New Arrivals
Arctic Hysteria
Original 1981 release! Slava Ranko(aka Don Philippi) released only one album, Arctic Hysteria (1981), that quotes John Cage, Brian Eno, minimalism, Indian music Don Philippi (October 2 1930-January 26 1993) was a noted translator of Japanese and Ainu and a musician.Born in Los Angeles, Philippi studied at the University of Southern California before going to Japan in 1957 on a Fulbright scholarship to study at the Kokugakuin University. In Japan he became an expert in classical Japanese an…
ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ
Starring’s ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ combines minimalist musical patterns with dreamy poetry to create a new style front-woman Clara Hunter likes to call “sparkle prog.” It captures the frenetic energy of the band’s live show, but here it is overlain with a new palate of synthesizers, delay effects, drum processing, aux percussion, and vocals that create delicate, but sometimes radical juxtapositions between the lyrical and the experimental. Though songs like “the best” and “aphonia” …
Nova
"Soul Jazz Records are re-releasing this classic release of deep spiritual jazz by Steve Reid and The Master Brotherhood, entitled Nova available for the first-time at mid-price. There is also a one-off limited-edition vinyl repress of 1000 copies worldwide. Steve Reid is now known worldwide for his radical collaborations with Kieren Hebden on Domino Records. Nova (and Rhythmatism, also re-released) are his amazing first albums recorded in the early 1970s -- all now serious collector's al…
Emeralds
RESTOCKED!! Brand new full length from Cleveland's Emeralds recorded Aug-Sept 2008. Proper follow up to their debut LP 'Solar Bridge', 'EMERALDS' takes the thick drone sound of that LP and transforms it into an even more abstract and strange place. Visual music that lifts the listener up and transports them through tubes of sound occasionally to be swept into the opposite direction by an unexpected entrance into another world entirely. An intense journey that drops you off in a place just be…
Fugue
I began writing about this Tape & Bill Wells 'Fugue' record yesterday but I gave up as the words just were not coming to me. I guess that's probably a good sign though as I was just kind of getting into the melancholy zone of the record, which certainly is a thing of beauty. Wells' guitar playing is delicate and magical. The Tape guys really give him space to do his thing adding wonderful little details and twinkles into the mix. This quite simply is the prettiest, most charming record I …
A Fire
23 minute piece of solo guitar wrangling by the avant blues elder statesman. Limited, hand-numbered edition of 350 housed in screen-printed wrap-around with insert in poly jacket** "Connors is an avant-garde legend, with more than 100 releases of his singular alien take on the blues. RIYL: Jack Rose, Michael Chapman, Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey. A Fire is a single-sided LP by master guitarist Loren Connors. Recorded live in Philadelphia in 2010, this 23 minute piece follows in the style and visual …
Raptus
Doris Norton, pioneer in the early electronic/computer music, began her musical career 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 Corporation music instshe was more involved in experimental electro computerized music and rec…
Triangles
There's something almost religious about this Charlatan (Brad Rose) LP, its narrative arc swinging from light to dark and back again. From the opening chords of "Lime Beauty," we're awash in polarized-lens glinting twilight, fluorescent skies over the water. "Trace Blue Outlines" is trance-like and reflective, with long, arpeggiated figures chasing each other skyward in a fugue. Darkness creeps in around the edges of "Vodka Rocks," with almost post-rock moodiness bringing the side to a cl…
Live At The Accident!
