“Amongst connoisseurs of revelatory/off the map private press sides, the recordings of Mark Tucker have long provided a functional model of the genre at its most beautifully fucked. Tucker’s second album, 1983’s In The Sack, was an apocalyptic/dystopian concept album that centred on the American postal system and that sounded something like a cross between a teenage Van Dyke Parks and a slightly less disobedient Half Japanese. But his debut album, Batstew, released on his own Tetrapod Spools label in 1975, is widely regarded as his masterpiece. The whole concept for this fantastically unlikely recording seems to have been birthed via the conflation of a bunch of Tucker’s obsessions at the time, namely his car (which he referred to as ‘The Bat’) and his “She”, Eva Bataszew, an early girlfriend with whom Tucker had a relationship “riddled with paranormal phenomena”. The death of that relationship would later contribute to the deterioration of Tucker’s mental health and three bouts of hospitalisation for severe depression. The album was released in two runs of 100 copies each, including one personalised edition for Eva, where the title read Bataszew. “She never commented on it,” Tucker relates in the newly penned liner notes, “except to say that she played it for her cousin and he ‘didn’t get it’”. Tucker’s parents were similarly unresponsive. His father “never commented on any aspect of it but several years later, my stepmother asked me if I had written a song about a homosexual relationship, so apparently she had heard it. My mother, who had dreamed of me becoming a concert pianist – the next Rubinstein or Horowitz – hated Batstew in its entirety from the first minute to the last. She never wished to own a copy. After hearing the master tape of the proposed album, she told me ‘You’re selling your craziness’. I replied, ‘So was Beethoven.’”

Batstew draws on a number of sonic strategies, all of which are satisfyingly bent. The core of the material is based around recordings of his car, a 1964 Cadillac - ticking over, revving up, its engine dying – that predate the orchestrated mechanics of David Jackman and Vagina Dentata Organ. These sections are cut up with beautiful songs, all executed with a level of unself-conscious exuberance that is extremely poignant. The closest parallel is definitely the kind of benign DIY current loosed by the Department Store Santas LP and the themes are just as odd, with a beautiful gay love song centred on two young kids – “Sideways Love Forever” – sandwiched between damaged folk rock blasters, pre-lapsarian jigs, field recording from deep inside the void of 1970s suburbia, snippets of Tucker talking to his car, piano led lost-teen ballads and huge zones of “car-sounds-run-through-tremolo-pedal effects and tape manipulation”. “Some listeners have pointed out that much of what is on the album, particularly the long, disjointed, droning, melting, nightmarish ‘Submerged Bat Vortex’ strongly suggests mental illness,” Tucker confesses. Eva herself contributes vocals to “Honey Tree”, while Tucker’s armoury is bolstered by co-conspirator Shakey T. Colley on blues harp, electric guitar and tape manipulation as well as Chris DeMuynck on electric bass, John Vignola on acoustic guitar and Tom Von Ebers on electric guitar. “The last time I saw Eva Bataszew was on her 24th birthday: September 4, 1979,” Tucker relates. “She died, apparently by her own hand, in 1987. I didn’t hear about it until 1990. Shakey T. Colley died at age 40 in 1996 of what appeared to be an accidental overdose of drugs. They had both been alcoholics. For personal and professional reasons, I legally changed my name in 1991 from the artist name that appears on Batstew to T. Storm Hunter. From 1979 to 1993, I continued to write and record, eventually issuing most of this material on CDs and posting downloadable songs on the Internet. Yet, this album – which most people found incomprehensible and unlistenable in 1975 – is the one work in my discography which, after more than a quarter-century of obscurity, is finding an audience. Go figure.” As a document of the singular experience of a star-crossed group of friends, lost somewhere in mid-century America and fully committed to the defiant arc of their own tongues, Batstew remains unparalleled. This much-anticipated reissue comes in the usual classy stuck-on De Stijl-style sleeve with a raft of great liners and is limited to only 500 copies. Another totally necessary instalment in De Stijl’s reissue program dedicated to unearthing primo American basement arcana, this one sits beautifully alongside the Michael Yonkers, Virgin Insanity and Roots Of Madness sides. Highest possible recommendation” - VOLCANIC TONGUE

“Another bewitchingly beautiful solo album from Samara Lubelski (Tower Recordings/Hall Of Fame/Metabolismus/Sonora Pine/MV et al), that moves away from the tranced instrumental brainbeams of her In The Valley album on Eclipse and instead re-visits the acid chanteuse moves of her first De Stijl album, The Fleeting Skies. The arrangements are beautifully positioned between classic baroque pop ala Byrds/Love/Left Banke/Montage, handmade basement moves and early morning Lower East Side comedowns. Samara’s beautifully breathless vocals sound like they’re being whispered straight into your ear and the backing band are a peach, including contributions from Hamish Kilgour of NZ garage legends The Clean, Matt Heyner of The No-Neck Blues Band, Christian Frederickson of Rachels and Cynthia Nelson. Limited vinyl edition with stuck on coloured sleeves in classic De Stijl-style. Highly recommended.”-VOLCANIC TONGUE

