Animal Psi

PURR 0020: Looks Realistic – ‘Where Does It Come From?’
Description: Joseph Bastardo and Ryan Mulhall erase the earth from all directions, drawing in a home where mountains grow, rainbows bow, and melodies play throughout the land.

PURR 0021: Fluorescent Heights – ‘Tidal Motions’
Description: A hue technicolor and dominant. The sun is here, but we are not here, permanently folded by the sun’s vacation-pebbles that radiate like floating metal. What do they do?

PURR 0022: GREYGHOST – ‘Memoirs of Dementia’
Description: Controlling your heartbeat, peace pervades your space, bringing with it clarity and new life to the stillness of the indoors. Tones coalesce, lazily see-saw, and gallop away — rumbling out through the walls.

PURR 0023: Hobo Cubes & Jonathan Carr split
Description: Trudging through the choking darkness of an uncertain cavern, Hobo Cubes brings warm lights to forgotten sensations. Then along comes Jonathan James Carr with a continuum of transient beauties in this organically flowing work.

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OPPONENTS – ‘Thought Control’ C52
OPPONENTS didn’t come here to make friends. They’re not looking to talk gear. They came to kick the piss out of some synthesizers, and are doing it whether or not you’re ready for it. Synthesis in its rawest form. This is about survival, not crystal pendants. The next brood in line culled from the long standing hatefuck between punk rock and control voltage that has its seeds strewn deep throughout the gutters of New York past. Limited to 75.

LONG DISTANCE POISON – ‘Rare Human’ C42
Greenpoint Brooklyn trio Long Distance Poison bring two monumental slabs of primordial synthesis to a fresh brew here with “Rare Human”. Pulling itself from the bubbling murk of ancient ponds onto the banks of the dawn of civilization, a soundtrack to life’s first glimpses up to the limitless heavens. Limited to 75.

ANDREW SCOTT YOUNG – ‘Warm White Light’ C32
Self-described as his “God-Bless-America-Mr. Holland’s-Opus-Style tribute” to his high school orchestra teacher, the collision of strings, piano, voice, reeds, percussion and fireworks erupting over the A-Side feels like the chance meeting of Crumb, Partch, Penderecki and Ives; sipping highballs and puffing pipes, hillside, on a breezy July 4th evening. Side B sees Young go electric of sorts with sideways boogies and left-footed shuffles in a new vision of absolutely fucked “dance hits”. Limited to 75.

HEAD BOGGLE – ‘Backed Tape’ C29
To say Derek Gedalecia marches to the beat of his own LFO would be an understatement. In an era where the sudden renewed infatuation with the synthesizer has led to an endless supply of formulaic sound-alike projects, Head Boggle stands alone, miles from where anyone else dare venture. The beautifully disorienting sounds Gedalecia conjures recalls the ever elusive x-factor guiding the forefathers of electronic music and concrete before him, and seemingly lost in that of any of his contemporaries – a sense of wonder, the wanderlust for experimentation and the sheer brilliance of the spark of possibility. Limited to 75.

DADS AGAINST VIETNAM – ‘Courage’ C27
Far from the dreamy “world of tomorrow” utopian optimism the futurists hoped for, or bleak uniformity of the robotic age and conveyor-belt societies it feared, Josh Millrod (Grasshopper, Hexbreaker Quartet) sends us a completely different report back from the future, and shit’s damaged! The sky and oceans run prismatic with the pollutants and discharge of centuries of neglect and shareholder-driven compromise. The nuclear winds have left this rock nearly uninhabitable, aside from those prosperous enough to vacate, leaving the rest to otherwise adapt or perish. These are their folk-songs. Limited to 50.

SHINGLES – ‘Swarm of Pigs’ wax cylinder
Recorded just hours before the Ridgewood, New York institution The Silent Barn was raided and closed by the police, the 2-minute long “Swarm of Pigs” documents an oddly foreboding lament of the post 9/11 justice system. Less than a handful of copies were handcut on turn of the century technology on a warm July day in the UK.

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Hartmut Geerken – ‘burned beyond recognition/orgie mit mir selber’ C60
Archival recordings by Hartmut Geerken. German author, poet, composer, musician, film-maker, performer, actor, mycologist, archivist, stager of exhibitions, lumberjack and bumble-bee-keeper who published countless books of poetry and prose, edited the collected works of the exiled German philosopher Salomo Friedlaender/Mynona and worked with Amercan poet Tom Lax. As a musician he collaborated with John Tchicai, Sun Ra (he was the first to bring Sun Ra over to Egypt in 1971), Embryo, Michael Ranta, Art Ensemble Of Chicago etc etc. In the seventies Hartmut lived in Afghanistan organizing the annual Indo-Afghan-European music weeks and broadcasting the first jazz program on Radio Afghanistan together with Wahab Madadi. The two soundpoetry pieces on this tape were recorded in 1979 while living in Kabul. 100 copies.

