New Arrivals
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…
Bright Failing Star
Bright Failing Star is probably one of the most straightforward albums I've made, and under some of the most trying circumstances I've encountered in recent years. The south London flat we were in at the time had suffered flood damage during the summer before we moved in, and our room had it's sodden carpet ripped out and the bare concrete floor exposed. This was never fixed in the duration we lived there so by December it was bloody freezing. To compound this we had no hot water for 5 months, c…
Eulogy for evolution
The vinyl version of Olafur Arnalds' debut album is back.
Man Leaving Harbour On a Ship (In a Room)
** Private edition, only a handful available. ** Man Leaving Harbour On a Ship (In a Room) is the title of a sound installation (for record player, vinyl record, speakers, found photograph, steel wires) by Vittorio Santoro to be presented in June 2010 at La BF15 Contemporary Art Space in Lyon. For the art installation of this sound piece, side A of the LP record (titled 'Commencement') is played over and over for a whole day. The organizers will take care that the side B (titled 'Conclusion') is…
Albeit Albeit / Sibelius Spiders
There's no shortage of electronic reissue imprints operating these days, especially ones concentrating on 'lost' synth-wave recordings from the late 70's - mid 80's - but few have access to the kind of material amassed over the years by Forced Nostalgia, a brand new label curated by one of Belgium's most knowledgeable and methodical sound archivists: Fré De Vos. The breadth and quality of the material already scheduled for release by Forced Nostalgia is just jaw-dropping - extending the r…
The Very Heart Of The World
LP version. Edition of 500 copies. On The Very Heart of the World, Burning Star Core (BXC) has created an incredibly heavy record, built on dense, layered drones, pulses, splintered vocals, and deep rhythms that euphorically build to total overload. With a line-up including the Hair Police front line and other luminaries from across the exploding Midwestern psych-noise-folk underground, BXC's C. Spencer Yeh has assembled a group that seamlessly shifts through epic movements and pushes pure elect…
Sun Circle
The most recent release on the lichen label; all releases are hand-assembled by zach wallace in his native ann arbor environs and offer of a lovely wave of art-sound, field recordings, improvisation with natural non-instruments, and, in the case of this particular title, a pair of pieces by greg davis and zach himself on farfisa, distorted vocals, and bells. the first appears to be a zonked “cover” of lamonte young’s “31 vii 69 10:26 - 10:49 pm munich from map of 49's dream the two systems of el…
Emergency Stairway
Emergency Stairway could have been Thought Broadcast's debut vinyl full-length. In fact, when commissioned in early 2012, only one 7" and two super-limited tapes were in existence, until some other label snapped to the finish with an even older commission. So, let's say an "almost-debut." Confused? Well, yes, that's probably the point. Ravi Binning's Thought Broadcast project oozes out a dank and confused audio experience isolated way beyond the city limits. A glance at the titles suggests…
Hyperborean Trenchtown
The album resonates a future sound vision that can only come from an old soul destined to further pave the paths laid by electronic & minimalist pioneers. Undeniably pure processes of creating & sustaining sound visually, sonically & otherwise brings a mathematical & scientific accuracy that hasn't been seen since the days of lovely music ltd. or GRM. Brilliant textures & audio hallucinogenic time/space wormholes create infinite listening possibilities
Nigeria Afrobeat Special
Nigeria Afrobeat Special is the fourth addition to the Nigeria Special series, a project initiated by Miles Cleret, owner of the Soundway Record label back in 2004. Cleret’s ambition to distinguish the blossoming music scenes of 1970s Nigeria has lent to an indispensable series of CD and LP compilations documenting the influence of western blues, rock and disco amongst artists and musicians versed in the local musical styles of highlife and juju. It was Fela Kuti and his musical and politi…
Glass Fountain
The duo mainly sticks to their guns, mining the same post-Suicide art-trance vein they perfected on Dream, but here there's an added emphasis on the disembodied, oscillator pop mode that they often toy with. Mesmerizing organ melodies over plink-plonky vintage drum machines with weirdo soulful singing & outer space electronics, like an outsider-punk Silver Apples or something. Edition of 600
The Hour Is Now
An excellent compilation of beautiful early 70s folk tunes from three LPs that that legendary acid-folk hippy-goddess Collie Ryan recorded in 1973, pretty much in Fahey/Basho vein
A Fire
23 minute piece of solo guitar wrangling by the avant blues elder statesman. Limited, hand-numbered edition of 350 housed in screen-printed wrap-around with insert in poly jacket** "Connors is an avant-garde legend, with more than 100 releases of his singular alien take on the blues. RIYL: Jack Rose, Michael Chapman, Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey. A Fire is a single-sided LP by master guitarist Loren Connors. Recorded live in Philadelphia in 2010, this 23 minute piece follows in the style and visual …
Detached From All Objects
Detached from all objects" is almost completely spared from today's hysteria and is more foreboding and distorted as their first album "teslas aquarium". They operate with great pleasure in dissecting the vast possibilities of the song formats without losing any of the clarity. "eEure qual ist unser quell" exemplifies the keyboard virtuoso kubin truly is. He works as always with historical analog maschines, organ instruments and with sessile affections to the 60's electronic scene, "geniale dill…
Kappe
Limited Edition of 400 copies, already out of print: Erik Skodvin, the crown prince of nefarious Nordic doomscapes, returns with another incredible dark ambient grimoire for the Type label. Kappe finds the Deaf Center member peering yet deeper into the sonic abyss, concentrating his efforts on four lengthy compositions, each one following its own distinct subterranean tributary. 'Tunnel Of Love' opens the set with a blurry swell of dense tones and funereal howling before eventually throwing in a…
The Rising
Call Back The Giants first surprised and delighted the listening world in 2010, with their warmly-recieved eponymous debut album. Since that time, the duo of Tim Goss and Chloe Mutter have been locked in perfect isolation, teasing every nuance of their sound into sharp focus. The Rising presents the results of their toil, exposing Call Back The Giants as true masters of cryptic intent. Homespun keyboard minimalism, wavering teenage laments, and foreboding pronouncements of doom, synthesize into …
Beguiled Entropy
Expo '70 has garnered a great deal of notoriety over the last few years in certain circles in which the moniker is usually mentioned to describe types of cross-genres. After completing a couple US tours and a handful of limited releases and re-releases in 2010, a short hiatus was in order. During this time last year Justin Wright, sole operator of the project, recorded tracks for an upcoming release. Wright entered a basement studio and improvised over two nights layered recordings for the first…
Night of Purple Moon
Sun Ra was a innovative jazz composer, pianist, synthesizer player, poet and philosophiser who was fascinated by cosmic philosophy. Ra’s fascination with all things ‘cosmic’ combined with his instrumental ability lead to the creation of off-kilter, avant-garde and highly experimental music. ‘The Night of the Purple Moon’ originally cut in 1970 showcases Sun Ra playing the Roksichord (a then state-of-the-art solid-state electronic keyboard manufac…
By The Throat
2012 repress, LP version. This is Reykjavik-based composer/producer Ben Frost's second release for the Icelandic Bedroom Community label. By The Throat is blood red and cloaked in shadow. Produced in Iceland by Ben Frost and Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk, CocoRosie, Bonnie "Prince" Billy), this album features performances by Amiina of Sigur Rós fame, Arcade Fire's Jeremy Gara, Swedish metal outfit Crowpath and composer Nico Muhly. Aside from the purely musical language of harmony and melody, there'…