Category Archives: UPDATE

ROBUST WORLDS – ‘Emotional Planet’ CD/LP
Chris Rose’s Robust Worlds has impressed us since first glimpse. He was actually barefoot, if you can believe that, and his set had the feel of a way more lysergic Kevin Ayers. It was freezing fucking cold and I’m pretty sure he wore a Hawaiian shirt. His debut LP is called Emotional Planet, and it’s deceptively simple. Voice, guitar, some noisey shit, whatever. His playing is sick — fluid, unforced, warm, soothed and soothing. It’s a bath you don’t want to exit. Seriously, if yr going to play guitar, play it like he does. With a trick in his back pocket and a Heavy Moon on his mind, Rose utilizes the sort of neo-noir narratives that you hear thru Neil Michael Hagerty, James Jackson Toth, Kurt Vile and other keen observers. Handguns, b&e, two-lane black tops, love, lust, and hard drugs. Life: summed up !

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(pyr061): ?alos – ‘ricamatrici’
?alos is musician/experimental performer stefania pedretti’s solo project that began in 2003. her performances blur the lines between performance art, experimental music, improvisation, video art and force the audience to actively participate. the feminine figure and its role in history and contemporary society is at the heart of her performances. ?alos’ second album for pan y rosas is a fragmented concept album that takes its inspiration from industrialized garment production. seamstresses, women who spend their lives sewing in factories and basements – leaving their dreams and aspirations behind. sewing machine as sound creation. electronics. blindfolded piano played by instinct, touch, feeling, listening. full songs and small fragments of sound narration – alarm clock, pen, snippets of piano denote times and places – advance the narrative, the journey of a seamstress. arrival in the city via train. hopes and dreams to be crushed. departure and a new start in a new town. more now wave noise but shifting towards doom.  ricamatrici was originally released by bar la muerte records in 2009. this is the second of three ?alos reissues.

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DVVLLXNS EP
Shelter press is pleased to introduce the first EP by DVVLLXNS, aka Jon Porras (one of the two kings of the californian Barn Owl kingdom). With his new electronical project DVVLLXNS, Jon Porras opens the thresholds of burning galaxies, celestials thoughts and dark planets. Like a twisted elegy to Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet, the folded beat of an empty motel room with a distant Tv whisper, like crispy snow falling in july, a car race in the magnolia night, Litany predicts some cosmogonic catalcysm that a muted Cassandra could mime.  Feel the hurricane, the speed, the devotional speed of geometries, the language of signs.

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‘Destruction at 2013’ is an album which really wants to be heard.  The first by Lord Fyre (Seth Mahern of Apache Dropout, John Wilkes Booze, and the Magnetic South community), and one of the last from Emperor Jones, this set of recordings has apparently been reissued twice so far, and is fast approaching a collision with the actual date of its title, initially spit-balled over 7 years ago.  Not an indicator of its ultimate value, but I can’t say I see why the campaign to keep this record in press.  The set of seven tracks, oscillating between freak improvs and psychedelic rock fits, captures the best of its zeitgeist (think circa 2005: Religious Knives, Shackamaxon, Pelt, Sunroof!, and on), while apparently lying just off the grid in Indiana.  So outside of an undisclosed illness we’re funding, my guess goes to the ‘We did this thing and no one noticed’ credit-recoupment scheme which has historically proffered healthy dividends for understated records.  It certainly has with me, as I listened to all that stuff, but never Lord Fyre.

And as an indicator of its quality, that’s a shame: attesting to its durability, the relatively-brief disc holds its own amongst stalwarts like Human Adult Band and Warm Climate.  Starting with the 7.5 (out of 30) minutes of “Drinking Away Demons”, the disc fakes you out from go, as the slow-burner shakes and ragas its way to a frenzy of watery effects – the demons aren’t going but coming! – yet conspicuously disjointed from the proper jam “109^th & Amsterdam,” which features the most boosted riff between Radio Birdman and The Hives.  Small and Siltbreezy, the track has an adorable lo-fi reservation, smartly-layered with stupid technology.  Mahern’s vocals feature the snotty posturing and self-importance which embolden the best of his lineage – Suicide, Iran, Horrid Red – but take this in hand with the total vacancies which straddle such tracks, and truly bizarre things bloom: “Vintage Violins” on its own is a Hive Mind edit, slithering silent between the record’s pops; “The Night Before” like a reading of Pavement lyrics to an empty room where someone can’t figure out where to set her guitar, still abuzz; and then the finale, the title track, jogging backwards from its initial release to a Jad Fair sort of indie nostalgia for the paternalism of the 60s, with news sampling and a dusty diorama of clattering atomic aftermath.  Where the aspiration went to rock, and where the inspiration came from to sess, that is the mystery.  That it turned out so well is the motive for the mystery.   93 copies in hand-printed sleeves with multiple paste-ons – until the next reissue!

