Go to Eclipse Records for ordering information.

"Tons of great sounds have landed here since last time. Got last copies of the Kluster 6xlp box on QBICO, copies of the new batch of Important Records releases including an AMT cd (Dark Side of the Black Moon: What Planet Are We On?) plus 4 lp's (Bardo Pond, Alasehir, Alumbrados, Moon Phantoms), a killer 4xlp box set 'Open Strings: 1920s Middle Eastern Recordings - New Responses' featuring Sir Richard Bishop, Six Organs Of Admittance, Michael Flower, Micah Blue Smoldone, mv & ee, Paul Metzger and Steffen Basho-Junghans...) - also available as a double cd, a bunch of 7" and 10" records from No-Fi Records - all in very limited supply, the Flower-Corsano double LP on Vhf, Heavy Winged & Inca Ore collab lp, Golden Jooklo Age's 'Ritual' one-sided lp on Troglosound, Omar Souleyman double LP on Sublime Frequencies (Group Doueh lp is sold out), new Face Plant lp on Heard Worse, 3 new lp's on Digitalis including ones from both Caboladies and Metal Rouge. Got the Spacemen 3 lp which is excellent, new Expo 70 lp on Peasant Magik, great new records (Bong / Quittinirpaaq split, Taiga Remains / RV Paintings split, Mechanical Children) and tapes also (Pewtr...) on Blackest Rainbow, a ton of new and restocked titles on PSF including new Li Jianhong cd, New Miminokoto cd, restock of all High Rise cd's, killer new dvd by Keiji Haino, Makoto Kawabata, Tatsuya Yoshida, plus dvd's from Kousokuya, High Rise (restock) and Maher Shalal Hash Baz, cd's from Ektro Records (3 Circle cd's and Andromelos' cd) plus a Doktor Kettu cd. Got the new Wand cd on Ecstatic Peace, new Magik Markers cdr on Arbitrary Signs, a bunch of new stuff (Sequin Trails cdr - recommended!, Peeesseye cdr..) and restocks of Greg Kelley & Alex Neilson lp plus a few copies of The Hunter Gracchus cdr all on Golden Lab Records, new Starving Weirdos cd on Bo' Weavil, restocked a bunch of Fractal cd's (AMT, Mainliner, Diza Star...) and lp's (Diza Star). Other notable restocks include The Oh Sees LP + CD on Kill Shaman, several lp's on Ultra Eczema including the recent Orphan Fairytale, Skullflower's 'Malediction' cd, Love Live Life + One cd and Masahiko Satoh & Soundbreakers cd - both on Drone Syndicate. Some cool cassettes from Fag Tapes arrived, new batch from, Pizza Night here - only a few of each remain, split tape by Sean McCann / Black Eagle Child and a couple from Lotus Birth label: Divine Coils and Lanterns collab, and Nautilus and a ton more."


*Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - Dark Side of the Black Moon: What Planet Are We On? CD $12.99 (Important Records)
"Brand new full-length recording from Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Proggy psych sounds mix Pink Floyd with fuzzy wah guitars and cosmic sounds. Focused riffing, super fidelity recording, and packaging designed by Seldon Hunt." Double vinyl issue coming later.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - Univers Zen ou de zéro à zéro CD $17.99 (Fractal)
"With 6 years of existence and already a rich discography, around a dozen of titles, Acid Mothers Temple presents today their new studio album, and which is in fact the 6th of the band (after the three first on PSF, 'New geocentric world of AMT' and 'Absolutely freak-out' - all others are considered by Makoto Kawabata himself, as AMT's special concept releases). 'Univers zen ou de zéro à zéro' is a full recording, with the 'whole world' of AMT...from spirit to love, freak-out psychedelia, cosmic folk, blues, humour... a great introduction for all new listeners, and maybe, for all fans, another magic mushroom treasure ! Indeed, musically, it is probably one of the best achievement, including the demented opening track 'Electric Love Machine' (or how see 40 years of acid rock !). But impossible to avoid the two magnum opus (of more than 20 min. each) forming the cornerstone of the album, and also the first studio version of the emblematic 'God bless AMT' (only plays live as ending) and more... plenty of freaky guitars, space electronics, monster bass etc.. and super revolution in Cotton super Casino's vocals : in almost all tracks, she sings ala Mady Gula Blue Heaven style, delicate, beauty, dreams ! Special guest in this album, the great guitarist Hiroshi Narazaki (ex Les Rallizes Dénudés, Zuno Keisatsu, Port Cuss). Archangels thunderbird brings the New Rock from the cosmosŠ"

Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues featuring the Sun Love and the Heavy Metal Thunder - untitled CD $17.99 (Fractal)
"WARNING : Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues is a different group than the well-knows Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO and Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno. This new japanese band was created in April 2005 by Magic Aum Gigi (ex-Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO). His main works with the "Melting Paraiso UFO" can be found on the album "AbsolutelyFreak-Out" (2001), the compialtion "Do whatever you want, don't do whatever you don't want !!" (2002), and has released his own solo album "MMMM - My Metal Machine Music" (2004). Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues is an underground punk blues trio composed by two guitarists(Tsuchy, Magic Aum Gigi) with one drum (Mai Mai). Their first album : "Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues featuring the Sun Love and the Heavy Metal Thunder" is a deep raw trip and a wild transgression of the mother nature filtred by the occult powers ! This love potion is made by thunder guitars, power drums, plus various electronics and acoustics sounds, and vocals. If reviewers have often compared the sound of Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO closed to Amon Düül 2, so, Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues sounds close to Amon Düül 1. A surprising and an impressive first recording in this beginning of new century that you should hear to believe it!" Recommended!
Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues featuring the Sun Love and the Heavy Metal Thunder - untitled double LP $34.99 (Fractal)
"WARNING : Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues is a different group than the well-knows Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO and Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno. This new japanese band was created in April 2005 by Magic Aum Gigi (ex-Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO). His main works with the "Melting Paraiso UFO" can be found on the album "AbsolutelyFreak-Out" (2001), the compialtion "Do whatever you want, don't do whatever you don't want !!" (2002), and has released his own solo album "MMMM - My Metal Machine Music" (2004). Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues is an underground punk blues trio composed by two guitarists(Tsuchy, Magic Aum Gigi) with one drum (Mai Mai). Their first album : "Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues featuring the Sun Love and the Heavy Metal Thunder" is a deep raw trip and a wild transgression of the mother nature filtred by the occult powers ! This love potion is made by thunder guitars, power drums, plus various electronics and acoustics sounds, and vocals. If reviewers have often compared the sound of Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO closed to Amon Düül 2, so, Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues sounds close to Amon Düül 1. A surprising and an impressive first recording in this beginning of new century that you should hear to believe it!" Limited edition of only 300 copies and out of print - recommended!
*Alasehir - Torment Of The Metals LP $15.99 (Important Records)
"Limited edition of 500 copies pressed on virgin vinyl. Guitar out-crunch hailing from the Bardo Axis. Alasehir is grounded stoner heavy-zen and the second in our four part Bardo Pond related vinyl set. Alasehir's 4th release, following a CD apiece for the Important, aRCHIVE and Siltbreeze labels, Torment of The Metals 'continues their sonic exploration of dense, languorous, free expansion. Billowing and exploding like a cluster of hashish stars, they produce a cosmic energy akin to a quasar in the heavens far left of Coltrane's OM and just right of the galaxy known as Dead C's Harsh '70s Reality.' -- Siltblog"

*Alumbrados - Monochord LP $15.99 (Important Records)
"Limited edition of 500 copies pressed on virgin vinyl. The third in our four part Bardo Pond related vinyl set. 'Deep in the forest ethno-drones, drenched in buzz and shimmer. Sitar, guitar, cumbas and all sorts of percussion create exquisite layers psych drone Nirvana that will transport you to another dimension. Strangely peaceful, the music we hear in our heads when we lay in grass at night staring at the stars.' - Aquarius Records" - FE

*Andromelos - Andromelos CD $14.99 (Ektro Records)
Andromelos is a psychedelic supergroup formed by Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple, Nishinihon, Musica Transonic, Mainliner, Gong...), Yamazaki Maso (Masonna, Space Machine) and Okano Futoshi (Nishinihon, ex Subert Blaze, ex Ghost).

*Aosuke / Uton - split cassette $6.99 (Ikuisuus)
"Psychedelic ambient trip in sound to the abyssian wonders. Teleportal holes and dive to the other dimensions of time and focus in the free space with surreal and dreamy odd creatures. Like a soundtrack of some mysterious low-budget sci-fi movie from 23rd century "new cinema". c-60, edition of 100 copies."

Aso Ai - Aida CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Document of a recent live show by the most gorgeously acid folk-esque of Japan's female singer-songwriters. A piece of dazed, limpid dream-beauty, with a tremulous, wavering intensity all its own. Since recording her first demo cassette in 1997, Ai Aso has released two full studio albums. She has connections with the cream of the Tokyo psychedelic underground -- You Ishihara (of White Heaven and The Stars) produced her albums, Michio Kurihara, Wata (of Boris), and Chiyo Kamekawa (of The Stars and Yura Yura Teikoku) have played on them. Includes a guest appearance by Go Hirano on piano. Six tracks, thirty-six minutes. Booklet includes lyrics and liner-notes in English and Japanese." - Alan Cummings

Aural Fit - Aural Fit II CD $15.99 (PSF)
"The reincarnation of the in-the-red psych aesthetics of early High Rise. One of the biggest underground psych/noise rock discoveries was Tokyo-based Aural Fit. A heavy, bludgeoning cudgel of a band, all distorted grime and redlined aggression, their 2004 self-released first album burst over the scene like a big bag of heavy spanners. They followed up with a track on Tokyo Flashback 5, but then line-up changes seemed to sideline their juddering, thundering rock juggernaut. Leader Mondo Bohachi has gone about reassembling the group from the ground up, and these are the first recorded results. If anything, it's even scarier, noisier and more rock than last time. 'Loud' and 'psychedelic' are still the watchwords, needles in the red all the way, and all the Stooges, Blue Cheer, TG, etc., references you might require are present and correct." - Alan Cummings.
*Aswara - Aswara CDR $9.99 (Azriel)
"Vibrational string theory in an inner cosmos. hand stamped and embossed art paper covers with hand lettered text. numbered ed. of 160." Features ex-Death Chant duo.

*Bardo Pond - Gazing At Shilla LP $15.99 (Important Records)
"Limited edition pressing of 1000 copies on vinyl heavy enough to hold some of Bardo Pond's headiest jams. This is the first of four vinyl only Bardo-related releases coming out simultaneously on Important Records. Gazing At Shilla is Bardo Pond's first release on Important. The two pieces, both very different in sound and feel, have sat patiently in the Bardo archive waiting for the most opportune moment for release. 'Eight-Thousanders' and 'Kali' are both entirely improvised pieces with no overdubs. Slide blissfully into a smokey heaven and then forget your mind in a lower world of strange tones on side A. If you're still able to flip the record when the needle hits the runoff groove, you'll find yourself exposed to the Goddess Kali's naked blackness. Bardo is out. Are you in?"

*Beach Fuzz with Dave Jackson - Nosferatu Hex CDR $9.99 (Golden Lab Records)
"It's the final Beach Fuzz recording made with Barry Dean on drums and also features the eyeball-melting saxophonic skree of Solar Fire Trio's Dave Jackson. It was recorded in Warrington on 29th Oct '08 and is a more melodic yet typically cacophonous jam than previous releases. We hope you dig. Ltd to 80 copies, sleeves printed on recycled card w/soya based ink." Here's what Norman Records has to say about it..."NOSFERATU HEX. A title so good I can't help but write it in capitals. The sleeve's cool too but I can't write that in capitals...This CD by Beach Fuzz follows up on the limited cassette they did on Blackest Rainbow and definitely doesn't kick out the jams.. In fact it embraces them quite heartily. Saxophonist Dave Jackson (of Solar Fire Trio) joins the band to blow the skin off your very face while everyone else clatters around in a whirlwind of tribal dustbin lid drums, squealing feedback and deep-voiced zombie incantations. It's a bit like a jazzy Heavy Winged+Satan..."

*Bee Mask - No Mutant Enemy c20 cassette $8.99 (Pizza Night)
"Hot of heels of Weird Forest LP... this jams, bell manipulation and synths .. he's the best!"

*Sir Richard Bishop - Plays Sun City Girls 7" $7.99 (No-Fi Records)
"First release in NO-FI's Archive Series recorded live at Morden Tower, July 2005, and featuring SCG classics from Torch Of The Mystics: 'Space Prophet Dogon', 'Esoterica Of Abyssynnia" and a touch of 'The Vinegar Strokes'. Live recording by Andrew Hodson." "more radical rethinks than acoustic tributes. As one third of Sun City Girls, its Bishop's obvious right to explore his own material, but these beautifully energetic takes seem utterly revitalised by anyone's standards." - Scott McKeating, brainwashed.com. Released June 2006.

James Blackshaw - Glass Bead Game, The Young God CD $13.99 (Young God)
"I'm extremely pleased to announce that James Blackshaw will now be releasing his absolutely spellbinding music via Young God Records. He has received attention as a 12-string guitar prodigy / virtuoso. He used to be in punk bands in England, but then he started listening to people like John Fahey, Robbie Basho, etc., and I assume locked himself in a room for 12 hours a day for several years and just played constantly. It takes intense discipline and a religious commitment to get to the place where he's at with his instrument. But his music isn't about his "skill." It's not showy. It's deeply meditative--the secret language of a pre-thought, pre-dream place. "Blackshaw plays soulful and kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting mantra cycles of incredible beauty. Just his guitar by itself, with its swirling overtones, cascading notes, and a thousand points of light, resembles an orchestra, but with further orchestration--piano, strings, wind, and vocals--the music is positively cinematic and mesmerizing. "The 18-minute-plus gem on this record is 'Arc,' performed on piano with the sustain pedal on full throttle. The rush of sound created by the overtones from Heaven, augmented by strings and wind, when played at proper (full) volume, is one of the most thrilling pieces of music I've heard in years. It takes a rare and single-minded courage and commitment to make music with such a powerfully positive force at its heart, especially in these troubled times. This is healing music that reaches for what's possible, just beyond our grasp. It is stellar..."Blackshaw is joined on this record by Joolie Wood (Current 93, Simon Finn) on violin, clarinet, and flute, and John Contreras (Baby Dee and Current 93) on cello. Lavinia Blackwall (Directing Hand) is a classically trained singer and contributed vocals." --Michael Gira/Young God Records

*Blue Sabbath Black Cheer - Dried Up Corpse - split 10" $11.99 (Gnarled Forest)
"Originally released as a c16 on What We Do Is Secret in an edition of 50 copies. Two bleak and desolate trips to despairsville are what await you here, BSBC take a more minimulist approach to horror than the usual roar, sure to make you a bit uneasy as your led into the fog. DUC ride a slow drone of death into the winds of the end. Comes housed in a screen printed jacket, front and back, with a double sided insert." Edition of 300 copies.

*Bong / Quittinirpaaq - split LP $17.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Bong are Newcastle's finest doom stoner band, as you'd expect you got distant vocals, totally wild psych guitar, heavy solid drums, but the thing with Bong that gives them a totally different vibe from all the weak band is they got a damn sitar in there, and it sounds so damn killer. On the flip we got a slice of Quttinirpaaq, we released a CDR by this dude last year to some damn good reviews, its hard to understand how so few people know this dude. It's basically the one man band of Texan Matt Turner who definitely doesn't bust out the Texas blues or country styles... this isn't no straight up doom though, opening with totally weirdo keys and feedback, with what sounds like some droning vocals and bizarre clicks, this is pretty out there. That is until three minutes in when Matt plugs in and then trashes a drum kit, whilst all this other crazy shit is going on. This is a fucking killer act, as far as I am concerned this is genius, not like any other drone doom vibes going on out there right now. Limited to 300 copies."

*Burning Star Core - Amelia 10" $11.99 (No-Fi Records)
"First in the series of six 10"s by C. Spencer Yeh entitled 'Mes Soldats Stupides 96-05'. Hard to find reissues on vinyl for the first time. Includes insert with design by guest artist Robert Beatty (Hair Police)." "Three very different but equally captivating electronic pieces, this may be some of the most focused work Spencer has produced to date." (Rock-A-Rolla magazine)

*Burning Star Core - WSBC/SSS 10" $11.99 (No-Fi Records)
"Second in the series of six 10"s from C. Spencer Yeh, launching immediately into a giant feedback epic that slowly reveals delicate harmonies beneath a sea of howling distortion. This edition comes with insert insert design by John Olson (Wolf Eyes)."

*Burnt Hills - Microburst LP $17.99 (Flipped Out Records)
"Shred your head as five blistering guitars rage with wah wah fury, a blown out bass drops the heavy anchor, an eight-armed drummer pummels through the basement night and an amplified xylophone sprays broken glass into the clouds. Reissue of the Yod Tapes CD-R. Edition of 99 copies."

*Caboladies - Atomic Weekender LP $19.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"It's been a good couple of years for these three burners from Kentucky. After killer releases on the likes of Arbor, Students of Decay, & others they're ready to drop their first pile of wax on an unsuspected public. "Atomic Weekender" is just that - massive, epic, and full of more good times than any one person should have on a two-day bender. But that's alright because these spiralling drones are here to bring you back down from that golden cloud and into a blanket of silvery cotton fields. It starts off well and good, pushing through the stratosphere and on a straight path to the sun. You're not floating, you're fucking flying at mach five. Hypnotic synth blasts propel you and tear you apart. Caboladies rattle your skull and paint your skin blue. By the time you've reached the ground again, you're lost in a neon haze that stretches out for miles. As the metal leaves crunch in time beneath your feet, the music in your head sounds like it's been submerged beneath 20,000 leagues of sea. All the drugs in the world won't make you feel this fucking good. Caboladies. Megatons. LP comes in silkscreened sleeve and is strictly limited to 100 copies."

*Circle - Meronia CD $14.99 (Ektro Records)
"1991. We had been running a small indie label called Bad Vugum for a mere four years, but we genuinely felt we had found bands that made a difference, definitely in the budding Finnish scene at least. So in 1991 friends and even total strangers at gigs and festivals suddenly started telling us that the best two undiscovered bands come from a drab small town called Pori - and that they both sounded exactly like they should be on Bad Vugum. Naturally our interest was piqued and we got to hear the self-released 7"s by these bands called Circle and Deep TurtleŠ Alas, we were not overly impressed. "They're still undeveloped, they still sound too much like their apparent musical heroes, and most importantly the songs aren't strong enough", we convinced ourselves. To this day I still thank our lucky stars that Mr. Dassum of Deep Turtle, who recorded in the same small basement as Circle, called me and asked if we were at all interested in hearing some new Deep Turtle demos. Sure we were, and we sure got more than we bargained for: as a bonus he also included some new stuff from their friends Circle - and we were blown away by both bands' progression. We duly agreed to start releasing 7" EP's at first, just to make sure the bands only put out all killer / no filler kinds of records, and to slowly build a following before any financially riskier album productions. During the next 18 months Circle for their part got two awesome EP's out of their system, and absolutely floored live audiences all over the country with their high-intensity gigs. Which were more akin to hypnotic mass rituals, what with their glowing body paints, jarring lighting tricks and various blooddripping props. Sometime in 93 - 94 the guys and we both felt sure Circle were mature enough for a full-length. After unleashing them in the studio we got to hear quite a few mind-boggling new, slower songs they had concocted, then a few more. Then even more. We almost couldn't believe our ears, it was becoming clear that a single LP could not contain these inspired goofballs' creative output. Recently I discovered I still get goosebumps from listening closely to Meronia. Not just because I love just about every track on the album, but also because it brings me back to the days of trying to work out the best possible order for the songs. I'm always on a personal mission to "help" bands with that ( IMHO) essential dimension to any record, but Meronia's sprawling bulk of 15 -16 tracks (we often added bonus tracks on the vinyl versions, even with single LP's, just to mess with CD buyers) proved a daunting task. I spent literally days and weeks immersing myself in the music, switching and changing the song sequence every which way - and those were the gruelling days of a double-deck cassette players, mind you. Then I spent hours on the phone with Circle's Jussi, discussing and speculating what each track might "mean" in any particular order. I felt I truly lived on planet Meronia. In Finland, the album got rave reviews both in the underground zines and, somewhat surprisingly, mainstream press as well. Abroad, it opened some new doors in the underground, but surprisingly was not licensed for a foreign release. In those times small foreign labels still seemed to settle for 7" records for Circle. But it was still early days in what was later to become a global Circle industry as we know itŠ What is it now? Some 20 + albums, half of which on foreign labels? And whenever I talk to Jussi, Circle seem to have at least three albums already recorded and waiting for a release. They've sure succeeded in carving a respectable niche for themselves, while still taking chances and trying new things. Maximum respec'. To wrap this up, a funny Meronia anecdote. In the mid-90's someone claiming to be an A& R executive for the David Geffen Company sent us a fax, complete with letterheads and everything, requesting a promo copy of Meronia. He wrote he was a big fan of the 7" stuff he had heard and was interested in checking out the band's "album potential". We sent the CD, and waited for a reply. I mean c'mon, the label that made Sonic Youth huge, right? Well, since we didn't hear anything, I first faxed the guy back, and then even called the number on the letterhead - but it didn't even connectŠOh the lengths resourceful Circle fans can go to when hunting for an import missing from their collection!" - Heikonen, Bad Vugum / BV 2 Produktions. The 2007 Ektro Records release is a re-mastered version and features updated artwork.

*Circle - Panic CD $14.99 (Ektro Records)
"A new release from Circle, once again. This time these experimental veterans study the both ends of the previously unheard static / hyper-active scale. Soundwise they have clearly proceeded to the 21st century, jumping from limpid synthesizer soundscapes to wall-smashing "speed-kraut" bursts. The triptych construction of the album along with the cover art that portrays war and street riots raise various associations on the history and the current state of Western civilization." 2007 release.

*Circle - Rakennus (Live) CD $14.99 (Ektro Records)
"Rakennus - approximately the seventh full length Circle release this year - is an hour-long snapshot of the band's recent tour of the USA. The concert (recorded in September in Charlottesville, Virginia) thunders and wobbles onwards with unprocessed autenticity. The recording effectively captures the full spectrum of Circle's contemporary live expression, revealing to us a glimpse of the spiritual landscapes of the most astonishing speedkraut pioneers of our times. There's an abundance of ritualistic rumbling to be discovered between the twitchy hard rock show opener "Uusi uhraus" and "Kaappikellon kummitus", the ravishing Rättö ja Lehtisalo cover song that closes the album. Rakennus displays the joy of playing music in its most pure form." (Eetormentor). 2007 release.

Circle - Triumph double LP $22.99 (Adverse Effect)
"Recorded in 2007 at a WFMU Radio session in New Jersey, the material on this latest LP from Finnish kraut-experimenters Circle includes some of their strongest to date. In addition to a plethora of strange, progged-out passages, Triumph features some incredibly sensitive, far less theatrical work. Tracks like fifteen-minuter 'Skiing' and the similarly slippery 'Dungeon' are full of tumbling piano keys and delay effects, creating an atmosphere that's somewhere between Sunburned Hand Of The Man at their most blissed-out and The Necks when they let Chris Abrahams loose. Always purveyors of superior kosmische fare, this release ranks amongst the Finnish bands finest..." Restocked.

*Cygnus / Night Movie - Steel On Steel split cassette $7.99 (Fag Tapes)
"side A. H. Moerland and G. Morren ( Odd Clouds ) guitar and what-the? duo project. side B. Morren, the better half of Cygnus, throwing down solo recordings. recollections memoir sounding like making something caked in dust only to see it grow young if music had age. and in classic Night Movie style cover art by Mary Morren. edition 35."

