Bis Aufs Messer weekly News 02 April 2024
Hi, welcome to another newsletter for April. A bunch of cool new releases, re issues and restocks arrived like the LUSTMORD – Much Unseen Is Also Here DLP restock, EMBRACE restock on Translucent Gold vinyl and other DISCHORD restocks, TONGUE DEPRESSOR / AUSTIN LARKIN - Landau Bar LP, YOUNG GINNS - s/t LP, NØ MAN - Glitter And Spit LP, TRAMUNTANAS - s/t LP (ex lungfish, pupils etc), GUESTS - I wish I was special LP, APRIL MAGAZINE - Wesley's Convertible Tape For The South LP, ASTREL K - The Foreign Department LP + 7“, THE REDS, PINKS & PURPLES - Unwishing Well LP, also a couple new and old releases from FOLKLORE Tapes in the UK arrived, ALAN GORAGUER - Rare Soundtracks & Lost Tapes (1973-1984) LP, NOJ - Waxing Moon LP, RENCH'S RIFLES - s/t TAPE, RARAFRE + AM - S/t TAPE, MARK ANDERSEN / MARK JENKINS - Dance Of Days: Two Decades Of Punk In The Nation's Capital BOOK restock, KLEENEX / LILIPUT BOOK restock and more ..
And we also added (adding) a few more second hand LPs and 7“s to our discogs
https://www.discogs.com/seller/XMESSERX
Thank you as usual
Til then thank you for all your orders & support.
Robert & Norman
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7“
DESINTEGRACIÓN VIOLENTA - La Bestia 7“ (static age - "In the space between counterculture, excess, and a scene divided comes Berlin’s Desintegración Violenta. The international four piece offers its first sacrifice to vinyl with a barrelling new EP as a follow up to their 2021 demo. Five tracks of demonic speedy metal-punk by the way of crude Sabbat style riffs, featuring nods to Tormentor. All hell breaks fast and loose in tandem, and the howling, cacophonic Spanish vocals make this release uniquely its own.” -Morgan Davis) 10.00
HAMMERED HULLS - s/t 7“ (dischord - back in stock - HAMMERED HULLS are a brand new band from Washington D.C. made up of some very old connections. MARY TIMONY (bass) and ALEC MACKAYE (vocals) grew up in the same Washington neighborhood and have spent the better part of their lives in each other’s somewhat distant orbit. Always aware of each other, but never able to play together. MARK CISNEROS (guitar) has been in D.C. for more than a decade. He cut his teeth in Los Angeles listening to both Mary and Alec’s bands, but also a healthy dose of free jazz and garage. He is the man who plays everything with everyone, but this is his band. Hammered Hulls are rounded out by CHRIS WILSON (drums), a monstrous drummer with no shortage of love for all three of his bandmates. Every person in this band is a fan of every other person in this band. Mutual respect drives this train. But to say they are an odd collection of influences is to understate the point. If you tried you couldn’t imagine what this band might sound like. This single was recorded and mixed in a single day at Inner Ear studios, appropriate home to everyone in the DC scene.) 8.00
WOLVES AGAIN - s/t 7“ (lovitt - We're all familiar with this story: the pandemic struck, and people found themselves confined to their homes, left alone with their thoughts. Amidst various musical projects, Shelby Cinca reached out to his former bandmates with the idea of creating and instrumental album in the style of Frodus—a desire that had never materialized during the band's active years. Despite the challenges of life and logistics, the project began to take shape as Nate and Shelby brainstormed and organized their ideas. They recalled an offer from their fellow DC friend and prolific musician, Aaron DC Edge, to provide raw drum tracks. Shelby accepted Aaron's offer to kickstart a rhythmic foundation, and soon the project came to life. Some tracks remained faithful to the original demos, while others underwent substantial editing. Eventually, songs began to take form in an organic manner, despite the geographical distance between the collaborators. Conceptually, the group aimed to craft a soundtrack for a post-human world, inspired by a cryptic phrase hidden in the artwork of Frodus's last album: "when man dies, we become wolves again." These songs conjure images of overgrown and ruined cities, the return of wildlife, and the interplay of light and darkness, peace and savagery, coexisting in the aftermath of humanity's downfall. Without the prominent narrative of anguished vocals, the vistas emerge in the mind's eye without barriers, allowing for a more subtle and profound exploration of the themes. This is Wolves Again) 8.00
LP
ALAN GORAGUER - Rare Soundtracks & Lost Tapes (1973-1984) LP (transversales - French composer Alain Goraguer who first made a name for himself as a sideman and arranger for Serge Gainsbourg wrote very few soundtracks, but amongst them, the legendary La Planète Sauvage (1973) is an absolute staple of France’s essential music. During that same period of time, Goraguer wrote two rare and beautiful scores using the same masterclass arrangements.
