Hits Are For Squares
Hits Are for Squares is the first greatest hits album by American rock band Sonic Youth, released on June 10, 2008, by Starbucks Entertainment. The album features 15 songs spanning Sonic Youth's career since the release of their debut studio album in 1983, Confusion Is Sex. It also includes one new song: "Slow Revolution". The band intended to create a compilation album that appealed to the casual consumer. Hits Are for Squares received acclaim from critics, who noted it as a strong introduction…
Il Vuoto Elettrico
*100 copies limited edition* Six Minute War Madness was formed in 1992, with Xabier Iriondo and Paolo Cantù (guitars), Federico Ciappini (vocals), Massimo Marini (bass) and Daniele Misirliyan (drums) in the lineup. Il Vuoto Elettrico is the band's second album released only on CD in 1997 and recorded/mixed by Fabio Magistrali. A visceral album, with those sounds typical of Seattle, Chicago and Louisville of the 1990s. A noise-rock that fully photographs the need to bring certain sounds to the lo…
On the Mediterranean
Don King was the mid-'80s band from Mark Cunningham (post Mars), originally formed to play Thurston Moore's Noisefest at White Columns in 1981. The six concerts tour in 1986 were the last European appearances of the New York no wave band Don King, starting in Padua and following a wide arc around the Mediterranean, by train, through Switzerland over to Toulouse (France) and then down to Barcelona (Spain). The original cassette was a selection of the best live recordings released by the historic …
If I don’t make it, I love u
‘If I don't make it, I love u’ is Still House Plants’ third LP and the fullest embodiment of their sound to date. Where ‘Fast Edit’ formed with quick attachment and jump cuts, ‘If I don't make it’ is shaped by persistence - a commitment to the songs that makes the music solid, warmer and accepted. Marking the trio’s decade of friendship, this is the first record written whilst all live in the same city since 2017's ‘Assemblages’. The band rehearsed it relentlessly, playing for nobody except them…
The Upcoming Flame
*2024 stock* Stefan Christensen swamps delicate threads of melody in a muted squall of distortion. Waves of agitated noise, tamped down but still fractious, roll over the structures of his songs, so that it’s hard to tell whether the song or the dissonant scree of sound is the main thing. A current member of Headroom and frequent collaborator with members of Mountain Movers, Alexander and Nagual, Christensen layers haunted sung imagery over slow looped constructions of guitar and percussion. Her…
Deux nuit à Paris (2CD)
Emerging from the ethereal realms of sonic mastery, New Zealand’s most audacious experimental outfit, The Dead C, presents ‘Deux nuits à Paris’, two complete live sets that ensnares and exemplifies their ever-evolving sonic journey. From the pulsating metaphysical city of Dunedin, the band - Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, and Robbie Yeats - became a testament to the country’s under ground music scene, stirring the waters with their unorthodox sound landscapes since the late ‘80s. Profoundly phil…
9th Avenue
*300 copies limited edition* Nod invites you to Fly, Fly, Fly with their latest release, the brand new offering from the long-running Rochester, New York-based trio Nod. Equal parts jazz, groove, lo-fi, raw psychedelia, and driving VU-inspired rock, Nod’s 8th full-length release adds some rock grit to the previous Band Room Janitors. This set of fresh experiments from Nod’s laboratory create a new casserole from their ad lib cookbook. So dig in to the new Nod.
