New Arrivals
Journey from Anywhere
Compound Eye is Drew McDowall (formerly of Coil) and Tres Warren (Psychic Ills and Messages). Journey from Anywhere is their second album release following Origin of Silence, an art edition LP on The Spring Press label. This double LP features four sides of improvised electronics that lead the listener into the dark recesses of the duo's subterranean explorations. Each of these works move at a slow and considered pace, gradually unfolding into a transportative blur of dark psychedelic minim…
Surrender to the Fantasy
Stop right there, hands in the air! If you want to know what Magik Markers think is good for you, you'll Surrender to the Fantasy. For this long-desired alpus, they've been working in threes and stuff. Triangles. The hermetic trifecta of knowledge, Christ and the two thieves, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the original tagline of the Markers' symbol: '3 down, no to go.' Meaning, these three get it and literally no one else needs to, 'cept the record-buying public, tra la la, ha ha ha ha. STTF (nev…
I am the Center: private issue new age music in America, 1950-90
One of the best things about Seattle label Light in the Attic’s new new age compilation I Am the Center is that it doesn’t try and pretend that new age music was something that it’s not. Look at the album’s cover illustration and you’ll see an angel-like creature carrying an orb of yellow light through the clouds; open the gatefold and you’ll see what appears to be a bird made of stars launching itself out of the ocean. Press play and be delivered into over two hours of mind-numbingly mellow mus…
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Collaboration between Argentinian experimental musician Courtis (of Reynols) and sound artist Prins of the Netherlands."Born 1961 in Ijmuiden, the Netherlands, Gert-Jan Prins has been known for twenty years as one of the most challenging sound artists in the Netherlands and established himself as one of the central electronic performers in improvised music. His unique self-developed live-electronics make use of radio and transmitter technology, and create sounds with great physical energy. Prins…
Ecstasy & Refreshment
Further down the highway from last year's ace split with Roy Orb D.MT., Food Pyramid reach for lush neo Krautrock heights on 'Ecstasy & Refreshment'. They first break orbit with 'Dexedream''s stellar trajectory powered by twin-panned guitars and rocking rhythm machines to zones of swirling vocals, plateauing at the dreamy psych-house plains of 'Pacifier' and spinning dubwise with the corkscrewing, Ekoplekz-meets-Sun Araw-like scramble of Deep Fantasy'. Up there, the chiming African guitar chops …
This is folk music
Raphael Lyon is the enigma known as Mudboy. From the incredibly detailed art/packaging to bizarre mp3 releases attached to scrap metal or plant matter to Freddy Krueger-inspired art installations, Lyon has always been one of the strangest cats on the scene.This unique perspective also infects his music. Whereas many of today's kosmiche-influenced artists bubble up from the noise scene (with knob-twiddling pedal pusher seemingly a prequisite to sequencing synth jammer these days), Mudboy's work h…
Earth Liver
New full-length from San Francisco based Common Eider, King Eider. Themes, instrumentation, and vocal decay is stretched out even more dramatically by this mysterious band of outsiders. Genres bleed into each other and smear reality as elements of drone, doom, neo-folk, and black metal deliver a harrowing and somber reality of loss and emptiness. Silence weaves in and out of vocal arrangements, violas, and guitars creating unease throughout the entire listening experience. Four new pieces…
Wood Flute Songs: Anthology/Live 2006-2012
Some of the most amazing work we've ever heard from this legendary bassist – a set that's not based around music from a wooden flute, but which instead refers to the instrument in its title – as an illustration of the very organic approach of the work within! A 8CD box set of all previously unissued recordings by world-renowned bassist-composer-bandleader William Parker, a 2013 recipient of the Doris Duke Foundation's Artist Award. Parker is a wonderfully prolific composer, and over half of t…
Harmonie du Soir
Rhys Chatham's 'Harmonie Du Soir' presents three compositions. The title track is the first major piece written for the configuration of six electric guitars, electric bass and drums since Die Donnergtter (1986). The second is The Dream of Rhonabwy, a piece written for large brass ensemble and percussion, realized in 2012 by a 70-piece brass band called Harmonie de Pontarlier, lead by the French conductor Patrick Erard. The last track on the CD version and bonus download for the vinyl edition is…
in Tokyo
Four pieces of computer music. Iancu Dumitrescu \'Hazard and tectonics\' (2009 - 2013), \'Crepuscule I\' (2011-12), \'Early, before all times\' (2010-11). Ana-Maria Avram \'Metalstorm I\' (2012).