On L’Affaire Dominici (1975), Alain Goraguer creates a theme of great melodic clarity from a palette of breathy flutes, clavinet D6 baroque textures, wah-wah guitars and slow-paced drums that clearly reminds La Planete Sauvage’s atmosphere. The same can be said about the score of Au delà de la peur (1975) with its descending clavinet melody, twanging bass riff, funky drums and flashes of bended electric guitars. This record also includes never before released tracks found in the vaults of French national radio: beautiful and timeless orchestral compositions recorded at Studio 105, Maison de la radio. REMASTERED FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES.) 30.00
ALESSANDRO ALESSANDRONI - Open Air Parade LP (sonro - The Alessandro Alessandroni's definitive holy grail "OPEN AIR PARADE" is finally get reissued. This is the very best library record by the cult maestro on the dreams podium alongside SPONTANEOUS, the 2 FARFALLA's recordings and RITMO DELL'INDUSTRIA we released 2 years ago. A long-awaited masterpiece and sought-after gem by record collectors all over the world originally released in 1972 on the mythical SR Records with two tracks by the great bassist Giovanni Tommaso who surely played in this session. A dreamy album with the top-notch, strung-out Psychedelic Funk sounds ever recorded in Italy during the early 70s, laden Beat and groovy music with lush arrangements and insane vocal themes by Alessandro Alessandroni's Cantori Moderni chorus. Italian Library monster that blows your mind away, don't sleep!) 32.00
ANDRE BRATTEN - Slay Tracks LP (small-town super - Edition of 300 copies - Smalltown Supersound’s Le Jazz Non Series returns with a collection of pure, emotional club bangers, on a tip somewhere between Aphex Twin’s first Analogue Bubblebath and Drexciya’s most direct The Other People Place romancers.’Slay Tracks’ is Bratten’s 6th album and perhaps the closest to Smalltown’s heart, personally selected from his swelling hard drive by label bossman Joakim Haugland. You can see the tip he’s on too, opting for a sort of refracted view of ‘90s electronics, propulsive but always emotionally driven.‘Res’ hits most closely to classic Richard D James with its doe-eyed, single note bassline, while screwed acid vignette ‘Tunnel’, reminds us of Sockethead and Michael J. Blood with its slow, square bass grind. ‘Repair’ gives it all gossebump-inducing melodies in a mode not far from classic Titonton Duvanté or even The Black Dog’s earliest, many-monikered excursions, while ‘A Fog’ craftily dices with a vibe redolent of Phoenicia or the Miami lot, and the closing couplet of ‘The Returner’ and ’Strayed’ smartly extend that analogue on a low- down, offbeat bent like some classic Push Button Objects.) 30.00
APRIL MAGAZINE - Wesley's Convertible Tape For The South LP (digital regress - San Francisco's most cultish return to the vinyl format with this 2024 edition of a tape they first issued via Nick Umbrellas' Discontinuous Innovation label almost a year ago to the day. Mysterious enough as is, here Peter Hurley and co. dial up the intrigue a notch or two further with nine vaporous shimmers of dreamstate rapture that lean heavily into their opaque world of mythical characters (here the titular Wesley, Johnny; previously Shirley, Christopher, Tiffany...) and tape hiss romanticism. The DNA is easy enough to read - Recurring-period Spacemen 3, MBV, Opal, Secret Shine, Blueboy and so forth - and yet there's some magic in the aggregation of those trace elements that can't be qualified by a mere joining of dots. More than the sum of their parts? Yes, but isn't that what the good art is anyway? No surprise to learn that Hurley is a wonderful painter, also, the soft-edged cubist quality of his canvases a perfect reflection of songwriting and recording style, which feels both abstract and distinct: you can make out the form well enough, but the meaning not so sharply defined. And as such, the true value resides in the foggy haze of feeling that blooms around it. Surely soon to be heralded as one of the best out there doing it right now.) 30.00
ASTREL K - The Foreign Department LP + 7“ (tough love - exclusive black vinyl w/ bonus 7" - edition of 250 - the foreign department is the second album by astrel k, the solo project helmed by stockholm-based british ex-pat, rhys edwards. those already familiar with edwards’ work will likely know him for fronting the cultishly great ulrika spacek, and given he operates as the principal songwriter in both projects, much of the same hallmarks of his cathartic, elliptical songwriting are present in astrel k. nonetheless, the foreign department feels like a rubicon moment of sorts, and the album that edwards has unconsciously been working towards his entire creative life.) 34.00
CAN - Live In Paris 1973 DLP (Live in Paris 1973 finds Can in magical form in a performance recorded at L'Olympia in Paris on May 12, 1973, which features Damo Suzuki on vocals for the first time. From 1970-73, the regular line-up of Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli and Holger Czukay was supplemented by the Japanese improviser and singer Suzuki. They met through a chance encounter when Suzuki was a street musician in Munich; A few months after the performance published here, Damo left the band. This new album in the series allows us to experience the band at a particularly important stage in their career, as two of their most acclaimed albums - Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi, the latter of which feeds into the Paris performance - were only recently released. The recordings were put together for the 21st century by founding member Irmin Schmidt and producer/sound engineer René Tinner, who compiled and edited all the albums in this series, from recordings in the Spoon Records archives and recordings sent in by helpful fans. Formed in the late '60s and disbanding a good decade later, CAN have become one of the most important and innovative bands of all time with their unprecedented and bold marriage of hypnotic grooves and avant-garde instrumental structures, and these albums showcase the group a completely different perspective. You may hear familiar themes, riffs and motifs popping up and rolling through these jams, but they're often just fleetingly recognized faces in a swirling crowd. Elsewhere you can hear music that never made it into the official album canon.) 30.00
CIRCUS LUPUS - 1990 9 Song Demo LP (LG records - Before Circus Lupus landed on DC’s venerable Dischord Records, the group’s original Midwest lineup recorded a full LP's worth of songs less than a year after forming. With the demise of DC’s Ignition in the late 80’s, bass player Chris Thomson headed to Madison, WI for college. Before leaving DC, he dove headfirst into being a vocalist fronting the short- lived throwback punk/hardcore project Fury. Chris served up pointed and profound Tony Cadena-inspired screeds about betrayal, disappointment and poseurs all set to a soundtrack of furiously primitive and chaotic music supplied by members of the DC punk band Swiz. Brief yet influential, this band marked Chris’s switch to vocals, putting him on course to front Circus Lupus and claim a notable spot in the DC punk timeline of the late 20th century. Soon after arriving in Madison, Thomson was invited to join a new project started by friends Chris Hamley, Arika Casebolt, and Reg Shrader. Circus Lupus marked a change in direction from the familiar sounds of DC punk that Thomson had been associated with for years. The newly formed group looked to noisier Touch & Go and Homestead bands for inspiration, aligning themselves with bands from Chicago, Louisville and Milwaukee. One early supporter of the band described the new group as “profoundly familiar yet uncategorizable. Like if the Germs had gone to college and never got pulled into hard drugs and suicidal behaviors.” The original Circus Lupus lineup played a dozen shows and recorded these songs with Eli Janney at Inner Ear studios in August of 1990 while on a brief tour. Within a year, the band would decide to permanently relocate to Washington DC, where they felt they had more opportunities. Reg opted to move to Chicago and would ultimately join the Touch and Go band Seam. Old friend Seth Lorinczi (Vile Cherubs) would become their new bass player, forming the version of the band that most listeners are familiar with. While a few of these ended up on their first single, the rest were shelved, some later to be rerecorded with Seth and released on Dischord. LG Records is proud to have helped this notable recording see the light of day. The original tapes were recovered by Ian MacKaye and transferred by Darren Edwards. Tim Green remixed and remastered the original recordings at Louder Studios in California. 180-gram black vinyl with 28pt Tip-On sleeve and heavy printed inner jacket.) 30.00
