Animal Psi

STARE CASE – ‘Lose Today‘ LP
Lose Today wields the ethereal meditative power leftover from The Velvet Underground’s Sweet Sister Ray epic bootleg. The result: a melodious somnolent grievance that leaves the listener to feast on a curiously endless and internal banquet. Young snarls and writhes in irritated spiraling pronouncements that trail off in regretful, pained fashion, producing the same eventual something-isn’t-right that The Velvet Underground secured, but set aside to allow the Michigan basement bluesmen to borrow. Also, here is Young’s virgin performance on bass, a venture that proves suiting as his sparse yet stable meanderings are the backbone to a jam lost in the arcane. At times the bass lines seem to be counting off the seconds until an eventual meltdown. Meanwhile, Olson wanders off on woodwinds, seemingly tangled in wavelengths, letting his own sounds guide him through a brassy chilling darkness. He follows scales—Indian scales, blues scales—though the subtlety of Olson’s discipline fosters to an expansive intimacy, a nuance so massive his quips on flute and saxophone are the secret architects of _Lose Today_’s meditation. Olson takes the spiraling mania inspired by the likes of The VU’s Sweet Sister Ray lose-all jam and lets it blossom into a soundtrack for a secret think tank whose sole purpose is to maintain a shadowed fire. TOUR

C S YEH – ‘SONGS 2002‘ CASSETTE
Double A sided cassette reissue of a severely limited one-sided LP, and what might be C Spencer Yeh’s most trying, challenging and rewarding foray into a world previously unknown to him, and us : his world of song. Songs 2002 contain what are perhaps subtle homages to early Eno and primo era Bowie vis a vis the studio treatments of the raw sounds with which we’re more familiar in his previous work. Yeh’s songs work within two generalized veins : ala Eno’s early attempts to communicate liquidly within a ‘rigid’ language and structure as pop / rock, and ala Keiji Haino’s sense of mythos and personal pulse. Recorded over 10 yrs ago, ultimately, these songs can stand aside the most difficult of outsider aesthetics. There is nothing really new here, aside from what is essentially editing and narration. Might just be me, but i think he’s found Love, both in what inspires him, and a new found expression.

THE PARASITES OF THE WESTERN WORLD – ‘Politico B/W Zytol Automation’ 7″
De Stijl’s excavation of The Parasites Of The Western World turns up the lead single for their second album in the form of an exact reissue. Originally released circa 1980-81, ‘Politico’ opened the B-side to Substrata with a rippin’ New Wave roller full of glam stomp, proggy arrangement and punky attitude. The synth-fuelled instrumental B-side was exclusive to the single, and as tradition dictates, far more interesting, featuring Terry Censky and Patrick Burke in an ebullient symphony of synths, drums and guitar.

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Grasshopper – ‘Miles in the Sky‘
This is a reissue of an ultra-limited tour only release. Two steaming creeper jams from one of the most exciting acts out there. Trumpet and electronics meld into a no-jazz drone zone.

Bad Trip – ‘Beat Is Murder’
New duo outing from Pascal Nichols (Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides) and Julien Dupont. Out jazz, drone, free-form clang. Hypnotic, attention-grabbing sounds. Crucial stuff. Art by Faye Coral Johnson.

Mold Omen – ‘Soil’
This Baltimore duo make sounds without category. Power surges, melting audio tape, frayed strings? Uneasy squalls, mad tinkering, tweaking and heavy petting. And that’s just the half of it. Late night sounds for the unhealthy.

