New Arrivals
Alan Lomax In Haiti
Harte Recordings, together with the estate of Alan Lomax, and in collaboration with The Library Of Congress and the The Association for Cultural Equity, present Alan Lomax In Haiti -- a chronicle of Lomax's 1936 Haitian recording expedition for the Library. This 10-CD box-set, in the modern tradition of those lovingly created by Revenant and Dust-To-Digital, is curated from over 50 hours of field recordings by the pre-eminent Haitian scholar, Gage Averill. Besides the CDs, the set contain…
Captain Wedderburn's Courtship / The Dowie Dens O Yarrow
A split single to be listened and heard (and more importantly, bought) with the compilation Whar the Pig Gaed on the Spree. Tradition-minded singers Alasdair Roberts, Karine Polwart, and Drew Wright do the honors. A-side: "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" performed by Alasdair Roberts and Karine Polwart B-side: "The Dowie Dens o Yarrow" performed by Drew Wright
Drop on Down in Florida: Field Recordings of African American Tr
Based on four years of fieldwork throughout the state, the Florida Folklife Program released the two-album, 27-track LP Drop on Down in Florida: Recent Field Recordings of Afro-American Traditional Music in 1981. The album was intended to highlight African American music traditions for a statewide public audience, particularly blues and sacred traditions. When the Folklife Program sought the opportunity to produce an expanded reissue of the album that would include previously unissued field…
One Voice
Harold Rubin, clarinet. Recorded: 2002. Released: 2002. 'If it wasn't for the fact that Harold Rubin (musician, painter and poet) lives and creates music in Israel, I'm pretty sure that he would have become one of the best-known icons of avant-garde jazz worldwide. Since I 'discovered' Harold 20 years ago, he never ceased to amaze me every time I hear him play live or hear any of his recorded music. His absolutely unique approach to his instrument Ð the clarinet Ð and to music in general is phen…
Politico/Zytol Automation
De Stijl's excavation of The Parasites Of The Western World turns up the lead single for their second album in the form of an exact reissue. Originally released circa 1980-81, 'Politico' opened the B-side to Substrata with a rippin' new wave roller full of glam stomp, proggy arrangement and punky attitude. The synth-fueled instrumental B-side was exclusive to the single, and as tradition dictates, far more interesting, featuring Terry Censky and Patrick Burke in an ebullient symphony of s…
Pappelallee 5
Andrea NEUMANN: inside piano, mixing desk. Recorded live in Berlin 2008. Ltd. & numbered edition hand made cover on cardboard cover. 'Pappelallee 5 arose by accident during work on a record that required absolute silence in my flat. It was a complicated undertaking, considering that my apartment is located in a house which is mostly occupied with musicians. As a result, I was inspired to place those adversities, from the outset, into the focus of the work and to integrate the sounds of the build…
Mask Rewind
LISFRANK was an obscure one-man project from Savona area, Italy, active from 1980 onwards but not releasing much music ever since apart from a few tracks via the own Mask Productions label in 1982 and 1983. The first and only LISFRANK stand-alone release was the 12”EP “Man Mask” (Mask Productions, MKX 01, 1982), definitely one of the best and rarest early 80’s minimal electro 12”s ever and on top of most want lists ever since, including the super hit “It’s Life”, as well as “Violence in m…
WHITE NIGHT FESTIVAL TEL-AVIV 2006
The Annual 'White Night' Festival in Tel Aviv is Israel's only cultural event dedicated to Improvised Music and Free Jazz. It is a twelve-hour musical marathon promoting creative, improvised music and facilitating collaborations between Israeli Artists and artists from abroad. It also fosters the development of young musicians, exposing their work to the world. The 2006 event was the second year this beautiful event took place and hopefully the tradition will continue in the years to come. This …
Refuse This Gift
The third album Refuse This Gift from Bear Claw is one of two records that ended up being part of a double whammy of releases from Sickroom Records just recently for me. Paired up, at least in my mind, with the excellent Conformists record (which you can find a couple posts below) Bear Claw gives a bit more of a traditional spin on the Chicago math/noise-rock sound compared to their label mates. With their third album Refuse This Gift the band hasn’t deviated all that much from their pr…
Kitty Hawk, le sable et le vent
A composition by Olivier CAPPAROS & Lionel MARCHETTI. For string quartet, two voices and three loudspeakers. An oratorio of musique concrète and instrumental music about “Kitty Hawk” the city where the Wright brothers did the first experiment with plane.
