We got two different records from the Medical label for Record Store Day, and got enough extra to list for all you far away folks who couldn't make it to aQ in person, a killer Alexander Robotnick collection, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this one, part two in the ongoing Electroconvulsive Therapy series, which collects rare new wave singles, this second volume focusing on a label called Fuzz Dance, gathering up 3 super rare, iconic Italo disco 12"s (along with a couple bonus tracks), from a handful of bands we had never heard before, Trophy, ZED, Mya & The Mirror, Mon Bijou and NAIF Orchestra, but that's kind of the joy of these sorts of comps, and Medical in general, who manage to dig up some crazy cool rarities.
So yeah, Trophy meld some classic eighties new wave pop with their Italo Disco, pulsing synths, strummed guitars, Teutonic vocals, plenty of squelch and echo drenched handclaps, offering up both versions, a vocal and a weirdly electro-dubbed 'instrumental'. ZED give us "Plastic Love" which sounds like it could have been a hit in the eighties, sort of Berlin meets Human League, pulsing synths, dramatic female vox, the instrumental version super stripped down, and sans vocals, sounding surprisingly like a slightly discoier Kraftwerk!! Mya & The Mirror offer up more of the same, sultry electro-disco new wave, the vocals heavily accented and sultry, with some weird horns (!), the "Reflex" version, essentially instrumental, but with way more horns and wilder eighties percussion. Crazy stuff. The extra tracks include Mon Bijou's "Just A Lover", which again, sounds like some could/should have been eighties new wave electro pop hit, while NAIF Orchestra's "Check Out Five" adds some funky guitar strum to pulsing synths, and some super loopy vox, the vibe playful, a little goofy, but super catchy, and like the rest of the tracks here, sounds like it was yanked straight out of some alternate universe eighties new wave hit parade.
No liner notes this time, but comes in a super striking, very Italo-disco looking cover, the vinyl on heavy 180 gram Italian flag colored vinyl (!), and as always, very limited...
First in a proposed series of lps, based on a phrase used by Henry Cowell and later included in a lecture by John Cage, which in a nutshell describes a musical movement of the time (Wolff, Brown, Feldman, Cage, etc.) involving getting rid of the glue and allowing sounds to be themselves, instead of sticking them together into some sort of continuous form.
High concept certainly, and while it is easy to hear how the various artists on this comp did in fact get rid of the glue, loosed from the concept, it still plays like some killer outsider free rock compilation. Which it is. Some of the names you probably know, Excepter, Talibam!, BIG A little a, but most of them you probably don't.
A quick track by track: Dirty Churches do a sort of droning hypnorock, with guttural female vocals and drifting psych guitars, definitely the most 'glued' of the bunch. Spin-17 are kind of like a brain damaged Deerhoof, sing songy nonsense female vocals, weird gurgly male vocals, and other strange childlike vocalizations, toy percussion, all clattery and chaotic and very weird. K.P. are a sludge-skree collective from Brooklyn and manage to kick up a serious din, massive crumbling distortion, damaged electronics, dense and dark and seriously freaked out. BIG A little a (Aa) rock a sort of spaced out psychedelic rhythmscape, thick buzzing synths, tribal drumming, almost sounding like a super lo-fi version of newer Boredoms mixed with Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh. Fessenden features at least one member from Pan-American, but sounds nothing like that, instead it's a buzzing minimal electro acoustic soundscape, lots of hiss and fuzz, drone and buzz, creaks and clatter and grinding crunch, a creepy industrial ambience, thick with mysterious muted percussion. Eager Meek is one man and a guitar, but you'd never know it. All sorts of swirly ambience, strange distant percussive rattles and scrapes, very haunting and spaced out. Up next is Mialessot, featuring NYC saxophonist Daniel Carter and analog noisemaker Old Ghost. Imagine a free jazz / Japanoise mashup and you'd have a pretty good idea of what these guys are all about. A bracing blast of damaged synths and blown out guitarnoise, a swirling roiling cloud of grind and rrrrooooaaar all piled atop a squirming and skronking tangle of free jazz sax, bleating and moaning and screeching. Pretty far out. Maria Chavez, does some super abstract turntable noise, utilizing old records and an arsenal of damaged record needles to create a spacious sound field peppered with lots of crackle and squeaks, pops and scrapes and alien squiggles, very minimal and abrasive but really awesome. would love to hear more from her.
Finally a killer closing one two punch. First Talibam! who give us their fucked and furious drums vs. synth sound, this time the relentlessly spastic free jazz drum splatter is pitted against creepy atonal organ (sounding a bit like a ball park organ) and fuzzed out synth. The Excepter, fronted by an ex No Necker, doing some weird eighties faux new wave thing, with electronic percussion, cheesy synths and really loud vocals, wrapped in tons of effects, reverb especially, swooping and soaring and sounding seriously demented.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Includes a fold out poster with art by all the bands... ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search fr the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! ALL SMILES "Ten Readings Of A Warning" (Dangerbird) cd 11.98 ALVA NOTO "Xerrox" (Raster-Norton) cd/lp 17.98/26.00 AM (ANTHONY MILTON) "Poerua Acid" (Diagnosis...Don't!) 3"cd-r 10.98 ARCTIC MONKEYS "Favorite Worst Nightmare" (Domino) cd 14.98 ART FLEURY "I Luoghi Del Potere" (Die-Schachtel) cd 27.00 ASBESTOSDEATH "Unclean / Dejection" (Southern Lord) cd 10.98 ASSEMBLE HEAD IN SUNBURST SOUND "Ekranoplan" (Tee Pee) cd/lp 13.98/ AUGHRA & MOSH PATROL "Is There Anyone Else Outside?" (Magic Bullet) cd 12.98 AUSTRASIAN GOAT, THE "s/t" (I Hate) cd 16.98 AVEY TARE & KIRA BREKKAN "Pullhair Rubeye" (Paw Tracks) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 BACHI DA PIETRA "Non Io" (Die Schachtel) cd 19.98 BASHIR, MUNIR "Rhythms & Melodies" (Le Chante Du Monde) cd 19.98 BATTLES "Atlas" (Warp) 12" 9.98 BLACK SABBATH "The Dio Years" (Rhino) cd 16.98 BOSETTI, ALESSANDRO "Expose" (Die Schachtel) cd 19.98 CARAVAN "If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over With You" (Eclectic Discs) cd 17.98 CARAVAN "In The Land Of Grey And Pink" (Eclectic Discs) cd 17.98 CEYLEIB PEOPLE "Tanyet" (Vault) lp 14.98 DALEK "Abandoned Language" (Ipecac) cd 15.98 DAME DARCY "DVD Hi-Jinx" (Press Pop) dvd 21.00 DANIELSON: A FAMILY MOVIE (A DOCUMENTARY MUSICAL BY JL ARONSON) (Image Entertainment) dvd 27.00 DEAD CHILD "s/t" (Cold Sweat) cd ep 10.98 DESTROY ALL MONSTERS "Grow Live Monsters" (MVD Visual) dvd/dvd 16.98/16.98 DEVILLOCK "These Graves" (Tone Filth) lp 15.98 DINOSAUR JR. "Beyond" (Fat Possum) cd 13.98 DODHEIMSGARD "Supervillain Outcast" (Moonfog) cd 13.98 EVOKEN "Embrace The Emptiness" (Elegy / Solitude) cd 14.98 FALL OUT BOY "Infinity On High" (Island) cd FINNTROLL "Ur Jordens Djup" (Spinefarm) cd 16.98 FLIED EGG "Dr. Siegel's Fried Egg Shooting Machine" (Universal Japan) cd 22.00 FLIED EGG "Goodbye" (Universal Japan) cd 22.00 FLYING LUTTENBACHERS "Destroy All Music Revisited" (Skin Graft) cd 14.98 FOLKSWINGERS, THE "Raga Rock" (Fall Out) cd 17.98 FOOD BRAIN "Bansan" (Universal Japan) cd 22.00 FORGOTTEN TOMB "Negative Megalomania" (Avantgarde) cd 14.98 FROG EYES "Tears Of The Valedictorian" (Absolutely Kosher) cd/lp 14.98/10.98 FURSAXA "Alone In The Dark Wood" (All Tomorrow's Parties) cd/lp 16.98/16.98 GAINSBOURG, CHARLOTTE "5:55" (Because/Vice) cd 15.98 GIFFONI, CARLOS & LASSE MARHAUG "Lesbian Brunch" (aRCHIVE) cd 14.98 GOWNS "Red State" (Cardboard) cd 11.98 GREENHAM, LILY "Lingual Music" (Paradigm) 2cd 26.00 GRINDERMAN "s/t" (Anti) cd/lp 14.98/11.98 HARRIS, BETTY "The Lost Soul Queen" (Aim) cd 16.98 HAVOK UNIT / ANDOCEANS / THE SIN:DECAY (V/A) "Synaethesia - The Requiem Reveries" (Vendlus) cd 9.98 HAYWARD, RICK "s/t" (Sunbeam) cd 16.98 HEBDEN, KIERAN AND STEVE REID "Tongues" (Domino) cd 15.98 HENRIKSEN, ARVE "Strjon" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 