Reissues
Drowning in a Sea of Bliss
Mannequin Records celebrate 40 years of Nocturnal Emissions with a reissue of Drowning in a Sea of Bliss, originally released on Sterile Records in 1983. Drowning in a Sea of Bliss is dominated by a sheer violent noise which dissolves back and forth between found sounds, cut-ups and rhythmic, hypnotic beats, in the vein of Nurse With Wound, Cabaret Voltaire, and early Throbbing Gristle. Drowning in a Sea of Bliss was placed #58 in the FACT's Magazine 100 Best Albums of the 1980s. The Nocturnal E…
Paralysis
Robert Rental is an artist as influential as he is overlooked. An anchor of the early British DIY and post-punk scene, his name is most frequently uttered alongside illustrious collaborators such as Thomas Leer and Daniel Miller. Dark Entries and Optimo ally to illuminate some of Rental’s early solo works with an expanded reissue of his debut 7” Paralysis /A.C.C.. Both labels have previously excavated Rental’s catalog; we reissued the collaborative LP with Glenn Wallis in 2017, and Optimo releas…
Lamunan
** Edition of 90 copies** Forged alone in a cave on the island of Java, and recorded in a fortress in Poland, Antonina Nowacka’s “Lamunan” is an intimate exploration of a mysterious darkness and the earliest of musical forms. Nowacka has co-created raw electronics and audiovisuals as half of WIDT and the enigmatic Mentos Gulgendo, but her solo practice focuses solely on the voice’s inherent connection to mental states, its ability to speak wordlessly, and the apparatus of speech itself – leading…
End of Summer
End of Summer captures Jóhann Jóhannsson's journey to the Antarctic Peninsula to discover the calm scenery of a landscape changing seasons, barely influenced or even noticed by humanity. The Super 8 film is a comforting study of a peaceful setting in one of the most crucial and endangered areas of our planet. Accompanied by rich and detailed field recordings of the surroundings, this footage forms a perfect foundation for Jóhannsson's musical compositions, performed together with fellow musician…
Through Mysterious Barricades with George Maciunas
** Edition of 250. Comes with 12-page pamphlet of scores and an essay by Corner ** Voice recordings from a small performance in Italy, early in 2020 -- Homages to/from George Maciunas (1931-1978). Philip Corner's piano meditative playthroughs of Couperin's The Mysterious Barricades (1717), from 1989 and 1992. These two elements (voice and piano) superimposed by Sean McCann, edited during the first month of the pandemic. Manic exaltation, distorted harmony things. Album cover is a few PC scores s…
Jubilee
**Limited edition of 100. Includes 20-page color booklet with photos. Numbered** Jubilee is an album of selections from the last five years of multifarious output by the art collective FPBJPC, including Jonathan Gean, Michael Pollard, Ben Schumacher, and Peter Friel. Including 8-hand piano arrangements of Schiller’s “An Die Freude,” helpful techno, free guitar quartets, music from their film The China Chalet Group, and more, Jubilee is an incomplete picture of FPBJPC’s life-long research into wa…
America Lament
**Edition of 300. It comes with a 20-page booklet, with program notes, scores, and an interview between Morrow & McCann** America Lament is a panoramic musical survey of legendary experimental composer/event-maker Charlie Morrow’s eclectic works. At just over 40-minutes, America Lament is mysterious, beguiling, and jubilant, comprised of pieces employing everything from hand-made electronics to Irish lap pipes, ecstatic jazz to Schubert recompositions, ambient flutes, and a string quartet.
Charl…
Sound x Sound
**Edition of 100 copies. 7x7" vinyl box in heavy box set. Packaged in numbered limited edition box** Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard's Sound x Sound is a series of works where each piece is an exploration of one single instrument that is multiplied.
Løkkegaard’s aim is to get the instruments to exceed their own familiar sound, and multiplying does exactly that. The sound of the individual music instrument and the individual musician is dissolved and the sound reappears in a new form. A sonic as well as h…
Anthology of Sound
**Edition of 100 copies** Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard's The Anthology of Sound inhabits multiple states at the same time - as the sounds described in text are in constant fluctuation between alphabet, word, language and meaning - & between the state of a book, a score, written text and imaginary music. 463 pages all in all.
