New Arrivals
Balf Quarry
LP version; printed innersleeve with lyrics. Before Balf Quarry landed on my desk, I figured the dirtiest thing in Connecticut was Chris Dodd's browser history. Not so. Among other things — like guitar tones that buzz around like contact-high June bugs, Elisa Ambrogio's slack vocals wavering between coy calls and willfully distant snarls, and a production value so low and dense you feel you're listening to them from the dining room above their rehearsal space — Hartford natives the Magik Markers…
A Romance Of 2 Planets
2010 release. Beautifully presented three-track 12" from Jamal Moss in his enigmatic Hieroglyphic Being guise, presented in a run of 500 copies on London's excellent Alter label - who're responsible for that OPN/Tomuttontu split 7" some months back. Jamal's unique and impregnable style is in full flow on the 12-minute A-side 'Sphere Of Madness', divining wandering, astral synthlines and frothing machine rhythms, all equally informed by vintage Chi-House, Industrial and New Age memes but entirely…
KK Null + The Noiser
KK Null (computer, kaospad, voice, member of Zeni Geva). The Noiser (machines, kaospad, voice, member of Formanex). For few years now KK Null and The Noiser had been playing together through Europe giving their best version of a new noise and contemporary music mixing critical beats, electroacoustic composition combined with improvised sound poetry and extreme post-punk. This first album of their collaboration, released by Monotype Records, is a glimpse of their relation to live acts and studio …
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…
Nocturnes
'Nocturnes' is William Basinski's first new solo recording release in four years. It comprises two typically sanguine, extended compositions; 'Nocturnes' written between 1979-80 during his post-grad period in San Francisco, and 'The Trail Of Tears' recorded in 2009 for the Robert Wilson opera, 'The Life and Death of Marina Abramovich'. If there's any one way to measure the efficacy of his music, it's by how drowsy one feels after consumption. We could either do with a snooze or a strong c…
Comunicato n. 2
Odd tracks duelling with vintage sounds and acid riffs, krautrock and 70s sound, then add some weird sample and you get the abstract image shot by this trio
Moved by magnets
Stunning release from Cristian Vogel and SØS Gunver Ryberg as SGR^CAV for The Tapeworm. The label informs us that "Their compositions encourage the listener to observe and explore the resonances of a powerful musical awareness" and 'Moved By Magnets' exhibits a keen sense of spatial perception, tone and presence which entirely justifies that claim. Over four pieces they explore diffuse, free-formed spaces charged with a slow-moving, chaotic sort of energy ranging from the shuddering metallic res…
Trees Have Cancer Too
Duo of Pedro Sousa and Pedro Lopes, two portuguese young musicians, and some of the most exciting in the plastic, tonal and energic exploration of sound in a long time. Using sax (Sousa), turntables (Lopes) and a communal use of electronics, their music is admittedly nervous, obsessively bent over the following moment. Unlike other past forms of improvisation more concerned with listening and a certain purity of sound, this search is as focused as much as frantic in the pursuit of a new d…
Strings
“Strings” documents the long awaited first encounter of David Maranha and Stephan Mathieu, taking place in the Tennis Court of the Parque de Serralves, in Porto, on a sun-drenched yet gusty late-afternoon in July 2011. Having discussed in advance which instruments, tuning and notes to use, the piece was accomplished as an improvisation on the violin, shruti-box and virginals, reflecting both players love for classic minimalism, but also their ability to transform this language and make it their …
E Pluribus Unum
Long-awaited reissue of the first full-length album from 1980 by late '70s/early '80s UK DIY super-group The 49 Americans. The main instigator behind The 49 Americans was Andrew "Giblet" Brenner, who assembled a loose, disparate group of musical/non-musical practitioners as an experiment in equality and democracy. This democracy included David Toop, Steve Beresford, Max Eastley, Lol Coxhill and Peter Cusack, Nag and Bendle of The Door And The Window, Viv Albertine of the Slits, Vivien Goldman…
Vengeance Candle
"Clay Rendering is a new band born of Aries couple Mike (Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, Failing Lights) and Tara Connelly (the Haunting and The Pool at Metz). The two began work on the project in the fall of 2012, dedicated to resurrection, (much like their sun signs) with a focus on arcane structures. Droning and melancholic guitars are propelled by the skeletal remains of industrial music. Low light vocals weave in and out of the stark atmosphere. Electronics mix with acoustics, vocals and gui…
