New Arrivals
Unfinished Studies
This LP is the first release from young Melbourne-based composer Robert McDougall, presenting four electroacoustic studies, the fruits of many hours of private sonic research and improvisation. Simple electronics, acoustic instruments, field recordings and textural manipulations are subtly processed, fragmented and iterated into patiently evolving forms. Eschewing the jump-cut dynamics of academic electroacoustics while making use of a large variety of source material, McDougall allows the eleme…
Sonido Chipadelico
Sham Palace (USA) and Annihaya (Lebanon) are pleased to present from the mystical locus of Curuzú Cuatiá, in Corrientes, rural northeastern Argentina, Los Siquicos Litoraleños, with their first international full-length release. The result: a unique triumph of homegrown rural psychedelia, standing alone on the edge of an unchartered vanguard. Los Siquicos have spent the past decade recording and performing mountains of material and distilling it into a rare form of ultra-cerebral roots music fro…
From End to Beginning Vol. 2: Tempus/Deathwatch
Essential collection from this strange and obscure early 80s electronic noise project."One-man industrial outfit, Deviation Social left a scar on the face of the American 80′s experimental/noise scene that has mysteriously been left to legend and rumor. Dais previously released the first authorized reissue of Deviation Social's compilation tracks dating back from the early '80s. Here within, Volume 2 compiles the two proper 'studio' releases of Deviation Social's checkered past. The destruct…
Mimikry
2010 edition, long out of print, few copies resurfaced. Box Set, Limited Edition, Special Limited Box Edition - Album comes in a cardboard sleeve with tracks 11 and 12 as bonus tracks and as part of a box set including inserts. Having nicely set up the release of this album with their Ret Marut Handshake EP a few months back, Alva Noto and Blixa Bargeld (of Einsturzende Neubauten fame) deliver a set that exceeds all expectations. One of the most strikingly obvious comparisons to arise from …
the 15,000 day boat trip
november 2009 release ; pristine electro-acoustic work from cenotaph’s john w. fail (responsible for both a criminally under-appreciated quadruple tape-box on c. spencer yeh’s dronedisco &, partially, the “lied music vs. boy-band tax returns” lp on ultra eczema ... as well as full-length collaborations with spiral joy band & ben reynolds) ...inhabiting similar head-space as graham lambkin’s recent “softly softly copy copy,” the piece in question here takes it source material from live-played ins…
The darkened mirror
Tetuzi Akiyama, guitars. Tom Carter, guitars. Christian Kiefer, guitars, banjo and Chip Conrad, percussion, Scott Leftridge, bass & bowed bass. 'The darkened mirror' is a unique vision of American music. Tetuzi Akiyama is a highly unique and experimental guitarist heavily applying free improvisation and noise. Besides guitar, he also plays electronics, viola, and self-made instruments. Best known for his work with acclaimed iconoclasts Charalambides, which he co-founded with Christina Ca…
My Brother The Wind
A pretty darn incredible record from Sun Ra -- with a soulful, spiritual approach that's missing from most of his other albums of the time! The album features Ra playing a good deal of organ (dubbed "intergalactic organ" in this case!) -- grooving soulfully on some short tracks that almost hit a soul jazz mode, and which recall the late 60s experiments of organist Freddie Roach.
s/t
Church was always a drag when I was a child. Dressed in Sunday best, I struggled to enact respect and silence throughout the entire mass. However, if church had sounded more like GA’AN, I would have been there any day of the week. Nothing in Peoria sounded like this. This is music to sacrifice virgins to. This is the soundtrack to Everyman’s epic Norse BDSM fantasy of destruction and rebirth. The scenarios conjured by these jams make the death of Sardanopolus look like kid stuff. Captcha Records…
Convulsive Threshold
Two heavyweight explorers of sound and technology, Russell Haswell and Yasunao Tone, both undertaking separate rigorous experiments into the synthesis of sound and all its remits, converge for one helluva collaborative work. ‘Convulsive Threshold’ is the result of years of research and experimentation, Haswell’s systems of hybrid analogue/digital audio generation acting as one of the starting points for this relentess piece of material, which are then subjected to Tone’s MP3 Deviation tec…
Das Testament
Backwards proudly presents the reissue of a private Maurizio Bianchi vinyl LP, issued in a small edition of 300 copies in 1983 and titled "Das Testament". M.B. is an Italian pioneer of noise music, born near Milan. Bianchi began to produce music in 1979, and since 1980 has used electronic equipment with the avowed goal "to produce technological sounds and in such a way to work on complete realising of the modern decadence". Now remastered, for this release MB plays electronics, rhythms, neutroni…
Ensemble Pearl
