Bis Aufs Messer weekly news 01 Nov 2021
hi. Welcome to another newsletter for November. A couple of new things arrived like for example the amazing new CALENDAR by Tine fetz (makes a beautiful Christmas present), then also the repress of the amazing MICHÈLE BOKANOWSKI – Rhapsodia / Battements Solaires LP, ROPES OF NIGHT - Impossible Space LP, CHAIN WHIP - Demo 2020 LP restock, DAVID BEHRMAN - ViewFinder / Hide & Seek LP on Black Truffle, RYLEY WALKER & DAVID GRUBBS - A Tap On The Shoulder LP, CITY OF CATERPILLAR - discography CD, BATON ROUGE - totem CD and more
Thank you for your support in those difficult times
We are also back on the store MONDAY TIL FRIDAY from 11 °° - 19°° and SATURDAY from 11°° - 18°°
Norman & Robert
mailorder@bisaufmesser.com
www.adagio830-records.bandcamp.com
LP
CHAIN WHIP - Demo 2020 LP (no spirit - back in stock - CHAIN WHIP from Vancouver, Canada released this demo recordings in July 2020 via Bandcamp as well as on a limited tape run. These recordings weren´t originally intended to be released on vinyl as some of the songs have been re-recorded to be released on CHAIN WHIP’s upcoming LP “Two Step To Hell”. Now, No Spirit is doing a one-time pressing of the “Demo 2020” on vinyl with a limited run of 500 pieces.) 15.00
CHIVALA - EP II LP (shove - Chivàla never stops. After their astounding 10 inches split with Suirami, their impassioned track on the split tape with Reste and their surprising Saetia cover released in November 2020 the band is coming back with a four tracks EP. Still in their style but with some slight changes Chivàla gives us an EP with more soft-toned songs but as still intense as their previous releases. Take attention to the lyrics that are always something to notice in their music. The themes they address show us one more time that Chivàla are exceptional and kind people. Because behind every band and every songs there are people who live, who fear, and who have feelings. And if there is one thing we can say about Chivàla is that who they are is part of their music. In these pandemic times having the privilege to allow people to have feelings through music is unique and that’s why you have to listen to this feel good four track EP. The Chivàla music give us the sensation to feel human and that feeling is more important than ever. They are not emotional hardcore, they are not screamo, they’re just human being doing incredible music. Is there something else we can ask to a band?) 13.00
DAVID BEHRMAN - ViewFinder / Hide & Seek LP (black truffle - ViewFinder / Hide & Seek, a new release from acclaimed American experimental composer David Behrman, presenting recordings made in collaboration with Jon Gibson and Werner Durand between 1989 and 2020. Last heard from on Black Truffle as part of the collaborative art song/live electronics madness of She’s More Wild, these recordings find Behrman continuing the pioneering work in interactive electronics that have established him as one of the major living experimental composers. Side A presents excerpts from two live realisations of Unforeseen Events (1989), the fourth in a series of pieces focussing on the interactions between instrumental performers and responsive software. Like the classic earlier works in the series, On the Other Ocean (1977), Interspecies Smalltalk (1984) and Leapday Night (1986), Unforeseen Events is an “unfinished composition” in which a computer system listens for and responds to specific pitch cues from an instrumentalist. Performed by the composer on electronics and Werner Durand on soprano saxophone in Berlin in 1989, the first realisation immediately ushers the listener into an environment of long soprano notes, lush, sustained synth harmonies, randomised percussive interjections and distantly burbling arpeggiated patterns. ) 25.00