HOOKER, D.R. "The Truth" (Subliminal Sounds) cd 16.98 HOTOTOGISU + BURNING STAR CORE "Volume 1" (DroneDisco) cd 11.98 IRA DE DIOS, LA "Archaeopterix" (Ogro) cd 14.98 IRA DE DIOS, LA "Hacia El Sol Rojo" (Ogro) cd 14.98 JOYLESS "Wisdom & Arrogance" (No Colours) cd 15.98 KLAXONS "Myths Of The Near Future" (Geffen) cd 10.98 LADY SAW "Walk Out" (VP) cd 15.98 LAGHONIA "Unglue" (Repsychled) cd 15.98 LOUDEST WHISPER "The Children Of Lir" (Sunbeam Records) cd 16.98 LOVERS "Sleep With Heat" (Orange Twin) cd 15.98 MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "L'Autre Cap" (K) cd/lp 14.98/13.98 MARGINAL CONSORT "s/t" (Improvised Music From Japan) 4cd 79.00 MERZBOW "Bloody Sea" (Vivo) cd 14.98 MERZBOW "Merzbear" (Important) cd 14.98 MIKAMI, KAN "Barking Practice" (PSF) cd 22.00 MIKAMI, KAN "Live Kolian 2006" (Mikami Komuten) cd 22.00 MINSK "The Ritual Fires Of Abandonment" (Relapse) cd 12.98 MOONSORROW "V : Havitetty" (Unruly Sounds) cd 12.98 MOVING GELATINE PLATES "s/t" (Musea) cd 21.00 NOISETTES "What's The Time Mr. Wolf?" (Universal Motown) cd 10.98 OBSCURUS ADVOCAM "Verbia Daemonicus" (Battle Kommand) cd 14.98 ONO, YOKO "Open Your Box" (Astralwerks) cd 14.98 OPTIMO "Walkabout" (Endless Flight) cd 16.98 OV "Noctilucent Valleys" (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98 PAGAN ALTAR "Mythical & Magical" (Oracle Records) cd 21.00 PALE DIVINE "Cemetary Earth" (I Hate) cd 16.98 PLAIN RIDE "Strange Trial" (Ektro) cd 14.98 POLLARD, ROBERT "Silverfish Trivia" (Prom Is Coming) cd 10.98 PONYS, THE "Turn The Lights Out" (Matador) cd 13.98 PRIESTBIRD "In Your Time" (Kemado) cd 13.98 RAMESES III "Honey Rose" (Important) cd 9.98 ROTH, DAVID LEE "Sonrisa Salvaje" (Friday Music) cd 15.98 SILVER DAGGERS "New High & Ord" (Load) cd 14.98 SPOOKY, DJ "System Error. Al-Yamamah Mix" (Horus) cd 17.98 STARCHASER NETWORK "s/t" (Tarot Productions) cd 14.98 STINKING LIZAVETA "Screams Of The Iron" (At A Loss Recordings) cd 13.98 THRONE OF KATARSIS "An Eternal Dark Horizon" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 THUNDERBOLT "Apocalyptic Doom" (Agonia) cd 15.98 THUNDERSTORM "As We Die" (Spv GmbH) cd 16.98 TIMBALAND "Timbaland Present: Shock Value" (Blackground) cd 15.98 TIMES NEW VIKING "Present The Paisley Reich" (Siltbreeze) cd/lp 13.98/13.98 TRANSMISSION 0 "Memory Of A Dream" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 V/A "Colombia! The Golden Age Of Discos Fuentes. The Powerhouse Of Colombian Music 1960-76" (Soundway) cd 17.98 V/A "For The Sick: A Tribute To Eyehategod" (Emetic) 2cd 13.98 V/A "How Low Can You Go?" (Dust To Digital) 3cd 58.00 VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA "Wisdom Thunderbolt" (VHF) cd 13.98 VOG "s/t" (Shifty) cd 11.98 WE ALL TOGETHER "Singles" (Repsychled / Lion Productions) cd 15.98 WORMWOOD "Behemoth" (Kreation) 2x7" 7.98 XYNFONICA "A Feast For Famished Ravens" (Hekaloth / Cyclops) cd 15.98 ZORN, JOHN "Six Litanies For Heliogabalus" (Tzadik) cd 16.98 ZOZOBRA "Harmonic Tremors" (Hydra Head) cd 13.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
This double 7" is not brand new, but it came with a batch of new stuff we finally got from Kraak, one of our favorite labels. Not sure what this double 7" is exactly, a label sampler maybe, we have a vague recollection of it commemorating a tour with all these bands, regardless, it's a pretty jam packed comp, with lots of aQ faves, the A side is outsider psych folk one man band Amen Dunes, with a track from his recently released Ethio Songs single, which finds him covering obscure Ethiopian pop songs, and it's the perfect combination, the original melodies and lyrics (sounds like he's actually singing the lyrics) still in tact, but the overall sound a bit more ramshackle and reverby, another one of those instances, where we sort of wish it wasn't a cover, and there was just a band that sounded like this all the time. Still, super awesome. The flipside starts out with Warm Climate, who we had never heard before, and whose sound is a sort of feedback drenched post punk, all low slung basslines, tribal drumming, and childlike vox, very rhythmic and propulsive, definitely into hearing more. The second track comes from long time aQ fave Ignatz, a glorious slab of lo-fi bedrooom folk, all detuned guitars and Dylan like vocal drawl, and spidery melodies over muted strum.
The second single starts out with another aQ fave Marisa Anderson, who played an instore here not too long back, and whose track here is a stunner, a fantastic slab of distorted electric guitar blues, lots of slippery slide and Appalachian fingerpicking, so good. Up next is Nathan Bowles, who offers up a short blast of old timey bluegrass stomp, and finally, the whole D side is given over to Bridget Hayden, who weaves a gorgeously minimal sprawl of gauzy Grouper-ish drift, hazy effected vocals over brittle lo-fi guitar strum, all druggy and washed out, softly psychedelic and dreamy.
Fairly limited we'd presume, housed in a swank heavy full color gatefold sleeve!
Goin' Down Slow is a small but super satisfying sampling of modern day free folk cd-r artists who are doing strange and wonderful things with acoustic guitars. It's not just strum and pick and twang anymore, although we do love us some of that too. Instead, these visionaries transform the simple acoustic guitar into strange shapes and wondrous sounds. As with a lot of these comps, there's an exciting collection of known names and favorites, but an even more exciting assortment of folks totally new to us.
Some of the favorites include Tom Carter (from Charalambides), who takes his guitar and stretches it into a slowly slithering raga like buzz, local boy Robert Horton, who offers up a tangled cacophony of detuned strum and damaged jangle, Finnish troubador Keijo who unfurls a very exotic sounding folk jam that is equal parts old scratchy blues and some exotic snake charmer music, Armpit who take a simple strum and a mumbled vocal, and wrap them in thick swaths of distorted electric guitar and dense spacerock FX, The North Sea, who offer up the most straight ahead piece, a dreamy rambling melancholy Appalachia, as well as Sindre Bjerga and Mike Tamburo. The new names here: Andy And Michael Futreal, Don Bosco, Amigo Result, Ville Moskiitto, Stephen Lewis and Mark Dagley offer up their own varied takes on the steel string, from dark and languorous bluesy buzz, to super abstract sine wave wrapped shimmer and strum, to murky percussive fingerpicked tangle to gorgeously languid near ambient folk drift and beyond.
Another amazing collection of guitarists on the periphery, and a beautiful introduction to some new names we definitely want to hear more from.
Packaged in hand painted sleeves, with two printed inserts.
SUPER LIMITED!!! ONLY 80 COPIES PRESSED!! We got about 20, but those are sure to be gone in no time so act fast.
We hope you left some room on your cd shelves next to the recently released Invisible Pyramid: Elegy Box 6cd set we reviewed recently. 'Cuz this almost plays like it could be discs 7, 8 and 9 of that set. That said, Gold Leaf Branches has it's own angle for sure, but sonically it still falls firmly right there in that abstract drone-y free psych folk world we all love. Just a glimpse of the bands should telll you all you need to know: Six Organs Of Admittance, Kuupuu, Hala Strana, Maniacs Dream, James Blackshaw, Keijo, Robert Horton, Wolfmangler, Charalambides, Brothers Of The Occult Sisterhood, Rameses III, Claypipe, Marissa Nadler, Hush Arbors, Lost Domain, Lau Nau, Dead Raven Choir... C'mon, that's like the psychfolk dream comp. And that's barely a third of the bands on here! And that's exactly what makes this collection so exciting, so many bands who you've never heard of creating magical music as good as any/all of the bands you're already familiar with. Check out Stuart Busby, Alligator Crystal Moth, Soarwhole, Visitations, Oxblood Reincarnations, Weird Weeds, Snowfoxx, The Magical Folk Of The Faraway Tree, Wax Ghost, Plat Ypus, Agitated Radio Pilot, Terracid and so many more. This comp will no doubt see folks dashing madly to the internet to dig up more recordings by these mysterious groups.
All new and exclusive tracks, packaged in a gorgeous metallic gold inked parchment sleeve (although they really should have sprung for some inner sleeves instead of just using the liner note insert to separate the three discs).
