Soundohm

Concerto For Modern, Movie, And Pop Music For Ten Instruments And Voice

A new novel from the mind of Mayo Thompson is upon all who travel with us! Best known for his work with the psychedelic band, The Red Krayola, After Math is the sequel to Thompson's 2018 novella Art, Mystery. After Math retails what becomes of the cast of characters introduced in Art, Mystery, joint and severally pursuing an erotic Rinascimento statuette attributed to Antonio Pollaiuolo, a pursuit that lands them in court. On the way, their collective and singular fates are unfolded and accounte…

Stephen Prina

Contemporary Art Museum St.Louis

Artist's book / exhibition catalogue and audio CD published in conjunction with "Concerto for Modern, Movie, and Pop Music for Ten Instruments and Voice" a concert by Stephen Prina held at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, March 18, 2010 and a screening of two films by Prina held March 19, 2010.. For 30 years, Stephen Prina (born 1954) has enjoyed a simultaneous career as a visual artist and as an acclaimed musician, both under his own name and with The Red Krayola. Having kept his artistic int…

God Bless The Red Krayola And All Who Sail With It

Charly Records

Charly's superlative International Artists reissue campaign continues with a deluxe edition of The Red Krayola's 1968 classic second album, 'God Bless The Red Krayola And All Who Sail With It'. Along with the Elevators, The Red Krayola were the mainstays of the International Artists label, and are recognised in Psychedelic circles as producing some of the strangest music ever (combining elements of avant-garde and garage with wild, experimental freak-outs and chilling stripped down songs which s…

Mayo Thompson

Art, Mystery (Book)

Art & Language, Red Crayola

* 2021 Stock * Art, Mystery’ is Mayo Thompson’s first published work of fiction since the 1960s. He is best known for his work with the psychedelic band The Red Krayola. "In ‘Art, Mystery’, a controversial former footballer, now export agent specializing in chrome, accepts an unusual commission from an odd source, the very man who brought him down, a former football referee turned art handler - to find and export a pornographic work of Renaissance art. "Mr. Thompson has given us the perfect c…

Corrected Slogans

Corrected Slogans was first pressed by Art & Language and The Red Crayola in 1976; it was the first mention of the The Red Crayola's name on LP since 1968. The only review it received at the time was by Glenn O'Brian in Interview magazine; his response was a positive one, though he found the material ironic. By the time the album was made available to the public, it was clear that The Red Crayola would continue with Jesse Chamberlain joining Mayo Thompson. This was the start of five years of st…

Introduction

"The Red Krayola live to see another day. Having communed with their fans around the world in 2005 -- in Europe, Japan and the U.S. -- they were invigorated. Last summer they returned to one of their favorite haunts, the recording studio, for a session to capture the magic all at once. Today the result -- Introduction, 15 songs strong -- is here, and does just that. Introduction is an epic that presents The Red Krayola at their very best. Featuring the contributions of long-time members Stephen …

The triumphant return of the Red Krayola to record shops. Featuring members of Gastr del Sol, Slovenly, Tortoise. "Now working with such younger musicians as John McEntire (Tortoise), Jim O'Rourke, and David Grubbs, Mayo Thompson comfortably steers the Red Krayola into the mishmash of '90s post-punkdom here. For Thompson, it's not so much a return to the scene (he had always kept recording, after all) as a continuation of his themes of musical eclecticism. It's heavy on the angular guitar lines …

Coconut Hotel

These legendary recordings were shelved in ’67 for being too freaked-out! Today, they are sweet freak-outs to our ears. As strange as the Red Krayola's debut album was, their proposed follow-up, Coconut Hotel, was far stranger. This all-instrumental recording was more appropriately classified as twentieth-century avant-garde music than rock, and was rejected by International Artists for release in 1967, finally seeing the light of day on Drag City in 1995. All power to the Krayola for doing thin…

Singles

The very notion of the Red Krayola putting out "singles" is a little surreal, since singles are by most definitions the most commercial face of the record industry. After all, if anything was consistent about the Red Krayola throughout their career, it was their uncompromising underground uncommerciality. Yet the band actually put out a good number of singles in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and 21 tracks from those releases -- some of them quite rare, and some them actually previously unissued -…

Red Gold (Ep)

