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Chaos Is The Cosmos Cold Spring Records CSR-79 CD £9.99 Totally wailing live set from the reactivated CCCC, their first album of new material in over ten years. This planet-devouring set combines time-tunnelling drone work with scalding Industrial electronics, ripped six string/whammy-bar confusion and almost Borbetomagus-levels of threat/energy. The line-up is ludicrously heavy, with Hiroshi Hasegawa joined by Mayuko Hino, Fumio Kosakai (of Hijokaidan/Incapacitants) and Ryuichi Nagakubo (Tangerine Dream Syndicate). Only Hijokaidan come close in terms of destroyed rock/noise vision. Fantastic. |
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25th Anniversary Live Alchemy AMSDVDR-005 DVD-R £6.99 Very limited DVD-R on Alchemy, part of their new pirate DVD run, that documents a scorching live set from their 25th year of existence, recorded at Yokohama’s Club 24 on 28th November 2004. |
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A Tribute To Jojo Hiroshige Alchemy ARCD-167 CD £14.99 Brand new tribute set of cover versions and punk extrapolations based around the phenomenal body of work birthed by Mr Jojo Hiroshige aka Alchemy label boss and Hijokaidan mainman. Features a totally disobedient Beefheart-style rave-up from the Oshiri PenPenz, microphone-gobbling action from Masonna (first new recording in years), great psych/pop stylings from Doodles, monstrously deformed guitar/noise from Solmania, GaramonKakinoki +AOL and a whole bunch of other punk Kansai Industrialists. Think of it as a particularly focussed Night Gallery instalment. Highly recommended. |
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Burning Orange Pica Disk PICA-006 CD £9.99 Excellent new Incapacitants live disc on Lasse Marhaug’s new label. Recorded at the All Ears Festival in Norway in 2007, this one features two hysterical tracks. The first is the classic duo of T. Mikawa and Fumio Kosakai, working out of control circuitry and convulsive vocal blurt into some beautifully adrenalised shapes, from huge standing waves of all-devouring technicolour through gurgling, strangulated bombs and doofs. Second track adds collaborator Tommi Keranen of Testicle Hazard for a more pugilistic evisceration of everyday electronics. Another monster from Pica. Recommended. |
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Tight Dogma Chase Dogma-001 LP £19.99
Handsomely-packaged hand-numbered edition of 620 copies album from the legendary Japanese noise duo of T.Mikawa and F.Kosakai. Tight presents two sides of the group, with the A side featuring three hi-fi, exactingly structured studio recordings that perfectly encapsulate Incapacitants' goofy though deeply psychedelic approach to overloaded machine noise. This side has as much in common with the early electro-acoustic experiments of The New Blockaders and Organum as it does with contemporary Japanoise. The flip presents a quintessential live show, recorded live at the Showboat venue in Japan in 2007. This is a lot more ragged, privileging energy over form, and it has a beautiful punk vibe. The whole deal comes with a gold-embossed sleeve and a booklet with lengthy, excellent sleeve notes from Takuya Sakaguchi.
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Viva Angel Alchemy ARLP-004 LP £99.99 Rarity: original edition of one of the key Japanese noise LPs, Hijokiadan's 1983 Viva Angel LP, their second official album. Viva Angel is a classic primitive noise/rock rite from an early trio line-up featuring Jojo Hiroshige, T.Mikawa and Naoto Hayashi. Hysterical vocals ala Sun City Girls/Oshiri Pen Penz, totally squelchy levels of feedback destruction, formless rock gush at its most ecstatically overdriven, heavy psychedelic rock and moments of almost Lynchian body-horror sonics. Comes with the elusive insert. Vinyl: EX+/Sleeve EX +. |
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Nichi-Yobi no Uta Alchemy/Uplink ULR-020/ULR-020 CD £15.99 Irresistible new compilation CD from the reactivated Alchemy Records, an all-female psych set curated by Jojo Hiroshige of Hijokaidan. Features fragile, breathless song stylings from a bunch of upcoming femmes including Akiko Hodaka (formerly of Maher Shalal Hash Baz), Mai Mishio of Uzumibi, Hirachin of Oninko! and Totsuzen Danboru, Shiho of Ten-No.5 and Yuka Fujita of the excellent Chozu. “Produced by Jojo Hiroshige of Hijokaidan (The King Of Noise), the godfather of Japanese noise music and the owner of Alchemy Records. He realized the strength, fragileness, delicateness and other elements that only women could have are the keyword for this decade. This album contains 11 tunes from emerging female musicians that Hiroshige picked out from the Japanese underground music scene.” – Alchemy. |
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Pine Meoquanee: An Anthology Of Poetry Digitalis 2005 Bk £8.99 Nice anthology of pomes from some modern days heads/musicians, the highlight of which is Christina Carter’s wonderful “Center Of Exits”. Also features work by Michael Anderson, Michelle Angelini, James Barrett, James Blackshaw, Julie Cook, Michael Donnelly (Brothers Of The Occult Sisterhood et al), Sid Fallon, Spencer Grady, Denton Harris, Denton Harris, Robert Horton, Paganini Jones, Eden Hemming Rose, Brad Rose, Mainon Alexandra Schwartz, Indigo Tempesta, Kade L. Twist and Keith Wood (Hush Arbors). Hand-numbered edition of 120 copies. Each book hand-bound with cloth tape and a hard cover with a design by Keith Wood. |
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Swissotic Commune Document aka I Grapple Lisa’s Tampon Chocolate Monk #105 CD-R £5.99 Reissue of a particularly notorious cassette compilation on Dylan Nyoukis’s Chocolate Monk label compiled by Rudolf Eb.Er of avantists/surrealist/actionist unit Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock and featuring a bunch of related bent/splat snippets from Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Sudden Infant, D. Phillips, Fear Of God, Wash Your Brain, “the most horrible Swiss metal” and more. |
