New Arrivals
VPRO RadioNome
Kaa Antilope from Belgium is possibly one of the better kept secrets from the 1980's. Known to few people but loved by those. The reason is simple... this band was unique with their wonderful neo romantic, playful and melancholy sound. Their songs are best described as experimental synthpop with a poetic touch. Only one 7" record was released in 1982. Even today their music stands out with its very special sound of its own. There has not been a single other band since the 1980's that can be comp…
When California Falls Into the Sea
The product of more than a year's work, finds Caminiti shifting away from the evocation of the land elements and towards the urban- the coarseness of blood on the streets and people living in squalor juxtaposed with beautiful, fleeting moments like sun reflecting off of glass buildings into dingy puddles- to produce a dialogue where guitars float through the air weightlessly, weaving around each other like butterflies and other moments that are more solitary, monolithic excursions into the night…
Lifetime Of Romance
LP version. "Heartland synthesist Dylan Ettinger follows up 2010's widely lauded New Age Outlaws imaginary cyber-soundtrack with a stark, dark, and intensely different collection of misshapen new wave weirdnesses, Lifetime Of Romance. Recorded at a proper studio, and written over the course of a year, the seven songs of Romance reflect a heavy influence from the fringier strains of bummed out quasi-industrial synth-pop in the vein of Fad Gadget, certain Cabaret Voltaire, early Human League,…
Live In Tokyo, August, 19th 1974, Part One
This double album (divided into two LPs), recorded live at the Nippon Columbia Studio in Tokyo in 1974, was the group's final effort before disbanding. Here Kosugi and the Travellers blend Eastern and Western instrumentation, vocal chants and electronics to create free-form psych-laden drones. This historic album is an essential and influential piece of Japanese avant rock." Part One LP, clear vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited edition …
Inland
Pyrolator is the co-founder of the legendary German label and publisher Ata Tak, was a member of various seminal post-punk bands such as D.A.F. and Der Plan and released solo albums under his artist name from 1979 onwards until today. His debut album "Inland" from 1979 features cold, urbane, disconcerting synthesizer sounds and aural collages, imbued with the post-punk/industrial zeitgeist as the seventies segued into the eighties. Yet sounding so fresh, it might have been recorded …
Red Planet
Red Planet establishes Arborea's complex synthesis of acoustic folk and minimalist drone right out of the gate. From the opening motif of the acoustic guitar lament "The Fossil Sea", Red Planet conjures a panoramic aura, like a lost outtake from Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas soundtrack. As that echoes its way into "Black is the Colour", an eerie and utterly transcendent take on the traditional tune, it becomes mesmerizingly clear how the soft confluence of texture, sound and style meld to create the …
Shining Skull Breath
This ultra limited, and long out of print cd-r from 2007, finally available again, now as a super swank (and still quite limited) lp...Another gorgeous sonic transmission from right here in the Bay Area, from AQ fave Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, the man behind Tarentel, and the Root Strata label. Those familiar with Cantu-Ledesma's music know that he usually speakers in hushed whispers, breathy and breathless, soft sonic shimmers allowed to drift like billowy clouds into your ears. But here, C-L …
Belles Betes
“Belles Betes” features 4 new tracks fuzzed-out heaviness. The track ‘Green & Cold’ is currently streamable from Nadja’s MySpace page, and it sounds awesome - dark and brooding yet subtly melodic. Like most Nadja releases, “Belles Betes” is annoyingly limited. It’s being released as an LP and will be limited to 500 copies. Click the Beta-lactam link below for samples from each track and additional album info.
