands quite a fee on internet auction sites. This straight analog pressing sounds as close to the original master tapes as you can get. 500 made. Pressed at RTI."If you have been wondering what all the fuss about "private press new age" is, go here to find out. Your mind shall be subt…

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…

Recorded live last September in New York, this LP documents what might turn out to be Om's Don't Look Back concert, should they ever get the invite (actually, last May the band's Al Cisneros played one of those shows as part of his other band, Sleep). The stoner-doom classic Conference Of The Birds gets a full playthrough here, with Cisneros (on bass and vocals) partnered by drummer Emil Amos. Fans of the original will be pleased to find the recording fidelity and the…

RESTOCKED Deluxe double LP set pressed at RTI with heavy duty tip on jackets from Stoughton. B side includes two bonus tracks not found on the original CD. Featuring contributions from Alan Bishop and Charles Gocher of the Sun City Girls. Graphic design by Stephen O'Malley. At last the long awaited reissue of a west coast outsider death cult classic! From the forests of the Northwest an uncharted document of shamanistic psychedelia. Recorded mostly during rituals deep in Cascadia and filtered th…

'Totem 2' is the latest album from No-Age supergroup Master Musicians Of Bukkake. This lineup of the band features members of Earth, Asda, Burning Witch, The Diminished Men and guests from Secret Chiefs 3 and the thriving Istanbul music scene. Production is handled by Randall Dunn, who is responsible for amazing albums by Six Organs of Admittance, Sunn 0))) and Earth, and the record was pressed at RTI for highest possible fidelity. It looks stunning too. "MMOB has now …

Limited pressing of 500 copies on LP: Matmos, Wobbly & J Lesser present: Simultaneous Quodlibet. These pieces originated in improvised recordings which were then taken to Snowghost Studios in Montana & overdubbed with additional instruments, synths, drums, bass and organs. They were then edited down over the course of a few months until becoming a fully realised studio album of carefully constructed and meticulously composed pieces rooted in music that could only have been performed spontaneousl…

Lovely collaborative project, result of the meeting of Italian cult band Larsen and Steven Stapleton’s ubiquitous creature Nurse With Wound. Almost 2 years of file swapping and occasional conceptual meetings led to a multi-headed collection of deformed sounds based on one long NWW piece and two Larsen tracks (that both bands have written specifically for this project) then deconstructed and rebuilt by each other into totally brand new opuses.Erroneous also features Neu! and Kraftwerk original me…

Pantheon Of The Lesser was composed over a period of two years in Ocean's home studio in Portland, Maine. As the seasons passed each track was written, re-written, played and then re-played as layers were slowly stripped away until the true essence of the song was revealed. Once Ocean entered the studio it took another two years to deconstruct Pantheon Of The Lesser until they had found the essence of their writing. This disciplined deconstructionist approach to songwriting is how Ocean takes it…

Guano Padano, assembled by Alessandro Stefana, features guests Alessandro Alessandroni (renowned whistler of the immortal Ennio Morricone western soundtracks), Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart/Jeff Buckley guitarist), Chris Speed (clarinet player with Tim Berne, Uri Caine, John Zorn etc.) and, last but not least, the legendary Italian singer Bobby Solo. Guano Padano's music is a kind of road movie, unfolding between the scorching asphalt of highway number 4 and the juicy smells of the peasant festi…

Awesome double set packaged in a deluxe tip-on style jacket, pressed on virgin vinyl, & includes an exclusive bonus D-side track, Finding the mighty Acid Mothers Temple in progged-up mode, Dark Side Of The Black Moon gets underway with tentative strands of feedback and echo-obscured vocals, knitting the usual AMT psychedelic tapestry but dividing it into discreet sections during 'Space Labyrinth Or Eclipse On Friday', which toys around with various different rhythmic patterns (which is very…