*Dead Luke - Dead Luke cassette $5.99 (Ski-Fi)
"Wisconsin's Dead Luke lays down 60 minutes of a-side worthy driving, blown out jams that sound like they were mixed down through a missile command console. Whatever you want to call it, shitgaze, dirtwave, punk from the future... it delivers."

*Divine Coils and Lanterns - Easy Hours collaborative c40 cassette $8.99 (Lotus Birth)
"A sonic mind uniting collabortion between Leeds and Glasgow astral drone duo Lanterns and Oxford laminal improvising duo Divine Coils. Side A: A side long jam uniting threads of mirco tonal speaker feedback, ebowed snare, glimmers of submerged guitar vibrations, & metalaphone reverberations. Side B: One track of gentle bells, found percussion, & shimmering single note guitar, and a second of fog shrouded ambient tones and metallic whir. Limited to 80 boxed sprayed blue tapes w/ found photo negitive colour printed on card."

*Diza Star - Blues Reason To Live 7" EP $8.99 (Fractal)
"Our Legs Are Our Car, Our Legs Are Our Freedom / We Are Living In The Ice Age / The Disa-Ster World Is By Definition Vertical, Dizzy Sound / An Exciting Up And Down Where Nothing Is Sure, Anytime / Two Left Hand Guitarists, The Good And The Bad Player / Dig Up Three Unreleased Tracks From Our Archive / Our Electric Free Blues Music / We Knew Well That It Should Be Released Properly / The Blues Reason To Live / Love Your Devil Side And Your Enemy" - Diza Star.

Diza Star - Contact High Diza Star CD $19.99 (Fractal)
"Yea, the Japanese Underground Punk Blues Band continue more deeper his own psychedelic experience! Diza Star 5th album is the last branch of the star after 4 titles released on Fractal Records. This toxic parfume is a direct wink to the 60's rebel spirit like The Godz, Amon Düül and Les Rallizes Dénudés. A unique example in this new century of a broken music in a perpetual movement...Limited numbered edition 100 copies, comes with 2 inserts stamped and each copies is unique. JAPANESE PRESSING ONLY with OBI"

Diza Star & The Pink Ladies Blues - 3 LP $24.99 (Fractal)
"Early in this year, Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues has slightly changed their name into : Diza Star & The Pink Ladies Blues. A short biography and all reasons of this change are well explained and detailed in the liner notes includes in this album. Following to their short second "The Soul of a Mountain Wolf" released 6 months ago, this new one is simply and logically titled "3". It's quite obvious that this japanese "Underground Punk Blues" trio has focused on this recording at their most political orientation as state the thema on each vinyl side : Utopia/Anarchy. The band made indisputable a strong reference, ideologicaly, to some underground 70's group like Amon Düül, Checkpoint Charlie, Ton Steine Scherben, Red Noise etc.... The result is 5 tracks, all instrumental, with 2 sides musically opposite : the first one has a groovy sound, psychedelic and folky flavor (with Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru as guest on one track) and the other brings differents collages (including various natural sound sources, from insects to human walk...) and put the band at the peak of their crazyness on the final track "Diza Star". Limited numbered vinyl edition to 197 ex. (comes with 2 inserts)."

*Doktor Kettu - Soft Delirium CD $14.99 (Super Metsä)
"Doktor Kettu sounds like a rock'n'roll band being thrown down a well in low gravity. Years ago they hid themselves in a small cottage by the sea, only to emerge later as a stream of CD-R releases documenting their slow rituals. Today all of these recordings are desperately sought-after collector's items, but the band itself has carefully stayed away from sight. Now Ektro's Super Metsä imprint is releasing the first "proper" Doktor Kettu offering ever - Soft Delirium is music that is so disconnected from time that its notes are only now just about to reach us, two years after the recording session. Doktor Kettu is Petri Hagner, Jussi Lehtisalo, Tuomas Niskanen, Alpo Nummelin and Jouko Salenius." 3 tracks 41 minutes.

*Dreamcolour - Spiritual Celebration cassette $6.99 (Not Not Fun)
"There's currently a glut of bands dog-paddling around the trans-continental psych-pond with names involving words like 'color,' 'dream,' and 'infinity,' and Ventura County brass-groove arkestra Dreamcolour are smack thick in the middle of this '08-'09 nomenclatorial zeitgeist (though to their credit they use the British spelling). Yet, semi-ironically, the mood of the zones they explore on Spiritual Celebration are wonderfully vintage, with a strange, reverential "out of time" quality that seems decidedly non-NOW. Hand-drums beat along with a steady, easy lope, saxes are crooned (not skronked) smoothly up towards the sun, Farfisa trills further brighten the corners. There's no damaged FX-abuse or lo-fi freakouts; all minds are fused into one gently simmering open-air spiritual jazz homage. Echoes of Don Cherry abound. The tape is split into three chapters: a stunning 20-minute A-side hayride ("Spiritual Celebration"), a briefer horn flurry piece ("Sun Ritual"), and a gorgeous lunar meditation chamber ("Moon Ritual"). A great West Coast force with an exotic back catalogue and a killer live vibe, worth keeping tabs on. Pro-dubbed cassettes in cases with full-color marker/collage J-cards designed by Amanda. Edition of 100 copies."

Ducktails - Ducktails LP $13.99 (Not Not Fun)
"This one's been on the way for a while but there were a few delays but now it's out, just in time for his first overseas tour w/TOMUTTONTU. this is Mr Matt Mondanile's debut CD/LP full-length under his DUCKTAILS flag and it's weird and warped and poppy and trippy and worth many a spin. many of the songs may be recognized from previous limited-style releases but this is the major statement, a collection of gems from one of our fave psych-pop jewelers." "Matt Mondanile's self-titled debut full length has been hotly anticipated in the wake of his killer cassettes and single 7" appearance. Here he finally has the room to spread his imaginary surf-psych-pop across a full 2 sides of wax, and the wait was worth it. Mastered by Graham Lambkin (of The Shadow Ring), with cover art by Jan Anderzen (of Finnish folk-psych visionaries Kemialliset Ystavat)."

Ducktails - Ducktails CD $11.99 (Not Not Fun)
"This one's been on the way for a while but there were a few delays but now it's out, just in time for his first overseas tour w/TOMUTTONTU. this is Mr Matt Mondanile's debut CD/LP full-length under his DUCKTAILS flag and it's weird and warped and poppy and trippy and worth many a spin. many of the songs may be recognized from previous limited-style releases but this is the major statement, a collection of gems from one of our fave psych-pop jewelers." "Matt Mondanile's self-titled debut full length has been hotly anticipated in the wake of his killer cassettes and single 7" appearance. Here he finally has the room to spread his imaginary surf-psych-pop across a full 2 sides of wax, and the wait was worth it. Mastered by Graham Lambkin (of The Shadow Ring), with cover art by Jan Anderzen (of Finnish folk-psych visionaries Kemialliset Ystavat)."

*Electric Omen - Abandon All Hope cassette $10.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Electric Omen is possibly some of my favorite work of Sindre Bjerga, rumbling darkness, like an earthquake at night, this is unexpected and terrifying. Bleak black and white covers. Limited to 60."

*Expo '70 - Psychosis LP $16.99 (Peasant Magik)
"Random alien noises drift in and out, distracting you from the hellish static brewing. Melodies begin to creep out of the murk, still covered in filth, trying desperately to escape, forever being pulled back down. Guitars lament for their fallen brothers, and the battle begins. Standard edition consists of 180 gram black vinyl, silk screened 12" x 24" insert, and pro-printed covers and OBI."

*Face Plant - Face Plant LP $15.99 (Heard Worse)
"Face Plant is the solo modular hessian noise trance project of Aaron Coyes (Unborn Unicorn, Rahdunes, Peaking Lights) with brutal frequency's, mellow drone, and all around stoney flavoring, pumping thru a large ape mans primitive oscillating home brewed modular synth made from old stereo components and hacked up electronics connected to a homemade 3 head tape delay, and some hand cut records being played on one fucking hefty needle!" Includes some additional material by Rats With Wings.

*Face Plant - untitled cassette $7.99 (Fag Tapes)
"Whoa! Aaron Coyes (Rah Dunes, Peaking Lights ) solo. home-made synth stuff rad heavy heavy work junk garbage rot gunk nose-pick stall drift acid-drop wheel-bite. AMAZING SOUNDS ! edition 50."

500mg - Another Order Of Existence CD $14.99 (Archive)
"A two part experimental acoustic guitar offering funneled through a train load of pedals and effect and then ejected from a Marshall ½ stack performed by Michael Gibbons of Bardo Pond (and all things Philadelphia and psychedelic). Recorded by myself in 2007 at the worlds nosiest book store - BigJar in Philly. The CD edition comes housed in a slightly taller sleeve with two color silk screen work by Alan Sherry of SIWA on a heavyweight 140lb paper. The front cover is die cut with an inserted picture from the performance printed on vellum, all hand glued and assembled by myself. Graphic work by Demian Johnston." Edition of 500 copies.

*Flower-Corsano Duo - The Undisputed Dimension 7" $7.99 (No-Fi Records)
"The unholy alliance of Mick Flower and percussive everyman Chris Corsano: Corsano has been widely hailed as the next chapter in the story of out-there drumming - he's played with everyone worth mentioning at the massive freenoisefolkpsych crossroads. Similarly, Mick's renowned for his work with Vibracathedral Orchestra and Sunburned Hand Of The Man, amongst many others. Together they construct a devilishly beautiful psychedelic maelstrom, Chris like a polyrhythmic octopus on the kit, Mick conjuring sublime lysergic ragas from the shaahi baaja."

*Flower-Corsano Duo - Four Aims double LP $17.99 (Vhf)
"The Four Aims is the much-anticipated second full-length by the long-running duo of Mick Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof, Michael Flower Band) and Chris Corsano (Flaherty/Corsano, Jandek, Bjork, Sunburned). In the couple years since their debut, The Radiant Mirror (Textile), the two have toured and recorded frequently, expanding their range to include a mind-boggling array of free sound. "I, Brute Force" kicks off the record with their signature-- one of the most original in rock/free/whatever music-- the electrifying sound of Flower's virtuosic, heavily amplified Japan Banjo (also known as a Shaahi Baaja) over Corsano's free-wheeling percussion. Other tracks show off subtle improv moves, with both players using extended techniques to generate a wide range of unusual sounds. Corsano's technical mastery is almost without peer in his generation (Alex Neilson, maybe)-- his ability to take the lessons of nearly five decades of free playing and extend them into new ranges is startling and exciting. Rather than play backup, Corsano meets Flower's strings and organ head-on with his own drum-bowing, cello, and circular-breathing-fired melodica." Was mis-shipped. Vinyl copies here Tuesday so all pre-orders will be filled as soon as box arrives.

*Flower Travellin' Band - Satori LP $22.99 (Phoenix)
"Repressed. Previously issued on CD by Phoenix Records (and o/p already), now issued on deluxe LP format as well; 180 gram pressing. Reissue of the second Flower Travellin' Band album, originally issued by Atlantic Records in Japan in 1971. Satori 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. Yamanaka's banshee-like vocal style turned 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." - FE

*Fragments - Retching Sunshine c60 cassette $8.99 (Pizza Night)
"If people freaked out on the Hanson tape, they will be shocked by this full hour of insane synth zones... actually sounds like early Tangerine Dream."

*Ryojiro Furusawa & Kan Mikami - Buriki / Tin CD $15.99 (PSF)
"A sparse and stripped-back yet fully impassioned meditation on time, history and freedom. Surreal folk meets free jazz. Two tracks, including a 24 minute, one-take masterpiece. Ryojiro Furusawa is one of Japan's most respected jazz drummers, having played from the late '60s with everyone from Yosuke Yamashita and Sadao Watanabe to Yuji Imamura, Maki Asakawa and Shang Shang Typhoon. He's also been a long time collaborator with Kan Mikami, appearing on Kan's Bang! album in 1974. Kan Mikami is Japan's wisest and wildest folk-poet, a surreal master of the non-sequitur blues, a worldclass howler of truth and passion. This is the duo's third album, following Shokugyo (1987) and Dereki (2007). Gatefold high-gloss papersleeve, including lyrics in Japanese and English."

*Golden Jooklo Age - Ritual one-sided LP $24.99 (Troglosound)
"Second press (the first was an ultra-ltd edition of 12 copies) of this obscure live recording, an ethereal vortex of electric moon-sounding mandolin and slow bass (Luca Massolin), spacey keyboards (David Vanzan), primitive astral soprano sax and voice (Virginia Genta). Atmospheres for the end of the earthly." Edition of 280 copies with handmade collage artwork by Troglosound.

*Keiji Haino / Makoto Kawabata / Tatsuya Yoshida - Ichi to Ichi to Ichi ga Kasanatte Shimaumade DVD $19.99 (PSF)
Features Keiji Haino (guitar), Makoto Kawabata (guitar), and Tatsuya Yoshida (drums). "Second release by a new super-group featuring Keiji Haino, Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), and Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins). Recorded live in Tokyo in December 2008. An hour's worth of sharply photographed alternately dense, brutal, coruscating and beautiful interplay from three of the hardest hitters in the Japanese underground, with the interplay between Haino's scalding, molten darkness and Kawabata's crunch and ripple particularly invigorating.
NB For those confused by the title, the trio's previous release on Magaibutsu was entitled Ichi to ichi ga kasanatte shimaumade (Until one and one come to overlap). This one is Ichi to ichi to ichi ga kasanatte shimaumade (Until one and one and one come to overlap). Just so you knowŠFifty-nine minutes. Region-free NTSC DVD." - Alan Cummings

Keiji Haino / Kawabata Makoto / Yoshida Tatsuya - Ichi to Ichi ga Kasanatte Shimaumade DVD $17.99 (Magaibutsu)
Live recording from August 18, 2008 at After Beat, in Tokyo. Features Haino (guitar), Kawabata (guitar), & Yoshida (drums). NTSC, region free. Also includes two mp3's. 76 minutes in length (video & audio combined). Highly recommended!

*Hair Police - Our Lunar Guardian c60 cassette $5.99 (Gods of Tundra)
"An hour of brand new cycles and songs. Numerous short tunes, some extended deep basement moments..all recorded under the watch of our lunar guardian. This was available in limited quantity on HP tour in a different package..this is standard jewel case version."

*Harps Of Fuchsia Kalmia - Fractal Psych-Obsessions for Rural Chaos CDR $7.99 (267 Lattajjaa)
"Subversive psychedelic strumming" Harps of Fuchsia kalmia is Salvatore Borrelli who plays Max/Msp processing, Balalaika, Banjo, Ogororo, Cymbals, Electric & Acoustic Guitar, Egyptian Harp, Tampura Swarmanthal, Drums, Violin, Esraj, Sansula. On the last track also Valerio Cosi (sax), Francesco Gregoretti (second drums), Siddhi (drone) and Federica R. (voice). This work is recorded in four "private live sessions" without editing and mixing.

*Heavy Winged & Inca Ore - Ring Mining LP $13.99 (Not Not Fun)
"Wild collaborative LP by these 2 deep psych visionaries. One side is a studio collab merging HW's pummeling psych-frenzy with cascading waves of IO-keyboard bliss. The other side is a rare, unhinged live recording of the single time these outfits ever performing together...imagine HW with a freaked out lead singer. Strange and great." "A stunning, crazy, radical joining-of-forces between our favorite instrumental psych-light power trio and our favorite west coast private voice dreamer, a full 3 years in the making. one side is a wild live collab from a 2006 brooklyn performance, the other is a 2008 studio creation. the best of both worlds. mastered by james plotkin."

High Rise - Disallow CD $15.99 (PSF)
"This High Rise album [Disallow] will need no recommending to anyone who has already heard and liked the band. For what it's worth, though, this is as impressive as any other (despite the super stupid Ninja-chrome writing and Carcass-style 'art' on the cover). So for the most part (for four five-minute parts) a selection of change-our-minds-as-we-go punk rock riffs (check out, for instance, the better part of the Electric Prunes' mighty 'You Never Had it Better' as it's driven so fast it shakes itself nearly to pieces under the name 'Ikon') get blown up large through a thick and thunderous magnifying lens of loud fuzz and wah and the real-as-you-like feel of live jamming. What's different (from II and Dispersion, anyway), is that you can hear the drums a little better than usual, and that they sound a little worse than usual (less Stoogely, more hardcore), played this time by one PILL; and there's a longer piece of doodle-to-climax free form stuff at the end which seems a bit of a distraction from what they do best, especially when the CD is only half full. It's generally intenser, though, and closer to the punch of II than anything. They've been boiling down Vincebus Eruptum and No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith with Live Dead and a few Buffalo LP's for over a decade now, and that the tarry goo at the bottom of the pan tastes this good might just make them the heaviest power trio of all time". -Jon Bywater, Opprobrium #3, 1996

High Rise - Desperado CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Long awaited sixth album from 1998 for PSF (following the epics II, Dispersion, Live, and Disallow) by this time-honored post-motor-city rave up clan, featuring Nanjo Asahito on bass/vox, Munehiro Narita on 'motor-cycle-guitar' and Shoji Hano on drums. Phrases like 'in the red' or 'amped-up' don't even begin to relate present levels of near-fatal voltage abuse. Contains some off-kilter exploratory cuts that don't veer to far from paths cut by sister ensemble Musica Transonic, which I suppose could be determined as a 'new direction'. Still, a ridiculous display of caffeine/sugar energy converted into audible wavelengths by Tokyo's premiere baff-rock scuzz-manics." -Hrvatski

High Rise - Destination (Best of) CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Unbelievably, High Rise are celebrating their twentieth anniversary this year. Strictly speaking, they started out as Psychedelic Speed Freaks, only taking the High Rise name in 1983. But, whatever - the will to a state where uber-heaviness and uber-speed merge into one all-enveloping bliss haze has been their one shining goal for a full two decades now. Acceleration, motor-burn, and blinding forward motion encapsulated through guitar, bass and drums. What you get is twelve remastered tracks of totally thrilling, full on, heads down, speed-psych-metal mayhem taken from their classic PSF releases. The album also includes two previously unreleased tracks: a studio version of live favourite 'Ikon', and a new
piece called 'Heavenly Power'. For once the superlatives are fully deserved. High Rise are the band that kick-started a label and a scene. They're the power-trio to end all power-trios." - Alan Cummings

High Rise - Dispersion CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Their 3rd release. Killer-Fuzz-Wah-Wah psychedelic heaven! Excellent stuff-must for every speed-fuzz-freak!"

High Rise - Live CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Their 1st live CD. Naked madness of Japanese psychedelic. Great performance!" "Trio heavy fuzz blasts of near speaker blowing proportions. Their third CD (fourth album overall) and possibly their most flat out insane." - FE

High Rise - Psychedelic Speed Freaks Live 1986 DVD $19.99 (PSF)
"First DVD by the kings of speed garage psychedelia, High Rise! Recorded live in Osaka in 1986, around the time of their second album by the all-time classic line-up of Nanjo (bass, vocals), Narita (guitar) and Ujiie (drums). Suitably grainy and colour-saturated visuals capture the group laying down their staggering brand of intense garage-psych with Narita's guitar ripping weird, devastating solo holes in the songs, and Ujiie and Nanjo laying down that exhilarating sense of reckless acceleration. Still some of the most effective rock qua rock ever recorded. Just unbelievable. Six tracks, 25 minutes." - Alan Cummings.

High Rise Psychobomb - US Tour 2000 CD $15.99 (PSF)
"First live High Rise album on PSF since the still astounding peak of 'Live' (PSFD-48). Seven tracks, fifty-two minutes. If there's anyone that doesn't already know, High Rise were where it all started. A group that boiled down improv, the hardest psych, the fastest punk into an injectable shot of accelerated adrenaline. The group were source of the first psych-ic rumbles to reach the West, indicating that something quite remarkable was happening in the Tokyo underground. Without High Rise there would have been no PSF (the acronym stands for Psychedelic Speed Freaks - the group's early moniker and the title of their debut album), no Musica Transonic, no Mainliner... This latest release features the group live in New York and Seattle on their most recent US tour, before an adoring audience of speedfreak boneheads (maybe you'll even hear yourself hollering 'louder' or 'faster'). Surprisingly, the trademark Nanjo production aesthetic has been toned down a notch, leaving the splattered acid genius and tonal control (!) of Narita's solos the most evident they've ever been. Nanjo and ex-White Heaven drummer Koji Shimura are as poundingly heavy a rhythm section as you could wish for. But it's the guitar where it is at: there's still nothing quite like Narita kicking open the throttle and tearing into a manic solo, leaving shit-eating grins to eat dust in his wake..."

High Rise - II CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Monumental performance by Japanese psychedelic garage masters. Incredibly wild and tough guitar sound." "Reissue of the 2nd High Rise LP, with 2 bonus tracks. Ultimate all-in-the-red distortion-psych monster. Blew away the few who heard it on first release in the mid '80s and continues to convert people along the way." - FE

*Hive Mind - A Feast Within c20 cassette $5.99 (Gods of Tundra)
"The conflict between Hive Mind and body spills into the real world in a decades-long feud, distorting reality and affecting the entire human race."

The Hospitals - Hairdryer Peace CD $9.99 (Meds)
"Finally available on cd. Ranked 3rd best album of 2008 in The Wire magazine. Intensely psychedelic and mixed for maximum hallucinations, this marks a pretty heavy departure from the Hospitals of old. Heavy tranced out riffs, weird pop, cracked folk, disorienting noise, paranoid vibes...Main Hospital Adam Stonehouse with Rob Enbom & Rod Meyer from Eat Skull and Chris Gunn from The Hunches. The most forward thinking album of 2008 but also an album of songs with actual emotional intensity. Not a party record and definitely not background music. Best listened to loud, alone and with herbal assistance."

The Hunter Gracchus - Companions of the Porch CDR $9.99 (Golden Lab Records)
"We've never been able to quite pin down exactly how the The Hunter Gracchus are going to play on any given occasion, which is a wonderful thing. A shifting unit with Syed Kamran Ali, Fiona Marshall and Jon Marshall at the core, they have recently settled into a fairly stable unit of six, but it's hard to know how long that'll last. Still, while it does, it's producing all manner of magical and highly unexpected performances. The one captured here was recorded at the band's practice room cum gig space, Fagin's Hideout/The Furniture Makers and is a less blistering freakout than some of their recent output, preferring to quietly explore every nook of tonal space. It simmers rather than erupts and, the longer you become immersed in it, the less aware you become of the passage of time. It's a recording that feels like it should go on forever and, when it does come to a close, the silence is shocking. In a time when it's all too easy for a group of improvisers to just go full-tilt in some euphoric pursuit, the Hunter Gracchus provides us with a glowing alternative that draws us slowly in and drowns our senses. This is truly awesome. Ltd to 80 copies, sleeves printed on recycled card w/soya based ink, no less."
Idea Fire Company - Beauty School LP $27.99 (Ultra Eczema)
"During my last visit to the states, about 2 years ago, one of the highlights was definatly a night long visit to SCOTT FOUST's house! john shaw took us there and explained from before what it was gonne be like, we would be seated down in a confortable couch while "the last great man" would stand up next to a pedastal with some quality whiskey, dope and cigarettes on it, sporting a mono coloured suit and sunglasses (day and night) while foust is telling stories about different art records, and mainly his own work, ranging from short films, visual work and audio since 1978! it was exactly how shaw explained it. i was blown away by the honesty and the effort him and his ladyfriend KARLA BORECKI put into their work, and how little response they get to it. we shared a common interest in arrogant "pop" quality, and especially the situationists, to which he relates his work to in only a esthetic way! i think it is a quality in people when u can't devide their work with their persona, idea fire company is a collective of people that definatly swing that robe! beautiful carpets of radio bleebs and static, piano (karla borecki is a trained pianiste) and almost kraut like synth ambience. comes in a mono coloured sleeve by dennis tyfus full of dots, and comes with an insert. limited to 300 copies."

Jooklo Finnish Quartet - Birthday Session one-sided LP $24.99 (Troglosound)
"The Birthday Session features the wild burning sound of the two crossed tenor and soprano saxophones of Sami Pekkola and Virginia Genta, alongside with Tero Kemppainen on a deeply blues double-bass and David Vanzan on exploding free drums. Recorded in Helsinki after ten days of tour around Finland (right on the night of Genta's birthday) and first fruit of the Jooklo finnish brotherhood, this session turned to be a deep exploration of the purifying fire that brings to complete and sublime liberation. The Quartet Session was taped at the end of a long and exhausting day of recordings in many different combinations, so the last energy came out in these three wildest improvisations. The first take "Tenors Force" sees the weave of the two tenors creating mirrors' like dynamics and getting one together on the deep impressing bass lines and the flowing drums. Then the sound turns on "Breath Time", a moment of suspension and dilatation, to prepare the right energy for the last "Soprano Connections", elevating the free Spirit of fire music to its highest sensitive point, like under the Grace of a divine breast." One sided 12" on black vinyl - numbered edition of 224 copies with hand-made collage artwork by Troglosound. Super nice!

*Kane Pour - Wand in the Beak of the Yellow Bird c20 cassette $5.99 (Housecraft)
"Some impromptu kane-to-tape dirges recorded at the LiteHouse, Gainesville in late March '09. These are the first solo recordings released in almost 20 months (see Pospulenn). Following a steady stream of Tricorn and Queue cassettes, this is falling right in stride, expanding evermore on his signature ultra-saturated poly-rhythmic stream melodics. Warm as wool. Variant covers--painted shells, cases, and inserts. numbered edition of 50."

Keijo - Neverending Blues CD $12.99 (Ikuisuus)
"According to Indian mythology everything was born and will be born with vibration, sound. What Western civilization calls music, is narrow, nothing but strictly controlled thread in that vibrating area. Other kind of threads have been mastered elsewhere. Inevitably these threads will also face each other and become one. Basic note chimes in blues, raga and mantra. I dreamt of musics and players who can modulate with music, no matter which cultural background they come from... I felt I understood something about the sounds I sometimes heard in the evening just before falling into sleep and in the morning when I woke up." Keijo Virtanen (Kheta Hotem, Free Players, Rambling Boys) makes his long distance walk into the stream of folk/countryblues continuum. These marvellously rusty and dusty tracks have been cooking with tender flame in Keijo?s mind&soul for a good while: "When I was just a little boy, I used to just lay down under the blanket (just before falling to sleep) randomly switching the channels of our transistor radio. Under the crunches and washes I also found the new pirate radio stations and there, among the speeches came out the echoing, rhythmic, electric guitar music. Eventually under rock music and British pop music I discovered the sounds of the black people of North America. I felt like those deep singing voices and wailing guitars would somehow also belong to this kind of environment, to rural, middle-of-nowhere Finland, surrounded by wildlife and physical work with our own hands and whatever we may get grown from the land. Blues was burning onto recordings in Jyväskylä and Kuusankoski, Finland 2006-2007."

*Keijo - Reduce Snow CDR $7.99 (267 Lattajjaa)
"More damaged blues from Keijo, recorded in Jyväskylä and Kuusankoski, Finland 2008 - 2009."

Greg Kelley & Alex Neilson - Passport to Satori LP $14.99 (Golden Lab Records)
"This beautiful super-heavyweight LP, which comes packaged in a sweet full-colour sleeve reunites the UK's premier free drummer Alex Neilson, who's played, amongst others, with Motor Ghost, Directing Hand, Trembling Bells, Tight Meat Duo, Josephine Foster, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Jandek, MV&EE, Richard Youngs, Baby Dee and Alastair Galbraith, with Nmperign member Greg Kelley, whose reinvention of the trumpet is as crucial now as Anthony Braxton's reinvention of the sax was 30 years ago. A screeching, soaring, scattergun array of noises come maniacally out of Greg's horn, unlike anything we've ever heard and he successfully straddles no wave, concrete and free jazz in a way that makes those genres seem like trite pigeonholes. Limited to 500 copies."
*Kenji Siratori - Hototogisu CDR $7.99 (267 Lattajjaa)
"Experimental cyber ambient. All sounds by Kenji Siratori, recorded in march 2009 in Hana No Yama."

*Kluster and Friends - 1969-1973 6xLP Box $199.99 (QBICO)
black vinyls/black labels/black inner sleeves. box, spray painted (stencil/lettering by Troglosound) in gold or silver or bronze (3 versions) and with clear plastic insert (rare photos). UNRELEASED MUSIC ! here's a little story for you:
when i mailed the news about the closure of qbico in 2010, some friends and musicians wrote me back... one was Conrad Schnitzler wondering if i wanna close with THE BOMB ! i said "yes, why not !?". so Con sent me 6 CD-R of UNRELEASED Kluster music, rec. in 1969-73 (along with Klaus Freudigmann and Wolfgang Seidel) ! he said to choose yr favourite 40 (+/-) from the 1 hour lenght of each CD-R, so to adjust to vinyl format... well, that's was one of the most joyful experience of my life ! this 6LP box collect that music which it's simply some of the most outstanding and revolutionary music that i ever heard !!! One of the most legendary release on Qbico ?! YES (screaming)!" - QBICO. Not many available- sold out at source.

*Kousokuya - Live At Shinjuku Jam, 2006 DVD $19.99 (PSF)
"The sudden death of Jutok Kaneko in January 2007 robbed the Tokyo underground scene of one of its most startlingly original and emotionally devastating psychedelic free-thinkers. Kousokuya was the cold-space rock group that he led, on and off, since the late 1970s. This DVD documents two of the group's final concerts, in May and October 2006 at Shinjuku JAM in Tokyo. The group's unique sound was founded on the dark, staggered spaces set up by the jarring rhythms set up by bassist Mick and drummer Ikuro Takahashi (ex-Fushitsusha) over which Kaneko drapes some jaw-dropping guitar -- bleak, brutal power-riffing one minute, shading into deep-space feedback filigrees and baroque fuzz forms the next. Unbearably psychedelic, deeply affecting and a fitting memorial to one of the great rock groups of the last 30 years." 120 mins.; Color; NTSC region-free; Stereo Dolby Digital; 08:11:21.

Reiko & Tori Kudo - Kore Kara (From Now On) CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Document of a recent (November 2008), intimate live show by Reiko Kudo and her husband Tori (of Maher Shalal Hash Baz fame). Long two of the most original figures in the Japanese underground, Reiko sings of the subtlest of everyday epiphanies, of those instants of momentary joy, pain and delight that flash by like ghosts glimpsed from the corner of the eye. Their simplicity and mystery is entirely disarming and deeply personal. She sings from a position of unforced naturalness, where both melody and vocalization are reduced to the thinnest of transparent, gossamer layers of art draped over reality. Simply astonishing. Tori and Reiko have been pivotal figures in the Tokyo underground since the late 1970s, when they were in a organ-drone and trumpet-blat group called Noise. Over the last dozen years Reiko has released a series of five solo albums under her own name. Seven tracks, forty-seven minutes. Booklet includes lyrics in English and Japanese." - Alan Cummings

La Otracina - Crystal Wizards of the Cosmic Weird (Live in Bologna) CDR $11.99 (Ski-Fi)
"It all began with some kind of lunar roadhouse kosmische showdown scene on some rickety bar on the moon, with all kinds of fucked up looking creatures, with scales or tails and multiple eyes and all that, all lookin grimey, just making a stop on their way to proxima centauri, coming down off a fistful of Benzedrine, tired and disgruntled, chainsmoking and drinking neon green booze, spurs on their space boots and all that. You know, cacophony and then some jiving band of lizards was taking the stage and laying down a sick cosmic sludge, from a skronk ruckus, into the depths of some eerie zero gravity subconscious neu transmutations, to some sonification of sun ra nightmares. la otracina live in Bologna, Italy November 10.2007. absolutely drunk and stoned to an absolutely oblivious and nearly empty room, save the fellow who walked into the microphone during the recording. First release from Sky-Fi"
Edition of 100 copies.

*Li Jianhong - Classic of the Mountains and Seas CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Psychedelic hermeticism an avant-guitar mandala by Chinese prodigy." First solo album on PSF (after the Ghost Temple duo and a couple of tracks on the Asian Flashback compilation) for China's hottest, loudest and most psychedelic avant-noise guitarist, Li Jianhong. Born in Fenghua in 1975, Li Jianhong has been blowing ears open with his own unique brand of higher-mind noise for five years now. This solo disk sees him simultaneously channelling Keiji Haino and Masayuki Takayanagi, as he dissolves himself into an avant-guitar mandala
comprised of full-bore drone, sustained runs of psychedelic soloing, and phantom echo. An essential blast of young China. Seventy minutes." - Alan Cummings

Love Live Life + One - Love Will Make A Better You CD $17.99 (Drone Syndicate)
"Number six on the Japrocksampler Top 50, available again for the first time in over a decade!" "Commencing with singer Akira Fuse's goggle-eyed one-day-old-baby innocence, Love Live Life + 1's album opener 'The Question Mark' escorts us through an eighteen-minute free-rock R&B adventure like nothing before or since. Clanking harsher than even the title track of Funkadelic's Free Your Mind & Your Ass Will Follow, and twice as long; cosmic as the Cosmic Joker's Galactic Supermarket, and gnarly as John McLaughlin's out-there-a-minute axe excursions on Miles's 'Right Off'' or his own Devotion solo LP, do these guys fight for their right to party! The mellower second side includes the insanely brilliant eight-minute epic 'Shadows Of My Mind,' in which Akira Fuse sings like some drunken Italian baritone, while atonal swooping strings and crazy brass support/undermine him; then it's off into a juggernaut bass-heavy clatterthon with duel-axe outrage of the highest level. And how about that title track whose catchy bastard licks unashamedly rip Sly's 'I Want To Take You Higher,' but still have you singing along with Fuse? The record closes brilliantly with the demented 'Facts About It All,' which opens like Fuse laying a grunting 6/8 James Brown/Eric Burdon ballad on us. But no, this miniature R&B opera says in 2 minutes and 56 seconds what prog bands took a whole side to say. All hail visionary genius Ikuzo Orita for uniting his fave guitarist Kimio Mizutani with the errant free-jazz Gibson 335 of Takao Naoi, whose brittle spittle pops permanent wheelies around these slippery rhythm tracks. Also hail Orita for recognizing the genius of these songs of sax player Kei Ichihara, for trusting Akira Fuse's professionalism and open-mindedness, and for seeing this 33-minute-long classic to its unlikely conclusion." -- Japrocksampler

Magic Aum Gigi - Starring Keiko LP $28.99 (Fractal)
"Magic Aum Gigi 2nd solo album after his first raga-metal-drone opus " My Metal Machine Music " released in 2004 on SSW label. Started since 3 years, this new project due to be released on CD by a japanese label has finally saw a terminal issue on vinyl produced by Fractal. " Starring Keiko " with it's pastiche cover from Ash Ra Tempel 5th album is a deep cosmic " Chant d'Amour " concept album turned around an ensemble of 4 tracks for 4 instruments : a piece for jew's harp, a piece for voice, a piece for synthesizer and a piece for guitar. Space music highly repetitive. Limited numbered vinyl edition 200 copies." One copy available.

*Magik Markers - Shame Mask CDR $10.99 (Arbitrary Signs)
"New limited self-released studio album from the Markers duo of Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan. For me, this one blows away their recent Drag City album, continuing that wild, psychedelic Japanese underground sound of the past few CD-Rs. There are epic, beautiful, fuzz and F/X-soaked instrumentals that ride the slipstream between Bardo Pond and Overhang Party, weird dub/punk tracks that orbit the whole Slits/PIL take on delay-damaged guitar/vocal narcosis and expansive, psychedelic takes on the early Patti/Kaye jams. Dunno how they do it, but this duo side is actually their biggest 'sounding' release to date, with a choice use of F/X and raggedy-ass guitar textures pushing the whole thing into a more beautiful and genuinely affecting zone than anything that has come before. Pretty much the perfect balance of guitar bombast and up-tight street hassle style. Comes in the usual screened envelopes. Highly recommended." - Volcanic Tongue.

*Maher Shalal Hash Baz with Masami Shinoda - Koshi Kudake No Inu DVD $19.99 (PSF)
"Enticing archival document of an early (1987) show by wide-eyed mystics Maher Shalal Hash Baz at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo. The visuals provide a rare and valuable opportunity to pick apart the working methods of one of the Japanese underground's most truly original and agile thinkers, Tori Kudo. In Maher Shalal Hash Baz, he took the heterophonic voicings, the deliberately fluctuating rhythmic mis-steps and the non-unison unison so characteristic of Japanese traditional music and re-applied them to idiot savant mini-hymns arranged for electric guitar, euphonium, ocarina and organ. It's a music that exists in a unique world of its own, alternately donning and shedding the armor of rock and jazz. Another major draw is the presence of the late Masami Shinoda on alto sax. Shinoda was an important, though largely unsung, figure in the history of the Tokyo underground during the '80s and '90s, showing up in all manner of groups from punk iconoclasts Jagatara and Pungo, to his own experiments with chindon marching advertising bands. He spent a few years in Maher in the '80s and this DVD captures the innocent joy and rapturous invention he brought to their music. 24 tracks, 75 minutes. Color, NTSC Region Free (says Region 2 on the package, but that is a typo, it plays Region Free), Stereo, 08.09.21." - FE

Mahogany Brain - Some Cocktail Suggestions LP $24.99 (Fractal)
"Brand new and third album by the '70s French underground free-rock cult band Mahogany Brain. Some Cocktail Suggestions (March 2005) is the logical and inevitable prolongation of the first two albums, With (Junk-Saucepan) When (Spoon-Trigger) (December 1970 - released in 1971) and Smooth Sick Lights (June 1972 - released in 1977), all in all the third shutter of a trilogy and which could be entitled: 'Mahogany Brain or how to play Russian roulette in the artificial paradises.' Thirty-five years for an unexplainable trilogy. However, if one symbolically looks at the first album on Futura as 'the injection of drugs' (the true original record cover was a photograph showing an arm with a syringe and following the stop to publish the famous stereotype for reason of censure of the time, the group chose an entirely black cover as a mourning). The second on Pôle (with the title wink in 'Sister Ray') would be rather 'the action' as if the track headlight suggests which opens the album Green Winter of Revolvers which is the soundtrack of the crazy short film of Michel Bulteau 'Main Line.' Mahogany Brain always developed a music radical, unforeseeable, hard, voluntarily unfinished, and with this album, they continue the adventure even further: decomposition of the music, recomposition of the juxtaposed voices, artistic blur, collages, mad guitars, all very amalgamated in a magma broken rock'n'roll. Mahogany Brain was created during the summer 1970, and was composed by two central personalities, the alter ego Michel Bulteau (leader and founder of the group) and Patrick Geoffrois (the man without whom Mahogany Brain could never have existed). Writer, film maker, Bulteau also carried out five albums in solo (whose Rinçures on Fractal in 1999) he's the last of the electric poets and his meeting with Geoffrois was also electric - Bulteau created a rock band but it is Geoffrois which created the dynamics of the group. Geoffrois was a sharp sectional view, and he recall a little the revolted and destroying spirit of a certain Peter Laughner (Rocket From The Tombs), he will join later the group of James Chance & the Contortions in New York at the end of the '70s or he will sow the discord besides! Two complementary strong energies and spontaneousness, the process was engaged. Mahogany Brain is an atypical group in the Parisian underground, they play with their tripes and as with their veins, it is an experience out of the limit, not-conventional, with only one concert in all their history, and probably the most subversive formation as there was to see in France! Some Cocktail Suggestions is incontestably matter dangerous? To taste with great whiskeys."

Mainliner - Imaginative Plain CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Fourth 'real' album (after two on Charnel Music, and the anomalous Psychedelic Polyhedron on Fractal, and discounting a ton of self-released cassettes and CD-Rs on the existentially dubious La Musica label) from Tokyo underground freaks Mainliner. The group's leader, legendary Tokyo speed freak Asahito Nanjo is best known as the bass-playing, shades-wearing polymath behind High Rise and Musica Transonic. Stylistically, this is just where you would want it to be - exactly half-way between the acceleration-obsessed garage psych of High Rise, and the more spastic time shifts of Musica Transonic. There is a seriously sticky gloopiness to the Mainliner psych-as-group-mind universe, which even the hydrochloric guitar of Acid Mother Kawabata only momentarily manages to extricate itself from. The rest is cemented down by the straight pounding of new member Koji Shimura (ex-White Heaven) on drums,
and Nanjo's usual sterling bass work. The five tracks of super-heavy, super-dense rock-psych improv are all liberally smothered in the trademark Nanjo pile-driving needles-in-the-red production aesthetic. In terms of rock, this is the most truly satisfying album that this group has made since Mellow Out. Heavier than anything else you're likely to listen to this week." - Alan Cummings

Mainliner - Psychedelic Polyhedron CD $17.99 (Fractal)
"First CD reissue of the long time deleted Mainliner's second album featuring the legendary heavy psychedelic trio : Asahito Nanjo (bass, vocal), Makoto Kawabata (guitar), Tatsuya Yoshida (drums). Warning : including an unreleased 10 minutes ultra killer track as bonus. An absolute must for all fans of this unique Japanese Underground scene from the late 90's."

*Matrix Metals - Flamingo Breeze cassette $6.99 (Not Not Fun)
"The Southern California mythology glints in the irises of certain dreamers more radiantly than it does in others, and few crews have begun capturing the imaginary high life of neon Corvette rides, Ray-Bans at night, and sea-breeze mind-surfing better than the Outer Limits Recordings collective. They operate under most radars but their output is a radical Rubik's Cube of riddles, tape hiss, and tranced pop utopias. Matrix Metals is casually referred to as an "alien lounge music" project, but that's not even the half of it. A hotwired collection of fringe-vision vignettes that roves from ghost club beats to astral 80s TV theme songs to loopy interdimensional dub-funk and beyond, Flamingo Breeze is a capitalized question mark in the NNF canon, and a recent obsession of ours. Anonymous pro-dubbed white tapes in cases with full-color "VHS box collage" J-cards designed by the artist, plus an insert and 2 tickets to a Matrix Metals performance at a fictional club in the future. Edition of 125."

*Hisham Mayet (Director) - Palace Of The Winds DVD $20.99 (Sublime Frequencies)
"Shot over the course of two years (2006-2008) by Hisham Mayet, Palace Of The Winds is an intimate and dream-like journey exploring the music of Saharawi culture from Guelmim in Southern Morocco to the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott. With spectacular images from inhospitable landscapes, chimerical phenomena that transpire by the sheer remoteness of the land, and haunting indigenous music from a people that have long been shrouded in mystery, this is a genre-defying film of profound beauty. Explore the intoxicating tapestry of sight and sound that this obscure region has to offer through its most awe-inspiring musicians. Featuring live performances by Group Doueh, Group Marwani, Sadoum Oueld Aida and Group Bab Sahara. Color; 52 minutes; digipack; all-region DVD; NTSC format. Limited edition pressing of 1,000 copies."

*Sean McCann / Black Eagle Child - New Molluska c-66 cassette $5.99 (Roll Over Rover) "Another 'twofer here, this one being the second in a (hopefully) long chain of splits between Sean McCann and Mike Jantz (BEC). SM's side features squished synth and dripping strings, while BEC's side journeys to new lands, sailing from peninsula to peninsula until sundown. Produbbed, purple shells - limited to 100 copies.
*Mark McGuire - Pocket Full of Rain double cassette $14.99 (Pizza Night)
"Best Mark McGuire tape to date in my opinion, absolutely so fresh, literally recorded a week ago (mid-April 2009)... full color inside and out..." - Sam Goldberg

*Mechanical Children - I Rise To Cover All LP $17.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Debut vinyl release from this new duo that makes up two thirds of Jazzfinger (Ben Jones and Sarah Sullivan). Based around the idea of used broken keyboards, Ben and Sarah make some totally fucked and pretty heavy noise jams, there's some searing moments in this beast, particularly across the two part 'Burning of the Light Fields' which spans all side A, and most of side B... the closer is 'Planatary Wasp', which pretty much would be what Jeff Goldblum would have sounded like if he'd turned into some kind of rancid badass wasp instead of that pussy fly! Turn it up and get ready for your neighbors to come knocking with an ASBO for ya. Limited to 300."

Menstruation Sisters - Should Sisters Suck? LP $29.99 (Ultra Eczema)
"A rabbi who yells at a higher pitch and more psycho than Nik Rizili, and a guitarist other than Oren Ambarchi who can make strings yell in Yiddish yelling-about as rare as, according to Ultra Eczema, "ladies [who] have their period nonstop, since five years [and] are 456 km away from the hospital while the head of a baby is forcing it's way out of a mangina." So much stress, guitar strings so loose you can put your legs and arms between them, a hyperactive and creepy and slow carnival of absolute madness. Reminiscent to the more sparse parts of Harry Pussy, the screaming of Hanatarashi. 300 copies, with an insert, a small poster, a sticker, an etching on the B-side, and found footage cover art by Dennis Tyfus."

*Metal Rouge - Republican Trees LP $19.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"The duo of Helga Fassonaki and Andrew Scott has quietly become a force in the world of darkside improvisation. Over the years, their sound has evolved like amoebas from the ooze, growing and expanding into something otherworldly. Walls of guitar sherds blast through blackened holes in the cosmic continuum searching out another eye to gouge or another heart to pierce. This is metallic bliss pushed to eleven. Where "Republican Trees" hits it stride is when the lines between beautiful and abrasive get smudged. Scott's guitar playing becomes a torrent of aural hell blowing fuses from here to his native Auckland. Fassonaki takes this in stride and the two push each other back and forth finding a natural rhythm that simultaneously enchants and disturbs. By the time Helga starts wailing on the final track of the album you've been rocked from your foundation, left to flounder alone in the muck. You can't really ask for more than that, can you? LP comes in fold-out silkscreened poster-style sleeve and is strictly limited to 100 copies."
Paul Metzger - Canticle of Ignat / All Glass CD $14.99 (Archive)
"One track played on modified acoustic guitar and one track played on modified Banjo. For those unfamiliar with Saint Paul's Mr. Metzger his works offer and amazing mix of Indian ragas crossed with a junk yard band feel, highly evolved and incredible unique. Recorded by myself in 2007 at BigJar in Philly a fantastic piece of documentation offered in unaltered form. The CD edition comes housed in a slightly taller sleeve with two color silk screen work by Alan Sherry of SIWA on a heavyweight 140lb paper. The front cover is die cut with and inserted picture from the performance printed on vellum, all hand glued and assembled by myself. Graphic work by Demian Johnston." Edition of 500 copies.

*Mist - Stole Colors double cassette $14.99 (Pizza Wagon)
"Slightly more refined cosmic music than the last Mist release from Sam Goldberg and Emeralds' John Elliot. Heavy prog synth zone..LP coming soon."

Mist - Certain Expansion cassette $8.99 (Pizza Wagon)
First release on Pizza Wagon (a collab. label of Sam Goldberg's Pizza Night and Emerald's Wagon label). "The first release is a Mist c20. Mist is Goldberg and John Elliot, dueling synthesizers..."

*Moon Phantoms - Moon Phantoms LP $15.99 (Important Records)
"Limited edition of 500 copies pressed on virgin vinyl. Moon Phantoms is a collaboration of Bardo Pond, Alasehir and Suishou No Fune. The fourth release in our simultaneously released four part Bardo Pond related vinyl set. 'We Suishou No Fune and Alasehir played in East Coast tour of one week together again in the autumn, 2007. During the autumn concert tour, we had felt like that Moon always chased us. I started to look for where the moon was unawares when we visited each town. I have strongly remembered that the moon was full and very clear cut one night in Boston. The night was very pleasant and let us relax. Michael, John and Jason had a good conversation comfortably, looking at the moon. Kageo and myself also enjoyed the night to be just eased under the moonlight. I believed that we, Suishou No Fune and Alasehir could be one band under this special moonlight. The next day, I spoke my wish to perform music in one band to the members and we, all fall in each other in Providence. Therefore, the Japanese and American band named Moon Phantoms based on the concert tour with the full moon. And Moon Phantoms made the concert tour in the East Coast of the U.S.A. and had recording in Spring, 2008. Then we made this album.' -- Pirako Kurenai of Suishou No Fune."

MV&EE with The Golden Road - Moment Spacing / Bong Judge 7" $7.99 (Golden Lab Records)
"Yes, you heard us right. We just got the master CD through for this summer loving bliss festival of a record to melt those Januarian ice hearts and it is everything we hoped it could be and more. Side A, "Moment Spacing" is a two-and-a-half-minute blast of "ooh-la-la-la-la-la" joy that wraps a posi+ aura around the world. B-side, "Bong Judge" is the stoned, slowed down, phaser-drenched, stretched-out basement tapes version of (almost unrecognisably) the same song running at six+ minutes. The most beautiful record we think we'll hear all year. Featuring: "Moment Spacing" mv * guitars/vox ~ ee * vox ~ willie lane * guitar ~ sparrow wildchild * vox ~ janane tripp * vox ~ chris livingood * vox on the A side and on the B Side we have "Bong Judge" mv * guitars/vox ~ ee * lap steel ~ willie lane * guitar ~ samara lubelski * bass ~ john moloney * drums. Killer!

Musique Concret - Bringing Up Baby CD $17.99 (Fractal)
"Reissue of a rare UK album from 1981. Musique Concret were an obscur London duo composed by Jim Friedman & Michael Mullen with a short lived musical history : their sole album Bringing Up Baby was originally released on Steven Stapleton's label United Dairies and there is also one short track on compilation. This is a great experimental power electronics works with the use of delay and echo, tape recorder manipulations, collages, rhythms box, noise, and others studio trickery, naturally close to Nurse With Wound's first period, Faust or others German 70's innovative bands. Completely forgotten nowadays, Bringing Up Baby is really much more than just an interesting curiosity, it's a true highly original recordings from the early 80's. A lost jewel!"

Asahito Nanjo Group Musica - Contemporary Kagura-Metaphysics CD $17.99 (Fractal)
"A work of contemporary music performed in the rock idiom by Japanese underground rock legend, Asahito Nanjo. Nanjo is active in a wide variety of rock groups, but Group Musica exits in order to pursue a more universal musical vibration. Group Musica is an ensemble that pursues the free use of every type of Western and Eastern musical instrument, is propelled by the vibrations of very subtle rhythms, and that has internalized the methodology of minimalism. The concept behind this album is transform KAGURA, an ancient form of Japanese music and dance that was performed for the gods, and is to convert the ideas of Secret teachings and ancient Chinese methods of divination (the I-Ching) into a metaphysics of musical vibrations. The concept of KAGURA allows Group Musica to create a unique work that is an experimental symphonic composition, which nonetheless has many rich improvisatory elements. In this unique work, the symbolic/philosophical nature of ancient esotericism is incorporated as improvisation, while the I-Ching is related to avant-garde symphonics. These are then fused into a total concept. Many different musicians from various genres participate in Group Musica, but their contributions are filtered through Nanjo's musical sense and thus altered, fused and structured. It is for this reason they remain anonymous - Group Musica exists as a total entity. Recorded in 1993 & 1994, this album is a colossal long studio work which has necessitated more than 400 overdubbings. An extraordinary adventure in sounds and the most astonishing musical project by High Rise's leader!"

*Nautilus - White Diamond Flies c30 cassette $8.99 (Lotus Birth)
"Four pastorales for synth and strings from New York via Heidi Diehl of the Vanishing Voice, Time Life, et al. Side A: A throbbing autobahn highway of pulsating synthesiser, shimmering new age chords, tense melodica klaxons, and immersed vocals. Side B: Reverbed acoustic motifs woven with submerged electric wah wah guitar; and a final coda of balkan folk melodies, melodica, and reprised synth. Limited to 60 boxed sprayed black tapes, with cover still from Nautilus directed Time Life Demetrius video." Out of print - last copies.

*New Miminokoto - All About Mimi CD $15.99 (PSF)
Features Junzo Suzuki (guitar ,vocals), Takuya Nishimura (bass), Koji Shimura (drums). "Another first release on PSF for Miminokoto, a Tokyo-based garage psychedelic rock trio who have previously released a string of acclaimed albums on the Alchemy, Gyuune, Siwa and Last Visible Dog labels. This is the group's first album since Junzo Suzuki (20 Guilders, Astral Travelling Unity, ex Overhang Party) took over on vocals and guitar. The key to this group has always been their deep sense of song - a densely emotive core around which the songs surge, billow and break. That core is retained here with an even harder psychedelic edge to the guitar. Includes two covers of songs by the late Jutok Kaneko of Kousokuya. Forty minutes, seven tracks." - Alan Cummings

*Nobody's Children - No One's Child double cassette $14.99 (Fag Tapes)
"From the basement minds of Andrew Coltrane and Sick Llama. asking questions like "what does love feel like". nothing to rely on. housed in a 5 x 5 TDK plastic for who knows what lid-clip-shut box, with inserts, hand-painted DELUXE ! edition 27."

Dylan Nyoukis / Dennis Tyfus - The Throat Is Pregnant / Zangstondes split LP $29.99 (Ultra Eczema)
"This record is all about flipping the coin. Flipping the coin of persistence and patience. A heavy endurance test pill to swallow and right on time for chilly winter nights. Dylan Nyoukis is back on his grind. And a toothcrushing experience it is. Going back to the old school vocal perversion the Chocolate Monk president is known for. I met the bearded one at the beach in Brighton for the first time, where Dylan was sipping dirtcheap beer and gargling bits of Slayer lyrics while pointing directions to his crib. A retarded brew of high and low pitched vocal scruff, muffled sonic slime and lungs full of asbestos dust from sitting in a cave of obscurity for the past twenty years. He will sing for wine or ass candy and likes visuals that piss on the hi-brow. Total no-fi cassette trouble and underage kids chewing on dusted tapeloops, basically more science fiction that the inflatable puppets in Munchies. Then the needle stops moving and we hike to Belgium. Tyfus drools in the microphone and let's his bodily juices make contact with translation delays, empty kleenex boxes and the power that controls the earth's core. Constant knob tweaking, contact mic'd cheese balls, endless layers of mutilated throat sounds jump across the circuitboard like mechanical ants. There's a lot of weird information to absord here. Besides the vicious ragtime gobot action, there's a gentle more furry choir medidation zone that will trance your brain muscles over the rainbow. Highly influenced by aborignal ways of life and the medidative nature of throat singing, Homo Sapiens Tyfus spit out a true projection of his tormented soul. Apparently there's a difference between music and sounds? Packaged in a classic fold-out silkscreen jacket in a limited edition of only 250 copies. Go hard is all they know..."

Thee Oh Sees - Zork's Tape Bruise LP + CD $19.99 (Kill Shaman)
"The LP contains home recordings, demos and crazy noise sounds. This is unlike any other OH SEES you've ever heard. It's biting, noisy and badass. Songs are catchy and dragged through a pile of distortion, tape manipulation and random instrument collisions. The CD piece contains everything they ever released on vinyl only (Intellignce split, Peanut Butter Over, etc.). They come together in one weird package that doesn't make sense. Initial pressing of 500 copies." Restocked.

Orphan Fairytale - Ladybird Labyrinth LP $27.99 (Ultra Eczema)
"Orphan Fairytale is the solo monniker of eva van deuren, member of the lady folk troupe MASKESMACHINE, who started blowing my mind 12 years ago as a street performance troupe in antwerp. besides my own ladyfriend, i don't think i know anyone better than eva, and her boyfriend (audiobot madman) carlo steegen. for some reason this makes it even more difficult to write a decent description for this record, we live in the same mansion, and i could write a lot of stories about doing the dishes together, or putting the garbage out..Orphan Fairytale is a dedication to eva's mom, who died when eva was 14 years old. a melancholic soundtrack to the loss, and a way of dealing with it! a maze of ever changing casio trips dripping with childish xtc, , a belly dancer oozing for endless adolescence playing with burned dolls in a barbie house filled with pedals and looptapes! melanchotronic folk reminescent to some moondog, the contemporary finnish crew, delia derbyshire, and asian pop. this lp comes in a full color collaged cover deisgn by dennis tyfus with 2 inserts. limited to 400 copies."

*Peeesseye - I Woke Up and Drank a Bottle of Cheap Kojak CDR $9.99 (Golden Lab Records)
Peeesseye made the scene at Dylan Nyoukis's Colour Out of Space festival last summer and hopped over to Manchester to play a show at the Town Hall Tavern, the recording of which forms the content of this incredible slab of dense droning harmonium, scraping, buzzing, subtly soloing guitar and pulse-free, scatter-drumming. We can't recommend this enough. Ltd to 80 copies, sleeves printed on recycled card w/soya based ink, no less

*Pewtr - Whichever Was cassette $10.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Pretty psyched to be releasing this beauty from long time friend of mine Ron Schneiderman, I think Ron was the first person I ever bought stuff from for the Blackest Rainbow distro years back in Nottingham... Ron is the man behind Spirit of Orr, as well as being a member of Sunburned Hand of the Man... busy guy to say the least! Here you have some awesome solo outing of post Loren Connors / Sandy Bull styling, with a blend of pure outsider blues, americana and psychedelia. Limited to 100 copies."

*Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra - I and IV CDR $8.99 (Galactic Zoo Disk)
"Massive sheets of guitars (over 60 per concert!) create furious walls of devotional sound at windy city happenings conducted by plastic crimewave. 20 minute long tracks to get lost in...." Recordings from 2/27/07 and 2/21/08

*Racoo-oo-oon - Behold Secret Kingdom LP $12.99 (Not Not Fun)
"Behold Secret Kingdom is the first proper fullength release from Iowa City's Raccoo-oo-oon after several limited cd-r/tape/vinyl releases (including cd reissues on Time Lag and Release The Bats). The band spent the last year working with Behold Secret Kingdom, tremendous amounts of love and hard work has been put into this recording which now will be unleashed by Release The Bats! 8 new songs that takes the band's psychedelic and dynamic free-form punk from previous releases to new heights, this is definitely their most focused and perfected recording so far. Darker, denser and almost brutal at times, Behold Secret Kingdom is also the heaviest recording they have done. It only takes a few seconds into 'Black Branches' and the mood is set for the rest of the album immediately. The stunning closer 'Tail At Prospect Peak' could easiest be described as campfire-doom with it's slow riffing, heavy use of percussion and chanted vocals (everything suddenly bursting out in a chaotic crescendoŠ). The trademark tribal-like drums is still present, as is the vocal drones and the furious saxophone swirls. Behold Secret Kingdom is a epic masterpiece, there is really no other way to describe it. Chaotic and all over the place, yet so beautiful. Puts earlier comparisons to bands like Excepter and Animal Collective to a shame! Recorded by Mike Dixon in Bloomington, IN." - Release The Bats. Repressed - 2nd edition.

Masahiko Satoh & Soundbreakers - Amalgamation CD $17.99 (Drone Syndicate)
"Number seven on the Japrocksampler Top 50, available again for the first time in over a decade!" "This preposterous piece of psychedelic avant-jazz sounds like the work of aliens, each with only one foot in our universe. Propelled by cacophonous brassy blasts, volleys of machine-gunning, ecstatically 'Light Fantastic' rhythms and moments of Teo Macero-style 'Mixing Concrète' (during which the whole track becomes consumed by waves of new sound); the result is the most singular mash-up of inappropriate sounds any listener is ever likely to hear. Over two side-long tracks, shaman Masahiko Satoh sends us through a sonic mind-field, baffling our senses and our sense of gravity. Located at the centre of Amalgamation's giddy sessions was the frantic Detroit drumming of hard-bop legend Louis Hayes, whose role it was to play the bubbling ever unfolding fundament on which Masahiko Satoh's whole trip proceeded, as though the rhythm section were a magic carpet magically pulled out from under the feet of the other performers. Over this rhythmic shaking, Satoh scattered Hammond organ around and ring-modulated his Fender Rhodes piano solos (Roland built three especially for the record), added lead guitar from 'super session' legend Kimio Mizutani, trumpets and sax from Mototeru Takagi, scat singing from Kayoko Itoh, and strings from the Wehnne Strings Consort." -- Japrocksampler

*Satoshi Sonoda - Early Works Of Satoshi Sonoda 1977-1978 (Memories of Yasushi Ozawa) CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Conceived of as a tribute to the late Fushitsusha bassist Yasushi Ozawa, who passed away in February 2008, this CD presents a fascinating and rare glimpse of the nascent Tokyo underground scene, circa 1977/1978. Another piece of the puzzle! Compiled by Satoshi Sonoda, who led a student club at Meiji University dedicated to the performance and appreciation of free and out musics of many stripes, the CD documents the fascination with musical collisions of free jazz, rigorous twentieth century composition, art-inspired free improv moves, as well as the fried gargle of acid punk. Capturing small scale shows in after-hours university classrooms and tiny clubs, this is a music that is just intensely evocative of its specific time and place. Includes appearances by Yasushi Ozawa, Satoshi Sonoda, Chie Mukai, Masami Tada, and members of Gaseneta. Seven tracks, 75 minutes. Includes extensive, detailed liner-notes about the people, places and happenings of late seventies Tokyo by Satoshi Sonoda in both Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings

*Sequin Trails - Maiden Midst CDR $9.99 (Golden Lab Records)
"Janina Angel Bath's unabashed approach to cranking out sun-drenched, ecstatic drones overlaid by seedy saxophone and deep, almost Nico-esque vocals has us melting into our sofas. We came upon Sequin Trails through this here myspace, which is normally a bit too postmodern for us. But the fact that there was dayglo, facepaint and tonal honking involved really won us over. The recording is blown-out and buzzy and all the better for it. And it traverses muddily pulsating rhythms through to pure note elongation that zaps the senses and focuses the mind's eye, like listening to one's own tinnitus. This is so deep, it may be bottomless." Edition of 80 copies.

*Tamio Shiraishi & MICO - Live Duo CD $15.99 (PSF)
Alto saxophone - Tamio Shiraishi; Alto saxophone, piano molanica, etc. - MICO. "A rare live album from one of the major names in the Japanese free noise underground, Tamio Shiraishi. Shiraishi was one of the major movers in the free noise/underground rock/DIY improv Minor scene of the late '70s and early '80s that gave birth to so many of the major names in the Japanese underground. This compilation of live recordings captures Shiraishi live in Europe, the U.S. and Japan between 2001 and 2007, together with NNCK member, MICO. Forceful, intense, chaotic improvisations for saxophone, vocals, percussion, piano etc. Shiraishi's trademark ultra high-pitched dog-whistle sax and guttural vocals are showcased to full and outstanding effect." - Alan Cummings

*Shizuka - Live / Traditional Aesthetics CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Shizuka were THE great lost-in-action group of the Tokyo underground psych scene during the early to mid-'90s. Led by doll-maker Shizuka, and with ex-Fushitsusha alumni Maki Miura and Jun Kosugi on hand, they created some of the most fragile and intense acid-rock of their time, but remained largely undocumented and under appreciated. The gig documented on this CD, recorded at Bears in Osaka in 1995, was long whispered of amongst the cognoscenti. Shizuka's uncanny vocals and tremulous sense of timing washing like brown sugar over fluid nebulae of guitar and drum nirvana, peaking and churning in perfect, weightless filigrees of light, cosmic cold and invisible motion. " - Alan Cummings

Shizuka - Heavenly Persona CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Debut release by this band, previously heard on Tokyo Flashback III. Pretty great 3 piece rock bank, with exquisite female vocals by Shizuka; some tracks are in a darkish, somber range with piano and cello embellishment, others have staggering, practically Haino-esque fuzz guitar throughout." - FE

Skullflower - Malediction CD $13.99 (Second Layer Records)
"Brand new Skullflower studio recording featuring the line-up of Matthew Bower, Samantha Davies (Voltigeurs), Lee Stokoe (Culver) and Stuart Dennison (Ramleh, original Skullflower) back on drums. Three long tracks of blackened guitar wall. Comes in 6-panel digipack with artwork by Matthew Bower. Limited to 1000 copies." Recommended!

*Solar Fire Trio - Hand To Mouth cassette $5.99 (Ski-Fi)
"3rd proper album from this heavy duty free jazz demo unit. Recorded 10-10-06 at Vulcan Studios, Liverpool." Edition of 125 copies.

*Solar Fire Trio - Hand To Mouth CDR $9.99 (Ski-Fi)
"3rd proper album from this heavy duty free jazz demo unit. Recorded 10-10-06 at Vulcan Studios, Liverpool. CD-R Edition of 75 : Oversized packaging. Each one was hand assembled using scrap cardstock and a questionable copy machine in a cromag fashion. Assorted colors. Results may vary. CD-Rs are highest quality gold archival grade discs."

*The Solar Furnace - Imaginary Invalid c30 cassette $5.99 (Gods of Tundra)
"Bizarre alien tranmissions from a dethroned and forgotten world. Direct from the ether into the cove. Get damaged."

Omar Souleyman - Highway To Hassake: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria double LP $29.99 (Sublime Frequencies)
"Omar Souleyman is a Syrian musical legend. Since 1994, he and his musicians have emerged as a staple of folk-pop throughout Syria, but until now they have remained little known outside of the country. To date, they have issued more than 500 studio and live-recorded cassette albums which are easily spotted in the shops of any Syrian city. Born in rural Northeastern Syria, he began his musical career in 1994 with a small group of local collaborators who remain with him today. The myriad musical traditions of the region are evident in their music. Here, classical Arabic mawal-style vocalization gives way to high-octane Syrian Dabke (the regional folkloric dance and party music), Iraqi Choubi and a host of Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish styles, among others. This amalgamation is truly the sound of Syria. The music often has an overdriven sound consisting of phase-shifted Arabic keyboard solos and frantic rhythms. At breakneck speeds, these shrill Syrian electronics play out like forbidden morse-code, but the moods swing from coarse and urgent to dirgy and contemplative in the rugged anthems that comprise Souleyman's repertoire. Oud, reeds, baglama saz, accompanying vocals and percussion fill out the sound from track to track. Mahmoud Harbi is a long-time collaborator and the man responsible for much of the poetry sung by Souleyman. Together, they commonly perform the Ataba, a traditional form of folk poetry used in Dabke. On stage, Harbi chain-smokes cigarettes while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Souleyman, periodically leaning over to whisper the material into his ear. Acting as a conduit, Souleyman struts into the audience with urgency, vocalizing the prose in song before returning for the next verse. Souleyman's first hit in Syria was "Jani" (1996) which gained cassette-kiosk infamy and brought him recognition throughout the country. Over the years, his popularity has risen steadily and the group tirelessly performs concerts throughout Syria and has accepted invitations to perform abroad in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Lebanon. Omar Souleyman is a man of hospitality and striking integrity who describes his style as his own and prides himself on not being an imitator or a sell-out. Sublime Frequencies is honored to present the Western debut of Omar Souleyman with this retrospective 2LP of studio and live recordings spanning 12 years of his career, culled from cassettes recorded between 1994 and 2006. This collection offers a rare glimpse into Syrian street-level folk-pop and Dabke -- a phenomena seldom heard in the West, not previously deemed serious enough for export by the Syrians and rarely, if ever, included on the import agenda of worldwide academic musical committees. This is a 2LP version of the 2007 CD release housed in a full-color gatefold sleeve and coinciding with Omar Souleyman's tour of the UK and Europe in May/June of 2009."

*Spacemen 3 - DJ Tones LP $18.99 (Great Pop Supplement)
"A limited edition five-track mini-album which features two previously unreleased Spacemen 3 tracks, a radically different mix of the classic Spacemen 3 cover of the Red Krayola's "Transparent Radiation," appearing for the first time on CD, and the ultra rare remix of "I Love You" (originally only 50 promo white label vinyl copies were ever pressed). Rounding off this mini-album is a studio version of "Ecstasy Symphony." UK import. Limited to 1,000 copies." - Revolver.

*Spoils and Relics - Alabaster Silk cassette $10.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Spoils and Relics 'Alabastor Silk' is a threes up (Kieron Piercy, Gary Myles and Johnny Scarr [occasional Fossil member]) improvisation on found objects, tapes and electronics - recorded in in a red lit Leeds basement, and then pieced together in Mantile studio, Nottingham. This release focuses on a reinvention of found artifacts, applied as tools to further explorations of prehistoric futures present. Limited to 60 copies." 'Alabaster silt - The reinvention of found artifacts are pieced together to form tools which enable a dig to the earth's inner crust to further explorations into prehistoric future. below the cavernous murk dwell bubbling furuncle streams in which manged carniverous matter bathe. Above the swelling, many mechanical wings gather creaking as they swoop in on the feeding, picking off the sores and gliding into the fog leaving only lose screws behind.. evidence is gathered and filtered through the silt parts of the beak are recovered strange resin is collected from the wreckage..'"

*Starving Weirdos - Into An Energy CD $16.99 (Bo' Weavil)
"This is a new release by California's extremely prolific avant-drone duo, Starving Weirdos. These eight new pieces bear all the hallmarks of Starving Weirdos' greatest work: the dizzying mixture of instrumental sounds, electronics, and field recordings, the pointillistic attention to sonic detail, the duo's post-production technique, which achieves something like the aural equivalent of deep-focus photography. On Into An Energy, the duo of Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay is joined by occasional collaborators Steve Lazar and Greg Devaney for the length of the record, and perhaps their chemistry together accounts for the elusive shift in focus heard on these cuts. You see, even though Starving Weirdos routinely break out the rain sticks, the horns, the hand drums, the guitars, or the cup-and-ball, at its core their art is a kind of deep-forest-ghetto-musique concrète. You can never tell if what you're hearing is a real-time performance or a product of copious editing and overdubbing, whether those sounds emanated from tapes or from live instruments, whether it occurred in a tangible three-dimensional space or in a virtual soundcard reality. Most of the time, it's a combination of all these, and the results are profoundly transportive and disorienting. Yet while the Weirdos' song and album titles suggest an esoteric or spiritualist bent, their music is always reassuringly lucid, even earthy. Theirs is a mysticism grounded in the ordinary sounds of everyday life in their native Humboldt County, California. At their best, Starving Weirdos achieve that high romantic ideal: to make the familiar strange, and make the strange familiar."

*Steve Llama - Outside Heaven cassette $7.99 (Fag Tapes)
"The second colab. between Sick Llama and Steve Kenney (Demons). all synth frightening sleepless dream. you thought you had a dream about drinking a pint of Viper and then you woke up in a pile of your own toxic filth. edition 50."

Sun City Girls - Napoleon & Josephine (Singles Volume 2) CD $15.99 (Abduction)
"This is the second volume in a series featuring rare singles and unreleased tracks from Sun City Girls. In the summer of 1988, Sun City Girls began working on two records simultaneously: Torch Of The Mystics and Dante's Disneyland Inferno. The former was finished and released in December of 1989 but the latter wasn't released until April of 1996. Over those eight years, Dante's morphed into an entirely different record due to several songs originally targeted for inclusion being hijacked by other projects. Two tracks ("X+Y" and "Frankenstein") were siphoned-off to the Kaliflower LP in 1993 and 4 tracks (1, 11, 12, 13) included here were released on 7" singles in the early '90s. The two most notable of the singles tracks dominate this record. "Napoleon & Josephine," a 13-minute episodic conversation between a vagrant and a shop owner, was originally released as a single in 1991 on Scratch Records. The full track was split into sides (parts 1 & 2) running over 6 minutes long. An alternative mix which had been shelved for 15 years is featured here. "Reflection Of A Young Boy Eating From A Can Of Dog Food On A Shiny Red X-Mas Ball" was originally released as side 4 on the double single 3 Fake Female Orgasms (Majora, 1991) and was 8 minutes in length. This extended version is the original complete recording, running 22 minutes. Legendary Phoenix electronic musician and SCG associate David Oliphant mixed and processed the entire piece live to tape in his studio. The remainder of this set is composed of like-minded and literary SCG singles and compilation tracks, including the previously unreleased "The Weatherman" which was originally recorded as an introduction for "Napoleon & Josephine." This is the second of a multi-volume set of rare & long out-of-print singles, compilation, and unreleased tracks to be assembled and sequenced to play as full-length records. Vinyl editions may also appear in time." - FE

*Taiga Remains / RV Paintings - split LP $17.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Two of America's finest drone acts come together for this split LP. Taiga Remains is Student of Decay's master mind Alex Cobb project, if you ain't picked up his new disc on Digitalis 'Wax Canopy' yet, go get it, it is one of the best drone releases I have heard in a long time! The 15 minute track on this is new split LP is entitled 'Mengku From Mengsa'. Opening with far off chimes upon chimes, this leads to pure bliss dream zones, rather than the more intense material on the aforementioned Wax Canopy. This is a fantastic piece of drone work, layered to create some beautiful zoning out in the mind. RV Paintings is the project of Brian Pyle of the almighty psychedelia legends Starving Weirdos, along with his brother Jon Pyle, and Spencer Doran, who also plays under the name of Cloaks. This is an amazing track, kinda darker and bleaker than the Weirdos vibe, with some totally awesome free percussion playing central to the piece, this is hard to top in the drone game. A totally solid slab of sound from both acts. Limited to 400 copies."

Teeth Mountain - Live On LP $14.99 (Not Not Fun)
"One our current favorite bands, on tour right now w/Dan Deacon all over the planet. 7-piece drum/drone army with an amazing whirlwind approach to rhythmic teleportation. saw them live recently and was floored. this is the follow-up to their sick LP that came out on SHDWPLY last year." "Follow-up to last year's well-received full-length of collaged live performances released on SHDWPLY. This is another half hour-plus of the Baltimore drum/drone collective at their most zoned and loose-limbed."

*The Jaguar - Primal Dimension cassette $5.99 (Ski-Fi)
"The Jaguar", aka Troy Hanson, gives us 10 tracks of damaged trash blues. Comparisons are difficult. Think Jandek / Legendary Stardust Cowboy / Wild Man Fisher / Roky stoned out of their minds playing Gate covers. For a more learned review see what tom lax says about his last record: "One more dude what deserves some spoutin off is a gent what goes by the moniker of The Jaguar. Hailin from Wisconsin his ouvre come to my attention by way of Mr. Pink Reason who embellished the Jaguar's plight by claimin he had "zero fans". Hey, what about me? I can't says I know a whole lot about Jaguar, meaning, outside of this cdr called 'Trash Blues Bucket' I have no idea how many other releases he has packed away. Pink Reason says he's been doin "this" since the 80's so I would imagine there's a hefty back catalog lyin in wait. That said, on the surface he reminds me of another upper midwestern loner, Skidd Freeman. But Skidd relishes & shines in garage Punk rock idiom while Jaguar seems-literally-conjured out of a trash Blues bucket. At times his edifice recalls structures similar to Jandek, then you come across a high lonesome hamonica 'n yelp that sounds like the Legendary Stardust Cowboy has invited himself over, when suddendly-wham!- your buried in an electric murk of post, post, post Dead C (okay, Ashtray Navigations. ding!) detuned distemper. So he's never in one place for long. It's hard not to appreciate the guy's dedication & intent. If this was a cassette on Fuck It, Drone Disco or some label of that ilk, Jaguar might be more well known among the ecstatically erudite, but as it is, he is an island not yet chartered among the cognesceti. But fortune's change all the time. And don't I know it!"

Toukaseibunshi - Meta-Inorganic Matter Meta-Newlon CD $15.99 (PSF)
"Volume 2 in the ongoing Japanese Avant-Garde Cassette Reissue Series. The 80s and early 90s saw a great deal of fascinating material released on cassette in the Tokyo underground. While some of the more noise-orientated stuff enjoyed a modicum of international distribution, the avant-garde material generally did not. This series, whose first release was Iro / Tamafuri (PSFD-180), aims to rescue the best of this music from historical oblivion. Toukaseibunshi (Permeable Molecule) was an ultra-mysterious solo unit created by Hironari Iwata. Iwata was a footnote figure in the world of Japanese avant-garde/noise from the mid to late eighties. As well as Toukaseibunshi, he also recorded under the name Haiginsha, ran the Angakok cassette label and wrote for various magazines. There's an unshowy stoicism to Iwata's investigation of drone, clank and crackling sustain, a deep seriousness of purpose that beguiles as much as it confounds. Six tracks, fifty-eight minutes. Gatefold papersleeve." - Alan Cummings

*Tuluum Shimmering - Longhouse Spirits Gather for Fragrant Island River Dreams c60 cassette $5.99 (Housecraft)
"'Transporting' comes to mind but that doesn't seem right... this is more like a living presence. It reminds me a bit of what Siddhartha might have felt sitting on that bank, hearing/seeing an endless, seamless flow of voices/faces in the river. But rather than voices come down cautiously fused reeds, percussive bells/clatter, and rising/falling synth scales which are, at times, reminiscent of Terry Riley's work on 'Shri Camel'. Regardless of how I see it, only metaphors seem right when conveying these four compositions. This project in neck-deep in the ethereal and a must-experience for the immersive listener. Variant covers--painted shells, cases, labels, and inserts. numbered edition of 50."

*Scott Tuma & Mike Weis - Taradiddle LP $19.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"Scott Tuma made his triumphant return earlier this year with "Not For Nobody" and continues to answer the call with this new, exquisite offering in collaboration with Zelienople's Mike Weis. "Taradiddle" is a new journey down similar terrain, searching out something new in a landscape that's been visited before. Take Tuma's capable hands and add the fantastic percussive talents of Weis and it's like the wheel reinvented. These two play off one another beautifully, with Weis creating layers of havoc beneath Tuma's pastoral missives. It's beautiful and dissonant. Weis is the perfect foil for Tuma's brittle sound world. The music breathes underwater, building and building on itself until it's risen into this majestic monument of glass. Archaic drones spit bombastic blasts of fire while the resulting sparks flicker into a million directions, flourescent in the night sky. Acoustic guitars drenched in reverb ring hollow with pianos echoing in the distance. Weis creates a river with swishing cymbals puncuated by fragile bells. Everything is bright, vivid, and new on "Taradiddle." Everything is perfect. LP comes in fold-out silkscreened poster-style sleeve and is strictly limited to 300 copies." Out of print - last copies.

*Tunnels - In Between Dreams cassette $5.99 (Peasant Magik)
"It's hard to believe that there is only one man behind Tunnels. When I first heard these recordings I thought that Nicholas, as a joke, had sent me some super rare desert psych-folk record he found. Maybe he did? I imagine him walking around one lazy afternoon, getting some coffee, and tripping over a box of moldy records someone tossed in the gutter. He looks through and finds this one stuck to the back of some mid-80s Fleetwood Mac record. The cover is a pasted on, hand drawn picture of a naked lady throwing up rainbows and laying in a field of exploding mushrooms. The band name is lost forever, half stuck to the back of the FM record. He goes home and spends the rest of the afternoon carefully scrapping off the black mold. Finally he gets enough of it off to actually play the record, and transfers it to tape, so as not to further damage his record player. The tape makes its way to his car and gets lost under his seat. Months later, he rediscovers the tape, only now it's covered in Dr. Pepper and melted Jolly Ranchers. Nick tranfers it to cdr and sends it over to me with the name In Between Dreams on it, which seems very fitting in this context. Pro-dubbed and imprinted cassettes. Full color three panel, double sided j-card with artwork by Morgan Alexandra Ritter."

*Two Who - Kesämaalla / Talvikaupungissa cassette $6.99 (Ikuisuus)
"Two Who are Juuso Paaso and Hermanni Yli-Tepsa of the sprawling Helsinki-based free rock band Boris Morgana, here making music with a guitar, a violin, some electronic treatments and field recordings. This 'homebaked dervish blues' is about conjuring and exorcising demons that haunt our lives anyway in various shapes and sizes. c-60, edition of 80 copies." One copy available.

*Uncreated - Live At The Human Trials Meeting, South Branch c30 cassette $5.99 (Gods of Tundra)
"You are standing outside the meeting...the sounds begin to ooze out of the cracks....they are sounds you can see. The visions aren't necessarily frightening, but they leave you incredibly uneasy. The visions cease, and you decide to abandon the meeting, never having stepped inside. This is the debut tape from UNCREATED (members of Boiling Seas, the Man Who Ate Himself, Words of the Incryption Convict)."

V/A - Amaterasu double CD $32.99 (Fractal)
"First volume of the Fractal Twin project (volume two is forthcoming). Amaterasu is a new thema concept Japanese compilation featuring : Mineko Itakura (Angel & Heavy Sirup), Kengo Iuchi, Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), Kousokuya, Jun Kuriyama (ex Ox), Miminokoto, Naoaki Miyamoto, Chie Mukai, Seiji Nagai (ex Taj Mahal Travellers), Overhang Party, Space Machine, Mitsuru Tabata (Zeni Geva, Leningrad Blues Machine), Totsuzen Danball, Atsushi Tsuyama (Acid Mothers Temple, Omoide Hatoba), Masayoshi Urabe. Liner notes by Alan Cummings. 15 unreleased long tracks." One copy available.

V/A - Asian Flashback: Underground Music From Asia CD $15.99 (PSF)
Asian underground compilation with 13 groups. Featuring Li Jianhong, Narita Munehiro, Hano Shoji, Mustangs, Kiyasu Orchestra, Mafeisan, 10, Xiao He, D!O!D!O!D!, Sato Yukie, Yoshiteru Koga Jizo, Kim Young Jin, Li Daiguo, Amature Amplifier, Soonie. "First PSF compilation to focus on the linkages between the established underground scene in Japan and nascent ones in China and Korea. Politics and history had long prevented exchanges between the three countries, but in recent years increasing trade and cultural linkages have revealed exciting new synergies. Covers the breadth of new East Asian underground forms ? white-out noise, face-peeling free improvisation, lysergic rock, limpid acid folk, electronic tone float, coruscating punk, free jazz and avant-art moves. Features relatively established names like China's king of noise guitar Li-Jianhong and motor-psych free-rock emperor Munehiro Narita, alongside a ton of utter unknown names." - Alan Cummings.

*V/A - Feed Me With Your Bliss - Rare Shoegaze 45's CDR $10.99 (For Your Bliss Productions)
"Homespun attempts and total rarities of the 1991-1995 shoegazer wall of sound era, including uncomped MBV flexi, limited hand-pressed Swervedriver 45, Ride/Motorcycle Boy Blondie boot tribute 45--plus total unknowns like Afterglow, Whorl, Crush Nova and Super Eight." 23 tracks.

*V/A - Kaleidoscope Cries - Rare Shoegaze Vol II CDR $10.99 (For Your Bliss Productions)
"Rare EP tracks by shoegaze leaders like Ride, Bailter Space, and Medicine; plus long gone one-off album bands like Blindside, Whipped Cream, The Belltower and Swallow, 1991-1995." 20 tracks.

*V/A - Open Strings: 1920s Middle Eastern Recordings - New Responses double CD $20.99 (Honest Jon's Records)
"This is the fourth release in Honest Jon's series of albums exploring the earliest 78s held in the EMI Hayes Archive. Open Strings is a dazzling selection of virtuoso string-playing from Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, all recorded in the 1920s, and pretty much unheard ever since. In addition, Open Strings includes a disc of newly-commissioned responses to the themes in this music by underground luminaries committed to the drone such as Sir Richard Bishop of legendary Sun City Girls renown, West Coast psych-guitarist Ben Chasny aka Six Organs Of Admittance, UK folk-guitarist Rick Tomlinson aka Voice Of The Seven Woods, and Western Massachusetts' raga-inspired duo, MV And EE. From resonant bow-drone, to frenetic fret-runs to delicate, circular acoustic musings to sitar fever-dreams, no matter the nationality, there is a resonance and truth in this music that is ancient, timeless and transcendent. Scorchers past and present, every one. Other artists include: Micah Blue Smaldone, Michael Flower, Charlie Parr, Bruce Licher, Paul Metzger, and Steffen Basho-Junghans."

*V/A - Open Strings: 1920s Middle Eastern Recordings - New Responses 4xLP $54.99 (Honest Jon's Records)
"Frankly staggering 4 LP set of truly outrageous archival recordings of middle-eastern music, and equally memorable responses from people like Sir Richard Bishop, Six Organs Of Admittance, Mike Flower, Micah Blue Smoldone and MVEE. It's strictly limited to 1000 copies, absolutely gorgeous-looking, and infused with such love and attention to detail that you'll want to play this to everyone you know. Life-affirming stuff! Here's the label gen: The four LPs are sleeved in a rigid slipcase. Astounding mastering as usual at Abbey Road. Wonderful artwork - woodcuts - by Katharina Immekus. 'Superbly stylish in conception and packaging, it shows that small independent labels can still be an inspirational force' (Daily Telegraph); 'definitive and essential' (Brainwashed); 'stunning in its historical interest and musicianship' (Boston Phoenix); 'phenomenal and mesmerizing' (Dusted); 'one of the major phonographic salvage operations of our time' (The Wire). 'The archival finds are, without exception, phenomenal - and mesmerizing. The oud, the santour and spike fiddle dominate. There are other instruments, but without a little more familiarity with the region's music traditions (of which three - Arabic, Turkish and Persian - are represented here), these are difficult to accurately identify. Honest Jon's has intentionally foregone providing any notes, instead letting the listener engage directly with the pieces, all of them improvisational performances lasting about three minutes. 'The instrumental command on these performances simply dazzles. Blindingly fast runs through the high register get tempered with stretches of silence and a preternatural understanding of fluctuating tempos. Melodic inventiveness never fails to heighten the drama, making one want to follow each note of each piece, so as not to miss a detail. Nechat Bey, with five tracks here, is notable for his versatility, appearing on oud as well as spike fiddle. Adul Hussein Khan Shanazi, with three tracks, brings shape to even the fastest, densest passages. Starting with a simple passage of chording, his Mavaraounnahr builds into a complex weave of ecstatic chording and intricate rolls. 'At times, especially on the spike fiddle tunes from Sami Chawa as well as Mehmet and Ahmet Balki-Oglu, the nearly 90-year-old recordings predict all sorts of modern musical vocabulary, much of what we might consider experimental now. Chawa posits, in brief flashes, a particularly abrasive take on free improvisation, while the latter duo prefigure the current obsession with scraping, wavering drone.' - Dusted. Pretty amazing to both hold and hear - recommended!

*V/A - Soft As Warm But Snow Inside - Rare Shoegaze Vol. III CDR $10.99 (For Your Bliss Productions)
"More rare EP's and album cuts by noisy/swirly unknowns 1991-1995 like Fury Things, Sweet Jesus, Majesty Crush, and Ultra Cindy." 18 tracks.

*V/A - Super Street 24 "Straw Dogz" cassette $7.99 (Fag Tapes)
"All live comp. cassette featuring: Slither, Steve Kenney, New Pledgemaster. raw live recordings from El Garage, Monterrey MX + Steve and New Plegdemaster played after the gig on a sick roof top after-party + Slither live in Atlanta. c62. edition 50."

V/A - Tokyo Flashback 6 CD $15.99 (PSF)
"The long awaited return of PSF's legendary, scene-defining compilation. For two years since the release of Tokyo Flashback 5 in 1995, we have been scouring the deepest dives in the darkest alleyways of the Tokyo underground in search of the newest mutated manifestations of the lysergic paradigm. The quest has not been an easy one, but now after dozens of gigs and hundreds of hours listening to demo CDRs, we have finally reached its conclusion. Tokyo Flashback 6 presents the fruits of that search, a treasure trove of the unheard. Twelve new groups poised on the cusp of greatness, driven by a fervent belief in the transformational potential of sound and the dimension-altering power of cranked amps, delay pedals and a third-eye opened to the cosmos. The groups included span a wide definition of the psychedelic, from the no-wave intensity of Onna (led by underground manga artist, Keizo Miyanishi), to the acid-punk splatter of Ainotamenishis, the art-school insanity of Kinky Pigeon, and the loner canyon-magic of Genshi. - Alan Cummings. Featured groups: Ahobune, Hananoyoni, Onna, Yamashirube, Sarod, Retort Mandala, Ainotamenishis, Kinky Pigeon, Yakochu, Ogikubo Connection, Masami Kawaguchi, Genshi.

*Vibes - Psychic 7" $5.99 (Not Not Fun)
"Every family has a freak (or 2). Every deck's got a wild card. We've got Vibes. Ante up. NNF's loosest cannons return to the recording fray with, Psychic, a blown-out briar patch of basement garage fantasy masquerading as obscurist protest funk - and the band's first vinyl statement. Recorded in Eagle Rock on a "last legs"-style 4-track, the EP's four songs are jacked deep in the red, with fuzz bass, wah shrapnel, vocal sloganeering, and drum racket all fighting for tape room. Competition is fierce. Recent live faves like "Dead Horses" and "Night Court" appear in particularly revved-up form, as do the first two Vibes songs ever written, "Psychic" and "Prisms Of Fame." All bases are covered. All soul trains are derailed. Here comes the judge. Black vinyl 33 RPM singles in full-color fold-over sleeves with collage artwork and lettering by Cameron Stallones, photographs by Caitlin C. Mitchell, plus a rant-y revolution scrapbook insert. Edition of 400."

*Volcano The Bear - Birth of Streissand 7" $7.99 (No-Fi Records)
"First non-archive release for NO-FI. VTB at their most abstract. Released November 2006."

VxPxC - Dead Right There cassette $5.99 (Ski-Fi)
"90 minute document of two live events culled from the vaults of the early years of VxPxC. From delicate sprawling drone to outright tonal murkitude, this is guaranteed to melt ur brainstem. A lullaby for a nuclear winter. limited to 60 copies." Out of print.

*Wand - Hard Knox CD $10.99 (Ecstatic Peace)
"To quickly address the elephant in the room -- certainly, collections of demos, outtakes and home recordings are mostly bogus, but obviously you're reading this, so obviously I've somehow been coerced into releasing this batch of tunes, and you've bought it or stolen it or borrowed it or gotten a promo or whatever, so let's cut to the chase. In my defense, all of the cuts contained herein are 'songs' in the traditional western sense -- my experiments in 'surf harmonica' and 'doom zydeco' will not be chronicled here, deep and plentiful as those archives may be. Everything here was recorded by me on either a Roland BR-8 digital 8-track or it's flashier, more cosmopolitan cousin, the BR- 1600, with incalculable assistance from Jexie Lynn, who accompanies me on many of these songs and who's encouragement and creativity allowed many of them to be. Most of the recordings were done at my then-home in beautiful Knoxville, TN between October 2002 and January of 2007, just prior to the retirement of the Wooden Wand name. You've already pardoned the narcissism, now pardon the cliché: I stand behind these songs as snapshots and enjoy them despite their many flaws. I hope you do, too." -- The Wand

*Wolf Eyes - Moods In Free Time CDR $5.99 (Gods of Tundra)
"New tests from the Comfort Zone. Minimal distortions and disturbances..gearing up to remain always wrong."

Iannis Xenakis - Musique Electro-Acoustique CD $17.99 (Fractal)
"CD premieres of two mid-80s works: 'Pour La Paix' (1981) and 'Voyage Des Unari Vers Androméde' (1989), both utilizing the UPIC system quite heavily [refer to the recent Xenakis/UPIC/Continuum release Electroacoustic & Instrumental Works from CCMIX Paris (MODE 98) for extended references to this zany lightpen-computer-pattern-sound-zapping/interpreti ng setup]. 'Pour La Paix' is a piece in radio-play form (see Cage/Patchen The City Wears a Slouch Hat) based around anti-war sentiment written by Iannis's wife Francois, perhaps reflecting on Iannis's youth spent as a soldier in the Greek resistance against the Nazi occupation (during which he lost sight in one of his eyes). A very powerful work mixing some very far-out UPIC computer blat (the most omnipresent element in the piece), various voices male and female, and choral interjections. 'Voyage Des Unari Vers Androméde' is a 2-channel piece constructed solely of UPIC elements, and was composed specifically for the Goethe Institute in Japan's 'Internation Exposition of Paper Kites'. Apparently concerned with 'a space voyage far in the future, toward the galaxy of Andromeda, with episodes while crossing the spaces between the stars'. An apt and telling libretto (shine on... you CRAZY diamond...), just imagine that couplet in sound and you're halfway there. Awesomely outrageously great." Out of print - 2 copies available.

*xNoBBQx - Skewer 10" $13.99 (Golden Lab Records)
"We first came across Australian two-piece xNoBBQx in Piccadilly Records last year when the Siltbreeze vinyl reissue of their first CD-r appeared on its shelves. The Siltbreeze label being a bastion of all that is great in terms of dirgy, lo-fi, transcendental unmusicality, we were thus intrigued to hear this slab. And, we have to say, it was one of the greatest shop-listening experiences of all time. Here was a duo, probably of fully grown men, bashing away at their instruments in a manner that suggested they had never really learned any 'proper' technique and it was all the more mind-bendingly good for it. We later read a review, in fact, that put it thus: "So what exactly is the difference between an xNoBBQx recording and a couple of 14 year olds bashing instruments in the garage with record pressed down on one of their mum's old tape recorders? Probably not a whole lot, actually, but I get the feeling that's precisely the point." (Cyclic Defrost). Well, it's a helluva point. The duo, in spite of or, perhaps, due to their unabashed simplicity, manage to create sounds that are warm as an old-fashioned blanket, each piece having the ability to induce a state of complete, dribbling mental stasis. It's disjointed, scratchy and 'difficult', yes. But it also manages to be completely absorbing. If you like your rock deconstructed to the nth degree, we highly recommend you dig this stellar new 23 minute masterpiece right here." Edition of 300 copies.




***Forthcoming Releases***


AURORA BOREALIS - June releases

*Atavist - II: Ruined double LP $17.99 (Aurora Borealis)
"Having toured extensively in the UK with both SUNN O))) and Khanate around 2004 - 2006, the band were stalwarts of the growing extreme doom scene, and were widely hailed as the next great UK hope. The self-titled debut album was one of its kind: picture every negative emotion ever conceived, set to some of the most crawling, painful, polarizing, and mesmerizing atmospheric blackened sludge doom ever, and you'll get a glimpse of the blackened heart of Atavist. The band's second album, II:Ruined, is a massive, monolithic, introverted chapter of audial suffering and torment. It sees Atavist plunge further into the audial abyss by incorporating more layers and substance to their art (not unlike the way Japan's Corrupted portray their immaculate aesthetic). Heavier, more diverse, intricate, and melodic, II:Ruined is just that; an unforgiving observation of self-reflection, repentance, and desperation. With guest performances from Justin Greaves, (ex-Iron Monkey, Crippled Black Phoenix), and dark folk/rock/doomster Rose Kemp, (who's 'Unholy Majesty' LP saw release in 2008 on Aurora Borealis ), II:Ruined is a decidedly darker beast, lurking in the shadows, evading the casual listener and rewarding the devotee. It is interesting to note that this was the final album for this line up of the band, one can only wonder at the self-fulfilling prophecy of such and immense and bleak work. Perhaps its a wonder they are all still alive. This double vinyl edition of II:Ruined on Aurora Borealis marks a long overdue vinyl release for this important milestone of extreme doom in the UK, and stands in monolithic testament to their achievement." Limited edition of 500 copies housed in a gatefold sleeve.

*Burial Hex / Zola Jesus - split LP $16.99 (Aurora Borealis)
"Aurora Borealis is very proud to release this split LP by two of Wisconsin's finest exports, BURIAL HEX and ZOLA JESUS. Burial Hex presents two works here, following up on the critically acclaimed Initiations CD and 2LP of 2008. The first track 'Go Crystal Tears' is the first outing for the new Burial Hex sound and highlights influences such as 80s horror synth master John Carpenter and Goblin coming to the fore and blending with the almost black metal vocal style and "horror electronics" so successfully developed on Initiations. The second track 'Temple of the Flood', clocking in at a more usual 14 and a half minutes, is one of the final old-style Burial Hex tracks and proceeds in a style reminiscent of previous works with heavily processed analogue electronics and synths up until around seven minutes in where things take an unexpected turn with eroding layers of primitive percussion, water drops, and almost Martin Denny- style exotica piano runs before ending in a deluge of sub bass and redemptive church organ. Zola Jesus expands on the works presented on the 7inch releases with a 19 minute track that blends all the trademark sounds of this young Madison genius. Nika (aka Zola Jesus) plays and writes all her own material, though is joined here by Dead Luke, who also plays as part of the Zola Jesus' live sound. Nika's voice, reminiscent of a teenage Diamanda Galas or a more deranged Beth Ditto, soars and wails within an ever changing cloud of pulsing synths and analogue electronics up until the eight minute mark where a naive electronic drum pattern kicks in and is joined by a warm synth line. For some minutes the track takes a tuneful No Wave turn before gradually shifting again into a darker and more menacing beast. This is stunning stuff - expect more from Zola Jesus on Aurora Borealis in the future." Limited to 500 copies on heavyweight vinyl.

*Heavy WInged - Shaking, Waking LP $16.99 (Aurora Borealis)
"Aurora Borealis is proud to present long-time faves HEAVY WINGED on limited vinyl with the 'Shaking, waking' LP. The band have been consistently impressing us since we first heard them back in 2006 and we are very happy to have snagged them for this release before tagging them and releasing them back into the wild. The 'Shaking, waking' LP consists of two lengthy tracks: 'Tidal Blackness' is a 23 minute cloud of improvised guitar and bass drone, underpinned with sparse percussive elements and dappled with the rays of ethereal melodies. This track, recorded live in Oakland in 2008, represents the more gentle side of HEAVY WINGED in some ways and is largely soothing. The second side harbours 'Morning Flesh', 18 minutes that veer towards the caveman Krautrock of the recent 'Alive in my mouth' LP, drums pounding, Neanderthal guitar chugging, though with a melodic haze drifting across the musical landscape like a lysergic mistral, leading the listener ever further into the shifting sands of the forbidden zone. HEAVY WINGED have set the controls for the heart of the unknown. Two track LP - a VINYL ONLY release, on 180g transparent pale grey vinyl, limited to 500 pieces in a heavyweight matte sleeve."

*Sylvester Anfang - Sylvester Anfang II LP $? (Aurora Borealis) - LATE JULY RELEASE
"All things must evolve, and given time even the unicellular organisms dwelling in ocean's deepest fathoms may shift form and take to the skies. In celebration of the mysteries of evolution, Aurora Borealis proudly presents SYLVESTER ANFANG II. In the time since the release of Kosmies Slachtafval, Silvester Anfang have grown into SYLVESTER ANFANG II, a more psychedelic beast, a more tangible creature in some ways, but one that defies and confounds standard classification. Taking their cue from Krautrock communes of yore, the Flemish troubadours have expanded both ranks and minds and now present this giant new opus for general consumption. With cultish numbers swollen with new blood in the guise of Stef Anus (Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat), Father Sloow (Sloow Tapes pontiff), Bram (Ignatz) and Clay Ruby (Davenport, Burial Hex), the sound is much fuller and more reminiscent of Krautish dope jams then ever before. Ruby's vocal additions create a whole new universe for the band, rather like if Dr. John had been born in a plague pit in Flanders, and the resulting tracks "The Devil Always Shits in the Same Graves" parts 1 & 2 are masterful examples of Flemish voodoo boogie. The new material is more hypnotic than before, and the band are sure to add new members to their fan cult as they slink across Europe like a fog in the coming months. Sure to upset parents and upstanding citizens with their occult themes and liberal European-style artwork, SYLVESTER ANFANG II reach new levels of consciousness with their mantras of goat worship and the orthodoxy of denial that states "Only analogue is real". Dust off your robes, sharpen the sacrificial blade, order in some Trappist beers... Tune in, turn on, evolve."

*Sylvester Anfang - Sylvester Anfang II CD $? (Aurora Borealis) - LATE JULY RELEASE
"All things must evolve, and given time even the unicellular organisms dwelling in ocean's deepest fathoms may shift form and take to the skies. In celebration of the mysteries of evolution, Aurora Borealis proudly presents SYLVESTER ANFANG II. In the time since the release of Kosmies Slachtafval, Silvester Anfang have grown into SYLVESTER ANFANG II, a more psychedelic beast, a more tangible creature in some ways, but one that defies and confounds standard classification. Taking their cue from Krautrock communes of yore, the Flemish troubadours have expanded both ranks and minds and now present this giant new opus for general consumption. With cultish numbers swollen with new blood in the guise of Stef Anus (Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat), Father Sloow (Sloow Tapes pontiff), Bram (Ignatz) and Clay Ruby (Davenport, Burial Hex), the sound is much fuller and more reminiscent of Krautish dope jams then ever before. Ruby's vocal additions create a whole new universe for the band, rather like if Dr. John had been born in a plague pit in Flanders, and the resulting tracks "The Devil Always Shits in the Same Graves" parts 1 & 2 are masterful examples of Flemish voodoo boogie. The new material is more hypnotic than before, and the band are sure to add new members to their fan cult as they slink across Europe like a fog in the coming months. Sure to upset parents and upstanding citizens with their occult themes and liberal European-style artwork, SYLVESTER ANFANG II reach new levels of consciousness with their mantras of goat worship and the orthodoxy of denial that states "Only analogue is real". Dust off your robes, sharpen the sacrificial blade, order in some Trappist beers... Tune in, turn on, evolve."


BLACKEST RAINBOW coming in July:

Robert Horton & Sindre Bjerga - Can't Go Fast Enough To Get There Early CD $14.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Wild and eclectic mail collaborations from one of America's most recently on fire jammers Robert Horton, and Norway's drone master Sindre Bjerga. Both have incredibly solid resumes of collaborations and releases, what with Sindre's ongoing collaboration with Jan Iversen, and Robert's collaborations with Tom Carter and the Mudsuckers crew of Pete and Gabe (of Yellow Swans), which also includes Carter. Can't Go Faster Enough to Get There Early features a massive range of instruments and sounds, from multiple instrument based layered drone to down right weirdness, and total outsider vibes. Also features Hal Hughes, Lisa Graves and Jan Iversen. Glass mastered CDs, limited to 500 in white digipaks with stickered covers and a small 4 page insert of liner notes."

*Starving Weirdos - B/P/M Series 1 LP $19.99 (Blackest Rainbow)
"Absolutely mind melting release from this consistently amazing American duo. This release has a very different sound to the superb drone recordings of their recent releases, yet it is still totally immense but really quite unexpected. This was previously issued as a tour only CDR in a press of somewhere between 20 and 30 copies. Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay spent sometime recording legendary Humboldt based pianist Darius Brottman, who also happens to have a radio show before Brian's own show on KHSU college radio. The recordings of Brottman were then reworked by McKinlay and Pyle separately. Pyle and McKinlay have a side each on this LP, both sides featuring very different ways of reworking the original beautiful recordings. Side A opens with some straight piano clinks layered with incidental sounds that occurred during recording sessions, creating an amazing feeling of beautiful surrealness , leadings into multi-layered piano movements over and over. Side B begins with powerful, erratic, forceful playing, coated in psychedelic loops and reversed sounds, then returning to a more straight piano playing. The second track on this side almost bleeds into familiar Weirdo territory. This is one bizarre, but equally genius and beautiful release. Both myself and the Weirdos are honored to have the artwork for this LP designed by artist Mick Wiggins. Pro printed sleeves, pressed on 180 gram vinyl and limited to 500 copies."

coming later still (not much info yet on these like pricing but if you want these let me know as these will be very limited):

MV+EE 12 x cassette box set - price may be close to $75 but not definite.
all unreleased live material.

Natural Snow Buildings - 3xlp
"The NSB 3LP is currently being mastered by Ben Nash. It sounds really great, great blend of the drones and quieter folkier sounds. Its gonna be 180gram vinyl, pro printed sleeve that will house all three LPs." - Joe / Blackest Rainbow. No pricing info yet but I'll be allocated up to 15 copies.


BUM TAPES - expected this week

*Compassing - Old Woes New Hopes c50 cassette $6.99 (Bum Tapes)
"There's a hell of a lot going on in this new 10 track cassette by the two guys who make up the band Compassing. A microcosm of sounds, tiny little experimentations click into view then whirl away, an orchestra of warped instruments throb and groove against each other only to be joined together by the occasional chugging krautrock pulse and scattered free form drumming, kind of like Faust jamming with Taj Mahal Travellers and being produced by Louis & Bebe Barron." Edition of 20 copies.

*Secret Colors - Infinite Wandering c34 cassette $6.99 (Bum Tapes)
"Secret Colors is the solo project for Seattle's Matt Lawson, who has conjured up an incredible album of carefully crafted blissful songs, Keys and Guitars are washed clean with effects, bubbling then overflowing with layers of slow burning grooves melting into deep reflective rhythms, all executed in full on dub mode. Cassettes are housed in hand-cut high quality paper collage covers. If you're currently digging the sounds of Ducktails, Sun Araw et al, this one is not to be missed!" Edition of 30 copies.

*Treehouse People - Crystal Limbs c30 cassette $6.99 (Bum Tapes)
"The second release for this new-age, keyboard driven sci-fi duo, two sides of psychedelic dream excursions, Bladerunner burnouts and synth drenched krautrock rhythms make up one of their most beautiful releases to date. "Cooperation of Stefan Kushima & Iko Nori spending some nights with the Casio VL Tone, Feedback loops in minimal construction, a child's dream in bubblevariations". Edition of 25 copies.

*Tulasi - Huomen Tuone c34 cassette $6.99 (Bum Tapes)
"Bumtapes is proud to give you another chance to hear this incredible album, plus another previously unreleased track from the same sessions, and with all new artwork. Originally released on vinyl in an edition of 118 copies by Troglosound in 2008 (now totally sold out) Finland's Tulasi crafted an album drenched in Eastern drones and Finnish backroad folk meditations, The two musicians who make up the band have also featured in bands such as Vapaa, Keijo & Free Players, Aan, Uton, Kulkija and Kutomo. And have also previously released a cassette on Sloow tapes. To quote the original write up for the LP...."One of the most harmonic expressions of spiritual freak-folk coming out from Finland, Tulasi spreads around warm and positive feelings, created through spontaneous junctions of flute, guitar, violin, percussions, tambura and voices. So, the perfect sound to bring our Souls peacefully inside the wintertime is coming directly from the North". Edition of 35 copies.


DE STIJL

*Circuit Des Yeux - Sirenum LP $15.99 (DeStijl)
"From a small town in the middle of the land of milk and honey, where the air is filled with the blossoming of the fruit trees for a big part of the year, comes these perfect little lilies of bands that make perfect little records that reflect this fertile and flowery region. it's a timeless land, and making records there is possible during this surely short period of history wherein the youth of this era feel as if they've solved the mystery of life and love and it's really loving that is the answer to everything. All of which has nothing at all to do with circuit des yeux and sirenum, which was made in indiana, and there aren't exactly pipers at the gates of lafayette. sound? It's the sound of "issues", and the sound of "troubles". You don't get but one phone call and honey, the girl's voice makes this message a bit rubbly anyway. Take the manic snorts of captain liberty, dissonant as chalk and the next moment as melodic as sharp yet slick, metal teeth. Take the mermaid, 1988, turn the tides, gently, gently away. Selected breath / silences / selected feedback. Take an argument you have here with an empty street while the memory of high traffic is leaking back. Sirenum has a real "spiritual food" vibe and it's fucking pain and pleasure relief in this real met en zonder sort of way. This world is her world, and pipe if you like it .."


DIGITALIS LIMITED

*Cyquoia - Age of Aquarians c20 cassette $7.99 (Digitalis Limited)
":From the washed-out minds of housecraft head honcho jefry astin and his floridian partner-in-crime evan galbicka comes a late farewell to the tropics before treks to the mountainous north. cyquoia have much in common with their housecraft brethren like tricorn & queue and xiphiidae, yet this duo has it's own trail to the flourescent pink sea mapped out in gold. these blissful drones feel as though they're being drowned in a summer storm. astin & galbicka barely keep their heads above water, but with every breath drawn they churn out an endless flow of synthetic guitar waves. the sound just rolls over you in waves. who needs gold at the end of a rainbow anyway? edition of 80, pro-dubbed on lilac tapes, gold labels."

*John Davis - Vines Go Roaming c49 cassette $7.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"This one has been a long-time coming and only i am to blame for the slowness in which it has FINALLY appeared. but patience is a virtue and all that biz, so just be happy its here now because SF-drone king john davis has crafted an absolute doozy. "vines go roaming" features two immense, side-long pieces. davis takes simple ingredients and puts them through god only knows only to have something beautiful and stunning float out the other side. side a features guitar, field recordings and electronics where side b is simply accordian and electronics. it's stripped bare before he makes it whole again. the subtle shifts in tone radiate through the air expanding toward the heavens on a cloud of molasses. this is epic music. edition of 90, pro-dubbed and houses in hand-stamped 'pillow boxes.'"

*Disguises - Aeolian Hookers c40 cassette $7.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"Let the insanity begin! these beasts from toronto follow-up their mind-melting LP from last year, "post-mortem depression," with absolute avalanche of hell. jagged guitar swirls get the beat down from a pommel horse of drum bombs. screams escape from the abyss only to be sucked back under by crawling basslines. and then the guitars come at you again and again and again. there's no avoiding this minefield - you're gonna lose a leg. this is clusterfuck city folks and disguises are your tour guides. these jagged excursions will cut your face open and make you want to apologize for bleeding all over the brand new carpet. edition of 80, pro-dubbed with broken golden fairy art and smeared labels."

*Dream Safari - River Submersion c30 cassette $7.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"Following up his recent burner on excitebike, dream safari is back in the haze clawing his way to the summit. these miniature trips are lost inside a maze of urban caves with nothing but a burned-out lantern. cyclical vocal drones that rise and fall like an ancient sea creature escaping from a blackened abyss. these are the sounds of dying ghosts. drenched in reverb and delay, there's only one way out and that's straight done. dark & hypnotic, you know the rest. editon of 65, pro-dubbed in the light."

*Early Tunnels - Aerial Caves c35 cassette $7.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"What a swamp this sucker is. throw the body over the side and get the fuck back to shore because there's some serious action about to go down after dusk. early tunnels is the ohio duo of jon lorenz (wasteland jazz unit, etc) and pete fosco (pete fosco, etc) bringing down the blitzkrieg through a mess of electric fences and barbed wire. "aerieal caves" is a gnarly excursion through minefield guitar syndrome, waltzing electronics, and firebrand horns that are guaranteed to peel paint and manufacture all kinds of dissonance with the neighbors. lorenz & fosco don't fuck around. they concoct a steaming cocktail that sounds so foreign you'd swear everything they were playing was from another planet. total kong. edition of 70, pro-dubbed and scrubbed."

*Generals & Such - Quixote c73 cassette $7.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"This is a first for digitalis & friends... this baby is produced from a painted score. yep, painted scores. how fucking cool is that? well, based on the results from this trio of californians: christian kiefer, timothy rowan, & erik werner - it's pretty damn cool. here's a little background... generals & such, this is what they do. they play painted/graphic scores. this one is produced by werner (don't know if they all are) and this one is a 15 ft painting based on the first eight chapters of don quixote. i feel like i don't need to say anything else because that is simply incredible. but i won't taunt you... what do you get with a 15 ft painted score? scattershot percussion anchoring acoustic & electric guitars making skronks and waves. werner's acoustic playing at times reminds me of akiyama. rowan offsets this frenetic playing with calm and cool reverb-drenched spirals. it's an awesome contrast. the music progresses and unfolds slowly. kiefer's drumming guides the trio through the valleys and deserts, avoiding pitfalls unless necessary. the whole thing just feels monumental. tape is 73 minutes long, but each side is exactly the same. so it's basically a 1-sided c38, but i hate tapes with a blank side. pro-dubbed to boot."

*Hanging Thief - Hanging Thief c66 cassette $7.99 (Digitalis Limited)
"I'm keeping this one simple. it's huge. absolutely fucking huge. thirty minute drones that span the colossal oklahoma skies. hanging thief is barn owl + altar eagle. recorded live in green country when barn owl trekked through on their way back home. two guitars, synthesizer, electronics, & vocals light the night. so many good times were had. edition of 150, pro-dubbed & imprinted on high-bias tapes."


DIVORCE

*Gown - The Old Line LP $14.99 (Divorce)
"Andrew MacGregor may be most known for his otherworldly guitar collaboration with Thurston Moore in Bark Haze, but his solo work as Gown is equally cosmic. The Old Line is avant-garde guitar music for deep listening and coming undone. A weird meditation. Sprawling webs of guitar ambience and outsider mantras capture an ethereal solitude- the sparse Nova Scotian landscapes that Gown now calls home reflected in the texture of his music. This is noise that sounds like a sky of birds settling into the trees for a night away from the wind. Limited to 500 copies."

*Husband & Knife - More of Them (Than Us) c30 cassette $6.99 (Divorce)
"Husband & Knife recently became a duo with the addition of multi-instrumentalist Evan Cardwell. Evan's electronic dreamscapes and backwards guitars have helped KC realize his ambitions for tripped-out space in which to lay his songs. To celebrate the new marriage, Evan and KC decided to release this cassette only EP. The album is a deep listen, utilising a wild mix of sound and classic song writing. Limited to 140 copies."


DRAG CITY - late June release

*Ya Ho Wha 13 - Magnificence In The Memory LP $15.99 (Drag City)
"The legendary Father Yod was a wealthy man, with a rich inner life, a family of disciples that loved him, many, many women and seemingly unlimited power. So why at the height of his success, did he choose to spend his time playing rock and roll? Having a band in residency at Father House provided him and all his children with another path to travel in their never-ending search for experience and wisdom. Taking time out from their busy schedule as Father's students and spiritual seekers in the Source Family, Sunflower, Octavius, Pythias and Djin took instruments in hand and, at a mere gesture from Father, turned up the amps and began tapping into the cosmos. First, they recorded themselves. The energy was good. Equipped by Father with instruments and effects pedals to ensure that they could create music that came 'from the spheres,' their sounds provided spiritual growth to everyone in the Source Family. After a time, Father became the lead singer, as 'a way to record wisdom in a modern, youth-oriented way,' Djin tells us. And YaHoWha 13 was born with Sunflower, Octavius and Djin. The music was recorded at a studio in the Father House on a TEAC 4-track reel-to-reel machine and was released on the Source Family's Higher Key Records label. In a couple short years, nine LPs were created, to be sold at the Source Restaurant and at YaHoWha 13 shows. Much sought-after items today, they've all been reissued. Even more exciting is the material that wasn't released - enough music to fill over sixty albums, all of them mind-blowers. Skimmed from the riches in Isis Aquarian's vaults (by Dave Nuss of the No-Neck Blues Band), the nine tracks on Magnificence in the Memory run the gamut of YaHoWha 13's rainbow of styles, from the whispered funk of 'Camp of the Gypsies' to the screaming and stomping of, well, 'Camp of the Gypsies.' Storming through moments with abandon, Father and his Sons never repeated themselves, committing everything they did to tape in a single take. The capacity of their riffs and grooves to sound like German rock bands of several years previous or the as-yet-uncreated avant sounds from the indie rock movement a decade away is testament to their ability to tap the source of human inspiration. Adds Octavius, 'These cuts will always be a source of inspiration.' The songs on Magnificence in the Memory were chosen to provide a non-stop exciting listening experience for Source fans and neophytes alike - and as Sunflower has stated, 'Father's music is our legacy and represents the voice of the times.'"

*Ya Ho Wha 13 - Magnificence In The Memory CD $13.99 (Drag City)
"The legendary Father Yod was a wealthy man, with a rich inner life, a family of disciples that loved him, many, many women and seemingly unlimited power. So why at the height of his success, did he choose to spend his time playing rock and roll? Having a band in residency at Father House provided him and all his children with another path to travel in their never-ending search for experience and wisdom. Taking time out from their busy schedule as Father's students and spiritual seekers in the Source Family, Sunflower, Octavius, Pythias and Djin took instruments in hand and, at a mere gesture from Father, turned up the amps and began tapping into the cosmos. First, they recorded themselves. The energy was good. Equipped by Father with instruments and effects pedals to ensure that they could create music that came 'from the spheres,' their sounds provided spiritual growth to everyone in the Source Family. After a time, Father became the lead singer, as 'a way to record wisdom in a modern, youth-oriented way,' Djin tells us. And YaHoWha 13 was born with Sunflower, Octavius and Djin. The music was recorded at a studio in the Father House on a TEAC 4-track reel-to-reel machine and was released on the Source Family's Higher Key Records label. In a couple short years, nine LPs were created, to be sold at the Source Restaurant and at YaHoWha 13 shows. Much sought-after items today, they've all been reissued. Even more exciting is the material that wasn't released - enough music to fill over sixty albums, all of them mind-blowers. Skimmed from the riches in Isis Aquarian's vaults (by Dave Nuss of the No-Neck Blues Band), the nine tracks on Magnificence in the Memory run the gamut of YaHoWha 13's rainbow of styles, from the whispered funk of 'Camp of the Gypsies' to the screaming and stomping of, well, 'Camp of the Gypsies.' Storming through moments with abandon, Father and his Sons never repeated themselves, committing everything they did to tape in a single take. The capacity of their riffs and grooves to sound like German rock bands of several years previous or the as-yet-uncreated avant sounds from the indie rock movement a decade away is testament to their ability to tap the source of human inspiration. Adds Octavius, 'These cuts will always be a source of inspiration.' The songs on Magnificence in the Memory were chosen to provide a non-stop exciting listening experience for Source fans and neophytes alike - and as Sunflower has stated, 'Father's music is our legacy and represents the voice of the times.'"


8MM RECORDS

Up-Tight - The Beginning of the End LP $31.99 (8mm)
"It is a rare feeling when music can give you the sensation like a bullet through the head, and you call it a pleasure. Well, that is what happened when we first listened to these four tracks from 'The Begininng of the End' the new studio album from Japanese garage-psych heroes Up-Tight. We played the disc once and we were speechless. Why? The reason was easy: We got a picture of a band at its creative zenith. The Lp opens with 'Our Own Portrait', guided by mantric drum beating, rigid bass pulsations and T.Aoki providing a vortex of massive fuzzed guitar. 'A Song For Your Pain' is a beautifully inspired ballad, with a melancholic voice floating on a carpet of melodic soft psychedelia. Side B is the Beginning Of The End, for real! 'The Destruction' is a trippy improvisation, with amps on fire and instruments in a state of pure sonic catharsis. Introducing the title-track as the final chapter, with Aoki's raucous crooning that evokes smoke and dark shadows, then collapsing into a wall of guitar squall. Our ears are still blowing! And it's time to play this record again. Get ready for a long trip cause there is no turning back with this incredible new album, Up-Tight takes the tradition of Japanese psych-rock and brings it to a brand new level of crazy intensity and destructive power. Available on vinyl only." This second edition comes with proprinted front cover, heavier weight black vinyl, collaged back cover and new insert. 120 numbered copies. I was only able to secure 7 copies so be real quick if you want this one.


EKTRO RECORDS - expected in 2-3 weeks

*Keuhkot - Toimintatapoja olioille CD $14.99 (Ektro Records)
"You've never, ever heard anything like Keuhkot, the one-man, multi-media funhouse commandeered by Kake Puhuu from his home in the forests of Pomarkku, Finland. This national treasure has been active since the late '80s, when began setting his bizarre, ranting vocals to Middle Eastern exotica, synthetic carnival melodies, and squawky no-wave guitar. His fifth album, Toimintatapoja Olioille ("methods to objects"), is a somewhat mellower but no less arresting statement about the perils of technology-a perfect opportunity for fans of Avarus, Lau Nau and Kemialliset Ystävät to discover the demented forefather of Finnish freak-folk!"


ELLIPTICAL NOISE RECORDS - new label by Opax / My Cat Is An Alien's Opalio Bros.

*Le Voci Del Buio - Le Voci Del Buio CD $9.99 (Elliptical Noise)
"Obscure ensemble's debut from the land of nowhere_homemade acoustic string instruments_when the sky is getting too dark to see >> professionally pressed compact disc recordables_cardboard jacket with paste-on artwork."

*My Cat Is An Alien - For the Tears of the Land_Prayers From the Outer Space - Vol.1 CD $9.99 (Elliptical Noise)
"Alien art vs. archaic art_archaic art vs. alien art_why_what_where_when_dear gents you'll find here all yr answers >> digital version of the instantly sold out vinyl on important records. professionally pressed compact disc recordables_cardboard jacket with paste-on artwork_insert."

*Maurizio & Roberto Opalio - Liquid Spring CD $9.99 (Elliptical Noise)
"Classical guitar_acoustic guitar_ethereal vocals_another milestone by the most well known space bros >> professionally pressed compact disc recordables_cardboard jacket with paste-on artwork."

*Praxinoscope - For the Tears of the Land_Prayers From the Outer Space - Vol.2 CD $9.99 (Elliptical Noise)
"Archaic art vs. alien art_alien art vs. archaic art_when_where_what_why_dear gents you'll find here all yr answers >> digital version of the instantly sold out vinyl on important records. professionally pressed compact disc recordables_cardboard jacket with paste-on artwork_insert."


ESP-DISK' - expected this week

*Gato Barbieri - In Search of the Mystery CD $11.99 (ESP-DISK')
In Search of the Mystery, Gato Barbieri's debut album as leader, was recorded March 15, 1967, on the heels of his work on Don Cherry's famed Blue Note recordings: Complete Communion and Symphony for Improvisers. This avant-jazz masterpiece from the Argentine tenor saxophonist shows off his volatile, shrieking sound to full and unrelenting affect, fueled by the twin interweaving strings of cellist Calo Scott and bassist Norris Jones (Sirone) and Bobby Kapp's impressionistic drum splatter. Recorded in one day, the session exemplifies the spirited energy of the times and remains distinctive and inspiring today." "In Search of the Mystery is one of Gato Barbieri's early fiery sets. It was released on the ESP label and follows that tradition of stunningly chaotic jazz. This hit-and-run date consists of four tracks, all recorded on March 15, 1967. It is relentless, with Barbieri screaming on tenor throughout, backed by an interesting instrumental array of Sirone on bass, Calo Scott on cello, and Bobby Kapp on drums. Like most ESP dates, this is intense early cutting-edge free jazz, so much so that it continues to be in the early 21st century." - Al Campbell. Housed in digipak with liner notes.

*Cromagnon - Cave Rock CD $11.99 (ESP-DISK')
"Already commercially successful as tune-smiths for teenyboppers, Austin Grasmere and Brian Elliot approached Bernard Stollman looking to focus their talents on something more original and unrestrained. Stollman asked, "What would be your theme?" and Elliot replied: "Everything is one." Bernard said, "Go do it." What followed was Cromagnon's (Grasmere, Elliot and the Connecticut Tribe) non-linear journey through the subconscious, weaving together bizarre instrumentation and meter with a psychotic blending of musical styles. Bagpipes, pounding percussion, blood-curdling yelps, chanting, laughing, and billowing subterranean rumblings create the otherworldly soundscape that is Cave Rock. Heralded as one of the best freak-out records of all time, Cave Rock was ridiculously ahead of its time and brings to mind the savage sound-fuckery of Nurse with Wound and Throbbing Gristle as well as the hallucinations of early Red Krayola." "An anomaly, even on the always far out ESP label, Cromagnon was the brainchild of Brian Eliot and Austin Grasmere,...They made a truly inspired music, a sort of Dadaist psychedelic folk, tribal and raw, ridiculous but enchanting. It's hard to believe that a record as completely far-out as Orgasm was recorded in 1969. Bands these days can't be this whacked even if they try, especially if they try." - Andee Connors. Housed in digipak with liner notes.

*Timothy Leary - Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out CD $11.99 (ESP-DISK')
"This CD release of Dr. Leary's "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" is the first ever reissue of the ESP-Disk' vinyl edition originally released in1966. This unadorned spoken word recording of the 60's icon, Timothy Leary ("the most dangerous man alive"), was recorded at the famous Millbrook, New York estate just before his famous residency was ended by repeated raids and arrests by G. Gordon Liddy. Though the album title, Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, became a clichéd rallying cry for a whole generation, it was presented to the public here for the first time. In this document he presents his ideas on drugs, current events and cultural phenomena, with recollections of earlier experiences and experiments; all delivered in a straight ahead, quiet manner even though the content is downright subversive and confrontational. An absolute must for anyone interested in the 1960's or countercultural thinking of any era." Housed in digipak with liner notes.

*Talibam! - Boogie In The Breeze Blocks CD $11.99 (ESP-DISK')
"The Brooklyn duo Talibam!'s first ESP Disk release, Boogie In The Breeze Blocks, is a narrative earful as warped and wonderful as spicy pasta, fresh grapes and caramel crunch. An ensemble record joining 2008's Thelonious Monk Jazz Institute winner, Jon Irabagon (tenor sax); Peter Evans of Sparks (trumpet); guitarists Chris Forsyth from Peeesseye, Anders Nilson and Chin Chin's Jeremy Wilms; along with Mostly Other People Do the Killing's Moppa Elliot on upright bass; all filtered through Talibam! To make music of one voice and cohesion. It is ensemble playing that goes beyond personal choice to capture a mood and the deep anthropology of the strange beauty of contemporary opposing and debt-maxed-out stimuli."


FAMILY VINEYARD - any day now

Loren Connors - The Curse of Midnight Mary LP $13.99 (Family Vineyard)
"In 1981 guitarist Loren Connors took his tape recorder to the graveyard where the legendary Midnight Mary's grave lies in New Haven, Connecticut. The curse is: Anyone who gets caught in her graveyard past midnight will die the next day. But Connors, like a young fool, taped in that place, making this album. Lost and forgotten, a cassette of this music -- made at Evergreen Cemetery -- was found by chance in 2008. Recorded between Connors' eight volume Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations LP series and the folk albums he would make with Kath Bloom, these nine pieces meld those distinct, haunting styles. Connors, singing in a trance like moan, reforms the Mississippi Delta blues on acoustic guitar with flashes of melodic hooks and a percussive guitar style that erupts into boogie-woogie riffs and other world spirituals. It's an album for followers of Connors' spine tingling solo albums and his collaborations with Suzanne Langille or Jandek. Devotees of early 20th Century blues artists such as Blind Willie Johnson or Charley Patton will be equally enthralled. A rare and essential peak into the still mysterious early years of this American guitar master. The LP version is a recreation of Connors' Daggett-style releases, featuring pasted on cover art and back liner notes with handstamped labels. Unlike the CD version, the LP is in a stark black sleeve with a reworked black and white cover drawing and limited and hand numbered to 515 numbered copies." Restock - should be here any day now...


IMPORTANT RECORDS - July?

*Om - Live Conference LP $15.99 (Important Records)
"Live Conference was recorded on 24-track remote audio and pressed at RTI in order to achieve the highest possible quality. Die-cut super heavy duty tip-on style jackets by Stoughton. On this night Om performed their seminal album Conference Of The Birds live in its entirety. Newly invoked energy resonates in the sound of the band. The dynamics between Emil Amos and Al Cisneros have rendered these songs and Om's sound into a higher evolution. Here we are given a proper documentation of Conference-era Om."


INFRACTION - less than 2 weeks

*Drafted by Minotaurs - Aversion Therapy LP $27.99 (Infraction)
"Drafted by Minotaurs mainstays are guitarist Ryan Wilson and Ian Fulcher, who contributes trumpet and glockenspiel. Meanwhile members of a floating cast chip in with added textures from cello and violin. Opener "Blueprints for Sunbuilding" spools out a hail of plucked and bowed strings, webs of sound solidifying then melting into steely flow, stall set out somewhere around cultivated Constellation post-rockeries, a mood and sound that may feel familiar to those acquainted with the new backwoods chamberisms and neo-folk drone of UK cottage industrialites such as Richard Skelton (aka A Broken Consort/Clouwbeck) and Seasons (Pre-din). "Sault Locks" proposes cyclical patterns of stringed things that seem to hover shyly apart, before swarming to swell and billow over the listener - not so much a Storm of Drones as a squall of tones. "Skin the Night and Fog," a more veiled sister of the previous pluckings and bowings, plays out a psych-infused dream sequence. These three tracks forming Side A work with their own distinct harmonic and textural patterns, while seeming like movements of something overarching. Miasmic minor chord tidal flow abounds, the music's motion determined by languorous bow-strokes, its textures by warm-prickly needles of guitar pizzicatos. Side B's single extended track, "Sunday's Morning Ghost," is wrought from similar materials, but aspires to more transcendant levels, led by the celestial harmonics of Fulcher's treated trumpet. It takes on atavistic echoes redolent of some distant Miles Davis or Jon Hassell blowback, as if viewing In a Silent Way through a post-Kosmische kaleidoscope, or channeled through Eno/Budd cathedrals to meet today's psych-drone and ambient trajectories. Overall, Aversion Therapy thrives on such productive tensions between genres and eras, as it does between live and recorded, spontaneous and pre-structured, making for engaging, at times thrillingly psychotropic, listening." - alan lockett. "The outer sleeve is a Stoughton printing tip-on style gatefold. 'Tip-on' is a separate matte sheet that is applied to thick board stock. Like LPs from the '70's, only thicker. Or 'old school' if you prefer. There is also a sort of OBI strip, or j-card that lies on the spine of the gatefold sleeves. Similar to the Japanese import vinyls - which is a nice touch (I'm biased) that gives some additional info. Then there is the vinyl itself - a slab of 180 gram virgin vinyl pressed at the vinyl pressing mecca that is RTI. The inner sleeves are audiophile grade anti-static triple layer sleeves. Lastly, the outer sleeves are resealable 4 mil plastic sleeves with flap...and they actually reseal. Mastered by Carl Saff. This LP pressing is limited to 489 copies.


LOST TREASURES OF THE UNDERWORLD

*Cheater Slicks - Bats in the Dead Trees LP $13.99 (Lost Treasures of the Underworld)
2nd edition of 500 copies with pro-printed covers. "Four long heavy instrumental total damage meltdown jams. this is the other side of the cheater slicks that until now has never been captured on vinyl!"

MAD MONK - expected this week

Wand - Born Bad LP $13.99 (Mad Monk / People In A Position To Know)
"Brand new VINYL ONLY LP by WAND aka James Jackson Toth, documenting an unraveling of psyche and soul. A psychedelic and almost comically intimate ode to abandonment and bad choices. Hand screened covers containing an insert with full lyric sheet, and pressed on swirly psychedelic vinyl (no two alike!). These are already almost sold out, and though a small repress may be likely down the road, future editions will be different (not hand screened, etc). Limited to 500 copies and going very fast." Repressed - 2nd edition.


MEMOIRS OF AN AESTHETE

*Ashtray Navigations - Caeduceus And Black Sal LP $18.99 (Memoirs Of An Aesthete)
"The latest in Ashtray Navigations' ongoing vinylization of our out-of-print CDR catalogue has this amped-up mindbender from 2007... yes, the one with the cute little doggies on the cover. Except now they're on the label and the vinyl is pink. And there is no cover, just a PVC bag so it matches the Red Culture reissue. One side featuring a thick dinner of swirling tambouras, electric sitars and synths blasting out of tiny battery amp speakers wrapped in buzzing tinfoil (a description of the methodology here and not just the sound!). One side of clubfooted samba rhythms and twin guitar sustain overload which offers a key as to why Ashtray Navigations' set at Thurston's ATP a few years ago was roundly condemned as "Santana" in certain circles. Ashtray at its heaviest and most monolithic, though those words are often apply, I guess." Edition of 250 copies.

*Ashtray Navigations - Johnny Fuckoff Minotaur (Easter Exit 2) CDR $12.99 (Memoirs Of An Aesthete)
"....and a new one from easter 2009. Believe it or not, these are the first 2009 Ashtray Navigations recordings to be released, so there. And this is quite definitely the last in the "painted clamshells" series of CDRs (this time they are mostly yellow, fact fans). Sort of a response to a review which described Ash Nav as "obviously Heldon-influenced"...news to me, but I decided to Go For It and prove the reviewer right. But imagine a bunch of early 70s frenchmen playing all of their psychedelic records, all of their Ocora records and all their prog/fusion at once whilst angry drum machines beamed in against their will from an alternate future blast out very mutated hip-hop beats. Apparently Mr. R.Pinhas was an attendee at a Paris Ash Nav gig and is said to have remarked "I thought they only had pop music in England these days". This release may prove him right also. This is also the first Ashtray release to be almost all digitally recorded....and you'll be surprised how fucked up it sounds - gawd bless technology for giving us so many options. Our most fun-packed CDR for a while." Edition of 100 copies.

*Nackt Insecten - A Site Specific Piece Of Avant-Garde Sound Art, Nothing To Be Worried About / Corridor Voyager (Quantum Odyssey II) LP + CD $19.99 (Memoirs Of An Aesthete)
"Mr. Ruaradidh Sanachen has been getting a name for himself recently with his one man kosmische metal space ritual project Nackt Insecten, releasing plenty of limited edition "stuff" on a whole bunch of labels. In February 2008, as part of Glasgow's wonderful Instal festival, he was seen cradling a suitcase full of howling drone/noise aboard Glasgow's tube trains, and what a show it was - check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V5nrb6NLlo for a glimpse of the fun. As Nackt Insecten's relentless sounds meshed in perfectly with the locomotive rumblings, I thought to myself what a fine 7 inch single it would make. And sure enough, over a year later, here it is. An explanation made by a member of the "audience" to a worried fellow traveller provides the title. This package also contains a CD of new Nackt Insecten studio concoctions, a conceptual sequel to the recent LP on Blackest Rainbow Records. A real CD too, not a CDR! Cover art by Goldenlab's Fliss Horrocks and the inclusion of a genuine Glasgow tube train ticket completes this handsome package. - Memoirs Of An Aesthete.
Mr. Ruaradidh Sanachen has been getting a name for himself recently with his one man kosmische metal space ritual project Nackt Insecten, releasing plenty of limited edition "stuff" on a whole bunch of labels. In February 2008, as part of Glasgow's wonderful Instal festival, he was seen cradling a suitcase full of howling drone/noise aboard Glasgow's tube trains, and what a show it was - check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V5nrb6NLlo for a glimpse of the fun. As Nackt Insecten's relentless sounds meshed in perfectly with the locomotive rumblings, I thought to myself what a fine 7 inch single it would make. And sure enough, over a year later, here it is. An explanation made by a member of the "audience" to a worried fellow traveller provides the title. This package also contains a CD of new Nackt Insecten studio concoctions, a conceptual sequel to the recent LP on Blackest Rainbow Records. A real CD too, not a CDR! Cover art by Goldenlab's Fliss Horrocks and the inclusion of a genuine Glasgow tube train ticket completes this handsome package." Edition of 200 copies.

*Xenis Emputae Travelling Band - The Pyrognomic Glass LP + chapbook $19.99 (Memoirs Of An Aesthete)
"The Xenis Emputae Travelling Band is Mr. Phil Legard of the hallowe'ed borough of Yorkshire, England. He has been hard at work since 2001 making psychedelic folk-concrete inspired by the psychogeography and mythology of various secret regions of the British countryside. XETB has released plenty of CDRs and tapes over the years (all limited editions, long sold out etc etc) but, aside from one track on a Cold Spring Records CD, nothing at all in a "posh" format - something we at Memoirs thought we should do something about. We are, after all, classy folks and that. Mr. Legard is also a writer on various occult and esoteric matters, his most recent publication being a contribution to the new translation of "The Consecrated Little Book Of Black Venus" (Waning Moon Publications). He also has several other music projects, most notably The Neon Death Slittes and Pneumonic Consort. He is also, for his many sins, a frequent collaborator in Ashtray Navigations. "The Pyrognomic Glass" was originally released by us as a ltd. ed CDR back in 2005. By popular demand it is back, this time on vinyl, and including "Abital - or Conferences with the Genii of Nocturnal and Diurnal Dew in vii Chapters", a beautifully-printed 28 page chapbook by Mr Legard, most profitable to students of Natural Philosophy. reviews of "The Pyrognomic Glass" (original CDR version): Few artists combine spiritual elements with that of nature like the UK-based Xenis Emputae Travelling Band. XETB is one Phil Legard, and his recent explorations into the aural spheres of the English countryside have been nothing short of spellbinding. Something archaic permeates from all his recordings, like they are from another century entirely. "The Pyrognomic Glass" is no exception. It is all these things and more and offers further insight into the mind and spirit of Phil Legard. "The Pyrognomic Glass" differs slightly from previous XETB releases in that it only has two tracks, both longform pieces. This new album is like an extended version of the 3" Legard released on his own Larkfall imprint, "A Selenographic Lens" (and in fact, I believe he has said this the follow-up to that EP). Legard thrives in the expanses of these lengthy pieces. The freedom that he finds within these expansive walls adds great depth to the proceedings. It is as if this music exists in the ether of the earth and Legard simply searches it out and plays it for the masses. "Abital" opens the set at just a shade over 14 minutes. Starting off with a wash of ethereal drones, this track moves through many different moods. These opening notes are the beginning of a new dawn. It's simplistic approach is the perfect way to begin. The real highlight of this piece, however, is when Legard breaks into song near the end. Again, we go with the simplicity theme - stripped down to the core. With gentle banjo plucks to guide him, Legard offers up ancient incantations, like a shaman summoning spirits. This is excellent. The way that this track seamlessly flows from one different moment to the next is quite impressive. "Abital" is one of XETB's finest moments ever. The album continues its fine form with the 20 minute epic, "Rorasa." This is another haunting piece that drones its way through the evening hours right up to dusk. It continues the theme of enchantment, taking the listener through the primeval wood into the center of time. Such a journey transcends any and all aural boundaries and XETB takes us to a far off place that most couldn't even dream up. This is true sonic wizardry 8/10." - Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis. Edition of 250 copies.


MONORAIL TRESPASSING

*Infinite Body / Emaciator - split LP $11.99 (Monorail Trespassing)
"Saturated harsh melodicism from ib; two tracks bridged by a solo voice recording. synth driven by the human voice; screaming to make beautiful tones. emaciator side is a dense, dense drone of older / early style throb getting submerged by layers upon layers of guitar drones and keyboard melodies -- finally wearing down to an optimistic close. edition of 500, pro-printed sleeves."

*Pedestrian Deposit - Austere CD $11.99 (Monorail Trespassing)
"Five years in the making, and the first duo recordings -- a very, very calculated and controlled effort. moving past the harsh noise cutups but not eschewing them entirely; rather, moving forward to areas of sound collage, music-concrete, field recording and electroacoustic. to be heard as one long piece. the progression continues. 1000 copies, pro-printed covers."

*Robedoor - Exorcist Blues c-33 cassette $6.99 (Monorail Trespassing)
"Transitional release that sees the group expanding on their previous incarnation with more control and composition. a peak effort of scorched amps and raw hands, voices still wailing in a desert somewhere. 150 copies, full color covers and glossy labels."

*Terrors - Inequipoise c-30 cassette $6.99 (Monorail Trespassing)
"A special release. song-based bedroom folk with occasional collage and noise. recorded to tape with a strange warmth / distance that i've never heard in anything before. reverb chamber. dark and dour songs from the window; perfect sunday morning bed music. 125 copies, full color covers and glossy labels."

*Work / Death - Contained In Proper Place Names c-24 cassette $6.99 (Monorail Trespassing)
"Reber can do no wrong. synthesizer processes that reach a near-orchestral level; a rich and multi-dimensional work of pure and emotional noise rarely seen now -- or ever. still the most unique project out there. 100 copies, full color covers and glossy labels."


OPAX PRESS

*Roberto Opalio - My Alien Notes (Escaping the Void?) art-book + CDR $21.99 (Opax Press)
"New handmade art-book by Roberto Opalio, that presents for the first time 13 pages taken from his own private notebook. The work consists in visionary sketches, drafts, personal notes, poems, projects, and other obscure stuff. Completely handmade packaging by Maurizio Opalio in heavy black cardboard with diecut cover. CD features a previously unreleased soloist piece by Roberto Opalio. 99 copies signed by the artist."


OPEN MOUTH (pre-orders requested for this one)

*Diagram A - Human Issue Press: Vinyl Removal LP $15.99 (Open Mouth)
Edition of 300 copies. Recordings from Dan Greenwood using a homemade instrument that defies description. Interesting and noisy.


OUT THERE RECORDS

*Ryan Jewell / Face Place - split 7" $3.99 (Out There Records)
"Still don't know if this is 45 rpm or 33 rpm ???? Both sound right to me! Ryan Jewell kicks things off on the A side with a twisting and turning assortment of totally weird and cool sounds . Don't know if this is live Jewell or what ? Sounds like a studio jam or some kind of manipulated sound collage . Ryan is always awesome on stage because you never know what kind of awesome shit he's gonna do , his tapes and CDs are the same way and this 7" is no exception. Flip the record and you got the husband/wife duo of Face Place (Jen Burton of American Jobs / Birds of Hair - and Mark Van Fleet of Sword Heaven ) . This is a live recording and after hearing it I now know what speed the record is because of the crowd noise. Pretty sure I was at this show but I don't remember it being so intense! On record I can turn it up until my brain hurts! Long-overdue vinyl debut from both of these aces! Second release on Out There Home Entertainment . Amazing see-through covers w/ killer clear vinyl ! Nice! " - Tommy Nebula


PLANAM - in 2 weeks

*Cornelius Cardew - 'Treatise' performed by Keith Rowe & Oren Ambarchi LP $21.99 (Planam)
Cornelius Cardew's opus magnus "Treatise" is a 193 page graphic score written between 1963 and 1967 while he was performing with the improvisation group AMM. The score's graphic notation, with its intricately devised graphic lines, shapes and symbols was intended to question the limits of compositional practice. Decisions concerning pitch, timbre and duration, along with the choice of instruments and the number of performers, are left entirely to the discretion of those willing to devise the rules and means for its performance. This realisation of 4 pages from "Treatise" by Keith Rowe (Tabletop Guitar) and Oren Ambarchi (Guitar), possibly the most powerful ever acheived, was recorded live at Bimhuis in Amsterdam on Feb 8th 2009. Rowe and Ambarchi use the guitar as a point of departure for completely new techniques and sound environments. Already in the 1960s Rowe made a radical departure from traditional jazz, redefining the guitar in the British collective AMM. He prefers to lay the instrument on the table to manipulate its sound with springs, fans, office appliances and electronics. Ambarchi, also in Sunn O))), Menstruation Sisters and Burial Chamber Trio, predominantly mould guitar sounds into dark sonic patterns. Cornelius Cardew might be considered the most relevant contemporary composer from Great Britain. In the end of the 1950s Karlheinz Stockhausen was very impressed by Cardew's abilities as a musician and his knowledge of new music and invited him to partecipate to the historical "Kontrefestival" concerts in Cologne (an important pre-fluxus event). In 1960 Cardew was at Darmstadt were he met John Cage, David Tudor and among others Walter Marchetti. Cage's experimental techniques were very inspiring for Cardew who, in 1969 founded the Scratch Orchestra, a large, rotating group of professional and amateur performers committed to collective experimentation which might be considered as one of the most convincing collective experiments in the history of 20th century avant-garde culture. Edition limited to 300 copies, reproducing on the sleeve and the innersleeve the 4 pages from "Treatise" performed by Rowe-Ambarchi."

*Klaus Roeder - Kristallisationen LP $21.99 (Planam)
"Klaus Roeder is guitar virtuoso an electronic music artist who studied with Kelemen and joined Kraftwerk for their famous "Autobahn" LP. He often works with very small sound particles, whose sound comes from different sources like tearing paper, the voice, a musical instrument, synthesizer or computer sounds. Sound structures are built by joining together those sound particles and by mixing those structures Roeder forms chords. Then the process of crystallization begins. Usually crystallization means that small parts are deposited around a germ and form a growing crystall. The shape of the complete crystall is a consequence of outer influences. A series of sound crystals forms then the complete musical composition. Side 1 presents two electronic music works: "10: 11: 12" (1980) for self-built Impulse Generator is an obscure, very minimal and abstract pulsating piece, while "Kristallisation 4 (1991) for Computer Sounds and Yamaha DX 802 might be considered one of the peaks of Klaus Roeder "Kristallisation" series. Side 2 introduces us to a different formal result of Roeder crystallisation process: the short "Haenschen Blues" (1993) for children singing and crying, Yamaha TX 802 controlled by selfmade programs for Atari TT is a both playful and sinister electronic assemblage anticipating the peak of this record, "Potpourri" (1985) a Collage of short sound particles from German Pop Hits of the 1970s and 1980s. In the perspective on sound collages (from Battiato "Ethika Fon Ethica" to Bladder Flask first LP, from NWW most surrealistic works to John Oswald classic plunderphonics) "Potpourri" might be more close to the brut masterpiece "InOut" by Anton Bruhin, only constructed in a more advanced and scientific way. Edition limited to 300 copies, also including a series of inserts with the diagrams and schedules of the 4 compositions presented on this LP."

*Michel Vogel - Une Petite Musique de Nuit LP $21.99 (Planam)
"Planam proudly presents the first LP by the artist and sound sculptor Michel Vogel. Born in 1941 in Strasbourg, France, Michel Vogel artistic activities start in 1960 when, as a painter under the materic influences of Antoni Tapies and Jean Dubuffet, his mineral and sound experimentations built a universe influenced by free jazz, extra-European music and Olivier Messiaen. His researches develop with new sculptures and the creation of his own resonating metal instruments. His friends of the minimalist group, and specially the Fluxus artists, support and push him to carry on his acoustics explorations while his sonic creations get closer to the music of John Cage, Philip Corner, Morton Feldman and Giacinto Scelsi. For this first project Planam selected, in direct collaboration with the artist, an improvisation for large size gongs "prepared" with metal rods, little gong, Chinese cymbal, caoutchouc ball, titled "Une petite musique de nuit". Recorded live with no over-dubbing the night of January 18th, 2002. A very deep and alfa-wave oriented listening that will make you discover very intimate as well as stellar new sonic dimentions. Edition limited to 300 copies, with full colour space cover and innersleeve."


REACTOR - expected in 2 weeks (these got delayed)

*Loop - World In Your Eyes triple CD $19.99 (Reactor)
"The World in Your Eyes and A Gilded Eternity are the final two releases in a series of long-overdue and definitive reissues by British primal psych band Loop. Originally a 1987 singles collection, The World in Your Eyes has now been re-released as a remastered triple-CD set. All the band's 12-inches and compilation appearances are in chronological order, with some tracks from the very first Loop demo, the "16 Dreams" single, Nick Drake and Neil Young songs, the Prisma Uber Europa live promo 12-inch, and even the Godflesh cover from their split on Clawfist. In all, 27 tracks from six 12-inch releases and four compilations, packaged as three CDs in wallets in a slipcase."

*Loop - A Gilded Eternity double CD $17.99 (Reactor)
"The World in Your Eyes and A Gilded Eternity are the final two releases in a series of long-overdue and definitive reissues by British primal psych band Loop. A Gilded Eternity is the last in the Loop reissues series--their final album, first released in 1990. This two-disc set has been remastered from the original analog sources and includes extra material from the relevant timeframe. The original album in its entirety is on one disc, with bonus tracks, including Peel Session material and unreleased demos, on the second disc."


RIDE THE SNAKE

*Dead at 24 - Blast Off Motherfucker LP $9.99 (Ride The Snake)
"Dead at 24 blazed a unique and noisy path through the post industrial wasteland of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1990's. Standing in opposition to the post Don Cabellero math rock musical environment that prevailed in the city at the time, their performances left audiences scratching their heads in confusion and vacating venues in horror. "Let's get the fuck out of here!" was a common reaction of those who witnessed one of the band's live shows cum spontaneous combustions. No one was prepared for what they were seeing in Dead at 24, and that's because they were being given a glimpse into the future. Dead at 24 were the inadvertent pioneers of what would become a thriving underground "weird punk" scene twelve years later. What makes them truly exceptional, though, is the fact that their songs and style persist as standouts years after their intended relevance. Beneath the saturated mid fi recording, dissonant guitars and wailing synths that are their "sound", there was an attention to crafting off handed hooks and a musical fight for space between players that almost no band before or since has been able to match. Dead at 24 released two cassettes and appeared on a Pittsburgh band compilation 7" during their existence but disbanded before they could release anything of their own on vinyl. In late 2008, two ex Pittsburghers met at a club in Boston and started discussing their favorite local bands of the 90s. The guys shared not only a mutual love for Dead at 24 but also that they had both been listening to the band's "Blast Off, Motherfucker!" cassette regularly over the past twelve years. They decided that this music had to reach a bigger audience and lucky for us all here it is."


ROOT STRATA

*Grouper - Cover The Windows And The Walls CD $11.99 (Root Strata)
"First ever CD version of the LP we originally did in 2007. This one has everything you've come to expect from Portland, Or. based Liz Harris. Cyclical vocal vapors and guitar / piano shapes levitate on the surface of hissy atmospherics dense with a feedback that conjures up all sorts of latent images from the subtle body / mind. Liz's songs always seem to be perched delicately between layers of blissful fuzz and her stark, gorgeous song craft. It's a mix that more often than not leads to dazzling results. Edition of 1000 CD's in a heavy black & white offset printed cover."


RUNDOWNSUN

*Black Jesus and The Cosmic Prayer - My Mind Is A Fruit Farm CDR $11.99 (Rundownsun)
"indefinitely shelved cdr version of this obscure, criminally under-distributed, spacey, neu-cosmiche cassette originally released on blakk wainbow records a few years back. the light has come. ultra-minimal electronic waves lap at polished shores of crystalline drone. a curling fog of ritual noise and distant voices smokes your soul out of your skull, set free to cruise the inner-spaceways. cosmic devotional music. possibly one of the most striking and fully realized albums i have had the pleasure of releasing. edition of 50 copies. screen-printed high quality cdr, packaged in a screen-printed, hand-made digipack-style case with paste-on insert."

*Workbench + Magneticring - Live In A Room With All The Windows double c36 cassette $11.99 (Rundownsun)
"Michael Bernstein (Double Leopards, Heavy Tapes, Religious Knives, etc) and Joshua Stevenson (ex-Jackie-O-Motherfucker, Cast Exotic, Staked Plain, far too many projects to name here, etc.) captured live, direct-to-tape, in march of 2006 somewhere in Brooklyn NY. a collection of musical fragments and motifs ranging from sparse, abstract electronics to pulsating synth chill-out(think KLF?), to cluster & eno-esque ambient, oozing drone, and even some moments of abrasive rhythmic/synth driven industrial. all material culled, edited, and mastered from the original tapes by Joshua Stevenson. limited edition. hand-numbered. high-bias 2xc36. black offset-printing on textured paper. side-by-side style double cassette box."


SLOOW TAPES - expected in 2 weeks

*Cybele Collins - Book $? (Sloow Tapes)
"Very pleased to present this collection of beautiful drawings by the amazing Cybele Collins. She also records as Blue Shift and her visions have graced covers for labels such as Last Visible Dog and Rare Youth. Drawings have appeared in dozens of magazines including Morbid Curiosity, Paper Rodeo, Sound Projector, Free Radicals, The Ganzfeld, Cemetery Dance, Shimmer, Dark Animus and Vial. Full color cover, 36 b&w pages."

*Von Himmel - Space Communion cassette $? (Sloow Tapes)
"Mysterious recordings by anonymous band that crashed my doorstep and skull. Never knew where it came from nor where it's heading to. Headmusic for the Kraut gathered on Strawberry Hill. Combine the most spaced-out Ash Ra Tempel passages with late-period Cosmic Jokers sexy collage. Wow. 70 copies."


TAPED SOUNDS - pre-orders are recommended

*Id M Theft Able - Babb's Bridge LP $19.99 (Taped Sounds / Veglia)
"This lp is a concept album about the life, energy and being of Babb's Bridge, a beautiful 19th century bridge in Windham, Maine, USA. surrounded by a misty fairytalish spirit stream, the Presumpscott River, the bridge breaths proudly and gently since 1843. Babb's Bridge has transported tourists, canoers, settlers, founding fathers, forest workers, hikers, and lovers to a new path, a pledge. the record itself is a 2 years in the making singular masterpiece of the modern tongue of the collagist. Skot Spear, the being behind the Id M monikker, has created a both retrohistorical and futuristic trip into a world of voice, tape, computer, sampling, and objects. a stream of energy, enbodied in a composition of both multitracked and direct recorded tunes. fans of e.g. Al Hansen and Crank Sturgeon will linger hapilly in this cosmos of sound. after a continuously high quality stream of releases on cdr, cassette, 7", dvd-r etc, this is Skot's first solo outing on a permanent full lenght format. a debut lp as you might want to call it....the lp comes in a full color cardboard jacket with a picture of the myth / bridge on the front, and paste-on handwritten text artwork by Skot on the back."


TIME-LAG RECORDS

*Lula Cortes - Rosa De Sangue LP $25.99 (Time-Lag Records)
"Deluxe first ever reissue of this Brazilian private press monster rarity. Originally custom pressed in 1980, Rosa De Sangue is the closing chapter of the amazing Recife psychedelic movement that flourished and centered around the work of Lula Cortes, beginning in 1973 with the release of Satwa, and the creation of 'Abracadabra,' Lula's loose art/music/design collective. Leading up to 1980 Lula had produced and privately released Satwa in 1973 (Brazil's first private press LP) as well as Marconi Notaro's No Sub Reino Dos Metazoarios LP that same year (featuring the recording debut of Ze Ramalho). He then started the legendary but incredibly short lived Solar label, releasing only two albums: 1975's Paebiru double album, and a year later the lone album by Flaviola. As if that wasn't enough, he was also heavily involved in other productions and performed on many seminal albums coming out of the region, including many collaborations with Alceu Valenca. By the close of the '70s the heavily utilized Rozemblit recording studio/pressing plant had been destroyed by repeated floods, Abracadabra had run its course, and along with Lula's marriage, the Solar label was no more. So Rosa De Sangue was conceived as a bookend and tribute to this closing era; as Lula himself states 'I want to close all of this with a golden key.' And a golden key it is. Entering a small local studio with a head full of songs and his freshly road tested 'mountains band,' Lula created an album simply overflowing with ideas. Along with his power trio backing, he was further assisted by many old friends dropping in, including, among many others: Alceu Valenca, Flaviola, Ze De Flauta and Paulo Rafael. With hints of the past era and of things to come, it is a truly wild audio experience, covering many styles and moods. From crazed ethno folkrock, to magical, gentle, jungle folk psych zones, to hard hitting, coke dusted fuzz rock, to insane mutant disco dance floor groove, to tweaked Americana, to acid vocal raga trance, and way beyond. All throughout Lula's beautiful tricordio work pins things down, and for the first time he is the main vocalist (this is, after all, his first 'solo' album!) His is a smoke and booze steeped voice darting between crazed abandon, deep sadness, and glowing soulful humor. When things are mellow, you could easily imagine you're hearing an outtake from Marconi Notaro or Paebiru, but the next moment you're dropped into a raging street party or dimly lit booze drenched bar scene vibe. Frenzied guitars all over, including some tough fuzz, as well as powerful rolling bass groove, soaring violin, moog weirdness, dusted backup vocals, and great drum kit/regional percussion interplay. Psychedelic at heart, but brimming with flashes of tropicalia, punk, prog, and pure hot blooded rock and roll. A bizarre and amazing album. But of course, the story doesn't end there. At some point while the album was being recorded and pressed, Lula signed a major label contact which would produce 1981's far tamer O Gosto Novo Da Vida LP. When his new label got wind of Rosa De Sangue's eminent release, they were displeased to say the least. As soon as the pressing was complete, the entire small edition was seized and destroyed, making this album by far Brazil's rarest. So rare, in fact, that even among the most hardcore Brazilian collectors the original LP is often only rumored to exist, often cited as 'unreleased.' A few copies did however survive, and now, 29 years later, the world can finally hear this 'golden key' from a truly visionary artist. Packaged in a heavy vintage style cover with exact reproduction original artwork, including the huge full color, double sided, foldout poster insert, plus an extra insert featuring new liner notes from Lula Cortes as well as translated song titles. 180gm audiophile virgin vinyl pressing with exact repro label art. Limited edition one time pressing of 1000 copies."

*Lula Cortes - Rosa De Sangue CD $14.99 (Time-Lag Records)
"Digital version in a heavy mini lp style cover with exact reproduction original artwork, and a full color foldout mini poster insert with new liner notes by Lula Cortes. First edition of 1000 copies."


TIPPED BOWLER

*Li Jianhong - Lovers with Cloisonné Bracelet LP $15.99 (Tipped Bowler)
"Hangzhou's Li Jianhong has been performing alone and in the duo D!O!D!O!D! for several years, but he only caught Western ears last year with the monumental San Sheng Shi, released by Philadelphia's Archive CD. Oceanic and desolate, Lovers with Cloisonné Bracelet cements Li as a distinctive voice in modern noise. The two halves of this record are an ideal introduction to Li's music: "Lovers in Misery" offers a restrained, electric swell; "Time in the Mirror" wallows in Hototogisu-an guitar hell. Without sacrificing pacing for density, Li has crafted an album that decimates the retrograde psychedelic guitar landscape and trivializes the petty violence of much harsh noise. Edition of 350 180 gm. LPs in heavy-stock linen-paper sleeves hand-screened, -cut, and -glued by Reuben Little of 43rd Parallel Press."

*Mrtyu - Ornate Shroud LP $15.99 (Tipped Bowler / Faunasabbatha)
"Hopefully Mrtyu requires little introduction, because the project evades easy description. An odd compound of Vedic imagery, metal misanthropy, and violin agony, this music moves away from any particular fan base in pursuit of its distant, darkened idols. Ornate Shroud is Mrtyu's most potent spawn to date. Hewing closer to song form than previous releases, the album conceals Antony Milton's violent guitar and violin work behind Mrtyu's characteristic murk. Its pieces transition from jagged riffs to eerie ambient scrapes through wooly feedback, approaching the uncanny. Although the year is yet young, 2009 will likely not produce a bleaker aggraga record. Edition of 350 180 gm. LPs in heavy-stock linen-paper sleeves hand-screened, -cut, and -glued by Reuben Little of 43rd Parallel Press."


TURGID ANIMAL

*Ashtray Navigations - The "o" Mouth Direct Input Raygun 7" $7.99 (Turgid Animal)
"Brand new tracks from Phil Todd and Mel Delaney. Leeds' finest experimental movers and shakers of the last decade or so. Perhaps their noisiest material yet! Limited to 250 copies on black vinyl.

*Bong - Novum Castellum 3xCD $27.99 (Turgid Animal)
"The first ever doom record on Turgid Animal. A reissue of the "In And Around Newcastle" live CD-r box set (originally issued in an edition of 50 copies by Fuckin' Amateurs last year) by North East England's Drone/Doom masters BONG. These live sets are essentially "bootleg" (albeit official) recordings and as such are not of the clearest quality, which only adds to the charm in my humble opinion. "Novum Castellum" includes the entire "In And Around Newcastle" recordings plus an extra disc of bonus live material. Limited to only 300 copies. Packaged in 3-way DVD case with pro-printed artwork and inserts."

*Voltigeurs - Voltigeurs CD $11.99 (Turgid Animal)
"Brand new project from Matthew Bower of Skullflower and Samantha Davis' of GYR/Harm. This album definitely demostrates the direction in which Mr. Bower has been taking with his other projects as of late and could easily be described as Black Metal in it's purest form but this is no Skullflower rip off. Samantha's Davis' input has certainly altered Mattthew's musical vision and it is easy to hear the sound of a true collaboration at work. Six long tracks of heavy music running in at a total of nearly 65 minutes."


UNKNOWN LABEL / NO LABEL - not sure when I'll have these. No guarantee I'll actually get them either but I've pre-ordered copies.

*The Manson Family - Family Jams picture disc LP $34.99
"The lost acid-folk "desert music" songs of Charles Manson, recorded during his trial in 1970 by Family members Clem on guitar and vocals, Gypsy on violin, and featuring the ultra-
ethereal vocals of Gold and Country Sue. Very limited pressing of 500 copies, Euro import."


UZU AUDIO - these had to be repressed (side 4 failed the test pressing) so I'm not sure when to expect these

*Spiral Joy Band - Pleasure Is The Headlight double LP $24.99 (Uzu Audio)
"Featuring two members of the most excellent Pelt, the Spiral Joy Band swells forth from Blacksburg, Virginia, with a follow up to their album "Wake of the Dying Sun King" and now hitting the streets along side their new album "Little Sparrow", both on VHF Records. This double LP set features recordings from two eras of the Spiral Joy Band. The first is from 2005, the second 2007. A cacophony of gongs, bowls, bells, chimes, electronics, fiddle, bowed cymbals, esraj, harmonium, sruti and electronics played by Mikel Dimmik, Michael Gangloff, Amy Shea and Nathan Bowles, along with a guest or two, here and there. "Pleasure Is The Headlight" features 5 tracks in total spread over 4 sides. The first three being long trance inducing meditations recorded in Blacksburg and Ironto. The fourth side features unique recordings, the first is a solo wind chime performance recorded in a gift shop, featuring the murmur of confused patrons and what is likely some truly wonderful AM radio piped in over the store's stereo system. The second track is a slow hazy day at the beach, with gongs, seagulls, and the gentle roar of the ocean. Pressed on 180 gram black vinyl and limited to about 400 copies, this album comes in a custom gatefold jacket with letter pressed cover art and silk screened inside art."


VIOLET TIMES RECORDS

*Mirrors - Something That Would Never Do LP $18.99 (Violet Times Records)
"Finally! The classic Cleveland, OH sounds from the 70's all on one handy full length- 15 trax, including both sides of the Hearthan 7" single, all but one of the "Those Were Different Times" Scat 10" cuts, and others from "Hands In My Pockets" cd on Overground. It's solid, some might say a "best of" even. All trax recorded '74 and '75. Officially licensed from the band and remastered for the ear by John Golden, includes those cool old school, tip-on jacket covers that most of the record nerds i know love, but don't seem to know what they are. 800 copies, worldwide."


WAGON

*Island Ice - Island Ice (?) c30 cassette $7.99 (Wagon)
A new c30 of John Elliott's (Emeralds) first synthesizer recordings called "Island Ice"

*Mark McGuire - Pocket Full of Rain CDR $10.99 (Wagon)
"Best Mark McGuire tape to date in my opinion, absolutely so fresh, literally recorded a week ago (mid-April 2009)... full color inside and out..." - Sam Goldberg on dbl tape release. This cdr version also contains some bonus alternate tracks and extended mixes of a couple of the tracks from the tape.

*Skyramp - Days of Thunder CDR $10.99 (Wagon)
Features Mark McGuire of Emerlads (guitar) and Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) on synthesizer recorded Fall 2008 in New York, NY and Cleveland, OH. Edition of 75 copies with insert.


WEIRD FOREST

*Ganglians - Monster Head Room LP + 7" $15.99 (Weird Forest)
"Sacramento's Ganglians want an island somewhere where they can soak in the sun and prowl the canopy by night. It's not often that they do get out, but they can get down for that. Recording sometimes as one, sometimes as four it's a real game to figure out where the entity comes from and where it's going. First and foremost it's about uncertain pleasures. It's a bit like choose your own adventure. There's "Codeine Balladry" a slightly upsetting tempo that is quickly flushed into an aural high, the next moment you're in the toy strewn abyss of the bedroom and then out to the tribal caves of the natives. The planets align and the sun beats down, palms tingling, and you are on the island they've built, the scenery constantly shifting for a better view, of you." - Revolver. "All completely new songs. This album is pure naive headphone acid pop to drive to, at least that's what was going through our heads."-Ganglians. Limited edition vinyl (500 copies) includes a bonus 7-inch.


WINGED SUN RECORDS

*High Wolf - Gabon c30 cassette $10.99 (Winged Sun Records)
"Following debut tape released on Not Not Fun records, this cassette shows High Wolf looking at Africa from his native Amazonia...What's the difference between Amazonian and African jungles? When we live in the wild, with percussions and tribal singing, we're all the same..."


*High Wolf - High Wolf CDR $10.99 (Winged Sun Records)
"First Winged Sun record to be released, first cdr from High Wolf, following tapes on Not Not Fun and Stunned records from California...Various tracks celebrating the birth of High Wolf and worshiping the jaguar. Mixing percussions, guitar, synth, drum machine and voice this should become your best friend during the summer. This record contains oldest High Wolf tracks ever made."