Animal Psi

FNL CDr $7(US)/$9(World)
2 long form pieces of experimental synthesizer music. exploring drone, texture, rhythm, space, and sound. 34 minutes of chugging, expanding, bubbling, and crunching digital and modular synthesis. Handpackaged in folding envelope with minimal design work and Japanese Chiyogami paper. limited 20.

masarurasam – ‘compression test vol 1’ CDr $7(US)/$9(World)
Continuing minimal synthesizer music from masarurasam. LOUDer, more abrasive and totally blown out than past works. Balancing act of beautiful melodies and heavy walls of drone. Hand painted photo in vinyl sleeve. limited 20.

WEBSITE

CUTICLE – ‘MOTHER RHYTHM EARTH MEMORY’ LP
Brendan OKeefes cyber-electronics alias vaults up with a
stunning and stunningly strange collection of slippery circuitry
grooves and vocoder dub excursions that’s as enjoyable as it is
eminently unlike nearly any other record we’ve heard. This one came
out in Europe a week or so ago so we already are slightly low-ish on
stock, don’t wait. Also, he’ll be at SXSW this year for those of
you who care about such things.

CRUISE FAMILY – ‘WE’RE IN HEAVEN’ 12″
Vienna’s foremost rave abstractionist finally arrives on vinyl, and
it’s a fitting suite of tracks for such treatment. Three forays into
cosmic synth music as translated through the idiom of Eastern European
DIY warehouse acid trance. Fans of Stellar OM Source, Jonas Reinhardt,
100% SILK, and beyond will find much to revel in here.

WEBSITE

rgt #06: Abusive Consumer – ‘Crumbling Portals’ C28 $7/$8/$9
J Morales’s latest exploration of aural space brings a thirty-minute trip of evolving musique concrète vignettes & sound art sourced from a multitude of origins including prepared guitar, synth, field recordings, generated sounds, and various what-have-you seamlessly woven together to create an all-encompassing state of frigid sonic decay. By combining the influence of mid-20th century sound adventurers with modern compositional methods, Crumbling Portals creates an immersive experience in spatial & textural listening, not unlike wandering through miles of underground caves. High bias type II chrome tapes with full-color, double-sided J-cards. Limited to 50. Art by J Morales.

rgt #07: Parashi – ‘Silenus’ C27 $7/$8/$9
At my first listen of Mike Griffin’s work I sat perplexed, really scratching my head over what I had just heard, wondering what the hell I’d just experienced. Even after countless listens later, more often than not I still don’t have much more than the slightest clue yet the mystery just makes the listening experience better. On Silenus, Parashi maintains that captivating mystery by employing the services of a beat merchant hell-bent on summoning some sort of lurching beast, then sits on the altar paranoid & afraid to leave the comfort of its confines after it materializes. A truly discomforting pair of recordings, even for those already familiar with his ominous & often hostile sound world. High bias type II chrome tapes with full-color, double-sided J-cards. Limited to 50. Art by Jacob Van Loon.

rgt #08: Nodolby – ‘Untitled’ C40 $7/$8/$9
Italian sound-shredder Nodolby contributes 40 minutes of frantic circuit bent cut-edits & gurgling synth jitter. Never still and never settled, the A side rewards the close listener with ever-changing texture sheets draped over cold drones that gnaw through frontal lobes like an injection of synthetic termites hungry for your cortex. The B side breathes considerably heavier after their feast, a dimming, emotionally somber piece that continually sinks deeper into a bleak, dark world until the light has fully faded. High bias type II chrome tapes with full-color, double-sided J-cards. Limited to 50. Art by Jacob Van Loon.

Pick any 3 releases for $16/$18/$20.

WEBSITE

The Daily Brothers – ‘The Dream is Dead’ $7
The Daily Brothers are back! After a trilogy of “Method Dancing” EPs in 2011, the DBs second full length album is a real barnburner. Tightening the musical arrangements and refining songs to their absolute essentials, The Dream is Dead gives listeners the guitar focused songwriting of Jeff and Chris. The DBs still favor melodic pop, but by adding touches of electric Dylan and Darkness-era Springsteen organ to what was already a healthy Americana home studio rock combo, the DBs have recorded a near classic. From the fuzzed out R.E.M.esque rocker “Déjà vu” to the 70s vibe of “There She Sits” to the stunning instrumental cuts “Matt’s Song” and “Goodnight Intro,” The Dream is Dead has something for everybody. Edition of 100 cassettes.