LP version: The collected Black Tar Prophecies ends up being a more idiosyncratic mission statement for future Grails recordings, revealing their fondness for the groundfloor '60s and '70s experimental artists that saw music as a process of discovery as opposed to the pre-conceived, pre-parametered, commodified sport that underground music has become. A parallel is now forming between Grails and old-school experimental bands like Faust who, rejecting their past, started over from the begin…

Viva Negativa! A Tribute To The New Blockaders: Volume III: USA. Volume III in a series of UK-European-US and Japanese artists' tributes to the pioneering UK Noise group The New Blockaders including exclusive tracks by Z'ev, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Alan Courtis, Controlled Bleeding, Plethora, Macronympha, Prurient, Richard Ramirez, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Carlos Giffoni, AMK, Aaron Dilloway, Wolf Eyes, Idea Fire Company, Mnortham, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Damion Romero, The Haters, Emil …

Super limited edition of 300 hand-numbered copies. Hand screened jackets printed by Neil Burke at Monoroid. For years, both Z'EV and Jon Mueller have explored these possibilities, both within traditional forms, and singling out specific elements within those forms. For Z'EV, an entire book, called Rhythmmajik, was written about the properties of rhythm, while his history pairs him with a wealth of collaborators, from Carl Stone, Glenn Branca, and many others, as he pursued the quest for rhythmic…

In Robbie Basho's lifetime he set out to champion the steel string guitar as an expressive and dignified concert instrument. His guitar playing was first brought to light in 1965, when John Fahey released Basho's debut The Seal Of The Blue Lotus on Fahey's own Takoma Records. Armed with a unique and powerful singing voice, his 6 & 12 string guitar and a collection of special guitar tunings that he created (even originating a unique chart titled 'The Esoteric Doctrine of Color and Mood,' denoting…

few copies available, now out of print. Attention Patterns is a 2 LP + 48 page booklet set featuring new and archival compositions by Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue,Yoshi Wada and Sun Circle, as well as interviews with the composers, scores and related texts. This release brings together composers with shared affinities for long, slowly unfolding durations and unconventional, harmonic approaches to tuning. Each has contributed a full LP side to the compilation. Oliveros’ “Horse Sings from Clou…

Despite the fact I've always had a liking for Pan Sonic I recently found out that Mika Vainio isn't actually the one with the fringe. Oh well, that's faceless leccyblokes for you. The one without the fringe is on spectacularly uncompromising form here, beginning with a nasty bit of high-frequency blasting before crashing into a heavy, ultra distorted 'tone' that could almost pass for Sunn 0))) being processed to within an inch of their lives. A temporary respite eventually arrives in the …

While Grail’s studio records are expertly crafted affairs, full of expert production and cinematic flair, but the Black Tar Prophecies series has been the set of songs which has brought Grails to the forefront of the instrumental scene. Lo-fi and bared back, it gives the band a place to experiment outside of the norm. Volume 4 of the Black Tar Prophecies series utterly drips in dark atmosphere; opener I Want A New Drug starts with a tape recording which slowly descends into warbling, becom…

The seventh album from Montreal's harbinger of blackmetaldoompsychedelia appears on Important. Of the two sides of Aun's bi-polar output this falls into the cataclysmic doom zone, full of downtuned scorched-earth riffage and ominous ambience. The inclusion of drummer Away from Voivod lends a thunderous motorik propulsion to 'Falcon' and punctures 'Broken Bill' with neck snapping weight. For fans of Earth, Sunn 0))), Pelican, Gnod - Recommended.

