New Arrivals
Emergency Stairway
Emergency Stairway could have been Thought Broadcast's debut vinyl full-length. In fact, when commissioned in early 2012, only one 7" and two super-limited tapes were in existence, until some other label snapped to the finish with an even older commission. So, let's say an "almost-debut." Confused? Well, yes, that's probably the point. Ravi Binning's Thought Broadcast project oozes out a dank and confused audio experience isolated way beyond the city limits. A glance at the titles suggests…
Hallway Of Mirrors
VHF is releasing a bunch of solo guitar dudes over the next few weeks. Here's one of 'em! It's an album from New York's Alexander Turnquist called Hallway of Mirrors. It says that above so it's kinda pointless me saying that. Having said that the New York thing was a new bit of info so it's not all filler! I've not heard this chap before but I was rather taken with him on first listen. It's not a million miles away from the likes of James Blackshaw.... ie extreme 12 string fingerpluckery which i…
Signs of a perfect disaster
**Limited edition of 300 copies on acid yellow wax with photocopied A4 insert** Rome, Italy's Sea Dweller make a gorgeous racket on their heavenly 2nd album of shoegaze dreampop. Returning to Upside Down Recordings after 2008's 'Underwater Town', they've seriously refined their sound in line with their too-obvious-to-mention influences. Head-flossing melodies made from reverb-effected and delayed guitar treatments swoon about vintage Alesis drum machines in clouds of old Crumar synths and…
Boca Negra
LP version, ultralimited: For a band with only two members, this group gets an impressive variety of sounds. Rob Mazurek on cornet and Chad Taylor drummer also use the studio as an instrument, alternating between post bop jazz and near ambient soundscapes. Taylor's rhythmic sense is unerring throughout the album, whatever the tempo. Electronics are added at times, and add effect, especially at slower tempos making for spooky music along with slurred horn. "Green Ants" has sputtering …
Klavierwellen
Amazing release by the video & sound-artist from Brazil Marcellvs L., a four-channel sound piece titled "Klavierwellen" or Piano Waves (2011). The piano waves we hear are literally just that: while on a residency, the artist upturned a piano on a boat traveling around the canals, on which two contact microphones were attached to the soundboard and two micro omnidirectional placed between the soundboard and strings. The movement of the boat through water creates a kind of roving ambient experienc…
Spirit Of The Positive Wind
featuring Brian Sullivan & Nate Nelson (Mouthus), Pete Nolan (Magik Markers, Spectre Folk) and Karl Bauer (Axolotl). The LP features two side-long tracks of bubbling, meandering noise-drone collages. "What the hell is this madness? After the Georgia Sea Island Singers took me somewhere nice it’s up to this super-group to drag me back to the fierce, nightmarish industrial landscape from whence I came. Then again this isn’t the sound of Bradford. I don’t know what it’s the sound of actua…
Space Elements III
This is the third volume of the Space Program's Space Elements series. In this series, each volume features guests and is focused on a compositional function. The Space Program is a long-term project launched in 2004, for performing music with a post-free jazz mind-set but using strange sounds from electronic instruments. Playing physically, the body is involved in making decisions. The Space Program is about articulating silence and sound, structuring musical flow on experimental instrum…
September Cell
Absolutely KILLER new twelve from Vatican Shadow on Dominick Fernow's own, newly minted Bed of Nails imprint - his most direct dancefloor productions to date. Edition of 700* Bed Of Nails is a new label curated by Dominick Fernow of Vatican Shadow and Prurient fame. Operating from his recently consecrated L.A. compound - the label will focus on his reorientation towards industrial dancefloor rhythms and seductively isolated electronics. Fernow christens the label with 'September Cell', a…
The Second Stop Is Jupiter
nterstellar vocal group numbers and doo wop from the Sun Ra vaults – a couple rare release and a bunch of previously unissued numbers featuring The Cosmic Rays, Crystals, Nu Sounds and Juanita Rogers – teenage vocal group numbers, bits of bebop and spacey doo wop released for the first time ever! The Second Stop Is Jupiter is Volume 2 in Norton's compilations of early, vocals centered Sun Ra material – beautifully done, and worthy for more than just Ra completists – it's a treasure trove…
s/n
A split LP with Harappian Night Recordings 6 reviews in psychopathic alchemy and Kommissar Hjuler Karawane from Hugo Ball. Limited to 300 copies. Yellow vinyl. "Der krazy Kommissar recites a Hugo Ball nonsense poem from 1916, written the same year Ball wrote the Dada Manifesto & founded the Cabaret Voltaire. Harappian is a one man UK bedroom string plucker & droner who cuts together, mimics, & plays along to his international records. He pulls off some pretty flamin' rock tunes here, full of t…
The Parasites Of The Western World
The Parasites of the Western World are a band from Portland, OR who released their recorded debut in 1978. It's a fascinating spin, a galactic ramble across the otherworldly themes of alienation and paranoia, seemingly inspired by LSD and Philip Dick. Primarily the creation of Patrick Burke and Terry Censky, the Parasites were limitless with invention and completely DIY. This is a record that was recorded in an apartment, by a crew thoughtful enough to curtail it's loud excursions for the…
Live in Paris 4.IX.86
Reissue of a classic tape from 1986. Bruno Cossano released 4 tapes thoughtout the 80s and appeared on various compilations such as the 'Hate's our belief' tape ion Aquilifer Sodality. Now for the firs time this Italian power electronics master can be heard on vinyl with some of his most powerfull and intense stuff.
