Ambivalence 7
Ambivalence was not only The Pin Group's hypnotic debut, but also the very first release on Flying Nun. While guitarist Roy Montgomery, bassist Ross Humphries and drummer Peter Stapleton build off each other's jittery riffs, Montgomery's uncanny baritone pierces the torrential clangor. Conjuring both Wire's Chairs Missing and VU's White Light/White Heat, the band captures a truly unique sound – evocative, yet austere.
New Age Sewage
The Brown brothers emerge from the depths of California with a new collection of oozing drone centred on ‘heavy visions of negative west coast mythology.’Darkness is never far away from a Robedoor session, and their first album in four years finds Alex and Britt Brown dealing with ‘multiple seismic life events.’ Naturally this results in quite a powerful listen, Robedoor’s sludge even denser and mired in more pain and crepuscular mysticism. The brothers craftily let the gloom seep in slowly over…
Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki
The weirdest exploito-pop attempting to fuse western popular music with folkloristic elements of different origins came from the '60s and early-to-mid-'70s. Among tons of more or less entertaining releases a few diamonds could be found and Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki (1971), the brainchild of French composers Jean Kluger and Daniel Vangarde, is definitely a stand-out production in this field. "Yamasuki" is a fictional Japanese person about whom Kluger and Vangarde created a musical concept st…
The White Album
"In this double album named after the famous Beatles' album but having little or no artistic relationship to the same, we have decided to throw aside all preconceived notions of what music has been and recreate the wheel in a rocking fashion, utilizing a myriad of miscellaneous and sometimes famous musicians to put together a concoction of je ne sais quoi. There is a giant spider picking away at and eating your face one piece of flesh at a time, Larry. I like slow songs, and I like fast songs. I…
Bad Moon Rising
Sonic Youth’s second full-length LP Bad Moon Rising was originally released on Homestead and Blast First in 1985. The album is a fascinating examination of “the junction where hippie idealism [meets] the cold hard world,” says guitarist Lee Ranaldo, “where Woodstock [meets] Altamont—Death Valley, Charles Manson, Brian Wilson, musicians, murderers, heroes and villains.” Its original eight-song tapestry of droning guitar feedback, distant clattering percussion, and sullen vocals, all held together…
Monuments
Sophomore album from minimalist improviser, Ben Vince. Monuments comes into an age of global uncertainty, demanding a response. From an axis of improvisation, Vince’s saxophone works embrace the contours of more dynamic, emotive landscapes where rich motifs coalesce and feel their way around each other. In a departure from the more rigid looping of his debut, The Purge, this album explores much more progressive minimalist structures that undulate in and out of phase whilst not being afraid…
Pérélandra
Souffle Continu Records present a reissue of Emmanuelle Parrenin's Maison Rose, originally released in 1977. An album such as this obviously owes a lot to the atmosphere in which it was recorded. It took place in Fromentel, Normandy, in a farm converted into a studio by the producer Jacques Denjean, known for his work with Dionne Warwick or Françoise Hardy, as well as having been a member of the Double Six. It was also in Fromentel that Denjean would record two fantastic albums with Albert Marco…
Maison Rose
RSD 2017 release. Late addition. Souffle Continu Records present a reissue of Emmanuelle Parrenin's Maison Rose, originally released in 1977. An album such as this obviously owes a lot to the atmosphere in which it was recorded. It took place in Fromentel, Normandy, in a farm converted into a studio by the producer Jacques Denjean, known for his work with Dionne Warwick or Françoise Hardy, as well as having been a member of the Double Six. It was also in Fromentel that Denjean would record tw…
Underrated Glances At The Edge Of Town
Traveling far away to the edge of something unexplored is nothing new to J.H. Guraj. His life points in that direction, painting a road that begins in Firmo, the small Arbëreshë (Italo-Albanian community) town buried deep amongst the hills of Italy’s most southern region Calabria, and trails on to the infinite and beyond. Stealing his stage name Guraj from an old sage picker he encountered on a summer journey through the Albanian rocky landscape, Dominique Vaccaro now resides in Bologna where he…
Malenkost
Describing a world of beauty, escape, sorrow, loss and catharsis usually needs a strong leap of faith and when it comes to music such a feat is almost impossible, modern day consumption is pulling us by the throats and we don’t have time to surrender, we don’t have time to let the fog, the mystery, the universal shine seek into our eyes and creep into our minds. There are exceptions, Cindy Lee is one of them, a rare all-in lifer, flickering candle.