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The Honeymoon Music Compilation Honeymoon Music HMM-005 CD £9.99 Brand new compilation from out of the Espers’ communal space in Fishtown, Philadelphia (an old VT stomping ground) on a new label run by Mr Norm Fetter dedicated to documenting local mutant strains and associated international orbits. Features exclusive tracks by Fursaxa (“March Hare”), Chris Bozzone, Eric Carbonara (who recorded Taurpis Tula’s Sparrows), Sharron Kraus, Trollslända (the duo of Meg Baird and Helena Espvall of Espers), Niagara Falls (featuring Fetter himself), Glasgow’s Phosphene, Stainless Japan, Peace Feather, The Watery Graves Of Portland, Sharks With Wings, Thom Zephyr Roach, The Doctor And Philip and Noah Raymond Levey. Comes in a beautifully screened hard card gatefold sleeve with insert. |
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Simply Good Taste: The Sounds Of Slippy Town Gulcher 413 CD £6.99 Thumping label sampler from this suave imprint run by Eddie Flowers, brought to you courtesy of their sister/brother label, Gulcher. A bunch of otherwise unavailable tracks – including a first take of The Gizmos’ “Hey Beat Mon” with MX-80’s Rich Stim on the horn and a destroyed version of The Yardbirds’ “Shapes Of Things” by the semi-mythical O.Rex (featuring Solomon and Jay Gruberger, Kenne Highland and Eddie Flowers), some solo thought from Joe Tunis aka Joe + N – as well as a clutch of tracks from alla the various limited CD-Rs Flowers has burned over the years, from whacked UK bedroom zoners like Neil Campbell, Stewart Walden, Phil Todd and Ian Middleton through Crawlspace, Not A Sonata, Blackthorne Stick, OvO, Big Whiskey, Allun, Lebedung, Joshua Jugband 5 and The Screamin’ Mee-Mees & Hot Scott Fischer. A whole fistful of fucked up fun and a great way in for Gulcher/Slippytown neophytes. |
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Music From The Lost Provinces Old Hat CD-1001 CD £13.99 Subtitled “Old-Time Stringbands from Ashe County, North Carolina & Vicinity, 1927-1931”, Music From The Lost Provinces is another glorious trawl through the never-ending spirit-pot of early 20th century American esotera from one of its premier exponents, Old Hat. This one focuses on string band, git-fiddle, guitar and vocal performances, mostly white, that were recorded in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the mountainous ‘lost provinces’ of Ashe County. Fans of high lonesome sound will find plenty to haunt them here, with bleak/beautiful sides from players like Frank Blevins & His Tar Heel Rattlers, The Hill Billies, Smyth County Ramblers, Grayson & Whitter, Carolina Night Hawks et al. Another great booklet with an assortment of snaps that have to be seen to be believed. Too much, highly recommended. |
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Time And Relative Dimensions In Space Rebis 005 CD £8.99 Compilation of a bunch of next generation heads out to trash flimsy concepts of time and space with a series of otherwise unavailable long-forms works. Includes exclusive tracks from Taurpis Tula (“Lonely Woman”), My Cat Is An Alien (“Alien Substratum 1.0/1.2”), The Skaters (“Fleeing Pavilions For Celestial Clouds”), Number None (“The Pole I’m Furthest From”) and Jim Haynes (“A Sense Of Levitation’). From new Chicago label Rebis. Recommended. |
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Tone of the Universe Pseudo Arcana PACD-64/65 2xCD £12.99 Killer, coherently-themed double CD (not CD-R – first ever on this label) compilation from this always-reliable New Zealand label, based around inspired extrapolations on the steady B flat drone (albeit 57 octaves below anything discernable by the human ear) said to resonate from the galaxy cluster Perseus. Think of it as another Harmony Of The Spheres. Either way there are some fantastically distended performances here from VT faves like Neil Campbell, Birchville Cat Motel, The Skaters, Keijo, Vibracathedral Orchestra, My Cat Is An Alien and Peter Wright as well as Blithe Sons, Eugene Carhesio & Leighton Craig, CJA, Anla Courtis, Hands Of Satisfaction, A.M/Uton, Moglass, seht, 1/3 Octave Band and The Nether Dawn. Comes in a fold-out three-panel sleeve with artwork by Jani Hirvonen and James Kirk. |
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Number Eight Out Loud Productions #8 LP £12.99 1974. A solo Harlemans set with an appearance from Bernard Heidsieck. Tracks: WARM UP (2:22) The Harlemans, NEW YORK (3:03) Bernard Heidsieck and Francoise Janicot with the Harlemans, EVERYWHERE (2:52) The Harlemans, DRAW A CIRCLE (3:01) The Harlemans, YOU (1:19) The Harlemans, TIGER (4:37) The Harlemans, SHAMAN (4:27) The Harlemans, SOMEWHERE (1:50) The Harlemans, TAMBOURINE (3:21) The Harlemans, SNOWSONG (2:10) The Harlemans, PUSH ON (2:33) The Harlemans, FOR KLYD AND LINDA (3:10) The Harlemans. Tiger is taken from a dream by Jerome C. Romy Pollonto. |
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Number Nine Out Loud Productions #9 LP £12.99 1975. Another solo set from the Harlemans. Notes by Robert Palmer (Rolling Stone/Downbeat et al): “With this ninth volume of their “magazine” of oral poetry, the Harlemans penetrate more deeply into the resonances of speaking, chanting, and singing voices, and into themselves. Connections with the “ritual of the irrational,” the cultivation of states of disassociation or trance. were present in their earlier work, but here, in the sound pieces “Trance,” “Fear For My Body,” and “I Give My Body To The Drum,” they are explicit. Using the narrow melodic range, chant-like insistence, drum and metallophone accompaniment, and out-of-body flight images so central to shamanist tradition, the Harlemans confront a “new” use of oral poetry which is, of course, an old use also. The recitation of written texts of written texts – the “modern” way – has been superseded by the creation of poetry in sound and, in these new compositions, by the deliberate use of some of the effects tape makes possible with the idea of affecting the listener quite directly. All poetry, all art in fact, aims at a similar ordering of “thought, feeling, and apparent sensory impressions” (in the words of William S. Burroughs), but certain music, dance and other art attempts to actually trigger and control various psychological experiences. The ritual of the Central Asian shaman is an example. It is the shaman's task to pass into a trance state and report back to his community of the spirit world. In order to achieve his altered state of consciousness he resorts primarily to various organized sounds. He chant/sings, using