New Arrivals
Joka Baya
First in a trio of limited edition new LP’s from the ever mysterious Vibracathedral crew, returning from another relatively quiet period with an uncompromising set of outre’ jams. Slightly reorganized around a lineup of stalwarts Mick Flower and Adam Davenport with frequent collaborators John Godbert (Total) and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man), the band here stretches way, way out over these six sides, taking in several different styles while maintaining “that” sound all the way through…
Marking Time
Originally released on CD in 2008 on the Preservation label, & now available on vinyl for the 1st time. Using a selection of bowed string instruments & lavishing these sustained howls w/ the most delicate of fingerpicked guitar & gentle piano, he takes us through a most harrowing journey. These short songs are deft & deeply touching musings on loss & on the importance of time. Comparisons could be made to plenty of Richard's modern-classical or avant-folk contemporaries, but few imbue their musi…
The Hour Is Now
An excellent compilation of beautiful early 70s folk tunes from three LPs that that legendary acid-folk hippy-goddess Collie Ryan recorded in 1973, pretty much in Fahey/Basho vein
Swing Low Sweet Spiritual
Following a few years spent living and playing in Scandinavia, an unknown saxophone player by the name of Albert Ayler returned home to the USA to begin imposing his revolutionary style of jazz on the world. Having recorded his debut album, My Name Is Albert Ayler for the Danish label, Debut Records, this session (which took place in New York City on 24 February 1964) was his first American effort, resulting in the eventual release of two albums: Spirits (released in 1964 on Debut) and Swi…
Under Stellar Stream
For his latest album, UK avant-folk maverick Richard Youngs seems to be converging on some of the most assured and firm-footed vocal work of his career to date, fashioning rock-solid songs from typically leftfield instrumental tactics. On 'Broke Up By Night', Youngs sounds like a gnarled old folkie of almost Ewan MacColl proportions, albeit accompanied by organ drone and wispy electronics. It's a rather magical, mantra-like cadence he elicits, and the album springboards nicely from this point. S…
Rain in skull
Australian Charles Curse's music is one of the weirdest things I've come across all year. On Rain In Skull, fragments of disjointed folk melodies move across a plain of wheezing chords, tape hiss, children's voices, ambient washes, amp hum, electronic glitch and bits of buzz in general. The contrast between downcast guitar playing and the physical claustrophobia-inducing weight of sound is equally perplexing and intriguing. It's all presented in a decidedly lo-fi environment but the sound constr…
s\\t
Great & rough Split-LP with both sides recorded 1996. Beast People (Dilloway, Harper, Young ?) with tracks pulled off very rare tapes. Schimpfluch side features collage of (previously unreleased) R&G studio material and Schimpfluch Group-Actions performed live. Highly recommended! Edition of 300 copies with cover-art & photography by Rudolf Eb.er.
Lauschen
"Kluster (1969) metamorphosed into Cluster (1971) and Cluster became Qluster (2011). In a period spanning over 40 years, Hans-Joachim Roedelius was a driving force behind this unique transformation. Now, as Qluster, he has recorded together with Onnen Bock in the latest incarnation. Three albums already released document the current status of their musical journey to pastures new. Lauschen is not a studio album, but a live recording of a performance for which Roedelius and Bock invited world mus…
Other Planes of There
Other Planes of There (1964) presents Sun Ra (piano) and his Solar Arkestra once again pushing the boundaries on five Ra originals. The exceedingly experimental works are marked by the performers as much as they are by the compositions. The opening title track is an expansive suite of sounds adhering only to the boundless limits of the combo's sonic canvas. Each soloist is given ample room to propel the piece between the inspired Arkestra interjections, which in turn clears the way for the next …
Regine Flory
Limited to 200. Zak Boerger's combination of fuzz, acoustic guitar & extended downer ballads most immediately aligns him with the New Zealand scene centered around Peter Jefferies & Alastair Galbraith as well as associated international satellites like Flying Saucer Attack & the Twisted Village roster, but there's a lonesome edge to the music that would situate it ouside of any particular historical tradition & closer to the mystery school of regional private press obscurities. The acoustic trac…
Astra & Knyst
