Lighten Up Sounds

DAIN DALLER – ‘Tirehouse Tapes Vol.1’ C48 $6(US)/$7(Can/Mex)/$9(World)
Dain Daller was part of the Chicago based electro-acoustic group Tiny Music, who have released a few great cassettes of epic machine music on Notice Recordings and Nihilist Records, as well as a few self released full length smokers. These days Dain has been keeping himself busy out in the desert of rural New Mexico, building a house out of recycled automobile tires. He is hunched over in full-on solo mode here, playing remarkable non-music seemingly without any instruments at all. Snippets of crackling vinyl and magnetic tape, bits of radio static, air compressors or whatever else got dragged in from the tool shed. Occasionally rhythmic, but proudly abrasive and atonal, perhaps a hint of garden hose or running motors? Seven sprawling serenades span these sides yielding a skewed sense of plunder-phonic/concrete structures carefully piled and stacked, resulting in a remarkably engaging narrative of squealing shortwave and relentlessly skipping 78’s. Desert dweller creak-howls, from a whisper to a roar. Dank opaque olive-green shell cassette comes beautifully packaged with full color labels and matching double sided full color wrap around U-card featuring photography of the actual Tirehouse shot by D.D. himself, and a stamped b/w photo insert printed on recycled sand colored art paper. Dry heat.  Edition of 50 cassettes

DAVID CINTRON‘No On’ CDr $8(US)/$10(Can/Mex)/$12(World)
After being plagued by a series of unfortunate production errors, we are proud as punch to finally make these inspired sessions available to the people. Cracked crystal gazing and ritual smoke meditations for fried synapses. Cleveland based artist/ musician David Cintron has been steadily delivering solid chunks of skewed sonics for many years, most recently as a member of avant-rock units Terminal Lovers and Scarcity of Tanks. Here Cintron slowly stretches out and delivers two massive tracks of solo drift. These graceful recordings build wave upon wave of ethereal synth wash and grand sweeping drones with clanking metal, spidery guitar tones and heavenly rotations of light, eventually swelling in slow motion to fill the enormous vacuum of outer orbit. 41 minutes of bright and pristine air-filled sound. Professionally duplicated full color compact disc comes beautifully packaged in a full color printed UV gloss finish digi-pack with all artwork and layout by David himself. Patiently shifting compositions of raw ambient shimmer.   Edition of 100 discs.

FLESH COFFIN – ‘The Beast Won’t Go To Sleep’ C30 $6(US)/$7(Can/Mex)/$9(World)
Another deeply distressing session of abrasive scrape and rumble from Andreas Brandal of Bergen, Norway. What he presents here as “The Beast…” is a powerful addition to an already impressive canon. Boku bad dream vibes. Four tracks of harsh and destroyed sound that keep both feet planted firmly on the extreme side of the line. Obviously a document of deep catharsis, but through pain comes clarity.  These recordings catch Flesh Coffin wallowing in a razor sharp sea of blown out junk and gigantic static assaults accompanied by strange creaking friction and strangled synth swan songs. Demon bells and blood gongs warped and bent. Grinding cut-ups flash quickly in front of your eyes as the walls crumble around you and the curtains catch fire.  Fleeting mellow tones appear to briefly calm the beast, but the hate inevitably returns, spewing putrid air that will scorch your esophagus. Machete is dragged ferociously, shooting sparks and slicing walls. Real time duplicated orange shell cassette comes with lacquer-sealed black and white labels and packaged with matching double sided foldout cardstock J-card in a clear Norelco case. Like a trash compactor.  Edition of 33 cassettes.

THE HERMETIC TRIO s/t C24 $6(US)/$7(Can/Mex)/$9(World)
Massive steel vessels reverberate and rumble as splintered reeds puncture ear drums. The Hermetic Trio consists of Bill Doob (of Karamazov Tapes, Weird Mix), Jefferson Zurna (The Alters, 3 Moons), and a mysterious third member known only as “Adam”. Crude and inspired improvisations recorded in an underground cavern, deep beneath Providence, Rhode Island. Huge and abrasive weeping tones ooze out of the dueling reeds in a fierce open ended battle of zurna vs. clarinet, while rhythmic room tone pounding and stomping hammers it all home. Obtuse, and all the better for it. Both of these two side long tracks are equal parts field recording and sporadic composition. Real time duplicated clear shell cassette with black lacquer-sealed labels comes packaged with a full color double sided fold out cardstock J-card featuring a shadowy original photograph by Jefferson himself, shot in the deep subterranean location. Jingling, bleeding freaks and non-jazz freedom for the socially retarded.  Edition of 50 cassettes.

