Bis Aufs Messer Weekly news 03 Feb 2024
Hi. First of all - THANK YOU for showing up last night at the PIGEON / ELEKTROKOHLE show. It was so wonderful to see so many familiar faces. Both bands played a killer set. We are grateful to be a part of this community. So thanks to everyone that showed up, the LARK venue, Andre for coming up with the idea and support, the bands, just everyone. THANK YOU for keeping the spirit up!
On the second note we got a couple of new records & restocks arrived. We got restock of the ALVA NOTO re issues on NOTON, some JULES REIDY restocks, MARIA W HORN & MATS ERLANDSON LP restock, RYO FUKUI restocks, BLUEBOY DLP restock, HYDROPLANE LP restock, AUTOBAHN LP restock, THE MIGHTY CAVALIERS - Mapendo LP, V/A - Searchlight Moonbeam DLP, SPECTRAL VOICE - Sparagmos LP restock, ALEX ZHANG HUNGTAI - Young Gods Run Free LP, ARIEL KALMA / JEREMIAH CHIU / MARTA SOFIA HONER - The Closest Thing to Silence LP, TEAM DRESCH restocks, THE NECKS - Travel DLP restock, various JOHN ZORN restocks, MARIA W. HORN & PARKMAN SARA - Funeral Folk LP restock, CLAIRE ROUSAY restocks, SUMAC - Two Beasts LP, MIZMOR & THOU - Myopia DLP, we also got some PISSE and other Apocaplexy / Phantom Restocks along with a new PISSE 7“, AUS - Der Schöne Schein 7" Spectral Voice and Magliant Tumor restocks and some other goodies.
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
mailorder@bisaufmesser.com
www.adagio830-records.bandcamp.com
7“
AUS - Der Schöne Schein 7" (static age - The world is in deep and dark disturbing times and Berlin’s AUS are the soundtrack to this apocalypse. This new three track EP has everything you loved from their second album from 2020 and more. It’s full of ice cold and stark future post punk gems.The drums drive the tracks with tom tom heavy rhythms next to a thunderous, melodic and locked in bass whilst the minimal synth and scatchy guitars add to the cold atmospherics. The vocals are the icing on top and move between Siouxsie and Anja from Xmal Deutschland with an added extra portion of boredom and disdain. If this was an obscure 7” from 1979 it would be on everyone’s wants list, but luckily for everyone it’s a 2024 release. ( Sean Forbes - Rough Trade ) Recorded by Tobias Lill and T-Rex Mastered by T-Rex at TNT Mastered by Daniel Husayn Artwork by Billo Riso Print by Moritz Wemakeit !) 10.00
BREZEL GÖRING & ANTON GARBER - Brezel & Anton spielen Pisse 7“ (Phantom - Nine months after it's premiere finally physically consumable! The two "Pioneers of Punk", Brezel Göring & Anton Garber each intonate one song of a band, they and you used to know for some time now. Brezel Göring, Lilith Stangenberg and Chang Wang hack 'Fahrradsattel' into a two chapter, 8bit wild-west ride directly into lunacy. And Anton Garber? Really! Who else should sing the swansong of the earth than the apocalyptic duo, Danja Schilling & Anton Garber.) 9.00
PISSE - Praktikum In Der Karbik 7“ (Repress for the canceled US Tour 2023, stamped white labels. This release has no connection to the label Balkanton whatsoever and is not made in Bulgaria. ) 8.00
PISSE - Jammertal / Vetschau 7“ (phantom - In year eleven of the bands existence, they finally fullfil every fans heartwish of a collaboration with one of the most important, most beautiful and most prominent voices in german-speaking punk! You got it: Franny Fränzen (B'schiszn, Telesatan, Sharizza). Brezel Göring did record everything in his pee-ka-bo dungeon in Berlin-Kreuzberg and the only two citizen of honour of Chemnitz, Zomber (Pisse chauffeur) and Jan Kummer (AG Geige) worked on a very beautiful cover artwork. And if this isn't already enough! There is a b-side track aswell and the record was mastered via Melody Men in Texas. Yes, Texas! ) 9.00
10“
LOREN CONNORS - Portrait of a Soul 2x10“ (alarm - Originally released in 2000, ‘Portrait Of A Soul’ by American experimental artist Loren Mazzacane Connors consisted of short, intricate guitar ballads describing the different phases of the day. Remastered by Taylor Deupree, this beautiful work is now reissued via Alara on a pair of 10” vinyl.) 29.00
LP
ALEX ZHANG HUNGTAI - Young Gods Run Free LP (modern love - Edition of 500 pressed on orange vinyl. Mastered by Rashad Becker, cut by LUPO. Vinyl comes with a download of the album dropped to your account. Please listen in STEREO. MONO speakers like iphone will not play the album correctly due to Stereo Phasing. Modern Love grip the inimitable genius of Alex Zhang Hungtai - a saxophonist-composer and actor renowned for his work as Dirty Beaches and Love Theme, appearing in David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’, and more recently scoring the award-winning ‘Godland’ - for a maiden vinyl edition of his ravishingly cacophonous and noirish 2020 free jazz salvo. Spliced together from five years of grotty phone memo recordings into a miasmic reverie of echoing percussion and gusty, serpentine sax, it’s a real time-dilating wonder that sits somewhere between early Wolf Eyes, Milford Graves and Angelo Badalamenti - and we don't make any of those comparisons lightly. Yeah this one’s an absolute killer. For 46 minutes Hungtai punctures our perception of linearity, working like a conductor, encouraging percussive flurries to trip and fall over each other, sometimes tempered by contact mic feedback to help skewer the chronology. He's assisted by three additional percussionists - Wet Hair's Ryan Garbes and Shawn Reed, and Leonard King - while Signal Decay's Nick Yeck-Stauffer plays trumpet, with each extra voice blurred into the middle distance, curling like pipe smoke into convulsive whorls. ) 30.00
