New Arrivals
My Brother The Wind
A pretty darn incredible record from Sun Ra -- with a soulful, spiritual approach that's missing from most of his other albums of the time! The album features Ra playing a good deal of organ (dubbed "intergalactic organ" in this case!) -- grooving soulfully on some short tracks that almost hit a soul jazz mode, and which recall the late 60s experiments of organist Freddie Roach.
Burning Off Impurities
Following soon after the critically praised Black Tar Prophecies collection on Important Records, Portland, Oregon's Grails return with their first proper studio album since 2004 release of Redlight. Burning Off Impurities - their debut for Temporary Residence Ltd. - makes good on the promise of those past releases in delivering an album that not only thrusts the group to new heights, but also significantly pushes the instrumental rock genre forward for the first time in nearly a decade. An incr…
Deviation Heat-treated
Surprise release from the mighty PAN label, Heatsick re-worked by Mark Fell's Sensate Focus across two long tracks totalling 35 minutes* From behind your ear, PAN pluck a blink-and-miss exclusive: a 35 minute audio response by Mark Fell (Sensate Focus) to source material by Heatsick, somewhere between cover version, remix and deconstruction. Along the A-side 'X' plane, tones are exploded, harmonies refracted with HD dissonance; time is extruded, made ductile yet intangible. On the B-side 'Y' axi…
Interval Signals
Brian Pyle is becoming a big name in disquieting ambient and haunted audio, and two new releases (this and Light that Comes, Light that Goes) from him this week aptly explain why. Interval Signals is an enticingly evocative story, a single-take journey through a series of interiors and exteriors spaces layered with memories and geographies. Melancholy like an old crime scene, its mixture of ancient broadcasts, echoes trapped in the dusty twentieth-century telephone network, spiritualistic tuned …
The Somnambulist's Tale
An early and one of the most special Gnod recordings is out now on Aguirre. The Somnambulist's Tale consists of two sidelong adventurous pieces which are carried by an incredible loop. The haunting ambience in combination with electronics, distant guitar layers, conversations between the band members, a typewriter, and other sounds from found objects makes this quite an atypical Gnod release, but definitely a great one. Influenced by early Krautrock bands like Can, Hawkwind and Ash Ra Temple, G…
Bronze Age Subway
"Fruitful meeting of two very consistent mainstays in the southern drone hemispheres... The recordings took place in Buenos Aires when Antony recently was on a trip to South America.. Dark and broodling, yet also soothing and narcoleptic drone works from these two masters of their fields.. Guitars, violins and organs create buzzing forcefields and nocturnal sonic transfixions.... Top shelf trans-continental drone extravaganza from these highly prolific gentlemen. Don't miss out!"
Era
"Era is the fourth annual report from Chicago powerhouse quartet Disappears. It was formed during the gloom of the Chicago winter at Electrical Audio by now regular foil John Congleton. Insular and dark, the album sees the band further refining their love of dub, minimalism and repetition into their most original and stark set yet. It harks back to the early 80's post punk period, when almost anything seemed possible with the classic two guitar, bass and drums lineup, and exploration and…
Piece Of Mind
"As K.J. Gustin wrote, Piece Of Mind is a work of 'exotic psychedelic free-jazz-meets-rock, East-meets-West, progressive and smoky moment in late Twentieth Century music history'. Add to that a spice of jazzy brassed R&B and a touch of minor-key popsike sensitivity and you get an accurate description of the sounds contained in Roger Bunn's astonishing 1969 LP, originally released in the UK on the Major Minor budget label, but issued in some European countries (Ohr label in Germany or Phil…
Gridshifter
Stefan Nemeth: synthesizers. Steven Hess: drums (on B-Side). Bernhard Breuer: drums (on 'Dedispersion I & II'). Innode enters the world with an audacious debut of rhythm and sound, space and silence and an astonishing blend of the acoustic and the electronic. Spearheaded by Stefan Németh (cofounder of Radian, Lokai) in close collaboration with Steven Hess (Locrian, Pan American, Cleared) and Bernhard Breuer (Elektro Guzzi, Tumido), Gridshifter is an intense, astonishing sonic experience which na…
Centralia
Mountains’ music is defined by slow builds, and subtle transformations, textures and melodic lines that evolve in a variety of ways to create grand soundscapes and acutely detailed compositions. For Centralia, the duo of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg wrote and recorded in a way that mirrors the pace of their music. While the current trend in experimental music is towards hyper-prolificity, Mountains have taken their time on Centralia, resulting in an album that is as precise as it is boundl…
Kugeln / Wallerfangen
Here's the 2nd part in Dekorder's brand new series of highly limited Hybrid-Vinyl 12“ releases to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the label. It comes out simultaneously with parts 3 (Ensemble Economique) and 4 (Kemialliset Ystävät). The 1st part by Pye Corner Audio has been a massive success and sold out within two weeks (remaining copies are only available to subscribers).