GUESTS - I wish I was special LP (world of echo - Guests are Jessica Higgins and Matthew Walkerdine of Glasgow, UK, both formerly of the bands Vital Idles and Mordwaffe. They have been closely tied with DIY music, art and publishing for over a decade. Using (amateur) electronics, singing, speaking and field recording they make songs which blend the rhythms of popular music and contemporary approaches to collage, sampling, improvisation and repetition. As inspired by film and art as they are the legacies of twee underground and avant garde experimentalism, their loose, domestically twinged compositions explore feelings, atmospheres and moments which are hard to articulate and the quite literal notion of being a “guest”. “I wish I was special” is their debut record, and with it a chance taken to explore terrain not previously covered by their other groups. The ideology of DIY practice appears integral to these eleven compositions, side-stepping virtuosity in favour of instinct and impression, unafraid to press unknown buttons and walk head first into mistake, finding inspiration where convention might not otherwise allow one to tread. The results are confoundingly fresh, sharp-of-mind, and unusually intimate. There’s an obvious intelligence at play here, and no little humour of course, but crucially there’s also a sense of the personal, a first-thought/best-thought (auto)didacticism that celebrates shared understanding and implicit trust. What, ultimately, we might view as the fearlessness in radically being yourself around another. It’s an approach that draws some comparison with the private musings of Flaming Tunes, Idea Fire Company’s domestic electronics, or perhaps even Annea Lockwood’s framing of emotional connection within avant garde structures. More so, Guests represent a compelling continuation of DIY post-punk experimentation that values intuition over prowess, and with it guides the listener into unexpected spaces that somehow comfort as much as they challenge. ) 27.00
IL QUADRO DI TROISI – La Commedia LP (raster - Four years after their eponymous debut, Il Quadro di Troisi return with a new album and a new line-up. The perfect circle traced by Eva Geist (aka Andrea Noce) and Donato Dozzy (aka Donato Scaramuzzi) becomes a triangle with the permanent addition of Pietro Micioni, who collaborated in the previous recordings and had been part of ll Quadro’s live set. Nothing stays the same, and the world is a lot different from what it was in 2020. The global crisis generated by the constant escalation of conflict and by the pandemic was mirrored by a time of individual crisis and personal, often irreversible transformation that underscored the entire period of the album’s composition. The influence of these turbulent times is felt in the writing: La Commedia is about turning a crisis into an opportunity and using change as a catalyst for rebirth. Much like the characters in classic Italian comedies, who are masters in using irony to face life’s hardships, Il Quadro di Troisi explores the vast and unpredictable terrain between the lighter and darker sides of the human experience, matching the magical with the mundane.) 27.00
INDUSTRY - A Self Portrait At The Stage Of Totalitarian Domination Of All Aspects Of Human Life LP (static age - A Self Portrait At The Stage Of Totalitarian Domination Of All Aspects Of Human Life is the debut album from international band Industry who are currently based in Berlin. Industry are a band that live and breath the UK anarcho punk era and especially the Mortarhate catalogue of Exit Stance (who they cover on the album), Vex and Icons of Filth. The sound is impassioned, desperate and honest. The vocals are spat with frustration, the rhythm section locked in with the bass taking centre stage and the guitar work has that slight flanged but powerhouse tone. It’s immense. Industry are made up of Nico from Lux, Jake from Stinkhole, Sebas from UZI / Desintegracion Violenta and Will from Mörpheme but Industry sounds nothing like any of these band. Along with Subdued, Industry hark back to a time long gone of classic Anarcho punk, but somehow make it feel current and essential. ( Sean Forbes / Rough Trade )) 20.00
JULIE TIPPETTS – Shadow Puppeteer DLP (eargomg - For the very first time on double vinyl, one of the most amazing musical adventures of influential singer & songwriter Julie Tippetts. Originally released on cd in 1999, Shadow Puppeteer is the result of a long running career, a devotional solo album fulfilling her royal artistic vision. Surely one of the foremost European vocalists in the field of contemporary jazz and improvised music, she started out with The Brian Auger band in the 60’s fusing soul jazz and r&b with amazing results. Moving forward into the realms of free improvisation and english jazz she found home in stunning projects as Centipede, Ovary Lodge, Ark, Mujician, The Georgian Ensemble, The Dedication Orchestra and (late husband) Keith Tippett's Tapestry. Shadow Puppeteer is a suite of compositions and improvisations in which Julie's voice and various instruments (wind chimes, tambourine, mandolin, thumb pianos, zithers and bells) are multi - tracked to showcase the full extent of her powers of expression and imagination.) 33.00
KA BAIRD - Bearings: Soundtracks for the Bardos LP (rvng - For more than twenty years, Ka Baird has explored the outer dimensions of sound through performance. Extending far beyond their roots in the psychedelic folk movement of the early aughts, Ka is known for their raw, boundary pushing solo performances that bridge experimental sound, performance art, and ritual. Their tool set in the live arena includes extended voice and microphone techniques, electronics, flute and piano. Bearings follows their 2017 debut Sapropelic Pycnic and Respires, their acclaimed 2019 album. Initially conceived as a twenty minute composition and presentation commissioned by Lampo in Chicago in the spring of 2022, Ka first explored the concept of “bearings” through a series of intimate performances where they shifted guises between magician, shaman, clown, and athlete, all enduring ongoing states of groundlessness through a physically demanding performance that entailed both play and struggle. This piece, in tandem with the heaviness of caring for a dying parent during the subsequent year, laid the groundwork for Bearings, with the album’s final narrative structure revealing itself in the months after their mother’s death the following September.) 28.00
KOPY - Heart Fresh LP (TAL - Yuko Kureyama returns to TAL with the album Heart Fresh, her first ever full length release under her Kopy moniker. All tracks for the album were recorded in Tokyo in June 2023 at the famous live house Ochiai Soup. For the recordings of the ten tracks, Ochiai Soup was swiftly converted into a recording studio as the intimate atmosphere of the club and its perfect room acoustics gave Kopy the chance to record her music like in a live situation.
