Animal Psi

CONTREPOISON – ‘I Keep On Searching’ EP
Long due vinyl press of Contrepoison second EP. We have been glad and proud to debut Pierre-Marc Tremblay’s electronic solo project back in 2011 with his first …Until Next Morning EP. Since then Contrepoison has shared an ace split with Vatican Shadow and put out a couple of tape releases on his own Sans Issue record label. Digitally released in 2012 by Hospital Productions and Heartworm Press, I Keep On Searching finally sees the light on April 15, 2014 via Avant! Records and Sans Issue. The closest comparison we could make is early Cold Cave again, but there’s more here: something dead-eyed and drugged proper to this sound. Make sure to check the sludgy bass thrust and distant, dingy vox of I Keep On Searching and the bleak, tormented coldwave pop of Nectar Of Destiny. One-time pressing of 500 on 45rpm black vinyl 12″. Comes with thick insert sheet with lyrics and credits.

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JJAAXXNN – ‘Space Case’ C50 $7
Heavy mellow, sun-drenched synth pop from California drifter Joshua Bruner, formerly of San Francisco psych jammers Magic Leaves. Mastered by M. Geddes Gengras. Edition of 150 cassettes with download card.

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KIKSGFR Cat No.013, Nacht und Nebel – ‘Teeth’ C40 £4
Nacht und Nebel: Henry Davis is well respected and highly active in live performances in the small UK noise scene. Henry has supported and played host to many a well known noise artist passing through the UK in the last 6 years. Also playing drums with the ultra heavy Moloch (Feast of Tentacles), prolific in split LP releases in recent years. Only cello as a sound source is used in Henry’s work twisted beyond recognition Everything recorded in mono and gritting and grinding textures and evolutions.

KIKSGFR Cat No.012, YOL – ‘Metal Theft’ C20 £4
Yol: is somewhat of a legendary figure in the northern circuits of England. Happy to show his face anywhere between local art gallery sonic arts events to noise gigs in dive pubs, motorway underpasses and beyond. Using no technology aside from a handheld recorder Yol’s art is pure body expression, absolutely in the traditions of the classic avant-garde, yet with a glue bag, hardcore outlook, and of course, the twisted unpredictable tourettes.

GFR D Cat No.002, Kevin J Sanders – ‘Eyes in Glass’ C30 £4
Kevin J Sanders: Very well respected drone artist within the UK scene. Active in live performances and particularly prolific in sought after short run, and beautifully crafted drone and textural works. Kevin is also very busy supporting fellow left field artists through his HxE label.The tracks here are low end analogue synth work outs.

KIKSGFR Cat No.010.2, Denton/Watson – ‘Latencies V – IX’ C60 £5
Adam Denton and Ian Watson present the second instalment of their Latencies project. Everything here has been recorded in live takes via remote recording set ups between Cardiff and Newcastle, assisted by Ben Freeth. Technology utilised comprises a series of triggering devices and custom-made ring modulators and other electronics. Adam has released through Blackest Rainbow on their live series with a vinyl pressing near completion with his TransHuman project on Sheffield’s Audacious Art Experiment in-house label. Ian is responsible for a large amount of self-released and other works in limited vinyl, tape and CD pressings and serves as a good source of handmade electronics for experimental artists around the UK.

GFR D Cat No.003, Murder Cult – ‘The Folly’ C17 £3
Murder Cult: The work of Benjamin Hallatt, these recordings are live takes with only gongs and bells of various kinds. Easily mistaken to be a ‘dark’ project, this is not the case with the project title drawn from a fascination in spiritual concepts of self-liberation. Essentially these are completely minimal meditative works. Hallatt has predominantly self-released works on vinyl, tape and CD in the last 10 years, with his early work in defining the sonic palette for the UK band Swimming now licensed to the Tummy Touch label.

