Category Archives: UPDATE

Ensemble Economique/Heroin In Tahiti split LP
It’s a well-known story: the bluesmen sold their souls at dusty crossroads back in the old days. Far less is known about a younger generation’s deal with the devil, their affinity towards dark forces and black magic. Their hypnagogic highway to hell and success goes en route Tahiti where souls no longer can be sold because they’re already lost in secret Voodoo rites. The music that springs from having experienced these horror trips is as seductive as Lisa Bonet drinking a little red rooster’s blood! Be warned: This is a one-way ticket, no refunds, no exorcism included. Ensemble Economique strikes back with a great album, sounds and attitude head back to his earlyer recordings and the amazing “Psychical” (Not Not Fun, 2010): immediate, primal, raw… ace! Second album out for Heroin In Tahiti, after their first “Death Surf” LP (Boring Machines, 2012), which was considered a kind of manifesto of the “spaghetti wasteland” attitude, as told in a conversation between Simon Reynolds and Valerio Mattioli, and listed in the 50 best albums of 2012 by FACT Magazine. A great mix of synths, surf, drone, Morricone and some typical ‘Italian vibe’. Edition of 500.

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FH035 PLVS VLTRA – ‘YO-YO BLUE’ CS $6
RIYL: Alog, Bjork, Brigitte Fontaine, The Focus Group. Rippling like a thumbed-through flip book of vaporous, hazy memories or maybe like a box of old photos left to the devices of the wind, Yo-Yo Blue feels like a curated tour of a fevered dream. Replete with childhood recitals, fragments of half-remembered stanzas and sumptuous j-pop interludes, we sense that this was a life lived well and well lived. As the shadows fall around our eyes and the summer skies turn from pink to the bluest-black the sensation of being lifted and rocked slowly slips away… PLVS VLTRA is Toko Yasuda, formerly of Enon.

FH034 CREMATOR – ‘ALPHA RALPHA BLVD’ CS $6
RIYL: Heldon, Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, John Carpenter. Cremator’s new album title comes from a tale about a sudden, radical shift from a controlling, benevolent, and sterile society to one of individuality and danger ruled by an elite group called the Instrumentality. Now picture the soundtrack circa 1979 by Klaus Schulze and filmed by Jean Painlevé. Flickering images beyond your stars have trapped you in the dark as you recline in your velvet-lined pod whilst arpeggios and synth washes swirl around the ship, returning from the ether, leaving crystal contrails – and that is just the opening sequence. Cremator is Matt Thompson of Rashomon and Zoltan.

FH033 BLACK HAT – ‘COVALENCE’ CS $6
RIYL: Tim Hecker, Mouse on Mars, Loscil. The voices of futures past howl through PNG files of grass and waterfalls – thumping and thrumming, bumping and humming – but always subservient to the pulse. It’s a very pleasant factory where the tunes for imaginary holidays of post-Christian digital paganism are made: some static is playing dub on a radio in the background, mechanical insects flit about your head plucking harps from a laser bandstand and the air always smells of ozone. But the beat, the beat is what drives us through our toil – always the beat. Black Hat is Nelson Bean of Seattle, Washington.

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Atomizador – ‘Huesos Y Cuchillas’ CS
Cassette de Atomizador con 5 versiones de algunas canciones y grupos favoritos: Crosta, Tall Dwarfs, Helen Love, Zounds y Mekons. Grabado en directo sin efectos de ningún tipo (ni siquiera en la voz) en sonido lo-fi monofónico crudo como una cinta de Daniel Johnston. Edición de 44 copias que se irán haciendo según pedidos, ya que cada portada estará dibujada íntegramente a mano. 2 euros.// Atomizador cassette with 5 song covers of favorites: Crosta, Tall Dwarfs, Helen Love, Zounds and Mekons. Recorded live with no effects of any kind (not even in the voice) in lo-fi mono raw as a Daniel Johnston tape. Edition of 44 copies that will be doing as receiving orders, as each will cover entirely hand drawn. 2 euros.

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AMK – ‘Spur N’ C22
AMK has been involved in the noise scene for at least three decades. He founded the influential Banned Production label at a time when I was just learning how to walk and he’s still operating it out of L.A. to this day. AMK is obsessed with tapes. And records. And trains. “Spur N” is the sound of records and trains. Tiny trains and huge trains, small records and big ones. Probably tapes too. “Spur N” is the sound of bells and whistles, the rattling of metal and rather heavy machinery.

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TIN008 – Longitudinal Expanse – ‘Pharmacy’ CS $5 + $2(US)/$6(CAN)
“Music from a void.” This is the third full-length of live, improvised sessions released by this ‘jam collective’ from Waterbury, CT. The material was compiled with the intent of showing the group’s move towards more minimal and abstract soundscapes.

