New Arrivals
Hippie Histories
Recordings made by John Chick in Bali in 2009. Chick was one of the original members of the Bardo Matrix crew (along with Dana Young, Gregg Sharits and Craig Love) which was a psychedelic lightshow in Boulder, Colorado at first. In the early seventies he moved to Kathmandu where he started the Spirit Catcher bookstore, which sold booklets of poetry and traditional rice prints from temple rubbings. It was under this imprint Ira Cohen and Angus MacLise published their works. He also ran the …
Blood Clot In The Brain
More magical psychedelic jamming coming from the toverstaf of Bart De Paepe (Sylvester Anfang II, Innercity, Amanita Vulva). The Moe Tucker-style primitive drums, guitars and harmonium are still there in this attempt at classic rock. Recorded during the hazy days when he suffered several blood clots. Cover by Anne Collet. Edition of 80 copies.
Ultrakosmos
With these two improvisations on keyboards and synths Antti Tolvi creates a sonic space with a constantly shifting center of gravity, a swirling foray into kaleidoscopic bliss. Edition of 100 copies.
Album, by Eline Mugaas and Elise Storsveen
Created entirely from found images, ALBUM collects the first ten issues of a zine by the same name begun by Eline Mugaas and Elise Storsveen in 2008. Comprised of full page photographic illustrations, advertisements, and other ubiquitous media images culled from etiquette manuals, cookbooks, travel magazines, craft books, fashion magazines, and sexual manuals, ALBUM reflects the popular imagery found in Scandinavian households from the 1960s through the 1980s. The chosen imagery is then a…
General Tempo
Second full length for the duo of Riccardo Mazza and Matteo Castro. Two long compositions that, while presenting the usual elements of the duo, made of tape works and field recordings, move forward, in a path in which the skeleton of the pieces is built on sounds of mechanisms and engines, manipulated through reel to reel, tape machines and digital effects. Tense and dynamic, the traces of this work move between a careful observation of the landscape and those repetitive, somehow …
Isswat
Few copies available, sold out at source - Tuareg drone recordings from Azawad region of the Sahara desert. Music of nostalgia, longing, and revolutionaries, sung by Fadimoutou Wallet Inamoud in her debut recording, a local production from 2008. Sparse rhythms and hand claps punctuate the meditative hypnosis, accompanied by a the signature vocal drone of her group. Lyric translations insert, some of the first ever translated isswat. Comes in beautiful printed and hand glued covers. Edition of 50…
Visitors
Visitors was the brain-child of French producer/composer/genius, and enfant terrible Jean-Pierre Massiera. In 1974, he recruited a group of nineteen musicians (most notably jazz violinist Didier Lockwood, who made an indelible mark on Magma's 1975 live album), to record his latest compositions. Massiera had been impressed by violin-fronted jazz-rock acts such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Jean-Luc Ponty. He decided that his new psychedelic nightmare should be a concept album on the theme of ex…
Anonym
Amazing treatment of one of the best titles on Yuzuru Agi's mythical Vanity label, the debut by Vocalist & Synth player Junko Tange - the "tiny girl" in the phrase "dedicated to the quiet men from a tiny girl" after which the second Nurse With Wound album was named; it's the byline here - & Guitarist Masami Yoshikawa's Tolerance project, originally released in October of 1979."Yikes! This is not a record: it's a ticket pressed in 12" format to get the f- outta this modern era of derivative n…
Candyman (Original 1992 Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Clive Barker who wrote the story for Candyman is a multi talented artist, painter, director & producer. The extent of his work is endless. Spawning the likes of Nightbreed, Hellraiser, Lord Of Illusions and the Books Of Blood just to name a few. Philip Glass also needs no introduction. Considered one of the most influential composers of the last century his works are featured in a multitude of movies like Koyaanisqatsi, Hamburger Hill, The Truman Show, etc. Mr. Glass was nominated for and won se…
Lahcen Akil And The Chaabi Brothers
Lahcen was born in 1969 in the village of Tamlalte in the Moroccan High Atlas. Influenced by acoustic music and traditional songs, he started making music at a very young age. Lahcen perfroms his songs on a lothar, an instrument that he made himself, with a wooden handle, a palm soundboard and goatskin. He is regularly accompanied by his brother on percussion.
