Animal Psi

Mirror to Mirror – ‘Here You Leave Today’ LP $18(USA)/$23(CAN/MEX)/$28(World)
Here You Leave Today is Southern California based Alex Twomey’s first full-length LP as Mirror to Mirror, co-released by his own label Jugular Forest and the Cleveland based Cylindrical Habitat Modules after a string of cassette releases for Arbor, Ekhein, Gift Tapes, and Monorail Trespassing. Throughout the course of 7 enchanting compositions for synthesizer Alex conveys a sense of thoughtful reflection. A melodious personal journey exploring ones open connections to the people and surroundings they encounter. Cotton candy for the ride home. SAMPLE

WEBSITE

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN – ‘ALIENOLOGY: Selected Works 1998-2008′ 10 disc box set 60€
Stunning collection of works from 1998 to 2008, MY CAT IS AN ALIEN’s first decade of adventure in outer space and modern music. All ultra-rare and long-out-of-print material from space brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio finally available for the first time in digital format, including a previously unreleased gem entitled ‘Where The Lines Go To Sleep’ (2004).  The selection starts from MY CAT IS AN ALIEN’s 1999 first milestone ‘Landscapes Of An Electric City’ (originally spread throughout the world by Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace!). In these early years, MY CAT IS AN ALIEN decided to entrust thier own ‘pictures of infinity’ to several obscure labels specialized in producing limited as well as specially curated vinyl-only releases (not to mention the duo’s own Opax Records imprint), thus creating a monumental corpus of work that gave birth to the brothers’ myth.  Among many other fundamental works, this huge set also contains what MY CAT IS AN ALIEN have called ‘The Great Void Trilogy’, which was originally released on three separate LPs by Ed Hardy’s legendary Eclipse Records in the middle of the last decade. The latest work presented in the set is ‘Alien Blood’ (2008), original soundtrack to the homonimous film by Roberto Opalio, which was shown at various European museums as part of the ‘SONIC YOUTH etc: Sensational Fix’ touring exhibition.  Each work has been accurately remastered and re-edited appositely for this box set release. The box also includes extensive liner notes, plus special art cards. Cover art by Roberto Opalio.  A unique occasion for every adventurous listener to experience some of the most inscrutable and essential music of all times.

WEBSITE

RIVULETS – ‘We’re Fucked’ CD $10
Important Records is proud to be releasing the fourth album, second for Important, from Nathan Amundson’s Rivulets. With a beautifully authentic emotional depth Nathan’s voice is his most compelling instrument, a tool for delivering pure emotion from his heart straight into yours. Representing five years of work & nearly constant touring, this album reflects the intense nature of Rivulets as a 3 piece. If you haven’t seen them on tour this record will come as a revelation. Recorded, appropriately, at the Sacred Heart Music Center, a cathedral built in the late nineteenth century.

NATE WOOLEY|CHRIS CORSANO|C. SPENCER YEH – ‘SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN’ CD $10
Brilliant second album from Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain project. David Grubbs and Paul Lytton have been replaced by Chris Corsano (Sunburned, Bjork, Six Organs et. al) and C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core, New Monuments).

WEBSITE

Sean McCann – ‘OPEN RESOLVE’ LP
Here we have a seminal recording of sound collage and experimental synthesizer noise from one of the brightest musicians in underground America. ‘Open Resolve’ is all about tension and texture, crystallized on Side One’s ‘Broken Replicator’, a gut wrenching explosion of contrast that appears alien and familiar at once. Like a giant womb of noise. Most of the record feels like that, merging familiar synthesizer tones with an often obscured but always immaculate instrumental palette. Who would have thought one of the most exciting experimental records of the early century would find highlights through violin and free drum interplay? Side Two opens with a dense, 17-minute masterpiece of fuzziness which drifts between languid beauty and surreal discordance. The vinyl edition comes on clear purple wax with new masters by the artist.  SAMPLE

