New Arrivals
Palace of marvels (queered pitch)
Edition of 500. Composed by Marcus Schmickler. Recorded and Mastered at Piethopraxis, Köln. January-August 2010. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, October 14th 2010. Artwork by Tim Berresheim. Marcus Schmickler's new release following his acclaimed 'Altars of Science' is a must have for those interested in the rising field of contemporary Computer Music. It reconfirms Schmickler's interest in the liaison of sound, phenomenology and cognitive sciences. Schmickler therefore utilizes a n…
Rocky Mountain Low
Few critics in their right minds would hail Colorado as a hotbed of early punk rock, but the vigor of our state’s late-’70s punk and new wave scene should not be forgotten. Joseph Pope and Dalton Lawrence Rasmussen give it a proper salute with “Rocky Mountain Low,” an exhaustive, lovingly assembled compilation on CD and double LP. Like countless music scenes of the time, we had our own versions of the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, Buzzcocks, X-Ray Spex and others. And while locals like the He…
Life...The Best Game In Town
After releasing several albums in the 90s, Harvey Milk are celebrating their own renaissance by lauding the virtues of "Life...The Best Game In Town". Spearheaded by the alternately burly and angelic vocal stylings of Milk mastermind Creston Spiers, "Life" is both tumultuous and grueling, resonating with the glorious slow-motion radiance of Total Dirge Power. They've since been joined by Thrones legend Joe Preston.
Spiritual Jazz 2: Europe
Deluxe gatefold double LP version with color inserts and on 180 gram vinyl. As the '60s progressed, cultural and political revolutions occurred both in the U.S. and in Europe. Jazz was both a victim and a savior, with radical developments in the music occurring on both continents. In the U.S., artists took control of their own musical destiny as small labels broke away from the mainstream, expressing new and creative visions of freedom and peace against a backdrop of civil unrest, repress…
A static place
Deluxe edition on double LP, an edition of 155 copies, individually inscribed and numbered, cear vinyl, 140g audiophile quality "Sourced from a mic’d gramophone playing 78rpm records from 1928 to 1932 with a cactus needle for a stylus, A Static Place has the more urgent, dynamic feeling to it. There is heavy use of hissing and layers of analog static to be heard on "Schwarzschild Radius", but it is used sparingly, burying processed choral arrangements and organ passages in its fuzzy warmth. Viny…
Mali: essential recordings of Carnatic bamboo flute (1969-1970)
Gorgeous double gatefold issue of two crucial albums by "the greatest living flutist of South India", T.R. Malingham or Mali to millions of South Indians, presented in respectfully opulent stye by Japan's EM reissue imprint. This is meditative, spiritual, and exotic music of the highest order, combining his two most revered recordings from 1969 and 1970 over two very special discs. Mali is said to be able to commune with birds via his playing and that's quite understabable. His virtuoso u…
Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night
Double LP version. Originally released in 2004 on the Les Disques Du Soliel Et De L'Acier label and now reissued by Type, this is the debut release by On -- the collaborative duo of Chicago-based percussionist Steven Hess (Haptic, Pan American) and French composer/producer Sylvain Chauveau. The concept behind Your Naked Ghost... is simple: the duo record an album in the studio, and then place it in the hands of a third party. The resulting work is then "remixed" (for want of a better word) and t…
Mimikry
Having nicely set up the release of this album with their Ret Marut Handshake EP a few months back, Alva Noto and Blixa Bargeld (of Einsturzende Neubauten fame) deliver a set that exceeds all expectations. One of the most strikingly obvious comparisons to arise from that first batch of material was the Alan Vega/Pan Sonic collaboration, yet Mimikry goes much further than combining the established aesthetics of its constituent parts and creates something that actually feels very new. Car…
Spiritual Jazz 3: Europe
Gatefold double LP version. Esoteric, modal and deep jazz from the European underground, 1963-1972. At the end of the '50s, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue heralded the revelatory arrival of modal jazz. As the vibrations of these giant steps resonated across the world, European jazz musicians reassessed their bearings and began to steer a new course. Across the continent, they sent roots down into the rich soil of the European folk and Christian liturgical traditions, extended their music along a…
Hexadecagon
The Octopus Project as a performance piece meant to bring the audience into a world of total sound and image submersion, Hexadecagon is now an album. The special vinyl version of the album is a bit complicated, so I’ll let the band explain: “The vinyl is a gatefold double LP spanning three sides. The fourth contains several unique tracks unavailable on any other format, interlaced in concentric spiraling “roulette grooves,” so that the listener never knows which track they’ll get when they pu…