a restricted melodic range in a repetitive pattern, a process which helps create a trance state because of the nature of hearing. The basilar membrane, a structure in the inner ear where soundwave vibrations are translated into neural impulses, is pitch sensitive and pitch discriminatory. That is, various areas of the membrane respond to various specific pitches by sending electrical “charges” along specific nerve pathways to the brain. When these areas of the membrane are “massaged” regularly and in sequence, as in strictly modal music or in much chant, the repetition sets up a hypnotic pattern of impulses. The shaman accompanies his voice with a drum and some sort of metal instrument, both of which produce the kind of sound physicists refer to as “steep fronted,” that is a “noise” sound with tightly packed overtones. In addition, drum sounds have an extremely rapid decay time. Such sounds, with their welter of enharmonic pitches, stimulate most of the surface of the basilar membrane, thus ensuring the transmission of as many simultaneous neural impulses as possible to as much of the brain as possible. And the neurons are able to rest between firings because of the rapid decay time of the sounds, thus insuring continuing peak effects for the sound and allowing changed or other sung material to periodically resume its own hypnotic pattern. In other words, the shaman's basic equipment – voice, drum, rattle – is actually a sophisticated tool for self-induced hypnosis, or trance. This self-programmed, inner-directed cultivation of dissociation, which is at the heart of magico-religious traditions the world over, is contrasted on the present recording with involuntary disassociation from each other and from the wellsprings of their own thought and actions. The first kind, practiced as a rite, puts one in touch with worlds within. The second, accepted by many as the price of living, is the source of much unhappiness and pain. Thus the narrator in “Take A Sip Of Me” casts herself in the extreme role of a disembodied cup of coffee in order to reach out to another person: “I won't burn you,” she is forced to add to her invitation. Thus the quintessential evocation of mortal fear, “Fear For My Body,” which in its more morbid manifestations bespeaks a dissociation bordering on the pathological. “I Forgot Your Name” is a somewhat lighter treatment of disassociation; as a vision of the widening gulf between the sexes it is a little reminiscent of a Rolling Stones put-down song, with echoes of Elvis in the delivery. The musical comparisons are apt ones, because with this album the Harlemans move closer to music, just as music is moving closer to the inflections of the voice. In “Curing,” which Peter proposed as an antidote to the malady of separation, Patricia's opening whines sound like an electronic synthesizer, until one recalls that the synthesizer was originally designed to give computers a “voice” and is thus an imitation of the Real Thing. And while “Trance” has the proscribed melodic vocabulary of the chant, “I Give My Body To The Drum” makes use of that most musical of devices, the well-timed modulation. But this use of music, and again it is a very old one, has to do with the creation of magical effects for the purpose of achieving magical results. In his The Wellsprings of Music Curt Sachs wrote that “Everything that sounds, be it in the cruder form of frightening noise or the organised patterns of music, bears the brunt of mankind's eternal strife against the hostile forces that threaten his life and welfare; and, just as well, nothing better than sound can summon the powers of luck and prosperity . . . Even language stresses unity of singing and magics as the Latin word incantation, ‘magic formula,' derived from cantare, and the English charm, from carmen. Whenever singing is an act of ecstasy and depersonalization, it moves away from ordinary human expression. The voice is often remote from being as ‘natural' as we believe our own execution to be. It is coloured by pulsating, yodelling, ventriloquizing, or bleating. One screams, yells, squeaks, mumbles, and nasals.” Sachs sentences on the origins of music are strikingly descriptive of what the Harlemans are up to They've been pioneering in this area of speech / music / magic with each successive album, and with # 9 they've done it again.” |
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Number Ten Out Loud Productions #10 LP £12.99 1977. Final volume of this incredible set, very affecting. Trio recordings by the Harlemans with Klyd Watkins and one solo Peter Harleman invocation. Cover by Patricia Harleman, produced by Klyd Watkins and Peter Harleman. Tracks: LET'S GO HEAR THE HOLY ROLLERS SING (3:48) The Harlemans with Klyd Watkins, BAD MAN (1:59) The Harlemans with Klyd Watkins, WILDERNESS (4:49) The Harlemans with Klyd Watkins, I CAN SING FALSETTO (3:05) Peter Harleman, MAYBE (4:09) The Harlemans with Klyd Watkins, YOUR LOVE IS A WEAPON (AFTER A THEME FROM HOWLING WOLF) ((1:29) The Harlemans with Klyd Watkins, LET'S LET THE WORLD GO DOWN (2:41) The Harlemans with Klyd Watkins, GOING BELOW (12:25) The Harlemans with Klyd Watkins. |
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DIY Canons Pogus 21036-2 2xCD £14.99 Fantastic series of DIY canons based on concepts first elucidated by modern composer Larry Polansky in his Four Voice Canons series. Wickham-Smith (Tibetanist/ex-monk/juggler/Richard Youngs collaborator) describes Polansky's Four Voice Canon #13 as “a kind of open source meta canon score”. Polansky distributed this score to various composers and made it available at talks and on the web and a number of composers took up his tools and created their own canons using a wild assortment of source material. For this beautiful double CD set Wickham-Smith has gathered a selection of the most beautifully whacked interpretations, with players like Philip Corner, Kyoko Kobayashi, Mike Winter, Steven M Miller, Drew Krause and Wickham-Smith himself. Source/voice material includes phones, ringtones, flutes, clarinet, Barbie phone, cats… “The pieces on this CD are all based on the ideas in Larry Polansky's four voice canons, a series of pieces he began in 1975. These canons are usually “mensuration canons”, which means that the tempi of successive voices is proportional to their start times, so that the voices end together. They also use simple ideas of moving through a list of permutations, and applying the elements of those permutations to various musical parameters. A set of Polansky's canons was produced on Cold Blue Records as four voice canons (CB0011).” - from Wickham-Smith's notes. A great weird/avant/psychedelic/sound art series, with a booklet including notes from all of the contributors. Recommended. |
