Dead Machines Plays Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
(2009, Arbor)
One-sided release. "Michigan heavy domestic-electronic couple Dead Machines always create records that confuse and intrigue. They are the forefathers of broken gear / appliance / wind instrument basement jamming and have their niche dug deep. 'Invasion' exists on the borders of existence- room ambiance is present, but the sounds are totally alien. Twisting mixer feedback and found sound source into a twisted collage of life outside the 'Pod': harsh and awakening, but at times giving way to the trance of the machine lull. Don't fall asleep. In an edition of 450 LPs with full color pro-printed cardboard sleeves with art by John Olson."
LP: $18CAD
Dead Machines Dead End On Olsen Street
(2006, Ypsilanti)
"Moldy Michigan basements and unwritten horror movies alike know and love the Dead Machines. This megalithic noisemaker is the work of John Olson (Wolf Eyes, American Tapes) and Tovah Olson (Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice) and Dead End On Olson St. is a new chapter in this prolific couple's body of work. Dead Machines rely less on bombast and clenched-fist and dig deeper into sound and the space between sounds for their sonic de-evolvings. This record has one long peice per side, clicking like a stopped rotor over tape loops, bizarre horns, fucked up delay units and homemade electronics. Beautifully paced and possibly sweet as it is terrifying. Cover art by John Olson is a full-color collage of some flesh-eating types, and the pressing was done entirely on white vinyl. Limited."
LP: $18CAD
Delia Derbyshire/Brian Hodgson/Don Harper Electrosonic
(2007, Glo Spot)
Second pressing, to make it available a little bit in the U.S., but still very limited availability. Rare UK library music album, originally issued on KPM in 1972. "Delia Derbyshire is best known as the woman who created the sound of the original Doctor Who theme. This one piece is so globally famous that it has overshadowed the wide ranging work of one of the most creative women working in the 1960s and '70s. Delia collaborated with many of the most significant figures of the era and was admired by many more. Her story involves such names as Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Pink Floyd, Anthony Newley, Frankie Howerd and The Rolling Stones, in addition to work with the National Theatre, seminal electronic innovators and, of course, the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop. Since her death in 2001, Derbyshire has gained cult icon status and her influence over artists who weren't even born when she made some of her groundbreaking recordings has never been stronger. John Cavanagh (BBC Radio, Phosphene, author of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn etc. etc.) has found a rare album Delia recorded with Brian Hodgson (the man who created the sound of the TARDIS) and Don Harper in 1972. This was originally an LP of what is known as library music and was only made available to film, TV and radio organizations when originally issued. Cavanagh has licensed these recordings and the album Electrosonic will be released commercially for the first time on the Glo-Spot imprint."
CD: $30CAD
Deep Listening Band Then & Now Now & Then
(2008, Taiga)
The Deep Listening Band is an improvisational group founded in 1988 by Pauline Oliveros with members David Gamper and Stuart Dempster. Now, 20 years later, the trio celebrate an anniversary of improvisation, innovation and commitment with their first-ever vinyl release. This vinyl-only document contains four side-long tracks, one reissued and three previously-unreleased. "Cannery Row" was originally available on the Troglodyte's Delight (1990) album and captures the band in Tarpaper Cave, which Dempster recalls as "an old limestone quarry near Rosendale, New York that had lovely dripping water sounds and Valhalla-like mists." The previously-unreleased tracks were gathered from three separate live performances at the Sounds Like Now Festival, Sound Exchange American Composers Forum, and Engine27, a 16-channel installation of special speakers. The audio was mastered for vinyl by James Plotkin, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl in a limited edition of 500. The records come packaged in a custom-designed slipcover and a jacket with doublewide spines. The slipcover features two exquisite photographs and is dual-finished with a gloss front and matte back. The jacket is printed on a cardboard brown stock with the pocket flooded green and features three rich essays including: an introduction by David Felton, a short history by Dempster and information about the Expanded Instrument System (EIS) from Oliveros.