LAZY LEGS - moth mother LP (tartarus - Portland based shoegaze band, LAZY LEGS‘ “Moth Mother” set a heavy, sullen mood with their sophomore album, Moth Mother. Filled with thick distortion, ghostly vocals and songs that deal with anxiety, trauma and other mental health issues. Lazy Legs is Laura (bass/vocals) and Michael (guitar/vocals), a duo based in Portland, OR. Their sound fluctuates between shoegaze, grunge, slowcore and doomgaze. The two met in Chicago, and after releasing their first EP they began playing shows within the local DIY music scene. Moth Mother is a departure from the band’s previous work, leaning into more raw, darkened territory. Crushing blocks of guitar distortion stand next to calm interludes, all coated by pensive, reverb-laden vocal harmonies. The album strikes a balance between gentle resignation and smothering depression, whilst maintaining a serene sense of catharsis. Songs such as It’s True are emblematic of this feeling, seemingly perfect as the soundtrack to a prom night ending in tears. Recorded entirely in the duo’s home basement studio, Moth Mother offers a dose of lo-fi shoegaze, grunge, slowcore and doomgaze, with big influences from True Widow, Duster and Low.) 17.00
LUGGAGE - Happiness LP (husky pants - restock - Chicago has always had a large contingent of musicians operating on the less-is-more principle. The city’s old bluesmen could imply a whole chord with a single note. Reductionist provocateurs like U.S. Maple or Shellac fought against rock n’ roll bloat. You can even look at the deconstructed compositions of iconic Chicago albums like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and see a definitive attempt at stripping away not just unnecessary adornments, but even some of the supposed load-bearing structural components. In that regard, Chicago trio Luggage serve as model representatives of their city, wielding the standard components of their trade—guitar, bass, drums—while stripping away any hint of excess until they arrive at the most austere manifestation of rock n’ roll: magnets picking up the vibrations of nickel-wound strings, wooden sticks striking polymer skins, laconic sung-spoken vocals. And on their fourth album Happiness, Luggage offer up their starkest work yet.) 26.00
MICHÈLE BOKANOWSKI – Rhapsodia / Battements Solaires LP (éditons mego - Embossed cover artwork, incl. printed inner sleeve - Michèle Bokanowski's art is one of densities, much like the density of a given colour, a given depth. Her sound textures are, indeed, profound, both in the space occupied by their frequencies and the sharp temporal trail they leave behind. Here lies the composer's immense talent that finds the right development for each sound, letting it blossom before altering it, adapting the musical structure to let the sounds “be”, even if it sometimes means returning to the most basic form, such as a loop. This is a sign of great honesty and artistic sensitivity; able to stand back and let the music become music. It is the most radical, the most accurate gesture of composition. The two pieces on this record, dissociated in time, both in their approach and destination, nevertheless reflect, each in its own way, Michèle Bokanowski's highly singular and insightful musical intuition. - François Bonnet, Paris, 2020 Additional photo by Robert Cahen) 23.00
PHILL NIBLOCK - Exploratory I LP (Materie - A new masterful work of Phill Niblock: EXPLORATORY One of the most beautiful and powerful works that Phill Niblock has ever offered to us! Phill reinvents and probes the oceans of drone music possibilities deeper than ever. This piece has been performed and recorded for over a year by many great musicians around the world, under the supervision and direction of Phill. Arditti String Quartet, David Watson, Lucy Railton, Phoenix Ensemble Basel, David Maranha, Ben Richter, David First, Andre Goncalves, and many more. Matière Mémoire is now bringing the first two volumes to you By Arditti String Quartet, David Watson & Phoenix Ensemble Basel.) 28.00
PHILL NIBLOCK - Exploratory II LP (materie - A new masterful work of Phill Niblock: EXPLORATORY - One of the most beautiful and powerful works that Phill Niblock has ever offered to us! Phill reinvents and probes the oceans of drone music possibilities deeper than ever. This piece has been performed and recorded for over a year by many great musicians around the world, under the supervision and direction of Phill. Arditti String Quartet, David Watson, Lucy Railton, Phoenix Ensemble Basel, David Maranha, Ben Richter, David First, Andre Goncalves, and many more. Matière Mémoire is now bringing the first two volumes to you By Arditti String Quartet, David Watson & Phoenix Ensemble Basel.) 28.00
