Category Archives: UPDATE

PABLO CANALÍS – ‘Folclores Imaginarios’ 15€
Spanish bassist and precusionist Pablo Canalís presents his first solo album entitled “Folclores imaginarios” (Imaginary folklores). The CD includes 20 new tracks, over 60 minutes of music played with more than 50 instruments from the 5 continents. You may listen to very peculiar instrumentation such as a Japanese taishokoto, an Indian sitar, an udu from the Igbo ethnic group, angklungs from Java, an African kalimba or a Bolivian charango. This CD comes together with a 56 pages hardcover book (16×24 cm). It starts with a section that includes comments from the author to each CD track and an itemized list of the instrumentation used in each musical piece. A glossary of over 30 pages provides an explanation to several of those instruments: history, origin and organologic classification. The book includes colour pictures of instruments, collaborators and the author himself. Collaborators: Eduardo G. Salueña, Pedro A. Menchaca and Israel Sánchez (keyboard and guitar players in Senogul); Fran Molinero and Carlos Cantarero (guitar and keyboard players of Killing Zoe);  Ekaitz Imanol de Luis and Gustavo A. Rico (guitar/bagpipe player and singer of Soulworm respectively); José Luis Feijoo (charango and quenas in Kuntur Huasi); Guzmán Argüello (plays saxophone and flutes in different projects). John Falcone (bassoon and contrabassoon in the OSPA). Rocío Fernández (voice and accordion in Darbukka).
 
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Mike Bruno + the Black Magic Family Band – ‘Willing of the Wisps’ C39
Limited to 50 copies // yellow cassette shells with black imprinted ink // full colour J-cards // high-bias bin loop mastered tapes // plastic norelco cases with shrinkwrapping // runtime [0:38:56]

BATHAUS – ‘ARCANE|||CUT’ C40
Limited to 50 copies // 25 translucent green & 25 translucent blue cassette shells with white imprinted ink // full colour J-cards // high-bias bin loop mastered tapes // plastic norelco cases with shrinkwrapping // runtime [0:49:17]

Michum self-titled C48
Limited 50 copies // translucent cassette shells with white imprinted ink // black & white J-cards // high-bias bin loop mastered tapes // plastic norelco cases with shrinkwrapping // runtime [0:46:28]

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Nomen Novum – ‘If You Look For It, It’s There’ C46 $7
Atlanta’s Nomen Novum is one David Norbery.  Over the course of two albums and several singles and EPs, Norbery has drastically perverted, refined, and then upturned his methods for creating songs, so much so that we never knew if his next release would at all resemble the previous one.  But it is now obvious he would always have arrived at this point.  What began only a couple years ago as a fun rock n roll project with friends gradually morphed into a gleeful pop deconstruction, using samples as fluently as it did layers of guitars, its lyrics as process-driven and cut-up as its instrumentals.  We wondered if Norbery could top himself after his second album, Paradises, and the Go Primal EP, both released in 2009—they were too good! After this latest album, however, never again will we assume Nomen Novum, as a single entity, will ever rest on its laurels.  If You Look For It, It’s There is, quite simply, an experimental pop masterpiece, and one of the most beautiful, unpretentious, effortless-sounding records we’ve ever heard.  Norbery’s naive/wise lyrics and harmonies, interweaving guitar spindles, and classic pop hooks lie comfortably across a weave of intuitive beats (inspired by the likes of late 90s Warp Records, Krautrock, and current top 40 radio) and anonymous samples that may as well have been taped directly out of some parallel collective subconscious.   Tying it all together is a comforting sense of both heart and heartbreak, a pop record for our times.  We couldn’t be more excited to have this as our first release!  Gold foil pro-dubbed cassettes with handmade knitted sleeves.  edition of 100.