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NUN s/t LP
One of the most powerful bands Melbourne has ever produced, presents their dark-yet-somehow-vibrant vision of electronic pop with their debut self-titled album. Employing the weight of gnarling basslines, shimmering analogue synthesiser, punishing drum machine and the scathing lyrical vision of Jenny Branagan, Nun’s sound flows from sinister drone-orgy and hyperkinetic synth-punk to saturated new wave worship. An unrelenting aesthetic sense penetrates every aspect of this record, resulting in a remarkably cohesive work of art. Song structures are simple, considered and direct – everything is fine-tuned to ensure maximum sonic devastation. The music is danceable and poppy, it’s sad and incisive, it’s fun, aggressive and heavy as hell. Most impressive of all is its immense force; the effortless delivery belying an overwhelming sense of something very heavy and unpleasant looming just beneath the scintillating pop surface. Co-released with Aarght Records from Australia, LP comes in printed innersleeve housed in thick, reversed jackets.

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FH043 German Army – ‘Tassili Plateau’ C22 $6
RIYL: Cabaret Voltaire, Psychic TV, sacred geology, Chariots of the Gods, autochthonous audiology. Enigmatic California duo German Army creates often-portentous music illuminated by fading cultural voices and barren, shifting lands. Following a dizzying array of tapes, CDs and LPs in the last three years, the first four GeAr cassettes of 2014 share broader musical approaches. And collectively, they suggest a system of conceptual continuity that’s just begging to be deciphered with a Walkman and a few batteries. Our humble release of the quartet, “Tassili Plateau,” feels like the keystone of them all, music and message(s?) slowly coming into focus. Short, taut songs, visited by Bollywood dervishes with freckles of exotica, buttressed by fried drum machines lifted from the quarterdeck of Captain (Richard H) Kirk himself, and musically expanded to allow for moments of warmth and redemption, this might be the best outing by German Army yet.

FH042 Scammers – ‘Cover You’ C42 $6
RIYL: The Juan MacLean, Soft Cell, David Bowie, Magnetic Fields, Hot Chip, The Presets Scammers is the man who uses sly innuendo as a razor blade. Scammers is the man who puts ice to your your chest after a five hour rave. Scammers is the man who fills your coffee order at 7 in the morning and still has glitter in his eyebrows. Scammers is the man who kind of hates everything you are and resents what you have become. Scammers is insidious. Scammers works rank-and-file to bring the system down from within. You never would have known who it was in the very end if it wasn’t for the glitter…the damning glitter. But you never really got him anyway, did you?

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PURR 0041: Unicity – ‘Self-Titled’
Wipe the case and peer into fields metallically connected – fingers trace the yellow light – eight glass discs reshape the ancient mechanism – moist lilies in plastic carriers found polished in the red-tiled floor. You’ll need to make a map.

PURR 0042: Les Halles – ‘Invisible Cities’
The streets begin to form patterns of larger things. A hidden body with no familiar face in a space with dimensions no clearer than before. Calm, silent, and elsewhere.

PURR 0043: X.Y.R. – ‘Arktika’
It’s not a shattering, but a quiet, secret place where the waves flow through and roll with the season and tempo of the sea. A craft alone breaks the near impossible.

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PANOS ALEXIADIS – ‘NOUMENON’ CDr
Athens based Panos Alexiadis has established a firm presence in the experimental music scene through a number of releases with previous aliases & collaborations in flux. Now working through a different set-up, he focuses on real time synthesis with the extensive use of modular electronics at core. Through “Noumenon” we come across 16 mins of chirurgical manipulations on various sound sources, in a typically veracious, Alexiadis manner. Each phrase in this composition represents a certain entity, an interaction of narratives communicated from the composer’s cognitive arena. In Greek, “Noumenon” translates as “the object of an act of thought”.