Aidan Baker & thisquietarmy – ‘ORANGE’ LP
I like to use the term ‘classic drone’ to describe this collaborative album between two masters of the genre. There are certainly dark edges and industrial, squawking noise-like impulses abound, but at it’s hear ‘Orange’ is all class, a practical guide on how to make an engaging, thoroughly atmospheric and haunting piece of… yes, classic drone. It’s actually funny to note the difference between what we label ‘ambient’ and ‘drone’ music these days. I think it has at least a little to do with the level of menace. And not to sound cheap, but things do get pretty deranged and spooky here. Slow swirls of white noise suggest dangerous whispers around the ambiguously haunting deep end rumble. And then there’s a track like ‘Mandarin’, a pure, gorgeous respite from the heaviness, because it turn’s out that’s exactly what we needed to hear. The viny edition comes on orange wax and with a free download. SAMPLE

WEBSITE

Evan Lindorff-Ellery – ‘The Tea Merchant and His Atmopsheres’ C90 $6.5(US)/$9.5(World)
Notice’s own resident artist returns with his second solo tape. The Tea Merchant and His Atmospheres is a fully realized and personal work of minimal, expressionist sound art that incorporates elements from the artist’s life, including field recordings from his home and travels as well as layers of at-home processing, including the use of radio static, room tone, and cassettes that he’s developed as half of Dense Reduction. Minimal yet highly textured sound environments run up against each other loftily like waves against foreign shores. As the pieces deepen over the course of each side, Lindorff-Ellery unfolds the mysterious connections that make up a sense of home and a sense of self. Non-narrative, nonrepresentational, closely observed and resolutely analog. Through the use of these elements, Lindorff-Ellery is mapping his life and environments.  Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery. Pro-printed on heavy stock.  An edition of 100.  Pro-dubbed, imprinted cassettes with classic Notice attire.

Tiny Music – ‘Epitaph’ C32 $6.5(US)/$9.5(World)
Originally based in Chicago, Tiny Music developed a uniquely organic performance style, laying out an instrumental smorgasbord on the floor and performing acoustically—an intimate throwback that put the listener in direct contact with the band. In recorded form, Epitaph reveals even more of Tiny Music’s sense of structure and dynamics that makes their music so fascinating. The two sidelong pieces flow, as through a house or a silent film, from one musical doorway to the next—sometimes foreboding, sometimes flowering into complex or even composed musicality, but always dense and colorful. Side A meanders from its appealing din into a low drone, and Side B weaves abstract melodies through a hectic sound marketplace, with winding, squeaking, and even laughter dotting the mix, interspersed between plaintive, dark motifs. Tiny Music’s homey clatter on Epitaph uniquely mixes group improvisation, folk tradition, and pure exploration. Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery. Pro-printed on heavy stock.  An edition of 100.  Pro-dubbed, imprinted cassettes with classic Notice attire.

WEBSITE

Innercity 7″
Open the gates to the mystifying world of Belgian electronic producer Hans Dens’ Innercity project. Truly alien, truly futuristic rhythmic mantras and techno miscalculations. Dens’ unique minimal beat style, combining elements of electronic, Kraut, and New Age weirdness, creates an otherworldly entity that transcends our earthly boundaries. Limited edition pressing of 300 copies.  SAMPLE

Coppertone – ‘Kill and Release’ 7″
Coppertone is Los Angeles’ Sasha Wiseman, a one-woman pop damager specializing in cold, beat-driven anthems swathed in quietly intimidating atmospherics. “Kill and Release” offers bodily transport into a world that’s as surreal and synthetic as it is strangely familiar – something like the dream sequence of a horror film. A woman armed with a net, a knife, keyboards, and lust. Limited edition pressing of 300 copies. 

