Bis Aufs Messer weekly news 01/04 2021
Hi. Welcome to the first newsletter for April. A couple new records arrived like EMBRYO - Embryo's Rache LP re issue, GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR - G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! LP+10“, PLUGPOINT MUSIC - Last Chance LP, FELICIA ATKINSON - Echo LP, WILLIAM DOYLE - Great Spans of Muddy Time LP (col. vinyl), KJETIL MULELID - Piano LP, DRY CLEANING - New Long Leg LP, LUCA YUPANQUI - Sounds Of The Unborn LP, EMMA RUTH RUNDLE - Marked For Death LP restock … a bunch of restock also came in
We also received the PIGEON test press and sounds amazing!!!! More infos coming soon. We are also down to the last handful copies of the LIIEK LP, the colored OSTSEETRAUM and the colored GHOST BAG LP.
Also had our first BIS AUFS MESSER Session - check it out if you haven’t. More to come!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I27EDJr5rQ
Thank you for your support in those difficult times
Norman & Robert
www.adagio830-records.bandcamp.com
LP
AESOP ROCK AND TOBACCO ARE MALIBU KEN - Malibu Ken LP (col. vinyl) (Aesop Rock has been credited as one of the most verbose MC's in Hip-Hop today. Known for his dense and abstract wordplay, he manipulates language to illustrate elaborate stories and difficult concepts with sharp clarity. TOBACCO is also recognized as Black Moth Super Rainbow. Known for working with pre-digital electronic instruments like analog synths and tape machines, he crafts distorted, experimentalist beats that intertwine feelings of tension and anxiety with sensations of bemusement and pleasure. Together, Aesop Rock and TOBACCO are Malibu Ken.) 25.00
ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD & ADRIAN YOUNGE - Jazz Is Dead 6 - Gary Bartz LP (The shadow that Gary Bartz casts over the last six decades of progressive Black music, and his continued dedication to same, makes him a logical and very welcome contributor to the Jazz Is Dead label. An alto saxophonist steeped in the history and tradition of his instrument who is also restlessly experimental and not prone to purism of any kind, he enjoys both the respect and admiration of his peers and the hero worship of several generations after him – including Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, which inevitably led to Gary Bartz JID 006. A look at his body of work reveals dalliances with bebop, hard bop, free jazz, spiritual jazz, soul jazz, jazz-funk, fusion and acid jazz, all while resolutely remaining unmistakably Gary Bartz. There's early work with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner in Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop, work with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, a stint in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also one with Miles. There's his groundbreaking and highly influential Ntu Troop albums of the early ‘70s and his jazz-funk work including two classic albums with the Mizell Brothers, one of which supplied A Tribe Called Quest with a sample that was smooth like butter. And while on the subject of samples, the Bartz catalog has provided hip-hop and other genres with a rich source of them, and artists who have gone to his well when producing beats also include Black Sheep, Jurassic 5, Casual, RPM, Warren G, Photek, Statik Selektah, Chi-Ali, 3rd Bass, Showbiz, Z-Trip, Young Disciples, and many others. The socio-political content of much of Bartz’s work, particularly during the early ‘70s, is another factor that has captured the attention of and influenced many. He was wide awake to the pressing issues of his day, which sadly haven't changed much in a half-century—long before the term "woke" was ever coined—which adds continued relevance and resonance to albums like the two Harlem Bush Music LPs. Speaking his mind and expressing thoughts and feelings lyrically and vocally were a consistent aspect of his work during this era, but even with all this there's always still a space within Gary's oeuvre for the celebration of simple and beautiful basic truths. ) 28.00
CRYPTS - Coven Of The Dead LP (tcm -Take no prisoners! CRYPTS from germany deliver very true old school deathmetal, no gimmicks, no intros, pure and simple stripped down end of the 80s style. Without any exaggeration you can name Morgoth, early Entombed, Hail Of Bullts or Autopsy as comparisons – technically fit, great songwriting, a fantastic singer, who, if i can believe the band, growls even in normal conversations. This record has the power to raise the dead and everyone who has more than three OSDM records in their posession will probably adore COVEN OF THE DEAD) 15.00