Amazingly Kopy‘s instrumentation on Heart Fresh consists only of a Jomox x Base 09 rhythm machine and an Elektron Digitakt mini sampler. In the hands of Kopy this fairly basic and common gear creates an unmistakeably intuitive and original approach to drum programming, which is recognizably her very own. Due to extensive live playing in the past two years, Kopy has garnered a lot of admiration for her consistently unpredictable and fearless club performances and has easily become one of the most exciting and inventive live acts from the ever vibrating electronic music scene in Japan. However, Heart Fresh seems even more focused, urgent and ambitious than its predecessors, the Paredo EP (TAL12 including a remix by Lena Willikens), the Eternal EP (TAL 24 featuring a remix by Elena Colombi) and the split album Super Mild (TAL15). Nothing on Heart Fresh is subdued. The entire production is resonating with its peculiar frequencies, it is wonderfully evocative, open hearted, full of life and intelligence. The album opens with Night Sarkas with quirky snare rolls played against slashing, nervy chunks of melody. Samples of organ and chimes evoke an rollercoaster spinning out of tune and synch. Hole Hole is a beat driven and melody free short story for bass drum, snare and hi hat with constantly changing bpm‘s. Tir Tone marks the arrival of annunciatory rhythm patterns and a lovely sprinkling of distorted synths. The album's final track Moonlight Pool is the perfect closer for an album of taut, free wheeling figurations of meter and tone, a nod to classical ambient music as well as to contemporary more experimental digressions.) 28.00
LUSTMORD – Much Unseen Is Also Here DLP (pelagic - back in stock - Dark ambient pioneer, Stygian drone legend and near-mythical entity LUSTMORD pierces the veil once more with ‘Much Unseen Is Also Here’; the artist’s latest, solo full-length release in a formidable, 40-year creative career at the forefront of industrial music. Urged by Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle to make music that captured his distinctive aura, Brian Williams assumed the mantle of Lustmord in 1980 and began working with sound because the music he wanted to listen to simply didn’t exist. Nine years of field-recording experimentation and near-constant collaboration later, Lustmord released his third album, ‘Heresy’, which became a milestone in the industrial scene and is now universally regarded as the origin of the dark ambient genre.) 30.00
NØ MAN - Glitter And Spit LP (Iodine - “Will you die with your eyes open?” - Washington D.C.’s NØ MAN is a necessary and much-needed voice in modern hardcore. Formed in 2017, the four-piece punk band has been alchemizing the personal and the political from the jump. Composed of members from Majority Rule, the band’s current aims go hand-in-hand with their past, sonically and thematically. Their upcoming album Glitter and Spit is the band’s third full-length LP, solidifying their furious hardcore into a weapon of a record. Album opener “Eat My Twin” twists and refracts a mid-tempo riff into a sonic hammer, cracking open the record’s heaviness to come. Singer Maha Shami has fully come into her own as a frontperson, snarling out the most vicious vocals of her career on “Poison Darts.”) 30.00
NOJ - Waxing Moon LP (static age - Introducing 'Waxing Moon,' the debut release from Berlin neo-nihilists, Noj. Waxing Moon takes the listener on a tense trip, pulsating through 9 chunky tweaked out tracks of industrial post punk whose combo of punishing percussion, antagonistic basslines, broken glass guitar and cool, bloodless vocals conjure visions of a cyberpunk version of The Birthday Party with Trent Reznor on synth, produced by a young Rob Zombie. An undeniably German swagger is present throughout, decorating a chilling Carpenter-esque sense of foreboding. Like sisyphus rolling the stone, each song gathers momentum as if it may build on a promise, keeping the listener in anticipation of some great crescendo or divine reason for being… before abruptly ending with the realisation that the journey was the anticipation, hopes dashed, collapsing new buildings. ) 20.00
THE OVERLORDS – Organic? DLP (mecanica - Edition of 500 copies, gatefold sleeve & postcard
The Overlords is a pioneer electronic project coming from Denmark. Rune Bendixen, Carsten Pedersen and Ian Ion started to work together in the late 80’s inspired by Front 242 and Adrian Sherwood’s electronic dub. The ever-cheaper samplers allowed the band to record their debut album “Midnight at the Grooveyard II” (1988) and built their own studio The Grooveyard in Copenhagen. Next works started to get increasingly influenced by techno, new beat and innovative dance music. A new single “Moontrap” (1990) appeared on Belgium's Antler Subway Records and led The Overlords to collaborate with Kenneth Baker who remixed the next single and massive club hit “Sundown” (1991). The full-length “Organic?” (1991) came shortly after also on Antler Subway in Belgium, ZYX Records in Germany and reached America with Caroline Records. The success continued to grow and a new EP for “Organic+” (1992) was out with the title track remixed by the legendary DJ and producer Sven Väth. “From the first song, with it's chorus of ‘We Are Genetic Engineers’ and it's rich, catchy melody, “Organic?” throws the fetters of EBM off and soars to heady heights. The third track leaves the fresh energetic, colourful world of humour to create menace and dread with a brilliant cover version of “Holiday In Cambodia” which has the same threatening sound of the D.K.s original, and is perhaps even more danceable and disturbing. An exciting album full of catchy, tongue-in-cheeky chant-a-long tracks and the music has such depth, such stark, radiant colour, such brilliance that is unreservedly recommended.” (Soft Watch) “Organic?” was originally released only on CD and cassette and is now available for the first time on vinyl record including all original tracks plus some bonus and remixes. Limited edition of 500 copies on double vinyl with gatefold sleeve and one postcard.) 33.00