KIMMIE DIX & THE DOOMIES s/t C30 $6(US)/$7(Can/Mex)/$9(World)
Really raw and twisted basement lounge vibe on this puppy. Kenneth Gerard Painter Jr. is one third of Lord Bird Golden Cobra, notorius yinzer no-good-nicks and purveyours of high volume sonic cream corn. Here Kenneth shares a singularly skewed vision with his carefully chosen tribe of friends and family. This is like vomiting paint. Anti-everything / anti-nothing. Deeply strange collection of low-fi daddy/daughter noise, live action feedback squalls, pow-wow drum scuzz sessions, unintelligible child-speak jumbled jibberish and breathy air organ huff and puff skuffers. Presented exactly as requested by the artist. Real time duplicated black shell cassette in a clear Norelco case comes with bright green printed labels and insert. Packaged with hand-numbered purple art paper J-card featuring a really weird photo of a microscopic baby seahorse provided by Kenneth himself. 95% guaranteed to induce bewilderment and confusion in all unsuspecting squares. Edition of 33 cassettes.

MOLE HOLE – ‘Wedge’ VHS $10(US)/$11(Can/Mex)/$15(World)
Spleen ruptures slowly. Another all analog audio/visual document of a casual balls-deep spelunk into the semi-stinky cavern of the not quite tangible Mr. Mole Hole. 17 minimal minutes of electro-acoustic noise blather and flicker-fade flashes of pointless light movement. Avoid eye contact at all costs. Three blurry layers of 8mm and 16mm look-sees slowly soaking into themselves. Audio was recorded by John Marks (of Art of This, Lighted) live in a sparsely attended and dimly lit basement gig in Iowa City on August 11th 2011. Audio set up: WAVETEK waveform signal generator, two P3 P5012 Extended Play Telephone Recorders, prepared magnetic tape loops, one contact peizo-transducer microphone, Zildgan Custom ride cymbal, dark blue speckled enamel-ware plate, EHX HolyStain, RV3 Digital Delay, Big Muff, Mackie mixer, Peavey amp, Realistic stereo reverb unit, Silvertone practice amp and Warfendale 12” PA speakers. Visuals recorded live directly to tape via VHS camcorder at Sounds HQ in Lake City, MN on October 6th 2011. Visual set up: Singer Instaload 16, Anscovision Memory Master 2, and MontgomeryWard 807 duo, each projecting its own respective layer of full color looped goop to soak your cerebellum in. True to form. Deeply murky, endlessly repeating and purely circular. Real-time duplicated green shell VHS tape with black and white spine and face labels comes packaged in a clear plastic snap case with stamped and hand numbered green art-paper sleeve and info inside. Welcome to Mud town. Edition of 50 videos.

SAM GAS CAN & The Charter Communications Defamation League – ‘Life on Earth is Pure and Golden, Life on Earth is Hell on Earth’ C24  $6(US)/$7.5(Can/Mex)/$9(World)
If you are afraid of sounds that sound like sounds, please go home. Packing a respectable ten songs into 24 minutes, Mass-hole underground beatnik Sam Gas Can returns with a series of blown sessions ranging broadly from pseudo-techno bedroom lounge vibes to lonely and depressive acoustic murder ballads. Essential groove organ cookers via vintage keyboard tones sauced with a subdued but consistent sense of bummer lyricism and steadily skewed vox delivery. Hollering against howling winds, calling out into the future of the outsider-pop wasteland.  Features several undeniable instant classics. Schmaltzy sleeper groove ballad drooler “Night Moves” will soften the hardest of hearts and the completely over the top “No One To Watch Over Me” hits a homer as a Vegas nightclub closer including a full on dubbed up orchestra climax. Dang. Pipe dream radio. Real time duplicated clear shell cassette with bright yellow printed labels comes packaged with a double-sided full color card stock J-card featuring an evocative back-of-the-head self-portrait photo shot by Sam himself and a Horoscope xerox insert. Sleep if you will, suckers. Edition of 50 cassettes.

