Category Archives: UPDATE

Asva & Philippe Petite – ‘Empires Should Burn’ CD/LP
G. STUART DAHLQUIST formed ASVA in 2003 in the wake of the demise of Burning Witch. Always seeking new directions and new sounds stemming from the drone/rock roots it stemmed from, DAHLQUIST constantly reinvents ASVA, bringing in new collaborators for each project. Members have included Brad Mowen (Burning Witch), Jessika Kenney, Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle), Toby Driver (Kayo Dot), and a host of others. DAHLQUIST has performed with SUNNO)), Burning Witch, and Goatsnake. PHILIPPE PETIT is interested in soundtracks; even if he creates original music he’d rather be introduced as a “musical travel agent” than a composer. PETIT uses an Electric Psalterion, Hackbrett Cymbalum, Guitars + computer and synths to build up electronic layers, process acoustic and field recordings. To second the machine he likes to move various glasses, or percussive objects, and take advantage of vinyl material to fondle released sounds. A journalist for various magazines and radio as well as a musical activist, PETIT has celebrated his 29th year of sharing his musical passions as the man behind the cult labels Pandemonium Rdz. and BiP_HOp. PETIT has assembled what people call a dream-team of collaborators, joining Lydia Lunch, Murcof, Cindytalk or Faust onstage, and also recording with: Eugene S. Robinson (Oxbow), Foetus, Edward Ka-Spel, Kumo, Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys), Cosey Fanni Tutti, My Brightest Diamond, Sybarite, Pantaleimon, Graham Lewis (Wire), Barry Adamson, Scanner, Mira Calix, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Guapo, Leafcutter John, Simon Fisher Turner, and many more… He is also the founder of Strings Of Consciousness collective.

WEBSITE

IF18 – ZOMES – ‘VARIATIONS’ C30
Edition of 300. A collection of minimal keyboard pieces by Baltimore, Maryland-based musician and visual artist Asa Osborne. Recorded between 2010 – 2012, Variations takes it’s lead from where the last Zomes tape “Improvisations” left off. Osborne forgoes the drum machine beats of his full-length albums to present a series of astral melodic keyboard passages imbedded in tape hiss and a cosmic-sense of wonder.

IF19 – ENDLESS TIME – ‘POWERLESS’ C13
Edition of 100.  Machine-driven oscillator drones from San Pedro, California native Kevin McEleney (Droughter, Heavy Psych). Sounding like the soundtrack to an 80’s science fiction mind-bender crossed with the dissolution of a 60’s acid western, Powerless manages to channel the distant plane crossed between the stars and the mirage in the desert. Following previous releases on 905 Tapes, Monorail Trespassing and Throne Heap this is said to be the final Endless Time release.

WEBSITE

ABOS3-096 – Bjerga/Iversen – ‘New Electric Morning’ C38
Hereupon, two side-long performances built from golden drones and subtle, ethereal mutant sunshine. Organic, creeping, sonically intricate. Stamped, yellow-as-dawn cassettes. Quite pleased these Norwegian legends (who’ve done releases for nearly everyone) finally turned up in the garden of the bearded snail.

ABOS3-094 – Dao De Noize/Troj C28
Blazing sci-fi beauties from the ever prolific Dao De Noize and the more under the radar (but equally intriguing) Troj. Seering sidelong sculptures of haunted analogue synthesis, rusted android whispers, lunar stormfront machinations, or so. Stamped blue tapes, thick Xeroxed j-cards.

ABOS3-090 – Derek Rogers – ‘Peripetia’ CDr
New immersive works from recent L.A. transplant (and familiar name) Derek Rogers. From mellow synth and/or guitar drift, to edgy cascades, over understated minimalist melodicism augmented by environmental recordings et al., mood and feeling are central here. One of the finest headphone-appropriate albums I’ve laid ears (and head) to recently, yes! Housed in 14×14 cm envelopes with individually “drip painted” cover bits – each one unique.

ABOS3-089 – Shalocins – ‘Another Hovering Menace’ CDr
From the Spanish spellcaster (also) known as Shalocins: new hovering, menacing, singular (de)compositions. Such a fine melding of industrial paranoia percussion, saxophony, and sinister oscillator energy. Warped hyper-reality joy! CD-R in an edition of 16, in watercolour stained, Xeroxed envelope covers.

