New Arrivals
Afro Noise I (Volume 1)
A bludgeoning mix of machine and vaudou / Central African percussion plus other acoustic instruments combine to create one of the most physically intense musical experiences ever. Songs featured in VBS's films 'Vice Guide To Liberia' and 'Mandingo'. Since 2007's Whitehouse album Racket, and after his original 'Afro Noise' mix became one of the most downloaded experimental mixes ever made, William Bennett's remarkable Cut Hands album has seen 4 long years of meticulously obsessive studio w…
Badlands
If you think something’s wrong with your speakers, you are mistaken. No, you can’t turn up the bass. You’re just listening to the raw, stripped down wail of Alex Zhang Hungtai, better known as Dirty Beaches. His MySpace describes the music as “minimalist rockabilly,” and those are probably the two best words I could think of to describe his newest LP, Badlands.At times, Hungtai’s vocals sound quite Elvis-esque; at other times, you can barely make out the mumbling echoes over the subdued drum bea…
Abandoned In Sleep
For his second album Jonathan Lee draws on two years of recording and performance - and it's not just his own material that's used for the record either. 'Abandoned In Sleep' features studio recordings, sample edits and collaborative work with artists including Xela, Jasper TX, Svarte Greiner, Stephen Vitiello and Gareth Davis among others. This album is all about dark, nocturnal ambience and combines a variety of half-dreamed soundscapes together for every track: Xela's falsetto murmur…
Le Couperet: Music For The Crimes Of Dr. Petiot
Near-mythical compilation originally released on Broken Flag as a cassette in 1983. Around this time there were compilations coming out all over the place, usually featuring at least one of Whitehouse, Ramleh, The New Blockaders or Sutcliffe Jugend along with a bunch of other obscure noise bands. This one's been completely unattainable and I've never even seen a copy come up for sale anywhere so having a viyl reissue is great! Featured on here are Ramleh, TNB and Vortex Campaign, along with Sir …
Everyone Is Not Alive
Reissued limited edition 2 color vinyl of Touch People's debut album from 2 years ago (originally on The Faint's blank.wav imprint). Darren Keen, aka Touch People, records guitars, drums, bass, and keyboards, and then assembles via experimental/modern production that is both visceral and cerebral. The resulting sound bears resemblance to Steve Reich, Battles, Dan Deacon, and Tortoise.
After Before
Fantastic document of higher-minded drone ritual from a trio that features Taketo Shimada. Shimada is a shadowy figure in fringe minimalism. He worked as Henry Flynt’s assistant, put together the Yoshi Wada week at the Emily Harvey Foundation, was involved with Herbert Huncke, Alison Knowles and a bunch of other Fluxus artists. Messages is an extended investigation into the eternal music concepts of Wada, LaMonte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Pandit Pran Nath et al, with Shimada on bass a…
Warmth
Even though Warmth main man Steev Thompson still appears to be incommunicado, totally epic recordings continue to surface. Before Roxanne Jean Polise was officially over and Steev still lived in Chicago, he joined up with another then-Chicago resident Branden Diven of Quilts/American Grizzly Records. The jams that were created filled a couple of CD-Rs and the Warmth side of the split with Quintana Roo on Not Not Fun. This LP consists of a remixed and edited version of the original CD-R ru…
Body EP
You either loved or hated Autre Ne Veut's electrifying 2010 album for Olde English Spelling Bee, and we loved it - as we made abundantly clear at the time. Since its release, ANV has been reasonably quiet, most recently seen turning up on Mordant Music's Variables II 12"; but he's been putting his time to good use it seems, crafting this killer four-track EP for Hippos In Tanks. 'Sweetheart' finds our man warbling and whining in that unmistakable multi-tracked falsetto of his, against a r…
Babylon bypass
“Janne Martinkauppi (as, bs), Taneli Tuominen (ts), Sami Pekkola (as, ts), Jaakko Tolvi (dr), Petri Pirtilä (dr). Recorded 12.Dec. 2007. Recording, mixing and mastering Marko Yiianttila at Studio Kuu, Helsinki, Finland. TAKE YOUR DISSONANCE LIKE A MAN : From time to time, I suddenly realise just how differently it is possible to hear exactly same sounds using the exactly same, god-given hearing devices – your ears, that is. Of course, it's never about JUST hearing, it's always linked to w…
Dog. Tree. Satellite Seers...
Limited reissue of their 2nd LP from '87.