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NIGHT SINS – ‘New Grave’ LP
Born by members of hardcore bands Salvation and Mother Of Mercy, Night Sins is the aural proof that life does not walk so dark all over Europe alone. Emerging sometime around 2011 under the oppressive skies of Philadelphia, these overcast malcontents are fitly connected to a city engrossed in shadow-soaked vices and dilapidated architecture. Not to imply that there isn’t a comforting sort of gloominess in this musical malaise as Night Sins frolic down a musical path originally cut by The Sisters of Mercy and Clan of Xymox, with enough hints of Pink Turns Blue, The Mission, and other extensions into 80’s darkwave to produce memorable songwriting that stands on its own. Bass and drums punch through the mist thick as thieves, guitar lines circle like falcons overhead, minimal synths street clean some of the residual dirt, and singer-songwriter Kyle Kimball’s vocals confidently press through an intimate fog. There is a brilliant light in the midst of dimness, and Night Sins is carrying the torch. Comes on black vinyl with insert with band pics and lyrics.

HORROR VACUI – ‘In Darkness You Will Feel Alright’ LP
Horror Vacui is taking the hard-line instead: how to play goth music with a strong, arrogant attitude. This five-piece got together in our own town Bologna circa one year ago, collecting members of crust and hardcore acts like Kontatto, Campus Sterminii and Sumo, with the intent of playing some kind of darkened punk rock and that’s exactly what came out with their debut 7-inch single Can You Still See Reality?. Powerful 4/4 drum patterns, catchy guitar riffs, deep angry vocals. Think of the Sisters of Mercy or Lords of the New Church played by a bunch of filthy punx. And that’s what you’re getting with their first full-length we’re proud to release in cooperation with the band’s own imprint Legion of the Dead (sublabel of Agipunk). Eight brand new songs where lyrics range from anti-militaristic activism to mental illness issues, without overlooking personal feelings of disenchantment and frustration. Fans of Lost Tribe and Anasazi will find their European answer here, so get your studded leather jacket on!  Comes on violet vinyl with insert with band pics and lyrics.

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Lume – ‘I Am An All Day Long Sucker For Your Love’
Lume is the long-time experimental lo-fi project of Belgian Joeri Bruyninckx who also moonlights as a music journalist doing interviews for Ruis, Urbanmag, Vice, Storing, Foxy Digitalis, RifRaf, Kwadratuur etc. A collection of his interviews with musicians from the deep dark Belgian underground was released as a book titled ‘Komaan jong, stel nu eens een boeiende vraag!’ (Dutch / English) in 2009. Release notes: “’I Am An All Day Long Sucker For Your Love’ is a line from a Stevie Wonder song. I don’t know which one. I haven’t heard the song. I just read this line in the lyric sheet. Stevie repeats this line over and over until it loses its meaning, which is a good description of these Lume recordings.”  Recording notes: “It’s an album in 3 parts.  I moved into a new home and recorded in the living room when it was still empty. I recorded all tracks with a dictaphone. I put the dictaphone in a corner. On the first track, I recorded myself playing a small portable organ from the 50s. I don’t play melodies or rhythms, just single notes. On the second track, I ‘play’ on a typewriter. For the last track, I just record the empty room, than played this recording in this room while recording it again. I repeated this process several times. Because I pressed the ‘record’ and ‘FFWD’ button together while recording, the whole record sounds slowed down.” Label notes: Herin the Ghosts of… : Diskono archive unreleased, half released, muted, hastily put down secret recordings and unfinished fragments that were generated, bounced around and received during the active life of the Scottish sound art collective Diskono (1998-2001) … plus random path crossed rickets from the contemporary hass sphere. Joeri Bruyninckx sent demos and tapes from Belgium on a regular basis to Diskono, most of the tracks ended up elsewhere … this however is an entirely new release.

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LFL014 – ‘Dump, Maryland – Vol. 2’ CS/DL $6
Baltimore compilation of remixes, mash-ups, club beats, chops and screws, b-more club, and any other weird (and danceable) thing you can make with a computer. From Calvert Trash / Soh-Gnar Collectives. Artists include: Chief Phloem, DJ Feast, John Thursday, The Dentist, and Steamy Wolves. 25 copies.