RIAH / POSTVORTA - Rhiapstvrt LP (shove .- Longtime friends Riah and Postvorta had to stop their live activities due to the pandemic. In this context they decided to join their ideas in a long suite melting the two bands’ souls, dreamy and ambient the former, heavy and aggressive the latter. The result is a 16-minutes long track inspired by and illustration that then became the split cover art (by Davide Brioschi), merging post-rock, post-metal and soundtrack-like avant-garde. The release is completed by one extra song per band that has never been released on physical format. The tracks are “Epidermide” by Riah, first recording with the band’s new three-guitar line-up, and “Hollow” by Postvorta.) 14.00
ROPES OF NIGHT - Impossible Space LP (golden antenna - Impossible Space is the debut full-length by Cologne based post punk band ROPES OF NIGHT. After the band parted ways with their former singer bass player Thomas Schindler took over vocal duties. The band crafted nine songs in a matter of a few months and recorded them amidst the first wave of the 21st century’s great plague. The album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Andy Rosczyk (also a member of ULTHA) at his Goblin Sound Studio (Cologne). The band’s sound revolves around early eighties European and American post punk, while adding a contemporary flavor to it. This is not a new band trying to sound old — they sound like a band that has been around forever and now decided to craft a first record. Fellow musician and friend of the band Ryan Patterson (FOTOCRIME / COLISEUM) said the following about Impossible Space: “It has that great, comforting sound of something that immediately feels like it’s familiar and welcoming, while also being new and exciting.” ) 21.00
RYLEY WALKER & DAVID GRUBBS - A Tap On The Shoulder LP (husky pants - You never know when that tap’s going to come. How about now? (Not for you to decide.) Or exactly what it means—except in the aftermath. Mutual admiration society and David Grubbs and Ryley Walker had been taking notes on one another’s playing for some time before they hit the stage together on a couple of blistering occasions immediately pre-pandemic. (One of these live sets was released earlier this year as Fight or Flight Simulator on Café OTO’s Takuroku label.) Studio sessions were clearly in the cards, and the result is A Tap on the Shoulder, a collection of duo performances that veers from crystalline instrumental compositions (“A Tap on the Shoulder,” “Accepting Most Plans,” “Dorothy Kept”) to animated alien chatterfests (“Leslie Steinberger”), and from ecstatic extrapolations charging this way and that (“Pump Fake on the Death Rattle,” “The Madman from Massachusetts in an Empty Bar”) to, I don’t know, words don’t do the trick (“Uglification”). Don’t think for a second that these shorthand descriptions suffice. Electric guitars make electronic music. Ryley’s hellion musical fearlessness lights a fire under the more typically Apollonian, chess-masterly Grubbs. What’s good for the geezer is good for the, etc. And where the duo’s live performances thus far have been set-length juggernauts, A Tap on the Shoulder toggles effortlessly between microscope, telescope, and Cinemascope, letting the smallest of gestures land in all of its sonic specificity before opening the scene up to disorienting panoramas. Listen to A Tap on the Shoulder in the context of Ryley’s glorious Course in Fable; listen to it in the context of Grubbs’s playing with Loren Connors, Jim O’Rourke, Taku Unami, and others; or listen to it as if you’ve never heard note one from these soulful odd birds, the two of them curiously, quixotically committed to working inside and beyond song form. ) 26.00
RYLEY WALKER - Course In Fable LP (husky pants - ‘Course In Fable’ is the fifth LP by Ryley Walker. The LP takes its inspiration from the glut of experimental and highly creative bands - Gastr Del Sol, Tortoise, The Sea and Cake - active in 1990s Chicago, Walker’s home city. If you can imagine those bands fronted by Ryley Walker’s jazz-flecked folk then you’re pretty much there. For authenticity Ryley Walker hired John McEntire of Tortoise to produce the LP. ) 25.00