My Estrogeneration
Not Not Fun records are knocking out a vinyl compilation in celebration of the diversity of women artists currently working within the US underground. It's cleverly entitled 'My Estrogeneration' and features unreleased and/or rare tracks from Zola Jesus, Pocahaunted, Tickley Feather, Inca Ore, Valet, Talk Normal, Topaz Rags, Islaja and a bunch of others. The track listing is a little tricky to make out so I'm not entirely sure which track is which but certain things are obvious to me because I l…
The Unmables
A mythical Magma album recorded in 1971, during the 1001 Centigrades period. The album aims at introducing wider audiences to the zeuhl feel, with a less hermetic sound, favoring a groovier jazz-rock approach. Features the vocalist of Ergo Sum on one track as well as Tito Puentes on trumpet; otherwise this is pretty much the same line-up as in their previous album. A few dreamy moments with acoustic guitar and flutes (the track 'Clementine'), and other typically dense moments with pulsati…
Beguiled Entropy
Expo '70 has garnered a great deal of notoriety over the last few years in certain circles in which the moniker is usually mentioned to describe types of cross-genres. After completing a couple US tours and a handful of limited releases and re-releases in 2010, a short hiatus was in order. During this time last year Justin Wright, sole operator of the project, recorded tracks for an upcoming release. Wright entered a basement studio and improvised over two nights layered recordings for the first…
Absent Coast
Another sublime drone album from the unshakably good Root Strata camp, En's The Absent Coast is a real upper tier ambient release. Distinguished by its depth and effortless musicality, this album is one for genre fans to really savour. After the sandblasting noise/tonal onslaught of 'A Dying Sun/Return To Holyoke', the album calibrates itself to a stately simmer that comes to life during the quite sublime 'Honeysuckle Heart', which combines glassy sustains with crackl…
Heaven's Youth (Reptilians Demos)
Starfucker’s highly regarded full-length LP Reptilians was originally titled “Heaven’s Youth”. Like most artists, song ideas, the album concept and even the artwork continued to evolve. The band changed the title, continued to edit and develop the songs until the final version (Reptilians) was released in 2011. The original versions of the songs, that were until now only heard by the band, are being released for the first time in a very limited edition of white vinyl. Heaven’s Youth (Re…
Ask me no questions
"Her first classic album originally released in 1969 on John Peel's legendary Dandelion Records. A wholly acoustic, almost wholly solo folk affair like a female Nick Drake or Nico recording a folk album. A calm, beautiful and somewhat melancholic batch of songs sung in that sunny low register always associated with Bridget make up this beautiful but criminally forgotten debut album. John Martyn adds second guitar and backing vocals while John Peel serves as producer. A magnificent sound p…
Rainwater Cassette Exchange
12" version. Certainly not a group to rest on their laurels (especially difficult when they have new songs burning a hole in their collective back pockets), Deerhunter delivers five new tracks on this extended play. This is not some stop-gap release between albums, or mere leftovers from their most recent Microcastle album, but an all new session. The band loves the EP format and thinks it does not get the respect it deserves. Hell, some bands arguably work best in the EP format, think Cocteau T…
De Dentro Hacia Afuera
This is a cassette-only limited edition of 250 copies. From child actor to teenage pop idol, from self-confessed "extreme sound freak" to acclaimed solo recording artist, the UK-based Simon Turner Fisher's career has been nothing if not varied. His early acting credits included film and TV roles from Black Beauty to The Big Sleep (re-made with Robert Mitchum). At the same time, he was fronting various '70s pop acts, and at the age of 17, was signed to Jonathan King's UK Records, releasing his fi…
Fundamental Structure
Deceh is an anonymous duo featuring the elusive Eleh. Their edition for the Tapeworm series is "a close study of the harmonic composition of a Hammond organ and a Sruti Box with attention given to the organization of isolated frequencies and the effects of these vibrations on brain activity." Like all of Eleh's work, 'Fundamental Structure' is meditative, and, if you like, spiritual, seeming to slow time itself to a malleable blur and opening sublime temporal portals in the process. And w…
Montoyan Artesian Connection
New Tape - Montoyan Artesian Connection - Montoyan Artesian Connection - This is a tough one to write-up. Montoyan Artesian Connection is the solo 4-track home recording project of one of the key update writers here at Permanent, which makes writing a completely unbiased review virtually impossible, so we ll try to stick to the facts and leave the hyperbole out, for the most part. That said, what we have here is a tape of 10 Chrome, Les Rallizes Denudes, DAF, and Hawkwind influenced jams (we re …
Dora Bengala
Doro Bengala propose a fireworks display, we use explosions as sounds and sounds as explosions of colours.We practise the art of sense stimulation through the use of coloured flames, of shrieks and low frequencies. Our group carry out a practice from Bengal founded by Mrs. Subhash Chandra Doro in the late 1895.
Taking Away
here are two pieces from august 2008 ; built from “playthroughs” -style guitar / synthesizer / computer improvisations recorded april 2008 ; (time crawls when you live in a bubble) ...the “side 1” half is the tail-end of said improv, run through a low-pass filter taking its cut-off frequency from the relative “loudness” of the audio (i.e. the louder it gets, the more high-end it let through) - a nice & simple piece that turned out well (there’s even a bit of “dry” guitar playing at the end there…