New Arrivals
psychic smog
New ASC effort on qbico, a duo this time. THIS is the social club for astral spirits..."
Time Building
I started making music in earnest in 1994 with a Casio keyboard and a four-track cassette recorder. Since 1996 I have been using a Korg MS10 analogue synthesiser and some effects pedals which I have added over time Ñ delays, phasers, a ring modulator and a pattern generator. Occasionally I use acoustic sounds as well. On this LP, I made extensive use of a pattern generator (a Moog Murf) in combination with other effects. Before recording anything, I spend time designing and shaping the sounds I'…
Summer Wanderer
“Summer Wanderer” is a sideslip in the discography of the Scottish avant folk musician Richard Youngs because it’s the only acappella release in his eminent and extensive list of recordings.“Summer Wanderer” was released for the first time in 2004 in an edition of twenty copies. For close friends only. A year later, Youngs re-released these recordings on his own No Fans imprint. So this vinyl release on the Ghent based Gipsy Sphinx label can actually be called a re-re-release. But that doesn’t m…
This is no fun acid 02
'In the beginning there was Roland's founder Ikutaro Kakehashi and an arsenal of computer controlled analog jock boxes designed specifically to outmode the trad rock (read: human) rhythm section... the circuitry was so tightly wound however, so rooted in synthesis that it failed to meet its promise. It wasn't until the mid-80s that the TB-TR system took novel form as acid house; a simple but novel attitude shift that saw an embrace of extra-terrestrial machine funk aesthetics converging with the…
The Thirty Year Itch
Special limited vinyl release celebrating 30 years of life in THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS together for EDWARD and PHIL to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the LPD. Two side-long tracks with Side A featuring a live performance of "Katrina"—a story set around improvised electronics and collages with Side B a krautrock insipired electronic collage. Issued as an edition of 350 copies on 180-gram vinyl and a custom made book bound sleeve.
Pachyderm
Revered, veteran guitar maverick, Michael Chapman of Cumbria, England, presents the hushed, radiant 24-minute improvisation 'Pachyderm', alongside an electronically tempered remix by Robert Antony. It's the 2nd in his more recent series of improvisations, making a move away from the structured songwriting much loved by the likes of John Peel, Thurston Moore and Jack Rose, to an absorbingly patient, simple and meditative style exploring the potential of a single ambient chord. Robert Anton…
Holiday For Soul Dance
One of the key but underappreciated episodes in avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra's Atlantis sounds far out even today. Rather than a full-on assault on the senses, Atlantis is an exercise in build-up, with long, almost forlorn passages of Ra on electric keyboards setting a vast echo chamber for his Arkestra to spring forth within. Captured during one of the most adventurous periods for Sun Ra, *Atlantis* features the orchestral perfection of the best big bands of the century-and then proceeds towards mu…
In Vogue Spirit
With their recent split with Naked on the Vague acting as a dip into pop's waters; Wet Hair's follow up, In Vogue Spirit is practically a jump into the pool. The band's most accessible batch of tunes to date boil with Krautrock rhythms, buzzing synths, and a new focus on vocals that has previously been mostly absent in the band's back catalog. It's not all motion and melody here though, the band still retains their experimental spirit, giving the record plenty of teeth to sink into any of …
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 …
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…
Things That Happened
Joke Lanz aka Sudden Infant creates an unique blend of physical sound-poetry and dadaistic vocals, using contact microphones, prerecorded soundloops and noises. The result is abrupt Musique Concrète juxtapositions of spasmodic gibbering and a battery of disorienting electronics. It's a fragmented field of sound that comes to its own autonomy!' Two great live recordings which shows more the competence of Joke Lanz then the most studio recordings ! Termite Club, Leeds, England (Live 2004-08-21). R…
Heartland's Suite