ABOS3-085 – Twin Polygamists/Pacific Mausoleum C8
Cassingle sized exhaltations: the springy synth ‘n’ squelch stylings of TP on one side; the metal latrine music of PM on the other. Watercolour stained j-cards, stamped red cassettes. Limited to 8 huge ones.

ABOS3-073 – Strange Mountain – ‘Strange Mountain’ CDr
Hereby, five (three lengthy, two brief) unexpected rainy-day-synth tunes from Jakarta. With endless warmth in the wires, exuding nostalgia about the future, this is textured, blissful, harmonic bedsit ambient of the highest order. Artwork affixed to digipaks.

ABOS3-061 – Caligine – ‘Anomia Mediterranea’ CDr
More than simply a “freak-folk-and-beyond CD-R to end all freak-folk-and-beyond CD-Rs”, ahem, Caligine’s latest (after exceptional past appearences on Jozik, Stunned, Sturmunddrugs, and The Wool Shop Productions, as well Caligine’s own Monstres par Excès) attains absolute tour de force status, here. Revel in these tranquil, entrancing transworldly acoustic anomalies, stellar ether-songs, and roaring, electrified oceanographic pedalpushers, interspersed with archeological samples and such. Our elegant edition comes in a sleeve of different types/layers of paper/plastic. A vinyl release, with different artwork, will likely happen through Monstres par Excès later.

ABOS3-057 – Spittle Sisters – ‘These Dark Objects’ C37
Strange, all encompassing vibes on this demented/determined ritualist landmark, from the bodies, minds, and souls of Bad Orb (Leopard Leg, etc.) and Justin Wiggan (Dreams of Tall Buildings, etc.) Cavern electronics, gothic dub strains, churning black waves, trashed pocket sinfonias like abstract smoke signal soundtracks. On pro duplicated red tapes in an edition of 52.

ABOS3-051 – Pregnant Spore/nodolby one-sided LP
A single-sided split, pairing two heavy hitters/fellow label owners, “noise-and-beyond-scene” wise: Justin Marc Lloyd (Rainbow Bridge) and Mic Scariot (Dokuro), both making their solo debuts on the 12″ LP format here. We (they) proudly present thirteen lucky minutes of blown out chaos shrieks channeling manic mushroom musique; action malfunction, lo-fi riffs, all mangled marvelously. Limited pressing of 52, in painted/stencilled jackets, with various inserts (vintage book clippings, et al.

WEBSITE

MATTHEW SHAW – ‘There Was Never A Time When Your Life Was Not Now, Nor Will There Ever Be’ CDr £6
Beautiful new CDR from Matthew Shaw, the man behind Tex La Homa and Apollolaan Recordings, and one half of the Blue Tree (with Andrew Paine) and Fougou (with Brian Lavelle). Shaw has released some beautiful work across these various projects as well so some fantastic records on Apollolaan. This new 40 minute piece was recorded in inner city Vancouver BC (Canada), hedges in Sandbach, Cheshire (UK) Blandford Forum and surrounding Dorset countryside (UK) & Zeist and it’s woods (The Netherlands), blending field recordings and instrumentation. Colour covers featuring photography by Matthew from various locations where the recording of this album took place.

WEBSITE

VATICAN SHADOW – ‘September Cell’ 12″/CS
First new recordings of militant religious industrial. as the world continues to unravel… limited copies on ‘clear september sky’ blue vinyl. available now at boomkat and forced exposure. tape version coming shortly directly from bed of nails compound.

WEBSITE

Horders – ‘Fimbulvetr’ C60
Ed. of 100. A short while after releasing the Pink Priest/Horders split cassette, we pitched an idea to our mysterious pal (known alternately as Give Up and Horders) to create a full album to celebrate the death of summer and the onset of autumn. He responded with an album that surpassed our already high expectations. Fimbulvetr, in Norse legend, refers to the three successive winters that will herald the end of the world (something that we Northerners know a little bit about). This latest Horders offering is as desolate, bleak, and isolated as the northern prairies in the middle of January. Black, dark, no hope. Forbidden and foreboding. It is the sound of the end – the music your brain makes as life slips away leaving a near frozen husk for scavengers to pick at.
 