Vinegar Baths
*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* Vinegar Baths, the latest from Albany based sonic-master Parashi (aka Mike Griffin), is a collection of tracks ranging from free-noise experiments such as Styled As Nemesis and Don't Talk To Fascists, to the fuzz-drenched swells of The Questioning Kind, to a sinister yet catchy composed song like Winding Song (originally released on a lathe cut on Radical Documents, with the b-side, The Merry Oaf, also showing up here). The songs here all originated from …
Räkenskapens Dag
A small chunk of early 80's Swedish DIY underground history from the legendary but rarely heard Fysisk Fostran. Based in the small town of Stenungsund north of Gothenburg and roughly active between 1980 and 1984, the group released a few cassettes as well as a fabled 7" that due to mysterious complications only exist as a testpressing in 4 copies. Fysisk Fostran were inspired by the early UK industrial sound as well as post-punk and synth music, this combined with the young age of the bandmember…
If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection
The fantastic new album from tireless seeker Emily Robb. It’s a no-frills, high-minded celebration of guitar and sound and tone and string and amp and adventure committed to tape at Emily’s own Suddenly Studio in Philadelphia in fits and spurts stretching over 2022/23. These are economical tunes of utter trance and tightrope pulsations, with a fearless spirit and a devotion to energy and personality that digs into previously untapped mines. With zero fuss and pomp, “If I Am Misery Then Give Me A…
The wind is spring - there is a rainbow in the sky - love is hiding in the waves
Since forming in 1999, Suishou No Fune (A Ship Of Crystal), the vehicle for long-term musical collaborators Pirako Kurenai (guitar, voice) and Kageo (guitar), have been one of the most compelling groups in the Japanese underground. Their long, languorous songs are devastating in their simplicity, as though the gently sung ballads of the Velvet Underground’s third album were re-scored by the legendary Japanese free-rock gang, Les Rallizes Denudes. Their new album, 風は春、空は虹、愛は波間に隠れている (The wind is …
High Rise II
2023 repress! Pitchfork Best New Reissue: 8.4: Black Editions present a reissue of High Rise's II, originally released in 1986. High Rise exploded onto Tokyo's underground music scene with the roar and reckless abandon of a motorcycle accelerating headlong into a dead man's curve. Born from the explosive chemistry of bassist/vocalist Asahito Nanjo and frenetic guitarist Munehiro Narita, the band blazed a wild new stream of psychedelic guitar music. Their second album is a defining document of th…
Tusk
'Tusk' is an absolute scorcher from New Zealand's beyond legendary purveyors of scuzzed noise rock The Dead C. This is blown-out rock and roll taken to the absolute excess, with wailing feedback mayhem, submerged vocals and floating percussion. Part of an astonishing run of killer records that Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, and Robbie Yeats churned out during the 90s. Totally rewires the possibilities of what rock music can be, and still sounds bloody brilliant. Tusk digs into the thought bubble…
The Operation Of The Sonne
The Dead C's trio of albums in the middle of their harsh '90s reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation Of The Sonne, The White House, and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lass…
Whitehouse
The Dead C's trio of albums in the middle of their harsh 90s reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation Of The Sonne, The White House, and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lasse…
Encyclopedia of Luxinpei's Scandals
Luxinpei is a two-piece band from Beijing, formed by Ma Meng and Ma Yuan in 2007. Back to 1990s they were classmates, sharing a same desk. In 2008, Ma Meng became friends with Zhu Wenbo and they formed another another duo project Fat City. After some performance, Zhu started organized a weekly Tuesday performance series in 2009, which was the beginning of Zoomin’ Night. Both Luxinpei and Fat City were core names in early Zoomin’ Night days. Luxinpei’s work could be found in a Maybe Mar’s live co…
You Don't Need Magic
Tip! HUH are the wild, freeform duo of Kyosuke Terada and Takuma Mori. Based in Tokyo, and playing together since 2007, HUH have released a clutch of cassettes, CD-Rs, and digital albums; they’ve toured Europe (in 2017) and Australia (2019); and they count amongst their collaborators the likes of T Mikawa of Incapacitants, ASTRO, and Government Alpha. You may know Terada from his duo with Shizuo Uchida, MAI MAO, who recently released an LP on An’archives, but he's super prolific, performing solo…
Pod Vodom
* Edition of 70 copies. In process of stocking * Serbian dystopian bedroom psychedelia from the one man band Alek Novak that fits these gnarly times very well. Poetic lyrics (so i've been told, I don't speak Serbian) over a psychedelic rock/noise sauce makes perfect listening while walking through shady corners of Belgrade, tasting the last drops of your bottle rakia.
Leaving Meaning.
*2023 stock* "leaving meaning. is the first Swans album to be released since I dissolved the line up of musicians that constituted Swans from 2010 – 2017. Swans is now comprised of a revolving cast of musicians, selected for both their musical and personal character, chosen according to what I intuit best suits the atmosphere in which I’d like to see the songs I’ve written presented. In collaboration with me, the musicians, through their personality, skill and taste, contribute greatly to the ar…
The Seer
*2023 stock* “The Seer took 30 years to make. It’s the culmination of every previous Swans album as well as any other music I’ve ever made, been involved in or imagined. But it’s unfinished, like the songs themselves. It’s one frame in a reel. The frames blur, blend and will eventually fade. The songs began on an acoustic guitar, then were fleshed out with (invaluable) help from my friends, then were further tortured and seduced in rehearsals, live and in the studio, and now they await further c…