Bis Aufs Messer weekly news 02 October 2024
Hi, welcome to another newsletter for October - a bunch of cool restocks arrived like a lot of Dischord Restocks, the PENFOLD - Amateurs & Professionals LP is back in stock, SLANT 6 - Soda Pop*Rip Off LP repress, APHEX TWIN - Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition) 4xLP restock, THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK - The Iliad and the Odyssey and the Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick LP, ANNA BUTTERSS - Mighty Vertebrate LP, KMRU - Temporary Stored II DLP, OLD SAW - Country Tropics (Meridian Edition) DLP, THE SECRET STARS - s/t LP, TUCKER ZIMMERMANN - Dance of Love LP and more
We also started taking pre orders for the upcoming KARATE LP and HIGH VIS LP which should ships asap.
On October 24th we also will celebrate our 18th Anniversary … so keep the date … more infos etc soon.
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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LP
75 DOLLAR BILL LITTLE BIG BAND - Live At Tubby's DLP (grapefruit - At the beginning of March, just as the first signs of the COVID-19 pandemic were starting to appear in the Northeast, Rick and I did a short run of shows in Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, and the Hudson Valley. We ended the tour at Tubby’s in Kingston, NY, which turned out not only to be the last show of the tour, but our last show for the foreseeable future. Amherst College had completely shut down its campus within days of our concert there, and New York City’s infection rate started exploding shortly after we returned home. There’s a bittersweetness to these recordings in this context. People have lost their lives, their livelihoods--which is certainly true of many musicians and “gig workers” we know--and we’re often cut off from the ones we love. No one really knows how long it’ll be before live shows will be able to happen again. And while I’m heartened by all the ways that people are finding to stay connected and keep music alive online, listening to this recording really brings home all of the reasons that playing music with people that I love, in a room full of people who are vibing off that energy and projecting it back at us, is so important to me. ) 32.00
ANNA BUTTERSS - Mighty Vertebrate LP ('Mighty Vertebrate' is the International Anthem leader debut from Adelaide, Australia-born bassist and composer Anna Butterss. Butterss has steadily become a first-call for tour and studio work since moving to Los Angeles (after a stint in Bloomington, Indiana) in 2014. They’ve racked up credits with notables across the indie, jazz, and pop worlds alike – including Makaya McCraven, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Isbell, Andrew Bird, and Daniel Villarreal – but their most notable contributions to the burgeoning West Coast creative music scene have been as a core member of both Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and rising proto-trance supergroup SML, who Pitchfork says “represents the thrilling next phase of a vibrant L.A. community.” ) 32.00
APHEX TWIN - Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition) 4xLP (warp - Expanded 30th anniversary edition includes all songs on all formats for the first time, including the previously vinyl-exclusive track #19 alongside two additional tracks (officially released and on physical formats for the first time). Artwork by Paul Nicholson, the original album and Aphex logo designer. It’s fair to say that a whole generation of ravers grew up with a copy of this album in one of its many forms (there are multiple editions with very slightly different tracklists) but the effect remains the same; a deeply hypnotic sense of déjà entendu, sehnsucht, hiraeth, or whatever you call that feeling when you go to feed a squirrel and it runs away. The bulk of the album’s 27 tracks are shy of AFX’s signature drums, and for that reason, among others, it stands well out from the rest of his catalogue on its own, shivering and ponderous, lost to its own thoughts. All the tracks were originally titled with an image, which makes identifying each one a pain in the arse, and it kills the magic to refer to digits. It’s better grasped in synaesthetic terms, conjuring harmonic sound/image and olfactory/spatial, or whichever sensory short-circuiting feeling that it elicits for those susceptible to such stuff. ) 63.00