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bm07 – Donato Epiro – ‘Fiume Nero’ LP
Donato Epiro is a young Italian composer. Between 2009 and 2010 he published his compositions on limited CD-Rs and cassettes; finally a selection of these tracks have been put together into “Fiume Nero”, his first LP. Intuitions that animate the substance of his other project, the duo organ+percussions Cannibal Movie, have been here explored at a deeper level of investigation, creating a sort of modern library music. “Fiume Nero” brings together many influences building a perfect bridge between them. From the Italian composers’ tradition as Egisto Macchi and the more experimental side of Piero Umiliani to the Mediterranean experimental psych music of Battiato, Aktuala, Lino Capra Vaccina. Despite its several references to the past music tradition, “Fiume Nero” reveals its contemporary vein taking up the importance of the most exciting lessons of modern solo acts: Shackleton ethnic loops elaboration, the wet atmospheres of Sun Araw, the Muslimgauze rhythm’s structure. “Fiume Nero” leads the listener to feverish excitement caused by climatic and temporal disorientation. You may find yourself dripping with sweat in a canoe, being carried away by the current of a river that seems to pass through a primordial rainforest, surrounded by strange plants, creepy animals’ sounds, hidden Indios behind the serried and wild vegetation like in the most exciting visions of Herzog’s masterpieces Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre. limited to 300 copies!

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DAIS050 Chris Brokaw – ‘Now, Forager’
Chris Brokaw’s resume over the past 25 years reads like a “who’s who” of indie rock alumni. Starting as the founding member of Codeine and followed up by fronting rock mainstay Come, Brokaw has established himself as a renaissance man of songwriting. Collaborating with Liz Phair, John McEntire (Tortoise), Rhys Chatham, Evan Dando, Glenn Jones, Thurston Moore and even a brief stint with GG Allin, it is sometimes easier to list who Chris Brokaw hasn’t played with rather than everyone who has crossed his path. After his time with Come, Brokaw lent his talents to bands such as Pullman, Consonant and The New Year…constantly evolving and changing his pace and rhythm. Nowadays, Brokaw stays booked by a constant tour schedule and his duties with Dirtmusic alongside Hugo Race (of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds fame). When the dust settles in the off-season, Brokaw finds himself a more mature career path as a composer of film scores and soundtracks. Previous works for lauded independent art-house films such as I Was Born, But… and Road made Brokaw’s instrumentals a familiar tone amongst the independent film community. After a slew of solo releases from labels such as 12XU, Atavistic, Brokaw’s own Capitan Records and his highly praised acoustic outing on Vin Du Select Qualitite, Brokaw sat down with the award winning film Now, Forager to score it’s lucid narrative outlining the story of two lovers joined in the unusual scenario of mushroom foraging which pushes their unstable relationship to its limits. Limited edition of 500 vinyl copies featuring previously unreleased songs and bonus tracks not found in the film.

DAIS032 Thee Majesty – ‘Live at the Pezner 1999’ LP
For the past 20 years, the elusive collaboration between Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle / Psychic TV / COUM Transmissions) and Bryin Dall (Hirsute Pursuit / A Murder of Angels) has taken on various members and formations over the years, always keeping a steady focus on it’s balancing act of ambient sound and cryptic verse. Considered by most to be P-Orridge’s “sound poetry” accompanied by Bryin Dall’s unusual instrumentation backdrops, recordings of this project has been selectively sparse with only a handful of rare performances to create evidence for its existence. This unique live document captures Thee Majesty at its most flexible, changing up tone and structure at a moments notice and harmonizing the abstract poetry of P-Orridge’s obtuse wordplay and apocalyptic banter and Dall’s meditative and complex drones. Recorded live in 1999 at the famed Pezner Theater in Villeurbanne, France. Featuring a guest appearance by legendary instrumentalist Mark Cunningham of No-Wave pioneers Mars and John avanti. Limited to 300 vinyl copies with reminiscent liners by Bryin Dall.

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STRATA01 North Col – ‘One’ C45 $5
on purple cassettes – Edition of 25. Late night feedback laced jams from Milwaukee, WI. Sometimes meditative, sometimes walls of noise.

STRATA02 Disguised as Birds – ‘We Buy Gold’ C40 $5
on pro dubbed/imprinted yellow cassettes – Edition of 100. Disguised as Birds final EP. Nice and heavy indie sounds from Milwaukee, WI along the likes of Jawbox, Shiner, Fugazi, etc.

STRATA03 The Fassbinders – ‘Earthworm’ C55 $5
on pro dubbed/imprinted orange cassettes – Edition of 100 – Earthworm jumps from psych to country to druggy pop with some garage tossed in for good measure. From Madison and Milwaukee, WI.

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