New Arrivals
B/P/M Series 1
Absolutely mind melting release from this consistently amazing American duo. This release has a very different sound to the superb drone recordings of their recent releases, yet it is still totally immense but really quite unexpected. This was previously issued as a tour-only CDR in a press of somewhere between 20 and 30 copies. Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay spent sometime recording legendary Humboldt based pianist Darius Brottman, who also happens to have a radio show before Brian's own show …
1978-1983
The sound of CHEN YI is rough & brutal... electronic music, soundcollages that reminds to Throbbing Gristle or (early)SPK aswell as electro-pop-tracks & songs like early Cabaret Voltaire, Chris & Cosey, Severed Heads...The Chen Yi Commune was founded in 1978 by about 20 women & men from London. The aim of the commune was to create a closed subsystem, a kind of subsociety and to narrow down its contact to the outside world only on very few specific actions.The Chen Yi commune never was interested…
The Man-Machine
LP edition of Kraftwerk's 7th album, from 1978, and perhaps their most commercially successful album -- a non-offensive synth-pop classic. 'The album has 'classic' stamped all over it... in time it would acquire the same ageless quality as The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper or The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds...' -- Pascal Bussy, Kraftwerk: Man Machine And Music"
Provocative Electronics
Provocative Electronics is an exploration in analog synthesizers and recording techniques. As in the days of musique concrete and the beginning years of synthesizer development, Ortmann experiments with tones and his own brand of electronic tweakage. Provocative Electronics is not a homage, but yet another document in the ongoing history of Electronic Music. For fans of the 20th century Greek composer Xenakis, minimalist John Cage, or pioneer of musique concrete Pierre Schaeffer, Mort Garson, Mi…
Soft Terminal
Digitalis invite us to dive headfirst into the synth froth of 'Soft Terminal', the latest emission from maverick soundscaper Norm Chambers, aka Panabrite. Over the last few years he's amassed a small library of exceptional material for the likes of Gift Tapes, Aguirre and Digitalis, plus one rather special pearl, a real scene classic, produced incognito and which we've been sworn to secrecy over. Compared with the stacks of dribbling dronesmiths and half-baked fantasists who populate this …
Generator breaker
A new Astral Social Club album is always a highlight of the year and Generator Breaker is no exception. Neil Campbell is one of the veterans of the British DIY/Drone/Noise scene and with ASC he has slowly formulated his very own and unique musical universe, akin to the psychedelic visions of his contemporaries and sometimes collaborators Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra but with a more electronic, less rock-influenced approach, instead aiming towards a heavily layered techno-infused …
Traba
"Following the blurry shoegaze ambience of his revelatory 'Navigare' LP for Miasmah, former Slowdive drummer Simon Scott applies his melancholy treatments to four tracks of widescreen, textured ambience for Chicago's Immune label. 'Traba' is distinguished from his debut by a swirling aquatic theme embedded in the titles and the nautical nature of the recordings. The mass of 'She Came From The Sea' is flooded with slow moving currents of darkness while at the surface we can hear lighter, m…
Lux Aeterna
greay-area LP reissue, Lux Aeterna, was originally composed to celebrate a friend of William Sheller's wedding, thematically driven by concepts of union and togetherness, and ostensibly based on the Catholic mass, this is far from any sort of religious music you've ever heard. Following in the footsteps of other iconoclastic composers, like Serge Gainsbourg, Jean-Claude Vannier, Lee Hazlewood, David Axelrod, Scott Walker and of course Magma (more on that in a second), Sheller conjured up w…
LA Vampires & Zola Jesus
Easily one of the releases of the year so far, finally available on limited edition vinyl* Ghostly goings on from gothic psych queen Zola Jesus and kindred spirit LA Vampires (the current guise of Amanda Brown from Pocahaunted), who collaborate across this killer new mini album. 'Bone Is Bloodstone' rumbles into motion with those familiarly smudged out, indecipherable vocals and evaporating drum machines but there's a heavy bass groove and some ghoulish melodic developments set to balance …
Real Life Is No Cool
As supportive as Hans-Peter Lindstrøm's fans have been of his random acts of creative fitfulness, one wouldn't blame them for feeling a bit tested by his most recent string of output. Between his brilliant but impractical 2008 long-player Where You Go I Go Too and his 42-minute refit of "Little Drummer Boy", two of the Norwegian producer's recent major releases have accounted for nearly 100 minutes of music across a scant four tracks. In a scene where an elongated 12-minute re…
Smokin\'
We had heard a couple cassette outings by this Bloomington young-bloomer over the last 4-6 months and each one hit us better than the last but nothing had prepped us for Ettinger’s most recent evolution into neon skyline chase scene soundtracker and that’s part of what makes it so amazing. For Smokin’ he wrangled together a small posse of close comrades (enter The Heat) and tracked a sick session of smoky synth themes, Corvette noir moods, echo dystopia, faded voices, and sleazy Miami sax. The A…
Seches Abstände
Five dense movements from abstract composer, Ralf Wehowsky, co-founder of the great Wahrnehmungen & Selektion labels. Recorded in 2008.