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Playword Onomatopee No Cat 7" £5.99 "Take two electronic musicians, two noise guitarists and two poems, put them in some rooms and what do you get? A compilation called Playword. Machinefabriek, Jan Van Den Dobbelsteen, Erwin Van Looveren and Freiband all received texts from Freek Lomme, and were basically allowed to do whatever they wanted with them. The results are cool, and the four pieces comprise a nicely congruent whole. Van Looveren's noisy-ass track is perhaps my fave, but they're all interesting. Freiband grate amp-cheese around the edges of the words'shadow, Machinefabriek runs the words through a chainsaw sequencer, and Dobbelsteen surrounds them with a bushy load of acoustic guitar scrapings." - Byron Coley. |
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Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From The Canyon Numero Uno 008 CD £11.99 Wayfaring Stranger is a great compilation of obscure, mostly private press female folk sides that takes its title and much of its inspiration from the more lunar aspects of the early Joni Mitchell catalogue as manifested by Laurel Canyon satellites like Judee Sill and Linda Perhacs. Alongside weird Christian psych/rock LPs, private folk LPs are pretty much the final frontier in record collecting, the only thing left after all of the bins have been picked dry of the more ‘reliable' genres. But there's still a ton of deeply personal material hidden in this last, comparatively unpoliced outpost. Packaged in a card slipcase with copious liners and full-colour cover reproductions, Wayfaring Strangers is a great back-to-front listen but Shira Small's “Eternal Life”, drawn from a 1974 LP recorded as a senior project at a small Quaker school in Pennsylvania, is particularly remarkable, with mytho-poetic lyrics of the calibre of “Eternal life is the intersection of the line of time and the plane of now” combined with an awkward soul-styled delivery that's straight out of the song-poem/MSR school of real people. Whole bunch of other killers too: Collie Ryan's “Cricket” is drawn from the second of three rare albums issued by The Colorado River Gold Mining Company in the early-70s that all featured vaguely kabbalistic/new age art work and combined acoustic guitar-led nature reveries with deep bowls of reverb and a high, ambrosial atmosphere. Carla Sciaky's “And I A Fairytale Lady” - actually cut by the Colorado-based group Propinquity - feels more like classic UK-styled acid folk, with her impossibly high, frail vocal accompanied by the most delicate swell of piano and subtle harmony vocals. Indeed, the whole set has the kind of sustained, elegiac atmosphere that casts even the slightest of inclusions in a lugubrious lost-in-time glow. Highly recommended - feel free to send me your originals. |
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Lead Into Gold Rebis 008 2xCD £10.99 Follow-up to the great Time And Relative Dimensions In Space compilation with a two CD set once again dedicated to long-form drone works. Exclusive tracks from Birds Of Delay, Bruce Russell, Son Of Earth, The Opera Glove Sinks In The Sea, White/Light, Keenan Lawler, Bird Show/Lichens, Of…Ohv, The Zoo Wheel and The Gray Field Recordings. |
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Alchemism: Alchemy Records 20th Anniversary Twin Best Collection Alchemy/Imperial TECI-1073/ CD £23.99 Totally sick: celebrating Alchemy Records' 20th anniversary - and Japanese noise/rock legends Hijokaidan's 25th - major label bozos Imperial have stepped into the gulf with a series of definitive birthday sets. Alchemism is a massive two-disc overview of the activities of this consistently dazzling underground label complete with a fold-out sleeve that has colour cover shots of all the action, especially noteable for the lovingly executed Modern Lovers and Ash Ra take-offs from Ultra Bide and Christine 23 Onna. All tracks previously released except for exclusives from Tongue favourites Oshiri-PenPenz and Doodles. Also includes: Jojo Hiroshige, Ultra Bide, SS, Inu, Hoburakin, Idiot O'Clock, Sekiri, The Genbaku Onanies, The Continental Kids, Danse Macabre, Sob Kaidan, Genbaku Kaidan, Subvert Blaze, Sperma, Hanadensha, Garadama, Angel'In Heavy Syrup, Auschwitz, Tatsuya Kitajima, Tsumetai Iki No Mama, Miki Sawaguchi, Masonna, Merzbow, Incapacitants, Solmania, Hijokaidan, Seiichi Yamamoto, Omoide Hatoba, Totsuzen Dan-Ball, Christine 23 Onna and Chouzu. Highly recommended, naturally. |
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I Don’t Think The Dirt Belongs To The Grass: A Carbon Records Compilation Carbon CR-99 3xCD £16.99 Massive, genre-defining 3xCD set packaged in a DVD case with full-colour artwork and full colour card stock insert housed in a natural-colour cotton bag with single-colour ink stamp art/logo and featuring exclusive tracks from a gob-stopping selection of underground players orbiting the Carbon universe. Limited to 500 copies. Tracks from: Aaron Rosenblum, Andy Gilmore, Anla Courtis, Antony Milton, Asthmatic, Autumn In Halifax, Blood and Bone Orchestra, Blood Stereo, Carlos Giffoni, Carpentry, Caustic Solution, Chad Oliveiri, Chris Reeg, Cock ESP, Coffee, Craig Colorusso, Crawlspace, Crush The Junta, The Davenport Family, Dead Machines, Entente Cordiale, Foot and Mouth Disease, G55, Gastric Female Reflex, Heathen Prayers, Hilkka, Hinkley, Howard Stelzer, Irene Moon, Joe+N, John Charlton, Justice Yeldman, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Lunt, Mike Shiflet, Nancy Garcia, Neil Campbell, Pengo, Phroq, Pumice, Rainbeaux, Sindre Bjerga, Sindre Bjerga/Jan-M Iversen, Sq, Taiwan Deth, Taurpis Tula, The Body, The North Sea, Thurston Moore and Tinnitustimulus. Highly recommended. |