TIN009 – Disconscious – ‘Hologram Plaza’ CS $5 + $2(US)/$6(CAN)
The first album from ambient/psychedelic/vaporwave/mallsoft project Disconscious.

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The Fractal Skulls/Adam Willetts split CS
Fractal Skulls is a High Wycombe, UK based master of the kosmische. His side of the tape follows on from a full length on Subexotic and cassettes on Blue Tapes and Reverb Worship. Unashamedly mellow, ‘Telepylos’ melds the highest regard for the likes of Terry Riley & Cluster, with a hint that we should be questioning everything. Adam Willetts is from Christchurch, New Zealand. Over the last few years he has been quietly releasing a slew of clever electronics, for imprints such as Fictitious Sighs and Dungeon Taxis. ‘Sandyford Lines’ marks a step into the minimal. Super focused synth action comes to the fore whilst brushing aside any sense of melody, recalling the likes of early electronic experimenters Raymond Scott and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In an edition of 70 c40 electric blue cassettes in yellow library cases. 3 colour risograph sleeves designed and printed by James Hines.

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BLOODWALL – ‘The Smell Of Burning Anti-Freeze’ C40
A serene and pastural lattice of melodic modulations intertwine for complex harmonic bliss. Graham Baldwin (of Visitor, 2208 Records) comes through full force with this stunning new long-play album of ethereal guitar and minimal electronics, conjuring meditative numb mode for tranquilized agoraphobia. After a slew of remarkable self released tapes and records, it’s long past time we lend a helping hand to further disseminate the work. “The Smell Of Burning Antifreeze” provides an interesting juxtaposition to previous Bloodwall releases. Where earlier work features prominent drum machine thump and electronic sputter, these beautiful new recordings capture a more pristine and distilled approach, showcasing supreme six-string chops complimented by deep synth water-tone. A delicately layered sheen of circular shamanic sound. Hand screen-printed clear shell Type II cassette comes packed in 100% post-consumer recycled brad pack sleeve featuring two color screen-printed artwork sourced from original photograph by G. himself. Print and design by M.H. Released in an un-numbered edition of 100. Not to be trifled with

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PURR 0028: Ill Professor – ‘Wire & Air’
Brian Harding of Zelienople. Dream freedom in the wind’s bullseye, between praising sunshine and shifting rain – little merry springtime settles on the advancing shade. None there are empty and no one refuses to time.

PURR 0029: Daniel Klag – ‘Inner Earth’
Reality and absorption the self as many season. Illusions of stillness lift expression through sustaining. You cast yourself on your surroundings and here, with each breath and pulse imperceptibly distorted spacing. Continuing change and widening.

PURR 0030: Reuben Sawyer – ‘Constricting Realities’
Oh, BABY we’re sun and fire or so most of the night remembers. Block the sober thoughts and the places where most have already gone home. A few remain without exception.

PURR 0031: Angel 1 – ‘Purple Haze (aka Boy Snacks)’
Try and up that feel-good jam and ride worlds with spinning city’s. Now delete scene. Where’s the fucking high?!

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Always – ‘Cartoons + Television (Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday)’ 7″ $11AUD(AU)/$16AUD(WORLD)
Mini-album comprising of eight new songs in the style of Alwayss Cruising + Gross Odour” 7” from 2006. Sometimes the songs are awkwardly spoken, sometimes theyre chanted, sometimes the poetry is accompanied by found recordings of outside activities, heavy breathing, etc. Limited to 100 hand-numbered copies + comes with many inserts. With “punch-out” style centre holes. The purchasing of this record will secure you a membership in the Always Fan Club; where you’ll get many exclusive offers on Always merchandise (incl. posters, zines, t-shirts, badges, jewellery, stickers, and more!)

AMK – ‘Residue/Scrape’ C80 $5AUD(AU)/$8AUD(WORLD)
Active since the early ’80s, Anthony M. King, better known as AMK (and Big City Orchestra) is an American pioneer of experimental music based on extreme and concrete turntablism. AMK is the godfather of a burgeoning community of artists in the Los Angeles area who are pushing the boundaries of turntable-noise artistry with unique ways of creating looping and abstract repetitive patterns and sounds. Residue/Scrape” was originally issued by Kinky Music Institute in the mid ’90s. He was doing some tape stuff back then that is better then what most others are coming out with now. Obey. This 2013 reissue comes with new remixes on the B side. Limited to 100 copies and co-reissued with Palemoon Productions.