BEN FROST - Aurora LP (10th anniversary limited edition on red vinyl. A U R O R A is Ben Frost’s highly anticipated fifth solo release, his first since the widely acclaimed 2009 album BY THE THROAT. A U R O R A aims directly, through its monolithic construction, at blinding luminescent alchemy; not with benign heavenly beauty but through decimating magnetic force. This is no pristine vision of digital music, it is a filthy, uncivilized offering of interrupted future time where emergency flares illuminate ruined nightclubs and the faith of the dancefloor rests in a diesel-powered generator spewing forth its own extinction, eating rancid fuel so loudly it threatens to overrun the very music it is powering.) 30.00
THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK - The Iliad and the Odyssey and the Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick LP (count your lucky stars - It’s hard to believe it's been four years since the debut release of The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty's kick excellent debut "Ways of Hearing." But growth takes time and rather than rush a follow-up album to market to capitalize on their newfound success, the group opted to take their time and focus their efforts at their own pace. It paid off.On their much anticipated sophomore album, ambition is key. The name of the album itself "The Iliad and the Odyssey and the Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" spans a glorious 71 characters and is bound to swallow the screen of whatever device that attempts to display the text. The essence of the album is built upon delicate, pleading vocals that sit atop stirring dynamic movements that seem to move between small and vulnerable to full-on symphonies that are bursting with emotion. "The Iliad and the Odyssey and the Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" will be released by veteran indie label Count Your Lucky Stars (an homage to their first released single of the album) during the dead time when the cold end of winter is transitioning to a hopeful and promising spring- an apt metaphor that seems to encompass the heart of the album.) 28.00
GUIDED BY VOICES – Tonics & Twisted Chasers LP (superior - Originally released in 1996 as a limited fan-club pressing for Rockathon, Guided By Voices' Tonics And Twisted Chasers has always existed as an anomaly in Robert Pollard's vast discography. In many ways, the album serves as the tail of a creative comet that in just two years included the "classic line-up" trilogy of Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, Under the Bushes, Under the Stars and countless singles that crammed endless hooks in their grooves. In the intervening space, Tonics And Twisted Chasers has taken on a mythic status. It's arguably Pollard's strangest, gnarliest, most enlightened record and also the fans first chance to see the stitches that bind his galaxy of songs. It's like peering at the caliber inside a watch, responsible for making the whole enterprise tick.) 30.00
KMRU - Temporary Stored II DLP (ofnot - Edition of 250 copies, gatefold sleeve. When KMRU accessed the sound archive of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, it catalysed an auditory response in the form of the album Temporary Stored. The album listened back to listen forward – to reckon with the collective inheritance of colonial (sound) archives. Temporary Stored II serves as an artistic and curatorial extension of the original album, inviting other artists to lend their critical ear to museum archives holding recordings of African songs, traditions and practices. With KMRU, Aho Ssan, Lamin Fofana, Nyokabi Kariuki and Jessica Ekomane draw upon their listening experiences as global contemporaries navigating a world in flux – ecologically, economically, and politically. Each artist brings a selection of sonic fragments out of dormancy, channelling (in)audible traces into a contemporary cultural and political paradigm) 35.00
MALEGOAT - Plain Infiltration LP (cyls - While the bulk of the Emo Revival happened in the United States through the 2000s and 2010s, Japan held their own renaissance. Leading the charge was Malegoat with their signature twinkly guitars, shouty vocals, and flashy drums. They shared the stage with the likes of Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate)and Braid on their respective Japan tours and even made their way to the US and toured with Algernon Cadwallader during their heyday. ) 28.00