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U-Sound Volume 1 Parallelism/U-Sound PAR-009-2/ 2xCD £8.99 Found a bunch of this great Tom Greenwood-curated double CD comp that beautifully articulates the nascent underground sound of 1999 via performances from Greg Anderson/Rob Hall Duo, Army Of Ghosts, Tim Barnes & Glen Kotche, Black Magic, Joshua Burkett, Daniel Carter Ensemble, Decaer Pinga, Double Leopards, The Doves, Eagle Blood, Far Fetched, Sai Flora, Furchick w/The Armaround, Glands Of External Secretion, Michael Hurley, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Lady E Quartet, Tara Jane O’Neil, Jeff Perkins & PG 6, Sewerz, Tono-Bungay, Unity Sound Ensemble and Matthew Valentine. A historically potent collection and highly recommended. |
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Xmas Snertz: Have A Very Gulcher Christmas Gulcher 420 CD £8.99 If I know Christmas – and I think I do – it’s gonna be here soon as fuck, so better bone up on the presbos front while you can. Gulcher – god bless em – have only gone and made it easy on alla us with a one-size-kills-all compilation of seasonally themed stupidity that’ll have the entire family guzzling Drano without the help of any Perry Como videos. Result! Features Angel Corpus Christi, The Automatics, Mach Bell & His Elves (good job he ain’t travelling with fairies), Crawlspace, Phil Hendricks/The Stiffs (they’re from the UK!), Kenne Highland & His Vatican Sex Kittens, Phil Hundley, The Korps, Monsterpop, MX-80, Ted Niemiec, Pansy Divison, Stalingrad Symphony, Rich Stim, The Walking Ruins and X-Ray Tango. |
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White Bicycles – Making Music In The 1960s Fledgling Fled-3061 CD £10.99 Released to coincide with the publication of Witchseason producer/label mastermind Joe Boyd, White Bicycles makes for a great, functional overview of the arc of his trails across various 1960s psych, folk, jazz and rock forms. Totally listenable from start to finish, the programming is maximalist and features great tracks from Eric Clapton & Powerhouse, The Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band, Nick Drake, The Purple Gang, Soft Machine, Shirley Collins, Fairport Convention, Johnny Handle, Fotheringay (w/Sandy Denny), Mike Heron, Vashti Bunyan, John & Beverley Martyn, Nico, Geoff & Maria Muldaur, Dave Swarbick, Martin Carthy & Diz Disley, Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath, Dudu Pukwana & Spear and The New Nadir. Comes with a great full-colour booklet with comprehensive notes, pics, sleeve repros and more. |
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People Take Warning Tompkins Square TSQ-1875 3xCD + Book Box Set £32.99 Subtitled Murder Ballads And Disaster Songs 1913-1938, People Take Warning (Tompkins Square) is a beautifully presented three CD set that trades everyday eschatology with reportage of natural disasters, hymns to glory ever after with obsessively detailed retellings of fate. Very much in the line of sets like Goodbye Babylon, it combines re-mastered versions of heavily-compiled material by masters of modern American vernacular like Charley Patton and Uncle Dave Macon with lesser known stylists such as Wilmer Watts, Vernon Dalhart and Fiddlin' John Carson. In Tom Waits' accompanying sleevenotes he describes the songs as more akin to "crude and rudimentary pulp", "just a cut above graffiti" but there's a sophistication and a level of gnosis to the best of the material - especially heard in this context - that elevates the performances well beyond any mere tabloid re-telling of tragedy. What's most immediately striking is the degree to which the performers (unwittingly or otherwise) eroticise death. It's there in the languorous delivery, in the obsessing over all of the beautiful details of judgement, in the way that the players roll their tongues around the words, their eyes lolling skywards. These are songs that are almost carnal in their longing to transcend the flesh, uncovering metaphysical jewels as they pick through the wreckage. "Listen to my sad, sad story," sings Bob Miller on "The Crash Of The Akron" in a tone that sounds a little too ventriloquist to be truly convincing. The Skillet Lickers with vocalist Riley Puckett turn the death of engineer Joseph Broady - "scalded to death by the steam" - into an immolating example of how wives should never deny their husbands while on Blind Alfred Reed's "Fate Of Chris Lively And Wife" Reed seems almost hypnotised by the litanies of place, time and method of death, half in love with the inexorable destruction of man in all its singularity. And there are works of almost unearthly beauty, not least of which is Cantor Joseph Rosenblatt's "El Mole Rachmim", one of several prayers for the dead of the Titanic featured on the first disc, subtitled "Man V Machine". The accompanying booklet is also rich in apocalyptic imagery, with an essay and detailed track by track notes accompanied by period photographs of levelled cities, buckled train tracks and locals posing arm-in-arm with death. |
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Love, Peace & Poetry: Chilean Psychedelic Music QDK Media 049 CD £13.99 Excellent overview and the ideal way ‘in’ to the beautiful comedown sounds of classic Chilean psychedelic music. Packaged in the usual great cheesecake sleeves, this one bundles tracks from all of the main players from this fascinating late-60s/early-70s scene: the God-like Blops, Kissing Spell, Los Jaivas, Sacros, Aguaturbia, Los Mac’s, Embrujo, Los Beat 4, Tumulto, Escombros, El Congreso and Congregacion. Highly recommended. |
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In The Pines: Tar Heel Folk Songs & Fiddle Tunes Old Hat CD-1006 CD £13.99 Great new comp of folk and fiddle based blasters from North Carolina 1926-1936 from a label that consistently delivers the cream of unknown American Primitive. This is another ass-flattening postcard from a gone world that features a ton of tough to find, rarely compiled material that runs through murder ballads, gospel hymns, mountain blues and railroad songs, the bulk of which have never been available on CD before. Features tracks by “Dock” Walsh, The Red Fox Chasers, Carolina Buddies, Carolina Ramblers String Band, Dixon Brothers & Mutt Evans, North Carolina Cooper Boys, Ben Jarrell, Cranford & Thompson, The Highlanders, Charlie Parker & Mack Woolbright, Proximity String Quartet, Blankenship Family, The Grady Family, Wilmer Watts & The Lonely Eagles, Cauley Family, Clarence Greene, Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers, Whitter-Hendley-Small, Grayson & Whitter, Mainer’s Mountaineers, E.R. Nance Family with Clarence Dooley, Frank Jenkins’ Pilot Mountaineers and Carolina Tar Heels. |