More cosmic psychedelia on Aguirre now, this time from Stellar Om Source, which is the project of Dutch visionary Christelle Gualdi, who also designed the album's crazy neo-psych nightmare of a sleeve. Tripped out stuff. As for the record itself, we're in synth central here, drinking a synth and coke and sucking on a syntharette. The first side is largely based around motorik drone workouts with simple melodies and immersive textures. There's no percussion and the whole experience is quit…
Basement Recordings 1978-1982
A while ago one of the members of the youngest antwerp based free jazz band SHELDON SIEGEL (all 16 year olds..) visited me, I had just met them and he wanted to come by to get some records. We spoke about free jazz for a while, then he said the magical words "My dad use to play free jazz in the 70's as well".. I was like "ow, and if that was in antwerp, was it with WIM?", he said "Yes yes, he's on one of their tapes with Fred Van Hove, Ivo Van Der Borght etc". My heartbeat went a little faster, …
Egypt Strut
Decades before his time, political and musical revolutionary, Sun Ra, developed a new plane of cultural existence where black people were all-powerful beings from outer space, sending their intergalactic message through jazz music. Recorded live in 1975 at Cleveland's legendary jazz club, the Smiling Dog Saloon, when Sun Ra and his Arkestra descended on the city for a week-long residency. You can imagine how the uninitiated's jaw must have dropped when Ra and his 15 musicians marched out onto th…
Slant Azymuth
Limited Restock* Andy Votel and Demdike Stare inaugurate their joint project under the Slant Azymuth aegis for Pre-Cert's 4th release of acousmatic sound poetry and hyperstitious ephemera. For our P's it's the best Pre-Cert yet and easily one of the darkest projects we've heard Votel involved with. While each track bears traceable hallmarks of their individual tastes, Slant Azymuth is perhaps best regarded as a shared vision, triangulated from three shadowy perspectives. They offer no exp…
Smokin\'
We had heard a couple cassette outings by this Bloomington young-bloomer over the last 4-6 months and each one hit us better than the last but nothing had prepped us for Ettinger’s most recent evolution into neon skyline chase scene soundtracker and that’s part of what makes it so amazing. For Smokin’ he wrangled together a small posse of close comrades (enter The Heat) and tracked a sick session of smoky synth themes, Corvette noir moods, echo dystopia, faded voices, and sleazy Miami sax. The A…
Awakening
Long out-of-print cassette originally released on Sloow Tapes (Belgium) in an edition of 70 with hand colored inserts. Cassette sold out within a week and has become quite collectible. Recorded after Expo '70 played France in 2008, just weeks after the IAO festival where the label owner and musician met. Upon returning to the states, the experience spawned the 2 day recording session materializing these 2 improvised tracks with no overdubs. Both tracks begin with rhythmic beats and slowly …
Asleep On The Floodplain
Ben Chasny has spent many years at this point perfecting his very personal vision of the American landscape. With his early LPs he managed to grab a groundswell of support for his distinctly lo-fi recordings, and since hitting the Drag City label with the breathtaking 'School of Flower' he has managed to extend his vision to countless others. 'Asleep on the Floodplain' continues his exploration, and while it doesn't change up the formula too much (apart from the odd analogue synth blurt here and…
July 19, 2006
may 2009 release: label-less lp release (“private,” if you will) covering the first ever duo set between myself & geoff mullen, recorded in concert at the brendan murray-curated “uppercase sound #2” event @ pa’s lounge, somerville, ma, 02143, usa, on july 19th, 2006 ...the music is entirely improvised, with geoff sticking largely to a suitcase-electronics-based setup (although he does provide some fine guitar & pedal alterations throughout) & myself to the doepfer (ditto guitar & korg guitar-syn…
Whisper Not / The Wrong Holiday
This latest release on the excellent Forced Nostalgia imprint is by some distance its most illuminating release to date - a split LP that features an astonishing rediscovery from the early 1980's synth-pop era. That album is 'Whisper Not' by Vazz - a duo consisting of Anna Howson & Hugh Small, and is redolent of so much classic, deeply cherished music from around the same period (think Crépuscules, Antena, early Cocteau Twins on the one hand, and The Cure's 'Seventeen Seconds' on the othe…