Volcanic Tongue Catalogue

Burning Star Core
Mes Soldats Stupides '96-'05 Vol 1: Amelia

No-Fi Neu-002

10
£10.99


First volume in a proposed on-going series of vinyl reissues that restore hard-to-find BXC material. This one reissues some beautifully modulated electronic sound mutations originally released by Spencer himself on his own Drone Disco label as fig.64. Comes with glossy full-colour insert with art by Robert Beatty of Hair Police.

Burning Star Core
Mes Soldats Stupides '96-'05 Vol 2: WSBC/SSS

No-Fi Neu-004

10"
£10.99


Second volume of this on-going series dedicated to restoring to vinyl hard to find BXC material. This one features "WSBC" from the WSBC double CD-R released by Dronedisco in 2003, "SSS" from the Sun Starved Skyscrapers C-20 issued on Since 1972 in 2005 and "TSYDFOLT" issued on a split 3" CD-R with Mike Shiflet that came out on Gameboy in 2003. Recompiled by Spencer Yeh in Summer 2006, this one comes with a full-colour insert featuring art by John Olson of Wolf Eyes.

Aaron Dilloway & C. Spencer Yeh
The Squid

Hanson HN-166

LP
£14.99


Collaboration LP from Dilloway of Wolf Eyes et al and C Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core etc. Dilloway uses tape loops, tape delay, bowed tape and vocals and Yeh uses violin, voice and electronics. Recorded in 2006 in Ann Arbor, The Squid has a heavy Takehisa Kosugi/Taj Mahal Travellers feel, with a headier, more expansive psychedelic brainwave style than is usually associated with Dilloway. Yeh's violin flutters on phased waves of F/X while Dilloway lets off tiny looped depth-charges, exploding Yeh's elegiac drones with chattering, circular vocals, unidentifiable noise scree and long corridors of breath. Edition of 500 copies in silkscreened cardstock sleeves. Recommended.

Burning Star Core
Body Blues

Hospital Productions HOS-182

7"
£6.99


Two sides of heavily phased vocal/noise confusion and elegiac electronic drug-trance from C. Spencer Yeh’s Burning Star Core.

Olson & Yeh
Live

Rococo Records RCC-0012

one-sided LP
£14.99


Second release in Rococo's "Me Gusta Me Gusta" series of subscription-only one-sided LPs presents as killer set of aural pugilism from Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core and John Olson of Wolf Eyes/Graveyards et al. Hand-numbered edition of 200 copies. Moves from gunky, Dead Machines-style punk electronic wrassle through epic synth/goth peaks that sound like early Tangerine Dream re-scored for Nico performance by Brian Eno, John Cale and Yasunao Tone. Wild.

C. Spencer Yeh
Songs 2002

What The…? Records What-006

one-sided LP
£13.99


Unlikey compilation of early song-based pieces by C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core et al in an edition of only 135 copies on his own private imprint. Guitar and vocals from 2001 that seem to bridge the whole Twisted Village/Northwest USA basement songwriter vibe with the contemporary Brooklyn DIY style. Pretty surreal, played this to a few people and no one could believe it was Spencer.

John Wiese/C. Spencer Yeh
Live In Nottingham


LP
£12.99


New limited edition LP on Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core’s ‘bootleg’ label, What The…? Records that documents a live set from the duo of Yeh and John Wiese recorded live in Nottingham in 2007. Wiese’s surgical approach to extreme electronics is in full effect here, but there’s something in the way he sculpts Yeh’s extreme vocal poetics and scuttering violin that makes the whole piece seem conceived as a single composition, moving from punk primitive DIY violence into more sublimely irradiated noise vectors. Edition of 330.

Justin Lieberman & C. Spencer Yeh
Object Lessons

What The…? Records 008

Picture Disc LP
£21.99


Collaboration between Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core and artist Justin Lieberman, that Yeh describes as combining their love of “sound poetry, psychedelic rock, Japanese scum noise and Japanese psychedelic rock.” There’s also a more conceptual/absurdist cultural critique running through many of these tracks, using samples of voices, advertising inanities and surrealist interventions in a way that - at points - comes across as a more psychedelic Residents. The whole deal is beautifully packaged with the picture disc wrapped in a full-colour gatefold sleeve. Edition of 250 copies.