DRY CLEANING - New Long Leg LP (4AD - Dry Cleaning - the South London group of Nick Buxton (drums), Tom Dowse (guitar), Lewis Maynard (bass) and Florence Shaw (vocals) - will release their debut album New Long Leg The 10-track long-player, which includes ‘Strong Feelings’ and last year’s single ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’, was recorded over two weeks last summer at Rockfield Studios in rural Wales with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding). Following on from their thrillingly taut 2019 EPs Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks and Sweet Princess, New Long Leg is more ambitious and complex, with Shaw’s spoken vocals tightly intertwined with the band’s restless instrumentals. With lyrics preoccupied by themes like dissociation, escapism, daydreaming, complicated feelings of love, anger, revenge, anxiety, the kitchen, lethargy, forgetfulness, and survival, Shaw says, “the title is ambiguous; a new long leg could be an expensive present or a growth or a table repair.”) 22.00
EMBRYO - Embryo's Rache LP (Despite being released in 1971, only a year after Embryo's 1970 debut (MIR 100706LP), Embryo's Rache shows the band progressing significantly toward the ethnic/world-rock fusion that would come to be their stock in trade. Though still firmly in the jazz/Krautrock realm, the album contains deep Eastern flourishes that separate it from the standard progressive crowd.) 27.00
EMBRYO - Opal LP (Ohr - A new reissue of Embryo's Opal, originally released in 1970. Miles was right, Embryo was more than a unique experience. While talking with Charlie Mariano (the saxophone player was one of the most impressive collaborator of the German band) one day he stated: "Embryo -- they are these crazy creative musicians playing really weird stuff." When you get the blessing from the prince of darkness itself, nothing can go wrong, so here's the story. Opal was the beginning of all things to come, the record was released in 1970 and licensed by pioneering early Berlin rock/jazz/experimental music label Ohr. It was quite a shock! Forget about your kosmische debris and sought-after kraut rock genetics, this was pure and mind bending (heavy) psychedelia, the kind Mr. Julian Cope would have killed for. The long stretching "People From Out The Space" -- seven minutes plus of outstanding jam -- was sitting at the end of the album, right after a series of heavy hitting jazz rock numbers. This was the foundation of a whole myth. A cornerstone in European experimental and popular modern composition.) 25.00
EMMA RUTH RUNDLE - Marked For Death LP (sargent house -"Marked For Death" by Emma Ruth Rundle was released for the first time in 2016, and to celebrate Sargent House has pressed a special Three Year Anniversary edition of "Marked For Death“.) 28.00
FELICIA ATKINSON - Echo LP (boomkat - Newly remastered by Rashad Becker for this vinyl edition, ‘Echo’ finds Félicia Atkinson synching her feelings into a watercolour suite of solo keys, voice and field recordings, unfurling 40 minutes of new music that we wager will take your breath away. Félicia was undertaking an artistic residency in La Becque when the plague took hold in Europe at the start of 2020. Stationed with her husband and young child in the small artistic community near Geneva, she wrote this “imaginary garden” of music dedicated to anyone in pain or isolation. The result is a ponderous mix of slow but searching keys, windswept sax, room recordings and sensitively detached but intimate electronic touches that she intended to mirror the solace she came to find and provide a place for reflection for anyone in need. Working from a wooden chalet surrounded by gardens, and particularly one inspired by Derek Jarman’s in Dungeness (created in the years after he learned he had AIDS), Félicia acts as a transducer for quiet energies and the worries of a world where, as she puts it; “basic things… suddenly seemed so crucial and vast; health, disease, plants, nature, solitude, family, people, fear, calm….”. Across six pieces spanning almost 40 minutes, Félicia describes a slow but fleeting passage of time between pruned pieces of sound poetry, uncanny concrete abstractions and broader parts of ambient jazz that recall the vulnerability and fragility of Terre Thaemlitz’s solo piano expressions with her own sort of tactility and blurry ambiguity, especially the 13 minute ‘Lillies’. Around and behind each note you can hear the creak of Félicia’s chair, her breath on the microphone, birds outside - radiating warmth and a wondrous intangibility that’s impossible to express in words, imbuing the listener with a sense of liminality - of existing between worlds. A proper salve for the soul, we tell you.) 28.00
GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR - G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! LP+10“ (constellatuon - GYBE returns with another soundtrack for our times. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: STATE’S END encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s storied discography. Just as STATE’S END summons the gamut of Godspeed’s constituent sonic trademarks, so the album artwork spans the entirety of the band’s visual history: the grainy monochromatic photography of recent releases finds its way onto the inner sleeves, while the gatefold cover art harkens back to the iconic graphics of earlier classic records like Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven. STATE’S END features illustrations by William Schmiechen, with the front cover taijitu flowers and back cover tear gas canisters rendered in raised thermographic black ink on the double-vinyl album jacket. The illuminated cross from Godspeed’s debut F#A#∞ also makes a reappearance on the inside gatefold drawing, in recurrent homage to the electrified hilltop landmark crucifix of the band’s Montréal hometown. STATE’S END was recorded and mixed in Montréal in October 2020 at the group’s homebase studio Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango by Jace Lasek, the veteran award-winning indie producer (and co-founder of The Besnard Lakes) who works with Godspeed for the first time on this recording. Thanks for listening. OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN. (R.I.P. D.H.)) 28.00
KIOVA - Empty Fields & Smoke-Filled Skies LP ("Two years after their debut album “An End in Motion” on Suicide Records (Sweden), Finnish epic post metallers KIOVA are back with new EP ”Empty Fields & Smoke-filled Skies”, showcasing the band’s new vocalist and refreshed mixture of many different subgenres, including crust, post hardcore, and post rock." - idioteq.com) 15.00
KJETIL MULELID - Piano LP (rune - Still only 29 years old when composing and recording this album, Kjetil Mulelid is one of the brightest talents in Norwegian jazz, and these days that really says something. Kjetil was sceptical when we first suggested a solo piano record back in early 2018, fully aware that solo piano in jazz is considered the ultimate challenge. But the idéa slowly grew on him and when the pandemic exploded and other plans had to be scrapped, he suddenly had the time as well as the means to do it. Thus the bulk of the album was written in a hectic lockdown period and recorded on a steaming hot June day in the legendary Athletic Sound studio on their unique and characteristic Bösendorfer grand piano from 1919. Of the piano Kjetil says the sound is one of a kind, very clear and not typically “perfect” like most new ones. We can only wholeheartedly agree, it sounds great and is also very well recorded and mixed, giving the impression that you sit next to him, and not in a concert hall. In turn melancholy, joyful and playful, always elegant, the album fully shows Kjetil’s harmonic and melodic mastery and the influence from early introductions to classical masters like Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven. Whether staying with the tune or taking off on improvised flights, there is an ease and assurance in his playing that betrays his young age. ) 27.00
LON MOSHE & SOUTHERN FREEDOM ARKESTRA - Love Is Where the Spirit Lies DLP (strut - Plunky Branch. “We had met in San Francisco and he had become an original member of JuJu during the early ‘70s. He then wanted to pursue his own music, primarily in jazz; he was an avant-gardist and loved Tribe, Strata-East and Sun Ra.” For his Love Is Where The Spirit Lies album, Moshe drew from musicians within the Black Fire stable. Oneness Of Juju’s Jackie Eka-Ete sang and helped to write songs and members of Southern Energy Ensemble contributed, including their bandleader Marvin Daniels. “The band name, Southern Freedom Arkestra, was a proud declaration that this music was from the U.S. South,” continues Branch. “The civil rights movement had been led from there and the most serious racial animosities resided there. Lon had grown up in Southern Illinois, South of Chicago, and said that the racial oppression was as bad there as in the South. He wanted to fight back through his music and through his own actions. He found a way to bring energy and aggressive to the sweet sound of the vibes. He played with a lot of dynamism and speed. The most celebrated piece on this album, ‘Doin’ The Carvin For Thabo’, is a tribute to his mentor, the drummer Michael Carvin (also known by same as ‘Thabo’) who had played for Motown, with Freddie Hubbard and many more.) 27.00