THE OVERLORDS – Sundown LP (mechanic -Re-release of this timeless electronic anthem. A track that defies any classification. The perfect mix between Belgian techno, trance and EBM. “Sundown” was released as single in 1991 and instantly became a techno classic in Germany and all over the globe selling more than 200,000 copies. ‘The Sunshine And The 909’ is without any doubt the most famous mix and a master piece remixed by Kenneth Baker, one of the pioneers of techno & house music movement in Denmark and founder of labels like Coma Records and Flex Records. Limited edition of 500 copies including three classic remixes and one new re-edit.= 20.00
PHILL NIBLOCK – Rhymes With Water LP (GOD - For his premiere recording on God Records, Phill Niblock confirms his minimalistic musical approach and composes two monumental pieces for flutes and additional voices, respectively. Commissioned by Erik Drescher and Natalia Pschenitschnikova, Niblock again delivers an almost stripped, uncompromising one-way sound monolith. Tremendous, straight, and to the point… Phill Niblock - composition Natalia Pschenitschnikova - bass flute, voice Erik Drescher - glissando flute) 28.00
THE REDS, PINKS & PURPLES - Unwishing Well LP (tough love - exclusive blue vinyl - edition of 250 - the cinema of the scenes as told from the heart and spirit of the omniscient narrator shines through the awe-inspiring oeuvre of glenn donaldson's canonical titan that is the reds, pinks & purples. the storied and esoteric histories of every underserved underdog becomes immortalized in records and poignantly penned paeans that evoke the eras and underachievers that became synonymous with their own respective corresponding localized micro-movements. donaldson channels that psychic spirit and journeyman earned wisdom to provide contemporary era rock operas that eulogize tales of infinitely influential rises and falls. crystalizing the tragic self-celebrating kingdoms of fortunate failures, false heroes, music press deities of limitless deceit, hometown dive gods and humanity in the grips of all its romanticized wonder and woe — the latest sortie of the sensational and spectacular takes aim at the threads of hope and an untethered abandon into the intimacy and dualities of idolatry and isolation with unwishing well.) 30.00
SAM McLOUGHLIN - Fae Transit LP (folklore Tapes - LTD TO 200 copies with handmade covers
Fae Transit is an expedition into a realm of faerie music Sam McLoughlin introduced us to in his contribution to Folklore Tapes’ Swifter than the Moon’s Sphere. If Green and Brown was a sighting of a faerie parade, Fae Transit is a full abduction, a journey through a woodland inhabited by spirits and haunted by the living. The album is written entirely for harmonium, nylon guitar, hand percussion and dictaphone, with harmonium and finger-plucked guitar continually exchanging roles as melodic and chordal instruments. The interweaving dialogue between these instruments has a chamber-like intensity, though the music flows with simple, rustic tunes singing above any complexity. If you have ideas in your mind of what faerie sounds like, this probably isn’t it. The full-throated harmonium drones, triplet rhythms and meandering melodies are more McKenna’s machine elves than Tinker Bell. But it’s calm. An air of nostalgia and melancholy pervades the carnivalesque music, which is wistful, and occasionally menacing, but never violent.) 30.00
SAM McLOUGHLIN & DAVID CHATTON BARKER - The Heavenly Realms LP (folklore tapes - Folklore Tapes grow yet another branch of investigation through their new Mystic Series, which begins with the Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, who spent the latter portion of his life living in England. The Heavenly Realms unfolded from Folklore Tapes’ residency at Swedenborg House in October 2022. The house, in Bloomsbury Way, London, is the headquarters of the Swedenborg Society, an organisation dedicated to the study and publication of the works of scientist, philosopher and visionary Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Sam McLoughlin and David Chatton Barker were invited to respond creatively to Swedenborg’s legacy, and it will come as no surprise to their followers that the duo took inspiration from Swedenborg’s mystical experiences. Swedenborg’s most renowned work, Heaven and Hell (1764), synthesised years of dreams, trance states and ecstatic communications with angels into a complete vision of the afterlife and the spiritual realms. In it Swedenborg meticulously details a stratified order of the heavens, an ultimate reality within which physical matter relates to spirit through divine correspondences emanating from a highest, purest echelon, God.) 28.00
SOAP & SKIN - Des Teufels Bad (OST) LP (solfo - 'The Devil's Bath' gives a voice to the invisible and unheard women of the rural past; it shows the harshness of their everyday lives, which are determined by religious dogmas and taboos that continue to have an impact today. A film based on historical court documents about a shocking, previously unexplored chapter in European history. Soap & Skin on the process of creating the soundtrack "Veronika, Severin and I quickly agreed that we wanted historical tones, i.e. a sound world that refers to the time, not necessarily to Austria, and that also points to the present. That's what I did For example, I installed a historical flute from Armenia, the Duduk, which is played by Veronika Vitazkova, and worked with Matthias Loibner, who is dedicated to this wonderful instrument, the hurdy-gurdy. This time I used my own voice spherically for Agnes' inner voices , for example with a scream that appears again and again as a drawn-out sound." Deep, haunting and disturbing, the music gives flesh and blood to this psychodramatic film.) 30.00
TONGUE DEPRESSOR / AUSTIN LARKIN - Landau Bar LP (redscroll - Tongue Depressor (New Haven, CT) is the duo of Zach Rowden and Henry Birdsey. They write, improvise, and perform drone-based music with fiddles, pedal steel, lap steel, contrabass, organ, and bells, usually involving micro-tonal tunings and re-arranged/re-tuned fragments of American church music.