ARIEL KALMA / JEREMIAH CHIU / MARTA SOFIA HONER - The Closest Thing to Silence LP (international anthem - In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively. Kalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' had been released just a few months earlier. An invitation was sent to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. The essential structure of the Late Junction collaboration was that the artists would work together to create around twenty minutes of music. They began passing music back and forth, some that Kalma had started, and some that Honer & Chiu had started, with each adding to or editing the track before returning it to the other. The music would only go back and forth a few times before being finalized. ) 27.00
CLAIRE ROUSAY - A Heavenly Touch LP (american dreams - Claire Rousay's new album "A heavenly touch" fuses piano, percussion and recordings on the field in a silent and transgressive mix. Originally released on cassette in April 2020 by Already Dead Tapes, this marks its first appearance on vinyl, mastered by Andrew Weathers. Fundamental to understanding the evolution of Claire Rousay as an artist.) 26.00
CLAIRE ROUSAY - Everything Perfect Is Already Here LP (shelter r- When words trail off at the beginning of claire rousay’s “everything perfect is already here,” ornate instrumentation is waiting to fill a void left by the breakdown of language. Yet it becomes clear as we trace rousay’s collaged sonic pathway that breakdown, of meaning and also of melody, is also a place to rest. everything perfect… is made up of two extended compositions that cycle between familiarity and unknowing. There are seemingly infinite ways to feel in response to these pieces of music, which shift tone across their languid duration, earnest like a familiar song but unbound from the emotional didacticisms of lyrical voice and pop form. ) 29.00
CLAIRE ROUSAY & MORE EAZE - Never Stop Texting Me LP (Never Stop Texting Me by More Eaze and Claire Rousay is a pop record. Melodies and chorus in every track about crushes, collaborating with friends, and the mundane of everyday life. Maybe the first mention of Bandcamp Friday in a pop song? Mari and Claire share an equal amount of duties on the record, rendering it a pure representation of their collaborative work. The appeal of this record is the assertive pop blending w Robert Ashley like moments which simultaneously satiates the desire to hear structure and the abstract. The album is funny, sad, interesting, accessible, and very honest. Includes collaboration w Bloodzboi and How To Dress Well. ) 22.00
CROWSKIN/ BAD LUCK RIDES ON WHEELS - split LP (exile on mainstream - Since 2017, the four tracks of this full-length split LP have been waiting for a release. So, it was time for the story of a friendship between two bands to reach its happy ending. Although, ‘happy’ is a little misleading here – apart from friendship, what predominantly connects the two bands is the slow layering of riffs: unpretentious, negative, and cathartic. The result is a monolithic sound and content that pose more questions than this life can answer. In the German lyrics of Crowskin, this frustration finds its counterpart: helpless anger paired with dark melancholy following dragging rhythms and dark emotionalism. Bad Luck Rides On Wheels occupy the second side of the record with a track lasting over 15 minutes, pushing the listener to the limits right from a repetitive, dark version of a Kraut reminiscent intro, before evolving into a grooving sludge monster inspired by Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers of Evil.’) 17.00