WEBSITE

Auntie Dada/Preanderthals split 2xC30
The pairing of Winnipeg’s Auntie Dada & Toronto’s Preanderthals is the PERFECT East-West Connection!! A.D. bring the nodding plodding No Wave semi restrained free jazz attack while the Preanderthals let loose with all kindsa free hardcore (not Harry Pussy – think Unholy Swill – fuck yeah) if that’s anything… maybe now it is. Done up as two tapes – coz one shell couldn’t hold in this nonsense. Art/Design by Seripop. Ed. of 50. SAMPLE

Tim Hoover – ‘More Napkins’ C60
For those who have been with DDP over the last year, you’ll know this is something very new and different for us… Tim Hoover has dropped the “Co-op” nickname and released a forward-thinking collection of music that straddles the line between DJ mix and instrumental album. Drawing samples and inspiration from a handful of both well-known and obscure tracks, Hoover composed 60 minutes of original music divided into 5 movements that sit together as a cohesive piece. Samples and melodies are introduced and referenced later in the piece, as the tempo, colour and even time signature shifts from track to track. Drawing inspiration from the slow building violin melodies of groups like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, as well as the frenetic chopped drums of Prefuse 73, More Napkins is the perfect “headphone album,” rewarding the listener with new surprises on each listen. Co-released with Woven Records. Ed. of 150 w/ Download.

Velvet Chrome – ‘Anthology’ C50
Met up with Hobo Cult/Cube Frank Ouellette & his lovely partner J.L.K. last spring when they breezed through Winnipeg. I’ve wanted to work with Frank for a while but didn’t want to release Hobo Cubes stuff coz everyone releases H.C. stuff. Instead, we dug into the weirder archives and struck gold with the sounds of Velvet Chrome. Culled from a collection of CDR releases and personally selected by Frank and Jane these tracks run from lo-fi cave stomps, Neu-worship, to flat out No Wave jams complete with Jane shouting/singing in Esperanto perhaps? This one’s a true mind turner… Ed. of 125. SAMPLE

Shaker Hymns S/T C20
Shaker Hymns is a six-piece kraut/psych/mutated disco band. Keith Odell plays guitar, Amy MacDonald plays guitar and sings/screams, Gabriel Jasmin plays bass, Frank Ouellette adds squeals of sax, electronics and vocals, and Jesse Locke and Jessica Faulds battle it out on the drums. Songs 1-4 were recorded by Dorian Scheidt at La Brique, and song five was recorded live at the Torn Curtain. Ed. of 100. SAMPLE

WEBSITE

The last from the mighty Stunned?  Let’s hope not:

Queen Victoria — ‘The Present Tense’ C60 $7
Sitting down with a Queen Victoria album proves to be a profound time spent by the stereo, as those who tuned into last year’s ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ tape can testify. QV’s enigmatic lyricism, graceful guitar composition, and wizened vocals sure can sneak up and take hold of those happily entranced by bandleader Nick Malkin’s mellow delivery. Ageless ways of rock, blues, and folk fluidly channel through this incredibly promising musician from Los Angeles, and ‘The Present Tense’ is his unforgettable calling card. The entire program repeats on the B-Side for a conveniently-looping listening experience.” Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c60 tapes with double sided jcard and cover photography by the band.

Berber Ox — ‘The Great Parenthesis’ C54 $7
The dream logic Berber Ox weaves throughout ‘The Great Parenthesis’ presents an immersive environment with no orientation to time. It bends linear constructs with duality-erasing fields of lifelike detail and backward flowing sound motions. A beautiful specimen unlike many registered in the books, its astral quality simply eludes classification.” Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c54 tapes with double-sided color jcard.

Parashi / Granitkorridor — ‘Celedon / VI’ C80 $7
Parashi returns with his signature branded on forty fresh minutes of amplified turbulence and gnarled electronics. While his ‘Troika’ (Stunned no. 115) ushered in longform pieces of crackling scuzz, the opening side of this split with Granitkorridor reveals Parashi isn’t treading the same ground for long. Listeners behold six distinct scenes that evoke images of malevolent applications of nanotech, wastelands glowing green with radiation, and lab-weaponized parasites slithering their way into flesh. None of these perceived traumas seem to daunt Parashi, however, as he brings the magical powers of a sonic warrior to the fore of his side’s entirety. Germany’s most somber string-puller Granitkorridor knows a thing or two about a warrior’s skills, having spent a half dozen releases now exploring cavernous realms that few else dare to entreat. His time here is split evenly between two huge pieces of pure bass guitar blackout. Amazingly spacious, it possesses everything that has made Granitkorridor’s previous cassettes so repeatable and essential in our psychedelic music collection.” Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c80 tapes with double-sided jcard and insert.