Ara
Pick Up And Run 2007

What The…? Records What-003

LP
£18.99


Edition of 177 copies on Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core’s own label documenting two live performances from this group that features Sara O’Keefe (Handicapper Horns/Eyes & Arms Of Smoke) and Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police/Burning Star Core/Death Unit et al). The sound is primitive, laid-back/stoned free jazz and electronics, with O’Keefe blowing brief halos of folk tone that Tremaine echoes and mutates via subtle shots of electricity while the two of em raise revenant vocal tones high above the din. One of the nicest reconciliations of free/folk in a while. Packaged in individually unique screened/sprayed sleeves. Already sold out at source.

Burning Star Core
Inside The Shadow

Hospital Productions HOS-212

CD
£10.99


CD reissue of what was originally a limited tour-only album from Spencer Yeh’s post-metal drone unit, bundling three massive huffs of dramatically piloted violin and sidereal electric forms that reconcile the kind of post-Kosugi trance dramas of his violin work with peaks of slow-burning Kosmiche crunch. Tony Herrington had a great piece in The Wire on BXC where he fingered Manuel Göttsching/Ash Ra’s more devotional/electro work as a precursor of this kind of monumentally damaged time/space sorcery and if that kind of comparison had your brain fluttering then plug it in here: Inside The Shadow is an even deeper pass through the kind of cranium-calming violence that illuminated much of Let’s Play Wild Like Wildcats Do and is one of Spencer’s most personally illuminating works. Recommended.

The New Monuments
s/t

Important Records No Cat

LP
£14.99


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.  

Burning Star Core
Papercuts Theatre

No Quarter NOQ-022

2xLP
£18.99


Occupying the opposite pole from BXC’s masterful Challenger LP, Papercuts Theatre is a massive collage that smears several years worth of live recordings from Spencer Yeh and co into four monolithic movements that explode time and space in favour of vertical ascensions of tone and some of the heaviest nod-out rock moves of their career. Inspired by classic sleight-of-hand live reviews like The Grateful Dead’s Grayfolded, Sonic Youth’s Sonic Death and Flying Saucer Attack’s In Search Of Spaces, Yeh assembles dense, laminal settings of drone violence, Faust-styled Industrial-brut and outer space strings with a focus on their more aggressive jams. Long passages of tussling strings and thrifty percussion are blown apart by bursts of free jazz energy and screaming violin tones. The Faust Tapes were always a major organisational touchstone for the BXC production style, but Papercuts Theatre pushes the organisational logic of their albums to new spontaneous/hallucinogenic ends. Features Trevor Tremaine, Robert Beatty, members of Lambsbread and more. Heavy duty double LP in gatefold sleeve. Comes with an MP3 download. Recommended.

Burning Star Core
Papercuts Theatre

No Quarter NOQ-022

CD
£10.99


Occupying the opposite pole from BXC’s masterful Challenger LP, Papercuts Theatre is a massive collage that smears several years worth of live recordings from Spencer Yeh and co into four monolithic movements that explode time and space in favour of vertical ascensions of tone and some of the heaviest nod-out rock moves of their career. Inspired by classic sleight-of-hand live reviews like The Grateful Dead’s Grayfolded, Sonic Youth’s Sonic Death and Flying Saucer Attack’s In Search Of Spaces, Yeh assembles dense, laminal settings of drone violence, Faust-styled Industrial-brut and outer space strings with a focus on their more aggressive jams. Long passages of tussling strings and thrifty percussion are blown apart by bursts of free jazz energy and screaming violin tones. The Faust Tapes were always a major organisational touchstone for the BXC production style, but Papercuts Theatre pushes the organisational logic of their albums to new spontaneous/hallucinogenic ends. Features Trevor Tremaine, Robert Beatty, members of Lambsbread and more. Recommended.

C. Spencer Yeh
Violin/Voice: Helsinki FI Berlin DE 09-10

Drone Disco Fig.97

3xC34 Cassette
£13.99


Edition of 75 copies triple cassette set in moulded plastic case. The first cassette features the audio component from Yeh’s ‘Standard Definition’ installation that took place at the CCA in Cincinnati, Ohio from October 2009-January 2010, with Yeh gargling vocal tone like the Gyuto Monks. The other two cassettes document a pair of shows from January 2010 and November 2009 that combine feral sound poetry with violin abstractions that have a beautiful future/primitive power.

