Five track album from the Sunburned line-up of Moloney, Bohill, MJK, Thomas and Franklin, recorded live at the Sunburned loft in 2005. Classic SBHOTM outer space percussion, electronics, Xhol-style rhythms and caveman visions. Edition of 100 copies with full colour sleeves in plastic cases.

Two-way face off between two modern riff monsters, Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Finland's Circle. Sunburned Hand line-up features Mick Flower of Vibracathedral Orchestra on guitar, reed horn and percussion alongside Phil Franklin, Rob Thomas, Ron Schneiderman, John Moloney and Michael K. Both bands play together as one and the results span fluttering psychedelic blues, Silence-style monolithic rock, ritualistic trump and moan and a whole ton of motorik metal. The limited LP version comes with a fold-out poster.

New solo album from Matt Krefting, a member of Duck, Idea Fire Company, Face/Ass, Son Of Earth, The Believers et al. All cover versions, with tracks by Richard Thompson, Jerry Garcia, Rick Danko and more cut with the help of J. Masics and members of Sunburned Hand Of The Man and The Believers. "My "career" in music is about to enter its 13th year. Lucky 13! I've performed in at least 15 groups (probably more on the order of 20 if you count guest spots) over the years, the most prominent being the long-running "quiet music" combo Son of Earth and the short-lived-but-much hyped Believers. Historically more of an experimental man, the Believers project showcased my always right-below-the-surface interest and passion for all things rock, and so, a couple of years after the demise of that group, I was approached by Ecstatic Peace, who asked me to produce a solo record. For the better part of a year I conceptualized, recruited, and eventually came up with I Couldn't Love You More. An early attempt to marry electronics, field recordings, and song was scrapped in favor of the personal and perhaps obvious choice of producing a covers record. It was the perfect idea, the realization of a dream. Years of singing in the shower and on long car trips had given way to the stuff of fantasy. Why stick to what you know when you can reach for what you've always desired? I asked friends to help with the realization. John Moloney, Phil Franklin, Ron Schneiderman, and Rob Thomas (all of Sunburned Hand of the Man), I've known for years. Same with J Mascis. Old friends John Shaw (who I've done more music with than anyone) and Lynn Myers provide some vocals here and there, as does my wife, Jamie Jo Oltmans. The Wild Card here is John Townsend. Andrew Kesin of Ecstatic Peace introduced me to him, and he was a jack-of-all-trades. He plays on most of the tracks, sometimes exclusively, and co-produced. I chose songs from all over the map, from Rick Danko to John Martyn to the great Bill Fay. Not exactly lightweights, and quite intimidating when their full historical weight is taken into account. However, I attacked each piece with the intensity of one who truly loves these songs. I didn't concern myself with being overly arty or inventive in my interpretations (there are no truly radical re-workings of anything here), instead allowing my own emotional investment in the material to guide me and inform the other players. These are songs of love and longing. The themes are eternal. It's an honor to have had the chance to play them. Enjoy the music." - Matt Krefting, December 2008

Self-released hand-numbered edition of 100 copies, with an audio collage of a 2008 Birmingham show, a blow-out from Mick Flower’s house, a London gig and a set from Greenfield, MA. Features a buncha heads: Moloney, Thomas, Schneiderman, Sarah O' Shea, Paul Labrecque, Mick Flower, Conrad Capistran, Phil Franklin, Taylor Richardson, and Adam Nodelman (Borbetomagus).

Deluxe 180g vinyl in heavy Stoughton gatefold sleeves from this offshoot from the No-Neck mothership led by David Shuford and featuring Marc Orleans (Sunburned Hand Of The Man), Hans Chew (Jack Rose et al) and Rob Gregory (The Suntanama). Distillation is an even deeper countrified pass through classic Americana given the kind of psychedelic nudie suit edge of The Byrds circa Sweetheart/Notorious or the first Flying Burrito Brothers album. Shuford’s vocals have an uncommon weigh that gives the songs a Biblical/basement tapes feel while the arrangements are weirdly sophisticated in a way that rewards repeated deep listening. Edition of 891 copies, bundled with a bonus CD that features a live set from the group and an MP3 download coupon.

