Animal Psi

GRAPEFRUIT cassette $6
RIYL: Tangerine Dream, music so kraut it’s still cabbage & synths creamy enough to attract cats.  What happens when you get Klaus Shulze into some tight-fitting American jeans? Yes I know, the periennial question – well we here at Field Hymns have the answer and of course the result is Grapefruit. Muscular and fluid, Grapefruit speaks a brogue of 70’s Kosmisch and 80’s action flick scores, woven into a rich expanse of arpeggiated streams, analog sunsets and cosmic beaches. Recommended for all lovers of analog synth artistry. Grapefruit is the solo project of Portland, Oregon’s Charlie Salas Humara – currently in the bands Regular Music and Sun Angle, previously of The Planet The and Panther.

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Controlled Bleeding – ‘Body Samples’ C70 $7
The second of two reissues on Obsolete Units documenting Controlled Bleeding’s paramount early 80′s work in the field of American harsh noise and post-industrial electronics. Following a similar collage aesthetic to Knees And Bones, the group’s second album from 1985 finds the staggeringly impetuous and rapturous pandemonium the group had been perfecting around this period advancing ahead diligently without much concern for any sort of repose. Perhaps a more diverse array of resonances are on display, but the mania is all masterfully regulated under the watch of founder Paul Lemos and late longtime members Chris Moriarty and Joe Papa. Another fundamental piece in the history of the American avant underground. Obsolete Units is enormously proud to be bringing this essential work back into print, with this being the first time it has seen release on cassette. This issue includes the original vinyl artwork as well as the bonus material included with the 1990 CD reissue. Pro-dubbed/pro-printed edition of 100.

Controlled Bleeding – ‘Knees And Bones’ C68
The first of two reissues on Obsolete Units of the singular early noise work from Paul Lemos’s chameleon-like project Controlled Bleeding, who have over the past 30 years excelled at styles as diverse as harsh noise, dub, free jazz, prog rock, and dark ambient. Knees And Bones though is unequivocally an important work of American industrial, harsh noise, and power electronics, with this inimitable collage of violence from 1985 finding Controlled Bleeding at its most cacophonous and outright ecstatic. Congealing together many disparate renderings of perplexing and unsettling improvisations, Knees alternates between near-contemplative states of raucous inspection to unhinged tantrums of hysterical frenzy. Much of your favorite harsh noise and power electronics starts here; think early Einsturzende Neubauten and the New Blockaders forcing forth a healthy regiment of pure aural punishment. Obsolete Units is enormously proud to be bringing this essential work back into print, with this marking the first time it has seen release on cassette. Pro-dubbed/pro-printed edition of 100.

Lea Bertucci – ‘Carillon’ C38 $7
An dexterous exploration of modern day tape music and woodwind composition, Carillon is the solo recording debut of TwistyCat member Lea Bertucci. A compendium of principles both familiar and unforeseen in Bertucci’s work, this cassette consists of two long pieces both similarly sharing a distinct fondness for the potency of tape as a musical means. The title piece superimposes Bertucci’s celebrated bass clarinet playing over found recorded sounds and amplified room textures, thus generating a sparsely oscillating work woven tightly within the warm confines of the cassette format. Her second composition represents a rather radical departure from her recordings with TwistyCat, this piece existing as a collage of sonics falling on deeply atonal and discordant planes. Here she reigns in her auditory tools until all sounds are gestated into a distinctly eerie and delicately beguiling essence. As a whole, Carillon is a powerfully visionary and penetrating statement that is to be expected from an artist of Bertucci’s talent. Highly recommended for fans of the work of Christina Kubisch, Luc Ferrari, and Pauline Oliveros. Pro-dubbed/pro-printed edition of 100.

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ROOMRUNNER – ‘SUPER VAGUE’ EP
Super Vague is outing number 2 for Baltimore’s Roomrunner, and their first to be released on vinyl. Fans of off-kilter guitar abuse in the vein of U.S. Maple, Chavez, and Polvo, and huge radio rock riffs alike will have a new favorite band after hearing these new tracks, written and recorded in Baltimore by Denny Bowen, formerly of Double Dagger and Yukon. The 12″ features four tracks, clocking in at 12 minutes, cut LOUD at 45 and mastered to blow out the Best Buy floor-model speakers you just installed in your Civic.Three out of the four songs, “Super Vague,” “Undo,” and “No Wait,” were recorded during the same sessions as their debut EP (FDR-030), and showcase the huge-riffed alternative guitar crunch Roomrunner has been turning heads with. The final track, “Petrified,” is the earliest scrap of Roomrunner that’s been unearthed, from a four-track recording dating to 2006. It’s barely over a minute long, and carries on in the tradition of “Tourette’s” or “Nic Fit,” a blown-out exclamation point to this EP. Look, you like guitars, you like rock music. Roomrunner are a rock band. Enjoy the rock music. RIYL: Nirvana, Geffen-era Sonic Youth, Polvo, Chavez, U.S. Maple, Local H, the self-titled Foo Fighters LP. As a bonus, the Super Vague 12″ comes with a download code including the tracks from the 12″ and selective live tracks from the bleeding edge of their catalog, featuring tracks from the self-titled EP, Super Vague, and as yet unreleased material.