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I Woke Up One Morning In May Mississippi Records MR-033 LP £13.99 Another installment in Mississippi’s popular on-going vinyl-only American Primitive series, this one compiles an inspired selection of rare and primitive folk-blues from Cryin’ Sam Collins, Lottie Kimbrough, Henry Spaulding, Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe, Buster Johnson, Elvie Thomas, Little Hat Jones, Robert Wilkins, Willie Baker, Blind Blake, Louie Lasky, Charlie McCoy and Joe Callicott. Recommended. |
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Attic Recordings Attic Cassettes No Cat CD-R £6.99 First ever CD-R release on Marc Pilley’s Attic imprint, with his choice of the best tracks from the label’s first year of cassette releases. Features The Upskirts, Black Sparrow Dress, The Zees, Tarra, Telegraph Meltz, Dustbowl, Zach Kerouac, Speakeasy, The Sermon, Saw and Holly Hollis. |
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Dwang #1 Tangerine Press No Cat HBK Book £49.99 Another stunning hand-bound book from Tangerine Press, the UK publishers who brought us two volumes of collected William Wantling. This one is in the mode of classic 1960s journals like The Outsider and Ole, with previously unpublished poetry, prose, graphics by a bunch of major thinkers including Dan Fante, Douglas Blazek (new work), Billy Childish, Edward Lucie-Smith, John Hartley Williams, Charles Plymell, Salena Godden, Wes Magee, David Barker, Hugh Fox, Alan Dent, Ian Seed, Steve Richmond, Gerald Locklin, Jim Burns, Idris Caffrey, Peter Finch, Geoff Hattersley, Fred Voss, Tim Wells, Laurel Ann Bogen, K.M. Dersley, Mike Daily, Adrian Manning, Rob Plath, K.V. Skene, Christopher Twigg, Barry Southam, Lindsay Smith, Kirsty Irving, Dileep Bagnall, A.D. Winans, Tony O'Neill, Trevor Reeves, Ben Myers, Adelle Stripe, Simon Kovesi, Whitney Woolf, Stuart Crutchfield, Richard Lopez and Jonathan Hayes. Graphics from Yasmin Ramli, Phil Corbett and Hannah Battershell. Photography by Jonny Illingworth. Includes a never before published Wantling poem. 106 pages. Large format, approx. 7"/175mm wide x 250mm/10" tall. Handbound in boards at the Tangerine Press workshop, using acid-free papers and boards, conservation glue, hemp cord; Colorado Plate Mid Grey cloth; distinctive Tangerine logo stamped onto the front cover in black ink; 3-page 'stepped' 160gsm Canson Mi-Tientes front endpapers--the page colours being Rust, Poppy Red and Royal Blue; 160gsm Canson Mi-Tientes Rust back endpapers; 85gsm Off-White Fabriano Bio Prima archival quality acid-free text paper. Two full colour images are printed on 118gsm White Mohawk Superfine paper. Published in an edition of 100 numbered copies. Body text set in Baskerville Old Face--three other classic fonts are used throughout the journal. Highly recommended. |
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Dwang #1 Tangerine Press No Cat Art Edition HBK Book £69.99 Another stunning hand-bound book from Tangerine Press, the UK publishers who brought us two volumes of collected William Wantling. This one is in the mode of classic 1960s journals like The Outsider and Ole, with previously unpublished poetry, prose, graphics by a bunch of major thinkers including Dan Fante, Douglas Blazek (new work), Billy Childish, Edward Lucie-Smith, John Hartley Williams, Charles Plymell, Salena Godden, Wes Magee, David Barker, Hugh Fox, Alan Dent, Ian Seed, Steve Richmond, Gerald Locklin, Jim Burns, Idris Caffrey, Peter Finch, Geoff Hattersley, Fred Voss, Tim Wells, Laurel Ann Bogen, K.M. Dersley, Mike Daily, Adrian Manning, Rob Plath, K.V. Skene, Christopher Twigg, Barry Southam, Lindsay Smith, Kirsty Irving, Dileep Bagnall, A.D. Winans, Tony O'Neill, Trevor Reeves, Ben Myers, Adelle Stripe, Simon Kovesi, Whitney Woolf, Stuart Crutchfield, Richard Lopez and Jonathan Hayes. Graphics from Yasmin Ramli, Phil Corbett and Hannah Battershell. Photography by Jonny Illingworth. Includes a never before published Wantling poem. 106 pages. Large format, approx. 7"/175mm wide x 250mm/10" tall. Handbound in boards at the Tangerine Press workshop, using acid-free papers and boards, conservation glue, hemp cord; Colorado Plate Mid Grey cloth; distinctive Tangerine logo stamped onto the front cover in black ink; 3-page 'stepped' 160gsm Canson Mi-Tientes front endpapers--the page colours being Rust, Poppy Red and Royal Blue; 160gsm Canson Mi-Tientes Rust back endpapers; 85gsm Off-White Fabriano Bio Prima archival quality acid-free text paper. Two full colour images are printed on 118gsm White Mohawk Superfine paper. Published in an edition of 100 numbered copies. Body text set in Baskerville Old Face--three other classic fonts are used throughout the journal. Highly recommended. The art edition is part of a special hand-lettered run of only 26 copies that are also signed by Douglas Blazek. Highly recommended. |
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Imaginational Anthem 2 Tompkins Square TSQ-1424 CD £8.99 Follow-up to the first volume of this on-going series that joins the dots between an earlier generation of American Primitive guitarists and contemporary intuitive sound-as-thought players. Once again Jack Rose is featured (with an absolutely gorgeous 6 string re-think of "Cross The North Fork 2") but every other player puts in a first-time appearance on this volume. The inclusion of Christina Carter is a particularly inspired move and one that speaks of the liberated range of the series in general and her track is a beauty, a stubby acoustic guitar miniature. Nice cover snap too. Other tracks include a particularly mesmeric recording from UK guitarist James Blackshaw and contributions from Peter Lang, Jesse Sparhawk, Michael Chapman, Sean Smith, Fred Gerlach, Billy Faier, Sharron Kraus, Robbie Basho and...uh...Jose Gonzalez. Another rich, far-sighted assortment from this great label. |