Double LP edition. Cosmic, heavy amplified rock drops and ripples, auras radiate and expand into cloud forms, through which lightning bolts. Tides rise, the moons wax upon a place somewhere between Link Wray, Hex-era Earth and early Tangerine Dream. The echoes return, leaving a trail that blows and drifts, creating a separate piece. Ensemble Pearl are Atsuo, William Herzog, Michio Kurihara and Stephen O'Malley. Their debut album also features the elemental forces of Eyvind Kang and Timba H…
Apophenia
Belgian/Italian duo Andrea Taeggi and Koenraad Ecker isolate a diffuse mixture of techno and concrète noise with 'Apophenia' for Opal Tapes. Building on the decayed structures of last year's 'Contrapasso' album, their latest blends the chaotic virtues of their improvisational approach with a more premeditated logic, manifesting five arcane constructions balancing abstract expression and rugged, grooving purpose. In that sense it works well alongside Opal Tapes' boss Basic House, but Lumisokea's …
The holistic worlds of
Michael Wintsch, piano, synthesizer. Christian Weber, bass. Christian Wolfarth, drums. Ten years ago Michel Witsch (piano, synthesizer), Christian Weber (bass) and Christian Wolfarth (drums) met - 3 musicians who have not only shaped the European scene of improvisation in the most different formations but who also catch an ear with the maybe most relevant aspect in music whatsoever: SOUND. Wintsch, Weber and Wolfrath make music with a breathtaking mental vigor. The long time working band has…
GYU
Gatefold double LP version. Tujiko Noriko returns to Editions Mego after a period of relative silence, this time in collaboration with Tyme. (aka Tatsuya Yamada, member of MAS). This album was developed from songs that the duo made once a year at the end and beginning of the new year, for a period of six years. These were sent to friends and people who asked. After six years, there were six tracks and they added five more tracks based on the illustrations of Kimura Toshiko to complete the a…
Joke in the hole
Black Dice bod returns to DFA with a playful solo LP of sample-splitting psychotomimetic grooves. Like an unhinged, PCP-huffing cousin of Smith 'N Hack, Copeland deranges plunderphonic globs into stomping, jerry-rigged and unstable structures, equal parts garage rock, wayward blues, disco, techno and avant-garde noise collage. Yet far from being a total mess, 'Joke In The Hole' is possibly his most "musical" effort to date, enriched with fragments of melodic hooks that give something to hold ont…
Vanilla Call Option
Packaged in a pro-press color jacket and a silkscreened pvc sleeve, Jeff Witscher, aka idiosyncratic electronic musician Rene Hell, presents a typically considered, challenging debut release via PAN. Those who've encountered his acclaimed albums for Type, or his NNA Tapes split with OPN, will hear a defined progress in 'Vanilla Call Option', whilst those new to his music should be prepared for a visceral, cerebral exploration of piercing timbres and sheer, hi-end computer sounds that in turn rec…
Rock Power
Reissue of an extremely rare and essential Sunroof! CD-R released during a European tour in 2003 on Matthew Bower's own imprint, Rural Electrification Program (REP). On this LP, Bower is joined on guitar by Mick Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra and Flower-Corsano Duo) and the result was once qualified as Sunroof's rock record and its tribute to Neil Young and AC/DC (hence the title). RockPower is a very singular record because it documents a very short time period in the M. Bower/Sunroof! evolut…
Choubi Choubi Folk And Pop Songs From Iraq Vol. 2
In 2005, Sublime Frequencies released Choubi Choubi: Folk and Pop Sounds from Iraq, and in the ensuing years it has become one of the most beloved and venerable titles in their catalog. Now almost 10 years later, this highly-anticipated second volume is finally here. Compiler and producer Mark Gergis has once again put forth a revelatory and poignant collection of Iraq's national folk music. What has happened to Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion and eventual occupation? Endless death, destructio…
Danse Sacrale
A cherry-picked compendium of EDM prototypes circa 1956-1971 by Pierre Henry, Jean-Claude Vannier, Igor Wakhevitch, Henk Badings and more "The roots of Electronic Dance Music" (EDM) by definition. An unlikely combination of early recordings by international electronic and avant-garde composers as well as infrequent collaborators retrospectively unified by their commitment to the musical enhancement of 20th Century ballet and the evolution of modern dance. Presenting key exponents of the musique …
Beija Flors Velho E Sujo
São Paulo Underground is an electronica-laced tropicalia funhouse, a secret passage between Chicago’s volatile avant garde jazz scene and Brazil’s teeming creative capital. Featuring Chicago maestro Rob Mazurek on cornet, harmonium and various effects, and São Paulo’s Guilherme Granado on keyboards, synths, sampler and vocals, and Mauricio Takara on percussion, cavaquinho and electronics, SPU delivers its fourth revelatory album Beija Flors Velho E Sujo.In its latest incarnation, SPU is a power …