Category Archives: UPDATE

Spring Break Tapes

Hainbach – ‘The Evening Hopefuls’
“The Evening Hopefuls is an album that would have been impossible for me to write a year ago. I always felt the need to add a little beat or bass. I got bored when the music was too calm. This changed when I wrote my first piece for orchestra. After the score was done I had little to do in my hotel room in between rehearsals, so I reworked bits and pieces of rehearsal recordings into something new. The calm was suddenly pleasing instead of grating. After a month I had three hours of music recorded, of which this album is a selection. What I especially enjoy about the record is that in many pieces there are about forty people present, sitting in an old cloister, playing my music for the first time. Electronic music can be a lonely affair, but not so in this case. We were The Evening Hopefuls.” — Stefan Paul Goetsch This cassette is a limited edition release. Only 100 copies will be available.

Bus Gas – ‘Live On Leave Us’
For their fourth release, the Nebraska-based drone collective Bus Gas offers up a shimmering, rainbow-color ghost titled Live On Leave Us. Bus Gas, having abandoned their previous affinity for improvisation in favor of deliberate composition, has meticulously constructed a matched pair of songs; the first being a weightless, celestial moan with the second as a wheezing, grime-coated ceremony. Bus Gas gleefully stack layer on layer, loop on loop, sound on sound, knowing full well that the songs will inevitably crumble beneath under their own weight, leaving behind little but dusty remnants. This cassette is a limited edition release. Only 100 copies will be available.

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OTA

OTA007 Bagatela – ‘cotilhões’ C62
There was once a boar, wide and filled with good humour, clear thoughts and solid teeth. His most cherished sport was badminton with balls.

OTA008 Ecoa – ‘before clarity comes darkness’ C60
This is a road movie or myself waiting in a supermarket filled with good hardening solid chunks of bone marrow, fake gold and fake bandanas.

OTA009 Casual Observer – ‘ep’ C31
If this were a tunnel the light would be found past the light air breeze left of the iridescent diamond, through the maze of quartz. You would start your route like anyone always does. Patiently, with willful hopes, only to find that your memories are not, as ever, linked to your expectations. You will remember disconnected visions of mice excrements, puddles stained by iron, when your eye got filled with rubble.

OTA010 Space Echo – ‘po-16’ C40
Dandelions flew across the fields shattering their soft seeds in a carpet of white, morning came and some innocent herbivore had slept there.

OTA011 German Army – ‘kurgan hearth’ C39
“From C to F. Everything is within everything” said the chunky voice from within the shiny gramophone, his pocket geyser. “From D to T” said the all knowing nitwit in the corner of the room. “I know cause I walked here barefoot… in the snow.”

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Luciernaga

LUCIERNAGA – ‘Tile III’ C40
Improvised, recorded and mixed at home in Kensington, Brooklyn, NY. Minimal editing. Home-dubbed cassette edition of 25 packaged in black hand-stamped recycled chipboard brad pack. Unlimited and “name your price” digital edition. Music as meditation. Music as resistance. Music for the accumulation of righteous energy.

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Palmtapes

Best Exes – ‘Cactus’ C26 $5
Michigan’s Best Exes are a four-piece from Detroit, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. Cactus, their debut album, is comprised of simple, tunefully tender, songs. Linda Jordan and Jim Cherewick share most of the vocals, with Cherewick embracing a ‘just rolled out of bed’ vocal style to cool effect. Jordan’s vocals are often treated in 60s-esque reverb and overall, Cactus’s straightforward production recalls the era. In live performance, tube gain and the groove of Best Exes’s rhythm section (Erin Davis and Maria Nuccilli) give some rock edge, but “Cactus” favors a subtle approach. It’s a striking debut that shows Best Exes guitar-strum-songcraft, and youthful, sometimes midwestern, lyrical themes. The Detroit Free Press writes that, “spending time with Cactus could help redefine your perception, not of what love is, but of what a love song can be.”

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Tanzprocesz

rompé – ‘des crânes sympas mais bourrés de merdes’
new cassette of raw music by the undisputed king of the pache street, paris. i named jf pichar aka 1/2 ero babaa aka rompé. the aesthetics of error propulsed to the rank of pure soundwork. lathe cuts engraved with a knitting needle. fork soldered electronics. square loops. guitar played with the forehead. all that and way much more in this new rompé cassette.

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Fragment Factory

ALICE KEMP – ‘Fill My Body With Flowers And Rice’ LP
Alice Kemp creates a cryptic yet coherent body of work through drawing, painting, objects, sound, audio composition, performance, and beyond. She has performed in Japan, USA, UK & Europe, and her more recent musical output has been released by labels such as Fragment Factory and Harbinger Sound. «Fill My Body With Flowers And Rice» is Kemp‘s first full-length release to vinyl – a compelling work of more than 40 minutes, including two collaborations with Rudolf Eb.er (Schimpfluch, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock). The album provides a stirring and intimate insight not only into AK‘s unique world of obscure, tense and delicate sounds, but also into one of the UK‘s most exceptional artists of today. This LP is a joint release by Fragment Factory (Hamburg) and Erratum Musical (Paris), released in an edition of 300 copies on white vinyl. Recorded by AK, 2012-2015. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, 2016.

