Hopefully MRTYU requires little introduction, because the project evades easy description. An odd compound of vedic imagery, metal misanthropy, and violin agony, this music moves away from any particular fan base in pursuit of its distant, darkened idols. Ornate shroud is MRTYU's most potent spawn to date. Hewing closer to song form than previous releases, the album conceals Antony Milton's violent guitar and violin work behind MRTYU's characteristic murk. Its pieces transition from jagged riffs…
Andrew Pekler selected 300 different covers from second-hand records and, using colorful geometric elements to cover over all titles, performer’s names, and label logos, removed traces of the covers’ original contexts. The sunsets, couples in silhouette, alpine panoramas, roses on pianos, female faces in close-up, and seascapes no longer serve as the packaging for easy listening and exotica. Instead, the romantic, bizarre and intriguingly bland images of the original covers are free to lend thei…
The tape more provocative and irritating of Pierpaolo Zoppo, the Italian sub-genius behind Mauthausen Orchestra, is certainly Dedicated to J. Goebbels . The tracks were recorded during '82-‘83 and offer an overwhelming noise ferric devolves into agonizing nightmare and atrocities sound that recall the dark side of humanity. This is the fourth official reprint on Urashima in Lp and the artwork was approved by the artist.Tracks remastered from the original tape and the record has been pressed on 1…
These seven volumes represent a strong listening base, as incomplete as it may be, the basis for a near-infinite exploration through one's self, in the present tense.All in all, if I add up all these tracks, there are 176 of them, created between 1921 and 2012, for a total of almost 18 hours of music. The sphere of geographical propagation was kind of programmed at the start (between 1952 and 1970 there have been over one hundred national studios, mostly tied to radio, on all five continents), b…
**Digitalis debut from Koenraad Ecker, one half of Opal Tapes' Lumisokea, highly recommended if you're into Vainio, Joachim Nordwall, The Haxan Cloak. Initial copies on transparent red wax** Belgium's Koenraad Ecker swiftly follows his 'Apophenia' LP as part of the Lumisokea duo for Opal Tapes with a personalised invitation to his shadowy solo zones for Digitalis. Inhabiting space between slow techno and electro-acoustic dimensions, 'Ill Fares The Land' surveys similar soundscapes to Mika…
Doris Norton, founder member and keyboardist of the esoteric legends Jacula and Antonius Rex, was a pioneer in the early electronic/computer music. She began her musical carrer playing avant-garde and progressive music using synthesizers such as Roland System 700, Roland system 100M and Minimoog (Jacula, Antonius Rex). In december 1980 she recorded, at the Fontana Studio 7 (Milan), her first solo album entitled "Under Ground" (Musik Research). Sponsored by Apple computer and the Roland Corporati…
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…
Bill Nace (Guitar) and Kim Gordon (Guitar, voice). "So much more than a 'likely pairing,' this is a group which manages to illuminate the best of both players while simultaneously pushing them into fresh territory. Live shows have been accompanied by slowed films, and the pair's obsession with cinema comes across in the music itself. The pieces exist as vignettes in and of themselves, all the while presenting a full-bodied emotional narrative over the course of the record's 20 minutes. It…
CIP is pleased to present the debut pro-pressed solo CD by Jason Soliday, one of Chicago's finest sound creators - manipulators - disentigrators. I've known Jason for coming up on 13 years- -his gunshop duo was one of the first live noise performances I saw when I moved to Chicago, and over the years I've witnessed many of his projects. In the last few years, though, I feel Jason really hit a stride with his home-built - customized analog synths, and this disc reflects his sensibilities: sharp e…
Here’s a very limited coloured vinyl thing by Cicciolina Holocaust. There’s one of those photocopied pictures on the front where I’m pretty sure I don’t want to look at it for long enough to figure out what’s going on, much like Urashima seem to specialise in - it looks like some people are doing something very bad to another person. The tracks here originally came out on cassette in 1984 and have been remastered for this release.It’s dark industrial droney harsh no…
