Mapura Music
Māpura Music is a collaborative and spontaneous music making program for people living with disabilities set in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. Its facilitator, Stefan Neville (of Pumice etc.), has been active in the New Zealand underground for over thirty years, personifying an Aotearoa DIY sensibility that effortlessly links melodic song formats with open-ended experimentation. On surface level, this collection of improvised group jams verges towards the latter, but soon structures of a playfully…
R M H Q: Headquarters
*2024 stock* It’s been over a decade since Roy Montgomery’s last album, and R M H Q is a hell of a return. This release contains four distinct records of new material. Listening to any of his work is a visceral experience—repeating phrases swell and decay, immersing the listener in the cyclical narrative of his compositions.
Montgomery was in his rock band period in the eighties, when the dark, minimalist post-punk of The Pin Group lead into the gloriously open-ended freedoms of Dadamah. After a…
Pushed Streets
Big tip! Deluxe LP housed in tip-on jacket with gloss film laminated cover and printed inner sleeve featuring photograph and painting by Michael Morley. Over the last ten years, Michael Morley has embraced the acoustic guitar as the means of channeling the darkest threads that have run through his work since the early 1980’s. While he largely made a name for himself as a maverick of primitive electric guitar and electronics in The Dead C and Gate, Morley’s love of song form has never been far fr…
Harsh 70's Reality
20th anniversary edition of 1000, this time with proper gatefold sleeve! Restored to the full length of the original vinyl release (no omitted tracks as on the CD) and includes download code redeemable from the label** "Originally seeing the light of day in April of 1992, Harsh 70s Reality was not just a high water mark for that year, but for the ages. Technically this was the band's fourth long-play outing, and as a double-album, it followed (and was ever so slightly informed by) two for…
Dust
2024 Stock. Edition of 225 copies. Dust is the second vinyl outing from Nathan Roche & Paul Bonnet (aka, CIA Debutante) for Siltbreeze (aka, their label) following the estimable huff of The Landlord (aka, the 1st LP) after countless cassette releases (aka, too much backstory). Dust finds our heroes at the top of their game; the captivating Je ne sais quoi formed around vocal recitation & percolating electronics has been honed to perfection, moving them beyond whatever references were made in the…
Down, Willow
With their 3rd vinyl long player for Siltbreeze, CIA Debutante have successfully out-flanked those critics who have been forever chattering, "will they ever be as big as Artery?" To paraphrase Fred Ward in Tremors; "Artery? Hell, Clock DVA!" All bristling aside, such questions & answers don't carry much weight these days. Such is the language of pettifoggers. And who's got time for them? We're trying to sell records here. Down,Willow sees our heroes Paul & Nathan attaining S.T.A.S. (Superior Thi…
Four Stars (****)
Holy moly, if it isn’t a reissue of the super legendary Four Stars comp! This terrific artifact documenting Wellington New Zealand’s postpunk scene was originally released in 1980 (in an edition of 250) & copies have been as rare as a chook’s tooth ever since. Four ultra obscure bands - Life In The Fridge Exists, Wallsockets, Naked Spots Dance & Beat Rhythm Fashion - comprise these two sides & offer a fantastic snapshot of a radical DIY scene that played out in a vacuum at the bottom of the worl…
A Casual Assembly
Temporary Super Offer! Right on the heels of their Ahead Of Two Thoughts LP released earlier this year, A Casual Assembly is the latest offering from Melbourne's EXEK. The EP coalesces around a stirring theme for synthesizer, trumpet and bass, bringing together reference points to Laurie Spiegel, Jah Wobble and The Velvet Underground's "The Gift."Frontman Albert Wolski's disembodied narration – at times reminiscent of Samuel Beckett or Robert Ashley – unfolds over a series of dark vignettes set …
InSec
Mega Tip! Omit’s ‘inSec’ is “new,” but not new. Recorded in 2013, the masters lost in the label’s murky somewheresville that always shows up when moving. For those who don’t know, Omit is an experimental electronics artist from New Zealand’s south island who, since 1990, has released thirty-some xerographed cassettes and CDrs in the Dead C orbit for those who do. It’s not enough to say that ‘inSec’ is an ambient masterpiece bringing to mind a John Carpenter soundtrack performed by the Hub becaus…
New Series 1
*200 copies limited edition* Brandnew offering on Knotwilg from Paul Toohey, member of Surface Of The Earth, NZ guitar dronemasters by excellence. The successor of the Series 4 lp from 2020 is a natural evolution leaning more forward towards SFOTE. Rawer guitar sounds drifting against all tides into a melting plot of emotions opening up a range of sounds familiar not only to previous outputs but also into a brighter optimistic drone-culture. Pure bliss and joy to be able to release to be able to…
Series 4
*2024 stock. 200 copies limited edition* Paul Toohey, from Surface Of The Earth returns with a brand new hard hitting drone LP. Previous output on Fusetron and Corpus Hermeticum was a long time ago. But this release will nicely team up with reissue plans from his outer outfits on fi: Thin Wrist Recordings.