LP: $35CAD
Double Leopards/Mouthus/Sunroof Crippled Rosebud Binding
(2006, Music Fellowship)
This 5th installment in the Music Fellowship's Triptych series brings together two Brooklyn bands, MOUTHUS and DOUBLE LEOPARDS, and the sonically entwined SUNROOF of England. While each band contributes a side to this two-LP set, the artists are brought together not just figuratively on wax, but literally, as the fourth side features all seven musicians playing together. Double Leopards' long flowing jams are a gateway to other forms of consciousness. Mouthus are part of a new generation of New York industrial, primitive, noise rock, taking the lead from Throbbing Gristle and Einstürzende Neubauten as well as Harry Pussy and The Dead C. Sunroof (MATTHEW BOWER of SKULLFLOWER) has helped transform experimental noise and drone rock for over two decades with dense psychedelic walls of sound.
2LP: $30CAD
Dragging An Ox Through Water The Tropics Of Phenomenon
(2008, Awesome Vistas)
His landscape and surroundings dictated an early love of the virtuosic warblings of classic am country before he slowly developed a taste for distorted recordings and uneven confrontationalism of punk and Dragghing an Ox through Water marries the lyrical twang of country and folk to the the broken textures of feedback, drones, tape hiss, and the howl of homemade oscillators both longingly primal and gratingly dystopian. A strong value on the contrast between chance and intention makes both performances and recordings a constantly evolving process. These songs are hymns, lovesongs, (atheist?) prayers, political meditations, and notes-to-self.
LP: $20CAD
Kevin Drumm/2673 Split
(Kitty Play)
“Kevin Drumm is one of noises most mysterious and yet most celebrated noise acts. His shows seem to be few and far between but his recordings have reached all across the United States and Europe. He has performed as a member of Sunn O))) and released on Aaron Dilloway’s prestigious Hanson Records. Now Drumm has a new split LP with Kevin Winter aka 2673. 2673 is coming off a long series of cd (and cd-r) splits with some of today’s finest noise artists such as Cherry Point, Jessica Rylan, Unicorn (Bill Nelson of Bastard Nosie), and Scientific Explanation of Despair among others. This LP features a lush gatefold cover designed by Sunn O))) and Khanate member Stephen O’Malley. There will only be one pressing of 500 colored records.”
LP: $27CAD
Eleh/Pauline Oliveros Split
(2008, Important)
Eleh: The Beauty Of The Steel Skeleton Pauline Oliveros: Drifting Depths Important Records quite pleased to be presenting this split release consisting of two new drone works from Pauline Oliveros and Eleh. Oliveros, an early American minimalist who has pioneered the technique of Deep Listening, has created a new work exlcusively for this release. Drifting Depths is a new improvised piece made on a harmonica being processed through Pauline's Expanded Instrument System. Eleh's side, also exclusive to this vinyl only release, is super slow melodic drone full of stillness, tension & relief. Vinyl only, handmade and handassembled letterpressed jackets. Limited edition. A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. west coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvises with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed, in her performances and recording. Volume reveals detail.
LP: $30CAD
Enkidu Live in Kyoto
(2007, Locust)
"Enkidu is the mythical Japanese psychedelic noise project of legendary performers Chie Mukai (Taj Mahal Travelers, Che-SHIZU, East Bionic Symphonia, Dadnur), Eric Cordier & Seichi Yamamoto (the Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba, Rashinban, Ontoko). Over four bruised side-long cuts, Live in Kyoto faithfully captures the intensity of one particularly eviscerating evening of ritualized self expression at Kyoto's Tanq space in 2004. This is liminal ecstatic drone, clatter & relentless sound bursts with a rough-around-the-edges vibe that maintains a loose kinetic debt to everything from La Monte Young & the Theater of Eternal Music to Keiji Haino, AMM & Fushitsusha. Hand-numbered edition of 525, 2 X 180 gram vinyl housed in a black silkscreened bottom-folded heavy jacket. Chie Mukai (kokyu, electronics, voice, percussion & dance) Seiichi Yamamoto (guitar & electronics & percussions) Eric Cordier (hurdy-gurdy & electronics)."
LP: $35CAD
Eno's Slaughter Beisbol
(2008, Three Lobed)
Béisbol is a three sided LP by Enos Slaughter. The brainchild of David Shuford (No Neck Blues Band, D. Charles Speer and the Helix), Marc Orleans (Sunburned Hand of the Man, D. Charles Speer and the Helix) and Carter Thornton (Izititiz, Zashiki Warashi), Béisbol is a full-fledged continuation of the musical ideals that the band has previously set forth within On Sunday , Saloth Sar and On The Shores of Jupiter .