The book is 12 full-color pages of art, text and photos in the full size LP format."After many years as half of the highly influential SKATERS with James Ferraro, 2 solo albums on Olde English Spelling Bee (BLACK JOKER and MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS) and countless tapes and CDs, SPENCER CLARK has taken it to the next level. Layers of cosmic and alien sounds inhabit their own world and act as metaphors you can access subconsciously or explicitly. Clearer and more lucid than previous rel…
LP version. Includes voucher for free MP3 download of the whole album. This is the second full-length release by Norway's Bushman's Revenge (Even Helte Hermansen, Gard Nilssen, Rune Nergaard). You Lost Me At Hello shows a distinct development from their debut Cowboy Music (Jazzaway, 2007). Founded by Hermansen and Nilssen in 2003 in their hometown of Skien, a couple of hours from Oslo, the trio aim to combine the jazz/improv background of the rhythm section with the rock/metal background of lead…
Space travel is the dream of many and the reality of few. Since Yuri Gagarin first shed the bonds of earth gravity in 1961, only about 500 humans have made the trip beyond the atmosphere. Ken Camden travels to space while still grounded on terra firma. His vessel of choice is a guitar and some effects with which he journeys on fantastical expeditions and surveys the biggest territory of all, the one between your ears. The glimmering sound fields he forms could be a soundtrack to an epic '60s sci…
São Paulo Underground is an electronica-laced tropicalia funhouse, a secret passage between Chicago’s volatile avant garde jazz scene and Brazil’s teeming creative capital. Featuring Chicago maestro Rob Mazurek on cornet, harmonium and various effects, and São Paulo’s Guilherme Granado on keyboards, synths, sampler and vocals, and Mauricio Takara on percussion, cavaquinho and electronics, SPU delivers its fourth revelatory album Beija Flors Velho E Sujo.In its latest incarnation, SPU is a power …
Forms represents Pausal's sophomore production for Barge Recordings and sees the British duo merging their finely detailed sound design and ambience with a newly heightened sense of space and structure. Simon Bainton and Alex Smalley have clearly developed their compositional abilities since their earlier output; the ten pieces here are presented as four long tracks and feel natural in their melding of experimentation and harmonic progression. The rich, sprawling waves of aural grandeur a…
Mountains’ music is defined by slow builds, and subtle transformations, textures and melodic lines that evolve in a variety of ways to create grand soundscapes and acutely detailed compositions. For Centralia, the duo of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg wrote and recorded in a way that mirrors the pace of their music. While the current trend in experimental music is towards hyper-prolificity, Mountains have taken their time on Centralia, resulting in an album that is as precise as it is boundl…
Zeitkratzer releasing "songs"? Isn't Zeitkratzer a contemporary music group? Or a noise band? Songs? These songs actually have been developed over several years and evolved from a fashion show zeitkratzer was making the music for. Marc Weiser a.k.a. rechenzentrum, since then a member of zeitkratzer, sings. Marc has already caused some furore as Mark Markowitch, singing fake songs in fake languages in some hidden Berlin bars. So now all of those together: zeitkratzer's noise, zeitkratzer's…
The collaboration between Israeli electronic musician Shay Nassi and German media artist Nicolas Wiese began in 2008, with the exchange of some raw recordings of feedbacks and everyday objects, via internet. During the following years, several compositional sketches have been sent back and forth and so have been refined step by step, in multiple sonic layering and construction processes. The result is a 45-minute-long collection of dense, dynamic, ambiguos and twisted atmospheric pieces which ca…
Stunningly beautiful harmonium improvisations recorded in 1949 by spiritualist G.I Gurdjieff. Many who heard these performances live found themselves crying uncontrollably. After this cathartic listening experience they reached a place where they felt happy and whole. We hope this record will bring a similar experience to the modern day listener. It doesn't get much purer than this. Cover is silkscreened with gold ink. A co-release with Psychic Sounds Research."An extraordinary collection of har…
In the 1980′s, New York City was a dismal wasteland filled with urban decay and creative miracles. It was only a matter of time before the suits saw an investment opportunity, with cash in hand they bought off NYC and started the criminal gentrification of downtown New York, sterilizing any sense of culture and fumigating all residents deemed financially worthless. This kind of invasion brought the perfect storm in the form of Missing Foundation. Founded by Peter Missing in the early 80′s, Mi…