Austin Larkin (New Haven, CT) uses elements of tone, interstices of fields, asymmetries, and patterns. Performance and practice informed by re-search into dimensions of vibrating bodies.
On this recording Tongue Depressor and Austin Larkin have combined to record what they had been practicing on the road live across the US together. Henry Birdsey (TD) plays bagpipes and lap steel. Zach Rowden (TD) plays violin and tapes. Austin Larkin plays viola and sirens (which he himself constructed and are a story unto themselves). Soothing sounds give way to unsettling / unnerving feelings when the sirens find their way through meditative loops.) 28.00
TORI KUDO & 3C123 - Tori Kudo & 3C123 LP (an’archives - Edition of 400 copies, silkscreened sleeve w/ obi, postcard, inserts - A reissue of a cassette that was originally released on Uramado in 2020, this is the first time this live session appears on vinyl. The performance, featuring Kudo on piano and 3C123 on clarinet, was recorded on October 18, 2009, at the Uramado venue in Shinjuku. A beautiful and quixotic forty-minute set, that reconnects both Kudo and 3C123 with various musical histories, including those of classical composition and free improvisation. The performance documented on Tori Kudo & 3C123 is a curious one. While they both appear to slip into improvised ruminations at times, for the most part, Kudo performs pieces by Erik Satie on the piano, over which 3C123 teases an excoriating stream of improvisation from the clarinet. His playing here is wild in its poetry: sometimes lushly nestly alongside Satie’s melodies, elsewhere loosing Ayler-esque squalls from the instrument, it’s a bravura performance that is matched, in an indirect manner, by the poise and pacing of Kudo’s generous, fluent recital. When asked about the thinking behind the performance documented here, Kudo explains by describing the historical juxtaposition of Satie with Takehisa Kosugi’s improvised violin as “an essence of the Japanese art of collective improvisation.” The playing here, as within Japanese collective improvisation, is about sitting ‘alongside’ each other, not necessarily in direct (or even indirect) reference, but rather sharing the space; “just being there together,” Kudo says, and letting go of the need for performers to engage in interplay. Tori Kudo & 3C123 is certainly part of that tradition, and this is where its curious poetry resides; in that ‘third space’ that sits in between, but not directly connecting, the two performers. Kudo makes an analogy with Fluxus, which is appropriate. But you can also hear their shared history here, somehow, as Kudo and 3C123 have known each other since the eighties, when they shared a house in Kunitachi City, Tokyo. Their musical paths have been multiple – Kudo, of course, best known perhaps for his Maher Shalal Hash Baz ensemble; 3C123 as a member of Vedda Music Workshop, and with other Japanese musicians like Koichiro Watanabe.) 35.00
TRAMUNTANAS - s/t LP (diy - Tramuntanas, a new instrumental duo from Baltimore, features Asa Osborne (known for his work with Lungfish, the Pupils, and Zomes) and Canadian sound and video installation artist Shan Collis. Their debut LP will be self-released on March 22, 2024, and the band will be performing shows throughout the spring and summer.) 26.00
VILE CHERUBS - Lysegric Lamentations LP (LG - Falling somewhere between Soulside, Ignition, and The Chocolate Watchband, Vile Cherubs were a short-lived and puzzling band that for a brief window in 1986-88 man- aged to captivate, confuse, and annoy the D.C. punk scene. Consisting of high school classmates Tim Green, Jesse Quitlsund, and Ben Wides—along with Green’s childhood friend Seth Lorinczi—the Vile Cherubs were more focused on the then-forgotten sounds of ‘60s garage rock and psychedelia than on Minor Threat. Being minors themselves, they likely would’ve remained trapped in the school-dance circuit were it not for Geoff Turner (Gray Matter / 3), who took an interest in the band and recorded their two demos. That first tape caught the ear of d.c. space booker Cynthia Connolly, who despite her initial skepticism paired them with Didjits, Cynics, and other noteworthy bands. Though the band released a posthumous LP in 1988, the original Geoff Turner demos explain why the D.C. scene briefly lost its shit over these teen ne’er-do-wells. Lovingly and exhaustively resuscitated by audio maestro Tim Green from the original multitrack tapes, “Lysergic Lamentations” is the Vile Cherubs at the height of their brief existence.) 30.00
WITCH VOMIT - Funeral Sanctum LP (20 buck spin - Witch Vomit’s two previous releases, ‘Abhorrent Rapture’ and ‘Buried Deep In A Bottomless Grave’, solidified and elevated their position as one of current US Death Metal’s most potent and direct sources of expertly crafted cacophonous carnage. With a methodically relentless fervor and merciless aggression Witch Vomit have carved out a formidable reputation for barbarism with hooks so catchy they rend flesh from bone. On new album ‘Funeral Sanctum’, Witch Vomit expand the dark melodicism buried within the butchery of past releases, now sharpened into black obsidian and causticly fused with the band’s hallmark brutality. The DNA within tracks such as ‘Blood of Abomination’ and ‘Dominion of a Darkened Realm’ invoke not the upbeat harmonies one hears in typical melodic Death Metal, but something more akin to the demonic evil might of early Dissection, gleaming in frozen darkness. The gore-soaked USDM ferocity remains the rotted core of Witch Vomit’s foundation. Witch Vomit’s dominant stretch of dynamic evolution within the scope of their concentrated stylistic framework has reached a new pinnacle with ‘Funeral Sanctum’. The album’s intense focus and ceaseless riff storm unleashes a wave of bloodfreezing gratification carved with permanence into the blackest depths.) 28.00
WITCH - Lukombo Vibes LP (now again - Archival reissue of the Afro-prog-psych Zamrock masterpiece Presented For The First Time Ever In An Aged Copper Green Pressing "Electrified by a diet of James Brown, the Stones and Deep Purple, WITCH were the stadium-filling kings of 70s Zamrock. - ****" - The entirety of WITCH’s fourth album, restored and remastered from master tapes, and presented as an archival reissue in an aged copper green vinyl pressing. WITCH’s musical arc is contained to a five year span and, in retrospect, it is a logical one. The band’s fourth album - recorded after the band toured with Osibisa - makes use of traditional Zambian rhythms and folk melodies alongside progressive rock movements. It is the most "afro-rock" of WITCH’s oeuvre..) 30.00
