Animal Psi

KIT WILMANS – ‘FEGRADOE ISSA’ CD
Issa is the debut release from Bristol based musician and composer Kit Wilmans Fegradoe. The magic in Issa comes from Fegradoe’s powerful exploration of emotion and sensitivity, which leads to a deeply personal and revealing listen. The work evokes the scale of Michael Stearns compositions for film, whilst eliciting a minimalist undercurrent throughout. The album is sculpted from guided improvisation sessions in the studio with fellow musicians, traversing around the narrative of Issa, a young transient Jesus Christ.

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GAVIN PRIOR – ‘THE AVALON SUITE’
The first is a freely-downloadable EP I made using samples of dialogue from bizarre CDs I used when teaching English in Korea.

THE SUNKEN HUM – ‘FIELD RECORDINGS OF RHYTHMS & DRONE’
The second is by Leitrim-based sound artist Natalia Beylis. For her Sunken Hum project she made a field recording every single day for a year and some of the results are presented Vol. 1 a Tape/Download on Deserted Village.

TARRACÓIR – ‘GROWTH’
‘Base Metal’ from former members of United Bible Studies.

WOVEN SKULL – ‘FAT BABY BLUES’
Forest Klang from the West of Ireland.

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Norn – ‘Usotsuki [うそつき]’ book + cd
Limited to 100. Moody atmospheric ambient by Peter Johan Nyland (1/2 Distel) with artbook inspired by the music done by Astrid Florentinus.

Haarvöl – ‘Indite’ CD
Limited to 200. An exploration of the properties of sounds in order to achieve cinematic and imaging environments.

Tapage & Espoir – ‘Poetic Infomercial Experimentalism’ CS
Limited to 50. Improvised experimental ambient and drone sounds by Tapage (Tijs Ham) and Espoir (Roald van Dillewijn, also from Puin + Hoop).

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Tim Robertson – ‘Outer Planetary Church Music’ LP
The following is Tim’s story, and how a good friend of mine met him: It happened about a year ago, during the last trip i did to Barcelona to visit my girlfriend. She lived there for a couple of months while finishing her studies, so i flyed there frequently and knew some hidden spots. I was in this thrift store around the neighbourhood of Gracia. I knew it was run by some religious organization, but I never asked what they were about. I basically like it there cause they have random tapes, instruments and old furniture. Everything’s cheap. I hadn’t been in town for a while so thought that maybe there was something new. The main room was dissapointing so I moved downstairs where they have the big (and broken) stuff. That place is also known as the damp basement for obvious reasons. It’s quite rare to find something interesting but I always check, just in case. You never know when it’ll be your lucky day. At first glance, nothing. But when I was just about to leave, in one of the corners, staring at me, was this dusty Hammond Organ. I stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out if it was working or not, and if it was worth buying. I had a lot of doubts. At one point I heard a voice coming from behind talking in perfect spanish (but with a non-native accent) ‘It doesn’t work, it’s just decorative’. I had been so concentrated that I had not realized there was another person down there. I turned around, and I saw a tall man with long blond hair looking to be in his late 40’s. He wore an orange shirt and some khakii trousers. ‘Oh, it’s a shame.’ I replied. ‘Yes it is, i used to play this bastard every day.’ he answered back. Well, I won’t go into more details cause this is starting to get long. I suppose that at this point you will all asume that the man I was talking with was actually Tim Robertson.The conversation went on for about half an hour. He was confident, spontaneous and outgoing, so it was easy to discover many aspects about him. He was born in Honduras, but moved out of there at a young age to several other countries such as Perú, France and Norway. His parents were devoted to some religious organization and they were spreading the word all around. The last place they where sent to was Barcelona, hence the reason he was there. He learned to play the keyboards as a kid and performed in church. He didn’t give me much more details about his life as a youngster. He focused more on the time he decided to commit to his faith and left for Africa. He told me his life changed after spending some years in Niger and Ethiopia. He returned from that experience totally renewed and decided to somehow capture all the ideas he had during his stay in Africa. He bought an old 4 track recorder and started jamming around the simple but complex idea of how church music in space would sound. During the next two years he got obsessed with creating the compositions of the future temples on Saturn and Neptune. He recorded hours and hours of music. In the end, feeling totally frustrated, he decided to throw to the bin all those tapes. Well, not all of them. Happily he kept two as a gift to his parents. Sadly, his parents passed away some years later. While cleaning their apartment he found the tapes and with the passing of time he decided to keep them as a memory of that crazy time. I was really curious about those tapes so I asked him if it would be possible to listen to them. He said ‘no worries’, and that he would bring them to work the next day. So 24 hours later I was there with my walkman, anxious to start listening to those mysterious cassettes. After a couple of minutes I was totally captivated by them. It was so strange. The kind of repetitive music with cheap keyboard presets. So rough, basic and fragile. It was then I told him that i felt more people had to listen to those recordings. It was a bit difficult to convince him. One of the main reasons is because he doesn’t like internet as it is full of pornography and punks. After quite a bit of arguing, he finally accepted. ‘At least i’m sharing the word of God with more people’, he said. As soon as i came back to Belgium i shared the tapes with my friend Pieter (Aguirre Records) because he would totally be into it and maybe even release it. So 20 years after they where originally recorded I’m proud to share with everyone out there these seven tracks with no name. No name, but a story behind them. A man that had a strange vision: compose the perfect soundtrack for the buildings where future space travelers would praise the lord. You can now judge with your own ears if he achieved his goal or failed. Peace!

