Category Archives: UPDATE

MIGUEL A. GARCIA/AUGUST TRAEGER – ‘ABSQUATULATE AZIMUTH’ C30 $5
C30 cassette, hand-painted & numbered. Limited to 50 copies. Blocks of cinder + marshmallows trickling down your spine. Miguel A. Garcia (Spain) and August Traeger (USA) utilize similar sonic dietrus, field recordings, and electro-acoustic manipulations in their work which lends a cohesive coating to this split tape. Like being immersed in a dirty, chunky vat of dirty, chunky, green gelatin. Garcia’s 3 pieces swim through tension-filled electric waters deep below the city. Traeger’s 2 pieces stitch together a dissected robot skeleton found in the cellar before circuit-bending the shambling mess into some hybird form of rocket-ship.

STAPLERFAHRER/BONEHOLE – ‘EXCESSIVE EXTENSION’ C30 $5
C30 cassette, hand-painted & numbered. Limited to 50 copies. Infinite waves of shrapnel sliding across your mind. Both of the artists on this split tape explore the depths of lo-fi mechanical sound explorations. Staplerfahrer (Netherlands) is locked in a room with rusty ping-pong machines that keep slipping it’s nodes into your brain. Bonehole (South Korea) summons a discarded boombox stereo from the dead and it begins chanting backwards in its garbled machine language. These tapes are the third pair of a series of 8 tapes. All cassettes are hand-painted and numbered and come with download codes.

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VIRTUAL FOREST – ‘Ritual Machine Music’ LP
​ After his tape debut, VIRTUAL FOREST is back with a two new long jams this time deservedly pressed on wax. Sampling sounds and chants from the world tribes, Ritual Machine Music begets 30 minutes worth of music intended to be patrimony of the world community. Black vinyl LP limited to 250.

ARBRE DU TÉNÉRÉ – ‘Quando gli Uomini Adoravano la Luna’ CS
​​The follow-up to the duo’s debut full length La Pelle del Fantasma (Holidays). Composers Maurizio Abate and Giovanni Donadini build a dialogue between improvisation and armonic structures, moving from ambient to soft psychedelia. Red cassette limited to 100.

RAZGRAAD – ‘The Water Towers’ CS
​Razgraad’s very first release. Sounds designed in saturated structures, stratifying timbres and combining dissonances and minimal percussions with melodic sequences. Cyclicity, drones and rhythmic pulses, declining the sounds of the industrial landscape through field recordings and synthesizers. White cassette limited to 100.

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OR-007, Scares – ‘Nebula81’ C44 $6
‘Nebula81’ is a vintage horror soundtrack from the future. Edition of 20. Each tape comes with Buttons and a Sticker.

OR-008, TAKAHIRO MUKAI – ‘Humble Photoflash’ C37 $6
For those familiar with Takahiro, you know what to expect. For the uninitiated, good luck & enjoy. Edition of 20. Each tape comes with Buttons and a Sticker.

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FH061, Urthsla – ‘Wannsee’ $6
RIYL: Six Organs of Admittance, Flying Saucer Attack, the sweet kiss of familial termites on your cerebral cortex. The welcome balm of Urthsla, a sweet musical utterance whispered to a young love, a gentle squall of devotional drone: and suddenly we are helpless in the pull, the tug, the sweet embrace of a memory of a spectacular summer day and escaping the heat by crouching by, and then laying under, a giant oak for respite while the day-heavy birds perfunctorily go about their business above, seemingly just as little motivated as we are lying side by side. As the long day lessens and shadows grow taller around our makeshift altar and the first hints of the sea’s breath comes pushing along, ushered up the small valley by cooling wind we unwind, stretch and now limber and fresh, head back toward the west to everything we still have left to do and everyone we miss. And it was good. Artem Bezukladnikov lives in Berlin, Germany

H059, Spectrum Control – ‘Hunters At Cyber Dawn’ $6
RIYL: Galaxie 500 w/ a drum machine, YLT with laryngitis on mushrooms, German bands you have never heard of but should have. PNW psych superstar Dewey Mahood (Plankton Wat, Eternal Tapestry, Edibles) is back with a slab of the darker side of psych-doom-dream-pop: let’s just call it twilight pop, shall we? Much shorter. Droning, sighing guitar & warm and crusty organ grind with the occasional pitter patter of little drum machine feet; you can practically feel the Coastal fog (and perhaps a some green fog) permeating these instrumental basement jams. Recommended for just about any activity except…oh fuck it – it’s perfect for every occasion. Dewey Mahood lives in Portland, Oregon. Limited editions of 100 pro-dubbed & imprinted chrome cassettes w/ digital download

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Mr. Mom aka Alizter James – ‘ElectroschizoObstructionista-Subtitled: Two Ballets…’
New electronic music from the maestro of Teflon Beast, Alizter James: Side 1 (tracks 1-7) follows a character named “Tina” as she experiences the whirlwind of doomed romance-while Side 2 (tracks 8-12) finds “Jerry” going through a spiritual renaissance in the form of glitch sound manipulations.

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RULE-080/GFRV004 Zen Zsigo – ‘Eye Contact’ LP £25
A solitary submersive piece of new rough edged tape work by Zen Zsigo (Cremation Lily / Strange Rules) presented on a single sided clear vinyl. Includes 4 photocopy photography prints which portray an other-worldy intimacy with the coast, packaged finally in a fragile clear sleeve. One gets a sense that Zen has been building a very real and important personal relationship with the ocean landscape of his home through many works in the last years. This record throws the doors wider on that midnight garden of subtle power and great solace as we begin to develop an ever clearer sense of what the art of this undoubtedly talented artist is communicating to us. This record is limited to 28 copies only. Co-released with the Strange Rules label.

