OPPONENTS – ‘Thought Control’ C52
OPPONENTS didn’t come here to make friends. They’re not looking to talk gear. They came to kick the piss out of some synthesizers, and are doing it whether or not you’re ready for it. Synthesis in its rawest form. This is about survival, not crystal pendants. The next brood in line culled from the long standing hatefuck between punk rock and control voltage that has its seeds strewn deep throughout the gutters of New York past. Limited to 75.
LONG DISTANCE POISON – ‘Rare Human’ C42
Greenpoint Brooklyn trio Long Distance Poison bring two monumental slabs of primordial synthesis to a fresh brew here with “Rare Human”. Pulling itself from the bubbling murk of ancient ponds onto the banks of the dawn of civilization, a soundtrack to life’s first glimpses up to the limitless heavens. Limited to 75.
ANDREW SCOTT YOUNG – ‘Warm White Light’ C32
Self-described as his “God-Bless-America-Mr. Holland’s-Opus-Style tribute” to his high school orchestra teacher, the collision of strings, piano, voice, reeds, percussion and fireworks erupting over the A-Side feels like the chance meeting of Crumb, Partch, Penderecki and Ives; sipping highballs and puffing pipes, hillside, on a breezy July 4th evening. Side B sees Young go electric of sorts with sideways boogies and left-footed shuffles in a new vision of absolutely fucked “dance hits”. Limited to 75.
HEAD BOGGLE – ‘Backed Tape’ C29
To say Derek Gedalecia marches to the beat of his own LFO would be an understatement. In an era where the sudden renewed infatuation with the synthesizer has led to an endless supply of formulaic sound-alike projects, Head Boggle stands alone, miles from where anyone else dare venture. The beautifully disorienting sounds Gedalecia conjures recalls the ever elusive x-factor guiding the forefathers of electronic music and concrete before him, and seemingly lost in that of any of his contemporaries – a sense of wonder, the wanderlust for experimentation and the sheer brilliance of the spark of possibility. Limited to 75.
DADS AGAINST VIETNAM – ‘Courage’ C27
Far from the dreamy “world of tomorrow” utopian optimism the futurists hoped for, or bleak uniformity of the robotic age and conveyor-belt societies it feared, Josh Millrod (Grasshopper, Hexbreaker Quartet) sends us a completely different report back from the future, and shit’s damaged! The sky and oceans run prismatic with the pollutants and discharge of centuries of neglect and shareholder-driven compromise. The nuclear winds have left this rock nearly uninhabitable, aside from those prosperous enough to vacate, leaving the rest to otherwise adapt or perish. These are their folk-songs. Limited to 50.
SHINGLES – ‘Swarm of Pigs’ wax cylinder
Recorded just hours before the Ridgewood, New York institution The Silent Barn was raided and closed by the police, the 2-minute long “Swarm of Pigs” documents an oddly foreboding lament of the post 9/11 justice system. Less than a handful of copies were handcut on turn of the century technology on a warm July day in the UK.