PVA in Hair/Pregnant Pig split C10 $5AUD(AU)/$8AUD(WORLD)
Pregnant Pig side consists of vocals, guitar, door harp, bell tumblers, flute, and ice-cream maker. Recorded onto tapes, manipulated and then re-recorded live via eraser-headless cassette recorder. Material recorded between july and november of 2012. PVA in Hair is fluid punk. Dripping, collected in a muddy puddle, evaporating etc. Made up of members wet & torn. Their side was made via finger to dictaphone pause button, vocals and various outside miscellaneous noises in the streets of Clayton. Other fragments recorded in Wet’s loungeroom, storage shed and garden. Limited to 20 hand-numbered copies with full-colour wrap-around j-card. & co-released with Bergenost.

Andrew Chadwick – ‘Calls’ C50 $5AUD(AU)/$8AUD(WORLD)
The A side was recorded on September 12, 2006 in live performance at a celebration of John Cage’s birthday at Shantytown in Jacksonville, FL using six cell phones and a mixer. Arrangements had been made to call 29 people in randomly selected order for sound contributions. Not all of these calls connected; when they did, not all of the sounds came through. But the attempt was made to call the following, in this order: A.M. Salad, Yip-Yip, The Hi-fi Envelope, Aaron Zarzutzki, Charlie Mcalister, Travis Stewart, Tom Smith, Brian of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Fall Apart Machine, Andy Hess, Alan Mills, Lance aka Guhts, Caustic Castle, The Curious Hair, Irene Moon, Work/Death, Oubliette, Praew Jik, Cory Monteiro, J. Huntington Chase, Uh-Oh Spades, DJ Jaunty, C. Goff III, Wether, Nelson Hallonquist, Hal McGee, This is My Condition, Yellow Crystal Star, Id M Theft Able. A random incoming call was also accepted. Many of those listed do not have sounds contained herein, but pre-determined parameters & chance yielded these results. To match the phone-theme of this tape, there are old answering machine messages on the B-side. These were recorded about 20 years ago, immediately after Andrew finished high school. His family answering machine was microcassette based and hooked up to the house phone. He recorded them to cassette by taking his boombox, pressing play on the answering machine, and just recording the message as it played into the room. There never were any plans to do anything with these messages, Andrew is just an archivist at heart and loved his friends. These are random, embarrassing, funny, boring, etc. Limited to 30 copies.

Mold Omen – ‘Quest for the Snakehead Tapestry’ C34 $5AUD(AU)/$8AUD(WORLD)
From Baltimore, USA. Any fan of freaky noise will surely enjoy all of this. Chocolate Monk fanatics, Head Boggle followers… this is for you. Lots of acoustic stuff and electronics. Some drums, random objects with squeaking and banging… records… true controlled freak-out. Subdued hallucinatory shit. Weird tape loop manipulations, high levels of distortion, chaotic scratches, junk metal, guitar scratches & experiments with various sources of sound. Recycled tapes come packaged in painted, duct-taped covers made from disused record sleeves. All copies come caked in a mixture of paint, grass and sometimes hair. And a couple of copies come covered in dirt. And one copy comes covered in unlucky three-leaf clovers. Limited to 30 hand-numbered copies.

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Jon Collin – ‘Citizen Kane Junior Blues’ C36 £4
Tramping down to the old mill, encumbered by borrowed office equipment and without shoes. JON COLLIN’s trance-hypno guitar explorations sweep away the mundane and reveal the uncanny. A fine tuning of reality through song and the soundtrack to the chip shop myths of western Essex. A certain stuttering symbolism is seen here in full bloom – defying definition and judgement, these masterful noodling are raw and unprocessed – a real tasty mirage. Bumped numb by potholes, and blown dry by a chilled north wind, the listener is lowered gently into a harmonious, warming embrace. One for fans of Fahey, Basho(s) or S.Bull, with big cases, and blurred artwork. Limited to 36 copies.

Elizabeth Veldon – ‘The Lady Chapel’ C46 £4
ELIZABETH VELDON currently resides in the brittle northern outpost/half-downloaded cybernetic dream village of Edinburgh, and has been calmly sculpting sounds (both found and forged) for a long bloody time. Cold stone walls drip with ectoplasm, warm summer evenings exist in the beer garden, bath time meditation and post-“lovely big lunch” relaxation converge. Remember when they found all those dead pigs in the Huangpu river? Thousands of rotten hogs. THE LADY CHAPEL is a stunning narrative on the beauty of collapsing allegory, a silent wail into the oblivion of honesty, a nightmarish whisper followed b a month-long bear hug. Drone Alone. A great tape for fans of stuffy offices, flickering street lamps and lemonade (made with real lemons), and available here with full-colour “twins worry at the mountainside” artwork, foggy tapes and “fungus” on-shell stickers. Limited to 32 tapes.

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