Un – ‘Begun’ C27
Ed of 100. We’re in love. We can’t stop spinning this, cranking the volume and spilling PBR all over our desks. Un is Montreal duo Kara Keith and Jen Reimer, and they cut through the swath of lo-fi, bedroom synth pop with six expertly crafted pop songs. Yes, we said it: POP. But fear not, “Begun” is still plenty dark and moody for all you dark and moody folks out there. Big, juicy synth basslines are the vertebrae to these songs, while highly contagious keyboard hooks, tight drumming and breathy female vocals dig their nails into your back and don’t let go. Did we mention hooks? Because there are some doozies on this EP. “Wicked Child” will be stuck in your head for days, and “Lover the Pheonix” may as well be a lost track from the soundtrack for that movie about that guy that drives around all the time and wears that nifty jacket. With the odds stacked in their favour, Un deserve to be the next big thing. Snatch up this EP now while you can still claim bragging rights about knowing Un before they got huge.

WEBSITE

(pyr055): ?alos – ‘ricordi indelebili’
about the artist: ?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. about the album: on her first album for pan y rosas, ?alos explores personality, mutilated beauty, psychological themes and emotions using beats, guitar, piano, violin and cello. the sound is: violin drones and breaths. break-beat guitar crunch. chant. now wave skree/chime. synthetic toy noise. sirens. bass sing song. electro rumble. string scratch. descension piano. ricordi indelebili was originally released by bar la muerte records in 2006. this is the first of three ?alos reissues.

WEBSITE

Velvet Elvis – ‘In Deep Time’ LP $15(US)/$20(Can)/$25(World)
We are incredibly excited to present the debut full length LP from Velvet Elvis, In Deep Time. Recorded at GFI Studios in the early months of 2012, where Velvet Elvis drank deep from the well of rock to bring about six dark tracks of paranoia and depravity that capture hallucinogenic vignettes into a future gone wrong.  The songs thunder and crash, sweep and swoon with a greater depth of clarity and vision than we have seen from this band in the past. An expanded sense of texture and dynamics move their signature plodding riffs along to crescendos that could open a hole in the sky. In Deep Time is pure unapologetic rock and roll.  The album was produced by Velvet Elvis and Sam Polizzi and mastered for vinyl by Joe Lambert. Hand numbered, limited edition of 300 copies that include a lyric sheet, a section of the analog tape included in the recording process, and digital download card containing the whole album with exclusive bonus track Brass Tacks.

Lefterna – ‘Not Here (If Anywhere)/Degredation_Obsession’ C40 $6(US)/$7(Can)/$9(World)
The mysterious Lefterna dropped two very distinct EPs on us, released together here… Not Here (If Anywhere) opens with a slow rumble, giving way to waves of soft contemplation in this post-apocalyptic drone-state, ending with rhythmic beats and bleats that invoke just a trace of hope. Degredation_Obsession obsessively loops and degrades throughout its duration, churning all your senses in on themselves.  Pro printed, hand numbered edition of 100.

April in the Orange – ‘In the Mirror Under the Moon’ C43 $6(US)/$7(Can)/$9(World)
In the Mirror Under the Moon is a carefully sequenced collection of Aril in the Orange’s earliest recordings, dating from the prelapsarian dystopia of 2007 and early 2008. Each song is a butterfly-blue weave of melody rolling through a changing sky of strum and solo, overtone Casio and cut-up piano – chromatically rich and vaguely alien annotations on AitO’s translation from murky tongues of sky-dreaming, solo bedroom madness into bright dialogues of humane collaboration. The aesthetic of the amorphous at its most shimmering. – Flavius Dionysius, Pro printed, hand numbered edition of 100.

Riasni Drova Consort – ‘A Still Better Seaward Peep’ C31 $6(US)/$7(Can)/$9(World)
Riasni Drova Consort uncovered a dark, yet inviting, dust covered corner of the world where one can revel in the wonders of rusty strings, old wooden floors, creaking doors and musty books.  These three musician/non-musicians weave an awestricken soundscape from the primitive, old and discarded, where melodies find their way in and out of these scraped, scratched and tortured sounds.  The first side Full of Folds is an instrumental that slowly works to envelope you into its mysteries taking you onward to the enchanting rendition of the classic folk ballad I Wonder as I Wander. Pro printed, hand numbered edition of 100.

Fear Konstruktor – ‘Mirror’ C38 $6(US)/$7(Can)/$9(World)
Listening to Fear Konstruktor’s Mirror can easily compare to staring at an iced over pond on a bright midwinter’s day… blinding white light and cold, murky indecipherable depths infinitively repeated into dark black spots of nothing.  Yet somehow, somewhere with all that cold there is a promising fleck of warmth from deep below the surface. Pro printed, hand numbered edition of 50.