Auris Apothecary LP
$15
HERE

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LR2- M. Geddes Gengras – ‘Choices’ CDr $7(US)/$8(CAN)/$10(EU)
Two pieces of frantic modular synthesis by Los Angeles’ M. Geddes Gengras.  On his second release for Ekhein,  Gengras takes the possibilities of chaos and unpredictability within his growing modular set up to the next logical space.  Avoiding the cliches of present day synthesizer based music and focusing on more abstract textures and approaches in pacing and the listeners endurance for sounds presented.  East coast tour starting 9/21.

LR3- Earn – ‘Performance II’ CDr $7(US)/$8(CAN)/$10(EU)
The second “Performance” release documents a set at the BCA center in Burlington, Vermont during the US tour with Mirror To Mirror in November of 2011.  Performing using only live cassette playback and manipulation of guitar recordings as the sound source. This release captures a more subtle, ambient side in a number of shorter pieces with a finale of heavily layered waves of loops using the 4 track recorder as an instrument, with detail paid towards the mixing of sound and the speed of the cassette as a tool for expanding melodies.  Recorded by Oliver Mitchell, mastered by M. Geddes Gengras, and photos by Greg Davis.

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Dead Skeletons – ‘Orð’ EP
This is the first release since 2011’s, Dead Magick which sold out in one day.  “Orð” is Dead Skeletons first release since 2011’s Dead Magick, a record which nearly sold out in one day. “Orð”, which is an ep of 4 songs/meditations, gives a glimpse into the Dead Skeletons current state of mind. Just as the “Dead Mantra”, the songs “odauðleg orð” and “odauðleg orð (museum version)” were made for an art installation by Jón Sæmundur. The second track “Dead is God” is the closest the band has come to pop structure yet while communicating the “all is one, one is all” philosophy. “Cemalym” is a dark traditional Turkish folk song (most notably recorded by Erkin Koray), though the lyrics have been translated to Icelandic. “Orð” comes out in a first limited edition of 600 copies. It’s a 12″ onesided with the B side silkscreened.

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Chris Lawhorn – ‘Fugazi Edits’
Chris Lawhorn will release his fifth album Fugazi Edits on October 30th on Case/Martingale Records. Fugazi Edits features 22 tracks, which were pieced together using excerpts from every song in the band Fugazi’s discography. The album’s been in the works for almost two years. It’s entirely instrumental and combines over 100 Fugazi samples with a variety of effects. Ian Mackaye (from the band and their label Dischord) has authorized the album’s release. And, the profit from will be donated to a pair of charities—one that works with senior citizens in Washington, D.C. and another that provides aid globally to folks impacted by disaster and civil unrest. Lawhorn started the Case/Martingale label in 1996, while playing drums for the (admittedly Fugazi-influenced) band Cataract Falls. A decade of disastrous tours and middling solo albums followed. Along the way, he became the staff DJ at a spring break company—playing for drunk, college students on South Padre Island each March—and recorded the rap album Pole Position. This gradual switch from rocking to beat-making isn’t exceptionally unique. But, it led to an 18 month stint as the resident DJ for Marie Claire magazine. When that concluded, Lawhorn began work on Fugazi Edits—in an attempt to make something that employed both the musical influences of his youth and his love of cutting up tracks and reassembling them.