Where to begin with a review of a cd-rom that includes over 1,500 articles and reviews? Well, this is what I can tell you upon first examination of this disc, but many many hours could be spent exploring the material to be found here. Basically, this is an cross-platform (Mac and PC) cd-rom archive of every issue of Archie Patterson's Eurock fanzine, from 1973 to today, 45 issues worth. Eurock, as you might guess, specializes in European progressive rock sounds (although you'll also find coverage of scenes in Japan, Mexico, and other non-European places). Beginning in '73, it was initially focused on the contemporary krautrock scene (with features on Can, Amon Duul, Tangerine Dream in issue #1!), but as you browse through the issues you'll find stuff on Magma, Kraftwerk, RIO, Guru Guru, and then soon you'll be reading about Franco Battiato, Nektar, Lars Hollmer...it's endless. The Wire review of this of course bagged on the exclusion of much UK prog-rock (as if you'd rather read about Gentle Giant than Le Orme), but Patterson could hardly go back in a time machine and add stuff to the old issues of his zine -- what they wrote then is what you get now, and that's the beauty of it, the sense of "being there", of discovery, and all that...I almost wish that the magazine had been archived PDF fashion, so that you could actually see the original page layout and funky fonts. At least there's a gallery of cover art (unfortunately not viewable at full-size), for fans of the '70 underground press aesthetic.
Oh, and there's some bonus video material as well, an Urban Sax concert (sorry, haven't investigated that yet...) and a cut each from Amon Dull II ("Eye-Shaking King", goddamn!) and Popul Vuh from German TV. Very cool! Oh, and then the regular audio portion of this cd is some inoffensive New Agey symphonic music from one Hiro Kawahara, which might have its uses when trying to relax after several hours of computer-screen staring eyestrain that this cd-rom will surely cause. A fantastic item for folks interested in this sort of stuff (you know who you are)!
These days, the phrase 'electronica compilation' sends shivers down our spines. And not in a good way. Especially when it's the same people, doing the same thing for the umpteenth time. So we were pleasantly surprised by this particular electronic compilation, even though it features many of the same folks -- they've all decided to put us to sleep. On purpose this time! (Ha, just kidding.) This is a gorgeous collection of warm and gauzy, wispy, dreamy, electronic minimalism. Soothing and droney, thick and lush, beautifully late night sounding. And I actually HAVE listened to this going to sleep and it's perfect! Features the ubiquitous Kid606 as well as Stephan Mathieu, Kurt Ralske, Electric Company, Main, Pimmon, Tim Hecker, and Oren Ambarchi. Both discs also feature movies playable on your computer by Kurt Ralske, Electric Company and Pimmon. Our favorite Tigerbeat6 release in a while!
Essentially, "Grain" is the companion disc to the "Variable Resistance" compilation published by local arts group 23five for an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art about Australian sound art. This album features four artists -- Philip Samartzis, Pimmon, Darrin Verhagen, and David Brown -- who had come to San Francisco to perform in conjunction with a lengthy 'listening room' event of many other artists. Samartzis, who had curated the "Variable Resistance" show, opens this album with a tense collage of post-industrial musique concrete that rummages through terse electrostatic cracklings, mutated calliope melodies, indeterminant creakings, and psychoacoustic drone work that is not unlike the Hafler Trio's best work. Ghostly fluctuations of sound mark Pimmon's contribution as these loops are coupled with miniscule digital vibrations, for one of the most sedate compositions we've heard from Pimmon. Darrin Verhagen (perhaps better known as Shinjuku Filth and Shinjuku Thief) also offers a particularly quiet track of meditative tribal rhythms run through a number of quietly glitchy DSP filters. David Brown (who may in fact be Australia's unsung answer to Keith Rowe) scratches a choral number out of vibrating guitar feedback, dischordant orchestral samples, and nervous electro-acoustic tonal fluctuations. Nice stuff.
Earlier in 2014, the multimedia artist John Davis presented an amazing series of expanded cinema at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, showcasing Bay Area artists whose work operate in the liminal regions between avant-garde composition and experimental filmmaking. The most visible and vocal proponent of such work is San Francisco's Paul Clipson, whose 8mm and 16mm films of in-camera edits & overlaid imagery have long been the visual accompaniments to the likes of Barn Owl, Grouper, Tarentel, Joshua Churchill, and Brendan Murray (just to name a few). Clipson's work was just one of many artists presented during the month-long festival that Davis curated, with this weighty object - two slabs of vinyl, a hefty book, and four dvd-rs each dedicated to one of four filmmakers - documenting a handful of the pieces that were exhibited / projected / performed during the festival. So, there are filmmakers Lawrence Jordan, Craig Baldwin, and Kerry Laitala joining Clipson on the video programs; and Tashi Wada, Maggi Payne, and Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken joining John Davis as the composers. There were far more notable artists whose work did not get covered in this compendium (e.g. Keith Evans, Beige, Mary Helena Clarke, Steve Dye, Andy Puls, and aQ's own Jim Haynes), meaning that there's more than enough material to warrant a second volume.
The two slabs of vinyl contain long-form tracks from each of the aforementioned composers, whose work corresponds to the soundtrack of the video programs, but these sounds are also designed to be listened to independent of the image, harboring an indeterminacy to the marriage of sound and image as well as its severance. Bellouin & Bracken are stalwart performers here in the Bay Area, who sadly have not released any of their work up until now. Overtones and harmonics from bowed metal rods, handcrafted glass harmonica, and subtly reinforced electronics offer an amazingly rich composition of melodic sound pools progressing at the pace of a late period Morton Feldman composition. Davis has released his own work through Root Strata and Students Of Decay over the years, with world-weary delicacies of sonic filigree suspended upon field recordings and cracked electronics. Here, he takes on the contemplative sequences of analog synth / library musics with fragments alluding to Susanne Ciani that darken over time through scratchy loops and radiant black drones. The iconic Bay Area minimalist Maggi Payne slips through her quiet hush by way of downpitched white noise into thrumming masses, Shepard tone glissandos, and ice-sharp textures. Tashi Wada's downtuning compositions for two violins resonating acoustically in near lockstep with each other is a perfect recapitulation of Tony Conrad's ideas behind Slapping Pythagoras. Brilliantly done by all of the composers!
We'll leave the video components alone for the time being; as Gravity Spells is strictly limited to 100 copies, many of which were sold at the festival itself. There's only a handful of these left. A true labor of love from John Davis, and it shows!
Sure, Tzadik titles've been really spotty lately and it's getting to be hard to tell the good from the bad, but surprise: the label has totally hit the mark this time. Not only do Bacharach's standards cry out for reinterpretation, but this cd functions as a hearty sampler of downtown NYC scene as it stands today. Thus, while Bacharach's used to Dionne and the Carpenters paying tribute (and royalties), this is a weird and 90% wonderful collection of mostly twisted (but some lovely straightahead) covers of his songs, from Wayne Horvitz's *sublime* "Close To You" to Marc Ribot's signature guitarwork on "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" to Medeski, Martin and Wood's "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," which sounds like it was recorded underwater. Other contributors include Faith No More's Mike Patton, Shelley Hirsch, Lloyd Cole, Robert Quine, Eyvind Kang, Bill Frisell, Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda with Sean Lennon, Dave Douglas, Zeena Parkins, Erik Friedlander, and Guy Klucsevek.
Managed to get another handful of these super limited lps, so act fast:
Super limited vinyl document of the Halleluwah Festival Of Enthused Arts that took place in September 1-2 of this year curated by the same folks who do the killer yeti magazine.
Two sides, one quiet, one loud, a bunch of instantly recognizable names, as well as a bunch of unknowns (at least to us) all of it pretty dang amazing, so much so that we were kicking ourselves for missing the festival.
The quiet side features folk legend Michael Hurley, folk legend Vashti Bunyan and Tara Jane O'Neil, as well as White Rainbow, Holysons and Alela Diane. The sound leans mostly toward subtle twang, simple strum, and dreamlike croon, but there are some moments of blissy foggy ambient murmur and some fuzzy murky psychedelic blues.
The loud side features Deerhoof, Sir Richard Bishop and Valet (whose cd-r we raved about a few lists back) as well as three weirdly named ensembles: Nudity, Romancing and Yacht. The loud side veers all over the place, from weird psychrock tribal freakouts to blown out angular indie rock buzz to damaged minimal punk rock bounce to fuzzy psychedelic heavy riffed rock jams.
The packaging is just as impressive, a thick, plain white sleeve through which are visible strange looking inserts, each printed on super thick semi transparent cloudy plastic, the loud side is red on white with an illustration by Kevin Arrow, the quiet side is white on black, and features an amazing illustration by Unica Zurn, the partner of Hans Bellmer! Wow!!
This isn't brand new, but we just managed to get a bunch, and if this isn't just about the perfect compilation for you free-folk, psychedelic, new weird America fans we don't know what is. The track listing should be enough to convince you: Acid Mothers Temple, Kemialliset Ystavat, Amps For Christ, Greg Weeks, Pelt, Martyn Bates, Currituck County, Fursaxa, Dead Raven Choir, Alasdair Roberts, Stone Breath, the Iditarod, Mason Jones, and more!
Second label sampler from Hanged Man, and like the first it's chock full of twisted noisiness, spaced out ambience and everything in between. Featuring a handful of names we know (Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Knifecream, Crystal Hell Pool, Brain Fruit) and a bunch we don't: HT Manor, WaMu, Unnatural Ways, Forrest Friends, Overcasting, Egregor and a bunch of others. If you're familiar with the Hanged Man label, or some of the names above, you have an idea of what to expect, or maybe you don't: grim grinding black buzz, murky malevolent shimmer, dreamy kosmische drift, psychedelic electro-kraut, shrieking chaotic noise rock, skittery free jazz that transforms into dirgy metallic math rock, field recording flecked ambient blacknoise, gorgeously crooned minimal songsmithery, cinematic pianoscapes, twangy campfire desert folk, modern minimal shimmer, grim buzzing lo-fi black metal and more more more.