Heads Full Of Poison
North Carolina instrumental rock duo Ahleuchatistas belong to the beyond-category sector of such iconic, genre-flouting combos as John Zorn’s Naked City, Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, Swans, Tortoise, and Sun City Girls.Ahleuchatistas combine wicked precision with intense abandon, droll humor with analytical construction, and a sly gregariousness with uncompromising vision. This pair interweaves elements of punk rock, jazz, classical music, speed metal, grindcore, progressive rock, noise, …
Weight / Counterweight
"Recorded in April of 2008, Weight/Counterweight, the new release by Bill Dixon marks his return to small group playing, his first trio since the Dixon/Taylor/Oxley Victoriaville recording. The group, assembled by Hall at Dixon's suggestion, marks a new direction in Dixon's instrumentation with no untreated trumpet whatsoever and a barrage on pitched and unpitched concert percussion creating landmark skeletal architecture which Dixon pushes out from into unmediated solos of gravity and we…
The Ballasted Orchestra
The much-in-demand vinyl version of the second (or third, depending on how you calculate) Stars of the Lid album, their first for Kranky, now finally reissued on vinyl. The original 4 track cassette recordings were remastered and new lacquers were cut, and the original artwork has been updated* When it comes to genre-defining releases, even releases that define a band's career, few sum up ambient music, and the work of Stars of the Lid in general like 'The Ballasted Orchestra'. Released in 1…
A Long Way Around To A Shortcut
Ever shrouded, serpentine by design, the legend of the Sic Alps has at last made its way to the gates of Drag City. The new, first-time-ever-on-vinyl 2xLP reissue of A Long Way Around To A Shortcut is somehow a 'greatest hits' of the golden not-quite-decade of Sic Alps. Well, not quite golden, either. Can gold be tarnished? Can it be done on purpose? If so, Sic Alps are artisans of the highest order -- for their music is the bright, surging sound of ye olde rock and roll radio (and the garages t…
Live in Germany, 1983
In some ways, Commitment was typical of many bands of their time. Between 1978 and 1984, they enjoyed a modest success by the subterranean standards of the Lower East Side. They struggled for gigs during the waning years of the New York loft scene, enjoyed higher profile gigs at several Kool Jazz Festivals, made one short European tour, and recorded one LP. But their music is more significant than this story might indicate. Hwang was among the first improvisers to emerge out of the Asia…
This Way / The Shivering Man
Special vinyl set collecting the first two incredible solo albums from Bruce Gilbert - not to be missed* In 1979, after completing their third and final group masterpiece, 154, Wire dissolved, leaving Bruce Gilbert and fellow traveller Graham Lewis free to explore their interests in minimalist electronics across a series of solo and collaborative projects. Originally released on Mute in 1984, 'This Way' was Gilbert's first solo album and was primarily made up of work commissioned by choreographe…
When Stars Glide Through Solid
Long awaited reissue of the debut release from Mehdi Amezianes Twinsistermoon project, originally released as a gorgeous handmade self released CDR in 2007, to many of Natural Snow Buildings and each of their solo project, this is the pick of all their releases, which is rather ironic being that its one of the smallest release runs in the discography of all the Natural Snow Buildings and related projects, it is infact the most limited release of all the Twinsistermoon releases. But due to the ma…
IIron
It would be too easy to simply call IIRON the COH metal album, as it goes way beyond that. True, this album of classic Pavlov stompers contains more than its fair share of guitars both acoustic and electric, yet it still maintains that sense of power and purpose through electronic music which stands out as the COH ‘raison d’être’. Coming 11 years after IRON, which also tackled the sound of rock with alarming results, the new album features not only recent guitar tracks recorded at Music Research…
Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads
Dustin Wong's second LP Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, is a departure from Dustin's previous methods but more closely a distillation of his live show into recorded form. The pieces are so intricate and detailed that we've asked Dustin to explain his process and he happily obliges us: "When I begin to explore and to build a song through a series of pedals, I begin with the tuner. It helps keep my guitar's pitch consistent. An octave pedal and the distortion pedals allows me to …
The Unexamined Life
Supreme Dicks put out one single in their career. It was a double B-side. Maybe they had a sense of humor, but in hindsight it's hard to tell.Falling somewhere between Captain Beefheart, Throbbing Gristle and SALEM in the lineage of musicians who've found a muse in the nasty, brutish brevity of life, Supreme Dicks chose to cloak disarmingly real paranoia and grief in the contemporary trappings of late '80s and early '90s lo-fi college rock. They may have inhabited the same sonic and physical spa…