Trees Have Cancer Too
Duo of Pedro Sousa and Pedro Lopes, two portuguese young musicians, and some of the most exciting in the plastic, tonal and energic exploration of sound in a long time. Using sax (Sousa), turntables (Lopes) and a communal use of electronics, their music is admittedly nervous, obsessively bent over the following moment. Unlike other past forms of improvisation more concerned with listening and a certain purity of sound, this search is as focused as much as frantic in the pursuit of a new d…
Bamboo for two
"A Hypnagogic supergroup of sorts with a blast of hallucinatory and tropical rhythmic synth adventures - new on OESB! Comes with free download coupon redeemable from the label** Seductively heavy-lidded inter-species avian-eroticism from the hypnagogic allstars Spencer Clarke (Skaters), Lieven Martens (Dolphins Into The Future), Eva Van Duren (Orphan Fairytale) and James Ferraro (CEO Airhead Entertainment) on the ever-compelling OESB imprint. Monopoly Child Star Searchers is usually the reserve …
Live 1976
Well further gifts abound, as this 1976 concert on Galactic Zoo Disk/Drag City will attest. Clearly, the explorations of Sandy Bull were not lost on the far-out audiences of the Bay Area, and though the heady days of the '60s have gone, the Berkeley heads are still in full force, hanging on Sandy's every note with a clearly expressed delight as they wait for headliner Leo Kottke to take the stage. Even though there were no further albums after 1972's Demolition Derby (a candidate for unhi…
Damballah 58
Damballah 58 is the monstrous sequel to 2012's deadly Black Mamba 12". The title-track's diabolically addictive vaudou rhythms insinuate deeply before uncoiling convulsively into an irrevocable reclamation of the consciousness. The B-side features "Mamba Muntu" (sister track to the previous "River Mumma" and "Witness the Spread of the Dream"), the treacherously beautiful "Belladonna Theme," and the marauding, burning rush of "Immersion." Written and produced by William Bennett. Original vév…
Knot Invariants
Rotated and submerged. Drawn tight below the surface. Remnants of hair, string and wood.Tied across and back. Knot Invariants is Helena Gough’s third album. It was created using source material derived solely from recordings of cellists Anthea Caddy and Anton Lukoszevieze.
Peripheral
*nice Price * Peripheral is the fresh new effort by Airchamber3 and marks a step forward from their debut. The improvisational element is still central in their compositional method, but Peripheral (recorded in a period of four years) shows how the trio, occasionally augmented by some additional musicians - Vincenzo Vasi (Patton/Capossela), Dominic Cramp (Carla Bozulich), Barbara De Dominicis, Luminance Ratio - has been able to integrate elements of different genres maintaining an experimental e…
Lieu
FaravelliRatti is a duo comprised of Nicola Ratti (guitar) and Attila Faravelli (computer) who play with a tower of different prepared speakers and a taper recorder in between them. The idea is to fed speakers with different languages in the same space and have them resonate with the phisical space. Every speaker is prepared and positioned so the resonance can be controlled by the players, moving their bodies around the sound totem in between them. Their live set represent this idea, of building…
Mirrors & tides
Eyes closed, ears wide open, we are given freedom to dream the void. Sweeping, intricate, sometimes ominous yet always exuding a warmth and depth of emotion, The Stargazer's Assistant produces pure cinema of sound. For the new EP, David J. Smith (Guapo) is joined by Circle vocalist Mika Rttö', who sings on the heart-breaking 'Coral Butterfly'. David also had the honour of playing the late Finnish jazz drummer Edward Vesala's Sound & Fury collection of unique metal percussion. Ancient fore…
Financial Glam
Jar Moff returns with his second full-length, Financial Glam, a follow-up expanding on ideas first presented by the excellent Commercial Mouth debut LP PAN released earlier this year. Continuing with themes established on his previous LP, Financial Glam reflects the flux and tension of his home city, a gripping opus of grandiose crescendo and collapse, broken rhythm and disquieting calm. These intricately-composed collage works, constructed from hundreds of archived samples, provide a fitting…
Hacia Aquellos Bosques De Inmensidad
This third release from the Peruvian spiritual collective (roughly translated as Mountain Community) continues to deliver deeply personal devotional music honouring their natural surroundings in the river valley outside Lima. As with previous releases, much of the music was recorded and composed on the spot, making them truly unique improvisational journeys to inner peace. Like 70s krautrockers Amon Düül, with a communal vibe with religious overtones to their soothing, meditative music. Nature i…