Animal Psi

OR-005: Inner Sound – ‘Origin & Response’ C32 $6
Here is the latest from Inner Sound. 22 beats clocking in at 32 minutes. Edition of 20.

OR-006: Treru – ‘A.M.’ C30 $6
With this half hour tour of ambient inspired tape jam Treru guides us through his early mornings. Edition of 20. Each tape comes with Buttons and a Sticker.

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Grey Sky Appeal x Esh The Monolith – ‘Moon Balloon’ C33 $8
Moon Balloon is a Low Phi Psych/Hip Hop collaborative LP between Grey Sky Appeal and Esh the Monolith The Brooklyn trio GSA comprised of producer Taj Campman and emcees Subtex and Outwrite have teamed up with Boston’s Esh The Monolith to bring forth their latest offering. What began as a studio session in a dingy Washington DC hotel room, during the 2013 Brain Wreck Tour, is now a polished LP the four artists have carefully constructed over the past two years. The final product is one of a kind, wall melting, ear tripping, drug induced, next level Hip Hop music. Limited to 200 clear cassettes.

Amputee – ‘prototype1/deadbydawn’ C10 $5
Amputee is the alt rap duo åttatvå and Joel Siméus. The demo tape features two tracks, Prototype1 and deadbydawn – both explore experimental rap from a perspective of industrial noise and distorted beats. The demo tape is a prelude of what is coming for Amputee, a fuller discovery of sounds and self-introspection. Until then the two dangle 10 minutes of music our way. Limited to 24 black cassettes.

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Pedestrian Deposit – ‘The Architector’ LP/CS
The culmination of five years of obsessive work — fits and starts of ongoing perfectionism that spawned two solo projects and two additional records. Beginning with crude and unfamiliar source materials, each sound is examined from every possible angle, then taken apart and reconstructed along with the compositional process. From 2010 forward, each phase is represented; the past three U.S. tours have given clues, and these recordings offer more of the puzzle, but you will never get everything at once. To be experienced as foreground with no distractions. This begins a practice of self-containment and preservation from outside elements. Edition of 500 LP’s and 100 second edition c-40 cassettes. This is the one-hundredth release for MT after 15 years of operation.

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Sterile Garden – ‘Disconnect’ C25 £4
Sterile Garden presents a work of stark & desolate beauty, where shuddering percussion thinks nothing of thundering through the pitch dark droning emptiness of abandoned factory floors, decaying shipyards & post-apocolyptic android hovels. Jet off to a land where the sun never rises, the black clouds are always hanging low & the machinery is angry. Disconnect is knocking at your door, lying in wait outside your porch, sliding into your aural canal, rewiring your frontal lobe & taking you out for Vietnamese food as a thank you. Dark. Solid. College. Edition of 39. Black on black artwork. Printed by sceptical Turkish lads.

‘Mirror Maze‘ C32 £4
Recorded live in the basement of the Olive Bar, Stoke Newington High Street in 2015, distorted reflections & infinite memory echoes. Claus Poulsen, Hubert Heathertoes, Tom White, Sindre Bjerga. One side drones & textures, the other side tapes & thunder scutter. You know… sound is like putty. It can be moulded & manipulated & forced into strange, distrubing forms. Diluted & washed away, thrown at walls or doorways. You can’t eat it though, geophagy is only practised in extreme circumstances. Mirror Maze is nothing if not inedible. Let’s keep it that way, say no to clod gobbling in 2015. Thanks. Edition of 47, with mirror tapes & found-photos cover.

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JESSIE AND THE EELS – ‘Hell’s Cartographers’ CDr
J&tE’s full-length album featuring washed away guitar melody backed with chirping, throbing, choking underworld electronics and searing soprano sax. Numbered edition of 30 copies.

BODY MORPH – ‘Fettuccine Spray: Vol. 2’ CS
Second in the ongoing SPRAY series. Primordial tapes, all born of clean saxophone sessions, ooze forth and die slowly. Edition of 12 numbered copies.

KIMCHI SKITTLES – ‘A Pile of Mental Fragments’ box
KIMCHI SKITTLES sliced to death. The KIMCHI gear goes haywire. Heavy and not chill tones. Unmusical electronics. Two C10s of raw KIMCHI, each of which is unique to its set. One MC60 of all raw KIMCHIs, played in a random order unique to its set. One C60 is a copy of a different MC60KIMCHI than you did not get in your set. Numbered edition of 6 box sets.

MAJOR BLAST – ‘Two Disasters’ 2CS
K. MITCHELL/D. DLUGOSIELSKI: two C60s of full-on disaster electronics. A dripping forest of deadly rhythmic tone, punctuated by the screams of malnourished noise and distortion. Numbered edition of 20 double tapes.

MOSSY THROATS – ‘Master Idiot’ CS
A clanking industrial 2092 sound-scape of heavy noise from MOSSY THROATS. C47 featuring layered tape loops and over-bearing electronic machine hum. Numbered edition of 20 cassettes.