OLD SAW - Country Tropics (Meridian Edition) DLP (2xLP housed in reverse board jacket with metallic silver ink and vellum OBI. Reconfiguring the laments from their debut album, Old Saw distill a wilted and hollow reflection from their original recordings. Lines freshly traced, erased, and reassembled from cassette and reel-to-reel machines, presented here like new writing on an old postcard. Old Saw, the enigmatic New England collective led by Henry Birdsey (Tongue Depressor).) 33.00
OP-ART - The Final Act LP (cititrax - Citirax introduce the debut LP from the Los Angeles-based duo OP-ART, a project born out of the creative isolation of the lockdown era. The band, the brainchild of Andrew Clinco—known for his work with Drab Majesty—was originally named using the acronym “Oblique Pleasures Amidst Rough Times,” a nod to the challenging times that inspired its formation. In Andrew’’s own words, the album “represents a sonic analog to the visual art movement of the 1960s,” meaning it is both densely layered and psychedelic, yet aims to capture a sense of minimalism in its tradition, theory, and conceptual approach. OP-ART’s sound is heavily influenced by the New Wave genre, drawing inspiration from artists such as John Foxx, Martin Dupont (with whom Andrew has collaborated on a track), Experimental Products, and early OMD. True to their commitment to authentic analog sound, OP-ART eschews digital plug-ins in favor of a wide array of analog synthesizers and outboard rack effects units. The album features a diverse collection of synthesizers including the EML 500, Arp Odyssey, Arp Omni2, Jupiter 6, SH-02, SH-101, Moog Rogue, and Roland Promars. Each piece of equipment contributes to the album’s lush, rich soundscapes, creating a tactile and immersive listening experience. The Final Act, the title of the LP, is a testament to the duo’s ability to blend catchy melodies with profound emotional depth. The album offers an introspective journey through themes of time passing, romantic entanglements, and existential reflections on an apocalyptic scale. With its evocative sound and thoughtful lyrics, The Final Act promises to resonate deeply with listeners, making it a compelling and significant debut from OP-ART.) 30.00
PAK YAN LAU & VICA PACHECO - Aquapelagos Vol.3: Pacífico LP (discrepant - After the initial release of the Anthology compilation Aquapelago in 2022 (Discrepant ,CREP91) and the split LP Atlantico by Lagoss & Banha da Cobra (Keroxen, KRXN027) as well as the direct collaboration LP Índico by Mike Cooper & Pierre Bastien we proudly introduce an the third volume in the series in the shape of no other than two inspiring artists, Vica Pacheco and Pak Yan Lau. Two different sound journeys inspired by the majestic and peaceful Pacific Ocean, the vastest, largest and deepest ocean of our planet. Vica Pacheco’s composition takes a calm meditation approach where water flutes and synths brush shoulders to create a ever expanding mind journey whereas Pak Yan Lau’s ambitions Neo classical piece, The Ocean in Us, talks about that grand overwhelming feeling, that vast space deep under, on the bottom of the Pacific. Both compositions were recorded and created with the particular wet acoustics of the Tank in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in mind.) 27.00
PENFOLD - Amateurs & Professionals LP (cyls - Penfold's debut EP/LP, back on vinyl after a very long absence. Includes bonus track, Micropchip. Own the now classic debuted album by emo-pioneers, Penfold. This amazing album changed my musical landscape as a youth, and we are very, very honored to be able to release this on vinyl. Vinyl includes the bonus track, Microchip
Note: The vinyl is an A-Side/B-Side and the color combination (Blue Jay and Electric Blue) kinda morphed into one blue color. Sometimes that happens!) 28.00
RAT HENRY - Material Pop Volume One LP (minimum table - Debut LP by Brooklyn, NY's Rat Henry. After a couple of self released cassettes and a stint as a full band live concern featuring some of the cream of NYC punk, Ray Zarnowitz's Rat Henry project has gestated and bloomed into its most complete form with Material Pop Vol. 1. This record weaves lessons well-learned from the modern American noise underground, the loamy heritage of UK DIY, and punk as lifestyle/vocation into a strikingly personal statement. The comparisons that will form in the mind of the astute listener - This Degenerate Little Town as a mail collaboration between Jim Shepard and Storm Bugs, Afterbathinginturpentine with cutting social critique in the place of dilaudid fog, a production of Bad Lieutenant held on the Street Level Studios soundstage with Pierpaolo Zoppo heading the AV crew - are rendered secondary in light of Ray's vision. Material Pop Vol. 1 wields genuinely idiosyncratic songcraft and rock and roll joie de vivre like corrosive agents, eating away at the tape loop sediment encasing its songs, and at the indignities of modern urban existence. - Daniel Dimaggio, Home Blitz) 28.00
