Rock /
Galaxies
Laurence Vanay is the pseudonym for Jacqueline Thibault, wife of producer and musician Laurent Thibault (Magma). Her debut album "Galaxies" (1974) is pure genius: almost all instrumental, with gorgeous keyboards of many types, acoustic/electric guitar, even a little Zeuhl bass. There are wordless vocals on many of the tracks, although she occasionally sings in a soft, seductive manner. Incredible, spacey “avant-garde progressive chanson,” a Holy Grail for most collectors of 70's underground Fren…
Blank Generation
2013 repress. Exact repro vinyl version of the debut Richard Hell album, originally issued by Sire in 1977; 180 gram vinyl . "Hell formed the Voidoids, whose unwavering individualism kept the group out of the big time while producing a demanding and impressive corpus of work. 'I was saying let me out of here before I was even born.' That lyric sums up Hell's attitude, which he expanded and perfected on Blank Generation with a new version of the title track and such powerful statements as 'Love C…
La Bas (1987-1992)
JFK is the project of British rock and electronic musician Anthony Di Franco (Ramleh, Skullflower, Ethnic Acid). Originally active between 1987 and 1992, JFK was conceived as an experimental rock band that could create "a total music, absorbing all possibilities." This exclusive CD compiles rare and previously-unreleased tracks, including the Temple of Set/Sexodus 7" (previously-released by Fourth Dimension in 1992). The JFK sound is a brain-melting clash of electronic rhythms, blazing guitar ri…
Don't tell the driver
Finally, after 15 years, Big Mick Turner has turned in the big rock record we always knew he had in him. Yeah, Don't Tell the Driver is a different kind of record from all the Mick Turner records -- not just his own, but the ones he's done with Dirty Three, Bonny Billy, Cat Power, Fungus Brains, and Venom P. Stinger put together. So, what's so different about Don't Tell the Driver anyway? Well, Mick grew a mustache for this one. That must mean it's his Sgt. Pepper; a consolidation and developmen…
Surrender to the Fantasy
Stop right there, hands in the air! If you want to know what Magik Markers think is good for you, you'll Surrender to the Fantasy. For this long-desired alpus, they've been working in threes and stuff. Triangles. The hermetic trifecta of knowledge, Christ and the two thieves, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the original tagline of the Markers' symbol: '3 down, no to go.' Meaning, these three get it and literally no one else needs to, 'cept the record-buying public, tra la la, ha ha ha ha. STTF (nev…
Veterans of disorder
Back in play just to celebrate 14 years, 2 months and 12 days since its original release is Royal Trux's penultimate album, Veterans of Disorder. Coming off the fan-favorite Accelerator LP, it was clearly time to build on expectations, right? Uh... listen, maybe this isn't the band for you. Neil and Jennifer were fans of rock n roll to the finish, sure -- but in that, Royal Trux was a dyed-in-the-wool contrarian enterprise, rebels to the core, and everything they endeavored to was viewed from th…
Mirror repair
Gastr Del Sol emerged from the remains of Bastro in 1992 with the brooding, mostly drumless album, ‘The Serpentine Similar’. This represented an unlikely evolution from the fury of Bastro, but evolution was only getting started - and ‘unlikely’ was one of the ongoing principles in Gastr Del Sol’s approach. Before the sessions for the second album, Bundy Brown left the group and David Grubbs asked Jim O’Rourke to come play. 1994’s ‘Crookt, Crackt Or Fly’ tangled the clean lines of the original ba…
Raajmahal
Raajmahal's second LP. Recorded in the winter of 2012/2013 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Carla Baker (Flower Orgy, Baba Yaga) -- guitar, harmonium, and vocals; Pat Murano (Decimus, NNCK, Malkuth, etc.) -- guitar/synth; with vocal harmony assistance by Amanda Bristow (Baba Yaga) and flute by Jen Storch. Here are a few thought-experiments to consider while listening to the newest LP on Kelippah Records by the band Raajmahal: You are a tourist in an exotic and faraway land where you have attended a dai…
The Weird Weeds
"The album's arc from patience to brightness is as natural as an orbiting planet, but Weird Weeds do that one better at the end, stuffing a miniature solar system into one seven-minute track. True to form, this closing piece builds intensity not through change but momentum, starting with a four-note guitar figure and slowly adding accents and atmosphere...What matters most about The Weird Weeds is how it furthers this band's stature as the kind that others should be compared to." - Pitchfork
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Far West
On "Far West," the Master Musicians of Bukkake mark a turn from their Totem Trilogy. If the Totems were an expression of yang energy, then the "Far West" cycle is the yin that took seed within the trilogy. What happens when you travel so far east looking for enlightenment that you pass your destination and are headed west again? The mania of being lost in the mountains of the Cascade Corridor, searching aimlessly for the Northern Pacific coast. A spiritual Donner party of sorts, feeding off fant…
Cuckoo live life like Cuckoo
Now in their tenth year the band have been gathering plaudits and accumulating new fans with every release, and after playing to thousands at Supersonic Festival last year, things are accelerating at an even faster pace. As with each album release, Hey Colossus continue to mutate and for their eighth album they have enlisted the support of a new drummer, Part Chimp guitar/vox man, Tim Cedar, who has undoubtedly brought a whole new kind of energy that has reinvigorated the band. When the rhythm s…
Polar satellites
Polar Satellites is a mesmerising collection of percussion improvisations performed in duo by Nathan and Scott deep in the winter of 2009 and 2010 with absolutely no overdubs. Building on the starkness of last years Effigy by Pelt, the duo have recorded an even bleaker, more minimal and hermetically vibed record together. Unnerving and hypnotic, Polar Satellites is an intense journey into the unknown, awash with uncategorisable percussive instruments, kalimbas and banjo.