DANIELLE BOUTET - Pièces LP (freedom to spend - Danielle Boutet’s P »Pièces« is a mysterious artifact of Quebecois marginalia, self-released in 1985. Moving from languid ennui to high drama, »Pièces« is a dreamy gestalt, an album that borders Chanson, spoken-word, jazz noir, and minimalism, conjured from the chasm between acoustic and electronic realms. »Pièces« allows us a window into the highly intimate songcraft and compositional skill of an artist who longed to linger not in the public eye, but in relation with others and the world around her. Born in Quebec City, Boutet studied music at the University of Montreal, where she focused on composition and percussion, before becoming involved in Montreal’s feminist and lesbian art scene. Primarily written, performed, and recorded by Boutet, with voice, guitar work, and technical assistance by Sylvie Gagnon, Pièces was created during a paradigm shift in home recording. Originally composed for the piano, Boutet and Gagnon utilized a consumer-friendly Tascam 4-track Portastudio and versatile Yamaha DX-7, alongside guitar, bass, marimba, and the human voice, to expand and contemporize the original composition’s scope.) 28.00
GUENTER SCHLIENZ - Sterne Über Der Stadt LP (silent - «Dedicated to the barely visible stars above your home town. In the gleam light of night streets we always see the same. City envelopes us, creating space inside itself, which is almost flat compared to the actual world around. Sometimes it seems that we live inside a dome of glass, like ones from sci-fi books about distant future in post-apocalyptic world. We don't look at the sky, unless it's raining, we are losing the feeling of vastness, of the universal endlessness, which surrounds our little tiny home planet. Cosmos doesn't fit in coordinate system produced by the rows of street lights. But still there are some dreamers, inspired by the blinking stars above the never sleeping towns, bringing the melodies of this elusive beauty, which hides between the city blocks, trembles over the rivers and dissipates in roars of the streets... This exquisite album by our favorite modular synth wizard Guenter Schlienz is a dreamlike journey over the routine of life, perfect companion for late night walks and leisurely stargazing.) 24.00
EGIL KALMAN - Forest of Tines (Egil Kalman plays the Buchla 200) DLP (ideal - Edition of 300 copies, includes a download of the album dropped to your account. Double LP housed in single sleeve designed by Allon Kaye. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk. Following 2022’s mind-boggling debut 'Kingdom of Bells', Egil Kalman steps further into a land of possibility, drawing on Medieval folk musics and ancient tuning techniques to suggest fresh pastures for modular synthesis. Rhythmic and hallucinogenic, it's a highly immersive listening experience tipped if you're into Emeralds, early 0PN, Lau Nau's ace '5 x 4', John McGuire, Popol Vuh, Keith Fullerton Whitman. Egil Kalman has levelled up on this one; we were stunned by his last solo opus, and on 'Forest of Tines', the bassist/synthesist has traded the EMS Synthi 100 for the Buchla Series 200, recording at Stockholm's illustrious Elektronmusikstudion (EMS). Here, he builds on themes he explored on his debut with a generous 20 track double album that marks firmer lines between Scandinavian folk music and contemporary electro-acoustic minimalism. ) 32.00
GUENTER SCHLIENZ - Orphée Aux Enfers LP (silent -Günter Schlienz is an electronic musician and composer based in Stuttgart, Germany. He combines do-it-yourself modular synths, tape machines, guitar and field recordings to create cascading layers of ambience verging on musique concrète. On "Orphée aux Enfers", Schlienz combines his synthesizers with numerous acoustic instruments: viola, strings, piano, voices and undefined textures. Bringing in these acoustic sounds allowed Schlienz to collaborate with many musicians lending their unique talents. The results are hypnotizing, a casual stroll through a wash of otherwordly melodies and unique soundscapes of looped voices, circular strings and resonant synthesizer passages. There’s a sophistication and light touch across "Orphée aux Enfers" giving the album it’s purposeful aesthetic and casual grace.) 24.00
IDLES - Tangk LP (TANGK is the righteous and vibrant fifth album from madcap truth-seekers, IDLES. Pronounced “tank” with a whiff of the “g” - an onomatopoeic reference to the lashing way the band imagined their guitars sounding that has since grown into a sigil for living in love - the record is the band’s most ambitious and striking work yet. Where IDLES were once set on taking the world’s piss, squaring off with strong jaws against the perennially entitled, and exercising personal trauma in real time, they have arrived in this new act to offer the fruits of such perseverance: love, joy, and indeed gratitude for the mere opportunity of existence. A radical sense of defiant empowerment radiates from TANGK, co-produced by Nigel Godrich, Kenny Beats, and IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen. Despite his reputation as an incendiary post-punk sparkplug, frontman Joe Talbot sings almost all the feelings inside these 10 songs with hard-earned soul, offering each lusty vow or solidarity plea as a bona fide pop song—that is, a thing for everyone to pass around and share, communal anthems intended for overcoming our grievance. TANGK is a love album—open to anyone who requires something to shout out loud in order to fend off any encroaching sense of the void, now or forever.) 27.00