TSUJIGIRI – ‘Death’s Flutter’ 2CS
Z. HOWARD/D.DLUGOSIELSKI: short oddworld guitar and sax duets on this double C10. Guitars sound like words falling from deaths mouth, sax sounds like a pile of rotting seagulls. Numbered edition of 9 double tapes.

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Nils Quak – ‘Fragmente Des Verschwindens’ CS
Having issued stunning and staggering sets of modular drone music with dozens of labels around the globe (Umor Rex, SicSic Tapes, Cosmic Winnetou, among many others), Nils Quak now returns with Fragmente des Verschwindens, a seven-track drift that perfectly balances the Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany-based producer’s pristine patches and meditative stillness. “Inwards,” “Gestalt,” and “Please Give Me Sleep” highlight Quak’s penchant for curious sonic exploration and unencumbered patch studies, creating a welcoming stage for generative, self-playing cycles of sound. “Longitude,” “No Way I Can Tell,” and “I Don’t Think This Would Ever Change Anything,” and closer “Wonderland” wade in a blipping murk of shifting, tectonic tones that peer deep into a post-industrial unconscious while maintaining an air of elegance. The end result is a captivating mix of Keith Fullerton Whitman’s serrated modular work, C. Spencer Yeh’s sublimely serrated drones, and Terry Riley’s celestial minimalism.

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NNA082: Olivia Block – ‘Aberration Of Light’ C62 s/s
We’re proud to present brand new work from Chicago-based sound artist Olivia Block in the form of “Aberration of Light.” An accomplished composer of electro-acoustic music, Block has premiered her work all over the globe in the form of both solo and collaborative live performances, sound installations at highly-regarded art institutions, and lectures at academic establishments. This conceptually inspired work was originally conceived in 2011 as a four-speaker soundtrack for a collaboration with two expanded cinema artists using manipulated light from film-less 35mm projectors. For NNA’s 82nd release, the artist offers us a 31-minute reworked version of this material for the cassette format. In essence, this piece is as much about the absence of sound as much as the presence of it. Slowly materializing from total silence, Block utilizes acoustic sounds blended with a palette of electronics to create intricately assembled fields of sonic depth. The result is richly ominous without being overtly aggressive, as the compositional arc of the piece follows a swelling, almost respiratory motion of expanding and contracting. The dynamic nature of Aberration of Light is enhanced by Block’s delicate use of white noise as a textural guide, calling attention to the acoustic sounds at its valleys, and overwhelming the listener with ferocity and harshness at its peaks. As the piece progresses, harmonic tonalities begin to emerge, reinforced by the use of clarinet and bass clarinet from fellow Chicagoan musicians James Falzone and Jason Stein, respectively, seamlessly integrating themselves into the mass of electronics. The quieter moments of the piece command deeper listening, to the point where the sounds of one’s own listening environment become indistinguishable from the recording, calling to mind Cage’s ideas on the impossibility of true silence. Block claims to bring an emotional element to her work which can be both heard and felt through the delicate and dynamic nature of the recording, further deepened by a brilliant use of control, precision, power, and patience. Material repeats on both sides of the cassette. Comes with digital download coupon.

NNA083: Patrick Higgins – ‘Social Death Mixtape’ C63
The use of the word “mixtape” in the title of this release is no coincidence. New York City based composer and performer Patrick Higgins has appointed NNA with a highly original concept in the presentation of New Music – a “mix” or sampling of personal experimentations spanning from 2009 to the present day, intended specifically for the cassette format. Higgins, perhaps best known for his guitar work in avant-garde music group Zs and production work with Future-Past Studios, is able to accurately demonstrate his versatility as both a composer and performer through this diverse collection of recording studies. Very little territory is left uncharted as Higgins makes use of piano, harpsichord, synthesizer, guitar, violin, sampler, computer processing, and even group ensemble to communicate his unique musical vision. Bringing a genuinely modern voice to composition, the artist draws on contemporary pop culture influence (underground art rock, independent pop, noise) along with nods to 60’s minimalism (Riley, Glass, Meredith Monk) and classical Western electro-acoustic composition. The studies on this release range from the highly dissonant to the more consonant as Higgins blends found sound and electro-acoustic texture with harmonic notes, creating further originality by combining elements of improvisation with written score. Pieces like “Pattern Select” blast apart with pointillistic, colorful synth programming that builds its power through the precise use of dissonance, recalling the work of Babbitt, Boulez, and the French pioneers of early musique concrete. The “Curves, Points, Lines” series of tracks demonstrates the inventive studio layering of unorthodox acoustic instrument sounds, as Higgins dissects the intricacies of the various sounds made by the violin and rearranges them into something completely new. “Live At Oberlin” brings the music outside of the studio into the arena of performance, as Higgins lends his abilities to a group improvisation setting, using guitar and laptop to build new sonic worlds together with the Mivos Quartet on string instruments. “Social Death Mixtape” succeeds at showcasing Higgins’ prowess not only as a musician, but as a generally well-rounded artist, whether its as a composer and arranger, instrumentalist, live performer, electronic producer, or studio engineer. The experience of this release is further enhanced by the originality of creating an “audio sketchbook” for the modern composer by tapping into one of the earliest and most classical essences of the cassette tape medium – the “mix.”

