★Olde English Spelling Bee
Shapeshifter Slave
Robedoor reviews have become a fixture among these pages over the past few years. While keeping up with their steady stream of releases is no easy task, it goes without saying that, as a unit, they have firmly established themselves as one of the finest practitioners of the darkened drone operating in the current scene. The A side of “Shapeshifter Slave”, which was mastered by Yellow Swans’ Pete Swanson, takes little time to reinforce this notion as the hypnotic looping pattern of opener “…
Trilogy Select
Another highly sought-after pressing from the Olde English Spelling Bee, this time from Christelle Gualdi aka Stellar Om Source, featuring Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point never* Intrepid sci-fi soundtrack-y synth excursions from the mind of electronic visionary, Christelle Gualdi aka Stellar Om Source, collated by the good folk at Olde English Spelling Bee. 'Trilogy Select' is essentially a directors cut of tracks taken from Stellar Om Source's trio of self-released CDr albums made bet…
Dagger Paths
RESTOCKED *Bit of a departure for the Old English Spelling bee, embracing scenic dubbed-out tapestries described by the label as a cross between Burial's sample-strewn claustrophobia and Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores...* The Olde English Spelling Bee label has lit up our week with this incredible debut from Forest Swords. Nope, we've never heard of them before either, but they're only based down the road in The Wirral so we'll send them a thank you message via carrier pigeon o…
Flamingo Breeze
Absolutely Incredible Electronic Soundworks and Pop pastiche, sort of like Oneohtrix Point Never crossed with ariel pink and Animal Collective, all fed through a 1980's television soundtrack filter and recorded to tape over and over again. The exceptional Olde English Spelling Bee label presents a remastered issue of Sam Meringue's out-of-print tape released in summer '09 by Not Not Fun, complete with full colour sleeve and a digital download coupon from the label itself. In a similar vein …
Orange You Glad
This is the debut full-length from Julian Lynch, who to date is probably best known for a split 7" with Matthew Mondanile of Real Estate, Ducktails and Predator Vision fame. The two are childhood pals and frequent collaborators, but here Lynch steps out of the shadows and into the lo-fi limelight. The album stitches together fourtrack recordings and various fragmentary, cross-cultural elements into a fluid tapestry of psychedelic doodles and hazy songs driven by keyboards and guitar. L…
Dance Pop
Chart smashing 7" from the Olde English Spelling Bee camp, dropping the debut from Brooklyn's hugely tipped Greatest Hits. Aside from having one of the best names ever, this band also make some of the most f**ked up pop music we've heard all year. Think Autre Ne Veut doing a guest spot on The Hitman And Her presented by Pete Waterman and James V/VM in a Michaela Strachan mask, and you're almost there. The PWL-production line groove of 'Danse Pop' is our favourite, while 'Make You Mine' s…
Landscapes
*ONE OF 2009'S MOST ACCLAIMED ALBUMS, FINALLY BACK IN STOCK* Ducktails is the lo-fi bedroom pop pseudonym of New Jersey's Matthew Mondanile, who also goes by the handle of Predator Vision on Not Not Fun. Over the last three years he's dreamt up a steady stream of largely cassette only gems which squarely fall into the Hypnagogic Pop style identified by the Wire magazine in mid-2009. 'Landscapes' is a remarkable collection of raw-finished pop reminisces with a vivid sheen of washed-out summery eu…
Mare
"An earthy, eclectic record that manages to be challenging, but also remarkably patient, it's the sound of the formerly Ridgewood, NJ-based songwriter quietly coming into his own....a major creative step forward for Lynch, whose absorbing ambient pop sounds prove how refreshing this kind of subtlety can be." -- Pitchfork (8.5)
Blue Herons
Full-length vinyl release from northern California 'free drift' unit the Starving Weirdos. Blue Herons features two side-long tracks: 'Manila' and 'King Radness On His Royal Swim' both choice selections of their expansive drone-improv sound. Deluxe gatefold silkscreened covers with art by Nate Nelson (of Mouthus-Religious Knives-Crazy Dreams Band). Limited edition of 470 copies.
Split
A side each of fertile noise-rot from Montreal's Cousins of Reggae and Brooklyn's Mouthus. Soundly rejected by Discovery Channel, the Cousins' five-track suite about the Hudson Bay follows up their limited and hard-to-find debut LP (on Ohnonoise) and a recent CD-R on Mouthus's Our Mouth imprint. They set sail with some hyperactive stompers and narcoleptic stumblers intent on capsizing all vessels in their path before coming under attack by a squadron of pissed off jet-skiers. On the flip are two…
Turning Leaf Migrations
Kodama is the ongoing recording project of two well-known visual and sound artists - Hitoshi Kojo and Michael Northam - and this is their first widely available release as a duo. Recorded in various improbable locations whenever they crossed paths over the course of several years and then finally edited and assembled in a cluttered garage in the west side of Indianapolis. There is a decidedly more improvisational feel and crisp psychedelic aura to these recordings when compared to their other wo…
Rain in skull
Australian Charles Curse's music is one of the weirdest things I've come across all year. On Rain In Skull, fragments of disjointed folk melodies move across a plain of wheezing chords, tape hiss, children's voices, ambient washes, amp hum, electronic glitch and bits of buzz in general. The contrast between downcast guitar playing and the physical claustrophobia-inducing weight of sound is equally perplexing and intriguing. It's all presented in a decidedly lo-fi environment but the sound constr…
And I Await The Resurrection Of The Pedal Steel Guitar
This is the fifth solo offering by the Houston, Texas-based pedal steel sorceress, Susan Alcorn. 'The Heart Sutra' opens and is inspired by the 'Sutra of the Heart of Transcendent Wisdom' which was delivered by Buddha 2,500 years ago. It is a beautiful, yet solemn work that reverberates from within, as Susan strums those magical strings. The title track, 'And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar' was inspired by Messiaen's 'Et Expecto Ressurectionum Mortuorum'. It is a near 16-minu…