KIM GORDON & LOREN CONNORS – At Issue LP (alara - A unique live performance at Issue Project Room gathered the former Sonic Youth member and artist Kim Gordon and the legendary minimal blues master and artist Loren Connors in 2014. In December 2014, the Issue Project Room venue in New York City offered the first-time duo with the legendary Brooklyn- based guitarist Loren Connors and the rock icon Kim Gordon. From this almost 1 1⁄2 hour set, Kim and Loren decided to archive their favourite movement on a physical record which is a 12” vinyl now available from the french label Alara. Through this long improvised session, Kim and Loren do dialogue and browse between installations of deep soundscapes at the limit of drone, and distorted, abrasive sonic attacks wrapped in reverberated harmonics. In this unprecedented exchange between two legends, the languages are as borrowed from one to the other: Kim Gordon plays on the land of the first inventions of Loren in rumbling / growling “unaccompanying” strings pinch, when Loren Connors envelops the entire hall of distorted harmonics that Kim would not have denied in her loudest attacks within her solo or group experiences from decades. ) 28.00
LORD OF THE ISLES & ELLEN RENTON - My Noise is Nothing LP (AD93 - ‘My Noise is Nothing’ is the collaborative LP between Lord of The Isles and Scottish poet Ellen Renton, set for release on the 29th September 2023. For the pair, both the poems and music came to them in a quick and concentrated period. Renton's poems were written during 2020 and capture something of that time- that feeling of having no obstacles between ourselves and our emotions. Especially the feeling of anger, which is expressed by Renton as a feeling that is not wholly negative but complicated, necessary, unifying and even joyful. Likewise, Lord Of The Isles’ dusky and unfurling production refuses obstacles- embracing experimental live recordings using pedals and vintage synths. It is warm and fuzzy, but most importantly organic, with all the imperfections and character of a living entity.) 27.00
LOS DORONCOS - Sun & Fireworks LP (an Archives - * LP ltd to 400, black vinyl, silkscreened jacket with obi (orange, dark blue), inserts and a postcard * Sun & Fireworks is the first studio recording, after several live albums, for Los Doroncos, the Japanese psych rock quartet led by Kiyohiro Takada, aka Doronco. The group’s singer and songwriter, he’s perhaps best known as a sometime bass player for legendary Japanese group Les Rallizes Dénudés; he was also an early member of their sound crew, recording the material that appeared on OZ DAYS LIVE. In recent decades, he’s performed with Suishou No Fune, Sadahiro Yamada, and in a trio with Keiji Haino and the late Rallizes drummer Sami. He's also co-helmed Doronco Gumo with Hiiragi Fukada for three glorious albums (Old Punks, Man Star and Oldtribe), and recorded with Mitsuru Tabata and Yuka Ijichi in RQRQ. But his main squeeze is Los Doroncos, a quartet with Masami Kawaguchi (bass; New Rock Syndicate, Usurabi, Keiji Haino & The Hardy Rocks), Mako Hasegawa (drums; Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Macomelogy), and Mugishima Tetsuya aka Seven (guitar; Shizuka). Previous albums, such as their self-titled 2013 collection, or the split double-CD with Majutsu no Niwa, Live at Showboat 2012, hinted at their capacities, but Sun & Fireworks is a remarkably focused set, perfectly framed – simple, unadorned, almost documentary in approach – to allow the clear, unpretentious songs of Doronco the perfect context within which to shine.) 32.00
MARIA W. HORN & PARKMAN SARA - Funeral Folk LP (restock - Funeral Folk is a collaboration between the grammy nomineed folk musician Sara Parkman and the international touring composer Maria W Horn. This album was released in July 2022 by Kali Malones label XKatedral and have gained great reviews in The Wire, Lira and Boomkat. In february 2023 the music was played live at Berghain in Berlin. Funeral Folk is music in the land between black metal and folk, drone and hymns, archaic songs and experimental landscapes. Somewhere in between Pauline Oliveros, Björk, Anna Von Hausswollf and Wardruna.) 30.00
MARIA W HORN & MATS ERLANDSSON - Celestial Shores LP (restock - The music heard on this album was originally the result of a commission to score the second half of the film 'Nico/Nico Crying' made by Andy Warhol in 1966. The commission was made by Art Cinema OFFoff in collaboration with B.A.A.D.M for a screening of the film together with a live presentation of the score in September 2021 at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. The recording presented here was made in the last week of that year and mixed soon after in January 2022. These recordings are essentially live-recordings performed by the composers together in the same room and recorded in a manner reminiscent of the record making process as it was in the late 1960s. The instrumentation used to make the sounds on this album consists of modular synthesis, zither, voice, contaminated field recordings and metal percussion. ) 27.00