GFRV003 Alan Courtis – ‘Crystal Faisa’ LP £22
Amazing new art edition 10″ vinyl from Alan Courtis. Mr Courtis has been an inspirational figure for me dating back to the release of ‘Blank Tapes’, by his former band The Reynols. This early record of processed blank tapes totally clicked for me at the time after hearing a live performance of the album. An experience of presence, space and patience. This new record is also a very simple affair. Side A is Alan playing piano in a Japanese train station. A strange creeping piece, far removed from any classical pretension, it hangs low in the space inviting earnest curiosity. Side B is a dense guitar drone work recorded at Alan’s home studio in Argentina, providing a near perfect complimentary accompaniment. This record is limited to 22 copies only.

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TABOO – ‘Every Funeral Ever All At Once Right Now Forever’ 2xC34 box
Proud to unleash this new album from powerful Maine clan, TABOO. Renaissance romance / sharpened stone, battle cry through acrid smoke. The clan has developed an elaborate mythos and deep symbolic language over the years, the work here some of their most accomplished to date. Ballads of victory and strength, modern bards of lost knowledge. Matched pair of professionally duplicated green shell Cobalt cassettes comes packaged with double sided glossy 80 pt. J-cards. Front photo of Taboo taken with slide film and developed as color, with no digital effects. Tape 1 adorned with the symbol for music and clan in the sense of a family through musical activity. Tape 2 features the symbol for hearth/fire and in that sense location, i.e. where you are or rally whether marked by a bonfire, wood stove, gas range, lighter or torch. At times this symbol may represent a funeral pyre, where the eternal aspects are clearly visible. Package includes a beautiful 16 page color/black and white lyric & statement booklet to offer additional insight and enlightenment. All is housed in a deluxe matte black A-2 card box with custom art paper insert and full color glossy photo binding featuring the clan in their natural environment. Limited edition of 100 copies. Over an hour of remarkable sound, offering protection from the emanating void.

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WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS & JAMES JACKSON TOTH – ‘Under Stars and Smoke’ LP £15
Bear Tree Records exclusive pressing: 180 gram black and white swirl vinyl. Edition of 100. And a pressing of 180 gram black vinyl available, edition of 200 copies for the world. Under Stars and Smoke is the soundtrack to an imaginary landscape wherein various “actual” locales are thematically superimposed atop one another to suggest new, alien terrain. Both the New Mexico-based William Fowler Collins and the Kentucky-based James Jackson Toth find a great deal of inspiration in their adopted home regions: While Collins translates via mighty drones the vast, occasionally unforgiving mesas of the American southwest, Toth bends and blends the sounds and textures of traditional bluegrass and mountain music. Complete with frame-worthy “pastoral psychedelia” cover art by visual artist Claudia X. Valdes, Under Stars & Smoke is an album as explicitly American and distinctly postmodern as the maverick artists who created it. James Jackson Toth (b.1978) is a writer, recording artist, and musician currently based in Kentucky. He appears, under the moniker Wooden Wand and in countless collaborations, on over a hundred records, and in 2015 founded, with his wife Leah, the experimental label Footfalls Records. William Fowler Collins (b.1974) is a composer/musician and recording artist whose work explores and synthesizes both musical and extra-musical elements. Collins has released music on the SIGE, Type, Handmade Birds, Daymare, Digitalis and Root Strata labels. Current projects include collaborations with Aaron Bradford Turner and Raven Chacon (in Mesa Ritual).

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II044 Channelers – ‘Essex’ C40
Essex is the 2nd album by Channelers (Ashan, gkfoes vjgoaf, etc). Expansive minimalism. Bridging the synthetic and organic. The repetitive fissle of a stream, the fluidity of its motion, and the clarity of its composition. The collection utilizes a diverse palette, devoting a unique ensemble to each piece. As a whole, it promotes a neutral space in favor of nurturing one’s physicality. Channelers is Sean Conrad, based in Oakland, California.

II043 softest – ‘six wishes’ c37
six wishes is the 2nd full-length release from softest (braeyden jae, WYLD WYZRDZ, etc). The sounds from this project are invariably in sympathy with the name of their maker. Gentle rain on a dark green landscape. A warmth to gather yourself around. The pieces, instrumentally, are comprised of guitar, synths, keyboards, discreet sampling, and field recordings. softest is Braden McKenna, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Clyde Moop – ‘WLV2 P1’ C62 $5
This is limited to 25 cassettes each with unique cover art. The over sixty-minute WLV2 P1 is a journey through a unique universe stepped in its own mythos. The Detroit Music Mag calls it “an immersive sonic environment populated by mallards and Molly Soda, pekins and pot smoking, sandwiches and stuff for sale.” Detroit’s top hound, Clyde Moop, is hard to classify; he calls his music Abstract Expressionist Bass. Using a limited palette (synth strings, claps, kicks, deep bass, muted noise, stabs, and distinct unearthly vocal loops) in a totally unusual way, Moop chops and loops on WLV2 P1 to great effect- re-sampling vocal bits into three-dimensional dark matter over outer space instrumentation. “Alright” contrasts the soulful chug of Detroit Techno atmospherics slowed to Hip-Hop tempos with a searching, frenetic, footwork in a blender ascent. “Doggy Sells Dope” has a more linear progression with bits of sultry vocal loops dotting the electronic landscape.

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