JD Emmanuel – ‘Ancient Minimal Meditations’ LP
Second pressing of 400 copies on 180gr. vinyl Re-issue of the AMM tape recorded between 1981 and 1985 by JD Emmanuel, a new age composer who has received a lot of praise from people like Lieven Martens and John Olsen. These recordings signify Emmanuel’s praise to the course of the day. Starting off slowly, with morning synth meanderings, walking through midday, running in the evening and closing the day with midnight meditation. “Somewhere hidden in the deepest part of the Self is that special place, where One can go within to the most ancient part of one’s Self and connect with the origin of Self. Ancien Minimal Meditations reaches into that special place of creation of the Self and its Oneness with the Creator of All.”

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Radius/Morbidly-O-Beats – ‘Chicago’ C60 $6
Chicago has been the home for producers Radius and Morbidly-O-Beats. Their roots grew as deep as the buildings are high. Nomadic beat maker Radius has found temporary roots across Japan, Hawaii, California, and everywhere inbetween – “Nomadic Scenery” is a spiritual journey through time and place. Rich with samples and instrumental structure, Radius paints a broad canvas of exploration and experimentation. Morbidly-O-Beats produces “Death and Taxes” a very heavy instrumental piece that explores a comprehensive structure of beats with interludes and melodies that can only be defined as trademark MOB. Both artists contribute 30 minutes of instrumentation for this album. Limited to 100 copper colored cassettes.

Ceschi & Factor Chandelier – ‘Broken Bone Ballads’ C43 $9
Cassette limited to only 100 copies! Includes a bonus track. Broken Bone Ballads, the fourth LP from New Haven’s Ceschi Ramos, was written from the perspective of a man battling in court for over three years and anticipating a prison sentence while trying to maintain an indie record label and pay bills as a working musician out on bond. The album draws its title from a 2007 arm wrestling match with a Marine at a house party in Hawaii that left Ceschi with a spiral fracture of the humerus. Accentuated by Saskatoon producer Factor’s first foray into acoustic minimalism and a host of talented background players and vocalists, including a powerful guest verse from Sage Francis on “Barely Alive,” Ceschi’s narratives explore the plight of the modern working musician, the drop-in-the-ocean nature of pouring one’s life into art in a disposable digital age, and the eternal tug-of-war between despair and hope. With a sound largely eschewing the contemporary standards of drum machines and trap rap, Broken Bone Ballads relies on manipulated live instrumentation, analog synths, and samples as it moves seamlessly from breathless bars to acoustic punk-influenced folk. The 12-track album was inspired by community, mothers, girlfriends, fellow musicians, the writings of Xose Tarrio Gonzalez, Mayan artwork at the Yale Art Gallery, the loss of some of the most important people in Ceschi’s life, and a dehumanizing prison stint on dubious marijuana charges. With lyrics channeling Jeff Mangum (“Bite Through Stone”) and a delivery reminiscent of Freestyle Fellowship (“Forever 33”), Ceschi voices his frustration with a rigged system that ensures a life of groveling servitude for most and greedy excess for a few (“If a CEO can make billions / Then the world we know is filth ridden”) while holding out hope that through solidarity we can prevail (“All these tiny teeth together can bite through stone”). Ceschi meditates on the suffering he has experienced personally and witnessed on the road and in his community from junkies detoxing in jail cells, undocumented worker wage slaves, and corner boys running the 4AM New Haven streets. Broken Bone Ballads is simultaneously Ceschi’s most personal effort to date and a collection of stories and sketches that parallel the broader concepts of human suffering, failure, uncertainty, and perseverance.