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ANGEL OLSEN – ‘Half Way Home’ LP
After her highly-acclaimed debut Strange Cacti landed in the hands of listeners, it became very obvious the special presence Angel Olsen offered to listeners. She had a fresh edge to her sound, a warm and wonderful range, and a level of skill and charm out of this world. And now here we are, a mere 2 years since her initial Bathetic release — the original cassette version of Strange Cacti. The release of Half Way Home is something everyone has been excited for. We’ve always wanted to see and hear what Angel brings out through her music.  Half Way Home is a continuation of her elegance brought forth on Strange Cacti, a collection of both new and old music, honed and matured, thoughts revisisted. We’re hearing this same beautiful girl with that same beautiful voice, this time brought up to a new level, in no doubt a growth and reach brought on by several roadtrips with the one and only Bonnie “Prince” Billy and crew.   The work of Angel Olsen is entirely her own: a raw, glowing sound that stands out now just as much as it did in 2010. It’s an emotional stew with Angel’s robust voice up front, bold and engaging, coming out of the background, aching to be heard. With the help of Emmett Kelly (The Cairo Gang) behind the board and playing throughout the songs, Half Way Home is a natural progression showcasing the wondrous sounds of a songwriter with such a voice that is rarely found. In Angel’s words herself: “I couldn’t say it’s about love lost or found or whatever. It’s about many things, things that have happened to me, feelings I’ve had. Situations that have occurred to some I know. I think no matter how stable I am I will always be searching, I guess that’s what this album is about. The endless searching, the fruitless waiting, the idea of a home that is inside yourself.”  Cover art by Plastic Crimewave. Vinyl comes shrink-wrapped with lyrics and liner notes printed on an inner sleeve.

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ELI KESZLER – ‘Catching Net’ (PAN 32) 2CD
Catching Net is a collection of selected installations and compositions Eli Keszler created during the last two year. The double-CD set includes both stand-alone recordings of the installations and the integrated ensemble scores performed in conjunction with those installations. The first disc features two ensemble versions of Cold Pin, previously released in a 2011 LP of the same title on PAN, plus a 26-minute, previously unreleased live ensemble recording (mixed sextet and piano quintet; these are captured in contrasting acoustical spaces). The personnel for all three tracks is Eli Keszler drums, percussion, crotales, guitar; Ashley Paul, alto saxophone, bass harp; Geoff Mullen, prepared guitar; Greg Kelley, trumpet; Reuben Son, bassoon; and Benny Nelson, cello. The second disc begins with the title track, Catching Net, a 17-minute score for string quartet and piano with the Cold Pin installation. It is performed by pianist Sakiko Mori and the Providence String Quartet: Carole Bestvater, violin; Rachel Panitch, violin; Chloë Kline, viola; Laura Cetilia, cello. The score is fully notated, timed with stopwatch markings rather than tempo or meter. Following are two recordings of Keszler’s large-scale installations functioning on their own. Collecting Basin features piano strings/wires up to 250 feet long splayed from a two-story water tower in Shreveport / Louisiana, across two large, empty water purification basins, which acted as an amplifier for the sounds produced by the installation. A ‘solo’ version of Cold Pin (without live performers) concludes the album. Tracks 1 and 3 on the first disc and track 2 on the second disc were recorded at the historic Cyclorama, a massive dome at the Boston Center for the Arts. Cold Pin was installed directly on a large curved wall in the dome, using micro-controlled motors and beaters to strike extended strings ranging in length from three to 25 feet.   Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, visionary composer/percussionist/multimedia artist Eli Keszler began playing drums at eight, and composing at twelve. Before finding an interest in experimental music and improvisation, he played in rock and hardcore bands; his work retains an intense physicality and churning, often ferocious energy. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he studied composition with Anthony Coleman and Ran Blake. A self-taught visual artist, his aesthetic outlook owes as much to Richard Serra and Robert Smithson as it does to musical icons like Xenakis, Nancarrow, and Ornette Coleman. He has collaborated with Phill Niblock, Roscoe Mitchell, Joe McPhee, Loren Connors, Jandek, and many others, and has recorded more than a dozen CDs and LPs for ESP-DISK, REL, and PAN. Keszler’s installations employ piano wires of varying lengths; these are struck, scraped, and vibrated by microprocessor-controlled motorized arms, giving rise to harmonically complex tones that are percussive yet resonant. These installations are heard on their own and with accompanying ensemble scores. Said Keszler in a NPR All Songs Considered interview, “I like to work with raw material, like simple sounds, primitive or very old sounds; sounds that won’t get dated in any way. I was thinking of ways I could use strings or acoustic material without using pedals or pre-recordings, so the live aspects appealed to me.” In addition, the patterns formed by the overlapping piano wires allow Keszler to create visual components that relate directly to the music, without having to use projections or other electronic equipment.  The 2xCD is mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk, in a limited edition of 1000 copies. It is packaged in a pro-press digisleeve jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened pvc sleeve with extensive images from the installations, program notes, sketches of the installations, scores, electronic schematics from the projects, and accompanying drawings and artwork by Eli Keszler and Bill Kouligas.

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