New Arrivals
Eye of the microphone
A somewhat surreal audio rendition of the sounds of The City of London. BJ Nilsen (b,1975 Sweden) is a sound and recording artist. His work is based on the sound of nature and its effect on humans. Heprimarily uses fieldrecordings and electronic composition as a working method. He has worked for film, television, theatre, dance and as sound designer. Track notes: In 2012 I received a scholarship from the Leverhulme Trust for a one-year Artist in Residency at the UCL Urban Laboratory in London, …
Identity Picks
"Over the last decade, Burlington, Vermont songwriter/producer Ryan Power has tirelessly embarked on the quest to write the definitive song based music, full of accuracy, refinement, deliberation, and perfectly-placed shifting harmonic puzzles. Ryan's latest Identity Picks for NNA Tapes is an eight track song cycle that dances through lush jazz pads, aquatic smooth jazz funk styles, and the sensitive side of progressive rock. These songs are long, shifting compositions, slowly unfolding an…
Brokeback And The Black Rock
In the fall of 2010, when Douglas McCombs convened a new version of the band, Brokeback hadn't played a live show for more than two years and had not recorded any new music for eight. The band, a long-running side project for Tortoise and Eleventh Dream Day's Douglas McCombs, had stiffened up, sometimes getting lost in a welter of meticulously constructed electronics. McCombs's idea was not to start over, exactly, but to start fresh, approaching similar harmonic content from a different directio…
The Stargate Tapes
"Sharing social circles and spiritual ideologies with artists such as Iasos, Connie Demby and Deuter, whilst splitting label release schedules with Laraaji, Laurie Spiegel and Wendy Carlos, the unique Florida raised soul mate duo known as Emerald Web released their privately pressed debut LP at an axis where post-prog rock met proto-new age and ambient electronic music. At the turn of the 1980s Bob Stohl and Kat Epple embarked on a ten-year spiritual journey playing at planetariums and laser sho…
Message Bag
We come burdened with the glorious purpose of having readied the latest recordings by Messages, a double LP set called Message Bag. It's a set of pieces that imparts a vibe rife with history, and yet clearly focused on the future. You buy these 2 LPs, poster and insert in a bag, but in all of its formats and strategies Message Bag operates as a return to an unresolved system, as an alternative to the rest of yr choices, and bestows something that can't be bought. We call it Wisdom.
Open
"Following on from their two track LP release, Mindset (2011), Open sees legendary artists-in-resonance The Necks return to the territory they are best known for, a single piece running for over an hour. The piece emanates a calm, immersive stillness throughout. Already The Wire has said that Open "(displays The Necks') astute handling of pacing and momentum, finely honed collective sense of timing, (and) their shared ability to balance at length a group equilibrium". Here the band returns…
Prince Of Truth
Beginning with her first Constellation release in 2006, Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista project has steadily been gaining recognition for its complex beauty and fierce, raging appeals. Bozulich has been knocking these and many other ideas into form for two decades (Neon Veins, Ethyl Meatplow, The Geraldine Fibbers, Scarnella). Evangelista is the best and the brightest, filled with adventurous risk taking that sometimes whispers and licks, sometimes pulls the listener so close that it is hard to bre…
Zack Gluck
Effortlessly fusing krautrock with jazz and ethnic music, Embryo were unparalleled in the world of progressive fusion and 1984's Zack Glück is one of their most ambitious and rewarding LPs. Flutes and saxophones mix with oud, marimba and violin to make an intoxication concoction. Originally released on Italian's Sonori label, Mirumir is pleased to present the very first official vinyl reissue of this prog classic.