Fantastically packaged, a fancy printed vellum insert inside a printed J-card, with a song tile insert as well, the whole thing housed in a hand printed metallic card stock slipcase. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
This is the debut release from a new Seattle label, specializing in their own murky darkly psychedelic brand of doom / folk / drone / noise, a sampler of various artists on the label as well as likeminded noisemakers from the area, with a few familiar names (Megabats, Demian Johnston and Inh Halentropy), but way more unfamiliar ones (Kristian Garrard, Karnak Temples, Josh Medina, Them,There, Nightjar, Sokai Stiljed, Thunder:Grey:Pilgrim), all of them contributing this sprawling chunk of droning blackness, strange industrial ambience and looped psychedelic mesmer, all the sonically disparate tracks woven into a collection that works almost as well as an album proper. The familiar names first: abstract avant atmospheric (sort of) black metal weirdo Inh Halentropy lays down some John Carpenter style seventies soundtrack wooziness, all muddy and murky, programmed beats and sci-fi swirl over brooding rumbles, and theremin-like high end melodies, a gorgeous creepily atmospheric chunk of lo-fi faux soundtrackery, while Megabats offer up dense swirls of kosmische synth drift, and glimmering ambient dreamdrug haze, all super blissed out and trippy, and noisenik Demian Johnston delivers some blunted blurred soft-noise, all cavernous and industrial, thick swaths of blurred crumble and greyed out crunch, all smeared into slowly undulating blackened dronemusic. The rest of the tape follows suit, super abstract creaking and crumbling mutates into gauzy almost Pop Ambient loopscaping, thick whirring melodies emerge from slow churning sheets of whirring synths and echoe-y shimmer, delicate acoustic guitars drift amidst sitar like buzz, plaintive vocal harmonies and warm lustrous chordal swells, bleak black rumbles roil ominously through clouds of ominous low end thrum, metallic ragas seem to slowly melt into oozing blackened dronefolk, and finally wild tangles of clipped vocals and shards of melody are stretched out, then layered and looped into a druggy dizzy psych-out. Killer stuff for sure, and odds are pretty dang limited as well...
The great Public Information label releases another incredible collection of archival Library tracks, this time from the British archives of The Standard Music Library, recorded between 1970 and 2010. While many famous people recorded for Standard Library, including Delia Derbyshire, Tony Visconti, Michael Chapman, Sven Libaek, as well as Brian Eno and Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), this anthology focuses on the more obscure composers and electronic output released for industrial films, sci-fi television and commercials. You get the full range over 30 tracks from bloop-bleep abstractions, cosmic kosmiche and new age as well as eighties VCR funk and John Carpenter-like horror-synth jams. If you liked the last library survey Public Information offered, Tomorrow's Achievements - Parry Music Library 1976-86, then you'll certainly dig this. Top notch collection!!! Limited, import.
This just may be the best compilation ever. How's this for a concept? A bunch of electronic/noise bands make songs out of death metal drums. Just the drums. Brilliant. Maybe. Has the potential to be pretty amazing. So how does it actually fare? Pretty well surprisingly. Most of the bands don't fuck with the beats too much, just sort of do their thing around whatever their chosen blast beat happens to be. So what could have been a stupid mess becomes the weirdest, noisiest, most confounding death metal record ever. Light on the guitars, but heavy on the buzz and glitch and whir and skree and whatever chopped up, processed graaeeerrgggghhhh they could get out of their laptops. Think a death metal V/VM, or Dave Lombardo drumming for Wolf Eyes! AQ pal Lesser is on here, as is Bombadier and Panicsville, but the rest of the participants are new to us. It hardly matters though. The tracks all sort of fit together into a single, epic, demented "death metal" masterpiece.
"Heat & Birds" is the second 'friends and family' compilation to emerge from the Jewelled Antler collective, offering an overview not only of the numerous activities that are constantly evolving within the collective but also of like-minded artists from across the globe. Common to Jewelled Antler sound is a magical wistfulness, which seeps through every sound within the label and draws metaphors to half-dreamt memories, impossible lands that only exist in the imagination, or the simple awe of nature. While the core members (Glenn Donaldson, Loren Chasse, Rob Reger, and Steven R. Smith) are present, they've presented themselves in a variety of unique monikers and projects: such as Hala Strana (an uncredited pseudonym for Steven R. Smith, recreating a manic Hungarian folk instrumental with his trademarked production style of layered sounds building repeated riffs up to bittersweet crescendos), Of (an enigmatic project of evocative etherialism by Loren Chasse), and The Floating Birthday Children (the duo of Donaldson and Kerry McLaughlin offering pensive folk meanderings). Other, better-known Jewelled Antler projects, The Blithe Sons & Daughters, Thuja, and Franciscan Hobbies, also make appearances.
Of the non-JA projects, "Heat & Birds" also features the Finnish avant-improv-rock bands Kemialliset Ystavat, the medieval sounding Markus, and the elusive Avarus. Also, the San Francisco band Golden Hotel have produced another brilliant, drugged-out folk song, but do they remember recording it? And, there's some wonderful field recordings by AQ's own Byram Abbott of the birds in rehabilitation at Fort Cronkite just north of San Francisco. I could go on, but why spoil the mysteries? "Heat & Birds" is a great collection from a great organization. Recommended.
New sampler from one of our favorite labels, Touch, this time round a sampler of wares previously released. This is the perfect chance for those who are unfamiliar with this truly great label's output to become acquainted. Among the cuts found here are tracks by Evan Parker vs Disinformation, an excerpt from the Santa Pod cd (recordings of the Santa Pod drag car raceway in England), another from the "Runaway Train" lp (radio transmissions between the operator of an out of control train and the home office), I Saw It All Happen... (recordings of a life support system), EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) specialist Raymond Cass describing his contact with alien voices, Daren Seymour & Mark Van Hoen (of Scala and Locust), and much more.
There's another festival goin' on right now here in festival-healthy SF... and L.A., San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, and Calgary too. It's the How To Destroy The Universe Festival of extreme art and music featuring performances by artists such as Blixa Bargeld, The Living Jarboe, and F-SPACE. In case you aren't able to attend, the organizers (Mobilization Records) didn't want you to completely miss out so they've released this compilation of recordings by select participants - the abovementioned as well as Savage Republic, Soriah, The Centimeters, The Sixteens and Black Ice. Come to think of it, for those of you who are attending, this'll make a cool nicely priced souvenir, won't it?
A tribute to Antonioni's 1966 classic film "Blow-Up". Features a wide range of contributors including Matmos, Sun City Girls, Starfuckers, Dean Roberts, Richard Youngs, Arthur Doyle (!), Loren Mazzacane Connors, William Parker, Amy Denio, Dorgon, Mushroom and Birdsong's Air Force. Vinyl only.
As the distinct sounds of flutes, harps, bells, gongs, pianos and of course synthesizers fill the air, we realize it wasn't that long ago that we had to defend our love for early new age music as a kind of guilty pleasure. Basking in the soft-focus vibrational glow of long form minimal composition, packaged in naive hippie-ish spiritual conceits bordering on and often overstepping into cheesiness, it was hard to consider it a distinct D.I.Y. practice. In hindsight, new age music can be seen as an early form of the slow food movement or folk art. It was music meant for slowing down time, taking stock and increasing awareness, and we have since come to view it more influentially in terms of its antecedents in ambient and drone music. Yet, over the years new age music has made quite a revival inspiring a new generation of long-form music practitioners and spiritual outliers. Nothing proves that more than this incredible compilation of private press new age music from Light In The Attic that features some old faves and new discoveries across a 40 year span. We have written plenty on influential figures like Iasos, J.D. Emmanuel, Gurdjieff and Laraaji (all featured here), but there are many, especially women like Judith Tripp, Nesta Karin Crain, Constance Demby, Alice Damon and Joanna Brouk who are equally blowing our minds. Often pulled from rare cassettes and hard to find records, this is an incredible survey and the perfect primer for the uninitiated. Fantastic tripped out and dreamy stuff!!
Killer compilation from this long running label, a triple cd overflowing with some seriously aQ beloved bands:
The Body, Thurston Moore, The North Sea, Dead Machines, Anla Courtis, Antony Milton, Taurpis Tula, Pumice, Neil Campbell (Vibracathedral Orchestra, Astral Social Club), Mike Shiflet, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Crawlspace, Justice Yeldman, Carlos Giffoni just to name a few, and there are tons more, FIFTY artists total. A whole bunch of folks we had never heard before: Aaron Rosenblum, Craig Colorusso, Caustic Solution, Carpentry, Taiwan Death, Rainbeaux, Tinnitusstimulus, Hikka as well as Crush The Junta, who some of us here have dug for a while but who have yet to get reviewed on the list.
