Animal Psi

Holly Herndon – ‘Platform’ 2XLP/CD
Holly Herndon’s second album Platform proposes new fantasies and rejuvenates old optimism. A galvanizing statement, Platform signals Herndon’s transformation as a composer to a singular voice.

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Red Diamond Tattoo
8 tracks recorded directly to 4-track tape by Devin Johnson with additional instrumentation from Ben Hozie. Psychedelic Beach Beats, Cinematic Island Music, Tropical Reveries from Another Dimension. C36 red shell cassettes with full color J-Card art available for $6 plus shipping. Free digital download.

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Reapers – ‘Noveria’ CS
Female-fronted synthwave power duo REAPERS have just released their second EP, titled NOVERIA. If you’re looking for space 80s pop, you’ve found it. With driving rhythms, sweeping synthesizer pads, tasty arpeggios and more vocoder than you can shake a stick at, NOVERIA is more from the rising band. Featuring new songs and a collection of remixes and covers, the EP contains 7 tracks and rounds out to about 40 minutes. It has been released on an extremely limited run of cassette tapes (10 copies) as well as a free digital download.

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WOS008 Zep Tepi – ‘Fatso’ CS $3
In solidarity with belt-ditchers everywhere, Wichita, Kansas-based psychedelic pop connoisseur / organ enthusiast, Zep Tepi, has cooked up a lo-fi album for the ever-expanding!!! Edition of 150. Comes with full color j-cards with nutrition facts for all the scale-steppers out there, and A/B imprinting on clear Chrome Plus cassettes. Free candy included with every order! Fatso is also available as a free download.

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Culver – ‘The Abductress’ £4.5
Lee Stokoe’s long running Culver project has been an essential listen for those inclined to the darker end of the musical spectrum. Mostly distributed on cassette tape without any digital counterpart, Culver serves as a blueprint for Northern void exploration. The Abductress presents us with three tracks of analogue murk and decay. Guitar loops and harsh drones meld together to create a dark and ominous roar. The beauty is in the detail. Limited to 60 hand dubbed and numbered C50 cassettes. Physical format only. No digital version.

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Dreamcrusher – ‘Katatonia’ C40
Starting in the 2000’s, Luwayne Glass has operated as Dreamcrusher, garnering considerable acclaim for what Glass designates as “Nihlist Queer Revolt Muzik.” The incredibly personal and uninhibited cacophony of Dreamcrusher’s music runs through copious touchstones of underground music, taking the stark drum machine throb of Front 242 and Underground Resistance and filtering it through the unsettling sheets of noise inspired equally from early industrial music pioneers like SPK as well as the tumultuous and disquieting bedlam of Ramleh and the Broken Flag label. While a lot of heavies in the noise scene have recently made explicit endeavors within beat-driven electronics, Glass does not renounce the sonic extremity, allowing for his dynamic songs to crunch, crumble, and gestate within the blown-out torrents of static and fuzz. Katatonia is another powerful statement from this young artist, a startling and potent statement of catharsis. Edition of 100.

AMK – ‘Bungalow’ C22
Anthony Michael King is one of the true originals of U.S. noise, who since the 80’s has been responsible for both the incredibly influential Banned Production label and his mystifying and singular solo and collaborative work under the AMK alias. The torrents of delirious, bewildering discord in which King specializes involves the reappropriation of old records, flexi-discs and other damaged vinyl noise, taking the pioneering turntable experiments of artists like Christian Marclay into distinctly more lawless and raucous dimensions. In 2014, King is still a master of his awe-inspiring vision, with Bungalow arranging a mix of his distinctive vinyl clutter as well as field recordings and electronics into eight distinct pieces of alternating uproar and even occasional calm. Bungalow is an unimpeachable testament to AMK’s steadfast perch among the vanguard of noise. Essential pandemonium for devotees of The Haters, Smegma, Emil Beaulieau, and of course, AMK himself. Edition of 100.

Chapels – ‘Night Thoughts’ C24
In addition to operating the esteemed House Of Alchemy label, a home for experimental travelers from HOA’s homebase of Buffalo and beyond, Adam Richards has also crafted a considerably diverse discography of his own under the solo alias Chapels. Much like the diversity of sounds stretched across his label’s discography, which has released everything from drone to free improv to harsh noise, Richards’ work as Chapels has never fit comfortably into any narrow genre paradigm, instead gestating as its freedom allows, from euphoric washes to desolate tape experiments. Night Thoughts appropriately highlights these disparate talents with flourishingly harmonious assurance. While the side-long title piece observes dawn-like tranquility, with almost choral synth drones mingling with lightly crunching rumbles, the second side is all creeping, alien sonics, from muffled radio/tape transmissions to hazes of white noise. Another sublimely realized sojourn from one of Buffalo’s best. Edition of 100.

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Komodo Haunts – ‘Suijin’ LP
Komodo Haunts is the psychedelic drone solo project of Ollie Tutty (aka Mt. Tjhris), from Lincolnshire, UK. With his music he explores drone structure, sonic textures, meditative zones and personal fictions. Making use of analogue and digital technologies; tape jams playing on human familiarity, natural ambiances, faux-exotica, mythologies, “reality therapy”. Taking inspiration from drone masters and new age wanderers the Suijin album is all about getting into “the zone” and could be the soundtrack to an unreleased Tarkovsky movie. Building up from a basis of minimalistic stylings in the vein of Terry Riley’s Persian Surgery Dervishes and adding rich instrumental and vocal layers later.
Notes on SUIJIN / notes on water: liquid forms; SUIJIN, the shinto God of water – water as a force – the symbolic status of water – people-water relationship. Instruments range from shifting tape loops to reverb laden electric guitar and dark synths, human voice, wind, distorted bass, ceramic ocarina, acoustic strings, processed electronics and oscillating waves.

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Tashi Dorji – ‘Appa’
Appa – meaning “father” in Dzongkha — is Bhutan-by-way-of Asheville, NC guitarist Tashi Dorji’s debut release for Bathetic Records. With Appa, Dorji paints winding and expansive images with both patient and dizzying guitar movements. Intricate and delicate, strong and poetic; Appa comes across as a record brimming with energy, vitality and life while expressing emotions of loss and strength and family and distance.

Villages – ‘Procession Acts’
Ross Gentry returns to Bathetic under his Villages moniker to present his sophomore LP, Procession Acts. Procession Acts carries on Villages’ debut LP’s grand expanse of ambient glory, while carrying the sound to a heightened level. Procession Acts comes across as much more cinematic. It is a denser record, more precise in its attack and its immersion.

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Bob Bellerue – ‘Damned Piano’ 2LP
“Damned Piano” is amplified piano played with feedback and resonance. Recorded by Patrick Higgins at Future Past Studios, the sounds range from pure minimal drones to brazen storms of acousmatic fury. A simple circuit that moves mountains and cleaves minds. Released in a numbered edition of 200 with gatefold jackets, letter press printing by Patrick Cole, and photography by Alexander Perrelli.

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Cássio Figueiredo – ‘Diário’
Diário (Diary) is an EP that includes 5 tracks: “Dia 1-5”, that in portuguese means “Day”. The Idea is that the record as a whole gives form, while perspective, to a kind of narrative of the days themselves, basically. Diário is composed by reverse (sometimes) and dynamic acoustic guitar loops along with object sounds (forks and knives, bottles…) with a reverb load.

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