New Arrivals
Graft
Graft is an album by Japanese noise master Masami Akita aka Merzbow. This LP album is pressed on lime-green vinyl in a "bootleg"-style sleeve and sealed with a sticker. Limited to 300 regular copies. According to the Merzbow blog, the design was inspired by a '70s Jethro Tull bootleg called My God, and the recording was inspired by the plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript. Recorded in November 2009 at Munemi House, Tokyo.
Mother of Thousands
As with their previous 'proper' full-length Gettin' Gone, new album Drone Trailer finds Matt Valentine and Erika Elder Still hooked up with The Golden Road, and ready to spurt forth blistering passages of galvanized psych-rock at a moment's notice: after a scorching pile-up of vintage guitar muck, opener 'Anyway' draws to an ill-behaved conclusion with some improv guitar and free-noise skronk, all completely undermined by a jazzy line in tremolo rhodes piano tinkering. Despite such flight…
In Search of the Lost Divine Arc
Deluxe double LP pressed in an edition of 1000 copies, housed in a gatefold sleeve.Acid Mothers Temple\'s In Search of the Lost Divine Arc heads in a completely different direction from 2012\'s Son of a Bitches Brew. Harder, faster, and more riff-rock oriented, this record is here to slay. AMT skews their vibe between Zeppelin and Beefheart, coming out with another classic Acid Mothers ripper in the process
Overloaded Ark
A sequel to last year's eponymous debut as a duo, this new Drag City LP from Espers cellist Helena Espvall and Ghost's Masaki Batoh delves even deeper into traditional and ancient musics, making use of an armoury of instruments that extends beyond 'mildly obscure' (renaissance harp, sho, hurdy gurdy, etc) and enters into the realm of 'are you sure you haven't just made that up?' (auschpfeife, crumhorn, cornamuse, rig and darbuka). On hand to assist in this piece of instrumental archeology is anc…
The Spanish Suite
2012 Re-release "The Spanish Suite was written to magnify the contribution that Moorish Spain made on the European Renaissance. The relationship of music to cosmic rhythms and harmony was altered from the original state of Spanish music and eventually distorted down to the 12 tone equi-temperment system of tuning. The Artistic Heritage Ensemble was taught to play outside of the 12-tone system and to recognize natural tone relationships. The musicians had to be dedicated to music for life …
A Birthday Tribute - 75 Years
Five recordings, 2 from 1977 at Tempo Natural and 3 from 1993, where Tony Oxley leads various permutations of improvisers Derek Bailey, Paul Rutherford, Pat Thomas, Matt Wand, Phillip Wachsmann, Ian Brighton. The first track from 1993 brings all musicians together for a 29 minute work of great dynamic and dialog. The following track present a quartet with Oxley, Bailey, Thomas and Wand from the same session, and the final 1993 track is the duo of Oxley and Rutherford. The first '77 tra…
Wooden Veil
This Berlin-based group combining the talents of artists Marcel Türkowsky, Hanayo, Christopher Kline, Domink Noé and Jan Pfeiffer, who each seem to spread themselves between a number of different projects. Interestingly, Noé is credited as a member of "krautrock legends Lustfaust", which is the fictional band created by conceptual artist Jamie Sholvin for the 2006 Beck's Futures exhibition, which might prompt you to think that Wooden Veil re made up too. There's definitely some sort o…
Kilo
Finnish experimental electronic musician Mika Vainio's first solo album for Blast First sees him return to his classic power electronics/heavy beats approach that made Pan Sonic garner a worldwide reputation. The album developed from Vainio's recent live sets to make 10 tersely-titled tracks inspired by the shipping container industry. Four stars in Mojo: "heavy-freight," The Quietus describes it as "fearsome."