LP: $25CAD
Ex-Cocaine Esta Guerra
(2007, Siltbreeze)
Forged in the Garden City (that's Missoula, Montana to you, piker), Ex-Cocaine is the formidable, sneer-wielding duo of Bryan Ramirez (guitars, effects, vocals) and Mike C (percussion, hexes, spells). Their debut LP from 2005, Keep America Mellow (on Ramirez's Killertree label) brought to light heavy august vibes steeped in the tippled, woodbine 'n' cider electro-folk of Michael Chapman, Steve Peregrine Took, Roy Harper, and other more reclusive Anglo biscuit-snuffers whose works haunt the archives of Kissing Spell and Shadoks. On their second effort, Ex-Cocaine throw down hard, evoking a gnarled bonfire with flames that roar thunderously like the detuned, rockist clang of Dead C's Harsh '70s Reality, and burns evenly like the smelted, Rust Belt psychedelia of Stone Harbour's Emerges. Vinyl-only and limited, the sparks are flying off this one already. Catch it if you can.
LP: $18CAD
Ex-Cocaine/Yellow Swans split
(2007, Not Not Fun)
Finely dressed in a full-colour Maya Miller sleeve, this split release from Ex Cocaine and Yellow Swans captures two wildly differing bands on great form. Ex-Cocaine is the collaboration between guitarist and vocalist Brian Ramirez and percussionist Mike Casler, who fashion psych-heavy instrumental jams leading way out into oblivion, even having a go at a Meat Puppets cover on 'Sexy Music'. Yellow Swans meanwhile don't come nearly so close to that sort of song formatting, instead offering a single 16-minute noise dirge. The piece seems to shift from dark, low-end tones toward the more vicious, brass-like sounds that rear up out of the distortion towards the end. This is just the latest in a line of highly successful split LPs from Not Not Fun which bring together two very different artists under a single banner, and this one's right up there with the Christina Carter/Pocahaunted emission from a while back. Excellent.
LP: $18CAD
Family Elan Stare Of Dawn
(2007, Locust)
The Family Elan is the intuitive, devotional project of Glasgow's free wheeling folk dervish Chris Hladowski (Nalle, The One Ensemble, Scatter) built around Chris's gently lilting vocal offerings & the absorbing droning modal sounds of his long-necked lute. Stare of Dawn is one of those special little records - searchingly beautiful, seemingly effortless, deeply enchanting & completely hypnotic. Elan draws on a vast array of folk musical traditions the Greek Rebetes of the 1920s, the tanbur playing of the Kurdish Sufi mystic Ostad Elahi and Âshyq songs of the Azerbaijani sâz master Edalat Nasibov to revivalists offerings from Anne Briggs's bouzouki inventions, early Incredible String Band & Hungarian revivalists Muzsikás to name just a few points of reference. Available on CD & limited 180 gram vinyl.
LP: OUT OF STOCK
CD: $14CAD
Faust Wakes Nosferatu
(Klangbad)
Faust Wakes Nosferatu was composed as a sort of companion piece to the classic vampire film Nosferatu , and Faust's music runs the gamut from delicate, ambient minimalism to cacophonous rock passages. LP version contains different music than the CD.
LP: $32CAD
Flatgrey xxxxxx
(2006, Rundownsun)
Long-awaited vinyl debut from Vancouver underground noise legend flatgrey. Industrial noise. Harsh, industrial noise. Pure sound. Mechanical, electrical, valve and tube. Scrounged, rescued and resurrected. Filtered through obsession. Menacing roars of bass pushed along grinding mechanics, like millions of rows of pneumatic teeth. Heaving, gnashing. Compressor hiss, and blast furnace tongue. incendiary atmosphere, superheated, and forced through junked magnets and shredded cones. A nameless exercise. 1-sided gold offset-printing on heavy black paper. One-sided 12" 33rpm vinyl record with silk-screened b-side. Housed in a crystal-clear, heavy polyvinyl sleeve. Featuring art and layout from the artist.
LP: $15CAD
Henry Flynt & C.C. Hennix Dharma Warriors
(2008, Locust)
" The Dharma Warriors was the elemental guitar/drum rock concoction of Henry Flynt & C.C. Hennix. In 1983, the pair hooked up in Woodstock at Hennix's rented house and let freedom ring with two lengthy boombox recordings. 'Warriors of the Dharma' and 'Mount Fuji on My Mind' are classics of unrefined blues boogie and unhemmed stoner rock."