WEBSITE

MM001 STEFANO PILIA  – ‘Strings’ 12€
CD edition of 300.  A sublime constellation of sound miniatures divided into 3 long tracks (at once random and simultaneous) of delicate field recordings and found objects transformed and woven into intricate electronic tapestries, a slowly building “ambient” work with a unique sense of melancholy. Strings is a diary composition began in 2004, a series of subtle epiphanies followed by a somewhat enigmatic resolve or ‘answers’,  richly spacious explorations that appears suspended in time, with distant landscapes and hallucinogenic excursions into further uncharted territories. “My work has become progressevly concerned with the research of the sculputural dimensions of sound and it’s relations with space, memory and time suspension both through instrumental executional-experimental practices (mainly on guitar and dbass) and investigations into the recording and production process”.

MM004 NICOLA RATTI – ‘Cathode Deafness’ C22 6€
Edition of 100.  Two cathode ray tube televisions , a tape loop and an echo-looper pedal. The intent is to explore through the two televisions the emptied ether due to the shifting of the TV channels from the aerial signal to the digital . The CRT television becomes a deaf machine, an end in itself, a sort of “bachelor machine”. The recordings are the result of a series of live improvisations.

WEBSITE

Sawi Lieu and I\D split CDr $7(US)
Wild filtered synthetic loops and layers, and joyful experimentation populate this split CDR between Indonesian artist Sawi Lieu and I\D, a group from Singapore. Sawi Lieu’s contribution features unpredictable filter sweeps and building synthetic layers. I\D’s improvisation and experimentation feature wild interplay between guitar, drums, and noisemakers, contrasted against hypnotic guitar sequences.

I\D – ‘Midnight Hot’ CD $10(US)
I\D play a type of acid-fusion, building their abstract elements into tense crescendos and structured jams driven by drums and guitar. The development of their noise is blissful, experimental, and completely free — there is a willful feeling of exploration and creation. Yet, it’s not simply outsider jazz or unfocused wanking; the driving, start-and-stop explorations display willful explosion of genre expectations while establishing their own parameters through their instrumental interaction. 2009 release.

I\D – ‘Elite, Kvlt, and Irrevocably Tr00’ C60 $10(US)
Heavy on the unrestrained noise throughout, I\D dabble in extremely percussive free improvisation and experimentation. Off-kilter blues contrast unclassifiable synthetic noise, wailing, and heavy percussion. 2007 release.

Emporium – ‘Vision’ CS
A personal set from ‘Spective proprietor Nicholas Zettel, featuring a culmination of summertime drone exercises and tape manipulation. Opening with ethereal atmosphere, this set of four songs meanders through two-channel follow-and-response folk, followed by reverb circuitry manipulation and backwards tape exercises.

The Leavitt Ours – ‘Return’ C26 $7(US)
Beneath the shadows of Chicago’s fuzzier and heavier psychedelic sounds, The Leavitt Ours perform experimental pop in the private press tradition. In order to develop and produce their own reflective spaces and musical statements, the trio embrace aggressive ambient soundscapes, synthetic guitar tones, eclectic percussion rhythms, and driving keyed bass and synthesizer backbones.

various – ‘Vital-Sound I’ C62 $7(US)
Atlanta and Chicago psych bands split this compilation, presenting everything from paisley, drone, and repetitious instrumentals to acid blues, pure noise, and doom is covered here. Atlanta contributors are Sovus Radio, Soft Opening, The N.E.C., All The Saints, Brainworlds, and The Sunny Muffdivers. Chicago contributors are Implodes, The Great Society Mind Destroyers, The Leavitt Ours, and Killer Moon.

Sunny Muffdivers – ‘All Half Evil’ C26 $5(US)
Pure sonic assault from Atlanta. Crusty psych sludge doom featuring bludgeoning rhythms, repetition, and drones create a disjointed landscape in which your mind and emotions can hide.

The N.E.C. – ‘B-Sides’ C46 $5(US)
Rarities, oddities, and background tracks from Atlanta psych/rock outfit versed in driving song craft and sonic exploration. Songs collected from 2007’s “Million Minks” through 2010’s “Is,” splitting ambient and heavy sides of Atlanta psych.