Audiocide '95
Gabriele Giuliani has distinguished himself in the 90s for multiple activities in different territories. As Drif, runs through electronic environments, as Discordance instead are more ominously violent sides to emerge, while as Dead Body Love the sharp points of the ultra sound reached dizzying heights. Audiocide ‘95 is one of his first tape released on Slaughter Productions with his main moniker. Two tracks of hellish distortion and saturation, stripped of any frills and reduced to the p…
The Bacteria Magnet
Picture Disc in a plastic cover. Limited to 500. 'Cruisin' For A Bruisin' (Bacteria Bitch Mix)', 'Bei Mir Nist Du Schon', 'Thrill Of Romance...? (Burgo Partridge Mix)', 'The Bottom Feeder'.
Soul music
Soul Music consists of six pieces built from monotonous percussion and bent analogue synthesizers. Pulse is central to these works. Taking inspiration from acid house, primitive trance music and 1960s downtown NYC minimalism, Soul Music is music from the skull of Joachim Nordwall. This is his soul music, and its path is circular, rhythmical and intense. Joachim Nordwall runs the iDEAL Recordings label. He is a founder member of The Skull Defekts and also plays with Alvars Orkester and Oceans of …
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…
Amulet
Oren Ambarchi live recordings assembled on Cheryl Cole's iPhone at her house in Winnipeg. Not really, but it's that's how I first misread the description. Amulet actually presents two iPhone recordings assembled at Chez Cole, Winnipeg, July 2013 by the inestimable Oren Ambarchi. We've no further info but from what we can hear these are rudimentary iPhone recordings excerpted and crudely edited from a live performance (a shard of applause possibly gives the game away) between rippling, dynamicall…
Between two worlds
Native californian guitarist danny paul grody has always been more of a fellow traveller than a true disciple of the american primitive school. he came up in gauzy, san francisco post-rock outfits like tarentel and the drift. his music is spare and otherworldly. his ideas, more often than not, are realized in repetition rather than in florid displays of virtuosity. his compositions seem to owe as much to john luther adams as to john fahey. one imagines the grooves on his copy of the seminal west…
Stromboli
Field recordings of a volcano by Geir Jenssen, better known as Biosphere. Stromboli is an active volcano off the north coast of Sicily in the Mediterranean. The volcano has erupted many times, and is constantly active with minor eruptions, often visible from many points on the island and from the surrounding sea, giving rise to the island's nickname Lighthouse of the Mediterranean. The last major eruption was on April 13, 2009. Recorded at Stromboli's crater edge (924 m) on July 19th 2012…
94diskont
The extremely influential 1995 classic album from Oval is finally re-issued on vinyl. Freshly cut to vinyl by Roger Seibel at SAE Mastering the two LPs are pressed on orange vinyl and packaged in a jacket replicating the original. LP1 is the album, LP2 is a 12" featuring remixes from Jim O'Rourke, Scanner, Mouse on Mars, and Christian Vogel. Included for the first time is a free download coupon. Limited to 1,500 units worldwide."
Broken Hearted Dragonflies
There is a legend in Burma stating that swarms of male dragonflies gather to join in choruses of high-pitched tones to court their mates. The ones that don't succeed in mating eventually scream so loud that their chests explode and they drop dead to the ground. These recordings are a tribute to this legend. Droning cicadas, dragonflies, and other insects display their charm as masters of the high frequency airwaves, recorded live and unprocessed by Tucker Martine in the lush settings of L…
Kogetsudai
Kogetsudai is Sylvain Chauveau's 10th album, the second in a trilogy initiated by Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2010), where the song structure is dismantled and reconstructed on the fringe of silence. Whereas Singular Forms found inspiration from Abstract Painting, Kogetsudai is influenced by Zen rock gardens found in Japan Ñ also the location where the album was conceived (for the most part) Ñ and from which the album borrows its title. Layers of minimal electronic sounds and filtered f…
Nihtes niht
'The music supposed to be a soundtrack for lonely ice-soundscapes... when you stand there on lonely wide inhuman places and feel lost, but you still stand on ice...' - Baraka[H] The newest collaboration between masters of evocative noise/drone ambient is divided into four long tracks, four directions of nothing. The tracks are entitled in middle ageindo-german language, for north, east, south, west. And the album title means nothing from nothing - very weird notion, as it doesn't exist anymore i…
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…