Roberto Valenza – ‘Impermanence is Beautiful’ C60
Roberto Valenza (1943 – 2010) was a poet of the crazy wisdom school, influenced by the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of spontaneous realization poetry of Doha songs. He spent most of the seventies living on Swayambhu Hill in Katmandu, where he attended ceremonies and initiations and was part of the international poetry scene which also included Angus MacLise and Ira Cohen, who published two classic books by Valenza under his Bardo Matrix imprint. Upon returning to the States, Roberto went to Seattle where he co-founded Red Sky Poetry Theatre and collaborated with poet margareta waterman on several chapbooks and a full-length volume of poetry, drawings and photographs from his time in Katmandu. ‘Impermanence is Beautiful’ collects home recordings from 2002, plus contains a further five tracks recorded live in San Francisco in 1980 and excerpted (compliments of Eddie Woods) from a forthcoming live-performance album entitled “Ins & Outs at the Grand Piano.” In the liner notes Ralph La Charity writes about the recordings: “Our triple-threat magic man to the max, a Cosmic Giggle sort of wise guy artist/poet ever in motion who most feared standing pat, a whirlybird with glittery eyes all itchy with Else; he painted visions hilarious sacred and profane, his songs likewise rapt bawdy and Grand, & once he sat down on his flute, bent it, & that was that.” 100 copies.

Metal Rouge – ‘Thunder Woods’ C42
Thunderous riffs of devastating free-rock squall soaked up in extended intuitive solos of endless distortion. These jams drown in hazy echo’s of art rock, noise psychedelia and the darkest corners of acidic free jazz. 80 copies.

Metabolismus – ‘Brimborium’ C40
Acid-folk- jazz jams by the legendary Metabolismus, this tape has a deep sixties communal hippie vibe to it. Mostly acoustic instruments, with some electronics thrown in for a nice fried kraut feel. Features an extended version of The Fug’s ‘Nothing’. 100 copies.

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Labanna Bly – ‘Come With Me’
A huge shard of existential magic that has been floating around the multiverse for a couple of years, this recording was made in the spring of 2009 around the Skaters Solo + P.A.R.A. + Dolphins into the Future Euro tour. Coming off the end of what was her Post-Atlantean Ritual Artifacts lifecycle, Labanna switched over to her pre-internet free meditation entity and uttered this raw, mainly vocal articulation of sexual serenity. Where instrumentation sets in, the music shifts into pastoral haunted romanticism and shadowy manifestations of residual dreamtime memory. This tape also marks the end of her tape energy healing period, which since then has shifted into current era internet energy healing of Labanna Babalon. Edition 100.

No Space Island Viking Invasion
No Space Island Viking Invasion is a duo consisting of belgian synthesist Hans Dens, who normally records under the name Innercity, and the swedish, now danish boy of cold skin and hot blood, Hannes Norrvide of Lust For Youth / Posh Isolation fame. Together they’ve melded their separate musical aesthetics, which results in an equally haunting and calmingly enveloping space island symbiosis of cavernous murk and the cold hard surfaces of abandoned space ships. Perhaps a Space Island Viking Invasion never took place, but there is definitely remnants of some kind of nautical space exploration going on. Edition 50.

Sand Circles – ‘Echo Passage’
Sand Circles has for the past three years released solid and well-written recordings that dwell in the dusk til midnight sonic area. Suggestive and visually prompting, the music connotes dark blue sports cars, alleyways, under water camera sweeps and sleuthing in dark office buildings. To some extent the music has a tweaked nostalgic tang, but it could just as well be and attempt to summon the future through skewed reflections and reverberations of ficticious pasts. Songs over sides! Edition 50.

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VALES – ‘Surface’ C28
Crisp and coarse sandpaper sonics conjured from exceedingly harsh and precise synthesizer dominance. No nonsense electronics and concentrated seethe styles. Honed to fine edge, slicing with pure display of focused power. Vales is the solo outlet of David Doyen, now providing some of his harshest work to date, opting for maliciously deliberate full on drill-churn maneuvers. Light the pyre and fry the friar. Real time duplicated clear shell Type II Chrome cassette comes with hand numbered double sided cardstock J-card featuring original vortex collage artwork by M.H. w/ matching plum labels in a clear Norelco case. Shifting currents and walls of pristine ferocity. No arpeggios, guaranteed.