Blind Jesus
Blind Jesus by Andrew L. Hooker and Stefano Pilia debuts with a record that, according to this writer, is one of the best works of avant-rock heard recently: unravelled stuttering in the vein of Storm & Stress fall from crumbling gorges of tape loops, caracoling flights in the foreground interrupted with improvised retro-folk, wanton porno-concrète jokes arm-in-arm with strained ecstatic drones, followed by melancholic acoustic crackling, industrial creaking, soulful moans, obstacular Supreme Di…
Dordogne
Benjamin Bondonneau (clarinet) and Fabrice Charles (trombone). This double CD has been recorded in 2006 near the river called Dordogne. The two musicians are really integrated into the landscape, and they even manage to make it becoming the third musician. A great release limited to 1000 copies with a nice cover.
Metal Box
deluxe 3Xcd EDITION "Metal Box is the second PIL album and their masterpiece. One of these rare things that crosses the sky of rock from time to time. Formed by John lydon after the split of a well known band, PIL turns the back to the past : with cynicism. Exit the image shaped by Mc Laren, place to the music, a powerful funk carried by the hypnotic bass of Jah Wooble that sometimes evokes Holger Czukay of Can, striated by the minimalist riffs of Keith Levene (between James Blood Ulmer a…
O\'o
The exotic follow up to "Dreamers." Featuring the same dynamic band of masters from Zorn's inner circle, this presents 12 more lyrical & adventurous instrumentals combining world music, surf, exotica, soundtracks, easy listening, minimalism & more into a fabulous & exciting new music.
Did You See?/Spectacular Of Passages
Two stunning exclusive tracks finally unleashed after (too many) years on the shelf, just in time to coincide with Samara's wonderful new album Future Slip on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! label. A sweet little dose of hushed and fragile melancholy folk-pop-drone fluttering. Samara's unmistakable slow-bliss songforms are at their most stripped down and psychedelically entwined, with thick hovering violin tones, distant reverbed atmospheres and gentle swirls of quivering guitar feedback all li…
FRKWYS Vol. 9
LP version: for the ninth volume of FRKWYS, a music and film series pairing contemporary artists with those that may have preceded them in style and/or approach, Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras meet The Congos in Jamaica.
For Pau Torres
Catalan musician Ferran Fages, known for his guitar work as much as his work with turntables and electronics, delivers here a striking album of evocative, nocturnal electric guitar explorations. Bracketed by two intricate pieces of feedback, the centerpiece of this work maps out a carefully constructed arc of a story, bringing this album closer to that often misunderstood soundtrack-for-a-movie-yet-to-be-filmed genre. Ferran Fages: electric guitar and walkie-talkie. Composed, recorded and mixed …
Warrior Creed
Joy of Life/Apoptose - Warrior Creed, LP release date: December It was in 1988 when the British post punk group Joy of Life released their song »Warrior Creed«. Apoptose would never forget this track: the impressive vocals, the stoic drums, the minimalistic keyboards. 20 years later »Warrior Creed« is back – seen though Apoptose’s eyes. The voice of Joy of Life leadsinger Gary Carey has matured and the rhythm section is reinforced by an entire band of drummers, the Fanfarenzug Leipzig. Now the m…
Anal Aura Gram(ophone)
An edition of 300 copies on 180 gram blue vinyl and packaged in a custom made book bound sleeve. Available late August 2009 (delayed from original release date due to nefarious pressing plant.) 'Anal Aura Gram' is a vinyl version of the long deleted CDR that came in limited quantities with the 2003 album 'Aural Anagram' and also features a bonus 7' disc of two remixes by Steven Severin (Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Glove). How many lives would be saved if every one had an Anal Aura Gram? Andrew …
Into An Energy
This is a new release by California's extremely prolific avant-drone duo, Starving Weirdos. These eight new pieces bear all the hallmarks of Starving Weirdos' greatest work: the dizzying mixture of instrumental sounds, electronics, and field recordings, the pointillistic attention to sonic detail, the duo's post-production technique, which achieves something like the aural equivalent of deep-focus photography. On Into An Energy, the duo of Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay is joined by occasional …