New Arrivals
Decimus 8
**Limited to 300 copies in hand painted jackets* No Neck Blues Band guy Pat Murano heads deeper into the cosmos with the latest in his head-swallowing 'Decimus' series. There's an ostensible clarity to this installment distinguishing it from previous editions, with almost baroque synth work percolating through the first side before it cascades into billowing, blown-out distortion and physically wrenched drones, like being expanded and contracted by massive gravitational forces and element…
Babylon bypass
“Janne Martinkauppi (as, bs), Taneli Tuominen (ts), Sami Pekkola (as, ts), Jaakko Tolvi (dr), Petri Pirtilä (dr). Recorded 12.Dec. 2007. Recording, mixing and mastering Marko Yiianttila at Studio Kuu, Helsinki, Finland. TAKE YOUR DISSONANCE LIKE A MAN : From time to time, I suddenly realise just how differently it is possible to hear exactly same sounds using the exactly same, god-given hearing devices – your ears, that is. Of course, it's never about JUST hearing, it's always linked to w…
Zones Without People
'Zones Without People' was released in 2009 on a highly limited vinyl run for Arbor. All seven tracks featured in his Wire chart-topping 'Rifts' compilation, predating his mindblowing 'Returnal' album (surely one of the best of 2010) and displaying its prodigiously gifted creator amidst some of his most affective synthscapes. From the outset we could consider this to be classic material, as the miniature 'Computer Vision' - one of his very earliest creations circa 2004 - plugs into a spir…
Capricorn Born Again
Amanda from Pocahaunted joins Robedoor for this first full-length as Topaz Rags, and the album's a real winner, kicking off with 'Darker Sooner' sounding like a Portishead album recorded over the phone. Elsewhere, twisted blues and moaning, haunted house vocals convene for 'Sightings', and 'Wear You Thin' is like a chill-wave night terror. An uneasy listen, but Capricorn Born Again is a druggy, beautiful raincloud of a record that's got appeal beyond the more conventional parameters of the Not N…
Split
Limited vinyl pressing of this excellent split LP self-released by Grouper in this scarce second edition* The music on this split release arrives remastered after its initial release via C40 cassette a while back. Likeminded souls Eva Saelens (inca Ore) and Liz Harris (Grouper) are in brilliant form on these recordings, so it's great to hear them in a cleaned up format - though of course with these two, it's fairly difficult to tell where the muddy cassette hiss ends and the foggy, dusty …
Counterfeit Memories
Garbage freedom noise & riffage from Rochester gents John Schoen, R. Nuuja and Jason Finkbeiner. Liner notes are some sort of prose poetry (translated into arabic; including a reference to Armand Schaubroeck, no less) from everybody's batthroated hero Dylan Nyoukis
Alien column
Alien Column' is the first full length LP by the thick-smoke-filled-Michigan-basement duo of Chris Pottinger (Odd Clouds, Cotton Museum and the Tasty Soil label) and Heath Moerland (Sick Llama, Cygnus, Drug Abuse and the Fag Tapes label). Often described as a post-Wolf Eyes combo, Slither offer a mutant take on free jazz through their multiple electronics manipulations and dual horn tandem (alto saxophone and clarinet). An additional proof to why Michigan is currently the best place to be on ear…
Fugue
I began writing about this Tape & Bill Wells 'Fugue' record yesterday but I gave up as the words just were not coming to me. I guess that's probably a good sign though as I was just kind of getting into the melancholy zone of the record, which certainly is a thing of beauty. Wells' guitar playing is delicate and magical. The Tape guys really give him space to do his thing adding wonderful little details and twinkles into the mix. This quite simply is the prettiest, most charming record I …
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…
Persona
LP version. The is the second full-length release by Sweden's Andreas Tilliander as Mokira for the Type label. It's hard to believe that five years have passed since the release of Album, Tilliander's first outing on the Type label. Album marked the final stage in Andreas' development as a "laptop" artist, and since then he has collected synthesizer upon synthesizer and enough tape to make the boys in Berlin jealous. Ditching the zeroes and ones, Andreas set about piecing together a follow-up to…
Pressure
just wild and free. virginia genta (golden jooklo age, etc.) on tenor saxophone and andrew barker exploding drums. paste-on cover art. edition of only 115 numbered copies.