Hototogisu are Marcia Bassett and Matthew Bower, and they dwell upon two continents (Marcia in brooklyn NY and matthew in leeds UK). Both share rich discographical heritage. Marcia has recorded with numerous labels (siltbreeze, time-lag, eclipse, troubleman unlimited, etc.) with UN, GHQ and the Double Leopards, and Matthew with Total, Skullflower, Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra and more. A Wikipedia entry in his name clearly (sic) illustrates his cultural heft: "Bower's huge discography of visceral, free drone-rock is probably the most formidable of its kind and he was rightly considered in 2005 by The Wire to be one of the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the 80s and 90s" (issue 259) . Chimarendammerung is the 3rd Hototogisu release on Destijl and the 5 untitled walls of vertical viola drone / overtone, lapped by shifting electronic waves of feedback, blackened guitars, rhinegold cast deep into dying rivers, an instrumental cycle of conflict, of the birth of a supreme aristocratic beauty into a fallen world, and its inevitable conflagration, then a glimmer of hope of escape from the cycle, in tune w/ the breath of the cosmos, like a glacial reimagining of van der graafs 'a plague of lighthouse keepers', and it represents a current plateau for the duo.

If Skip Spence were somehow, instead of finding his white-frocked self stuck in the rat-infested hole that was Bellvue, transplanted to the pine forests north of Malmo, Sweden, in a sonic nest of gimbri, bells, shakers and clothed in Tibetan silk, one would come slightly closer to the reality of Jakob Olausson’s migratory whims. To be sure, that foggy and only slightly inland empire of synapse-twisters like Ben Chasny offers a step on the trodden trail, but this isn’t the same road we’ve traveled before. Olausson’s huge ears protect him from the cold and keep the sun from turning his face to a series of desert crags, as his compositions slowly fade down the walls of four-track bedroom artistry into atemporal suites that shrink huge expanses and are a bellows to the microcosmic. Enter the Moonlight Farm. -Clifford Allen "This is a great song for cruising around in the woods. Jakob is the new thing, one of the only people making folk-inspired music right now that I not only can get into, but am totally jealous of. The first time I heard his record I was thinking, "Well, no reason for me to make music anymore. This kid hit it." I'm over it now, which is good, so I can just kick back and listen and be amazed. Thick and multi-tracked vocals layered on dissonant reverb-laced melodies. Damn." Ben Chasny/Six Organs Of Admittance

“An interesting, and undoubtedly unconscious, competition has cropped up amongst indie record labels over the last five years or so. With the success of the re-releases of long lost albums by artists like Vashti Bunyan and Sibylle Baier, a number of labels have been shaking trees and digging beneath porches to try to find the rarest works to slip into the tea of the record buying public. As you might expect, the smaller the label, the more interesting the music they seem to dig up. Case in point: De Stijl Records giving the world their first chance to hear the second album by the psych folk wonder, Ed Askew. The tiny New York label has been plying hungry listeners with obscure gems by the likes of Michael Yonkers and the Black Vial, but they scored their biggest coup yet by allowing this record to see the light of day, 30 years after it was first recorded. At the time the album was recorded, Askew was signed to the venerable ESP label, the imprint that had released his brilliant work Ask the Unicorn. He recorded this album not long after the release of that album in 1969, but the label ran out of money and couldn't put it out. Luckily, it couldn't be a better time for Askew's work to be reexamined by the intelligentsia of the music world. With the rise of interest in fellow outrÈ musicians Jandek and Daniel Johnston, Askew's songs should find the audience it so richly deserves. In fact, his work fits nicely alongside that of Johnston and Jandek. Not simply because he apparently recorded this album in one long continuous take, but also because, like those artists, his songs seem removed from a particular period of time. True, his reedy voice and copious use of harmonica give off Dylan-esque allusions, but the meandering arrangements and home-recorded haze of this album could have been recorded last week, rather than over 35 years ago. Askew's fractured romanticism lends a great deal to the feeling of timelessness the album exudes. His lyrics teem with imagery of the natural world, speaking often of trees, fields, and beaches, but they are thin metaphors for Askew's brokenhearted worldview. Matched up with the gentle thrum of his Martin Tipple, a 10-stringed ukulele-shaped instrument, the album comes off like field recordings of an anguished hermit living in the woods with nothing but a head full of bad memories to keep him company. This rough, yet beautiful piece of work may not get Askew covered in magazines throughout the world, nor will many of the big names in indie music touting him as an influence. Thankfully, we are now living in a world willing to open their ears up to the visions that Askew is spilling forth on Eyes and a likeminded label is willing to invest their time and money bringing these hidden masterpieces into the light of day.” – Bob Ham.