REFRIGERATOR - Get Lost LP (grapefruit - The fifteenth record by Refrigerator marries the two worlds that the band has come to be known for, the wild improvisational strings caught by drums on a vocal harmony and that of their minimal torch song balladering. The core line up for over thirty years of Chris Jones on drums and the Callaci brothers remains intact, as does bass player Daniel Brodo's bass playing which has been a part of the Refrigerator sound for over twenty five years. Joined on the previous record, 2021's So Long to Farewell by Wckr Spgt guitarist Mark Givens, the five piece's dual guitar attack is on full display on side one of the new record Get Lost, sky clearing for a more studied, quieter side two that features saxophone and trombone, a live to one track recording and Mott the Hoople heartache. Recorded once again by Steve Folta, the new record book ends the band's previous effort both audibly and visually as Jean Smith's previous cover art gives way to Jad Fair's work for the sleeve of the new record. This is a limited edition vinyl pressing to be followed by a CD and some sort of wind up nickel and dime tin can string version in the years to come.) 32.00
THE SECRET STARS - s/t LP (shrimper - The Secret Stars debut was a cassette-only release issued by Shrimper Records in 1995. Geoff Farina and Jodi Leo would recorded two more full-length releases on Shrimper in the mid to late ’90s along with some seven-inch singles and scattered tracks. Geoff Farina would continue to write and record both solo and in the band Karate. Leo has recorded some solo records in the years since The Secret Stars disbanded. This reissue of the first cassette has never sounded so good. It has been painstakingly mastered from the original cassette by Carl Saff.) 28.00
SLANT 6 - Soda Pop*Rip Off LP (dischor d- Red Translucent Vinyl. Slant 6's first full-length album, released in 1994. This 12" LP has been remastered by TJ Lipple. It features a free MP3 download, which includes the 13 original album tracks plus three extra songs from the "What Kind of Monster Are You?" 7".) 23.00
STILL HOUSE PLANTS – Fast Edit LP (Bson - Still House Plants present their second LP FAST EDIT. Cultivated over the course of 2019, the album switches the combativeness of previous releases for bare intimacy. FAST EDIT is a palette of qualities and curdled headspaces. Now living far apart and coming together only for intense periods of shows and touring, the band have come to rely on an archive of mp3s (quick recall overtakes stable long term memory). Written on mobile phones, dictaphones, and laptops, FAST EDIT cuts rehearsals and schemas with tight, raucous tracks. This is most tenderly at play on ‘Shy Song’ – a cut'n’chase piece, in which all sounds are ghosts of another. ‘PredikateD’ is a phone on the ground: the voice is air, the guitar and drums meld with the plywood and sand-bag structure, the seams exposed. The taste of the record is captured in an intervention written for the cancelled 2020 edition of Glasgow’s Counterflows Festival by Frances Morgan: ‘How do you think we should do this? The song does something different now, puts the other foot forward. How do you know when it’s done? End on a verb and it becomes a command: run! Towards the next thing. Do – towards the next thing to be done.’) 30.00
TASTE 番⻑ - I Dipped My Comb In Shochu And Ran It Through The Hair Of The Night LP (carbon - I dipped my comb in shochu and ran it through the hair of the night is the brand new release from the intriguing trio 番長 Taste, consisting of Mark Anderson (Greymouth/Mysteries of Love, New Zealand), Anthony Guerra (Love Chants/Mysteries of Love, Australia) and mysterious rocker ‘Mariyo’ (Japan). The name 番長 is pronounced ‘Bancho’, so the band name is Bancho Aji/Taste. This release consists of 12 tracks, 6 tracks from the Carbon CD release Summer Nights, 2 tracks from the I Dischi Del Barone 7”, and 4 BRAND NEW UNRELEASED tracks! This is raw no-wave, free-noise awesomeness. Like if DNA did a surf record, and so perfectly crude, it makes Smashchords sound like Emerson Lake & Palmer in comparison.) 32.00