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Ssleeping Desiress – ‘Ssleeping Desiress’ LP
Coldwave / darkwave debut album by San Fransisco based producer Gabriel Ramos. While the band has gone through some lineup changes Ssleeping Desiress has essentially remained the sole recorded output of Gabriel Ramos, who has been the only constant member. The album runs the boundaries between minimal synth, coldwave, and electro with lyrical themes spanning gentrification to coping with loss. Ssleeping Desiress is certainly a gem in the electronic underground with the only official release so far being the great A Voice / Sister 7inch on the FlexiWave label in 2012 and a handful of other songs appearing on numerous new wave compilations. The self-titled album presented here takes the project to the next level. Kicking off with an echoing caterwauling drone over repetitive drums and outbursts of synths & guitars, the album slowly moves towards a more darkwave sound on the second half. Gabriel Ramos started making solo recordings while living in Portland, Oregon around 2005. He was inspired by the DIY drive of the city, hosting live shows at his house, (which frequently would consist of friends’ bands from San Francisco) and his growing fascination and voracious consumption of music: “I can really trace it to the first time Spector Protector played at my house and getting a tour cassette afterwards from one of the two members, Eric Davis. That and being freshly exposed to groups like Suicide and Arthur Russell were very inspirational to begin recording music on my own, which was something I had been doing though fairly aimlessly up to that point. In terms of sonic influences, I try and change my process as much as I can (usually through collaboration) and vary the instrumentation. My visions of songs usually end up as a clunky homage to late 70s punk rock, a marriage of dub and krautrock repetition and cavernous space.”

Twilight Ritual – ‘The Ritual’ LP
FINALLY the time has come to re-release the first ever recordings by Belgian minimal synth masters Twilight Ritual. Released in 1982 in a tiny cassette edition this album has not been heard by many people. “The Ritual” includes some of their best work, from mysterious dark synthpopsongs (Elegy) to club music (Webb-men) and the epic 14-minute track (Up To Now).
Twilight Ritual was/is the main project by Geert Coppens and Peter Bonne. During the early eighties they were involved in many other bands including Autumn and Linear Movement (both re-released on Minimal Wave), but Twilight Ritual is by far the most inspired project. The spirit of the band lingers on beneath the work of Autumn through A Split Second and stands besides the best tracks of bands such as Oppenheimer Analysis and League Of Nations.

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Passenger Peru – ‘Light Places’ CS $5
The green ink on yellow colored cassette holds Passenger Peru’s highly anticipated sophomore album where Passenger Peru execute a running commentary on modern city life for a 30-something-year-old through ebbs and flows of neo-psychedelic experimentation, crazy dynamic shifts, bare-boned odes, and odd yet infectious noise.

Robot Princess – ‘Teen Vogue LP + Action Moves EP’ CS $5
The white inked, royal blue colored cassette holds Robot Princess’s debut Teen Vogue LP AND their latest Action Moves EP. This tape is filled with big hooks, melodies, and backing vocals to sing along with, thanks to Beau Alessi’s fresh take on pop songwriting.

Van Dale CS $5
The black ink on golden colored cassette holds Van Dale’s highly infectious self-titled album full of Blue album-era power pop and fuzzed-out tunes about friendship, love, success, and thinking about what life isn’t.

Loose Tooth – ‘Easy Easy East’
The white inked, purppp colored cassette holds Loose Tooth’s debut release, EASY EASY EAST, full of jerky guitars and infectious vocals. Another Philly band ready to break out!! For fans of 90s post-hardcore/Archers of Loaf.

