New Arrivals
Shadow of events
'Shadow Of Events is the third album by Oslo, Norway sound artist, producer and musician Alexander Rishaug, following his Asphodel CD Possible Landscape (2004) and 2001's Panorama on the Smalltown Supersound label. The album was recorded over a five year period and mixed in Berlin last year. Not unlike his previous albums but apparently more refined Shadow Of Events combines a warm and organic haunting quality blended with both abstract and concrete tones and subtle digital noises. 'Most …
Nine Months To The Disco
The most impressive, but also the most overlooked of all the bands that lurched around the mutant extremes that trail through Gang of Four, the Mekons, and, ultimately, the Pop Group, the Glaxo Babies' debut album was actually cut following the collapse of the original band -- both vocalist/songwriter Rob Chapman and drummer Geoff Alsopp had departed, with saxophonist Tony Wrafter explaining the reason for the rift. "Rob was into songs and we weren't." Too true! Under Chapman's aegis, Glaxo Babi…
Armed Courage
With nary a praising documentary, coffee table photo book or tribute band to their name, The Dead C are nonetheless one of the most respected, longest surviving groups in the history of rock. Still sporting the original band members (Michael Morley on guitar, vocals, Bruce Russell on guitar, Robbie Yeats on drums) from their first assemblage in 1987, The Dead C's renown has a lot to do with their stubborn unwillingness to compromise in any form. With a varied and challenging discography, the ban…
In The Mouth - A Hand
2LP version, featuring one track not on the CD. Rune Grammofon presents the third album from Swedish trio Fire! -- something of a supergroup with members from already well-known projects. And again, it's a collaboration, this time with the extraordinary and prolific guitarist Oren Ambarchi. With their heavy, hypnotic, psychedelic rock'n'jazz explorations, they have carved out a different sound than any of the groups they are normally associated with. Sax player, improviser, composer and fer…
Super.Trigger
Super.Trigger is an absolute trove of percussive tensions and frequency-driven finesse and deals mainly with the basic principles of any modern music: rhythm. Frank Bretschneider takes his, never simple, but all the more heartfelt relationship to rhythm and its complexity to an intense inventory and, this time, works less out of suspenseful abstract sounds, than out of grooves. There is a real sense of perpetual evolution and coiled tightness to the pulsating rhythmic programming, while t…
Alien, All Too Alien
Their cat may well be all too alien but there's quite an earthly feel to this epic voyage of a record from the brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio. It feels like you are slowly drifting through different continents perched on a floating glass-domed steel barge, observing the strangely contrasting cultures go about their business, seemingly unaware they are being watched. Though there are certain sounds contained herein that are quite familiar to many 21st century homosapie…
Right Nightmare
The computer-controlled Hoover bass is back: EVOL have returned with their unique brand of extreme economy on Right Nightmare, the latest instalment in their continuing ‘rave synthesis’ series. And this time they have brought a friend.Despite the lack of variation – a general description of EVOL’s work being one sound source stretched to absolute breaking point – the progression found in Right Nightmare as the latest in a series is noticeable. The material, admittedly, is only spread across two …
Criminale - Vol.2 Ossessione
A record as weird and wild as the cover – filled with really tripped-out sounds from the obscure Flipper sound library in Italy! The music follows strongly in the best style of the rock-driven sounds from Italian horror films – but there's also a more compact approach too, with some funky elements that really make the whole thing sparkle – and a restrained approach that's far less indulgent than the prog styles that Italy was famous for at the time. The whole thing's great – a wicked mi…
Lipstick
This valley-chameleon changed colours more than David Bowie dyed his hair, which takes a lot of skin, brains and guts in an area that should have been called Noisehampton, a hay fevered pit surrounded by mountains that stare at champions such as Body/Head, Fat Worm Of Error, Thurston Moore, Breaking World, Joshua Burkett and so on, all playing in premier leak! Krefting was a member of the glammed Velvet rock band The Believers, of the much loved drone band Son Of Earth with Aaron Rosenblum…
Late
New York's "...premiere improvisatory, vocal-and-electronics cosmic beat-box band..." return to Woodsist with a brilliant side of loopy hypnotics, including an insert code for free digital download of the 2007 cassette-only release for Tank Tapes redeemable directly from the label. All four tracks are previously unreleased, arms-out eyes-shut wanders through darkly tinted terrain. 'Oboh' opens up with what sounds like reversed field recordings made inside a washing machine at a Native Am…
Rework: Philip Glass Remixed