Future contributions will feature new & exclusive recordings by Leyland Kirby, Excepter, Sonic Boom (EAR), Bill…
Princess Nicotine: Folk And Pop Sounds Of Myanmar (Burma)
...Vol. 1. Limited edition full-color gatefold LP version of the Sublime Frequencies CD release from 2004. Original description from 2004: How do they do it? Are they smarter? Are they better? How can it be ignored or denied? How is it possible that one of the most unique, perfectly composed and performed, intense and awe-inspiring musical legacies the world has ever known is looming north of the equator physically tucked between world cultural giants India, China, and Thailand, without more tha…
Spectral arrows : Rotterdam
Spectral Arrows is an ongoing series of long-duration performances for guitar and electronics. In Spectral Arrows, Fusinato arrives at the venue when it opens for business, sets up his equipment facing a wall and proceeds to play for the whole day until the end of business hours. Fusinato presents himself here in the guise of a worker, clocking on and unceremoniously clocking off at the end, refusing to allow the behind-the-scenes mystery of rehearsals and preparations to lend an aura to the per…
Les archives de l'univers amnesique illustre
Coloured white vinyl in a run of 250 copies with inserts by each artist. A new pairing of minds and techniques on a steel-grey voyage across the treacherous Ifingr river. Kiyoharu Kuwayama, master of resonant spaces and junk objects holds the reins over three chapters of spiralling horror and madness. Sounds are coaxed out ashamed and blushing: the syphilitic cough, the cracked shin bone and the greasy sheen of night sweats wired up to a 9 volt battery. Wataru Kasahara plays the mysterious maske…
A vacant lot to be in
Jason Zeh is a hands-down master of cassette tape and cassette playback devices. Using magnets, metal, plastic, car stereo tape adapters, cassette players without tape, cassette tape loops, modified tape decks, and sand paper (among other devices), Zeh creates two tracks that swim through hiss, grit, and wavering, fractured soundwaves to create some of the most engaging audio I've had the pleasure to hear. This recording reflects not only Zeh's dedication to mastering and refining his source mat…
Footnote(s)
Originally published as a cdr in 2005, limited to hardly any copies on Feater one's Nest, in the period Joshua Burkett visited Europe for the first time, it was about time these beautiful recordings saw some day light again on wax! I've met various people on other planets that i could compare to friends closer to home, Bill Nace calls himself a "fat Vaast Colson", Vladimier looks like Phillip Quehenberger, Tarp's Conrad Capistran's laughter sounds simular to W Ravenveers grinning and so on…
Low Life / Last Exit
Two key 80s moments from Peter Brotzmann – split together here on a heavy LP! First up is material from the album Low Life – hard-handed work from the duo of Peter Brotzmann on reeds and Bill Laswell on bass – a set that's kind of a side project of the Last Exit quartet, and one that comes across with a similar sense of power! Laswell's handling a fair bit of basses here, often with a bit of processing – thanks partly to producer Martin Bisi – and there's a dark, electric undercurrent to the who…
Spit
Debut album from Ron Morelli, founder of the influential L.I.E.S. label featuring 8 electronic variants; from House and industrial tape experiments to saturated metallic beat tracks... There’s so much that could be said about Ron Morelli, his L.I.E.S. label, or the fact that his debut album comes to you via Hospital Productions, but instead, here are some words from the man himself. “I’m a regular guy, enjoy a good steak, drinking beer, and occasionally a game of pro basketball, Republican talk …
Nakatani Gong Orchestra
...Mindblowing!!!! "Perpetually rolling, Japanese-American master percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani holds a relentless schedule, road-bound in continuous dedication to his passion. His solo sets thunder with coaxed nuances from his kit, overlaid in staggering bounty. Nakatani is also fearless when it comes to collaboration, and seeks it out adventurously during his extensive tours. In this spirit of combined efforts, Nakatani Gong Orchestra shines a different light in each new location it arises. N…
Forms
Forms represents Pausal's sophomore production for Barge Recordings and sees the British duo merging their finely detailed sound design and ambience with a newly heightened sense of space and structure. Simon Bainton and Alex Smalley have clearly developed their compositional abilities since their earlier output; the ten pieces here are presented as four long tracks and feel natural in their melding of experimentation and harmonic progression. The rich, sprawling waves of aural grandeur a…