Edition of 100 copies art book presenting colour reproductions of six of Marcia Bassett’s (GHQ/Zaimph/Hototogisu) psychedelic paint/collage works, running from Rorschach forests peopled by huge kittens through weird crystal geometries and distressed anatomy. Stapled card booklet.

New set of solo electric guitar recordings from Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards/GHQ/Hototogisu et al). Tectonic string work that has the weight of planets, with high, eerie melodies threaded through massive baseline drones. Aspects of Keiji Haino, Charalambides and Electronic Meditation-era Tangerine Dream make this a particularly explosive set. On Brother Raven’s label, hand-numbered edition of 200 copies. 

Hand-numbered edition of 200 copies LP on Manuel Mota’s private Headlights imprint documenting a heavyweight duo set from Marcia Bassett of Zaimph, Hototogisu, Double Leopards, GHQ et al and improvising Portuguese bassist and guitarist Margardia Garcia. Garcia is one of the major new generation European free players, coming out of the same scene as Mota, and she’s just as capable of generating Swans-style Industrial entropy as she is playing explosive fire music. Here Bassett uses keyboard and guitar to create austere arcs of Industrial-strength drone that Garcia anchors with tactile, questing strings, giving the whole thing an odd avant-classical backbone. 

Stunning new duo drone set from two masters of the form, Marcia Bassett of Double Leopards/Zaimph/Hototogisu et al and Samara Lubelski of Hall Of Fame, Tower Recordings etc. Although Lubelski is best known as a singer-songwriter with a 60s Euro bent through the solo sides she has cut for De Stijl her sole COM recording, In The Valley, later reissued on vinyl by Eclipse, remains a classic of extended string drone. Two side-long pieces see the duo work guitar and violin into eerie slow-motion architectures. Lubelski has mastered that lucid, post-Takehisa Kosugi/Taj Mahal Travellers style w/aspects of Bill Breeze and John Cale, working arcs of uncannily speech-like violin drone into Bassett’s ascending feedback sculptures. There’s an occult/modal aspect to the interaction that gives it a heady ritualistic aspect, the feel of slow sunrises in distant galaxies that seems to tie it in with several decades worth of higher-minded drone research coming out of New York’s Lower East Side. Way beyond a standard issue ‘drone’ side, this is a reminder of just how powerful long, suspended tones can be in the hands of master levitators. On Graham Lambkin’s Kye label in an edition of 500 copies. Recommended. 

Live album from the American Psychotropic trio of Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards/Hototogisu/Zaimph), Pete Nolan (Magik Markers/Vanishing Voice/Virgin Eye) and Steve Gunn (Moongang). Recorded at Goodbye Blue Monday January 27th 2006, this one ditches the more rural/raga bent of their earlier recordings (tho still scarred with that devotional/Popol Vuh feel) for a deep smoke of eye-lolling choral vocals, heavy psychedelic guitar solo and a murk of drone. Very beautiful and possibly their best set to date.