Hertta Lussu Assa
Lau Nau, Islaja, and Kuupuu all together in one band - it's like the dreamiest aQ daydream come true! All three of these ladies have been responsible for some of the most mystical and beautiful recordings of the last few years, all of which have become permanent favorites with everyone here. Lau Nau, and Islaja's recent recordings have shown them moving toward a more direct approach in their songwriting, but this project really lets all of these ladies dig deep into their textured, exper…
Black Magic & Mustache
Seattle-based Simon Henneman's first solo vinyl release is here. Mr. Henneman has worn many hats in the musical vortex of the Seattle sub-underground, most "famously" as one of the Diminished Men, who released an LP on the Sun City Girls Abduction label in 2009. That LP gave the lucky few who procured a copy an idea of the talents of that great band. Here, Mr. Henneman strikes out on his own and creates a solo journey of a much more intimate palette. Playing every instrument on the reco…
Music For Fireworks
In 1978, Philippe Genion bought a guitar for 1000 belgian francs (25€). He connected it to his hifi amp, quickly learned how to play "smoke on the water" and a few punk songs with two fingers and within two weeks, pushing the amp more and more to the limit, blew his 200W speakers out. Later, around 1980, he bought an old ARP synthesizer from walloon band "Jo Lemaire plus Flouze" and started playing with these instruments and a few old flanger and distorsion pedals, and started recording so…
Erotic Yorkshire
Mutant Ape is the insane noise project by Yorkshire, UK resident George Proctor. George runs the Turgid Animal label, which since 2005 has been the go-to place for harsh noise, power electronics and other demented spuzz releasing over 500 CDs, CDRS, cassettes, LPs, 10"s, 7"s etc. He has been releasing Mutant Ape sounds wherever and whenever establishing his classic yet contemporary noise/horror vision of lust and spectacle as one of the premier scum artists of the last decade. Erotic Yorkshire i…
Correspondances
I had heard so much about the machine created by Daniel Aspuru that my curiosity turned to desire. The transductor eolico is not an easy item to move around and as there were no concerts on the horizon I decided to follow my intuition and invite Steven, Daniel and Manrico to spend some time in La Perrera, located in my house in Oaxaca, Mexico in order to experiment with the TE and eventually produce material for a record.During this ten day residence La Perrera was transformed into a recording s…
Song Islands Vol. 2
Song Islands Vol. 2, released under the Mount Eerie moniker as opposed to Microphones like the original Song Islands compilation, is a sizable compendium of songs covering from the 2002 release of Song Islands to the present day. Coming in at a total of 31 tracks, Song Islands Vol. 2 continues Phil Elverum’s powerful and decidedly exploratory musical style. The compilation maintains an incredible sense of intimacy, even when the vocals get choral, which is on the precipice of being the rule as o…
El Pianista del Antifaz
French-Catalan musician Pascal Comelade's world is atypical and his inspirations come from many different sources -- from contemporary music to The Cramps -- making him one of the most creative and original artists of our times. At the crossroads of many different arts, never where he's expected, he never ceases to surprise his audience, taking the listener on poetic paths of primitive perception. El Pianista del Antifaz is the latest album in Comelade's galaxy. The artwork was designed by Du…
Kilo
Finnish experimental electronic musician Mika Vainio's first solo album for Blast First sees him return to his classic power electronics/heavy beats approach that made Pan Sonic garner a worldwide reputation. The album developed from Vainio's recent live sets to make 10 tersely-titled tracks inspired by the shipping container industry. Four stars in Mojo: "heavy-freight," The Quietus describes it as "fearsome."
A Birthday Tribute - 75 Years
Five recordings, 2 from 1977 at Tempo Natural and 3 from 1993, where Tony Oxley leads various permutations of improvisers Derek Bailey, Paul Rutherford, Pat Thomas, Matt Wand, Phillip Wachsmann, Ian Brighton. The first track from 1993 brings all musicians together for a 29 minute work of great dynamic and dialog. The following track present a quartet with Oxley, Bailey, Thomas and Wand from the same session, and the final 1993 track is the duo of Oxley and Rutherford. The first '77 tra…
Indoor_outdoor
The absolute deep electric-rain-forest sound atmosphere that the listener will hear on this record is the tip of the iceberg of a same rich and elaborate work process. For over 30 years, Norbert Möslang is making the world sound. He does not use things as instruments, but rather captures their vibrations. He immerses himself in the hidden world of vibrations and convert them into loud sounds and thick textures.Living simultaneously in spheres of inside/outside, micro-vibrations, spacial structur…
A Red Score In Tile
Composed in 1979 and inspired by James Elaine's painting of the same name. First released on Three Poplars on LP in 2003. Cover picture: A Red Score In Tile (L'Apocalyse des Animaux), detail, James Elaine, 1979. Canvas, acrylic paint, taxidermied animals. 112" x 120". Title on disc and inner face of back insert: "a red score in tile (1979)".
Rufen
Rufen is the second installment in a trilogy of Qluster music, following on from the Fragen (BB 076CD/LP) studio album. In four impressive live recordings, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Onnen Bock unfold aural panoramas which can only be described, in the truest sense of the word, as fantastic. Had Claude Debussy not already composed 'Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun,' then Qluster would have been ideally placed to do so, their transparency and polymorphism so reminiscent of his high Impression…