LP: $27CAD
Henry Flynt Raga Electric
(re:2009, Locust)
In the early '60s, fresh from his clean behind the ears years at Harvard, Henry was undergoing rapid ideological shifts: cavorting with Maciunas and the whole Fluxus bit, doing performances at Yoko Ono's loft and recording with La Monte Young; having it out with his Stalinist cohorts over the relative merits of a good blues run and searching for a new musical language outside of the various generic artistic restrictions before him at the time. What he arrived at was an expressive practice he dubbed audact (auditory acognitive cultural activity) and that is what you will hear on this collection. Collecting key material from 1963 to 1971, Raga Electric is a 7 piece distillation of some of Henry's most adventurous, audactatious, outsider musical endeavors. The record begins with, of all things, a hybrid, off the wall treatment of the traditional supranationalist anthem The Marine's Hymn sung in a thick tongued, fully untudored Hindustani vocalese to brilliantly sun drenched, lightly strummed acoustic guitar accompaniment. The title cut, 'Raga Electric', is a twisted, howling fake hindustani rag with staccato untuned guitar and bleating screams recorded at his home just a few short hours after catching Pandit Pran Nath at a downtown morning concert. The howling orgasmic yodel of a visionary's self-posession and certain surrender on this 1966 cut puts Henry somewhere at the epicenter of the folk isolationist world of Jandek and the ethnodislocation of the Sun City Girls, to name but a few. The side long closer, 'Free Alto', is a monstrous exploration of the ins and outs of the tenor saxophone which, upon hearing it, Terry Riley referred to as 'a very articulated musical program'. Though it remains Henry's single meeting with the instrument, over the course of some 13 odd minutes, he finds out everything he needs to know about the horn and gets into some pretty hairy free squelch and squeal territory in the process. 'I was just pulling sounds out of a hat and just stringing them together,' he recently told me. As hats go, this one should fit the heads of today's listeners just fine." - Dawson Prater
LP: $22CAD
Henry Flynt & The Insurrections I Don't Wanna
(re:2009, Locust)
Our man Flynt shatters the categories once again with this surprise collection of his short lived basement rock protest band, The Insurrections, from 1966. Let there be no doubt in anyone's mind: Flynt's version of protest music isn't your cultural-commissar school of folk posturing. It's aggro and Flynt is an unhinged showman on helium induced vox and the electric guitar (his teacher was none other than Lou Reed). Imagine a mix of Sky Saxon (of Seeds fame) with a dash of Roky Erickson thrown in on vocals, a little bit of the Cramps' scary monster dramatics thrown in for good measure & the swamp chugalug laziness of vintage Pussy Galore and you get an idea what Flynt was up to at this phase in his non-career. Features legendary sculptor Walter De Maria on drums, confirming our hidden suspicion that in every great artist there's a desire to rock & beneath every fine gallery, there is a basement. Photos by George Maciunas.
LP: $22CAD
Henry Flynt Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 1
(re:2009, Locust)
Like a hidden relic from the far side of the Harry Smith catalog, these early 1960s recordings are a splendid collection of High lonesome hillbilly fiddle and ukulele instrumentals that are surely Henry Flynt's most articulated statements to date of his honest to god, true to life affinity and love for that dry earth choogaloo upper mountain lower boogaloo foot stomping folk music. Standouts include the acid fried 13th Floor Elevators-ish 'Sky Turned Red' and the 15 plus minute lazy zen epic hum and strum album closer, 'Blue Sky, Highway and Tyme'. No doubt, this is Appalachian bruit driving music bar none.
LP: $22CAD
Henry Flynt Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 2
(re:2009, Locust)
Here we find ourselves hot on the skidmarks of Henry's brawl with sonic self invention documented on last summer's splendid Raga Electric with two complementary volumes emerging from the same physical time but a very different head space continuum indeed. On BPHB Volume 2, avant-hillbilly master fiddler Henry Flynt scuffles through a most peculiar set of electrified and acoustic bumpkin fiddle howls and screeches circa early to mid 1960s. From the enviable opening 'echo rock', in which Flynt does his best to compete with the electro-echo buzz of a Jorgen Ingmann or Link Wray to the beauteous instrumental glow of the extended modal country jam of 'Jamboree', Flynt proves once again that his is not a music simply rooted in the taut belt of New York isms, schisms and jisms. This is music that howls from a unique voice whose love for the folk songbook (known and imagined) is as resonant as a cowbell and as deep as a freshwater well.