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Telecult Powers – ‘Zion Traveler’ LP
For the uninitiated, Telecult Powers is the superforce of Mister Matthews and Witchbeam, two weirdoes of the highest caliber, bred in Cleveland, nurtured in Brooklyn and now protecting a transdimenional wormhole connecting Crown Heights and New Orleans respectively.  They hit Brooklyn by storm, years ahead of the surge of the current synth infatuation, and clearly stood out by way of their sincerity to their art and most importantly, the substance that backed it up. With but a modest arsenal of mystical synth-gun boxes designed and meticulously hand-assembled by Mister Matthews, these two turned every shithole venue and divebar they graced into a hovering spacecraft that for moments took you away from the $7 beers, high rents and endless neon spandex that Brooklyn had become.  This is a definitively fresh perspective to the evolution of synthesized music in the modern era. This is not the rehashing of cliched 70s synth motifs passed off as “original” or “experimental”. This is the cusp. Mister Matthews and Witchbeam will be fondly remembered in the great Tome of 21st century Musicians as journeymen who actively moved electronic music beyond its overly-glorified past into a new age of enlightenment.  After countless tapes and cdrs, it is astounding that no one has given these two the wax they’ve so deserved. I am proud to be a positive force in getting this LP into the world. It’s the least I can do.  Housed in a full color jackets designed by Witchbeam, LP include digital download code as well as exclusive Mothers Third Eye issue cataloging key events of the next millennia, provided by their future selves, not unlike Biff’s Sports Almanac. Use at your own risk. Limited to 200.

Grasshopper – ‘Good Night Sweet Prince’ LP
“Goodnight Sweet Prince” is the culmination of 12 years of banddom for Jesse DeRosa and Josh Millrod. These somber trumpet soliloquies, bubbling electronic quagmires and rolling tides of feedback squelches have their roots deep in the woods of Long Island where the two met under the guise of learning classical trumpet at the same summer camp that launched Mariah Carey to stardom.  Over the years, they’ve toured the world with orchestras, studied classical music at two of the world’s finest conservatories and eventually landed in mangling the sounds of their polished trumpet tones to create throbbing walls of droning jazz noise.  “Goodnight Sweet Prince” is the bands most focused work with three improvisations that move freely between unadorned jazz trumpet tones, dense polytonal orchestration and harsh outbursts of noise all surrounded by a thick cloud of hazy smoke… a seriously hazy cloud that washes over the whole thing giving it a warmth that tempers the harsher moments.  These three improvisations are among the last recorded at The Bakery in Harlem. They were originally recorded for ESP Disk, but then rejected for “sounding too much like Miles Davis”. While there are moments that evoke “Sketches of Spain”, they are quickly engulfed by waves of harshness that would make Miles cringe and go back to smoking a jazz cigarette in hopes that it might make a bit more sense. Goodnight Sweet Prince is dedicated to the loving memory of Martin Dreiwitz, conductor of the Long Island Youth Orchestra and firm believer that Josh Millrod and Jesse DeRosa would never amount to much. Limited to 100. Co-released with Blood Fist Karate School.

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TRDWORD24  CAETHUA – ‘The Summer Is Over Before It’s Begun’ LP $14
Edition of 500.  Caethua is the project of Maine resident Clare Hubbard, now collaborating with Andy Neubauer.  As Caethua walks deeper and deeper into the fogged up landscape, they bring with them a Walter Carlos take on baroque tinged psyche folk, and post industrial tinted lenses for which to look through.   With a handful of releases under her belt on a variety of labels, The Summer Is Over is one of Hubbard’s most realized works. Eight sonically perfect songs filled with heart-melting vocal melodies, and dream provoking lyrics. Tastefully accompanied by her piano, guitar, saxaphone and well placed soundscapes. She is joined on this record by the multi-instrumentalism of Andy Neubauer (Impractical Cockpit, Ancestral Diet, Flak Mask,Village of Spaces) who compliments this masterpiece with bass clarinet and cello. Recorded at The Pool Recording Studio by Alex Yusimov and artfully mastered by Tim Stollenwerk.    This is a split release between Turned Word and the debut release on the new Mississippi Records imprint, Water Wing Records.  Art work by Amy Moon.

