Harold Norse – ‘Take a Chance In The Void: Harold Norse at the Beat Hotel’ C60
Historical recordings made by Harold Norse when he was living with William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Gregory Corso at the notorious Beat Hotel in Paris during the early sixties. By the time Norse arrived in Paris he had traveled extensively in Morocco and Europe and his poetry was already championed by people like W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams and Tennessee Williams.
Together with Burroughs and Gysin, Norse was one of the first to apply the cut-up method. He made the technique totally his own creating a hallucinogenic, irrational world of bizarre characters. His surreal stories were collected in ‘Beat Hotel’ and is one of the important novels of cut-up fiction. At some point Harold bought a tape recorder and recorded himself reading his delirious cut-ups and his translations of satirical, erotic and obscene sonnets by the 19th century Roman poet G.G. Belli. Also included are a few soundexperiments and ‘field recordings’. An essential document of a true visionary! Edition of 100 copies.
C Joynes et son Ensemble – ‘Portland Arse’ C40
A true man of the world guitarist C Joynes travelled extensively through Pakistan, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Eritrea. Not surprisingly his playing is influenced by African music, especially on these recordings with the Ensemble which add a bunch of exotic instruments to his English folkmelodies for maximum alien ritual effect. Edition of 70 copies.
Frankensteins Ballet – ‘Barca Beach’ C60
Live recordings from Barcelona, summer 2009. Frankensteins Ballet features Mik Quantius (Embryo) speaking-in-tongues and Thomas Hopf on drums. Other members have played with Damo Suzuki, Michael Karoli, Michael Rother etc. Some serious damaged krautrock jams happening on this one, not to mention the weird dub space some of this is floating into. Edition of 70 copies.
Von Himmel – ‘weltraumrückführungsübereinkommen’
Third vinyl release by the mysterious Von Himmel commune. Some of these guys go back a long way into Sloow’s history and their classic ‘Space Communion’ tape from way back received the vinyl treatment by Humito. ‘weltraumrückführungsübereinkommen’ has more of those awesome serious zoned and mind melting fractals spider webbed into shining diamond stars mirroring inner and outer space. There’s the obvious nods to the kraut gods but Von Himmel seem to exist in their private spacetime continuum of abstract floating synths, delayed percussion, drugged guitarwah and ethereal flutes. Moonmilk alchemy! Art by Bart Sloow, silkscreened by Jelle Crama. Edition of 250 copies.
Flamen Dialis – ‘Symptôme Deï’
flamendialiswebsiteFirst ever vinyl reissue of this legendary French masterpiece named after the high priest of Jupiter. Not surprising there’s an often ritualistic quality to the music, with endless repetitive synth melodies, solemn wordless chanting and brooding layers of mellotron spacing out in an overall eerie occult atmosphere. The lysergic vision of Flamen Dialis recalls like-minded French outcasts as Archaïa, Spacecraft, Verto etc. A truly unique album which was first rescued from obscurity by Mio Records, who reissued the album on cd back in the day, but this has also been long out of print. Mastered from a pristine LP copy as the original masters got lost in the mists of time. Includes pro-printed insert detailing the band’s history. Limited to 500 copies on 180gr vinyl.