LP: $22CAD
Henry Flynt Nova'Billy
(2007, Locust)
Taste the magic! Nova'Billy is another edible audible from Henry Flynt's
dusty lower Manhattan bunker and it stands as one of the fullest, most
beauteous document of Flynt's tenure with a full working rock band to
date. For less than one calendar year between 1974 and 1975, Henry
Flynt's hard driving, heavy jamming agit country rock band, Nova'Billy
embraced bareknuckled deep fried groove attacks, bearded hippie jam band
workouts & a monstrous melange of blues, boogie and free jazz squeal
into a musical soufflé that could only have come together with Flynt
cooking up what was proven to be, time and again, an impossible vision
within the confines of the SOHO art orbit of the 70s. After a couple
performances at Anthology Film Archives and studio sessions in Richmond,
Virginia and Manhattan, the band postered SOHO in a last ditch effort to
get some traction with the hipsters that read, "Party on down to the
Kitchen. Stoned country music for rock country". The gig, like all the
others before it, was poorly attended. Nova'Billy played what would be
their last live gig at the Kitchen on June 27, 1975.
Nova'Billy covers a damned fine and important moment in Henry Flynt's
musical career. If the Insurrections laid the foundation for his anti
war primitive garage rock sound, the emergence, nearly a decade later of
Nova'billy is the realization of Henry's own vision of obtuse personal
politics ( "I was a creep"), provocative leftwing posturing (check their
version of the world communist anthem "the international!") and a
gleefully recombinant spin on southern music. 13 cuts and 60 minutes of
old glory!
LP: $30CAD
CD: $16CAD
Henry Flynt C Tune
(2008, Locust)
Back in print for the first time since 2002...Henry Flynt is a seasoned tourist of The World Of The Other Ear and C Tune is his ringing, psychedelic meditation on/from the cosmos. Call it a sonic postcard or call it late night head music or even call it ecstatic Minimalism if you have to. On this forty seven + minute foray, our man Flynt takes his electrified fiddle and blends his droning sonic calisthenics with lonesome swing melodies and high decibel screech to the somnambulistic playing of his expat mathematician pal Mr/Mrs. C.C. Hennix on Pran Nath Tamboura. Recorded in 1980 in an undisclosed pocket of the galaxy and now available for blissful consumption.
CD: $19CAD
Flower Travellin' Band Satori
(r.2008, Phoenix)
The Flower Travellin' Band 's first musical outing, Challenge , was released in 1970 and was essentially a series of covers of Cream , Hendrix , Big Brother and Jefferson Airplane material. However, Satori appeared a year later and forever changed the way the group would be perceived, both in Japan and in the musical world at large. Possessing the vision to select Akira "Joe" Yamanaka as their vocalist, the Flower Travellin' boys elevated themselves above other Japanese bands of the time, whose efforts were largely confined to imitating British and American bands of the era. Satori , which was released in 1971, is a conceptual hard rock/psych album driven by Hideki Ishima 's furious guitar licks which erupt and explode over the harmonic heart beat of the drums and bass and Yamanaka's banshee-like vocal style which was turning him into an occidental Iggy Pop or Robert Plant while the band itself was rapidly becoming Japan's answer to Led Zeppelin . Satori is a huge album in every way. From power chords to Eastern-tinged North African six-string freak-outs and crashing tom-toms, the band flexes its collective muscle from start to finish. In short, this is a real rock classic of the type they simply don't make any more.
LP: $30CAD
CD: $16CAD
Michael Garrick Trio Moonscape
(2007, Trunk)
An original of this ten inch Garrick debut album from 1964 would set you back about £1500, and not only is it mythically rare (only 99 copies made) but it's also bloody marvellous. This really is a very beautiful bit of work; ethereal, slightly free but still very listenable and sublimely melancholy in parts. I cannot believe how wonderful this album is. Even nearly 45 years on it's as fresh as a daisy and may well take you to places you've never been. Remember, only 99 copies of those 1963 albums were originally pressed - you may well never, ever see an original so you'd better get your grubby jazz hands on this LP or CD instead. The very fine fold out sexy CD booklet comes with new Garrick notes, the original back cover of the ten inch and transcriptions of the poems that Garrick based these stunning instrumental pieces on. What a bargain. Very limited vinyl available, already sold out at the source
LP: SOLD OUT
CD: $20CAD
Friday Group s/t
(Beta Lactum Ring)
A brand new album from this Texas combo comprised of TOM CARTER (CHARALAMBIDES) and BRIAN SMITH (IRON KITE). A mix of droney guitar twang and harmonium, delivered hazy, jittery, and slithery. Spacious, howling, and West Texas dry.