A fluctuation very similar to that of the superpostion found in quantum mechanics. Just as warm plasma within a supercollider would burn and collapse if it ever were to leave th…
November
Concept City was a low-key release in 1985 that surfaced on Cordelia Records, an underground favourite for lovers of esoteric ruminations from bedroom producers tinkering with technology. That makes it no surprise this reissue of work from Mr Concept appears on Platform 23, the perfect home for such charming collages of sound recorded on lo-fi four track. The mood veers from track to track on "November" but there's a generous nod to The Durutti Column in the lingering guitar refrains that appear…
Sei Donne Per L'Assassino
**Limited to 400 copies on Grey 180g LP, housed in a elegant Gatefold Sleeve**Spikerot Records is happy to announce the release of “Sei Donne Per L’Assassino” (aka “Blood And Black Lace”), the soundtrack to one of the earliest and most influential Giallo films and pioneer of the later Slasher style, directed by the Master of Macabre Mario Bava in 1964, with sublime music by Carlo Rustichelli. This score contains the full session of music composed for the film over half a century ago, 31 tracks r…
Freedom Power
**small repress soon available** Outstanding and legendary Italian Library originally released in 1976 on the glorious Cometa label on a very limited run. A totally killer album with tones of mental Jazz-Funk and Psychedelic beats. The listener is constantly catched by the incredible music that swings between Psychedelic Funk, Esoteric Jazz and Cinematic/Love themes. Tracks like Love For Sale, Privacy, Metropolis Notte and Dopping 2000 are simply timeless, with a stunning sound that perfectly pl…
Where Is Brooklyn?
Trumpeter Don Cherry, an Ornette Coleman soulmate and a world musician decades ago, became one of jazz’s many early losses 10 years back. But saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, who joins him on this fizzing 1966 set, has since ascended to cult status, and he is still around to admire . In the 1960s, he knew no melodic fear at all, in which respect he was aptly partnered with Cherry. This is a quartet set, strongly influenced by the melodic approach of Coleman, but with a fierce abstraction of tone qui…
Shaggs' Own Thing
*Red coloured LP* When The Shaggs’ Philosophy Of The World came out in 1969, some people couldn’t or wouldn’t understand it. But many musicians, including Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain, cited the Shaggs as a major influence. Heck, Zappa exclaimed they were “better than the Beatles!” NRBQ’s Terry Adams and Keith Spring were such fans, and after reissuing Philosophy in 1980 on their own Red Rooster label, Adams began work on a collection of recordings the Wiggin sisters had made in the years followi…
Hope
Bourbonese Qualk were an experimental music group from England who where active from 1979 until 2003. The group were always obsessively and uncompromisingly focused on controlling their work – they ran their own record label, recording studio, tour organisation and music venue (the legendary ‘Ambulance Station’) – they refused to integrate into the commercial music racket turning down publishing deals from major labels – stubbornly opting for total independence.
Bourbonese Qualk were also known …
Kleine Krieg
The Legendary Pink Dots are an Anglo-Dutch experimental rock band formed in London in August 1980. In 1984 the band moved to Amsterdam, playing with rotating musicians and having, as core members, singer/songwriter/keyboardist Edward Ka-Spel and keyboardist Phil Knight aka The Silverman. The band was originally called "One Day..." but subsequently changed the name to The Legendary Pink Dots, apparently inspired by pink dots on certain keys of the band's main recording studio piano. In the 1980s …
Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes
Officer! was founded by Londoner Mick Hobbs. His roots were in the Rock In Opposition scene of the late 70s and early 80s. Initially he worked as guitarist in The Work, subsequently he became closely associated with This Heat and their Cold Storage Studio in Brixton, working with artists like FamilyFodder, Catherine Jauniaux or Zeena Parkins.
The band's first album "8 New Songs By Mick Hobbs" came out in 1982 on casette only. It was followed by the second album, "Ossification". The third album, …
Khamu (She Sleep Walks)
Second installment in a reissue programme for this excellent UK band. C Cat Trance were formed by multi instrumentalist John Rees Lewis after his departure from Medium Medium, taking the band's drummer Nigel Kingston Stone with him. The band are seen as members of the post-punk movement, but that's not all that is to say about their sound.
C Cat Trance incorporated ethnic music into their compositions before world music became a popular genre. Their influences come mainly from Northern Africa an…
Semantics
Semantics was a jazz supergroup consisting of Elliott Sharp, Ned Rothenberg and Samm Bennett.
Elliott Sharp, born in Ohio in 1951, began playing the piano at the age of six and started to perform concerts two years later. He soon gave up the piano, first in favour of the clarinet and later for the guitar. Sharp became intrigued with all types of experimental music, from contemporary classical to free jazz and sophisticated rock. He studied anthropology at Cornell University, where he played in a…
Seventh Soviet Symphony
Konstruktivists was formed by Glenn Michael Wallis in 1982 out of the ashes of Heute, a kraut rock influenced trio using electronics as well as conventional guitars and bass. Around this time - in the late 70's/early 80's Glenn Michael Wallis was heavily involved with Throbbing Gristle, the U.K. pioneers of "Industrial".
The first Konstruktivists vinyl album "A Dissembly" was issued in 1983. This was quickly followed by their seminal LP "Psykho Genetika" after signing to the newly-formed Third M…