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Festival Der Genialen Dissidenten Enfant Terrible Enfant-11 LP + 7" £18.99 Excellent new compilation of contemporary dissident European electronic/synth/Industrial/new wave sounds from this synth-focussed label. The follow-up to their epochal Electronic Renaissance LP, this one bundles a bunch of current Euro-heads with a serious jones for the early Industrial sounds of DAF/Absolute Body Control/S.P.K./Throbbing Gristle/Kraftwerk along with touches of Suicide, Public Image Limited, Minimal Man et al. There isn’t a duff track on the album but some of the highlights include Agent Side Grinder’s evocative/magickal “There Is A Sound That Always Goes Out” that mirrors Coil’s work circa “The New Backwards”/later-TG, the amazing Vincent K’s “White Sheet Glory” that crosses Billy Synth-style keyboards with an amphetamine motorik appeal and throat-shredding vocals that make it sound like the most manic La Dusseldorf track of your life and the midnight stylings of Adolf Filter’s beautiful Harmonia/DAF/Kraftwerk-esque “Inner Walls” cut up with the kinda fractured loner vocal that could almost be Peter Jeffries. Other artists featured include Dolina, Nosztalgia Direktiva, Codes, Le Triangle De L’Androgyne, the fantastically named Pierre Normal and Yseult Descieux. A great way in to the current underground Euro synth scene – which seems to have the same relation to its source material as the 80s garage explosion had to Nuggets et al – and an excellent companion piece to Poutre Apparent’s historical survey of the French new wave scene. The set comes in a handsome gatefold sleeve with a bonus 7” and is highly recommended. |
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Super Street 24 Fag Tapes FT-229 Cassette £6.99 Three-way split of extended live sets for this volume of Heath Moerland’s (Sick Llama) compilation series, with jams from New Pledegemaster, Steve Kenney (Demons) and Slither all drawn from their recent tour. Hand-numbered edition of 50 copies. |
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Tokyo Flashback 7 PSF PSFD-189 CD £13.99 Brand new instalment in this legendary compilation series from PSF, now in its seventh volume. For this latest survey of the state of the contemporary Japanese psychedelic underground the label ran a special live night at Koenji Show Boat in May of 2009 and recorded all of the players’ sets. The disc opens with the outer space choral folk of Le Son De L’os, a trio that features Yuko Hasegawa of Onna-Kodomo on guitar and vocal, Masahiro Deguchi of Gendai Sokkyo on flute and guitar and Shizuo Uchida on bass. Bo No Kubo are a drums/acoustic bass/guitar improvisatory unit that translate the Incus aesthetic to Tokyo. Derakushi are a phenomenal free jazz/psych ensemble who use electric rock firepower to propel the furious saxophone of Shun Suzuki; expect a full-length album from these guys on PSF very soon. There’s a great, minimal tracks from shakuhachi player Sabu Orimo, here with his new unit that features drummer/harmonica player Tomohiko Namiki. Touyounomajyo are a classic guitar/bass/drums power trio that would have fit in just as well on some of the earlier volumes and Hasegawa-Shizuo, who have had a bunch of previous releases on labels like PSF and Tiliqua, close the set with an epic drone imagining. Nothing cuts to the heart of the Tokyo underground like PSF’s Flashback series. Recommended. |
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Learning For Insipid Zeal Volume 2 American Tapes AM-840 one-sided LP £12.99 “Maths Balance Volumes, Dog Lady, Infecto, Olson/Rammer, Oil of Beauty one-sided LP / WHOA!! New Heavy Unitz Alert! Second installment of this new series of young bloodz, boiling to destroy! NEW NEW!!This wax is a hyper stoker. Complete "story for your ears" comp style with lurking flow holding all the sounds together. Here's some audio clay to mold your own twisted soundtrack: In order: Track One: MATHS BALANCE VOLUMES = Super weirdo personal mumble-piano strum-slow clanging empty space piece. If you aint partied with these two MN/OH transplants mega maniac's, then jump on board. Surreal central kick off, amazing ???? Tape collage from the only mugs that can pull off just playing tapes and staring at each other live. If your imagination is a big grimace of a pumpkin, this unit gives much of a convexed unusual surface to carve upon. Track Two: OIL OF BEAUTY = New electronic mangle from this (and Beauty Liquid) consumable face lotion that is as pungent as it is flammable. Gross stuff to coat your face with! Doesn't do anything but leave a film of gritty film all over yr. grill, figures: cheapest = on sale its: 94 cents. Nasty! Tapes soon on Chondritic Sound. Sharp short track of greasy face electronic coverings in smatter stylee. Track Three: RAMMER/ OLSON = Bryan "Rammer" Ramirez (Ex Cocaine, Poor School, Universal Indians, Killer Tree, Plants) and Zone One (Boiling Seas, Man Who Ate Himself, Sad Policeman) reconnect in a Missoula basement bar for a Reed/Guitar workout recorded live on the last WE/Black Dice tour over the summer. Super weirdo sheen of fuzz and squash. We had a super killer BBQ at the Rammer HQ with the family before das gig complete with Frisbee golf and uber strong ale. Like the Breckman Duo w/o the anger guerrilla high school mask attack. Ruling. Track Four: DOG LADY= Dude, COLLINO! The newest mover and shaker/skater from the mitten and completely on fire. This track, RULES. Song-ish violin and tape scrape warbling in and outta tune clouded in a mist that'll lure you in and grow under your skin like a shadow of a skin-cell hunter at midnight, early during the workweek w/o a lunch break. The only jammer I know that has a "Legit" secretary. Chances of this player playin your town this weekend: GOOD. Chances of it ruling: BETTER. A pro note taker and a pro note RIPPER. Slime Ball Violin Au Go Go!!! Boosh!! Track Five: INFECTO = Bookending the crew is this new mysterious tape unit. Mysterious unless you were walking behind me and princess on Howard St. when the Tovinator thought she was getting the cold I just got rid of and called me INFECTO for a day. So, a mug booked some hrs in INZANE STUDIOS and gave birth to this track. Blackwards tape treble magnetic tomfoolery, infecting style. Good thing she didn't call me SLOBBER MAN for a day. So theres the lineup. Wicked weird flow, all dark moody non-rockers, surely to set your idea pot a' boiling strong. An audio report from front n center on the crazy camp, Midwest style. Edition of 100 in handmade sleeves, numbered.” – John Olson. |
