Reissues
Powers/Rolin Duo
Hot on the heels of last year's Matthew J. Rolin LP (FTR 502LP, 2019), here is a new duo recording featuring Rolin's acoustic twelve-string and the hammered-dulcimer of Jen Powers. They've had a couple previous cassettes, but I've never seen 'em! If you have, I can offer you something fine in trade. As with his first LP, Rolin's command of his guitar is quite wonderful to hear. He uses the whole breadth of the twelve-string's harmonic potential, which creates a wide surging stream of sound. Powe…
Water & Rock Music Volumes 3-4
**250 copies** A single LP compiles another two installments in the Water & Rock Music series by Jon Collin, UK ex-pat guitarist currently based in Sweden. Once again, Collin has put together a riveting set of acoustic guitar pieces, these recorded around Stockholm between April and October, 2018. There is a wistful, bluesy quality to the playing and inventions here. John Fahey once told me that blues was 'about anger.' But this work seems suffused with delicately scrambling melancholia, like a …
Organize or Die
Minneapolis guitarist, Matt Sowell, is another of the many great players we were first introduced to at the Thousand Incarnations of the Rose festival in Takoma Park, MD. Matt played a richly dark and brooding set at Rhizome, with a style deeply indebted to the American Primitive tradition. His set had the raw strength of Fred Gerlach, the precision of Peter Lang, showed a country/blues influence that seemed to reference Fahey, and possessed the raga-meets-ragtime eclecticism of Jack Rose. We we…
Going Places
The whelming noise swells of Yellow Swans’ final album, or swansong if u allow, resurface on the legendary band’s new archival imprint, marking 10 years since the seminal Type release with a timely reminding of its oceanic might and eternal burn.
As anyone who survived the fecund ‘00s noise scene will attest, Gabriel Saloman and Pete Swanson’s Yellow Swans were among the most vital visionaries of new horizons for noise. Using obsolete electronics/guitars/FX pedals and playing countless shows, th…
Studies / Studien / Études
**200 copies** Studies / Studien / Etudes' is a collection of pieces on synth by Rotterdam-based artist Joost M. de Jong jr., inspired by the first wave of Krautrock, Wendy Carlos and straight-to-VHS soundtracks. His music is both abstract and melodic, playful and austere, highly experimental and endlessly replayable... TEXT ↓ It turns out that ‘Joost M. de Jong, Jr.’ is just one of the incarnations, in name and character, of the man sitting in front of me. As a person, he is apologetic about…
Tunes & Scenery (Hard To Whistle)
**200 copies. Originally released on tape in 1984** Tunes & Scenery (Hard To Whistle) is an adventurous and quite unique work that was originally recorded on an analog four-track in 1983 by the young visual artist and musician Jacques van Erven. The album brings together the surprising combination of analog synthesizers, small Casio keyboards, a mouth harp, ukulele, marimba, and a variety of drums. A kind of hybrid music of contemporary jazz and world music combined with influences of rock and n…
A Place to Hide
Much needed vinylization of an amazing live set, previously issued as a CDR in an edition of 100 by the fine Borley Rectory label. Finally, for the good of all mankind, the music from this great night, opening for Robyn Hitchcock at London's Betsey Trotwood in October 2018, is turntable ready. A Place to Hide begins with the album's one new original tune 'My Reflection Once Was Me.' The song brims with harmonium-iced vocals that cannot fail to bring a certain German-born chanteuse to mind. Built…
Hubris Variation
2020 repress. Oren Ambarchi's Editions Mego release, Hubris, gets the remix treatment courtesy of electronic music legend Ricardo Villalobos. Villalobos expertly transforms Ambarchi's layered web of countless sustained and pulsating palm-muted guitars into a funky, mesmerizing and propulsive long-form piece. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin March 2016. Photograph by Estelle Hanania. Sculptures by Daniel Druet. Design by Stephen O'Malley.
Disturbing Domestic Peace
Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex -- a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall -- have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. Disturbing Domestic Peace, The Ex's debut album, appeared mere months after their first single, 1980's 'All Corpses Smell The Same'. Originally released on the band's own Ver…
History Is What's Happening
Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex -- a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall -- have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. Originally released in 1982, History Is What's Happening features one of the most harrowing title/cover art combinations in recent memory. What at first glance looks like a f…
All Corpses Smell The Same
**few copies available** Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex -- a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall -- have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. All Corpses Smell The Same, The Ex's first single, marks the beginning of this DIY odyssey -- appearing in June 1980 on Hé Records, a precursor to th…
Caravan
Caravan's groundbreaking debut album from 1968 captures the freakish and exploratory moods of the times
Ouate
A little bit of Baroque, a little bit of Zwölftonmusik, a little bit of electronica, that's Robert Lepenik
Dropsonde
Biosphere’s atmospheric 2005 ambient jazz lather returns, remastered and reissued on his Biophon label for those who may have slept on its deeply seductive charms. The bonus bits beautifully expand on its vibe with moments of windswept BoC-like melody and sublime alternate versions of album evergreens. “Widely regarded as one of Norwegian electronic music's most important artists, Biosphere's [Geir Jenssen] career spans nearly two decades, several albums, lots of remixes, various sound installa…
Corduroy Road
2020 Re-issue of Keith Kenniff's debut under his Goldmund moniker. Originally only released on CD in 2005 via John Twells' Type Recordings, this album of rare and unusual minimalist beauty is now presented as a vinyl edition for the first time. "Multi-instrumentalist Keith Kenniff is a busy man. He has appeared as Helios on a number of acclaimed releases, including Deaf Center’s ‘Neon City EP’, and released a debut album ‘Unomia’ on Merck records which has appeared on many best of 2004 lists. A…
Sowas Von Egal 2: German Synth Wave Underground 1981-1984
LP version. Two years have passed since Bureau B released the first Sowas Von Egal compilation (BB 310CD/LP, 2018). With the musical movement or genre known as NDW celebrating its 40th anniversary, what better time than now to launch an ambitious successor to the first sampler. The beating heart of this endeavor is once again invigorated by the synchronous passions of bespoke Hamburg label Bureau B and the label's Damaged Goods nights where they present rare, obscure synth and wave discs from th…
Triadic Memories
Perhaps more than any of Feldman other piano music Triadic Memories is about that reality, the acoustic space created bythe piano’s strings and soundboard, and in Judith Wegmann’s recording that space is withina magnificent Bösendorfer 280VC piano
Complete Recordings
Deluxe, spot gloss-printed, massive three-hour box set collecting the full work of Herbert Joos (one of the most celebrated musicians in Lithuania’s avant-garde scene) 1968-1973 units, the Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe and Four Men Only
La Chasse Au Snark
**Double LP, limited edition** In 1967, 1968 and 1969 most of my works were happenings loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting Of The Snark, a not-so-cryptic poem that, to my mind, gave clues to free the theatre in the same way the “new music” had freed jazz. It never made it to record and I gave up on the idea when I met Sunny Murray and Alan Silva when they arrived in Paris in the summer of ‘69. Few concert venues would have anything to do with us but we didn’t want that kind of connectio…
Fältinspelningar från Terres de l’Ebre
** Green vinyl edition of 300 copies. Originally released as a tape edition of 100 in 2017 **Newly reworked by Maria Horn & Mats Erlandsson and remastered by Daniel Karlsson. XKatedral returns with this blistering terraform of sprawling ambient and electro-acoustic works originally released as a tape edition of 100 copies in 2017 and now newly reworked and remastered for this first-time vinyl edition. Highly recommended if yr into Eno, Jim O’Rourke, Fennesz, Ben Frost. Turning field recordings …