New instalment of Wabana's limited to 200 CD-R series is a big band collaborative shot from these two North American psych/drug units, with Kohoutek go up against a Soil Sing Through Me line-up that features Paul Labrecque and Ron Schneiderman of Sunburned Hand Of The Man. Some of the backwoods garage style of the attack has a nice Crazy Horse/Savage Sons Of Ya Ho Wha meets ballroom Kosmiche feel, with plenty of serpentine string action and upper atmosphere analogue tweaking. There's even some shots of Miles 70s electro/brass confusion, albeit transmuted in a similar style to Sunburned Hand's acid funk. All laid down with a great recorded-through-a-cheap-stereo feel.

Edition of 120 copies CD-R documenting a live performance from Paul Labrecque (Sunburned Hand Of The Man/Trees Chants And Hollers/The Other Method et al). Labrecque’s string work makes reference to the lonesome sound of Sandy Bull and John Fahey while connecting with the experiments in contemporary American Primitive drone of Paul Metzger and Matthew Valentine. Quietly psychedelic and spellbindingly intimate. In full colour gatefold card sleeve. 

New duo project from Tom Carter of Charalambides and Marc Orleans of Sunburned Hand Of The Man. If you’ve caught any of the recent solo blats from Tom Carter since his relocation to NYC then you’ll know that that these days his guitar is fully set to shred and this is a stunning document of two string-thinkers working with maximal freedom and organic rhythms. The opening “Eyes Of Jewels, Mirrored Bodies” marries Orleans great fingerpicking style – which comes from a similar place to Glenn Jones – to Tom’s wild west coast style. Later tracks explode the blueprint even further, marring a 90s underground feel for squeal with an immolating post-Sonny Sharrock aesthetic. Easily one of the wildest sides either of these guys have cut and if you’re into bloodied six string euphoria then you’ll even be able to forgive them their ‘poem’ to Jack Rose. Stick to the string-slinging, brothers! 150g vinyl with download. 

New duo project from Tom Carter of Charalambides and Marc Orleans of Sunburned Hand Of The Man. If you’ve caught any of the recent solo blats from Tom Carter since his relocation to NYC then you’ll know that that these days his guitar is fully set to shred and this is a stunning document of two string-thinkers working with maximal freedom and organic rhythms. The opening “Eyes Of Jewels, Mirrored Bodies” marries Orleans great fingerpicking style – which comes from a similar place to Glenn Jones – to Tom’s wild west coast style. Later tracks explode the blueprint even further, marring a 90s underground feel for squeal with an immolating post-Sonny Sharrock aesthetic. Easily one of the wildest sides either of these guys have cut and if you’re into bloodied six string euphoria then you’ll even be able to forgive them their ‘poem’ to Jack Rose. Stick to the string-slinging, brothers!

Second release from the label that brought us the phenomenally popular Trees, Chants & Hollers from Valerie Webb and Paul Labrecque. The Other Method is that duo’s electric/horns group and No Bridges No Walls gathers recordings that date from the same time as their previous release, One Eye Love Is and also features Michael Kay from Sunburned Hand Of The Man. This is electronics, horns, vocals and drums bent with the same kind of elastic ferocity as yr favourite brass-devouring free jazz duo. Also touches on some nice zones of chattering delay that summon up visions of small constellations melting into slow blobs of tone somewhere in the throat of Marshall Allen midway through Phil Niblock’s Sun Ra film The Magic Sun as well as some subtle, almost modal trance pieces that will please fans of Trees, Chants…Limited to only 150 copies.

Original vinyl copies of their long-gone 2003 Eclipse LP, which many rate as their best. It's certainly their most form destroying, a whole other vibration from most of the Manhand CDs.

Cool archival release that bundles a bunch of peak-period jams from Sunburned Hand Of The Man, al recorded across 2006. Features a bunch of radically expanded line-ups, with the core group joined by Chris Corsano, Mick Flower, Bridget Hayden and Keith Wood. Weird, detourned, almost Magic Band scale jams go up against vocal goofs, string drones, Ubu-styled garage and all-out Xhol worship. Cassettes come in screened cloth cases with insert. 

Multi-region DVD that features a live set from Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band, Angelblood et al playing wildstyle drums to the point of collapse live in the former Postfuhramt building, Berlin Mitte, encircled by a moving close-up camera. "In Performance 2, Dave Nuss tests his own physical limits, as in his drum solo he consciously passes the point at which the mind controls the body. Trance-like ecstasy is his aim." - DCP.