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Idle Chatter

Gambletron, Naee Roberts, Wren Turco – ‘Transparens’
“Transparens” is the first in an a series of cassette-only artist-curated series that will be released on Idle Chatter, our cassette-only partner label. Released in an edition of 100 and packaged as a 3x Cassette pack which includes a download code. Transparens was curated and designed by Wren Turco: “For this series, I chose powerful, diverse, female contributions by artists producing interdisciplinary work in the fields of audio and visual composition. Gambletron and NaEE RoBErts are two individuals that I feel are breaking boundaries in these fields and I am so honored to be working with them. The artwork was created from a sequence of transparent sculptural projections that gradually mutate in motion. The three images used were taken from a current project I’m working on entitled, ‘Jelly Sins”.

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C/Site Recordings

C/S009 PIECES OF FRUIT – ‘REACH FOR THEIR ANGER’ CS
2014 saw the release of Pieces of Fruit debut cassette, Sowere Soso, on Elm Recordings. That cassette featured five tracks of jangly Kiwi-influenced pop hinged on repetitive, off-kilter rhythms and hooks. Two years later and the band has developed the style, further pushing their unique sense of melody, while attaining new heights by weaving home, studio, and live recordings. Lead by Jules Lefevre, whose loose approach is perfectly glued by the rhythms of Tim Rowe (Worn Leather, Dead Uncles) and Dan Katz (Spit-Take), Pieces of Fruit will excite fans of the early home-styles of Sebadoh and Guided By Voices, New Zealand classics like The Bats and The Clean, as well as those looking for wondering guitar expansions. Limited to 50 copies.

C/S0010 ALEXANDER – ‘RIDGE RD.’ CS
Newest release, and second on C/Site, for David Alexander Shapiro, AKA Alexander. The latest in a long line of releases named for the seemingly endless list of addresses Shapiro has lived and recorded. Ridge Rd. is a cassingle featuring two 7+ minute long fingerpicked guitar tracks. Side A is played on an acoustic guitar and is driving and quick paced, while Side B’s electric guitar is somber, slow and patient. Comparisons to Fahey or Rose may be the simplest points of reference for new listeners, but it’s Shapiro’s affinity for Alan Bishop’s (AKA Alvarius B.) guitar playing that really shines through on this release. Shapiro’s knack for home recording also gives this tape an intimate and subdued quality. Limited to 100 copies.

C/S0011 TIM ROWE – ‘MEET ME AT THE HOSPITAL’ CS
After a decade playing with a variety of New Haven based bands (most notably Worn Leather and Dead Uncles) Tim Rowe steps out with his debut solo work. Though Rowe is typically known for quick paced raucous punk rock, Meet Me At The Hospital displays another side to his song writing. About half of the tape is dedicated to more somber acoustic tracks that show influence from masters like Petty and Young. Themes of longing and melancholy are augmented by accompanying guitar by Ed Peccerillo of Worn Leather. The other half of the tape displays a more experimental side of Rowe’s music, as he walks the line between written and improvised on several noisy and chaotic guitar numbers. An intriguing mix that flows effortlessly, making Meet Me… an extraordinary solo debut. Limited to 50 copies.

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Cut to Pieces

CUT TO PIECES – ‘Sea of Shame’ C14
A debut discharge of frenzied powerful noise from Sheffield’s CUT TO PIECES featuring four tracks of grim, blackened crust and doom. Serving as both a statement of intent and the prolonged death rattle of forgotten industrial pastures. Limited to 100 copies. Black tape cassette. Pro duplicated and printed.

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Essence Music

Expo Seventy – ‘America Here & Now Sessions’ CD/LP
Expo Seventy is back on Essence Music with the mastermind Justin Wright bringing together a rare line-up featuring two drummers. The four-piece only lived during a short period of time and the thunderous experiments achieved by these unique sonic hypnotists are fully presented here. With an impressive discography of transcendent kosmische drones, slow-burn psychedelic magnetism and heavier sounds behind him, Wright decided to set a new milestone with America Here & Now Sessions. Freely touching distant, dark corners of the cosmos where the sun shines timid, the band slowly builds two long movements of truly mesmerizing, free-form quality that propels the listener even higher to maximum altered state of consciousness. Warm, harmonic, meditational analog synth explorations get eventually accompanied by bursting, ritualistic percussions and distorted guitar tones, while a gloomy welcome ceremony of heavier guitar jams paints a grand canvas of seriously dark psychedelia. America Here & Now Sessions was recorded during the three-week art experience started in Kansas City featuring paintings, sculptures, poetry, plays, films and music from local and national artists called “America: Now And Here – A cross-country traveling dialogue about America through the arts”. Local musician Ashley Miller spearheaded a recording project that featured a handful of local acts to record some music that would be later edited together and released as an album. The project lost funding, but Expo Seventy was able to record as part of the art experiment. Mastered by James Plotkin. Artworks by Erik A. Hamline (LP edition) and Justin Wright (CD edition).

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