The sound is all over the place too, but in a good way, warm metallic buzz, woozy steel string outsider Appalachia, hushed hazy droned out drift, there are occasional blast of noise, but they tend toward the more textural, Carlos Giffoni offers up some blurred synthy squelch, Cock E.S.P. deliver a minute long burst of caustic crunch, which is rife with weird voices, and surprisingly even a bit of melody, there's even some full on garage rocking (Crawlspace), some tripped out exotica (Irene Moon), downtuned lumbering doom (The Body), jangly country (Hinkley), twisted, wrangled guitar abuse (Thurston Moore), but for all of the varied sounds, the overall vibe does lean pretty consistently toward the dark and droney, the layered and atmospheric, much of this sprawling comp has the feel of an album proper, the songs linked sonically, creating these subtly thematic movements, a pretty amazing feat for a 3 disc compilation with 50 sonically disparate bands. This is definitely the sort of thing that should appeal to the aQ-ers into sounds murky and mysterious, haunting and hazy, and fans of all things that buzz and rumble and whir, and we should mention Crush The Junta, whose track here is a fantastically murky chunk of stumbling fuzz drenched dirgery, starting out all chaotic and almost free, before locking into a grimy, crusty churn, that manages to be both heavy and atmospheric, rhythmic and psychedelic.
Definitely recommended. Sweet packaging too, the three discs (real cds, not cd-r's) housed in a dvd case, with a full color cover, and full color printed insert, the whole thing snug in a silk screened and hand sewn cloth bag, and yeah, probably crazy limited too...
We were first struck by the title. I, Mute Hummings. Very mysterious and provocative. Dark and abstract. But what really sealed the deal was the subtitle: "A Collection Of Drone Music And Dulcet Atmospheres" and the lineup: Keith Berry, Fear Falls Burning, Dronaement, Troum, Paul Bradley, Richard Lainhart and more. You had us at 'collection of drone music'...
So with that sort of high caliber collection of dronelords, we hardly need to tell you what a gorgeously dark, ominously rumbling, dreamily whirring selection of tracks this is, but what the heck, we will anyway.
Keith Berry starts things off with a warm, black tinted shimmer, densely layered, but seemingly weightless, a dark subterranean drift, laced with barely there, almost recognizable field recordings buried way down in the mix. Next up is maybe the greatest Fear Falls Burning track ever. Weird spacious affected guitars, not heavy or distorted, but instead glistening and prismatic, caught in a dreamy delay drenched loop, floating like some disembodied fragment of a long lost Morricone spaghetti western soundtrack, and nestled amidst long golden tendrils of lazy late afternoon fuzz.
Dronaement offer up a lengthy soundscape of simulated field recordings, record crackle and murky glimmer underpinned by a distant rhythmic whir and wrapped in a gauzy dreamlike atmosphere. Then AQ faves Troum take over with one of their most ominous pieces yet, a gurgling bass heavy cavernous trawl through some dark hellish underworld, still shimmery and soft focus, but with an ominous undercurrent and some super distorted, deconstructed riffing roiling amidst thick swells of foghorn low end, and all manner of abstract black ambience.
And the rest of the record is just as beautiful, continuing on in a similar darkdronedoom fashion, even the folks we didn't recognize (Jeffrey Roden, Steve Jolliffe, Column One) offer up some gorgeous slabs of bleak black drone dreaminess, so much so that it had us immediately seeking out more material by all of them...
It's hard to believe that Important Records have been around for ten years. Even harder to believe that in those ten years, they've released THREE HUNDRED records, thirty a year. No wonder we can barely keep up with them. But it's sure fun to try. This super limited lp celebrates this big anniversary with exclusive live tracks from a handful of Important bands, a list that reads like an aQ dream team: Mugstar offer up some seriously fuzzy psychedelic stomp, a Stooges / Hawkwind hybrid equal parts heavy and spacey, Cave are at their most krautrocky here, blissed out and rhythmic, the sound thick layered and epic, Grails get almost funky, doing their best impression of classic Can, thick basslines, groovy rhythms and a sound that's super distorted and blown out, Bardo Pond deliver their usual blast of swirling druggy psych, all warbly vox and swirling chaotic psychguitar bliss, Master Musicians Of Bukkake get all ritualistic, with gamelan like percussion, bleating horns and demonic gurgling vox, Chord get seriously mellow, unfurling a hazy bit of dreamy drift, hushed and surprisingly ambient, aQ fave Bass Communion teams up with someone called Pig for a thick dense sprawl of blackened guitar buzz and swirling atmospheres, a slow burning track that gradually gets noisier and noisier, and then finally, someone called NHK yx finishes things off with a super minimal chunk of lo-fi skittery insectoid buzz and squelch electronica.
All killer stuff, vinyl only, and most likely limited...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Jazz legend Dave Brubeck gets the tribute treatment courtesy of John Zorn's Avant label, who have gathered together a bunch of the usual suspects to cover Brubeck's compositions. For me, the highlight is the Ruins' version of "Blue Rondo A La Turk", a piece tailor-made for their hyper, heavy, and humorous delivery, but we also hear from the likes of Bill Frisell, Uri Caine, Dave Douglas, Joey Baron, Eyvind Kang, Erik Friedlander, Anthony Coleman, and Medeski, Martin, & Wood among others. Quite enjoyable.
Coil as a musical entity had such a profound affect on modern music, and on the majority of bands and artists we love and listen to every day. So when Jhonn Balance of Coil died after an accidental fall, underground musicians worldwide were stunned and heartbroken. And what better way to channel rage, and disappointment and sadness than through music. So thus we have In Memoriam, a sonic tribute and memorial to the memory and the musical legacy of Jhonn Balance.
The lineup is chock full of unknowns, but sonically most of them are definitely channeling the sprit of Coil and are pretty fantastic. Enough that it had a few of us wanting more from some of the groups. Some of the names are recognizable, and a few are definite AQ faves: Coh, Alec Empire, Alva Noto, Scanner, KK Null, Thighpaulsandra, Chris Connelly and Pomassl. But the rest, wow! Usually a comp with mostly unknowns bodes poorly for the quality of the collection, but somehow, most of these groups end up being really cool, and perfect in their own way, demonstrating their love and affection for Balance and Coil in their quite varied musical homages. And they hail from ALL over. Pretty amazing actually. The list had us pretty excited before we even got the discs in: The Threshold Houseboy's Choir (Thailand), Theodor Bastard (Russia), Kotra (Ukraine), Spies Boys (Russia), 2/5 BZ (Turkey), Biblioteka Prospero (Ukraine), Phillip Klingler (USA), EU (Russia), Darling Kandie (USA), Alexei Borisov (Russia), Schlammpeitziger (Germany), Goodiny & PCP (Russia), Brompton's Cocktail (Russia), Mystified (Sweden), hhtp (Belarus), Noises Of Russia & Olga Komok / Nikolay Rubanov (Russia), Kryptogen Rundfunk (Russia), A. Vorodeyev (Ukraine), Serge Tereshkine (Russia), Volga (Russia), I.L.I. (Russia) and M.R.F. / Elena Voynarovskaya (Ukraine)! Wow, heavy on the Eastern Europe for sure, which might have to do with the fact that this was released on a Russian label.
Regardless, eyes closed, this almost plays like an actual Coil album. Heavy on the electronics, lots of processed rhythms, strange voices, creepy soundscapes. Some are sort-of-covers, others are loose interpretations, while still others are original pieces of music, more in the spirit of Coil than emulating the actual sound. But for such a massive comp, the sound is surprisingly cohesive and flows wonderfully. Some of our favorite tracks: Alec Empire's stripped down fuzzed out beatscape. The dreamy otherworldly abstract folk of 2/5 BZ. The faux gamelan of Thailand's Threshold Houseboy's Choir. The murky new wave industrial of Biblioteka Prospero. The dreamy minimal glitchscape of EU. We could go on and on. Needless to say, it's all pretty dang great. Even the folks who don't actually dig Coil all that much have been liking a whole lot of this comp and playing it all the time!
Quite possibly essential listening for Coil freaks, but definitely a kick ass experimental electronic compilation worth checking out for folks into that sort of stuff!!
A massive 4 cd collection packaged beautifully in an oversized hardcover book from Stephen O'Malley's (Sunn, Burning Witch, etc...) Anja label. Featuring a who's who of underground expreimental ambient noise-icians, each doing a song about a different flower. Features: Circle, Amber Asylum, Alio Die, Ultra, Jonathan Coleclough, Troum, Steve Roden, Kawabata Makoto, Inade, Mnortham, Aube, Chaos As Shelter, Lotus Eaters and tons more. Absolutely gorgeous, looking and sounding. And of course quite limited.
Pretty much all you gotta say about this one is EXCLUSIVE TWELVE MINUTE CIRCLE TRACK!!! Okay, so at least a handful of you already leapt wildly for the click-to-buy button and have already moved on. For the rest of you, this comp, the first release on Barge Recordings, has way more to offer than just one track (although it is a killer... more on that in a minute).
This is one of those compilations that is perfectly balanced between names you know and love, and bands you've never even heard of, but the good thing is, the tracks by the lesser known bands are just as good! You've got Finnish hypnorockers Circle but you've also got Polmo Polpo, Tim Hecker, Loren Connors, MGR, Geoff Mullen, sounds like an AQ dream compilation already. So the tracks by The Fun Years, the Kallikak Family, Bird Show and Animal Hospital are just gravy. But with a comp like this, the only real way to get a feel for it is to go track by track. Needless to say, if you dig Circle, and Tim Hecker and the rest of those, odds are you're gonna dig all of this.