There are two basic reasons why composers like Philip Glass end up getting remixed: rhythm and repetition. Glass' most identifiable music is simple, or so it seems: Play a chord, break it down into its constituent notes, and repeat the notes in hypnotic succession. If there's another instrument playing, they're probably playing the same notes in a different order. At the foundation of the music, there's what's called an ostinato. One way to think of it is as a bassline; another, in the words of …
Rv8
With RV8, the Osaka-based producer and musician Aoki Takamasa continues his long-term project that focuses on the modulation of rhythms and grooves. It began with his first EP Rhythm Variations in 2009, released as part three of the Unun-series. Besides his collaboration with Raster-Noton, he released records on several labels like Commmons, Progressive Form and Op.Disc, produced remixes for well-known musicians like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yoshihiro Hanno and played performances at Elektra/Mont…
Music for Earbuds
Music for Earbuds is composed entirely from headphone feedback which makes some surprisingly organic (as well as electronic) sounds, Stephen Cornford writes to introduce his new CD. A collection of sounds stark and stubborn, as a listener you hit against their form, slide on their surfaces. These sounds so alien yet alluring call you to spend time with them, attend to them. They mark the edges of hearing and understanding. The edge here is the ear that hears as listening encounters nothing but i…
A big circle drawn with little hands
A big circle drawn with little hands was created from a box of things sent to Steve Roden by label owner Sylvian, who runs the ini itu label. the box contained everything from newspapers, coins, wooden toys, pamphlets, plastic objects, plastic bags, broken airline headphones, notes, a bottle opener, a noise maker of wood, a small electronic toy shaped like a butterfly that offered tones and animal noises, cardboard, a fan, and other things. i also used a banjo in the first track, and my voice in…
Guitars From Agadez Vol. 7
In October 2012, the Tamashek community lost one of its most luminous voices when Koudede's life was cut short by a car crash during his trip home to Niger from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Koudede was a leading light among the myriad musical groups that have recently proliferated in Niger and Mali to voice the Tuareg struggle against exploitation and to exalt their proud but waning nomadic heritage. His outstanding reputation and corpus of songs garnered the respect of his contemporaries, and his…
Bandits of Stature
LP edition, sold out at source: Darla is pleased to offer a new record of string quartets by Harold Budd. Bandits of Stature is a first as it comprises 14 compact Budd composed string quartets played by the Formalist Quartet. Harold Budd is a one-of-a-kind, modern neo-classical artist with a career spanning 40 years. Bandits of Stature has the characteristic Budd minimalism one may expect, yet in new, or classical, form. On Bandits of Stature, he has created 14 elegantly simple, av…
Weird universe
Valerie Martino's Unicorn Hard-On project has been a long running staple in the American underground since it's inception in 2003. Through her own Tangled Hares imprint, as well as many others, she's built a strong, constantly evolving catalog of singular works that serves to many as a prototype of the current beat-oriented phenomena currently sweeping the nation. Martino's vision, however,remains unphased and flourishes accordingly to her own unique vision; standing outside of any trends and re…
From The Ground
Very special vinyl edition cut at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin, includes a bonus track and a hidden locked groove, together with new artwork. limited copies!* The sister of office favourite Peter Broderick, Heather Woods Broderick steps into the limelight with this hugely impressive solo debut. On 'From The Ground', Heather is ably assisted by her multi-talented sibling, who records, produces and contributes various instrumental elements to the songs. These two are regular collaborato…
the 15,000 day boat trip
november 2009 release ; pristine electro-acoustic work from cenotaph’s john w. fail (responsible for both a criminally under-appreciated quadruple tape-box on c. spencer yeh’s dronedisco &, partially, the “lied music vs. boy-band tax returns” lp on ultra eczema ... as well as full-length collaborations with spiral joy band & ben reynolds) ...inhabiting similar head-space as graham lambkin’s recent “softly softly copy copy,” the piece in question here takes it source material from live-played ins…
The Soft Room Recordings 1980-84
Paul Nagle is an electronic artist and synthesist from UK who started to produce wonderful fascinating electronic sounds since the late 70's when his parents moved to a remote farmhouse, triggering creative outbursts in many fields - music, painting and writing to name but three. His music which combines elements of electronica, ambient, trance, minimalsynth and new age would have perfectly fit to a label like Martin Reed's Mirage who also released early works of Colin Potter, Ian Boddy, Mark S…