Nathan and Scott first m…
Cat mask at huggie temple
“The outcome of a collective trudge across the European/American desert for 40 days and 40 nights.†Cat Mask at Huggie Temple is the superb debut 12†by Desert Heat, a dust bowl rock trio of Steve Gunn, John Truscinski and Cian Nugent. The trio originally came together when they played a bowling alley followed by an appearance at Tusk Festival in Newcastle, UK where the trio jammed together like they had been a band for years. Part of the group\'s success hinges on John and Ste…
Armed Courage
With nary a praising documentary, coffee table photo book or tribute band to their name, The Dead C are nonetheless one of the most respected, longest surviving groups in the history of rock. Still sporting the original band members (Michael Morley on guitar, vocals, Bruce Russell on guitar, Robbie Yeats on drums) from their first assemblage in 1987, The Dead C's renown has a lot to do with their stubborn unwillingness to compromise in any form. With a varied and challenging discography, the ban…
Message From Era Ora
One of the most original and innovative Krautrock bands, Embryo fused traditional ethnic music with their own jazzy space rock style. Over their 40-year existence, during which Christian Burchard has been the only consistent member, the group has traveled the world, playing with hundreds of different musicians and releasing over 20 records. This is a never before released jams recorded live during 1976 in various locations. This is the only record of the collaboration with the italian jazz legen…
New gods: Aardvark through Zymurgy
Here’s an album of truly out-there (and Julian Cope-approved) psychedelia from the proto-punk era."Analogue synthesizers swirled and farted, totally fogging up the vocals and undermining the perpetually descending/ascending Inna-Gadda-Da-Sunshine-Of-Your-21st-Century-Schizoid-Lord-Of-This-World-ness of their NIB. New Gods music was like Hinduism, constantly threatened by wave upon wave of successful new invaders, each leaving their cultural mark, irrigating and edifying but ultimately becoming s…
A history of every one
'A History of Every One' by Bill Orcutt is an album of songs: minstrel songs, holiday songs, hymns, marches, cowboy songs, Disney songs, work songs, delta blues. The original tunes themselves are nothing special, well known, but not particularly well-regarded. Most would be filler on a mid-60's Doris Day or Burl Ives LP. What Orcutt does with them however is remarkable: expanding upon techniques developed on 2011's 'How the Thing Sings' and incorporating ideasforged since his recording of 'The S…
1986-1991
"The Venom P. Stinger retrospective is on. One of the roughest groups of the '80s is back in print on vinyl and for the first time ever on CD, and still nice and hard and rough and wild on either format. File under: punk rock/noise rock/free-of-constraints rock. If you think of Venom P. Stinger simply as the proving ground for 2/3rds of the Dirty Three first, then you're seriously missing it, and fuck you. It was the mid-'80s and everything was going fine. The music underground was its ow…
Ark Procession / Jericho
Al Cisneros is no stranger to the deep meditations of a minimalist, sub-sonic song. We've all been totally faced by the ritual low-end thunder his band, OM, bestow as gospel both live and on record on the regular, a sound source which can hardly be described as minimal yet never needs more than a smattering of accompaniment beyond its usual, steady drumming. Perhaps a bit of guitar here, some keys there, or maybe just some extra tambo to provide color, but first and foremost, you get full…