★Superior Viaduct
Suicide
Suicide's landmark self-titled LP was originally released in 1977, seven years after the group's initial conception as part of the performance art scene on the Lower East Side. It is hard to overstate the importance of the seven tracks on Suicide, which paved the way for punk, industrial, hip hop, noise and beyond. "Ghost Rider" accelerates with brutal anguish and desire for everything rock 'n' roll. Martin Rev's utterly singular "instrument" pounds out a synthetic soundscape, while Alan …
Live at The Witch Trials
The first full-length album of The Fall, Live At The Witch Trials, is not actually a live album. Emerging out of a two-day studio session at Camden Sound in North West London during a sickly December of 1978, Witch Trials amounts to the sinister foundation of the band's diverse sound. Every song explores drastically different styles and wild terrain, leaving much to decipher over its eleven tracks. "Frightened" has magnetic attraction / repulsion that shifts between Martin Bramah's skelet…
Dragnet
Dragnet is arguably The Fall's best-known album. With the departure of Martin Bramah after Live At The Witch Trials, the band underwent yet another lineup shift in late 1979. Marc Riley switched to guitar and Steve Hanley joined on bass; the latter's signature basslines would become a major part of The Fall for the next two decades. Opening track "Psykick Dancehall" strikes like an elusive, working-class anthem with its bouncy tempo changes and Mark E. Smith's unfiltered vocals raining down on t…
Inflatable Boy Clams
San Francisco provocateurs Inflatable Boy Clams recorded one of the greatest all-female art punk records ever made, a wrongfully obscure five-song double 7-inch EP which has garnered a cult following ever since its initial release on Subterranean Records in 1981. While the music blends simple instrumentation and captivating, quirky lyrics, the artwork looks like an early Rough Trade single, complete with posh Winogrand-esque photo of the group.More of a performance art troupe than a traditional …
Punk Singles Bundle
** Record Store Day 2016 Exclusive, few copies soon available, pressed on color vinyl and sold in bundle** Suicide is the classic proto-punk duo composed of Alan Vega and Martin Rev. Their first single, 1978's Cheree, was originally released in England just months after their landmark self-titled LP. The A-side, a sparkling remix of the group's first proper song, features the brilliant juxtaposition of Vega's yearning voice and Rev's swirling synth textures. Non-album track "I Remember" is an…
I Don't Remember Now / I Don't Want To Talk About It
Very necessary reissue of the minimal wave holy grail: John Bender’s self-released debut.
Call Me Burroughs
Originally released in 1965 by The English Bookshop in Paris and later by ESP-Disk' in New York, Call Me Burroughs marks not only the recorded debut of William Burroughs, but also for many the first encounter with his inimitable voice. While Burroughs has had pervasive influence on counterculture in the past 50 years – from the Beats to punk rock and even hip hop – no other figure today is so widely considered the epitome of cool. Call Me Burroughs features the author reading from Naked Lunch an…
La Jetee
"'This is the story of a man, marked by an image from his childhood.' Thus begins, with deceptive simplicity, Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962). The film, by far Marker's bestknown work, synthesizes many of the elusive filmmaker's central preoccupations -- time and memory, power and resistance, the ephemerality and resilience of love -- yet it also undermines the very idea of film. Composed almost entirely of still photographs, La Jetée quite literally pieces together the tale of an unnamed, forsak…
To Whom Who Keeps a Record
"In the late 1950s, Ornette Coleman set the jazz world on fire. From his own unique playing style to his fundamental deconstruction of harmony and complete rethinking of group performance, Coleman at once confounded critics and inspired a new generation. This revolutionary music eventually became known as free jazz, but Coleman's influence extended well beyond -- into avant-garde rock and art circles -- and today his name is synonymous with artistic freedom. Originally released in Japan o…
Four Organs/Phase Patterns
Steve Reich remains one of the most important figures in 20th century music. Though he studied at the prestigious arts institutions Julliard and Mills College, by the mid- 1960s Reich set about dismantling the very orthodoxy that he had been trained in. Forming a new musical language based on repetitive processes, Reich became established as part of the so-called 'Big Four' of New York minimalists (along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Philip Glass). Reich's influence can easily be seen tod…
The Avengers
In the late '70s, The Avengers established themselves as one of the US's preeminent punk bands. Fusing incisive guitar hooks, explosive rhythms and adolescent venom, the group forged some of the most in-your-face songs of the era. Their live shows were legendary, playing up and down the West Coast and even blowing Sex Pistols off the stage at the latter's final performance. As Byron Coley writes in the liner notes, 'Of the best bands of San Francisco's first wave in 1977, The Avengers were by fa…
Harry Pussy
Harry Pussy emerged out of the Florida swamps in 1993. Formed by Adris Hoyos and Bill Orcutt, the duo became legendary for their volatile live shows, which often devolved into violent clashes with audience members. Obliterating the lines between hardcore, noise and free jazz, the unclassifiable Harry Pussy were at once all of these things and none of them.
