Category Archives: UPDATE

Chronic Tan – ‘Wilderness Campaign’ C28 $5
Whispers surrounding Chronic Tan’s “Wilderness Campaign” have persisted amongst friends and local rock fans. The wait is over, and the Detroit four-piece’s debut is here. Guitarist and vocalist, Kevin Singer enthusiastically delivers cerebral wordplay framed by tight playing. Memorable cuts include: “La La Lodge,” “Petite & Mean,” and a songwriting triumph, the most tender track, “Jim Pherro & Me”; which, lush in reverb treated horns and slide guitar, shows the group’s ability to use overdubs lightly to superb effect. The track’s emotive final thirty seconds recall a Grateful Dead closing ballad. The tempo slows to a lazy pace, and rich lead guitar work rises to the stars. Chronic Tan describe themselves as, “lovable vape dads in the making, languishing in late capitalism.” Stating, “We couldn’t hack it on the PGA Tour so we settled for this instead.” With five different cover designs (the vast majority are of the tan variety), it’s here.

WEBSITE

Mary Lattimore & Maxwell August Croy – ‘Terelan Canyon’
Having never met before going into the studio together, harpist Mary Lattimore and koto player Maxwell August Croy recorded an album in less than 48 hours, all live with zero overdubs. Terelan Canyon is a “new” sound built on interplay and improvisation that explores space and form, with virtually no ego, filled with sonic imagery and a tapestry of emotions. Epic and beautiful, this recording is a special moment captured in time. Mary Lattimore experiments with effects through her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand harp. Her latest solo harp record At the Dam was released in March 2016 by Ghostly International. Mary has recorded and collaborated with Thurston Moore, Kurt Vile, Meg Baird, Fursaxa, and Jarvis Cocker, among many and her harp/synth duo with producer Jeff Zeigler is currently working on a second record. Maxwell August Croy is a multi-instrumentalist whose work fluctuates liberally between melody, classicism and experimentation, all while attempting to harmoniously represent all three. A student of the piano, guitar and Japanese koto, Croy has worked to expand the instrument’s heretofore constrained vocabulary to settings outside traditional Eastern musics. He has released a number of full-length albums as a member of experimental ambient duo En with James Devane and has collaborated with musicians Tujiko Noriko, Sean McCann, Jared Blum and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, with whom he also co-runs the Root Strata label.

WEBSITE

#189 – Jason Morphew – ‘Easy Come (Songs of 2004)’ CS $5
The second volume of unheralded & unreleased song from ever prolific singer / songer veteran.

#188 – Swampwalk – ‘Warriors’ lathe $10
Two new songs that ooze real deal honesty right into your gut. Bouncy pop for guitar and gameboy. Includes 16 page booklet of photo / scribble.

#187 – The Debts – ‘Lonely song’ lathe $10
Two track hard plastic slab that delivers a cut in your valves. A good thing is happening all around you! Includes 16 page book of random collage and nonsense. screened covers.

#186 – Hip Replacement – ‘Router Space: Smashed Hits 100’ CS $5
Midwest spillage on mars. Crazed up ummo goop that splays itself hard and makes you steed up!

#185 – Will Simmons & The Upholsterers – ‘Bewitched’ CS $5
New tasty cakes from Simmons & his band. Jangle pop / rock / pub stomp & polka even. Have yourself humming.

#184 – Razors – ‘Live from the Laboratory’ CS $5
Delve serious like into song form : long form / short form / brain tendencies / etc. Side two is one hell of a long Prozac jam orchestra that destroys all bounds! Not really a live album per-se – but you be feeling it! Fancy screened covers.

WEBSITE

Pure Ground – ‘Giftgarten’
Pure Ground is a minimal industrial/wave duo formed in Los Angeles in the Spring of 2012. Making use of a great assortment of analog and digital hardware, Pure Ground creates hard electronics teaming with rhythmic white noise and unsettling melody as the backdrop over which the group explores lyrical themes of present-day dystopian realities, sleeplessness and the supernatural, and the eventual triumph of the natural world over a human civilization in rapid decline. Not limited to music composition, the band also makes forays into analog video work, much of which can be seen projected onto them during live performances and in album art. To date, Pure Ground has released two LPs, four cassettes, three vinyl singles and a 20 minute VHS. Their next full-length LP Giftgarten will be released on LP (Avant! [EU] & Chondritic Sound [US]) and CD (Sleepless Berlin) on September 1st, 2016 to coincide with their third tour of Europe.

Pleasure Symbols – ‘Pleasure Symbols’
Pleasure Symbols from Brisbane, Australia is the post punk/synth duo project of Phoebe Paradise and Jasmine Dunn. Desolate but not devoid, Pleasure Symbols engulf honest pop music under a sea of slowed, cold synth and bass. Ritualistic vocals perpetually conveying a sense of desperation, but not without fortitude, the bands unembellished restraint continually on show. Pleasure Symbols is the self-titled 4-song debut 12″ EP coming out September 2 on Avant! Records in Europe and Death Valley in Australia.