Fossils From the Sun – ‘Blood 08’ C38 $6(US)/$7(Can)/$9(World)
Blood 08 is a series of 4 dark, throbbing postindustrial hymns from Ray Hare’s (Century Plants, Burnt Hills) ongoing solo investigations in sound and voice, Fossils from the Sun. The title track is a focused and evocative meditation comprised of low register pulses accompanied by interjections of feedback and Hare’s mumbled and stuttered vocal incantations. The flip side contains three divergent studies that work off aspects of the main theme to create compelling sonic investigations of their own. Pro printed, hand numbered edition of 100.

Rambutan – ‘Typhoon Shapes’ C37 $6(US)/$7(Can)/$9(World)
Typhoon Shapes sees Eric Hardiman (Century Plants, Burnt Hills) flexing his muscles in several different directions, from the sonic miniatures Lightning Whelk and Vapor Columns to utterly surprising and fascinating Robert Ashleyesque vocal montage of More Than You Should Know.  Rambutan works to shifts and move you in and out of drift and clarity until finally sweeping everything away with the epic closer, The Future of the Inevitable.  Pro printed, hand numbered edition of 100.

BLACK CHALK – ‘BLACK CHALK’ C24 $6(US)/$7(Can)/$9(World)
BLACK CHALK is the collaborative project between Ray Hare (Fossils from the Sun, Century Plants), Eric Hardiman (Rambutan, Century Plants) and Cory E. Card (Stone Baby).  Established in the summer of 2009 and originally intended to be a one off performance at the UAG Gallery in Albany, New York, but due to the success of that performance the three decided to continue working together long distance. The premise of BLACK CHALK is for the performers to limit their sonic pallet to the use of vocals, effects and microphones.  Contained on this tape are the results of their exploration: three of the tracks were constructed and mixed throughout the Fall of 2009 and into 2010, and the final two works are excerpts from the live performance. The results are a mix of dynamic, pulsating rhythmic loops, eerie feedback and ghostly voices. Pro printed, hand numbered edition of 100.

WEBSITE

Thoughts On Air – ‘Random Tandem’ 2xC40/3″CDr/artbook
Old Frontiers is extremely thrilled to offer this explosive package of colours and sounds from Hamilton’s own Thoughts on Air/Scott Johnson.  Where to begin? How about with 100 minutes of blissful bedroom gems? The tracks range from fuzzed-outer space psychedelia to scuzzy love songs to prime examples of Scott’s signature shimmery-sparkling guitar sound and everything in between. In keeping with the concept of randomness, included is a twelve page art-book of pieces made by Scott & Sean on a colour photocopier using a technique of blending images by feeding the paper back through the machine: a unique process with fortuitous results. Edition of 28.

WEBSITE

Sao with Blood Blood – ‘Hollow Earth’ C40 $5
A relaxing hum of ambient sound. The buzzing of the air conditioner, the languid movement of the drapes in the summer’s wind coming through the screen door, breezing across your cool wet skin. The tender vibes of a surreal summer’s passing. Sao produces a sentiment of nostalgia and lost adornment. A combined presence of Blood Blood rounds out the album and adds a delicate texture of soothing sounds and harsh coolness. Limited to 26.

FRKSE – ‘Scholar Drugs’ C32 $5
Scholar Drugs is the minimalist production of the grinding sounds by FRKSE. Tortured drum machine powered onto a 5-track with drones and synth. A deliberate mindfuck – a psychological thriller. Bitter doom set upon a tortured soul. Each tape comes with a one of a kind J-Cards, artwork by FINAL CHURCH.  Limited to 41.

Ops Esponja/Pocket Change – ‘Infected with Desire’ C40 $5
The sounds from the dismay basement somewhere in a sordid plain that is infected with desire. Between the upfront found sounds processed into head bumping beats to the done being shy sex sounds of Pocket Change comes sounds of beautiful strange art. Ops Esponja creates textures of beats and backing sounds that carry his own expression of furrowed sorrow. Pocket Change bares a strange fruit of bizarre beats and “I’m on drugs” sexy vocals. Moments of almost creepy but twisted pop sounds similar to losing your virginity and realizing that there is blood on the mattress.  Limited to 50

Heart Heart Julia’s The Astorians C62 $5
A surreal experience of abstract guitar methods and strange vocal hummings paired nicely with field recordings is The Astorians.  Heart felt lyrics and very dark basement dreary sounds.  Limited to 6.

WEBSITE