Social Drag — ‘New Age Healer’ C39 $7
One of the most flat-out incendiary debut tapes ever shared with this label, Social Drag’s ‘New Age Healer’ employs wickedly smart noise structures as a necessary remedy for any digital-age depressions. In the hands of this frequency surgeon we are provided a reboot and awaken fresh to what has made the last decades of experimental music worthwhile in the first place — starting with the artist’s scandalizing and unapologetic plunder far beyond all safety zones erected by society. Opening his aperture into this lawless place of awesome possibility, Social Drag directs red hot mutagenic forces through writhing cables and circuits fried to crispy perfection.” Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c39 tapes with double-sided color jcard.

Pimmon — ‘Lay Down Real Slow’ C41 $7
Epic pieces like ‘Lay Down Real Slow’ have contributed to Pimmon’s career being quite an impeccable one over the last decade. It’s no secret that many masters of their craft eventually return to the piano, seeking its raw tactility as a fundamental starting point for new articulations. Pimmon takes this approach here on his second essential release on Stunned Records, and the results are invigorating. Samples from the ivory keys glide beautifully within a patient matrix of laptop manipulations, a technique that draws cosmic gestures from humble origins. A national treasure not only to his homeland of Australia but to all of us around the globe, Pimmon is paired best with a relaxing and carefree listening environment, going down like the finest of red wines.” Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c41 tapes with double-sided jcard and insert.

Nite Lite — ‘Marlene’ C36 $7
The boys are cut loose and Myste takes up the solo Nite Lite reins on her new peripatetic audio-tour ‘Marlene’. A tribeswoman from the black time of innocence discovers interdimensional gates within Nature. The sounds of forest animals, machines, and people mingle with subtler sounds welling up from the earth’s very core. All vibrations become indiscriminately suspended in her ear, their energies funneled from hidden brain glands into the alchemical chamber of her heart. It is from this activated place of love that ‘Marlene’ is captured, held for a while, then released back into the wild again. Keep your nite lite burning.” Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c36 tapes with double-sided jcard and insert.

M. Geddes Gengras — ‘The Empty Space’ C93 $7
Let it spill through you like the peak experience of your choice. In your hands is ‘The Empty Space’ and pouring into your head is Stunned’s most trusted synthesizer medicine man M. Geddes Gengras. This is an album dealing with freefall, the ground suddenly dropping out, the fierce void we rush against that resists our naturally preferred trajectory. The cycles and patterns appear to dominate — yet MGG boldly transcends such conditions with his fearless navigation through an unpredictable modular synth patchwork, taking a plunge into analogue novelty in its most naked state. Roots run deep in a tree bearing aural fruits this sweet.” Special edition of 222 pro-dubbed & imprinted c93 tapes with double-sided color jcard.

Warm Climate — ‘Pigeon Brides Weigh In’ c39 $7
With Cailtin on drums, Jake on bass, and Seth on guitar, the incomparable Warm Climate takes aim at the center of the target and shoots yet another bullseye of jawdropping outsider-rock. Sounding like nothing that’s come before them, this tightly-rehearsed L.A. group fires one psych groove & infectious hook after another. In a parallel reality where the music industry isn’t steered by tasteless major label trends, Warm Climate would be ringing out on all worldwide hi-fi’s the liberated rush that comes from their marriage of songwriting genius with a gutsy combo of seasoned rockers. As our label’s salutatory cassette release, ‘Pigeon Brides Weigh In’ is firmly perched at Stunned’s summit, a pinnacle experience of music at the end of a trail that can be climbed no higher.” Special edition of 222 pro-dubbed & imprinted c39 tapes with double-sided jcard and insert.