Broken Bones
This latest in the Latitudes series of limited LPs comes from American noise-pop band Gowns, whose Red State album you may recall as being one of 2007's more unclassifiable recordings. A folkish spectre hangs over these pieces, particularly when it comes to the wiry, haunting violin sequences strewn liberally across the session - they bring to life the sinister spoken word of 'Dog', crowning a soundscape that's always on the precipice of turning nasty. Much of Gowns' music tends towards uncertai…
Untitled
Edition of 380 copies** Powell marks up the 2nd release on The Death Of Rave, following Mark Leckey's debut entry, 'Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore'. Powell's 3rd release refines his ascetic blend of lawless New York no wave, cold European electronics and late '90s D&B with incisive vision and propulsive torque. The EP's standout 'A Band' emphasises a chimeric indistinction between the "real" textures of sample-spliced guitars and drums and the gritted tension of painstakingly processed electr…
LA Vampires & Zola Jesus
Easily one of the releases of the year so far, finally available on limited edition vinyl* Ghostly goings on from gothic psych queen Zola Jesus and kindred spirit LA Vampires (the current guise of Amanda Brown from Pocahaunted), who collaborate across this killer new mini album. 'Bone Is Bloodstone' rumbles into motion with those familiarly smudged out, indecipherable vocals and evaporating drum machines but there's a heavy bass groove and some ghoulish melodic developments set to balance …
YMCA
YMCA is guitarist Alan Licht's first solo release since 2003's A New York Minute double CD (on XI), and his first solo vinyl outing since 1994's long out-of-print Sink The Aging Process (on Siltbreeze). Largely recorded at a 2004 concert at a Cambridge Massachusetts YMCA by Keith Fullerton Whitman, YMCA documents Licht's solo guitar set of the time -- a three-part structured improvisation that moves from mournful, layered sustained tones that sound more like a reed organ than a guitar, to a gent…
Safiyya
Like a true psychedelic experience, one that if you've ever had, you'll know what we mean, it presents you with a fixed length window that opens into another possible perspective of our lumbering existence. Imagine 500 milligrams administered via an eye dropper filled with mercury and you're on your way. Born of a correspondence between two fellows entrenched in parallel explorations of the unknowable and imagined, there's a mystery to the source of the sounds contained in these grooves; …
After Before
Fantastic document of higher-minded drone ritual from a trio that features Taketo Shimada. Shimada is a shadowy figure in fringe minimalism. He worked as Henry Flynt’s assistant, put together the Yoshi Wada week at the Emily Harvey Foundation, was involved with Herbert Huncke, Alison Knowles and a bunch of other Fluxus artists. Messages is an extended investigation into the eternal music concepts of Wada, LaMonte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Pandit Pran Nath et al, with Shimada on bass a…
Double Demon
What mischief can be made with just cornet, vibraphone and drums. Rob Mazurek has scaled back considerably since Stars Have Shapes, the 2010 record from his Exploding Star Orchestra. His new project, the curiously named Starlicker, is a mere trio, with Chicago vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz and Tortoise drummer John Herndon. But this group emits more sound and energy than do some sextets. Double Demon is Out to Lunch! for a new generation. Powered by Herndon’s hyperkinet…
Joka Baya
First in a trio of limited edition new LP’s from the ever mysterious Vibracathedral crew, returning from another relatively quiet period with an uncompromising set of outre’ jams. Slightly reorganized around a lineup of stalwarts Mick Flower and Adam Davenport with frequent collaborators John Godbert (Total) and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man), the band here stretches way, way out over these six sides, taking in several different styles while maintaining “that” sound all the way through…