LUCA YUPANQUI - Sounds Of The Unborn LP (Luca Yupanqui was not yet born when she recorded her debut album. The music on the aptly titled Sounds of the Unborn is the expression of life in its cosmic state — pre-mind, pre-speculation, pre-influence, and pre-human. It is the first album created by a person while they were still inside the womb, the expression of a soul that hasn’t yet seen the light of day nor taken a single breath of air. It is a message that comes from a different realm, a sublayer of our existence. Sounds of the Unborn was made with biosonic MIDI technology, which translated Luca’s in utero movements into sound. With the help of her parents, Psychic Ills bassist Elizabeth Hart and Lee Scratch Perry collaborator Iván Diaz Mathé, Luca’s prenatal essence was captured in audio. They designed a ritual, a kind of joint meditation for the three of them, with the MIDI devices hooked to Elizabeth’s stomach, transcribing its vibrations into Iván’s synthesizers. They let the free-form meditations flow without much interference, just falling deeper into trance and feeling the unity. After five hour-long sessions, the shape of an album began to emerge. Elizabeth and Iván then edited and mixed the results of the sessions, respecting the sounds as they were produced, trying to intervene as little as possible, allowing Luca’s message to exist in its raw form. This cosmic soul summoning created new sounds, striking into uncharted territory for Elizabeth and Iván as musicians. A new language was being created, a new form of communication. It was a music without intellect or intentionality behind it, with no preconception or attempt to create any specific sound or melody. Every note on Sounds of the Unborn occurred naturally. It is human nature to wonder what life is like inside another human being’s consciousness. How does it feel? What does it sound like? All these questions became stronger and more important to Elizabeth and Iván while they were waiting for Luca to come into the world. At a certain point the questions turned into, What would she say if she could speak? How would she react to the outer world? And ultimately, What kind of music would she play if she was able to? This album is an attempt to answer those questions. Elizabeth and Iván mixed the album in 2020. Luca, now an infant, sat in the studio with them while they worked. Her awareness of what was happening was astounding. She would open her eyes wide and stare at her parents, seemingly recognizing her own sounds from the womb, knowing that they were revisiting those rituals that made them come together as one. Those mixing sessions were technically the first time Luca had heard her own music, but her reaction made it clear that that wasn’t really the case — she had already lived it. ) 24.00
NORDSIND - Lys LP (Following the bands EP Efterår and standalone single Dvale, Danish instrumental blackgaze/post rock duo NORDSIND is gearing up to release their debut full length “Lys” through DIY punk/hardcore/post-metal labels Voice of the Unheard, Belladonna Records, Vinyltrolden, Araki, Maniyax and Dingleberry Records.The core of Nordsind has always been storytelling through music. By creating atmospheres of melancholy, joy, calm and sadness, Nordsind strive to be the soundtrack to your daydream. The bands coming album Lys is no exception and as the title suggests, the main inspiration for this album has been light (Lys being the danish word for light). Light both as a physical thing, that can be observed and explained, but also light in an esoteric and spiritual manner. Lys serves as a sonic representation of how the band interprets this.Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, Nordsind has existed since the beginning of 2017 and play instrumental post rock/blackgaze, with big open chords, fast blastbeats and calming melodic parts, that makes thoughts wander and time fly. Since its inception, Nordsind has supported bands like Ghost Bath (US), Møl (DK), Toundra (ESP), LLNN (DK), Birds in Row (FR) and more. Furthermore the band has released an EP in dec 2017 called Efterår and the single Dvale featuring Kim of Throwe on vocals in june 2019. For fans of: Lantlos, We Lost the Sea, Alcest etc.) 20.00
OPPENHEIMER ANALYSIS - New Mexico DLP (minimal wave - Minimal Wave proudly presents a newly remastered deluxe double album of archival material by pioneering 80s minimal electronic duo Oppenheimer Analysis. Oppenheimer Analysis formed in London, England in 1982 by Andy Oppenheimer and Martin Lloyd. Their first meeting though was at the 1979 World Science Fiction Convention in Brighton. They quickly became good friends, sharing an interest in the work of David Bowie, electronic music and early synthesizer bands such as the Human League and Soft Cell. They also shared a love of old science fiction movies, 1950s graphics and comic book imagery and a fascination with post-World War II propaganda, the politics and aesthetics of the Cold War, and the social impact of the atomic bomb. Over the next few years Andy and Martin frequented the growing club scene, including Studio 21 on Oxford Street, and became involved in the developing