Less an Introduction, more a get-together with old friends. This gold is soaked red with the blood of the Krayola...and maybe a few others. The Red Gold EP, which is really more of a mini-album than an extended-play single per se, is the second Red Krayola release this year — an accomplishment that is no mean feat in and of itself.Throughout the band's 40-year history and ever-changing lineup, the only constant is longstanding singer/songwriter Mayo Thompson, whose gruff, southern-fried vocal de…

Fingerpointing

Art & Language, The Red Krayola

Oh, the difference an "o" makes. While Fingerpainting spoke of creation, Fingerpointing jabs you in the eye. These are Jim O'Rourke's alternate mixes, made from the same "paint" as the original release, but the colors are a different shade. 2008 release. "Free form freak out is dead! Long live free form freak out! Sounds are building blocks, say The Red Krayola, again and, now, again. '60s The Red Krayola began recording because posterity asked for it. Today, they proffer their latest sensat…

Five American Portraits

Art & Language, The Red Krayola

"I had been a fan of Mayo Thompson's prolific output for years, and had the opportunity to assist Mayo & Drag City on a previous project which I'm not at liberty to discuss due to a non-disclosure agreement. What I can say about it is that it involved time travel, another legendary avant-guardian and an agent of "the company" assisting my efforts. Mixing Five American Portraits at my studio Top Cat International was a joy and a breeze. DC mogul Rian Murphy was in the house simultaneously crackin…

Baby and Child Care

1984 unlreleaed befor album! When he wasn't busy with his many musical projects in the '70s and '80s, guitarist and songwriter Mayo Thompson was part of the celebrated British conceptual art collective Art & Language. Given Thompson's creative restlessness, it's not surprising that his partners in Art & Language became part of his musical efforts, most notably his shape-shifting group the Red Krayola, and they've teamed up for several albums since 1976's Corrected Slogans. Arriving in 2016, Baby…

Black Snakes

‘Black Snakes’ was issued in 1983 as a co-release by Switzerland’s Rec Rec and Germany’s Pure Freunde label. With a quartet featuring synthist Allen Ravenstine doubling on soprano sax, this was a smaller group than had appeared on either of the Crayola’s two previous releases, ‘Soldier-Talk’ and ‘Kangaroo?’. Mayo Thompson’s guitar in particular shines in the space allowed by this configuration.

Amor and Language

Amor and Language was one of three Red Krayola releases on Drag City in 1995 (two were from the vault: Coconut Hotel and Kangaroo?). After returning to America in 1994 and producing the first Red Krayola record since Malefactor (it was appropriately self-titled), Thompson was producing new Red Krayola material at a prolific rate -- Hazel was released the following year. When Amor and Language was in production, the pressing plant claimed to hear imperfections in the CD master.

Malefactor, Ade

Corky's Debt To His Father

In 1989, ‘Malefactor, Ade’ was issued on the UK’s Glass Records, which had arranged several years earlier for the first actual release of Mayo Thompson’s 1970 solo LP, ‘Corky’s Debt To His Father’. This was the first Red Crayola record release in five years. The fearlessness with which genres are converted can be disarming, but stick to it - you’ll find listening an utter triumph. ‘Malefactor, Ade’ was reissued on CD by Drag City in the year 2000. Now it's on lovely vinyl.

Mayo Thompson

LP version with bonus 7"; one of the great Drag City releases (and one of the great American music solo albums) finally on vinyl again. "In 1970, Mayo Thompson (once-and-future leader of The Red Krayola) recorded an album entitled Corky's Debt To His Father. Walt Andrus' Texas Revolution label released the record -- but just barely, selling a few hundred LPs with no promotion to speak of. The copies that made it into shops became the treasured objects of taste-makers around the globe -- which ma…

Five American Portraits

“Ridges and creases / high on the middle forehead / The right temple near the eyebrow / A small ridge under the right eye / The right side of the tip of the nose / The opening of the right nostril / The middle lower lip / The inner ear of the right ear.” Can you tell who it is yet? It’s George W. Bush, of course, or at least part of his head, as seen (or rather heard) in the second of five “American portraits” in words and music by legendary experimental rock outfit the Red Krayola, in collabora…

Fingerpainting

Released 1999 from Mayo Thompson & crew, this recording feat. unreleased songs from the distant days of 1966. The 90s RED KRAYOLA group then shuffles these ancient pre-Parable Red Crayola songs w/ the sounds of neo-freakouts, live on the world's stage - free, familiar & ugly, for new generations to come. Feat. both the latter day Krayola & the original Red Crayola, from 30 yrs back, bringing it all full circle & thus allowing another circle to be formed as soon as possible.