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Walter Gross – ‘LA Pink Filth’ C35 $5
Repressing of one of our favorite release – now available on pink cassette tapes. Nasty beats and Hellish mixes finally receives its proper format. Limited to 20 on chrome tapes and features a remix not on the CD. Mp3 with purchase.

Wilhelm/Romart – ‘Melody For A Broken Heart’ C40 $6
The debut release of Wilhelm featured on a split with Romart… both concoctions of Ireland’s Ian McCarthy. Sparse pin drops and charged ions bouncing in a thunderous drone set on stilling the air around you. Similar to conceptualizing the sound of a boot crunching fresh snow or icicles melting in a freezing sun. Echoing stillness… Romart’s picture is of a broken heart destroyed with life and pumped blood in a drainage ditch of glitched sentiment. Uttered sadness and a dust of debris clouds upward from a fallen shell. A chanting sample of distorted love, the melody of a broken heart. Free mp3 download with purchase. Limited to 30 on green film cassettes and chrome tape.

Heart Heart Julia – ‘Dreams of Ways of Killing Her’ C15 $7
Heart Heart Julia brings forth Dreams Of Ways Of Killing Her – a short ep/single featuring the track “Night Falls” featuring the beautiful vocal stylings of DenMother weaved within the weird guitar and sound sculptures of Heart Heart Julia. A continued chaotic experimentation that causes some to scratch their head, while others find a subtle beauty buried inside the sounds. The b-side features the finally completed track “Benjamin” written in 2005 after Bieler enjoyed the documentary about Benjamin Smoke. Finding rare vocals and poetic imagery of death singing. The album is rounded out with a strange acoustic rendition of “Easy like Sunday Morning” dubbed special by the bizarre strength of Bieler and Dutton. Free mp3 download with purchase. Rare limited to 10 copies on c15 reel2reel cassettes.  Also available as free download.

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DeTrop – ‘Con Rit’ C30 $7(US)/$9(WORLD)
Early modular madness culled from their various live rehearsal tapes from the infancy of DeTrop.  Strung together in the Spring of 2011 featuring members of York Factory Complaint & Ideal Forms, DeTrop has persistently kept its aesthetics alive while valuing the constant idea of evolution.  From these tapes, you can hear the members wistfully piecing together their chops, tweaking their values and solidifying their domain, whether at sea or on land.

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RUSSIAN TSARLAG – ‘MIDNIGHT AT MARY’S HOUSE’ LP
utter gutter masterpiece of unclassifiable surf-slime cardboard anthems by this American treasure. perhaps his crowning achievement to date.

RUSSIAN TSARLAG – ‘VOYAGE TO THE ENCRUSTED PILLOW’ CS
beautifully esoteric tour tape of junkyard sphinx pop and chain-dragging ghost garbage.

CANKUN – ‘ISALO WATERFALL’ CS
france’s finest heatwaver returns to NNF with six scorched and subtle skyway-psych constructs, a gold leap forward.

ETHER ISLAND – ‘SEASON OF RISK’ 7″
ex-Mythical Beast duo go off the grid with a trio of raw, ritualistic drone-grunge desert deathmarch ballads.

WEYES BLOOD – ‘THE OUTSIDE ROOM’ CS
limited tape edition of last year’s classic full-length, made for her recent west coast tour with queen victoria. not many of these left.

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BAD ORB – ‘CHAT HOLE’ C30 £4
BAD ORB beams in a far out feast of fetid field recordings, mesmerically mournful mumblings and doom-laden dirges of dustbin drone… all direct from her seaside abode on the South coast. Beartown is proud to release CHAT HOLE in its all full, (un)edited (un)glory. Fakirs moan in the echoing taverns, accordions wheeze beneath the creaking arboretum while dead or dying televisions creep quietly across the attic floor. Laments are wailed for the flammable careless masses, conversations clipped, chopped and reversed and chicken bone dream catchers rattle against corrugated iron fences from here to there… and back again. Intriguing and enchanting, CHAT HOLE is over the horizon, between the hedges, beneath the surface and above the snow-line. While stocks last… and they always last. Edition of 33 with radioactive green tapes, florescent “chocolate war bride” artwork and instructions of how to attain an MP3 version of CHAT HOLE.