"Crazy 3-way collaboration from some of America's best underground musicians. Charalambides' Tom Carter is joined by Shawn McMillen, sometime member of Warmer Milks and Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast, with the added power of Starving Weirdos. This two track collaboration has been around since 2007 and it landed in my mailbox a few months back, and man, it's a real beauty. Side A is a total hypnotic slice of ravaged drone, the four musicians seamlessly blend their own styles of underground bliss …
Split
Limited vinyl pressing of this excellent split LP self-released by Grouper in this scarce second edition* The music on this split release arrives remastered after its initial release via C40 cassette a while back. Likeminded souls Eva Saelens (inca Ore) and Liz Harris (Grouper) are in brilliant form on these recordings, so it's great to hear them in a cleaned up format - though of course with these two, it's fairly difficult to tell where the muddy cassette hiss ends and the foggy, dusty …
Introducing
The Drag City / Galactic Zoo team delve deeply into the recesses of private press obscurity once again, further revealing the underbelly of American music's recorded history - this time the little known songwriter Ryan Trevor is in the spotlight, who released just one incredibly rare, homespun LP (this one, if you're wondering) which surfaced originally in 1977. Not much is known about Trevor, though the guys at Drag City bill him as a "loner genius", whose work is to be filed somewhere between …
Smoke Song
Third in a trio of limited edition new LP’s from the ever mysterious Vibracathedral crew, returning from another relatively quiet period with an uncompromising set of outre’ jams. Slightly reorganized around a lineup of stalwarts Mick Flower and Adam Davenport with frequent collaborators John Godbert (Total) and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man), the band here stretches way, way out over these six sides, taking in several different styles while maintaining “that” sound all the way through…
Split
Much time has passed since the release of "Can't Illumination" in 2003, and Anna Zaradny and Burkhard Stangl meet yet again, now on each side of a vinyl record on the Bocian Records label. There were, however, many various encounters in various circumstances in between those two official events, and one of them is shown in the photos on the cover. This is hardly a chance meeting as the two compositions have more in common than it might seem at first sight. Take the misguiding beginnings, f…
Space Programs
When the shoe drops on the first bars of the USA is the Monster's new full length, it becomes clear some changes have occured since the last record, Sunset at the End of the Industrial Age. Buttery synth and elaborate vocal harmonies combine to levitate hairpieces at least a wee bit. This is the perfect synthesis of the pastoral wanderings circa thier second full length record, Wohaw, and the punk spunk junk of their first and third full lengths. The band is still a New York two-piece tribe of N…
In The Stars
Sabbath-esque riffs, putrid thrashing, animal howls, primitive blast beats, cheap keyboards, broken throat vocals, necro production, guitar solos, abyssic noise & a theatrical sensibility for the epic. LIMITED to 333 copies on multicolored vinyl. Exclusive artwork by acclaimed outsider artist G LANSARD. Features members of BURIAL HEX.
Medusa’s Lair
Filleted over two sides of wax, here we have a rare meet up of three of the brightest lights in the Twin Cities’ musical orbit. On March 21, 2009, PAUL METZGER—best known for his transcendental gypsy raga guitar and banjo meditations—jumped in the ring with percussionist DAVU SERU and veteran multi-instrumentalist MILO FINE for an evening of uncompromising spontaneous composition. Medusa’s Lair is stunning, inscrutably wily, living music. One-time edition of 300 LPs pressed on 180-gram virgin vi…
Bermuda Telepaths
RESTOCKED, very last copies... Brand new LP by the So-Cal recluse responsible for the recent "Matrix Metals" cassette on NNF. This one is deeper into the Vodka Soap-style ritual electronics zone.
The Weinberg method of non-synthetic electronic rock
Reissue of an obscure electronic music album, originally released in 1968, with bonus tracks. another historic event for fans of experimental exotica: Martin Denny, Bruce Haack, Pierre Henry, Dick Hyman, Perrey & Kingsley, etc., described as "a synthetic sound revolution with great songs, like bruce haack with a psychedelic touch." from the lp's original liner notes: "the weinberg method of non-synthetic electronic rock (or the electronic rock method of non-synthetic weinberg) is a revolution in…
Group: Xex
Xex were an all-synthesizer band from South River, New Jersey who recorded their debut album group:xex in 1980. Formed when a trio of high school misfits with funny names (Waw Pierogi, Thumbalina Gugielmo and Alex Zander) teamed up with some friends from Rutgers CollegePerformed entirely on then-state-of-the-art Arps, synths and electronic drums – no guitars anywhere – group: xex aims for the future, but comes across now like a time capsule from the deepest, darkest Reagan years. Each song burro…
Foetus
An internationally known artist, Franco Battiato has been everything in his long career, from beat singer to avantgarde performer, producer, contemporary music composer.His beginnings lay in the mid 60's, with many singles released with no particular success, the first two under his real name of Francesco. He had left the native Sicily (he was born in Jonia, near Catania in 1945) moving to Milan around 1965.Fetus, housed in a outrageous cover (reproducing a foetus) was definitely a prog al…