LP: $19CAD
Gazheart s/t
(2008, Locust)
"With GazHeart, celebrated visual artist Rita Ackermann (voice) & the No Neck Blues Band's Dave Nuss (found percussion) created a playful spontaneous sound that seemingly bridged the gap between the broken pop sounds of certain strains of the no wave movement, sound poetry and catchy, otherworldly art folk using the barest of resources available to them. One time pressing of this special edition one-sided LP features an original etching by visual artist Rita Ackermann on the flip side. GazHeart is housed in a plain jacket with two opposing drawings for front & back by Ackermann reproduced on high quality archival paper stock.""The GazHeart recordings were made in August of 2004 after the disintegration of Angelblood at ATP in April. Rita and I traveled every August to Budapest to be with her family, who live in the hills outside the city in a small German village called Budaörs, created after WWII. The mise-en-scene of our life there was total village simplicity -- grandma's cooking, dogs running the streets, babies with leaky diapers on big wheels, and gypsies hanging out in bars. We would go every Sunday morning to the gypsy market where the vendors would spread out a bunch of garbage on blankets in a parking lot, all the proprietors drunk by 10am on wine consumed from coke bottles. At the time of recording, Rita had adopted the surrealist idea of automatic, unmediated writing direct from the unconscious, using spontaneous text to create song-like atmospheres, in the spirit of Tristan Tzara. For the percussion, I wound up keeping it simple and true to the environs: a bucket, a glass jar, a coffee can & a straw broom. All recordings were made to magnetic tape in the back yard late at night after the village was sleeping." --Dave Nuss.
LP: $20CAD
GHQ Cosmology Of The Eye
(2006, Time Lag)
The first proper release from this head-spinning acid/drone/raga crew that's been quietly haunting the Northeast for a couple years now. For this album the band was MARCIA BASSETT (DOUBLE LEOPARDS, HOTOGISU, ZAIMPH, UN, etc.), STEVE GUNN, and PETE NOLAN (MAGIK MARKERS, VANISHING VOICE, etc.). Heavily dosed trips into East Coast trance primitivism, gushing with mantric meshes of strings and voice. Centered around Bassett & Gunn's acoustic guitar freeflow, and wrapped up in layers of hovering vocal mist, buzzing drones, percussive clatter, and Nolan's subtle but massively psychedelic electric guitar moves. Over five extended tracks things slide along from bone rattling minimal vibrations, dip into opiated folk beauty, and then blow things wide open with a full side of fevered, acid soaked raga lift-off.
LP: SOLD OUT
CD:$20CAD
GHQ Heavy Elements
(2006, Three Lobed)
Following on the heels of their fantastic 2006 release Cosmology of the Eye, GHQ and three lobed recordings are proud to release the aptly titled Heavy Elements. Culled together from a live performance in Brooklyn (January 2006), the trio continues to explore the intricacies of electric/acoustic drones and ragas in what is their most intense set of recordings to date. For this recording the band consisted of marcia bassett (double leopards, hototogisu, zaimph), steve gunn and pete nolan (magik markers, spectre folk, the vanishing voice, etc). Heavy Elements churns with the deeply layered drones that marked previous GHQ releases. While these sounds are present, this album differentiates itself from the band's prior outings through the addition of nearly-tribal drums and a more intense overall aural atmosphere. This is music that, while blissfully transcendent and beautiful, is not for the faint of heart. from a one-time pressing of 1000 copies.
CD: $17CAD
GHQ Crystal Healing
(2007, Three Lobed)
Recorded by Steve Gunn, Marcia Bassett and Pete Nolan in late 2006, Crystal Healing is GHQ's most accomplished recording to date. A collection of layered acoustic drones and ragas that mix and whirl throughout both sides. It will not take more than one spin for you to realize that this is one of "those" records. Great, great stuff. From a one-time pressing of 855 hand-numbered copies. Heavy 180g vinyl. Housed within old-style gatefold LP covers featuring new artwork by Michael Pare.