Dear Imprudence
*2024 stock. 200 copies limited edition* Setting bookmarks... That's maybe the most effective description to explain Roy Montgomery's trajectory into a guitarsound which is recognizable from thousands. The titletrack features Emma Johnston vocals lifting that distinctive guitarplay into heavenly blossoming maram grass protecting and treasuring your faith in music pur sang. 'Birthday Piece For Varia' breaths closely into his past with Dadamah/Hash Jar Tempo clashing with the 'Scenes From South Is…
Deux nuit à Paris (2CD)
Emerging from the ethereal realms of sonic mastery, New Zealand’s most audacious experimental outfit, The Dead C, presents ‘Deux nuits à Paris’, two complete live sets that ensnares and exemplifies their ever-evolving sonic journey. From the pulsating metaphysical city of Dunedin, the band - Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, and Robbie Yeats - became a testament to the country’s under ground music scene, stirring the waters with their unorthodox sound landscapes since the late ‘80s. Profoundly phil…
A Wayside Shrine
*300 copies limited release* "In early 2000s New Zealand, Little Skull started as a small project. Smallness was perhaps the defining characteristic. Lathe cut 7”s in vanishingly small editions, the intricate, fiddly covers hand- crafted with what one would have to assume were very small hands. Or just with the aid of tweezers perhaps. The labels of these records provided no information beyond an illustration of a small – little even – skull. The music was also mysterious and miniaturized but al…
Closed Circuit
Peter Jefferies, a living legend of New Zealand underground music, from his seminal bands Nocturnal Projections and This Kind of Punishment, to his collaborative efforts in bands such as Plagal Grind and Two Foot Flame, is perhaps best known for his solo work on masterpieces such as “The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World” (1990) and “Electricity” (1994), as well as “Elevator Madness” (1996). All of these albums came out on vinyl but one of the best was the singular “Closed Circuit” (2001) whi…
The Drum Is The Shaman's Horse
** Edition of 344. Pressed on 140g black vinyl mastered by James Plotkin ** With the death in 2020 of long-standing occasional third member Peter Stapleton (percussion/electronics), A Handful of Dust has regrouped as the core duo of Alastair Galbraith (violin, guitar, cello, piano, drums) and Bruce Russell (guitar, electronics). This new set of live-to-four-track recordings from January 2022 is the first album to be wholly recorded "in the studio" since 1995's Towards a Soundtrack to the "Anabas…
Don't Drown
A meeting of two mavericks - Greg Malcolm, a guitarist from New Zealand who has played with Rosy Parlane, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama and Bruce Russell, as well as solo releases on his own label Corpus Hermeticum, and Stefan Neville aka Pumice - a long-running, endlessly inventive project whose shambolic music is equally reminiscent of Kiwi pop groups such as The Clean and Tall Dwarfs as well as the country's experimental noise-rock bands like the Dead C. "Who would attempt to combine cun…
Tusk
'Tusk' is an absolute scorcher from New Zealand's beyond legendary purveyors of scuzzed noise rock The Dead C. This is blown-out rock and roll taken to the absolute excess, with wailing feedback mayhem, submerged vocals and floating percussion. Part of an astonishing run of killer records that Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, and Robbie Yeats churned out during the 90s. Totally rewires the possibilities of what rock music can be, and still sounds bloody brilliant. Tusk digs into the thought bubble…
The Operation Of The Sonne
The Dead C's trio of albums in the middle of their harsh '90s reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation Of The Sonne, The White House, and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lass…
Whitehouse
The Dead C's trio of albums in the middle of their harsh 90s reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation Of The Sonne, The White House, and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lasse…