Debut album from Dave Shuford of the No-Neck Blues Band's new project, where he combines weird Southern banjo/guitar stylings that draws from a parallel folk tradition that has a pair of working boots planted firmly in a continuum occupied by The Dillards, Michael Hurley and Koerner, Ray and Glover and another in orbit around lonesome satellites like Comus and US Saucer. Indeed, there is something of Brian Hageman in Shuford's weird ass delivery, the way he combines straight ahead mountain hollers with idiosyncratic bullfrog phrasing, though Shuford has a much tighter grip on syncopated pre-war modes while his partners play electric slide guitar as mutant as anything birthed in the volcanoes of Mu by Antenna Jimmy Semens. But a song like "Bound To Ride" is just an absolute joy, up there with Hurley circa "Portland Water" or the more off-the-cuff moments of Dylan's Basement Tapes (particularly Dylan's back-and-forth take on "All American Boy") and as if to toss you a subtle red herring, Shuford even drops in a flash of the kinda hick falsetto that will send you right back to the first time you ever heard Nashville Skyline. It feels almost occult, but I guess the title effectively gives the game away. So pick 'em as a comer, dog hummer.

New single from this No-Neck Blues Band offshoot featuring Jason Meagher, Dave Shuford and Dave Nuss. A-side is whole new side of country scuzz while the flip is a cover of The Kinks' "Johnny Thunder" from We Are The Village Green Preservation Society.

New live duo CD that pairs saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi, one-time member of Fushitsusha, with the mysterious saxophonist/pianist/vocalist Mico from The No-Neck Blues Band. Shiraishi has a phenomenal facility with phantom upper-register squeals, developing a whole vocabulary from lonesome feedback highs ala Kaoru Abe or Masayoshi Urabe and Mico brings a wild ritual edge to the deal, exploding into jabbers of unknown tongue and ripping darts of breath from her saxophone. The disc compiles live performances from across the world recorded between 2001 and 2007. Comes in a glossy hard card gatefold sleeve.

"Coach Fingers is serious about having fun and with the debut long player No Flies on Frank, no one is spared from the plentiful good vibes Frank has to offer. Packed with more hooks than a ship crowded with one armed pirates, No Flies on Frank is a meaty affair of giddy but bearded late '60s/early '70s outlaw boogie rock & roll prominently featuring three members of the New York free noise whatsit collective The No Neck Blues Band -- Coach Jason Meagher, Dave Nuss & Dave Shuford -- along with Meagher's brother Sean on keys and -- future guitar god worshippers take note -- the Coach's secret weapon, master shredder George Devoe. So come on, friends, it's time to join the Fingers friends & family in the Beaujolais Revolution; take a sip from a glass full of Ronnie Lane's boozy rock, the charming laissez-faire balladry of Kevin Ayers (circa Joy of a Toy & Whatevershebringswesing) & a whole lot of crazy fun." - Locust. 180g vinyl.

Excellent new collaboration LP from Denmark's VU-obsessives Family Underground and Mr David Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band et al. "Summer 06 Family Underground (DK) recorded with Dave Nuss of NNCK at Black Dirt Studios in the woods of upstate NY. The yield was as characteristically unhinged as one might expect: sweeping electronic sounds backed with wood and bone percussion spirit-conjure. However also harvested was some new and especially tasty crop: sung and spoken song, electric guitar/conga 'rock' and an odd ghostly sheen coating the entire proceeding. Nuss comments on the session: 'I remember when we were recording, momentarily leaving the studio and going out into the night and feeling it thicken like a partition separating us from this intense state of clear consciousness we had in the recording, which was like... humankind's natural state. And then thinking about Jesper from FU, an adopted Vietnamese living in DK, and how much he resembles Michael Jackson, and realizing that across continents no man can be divided from himself. We had to make this music to provide for us some fantasy of fulfilment that would carry us through the weekend like rejuvenated suns born again climbing to heaven, after being washed in the deepest bluest sea....' Jacket by designer Susan Cianciolo and screened inserts by Stellar, NL." - Woodsist.