TUCKER ZIMMERMANN - Dance of Love LP (4AD - Tucker Zimmerman is probably one of the best-kept secrets of folk music - a giant of the genre known only to those who are truly initiated. His biggest fans included David Bowie and Tony Visconti. Unfortunately, Zimmerman never achieved worldwide fame, and he released music in the shadow of the greats. Nevertheless, he achieved a certain cult status, especially in music circles. The US band Big Thief describes him as one of their greatest role models, which is why the band contacted him to encourage him to record a new album together. The result is "Dance Of Love", which will be released on October 11th on 4AD, was written by Zimmerman and recorded and produced by Big Thief. "It was an incredible honor to make a record with him," says Big Thief. "We believe in this music with all our hearts and hope that it will be fun." With "Dance Of Love", Tucker Zimmerman shows himself to be a master of his craft and delivers an impressive late work.) 27.00
TAPES
KARATE - Make It Fit TAPE Pre order (Numero - SHIPS AROUND MID OCTOBER. The first new music from the post-emo trio in two decades. Out of the brain of Geoff Farina spills 10 new tales from their unlikely reunion, tracked with long-time Karate collaborator Andy Hong. Make It Fit crams 35 minutes of Wes Montgomery homage, Fugazi dub plate party rocking, Lynott lyricism, and Clash city crooning into a graceful seventh album.) 16.00
PAUL K & THE WEATHERMEN - Corpus TAPE (shrimper - WAREHOUSE FIND. Paul Kopasz was a prolific, under-heralded American singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, interpreter, and intellectual. Amazing Grace, When the Saints go Marching in, they were all clichés until I heard them at that funeral.Lo-Fi indierock from 1995.) 16.00
POLKADOT - ...To Be Crushed TAPE (cyls - Polkadot's CYLS debut LP "...to be crushed" oozes sincerity and charm in spades. On their sophomore album, the band alternates between a flurry of bright crunchy riffs to moments of subtle dynamics that really highlight the sincere and poignant vocals. It feels like there was a sense of urgency here, like the band knew they struck gold and couldn't stop until the vein was mined dry.) 15.00
CD
APHEX TWIN - Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition) 3xCD (warp - Expanded 30th anniversary edition includes all songs on all formats for the first time, including the previously vinyl-exclusive track #19 alongside two additional tracks (officially released and on physical formats for the first time). Artwork by Paul Nicholson, the original album and Aphex logo designer. It’s fair to say that a whole generation of ravers grew up with a copy of this album in one of its many forms (there are multiple editions with very slightly different tracklists) but the effect remains the same; a deeply hypnotic sense of déjà entendu, sehnsucht, hiraeth, or whatever you call that feeling when you go to feed a squirrel and it runs away. The bulk of the album’s 27 tracks are shy of AFX’s signature drums, and for that reason, among others, it stands well out from the rest of his catalogue on its own, shivering and ponderous, lost to its own thoughts. All the tracks were originally titled with an image, which makes identifying each one a pain in the arse, and it kills the magic to refer to digits. It’s better grasped in synaesthetic terms, conjuring harmonic sound/image and olfactory/spatial, or whichever sensory short-circuiting feeling that it elicits for those susceptible to such stuff. ) 28.00
MISC
TINE FETZ & DANIEL SCHNEIDER - Places 2025 CALENDAR (Diesmal haben wir mal was Neues ausprobiert und uns mit den Machern des Buches BITTE LEBN zusammengetan. Gemeinsam haben wir für den neuen Kalender 12 Orte ausgewählt, die nicht einfach nur für Berliner Sub- und Clubkultur stehen, sondern auch Symbole für den Kampf um eine lebenswerte Stadt für alle oder bedeutende Spots der Graffiti- und Urban-Art-Szene waren (und z.T. auch immer noch sind) – vor allem Freiräume, die durch Kunst und Protest entstanden sind, sowie alternative Projekte und Clubs im Fokus. Mit dabei sind u.a. das Mensch Meier, die Liebig 34, die Klappe am Mehringdamm, die Autobahnbaustelle A100 oder das ehemalige Geisterhaus am Herrmannplatz.) 25.00
