New Arrivals
Live at the Red Garter 1970
his latest Transparency release brings an early July 1970 concert to our attention. "Live At The Red Garter" (later 'The Bottom Line' / New York City) doesn't offer the best sound quality, but it does give a glimpse of an exceptional version of the Arkestra: Sun Ra, Kwame Hadi, Akh Tal Ebah, Marshall Allen, Danny Davis, John Gilmore, Pat Patrick, Danny Ray Thompson, Eloe Emoe, Alan Silva, Alex Blake and a handful of unidentified percussionists...
Earth Liver
New full-length from San Francisco based Common Eider, King Eider. Themes, instrumentation, and vocal decay is stretched out even more dramatically by this mysterious band of outsiders. Genres bleed into each other and smear reality as elements of drone, doom, neo-folk, and black metal deliver a harrowing and somber reality of loss and emptiness. Silence weaves in and out of vocal arrangements, violas, and guitars creating unease throughout the entire listening experience. Four new pieces…
Mountains Of Tongues
Important collection of recordings documenting and preserving "fringe" or under-represented folk cultures and voices from a unique region at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. It spans a diverse cross-section of music by Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Chechens and many other ethnicities which fall outside their country's definition of national folk music - Azeris from Georgia, Kurds from Tbilisi, Avars and Lezgis from Azerbaijan, or Molokans in the South Caucasus - giving room for al…
Ivy (Vatican Shadow / Lakker Mixes)
**Transparent Vinyl - Individually numbered edition of 300 copies** Vatican Shadow and Lakker provide remix reinforcement for the killer debut from Berlin's Tommy Four Seven and Alain from One Million Mangos Mastering as These Hidden Hands. Their original 'Ivy' is heavily informed by the romantic dystopia of mid-late '90s IDM and D&B's grander gestures, gazing out on drizzly grey north European synth skies whilst the reduced tech-step torque ticks and prods like a not-so-dystant cousin o…
Alice
Limited, hand-numbered edition of 500 green vinyls housed in lavish die-cut and foil-block embossed jacket** Alexander Tucker (Imbogodom/Guapo) and Daniel O'Sullivan (Æthenor/Ulver/Guapo) reprise their Grumbling Fur alias for the Latitudes series following that excellent album for Aurora Borealis in 2011. Both artists have previously graced the series already - Tucker solo and with Ginnugagap, and O'Sullivan with Miasma And The Carousel Of Headless Horses - and don't disappoint with their…
End Line
Ottaven new LP issued in a tiny run of 100 copies only, a strong and puzzling mixture of tapes, electronics, varispeeding, and multiple exposures, carefully executed, with much precision and clarity. Flipping between noisily bristling electronic frequencies and blustery washes of oscillating tones, Ottaven sounds carefully programmed even in its most frentic moments, and offers several blasts abrasive enough to unclog the dirtiest pore.
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…
Winds & Skins
Winds & Skins transpired to be the very last set of recordings made by Afro-Cuban percussionist Sabu Martinez, who sadly passed away precisely one month after this December 1978 session was committed to tape. The album draws a line under a career that saw the illustrious musician performing alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey as well as releasing a string of out-and-out classic Latin jazz records. Here the noted conguero teams up with the lauded saxophonist/flautist Sahib Shihab, who himsel…
Rehearsal tapes and alt. Takes NYC 1976-1978
"Connie Burg and I met Sumner Crane and Nancy Arlen in late 1975 and quickly decided to start a band. Sumner had been playing piano since he was a kid and I trumpet, guitar and more recently bass, but we were for the most part self taught. Connie decided to pick up a guitar and we started jamming in Nancy’s loft on Broadway and Duane St. where Sumner lived downstairs. For the first few months it was just piano, bass and acoustic guitar, with some paper bag percussion from Nancy. Our biggest rock…
Berlin
Rhodri Davies: harp. Mark Wastell: violoncello. Simon H. Fell: double bass. 'One day, I hope, the story will be written. The story of the group IST and its relationship to the birth of the music that subsequently became variously known as New London Silence or Lower Case Improv (and yes, I use those upper case letters intentionally). Perhaps the learned critics (who seem very rarely to actually ask the musicians) will tell us just what our place is in this history. Certainly we were not the firs…