Futurist and New Romantic style sub-cultures. During this period Martin recorded as Analysis, both alone and with David Rome of Drinking Electricity. They released their first single, “Surface Tension/Connections” on David’s Survival label in 1981. In 1982, Oppenheimer Analysis began writing and recording together at Feedback Studio in Battersea, and performed several times at The Bell, Islington, the 1983 World David Bowie Convention in Hammersmith, the Starzone Birthday Party at Camden Palace, the 1984 European Science Fiction Convention in Brighton and other live venues. Their first demo tape and twelve song “New Mexico” cassette were sold at gigs and by mail-order, and were reviewed in Melody Maker, Sounds and Soundmaker. For the years to follow, Oppenheimer Analysis became recognized among electro-music aficionados as a pioneering duo who influenced countless other bands during the club and home-recording era of the early 1980s and beyond. Their cassettes became massively collectible. In 2005 they re-formed with the release of a self-titled four song 12” EP of selections from the New Mexico cassette, including “Cold War” and “The Devil’s Dancers”. This marked the first release on Minimal Wave. Now in 2015, we’re happy to present the entire New Mexico collection, newly remastered and cut to vinyl for the first time ever, to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. This first edition of 1000 copies is pressed on deluxe ‘nuclear’ style black and white 160 gram vinyl, housed in a glossy gatefold silver and black printed sleeve, featuring all the song lyrics on the inside of the sleeve. First release date: May 16th, 2015. This quintessential reissue has been produced in loving memory of Martin Lloyd. ) 33.00
PLUGPOINT MUSIC - Last Chance LP (minimal wave - Here comes a reissue of a rare self-released record by Plugpoint Music called ‘Last Chance’. Plugpoint Music was the minimal synth project of Reiner Ossmann, who recorded the 12 songs on this album in his home studio in Germany in 1987 and released them as an edition of 200 copies. This gem of a record was never properly distributed and so essentially disappeared until it began circulating amongst underground collectors sometime over the last 15 years. The sound has been compared to the likes of Mort Garson and Cluster. It’s a true minimal synth classic in all of its eccentricity and lack of self-consciousness. The record has been remastered and will be pressed on 180-gram black vinyl as an edition of 500 copies along with a lyric insert sheet.)27.00
VAL SINESTRA - Zerlegung LP (tcm - Don't be fooled – this is not a trip to the swiss alps, no Toblerone and shit! This is Val Sinestra, the Berlin powerhouse, these guys are not into Heidi, they deal with noise, anger, big-city-problems, snot... Fuck Zeitgeist – this is rough and fast and rocky and uncomfortable - this is rock'n'roll like it should be – an idea of against the world, of being the black sheep amoung the flock and feeling great about it. „Zerlegung“ the second album was produced by UK dude Jag Jago, which makes it a real banger! Think of The Bronx meet Clowns form Australia, sung in german. I know, this may be a downer for you english speaking guys, but maybe try something new here. Its worth the time!) 14.00
WILLIAM DOYLE - Great Spans of Muddy Time LP (col. vinyl) It’s difficult to comprehend how William Doyle is still in his twenties. It’s nearing a decade since he handed a CD-R demo to the Quietus co-founder John Doran at a gig, who loved it so much he set up a label to release Doyle’s debut EP (as East India Youth). A debut album, Total Strife Forever, followed in 2014, as did a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize. A year later, Doyle was signed to XL, touring the world and about to release his second album – all by the age of 25. It would be another four years before Doyle returned with his third full album, and the first under his own name (though he self-released four ambient and instrumental projects in the meantime). A work of enormous scope, ambition and detail, 2019’s Your Wilderness Revisited received ecstatic reviews, with Line of Best Fit calling it “a dazzlingly beautiful triumph of intention” and Metro declaring it an album not only of the year, but “of the century”. Great Spans of Muddy Time arrives just over a year later, in spring 2021, as Doyle turns 30. In many ways it is the antithesis to Your Wilderness Revisited: Doyle’s unique exploration of pop, art-rock, ambient and idiosyncratic compositions – married with a voice that deftly glides from tender restraint to soaring peaks – remains, but it’s rawer and less polished now. “It was liberating and felt like a nice tonic to how long the last album took and how much blood, sweat and tears went into it,” he says. ) 25.00