WEBSITE

Phil Julian – ‘Transcript’ C30 $7
Under both the Cheapmachines alias and his own name, England’s Phil Julian has been venturing across various strains of unorthodox sound over the past decade or so, with his prolific output encompassing sonic textures that run the gamut from harsh squalls of decaying cacophony to humming spectral tapestries of melodic drone to patiently constructed compositions of hyper-minimalistic timbres. On Transcript, Julian sources tones and reverberation from blank cassettes as well as the actual cassette decks used in this particular process. Allowing the hissing, fuzzy, and clicking mechanics at work in this aural realm to traverse effortlessly across a half hour of ethereal space, Transcript stands as a remarkable work of foreboding and atonal constitution that stands confidently alongside the best works of similarly inclined sound sculptors such as Francisco Lopez and Joe Colley. This is warmly eerie listening that sounds especially exquisite coming from a cassette itself. Pro-dubbed/pro-printed edition of 100.

TwistyCat – ‘Solar Plexus’ C34 $7
When last we saw Brooklyn-based bass clarinet/baritone saxophone duo TwistyCat on Obsolete Units, they provided a deeply hypnotic and extremely limited loop cassette showcasing three immaculate minutes of their beautifully stark and patiently composed agglomeration of drone-infused improvisation. Taking noticeable cues from this previous release, Ed Bear and Lea Bertucci erupt on Solar Plexus both with pieces of meticulously realized minimalism as well as more comparatively dissonant waves of contemplative and ominous themes. The first side distinctively adds a veneer of found sound (from radio and elsewhere) to the mix, building upon these unfamiliar modes into a great wash of unrest before giving way to their distinctive command of woodwind-derived subterranean melodicism, whereas the flip presents in explicitly unblemished detail two pieces of slow-burning improvisation where the loops and electronic manipulations wavering in and out of the mix controlled with the utmost subtlety for further bewilderment. Includes special transparent liner-notes. Pro-dubbed/pro-printed edition of 100.

Whales – ‘Seibutsu Shigen’ C26 $7
A blistering set of impressively reckless and spastic hardcore, Kyoto, Japan’s Whales craft an attack exhibiting forces both distinctively ferocious and ardently uncompromising. Drawing significant influence from numerous legendary purveyors of power-violence (Spazz, Dropdead), the trio shoot through 6 minutes of absurdly accelerated blasts of song before ending this treat with another 6 minutes of the most blistering Incapacitants/MSBR-style walls of noise. The same program runs on both sides, and you’ll probably need to listen to both in one-sitting just to catch-up with what you’ve just heard. Seibutsu Shigen strips bare this expeditious punk template to its most cathartic core; this is no muss, no fuss, and no bullshit. Whales includes on guitar Takahiro Yorifuji, who has released numerous ambient/drone releases as Hakobune on a variety of different labels (Install, Ghetto Naturalist, Tobira). Pro-dubbed/pro-printed edition of 100.

WEBSITE

(pyr046): florida = death – ‘tape made of tapes’
florida = death is an enigmatic and cryptic band from connecticut that originally formed in 2005. the lineup has changed over the past few years but it currently consists of greg, dave go, and nick. they describe their sound as post-information. others have said power-ambient. we say they’re good.  tape made of tapes is a compilation of unreleased demos and live tracks reassembled into an aural collage. a document of the band at a particular point in time. although there is a tracklist – it acts more as a loose guide than a hard and fast truth. the songs and fragments are constructed in such a way that they become a new experience altogether, suggesting a sort of narrative. the sound constantly shifts between psych, weirdo, out rock, drone dirge, noise experiments, and post-info beats before solidifying into an amalgamation of all its parts.  pan y rosas discos is a small netlabel based in chicago that focuses on experimental: noise, improvisation, and weirdo rock. we believe that music should be available to listeners for free and all the music that we release is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-no derivative works 3.0 unported license.

WEBSITE

Andrew Coltrane – ‘ Nuclear Survivor 4xcassette’ $15
A 4X napalm strike of raw, devastating noise. AC is known for carrying the flag for true basement cassette noise for longer than most of us even know, and this set is a testament to that dedication to home-made aural ruin. Throughout its over 2 and 1/2 hours of material, AC seeming uses every weapon in the stockpile. From insane harsh electronic fury, to ripped apart sax, to bloody metal misconduct, to discomposed minefields of tape sodomy. A must for fans of acrid audio punishment.  Recorded over the years in his Redford underground bunker, also known as HERMITAGE HQ. Limited to 30 numbered copies. Hand-made box, covered in multiple pieces of xerox artwork. Comes with 11×17 xerox poster. MIST-15.

WEBSITE