New Arrivals
Let’s just see what happens
REL is proud to present the debut LP of the scottish duo USURPER (Ali Robertson and Malcy Duff). Creating a sound nearly impossible to describe, USURPER combines obsessive metallic clunk, destroyed voices, broken horns and dropped marbles (?), into dense fields of activity. Working towards an intuitive sound logic all it's own, USURPER creates a surreal, comic structure that is unmatched and an energy that will make you laugh as soon as you shake your head in bafflement. The B side features a tr…
Day before one
Frode Gjerstad (alto sax, bass clarinet) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) recorded 2000 by Frode. Cover art by Terry Nilssen-Love. 'Two men sitting on a balcony, old friends, right before dawn. Maybe sipping some nice cups of tea, maybe even something stronger. Talking about anything, things shared, opinions, the way of the world. From time to time the conversation heats up a bit, touches things that are not seen completely eye to eye, then (eventually, always) understanding, friendship, trust take…
The Freak Of Araby
Strictly limited edition on vinyl: Listen through Sir Richard Bishop’s six readily available solo albums, and you get the picture that the worldview of the former Sun City Girls’ guitarist is not only complex, but also more than a little ambiguous. What exactly is Richard Bishop? A dealer in the exotic? A dabbler in esoteric mysticism? A “traveling salesman”? The Freak of Araby doesn’t make Bishop’s worldview any simpler for us, but it does clarify it some. He is, first and foremost, a traveler,…
Kiri No Oto
Lawrence English's epic masterpiece - finally available on vinyl for the first time. Strictly limited edition - Initial copies come on white vinyl* One of the most memorable and absorbing albums released by the wonderful Touch label in recent years, "Kiri No Oto" was first released by them on CD in 2008 and has spent much of the intervening time lodged in our minds as one of the finer drone/field recording albums to have been made this century. Kiri No Oto (a Japanese phrase meaning 'sound…
Songs for the Gentle Man
"Originally released in 1971 on Dandelion Records this was Bridget St. John's second and, arguably, best album. Produced and scored by Pink Floyd collaborator Ron Geesin, Songs For The Gentle Man was recorded at Sound Techniques in Chelsea (where everybody from Fairport Convention to Nick Drake had made albums) and is a far more sophisticated work than its predecessor. Organized around a small chamber orchestra, Songs For The Gentle Man is a set of cool, pastel songs that simultaneously h…
Endless Falls
Endless Falls is the fifth full length release by Scott Morgan under the loscil moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil …
Luck In The Valley
LP version, presented in an old-style tip-on jacket with a hand-pasted letterpressed cover, limited edition...Like all pre-war recordings and all of Rose's releases, this album was recorded live. It was not created using overdubs but rather by recording a few 'takes' and selecting the best performance out of those. Rose stated, 'I wanted the songs to have an immediacy and spontaneity as they were being recorded. All the musicians chosen for the record know how to play the songs withou…
Live in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, July 25th, 1970
White vinyl LP release of saxophonist Albert Ayler's quartet with pianist Call Cobbs, bassist Steve Tintweiss, and drummer Allen Blairman performing in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France in 1970 (LP 1 of 2). Just a few months before Albert Ayler presumably jumped to his death from the Statue of Liberty ferry into the frigid November waters of NYC's East River he was on stage for two energy filled nights at the Fondation de Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. Little did he know at the time tha…
Emeralds
RESTOCKED!! Brand new full length from Cleveland's Emeralds recorded Aug-Sept 2008. Proper follow up to their debut LP 'Solar Bridge', 'EMERALDS' takes the thick drone sound of that LP and transforms it into an even more abstract and strange place. Visual music that lifts the listener up and transports them through tubes of sound occasionally to be swept into the opposite direction by an unexpected entrance into another world entirely. An intense journey that drops you off in a place just be…
\'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…
Split
The third LP in the series produced by Kommisar Hjuler and Mama Baer has just Mama Baer on one side and on the other side we find the highly respectable Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock. This originally Swiss project has moved to Japan ages ago, and there (and most likely anywhere else) he performs his pieces, aktions as they are called in the best performance tradition. Here a piece from April 2009 in Osaka and its quite a surprising one, if you know their previous work. Much of that older work consis…
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…
Rewolf
Remix albums might be the new live albums, but over the past few years, "sessions" have also come to prominence as a way for artists to reimagine or repurpose their music in a variety of different scenarios. Things like Daytrotter, La Blogotheque, Black Cab Sessions, "Don't Look Down" and other Pitchfork.tv shows, and AOL Sessions, have become the "MTV Unplugged" for the era of inexpensive digital technology, constantly shifting economic imperatives, and small-but-fervent online publ…
Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow was written and recorded as a follow-up to the Bill Fay Group's Time Of The Last Persecution. Although recorded between 1978 and 1981 this album never saw a release at the time, and it fell to the Durtro/Jnana label to unearth these lost 20 songs. Fay comes across as one of those artists who fell victim to the machinations of the music industry, with his first two albums going largely overlooked until an eventual resurgence in interest as the years passed. …
Test Leads
Includes digital download voucher redeemable from the label** Judging from his prolific output, L.A. dude M. Geddes Gengras must have a heavy carbon footprint. But we'll let him off 'cause he makes exceedingly good music. After techno odysseys as Personable, psych-dub trips with Sun Araw and The Congos, and duties in Robedoor, Pocahaunted and LA Vampires, he flies under his birth name for 'Test Leads', perhaps his purest and most honest revelation to date; two sprawling sides of throbbing womb b…
Irregularity/Homogeneity: Emerging from the Perturbation Field
one-sided lp of recordings from the installation of the same name (from a series of works, started in 1991, using fluorescent lamps). Description: an irregular state, when it surrounds us, makes us unable to identify individual things, or to find any law of variations within it. We usually regard it as having no significant nature more than the specific nature from which emerges repetition. It seems homogeneous rather than heterogeneous because we feel it as a form of flatness without spec…
Rising above
one breathless long track, where you'd hear a mesmerizing Virginia's solo in a Rolando Kirk style, playing soprano and tenor in unison. back to the roots Recorded in October 2009, ultra limited 99 copies only
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…
Plague Of Fantasies
Brand new solo material from Aidan Baker, one of the most prolific musicians recording at the moment, Aidan creates such a wide array of musical sound its hard to keep track, not only does he perform as part of the fantastic Nadja, as well as in projects such as ARC, and collaborating with other luminaries such as Tim Hecker, he releases a whole host of solo material. This new solo record is really something, pulling together all the genres he works in, fusing heavy drones, with broken drums bea…
ladybird labyrinth
orphan fairytale is the solo monniker of eva van deuren, member of the lady folk troupe MASKESMACHINE, who started blowing my mind 12 years ago as a street performance troupe in antwerp. besides my own ladyfriend, i don't think i know anyone better than eva, and her boyfriend (audiobot madman) carlo steegen. for some reason this makes it even more difficult to write a decent description for this record, we live in the same mansion, and i could write a lot of stories about doing the dishes togeth…