Now Voks is finally presenting his first full-length album (though only 30 minutes long this is epic in Voks' universe - both 3"CD's included 10 tracks each within 20 minutes). While keeping his trademark style of hyperactive and nervous high-pitched twisted pop songs a newborn interest in (italo-western) movie soundtracks seems to be evident. The sound of super fast surf guitars is colliding with what seems chinese opera samples, world music is combined with children's whisteling tunes. Think R…
Shot
ultralimited lavishly packaged LP (100 handnumbered copies only!), this ground-breaking electro-acoustic trio made my day. The album is largely improvised, with extracts of Charles Bukowski’s poetic works overlapping on the interweavings and multiple stratiï¬Âed references in the trio’s music. It features a faceted palette of acoustic, analogue and digital colours: drums, metallic objects, ethnical instruments, samples, sequences, filtered voice, pedal effects, vinyls, digital electronic…
Stone/Water
With any sizeable Brötzmann group, the temptation is always there to compare it to his classic Machine Gun unit. This new tentet doesn’t match up to the unbridled ferocity of that earlier grouping, but then what has? Perhaps the greatest sea change since the heavy-drinking glory days of 1968 is that ecstatic playing is now as much an idiom as an instinctive response. For all its supposed iconoclastic freedom, this idiom now has its own traditions, its own heroes, and its own stock cliches. Youth…
(Fake) The Facts
After the runaway success of the Akita/Gustafsson/O'Rourke LP One Bird Two Bird (DEMEGO 016LP), Swedish sax legend Mats Gustafsson returns to Editions Mego with another storming collaboration. Now a resident of Vienna, he teamed up with experimental artists dieb13 and Martin Siewert for a live and studio session. (Fake) The Facts is the result. A dense fog of sound comes from all directions, but whereas the general impetus is a full-on attack, the trio finds enough restraint to create a deepe…
La Strega And The Cunning Man In The Smoke
Doom rock pioneer, influential drone-master, occultist and professed anglophile, Dylan Carlson ov Earth comissioned by the Southern studios on 16th April, 2012 to record six covers and one original song, found on his latest Drcarlsonalbion issue. Accompanied by Teresa Colamonaco on vocals and Jodie Cox on guitar, 'La Strega and The Cunning Man In The Smoke' continues a progression from his ace instrumental recordings for The Tapeworm to the more recent, collaboration-oriented work 'Modern…
Englabörn
Upon setting out to score the music for the play Englaborn by Havar Sigurjonsson, Johann Johannsson, co-founder of the Icelandic arts organisation Kitchen Motors, came upon a text by the Latin poet Catullus which roughly translates as, I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you might ask? I dont know, but I feel it happening to me, and it's tearing me apart. This poem concisely bridges the emotional opposites which clashed within the play itself. As the play's content was extremely violent and distu…
Flammende Herzen
Michael Rother (half of the influential Krautrock group Neu! and a founding member of Kraftwerk and Harmonia) recorded this first solo album with producer Conny Plank in 1976. Rother's signature guitar sound, the mechanical percussion (Jaki Liebezeit of Can) and the simple yet outerworldly anthemic melodies make Flammende Herzen an outstanding and visionary record."Finally reissued on vinyl, this is the 1976 solo debut from from Neu!/Harmonia guitarist Michael Rother. This would be the fir…
Time Building
I started making music in earnest in 1994 with a Casio keyboard and a four-track cassette recorder. Since 1996 I have been using a Korg MS10 analogue synthesiser and some effects pedals which I have added over time Ñ delays, phasers, a ring modulator and a pattern generator. Occasionally I use acoustic sounds as well. On this LP, I made extensive use of a pattern generator (a Moog Murf) in combination with other effects. Before recording anything, I spend time designing and shaping the sounds I'…
The Rising
Call Back The Giants first surprised and delighted the listening world in 2010, with their warmly-recieved eponymous debut album. Since that time, the duo of Tim Goss and Chloe Mutter have been locked in perfect isolation, teasing every nuance of their sound into sharp focus. The Rising presents the results of their toil, exposing Call Back The Giants as true masters of cryptic intent. Homespun keyboard minimalism, wavering teenage laments, and foreboding pronouncements of doom, synthesize into …
Tortoise
Sold out on vinyl for many years the 1994 self-titled debut from Tortoise is finally back! This 2012 edition has been remastered to vinyl by Roger Seibel at SAE Mastering. The packaging emulates the original with a chipboard jacket that was custom silk-screened by Dan Macadam at Crosshair in Chicago. Also included is an insert and a free download coupon.