LP: $27CAD
Glory Fckn Sun Spectra
(2008, Tipped Bowler)
The sky done clouded over after Glory Fckn Sun's debut album, yielding this brooding and corrosive follow-up. The New Zealand sorta-super group of Antony Milton , Ben Spiers, and Simon O'Rorke concoct a slow-burning behemoth of metallic shivers and distortion churn, dark enough to invoke the dread name Haino. Spectra is an unsettling mind-meld: Spiers desolate soundscapes bleed into Milton's heavy drones, which are complemented perfectly by O'Rorke's restless percussion. Group improvisation is the natural language of these three; even listing their solo and collaborative albums over the past decade would take way more effort than I can muster. Suffice to say this is a stellar and unique record to add to their massive discographies.
LP: $22CAD
Gown For The Maples
(2008, Three Lobed)
GOWN (aka ANDREW MACGREGOR and one-half of BARK HAZE) moved from Western Massachusetts to Nova Scotia in mid-2007. Before he moved, he wanted to have one big audio blow-out to remember the grand old Mass times. with that goal in mind, Gown went into the studio with the SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN gang (represented this time out by JOHN MOLONEY, SARAH O'SHEA, RON SCHNEIDERMAN, and TAYLOR RICHARDSON) to melt some audio consoles. For the Maples represents a portion of that recorded output and it's some massive stuff. Sunburned's thick funk presents the perfect background for Ggown's shredding guitar-play. Extremely hot stuff, especially the massive side-long "Bending Close." Includes CD copy as well as bonus CD.
LP+2CD: $26CAD
Grey Dathuras Owly Claw Hammer
(2008, Emperor Jones)
An engineer dealing with frequencies that are knocking over his five-pound Catholic candles as he's recording strangers should have the good temper to control the earthquake he didn't anticipate. Melbourne's Grey Daturas camped out in Austin's hi-fi Infinity Recording for one day and borrowed cabinets that nearly reached the ceiling, cooking up 34 minutes of disturbing waves that seemed on the verge of opening the Balcones Fault's limestone and lava. Lots of drone albums loom in the racks, sure. But if you, listener, perceive this long-playing record as whatever drone or doom metal, is, then you, Madame Blahg, are as simple-headed as Bush Jr. doing lines while watching a hurricane on CNN. You can hear this trio feeling each other a year ago, as these A and B sides spin in '08 in your living room: a triad with cleared heads and no preconception, speaking to each other with demonic waves, while not once looking at the other's eyes or hands nor saying a word. Not bad, considering they withstood a night of broken glass with Texas mental-case bands at the club just hours before. So why did they do this? I'll tell you why, Jimmy Somerville: because like Asia, they were a group in the heat of the moment who shat out the most bone-crunching session of glistening murk that this state has experienced since Roky and Josefus jammed some heavy-mental during a '72 rehearsal (Google it, killer bootleg). Maybe something should be said about what it sounds like. Shit. "Having a half-hour orgasm right before a natural disaster's about to kill you, while an early Celtic Frost instrumental 7-inch plays at 16rpm?" Maybe. But this one's 33, for the record.
LP: $18CAD
Group Bombino Guitars From Agadez Volume 2
(2009, Sublime Frequencies)
Group Bombino is the latest salvo from the Agadez music scene. Led by the guitar virtuoso Omara Mochtar (Bombino), the group’s debut LP-- Volume two in the Guitars from Agadez series, represents the latest chapter in the modern sound of the Tuareg revolution. As of 2008, the Tuareg rebellion is in full force again, and Bombino is in exile to parts unknown. Agadez has been cut off from the rest of Niger. The only road that connects this legendary city with the rest of the country is littered with land mines and the only escorts are the military. This music and its messages of hope, justice, and desire for validation of the Kel Tamachek way of life ring louder than ever. Group Bombino are gaining mythic status in and around the Tuareg community for their incendiary live performances. Coming from the same scene as Group Inerane and sharing some of the same musicians, Group Bombino showcase both sides of the Tuareg Guitar style. Side one features the “Dry Guitar” sound, an unplugged selection of songs sung among the dunes and stars of the Tenere desert. Side two showcases the electric fury of the full band, a melding of heavy, psychedelic guitar heroics with a raw garage sound, back beat percussion, all swirling in extended trance rock moves. Recorded live and unfiltered in Agadez and the surrounding desert in early 2007, with the band’s equipment powered by generators and an unflinching dedication to the rebellion, Group Bombino’s music transcends any influence and ignites the raw passion of its message to the outside world. This is a one-time pressing of 1,500 copies. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and comes in a gatefold full color jacket stocked with great photos of the musicians and liner notes by Hisham Mayet.
