New Arrivals
Elegy For Rusted Souls
After their last release from 1982, the seminal "California Babylon", San Francisco industrial pioneers Factrix are back with a new studio album, recorded together with Italian duo Control Unit (whose critically acclaimed debut "The Fugitives" was released on Backwards last year). The quartet formed by Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, Silvia Kastel and Ninni Morgia moulds a new language of industrial music with guitars, bass and electronics, resulting in a fusion of acoustic and electric elements, pri…
KK Null + The Noiser
KK Null (computer, kaospad, voice, member of Zeni Geva). The Noiser (machines, kaospad, voice, member of Formanex). For few years now KK Null and The Noiser had been playing together through Europe giving their best version of a new noise and contemporary music mixing critical beats, electroacoustic composition combined with improvised sound poetry and extreme post-punk. This first album of their collaboration, released by Monotype Records, is a glimpse of their relation to live acts and studio …
Ununhexium/Collapsed
Ununhexium is the sixth release in Raster-Noton's Unun series. Emptyset is a Bristol-based project formed by James Ginzburg, director of the Multiverse Studios and the curator and electronic artist Paul Purgas. Collapsed is Emptyset's first release on Raster-Noton and investigates the threshold where sonic structure is destabilized to the point where a chaotic order emerges. Across the four tracks a structural grammar is defined and then pushed to excess to the point where it reforms from re…
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…
Psychomagia
"Psychomagia" is the new album by the fabulous quartet of Abraxas, the acclaimed tribal rock arrangements for the Book of Angels series. Here they perform a complex new suite of music written expressly for them by Downtown alchemist John Zorn. Drawing inspiration from the magical writings of Giordano Bruno and Alejandro Jodorowski and others, Zorn has written a bold collection of compositions that challenge the musicians to the breaking point. With a program ranging from some of the most …
Spilt
Nate Young airs two of his alter egos on this great split LP: Demons, featuring Steve Kenney (oh you know, Steve Kenney - he's in those well-known beat combos The Pterodactyls and Isis & Werewolves.... No?) and Hatred, which combines Young once again with Kenney, but this time with the added presence of Spence Bryant. The Hatred side sounds like the motor on your turntable is continually breaking down, as if some perpetual Technics power-down effect was causing all manner of primitive pitch-slid…
Church organ works
The three piece group from Portugal explore in ten tracks the possibilities of the church organ. The members play in various combinations on different organs. The outcome is very varied. The opening piece is barely audible, but the second piece is a loud, repitive, all register open one. Of course it's hard to see this music without any religious overtones, but Osso Exotico don't give a clue in that direction: all their pieces are untitled. Meditative pieces in most cases, but less minimal then …
Voyeur
Husband-and-wife duo, Will Long and Danielle Baquet-Long, who self-released handmade items and created sound for installations and exhibits along with producing conventional releases. "A few years ago I was commissioned by a film company in California to create a musical score for a film inspired by the Hitchcock 1954 film Rear Window, but with a more surrealist, two-sided viewer plot. As filming hadn't begun, I was given the screenplay and timeline, and asked to make specific music that might f…
Centralia
Mountains’ music is defined by slow builds, and subtle transformations, textures and melodic lines that evolve in a variety of ways to create grand soundscapes and acutely detailed compositions. For Centralia, the duo of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg wrote and recorded in a way that mirrors the pace of their music. While the current trend in experimental music is towards hyper-prolificity, Mountains have taken their time on Centralia, resulting in an album that is as precise as it is boundl…
Bridges
Duane Pitre\'s new album, Bridges, features two pieces taken from a suite of analogous compositions by the same name, and was composed by Pitre in 2012. The two pieces that comprise the album are meant to work together in sequence as a composite work; or they can be isolated and listened to on their own. The title derives its name from the original concept for this work, which was to bring together aspects of traditional Eastern music (such as compositional form and tuning) with Western musical …
Paranoid Cat