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RAGS/The Ether Staircase split C44
Separated at birth, these two projects were bound to meet further down the road and here present an engaging dialogue in sound. On Side A, the inimitable Oakland artist and musician James Seevers under his solo RAGS banner issues a patchwork of melody and noise–clear blasts of interwoven darkness and beauty hold the listener rapt throughout the side-long journey. The Ether Staircase offers a murkier affair on Side B–something is quivering to life beneath the surface of a turbid pond. ((CAVE-04)) C-44 Edition of 20

Traces s/t C30
Little explanation provided, but from the first blasts of feedback it is clear that this tape chronicles bad times, but the initial violence pushes into more introspective moments of tape garble, and found sound. ((CAVE-05)) C-30. Edition of 20

The Lesser Siren – ‘Rowan Ash’ C30
Evoking excursions into California’s North Coast where the summers pass like forgotten promises, cold and hazy. Occasionally, there is light that filters down through the trees, warming the mulch, prompting the seeds of slow time. ((CAVE-06)) C-30 Edition of 20

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Nachtbote C20 7€
Communicate with this new ever-increasing concept from “NACHTBOTE” that we received in this year of great change while you gather with your friends in your star-studded temples of light to disseminate this information in all directions – don’t be afraid of anything! Nobody can take this from you! This issue relates to the important elaboration on the proper procedures which one is recommended to follow in the process of one’s hypnotic trance – in the recent year or two many things occurred, proceeded and came into being in the zone of displacement including planet earth – so dont hesitate, you could already use this! For a short time you can transmit this as digital file to your computer AND receive a “NACHTBOTE” video right here – also you can order the original tape with a drawing from a vision by the artist himself for 7 euros inclusive shipping worldwide. This is NOW!

Teeel – ‘Amulet’ cassette
Inspired by italo, electro and the 80s new wave movement, Teeel aka Jim Smith credits his sound to marathon movie watching and being an obsessive gear head. Crammed in a 10×10 teal painted room, stacked with synthesizers and walls covered with vintage Moog ads, Jim creates music that is perhaps best described as hypnotic soft-vocal, synthpop.

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Sea Pinks – ‘Dead Seas’ £10
CF/ is very pleased to present “Dead Seas”, the second album from Sea Pinks. Following on from last year’s “Youth is Wasted” tape and the “Peripheral Vision” 12″ EP from earlier this year (both now sold out), Sea Pinks return with a new set of songs about fountains, fossils, phantoms and faded seaside glamour. Including ten brand new tracks plus the EP version of “Peripheral Vision” the album is available in a limited, hand numbered edition of 250 12″ LPs including 320 kbps MP3 download of all eleven tracks.

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Black Unicorn – ‘Cinco de Mayo in Space’
A galactic drone, frozen and shattered to shards of sample & hold space ice, undermines an abandoned vessel as it drifts toward infinity. The lone survivor, a machine, utters in fractured phonemes the arrival of Cinco de Mayo in Space. Sequenced synthesizers, circuit bent voices, vintage drums, and polysynth pads combine in a strange meeting place between Mexican holiday and intergalactic travel. Conceived as part of a show w/ XXX Super Arcade and Dreamroot’s Boltzmann’s Brain, Cinco de Mayo in Space took place on 5.5.2011 at Annabell’s in Akron, Ohio. This album is the studio version of Black Unicorn’s set.

Griefhound / Cane Swords split CDr
Both a companion to the Cane Swords / Griefhound cassette and a stand-alone release—this split flips things around. Griefhound start it off with foreshadowing acoustics, a simple guitar piece that strums headfirst into feedback noise and Sabbath riffs filtered through Cuyahoga River chemical sludge. Further, toy keyboard arpeggios and electric wheezes stalk like the masked killer in a fuzzed out horror movie. The monster’s hidden lair is infiltrated, chaos reigns, and a field recording of 2011’s most brutal thunderstorm transitions to the outer space yearnings of Cane Swords. Raw synth and oscillated swirls of post-digital dust funnel cloud their way to space shuttle bass drum hits and gamma ray sequenced leads that disintegrate into 8-bit coin hunting heaven. Pounding drums sound in militant step against vintage polysynth alarm calls and odes to dark future machine take-over. Electronic storms reflect the Ohio sky in binary and control voltages, then the synthesists depart, blasting off and leaving the atmosphere behind in sine waves and electric chirps.

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