LP: $32CAD
Group Doueh Guitar Music From The Western Sahara
(2007, Sublime Frequencies)
“If you think you've heard all the great electric guitar styles in the world, think again. This Saharan sand-blizzard of fine-crushed glass will grind your face to a bloody pulp. Group Doueh play raw and unfiltered Saharawi music from the former colonial Spanish outpost of the Western Sahara. Doueh (pronounced "Doo-way") is their leader and a master of the electric guitar. He's been performing since he was a child playing in many groups before finally creating his own in the 1980s. Doueh says he's influenced by Western pop and rock music especially Jimi Hendrix and James Brown. His sound is distorted, loud and unhinged with an impressive display of virtuosity and style only known in this part of the world. His wife Halima and friend Bashiri are the two vocalists in the group. Sahrawi songs are from the sung poetry of the Hassania language. The music is based on the same modal structure as Mauritanian music, however, Doueh's style is a looser appropriation infused with a Western guitar scope, one that relies, in his words, as much on Hendrix as it does traditional Sahrawi music. It also adds a playful pop element that rarely filters through in this region. Doueh has turned down countless offers from Morocco and Europe to release his music but he decided to offer us access to his homemade recordings and photo archive for this amazing debut LP. Stocked with great photos of the musicians and liner notes by Hisham Mayet.”
LP: SOLD OUT
CD: $20CAD
Group Inerane Guitars From Agadez (Music of Niger)
(2007, Sublime Frequencies)
Group Inerane is the now-sound of the Tuareg guitar revolution sweeping across the Sahara Desert and inspired by the rebel musicians that started this music as a political weapon used to communicate from the Libyan refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s. Spearheaded by the enigmatic guitar hero Bibi Ahmed, Group Inerane has been together for several years and carries the rich tradition of Tamachek guitar songs for another generation. These ten tracks are a combination of amplified roots rock, blues and folk in the local Tuareg styles, at times entering into full-on electric guitar psychedelia. This music is performed with two electric guitars, a drum kit and a chorus of vocalists. The recordings were captured live in the city of Agadez in the Republic of Niger. Group Inerane was also featured in the Sublime Frequencies DVD Niger: Magic & Ecstasy In The Sahel. Recorded by Hisham Mayet.
LP: SOLD OUT
CD: $20CAD
Various G-Spots
(2009, Trunk)
Subtitled: The Spacey Folk Electro-Horror Sounds of the Studio G Library . G Spots is the first-ever retrospective of Studio G, one of the smallest, but finest music libraries to come out of the UK. It was started in London, in the late 1960s by advertising man John Gale . He realized that most library music at the time was still very much "light orchestral," so he decided to change things: across 48 albums between 1969 and 1982, he made quite an extraordinary impact. With a small stable of talented and versatile musicians, Studio G produced albums covering all major library music genres: horror, pop, industrial, children, jazz, and avant-garde. Throughout production, Studio G were deliberately restricted to small budgets, so the musicians had to be creative with limited time and studio equipment to have any impact at all. The results were a stunning collection of stripped-down, simple but extremely effective compositions across a variety of genres, many employing heavy delay, reverb, echo boxes and early synthesis. G Spots begins with humble tracks with treated guitars and musical jaunts into outer space; we then move through jazz, easy-listening and oddball sounds into weird, dark and often quite unsettling future music. There are drifting synthesizer soundscapes, unsettling vocal tape-loops, even the odd bit of electro-voodoo. With music this interesting and different, it's understandable that bands like The Chemical Brothers and UNKLE have sampled some of the more obscure corners of the catalog. It will also come as no surprise that originals of the rarer Studio G albums fetch huge amounts of money when they come up for sale. In fact, it would take you years to find all these original albums, but here are the best and most interesting bits all together for the first time, which is so much easier. So welcome to G Spots , a stunning and occasionally deep collection of library music that will influence, educate and entertain.
LP: $23CAD
CD: $23CAD