Originally released on Siltbreeze, their self-titled debut album reveals an antagonistic and visceral approach to music: Hoyos' self-taught,…
10 Suicides
In 1980 Ilitch mastermind Thierry Müller released his second LP, 10 Suicides, on the French imprint S.C.O.P.A. Unlike his debut Periodikmindtrouble (also available from Superior Viaduct), which featured intricately layered instrumentals, 10 Suicides explores a more art-damaged pop sensibility. While distorted guitars and atmospheric synth workouts remain a part of Müller's signature sound, several songs credit the mysterious Ruth Ellyeri, who was not an actual person, but rather Müller's female …
Periodikmindtrouble
Milestone!! Dreamy and cosmic, with long drones, deconstructed guitars and repetitive organ chords that are both bleak and mesmerizing, falling somewhere between Brian Eno, Conrad Schnitzler, and Heldon, with similar pulsing electronic sonic space visions. "In the mid-1970s Parisian composer and multi-instrumentalist Thierry Müller began operating primarily under the Ilitch moniker. Juxtaposing dark, electronic soundscapes and solo guitar improvisations, Ilitch created some of the most enduring …
The Long String Instrument
Milestone reissue! Ellen Fullman began developing her installation The Long String Instrument in 1981, in search of tonalities that could not be achieved with traditional instruments. This large-scale work consisted of 70-foot-long metallic wires, anchored by a wooden resonator, across which the performer moves backwards and forwards with rosin-covered fingers. The overall effect has been rightfully compared to the experience of standing inside an enormous grand piano.Recorded during Fullman's 1…
The Way Out (1979)
The first-time vinyl reissue of the 1979 solo debut from the Homosexuals bassist Jim Welton (a.k.a. L. Voag) includes a bonus 7-inch of the rare Move EP. The Way Out is recommended for fans of Desperate Bicycles, This Heat and Mark Perry."The start of recording The Way Out crossed over with the last days of my involvement with the Homosexuals. Lovely as they were, the guys were demanding unswerving, vanilla rock 'n' roll fealty from me – something I just couldn't provide given my need to taste e…
Triptych of poisoners
The first-time vinyl reissue of the sole album from UK DIY legends Milk From Cheltenham, originally released in 1983 on famed It's War Boys imprint, is recommended for fans of Swell Maps, The Faust Tapes and LAFMS (a reference could be found to This Heat, and Chris Cutler's bands Henry Cow and Art Bears)"Flashback to no-when (1978) in a musty cellar beneath a record store in Brixton, later to become the humble 8-track recording studio of It's War Boys founded by Amos (of The Homosexuals fame) in…
At The Medieval Castle Nineteen 100-Year Lifetimes Since
The Departmentstore Santas' LP is an underground rock classic of the highest order – from its carnivalesque front cover to the sixteen home-schooled tracks contained inside. Information about this mysterious band has been as scarce as original copies of their self-released album, yet purveyors of lo-fi pop esoterica have whispered about the Santas' raison d'etre for the better part of the past three decades.Recorded in the early '80s in La Mesa, California, At The Medieval Castle Nineteen 100-Ye…
Liquid Liquid Bundle
Bundle includes Liquid Liquid's three classic records (self-titled, Successive Reflexes, and Optimo) in their original 12-inch format as well as an archival LP of rare recordings by the pre-LL bands, Liquid Idiot and Idiot Orchestra.
Liquid Liquid emerged from New York City's vibrant Downtown scene in 1981. Formed by drummer Scott Hartley, bassist Richard McGuire, vocalist Sal Principato and marimba player Dennis Young, the group cut their teeth in underground clubs and street art circles bef…
Liquid Idiot/Idiot Orchestra
Prior to forming Liquid Liquid in 1981, the band members were in two other groups: Liquid Idiot and Idiot Orchestra. While these ensembles sounded more experimental than groove-oriented, the beginnings of Liquid Liquid’s spatial / conceptual framework can be heard here. Liquid Idiot started at Rutgers University in the late ’70s and soon relocated to NYC where they performed at various lofts and clubs including Tier 3, Mudd Club and CBGB. The band even encouraged audience members to bring…