The Fun Years offer up a lovely soundscape of warped melodies, delicate guitar strum and all sorts of staticky record crackle. Much more dreamy and melancholy than the band name might lead you to believe. Next up is the Kallikak Family, whose track is like a glitched up, chopped and screwed version of some classic Appalachian folk tune, steel string guitar, dreamy vocals, all crunched up and stuttered into strange rhythms and droney swirls. Cool! Then it's Bird Show, a Kranky Records outfit which should give you a rough idea, with muted thumb piano melodies, like some drugged out less festive Konono, underneath strummed guitars and haunting monotone vocals, creepy and super pretty. Polmo Polpo follow up with a grainy grinding dronescape constructed from what sounds like sine waves, bird calls, fragments of guitar buzz, shortwave radio and theremin. Tim Hecker is up next and does that thing he does so well, the blown out fuzzy soundscape, melodies and rhythms indistinct and buried under swirls of gauzy hiss and shimmery whir. So goddamned perfect. One of those tracks that should be hours long. Loren Connors follows Hecker's thick swath of sound with a much more spare and somber track, simple plaintive electric guitar, shimmering reverb, lots and lots of space, delicate and elegiac. Then we have Animal Hospital, who unfurl a thick Sunn 0)))-like guitar, a churning glacial throb, over a static field of cricket chirping high end. Like a more moody melodic Skullflower, or Godpeed tackling a track from Earth 2. But way prettier. Finally we get to the Circle track, which eschews there usually propulsive, almost metal, hypnotic krautrock style groove in favor of a weird ambient soundworld, of pulsing low end drones, caveman like grunts, bizarre muttered vocals, abstract guitars, lots of tinkling percussion, thick swirls of ambient sound. It almost sounds like the Orc obsessed soundscapes of Za Frumi, or a more Quest For Fire version of their live sound on the long out of print live Mountain lp. Either ay, essential for all you Circle nuts. Hot on Circle's Neanderthal heels is Geoff Mullen, who takes his stringed implements (guitar and banjo usually) and transforms them into a grinding corrosive battery of moans and groans and wails, of buzz and glitch and crunch, a clattery, keening industrial psychedelia, that manages to be harsh and caustic, as well as strangely pretty. And finally, MGR, 1/4 of the mighty Isis, who under the name Mustard Gas And Roses, weaves dreamy, darkly doomy, meanderingly melancholy abstract post rock dronescapes, lovely and mysterious, the track here is no exception, the main difference being a strange Morricone Spaghetti Western vibe, that gives the track a cool, cinematic deserty feel. So nice.
A killer comp for sure, and a whole mess of new bands we're gonna have to track down more music from!
Note: Be warned, it is quite difficult to get the disc out of the sleeve. The inner sleeve is just a little too big. Be careful removing it, best to open it all the way and push from the inside. A bit more work, but it's WELL worth it!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We have VERY few of these, as in just 3 or 4, so we'll keep this brief. But holy cow, is this something else, a massive 88 page oversized soft cover coffee table book, accompanied by two cds containing unreleased recordings made at the Institute For Psychoacoustics And Electronic Music at Ghent University in Belgium, which is sort of like the Belgian equivalent to the GRM studios in France, or DIEM in Denmark. The book celebrates 50 years and includes tons of rare photos of the various instruments and their operators, as well as a pretty extensive study of the Institute's contribution to the development of electronic music, the text in both English and Dutch, the book alone would be worth the price of admission, but the cds too, featuring tons of amazing music, from some names we recognize, but loads we don't, and the sounds, wow! Insane to think how prescient some of these noisemakers and academics were, considering much of this sounds like it could be contemporary, there are wild cut up collages, whirring blurry soundscapes reminiscent of the Caretaker, woozy, warbling ambience a la Philip Jeck, lots of drones, and abstract Musique Concrete, tape music and more, all recorded between 1963 and 1999. Again, the book is incredible, the music too, dark and mysterious, haunting and wildly experimental, SUPER recommended for weird music obsessives, and fans of early electronic / tape music. There's a good chance we won't be able to get more, so order super quick if you want one of the few we have, and be prepared to wait a while for more to come in, assuming we can even get more at all once we run out...
Collection of recordings made at this Utrecht, Netherlands as a studio for electro-instrumental music and attached to the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Contains your standard academic tape and electronics fare for the period. Features pieces composed
Howard Stelzer's press release for his compilation of improvisational, dronecore experimentalism entitled Intransitive Twenty-Three gushes about his love for compilations, harkening back to high school days of making mix tapes for friends. While I (Jim) certainly have a strong sense of nostalgia for the mix tapes of my youth, I do not always share Mr. Stelzer's love affair with 'the compilation' (in general though, not this one specifically). In many instances, compilations emerge as lackluster collections patchworked from tracks that didn't quite fit on an artist's latest album. There are obvious exceptions; and in every case, those exceptions are the result of the care that the compiler puts into what he or she chooses, where he or she places those selections, and what thematic constraints he or she demands from each of the artists. Accordingly, Intransitive Twenty-Three is one of those rare compilations that succeeds on all fronts.
When Stelzer began assembling this album, he asked that each of the artists record these tracks without the use of any digital devices. How they interpreted what "no digital devices" meant was up to them. Obviously, Stelzer was seeking a more tactile approach to sound making (as opposed to the potential for sterility that laptop jockies might revert to). He also hedged his bets by asking the cream of the crop including Jonathan Coleclough & Colin Potter, Francisco Lopez, Frans De Waard, Birchville Cat Motel, Giuseppe Ielasi, Atau Tanaka, nmperign, Alexandre St. Onge, the Animist Orchestra, and many others. Across the twenty two tracks, quiet passages, textural events, and field recordings make up the bulk of the content, with everything punctuated by periodic silences which divide all of the tracks and whisper that another interesting turn of haptic improvisation is around the corner. Another great album from Intransitive.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
For the past few years now, we've been singing the praises of the Last Visible Dog catalog, which mostly consists of cd-r editions from the likes of Thuja, MCMS, Shizuka, Dead Raven Choir, and many other bands specializing in primitive electronics, droning lo-tech minimalism, or drugged-out psychedelic improvisation. Having recently made the jump to manufacturing real cds with their reissue of the Jewelled Antler project The Birdtree, Last Visible Dog now offers "The Invisible Pyramid" as a double-cd primer to their catalog, with *all exclusive* tracks from Thuja, Reynols, Charalambides, Omit, Birdtree, Fursaxa, Birchville Cat Motel, Karma (yet another Kawabata Makoto project!), Pelt, The Iditarod, Kemialliset Ystavat, SubArachnoid Space, Avarus, MCMS, Drona Parva, Karl Precoda & Mike Gangloff, Miminokoto, Pylon, Sandoz Lab Technicians, Black Forest / Black Sea, and Peter Wright. A wonderfully steady listen, "The Invisible Pyramid" fortunately doesn't suffer from the problems of most label comps, which are often filled with tracks not good enough to make it onto proper albums. Since all of these bands are SO prolific (just look to Birchville Cat Motel and the Jewelled Antler collective for evidence of the wealth of great recordings), getting great tracks couldn't have been that difficult a task for Last Visible Dog. The highlights include a massive four-part opus of space-fug from Reynols, the alienating electronic cryptography of Omit, the minimalist, sleepwalking strum of Fursaxa, and the wistful avant-folk of The Birdtree. Altogether, a wonderful compilation!
We just got this in earlier this week, and well, what do you want already? A review?? It's SIX count 'em SIX CDS!!! We can't listen to all of this and review it, nor do we need to. C'mon, just buy it. You know you want one. How can you not?? There's SEVEN HOURS AND 36 MINUTES of music on here from pretty much EVERYBODY that you love from the international drone / psych / folk scene, from the US and NZ and Finland and Japan and lots of other places. Here's just a partial list: Birchville Cat Motel, Avarus, Bardo Pond, Black Forest/Black Sea, Doktor Kettu, Steven R. Smith, Fursaxa, Peter Wright, Urdog, Seht, Uton, Loren Chasse/Of, Renato Rinaldi, Miminokoto, Matt De Gennaro, Geoff Mullen, Flies Inside The Sun, Up-Tight, Es, Wolfmangler, My Cat Is An Alien, One Inch Of Shadow, Keijo, Ashtray Navigations, Ben Reynolds, and a half-a-dozen more. GEEZUS. All kinds of haunting textures, space rock excursions, and free improv splurge. Of course, we'd love to provide you a detailed, multi-paragraph review where we discuss each track in depth and mention all the highlights, describe the variety, etc. etc. But that's crazy. We wouldn't get this listed until next year if we did that. And you want this NOW don't you? So, suffice to say that this is an amazing follow-up to the excellent, out-of-print "Invisible Pyramid" 2cd comp released a few years back by LVD. This time compiler Chris Moon, inspired by the classic triple LP comp Harmony of the Spheres released by Drunken Fish in 1996, encouraged the contributors to give him more material or longer tracks, in the 12-18 minute range. Perhaps later he saw this as a foolhardy decision when he realized the comp was going to take up six whole cds. But he did it anyway, and we can thank Chris for doing this, 'cause of course, most of these artists are all about the extended track length experience. These aren't bands that write three minute pop songs (although, some artists do provide suites of shorter tracks rather than one long one). They want to let loose and DRONE. And what's the use of a drone that gets cut short after a couple minutes? Exactly. So this comp avoids that problem, and is really a bargain at the price for so much music! Includes an appropriately thick booklet with liner notes, track info, and dedications to various extinct species.