Go Grey
The second full-length release by U.S. Girls is an even more fully realized excursion into a hazy alternate universe where pop vocals and muzzy scree fuse in harmony. Go Grey conjures up ambient aerosols while luminous kaleidoscopes of sound sizzle, peak, and explode. Megan Remy is a chanteuse from (perhaps) the future, guiding all who choose to sail an evocative trip through her unique aural hallucinogenic landscapes. It's a journey of lush vistas, warm currents, and complex beauties. 23nd-Cent…
Midnight At Mary's House
"Vagabond American legend Carlos Gonzalez drops his first NNF full-length, and it's 10 of his greatest junkyard surf-slime tunes of all time. Edition of 500."
Je Suis Vivant, Mais J'ai Peur De Gilbert
LP Edition...from 1974. Amazing, underground concept Lp with musique fantastique behind spooky spoken word text / science fiction related narration. The music is superb, deep / gothic / weird and funky like the best J.P Massiera / William Sheller / Igor Wakhevitch productions. Strange arrangements and clever variations on a theme with lots of thudding hip hop style rock beats / fuzz distortions / Maledictus Sound style studio FX / filtered heavy breathing / electronics and other trippy instrumen…
Megafauna
Understand this: Yoga dispenses a sinister frailty of howling swellsin hissing static that combusts into crawling shock heaps, to the effectof Mayhem performing Twin Peaks incidentals in a prairie recordedby The KLF. A brief description casts them as black metal's answer to Throbbing Gristle. The texture-based rendering of their compositionssails them on a strange sea between song and sound effect as itbobs along the waves like a dead man s bottled message. Aspects ofGoblin rehearsals in dead hi…
A Year In The Kingdom
Since Joshua Tillman had his profile raised by association with Seattle folk favourites Fleet Foxes, whose drumsticks he wields, he hasn't exactly been making an attention-seeking racket in his solo career. In contrast to Fleet Foxes' dawn-chorus harmonising, Tillman favours a spare style, and his sixth solo album may be the year's most subdued record. "I possess a taste for blood. I have numbered mankind's days," the 28-year-old murmurs on "There Is no Good in Me", throwing in a reference to fi…
Bengt
Bengt is the new solo recording by Mats Gustafsson and is dedicated to Bengt Nordström. Mats Gustafsson plays a plastic alto sax. A classic Grafton sax. The type of sax that was used by Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman and Bengt Nordström. Nordström is best known having produced Albert Ayler´s first recording Something Different!!!!!! on his Bird Note imprint. It is in his own role as a sax player Bengt was truly inventive. Bengt was playing solo sax improvisation already in 1962 (!!!) Nor…
Ex Patris
The title Ex Patris (from the fathers) plays on the idiomatic baroque lute compositions presented here which emulate the classical repertoire. It also refers to this almost forgotten instrument, which was passed on by the fathers. The aim is to bring back and liberate the lute. The four compositions on Ex Patris form a circular narrative of interlocking repetitive melodic series. The follow up to Important release “ It is all that is made” kicks off with the pro apocalyptic track “The Day is Com…
Finstrenis
ALUK TODOLO are a recondite creature: part okkult black metal fiend & part snide kraut menace. Dry, spare percussion grievously mines the scrapes, shrieks, & shimmer of mutated guitar & bass. Recently feat. at 2009's WFMU Fest in Brooklyn, NY
\'Live @ Sensational Fix
On June 17, 2008, the exhibition Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix openedat LiFE in Saint-Nazaire, France, with a focus on their multi-disciplinary activitiessince 1981 collaborations with visual artists, filmmakers, designers,and musicians, as well as other works selected by the band.As part of the exhibition project, My Cat Is An Alien performed on stagewith their long-time collaborator Ramona Ponzini (Painting Petals OnPlanet Ghost, Black Magic Disco, Z ev) singing Japanese, Michael Mo…