Enfer Boreal — ‘Drone Is Dead’ CDr $7
This 11th release concluding Stunned Record’s bonus series finds us resurrecting the formerly mortified CDr for the occasion of the final album to be released by Enfer Boreal. Ever since starting in an obscure corner of France five years ago, this musician has become increasingly recognized as the go-to guy for Drone’s most delicious tones. What a difference half a decade makes. Now with multiple rhythm-based projects in full force and a world tour under his belt, the mysterious man behind Enfer Boreal is declaring ‘Drone Is Dead’ — at least for himself. On the way out the door he delivers this brief and potent eulogy with style. Defiant metallic scrapes and trippy bell clatter occupies the disc’s first half, admirably staving off a totally-inevitable, yet totally-appropriate One Last Uber-drone. Adieu indeed.” Complimentary edition of 111 hand-painted CDrs with double-sided color cover in vinyl jacket.

save & purchase all 8 cassettes (+ free bonus CDr) for $48

WEBSITE

Trabajo – ‘Slow Pageant EP’ 3″CDr $4
A tightly woven panic, a heartfelt flutter. TJ Richards and Yuchen Lin make up this NYC duo of frenetic pulse and song. Each track is full of carefully paced frenzy- with nods to the no-wave freaks and pajama punks of yesteryear==== This is the new school of dread wave slumber parties. Pick up the pieces and plow through the past. Artwork taken from a color plate from Ernst Haeckel’s ‘Kunstformen der Natur”. Presented in a numbered edition of 50 hand stamped 3″ cdrs.

Virgin Spirit – ‘A Lost Minuet’ 3″CDr
William Cody Watson (Pink Priest, Malibu Wands, Gremlynz) and Joseph Volmer (Clearing, Party Trash) come together as Virgin Spirit to create deeply emotive journey music. A Lost Minuet feels like a screen capture of a fading moment. Crystal memory music for the haunted evenings. Presented in a numbered edition of 50 hand stamped 3″ cdrs $4 postage paid anywhere.

Motion Sickness of Time Travel – ‘Existential Sphinx’ 3″CDr $4
Rachel Evans presents some of her strongest material yet- a single extended track that delves into the ethereal realms that have become her trademark. It’s impossible to keep from being overwhelmed by the simple beauty. Presented in a numbered edition of 60 hand stamped 3″ cdrs.

WEBSITE

Ninni Morgia & Marcello Magliocchi – ‘SOUND GATES’ LP
Guitarist Ninni Morgia, after playing with countless improvisers such as Peter Evans, Daniel Carter, William Parker and lots others, is here in a duo together with master Italian drummer and percussionist Marcello Magliocchi. Marcello Magliocchi has been active since the early 70s and has played and recorded with amazing artists like Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Peter Kowald, Mal Waldron, John Tchicai, Joelle Leandre and countless others. He also put out his work on Andrea Centazzo’s Ictus label and is a sculptor and designer for the UFIP brand, making strange marimba-like instruments from scratch from found beach stones, along with litophones, cymbals and huge sculpture bells. His latest LP release dates back to 1988. Morgia’s infinite guitar timbres (electronic, filtered analog sounds, soothing bowed drones, wild distortion or small, bird-like plucking techniques) meet the warm acoustic sounds from strings, metal sheets, handmade rattles and just beautifully tuned drums played by Magliocchi. The eleven pieces slowly grow, build up and dynamically move across pure avantgarde, early electronica, psychedelic hypnosis and wild free jazz… but the music on “Sound Gates” is a sonic trip transcending all genres, it is lyrical and free, a dialogue so rich and detailed made by two real masters of their instruments. The result is pure beauty, and as this is is the first in a series of recordings the duo intends to put out, we really look forward to hearing more! The cover features amazing photo artwork by Lidia Stranges and exclusive pictures in the back. Comes with free download card.

WEBSITE