Back in February 2005, the eccentric, Anticon hip-hop outfit Subtle was on Interstate 80 in Iowa while touring the mid-west, when their van hit black ice and flipped over several times. The band members emerged from the wreckage bruised but unharmed, except for one: Dax Pierson had broken his neck. Since then, Dax has undergone extensive physical therapy; and while his insurance has covered his medical expenses (hooray for small businesses who give their employees health benefits!), there's plenty which his health insurance does not cover. As a result, there has been an international campaign to aid in Dax's recovery. Dax is a man who has touched many people's lives, inspiring them not only with his incredible musical talents but also with his generosity and jovial nature. For those who have lived in the Bay Area, tribute concerts for Dax have been occurring regularly throughout the spring and summer of 2005 often spear-headed by Anticon itself but also by many of the Dax's co-workers at Amoeba Records in Berkeley; and this compilation continues in these efforts. Curated by Amoeba's Andy Way and Jim Kaiser, the Irreplaceable Hand may speak more to their affinity for the oddball things that float through their experimental section, but this nonetheless speaks to the numerous people whose hearts have opened for Dax. Nurse With Wound, Matmos, Odd Nosdam, irr. app. (ext.), High Volture (aka Bruce Anderson of MX-80), Moe! Staiano, and Petit Mal are some of those who have contributed to the Irreplaceable Hand. A.C. Way opens the album with a track of nightmarish ambience with Lustmordian overtones and a persistently unnerving squiggle. High Volture quickly changes gears with a splatter of post-Derek Bailey improv. The always impressive irr. app. (ext.) offers a piece of bowed metal dissonance and drone bristling with post-surrealist aural fragments. Matmos' quirky collage of re-engineered vocal samples and Moe! Staiano's all-fists on the organ keyboard stand out as moments of comic relief against the rather dark atmosphere that this comp. As one could image, the highlight of the album is the Nurse With Wound track, as Stapleton moves from ominous drones similar to those heard on the Angry Eelectric Finger sessions and slowly introduces a pretty groovy breakbeat, perhaps an indication of how a NWW hip-hop record might sound.
Of course we can't resist mentioning that there's of picture of Dax shot by Matt Waldron of irr. app. (ext.) while the two where shopping here at Aquarius! For information about Dax and his progress, please check out www.daxpierson.com.
There's really nothing 'freak folky' going on in this British folk compilation. The music here is all pretty traditional. And thus pretty fantastic. Think Incredible String Band, Steeleye Span, Comus, Richard Thompson (and Fairport Convention), Trees, C.O.B., Shirley Collins, or the Wickerman Soundtrack (there's actually a song called 'Wicker Man' by The Story). As much as we love us some freak folk, none of that stuff would exist it it weren't for the above mentioned bands.
And the groups included on this comp, whose focus here is the fairly abstract 'dark folk', do a pretty amazing job of sifting through the various strains of classic British folk, and offering up their own subtle interpretations. And again, nothing shocking or even that experimental, just a new generation of musicians, paying tribute to the music that they grew up on, and that informed the music they make now. A handful of AQ faves are present, the Story, Far Black Furlong, Alphane Moon, Sharron Kraus, Martyn Bates, as are the A Lords, the Kitchen Cynics, Sol Invictus, and tons and tons of bands we had never heard of: The Horses Of The Gods, The Triple Tree, Pumajaw, English Heretic, The Anvil, Electronic Voice Phenomenon, The Purple Minds Of Lazeron, Quickthorn, Sand Snowman, Stormcrow, While Angels Watch, Xenis Emputae Traveling Band, Drohne and we could go on and on.
Two discs of glorious, classic sounding 'dark folk.' From lilting shanties, to tense ominous dirges, to brooding apocalyptic folk, to buzzing ragas, to dreamy lullabyes, fluttering flutes, fiddles and bongos, steel string guitars and an incredible array of vocal styles, male and female, raspy and weathered, wispy and dreamlike, mournful and melancholy, soft and breathy, dark doleful melodies, rich harmonies, weaving a gorgeous landscape of a lost sonic Britannica.
Amazing liner notes too, text on the source of the title, an introduction and explanation to the compilation, various short pieces on folk music and the history of folk music from a handful of the artists on the comp, concerning their songs, their groups and their musical journeys, lyrics, reproductions of old woodcuts and more. So fantastic. And absolutely essential listening for fans of freak folk, dark folk and seventies British folkmusic.
Another amazing and mysterious and confusional release from Tesco, who almost single handedly are keeping modern industrial and post industrial music alive and kicking. They've brought us Der Blutharsch, Death In June, Anenzephalia, and now JUCHE. A compilation of modern industrial artists, weighing in on North Korea (!). What is Juche? Well Wikipedia describes it like this:
"The Juche Idea is the official state ideology and state-sponsored religion of North Korea and the political system based on it. The doctrine is a component part of Kimilsungism, the North Korean term for Kim Il-sung's family regime. The core principle of the Juche ideology since the 1970s has been that "man is the master of everything and decides everything". Juche literally means "main body" or "subject"; it has also been translated in North Korean sources as "independent stand" and the "spirit of self-reliance"."
Removed from the context of actual, totalitarian politics, Juche sounds kinda cool. Intense, brutal, simple. And certainly like some sort of industrial music manifesto. So it makes sense that these bands would have something to say about it. What exactly is up to you to decipher. From the music and the extensive art and text in the accompanying booklet. But for now we'll concern ourselves with the music�
We were mostly excited by a brand new unreleased track from aQ faves Anenzephalia, whose past records were rife with the sort of intense, bleak, grim, blackened dronescapes we can never get enough of. The track here is still grim and dark, but more rhythmic, a crackling lo-fi glitchscape, a skeletal rhythm crafted from squelches and pops spread out over the drift below, a garbled alien melody, equal parts sine-wave and damaged sonar ping, eventually joined by a wavery insect like blackbuzz, and some distorted disembodied vocals, a looped snippet from a speech of some sort, the whole track subtly harrowing, and weirdly hypnotic.
The Turbund Sturmwerk track is super creepy as well, a whispery shimmer of ambience, a strange looped vocal whir in the background, sweeping swell of distant distortion, soft smears of hiss, all beneath an urgent voice, an emotional speech of some sort, the song shifting gears part way through and morphing into a swirling dirge, of crumbling downtuned chords, throbbing low end buzz and extremely panned bursts of fuzz and hiss. The Grey Wolves offer up another chunk of grinding ambient creep, a rough, gritty textured wash of processed synths and strange looped distortion, melodies rendered in shards of feedback and fractured effects, a voice buried in the mix, urgent and ominous, peppered with bits of Bush, and some tangled blurred rhythms.
Operation Cleansweep weigh in with a sinister stretch of drawn out tones, layered caustic rumbles, whirring machinelike drones, mysterious percussive thumps and creaks, all smeared into a dense throbbing buzz. The strangest track is probably Militia's, beginning with some spoken word, that slips into singing, in the background a slow building looped chunk of glimmering ambience. Soon an hypnotic looped synth melody swoops in, pulled from some lost Phillip Glass piece, accompanied by junkyard drums, all very mesmerizing and repetitive, a bit like gamelan, or some Steve Reich piece. A haunting slab of alien industrial world music.
The rest of the tracks are just as weird and cool, dark and drone-y, Con-Dom, Genocide Organ, Ex-Order. In fact, much of this comp seems to fall more in line with experimental drone music, than traditional 'industrial' music, some of it reminding us of mellower more blissed out Prurient, with processed vocals, all manner of rumbling, pulsing low end, plenty of buzz and blurred murk, all of it dark and mysterious and fucking awesome.
Packaged in an oversized A5 red textured cardstock booklet, the text and symbols on the cover letter pressed in embossed metallic gold, inside a full color booklet, with lyrics, images, photos, each band with their own page. And as it says on the back cover "Limited Edition of 15,000,000 copies", so better get yours now�
FM3's Buddha Machine should need no introduction to the avid customers of Aquarius Records; but for the sake of those who are not in the know, a Buddha Machine is a small handheld device which broadcasts a handful of chanting loops typically to be used for Buddhist meditation in various parts of China and South East Asia. When the Chinese electronica duo FM3 seized on the idea of fusing their own dreamy ambient loops within the framework of a Buddha Machine, it proved to be a huge success... well at least through a shop like Aquarius. FM3's Buddha Machine is a perfectly encapsulated device for these delicate and suitably plastic tones. So perfect is the FM3 Buddha Machine that the necessity for a remix album is highly suspect. Yet, Staubgold has decided to commission 15 tracks from across the gamut of adventurous music requesting that the Buddha Machine be used in someway shape or form. Even though such abrasive iconoclasts as Blixa Bargeld and SUNNO))) are present on the Jukebox Buddha, the listening experience is a mostly lighthearted affair of pixel-smeared tone float and daydream haziness. Es, Sun City Girls, Thomas Felhmann, Robert Henke, Mapstation, Gudrun Gut, Alog, Minit, Wang Fan, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Adrian Sherwood / Doug Wimbish, and Aki Onda also contribute to the mix. Really cool.