MARINA ROSENFELD / GREG FOX / ELI KESZLER - Greatest Hits LP (info - ** Edition of 300 ** Since the early 1990’s, Marina Rosenfeld has produced a substantial archive of acetate test-pressing records, or dubplates, which track across her practice - forming the basis for both improvised music, installations, and scores structured by the politics and aesthetics of turntablism and the material distortions of mechanical sound reproduction. Rosenfeld’s works thread into each other and unfold gradually in various musical forms and sites through their reproduction and interpretation. "Greatest Hits" is a project expressly about performing an archive and begins in 2015 at Carnegie Mellon University. Over the course of a three month exhibition, Rosenfeld generated a daily schedule of plays of her entire collection of dubplates, which she exhibited along the walls of a gallery. Written in such a way as to be legible to both SuperCollider and human readers, an accompanying playlist was read daily by people tasked with playing the dubplates and by a computer tasked with anticipating, recording and logging these plays in a software environment. Each full entry in the playlist had three elements listed after the name of the plate (a date // a side (a or b) // and a time of day) separated, in the notation, by double front-slashes //. (An excerpt of the notation and instructions can be found on the printed inner sleeve of the LP).) 28.00
THE MIGHTY CAVALIERS - Mapendo LP (The Mapendo album of the Mighty Cavaliers, up to today, has been shrouded in mystery. Why is that, you can find next to nothing about the band and the album. The only song which is maybe well known in the collectors scene is "Dunia Ina Mambo" from the first Release out of 1976. So it was more or less a surprise to get my Hands on the Original Mapendo Release in January 2023 directly from Kenya. I've never seen such a hypnotically good cover and what do could I expect from the Record? Cleaned the Record from all the dirt and put it on the player. That has to be the first Want Some release! There is no other way. Up from the first Song till the last it is an outstanding Record. So many influences and power came out of the speakers. Great guitar work, funky, bluesy note in some songs and typically African roots. It blew my mind. From that moment I started to work on the Album with the help of some friends. Our mission is to tell the band's story and spread the music around the world. ) 33.00
MIZMOR & THOU - Myopia DLP (gilead - GOLD VINYL. A collaborative album written and performed by Mizmor and Thou. Created in secret. "I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.“) 45.00
THE MOTH - Frost LP (exile on mainstream - With three albums under their belt, THE MOTH are no newbies and have honed their no-nonsense approach to SludgeMetalDoom on numerous tours and gigs. Their songs are virtually void of frills, instead opting to turn out hammer heavy drums and riff ready rock ’n’ roll – as brutal as it is bewitching. Since their acclaimed debut They Fall in 2013, the Hamburg heavy trio THE MOTH have regularly delivered tracks with a catchiness that is surprising for the genre. Kim Wilde meets Bolt Thrower, they call it themselves, or like a review for the last album Hysteria (2017) did put it: “pop music played with a bulldozer”. How appropriate! THE MOTH are now taking this approach to new heights with their upcoming album. Frost is set to be released on Exile On Mainstream on 22 September 2022. Catchy hooklines get stuck in the listener’s heart and mind like a dislodged meat hook, explaining why the band calls their style doom-sludge pop. That’s it. Simple as that, yet nailing the sound. Lyrically, however, THE MOTH show a new openness and vulnerability under the shell of raw power that the songs initially present. Experiencing and living through strokes of fate runs through the record as a recurring theme – all under a rough shell of distinctive and deliberately raw sound. Cécile (vocals/bass), Freden (guitar/vocals) and Curry (drums) perform the dichotomy with a high recognition value. Boring riff hum and mantric stoner-esk repetition are not their thing. Anyone who experiences THE MOTH live will automatically find themselves in front of the stage with a biting head nod, a thirst for beer and a fist clenched at hip height. Frost was recorded live in only 24 hours, recorded and mixed by Jose Lorenzo, at Bombrec Recording. Mastered by Timo Höcke, at Die Wellenschmiede. After three albums on the fantastic This Charming Man label, THE MOTH now present their label debut on Exile On Mainstream with Frost.)