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LEO SVIRSKY/KATT HERNANDEZ CS
Collaborative improvisations self-recorded at Fylkingen in Stockholm by pianist Leo Svirsky and violinist Katt Hernandez, both American-born exploratory musicians living in Europe. Leo asked us (quite a while ago) if we could put out this out on a tape, telling us the media form would be appropriate as the recording sounds “very black metal” – to make a long story short. Two very modern composers performing a genre-pulling twist of noise and note. The cover artwork is a collage by Berlin artist Tippi Tillvind. We put together hand-crafted cardstock boxes to house the cassette tape and a second print of the art. Edition of 100

DIGITAL RESEARCH s/t CDr
Throughout the autumn of 2011 Silver Spring, Maryland free-tronica/electro-prov group Psychedelic Jam Band (P.J.B.) began to collaborate on new music with computer specialist and good friend Eddie Neuhauser. With a dual-chamber (live room, control room) space secured in the basement of a newly-furnished Northwest DC rowhouse, the Digital Research project was born from constant recording of jamming-out on electronic instruments, mapping samples to keyboards, designing synth patches, and rigorous late-night post-production.  Warm, flowing pads, 808-kit hits, ambient synthesized harmonies, and playful MIDI plucked strings create 38 minutes of sounds that seem to be coming from between late-’80s synth-pop and early-’90s IDM (of course slowed down with a heavy dose of alcohol). Unlike the P.J.B.’s studio recordings, there are no overdubs here – all instruments played to track live and in full ensemble. Appearances by members of Noise Complaint, Eulot Mauta. Edition of 100

BUSTED BOOT – ‘Psychic Transmission In Primitive Stereo’ CDr
Dirty organ-heavy reggae and brain-bending, bassguitar-thru-synthbox dub jams drenched with analog stompbox noisescapes and reverb tribal percussion. Melodic guitar- and synth-work make sure this half-hour EP isn’t short of any ambient industrial electronica and even a little rock ‘n roll. Edition of 100.

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You’ll Never Get to Heaven – ‘You’ll Never Get to Heaven’ LP
You’ll Never Get to Heaven is the stunning new ambient, electronic pop project by partners Chuck Blazevic and Alice Hansen of London, Ontario. Chuck has been creating abstract electronic music for years under both his own name and the tag Dreamsploitation, so it is no surprise to hear such beautiful washes of tone and melody on this new album. Most of the source material is taken from early 20th century classical and ‘70s dub vinyl, with decade’s worth of scratches and dirt beautifully processed into flourishes of swirling texture. Alice’s delicate vocals emerge from this ambient fog to guide these tracks through a dream of pop music long forgotten here at DIVORCE. This is a stirring record. We could not be more pleased to offer it up this fall. Available as a DL and in a limited edition of 300 vinyl copies.

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Hanel Koeck – ‘Francis Bloom, His Mistress & The Dullard’ C30 $8(US)/$10(World)
Found and forgotten sounds of Hanel Koeck. Music for guitar, 3 screws and a copper pipe followed up by studies for throat recordings and what only can be described at “construction sounds”.  Limited to 25 copies and comes housed in a 5 inch reel box which includes the tape itself, as well as a antique ‘date nail’ ripped up from the NP line out of Livingston, Montana over 60 years ago and a block of raw felt. ***NOTE: Due to this item coming with a metal nail, please check with your local postal customs agency before ordering. Not responsible for any items confiscated through the international postal system***

Âmes Sanglantes – ‘Have You Come Here to Torment Us Before the Time?’ C20 $7(US)/$9(World)
Edition of 99.  Biblical prophecy from the hands of Pierre-Marc Tremblay (Akitsa / Contrepoison) under the permissions of Âmes Sanglantes, prayer music for the pious unsought.  Noise swatch synthesizer omens easing steadily into a electronic benediction.  Over the past 14 years, this project has released some of its most dissent sounds on labels such as Hospital Productions, Troniks & Tour De Garde. Now focusing on a classical theme of disparate redemption and revelation, using the fatality of analog electronics to provide the hammer for the coffin’s nails.