WEBSITE

Angel Dust – ‘Shallow’
Dirty Pillows is very pleased to release the latest sound manipulations from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Angel Dust. This album is a stylistic and sonic continuation in the realm of recent Dirty Pillows releases. With Shallow, Angel Dust stitches together brief glimpses of lost worlds and feelings long forgotten only to suddenly pull the listener into the reverse of that realm. The album sets the stage for the listener to get lost in a false reality of confusion and vague memories through harsh noise and stunning soundscapes. We could continue to try to describe this release but the creator has stated his intentions well enough, and we couldn’t articulate it any better: “I’ve worked harder than I ever have on this album to engage in a process of deconstruction in order to translate the feel of autumn into something aurally tangible. It is the sound of shifting through an open field under a orange stained sky on morphine, lungs drowned in cold smoke and skull numb with suffocating noise. These pieces were created under the influence of textural sound design, field recording & musique concrète. I also exercised a heavy amount of restraint and physicality to illustrate a sense of emptiness while imposing a balance between environmental minimalism and subtly rhythmic, methodical sound shaping.”

WEBSITE

Trees Take Ease
Trees Take Ease is the solo project of Brooklyn-based composer and improviser Stephen Becker. Starting as an outlet for low-fi bedroom tunes recorded at Oberlin College in 2014, TTE has since grown into an amalgam of song experiments and soundscapes, bridging a gap between the weird and the enchanting. Steve releases music on his tape label, One is Three Records.

WEBSITE

Mossy Throats – ‘Slim Reaper 2: Hamtramck Haruspex’ CS
The sequel is gorier than the original. Heavy-thud and scrape dark gunk miasma from the underworld. Solitary undead madness unfolds, only to die again. Grue of many colors. Full-color art on cardstock, C20, numbered /20. All sound: D.Dlugosielski

Moon Honey – ‘Eye Storm’ CS
SOLO DEBUT! Jessie Kendall (Jessie&theEels, PU) plays psychedelic guitar from the future. Circular clouds of earthy distortion paint a vast and expansive picture over pensive notes that dot the atmosphere with spectral definition. A stunning debut! Blue print on white sparkle cardstock, C20, numbered /20. All sound: Jessica Kendall

Gel Mausoleum – ‘Viscous Necropolis’ CS
Reading dripping tomes in a soft, rotting house of death. Bodies turn to GEL, some places do too. A nebulous, haunted existence, with little control or will. Synthetic and free flowing.  Red print on Kraft cardstock, C90, numbered /12. All sound: D.Dlugosielski

WEBSITE

Keiji Haino – ‘Live 2000’ C60 $5
Prolific live recording from 2000 from Japanese musicians.
For color artwork and great quality, and contains the duplication of tape in real time.

EMAIL

NNA092: Battle Trance – ‘Blade of Love’ LP
Ships on release date – August 26th, 2016. Tenor saxophone quartet Battle Trance is proud to announce their sophomore album Blade of Love. The follow-up to their widely acclaimed debut Palace of Wind (2014), Blade of Love is an elemental composition that aims to fulfill the tenor saxophone’s expansive potential as an ensemble instrument. Working within the intimate intersection of the human body/breath and the saxophone, Blade of Love is a spiritual and enigmatic work with a deep emotional resonance. Since forming in 2012, the four saxophonists in Battle Trance (Travis Laplante, Patrick Breiner, Matt Nelson, Jeremy Viner) have spent hundreds of hours deepening their musical connection with each other, maturing as an ensemble through relentless touring everywhere from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Montreal to Vancouver, and most places in between. The three movements of Blade of Love were composed by Battle Trance leader Travis Laplante in a wooden room with soaring ceilings in the Vermont forest. Blade of Love was recorded after two years of rigorous rehearsals working to perfect the array of extended techniques, both virtuosic and primal, required to bring the challenging piece to life. Blade of Love’s central focus is on the physical and spiritual intersection of the saxophone and the human body. The saxophone is one of the few instruments that literally enters the body of the person playing it, and Blade of Love is a medium for this sacred meeting place, with each member of Battle Trance using the saxophone as a vessel for the human spirit. Singing has an inherent power, but that power is heightened in the context of Blade of Love. At times, the four players sing while exhaling through the saxophone tubes, using the instrument’s keys to shift the timbre of their voices. Laplante also integrates non-traditional mouth articulations, using the saxophone as a resonant chamber for these inventive sounds. Laplante explains: “There were certain specific sounds that I imagined being in Blade of Love, but I couldn’t get close enough to them using traditional saxophone tone — sounds like arrows flying through the air, birds singing or flying overhead, bombs, water running, the wind, the sound of fire, singing in church, making love, killing, waves crashing, fighting for your life, thunder, the sound of rage, howling, crying, laughing, the sound of my last breath… So I began working on different ways for the saxophone to get closer to these sounds, and the resulting techniques became part of the fabric of Blade of Love.” Travis Laplante describes composing Blade of Love as “the most torturous and demanding compositional experience of my life.” He continues: “It’s painful for me to try to explain what this music ‘means,’ because in a sense it has no meaning — and at the same time, it means everything. I just hope Blade of Love will release something in both the listener and the performer’s hearts. It doesn’t ask for anything in return.” Vinyl LP comes packaged with digital download coupon. Compact Disc & Digital versions released by New Amsterdam Records (NWAM080).

WEBSITE

Mr. Abstract Butta Fingas – ‘Invictus’ CS $6
Bonding Tapes is proud to present Mr. Abstract Butta Fingas latest cassette, Invictus. This release showcases the producer’s musical range with beats from the ethersphere.

WEBSITE