AQUA DENTATA – ‘MARCH HARE, KRAKEN MARE’ CDr £4
Behold earthlings – the bloody best bit of Baraclough is back on Beartown! Celebrated sound-warlock AQUA DENTATA (Eddie Nuttall http://www.aquadentata.co.uk) returns with the almost spiritual/transcendental MARCH HARE, KRAKEN MARE. Nuttall has developed his AQUA DENTATA project further, utilizing synthesizers, tapes, microphones and bowed miscellany creating a meditative and hypnotic vibe. The result is a sparse, desolate and quite frankly, downright eery affair – think majestic, gushing waves collapsing in on themselves, distilling into vacuumed interzone voids and seemingly sourceless, spectral whispers that may never even have existed. This is a recording that will leave your senses/sensors rendered irrelevant. Don’t trust your lugholes son, they just don’t do what they’re supposed to no more. MARCH HARE, KRAKEN MARE – the soundtrack to the ultimate game of Hide & Seek going totally wrong. He’s a fucking cracker live too! Edition of 40. Backyard paradise artwork by CWB.

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MPALA GAROO – ‘Ou Du Monde’ LP
Upgrade of the original cassette release on Sweat Lodge Guru. Moscow multi-instrumentalist Ivan Karib who also plays in Kon Tiki Gemini makes wondrous spaced-out and multi-layered electronics that float somewhere between Ducktails and Sean McCann. The tropics invade Russia and clatter to the floor. ghost guitars ring hollow, looping around endlessly searching for synthetic embrase. Sweat Lodge Guru described the recordings as “Music crafted for the sunny and tropical paradises of our minds. Seasonal temperament is shared via magnetic vibes; we can all exist in the same balmy and tropical headstate no matter what our physical locale may be. Pure vibrations that ebb and flow on the appeal of tidal moons.” * Mastered by Anders Peterson * Edition of 300 copies.

MIND OVER MIRRORS – ‘High & Upon’ LP
Re-issue of this long sold out cassette on Gift Tapes. Mind over Mirrors is Jaime Fennely harmonium player and electronica builder. Before he started his solo-project he was a member of junkfolkband Peeesseye and psychedelic freejazztrio Acid Birds. He created Mind Over Mirrors when he was residing on an island in the Salish Sea in Washington from 2007 till 2010.  Mind Over Mirrors’ music is all about saturated sound. Fennelly plays his pump organ through a battery of oscillators and effects that extend and distort its tones to obtain in-the-red highs, chest-rattling mids, and low notes as bulbous and squeezable as a slightly underinflated inner tube. The end results are slow constructive growing, repetitive melodies, warming wilderness of vivid harmonic depth. Art by Mind Over Mirrors. Mastered and cut by Rashad @ D+M. Edition of 400 copies.

CVLTS – ‘Realiser’ LP
The Kansas post-hypnagogia psych enigma CVLTS create a strange distillation of improvisation, keyboards, loops and field recordings. Song length carpets of sound with the occasional attempt at dream pop. CVLTS are the Kings of Haze and they will make all your dreams come true. * Art by Landon Metz * Past-on cover art * Insert * Edition of 150 copies.

TIDAL/RAMBUTAN split LP
Two wonderful long straight running drone pieces by underground artists Tidal & Rambutan. Both have released numerous tapes on labels such as Stunned, No Kings, Digitalis, Hobo Cult, Hooker Vision. Tidal blesses us with a Popol Vuh-esque ride to the future and Rambutan contributes a beautiful accompanying magical piece to the B-side. Art by Jennifer Crouch * Silk-screened covers by Niels Voaals * Insert * Mastered by Anders Peterson * Edition of 150 copies.

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Padang Food Tigers – ‘Ready Country Nimbus’ LP
Warm… Embracing… Nostalgic… Emotive.  A few words to describe the indefinable, thrown into the wind to pin the immersive atmospheres located within the wax of Padang Food Tigers’ (ex-drone folk heroes, Ramses III) new album, Ready Country Nimbus.  Comparable to feathers floaing in the breeze, this London-based duo (Stephen Lewis and Spencer Grady) make their gentle passage via sublime vignettes to set up residence in pastures new.  Theirs is the sound of dirt and cobwebs being swept from the corners of childhood memories.  The world weeps tears of knowledge, comfort, concentration, enlightenment, while handing flowers to a parade of beautiful women. Ready Country Nimbus is an emotional sepia-tinged blend of tones, gospel, and spirit.  It’s more than music, it’s a swelling presence.  It’s inflated poetry, bent and focused through the necks of guitars, banjos and nature.  It’s kind of holy. Padang Food Tigers don’t really write songs, they render the fabric from the air itself, and craft it into immense works of yonder.  We’ve tried to put into words; we’re damned for even trying.  Put the record on, immerse yourself in it.  Free yourself of the irritation of gravity, and find the sense to wander freely into the magical realms this album creates.  Everything after will come back into focus at the right time and place, but for the time you suspend yourself in their work, the world will taste a bit different, the edges slightly blurred, and beauty will reign.  Take a trip.  Find the gold.

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