LA Font – ‘Hangtime Vol. 1 EP’ $5
The black ink on pool blue colored cassette holds LA Font’s latest infectious EP full of catchy hooks, witty songwriting, and smartly constructed pop.

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THE BLUE SPECTRUM – ‘Melting Ice Grill’ CS
Moon Myst is proud to present THE BLUE SPECTRUM (Simon Wilson, UK). A cacophony of sandpaper star-splattered amorphous noise from THE BLUE SPECTRUM. Like the sizzling of a million sea urchins explorer series LP most people have never checked out, just an incredible display of disregard for music. This tape is a textural world, a spiky and unnatural world. Feels more like a document from some other planet’s NSA department than a noise tape. Edition of 30 numbered copies.

THE VOYEUR – ‘Chains’ CS
Moon Myst is proud to present THE VOYEUR (Josh Burke, USA). The songs on “Chains” sound like the music of a dark, Sewer Shark, post-people, cyber society. Cold, thuggish and evil synth driven jams, the perfect tape for driving around doing something wrong. Mysterious vocal narrations punctuate an otherwise inhuman collection. Edition of 30 numbered copies.

KIMCHI SKITTLES – ‘Instant Success’ CS
The KIMCHI SKITTLES: electric puro molten maple syrup. Heavily-layered power drone works feel like swimming through corn syrup and battery acid. Dan Dlugosielski= electronics. Edition of 20 numbered copies.

JESSIE & THE EELS – ‘Zine About Runes and Stuff’ CS
A fresh fruit strata of spectral guitar and electronics psychedelia from JESSIE & THE EELS, the hottest noise duo on the streets and in the sheets, consisting of Jessie Kendall and Dan Dlugosielski. JESSIE flings mysterious guitar melodies into an uncontrollable vacuum, while THE EELS kill tiny parasites with electric hail, home-made wind instruments, and whatever else is around. “Zine…” is J&TE’s first full-length tape, a pleasantly confusing pool of cosmic drool for everyone, a proper debut. Edition of 30 numbered copies. Hand collaged/painted/typed covers.

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NK54: Sparkling Wide Pressure – ‘Clouds & Stairs’
It’s a catalog that has canonized a style, absolving for the rest of us our short-lived, limited-run, lo-fi, sold-out, essential and unaccountable, suburban warbled bedroom collages heard once or lost or played to ruin. It is a singular, sustained warmth reverse-looped, slowed and low-pitched to a slur then cut and smeared out across itself. An off-kilter rattle, an open-tuned trance. The fleeting and the incidental balanced against the willful and the measured. Dimensions restless, texture insatiable. Frank Baugh has been crafting sounds as Sparkling Wide Pressure from Murfreesboro TN since 2007. Clouds & Stairs is his fourth release for No Kings Record Co., and the label’s first vinyl. Edition of 250 black discs in letterpressed foldover jackets in black or gold ink, with risograph insert. Mastered by Brian Pyle. Run time: 44:51.

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Brainchai/Ilkae – ‘ATHENA’ $6
RIYL: cyberpunk geriatric sex scenes, the soundtrack of the burning of a slot car race track. edition of 75. The second split ever from Field Hymns brings the crackling 8-bit EDM of Eirik Suhrke (Brainchai) and Montreal’s Aaron Munson (Ilkae) to the shores of tape mountain. Brainchai sounds like a cross between James Brown’s washing machine full of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s silk underwear and a drum machine achieving sentience. Over on side B, Illkae provides burners that roll across the magnetic landscape on a diet of cool electricity and Pac Mac vitamins towards dark siesta of the soul. We need to do this split shit more often.

Millions – ‘LINE IN THE SKY’ $6
RIYL: experimental ambient drone, a omni-present feeling of lurking danger. edition of 75 David Suss (Millions) uses Thomas Pynchon’s “Against The Day” as inspiration for this 4 track suite. Eschewing the traditional post-rock build-up, he kicks off this broad, tense piece with a long, chesty blast of total noise before settling down and coasting into a existentially dreary but dreamy bliss for the rest of the album, especially about the time the EVI solo comes ‘round. Dissonance, meet cognitive dissonance.

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