Ben and Hans of Graveyards/Melee/Traum et al have as fine a set of ears as anyone who has ever claimed improvised jazz as their area of expertise and the various non in-house projects that they choose to champion and release via Brokenresearch betray the kind of sophisticated feel for improvised sound as reified thought that many a 'fan' of jazz and associated modern, high energy forms could learn a thing or two from regarding the many subtle - and not so subtle - ways to extract a fucking tooth. This latest deluxe limited edition LP on their own label (run of only 200 copies in pro-printed sleeves) is another beautiful object lesson in just how well-listened and non-cliched their appreciation continues to be. Eichmann is a German pianist, composer, conceptualist, interpreter of modernists like Nono and Feldman and student of Alex Von Schlippenbach. Over the years he has produced a bunch of large scale ballets and performance pieces, most notably the Prayer To The Unknown Gods Of The People Without Rights, scored for ensemble and improvising soloist and first performed by Peter Brotzmann and the Wuppertal Chamber Orchestra. During the past five years or so he has reconnected with the stream of modern improvisatory modes, often in the company of American percussionist Jeff Arnal. This new recording, Live At The Phenomorphonic Festival sees the duo knee-deep in pedalling power stomps, obsessing over a mere clutch of notes that they work to emphasise in splintered, obsessive rhythms. The effect is closer to the work of Charlemagne Palestine than Cecil Taylor, although there's little of Palestine's continual expansion of ideas or lightness of touch; instead each note feels like its being hammered to the floor and the persistence with which they're sounded again and again is almost autistic. Arnal falls in behind Eichmann with pounding single shots and scattered tonal sunbursts that briefly illuminate the hulking dungeons of tone that Eichmann thuds from the instrument. Indeed, there's very little of the sound of the piano's keys, with Eichmann spending most of his time wading through the guts of the piano with heavy boots and sandpaper. This is the most impressive and conceptually far-reaching sounding of post-Cecil piano I've heard in the past whenever; a major statement from a profoundly singular stylist. So sign me up.

First release in Rococo's "Me Gusta Me Gusta" series of subscription-only one-sided LPs comes from the Graveyards trio of John Olson (Wolf Eyes) on reeds, Hans Buetow on cello and Ben Hall on drums. Beautifully articulate post-fire music moves that cut huge swathes through tense, thick air. Another beauty, hand-numbered edition of only 200 copies.

Numbered edition of 300 copies one-sided LP featuring Graveyards in duo mode, with John Olson (Wolf Eyes) on saxophone and electronics and Ben Hall on drums. Comes with an etched B-side and a full colour mini poster, both featuring art by Olson. Very minimal shadowplay style with the slightest butterflies of bowed confusion cutting swathes through still, black silence before building to a primal, echo-heavy climax that sounds like a pair of mammoths dropped deep into a canyon. Recommended.

First full length vinyl outing for this aggressively nuanced free playing power duo featuring Zach Davis of Lambsbread on electric guitar and Ben Hall of Graveyards on drums. The strategies employed here – totally clean electric guitar with the attack amped all the way up and skittering, knitting needle style snare detonation – marks out the turf covered as being somewhere circa the whole Joseph Holbrooke/Ascension school of pummel and play and there’s a ton of brains to the way these guys skirt even the vaguest of lick-potential with silence, wowing harmonics and cracks of vibrating skin. Edition of 300 copies in screened chipboard sleeves, already completely sold out at source. Recommended.

2006 Sub Pop album from the Wolf Eyes trio of John Olson, Nate Young and Mike Connelly, mixed by former member Aaron Dilloway, the official follow-up to Burned Mind. The preceding Human Animal 12" gives a good snapshot of the kind of blasted topography that the group map out here, with the first half of the album given over to the kind of eerie midnight stasis sound of the group circa River Slaughter albeit given a hi-fi upgrade and new depth of field via slow smokes of drone and viper-shots of electronics. The drum machine is at its most space-puncturing, firing repeat beats into cloaks of doom while Olson works serpentine sax patterns into steel helixes somewhere at the bottom of a ventilation shaft. One track features creeped-out spoken word narration, while over on the flip/later tracks the group move into full pit-pounding mode with assaultive nod-out rhythms and Nate's insane post-Iggy vocal shred moves foregrounded by a ton of metal. Exactingly programmed, this is the one to peak with. Highly recommended. Vinyl edition limited.

Debut album for the horse-killing free music trio of Don Dietrich (Borbetomagus), C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core) and Ben Hall (Graveyards). Great to hear Ben in this kinda context, playing in a rolling propulsive style that is the closest I’ve heard him come to the whole post-Milford school of exploded time.  Dietrich’s sax – naturally – dominates the sound, with a warp of Hendrixoid F/X contorting the tongue logic until it sounds like he’s licking a cement mixer. Yeh’s strings give the group an intense vertical lift and at points it sounds like he’s sawing the whole group straight off of the ground. A great record in the tradition of Babi Music, Demo Moe, The Celestrial Communication Orchestra and Borbetomagus. All exclusive material, none of which was on the American Tapes CD-R releases.  