The Background Noise
Under The Snow is a project by Stefano Gentile (guitar, objects, field-recordings) and Gianluca Favaron (microphones, field-recordings, processing). Stefano Gentile is well known for his work as owner of the Silentes and Amplexus labels; he is part of Maribor (along with Maurizio Bianchi, Nimh, Andrea Marutti and Gianluca Favaron) and in the past he has collaborated with Aube and Amir Baghiri. Beyond releasing under his own name, Gianluca Favaron collaborates with Ennio Mazzon on the Zbeen proje…
Psychomagia
"Psychomagia" is the new album by the fabulous quartet of Abraxas, the acclaimed tribal rock arrangements for the Book of Angels series. Here they perform a complex new suite of music written expressly for them by Downtown alchemist John Zorn. Drawing inspiration from the magical writings of Giordano Bruno and Alejandro Jodorowski and others, Zorn has written a bold collection of compositions that challenge the musicians to the breaking point. With a program ranging from some of the most …
Les archives de l'univers amnesique illustre
Coloured white vinyl in a run of 250 copies with inserts by each artist. A new pairing of minds and techniques on a steel-grey voyage across the treacherous Ifingr river. Kiyoharu Kuwayama, master of resonant spaces and junk objects holds the reins over three chapters of spiralling horror and madness. Sounds are coaxed out ashamed and blushing: the syphilitic cough, the cracked shin bone and the greasy sheen of night sweats wired up to a 9 volt battery. Wataru Kasahara plays the mysterious maske…
Pictures of sound. One thousand years of educed audio : 980 - 19
Using modern technology, Patrick Feaster is on a mission to resurrect long-vanished voices and sounds--many of which were never intended to be revived. Over the past thousand years, countless images have been created to depict sound in forms that theoretically could be "played" just as though they were modern sound recordings. Now, for the first time in history, this compilation uses innovative digital techniques to convert historic "pictures of sound" dating back as far as the Middle Ag…
the flowmotion years 1980-1982
PREORDER: Dark-Ambient / Ritual-Project Konstruktivists was formed by mastermind Glenn Michael Wallis in 1981/82 out of the ashes of Heute. Around this time - in the late 70's/early 80's Glenn Michael Wallis was heavily involved with Throbbing Gristle, the U.K. pioneers of "Industrial". Between 1980 and 1982 Glenn/Konstruktivists has recorded several tracks of which one solo-tape and several Konstruktivists-Tapes found release in extremely rare and limited edition on the legendary Tape-Label Flo…
Wild temple
New studio album recorded by Rafal Iwanski and Rafal Kolacki with special guest Slawomir Ciesielski - great percussionist and drummer of legendary Polish rock band Republika (in 80. Republika was one of the most original European bands - thanks to their specific antimainstream rock & roll songs, with new wave-inspired music and lyrics). HATI forms a link between a personal interest in modern improvised and acoustic music with ritual and meditation. They worked together in 2010 on several tracks …
Dedicated to J.Goebbles
The tape more provocative and irritating of Pierpaolo Zoppo, the Italian sub-genius behind Mauthausen Orchestra, is certainly Dedicated to J. Goebbels . The tracks were recorded during '82-‘83 and offer an overwhelming noise ferric devolves into agonizing nightmare and atrocities sound that recall the dark side of humanity. This is the fourth official reprint on Urashima in Lp and the artwork was approved by the artist.Tracks remastered from the original tape and the record has been pressed on 1…
Hubble Drums
Planned since Hubble’s first live performance in September of 2010, Hubble Drums is an inspired record of new guitar music. Equal parts shred-fi, cyber-dread and fried psychedelia, Hubble Drums marks Ben Greenberg (of Zs and The Men)’s first full-length recording and debut for Northern Spy. Recorded at Python Patrol and lovingly mastered at Bonati Mastering, the CD and 150g LP features original artwork by Michael Yaniro and Ben Greenberg. “Hubble’s Hubble” serves as the soundtrack for a v…
Kogetsudai
Kogetsudai is Sylvain Chauveau's 10th album, the second in a trilogy initiated by Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2010), where the song structure is dismantled and reconstructed on the fringe of silence. Whereas Singular Forms found inspiration from Abstract Painting, Kogetsudai is influenced by Zen rock gardens found in Japan Ñ also the location where the album was conceived (for the most part) Ñ and from which the album borrows its title. Layers of minimal electronic sounds and filtered f…