NO SUICIDE/ MERCENARY GOD/ NO SUBMISSION - Challenge LP (spittle - “Challenge” was released in 1981 on Bootleg, a record label born inside a record store in Pavia with the same name. “Challenge” keeps the original and uncompromising punk attitude alive. 3 groups: No Suicide (from the Udine province), Mercenary God (from Gemona), No Submission (from Treviso), all sick children of the industrious, rich and Christian Democratic north-eastern part of Italy. No Suicide, Mercenary God and No Submission have nothing to do with Great Complotto, they are the other face of the northeastern underground. Punk is their background, (read “hardcore” for No Suicide) but for all of them there is a progressive detachment from the original material, including a common attitude towards the caustic sound coming from the harshest side of British wave. A classic example of “work in progress” able to generate great songs like “The Degraded Men” by No Submission (the band that later evolved into Wax Heroes), one of the peaks of Italian post-punk. Mercenary God will give birth to The Sex, while No Suicide with their tight hypnotic hardcore will disbanded soon. (Luca Frazzi)) 26.00
RUBINHO E MAURO ASSUMPÇÃO - Perfeitamente, Justamente Quando Cheguei LP (mr bongo - Rubinho E Mauro Assumpção's 'Perfeitamente, Justamente Quando Cheguei' has to be up there as one of the finest Brazilian-psych-folk-MPB records we know. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find in the wild; even on digging trips to Brazil, an original copy rarely shows up, and when it does, it comes with a hefty price tag. This highly sought-after rarity was released on the Brazilian label Tapecar Records in 1972 and is the one and only album by the sensational pairing of Rubinho and Mauro Assumpção. Effortlessly blending folk, MPB, funky-psych, rock, and relaxed, swaggering samba, this record ought to be heralded as a true Brazilian classic. However, maybe due to its scarcity and the previous reissue predominantly being only available to the Brazilian market, it has not had a chance to fully shine and find the wider audience it deserves. Through our reissue we hope to put things right. Fans of records by Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges are sure to enjoy the same magic and allure in 'Perfeitamente, Justamente Quando Cheguei'. ) 30.00
THE NECKS - Travel DLP (northern soy - Travel, the 19th studio album by Australian improvisational trio The Necks, documents their recent practice of starting each day in the studio with a 20-minute trio improvisation. The recordings offer some of their most ecstatic and captivating music cut to tape. As bassist Lloyd Swanton puts it: “It’s a really nice communal activity to bring us together in focus each day, and some lovely music has resulted from it.” Although a straight “live” improvisation has never been recorded in the studio by the band, these tracks (save for some light overdubs/post-production) feel closest to what they’ve been doing live for more than 30 years now. In 2017 Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ label released the band’s lauded Unfold, which first offered up this uncharacteristic studio work: four sub-20-minute pieces - instead of the typical 60+ minute arc for which the band is known - along with an obfuscated track list which leaves play order to the listener’s hand. The album quickly sold out, and persists as a treasure in collections or as a high-priced ‘Want’ on Discogs. Travel marks a return to this double-LP format, offered in a beautiful gatefold package that features photography by Traianos Pakioufakis and impeccable mastering by Doug Henderson.) 37.00
THE SEX - Unmask Yourself LP (spittle - The Sex featuring former members of Mercenary God and No Suicide. A mixture of different elements with a rock substrate for an uncategorized result. "Our old 70’s rock ‘n’ roll sound was no longer representative of the day, We were like some sort of yesterday’s newspaper. Thus I Sex was born (later The Sex). According to Freudian thought that sees sexual instinct as the driving force behind every (creative or destructive) human act. And in fact we immediately started creating, destroying, assembling and deconstructing our sound. Suddenly “tomorrow became now”. It was an outburst of creative independence in the form of homemade cassettes put together with makeshift tools, at least until the arrival of the legendary 4 track recorder. [..] Songs created with the intent to tell an inner universe that is, now as then, far from any convention“.) 26.00
SPECTRAL VOICE - Sparagmos LP (dark descent - back in stock - Spectral Voice's Sparagmos unfolds as a momentous second full-length offering under the banner of Dark Descent Records, marking the culmination of a period devoted to katabatic immersion into the material. The title itself, alluding to the Dionysian rite of being torn limb from limb, sets the stage for a profound exploration of life, death, and the untamed essence within. "The content of the album oscillates between lamentation and exaltation. An immersive, morbid atmosphere of funereality longs for the liberation of death and mourns the agony of life. Coupled with moments of frenetic madness, grandeur, terror and ecstasy, the point we are trying to get to is the moment in which - through sacrifice - atavistic wildness is unleashed, and the ultimate exaltation of life through death is realized," reflects drummer/vocalist E. Wendler. ) 33.00
SUMAC - Two Beasts LP (SIGE - LP version of the long out of print and highly sought after Sub Pop EP. Original uncut 18:43 version of the track - uninterrupted play on this one-sided 12“.) 28.00