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Guardian Alien – ‘Space>Drums>Jam’ CS
THE band of 2012 and beyond, here in an earlier incarnation from the beginning of 2011, featuring turner “ramble tamble” williams on japanese lap guitar, greg fox (ex-drummer of liturgy) on percussion, and alex drewchin on what can very loosely be defined as vocals. retains a remarkable cohesion despite the fact that all three are completely shredding from the start to finish of each jam, and their recordings do a surprisingly stellar job of capturing the spirit of their infamous live performaces. anyone who has fantasized about a teaming up of flower-corsano with magik markers, up your alley. close to an hour in length, limited to 125 red cassettes.

Magic Eye – ‘Shreddin’ on Heaven’s Floor’ CS
ive been smitten by this edinburgh quartet since the first notes i heard of theirs several months ago, although it was bittersweet since at that time they only had two recorded two songs. needing to hear more, i was worried i’d have to book a flight to the uk to catch a show, but fortunately they were already in the studio and in no time at all had laid out a full album of total gems, which has been on constant repeat ever since. not sure what it is about urban scotland that leads one to create glistening interlocking guitar parts (a la glasgow’s tangles) but magic eye’s guitar players alex and bek are in total synchronicity, taking their melodies to new heavenly heights and letting each line swim through the track like nessie herself. the guitar parts brilliantly compliment roma’s bewitching warm-summer-night vocals reminiscent of julee cruise imploring you to “tell your heart that i’m the one…” while all the while francis holds things in orbit with his sparse, smart, direct beats that echo crisply and cooly throughout magic eye’s youthful sonic space. my favorite aspect of this tape is the way you can hear the love they have for each other and the fun and freedom they feel when playing the songs. hope you feel it too! equally honored to present inimitable j-card art by brooklyn’s rob chabebe of eye bodega.

Lockbox – ‘Archangel Heat’ CS
very very excited to present a new lockbox tape, following up the now sold out “hypersecret” tape we did with him earlier in the year. this one is slightly more structured, but still has a pretty free flowing and unpredictable feel from one track to the next, without losing the cohesion of a full statement. so it’s a little different from hypersecret but still is loaded with flourishes that make this project really special. tracks range from danceable speed numbers to slow burners to footwork skrews and emotive sludge pop. all in all a really exciting new collection of tracks from one of my favorite artists to emerge in the past year. this tape was inspired by and was recorded immediately preceding his high school graduation.

Chaos Through Programming – ‘Books About the Internet’ CS
“books about the internet” is a cassette reissue of what i consider to be massively underrated album from the massively underrated label “push the button” ran by rasmus emannuel svensson in the mid 00s. he dropped this album with a zine first as a 34-minute single-track cdr through PTB, and it was instantly on heavy rotation. it’s gotten better with age and we at AIS wanted to hopefully give it a wider audience in tape form. books about the internet is the first and best hyphy chopped n screwed swedish club mix, oscillating delightfully and effortlessly between genres and tempos. sounds like it could be a radio collage culled from the satellite transmissions of some plur culture on a distant star… svensson also plays in smycken which released a tape on AIS in 2009, as well as other stuff through night people and release the bats. full color fold-out art by darren goins.

Cosmic Letters – ‘Cosmic Letters’ CS
three of stockholm’s most stellar new artists, karl (aka silverarken), mattias (aka ekolali) and martin (aka sand circles) get together here on a collaborative effort of two intricate side long pieces. the instrumentation (two synths and guitar) is inevitably going to draw comparisons to emeralds, which is not totally unwarranted, but to which i would add add a much more driving trance-kraut feel, placed more in the vein of their european contemporaries such as hans dens or stefan kushima. perfect soundtrack to look out the window on crystal clear nights aboard the high-speed rail. outside, the weather is warm but the snow has not yet melted. mylar-bejewelled art by taraka larson.

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