New Arrivals
Atlantis
One of the key but underappreciated episodes in avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra's Atlantis sounds far out even today. Rather than a full-on assault on the senses, Atlantis is an exercise in build-up, with long, almost forlorn passages of Ra on electric keyboards setting a vast echo chamber for his Arkestra to spring forth within. Captured during one of the most adventurous periods for Sun Ra, *Atlantis* features the orchestral perfection of the best big bands of the century-and then proceeds towards mu…
Our Anthems
a duo project by Karla Borecky and Scott Foust from the Idea Fire Company plus long-time collab-orator Mike Popovich. They were actice in the mid- to late-1990s and released the album »Our Pledge« on SWILL RADIO at the time. »Our Anthems« was recorded in 1996 but remained unreleased until now. The sound is somewhat similar to IFCO, although within at least some sort of a song structure. The 12 pieces on the LP present themes and sketches of atmospheric musical beauty created by synths, haunting …
Black Love
Saxophonist Carlos Garnett recorded with Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis and Art Blakey. His 1974 spiritual jazz album features an amazing line-up of Reggie Lucas (Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins), Buster Williams, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Alex Blake (Sun Ra), Charles Sullivan, Mauricio Smith (Tito Puente), Norman Connors, and Billy Hart. Exact repro reissue.
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…
You Are The One I Pick
"Nottingham duo Felix make their Kranky debut with this fine and idiosyncratic collection of songs. The main focus here is the vocal/piano/cello talents of Lucinda Chua, whose sparse yet quirk-loaded minimalism receives guitar and bass backing from Chris Summerlin, who's probably best known for his work in the rock band Lords. Chua's writing is quite unlike anything else currently out there; her lyrics convey strange or often very simple, domesticated ideas delivered in a pared-down, plaintive f…
Carrion hut
“The revered beard brandishes pick ‘n’ mix. Carrion Hut collects five very different pieces recorded between 2003 and 2007. “The Frosted Growth” finds Nyoukis in Dubbletwee mode, snarling and barking at his multitracked self. While on the side-long “Late Night Vocal Gravy”, Nyoukis is at his most composerly. The real diamond, though, is the text piece “Strange New Ache”, originally written for Inside Wino Lodge but left off the final cut. The text – read out loud, inverted and mangled, by…
A hidden place
Sohrab was born in Tehran in 1984. He was seven when the Iran-Iraq war ended. His name, from an old poem called “Shahname”, means “rouge water”, which can also mean 'blood'. He started a punk band with his brother and a friend, which lasted about two years before splitting. Sohrab is totally isolated in Iran, with little or no connection to what is happening there. Sohrab is, like so many, displaced within his own country and occupies a similar internal cultural isolation. This is suggeste…
When California Falls Into the Sea
The product of more than a year's work, finds Caminiti shifting away from the evocation of the land elements and towards the urban- the coarseness of blood on the streets and people living in squalor juxtaposed with beautiful, fleeting moments like sun reflecting off of glass buildings into dingy puddles- to produce a dialogue where guitars float through the air weightlessly, weaving around each other like butterflies and other moments that are more solitary, monolithic excursions into the night…
Always Wrong
f you're wondering whether record labels still matter, consider the case of Wolf Eyes. Their last two widely distributed albums, 2004's Burned Mind and 2006's Human Animal, came out on Sub Pop and got lots of media attention, even landing the band on the cover of The Wire. Three years later, Wolf Eyes return with Always Wrong, a follow-up of sorts after reams of smaller-run releases. It came out on Hospital in May, and I can't find a single review beyond a few blog entries and tweets. Even The W…
In memoriam
As a memorial and a tribute to the art, life, and passing of a truly gifted artist and silver tongued poet, Divine Frequency Records would like to present "Grief", a limited 7 inch picture disc featuring the voice of Jhonn Balance. This release presents a solemn pair of hard to find and out of print tracks featuring his unique vocal talents. Besides his work as Coil, Balance was an avid collaborator and his…
Dispossession
Dispossession is the second full length from Brooklyn’s Mike Wexler, and his debut for Mexican Summer. An artist who defies easy categorization—a songwriter/guitarist without a traditionalist bone in his body, with an ear for far flung sound-worlds and sonic atmospheres both high & low, Wexler brings all of his manifold interests to bear in carving out a space for a singular vision uniquely attuned to the present moment. Dispossession is the product of over two years of intermittent recor…
L\'Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu
These sample-based constructions incorporated sounds from free-jazz, new electronic-generated sounds, classical modernism & vintage geographical recordings. Discordant segments of wailing, top-end violins give way to clunking rhythmic passages of metal marimbas & tuned percussion; free-roaming passages of rasping, low-end bass & the shuffle of free-jazz recall the work of Prestige-era Moondog, as well as aspects of Harry Partch's instrumentation via mid- to latter-day period Tom Waits. Atonal am…
Awakening
Long out-of-print cassette originally released on Sloow Tapes (Belgium) in an edition of 70 with hand colored inserts. Cassette sold out within a week and has become quite collectible. Recorded after Expo '70 played France in 2008, just weeks after the IAO festival where the label owner and musician met. Upon returning to the states, the experience spawned the 2 day recording session materializing these 2 improvised tracks with no overdubs. Both tracks begin with rhythmic beats and slowly …
psychic smog
New ASC effort on qbico, a duo this time. THIS is the social club for astral spirits..."
C-Section
British free jazz phenomenon Evan Parker with electronic and tape noise artist John Wiese in a set of real-time evolving improvisations intended for maximum volume. Vinyl version of the CD released earlier this year, but slightly different containing all the final mixes and edits of the sessions with a new and more intense mastering for the maximum listening experience. C-Section finds density in scarcity - deep, glacial muck bubbles emerge beneath Parker's inhuman circular breathing, only to pl…
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…
Future Days Live
This album is made up of one long jam session recorded live-in-studio at Inner Space in Cologne during the 1973 Future Days sessions. More ambient than their previous efforts, Future Days was also singer Damo Suzuki's final album with Can. Members of Can had first encountered the self-defined '20th century nomad,' Kenji 'Damo' Suzuki, a few years earlier on the streets of Cologne. It was shortly after original Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney had left the band and they were left without a singer…
Signs of a perfect disaster
**Limited edition of 300 copies on acid yellow wax with photocopied A4 insert** Rome, Italy's Sea Dweller make a gorgeous racket on their heavenly 2nd album of shoegaze dreampop. Returning to Upside Down Recordings after 2008's 'Underwater Town', they've seriously refined their sound in line with their too-obvious-to-mention influences. Head-flossing melodies made from reverb-effected and delayed guitar treatments swoon about vintage Alesis drum machines in clouds of old Crumar synths and…
Frkwys Vol. 07
2015 Repress. The full-length player of FRKWYS Vol. 7 features pieces improvised in various forms by David Borden, James Ferraro, Samuel Godin, Laurel Halo, and Daniel Lopatin. When Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never, Ford & Lopatin) and RVNG Intl. began discussing this FRKWYS collaboration, Borden's work in Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. and his seminal Music For Amplified Keyboard Instruments album were mutually / ecstatically acknowledged. While rooted in academia, Borden's minimalis…
Apocatastisis
released 10 march, 2007. performed and recorded by michael gibbons (bardo pond) over the course of 2006 in the lemur house, apocatastisis is a meditation on restoration and awakening. an inner voyage in seven parts consisting of guitars, effects, sitar, tabla and violin. a truly special record. from a one-time pressing of 677 hand-numbered copies. housed within sleeves that were individually silk-screened by alan sherry (SIWA). all pre-orders of this release also received copies of this 500mg bo…