Midden
Suum Cuique (pronouned Soom Kwi-Kwe, Latin for "To Each His Own") follows the remit of Young Americans to explore uncharted, experimental, and personal synthscapes, guided by the hand of intuition with an entirely analogue array of machines. In 'Lithic Reduction' concrète textures grind like a millstone to release powdery clouds of analog dust, settling only to be dispersed by gusts of blackened distortion, whereas 'Red Binary' is distinctly electronic, revolving around muted radar bleeps…
Give It Up
Initial copies come with a bonus full-length CD album, an incredible soundtrack to Donald Prokop's film 'Gone' specially composed by Zelienople - and trust us when we say it's worthy of the cost of admission in itself* This unbelievable album from Chicago's Zelienople evokes the spirit of some of the most treasured music we've come to know over the years, fusing in elements of Talk Talk at their most washed-out, early Bark Psychosis and the narcotic sweeps of Slowdive fused in with the smoky men…
The sacrifice for the music became our lifestyle
Chris Abrahams, upright piano. Kai Fagaschinski, b-flat clarinet. Cover painting & sleeve design by Zev Langer. How do you run a duo when both of its protagonists are living at two opposite ends of the planet ? Well, it's not that dramatic. For many years Chris has used his European tours as a springboard for extended stays in Kai's hometown of choice, Berlin. After appreciating each other's work for quite a while they began collaborating at a friend's piano-armed kitchen in 2007. While C…
Endless Falls
Endless Falls is the fifth full length release by Scott Morgan under the loscil moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil …
Englabörn
Upon setting out to score the music for the play Englaborn by Havar Sigurjonsson, Johann Johannsson, co-founder of the Icelandic arts organisation Kitchen Motors, came upon a text by the Latin poet Catullus which roughly translates as, I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you might ask? I dont know, but I feel it happening to me, and it's tearing me apart. This poem concisely bridges the emotional opposites which clashed within the play itself. As the play's content was extremely violent and distu…
III
I don't care how many goddamn cute hobo bands there are out there right now. Not two runny shits. There's something Hank IV knows that few other current "of interest" bands realize, and it's a painfully simple thing: guitars were meant to sound like this, not that (pick something). That's as plainly as it can be put. This is twin-guitar punk rock in a class of its own, driving more than dueling and hot-sauce-free. I'd say "power with taste" but then I'd have to kill myself. I will say that…
III
Picking up the threads with ease, Espers III was intended to be an aural reversal of the layered sound of II. The goal was to record fewer tracks in order to achieve a stronger, more oxygenated sonic presence. Where II was almost claustrophobic in its density and darkness, III was envisaged as being somehow lighter, effervescent; perhaps even of a cheery disposition at times (whoa there! Don't go not breaking our heart, Espers). Under these auspices, recording started in late 2008 and spi…
Occupied With The Unspoke
Golden Retriever was started in 2008 by Jonathan Sielaff and Matt Carlson whose paths first crossed in the early 00’s when Sielaff and Carlson were in experimental pop bands that frequently worked together, Au and Parenthetical Girls respectively. Through collaboration, they developed a deep understanding of each other’s musical voice and sensibilities. After exchanging a few solo recordings, it became clear that they had remarkably similar aspirations for and theories on music, th…