"Tracks from the sound exhibition, organized by Roel Meelkop..." Contributions from Franz de Waard, Carsten Nicolai, Ryoji Ikeda, Peter Duimelinks, Francisco Lopez and Meelkop himself. Ultraminimal electronic music.
A while back we reviewed an amazing collection of politically charged sound art from Finnish artist/musician J.O. Mallander. An amazing selection of Phillip Jeck style, turntable manipulations and weird warbly sonic cut-ups. Two of the most effective and creepy pieces in that collection were "1962" and "1968" which featured the reading of the votes in the very controversial Finnish presidential election, won by Urho Kalevo Kekkonen, who would remain president for 25 years! The tracks themselves were a creepy montone reading of "Kekkonen.....Kekkonen....Kekkonen....Kekkonen.....Kekkonen...." on and on and on, until it becomes some strange word-drone. So this here comp features a bunch of Finnish underground musicians and artists doing their own versions / remixes of that infamous "Kekkonen" recording. We don't really recognize ANY of the bands (except Robert Horton, who is NOT Finnish), but we're led to believe it's a who's who of AQ faves under different names. What does it sound like? Somehow, each track retains the spirit, if not the sound of the original, some, take the repeated "Kekkonen" and chop it up rearranging it into drone-y smears, hiccupping rhtyhms or hissy fuzzy soundscapes. Or offer there own strange spoken versons of the name Kekkonen. Others whip out wild punk rock jams with shouted 'Kekkonen's over the top. Still others craft weird vocal based techno, haunting ambient soundscapes, with the Kekkonen stretched into wooshy whirring warbles, bizarre robot funk, far out vocal collages, murky abstract drones. Amazing what can be done with just a Kekkonen and some delay pedals. Really cool stuff. Not just sonically either. It's pretty cool to observe a whole other generation embracing and exploring their nation's history, and in their own way making just as stron a statement as Mallander did over 30 years ago.
Limited to 120 copies, we only got a handful (pretty sure they are already out of print) so as always act fast. Each one in an individually painted sleeve!
WE HAVE VERY FEW OF THESE (SIX TO BE EXACT) AND WE CAN'T GET MORE SO ACT FAST.
This is a great compilation of modern electronica/experimental/free rock/ambient/bliss-out weirdness that was only available for 2 days at the Brudnell Social Club in Leeds UK to coincide with two days of music. Features AQ faves Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra and Birchville Cat Motel as well as lesser known but equally appealing noisemakers Toss, Benjamin Franklin and Kohn.
On March 14, 1992, Leif Elggren and CM von Hausswolff proclaimed the existence of the Kingdom of Elgaland / Vargaland, by annexing and occupying all of the border areas between all the countries of the earth, all of the areas up to a width of 10 nautical miles existing outside all countries territorial waters, and the mental / perceptive territories including, but not limited to the Hypnagogic State, the Escapist Territory, and the Virtual Room. Elggren and von Hausswolff have even gone so far as to issue passports to their citizens, draft a constitution, and design any number of governmental signifiers (currency, stamps, a national flag, and even a national anthem). This Kingdom is obviously not striving to attain any political presence within the world's power market, but is interested in channelling the metaphysical principles from Joseph Beuys in this investigation of how utterances of power are communicated from one individual to another.
During the past decade, hundreds of people have become citizens of Elgaland / Vargaland, and this album is a sort of who's who of the Kingdom's citizenship, featuring Mika Vainio, BJ Nilsen (Hazard), Ulf Bilting, Ryoji Ikeda, John Duncan, Mats Gustafsson, Chris Watson, People Like Us, Jim O'Rourke, Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert (Wire), Fennesz, Oren Ambarchi, and many more. The 48 tracks on this double disc set offer an incredibly wide range of interpretations of the Kingdom: some quite silly, others very ominous; some do relate to the Kingdom of Elgaland / Vargaland, others don't. As a result it's not the most cohesive of albums, but both Allan and Jim fully support the Kingdom of Elgaland / Vargaland. So there.
For those who recall the now out-of-print "The Ghost Orchid" cd collection of EVP -- "Electronic Voice Phenomenon", the mysterious manifestations of unknown voices breaking through radio transmissions, presumed to be voices of the dead -- Konstantin Raudive may be a familiar name. His contributions to that recording (originally paired as a 7" with his legendary book from the mid '70s entitled "Breakthrough") were some of the most hyperbolic and grandiose, claiming that in his research he had contacted numerous recently deceased friends, as well as historical figures like Winston Churchill! Since "The Ghost Orchid" and the follow-up collection drawn from from fellow researcher Friedrich JurgensonFriedrich Jurgenson's EVP recordings have been very difficult to track down in recent months, we thought that this new release of recordings from the archives of Raudive (and his collegue Gerhard Stempnik) would make for an acceptable substitute. Well, it might have been, if it weren't for all of the extraneous, some might say unneccesary, tracks found here: remixes of Raudive's recordings, tracks inspired by Raudive's recordings, and tracks that got onto this album just because they were by DJ Spooky. (DJ Spooky? Get it? These are ghosts. Haha.) At least the folks at Sub Rosa had enough sense to program all of the actual Raudive recordings as the odd numbered tracks with the remixes and so forth being the even numbered ones. So at least you can program your CD player if you wish to avoid the pieces by DJ Spooky, Brett Dean, Scanner, Calla, Lee Ranaldo, David Toop, CM von Hausswolff, Random Inc. and others. Not to say that these remixes are bad (some are pretty cool, total X-Files electronica), but how can you hope to compete with the raw ghost transmissions themselves? Truly voices of the dead or not, they're still creepy radio-noise recordings with German-language lectures to introduce 'em, full of mystery and terror and dense sonic textures. Imagine an occult Conet Project. We're purists, I guess, and would have liked the tracks by the modern-day artists to have appeared on a seperate release from the archival EVP material. But others we're sure won't be bothered at all, and enjoy (and be haunted by) the whole package.
Electronica compilation from the UK on relatively new label Planetsounds. Features: Daniel Weaver (ex Stock, Hausen, and Walkman), JJ Howard, Disco Operating Systems, and Magic City (who all record for the RSI label). Black Curtain, Whitecube, and Pendro and Oleum (both of the mighty Fflint Central label) and more!
CD reissue of this 1998 LP only compilation highlighting some of the lesser known bands on Hanson (ie: not Wolf Eyes). Long tracks from:
NAUTICAL ALMANAC -- retarded chicken scratch guitar, damaged casios, screeching sinewaves, instrument buzz, all stacked in a big squrmy, noisy pile.
ISIS AND WEREWOLVES -- Lo-fi carnival soundtrack rock. Feedback and clattery rhythms, wailing guitars and keyboards spit out a fuzzy, skronky Merzbow meets Goblin splatterscape (heavier on the Merzbow).
RON OF JAPAN -- A symphony of demented squeak toys gives way to pounding caveman thud which dissolves into an almost melodic, soothing free-noise drone.
ANDREW WILKES-KRIER -- Ambient clatter, moaning distant drones, and humming low end rumbles, bird sounds and sparse percussive tinkle. Quite a bit different than the stuff he does now under the Andrew W.K. moniker!
THE MINI-SYSTEMS -- Sing-songy electronic melodies under a shifting sea of white noise, amp buzz, gurgle and whir.
THE BEAST PEOPLE -- Noisy chaotic, skree-scape of recording dropouts, static and hiss, growling moster vocals, distant screechs, and warbly slow motion melodies wrapped in white noise.
Finland's Lal Lal Lal label is one of those cottage industry imprints that's always got something interesting going on, regardless of who's paying attention, releasing a diverse selection of lo-fi hijinks from (mostly) fellow Finnish freaks such as Fricara Pacchu, Avarus, and Maniacs Dream, though they've got some international friends on the roster as well like Howlin' Magic and The Skaters. Apparently a bunch of their acts got together last year for a festival, making rare live appearances some of 'em, and to have something to special to sell at the fest they produced this limited edition compilation cassette, containing tracks from Semimuumio, Suohumala, Fricara Pacchu, Astral Social Club, and Pylon. That's four from Finland and one (ASC, aka Neil Campbell) from the UK.
Side 1 is the "danceable" side, perhaps (seriously, they get a groove on). It begins with the "emotional, adult-oriented beat" 'tronica of Semimuumio, a cheerfully synth-laden instrumental ditty, the synthwork getting wilder and more warped as the piece picks up its pace. Then Suohumala chimes in with another pleasant groover, incorporating classical-Casio sounds and a bit of a burbling reggae dub vibe. AQ fave Fricara Pacchu comes next, his track a stomping one with thick flanged-out riffs, all-instrumental like the ones before. Finally on side 1, Astral Social Club's style of cacophonic cut-up loops and beats and effects brings a chaotic throb to the proceedings. All very nice.
The cacophony continues on the second side, but in a more freeform fashion, with interesting abstract stuttering and staggered sounds, blips and bleeps and glitched out skree from Pylon, who gets the whole side for this somewhat noisier and much longer track than the others. It's pretty cool too.
This entertaining artifact comes in the form of an opaque white plastic cassette, with the J-card cover looking to us oddly very early '90s desktop publishing in its graphical execution. Sadly, Lal Lal Lal say they're winding things up label-wise so this may be one of their last ever releases...