YOUNG GINNS - s/t LP (LG - Young Ginns began in November 1991 when Unwound was staying at The Embassy house where Nation Of Ulysses guitarist Tim Green lived. Somehow around the coffee table, an idea was conceived to have a “jam band” in the vein of the instrumental songs of Black Flag and other SST artists. Brandt Sandeno stuck with the drums while Justin Trosper went back to his previous role as a bass player with Green on guitar. A couple fun sessions happened, that sometimes sounded like Black Flag but more like the guitar player from NOU and some Unwound dudes. A few days later Unwound went on their long way back home to Olympia, WA. After NOU broke up, Green packed up, went west and settled in Olympia where Sandeno and Trosper lived. Sandeno had since left Unwound but he and Trosper were always looking for an excuse to play together. Since there was so much free creativity and time bouncing around in 1993 Olympia, the Young Ginns idea was easily reborn in the Red House basement where Green lived and was building up his next studio. Teenaged San Diego transplant Brett Frost decided that the band needed a frontman after witnessing a few practices and wiggled his way into the fold. A couple of local shows and a recording session at the Red House led to a malt liquor and nyquil-fueled west coast tour with a 7-inch record fresh off the presses from Gravity records (release #3) of San Diego. The return to Olympia saw the band writing and rehearsing a couple more new tunes and a recording with Pat Maley at Yo-Yo studios in the Capitol Theater in Olympia. The band split up shortly after as everyone decided to pursue other endeavors. Ironically, the band started as a pretty casual tribute jam band but it burned hotter and brighter like a typical hardcore band with Frost as the wild frontman. What began as a math rock fantasy transformed into a punk rock nightmare. Unwound continued recording and touring throughout the ’90s and Green started several bands, most notably the Fucking Champs. He had a successful recording career with his own studio in Northern California that is still going strong. Frost moved on and around, ending up in Brooklyn, NY. Sadly, he died in 2023. Honeybear released a compilation of all the recordings on CD in 1998. This batch was freshly remixed and mastered by Tim Green at Louder Studios in the winter of 2023.) 30.00
V/A - Greasy Mike at the Beatnik Cafe LP (jazzman - Dummy up galaxy, dig? Juiceheads & jambakers, your mazda lama shows; can the lip, turn up the stereo & tune in. Cubes, cheap creeps & graveyards - you bug me like crazy, get your short, fall out to your cave before I fall on you! Now someone blast the edison, I've the sides to spin, juice from the vitamin village and chicks from the hen house; and what's more I got us some thrill pills! Cra-zeee!) 27.00
V/A - Larksong LP (folklore tapes - For the 2023 British Textile Biennial, collaborative artists Nick Jordan and Jacob Cartwright created a new film, Larksong, and textiles installation, in Goodshaw Chapel - a nonconformist Baptist chapel established by textile workers and farm labourers in 1760. With the chapel as a central leitmotif, the film captures the surrounding landscape of cloughs, rivers and moorlands, laced with the remnants and imprints of the textile workers and industries that shaped the environment. The musical score for the film, presented here on 12" record, has been created by musicians and artists David Chatton Barker, Mary Stark, Sam McLoughlin, Bridget Hayden and poetess Emily Oldfield. In addition to traditional instruments; recorders, piano and harmonium, sounds are derived from adapted spinning wheels, music boxes and film projectors. Larksong also features songs they have composed for the film, inspired by 18th century manuscripts from the Larks of Dean choir, and with lyrics from four gravestone inscriptions found in the chapel’s burial grounds. These recordings have been captured during a performance installation in the chapel, alongside experimental explorations in the studio. Field recordings captured in and around the chapel feature the bird calls of lark, curlew and thrush as well as wind through the trees and a trickling well.) 32.00
V/A - When the Frog from the Well Sees the Ocean (Reports from English UFOlklore) LP (folklore tapes - This latest collection from Folklore Tapes borrows its title from a Japanese proverb about knowing one's limitations ("the frog in the well knows nothing of the sea"), which was itself borrowed from a Chinese fable. In the context of an album devoted to UFO lore, of course, humans are the frogs, the infinite universe is the ocean, and the usual eclectic Folklore Tapes cast of characters gleefully devote themselves to celebrating the colorful hoaxes and stories of their countrymen who claim to have experienced a visit from extraterrestrial life. While alien visitations are admittedly a bit outside the usual realm of Folklore Tapes' research, I would be hard pressed to think of a roster of artists better suited to tackle the topic, as just about everyone involved brings a freewheeling playfulness to the theme and surprises abound. This is yet another characteristically brilliant and inspired compilation from the inimitable Folklore Tapes. Hell, it might even be their best yet." - Brainwashed) 30.00
TAPES
ALDI OST - s/t TAPE (phantom - Aldi Ost: the debut of the male-fronted punk discounter. With a likeable, healthy pissed-off quality, the distorted vocals constantly whine their way through the seven songs, over the cutting surf guitar of early Dead Kennedys and a rhythm section that just reigns in hard! FO: sweaty basement shows, dusty bridge shows, awesome guitar playing (not meant solos and stuff like that), hatred of cops, hatred of SUVs! NFFO: Cops in SUVs! Live is the climax when the singer's carotid arteries burst during the last song - so that's kind of how we imagine it! (Bine & Hawk)) 7.00