Overloaded Ark
A sequel to last year's eponymous debut as a duo, this new Drag City LP from Espers cellist Helena Espvall and Ghost's Masaki Batoh delves even deeper into traditional and ancient musics, making use of an armoury of instruments that extends beyond 'mildly obscure' (renaissance harp, sho, hurdy gurdy, etc) and enters into the realm of 'are you sure you haven't just made that up?' (auschpfeife, crumhorn, cornamuse, rig and darbuka). On hand to assist in this piece of instrumental archeology is anc…
Real Sugar
"Ryan Garbes is the drummer of Iowa City bands such as Wet Hair, Dunebuggy, Trash Dog, and formerly Raccoo-oo-oon. His recordings under his own name represent a unique brand of solo multi-track recording with a seamless integrity; through a skillful use of instrumentation and recording technique, Garbes eschews notions of low fidelity for songs reminiscent of traditional American garage rock produced in the haze of an early '90s UK aesthetic. Genuine pop songs, cloaked in a comforting was…
Cardiocleptomanie
For our 31st release, Minimal Wave is proud to present Belgian pop trio Pas De Deux, best known for their participation in the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest. The group was formed in 1982 by Walter Verdin joined by Hilde van Roy and Dett Peyskens. They released two LPs and several singles along with some incredible video work produced by Verdin himself. Stylistically, their music is a bit post-punk and completely new wave with vocals reminiscent of the indie girl bands of the late 70s and early 80…
See the World Given to a One Love Entity
Guardian Alien is a free wheeling ensemble coming into its own, having found just the right balance between structured arrangements and wild abandon. Helmed by Greg Fox, who has lent his percussive force to the likes of Teeth Mountain, Dan Deacon, and Liturgy, the ensemble was initially an extension of his solo music (GDFX). It rapidly took on its own identity and expanded to a core group of Greg (drums, vocals, electronics, arrangements), Alex Drewchin (vocals, synth), Turner Williams Jr…
Mask of the Maker
Fuses deep kosmische moods w/ jet-propulsion lab experiments, classic galactic Italo, soaring starblood synth workouts, funky astral ragas, psychedelic dust coulds & rare mantric guest vocals
Homicidal Texture
Homicidal Texture was released by Slaughter Productions in early 1995 in a bizarre packaging consists of a metal mesh that completely envelops the cover. The four tracks on the tape are based on obsessive synth drones. The smell of death is soaked in every sound produced by the brilliant and twisted mind of Marco Corbelli. Anxiety, alienation and hypochondria turn into a deep paranoia in pain. Without hesitation, the bodies are emptied, leaving the field to an electronics purulence of rare power…
The Mortimer Trap
The Mortimer Trap is an epic, 77-minute "variation" of Morton Feldman's For Bunita Marcus, constructed by German experimentalist and techno icon Thomas Brinkmann and Australian sound artist Oren Ambarchi. Pulsating waves of claustrophobic ambience generated from who-knows-what patiently builds into a throbbing, rhythmic pulse of gorgeous sonic density. Since the '80s, Thomas Brinkmann has experimented with sound, its textures and its construction methods. His custom-built two-arm turntable …
No. 2
Developed over a four year period, and entirely funded by a part time job working as a SAT university entrance exam mathematics tutor, Nº2 was composed using synthesizers and a variety of unidentiï¬ÂÂÂed samples that were manipulated beyond recognition. Christina Vantzou then collaborated with Minna Choi of the San Francisco based Magik Magik Orchestra. Vantzou and Choi worked on the notation and arrangements and recorded the compositions with a 15-piece ensemble at Tiny Telephone studios in S…
Sane Men Surround
Following up their warmly-received 2011 Alter debut, The Letter (ALT 005LP), Sane Men Surround is the second album to emerge from Southend-on-Sea's Liberez. Like their debut, the nine tracks here continue to savagely EQ percussion, guitar, violin and electronics into abstraction with tracks like "A Warning and My Madness Offends," bearing the industrial and almost ritualistic atmospherics of its predecessor, while "Nema Te" and "What's Mine Is Mine" introduce a new style of composition and songw…