Paranoid Cat is Philadelphia guitarist Chris Forsyth's third solo album and first for Family Vineyard -- a sprawling, harmonically-charged side-long suite backed by a clutch of compositions merging raw and delicate American roots traditions. After more than a decade trotting the globe and recording with a mess of today's avant garde greats, plus co-leading the brazenly absurd Peeesseye, Forsyth has arranged a full-band to accompany his electric six-string vision of interlocking arpeggios and max…
Cold Pin
Over two years in the making, Cold Pin is the new full length record by Eli Keszler. Both a composition and stand alone installation, 14 strings ranging in length from 25 to 3 feet are strung across a 15 x 40 curved wall, with motors attacking the strings, connected by micro-controllers, pick-ups and rca cables. Recorded in Boston's historic Cyclorama, a massive dome built to house the Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg painting in 1884. The b side features in addition, a 'dry' version …
Trainwrekz
Ensemble Skalectrik is a side-project of Nick "Ekoplekz" Edwards. Previous emissions include the self-released psycho-geographical abstraction of Snuff Mill Tapes and a homage to Maurizio Bianchi via Feral Tapes. Focusing entirely on spontaneous composition and one-take improvisation, Ensemble Skalectrik represents the most raw, extreme performance-based electronic music in Edwards' repertoire. On Trainwrekz, Edwards has dusted-off his turntables, grabbed a stack of old vinyl (mainly sound e…
Aoyama Crows
Aoyama Crows is the fifth album by Peter Brötzmann's Die Like a Dog Quartet. Saying the music can still surprise would be a lie. But that doesn't mean it lacks excitement, on the contrary. The performance, recorded at the Berlin Total Music Meeting in November 1999, contains all the elements necessary for an enticing free improv session. The rhythm section formed by Hamid Drake and William Parker is tried, tested, and true. The drummer can oscillate in and out of a pulse with incredible ease. He…
Sub Contra
People of the North is Kid Millions (drums) and Bobby Matador (keyboard, synth, vocals) of Oneida, and Sub Contra is their Thrill Jockey debut. While their sound, like Oneida's, is constantly shifting and absorbing new concepts and ideas, Sub Contra is a work that fully embraces tumult and darkness in startling and dramatic ways. People of the North have been an active entity since 2003, but it wasn't until 2010 with the release of Deep Tissue on their own Brah imprint and Steep Formations, whic…
Crowded
Breathtaking slab of the black stuff from peerless drone/noise (de)composer Kevin Drumm - with "spectral editing and time domain consultation" by Russell Haswell. We shouldn't need to tell you that this is a big deal. But, in case you're a bit daft; it is. Haswell helps out on the wormholing A-side 'Repetitive Algae'; a single tract of cacophonous, morphing rhythmic noise reminding of Philip Corner's 'Coldwater Basin' - a home recording of cold water running from a faucet into a basin - b…
Mirror Mirror
A collector's dream come true, Sam Sander's Mirror Mirror is so rare that the recordings on this album have never before seen a proper release and even the cover art had to be created from scratch. An almost unbelievable fact given that it ranks as one of the strongest releases in the already air-tight era of Strata Inc's Detroit. Although he's been compared to John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Joe Henderson, Sam Sanders stands out as one of the most unique phenomena to come from the Motor Cit…
Psychedelic Sax
Grey-area exact LP repro edition, originally released on Fahey's Takoma label in 1967. Charlie Nothing was the fractured-psyche pseudonym of author, organic farmer, beekeeper and philosopher/clown Charles Martin Simon, inventor of the dingulator (guitar sculptures made out the metal from American cars). The Psychedelic Saxophone Of Charlie Nothing made a minor splash in the European free jazz melting pot upon its initial release, but the album's non-dingulating psych sax improvisation, acc…
Love Song
"The singularly strange storytelling power of Jun Konagayas unit GRIM had been largely overlooked until haang niap records "Folk Songs For An Obscure Race" compilation of the groups early 80s material. Konagaya restarted the group in 2009 and these are their first new recordings - and a full album to boot. Split release between Art Into Life and Eskimo Records! A story in 8 volumes, ripe with deviant madness and gathered salvic capacity. Handmade clock artwork by Konagaya - each one is di…
Nakatani Gong Orchestra
...Mindblowing!!!! "Perpetually rolling, Japanese-American master percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani holds a relentless schedule, road-bound in continuous dedication to his passion. His solo sets thunder with coaxed nuances from his kit, overlaid in staggering bounty. Nakatani is also fearless when it comes to collaboration, and seeks it out adventurously during his extensive tours. In this spirit of combined efforts, Nakatani Gong Orchestra shines a different light in each new location it arises. N…