TARA CLERKIN TRIO - On The Turning Ground LP (world of echo - back in stock - Not far off two years from the day, Bristol's Tara Clerkin Trio return to World of Echo and the EP format for a five song collection of quixotic, emotional redolence. But do not mistake their absence for inertia. If their musical output has been a little sparse during those in-between years, limited to a few solo ventures and an astonishing ten minute long piece as a trio, their time has otherwise been richly spent: continuous writing and recording, extensive live performances across Europe and Japan, a cultivation of local and more far-flung artistic connections (musical and otherwise), and a monthly NTS show that, through the voice of others, speaks most obviously to their own unorthodox interests. It's the conflux of that winding activity that leads indirectly to On The Turning Ground, 26 minutes of probing, thoughtful composition that draws from no one specific source. ) 25.00
TARA CLERKIN TRIO - In Spring LP (world of echo - back in stock - In Spring is the second record by Tara Clerkin Trio, a Bristol-based group who appeared to emerge from below the radar of near-all in early 2020 and in the presence of one of the most captivating records of that year. This latest 23 minute, four song collection, recorded in various stages and locations over the last twelve months, does nothing to detract from those first impressions, refining the woozy and shimmering oddness of their debut into an avant-pop sensibility that is increasingly their own. If the group did arrive fully formed, what that form was did feel supple and hard to grasp. They were, in a sense, essentially new sounding, or at least ghosts between the established lines, and with this new record have doubled-down on their inherently Delphian instinct. At its heart, In Spring is a record of subtle contrasts, experimental yet familiar in its intimacy, obviously modern though tied to certain lineages, and driven by a pop logic which is also free-form and seemingly improvised. Their approach to sound is perhaps the guiding principle here, less concerned with genre as it is texture and feeling, drawing from jazz, folk, modern composition, trip hop and downtempo electronica, yet evading all of those categorisations. Tara Clerkin Trio are too generous of heart to be ripping up any rulebook, they simply seem oblivious to its need. ) 25.00
THE UMBRELLAS - Fairweather Friend LP (tough love - The Umbrellas debut album was one of the surprise hits of an otherwise grim 2021. Channeling sold gold influences like The Pastels, Comet Gain, Orange Juice and The Aislers Set, The Umbrellas represent the fertile San Francisco Bay Area scene’s at its most pop-tastic. Following on from 3 sell-out pressings of LP #1 and tours with everyone from labelmates Papercuts to Fucked Up, the band is now back with an absolute blinder of a sophomore album. “Fairweather Friend” is bigger in almost every way than their self-titled debut, featuring sterling songwriting, bigger and more nuanced production, and terrifically assured vocals and harmonies. The Umbrellas leap forward with “Fairweather Friend” is reminiscent of similar growth that we saw with second albums from Veronica Falls, Allo Darlin’ and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart; while the concept remains consistent, the execution is bigger, bolder and ultimately more satisfying. It’s always thrilling to see a young band swing for the fences and succeed, and we’re looking forward to hearing where The Umbrellas go next and watching “Fairweather Friend” enter the indiepop canon.) 30.00
VOX POPULI! - Half Dead Ganja Music LP (Platform 23 Records’ meandering, and sporadic journey continues, digging up archival treasures of known and unknown music sonics. The label’s close association with Paris’ based ‘ethno-industrialists’ Vox Populi! continues, here returning to their most heralded and possibly cohesive album, in Half Dead Ganga Music. The beautifully apt title precedes their most intense trip, pushing the boundaries away from the percussive psychedelic of albums ‘Mystcitismes’ (1985) and Aither’ (1989) to create a dark ambient masterpiece that flows as one. The musique concrete background of founder, Axel Kyrou is most apparent here, partner Mythra’s vocals adding a voodoo ritualism and creativity, together physical and mystical extolling a parallel realm. Occult music of no pretense, mellow-drone aromas, dark ambience, obscure bass mumbles, as layer-upon-layer of tape processing and hazy vocal glossolias are oddly uplifting, a beauty distilled. ) 25.00
V/A - Searchlight Moonbeam DLP (efficient space - Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo’s Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022. Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge – between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose ‘Rainwater’ (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora. ) 28.00
TAPES
DIE VERSION - s/t TAPE (DIY - Handnumbered, first edition of 50 tapes. Debut by Hamburg-based Cold Wave / Dark Wave band Die Version.) 10.00