"Tom Thayer is a NY visual artist who creates paintings, drawings, sculpture, music, puppetry, film and theatrical experiments. These works are often loosely strung, frail objects depicting dilapidated, fantastical scenes of abstract human and animal figures. This is his first record of music, self-titled LP, edition of 550, released on his own Cardboard Mirror label. From the artist, "This record contains a broken, mildewed darkride of songs and beats held together by adhesive tape and string." We saw his gig and there were bird puppets playing records with their beaks, speeding up/slowing down, pecking the vinyl. This recording-remember the Plonsky record, or the recordings of Jean Dubuffet? Profound minimal electronic manipulation in real time by his own hand, mixed with crude sampling, creates a stunning first offering. Check his art at www.tomthayer.net." - Sound At One/NNCK.

“At least pray God to give me patience in my suffering.' So concludes 'Lover Go From Hence,' a tale of tumultuous romantic upheaval on the new Amolvacy record Ho-Ho-Kus. Here we have hearts wrenched from guts and firmly planted in the dirt; but also sprouting new romance, seduction, and... the church? And the French? Francois Rabelais wrote Garantua And Pantagruel -- a major influence on this album -- in the early 16th c. to caricature the faux morality of his time. Amolvacy offer Ho-Ho-Kus in the same cantankerous spirit, but this time perhaps to parody their own morality. Love, marriage, sex, affairs, betrayal, and loneliness are all exposed in naked vulnerability and placed on the chopping block for emotional dissection. Lead vocalist Sheila Donovan (ex-Tall Boys) is a longstanding member of the Laboratory Theatre Company in NYC, and her partners are Aaron Moore of Volcano the Bear and Dave Nuss of the No-Neck Blues Band. Together they are the Amolvacy family. All things were shared in the making of this record, nothing hidden, no secrets left untold." Pressed on clear vinyl, in a die-cut sleeve.

Deluxe limited edition LP with gold sleeves and multiple inserts released on a new sub-division of the great Italian avant garde label Alga Marghen from a one-off group that features Dave Nuss and Keith Connolly of The No-Neck Blues Band alongside Timo Van Luyk (In Camera/Af Ursin) and Raymond Dijkstra (Asra). Reputedly inspired by the work of Japanese film-maker Kyoshi Kurosowa and the theories of Franz Mesmer this is a spare, hypnotic set that combines a lot of low-level string and percussion work with a weird electronic/synth tonal centre making it a little bit more ‘explicable’ than much NNCK product while lending the tracks the feel of extended elegiac codas. Beautiful, delicate improvised music by four modern masters of the language, though reports suggest that this will be the first and last document of this brief collaboration. Edition of only 300 copies.

Edition of 340 copies archival release from NNCK documenting their earliest four-piece incarnation. This is NNCK at their most alien, with the abrasive sound of the classic “Clearing” 7” extended to two sides of abstract metal tones punctured by bursts of acoustic noise and the kind of all-devouring soundfields of AMM circa The Crypt. If you prefer NNCK at their most extraterrestrial and less ethnic/rhythmic focussed then this is a winning blat of early improvisatory refusal and makes a great companion volume to Locust’s At 6AM We Become The Police. Beautifully packaged with hilarious conceptual sleevenotes by Keith Connelly. Chris Morris couldn’t have done a better job. Recommended. 

Timely repress of our album of the year from 2010, Sabbath Assembly’s magisterial Restored To One: Sabbath Assembly is a project put together by Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band and Jex Thoth of Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice et al in order to re-process the Gnostic hymns of The Process Church Of The Final Judgement. The Process were active in the late 60s and early 70s, with radical re-programming techniques that found their roots in Scientology, magickal thought, theosophy and psychedelic politics. Their theology was based around a reconciliation of Christ and Satan alongside the figures of Jehovah and Lucifer but they’re best remembered for their presence on the fringes of 60s psychedelic culture, their black robes and Alsatians, the appearance of their texts on a bunch of Funkadelic albums and their influence on Psychic TV, Coil et al. Here Thoth (on vocals) and Nuss (on drums) are joined by guitarist ‘Andy’ and bassist ‘Dan’ for a series of inspired re-workings of Process hymns. Thoth’s vocals are stunning, soaring over the fuzz guitar and doomy organ in euphoric waves that have a genuinely devotional feel. The music is some of the best and most authentic sounding modern psychedelic rock. But it’s psychedelic in the way that Fraction’s Moonblood is, relying on notes as played and ecstatic band dynamics more than the easy application of F/X. Indeed, Moonblood is its closest cousin in terms of the perfect marriage of visionary garage band energy and songs of profound spiritual transcendence. And it just *sounds* so great. Really, the whole thing is flawlessly executed and steers well clear of pastiche or mere camp. A massive achievement and a reverent though forward-thinking translation of the message and vision of The Process. Soaring female vocals, wailing psychedelic guitars, beautiful hymns of surrender to Satan, what more are you looking for? Comes on white vinyl. Highly recommended!