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Just A Little Bit Of Milvia Son Records Milvia Son Records MS-003 7" £5.99 Excellent 7” primer for this oddball label, with tracks from Bob Frankford aka Old Yeller & The Pigbites, Bad Drumlin Grass, Jaki Jakizawa and Petomane. |
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Qbico U-Nite 6 & &7: Detroit & Buffalo Qbico #99 3xLP £36.99 Great limited triple LP set that bundles two nights of wild free jazz that Qbico presented in Detroit and Buffalo back in 2006. High energy sets from Arthur Doyle & Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, Andrew Barker & Daniel Carter, Steve Baczkowski & Ravi Padmanabha, Muruga Free Funk (with Perry Robinson), Faruq Z Bey & Northwoods Improvisers and Odu Afrobeat Orchestra. |
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The Secret Museum Of Mankind Vol. 1 Yazoo 7004 2xLP £22.99 First much-anticipated vinyl edition of this much-loved series that compiles worldwide ethnic music classics 1925-48. Recordings from Nigeria, Sardinia, Russia, Ceylon, Rajahstan, Cuba, Rumania, Vietnam, Macedonia, Society Islands, Morocco, South Africa, Japan, India, The Basque, Sweden, Poland, Jamaica, Anyssinia, Andalucia, Visayan Islands and Fiji. Gatfeold sleeve with extensive notes and snaps. LP reissue series produced by Hisham Mayet of Sublime Frequencies. |
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Underwater Peoples Winter Review 2010 Underwater Peoples Records UPC-002 CD £6.99 Fantastic compilation of all unreleased tracks from this great NJ label. Exclusive jams from Julian Lynch, Pill Wonder, Ducktails, Fluffy Lumbers, Big Troubles, Andrew Cedermark, Frat Dad , Dana Jewell, Air Waves, Family Portrait, Alex Bleeker, Mountain Man, Real Estate, Rainbow Bridge and Liam the Younger. |
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Sunday Matinee At The Frying Pan American Tapes AM-855 one-sided LP £11.99 Compilation featuring unreleased tracks from Connelly & The Machines, Body Morph, Hive Mind, Dog Lady and Drainolith: “So the other day, me and my lab buddy supreme Scott were knee f'in deep in trying to find out if a huge craggly motor was delta or wye three phase connected, and needless to say, was NOT having luck. It was a one of them RAW bologna built motors that has wire numbers, but its pointless cause its all on its own weirdo system. Whatever. So as usual, we shot the shit. |
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Eli The Ice Man American Tapes AM-862 CD-R £7.99 Compilation featuring unreleased tracks from Full Scales, Spykes and Pool Water: “Is the Voltages Leads in Inductance or Induction leads Current in Capacitance? ?? Huh? Always forget this easy breeze system code to know which is leading in the Induct/Capt current game...Yeah: three tracks of attack: |
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Mixed Above Emotions American Tapes AM-872 C90 Cassette £7.99 Compilation featuring unreleased tracks from Dwelling Unit, Madness, Influx, Immune Future Problems, First Responder and Cripple Crime’s Triangle: “Massive new comp of all short tracks of all sorts of styles. Weirdo flow, new blood, all heated and raw. Mysterious Island swamped and flanked in all sides by a tidal wave of consuming statics. More to come from each of these creatures, stirring and pacing in a sound cell waiting and plotting to bust out. Color covers, slip case.” – John Olson. |
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Thoughts From Screeching Lake Singing Knives No Cat CD £7.99 New compilation from one of the most consistently wowing UK underground labels, with exclusive tracks from Harappian Night Recordings, Shiggajon, Pekko Kappi, Ross Parfitt, Helhesten, Serfs, The Navigators, Stephanie Hladowski, Plum State, Ben Nash, A Wake, Infinite Light, Dylan Nyoukis, U Boat, BAO, Christine Sehnaoui and Alberorovesciato. Artwork by Dylan Nyoukis. Recommended. |
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Welcome Home Woodsist 043 LP £14.99 Vinyl edition of this great compilation. Subtitled Diggin’ The Universe, Welcome Home features exclusive tracks from alla the Woodsist family: Woods, Run DMT, White Fence, The Fresh & Onlys, The Mantles, Skygreen Leopards, Alex Bleeker, Moon Duo, City Center, Cause Co Motion, Art Museums, Nodzzz and Ducktails. |
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Menagerie 2 Blackest Rainbow Recordings No Cat LP £13.99 Edition of 500 copies compilation LP with exclusive tracks from Akron/Family, Joanne Robertson & Matthew Ashworth, Wand, Natural Snow Buildings, Married In Berdichev, Moon Duo, The See See and Seadog. Comes with a full colour zine featuring artwork by Jake Blanchard, Pete Fowler, Andrew Rae, Will Sweeney, Sarah King, Olange Gularte, James Trimmer/Mirt and Mat Pringle. |
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Lightbulb 4 Emergency Cassette LAFMS No Label No Cat 2XCD-R £16.99 Out-of-nowhere double disc reissue of a key release in the discography of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. The 1981 Emergency Cassette originally came with issue 4 of the LAFMS art zine Lightbulb and it worked as a pulling together of alla the various impulses within the LAFMS proper as well as a way of situating them alongside various contemporaries and fellow oddballs operating internationally. It has long been one of the most desirable of LAFMS artefacts, with a mouthwatering line-up. Tracks by Tom Recchion & The Friends Of Leslie, Monique, Jad Fair, Doug Snyder, Creatures’ Lives, Smegma, Peepland, The Lunchmen, John Duncan, International Language, Duba/Sansome, 30 Windswept Dimes, The Decayes, 45 Grave, ½ Bodied Baby, Human Hands, Neef, Glo-Bin Tree Flip, Bachelors Even, Rick Potts, Bridge, Fragile Hats, Fredrik Nilsen, Jes Grew, Bpeople, Phranc, Asmus Tietchens, Them Rhythm Ants, Tiny Holes, Random Samples, Flap, 0 Tela Conversion, Meat Puppets, Doo-Dooettes, Pep Lester, Bridge, Cameron Hands Penis Envy, Dennis Duck, Brent Wilcox, Planet 2, Arrow Book Club, Bruce Licher, Slimy Adenoid & The Pablums, Rick Potts & The Riddle Orchestra, The Tribal Pops, Bill Noland and Foundation Boo. A dazzling tour around the wildest corners of the late 70s/early 80s underground. Comes in a printed card wallet with two inserts. Highly recommended. |