Bright Failing Star
Bright Failing Star is probably one of the most straightforward albums I've made, and under some of the most trying circumstances I've encountered in recent years. The south London flat we were in at the time had suffered flood damage during the summer before we moved in, and our room had it's sodden carpet ripped out and the bare concrete floor exposed. This was never fixed in the duration we lived there so by December it was bloody freezing. To compound this we had no hot water for 5 months, c…
Tnt
1986 Release, original copy. Rolf Enström can look back on a fifteen year period as a composer. His list of works includes a number of very carefully crafted compositions of high artistic quality. Several of his works have become classics; one thinks especially of Directions (1979) and Final Curses (1981). Rolf Enström is a composer who unceasingly seeks new artistic paths and new means of expression and this is something which has led him to combine music with other art forms, primarily t…
Emergency Stairway
Emergency Stairway could have been Thought Broadcast's debut vinyl full-length. In fact, when commissioned in early 2012, only one 7" and two super-limited tapes were in existence, until some other label snapped to the finish with an even older commission. So, let's say an "almost-debut." Confused? Well, yes, that's probably the point. Ravi Binning's Thought Broadcast project oozes out a dank and confused audio experience isolated way beyond the city limits. A glance at the titles suggests…
Summer Wanderer
“Summer Wanderer” is a sideslip in the discography of the Scottish avant folk musician Richard Youngs because it’s the only acappella release in his eminent and extensive list of recordings.“Summer Wanderer” was released for the first time in 2004 in an edition of twenty copies. For close friends only. A year later, Youngs re-released these recordings on his own No Fans imprint. So this vinyl release on the Ghent based Gipsy Sphinx label can actually be called a re-re-release. But that doesn’t m…
In
'Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto saxophone), Will Guthrie (drums) and Clayton Thomas (double bass). Taking the form of a minimalist power trio of saxophone, bass and drums. Recorded in 2009, IN focuses on the tour that nearly killed them - Jean-Luc couldn't eat, Will couldn't walk and Clayton couldn't call an elevator. Niort - recorded at the festival NPAI, caused METEO festival director Adrien Chiquet to complain that the best gig of the festival was 'fucking jazz!'. In Poznan they were attacked…
There Are Grapefruit Hearts To Be Squeezed In The Dark
Max goldt always knew how to take the rope off the german neck by using our language in a light and ironical way. however, before he became a national celebrity for his poetic satirical writings, he had produced a vast amount of home recording pieces whose quirky complexity and uber-earthly beauty has hardly been recorgnized and appreciated until today. after some years of silence, mr goldt - who never gives any interviews - has handed out a bunch of audio tape tracks to the soul scratchers of g…
Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not
Regrouping for a third album under their 'On' moniker, Steven Hess and Sylvain Chaveau have created another body of chilling improvised recordings at their Chicago studio. As with previous records the results were passed to a guest musician for rearrangement of perspective and mixing techniques. Following Deathprod's work on 'Your Naked Ghost...', the material for this album was handed to experimental virtuoso Christian Fennesz, who transforms the source sounds into a display of stripped,…
Live at Supersonic 08
Recorded at Supersonic 2008, this was Harvey Milk’s first ever UK performance.After much persuasion Capsule managed to coax Harvey Milk out of America to play in the UK for the first time. Saturday night on the outside stage at Supersonic 08 became a memorable occasion with this long awaited performance providing a suitably raucous climax to the festival’s proceedings…they certainly didn’t disappoint then and we’re equally excited to have been able to record and package up this little piece of S…
Another Dull Dawn
When Chris Corsano turned 6 years old, I already begged him on my wounded knees to record an LP for Ultra eczema. He played it cool, was clearly annoyed but remained polite. From then on (he is now 46) I would email him the same question daily. I slept in a tent in front of his house, sent him letters every week, had all his different cell phone numbers, I even gave him new clothes, though he kept wearing his fully blue outfit. Much like Michael Jackson, corsano, the last drummer on earth, alway…
Paper of pins
"the coming together of this quartet on "paper of pins" has resulted in mature, yet unforced sounding compositions. the touching number "brown reduse" wins you over with its catchy piano sounds and subtle trumpet which is rounded off by the electronica. it's a small orchestral gem in the jazz style which is still edgy despite its perfection. this is highlighted, for example, by the fact that you can hear the brass player drawing breath on some tracks. certainly, the scottish composer is no perfe…