THREE WALLS –  ‘Radio One b/w Radio Two’  C60  $6(US)/$8(Can/Mex)/$9(World)
Doozie pair of sessions here. Three Walls is a collaborative duo project between Jefferson Zurna (3 Moons, Hermetic Trio, The Alters) and Graham Baldwin (Bloodwall, Visitor, Theives) laying down pulsing static and noxious fumes. Released collaboratively with 2208 tapes, these slabs of long form abstract improv are like a heavily medicated walkie-talkie party packed into a small dark closet. Wave after wave of reeking weatherband gurgle and the soft luminescence of liquid slowly evaporating into invisible vapor. Real time duplicated cassette made available in two versions, both packaged with a double sided hand numbered card stock J-card featuring the iconic Three Walls parallelogram logo on a stark bright white field. 20 copies available as opaque white shell C62 cassettes, 20 copies available as translucent red shell C60 cassettes. Both editions come with matching black and white labels in a clear Norelco case. Ideal accompaniment for attempted loss of consciousness or a nonchalant trudge through knee deep molasses. Edition of 40 cassettes.

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House of Sun

White Fir – ‘Lake Seeds Volume 2’ C30
Outback tape loops and found sound arrangements by R Franklin, dragging the mic through the dried leaves and warping am radio waves. A continuation of the Lake Seeds series of lo-fi tape assembly cut-ups.

Pink Desert – ‘Daytime Series’ C25
Glistening shimmer from one the the finest; B Douglas (Different Lands label) delivers another thoughtful moment from his carefully released Pink Desert project. Circular soothing passages that recall past experiences. Meditation through synthesis.

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I Had an Accident

Coyote Clean Up/DenMother – ‘#blast’ C14  $6
The cool chills of Coyote Clean Up and the cerebral tenderness of DenMother presents #blast. A cassette single that introduces Sab’s latest incarnation “DenMother” and revitalizes Chrissy’s Coyote Clean Up as both prepare a long play for ihaa. Take a peak at what is ahead and check out some of the freshest sounds to date. Limited to 100 on bright green chrome tapes. Mp3 download with purchase.

Big Epoch & Julia LaDense/Bizzart – ‘Realife’ C11 $5
Big Epoch and Julia LaDense combine a weird blend of experimental sounds with hip hop influences and sexy vocals in Desert Holes – a one off track by this unlikely duo. The two are currently working on a follow up long play for ihaa – consider this a little taste. Bizzart brings forth a mashed remix of some legendary Wu Tang in Damage. Bizzart produces some strange sounds here that are typical of this LA native. Limited to 40 on blue chrome tapes.

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Che Chen – ‘Pulaski Wave (Violin Halo)/Newtown Creek Mirror Lag’ [Review]

Che Chen is a violinist living in the Long Island of New York.  Known for the high-mindedness with which he approaches art, his collaborators tend toward those playing conventional instruments in modern ways (most notably, Josef Van Wissem).  The two tracks of his 7”, ‘Pulaski Wave (Violin Halo)/Newtown Creek Mirror Lag’, form a simple atonal abstract.   By sawing repeating shapes out of his violin, Chen knits these repetitions to a coarse drone of pulsating electronics and tape dubs to affect something both unified and expressly figurative.  Taken together, the 13 minutes of the record begins as a premise and ends in a variation, technically – but thematically, the effect is more like a figure reflected off the water, calm in time A and rippled in time B.  No doubt an unusual listen for a 7” sit-down, the disc repays what it demands of your attention.  What lies outside of this exchange remains unclear.  Black vinyl in heavy paper sleeves.  300 copies.