Having previously embarked upon a cover version of Terry Riley's perennially popular minimalist opus 'In C', Japanese psych-rock legends Acid Mothers Temple return to the concept, this time offering slightly more... esoteric readings of the text with extended improvisations 'In 0', 'In A' (ok, so that one's not all that weird), 'In Z' and 'In ∞'. As the various titles suggest, this is a mightily weird album - yes, even more so than the usual AMT freak-outs - and it's great to hear the ba…

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 …

When Important Records originally released (in 2005) Henry Jacobs 'The wide weird world of Henry Jacobs / The fine art of gofing off”, it was met with instant acclaim and a lengthy, nationally broadcast feature on NPR. We are happy to announce the reissue of this out-of-print CD/DVD set. Over forty years ago, Henry Jacobs left a large collection of his recordings underneath his house in Mill Valley, CA only to have it discovered in the past decade. Restored, sequenced and mastered by producer Ja…

Absurd folklorist Henry Jacobs returns with a selection of rare interviews, odd loops, sales pitches, early synthesizer demos, an ether-infused evening, and more! Produced in San Francisco and New York City, Around The World With Henry Jacobs is a travelogue that continues the story begun with The Wide Weird World of Henry Jacobs, mixing archival material from the 1950s with recent improvisations by Jacobs. Guests include Stan Freberg and Dr. Irwin Corey, with Alan Watts returning for a visit, t…

This follows NHK's sold out 12" on Raster Noton. This is Important's final release in a 4 record series featuring the work of the enigmatic Japanese artist Kouhei Matsunaga. NHK began in Osaka in 2006 between Kouhei and Toshio Munehiro. Their previous work, titled Unununium, can be found on the Raster Noton label.These experimental electro-rhythmic compositions sound incorporate beats, noise and a modern aesthetic.

The Skull Defekts is back with a new limited edition vinyl lp.500 copies pressed. Cover by Fredrik Soderberg. This time, we are dealing with two unique collaborations. The first one is a live recording from Fylkingen, Stockholm where The Skull Defekts met oscillator master CM von Hausswolff in a deep drone meeting. The second one is a studio recording together with the infamous performance and noise duo The Sons of God, Kent Tankred and Leif Elggren.'artist: The Skull Defektstitle: Skulls CM …

A collection of psychedelic love songs paying tribute to all things analog. Similar to older Kid606 releases like PS I Love You, GQ on the EQ, The Soccergirl EP and Why I Love Life. This album was carefully constructed to be the soundtrack for the peak 72 minutes of your next trip. The songs all linger on too long but just long enough, you hear voices you can't understand, but you will know what they're saying. Every track has its distinct identity and direction to completely throw you from one …

Neuter River is a new project from Jan St. Werner of Mouse On Mars, one which concerns itself with the more experimental, far-out sounds within the producer's repertoire. The label describes the LP thusly: "Neuter River is not exactly a band or a person, it's the remains of an idea, a shifting light cube at the end of a ragged kaleidoscope. Atonal precission / pentatonic noise." Quite what that means will be unclear even after you've heard the record, but then it's the extremity of the abstract …

Mouthus: Drum and guitar explosion through tape manipulation and a total synth bath. Collided through a number of recording sessions and strings of modulation to elevate the particle riffage to a heightened state of platectonic rock. Bulbs: Like tuning your radio slowly between far off new age stations in the most serene way possible. The marriage of muted melodies existing below feedback skwerls and electronic swerls. Transmissions from a better place.

This is Important's second release in a 4 record series, each featuring the work of the enigmatic Japanese artist Kouhei Matsunaga. Telepathic full length collaborative release from Kouhei Matsunaga, Sean Booth of Autechre and Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio. Using space, silence and electronic tones, these three electricians rewire your brain for a new comprehension of sound.

This is Important's third release in a 4 record Important feature on the work of the enigmaticJapanese artist Kouhei Matsunaga. Self VA is Kouhei's 2nd album. His first was released on the Mille Plateaux label in 1998. Since then he has kept busy with numerous collaboations as well as his work with NHK (Raster Noton). Kouhei seamlessly weaves all of his work together in seemingly effortless fashion. Collaborations on Self V.A. include Leif Elggren, NHK, Sensational (Jungle Brothers), RLW and mor…

This is December 2009's Bird CD from Merzbow. Tsubame is the 12th and 2nd to last in the series. Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux