Regospore – ‘Detachable Limbs’ C34 $7/$8/$10
Rainbow Bridge has been sitting on the masters of this recording for quite some time. This is a harmonious collaboration between Regosphere’s Andrew Quitter and the Pregnant Spore’s Justin Marc Lloyd. Looped field recordings, evil synth drone, buried vocals and the crackling and creaking of savage electronics. Bubbling swamps, falling buildings, noisy machines going gung-ho at full blast. With every listen I seem to find a new texture I didn’t notice before. Two rough masses of layered, atonal, crushing pieces. This is a long overdue release and I am so excited it’s finally seeing the light of day. Professionally printed, hand-numbered j-cards. Navy blue chrome tapes with hand-painted labels. Limited to 30. SAMPLE
Aisle – ‘Jezebelle’ C32 $7/$8/$10
Lo-fi and unsteady synthesizer and electronic drum formations leaning into noise territory. A slight new-wave feel, some punk attitude, a little mic feedback and seemingly faulty midi controllers. The way the melodies, beats and bass lines fall away from each other are oddly beautiful. Real musicians might say this is sloppy. I say it’s intentional and it’s gripping. The jams seem to drift away into staggering, drunkenly groovy and moody fragments. If you liked club music in the late 80’s/early 90’s, watch Twin Peaks too much and also are a fiend for noise rock, this is your shit. Professionally printed, hand-numbered j-cards. Lilac tapes with hand-painted labels. Limited to 30. SAMPLE
Pregnant Spore – ‘The Self’ CDr $5/$6/$8
These 24 tracks, some as short as 39 seconds and others nearly 10 minutes long, document a span of 8 months of self-realization and self-actualization. This is quite different from the Growth double CDr put out not too long ago although the strong spiritual elements remain intact. The sonic diversity on this release and its jumping from one idea and mood to the next, track-to-track, archives experiences, thoughts and emotions like files organized into different drawers of the brain. Eerie vocal pleadings, a hand-full of rhythmic cacophonies, sludge-ridden bass, reflective walls of sound, and disfiguring sorcery. No, your speakers aren’t cutting out. Your CD player isn’t skipping. There are not otherworldly beings trying to catch your attention by interfering with the frequency at which your mobile device sitting by your speakers is operating on. These are mangled vibrations and abstracted energy recorded onto a digital format for you to interpret as you may. Each piece has it’s unique direction, and as a whole, this release is like a novel, representing every facet experienced internally in an 8-month excursion through existence. Hand-painted, hand-stamped glitter design cardstock cases housed inside poly sleeves with liner notes and one unique photograph taken during childhood as well as one unique Maryland State Fair playing card. Hand-stamped silver CDrs. Limited to 20. SAMPLE
The Human Excuse – ‘A Therapeutic Universe’ CDr $7/$8/$10
A Therapeutic Universe is the first Human Excuse release in several years. This is one of the most out of place releases in the Rainbow Bridge catalog. This project is an acoustic-based endeavor of Justin Marc Lloyd. When I say acoustic, I don’t mean found objects being scraped and thrown for the sake of raw clamor. I mean acoustic guitar. And voice. Singer-songwriter shit. But that’s not the extent of this 80 minutes of music whatsoever. In post-production, these songs were annihilated with effects, overdubs and edits, whether it be awkwardly odd tones or blasts of static, or just lush, droning tones over the strumming. All sounds were made from voice, acoustic guitar, air organ and random household object. However, there is a universe of sonic points being made. You’d swear drum machines and synths were in half of the tracks. The airy and graceful synth-like soundscapes can, at times, completely overcome and bury the acoustic foundation. Other times, you’ll have to listen very carefully in between plucks and whispers to hear the quietest noises, raging like rapids, hidden in the spectrum of sound. This album was many months in the making. Recording, editing, mixing, re-editing, remixing, adding to, altering, over and over in every which order, to the point of exhaustion… The call had to be made to conclude and finalize just in time before all the emotion was sucked out of this conjugation of deeply personal accounts. Guest appearances by Rainbow Bridge alumni artists Cincinnatus C (Craig Hodgkins) and Scant (Matt Boettke of Sex Complex, Widow’s Bath and more). Contains Weakerthans, Frou Frou, Fates Warning and Cure covers. Packaged in hand-painted, hand-numbered, cardstock sleeves. Hand-stamped, silver CDrs. Limited to 70. SAMPLE A/SAMPLE B
OK Putrid – ‘Satan’s Favorite Drink Is Tea’ CDr $5/$6/$8
Modulation-obsessed no-input and microphone madness with a mountain of circuit bent pedals and mixers. 24 short out-takes and one long track of harsh, psychotic, freaky electronics. This is OK Putrid’s debut release and it is the opposite of patient. Attention, effort and energy here are scattered and staggered. Two good friends from the small town of Mayo fuckin’ shit up. Awkward and quirky, yet cutting and harsh. You can’t go wrong with track titles like “Can I Be Lisa Frank With You?” and “Is That Where You Got Scabies?” Well, you can, because those titles are stupid. But they are definitive of the atmosphere of “Satan’s Favorite Drink.” All of the titles are references to actual events that occurred in the storybook lives of this bi-gendered supergroup. A nice kick-off to the more defined and focused recordings this group has yet to release. Hand-assembled, hand-numbered, hand-stamped cardstock cases with inserts. Hand-stamped silver CDrs. Limited to 40. SAMPLE
False Flag/Scant/Whitewater Orgasm split C34 $7/$8/$10
Loud, skin-ripping noise from 3 super harsh artists from Baltimore, DC and Finland. Flag Flag is a new world order-obsessed harsh noise/power electronics project bringing you 3 tracks involving the 911 attacks on the Twin Towers and the event’s involvement with national and international leaders. Scant, a member of the Sex Complex supergroup, provides an onslaught of pummeling textures centered around how it is to be next to someone and feel completely alone. Whitewater Orgasm completely ruins your life every time you hear his material and this is no exception. Some of the most harsh and sickening vocal and distortion madness I have ever heard since Masonna. Santeri Lohi does not ever disappoint with his sexually deviant and violent sounds. The vocal delivery will disturb you while the disgusting walls of ear-piercing noise carry you. Professionally printed, hand-numbered j-cards. Navy blue chrome tapes with hand-painted labels. Limited to 30. SAMPLE A/SAMPLE B/SAMPLE C
Brandon Marshall (WR) – ‘Untitled’ C37 $7/$8/$10
Quite a confusing release. And if you know anything about Rainbow Bridge, it’s that we are akin to confusion in sounds, art and projects. This anonymous Baltimore young man responded to my request to put out his first tape (in order to use up a random stack of eight c37s that were hanging around my stock room for far too long) with enthusiasm after I saw him perform at an extremely awkward show. He did this amazingly powerful new-age synth piece that would have made Housecraft of Deep Tapes shit themselves (although it pretty much bored the hell out of the audience to the point where the only people left were the chaperones and 6 other people. Yea, let me emphasize how awkward this show was. He submitted his work to me fairly quickly after that night. To my surprise, he not only wanted to remain anonymous (his name is not Brandon Marshall nor are his initials WR) but he submitted only two synth pieces reminiscent of his performance. The rest of the material is made up of a lengthy and un-altered movie clip and the most calming wall of static and rumbling I’ve ever heard. I could listen to 12 hours straight of that piece and probably never feel angry again for the rest of my life. Professionally printed, hand-numbered j-cards. Solid black tapes each with a unique hand-painted label left over from previous Rainbow Bridge releases. Artwork by the man behind the project. Limited to 8. SAMPLE
Chefkirk – ‘Gross Pyramids’ 2xCDr $8/$9/$11
No-input mixers and microcassettes that will make your teeth hurt and your eyes water. Some of these frequencies are more clearly felt than heard. Extremely slow-moving ringing, buzzing and glitchy frequencies spread out over two CDrs in all volumes. A crisp exercise in patience and meditation, although some sudden shifts occur. It’s something completely different and not quite defined in a genre if you haven’t heard Chefkirk’s work before. In fact, this is a pretty different work than most of his other releases that I’ve heard. Weirder and somehow simultaneously more collected. All I can say is that it’s nearly 2 hours of strange, sharp sound by Roger Smith, the prolific west coast sound artist who is also part of Insects With Tits and the highest quality net label around: Control Valve. Hand-assembled, hand-stamped, hand-numbered cardstock cases with liner notes. Hand-stamped silver CDrs. Limited to 50. SAMPLE
Moscow Wires – ‘Return To Shock Trauma’ recycled tape $5/$6/$8
Strange harsh walls, vinyl loops, oscillating delays and other odd matter by Egyptian Tea label founder and Mold Omen/Lessons/Ghost Volcano/Thief Wife member Andy Livingston. He lives in a Baltimore apartment with his girlfriend, some cats (I think) and bunch of junk. He enjoys harsh noise but is really a Chocolate Monk nut, so both of those qualities are quite apparent on this small edition of perplexing sounds. Hand-assembled, hand-numbered, hand-stamped artwork on olive green or gold cardstock. Includes one unique vocabulary flash card. Recycled tapes and cases. Limited to 20. SAMPLE
Widow’s Bath – ‘A Love In The Shadow Of That Which Constitutes Love’ C48 $7/$8/$10
This isn’t the usual Widow’s Bath you may have heard before. Both sides of this release are live sessions recorded straight to tape several days apart. They were composed in a basement in a small town 8 hours from Baltimore/DC where Widow’s Bath usually gets it on. Throughout these tracks, one-third of what you hear is by a contributor who specifically asked to remain completely anonymous. He was armed with an insane array of electronics, a towering stack and so much jumbled madness inside his heart that he could barely express it in these recordings. These audible documentations are a mixed bag of harsh static, controlled feedback, manipulated field recordings, electronic devices gone haywire, desperate and expressive vocals and a few accessories in the drum department. Channeled into these performances is a large amount uncertainty, misery and confusion, yet we kept at it, remained focused and let go like machines breaking down but refusing to give out completely. Something is off on this whole recording. You can tell. A strange element’s existence in the sound and energy is undeniable. Professionally printed, hand-numbered j-cards. Red-tinted tapes with hand-painted labels. Comes packaged in antique trick or treat halloween candy bags. Limited to 40. SAMPLE
Patient Belongings – ‘Glowing Over Mars Hills’ C66 $7/$7/$10
Deep synth-scapes that cross so much sonic and emotional territory. Modern zone-out drones, David Lynch-esque journeys down the open road through the midwest, distant and reverberated riffage… To me, these distinct movements reinstate and emphasize mere existence and reality the way we view it, but with a soft glow and at a moderate pace. Pulsing without aggression, fading in and out without making your head spin, not too calm, not too bright, but so real. This is not what you’d expect from Ben Bruacto, the owner of the Cathartic Process label (releases by Bastard Noise, Skullflower and Death Agonies) and a one-man harsh outlet called Clew Of Theseus (please check out that project’s split with Sewer Election… it’s to die for). Hand-numbered, professionally printed, full color j-cards. Purple-tinted, hand-stamped tapes. Limited to 50. SAMPLE
Kilgore Trout/False Flag split recycled tape $5/$6/$8
Kilgore Trout is a northern Virginia based band running the gamut between sappy, raw, throat-bleeding screamo to noisecore and all in between. With their male and female vocals and harsh sounds blended with their guitar-bass-drums instrumentation, their side of this tape is 10 minutes of scummy, dirty, dark, frighteningly emotional punk rock for fans of Cult Ritual, Love Lost But Not Forgotten, I Wrote Haikus About Cannibalism In Your Yearbook, Welcome The Plague Year and Orchid. Side B is False Flag completely ruining Kilgore’s side with a disgusting remix of harsh, power electronics-esque that sounds like the end of the world narrated by two pissed off motherfuckers. Underlying hints of ambience and melody from the original clean guitar tracks emerge here and there, but mostly, this is an ear-full of grating mania. This is one of False Flag’s most complex compositions to date with many, many layers and manipulations to the original Kilgore tracks. Hand-assembled, hand-numbered, hand-stamped artwork on recipe cards by Megan Lee McGaughey. Recycled tapes and cases. Limited to absolutely nothing.