Pilgrim Talk 7”
$7
HERE

Moon Glyph

Buffalo Moon – ‘Selva Surreal’ LP/CD $12
In 2010, Buffalo Moon brought you “Wetsuit,” their debut release that made everybody want to go to the beach and get drunk and fall in love. More than a year later — after a stop at the gorgeous melodic shores of the “Black Magic/Low Tide Moon,” 7″ — the Buffalo are leading you away from the coastline, waving a pennant that reads Bienvenido a la Selva. If “Wetsuit” was playing love games in the sand, “Selva Surreal” (Surreal Jungle)— the new LP we are proud to release on Moon Glyph— is five young pranksters splashing euphonious paint in the Rainforest, trading in their cool blues for deep velvet and crimson. Fires are blazing. Cannons are blasting. Machine guns are pounding. And that’s just in the first single, “Chica de Luna”. “Salt in my Mouth” and “Amores Perros,” take you back to those sandy beaches but with tighter craftsmanship and more sophisticated swagger. “Raspberry Sorbet” and “Moses Baby” consult sexophone aficionado Michael Lewis to accomplish their schmoozy bedroom peccadillos. Indeed, in these hallucinatory wetlands, genre shifts hit you like catapulted coconuts, but if you can duck all the madness and sonic booby traps, you find the album for what it is: a feral portrait of a Blakean Innocence expiring before our ears. The Kids of Irony are alright, America, they’re just entering the Jungles of Experience. And it’s wild out there. Ed. of 500.

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Monstres par Excès

Caligine/余益裔 – ‘Verbi e Riverberi’
soft poly box, white c60, color tape stickers, 20 copies. In the cold plains of Shandong, Caligine compile a short diary about tape hiss and winter holidays: a found steel guitar slightly out of tune, twanging and rusty. The empty stones in the Kong Mansion, red leaves rustling. A radio chanting far away. The rain on the pier, westwards. On the other side, 余益裔 weaves together fragments of displaced field recordings, folk reverbs, subdued white noise and solitary bass, an aural cartography of a place dreamt by someone unknown.

Female Edition/Reazione Suina split
soft poly box, transparent c60, etching, 20 copies. All hail the new wave of italian grassroots noise. Female Edition builds up a crescendo from recursive guitar arpeggios and overlapping drones to sunken distortions and convulse picking. Reazione Suina complements the mood with a funereal swathe of churning feedback and soaring hainesque guitars. Temple music for a suburban ritual.

Istituzioni Ambienti Naturalismo + 洪启乐 – ‘Disgiunzione #1’
plastic sleeve, cdr, 20 copies. The new Disgiunzioni series hopes to encourage cross-boundary cooperation through productive disjunctions. Musicians are required to improvise together without overdubs or excessive planning, trying to explore the differential space between each other’s sound. Here our very own Istituzioni Ambienti Naturalismo provides some shimmering drone architectures and acoustic guitar tinkering that 洪启乐 demolishes  through a counterpoint  of violent turntable manipulation and contact microphone feedback.

Istituzioni Ambienti Naturalismo + Thursday Club – ‘Disgiunzione #2’
plastic sleeve, cdr, 20 copies.  This second volume in the Disgiunzioni series sees the viscous walls of noise of Cleveland’s very own Thursday Club collide with the junk samples and glassy drones by Istituzioni Ambienti Naturalismo. It’s a play of resonances and accumulation, overflowing with static. A study about the growth of the interstices between frequencies that phase out each other, as the surge of saturation reconfigures itself endlessly.

Venta Protesix – ‘Sensual Prostate Massage’
white dvd case, spraypainted cdr, 20 copies. We do have a penchant for harsh noise japonisme, but we like it even more when it crosses the boundary of mere repetition and it becomes the  deconstruction of an imagined genre, the vomit after cultural predation, the optic clash of stereotype excess. Which is roughly why we loved this short burst of pink granules that manages to invoke the spirit of Masonna through laptop worship, glitches, bitcrushed hiss and digital clip. Time to get a high-frequency fix.

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Boo-Hooray

Angus MacLise – ‘Dreamweapon II’ LP
Boo-Hooray is pleased to announce the release of a new LP of Angus MacLise recordings: DREAMWEAPON II. Previously available an extremely limited run as a giveaway CD-R available exclusively at the opening of the DREAMWEAPON exhibit in May, this new LP release features previously-unreleased material from the Angus MacLise audio archive. This LP release features extended and remastered versions of four of the tracks from the giveaway CD-R. The LP, issued in a limited run of 500 unnumbered copies, comes in a screen-printed sleeve and includes a risograph-printed insert featuring a miniature facsimile of YEAR, a broadside poster by Angus MacLise originally issued in 1965.

