New Arrivals
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…
Psycho-System
My Cat Is An Alien's most extreme work to date. The most advanced expression of their current creative method of composition through the brothers' brand new self-made strings and electronic instrumentation. A black swamp full of analog processing and whirling drones with Maurizio Opalio playing self-made double-bodied string instrument, handmade pocket harp, antique zither, drums, percussion, sticks, cymbals, bells, gong, space modulator, real-time loops. While his brother Roberto Opalio …
White Metal
“White Metal” is a new piece by Michael Pisaro, realised by the composer and Miguel Prado. “When I first heard that Michael was thinking of working on a project with the name “White Metal”, I contacted him, excited to know more about it. At first we talked about general aspects of the piece, without knowing the route it would take, beyond a couple of conceptual premises. At some point, Michael suggested that this project be included in his “Grey Series” a series of noise-oriented scores he was …
Parallel / Grayscale
Parallel/Grayscale is the first collaborative work between Italian guitarist and composer Giuseppe Ielasi and French-Swiss composer and electroacoustic musician Kassel Jaeger. It is comprised of two different improvisation sessions. The first one took place in Paris, in October of 2011. The second happened in Oreno, in June of 2012, after the first concert Ielasi and Jaeger performed together. The first session was a pure analog device improvisation, whereas the second one was more laptop-o…
Stroomtoon II
"In December 2011 I recorded the album Stroomtoon, which was released by the French Nuun label the year after. The music was constructed using recordings from improvisations with a setup that I was trying out for upcoming live performances. It's the same setup that I still use nowadays, mainly consisting of an old Phillips analogue tone generator and a selection of effects units. When making Stroomtoon, it felt like moving into new territory that was worth explore more. While that album is very …
The Letter
This is the first album by Liberez, a group formed by recording engineer John Hannon and Pete Wilkins in Southend. The project began life exploring a deconstruction of the traditional "band" form before expanding to a quartet with the addition of vocalist Nina Bosnic, and multi-instrumentalist Tom James Scott. Musically rooted in improvisation, the band sought a progression from the loosely described "noise rock" sound at their inception into more abstract territories. The tracks were recorded a…
Drowning / Untitled #185
Back in stock in very limited quantity. 'Francisco Lopez is perhaps best known for his dynamic studio and live performances that sway between crushing silence and dynamic, shifting volume swells. Over the course of 25 years, Lopez has developed and honed a refined audio lexicon. Michael Gendreau entered the experimental sound community in the early 1980s with his project Crawling With Tarts. As a solo artist, Gendreau caught everyone s attention with the 2002 release of his CD 55 pas de la ligne…
On Onions
On Onions is a photographic study of onions by Israeli-born artist Elad Lassry (born 1977). Characteristically highlighting the spectrum of hues and shapes for the vegetable, Lassry’s selected taxonomy includes sections on red, yellow and white onions, each of which possesses its own distinct taste and benefits. On Onions is Lassry’s first artist’s book, and the work will exist only in book form; it is at once wry, refreshing and disorienting in its biology workbook style, which makes fru…
Schizophrenia Party (Director's Cut)
Reissued on vinyl for the first time, in a strictly limited-edition of 500 copies. Comes with four exclusive bonus tracks. Schizophrenia Party (Director's Cut) represents the second chapter in the career of UK underground heroes Family Fodder after their legendary debut Monkey Banana Kitchen. This full-length album features the complete 12" EP Schizophrenia Party (including the nine-minute monster tune "Dinosaur Sex") from 1981 and the 7" singles Film Music (1981) and The Big Dig(1982), all orig…
Marvellous Boy: Calypso From West Africa
Marvellous Boy Calypso From West Africa HONEST JON'S RECORDS **** endlessly satisfying' (Boston Phoenix); 'Blending cheeky calypso with rocking highlife — and by turns breezy, wistful and downright uproarious' (Daily Telegraph); 'gems at every turn... weaving highlife, swing, military brass bands, Afro-Cuban jazz, into a hell of a compilation... Honest Jon's have added to the highest order of this simple music of heartbreaking celebration' (Brainwashed). The inter-war dance bands of British West…
Monorails and Satellites
180 gram vinyl version. Tracklisting: Space Towers, Cogitation, Skylight, The Alter Destiny, Easy Street, Blue Differentials, Monorails and Satellites, The Galaxy Way. Recorded at Sun Studios, New York 1966 (a home recording).