Like Sunburned Snowflakes
Limited edition 45 RPM 12” of Alex Turnquist’s not-like-anyone-else guitar stylings, with 5 tracks using only plucked harmonics on his 12 string guitar. Using this limited palate of sounds, Turnquist crafts sparkling waves of notes, employing the minimalist sensibilities that have informed his more recent work (e.g. his 2011 VHF LP/CD release Hallway of Mirrors) on a smaller scale. The harmonics here are frequently struck hard and in complex patterns - this is arguably “new age” but not drifty-a…
Fountain Transmitter Meditations
Boggling and super-fun 100+ minutes from Neil Campbell's Astral Social Club, bringing you the head-on collision of classic UK electronic styles, electric grit, and THE FUTURE. The LP starts with a side of tight chuggers, the high-end racket of “Infinity Thug” ripping through the speakers as you make your way to the end of the side with the loping “Grisly Terroir.” Side 2 is the 20 minute epic “Diamonds in the Dreich,” a mid-tempo journey of Throbbing Gristle-ish lurch-pulse and disembodied voice…
Sings The Blues
Solo darkness from remarkably pedigreed but rarely recorded Japanese legend (Ghost, Fushitsusha, L, Marble Sheep, A-Musik, August Born, etc). Raw and gripping, like a darker version of his all-time folk-psych classic Holy Letters. Performed completely solo on voice, guitar, banjo, bass, steel guitar, and cornet, the music is almost uncomfortably blunt and rough around the edges – a “Tonight’s the Night”-like offhandedness that only serves to increase the feeling of existential seriousness. Like …
In a place of graceful shapes
In September, 2011, 12k released the boxed set by Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer titledIn A Place of Such Graceful Shapes containing a CD, a booklet of photographs and a clear-vinyl 7”— all carefully designed and integrated. All 500 copies of this box sold out by the beginning of 2012. As a special release to be debuted at the duo’s live performance at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin, Texas on April 15th, the artists have utilized a limited pressing of unlabeled white-vinyl 7”s and mad…
Invisible String
Invisible String is a collection of live recordings made by Gareth Dickson on his solo odyssey around Europe in 2012. From the banks of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, to a rooftop in Paris overlooking the Sacre Couer, by way of a slightly less glamorous stairwell in Caen, this relentless travelling and performing allowed Gareth to hone his art to its summit, and resulted in a bewitching batch of live performances. Brought to you here, to move your soul in the comfort of your own little kingdom. As t…
Playing in the Dirt
Great back-story - reprinted below - on this LP, issuing the home-recorded experimental music of Bob "R.A." Cantius, an instrument builder/performer and Electronic Music Composer working out of my own former stomping grounds of Northern New Jersey in the mid-late 60s.Sonically, there's a commonality with kindred trawlers such as Charlie Nothing, Allan Bryant - specifically the latter's "Space Guitars" LP - and even Harry Partch's inimitable constructs, all wrapped in the same grand "Aleat…
Cosmic Driftwood
"Second Crystalline Roses LP by local Renaissance man, Tony Pasquarosa, is a goddamn monster of readymade acid folk transcendentalism. Since Feeding Tube released the One Man Cult LP back in 2010, Tony has done a wonderful solo guitar album for VDSQ, the insane space-sludge of World Domination (FTR 123LP), the raunch zonk of Gluebag, and various other projects far too numerous to name. On this album, Tony creates a classic late night smoker soundtrack. A brilliant journey into and beyond ego,…
Interstices
Start with a room, a cleanish one, not too rustic, not too slick, and then fill it with tools, fill it with anything that can be used to make other things. Put the room in the forest, but not too deeply in, let’s have the city on the distant horizon. Then, let’s have two craftsman, artists, explorers. Tell them a bit about where the room is, but not exactly. Make them find it, together. When they finally do they will embark on their creations, but it won’t be the immerse-and-shut-yourself-off-fr…
Music For Piano
"Although it might sound perverse to say so, Music for Piano may well be my favorite Gary Wilson record. Most people who dig Wilson are very into his lyrics, but I actually find them to be a bit taxing after a while. Those early records all sound and feel amazing, but what I really wanted was to hear the music without the words. I had high hopes when I found a copy of Another Galaxy, the 1974 Gary Wilson Trio LP, but it had a very different heft than that which Gary displayed on You Think You…
Collected Recordings
In 2009 Drifting/Falling released Gareth Dickson’s debut album, Collected Recordings, a stunningly beautiful and haunting ambient folk album which caught the attention of 12k’s Taylor Deupree. Thus began a not-as-easy-as- expected search for Dickson to try to coax him into writing an album for 12k. After a couple of cross-Atlantic voyages and a brief run-in involving a failing rental car and a herd of sheep on a dusty Scotish road, Deupree and Dickson met and Quite A Way Away was recorded for 12…