SATON - ni'in LP (shove - ni’in: a word that originates from a Mexican indigenous language meaning “to find oneself”; a word with a strong meaning that unifies the various feelings and sensations through the album, from “Ver Desvanecer” that sings about the feeling of lacking personal success, to “Qomata” that speaks about the acceptance of oneself in a chaotic yet beautiful manner; a constant and long path to define yourself and ourselves as a musical contingent. The production like the songs, the songs like the times we’re living, the times we’re living like “ni’in”, they confront us, they redefine ourselves and put us on the way towards a clearer phase for Satón. ffo: storm{o}, joliette, gillian carter, converge, daughters, touche amore) 14.00
SEE MORE GLASS - Running LP (no spirit - SEE.MORE.GLASS is a post-punk, new wave band from Hamburg formed in 2014 and influenced by bands like “early” THE CURE, NEW ORDER or INTERPOL. Their first EP “tomorrow” was released in 2016 and we did a second edition on cassette in 2018, both are sold out. In summer 2019 the band recorded eight tracks for their first LP “running” at the Off Ya Tree Studio in Hamburg. “running” is a dark, atmospheric record, much more complex than the “tomorrow” recordings and every song stands for itself. The idea of the record was to create something that sounds like an old movie soundtrack.) 15.00
SELF DECONSTRUCTION - how many h8 can u feeling? LP (shove - Freestyle Grindcore / Powerviolence band from Tokyo, Japan formed in 2010. This release is a discography of early Self Deconstruction releases out between 2012 and 2016.) 14.00
SOW DISCORD - quiet earth LP (tartarus - Quiet Earth is the first full length offering from David Coen AKA Sow Discord. After a series of EPs, split releases, and compilation features on various labels in Australia, the U.S.A and Germany and an impressive catalog of remixes for The Body, My Disco, No Statik and RAKTA. Sow Discord is a cavernous, bass heavy unrelenting sonic animal, born from a dense, complex and hyper detailed construction of samples, explosive kick drums, guitars and junk percussion, that are constantly changing shape, imploding and turning themselves inside out, creating entirely new landscapes from within and around themselves. At times it is like watching a building crumble in slow motion, being fully aware of every small fragment of dust and debris suspended in the air before it hits the ground, settling only briefly to rebuild itself and evolve into something even more ominous and foreboding.) 17.00
CD
MARINA ROSENFELD - Index CD + BOOK (room40 - Matte laminated and embossed CD with insert card plus 32 page book featuring an in conversation between Marina Rosenfeld and Lawrence English, and archival photographs and other materials. For over two decades, New York-based artist and composer Marina Rosenfeld has pioneered a specific language for turntable music, based on an ever-expanding collection of dub plates she creates. The dubplate is a one-off, hand-cut record. Each dubplate can be made to contain any array of sounds decided on by its creator. For Rosenfeld, her discovery of the dubplate in the late 1990s was a pivotal moment, when she recognised the material instability of the medium as critical tool for performance and composition. On Index, the investigation of this materiality is paramount. The physical intimacy that colors the relation between the hand and the plate is revealed through a very particular reading of the turntable, one which sits in parallel to the more recognised ways in which that technology has been deployed as a performative tool. This edition features a series of live recordings and related materials that trace the development of Rosenfeld’s tactile approach and her shifting collection of sound materials. The recordings are published alongside a book featuring extensive archival documentation, photography and a long-form conversation between Marina Rosenfeld and Lawrence English.) 26.00
CD
BATON ROUGE - Totem CD (Long Arms - 4/5 of Daitro started a new band a couple years ago and what we got is Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge plays great melodic emo rock mixed w/ a raw noisy edge like Unwound meets a little Hot Snakes and Twelve Hour Turn. These 9 new songs are even more catchy then on the one before – so it was worth waiting two years. This record has potential to be a timeless classic.) 12.00