OMEN - Wild Sleep TAPE (kasual plastik - Raindrops falling, time moves in. Seconds without history. Minutes without astronomy. A time, that did not realize it’s time. Erstwhile the clocks were ticking dissimilar. Winter is summer, autumn is spring. The spells change, the heartbeat maintains. Here is “Wild Sleep”, the latest album by Hannah S. aka Omen. The Australian producer and DJ living in Berlin is back on Kashual Plastik. Today with more than a haunting tune for an erratic compilation. She comes with a full album. Touching base in manyfold stylistic subdivisions – field recordings, pop miniatures, drone zones, Hauntology visions, drifting journey music, primitive folk, sound collages, and dragging industrial, turning in deep relation with Omen’s self-reflection and fiction, sleeping wild in the big city sky. Her songwriting, sharpened in the countless bands she was in back in the days, when her headquarters were still in Australia, cuts deep, waves you in, into her psyche, her fiction and obsession, her gloomy realm of sound in space, space in sound. Long tones, yet so short, the birds are singing, while her synths gently hum. People laugh on pavements, manic samples materialize, Omen whispers. Alvin-Curran-like ecospheres, simple guitar chords, all recorded close to her body, to her world somewhere in the South of Berlin. “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” a man of mystery ones noted. Omen got caught in various mirroring trances, layered in nine songs to be tracks to be songs – short, long, never epic, always ready to see or seem. 36 intimate adventurous minutes, stretching time beyond their time, out there to loop, absorb, résumé, for healing and dreaming, while so wild sleeping.) 13.00
CD
FORNDOM - Alster CD (nordvis - Forndom was born as a reflection of bygone days – of the forests and open landscapes of central Sweden, as well as its historical heritage. Similarly, coinciding with the project’s nine-year anniversary, Ludvig Swärd muses over his own musical past. Following the enthusiastic reception of “Och med vinden ack de gunga” – Ludvig’s re-envisioning of his droning masterpiece “Jag vet ett tempel stå" - comes “Alster”, a piano work of contemporary classical with a distinct Scandinavian atmosphere. Six Forndom compositions in brand new interpretations alongside "Aska", a fresh take on an old unreleased song.) 20.00
JOHN ZORN - Meditations On The Tarot CD (tzadik - Brian Marsella’s dynamic trio steps out for another exciting outing performing a new collection of Zorn compositions inspired by the mysterious and occult cards of the Tarot. This beautiful and varied followup to the popular and critically acclaimed 2019 CD The Hierophant features the remaining thirteen Tarot cards in tight arrangements, highlighting the incredible versatility and virtuosity of this powerhouse all-star jazz trio. A classic reading of occult jazz from our favorite Downtown alchemist.) 27.00
JOHN ZORN - Sacred Visions CD (tzadik - "Sacred Visions” presents two Zorn masterpieces touching upon the mediaeval world. “The Holy Visions” is a Mystery Play in eleven strophes concerning the life, work and philosophy of 12th century composer, healer and visionary mystic Hildegard von Bingen, and is one of Zorn’s most beloved and acclaimed works for voice. Here it is coupled with Zorn’s latest string quartet “The Remedy of Fortune,” six tableaux depicting the changing fortunes of romantic love, which was inspired by the work of 12th century troubadour Guillaume de Machaut and receives a precise and passionate reading by the brilliant JACK quartet. Two wondrous modern compositions drawing on mediaeval spirituality, both sacred and secular!) 27.00
JOHN ZORN - The Hermetic Organ Vol. 8 - For Antonín Artaud CD (tzadik - Accused of being a flagrant "occultist" it took many years before Zorn was able to perform an organ recital in the former Yugoslavia. Finding churches completely unavailable, Zorn performed this Office of "The Hermetic Organ" at Gallus Hall during his residency at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival and it is one of his best. Including some extended moments with Zorn playing both organ and saxophone simultaneously, the improvisation is intense and varied, with a remarkable compositional arch and wildly dramatic changes of color and timbre. The saxophone blends beautifully with the organ, standing out at times while Zorn plays the organ with his feet, hands and elbows. A beautiful new installment of "The Hermetic Organ" that draws inspiration from the work of 20th century visionary Antonin Artaud.) 25.00
JOHN ZORN - The Hermetic Organ Vol. 9 CD (tzadik - Filled with wild sounds, bizarre juxtapositions, soulful melodies, and pulsating drones, this outrageous recital is one of Zorn’s very best. Inspired by Aleister Crowley’s Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli, and performed in a kind of trance state, this is music beyond thought, beyond beauty, beyond rationality. Recorded at St. John’s Cathedral in Knoxville, Tennessee during the 2022 Big Ears Festival, this is Zorn at his metaphysical zenith. Organ improvisations with Mystery at its very heart—you have never heard such sounds!) 25.00
JOHN ZORN - The Hermetic Organ Vol. 10 - Bozar, Brussels CD + DVD (tzadik - Recorded at the powerful organ at Henri LeBoeuf Hall, Bozar in Brussels, this is one of Zorn’s most beautiful and personal solo performances—a dramatic musical reading of the epic Faust legend. Featuring a guest appearance by the sensational vocalist Barbara Hannigan, who is improvising with Zorn for the very first time—this exciting concert is presented here in a special limited edition 2-disc set that includes both a CD and a bonus DVD hi-quality film document of the event. No one plays the organ quite like Zorn and many of his unusual techniques, usually hidden in performance, are presented in close focus. Beautifully filmed by state of the art equipment, this is a wild and colorful concert by two mavericks of new music. Essential!) 30.00