Zashiki-Warashi
Mail Wars

Conduit Creations No Cat

LP
£15.99


Limited edition of 550 LPs from Carter Thornton compiling a few years worth of mail collaborations with players like Burning Star Core, Alan Dubin (Khanate, Gnaw, OLD), Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, Zaimph), David Shuford (NNCK, Enos Slaughter), Pigeons, Kuwayama Kiyoharu, Marshall Avett (Zandosis), Greg Wildes (Gas Tank Orchestra), Carl Smith / Derek Phelps, Darwin Smith, Smith Harrison and Dr. Mijin Kim. Buncha styles devoured and regurgitated, from scattershot drone explosions and spare percussive strategies through laminal flashes of rainbow electronics. Plus it’s all compiled and programmed in a way that is totally maximalist, giving it the feel of some weird Euro art/rock obscurity in the orbit of Futura/Red et al. Excellent.

C. Spencer Yeh
1975

Intransitive Recordings INT-037

CD
£11.99


Billed as C. Spencer Yeh’s ‘first true solo album’, 1975 is an investigation of static drone works that forsakes the kinda barbarous dynamic violence of Burning Star Core for a series of luminous/ghostly tonal settings that coil like smoke around your skull w/deep fields of searchlight tone and jabbering cut-up detail. Buncha different sound sources flagged in the self-explanatory titles – “Two Guitars”, “Voice”, “Drone”, “Shrinkwrap from a Solo Saxophone CD (skit)” – with the music moving from tactile almost Philip Corner-esque miniatures through endlessly glissing xpressways of soft feedback that mirror the stately, surreal arc of Nurse With Wound’s Soliloquy For Lilith. One of Yeh’s most immersive and form-gobbling works, play this back to back with BXC’s Challenger for a lesson in the dynamic possibilities of killing time dead. Recommended. 

Personal Best
#1

Marhaug Forlag No Cat

magazine
£9.99


Debut issue for this excellent new underground/experimental music zine published and edited by Lasse Marhaug. Beautifully put together on heavy paper with high quality photography, this one features serious/funny/revealing in-depth interviews with Bruce Russell of The Dead C et al, C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core (lots about movies), Oren Ambarchi (classic interview that focuses on AC/DC and KISS), Daniel Menche, Sissy Spacek, Arcn Templ, Umpio, Sete Star Sept, Zweizz, Tommi Keranen, Chulki Hong and more. The interviews are all pretty great, veering away from the usual dull line of questioning and touching on all sorts of aspects of the artists’ life and influences that most people would never think to turn over. Funny, informative, perplexing – a fantastic read, highly recommended. 

Ryan Jewell/C. Spencer Yeh/Wasteland Jazz Unit
Ohio Ghostly Soil

Dreamsheep Records DS-004

CD
£8.99


Explosive, speaker shredding free noise/jazz density that is as obliterating as primo Airway, Japanese monsters like Mainliner/Musica Transonic etc… Wasteland Jazz Unit features John Rich on amplified clarinet and Jon Lorenz on amplified alto sax and here they are joined Ryan Jewell (Pink Reason/Psychedelic Horseshit associate) on drums and electronics and Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core on bass and electronics. Edition of 200 copies.

Kemialliset Ystavat
Ullakkopalo

Fonal FR-69

LP
£15.99


Great new album from Jan Anderzen’s Chemical Friends, three years in the making, with a freeform freakout style that could almost be The Familiar Ugly on The Red Krayola’s Parable Of Arable Land. There’s also a newfound ‘song’ quality to many of the tracks, with snatches of melody and hints of vocal arcs that float like Popol Vuh choirs above the flashing electronics, hand-drums and toytown tropicalia. Aspects of Astral Social Club and Monopoly Child Star Searchers combine in weird childlike hymns that could almost pass for a Japanese Ya Ho Wha soundtracking a Hawaiian beach monster movie. Nostalgic, funny, uniquely compelling, with guest appearances from a bunch of key underground players including C. Spencer Yeh, Neil Campbell, Hitoshi Kojo, Pekko Kappi and Niko-Matti Ahti.

Kemialliset Ystavat
Ullakkopalo

Fonal FR-69

CD
£13.99


Great new album from Jan Anderzen’s Chemical Friends, three years in the making, with a freeform freakout style that could almost be The Familiar Ugly on The Red Krayola’s Parable Of Arable Land. There’s also a newfound ‘song’ quality to many of the tracks, with snatches of melody and hints of vocal arcs that float like Popol Vuh choirs above the flashing electronics, hand-drums and toytown tropicalia. Aspects of Astral Social Club and Monopoly Child Star Searchers combine in weird childlike hymns that could almost pass for a Japanese Ya Ho Wha soundtracking a Hawaiian beach monster movie. Nostalgic, funny, uniquely compelling, with guest appearances from a bunch of key underground players including C. Spencer Yeh, Neil Campbell, Hitoshi Kojo, Pekko Kappi and Niko-Matti Ahti.