CITY OF CATERPILLAR - Discography 2CD (long arms. 2CD that sums up the career of City Of Caterpillar that is the existence that represents US EMO of the 2000s is released from 3LA in the form of the complete edition discography! The period of City Of Caterpillar's activity was short, 2000-2003, but they established their own sound that expresses beauty in the dynamics of stillness and movement and intense hardcore as originality while inheriting the essence of the important band of the dawn of the underground at that time, Indian Summer, Portraits of Past, Maximillian Colby, Sleepytime Trio, etc. in the 1990's, and became a big influence on Screamo/Post-Hardcore after the 2000's. Even after their inactivity, the members have played in Pg. 99, Malady, Majority Rule, Darkest Hour, and various other bands (some of which were working in parallel) that have contributed significantly to shaping the scene. Although there are many long songs, they are not redundant, but express a fantastic world while changing the scenery little by little, and at the same time, the ensemble of sound with a sense of breakdown and intense passion, the way in which the emotions that can be called "passion" itself explode is overwhelming even now, and both past and present songs have been mastered and reconstructed with a sound quality that does not feel uncomfortable. This album will not only revisit their history, but it will also be a different sound source for listeners who have come into contact with the band for the first time, as well as those who have come into contact with the band's music in the past.) 18.00
ICTUS - Complete Discography / Ictus 2CD (long legs - Neo-crust band from Galicia, Spain, formed in 2004.) 18.00
TAPE
BIJOU IGITT - Jetzt Auch Als Podcast TAPE (no spirit - The new BIJOU IGITT EP is titled “Jetzt auch als Podcast!” and comes as a colorful work of art with hand-painted labels. On the cassette itself there are 8 clever Deutschpunk songs that describe the general madness of our society today and attack the wannabe alternative comfort bubble.) 6.00
LOST SNIVEL - Further Down The Sprora TAPE (Mysterious new output by Lost Snivel. Music that sounds recorded live, but maybe is not live at all. It's a bit of a noise piece, which uses the output signal of a faulty DAT tape it seems, being fed through a bunch of sound effects. This is nothing that goes over the top very much, in terms of noise that is, but it's nevertheless quite a fine piece of, that word again, decent experimentalism. Out on Finnland's Hyster.) 5.00
PAROLE 80 - Demo TAPE (no spirit - Parole 80 is a four piece Punk-Band out of Vienna. Their style can be considered as a combination of early 80s UK-Punk and rough Oi-Punk. Most of the songs have croation lyrics which gives their music a raw sound. The demotape includes five songs recorded in autum 2019.) 6.00
MAGAZINES
WIRE #453 | November 2021 MAGAZINE (Inside this issue: On the cover: Klein: The South London musician, vocalist, playwright, game designer and film maker generates uncanny resonance via collage and subversion in new film Care and album Harmattan. By Abi Bliss. The Primer: Horace Tapscott & The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: A user’s guide to the recorded legacy of the prolific US pianist, composer, bandleader, organiser and activist. By Francis Gooding. Black Dice: After almost a decade dormant the joyfully elastic noise trio make their return with a new album of effervescent edits and psychedelic humour. By Marc Masters. Invisible Jukebox: Alan & Sir Richard Bishop: The erstwhile Sun City Girls bask in the rays of a mystery record selection. Tested by each other. Anthony Wood 1948–2021: The Wire’s founder has died. Obituary by Tony Herrington Tara Clerkin Trio: Homemade fusion from the Bristol group. By Clive Bell L'Rain: Taja Cheek processes the past via evocative sonic collage. By Claire Biddles Mazaher: The Zãr tradition handled with care by the Egyptian ensemble. By Louis Pattison Magda Mayas: Berlin based pianist gets graphic and tactile. By Peter Margasak Global Ear: Artists in the Texas Llano Estacado flatlands embrace the stark landscape. By Josh Feola Unlimited Editions: We Jazz Unofficial Channels: The Heat Warps The Inner Sleeve: Midori Takada on Toru Takemitsu’s Corona Epiphanies: Conny Plank and Holger Czukay teach Youth to embrace his mistakes The Wire Tapper 57: A track by track guide to this issue’s free CD) 8.00
MISC
TINE FETZ - Places Berlin 2022 CALENDAR (Places Berlin 2022 calendar with Icon, Knaack-Klub, Spreepark, Halle Weißensee, Tape Club and more....Art by Tine Fetz Texts by Daniel Schneider) 20.00