ISOLATIONSGEMEINSCHAFT - Der Tanz geht weiter! TAPE (phantom - "Rarely have I heard an album that made me want to get my vampire cloak out of the closet and tease my hair. "The Dance Continues!" by Isolationsgemeinschaft is the perfect album for staring lethargically into the void or stomp around until you senseless. With fast lyrics and even faster synthesizers that would make even Depeche Mode green with envy: Perfect for midnight trips to the nearest cemetery with your loved ones." (Richard C.) IG 2022 - even cooler, even more urgent, somehow also more hopeless. the present, the future and generally towards the design of “human beings”.) 7.00
RARAFRE + AM - S/t TAPE (one stop - The quartet RaRaFre+Am - Rafael Cohen, Raquel & Franke Vogl and Amelia Saddington - was a rarity in the D.C. punk scene around the year 2000. The group explicitly pursued a tightly-plotted chamber music, orchestrated for guitar, oboe, accordion and standup bass. Their sound can feel like a contradiction: these densely woven, dirge-like miniatures careen from section to section with a prickly insistence, while at the same time exhibiting a trademark sense of cheeky humor, a lightness to the touch and a brisk, unfused group chemistry that many bands would find enviable. RaRaFre+Am is as fascinating for what they don’t do as for what they do: no drums, for one. And it’s hard to miss how stark these arrangements can be. There’s very little in what you might call dynamics; the players tend towards a direct, unmannered, even mechanical approach that cannot have been an accident. This clockwork playing lends an undeniably expressionistic cast to the works, but therein lies one of the most delicious paradoxes of the group. This music bears many of the hallmarks of fraught angst, yet the mood couldn’t be more relaxed.) 13.00
RENCH'S RIFLES - s/t TAPE (Cohen and Raquel Vogl were all crucial players in a cultural moment that was thrilling to live through, and was often met with confusion and even occasional derision by outsiders. Their overlapping projects, which included El Guapo, Orthrelm, Chrom-Tech, The Cranium, RaRaFre+Am, Quix*o*tic and Meltdown, covered ground from soft electronic lullabies to technically blinding avant-metal, but there’s a common flavor that’s impossible to miss: a sly sense of subversive play, a wink that gives the coiled, jerky guitar lines a bounce. As an avid fan of all their work at the time, it felt as though punk - searing, earnest, anti-so much of life - was suddenly reconfigured as a space of teeming mystery, mossy, crooked strangeness and joyful ambiguity.) 13.00
V/A - Ceremonial County Series Vol.II - Suffolk | Dorset TAPE (folklore tapes - When you’re walking through the leafy corridors of Pipers Vale in Suffolk, you may hear the thundering of horses hooves coming from behind you. When you look around, the noise has vanished and there is nothing to be seen. In the latter half of the 1700s, Margaret Catchpole took this route, fetching help for a gravely unwell individual by riding bareback to Ipswich. Margaret was born in 1762 in the village of Nacton, she spent her life in domestic service, moving from position to position until eventually working for John and Elizabeth Cobbold in 1793. The Cobbolds were a Suffolk brewing family, and Elizabeth was a writer and poet who taught Margaret how to read and write. Margaret worked for the Cobbolds for a number of years until she drifted away, returning only in 1797 to steal John Cobbold’s Strawberry Roan horse.) 13.00
V/A - Ceremonial County Series Vol.I - West Sussex | Cheshire TAPE (folklore tape - Over the course of thirteen years Folklore Tapes have gathered together many like-minded artists, each seeking out new forms to reinterpret our collective past into the present. To celebrate this endeavour, we're gradually unfulring a project to weave the folklore, myth and legend of the 48 counties of England into a patchwork of sonic exploration. 48 FT artists have been commissioned to accompany us on this magnetic pilgrimage, taking us firmly back to our DIY tape origins. We present a 24 month tape subscription series, uniting artists and folklore in a unique and expansive collective project.) 13.00
MAGAZINES
CHRISTOPHER GRADY - Boxy: Volvo 240s FANZINE (This is Leave Home Press #2. BOXY, a photozine dedicated to the Volvo 240. Over 60 photos of Volvo 240s (and maybe a close cousin or two) found and photographed by Gregory Scranton and Christopher Grady between 2019 and 2023. Specifications: 48 pages, full color. 8” x 5.5” First Edition, 125 copies. ) 21.00
KLEENEX / LILIPUT BOOK (In 1986, guitarist Marlene Marder published a German-language diary documenting her time in Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Zurich’s first all-female band. Thrilling Living is proud to offer a lavishly illustrated English-language edition, featuring over 200 images, including fanzines, interviews, flyers, and photographs, and updated with a new introduction and afterword by editor Grace Ambrose and translator Jen Calleja in addition to the original foreword by Greil Marcus. This is the most extensive document of this influential group, unparalleled in its depth and candor. Neither memoir nor scrapbook, but something defiantly in the middle, Kleenex/LiLiPUT is a compelling example of what it looks like to document one’s own life, and all the insights and messiness that entails. This project is an interpretation, a translation, a republication, an attempt to expand and enhance Marlene’s unruly original. First released by Nachbar der Welt Verlag, the publishing imprint that preceded Edition Patrick Frey, Thrilling Living is proud to make this important story accessible in English for the first time. Designed by Conor Lumsden and produced in a one-time edition of 2000 copies, this 288 page, 8.25” x 11.25” book is beautifully offset printed in Belgium by Die Keure.) 50.00
MARK ANDERSEN / MARK JENKINS - Dance Of Days: Two Decades Of Punk In The Nation's Capital BOOK (The story of Washington, DC's creative, politically insurgent punk scene is brought to life by local activist Mark Andersen and arts writer Mark Jenkins in this updated and expanded fourth edition of "Dance Of Days." The nation's capital gave birth to the most fertile and influential punk underground of the '80s and '90s. "Dance Of Days" recounts the rise of trailblazing artists such as Bad Brains, Henry Rollins, Minor Threat, Rites Of Spring, Fugazi and Bikini Kill, while examining the roots of PMA, straight edge, Dischord Records, Revolution Summer, Positive Force, Riot Grrrl and emo. This book provides a window on the hidden history of a grassroots rock revolution that burst into the mainstream in the early ‚90s.) 25.00