SASHASH ULZ – ‘Hibernation’ C32
Two sides of twisted sonic canopy for sweet, sweet solitude. Lucid tape loop hypothesis from Sashash Ulz of Russia, zone deep and lose self in the ultimate circular dissolve. After a furious swarm of releases on such stalwart labels as Digitalis, Goaty, and Hooker Vision, we at Lighten Up are proud to present this newest expanse of mind-numbing audio dreg. Using a series of multiple tape loops played simultaneously through multiple tape machines, providing fresh nitro glycerine boom-box wobble for complete brain melt. Swollen neanderthal perpetual! Real time duplicated black shell Type II chrome cassette with kush green labels comes packaged with matching full color double sided card stock J-card featuring blazed original collage artwork by M.H. in a clear Norelco case. Blissful garble-trance supreme for proud social rejects, true abandonment. Hypnotic warp mode ala crude analog voyeurism, as it should be.

MOLE HOLE – ‘The Horrors of Dentistry’ C24
Everything crumbles and slowly dissolves. A potent dose of harsh cure all murk medicine, using anti-records and prepared phonograph machine with damaged 16mm film loops and projector. All thumbs oral surgeon provides crude feedback manhandling for satisfying root canal. Recorded live directly to cassette, low-fi and loud! Real time duplicated clear shell tape with double sided dental x-ray labels comes packaged in a sealed 4” x 6” brown paper envelope with wrap around paste-on artwork featuring grim black and white tooth portrait. Hand-numbered edition of only 6 copies. Fully thrashed dental terror. Sorry, we’re all out of anaesthetic.

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FAB023 ROBERT TURMAN – ‘Macro’ C30
Brand new 30 minutes of music by american ambient/noise/industrial pioneer Robert Turman (NON/Z.O. Voider). Recorded in 2012, these new tracks by Turman deliver heavy pounding tape loops and machine-like rhythms that cycle and flow like clockwork, while the sound of hot steam rises from the factory floor. Industrial music for the post-industrial age done by one of the pioneers. Limited to 100. pro-dubbed copies with full color j-card.

FAB022 A FULL COSMIC SOUND – ‘Chemtrails’ C40
Second official release by this improv. experimental pysch collective from Santiago, Chile on Fabrica. Murky spacey distorted fuzz-drenched jams with a hint of Spacemen 3 and a pinch of Joy Division-ish bass-lines thrown into the mix. Play Loud!

FAB021 AERONAUT – ‘Coronal Mass’ C36
Aeronaut is Steve Fors, a multi-instrumentalist and composer from Brooklyn, NY. Also member of the Chicago-based drone/noise outfit, The Golden Sores, he’s been experimenting with long-form song structures since 1995. In his current work, he is interested in exploring the relationship between sound and time; specifically how sustained fields of sound can alter our temporal perception and physical awareness. He says of his work/process, “It’s that moment–when everything around you ceases to exist, or rather you become everything around you, or rather still the boundaries of skin and self and earth and air are shattered; when you’re acutely conscious but completely powerless and everything turns to white–when that split second turns timeless, there is nothing else but crushing joy.” Two 18 minute side long tracks of ear blazing epic drone contained in a 36 minute pro-dubbed cassette secured in a black wooden box. Each and every box was painted. printed and hand-assembled by the artist himself. Includes digital download.

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TRACEY TRANCE – ‘101’ C32 $6
This hand held saga of life on the road is comprised of multiple treatments of three distinctly different tunes, as well as several vignettes of other song skeletons. Heavily saturated locomotives rip holes through the tape heads and quick cassette deck to cassette deck edits act as the scene changers, as we follow Tracey Trance to the chiller zones of modern society, found under bridges, along the capes, the coasts and the rivers of the West Coast of the US. This cassette marks the transition from Tracey Trance’s mostly instrumental, hypno -circular modal compositions, to a more vocally structured form of songwriting, and these sketchy hog leg laden tunes are none the less infectious than previous riff oriented offerings. For those of you that have been following live and or magnetically captured sounds of Tyler Larson for a while now, think Tyler’s early 2000’s project Quincy Quartz and that’ll get you close to knowing what this may sound like. I might compare the root styling’s of Tyler’s vocal inflection to that of a less blues obsessed Jad Fair. Lo-fi, just as much because of the means at hand, as aesthetic value of the artist. Covers Risograph printed by Caroline Paquita.