Maple Death is beyond honored to team up with S…
Beat It Down
After the success of their debut EP, post-punk art rockers Y Pants performed regularly in NYC and other East Coast venues. In 1981 they toured Europe for six weeks and upon return went into the studio to record their only LP, Beat It Down, released in 1982 on Neutral Records (Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca et al). The album extends the band's signature pared down rollicking minimalism. The 10 songs are varied, using surprising and inventive instrumentation. The music is at once filled with a s…
Y Pants
"'In the late '70s and early '80s everyone had very fluid art identities. One day you were a filmmaker, the next day a musician, and Y Pants was very much a part of it... The lyrics are ironic without being callous, the voices are sultry, the music is repetitive and trance-like... [with] a sense of urgency - like something being driven out.' --Kiki Smith. Y PANTS were a three-woman New York band: Barbara Ess, Virginia (Verge) Piersol and Gail Vachon, all visual artists. They played in clu…
Discordes
Aude Romary, cello. Jérôme Noetinger, electroacoustic devices. This duo started in 2014 with the idea to transform the acoustic instrument into a real electroacoustic one. Transducers, springs and microphones are attached to the cello which is then processed through electronic and tape. This CD comes from several hours of improvisations recorded in studio and reorganised to build six pieces of abstract electroacoustic music.
1978 Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano
1978 Gli dei se ne vanno, gli arrabbiati restano! ("The gods depart, the angry remain!") is the sixth album of the Jazz fusion band Area and was released in 1978, as the title says. It is the first album without guitarist Paolo Tofani, and it is also the first album whose lyrics were not written by Gianni Sassi. Also, noticeably it is the only album in which Demetrio Stratos is credited as a composer.Area has stripped their sound a bit. Not drastically, but the experimental, avant-garde and fusi…
The Sunny Side Of The Dark Side
"After the dark clouds of the '70s the world was changing and Maurizio Marsico, fresh off New York sessions with Rhys Chatham, started the '80s with a couple of experimental records under the moniker Monofonic Orchestra, published by the cult label Italian Records, Music Design (1981) and Friends' Portraits (1981). Stefano Tamburini, the creator of the legendary Ranxerox comic hero painted by Tanino Liberatore, was an onlooker in disguise in New York Marsico's exhibitions, and back in Italy he…
Mongoholy-Nazy/ Thalidomusic For Young Babies
**Limited Edition Gatefold 2LP on transparent wax** Dead at 30 - a candle burned at both ends, consumed by drugs and relentless creative fire, Stefano Tamburini is among the great lost figures of Italian Avant-Garde. Legendary for his contributions to counter-cultural publishing - a writer, graphic artist, comics author and magazine publisher, Tamburini was equally the glue which bound many of the wildest voices of Post-Punk - Mars, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, in a lineage stretc…
Guai a voi! / Invocazione (7” + poster )
A genuine mystery of the prog scene - and not only - from Italy for almost forty years, Lydia e gli Hellua Xenium just released a couple 7-inch records, that went completely unnoticed at the time (1972-73) and represent today authentic and rare collectible items, listed for hundreds of Euros each. Only recently the names of the musicians involved have been revealed, together with the story of the group (hailing from Busto Arsizio, a town in the province of Varese in Northern Italy), even …
Metrodora
Digitally remastered for the first time at 192 khz and 24 bit. From the original master tapes, 1st time rpressed on LP. Mere words can’t describe the impact of an album where the only instrument is the voice of Demetrio Stratos (actually, there are few synthesizer inserts played by Paolo Tofani). Originally released in 1976: a unique work where Demetrio Stratos makes any kind of experiments and sounds with his voice, reaching and going over the limit of human capabilities. "Demetrio Strato…
Nabelóse
Ingrid Schmoliner, prepared piano, voice. Elena Kakaliagou, French horn, vocals. Corvo Records’ new LP + download release Nabelóse shows Austrian prepared piano virtuoso and yodeler Ingrid Schmoliner and the French horn player Elena Kakaliagou from Greece, putting their hands and voices on traditional folk music from both countries. Ingrid Schmoliner & Elena Kakaliagou form a duo that creates dark interpretations of ancient songs and tales from mountains and the sea.Recorded at Alte Gerberei, St…
Omerta
Released 2017, co-produced with Florence Giroud. In 2014, artist Florence Giroud invited five musicians to work around texts for her Opera XXS' third chapter, taking form in a long play recording. The music and texts deal with the disappearance of onelself in the beautiful island of Corsica in the mediterranean sea. Featuring Romain Hervault (La Société Etrange, Pan Pan Pan), Romain de Ferron (Balladur, Vinci), Pierre Bujeau (Tanz Mein Herz), Mathieu Tilly (Tanz Mein Herz, France) and Jeremie Sa…