New release on the Glasgow-based label run by Kevin McCarvel and Stuart Crutchfield of Smoke Jaguar. A great set of massively cranked textural improvisations from the duo of Ben Hall (Graveyards/Bill Dixon/Joe Morris et al) and guitarist/inventor Chris Riggs, confusing process and form across a series of tracks that move in tectonic percussive waves. Hand-numbered edition of 79 copies in art paper sleeves with paste-on covers. 

Massively extended long form string/drone/Industrial jams from Midwest free jazz outfit Graveyards that push beyond the whole screwed spectral/orchestral arc of their recent work into new zones of lonesome tone : “What is up with the mail these days? Sometimes you get the weirdest things. Are "Dog Missing" flyers illegal now? Seems like it, cause just the other Tuesday I lurched out to check the daily box to see if my new copies of DIRGE or EVIL MINDED shown up yet, and there was this lone LP resting there. Had a post it note stuck to it that read:
"PLEASE HELP: OUR CREATURE THING HAS VANISHED. WE SUSPECT THE WORST. WE CANNOT GIVE DETAILS ON THE THINGS/ANIMAL OR HAVE ANY PICTURES< BUT WE DO HAVE RECORDINGS OF IT IN "ACTION". PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS RECORD (at any speed) AND CALL 237 - 4568 IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON OUR MISSING CREATURE. AND RETURN MY STAMPS- THANKS- YR NEIGHBORHOOD LOOSE ANIMAL CULTURE CENTER"
Shaking my head, thinking how I just got a killer local platter to add to the animal sounds/droll Yankee/ chooltch industry recordings sections and put the record on.
Well, it seems like they are never gonna find this thing cause it SOUNDS like a super shy version of that horrible creature in the twilight zone flick that tries to scare the passengers and eat the plane. But this "Thing" hangs out in empty hangers and lightly scrapes its torn and rotten fingernails across HUGE rusty industrial size fans at 3am in a creaking wet unlit corner. Who would want this in their house? Sounds from this animal are rare, seems like this LP has like three light rustlings and the THING is gonzo, moved on...just like a ghost trace of it... good luck to them.
After jamming the "MISSING CREATURE" lp on every speed my numark can handle, I IM chatted fellow animal sound lp vet DILLOWAY and told him about the new local style missing thing section, and he said energetically:
"Dude, you should quick like go around the neighborhood and grip all those lps and put em out, don’t get busted say it's...I dunno... GRAVEYARDS or something... "
FUCK!!! Killer idea. So here it is - all the LPs from District 176 Howard St./Frandor with NO INFO and a crude handmade painted sleeve like from the hairy mitts of the said MISSING ANIMAL itself. If you find this THING.... shit, record it and do a FOLLOW UP. And leave it in yr NEIGHBORS mailbox. UUUGGHHHHHHHH. Title taken from a super tuff blueprint question from my Blueprint Reading 112 class last fall. Edition of 100. Inzane handpainted recycled covers, each one uber-unique. MISSING!!! THING!!! RECORDED!!!” – John Olson. Recommended.

New album from guitarist Chris Forsyth, also a member of Peeesseye. This is a full-band recording, featuring members of D. Charles Speer, Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Mountains, and it expands on Forsyth’s great private press album Dreams, with a vision of electrified Americana that’s somewhere between Glenn Jones and Cul de Sac’s re-visioning of the music of John Fahey through a more overtly Minimalist take on the kind of euphoric guitar exchanges of Television, all assembled in hypnotic instrumentals that take off on vertical ascensions of microtone-heavy euphoria to the point that the marching hallelujah melodies morph into dense vibrating structures that flash in front of you in the air. The addition of pedal steel and organ situate the music deep within a roots-music background that, combined with Forsyth’s guitar tone, sounds a lot like Richard Thompson circa I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. Indeed if you can imagine Fairport scholars Television’s live rips through The 13^th Floor Elevators’ “Fire Engine” denuded of vocals and re-scored in the studio for maximum psychoactive effect then you’re close to the kind of endlessly riffing American Primitive appeal of this great LP. And unlike so much of the name-dropping that has happened in the wake of his passing, the dedication to Jack Rose on “New Pharmacist Boogie” makes a lot of sense.

New duo jams from Chris Forsyth of Peeesseye and Koen Holtcamp of Mountains. Guitar/synth jams that comes across like a more sci-fi addled Rother/Dinger face-off, with flat-lined motorik grooves, cosmo synth and the kind of progressive avant/garage string burn previously favoured by Heldon. Edition of 500 copies.