Tracey Trance – ‘PYPER KUB’ LP $15
Denny Laine had a somewhat fresh and entergetic take on Buddy Holly’s songwriting, as did Fleetwood Mac on their earlier Lps. But the songcrafting that Tyler Larson of Tracey Trance carves out of a fascination for Holly comes off as a much more authentic yet original take on Rock and Roll’s roots, before they were strangled, and bled dry by modern musceled up parameters. This allows Tracey Trance’s work in particular to feel un-paralleled in the modern world, without ever feeling like some kind of retro throwback. Along with poignant lucidly plucked riffs and melodic hooks, is this totally sincere smoked out-law beachy exotica vibe that Larson has been working on for a long while now…….Whether he’s playing portable keyboards, dragging hammond organs outta the side of a mini bus, jamming flutes, guitars or banjo, Tyler pulls it off in a most chill and hypnotic fashion. Add some beautifully warm sky’s the limit tape saturation and Pyper Kub becomes one of the best experimental pop records to come out in quite some time. Previously self released on cassette.

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JAR MOFF – ‘Commercial Mouth’ (PAN 31) LP
‘Commercial Mouth’ is the debut LP from Jar Moff, an Athens based artist working in collage forms. Following on from his previous remix on the Harald Grosskopf Synthesist / Re-Synthesist LP on RVNG last year, and a digital release for Leaving Records, this is his first full-length LP. Both his visual and aural oeuvre take the form of cut up and reformations in the manner of previous PAN stablemates like Joseph Hammer and Ghedalia Tazartes, remodeling the past in order to create something new out of the modern detritus, and nestles in nicely alongside the recent ‘Diversions 1994-1996’ release from Lee Gamble. The result is a baffling yet functioning head-on collision between early plunderphonics and an abstracted futuristic hip hop aesthetic. The LP is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, pressed on 140g vinyl. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silkscreened pvc sleeve with artwork by Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas.

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SLUMP – ‘TREMBLE! LEFTWYCH SCALLION SALAD’ C30 £4
Yet another nail in the coffin of free expression as SLUMP continues to be held hostage by history, keyboards, abandoned driving ranges and family cars. Slovenly, aimless and limping down long country lanes. Two dogs fighting in a waterlogged pub car park, a garden centre at midnight with ghosts and the shimmering hologram of a clock – this is what Tremble! sounds like. Kneeless in Tunstall, crying at the foot of some busted civic fountain, collapsing in underground markets, browsing the graphics of a school computer. You are now involved with SLUMP. Limited Edition of 23 tapes in large cases. Rodent birth-artwork, and coloured “spiritualist” on-shell stickers.

EKUNHAASHAASTAACK/REJET split C42 £4
Reining in the spirit of crippled where lock, REJET divided, EKUNHAASHAASTAACK derided. Now based in the rural idyl, but soon to be exhaled to the wooden peaks of southern nation, they create dense, unfettered expressions of detached (only notional), insipid foolheartedliness. Embark with me upon journeys over crumbled electronic sound swamps, visiting voodoo queens and watching spirals unravel in the orange glow… Thunder feet echo in the brittle serenity of the eternal corridor and relinquishment of sanity/measurable income instantly becomes inevitable and infeasible. Sinking? I’d rather! Edition of blerty-blive. Coloured nothing.

DUNCAN HARRISON – ‘OGRE NEON’ CDr £4
I’ve got a bad back typing this one. 2013, 2013, 2013. Where to start? WHERE TO START? Where. Tooth. Start. The new becoming – an, orthodox, post-apocalyptic prison? Move along January, get out of bed. Or at least roll over and let Chepping Wycombe’s finest have a bit of the scroon blanket. Buckinghamshire’s most celebrated marimba pest has given us some stuff to release. We’ve put old pictures of Cheshire (Chester in the 70’s in fact) and some bears on the artwork like we usually do. Nothing new here. It’s like 2012 again isn’t it? An eternally recurring Congleton quagmire. Who cares. OGRE NEON is undoubtedly Duncan Harrison’s greatest work to date, a demanding and omnipotent tribute to the Bear Gods of East Cheshire probably. OGRE NEON contains over 50 minutes of fizzog-burning (imagine that), meditative, multi-faceted mush rattle – a non-assault on noise? The final negation of a pre-determined (un)ending? Pipe down, pseudo-Hegelian, this wasn’t what we were thinking to be honest, like. High Wycombe’s furniture producing legacy totally destroyed – by one CDR. Inappropriate. Absolute truth. Don’t go yet – each CDR comes with an informative, diary-style insert and a rather wonderful poem by a Mr. I. Murphy. Edition of 35.4.

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