Pigeon Breeders – ‘Concrescence’ C34 $7
Concrescence is the fourth album by Edmonton-based experimental trio Pigeon Breeders. While previous releases have been formed through the editing of one or two nights’ worth of improvisations, Concrescence is the first to compile various material over a two year period, capturing the band playing in a variety of spaces. The resulting sonic gallery is the trio’s most challenging to date, and the most accurate in its presentation of the group’s scope: introspective ambient, tense and spastic electroacoustic interplay, scrappy free jazz, apocalyptic free-form drone rock, and beyond: complete and blissful abandon into sound. Pick yr poison, light some incense, turn off the lights. Edition of 80.
Ashley Soft – ‘Leave’ C22 $6
For all intents & purposes, Leave is Ashley Soft’s debut. Not long after recording last year’s Take Heart Give Heart EP at hotel2tango in Montreal, Clarke Macleod returned to Calgary and started jamming with drummer/noisenik Andrew Hume (of free-rock titans Burro, Pale Lobo, and others). The duo wrote a bunch of new songs, and introduced avant-guitarist Devin Friesen (Bitter Fictions) in the fall. This trio recorded six volatile new songs direct to tape over the winter, with the production assistance of Chris Dadge (of Lab Coast & Bug Incision records). Feedback destruction you could hum to: Hume’s machine-gun drumming matches Macleod’s splintering guitar patterns, and Friesen contains it all with sounds meltingly dissonant (“Groceries”) and densely atmospheric (“Red Sea”). Edition of 80.
D.F. w K.B.D. & J.G. – ‘A Chance Happening’ C42 $6
New tape compositions by D.F. (Bitter Fictions), made using cassette recordings of an unplanned trio performance of Kyle Bobby Dunn (piano), James Goddard (aka Skin Tone; saxophone), and Devin Friesen (guitar). In D.F.’s words: “It was my last night in town after a summer’s sojourn in Montreal. James helped me set up a Bitter Fictions show at Brasserie Beaubien, but everybody missed it. Kyle was the only person not working or scheduled to perform who showed up that night. There was a piano in the bar. I’d asked Kyle if he’d like to play it during my set, and he sat down for the last couple of pieces. Afterwards, the three of us decided to play together. I had the sense to put my TCM150 portable tape recorder on the bar’s pool table, forming a triangle between the piano and the speakers. The recordings turned out grainy and distant, yet appealingly rich with room sounds and instruments smeared.” Edition of 70.