Staring Into The Sun: Ethiopian Tribal Music
A contemporary survey of the tribal music of Ethiopia. Recorded in 2009 by Olivia Wyatt, this double LP showcases an array of mind-blowing sounds from the "land of eternal sunshine." Presented in this visually stunning gatefold are audio examples ranging from remote tribes -- of the Ethiopian highlands, the lower Omo and the Great Rift Valley -- to their electric analogues in the sweaty beerhalls of Addis Ababa. This collection features songs from the Azmari, poet-musicians who play the k…
Vaincu.Va! Live at Western Front 1978
Western Front New Music is proud to announceÊEvan Parker's return to the Western Front to celebrate our 40th anniversary with a live performance and the release ofÊVaincu.Va! Live at the Western Front 1978. Restored and mastered from the original archived quarter-inch tape that captured his dynamic, innovative performance 34 years ago, Parker'sÊVaincu.Va!Êremains well ahead of its time. His work is unconventional and unpredictable, and this album, to be issued on limited-edition LP, with n…
Lifespans
Lifespans is a mesmerizing and hallucinating piece of electronic music. Listen to it at a fairly loud volume, or with headphones, and you will hear myriads of voices and melodies, never repeating themselves
We Will Always Be
There's a disarming honesty to the way Michigan-based husband and wife duo Windy & Carl communicate with one another. A blog post from Windy, published in late 2011, describes the making of We Will Always Be, framing it in the context of their relationship. "Yeah, we have had bumps in the road, and on occasion it seems as if we may never recover from these bumps, but we do," she wrote. That type of candor doesn't stop at the written word; it also bleeds through into the duo's music. Often their …
Cover Versions
Andrew Pekler selected 300 different covers from second-hand records and, using colorful geometric elements to cover over all titles, performer’s names, and label logos, removed traces of the covers’ original contexts. The sunsets, couples in silhouette, alpine panoramas, roses on pianos, female faces in close-up, and seascapes no longer serve as the packaging for easy listening and exotica. Instead, the romantic, bizarre and intriguingly bland images of the original covers are free to lend thei…
Black Tie
LP version. Includes mp3 download and full-color poster. After two bone-chilling full-lengths for the Type Recordings imprint, Erik K. Skodvin has embarked on his first journey for his own Miasmah label with Black Tie. While originally conceived as a soundtrack to an installation by Norwegian artist Marit Følstad, Skodvin uses this as a starting point to craft his most unnerving long-form pieces to date. Split into two distinct movements, "Black Tie" and "White Noise," we are exposed to the y…
Live at the Cairo High Cinema Institute
I saw him at a street party in Giza where a few hundred people had amassed to dance and scream into the night. Flanked by Khaled Mando and Islam Tata, his two drummers pounding furiously asthe signature tone of his synth intensified for almost two hours, Islam Chipsy demonstrated his completely revolutionary take on modern Egyptian Shaabi. The sound was raw and distorted, thevolume was deafening, and the energy was high. Thirty minutes into the set, the trio pulled out blindfolds and put them on…
The Prophecy
John Zorn and Bill Laswell are two of the Downtown scene’s most consistently intrepid musical explorers, and PainKiller, formed in 1991 is their longest running project together. “The Prophecy,” the first official PainKiller release in over ten years, was recorded live in Europe in 2004–5 and pulls together music from several concerts into a powerful and mind blowing suite unlike anything the group has ever released before. Featuring master drummer Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins, Korekyojin) the music t…