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Pigeon Breeders – ‘Concrescence’ C34 $7
Concrescence is the fourth album by Edmonton-based experimental trio Pigeon Breeders. While previous releases have been formed through the editing of one or two nights’ worth of improvisations, Concrescence is the first to compile various material over a two year period, capturing the band playing in a variety of spaces. The resulting sonic gallery is the trio’s most challenging to date, and the most accurate in its presentation of the group’s scope: introspective ambient, tense and spastic electroacoustic interplay, scrappy free jazz, apocalyptic free-form drone rock, and beyond: complete and blissful abandon into sound. Pick yr poison, light some incense, turn off the lights. Edition of 80.

Ashley Soft – ‘Leave’ C22 $6
For all intents & purposes, Leave is Ashley Soft’s debut. Not long after recording last year’s Take Heart Give Heart EP at hotel2tango in Montreal, Clarke Macleod returned to Calgary and started jamming with drummer/noisenik Andrew Hume (of free-rock titans Burro, Pale Lobo, and others). The duo wrote a bunch of new songs, and introduced avant-guitarist Devin Friesen (Bitter Fictions) in the fall. This trio recorded six volatile new songs direct to tape over the winter, with the production assistance of Chris Dadge (of Lab Coast & Bug Incision records). Feedback destruction you could hum to: Hume’s machine-gun drumming matches Macleod’s splintering guitar patterns, and Friesen contains it all with sounds meltingly dissonant (“Groceries”) and densely atmospheric (“Red Sea”). Edition of 80.

D.F. w K.B.D. & J.G. – ‘A Chance Happening’ C42 $6
New tape compositions by D.F. (Bitter Fictions), made using cassette recordings of an unplanned trio performance of Kyle Bobby Dunn (piano), James Goddard (aka Skin Tone; saxophone), and Devin Friesen (guitar). In D.F.’s words: “It was my last night in town after a summer’s sojourn in Montreal. James helped me set up a Bitter Fictions show at Brasserie Beaubien, but everybody missed it. Kyle was the only person not working or scheduled to perform who showed up that night. There was a piano in the bar. I’d asked Kyle if he’d like to play it during my set, and he sat down for the last couple of pieces. Afterwards, the three of us decided to play together. I had the sense to put my TCM150 portable tape recorder on the bar’s pool table, forming a triangle between the piano and the speakers. The recordings turned out grainy and distant, yet appealingly rich with room sounds and instruments smeared.” Edition of 70.

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Xtematic/:dARM – ‘Deus Generator’ C60 £4.5
Split release of two Industrial artists; Xtemetaic of Osijek, Croatia and :dARM of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzgovina. Two sides of industrial drone. Electronic abrasions forming the soundtrack to a decaying industrial landscape. Available as a hand dubbed C60 cassette with black and white single sided artwork. Limited to 50 copies worldwide.

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Yarn/Wire and Pete Swanson – ‘Eliminated Artist’ LP
Known for his uncompromising tape and synthesizer work, Pete Swanson has pushed the limits of electronic music since the early 2000s. Since stepping down as half of formative underground duo Yellow Swans, he has subverted the genres of noise and electronic dance music as a solo artist. For Eliminated Artist, the third LP release from ISSUE Project Room’s Distributed Objects imprint, Swanson ventures into new territories with two works at the intersection of electronic and acoustic sound, created in collaboration with New York instrumental quartet Yarn/Wire. Combining electronics, tape loops, and modular synthesizer with Yarn/Wire’s unique ensemble of two pianists and two percussionists, both works were recorded live at ISSUE Project Room, initiated as part of the ensemble’s 2011 residency at the Brooklyn venue and presenting organization. For the title track, Eliminated Artist (2012), Swanson recorded improvised rehearsals by Yarn/Wire, from which he crafted an exacting, repeatable framework for live performance. A combination of live signal and rehearsal recordings were then constructed by Swanson into a live electronic mix, ranging from tranquil chromatic textures to unhinged distortion. Corrections (2014) emerged from a series of recorded fragments Swanson made using “the Putney”, an early EMS VCS3 modular synthesizer, at Rotterdam’s WORM studios in 2013. Over two days of rehearsal, Yarn/Wire and Swanson developed acoustic arrangements to integrate with the earlier recordings. Clattering, intricate rhythms combine with soaring synthesizer pitches and heavy percussive beats; the result is atmospheric, physical and precise. Yarn/Wire: Ning Yu, Laura Barger: piano; Russell Greenberg, Ian Antonio: percussion. Pete Swanson: EMS VCS3, Electronics and Tape. Corrections recorded live at ISSUE Project Room 5/1/2014, EMS VCS3 for Corrections recorded at WORM Studios, Rotterdam 12/2013. Eliminated Artist recorded Live at ISSUE Project Room 3/22/2012. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Limited edition of 500 on 150g LP.

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