Unbelievable out-of-nowhere limited edition private press LP, co-released by Mick Flower and Chris Corsano, that documents an expanded Flower-Corsano Duo, now with Count Hejnowski aka Matt Heyner of The No-Neck Blues Band/Test/Malkuth et al on electric bass. Safe to say that with the loss of the late Yasushi Ozawa Heyner has taken the crown of greatest living improvising electric bassist and his addition to what is merely one of the all-time greatest free music duo partnerships pushes the whole deal into the stratosphere. The sound is amazing, recorded live at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY across two nights in October 2009. Flower – best known for his helming of the UK’s Vibracathedral Orchestra – has single-handedly reinvented the Japan Banjo as a sonic reducer par excellence, combining endless riffing euphorics that are somewhere between John Cipollina and Sonny Sharrock with a droning, modal style that is uniquely brain flattening. Corsano is, of course, the wildest drummer on the planet and the combination of their limbs feels like the ultimate free music cocktail, re-wiring Fire Music modes with vertical stratas of technicolour. Heyner comes in with a totally brutal bottom end attack, playing fast bass runs that serve to nudge and pummel the music into new zones of dunt, at points bulldozing the front line with all of the steamroller force of Mik’s work in Kousokuya or even Fushitsusha. Indeed, together the three of them succeed in storming the kind of heavenly metal/free jazz/garage/psych zone that Last Exit were always pitching towards but never quite made it, mostly down to Laswell airbrushed bass attack. No such qualms here for Heyner who plays with a blunt, bloodied tone and with the kind of logic that only works to bolster the full-bore ascension style of the duo. It’s not all wall-destroying force tho, and there are some nice almost Pharaoh Sanders-style cosmo bliss outs in amongst alla the thunder. Four tracks, with Heyner doubling up on drums on a single cut. Last minute candidate for hands-down album of the year? No question. Highest possible recommendation!

Out-of-nowhere private press LP, released on Pat Murano aka Decimus’s own label, in an edition of only 300 copies with individually hand-painted (w/iodine) sleeves, every one unique. Safe to say that NNCK have been *the* central free music ensemble to come out of the US underground in the past few decades and their music has continued to evolve at such a staggering rate that every release seems simultaneously unique and a further expansion of their project to push improvised musical expression further into new vectors of alien tongue. Ytiu was recorded at Faust Studios and it is particularly spectacular. NNCK have always had a tangential relationship to American Primitive - it’s no coincidence that John Fahey’s post-Takoma imprint Revenant briefly became their home - and Ytiu feels particularly informed by American folk forms, albeit variously amplified and obscured. The same focus on odd expressive rhythm is here, with an oblique groove illuminated by droning/vaguely-gothic keyboard work that comes straight out of the devotional Krautrock songbook: think Siloah, Zweistein... the guitar work drops into a dosed country lollop, a singing string band lament with a woozy Venusian quality. NNCK have a way of playing around central themes, of orbiting them more than overtly stating them, so that their particular brand of minimalism often results in maximalist emotional/cerebral impact. And here the architecture is towering, as the music builds through subtle plateaus, accruing all sorts of odd sonic detail along the way, extrapolating west coast ballroom moves via Silence-ear jams to the point of instrumental redux across two beautifully sustained sides. The end result is particularly euphoric, as the jam explodes into nowhere and someone – Dave Nuss perhaps? – is left crashing two cymbals in a triumphal instrumental refrain. Can’t think of anyone who so perfectly marries the kind of higher-minded experiments in free music that took place at Slug’s Saloon in the mid-60s with mantric rock form and oblique avant/minimalist strategies and this has got to be one of their most elusively addictive long-form works to date. Magical, is the word. Highly recommended!