WEBSITE

A Giant Fern

The Aloha Spirit – ‘This Is Water’ C30
This Is Water, the first release from The Aloha Spirit, examines the interplay between stasis and movement using delayed synthesizers, cassette tape loops, and field recordings. Inspired by the repeating, but constantly evolving, nature of tides and precipitation, the pieces on This Is Water come together as layers of intricate loops overlap and blur into slow-moving rivers of sound. As tones puddle and dissolve, they expose the growth and decay inherent in repetition.

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Teflon Beast

GARY BUSDRIVER – ‘SPORTS!’ $7
Gary Busdriver is the electroacoustic mad scientist of sonics alter ego of Teflon Beast Records co-founder Jeff Daily. The debut release from Busdriver is a 37 minute ode to athletics titled, Sports! The piece was conceived of as a celebration of competition and the passion sports fans devote to their teams. Musically the album combines found field recordings and manipulations of voice, electric guitars, percussion, and keyboards to achieve a joyous expression of noise. It is a rare example of noise music being created for anything other than intense dark music. Limited edition of 25 cassettes.

CHRIS DAILY – ‘GOOD BOOTY’ $7
Chris Daily is a 22 year old multi-instrumentalist from Texas. As a producer, engineer, performer, and songwriter his roots in music are deep and varied. The youngest of three musical brothers, Daily absorbed everything in his family’s record collection from free jazz to punk to Kanye to the eccentric stylings of Van Dyke Parks to create a uniquely personal vision of how music should sound. Good Booty is his 11th solo album but first commercially available since the formation of Teflon Beast Records. The album gathers together songs written between December 2009 and late summer 2011, left unfinished until October 2011. The lengthy time span does not alter how well the tracks hang together because of Daily’s excellent production choices such as unifying instrumentation and leaving all vocals to be performed during the final stages of production. Lead off single “Running” is an example of Daily’s expressive electric guitar playing and Tim Buckley-esque vocal range, its not to be missed. Limited edition of 25 cassettes.

WEBSITE

(((O))) – ‘Fuego Somos, Fuego Seremos: Roars & Abstractions.’ [Review]

Not to be outdone by the sadism of batchmate Torture Corpse who has wedged his latest cassette between two tightly-bound pieces of steel wool (the material just a little less harsh than the sounds inside), Mexico’s (((O))) offers a more subtle antipathy toward his listener by simply covering the windows of the tape.  For the otherwise blank façade of the cassette this means never being certain of where one stands on this deluge of blistering drones (sonic likenesses to Sunn are also well-suited), and any memories made through astute listening are sure to be lost upon ejection.  Nevertheless, ‘Fuego Somos, Fuego Seremos: Roars & Abstractions.’ is epic a narrative as the Inferno itself, and manages to outperform the grandeur of its confines: nested in a wax-stamped glossy wrap-around, the C38 comes with a bagged-n-tagged sliver of obsidian tucked in a stamped draw-string pouch.  There was little doubt this would be a worthwhile listen knowing Auris Apothecary’s consistent quality.  What came as a pleasant surprise was the fidelity to which this extensive package grafts on to the dark and devilish opus which (((O))) has achieved.  Performed in seven parts, this eschatological vision is performed mostly with a thick growl of guitar derived distortion.  It’s a white cloud lit bright by the fires beneath, not yet throwing off its soot.  A warning is made in part one, a woman speaking in Spanish, sounding pre-recorded and projected off the wall of smoke.  A wonderful swell of metal picking rises to one side to cut the pale with cool hues and sharp detail.  A stoned religious raga like Om consumes all the loose particles in a single harmonic beam.  The sonic stratosphere swirls and we dip below without warning where drums pound wildly on elevated peaks and a sudden stutter shakes the whole world in its frame, recalling the deluge now full of steel filings.  Part six (“Seis”) begins the B side in all-out war, the penultimate movement of battle before the restitution, a yellow-hot cloud of shapeless attack and hum, dragging into the longhall kettledrum procession of the final verses.  A blistered tone over top like horns, this purgatory opens to real horns of bone (probably conch) and a rain of cooled streaks, fine, gritty drips, and a powerful engine percussing into the darkness of the tail of the tape.  The entire cassette is a terrific duel between the void of fire-elemental wash and hugely symbolic objects as final icons.  Stamped to 99 copies, on chrome tapes.  Highly recommended.

Auris Apothecary cassette
$9
HERE